PRINCIPAL AND COMMANDING PART OF IT.

The Stoics say that the highest part of the soul is the commanding part
of it: this is the cause of sense, fancy, consents, and desires; and
this we call the rational part. From this principal and commander there
are produced seven parts of the soul, which are spread through the body,
as the seven arms in a polypus. Of these seven parts, five are assigned
to the senses, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. Sight is a
spirit which is extended from the commanding part of the eyes; hearing
is that spirit which from the principle reacheth to the ears; smelling
a spirit drawn from the principal to the nostrils; tasting a spirit
extended from the principle to the tongue; touching is a spirit which
from the principal is drawn to the extremity of those bodies which
are obnoxious to a sensible touch. Of the rest, the one called the
spermatical is a spirit which reacheth from the principal to the
generating vessels; the other, which is the vocal and termed the voice,
is a spirit extended from the principal to the throat, tongue, and other
proper organs of speaking. And this principal part itself hath that
place in our spherical head which God hath in the world.

CHAPTER XXII. OF RESPIRATION OR BREATHING.

Empedocles thinks, that the first breath the first animal drew was when
the moisture in the embryo was separated, and by that means an entrance
was given to the external air into the gaping vessels, the moisture in
them being evacuated. After this the natural heat, in a violent force
pressing upon the external air for a passage, begets an expiration; but
this heat returning to the inward parts, and the air giving way to it,
causeth a respiration. The respiration that now is arises when the blood
is borne to the exterior surface, and by this movement drives the
airy substance through the nostrils; thus in its recess it causeth
expiration, but the air being again forced into those places which
are emptied of blood, it causeth an inspiration. To explain which, he
proposeth the instance of a water-clock, which gives the account of time
by the running of water.

Asclepiades supposeth the lungs to be in the manner of a funnel, and the
cause of breathing to be the fineness of the inward parts of the breast;
for thither the outward air which is more gross hastens, but is forced
backward, the breast not being capable either to receive or want it. But
there being always some of the m