the sudden and unexpected alterations of Symptoms in diseased and crasie bodies which so much puzzle Physitians to know whence such sudden changes contrary to their expectation should happen how well do things succeed even according to their desire and sometimes beyond their expectation at some peculiar juncture of time attributed by Astrologers to I know not what configuration of the Planets and on the other hand how cross and thwarting to their hopes things happen at other seasons and all this many times from various excited Ferments in the Air which work differently upon bodies according to variety of constitutions disposition of the Ferments and modification of other parts So also from other alterations in the Air by some winds a verminous ferment is excited as we see in the Spring time when the winds breath long from the East that many Caterpillers and other Insects are produc'd upon Trees and Plants and many times putredinous animated Ferments are brought with winds from cadaverous bodies which floating in the Air prove seminaries to contagious and verminous Diseases whence the great Plague at Milan at which time as Cardan reports the Air was filled yea the very dust of the Earth animated with those contagious Vermicles so that in the Air often lurk secret Ferments which may both produce different symptoms in the same disease as also be the cause of many Epidemical Diseases whose Character I mean of Exotick Ferments may for some time be in the Air before they settle upon Bodies so as to cause a general discomposure And from the same cause very probably it is that Animals which are frequently abroad in the Air have a foresight or presensation of the alterations of Weather whence the ground of Auguration amongst the Ancients for their Bodies being always exposed to change of Air in the variety of weather become thereby in their Texture of parts more capable of being affected with the least changes of Air in which are always the forerunners of certain alterations of weather by the foresaid congress of the minute Particles of Heat Cold Moisture and what else which give being by different Winds from diverse quarters to changes of weather Thus Cranes are observed by some Naturalists that when they fly softly and silently do presage fair weather but when they hasten make a great noise and fly in a disturbed order do predict Storms so likewise Storks and Wild-Geese as Wolfangius tells us in his Historia animalium Sacra and therefore Storks and Cranes before the coming of Winter take wing and fly in Troops in a triangular form into hotter Countries witness from Thracia into Egypt and from Cilicia into Persia not to say what is reported that when they fly near Mount Taurus where store of Eagles are they each take a stone in their Bill to prevent any noise lest the Eagles should seise upon them Not unlike to which the learned Wormius in his Museum relates somewhat wonderful concerning a sort of Bird frequent in Norway upon which change of weather has aforehand strange influence his words are as followeth Museum Norm p. 304. Aliud genus saith he Norvegiae Islandis frequens est è Mergorum vel potius Colymborum genere Nidum prope aquas it a struit ut cum necessitas flagitat in eas se celeriter praecipitare potest sed nidum repetitura infixo terrae rostro se suspendit donec corpus sublevaverit ac petitum obtinuerit nidum ubi imbres largiores imminere peculiari naturae instinctu persentiscit pullis ac nido suo ab inundatione metuens querulo sono aerem verberat è contra cum coeli serenitatem clementiam praesagierit laetis acclamationibus alio gratiori sono pullisapplaudit unde de futura tempestate certi accolae vocem Hui audientes exclamare solent Norvegi SECT XIII Hydroph WHat think you Pyroph of the drying quality which we define qualitas patibilis quae suo facile alieno autem termino difficulter clauditur Is not this competible to the Earth primarily and to the Air secundarily and to other Bodies as they admit of the combination of this with other qualities in the composition thereof Pyroph I think Hydroph and perhaps may make good that what you call a drying quality is no more a quality than its opposite moisture and that as moisture is no quality primarily of the Air nor secondarily of other Bodies in their Composition so neither is driness as a quality either peculiar to the Earth or to Compound Bodies For in that a Body is said to be dry is in as much as the parts which constitute it are of another Texture than liquid and are so woven together as to have few at least as discernable fluid parts And those dry Bodies are either naturally such as for instance some sorts of Stones and some Calces of calcin'd Bodies which by no force of Fire are ever reducible into any liquid form or else such Bodies as while kept from force of Fire are accounted dry of which are all Metals Minerals Metalline and Mineral Ore so me Stones as Peables Flints Sand Ashes of burnt or calcin'd Bodies all which by stress of Fire may be made to melt and become fluid some per se as the Metals and some Minerals others by addition of Salts as some Minerals also Mineral and Metalline Ore Pebbles Flint Sand c. by the addition of Salt of Kelp Tartar or other calcin'd Vegetables melt into transparent Glass Thus the Calx of Metals fretted by Acids and thereby reduc'd after Evaporation in minima viz. into their impapable Alcolizate pouders are seemingly dry yet these very subtile Crocus's of Metals witness that of Copper dissolv'd into and incorporated in that Body we call Verdigreece by the help of the sour Juice of Grapes or in that which remains after the Vintage if that be dry'd and beat to a most subtile pouder which by the motion of a Pestle or the like presently by the minuteness of its parts fly up and doth ferire nares as also that of natural Vitriol do I say both by stress of Fire arise in a considerable white fume and condense into a plenty of liquid Spirits as is evident in the Spirit of Verdigreeee of Vitriol and so most of other Bodies which being divided into their Minima so as to appear in a dry Sapless form may yet by distillation be turn'd mostwhat into liquids or by reduction into their Sulphurs or Mercuries if Metalline Bodies be furtherconvertible into the fluid Texture of parts VVherefore seeing dryness is no other than such a Texture of parts in the construction of Bodies as renders the Concrete not easily fluid nor apt to flow together when the constitutive parts are rather continuous than contiguous therefore must this dry quality as well as the rest of the same fraternity ipso facto forfeit its supposed Essence of a quality and lose its repute of a nothing for so I esteem it or little better while under
Then what ever of Food we take in deducting what is separated as Urin Excrements and the like as much I say of real nourishment as is by the digestive Ferments daily made thereof so much do we transpire and loose so that supposing by compute that in most bodys every day I mean while in health and Ferments strong 7 8 or 10 ounces of fresh blood may be produc'd and yet notwithstanding suppose most men to be weighed at 24 26 or at furthest 30 years of age excepting some few that may by the more than ordinary coagulation of that which should transpire after those years grow fat and gross and again at 40 50 or 60 years it will be found that generally there is no increase of weight at all during that time and yet I say so much blood is spent every day in nourishment and so much of the ultimate assimilated aliment is daily transpired and all this without any residence or caput mort of the blood being constantly whilst the Ferments Spirits and Organs are sound and regular volatiz'd by a Ferment from the Air. And yet this Blood is made from various kinds of Flesh Fowl Fish Bread Drink c. all which lose their pristine form by the power of the specifical Ferments through which they pass so that if I should tell you Hydroph that when we come to 20 or 30 years of age and so on we have not the same numerical bodys as we had in our infancy nay perhaps not the same we had 5 year ago you will think it a Paradox if not Heterodox and yet if fairly scan'd what I say will not be found improbable For if we duely consider how that which yesterday appear'd in the form of part of a Sheep Calf Ox Deer Pidgeon Goose Turkey Corn Herbs Beer c. shall to day be transmuted into Chyle Blood Flesh Bones c. of a humane Body yea this to transpire within a few days and assume other forms and all this by the power of Ferments which are as the noble Helmont saith the parents of Transmutation If the nutritive parts of our body was not in a constant flux and always winding off we should in time become Anakites grow to be mighty Gyants But from the vigour of the Ferments of the body together with a perspirability communicated from the Air the succulent yea the solid parts themselves are always upon the wing Thus as new parts are daily by a rotation of Ferments added so the old as constantly march off or wear away or rather as the former texture of parts by a perspirability wind off so new parts by fresh supply of Food passing the circle of Ferments are woven on to confirm which viz. that the Ferments wind off the old and wind on the new coming parts of added Nutriment appears by this Observation that old Cows or Oxen after they have done their expected service being put to feed at fresh Grass do by the power of the aforesaid Ferments lay on new flesh which eats as tenderly as if the Goods had been kill'd young so that that which solely determines matter in this grand circulation of bodys out of one shape into another are the seminal and specifical Ferments and during the vigour of these the form of the body is kept intire in its specifical difference from other concrete bodys Wherefore the same specifical Body after the revolution of some years is no more the same numerical Body than the Ship which went from Athens and by frequent repairs return'd at last without one foot of old Timber that it was at first built with may be said to be the same Hydroph But if so Pyroph why do not we live always Seeing as you say our Bodies are in a constant fluor and as the old parts wear off new ones come on what should hinder but they should always do so and we live longer than Mathusalem Pyroph To which I return Hydroph that although our Bodies consist in a constant flux of Parts and that nutrition is an apposition of new in the place of the old or transpiring Particles yet as the form of this circulating matter is determin'd by the seminal and therefore specifical Ferments so the decaying of our Bodies both by sickness and old Age depend Essentially upon the intenseness and remisness of the vigour of those Ferments so that when these grow languid by diseases the Body wasts by a Marasmus or when they at the long run of old Age become infeebled and draw towards their limit according to the great and irrevocable decree of the Almighty Statutum est omnibus semel mori then do they come to their period as to their Progressive motion I mean in order to nourishment and support of the Body thereby and leaves the Body to be taken in pieces either by a Putredinous Ferment promoted by access of Air or by the Fracedinous odour of the Grave whereby it 's either transmitted into other Animals by the power of their Ferments or reduced into its primitive Juice or Leffas of the Earth For the strength floridness activity and that which is commonly called the constitution of the Body depends mostwhat if not solely upon the vigour of the Ferments as you may see further in our Hydrologia Chymica and Zymologia Physica Hydroph Well Pyroph I have this yet to add against what you say and that is to query why we should be troubled at any time with those sorts of diseases we call Chronical For it should seem to me if what you say concerning our bodies being in a perpetual flux of parts be true that few diseases would be of any continuance so as to acquire the name of Chronical because as the Body so they also would wear off in time Pyroph To which I answer Hydroph that as the Ferments are the primary active and transmutative Principles to which the most incident Phaenomena of diseases are chiefly reducible so what alterations are made in the Body by the Ataxy of Diseases are mostwhat referrable thereto so that Diseases happen not to the Body as it falls under our consideration in the notion of a constant flux and vicissitude of parts but as it is compos'd of a round of Ferments whose exorbitances prevarications and frequent errours become Essential to the begetting Diseases And therefore although the Body as to its material constitutive Principles may admit of a constant alteration of parts in an Agil fluor yet doth it not follow that Diseases are also as constantly worn off because they belong to the Body as considered under its Classis of Ferments so that as the Ferments in their vigour are the Authors of the Eutaxy or due temperament of humors and consequently of Health in like manner their spurious exorbitances are the essential causes of those disorders and discomposures in the Body we call Diseases SECT XI Hydroph BUt pray Pyroph why did you in your discourse about the four Elements being our suppos'd Original of all
