this I will give you for it his own confession as he freely writ it in a private Letter to that Admirable Lady the Princess Elizabeth first Daughter to Frederick King of Bohemia who seems to have desir'd his Opinion on that important Question about which he sends her this Answer Pour ce qui c. i. e. As to the State of the Soul after this Life my knowledge of it is far inferiour to that of Monsieur he means Sir Kenelm Digby For setting aside that which Religion teaches us of it I confess that by meeâ— Natural Reason we may indeed make many conjectures to our own advantage and have fair Hopes but not any Assurance And accordingly in the next clause he gives the imprudence of quitting what is certain for an uncertainty as the cause why according to Natural Reason we are never to seek Death Nor do I wonder he should be of that mind For all that meer Reason can demonstrate may be reduced to these two things One that the Rational Soul being an Incorporeal Substance there is no necessity that it should perish with the Body so that if God have not otherwise appointed the Soul may survive the Body and last for ever The other that the Nature of the Soul according to Des Cartes consisting in its being a Substance that thinks we may conclude that though it be by death separate from the Body it will nevertheless retain the power of thinking But now whether either of these two things or both be sufficient to endear the state of separation after death to a considering man I think may be justly question'd For Immortality or Perseverance in Duration simply consider'd is rather a thing presuppos'd to or a requisite of Felicity than a part of it and being in it self an adiaphorous thing assumes the nature of the state or condition to which 't is joyn'd and does not make that state happy or miserable but makes the possessors of it more happy or more miserable than otherwise they would be And though some School-men upon Aery Metaphysical Notions would have men think it is more eligible to be wretched than not to be at all yet we may oppose to their speculative subtilties the sentiments of Mankind and the far more considerable Testimony of the Saviour of Mankind who speaking of the Disciple that betray'd him says That it had been good for that man if he had never been born And Eternity is generally conceived to aggravate no less the miseries of Hell than it heightens the joys of Heaven And here we may consider first That meer Reason cannot so much as assure us absolutely that the Soul shall survive the Body For the Truth of which we have not onely Cartesius's Confession lately recited but a probable Argument drawn from the nature of the thing since as the Body and Soul were brought together not by any meer Physical Agents and since their Association and Union whilst they continued together was made upon Conditions that depended solely upon Gods free and arbitrary Institution so for ought Reason can secure us of one of the Conditions of that Association may be That the Body and Soul should not survive each other Secondly supposing that the Soul be permitted to outlive the Body meer Reason cannot inform us what will become of her in her separate state whether she will be vitally united to any other kind of Body or Vehicle and if to some of what kind that will be and upon what terms the Union will be made For possibly she may be united to an unorganiz'd or very imperfectly organiz'd Body wherein she cannot exercise the same Functions she did in her Humane Body As we see that even in this Life the Souls of Natural Fools are united to Bodies wherein they cannot discourse or at least cannot Philosophize And 't is plain that some Souls are introduc'd into Bodies which by reason of Paralytical and other Diseases they are unable to move though that does not always hinder them from being obnoxious to feel pain So that for ought we naturally know a Humane Soul separated from the Body may be united to such a portion of Matter that she may neither have the power to move it nor the advantage of receiving any agreeable Informations by its interventions having upon the account of that Union no other sense than that of pain But let us now consider what will follow if I should grant that the Soul will not be made miserable by being thus wretchedly matched Suppose we then that she be left free to enjoy what belongs to her own nature That being onely the Power of always thinking it may well be doubted whether th'exercise of that Power wil suffice to make her happy You will perchance easily believe that I love as well as another to entertain my self with my own thoughts and to enjoy them undisturbed by visits and other avocations I would onely accompanied by a Servant and a Book go to dine at an Inn upon a Road to enjoy my thoughts the more freely for that day But yet I think the most contemplative men would at least in time grow weary of thinking if they received no supply of Objects from without by Reading Seeing or Conversing and if they also wanted the opportunity of executing their thoughts by moving the Members of their Bodies or of imparting them either by Discoursing or Writing of Books or by making of Experiments On this occasion I remember that I knew a Gentleman who was in Spain for a State-crime which yet he thought an Heroick action kept close prisoner for a year in a place where though he had allowed him a Diet not unfit for a Person of Note as he was yet he was not permitted the benefit of any Light either of the Day or Candles and was not accosted by any humane creature save at certain times by the Jaylor that brought him meat and drink but was strictly forbidden to converse with him Now though this Gentleman by his discourse appear'd to be a man of a lively humour yet being ask'd by me how he could do to pass the time in that sad solitude he confessed to me that though he had the liberty of walking too and fro in his Prison and though by often recalling into his mind all the adventures and other passages of his former life and by several ways combining and diversifying his Thoughts he endeavoured to give his mind as much variety of employment as he was able yet that would not serve his turn but he was often reduc'd by drinking large draughts of Wine and then casting himself upon his bed to endeavour to drown that Melancholly which the want of new objects cast him into And I can easily admit he found a great deal of difference between the sense he had of thinking when he was at liberty and that which he had when he was confin'd to that employment whose delightfulness like fire cannot last long when it is as his was denied
dark And first touching the Body of Man The Epicureans attributed its Original as that of all things else to the Casual Concourse of Atoms and the Stoicks absurdly and injuriously enough but much more pardonably than their follower herein Mr. Hobbs would have Men to spring up like Mushrooms out of the ground and whereas other Philosophers maintain conceits about it too wild to be here recited the Book of Genesis assures us that the Body of Man was first form'd by God in a peculiar manner of a Terrestrial Matter and 't is there described as having been perfected before the Soul was united to it And as Theology thus teaches us how the Body of Man had its first beginning so it likewise assures us what shall become of the Body after death though bare Natural Reason will scarce be pretended to reach to so abstruse and difficult an Article as that of a Resurrection which when propos'd by St. Paul produc'd among the Athenian Philosophers nothing else but wonder or laughter Not to mention that Theology teaches us divers other things about the Origine and Condition of Mens Bodies as That all Mankind is the Off-spring of One Man and one Woman That the first Woman was not made of the same Matter nor after the same Manner as the first Man but was afterwards taken from his side That both Adam and Eve were not as many Epicureans and other Philosophers fanci'd that the first men were first Infants whence they did as we do grow by degrees to be mature and compleat Humane Persons but were made so all at once and That hereafter as all mens Bodies shall rise again so they shall all or at least all those of the just be kept from ever dying a second time And as for the Humane Soul though I willingly grant that much may be deduc'd from the Light of Reason onely touching its Existence Properties and Duration yet Divine Revelation teaches it us with more clearness and with greater Authority as sure he that made our Souls and upholds them can best know what they are and how long he will have them last And as the Scripture expresly teaches us that the Rational Soul is distinct from the Body as not being to be destroy'd by those very Enemies that kill the Body so about the Origine of this Immortal Soul about which Philosophers can give us but wide and precarious conjectures Theology assures us that the Soul of man had not such an Origination as those of other Animals but was Gods own immediate Workmanship and was united to the Body already form'd And yet not so united but that upon their Divorce she will survive and pass into a state in which Death shall have no power over her I expect you will here object that for the knowledge of the Perpetual Duration of separate Souls we need not be beholding to the Scripture since the Immortality of the Soul may be sufficiently prov'd by the sole Light of Nature and particularly has been demonstrated by your great Des Cartes But you must give me leave to tell you that besides that a matter of that weight and concernment cannot be too well prov'd and consequently ought to procure a welcome for all good Mediums of Probation besides this I say I doubt many Cartesians do as well as others mistake both the difficulty under consideration and the scope of Des Cartes's Discourse For I grant that by Natural Philosophy alone the Immortality of the Soul may be prov'd against its usual Enemies Atheists and Epicureans For the ground upon which these men think it mortal being That 't is not a true substance but onely a modification of Body which consequently must perish when the frame or structure of the Body whereto it belongs is dissolv'd Their ground being this I say if we can prove by some Intellectual Operations of the Rational Soul which Matter however modifi'd cannot reach That it is a Substance distinct from the Humane Body there is no reason why the Dissolution of the Latter should infer the Destruction of the Former which is a simple Substance and as real a Substance as Matter it self which yet the Adversaries affirm to be Indestructible But though by the Mental Operations of the Rational Soul and perhaps by other Mediums it may against the Epicureans and other meer Naturalists who will not allow God to have any thing to do in the case be prov'd to be Immortal in the sense newly propos'd yet the same Proofs will not evince that absolutely it shall never