A REPLY UNTO THE LETTER WRITTEN TO M r. HENRY STUBBE IN DEFENSE OF THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY Whereunto is added a Preface against Ecebolius Glanvill and an answer to the Letter of D r HENRY MORE Containing A REPLY TO THE UNTRUTHES He hath publish'd AND A CENSURE OF THE CABBALO-PYTHAGORICAL Philosophy by him promoted Spissis indigna theatris Scripta pudet recitare nugis addere pondus OXFORD Printed for Richard Davis 1671. THE LETTER TO M r. HENRY STUBS Concerning his Censure upon certain passages contained in the History of the Royal Society SIR WHEN I was lately at Warwick I purposed to have waited upon you but I was told by a Person of Quality and of your acquaintance that you were gone to Oxford with a great carriage of Books to write against the Royal Society and the reason of this enterprize was given to your disswading Friends that the Society did design to bring in Poperty The accusation 1 confe§ seemed to me very strange but what was more wonderful is such mighty Zeal for any one Religion and against That This calleth to my mind a discourse which you made one day at White-Hall to a Christ-Church Man and my self immediately after your return from Jamaica where you told us of a Provincial of the Dominicans who being a Prisoner there had perswaded you to go and live with him in the Spanish Plantations as being a place in wich you might very gainfully practice Physick and Nothing as you said hindred your complyance with his overtures but only this that you could not have carried away hereafter the Effects of your estate but must have left it if you had left the Country In all which account of the transactions betwixt that Provincial who was of the Inquisition and your self you skewed so much gentle calmne§ of mind in the affair of changing Religion that I was almost ready to have pronounced that some one had stoln your Name and put it to the Censure till I was better informed that your quarrel to this Assembly is so unappeasable that you would fall out with any Religion which they favoured and that if they had of each kind amongst them you would entertain no sort at all I must profe§ I always esteemed you by your Printed Papers a Man of excellent contradicting parts and I thought you would in this book have done as good service to Aristotle as a grave Dignitary of Canterbury hath lately rendred to him when he very industriously maintains that the Philosopher in his Ethicks did teach what is the summum bonum as well as David could when he set himself on purpose to treat of the same Argument in the first Psal. or that you would have repeated some of the least natural experiments laught at them and then with very good conduct of stile made all the rest appear ridiculous But you 'l say that may be done hereafter but a present Religion Religion is in danger and therefore you must succour your Dear Mother the Church of England It is done like a good Child and further I must commend you as a generous enemy in your censure of the Historian He is a Clergy-man and herein you challenge him at his own Weapon And if you vanquish him in this Encounter you may expect to make both your Reputation and his lo§ very considerable being that in England a Church-man suffers more for being Popishly affected then for being a favourer of the New Philosophy But I 'le tell you what falls out very unluckily This History was not Licensed as could have been wisht by the President of the Royal Society For then a Man might have charged every impious and pernicious Paragraph upon that large body of Men but so it is that it comes abroad into the World with an Imprimatur from Secretary Morrice of whom we cannot perswade the people to believe otherwise but that he stands two or three removes off from Popery But now at last give me leave as a By-stander to lock over your Game and privately to advize you where the other side may espy any advantage As the first instance of a passage in the History Destructive to the Religion and Church of England viz. While the Bishops of Rome did assume an infallibility and a Sovereign Dominion over our Faith the reformed Churches did not only justly refuse to grant them that but some of them thought themselves obliged to forbear all Communion and would not give them that respect which possibly might belong to so Antient and so Famous a Church and which might still have been allowed it without any danger of Superstition If any one should undertake a defence against your censure it is probable that he would say somewhat to this purpose that by Communion there mentioned the Author did not mean that the reformed Churches should joyn with them in all or the most important acts of worship being that hereby they must at all adventures yeild to the points of the controversie wich the Roman infallibility