a Board or Ship upon the water Because the water being continuously thick coheres together and will not suffer her self to be divided whereby they happen to be lifted up by the water VI. Whether all hard waterish bodies are freed from fire No For although a slame is extinguisht by them yet that hinders not but that fire may be contained within them in particles and close shut up between their pores This appears in Crystal which being smartly struck by another hard body doth emit sparks of slaming fire from it like unto a Flint So neither is Ice it self bare within its pores of some small particles of fire CHAP. III. Comprizing Problems touching the Air. 1. Whether Air be weighty 2. Whether a Bladder blown up with wind be heavier than when empty 3. Why water contained in a beer glass being turned round with ones hand doth turn contrary against the motion of the Glass 4. Why a breath being blown with a close mouth doth feel cool and efflated with a diducted mouth feel warm 5. Why an armed point of an Arrow groweth hot in being shot through the air 6. Why Beer or Wine will not run out of the Cask without opening a hole atop 7. What difference there is between an Oricane and a Travada 8. Whether it be true that Winds may be hired from Witches or Wizards in Iseland 9. Why is it quieter in the night than in the day I. VVHether Air be weighty Answ. Air considered as enjoying its Center is light and doth not participate of any weight since it would only move from the Center to the Circumference and ever force extraneous bodies upwards Ergo Air absolutely conceived is only light 2. Air in its present state is also weighty but accidentally only and not essentially because of its sinking downwards towards the Center II. Whether a Bladder blown up with wind be heavier than when empty Answ. There hath been trial made of this to wit of the weight of a bladder blown up by Bellows atop of a high hill in a pair of Scales and it was found that an empty bladder weighed heavier than one filled with wind the same is also deprehended by casting them both into the water where we shall find the empty bladder first to be equal with the Surface of the water and afterwards to sink down a little whereas the windy one swimmeth atop The cause is by reason a bladder extended by the air within is supported by it and being rendred more porous and subtil through its obduction the air doth easily pass without any resistance and therefore doth not depress it so much as an empty bladder which through its corrugation and lesser diduction is more dense and therefore receiving the depressing force of the air much stronger besides being more acute is apter for to cut through the inferiour air whereas a bladder blown up is obtuse and doth as it were swim in the air But if a bladder be blown up with ones breath then doubtless it will prove heavier than an empty one because of the vaporous or heavy waterish air contained within III. Why doth the water contained in a beer glass being turned round with your hand turn contrary against the motion of the glass the same is observed in rouling a barrel full of water where the liquor turns contrary against the barrel Ans. The water is here detained flat or held fast by the air sinking down whence it is that the water seems to move against the motion of the Vessel being glib or slippery and smooth and therefore not detaining the vessel in its motion IV. Why doth a breath being blown with a close mouth feel cool and efflated with a diducted mouth feel warm Answ. Because the breath or incrassated air of a close mouth is more united and longer continuated whereby it doth vigorously puffe the ambient air whose compression felt causes cold as I have explained it in Book 1. Part 2. Now through the union of the incrassated air that is efflated the hot minims of the breath are deeply and equally impressed into the substance of the vaporous air whence their vertue is also suppressed but in breathing of the said air out of an open mouth the fiery minims do come forth in troops unequally and but superficially mixt in or supported by the said incrassated air whence they abide energick besides the air being but little puffed makes little or no compression Hence you may also collect a reason why the air doth refrigrate being agitated with a Fan. V. Why doth an armed point of an Arrow grow hot in being shot through the air Answ. Because its body and pores are somewhat opened by the air grinding against it whereby its fiery parts procure an occasion of being unired and condensed This doth also resolve us why a Knife being smartly whetted emits sparks of fire or why a Flint being struck hard against a piece of Steel doth likewise sparkle fire from it viz. because its solid parts are opened and disjoyned through the concussion whereby the fiery minims happen to be united and condensed Likewise many cold bodies by being chawed or contrited do afterwards grow hot VI. Why will not Beer or Wine run out of the Cask without opening a hole atop Answ. Because of the continuous adhesion or cohesion of the continuous parts of the liquor to the continuous parts of the Cask but as soon as it is averruncated divided and impelled downwards by the air entring at the upper hole it runs freely out of the Tap. That it is the air entring atop which presseth out the liquor is apparent by the cavity atop which the fore-impulse of the air entring causeth VII What difference is there between an Oricane and a Travada Answ. An Oricane is usually much more violent and therefore also much less lasting bursting down circularly from all parts like to a Whirlwind A Travada is more lasting and less violent and erupts directly down from one tract and in no wise circularly which as it oft rages upon the Seas off the shores of Coramandel Manicongo Guiny c. so the former is more frequent in the West-Indian Climates VIII Whether it be true that Winds may be hired from Witches or Wizzards in Iseland Answ. It is certain that the Winds blow very variously and manifold about that Island insomuch that it is not rare to see Ships sailing several courses at once all of them being equally favoured by a good wind The cause of this being vulgarly not known hath occasioned people to brand the old men and women there with Witchcraft whom the roughness of the air may cause to look rugged like the devils correspondents selling the winds by retail The causes of this variety are great winds erupting oft out of several holes of the earth about the Island especially about the Mount Hecla which many believe to be the mouth of hell because of those prodigious thunders and murmurings of winds that are perceived thereabout IX Why is it
The division of water p. 289. 3. VVhat a Lake is The strange vertues of some Lakes 290 291 292. 4. VVhat a Fountain is The wonderfull properties of some Fountains p. 293 to 295. 5. Of Physical Wells p. 296. Of Baths p. 297. 7. Of Rivers and their rare properties ib. 298. 8. Of the chief Straits of the Sea p. 299 230. CHAP. VII Of the Circulation of the Ocean 1. That the disburdening of the Eastern Rivers into the Ocean is not the cause of its Circulation neither are the Sunne or Moon the principal causes of this motion p. 301 302. 2. The periodical course of the Ocean The causes of the high and low waters of the Ocean p. 303 304 305. 3. How it is possible that the Ocean should move so swiftly as in 12 hours and somewhat more to slow about the terrestrial Globe p 306 307 308. 4. A further explanation of the causes of the intumescence and detumescence of the Ocean The causes of the anticipation of the floud of the Ocean 309 to 312. 5. That the Suns intense heat in the torrid Zone is a potent adjuvant cause of the Oceans circulation and likewise the minima's descening from the Moon and the Polar Regions p. 313 to 316. CHAP. VIII Of the course of the Sea towards the Polar Coasts 1. What the Libration of the Ocean is That the Tides are not occasioned by Libration The Navil of the World Whence the Seas move towards the North Polar Why the Ebb is stronger in the Narrow Seas than the Floud and why the Floud is stronger than the Ebb in the Ocean Why the Irish Seas are so rough p. 316 317 318. 2. VVhy the Baltick Sea is not subjected to Tides The rise of the East Sea or Sinus Codanus p. 319. 3. The cause of the bore in the River of Seyne p. 320. 4. The causes of the courses of the Mediterranean The rise of this Sea ib. 321. CHAP. IX Of Inundations 1. Of the rise of the great Gulphs of the Ocean The causes of Inundations That the Deluge mentioned in Genesis was not universal The explanation of the Text. p 422 323. 2. The manner of the Deluge That it was not occasioned through the overfilling of the Ocean p. 324. 3. That there hapned very great Deluges since when and where p. 325. 4. The effects of the first deluge ib. 5. Inland Inundations p. 327. CHAP. X. Of the causes of the before-formentioned properties of Lakes 1. Whence the Lake Asphaltites is so strong for sustaining of weighty bodies and why it breeds no Fish The cause of qualities contrary to these in other Lakes The cause of the effects of the Lake Lerna p. 328. 2. Whence the vertues of the Lake Eaug of Thrace Gerasa the Lake among the Troglodites Clitorius Laumond Vadimon and Benaco are derived ib. 3. Whence the properties of the Lake Larius Pilats Pool and the Lake of Laubach emanate p. 329. CHAP. XI Of the rise of Fountains Rivers and Hills 1. That Fountains are not supplied by rain p. 330. 2. Aristotles opinion touching the rise of Fountains examined p. 331. 3. The Authors assertion concerning the rise of Fountains The rise of many principal Fountains of the world ib 332. 4. Why Holland is not mountanous p. 333. 5. That the first deluge was not the cause of Hills ib. 334 6. Whence that great quantity of water contained within the bowels of the Earth is derived p. 335. 7. Whence it is that most shores are mountanous Why the Island Ferro is not irrigated with any Rivers Why the Earth is depressed under the torrid Zone and elevated towards the Polars The cause of the multitude of Hills in some Countries and scarcity in others ib. 336. 8. How it is possible for the Sea to penetrate into the bowels of the Earth p. 337. CHAP XII Of the causes of the effects produced by Fountains 1. Whence some Fountains are deleterious The cause of the effect of the Fountain Lethe of Cea Lincystis Arania The causes of foecundation and of rendring barren of other Fountains The causes of the properties of the Fountains of the Sun of the Eleusinian waters of the Fountains of Illyrium Epirus Cyreniaca Arcadia the Holy Cross Sibaris Lycos of the unctious Fountain of Rome and Jacobs Fountain p. 338 339. 2. The causes of the effects of Ipsum and Barnet Wells p. 340. 3. Whence the vertues of the Spaw waters are derived ib. 4. Of the formal causes of Baths 341. CHAP. XIII Of the various Tastes Smells Congelation and Choice of Water 1. Various tastes of several Lakes Fountain and River waters p. 342. 2. The divers sents of waters p. 343. 3. The causes of the said Tastes That the saltness of the Sea is not generated by the broyling heat of the Sun The Authors opinion ib. 4. The causes of the sents of wates p. 345. 5. What Ice is the cause of it and manner of its generation Why some Countries are less exposed to frosts than others that are nearer to the Line ib. 346. 6. The differences of frosts Why a frost doth usually begin and end with the change of the Moon p. 347. 7. The original or rise of frosty minims Why fresh waters are aptest to be frozen How it is possible for the Sea to be frozen p. 348. 8. What waters are the best and the worst the reasons of their excellency and badaess p 349 350. CHAP. XIV Of the commerce of the Ayr with the other Elements 1. How the Air moves downwards VVhat motions the Elements would exercise supposing they enjoyed their Center VVhy the Air doth not easily toss the terraqueous Globe out of its place How the Air is capable of two contrary motions 351 352. 2. That the Air moves continually from East through the South to West and thence back again to the East through the North. p. 353. 3. An Objection against the airs circular motion answered p. 354. 4. The Poles of the Air. ib. 5. The proportion of Air to Fire its distinction into three profundities p. 355 CHAP. XV. Of the production of Clouds 1. VVhat a Cloud is how generated its difference How a Rainbow is produced Whether there appeared any Rainbows before the Floud 356 2. The generation of Rain p. 357. 3. How Snow and Hail are engendred p. 358. 4. The manner of generation of winds ib. to 362. 5 The difference of winds Of Monzones Provincial winds general winds c. Of the kinds of storms and their causes What a mist and a dew are p. 362 to 370. CHAP. XVI Of Earthquakes together with their effects and some strange instances of them 1. VVhat an Earthquake is The manner of its generation The concomitants thereof p. 370. 2. The kinds and differences of Earthquakes ib. 371 372. 3. The proof of the generation of Earthquakes p. 373. 4. Their Effects upon the air p. 374. CHAP. XVII Of fiery Meteors in the Air. 1. Of the generation of a Fools fire a Licking fire Helens fire Pollux
