could strike it But it is evident say you out of these pretended causes of this motion that such atomes cannot move so swiftly downwards as a great dense body since their littleness and their rarity are both of them hindering to their motion Therefore this cannot be cause of that effect which we call gravity To this I reply That to have the atoms give these blows to a descending dense body 't is not requir'd that their natural and ordinary motion should be swifter then the descent of such a dense body but the very descent of it occasions their striking it for as it falls and makes it self a way through them they divide themselves before it and swell on the sides and a little above it and presently close again behind it and over it assoon as it is past Now that closing to hinder vacuity of space is a sudden one and thereby attains great velocity which would carry the atoms in that degree of velocity further than the descending body if they did not encounter with it in their way to retard them which encounter and tarding implyes such strokes upon the dense body as we suppose to cause this motion And the like we see in water into which letting a stone fall presently the water that was divided by the stone and swells on the sides higher then it was before closes upon the back of the descending stone and follows it so violently that for a while after it leaves a purling hole in the place where the stone went down till by the repose of the stone the water returns likewise to its quiet and so its superficies becomes even In the third place an enquiry occurs emergent out of this doctrine of the cause of bodies moving upwards and downwards Which is Whether there would be any natural motion deep in the earth beyond the activity of the Sun beams for out of these principles it follows that there would not and consequently there must be a vast Orb in which there would be no motion of gravity or levity For suppose the Sun beams might pierce a thousand miles deep into the body of the earth yet there would still remain a mass whose Diameter would be near 5000 miles in which there would be no gravitation nor the contrary motion For my part I shall make no difficulty to grant the inference as far as concerns motion caused by our Sun for what inconvenience would follow out of it But I will not offer at determining whether there may not be enclosed within that great sphere of earth some other fire such as the Chymists talk of an Archeus a Demogorgon seated in the centre like the heart in animals which may raise up vapours and boyl an air out of them and divide gross bodies into atoms and accordingly give them motions answerable to ours but in different lines from ours according as that fire or Sun is situated Since the far-searching Authour of the Dialogues de Mundo hath left that speculation undecided after he had touched upon it in the Twelfth knot of his first Dialogue Fourthly it may be objected that if such descending atoms as we have described were the cause of a bodies gravity and descending towards the center the same body would at divers times descend more and less swiftly for example after midnight when the atoms begin to descend more slowly the same body would descend more slowly in a like proportion and not weigh so much as it did in the heat of the day The same may be said of Summer and Winter for in Winter time the atoms seem to be more gross and consequently to strike more strongly upon the bodies they meet with in their way as they descend yet on the other side they seem in the Summer to be more numerous as also to descend from a greater height both which circumstances will be cause of a stronger stroke and more vigorous impulse on the body they hit And the like may be objected of divers parts of the World for in the Torrid Zone it will always happen as in Summer in places of the Temperate Zone and in the Polar times as in deepest winter so that no where there should be any standard or certainty in the weight of bodies if it depended upon so mutable a cause And it makes to the same effect that a body which lies under a thick rock or any other very dense body that cannot be penetrated by any great store of atoms should not be so heavy as it would be in the open and free air where the atoms in their compleat numbers have their full strokes For answer to these and such like instances we are to note first that 't is not so much the number or violence of the percussion of the striking atoms as the density of the thing strucken which gives the measure to the descending of a weighty body and the chief thing which the stroak of the atoms gives to a dense body is a determination of the way which a dense body is to cut to it self therfore multiplication or lessening of the atoms will not make any sensible difference betwixt the weight of one dense body where manya toms strike and an other body of the same density where but a few strike so that the stroak downwards of the descending atoms be greater then the stroke upwards of the ascending atoms and therby determines it to weigh to the Centrewards and not rise floating upwards which is all the sensible effect we can perceive Next we may observe that the first particulars of the objection do not reach home to enfeeble our doctrine in this particular although we admit them to be in such sort as they are proposed for they withal imply such a perpetual variation of causes ever favourable to our position that nothing can be infer'd out of them to repugne against it As thus When there are many atoms descending in the air the same general cause which makes them be many makes them also be light in proportion to their multitude And so when they are few they are heavy likewise when the atoms are light the air is rarified and thin and when they are heavy the air is thick And so upon the whole matter 't is evident that we cannot make such a precise and exact judgement of the variety of circumstances as to be able to determine when there is absolutely more cause of weight and when less And as we find not weight enough in either side of these opposite circumstances to turn the scales in our discourse so likewise we find the same indifference in experience it self for the weights we use do weigh equally in mysty weather and in clear and yet in rigor of discourse we cannot doubt but that in truth they do not gravitate or weigh so much though the difference be imperceptible to sense when the air is thick and foggy as when its pure and rarified Which thickness of the Medium when it arrives to a very
