does not seem owing so much to the prevention of motion, as to the prevention of cooling; because air when too hot, though largely taken in, suffocates no less than a stoppage of respiration; as happens in such as are sometimes suffocated by going into close rooms, where charcoal fires have been kept for airing them, or drying the walls, that were newly plaistered or white-washed: which is a kind of death said to have befallen the emperor Jovinian, and the like happens in bagnios, or dry bathings, when the hot room is over-heated: which was a thing practised in the death of Fausta, wife of Constantine the Great.

It is a very short time wherein nature performs the act of respiration; or discharges the air received into, and spoiled by the lungs: as desiring to take in fresh at least twenty times in a minute.

The pulsation of the arteries, and the systole and the diastole of the heart, is a motion three times quicker than that of respiration; whence if it were possible to stop this motion of the heart, without altering that of respiration, a more sudden death would ensue than by strangulation.

*Several of later date have suffered this kind of death by entering suddenly into rooms kept close, with charcoal fires in them.

;

But use and custom have a considerable force in this natural action of respiration; as appears, from the Delian divers, and fishers for pearl; who by constant practice can hold their breath, at least ten times longer than other men.

There are some animals, among such as have lungs, that can hold their breath for a longer, and others for a shorter time as they require a greater, or less degree of coolness, or refresh

ment.

Fish require less cooling than land animals; though they still require some, and are refreshed by their gills and as land animals endure not a close and over sultry air; so fishes likewise are suffocated, when the surface of the water remains for a long time entirely frozen.

If the spirits be attacked by any heat, much greater than the natural, they are thereby dissipated and destroyed: for if they cannot sustain their own native heat, without being cooled and refreshed; much less can they endure a foreign one, that is more intense, as appears in burning fevers, where the heat of the corrupted juices exceeds the natural heat: so far as to dissipate and consume the spirits.

The want and enjoyment of sleep has also some relation to this refreshment; for as motion attenuates and rarifies the spirits, and thereby provokes and increases their heat; so sleep on

the contrary, appeases and quells their motion, and disorder. For though sleep strengthens, and promotes the actions of the less lively parts and spirits, and all motion to the circumference of the body; yet it in greater measure calms and dulls the proper motion of the living spirit. But men regularly require sleep once in four and twenty hours; and of five or six hours continuance at least; though there are sometimes found miracles of nature in this respect. Thus it is reported of Mecænas, that he slept not for a long time before his death. And so much for the want of coolness, requisite to the preservation of the spirits.

3. The third requisite, that of aliment, seems to regard the parts, rather than the living spirit: For it is easily believed, that the living spirit remains identically the same; without succession or renovation: but for the rational soul, it is certain that this comes not by propagation; and neither suffers death nor repair. Men likewise talk of a natural spirit, both in animals and vegetables; which differs as well essentially as formally, from the other; and from confounding these two together have proceeded the doctrine of transmigration; and numberless other false and fictitious notions, among the hereticks and the heathens.

The body in health, regularly requires a diur

nal renovation by aliment; and can scarce, without detriment, suffer three days fasting: though use and custom may make great alterations in this respect. But want is easier endured in a languishing illness. And sleep in some measure supplies the place of aliment: as exercise, on the contrary, requires it more. There are some, however, though few, who have been found, in a very extraordinary manner, to live a considerable time without meat or drink.

Dead bodies, if not prevented by putrefaction, continue long without any considerable waste; but living ones, as we before observed, not much above three days, unless recruited by aliment: which indicates that quick consumption to be the effect of the living spirit, whilst it either thus repairs itself, or puts the parts into a necessity of repairing themselves, or both. And this seems confirmed by the preceding observation, that animals can somewhat longer endure the want of aliment by the use of sleep: but sleep is no more than the collection of the living spirit into itself.

A too large and continued effusion of blood; as sometimes happens from the hemorrhoides; sometimes by vomit, when certain internal veins are burst, or their mouths opened; and sometimes by wounds; causes sudden death: the venal blood supplying the arterial; and the arterial supplying the spirits.

It is a considerable quantity of meat and drink that a man by two meals a day, receives into his body; and much more than he discharges by stool, by urine, and by sweat. If this be not thought strange as supposing that the other part may be changed into the juices of the body; yet let it be considered that this supply, though afforded twice a day, does not overload the body; and again, that although the spirits are recruited; yet these also do not immoderately increase in quantity.*

It is of no service to have aliment present, only in a remote degree; for it must necessarily be of such a kind, so prepared, and so applied, as that the spirits may act upon it. Thus a taper would not continue flaming, unless immediately fed with wax: nor can a man be well nourished by herbage alone. And herein consists the waste of old age; viz. that though there be no want of flesh and blood, yet the spirits are prepared in such a small and scanty proportion, and the blood and juices are grown so exhausted, dry and balmless, that they cannot supply the demands of alimentation.

Let us now sum up the requisites to life, according to the common and ordinary course of

This leads up to the doctrine of insensible perspiration. -5