both particularly to man for whose sake the same extended also to other creatures We are likewise to remember man in his twofold state to wit of Integrity and Deficience Gods Ordination then upon man was that he and all other Animals and Vegetables for his sake should encrease after their own kind during mans Integrity This Ordination upon Gods Creatures is answered and effected by Powers and Dispositions created by him in them According to which Powers all Creatures acted All the Actions of man did therefore depend from his Powers to wit his Propagation from his Generative Power which again was subjected to his Phansie and that to his will and understanding Wherefore as long as his will and understanding did will and understand nothing but what was perfect his Phansie could receive no other Impression but of Perfections which could not cause any Errour in the Generative power and therefore had man abided in his entire state he nor any other Creatures could have generated Monsters Man having through his deficience corrupted his Faculties no wonder if their Acts are also corrupted and their effects corrupted and corruptible Hence then it is beyond scruple that Gods Ordination did immediately relate to the Powers of all Creatures and herein are all beings true and answerable to their end and therefore perfect You may urge an Inconvenience to follow this Solution because thereby God seems to be the original cause of Monsters or evil for if God had conferred perfect powers upon man man could not have changed them of himself wherefore God must be supposed to alter them dispositions and faculties I Answer That God was not the original cause of this alteration but man himself through his sin which therefore was the first impulsive cause 'T is certain that God was the efficient cause of this Alteration of Powers yet Gods Act was not evil therein but good and perfect because his Justice did require it for this change upon man was his punishment If so none can or will attribute the evil following a punishment of a Malefactor to him that punisheth or to the punishment it self but to the Malefactor whose Default and Crime was the cause of that evil which befel him after his punishment IV. Austin in the 5th Chap. 2 Book of his Soliloquies states the Description of Truth Truth is that which it is and in the same Chapter openeth his meaning Truth is that which is so in it self as it appeareth to him that perceiveth it if he will and can perceive it Hence do Hurtad Disp. 7. Met. Sect. 1. and Soar Disp. 7 Sect. 5. infer the Nature of Truth to consist in a cognoscibility of a being to the understanding of that which it is This Opinion as it is obscure so it is expos'd to doubts if not to falshood The truth of a man doth not consist in my knowing a man to be a man and that he is no other thing but a man for that is a quidditative Concept of a man namely to know him to be a man but to know a man to be that which he was intended for is the concept of his truth Wherefore Soar in the same Chapter doth well recal himself in asserting that truth is relative to created and increated Knowledge Truth doth not superadd extrinsecally ex parte actus any denomination really distinct from a being since it is concurrent to the constituting of the nature of a being for take away truth and you take away the essence of a being V. Falshood is defined by most Philosophers to be that which appears to be that which it is not It is strange that falshood which is not in rerum natura should be defined It is not in rerum natura because all beings are true If it can be defined it is a being For nothing is definible unless it is a being had it been described by a Negative then indeterminatively we might have perceived it as thus Falshood is which doth not appear to be that which it is or which it was intended for I say indeterminatively because we know a falsum falshood to be a falshood because it doth not determinate our Concept through its truth so that this is a privative or accidental knowledge CHAP. XVIII Of Goodness 1. What Goodness is The Improbation of several Definitions of Goodness 2. The Difference between Goodness and Perfection 3. What Evil is 4. What the absolute active End of Goodness is 5. That Goodness is improperly divided in Essential Accidental and Integral Goodness 6. How Goodness is properly divided 7. That the Division of Good in Honest Delectable c. doth belong to Ethicks I. GOodness is an Attribute of a Being whereby it is for an end Many Philosophers do omit the Definition of Goodness because they can find no distinction between Truth and Goodness Others define it to be a convenience of a being with the Appetite which is erroneous for Goodness is in a being that is a partial being without the Appetite 2. Goodness is absolute a Convenience is relative Timpl. Chap. 9. of his Metaph. 2 Book defines Goodness to be an act of Good as far as it is good or is a Quality from which a being is denominated Good This is Idem per Idem and Obscurum per Obscurius II. Goodness is formally distinct from Perfection because a being according to what it is good only is not perfect Wherefore Goodness is erroneously defined by some to be a Perfection III. Evil Malum is that which doth not appear to us to be for any End IV. The Absolute active End of Goodness is to constitute that which it is The Passive is to be constitured that which it is V. Goodness is improperly divided into Essential Accidental and Integral Goodness because Good is that which is essential of it self to a being and therefore cannot be accidental as it is opposite to Essential It may be an Essential part because it concurs with the rest of the Attributes to the constitution of the Essence of a Being VI. Goodness is divisible according to the divisibility of a being which is either Natural Animal or Humane VII The Division of Goodness into Honest Delectable and Profitable or Useful doth not appertain to this Doctrine but is referred to Ethicks CHAP. XIX Of Distinction 1. The Authors Description of Distinction That the privative sense of not being moved is a Note of Distinction whereby the understanding distinguishes a Non Ens from an Ens. That the Positive sense of being moved in another manner than another Ens moves the understanding is a Note of Distinction between one Being and another 2. How Distinction is divided What a real Distinction is 3. What a Modal Difference is 4. That the vulgar Description of a real Distinction is Erroneous 5. That the terms of a Distinction between two or more real beings are requisite both or more to exist 6. That one term of Distinction although in existence cannot be really predicated of another not
observe that nature is the Seal and Impression of Gods Will and Omnipotence upon every being through which they are that which they are Hence Nature is called the Hand of God Hence it is also called the Order and universal Government among all natural beings through which one being doth depend upon the other and is useful and necessary to the other This is evident in many moving living Creatures as most Cattel whose dependance and Preservation is from and through Vegetables as from Herbs their 's again is from the juyce of the earth and that from a mixture of all the Elements The same subordinate use and good is also observed among all other beings in the world Hence nature is called the strength and vertue of a being for their strength and vertue is nothing else but an actual disposition and propension in beings In this sense we say the nature of fire is to levitate of earth to gravitate IV. I did rather chuse to say a natural being then a natural body for to avoid an improperty of speech because a body is properly and ordinarily taken for matter and so we usually say that man consisteth of a Soul and body and that a natural being consisteth of a form and body or matter Neither is it a motive rather for to say a natural body then a natural being because a being is of too large an extent for a being is restricted from that Latitude of signification by adding natural V. After the exposition of this Definition of nature it will not be amiss to compare that of Aristotles to it Nature is the Principle of Motion and rest of a being wherein it is existent through it self and not by accident It was the Opinion of Aristotle that nature was a substance and nevertheless here he seemeth to make an Accident of it for that which acteth immediately through it self is not a substance but an Accident because according to his dictates a substance doth not act immediately through it self but through its accidents if then a natural being acteth through its nature that is its Matter and Form then nature must be an accident and consequently matter and form are also accidents which he did in no wise intend 2. Suppose that nature were a substance it would be absurd to assert that a natural being did act through a substance of rest and motion which doth inhere in it self for then there would be a penetration of bodies and an Identification of Subsistencies You may reply That nature is not a substance of motion and rest but a substantial Principle Pray what is a substantial Principle but a substance 3. It is plainly against the Principles of Aristotle to say that a Principle is no substance for Matter and Form are Principles but these he granteth to be substances 4. If again granted that these are substances and not vertues then it must necessarily follow that a Form being an active Principle doth act through it self and thence a Form is called active It must also follow that Matter which is another Principle of motion acteth efficiently withal because motion proceedeth from an Efficient or from a Form and wherefore is Matter then called a passive Principle Your Answer to this will be that Matter is not the Principle of Motion but of Rest. I take your Answer but what kind of rest do you mean Is it a rest from local Motion or a rest from Alteration or Augmentation It must be a rest from some of these three It cannot be a rest from local motion because all beings are not capable of a rest from local motion then it must be a rest from alteration or augmentation Neither can it be a rest from any of these For all beings are constantly and at all times in alteration and consequently are either augmented or diminished What rest can it then be It is no rest from Action for then matter could be no Principle or cause for all causes do act 5. How can Matter and Form which are Principles before their union be substances since that a substance is a perfect being