necessarily that a tender green substance which we call a bud or leaf must appear a little above the earth since tenderness greenness and ascent are the effects of those two principles heat moisture And must not this green substance change from what it was at first by the Sun and Air working upon it as it grows higher till at length it hardens into a stalk All this while the heat in the root sublimes up more moisture which makes the stalk at first grow rank and encrease in length But when the more volatile part of that warm juice is sufficiently depured and sublimed will it not attempt to thrust it self out beyond the stalk with much vigour and smartness And as soon as it meets with the cold air in its eruption will it not be stop'd and thick'ned And new parts flocking still from the root must they not clog that issue and grow into a button which will be a bud This bud being hard'ned at the sides by the same causes which hard'ned the stalk and all the while the inward heat still streaming up not enduring to be long enclosed especially when by its being stop'd it multiplyes it self will it not follow necessarily that the tender bud must cleave and give way to that spiritual juice which being purer then the rest through its great sublimation shews it self in a purer and nobler substance than any that is yet made and so becomes a flower From hence if we proceed as we have begun and weigh all circumstances we shall see evidently that another substance must needs succeed the flower which must be hollow and contain a fruit in it and that this fruit must grow bigger and harder And so to the last period of the generation of new beans Thus by drawing the thrid carefully along through your fingers and staying at every knot to examine how it is tyed you see that this difficult progress of the generation of living creatures is obvious enough to be comprehended and that the steps of it are possible to be set down if one would but take the pains and afford the time that is necessary less then that Philosopher who for so many years gave himself wholy up to the single observing of the nature of Bees to note diligently all the circumstances in every change of it In every one of which the thing that was becoms absolutely a new thing and is endew'd with new properties and qualities different from those it had before as Physicians from their certain experience assure us And yet every change is such as in the ordinary and general course of nature wherin nothing is to be consider'd but the necessary effects following out such Agents working upon such patients in such circumstances 't is impossible that any other thing should be made of the precedent but that which is immediately subsequent to it Now if all this orderly succession of mutations be necessarily made in a Bean by force of sundry circumstances and external accidents why may it not be conceiv'd that the like is also done in sensible creatures but in a more perfect manner they being perfecter substances Surely the progress we have set down is much more reasonable then to conceive that in the meal of the Bean are contain'd in little several similar substances as of a root of a leaf a stalk a flower a cod fruit and the rest and that every one of these being from the first still the same that they shall be afterwards do but suck in more moisture from the earth to swel and enlarge themselvs in quantity Or that in the seed of the male there is already in act the substance of flesh of bone of sinews of veins the rest of those several similar parts which are found in the body of an Animal and that they are but extended to their due magnitude by the humidity drawn from the mother without receiving any substantial mutation from what they were originally in the seed Let us then confidently conclude that all generation is made of a fitting but remote homogenial compounded substance upon which outward Agents working in the due course of nature change it into another substance quite different from the first and make it less homogenal then the first was And other circumstances and agents change this second into a third that third into a fourth and so onwards by successive mutations that still make every new thing become less homogeneal then the former was according to the nature of heat mingling more and more different bodies together till that substance be produced which we consider in the period of all these mutations And this is evident out of many experiences As for example in Trees the bark which is opposed to the North wind is harder thicker then the contrary side which is opposed to the south and a great difference will appear in the grain of the wood even so much that skilful people will by feeling and seeing a round piece of the wood after the Tree is fell'd tell you in what situation it grew and which way each side of that piece look'd And Josephus Acosta writes of a Tree in America that on the one side being situated towards great hills and on the other exposed to the hot Sun the one half of it flourishes at one time of the year and the other half at