of its essence for no accident can constitute the essence of a substance You speak not like a Philosopher when you speak Sect. 5. Pag. 34 cap 5. of uniting a body moved to that other body which is called its place For place is defined to be the superficies of the ambient bodie but the bodie quantitative is a different species from the superficies the substantiall bodie is in another predicament therefore place cannot be a body for if it were it could not be equall to the thing contained for every bodie that containes is bigger then the bodie contained as the dish is bigger then the water The aire then is not the place of our bodies but the superficies or terminus of the aire which is the accident of that subject In regard dense bodies you say are dividers the earth Sect. 6. Pag. 36. cap. 5. in that respect must be the most active element since it is the most dense The earth is active in dividing not because it is most dense but because most heavy and indeed the cause both of density and gravity is frigidity and therefore this is the active quality not density Againe elements are called active in respect of the two active qualities heat and cold and of these two heat is the more active and consequently the element of fire is simply and absolutely most active The action of cold is composed of two parts to wit pressing Sect. 7. Pag. 36. c. 5. and penetration Pressure and penetration are not the parts but the effects of frigefaction Pressure but a remote effect for it is immediately caused by gravity and this by cold And for penetration it is rather the effect of heat then of cold for hot liquors pierce sooner then cold and it is rather by reason of the rarity of its substance then of the coldnesse thereof that it pierceth for this cause aire is more penetrating then water and fire then aire A reall entity necessarily hath an existence of its owne and Sect. 8. Pag. 39. c. 6. so becomes a substance By this you inferre that qualities must needs be substances seeing they are reall entities distinct from the bodies they accompany But this consequence is irrationall for accidents are reall entities because they are not bare notions and conceptions of the mind but things existent and distinct from their bodies yet their entity is weake compared with that of substances so that sometimes they are called non-entities by Philosophers but if all reall entities must needs be substances then in vaine is it to make above one predicament or to divide entity into substance and accidents Then qualities cannot be contrary one to another as heat to cold nor can they admit of magis and minus but are subjects susceptible of contrariety without alteration of themselves which are the properties of substance but although accidents be reall entities yet they have no existence in or by themselves but in or by their substances for Accidentis esse est inesse and therefore ens is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as respecting principally substance but accidents secundariò as they inhere in their substance which as they cannot subsist so they cannot be defined without their substance The Papists themselves will not yeeld that accidents in the Eucharist can subsist without their proper subject except by miracle or Divine power and Scotus is so far from yeelding In 1. Phys. quaest 7. any subsistence to accidents without their substance that he will rather beleeve that the accidents in the bread are turned by miracle into a substance to which opinion it seems you encline Thomas tels us that whitenesse 1. ◠q. 90. Art 2. and other accidents have no entity but as they are in their subjects And Aristotle that accidents are entis 7 Metaphys rather then entia You must first prove that accidents have any entity without their subjects and then that to have reall entity and to subsist by it selfe or that essence and self existence is all one when this is proved we will be of your opinion Heat is nothing else in the fire but the very substance of Sect. 9. Pag. 41. c. 6. it If heat be the substance of the fire then it is either the matter or the forme of it not the matter for heat is active the matter passive not the forme for the forme is the essence and therefore incommunicable but heat is communicated by the fire to the water Heat is not in the element the principle of motion but the forme thereof is One forme is not contrary to another but heat is contrary to cold Heat admits degrees so doth not the substantiall forme Heat and cold cannot be contraries Contraria sunt sub eodem genere seeing heat is a substance say you and cold a quality It cannot be imagined that light is any thing else but fire Sect. 10. Pag. 43. c. 6. If it be so then where-ever fire is there is light but we reade of a fire without light 2. Then where-ever light is there is fire but there is light in the Stars in Cats eyes in Glow-wormes in Fish scales yet no fire 3. The nature of fire is to ascend onely the nature of the light is to descend also 4. Water is