it self such as is ordinarily supposed in an usual Tube in the descent of the Mercury to 29 inches and that tough adhaesion and cohaesion of the particles thus extended For first as for the Tension in a Tube so obliquely immitted and leasurely raised to a perpendicular no man can rationally imagine one inch of effluvia either pressed or fridged out of the Mercury by its descent and if there were and these taken or let out by some artifice at every trial some 18 trials would lessen the Mercury 18 such inches of the Tube which would prove very sensible But though this were not there would in the mean time by this Tension of one inch of matter into 18 be seventeen inches penetration of solid matter and hard or else it would not be penetration and this by so small a force as the weight of a Cylinder of Mercury of no greater diameter than would make it weigh one pound when-as the Authour himself acknowledges that an 100 pound weight will not press water so as to make it yield at all and yet here upon the least gentle motion of the Tube from a perpendicular to an inclined posture and from an inclined posture to a perpendicular there shall be more or less penetration of dimension as if that which wise and considerate Philosophers have held impossible were as easie as the running an hot Bodkin into a pound of Butter which methinks to any one that indifferently perpends the matter must seem a clear demonstration against this solution of the Problem as I have already noted in the sixth and seventh part of my first Remark and what I have there already writ will save me the labour of any further enlarging my self in this point But now for that tough and peremptory adhaesion of this thin body in the Tube to the top and sides thereof and cohaesion of one part thereof to another and the lowest part to the highest part of the Quick-silver in the Tube as if the top of the Tube were instead of so many Peggs and the upper part of the Quicksilver the Bridge of the Lute and the subtil matter betwixt under this actual Tension so many Lute-strings in virtue whereof the column of Mercury hangs suspended as a weight This to me I must confess is unimaginable For first I cannot but conceive that if I could come to this thin matter which is thinner than Air it self I could cut through it with a Spinners thred or by any other line subtiler and weaker than it nor can I imagine that that which can be so easily cut asunder holds so fast together as that it will sustain in this experiment one pound weight in some others it may be some hundreds Besides if every part held together so toughly no Flie could move in it nor Flie nor Feather fall down from the top of the Tube to the upper Bafis of the mercurial Cylinder which is against experience but they would hang like dust or flies on the webs of Spiders or indeed the whole consistence of that subtil matter would be viscous or glutinous and so impassable to them To all which you may add If it had this strong retraction as a Lute-string it taking hold only on the upper part or surface as it were of the mercurial Cylinder it would pluck up the Bridg. Wherefore the mercurial Cylinder is not held up by Suspension but by Circumpulsion and Gravitation upwards if I may use the language of this Authour the Air and Quicksilver both gravitating against the thin subtil matter in the upper end of the Tube through the Mercury in the lower end as the water does against the stopple of the Valve in the above-mentioned experiment that is there is a sistency of them in this order and Libration by the Hylostatick Spirit of the Universe which also directs the motion of heavy bodies downward of which this learned Authour does ingeniously confess men have tired themselves in vain to find out any mechanical cause and I have in my Enchiridium Metaphysicum proved that it is contrary to the laws of Mechanicks And he seems to resolve these things into Nature which is the Principium matûs quietis as Aristotle defines and also declares of her That Natura nihil agit srustra Whereby but that his words have stuck in his teeth and he hath not spoke out Aristotle acknowledges what I contend for a Spirit of Nature or Hylostatick Principle which he must of necessity acknowledge unless he contradict himself for as much as he makes matter merely passive which it cannot be if what moves it and orders it be but a modification of matter and not a Spirit distinct there-from for that modification would be from its own essence and consequently it would be self-moved and move it self so unless we play tricks with it that it does nihil agere srustra which is far from being a mere passive Principle But this is more than I intended to say upon this occasion VVe have plainly enervated the main of this Chapter what little maters remain we will dispose into the following Remarks REMARK the Thirty fourth The Learned Authour endeavours to prove the attraction of tensed bodies p. 239. l. 12. from Natures affectation of a strict contiguity it being a kind of continuity of the Universe and all its parts But I observe if there were any such attraction the final cause only is there indigitated but we seek after a natural efficient cause And I deny moreover that there is any scope in the suspension of the Mercury to save the Universe from discontinuity but only to preserve the Air in its due consistency Nor is the Air the common Cement of the parts of this inferiour world but it is one common Spirit that holds the parts of the whole Universe together no Atomi hamatae or any such