cease to be if we dispute with Philosophers who admit as the Cartesians and many others do that God is the sole Creator and Preserver of all things For how are we sure but that God may have so ordain'd That though the Soul of Man by the continuance of his ordinary and upholding Concourse may survive the Body yet as 't is generally believ'd not to be created till it be just to be infus'd into the Body so it shall be annihilated when it parts with the Body God withdrawing at death that supporting influence which alone kept it from relapsing to its first Nothing Whence it may appear that notwithstanding the Physical proofs of the Spirituality and separableness of the Humane Soul we are yet much beholding to Divine Revelation for assuring us that its Duration shall be endless And now to make good what I was intimating above concerning the Cartesians and the scope of Des Cartes's Demonstration I shall appeal to no other than his own Expressions to evince that he consider'd this matter for the main as we have done and pretended to demonstrate that the Soul is a Distinct Substance from the Body but not that absolutely speaking it is Immortal Cur answers that excellent Author de immortalitate Animae nihil scripserim jam dixi in Synopsi mearum Meditationum Quod ejus ab omni corpore distinctionem satis probaverim supra ostendi Quod vero additis Ex distinctione Animae á corpore non sequi ejus Immortalitatem quia nihilominus dici potest illam à Deo talis naturae factam esse ut ejus Duratio simul cum Duratione vitae corporeae finiatur fateor á me refelli non posse Neque enim tantum mihi assumo ut quicquam de iis quae à libera Dei voluntate dependent humanae rationis vi determinare aggrediar Docet Naturalis cognitio c. Sed si de absoluta Dei potestate quaeratur an forte decreverit ut humanae animae iisdem Temporibus esse desinant quibus Corpora quae illis adjunxit solius Dei est respondere And if he would not assume to demonstrate by Natural Reason so much as the Existence of the Soul after death unless upon a supposition we may well presume that he would less take upon him to determine what shall be the condition of that Soul after it leaves the Body And that you may not doubt of
their own Nature or of that of their Author or of that of their Fellow-creatures And as the Rational Soul is somewhat more noble and wonderful than any thing meerly Corporeal how vast soever it can be and is of a more excellent Nature than the curiousest piece of Mechanism in the world the Humane Body so to enquire what shall become of it and what Fates it is like to undergo hereafter does better deserve a man's Curiosity than to know what shall befall the Corporeal Universe and might justly have been to Nebuchadnezzar a more desirable part of knowledge than that he was so troubled for want of when it was adumbrated to him in the mysterious Dream that contain'd the Characters and Fates of the four Great Monarchies of the World And as man is intrusted with a Will of his own whereas all material things move onely as they are mov'd and have no self-determining power on whose account they can resist the Will of God and as also of Angels at least some Orders of them are of a higher Quality if I may so speak than Humane Souls so 't is very probable that in the Government of Angels whether good or bad that are Intellectual Voluntary Agents there is requir'd and employ'd far greater displays of Gods Wisdom Power and Goodness than in the guidance of Adiaphorous Matter and the method of God's Conduct in the Government of these is a far nobler Object for men's Contemplation than the Laws according to which the parts of Matter hit against and justle one another and the effects or results of such Motions And accordingly we find in Scripture that whereas about the production of the material World and the setting of the frame of Nature God employ'd onely a few commanding Words which speedily had their full effects to govern the Race of Mankind even in order to their own Happiness he employ'd not onely Laws and Commands but Revelations Miracles Promises Threats Exhortations Mercies Judgments and divers other Methods and Means and yet oftentimes when he might well say as he did once by his Prophet What could I have done more to my Vineyard that I have not done it he had just cause to expostulate as he did in the same place Wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes brought it forth wild grapes and to complain of men as by that very Prophet he did even of Israel I have spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people But not to wander too far in this digression what we have said of Men may render it probable that the grand Attributes of God are more signally exercis'd and made more conspicuous in the making and governing of each of the three Intellectual Communities than in the framing and upholding the Community of meer bodily things And since all Immaterial Substances are for that reason naturally Immortal and the Universal Matter is believ'd so too possibly those Revolutions that will happen after the Day of Judgment wherein though probably not the Matter yet that state and constitution of it on whose account it is This World will be destroyed and make way for quite new Frames and Sets of things corporeal and the Beings that compose each of these Intellectual Communities will in those numberless Ages they shall last travel through I know not how many successive changes and adventures perhaps I say these things will no less display and bring glory to the Divine Attributes than the Contrivance of the world and the Oeconomy of Man's Salvation though these be and that worthily the Objects of the Naturalists and the Divines Contemplation And there are some passages in the Prophetical part of the Scripture and especially in the Book of the Apocalypse which as they seem to intimate that as God will perform great and noble things which Mechanical Philosophy never reach'd to and which the generality of Divines seem not to have thought of so divers of those great things may be in some measure discover'd by an attentive Searcher into the Scriptures and that so much to the advantage of the devout Indagator that St. John near the beginning of his Revelations pronounces them happy that read the matters contain'd in this Prophecy and observe the things written therein Which implies that by heedful comparing together the Indications couched in those Prophetick Writings with Events and Occurrences in the Affairs of the World and the Church we may discover much of the admirable Oeconomy of Providence in the Governing of both And I am prone to think the early discoveries of such great and important things to be in Gods account no mean vouchsafements not onely because of the title of Happy is here given to him that attains them but because the two persons to whom the great discoveries of this kind were made I mean the Prophet Daniel and St. John the first is by the Angel said to be on that account a person highly favour'd and the other is in the Gospel represented as our Saviour's beloved Disciple And you will the more easily think the foreknowledge of the Divine Dispensations gatherable from Scripture to be highly valuable if you consider that according to St. Paul those very Angels that are call'd Principalities and Powers in heavenly places learnt by the Church some abstruse points of the manifold wisdom of God But I must no longer indulge Speculations that would carry my Curiosity beyond the bounds of time it self and therefore beyond those that ought to be plac'd to this occasional excursion And yet as on the one side I shall not allow my self the presumption of framing conjectures about those remote Dispensations which will not most of them have a beginning before this world shall have an end so on the other side I would not discourage you or any pious Inquirer from endeavouring to advance in the knowledge of those Attributes of God that may successfully be studied without prying into the Secrets of the future And here Sir let me freely confess to you that I am apt to think that if men were not wanting to Gods glory and their own satisfaction there would be far more Discoveries made than are yet attain'd to of the Divine Attributes When we consider the most simple or uncompounded Essence of God we may easily be perswaded that what belongs to Any of His Attributes some of which thinking men generally admire must be an Object of Enquiry exceeding Noble and worthy of our knowledge And yet the abstruseness of this knowledge is not in All particulars so invincible but that I strongly hope a Philosophical Eye illustrated by the Revelations extant in the Scripture may pierce a great deal farther than has yet been done into those mysterious Subjects which are too often perhaps out of a mistaken Reverence so poorly handled by Divines and Schoolmen that not onely what they have taught is not worthy of God for that 's a necessary and therefore excusable deficiency but too
of Humane Nature that whilst we remain in this mortal condition the Soul being confin'd to the dark prison of the Body is capable as even Aristotle somewhere confesses but of a dim knowledge so much the greater value we ought to have for Christian Religion since by its means and by no other without it we may attain a condition wherein as our Nature will otherwise be highly blessed and advanced so our Faculties will be Elevated and Enlarged and probably made thereby capable of attaining degrees and kinds of knowledge to which we are here but strangers In favour of which I will not urge the received Opinion of Divines that before the Fall which yet is a less noble condition than is reserved for us in Heaven Adam's knowledge was such that he was able at first sight of them to give each of the Beasts a name expressive of its Nature because that in spight of some skill which my Curiosity for Divinity not Philosophy gave me in the holy Tongue I could never find that the Hebrew names of Animals mention'd in the beginning of Genesis argued a much clearer insight into their Natures than did the names of the same or some other Animals in Greek or other Languages wherefore as I said I will not urge Adam's knowledge in Paradise for that of the Saints in Heaven though the notice he took of Eve at his first seeing of her if it were not convey'd to him by secret Revelation may be far more probably urg'd than his naming of the Beasts But I will rather mind you that the Proto-martyr's sight was strengthened so as to see the heavens open'd and Jesus standing at the right hand of God and when the Prophet had pray'd that his Servant's Eyes might be open'd he immediately saw the Mountain where they were all cover'd with Chariots and Horsemen which though mention'd to be of Fire were altogether invisible to him before To which as a higher Argument I shall onely add a couple of passages of Scripture which seem to allow us even vast Expectations as to the