opposite to fire but to light darknesse 5. Fire heats by degrees and successively light illuminates suddenly and in an instant 6. Fire containes it selfe in a narrow place as the chimney light dilates it selfe over all the roome 7. If light be fire then it must be heat for heat you say is fire but if light be heat then it will follow that light is tangible and heat visible but ask a blind man if he can discerne light by touching and ask him that hath eyes if by them he can see heat which he must needs do if heat and light be the same thing 8. There is heat in a dark Oven that bakes your bread when there is no light at all and there is light in Saturne but no heat at all 9. When the fire warmes the water it makes a change in the water by expelling a positive quality but when the Sun illuminates the aire there is no change made in the aire because no positive quality is expelled darknesse being a meere privation 10. The light of the Sun in the aire and in the Sun is the same light but if it be fire in the aire much more must it be fire in the Sun No wonder then if Icarus his waxen wings melted flying so neere the Sun But the snowie mountaines have the Suns light more then the valleys yet have they not thereby the more heat Snow enlightneth the aire in the night but warmes it not The aire is not warmer at the full Moone then at the change 11. Iflight be fire then it must be a body but a body it cannot be for then when light is in the aire two bodies must be at once in one place 2.
must be done by natural heat and a vegetative soule and what is this but to make salt a plant As for the weight of it which you say encreaseth I doubt of it but if it were so as you say yet that weight is not encreased by turning the aire into its substance but rather by the losse and evaporation of the aire by its long lying So paper-books grow much heavier by beating the aire out of the paper But whereas you say That the nature of the Load-stone proceeds from the Suns operation Pag. 200. c. 22. on the torrid Zone which operation is contrary to the Load-stone as being of a fiery nature and therefore the torrid lands are not so magneticall as the polar is a riddle for how can the nature of the Load-stone be contrary to that which begets it and how can the Sun beget magnetick vertue by that heat which by reason of its fiery nature hinders or destroyes it Sect. 43. Pag 215. c. 23. You say 'T is as impossible for diversity of worke in the seed to proceed at one time and in the same occasions from one agent as it is for multiplicity to proceed immediatly from unity I will not now tell with what arguments Physicians prove that the seed is the epitome of the whole body and extracted from every part thereof and containeth potentially all the parts of the body which the plastick or formative power of the seed educeth unto act by degrees but this I must tell you that naturall agents can at the same time produce diversity of works for doth not the Sun at the same time produce multitudes of divers effects according to the multitudes of bodies it works upon doth not the fire at the same time rarifie condense soften harden doth not the same liver at the same time by its heat produce blood choler melancholy and phlegme even so may the same formative power of the seed at the same time fabricate and distinguish all the parts of the body The marrow being very hot drieth the bones and yet with Sect. 44. Pag. 226. c. 24. its moisture humecteth How the same naturall agent can at the same time on the same object worke contrary effects I know not Can the fire at the same time both harden and soften the wax 2. The braine comparatively is colder then any other of the soft parts of the body and consequently the marrow which groweth from thence 3. If heat be the cause of the bones drinesse then the heart which is the hottest part of the body should have the hardest bone about it 4. What the bones are in sensitive creatures that the stones are in vegetables but the hottest fruits have not the hardest stones for the stone of a cold Peach is harder then the kernels or stones of the hot Grapes 5. If marrow were the cause of drinesse or hardnesse it would follow that where there is most marrow there should be the hardest and driest bones but Philosophers tell us that those creatures whose bones are most solid and drie have least marrow 6. That drinesse then and hardnesse of the bones proceeds not from the heat of the marrow which is held to be lesse hot then the braine but from the innate heat of the bones themselves wasting the aeriall and oylie substance thereof which heat is not fiery but temperate as the naturall heat should be yet it causeth this hardnesse and drinesse because the matter on which it works is grosse and terrestriall and because of the heats continuall working on the bones You will not have us too irreverently ingage the Almighties Sect. 45. Pag. 227. c. 25. immediate handy-worke in every particular effect of nature We offer no irreverence to the Almighty if we call him the Creator even of the meanest creatures being no lesse admirable in Creatione vermiculorum quà m Angelorum in the creation of wormes then of Angels saies S. Austine and therefore Basil thinks it no irreverence Homil. 