Wherin therfore consisteth the health of the bodie, and how is it to be maintained vntill such time, as nature shall dismantle, and pull it downe her selfe? To aunswere this question, and withall to declare, how great an officer to health exercise is: I will first shew, wherin health doth consiste, and how diseases do come: then how health is maintained, and disease auoided: Last of all how great a parte is appointed for exercise to plaie in the perfourmaunce therof, bycause I saye, and not I alone, but _Galen_ also that great Physician, neither _Galen_[3] onely, though sufficient alone, but all that euer liued, and were cheife of that liuerie, that who so can applie the minde well with learning, and the bodie with exercise, shall make both a wise minde, and a healthfull bodie in their best kinde. Wherfore seing I haue set downe wherin the traine of the minde doth consist, so much as the Elementarie course doth admit, and must perfourme, and so farre as these my Positions require at this time, whose profession is not to tary, though it tuche them: I wil now handle that other part of exercise, wherwith the bodie is either to be kept in health, or to be helpt to health: and that not onely in the Elementarie, to whom this treatise should seeme to aunswere, but also in the generall student during his whole life: which must alwaye rule himselfe by those circunstances, which direct the application of exercise, according to time, age, &c. and shalbe handled herafter.
[Sidenote: What is health and sicknesse.]
There be in the bodie of man, the force of foure elementes, fire and aire, water and earth, and the pith of their primitiue, and principall qualities, heat and couldnesse, moysture and drynesse, which the Physicians call the similarie partes, of the similitude and likenesse that they haue, not the one to the other, but the partes of eche to their owne whole, bycause euerie least part, or degree of these great ones, beare the name of the whole, as euerie part or parcell of fier, is called fier, no lesse then the whole fier, of water, water, of aier, aier, of earth, earth, and euerie degree of heat, is heat, of cold, is cold, of moysture, is moysture, of drynesse, is drynesse, though greater and smaller, lesse and more, be epithetes vnto them, as either their quantitie, or qualitie doth sprede or close.