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
coms as easily as the very air So that in this example as wll as in the other nature teaches us that gravity is no quality And all or most of the arguments which we have urg'd against the quality of gravity in that explication we have consider'd it in have force likewise against it although it be said to be an Inclination of its subject to move it self to unity with the main stock of its own nature as divers witty men put it For this supposition doth but change the intention or end of gravity and is but to make it another kind of intellectual or knowing Entity that determines it self to an other end which is as impossible for a natural quality to do as to determine it self to the former ends And thus much the arguments we have proposed do convince evidently if they be apply'd against this opinion CHAP. XII Of Violent Motion ANd thus we have given a shortscantling wherby to understand in some measure the causes of that motion we call natural by reason it has its birth from the universal Oeconomy of nature here among us that is from the general working of the Sun wherby all natural things have their course and by reason that the cause of it is at all times and in all places constantly the same Next which the order of discourse leads us to take a survey of those forced motions whose first causes the more apparent they are the more obscurity they leave us in to determine by what means they are continued When a Tennis-ball is stroken by a Racket or an Arrow shot from a Bow we plainly see the causes of their motion namely the strings which first yielding and then returning with a greater celerity cause the missives to speed so fast towards their appointed homes Experience informs us what qualities the missives must be endued with to move fast and stedily They must be so heavy that the air may not break their course and yet so light that they may be within the command of the stroke which gives them motion the striker must be dense and in its best velocity the angle which the missive is to mount by if we will have it go to its furthest randome must be the half of a right one and lastly the figure of the missive must be such as may give scope to the air to bear it up and yet not hinder its course by taking too much hold of it All this we see But when with all we see that the mover deserts the moveable assoon as he has given the blow we are at a stand and know not where to seek for that which afterwards makes it flie For motion being a transient not a permanent thing assoon as the cause ceases that begot it in that very point it must be at an end and as long as the motion continues there must be some permanent cause to make it do so so that as soon as the Racket or bow string go back and leave the ball or arrow why should not they presently fall straight down to the ground Aristotle and hs followers have attributed the cause hereof to the air but Galileo relishes not this conception His arguments against it are as I remember to this tenor Frst air by reason of its rarity and divisibility seems not apt to conserve motion next we see that light things are best carried by the air and it has no power over weighty ones lastly it is evident that air takes most hold of the broadest superficies and therfore an arrow would fly faster broad waies then long waies if this were true Nevertheless since every effect must have a proportionable cause from whence it immediately flows and a body must have another body to thrust it on as long as it moves let us examin what bodies touch a moveable whilst it is in motion as the only means to find an issue out of this difficulty for to have recourse to a quality or impressed force for deliverance out of this straight is a shift that will not serve the turn in this way of discourse we use In this Philosophy no knot admits such a solution If then we enquire what body 't is that immediately touches the ball or arrow while it flies we shall find none others does so but the air and the atoms in it after the strings have given their stroke and are parted from the missive And though we have Galileo's authority and arguments to discourage us from believing the air can work this effect yet since there is no other body besides it left for us to consider in this case let us at the least examin how the air behaves it self after the stroke is given by the strings First then t is evident that as soon as the rocket or bow-string shrinks back from the missive and leavs a space between the missive and it as 't is clear it does assoon as it has strucken the resisting body the air must needs clap in with as much velocity as they retire and with somwhat more because the missive goes forward at the same time and therefore the air must hasten to overtake it least any vacuity should be left between the string and the arrow 'T is certain likewise that the air on the sides also upon the division of it slides back and helps to fill that space which the departed arrow leaves void Now this forcible closing of the air at the nock of the arrow must needs give an impulse or blow upon it If it seem to be but a little one you may consider 't is yet much greater then what the air and the bodies swiming in it at the first give to a stone falling from high and how at the last those little atoms that drive a stone in its natural motion with their little blows force it peradventure more violently and swiftly than any impelling agent we are acquainted with can do So that the impulse which they make on the arrow pressing violently upon it after such a vehement concussion and with a great velocity must needs cause a powerful effect in that which of it self is indifferent to any motion any way But unless this motion of the air continue to beat still upon the arrow it will soon fall to the ground for want of a cause to drive it forward and because the natural motion of the air being then the only one will determine it downwards Let us consider then how this violent rending of the air by the blow the bow-string gives to the Arrow must needs disorder the little atones that swim to and fro in it and that being heavier then the air are continually descending downwards This disorder makes some of the heavier parts of them get above others that are lighter then they which they not abiding presse upon those that are next them and they upon their fellows so that there is great commotion and undulation caused in the whole masse of air round about the arrow which must