7. in Gen. to say That God in the beginning did not only create Fishes in the sea but Frogs also in the pooles nay Gnats and vermine Whose immediate handy-work were the Lice that were procreated of the Egyptian dust at the stretching out of Aarons and Moses his Rod Did not the Sorcerers acknowledge that the finger of God was there If it be no disparagement to the Almighty that the excrementitious haires of our head are the objects of his providence neither can it be any dishonour to him if we say the meanest creatures are the effects of his omnipotence The worke of generation you say is not effected by the Sect. 46. Pag. 231. c. 25. formative power except we meane by it the chaine of all the causes that concurre to produce this effect When wee speak of the proximate or immediate cause of things we exclude not the remote causes for Causa causae est causa causati He that saies that Isaac was begot of Abrahams seed denies not that Abrahams seed is begot of his blood and he that saies a man is a reasonable creature saies also that he is a sensitive vegetative corporeall substance but what ever the remote causes be the formative facultie in the spirits of the seed effects the work of generation which spirits are derived from all parts of the body otherwise how could they frame all the distinct parts and members in the seed but the grosse or materiall part of the seed is onely from the vessels You hold the heart to be first generated This is probable Sect. 47. Pag. 225. c. 24. but it may be doubted because whatsoever liveth must be nourished but nourishment is from the blood and blood from the liver therefore Galens opinion was that the liver is first generated which he also proveth by the umbelicall veine But indeed Hippocrates his opinion is most likely to be true that all the parts are formed at the same time by the spirits in the seed However it be this is certaine that fearfully and wonderfully are we made The touch converseth with none but with the most materiall Sect. 48. Pag. 244. c. 27. and massie bodies What think you of the aire the winde the flame are these masfie bodies and yet they are the objects of our touch the instrument of which is not only in the hands and fingers but diffused also through all the skin and if the flame touch your skin you shall as soone feele it though it be no massie body as you shall a stone But whereas you call heat and cold wet and drinesse affections of quantity you confound entities and the predicaments as you use to doe If by affections you meane properties then heat and cold are not the properties of quantities but of elementary bodies which are substances If by affections you meane effects much lesse can these be the affections of quantity for quantity is not operative Neither are rarity and density out of the degrees of which you will
body nor your soule which are still the same subjects of all these passions the alterations then are in the passions or qualities themselves I beleeve these entities are not unknowne to you as you are a man Homo es humani à te nihil alienum puto Lastly if qualities must be proved then I must prove that there is motion action and passion in the world but you 'l say these need no proofe so say I and consequently neither need we prove that there are qualities for if there were not heat in the fire there could be no calefaction in the water The perfection of substances consisteth in their operations but take away qualities you take away all operation and by consequence the perfection of substance nay you must deny all generation and corruption in nature if you deny qualities for by their service the matter is prepared to receive the form or lose it and they are inseparable hand-maids waiting on the formes as their mistresses and ready to performe their commands The body is a meere passive thing What think you of Sect 64. Pag. 342. Conclus the celestiall bodies are they meerly passive if they be what is it that works upon this inferiour globe Are the Sun and Moone meere passive bodies by which all things here have light life motion and vegetation But perhaps you meane not celestiall bodies Then come lower Are not the animall and vitall spirits bodies and yet they are active not meerely passive and if they were not active they could not unite the soule with the body as they do but unire est agere nay what say you to your little Pages the Atomes they are bodies you confesse and yet not meerly passive for in this Treatise of yours they have done you Knights-service Neither am I of your opinon when you say that rare and dense is the Pag. 342. primary and adequat division of bodies For there is in bodies a division more prime then of dense and rare to wit of hot and cold for rarity is but the