it not be probable enough that these Spirits in the other World shall onely be the Soul's Vehicle and Habit and indeed really that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned by the Apostle by a vital re-union with which it may supereminently out-act all that ever she was able to do in this earthly Prison and heavy Cottage of the Body since also which I may super-adde those volatile Spirits being freed by a constant and perpetual dissipation from the Body are diffused through this great aetherial Ocean as into their proper Element ready to be united to the Soul at the instant of her Separation Fourth Deduction FOurthly The Physiologist also may gather something from the former Observations touching the nature of Colours that they are indeed nothing but the various modification of Light For most if not all Bodies in their minute particles through which the Sun's Rays have more freedome to penetrate seem to lose their Colours and grow diaphanous as you may observe in the Microscope Secondly Is it not shrewdly probable that since motion is the cause of sight which is nothing else but the impulse that the Luminous Atoms make upon the Retina Is it not I say shrewdly probable that Colours are nothing else but a various modification of this motion since we see that they are both naturally and artificially made by light to which we can imagine nothing to be added or deducted to super-induce those fine Tinctures as in the Rain-bow the Prisme crystal Pendents Glass-Globes filled full of water and in those arenulous Atoms in the former Experiment xxxiii except some change in the motion of the Luminous Atoms which must necessarily follow from the diversities of Objects and Mediums they either hit upon or pass thorow and so consequently do either accelerate or retardate the Solary Atoms in their Dinetical and progressive Motion whence arises both the diversity and variety of all colours whatsoever as that profoundest Master of Mechanicks Des-Cartes hath both subtilly excogitated and ingeniously illustrated by the Prisme To which we shall add some further experimental Eviction First If the Hole through which the Species is transmitted into a dark room be covered with a leaf of Beaten Gold it will not onely look of a pure green colour but all the light trajected through it will put on the same Tincture Secondly If with a Prisme you strike the Rainbow-colours upon a wall and observing where a red is projected you there place an Eye the Spectator shall judge it to be another colour because that the Solary Atoms which shot through the Prisme upon the wall and there painted that colour being again and again refracted by the Diaphanous Humours of the Eye must needs in all reason exchange their motion and so consequently paint the Retina with another colour both which Experiments shew that Colour is nothing else but the modification of Light which by the alteration of its motion is dyed into colours The like Artificial alteration of the Colours may be made by interposing a Burning-Glass 'twixt the Prisme and the Light and 'twixt the Prisme and the Paper But this Cartesian Theory of Colours we shall further make out by several Experiments in the Extraction Commixtion and Transcoloration of Tinctures First therefore If into the Infusion of Violets you put some few drops of the oyl of Tartar per Deliquium it will presently strike it into a green Tincture now if instead of that oyl you put in oyl of Vitriol it strikes it into a purple Colour to which if you super-add some drops of Spirit of Harts-Horn it strikes it green again Secondly If into the Tincture of dryed Roses drawn in Hot-water with oyl of Vitriol after the usual manner you drop a few drops of Spirit of Harts-Horn or of Urine or of oyl of Tartar per Deliquium it will presently strike the red into a green Colour which by a super-addition of the oyl of Vitriol you may re-tincture as before Thirdly If into an Infusion of Copperose you shave a little Gall it presently puts on a Sable inky Colour into which if you put a few drops of the Spirit or oyl of Vitriol it strikes out the Colour immediately and the water becomes white again to which if you super-add a few drops of oyl of Tartar per Deliquium it re-denigrates it again Thus a Glass of the Sweet-Spaw-water also upon the Infusion of Gall turns into a Claret-colour but if you drop but a little of the said oyl or spirit into it it presently eats out the Colour and the water returns to its primitive clearness again Draw a faint Tincture of Brasil wood bruised or rasped in luke-warm water filter it and clarifie it then if you add a little sharp vineger to a good quantity of it it will strike it into the exact colour of good stale English Beer and it will partly have the smell of it also Secondly If into another quantity of the said reddish Infusion you add a few drops of the oyl of Tartar per Deliquium it will turn it to a pure purplish red like excellent Claret Thirdly If into this Artificial Claret you drop a few drops of the oyl of Vitriol it will turn it into a pale Amber colour like Sack as may be which with addition of fair water you may empale as you please By which ingenious commixtion of Spirits and Liquors did Floram Marchand that famous Water-Drinker exhibit those rare tricks and curiosity's at London of vomiting all kind of Liquors at his mouth For first Before he mounts the