corporeal contrivances And where the matter is never so subtil the contiguity of the world is as much as where it is more crass And therefore where we see strange things done upon any place being filled with only extreme subtil matter it is not because there is any more fear then of discontiguity or a vacuum but because that matter is misplaced and the Hylostatick Spirit of the Universe would dispose of it better REMARK the Thirty fifth The Learned Authour p. 240. and 242. would prove this attraction in his supposed tensed and rarefied bodies in this sense from the experiment of Cupping-glasses and the Bladder in the top of the Tube in the Torricellian experiment But that these are no proofs for Attraction I have shewed in former Remarks REMARK the Thirty sixth He here mentions again p. 242. l. 12. the heated Tube we have spoke of Remark 24. of its attraction and suspension of the water in it the water in the Tube and the Tube weighing as one body and the like experiment he makes here again of a heated Beer-glass with a more flew mouth drawing up water and weighing
but they are all carried by the Hylostatick spirit of the world in this orderly way and to so good an end that there may be no inconvenience by misplacing the Elements of the Universe of which I hold the materia subtilis to be one REMARK the Forty sixth His collections also against the very elasticity of the Air from the said experiments are ingenious but I cannot insist on them I shall rather take notice of what occurrs p. 302. l. 6. where he supposes that the immission or insinuation of the Air into the Cavity of a Well for there is the same reason as in the Glass-bottle that is as it were the Well of his Pump is the effect not the cause of the recession of the water The scruple here is whether it may not rightly be said to be both For in that circle of Air and Water that is made in the going of the Pump the moving of the Air that by the coming out of the water is carried either toward the Well or into it as it is the effect of the waters coming out of the Well and Pump so it making part of the circle of Air and Water that gravitates even to the bottom of the Bucket in the Pump where the hazard of an hiatus and the baring of the subtil element is is also a cause I mean instrumental cause for the principal efficient is the Hylostatick Spirit of the world of the getting the water out of the Pump it being part of that material circle in motion caused by that Principle that guides the matter REMARK the Forty seventh The two arguments against the elasticity of the Air which the Learned Authour concludes with are if they be well weighed very considerable The first is that if the elasticity of the Air in a low roof'd Room or a Glass Receiver is able to sustain the Mercury in the Tube at the same height in the Torricellian experiment that it is sustained in the free Air where there is the weight of the Atmospherical Cylinder superadded to the said elasticity of the Air it is a sign that they are both but a mere conceit and that the Mercury is suspended by the pressure of neither I must confess I cannot imagine how those elastick Philosophers can evade the evidence of this argument unless they hope to escape by saying That the elasticity of the Air being brought to its highest vigour or force the Atmospherical pressure can give it so it be but kept at the same springiness and tightness by the Glass or the roof of the Room the elasticity being the same still the effect will be the same This a man might phansie at first sight but if he more distinctly consider the matter it will not satisfie For let the force elastick of the Air in the Glass or Room caused by the pressure first of the Atmosphere be as 10 and this conserved entire in the Glass or Room which does not press against this elastick Air but stands immoved nor would the Atmosphere if it were incumbent on this Air add any thing more to the elasticity thereof but it will still remain as 10 yet though it add nothing to the elasticity of the Air seeing it has a pressure and protrusive force in it which the Roof and Glass have not it will notwithstanding have its distinct force superadded to that 10 of the interjacent elastick Air through which it will effectually act for the easier raising or suspending of the Quick-silver and consequently will suspend at an higher pitch than the Air in a Room or Glass can do there being a small convenient Valve that would let out the Air but hinder any from coming in There is a nicety in this business but I doubt not but the truth will be found on our Learned Authour's side and the urgency forward or progressive conatus of the elastick Air will add something to the account And besides as an Appendage to this Argument if we compare portions of this elastick Air without regard to the Atmosphere the least proportion of it will have equal effect with the greatest and a Cylinder of elastick Air reaching from the roof of the Room to the restagnant quick-silver shall have no more force for the sustaining of the Mercury in the Tube than one of but the tenth part of an inch high which is again a sign there is no such elasticity at all For no man will say that the smallest charge of Gunpowder will when it is fired explode the Bullet with equal force that a due quantity of Powder will for all its elasticity or expansiveness is more quick and smart than this of the Air. Or that if but a quarter of an inch of Air or less were condensated to that proportion that a due measure of air in a Wind-Gun uses to be