the opposite season and some such like may be the cause of the strange effects we somtimes see of trees flourishing or bearing leaves at an unseasonable time of the year as in particular in the famous Oak in the New Forrest and in some others in our Island in which peradventure the Soil they grow in may do the same effect as the winds and Sun did in the Tree that Acosta mentions For we daily see how some soiles are so powerful over some kind of corn that they will change the very nature of it so that you shall reap Oats or Rie after you have sown Wheat there Which shews evidently that since the outward circumstances can make the parts or the whole of any substance become different from what they were at first generation is not made by aggregation of like parts to presupposed like ones nor by a specifical worker within but by the compounding of a seminary matter with the juice which accrues to it from without and with the streams of circumstant bodies which by an ordinary course of nature are regularly imbibed in it by degrees and at every degree change it into a different thing such as is capable to result out of the present compound as we have said before till it arrive to its full perfection Which yet is not the utmost period of natures changes for from that for example from corn or an Animal it carries it on still changing it to be meal or a Cadaver from thence to be bread or durt after that to be blood or grass And so still turning about her wheel which suffers nothing to remain
disposition for a body that is to be the porter of any simple motion which should always lie watching in great quietness to observe scrupulously and exactly the errand he is to carry So that for my part I cannot conceive nature intended any such effect by mediation of the sinews But Monsir des Cartes endeavours to confirm his opinion by what uses to fall out in Palsies when a man looses the strength of moving his hands or other members nevertheless retains his feeling which he imputes to the remaining intire of the strings of the nerves while the spirits are some way defective To this we may answer by producing examples of the contrary in some men who have had the motion of their limbs intire and no ways prejudiced but no feeling at all quite over their whole case of skin and flesh As particularly a servant in the Colledge of Physitians in London whom the learned Harvey one of his Masters hath told me was exceeding strong to labour and very able to carry any necessary burthen and to remove things dexterously according to the occasion and yet he was so void of feeling that he used to grind his hands against the walls and against course lumber when he was employ'd to rummage any in so much that they would run with blood through grating of the skin without his feeling of what occasion'd it In our way the reason of both these conditions of people the paralytike and the insensible is easie to be rendred For they proceed out of the diverse disposition of the animal spirits in these parts which if they thicken too much and become very gross are not capable of transmitting the subtile messengers of the outward world to the tribunal of the brain to judge of them on the otherside if they be too subtile they neither have nor give power to swell the skin and so to draw the muscles to their heads And surely Monsir des Cartes takes the wrong way in the reason he gives of the Palsie for it proceeds out of abundance of humors which clogging the nerves rendreth them washy and makes them lose their dryness and become lither and consequently unfit and unable in his opinion for sensation which requires stiffness as well as for motion Yet besides all these one difficulty more remains against this doctrine more insuperable if I mistake not then any thing or altogether we have yet said which is how the memory should conserve any thing in it and represent bodies to us when our fancy calleth for them if nothing but motions come into the brain For 't is impossible that in so divisible a subject as the Spirits motion should be conserv'd any long time as we see evidently in the air through which move a flaming Taper never so swiftly and as soon as you set it down almost in the very instant the flame of it leaves being driven or shaken on one side and goes quietly and evenly up its ordinary course Therby shewing that the motion of the air which for the time was violent is all of a sudden quieted and at rest for otherwise the flame of the Taper would blaze that way the Air were moved Assuredly the bodies that have power to conserve motion long must be dry and hard ones Nor yet can such conserve it very long after the cause which made it ceases from its operation How then can we imagine that such a multitude of pure motions as the memory must be stored withal for the use and service of man can be kept on foot in his brain without confusion and for so long a time as his memory is able to extend to Consider a lesson plaid upon the Lute or Virginals and think with your self what power there is or can be in nature to conserve this lesson-over continually playing and reflect that if the impressions upon the common fense are nothing else but such things then they must be actually conserved always actually moving in our head to the end they be immediately produced whenever it pleases our will to call them And if peradventure it should be replyed that 't is not necessary the motions themselvs should always be conserved in actual being but 't is sufficient there be certain causes kept on foot in our heads which are apt to reduce these motions into act whenever there is occasion of them All I shall say hereto is That this is merly a voluntary Position and that there appears no ground for these motions to make and constitute such causes since we neither meet with any