would thrust upon them for he tells us that our Churches did justly refuse to grant them that but he explains what he intends by Communion when he doth immediately add that they refused to give them that respect c. Now who can say that Communion if taken for Divine Worship can be the same with respect that it stewed to a Society of Men and whereas you seem to argue from the notion of the word Communion as if it were the same with the Lords Supper it may by replyed that the one sence wherein it may be understood throughout the whole Scripture is a friendly and charitable action and from this we cannot except that verse which you alledge and in this sence it is not impious to say that we should not forbear all Communion or deny to give that respect which possibly might belong to so ancient and so famous a Church Nor can I see that these Titles bestowed on Rome are so faulty since there are methods of speech in our language suitable hereunto whereby we call that antient and famous not which is so at present but what was such a long time ago and continued the same for a great while But I will grant that this is not the necessary but only the possible meaning of this Historian Yet at least if the contrary intimation be so hainous good Nature should oblige to understand the phrase in the most favourable manner but supposing he thought that Rome even at the reformation of others though it self was not amended might neverthele§ be called a Church he said no more then what the most learned amongst the German Divines though warm with disputes did readily acknowledge It was usual with them to say that the Church of Rome was truly a Church notwithstanding that it abounded in many and dangerous errours seeing that they retained the main Doctrines of Christian Religion and they indeavoured to clear their assertion by comparing it to a diseased body which
affectation nor design of gain or honor The next Period relates an History of what passed betwixt me and a Dominican Provincial and Inquisitor about my removal from Jamaica to Mexico and Peru. I shall not deny the general Truth of the Narration but since the alteration of a Word or two may vary much the odium or truth of a Story I must remind this Adversary that the person I design'd to accompany but was hindred with Sickness was a Carmelite not a Dominican and that he never so much as proposed to me the change of my Religion the strictness of the Spaniards there not being such as in Europe and I did upon particular Inquiry from some that had been there receive assurances That Physicians Chirurgions and Gunners were so necessary there and so welcome that a prudent Person of those qualifications needed not to apprehend the danger of any Inquisitor indeed the power of that sort of men is not the same within the Patrimony of the King of Spain so those Territories are called and in the Patrimony of S. Peter Had I as the Virtuosi and others do propos'd a Voyage to Spain or Italy doth it infer a design of changing my Religion yet in all this Story as it is represented by themselves there is no more said by me then would have been convincing in those other cases were the Argument good Oh! that a Cabinet of the Virtuosi should reason thus pittifully Surely Ignorance is infectious and 't is possible for Men to grow Fools by contact That which follows hereupon is so ridiculous that were my Dreams but so incoherent and impertinent I would apprehend some eminent Distraction and cause my self to be let Blood and I advise my Adversaries speedily to transfer themselves from Arundel house to Bedlam or convert the Appartments which they enjoy now into convenient Receptacles for such Franticks Should I grant the truth of the Story with all the advantages they could wish to have been added thereunto doth it follow that because I might intend to change my Religion at Mexico that therefore I would alter it in England considering the posture of our Nation not at all but with such as the Virtuosi those prudent Persons that understand Men and reasons of State so well Nor are they more imprudent in that suggestion That my quarrel to the R. S. was so unappeasable that I would fall out with any Religion which they favored and that if they had of each kinde amongst them I would entertain no sort at all I say this Suggestion becomes not intelligent Persons for how great soever my Quarrel were against them 't is to be supposed I would prosecute it by befitting means and such as were subservient to my ends but to fall out with any Religion they should favor if it were not untrue destructive to the Monarchy Laws and Nation were to defeat and overthrow my intentions and consequently such a procedure was not to be fixed on me except they had first proved that I was a Member of the R. S. I adde that if my animosity against them