't is evident that Rarefaction and Condensation import no more in their Notion but the altering the Subject according to some Quality whereas Division imports directly the taking away the Vnity of the Thing and consequently its Entity Again meer Rarefaction does not change the Substance but the Degree of it when it comes to great height and every Body admits Rarefaction a long time without losing its former Essence whereas Division consists in an Indivisible so that the Divisum esse is esse aliud or esse duo ex uno whereas the Rarefactum esse may be without any such Effect following it 5. Rarefaction and Condensation are the next Actions in Dignity For since as was proved above Rarity and Density are the First Intrinsecal Differences of Quantity as it affects Body in order to natural Action and Passion it follows that those natural Actions that cause Rarity or Density are the next in dignity to Division which works more upon Divisibility their Genus 6. These three sorts of Action take up the whole Head of Natural Action For since the Genus and its two Differences must needs comprehend all under any common Head as being Adequate to it and Division answers to Divisibility the Genus and Rarefaction and Condensation to the Intrinsecal Differences of more or less thus Divisible it follows that these three sorts of Action do take up all that Head so that there cannot be any kind of Natural Action which is not reducible to some of these or not comprehended under them Besides all the First and Second Passible Qualities which generally are the Immediate Objects of Natural Actions are comprehended in or spring out of Rarity and Density as will be seen in Physicks 7. The Formal Virtue of Acting or working any Effect which we call its Causality is the Agent 's being what it is or its very Existence apply'd by Motion to the Patient and Communicated to it or as it were imprinted on it For since no particular Agent in Nature can do every thing whatever the reason why such particular Causes work such particular Effects must spring hence that the Effect has something in its Nature that is like the Cause comes from it and is Communicated to the Patient or partak'd by it Whence come those Vulgar Axioms Operari sequitur esse Every thing acts as it is An Effect is a participation of the immediate Caâ—se c. Thus the Cause or Reason why Water moistens is because it is moist in it self and imparts that Quality to another thing The reason why a Seal makes such an Impression is because it self is of such a stamp The reason why God Creates or is the Cause of Being is because Being is Essential to him Corol. II. Hence Motion is only requisit to apply the Virtue or Existence of the Agent to the Matter or Patient but the Substance of the Effect springs from the Cause's being what it is Whence it happens that the Effect from the same Causes is more or less perfect according as the Existence of a Cause which is of such a Nature or Essence or more or fewer parts of it are apply'd better or worse to the Patient or to more or fewer parts of it by a feebler or smarter Motion 8. It follows from this discourse that there must be Four Sorts of Causes necessarily belonging to every Effect in Nature viz. There must be an Acter which we call the Efficient Cause a Subject for the Acter to work upon called the Material Cause The Effect wrought in that Matter or Receiv'd in it which makes it otherwise than it was before and therefore has the Notion of some Form newly accruing to it which constitutes the Formal Cause And since Corporeal Action is Motion and no Body can move it self and therefore all Motion in Nature must be caus'd either Mediately or Immediately by something that is not a Body that is by a Spiritual or Intelligent Being and such Agents do design or act for an End therefore there must also be a Final Cause to make those Agents to move Bodies and make them act as they do in every particular Action tho' never so minute which grounds our Notion of Providence adequately Governing the World even as to the least circumstance of it Wherefore there are to every Action in Nature Four Causes necessarily requisit which will afford Reflecters ample occasion for Speculation and Contemplation For example When I write a Letter the Efficient Cause is my Self the Material Cause Paper which receives the Effect of my Writing The Formal Cause the Characters received in the Paper the Final Cause to gratify my Friend treat of Business or acquaint him with News 9. There is no Fifth Cause call'd an Idea as Plato affirms For either that Idea is conceiv'd as introduced in the matter and Receiv'd there and then 't is clearly a Formal Cause or as 't is in the Mind of the Artificer and then it concurrs to make him an Efficient Cause for without such an Idea he could not produce such an Artificial Effect 10. Operation has not the same Notion with Action but is Indifferent to Action and Passion or rather a kind of Neutral Notion made up of both For example Notions or Simple Apprehensions are said to be the First Operation of our Understanding tho' the Soul in having them is purely Passive So also my Acts of Discoursing Willing c. are call'd Operations tho' they be both perform'd by my Soul and Receiv'd in it Whence they have a kind of Neutral Notion such as have Curro ardeo and such-like taking such words not in a Grammatical but in a Philosophical and Natural Sense Of which kind are all Immanent Actions or Acts And therefore these are not so properly call'd Actions as Operations in order to what they have of Effective in them or else Acts because they Actuate or Inform the Subject in which they are as well Received as they are Produced by it Whence Action in the Proper and Obvious Sense signifies the Efficience of a Natural Cause which has a Transitive Notion and inferrs Passion and consequently some Effect in the Extrinsecal Subject it lights on Note That since Action inferrs Passion and referrs to it hence whatever is discoursed here of Action may by turning the Tables as it were or considering Motion in order to its other Term be understood likewise of Passion for which reason we treat of both those Heads in the same Discourse LESSON IX Of the Common Head of Ubi or Where 1. UBI or Where signifying in what Place the Notion of Place must first be rightly understood e're we can have a right Notion of the Common Head call'd Ubi And the word Place being no Artificial Term but a Natural one and us'd by all Mankind we are to learn the true and proper meaning of it from the Users of it that is we must take the Notion of Place not from men of Art or Speculaters but from the Vulgar
casually upon something in the dark or run against it tho' we neither see or know what that thing is or when we see a thing a far off we know that that thing is tho' as yet we know not what it is The Course of Nature is carry'd on by Efficient Cauâ—es and Effects For since a First Cause being suppos'd who is Infinitely Wise he Administâ—rs his workmanship the World after the wisest and best manner which is that the contexture of the whole be not loose and slack but perfectly Coherent nor can this be done among an infinit variety of Bodies by any other means so as to make up the Course of Nature but by making Effects necessarily follow from their Causes since if that were not the Course of Nature would be at a stand and need the Artificers hand at every turn to make it go on which argues an Imperfection in the Workmanship it self it follows that the Course of Nature must be carry'd on by Efficient Causes and Effects 4. The Course of Nature must be câ—â—ry'd on by such Efficient Causes and Effects as 〈◊〉 â—roper to one another For were â—ot â—â—ese â—auses and Effects Proper to one anotheâ— any 〈◊〉 might do any thing or suffâ—r from any thing v. g. Fire might both heat and cool and mâ—iâ—ten and Water might be as combustible as dry Wood and so of all the rest In whiâ—h case no man could tell how to Order his Actions or what Efficient Cause or what Matter rather than another he is to make use of to produce any Effect nor consequentlâ— sinâ—e â—uch Essences are ordain'd for such and such Ends could the Essences or Natures of things be Known or Distinguisht more than in Outward Appearance 5. Hence follows immediately that every such Proper Efficient Cause put to be Actually Causing must most necessarily produce 〈◊〉 Proper Effect For since to Causâ— is 〈◊〉 do and to do nothing is not to do what 〈◊〉 Actually causing must cause something or proâ—uce some Effect Anâ— this Effect must be a Proper one as has been prov'd § 4. 6. All the Efficient Causes in Nature are Actually causing For since the Virtue or Power of working is in the Efficient Cause it self as being nothing but it's Existence and the Matter to be wrought upon is Quantitative that is of it 's own nature either Perfectly or Imperfectly Divisible and Variable innumerable Manners of ways according to it's Qualities nor can it have an Infinite Power of resisting the Efficiency of the least Cause hence it is apt to have an Impression made upon it to some degree by any Quantitative Agent provided there be but Immediate Application of the Agent to the Patient and that it is prâ—st upon it But there being no vacuum immediate Application of one Natural Body to another must needs be throughout all Nature and the Course of Nature consisting in Moâ—ion one Body must necessarily press upon that which is next it From all which it follows evidently that all the Efficient Causes in Nature are Actually Causing 7. From these Discourses 't is evident that we can Demonstrate Proper Effects from Proper Efficient Causes which we call Demonstrating â priori and Proper Efficient Causes from Proper Effects which is call'd Demonstrating à posteriori For since a Cause and a Reason do onely differ in this that the word Cause speaks the thing as it is in Nature and Reason the same thing as 't is in our understanding and Proper Causes and Effects in Nature are necessarily connected to one another and consequently do Infer one another naturally it follows that those Causes and for the same reason Effects as they are in our Vnderstanding must be the Reason why one infers the other in our Understanding Whence follows that thoâ—e Causes and Effects can be uâ—'d as Proper Middle Terms to Infer or Conclude one another And that Proofs made by such Mediums are Demonstrative is clear for no Proof can be more Clear than that which is Grounded on those Notions or Natures being connected Naturally and so Connected that it is Impossible it should be otherwise as 't is shown these are § § 5. and 6. 8. This is farther confirm'd because Two Bodies that are Immediate do Act and Re-act or are in some respect mutually Causes and Effects to one another For since their Existences which is their Power of Acting are immediately Apply'd and by the Course of Nature consisting in Motion prest upon one another and no Natural Agent is of Infinite Power nor consequently can it subdue all the Resistence of the Patient in an Instant it follows that till one of them be by degrees totally subdu'd the Resisting Body must necessarily for the reason given Re-act upon it whence they will be to some degree or in some respect Mutual Causes and Effects in regard of each other Corol. I. The carrying on this Connected Course of Natural Causes is called Providence and as joyn'd with a Course of Supernatural ones Interiour and Exteriour perfecting and streâ—gthening the Will all along to the very end and ripening Souls for Bliss which we call Grace is that which is truly meant by Predestinatioâ— which sounds so terribly and is such â—â—ugbeaâ— to those that mis-understand it Corâ—â— â—I Every Step of this Order of Causes has Entity or Goodness in it For it is manifestly the Causing of Something by Something Corol. â—â—I Therefore 't is directly against the 〈◊〉 of â—â—e First Cause to cause or lay any 〈◊〉 for Sin For Sin formally as such has no kind of Entity or Goodness in it either â—etaphysical Physical or Moral but is formally a meer Privation of some Entity or Goodness which ought to be in an Intelligent Creature whence it comes that by falling-short here in using the Means that Creature falls short hereafter of attaining the End which is only attainable by such Means To explicate which high Points fully is left to Solid Divines I mean such as do not guide themselves by meer Words but by Reason and Good Sense Corol. IV. Hence follows also that were all the Efficient Causes that produce any Effect known to us we could have no Accidental Predications nor consequently any Opinions but the Effect would still be equally Demonstâ—able from the Complexion of those Causes as it is now from some one single Efficient as was hinted formerly Corol. V. Hence to one that comprehends the Complexion of all Causes there could be no Chance nor could such a Man have any Ground for such a Notion For Chance as the common use of the word tells us signifies an Vnseen or Vnforeseen Cause whereas no Cause is Vnseen to him who sees Demonstratively how all Natural Effects follow all along from the Causes and that they cannot but follow from such Causes Corol. VI. Hence tho' we know not particularly the Quid est of this Exact Order of the World or the Course of Nature because we Comprehend not all Causes nor know what Cause or Causes did
nor in what their more than Adamantin Hardness consists nor how the Potential parts of these Atomes do come to have such an insuperably-Firm Coherence Nor yet does Cartesius explicate to us of what Nature his First Mass of Matter is what Degree of Consistency or Density it has and if any as it must have some or oâ—her why it was to be of that Density or in what that Density consists Which shows that neither of them regarded or minded the Intrinsecal Nature of their First Matter tho' this must needs have had great Influence on the Oeconomy of the World and have afforded us much Light to know the Constitution and Temper of Natural Bodies and consequently of their Proper Causes and Effects as also of many Intrinsecal Modifications of them highly conducing to give account of and explicate the Operations of Natural Agents The only thing they seem to have regarded was the Extension of their First Matter and the Motion Figure and Situation of it's parts which are Extrinsical or Common Considerations but to give any account of what Intrinsecal or Essential Nature that Matter was they are perfectly silent They suppose it to be but they do not so much as Suppose it to be of such or such an Intrinsical Nature which yet they must be bound to do since all Extrinsical respects came by Motion which was not yet begun Or if Epicurus does by making his Atomes Infractil 't is both said gratis and besides he gives us no Account in what that Quality of Indissoluble Hardness consists or how it is to be Explicated 11. Hence the Peripateticks alledge that however the Authors of those Sects are men of Great Wits and strong Brains for 't is not a Task for Ordinary Capacities to undertake a Design that fathoms and comprehends all Nature yet they can never begin with Evident Categorical Propositions and First Principles or carry on their Discourses so as to bear the Test of True Logick but either their Principles must be far from Self-evident and must need Proof which is against the nature of First Principles or else their Consequences must be Loose and Slack And the only way to refute this Objection is for some of their School to put it to the Trial by laying their Principles and proceeding forwards to draw all along Evident Conclusions without intermingling their own Suppositions But the Peripateticks are very Confident they neither can do this nor will ever Attempt it I mean so as to carry it along with Connexion and Evidence in which Spinoza tho' perhaps the best Writer of the Cartesian School falls very short and pieces out his Discourse with many unprov'd Suppositions as is hinted above in my Preface 12. And hence it is that the Corpuscularians being forced by their Cause to decline such a severe Method strive to avail themselves and uphold their Cause by Witty Discourses Smooth Language Clear Expressions Apt Similitudes Ingenious Experiments that bear a Semblance of Agreeing with their Doctrin and such like Stratagems to make a Plausible Show of Science But their Chief Reliance is on the Facil and Familiar Appearances to Fancy with which they court that Delusive and easily Deluded Faculty And to this end they gratifie it with such Proposals as are apt to sink into it most pleasingly such as are Particles of Matter whose Variety of Imaginary Figures and the Diverse Positions of them they without Study quickly apprehend And conceiting that all is done when they have thus Fancy'd or Apprehended them they argue thus If these Pores and Parts will do the business what need is there of those Abstruse and Metaphysical Speculations of Formal Composition and Mutation and those many Intrinsical Changes of which Fancy can frame no Idea's or Shapes And indeed such high Points seem to that Superficial Faculty Mysterious Whimsies they disgust it with the Laboriousness of comprehending them and persuade men of Fancy 't is Impossible to explicate Nature by such Principles because they are rais'd beyond it's reach And indeed if Nature could be solidly explicated by a kind of Contessellation of Particles Fancy would have as it never has Some Reason But if upon Examination we come to find that such Schemes go no deeper than the Surface of the Essences of Things that they can never reach to the Bottom-Principles of Nature nor give Solid Satisfaction of the true Intrinsical Natures of any thing to the Judgment attending to Maxims of Evident Reason and to true Logick then we must be forc'd to follow the Aristotelian Doctrin and have Recourse to Intrinsical and Formal Mutation especially if the Necessiâ—y of Allowing it shall happen to be Demonstated 13. To do which being our present Work we will begin with Epicurus a Scholar of the First Class in the School of Democritus This Philosopher if we may call him so puts Innumerable Atomes or rather contrary to a Clear Demonstration an Actually Infinit Number of them and of an Infinit Number of Figures descending in an Infinit Imaginary Space or Vacuity some of them downwards some of them overthwart according as his Hypothesis had occasion that so they might overtake their fellow-Atomes With which clinging together by virtue of their meer Figures they compound several Worlds and every particular Body in each of those Worlds That Natural Bodies become Rare or Dense according as they have in them more or fewer of those Atomes or as they call it Plenum in proportion to the Vacuum Thus much in common of his Hypothesis which were the circumstance proper it were easie to show besides it being Vnprov'd be a Hotch-potch of the most Refined Nonsense in every particular Sentence and almost in every word notwithstanding the Explications and Patronage which Gassendus Lucretius and our Dr. Charleton have lent him While I am speaking of his Tenet I note here by the way that by the Indivisibility of his Atomes he means Insuperable Hardness or Absolute Infractilness and not that they consist in a Point or want Extension as he is understood by Mr. Le Grand in his Entire Body of Phylosophy Part 4. c. 4. § 6. For to think that since he makes them of several Figures there should want room or space to admit Division could not be meant by such men as Epicurus or Gassendus But to return to our business what concerns us at present is this that let him contrive his Scheme as he pleases for in such Fantastick Philosophy all is as pleases Fancy the Painter yet he must be forced to grant Intrinsecal and FORMAL MUTATION even while he most industriously strives to avoid it At least tho' perhaps his Followers will not own the Conclusion yet they must allow the Grounds of it or the Principles that ought to inferr it 14. To show which we ask Are all his Atomes of the same Matter He must grant it for he allows no difference between them but that of Figure Again each of those Atomes must be granted to be
