articulately returning the voice of man, by only ordering the vocal spirit in concave and hollow places; whether the musculous and motive parts about the hollow mouths of beasts may not dispose the passing spirit into some articulate notes, seems a query of no great doubt.3

CHAPTER II.

That the Horse hath no gall.

THE second assertion, that an horse hath no gall, is very general, nor only swallowed by the people and common farriers, but also received by good veterinarians, and some who have laudably discoursed upon horses. It seemeth also very ancient; for it is plainly set down by Aristotle; "an horse, and all solidungulous, or whole-hoofed animals, have no gall;"4 and the same is also delivered by

which the chapter concludes, is certainly void of doubt; void, that is, of doubt that our author is wrong. It will be sufficient to observe, that an echo of human speech is merely a reflection of certain undulatory motions, previously impressed upon the air by the organs of speech, and that the reflected are identical with the original sounds, being in fact those very sounds merely caused to proceed in a new direction. The place of echo, therefore, has no share in the articulation of the sounds which are heard from it. Articulation, as before observed, is the result of analytical thought, which is peculiar to man; the brute animals which are taught to imitate it, merely frame sounds closely resembling those which they have heard from man; they never utter an original articulation of their own, whatever may be the mechanism of their organs of voice.—Br.

3 Since also, &c.] First added in the 1st edit.

4 it is plainly set down by Aristotle, &c.] It is evident, from an examination of the passage in Aristotle's History of Animals (lib. ii. cap. xv.) here referred to, that the word yoλn is sometimes used by that author to denote the gall-bladder, and sometimes to denote the gall or bile itself, considered as one of the animal fluids. In the passage under consideration, it is used in the former sense, and thus understood, the assertion is strictly accurate. The gall-bladder is wanting in the horse and other solipedes. But while it is thus clear that the absence of bile in the horse is not affirmed by Aristotle, neither the passage itself, nor its context, prove him to have been aware of its presence; and there is some ground, therefore, for our author's animadversion. For while the bile itself in the stag and elephant is expressly alluded to, after the absence of the gall-bladder in those animals has been mentioned, that

Pliny, which, notwithstanding, we find repugnant unto experience and reason. For first, it calls in question the providence or wise provision of nature, who, not abounding in superfluities, neither is deficient in necessities. Wherein nevertheless there would be a main defect, and her improvision justly accusable, if such a feeding animal, and so subject unto diseases from bilious causes, should want a proper conveyance for choler, or have no other receptacle for that humour than the veins and general mass of blood.

It is again controllable by experience, for we have made some search and enquiry herein; encouraged by Absyrtus, a Greek author, in the time of Constantine, who, in his Hippiatricks, obscurely assigneth the gall a place in the liver; but more especially by Carlo Ruini, the Bononian, who, in his Anatomia del Cavallo, hath more plainly described it, and of the horse, an animal, as we have seen, in the same predicament, is not mentioned or alluded to. At the same time, from an examination of the entire chapter, it would appear, I think, that the main subject being the gall-bladder as annexed or not to the liver, in various tribes of animals, the absence of the bile, in those described as devoid of that organ, is by no means intended to be expressly stated by the writer. Br.

5 the same is also delivered by Pliny.] This is true; Pliny evidently borrowed his statement from the passage of Aristotle, considered above, and translating xoλn by the Latin word, fel, applies that, as Aristotle does the former, sometimes to the gall-bladder, and sometimes to the fluid it contains.--Hist. Nat. lib. xi. cap. lxxiv.

A curious fact in the history of the subject appears from the notes of Hardouin, on this chapter of Pliny.-Hist. Nat. tom. i. p. 628. The absence of the gall-bladder in the solipedes was affirmed prior to Aris. totle, by Ctesias, a circumstance which may assist, with some other correct statements now known to have been made by that writer (see notes on book ii. c. 8), to caution us from absolutely rejecting all his extraordinary relations; notwithstanding that (as we have seen in the notes on the preceding chapter) some of them are erroneous.-Br.

It is again controllable by experience.] The contents of this paragraph evince our author's care to determine disputed points, and refute prevalent errors, by actual enquiry and observation. By a misconstruction of ancient authorities, he finds it believed that the bile is altogether absent in the horse; but, reason showing the improbability of this, and finding its presence affirmed by some authors, he dissects the liver and adjacent organs of that animal, in order to ascertain the fact. The vessel containing bile, which he discovered, is the hepatic duct, the dilatation of which, at its origin, in the horse and some other animals devoid of the gall-bladder, is so large as to form a sort of reservoir for the bile.-Br.

in a manner as I found it. For in the particular enquiry into that part, in the concave or sinuous part of the liver, whereabout the gall is usually seated in quadrupeds, I discover an hollow, long, and membraneous substance, of a pale colour without, and lined with choler and gall within, which part is by branches diffused into the lobes and several parcels of the liver; from whence receiving the fiery superfluity, or choleric remainder, by a manifest and open passage, it conveyeth it into the duodenum or upper gut, thence into the lower bowels; which is the manner of its derivation in man and other animals. And, therefore, although there be no eminent and circular follicle, no round bag or vesicle which long containeth this humour, yet is there a manifest receptacle and passage of choler from the liver into the guts; which, being not so shut up, or at least not so long detained, as it is in other animals, procures that frequent excretion, and occasions the horse to dung more often than many other, which, considering the plentiful feeding, the largeness of the guts and their various circumvolution, was prudently contrived by Providence in this animal. For choler is the natural glister, or one excretion whereby nature excludeth another, which descending daily into the bowels, extimulates those parts, and excites them unto expulsion. And, therefore, when this humour aboundeth or corrupteth, there succeeds, oft-times, a cholerica passio, that is a sudden and vehement purgation upward and downward: and when the passage of gall becomes obstructed, the body grows costive, and the excrements of the belly white; as it happeneth in the jaundice.