which doth subsist in unity through it self and thereby is distinct from all other beings but matter or form can neither of them subsist through themselves or have any unity or distinction 6. A Form is not a Principle of rest in all natural bodies through it self but by accident for all bodies are through themselves continually in motion as will further appear in its proper place VI. Wherefore for to avoid all these Absurdities Contradictions and Improperties of Speech it is necessary to assert 1. That Nature is a Property of a natural being through which it acteth 2. That a Property is really Identificated with its subject and consequently that Natural is not really differing from a natural body This property denotes a propension or actual disposition through which the said body is rendred active By activeness I understand whereby all is constituted whatever is actually inherent in a being as Existence Subsistence and all its other Properties so that Nature or Natural in Physicks is a Property equivalent to the Modes or Attributes of Truth and Goodness in Metaphysicks VII Nature differeth from Art in that she acteth conformably to the Divine Idea or Intention but Art acteth conformably to the intellectual Idea Wherefore nature is infallibly immutable constant perpetual certain because it dependeth from an infallible immutable constant perpetual and certain Cause but Art is fallible changeable inconstant and uncertain because it dependeth from the humane Intellect which is fallible changeable inconstant and uncertain As man is uncapable of acting without God so is Art incapable of effecting any thing without Nature Nature is infinitely beyond Art What Art is there which can produce the great world or any thing comparable to the little world Whatever excellent piece a man doth practise through Art it is no further excellent then it is like unto Nature neither can he work any thing by Art but what hath nature for its Pattern What is it a Limner can draw worthy of a mans sight if natural beauties are set aside VIII Whatever nature acteth it is for an End and Use It is for an end in respect to God who created all things for an end it is for an use in respect to one another because all beings are useful to one another as I have formerly demonstrated but we cannot properly say that all things act for an end in respect to one another because that which doth act for an end is moved by that end and doth foreknow it but natural beings do not foreknow their ends neither are they moved by them IX Nature is either universal or singular An universal nature may be apprehended in a twofold sense 1. For the Universe or whole world containing all singular natures within it 2. For a nature which is in an universal being and so you are to take it here A Singular nature is which is inherent in every
any further to propose the Opinions of others concerning the first Principles Elements and Constitution of natural Bodies Baptista van Helmont impropriating the knowledge of true Philosophy and Physick to himself alone cals Hippocrates Galen Aristotle and all other wise men Fooles and terms their Dictates figments but withal propounds new foundations of Philosophy and Physick threatning a great danger to those who did obstinately adhere to their Tenents and promising an infinite treasure to such as should receive his Wherefore I shall first contractly relate his Philosophick Principles then examine them Fol. 33. of his Ort. Med. Dist. 3. He reproves the heathens for falsly teaching the Number of Elements to be four as also for asserting three Principles to wit Matter Form and Privation All things saith he are idle empty and dead and therefore stand only in need of a vital and seminal Principle which besides life have also an order in them He denieth the four Genders of Causes the first matter the causality of a form receiving it for an effect alone Further he states only two causes namely Matter and her internal Agent Efficient or Archeus In the same place he terms Matter a co-agent not a subject which he saith was improperly attributed to her by Philosophers And in Dist. 21. he denieth the congress of the four Elements yea not of two of them to concur to the constitution of mixt bodies His two Causes or Principles he cals bodies in one place in another as you may read below he detracts it from the latter The first of the said Principles is called ex quo out of which the latter per quod through which Dist. 23. he concludes water to be a beginning out of which initium ex quo and the Ferment to be the seminal beginning through which that is Disposing whence the Semen Seed is immediately produced in the matter which it having acquired becometh through it life or the media materia the middle matter of that being extending to the period of the thing it self or to the last matter Dist. 24. The Ferment is a created formal being which is neither a Substance or Accident but neither in the manner of light fire magnal forms c. created from the beginning of the world in the places of their Monarchy for to prepare and excite the semina seeds and to precede them I consider the ferments to be truly and actually existing and to be individually distinguisht through Species kinds Wherefore the ferments are Gifts and Roots establisht from the Lord the Creator to all ages being sufficient and durable through their continual propagation that they might raise and make seeds proper to themselves out of the water to wit wherein he gave the earth a virtue of germinating he gave it as many ferments as there are expectations of fruits Wherefore the ferments produce their own seeds and not others That is each according to its Nature and Properties as the Poet saith For nature is underneath the earth Neither doth all ground bring forth all things For in all places there is a certain order placed from God a certain manner and unchangeable root of producing some determinate effects or fruits not only of Vegetables but also of Minerals and Insects For the bottomes of the earth and its Properties differ and that for some cause which is connatural and coeval to that earth This I do attribute namely to the formal ferment that is created therein Whence consequently several fruits bud forth and break out of themselves in several places whose seeds we see being carried over to other places come forth more weakly like to an undercast child That which I have said concerning the ferment cast into the earth the same you shall also find in the Ayr and the Water The difference which there is between the ferment and efficient is that the former is the remote Principle of Generation and produceth the latter which is the semen which is the immediate active Principle of a thing Here you have a Synopsis of his Philosophy which in the progress throughout his Book he repeats ad nauseam usque II. When I first took a view of the Title of his Volume which was The Rise of Medicine that is The unheard of Beginnings of Physick A new Progress of Medicine to a long Life for the revenge of Diseases by the Author John Babtista van Helmont Governour in Merode Royenlorch Oorschot Pellines c. He might be Governour of himself in those places but not of c. I wonder what those places signified since the people of Brussel admired upon what his Heir liveth This old man in his life-time was strangely melancholy and by Fits transported into Phanatick Extasies questionless had he been of a Religious House he would much have added by help of these Raptures to the incredible Bulk of the Golden Legends but his Daemon turned them to Physick He had a great Design in Christening his Son Mercurius to have made another Trismegistus of him and not unlikely for wherever he is he is all-knowing I was much abused by the Title of his Tract hoping to have found a new sound Archologia and lighting upon ignorance of Terms abuse of words but a most exact Orthography limiting almost every second word with a Comma or a stop as being measured by his asâ—matick breathing The Fame which he deserved from his Countrey-folkes was equal to a famous Mountebank The Church-yard was the surer Register of his Patients His Arrogance and Boastings were Symptomes of his depravate conceptions His Cruelty fell it last upon his own bowels through which he lost his Life for the neglect of very ordinary means This is the account I had at Brussels of his Life and Transactions which I thought was not unworthy of my insertion in this place thereby to disadvise some from a rash belief to his vain words that so they might avoid the same Dangers and Cruelties upon their own and other mens Lives III. But in reference to his Dictates He rejects the number of four Elements without proposing any Argument for Confutation He denieth the existence of a first matter also without giving proof for the contrary Both which we have already demonstrated The form is an effect saith he and not a cause this argueth his misseapprehension of a cause and effect for most Authors agree that a cause in a large sense is whatever produceth an effect now the form produceth an effect in giving a specification to the whole It seems he intends nothing for a cause unless it be really distinct from its effect which in a strict and proper sense may be allowed but if granted nevertheless he is in an Errour for asserting Matter and the Archeus to be causes neither of which are really distinct from the being constituted by them Further it is no reason that because the form is an effect therefore it can be no cause for all beings in respect to their own production are effects and yet
appears no great subtility in his argument Wherefore I do grant that a fundamental colour is also in the center of an opake body but then it is no formal Colour that is it is not actu visible except in the Surface Crystalline bodies are internally visible throughout all their parts and do augment the extent of a colour To augment the extent of a colour is to dilate it or to make it less pinching upon the air then it was without reflection for example an Apple seen through the air appears no bigger then it is but if held over the water and its colour perceived reflected seems much bigger the reason is because the colour of the Apple pincheth the air which air thus pinched beating against the water is reflected that is is beaten back again which reflection is a greater obtension of that air so pinched and the same obtension or stretching must needs dilate that air thus pinched which dilation is the augmentation of the colour of the Apple The colour of the apple impressed upon the air by its pinching seems to be rendered paler through the said reflection because the dilatation of the air being through it made lighter doth through that light somewhat expel the obscurity of the colour of the Apple Here observe that this reflection is not a single reflection but a reflection upon a reflection which I call double I will more amply explain it to you A single reflection is which doth reflect upon the extream surface and descends no deeper thus it is upon Gold or Brass The double reflection is when this extream superficial reflection is continued and propagated by the circumferential parts next adjacent to the extream surface which makes the first reflection stronger and therefore more dilatating the coloured air which more dilatating of the coloured air makes the colour appear sensibly larger although the colour is somewhat dilated by a single reflection but it being insensible we do not state it to be larger The reason why an Apple held over the water and seen at a certain distance obliquely from the side appears much more enlarged then seen directly is because the light is reflected in a larger extent and consequently the colour impressed upon it must be more dilated Hence you may also be resolved why some Looking-Glasses render ones face bigger and paler