knowledge our glorifi'd Nature may be advanc'd to The one is that which St. Paul says to the Corinthians For now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face Now I know in part but then shall I know even as also I am known And the other where Christ's Favourite-Disciple tells Believers Beloved now we are the Sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is What has hitherto been discours'd contains the first Consideration that I told you might be propos'd about the Certainty ascrib'd to the knowledge we are said to have of Natural things but this is not all I have to represent to you on this Subject For I consider further that 't is not onely by the Certainty we have of them that the knowledge of things is endear'd to us but also by the Worthiness of the Object the Number of those that are unacquainted with it the Remoteness of it from common Apprehensions the Difficulty of acquiring it without peculiar Advantages the Usefulness of it when attain'd and other particulars which 't is not here necessary to enumerate I presume you doubt not but your Friend does very much prefer the knowledge he has of the Mysteries of Nature at many of which we have as yet but Ingenious Conjectures to the knowledge of one that understands the Elements of Arithmetick though He be Demonstratively sure of the Truth of most of his Rules and Operations And questionless Copernicus received a much higher satisfaction in his Notion about the Stability of the Sun and the Motion of the Earth though it were not so clear but that Tycho Ricciolus and other eminent Astronomers have rejected it than in the knowledge of divers of the Theorems about the Sphere that have been demonstrated by Euclid Theodosius and other Geometricians Our discovering that some Comets are not as the Schools would have them Sublunary Meteors but Celestial Bodies and the Conjectural Theory which is all that hitherto we have been able to attain of them do much better please both your Friend and you and me than the more certain knowledge we have of the time of the Rising and Setting of the Fixed Stars And the Estimates we can make by the help of Parallaxes of the Heights of those Comets and of some of the Planets though they are uncertain enough as may appear by the vastly different distances that are assigned to those Bodies by eminent Astronomers yet these uncertain measures of such Elevated and Celestial Lights do far more please us than that we can by the help of a Geometrical Quadrant or some such Instrument take with far greater Certainty the height of a Tower or a Steeple And so a Mathematician when he probably conjectures at the compass of the Terâ—estrial Globe and divides though but unaccurately its Surface first into proportions of Sea and Land and then into Regions of such Extents and Bounds and in a word skilfully plays the Cosmographer thinks himself much more nobly and pleasantly imploy'd than when being reduc'd to play the Surveyor he does with far more certainty measure how many Acres a Field contains and set out with what Hedges and Ditches it is bounded Now that the knowledge of God and of those Mysteries of Theology that are ignor'd by far the greatest part of Mankind has more sublime and excellent Objects and is unattain'd to by much the greatest part even of Learned men and nevertheless is of unvaluable Importance and of no less Advantage towards the purifying and improving of us here and the making us perfect and happy hereafter the past Discourse has very much miscarried if it have not evinc'd Wherefore as to be admitted into the Pâ—ivy-Council of some Great Monarch and thereby be enabled to give a probable ghess at those thoughts and designs of his that Govern Kingdoms and make the Fates of Nations is judged preferrable to that clearer knowledge that a Notary can have of the dying thoughts and intentions of an ordinary Person whose Will he makes And as the knowledge of a skilful Physician whose Art is yet conjectural is preferrable to that of a Cutler that makes his Dissecting Knives though this man can more certainly perform what he designs in his own profession than the Physician can in his And in fine as the skill of a Jeweller that is conversant about Diamonds Rubies Saphires and some other sorts of small Stones which being for the most part brought us out of the Indies we must take many things about them upon report is because of the Nobleness of the Object preferr'd to that of a Mason that deals in whole Quarries of common Stones and may be sure upon his own Experience of divers things concerning them which as to Jewels we are allowed to know but upon Tradition So a
little better give an account of the Phaenomena of many Bodies by knowing what Ingredients compose them than we can explain the Operations of a Watch by knowing of how many and of what Metalls the Balance the Wheels the Chain and other parts are made or than we can derive the Operations of a Wind-mill from the bare knowledge that 't is made up of Wood and Stone and Canvas and Iron And here let me add that 't would not at all overthrow the Corpuscularian Hypothesis though either by more exquisite Purifications or by some other Operations than the usual Analysis of the Fire it should be made appear that the Material Principles or Elements of mixt Bodies should not be the Tria Prima of the vulgar Chymists but either Substances of another nature or else fewer or more in number as would be if that were true which some Spagyrists affirm but I could never find that from all sorts of mixt Bodies five and but five differing similar Substances can be separated Or as if it were true that the Helmontians had such a resolving Menstruum as the Alkahest of their Master by which he affirms that he could reduce Stones into Salt of the same weight with the Mineral and bring both that Salt and all other kind of mixt and tangible Bodies into insipid Water For what ever be the numnumber or qualities of the Chymical Principles if they be really existent in Nature it may very possibly be shewn that they may be made up of insensible Corpuscles of determinate bulks and shapes and by the various Coalitions and Contextures of such Corpuscles not onely three or five but many more material Ingredients may be compos'd or made to result But though the Alkahestical Reductions newly mention'd should be admitted yet the Mechanical Principles might well be accommodated even to them For the Solidity Taste c. of Salt may be fairly accounted for by the Stifness Sharpness and other Mechanical Affections of the minute Particles whereof Salts consist and if by a farther action of the Alkahest the Salt or any other solid Body be reduc'd into insipid Water this also may be explicated by the same Principles supposing a further Comminution of the parts and such an attrition as wears off the edges and points that inabled them to strike briskly the Organ of Taste For as to Fluidity and Firmness those mainly depend upon two of our grand Principles Motion and Rest And I have else-where shewn by several proofs that the Agitation or Rest and the looser contact or closer cohaesion of the particles is able to make the same portion of Matter at one time a firm and at another time a fluid Body So that though the further Sagacity and Industry of Chymists which I would by no means discourage should be able to obtain from mixt Bodies homogeneous substances differing in number or nature or both from their vulgar Salt Sulphur and Mercury yet the Corpuscular Philosophy is so general and fertile as to be fairly reconcilable to such a Discovery and also so useful that these new material Principles will as well as the old Tria Prima stand in need of the more Catholick Principles of the Corpuscularians especially Local Motion And indeed what ever Elements or Ingredients men have that I know of pitched upon yet if they take not in the Mechanical Affections of Matter their Principles have been so deficient that I have usually observ'd that the Materialists without at all excepting the Chymists do not onely as I was saying leave many things unexplainâ—d to which their narrow Principles will not extend but even in the particulars they presume to give an account of they either content themselves to assign such common and indefinite Causes as are too general to signifie much towards an inquisitive mans satisfaction or if they venture to give particular Causes they assign precarious or false ones and liable to be easily disproved by Circumstances or Instances whereto their Doctrine will not agree as I have often elsewhere had occasion to shew And yet the Chymists need not be frighted from acknowledging the Prerogative of the Mechanical Philosophy since that may be reconcileable with the Truth of their own Principles as far as these agree with the Phaenomena they are apply'd to For these more confind Hypotheses may be subordinated to those more general and fertile Principles and there can be no Ingredient assign'd that has a real existence in Nature that may not be deriv'd either immediately or by a row of Decompositions from the Universal Matter modifi'd by its Mechanical Affections For if with the same Bricks diversly put together and rang'd several Walls Houses Furnaces and other Structures as Vaults Bridges Pyramids c. may be built meerely by a various contrivement of parts of the same kind how much more may great variety of Ingredients be produc'd by or according to the institution of Nature result from the various coalitions and contextures of Corpuscles that need not be suppos'd like Bricks all of the same or near the same size and shape but may have amongst them both of the one and the other as great a variety as need be wish'd for and indeed a greater than can easily be so much as imagin'd And the primary and minute Concretions that belong to these Ingredients may without Opposition from the Mechanical Philosophy be suppos'd to have their particles so minute and strongly coherent that Nature of her self does scarce ever tear them asunder as we see that Mercury and Gold may be successively made to put on a multitude of disguises and yet so retain their nature as to be reducible to their pristine forms And you know I lately told you that common Glass and good Amels though both of them but factitious Bodies and not onely mix'd but decompounded Concretions have yet their component parts so strictly united by the skill of illiterate Tradesmen as to maintain their union in the vitrifying violence of the Fire Nor do we find that common Glass will be wrought upon by Aqua fortis or Aqua Regis though the former of them will dissolve Mercury and the later Gold From the fore-going Discourse it may probably at least result That if besides Rational Souls there are any Immaterial Substances such as the Heavenly Intelligences and the Substantial Forms of the Aristotelians that regularly are to be numbred among Natural Agents their way of working being unknown to us they can but help to constitute and effect things but will very little help us to conceive how things are effected so that by what ever Principles Natural things be constituted 't is by the Mechanical Principles that their Phaenomena must be clearly explicated As for instance though we should grant the Aristotelians that the Planets are made of a quintessential matter and moved by Angels or Immaterial Intelligences yet to explain the Stations Progressions and Retrogradations and other Phaenomena of the Planets we must have recourse either to Eccentricks
