first he acknowledges the substance of sensation is seated in the Brain alone Then he inclines to Des Cartes's fantastical conjecture shall I call it or deviation from the manifest footsteps of Nature about Motion's being brought down from the Heav'ns to our Eyes through the continuedness of a very thin Ether But because he esteems Aristotle's conceits too not incredible I may be excus'd from that speculation At length therefore he falls again into the old Error enquiring how corporeal things can have any force upon a naked Spirit He supposes therefore the Soul in the Body to be a kind of thing not the form or affection of the thing Man and so is upon the same false haunt again nor needs repeating former discourses to beat him off it But left he should say nothing new he objects that by sense alone there 's no discerning the Quantities Distances Figures and Colours of things I wonder I must confess at these Objections from a curious and ingenious Man things so clearly explain'd demonstrated in Opticks Who is so ignorant that he knows not that bigger things at the same distance strike the eye in a more obtuse Angle and stronglier Who knows not that Figure if plain as objected to the eye is nothing else but Quantity more spacious or contracted this or that way but if it be a solid one and participate of the third dimension it borrows its variety from Distance Again that Distance is nothing else but a certain Magnitude spread between the Eye and the Object which if it be past judging of neither can the Eye attest the distance Lastly that Colour is nothing else but the confused figuration of a Superficies according to its parts undistinguisht to sense Whence it remains clear that the Eye needs no other Geometry for all these than what is necessary to judge of a magnitude from the variety of an Angle 6. His next pains is about Memory To shew the explication of that impossible he commemorates and rejects four waies of resolving it I must take another path than any of those First I must weaken this consequence that If any thing about Memory has not hitherto been explicated we must therefore make account it never will be or that 't is impossible to be explicated We must be aware too that alwaies some things will be unknown either because their trivialness merits not the pains of learning them or in that at length the bulk of things known will be grown so great that more will be burthensome to the understanding Now to complain of such like is to have forgot human shortness What therefore seems my task in this Queston is to bring into play those things which are already establisht and evident about memory and for those that are unknown to make an estimate whether some time or other they too will come or merit to be known First then 't is evident we must distinguish what is Memory and what Remembrance For Memory is only a Conserving of the impressions made by the objects whereby the Animal is rendred able to use them when he lists or needs But Remembrance is a certain Motion whereby that power of using the impressions is reduc'd into Act and Use. Concerning Memory therefore a reason is to be given both of its station or rest and of the causes or manner of its Motion and of both if I be not mistaken Nature and Experience offer evident footsteps for tracing them 7. In the first place that all things that move the sense have certain minute particles of their body shorn off as to the Touch Tast and Smell is too notorious to abide contest He that denyes the same force to the Light returning from the things to our Eyes must deny too that the Sun extracts exhalations from the Earth and Sea there being no other diversity in the operations but that the one is greater and stronger the other weaker and less Now that these Atoms get up to the Brain by the waftage of the Spirits that is a certain liquid and most subtil substance can scarce be denied by one never so pievish that 's but put in minde how Waters and Oyles are impregnated These Atoms therefore must of necessity strike not without some violence upon that part of the Brain whose being-struck causes perception Again that a stream or any thing liquid dasht against a resister should not leap back again is most clearly repugnant both to experience and reason And that a substance any thing viscuous in a viscuous vessel besides such as those are about the brain being repuls'd should not stick to any thing solid is equally impossible as also that a notable part of that stream should not cling together is against the Nature of gluyness The Walls therefore of the empty and hollow places of the Brain must of necessity be all hang'd and furnisht with little threads Conclude we then that through all the senses except Hearing the Animal is enabled by Atoms constantly sticking in it to make use again of the Impressions made by Objects In fine since sound is made by a collision of the Air 't is evident by Anatomy that it drives the Hammer of the Ear to beat upon the Anvil by which beat 't is not to be believ'd but certain particles must fly off and strike the Fancy the orderly storing up therefore of these is apt to constitute the Memory of sounds The structure then of Memory if I am not mistaken is rationally enough declared 8. I cannot see why the like track may not carry us to the explaining of the Symptoms of Remembrance too or why their Solution should be desparate For there 's nothing clearer than that the fore-explicated motion of the Atoms is set on work by a wind as it were For that Passion is a certain ebullition of Spirits reeking out of the heart t is visible even to the eies in Anger and Love and Bashfulness If we make inquisition what effect these motions have on the