have an Entitative Union but by being join'd together as Act and Power that is as Matter and Form which are the Potential Parts of an Ens and therefore are apt to compound One Ens in regard neither of them is a Thing Actually 32. And indeed if we look more narrowly into the Doctrin of the Deniers of Formal Mutation the Antiperipateticks we shall find that they have Perplex't and render'd Obscure the most Common Easie Obvious Useful and Necessary Notion which Mankind has or can have viz. the Notion of a Thing For I cannot discern that they make their First Mass of Matter to be One Natural Thing unless they fancy it to be a kind of Idea Platonica of Body existing Indeterminately or in Common For they put the Form of it to be Extension and they make this Extension to be Indeterminate that is not-Particular that is to be Extension in Common Nor can we learn of them what kind of Thing it is more than that it is barely thus Extended Which tells us indeed that it has Quantity but gives us no light of it's Intrinsecal Nature or Entity that is they never explicate to us of what nature that thing is which is Extended And what man living can conceive a Body which has neither Figure or Colour Density or Rarity Heat or Cold Hardness or Softness in it but meerly Extension Again I cannot see that they put those little Particles made by Motion out of that Matter to be Natural Things tho' they do Actually and Distinctly exist in Nature because they make them Principia or Elementa Rerum Naturalium and the Elements of which Things are made can no more with good Sense be called Things than Letters which are the Elements of Words can be said to be Words The Compound made up of those Particles they do indeed expresly own to be a Thing but by making it consist of Many Things I mean those Particles each of which has a peculiar Actual Existence of its own and which are not United or made One according to the Notion of Ens but only according to the Notion of some Accident which is Extrinsecal to the Notion of Ens and differs from it toto genere they cannot with any show of Reason call such a Compound A Thing or One Thing Whence according to their Hypothesis we can have no Clear Light what is to be called a Thing or what the word Thing means As for our Four Elements which perhaps they will object they either are found Pure and out of the Compound and then having an Actual Existence of their own they are truly Things Or they do not and then they are Potential parts of the Compound in which they are which and only which Exists by One Actual Existence which shows it to be One Thing and not by Many as their Compound does which makes it Many Things at least such Things as they will allow those Elements or Particles to be 33. But to give them what Satisfaction we may without Injury to Truth and withal to Clear the true Aristotelian doctrin from the prejudices taken from the bad speculations of those School-men who make Accidents so many little Entities distinct from Substances we will confess that many of those Forms we call Qualities are Effluiums or Particles sent out from other Bodies which while they transiently affect that Body on which they light they retain their own Distinct Entities and are call'd the Particles or Vertue of the Emittent Body affecting another Body that is Passive from them But when they gain a Permanency there and by Continuity of Quantity or Similitude of Nature or any other Cause they come to be naturally Vnited to it and assist it in its Proper Operation they lose their Actual Entity and Unity which they had formerly and become a Potential Part of the Subject that was Passive from them and Exist and Subsist in it And because the Notion of Form is to be Receiv'd in the Subject or Matter and those Particles advene to it already Existing they are hence call'd Accidental Forms of it and either give it such an Alterableness as is agreeable to their nature as is seen in Passible Qualities or sometimes if they suit with the Primogenial Constitution of that Body they strengthen and belong to some Habit Disposition Power or Property of it and piece out as it were those Qualities and in some degree or other denominate the Subject thus or thus Qualify'd 34. But to make it yet more manifest how industriously the Cartesians do wave the giving any account of their First Matter of which notwithstanding they hold all their three Elements and consequently all Nature was made we will take notice of one prevarication of theirs more which does evidently bewray at what a plunge they are about it by omitting that Consideration which even by their own Doctrin was the Chiefest and most Necessary They affirm that Matter of theirs to have been Divided first by God into greater parts which again being moved or jumbled one against another did shave or wear off every small particles of several sorts of which their First Element was made Division then was the first and Principal Physical Action and that which most conduced to frame all Nature Nay in case there be no Vacuum as they grant there is not it is manifest that the First Motion and which was exercis'd Immediately upon their Matter as also all the following Motions exercis'd upon the said Matter was Division Now Divisibility of the Matter being the Proper Power that answers to the Act of Division or which is the same to Motion and withal directly speaking the nature of their Matter as apt to be wrought upon by those Causes how was it possible they should slip over that and regard only the Extension of it Divisibility is a Natural Notion and imports an Order to Natural Action whereas Extension is a dull sluggish Notion and meerly Mathematical that is it does Abstract from Action and Motion both For an Extended thing is never the more or less Extended whether it Moves or stands still but its whole Nature and Notion is taken up in affecting its own Subject or Extending it equally and all one whether it Acts or not acts But the reason of this willful neglect is this that tho' they grant it to have been Divided yet should they tell us it was thus Divisible Common Reason would lead us to pose them with asking whether it were Easily or Hardly Divisible that is Rare or Dense of which Qualities in their Matter antecedently to Motion and the Contexture of the particles made by that Motion their Principles can give no kind of account nor possibly explicate them 35. I am apt to think that they foresaw this Rub in their way which hindred the Currency of all their Doctrin of Physicks and seeing they could not remove it they very fairly let it alone Yet for a show they take notice of the Word but they
less Divisible or rather 't is not so properly Quantity as is the other because it has no Vnity to distinguish it from a mere Confused Multitude of Ones but by means of the Understanding conceiving it to be so many Units terminated by the last yet because Plurality and Paucity are More and Less of any one Determinate Number and that there is a Ground in Nature for our Understanding to consider many Scatter'd Ones and comprehend or bind them together into one Notion and that such Notions are useful or necessary to Mankind therefore this Order'd Multitude of discrete or shatter'd Ones call'd Number is rightly placed in the Predicament of Quantity For t is to be noted that when 't is said Quantity is Divisibilis in semper Divisibilia it was not meant of Quantity in Common or all Quantity but only of that Species of Quantity call'd Continued 4. The Unity proper to Extended Quantity is Continuity of its parts For if the parts of this sort of Quantity be Discontinu'd either Nothing or vacuum comes between them and then they are still Continu'd against the Supposition for Nothing can do nothing and therefore cannot discontinue the Parts of Quantity Or else some Body comes between them and Discontinues them and then since all Bodies bring their own Quantities along with them however the Bodies A. and B. are distanced by C's coming between them because every Body has its determinate bounds and Limits yet the Quantity of those three Bodies precisely consider'd has none but goes on Smoothly in the self same tenour thro' the whole Mass of Body whether those Bodies be Different or the Same without Notches or Nicks butting and bounding it here and there or in the least diversifying it what ever Variety is found in the Figure Colour Hardness Softness or in any other consideration belonging to those Bodies Again since this Species of Quantity has its peculiar Notion Nature or Essence it must have some kind of Vnity too peculiar to it self But none is imaginable except Continuity nor does any so directly subsume under the notion of Quantity which is Divisibility or Vnity of its potential parts or sute so exactly with it Nay were the parts of Quantity discontinu'd quantitatively they would be divided quantitatively that is not Divisible or One that is none or Not-Quantity against the Supposition Therefore the Vnity proper to this Species of Quantity is Continuity of its parts Cor. I. Therefore the Quantity of the whole World is One Vninterrupted Continuity and the World it self speaking of Quantitative Unity One Great Continuum 5. Quantity according to its precise Notion cannot be Essential to Body because it can neither be the Genus of it nor the Intrinsecal Difference that constitutes it as is prov'd above 6. Yet Quantity Materially consider'd and not according to its precise and formal notion of Divisibility may as it were per accidens contribute to the Essence of Individual Bodies For since nothing is truly and perfectly Ens or Capable of Existence but Individuals nor since Thing in common cannot exist can any thing be Capable of Existing but by being ultimately Determinated and thence compleatly fitted to be This or That and this Determination distinguishing one Individuum from all others is perform'd by means of such a particular Complexion of Accidents as fits them for their Primary Operation for which Nature ordain'd them and this Complexion of Accidents is either of Quantity or else as is shewn in Physicks of different modifications of Quantity it follows that Quantity materially consider'd and not according to its Formal notion of Divisibility may as it were by Accident contribute to the Essence of Individual Bodies 7. The Intrinsecal Differences of Quantity are more and less of the Notion of Quantity This is prov'd formerly when we treated of the Division of Substance and the reason given there holds equally here 8. The Proper Species of Quantity mathematically consider'd or as it abstracts from Motion are Longitude Latitude and Profundity otherwise call'd Linea Superficies and Corpus For it is evident that Latitude is another sort of Quantity and has more of that Notion in it than Longitude has and that Profundity is a different sort of Quantity and has in it more of Quantity thus consider'd than either of the other as containing in it self all the three Dimensions 9. Therefore the Intrinsecal Differences of each of these continued Quantities consider'd Mathematically as abstracted from all Order to Motion are Divisibility into greater or into lesser determinate parts For since the Notion of Quantity is Divisibility and Divisibility respects the Parts into which it may be divided and this respect cannot be to Indeterminate parts into which it may be divided they being as Euclid has demonstrated Infinit as well in the greatest as the least Quantities so that they cannot have any differences thus considered wherefore Divisibility into Greater and Lesser parts being the Intrinsecal Differences of all such Quantities in regard that the Greater have more of the Immediate Generical Notion or of that kind of Quantity in them the smaller less of it and Divisibility into parts which are Determinate may bear the Notion of Greater or lesser Divisibility which Divisibility into Potential parts as was said cannot it follows that Divisibility into Greater and Lesser Determinate parts are the Intrinsecal Differences of this kind of Quantity Mathematically consider'd Besides Greater and Lesser bear in their Notions some Proportion between those parts which cannot be conceiv'd unless those Parts be Determinate 10. The Proper and Intrinsecal Differences of Continued Quantity consider'd Physically or in Order to Motion that is Affecting it's subject as apt to be wrought upon by Natural Causes are more or less Divisible or capable to be wrought upon and divided by those Causes This is evident from the very same Reason supposing Intrinsecal Differences to be onely more or less of the immediate common Notion or of the Genus they are to divide 11. The More and Less Divisibility of Continu'd Quantity thus consider'd is to be more easily or less easily wrought upon or divided by Natural Agents For since Quantity thus consider'd does not respect the Parts it contains or may be divided into but the Causes in Nature and their Operation upon its Subject Body it follows that the Notion of its being more or less Divisible as thus consider'd can only mean more or less susceptive of the Efficiency of Natural Causes that is more easily or less easily Divisible by the said Causes which is to be Rare and Dense 12. The Division of Continu'd Quantity into Permanent and Successive is made by Accidental Differences and not by Essential ones as were the former Divisions of it For since to move and to stand still are Accidental to Quantity and have no respect to that Generical Notion as more and less of it as had the other Differences above mentioned it follows that these Differences are Accidental to their Generical
Nothing more obstructs the way to Natural Science than the doctrin of Vulgar Philosophers That Qualities are certain Kinds of little Entities which of themselves have a diminutive sort of Being and are able to produce such and such Effects For example Ask them how a Bell works that effect upon my Ear which we call Sound they 'll tell you there is a Quality in the Bell call'd Sonoreity whose nature it is to make a Sound Ask how a Green thing makes such a pleasing Impression on my Eye they 'll answer There is a certain Quality in it call'd Greenness whose nature 't is to work such an Effect and so of the rest Which ridiculous Method explicates nothing but makes the Silliest old wife as good a Philosopher as the most Learned Naturalist if she can but name the Word that Signifies that Quality Next it makes Learners rest easily contented and well appay'd with a meer Word whence they will grow Negligent and Careless to take pains to look into the Natures of the Things or else if they have any wit in them to despair of all knowledge of Nature by seeing their Masters so profoundly Ignorant and so Superficially Learned And lastly it hinders Learners from Seeing or even endeavouring to see the Natural Proportion and Alliance between Proper Causes and their Effects and inclines them to take purely upon trust the whole Administration of Nature and all Consequence of one thing from another which renders all natural Science precarious For 't is not Science unless we use our own Eyes and see the point Demonstrated Jurare in verba is in such cases the Fool 's Oath and is in plain terms to swear the Devoting or giving up our Reason to a Slothful Contentedness never to grow Wiser LESSON VII Of the Common Head of Relation 1. THE Notion of Relation being what one Individual Thing is if compar'd to another there must be some Real Ground of it in the thing Referr'd which is the Reason of our Referring it and by which formally we do thus Refer it For otherwise Relation would be a Chimerical and Fictitious Notion and not a Real or Natural one common to all Mankind and held by them to be such which yet we experience by our daily Converse with them it is 2. This Ground cannot be their having Disparate or Disagreeing Notions in them or their being of Disparate Orders which have nothing to do with one another For we find that we cannot Refer or compare Green and Hard Youthful and Transparent Hot and Triangular nor any other disparate Notions nor yet a Writer and a Plough-share a Father and a Mill-stone a Brother and a Handsaw c. because they are in Disparate Orders and have no Respect to one another grounding our Referring them or Comparing them together as have a Writer and a Writing a Father and a Son a Baker and Bread c. 3. Wherefore the Ground of Relation must either be some Notion agreeing to both the things related that is found to belong to both either Intrinsecally or Extrinsecally or else their having Communication with one another by way of natural Action and Passion This is prov'd by the former Section and is evident because there can be no other Considerations by which they can be order'd to one another or be of the same Order but their having some Intrinsecal Notion common to both or else their Acting and Suffering upon and from one another which is an Extrinsecal Consideration 4. Relations of the first sort which have one and the same Notion in them are of as many kinds as there are Heads of Notions since all these have a kind of Nature or Notion in them and so some kind of Transcendent Unity Thus if they have the same Nature or Essence in them which belongs to the Common Head of Substance the Relation between them is call'd Identity which is their being of one and the same kind of Entity If of one and the same Notion of Quantity 't is call'd Equality which is their being of one and the same Quantity If of Quality 't is call'd Likeness if of Action singly consider'd they are call'd Co-actors as Fellow-Souldiers Fellow-Servants c. If of Passion singly consider'd Fellow-Sufferers Fellow-Martyrs c. If of Place or Vbi Bed-fellows Chamber-fellows Townsmen Country-men c. If of Time Contemporaries Co-eve or born at the same time If of Habit Fellow-Mourners Fellow-Curassiers Fellow-Souldiers of the Blew or Grey Regiment If of Situation Fellow-Assessors or Sitters tho' such as this seldom occur Nay there may be a Relation grounded on having the same notion even of Relation in them as Parents or Fellow-begetters 5. Of the second sort grounded on Action and Passion not singly consider'd but with an Order to one another or as Inferring one another are such as these viz. Father and Son Master and Servant Prince and Subject Tutor and Pupil which are grounded on the Actions and Passions of Begetting and being Begotten Commanding and being Commanded Governing and being Governed Teaching and being Taught c. 6. In both these sorts of Relations the things Referr'd must have their Correlates that is there must be a mutual Relation on both sides In the former of them because there is the selfsame Ground or Reason of Referring in one as in the other viz. that one same Notion Common or Belonging to Both to wit the same Essence same Quantity same Quality same Relation same Place same Time same sort of Action and Passion same Situation and the same Habit. 7. This Agreeing and Corresponding of the two things thus Related in those of the former kind of Relation must be meant to be their Agreeing in the same Abstracted and Common or Specifical Notion and not in the same Individual one For otherwise two Men could not have Identity in their Individual Essence since then they would be the same and not the same that is Vnum and Non-unum And for the same reason Intrinsecal Accidents being Identify'd with the Subjects in which they inhere and having no Entity but theirs they can have no Individuality but by them and so the same Individual Intrinsecal Accident cannot be Common to two Subjects or Substances but must be Individually Two as They are Whence the Relations grounded on them must be upon their being the same in Species or Kind and not Individually Which reason holds equally for those Relations that are grounded on Action Passion and Situation and the rest For two things cannot be in one Individual place that is in a place capable to hold but one Individual thing without Penetration of Bodies Nor is it possible in the course of Natural Causes that two should be born or dye at the same precise Time that is in such a portion of Time as is terminated by the same Instants Nor can Two wear the same Individual Arms c. at once Wherefore it must be meant that the Notion common to both must be an abstracted or specifical Notion and