instruments nor discover any signs wherby we may be induced to believe or understand any such operation It may be urged that divers sounds are by diseases oftentimes made in our ears and appearances of colours in our fantasie But first these colours and sounds are not artificial ones and disposed and order'd by choice and judgment for no story hath mention'd that by a disease any man ever heard twenty verses of Virgil or an Ode of Horace in his ears or that ever any man saw fair pictures in his fansie by means of a blow givin him upon his eye And secondly such colours and sounds as are objected are nothing else but in the first case the motion of humors in a mans eye by a blow of upon it which humours have the virtue of making light in such sort as we see Sea-water has when it is clash'd together and in the second case a cold vapour in certain parts of the brain which causes beatings or motions there whence proceeds the imitation of sounds so that these examples nothing advantage that party thence to infer that the similitudes of objects may be made in the common-sense without any real bodies reserv'd for that end Yet I intend not to exclude Motion from any commerce with the Memory no more then I have done from Sensation For I will not only grant that all our remembring is perform'd by the means of motion but also acknowledge that in men it is for the most part of nothing else but of motion For what are words but motion And words are the chiefest objects of our remembrance 'T is true we can if we will remember things in their own shapes as well as by the words that express them but experience tells us that in our familiar conversation and the ordinary exercise of our memory we remember and make use of the words rather then of the things themselvs Besides the impressions that are made upon all our other sense as well as upon our hearing are likewise for the most part of thing in motion as if we have occasion to make a conception of a Man or of a Horse we ordinarily conceive him Walking or Speaking or eating or using some motion in time And as these impressions are successively made upon the outward Organs so are they successively carried into the fantasie by like succession are deliver'd over into the memory from whence when they are call'd back
refraction 6. An answer to the arguments brought in favour of Monsieur des Cartes his opinion 7. The true cause of refraction of light both at its entrance and at its going out from the refleing body 8. A general rule to know the nature of reflection and refractions in all sorts of surface 9. A body of greater parts and greater pores makes a greater refraction than one of lesser parts and lesser pores 10. A confirmation of the former doctrine out of the nature of bodies that refract light CHAP. XIV Of the composition qualities Generation of mixed Bodies 1. The connexion of this chapter with the rest and the Authours intent in it 2. That there is a least sise of bodies and that this least sise is found in fire 3. The first conjunction of parts is in bodies of least sise and it is made by the force of Quantity 4. The second sort of conjunction is compactedness in simple Elements and it proceeds from density 5. The third conjunction is of parts of different Elements and it proceeds from quantity and density together 6. The reason why liquid bodies do easily joyn together and dry ones difficultly 7. That no two hard bodies can touch one another immediately 8. How mixed bodies are framed in general 9. The cause of the several degrees of solidity in mixed bodies 10. The Rule whereto are reduced all the several combinations of Elements in compounding of mixed bodies 11. Earth and water are the basis of all permanent mixed bodies 12. What kind of bodies those are where water is the basis and earth the predominant Element over the other two 13. Of those bodies where water being the basis air is the predominant Element 14. What kind of bodies result where water is the basis and fire the predominant Element 15. Of those bodies where water is in excess it alone being both the basis and the predominant Element 16. Of those bodies where earth alone is the basis and also the predominant in excess over the other three Elements 17. Of those bodies where earth is the basis water is the predominant element over the other two 18. Of those bodies where earth being the basis air is the predominant 19. Of those bodies where earth being the basis fire is the predominant 20. All the second qualities of mixed bodies arise from several combinations of the first qualities and are at last resolv'd into several degrees of rarity density 21. That in the Planets Stars there is a like variety of mixed bodies caused by light as here on earth 22. In what manner the Elements work on one another in the composition of mixed bodies and in particular fire which is the most active 23. A particular declaration touching the generation of Metals CHAP. XV. Of the Dissolution of Mixed Bodies 1. Why some bodies are brittle and others tough or apt to withstand outward violence the first instrument to dissolve mixed bodies 2. How outward violence doth work on the most compacted bodies 3. The several effects of fire the second and chiefest instrument to dissolve all compounded bodies 4. The reason why some bodies are not dissolved by fire 5. The reason why fire melteth gold but cannot consume it 6. Why Lead is easily consumed and calcinted by fire 7. Why and how some bodies are divided by fire into Spirits Waters Oyls Salts and Earth And what those parts are 8. How water the third instrument to dissolve bodies dissolvs calx into salt and so into terra damnata 9. How water mingled with salt becomes a most powerful Agent to dissolve other bodies 10. How putrefaction is caused CHAP. XVI An Explication of certain