had transported me so far as they represent if I were resolute to oppose whatsoever Religion any of theirs held I must consequently renounce Atheism and all irreligion those being as 't is to be fear'd the important qualifications of some of the Comediants and assert Protestancy that being the Religion from which many of them are averse and for which as it is established in the Church of England others are not over-zealously concern'd That which ensues hereupon is very dull and flat the course how to attacque and overthrow these Ignorants was not to be prescribed unto me by them and methinks 't is great Impudence in them after that I have published these other Pieces besides the Censure to upbraid me as if they were not extant and whatever relates to their Experiments their vanity and falshood and Plagiarisme were still un-printed It was not my design to give precedence to the Censure but they having procured a stop upon the promulgation of the other Books I inverted the Method making them odious first and then ridiculous But if I had done it voluntarily am I to be blamed for preferring the advancement or continuance of Protestancy before that of Natural Philosophy though the last were better improved then these Comical Wits can ever attempt I think that Reverend Divine of Canterbury merits our good esteem for his generous respects to deceased Aristotle however his Age and different Studies incapacitated him to carry on the Quarrel so far as to over-throw totally these Innovators Yet since it was not my intent to defend the truth but the utility of the Aristotelian Physiology I shall not suffer my self to be engaged beyond my first thoughts or permit that the Original and Primary Controversies sink into oblivion by any excursions and digressive Contests My Adversaries confess That a Church-man in England suffers more for being Popishly affected then for being a favourer of the New Philosophy It is my judgement therefore that they ought to be very sollicitous how they incur any such scandal and endeavour timely to remove it I am not conscious to my self at all of having mis-represented the Words of the Historian or having imposed on him other sense then the Words will or do bear I now come to consider what the History is unto the Virtuosi and how far I may conceive them interested in its Tenets My Adversaries say That the History was not Licensed by the President of the Royal Society for then a Man might have charged every impious and pernicious Paragraph upon that large body of Men but so it is that it comes abroad into the World with an Imprimatur from Secretary Morrice of whom we cannot perswade the People to believe otherwise but that he stands two or three removes off from Popery If that the R. S. had made an authentick Declaration of this Point it had been material but the profession of a nameless Pamphlet concludes not the Body When Olaus Borrichius was at London and familiarly conversed with the generality of the Virtuosi even the most eminent of the number the Intelligence which that inquisitive Person gives to Bartholinus is thus expressed Sociorum nemo posthac quicquam in lucem emittet nisi prius communi suffragio approbatum ne aliorum praesertim vitilitigatorum ungues reformidet This Letter bears date 1663. Aug. 10. Londini and contains that account of the R. S. which he was from their own mouthes to communicate unto Foreigners and in confidence of this promise of theirs which is divulged every where in Germany certain Foreigners of great Learning have expostulated with me for avowing and proving them to be so negligent But since my Adversaries will here allow no other Book to be Entitled unto the R. S. but what is Licensed by their President I will digress a little to shew their failure even where the Authentick Brouncker P.R.S. is prefixed
did not publickly and personally read it I am apt to grant The Comediants had not patience to read it or any Book of that bulk but as in other cases gave their assent and applauds upon trust But that the R. S. did own it any man knows that was in London at its publication not to mention the Character which Mr. Glanvill and the Transactor fix on it Moreover when the first brute of my designing to write against the R. S. did reach London Sir R. M. writ to the Lady E. P. to inform them of my intentions adding That there was nothing in which the R. S. as a Body could be concern'd excepting this History and if I would civilly represent unto them any defaults therein they would take it kindly and amend them Hereupon I writ unto Him as a Person whom I greatly honor and who hath in all his undertakings and employments which have been neither mean nor facile expressed a wit prudence and conduct that is uncommon to which if I adde those other Imbellishments which his Mathematical and other