that it will discharge with that force that the other does and yet both their motions here are by elasticity properly so called Wherefore there being these differences where elasticity is really but none in the pretended elasticity of the Air it is a sign it is a mere pretense and no true Phaenomenon in Nature And now for the Authour 's other Argument which he raised out of his Pump which is this If there were any such elasticity of the Air suppose in a close Room or Glass that could keep up a Cylinder of Mercury I add and raise it too if a Tube of Materia subtilis only could be let down into it to 29 inches high which yet according to the amplitude of its Diameter may weigh two four or ten pound it were impossible but that the elatery of the air in his Pump it being open at K and B so that the Air may come in at B and either Air or Water go out at K should drive a portion of water into the Pipe of but half an inch diameter so that it may rise above the surface of the restagnant water in the Glass-bottle suppose an inch or half an inch high which is nothing in a manner to the raising of 10 pound weight Which we shall understand still more clearly and convincingly if we will suppose the Pipe of this Pump of such a diameter that 29 or 30 inches of Mercury in it would weigh 10 pound and a Glass-bottle of a diameter 18 times larger than that of the Pipe which is the proportion that this Glass-bottle does really bear to this Pipe in the Pump Then imagine this Glass-bottle so well replenish'd with Quick-silver that the restagnant Quick-silver will reach somewhat above the middle of the Glass the Pipe in the mean time filled 29 or 30 inches full of it it will stand at thereabout though it be 10 pound weight nay I dare appeal to any considered Philosopher if there were a Glass-Tube of 4 foot or longer of mere materia subtilis immitted into this Glass-bottle of Mercury sufficiently replenisht therewith if he can otherwise think but that the Mercury will rise up to about 29
REMARK the Nineteenth And further still detected by demonstrating the incredibility of the ascending of any vapours or steams from the Mercury into the derelicted space in the Tube REMARK the Twentieth A notable Objection of the Authour 's against the Opinion of Mercurial effluvia occupying the derelicted space of the Tube and such as himself does not answer REMARK the Twenty first A sound and ingenious demonstration of the Authour 's against the Hypothesis of an Atmospherical Cylinder suspending the Cylinder of Mercury in the Tube from the Tube of Mercury hung upon a Balance with its mouth some half an inch immersed in restagnant Mercury REMARK the Twenty second His ingenious obviating that evasion of a Cylinder of Air pressing on the top of the Tube of Mercury so hung as if that supplied the place of the Mercury in the Tube whose weight was discovered in the opposite Scale of the Balance REMARK the Twenty third His dextrous defeating as weak a subterfuge whereby they would elude the force of his former Answer REMARK the Twenty fourth Two neat Experiments of the Authour 's whereby he meets with all such elusions and unexceptionably demonstrates that the pressure of an Atmospherical Pillar in such like Hydrostatical Experiments is a mere mistake REMARK the Twenty fifth Another ingenious demonstration against the pressure of Atmospherical Cylinders from the standing of the Mercury in the Tube when the surface of the restagnant Mercury is not passing one fourth part of the Basis of the Cylinder of Mercury in the Tube REMARK the Twenty sixth His Argument from the Torricellian Experiment succeeding as well in a closed Receiver as in the open Air not imputable to the elasticity of the Air which supposes pressure it being already confuted here and more particularly in his sixth Chapter by the two Brazen Cylinders in the water REMARK the Twenty seventh His Experiment of the Bottle and heated Bolts-head how well it is levelled against the elasticity of the Air but his solution of the Phaenomenon unsatisfactory REMARK the Twenty eighth The Authour's Opinion that all those Experiments which the Virtuosi would give an account of from the pressure and elasticity of the Air are performed by suction and attraction more strictly to be examined in reference to that Experiment of the weight hung at the Embolus of the Air-Pump REMARK the Twenty ninth The various standing of the Mercury in the Tube according to the change of weather or placing it in higher or lower Air how that Observation is manageable against the opinion of Tension and Mercurial effluvia REMARK the Thirtieth The unexpected motions and agitations of things put into the Receiver upon a strong exhaustion of the Air-Pump that it is not from Tension of the rarefied Air but from some such Principle as the furious and rapid motion of winds is raised from the dissolution of the aqueous particles of the clouds REMARK the Thirty first That Experiment of Regius of drawing Tobacco smoak through water in a covered Cup by two pieces of a Tobacco-pipe can be no instance of such an Attraction and Rarefaction as this Author stands for but will serve to illustrate some of the Phaenomena in the foregoing Remark REMARK the Thirty second A description of the Torricellian Experiment in the chiefest example The groundlesness of the Authour's reasons of this Phaenomenon from the tension of the Mercurial effluvia in the derelicted space discovered REMARK the Thirty third A discovery of the Repugnancies of his solution of this Phaenomenon His ingenuous