If any, therefore, affirm an horse hath no gall,7 that is, no receptacle or part ordained for the separation of choler, or not that humour at all, he hath both sense and reason to oppose him. But if he saith it hath no bladder of gall, and

7 If any therefore affirm, &c.] The concluding remarks on the subject appear to give a very just view of it, and partake of our author's logical acuteness. In the passage of Pliny, here alluded to (Nat. Hist. lib. xxxviii. cap. xl.), as is manifest from the entire contents of the chapter in which it occurs, the word fel means the bile itself; whereas, in the former citation from that writer, it means the receptacle for the bile, or gall-bladder. The two statements, therefore, are, in reality, in perfect harmony with each other.-Br.

such as is observed in many other animals, we shall oppose our sense if we gainsay him. Thus must Aristotle be made out when he denieth this part; by this distinction we may relieve Pliny of a contradiction, who, in one place affirming an horse hath no gall, delivereth yet in another, that the gall of an horse was accounted poison; and, therefore, at the sacrifices of horses in Rome, it was unlawful for the flamen to touch it. But with more difficulty, or hardly at all, is that reconcileable which is delivered by our countryman, and received veterinarian; whose words in his master-piece, and chapter of diseases from the gall, are somewhat too strict, and scarce admit a reconciliation. The fallacy, therefore, of this conceit, is not unlike the former, à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter :-because they have not a bladder of gall, like those we usually observe in others, they have no gall at all; which is a paralogism not admittable-a fallacy that dwells not in a cloud, and needs not the sun to scatter it.

CHAPTER III.

That a Pigeon hath no gall.

THE third assertion is somewhat like the second, that a dove or pigeon hath no gall, which is affirmed from very great antiquity; for, as Pierius observeth,8 from this consideration the Egyptians did make it the hieroglyphic of meekness. It hath been averred by many holy writers,

8

as Pierius observeth.] In his Hieroglyphica, p. 221, B. 27; but he cites no authority for his assertion. See a remark on Pierius in note

at

p. 251-36.

9 of meekness.] And not without excellent reason: for, whereas, all angry eruptions proceed from the more or less mixture of gall, not only in man, but other creatures; and that, when itt is seated in the liver, itt is the easier spread into all parts of the bodye, together with the blood, except he doe the more vigorously doe his office in the defæcation of the blood: it must of necessity thence follow, that where the gall is drainde from the blood by some other vessel than the liver, as by the gutts, from which itt is impossible to regurgitate into the blood, such creatures, and among them the dove especially, may be well sayd to have none in such a sense as is intended, i. e., whereby the vital parts should bee enflamed with such hot and fierye motions, as other creatures are, which have the cista, or vesicle of gall in the liver, the condus

commonly delivered by postillers and commentators; who, from the frequent mention of the dove in the Canticles, the precept of our Saviour, "to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves," and especially the appearance of the Holy Ghost in the similitude of this animal, have taken occasion to set down many affections of the dove, and, what doth most commend it is, that it hath no gall. And hereof have made use, not only minor divines, but Cyprian, Austin, Isidore, Beda, Rupertus, Jansenius, and many more.

Whereto, notwithstanding, we know not how to assent, it being repugnant unto the authority and positive determination of ancient philosophy. The affirmative of Aristotle, in his History of Animals, is very plain-fel aliis ventri, aliis intestino jungitur,—some have the gall adjoined to the guts; as the crow, the swallow, sparrow, and the dove; the same is also attested by Pliny, and not without some passion by Galen, who, in his book, De Atra Bile, accounts him ridiculous that denies it.

It is not agreeable to the constitution of this animal, nor can we so reasonably conceive there wants a gall; that is, the hot and fiery humour in a body so hot of temper, which phlegm or melancholy could not effect. Now, of what complexion it is, Julius Alexandrinus* declareth, when he affirmeth, that some, upon the use thereof, have fallen into fevers and quinsies. The temper of their dung and intestinal excretions do also confirm the same; which topically applied, become a phænigmus or rubifying medicine, and are

*Salubrium, 31.

and promus of the blood; and by the accident of all those noxious humours which the second concoctions cannot mend: the sense, therefore, stands uncontrold, that the dove is, therefore, the embleme of meeknes, in that the gall (which begets those fiery motions in other creatures, by the neernes itt hathe to the principal enterails) is either none at all, or at least removed soe farr into the gutts, that it cannot produce such effects in her as in most other creatures itt dothe. So true is that maxime, in things of nature, Idem est non esse et non apparere: and non operari (heere) is as much as non apparere, and (by consequent) the same with non esse.- - Wr.

The dean's ignorance of the true nature of bile is not to be wondered at; but it is very remarkable that he should have believed the Creator to have placed it, in any of his creatures, in such a situation as would prevent its exerting that influence which he had intended it to possess in the animal economy.