effect of heat and density of cold now the effect is not the prime but posterior to its cause Though we have not sworne to defend Aristotle in all Sect. 65. Conclus his Dictats yet till we know better we will adhere to his If you can informe us of principles more consonant to truth wee will follow you and leave him for neither Plato nor Aristotle but Truth is it we fight for But indeed wee doe not find your Philosophy answerable to your paines or our expectations I will not dispraise your endeavours nor will I promise to follow them I honour your worth I admire your paines but I dislike your tenets Your good parts deserve my love but your principles convince not my judgement therefore afford me the same libertie in dissenting from you which you assume to your selfe in deviating from Aristotle whom notwithstanding you thinke you have exactly followed in your opinion of Atomes But if my judgement faile me not in this you are mistaken for though hee denies not minima naturalia or atomes in bodies which are parts of the whole yet hee never affirmed that all actions passions motions mutations are performed by them much lesse was he of your opinion that light heat cold and other qualities were atomes or corporieties but through all his workes when hee hath occasion to speak of them he makes them distinct entities and placeth them in distinct predicaments Therefore father not these your Atomes upon Aristotle but set the right saddle on the right horse and let Democritus enjoy his owne conceipts to whom by right these atomes belong and not to Aristotle Though Metaphysicall principles be of a higher straine Sect. 66. Pag. 344. conclus then Physicall yet we must not set them apart and make no use of them in the compositions resolutions and motions of things as you would have us for both the subject of Physick is subordinate to Metaphysick and the principles of that demonstrable by the principles of this How can you know exactly a naturall bodie and its affections and principles if you know not what is entity essence existence act possibility c The thing defined cannot be knowne but by the definition nor this without the genus and difference If you know not what is animal you know not what is man How shall wee know without Metaphysick what your active atomes are whether they be bodies or spirits corruptible or incorruptible substances or accidents perfect or imperfect c By the touch-stone of Metaphysick we must try the goodnesse of your new coined opinions but you wrong the learned Pag. 344. Aristotelians when you say that they imagine positive entities to the negatives of things as to the names of points lines instants for they never called names and negatives positive entities nor are the names of points lines instants negatives with them and though they did imagine such to be positive entities yet they doe not hold them to be so indeed for you may imagine or conceive darknesse or blindnesse under the notion of positive entities though you know them to be privations And indeed wee cannot imagine privations and negations without some reflexion on their habits and affirmations because entities are only the objects of the intellect You shall do well to name the Aristotelians who are guilty of this your accusation You would make Aristotle a weak Logician if hee Sect. 67. Pag. 345 should meane by qualities nothing else but a disposition of parts as you say But he is of another mind for qualities are with him in one predicament the disposition of parts in another to wit in the Category of Site therefore your definitions are lame for want of Logick and Metaphysick for you define beauty a composition of parts and colours in due proportion whereas beauty is a qualitie composition an action and proportion in the predicament of relation So when you define health a due temper of the humours health is not the temper of humours but is the effect of this temper For as sicknesse is an affection hurting and hindering our naturall vitall and animall actions so health is an affection preserving and maintaining these actions in safetie but affections are qualities Neither is agility a due proportion of spirits and strength of sinewes as you define it for proportion is a relation but agilitie a qualitie Besides there is in Elephants a due proportion of spirits and more strength of sinews then in a Mouse or Weasle and yet no waies that agilitie And as bad is your definition of Science which you say is nothing else but ordered phantasmes whereas I have ordered phantasmes of contingencies corruptible and individuall things and yet of these there is no science Though I have ordered phantasmes of the effect yet for want of the knowledge of the cause I have not the science of it for scire est per causas cognoscere And if you take phantasmes
