Of the great effects of Rarefaction 4. The first manner of condensation by heat 5. The second manner of condensation by cold 3. That Ice is not water rarifiâ—d but condensed 7. How wind snow and hail are made and wind by rain allayed 8. How parts of the same or divers bodies are joyned more strongly together by condensation 9. Vacuities cannot be the reason why water impregnated to the full with one kind of salt will notwithstanding receive more of another 10. The true reason of the former effect 11. The reason why bodies of the same nature jâ—yn more easily together then others 1. What attraction is and from whence it proceeds 1. The true sense of the Maxime that Nature abhors from vacuity 3. The true rea son of attraction 4. Water may be brought by the force of attraction to what height soever 5. The doctrine touching the attraction of water in Syphons 6. That the Syphon doth not prove water to weigh in its own orb 7. Concerning attraction caused by fire 8. Concerning attraction made by virtue of hot bodies amulets c. 9. The natural reason given for divers operations esteemed by some to be magical 1. What is Filtration and how it is effected 2. What causes the water in filtration to ascend 3. Why the filter will not drop unless the label hang lower then the water 4. Of the motion of Râ—stitution and why some bodies stand bent others not 5. Why some bo dies return only in part to their natural figure others entirely 6. Concerning the nature of those bodies which shrink and stretch 7. How great wonderful effects proceed from smal plain and simple principles 8. Concerning Electrical at action and the causes of it 6. Cabeus his opinion reâ—uted concerning the cause of Electrical motions 1. The extreme heat of the Sun under the Zodiack draws a stream of air from each pole into the Torrid Zone * Chap. 18. Sect. 7. 2. The Atoms of these two streams coming together are apt to incorporate with one another 3. By the meeting and mingling together of these streams at the Equator divers rivolets of Atoms of each Pole are continuated from one Pole to the other 4. Of these Atoms incorporated with some fit matter in the bowels of the earth is made a stone 5. This stone works by emanations joyned with agreeing streams that meet them in the air and in fine it is a Loadstone 6 A methode for making experiences on any subject 7. The Loadstones generation by atoms flowing from both Poles is confirmd by experiments observ'd in the stone it self 8. Experiments to prove that the Loadstone works by emanations meeting with agreeing streames 1. The operations of the loadstone are wrought by bodies and not by qualities 2. Objections against the former position answer'd 3. The Loadstone is imbued with his virtue from another body 4 The virtue of the Loadstone is a double and not one simple virtue 5. The virtue of the Loadstone works more strongly in the poles of it then in any other part 6. The loadstone sends forth its emanations spherically Which are of two kindâ— and each kind is strongest in that Hemisphere through whose polary parts they issue out 7. Putting two loadstones within the sphere of one another every part of one loadstone doth not agree wâ—th every part of the other loadstone 8. Concetning the declination and other respects of a needle towards the loadstone it touches 8. The virtue of the Loadstone goes from end to end in lines almost parallel to the Axis 10. The virtue of the Loadstone is not perfectly spherical though the stone be such 11. The intention of nature in all the operations of the loadstone is to make an union betwixt the attractive and attracted bodies 12. The main globe of the earth is not a Loadstone 13. The loadstone is generated in all parts or Climâ—t's of the earth 14. The conformity betwixt the two motions of magnetick things and of heavy things 1. Which is the North and which the South Pole of a Loadstone 2. Whether any bodies besides magnetick ones be attractive 3. Whether an iron placed perpendicularly towards the earth gets a magnetical virtue of pointing towards the north or towards the south in that end that lies downwards 4. Why loadstones affect iron better than one another 5. Gilberts reason refuted touching a cap'd Loadstone that takes up more iron then one not cap'd and an iron impregnated that in some case draws more strongly then the stone it self Galileus his opinion touching the former effects refuted 7. The Authors solution to the former questions 8. The reason why in the former case a lesser Loadstones draws the interjacent iron from the greater 9. Why the variation of a touched needle from the North is greater the nearer you go to the Pole 10. Whether in the same part of the world a touched needle may it one time vary more fâ—om the North and at another time less 11. The whâ—le doctrine of the loâ—dstone sum'd up in short 1. The connexion of the following Chapters with the precedent ones 2. Concerning several compositions of mixed bodies 3. Two sorts of Living Creatures 4. An engine to express the first sort of living creatures 5. Another Engine by which may be expressed the second sort of living creatures 4. The two former engines and some other comparisons applied to express the two several sorts of living creatures 7. How plants are framed 8. How Sensitive Creatures are formed 1. The opinion that the seed contains formally every part of the parent 2. The former opinion rejected 3. The Authours opinion of this question 4. Their opinion refuted who hold that every thing contains formally all things 5. The Authors opinion concerning the generation of Animals declared and confirm'd That one substance is changed into another 7. Concerning the hatching of Chickens and the generation of the other Animals 8. From whence it happens that the deficiences or excresences of the parents body are often seen in their children 9. The difference between the Authors opinion anâ—â—he former 〈◊〉 10 That the heart is imbued with the general specifike vertues of the whole body wherby is confirm'd the doctrine of the two former Paragraphes 11 That the heart is the first part generated in a living creatures 1. That the figure of an Animal is produced by ordinary second causes as well as any other corporeal effect 2. That the several figures of bodies proceed from a defect in one of three dimensions caused by the circumference of accidental causes 3. The former doctrine is confirmd by several instances 4. The same doctrine applyed to plants 4. The same doctrine declared in leaves of trees 16. The same applied to the bodies of Animals 7. In what sense the Author admits of vis formatrix 1. From whence proceeds the primary motion growth in Plants 2. Mr. des Cartes his opinion touching the motion of the heart 3. The former opinion rejected 4. The Authors opinion
they are moved be greater then the distance of the greater weight from the same point For 't is plain that the weight which is more distant must be moved a greater space then the nearer weight in the proportion of the two distances Wherfore the force moving it must carry it in a velocity of the said proportion to the velocity of the other And consequently the Agent or mover must be in that proportion more powerfull then the contrary mover And out of this practise of Geometricians in Mechanicks which is confirmd by experience 't is made evident that if other conditions be equal the excess of so much Gravity will make so much Velocity and so much velocity in proportion will recompence so much gravity Out of the precedent Conclusions another follows which is that nothing receds from quiet or rest and attains a great degree of Celerity but it must pass through all the degrees of Celerity that are below the obtain'd degree And the like is in passing from any lesser degree of velocity to a greater because it must pass through all the intermediate degrees of velocity For by the declaration of velocity which we have even now made we see that there is as much resistance in the Medium to be overcome with speed as there is for it to be overcome in regard of the quantity or line of extent of it because as we have said the force of the Agent in counterpoises ought to be encreas'd as much as the line of extent of the Medium which is to be overcome by the Agent in equal time exceeds the line of extent of the other Medium along which the resistant body is to be moved Wherfore it being proved that no line of extent can be overcome in an instant it follows that no defect of velocity which requires as great a superproportion in the cause can be overcome likewise in an instant And by the same reason by which we prove that a moveable cannot be drawn in an instant from a lower degree of velocity to a higher 't is with no less evidence concluded that no degree of velocity can be attain'd in an instant For divide that degree of velocity into two halfs and if the Agent had overcome the one half he could not overcome the other half in an instant much less therfore is he able to overcome the whole that is to reduce the moveable from quiet to the said degree of velocity in an instant Another reason may be because the movers themselvs such movers as we treat of here are Bodies likewise moved and consist of parts wherof not every one part but a competent number of them makes the moving body a fit Agent able to move the proposed body in a proposed degree of celerity Now this Agent meeting with resistance in the moveable and not being in the utmost extremity of density but condensable yet further because it is a body and every resistance be it never so small works something upon the mover though never so hard to condense it the parts of the mover that are to overcome this resistance in the moveable must to work that effect be condens'd and brought together as close as is needful by this resistance of the moveable to the mover and so the remote parts of the mover become nearer to the moveable which cannot be done but successively because it enclud's local motion And this application being likewise divisible and not all the parts flocking together in an instant to the place where they are to exercise their power it follows that whiles there are fewer moving parts knit together they must needs move less and more weakly then when more or all of them are assembled and appled to that work So that the motive virtue encreasing thus in proportion to the multiplying of the parts applied to cause the motion of necessity the effect which is obedience to be moved and quickness of motion in them oveable must do so too that is it must from nothing or from rest passe through al the degrees of celerityun till it arrive to that which all the parts together are able to cause As for example when with my hand I strike a ball till my hand touches it 't is in quiet but then it begins to move yet with such resistance that although it obey in some measure the stroke of my hand nevetiheless it presses the yeelding flesh of my palm backwards towards the upper and bony part of it That part then overtaking the other by the continu'd motion of my hand and both of them joyning together to force the ball away the impulse becomes stronger then at the first touching of it And the longer it presses upon it the more the parts of my hand condense and unite themselvs to excercise their force and the ball therfore must yeeld the more and consequent the motion of it 〈◊〉 quicker and quicker till my hand parts from it Which condensation of the parts of my hand encreasing successively by the parts joyning closer to one another the velocity of the balls motion which is an effect of it must also encrease proportionably therto And in like manner the motion of my hand and arm must grow quicker and quicker and pass all the degrees of velocity between rest and the utmost degree it attains unto For seeing they are the Spirits swelling the Nervs that cause the arms motion as we shall hereafter shew upon its resistance they flock from other parts of the body to evercome that resistance And since their journey thither requires time to perform it in and the nearest come first it must needs follow that as they grow more and more in number they must more powerfully overcome the resistance and consequently encrease the velocity of the motion in the same proportion as they flock thither till it attain that degree of velocity which is the utmost period that the power which the Agent hath to overcome the resistance of the medium can bring it self to Between which and rest or any other inferiour degree of velocity there may be design'd infinite intermediate degrees proportionable to the infinite divisibility of time and space in which the mover moves Which degrees arise out of the reciprocal yeilding of the medium And that is likewise divisible in the same infinite proportion Since then the power of all natural Agents is limited the mover be it never so powerful must be confined to observe these proportions and cannot pass over all these infinite designable degrees in an instant but must allot some time which hath a like infinity of designable parts to ballance this infinity of degrees of velocity and so consequently it requires time to attain to any determinate degree And therfore cannot recede immediately from rest to any degree of celerity but must necessarily pass through all the intermediate ones Thus 't is evident that all motion which hath a beginning must of necessity increase for some time And since the works of nature are