a strong bituminous smel in them All which circumstances shew that this electrical virtue consists in a certain degree of rarity or density of the bodies unctuous emanations Now if these refined and viscuous thrids of Jet or Amber in their streaming abroad meet with a piece of straw or hay or dried leaf or some such light and spungy body 't is no marvel if they glew themselvs to it like birdlime and that in their shrinking back by being condens'd again and repuls'd through the coldness of the air they carry it along with them to their entire body Which they that only see the effect and cannot penetrate into a possibility of a natural cause therof are much troubled withal And this seems to me to bear a fairer semblance of truth then what Cabeus delivers for the cause of Electrical attractions whose speculation herein though I cannot allow for solid yet I must for ingenious And certainly even errours are to be commended when they are witty ones and proceed from a casting-further-about then the beaten Tract of verbal learning or rather terms which explicate not the nature of the thing in question He sayes that the coming of straws and such other light bodies to Amber Jet and the like proceeds from a wind raised by the forcible breaking out of subtile emanations from the Electrical bodies into the air which brings those light bodies along with it to the Electrical ones But this discourse cannot hold For First 't is not the nature of unctuous emanation generally speaking to cause smart motions singly of themselvs Secondly although they should raise a wind I do not comprehend how this wind should drive bodies directly back to the source that raised it but rather any other way and so consequently should drive the light bodies it meets with in its way rather from then towards the Electrical body Thirdly if there should be such a wind raised and it should bring light bodies to the Electrical ones yet it could not make them stick therto which we see they do turn them which way you will as though they were glew'd together Neither do his experiences convince any thing For what he saies that the light bodies are somtimes brought to the Electrical body with such a violence that they rebound back from it and then return again to it makes rather against him for if wind were the cause of their motion they would not return again after they had leaped back from the Electrical body no more then we can imagine that the wind it self doth The like is of his other experience when he observ'd that some little grains of Saw-dust hanging at an Electrical body the furthermost of them not only fell off but seem'd to be driven away forcibly for they did not fall directly down but side-wayes and besides flew away with a violence and smartness that argued some strong impulse The reason wherof might be that new emanations might smite them which not sticking and fast'ning upon them wherby to draw them nearer must needs push them further or it might be that the emanations to which they were glew'd shrinking back to their main body the later grains were shoulder'd off by others that already besieg'd the Superficies and then the emanations retiring swiftly the grains must break off with a force or else we may conceive it was the force of the air that bore them up a little which made an appearance of their being driven away as we see feathers and other light things descend not straight down CHAP. XX. Of the Loadstones generation and its particular motions THere is yet remaining the great Mystery of the Loadstone to discourse of Which all Authors both ancient and modern have agreed upon as an undeniable example and evidence of the shortness of mans reach in comprehending and of the impossibility of his reason in penetrating into and explicating such secrets as nature hath a mind to hide from us Wherfore our Reader I am sure will not in this subject expect clear satisfaction or plain demonstrations at our hands but will judg we have fairly acquitted our selves if what we say be any whit plausible Therefore to use our best indeavours to content him let us reflect upon the disposition of parts of this habitable Globe wherof we are Tenants for life And we shall find that the Sun by his constant course under the Zodiack heats a great part of it unmeasurably more then he doth the rest And consequently that this Zodiack being in the mid'st between two as it were ends which we call the Poles these Poles must necessarily be extremely cold in respect of the Torrid Zone for so we call that part of the earth which lies under the Zodiack Now looking into the consequence of this we find that the Sun or the Suns heat which reflects from the earth in the Torrid Zone must rarifie the air extremely and according to the nature of all heat and fire must needs carry away from thence many parts of the air and earth sticking to that heat in such sort as we have formerly declared Whence it follows that other air must necessarily come from the Regions towards both the Poles to supply what is carried away from the middle as is the course in other fires and as we have explicated above Especially considering that the air which comes from the Polewards is heavier then the air of the Torrid Zone and therfore must naturally press