Stage he alwayes drinks in his private Chamber fasting a gill of the Decoction of Brasil then making his appearance he presents you with a pail full of luke-warm water and twelve or thirteen glasses some washed in vineger others with oyl of Tartar and oyl of Vitriol then he drinks four and twenty glasses of the water and carefully taking up the glasse which was washed with oyl of Tartar he vomits a reddish liquor into it which presently is brightned up and ting'd into perfect and lovely Claret After this first assay he drinks six or seven glasses more the better to provoke his vomiting as also the more to dilute and empale the Brasil Decoction within him and then he takes a glass rinsed in vineger and vomits it full which instantly by its acidity is transcoloured into English Beer and vomiting also at the same time into another glass which he washes in fair water he presents the Spectators with a glass of paler Claret or Burgundian wine then drinking again as before he picks out the glass washed with oyl of Vitriol and vomiting a faint Brasil-water into it it presently appears to be Sack and perchance if he wash'd the one half of the glass with spirit of Sack it would have a faint odour and flavour of that Wine also He then begins his Carouse again and drinking fifteen or sixteen glasses till he has almost extinguished the strength and tincture of his Brasil water
nay and probably into the diaphanous humours also are not discernable but when they are preter-naturally distended in an Ophthalmia and so grow turgent and conspicuous To which we may adde that in most quick Fish though you cut a piece of their flesh off yet will no bloud be discernable though they be sanguineous Animals but the bloud is so divided by the minuteness of their Capillary Vessels or percribration through the habit of the Parts that either it has lost its redness or our eyes are not able to discover its tincture Secondly It is observable also from the former Experiments that in these minute Animals their nutritive Liquor never arises to the perfection of bloud but continually as it were remains Chyle within them for want of a higher heat to dye it into that Spirituous Liquor Nay you shall observe in perfect Sanguineous Animals a Circulation of an albugineous chylie-matter before the bloud have a being if you take Nature at the rise and critically observe her in her rudimental and obscure beginnings For view but an Egge after the second day's Incubation and you shall see the cicatricula in the Yolk dilated to the breadth of a groat or six-pence into transparent concentrical circles in the Centre whereof is a white Spot with small white threads which in futurity proves the Heart with its Veins and arteries but at present both its motion and circulation is undiscernable to the bare eye by reason of the feebleness thereof and also because both the Liquor and its Vessels were concolour to the white of the Eggs they swum in but the Heart does circulate this serous diaphanous Liquor before by a higher heat it be turned into bloud And one thing here I am tempted to annex which is a pretty and beneficial Observation of the Microscope and that is That as soon as ever you can see this red pulsing Particle appear which Doctor Harvey conceited not to be the Heart but one of its Auricles you shall most distinctly see it to be the whole Heart with both Auricles and both Ventricles the one manifestly preceding the pulse of the other which two motions the bare eye judges to be Synchronical and without any interloping perisystole at all So admirable is every Organ of this Machine of ours framed that every part within us is intirely made when the whole Organ seems too little to have any parts at all Thirdly It is peculiarly remarkable from Observation xxxi That not onely the bloud in perfect Animals and the chyle in imperfect ones but also the Animal Spirits have a Circulation which singular observation hath often provoked and entised our endeavours into a further enquiry after the Nature of these Spirits as to their Origin or Generation their activity and motion with some other eminent properties belonging to them we shall draw our thoughts together and so present them to your View I will not say that our discourse hereon shall pass for an un-controllable authentick Truth it is all my ambition if it attain but to the favourable reception of a rational Hypothesis at last A Digression of the Animal Spirits FIrst then we have not those narrow conceptions of these subtle Spirits to think that they are onely included within the Bodies of Animals or generated much less created there but we doe believe that they are universally diffused throughout all Bodies in the World and that Nature at first created this aetherial substance or subtle particles and diffused them throughout the Universe to give fermentation and concretion to Minerals vegetation and maturation to Plants life sense and motion to Animals And indeed to be the main though invisible Agent in all Natures three Kingdoms Mineral Vegetal and Animal And lest they should because of their exceeding volatility and activity be of little or no use Nature hath immersed them in grosser matter and imprisoned them in several Bodies with which she has intermixed them the better to curb the boundless activity of so thin and spirituous a substance and therefore the Spirits of all compound