then it is This happens through the thickness of the Glass wherein the second reflection is continued from some depth and therefore doth more obtend the air and dilate its impressed colour Thin and gibbous Glasses render a face less and swarthy because they do less reflect the light and rather loosen its obtension through their thinness A little piece of a plain Looking-Glass doth represent no more of the face then its bigness will permit so that if it be no bigger then your eye you will see no more in it then your eye A gibbous or spherical Looking-Glass be it never so little doth represent the whole face of a man although but obscurely Now let us enquire into the ground and cause of these different Representations Alhazenus and Vitellio seem to assert that all colours are represented in a Pyramid that is by being equally fastigiated from their extream circumference unto a point of reflection and therefore they term this optick Pyramid simpliciter an optick figure as if all colours whether radial or luminous were represented through it But this is contradicted by the Experiment of a plain Looking-Glass where the figure of an Object is not at all augmented or diminisht but reflected in an equal extent as it is represented through a simple vision Notwithstanding it holds true in Objects reflected upon spherick Looking-Glasses where as I have proposed just now objects if circular are reflected in a conical optick figure and if lineal their radiature is reflected in a triangular or pyramidal optick figure The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of these is vulgar enough but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I could never hear from any 1. It is certain that all colours are represented through their direct Rayes or in direct Lines 2. These Rayes are nothing else but the pinchings of the luminous air by the Objects 3. These pinches being plain or sometimes bubbly are equally and plainly reflected by a plain Looking-Glass and therefore the Object reflected seems equal to the Object when perceived by a simple vision But in case the Object be reflected by a spherical Glass then the central parts of it are reflected by the extream protuberance of the Glass in a sloping manner not plain because the body reflecting is not plain for it is the reflecting body which gives it its extent of figure as I said before if it be plain it reflects that bubble plain that is stretches it out to a plainness which must be full as big as the Bubble can stretch out But the reflecting body not being plain but falling slopingly the coloured air fals down with it and is thereby contracted into a lesser extent in the same manner as when you spread a Handkerchief upon a plain table the Handkerchief thus extended is of a larger figure then when you cover your head with it where its figure is contracted to a less compass because of the declining figure of the head IX Robert Flud Tract 2. Part 4. Lib. 4. sets down this division of Glasses A Glass is either regular or made up out of regulars A regular Glass is plain or difform The latter is 1. A Concave which causes a thing to seem bigger then it is 2. Convexe which causes a thing to seem lesser then it is 3 4. Pyramidal and Columnal making a thing to appear longer then it is 5. Spherical which causes a thing to seem broader then it is To these difform Glasses Cylindraick Conical and Parabolical Glasses are to be referred The causes of their various reflections you may easily deduce from our Discourse wherefore I shall spend no more time about it The obliquated Radiatures of an Object are propagated to a certain distance and sphere beyond which the said Object is invisible Hence you may know why a piece of Money being placed in a Bason and going back from it until it is out of sight comes to your sight again if you cause water to be powred upon it The propagation of an Object reflected is circular and therefore to as many as can stand about that Bason where money was placed in the same will appear The various Colours appearing to the eye looking through a Prism are effected through the gradual diminutions of Light passing through the depth of the said Prism and modifying the Sand contained within the body of the Glass the same colours do also appear to us when we see against the Light through a Glass full of water X. But to pursue my discourse of Refraction There must not only be a Reflection but also a discontinuation or abruption of planeness or equality of the Body reflected and thereby
rendred of a very unequal temperature where the extraneous Elements uniting together do raise a hollowness in the earth and infinuate into one anothers substance or body to which the coldness of the earth is very much conducing thereby gathering or coagmenting the said Elements together and impelling them into one anothers body and then closing them firmly all which it performs through its coldness Through coldness understand its compressing weighty minima's Wherefore do not still abide in your obstinate conceit that it is the Sun which is the efficient cause of Minerals and Stones For that is absurd I prove it That which is the main efficient of Stones and Metals must be a contracting condensing and indurating substance but the Sun is no contracting condensing or indurating substance Ergo the Sun cannot be the efficient of Stones and Metals The Major is undeniable I confirm the Minor by proving the contrary namely that the Sun doth mollifie because its flame is soft and all heat is soft for softning is nothing else but to dispose a body to bend easily into its self if pressed from without But earth rarefied by fire doth easily bend into it self if pressed from without Ergo The Minor is evident because whatever is throughly hot fiery is soft as we see in red-hot Iron in alive flesh and all Vegetables So that by how much the more heat a body hath by so much the softer it is provided quod caetera sint paria Further What heat is there under the Earth I confess there is more and less coldness under it but no predominating heat What heat can there be in Greenland especially under the earth and yet it is certain that many rocks and stones are generated there They may as well say that fire is the efficient cause of all those Islands of Ice Again so much as a substance consisteth of coldness and earth by so much it participates of hardness or by how much the less heat a body consisteth of so much the lesse hardnesse it partakes of The matter of a stone in the kidneys or in the bladder was sofe when it fluctuated within the vessals but being detained in the kidneys its heat is diminished either through the intense heat of the Kidneys which doth dissipate and attract the lesser heat from the matter retained in the cavity of the kidneys through which ecess of heat the terrestrial and thick waterish parts are coagulated and are closed together through the depressing coldness of the intrinsick earth and water The same matter being retained in kidneys of a cold temperament doth immediately through that degree of coldness coagulate and grow hard The stone in the bladder is generally harder than the stone in the kidneys because the one is of a far colder that is less hot temperament than the other That in the kidneys is more friable whereas the stone in the bladder is affected with a continuous firm thick waterish hardness This I can witness by a stone being taken from a Patient by section which that most learned and expert Physitian Dr. George Bate shewed me six or seven years ago This stone was perduced to that hardness that I am confident an ordinary smart stroak of a hammer could scarce break it Yet when it was within the bladder it was far distant from such a hardness for a piece of the Catheter was unawares run into the body of the stone and broke in it which was afterwards taken out with it but after it had been exposed a little while to the air it grew immediately to that hardness What could be the cause of this but the hotter parts of the stone exhaling into the air whereby the cold parts fell closer and thereby arrived to a greater hardness The errour of Fernelius is obvious in that he stated the intense heat of the kidneys to be the cause of a Lithiasis for it happens as freqently in kidneys of a cold temperament neither is it an insita renum arenosa calculosaque dispositio a parentibus contracta hereditary fixt fabulous and calculous disposition as the same Author conceives which doth consist in a degree of temperament of the solid parts of the kidneys for stones have been generated in kidneys of all kinds of temperaments neither can it be said to be hereditary for many a man hath been troubled with the stone whose Issue never was so much as disposed to it and on the other side many a man hath been miserably tormented with the stone or Duelech as Paracelsus terms it whose Parents never discerned the least symptom of a stone within their bodies Nevertheless as I said before the temperature of the kidneys adds much to the accelerating of a Lithiasis It is then certain that the greatest cause of lapidation or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is internal depending upon the predominance of earth or coldness over the other Elements in a mixture The Focus or Uterus as Van Helmont terms it that is the place where a stone or gravel is generated must be a close hollow place wherefore nothing can arrive to this close hollow place unless it be liquid for a thick or course body will be intercepted before it can reach thither This liquid matter being now lodged within this cavity the hot parts do exhale because now through the hollowness of the place they have got liberty to dislate and free themselves from the heavy terrestrial and thick aqueous parts whereas before when they were kept close together through channels and lodges shutting close upon them the hot parts were firmly contained within and bound up This is necessarily and certainly demonstrative and infers that where ever close hollownesses are groved and that liquid matter containing terrestrial and aqueous parts in it may reach to them there certainly stones and metals can and may be generated By vertue of this position I shall prove and shew by and by that stones and metals may be generated in most hollow parts of the body of man But to persue my discourse The hot parts being now freed from the terrestrial parts and inhering in subtil ayry serosiries do with more ease and force procure their passage through this close and hollow prison than they made their way thither leaving the terrestrial and aqueous parts behind them for a Ransom which by degrees are coagulated more and more according to the expulsion of the fiery and ayry parts Understand also the reasons of the qualification of the Focus or womb of stones and Metals 1. It must be hollow the reason of this is set down already 2. It must be close for were it not close but open the terrestrial and aqueous matter could not be detained there but would have as free a passage as the thin parts Besides closeness conduceth to keep out extrinsick heat which otherwise would again dissolve and mollifie the work wherefore the hardest stones and metals are found some degrees below the Surface of the earth and I dare confidently assert that if metals
