Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A29013
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Of the high veneration man's intellect owes to God, peculiarly for his wisedom and power by a Fellow of the Royal Society.
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Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing B4009; ESTC R10996
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40,294
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119
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have bounds and so be truely boundless or which is the same thing in other terms infinite And if the World be bounded then those that believe a Deity to whose Nature it belongs to be of infinite Power must not deny that God is and still was able to make other Worlds than this of ours And the Epicureans who admitted no Omnipotent Maker of the World but substituted Chance and Atomes in his Stead taught that by reason the causes sufficient to make a World that is Atomes and Space were not wanting Chance has actually made many Worlds of which ours is but one and the Cartesians must according to their Doctrine of the Indefiniteness of Corporeal Substance admit that our visible World or if they please Vortex by which I mean the greatest extent our eyes can reach to is but a part and comparatively but a very small one too of the whole Vniverse which may extend beyond the utmost Stars we can see incomparably farther than those remotest visible bounds are distant from our Earth Now if we grant with some modern Philosophers that God has made other Worlds besides this of ours it will be highly probable that he has there display'd His manifold Wisedom in productions very differing from those wherein we here admire it And even without supposing any more than one Universe as all that portion of it that is visible to us makes but a part of that vastly extended aggregate of bodies So if we but suppose that some of the Celestial Globes whether visible to us or plac'd beyond the reach of our sight are peculiar Systemes the consideration will not be very different For since the fix'd Stars are many of them incomparably more remote than the Planets 't is not absurd to suppose that as the Sun who is the fix'd Star nearest to us has a whole Systeme of Planets that move about him so some of the other fix'd Stars may be each of them the Centre as it were of another Systeme of Celestial Globes since we see that some Planets themselves that are determined by Astronomers to be much inferiour in bigness to those fix'd Stars I was speaking of have other Globes that do as it were depend on them and move about them as not to mention the Earth that has the Moon for its Attendant nor Saturn that is not altogether unaccompanied 't is plain that Jupiter has no less than four Satellites that run their Courses about Him And 't is not to be pretermitted that none of these lesser and secondary Planets if I may so call them that moves about Saturn and Jupiter is visible to the naked eye and therefore they were all unknown to the Ancient Astronomers who liv'd before the invention of Telescopes Now in case there be other Mundane Systemes if I may so speak besides this visible one of ours I think it may be probably suppos'd that God may have given peculiar and admirable instances of His inexhausted Wisedom in the Contrivance and Government of Systemes that for ought we know may be fram'd and manag'd in a manner quite differing from what is observ'd in that part of the Universe that is known to us For besides that here on Earth the Loadstone is a Mineral so differing in divers affections not onely from all other Stones but from all other bodies that are not Magnetical that this Heteroclite Mineral scarce seems to be Originary of this World of ours but to have come into it by a remove from some other World or Systeme I remember that some of the Navigators that discovered America took notice that at their first coming into some parts of it though they found great store of Animals and Plants yet they met with few of the latter and scarce any of the former of the same Species with the living Creatures of Europe 19. Now in these other Worlds besides that we may suppose that the Original Fabrick or that Frame into which the Omniscient Architect at first contriv'd the parts of their matter was very differing from the structure of our Systeme besides this I say we may conceive that there may be a vast difference betwixt the subsequent Phoenomena and productions observable in one of those Systemes from what regularly happens in ours though we should suppose no more than that two or three Laws of Local Motion may be differing in those unknown Worlds from the Laws that obtain in ours For if we suppose for instance that every entire Body whether simple or compounded great or small retains always a motive Power as Philosophers commonly think that the Soul does when it has mov'd the Humane Body and as the Epicureans and many other Philosophers think all Atomes do after they have impell'd one aonther this power of exciting Motion in another Body without the Movents loosing its own will appear of such moment to those that duely consider that Local Motion is the first and chiefest of the second causes that produce the Phoenomena of Nature that they will easily grant that these Phoenomena must be strangely diversifyed by springing from principal causes so very differingly qualifyed Nor to add another way of varying Motion is it absurd to conceive that God may have created some parts of matter to be of themselves quiescent as the Cartesians and divers other Philosophers suppose all matter to be in its own Nature and determin'd to continue at rest till some outward Agent force it into Motion and yet that He may have endow'd other parts of the matter with a Power like that which the Atomists ascribe to their Principles of restlesly moving themselves without loosing that power by the motion they excite in quiescent bodies And the Laws of this propagation of Motion among bodies may be not the same with those that are established in our World so that but one half or some lesser part as a third of the Motion that is here communicated from a body of such a bulk and velocity to another it finds at rest or slowlier mov'd than it self shall there pass from a Movent to the body it impells though all circumstances except the Laws of Motion be suppos'd to be the same Nor is it so extravagant a thing as at first it may seem to entertain such suspicions as these For in the common Philosophy besides that the Notion and Theory of Local Motion are but very imperfectly propos'd there are Laws or Rules of it well not to say at all establish'd 20. And as for the Cartesian Laws of Motion though I know they are received by many learned Men yet I suspect that it is rather upon the Authority of so famous a Mathematician as Des-Cartes than any convictive evidence that accompanies the Rules themselves since to me for Reasons that belong not to this Discourse some of them appear not to be befriended either by clear experience or any Cogent Reason And for the Rule that is the most usefull namely that which asserts That there is always the same