could strike it But it is evident say you out of these pretended causes of this motion that such atomes cannot move so swiftly downwards as a great dense body since their littleness and their rarity are both of them hindering to their motion Therefore this cannot be cause of that effect which we call gravity To this I reply That to have the atoms give these blows to a descending dense body 't is not requir'd that their natural and ordinary motion should be swifter then the descent of such a dense body but the very descent of it occasions their striking it for as it falls and makes it self a way through them they divide themselves before it and swell on the sides and a little above it and presently close again behind it and over it assoon as it is past Now that closing to hinder vacuity of space is a sudden one and thereby attains great velocity which would carry the atoms in that degree of velocity further than the descending body if they did not encounter with it in their way to retard them which encounter and tarding implyes such strokes upon the dense body as we suppose to cause this motion And the like we see in water into which letting a stone fall presently the water that was divided by the stone and swells on the sides higher then it was before closes upon the back of the descending stone and follows it so violently that for a while after it leaves a purling hole in the place where the stone went down till by the repose of the stone the water returns likewise to its quiet and so its superficies becomes even In the third place an enquiry occurs emergent out of this doctrine of the cause of bodies moving upwards and downwards Which is Whether there would be any natural motion deep in the earth beyond the activity of the Sun beams for out of these principles it follows that there would not and consequently there must be a vast Orb in which there would be no motion of gravity or levity For suppose the Sun beams might pierce a thousand miles deep into the body of the earth yet there would still remain a mass whose Diameter would be near 5000 miles in which there would be no gravitation nor the contrary motion For my part I shall make no difficulty to grant the inference as far as concerns motion caused by our Sun for what inconvenience would follow out of it But I will not offer at determining whether there may not be enclosed within that great sphere of earth some other fire such as the Chymists talk of an Archeus a Demogorgon seated in the centre like the heart in animals which may raise up vapours and boyl an air out of them and divide gross bodies into atoms and accordingly give them motions answerable to ours but in different lines from ours according as that fire or Sun is situated Since the far-searching Authour of the Dialogues de Mundo hath left that speculation undecided after he had touched upon it in the Twelfth knot of his first Dialogue Fourthly it may be objected that if such descending atoms as we have described were the cause of a bodies gravity and descending towards the center the same body would at divers times descend more and less swiftly for example after midnight when the atoms begin to descend more slowly the same body would descend more slowly in a like proportion and not weigh so much as it did in the heat of the day The same may be said of Summer and Winter for in Winter time the atoms seem to be more gross and consequently to strike more strongly upon the bodies they meet with in their way as they descend yet on the other side they seem in the Summer to be more numerous as also to descend from a greater height both which circumstances will be cause of a stronger stroke and more vigorous impulse on the body they hit And the like may be objected of divers parts of the World for in the Torrid Zone it will always happen as in Summer in places of the Temperate Zone and in the Polar times as in deepest winter so that no where there should be any standard or certainty in the weight of bodies if it depended upon so mutable a cause And it makes to the same effect that a body which lies under a thick rock or any other very dense body that cannot be penetrated by any great store of atoms should not be so heavy as it would be in the open and free air where the atoms in their compleat numbers have their full strokes For answer to these and such like instances we are to note first that 't is not so much the number or violence of the percussion of the striking atoms as the density of the thing strucken which gives the measure to the descending of a weighty body and the chief thing which the stroak of the atoms gives to a dense body is a determination of the way which a dense body is to cut to it self therfore multiplication or lessening of the atoms will not make any sensible difference betwixt the weight of one dense body where manya toms strike and an other body of the same density where but a few strike so that the stroak downwards of the descending atoms be greater then the stroke upwards of the ascending atoms and therby determines it to weigh to the Centrewards and not rise floating upwards which is all the sensible effect we can perceive Next we may observe that the first particulars of the objection do not reach home to enfeeble our doctrine in this particular although we admit them to be in such sort as they are proposed for they withal imply such a perpetual variation of causes ever favourable to our position that nothing can be infer'd out of them to repugne against it As thus When there are many atoms descending in the air the same general cause which makes them be many makes them also be light in proportion to their multitude And so when they are few they are heavy likewise when the atoms are light the air is rarified and thin and when they are heavy the air is thick And so upon the whole matter 't is evident that we cannot make such a precise and exact judgement of the variety of circumstances as to be able to determine when there is absolutely more cause of weight and when less And as we find not weight enough in either side of these opposite circumstances to turn the scales in our discourse so likewise we find the same indifference in experience it self for the weights we use do weigh equally in mysty weather and in clear and yet in rigor of discourse we cannot doubt but that in truth they do not gravitate or weigh so much though the difference be imperceptible to sense when the air is thick and foggy as when its pure and rarified Which thickness of the Medium when it arrives to a very
Retentive and the Expulsive faculties to be discoursed of wherof one kind is manifestly belonging to the voluntary motion which we have declared namely that retension and that expulsion which we ordinarily make of the gross excrements either of meat or drink or of other humours either from our head or stomach or Lungs for it is manifestly done partly by taking in of wind and partly by compressing of some parts and opening of others as Galen shews in his curious book de usu partium Another kind of Retention and Expulsion in which we have no sense when it is made or if we have it is of a thing done in us without our will though peradventure we may voluntarily advance it is made by the swelling of fibers in certain parts through the confluence of humours to them as in our stomach it happens by the drink and the juice of the meat that is in it which swelling closes up the passages by which the contained substance should go out as the moistening of the strings and mouth of a purse almost shuts it till in some for example the stomach after a meal the humour being attenuated by little and little gets out subtilely and so leaving less weight in the stomach the bag which weighs down lower than the nearer Orifice at which the digested meat issues rises a little And this rising of it is also further'd by the wrinkling up and shortning of the upper part of the stomach which still returns into its natural corrugation as the masse of liquid meat leavs soaking it which it doth by degrees still as more and more goes out and so what remains fills less place and reaches not so high in the stomach And thus at length the residue and thicker substance of the meat after the thinnest is got out in steam and the midling part is boil'd over in liquor comes to presse and gravitate wholly upon the Orifice of the stomach which being then help'd by the figure and lying of the rest of the stomach and its strings and mouth relaxing by having the juice which swell'd them squeez'd out of them it opens it self and gives way to that which lay so heavy upon it to tumble out In others for example in a woman with child the enclosed substance retain'd first by such a course of nature as we have set down breaks it self a passage by force and opens the orifice at which it is to go out by violence when all circumstances are ripe according to natures institution But yet there is the expulsion made by Physick that requires a little declaration 'T is of five kinds Vomiting Purging by Stool by Urine Sweating and Salivation every one of which seems to consist of two parts namely the Disposition of the Thing to be purged and the Motion of the Nervs or Fibers for the expulsion As for example when the Physician gives a Purge it works two things one is to make some certain humour more liquid and purgeable than the rest the other is to make the stomach or belly suck or vent this humour For the first the property of the Purge must be to precipitate that humour out of the rest of the blood or if it be thick to dissolve it that it may run easily For the second it ordinarily heats the stomach and by that means causes it to suck out of the veins and so to draw from all parts of the body Besides this it ordinarily fills the belly with wind which occasions those gripings men feel when they take physick and is cause of the guts discharging those humours which otherwise they would retain The like of this happens in Salivation for the humours are by the same means brought to the stomach and thence sublimed up to be spitten out as we see in those who taking Mercury into their body either in substance or in smoak or by application do vent cold humours from any part the Mercury rising from all the body up to the mouth of the patient as to the helm of a sublimatory and the like some say of Tobacco As for Vomiting it is in a manner wholly the operation of the fibers provoked by the feelling of some inconvenient body which makes the stomack wrinkle it self and work and strive to cast out what offends it Sweating seems to be caus'd by the heating of some nitrous body in the stomach which being of subtile parts is by heat dispersed from the middle to the circumference and carries with it light humours which turn into water as they come out into the air And thus you see in general and as much as concerns us to declare what the Natural Faculties are and this according to Galen's own mind who affirms that these faculties follow the complexion or temper of parts of a mans body Having explicated how Voluntary motion proceeds from the brain our next work ought to be to examine what it is that such an object as we brought by means of the senses into the brain from without contributes to make the brain apply it self to work such voluntary motion To which purpose we will go a step or two back to meet the object at its entrance into the sense and from thence accompany it in all its journey and motions onwards The object which strikes at the senses dore and getting in mingles it self with the spirits it finds there is either conform and agreeable to the nature and temper of those spirits or it is not that is to say in short it is either pleasing or displeasing to the living creature Or it may be a third kind which being neither of these we may term indifferent In which sort soever the obect affects the sense the spirits carry it immediately to the brain unless some distemper or strong thought or other accident hinder them Now if the object be of the third kind that is be indifferent as soon as it has strucken the brain it rebounds to the circle of the memory and there being speedily join'd to others of its own nature it finds them annex'd to some pleasing or displeasing thing or it doth not if not in beasts it serves to little use and in men it remains there till it be call'd for but if either in its own nature it be pleasing or displeasing or afterwards in the memory it be-became join'd to some pleasing or annoying fellowship presently the heart is sensible of it For the heart being join'd to the brain by straight and large nervs full of strong spirits which ascend from the heart 't is impossible but that it must have some communication with those motions which pass in the brain upon which the heart or rather the spirits about it is either dilated or compressed And these motions may be either totally of one kind or moderated and allay'd by the mixture of its contrary if of the former sort one of them we call Joy the other Grief which continue about the heart and peradventure oppress it if they be