them to a Philosophers esteem as the sight of one Eye skilfully dissected or the unadorn'd Account given of its Structure and the admirable uses of its several parts in Scheiner's Oculus and Des-Cartes's Excellent Dioptricks And though I do not think my self bound to acquiesce in and admire every thing that is propos'd as Mysterious and Rare by many Interpreters and Preachers yet I think I may safely compare several things in the Books we call the Scripture to several others in that of Nature in at least one regard For though I do not believe all the Wonders that Pliny Aelian Porta and other Writers of that stamp relate of the Generation of Animals yet by perusing such faithful and accurate accounts as sometimes Galen De usu Partium sometimes Vesalius sometimes our Harvey de Ovo and our later Anatomists and sometimes other true Naturalists give of the Generation of Animals and of the admirable Structure of their Bodies especially those of Men and such other parts of Zoology as Pliny and the other Writers I nam'd with him could make nothing considerable of by perusing these I say I receive more pleasure and satisfaction and am induc'd more to admire the works of Nature than by all their Romantic and Superficial Narratives And thus to apply this to our present Subject a close and critical account of the more vail'd and pregnant parts of Scripture and Theological Matters with such Reflections on them as their Nature and Collation would suggest to a Philosophical as well as Critical Speculator would far better please a Rational Considerer and give him a higher as well as a better grounded Veneration for the things explain'd than a great many of those sleighter or ill-founded Remarks wherewith the Expositions and Discourses of Superficial Writers though never so florid or witty gain the applause of the less discerning sort of men And here on this occasion I shall venture to add that I despair not but that a further use may be made of the Scripture than either our Divines or Philosophers seem to have thought on Some few Theologues indeed have got the name of Supralapsarians for venturing to look back beyond the Fall of Adam for God's Decrees of Election and Reprobation But besides that their boldness has been dislik'd by the generality of Divines as well as other Christians the Object of their Speculation is much too narrow to be any thing near and adequate to such an Hypothesis as I mean For me-thinks that the Encyclopedia's and Pansophia's that even men of an elevated Genius have aimed at are not diffus'd enough to comprehend all that the Reason of a Man improv'd by Philosophy and elevated by the Revelations already extant in the Scripture may by the help of free Ratiocination and the hints contain'd in those pregnant Writings with those assistances of God's Spirit which he is still ready to vouchsafe to them that duly seek them attain unto in this life The Gospel comprises indeed and unfolds the whole Mystery of Man's Redemption as far forth as 't is necessary to be known for our Salvation And the Corpusculariùm or Mechanical Philosophy strives to deduce all the Phoenomena of Nature from Adiaphorous Matter and Local Motion But neither the Fundamental Doctrine of Christianity nor that of the Powers and Effects of Matter and Motion seems to be more than an Epicycle if I may so call it of the Great and Universal System of God's Contrivances and makes but a part of the more general Theory of things knowable by the Light of Nature improv'd by the Information of the Scriptures So that both these Doctrines though very general in respect of the subordinate parts of Theology and Philosophy seem to be but members of the Universal Hypothesis whose Objects I conceive to be the Nature Counsels and Works of God as far as they are discoverable by us for I say not to us in this Life For those to whom God has vouchsafed the priviledge of mature Reason seem not to enlarge their thoughts enough if they think that the Omniscient and Almighty God has bounded the Operations of his Power and Wisdom and Goodness to the Exercise that may be given them for some Ages by the Production and Government of Matter and Motion and of the Inhabitants of the Terrestrial Globe which we know to be but a Physical Point in comparison of that Portion of Universal Matter which we have already discover'd For I account that there are four grand Communities of Creatures whereof things meerly Corporeal make but one the other three differing from these are distinct also from one another Of the first sort are the Race of Mankind where Intellectual Beings are vitally associated with Gross and Organical Bodies The second are Daemons or evil Angels and the third good Angels whether in each of those two kinds of Spirits the Rational Beings be perfectly free from all union with Matter though never so fine and subtile or whether they be united to Vehicles not Gross but Spirituous and ordinarily invisible to Us. Nor may we think because Angels and Devils are two names quickly utter'd and those Spirits are seldome or never seen by us there are therefore but few of them and the Speculation of them is not considerable For as their Excellency is great as we shall by and by shew so for their number they are represented in Scripture as an Heavenly Host standing on the right and left hand of the Throne of God And of the good Angels our Saviour Speaks of having more than twelve Legions of them at his command Nay the Prophet Daniel saith that to the Antient of days no less than millions ministred unto him and hundreds of millions stood before him And of the evil Angels the Gospel informs us that enough to call them a Legion which you know is usually reckon'd at a moderate rate to consist of betwixt six and seven thousand possess'd one single man For my part when I consider that matter how vastly extended and how curiously shap'd soever is but a brute thing that is onely capable of Local motion and its effects and consequents on other Bodies or the Brain of man without being capable of any True or at least any Intellectual Perception or true Love or Hatred and when I consider the Rational Soul as an immaterial and immortal Being that bears the Image of its Divine Maker being indow'd with a capacious Intellect and a Will that no Creature can force I am by these Considerations dispos'd to think the Soul of Man a nobler and more valuable Being than the whole Corporeal World which though I readily acknowledge it to be admirably contriv'd and worthy of the Almighty and Omniscient Author yet it consists but of an Aggregate of Portions of brute Matter variously shap'd and connected by Local Motion as Dow and Roles and Loves and Cakes and Vermicelli Wafers and Pie-crust are all of them diversified Meal but without any knowledge either of
multitudes in the world that have no need of the assistance the Naturalist would give the Physician and a healthy man as such is already in a better condition than the Philosopher can hope to place him in and is no more advantag'd by the Naturalist's contribution to Physick than a sound man that sleeps in a whole skin is by all the fine Tools of a Chirurgeons Case of Instruments and the various Compositions of his Chest And as the Benefits that may be derived from Theology much surpass those that accrue from Physicks in the Nobleness of the Subject they relate to so have they a great advantage in point of Duration For all the service that Medicines and Engines and Improvements can do a man as they relate but to this Life so they determine with it Physick indeed and Chymistry do the one more faintly and the other more boldly pretend sometimes not onely to the Cure of Diseases but the Prolongation of Life But since none will suspect but that the Masters of those parts of knowledge would employ their utmost skill to protract their own Lives those that remember that Solomon and Helmont liv'd no longer than millions that were strangers to Philosophy and that even Paracelsus himself for all his boasted Arcana is by Helmont and other Chymists confessed to have died some years short of 50 we may very justly fear that Nature will not be so kind to her greatest Votaries as to give them much more time than other men for the payment of the last Debt all men owe her And if a few years respite could by a scrupulous and troublesome use of Diet and Remedies be obtain'd yet that in comparison of the Eternity that is to follow is not at all considerable But whereas within no great number of years a little sooner or a little later all the Remedies and Reliefs and Pleasures and Accommodations that Philosophical Improvements can afford a man will not keep him from the Grave which within very few days will make the body of the greatest Virtuoso as hideous and as loathsome a Carcase as that of any ordinary man the Benefits that may accrue to us by Divinity as they relate Chiefly though not Onely to the other World so they will follow us out of this and prove then incomparably greater than ever when they alone shall be capable of being enjoy'd So that Philosophy in the capacity we here consider it does but as it were provide us some little Conveniences for our passage like some Accommodations for a Cabbin which out-lasts not the Voyage but Religion provides us a vast and durable Estate or as the Scripture styles it an unshaken Kingdom when we are arriv'd at our Journeys end And therefore the Benefits accruing from Religion may well be concluded preferible to their Competitors since they not onely reach to the Mind of Man but reach beyond the End of Time it self whereas all the variety of Inventions that Philosophy so much boasts of as whilst they were in season they were devis'd for the service of the Body so they make us busie and pride our selves about things that within a short time will not so much as upon Its score at all concern us The third Section I Expect you should here urge on your Friends behalf That the study of Physicks has one Prerogative above that of Divinity which as it is otherwise a great Excellency so does much add to the Delightfulness of it I mean the Certainty and Clearness and the thence resulting Satisfactoriness of our Knowledge of Physical in comparison of any we can have of Theological matters whose being Dark and Uncertain the Nature of the things themselves and the numerous Controversies of differing Sects about them sufficiently manifest But upon this Subject