HAving with much delight satisfaction and content perused this Treatise entituled The Philosophicall Touch-stone I allow it to be printed and published and commend it to the learned and judicious Reader as a work sound and solid and eminently acute and accurate Iohn Downame THE PHILOSOPHICALL TOUCH-STONE OR OBSERVATIONS UPON Sir Kenelm Digbie's Discourses of the nature of BODIES and of the reasonable SOULE In which his erroneous Paradoxes are refuted the Truth and Aristotelian Philosophy vindicated the immortality of mans Soule briefly but sufficiently proved And the weak Fortifications of a late Amsterdam Ingeneer patronizing The Soules mortality briefly slighted By ALEXANDER ROSS Pers. Sat. 5. Non equidem hoc studeo bullatis ut mihi nugis Pagina turgescat dare pondus idonea fumo LONDON Printed for Iames Young and are to be sold by Charles Green at the signe of the Gun in Ivie-lane 1645. TO THE Right honourable IOHN Earle of RUTLAND Lord Ross c. My Lord WIth the same boldnesse that I have adventured to lap up in the folds of a few paper sheets the rich Jewells of Philosophicall truths with the same have I presumed to present them to your Lordships view not that you can receive from them any addition of honour but that they from your Name and Protection may partake a farther degree of irradiation and lustre Here you may see what odds there are between naturall gems and counterfeit stones between solid wholsome meats and a dish of Frogs or Mushroms though made savoury with French sauce to which that ingenious rather then in this Discourse judicious Knight doth invite us who breathing now in a hotter climate cannot digest the solid meats of Peripatetick verities which hitherto have been the proper and wholsome food of our Universities and therefore entertaines us with a French dinner of his owne dressing or with an airie feast of Philosophicall quelque choses a banquet fitter for Grashoppers and Camelions who feed on dew and aire then for men who rise from his Table as little satisfied as when they sate downe We that have eat plentifully of the sound and wholsome viands which are dressed in Aristotle's kitchin are loth now to be fed as the Indian gods are with the steem or smoak of meats or as those Umbrae tenues simulachraque luce carentum those pale ghosts in Proserpine's Court to champ Leeks and Mallowes My Lord in this Dedication I onely aime at an expression of my gratefulness and observance which I owe to your goodnesse and of those reall sentiments I have of your favours and opinion which your self and your truly noble and religious Countesse have been pleased to conceive of mee I heartily pray for an accumulation of all happinesse on you both as likewise on the fruit of your bodies especially the tender plant and hopefull pledge of your mutuall loves my Lord Ross which is the wish of Your Honours humble servant ALEXANDER ROSS The CONTENTS of the first part containing 68. Sections WOrds expresse things as they are in their owne nature sect 1. Divisibility the effect of extension this is not the essence of quantity sect 2. Rarity the effect not the cause of heat rarified bodies not the hottest sec. 3. The essence of locall motion consisteth not in divisibility sec. 4. Place is not a body but the superficies of a body sec. 5. Not density but gravity is the cause of activity and frigidity cause of both sec. 6. Pressure and penetration not parts but effects of frigidity heat is more piercing sec. 7. Though accidents be reall entities yet they exist not by themselves sec. 8. Heat is not the substance of the fire sec. 9. Light no body but a quality proved by twelve reasons Nor can it be fire sec. 10. Of the qualities of light and how it heats and how it perisheth sec. 11 12. The dilatatioâ— and motion of the light and how seen by us sec. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20. The greatest bodies have not the greatest vertue sec. 21. How naturall bodies move themselves sec. 22. How the Sun causeth motion sec. 23. If the light beares up the atomes and if it be a part of them sec. 24. There is in nature positive gravity and levity by which she works sec. 25. Light descends thorow dense bodies sec. 26. Atomes doe not presse sec. 27. Egyptian earth why heavie upon change of weather How a vessell with snow and salt in it freezeth by the fire The vanity of atomes sec. 28. Water is not actually heavie in its owne sphere The sea moves naturally to the centre Water can divide water sec. 29 Heavie bodies tend naturally to the centre Gravity is not the cause of violent motion The effect sometimes exceeds the cause Inanimate things without understanding affect and dis-affect what 's good or bad for them sec. 30. The true cause of the motion of projection and its properties sec. 31. The heavens void of generation corruption alteration they are naturall bodies sec. 32. Atomes are not the causes of heat nor ofre-action sec. 33. How elementary formes remaine in mixed bodies sec. 34. There are in nature foure simple bodies sec. 35. Wind is not the motion of atomes but an exhalation sec. 36. Naturall Mathematicall and Diabolicall magick sec. 37. The weapon-salve a meere imposture sec. 38. The true