Maxims touching the operations and qualies of bodies and whether the Elements be found pure in any part of the world 1. What is the Sphere of activity in corporeal agents 2. The reason why no body can work in distance 3. An objection answer'd against the manner of explicating the former axiome 4. Of re-action and first in pure local motion that each Agent must suffer in acting and act in suffering 5. The former Doctrine applyed to other local motions design'd by particular names And that Suisseths argument is of no force against this way of doctrine 6. Why some notions do admit of intension and remission and others not 7. That in every part of our habitable world all the four elements are found pure in small atoms but not in any great bulk CHAP. XVII Of Rarefaction and Condensation the two first motions of Particular bodies 1. The Authours intent in this and the following chapters 2. That bodies may be rarified both by outward and inward heart and how this is perform'd 3. Of the great effects of Rarefaction 4. The first manner of condensation by heat 5. The second manner of condensation by cold 6. That Ice is not water rarified but condensed 7. How Wind Snow and Hail are made and wind by rain allaid 8. How parts of the same or divers bodies are joyn'd more strongly together by condensation 9. Vacuities cannot be the reason why water impregnated to the full with one kind of salt will notwithstanding receive more of another 10. The true reason of the former effect 11. The reason why bodies of the same nature do joyn more easily together than others CHAP. XVIII Of another motion belonging to Particular bodies called Attraction and of certain operations term'd Magical 1. What Attraction is and from whence it proceeds 2. The true sense of the Maxime that Nature abhors from vacuitys 3. The true reason of attraction 4. Water may be brought by the force of attraction to what height soever 5. The doctrine touching the attraction of water in Syphons 6. That the Syphon doth not prove water to weigh in its own orb 7. Concerning attraction caus'd by fire 8. Concerning attraction made by virture of hot bodies amulets c 9. The natural reason given for divers operations esteem'd by some to be magical CHAP. XIX Of three other motions belonging to particular bodies Filtration Restitution and Electrical attraction 1. What is Filtration and how it is effected 2. What causes the water in Filtration to ascend 3. Why the filter will not drop unless the label hang lower than the water 4. Of the motion of Restitution and why some bodies stand bent others not 5. Why some bodies return only in part to their natural figure others entirely 6. Concerning the nature of those bodies which shrink aand stretch 7. How great and wonderful effects proceed from small plain and simple principles 8. Concerning Electrical attratâ—on and the causes of it 9. Cabeus his opinion refuted concerning the cause of Electrical motions CHAP. XX. Of the Loadstones generation and its particulas motions 1. The extreme heat of the Sun under the Zodiack draws a stream of air from each Pole into the torrid Zone 2. The atomes of these two streams coming together are apt to incorporate with one another 3. By the meeting and mingling together
parts of it did not weigh and if a hole were dig'd in the bottome of the Sea the water would not run into and fill it if it did not gravitate over it Lastly there are those who undertake to distinguish in a deep water the divers weights which several parts of it have as they grow still heavier and heavier towards the bottom and they are so cunning in this art that they profess to make instruments which by their equality of weight to a determinate part of the water shall stand just in that part and neither rise or fall higher or lower but if it be put lower it shall ascend to its exact equally weighing Orbe of the water and if it be put higher it shall descend till it comes to rest precisely in that place Whence 't is evident that parts of water do weigh within the bulk of their main body and of the like we have no reason to doubt in the other two weighty Elements As for the opposition of the Syphon we refer that point to where we shall have occasion to declare the nature of that engine on set purpose And there we shall shew that it could not succeed in its operation unless the parts of water did gravitate in their main bulk into which one leg of the Syphon is sunk Lastly it may be objected that if there were such a course of atoms as we say and their strokes were the cause of so notable an effect as the gravity of heavy bodies we should feel it palpably in our own bodies which experience shews us we do not To this we answer first that there is no necessity we should feel this course of atoms since by their subtilty they penetrate all bodies and consequently do not give such strokes as are sensible Secondly if we consider that dusts and straws and feathers light upon us without causing any sense in us much more we may conceive that atoms which are infinitely more subtile and light cannot cause in us any feeling of them Thirdly we see that what is continual with us and mingled in all things doth not make us take any especial notice of it and this is the cause of the smiting of atoms Nevertheless peradventure we feel them in truth as often as we feel hot and cold weather and in all Catars or other such changes which as it were sink into our body without our perceiving any sensible cause of them for no question these atomes are the immediate causes of all good and bad qualities in the air Lastly when we consider that we cannot long together hold out our arm at length or our foot from the ground and reflect upon such like impotencies of our resisting the gravity of our own body we cannot doubt but that in these cases we feel the