Fancy we experience that those Objects occur to the mind tumultuously and all on a heap as it were which solicite these Passions so hastily and in a huddle that they prevent mature weighing It appears therefore that the Atoms rouz'd from their places by such like vapours fly about the cognoscitive part in a kind of confused tumble If then there are certain winds and blasts which we call Motions of the appetitive faculty is it not plain that the cavities of the Brain will be brusht as it were and the Images sticking to the wals be moved to the place destin'd for attaining their effect And that these Atoms are carried neither meerly by chance nor yet in a certain order is evident by this that upon inquisition the things we seek for do not suddenly and perfectly occur which were a sign of election and yet manifestly such abundance of them suit to our purpose that t is clear they could not run thus without any industry at all As therefore
Motion of the three Wheels is equal and that the Circular Motion of the great Wheels is equal to the Right Motion but the Circular motion of the Middle little Wheel is less than the Right Motion And which follows that the greater Wheels are mov'd with the same celerity according to both motions but the lesser is mov'd stronglyer in the Right than in the Circular Now the compounded Motion is not that which is scor'd upon the floor or table which 't is clear is a simple and purely Right one but a certain crooked Motion in the Air making with the scored Motion a certain Area whose quantity Torricellus has demonstrated as is manifest beyond dispute to whoever but takes any one point of the Circle or Wheel and withall that the progressive Motion of the bigger Wheels is greater than that of the lesser Wheel These things thus explicated there appears nothing in this objection more intricate than in this simple Proposition that of two bodies which are carryed according to one line with equal velocity one may at the same time be carried swiftlyer than the other according to another line which is so evident that any one that 's a Mathematician cannot doubt of it 7. Yet still Galilaeus presses closer that in the circumvolution the several points of the lesser Circle or Wheel are just fitted in an immediate succession to the several points of the space in which 't is carried And therefore that it cannot be understood how the Right can be longer than the Crooked But that which deceived Galilaeus was his not having discussed Aristotle himself but bin overcredulous to his Modern Interpreters or rather Corrupters For Aristotle has taught us that a Moveable in actual Motion alwaies possesses a bigger and not-equal place to it self which is most evident For since no part of Motion can be but in Time and in every part of time the thing moved quits some place and gets some new 't is plain there cannot be found any so little motion wherein the Body moved has not possessed both the place in which it had rested and some part of a New one This supposed though the Moveable were conceived indivisible yet certain it would be that in whatever determinate part of time or by however little a part of Motion it would score out not a space equal to it self but some line and in the conditions of our present dispute every point of the lesser Wheel will draw a line proportionate to a part of the Circle of the greater Wheel And since really there are no either instants in Time or indivisibles in Motion or Points in a Circular Line 'T is evident this Argument has no force but in vertue of that false apprehension which we have convinced in the ' fore-alledged defence of Geometry Seventh Plea Inquires after the Causes of our Modern Shortness in Science 1. IN some of the following Chapters he exquisitely enough searches into the Causes of Errors and human Ignorance Yet me-thinks I could suggest two which he has over-slipt One is the Laziness or rather Vanity of this Age For whoever has got himself but talk enough to weave a learned story amongst the ignorant or half-learned such as understandings unaccostomed to Sciences are apt to be dazled with partly out of irksomness to pursue harder things partly out of confidence of his own wit he slights descending into those Mines whence our Ancestors have dig'd out Science and to take those pains himself which alone Wisdom regards and follows Let this Author be my witness who about the end of his former Chapter complains of the Obscurity of our Speculations concerning Motion Gravity Light Colours Sight Sound all which the Digbaean Philosophy makes as clear as day Whence also though there they are more copiously and clearly explicated we have borrowed our Discourses of the Load-Stone the derivation of the Spirits into the Members the Memory and Remembrance the Formation of living Creatures and whatever almost we have alledged for solving the proposed Difficulties the very dictates of Nature leading us the way Such like Philosophers therefore read the eminent and highly elaborate Works of others as if they were Romances invented for pleasure or as Spectators behold a Comedy what on the sudden takes them they commend if any thing more knotty than ordinary occurs they either out of laziness let it pass unregarded or break some bitter jest on 't 2. Another cause of Ignorance wav'd by our Author appears to me to be a certain special Error in the nature of Demonstration For they feign to themselvs a certain Idea of Demonstration which should not only have this force on the Vnderstanding to render the Truth propos'd evident but so besides that no objection can with any likelihood be oppos'd against it Which is as much as if they should require this Demonstration to clear whatever