in the Air from cold Particles and from Ferments of a contrary disposition and what alterations thence happen to Animal Juyces and how perform'd Pyroph I answer That as the Air by reason of some congeneal Ferments tacking to and fro therein doth conspire not only to the awakening the Ferments of Animals and Vegetables and to the keeping them a foot and that both in order to building of bodies as well as to the pulling them down so doth the Air at other seasons contain other Particles of cold which are able to suspend the motion and action of the former that is if very intense are able to destroy the Ferments of Men and other Animals as is evident by the killing of many Men and Beasts in cold Countreys as in Russia Greenland and Norway the Frosts are sometimes so strong as that Men are sometimes brought to Inns or Markets frozen on Horse-back are found rigid and starv'd to death sitting streight up like Statues And in Vegetables it's very discernable to have them mortified by strong Frosts And as the cold Particles arrest the vital and vegetative Ferments of Animals and Vegetables so it likewise suspends the putrefactive Ferments in the resolution or taking bodies in pieces locking up those resolving Ferments hence the Carcases of any sort of Animals expos'd to the Air having a putrefaction already begun and thereby grown faetid have I say upon strong Frosts those putrid Ferments shut up and send forth no foetor or bad smell and that by reason of the cold Atoms which fix themselves in the Pores of such bodys and thereby arrest the motion of the Principles which cold Particles are no sooner extricated by change of weather but the Ferments I mean the putrefactive are let loose again and then goes on as strongly as ever Yea in thawing Winds all putrefactive Ferments grow vigorous and are carried in great and numerous swarms through the common Vehicle the Air which either smite our Nostrils very sensibly or affect our Juyces indiscernably to the producing great alterations therein How much the frost Particles penetrate any Fruits so much do they when the Frost breaks undergo a putrefaction as is obvious in Apples and other Fruits which the more they are expos'd to frost Air so much the sooner they rot and that because the active Principles are so far mortify'd through the openness of their Pores as to their natural and intestine Fermentation and so easily upon the unhinging and unrivetting the cold Atoms fall into regressive and putrefactive Fermentation Hydroph Have you Pyroph any artificial way of representing cold to us Pyroph Yes how cold may be produc'd we had an Experiment above 7 years ago which was thus Having mixed Sal Armoniac and Saturn Ore upon a Marble or in a Mortar and put them into a subliming Urinal for a peculiar purpose we then propos'd to which adding Water and shaking them together while the solution was making produc'd an intense coldness to the hand holding the Glass and washing the out-side of the Glass with water found as it was pour'd on immediately it became long fleaks of Ice which as we took off and poured more water on did the same again and again the same will Sal Armon dissolv'd per se in water do also its caput mort remaining after the sublimation thereof with Pot-ash or Salt of Tartar dissolv'd in Water And to make two cold Liquors cold to touch to heat each other to evince the reason of the contrary quality viz. heat we have put Oyl of Vitriol to water which being mixed by shaking immediately contracts a greater heat than can be suffered by the hand that holds the Glass and from the same cause one may easily cause Ice it self to cause heat to another cold Liquor by proceeding as before with Ice put in Oyl of Vitriol as the worthy Experimentator Mr. Boyle tells us in his last Tract Hydroph How do you Pyroph suppose the freezing of Water to be resolv'd or thaw'd what becomes of those Atoms of cold when a Frost is over and what further Observations do you make of those Ferments in the Air upon thawing seasons and sometimes in other weather Pyroph To which I answer Hydroph That as the Atoms of cold are brought to us through the Air by certain peculiar winds which in their motion meeting with capable viz. liquid watery bodys becomes coagulated therewith into that rigid body we call Ice so there are other Atoms of heat which are brought at other seasons through the same Vehicle of Air by different although to that purpose peculiar winds which in their motion meeting with those of cold either in the Air or coagulated in watry bodies resolve mortifie I mean alter their texture and dint them so as either altering their texture whereby they for a while swell and flow together with the water whence upon thaws Rivers for a time grow bigger till they can extricate themselves from the moist and warm Particles they are involv'd in and by other winds are carryed into other places to perform the same offices or else do as some sorts of Salts do to others of a different texture viz. one to mortifie to use a Chymical term dint and change another until there result a neutrum or third thing different from either of the two Besides which we are to consider Hydroph that these mutually acting and working upon each other beget new shapes amongst themselves and many times prove subtile penetrating Ferments which being carryed in the belly of the wind insinuate into fermentative Liquors and set them freshly a working which we see frequently happen in thawing winds that both Ale and Beer often ferment anew yea Wines too especially about the time of Vintage when those fermentative Particles are arrested and determin'd by vinous Atoms which at that season take wing and float in the Air. The same also may cause strange and different fermentations in the blood and other Juyces of our bodies the efficient sometimes of Feavers and other Endemical yea Epidemical Diseases and that these winds and changes of Air thereby have an odd influence upon the fluid Juyces of our bodies is apparent in that vulgar yet true Proverb that some carry Almanacks in their bones can discern the changes of weather before hand which as we apprehend can be from no other cause than that the minute Particles of heat cold or moisture or combinations thereof carryed by different winds in the Vehicle of the Air from whence all varieties of weather do certainly follow which I say at first or aforehand mustring in an invisible manner in the Air become Ferments which rouse up old Aches Pains Asthma's Heaviness weakness of the Joynts and other Symptoms vulgarly ascribable to the Scurvey and and that many times before the weather be discernably chang'd because these otherwise indiscernable alterations of weather are prefigured and transacted before hand in the Air. Whence many times as may be obvious to a curious eye proceed
PHILOSOPHICAL DIALOGUES Concerning the Principles OF NATVRAL BODIES WHEREIN The Principles of the Old and New Philosophy are stated and the New demonstrated more agreeable to Reason from Mechanical Experiments and its usefulness to the benefit of Man-kind By W. Simpson M. D. LONDON Printed by T. Hodgkin for Dorman Newman at the Kings-Arms in the Poultrey 1677. TO The most noble Prince GEORGE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM c. My LORD WHen I had writ this small Philosophical Treatise I was casting about in my thoughts whether this Infant needed a Patron it was not as I judg'd so much an Embryo-Anchorite or of such tender Age but it might go abroad without hold nor so much stricken in years as it had need of a Staff in as much as ipsa veritas suimet patrona est maxima nor yet that it was arriv'd to that full strength as to need no support Amidst which considerations my Lord your Grace fraught with experimental Philosophy came in view but I stopt a while pausing upon it not daring at the first glance to be so confident till I had taken a better prospect of your personal candour to Ingenuity which was not the least of those resplendent Gems that adorn the brest of Nobility your incouragement to the improvements of Philosophy grounded upon Mechanical Experiments your favouring that for of Physick founded upon and illustrated by the Noble Chymia the Basis of a genuine Philosophical Hypothesis and in particular your great condescention in familiar discourse concerning matters of this nature All which My Lord duly weighed has given me the boldness to take liberty of dedicating these my Labours the first of their kind I know off yet extant to your Grace If worth the perusal it 's well with what curiosities they will entertain you let them speak for themselves May these Philosophical Speculations shade themselves under your Tutelage and take shelter under your suffrage shall doubtless give them better lustre abroad rendring them more acceptable to others and give him an incouragement to a further concern who is My Lord Your Grace's Most humble Servant W. Simpson THE PREFACE TO THE READER Candid Reader SEveral Sheets of which this ensuing small tract is compos'd had laid by me neer seven years whose Nativity might be Calculated from that time I was so deeply ingaged with my quondam Antagonist Dr. Wittie about Mineral Waters and particularly about the Mineral or Spaw-waters of Yorkshire For after I had writ my Hydrolog Chym. ere I had concluded the second part being intitutled Hydrolog Essays or a Vindication of the first I fell upon some Philosophical Speculations which when I had scatter'd in loose Papers let them lye dormant waiting a seasonable oppurtunity for the publishing thereof And taking an occasiion lately to review them I corrected altered and added as I thought necessary putting them into a dress how suitable to the genius of this Critical Age and how worthy to see Light as it 's not meet for me to say so must refer to thy more serious consideration and deep judgment to determine Perhaps thou mayst without much streining guess whom I mean by Hydrophilus personating the old Philosophy if thou through any Analogy to the Peripatetick Philosophy he in his Book vindicates or through any likeness to his morose Sentiments and dogmatical Placets or by any other similar Motives shalt be drawn to conclude him to be the Person I shall not gainsay then may'st thou fix thy eye upon him no less like than a well drawn Coppy to the Original as the grand Champion of that Old Cause or if thou approve not thereof may by that name imagine any other person indifferently speaking for and arguing on the behalf of that lean and therefore hectically inclin'd and well nigh expiring Philosophy which will certainly dye of a Consumption in Tract of time as the other comes on and grows vigorous wearing insensibly away In this Treatise as in a Landskip mayst view such a draught although in Epitome of the Principles of natural Philosophy as if drawn to the Life may generally and genuinely without any force represent and solve we think natures Phaenomena in the apparances of most Bodies we meet with In it may find such a set of the Elements of natural Bodies as if wound up to the height may conspire the procuring a Philosophick harmony Not to say here how teeming a womb our Principles have nor how they do quadrate and that perhaps more universally with Nature in her abstruce causes nor how consistent with themselves nor lastly how adapted to the regular motions of Nature and accommodated to the rendring intelligible Natures model in the Fabrick Metastasis and taking in pieces of Bodies viz. in making Philosophick apparances more conspicuous to our understanding but refer all our speculations to stand at the Bar of thy more mature not I hope severe judgment We have in this ensuing discourse but sleightly touch'd upon our Principles especially that seaven-fold complication of Fire whose Principles are under one or other of the seven modifications twisted or interwoven amongst most Bodies especially Animals Vegetables and many Minerals we converse with yet may ex ungue leonem measure the whole by the scantling the further and ample discourse thereof we refer to its proper place viz. to our Tentamen Physiologic to which this is chiefly introductory As to our Halologia Chymica being our discourse of Salts and our Lithologia Physica concerning petrification to both which we sometimes refer the Reader our labours therein are at present only in Embrio yet pretty forward towards the Birth if at their full time shall be thought worthy to be borne may ere long see light Seeing the field of Nature is very large and many may be taking measures thereof by their several ways of Physico-metrical commensuration and that every one has his liberty to survey her with the best instruments Mechanism will afford and yet the Artists and all the Tools they can procure or invent the former too short sighted and the latter too few to reach her profundity to sind out the quadrature of her Circle or to take the exact dimention of her Solids So that there is work enough for as many Geomitricians I had almost said Pioneers to Nature as are adapted by long observation and study for that work And in my opinion all the late Physico-Metricians if I may so call them have in one sort or other done well Thus Tachenius Vander Bect Beckerus c. have every one in their several capacities perform'd some service towards on improvement of Philosophy not that I could or would justify each of these in their several Hypotheses but I think they have done this great piece of service in that they have furnished us with many mechanical experiments which although each in their way makes use of for building their particular Hypothesis yet we may well admit them as materials viz. Wood Stone c. in order to a further and more