confession touching the Phaenomenon of Gravity that mechanical reasons are in vain attempted thereof That Aristotle's Philosophy implies a Spirit of Nature REMARK the Thirty fourth That the suspension of the Mercury is not to save the Vniverse from Discontinuity but to preserve the Air in its due consistency And that it is not Air but one common Spirit that is the Cement of the Universe REMARK the Thirty fifth That Attraction is not to be proved from Cupping-Glasses or the expansion of squeezed Bladders at the top of the Torricellian Tube REMARK the Thirty sixt What account is to be given of the jointly weighing of a Tube and Mercury of a Tube and Water and of a Glass and Water inverted on Mercury and Water REMARK the Thirty seventh The Authour 's plain declaration that the Laws of Nature are not mechanical together with the consequences of that concession and the necessity of introducing a Spirit of Nature The fond humour of the Philosophizers of this Age who whenas their Nature consists of Spirit as well as Body take all their measures of Philosophizing from Body none from Spirit REMARK the Thirty eighth Of the sticking together of two Marbles and that Fuga Vacui is but the final cause thereof and what may be the Efficient REMARK the Thirty ninth Stevinus his Experiment of a Rundle of wood lighter than water laid upon the hole of a bottom of a Vessel to be filled with water c. What an Argument it is against the Gravitation of water on water and against that monstrous Elasticity by some supposed of the Air. REMARK the Fortieth Of the close sticking together of the Magdeburg Hemispheres That neither Tension of the inward rarefied matter nor the Elasticity of the outward Air is the cause of it as also what in all likelyhood is REMARK the Forty first The Authour 's ingeniously contrived Pump and his mistake in attributing a Phaenomenon in it to inward Tension which is rather to be referred to the strength of the Consistency of the outward Air. REMARK the Forty second Other Phaenomena observable in the Authour's Pump and how there is no need of Tension for the solving of them but that they are notable intimations of the necessity of an Hylostatick Spirit in the world REMARK the Forty third An Argument from the Author 's own Pump that water is not suspended in Pumps by Tension but by Gravitation upwards more expresly here explained and at last resolved into the Hylarchick Principle together with a particular reason why in the proposed case of the Authour's Pump upon the elevation of the Embolus not one drop of water comes out REMARK the Forty fourth The uncertainty of success if the Pump were longer or heat applied to the Glass but certain Tension would find no place therein REMARK the Forty fifth The raising water and suspension of it in a Pump how it is effected REMARK the Forty sixth The insinuation of the Air into the Cavity of a Well whether it be the effect or the cause of the recession of the water or whether not rather both REMARK the Forty seventh Whether the protrusive force in a Pillar of free Air add any thing to the Elastick pressure thereof and whether the least proportion of Air has the same strength of spring that a greater As also a notable Argument from the elasticity of Air not raising the water in the Authour's Pump one inch whenas it is pretended that
is a body moveable downwards or has an intrinsick mobility downwards has its direction towards the earth But here I demand If the mobility of water upwards be not as intrinsick to it as downwards and the one conatus as primitive as the other since they are both only ex data occasione by the waters being misplaced for where the water is rightly placed it has no terminate motion at all and therefore all the directions of motion in water as to primitiveness or intresecalness are of the same kind And it has as all other bodies have a mobility every way but their actual nisus or motus is pro re nata REMARK the Twenty fourth And the Learned Authour from p. 63. to p. 66. has abundantly well proved this mobility of water or its parts that datâ occasione it will be moved upward downwards horizontally obliquely and indeed every way and that to opposite terms in the very same lines That is that this may be caused at several times and upon several occasions But that water has all these tendencies or pressures at once that his experiments will no way reach to This I think will plainly appear to any one that considers well my first Remark part 3. 4. and 5. REMARK the Twenty fifth In his description of this his Natural Account Remark 22. he declares that by the many other directions and tendencies in a fluid body the perpendicular is very near wholly suspended but here p. 68. l. 27. that â—t possibly may be that the line of direction in a perpendicular descent may be considerably stronger and more efficacious and consequently the Gravitation stronger because there contributes to that motion not only the nature of water as a fluid body but also as a heavy body But besides what I have above noted that the distinction betwixt a heavy body and a fluid where one and the same body is both heavy and fluid at once is not so congruous and that there is no such primitive Gravity or Gravitation distinguishable from the mobility and actual motion or tendency of any body downwards admit this intrinsick Gravity or Gravitation over and above to the mobility and motion of the water downwards yet seeing the mobility and motion of the water upwards is as urgent and nimble as that downwards they do one