Manners of Working have and consequently those Relations are far more Real than those which are grounded on Corporeal Powers and their Operations 15. The Substance as it were of Relation consists in that Immediate Ground which is the Reason of our referring one thing to another For 't is Evident that 't is the Thing it self in my Mind which is Referr'd and not the Act of the Mind Referring it For example Two White things have Vnity of Form or the same Notion in them which makes them Really Alike of themselves were they in a Comparing Power that could actually Referr them and denominate them Relatively as their Nature requires so that it is not the Act of my Understanding which made the white Walls really Alike but their own Natures which are the Object of my Act by means notwithstanding of the Comparative Act of my Understanding which they inform'd as a necessary Condition to relate them actually and without which they had each of them had but the Absolute Notion of White and not the Relative one of being Alike Corol. II. Hence we have some light given us how there may be True and Real Relations in God Knowing and Loving himself and how they depend and not depend on our Understanding 16. The Intrinsecal Differences of Relation being more and less and our Act adding nothing to the Substance of the Relation they must be taken from the Greater or Lesser Ground or Reason why the thing is referr'd to another Hence our greatest Relation is to God because all the good we have or can have does entirely Referr us to him Upon which therefore is founded all our Religious Respects and our Duties of Serving Obeying and Adoring him Next follows the Relation of a Husband to a Wife who is in some manner the same Individual with himself After them comes our Relation to our Parents who concurr'd to our Being gave us Education and provided for our Subsistence Then to Mankind to whom we are Related by Identity of Nature to our Country our King and other Superiours according to their several Ranks to our Kinsfolks Neighbours c. from which Relations arise several Duties in proportion to the more or less important Reason or Ground that makes them more or less nearer or remotely Related to us LESSON VIII Of the Common Heads of Action and Passion 1. THERE are Two and but Two Common Heads of Extrinsecals conceiv'd to be apply'd to one another by way of Motion For since Motion has two Terms viz. that thing from whence it comes and that to which it reaches and these are distinct Considerations hence we have Two Common Heads of one Extrinsecal thing conceiv'd to be apply'd to another by way of Motion Nor can there be more for Motion consider'd as it were in the Midway between those Terms has no Notion but that of meer Motion whence it is the very Notion of Successive Quantity and belongs clearly to that Common Head and therefore cannot belong to another or constitute a new one 2. The Notion of Motion is the most Imperfect of all our Notions and most approaching to Non-Entity For since Motion as it superadds to the Extensive Quantity of its Subject is wholly made up of not being in this place or that or of not being still here and not being yet there nor has any thing of Permanency which is in a manner the same Notion with Actual Being it follows that besides the Common disadvantage other Accidents are liable to of having no Entity of their own but what 's borrow'd of their Subjects it has moreover this that neither it self nor any part of it self exists so much as for one Moment Wherefore Ens being a Capacity of Existence Motion seems to be in a manner incapable of Existence or a Non-Entity and this out of its own peculiar Nature or Notion Again since in every part of Motion the thing moved is in a space bigger than it self and Place as will be shewn hereafter properly such is but Equal to the thing it contains and not bigger than it hence Motion hinders its Subject to be properly speaking in any place that is any where which amongst Bodies seems next akin to not being at all Lastly Motion is destructive of Actual Being in those things that are arriv'd to their full state of perfection which shews its nature to be in some sense directly opposit to the Notion of Being which has some kind of Constancy and Stability in it Nor can it be said that it gives Actual Being or Existence to the new Entities it helps to produce for Existence is the proper Effect of Self-Existence or the First Cause Wherefore the Notion of Motion is the most Imperfect of all our Notions and most approaching to Non-Entity Corol. I. Hence is demonstrated that since every Agent produces an Effect suitable to its own Nature and therefore an Agent infinitely perfect cannot be the Immediate Cause of what 's most Imperfect therefore Motion being both most imperfect and withal most disagreeable nay directly contrary to God's Nature which is pure Self-Existence and Essentially Immovable and Vnchangable was not immediately caus'd by God but by some imperfect Agent or some Creature that is by such a Cause as of it self is a Non-Entity 3. The Notion of Action as it superadds to meer Motion is the Exercise of a Power which is Effective of something For since to Act is to Do and to do Nothing is not to do it follows that to Act is to Do something but to do something presupposes a Power to do it and this so as not to stay in the Notion of meer Power for if it stays there it only denominates the Thing Able to do which again is not to do wherefore Action is not the Notion of a sluggish Power but of a Power Exerted and Exercis'd that is Effecting something whence the Power is call'd Effective the Action Efficiency and the Something it does is term'd an Effect All which superadd to the notion of meer Motion 4. The Primary and Chief Natural Action is Division For since Substance is the Subject of all Accidents and which being changed all the Accidents do suffer a change with it hence that Action that works upon a Body according to the Substantial Notion of it has more of Action in it as working a Greater Effect But Division makes Two Things of One and so destroys the former Vnum or Ens and makes Two new ones therefore Division is the Primary and Chief of all other Natural Actions Note That this is to be understood of Perfect Division which makes the thing Divided and is therefore only properly to be call'd Division for Imperfect Division only alters the Figure It may be objected That Rarefaction and Condensation if they be in a great degree change the Substance as well as Division does Answ. This arises out of the nature of some particular sort of Bodies and not out of the precise Notion of those Actions For
propositions are directly opposit to Contradictions since Man's Wit cannot invent a proposition directly Opposit to what runs runs not but what runs runs which is perfectly Identical Add that all Fault consisting in this that 't is a Privation of the Opposit Good Contradictions would not be at all Faulty but that they violate the Truth of Identical propositions as has been now proved since there are no other Truths which they directly and formally Oppose or destroy 12. Again as will be seen hereafter to Conclude is to shew the Terms of the Conclusion to be Connected by their being Connected with a Third or Middle Term in the Premisses But how can we shew that Middle Term is really connected with those Two other Terms in the Premisses By finding still another Middle Term to be connected with the Terms of the proposition to be proved And how far must this go on Endlesly or no If Endlesly it is impossible any thing should ever come to be prov'd if not then we must come to some proposition whose Terms are so Connected that no Middle Term can come between them that is such as cannot be Connected by means of Another that is which cannot be prov'd or made evident that is which are self-connected or self-evident that is which are formally Identical To enforce this we may observe that the more Remotâ— the Terms of a proposition are from Formal Identity the less evident they are and the more prooâ— they require as also that they grow still nearer to Evidence according to the degree of their Approaching to be Formally the same Wherefore since all Approach of Distant things ends in their Conjoyning and Centering in the same 't is manifest that all Approach of Distant Notions ends in their being the same in Notion or in a proposition Formally Identical as in a First and Self-evident Principle 13. Besides all Causality or the whole Course of Nature is finally refunded into this Self-evident Principle that Things are such as they are that is are what they are For since an Effect is a Participation of something that is in the Cause and the Cause as such is that which imparts or communicates something it has to the Matter on which it works its Effect Again since the Effect is such as the Cause is as to that which is imparted to it and if the Cause be of another sort the Effect still varies accordingly there can be no doubt but that Causality is the Imprinting the Existence of that Essence or Thing which is the Cause upon the Matter Whence follows evidently that the very Notion of Natural Causality and the whole Efficacy of it consists in the Causes existing that is being what it is Only Motion is added as a Common Requisit to apply that Existing Cause better or worse which is refunded into a Nature Superiour to Body as will be shewn hereafter 14. Lastly God himself has exprest his own Supreme Essence by this Identical Proposition Ego Sum qui Sum that is I exist or am Existence Which is the same in a manner with Self existence is Self-Existence Which therefore is the First Increated Truth as 't is the First Created one that what is is or A thing is what it is which is therefore True because God is what He is or because Self-existence is Self-existence From which Divine and Soveraign Verity all our Created First Principles derive their Truth For were not This True all our Identical Proposition and First Principles would all be False in regard they have their Verity from the Natures of the Things and of our Vnderstanding neither of which could have their Metaphysical Verity nor consequently could they ground or be capable of any Truth at all if Self-Existence their Cause were not Self-Existence and thence Unlimited in Power Wisdome and Goodness to Create and Conserve those Beings which are the Foundation of all the Truth we have or can have The Reader is desired to referr this Section to the Third Corollary and to consider them well together because they mutually give Light to one another And if we rightly consider it as the Proposition Homo est Homo is onely the reducing the Metaphysical Verity of Homo into a Formal Truth so Self Existence is self-Existence is the same in respect of the Soveraign Metaphysical Verity of the Divine Nature Corol. IV. Hence is seen that an Atheist can have no perfectly Certain Knowledge or Evidence of any thing but that by denying his Maker he deservedly comes to lose the best Perfection of his own Nature For if a Sceptick should put him to prove that things have any Metaphysical Verity in them grounding our first Principles and consequently all our Knowledge and object that for any thing he knows Things are Chimerical and so contriv'd as to beget in us False Judgments he is utterly at a loss through his denying a First Cause whose Unchangeable and Essential Truth and Goodness has Establisht their Natures to bee Unalterably what they are whence onely any Certain and Evident Knowledge of them is possible to be attain'd 15. Definitions tho' very useful to Science are not Self evident nor are those Propositions that Predicate the Definition of the Notion Defin'd First Principles For Self-evident Principles by force of their very Terms do oblige the Understanding to assent which such Propositions do not Again Art is requisit to make such Definitions as are Proper and Adjusted to the Thing Defin'd whereas First Principles must antecede all Art and be known by the Natural Light of our Understanding Besides the Possibility of being defind goes before the Definition which Possibility the Thing has from its Metaphysical Verity determining it to be This and no other For if the thing were not truly what it is it could not be exexplaind to be what it is were it not One that is Undivided in its self and Divided from all others it could not be compriz'd in one Definition and if it were not Determinately of this or that Nature it 's certain Bounds and Limits could not be drawn which is done by the Definition Whence 't is manifest that that proposition which affirms that a Thing is what it is is the First Principle and Ground to all Definitions and therefore Definitions themselves are not First Principles 16. This is further evinc'd because Words being liable to Equivocalness where there are more words as there are in Definitions there is more room for Equivocation which Inconvenience appears no where more than in the known Definition of Man For there wants not many Witty or rather half-witted Discoursers who Distinguish that is makes Ambiguous the Word Rational and do not stick to maintain that Man is Rational or Concluding being the Proper Act of Reason can Conclude Evidently in Lines and Numbers but not in Logick Physicks Ethicks or Metaphysicks much less in Theology and by this means they cramp the Definition to less than half the sense the words contain There are others
it The Objecter then slides over the Certainty of this proposition I think as compar'd with the proposition I am and other Judgments experimentally known and compares it with other propositions subsequent to I think Wherefore he first supposes it to be most Certain that is more Certain than they are and prefers it before all others without Comparing it with those others which is to suppose it so gratis and which is yet more strange he grounds all Knowledge whatever upon it 13. 'T is yet a worse Error that whereas Ens or Being is the Basis of all other Notions so that if no Thing be They cannot be the Alledger by arguing thus Cogito ergo sum does by a strange Hysteron proteron put an Operation to be Antecedent to Being it self and that to be Thinking is a more Simple Clear and Distinct Notion than to be And then from an Operation found out or suppos'd he concludes the very Notion of Being it self to be in the Thing Nay which is yet more odd he supposes the Notion of Knowledge of Himself imported by the Word Ego and supposes that Ens or Ego to be as is signified by the Copula Sum nay more he supposes that Ens or himself not onely to be â—ut moreover to be such viz. Operating or Thinking which most evidently speak or imply Existence and when he has done all this he Infers thence contrary to our 3d. 4th Sect. the simple being of that which he had not onely put to be and be known but which he had over and above put to be or be known to be such that is to be Operating or Thinking 14. Hence this Method of Generating Science is Unnatural Preposterous and Self-contradictory T is Vnnatural first because the way Nature takes to Beget Knowledge in us is not by divesting our selves of all other Knowledges to find out what 's most Certain but she at first instils Knowledge into us by a Natural way of Imprinting Notions in our Mind and our Conparing them and thence letting us See whether they Agree or Disagree 2 ly because it strains Nature to fancy our selves Ignorant of many Clear Truths which the goodness of the same Nature forces us to assent to as Evident And 3 ly because I am is according to the Order of Nature Antecedent to I am Thinking T is Preposterous because it argues from Compound Judgments which are less known to inâ—er what 's more Simple and so more known And lastly t is Self contradictory because it supposes that to bee or to be known which as yet according to that doctrine is not or is not known but is to be Concluded that is made known as is shewn Section 13th 15. Hypothetical Philosophy which is grounded on Suppositions and beggs that such and such things may be yielded and then it will explicate alâ— Nature is built on meer Fancy and is unworthy the name of Philosophy For since it belongs to a Philosopher to Resolve all Truths into their Principles and all Natural Effects into their Proper Causes and finally if need be into their first Principles or First Causes and a Hypothetical Philosopher can never perform this Duty which is most Essential to a Philosopher in regard the First Grounds he layes are barely begg'd or Supposed that is neither self-Evident nor made Evident by way of Proof Hence Hypothetical Philosophy is utterly unworthy the name of Philosophy since all its Assertions and Conclusions if driven home are resolved finally into Precarious Suppositions Again since all Speculation is Aiery and Fantastical that is not grounded on the Things as they are found in Nature and such Discoursers do not finally build their Discourses on the Natures of the Things as they find them to be but on their being such as they suppose them or would have them to be it follows that the whole Scheme of their Doctrine and all the speculations they advance how Ingenious so ever they may appear are far from Solid and in reality Groundless Aiery and Fantastical 16. Hence follows that who ever supposes any Principle or Proposition that influences his Explication of Nature or of Natural Effects which arâ— apt to be produced by Natural Causes and demonstrated by them whether that Principle be that Matter is divided into such or such parts or that it is moved in such a manner That it continues its motion without a Natural Motive Cause continually acting on it notwithstanding that it still meets with Rubbs from other parts of Matter which it â—reaks asunder That there are such Figures of it's Parts or such Qualities affecting the Subject and giving it a Virtue of Operating thus or thus That â—here are multitudes of little Entities brought in â—o serve a present turn when the Discourser is at 〈◊〉 plunge or Atomes pursuing and over taking â—heir fellows and clinging together conveniently â—or his purpose without giving a reason why and 〈◊〉 they must do so as is the manner of the Epiâ—ureans or what ever other useful Expedient he â—upposes to carry on the Clockwork of his Scheme such a man is no true Philosopher 17. Likewise who ever layes for his Ground â—hat neither is nor can be viz. Vacuum Imaginary Space Subsistent Dimensions Infinit Expansion of Continu'd Quantity Infinit Number of Atomes and suchlike can be no true Philosopher since they as do the former Resolve things finally into their own Unprov'd and Ridiâ—ulous Suppositions and would have us accept their Groundless Fancies for First Principles when as many â—imes the contrary to these is clearly demonstrable 18. Whoever proceeds meerly upon Experiments and Induction and cannot assign Proper Causes for the Effects or Matters of Fact they see â—one how ever their Inquisitiveness into Nature may merit Commendation and oblige Artificers and Practical men by many useful Observations and in some measure help Speculative Men also who do make use of Principles to find out more easily the Proper Causes of many Effects from which Industrious Researches into Nature such men may deserve the name of Virtuosi or Curious and Ingenious persons yet since as will be shewn hereafter they cannot by that Method alone without making use of Principles refund Effects into their Proper Causes nor give the true reason of the Effects they Experience nor Deduce so much as one Scientifical Conclusion they cannot in true speech be call'd Men of Science or Philosophers 19. Those of the Vulgar who have good Mother-witts and addict themselves to think much and attentively of some certain Natural Objects may by Practical Self-evidence well improv'd arrive to such a true Knowledge of the Causes of things as may rank them in the next Class of Knowers to Scientifical Men or true Philosophers For such Men by an Innate or Casual Addiction of their Thoughts to some particular sorts of Natures and by industrious and frequent consideration of them joyn'd with a natural Sagacity to penetrate them and natural Logick to discourse them in their thoughts are furnish'd with