divers things are to be consider'd For first as to the Fundamental and Necessary Articles of Religion I do not admit the Allegation but take those Articles to be both Evident and capable of a Moral Demonstration And if there be any Articles of Religion for which a Rational and Cogent Proof cannot be brought I shall for that very reason conclude that such Articles are not absolutely Necessary to be believ'd since it seems no way reasonable to imagine that God having been pleased to send not onely his Prophets and his Apostles but his onely Son into the World to promulgate to Mankind the Christian Religion and both to cause it to be consign'd to writing that it may be known and to alter the course of Nature by numerous Miracles that it might be believ'd it seems not reasonable I say to imagine that he should not propose those Truths which he in so wonderful and so solemn a manner recommended with at least so much Clearness as that studious and well-dispos'd Readers may certainly understand such as are necessary for them to believe 2. Though I will not here engage my self in a Disquisition of the several kinds or if you please Degrees of Demonstration which yet is a Subject that I judge far more considerable than cultivated yet I must tell you that as a Moral certainty such as we may attain about the Fundamentals of Religion is enough in many cases for a wise man and even a Philopher to acquiesce in so that Physical Certainty which is pretended for the Truths demonstrated by Naturalists is even where 't is rightfully claim'd but an inferiour kind or degree of certainty as Moral certainty also is For even Physical Demonstrations can beget but a Physical Certainty that is a Certainty upon supposition that the Principles of Physick be true not a Metaphysical Certainty wherein 't is absolutely impossible that the thing believ'd should be other than true For instance All the Physical Demonstrations of the Antients about the causes of particular Phaenomena of Bodies suppose that ex nihilo nihil fit and this may readily be admitted in a Physical sense because according to the course of Nature no Body can be produc'd out of Nothing but speaking universally it may be false as Christians generally and even the Cartesian Naturalists asserting the Creation of the World must believe that de facto it is And so whereas Epicurus does I remember prove that a Body once dead cannot be made alive again by reason of the dissipation and dispersion of the Atoms 't was when alive compos'd of though all men will allow this assertion to be Physically demonstrable yet the contrary may be true if God's Omnipotence intervenes as all the Philosophers that acknowledge the Authority of the New Testament where Lazarus and others are recorded to have been raised from the dead must believe that it actually did appear and even all unprejudic'd Reasoners must allow it to be Possible there being no Contradiction impli'd in the Nature of the thing But now to affirm that such things as are indeed Contradictories cannot be both true or that factum infectum reddi non potest are Metaphysical Truths which cannot possibly be other than
true and consequently beget a Metaphysical and absolute Certainty And your Master Cartesius was so sensible of a dependance of Physical Demonstrations upon Metaphysical Truths that he would not allow any certainty not onely to them but even to Geometrical Demonstrations till he had evinc'd that there is a God and that he cannot deceive men that make use of their Faculties aright To which I may add that even in many things that are look'd upon as Physical Demonstrations there is really but a Moral Certainty For when for instance Des-Cartes and other Modern Philosophers take upon them to demonstrate That there are divers Comets that are not Meteors because they have a Parallax lesser than that of the Moon and are of such a bigness and some of them move in such a Line c. 't is plain that divers of these Learned men had never the opportunity to observe a Comet in their Lives but take these Circumstances upon the credit of those Astronomers that had such Opportunities And though the Inferences as such may have a Demonstrable Certainty yet the Premisses they are drawn from having but an Historical one the presumed Physico-Mathematical Demonstration can produce in a wary mind but a Moral Certainty and not the greatest neither of that kind that is possible to be attain'd as he will not scruple to acknowledge that knows by experience how much more difficult it is than most men imagine to make Observations about such nice Subjects with the exactness that is requisite for the building of an undoubted Theory upon them And there are I know not how many things in Physicks that men presume they believe upon Physical and Cogent Arguments wherein they really have but a Moral assurance which is a Truth heeded by so few that I have been invited to take the more particular notice of them in other Papers written purposely to show the doubtfulness and incompleatness of Natural Philosophy of which Discourse since you may command a sight I shall not scruple to refer you thither for the Reasons of my affirming here that the most even of the modern Virtuosi are wont to fancy more of Clearness and Certainty in their Physical Theories than a Critical Examiner will find Onely that you may not look upon this as a put off rather than a reference I will here touch upon a couple of Subjects which men are wont to believe to be and which indeed ought to be the most throughly understood I mean the Nature of Body in general and the Nature of Sensation And for the first of these since we can turn our selves no way but we are every where environ'd and incessantly touch'd by Corporeal Substances one would think that so familiar an Object that does so assiduously and so many ways affect our Senses and for the knowledge of which we need not inquire into the distinct Nature of particular Bodies nor the properties of any one of them should be very perfectly known unto us And yet the Notion of Body in general or what it is that makes a thing to be a Corporeal Substance and discriminates it from all other things has been very hotly disputed of even among the modern Philosophers adhuc sub judice lis est And though your Favourite Des-Cartes in making the nature of a Body to consist in Extension every way has a notion of it which 't is more easie to find fault with than to substitute a better yet I fear 't will appear to be attended not onely with this Inconvenience That God cannot within the compass of this World wherein if any Body vanish into Nothing the place or space left behind it must have the three Dimensions and so be a true Body annihilate the least particle of Matter at least without at the same instant and place creating as much which agrees very ill with that necessary and continual dependance which he asserts Matter it self to have on God for its very Being but with such other inconveniences that some Friends of yours otherwise very inclinable to the Cartesian Philosophy know not how to acquiesce in it and yet I need not tell you how Fundamental a Notion the deviser of it asserts it to be Neither do I see how this Notion of a Corporeal Substance will any more than any of the formerly received Definitions of it extricate us out of the Difficulties of that no less perplexed than famous Controversie de Compositione Continui And though some ingenious men who perhaps perceive better than others how intricate it is have of late endeavoured to shew that men need not be sollicitous to determine this Controversie it not being rightly propos'd by the Schoolmen that have started it and though I perhaps think that Natural Philosophy may be daily advanc'd without the decision of it because there is a multitude of considerable things to be discover'd and perform'd in Nature without so much as dreaming of this Controversie yet still as I would propose the Question the Difficulties till removed will spread a thick night over the Notion of Body in general For either a Corporeal and extended Substance is either really or mentally divisible into parts endow'd with Extension and each of these parts is divisible also into other Corporeal parts lesser and lesser in infinitum or else this subdivision must stop somewhere for there is no mean between the two members of the Distinction and in either case the Opinion pitch'd upon will be liable to those Inconveniences not to say Absurdities that are rationally urg'd against it by the maintainers of the Opposite the Objections on both sides being so strong that some of the more Candid even of the Modern Metaphysicians after having tir'd themselves and their Readers with arguing Pro and Con have confess'd the Objections on both sides to be insoluble But though we do not clearly understand the Nature of Body in general yet sure we cannot but be perfectly acquainted with what passes within our selves in reference to the particular Bodies we daily See and Hear and Smell and Taste and Touch. But alas though we know but little save by the Informations of our senses yet we know very little of the manner by which our Senses informs us And to avoid prolixity I will at present suppose with you that the Ingenious Des Cartes and his followers have given the fairest account of Sensation that is yet extant Now according to him a Man's Body being but a well organiz'd Statue that which is truly called Sensation is not perform'd by the Organ but by the Mind which perceives the motion produc'd in the Organ for which reason he will not allow Brutes to have Sense properly so call'd so that if you ask a Cartesian how it comes to pass that the Soul of Man which he justly asserts to be an immaterial Substance comes to be wrought upon and that in such various manners by those external Bodies that are the objects of our Senses he will tell you that by their