Natural Studies have qualifyed him with this Age can hardly equal Him To Him I writ complaining of the Indignities put upon my faculty by Mr. Glanvill and their History represented the Pernicious tendency of those Books in reference to the Monarchy Religion and Learning of this Kingdom and DEMANDED that the R. S. should disclaim both of them by some authentick Declaration or I would not desist whatsoever might befall me But no repeated desires or Sollicitations of mine could prevail with them to disclaim the History the other they were less concerned for saying He was a Private Person and that the sense of the R. S. was not to be collected from the Writings of every single Member Thus could I not extort from their grandeur any just Declaration whereby to satisfie either the Kingdom in general or to oblige the Physicians in particular After that they had denyed me the returns of Common Equity I proceeded in that manner which I need not relate The Concerns they all along express'd were more then a little tenderness for a Fellow of the R. S. The menaces they made and which were noised thorow Court and City shewed that I had greater Opponents then the Author of the History What meant the Resolution I do not say Vote of the R. S. to give me no other answer but that three or four of their ingenious young-men should write my Life How comes this great concern for a Book in which they are not interested When the Censure came out why did several eminent Members presently report and represent to the ___ that I had thereby libelled His Majesty and pressed to have me whipped at a Carts-tail through London That Censure touches not the R. S. but only reflects on the Historian and that modestly though severely And to what heighth their exasperations and power might have carryed things I know not but a generous Personage altogether unknown to me being present bravely and frankly interposed saying to this purpose That whatever I was I was a Roman that English-men were not so precipitously to be condemned to so exemplary a punishment as to be whipped thorow London That the representing of that Book to be a Libel against the King was too remote and too prejudicial a consequence to be admitted of in a Nation Free-born governed by Laws and tender of ill presidents Thus spake that excellent English man the great ornament of this Age Nation and House of Commons He whose single worth ballanceth much of the Debaucheries Follies and Impertinences of the Kingdom in whose breast that Gallantry is lodged which the prevalence of the Virtuosi made me suspect to have been extinguished amongst us After all this who can judge that the R. S. is so little engaged in the Controversie as this Pamphlet suggests But to see to what a period they have brought things The whole effects of the Victory are yielded unto me for the Design I pursued and which I said I would make them to doe was the disclaiming of their History and having done this I am sure I have performed a considerable service to my Country and all other Disputes are but Circumstantial and such as Conquerors often meet with after an entire Rout to be encumbred with some Parties of the scattered Enemy and to be amused with Retrenchments and Passes But this Renunciation contents not me because it is not avowed nor solemn and in such form as to conclude them beyond their pleasure I will make them not only to disown the Book but the Contents thereof as not containing their Sentiments and to adde that they condemn all such as under pretence of new and Experimental Philosophy or any Mechanical Education do decry all Learning and vary that breeding which is absolutely necessary to the welfare of our Monarchy Religion and Kingdom Let Them but declare this effectually and I shall impose a Silence upon my self and willingly sink under their malice and obloquy for the publick utility Having thus acknowledged that the R. S. are not concern'd to avow the History my Adversaries proceed to give some account of the Passages I had chosen to censure In the first Passage I am to complain that since the Author of the History and another eminent Person read over this Piece yet the sence of them which writ the History is not represented the Question still remaining What the Authors meant 'T is here said I will grant that this is not the necessary but the possible meaning of this Historian yet at least if the contrary intimation be so hainous good nature should oblige to understand the Phrase in the most favorable meaning ___ If that the Historian had not been of the champerty this Passage had been more plausible but Oh! Virtuosi have a care how you mention Good nature it had been an excess of Charity and culpable whil'st that our Jealousies are such as they are and that the credit of the History remained entire to have passed by