white substance, engendered of the
purest part of seed and spirits, included by many skins, and seated within
the skull or brain pan; and it is the most noble organ under heaven, the
dwelling-house and seat of the soul, the habitation of wisdom, memory,
judgment, reason, and in which man is most like unto God; and therefore
nature hath covered it with a skull of hard bone, and two skins or
membranes, whereof the one is called _dura mater_, or meninx, the other
_pia mater_. The dura mater is next to the skull, above the other, which
includes and protects the brain. When this is taken away, the pia mater is
to be seen, a thin membrane, the next and immediate cover of the brain, and
not covering only, but entering into it. The brain itself is divided into
two parts, the fore and hinder part; the fore part is much bigger than the
other, which is called the little brain in respect of it. This fore part
hath many concavities distinguished by certain ventricles, which are the
receptacles of the spirits, brought hither by the arteries from the heart,
and are there refined to a more heavenly nature, to perform the actions of
the soul. Of these ventricles there are three--right, left, and middle. The
right and left answer to their site, and beget animal spirits; if they be
any way hurt, sense and motion ceaseth. These ventricles, moreover, are
held to be the seat of the common sense. The middle ventricle is a common
concourse and cavity of them both, and hath two passages--the one to
receive pituita, and the other extends itself to the fourth creek; in this
they place imagination and cogitation, and so the three ventricles of the
fore part of the brain are used. The fourth creek behind the head is common
to the cerebel or little brain, and marrow of the backbone, the last and
most solid of all the rest, which receives the animal spirits from the
other ventricles, and conveys them to the marrow in the back, and is the
place where they say the memory is seated.

SUBSECT. V.--_Of the Soul and her Faculties_.

According to [967]Aristotle, the soul is defined to be [Greek:
entelecheia], _perfectio et actus primus corporis organici, vitam habentis
in potentia_: the perfection or first act of an organical body, having
power of life, which most [968]philosophers approve. But many doubts arise
about the essence, subject, seat, distinction, and subordinate faculties of
it. For the essence and particular knowledge, of all other things it