refraction 6. An answer to the arguments brought in favour of Monsieur des Cartes his opinion 7. The true cause of refraction of light both at its entrance and at its going out from the refleing body 8. A general rule to know the nature of reflection and refractions in all sorts of surface 9. A body of greater parts and greater pores makes a greater refraction than one of lesser parts and lesser pores 10. A confirmation of the former doctrine out of the nature of bodies that refract light CHAP. XIV Of the composition qualities Generation of mixed Bodies 1. The connexion of this chapter with the rest and the Authours intent in it 2. That there is a least sise of bodies and that this least sise is found in fire 3. The first conjunction of parts is in bodies of least sise and it is made by the force of Quantity 4. The second sort of conjunction is compactedness in simple Elements and it proceeds from density 5. The third conjunction is of parts of different Elements and it proceeds from quantity and density together 6. The reason why liquid bodies do easily joyn together and dry ones difficultly 7. That no two hard bodies can touch one another immediately 8. How mixed bodies are framed in general 9. The cause of the several degrees of solidity in mixed bodies 10. The Rule whereto are reduced all the several combinations of Elements in compounding of mixed bodies 11. Earth and water are the basis of all permanent mixed bodies 12. What kind of bodies those are where water is the basis and earth the predominant Element over the other two 13. Of those bodies where water being the basis air is the predominant Element 14. What kind of bodies result where water is the basis and fire the predominant Element 15. Of those bodies where water is in excess it alone being both the basis and the predominant Element 16. Of those bodies where earth alone is the basis and also the predominant in excess over the other three Elements 17. Of those bodies where earth is the basis water is the predominant element over the other two 18. Of those bodies where earth being the basis air is the predominant 19. Of those bodies where earth being the basis fire is the predominant 20. All the second qualities of mixed bodies arise from several combinations of the first qualities and are at last resolv'd into several degrees of rarity density 21. That in the Planets Stars there is a like variety of mixed bodies caused by light as here on earth 22. In what manner the Elements work on one another in the composition of mixed bodies and in particular fire which is the most active 23. A particular declaration touching the generation of Metals CHAP. XV. Of the Dissolution of Mixed Bodies 1. Why some bodies are brittle and others tough or apt to withstand outward violence the first instrument to dissolve mixed bodies 2. How outward violence doth work on the most compacted bodies 3. The several effects of fire the second and chiefest instrument to dissolve all compounded bodies 4. The reason why some bodies are not dissolved by fire 5. The reason why fire melteth gold but cannot consume it 6. Why Lead is easily consumed and calcinted by fire 7. Why and how some bodies are divided by fire into Spirits Waters Oyls Salts and Earth And what those parts are 8. How water the third instrument to dissolve bodies dissolvs calx into salt and so into terra damnata 9. How water mingled with salt becomes a most powerful Agent to dissolve other bodies 10. How putrefaction is caused CHAP. XVI An Explication of certain Maxims touching the operations and qualies of bodies and whether the Elements be found pure in any part of the world 1. What is the Sphere of activity in corporeal agents 2. The reason why no body can work in distance 3. An objection answer'd against the manner of explicating the former axiome 4. Of re-action and first in pure local motion that each Agent must suffer in acting and act in suffering 5. The former Doctrine applyed to other local motions design'd by particular names And that Suisseths argument is of no force against this way of doctrine 6. Why some notions do admit of intension and remission and others not 7. That in every part of our habitable world all the four elements are found pure in small atoms but not in any great bulk CHAP. XVII Of Rarefaction and Condensation the two first motions of Particular bodies 1. The Authours intent in this and the following chapters 2. That bodies may be rarified both by outward and inward heart and how this is perform'd 3. Of the great effects of Rarefaction 4. The first manner of condensation by heat 5. The second manner of condensation by cold 6. That Ice is not water rarified but condensed 7. How Wind Snow and Hail are made and wind by rain allaid 8. How parts of the same or divers bodies are joyn'd more strongly together by condensation 9. Vacuities cannot be the reason why water impregnated to the full with one kind of salt will notwithstanding receive more of another 10. The true reason of the former effect 11. The reason why bodies of the same nature do joyn more easily together than others CHAP. XVIII Of another motion belonging to Particular bodies called Attraction and of certain operations term'd Magical 1. What Attraction is and from whence it proceeds 2. The true sense of the Maxime that Nature abhors from vacuitys 3. The true reason of attraction 4. Water may be brought by the force of attraction to what height soever 5. The doctrine touching the attraction of water in Syphons 6. That the Syphon doth not prove water to weigh in its own orb 7. Concerning attraction caus'd by fire 8. Concerning attraction made by virture of hot bodies amulets c 9. The natural reason given for divers operations esteem'd by some to be magical CHAP. XIX Of three other motions belonging to particular bodies Filtration Restitution and Electrical attraction 1. What is Filtration and how it is effected 2. What causes the water in Filtration to ascend 3. Why the filter will not drop unless the label hang lower than the water 4. Of the motion of Restitution and why some bodies stand bent others not 5. Why some bodies return only in part to their natural figure others entirely 6. Concerning the nature of those bodies which shrink aand stretch 7. How great and wonderful effects proceed from small plain and simple principles 8. Concerning Electrical attratâ—on and the causes of it 9. Cabeus his opinion refuted concerning the cause of Electrical motions CHAP. XX. Of the Loadstones generation and its particulas motions 1. The extreme heat of the Sun under the Zodiack draws a stream of air from each Pole into the torrid Zone 2. The atomes of these two streams coming together are apt to incorporate with one another 3. By the meeting and mingling together
of these streams at the Equator divers Rivolets of Atomes of each Pole are continuated from one Pole to the other 4. Of these Atomes incorporated with some fit matter in the bowels of the earth is made a stone 5. This stone works by emanatitions joyn'd with agreeing streams that meet them in the air and in fine it is a Loadstone 6. A Method for making experiences upon any subject 7. The Loadstones generation by Atomes flowing from both Poles is confirmed by experiments observed in the stone it self 8. Experiments to prove that the Loadstone works by emanations meeting with agreeing streams CHAP. XXI Positions drawn out of the former doctrine and confirm'd by experimental proofs 1. The operations of the Loadstone are wrought by bodies and not by qualities 2. Objections against the former position answer'd 3. The Loadstone is imbu'd with his vertue from another body 4. The vertue of the loadstone is a double and not one simple virtue 5. The vertue of the Loadstone works more strongly in the Poles of it than in any other part 6. The loadstone sends forth its emanations spherically Which are of two kinds and each kind is strongest in that hemisphere through whose polary parts they issue out 7. Putting two loadstones within the sphere of one another every part of one loadstone doth not agree with every part of the other loadstone 8. Concerning the declination and other respects of a needle towards the loadstone it touches 9. The vertue of the loadstone goes from end to end in lines almost parallel to the axis 10. The virtue of a loadstone is not perfectly spherical though the stone be such 11. The intention of nature in all the operations of the loadstone is to make an union betwixt the attractive and the attracted bodies 12. The main Globe of the earth not a loadstone 13. The loadstone is generated in all parts or climates of the earth 14. The conformity betwixt the two motions of magnetick things and of heavy things CHAP. XXII A solution of certain Problems concerning the Loadstone and a short summ of the whole doctrine touching it 1. Which is the North and which the South Pole of a loadstone 2. Whether any bodies besides magnetick ones be attractive 3. Whether an iron placed perpendicularly towards the earth doth get a magnetical virtue of pointing towards the North or towards the South in that end that lies downwards 4. Why loadstones affect iron better than one another 5. Gilbert's reason refuted touching a capped loadstone that takes up more iron than one not capped and an iron impregnated that in some case draws more strongly than the stone it self 6. Galileus his opinion touching the former effects refuted 7. The Authours solution to the former questions 8. The reason why in the former case a lesser Load stone draws the interjacent iron from the greater 9. Why the variation of a touched needle from the North is greater the nearer you go to the Pole 10. Whether in the same part of the world a touched needle may at one time vary more from the North and at another time lesse 11. The whole doctrine of the load stone summ'd up in short CHAP. XXIII A description of two sorts of Living creatures Plants and Animals and how they are framed in common to perform vital motion 1. The connexion of the following Chapters with the precedent 2. Concerning several compositions of mix'd bodies 3. Two sorts of living creatures 4. An engin to express the first sort of living creatures 5. An other engin by which may be express'd the second sort of living creatures 6. The two former enginâ— and some other compâ—risons upplyed express 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of living creatures 7. How plants are fram'd 8. How Sensitive creatures are form'd CHAP. XXIV A more particular survey of the generation of