those words which were so inconsistent with our Church and the Religion established without demanding an Explication or renunciation of them I adde That the sense of my Adversaries is not consistent with the words and therefore not possible nor could any goodness of Nature but meer insensibility subject a Man to this construction If that by Communion may be meant without further import a Friendly and charitable action then by the doctrine of Equipollency if those words be substituted instead of the other the sense will be entire but our Experimentators never essayed this I will assist them in this as in other cases It is natural to mens minds when they perceive others to arrogate more to themselves then is their share to deny them even that which else they would confess to be their right And of the truth of this we have an instance of far greater concernment then that which is before us And that is in Religion
hath Advanced Nothing of Practical and Beneficial Knowledge and Whether all the INVENTIONS that he attributes to the VIRTUOSI belong to them and that the MODERNS can shew more of the WORKS of their Philosophy in SIX YEARS this restrains the notion of the Moderns to the R. S. then the ARISTOTELIANS can produce of THEIRS in thrice so many hundred These being the Questions 't is not enough for him that I grant this or that Discovery to be MODERN but he is to prove it the invention of a Novelist or NEW PHILOSOPHER if not of a Virtuoso Thus if Chymistry descend from the Alexandrine Peripateticks and Arabians If Anatomy were the particular eminency of Erasistratus and Herophilus if Caesalpinus or Harvey discover the Circulation OF THE BLOOD 't is for the credit of the Man of Stagyra and this Glory appertains unto the Aristotelians whom Mr. Glanvill represents as meer Notionists who still run round in a Labyrinth of Talk but ADVANCE NOTHING 'T is a hopeful Preface or Introduction to his Answer thus to mistake in the Beginning But he is irrecoverably lost as to all Learning all that he flourisheth with is but the remains of a Treacherous Memory which some years agoe studied something or some Collections out of Vossius's Writings concerning the History of Sciences or Translated out of Pancirollus and his Commentator without being able to judge of their Faileurs by what others have censured in them This new Book makes Fust or Gothenberg to have found out Printing whereas he might have learned out of Hadrianus Junius that 't was found out by another at Harlem And that Flavius Goia discovered the Compass Whereas I am confident that no good Author ever styled him Flavius Goia but either Flavius a Seaman of Amalfi or Johannes Goia or Gira of Melfi the Places are distinct and some ascribe it to one some to the other Some say that Paulus Venetus did bring it with him from China in 1260. But most certain it is that Albertus Magnus and Vincentius Belluacensis do speak of the Polarity of the Load-stone and say That the Sea-men used THEM in Navigation and that the knowledge they had of it was derived from a Treatise of ARISTOTLE'S De Lapidibus which is lost and perhaps was but the Writing of an Arabian Peripatetick I adde this to what I have already published thereby to satisfie all Men that this arrogant prating VIRTUOSO is not at all acquainted with Books no not such as are of best Note amongst the Modern Writers as my Margin shews you and 't is by chance not any solid Learning he hath if ever he uttereth any Truth about such subjects of Discourse And I appeal unto all serious Men WHETHER IT BE NOT FOR THE BENEFIT OF ORDINARY CONVERSATION THAT THESE KINDE OF MEN SHOULD EITHER REFRAIN TO SPEAK OF LEARNED SUBJECTS OR PREMISE ALWAYS WHEN THEY INTERPOSE AS A FOOL MAY SAY or one that is unacquainted with History and Books Ecebolius doth find fault with a protestation of mine thus descants on it 'T is a rare Protestation that follows I protest in the presence of Almighty God that if there be not great care taken we may be in a little time reduced to that pass as to believe the Story of Tom Thumb p. 11. Doth Mr. Stubbe seriously think this or doth he not If so he is more ridiculous then one that believes Tom Thumb already If he be not serious in what he saith he is impious in it And if it were another Man one might ask him how he durst in that manner use the Name of God and protest a known and ridiculous Falshood in his Presence I do own the seriousness of my Protestation and yet fear not the inconvenience I am threatned with by this Dilemma I have lived to see Dr. More credit the Miracles of Pythagoras that he speaking to a River the River answered him again with an audible and clear voyce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Salve Pythagora That he shewed his Thigh to Abaris the Priest and that he affirmed it glistened like Gold and