1. That the disburdening of the Eastern Rivers into the Ocean is not the cause of its Circulation neither are the Sun or Moon the principal causes of this motion 2. The periodical course of the Ocean The causes of the high and low waters of the Ocean 3. How it is possible that the Ocean should move so swiftly as in 24 hours and somewhat more to flow about the terrestrial Globe 4. A further Explanation of the causes of the intumescence and detumescence of the Ocean The causes of the anticipation of the floud of the Ocean 5. That the Suns intense heat in the torrid Zone is a potent adjuvant cause of the Oceans Circulation and likewise the minima's descending from the Moon and the Polar Regions I. HAving in one of the Chapt. of the precedent Book posed a demonstrative and evident ground of the universal course of the great Ocean and the straitness of that Chapt. not permitting the finishing of the fabrick intended by us upon it Therefore this present plain shall serve for to compleat the delineation thereof but encountring with some rocky stones thereon it is requisite they should be rowled aside before the said Atlantick waves may procure a necessary assent of the true cause of their dayly circular floating The conceit of some Philosophers hath induced them to state the copious irreption of many large and deep Rivers into the Eoan Sea for the principal cause of its circulation the which tumefying its body do thereby press it westward This solution seems void of all reason the evacuation of the presupposed Rivers having no proportion to the replenishing of so extended a body as the Ocean scarce of a Lake or an inland Sea as we have observed of the lake Haneygaban and the Euxian Sea Besides many great Rivers disburdening themselves into the Occiduan Sea might upon the same ground return the course of the Ocean Eastward But imagine it was so why should not the said tumefaction rather incline the sea westward than further eastward Others rejecting the former opinion have in their fansie groven the ground whereon the sea beats deeper and deeper towards the west and so the ground being situated higher in the East shelving down gradually to the west the sea doth through its natural gravity rowl it self to the deeper lower Plane but then the eastern waters being arrived to the west how shall they return to the east again for to continue the said motion Wherefore this opinion may take its place among the Castles in the air Shall we then ascribe the cause of this motion to the rarefaction of the sea through the beams of the Sun which as it is successively rarefied doth swell and press its preceding parts forward As touching the Moon she cannot come into consideration here as being rather noted for condensation than rarefaction First I deny that the Sun doth any whit rarifie the Eastern Ocean because according to their Tenent the rarefaction of the sea happens through the commotion of the subsidencies and terrestrial exhalations contained within the bowels of the sea and scattered through its substance whereby it becomes tumefied which I grant in case the Sun casts its beams obliquely into the depth of the Ocean but I prove the contrary supposing the Sun doth cast its beams directly into the Eastern waters In AEgypt it seldom rains because the Sun casting its beams directly into the waters doth through the same degree of heat through which it might raise vapours dissolve them again likewise in the East Ocean the Sun subtilizing the waters doth doubtless through its heat commove exhalations and subsidencies but the waters being through the same heat attenuated are rendred uncapable of sustaining those terrestrial bodies wherefore they sinking deeper to the ground rather cause a detumescence of the sea I have alwaies observed that waters swell more through the cold than heat and that inundations happen for the most part after a frost besides it is obvious that Rivers are much tumefied when they are frozen and that by reason of the foresaid tumefaction inundations happen more frequently in the winter than at any other time of the year Des-Cartes imagineth the compression of the Moon together with the Earths motion about her own Axis to be the cause of the waters circular motion pressing it from East to West and the variation of this pressure to depend upon the various removal of the Moon from the Center of the Earth effecting the anticipation and various celerity of the waters motion So that where the Earth is obverted to the face of the Moon there the waters must be at their lowest being pressed towards the next quarter of the Surface where they are at their highest whence they are carried about through the Earths proper motion c. 1. I deny his supposition of the Earths motion as being fabulous which we have confuted elsewhere He might as well assert that there be as many Neptunes under water moving it circularly as Aristotle stated intelligencies to drive the Heavens for even this he might excuse by saying it was but an Assumption to prove a Phaenomenon of the water 2. What needs he to affirm a tumour of the water for since he assumes the Earth to move circularly we cannot but grant that the water must also move with it as constituting one Globe together 5. Why doth he in vain reassume in the 55 Sect. that out-worn Doctr. of Aristotle touching the Moons driving of the water which argues him to be very unconstant with himself 4. His stating the air to be so complicable and soft a body renders it very unfit for compressing and driving so vast and weighty a body as the Ocean 5. Can any one rationally or probably conceive that the Sun much less the Moon being so remore and whose forcible effects are so little felt by sublunary bodies should be capable of driving so deep so large and so heavy a body as the Ocean which is as powerful to resist through its extream gravity as all the Celestial bodies are potent to move through their extream lightness What because the Ocean and the Moon move one way therefore the one must either follow or move the other What can a passion so durable and constant and so equal depend upon a violent cause Since then such phansies are ridiculous and not to be proposed by any Philosopher let us now proceed in the unfolding of so difficult and admirable a matter as the course of the Ocean which we have formerly demonstrated to flow about the earth once in 12 hours and somewhat more II. Moreover besides this single motion making a sharper inspection into the drift of the Ocean it will appear to us to absolve a compounded periodical course in a perfixt time namely in 15 daies which space may be called a marinal or nautical month The meaning hereof is imagining a part of the Ocean to flow circularly from a certain point or more plainly a Bowle to rowl circularly
frequently happens near to the Moons quarters whose middle is marked by the Moons Full and New Aspect being when it flows with the greatest force causing the highest high waters and the lowest low waters and tends towards its ending when it remits from its height and intends in lowness This augmentation and diminution may be resembled to the fermentation of Wine or Beer swelling gradually untill its height and thence decreasing again Touching the beginning and ending of the Seas single diurnal circuit if we consider it simpliciter it hath none because it is ever in motion as never being eased by a total rest but if agreeing to state the beginning where the Ocean is slowest in its course and thence tending to a swifter motion then the Proposition is resolveable And according to this Supposition the beginning and ending must be moveable differing every single course near 11 degrees This by the way Returning to explain the cause of the gradual augmentation of water and intention of force I am to remember you of the great proportion of the Oceans peregrin Elements consisting of most Earth then Air and lastly fire of whose close coherence with the waters their saltness is an undoubted argument These salin particles violently detaining the waters from recovering the center must necessarily add force to the gravity of the waters and consequently in intending their force they must also augment them in quantity because the more force the waters use the more in quantity they bear along with them The detention of the said salin particles being at their beginning of no great strength or in no great quantity do therefore cause no great intention of the Oceans force but every single period piercing gradually by rarefaction upon the waters must necessarily also augment their tumefaction gradually higher and higher every day untill at last being arrived to their height of penetration which ordinarily happens in 15 circuits the Ocean is likewise elevated unto its height Some of these salin particles being penetrated through the body of the waters are gradually depressed to the ground through their own disposition and the weight of the Ocean others being attrited and confused through their passive motion against the water and the decess of their heaviest particles do more and more gradually desist from their violent detention every circuit returning to the bottom and so the Ocean doth also gradually every day incline nearer and nearer to its natural force and detumescence of its water untill it is returned to its own proper course at which season its force and intumescence are equally at their lowest During this space those subsiding particles begin again to be expanded rarefied and attenuated because of the grinding of the water against them and through the expansion of the aerial and igneous parts adunited to them do bear up again The others elevated atop beginning to concentrate through the conquiescence of the Sea are ready to be compressed downwards both which gradually striving a reciprocal meeting do in the foregoing manner gradually reunite the force and augmentation of the Water V. Here we cannot but admit the Suns intense hear every day beating down the torrid Zone to be a great instrumental and adjuvant cause to the stirring of the aforesaid salin particles But this continuing in one measure equality and station in respect to the torrid Zone all the year long cannot in any wise be thought the principal cause of a motion varying twice every day Likewise the Moon being beset with a great quantity of dampish and heavy particles doth every day spread down some of those particles whereby the Ocean is also gradually filled more more every day And like as these said particles are most apt to rain down the nearer the Moon doth appropinquate to the Ecliptick because the air enjoyeth a greater subtility there from the rarefaction of the Sun hence it is that the Moon frees her self most of these heavy concomitants near her Conjunction and at her apposition So they are most apt to ascend the further the Moon is declined from the Ecliptick as happens in her quarters when for that reason the waters are also at their lowest That these two Lights are accidental causes of the intention of the Oceans force and daily augmentation of its waters is plain enough and their mutual concurrence to the effecting of the same effect we have confirmed beyond all doubting whereby the absurdity of the Moons compression proposed by Des-Cartes and so disagreeing with his own position of the nature of the air is likewise set before you The Moon near her Conjunction makes very high waters because conversing with the hot rayes of the Sun sends down a great number of the foresaid bodies and not because she is impregnated with the light of the Sun whereby she should be grown more potent to excite vapours and exhalations This is ridiculous for we find other bodies to be swelled near that time not only through exhalations raised out of themselves but particularly through particles demitted by the conveyance of the air into their pores The like happens although in a weaker manner when the Moon is in her full Aspect because of her nearer approximation to the Ecliptick But much more in a Lunar Eclipse because she is then found directly in the Ecliptick And most of all yea twice higher than ordinary at the Full Moon of March and September because the Sun being then in the AEquinoxial and most directly over the torrid Zone under which the greatest body of the Ocean floats and the Moon in the same way near the Ecliptick must needs joyntly cause a vast decidence of the forenamed bodies intending and augmenting the waters Or to declare the matter plainer to you The continuation of the Seas Motion forward is not only depending upon the pulsion of succeeding parts bending by refraction naturally forward but also by a kind of attraction or suction of preceding parts thus Suppose the Earth to be excavated into certain great cavities like to great pipes whereof of those that are formed from the East towards the West by the South the furthermost are alwaies deeper and longer than those which are nearest to the East Likewise conceive such Cavities framed in the same proportion to one another from West back again to the East by the North Now I say that the deepest and furthermost cavity must alwaies attract the water out of the shallower and lesser in the same manner as the longer pipe of a sucker a Siphon as some do call it must attract all the moisture of the shorter because the parts of water being continuous and consequently cleaving to one another the lesser part must follow and yield to the greater the which through its crastitude being pressed forwards must also draw the lesser part after Since then the water is no sooner arrived into one cavity but is thence drawn into another hence it is that this tumefaction of waters is not sensible to us in the Ocean