their Identicals And the same may be said of other Qualities that affect our Senses very distinctly as Heat Cold Moist Dry c. Note that in such as these if it be too laborious to arrive at their Definitions by dividing the Common Genus as it often happens when the Dividing Members are more than Two and are not Contradictory to one another then we may frame our Definitions of them by observing the carriage of the Vulgar towards them or their Sayings concerning them For such Qualities being sensible ones are the Objects of the Senses of Mankind and do imprint Lively and Distinct Notions of themselves in all men Wherefore their Sayings being the Effect of the true Notions they have of them they if enow of them be collected must give us the true Notion of them or which is all one of what they mean by the Word that expresses them which is equivalent in Sense to a perfect Definition For example when they speak of those Qualities we call Dry and Moist we shall observe that they are sollicitous lest Moist things should squander and run about and therefore they are careful themselves to put such things in some Receptacle or Vessel that may keep them from doing so or they bid their Servants do it On the Contrary they bid them set Dry things on the Cupboard or on a Shelf and never put them in a Vessel or be at the needless labour of pounding them into a Pot or Tub out of fear they should squander about Which sayings and behaviour of theirs gives us the Definitions of both those Qualities viz. that Moist is that which difficultly keeps its own bounds or Figure and is easily accommodated to the bounds of another thing and Dry is that which easily retains its own bounds or Figure and is Difficulty accommodated to the bounds of another which are the very Definitions which that great Observer of Nature Aristotle gives us of those two Qualities Note II. Whence we may with a humble Acknowledgment and Thanks reflect on the Infinite Goodness of the God of Truth who unenviously bestows knowledge on all who will dispose themselves to receive it that where-ever Art by reason of our Shortness is at a plunge he supplies it by Practical Self-evidence or the naturally instill'd Knowledge of the Vulgar whence it is a high Pride in the greatest Men of Art to conceit that they are above being still the Children of Nature whereas 't is the best Title they have to True and Solid Learning Sus Minervam 8. All Conclusions are virtually in the Premisses For since the Premisses by Means of the Middle Term and the right Placing of it have in them the whole force of the Consequence and the Consequence cannot be of nothing but must be of some Determinate Proposition which can be nothing but the Conclusion it follows that all Conclusions are virtually in the Premisses Again since before we Conclude Determinately and Expresly we must know what to Conclude and we know what to Conclude by knowing the Premisses and the Conclusion is that Proposition which is to be Concluded it follows evidently that since we know the Conclusion e'er we Actually Inferr and Express it to be in the Premisses it is there virtually 9. All Deduced Truths are virtually in one another For since all Deduced Truths are Conclusions and the Conclusions are virtually in the Premisses and the same reason holds for all the following Conclusions as for the first or for one single one it follows that let there be never so many orderly-succeeding Syllogisms necessary to prove any point the Conclusions are still in the Premisses and the following ones in those that went before them 10. All Truths are virtually in the Identical Propositions and consequently in the Definitions For since all Truths are taken from the Nature of the Things and from their Metaphysical verity and consequently are in the Nature of the Thing fundamentally and This is Contain'd and Exprest in the whole by Identical Propositions and in all its parts by the Definitions it follows that all Truths are Virtually contain'd in Identical Propositions and consequently in the Definitions 11. From what 's lately said 't is evinced that if a Middle Term be taken which is a Proper Cause or Proper Effect the Conclusion is seen to be in the Premisses For though the Proper Causes and Effects be not the very Essence of the Thing yet since an Effect is a Participation of the Cause and so is apt to manifest the Nature of the Proper Cause that produced it and the Operation of a Proper Cause is nothing but the Existence of such a Cause which is sutable to its Essence imprinted upon the Patient hence such Mediums do Demonstrably and Mutually inferr one another and therefore nothing hinders but that the Conclusions may be seen to be in the Premisses as well in such Syllogisms as in those which have an Essential Notion for their Middle Term. 12. Hence all Natural Truths and this throughout the whole Course of Nature from the very Creation are virtually in one another For since as will be more clearly seen hereafter all those Natural Effects were Demonstrative of their Proper Causes and those Causes Demonstrative of their proper Effects and this from the First starting of Nature into Motion and so were apt to Inferr one another all along that is new Conclusions were still apt to spring from such Middle Terms Connected with the two Extremes in the Premisses and consequently the Truth of those Conclusions were all along Virtually in those several Premisses it follows that all Natural Truths are in one another and this throughout the whole Series or Course of Nature from the very Creation 13. Hence had we liv'd in every Place and in every part of Time where and when those several Causes wrought those several Effects and had been endowed with Capacity Sufficient for such a performance and not been diverted with other thoughts from Application to that work we might have actually Demonstrated those Effects by their Proper Causes or those Causes by their Proper Effects through the whole Series or Course of the World from the beginning to the end except Miracle had alter'd that Natural Course For in that case all those Subjects had afforded us Matter or fit Mediums for Demonstration as well as any single Subject does now Wherefore if we had had wit enough to demonstrate as aforesaid and that wit sufficiently apply'd in every circumstance it had been done 14. Hence every Soul separated from the Body that knows any one Natural Truth knows all Nature and this all at once at the first Instant of her Separation For since all Nature is carry'd on by Proper Causes and Proper Effects and those Mutually inferr one another that is the Truth grounded on the one is seen to be in the Truth grounded on the other as being Virtually in one another and we experience that the Capacity of the Soul to know Truths is not
Indivisible added to Another can make Quantity but la All Infinit Number of Indivisibles Consists of or is One Indivisible added to Another Therefore rent-No Infinit Number of Indivisibles can make Quantity 10. The Minor is Evident for all Number tho' Infinit consists of Ones that is of One added to another Add that 't is demonstrated above that all Infinit Number is Impossible Proposition III. If any two parts of Quantity be Actually distinct All the parts must be Actually distinct also Bar-What ever springs out of the precise nature of Quantity must be equally found where ever there is Quantity or throughout all the parts of Quantity by Axiom 3 d. But ba-All Actual Distinction of the parts of Quantity if put in any two springs out of the precise Notion of Quantity therefore ra-All Actual Distinction of the parts of Quantity if put in any two must be equally found wherever there is Quantity or throughout all the parts of Quantity 11. The Minor is proved for all Unity and Distinction in any Line follows out of the Entity to which it is peculiar that is in our case out of the Entity or Essence of Quantity Again this Actual Distinction of Quantitative parts cannot spring from Substance for this has no Distinction of parts but that of Matter and Form Nor out of any other Line for all those do presuppose Quantity and spring from it as the Primary Affection of Body therefore if any two parts of Quantity be actually Distinct that Distinction must proceed from the Nature of Quantity it self 12. Now that all the parts of Quantity should be Actually Distinct destroys the Nature of Quantity and is Contradictory is thus proved Da-Whatever makes Quantity consist of Infinit Indivisibles contradicts the Nature of Quantity But ri-That Position which makes all the parts of Quantity Actually Distinct makes Quantity consist of Infinit Indivisibles therefore i-That Position which makes all the parts of Quantity actually Distinct contradicts the nature of Quantity 13. The Minor is Evident For those things which are Actually Distinct quantitatively may be Divided quantitatively or rather are already so as those which are Actually Distinct in the Line of Substance are Distinct Substances or Distinct things in that Line Wherefore since the Nature of such a Subject as they put Quantity to be does bear it let us suppose Quantity divided into all it's Actual parts it can be divided into that is into All they being all of them suppos'd Actually Distinct it is manifest there could remain only Infinit Indivisibles They must be Indivisible because it is supposed to be Divided into all it could be Divided into and they must be Infinit for Divisibility that is but Finite would contradict Euclid's Clear and most Approved Demonstration Besides it would follow hence that if all the parts of Quantity were Actually Distinct each of them must be Determinate in the line of Quantity Wherefore they being also Infinit in Number for a Finite Number of parts makes Quantity not to be Divisible Infinitly against Euclid's Demonstration it would follow that each least Quantity would be of Infinit Extension for the least Determinate Quantity Infinit times repeated makes an Infinit Extension 14. Hence is evinced our Main Demonstration that since Continu'd Quantity is neither compounded of a Finit nor of an Infinit Number of Indivisibles nor of Actual parts it is made up of Potential parts that is there is but One Actual Whole in the Line of Quantity and this Whole is Divisible without end Corol. I. Hence is farther demonstrated the Unity of the whole World as to it's Quantity or which is the same the Continuity of the whole imaginable Mass of Body Corol. II. Hence is demonstrated likewise that all Vacuum and Epicurus's Scheme of Plenum and Vacuum are Contradictory As likewise that there cannot possibly be more Worlds than One the very Nature of Quantity being but One whole Divisible still into its Potential parts or parts still farther Divisible Thesis III. 15. Successive Quantity or Motion and consequently the Course of Nature could not have been ab Aeterno but must have had a Beginning Demonstration IV. Bar-All Infinit Motion or Time is Impossible but ba-All Duration of Motion ab Aeterno must have been for an Infinit Time therefore ra-All Duration of Motion ab aeterno is Impossible The Minor is Self-evident The Major is thus prov'd Bar-All Infinit Time must be an Infinit Number of Determinate Parts of Time v. g. Infinit Hours but ba-All Infinit Number of the Determinate parts of Time is Impossible Therefore ra-All Infinit Time is Impossible 16. The Major is clearly Evident for were the Number of the Determinate parts of Time Finite then all the Parts which are equivalent to the Whole being Finite the Whole must likewise be Finite The Minor is prov'd above Demonstration 1. and 2. where it was demonstrated that all Infinit Number is Impossible 17. Whence is Demonstrated our main Thesis that Time Motion or the Course of Nature had a beginning Whence many useful Conclusions may be drawn against Heathens and Atheists Note that 't is the same as to our Argument whether there be an Infinit Number of parts of Time which are Actually Determin'd and Measur'd or no 't is sufficient the Subject Infinit Motion or Infinit Time bears the having such a Determination made by having that in it which corresponds to all those Infinit Determinate parts for this necessarily induces and enforces a Contradiction Thesis IV. There are Spiritual Beings which we call Angels Demonstration V. Axiom 1. What acts is 2. Every thing acts as it is and à fortiori cannot act directly contrary to what it is especially as an Immediate Agent 3. Motion is Change 4. There are no Created Beings but either Divisible or Indivisible ones that is Body or Spirit 5. The First Being is Essentially Vnchangeable Da-Whatever must be the Immediate Cause of some Effect acts and consequently is but ri-An Angel must be the Immediate Cause of some Effect viz. of the First Motion in Nature therefore i-An Angel acts and consequently is The Minor is thus prov'd Da-Every Effect that can neither be caused Immediatâ—ly by the First Cause noâ— by a Body must have been caus'd immediatly by a Created Spirit or an Angel But ri-The First Motion in Nature is an Effect which could not have been caus'd Immediatly by the First Cause nor by a Body Therefore i-The first Motion in Nature must have been caus'd Immediatly by an Angel and consequently an Angel acts is The former part of thâ— Minor viz. that the first Motion could not be caus'd immediately by the First Cause is thus demonstrated 19. Fe-No being that is Essentially Vnchangeable and whose Nature is directly contrary to the Nature of Change can be the Immediate Cause o Change or Motion nor consequently of the First Motion in Nature but ri-The First Being is Essentially Vnchangeable and his Nature is directly
contrary to the Nature of Change or Motion therefore i-The First Being cannot be the Immediate Cause of Motion or Change nor consequently of the First Motion in Nature 20. The latter part of the former Minor viz. that a Body could not have been the Immediate Cause of the First Motion in Nature is thus prov'd Ce-Nothing that antecedently to the First Motion was not-Moving or in Rest could have been the Immediate Cause of the First Motion in Nature but la-Every Body antecedently to the First Motion in Nature was not-Moving or in Rest therefore rent-No Body could have been the Immediate Cause of the First Motion in Nature Note that this Demonstration supposes a First Motion in Nature which was prov'd Demonstration 4. LESSON VII Other Instances of Demonstration Thesis V. THere is a First Self-Existent Being or a Deity Demonstration VI. Proposition I. The Notion or Nature of Ens and of Existent in Creatures and consequently of Essence and Existence are Distinct. Da-Every Notion of which Existent and not-existent may be truly predicated is Different from the Notion of Existent But ri-The Notion of Ens in its First and Proper Signification taken for an Individual Substance is a Notion of which Existent and not-existent may be predicated therefore i The Notion of Ens thus understood is dâ—fferent from the Notion of Existent and consequently the Notions of Essence and Existence are also Distinct. 2. The Minor is Evident For we can truly say that Petrus est while he is Living and as truly say of the same Peter that Fuit or non-est when he is Dead 3. The Major is no less Evident For when we say Petrus est or Peter is Existent were the notion of the Predicate Existent the same with Peter the Subject the Proposition would be in sense formally Identical and the same as 't is to say what 's Existent is Existent Wherefore when we say Petrus non est or Peter is not-Existent Peter Signifying the same as Existent it would be the same as if we said what 's Existent is not Existent which is a Contradiction Proposition II. 4. The Notion of Ens Abstracts from Existence or is Indifferent to it and to Non-existence This needs no farther Proof For in the two Propositions lately mention'd Existent and not Existent are truly predicated of the same Ens viz. Peter which could not be unless the Subject Peter did Abstract from both or were Indifferent to both Besides all the Words which we use to express the Notions or Natures of any Created Ens whatever do so perfectly Abstract from Existence that it is neither Exprest Imply'd nor in the least Hinted in them as appears in the words Lapis Quercus Bucephalus Petrus Raphael which give us not the least light or intimation that they are Existent or not-Existent Proposition III. 5. Were there any Inclination in Created Entities to one more than to the other it seems to be rather to Not-being than to Being For since Peter even tho' possest of Actual Being is still no less capable of Not-being it seems as if he had a particular Natural Tendency to Not-being because tho' supported Formally as it were by it's Opposit Actual Existence he is notwithstanding no less a Capacity of Not-existing his Original nothingness being so radicated in his Nature as he is a Creature that it sticks to it and inclines him to it even while he is Proposition IV. 6. Existence is no ways Intrinsical to any Created Ens either Essentially or as an Affection springing out of it's Essence This has been demonstrated Prop. 2 d. and 3 d. Because Every nature requires all it's Intrinsicals and what follows out of them or is Connected with them and is not Indifferent to have them or not have them as Ens is to have or not have Existence Proposition V. 7. All Created things have their Existence from something that is Extrinsical to them For whatever has any thing and not from it's self or from it's own Intrinsical Nature must have it from Another or from something that is Extrinsical to it there being no Third sort of Cause imaginable which is neither Intrinsical nor Extrinsical that is which is neither it's self nor Another Proposition VI. 8. No Created Ens can give Existence to another For tho' as was shown formerly the virtue by which the Ens operates be the Existence of that Ens yet it can work no otherwise than as the Thing it self is or according to the Nature of the Thing which has that Existence whose Nature it actually Imprints as it were on the Subject as we find in Fire heating in Water moistning and in the whole Line of Universal Causality Again since the whole Line of Causality also bears that no Cause can act unless it be first Determin'd and as it were Appropriated to work such an Effect whence come those establisht Maxims that the Course of Nature is carry'd on by Proper Causes to Proper Effects and Ex indifferente nihil sequitur Therefore seeing Prop. 2. The Created Ens to which such an Existence belongs and consequently the Nature or Essence of that Ens Abstracts from all Existence and is perfectly Indifferent even to it 's own and much more to the Existence of any other Ens it follows demonstratively that no Created Ens can give Existence to another or be the Proper Cause of it Therefore Proposition VII 9. There must be some Vncreated Cause that gives Existence to all Created Entities This is already Evident since no Created Entity can have it's Existence either from it's own Intrinsical Nature or from any other Creature Proposition VIII 10. This Vncreated Cause of all Existence must be Self-Existent that is his Essence must be his Existence For were his Essence Indifferent to Existence or Existence Accidental to him and not Essential he would need Another Cause to give him Existence for the same reason Creatures do and so He would not be Vncreated Therefore there is a First Self-existent Being or a DEITY Corol. III. Hence it is seen that all that Created Causes operate upon Entities grown to maturity is to dispose to the not being of the things they work upon by Altering the Matter so that out of those Alterations brought to such a point the Body ceases to be any longer of such a Nature or Kind and consequently loses it's Existence At which Instant the Providence of the First Being so Orders his World that those Determinations of Matter which were Inconsistent with the Former Ens should be Proper for the New Ens that is to succeed to which in the very First Instant the other ceases to be and this new one is Ultimately Determin'd to be this He by his Bountiful and Steady Emanation of Being gives it such a peculiar Existence as is Commensurated and Proper to it's Essence Thesis VI. An Angel cannot undergo any Change after the First Instant of it's Being Demonstration VII Axiom 1. If Agent and Patient be perfectly fitted