causes of the temperament under the line sec. 39. The load-stone is not begot of atomes drawne from the North-Pole sec. 40. Without qualities no operation in nature sec. 41. Atomes pierce not the earth Odors decay by time Salt how it growes heavie sec. 42. Naturall agents at the same time work diversly sec. 43. The heat of the marrow is not the cause of the hardnesse of the bones but the heat of the bones themselves sec. 44. God is not dishonoured by calling him the Creatour of the meanest things sec. 45. The formative power of generation in the seed sec. 46. Whether the heart or the liver first generated sec. 47. Thin bodies as well as thick the objects of touch Rarity and density what kind of entities sec. 48. Objects work not materially but intentionally on the sense sec. 49. Sound is not motion proved How perceived by deafe men It shakes not houses sec. 50. Colours are not quantities nor substances but qualities s. 51. How living creatures can move themselves Of nature and properties Of life And how the life of God differs from the life of the creature sec. 52. Of sense and sensation How the sense worketh and suffereth sec. 53. Vision is not caused by materiall atomes Seven things required in sensation sec. 54. Words are not motion nor are they the chiefe object of memory sec. 55. The organ of the memory How the intellect and memory differ sec. 56. Purging consisteth not in liquefaction but in attracting and expelling sec. 57. Pleasure is not the motion of a fume about the heart but the apprehension of a convenient object sec. 58. Paine and pleasure move not the heart Of systole
Aristotle in this point cleered and vindicated sec. 4. How Angels and mens soules subject to annihilation or dissolution sec. 5. The first Objection against our doctrine answered and is shewed how the soule is immortall both by grace and nature sec. 6. The second Objection answered Solomon compares not mens soules to beasts but the death of mens bodies to that of beasts sec. 7. The third Objection answered Job denieth not the resurrection but sheweth it cannot be effected by the power of nature sec. 8. The fourth Objection answered Austin cleered The way how the soule is infused and originall sin propagated sec. 9. The fifth Objection answered How the soule in under standing depends from the senses sec. 10. The sixth Objection answered how the soule suffers sec. 11. The seventh Objection answered How immateriall grace is corrupted sec. 12. The eighth Objection answered Desire of immortality in man onely sec. 13. The ninth Objection answered The soule understands better being separated then now she doth in the body sec. 14. The many mischiefes that Christian Religion suffers by this opinion of the soules corruptibility sec. 15. The late printed Pamphlet at Amsterdam which undertakes to prove the soules mortality briefly refuted and slighted as a frivolous and irreligious rapsodie having nothing in it but froth Wherein he abuseth Scripture He is refuted in foure observations The soule after death subsisteth naturally not violently nor miraculously sec. 16. A devout and comfortable meditation upon the soules immortality fit for all afflicted Christians sec. 17. THE PHILOSOPHICALL TOUCH-STONE NOble Sir KENELME as I reverence your worth so I admire your paines who being a Gentleman of such eminencie thinks it no disparagement but an honour to spend your time in good literature which giveth true Nobilitie your practice herein is exemplary which I wish the Gentry of our Nation would imitate who think they are born meerly for themselves and their pleasures whose time is spent either idlely wickedly or impertinently as Seneca complaines Eorum vitam mortemque juxta existimo but your mind being of a more noble extraction semine ab aethereo you know that you are not borne for your selfe and therefore by your indefatigable paines doe both eternize your fame and enoble your Countrie but because this life of ours cannot challenge the priviledge of perfection and truth here is accompanied with errour as the light with shades therefore I find that this your Work of the nature of Bodies and of the Soules immortality hath some passages in it Heterodoxall and not consonant to the principles of Divinity and Philosophy which have drawne from mee these sudden Observations for I have here neither time books nor opportunitie to enlarge my selfe in which I promise both brevity and modesty suffering no other language to passe from mee but such as may beseem both your worth and my ingenuitie for my end is not to wound your reputation but to vindicate the truth The first mistake I meet with is That words expresse Sect. 1. Pag. 2. cap. 1. things only according to the pictures we make of them in our thoughts and not as the things are in their proper natures But if our words expresse not the things which we conceive in our minds as they are in their owne natures then our conceptions are erroneous and our words improper or false and if there be not an adequation