are determin'd either by seminal effluvia or by new ferments which conspiring with the fluid saline and sulphureous parts in the analytical solution of the compage of the former body make them combine into such a shape different from what it was before might I say be demonstrated by many instances the first is confirmed by the body of a Duck buried from which as Kircher observes Toads may be ingendered and that from some seminal parts of a Toad which lurk in the humours or flesh of a Duck nourished thereby which by putrefaction are set a work and draw into consent some fluid saline and sulphureous parts resolv'd by the putredinous ferment and joyntly are determined into the form of a Toad Thus Worms are ingendred by a putred ferment in the blood and other constituent humours and flesh of animals as also of the humane body in so much as Shenkins observes that Worms have been found even in the very heart And Pareus tells us they have been seen in the Liver Lungs Reins and Bladder yea the mass of blood undergoing any putrid resolution proves verminous Paracelsus saith to the same purpose Regiones membrorum suos vermes noverunt ita enim per anatomiam in cerebro repertus est vermiculus qui piam duram matrem pertuderat unde phrenesis solicitabat tales per anatomian etiam in corde reperti fuerunt similiter in regione splenis fellisque vermes gigni possint neither is there any putrid ulcer impetigo or elephantiasis which hath not his worms from a putridinous ferment also in Cheese Milk Vinegar and Horns expos'd to the Moon in which by a Microscope Worms are discoverable So that these spermatick effluvia joyning issue with some saline and sulphureous parts set at liberty by a putrid ferment in the analytical resolution call'd corruption or rather mutation or migration of bodies out of one form into another produce variety of new products dayly in the mundane System And what if I should tell you Hydroph and make it good too that there is no Plant which in its putrefaction gives not some peculiar sort of Insect from an oviparous original nor any perfect Animal perfect I mean in sua specie which doth not either immediately from the putridness of its body or at least by putrefaction of its excrements give some sort of animal Insect or other witness that of Lucretius Obnoxia cuncta putrori Corpora putrores insecta animata sequuntur which also is very evident even in the humane body in which scarce any member inward or outward which is not subject to produce Worms And as the new Productions are most-what shap'd by the Motion and Manuduction of the Spermatic Principles with other parts set at liberty from the former Texture which by new shuffling of parts constitute new Bodys so also some alteration amongst Bodys are made I mean in order to new Shapes by the mediation of new Ferments as for instance that from brown Bread and Honey Ants should be produc'd where from a mixture of those two a new Ferment should proceed which becoming animated is determin'd into the form of an Ant so from Honey and Dew that Eels should be ingendred and so the rest of the like Productions Lastly Other Mutations there are Hydroph of Bodys out of one shape into another which owe their original to either or both of the aforesaid causes viz. to seminal Effluvia's or new Ferments of which sort are the production of Scorpions in the Brain of a Man by frequent smelling at the Herb Basil or from the fracedinous ferment of the same Herb betwixt two Stones the same Animal may be produc'd as both Helmont and Kircher observe it 's very probable this Plant may take its original from some putredinous resolution of a Scorpion as the Satyrions of divers sorts do from the Sperm of several Animals which fermenting in the leffas terrae produce those Plants with those Signatures of the Genitals For I must tell you Hydroph as there is scarce any Plant in whose putrid Analysis it gives not an Animal of one sort or other so there are many Animals out of the putridness of whose spermatic parts fermenting with the nutritive Juyce of the Earth Plants may be produc'd of which sort are Basil all the kinds of Orchis Satyrions Mushrooms Androsemum c. yea and from the like causes may many poisonous Plants take their original For as the industrious Kircher observes many or most of these Plants are found to grow in morticinis cadaverum viz. where dead Carcases have been corrupted upon the Ground or been buried in the Earth in which places Hemlock Wolfsbane Monkshead Henbane Assafaetida wild Camomel c. are most frequently found where from the spermatic parts of putrid cadaverous Bodys fermenting with the succulent parts of the Earth or other Excrements new shapes are assumed either of other Animals or Plants according to the direction of seminal Effluvia or specifical Ferments So that the Metastasis of those Bodys out of one shape into another whereby they are very differently represented to our sensitive Organs as that which was lately an Animal may become a Plant and that which was a Plant may presently be changed into an Animal may very well proceed as I said partly from the loco-motion or transposition of seminal Principles and partly from the awakening of new Ferments Thus you see Hydroph how I have interwoven mine with your instances and that the better to illustrate the manner of mutation of Bodys out of one form into another whereby we may be able to solve the urgent Phaenomena incident to Bodys in their Metastasis or Transfiguration if I may so call it by the various extension of the parts of matter differently guided by seminal Principles and specifiic Ferments without having recourse at all to Aristotle's Materia Prima his Quaternary of Elements substantial Forms or other general affections ascribable to natural Bodys according to the Theory of the Vulgar Peripatetick Philosophy Where I cannot but wonder why Aristotle's Commentators should where they treat of the general Affections of natural Bodys omit the Discourse of the four Elements seeing they are as they say simple homogenial Bodys from which all Concretes are compounded into which they are ultimately resolv'd and themselves irreducible into any thing before them which therefore they esteem as the true Principles of all Bodys and yet they are not according to their own account the materia prima so that their materia prima is but at the best a thing in potentia and that is only as much as to say a nothing Therefore it 's left to the four Elements to be according to your Doctrine the true Principles of Bodys depending upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Qualities and yet I say they treat not of these till after they have done with the most general affections of Matter which to me argues a large and indispensible chink in the junctures of that old Philosophy you so
mechanical Agents included in all those bodys vulgarly call'd Seeds wrapt up I said in small raiments of matter not but that these Principles themselves are also material and are at the long run reducible into Water the material Principle of all Concretes but with this difference that they are pure subtile parts entangled in more gross adapted for motion or that collision we suppose indispensibly necessary in the Fabric of all such Bodys By Ferments here we mean the fore-said Principles being seminal sparks hidden in matter which are other requisites duly concurring actually put into motion or set into a natural and genuine collision These Principles in the progressive motion of their collision yea and in the whole round of their operation becoming thereby actual Ferments give according to their various stades the different Phaenomena of the same body so that all the apperances are measur'd forth according to the progress or regress of the aforesaid Principles Thus Vegetation as to Plants is nothing else as we else-where in our Zymolog Physic and Tentamen further say but a slow pac'd motion or gentle collision of the aforesaid Principles consisting in an intestin strugling thereof Thus for instance in the production of a Vegetable Seed-bearing Plant as suppose of Rosemary Marjoram Time c. where we have nothing but the minute Seed with the intrinsic Principles which are the connate plastic Faber seated in the Center thereof and what it can determine matter into Now when this Seed being put into a due capacitated Matrix or Earth begins by the fructifying nitrous Salt in the Earth or Air or both together with the concurrance of an aetherial matter c. requisite to the setting all Vegitable Springs into motion to open it self the Principles or hidden mechanical Agents or that seminal embryonative spark lock'd up in the visible Grain or Seed become an actual Ferment whereby Matter which is always mov'd at the beck of those implanted Principles and is thereby sub-divided into minute parts enters the Pores and Streiners thereof with such adaptation of Particles proportionable thereto which becomes thereby extended and is by the fore-said actual Ferment proper to that Seed wrought into such a texture of parts or specifical form singly peculiar to that Plant where the shape colour sapour odour and other specifical indowments are determin'd by the seminal Principles set into a fermental motion and are the results of Matter formally extended thereby For that a Plant should constantly and more forcibly during the time of the vigour of its natural Ferment breath forth so strong an apporrhoea or odour as to be able to smite our senses therewith as if 20 yea 100 could as sometimes they may stand within the Orb of its activity might all be sensible thereof is I say a demonstrable Argument of the extensibility of Matter and subtile Emanation of subtiliz'd or volatiz'd Parts even in the Fabric of that Plant carried off by the quick actions of the aforesaid Ferment which is yet further discoverable either by the reverse motion of the foresaid Principles of the Plant whereby the same ferment in its Retrograde motion becomes putredinous causing in some Plants but especially in Animals a fetidness whereby also happens a Metastasis into an Insect from causes aforesaid or by force of fire into a fume of 100 yea 1000 fold larger compass than the body it self was which fume although extending so large a space is yet so gross as to make it self the object of our senses Thus you see Hydroph how the same Principles which lay dormant in the seed while in the Garner where they are pois'd in equilibrio and remain alone so long uncapable of fructifying or multiplying how I say in order to the awakening these Principles and putting them into a fermental motion there are some concurring requisites duly to be considered viz. that it should be cast into a peculiar Soil or Ground as its proper Matrix which is the Matrix of the Husk as the Husk is of the true Seed where the Leffas Terrae or juice of the Earth being imbued with so much nitrous Salt as is sufficient softens the Husk and makes it swell whose compage being loos'd the Air with its other necessarily concurring to the exciting the Principles in every vegetable Production getting entrance awakes or puts the implanted Embrio-Principles into motion thereby rendring them fermental whence the noble Seed shut up in an obscure point ariseth whose mechanical Principles necessary to the building all Bodies are I say call'd forth to act break the Prison-doors and in their mutual wrestlings cause that grand Phaenomenon of Nature we call Vegetation where Water by the manuduction of Seeds or seminal Principles becomes determined into fibrous off-shoots those being hollow carry along more of the succulent juyces which as it flows in those Pipes upon its access more Fibers Sap-vessels and others whether as Veins Arteries c. analogous to Animals we refer to the particular disquisitions of the worthy Malpighius our Countryman Dr. Grew are produced while the formerly made Vessels by access of Air or being long expos'd thereto become condensed or hardned into stalks wood c. and so is wrought on by the weavings of the foresaid seminal Principles till the whole Plant or Tree put on its intire form of Root Stalk Bole Bark Branch Fruit or Flower Besides which weavings coagulations and condensations of water into vegetable concretions from causes aforesaid it s moreover if I mistake not Hydroph as easie and as daily perform'd for Nature from the power of seminal ferments set a work in Vegetation and after continued by allowing due requisites or ferments congenial to turn I say Water into Wine as it is for the same by the winding off of those ferments in a natural circulation to reduce Wine into Water both equally and daily perform'd by the same seminal Principles differently and in their circular motion considered yea and to turn also Water into all manner of potable or fermentable liquors by the mediation of the foresaid Principles once broke off from Vegetation and kept afoot by the melting of the Grain then dissolved in Water and after by a ferment connatural set into a fermentative motion as it is for the same potable Liquors at the long run of their ferments insensibly winding off to be reduc'd into Water again and so on in a constant round of action and circulation of motion in the upholding the great vicissitude and interchange of things So that these Principles in their gentle collisions are not only the cause of Vegetation in all manner of Plants and Trees and the various apparences thereto belonging both of generation and corruption weavings and unweavings of Bodies by the winding on and off of the Principles but also put into new and different collisions or higher fermentations become the Patrons of all potable Liquors and yet higher become the efficients of heat and that either remiss or intense yea so