Bodies especially ought to be considered under a triple notion Viz. Under the state of 1. Fixation 2. Fusion 3. Volatilization First of Fixation when they are so complicated with the grosser Particles of Matter and lockt therein so fast that they can hardly be separated and dis-imprisoned as in Minerals but most especially in Gold Secondly The state of Fusion I call that when the Spirits by any kind of help have so wrought themselves towards a Liberty that they are in the middle way to Volatility as in half-concocted Minerals fermenting Vapours or Liquors and half-ripned Fruits c. Thirdly The Spirits are in their third state of Volatility when after a colluctancy with the grosser Particles they have so subjugated and overcome them that they are just upon wings and ready to fly away as in Wine when it is in the height of its fermentation and in some part of our arterial bloud alwayes Now we observe that those Bodies that relax and open the grosser composition of other Bodies do presently create a fermentation for being like so many Keys they set the imprisoned Spirits at Liberty which presently fall on working and by attenuating the grosser parts separating the Heterogeneous volatilizing some precipitating of others digesting of others expelling of others do at last mould it and work it to such a Body as the parts of it are fit to make up In all which interval of time there is a palpable and sensible heat produced Thus this Spirit being embowelled in the Earth and meeting there with convenient matter and adjuvant causes doth proceed to produce Minerals creating an actual heat wheresoever it operates as in Allum or Copperase Mines which being broken exposed and moistned will gather an actual heat and produce much more of those Minerals then else the Mine would yield as Agricola and Thurniseer do affirm and is proved by common experience The like is generally observed in Mines as Agricola Erastus and â—ibanius c. do affirm and avouch out of the dayly experience of Mineral men who affirm that in most places they find their Mines so hot as they can hardly touch them although it is likely that where they work for perfect Minerals the heat which was in fermentation whilst they were yet in breeding is now much abated the Mineral being grown to their perfection as the skilful and excellent Doctor Jordan very well infers The like heat we observe constantly to be in our Cole-Pits Nay we sometimes observe in our Brass-lumps as our Colliers call them which is a kind of Marcasite a very great heat for being exposed to the moist Air or sprinkled with water they will smoak and grow exceeding hot and if they be layd up on a heap and watered they will turn into a glowing red hot fire as I have seen them my self And it was a Casualty once terrible to our Neighbour-Town of Ealand for there one Wilson a Patient
great Mystery which here with all its consequences I shall deliver Experiment 7. THe 6. of May 1653. I took two Tubes one of 45. inches the other 35 ½ in length and of different Diameters and filling them both at the Bottom of Hallifax-Hill the Quicksilver in both came down to its wonted pitch of 29. inches thence going immediately to the top of the said Hill and repeating the Experiment again we found it there to fall more then half an inch lower then it did at the bottom or foot of the said Hill Pecquet relates That Dr. Pascal himself tryed this Experiment upon a Mountain of 500 perches high near Claramont and he found Quicksilver there at the Hill to descend lower by three inches and somewhat more then it did at the bottom so that according to the Analogy Proportion of both and some other considerable Circumstances we might not only Mechanically find out the Perpendicular height of our great Hill here at Hallifax or any other Mountain whatsoever but venture notably at the height of the Atmosphaere it self For to manage the Principles we have formerly laid down First The reason why the Quicksilver descends at all in the first Experiment is from its exceeding gravity Secondly Why it falls no lower then 29. because a Cylinder of that weight does just aequipoise the Elastick power of the Ayr without and therefore after a few vibrations up and down as is Observable in all Statick Experiments they arrive at a Counterpoise But the reason now as to our particular Mountain's Experiment why the Counterpoise should alter at the top from that at the bottom of the Hill and the descent of the Quicksilver be so unequal is not so much from any alteration in the Elastick power and virtue of that Ayr at the top from that at the bottom of the Hill as from the variation of the gravity of the Superincumbent Ayr For a longer and so consequently more weighty Columne of Ayr presses upon the vessel'd Quicksilver at the bottom of the Mountain and so makes the Quicksilver in the Tube rise higher than at the top of the Mountain which being so much nearer the top of the Atmosphaere a lesser weight of Superponderant Ayr makes a lesser quantity of Quicksilver arise in the Tube and so come the Mercurial Cylinders to vary in their Altitudes viz. from the natural Supergravitation of more or less of the Superincumbent Atmosphaere So that it is more than probable that the higher one rises in the Ayr to try this Experiment the Quicksilver in the Tube would fall down lower and if the Experiment could be try'd at the top of the