brute animal to be I should say it consisted of two essential parts the one this active Vis or Virtus Sentiens Animalis the Root and Fountain of all its motions of Sensation Perception Phantasie Appetition and Local Motion And the other is the immediate Hypostasis or Substratum in which this Vis Vitalis Sentiens primitively inexists and to which it is primitively united and by which it communicates it self to the whole Compositum and these are some select Crasis or Portion of the Animal Spirits For the Animal Nature being a more curious piece than inferiour Subsistences and fuller of variety therefore there is a more elaborate and curious method of the union of its Essentials than in others And next to Animals there is a more curious method of union and colligation of the Virtus Vitalis of Vegetables to the more pure and subtil vital Spirits or Latex Vitalis of Vegetables But the Vis Ignea and the Vis Magnetica seem to be immediately united to the whole Fiery or Magnetical Mass But yet still the activity of both is owing not to the bare Hypostasis or Substratum wherein it is lodged but to that incorporeal force virtue or energy which acts in it upon it and by it And upon this accompt Aristotle is to be understood when in 1. De Anima he stiles the Souls of Brutes to be incorporeal and yet in other places calls them substantial viz. they are immaterial and incorporeal with relation to the Vis or Virtus Essentialis activa which is the regnant and noblest part of them but they are substantial and not only so but material in relation to the prima Hypostasis or Primum Substratum the Animal Spirits whereunto this Vis Activa is united or rather some Nodus or concrement of a refined Substance which is as it were the root or Focus of these Spirits that like so many Branches are derived from it through the Nerves and by them communicated to the whole Compositum And although I do here industriously omit the Examination of the Nature of the Humane or Reasonable Soul yet I cannot omit this special observation of the discrimination of the Humane Soul from the Souls of Brutes viz. that although the appropriate faculties of the Sentient or Animal Soul be admitted indefectible in themselves yet their prima Hypostasis or immediate subject of their inexistence is corruptible and subject to dissipation but the appropriate powers or faculties of the reasonable Soul namely Intellect and Will are not only indefectible powers but also the prima Hypostasis or primum Substratum of their inexistence is by the Divine Ordination an indefectible Substratum namely a pure immaterial and incorruptible Substance and the union thereunto indissoluble whereby it comes to pass that the Humane Soul is immortal and preserved both in its Essence Existence Personality and in duration after the dissolution of the Body 1. It s Virtus or Vis is indefectible 2. The Prima Hypostasis incorruptible 3. The Union of both indissoluble by natural power And thus far concerning the first sort of Active Principles in self-moving Automata 2. The second sort of motive Principles are Active Qualities as they are commonly called which though possibly some of them may be the same with the former essentiating Active Forms yet some may be such as are of a second and more inferiour allay as proceeding from the primitive forms themselves I shall instance in two only 1. In that of Heat 2. In that of Gravity As to the former it is evident that Heat not only that which is so to the touch but is such virtually as in Vegetables and Minerals hath a power of exciting Motion both in the Subject of its inexistence and in other Subjects as appears in the Fermentation of Liquors and other things which are put into motion by that virtual heat that resides in its particles though not hot to the touch Whether Cold be of any positive nature and so have a positive activity of its own or whether it be an absence only of heat either totally as in summè frigidis if any such be or partially according to the degrees of heat abated or removed I shall not here dispute for I only propound some Instances to render what I write intelligible 2. As to Gravity or that Principle in heavy bodies that inclines them ab intrinseco to descend this seems to be a quality of most tangible bodies that we converse with if not of all for some contend that there is no such thing in nature as simple Levity at least in any thing but Fire but only some bodies are minus gravia than others and urged to ascend by the pressure or circumpulsion of other bodies more heavy this is not my business at this time to examine This Gravity I take to be a quality intrinsick to heavy bodies at least in our inferiour System of the world Gravitation which is a kind of second act may not altogether improperly be applied to motions of different terminations because it seems to be only nisus or conatus ad motum which may have different terminations viz. upward or downward or laterally and arise from different causes but Gravity it self as it imports a disposition propension or inclination in heavy bodies to descend is not unfitly stiled a quality and an intrinsick quality For we may observe in the motions of natural bodies some are from an extrinsecal cause or accidental sometimes arising from the pressure of other bodies sometimes from the position of the bodies themselves as Water will be driven up