as to the nature of Agent and Patient there needs no more to begin the Effect actually but Application 2. If Agent and Patient be perfectly fitted as to the nature of Agent and Patient and the Effect be Indivisible there needs no more to begin and end that is to Compleat the Effect at once but Application 3. An Indivisible Effect cannot be perform'd by piecemeal or by parts 4. Every thing operates as it is 5. No Change can be made without the Operation of some Cause 6. A Pure Spirit is not Quantitative a Body is Proposition I. No Corporeal Operation is without Local Motion For since Ax. 4. Every thing operates as it is what is Quantitative operates Quantitatively but nothing can operate Quantitatively or exercise 't is Quantity when it perfectly rests according to it's Quantity that is moves not according to it's Quantity It follows then that to Operate Quantitatively is to move according to Quantity Wherefore since nothing can move according to it's Quantity but either Intrinsically by having it's Quantity made greater or less or Extrinsically that is by having it's Quantity unmov'd as to it 's own parts or it's self mov'd towards Another and both these do evidently require some kind of Local Motion 't is Evident likewise that No Câ—â—poreal Operation is without Local Motion Proposition II. 13. That an Angel is not susceptible of Local Motion For since Motion is Mutation and consequently Local Motion Mutation or Change according to Place and Change of Place does necessarily require some Space and Space is Quantity it follows that Local Motion cannot be made in a Subject which has no Quantity But Angels they being Pure Spirits are not Quantitative therefore they are not Susceptible of Local Motion or capable of having Local Motion made in them Proposition III. 15. That no Body can cause a Change in an Angel For since no Operation of Body is without Local Motion and an Angel it being a Pure Spirit is not susceptible of Local Motion it follows that neither is it Susceptible of the Operation of Body But No Cause can change any thing unless that Cause operates upon it Therefore no Body can cause any Change in an Angel Proposition IV. 16. That an Angel cannot change it self after the First Instant For since a Cause the self same in all respects if the Patient be likewise the self same and the Application also the self same produces the self-same Effect equally in any time assignable that is sufficient for such an Effect and an Angel put to act upon it self or change it self after the first Instant is put to be the self-same as to its being a Cause in every Instant before it acts as likewise to be the self-same Patient in all respects and the Application of it self to its self cannot but be Equal it follows that in any time sufficient for the same Effect it will produce the same Effect that is act upon it self or change it self Wherefore since an Effect in an Indivisible subject is Indivisible that is Impossible not to be all at once or in one Instant and an Angel being a Pure Spirit is an Indivisible Subject t is Evident that this Effect or the Action of that Spirit upon it self would be equally made in every Instant in case it were not already made that is can only be made in the First Instant Wherefore an Angel cannot change it self after the First Instant Proposition V. 17. If there were only Two Angels Existent one of them could not act upon the other after the very First Instant of their Being Let there be only Two Angels the one whereof can work upon the other and let the Agent be A the Patient B and because they are suppos'd not to act in the First Instant but after some Duration let the Duration assign'd be C the Instant at the end of that Duration in which they first work D. Since neither A. nor B. are able to work upon themselves except in the First Instant and as is suppos'd one works not upon the other till the Instant D they must necessarily remain in all respects the same they were in the First Instant till the Instant D that is for the whole Intermediat Duration C Therefore they are equally fitted in point of Agent and Patient in each nay in the very First Instant of the Duration C as they are in the Instant D But in the Instant D in which they acted they were in all points fitted to act therefore they were also in all points perfectly fitted to act in the very first Instant of the Duration C Wherefore the Effect Begun and the Subject being Indivisible Ended in the very First Instant in case their wanted not Application of the perfectly-ready Agent to the perfectly-dispos'd Patient But there wanted not Application in the very First Instant For since Quantitative Application or Propinquity is not competent to Pure Spirits all the Application they can be imagin'd to have to one another is by Knowledg and Will But they had the same Knowledg and Will for the Whole Duration antecedent because they are suppos'd Vnchang'd and perfectly the same for that whole Duration And tho' they had not had it formerly the Argument returns with the same force that they could not have had this new Knowledg and Will from Themselves in any part of that Duration nor from a Body and therefore they must have had it from anâ—ther Spirit and this in the First Instant because that Other was then perfectly apt to give it This perfectly apt to receive it And consequently If there were only Two Angels Existent one of them could not act upon rhe other after the very First Instant of their Being Proposition VI. 18. Put any multitude of Angels how great soever all that they can work upon one another will be perform'd in the First Instant of their Being For since where there are only Two one must therefore act upon the other in the First Instant or not at all because all the imaginable Concurrents to that Action were then adequately put the rest also where there are more will for the same reason be wrought upon in the same Instant in case the Causes of that Action be then adequately put But they are all Adequately put in the same First Instant For the second Angel that acts either is a perfect Agent and perfectly apply'd by what it has of it self or by what it has from another wherefore since it can never want what it has of it self or by it's self it cannot want any thing to work upon the Third unless it be to be wrought upon by the First and so be fitted to work upon the Third but this is done in the very first Instant wherefore also the Third will for the same reason be wrought upon in the self-same Instant Again since the Third cannot be imagin'd to want any thing to enable it to work
Gramarical Quibbles and it would do too much honour to them to spend labour to name them being too open of themselves to need Exposing Those which are less discernable and worth Remark are such as this He that says you are an Animal says true but He that says you are an Ass says you are an Animal Therefore He that says you are an Ass says true Where as has been particularly shown above the word Animal is taken in diverse Senses for in this Proposition Peter is an Animal it is restrain'd by the Subject to signify one Individual Animal and of such a kind viz. Rational But in the Proposition An Ass is an Animal it is restrain'd to signify an Animal of Another kind viz. Irrational whence 't is no Syllogism because it has Four Terms 10. Of these Fallacies which are not grounded on the Ambiguity of the Words but are built on the Thing or the Sense the First worth remarking is that call'd the Fallacy ex Accidente which happens when the Middle Term is only Accidentally connected with the Extremes and not per se or out of its own Nature As Bar-Whatever breeds stirs in a Common-Wealth is bad but ba-All Religion breeds stirs in a Common-Wealth therefore ra-All Religion is bad The Common answer is to distinguish the Major and Minor both and to say that what breeds Stirs out of its own Nature is Bad but not that which breeds them Accidentally for otherwise a Sword and Wine must be bad because the one sometimes helps to commit Murther and the other causes Drunkenness But the more Solid way and which bears up best to Logical Grounds is to deny it to be a Syllogism because though the Form of it be Legitimate yet the Matter or the Middle Term is not so For a Syllogism being a Speech contriv'd by True Logicians to Conclude a Third Proposition out of the Premises so as by Connexion of the Medium with the Extremes we may know it to be Certainly True for that which leaves us Vncertain leaves us Ignorant it follows that the Middle Term must be either a Notion Essentially Connected with the Extremes or else as a Proper Cause or Effect of it neither of which it can be if it be but Accidentally belonging to them We may Note here how Accidental Mediums are Common and Remote ones or such as beget Opinion For between Religion and Commotions intervene Perversity of will Disregard of Virtue Irrational Assents upon Opinionative Ground Pride and Faction against Church Governours who would bind them to good Principles and Religious Duties Interest c. All which or some if not most of them are the Proper and Immediate Causes of Dissention at least nearer and more Proper Causes of it than Religion it self the Principles of which do Oblige men to the preservation of Peace and Unity 11. The Second is called Ignoratio Elenchi which in easier Language is the attempting to prove what 's not in question or putting upon our Adversary to hold a Tenet he never own'd nor held as it usually passes among Passionate Discourses and Scolds when they object to others what they neither held nor thought that they may the more easily confute them or render them Odious This is avoided in disputes by Stating the Question right and by Agreeing before-hand in the Signification of the Words in which the Question is conceiv'd as was recommended in the second and third Rule Or if this be not done before the Dispute begins it is answer'd by saying Transeat totum and forcing the Adversary weary with aiming his blows amiss to recur to the true point and to Conclude the Contradictory to the Defendents Tenet which was his only Duty and ought to have been done at first 12. The Third is Begging the Question or Supposing that which should have been Prov'd Which is manifestly faulty For the Premisses must be Clearer than the Conclusion which they cannot be if the Proof in whole or in part is as Unknown and Obscure as is the Conclusion it self as it must be if it is barely Suppos'd and begg'd gratis Of which Fallacy therefore all the whole Body of Hypothetical Philosophy is Guilty as also that Fallacy call'd An Ill Enumeration of the Parts as follows here 13. The Fourth is that of an Imperfect or Incomplete Division which happens wâ—en 't is falsly pretended that the thing in Question must be one of those which are Nominated or that it must be perform'd one of the ways Assign'd when perhaps there is Another way how that thing may be done which was never assign'd but either Unthought of or Neglected As if it should be asserted that Motion must either happen by Atoms descending in an Immense Vacuum or by the Impression of so much Motion in the Mass of Matter at First by GOD and his Continuing it ever since when as a third way may be assign'd viz. that a Created Intelligent Being Causes and all along Continues the Motion of the first-moved Bodies which move the rest This Fallacy is defeated by Denying the Proposition which contains the Enumeration of all those Causes or Manners of Action and by Obliging the Disputant to show his Division to be Adequate 14. The Fifth is called non causa pro causa That is in plain terms the bringing a Medium that does not Conclude or the pretending the Conclusion follows from a Medium that cannot necessarily inferr it This Fallacy if it must be call'd so happens chiefly to Experimental Philosophers who going by meer Induction and laying no Evident or Certain Principles of Nature a priori to guide their Thoughts by but Hypothetical ones only do hence refund all the Effects of Nature into false-pretended Causes whence every man who sets up a new Scheme does still assign new Reasons or Causes according to which he strives to Explicate Nature and into which he endeavours to Resolve all the several Productions and Effects of it But why this should be call'd a Fallacy I cannot comprehend At this rate every Argument that does not Conclude may be call'd a Fallacy For since the Premisses in a Demonstrative Syllogism are the Cause of the Conclusion whoever argues ill argues Fallaciously and assigns a wrong Cause by producing an Incompetent Medium But in case the Disputant puts it upon the Defendent to have made use of such a Ground as he never meant it is then enough to deny it and put him to prove that that was indeed his Ground as was pretended 15. The Fifth is the Arguing from what 's taken in a Divided sense as if it were taken in a Compound sense or conjoyntly or from what 's taken in a compound sense or conjoyntly to infer the same thing in a Divided sense Example of the Former is this He that is actually sitting may Walk Peter is actually sitting therefore Peter actually sitting or while he sits may walk Where the Major is False unless Sitting and Walking be taken Divisively and mean that he who sits
Motion which was not in that Instant begun Or if they mean only it's Potential parts or which is the same that One Actual Whole not to pose them by what virtue those Potential parts do formally cohere which without making Divisibility which is Quantitative Vnity or Continuity the Essence of Quantity is impossible to explicate the Question returns and we demand how Firmly those parts do cling together that is how Dense that Whole was and in what it's Density consisted which we affirm must have been either in it's Intrinsical Nature or such a degree of Consistency which is in it's being to such a degree more or less Divisible by Natural Causes or in Nothing Again if Density consisted in the Rest of it's Parts and there was most perfect Rest before there was any Motion then the Density of it must have surpassed all Degrees and therefore it must have been of the Nature of Epicurus his Atomes that is Insuperably and Essentially Incapable of being Divided which they must not say who make their Elements made by the Rubbing of some parts of the Matter against the others Besides in thaâ— supposition GOD as the Author of Nature had offer'd Violence to his own Creation by Dividing it immediately at first Lastly that Matter was of it's own nature Indifferent to be Mov'd or not-Mov'd that is Indifferent to Rest or Motion for Being and Extension abstract from both whereas in our case Density and the same may be said had it been Rare being Natural to it and not Adventitious or Accidental by the Operation of External Causes it could not have been Indifferent to it since every thing necessarily Requires what is Natural to it self Nor is a Thing meerly by it's being in Rest of another Nature To understand this more clearly let us consider this Proposition That Thing call'd the First Matter is in Rest 't is about the Essence or Nature or Intrinsecal Quality of the Subject of this Proposition we are Enquiring to which supervenes that Accidental Predicate of being in Rest. Wherefore to be in Rest does not alter the Intrinsecals of their First Matter but presupposes them and therefore all it's Intrinsecals must have belong'd to it of it's own nature whether it had happen'd to be in Rest or in Motion 22. Density then in their First Matter cannot be explicated by Rest nor consequently Rarity by Motion Let us search then farther in what we can conceive it to consist or how it may be Explicated Now we are to note that all Particular Natures or Notions are to be Explicated by more Common and General ones if we go to work like Philosophers for all Grounds and Principles are made up of such Notions as are Common or Vniversal ones and to Explicate Particulars by other Particulars is the way of Proceeding by Similitudes which may serve sometimes to Elucidate but never to Prove or to Resolve any thing or Notion into its Formal Cause which belongs properly to Philosophers We find then abstracting fâ—om Rest and Motion which are Accidental to that Matter no Notion or Nature in it that can be Superiour to Density and Rarity but the Essence of it that is that Thing it Self call'd the First Matter and its Quantity And Quantity may be consider'd two ways Either as affecting the Body meerly in order to its Self or else in order to the Causes that may work upon it The Former we call Extension the latter Divisibility physically consider'd Now Density cannot any way be Explicated by Extension as that in which it consists as is most Evident in regard a Body may be Equally Extended whether it be Rare or Dense nor is any thing therefore Rarer or Denser because it is Longer or Shorter Let us apply then our Consideration to Divisibility taken in the sense spoken off lately viz. as making its Subject apt to be wrought upon or Divided by Natural Causes and the Proper and Intrinsecal Differences of every Common Notion being More and Less and it being also Evident from the very Notions and from the Consent of Mankind that we call those Bodies Dense which are Less Easy to be Divided or Less Dâ—visible and those Rare which are more Divisible or more Easy to be Divided we are in a fair way to find out clearly what Rarity and Density do consist in viz. Rarity in an Excess or greater Proportion of Quantity thus consider'd to the Matter or Subject of it and Density in a Lesser Proportion of the same Quantity to the Matter that is to the Subject of it according to the Notion of it as Matter Nor does this more strain our Reason to conceive this various participation of the same Accident Quantity than it does to conceive a Thing to partake the Quality of Whiteness Vnequally and be More or Less White For that Maxim of Quantitas non suscipit magis minus is meant Evidently of Extension in regard that the least imaginable Extension being Added or Abstracted from the former must necessarily vary the Species 23. That we may bear up more directly to our main Thesis Since Rarity or else Density must necessarily be in their First Matter for it is impossible to conceive it to be at all Divisible by Natural Causes but it must be either Easily or Hardly Divisible by them if we joyn to this that Contraria according to the Maxim sunt circa idem subjectum it will and must follow that the same Matter whether theirs or ours that had a Power in it to be Less Divisible or Dense had also a Power in it to be More Divisible or Rare and this not only in the First Matter it self but also in every particular Body in Nature made of it and which has the nature of that Matter in it whence results this Conclusion that Rare Bodies are Transmutable into Dense and Dense into Rare and that therefore there is Formal Mutation in Bodies according to these two Primary Qualities and consequently according to all Secondary Qualities too which as will be demonstrated in Physicks are made up of those Primary ones So that most of the Effects in Nature are carry'd on by Formal Mutation nor consequently can Nature be ever rightly Explicated by the Deniers of such a Formal Change 24. Let it be well noted that I speak not in this last Discourse of Contradictories which have no Middle between them and therefore cannot have the same Matter or Subject or make it Changeable from one to the other as because Body is Divisible it does not follow that the same Subject can be Chang'd to Indivisible What I discourse of and from whence in part I drew my Argument was from the nature of Contraries which are two Extremes under the same kind of Quality and therefore have Middling Qualities between both by passing through which as by Degrees or Steps the Body is Transmutable from one of them into the other And the reason is because neither Extreme is Infinitely such and therefore
grant the Certainty of those Impressions on the Senses or they must confess all their Ideas are nothing worth For since they hold that the Objects imprint Motions on the Fibres of the Senses which making such a Report as it were to the Soul the Proper and Ingenit Ideas of such a Body are either Excited in the Soul or else are as Cartesius elsewhere expresses it Elicited that is Produced by it upon the hint given it by such a Motion in case the Impressions causing such Motions be not Sincere and do not truly inform her a wrong Idea may come to be made use of and so they can never have any certain Knowledge of any thing Having thus got rid of the Senses giving us notice of outward things by imprinting Notions in them which Experience teaches us is the Ordinary Way of Knowing any thing it follows of course that they must recurr to Extraordinary ways by Inward means or to Inward Light which is the Method of Fanaticks in Religion when they have rejected the Ordinary ways of believing their Proper Teachers And hence the Cartesians tell us they know there is a God by the Divine Idea of himself Which he has imprinted in them which is in other Terms to say that they have it ky Divine Revelation for Knowledge according to them being caus'd in them by those Ideas nay consisting formally in thoir having the Ideas of things in them and GOD giving them those Ideas without the help of Second Causes it follows that GOD is the Immediate Cause of all our Knowledge and so no thanks at all to the things in Nature or to Natural Agents These Ideas I can observe by Cartesius's Discourse are either of Propositions or else Simple Ideas Of the former they say that whatever we clearly and distinctly conceive to be is true By which if they mean no more but that whatever we know to be is or that we cannot truly know that to be which is not nothing is more certain or more Evident by Common Sense onely they run counter in their Discourse and make not the Understanding to be True because the Outward Thing is so but they argue that the Thing is therefore thus or thus because the Idea in the Understanding is such or such and so they seem to make Truth consist not in the Conformity of the Understanding to the Thing but in the Thing 's being Conformable to the Idea in my Understanding as Cartesius himself affirms in his Answer to the Instances of Gassendus How solidly he argues from Simple Ideas may be seen by his Demonstration of a Deity which he concludes to be because he has an Idea of a Being that has all Perfections in it amongst which Existence is one which Idea he contends he could never have had from the Things without us and therefore it must have been imprinted by GOD himself Immediately In making which proof passable tho' Cartesius exerts the utmost of his Great Wit yet this plain Discourse will manifest how untoward and Inconclusive it is I can have a Notien or Idea of Finis of non and of Perfection and Thing and All and lastly of Existence and had I not such distinct Ideas of all these I could not understand the Meaning of those Words for an Idea can be nothing but what 's meant by those Words Having distinct Ideas of all these I can compound an Idea pf all these or frame an Idea of a thing that has all Perfections in it and Existence among the rest And this Idea is in my Mind and the Effect purely of my Mind already imbu'd with those Simple Ideas and Compounding them for I had it not from any one Thing directly nor did I gather it by Discourse from the Natures of Things I was pre-acquainted with But how comes it or how can he argue that because I have such an Idea fram'd by my Mind it must exist without my Mind or have a Reality there unless my Mind could Coyn or Create Beings at her pleasure as oft as I have a desire to compound such Ideas together He plays wittily upon the word Existence But we may consider the Notion of Existence or which is all one know the Meaning of that Word and yet abstract whether it does actually put its Formal Effect that is whether that Existence is exercis'd or not exercis'd in the thing which consideration alone spoils his whole Argument Let us put a parallel I have a complex Idea of these Words My Debtor will pay me a Hundred Pounds to Morrow at Ten a Clock at his Goldsmiths that is I have in my Mind the Meaning of all these Words and Existence is necessarily involv'd in the Meaning of those words for they signifie Determinate Persons Time Place and Action all which involve Existence will it therefore follow that that Action of Paying me Money will be because my Idea includes the Existence of that Action so determinately circumstanc'd Yet upon his Knowledge of a Deity by this Demonstration depends by his Discourse all the Knowledge he has of any Truth except perhaps of Ego Cogito What need was there to run after Whimseys coyn'd in the Mint of our own Mind to Demonstrate a Deity when there are so many Clear Demonstrations of it from solid Grounds in Nature It may seem harsh that I should resemble tho' Cartesian Method to Fanaticism or pretend they bring a kind of Enthusiasm into Philosophy Let the so much applauded Malbranche be my Compurgator That very Ingenious and Eloquent Person who has a peculiar Talent of talking Nonsence as prettily and plausibly as any Man I ever read in his Preface to the First Volume of his Search after Truth acquaints us with many Extraordinary things which would no doubt as Bayes says very much Elevate and Surprize an ordinary Reader In Common he confounds all our Moral and Christian Knowledges which are immediately ordain'd to raise us towards Heaven and advance Virtue and Sanctity with the Speculative Knowledges belonging to meer Philosophy and most untowardly misapplies the sayings of the Scriptures and Fathers which were never meant for his purpose but in order to Devotion or Mystical Theology nay to the Beatifical State of GOD's manifesting his Divine Essence to the Saints in Heaven to the Maxims and Methods by which we are to attain Human Science In particular speaking his own sense according to the Cartesian Doctrine he tells us we must judge of things by the pure Ideas of the Mind whereas I should rather have thought that we ought to guide our Thoughts and judge of them by the Conformity they have to the Things in Nature since we are sure Creative Wisdom made them and implanted Truth in them whereas 't is Uncertain whether GOD or our Whimsical Fancies gave us our Ideas and 't is certain they are the Off-spring of the later if they be not conformable to the Things without us He tells us farther that All Sciences are learned by the Attention of
