Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	cold_a	hot_a	moist_a	1,558	5	9.6254	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65356	Academiarum examen, or, The examination of academies wherein is discussed and examined the matter, method and customes of academick and scholastick learning, and the insufficiency thereof discovered and laid open : as also some expedients proposed for the reforming of schools, and the perfecting and promoting of all kind of science ... / by Jo. Webster.	Webster, John, 1610-1682.	1654 (1654)	Wing W1209; ESTC R827	87,773	128

other because in it are very many things that are apparently and absolutely false to make which appear I shall onely name two or three manifest particulars First he affirms that nothing is contrary to substance which he again asserts in his Logick and repeats elsewhere which to me seems absolutely false for certainly the substance of the fire is contrary to the substance of the water But thou wilt say the contrariety is solely in the qualities But seeing these qualities are every one proper to their substances and do arise out of them and accept their esse from them and therefore doth not this also argue contrariety in them For let the substance be of the same nature on both sides from whence is it that these qualities do arise rather than others which are contrary unto them And again in the same chapter it is false that he teacheth that contraries cannot suffer of themselves For do not cold things strive with hot and moist things with dry And do not these qualities mutually beat back and expel one another Secondly it is false which he affirms lib. 2. Phys. cap. 7. That the formal final and efficient causes are coincident to wit in respect of the same effect for how can the father be the same with the essential form of the Son And it is also false which he defends in the eighth chapter That art doth not deliberate otherwise artists do all things rashly But although the Mason do not deliberate whether he ought to prepare a foundation rather than an house Therefore doth ●e not consult whether he shall build it now rather than at another time or whether of this matter rather than of other or whether in this manner rather than in another Thirdly how false is that which he laies down in the 6 and 7. chapters of the third book of Physicks that no number can be given than which a greater may not be excogitated but that a magnitude may be given to wit the world than which no greater can be excogitated I pray you why may it not be lawful and possible to conceive a magnitude greater than this world nay ten thousand times greater wherein lies the impossibilitie He also defines there infinitum to be that beyond which something alwaies may be taken but how is that possible to be infinite that hath something extrase or that it can be made infinite by something without it self These are brave fancies and fine dreams Fourthly in the 8. book besides innumerable falsityes that may be observed in the 5 6 7 8 and 9. chapters that is a most signal one which in the first chapter he labours to build up of the eternity of motion that thereby he may make out the ingeniture and eternity of the world Let us therefore see with what reasons he can evince and perswade it 1. Is this Motion is the act of a movable thing Therefore that which is movable hath preceded Motion I pray you doth he not wound himself with his own weapon and strangle himself by his own consequence For if any thing hath preceded Motion Therefore motion is not eternal 2. He argues The thing moving and the thing moved are either made or are eternal But neither can be said to be so But wherefore cannot the one or both be eternal and nevertheless without motion He adds because this is absurd An egregious instance truly and indeed Philosophical for where appears this absurdity He further urges If the thing movable had preceded motion then it had rested and so another motion had been necessary before of which that rest had been a privation Verily as though he who is born blind ought to have seen in the womb that blindless might be accounted the privation thereof 3. He proceeds Power ought to be neer to the Act. As though stones that have lain hid from the framing of the world under the earth had not as well power to be framed into an house which is made to day as they have a few daies before they be digged up 4. He saith Time is eternal therefore Motion also He confirms the Antecedent 1. Because all Philosophers except Plato do affirm it As though the matter were pleaded in the Court where voices are numbred yet some have accounted Plato's judgement more than a thousand but this were to try things by authority not by truth 2. Because time is not sine nunc but every nunc is the beginning of the sequent and the end of the praecedent time As though there could not be a nunc first and last if either the motion of heaven hath begun or also if we believe that motion is not measured by time which were not hard to demonstrate 5. I shall onely instance in one place more and that is lib. 1. de Coelo cap. 3 cap. 4. There he assumes and endeavours to prove that Circulary motion hath nothing contrary un●o it what if of two wheels or orbs the one were moved towards the Orient and the other towards the Occident were they not to be said to be moved towards contrary parts and is not this to have something contrary unto it nay may not the motion of something in a straight line be contrary to motion that is circular seeing all motion is considered in relation unto the term or point from whence and unto which it moves and how this cannot be possible to me seems neither probable nor possible And though I have but taken these few things to instance in yet were it no hard matter but that it belongs not to my present purpose to evert the whole ground and fabrick of his Philosophy and that with arguments unanswerable and infallible but these are sufficient for this place and purpose 6. Aristotle's ipse dixit or the School's sic habet Aristoteles ought no longer to pass for oracles nor his tenents for truths before others because innumerable things in his Philosophy do contradict and are diametrically contrary and that I may make out what I say I shall call in for witness his own words and instance in some few particular places that it may be manifest how in constant and wavering he was in his own opinions First in his book of Categories there is plain contradiction seeing he makes ten and notwithstanding elsewhere sometimes three sometimes six sometimes eight He saith the first substance is rather substance than the second and not long after he affirmeth that the property of substance is to receive more and less He makes Time a species of Continued quantity and notwithstanding in the 4 book of Physicks he will have it to be Number which is Discrete quantity He also indeavours in the 1 book Priorum Analyticorum to demonstrate the definition of the figures and in the 2 after teacheth that definition cannot be demonstrated In the 1 book Posteriorum he will have us in Demonstration to proceed from things more known to us and for all that he defines demonstration to be that which proceeds