I have illustrated them to be in the production of Vegetables and that both as they are Principles lock'd up in some minute portions of epitomiz'd matter and likewise as they being by requisites duly concurring put into motion become fermental For we account of Generation of Animals no other than an evolution or natural expansion of the implanted seminal Principles contain'd in the minute Embrio and rendred prolific by the fermental odour if I may so say of a masculine Ferment we cannot otherwise reckon but that the noblest of fermental animal Juyces in order to propagation and where the spirits are most vigorous and fecund is the masculine sperm of Animals which is a digested spermatic Elixir capable of tinging those more crude feminine Juyces or a natural but highly prepar'd liquid Magistery circulated and brought on to maturity in its peculiar vessels yea the very efflorescence if I may further add of Animal Juyces impregnated at due seasons with such a stock of spirits emerging from a fermentation proper to it self as renders it capable of inspiring those feminine ovaria or uterine Vesicles with a subtile but very active Ferment which awakens those minute dormant and otherwise steril Embryo's sets them by its own vigorous action into a sort of if I may say vegetative or expansive motion It 's not the gross body of the prepar'd masculine or seminal Sperm or any visible juice or sensible part thereof however by circulation maturated which is admitted into the female Matrix as the worthy Harvey excellently shews in his Tract de generatione Animalium Nihil in utero saith he post coitum invenias generatura enim maris brevi vel elabitur vel evanescit tamen adsit aliquid quod foeminam foecundam reddat But it is a spirituous Ferment indolis contagiosae of which the seminal Liquor is but the Vehicle at seasons so heightened as it if meeting with an aptness of Reception in the Female breaths upon the oviformal Embryo invigorates it into activity putting those implanted and close shut up Principles into Motion For the aforesaid industrious Harvey tells us speaking of what is contain'd in the Female Matrix in order to Conception De generat Animal 278. Quod ad procreatio nem foetûs spectat omnia animalia eodem modo ab oviformi primordio generantur siquidem in eorum generatione hoc solenne est ut primordium vegetale ovi naturam referens praeexistat ex quo foetus producatur est hoc in omnibus vel ovum vel oviforme quid And as he farther adds Inest igitur in utero omnium animalium conceptus primus sive primordium quod teste Aristotele est veluti ovum membrana oblectum cui putamen detractum est So that in the propagation of all Animals the noblest and for whose sake the rest were made not excepted the Embryo anchorite or epitomiz'd Animal shut up within the walls of each of the uterine Vesicles or oviformal Membranes retains its just and proportionable form and shape how minute soever in that seminary oviformal original inclos'd in the Female Matrix and only waits for an inspiration from the active masculine spirituous and fecundating Ferment which is to strike up those dormant Principles into an actual Fermentation or animal fire whereby the little Embryo the seminal Principles being once put into motion begins from a supply of maternal Juyces by a fermental expansion and evolution of its parts to vegetate and grow bigger till from those rudiments by a continual and successive gradation the vital fire be struck up whereby the womb after conception by the inspiring of the pregnant male Ferment is forthwith close shut up nature being so solicitous in this great affair of propagation so wonderfully curious both to prevent monstrous Productions as also multiplicity of contemporary Births from frequent inordinate Coitions as that she doth after Conception seal up the Matrix as I may say hermetically that not the least of Air nor what is much more subtile viz. the Masculine Ferment can have the least ingress The Animal and Mineral Ferments herein conspiring that after impregnation of either viz. of the Animal Embryo Juyce or Mercurial Liquor by their peculiar Seeds the Matrix both Animal and Philosophical are I say both the one Hermetically to be clos'd up the other naturally seal'd up and kept from all heterogeneous assaults whether in the Air or else-where till in the one it be brought on to the maturity of an Animal Life and in the other be elaborated to the perfection of the Philosophic Elixir Concerning the progress of which in order to the Exit or Birth of the Embryo we have somewhat inlarged in our Hydrolog Chymica and probably may do more elsewhere But how the same Principles in their fermentative Collisions in the Animal Juyces are the cause other requisites concurring of the circulation of the Blood the source of all Animal heat and warmth the efficients of nourishment and growth The cause of the generation of Spirits and thence of Vital and Animal Functions viz. Sense and Motion of the Body how the Fountain of all the several Ferments in the peculiar Vessels and Conduits of the Body Hydroph But pray Pyroph be not too concise in these great Matters How in particular according to your Principles do you understand concerning the faculty of the Stomach you call the Ferment thereof which doth perform such wonderful effects doth it by its innate heat according to our Philosophy or by its acid Ferment as of late several Neoterics have thought or by some latent quality unknown to us For it seems to be of a strange penetrating nature as to be able to turn all the several sorts of Food into a Cremor and thence fit it for further preparation in order to blood and nourishment Pyroph True Hydroph the work of the Stomach let it be done by what Agent it will is wonderful and in that very thing Nature's path is very mysterious That it consists not in an innate heat is evident first because no degree of heat of what pitch soever imagin'd can perform the like Mutations or Reductions of Bodys And secondly because all heat is according to our Hypothesis the result of Fermentation and there fore wherever the heat of the body was which is the constant effect of the intestin struglings of the Principles contained in the Animal Juyces there would it necessarily follow that it should perform the like operation in every part where it 's found but constant observation contradicts the consequent therefore heat is not the cause of that dissolving action of the Stomach And that it consists not in an acid Ferment the more plausible of the two will be evident from the deposition of what we conclude it to be Lastly that it is not from an occult quality will be clear from what we shall afterwards discourse of the inexistency and therefore futility of qualities But how I say a pure subtiliz'd Ferment is
continually elaborated into a most depurate and refin'd Elixir containing the most defecate Principles of the blood and aliment whence blood is prepar'd is by circulation conveyed from the blood into the Stomach by the Gastric and perhaps other Arteries inserted into the Ventricle where through the congenealness to our every day receiv'd alimental Juyce can by reason of its subtilty of parts penetrate dissolve and unlock the compage of such alimentary bodys and at length put them into a similar motion by striking up their essential Principles into an intestin Collision which is that very thing we call a Ferment and is therefore here according to our Hypothesis the true cause of the stomachical Ferment that great and almost universal Alkahest of nature that can dissolve bodys though of many different sorts of Textures where the same Principles are to be found which essentially more or less constitute all alimentary Concretes and Liquids too For I must tell you Hydroph that the congenealness of Principles of bodys under very different Textures and various Compages give the cause of their more universal solution by Menstruums prepar'd analogically thereto yea and give the reason why the Principles of one are brought into motion by the action of the other that is by the congruousness of the Principles of the solvent to those of the solvend So that how the Ferment of the Stomach consists not in an implanted acid nor any other native Ferment peculiarly inherent in that part But how it chiefly if not solely owes its original to the circulation of the aforesaid highly prepared and much elaborated Elixir of the blood which communicated by the foresaid ducts by its great penetrability and agility easily mixeth with the assum'd aliment and by the assimilation of Principles sets the whole mass into a fermentative motion and thereby taketh in pieces its Compage by a genuine solution For the universal constitution of all alimentary bodys and by which they all agree in somewhat that is common amongst them consists in some texture or other of the two grand Principles Acid and Sulphur which fermentative Motion I say of the Principles by further solution percolation separation and afterwards by yet more intimate commixtion is carried on to the preparing the blood and spirits and thence to the elaborating the aforesaid volatile Elixir which conveyed into the Stomach compleats the whole round of digegestions and performs the whole circulation compatible to Animals in their great work of nourishment and preparation of spirits in order to Sense and Motion and other functions peculiar to animal bodys how I say all this is perform'd by the various collisions and elaborations of the aforesaid Principles what we only hint here we discourse more at large in our Tentamen Physiolog to which we refer you SECT VI. Hydroph WHat mean you Pyroph by those active Principles you spake of before viz. Fire Ferments Salts and Solvents by some of which all concrete bodys are taken in pieces and new textures or neutral Productions are thence made and by which great changes as you say happen amongst Bodies Pyroph I bring those mentioned Hydroph at present under the notion of extrinsic Agents which have a powerful efficacy in order to the effecting great changes amongst Bodies they are applicable to Hydroph What mean you Pyroph by fire according to your Hypothesis for we suppose it to be the most hot dry and lightest Element plac'd sub concavo Lunae Pyroph Your opinion Hydroph of fire will not be worth the while to refute and indeed I think will easily disappear of it self upon the displaying of ours By Fire therefore in this place I mean the vulgar viz. the fourth and sometimes the first complication of our Principles of Acid and Sulphur which consists in the highest collision and intestine rapid motion those Principles sowen or implanted in all combustible Bodies are capable of which although here we put amongst extrinsic yet may also truly be reckoned as the greatest intrinsic Agent in order to the great changes of the same Bodies from their own highly agitated Principles Hydroph Are there not many opinions concerning the nature and essence of Fire Pyroph Yes Hydroph Yours with the rest of your Hypothesis we reduce to six Classes as you may see in our Tentamen Physiologic where we undertake to shew the great extent of Fire enlarged to all its Dimensions not barely confining Fire within the ordinary limits of that which is vulgar and culinary concerning the illustrating of which as considered in it self and as applicable to other Bodies from our Hypothesis we are not sparing But also de industria do