Animals in which is discover'd what part of the animal is first generated 1. The opinion that the seed contains formally every part of the parent 2. The former opinion rejected 3. The Authours opinion of this question 4. Their opinion refuted who hold that every thing contains formally all things 5. The Authours opinion concerning the generation of Animals declared and confirm'd 6. That one substance is chang'd into another 7. Concerning the â—atching of Chickens and the generation of other animals 8. From whence it â—ppens that the defi◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—scences of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seen in their children 9. The difference between the Authours opinion and the former 10. That the heart is iâ—ued with the generalâ— spâ—ific virtues of the whole body 〈◊〉 confirm'd the doctrine of the two former paragraphs 11. That the heart is the first part generated in a living creature CHAP. XXV How a Plant or Animal comes to that Figure it hath 1. That the Figure of an Animal is produced by ordinary second causes as well as any other corporeal effect 2. That the several figures of bodies proceed from a defect in one of the three dimensions caused by the concurrence of accidental causes 3. The former doctrine is confirmed by several instances 4. The same doctrine apply'd to Plants 5. The same doctrine declared in leafs of trees 6. The same apply'd to the bodies of Animals 7. In what sense the Authour admits of Vis formatrix CHAP. XXVI How motion begins in Living creatures And of the Motion of the Heart Circulation of the Blood Nutrition Augmentation and corruption or death 1. From whence proceeds the primary motion and growth in Plants 2. Monsieur des Cartes his opinion touching the motion of the heart 3. The former opinion rejected 4. The Authours opinion concerning the motion of the heart 5. The motion of the heart depends originally of its fibers irrigated by bloud 6. An objection answer'd against the former doctrine 7. The circulation of the bloud and other effects that follow the motion of the heart 8. Of Nutrition 9. Of Augmentation 10. Of death and sickness CHAP. XXVII Of the motions of Sense and of the Sensible Qualities in gegeral in particular of those which belong to Touch Tast and Smelling 1. The connexion of the subsequent Chapters with the precedent 2. Of the senses and sensible qualities in general And of the end for which they serve 3. Of the sense of touching and that both it and its qualities are bodies 4. Of the tast and its qualities that they are bodies 5. That the smell and its qualities are real bodies 6. Of the conformity betwixt the two senses of smelling and tasting 7. The reason why the sense of smelling is not so perfect in man as in beasts with a wonderful history of a man who could wind sent as well as any beast CHAP. XXVIII Of the sense of Hearing and of the sensible quality Sound 1. Of the sense of hearing and that sound is purely motion 2. Of divers arts belonging to the sense of hearing all which confirm that sound is nothing but motion 3. The same is confirmed by the effects caused
parts of it did not weigh and if a hole were dig'd in the bottome of the Sea the water would not run into and fill it if it did not gravitate over it Lastly there are those who undertake to distinguish in a deep water the divers weights which several parts of it have as they grow still heavier and heavier towards the bottom and they are so cunning in this art that they profess to make instruments which by their equality of weight to a determinate part of the water shall stand just in that part and neither rise or fall higher or lower but if it be put lower it shall ascend to its exact equally weighing Orbe of the water and if it be put higher it shall descend till it comes to rest precisely in that place Whence 't is evident that parts of water do weigh within the bulk of their main body and of the like we have no reason to doubt in the other two weighty Elements As for the opposition of the Syphon we refer that point to where we shall have occasion to declare the nature of that engine on set purpose And there we shall shew that it could not succeed in its operation unless the parts of water did gravitate in their main bulk into which one leg of the Syphon is sunk Lastly it may be objected that if there were such a course of atoms as we say and their strokes were the cause of so notable an effect as the gravity of heavy bodies we should feel it palpably in our own bodies which experience shews us we do not To this we answer first that there is no necessity we should feel this course of atoms since by their subtilty they penetrate all bodies and consequently do not give such strokes as are sensible Secondly if we consider that dusts and straws and feathers light upon us without causing any sense in us much more we may conceive that atoms which are infinitely more subtile and light cannot cause in us any feeling of them Thirdly we see that what is continual with us and mingled in all things doth not make us take any especial notice of it and this is the cause of the smiting of atoms Nevertheless peradventure we feel them in truth as often as we feel hot and cold weather and in all Catars or other such changes which as it were sink into our body without our perceiving any sensible cause of them for no question these atomes are the immediate causes of all good and bad qualities in the air Lastly when we consider that we cannot long together hold out our arm at length or our foot from the ground and reflect upon such like impotencies of our resisting the gravity of our own body we cannot doubt but that in these cases we feel the effect of these atomes working upon those parts though we cannot by our sense discern immediately that these are the causes of it But now it is time to draw our Reader out of a difficulty which may peradventure have perplext him in the greatest part of what he hath hitherto gone over In our investigation of the Elements we took for a principle thereto that gravity is sometimes more sometimes less then the density of the body in which it is but in our explication of rarity and density and again in our explication of gravity we seem to put that gravity and density is all one This thorn I apprehend may in all this distance have put some to pain but it was impossible for me to remedy it because I had not yet deliver'd the manner of gravitation Here then I will do my best to asswage their grief by reconciling these appearing repugnancies We are therefore to consider that density in it self signifies a difficulty to have the parts of its subject separated one from another and that gravity likewise in it self signifies a quality by which a heavy body descends towards the center or which is consequent thereto a force to make another body descend Now this power we have shew'd belong to density so far forth as a dense body being strucken by another doth not yield by suffering its parts to be divided but with its whole bulk strikes the next before it and divides it if it be more divisible then it self is So that you see Density has the name of Density in consideration of a passive quality or rather of an impassibility which it hath and the same density is call'd Gravity in respect of an active quality it has which follows this impassibility And both of them are estimated by the different respects which the same body or subject in which they are has to different bodies that are the terms whereto it is compared for the active quality or Gravity of a dense body is esteem'd by its respect to the body it strikes upon whereas its Density includes a respect singly to the body that strikes it Now 't is no wonder that this change of comparison works a disparity in the denominations and that thereby the same body may be conceiv'd to be more or less impartible then it is active or heavy A for example let us of a dense Element take any one least part which must of necessity be in its own nature and kind absolutely impartible and yet 't is evident that the gravity of this part must be exceeding little by reason of the littleness of its quantity so that thus you see an extremity of the effect of density joyn'd together in one body by the accident of its littleness with a contrary extremity of the effect of gravity or rather with the want of it each of them within the limits of the same species In like manner it happens that the same body in one circumstance is more weighty in another or rather in the contrary is more partible So water in a Pail because 't is thereby â—hinder'd from spreading abroad has the effect of gravity predominating in it but if it be pour'd out it has the effect of partibility more And thus it happens that meerly by the gradation of rarity and density one dense body may be apt out of the general course of natural causes to be more divisible then to be a divider though according to the nature of the degrees consider'd absolutely in themselves what is more powerful to divide is also more resistent and harder to be divided And this arrives in that degree which makes water for the falling and beating of the atomes upon water hath the power both to divide and make it descend but so that by making it descend it divideth it And therefore we say it has more gravity then density though it be the very density of it which is the cause that makes it partible by the working of one part upon another for if the atomes did not find the body so dense as it is they could not by their beating upon one part make another be divided So that a dense body to be more heavy then
coms as easily as the very air So that in this example as wll as in the other nature teaches us that gravity is no quality And all or most of the arguments which we have urg'd against the quality of gravity in that explication we have consider'd it in have force likewise against it although it be said to be an Inclination of its subject to move it self to unity with the main stock of its own nature as divers witty men put it For this supposition doth but change the intention or end of gravity and is but to make it another kind of intellectual or knowing Entity that determines it self to an other end which is as impossible for a natural quality to do as to determine it self to the former ends And thus much the arguments we have proposed do convince evidently if they be apply'd against this opinion CHAP. XII Of Violent Motion ANd thus we have given a shortscantling wherby to understand in some measure the causes of that motion we call natural by reason it has its birth from the universal Oeconomy of nature here among us that is from the general working of the Sun wherby all natural things have their course and by reason that the cause of it is at all times and in all places constantly the same Next which the order of discourse leads us to take a survey of those forced motions whose first causes the more apparent they are the more obscurity they leave us in to determine by what means they are continued When a Tennis-ball is stroken by a Racket or an Arrow shot from a Bow we plainly see the causes of their motion namely the strings which first yielding and then returning with a greater celerity cause the missives to speed so fast towards their appointed homes Experience informs us what qualities the missives must be endued with to move fast and stedily They must be so heavy that the air may not break their course and yet so light that they may be within the command of the stroke which gives them motion the striker must be dense and in its best velocity the angle which the missive is to mount by if we will have it go to its furthest randome must be the half of a right one and lastly the figure of the missive must be such as may give scope to the air to bear it up and yet not hinder its course by taking too much hold of it All this we see But when with all we see that the mover deserts the moveable assoon as he has given the blow we are at a stand and know not where to seek for that which afterwards makes it flie For motion being a transient not a permanent thing assoon as the cause ceases that begot it in that very point it must be at an end and as long as the motion continues there must be some permanent cause to make it do so so that as soon as the Racket or bow string go back and leave the ball