the internal natures vertues effects operations and qualities of the creatures then he would have known that the effect of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would have made him wretched and discovered his nakedness and then he would not have been so mad as to have tasted thereof To this I answer first that God had plainly told him that if he did eat thereof he should surely dy and yet notwithstanding he did eat thereof rather believing the Serpent and Eve than the words of the Almighty But if it be supposed that if he had known the operation and effect of that fruit he would not have credited the word of the Serpent more than his own evidential knowledge To this it is cleer that though the Serpent denyed that the effect or eating of it would procure death so likewise he cunningly affirmed and insinuated that the eating of it would open their eyes and that thereby they should be like Gods knowing good and evil and therefore it was the promise of Deifying them that did inflame their desires for it seemed to the woman good for food and pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise and therefore this made her put forth her hand and eat of the fruit and give also unto her husband and he did eat But to answer this fully it is a deep mystery and for man to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was to judge of God or his works and creatures by the creaturely womanish earthly and Serpentine wisdome and so to feed it self and find both good and evil and not to abide in the union and to know all things in the light and image of God and so to have seen them exceeding good and to this the Apostle alludeth saying Adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived was in the transgression 3. When I consider that the voices of birds and beasts though we account them inarticulate are significative one to another and that by the altering and varying of those sounds they express their passions affections and notions as well as men and are thereby understood of one another I cannot but believe that this is a part of the language of nature for the Lamb knoweth the individual bleating of the Ewe that is the Dam from all the rest of the Ewes and the young Chickens will all run under the Hens wings at a certain sound of the Cocks voice and all the Hens will run unto him at a certain call and therefore doubtless there is something more in that which Cornelius Agrippa relates of Apollonius Tyaneus than every one takes notice of that he understood the language of birds and beasts And I cannot but admire how when we hear one laugh and another howl and weep though the sounds be not articulate we can readily tell the one is the expression of sorrow and grief and the other of mirth and joy now from whence do we know this this is not acquired by us or taught us by others for even Children cry immediately after they be born and though it be said to be by reason of the sensation of cold which they felt not in the womb it is true but then what is the cause that crying or weeping is in all creatures the sign of sorrow pain or grief might not some other kind of sound be the sign of it or might it not in several creatures be expressed by different and various tones No truly the mind receiveth but one single and simple image of every thing which is expressed in all by the same motions of the spirits and doubtlessly in every creature hath radically and naturally the same sympathy in voice and sound but men not understanding these immediate sounds of the soul and the true Schematism of the internal notions impressed and delineated in the several sounds have instituted and imposed others that do not altogether concord and agree to the innate notions and so no care is taken for the recovery and restauration of the Catholique language in which lies hid all the rich treasury of natures admirable and excellent secrets CHAP. IV. Of Logick IN the next place I am to consider of that which they call ars Dialectica or most commonly Logick the principal ends of which they make to be discovery of Sophisms and fallacies producing probability and opinion and bringing forth of certitude and Apodictical Science the last of which being indeed its true and proper end and so as to this end is subservient to some other Sciences but especially to natural Philosophy I have formerly said something of the prejudice that it hath done to Theology where I treated of that subject and therefore shall onely now speak of it as it relates to humane and acquired Sciences and so lay out some of its chief defects irregularities and abuses 1. As it is now used in the Schools it is meerly bellum intestinum Logicum a civil war of words a verbal contest a combat of cunning craftiness violence and altercation wherein all verb●l force by impudence insolence opposition contradiction derision diversion trifling jeering humming hissing brawling quarreling scolding scandalizing and the like are equally allowed of and accounted just and no regard had to the truth so that by any means per fas aut nefas they may get the Conquest and worst their adversary and if they can intangle or catch one another in the Spider Webs of Sophistical or fallacious argumentations then their rejoicing and clamour is as great as if they had obtained some signal Victory And indeed it is the counsel of the Arch-Sophister their Master to speak ambigously while they dispute to obfuscate the light with darkness lest the truth should shine forth nay rather to spatter and blurt out any thing that comes into the budget rather than yield to our adversary for he saith Quare oportet respondentem non graviter ferre sed ponendo quae non utilia sunt ad positionem significare quaecunque non videntur Therefore it behooves the respondent not to take the business grievously but by putting those things which are not profitable to the position to signifie whatsoever doth not appear O excellent and egregious advice of so profound and much-magnified a Philosopher Is this to be a lover of verity or indeed to play the immodest Sophister and Caviller Now how adverse and destructive to the investigation of truth these altercations and abjurgations are is cleerly manifest for as Dionysius said against Plato sunt verba otiosorum senum ad imperitos invenes they are the words of idle old men unto unexperienced youth and nothing but vanity and trifles can arise from this way of cavillation 2. Logick is all applied for the discovery and finding forth of verity and therin proceeds very praeposterously for seeing we know nothing in nature but à posteriore and from the affections and properties of things must seek forth their causes