Your Ladiships
humble Servant.
[1] In the ch. call'd Butler.
[XLIII.]
MADAM,
Your Author is pleased to relate a story[1] of one that died suddenly, and being dissected, there was not the least sign of decay or disorder found in his body. But I cannot add to those that wonder, when no sign of distemper is found in a man's body after he is dead; because I do not believe, that the subtillest, learnedst, and most practised Anatomist, can exactly tell all the Interior Government or motions, or can find out all obscure and invisible passages in a mans body; for concerning the motions, they are all altered in death, or rather in the dissolution of the animal figure; and although the exterior animal figure or shape doth not alter so soon, yet the animal motions may alter in a moment of time; which sudden alteration may cause a sudden death, and so the motions being invisible, the cause of death cannot be perceived; for no body can find that which is not to be found, to wit, animal motions in a dead man; for Nature hath altered these motions from being animal motions to some other kind of motions, she being as various in dissolutions, as in productions, indeed so various, that her ways cannot be traced or known thorowly and perfectly, but onely by piece-meals, as the saying is, that is, but partly: Wherefore man can onely know that which is visible, or subject to his senses; and yet our senses do not always inform us truly, but the alterations of grosser parts are more easily known, then the alterations of subtil corporeal motions, either in general, or in particular; neither are the invisible passages to be known in a dead Carcass, much less in a living body. But, I pray, mistake me not, when I say, that the animal motions are not subject to our exterior senses; for I do not mean all exterior animal motions, nor all interior animal motions; for though you do see no interior motion in an animal body, yet you may feel some, as the motion of the Heart, the motion of the Pulse, the motion of the Lungs, and the like; but the most part of the interior animal motions are not subject to our exterior senses; nay, no man, he may be as observing as he will, can possibly know by his exterior senses all the several and various interior motions in his own body, nor all the exterior motions of his exterior parts: and thus it remains still, that neither the subtillest motions and parts of matter, nor the obscure passages in several Creatures, can be known but by several parts; for what one part is ignorant of, another part is knowing, and what one part is knowing, another part is ignorant thereof; so that unless all the Parts of Infinite Matter were joyned into one Creature, there can never be in one particular Creature a perfect knowledg of all things in Nature. Wherefore I shall never aspire to any such knowledg, but be content with that little particular knowledg, Nature has been pleased to give me, the chief of which is, that I know my self, and especially that I am,
Madam,
Your constant Friend,
and faithful Servant.