or arrow why should not they presently fall straight down to the ground Aristotle and hs followers have attributed the cause hereof to the air but Galileo relishes not this conception His arguments against it are as I remember to this tenor Frst air by reason of its rarity and divisibility seems not apt to conserve motion next we see that light things are best carried by the air and it has no power over weighty ones lastly it is evident that air takes most hold of the broadest superficies and therfore an arrow would fly faster broad waies then long waies if this were true Nevertheless since every effect must have a proportionable cause from whence it immediately flows and a body must have another body to thrust it on as long as it moves let us examin what bodies touch a moveable whilst it is in motion as the only means to find an issue out of this difficulty for to have recourse to a quality or impressed force for deliverance out of this straight is a shift that will not serve the turn in this way of discourse we use In this Philosophy no knot admits such a solution If then we enquire what body 't is that immediately touches the ball or arrow while it flies we shall find none others does so but the air and the atoms in it after the strings have given their stroke and are parted from the missive And though we have Galileo's authority and arguments to discourage us from believing the air can work this effect yet since there is no other body besides it left for us to consider in this case let us at the least examin how the air behaves it self after the stroke is given by the strings First then t is evident that as soon as the rocket or bow-string shrinks back from the missive and leavs a space between the missive and it as 't is clear it does assoon as it has strucken the resisting body the air must needs clap in with as much velocity as they retire and with somwhat more because the missive goes forward at the same time and therefore the air must hasten to overtake it least any vacuity should be left between the string and the arrow 'T is certain likewise that the air on the sides also upon the division of it slides back and helps to fill that space which the departed arrow leaves void Now this forcible closing of the air at the nock of the arrow must needs give an impulse or blow upon it If it seem to be but a little one you may consider 't is yet much greater then what the air and the bodies swiming in it at the first give to a stone falling from high and how at the last those little atoms that drive a stone in its natural motion with their little blows force it peradventure more violently and swiftly than any impelling agent we are acquainted with can do So that the impulse which they make on the arrow pressing violently upon it after such a vehement concussion and with a great velocity must needs cause a powerful effect in that which of it self is indifferent to any motion any way But unless this motion of the air continue to beat still upon the arrow it will soon fall to the ground for want of a cause to drive it forward and because the natural motion of the air being then the only one will determine it downwards Let us consider then how this violent rending of the air by the blow the bow-string gives to the Arrow must needs disorder the little atones that swim to and fro in it and that being heavier then the air are continually descending downwards This disorder makes some of the heavier parts of them get above others that are lighter then they which they not abiding presse upon those that are next them and they upon their fellows so that there is great commotion and undulation caused in the whole masse of air round about the arrow which must
that when it is full it compresses itself by a quick and strong motion to expel that which is in it and that when it is empty it returns to its natural dilatation figure and situation by the ceasing of that agents working which caused its motion Wherby it appears to be of such a fibrous substance as hath a proper motion of its own Thirdly I see not how this motion can be proportional For the heart must needs open and be dilated much faster then it can be shut and shrunk together there being no cause put to shut and bring it to its utmost period of shrinking other then the going out of the vapour wherby it becomes empty which vapour not being forced by any thing but its own inclination may peradventure at first when there is abundance of it swell and stretch the heart forcibly out but after the first impulse and breach of some part of it out of the Cavern that enclosed it there is nothing to drive out the rest which must therfore steam very leasurely out Fourthly what should hinder the blood from coming in before the heart be quite-empty and shrunk to its lowest pitch For as soon as the vapour yeelds within new blood may fall in from without and so keep the heart continually dilated without ever suffering it to be perfectly and compleatly shut Fifthly the heart of a Viper layd upon a plate in a warm place will beat four and twenty houres and much longer if it be carefully taken out of its body and the weather warm and moyst and it is clear that this is without succession of blood to cause the pulses of it Likewise the several members of living creatures will stir for sometime after they are parted from their bodies and in them we can suspect no such cause of motion Sixthly Mounsir des Cartes his opinion the heart should be hardest when it is fullest and the eruption of the steam out of it should be strongest at the beginning wheras experience shews that it is softest when it is at the point of being full and hardest when it is at the point of being empty and the motion strongest towards the end Seventhly in Mounsir des Cartes his way there is no agent or force strong enough to make blood gush out of the heart For if it be the steam only that opens the doors nothing but it will go out and the blood will still remain behind since it lies lower then the steam and further from the issue that lets it out but Dr. Harvey findes by experience and teaches how to make this experience that when a wound is made in the heart blood will gush out by spurts at every shooting of the heart And lastly if Mounsir des Cartes his supposition were true the arteries would receive nothing but steams wheras it is evident that the chief filler of them is blood Therfore we must enquire after another cause of this primary motion of a sensitive creature in the beatings of its heart Wherin we shall not be obliged to look far for seeing we find this motion and these pulsations in the heart when it is separated from the body we may boldly and safely conclude that it must of necessity be caused by somthing that is within the heart it self And what can that be else but heat or spirits imprison'd in a tough viscous bloud which it cannot so presently break through to get out and yet can stir within it and lift it up The like of which motion may be observ'd in the heaving up and sinking down again of lose mould thrown into a pit intoe which much ordure hath been emptied The same cause of h at in the earth makes mountains and sands to be cast up in the very sea So in frying when the pan is full of meat the bubbles rise and fall at the edges Treacle and such strong compounded substances whiles they ferment lift themselvs up and sink down again after the same manner as the Vipers heart doth as also do the bubbles of Barm and most of Wine And short ends of Lute strings baked in a juicy pie will at the opening of it move in such sort as they who are ignorant of the feat will think there are Magots in it and a hot loaf in which quick-silver is enclosed will not only move thus but will also leap about and skip from one place to another like the head or limb of an Animal very full of spirits newly cut off from its whole body And that this is the true cause of the hearts motion appears evidently First because this virtue of moving is in every part of the heart as you will plainly see if you cut out into several pieces a heart that conservs its motion long after it is out of the Animals belly for every piece will move as Dr. Harvey assures us by experience and I my self have often seen upon occasion of making the great antidote in which Vipers hearts is a principal ingredient Secondly the same is seen in the auricles and the rest of the heart whose motions are several though so near together that they can hardly be distinguished Thirdly Dr. Harvey seems to affirm that the blood which is in the ears of the heart hath such a motion of it self precedent to the motion of the ears it is in and that this virtue remains in it for a little space after the ears are dead Fourthly in touching a heart which had newly left moving with his finger weted with warm spittle it began to move again as testifying that heat and moisture made this motion Fifthly if you touch the Vipers heart over with vineger with spirit of wine with sharp white-wine or with any piercing liquor it presently dyes for the acuteness of such substances pierces through the viscous bloud and makes way for the heat to get out But this first mover of an Animal must have somthing from without to stir it up else the heat would lie in it as if it were dead and in time would become absolutely so In Eggs you see this exteriour mover in the warmth of the Hens hatching them And in Embryons it is the warmth of the mothers womb But when in either of them the heart is completely form'd and enclosed in the breast much heat is likewise enclosed there in all the parts near about the heart partly made by the heart it self and partly caused by the outward heat which helped also to make that in the heart and then although the warmth of the hen or of the mothers womb forsake the heart yet this stirs up the native heat within the heart and keeps it in motion and makes it feed still upon new fewel as fast as that which it works upon decayes But to express more particularly how this motion is effected We are to note that the heart hath in its ventrickles three sorts of fibers The first go long ways or are straight ones on the sides of the ventricles
of the instrument which is the reason that the concave figure is affected in most and so when it breaks out of the instrument in greater quantity then the string immediately did shake it causes the same undulations in the whole body of Air round about And that striking the Drum of the ear gives notice therin what tenour the string moves whose vibrations if one stop by laying his finger upon it the sound is instantly at an end for then there is no cause on foot that continues the motion of the Air which without a continuation of the impulse returns speedily to quiet through the resistance made to it by other parts of it that are further off Out of all which 't is plain that motion alone is able to effect and give account of all things whatever that are attributed to Sound and that Sound and motion go hand in hand together so that whatever is said of the one is likewise true of the other Wherfore it cannot be deny'd but that hearing is nothing else but the due perception of motion and that motion and sound are in themselvs one and the same thing though expressâ—d by different names and comprised in our understanding under different notions Which proposition seems to be yet further convinced by the ordinary experience of perceiving musick by mediation of a stick for how should a deaf man be capable of musick by holding a stick in his Teeth whose other end lies upon the Vial or Virginals were it not that the proportional shaking of the stick working a like dancing in the mans head make a like motion in his brain without passing through his ear and consequently without being otherwise sound then as bear motion is sound Or if any man will still persist in having sound be some other thing then as we say and that it effects the sense otherwise then purely by motion he must nevertheless acknowledge that whatever it be it hath neither cause nor effect nor breeding nor dying that we either know or can imagine And then if he will let reason sway he will conclude it unreasonable to say or suspect so ill grounded a surmise against so clear and solid proofs which our ears themselvs not a little confirm their whole figure and nature tending to the perfect receiving