"So that it seems, this Cottage of Clay, with all its Furniture within it, was but made in subserviency to the Animal Spirits; for the extraction, separation, and depuration of which, the whole Body, and all the Organs and Utensils therein are but instrumentally contrived, and preparatorily designed. Just as the Chymical Elaboratory with all its Furnaces, Crucibles, Stills, Retorts, Cucurbits, Matrats, Bolt-heads, Pelicans, &c. were made for no other end by the ingenious Chymist, than for the extraction and depuration of his Spirits and Quintessences (which he draws from those Bodies he deals with) in the obtainment of which he hath come to the ultimate design of his indeavours."
— Power, Henry (1623-1668)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed by T. Roycroft, for John Martin and James Allestry
Date
1664
Metaphor
"So that it seems, this Cottage of Clay, with all its Furniture within it, was but made in subserviency to the Animal Spirits; for the extraction, separation, and depuration of which, the whole Body, and all the Organs and Utensils therein are but instrumentally contrived, and preparatorily designed. Just as the Chymical Elaboratory with all its Furnaces, Crucibles, Stills, Retorts, Cucurbits, Matrats, Bolt-heads, Pelicans, &c. were made for no other end by the ingenious Chymist, than for the extraction and depuration of his Spirits and Quintessences (which he draws from those Bodies he deals with) in the obtainment of which he hath come to the ultimate design of his indeavours."
Metaphor in Context
Nay, though we can give you no sensible eviction of it, Why may not all those long filaments of which the substance of the Brain, Spinal Marrow, and Nerves consists, be tubulous and hollow; so that the Animal-Spirits may be channelled through them, as the bloud through the Veins and Arteries? I am sure, we see by Observation xxxi. and L. what infinitely small filaments and vessels there are in Animals, and yet all tubulous and perforated; so that the suddain inflation of all those capillary threads or pipes, may serve for Motion of the Body, and the constant though flower filtration of the Spirits through their Coats and Cylindrical Membranes may serve for Sensation. So that it seems, this Cottage of Clay, with all its Furniture within it, was but made in subserviency to the Animal Spirits; for the extraction, separation, and depuration of which, the whole Body, and all the Organs and Utensils therein are but instrumentally contrived, and preparatorily designed. Just as the Chymical Elaboratory with all its Furnaces, Crucibles, Stills, Retorts, Cucurbits, Matrats, Bolt-heads, Pelicans, &c. were made for no other end by the ingenious Chymist, than for the extraction and depuration of his Spirits and Quintessences (which he draws from those Bodies he deals with) in the obtainment of which he hath come to the ultimate design of his indeavours.
(pp. 66-67)
(pp. 66-67)
Categories
Provenance
Reading Joanna Picciotto, Labors of Innocence in Early Modern England. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 261.
Citation
Only 1 entry in ESTC (1664).
Henry Power, Experimental Philosophy, in Three Books Containing New Experiments Microscopical, Mercurial, Magnetical: With Some Deductions, and Probable Hypotheses, Raised from Them, in Avouchment and Illustration of the Now Famous Atomical Hypothesis. (London: Printed by T. Roycroft, for John Martin and James Allestry, 1664). <Link to EEBO-TCP>
Henry Power, Experimental Philosophy, in Three Books Containing New Experiments Microscopical, Mercurial, Magnetical: With Some Deductions, and Probable Hypotheses, Raised from Them, in Avouchment and Illustration of the Now Famous Atomical Hypothesis. (London: Printed by T. Roycroft, for John Martin and James Allestry, 1664). <Link to EEBO-TCP>
Date of Entry
07/28/2014