perpendicularly by a forcer as in Water-Engines it will move collaterally or per declive by reason of its own fluid nature or by its position upon a declining Plain But when all Obstacles of that nature are removed a heavy body as such will move by a right Line to the Center from that inherent quality of gravity which is intrinsick to it and puts it into motion so that I am unjustly blamed for saying Gravity is a quality inclining bodies to descend to the Center and yet at the same time saying that it is not improper to say that things may gravitate upward or laterally as well as downward for when heavy bodies have another termination than downward it is by reason of some other intervention of some external cause or from some other property in bodies accompanying their Gravity as Fluidity in Water or Air which gives them a Nisus ad motum which is gravitation of a differing termination from that of bodies purely considered as heavy But when the motion proceeds simply and solely from that active quality of gravity its nisus ad motum which is its gravitation is simply in linea recta ad centrum which I often call a central motion or direction This any fair Remarker might have easily seen without charging the Second Chapter of the Essay with a contradiction where indeed there is none And therefore in this place I cannot chuse
than once answered which I think is done in my Observations upon Remark 17 c. Then he proceeds to the Argument touching Rarefaction and the inconvenience of the penetration of dimensions and so endeavours to prove repugnancies in what is said by a Problem that deserves more discussion than the Argument in hand as hath been shewed in the beginning of this Book wherein I have nevertheless expressed my thoughts touching it I cannot tell what the Remarker imagines or conceives against the cohesion of grosser Bodies by the tension of lighter bodies but I can tell what is evident to my sense and so may any that will give his Senses leave freely to determin without stifling them by Notions namely that there is as plain a cohesion in the Magdeburgh Hemispheres yea and in the Torricellian Engin as there is between things fastned each to other by a string And therefore I cannot so over-readily change the conviction of my Senses for a Notion or Conception asserted and magnified but not proved But to infer that because Water which is above 900 times crasser than Air is not compressible to a sensible smaller room by a great weight therefore a portion of subtil Matter cannot be extracted out of it or Mercury with so small a weight as the Mercurial Cylinder or that the effluvia of Water or Mercury which are as subtil as Air cannot be expanded by a less weight than Water compressed into a sensible narrower room seem hard illations and very inconsequential for we see the heat of a mans hand will expand Air in Weather-Glasses to near a double extension REMARK XXXIV I Do prove the attraction of tensed Bodies by the plain evidence of Sense and I assign the preservation of the continuity of the Universe as the end thereof and the supream efficient cause thereof to be the most wise and powerful Creator of all things and the immediate effective cause that instituted Law that he hath placed in things natural the immediate instrumental cause in many motions that are not primitive in their Subjects to be from the singular disposition of the part of the Universe their admirable mechanical adaptation each to other And as to the vicarious Spirit of Nature as a distinct incorporeal subsistence when the Author hath given us better proofs thereof than the suspending of Mercury in the Torricellian Experiment the driving up a Rundle of light wood by the Water and potentia attractiva of the Embolus of the Air-Pump and such like petty Instances together with his bare Notion touching it It may possibly obtain a better entertainment than yet I find it doth at least with me REMARK XXXV THis Instance in the Bladder and Cupping-Glasses is passed over in this Remark very lightly and it was necessary so to be dealt with because too troublesome to be explicated otherwise than by Tension and Attraction and it would require an admirable process in the Hylarchical Principle to effect this and some proof besides single Notions and Conceptions of such explication by such a principle REMARK XXXVI THe Instance here given hath put the Remarker to a great deal of pains to find a solution for it and the consequences of it for the Hypothesis of Attraction is confidently said to be fully confuted though it be only so said but not so done But yet the Hylarchical Principle is at length furnished with an Hylostatical Libration and Hylostatical power of union of the several parts of Water Air and Glass And at this rate I confess there will never want a ready solution to any difficulty for it is but asserting that the Spirit of Nature is furnished with that effectual power and the knot is untied or cut though there be not a Syllable of proof offered for it but it is only graffed on to the Hypothesis of the Spirit of Nature by the wit of the Assertor to accommodate the Hypothesis REMARK XXXVII I Refer my self to what is said before in the first Chapter of this Book and upon the same Remark there need not be said more The Laws of Nature were the Laws of God imprinted upon the nature of Physical Beings by his Almighty Fiat