utterly defeat another and for all these the water retains its intrinsick Gravitation still so that this invention seems utterly useless and the parts of water would press upon one another notwithstanding this Hypothesis But if this intrinsick Gravity be a mistake of the Schools as I doubt not but that it is then that inconvenience will return which I mention in my first Remark part 5. That a Bucket of water will have no more heaviness in it than if it had no water in it which is contrary to experience which are plain indications of the invalidity of this Natural Account REMARK the Twenty sixth He says notwithstanding p. 70. l. 9. That if the line of the perpendicular descent of the Fluid be compared with all those various and many lines of its direction c. that the perpendicular motion of its Gravitation as an heavy body will be near altogether abated But it is to be observed that take all those various motions in whereby it may seem hopeful that the intrinsick Gravitation will be abated they will yet contribute nothing thereto because there is no tendency in any one line of them but there is an equal contertendency in the same so that their force is every way utterly defeated as I noted of the perpendiculars before REMARK the Twenty seventh What he is observed to say in the former Remark he farther illustrates and confirms p. 71. l. 13. by a like instance of Callice sand where he supposes their perpendicular Gravitation so hugely abated by their motion per declive and repeats the advantage Water has above the Callice-sand because the parts of water are conjoined in one continuum But that it is quite contrary I have above proved concerning the continuity as also in that kind of perpendicular Gravitation which is not pro re nata but intrinsick But we will here farther add That if there were any such thing as intrinsick Gravity every upper part would press on the lower and the greatest pressure would be at the lowest the least at top So little service does this conceit of Continuity And every grain of Sand where ever sited would ad summum virium thrust downwards REMARK the Twenty eighth But that they do not thrust so peremptorily downwards he says p. 72. l. 10. the cause is apparently beyond all contradiction that the accidental tendency of the Sands per declive doth break the perpendicular Gravitation so that it does not gravitate upon the most fragil subjected body in its full weight That this is no such apparent cause besides what we have noted above that in the foregoing Remark does further confirm if there were any such thing as intrinsick Gravity and though the Sands tumble per declive it does not at all follow when they are stopt and rest that they press per declive but downwards That an Animal therefore is not damnified under an high heap of Sand may have some such reason as the suspension of Fluids REMARK the Twenty ninth Touching the further explication and enforcement of this Natural Account of the Non-Gravitation of the parts of Fluids in a Cubick foot of water which he supposes just twelve pound weight perpendicular p. 73. l. 3. and that it is the common stock of all its pressures p. 74. l. 2. to be distributed as from one common cistern through so many Pipes l. 6. to serve all those Gravitations or Conatus ad motum for it hath not above twelve pound intrinsick weight to serve all these Conatus or Gravitations Here methinks it is most apparently deprehensible that where there is acknowledged to be no other stock of intrinsick weight but this twelve pound to be derived to those multifarious actual Gravitations Horizontal Oblique and directly upward and yet the virtue of this twelve pound perpendicular ponderancy is felt entire still that all the other actual Gravitations are mere imaginations of a curious mind and no real effects in Nature REMARK the Thirtieth Indeed the Learned Authour seems aware of this difficulty and propounds it as such p. 76. l. 3. but I must confess I understand not the force of his answer though he says it is plain For he says the water in the Bucket is as fluid a body as so much water in the Ocean but the Bucket of water is as one solid body The Bucket of water is the water in the Bucket which cannot be fluid and solid at once It is a perfect repugnancy in Nature It is therefore most certainly a fluid body even in the Bucket and will have all that belongs to a fluid body as such all those several Gravitations Oblique Horizontal and upward if
as one body with the water he attributing the suspension of the water in both to the attraction of the rarefied Air. But that Hypothesis being so fully confuted by me I am more sollicitous in these instances to give an handsom account of the jointly weighing of the Tube and Mercury of the Tube and Water and of the Glass and 〈◊〉 each of them as one joint 〈◊〉 than of confuting what is already confuted And the case I conceive stands thus By the Hylostatick laws of the Vniverse it is that heavy bodies will even press upwards as light upon heavy and jointly both against a far lighter though there be an heavy body betwixt which I a little above noted in the resiliency of the Quick-silver against the top of the Tube Now as there the Air and restagnant Quick-silver gravitated against the subtil matter in the top of the Tube through the column of Quick-silver in the Tube so the Air and Water gravitate both in the Tube and Drinking-glass against the rarefied Air therein it being thinner than the common Air and ascended in each so far according to Hylostatick laws As I doubt