and some other modern Philosophers will not allow men to set any holding the Corporeal World to be as they love to speak Indefinite and beyond any bounds assignable by us men 8. From the vast extent of the Universe I now proceed to consider the stupendious quantity of local Motion that the Divine power has given the parts of it and continually maintains in it Of this we may make some estimate by considering with what velocity some of the greater bodies themselves are mov'd and how great a part of the remaining bodies of the Universe is also though in a somewhat differing way indow'd with motion As for the first of these the least velocity that I shall mention is that which is afforded by the Copernican Hypothesis since according to that 't is the Earth that moves from West to East about its own Axis for it s other motions concern not this discourse in four and twenty hours And yet this Terraqueous Globe which we think so great that we commonly call it the World and which as was lately noted by the recenter computations of Mathematicians is concluded to contain six or seven and twenty thousand miles in Circuit some part of this Globe I say moves at such a rate that the learned Gassendus confesses that a point or place situated in the Aequator of the Earth does in a second minute move about two hundred Toises or Fathoms that is twelve hundred feet so that a Bullet when shot out of a Cannon scarce slies with so great a Celerity 9. But as I was saying the motion of the Earth is the least swift that I had to mention being indeed scarce comparable to the velocity of the fixt Stars if with the generality of Astronomers we suppose them to move in four and twenty hours about the Earth For supposing the distance assign'd by the famous Tycho a more accurate Observer than his Predecessours between us and the Firmament to be fourteen thousand semediameters of the Earth a fixt Star in the Aequator does as Mullerius calculates it move 3153333 miles in an hour and consequently in a minute of an hour fifty two thousand five hundred fifty five miles and a second which is reckon'd to be near about a single pulsation or stroke of the artery of a healthy man 875 miles which is about if not above three thousand times faster than a Cannon bullet moves in the Air. 'T is true that according to the Ptolomean Hypothesis a fixt Star in the Aequinoctial doth in a second move at most but three semediamiters of the Earth but according to the learned and diligent Ricciolus this velocity of our fixt Stars is fifty times greater than in the Ptolomean Hypothesis and threescore and ten times greater than in the Tichonian Hypothesis For according to Ricciolus such a fixt Star as we speak of moves in a second minute or one beating of the pulse 157282 German leagues which amount to six hundred twenty nine thousand one hundred twenty eight English miles And now I shall add what possibly you have not observ'd that That portion of the Universe which commonly passes for quiescent and yet has motion put into it is so great that for ought I know the quantity of motion distributed among these seemingly quiescent bodies may equall if not exceed the quantity of motion the first Mover has communicated to the fixt Stars themselves though we suppose them whirl'd about the Earth with that stupendious swiftness that the Ptolemeans and Tychonians attribute to them For I reckon that the fixt Stars and Planets or if you please all the mundane Globes whether lucid or opacous of which last sort is the Earth do all of them together bear but a small proportion to the Interstellar part of the Vniverse And though I should allow all these Globes to be solid notwithstanding that it can scarce be prov'd of any of them and the Cartesians think the Sun which they take to be a fixt Star and therefore probably of the same Nature with the rest to be extremely fluid though I should I say grant this yet it must be confess'd that each of these solid Globes swims in an ambient fluid of very much greater extent than it self is So that the fluid portion of the Universe will in bulk almost incomparably exceed the solid And if we consider what is the Nature of a fluid body as such we shall find that it consists in having it's minute parts perpetually and variously mov'd some this way and some that way so that though the whole body of a liquor seems to be at rest yet the minute parts that compose that liquor are in a restless motion continually shifting places amongst themselves as has been amply shewn in a late Tract intituled the History of Fluidity and Firmness 10. And because the quantity of motion shar'd by the Corpuscles that compose fluid bodies is not usually reflected on even by Philosophers 't will not be here amiss to add that how great and vehement a motion the parts of fluid bodies perhaps when the Aggregates of those particles appear quiescent may be endowed with we may be assisted to guess by observing them when their ordinary Motions happen to be disturb'd or to be extraordinarily excited by fit conjunctures of circumstances This may be observed in the strange force and effects of boisterous Winds and Whirlewinds which yet are but Streams and Whirlepools of the invisible Air whose singly insensible parts are by accidental causes determined to have their Motion made either in a streight or almost streight-line or as it were about a common Centre But an instance much more conspicuous may be afforded by a Mine charged with Gunpowder where the flame or some subtile Aethereal substance that is always at hand in the Air though both one and the other of them be a fluid body and the powder perhaps be kindled but by one spark of fire exerts a Motion so rapid and furious as in a trice is able to toss up into the Air whole houses and thick Walls together with the firm soil or perchance solid Rocks they were built upon 11. But since the velocity of these discharged flames may be guess'd at by that which the flame of Gunpowder impresses on a Bullet shot out of a well charg'd Gun which the diligent Mersennus who made several trials to measure it defines to be about 75 toises or fathoms that is 450 foot in a Second being the 60th part of a Minute if we admit the probable Opinion of the Cartesians that the Earth and divers other Mundane Globes as the Planets are turn'd about their own Axes by the Motion of the respective Aethereal Vortices or Whirlepools in which they swim we shall easily grant that the Motion of the Celestial Matter that moves for instance upon the remote Confines of the Earths Vortex is by a vast excess more rapid than that of the surface of the Earth And yet we formerly observ'd that a place situated