waters of the straits of Gibraltar or the Pillars of Hercules inwards This impulse of the waters inwards is much stronger at the intumescence of the Ocean but weak at the detumescence nevertheless the current of the Sea runs constantly inwards because of the constant diurnal course of the Ocean from East to VVest so that this constant current into the Pillars of Hercules is an Herculean argument confirming the constant diurnal motion of the Ocean That which causeth the floud or intumescence here is the Ocean impelling the Sea strongly underneath at its intumescence The cause of the detumescence is the water falling from underneath the Mediterranean into the universal Cavern because of the detumescence of the Ocean Moreover observe the property of the ebbing and flowing of this Sea Through the intumescence the water is impelled Eastward as well near the shores as in the middle Through the detumescence or waters falling from underneath the waters of the shores do fall towards the central or middle parts of that Sea yet somewhat westward because the Sea doth fall from underneath westward and notwithstanding the detumescence doth the middle of the Mediterranean float constantly inwards although but weakly because of the aforesaid impulse Hence it appears that the Mediterranean is an exact emblem of all the motions befalling the Ocean Touching its original it is certain that the Ocean did not form its Cavern through its constant motion because were it so that Sea would be largest at its mouth as having withstood the first violence of the Ocean 2. Because it is situated out of the reach of the course of the Ocean floating alwaies westward 3. VVhere this Sea communicates with the Ocean it seems rather to be its ending than the mouth of its narrowness and it is very probable that near the creation the extremity of Spain and the Kingdom of Fez joyned in an Istmus which since through violence of the Ocean and the pressure of the Mediterranean is bored through The rice then of this Sea must be adscribed to the peregrin Element of water breaking out of the Earth through the concussion of the third Division which afterwards was contained within a great rent or Sinus of the Earth Neither did the Euxian Sea derive its original from the Mediterranean because of the narrowness of the Channel through which they have access to each other But this with most great Lakes of the World as the Maotis Haneygaban c. were formed through accidental protrusions of the peregrin Element of water as you shall read in the next Chapter Among the various courses of the Sea we must not forget the inserting the causes of currents whose waters although communicating with the Ocean do notwithstanding make choice of a distinct motion varying withall at certain seasons Thus Mariners observe a strong current from Cabo Delgado towards the Cape of Good Hope streaming Southwest and another floating westward from Cabo das correntes to the River Aguada of Boapaz Near Aguada de San Bras the current runs towards the Land The cause is the different position and degree of depth of their Cavity which varying from that of the Ocean do suffer their waters to be squeezed to a different course Neither must any imagine that the wind is the principal cause of these currents and much less of the universal Tides of the Ocean because the stronger the wind blowes against them the stronger they float against the wind CHAP. IX Of Inundations 1. Of the rice of the great Gulphs of the Ocean The causes of Inundations That the Deluge mentioned in Genesis was not universal The explanation of the Text. 2. The manner of the Deluge That it was not occasioned through the overfilling of the Ocean 3. That there hapned very great Deluges since when and where 4. The effects of the first Deluge 5. Inland Inundations 1. THe Ocean and others of its Arms through their continual violence against the Earth do in time bore great Caverns into her body whence the great Gulphs of Bengala Persia Arabia Mexico most great Bayes and straits took their beginning and no wonder since they were moulded by the strong stream of the Ocean floating westward Neither is the Ocean satisfied of the Earth for possessing the Center for which they have both an equal claim in making such assaults upon her but is still striving to enter and begin new irruptions into her whereby it oft grows victorious of some of her Plains as appears by those frequent inundations sustained in England particularly that of Somersetshire extending to 20 miles in length and 15 in breadth whose fury had drowned several Towns and swallowed up many hundreds of men some making their escape upon deales and pieces of Timber of Houses that were washt away Rabbets fled their lodges and got atop Sheeps backs swimming as long as they could for their lives Corn and straw floated up and down in abundance being filled with Rats and Mice endeavouring their escape besides a great number of dead creatures that were seen adrift Holland many places of Asia Africa c. Among these none was ever more furious than the Deluge hapning in the year of the Creation 1656 mentioned in the seventh Chapter of Genesis whose eminence above the Earth reached to 15 Cubits destroying all living Creatures except some few only that had thitherto fed upon the fruits of the ground I must not forget here to rectifie Peoples judgments perswading themselves that this Inundation should have been universal I grant it was universal in two respects 1. To all the Earth that was inhabited by the Patriarchs and their Tribes 2. In respect to the universal damage and loss for it had destroyed all that was upon Earth excepting those that were miraculously preserved for the preservation and use of the race of Man But pray can any one rationally conceive that the height of 15 Cubits of water above those hills of Asia should have exceeded the tops of all the mountains of the world What proportion is there between those hills 15 Cubits and the Peak of Taeneriffe the Mount Venpi in Queticheu or Jekin in Chingutu or Kesing Mung Hocang Juntay Loyang Kiming where they are nine daies in getting up to the top Funghoan being all Mountains of China reaching higher than the lower clouds The Olympas Athos or those high Mountains upon the West-Indian Coasts No more than there is between a man and a steeple Or is it probable that forty daies rain should drown the whole World when a whole six months rain falling every Winter upon the East-Indies scarce increaseth the intumescence of the Ocean But observe the scope of the Scripture Gen. 7. 18. And the waters prevailed greatly and were greatly increased upon the earth c. Here the divine Text seemeth to intend nothing further than a great prevailing and increase of the waters which could effect little more than a partial Inundation for otherwise to have caused an universal one none less than
to my apprehension all that Country must necessarily be subjected to such deluges since it swims upon the water Touching Inland Inundations as that which befell Friesland in the year 1218 where near 100000 persons were buried in the water and that of Holland and Zealand in the Reign of Charles the fifth Emperour of Germany in the year 1531. and several times since as that of the last year when a great part of the Country all about Gorcum was seized upon by Inland waters Their causes are to be attributed to torrents streaming down out of the melted snow as also to the swelling of the Inland waters through receiving a great quantity of frosty minima's pouring down from the North in a cold Winter The River of Nile proves yearly extravagant in AEgypt for two months and ten daies because being situated very low it is obliged to receive the superfluity of water falling from above out of severall great Rivers and Lakes as the Lakes Zembre Saslan Nuba and the Rivers Cabella Tagazi Ancona Coror and many others besides the water which it draweth from the hills and other grounds These Rivers and Lakes do constantly swell every year by reason of the great rains that fall there at certain times of the year Besides the heat of the Sun exercising its power very vigorously near the latter end of May doth very much subtilize and rarefie those waters whereby they are rendred more fluid penetrating and copious and lastly the Sun conversing in the northern declination doth impell the Ocean stronger against the Northern shores whereby the waters are also much increased Hence it is that the waters of the Nile are so subtill that they deceive the air in carrying of them up in vapours viz. because they are so subtilly strained No wonder then if they prove so healthy The same causes are appliâ—ble to the excessive increase of the Rivers Ganges Padus Arrius Danow Tiber and Athesis CHAP. X. Of the causes of the before-mentioned properties of Lakes 1. Whence the Lake Asphaltites is so strong for sustaining of weighty bodies and why it breeds no Fish The cause of qualities contrary to these in other Lakes The cause of the effects of the Lake Lerna 2. Whence the vertues of the Lake Eaug of Thrace Gerasa the Lake among the Troglodites Clitorius Laumond Vadimon and Benaco are derived 3. Whence the properties of the Lake Larius Pilats Pool and the Lake of Laubach emanate I. VVHat the cause of those effects of the Lake Asphaltites should be the name seems to contain viz. The water glued together by an incrassated air and condensed fire constituting the body of a certain Bitumen called Asphaltos whence the said Lake doth also derive its name It is uncapable of breeding fish because through its sulphureous thickness it suffocates all vitall flames On the contrary the Lakes Avernum although deep 360 fathom and that of AEthiopia are so much subtilized through the passing of rarefied air that they are uncapable of sustaining the least weight Touching their pernicious quality to fowl it must be attributed to the venomous spirits permixt with that rarefied air infecting the whole Element of air as far as it covers them The Lake Lorna and the other in Portugal cause their effects through the permixture of a quantity of crude nitrous bodies which prove very depressing That Lake of AEthiopia is unctious through the admixture of incrassated air II. The Lake Eaug in Ireland acquires a sideropoetick vertue under water from the imbibition of crude Aluminous juyces by means of their indurating and constrictive vertue changing wood sticking in the mud into an Iron-like substance that part which is under water into a stone-like substance because of the diminution of the said Aluminous Juyces which through their weight are more copious