not but that if a whole Tube of such subtil matter as is at the top in the Torricellian experiment could be had and were inverted into restagnant Mercury the Mercury would be seen to ascend to 29 inches in the Tube as the water is seen to ascend in the Beer-glass and Tube In all which cases both the Mercury and Water ascend by a Libration which this Authour calls a Gravitation upwards and are held there by the same Law at such a gage and not by attraction or suspension But how then will you say does the Tube and Mercury the Tube and Water the Beer-glass and Water weigh each of them together as one joint body 'T is a considerable Problem but I answer The same Hylostatick Principle that thus librates them which is the Spirit of Nature does also but with a vincible and mutable union unite them For both motion and union is from Spirit as I have showed in my Enchiridium Metaphysicum And from hence it will be easily understood how when with the hand p. 247. l. 12. you lift up the Beer-glass towards the superficies of the restagnant water the water included will arise with it much above the superficies of the external water Which though it be not by that monstrous Elastick pressure of the Air that some are for yet it is by a Gravitation of the Air upon the water and of the water upwards and both of them jointly against the rarefyed Air in the Concave of the Glasse So little need is there of any Tension but merely of this Hylostatick Libration REMARK the Thirty seventh The Learned Authour p. 248. l. 16. speaks of the power and efficacy of the Laws of Nature in colligating strictly parts of the most distantial Textures and Consistencies without the help of Vellicles Hooks or Grappers or Atomi hamatae and p. 238. he says and that very truly and eloquently That all the men in the world can never give any satisfactory Reason why the motion of a Stone is downwards to the Earth more than to the Moon but only Nature that is the principium motûs quietis or rather the God of Nature whose standing and statuminated Law Nature is has so odered it and ordered it so in the best way for the use beauty and accommodation of the Vniverse Wherein he does plainly declare that the laws of Nature are not mechanical which if they be not they must be vital and if they be vital Laws what is the immediate Fountain next to God and subject in which this life is or this principium motûs quietis Is it a substance distinct from matter or is it an essential power or modification of matter it self For every thing is either substance or modification of substance If these Laws of Nature be an essential power or modification of matter matter is self-moving and is also herself-orderer even to the expression of all those curious footsteps of the Divine Wisdom in the Creation which is most apertly against Aristotle whom our Learned Authour has no mean respect for and who expresly gives only passivity to matter but derives activity from another Principle This is his frequent doctrine And then which is still worse it confounds the nature of Body and Spirit the motive and unitive power being immediately and originally in Spirit but the moveable and unitable in matter But if these vital Laws in Nature that conduce to the good of the Universe be not essential to the matter and act from it it remains there is a Spirit of Nature to which they are essential which is the mover and moderatour of the matter which wants no Vellicles Hooks or Grappers to hold those parts of matter together that are to be held or while they are to be held together nor Chissels to loose them as the Laws of Nature shall require This this Learned Authour seems to be assured a Spirit is capable of by the union of his Soul and Body and it is a wonder to me being we consist of those two Principles that the Genius of the Age is so generally such that they take all their measures of Philosophizing from their corporeal part none from their Spiritual as if they had forgot they had any such or were utterly unacquainted with its faculties or as if their entire personal compages were nothing else but a certain modified mass of Philosophizing matter But that mere matter should so peremptorily hold together without those Atomi hamatae the Epicureans talk of would be to me a greater wonder than that they should with them but that there remains the same wonder still how the parts of the Atomi hamatae hold together for Physical parts they must have or else they could have no figure Upon Chapter the Seventeenth REMARK the Thirty eighth OUR Learned Author p. 251. l. 12. resolves the close sticking together of two smoothed Marbles with a weight hung at the lowermost into Fuga vacui for as much as if there should be a parallel divulsion of them there would be some time motion not being in an instant before the interiour distance could be supplyed with matter Which therefore would cause a Vacuum in Nature Which no question Nature does abhor from and which might be without any Logical Repugnancy there being so plainly an Extensum every where distinct from matter as I have abundantly demonstrated in my Enchiridium Metaphysicum did not the Laws of Nature oppose it But we must note also that Fuga vacui is but the final Cause but those that slight this solution seek after an efficient Cause and here again we must either make matter self-moving and self-uniting or self-fixing or else we must have recourse to the Spirit of Nature and its Hylostatick Laws whereby it governs the matter and whereby indeed it holds the whole compages of the world