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A28944
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Certain physiological essays and other tracts written at distant times, and on several occasions by the honourable Robert Boyle ; wherein some of the tracts are enlarged by experiments and the work is increased by the addition of a discourse about the absolute rest in bodies.
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Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.
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1669
(1669)
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Wing B3930; ESTC R17579
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210,565
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356
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know of what and of how many Ingredients much less of what kind of Atoms it is made and the proportion and manner wherein they are mingled but the Notice Experience gives him of the power of that admirable Concrete as it is made up and brought to his hands suffices to enable him to perform things with it that nothing but their being common and unheeded can keep from being admir'd The Physitian that has observ'd the Medicinal vertues of Treacle without knowing so much of the names much less the Nature of each of the sixty and odd Ingredients whereof it is compounded may cure many Patients with it And though it must not be deny'd that it is an advantage as well as a satisfaction to know in general how the Qualities of things are deducible from the primitive Affections of the smallest parts of Matter yet whether we know that or no if we know the Qualities of this or that Body they compose and how 't is dispos'd to work upon other Bodies or be brought on by them we may without ascending to the Top in the series of Causes perform things of great Moment and such as without the diligent Examination of particular Bodies would I fear never have been found out à priori ev'n by the most profound Contemplators We see that the Artificers that never dream'd of the Epicurean Philosophy have accommodated Mankind with a Multitude of useful Inventions And Paracelsus who besides that he seems none of the most piercing and speculative Wits sure had little recourse to Atomical Notions if he ever so much as heard of them was able to perform some things that were truly admirable besides those he vainly boasted of as may appear not only by what I elsewhere represent but by what Oporinus himself as severely as he otherwise writes against his deserted Master confesses he saw of the stupendous cures which Paracelsus wrought with his famous Laudanum whatever he made it of But we need not go far to find a noble Example to our present purpose since we see that the bare making of tryals with the Load-stone and Irons touch'd by it though the Experimentors were ignorant as some fear we yet are of the true and first Causes of Magnetical Phaenomena have produc'd Inventions of greater use to Mankind than were ever made by Leucippus or Epicurus or Aristotle or Telesius or Campanella or perhaps any of the speculative Devisers of new Hypotheses whole Contemplations aiming for the most part but at the solving not the encreasing or applying of the Phaenomena of Nature it is no wonder they have been more ingenious than fruitful and have Hitherto more delighted than otherwise benefitted Mankind I say Hitherto because though Experience warrants me so to speak now yet I am not unwilling to think that Hereafter and perhaps in no long time when Physiological Theories shall be better establish'd and built upon a more competent number of Particulars the Deductions that may be made from them may free them from all Imputation of Barrenness But of these things I otherwhere though not as I remember in any of the following Essays more fully discourse And therefore I shall now resume the Subject that occasion'd this long Excursion and add to what I said in excuse of my venturing sometimes to deliver something as my Opinion in difficult or controverted cases that I must declare to you Pyrophilus that as I desire not my Opinions should have more Weight with you than the Proofs brought to countenance them will give them so you must not expect that I should think my self oblig'd to adhere to them any longer than those Considerations that first made me embrace them shall seem of greater Moment than any that I can meet with in opposition to them For Aristotle spoke like a Philosopher when to justifie his Dissent from his Master Plato he said among other things That for the sake of Truth men especially being Philosophers ought to overthrow ev'n their own Tenents 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And though for a man to change his opinions without seeing more reason to forsake them than he had to assent to them be a Censurable Levity and Inconstancy of mind yet to adhere to whatever he once took for truth though by Accession of more light he discover it to be erroneous is but a proud Obstinacy very injurious to Truth and very ill becoming the sense we ought to have of humane frailties And it ought to be esteem'd much less disgraceful to quit an Error for a Truth than to be guilty of the Vanity and Perverseness of believing a thing still because we once believ'd it And certainly till a Man is sure he is infallible it is not fit for him to be unalterable You will easily discern Pyrophilus that I have purposely in the ensuing Essays refrain'd from swelling my Discourses with solemn and elaborate Confutations of other mens Opinions unless it be in some very few Cases where I judg'd that they might prove great impediments to the Advancement of Experimental Learning and even such Opinions I have been wary of medling with unless I suppos'd I could bring Experimental Objections against them For 't is none of my Design to engage my self with or against any one Sect of Naturalists but barely to invite you to embrace or refuse Opinions as they are consonant to Experiments or clear Reasons deduced thence or at least analogous thereunto without thinking it yet seasonable to contend very earnestly for those other Opinions which seem not yet determinable by such Experiments or Reasons And indeed to allude to our former Comparison I would endeavour to destroy those curious but groundless structures that men have built up of Opinions alone by the same way and with as little Noise by which such fantastical structures as those I mention'd to have seen at Leyden may be demolish'd To destroy which 't were needless to bring battering Engines since nothing is requisite to that effect but an encrease of Light And Experience has shown us that divers very plausible and radicated Opinions such as that of the Unhabitableness of the Torrid Zone of the Solidity of the Celestial part of the World of the Blood 's being convey'd from the Heart by the Veins not the Arteries to the outward parts of the body are generally grown out of request upon the appearing of those new Discoveries with which they are inconsistent and would have been abandon'd by the Generality of Judicious Persons though no man had made it his business purposely to write Confutations of them so true is that Vulgar saying that Rectum est Index sui Obliqui But when at any time Pyrophilus I have been induc'd to oppose others as I have not deny'd my self the freedom that is requisite unto Loyalty to Truth so I have endeavour'd to use that Moderation and Civility that is due to the persons of deserving Men. And therefore you shall find me not only in one Essay oppose an Author whom in