effect of these atomes working upon those parts though we cannot by our sense discern immediately that these are the causes of it But now it is time to draw our Reader out of a difficulty which may peradventure have perplext him in the greatest part of what he hath hitherto gone over In our investigation of the Elements we took for a principle thereto that gravity is sometimes more sometimes less then the density of the body in which it is but in our explication of rarity and density and again in our explication of gravity we seem to put that gravity and density is all one This thorn I apprehend may in all this distance have put some to pain but it was impossible for me to remedy it because I had not yet deliver'd the manner of gravitation Here then I will do my best to asswage their grief by reconciling these appearing repugnancies We are therefore to consider that density in it self signifies a difficulty to have the parts of its subject separated one from another and that gravity likewise in it self signifies a quality by which a heavy body descends towards the center or which is consequent thereto a force to make another body descend Now this power we have shew'd belong to density so far forth as a dense body being strucken by another doth not yield by suffering its parts to be divided but with its whole bulk strikes the next before it and divides it if it be more divisible then it self is So that you see Density has the name of Density in consideration of a passive quality or rather of an impassibility which it hath and the same density is call'd Gravity in respect of an active quality it has which follows this impassibility And both of them are estimated by the different respects which the same body or subject in which they are has to different bodies that are the terms whereto it is compared for the active quality or Gravity of a dense body is esteem'd by its respect to the body it strikes upon whereas its Density includes a respect singly to the body that strikes it Now 't is no wonder that this change of comparison works a disparity in the denominations and that thereby the same body may be conceiv'd to be more or less impartible then it is active or heavy A for example let us of a dense Element take any one least part which must of necessity be in its own nature and kind absolutely impartible and yet 't is evident that the gravity of this part must be exceeding little by reason of the littleness of its quantity so that thus you see an extremity of the effect of density joyn'd together in one body by the accident of its littleness with a contrary extremity of the effect of gravity or rather with the want of it each of them within the limits of the same species In like manner it happens that the same body in one circumstance is more weighty in another or rather in the contrary is more partible So water in a Pail because 't is thereby â—hinder'd from spreading abroad has the effect of gravity predominating in it but if it be pour'd out it has the effect of partibility more And thus it happens that meerly by the gradation of rarity and density one dense body may be apt out of the general course of natural causes to be more divisible then to be a divider though according to the nature of the degrees consider'd absolutely in themselves what is more powerful to divide is also more resistent and harder to be divided And this arrives in that degree which makes water for the falling and beating of the atomes upon water hath the power both to divide and make it descend but so that by making it descend it divideth it And therefore we say it has more gravity then density though it be the very density of it which is the cause that makes it partible by the working of one part upon another for if the atomes did not find the body so dense as it is they could not by their beating upon one part make another be divided So that a dense body to be more heavy then
proportion over air and water And this I conceive produces those substāces which we may term co-agulated juyces and which the Latines call succi concreti whos 's first origine seems to have been liquours that have been afterwards dried by the force either of heat or cold Of this nature are all kind of Salts Niters Sulfurs and divers sorts of Bitumens All which easily bewray the relicks and effects of fire left in them some more some less according to their degrees And thus we have in general deduced from their causes the complexions of those bodies whereof the bulk of the world subjected to our use consists and which serve for the production and nourishment of living creatures both animal and vegetable Not so exactly I confess nor so particularly as the matter in it self or as a Treatise confined to that subject would require yet sufficiently for our intent In the performance whereof if more accurate searchers of nature shall find that we have peradventure been mistaken in the minute delivering of some particular bodies complexion their very correction I dare boldly say will justifie our principal scope which is to shew that all the great variety we see among bodies arises out of the commixion of the First Qualities and of the Elements for they will not be able to correct us upon any other grounds then those we have laid As may easily be perceiv'd if we cast a summary view upon the qualities of compounded bodies All which we shall find to spring out of rarity and density and to savour of their origine for the most manifest qualities of bodies may be reduced to certain pairs opposite to one another As namely some are liquid and flowing others are consistent some are soft others hard some are fatty viscuous and smooth others lean gritty and rough some gross others subtile some tough others brittle and the like Of which the liquid the soft the fat and the