and though as to particular Beings he hath substituted particular active principles usually called Essential and Vital Forms yet as to the Universe it self it seems to be too great an Empire to be put into the vicariat hands of that which is here called the Spirit of Nature The great God that gave the Laws of Nature is sufficient without such a Substitute and is only sufficient for the regiment of so great an Empire and this may serve also to Remark 38. We are not disputing whether such a Spirit of Nature be possible to be but whether de facto it be or not or that it is necessary that it should be at least as to those motions which have so evident explication from other principles REMARK XXXIX HErein we differ not as to the rejecting of the great Elasticity of the Air. REMARK XL. I Confess when I read the beginning of this Remark I hoped to meet with such a Solution to the Instance remarked upon as would be close and clear because this Instance bears so hard against most of what the Remarker hath before affirmed but I was deceived herein In this Instance of the Magdeburg Hemispheres these things are most evident to any mans Sense 1. That the included Air is certainly expanded and rarefied by the heat beyond its natural size 2. That while they are so hot and the Air so expanded and lax they do not at all cohere 3. That as they grow cold they do most evidently cohere so that they will not be divulsed without a considerable strength 4. That most necessarily as the included Air grows cold and the heat which was the cause of its expansion decayes so the Air must needs endeavour its restitution to its natural dimension by contracting it self inward to its natural size 5. And yet if it have such a degree of heat as again gives a more lax state to the included Air the cohesion will cease and the Hemispheres fall asunder 6. And as the Remarker confesseth and the most clear evidence of Sense evinceth those Phaenomena are not wrought nor indeed possible to be wrought either by the weight pressure or elasticity of the external Air as the Elaterists would have it The Consequence of all which is that certainly as far as Sense can lead us the Air is rarefied by the Heat and as the Heat decayes the Air endeavours its own contraction and there necessarily follows even to our Sense an attraction upon the sides of the Hemispheres whereby they cohere and that cohesion will continue till relaxed by another accession of Heat or admission of more Air. But now what doth the Remark propound in this Instance Marry an Hylostatical Spirit which pro re nata works these various Phaenomena which is only a conjecture and hath no evidence to prove it
created Beings that by the powerful and soveraign Institution of Almighty God have an immediate Principle of Motion in and from themselves is beyond Dispute A Brute Beast possibly may be put immediately into Motion by his Appetite and that Appetite excited by the presence of an Object and here the Object hath as I may call it a Moral Principle of Motion exciting the Appetite moving the Brute to a nearer approach to the Object But then in the Gressus Brutalis it is somewhat within him that gives the Local Motion it self namely the Brutalis Anima And the same is evident in the Motions of Augmentation and Conformation of Vegetables the motions of Ascent and Calefaction in Fire the Motions of Attraction and Aversation in Magnetical Bodies and the very Motion of Descent in heavy Bodies and infinite more instances of Physical Bodies which have an intrinsick principle of exciting and communicating Motion to the Subjects of their inexistence and to other things Now touching this internal immediate principle of Motion is this Enquiry upon which I am CHAP. II. A farther Disquisition touching the immediate Cause of Motion IN the former Chapter I have supposed these two things 1. That there are some things that have an active self-moving Principle lodged within them 2. That Matter simply considered is not that immediate self-moving Principle It remaines therefore to be enquired what that Principle is The ancient Bi-partition of created Beings was into Substance and Accident But this seems to me to be too narrow I am still speaking of created material Existences and I shall not be ashamed to own Helmont for my Instructer herein because he speaks with great evidence of Reason There seems therefore to be a third kind of Existence or Entity participating in some respect of the nature of both and yet differing in other respects from both for indeed it is an Entity among created Beings belonging to Matter far more noble than either of the two former and is that which giveth Life Vigor Activity and Motion immediately next under the Lord of Nature to every self-moving Being And this Entity I call Vis or Virtus activa superadded to Matter and giving immediately those Motions to it that are specifically appropriate to that Vis or Virtus Activa and without which Matter would be stupid dull unactive and alwayes at rest in it self unless accidentally moved ab extrinseco And although those Vires or Virtutes activae the immediate Principles of Motion in such things as are Automata are various and infinitely diversified yet I shall instance but in few which nevertheless will be sufficient to render my self intelligible in what I say And those are principally of two sorts the first of