Impressions on the Sensories they variously move the Fibres or Threds of the Nerves wherewith those parts are endow'd and by which the Motion is propagated to that little Kernel in the Brain call'd by many Writers the Conarion where these differing motions being perceiv'd by the there residing Soul become Sensations because of the intimate union and as it were Permistion as Cartesius himself expresses it of the Soul with the Body But now Sir give me leave to take notice that this Union of an Incorporeal with a Corporeal Substance and that without a Medium is a thing so unexampled in Nature and so difficult to comprehend that I somewhat question whether the profound Secrets of Theology not to say the adorable Mystery it self of the Incarnation be more abstruse than this For how can I conceive that a Substance purely immaterial should be united without a Physical Medium for in this case there can be none with the Body which cannot possibly lay hold on It and which It can pervade and flie away from at pleasure as Des-Cartes must confess the Soul actually does in Death And 't is almost as difficult to conceive how any part of the Body without excepting the Animal Spirits or the Conarion for these are as truly Corporeal as other parts of the Humane Statue can make Impressions upon a Substance perfectly Incorporeal and which is not immediately affected by the motions of any other parts besides the Genus Nervosum Nor is it a small difficulty to a meer Naturalist who as such does not in Physical matters take notice of Revelations about Angels to conceive how a finite Spirit can either move or which is much the same thing regulate and determine the motion of a Body But that which I would on this occasion invite you to consider is that supposing the Soul does in the Brain perceive the differing motions communicated to the outward Senses yet this however it may give some account of Sensation in general will not at all show us a satisfactory Reason of particular and distinct Sensations For if I demand why for Instance when I look upon a Bell that is ringing such a motion or impression in the Conarion produces in the mind that peculiar sort of perception Seeing and not Hearing and another motion though coming from the same Bell at the same time produces that quite differing sort of perception that we call Sound but not Vision what can be answered but that it was the good pleasure of the Author of Humane Nature to have it so And if the question be ask'd about the differing Objects of any one particular Sense as Why the great plenty of unperturbed Light that is reflected from Snow Milk c does produce a Sensation of whiteness rather than redness or yellowness Or why the smell of Castor or Assa foetida produces in most persons that which they call a Stink rather than a Perfume especially since we know some Hysterical Women that think it not onely a wholesome but a pleasing smell And if also you further ask why Melody and sweet things do generally delight us and discords and bitter things do generally displease us Nay why a little more than enough of some Objects that produce pleasure will produce pain as may be exemplifi'd in a cold hand as it happens to be held out at a just or at too near a distance from the fire If I say these and a thousand other questions of the like kind be ask'd the Answer will be but the general one that is already given that such is the nature of Man For to say that moderate Motions are agreeable to the nature of the Sensory they are excited in but violent and disorderly ones as jâ—ring Sounds and scorching Heat do put it into too violent a motion for its Texture will by no means satisfie For besides that this Answer gives no account of the variety of Sensations of the same kind as of differing Colours Tastes c. but reaches onely to Pleasure and Pain even as to these it will reach but a very little way unless the Givers of it can show how an Immaterial Substance should be more harm'd by the brisker motion of a Body than by the more languid And as you and your Friend think you may justly smile at the Aristotelians for imagining that they have given a tolerable account of the Qualities of Bodies when they have told us that they spring from certain substantial Forms though when they are ask'd particular Questions about these Incomprehensible Forms they do in effect but tell us in general that they have such and such Faculties or Effects because Nature or the Author of Nature endow'd them therewith so I hope you will give me leave to think that it may keep us from boasting of the Clearness and Certainty of our knowledge about the Operations of sensible Objects whilst as the Aristotelians cannot particularly show how their Qualities are produc'd so we cannot particularly explicate how they are perceiv'd the principal thing that we can say being in substance this that our Sensations depend upon such an union or permistion of the Soul and Body as we can give no Example of in all Nature nor no more distinct account of than that it pleased God so to couple them together But I beg your pardon for having detain'd you so long upon one Subject though perhaps it will not prove time mis-spent if it have made you take notice that in spight of the clearness and certainty for which your Friend so much prefers Physicks before Theology we are Yet to seek I say Yet because I know not what Time may Hereafter discover both for the Definition of a Corporeal Substance and a satisfactory account of the manner of Sensation though without the true Notion of a Body we cannot understand that Object of Physicks in general and without knowing the Nature of Sensation we cannot know That from whence we derive almost all that we know of any Body in particular If after all this your Friend shall say That Des-Cartes's account of Body and other things in Physicks being the best that men can give if they be not satisfactory it must be imputed to Humane Nature not to the Cartesian Doctrine I shall not stay to dispute how far the allegation is true especially since though it be admitted it will not prejudice my Discourse For whatsoever the Cause of the imperfection of our Knowledge about Physical matters be that there is an Imperfection in that Knowledge is manifest and that ought to be enough to keep us from being puffed up by such an imperfect Knowledge and from undervaluing upon its account the study of those mysteries of Divinity which by reason of the Nobleness and Remoteness of the Objects may much better than the Nature of Corporeal things which we see and feel and continually converse with have their obscurity attributed to the weakness of our humane Understandings And if it be a necessary Imperfection
who determines in favour of Divine Truths were such an one as was less acquainted than our over-weening Naturalists with the secrets of their Idoliz'd Physicks or if he were though an Intelligent yet like an Angel a Bare Contemplator of what we call the Works of Nature without having any Interest in their Productions your Friends not acquiescing in his estimate of things might have though not a fair Excuse yet a stronger Temptation But when he by whose direction we prefer the higher Truths revealed in the Scripture before those which Reason alone teaches us concerning those comparatively mean Subjects things Corporeal is the same God that not onely understands the whole Universe and all its parts far more perfectly than a Watch-maker can understand one of his own Watches in which he can give an account onely of the Contrivance and not of the Cause of the Spring nor the Nature of the Gold Steel and other Bodies his Watch consists of but did make both this great Automaton the World and Man in it We have no colour to imagine that he should either be ignorant of or injuriously disparage his own Workmanship or impose upon his Favourite-Creature Man in directing him what sort of Knowledge he ought most to covet and prize So that since 't is He who fram'd the World and all those things in it we most admire that would have us prefer the knowledge he has vouchsafed us in his Word before that which he has allow'd us of his Works sure 't is very unreasonable and unkind to make the Excellencies of the Workmanship a disparagement to the Author and the Effects of his Wisdom a Motive against acquiescing in the Decisions of his Judgment as if because he is to be admir'd for his Visible Productions he were not to be believ'd when he tells us that there are Discoveries that contain Truths more valuable than those which relate but to the Objects that he has expos'd to all men's Eyes The fifth Section I Doubt I should be guilty of a most important Omission if I should here forget to consider One thing which I fear has a main stroak in the Partiality your Friend expresseth in his preference of Physicks to Theology and that is That he supposes he shall by the Former acquire a Fame both more Certain and more Durable than can be hop'd for from the Latter And I acknowledge not onely with readiness but with somewhat of Gratulation of the felicity of this Age That there is scarce any sort of Knowledge more in request than that which Natural Philosophy pretends to teach and that among the awaken'd and inquisitive part of Mankind as much Reputation and Esteem may be gain'd by an insight into the Secrets of Nature as by being intrusted with those of Princes or dignifi'd with the splendid'st marks of their favour But though I readily confess thus much and though perhaps I may be thought to have had I know not by what fate as great a share of that perfum'd Smoak Applause as at least some of those which among the Writers that are now alive your Friend seems most to Envy for it yet I shall not scruple to tell you partly from observation of what has happen'd to others and partly too upon some little Experience of my own that neither is it so easie as your Friend seems to believe it to get by the study of Nature a sure and lasting Reputation neither ought the Expectation of it in reason make men undervalue the study of Divinity Nor would it here avail to object by way of prevention that the Difficulties and Impediments of acquiring and securing Reputation lie as well in the way of Divines as Philosophers since this Objection has been already consider'd at the beginning of this Second Part of our present Tract Besides that the progress of our Discourse will shew that the Naturalist aspiring to fame is liable to some Inconveniences which are either not at all or not near equally incident to the Divine Wherefore without staying to take any further notice of this preventive Allegation I shall proceed to make good the first part of the Assertion that preceded it which that I may the more fully do give me leave after having premised That a man must either be a Writer or forbear to Print what he knows to propose to you the following Considerations And first if your Physeophilus should think to secure a great Reputation by forbearing to couch any of his Thoughts or Experiments in Writing he may thereby find himself not a little mistaken For if once he have gain'd a repute upon what account soever of knowing some things that may be useful to others or of which studious men are wont to be very desirous he will not avoid the Visits and Questions of the Curious Or if he should affect a Solitude and be content to hide himself that he may hide the things he knows yet he will not escape the sollicitations that will be made him by Letters And if these ways of tempting him to disclose himself prevail not at all with him to do so he will provoke the Persons that have employ'd them who finding themselves disoblieg'd by being defeated of their Desires if not also their Expectations will for the most part endeavour to revenge themselves on him by giving him the Character of an uncourteous and ill-natur'd person and will endeavour perhaps successfully enough to decry his parts by suggesting That his affected Concealments proceed but from a Conscientiousness that the things he is presum'd to possess are but such as if they should begin to be known would cease to be valu'd You will say perchance that so much reservedness is a fault Nor shall I dispute it with you whether it be or not but if he be open and communicative in Discourse to those Strangers that come to pump him such is the disingenious temper of too too many that he will be in great danger of having his Notions or Experiments arrogated by those to whom he imparts them or at least by others to whom those may though perchance designlessly happen to discourse of them And then if either Physeophylus or any of his Friends that know him to be Author of what is thus usurp'd should mention him as such the Usurpers and their Friends would presently become his Enemies and to secure their own Reputation will be sollicitous to lessen and blemish his And if you should now tell me that your Friend might here take a Middle way as that which in most cases is thought to be the best by discoursing at such a rate of his Discoveries as may somewhat gratifie those that have a Curiosity to learn them and yet not speak so clearly as divest himself of his Propriety in them I should reply That neither is this Expedient a sure one nor free from Inconveniences For most men are so self-opinionated that they will easily believe themselves Masters of things if they do but half understand them And