conserving and multiplying the motions of air which happen without a man as who is curious may plainly see in the Anatomists books and discourses CHAP. XXIX Of Sight and Colours THere is yet left the object of our Sight which we call Colours to take a survey of for as for light we have at large display'd the nature and properties of it from which whether colour be different or no will be the question we shall next discuss For those who are cunning in Opticks will by refractions and reflexions make all sorts of colours out of pure light as we see in Rainbows in those Triangular Glasses or Prisms which some call Fools Paradises and in other inventions for this purpose Wherfore in brief to shew what colour is let us lay for a ground that Light is of all other things in the world the greatest and the most powerful agent upon our eye either by it self or by what comes in with it and that where light is not darkness is Then consider that light may be diversly cast especially through or from a transparent body into which it sinks in part and in part it doth not and you will conclude that it cannot choose but come out from such a body in divers sorts mingled with darkness Which if it be in a sensible quantity accordingly makes divers appearances and those appearances must of necessity have divers hues representing the colours which are middle colours between white and black since white is the colour of light and darkness seems black Thus those colours are ingendred which are call'd apparent ones And they appear somtimes but in some one position as in the Rainbow which changes place as the looker on doth but at other times they may be seen from any part as those which light makes by a double refraction through a Triangular Glass And that this is rightly deliver'd may be gather'd out of the conditions requisite to their production For that Chrystal or water or any refracting body doth not admit light in all its parts is evident by reason of the reflection it makes which is exceeding great and not only from the superficies but even from the middle of the body within as you may see plainly if you put it in a dark place and enlighten but one part of it for then you may perceive as it were a current of light pass quite through the body although your eye be not opposite to the passage so that manifestly it reflects to your eye from all the inward parts which it lights upon Now a more oblique reflection or refractiom more disperses the light and admits more privations of light in its parts then a less oblique one as Galileo hath demonstrated in the First Dialogue of his Systeme Wherefore a less oblique reflection or refraction may receive that in quality of light which a more oblique one makes appear mingled with darkness and consequently the same thing will appear colour in one which shews it self plain light in another for the greater the inclination of an angle is the greater also is the dispersion of the light And as colours are made in this sort by the medium through which light passes so if we conceive the superficies from which the light reflects to be diversly order'd in respect of reflexion it must of necessity follow that it will have a divers lustre and sight as we see by experience in the necks of Pigeons and in certain positions of our eye in which the light passing through our eye-brows makes an appearance as though we saw divers colours streaming from a candle we look upon And accordingly we may observe how some things or rather most appear of a colour more inclining to white when they are irradiated with a great light then when they stand in a lesser And we see Painters heighten their colours and make them appear lighter by placing deep shadows by them even so much that they will make objects appear nearer and further off meerly by their mixtion of their colours Because objects the nearer they are the more strongly and lively they reflect light and therfore appear the clearer as the others do more dusky Wherfore if we put the superficies of one body to have a better disposition for the reflection of light then another hath we cannot but conceive that such difference in the superficies must needs beget variety of permanent colours in the bodies and according as the superficies of the same body is better or worse disposed to reflection of light by polishing or by compressure together or the like so the same body remaining the same in substance will shew it self of a different colour And it being
For what can be the reason of this but that the brain employing the greatest part of his store of Spirits about that one object which so powerfully entertains him the other finde very few free for them to imbue with their Tincture And therefore they have not strength enough to give the brain a sufficient taste of themselvs to make it be observ'd nor to bring themselvs into a place where they may be distinctly discern'd but striving to get to it they lose themselvs in the throng of the others who for that time besiege the brain closely Wheras in Monsir des Cartes his way in which no spirits are required the apprehension must of necessity be carried precisely according to the force of the motion of the extern object This argument I confess is not so convincing against his opinion but that the necessity of the consequence may be avoided and another reason be given for this effect in Monsir des Cartes his doctrime For he may say that the affection being vehemently bent upon some one object may cause the motion to be so violent by the addition of inward percussions that the other coming from the outward sense being weaker may be drown'd by it as lesser sounds are by greater which forcibly carry our ears that way and fill them so entirely that the others cannot get in to be heard or as the drawing of one man that pulls backwards is not felt when a hundred draw forwards Yet this is hard to conceive considering the great eminency which the present object hath over an absent one to make it self be felt whence it follws that multiplication of motion must be extremely encreased wthin to overtop and bear down the motion caused by a present object actually working without But that which indeed convinces me to believe I go not wrong in this course which I have set down for extern bodies working upon our sense and knowledge is first the convenience and agreeablness to nature both in the objects and in us that it should be done in that manner and next a difficulty in Monsir des Cartes his way which me thinks makes it impossible that his should be true And then his being absolutely the best of any I have hitherto met withal and mine supplying what his falls short in and being sufficient to perform the effects we see I shall not think I do amiss in believing my own to be true till some body else shew a better Let us examine these considerations one after another 'T is manifest by what we have already establish'd that there is a perpetual flux of little parts or atomes out of all sensible bodies that are composed of the four Elements and are here in the sphere of continual motion by action and passion and such it is that in all probability these little parts cannot chuse but get in at the doors of our bodies and mingle themselvs with the spirits that are in our nervs Which if they do 't is unavoidable but that of necessity they must make some motion in the brain as by the explication we have made of our outward senses is manifest and the brain being the source and origine of all such motion in the Animal as is term'd voluntary this stroke of the object will have the power to cause some variation in its motions that are of that nature and by consequence must be a Sensation for that change which being made in the brain by the object is cause of voluntary motion in the Animal is that we call sensation But we shall have best satisfaction by considering how it fares with every sense in particular 'T is plain that our Touch or feeling is affected by the little bodies of heat or cold or the like which are squees'd or evaporated from the object and get into our flesh and consequently mingle themselvs with our spirits and accordingly our hand is heated with the flood of subtile fire which from a great one without streams into it and is benum'd with multitudes of little bodies of cold that settle in it All which little bodies of heat or of cold or of what kind soever they be when they are once got in must needs mingle themselvs with the spirits they meet with in the nerve and consequently must go along with them up to the brain For the channel of the nerve being so little that the most accurate Inspectors of nature cannot distinguish any little cavity or hole running along the substance of it and the spirits which ebb and flow in those channels being so in infinitely subtile and in so small a quantity as such channels can contain 't is evident that an atome of insensible bigness is sufficient to imbue the whole length and quantity of spirit that is in one nerve and that atome by reason of the subtilty of the liquor it is immers'd in is presently and as it were instantly diffused through the whole substance of it The source therfore of that liquor being in the brain it cannot be doubted but that the force of the extern object must needs affect the brain according to the quality of the said atome that is give a motion or knock conformable to its own nature As for our Tast 't is as plain that the little parts pressed out of the body which affects it mingle themselvs with the liquor that being in the tongue is continuate to the spirits and then by our former argument 't is evident they must reach to the brain And for our Smelling there is nothing can hinder Odors from having immediate passage up to our brain when by our nose they are once gotten into our head In our Hearing there is a little more difficulty for Sound being nothing but a motion of the air which strikes our ear it may seem more then needs to send any corporeal substance into the brain and that it is sufficient that the vibrations of the outward air shaking the drum of the Ear do give a like motion to the air within the ear that on the inside touches the Tympane and so this air thus moved shakes and beats upon the brain But this I conceive will not serve the turn for if there were no more but an actual motion in the making of Hearing I do not see how sounds could be conserved in the Memory since of necessity motion must always reside in some body which argument we shall press anon against Monsir des Cartes his Opinion for the rest of the Senses Out of this difficulty the very inspection of the parts within the ear seems to lead us For had there been nothing necessary besides motion the very striking of the outward air against the Tympanum would have been sufficient without any other particular and extraordinary organization to have produced Sounds and to have carried their motions up to the brain as we see the head of a Drum brings the motions of the Earth to our Ear when we lay it therto as we