follows out of or any way relates to it or that one Demonstration should be a kind of entire Science For otherwise how is it possible but opposition may be rais'd against this out of things not-yet seen-through and conjoin'd with this Truth An Understanding then adapted to Sciences out of very Principles and what it already knows is secure of a deduced Truth nor fears any thing can be infer'd opposite to the Truth it knows whatever pains it may cost to get out of streights For it knows that those things are certain which the Vnderstanding out of a steddy sight that a Thing is a Thing or that the same is the same has fixt to and in it self and patiently waits till the distinction between the entanglements shew it self and the confusion vanish 3. In that these Contemners of Sciences endeavour not at fixing any thing in themselves by a severe contemplation of Truth as soon as any Truth pretends but to evidence as if they were incapable of owning it they quit their station and betake themselves to enquiring whether any one has oppos'd that same and if they find Impugners they assume it for most evident that such a Truth is not evident For say they were it evident 't would be so to all 't would convince every understanding But they may just as well say the Sun is not visible because t is not seen by them who turn their backs on 't or keep their eies shut For as in corporeal sight some corporeal motion is necessary by which the Ball of the Eye may be set against the Object no less to see and fix in the mind this very evidence that the same cannot be and not-be at once a certain Application and as it were opening of the mind is required even to conceive and give birth to the very evidentest evidence And for want of this so many of the Ancients and Moderns have not own'd but corrupted the evidence of that very first and most notorious Principle Whence they can never attain that Scientifical Method which shines so clear in Arithmetick and Geometry but are wholly
way serviceable to invention Concerning his Tenets which savour of impiety we have spoken before For his contradictions the places are not cited but whoever is skill'd in Aristotle knows he uses to draw Examples out of others Books and vulgar sayings and that nothing is to be esteemed his own which falls not into the Course of his Doctrine Whence 't is no hard matter to find contrary Opinions in his works but those things alone are to be ascribed to him which either are asserted in their proper places or brought by him for confirmation of his known Tenets 4. The twentieth Chapter renders manifest the eminence of Peripateticism above all other Methods by its very impugnation of it For it assumes it cannot be known that one thing is Cause of another otherwise than because they are found together which we deny not to be an occasion of suspecting but no Argument of Causality for if nothing else be clear 't will be still-unknown which of the too is the Cause which Effect But the Peripateticks conclude not A. to be the cause of B. till defining both they find out of their very Definitions that A cannot be but it must follow out of its intrinsecals that B is For example a Peripaterick collects that Fire is the Cause of Heat because Heat is nothing else but Atoms flowing from Fire and on the other side he knows that Fire cannot exist but it must send out such particles Cartes's paradox of Light and the Sun is just as if we should expect the Skyes falling to catch Larks That wonderfully ingenious Man is so coelestial that he has not so much as Sand to found his structures on Peripateticks chuse rather to collect a few Certainties acknowledging a Multitude of uncertainties than grasping at all to hold nothing Sure I am none more largely pretends Demonstration than des Cartes So that nothing is more unseemly than for his adorers to profess Scepticism 5. Not a jot stronger to establish the impossibility of Science is the argument from the variety of Opinions amongst those that are call'd Philosopers For first it must be evident that they are Philosophers before their judgements deserve esteem in Philosophical matters Do they profess to Demonstrate Do they model their Books in Euclid's Method Do they interweave Definitions with self-known truths And admit no other for proof All which may be observ'd in Aristotle and his antient interpreters though not express'd in Euclids form These things if they do either they are not rational or all will be of the same mind as Geometricians are If they neglect these 't is not a pin matter for their judgments in Philosophy Our Author tells a story of the power of Fancy which I doubt is imperfect For it seems he would have one Man be able to order anothers thoughts without ever acting by his senses or Fancy Since he relates that one compel'd others absent from him to think and speak what he pleas'd For though I allow Men to have a very large power over Animals by the help of their Fancies for example to tame or enrage them by means of sounds or shewing them figures perhaps too to strike them sick or cure them and such like Yet that the Fancy should be mov'd to those things which move it not by any sense 't is hard to believe For all that I do not altogether deny the Motion made upon the sense to be every way like and Univocal to that which is in the mind and when it happens to be deriv'd rather from the vehemencie of the affection than the pure Motion of the Fancies impressing it 6. In this twenty first Chapter he divines of Future Science particularly of some not-yet discovered manners of acting at distance which I 'le rather await than discuss or hope for About the end of the Chapter he assumes that nothing can be known unless it be