than this which is or should be the chief Subject of their Physicks I shall dare to affirm that they are in plain Terms most ridiculous and most unintelligible Fopperies as I have shown at large in my Appendix And indeed how should we make any Clear Idea of their Matter when themselves speak Contradictions concerning it as may be seen hereafter p. 417. where I shall hope I have demonstrated that their Forc'd Silence Open Prevarications and perfect Inconsistency in telling us the Intrinsecal Nature of that First Matter of theirs has render'd them utterly Incapable of explicating any Body in Nature Nor can we need any greater Confirmation that their Natural Philosophy is utterly Unprincipled and Unaccountable in the most Essential part of it than to observe that neither Cartesius himself nor Regius Rohault Regis Le Grand nor any of that School I have met with have as I must think been Able to give us any Light of it since they neither Attempt nor Mention it which shows they are at an utter Loss about the Primordial Constitution of their First Matter of which notwithstanding they acknowledge all their Three Elements and consequently all Nature was made These few Particulars omitting innumerable others I have thought fit to hint to show that the Method to Science which the Great Cartesius follows is utterly Incompetent to attain it and that the Scheme of his Doctrine is merely a piece of Wit That which gives it most Credit is that his Suppositions granted he proceeds consequently in the subsequent parts of it which are purely Mathematical But what signifies that if he neither observes True Logick in laying his Principles nor Nature in his Physicks which he cannot pretend to do unless he gives us a particular account of the Intrinsecal Constitution of his First Matter upon which all depends A Task I say again his Followers neither will ever attempt nor can possibly perform by his Principles as is shown at large in my Appendix Yet it must be confess'd that those kind of Discourses are very Plausible and Taking with the Middling sort of Readers and with such who are much pleas'd with a Melodious Gingle of Words prettily laid together with Neat Eloquence Quaint Wit and Unusual Remarks For those kind of Embellishments do divert the Reader make the Authours pass for Curious men and bear a fine Appearance of Truth till they come to be scann'd Exactly and grasp'd close by Severe Reason reducing them to Principles and Connexion of Terms Which done it will be found that they afford to the Learner who sincerely seeks for Truth nothing but certain Bright Flashes or Coruscations which do indeed for a time dazle the Fancy but they settle in the Iudgment no Constant Steady Light to direct them in their Way to true Science Farther I must declare for the Honour of our English Genius that tho' we do not match the French in the Finery Gayity and Neatness of their delivering their Conceptions a Talent in which they are very Excellent any more than we do in our Outward Garb and Dress yet that there are more Solid Productions well built Truths and more Iudicious and Ingenious Thoughts of his own in our Learned Countryman Mr. Locke's Treatise Entituled An Essay concerning Human Understanding than as far as I have observ'd is found in great Multitudes of such slight Discoursers put together We are come now to consider the Other pretended Method to Science which is the Way of Experiments or Induction Concerning which not to repeat what I have occasionally by way of Reason alledg'd against it in my following Book I need say no more but that Matter of Fact shows evidently that this Method alone and Unassisted by Principles is utterly Incompetent or Unable to beget Science For what one Universal Conclusion in Natural Philosophy in knowing which kind of Truths Science consists has been Demonstrated by Experiments since the the time that Great man Sir Francis Bacon writ his Natural History The very Title of which laborious Work shows that himself did not think Science was attainable by that Method For if we reflect well on what manner such pieces are writ we shall find that it is as he calls it meerly Historical and Narrative of Particular Observations from which to deduce Universal Conclusions is against plain Logick and Common Sense To aim at Science by such a Method may be resembled to the Study of finding out the Philosopher's Stone The Chymist lights on many Useful and Promising things by the way which feed him with false hopes and decoy him farther but he still falls short of his End What man of any past or of our present Curious Age did ever so excell in those Industrious and Ingenious Researches as that Honour of our Nation the Incomparable Mr. Boyle yet after he had ransack'd all the hidden Recesses of Nature as far as that Way could carry him he was still a Sceptick in his Principles of Natural Philosophy nor could with the utmost Inquisitiveness practic'd by so great a Wit arrive at any Certain Knowledge whether there was a Vacuum or no And certainly we can expect no Science from such a Method that can give us no Certain Knowledge whether in such a Space there be Something or Nothing which of all others should be the most easily Distinguishable and Knowable Lastly we may observe that when an Experiment or which is the same a Matter of Fact in Nature is discover'd we are never the nearer knowing what is the Proper Cause of such an Effect into which we may certainly refuâ—d it which and onely which is the Work of SCIENCE For Gassendus will explicate it according to his Principles Cartesius according to his the Noble Sir Kenelin Digby and his most Learned Master Albius whom I Iudge to have follow'd the true Aristotelian Principles according to theirs So that after all the assigning the True Natural Cause for that Effect and explicating it right must be Decided by way of Reason that is by Demonstrating first whose Principles of Natural Philosophy are True and Solid and onely He or They who can approve their Principles to be such can pretend to explicate that Natural Production right by resolving it into its Proper Causes or to have Science how 't is done and however the Experimental Men may be highly Commendable in other Respects yet onely those who can lay just Claim to True Principles and make out their Title to them can be truly held Natural PHILOSOPHERS Which sufficiently shows that the Way of Experiments cannot be a True METHOD TO SCIENCE But to leave other Men's Failings and Return home to my Self To obviate the Superficial ways of Reason so magnify'd by other Speculaters I have endeavour'd to take the quite Contrary Method and have laid my Discourses as deep as I could possibly and perhaps it will be thought I have over-done in those about Identical Propositions for which yet I shall hope the Reasons I have given there for that
Sublunary Motions must bear a proportion to it and be measur'd by it being perform'd while such a proportionable part of it was Flowing and Mankind is forced to need and make use of such a Measure to Adjust Proportion and Design all their Motions or Actions by and to know the determinate distance of them from known and notorious Periods hence there must be a Common Head of the time When those Motions were perform'd which we call Quando If the Extrinsecal application be conceiv'd to be made to the Subject or thing in Rest then either that Extrinsecal thing is conceiv'd to be barely apply'd to the whole that is to be Immediate to it or meerly to Contain it which grounds the Notion and answers to the Question Where or Ubi Or it denotes some certain determinate Manners how it is apply'd to the whole or to some parts of it and then either the whole or at least some Parts of the Subject or thing must be conceiv'd to be ply'd and accommodated to the parts of the Extrinsecal thing and 't is call'd its Site or Situation or else the Extrinsecal thing or its parts are conceiv'd to be Fitted Ply'd or Accommodated to the Subject or Thing and then 't is call'd Habit. 20. These ten Common Heads are call'd Predicaments that is Common Receptacles which Contain and whence we may draw all our Predicates for the Common Subject Thing which we may briefly exemplifie thus Peter 1 tho' but a yard2 and half high yet a Ualiant3 Subject4 fought5 and was wounded6 yesterday7 in8 the Field standing9 upon his guard armed10 21. All these Notions under whatever Head if they be Corporeal ones are Natural and Common to all Mankind For since they are made by Impressions on the Senses which are Common to all Mankind it follows that the Notions which are the Effects of those Impressions must be such also since the same Causes upon the same-natur'd Subjects must work the same Effects 22. Our Soul has in it a Power of Compounding those several Notions together of Considering them diverse ways of Reflecting on its own Thoughts and Affections and lastly of joyning a Negative to its Natural Notions if there be occasion such as are the Notions of Indivisible Immaterial Incorruptible Unactive Insignificant c. which particularly happens when we would strive to frame Notions of spiritual Things All which is manifest by plain Experience if we reflect never so little on what passes in our own Interiour 23. No Notions can be imagin'd that do not arise from one of these Heads For Corporeal Notions are imprinted directâ—y Spiritual Notions by Reflexion on our Mind and on its Operations or Affections or else by joyning a Negative to our Positive natural Notions And Mix'd or Compound Notions are framed by joyning our former simple Notions Wherefore since there can be nothing imagin'd which is not either Corporeal Spiritual or Mix'd or Compounded of Former Notions 't is manifest that all the Notions we have or can have do arise from one of those Heads 24. Wherefore 't is hence farther shewn that there is no necessity at all of making some Notions to be Innate and consequently that Conceit of the Cartesians is Groundless who affirm That by a Motion made on the Senses the Soul by an unknown Vertue peculiar to its self Excites or awakens such and such an Innate Idea which till then lay dormant in it because they find that that Notion is nothing like to the Idea it excites For first how do they prove that only Motion is communicated to the Brain from the Object or that that Motion does not carry along with it different-natur'd Particles or Effluviums of these several Bodies which are as it were little Models of their Nature It is certain this passes thus in the grosser Senses and no more is requisite to do it in the subtiler but that the Particles emitted be more subtil which cannot shock the Fancy or Reason of a Natural Philosopher who knows well into what almost-infinite smallness Body is Divisible And of all Men in the World the Cartesians should not be startled at it whose Principles do allow lesser Particles than those Effluviums and to pass thro' far lesser Pores than those within the Nerves or even than such as are in the substance of the Nerves themselves Now this being granted the whole contexture of this Doctrine of ours has a clear Coherence For such Particles bearing the nature of the thing along with them are apt when they are carried to the Seat of Knowledge to breed in the Mind or convey into it the Nature or an Intellectual Notion of the Thing it self To do which there can need no more than that every thing according to the Maxim be receiv'd according to the Nature or Manner of the Receiver viz. that those Effluviums by affecting the Body Corporeally do affect the Soul Intellectually Secondly How is it conceivable or any way Explicable that a Motion which they confess is utterly Unlike the Idea in the Mind should be the Proper Exciter of such an Idea Indeed were those Motions of the Nature of our Signs that are voluntarily agreed on and fore-known to the Users of them they might have a Power to make such a peculiar Excitation of those Ideas as our Words do now or as any odd and disagreeing Things are made use of by us when we practise the Art of Memory But here things are quite otherwise for we have no Fore-knowledge either by Agreement nor by our voluntary Designation that such Motions shall excite such Idea's or Notions nor as is confess'd are they Naturally alike wherefore it is altogether inexplicable how they should ever come to excite such particular Idea's Add That this hidden Virtue in the Soul to make such a particular Idea start up as soon as that Motion is made in the Nerve is both said gratis and is as Obscure as an Occult Quality and so far from Explicable that even themselves as far as I can learn have not so much as attempted to explain it but it seems to be in part taken up gratis to make good their Doctrine of innate Idea's as the Tenet of such Idea's is to prove the Soul is a distinct Thing from the Body Lastly Their Argument drawn from Experience that the Idea in the Mind is quite different from that Impression in the Senses or any Bodily Faculty is shewn to be Inconclusive by alledging as was said lately that the Nature of the Object found in those emitted Particles and the Nature of it found in the Soul Intellectually or as standing under Notion are the self-same and not so Vnlike as they imagin Add That their Argument faulters in this too that the makers of it did not duly reflect when they advanced it on that ' foresaid Axiom Quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis For had they done this they could not have wonder'd that an Affection of the Body which is imprinted directly and an
more nor can more sorts of Answers to the Question How a Thing is be invented or imagin'd Examples of the Questions proper to Quality are such as these How do you To which is Answer'd Sick or in Health well or ill dispos'd How is he as to his Understanding Learned or Ignorant which Answers we call Habits or Dispositions How is he as to his Walking or using his Natural Faculties To which we answer well able to walk or Lame c. which signifie his Power or Impotency How is the Milk that 's over the Fire or the Bread in the Oven To which is answer'd Hot or Cold Dough-bak'd or Enough which are Passible Qualities How is he affected to me To which is answer'd Angry which is Passion Lastly it may be ask'd How he is as to his outward shape To which is answer'd well or ill shap'd Handsome or Vgly which Quality is call'd Figure 4. The Intrinsecal Differences of more or less in this Common Head of Quality are more properly to be call'd Better and Worse qualified since they fall into the same as more and less only the latter Expressions sute better having a qualifying sense 5. Wherefore Power and Impotency are the First Species of Quality because they spring immediately out of the Essence as it's Properties and most meerly concern it as to making it Better or Worse as also because they most dispose or indispose the Subject to the substance as it were of it's Natural Operations Habit and Disposition are the Second because they Supervene to the Power and only give it a better or worse Facility or Difficulty to Operate Passible Quality and Passion taken as such are the Third because taken as such they meerly qualify the Subject to be Passive or Alterable by another I say taken as such that is as Passible for if they be consider'd as Active as Heat in Fire is conceiv'd to be apt to effect Heat in another thing then 't is a calefactive Virtue and has the Notion of Power Lastly Figure has the least share of the Notion of Quality because it onely regards the Outward Lineaments and Appearance which are the sleightest of all other Qualities Though it may sometimes especially in Organical Bodies and their several parts contribute to their Power or Impotency as an Acute Figure in Dense Bodies makes them better divide the Ayre and other Bodies adding thus an Accidental perfection to their Power of Dividing and Splay-footedness hinders the Power of Walking whereas Straightness helps it Accidental I say for the Essential Notion of Figure is onely to terminate thus or thus the Quantity of Bodies as will be shewn hereafter 6. Wherefore the Intrinsecal Differences of Quality being to make the Subject of them better or worse hence most Qualities may admit of several Degrees in each of it's Species or as the Schools phrase it may be Intended or Remitted whereas neither Substance nor Quantity can Not Substance because as we no sooner step out of the Notion of Ens in common but we plunge into Non-Ens so we cannot depart from the Essential Notion of Hoc Ens but we must fall into Non-hoc-Ens or Another Ens. Not Quantity for let us design any particular or determinate Species of Quantity a Yard for example and but in the least Increase or Diminish it quantitatively and immediately it becomes no yard but of an other Species really tho' perhaps so little may be added or detracted that we may want a Name for it 7. Power differs from Habit also in this that Powers are Natural and spring out of the Essences of things as their Properties as the Power of Walking Seeing Hearing Fancying Understanding Willing Heating Dividing c. Whereas Habits are generally Acquir'd by frequent Acts. In things Inanimate and Vegetables and in some sort of Animals they are properly call'd Virtues thus we say such a Mineral or Herb has the Virtue of Drying Cooling Healing Cauterizing Poisoning In Animals they are call'd Natural Faculties as those of Seeing Walking Flying c. Where the word Faculty is not taken in the same Sense in which we use it when we tell one he has got a Faculty of doing this or that meaning thereby a Facility or Habit of doing it but for the Power it self which is to be facilitated by that Habit. The Privations or want of those Powers due to Nature we call Impotences as Deafness Blindness Doltishness c. Which signify Inabilities to perform such Operations as we ought were the Subjects Qualify'd as they should be 8. Habits are generally Acquir'd by Acts yet some may seem to be had by Nature as Healthfulness and Sickliness Of the former we use to say such a one has got a Habit of Dancing Drinking Brawling Swearing Praying c. Of which sort are all kind of Skill's in moving the Body and all Arts and Sciences qualifying the Mind and their Opposites All which we shall find to be Perfections or Imperfections belonging either to the particular Nature of the Body as Dancing Pronouncing c. or else suitable or disagreeable to the peculiar Temper of the Mind which is Reason such as are Sciences Virtues Vices Ignorance c. But those that are Innate and have withal some constant Ground of Stability by the steady or fixt course of Causes are rather call'd States or Conditions than Habits such as are Original Justice Original Sin Impeccableness in the Saints in Heaven Obdurateness in Sin in the Divels and Healthfulness or Sickliness if it comes out of a Man's Natural Constitution All which tho' less properly Habits than those that are Acquir'd yet Habit having in it's Notion a kind of Constancy we do therefore from their Steady manner of working denominate Habitual Propensions Dispositions Affections or Determinations of the Subjects and reduce them to the Species of Habit 9. Those Natural Affections of Body consider'd as apt to render the Subject not to be determinately This or That in the Line of Ens nor Bigger or Lesser but only Alterable thus or thus without changing the Entity are for the most part Passible Qualities This is manifest For considering them thus there is no Predicament but that of Quality nor any Species of Quality but This under which they can be rank't Under the Genus of Passible Quality are particularly The Four First Qualities Heat Coldness Moisture Dryness and the Second and perhaps Third Qualities compounded of these with a variety almost Infinit of which more in Physicks 10 All Passible Qualities are Objects of the Senses Otherwise they would not be Natural Notions nor belong to any Common Head and consequently we could not discourse or think of them which yet we experience we do 11. Yet 't is not the Consideration of them as the Objects of our Senses which Constitutes them nor Essentially Distinguishes them This is evident for their Essence as Qualities must be taken from their manner of affecting their own Subject and thence giving us ground of denominating it diversly