in the utmost extremity without sending any due proportion of spirits to the brain till they settle a little and grow more moderate Now when these motions are moderate they immediately send up some abundance of spirits to the brain which if they be in a convenient proportion are by the brain thrust into such nervs as are fit to receive them and swelling them they give motion to the muscles and tendons that are fastned to them and they move the whole body or what part of it is under command of those nervs that are thus fill'd and swell'd with spirits by the brain If the object was conformable to the living creature then the brain sends spirits into such nervs as carry the body to it but if otherwise it causes a motion of aversion or flight from it To the cause of this latter we give the name of Fear and the other that carries one to the pursuit of the object we call Hope Anger or Audacity is mixt of both these for it seeks to avoid an evil by embracing and overcoming it and proceeds out of abundance of spirits Now if the proportion of spirits sent from the heart be too great for the brain it hinders or perverts the due operation both in man and beast All which it will not be amiss to open a little more particularly and first why painful or displeasing objects contract the spirits and grateful ones contrariwise dilate them It is because the good of the heart consists in use that is in heat and moisture and 't is the nature of heat to dilate it self in moisture whereas cold and dry things contract the bodies they work on and such are enemies to the nature of men and beasts And accordingly experience as well as reason teaches us that all objects which be naturally good are hot and moist in due proportion to the creature that is affected and pleas'd with them Now the living creature being composed of the same principles as the world round about him is and the heart being an abridgment of the whole sensible creature and besides full of blood and that very hot it comes to pass that if any of these little extracts of the outward world arrive to the hot blood about the heart it works in this blood such like an effect as we see a drop of water falling into a glass of wine which is presently dispersed into a competent compass of the wine so that any little object must needs make a notable motion in the blood about the heart This motion according to the nature of the object will be either conformable or contrary unless it be so little a one as no effect will follow of it and then 't is of that kind which above we call'd indifferent If the ensuing effect be connatural to the heart there rises a motion of a certain fume about the heart which motion we call Pleasure and it never fails of accompanying all those motions which are good as Joy Love Hope and the like but if the motion be displeasing there is likewise a common sense of a heaviness about the heart which we call Grief and it is common to Sorrow Fear Hate and the like Now 't is manifest by experience that these motions are all different ones and strike against divers of those parts of of our body which encompass the heart out of which striking follows that the spirits sent from the heart affect the brain diversly and are by it convey'd into divers nerves and so set divers members in action Whence follows that certain Members are generally moved upon the motion of such a passion in the heart especially in beasts who have a more determinate course of working than man hath and if somtimes we see variety even in beasts upon knowledge of the circumstances we may easily guess at the causes of that variety The particularities of all which motions we remit Physicians and Anatomists advertising only that the fume of pleasure and the heaviness of grief plainly shew that the first motions participate of Dilatation and the latter of Compression Thus you see how by the senses a living creature becomes judg of what is good what bad for him which operation is perform'd more perfectly in Beasts and especially in those that live in the free air remote from humane conversation for their senses are fresh and untainted as nature made them than in Men. Yet without doubt nature has been as favourable in this particular to men as them were it not that with disorder and excess we corrupt and oppress our senses as appears evidently by the Story we have recorded of John of Leige as also by the ordinary practice of some Hermites in the Deserts who by their taste or smell would presently be inform'd whether the herbs and roots and fruits they met with were good or hurtful for them though they never before had had trial of them Of which excellency of the Senses there remains in us only some dim sparks in those qualities which we call sympathies and antipathies wherof the reasonss are plain out of our late discourse and are nothing else but a conformity or opposition of a living creature by some individual property of it to some body without it in such sort as its conformity or opposition to things by its specifical qualities is term'd natubal or against nature But of this we shall discourse more at large hereafter Thus it appears how the senses are seated in us principally for the end of moving us to or from objects that are good for or hurtful to us But though our Reader be content to allow this intent of nature in our three inferiour senses yet he may peradventure not be satisfied how the two more noble ones the Hearing and the Seeing cause such motions to or from objects as are requisite to be in living creatures for the preservation of them for may he say how can a man by only seeing an object or by hearing the sound of it tell what qualities it is imbued with or what motion of liking or disliking can be caus'd in his heart by his meer receiving the visible species of an object at his eyes or by his ears hearing some noise it makes And if there be no such motion there what should occasion him to prosecute or avoid that object When he tasts or smells or touches a thing he finds it sweet or bitter or stinking or hot or cold and is therwith either pleased or displeased but when he only sees or hears it what liking or disliking can he have of it in order to the preservation of his nature The solution of this difficulty may in part appear out of what we have already said But for the most part the objects of these two nobler senses move us by being joyn'd in the Memory with some other thing that either pleas'd or displeas'd some of the other three senses And from thence it is that the motion of going to imbrace the object or
else but various mixtures of light and of darkness in bodies our Discourse assures us that by several compoundings of these extreams Reds Blews Yellows Greens and all other intermediate colours may be generated accordingly we shall find in effect that by the several minglings of black and white bodies because they reflect or drown light most powerfully or by interweaving streams of pure light and shadows one with another we may procreate new colours in bodies and beget new luminous appearances to our eys So that hence it appears clearly that the same nature is in our Understanding and in the Things and that the same Ordering which in the one makes Science in the other causes natural transmutations Another reflexion which will be fit for us to make upon these long discourses is this that of necessity there must be a joyning of some things now actually in our knowledg to other things we think not of For it is manifest that we cannot at the same time actually think of a whole book of Euclide and yet to the due knowledg of some of the last Propositions the knowledg of almost all the former is required likewise it is impossible we should at the same time think of all the multitude of rules belonging to any Art as of Grammar of Metering of Architecture and yet when we write in Latine make a Poem or lay the design of a House we practise them whiles we think not of them and are assured we go not against them however we remember them not Nay even before we know a thing we seem to know it for since we can have a desire of nothing but of what we know how could we desire to know such or such a thing unless we know both it and the knowledg of it And for the most part we see a horse or man or herb or workmanship and by our sense have knowledg that such a thing it is before we know what or who or how it is That grows afterwards out of the diligent observation of what we see which is that wherby learned men differ from the unlearned For what strikes the sense is known alike by them both but then here is the difference between them the latter sort sits still with those notions that are made at first by the beating of our sense upon us without driving them any further and those that are learned resolve such compounded notions into others made by more common beatings and therfore more simple and this is all the odds in regard of knowledg that a Scholar has of an unletter'd man One observation more we will draw out of what we have said and then end this Chapter it is how a man oftentimes enquires among his own thoughts and turns up and down the images he hath in his head and beats his brains to call such things into his mind as are useful to him and are for the present out of his memory Which as we see so necessary that without it no matter of importance can be perform'd in the way of discourse wherof I my self have too frequent experience in writing this Treatise so on the other side we cannot perceive that any creature besides Man doth it of set purpose and formally as man doth CHAP. IV. How a man proceeds to Action HAving thus taken a summary view of the principal Qualities a man is endued with Apprehending Judging and Discoursing and shew'd how he is inrich'd in and by them with the natures of all things in the world it remains for our last work in this part to consider in what manner he makes use of this treasure in his ordinary Actions which 't is evident are of two different kinds and consequently have two several principles Understanding and Sense they sway by turns and somtimes joyn together to produce a mixed action of both If only Sense were the fountain from whence his actions spring we should observe no other strain in any of them than meerly that according to which Beasts perform theirs they would proceed evermore in a constant unvariable tenour according to the law of material things one body working upon another in such sort as we have declared in the former Treatise On the other side if a man were all Understanding and had not this bright lamp enclosed in a pitcher of clay the beams of it would shine without any allay of dimness thorough all he did and he could do nothing contrary to reason in pursuit of the highest end he hath prefix'd unto himself For he neither would nor could do any thing whatever till he had first consider'd all the particular circumstances that had relation to his action in hand and had then concluded that upon the whole matter at this time and in this place to attain this End 't is fitting and best to do thus or thus which conclusion could be no sooner made but the action would without any further disposition on his side immediately ensue agreeable to the principles it spring from Both parts of this assertion are manifest For the first 't is evident that whenever an Agent works by knowledge he is unresolved whether he shall work or not work as also of his manner of working till his knowledg that ought to direct and govern his working be perfect and complete but that cannot be as long as any circumstance not-as-yet consider'd may make it seem fit or unfit to proceed and therfore such actions as are done without exact consideration of every particular circumstance do not flow from a pure understanding From whence it follows that when an understanding is not satisfied of every particular circumstance and consequently cannot determine what he must immediately do but apprehends that some of the circumstances not-as-yet consider'd may or rather must change some part of his action he must of necessity be undetermin'd in respect of the immediate action and consequently must refrain absolutely from working The other part is clear to wit that when the understanding upon consideration of all circumstances knows absolutely what is best the action follows immediately as far as depends of the understanding without any further disposition on his behalf For since nothing but knowledge belongs to the understanding he who supposes all knowledg in it allows all that is requisite or possible for it to work by Now if all be put nothing is wanting that should cause it to work but where no cause is wanting but all requisite causes actually in being the effect must also actually be and follow immediately out of them and consequently the action is done in as much as concerns the understanding and indeed absolutely unless some other cause fail as soon as the understanding knows all the circumstances belonging to it So as it is manifest out of this whole discourse that if a man wrought only by his understanding all his actions would be discreet and rational in respect of the end he hath proposed to himself and till he were assured what were best he