propose the consideration of Fire as extended to the solving the more general and universal apparences of Nature in the production of Bodies Hydroph Why how Pyroph Pyroph By supposing the Genesis of all specific concretes compriz'd in the threefold kingdom of Nature to be nothing else but a certain Evolution and Expansion of seminal Principles carried on by a gentle and mutual Collision of the mechanical Agents which are the very ground work of all natural Fire in Bodies or rather if you please to be nothing else which yet amounts to the same thing but certain igniculi or little Fires deposited and hid in so many minute portions or Urns of matter as there are variety of things giving motion and vigour to every Body wherewith it s cloth'd to the compleating thereof in all its numbers so that every thing we converse with in its existency from Creation or Generation represents somwhat miraculous to us viz. an igniculus or little Fire burning after its manner as made up from the very Principles of Fire mutually acting by a soft Collision and yet the thing it self wonderful and like the Bush which miraculously burn'd with Fire and was not consumed Exod. c. 3. v. 7. as the Divine Philosopher in his Pentateuch tells us so this is not consumed Hydroph But why Pyroph so lofty in your discourse and so curious in your so high speculations of Fire these are strange notions such as we read not of in our nor other sort of Philosophy I have yet met with Pyroph Because I find Hydroph by considering Bodies in their Generation or Production and in their reductions or unweavings and the various Metastases and changes amongst themselves I say by laying things well together and by putting them into their due Balance reducing them to their several Classes that there are seven complications or so many modes of Aggressions of the aforesaid Principles Acids and Sulphurs So that by searching into the depth of Bodies and into the various complications of their seminal Principles we cannot but suppose in Nature so many sorts of Fires hid in the bosome of things as there are modifications of the Principles by which they variously combine to the building of Bodies from their Rudiments and to the raising them up from their seminaries or radical beginnings also to the taking them in pieces or reductions
thereof and from which many and those the chief yea perhaps all Phaenomena of natural Bodies or Concretes we converse with may with a great deal of facility and perspicuity be genuinely solv'd concerning which we designedly enlarge in our Tentamen Physiologicum SECT VII Hydroph PRay Pyroph What are those seven Complications of your Principles which you say are found in the great series and chain of the causes of things and from whence you conclude so many Fires contain'd in the orb and shut up in the Centers of those Bodies we are concern'd with How do you reckon them Pyroph The first is when the Principles combine in such a peculiar Collision as that the ethereal matter is interwoven therewith and is fomented by a continual supply from the perpetual circulation of the aforesaid Aether of which sort are those we call Solar Fires because made from the same Principles as the Solar rays are which I say consist of an Eradiation of Solar beams springing from an incessant but peculiar fermentation in the Body of the Sun and fostered by an unwearied circulation of Aethereal matter as we shew in our discourse of Fermentation This Solar-Fire has a twofold consideration First per se and Secondly as it is transmissive or communicable to other Bodies Hydroph How do you understand that first consideration per se Pyroph That from whose direct or reflexive motion swimming through the vast depth of the Aether called by the Epicureans Inane are produced by an eradiation the grand Phaenomena of Light and Heat in the great Orb of the Macrocosm Hydroph What I pray Pyroph is light as communicable to us from the great Fountain thereof the Sun and as that grand Phaenomenon by which all others are made to appear Pyroph Light we suppose Hydroph to consist in an illumination of Air by a perpetual Emanation of Solar beams issuing as I said before from an incessant but peculiar fermentation in the Body of the Sun That Light is not a quality of a lucid Body as you define it but a corporeal substance and how it is necessary to the exhibiting variety of colours and answers the rule of Dioptricks we shall afterwards in its place discourse Hydroph What is that we call Heat as issuing from the Body of the Sun Pyroph It is nothing else Hydroph If I rightly understand but the reflexive motion of those Solar-Rays which in their Emanation from their Fountain cause Light Hydroph How are Light and Heat distinguished in their Causes Pyroph They differ in this only viz. That Light is the bare illumination of the medium Air by a direct Progressive motion of the Solar Rays from the aforesaid fermentation as the proper object of the Eye and by which all other things are made to appear while heat is the reflexion or Reverberatory motion as we say in our tract of Fermentation p. 106. of the same Luminous Beams issuing from the said Fermentation from the Earth or other solid Bodies affecting by that Fermentative motion our Sensative Organs of feeling Hydroph You have told us Pyroph how you understand Light and Heat to proceed from the same Fermentative motion of Solar Rays the one in a direct the other in a reverse or reflected line But how are those you call Solar Fires made Pyroph I answer Hydroph that besides what we have already said by Concentration of the aforesaid Rays those Fires are made viz. from which Rays by Glasses contriv'd for the purpose artificially concentred are produced actual Fires which will give Flame to and Burn any Combustible So that Heat is Fire in a remiss degree or the same Rays thinly dispers'd in their vehicle the Air while Fire is Heat in an intense Degree artificially concentred and both are Essentially the same that is are really from the same causes And as to the second consideration of Solar Fires viz. as transmissive or communicable to other bodies we mean such as hitting upon some peculiarly adapted Textures of Bodies do by their congruousness fix themselves and thereby are the causes whence several Phaenomena mentioned in our Tentamen Physiologic are easily solvable Hydroph What is the second complication of your Principles and what Phaenomena in the main are thence solvable Pyroph The second is when the foresaid Principles do mutually accost each other by a gentle Collision which is twofold the one progressive from the Center The other Retrogressive from the Superficies The former respects the Generation and Productiof things as is manifest in every genuine Fermentation both of Vegetables and Animals whence the Vegetation of Plants and the natural Fermentation of Animal Juices conducing to their Generation increase and perfection or maturity The latter eyes Putrefaction whose Ratio formalis is taken from the revers'd motion of the same Principles mutually acting where by a different modification the Acidum sets upon the Sulphur and thence produceth that putredness and fetidness the frequent effects thereof concerning which Principles as considered in their Progressive and Regressive motion in order to the Production and Reduction of things more elsewhere Hydroph What is the third modification of your Principles and the apparences in general referrable thereto Pyroph The third is when the Principles by a stronger and more sensible Collision hit upon each other and that 's twofold viz. Natural and Artificial 1. Natural as amongst Vegetables is manifest in their ripened Juices whose Principles struggle with stronger Collisions also in Hay Lime Straw Corn c. which have got moisture being laid up wet amongst Animals it 's manifest in every spurious and exorbitant morbid Ferment and lastly amongst Minerals as is evident in every strong Collision of the Principles and that either in their Embryonative Juices or in concrete Minerals from whose Principles mutually strugling do all Natural Baths yea all heats which arise from Metals or Minerals Naturally or Artificially perform'd take their Original 2. The artificial is manifest in every effervescence made between factitious Alcalies fixt or volatile and Acids concerning which you may see more at large in our Philosophical discourse of Fermentation and in our Tentamen Physiologic Hydroph The fourth you have mentioned before which is the most high and rapid motion the Principles are capable of whence you compute the Ratio formalis of vulgar or Culinary Fire and thence also it seems solve the Phaenomena thereto appertaining But pray go on Pyroph to tell what your fifth is and what thence results Pyroph The fifth is when the Principles after they are by the most rapid Collision brought to an ignition are transmitted from their own into other Bodies where penetrating are by a kind of a fixation lock'd up thereby becomeing the Authors of divers Phoenomena as is evident in the Calces of Metals made sicco modo for instance of Lead in the preparation of Minium Iron and Mercury in calx vive in fixt Alcalies lately made c. Hydroph Now proceed on to acquaint us what the sixth complication of your
Principles is and what Phaenomena in short are thereto referrable Pyroph The sixth is when the Principles are complicated by a certain Colliquation whence the Fires thence resulting may properly enough we think be called Colliquativi ignes which are threefold 1. Caustical 2. Corrosive 3. Putrefactive 1. Caustical are either Lixivial or Vesicatory Lixivial are fixt Alcalies of Plants fixt Nitre Calx vive Vesicatory are Chymical Oyls Cantharides and some Plants as ranunculus cicuta urtica inward bark of Walnut c. 2. Corrosive take their original from Mineral Principles colliquated by force of Fire whence all Corrosive Menstrua are produc'd there being as many Corrosive Fires as Menstrua Some more Corrosive than others according to degrees of the Colliquation of the Principles 3. Putrefactive whence also a threefold Colliquative Putrefactive Fire viz. 1. Pestilential 2. Venenous 3. Properly Putrefactive Concerning all which and the apparences thence genuinely solvable besides what is obiter delivered in our discourse of Fermentation we have at large treated in our Tentamen Physilogic Hydroph Now Pyroph ha st to tell us of the last complication of your Principles Pyroph The seventh and last is when the Principles are fixed by an intimate and radical union whence arise Fires of their kind which by reason of the fixity and inseparable connexion of the Principles they as in an Orb above the rest of the Apparences of Nature suffer no flagration of parts nor admit of any injury by the strongest tortures of Vulcan or vulgar Fire which consists in the fourth Complication of our Principles or any other below it self as is evident in the Metals especially the fixed and in the Philosophick Elixir Nor do they undergo any separation of parts as appears in the Liquor Alkahest and Mercury of Philosophers which by reason of the intimate and radical union of their constituent Principles are liable to no sequestration of Heterogeneities the common fate to most Bodies from which Modification of the Principles of Fire it truely if such there be in rerum natura becomes the Ignis Philosophicus otherwise call'd the Philosophers Sulphur that hidden Tincture so much disbeliev'd by many and those also learned men which secret Fires apply'd to their proper Bodies burn onely away their Dross separating their impurities without the destruction or Consumption of their intrinsick Seeds originally implanted therein whence is solvable the very Ratio formalis of the transmutation of Metals Yea and from this seventh complication of the Principles it is whence probably those abstruse Maximes of the Hermetick Philosophers may genuinely be solv'd where they tell us of their Water which burns Bodies and their Fire which moistens them aqua Philosophica corpora urens viz. eorum hetereogenea eademque madefaciens they burn with Water and moisten with Fire a great Paradox in Nature through our ignorance in the abstruse causes of things of which more interspers'dly in our Lithologia and Tentamen Physiologic but especially in our Chrysologia Hermetica From which Principles differently according to the aforesaid sevenfold Modifications complicated the Phaenomena of Nature in her works are according to our Hypothesis easily solvable concerning which you may see many considerable instances illustrated in our Tentamen Physiologie Hydroph It seems then Pyroph that Fire in its genuine and Physical sense is of a larger extent than ever we dream'd of For you make Fire or the Principles thereof to be Seminal and Mechanical Agents in all Bodies especially in those from Seminal Productions these to be reckon'd amongst the intrinsic but pray how are they as extrinsic Agents so much concern'd in the great Metastasis and Catastrophe of Bodies Pyroph When I accounted Fire