resolv'd into the first Causes Whence he should have seen clearly that the First Causes and Metaphysicks which treats of them is most known of all to Nature or next to our first knowledges And that Naturalists strive in vain who negotiate much about the particulars of Nature and comprehend nothing through their ignorance of Metaphysick Take for example the stir about Vacuum which Metaphysicks declare as impossible as for no-thing to be a thing about the spring of Rarity and Density which the Metaphysician most palpably demonstrates is out of or extrinsecal to the things that are Rare and Dense and many such like whose truth those that essay by Experiments but without the light of Metaphysick shall find an endless work on 't Metaphysical Principles must be taken from Aristotle not des Cartes though a Person of most eminent Wit For Aristotle by contemplation form'd into method those things which he found engrafted in nature Des Cartes in his Physical principles as if he meant to prescribe the Creator an Idea designs in the Air and in the Concave of the Moon as they say what himself thought was to be done according to Art From which kind of Fabrick there 's no benefit to be hoped for by the Reader 7. The next Chapter is sick of that error which Aristotle has very often detected and confuted viz. that nothing is known unless it be perfectly known for example that we know not God is unlesse we see him that any Man cannot make use and be sure of that Cartes's first-known thing or Object of knowledge I think therefore I am unlesse he comprehends the all things of that I so as to know the Nature of his Matter and Form the Number of his Elements and Members and the Causes and Motion by which he was begotten and in short whatever is connected with him Which is clearly to professe he knows not the question in hand For none of the Dogmatizers either arrogates to himself or hopes for so perfect a knowledge 'T is a piece of the same heedlesnesse not to know that all that see a white wall have the same apprehension of whiteness though their several sensations vary the degree and perfection of it Whence our Author had done more prudently to have sat down in silence and pardon'd the affecters of Science their error than by meerly Topical and Delusory Reasons to have averted minds born to excellent things from the first desire of Nature and gathering fruit at least in some degree according to that of the moral Poet Though you of Glycons mighty lims despair Do not to keep away the Gout forbear 8. For all that our Academick makes no scruple in general to lay all kind of mischief to those that proceed dogmatically such Art as the Philosophers says it requires to find a mean First he asserts this Method is the Daughter of ignorance who would have look'd for this brand from a Sceptick you that profess your selves to know nothing do you object ignorance to others Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes Next he calls it the Inmate of untam'd affections upon what title for if there be any Science that will The peaceful Temples keep well fortifi'd Built by the Sages Doctrine You that profess you know not whether there be any or no how rashly do you affirm it to dwell alwayes with untam'd affections since if there be none it dwells no where The third inconvenience of Dogmatizing is that it stirs men up to controversies The rising Sun seems to me guilty of the very same Crime in disturbin the Slug-a-beds and summoning every one to their work For such a kind of falt it is to inculcate Truth to those that live in ignorance and error A fourth crime is that one who adheres to any Science lays ignorance to the charge of those that know not his demonstration I cannot deny it For 't is the Nature and Title of light to reproach those things as dark which admit not its beams But herein the Demonstrators are modester than the Scepticks that at least they except some and speak well of Nature whom with all her Children the Scepticks condemn to the Dungeon of Darknesse for ever 9. Like this is the next that the confidence of Science in error bars the Gates against the liberty to get possession of truth How blindly does the Sceptick dispute these things who freely owns that truth is no where which men might have the liberty to get possession of He concludes at last the Dogmatizer has a petty and enthrall'd Soul So strangely things are nick-nam'd that are unknown For t is Science's part to dilate the Soul and render it capable of great things and this the pleasure of one that knows to look down on Scepticks as all in a tumult below and Lucret. See them at a loss at every turn And breathless hunting out the way of life Which to make ones life and Task is the miserablest of all things and an utter casting off Rationality and the whole felicity Humanity affords These things as they are all most true and scarce deniable even by a Sceptick to follow out of the possibility of Demonstration that is if there be any Rational Nature yet I would not have them so asserted as to Patronize palliated Scepticks who admit indeed that there is such a thing as some both Physical and Metaphysical Science in common but neither tend to it by any legitimate Method nor own any thing in particular demonstrated and yet by the press of the Herd in a society thrusting one another on and by loads of Scriblers they most absurdly fly at and arrogate to themselves the highest degree of Doctorship and the top of Sciences and name of Wisdom The Father of Nature grant Mankind may at length be eas'd of this Yoak which galls the necks of the Sons of Adam and that the studious of truth may understand it alike dangerous to think every thing and nothing is demonstrated FINIS