those the noblest below the humane Soul are those Vires or Virtutes Essentiales that are the principal Constituents of vital or substantial Forms The second are those which are usually called active qualities which seem to be of a lower nature and allay than the former Under the first of these Ranks there are different Classes not only gradually but essentially more or less perfect than others viz. first the Vis sentiens animalis of Animals 2. The Vis vegetans vitalis of Vegetables and possibly of many Minerals 3. The Vis combustiva calefactiva of Fire 4. The Vis attractiva directiva communicativa of Magnetical Bodies These Virtutes or Vires Essentiales even of the noblest sort I mean below the humane nature have this preheminence above the Matter or Substance whereunto they are united that they are the immediate vital movent principle that gives a kind of Life or Motion to the Subject wherein they exist which would otherwise be destitute of Life or Motion from it self Whether these Vires or Virtutes Essentiales are in themselves defectible or not may be questioned some have thought that they have certain Termini Temporales of their Existence and Operations in themselves simply and abstractively considered and in process of time languish and finally expire and cease as the energy of the Spring of a Watch in its evolution grows languid and at last utterly ceaseth from any farther evolution or motion Others have thought and with great evidence of Reason that there is no decay or natural termination of the Vis or Energia Essentialis it self but only by the decay or defectibility or dissolution of the material Hypostasis to which it is united or of the Organs which it useth in its operations which being compounded Bodies are subject to decay and dissolution And therefore the Philosopher tells us that if an old man had a young mans eye he would see as well as in his Youth for the decay is not in the Visive Faculty or Vis or Virtus Essentialis sentiens but in the Organ or Subject or Substratum of its Operation or Inexistence But in some respects it is inferiour to Matter and seems to participate of the nature of Accidents as for instance It necessarily according to the common Laws of Nature requires a material Hypostasis or Subject in which it may inexist and to which it may be united thus the Vis Sentiens Animalis is immediately united to the Animal Spirits or the most refined parts of the Animal Nature The Vis Vegetans Vitalis of Vegetables is immediately united to the Vital Spirits and Succus Vitalis of Vegetables As to Fire whether the Vis Ignea have a proper Hypostasis of its own to which it is united as the Vis Sentiens hath or whether it hath no other Substratum but the Body in which it is as the Cole or Iron or as the common Body of the Air it self through which it is universally diffused may I confess be questionable yet certainly it hath some Hypostasis to which it is united and primitively inexists and without which it seems it cannot be 2. Whereas no portion of Matter is lost in Nature or annihilable but by Omnipotence those Vires Essentiales are in their individuals extinguished and lost and no where in Nature upon the destruction dissipation or dissolution of the necessary Hypostasis or Subject of their inexistence When the Animal Spirits are wholly dissipated or dissolved the Vis Sentiens of that Animal is lost and no where When water is thrown upon the Cole of Fire the Vis Ignea that was in it is extinct and nullibi and as it seems doth not facessere in elementum commune Ignis at least if it have not a special Hypostasis of its own to which it is united and when the Magnet is burnt in the Fire the Vis Magnetica in it is extinct And the same is to be said of that other more ignoble Principle of Motion hereafter mentioned viz. Active Qualities And this as I think gives us a true notion of the Souls of Brutes the Forms of Vegetables of Fire and other substantial Forms below the humane Soul If any should ask me what I take the Soul of a
and mix it self with the included rarefied Air as well as if a little Air were let into it through a Pin-hole 4. In the Instance last given and many other of like nature that might be given where the filaments of the Air in their relaxation from heat have a motion of contraction in themselves per viam restitutionis and a consequential attraction on the Vessel including them per modum nexus it is impossible this can be salved by the Supposition of the Cartesians and Lucretians which suppose the Air to consist of minute particles only joyned together by contiguity for where there is only contiguity without continuity of parts that body can never draw another body per modum tractionis it will be really less tenacious than a Rope of Sand so that such an intromission of particles thus solute as they state most bodies to be by a bare contiguity of Atoms could never explicate this visible Phaenomenon that ensues upon tension of the Air or after the avolation or extinguishment of Heat that first expanded it 5. And as this Supposition by no means salves the Phaenomena of Rarefaction of the Air and what ensues thereupon so it as little salves that of Condensation or Constipation of Air by compression as we see in Wind-Guns and other Engines which upon a Discharge or a Motion of that compression do with a force explode or discharge themselves and