the world, countries, climates, places of nativity, and habitation.

ARTICLE VI.

Or the length and shortness of life in men, with regard to their origin and propagation, as it were in an hereditary manner; also with regard to their complexions, constitutions, habits of body, stature, manner and periods of growth, and the formation and knitting of the limbs.

ARTICLE VII.

Or the length and shortness of life in men, according to the times of their nativity this enquiry being so conducted, as at present to drop all astrological and horoscopical considerations; and receive only the more manifest and common observations, if there be any; such as birth in the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth month, happening by night or by day, or in different months of the year.

ARTICLE VIII.

Or the length and shortness of life in men, with regard to their food, diet, manner of living, exercise, &c. the considerations of the air which men breathe, belonging to the fifth article, under the head of habitation.

ARTICLE IX.

Or the length and shortness of life in men, with regard to their studies, kinds of life; passions of mind, and various accidents.

ARTICLE X.

A SEPARATE enquiry into such remedies as are thought to prolong life.

ARTICLE XI.

Or the signs and prognostics of long and short life; not such as denote death at hand; which belong to medicinal history; but such as appear, and are observed, even in health; whether derived from physiognomy, or other considerations.

Thus far the enquiry proceeds upon the length and shortness of life, in an artless and miscellaneous manner: whereto it is proper to add an artificial enquiry, tending to practice, by three general intentions. We shall lay down the more particular distributions of these intentions when we come to the enquiry itself.* Let it only be observed for the present, that these three general intentions are, the prevention of waste, the perfecting of recruit, and the renovation of decay.

* See hereafter, Sect. VIII.

ARTICLE XII.

AN enquiry into those things which preserve and exempt the human body from arefaction aud consumption; or at least retard and ward off the tendency thereto.

ARTICLE XIII.

AN enquiry into the particulars belonging to the entire process of alimentation; whereby the body of man is recruited, in order to its perfection, and the prevention of loss.

ARTICLE XIV.

Or the things which discharge the worn-out materials; supply new ones; and supple and moisten the parts that are dried and indurated.

But as it is difficult to know the ways of death, before its seat is discovered, this also must be enquired into; though not with regard to all kinds of death; but such only as proceed, not from violence, but from privation, and want of supply for this kind alone belongs to the wasting of the body by age.

ARTICLE XV.

AN enquiry into the point of death, and the avenues leading up to it, on all sides; through want of supply, and not through violence.

And as it is proper to understand the characteristic and form of old age, this enquiry must not be omitted; and is best made by diligently collecting, and comparing together, all the differences in the state and functions of the body, happening betwixt youth and old age; which, at length, will shew what the thing is that shoots out into so many effects.

ARTICLE XVI.

A CAREFUL enquiry into the different states of the body, in youth and old age; observing if there be any thing that remains the same unimpaired in age.*

SECT. II.

THE HISTORY OF DURABILITY; WITH REGARD TO THE FIRST ARTICLE OF THE TABLE OF ENQUIRY.

METALS are so lasting, that the observation of mankind is not sufficient to fix the time of their duration : even when resolved by age, they

* Here the author ends his own enquiry; leaving every article open to receive the improvements of others: only, in his usual manner, endeavouring to raise a set of axioms and canons, upon what is already discovered, in the way of first-fruits, and earnests of greater things.

are but turned to rust, without loss of parts: though gold suffers neither of these changes.*

Quicksilver, though a fluid, and extremely volatile in the fire, is not known either to waste or rust by age alone, without heat.

Stones, especially the harder kinds, and many other fossils, are exceeding durable; even though exposed to the open air; much more when buried under ground. Stones, however, gather a kind of nitre, after the manner of rust; but gems and crystals are more durable than metals; though they lose somewhat of their splendor with great length of time.

It is observed, that stones are sooner consumed on the side exposed to the north, than on that exposed to the south; as appears plainly in pyramids, temples, and other buildings: whilst iron, on the other hand, rusts faster on the side exposed to the south than to the north; as we find by the iron bars of windows: and no wonder; since in all putrefactions, and rust is one, moisture promotes the dissolution, as dryness does in simple arefaction.

* Unless its proper menstruum, the fumes or spirit of sea salt, happen to meet with it. Remark all along the author's method of proceeding by induction; or a collection of facts, observations and experiments; which when duly tabled, as so many data, give the quasita.

I suppose this is meant of the nitrum murale.