to be still nearer the earth and so as it were shoulders on the air of the Torrid Zone towards the circumference by rolling into its place and this in great quantities and consequently the polar air must draw a great train after it Which if we consider the great extent of the Torrid Zone we shall easily perswade our selvs must reach on each side to the very Pole For taking from Archimedes that the Spherical Superficies of a portion of a Sphere is to the Superficies of the whole Sphere according as the parts of the axis of that Sphere comprised within the said portion is to the whole axis and considering that in our case the part of the axis comprised within the Torrid Zone is to the whole axis of the earth in about the proportion of 4. to 10 it must of necessity follow that a fire or great heat reigning in so vast an extent will draw air very powerfully from the rest of the world Neither let any man apprehend that this course of the Sun 's elevating so great quantities of Atoms in the Torrid Zone should hinder the course of gravity there For first the medium is much rarer in thâ— Torrid Zone then in other parts of the earth and therfore the force of the descending Atoms needs not be so great there as in other places to make bodies descend there as fast as they do elsewhere Secondly there being a perpetual supply of fresh air from the Polar parts streaming continually into the Torrid Zone it must of
not impossible for us to do by reason that Authors have not left us the circumstances upon which we might groūd our judgment concerning them so particularly described as were necessary nor our selves have met with the commodity of making such experiences and of searching so into their beds as were requisite to determine solidly the reasons of them And indeed I conceive that oftentimes the relations which others have recorded of their generation would rather mislead then assist us since it is very familiar in many men to magnifie the exactness of Nature in framing effects by phansie to themselvs when to make their Wonder appear more just they will not fail to set off their story with all advantageous circumstances and help out what wants a little or comes but near the mark But to come closer to our purpose that is to the figures of living things We see that the roots in the earth are all of them figured almost in the same fashion for the heat residing in the midd'st of them pushes every way and therupon some of them become round but others more long then round according to the temper of the ground or the season of the year or the weather that happens and this not onely in divers kinds of Roots but even in several of the same kind That part of the plant which mounts upwards for the most part round and long the cause wherof is evident For the juice which is in the middle of it working upwards because the hardness of the bark will not let it out at the sides and coming in more and more abundance for the reasons we have above deliver'd encreases that part equally every way but upwards and therfore it must be equally thick and broad and consequently round but the length will exceed either of the other dimensions because the juice is driven up with a greater force and in more quantity then it is to the sides Yet the broadness and thickness are not so exactly uniform but that they exceed a little more at the bottom then at the top which is occasion'd partly by the contracting of juice into a narrower circuit the further it is from the source and partly by reason of the Branches which shooting forth convey away a great part of the Juice from the main stock Now if we consider the matter well we shall find that what is done in the whole tree the very same is likewise done in every little leaf of it For a leaf consists of little branches shooting out from one greater branch which is in the middle and again other less branches are derived from those second branches and so still lesser and lesser till they weave themselvs into a close work as thick as that which we see women use to fill up with Silk or Crewel when in Tentwork they embroyder leafs or flowers upon Canvas And this again is cover'd and as it were glew'd over by the humour which sticking to these little thrids stops up every little vacuity and by the air is hardened into such a skin as we see a leaf consists of And thus it appears how an account may be given of the figure of the leafs as well as of the figure of the main body of the whole tree the little branches of the leaf being proportionate in figure to the branches of the tree itself so that each leaf seems to be the Tree in little and the figure of the leaf depending of the course of these little branches so that if the greatest branch of the Tree be much longer then the others the leaf will be a long one but if the lesser branches spread broad-ways the leaf will likewise be a broad one so far as even to be notch'd at the outsides round about it in great or little notches according to the proportion of the Trees Branches These Leafs when they first break out are foulded inwards in such sort as the smalness and roundness of the passage in the wood through which they issue constrains them to be where nevertheless the driness of their parts keep them asunder as that one leaf doth not incorporate it self with another But so soon as they feel the heat of the Sun after they are broken out into liberty their tender branches by little and little grow more straight the concave parts of them drawing more towards the Sun because he extracts and sucks their moysture from their hinder parts into their former that are more exposed to his beams and thereby the hinder parts are contracted and grow shorter and those before grow longer Which if it be in excess makes the leaf become crooked the contrary way as we see in divers flowers and in sundry leaves during the Summers heat witness the Ivie