glass Pipe of an indifferent size and open at both ends and if when 't is well fill'd with smoak the lower end be presently stopt and the glass be kept still a while in an erected posture the fumes will settle by degrees to a level superficies like water so that though you gently incline the Pipe any way the upper surface of the smoak will neverthelesse quickly grow parallel to the Horizon And if the glasse be further but slowly made to stoop the smoak will seem to run down in a Body like water whilst it continues in the Pipe though when it is come to the lower end of it instead of dropping down like water it will commonly rather flye upwards and disperse it self into the Aire And as for flame I fore-see I shall ere long have occasion to mention an Experiment whereby I have sometimes endeavour'd to shew that ev'n two contiguous flames as expanded Bodies as they are and as open as their Texture is may like visible Fluids of a differing kind retain distinct surfaces SECT V. But instead of Examining any further how many Bodies are or may be made visibly to appear fluid ones let us now resume the Consideration of what it is that make Bodies fluid especially since having intimated some of the Reasons why we are unwilling to Confine our selves to the Epicurean notion we hope it will the lesse be dislik'd that we thought fit to make such a description of a fluid substance as may intimate that we conceive the conditions of it to be Chiefly these Three The first is the Littlenesse of the Bodies that compose it For in big parcels of matter besides the greater inequalities or roughnesses that are usual upon their surfaces and may hinder the easie sliding of those Bodies along one another and besides that diverse other Affections of a fluid Body cannot well belong to an aggregate of grosse Lumps of matter besides these things I say the bulk it self is apt to make them so heavy that they cannot be agitated by the power of those causes whatever they be that make the minute parts of fluid Bodies move so freely up and down among themselves whereas it would scarce be believ'd how much the smallnesse of parts may facilitate their being easily put into motion and kept in it if we were not able to confirme it by Chymical Experiments But we see that Lead Qâ—ick-silver and ev'n Gold it self though whilst they are of a sensible bulk they will readily sink to the bottom of Aqua Regis or any other such Liquor yet when the Menstruum has corroded them or fretted them asunder into very minute parts those minute Corpuscles grow then so much more capable of agitation than before that quitting the bottom of the Liquor they are carri'd freely every way and to the top with the associated parts of the Liquor without falling back again to the bottom Nay we see that ponderous and mineral Bodies divided into corpuscles small enough may be made so light and voluble as to become Ingredients ev'n of distill'd Liquors as we may learn by what some Chymists call the Butter others simply the Oyle and others the Oleum Glaciale of Antimony which though it be after Rectification a very limpid Liquor yet does in great part consist of the very Body of the Antimony as may appear not to mention its weight by this that 't is most easie to precipitate out of it with fair water store of a ponderous white calx reducible by Art to an Antimonial glasse Nay we make a Menstruum with which we can easily at the first or second Distillation bring over Gold enough to make the distill'd Liquor appear and continue ennobled with a Golden Colour And to show yet more particularly that great Bodies are too unwieldy to constitute fluid ones We may further observe how as well Nature as Art when either of them makes Bodies of considerable bulk fluid is wont in order thereunto to make a Comminution of them as we may observe in divers Examples SECT VI. Thus we see that in the stomacks of Dogs Nature to reduce Bones into those fluid Bodies Chyle and Blood does by some powerful and appropriated juice whether belonging to the Stomack it self or thrown out of the Arteries in the passage of the circulating Blood dissolve them into parts so minute that the acutest Eye would not tempt a man to suspect that such a Liquor had ever been a Bone And that it may not be objected that this dissolution is chiefly performed or at least must always be assisted by the Liquor which Animals take into their Stomachs by drinking I shall represent not only that we find by experience how little common water the only usual drink of Dogs Wolves c. is able to dissolve bones though they be very long not macerated but boil'd in it but that if we may believe Natural Historians and credible Travellers there are some sorts of Animals as particularly Camels that may be brought not to drink once in many days ev'n when they travel in hot Climates And to make you think this the less improbable I shall adde that I am familiarly acquainted with an Ingenious Gentleman who as himself and an ancient Virtuoso in whose house he lives have inform'd me does usually drink but once in several days and then no excessive draught neither And when I askt him how long he had actually abstain'd not barely from drink but from thirsting after it He answer'd that he had once some few years before continued about nine days without either taking or needing any drink and he doubted not but that he might have continued much longer in that state if by distempering himself one night with long and hard study he had not had some light inclination to take a small draught which serv'd him for about four days longer And when I askt him whether in that hot Summers day that preceded the evening wherein he happen'd to tell me this he had not drunk at all he answer'd Negatively And it adds to the strangeness of this Peculiarity that this Gentleman is in the flower of his Youth being but about twenty two years of Age and of a Sanguine and Florid Complexion And to annex that also upon the By I learned by enquiry from him that he sweats freely enough as I remember I saw him do that his Diet is the same with other mens without restraining him from the free use of Salt Meats and that his Urine is in Quantity much like that of ordinary Men of his Age and temperament But to return to what I was saying more generally of the Stomachical Menstruum of Animals I shall adde on this occasion that to make some kind of Imitation of it I prepar'd and do elsewhere mention and teach a certain Liquor that I use whereby I have in a short time and without fire dissociated the parts of rosted or boil'd flesh bread fruit c. and pull'd them asunder into very minute