thence pronounced that he was Apollo That he was known to converse with his Friends at Metapontium and Tauromenium the one a Town in Italy the other in Sicily and many days journey distant in one and the same day You will find more to the same purpose there and I mention this because Mr. Glanvil's Patron admits of Miracles in a false Religion so did another Virtuoso in a Sermon well known So that I need not say that what I writ is justified by both S. Austin and Calvin and most Protestants that have writ De signis Ecclesiae The same Dr. More saith that the most Learned have already agreed that all the whole Creation was made at once As for example the most rational of all the Jewish Doctors R. Moses Aegyptius Philo fudaeus Procopius Gazaeus Cardinal Cajetan S. Augustine and the Schools of Hillel and Sammai as Manasseh Ben Israel writes That Doctor affords us in his Works an hundred Stories which who so credits is fairly disposed to credit the Fable of Tom Thumb And our Ignoramus would perswade us that Tertullian blamed a famous Physician of His time Herophilus for dissecting Men that the Romans held it unlawful to behold the Entrails That the Grecians and disputing Ages were ignorant of Chymistry with many such untruths which informe us of the dangers our approaching Ignorance will betray us into But my Animadversions on the History and Plus Ultra will convince any Man of this Assertion so that I need not transcribe the Discourse about the Sweating Sickness or what relates to the Hero 's being worshipped with Temples and Altars Let our Bravo boast as much as he please of what Future Reply I may expect I Know the Grand Questions there Discussed are never to be revived by Him except he make such an empty flourish as this is 'T is more easie to talk of Falsifications then to prove them Such Virtuosi as He could do nothing if they could not talk this pretended Experimental Philosophy is degenerated into Words Lyes or stoln Experiments That I may give the World an instance of that Impudence with which Mr. Glanvill demeans himself in this effort of a desperate Ignorance I shall set down what he replies to me about the Deceitfulness of Telescopes the which Point I have so demonstrated in opposition to every particular assertion of his as 't is undenyable I added that if Mr. Crosse was in an error there that I was sure Mr. Boyle was in the same and I cited the Place according to the Latine Edition which I had then onely by me Let us see upon what ground he built his confidence in this first instance by which he impugnes Telescopes Why M. Boyle complains that when he went about to examine those appearances in the Sun called Maculae and Faculae Solares he could not make the least discovery of them in many Moneths
after they had been confirmed by many hundreds of Experiments in that Instrument These he proposed as the Principles of all Demonstrations in Natural Philosophy Nor can it seem strange that these Elements should be of such Universal Use if we consider that Generation Corruption Alteration and all the vicissitudes of Nature are nothing else but the effects arising from the meeting of little Bodies of differing Figures Magnitudes and Velocities This Paragraph doth not indeed confine Supernatural Productions to the Rules of Mechanism But as for all the Ordinary Phaenomena of the Universe and particularly those of Generation Corruption Alteration they are said to be Nothing Else but the effects arising from the meeting of little Bodies of differing Figures Magnitudes and Velocities and the Principles of All Demonstrations in Natural Philosophy are recommended unto us to be deduced from such Theories Out of which it is manifest that they suppose not onely that the Material part of every thing in the Corporeal Universe is Body or Corpuscularian but that the Vicissitudes and Phaenomena occurring therein even in the Generation of Man are the result of Corpuscles moving Mechanically For if it be not granted that every part of the Corporeal Universe or this great Aggregate of Bodies do move in certain Lines according to the determinate Figures thereof and that without the Particular Concourse of an Immaterial Incorporeal Being putting such Corpuscles into this or that Particular Motion and continuing it therein Mechanically then doth the whole Systeme of the Mechanical Philosophy falls to the ground and the Demonstrations cease to be any longer such The very Word Mechanism imports thus much it being an allusion to the conformation of Machines wherein each part contributes to the effect according to its Scituation Size and the Geometrical Proportion it bears to the other Parts of which the Machine is composed And if the Machine do not produce its effect entirely by vertue of such a Geometrical frame we do not say that the Phaenomenon is