in the mud the part of the wood that sticks out of the water remains wood as being beyond the reach of the said heavy juyces The Lakes of Thrace and Gerasa prove pernicious through admixture of crude arsenical exhalations The Lake among the Troglodites being Mercurial is infestuous to the brain The Lake Clitorius through its nitrosity disturbs the stomach and attracts a great quantity of moisture to it and infecting it with an offensive quality causes a loathing of all Liquors The sudden tempests befalling the Lake Laumond and Vadimon are caused through winds breaking out of the earth through the water Lakes resist induration by frost through igneous expirations pervading them The Lake Benacus shews its fury when its internal winds are excited by external ones causing a Concussion and a Rage in the water like unto an aguish body which is disposed to a shaking fit by every sharp wind raising the sharp winds within III. The River Abda passeth freely through the Lake Larius without any commotion of its body because the waters of the Lake through their extream crassitude are depressed downwards and so are constituted atop in a rigid posture whereas the River is impelled forwards and very little downwards But were it to flow through a shallow water whose quantity doth not bear any proportion to receive the pressure of the air downwards against the earth they would soon communicate in streams 2. The waters of a Lake differ much in crassitude and density from those of a River and therefore do exclude its streams The Lake Haneygaban doth not visibly disburden it self of those waters but thrusting Caverns underneath into the earth raises all those hills through the intumescence of the said waters that are near to her out of which some Rivers do take their rice Pilats Pool is stirred into a vehement fermentation by flinging any pressing body into it because thereby those heterogeneous mineral juyces viz. Vitriolat and Sulphureous substances are raised mixt together and brought to a fermentation and working Through this fermentation the water swells and exceeds its borders but the water being clarified the commotion ceaseth Neither needs any one wonder that so small a matter should be the cause of so great an exestuation since one part of the water doth stir up the other and so successively the whole pool comes to be stirred Pools owe their rice to great rains or torrents which sometime do slow visibly over the meadows or through Rivers causing inundations Sometimes through Caverns of the Earth as that near Laubach CHAP. XI Of the rice of Fountains Rivers and Hills 1. That Fountains are not supplied by rain 2. Aristotles opinion touching the rice of Fountains examined 3. The Authors assertion concerning the rice of Fountains The rice of many principal Fountains of the world 4. Why Holland is not mountainous 5. That the first deluge was not the cause of Hills 6. Whence that great quantity of water contained within the bowels of the Earth is derived 7. Whence it is that most shores are Mountainous Why the Island Ferro is not irrigated with any Rivers Why the earth is depressed under the torrid Zone and elevated towards the polars The
ground into whose room a great depth of water is succeeded undermining it all about The Island Ferro is not irrigated atop with any fluent moisture as Lake River or Springs except only with the abundant droppings of a tree drawing moisture from a great depth or by collecting the dew of the air which sufficeth to quench the thirst of all the Inhabitants and their Cattel because consisting throughout of high Mountains their sand lying very close deep and heavy doth detain the water underneath them The earth is much more depressed under the torrid Zone and as much more raised towards the Poles because the Ocean being gathered into a vast body under the forementioned Zone depresseth all the land under it and near to it with one collected and united force of weight towards the Poles which doth undoubtedly assure me that under both Poles Artick and Antartick the firm land doth stick out far above the waters And questionless Greenland is protracted quite throughout the Northern polar Region The Mountain Serra Leona in AEthiopia bearing up to the height of the clouds wherewith the top is alwaies beset although raised within the torrid Zone is suffulted by a great gulph collected through the meeting of two or more parts of the Sea under ground And whole Africa seems to be inflated into high mountains from the limits of AEgypt until the farthest part of the Atlantick mountain through communication of Lakes which again arise out of the concourse of waters propelled from the Mediterranean Eruthrean AEthiopian and Atlantick Seas Arabia is likewise lofty through hills vaunting upon waters immitted from the Persian and Arabian Gulphs Muscovia and Lithuania are for the greater part Champian Countries because their soil is too much soakt for to be raised up into hills 2. By reason of the multiplicity of Lakes and Rivers through which the subterraneous waters are vented Sweden Norway Scania are very abundantly watered with Lakes and Rivers the Sea upon those Coasts exceeds in depth the length of Ships Cables The reason is because those waters are very much intended in their pressure downwards through the vast number of cold and frosty minima's raining down from the North Pole VIII Before I digress from the subject of this Chapter I am only to shew you the possibility of Marin waters their pressure out from the depth of the Ocean in to the innermost parts of the earth This I shall easily accomplish in mentioning that the force of fresh waters within the land have moulded through the ground the length of many Leagues if so the same is much more possible to salt water The River Niger bores through a heavy dense and deep ground the length of 60 miles before it evacuates it self into the Lake Borno The River Nuba doth likewise force a Cavern many miles long into the earth The Spaniards vaunt excessively of a long Bridge whereon ten thousand Goats and Sheep reap their pasture and is nothing else but the passing of the River Anas alias Guadiana the dimension of 8 or 9 Leagues underground beginning to disappear near Medelina The Tigris runs her self under ground on one side of the mount Taurus and comes up again on the other side and beyond the Lake Thorpes hides it self again within the earth 18 miles further Camden in his Britannia makes observation of the River Mole in Surrey diving under ground near white hill and appearing again a mile or two thence near Letherhed bridge Historians tell us that the Alphaeus floats secretly under ground as far as Sicily where with its appearance makes choice of a new name viz. Arethusa famous for gulping up of offals that had been cast into the Alphaeus at the Olimpick Games usual every fifth year The Danow runs some miles under ground before it flows into the Sava Upon the top of the mount Stella is a certain Lake near 12 Leagues distant from the Sea which oft vomits up wracks of Ships that were cast away at Sea CHAP. XII Of the causes of the effects produced by Fountains 1. Whence some Fountains are deleterious The cause of the effect of the Fountain Lethe of Cea Lincystis Arania The causes of foecundation and of rendring barren of other Fountains The causes of the properties of the Fountain of the Sun of the Eleusinian waters of the Fountains of Illyrium Epyrus Cyreniaca Arcadia the Holy Cross Sibaris Lycos of the unctious Fountain of Rome and Jacobs Fountain 2. The causes of the effects of Ipsum and Barnet Wells 3. Whence the vertues of the Spaw waters are derived 4. Of the formal causes of Baths 1. THe Fountains of Thrace Arcadia Sarmatia Armenia Lydia and Sicilia are deleterious through the permixtion of crude arsernical juyces transpiring out of the earth The same causes operate the same effects in the Founts of Wolchenstein Valentia Berosus c. The Lethe of Boeotia owes its effects to crude Mercurial vapours immixt within its substance Another in the same Countrey produceth a contrary effect through a succinous exhalation The Fountains of Cea and Susae differ little in causality from the Lethe The Lincystis inebriates the brain through repletion by sulphurous exhalations The Fountain of Arania makes use of crude nitrous juyces for the accomplishing of its effects The Fountain which Solinus affirms to conduce to foecundity must be a thorowly attenuated and well concocted water like to that of the Nile The other opposite to this in operation must be very Saturnal A sulphureous Nitre or a mixture of Sulphur and Nitre into one close juyce dispersed through the waters of the Fountain of the Sun among the Garamantes renders them very cold in the day time because the Nitre then predominating condenseth and incrassates the waters the more because its sulphureous parts which do otherwise rarefie them are through the Suns beams extracted disunited and dispersed Whereas in the night season the sulphureous parts benâ—g united through the condensing cold of the night and condensation of the nitrous particles turn into an internal flame causing that fervent heat The Eleusinian waters are irritated to a fermentation of heterogeneous mineral juyces through the percussion of the air by a sharp musical string whereby through continuation the waters are likewise percussed and its contenta stirred In the same manner is the next related fountain cast into an exestuation through the shrill acute vibrating and penetrating percussion of the air by the lips whereas the walking about stirring the air but obtusely cannot effect such a penetrative or acute motion The Fountain of Illyrium contains secret Vitriolat sulphureous flames within its substance whereby it proves so consuming The Fountains of Epyrus and Cyreniaca vary in heat by reason of the greater or lesser dispersing and rarefying or uniting and condensing of their sulphureous flames Springs remain cool in the Summer through the rarefaction of their fiery spirits exhaling and passing out of the ground in the Summer they produce a small warmth through the condensation of their igneous