Roses full blown Tulips and all flowers in form of Bells and indeed all kinds of flowers whatever when the Sun hath wrought upon them to that degree we speak of and that their joyning to their stalk and the next parts thereto allow them scope to obey the impulse of those outward causes And when any do vary from this rule we shall as plainly see other manifest causes producing those different effects as now we do those working in this manner As for Fruits though we see that when they grow at liberty upon the Tree they seem to have a particular figure allotted them by nature yet in truth it is the order'd series of natural causes and not an intrinsecal formative virtue which breeds this effect as is evident by the great power which art hath to change their figures at pleasure wherof you may see examples enough in Campanella and every curious Gardener can furnish you with store Out of these and such like principles a man that would make it his study with less trouble of tediousness then that patient contemplator of one of natures little works the Bees whom we mention'd a while agone might without all doubt trace the causes in the growing of an Embryon till he discover'd the reason of every bones figure of every notable hole or passage in them of the Ligaments by which they are tied together of the membranes that cover them and of all the other parts of the body How out of a first Masse that was soft and had no such parts distinguishable in it every one of them came to be formed by contracting that Masse in one place by dilating it in another by moistning it in a third by drying it here hard'ning it there Ut his exordia primis Omnia ipse tener hominis concreverit orbis till in the end this admirable machine and frame of mans body was composed and fashioned up by such little and almost insensible steps and degres Which when it is look'd upon in bulk and entirely-formed seems impossible to have been made and sprung merely out of these principles without an Intelligence immediately working and moulding it at every turn from the beginning to the end But withall we cannot chuse but break
nourishment it gives a motion to the heart which sends other spirits up to supply the brain for what service it will order them by which the brain being fortified it follows the pursuit of what the living creature is in want of till the distemper'd parts be reduced into their due state by a more solid enjoying of it Now why objects drawn out of the memory use to appear in the fantasie with all the same circumstances which accompanied them at the time when the sense sent them thither as when in remembrance of a friend we consider him in some place and at a certain time and doing some determinate action the reason is that the same body being in the same medium must necessarily have the same kind of motion and so consequently must make the same impression upon the same subject The medium which these bodies move in that is the memory is a liquid vaporous substance in which they float and swim at liberty Now in such a kind of medium all the bodies that are of one nature will easily gather together if nothing disturb them For as when a tuned Lute-string is strucken that string by communicating a determinate species of vibration to the Air round about it shakes other strings within the compass of the moved air not all of what extent soever but only such as by their natural motion would cause like curlings and foulds in the Air as the other doth according to what Galileus hath at large declared even so when some atome in the brain is moved all the rest there about which are apt to be wafted with a like undulation must needs be moved in chief and so they moving whiles the others of different motions that having nothing to raise them either lie quiet or move very little in respect of the former 't is no wonder if they assemble together and by the proper course of the brain meet at the common rendezvous of the fantasie And therfore the more impressions are made from the same object upon the sense the more participations of it will be gathered together in the memory and the stronger impressions it will upon occasion make in the fantasie and themselvs will be the stronger to resist any cause that shall strive to deface them For we see that multitude of objects overwhelms the memory and puts out or at least makes unprofitable those that are seldomest thought on The reason of which is that they being little in quantity because there are but few species of them can never strike the seat of knowledge but in company of others which being more and greater make the iwpression follow their nature against the lesser and in tract of time things seldom thought of grow to have but a maim'd and confused shape in the memory and at length are quite forgotten Which happens because in the liquid medium they are apt to moulder away if they be not often repair'd which mouldring and defacing is help'd on by the shocks they receive from other bodies like as in a Magazin a thing that were not regarded but carelesly tumbled up and down to make room for others and all things were promiscuously thrown upon it would soon be bruised and crush'd into a mishapen form and in the end broken all in pieces Now the repairing of any thing in the memory is done by receiving new impressions from the object or in its absence by thinking strongly of it which is an assembling and due piecing together of the several particles of bodies appertaining to the same matter But sometimes it happens that when the right one cannot be found intire nor all the orderly pieces of it retriv'd with their just correspondence to one another the fansie makes up a new one in the place of it which afterwards upon presence of the object appears to have been mistaken and yet the memory till then keeps quietly and unquestion'dly for the true object what either the thought or