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
REMARKS Upon Two late Ingenious Discourses The One An Essay touching the Gravitation and Non-Gravitation of FLUID BODIES The Other Observations touching the TORRICELLIAN EXPERIMENT So far forth as they may concern any Passages in his Enchiridium Metaphysicum By D r HENRY MORE 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot. LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops Head in S t Paul's Church-Yard 1676. IMPRIMATUR Antonius Saunders Ex Edibus Lamberhanis Novemb. 13. 1675. THE PREFACE Reader I Had not given thee the trouble of a Preface were it not for apologizing for a Phrase which I observe something frequently to occur in my Remarks which may seem to thee hugely Paradoxical if not very absurd It is Gravitation upwards I made use of it in imitation of the Learned Authour upon whose Discourses I make my Remarks Wherefore that thou maist the better discern how allowable or disallowable this form of speech is and that I may withall offer to thee that which may perhaps tend to the better opening thine understanding in Hydrostatical Theories I will lay down a simple Hypothesis for the illustrating that natural poize libration or Gravitation that Philosophers suppose they discover in the Fluid matter of this our Terrestrial world First therefore Let us imagine our Earth environed only with the Materia subtilis that Des Cartes has so curiously described or more plainly and intelligibly with the pure subtil Aether which is a liquid body of that subtilty that it will with ease penetrate all bodies in some measure but abundantly the pores of Glass Secondly Let us consider that a Hail-shot Gravel Quick-silver and the like may be poized in Water and Corn Chaff Currans Powders and such like in the Air and that they will subside or weigh one against another in the said Elements so the particles of these Elements themselves Water and Air and the vapours therein are as it were weighed or poized in this more universal Liquidum of the Aether Thirdly That the particles of Quick-silver Water Vapours Air and in brief what ever is conteined in that which they call the Atmosphere if there be no lett nor new emergent mutation are in this poizing placed according to their solidity chiefly of the very particles they do consist suppose Air Water Quick-silver according as I have declared in my first Hydrostatical Axiom Enchirid. Metaphys cap. 13. sect 10. Fourthly That in some sense all the parts and particles of the Atmosphere even the thinnest Air at the Convexity thereof are heavy namely thus That if they were upon some occasion raised higher than the convexity those thin parts of Air would descend again to the said convexity as sure as the vapours do in Dew on the Grass or raised Dust does upon any pavement or floor Fifthly That this we call heaviness is nothing else but a capacity in the parts or particles of the Atmosphere to be placed according to their solidity by that what ever it is that moves them or disposes them Sixthly That when these particles of Fluids in the Atmosphere are so disposed with regard to their different solidity as is according to the Laws of this moving Principle they press not then on one another but as to any actual Gravitation on one another they are at rest Seventhly This diversity of solidity in the particles is the cause why we see Elements and liquids in such different places and of such different Consistencies As Quick-silver below water water below air the thicker air below the thinner and their Consistencies accordingly Eighthly That the more solid the particles are in fluids the more strong their consistency is as well as they are thereby more heavy Ninthly That as the moving or disposing Principle brought the several Liquids to such various differences of consistency by a positive action so it keeps them in the same consistency by a like positive action or force though upon occasion mutable or vincible Tenthly That there may be a very strong consistency in Liquids without any elasticity or springiness at all as in Quick-silver and Water which are not compressible Elevently That there may be a compressible consistency considerably strong where there is little or no elasticity of parts A thing easily discernible in the wringing or pressing in a mans hand a wet Handkerchief and of such a compressible consistency may be our lower Air stuffed with thick vapours as also consisting of the grosser Aëreal Particles Twelfthly That all poizings suspensions or librations of heavy liquid bodies are not by a mere counterpoize of perpendicular pressure of another body but may be by the firmness or force of its consistency I speak this in reference to the Torricellian experiment and the standing of the water in Pumps and Syringes which is thus solved with the greatest ease and intelligibleness that may be by supposing so strong a consistency in this lower Air that the firmness thereof will resist the weight of suppose 29 inches of Mercury in a Tube or of 34 foot of water in a Pump but will be broke by the weight of 30 or 31 inches of Mercury and 35 or 36 foot of water and suffer compression to the letting in the subtil liquidum or Aether in which the whole Atmosphere is poized into the Glass or Pump whereby the Mercury or Water is made capable to descend And 29 inches of Mercury being of one weight with 34 foot of water in a Tube of the same diameter it is plain that this is the poize that equals either the firmness of consistency or else the weight of the Air. Thirteenthly But here now I say lies the curiosity of the Theory whether this suspension suppose of the Mercury in the Tube be to be conceived to be by perpendicular pressure or actual Gravitation of the Air upon the restagnant Mercury or else as I intimated before by the firmness of its consistency it being not compressible by no greater weight than that of 29 inches of Mercury and so there being no vacuum nor penetration of dimensions the circle of motion is necessarily stopt and the Mercury stands at that pitch To which I conceive is most safely answered That when the Mercury is fallen to 29 inches that there is a kind of libration betwixt the air jointly with the restagnant Mercury and the Mercury in the Tube For upon the infusing of water upon the restagnant Mercury that in the Tube will proportionably ascend And this the Learned Authour upon whom I make the Remarks will call Gravitation upwards because its tendency is towards that more subtil matter in the derelicted space in the Glass And this Libration is not much unlike that in a Siphon with one leg much higher than another into which putting some quick-silver which will presently poize it self into an equality in each shank if you pour water into the longer shank the quick-silver in the other will ascend accordingly which is again a kind of Gravitation upwards against the thin Air and answers to the
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