Certain Sense of Words For Criticks do very frequently ground the Sense of Words upon Etymologies or the Derivation of them from other words Or else on the Sense in which some few learned Writers do take them both which are Fallacious Rules to know their Sense certainly The former because the Reason why the word was Impos'd and the Sense it self of those words are many times Different Notions For example a Stone as some of them tell us is in Latin nam'd Lapis a laedendâ— pedes but the Notion or signification of that word is the very Substance it self of such a Body Nor is the latter Rule competent to give us the true Meanings of those words that express Natural Notions first because those Learned Men use to speak Learnedly or Rhetorically with Tropes and Figures and affect to deliver their thoughts neatly and finely with quaint Phrases Allusions Metaphors and other knacks of Language all which are so many Deviations from the Natural manner of Expression Common to all Mankind and consequently Unsuitable to our Natural Conceptions Besides that a Few Authors suffice the Criticks to build their Observations upon All which falls infinitely short of that Certainty and Plainness which the Common and Constant Vse of the Generality of Mankind or the Vulgar affords us 8. Equivocal Words are either Simply and Absolutely such which we call Equivocal by chance or Relatively which we call Equivocal by design Absolutely when there is no kind of Reason or Ground why the same word should have two different senses as when Far in English signifies a great way in Latin Bread-Corn or any word in one Language happens meerly casually to have a different Signification in another In which sort of Equivocation there can be no danger to Science those two Senses of the Word being so vastly disparate Relatively when there is some kind of Ground why the same word should be transferr'd from one Notion to another And this may be done for two different reasons One when it is referr'd to another for some Connexion with them as Cause and Effect as when the word Healthful which properly belongs to an Animal is transferr'd to Meat because it is the Cause of Health in the Animal and to Vrine because it is an Effect of its Health and therefore a Natural Sign of it Or as when we say there is much Art in such a Picture or Poem it means the Effect of Art for Art in proper speech is to be found only in the Understanding of the Artificer The other Reason of the words being Transferr'd from one to another and consequently Referr'd back to it again is when this is done for some Proportion or Resemblance between them As when we say of a good Governour that he is the Pilot of the Common-wealth to steer it into a safe Harbour and preserve it from splitting upon the Rocks of Division Where the word Pilot which in the First and Proper Meaning signifies a Director of a Ship is transferr'd to a Governor because he does the same in Proportion in a Common-wealth which the other does in a Ship Thus Tranquility which is properly said of the Sea in a Calm is Transferr'd to a State or Kingdom because its Peaceable Condition resembles or bears a kind of Proportion to the Undisturb'd Quiet found in a Calm Sea 9. Words Transferr'd to another for some Proportion or Resemblance between them are call'd Metaphors or Metaphorical and the best Metaphors are when the thing from which 't is Transferr'd is Eminent under that Notion we intend to express As when we call a Valiant Man a Lyon and a Meek man a Lamb because Courage and Mildness are Eminent in those Animals A Continu'd Metaphor is call'd an Allegory As in the Example lately given the word Pilot steer harbour splitting and Rocks are all Metaphors and therefore the whole speech is Allegorical 10. There is no Danger nor Detriment to Science that such words are us'd in Common Speech or Loose Rhetorical Discourses but they are exceedingly pernicious to it when we are treating of Dogmatical Tenets and searching for Truth out of the Words of Written Authors For since those Metaphors however they be True while understood to be meant in Proportion and Resemblance onely yet are Literally Tals and in delivering Doctrines or Dogmatical Tenets only Litteral Truth is aim'd at and if the Reader happen to take a Metaphorical Expression for a Literal one he will most certainly embrace an Errour for a Truth or if he takes a word Literally meant for a Metaphor he will take a Truth for an Errour hence it must Needs be most pernicious to Science not to distinguish between the Metaphorical and Literal sense of the words but mistake one for the other And therefore unless some Certain Rule be Establisht by which we may be ascertain'd when Written Words are to be taken Literally when Metaphorically 't is impossible to be Certain of any Truth meerly by those Written Words 11. Those Words which are Transferr'd from Corporeal to Spiritual Natures are by far more highly Metaphorical than can be any Transferr'd from one Body to another and therefore the Misunderstanding them must needs be very destructive to Science For since Corporeal and Spiritual are the First Species of Ens and the Division of that Genus into those Species is made by the Contradictory Differences of Divisible and Indivisible it follows demonstratively that whatever except the precise Notion of Ens is properly Affirm'd of Body must be properly Deny'd of Spirit and therefore the words Transferr'd from Bodies to Spirits which are in Different Lines are far more Improper than those which are Tranferr'd from one Body to another they being in the same Line and so less Disparate Corol. II. Hence is confirm'd the former docâ—rine that Spirits are not in place nor are Themâ—elves or their Spiritual Actions Subject to Time â—r Commensurable to it c. Since all these may â—roperly be said of Bodies and therefore must â—roperly be deny'd of Spirits Corol. III. From the two last Sections it folâ—ows evidently that no Dogmatical Tenet can be â—rov'd from Books that treat of Spiritual Natures â—r of such considerations as belong to them unless â—ome Certain Rule be first Establisht by which the Reader may know when the words are to be taken â—iterally when Metaphorically in this or that place â—nce a Mistake in this may make the Reader emâ—race a Falshood for a Truth or a Truth for a Falsâ—ood in matters of greatest Importance For exâ—mple this Proportion God is mov'd by our prayâ—rs is Literally False for to be Moved is to be Chang'd and God is Esseâ—tially unchangeable Wherefore it is only True in a Metaphorical â—ence and the Word moved is a metaphor of the last sort viz. of Words transferr'd to anoâ—her for some Proportion or Resemblance between them and so the true sense is this God tho' Unmov'd in himself yet acts in the same manner towards him that prays to him as
but must be made so by Proof Yet since all Deduction or Proof is made by Connexion of Notions and those Notions or what corresponds to them must be Connected in the Thing e're they can be so in our Understanding and Properties are more nearly ally'd to the Essence than other Accidents as resulting necessarily from it or being immediately Connected with it hence they are by consequence most easily Proveable to belong truly to the Thing and therefore very fit to be made use of in Demonstrations 14. Of this sort are all Propositions whose Predicates are Proper Causes and Effects and more immediately the Powers or Virtues by which they Act on others or Suffer from others as will be seen when we come to treat of Demonstration 15. Propositions whose Predicates belong to the last Predicable are utterly Inevident and as such not easily Evidenceable For since as was shewn above such Predicates do belong to the Subject but by chance or as their very name imports by Accident and Chance signifies a Cause which we do not see or know it follows that the Connexion of such Predicates with the Subject can never be known by Reason or prov'd that they must belong to it because we can never know alâ— the Causes that concur'd to make them belong to it Wherefore such Propositions are utterly Inevident nor as they are Accidents or Unconnected with the Essence easily Evidenceable by way of Reason that they must belong to them however they may be known to belong actually to them hic nunc by Sense or Experience Such Predicates are mostly those of the six last Predicaments and many Quantities Qualities and Relations 16. Notwithstanding those Propositions which have such Accidental Predicates were all the Causes by which they hap to belong to the Subject perfectly known might be perfectly Evident and Demonstrable For as we can Demonstrate one Effect that needs but one Cause to put it from that single Cause so did we know all the Causes that concur'd to any Effect which is brought about by many Causes we could certainly conclude and know such an Effect would follow in which case the Predicate would be no longer an Accident but the Proper Effect of that Complex of Causes nor would the Proposition it self be any longer meerly Accidental Corol. VI. Hence there is nothing Contingent or Accidental to God but all Events tho' never so minute or so odd are Equally Certain to him as the most Immediate Effect of the most Proper and most Necessary Causes because he lays and comprehends the whole Series of Causes that concur to bring about every least Effect LESSON IV. Of the Generating of Knowledge in us and of the Method how this is perform'd HItherto of Knowledges or Judgments according to their Dependence on one another and their being Resolv'd Artificially into First Principles Our next task is to consider them according to the Order they are instill'd into us Naturally 1. The Soul or the Understanding is at first void of all kind of Knowledge or Rasa Tabula For since the Author of Nature does nothing in vain nor acts needlesly he puts no Effects immediately or without Second Causes when there are Causes laid by him to produce them and since we experience that Causes are laid by Him apt to imprint Notions in us and that the Nature of our Soul being evidently Comparative we can compare those Notions and can see how they Agree or Disagree which is to know Hence in case the Soul had any Notions or Knowledges infus'd into her otherwisâ— than by those Causes it would frustrate and make void that Course of natural Agents which is apt to beget Knowledge in us and make Nature contradict her self Again since we experience that we know no more than we have Notions of and that we can compare those Notions and can know all things we have Notions of and do thus rightly Compare and that both those effects do follow naturally from the Impressions of Objects and from the nature of the Soul it falls into the same Absurdity to affirm that those Causes do only Excite and not Beget Knowledge in us Lastly the contrary Opinion supposes the Soul to be an Ens before the Body or at least distinct from it and then 't is both Unconceivable and Inexplicable how they can ever come to be Vnited so as to compound one Ens. For this cannot be done Quantitatively as is evident nor by their Acting together as the Cartesians hold both because all Action presupposes the Being of a thing whence they must be one Ens before they can Act as one Ens as also because the Line or predicament of Action is distinct from that of Ens and Extrinsecal to it and so cannot Intrinsecally constitute those Joynt-Acters One Ens or Thing Nor can it be conceiv'd that the Body if it be not one Ens with the Soul can act with it otherwise than as its Instrument and it would be most Absurd to say that my Hand and Pen are oâ—e thing because they jointly concurr in their different ways to the Action of Writing Wherefore the Soul has no Antecedent Knowledge but is a Rasa Tabula capable to receive such Impressions as beget Knowledge in her 2. The First Judgment in order of Nature the Soul has is that its self or the Man exists For since as was shewn the First Notions the Soul has are of the Man himself and of his Existence and all Judgmenâ—s are made by Compounding or Comparing of Notions it follows that the most Obvious most Easie most Natural and consequently the First Judgment in priority of Nature that a Man has when he is ripe to judge is that Himselâ— is or I am 3. The next Judgment is that He is struck or affected by some Object without him for since the Course of Nature is Motion and therefore Objects are continually moving where the Man is and so do light and act on his Senses that is do work Experimental Knowledge in him that he is acted upon or struck by them it follows that he must after he comes to frame Judgments necessarily and frequently know and consequently Judge he is struck Nor can this be the first Judgment both for the Reason lately given Sect. 2. as also because in this Proposition I am struck the Proposition I am is most Simple and manifestly antecedes I am struck the Notion of struck being clearly superadded to it 4. The next Knowledge or next Judgment to the former in order of Nature is I am struck thus or Affected after such a manner For the Notion of I am struck is more Simple and so antecedes I am struck thus which superadds to it Whence this proposition is prov'd by the same reason that was brought for the third Section 5. These Judgments had we are furnish'd by Nature with Means of Knowing in some measure the Distinct Natures of all things that affect us For since we get all our Notions
fill'd by knowing many Truths but is Enlarged and Enabled to know still more and being clear of the Body she is not distracted by Objects working upon the Senses and the Fancy but intimately and necessarily present to her self and consequently to what is in her self and so is Addicted Apply'd and Naturally Necessitated to know the Nature of her Body and consequently of her self as being the Form of that Body and fitted for it and by her self to know all the Truths Connected with the Knowledge of her self that is as was shown all Nature and this not Successively one Truth after another as she did when she was in the Body and needed the Fancy and so accommodated her manner of working to its slow pace but being now a Pure Spirit and Indivisible and so not commensurable to Time or to before and after which are the Differences of Time she is to know all she could know in the first instant she was a Pure Spirit that is at the Instant of her Separation These things being evidently so it follows that every Soul separated from the Body that knew any one Natural Truth knows all Nature and this all at once in the first instant of her Separation But of this more hereafter Corol. I. Hence we may frame some imperfect Conception how our Science differs from that of Angels and how Angels must know things Intuitively For since they have no Senses they can have no Abstracted Notions by different Impressions from the Objects on the Senses nor consequently can they Compound any two Notions to frame a Proposition much less can they Discourse or Compare Two Notions to a Third and so deduce thence New Knowledges call'd Conclusions It is left therefore that they must a tone view comprehend entirely the Metaphysical verity of the whole Thing and all that is in it which we express by an Identical Proposition Whence this Knowledge or Intuition of theirs abating the Composition found in an Identical Proposition which too is the least that is Imaginable is the nearest a-kin to that which we have of these Identicals By which we see that the Supremum Infimi in respect of an Angel's and Man's manner of Knowledge is as the Order of Entities requires contiguous as it were to that which is Superiour to it Corol. II. Hence also is seen how a Separated Soul knows all things after a different manner than Angels do For though the Substance of a Separated Soul's Operation be Intuitive as is the Angels yet because her natural Genius led and forced her here to dâ—scourse and gather one Truth by another that is to see one Truth in another hence she retains a modification or a kind of tang of the Discoursiveness she had here though she cannot in that State exercise it and that though she cannot then actually deduce new Truths yet she sees all Truths as Deducible from one another or following one another by Consequence We may frame some imperfect conception how this passes by this course Similitude When we look upon a Picture call'd a Prospective all the parts of it are equally near our Eye in themselves and we see them too all at once yet they appear to us as if one of them were farther of than another even to a vast distance observing still a perfect Order and decorum in their greater Propinquity or Remoteness according as those parts are more or less Shadowed or Luminous So the Soul knows all at once whatever is Knowable by her and they are equally near the Eye of her understanding yet because of her acquiring them here by way of Discourse that is by proceeding from more-Clear to less Clear Truths she sees them as following one another or as it were beyond one another because they were not to her in this state so clear as the other in themselves but depending on the others for their Evidence LESSON V. Of other Mediums for Demonstration taken from the Four Causes 1. THere must necessarily be Four Causes concurring to every Effect in Nature For since Nothing can do Nothing it follows that Nothing can be Done unless there be something that Does or Acts that is unless there be an Efficient Cause Which Efficient must act upon something or some Patient which is the Matter on which it works or the Material Cause And it must work something in that Matter which being Received in it must be some Form either Substantial or Accidental which must consequently concurr to that Action Formally or be the Formal Cause of it And since the Orderer of all Nature or the First Cause is an Intelligent Being and not Blind Chance for whà t's Blind can Order nothing and this First Cause is the Adequate Governour of the World and being an Intelligent Being acts Seeingly or with design that is with prospect of some End in every thing that is done how great or minute soever and eâ—ery Intelligent Creature that administers the World in their several Stations under him whâ—â—her they be Angels or Men do for the same reason act Designingly too that is do propose to themselves some end Good Reason or Moâ—ive for which they Act and without â—hich 't is against their Nature to Act and since Metaphysicks do clearly Demonstrate that the Immediate action of the First Cause is only to give Being and * the Oeconomy of the World is administred Immediately by other Intelligent Beings under him hence there must be a Final cause too for every Effect that is done in the World how small and inconsiderable soever it may seem Wherefore there must necessarily be Four Causes concurring to evâ—ry Effect in Nature viz. The Efficient Maâ—â—rial Formal and Final For Example in my Action of Writing a Letter the Efficient Cause is my self the Material Cause is the Paper the Formal the Characters drawn in the Paper and the Final to gratify my friend acquaint him with News c. 2. Hence we can demonstrate the An est of those Four Causes in the whole Mass of Corporeal Nature how Remote soever it is from us and that they must concur to every Effect tho' we do not know the Quid est of them The first part of our Thesis is proved For since the An est of all those Causes or that there must be such four Causes necessarily concurring to every Effect follows out of the nature of Action from the Subjectâ—s being Quantitative and consequently variable Substantially or Accidentally and from the Supreme Agent 's being Intelligent and these are equally found in all parts of the Universe how Remote soever they be or in the whole Mass of Bodies it follows that the same Causes do concur to every Effect all over the World as they do in those Bodies near us and with whose Operations we are acquainted The Second part is evident since the knowledg of the An est or that there is something may it be known by Experience tho' we know not what that thing is as we experience when we hit