of our conceptions with the things we conceive there can be no metaphysicall truth in us which consisteth in the agreement of our thoughts with the things as ethicall truth doth in the consent of our words to our thoughts Our conceptions are our internall words which represent reall things and our externall words represent these conceptions and by consequence they expresse things as they are in their natures So Adam in Paradise gave names to the creatures according to their natures and so have wise men ever since The Latines call the sea mare quasi amarum from its saltnesse or bitternesse for it is so in its owne nature Secondly You define quantity to be nothing else but the Sect. 2. Pag. 9. cap. 2. extension of a thing and shortly after that quantity is nothing else but divisibility Thus you confound extension and divisibility which differ as much as in man rationality differs from risibility the one being the effect of the other for therefore things are divisible because they are extensive take away extension divisibility faileth and therefore numbers are not properly divisible because they have no extension but onely in resemblance Secondly extension is not the essence of quantity for if it were all that have quantitie must have also extension but Angels have discrete quantitie which wee call number and yet have no extension Thirdly there is a quidditative or entitive extension by which one part is not another in bodies though there were no quantitative extension at all therefore not every extension is the essence of quantitie There is also the extension of site which is no quantitie Whereas you make heat a property of rare bodies and Sect 3. Pag. 28. cap. 4. Pag. 30. that out of rarity ariseth heat and that a body is made and constituted a body by quantity you speak paradoxically for the rarest bodie is not still the hottest A burning coale is hotter then the flame and scalding lead is hotter then scalding water Secondly rarity is not the cause of heat but heat the cause of rarity that which begets heat is motion and the influence and light of the Stars motion then begets heat heat begets rarity 'T is true that rarefaction prepares the matter to receive heat as heat prepares the matter to receive the forme of the hot element but what prepares is not the cause Thirdly a bodie is not made and constituted by quantitie for this is posteriour to a bodie being a substance and followes the bodie as its accident and therefore more ignoble Every accident hath a subjective dependence from the substance a bodie hath or may have entitie without quantitie so cannot quantitie without the bodie The essence or as you call it the substance of locall motion Sect. 4. Pag 34. cap. 5. doth not consist in division because whatsoever division there is in this motion it is either in respect of the thing moved or in respect of the space in which it is moved but both these are externall to motion and not belonging any waies to its essence therefore in that divisibility which is in them cannot consist the essence of locall motion Besides divisibility is a propertie of quantitie flowing from its essence whereas locall motion is quantitative but by accident and not but by way of reduction in the predicament of quantitie therefore except you be of Scotus his opinion who will have mobile and motus all one division cannot be the essence of locall motion And if you were a Scotist in this yet you cannot prevaile for division being the accident of the thing moved it cannot be
his being sometime present sometime absent You spend much paper in shewing that the Sun is the cause of the motion of inferiour bodies which wee deny not but wee are not satisfied with this cause for the Sun as all other celestiall bodies is but an universall and remote cause of inferiour bodies and their motions but such a cause begets no scientificall knowledge the cause by which we must know scientifically is particular and immediate to wit the formes of bodies by their properties gravity and levity these are the causes of motion by which we know The Sun is too remote a cause and I doubt whether hee be a cause at all why the fire burnes and of other such like effects And though the Sun being present is the cause of sublunary effects yet being absent he cannot be a cause properly but accidentally or causa deficiens not efficiens The light carrieth up an atome with it and shortly after Sect. 24. Pag. 80. cap. 10. you tell us that light is a part of the atome Is not the aire strong enough to beare atomes except you adde this new carrier or porter light What becomes of these atomes when the light is gone Are they not too heavie a burthen for the aire to support without its fellow-helper Hercule supposito sidera fulcit Atlas This is much like their conceipt who feared that Atlas was not strong enough to beare up the heavens if Hercules shoulder had not helped him but how comes the light to be a part of its owne burthen an atome then I see is no atome but may