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emittent or recipient organs.
By what I have gathered out of ancient records, I find the compass
of their doctrine took in two-and-thirty points, wherein it would be
tedious to be very particular. However, a few of their most
important precepts deducible from it are by no means to be omitted;
among which, the following maxim was of much weight: That since
wind had the master share as well as operation in every compound, by
consequence those beings must be of chief excellence wherein that
primordium appears most prominently to abound, and therefore man is
in highest perfection of all created things, as having, by the great
bounty of philosophers, been endued with three distinct animas or
winds, to which the sage AEolists, with much liberality, have added
a fourth, of equal necessity as well as ornament with the other
three, by this quartum principium taking in the four corners of the
world. Which gave occasion to that renowned cabalist Bombastus
{119a} of placing the body of man in due position to the four
cardinal points.
In consequence of this, their next principle was that man brings
with him into the world a peculiar portion or grain of wind, which
may be called a quinta essentia extracted from the other four. This
quintessence is of catholic use upon all emergencies of life, is
improveable into all arts and sciences, and may be wonderfully
refined as well as enlarged by certain methods in education. This,
when blown up to its perfection, ought not to be covetously boarded
up, stifled, or hid under a bushel, but freely communicated to
mankind. Upon these reasons, and others of equal weight, the wise
AEolists affirm the gift of belching to be the noblest act of a
rational creature. To cultivate which art, and render it more
serviceable to mankind, they made use of several methods. At
certain seasons of the year you might behold the priests amongst
them in vast numbers with their mouths gaping wide against a storm.
At other times were to be seen several hundreds linked together in a
circular chain, with every man a pair of bellows applied to his
neighbour, by which they blew up each other to the shape and size of
a tun; and for that reason with great propriety of speech did
usually call their bodies their vessels {119b}. When, by these and
the like performances, they were grown sufficiently replete, they
would immediately depart, and disembogue for the public good a
plentiful share of their acquirements into their disciples' chaps.
For we must here observe that all learning was esteemed among them
to be compounded from the same principle. Because, first, it is
generally affirmed or confessed that learning puffeth men up; and,
secondly, they proved it by the following syllogism: "Words are but
wind, and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing
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