upon the Fourth but to be chang'd by the Second and this was done as was now shown in the First Instant the Causes of changing the Fourth were adequately put in the same Instant too and consequently the Effect And since how far soever we proceed the same reason holds viz. that the Effects are still Indivisible and all the Causes of each immediately succeeding Effect still adequately put in the first Instant it will follow that the Effects will still be put in the same Instant by the same necessity that the Effect of the First up on the Second was put in the First Instant of their Being Therefore all whatever any Multitude of Angels how great soever can work upon one another is perform'd in the First Instant of their Being Proposition VII 19. That 't is Infinitly more Impossible an Angel should be chang'd by God after the first Instant than by any other Spirit For since the Angel is in the same manner capable of Change as far as concerns it's self or it 's own power to be changed whether God or any other Spirit be to change it on that side precisely there is a perfect Equality Wherefore seeing on the other side 't is infinitly more Impossible that GOD should not have Power to change her in the First Instant than that any other Spirit should not have such a Power and Infinitly more Impossible that GOD should not of himself be ultimately dispos'd to act where the nature of the thing is capable of it his Nature being Pure Actuality Also since 't is Infinitly more Impossible that GOD should after some Duration receive any Change in himself fitting him to produce that Effect than that any other Spirit should And lastly since 't is Infinitly more Impossible his Active Power should not be Apply'd to the Patient both in regard he most necessarily and comprehensively knows it and most intimately by himself conserves it in Being Wherefore since from these Considerations or Reasons however Infinitly short in Creatures it is concluded to be Impossible that even any Other Spirit if it should change an Angel at all should not change it in the First Instant and these Considerations or Reasons are found to be in GOD with Infinitly greater Advantage it is Evident that 't is Infinitly more Impossible that GOD if he change an Angel at all should not change it in the first Instant that is should change it in the Intermediate Duration than that any other Spirit should Proposition IX 20. That 't is absolutely Impossible an Angel should be Changed after the First Instant of it's Being For since no Change can be made without â—he working of Some Cause and no Body can work upon an Angel and all that it self or any other Created Spirit can work upon it must necessarily be in the very First Instant of it's Being and 't is much more Impossible GOD should work upon it unless in the First Instant than that any Created Spirit should and there can be no Cause possible or Imaginable besides GOD Created Spirits or Bodies it follows that there can be no Cause at all to work upon an Angel or to Change it after the First Instant of it's Being and therefore it can undergo no Change after that First Instant ADVERTISEMENT 1. THIS last Conclusion may seem a strange Paradox to some Readers whose Reason and Principles have not rais'd them above Fancy But not to insist farther on the Evidence of our Consequences from Undeniable Principles which have forced the Necessity of our Conclusion such men are desirâ—d to reflect that Ens being divided as by it's Proper Differences by Divisible and Indivisible and these Differences being Contradictory to one another it follows that Body and Spirit which are the Species constituted by those Differences do agree in nothing at all but in the Common and Generical notion of Ens or in this that they are both of them Capable of Being Whence 't is Logically demonstrated that they must Differ nay contradictorily disagree in every thing else so that whatever else is Affirm'd literally of the one must be deny'd of the other Wherefore since we can truly and literally Affirm that Body is Quantitative Corruptible in Place mov'd Locally Chang'd by Time or Subject to it Capable of Succession or of Before and After which are the Differences of time c. we must be forced with equal Truth Literally to Deny all these of Pure Spirits or Angels because none of these do belong to the Common Generical Notion of Ens but to that Difference which constitutes that Species call'd Body and therefore the Contradictory to all these and amongst them to be Vnsuccessive in it's Operations must be predicated of the other Species call'd Spirit It will I doubt not be much wonder'd at too that the Devils should be Damn'd in the First Instant of their being which looks as if they were Created in the state of Damnation A thing certainly most Unworthy GOD who is Essentially and Infinitly Good But their wonder will cease if they reflect that those Bad Angels had far more Knowledg and consequently more perfect Deliberation such as they can have in that one Single Instant than We could have had tho' we have been a thousand years Considering and Deliberating e'er we had made our Choice of our last End and fix our Resolution to adhere to it Finally So that it never lay in the power of any Man to have so Clear a Knowledg of his Duty and so perfect and full sight of all the Motives to continue in that Duty as the Devil and his Angels had in that one Instant Whence the Crime of Lucifer and his Adherents was a Sin of pure Malice and not mere Frailty or mixt with Frailty much less of Inadvertence Speculative Ignorance or suggested by the Soul 's deprav'd Companion the Body as are the Sins of the Generality of Mankind some Inconsiderable number of them excepted whose Souls are thorowly poison'd with Spiritual Sin 's peculiar to the Devil such as are Spiritual Pride Malice Envy or such like which wicked Sinners are therefore even while here so many Limbs as it were of the Devil and very difficult to be brought to any Repentance And this is the reason why GOD's Wisdom Goodness and Justice laid so many Miracles of Mercy to save poor weak Mankind and left the Faln Angels in the sad condition in which they had so wilfully and desperately engulft themselves Wisely and Justly placing it in the Order of Causes that that Sin which was so perfectly and in despite of all Motives to the contrary so Wilfully Resolute should be Irretractable whereas on the other side Sins of mere Frailty are not hard to be repented of when the alluring circumstance is past and gone The same Faculty which permitted them to fall leaving them likewise in a Pliableness to reform and retract what their Reason abus'd by Passion had perhaps either by surprize or after much
Naturalia that is some Least Size of Bodies which are generally no farther Divisible because there want Natural Causes little enough to pass between their parts and divide them but they say moreover that there is not only Local or Situal which are Extrinsecal but also Intrinsecal or Formal Composition and Division and consequently Formal Mutation in them either in Whole or in Part that is a Change in them according to the Form and not according to the Matter or Subject and they deny that any Solid Discourse or Explication either of Nature or Transnaturals which we call Metaphysicks can possibly be made unless this be admitted 2. The Parts of which they affirm all the Essences or Natures of all those Entities we converse with are Compounded they call Act and Power or Form and Matter whether those be Essential or Accidental And they put the Matter and Essential Form to be necessarily found in every Body and in each of the most minute and insensible Atomes and Particles that can be imagin'd The reason they give for this Assertion is because each of them is a Distinct Ens from the Others in regard it can subsist alone and so is Capable of a Distinct Being whence they conceive there must be Somewhat in every Body and every Atome by which it is Distinguisht from all Others and somewhat in which it Agrees with them That which Distinguishes them they call the Form and that in which they Agree the Matter And they think that however their Adversaries may quarrel the Words yet they must allow the Sense Nature and daily Experience teaching us that One Thing is made of Another which cannot be unless Somewhat of it remains and Somewhat be lost For otherwise one Thing could not truly be said to be made of another but the Former Ens of which Nothing remains would be Annihilated and the Ens or Body newly produced would be made of Nothing that is Created 3. Now when the Peripateticks speak of Matter and Form and that each thing is Compounded of these and consequently that there is some kind of Divisibility or Difference between them the Corpuscularians who fancy nothing but Particles commodiously laid together are presently apt to conceit that those Parts as it were that Compound a Body are meant to be two certain kinds of Things joyn'd together into One and if this be deny'd they are ready to conclude that they are either two Nothings or at least that they leave us in the dark and at a loss how to distinguish Things from Nothings and thence object that this doctrin of Matter and Form cannot explicate any thing or make a man one Jot the wiser And indeed in case the Asserters of them did stay in these Common Expressions and not draw many Clear Consequences from them giving a farther account of them the bare Saying there are such Partâ— so named would be as Insignificant as to talk of Occult Qualities 4. To rectify this Misconceit of theirs sprung from a just Prejudice against meer School-terms the Aristotelians defend themselves by declaring their Meaning to be that One and the same Thing does ground those diverse Notionâ— of it self in us That the Faecundity as it were of the Thing not being Comprehensible at one view by our short Sighted Understanding which knows nothing here but by Impressions on our Senses which are Distinct and of many sorts forces us to frame Inadequate or Partial Conceptions of it And because we cannot Speak of a thing otherwise than as we Conceive it hence we can truly say One of those Notions or Conceptions of the Thing is not the other which yet means no more but that that Thing as thus Conceiv'd is not the same Thing as otherwise Conceiv'd or that the Thing as working by my Sense upon my Understanding thus is not the Thing as working by the same or another Sense upon my Understanding otherwise Whence because what corresponds to both these Conceptions or Notions is found in the same Thing hence they affirm that there is a certain kind of Composition of them both in the Thing it self which is no more in reality but that there is found in that Thing what corresponds to and grounds both these Conceptions 5. Farther they declare that since Nature shows us that the Thing may be Changed according to somewhat in it that answers to One of these Conceptions Notions or Natures and not Chang'd according to what answers to the Other hence we must be forced to grant that there is a kind of Divisibility between them in the Thing answering to the foresaid Composition and consequently a Capacity of Formal Mutation by which the Thing may be Chang'd accordâ—ng to one of them viz. the Form and not Chang'd according to the Matter Whether that Form remains or no after such a Change is Another Point and Extrinsical to our present business 6. For Instance We experience that that Thing we call Wood is Chang'd into Another Thing call'd Fire and therefore unless we will say that Wood is Annihilated and Fire Created in its room which we are forbid to do by the very Notion of its being Chang'd into another there must have been Somewhat in Wood by which it was Actually Such a Thing before the Change was made and which is Lost by its being Chang'd into Fire and also Somewhat in it which remains in the Fire into which 't is Chang'd The Former they call the Form the Later the Matter and thence conclude there must have been a Composition of Matter and Form in the Wood. And since all Mankind agrees that Wood is One Thing and Fire Another Thing hence Essence being the Form that constitutes an Ens or makes it Formally a Thing they do farther affirm that that which was in Fire and made us denominate it such a Thing or Ens is an Essential Form And because the Matter of the Wood had or rather was a Power to have such a Form as made it now to be Wood and also a Power to be afterwards Fire hence they say that that Thing Ens or Substance we call'd Wood did consist of Matter and Form or was Compounded of them that is Wood had truly in it what corresponded to both these Natures or Notions Lastly because Wood was Chang'd according to One of them only viz. the Form hence they conclude there was Formal Mutation made in the Wood which therefore was a Change according to somewhat that was most Intrinsecal to it because it chang'd it's Essence by making it become Another Thing and consequently that Change was an Essential one Thus much of the Doctrin of the Peripateticks concerning Formal Composition and Mutation which is Essential 7. But besides this Formal Composition and the Divisibility of that Essential part call'd the Form from the Matter which we have now spoken of there is moreover say the Peripateticks another sort of Formal Composition and Mutation which is Accidental For even
has necessarily some Mixture of the Opposit Quality anâ— is as it were Allay'd by it so that it comes to be Finite under that Notion Whence the Subject which has one of those Extreme Qualities becomes a Capacity of Admitting the other Extreme And therefore Epicurus seems to go to work more like a Philosopher in this point than the Cartesians by supposing his Atoms Essentially that is Infinitely Dense or Incapable to be Broken or Divided tho' in most other things he falls very much short of Cartesius his Clear Wit by his building in a manner wholly on Suppositions and those too the most Extravagant ones an ill-grounded Judgment could stumble into 25. They will ask how or by what means can a Dense body be chang'd into a Rare one or a Rare into a Dense or what Causes do we find in Nature Proper to produce such an Effect And it must be confest the Question is very Pertinent For to put the Operations of Rarefaction and Condensation without any Proper Agents to cause those Operations is a thing unbecoming a Philosopher We answer then that all Compressive and Divulsive Agents which we experience are Frequent and almost continually working in Nature are as Proper to work upon Quantity as such and to make the Subject of it Rarer or Denser as Dealbation is to work upon a Subject as 't is Colourable or Combustion upon a thing as 't is Combustible or any other Action to produce or inferr it's Proper Effects or to cause the Passions that correspond to it Nor can there be any Notion or Consideration found in a Body on which those two Actions of Compression and Divulsion can be conceiv'd to work properly and precisely but on it's Quantity or Divisibility in order to make the same Matter have more or less Quantity in it or to make a Body that is Compressed or Drawn several wayes to be Formally Chang'd in those respects So that we must either say that those two Common Words importing Natural Actions and us'd by all Mankind to have no sense in them or they must allow them their Proper Effects which are to Shrink or Dilate the Quantity of the thing which is to make it Rarer or Denser Granting them that sometimes and even very often those Effects are perform'd by the Intromission and Extrusion of subtil particles of other Bodies which as the very Terms show are improperly call'd Rarefaction and Condensation whenever any Natural Body is Prest or Stretched on all sides by other Bodies closely besieging it if Quantity be capable of those Effects as is demonstrated above § 15. it is the Proper Effects of such kinds of Operations must ensue and the Body enclos'd will be to some degree Condens'd or Rarefy'd 26. Now had Cartesius put these two First Qualities in the Matter Created by God in the Beginning so that some parts of it had been Created Dense some Rare Nature had been furnisht with Immediate Causes to made Division or Motion connaturally supposing them set on work or mov'd first by some Superiour Agent in regard Dense Bodies are naturally apt to Divide Rare ones and Rare ones naturally apt to be Divided by those which are Dense Nor had he then needed to assign to Essential Being whose Nature is Unchangeable and in which there is no Transmutatio aut Vicissitudinis obumbratio that is neither Change nor Shadow of Change a Drudgery so Mis-becoming his Essence as to be the Immediate Cause of Motion or Change Hence I argue Since neither to be Easily nor Hardly Divisible is the Essence of that First Matter in regard it was Compleat in the line of Ens and terminated the Action of Creation and so could have subsisted whether it had been Rare or Dense or tho' it had not been Divided at all there is manifestly a Divisibility between the Essence of that Matter and its Rarity or Density and therefore by the same argument we brought formerly against Epicurus that Matter might have been Chang'd according to either of those Qualities and not according to its Essence and yet no Contradiction ensue which demonstrates it to be Possible Again that Matter being Indifferent to either Rarity or Density had GOD Created some part of it Rare some Dense the course of Nature as was lately shown had gone on more connaturally Wherefore since GOD as the Author of Nature and abstracting from Miracle does always act most connaturally or agreeably to the Nature of Things it follows that he did actually order that some parts of the First Matter of which the World was to be Form'd should be Rarer and some Denser than Others and not of an Uniform or homogeneous Nature And accordingly we are taught by Holy Writt that in the Beginning there was Earth Water and Air. And if the Cartesians will needs make their First Matter Uniform and that GOD must move it immediately 't is justly Requir'd of them to show this Tenet of theirs most Agreeable to the Natures of the Things I mean to the nature of GOD whom they put to be the Immediate Cause of the First Motition and to the Nature of Matter the Patient and not overleap and slide over the Proof of both these main Points and suppose them and this not because they can even pretend that those suppositions do suit best with the Natures of the Things themselves but meerly because it best serves to introduce and carry on the Scheme of Doctrin they had resolv'd on 27. From Essential Mutation of Things in Nature or their losing their Substantial Form we come now to demonstrate that there is moreover Mutation in them according to those Forms which are Accidâ—ntâ—l In order to which we will premise this Consideration taught us by daily Experience that No Body becomes Another Thing in an Instant but is Alter'd or Dispos'd before hand ere it comes to Suffer an Essential Change For example A piece of Wood ere it comes by perfect Division to be made two Things of One is first Alter'd according to its Figure that is Cleft or Nick'd Before the same Wood is turn'd into Fire it is first Heated that is it has that Accidental Form call'd the Quality of Heat first introduced into it and so in all the rest respectively Which Changes not being Essential ones in regard they antecede the Change of the Eâ—tity as Dispositions to it they must be Accidental ones and this according to Quantity Quality or Relation which are all the Accidental Notions we have of the Thing that are Intrinsecal to it Now if we admit those Previous Alterations and Dispositions we cannot avoid the admitting Mutation of the Subject according to those Forms Wax by melting is Rarifi'd that is Chang'd as to its former Density A Man or Horse loses a Limb and consequently their former Quantity and Figure too and yet they are the same Individual Man and Horse A Husband loses that Relation when his Wife dies and yet is the same Man he was So