viscuous are so manifestly derived from rarity that we need not take any further pains to trace out their origine and the like is of their contraries from the contrary cause to wit of those bodies that are consistent hard lean and gritty all which evidently spring from density As for smoothness we have already shew'd how that proceeds from an airy or oily nature and by consequence from a certain degree of rarity And therefore roughness the contrary of it must proceed from a proportionable degree of density Toughness is also a kind of ductility which we have reduced to watriness that is to another degree of rarity and consequently brittleness must arise from the contrary degree of density Lastly grossness and subtilness consist in a difficulty or facility to be divided into small parts which appears to be nothing else but a certain determination of rarity and density And thus we see how the several complexions of bodies are reduced to the four Elements that compound them and the qualities of those bodies to the two primary differences of quantitative things by which the elements are diversified And out of this discourse it will be evident that these complexions and qualities though in diverse degrees must of necessity be found wherever there is any variation in bodies For seeing there can be no variation in bodies but by rarity and density and that the pure degrees of rarity and density make heat cold moisture and driness and in a word the four Elements 't is evident that wherever there is variety of bodies there must be the four Elements though peradventure far unlike these miked bodies which we call Elements And again because these Elements cannot consist without motion and by motion they of necessity produce Mixed bodies and forge out those Qualities which we come from explicating it must by like necessity follow that wherever there is any variety of active and passive bodies there mixed bodies likewise must reside of the same kinds and be indued with qualities of the like natures as those we have treated of though peradventure such as are in other places of the world remote from us may be in a degree far different from ours Since then it cannot be denied but that there must be notable variety of active and passive bodies wherever there is light neither can it be denied but that in all those Great Bodies from which light is reflected to us there must be a like variety of complexions and qualities and of bodies temper'd by them as we find here in the Orb we live in Which Systeme how different it is from that which Aristotle and the most of the School have deliver'd us as well in the evidencies of the proofs for its being so as in the position and model of it I leave to the prudent Readers to consider and judge Out of what has been already said 't is not hard to discover in what manner the composition of bodies is made In effecting which the main hinge wheron that motion depends is fire or heat as it likewise is in all other motions whatever Now because the composition of a mixed body proceeds from the action of one simple body or element upon the others it will not be amiss to declare by some example how this work passes for that purpose let us examine how fire or heat works upon his fellows By what we have formerly deliver'd 't is clear that fire streaming out from its centre and diffusing it self abroad so as to fill the circumference of a larger circle it must needs follow that the beams of it are most condens'd and compacted together near the centre and the further they stream from the centre the more thin and rarified they must grow yet this is with such moderation as we cannot any where discern that one beam doth not touch another and therfore the distances must be very smal Now let us suppose that fire happens to be in a viscuous and tenacious body and then consider what will happen in this case of one side the fire spreads it self abroad on the other side the parts of the tenacious body being moist as I have formerly determin'd their edges on all hands will stick fast to the dry beams of the fire that pass between them Then they stretching wider and wider from one another must needs draw with them the parts of that tenacious body which stick to them and stretch them into a greater widness or largness then they enjoy'd before from whence it follows that seeing there is no other body near therabouts but they two either there must be a vacuity left or else the tenacious body must hold and fill a greater space then it did before and consequently be more rare Contrariwise of any of the other elements be stronger then fire the denser Elements break off from their continu'd stream the little parts of fire which were gotten into their greater parts and sticking on all sides about them so enclose them that they have no more semblance of fire and
Of the great effects of Rarefaction 4. The first manner of condensation by heat 5. The second manner of condensation by cold 3. That Ice is not water rarifiâ—d but condensed 7. How wind snow and hail are made and wind by rain allayed 8. How parts of the same or divers bodies are joyned more strongly together by condensation 9. Vacuities cannot be the reason why water impregnated to the full with one kind of salt will notwithstanding receive more of another 10. The true reason of the former effect 11. The reason why bodies of the same nature jâ—yn more easily together then others 1. What attraction is and from whence it proceeds 1. The true sense of the Maxime that Nature abhors from vacuity 3. The true rea son of attraction 4. Water may be brought by the force of attraction to what height soever 5. The doctrine touching the attraction of water in Syphons 6. That the Syphon doth not prove water to weigh in its own orb 7. Concerning attraction caused by fire 8. Concerning attraction made by virtue of hot bodies amulets c. 9. The natural reason given for divers operations esteemed by some to be magical 1. What is Filtration and how it is effected 2. What causes the water in filtration to ascend 3. Why the filter will not drop unless the label hang lower then the water 4. Of the motion of Râ—stitution and why some bodies stand bent others not 5. Why some bo dies return only in part to their natural figure others entirely 6. Concerning the nature of those bodies which shrink and stretch 7. How great wonderful effects proceed from smal plain and simple principles 8. Concerning Electrical at action and the causes of it 6. Cabeus his opinion reâ—uted concerning the cause of Electrical motions 1. The extreme heat of the Sun under the Zodiack draws a stream of air from each pole into the Torrid Zone * Chap. 18. Sect. 7. 