[655] Sprengel, iv., 203.
Optical discoveries of Scheiner. 21. Scheiner, the Jesuit, proved that the retina is the organ of sight, and that the humours serve only to refract the rays which paint the object on the optic nerve. This was in a treatise entitled, Oculus, hoc est, Fundamentum Opticum, 1619.[656] The writings of several anatomists of this period, such as Riolan, Vesling, Bartholin, contain partial accessions to the science; but it seems to have been less enriched by great discoveries, after those already named, than in the preceding century.
[656] Sprengel, iv., 270.
Medicine—Van Helmont. 22. The mystical medicine of Paracelsus continued to have many advocates in Germany. A new class of enthusiasts sprung from the same school, and calling themselves Rosicrucians, pretended to cure diseases by faith and imagination. A true Rosicrucian, they held, had only to look on a patient to cure him. The analogy of magnetism, revived in the last and present age, was commonly employed.[657] Of this school the most eminent was Van Helmont, who combined the Paracelsian superstitions with some original ideas of his own. His general idea of medicine was that its business was to regulate the archæus, an immaterial principle of life and health; to which, like Paracelsus, he attributed a mysterious being and efficacy. The seat of the archæus is in the stomach; and it is to be effected either by a scheme of diet or through the imagination. Sprengel praises Van Helmont for overthrowing many current errors, and for announcing principles since pursued.[658] The French physicians adhered to the Hippocratic school, in opposition to what Sprengel calls the Chemiatric, which, more or less, may be reckoned that of Paracelsus. The Italians were still renowned in medicine. Sanctorius, De Medicina Statica, 1614, seems the only work to which we need allude. It is loaded with eulogy by Portal, Tiraboschi, and other writers.[659]
[657] All in nature, says Croll of Hesse, one of the principal theosophists in medicine, is living; all that lives has its vital force, or astrum, which cannot act without a body, but passes from one to another. All things in the macrocosm are found also in the microcosm. The inward or astral man is Gabalis, from which the science is named. This Gabalis or imagination, is as a magnet to external objects, which it thus attracts. Medicines act by a magnetic force. Sprengel, iii., 362.
[658] Vol. v., p. 22.
[659] Portal, ii., 391. Tiraboschi, xi., 270. Biog. Univ.
Sect. III.
On Oriental Literature—Hebrew Learning—Arabic and other Eastern Languages.
Diffusion of Hebrew. 23. During no period of equal length, since the revival of letters, has the knowledge of the Hebrew language been, apparently, so much diffused among the literary world as in that before us. The frequent sprinkling of its characters in works of the most miscellaneous erudition, will strike the eye of every one who habitually consults them. Nor was this learning by any means so much confined to the clergy as it has been in later times, though their order naturally furnished the greater portion of those who laboured in that field. Some of the chief Hebraists of this age were laymen. The study of this language prevailed most in the protestant countries of Europe, and it was cultivated with much zeal in England. The period between the last years of Elizabeth and the Restoration, may be reckoned that in which a knowledge of Hebrew has been most usual among our divines.