amongst the extrinsic Agents it was only as Culinary viz. the vulgar I mean such as our fourth complication of the Principles exhibits and as considered applicable to Bodies already constituted and to the changes thence issuing that is as the Principles of any combustible Body was by a rapid Collision brought into that highest motion we call Fire as these I say were applicable to other Bodies whose Principles in some Modification or other had woven the Texture thereof and so lay dormant and did as adventitious Agents excite the latent Principles into action so they thereby become extrinsic Agents thus the Fiery or combustible Principles being put into action in one Body as suppose Wood or the like this as an extrinsic Agent is able to excite the same combustible Principles in any other combustible Body But it is applicable to other Bodies as an extrinsick Agent upon no other account than this viz. from the congenealness of its Principles to those in Bodies it 's applicable to for as Ferments to take them in the usual acceptation work upon no Bodies but such as have Principles Analogical to themselves which is the very Ratio formalis of such Ferments acting upon other Bodies viz. their congenealness so Fire no otherwise burns Bodies than as its Principles being brought into a rapid Collision awakens the same sort of Principles in Bodies it 's applied to exciting those Principles into the same motion which lay dormant before SECT VIII Hydroph HOw do you reckon Ferments amongst extrinsick Agents Pyroph Much what as I have said concerning vulgar Fire For although most Bodies especially Vegetable and Animal lodge within themselves their own Ferments by which they undergo that intestin motion of their constitutive parts they are natually inclin'd to as appears in the Vegetation of Plants from the Fermentation of their genuine Principles and in the Motion Circulation Generation of Spirits c. in the Fermentative Juices of Animals yet these are also lyable to Mutations from extrinsick Ferments being adventitious Agents which according to the Degrees of their Energie either excite or highten the native or pervert them into that which is spurious But in all alterations that are made by those extrinsick Ferments either by stirring up the supine native Ferments or by graduating and advancing them in their vigour and strength do it I say always by a consimilarnes of Nature that is by a congenealness of the extrinsick to the intrinsick Ferments concerning which we discourse more largely in our Tentamen Physiologic Hydroph What mean you Pyroph by Salts which you reckon also amongst extrinsick Agents and concern'd in the Changes of Bodies Pyroph I look upon them Hydroph as other sorts of extrinsick Agents which applied to and interweaving with other Bodies beget great alterations in their apparences Thus for instance Quick-silver which is a fluid Body doth by the interposition of Salts as of Vitriol Nitre or Fossil Salt arise together by the help of Fire in the form of a white Crystalline Sublimate when from the apparences of a fluid Body and Argent-Colour it becomes determin'd by the aforesaid interweaving of Salts into a consistent solid and white Body as may be seen in the preparation of Mercury Sublimate both Corrosive and Dulcis which solid Body shall become
fluid again as Water by the help of Fire if thereto be added Sal-Armoniack and filings of Copper or the Calx of Verdigreece remaining after the distillation of that Spiritus Veneris so called by Snelfer Thus also two Saline fluid Liquors the one made by putrefaction and Distillation either from Animals or Vegetables the other by distillation prepared from Fermentative Liquors put together shall lose their fluidity and become a dry Osta as is conspicuous not only in the well known mixtures of Spirit of Wine and Spirit of Urin Blood Sal-Armoniac Plants c. but also two Mineral Liquors mentioned in our Halolog Chym. mixed a dry Osta may be made likewise Oyl of Vitriol pour'd upon a peculiarly prepar'd Vitriolin Liquor to be mentioned in the aforesaid Treatise of Salts turns to a blue Clay And as some fluid Bodies by Salts as extrinsick Agents become Solid so some Solid Bodies by Salts become fluid as for instance Butyrum Antimonii viz. Butter of Antimony in a gentle heat is as fluid as an Oyl of a strong Body and yet consists of the Flowers of Antimony brought into that form by the additional Salts before contain'd in sublimate so Antimony by Salts loseth its colour Thus from black with the addition of Salts it becomes brown or yellow as in the Hepar of Antimony and from thence by further addition of Salts and Calcinations it becomes a lighter yellow at length white with a sleight yellow reflexion as is evident in Diaphoretic Antimony in Mercurius Vitae and Bezoardicum Minerale concerning which Mutations amongst Bodys you may see more in our aforesaid Discourse of Salts Hydroph What mean you Pyroph by Solvents the last you reckon upon the score of extrinsic Agents in order to the changes which happen amongst Bodys Pyroph By Solvents I understand all or most sorts of Menstrua whether preparable amongst Animals Vegetables or Minerals amongst Animals such whose energetical Crasis depends chiefly upon volatile Alcalies and those as more or less complicated or colliquated with their connate Sulphurs amongst Vegetables such where first either the Sulphur is deprest and the Acidum prevalent as in all Acids or Vinegars distillable from the fermented Juyces of Plants once deprav'd viz. in Vinegars Alegars c. or their Spirits or Secondly where the Acidum and Sulphur are in aequilibrio as in all vinous or other fermentative Liquors Or Thirdly where the Acidum is deprest and the Sulphur exalted as in all vinous Spirits distillable from fermentative Liquors Lastly amongst Minerals such where first the Acids prevail and are thin or lean as in Spirit of Vitriol Secondly where the Acids imbibe and colliquate more of their Sulphurs as in Spirit of Salt Thirdly where the Sulphurs prevail and yet are bound down by a strong Colliquation with their Acids as in the Oyl of Vitriol Sulphur per Campane Aquae Stygiae or lastly where the Sulphur is most prevalent as in Oyl of Antimony In all which there are real although gradual Colliquations of the Mineral Principles with what alterations they make upon other bodys they are applicable to and that as they are extrinsic Agents not only the Chymical Dispensatory's but also our Halolog or Discourse of Salts do abundantly illustrate Hydroph How do these extrinsic Agents you have mentioned accord amongst themselves and how thereby reconcilable to your Hypothesis Pyroph Because as I said Fire viz. the vulgar made from the fourth Complication of our Principles was applicable to other bodys whose Principles otherwise lay dormant as an extrinsic Agent so if we take Fire in the largest sense as extended through all the seven Complications of the Principles whereby according to our Hypothesis it is concern'd in the Fabric of most if not all bodies then we shall find that even the other three viz. Ferments Salts and Solvents are in one sense or other most-what reducible thereto Thus Ferments are compriz'd chiefly in the second and third Complications of the Principles and Solvents in as much as they depend for the most part upon the Colliquation of the Principles do most-what result from the sixth The greatest difficulty I find is in Salts as Agents and in petrific Concretes viz. how Salts in their concretions and Stones in their nativity are comprisable within the sphere of our Principles and reconcilable to our Hypothesis concerning Salts how they all in their several concretions comprehend a Sulphur in one degree mode or other lockt up in their Compage And how a ten-fold complication of the Principles of Salts are necessarily to be considered in order to all the various Concretions they are in Nature or by Art in imitation of Nature reducible to and concerning the manifold Phaenomena thence solvable For for instance one saline Liquor by the addition of another Salt or Body doth assume the form of an Oyl Butter Jelly Clay Osta c. is demonstrated by particular Examples and Illustrations Also how Salts do preserve bodys they are apply'd to from putrefaction by preventing the access of somewhat in the Air which is concern'd in the setting those retrograde Springs in motion I mean in putting the Principles into their reverse and analytical Fermentations shew'd in the taking bodys in pieces by putrefaction And lastly how these Principles may be arrested from their Motion and suspended from their putrefactive Fermentations by additions not only of Salts Frost Air Fume of Brimstone and additionals of other Condiments but also by bare but artificial Extrusions of Air concerning all which at large you may further see in our Halolog Chym. almost finisht upon that Subject when extant and as to the Nativity of petrific bodys from their intimate and essential causes both as relating to the Macro as well as to the Micro-cosme you may consult when extant our Lithologia Physica being a Discourse of Petrification Hydroph Wherein pray Pyroph do your Principles differ from the Corpuscularian For you seem in some things to strike in with their Hypothesis Pyroph If you will observe Hydroph you will find as in many things it accords so it differs much for theirs supposeth in the main matter mov'd which also includes in it the figure shape and size of the parts moved reducing them into certain minute figur'd parts irreducible into less which convening in such and such numbers with others of different figure combine together under the mask of some other figure than before and so constitute this or the other body shap'd according to the texture of those parts so collected and united together whereas ours although it include much of this Doctrine especially that of matter mov'd and under the consideration of variety of figure shape and size of the constituent parts yet herein it differeth first that it doth not consider the parts as reduc'd or reducible into indivisible and yet figur'd points But supposeth all the however minute parts of matter which do accost our senses or make any alterations in our Juyces by which we usually make an
subjectum inhaesionis but as actual Bodies how minute soever are capable enough to smite our subtile Organs and affect our Senses set on work by Winds from different quarters which are the Clavigeri tempestatum in order to the mutation of weather For although these float in the Air and are not seen excepting that of Moisture gathered together in a Mist Fog or Cloud yet that they are perceptible enough to our Senses is evident amongst the rest from the minute Particles of Cold which float in the Air from Northern Winds and are of such Shape or Size as they not only pierce our Skins and moderately shut the Pores thereof thereby invigorate the Ferments whence our Appetites to Food are stronger and the Digestions the better perform'd in Frost than in warm Weather And in colder Countries and Climates than in hot but in cold raw Weather the Pores those small Portals of the Body stand a char if I may so say whereby the alterations in the Air have the easier access into our Juices to procure the like in them whence we observe in such Weather people generally take more cold and are more prone to Diseases as well Acute as Chronical than at other Seasons Which Frost Air if it be very sharp congeals the fluid humours of our Bodies forceing the Spirits to a retreat unless oppos'd by a warmth from exercise or Spirits of good Liquor yea the same cold Particles meeting with Water doth so fill the Pores thereof that from a fluid they by their interposition make it become for a time a kind of solid Body which when the winds change and are carried in different Percledi of the Air as breathing suppose from the South or West South-East or South-West points the Particles of Heat and Moisture muster in the Air and mortifie dint or resolve the cold Particles For it 's very probable that the congealing of Water into Ice by Cold is nothing else but the congelation of the Atoms which in one Sense we admit of Cold rivetting themselves fast in the Pores of the Body of Water in as much as these floating in the Air either brought to us by those Winds which blow over the Northern Frozen Seas which in their resolution may extricate themselves from their former combinations being carried by the fanning of the Wind from that quarter or from what other causes soever meeting with liquid Bodies by their piercing nature insinuate themselves into the Texture thereof and as they weave themselves in they put a stop to the motion or fluidity of those liquids unless preserv'd by some active nimble spirituous parts and from a fluid make them become as we said a sort of solid Bodies which as they fill some Pores of Water so they cause some other parts of Water to constringe or concenter themselves whence is one reason why in Frosty Seasons Rivers that are otherwise high by late falls