2. The Atoms of these two streams coming together are apt to incorporate with one another 3. By the meeting and mingling together of these streams at the Equator divers rivolets of Atoms of each Pole are continuated from one Pole to the other 4. Of these Atoms incorporated with some fit matter in the bowels of the earth is made a stone 5. This stone works by emanations joyned with agreeing streams that meet them in the air and in fine it is a Loadstone 6 A methode for making experiences on any subject 7. The Loadstones generation by atoms flowing from both Poles is confirmd by experiments observ'd in the stone it self 8. Experiments to prove that the Loadstone works by emanations meeting with agreeing streames 1. The operations of the loadstone are wrought by bodies and not by qualities 2. Objections against the former position answer'd 3. The Loadstone is imbued with his virtue from another body 4 The virtue of the Loadstone is a double and not one simple virtue 5. The virtue of the Loadstone works more strongly in the poles of it then in any other part 6. The loadstone sends forth its emanations spherically Which are of two kindâ— and each kind is strongest in that Hemisphere through whose polary parts they issue out 7. Putting two loadstones within the sphere of one another every part of one loadstone doth not agree wâ—th every part of the other loadstone 8. Concetning the declination and other respects of a needle towards the loadstone it touches 8. The virtue of the Loadstone goes from end to end in lines almost parallel to the Axis 10. The virtue of the Loadstone is not perfectly spherical though the stone be such 11. The intention of nature in all the operations of the loadstone is to make an union betwixt the attractive and attracted bodies 12. The main globe of the earth is not a Loadstone 13. The loadstone is generated in all parts or Climâ—t's of the earth 14. The conformity betwixt the two motions of magnetick things and of heavy things 1. Which is the North and which the South Pole of a Loadstone 2. Whether any bodies besides magnetick ones be attractive 3. Whether an iron placed perpendicularly towards the earth gets a magnetical virtue of pointing towards the north or towards the south in that end that lies downwards 4. Why loadstones affect iron better than one another 5. Gilberts reason refuted touching a cap'd Loadstone that takes up more iron then one not cap'd and an iron impregnated that in some case draws more strongly then the stone it self Galileus his opinion touching the former effects refuted 7. The Authors solution to the former questions 8. The reason why in the former case a lesser Loadstones draws the interjacent iron from the greater 9. Why the variation of a touched needle from the North is greater the nearer you go to the Pole 10. Whether in the same part of the world a touched needle may it one time vary more fâ—om the North and at another time less 11. The whâ—le doctrine of the loâ—dstone sum'd up in short 1. The connexion of the following Chapters with the precedent ones 2. Concerning several compositions of mixed bodies 3. Two sorts of Living Creatures 4. An engine to express the first sort of living creatures 5. Another Engine by which may be expressed the second sort of living creatures 4. The two former engines and some other comparisons applied to express the two several sorts of living creatures 7. How plants are framed 8. How Sensitive Creatures are formed 1. The opinion that the seed contains formally every part of the parent 2. The former opinion rejected 3. The Authours opinion of this question 4. Their opinion refuted who hold that every thing contains formally all things 5. The Authors opinion concerning the generation of Animals declared and confirm'd That one substance is changed into another 7. Concerning the hatching of Chickens and the generation of the other Animals 8. From whence it happens that the deficiences or excresences of the parents body are often seen in their children 9. The difference between the Authors opinion anâ—â—he former 〈◊〉 10 That the heart is imbued with the general specifike vertues of the whole body wherby is confirm'd the doctrine of the two former Paragraphes 11 That the heart is the first part generated in a living creatures 1. That the figure of an Animal is produced by ordinary second causes as well as any other corporeal effect 2. That the several figures of bodies proceed from a defect in one of three dimensions caused by the circumference of accidental causes 3. The former doctrine is confirmd by several instances 4. The same doctrine applyed to plants 4. The same doctrine declared in leaves of trees 16. The same applied to the bodies of Animals 7. In what sense the Author admits of vis formatrix 1. From whence proceeds the primary motion growth in Plants 2. Mr. des Cartes his opinion touching the motion of the heart 3. The former opinion rejected 4. The Authors opinion