Syllogisms cannot be made without Universal propositions So that we see unless these things be strip'd from Place and Time they are not according to our meaning and yet nevertheless we give them both the name and nature of a Thing or of a Substance or of a living Thing or of whatsoever else may by manner of our conceiving or endeavors be freed from the subjection to Time and Place Thus then we plainly see that it is a very different thing to be and to be in a place and therfore out of a Things being in no Place it cannot be infer'd That it is not or is no Substance nor contrariwise out of its being can it be infer'd that it is in a Place There is no man but of himself perceives the false consequence of this Argument A thing Is therefore it is Hot or Cold and the reason is because hot and cold are particular accidents of a body and therfore a body can be without either of them The like proportion is between Being in general and Being a Body or Being in a Body for both these are particulars in respect of Being but to be in a place is nothing else but to be in a circumstant Body and so what is not in a Body is not in a Place therfore as it were an absurd illation to say it is therfore it is in a Body no less is it to say it is therfore it is somwhere which is equivalent to in some Body And so a great Master peradventure one of the greatest and judiciousest that ever have been tells us plainly that of it self 't is evident to those who are truly learned that Incorporeal Substances are not in Place and Aristotle teaches us that the Universe is not in Place But now to make use of this discourse we must intimate what 't is we level at in it We direct it to two ends First to lead on our thoughts and help our apprehension in framing some conception of a Spiritual Substance without residence in Place and to prevent our fancies checking at such abstraction since we see that we use it in our ordinary speech when we think not on it nor labour for it in all universal and indefinite terms Next to trace out an eminent propriety of a Separated Soul namely that she is no where and yet upon the matter every where that she is bound to no place and yet remote from none that she is able to work upon all without shifting from one to another or coming neer any and that she is free from all without removing or parting from any one A second propriety not much unlike the first we shall discover in a Separated Soul if we compare her with Time We have heretofore explicated how Time is the motion of the Heavens which give us our motion which measures all particular motions and which comprehends all bodies and makes them awaite his leisure From the large Empire of this proud Commander a Separated Soul is free For though she consist with time that is to say she is while time is yet is she not in time nor in any of her actions expects time but she is able to frame time to spin or weave it out of her self and master it All which will appear manifestly if we consider what it is to be in time Aristotle shews us that to be comprehended under time or to be in time is to be one of those moveables whose being consisting in motion takes up but a part of time and hath its terms before and behind in time is measured by it and must expect the flowing of it both for being and action Now all this manifestly belongs to Bodies whose both action and being is subject to a perpetual local motion and alteration and consequently a Separated Soul who is totally a being and hath her whole operation altogether as being nothing but her self when we speak of her perfective operation cannot be said to be in time but is absolutely free from it though time glide by her as it doth by other things And so all that she knows or can do she does and knows at once with one act of the understanding or rather She is indeed and really all that and therfore she doth not require time to mannage or order her thoughts nor do they succeed one another by such vicissitudes as men are forced to think of things by because their fansie and the Images in it which beat upon the Soul to make her think whiles she is in the body are corporal and therfore require time to move in and give way to one another but she thinks of all the things in the world and of all that she can think of together and at once as hereafter we intend to shew A third propriety we may conceiveto be in a Separated Soul by apprehending her to be an activity which that we may rightly understand let us compare her in regard of working with a Body Reflecting then upon the nature of Bodies we shall find that not any of them will do the functions they are framed for unless some other thing stir them up and cause them so to do As for example a Knife if it be thrust or pressed will cut otherwise it will lye still and have no effect and as it fares with a knife so with those bodies which seem most to move themselvs as upon a little consideration will appear plainly A Beast seems to move it self but if we call to mind what we have delivered upon this subject in the First Treatise we shall find that when ever he begins to move he either perceivs somthing by his Sense which causes his motion or elâ—e he remembers somthing that is in his brain which works the like effect Now if Sense presents him an object that causes his motion we see manifestly it is an external cause which makes him move But if Memory do it we shall find that stirr'd by some other part as by the stomack or the heart which is empty or heated or hath receiv'd some other impression from another body so that sooner or later we shall discover an outward mover The like is in natural motions as in Heavy things their easie following if they be sucked another way than downwards testifies that their motion downwards hath an extrinsecal motor as is before declared And not only in these but throughout in all other corporal things So that in a wotd all Bodies are of this nature that unless some other thing press and alter them when they are quiet they remain so and have no activity otherwise than from an extrinsecal mover but of the Soul we have declared the contrary and that by its nature motion may proceed from it without any mutation in it or without its receiving any order direction or impulse from an extrinsecal cause So that now suming up together all we have said upon this occasion we find a Soul exempted from the Body to be An indivisible
design'd to be in a 〈◊〉 Bâ—t â—er being in a Body is her being one thing with the Body she is sais â—o be in And so she is one part of a whole which from its weaker part is denominated to be a Body Again since the matter of any thing is to be prepared before the end is prepared for which that matter is to serve according to that Axiom Quodest primum in intentione est ultimum in executione we may not deny but that the Body is in being some time before the Soul or at least that it exists as soon as she doth And therfore it appears wholly unreasonable to say that the Soul was first made out of the Body and was afterwards thrust into it since the Body was prepared for the Soul before or at least as soon as she had any begining And so we may conclude that of necessity the Soul must be begun lay'd hatch'd and perfected in the Body And though it be true that such Souls as are separated from their Bodies in the first instant of their being there are notwithstanding imbued with the knowledg of all things yet is not their longer abode there in vain not only because therby the species is multiplied for nature is not content with barely doing that without addition ofsome good to the Soul it self as we for the wonderful and I may say infinite advantage that may therby accrew to the Soul if she make right use of it For as any act of the abstracted Soul is infinite in comparison of the acts which men exercise in this life according to what we have already shew'd so by consequence must any encrease of it be likewise infinite And therfore we may conclude that a long life well spent is the greatest and most excellent gift which nature can bestow on a man The unwary reader may perhaps have difficulty at our often repeating the infelicity of a miserable Soul since we say that it proceeds out of the judgments she had formerly made inthis life which without all doubt were false ones and nevertheless it is evident that no false judgments can remain in a Soul after she is separated from her Body as we have above determined How then can a Soul's judgments be the cause of her misery But the more heedful reader will have noted that the misery which we put in a Soul proceeds out of the Inequality not out of the Falsity of her judgments For if a man be inclined to a lesser good more than to a greater he will in action betake himself to the lessergood desert the greater wherin neither judgment is false nor either inclination is naught meerly out of the improportion of the two inclinations or judgments to the ir objects For that a Soul may be duely order'd and in a state of being well she must have a lesser inclination to a lesser good and a greater inclination to a greater good And in pure Spirits these inclinations are nothing else but the strength of their judgments which judgments in Soul's while they are in their Bodies are made by the repetition of more acts from stronger causes or in more favourable circumstances And so it appears how without any falsity in any judgment a Soul may become miserable by her conversation in this world where all her inclinations generally are good unless the disproportion of them make them bad CHAP. XII Of the perseverance of a Soul in the state she finds her self in aâ— her first separation from her Body THus we have brought Mans Soul out of the Body shelived in here by which she convers'd had commerce with the other parts of this world we have assign'd her her first array and stole with which she may be seen in the next world so that now there remains only forus to consider what shallbetide her afterwards and whether any change may happen to and be made in her after the first instant of her being a pure Spirit separated from all consortship with material substances To determine this point the more clearly let us call tomind an Axiom which Aristotle gives us in his Logick That As it is true if the effect be there is a cause so likewise 't is most true that if the cause be in act or causing the effect must also be Which Axiom may be understood two ways One that if the cause hath its effect then the effect also is and this is no great mystery norfor it are any thanks due to the teacher itbeing but a repetition and saying-over-again of the same thing The other way is that if the cause be perfect in the nature of a cause then the effect is which is as much as to say that if nothing be wanting to the cause abstracting precisely from the effect then neither is the effect wanting And this is the meaning of Aristotle's Axiome of the truth evidence wherof in this sense if any man should make the least doubt it were easie to evince it As thus If nothing be wanting but the effect yet the effect doth not immediately follow it must needs be that it cannot follow at all for if it can and doth not then somthing more must be done to make it follow which is against the supposition that nothing was wanting but the effect for that for which it is to be done was wanting To say it will follow without any change is sensles for if it will follow without change it follows out of this which is already put but if it follow out of this which is precisely put then it follows against the supposition which was that it did not follow although this were put This then being evident let us apply it to our purpose and put three or more things namely A. B. C. and D wherof none can work otherwise than in a instant or indivisibly And I say that whatever these four things are able to do without respect to any other thing besides them is compleatly done in the first instant of their being put and if they remain for all eternity without communication or respect to any other thing there shall never be any innovation in any of them or any further working among them but they will alwaies remain immutable in the same state they were in at the very first instant of their being put For whatever A can do in the first instant is in that first instant actually done because he works indivisibly and what can be done precisely by A. by his action joyned to B. precisely follows out of A. and his action and out of B. and his action if B. have any action independent of A And because all these are in the same instant whatever follows precisely out of these and nothing else that is in the same instant and works indivisibly as they do is necessarily done in that very instant but all the actions of C. D. of whatever by reflection from them may be done by A. and