so much as pretended to be understood and having upon these slight and narrow Principles reduc'd Physicks into a kind of System which the judicious Modesty of the Corpuscularians had made them backward to do the Reputation that his great Pupil Alexander as well as his Learning gave him the Easiness of the way he propos'd to the attainment of Natural Philosophy the good luck his Writings had to survive those of Democritus and almost all the rest of the Corpuscularians when Charles the Great began to establish Learning in Europe These I say and some other lucky Accidents that concurr'd did for about seven or eight hundred years together make the Corpuscularian Philosophy not onely be Justled but even Exploded out of the Schools by the Peripatetick which in our Times is by very many upon the Revival of the Corpuscularian Philosophy rejected and by more than a few derided as precarious unintelligible and useless And to give an instance in a particular thing which though formerly named deserves to be again mention'd to our present purpose Aristotle himself somewhere confesses not to say brags that the Greek Philosophers his Predecessors did unanimously teach that the World was I say not Created but Made and yet He almost by his single Authority and the subtile Arguments as some have been pleased to think them that he employ'd though divers of them were borrow'd of Ocellus Lucanus was able for many Ages to introduce into the Schools of Philosophers that Irreligious and Ill-grounded Opinion of the Eternity of the World which afterwards the Christian Doctrine made men begin to question and which now both that and Right Reason have perswaded most men to reject And this invites me to consider farther That the present success of the Opinions that your Physeophilus befriends ought not to make him so sure as he thinks he is that the same Opinions will be always in the same or greater Vogue and have the same Advantages in point of General Esteem that they now have over their Corrivals For Opinions seem to have their Fatal Seasons and Vicissitudes as well as other things as may appear not onely by the Examples of it newly given but also by the Hypothesis of the Earths Motion which having been in great request before Pythagoras who yet is commonly thought the Inventor of it had its Reputation much increas'd by the suffrage of the famous Sect of the Pythagoreans whom Aristotle himself takes notice of as the Patrons of that Opinion and yet afterwards for near 2000 years it was laugh'd at as not onely false but ridiculous After all which time this so long antiquated Opinion being reviv'd by Copernicus has in a little time made so great a progress among the modern Astronomers and Philosophers that if it go on to prevail at the same rate the Motion of the Earth will be acknowledg'd by all its Mathematical Inhabitants But though it be often the Fate of an oppress'd Truth to have at length a Resurrection yet 't is not always its peculiar priviledge for Obsolete Errours are sometimes reviv'd as well as discredited Truths So that the general disrepute of an Opinion in one Age will not give us an absolute security that 't will not be in as general Request in another in which it may perhaps not onely Revive but Reign Nor is it onely in the Credit of mens Opinions about Philosophical Matters that we may observe an Inconstancy and Vicissitude but in the very Way and Method of Philosophizing for Democritus Plato Pythagoras and others who were of the more sincere and ingenious Cultivators of Physicks among the Greeks exercis'd themselves chiefly either in making particular Experiments and Observations as Democritus did in his manifold Dissections of Animals or else apply'd the Mathematicks to the Explicating of a particular Phaenomenon of Nature as may appear not to mention what Hero teaches in his Pneumaticks by the Accounts Democritus Plato and others give of Fire and other Elements from the Figure and Motion of the Corpuscles they consist of And although this way of Philosophizing were so much in request before Aristotle that albeit he unluckily brought in another yet there are manifest and considerable footsteps of it to be met with in some of his Writings and particularly in his Books of Animals and his Mechanical Questions yet the Scholastick followers of Aristotle did for many Ages neglect the way of Philosophizing of the Antients and to the great prejudice of Learning introduc'd every where in stead of it a quite contrary way of Writing For not onely they laid aside the Mathematicks of which they were for the most part very ignorant but instead of giving us Intelligible and Explicite if not Accurate Accounts of particular Subjects grounded upon a distinct and heedful Consideration of them they contented themselves with hotly disputing in general certain unnecessary or at least unimportant questions about the Objects of Physicks about Materia Prima Substantial Forms Privation Place Generation Corruption and other such general things with which when they had quite tyr'd themselves and their Readers they usually remain'd utter strangers to the particular Productions of that Nature about which they had so much wrangled and were not able to give a man so much true and useful Information about Particular Bodies as even the meanest Mechanicks such as Mine-diggers Butchers Smiths and even Dary-maids could do Which made their Philosophy appear so Imperfect and Useless not onely to the Generality of Men but to the more Elevated and Philosophical Wits that our great Verulam attempted with much Skill and Industry and not without some Indignation to restore the more modest and useful way practis'd by the Antients of Inquiring into particular Bodies without hastening to make Systems into the Request it formerly had wherein the admirable Industry of two of our London Physicians Gilbert and Harvey has not a little assisted him And I need not tell you that since Him Des-Cartes Gassendus and others having taken in the Application of Geometrical Theorems for the Explication of Physical Problems He and They and Other Restorers of Natural Philosophy have brought the Experimental and Mathematical way of Inquiring into Nature into at least as high and growing an Esteem as ever it possess'd when it was most in Vogue among the Naturalists that preceded Aristotle To the Considerations I have hitherto deduc'd which perhaps might alone suffice for my purpose I shall yet subjoyn one that I take to be of greater weight than any of them for the manifesting how difficult it is to be sure that the Physical Opinions which at present procure a Champion or Promoter of them Veneration shall be still in request For besides that inconstant Fate of applauded Opinions which may be imputed to the Inconstancy of Men there is a greater danger that threatens the Aspirers Reputation from the very Nature of things For the most general Principles of all viz. the Figure Bigness Motion and other Mechanical Affections of the
its determinate Bulk and Figure And he that looks upon Sand in a good Microscope will easily perceive that each minute Grain of it has as well it s own size and shape as a Rock or Mountain And when we let fall a great stone and a pibble from the top of a high Building we find not but that the latter as well as the former moves conformably to the Laws of acceleration in heavy Bodies descending And the Rules of Motion are observ'd not onely in Canon Bullets but in Small Shot and the one strikes down a Bird according to the same Laws that the other batters down a Wall And though Nature or rather its Divine Author be wont to work with much finer materials and employ more curious contrivances than Art whence the Structure even of the rarest Watch is incomparably inferiour to that of a Humane Body yet an Artist himself according to the quantity of the matter he imploys the exigency of the design he undertakes and the bigness and shape of the Instruments he makes use of is able to make pieces of work of the same nature or kind of extremely differing bulk where yet the like though not equal Art and Contrivance and oftentimes Motion too may be observ'd As a Smith who with a Hammer and other large Instruments can out of masses of Iron forge great Bars or Wedges and make those strong and heavy Chains that were imploy'd to load Malefactors and even to secure Streets and Gates may with lesser Instruments make smaller Nails and Filings almost as minute as Dust and may yet with finer Tools make Links of a strange Slenderness and Lightness insomuch that good Authors tell us of a Chain of divers Links that was fastned to a Flea and could be mov'd by it and if I mis-remember not I saw something like this besides other Instances that I beheld with pleasure of the Littleness that Art can give to such pieces of Work as are usually made of a considerable bigness And therefore to say that though in Natural Bodies whose bulk is manifest and their structure visible the Mechanical Principles may be usefully admitted that are not to be extended to such portions of Matter whose parts and Texture are invisible may perhaps look to some as if a man should allow that the Laws of Mechanism may take place in a Town-Clock but cannot in a Pocket-Watch or to give you an instance mixt of Natural and Artificial as if because the Terraqueous Globe is a vast Magnetical Body of seven or eight thousand miles in Diameter one should affirm that Magnetical Laws are not to be expected to be of force in a spherical piece of Loadstone that is not perhaps an inch long And yet Experience shews us that notwithstanding