of Rain are upon Frosty Winds shrunk up and Water in Vessels expos'd to the Air are sensibly contracted or lessened Wherefore all Bodies whose Texture consists most what of liquid parts if they contain so many of those aforesaid nimble spirituous fermentative Particles by the briskness of whose motion the liquids are kept fluid then are they secured so long as kept either circulating in their own or defended by close Vessels from the injury of the cold undergo no coagulation therefrom nor are altered thereby Thus the Blood and liquid Juices in the Body of Man or other Animals as long as they are invigorated with Spirituous Saline and Sulphureous parts which keep them constantly in a circulating Motion so long are safe from the injury of cold so all Fermented Liquors whether Wines Sider Perry Ale Beer c. while the Ferments are active with Spirituous parts interwoven in the whole Texture thereof and kept in close Vessels so long are not apt to be surpriz'd by cold or to be congeal'd thereby into Ice unless through the excessiveness of Cold and perhaps carelesness in stopping up Vessels Wines or other Fermented Liquors become Frozen as sometimes happens upon very long Voiages into cold Climates witness that of Fishing for Whales by some Hollanders in the Northern-Seas their Wines otherwise generous enough were by extremity of cold Frozen the Hoops being taken off and the VVines uncask'd they were found congeal'd into Ice and stood in the form of the Vessels they were put in which Ice they perforated with Augers and found about the Center of the Ice a little Liquor of an Amethyst Colour which was the pure Balsamick Spirits of Wine concentred and therefore incapable of being congeal'd by cold all the rest of the Body of Ice being dissolv'd by Heat was an insipid Phlegm or mere VVater of VVine into which if a little of the true Fiery Spirits was pour'd made it like VVine after which manner they drank it And in our late intense Frost December last the Particles of Cold were so copious and piercing as it froze Beer and Ale in Cakes Sherry Sack in Bottles and a Lixivium of Vegetable Salts I had by me yea a pretty smart Spirit of Vitriol standing in a Bottle in a VVindow was as far as I could discern totally Frozen up and in York-shire in some places it froze the moisture in peoples Nostrils into Icicles that with their finger as an Eye-witness told me they pull'd out pieces of Ice So all Volatile Spirits whether Vinous Vrinous or Oleaginous are being kept in close Vessels capable of defending themselves from being congeal'd by cold For neither Spirits of VVine or Volatile Spirits of Blood Vrin Soot Harts-horn c. nor distill'd therefore call'd Chymical-Oyls as of Turpentine Cinamon Cloves Rosemary Sage Wormwood c. are I say none of them apt to be Frozen by Cold but can defend themselves by their nimble active spirituous parts from the injury thereof in like manner all Mineral acid Spirits as of Vitriol except as aforesaid Alom Nitre Salt c. can if kept in close Vessels preserve themselves from damage by cold so also Lixiviums made of the fixt Salts of Tartar or other Vegetables But those Liquids that are destitute of saline sulphurous or other fermenting Particles are of themselves capable of admitting the ingress of cold Atoms so as to suffer some Vacuolums to be fill'd and other parts to be constring'd into a solid form of the congeal'd body of Ice and all this by the medium of Air which is the vehicle of these cold Atoms SECT XII Hydroph BUt we say Pyroph that cold is an active Quality which doth congregare homogenea heterogenea and as such doth condense congeal Water into Ice Pyroph Those qualities Hydroph together with the quaternary of Elements which you look upon as Principles of mixt bodies and from whose combinations you would solve the different apparences thereof I have told you and I think partly demonstrated as such not to be in rerum natura Hydroph But what different impressions Pyroph are made
the notion of a quality Hence those degrees of qualities which Hydroph you in your Philosophy and Medicks are apt to ascribe Concretes to are no more to be taken notice of than the qualities themselves so that all your Solutions of apparences by your supposed degrees of the Primary qualities will what is said being premis'd of their own accord fall to nothing Hence for instance Iron which you in your Scarb. Spaw repute to be of the third degree of driness is no more to be taken notice of as to a Philosophical Solution of the Essence of that Concrete than if you had said it had been in the third degree of nothing for both are alike unintelligible of which more particularly in our Hydrological Essays Hydroph Well Pyroph I might justly reply to you as formerly we in the Disputations of the Schools us'd to accost the Cartesians viz. Contra principia negantem non est disputandum These are new conceits which we that are grown old in the Philosophy of Aristotle and his followers are not at leisure to take notice of But what will you make Pyroph of the second qualities viz. those we call Density Rarity Gravity Levity Hardness Softness Thickness Thinness Aridity Lubricity Clamminess Friableness Asperity and Smoothness Are not these necessarily to be reputed Qualities by which we arrive to some knowledge of the nature of the Bodies they are found in Pyroph As to which query Hydroph concerning the second qualities I answer that as the first qualities are not in rerum natura as such so neither are the second for sublata causa tollitur effectus But the first are the supposed cause of the second which being by reasons aforesaid deducted out of the Catalogue of Entities nothing of the second qualities as such can remain For that that Texture of parts which makes Bodies appear to our Senses dense or rare heavy or light hard or soft rugged or smooth c. should be reputed Secondary depending upon the quaternary of the first qualities Heat Cold Driness and Moisture is I say as indemonstrable as unintelligible for all these as far as I apprehend depend meerly upon the different Texture of the constitutive parts of Bodies whereby they variously affect our Senses yea and many of them competible to the same Body as its parts are variously agitated by fire Ferments Sal s or Solvents whereby the same Body so differently acted and its parts transpos'd may very changeably affect our Senses after so many different manners as may make up all or most of those you call second qualities Hydroph Is not rarity a second quality arising chiefly from Heat having its parts extenuated as Herbs Pruinae Clouds And is not Density another from Cold having its parts bound up and solidly adhering to each other as Glass Stone Iron and the rest of the Metals And further is not Levity a quality arising from Heat making things capable of moving upwards and Gravity a quality from Cold which makes things move downwards towards a Center Pyroph I answer Hydroph that in what you term Rarity I see no necessity of giving the name of a second quality arising from the Primary Heat but that it is only such a Texture of parts in the composition of some Bodies as makes them appear thin and as it were finely woven being a rare Texture of parts with many Streiners Porosities or vacuolums interspers'd according to whose Fabrick of parts our Senses are generally affected so as they fall under such and such distinct perception thereof Thus Air is a rare Body in as much as its parts are of a fine thin tenuious plyable Texture as aforesaid And as Rarity so Density is no quality being no other than such a Body whose parts are closely set together with few Porosities thus Stone Glass Mealline and Mineral-Bodies are such whose constitutive parts are closely bound up and fast rivetted together and therefore no need of ascribing its original to cold As for Levity it is peculiar to such Bodies whose Texture is rare and finely woven and so the sequel of that we call Rarity Also Gravity is the contrary being the necessary product of such Bodies whose parts are closely put together I mean of those which are compact and dense Bodies And as to the rest of second qualities as Hardness Softness Thickness Thinness c. all which I say are but different Modifications of the parts of Bodies whereby they variously affect our Senses having the same way of solution as those I have already spoken of therefore shall forbear Now that these Hydroph are neither the Indexes nor the Products of the Quaternary of first qualities and consequently not to be reckoned as such in the Category of qualities is evident in that one and the same Body by a Metastasis of its parts by Fire Salts or Solvents may undergo all or most of those you call second and perhaps first qualities too so that to which of these the Essence of that Body should be attributed would prove a query too difficult for most of your Philosophy grounded upon these qualities to resolve Thus for instance suppose we take Antimony into our consideration which in its Minâ—ra is a stony dense heavy hard friable Body this being melted by Fire and thereby separated from its petrifique gritty and sabulous parts gives us that Body of Antimony usually fold in the Shops which still retains all the aforesaid properties which are the natural sequels of its present Texture of parts But suppose this by fire be forc'd in Fumes into Flowers adhering to the sides of Pots Ovens or other large receivers give a rare light soft and impalpable Body with a white colour which fluxed by further addition of Fire becomes a dense heavy hard friable but diaphanous Body called the Vitrum or Glass of Antimony where by the Vitrification of its parts it emulates that other product of the Fire made from Ashes and Sand flux'd together Concerning the reasons and causes of Vitrification in general and particular we discourse in our Tentamen Physiologic and Litholog Physica This glass prepared as aforesaid will by further addition of Fire and Salts become Metalline melt and run into a Regulus which melts and flows like Lead or Quick-silver call'd by Chymists the coagulated Mercury of Antimony is dense hard heavy and opacous which again may be sublim'd into Flowers out of which Flowers may a current Mercury begot by boyling with Salt of Tartar c. as is mention'd in Volum 4. Theat Chym. Nova disquisit de Helia Artista Also Antimony by addition of Salts with the help of Fire produceth that Mass we call hepar Antimonii which makes the frequently us'd Emetick Wine upon which dissolv'd in Water if distill'd Vinegar be poured it makes a speedy separation of a Red and Yellow Sulphur with a Fetid Sulphureous smell very like the Water of the Sulphur-Well at Knarsborough in York-shire But if in lieu of Vinegar more Salts be added and it be further
body giving a green colour and that as well by refraction as transmssiion of Rays from a luminous body gliding side-ways and smiting through the Liquor which renders it diaphanous whose texture of parts with the interstices in the fluid Menstruum causeth I say such a refraction of light as thereby represents it under the form of a green colour If into this green diaphanous Liquor Hydroph you pour a clear solution of Galls the texture of the vitriolin parts in the water will become so altered as that in lieu of a diaphanous it will become an opake Liquor so that the luminous Rays which before were refracted and transmitted will now become either reflected or so intangled in the texture of the parts as neither to make a transmission refraction or any considerable reflection of light there-from and therefore becomes opacous or black For by the addition of Galls to the aforesaid Liquor the first body whose parts were uniform and regularly transmitted and refracted the Rays of light doth now by this commixture with the Particles of Galls muster in so confus'd a posture make an extraversion of large flats some of which always fall in the rear of the Angles and junctures of others so as the transmission of light is quite intercepted and therefore what reflection is made is only so much as to be sufficient to make that representation of bodies by that colour we call black Which that it is so appears further by pouring Oyl of Vitriol Spirit of Nitre Aqua-fortis or the like corrosive Acid Spirits upon those vitriolin opacous Liquors or other bodies made black by vitriolin astringent Steins where you will presently view those Particles of the Gall which before fill'd the Pores of the Liquor and by extraverting many flats made the Liquor opacous dark and inky will now become fretted dissolv'd and the flats lessened so as the parts will again return into their former uniform posture and suffer the light by becoming clear to be transmitted as before so to become a diaphanous Liquor as at first as you may further see in our Experiments about the change of Colours in Spaw Water in our Hydrolog Chymica And that colours are nothing else but different refractions and repercussions of light from bodies according to various Angles of incidence and reflection