press very hard upon bodies that are in their way so that a Wind-Gun will drive a Bullet through a pretty thick piece of Wood which could never be if this Solution of Rarefaction and Condensation were true 1. If the Air it self and also this subsidiary Materia subtilissima were but a collection of minute bodies joyned only in contiguity one to another all the compression in the world would give it no more elasticity or that explosive motion than if a portion of Calice-Sand were forced into a Gun or other Vessel with all the compression imaginable 2. But again in that elastical explosion by the Air compressed into a narrower room what is it that actually exerciseth that explosive Elasticity Is it the subtil matter that was mingled with the included compressed Air Surely no for according to this Supposition that is squeezed out and permeated through the Barrel or Trunk of the Wind-gun Or is it the grosser Particles of the Air that is yet left in the Gun and cannot get out till the Obturaculum be removed But there is no reason for that to have any Elasticity for by the avolation of the subtil Matter there is room enough left for it and under that narrow dimension that now it hath yet hath it as much room as before for the avolation of the Materia subtilis hath made a perfect room for it and left it a space exactly commensurate to its corporeal Moles But it may be that the Materia subtilis that was driven out by the compression now upon the aperture of the Obturaculum pervades the substance of the Gun with that force that it gives the explosion But it is apparent that neither this can help it for it doth appear that the Motion of the Subtil Matter into the Orifice of the Wind-gun upon the removal of the Obturaculum must needs run counter to the explosion of the Air and obstruct it Again it is apparent that the subtil Matter is driven out gradually and with iterated force and it cannot pervade the Iron sides of the Gun but gradually and with great straining and to imagine that in a moment the moment of a Motion of the Obturaculum the whole body of that removed Matter should pervade the strong and close Metal in an instant to give that strong and forcible explosion exceeds all reason sense and credibility And therefore it was but necessary for those that will maintain this Assertion to substitute a Spirit of Nature or an Hylarchical Principle which for the preservation of Bodies in their due natural state and position should act little less than miraculously to supply all these Difficulties which yet notwithstanding must be supposed according to this Supposition to act in contradiction to it self and Nature also For when in Rarefaction of Bodies this Spiritus Naturae sends supplies of subtil Matter to fill the Interstitia it must necessarily rob other parts of the Air of some of that subtil Matter that properly belonged to its texture and natural constitution and so when one portion of Matter is gratified another is impoverished of what belongs to it which seems wholly unsutable to the office which this vicarious Spirit of Nature according to this new Supposition is substituted to exercise CHAP. IX Touching the Third Supposition of the Method of Rarefaction and Condensation according to the Ancient Philosophy and seems to be the truest HAving examined the two former Suppositions and as near as I can discovered their insufficiency I now come to the Third which I think to be true viz. as to that kind of Rarefaction and Condensation which before in the 4 th Chapter is stated to be the true Matter of the Question for in Rarefaction of a Body suppose Air either by Heat or Tension there is a real expansion or dilatation of the same Moles of Matter of the Air and all its parts to a larger space extent or dimension than it had before and in Condensation by Cold but more evidently by compression the same Moles of Matter and all its parts have a narrower or less space or expansion than before I suppose therefore that although Rarefaction and Condensation of any Body from its natural size and dimension belonging to it is for the most part if not alwayes by the agency or efficiency of some external cause yet under such circumstances Rarity and Density are but natural affections or rather Passions Qualities or Modes of such Bodies arising from their very texture and make and are as naturally belonging to them as Heat or Cold Humidity or Driness Smoothness or Roughness or other tangible Qualities to other Bodies that are more gross and corporeal 2. I do suppose that whatever men have talkt or wrote concerning Spatia imaginaria without relation to any Bodies to fill it yet as time or successive duration is a kind of Attendant upon successive Motion so space is a kind of Entity relative to Bodies and dependent upon them 3. To make way to what I have to say herein It seems to me no kind of repugnancy in Nature but altogether consonant thereunto and that it is equally possible and reasonable that a Body that is much more rare than another and having in it less of solid corporeity and consequently of weight than another yet may as entirely fill the whole space within the compass of its external Superficies as a body of a denser consistence so that although Gold be 18000 times bulk for bulk heavier than Air and near 20 times heavier than Water and although Water be near 14 times lighter than Mercury