Argum. 6.
Vid. Athan. Kercher. l. magnet. mus. p. 761. &c.
Et Monfelt. insect. Theatr. p. 220.
6. There is no one thing (if true, and that Kercherus and others have not told us abominable lies) that hath more induced me to believe that there is some natural virtue in words and charms composed in a right way or Rhythme, than because those that are stung, or bitten with the Tarantula, or Phalangium, are cured with Musick, and that not with any sort of Musick, but with certain proper and peculiar tunes, which are diversified according to the colour of the Tarantula that gave the venemous prick or bite, and so by dancing they sweat forth the poison. And Kercherus further tells us not only that those that are stung with the Tarantula are cured with Musick, but that the Tarantula’s themselves with dance, when those tunes are modulated, that are proportionable and agreeable to their humors. Now if tunes modulated in proportionable and sympathizing ways agreeable to the humours, do cure those that are stung, then much more may words and charms rightly composed and joined together, and that in a due selected time under a powerful constellation, produce such effects as to cure diseases, and move animals to divers and various motions; for betwixt the prolation of words putting the Atomes of the air into a fit motion, site, figure, and contexture suitable to perform the end intended, and the vibrating and various figuring the air in its motion by musical tunes, there is no difference at all in respect of the material or efficient cause, and so either of them may produce like effects.
Argum. 7.
7. There is also an experiment that hath been sufficiently tryed and attested, which doth much induce me to believe that there is efficacy in words and charms above their significancy by imposition and institution, and that is this. They take two Lutes rightly stringed and laid upon a long table, and then they lay a light straw, chaff, or feather upon the Unison string of the one, and then they strike, or move the Unison string of the other Lute, that lieth at the other end of the Table, by which motion of the Unison-string at the one end of the Table, the straw, chaff or feather upon the Unison-string of the Lute at the other end of the Table (though it be of the longest sort) will by the vibration of the air be moved, or struck off, and yet it will not do it, if the straw be laid upon any other string, and then the Unison of the other Lute moved: By which it is manifest that the striking or moving the Unison-string of the one Lute doth so figurate and dispose the Atomes of the Air, that they are fit and apt to move the Unison-string of the other Lute, and so to make the straw fall off, as being of an agreeable. mood and temper for the susception of the motion, which the rest of the other strings (being of different degrees and nature) are not: for the maxime is true, Quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis. And this being so, it must needs be also granted that words and rhythms fitly joined and composed, being pronounced do put the atomes of the air into such a site, motion, figure, and contexture, that may at a distance operate upon the subject for which they are so fitted, and produce such effects, as they were composed and intended for: especially being framed under powerful and suitable constellations, from whence they receive their greatest force.
Argum. 8.
8. The chiefest objection that is usually brought against the natural agency of fitly composed words or rhythms is a maxim of the Schools, ill understood and worse applied, which is this: Quantitates rerum, nullius sunt efficaciæ: unto which we shall render these responsions.
1. If quantity be taken mathematically, and abstractly, then it is true, that it is of no efficacy or operation, because it is then only ens rationis, and doth only exist in the intellect, and so can operate nothing ad extra. But if it be taken concretely, physically, and as materiate, than it is of force, and very operative, as two pound quantity of lead will weigh down one pound of the same lead, and two ounces quantity of the same Gunpowder, will carry a bullet of the same quantity further, and more forceably, than one ounce of the same will do: And one scruple of white Hellebor may be taken, when a Drachm will kill, and a fire of a yard Diameter will warm a man at a greater distance than a fire but of one foot diameter.
Vid. System. Harm. Log. Hen. Alstedii. p. 251.