Atmosphaere no Quicksilver at all would remain in the Tube but fall down to a level with that in the vessel I could wish that some of our Canary-Merchants would get this Experiment try'd at the top of the Pike of Teneriffe which is deservedly famed for the highest Hill in the world Object 1. But I see you are ready to reply and say That the inequality of the Mercurial Cylinder in the Mountain-Experiment aforesaid may every whit as rationally be supposed to proceed from a change in the Elastick property of the Ayr which may be more vigorous at the bottom and more faint and feeble at the top of the Hill and so force a greater or lesser quantity of Quicksilver up into the Tube Object 2. I know how harsh it sounds That Ayr should gravitate in its own Sphaere and we and all other Terrestrial Inhabitants be insensible of it and that which augments the improbability is That Water we experimentally know which is a fluid and dissipable Body as Ayr is does not gravitate in its own proper place for if we dive never so deep it 's so far from depressing of them lower or weighing on them that it is readier to buoy them up again And why should not we conclude the like of its next neighbouring Element the Ayr To the first Objection I answer That though I should grant that there should be some difference in the Elatery of some of the aerial particles from others yet to be so great in so small a distance as four or five furlongs 't is not so easily credible I shall answer your Second Objection with this following which may pass for the 9. Experiment FIll the Tube as in the first Experiment and drown both it and the vessel of restagnant Quicksilver by letting down all carefully with strings into a Hogshead or great Cistern of water and you shall see that the deeper you immerge the Tube the higher still will the Quicksilver in the Tube arise Let the vessel of water be of a greater or lesser plane in the surface it matters not because onely those parts of water that hang perpendicularly over the vessel'd Quicksilver do gravitate upon it We drown'd a Tube to 25. inches in depth above the Superficies of the vessel'd Quicksilver and it raised the Quicksilver in the Tube about 1 ◠4 above the stint of 29. inches at which it formerly stood just according to the fore-observed proportion 'twixt the weight of the Water and Quicksilver a Cylinder of the former of 32. foot being but aequiponderant to a Cylinder of the latter of 29. inches Of which noble Experiment we must confess the first hint was given us by those acute and singularly accomplished Gentlemen of Townley-Hall in Lancashire who were as Judicious as Honourable Spectators of these our Hydrargyral Experiments and whose Mechanical Prognosticks seldom failed but were still made good by the future event of the Experiments By which it most evincingly appears that water does gravitate in its own Sphaere as they phrase it which now we may retort upon the Second Objection and say That if water do gravitate then why not Ayr in their proper Sphaere both being fluid dissipable and co-neighbouring Elements and so consequently whether in Ayr or Water the Experiment be tryed this effect will follow That the deeper you immerge the Tube in either Element the higher will the Mercurial Cylinder rise And contrariwise As 32. foot of Superjacent water would raise up a Mercurial Cylinder of 29. inches So the same Cylinder of 29. inches is raised by a Column of the height of the whole Atmosphaere it self But we may by a far more facile and cheaper Experiment evince the gravitation of Water in its Sphaere which is observable in the common Experiment of a Syphon through which the water by Suction being first set on motion it is easily observable that the flux in the extravasated leg of the Syphon is at first most strong and proportionally decreases as the water in the vessel sinks lower and lower towards the bottom of that leg immerg'd in it which cannot proceed from any other cause imaginable but from the Supergravitation of the high parts of the water upon the lower which being thereby more strongly forced up the shorter leg of the Syphon the flux thereby is stronger in the
Current ever after Argument 7. Since a constant steddy and polary direction of parts is onely observable in Bodies Magnetical we have reason to think and believe that these Magnetical Effluvia which are the cause of this peculiar direction are not only transmitted and channel'd through the Earth but through many other Coelestial Bodies also as ☉ ☽ ♃ ♄ and perchance the rest of the Planets yea and Fixed Stars too as by Telescopical Observations is now made very manifest in those Bodies that swim within our Planetary Systeme Argument 8. Take a Rod of Iron or a Puncheon as before heat it red-hot and according to the Laws in its refrigeration you may endue this or that Extreme with whether polarity you please now afterwards by striking it with a Hammer in the same posture that it was cooled in you may much advance and invigorate its Magnetical virtue as we have formerly declared But now the main Observable of all is That after both the reception of the virtue by convenient refrigeration as also the augmentation of it by percussion you may by inverting and repercussing the Extremes alter the polarity of the Iron at your pleasure and then which is stranger that if you strike the Iron in the middle 'twixt the