United States or Zimbabwe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Nor shall I expatiate on the alkahest of that mad scoundrel, Paracelsus, with which he pretended to reduce flints into salt; nor archaeus or spiritus rector of that visionary Van Helmont, his simple, elementary water, his gas, ferments, and transmutations; nor shall I enlarge upon the salt, sulphur, and oil, the acidum vagum, the mercury of metals, and the volatilised vitriol of other modern chemists, a pack of ignorant, conceited, knavish rascals, that puzzle your weak heads with such jargon, just as a Germanised m r throws dust in your eyes, by lugging in and ringing the changes on the balance of power, the Protestant religion, and your allies on the continent; acting like the juggler, who picks your pockets while he dazzles your eyes and amuses your fancy with twirling his fingers and reciting the gibberish of hocus pocus; for, in fact, the balance of power is a mere chimera.
Bridget has become a thought, and serves us a great deal faster than the sticky lightning of the submarine par vagum, as the Professor calls it. Pepper for Kansas, Bridget. A sandwich for Cincinnati. Rolls and sardines for Washington. A bit of the Cape Ann turkey for Boston. South Carolina prefers dark meat. Fifty thousand glasses of eau sucrée at once, and the rest simultaneously.
Will it not be said, that jus est aut incognitum aut vagum? and will not the consequence be drawn, misera est servitus ? Will not the rules of action be obscure? Will not he who knows himself wrong to-day, hope that the Courts of Justice will think him right to-morrow?
Now, “death by lightning may be the result of, 1st, a syncope by fright, or in consequence of a direct or reflex influence of lightning on the par vagum; 2d, hemorrhage in or around the brain, or in the lungs, the pericardium, etc.; 3d, concussion, or some other alteration in the brain;” none of which phenomena have any known property capable of accounting for the suppression, or almost suppression, of the cadaveric rigidity.
Some will have it, that, when Christ did speak those five words, the material wheaten bread was pointed by this demonstrative pronoun hoc: some had rather have, that a certain vagum individuum, as they term it, was meant thereby. Again, others there be that say dogs and mice may truly and in very deed eat the body of Christ; and others again there be that steadfastly deny it.
Word Of The Day