from the different texture of the depth or superficies thereof carryed through the transparent Tunicles and Humours of the Eyes as through so many Glasses for from the natural Fabric of the Eye are artificial optical or microscopical Glasses contriv'd vibrating after a various manner the Optic Nerves so as to make that kind of sensation we call Vision That colours are I say nothing else but such I might confirm by many more instances viz. by the frequent Manuals of Dyers Tanners Painters c. in their colouring Garments Leather Wood c. by actual bodies not qualities of Vitriol Alum Argol Indico Madder Lime Oak Bark Minium Ceruss Verdigreece Spanish-white Gum Vernice ultra-Marine c. all which produce different colours not from inherent qualities in those bodies arising from a legitimate contemperature of the four Elements but represent themselves as being actual bodies I mean shew that great variety of colours by the different texture of their constitutive parts whereby light becomes so differently refracted or reflected as to be sufficient to cause that great variety of colours we see amongst bodies where we might from the aforesaid different reflections and refractions of light shew amongst the causes of those apparences we call colours what for instance white is and how made which we suppose to be no other than that texture of parts which results from many superficies flat or spherical born up at some little distances from each other by one or more of these following causes viz. 1. By Air 2. Atoms of Cold 3. Other similiar inter-woven bodies 4. Or lastly are wrought into such a texture of parts by the preparatory Vessels First by Air as is evident in Torrents great falls and other agitations of Waters in the white froth of Ale Beer or other fermenting Liquors also in the warming of Ale or Beer c. where the Particles of Water and fermentative Liquors are huft up with those of Air being thereby reduc'd into globular Bubbles the aggregation of which give us that Phaenomenon of white observable therein the like may be reckoned upon in production of white Oyntments from the concussion of Oyls c. Secondly or by Atoms of cold as is evident in the obvious Phaenomenon of Snow where from the cold Atoms woven in with and between the flats for such are the figure of its parts under this disguise of watery Particles results that colour of white as also other apparences compitible to water under the Masque of Snow Thirdly Or by other inter-weaving bodies as is evident where the texture of bodies are such as are made up of many superficies each upon other by a natural stratum super stratum born up by some other interposing parts as is evident in natural Concretions viz. Talk Alabaster Bones Horns Plumes c. In factitious viz. Luna Cornea Venice-glass pulveriz'd Ceruss Paper c. In all which the light from the aforesaid texture of parts is so refracted and reflected as to exhibit us that apparence of white in all such bodies Or lastly are wrought into such a texture of parts by preparatory Vessels by which in Animals I mean the Lacteals and Glandules whence the whiteness of Milk and by other Analogous in Vegetables whence the milky Juyces of all sorts of Spurges Carduus Marie c. But to demonstrate further that Colour and in particular White is no other than the result of such a peculiar texture of bodies as reflects the light after such a mode competible to that apparence and that the same body undergoing no other change of any additional but barely a transposition of the parts of the active Principles therein contained was spontaneously reducible to its pristine clarity and transparency I had this following Phaenomenon represented to me in an Experiment I was then trying In which Experiment I shall forbear to name one of the constituent Liquors in as much as in the main it relates not to this place and only reckon upon the to our purpose pertinent Phaenomenon which was this I having two transparent Liquors by me one was rectified Spirit of Wine the other a Mineral Liquor upon the mixing these I had besides the gentle heat caus'd from a moderate fermentation of the Principles forthwith the apparence of a Milk-white Liquor through the whole body of the mixture which and what was very curious and remarkable to behold within a very few minutes without any extrinsic addition was spontaneously reduc'd to a transparent Liquor as limpid almost as either of the Liquors was before mixture and all this which yet adds to admiration without the least precipitation or any sort of sediment what ever I might further inlarge Hydroph
imitating Nature in as much as both have the same Principles only variously modified to proceed upon the same Principles being substituted to both that what Art goeth upon the same nature suo modo probably useth in the productions of Bodies and their qualities Physically In all which aforesaid experimental observations we see the same or analogous acidity being determined upon different Bodies give various Phaenomena of tastes according to the difference of the Sulphur inclos'd in divers Bodies it meets with and whereas we have no better way of taking measures of Natures workings in Bodies from her own intimate and Essential Principles than by Mechanicks or artificial imitations thereof Therefore by how much the nearer we approach by skilful contrivances to emulate Nature in the production of new Bodies and qualifications or properties thence resulting the more likely are those Principles we so search forth to be consonant to those of nature the great matter we aim at For as sweetness for instance is made from some Acids hitting upon and concentring with insipid Bodies in whose Texture a peculiar Sulphur lodgeth as in the examples aforesaid so likewise probably Nature useth an acid and a peculiar Sulphur both native and seminal as the mechanical Agents in the Physical production of the Saccharin juice of Sugar-canes that Vegetable Sugar as well as metalline has its innate acidity is evident from the separation of an acid liquor in the distillation of Sugar as well as an acid spirit is by the same way separable from Metallin or Saturnin Sugar which very acidum as well as that of Vinegar or Aqua-fortis will with the insipid Body of Lead or Minium gain a fresh sugarness or saccharin sweetness and that it contains a Sulphur is evident both from the coruscation of Sugar I mean Loaf or hard beat in a Mortar which strikes fire at every knock of the Pestil as also from the Oyl distillable with the acid Spirit And what we have said of the Vegetable and Metalline Sugars Art imitating Nature in order to the producing that property we call sweet the same analogically may possibly consideratis considerandis be said of all the rest of those other properties or relative qualities we call Tastes But to say what combinations of Saline and Sulphureous parts in the various Texture of Bodies and what proportions and adaptations thereof will be requisite for the making several sorts of Sapors to rank them in their several Classes from those peculiar contrivances of matter which contribute to the Fabrick of Bodies as they stand related to that Sense is a work now Hydroph too tedious to insist upon For it would require a diligent scrutiny into the different figuration of Salts and that not singly into the forms the variety of Salts naturally shoot into but as those stand intangled with Sulphureous parts and those again involv'd in the Texture of other combining Particles which much alter their former solitary figures and thereby produce varieties of Sapors concerning which we shall touch in our Halolog Chym. Nor shall we here further discourse of those morbid disaffections or preposterous prevarications of this Sense by the irregularities of the Organs thereof from those alterations of the Juices and Solids of our Bodies which we call Diseases but shall leave them to further inspection SECT XVI Hydroph SEeing we have discours'd of Sapours lastly what think you Pyroph of Odours Is not Odour a Quality of a mixt Body arising from a dry Sapidness contempered with a moisture brought forth by Heat Pyroph That Odour should be a Quality Hydroph I as much deny as I have done Sapour neither do I see any grounds why it should be suppos'd to arise from any dry sapidness or any contemperature thereof with a proper moisture from Heat For first having and I think evidently enough demonstrated the non existency of Concretes from the quaternary of Elements it will therefore naturally follow that secondary affections of Bodies in order to their relation to our Sences are to be solv'd by some other more rational Hypothesis and that is by ascribing it to an extension of some nimble agil parts carried off by an insensible collision of the intrinsick Principles of Bodies where the parts are from the intestine Fermentation subtiliz'd highly volariz'd which bears much upon the Energy of the Sulphur the different Texture of whose apporrhea's chieflyemerging from their dilated operative Sulphurs do variously ferire nares smite differently upon that Organ of Sence as to produce that great variety of Odours we find Issuing from Concrete Bodies That Odours chiefly depend upon the Volatization and Fermentative extension of Sulphurs is most-what apparent in Vegetables where we see those are most Aromatick which are most pregnant with Sulphurous Emanations and whose Sulphurs are most subtile and extensive from their intrinsick Fermentation always upon the wing For we see that odorous Vegetables are most fragrant at their time of flowering and seeding during which season the Sulphurs or Oyls are most predominant as being uppermost in the wheele of operation and so breath forth the effluvia to the utmost circle of their Orbs activity which as I said are not Qualities but minute Particles of extensive active Bodies set on work by the springy Ferments connatural to their seminal Principles and wound off in the form of subtile and invisible Apporhea whence probably proceeds the great variety of Vegetable Odours Also in Animals the Odours of all their Excrements as Dung Urine Sweat suppurated matter of Ulcers c. proceed from various Sulphurs excited by different Ferments in the Analysis of Concretes in their Road to nourishment So also most faetid Odours arise from the Sulphurs of putredinous and cadaverous Bodies where they are taken in pieces by putrid analytical Ferments And as the objects so the Organs of this sense is next to be considered concerning which we we shall in short say that the different Texture thereof is capable of rendering to us the causes of divers and those abstruce Phaenomena whence we say that there are some subtile effluvia which exhaling from Bodies as the result from the Fermentation of Animal Juices which thereby become the Object of some curiously wrought Organs of Sense how ever acute yet are sufficient to smite the delicately wrought Organs of other Animals is Evident amongst other Creatures chiefly in Doggs who excel in the curiosity of smelling beyond all comparison who can by the great sagacity of their Organs or from such a Texture thereof as is susceptible of the most minute impressions of the least Effluvia who can I say by their bare smel discerne their master among thousands and how they will trace their steps throughout a whole Country and finde their own way home at a vast distance by the same faculty or acurateness of Organs Yea that even the Organs of our Senses are in some persons through an idiosyncrisia capable of arriving at a higher pitch of sensation than is vulgarly observed even beyond the ordinary proportion of Men may amongst other examples be evinced by that strange relation which Joannes Leo of Africa and quoted by learned Cafaubon of a blinde man that was a Guide to certain Merchants travelling through the deserts of Arabia Casaub p. 23. The man Rode upon a Camel led his Company not by his eyes for he had none but by his smel which was so exquisite that having been acquainted with those ways before he could find by the sent of the very Earth nay of the Sand which was reached to him at every mile where he was and describe the places unto them as they went along yea told them long before which prov'd true though not believed then when they drew near to inhabited places Now how Bodies should by their extended Sulphurs or intrinsick Ferments so differently affect the sensative Organ as to produce all those various impressions upon our Sense which we call Odours or smels and those in so different a manner as we for want of a method of describing them know not whether we have all the same impressions of smels from the same Concretes How the composure of the sensative Organ consists or lastly how the manner of the various combinations of Sulphureous Effluvia flowing from Fermentative Collisions of their intestine Principles happen to our Sences we shall not now I say take time further to discuss but leave to further enquiry FINIS ERRATA PAge 6. l. 19. r. 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