Mechanical Thus the Motion of a Water or Clock when it ariseth from its Fabrick purely then it is Mechanical but when a Man doth winde it up 't is not a Mechanical motion except it do also appear that Man is also a Machine and that what he operates at that time is purely Mechanical I would not insist upon this Argument from the denomination of the Philosophy if it were not manifest that they that profess it did not desire to be understood so for the whole Hypothesis of the Cartesians doth depend hereon and Sir K. Digby in his Vegetation of Plants a Discourse made in the R. S. as well as in his other Books proceeds on these grounds nor do they or any Mechanical Philosophers demand any more than that God should at first create Matter in such a Quantity such Parts and such Motions thereby to folve all the Phaenomena of Nature without Specificating Forms Plastick Virtues or his particular Concourse to the Action or Production in an Immaterial Way Thus the floating Corpuscles of Salt or Nitre are Mechanically or by the Geometrical necessity of their own Figures and Motions together with the impulse of other Corpuscles in the Air Liquor or Vessel acting in the same Geometrical subordination of Causes precipitated and sized into their peculiar Crystals of Salt and Nitre thus Plants are said to be Generated and the actions of Animals produced and all the vicissitudes of Nature to be NOTHING ELSE And I am willing to allow your Quibble that this is the Mechanical Belief of credulity but you must not go about to perswade me that this is not also that Philosophy which is properly Mechanical and which your Historian doth assert You understand not the state of the Question nor what you have done or you prevaricate when you fay that the Mechanical Philosophy you oppose is such a Mechanical one as professeth That matter having such a quantity of motion as it has would contrive it self into all the Phaenomena we see in nature For these Philosophers do not ascribe Prudence or Contrivance unto Matter or say that Matter can Operate upon or alter it self being both Agent and Patient but that God hath so altered the World and so contrived Matter and its Motions that it runs into all these Phanomena by a Geometrical Necessity arising from the Fabrick And upon this Philosophy you spend your Arguments and enlarge into this Censure Dr. More 's Censure of the Cartesian and Mechanical Philosophy AFter he had exploded the Cartesian Philosophy by the name of not onely purely Mechanical but of the Mechanick Philosophy which professeth the Mechanical deduction of Causes in the explication of the Phaenomena of the World by an Hypothesis as close and necessary as Mathematical Sequels After he had Charactered Des-Cartes for a Person of the greatest-Wit for the extraordinary handsome semblance he makes of deducing all the Phaenomena he has handled necessarily and Mechanically and for hitting on the more immediate Material Causes of things to an high probability and of the greatest Folly that ever yet trod the stage of this Earth And he reputes him so egregious a Fool because he is so credulous as not only to believe that he has necessarily and purely Mechanically solved all the Phaenomena he has treated of in his Philosophy and Meteors but also that all things else may be so solved the Bodies of Plants and Animals not excepted After he had pretended to have demonstrated not only that Des Cartes-mistook about Gravity but that all Mechanical Solutions thereof are impossible it being so manifestly repugnant to the confessed Laws of Mechanicks The Dialogue is thus continued Hyl. It is very true Cuph. That may seem a Demonstration for the present which to Posterity will appear a meer Sophistical knot and they will easily see to loose it Bath I believe by the help of some new-improved Microscopes Philop. Nay but in good earnest O Cuphophron if you will excuse my freedom of speech though I have not that competency of judgement in Philosophical Matters yet I cannot but deem you an over-partial Mechanist that are so devoted to the Cause as not to believe Demonstration against it till Mechanicks be farther improved by Posterity It is as if one would not believe the first Book of Euclid till he had read him all over and all other Mathematical Writers besides For this Phaenomenon of Gravity is one of the simplest that is as the first Book of Euclide one of the easiest Not to adde what a blemish it is to a Person otherwise so Moral and Virtuous to seem to have a greater Zeal for the ostentation of the Mechanical Wit of Men then for the manifestation of the Wisdom of God in Nature Sophr. Excellently well spoken O Philopolis As in water face answers to face so the heart of man to man You have spoken according to the most inward sense and touch of my very soul concerning this matter