the inestimable disproportion betwixt these two Globes the Terrella as well as the Earth hath its Poles Aequator and Meridians and in divers other Magnetical Properties emulates the Terrestrial Globe They that to solve the Phaenomena of Nature have recourse to Agents which though they involve no self-repugnancy in their very Notions as many of the Judicious think Substantial Forms and Real Qualities to do yet are such that we conceive not how they operate to bring effects to pass These I say when they tell us of such indeterminate Agents as the Soul of the World the Universal Spirit the Plastic Power and the like though they may in certain cases tell us some things yet they tell us nothing that will satisfie the Curiosity of an Inquisitive Person who seeks not so much to know what is the general Agent that produces a Phenomenon as by what Means and after what Manner the Phenomenon is produc'd The famous Sennerâ—us and some other Learned Physicians tell us of Diseases which proceed from Incantation but sure 't is but a very slight account that a sober Physician that comes to visit a Patient reported to be bewitch'd receives of the strange Symptoms he meets with and would have an account of if he be coldly answer'd That 't is a Witch or the Devil that produces them and he will never sit down with so short an account if he can by any means reduce those extravagant Symptoms to any more known and stated Diseases as Epilepsies Convulsions Hysterical Fits c. and if he can not he will confess his knowledge of this Distemper to come far short of what might be expected and attain'd in other Diseases wherein he thinks himself bound to search into the Nature of the Morbific Matter and will not be satisfi'd till he can probably at least deduce from that and the structure of an Humane Body and other concurring Physical Causes the Phaenomena of the Malady And it would be but little satisfaction to one that desires to understand the causes of what occurrs to observation in a Watch and how it comes to point at and strike the hours to be told That 't was such a Watch-maker that so contriv'd it Or to him that would know the true cause of an Eccho to be answer'd That 't is a Man a Vault or a Wood that makes it And now at length I come to consider that which I observe the most to alienate other Sects from the Mechanical Philosophy namely that they think it pretends to have Principles so Universal and so Mathematical that no other Physical Hypothesis can comport with it or be tolerated by it But this I look upon as an easie indeed but an important mistake because by this very thing that the Mechanical Principles are so universal and therefore applicable to so many things they are rather fitted to include than necessitated to exclude any other Hypothesis that is founded in Nature as far as it is so And such Hypotheses if prudently consider'd by a skilful and moderate person who is rather dispos'd to unite Sects than multiply them will be found as far as they have Truth in them to be either Legitimately though perhaps not immediately deducible from the Mechanical Principles or fairly reconcilable to them For such Hypotheses will probably attempt to account for the Phaenomena of Nature either by the help of a determinate number of material Ingredients such as the Tria Prima of the Chymists by participation whereof other Bodies obtain their Qualities or else by introducing some general Agents as the Platonic Soul of the World or the Universal Spirit asserted by some Spagyrists or by both these ways together Now to dispatch first those that I named in the second place I consider that the chief thing that Inquisitive Naturalists should look after in the explicating of difficult Phaenomena is not so much what the Agent is or does as what changes are made in the Patient to bring it to exhibit the Phaenomena that are propos'd and by what means and after what manner those changes are effected So that the Mechanical Philosopher being satisfied that one part of Matter can act upon another but by vertue of Local Motion or the effects and
consequences of Local Motion he considers that as if the propos'd Agent be not Intelligible and Physical it can never Physically explain the Phaenomena so if it be Intelligible and Physical 't will be reducible to Matter and some or other of those onely Catholick affections of Matter already often mentioned And the indefinite divisibility of Matter the wonderful efficacy of Motion and the almost infinite variety of Coalitions and Structures that may be made of minute and insensible Corpuscles being duly weighed I see not why a Philosopher should think it impossible to make out by their help the Mechanical possibility of any corporeal Agent how subtil or diffus'd or active soever it be that can be solidly proved to be really existent in Nature by what name soever it be call'd or disguis'd And though the Cartesians be Mechanical Philosophers yet according to them their Materia Subtilis which the very name declares to be a corporeal Substance is for ought I know little if it be at all less diffus'd through the Universe or less active in it than the Universal Spirit of some Spagyrists not to say the Anima Mundi of the Platonists But this upon the by after which I proceed and shall venture to add That whatever be the Physical Agent whether it be inanimate or living purely Corporeal or united to an Intellectual Substance the above mention'd changes that are wrought in the Body that is made to exhibit the Phaenomena may be effected by the same or the like means or after the same or the like manner as for instance if Corn be reduc'd to Meal the Materials and shape of the Milstones and their peculiar Motion and Adaptation will be much of the same kind and though they should not yet to be sure the grains of Corn will suffer a various contrition and comminution in their passage to the form of Meal whether the Corn be ground by a Water-mill or a Wind-mill or a Horse-mill or a Hand-mill that is by a Mill whose Stones are turned by Inanimate by Brute or by Rational Agents And if an Angel himself should work a real change in the nature of a Body 't is scarce conceivable to us Men how he could do it without the assistance of Local Motion since if nothing were displac'd or otherwise mov'd than before the like hapning also to all external Bodies to which it related 't is hardly conceivable how it should be in it self other than just what it was before But to come now to the other sort of Hypotheses formerly mention'd if the Chymists or others that would deduce a compleat Natural Philosophy from Salt Sulphur and Mercury or any other set number of Ingredients of things would well consider what they undertake they might easily discover That the material parts of Bodies as such can reach but to a small part of the Phaenomena of Nature whilst these Ingredients are consider'd but as Quiescent things and therefore they would find themselves necessitated to suppose them to be active and That things purely Corporeal cannot be but by means of Local Motion and the effects that may result from that accompanying variously shap'd siz'd and aggregated parts of Matter So that the Chymists and other Materialists if I may so call them must as indeed they are wont to do leave the greatest part of the Phaenomena of the Universe unexplicated by the help of the Ingredients be they fewer or more than three of Bodies without taking in the Mechanical and more comprehensive affections of Matter especially Local Motion I willingly grant that Salt Sulphur and Mercury or some Substances analogous to them are to be obtain'd by the action of the Fire from a very great many dissipable Bodies here below nor would I deny that in explicating divers of the Phaenomena of such Bodies it may be of use to a skilful Naturalist to know and consider that this or that Ingredient as Sulphur for instance does abound in the Body propos'd whence it may be probably argu'd that the Qualities that usually accompany that Principle when Predominant may be also upon its score found in the Body that so plentifully partakes of it But not to mention what I have elsewhere shown that there are many Phaenomena to whose explication this knowledge will contribute very little or nothing at all I shall onely heâ—e observe that though Chymical Explications be sometimes the most obvious and ready yet they are not the most fundamental and satisfactory For the Chymical Ingredient it self whether Sulphur or any other must owe its nature and other qualities to the union of insensible particles in a convenient Size Shape Motion or Rest and Contexture all which are but Mechanical Affections of convening Corpuscles And this may be illustrated by what happens in Artificial Fire-works For though in most of those many differing sorts that are made either for the use of War or for Recreation Gunpowder be a main Ingredient and divers of the Phaenomena may be deriv'd from the greater or lesser measure wherein the Compositions partake of it yet besides that there may be Fire-works made without Gun-powder as appears by those made of old by the Greeks and Romans Gun-powder it self owes its aptness to be fir'd and exploded to the Mechanical Contexture of more simple portions of Matter Nitre Charcoal and Sulphur and Sulphur it self though it be by many Chymists mistaken for an Hypostatical Principle owes its Inflammability to the convention of yet more simple and primary Corpuscles since Chymists confess that it has an inflammable Ingredient and experience shews that it very much abounds with an acid and uninflammable Salt and is not quite devoide of Terrestreity I know it may be here alledg'd that the productions of Chymical Analyses are simple Bodies and upon that account irresoluble But that divers Substances which Chymists are pleased to call the Salts or Sulphurs or Mercuries of the Bodies that afforded them are not simple and homogeneous has elsewhere been sufficiently proved nor is their not being easily dissipable or resoluble a clear proof of their not being made up of more primitive portions of matter For compounded and even decompounded Bodies may be as difficultly resoluble as most of those that Chymists obtain by what they call their Analysis by the Fire witness common green Glass which is far more durable and irresoluble than many of those that pass for Hypostatical Substances And we see that some Amels will be several times even vitrified in the Fire without losing their Nature or oftentimes so much as their colour and yet Amel is manifestly not onely a compounded but a decompounded Body consisting of Salt and Powder of Pebbles or Sand and calcin'd Tinn and if the Amel be not white usually of some tinging Metall or Mineral But how indestructible soever the Chymical Principles be suppos'd divers of the Operations ascrib'd to them will never be well made out without the help of Local Motion and that diversified too without which we can