two Extremes it will destroy its formerly acquired Magnetism Argument 9. If you bore with a Wimble in any hard piece of wood till you heat it soundly you will communicate to it a strong Verticity insomuch that it will nimbly turn a Magnetical Needle but if with a dril of Iron or Steel you bore a piece of Brass or Iron till you heat it well it will acquire so strong a Magnetism thereby that it will not only turn an equilibrated Needle but vigorously attract and lift up a small Needle and I have observed the small filings and shavings which fall out of the Drill-hole to stick to the point of the Drill as if it had been to a Magnet it self which shews that the Magnetical Atoms did more easily by far enter into the Drill or Wimble when the parts thereof were heat and set in Motion than before Which still seems to make out That the Magnetical Atoms rather enter into than proceed from those Bodies we call Magnetical as the reaching soul of the renowned Des-Cartes hath happily supposed CHAP. IV. That the World was not made Primarily nor Solely for the use of Man nor in subserviency unto Him and his Faculties AS I would not derogate from the Greatness and Eminency of Man as being a very Noble Creature so I would not have him arrogate too much to himself For though it may be a pious and morally good conception To think that the whole world was made for him yet I am sure 't is no real and Physical Truth For first How many glorious Bodies of vast Bulks and immense Distances have appeared nay and may yet appear to future ages as Comets and New Stars which are now gone and vanish'd again which no mortal man ever understood the reasons and causes of nor received no good nor evil either before or since their appearances Nay How many such Comets may have been near the Sun whose first rise continuation and disappearance may have been made in six moneths time of which by reason of the Sun's vicinity to them we could never see nor know any thing Who can be so irrational as to think that those innumerable company of Stars with which the Via Lactea is powdred and many other parts of Heaven are throng'd as the Pleiades in which very Subconstellation I have seen above 20. Stars of a considerable Magnitude and lesser ones innumerable also the Hyades the Stellae Nebulosae c. were ever made for the use of Us and our Earth since they are at that immense distance and invisible to our eyes and had remain'd eternally so had not the incomparable invention of Telescopes relieved our eye-sight herein Nay to come nearer Who can imagine that any of the primary Planets were wholly designed for the service of Us and our Earth whereas if most of them were pluck'd out of the Heavens we should no more feel the want of them than the Countrey Swain that already knows of no such Wanderers What then must we think of the Secondary Planets as the Circum-Saturnian and the four Jovialists which are not onely indiscernable by us and therefore were never designed for our use but also have their peculiar Motion about their Primary Planets which they orderly and punctually attend which shews other ends that God and Nature has designed them for to wit to be as wholly Subservient to their Central Planets of Saturn and Jupiter as the Moon is to us Lastly Who is there that knows not the vast disproportion 'twixt this Speck of Earth and the immense Heavens how that it is less than the smallest Mote or Atom which we see to hover and play in the Sun's beams in comparison of the Fixed Stars So that if one stood but in the Firmament it could never be seen at all and if it were annihilated would never be miss'd being so small and inconsiderable a portion of the Creation Nay our Modern Philosophers have found That not onely the Earth but the whole Orbis Magnus which is the Earth's Annual Circle it describes about the Sun is but a Point in regard of the immense distance of the Fixed Stars Nay the Noble and Elastical Soul of Des-Cartes that has stretch'd it self yet a pin higher has done the Heavens and Upper World more right yet as to the Magnificent vastness of its Expansion and has shown us that every Fixed Star is a Sun and is set in the Centre of a Vortex or Planetary System as ours is and that they are as far remote one off another as ours is off them and that all our whole Planetary Vortex shrinks almost into nothing if compared to those innumerable Systems above us What are we then but like so many Ants or Pismires that toyl upon this Mole-hill and could appear no otherwayes at distance but as those poor Animals the Mites do to us through a good Microscope in a piece of Cheese Let us not therefore pride our selves too much in the Lordship of the whole Universe 't is more I am sure than we could challenge from our Creatour that he hath made us such Noble Creatures as we are that he hath given us such a large Inheritance as the whole Globe of the Earth that he hath Subjugated all things therein to our use and service and lastly that he hath endued our Souls with such spiritual and prying faculties that we can attempt and reach at the Superiour and more mysterious works of his Creation and therein to admire those things we are not capable to understand As for the Earth being the Centre of the World 't is now an opinion so generally exploded that I need not trouble you nor my self with it And indeed what need I take pains to refute that which