be cut in parts and anatomized and these parts are light But is light an integrall or an essentiall part Are there any atomes in candle-light if there be how shall we know if there be not then is the light no part of atomes And if atomes be opake bodies how can light be a part of such is one opposite a part of another I think your atomes sustained by the light are like the dreames in Virgil supported by an elme or like the shadowes in the Elysian fields flying about the green medowes tenues sine corpore vitae Cernuntur volitare cava sub imagine formae You have been too much conversant in the schoole of Democritus who held the world to be made of atomes And to say that the first and most generall operation of the Pag. 76. Sun is to raise and make atomes is to give the Sun a very poore unworthy and fruitlesse imployment Caligula and his souldiers were better imployed when they gathered shells and pebble-stones and so was Dioclesian in catching of flies There is no such thing among bodies as positive gravity Sect. 25. Pag. 81. cap. 10. and levity but that their course upwards or downwards happen to them by the order of nature It seems you understand here by nature the universall nature which is nothing else but the dependencie of all inferiour causes orderly from the supreme cause If this be your meaning as it must needs be you commit a contradiction for you deny the secondary causes which you suppose to depend from the supreme If then I should aske you why a stone descends you will answer Not because of any positive gravity in it but because it so happens by the order of nature But why hath nature ordered a stone to fall downward not to move upward seeing there is no positive gravitie in it You answer me Because it meets with the aire or water bodies lighter thinner then the stone Then you here acknowledge a comparative gravitie in the stone for if the aire be lighter then the stone the stone must be heavier then the aire and so comparatively it is heavie but every comparative includes a positive for if you be wiser then another then you are wise but indeed universall nature works not without the particular neither doth God or the heaven move the stone downward but by the stones gravity therefore gravitie is the immediate cause of its motion which if you deny you may as well deny the fire to be hot and if you say the fire burnes only because it happeneth so by the order of nature you were as good say nothing Any body will descend if it light among others more Sect. 26. Pag 81. c. 10. rare then it selfe and will ascend if it light among bodies more dense then it What say you then to your light bodie of light which you say is nothing else but fire dilated surely meeting with aire a bodie heavier and denser it should never descend to us who live here on the earth but ascend rather how comes it that so light a bodie should descend so many miles from its fountaine the Sun to us seeing the aire is much more dense then it Nay it descends thorow a denser bodie the water for divers find light in the bottome of the sea Againe what say you to a thick plank of timber which meeting with the water a rarer bodie notwithstanding descends not to the bottome but swims above This is contrary to your doctrine You told us afore that light hath no bignesse or densitie Sect. 27. that the more dense the bodie is the more active it is that the light carries up atomes and now you say that these atomes the subtilest divisions of light doe presse Pag. 86. c. 11. downe a leaden bullet and penetrates or runs thorow it as light thorow a glasse water thorow a spunge and sand thorow a sieve The light then carries up these atomes which presse downe a leaden bullet and yet the light hath not densitie These are riddles which Oedipus cannot unfold for how a qualitie should be a body how that bodie should want dimensions how it should want density and yet beare up that which presseth downe with its weight a leaden bullet how there should be so much weight in atomes as to presse down such a bullet how these atomes should pierce so dense a bodie as lead whereas light cannot doe it yea run thorow lead as water thorow a spunge or sand thorow a sieve are I thinke some of these second notions which Chimaera did eat But how doe the atomes presse downe the lead doe they remain in their expansion dispersed then they cannot more presse the lead then the sea-water presseth him downe that dives in it elementum in suo loco non gravitat Or doe the atomes meet together in a bodie to help the lead downwards if all the atomes in the light were in one bodie how big would that bodie be The clod of earth which in Egypt is shut up in a close Sect. 28. Pag. 87. c. 11. roome and doth shew the change of weather by the increase of its weight receiveth not this weight from the atomes of salt-peter piercing the walls as you say but from the aire it selfe of which it is made up as other mixed bodies are which therefore sympathise with the aire and its changings as our