extended bodies wherein many knobs seem to be unequally coagulated through the unequal proportion of the mixture of the vapours even so are these evaporations coagulated into long large bodies within which again other coagulations are effected of unequal proportions rising like so many knobs of various magnitudes which constitute the fixed Stars well deserving the Epithete of being fixed or fastned in those vast igneous clouds We diduct hence 1. That the fixed Stars are smaller than the Planets because their matter is the overplus of the Planets 2. That they were formed after the Planets because their matter must be arrived to the first Region before the subtiler parts could appel to the second Region for the matter of others 3. That the difference between the loose and fixed Stars is no other than that these latter consist of a more compact flame than the others and thence we may also collect them to be more durable V. But to make pursuit of the manner of ventilation of the Stars The fiery minims striking down vehemently upon them because they are screwed up more and more by the continual access of new coagulations impelled into the said Stars must necessarily be intended in their force upon them for to recover their place and continuation These then striking from all sides through those Celestial mixt bodies do expell shake down and effuse continually great showers of those torrid minims consisting of condensed fire which are accelerated likewise in their descent through the depression of the air These as they pass do heat the air especially in the lower Region because of the density of the clouds and air staying their beams And 2. Because of their reflection from the earth These fiery showers do scarce reach any farther than the temperate Zones Where they rain down perpendicularly there they leave marks of their heat where obliquely there of warmth only but the air within the Polars is not sensible of so much as their warmth These showers do fall down sometimes in a greater confluence than others whence they cast a greater heat which happens through their meeting and being united with more aerial matter or igneous clouds or else through want of shelter under dense clouds in the air or thirdly by uniting their showers with those of other Planets Hence we may observe That the Sun is the hottest body in the Heavens and therefore the loosest and the softest 2. That the Moon and the other Stars consist of a less soft consistency 3. That the fixed Stars as they do heat but little so they dissolve but little and therefore must be of a yet less soft consistency 4. That the fiery clouds being supposed globous and therefore profound do harbour many invisible lights whereof some do happen sometimes to be detruded out of their seat downwards that is towards the earth through the continuated and exuperant force of the superiour parts of the Element of fire This is seldom observed but in the lower Region of the fire because that Element doth use its greatest force there as being near to the place of strife for its Center and most pincht there by the obtruded igneous clouds These new appearing Lights do sometimes keep within sight for eight or ten Months some longer others shorter and afterwards disappear again whence they come under the notion of Comets agreeing in nothing with them except in their disappearing after a certain times lustre The cause of their disappearance I impute to the bearing up of the air upwards by the inferiour fiery rayes and carrying those dislocated Stars out of sight again where they are included within a dense igneous cloud 5. New Stars are oft generated within the bulk of the foresaid clouds whose smalness and close inclusion doth render them invisible Others again are dissolved through being over-powered by the force of the fiery Element 6. The Galaxia or milky-way is nothing but a great number of small dusky lights or inequalities coagulated out of the grosser part of the peregrin Elements of the lower igneous Region VI. Lastly Like as you see that the Element of water which naturally consisteth of the greatest thickness is reduced to that tenuity through such a great proportion of air and that the air is from the greatest tenuity incrassated through such a quantity of water and earth into clouds throughout its whole body even the same we must imagine of fire viz. that it is reduced from the greatest rarity to a condensation and attenuation into large igneous clouds throughout its body through the vast admixture of air somewhat incrassated and condensed These clouds in the lower Region are diducted and separated into many thick and profound ones in the second Region into those of a great tenuity but more cohering Thus we have briefly exposed to your view the commerce of fire with the other Elements and for your better understanding have caused this Scheme to be inserted where you have the universal flames striking downwards for a Center whereas after the first knock it flamed upwards in the Chaos because it moved from its own Center The proportions of fire and air to both the other Elements although not very exactly cut according to my Copy yet comes near to it The Stars are there represented according to their several Regions wherein they are seated The motion of the heavens is likewise there exhibited as we have demonstrated it in the preceding Paragraphs All which with many others insisted upon in this and the subsequent Chapter you have here plainly proposed CHAP. XXII Of the Motion of the Element of fire 1. Where the Poles of the Heavens are 2. The Opinions of Ptolomy and Tycho rejected 3. That the Planets move freely and loosely and why the fixed Stars are moved so uniformly 4. The Suns retrograde motion unfolded and the cause of it 5. How the Ecliptick AEquator and the Zodiack were first found out 6. The manner of the fiery Heavens their ventilation 7. Whence it is that the Sun moves swifter through the Austrinal Mediety and slower through the Boreal How the Sun happens to measure a larger fiery Tract at some seasons in the same time than at others 8. Whence the difference of the Suns greatest declination in the time of Hipparchus Ptolomy and of this our age happens 9. An undoubted and exact way of Calculating the natural end of the World The manner of the Worlds dissolution The same proved also by the holy Scriptures The prevention of a Calumny I. I have formerly discoursed upon the motion of the Heavens from East to West assigning the violent detention from their Center for the cause of it I shall repeat nothing more of it than put you in mind that nothing can move circularly except upon two immoveable points which are therefore named the Poles from sustaining their body The immobility which we observe in this our Hemisphere near the Bear Stars perswades us to take it for the North or Arctick Pole to which the South
Surface VIII Why doth the Herb of the Sun vulgarly called Chrysantemum Peruvianum or Crowfoot of Peru because its Leaves and Flowers resemble those of our Crowfoot turn the faces of its Leaves and Flowers about with the Sun Answ. Because the Sun through its igneous Beames doth rarefie that side of the Leaves and Flowers which is obverted to it whereby he doth expel their continuous streames whose egress doth attract or incline them that way whither they are expelled in the same manner as we have explained the Attraction of the Loadstone IX Why is the Laurel seldom or never struck by Lightning Answ. Because it is circumvested with a thick slimy Moysture which doth easily shove or slide off the Glance of a Lightning CHAP. II. Containing Problemes relating to Water 1. Why is red hot Iron rendered harder by being quencht in cold water 2. Whence is it there fals a kind of small Rain every day at noon under the AEquinoctial Region 3. How Glass is made 4. Whence it is that so great a Mole as a Ship yields to be turned by so small a thing as her Rudder 5. What the cause of a Ships swimming upon the water is 6. Whether all hard waterish bodies are freed from fire I. VVHy is red hot Iron rendered harder by being quencht in cold water Answ. Because the water doth suddenly pierce into the Pores of iron being now open and violently expel the fire and air both which as we have shewed in B. 1. Part 2. are the sole Causes of the softness of a body and being expelled leave the same indurated by the weighty Elements pressing more forcibly and harder to their Center II. Whence is it that there fals a kind of small Rain every day from 11 or 12 of the Clock to 2 or 3 in the Afternoon under the AEquinoctial Region Answ. The Sun at his Rising and Descending doth through his oblique Rayes excite a multitude of small vapours which through the privative coldness of the air in the night are concreased into small clouds but reduced into drops of rain through the Suns rarefaction or fiery minims when he is perpendicularly imminent upon them III. How is Glass made Answ. The matter of ordinary Glass is generally known to be Ashes or Chalck burnt out of stones or both The Venice Glasses differing from others in clearness and transparency are made out of chalck burnt out of stones which they fetch from Pavia by the River Ficinum and the ashes of the weed Kall growing in the deserts of Arabia between Alexandria and Rossetta which the Arabians make use of for fuell In the first Book second Part I have told you how a body was reduced into ashes through the expulsion of its thinner glutinous moisture by the vibrating fiery minims The same fire being intended doth through its greater violence enter mollifie diduct and thence melt and equallize the courser thick remaining glutinous moisture by its own presence together with the air which it imports along with it whereby the Terrestial minims that were before clotted are exactly and equally spread throughout the foresaid thick glutinous moisture The fire and air being only admitted from without not incorporated with the said bodies through want of a matrix because they being in that extream overpowring quantity that they may as easily free themselves from the said body as they entered are expelled again as soon as they are exposed to the cold ambient air and so desert the body leaving it glib smooth continuously hard friable rigid and transparent So that it appears hence that Glass is nothing but water reduced nearer to its absolute nature which we have shewed is hard and clear by freeing it from the thin glutinous moisture or air and fire incorporated with a small proportion of water through barning its first subject into ashes and afterwards by uniting diducting and equallizing its own parts contained in the ashes By the forementioned thick or course glutinous moisture I intend a mixture of much water incorporated with a little earth and least air and fire That Glass is water nearer reduced to its absolute nature I shall prove by its properties 1. That glib smoothness of Glass depends upon the continuity of the parts of water necessarily accompanied by a glib smoothness because it doth not consist of any contiguous rough minims 2. It is continuously hard because water of her absolute nature is continuously hard 3. It is friable because the water is throughout divided by the minims of earth which render it so brittle and rigid whereas were it all water it would be harder than any stone It is transparent because it is but little condensed by earth whose condensation renders all bodies obscure 2. Because it is luminous that is apt to receive the lumen from any lucid body as being throughout porous through which it is rendred capable of harbouring the obtended air Glass is distinguisht from Crystallin hardness and transparency because this latter appropriates more of water in her absolute state and less of earth IV. Whence is it that so great a mole as a Ship yields so readily in turning or winding to so small a thing as a Rudder This Problem will make plain that an impulse is intended by a medium or deferens A Ship swimming in the water and being impelled by the wind or a board-hook raiseth the water into a tumour before at her bowes which is violently impelled what by the air lifted up by the tumour what by her own bent to recover that place behind at the stern whence it was first propelled and where you shall alwaies observe a hollowness in the water proportionable to her rising before and therefore as you may see runs swiftly about both the sides and meeting in both the streams abaft doth propel the Ship forward by a reflection and this you may also perceive in taking notice of that most eager meeting of the streams of water from both sides behind at the Rudder which being removed to either side viz. To Star-boord or Lar-boord side directs the Ship towards the sides because the force of the water in returning doth beat hard against that side of the Rudder which is obverted to her as resisting most and collecting her force is shoved towards the opposite side of the Stern whereby her head comes too to the other side whence we may plainly observe that a Ship doth not begin to turn before but alwaies abaft This I prove A Ship hitting her breech against the ground at Sea usually striketh abaft because she draweth more water there than before now the shoving of the Helm to the other side brings her off immediately and brings her head too which is a certain sign that a Ship is moved from abaft and begins first to turn there If it is so it is beyond doubting that the force of the water is forcible behind beyond imagination and thence adding that intention to the impulse V. What is the cause of the swimming of