chance mingling several parts had patch'd up together And from hence we may discern how the losing or confounding of ones memory may happen either by sicknesses that distemper the spirits in the brain disorder their motions or by some blows on the head whereby a man is astonied and all things seem to turn round with him Of all which effects the causes are easie to be found in these suppositions we have lay'd CHAP. XXXIV Of Voluntary Motion Natural Faculties and Passions HItherto we have labor'd to convey the Object into the brain but when it is there let us see what further effects it causes and how that action which we call voluntary motion proceeds from the brain For the discovery wherof we are to note that the Brain is a substance composed of watry parts mingled with earthy ones which kind of substances we see are usually full of strings and so in strong hard Beer and Vinegar and other Liquors of the like nature we see if they be exposed to the Sun little long flakes which make an appearance of Worms or Maggats floating about The reason wherof is that some-dry parts of such Liquors are of themselves as it were hairy or sleasy that is have little downy parts such as you see upon the legs of Flies or upon Caterpillars or in little locks of wool by which they easily catch and stitck to the other little parts of the like nature that come near them and if the liquor be moved as it is in the boyling of beer or making of vinegar by the heat of the sun they become long strings because the liquor breakes the ties which are cross to its motion but such as lie along the stream or rather the bubling up maintain themselves in unity and peradventure grow stronger by the winding or folding of the end of one part with another and in their tumbling and rouling still in the same course the downy hairs are crush'd in and the body grows long and round as happens to a lump of dough or wax or wool roul'd a while in one uniform course And so coming to our purpose we see that the brain and all that is made of it is stringy witness the membranes the flesh the bones c. But of all the rest those called fibers are more stringy and the nerves seem to be but an assembly of them for though the Nervs be but a great multitude of strings lying in a cluster nevertheless by the consent of Physicians and Anatomists they are held to be of the very substance of the brain dryed to a firmer consistence than it is in the head This heap of strings as we may call it is enclosed in an outside made of membranes whose frame we need not here display only we may note that it is very apt and fit to stretch after stretching to return again to its own just length Next we are to consider how the brain is of a nature apt to swell and to sink again even so much that Fallopius reports
latter can but rove wildly at the nature of the thing he apprehends and will never be able to draw any operation into act out of the apprehension he hath framed of it As for example if a man be to work upon Gold and by reason of its resemblance to brass hath form'd an apprehension of Brass instead of an apprehension of Gold and then knowing that the action of fire will resolve Brass into its least parts and sever its moist from its dry ones will go about to calcine Gold in the same manner as he would do Brass he will soon find that he loses his labour and that ordinary fire is not an adequate Agent to destroy the homogeneal nature and sever the minute parts of that fixed mettal All which happens out of the wrong apprehension he hath made of Gold Wheras on the other side he that apprehends a thing rightly if he pleases to discourse of what he apprehends finds in his apprehension all the parts and qualities which are in the thing he discourses of For example if he apprehends rightly a Knife or a Beetle or a Sieve or any other thing whatever in the Knife he will find Haft and Blade the Blade of iron thick on the back and thin on the edg temper'd to be hard and tough thus beaten so ground in such manner softned thus quenched and whatever else concerns the Being or making of a Knife And all this he draws out of his notion or apprehension of a Knife which is that 't is An instrument fitted to cut such and such things in such a manner for hence he finds that it has a Haft fit to hold it by in ones hand to the end it may not hurt the hand whiles it presses upon the Knife and that the Blade is apt to slide in betwixt the parts of the thing which is to be cut by the motion of being pressed or drawn by the hand and so he proceeds on descending to the qualities of both parts and how they are to be joyn'd and held fast together In the like manner he discourses of a Beetle a Sieve or whatever else comes in his way And he doth this not only in such manufactures as are of mans invention but if he be capable he doth the like in Beasts in Birds in Trees in Herbs in Fishes in Fossiles and in what creature soever he meets within the whole extent of nature He findes what they are made for and having discover'd Natures aim in their production he can instruct others what parts and manner of generation they have or ought to have and if he that in this manner apprehends any thing rightly hath a mind to work upon it either to make or use and order it to some end of his own he is able by his right apprehension to compare it to other things to prepare what is any way fitting for the making of it to apply it to what it will work its effect upon and to conserve it from what may wrong or destroy it So if he have framed a right apprehension of a Sieve he will not employ it in drawing water if of a Beetle he will not go about to cut with it neither will he offer if he have a due apprehension of a Knife to cut stone or steel with it but wood or what is softer He knows what will whet and maintain the edge of it and understands what will blunt or break it In fine he uses it in such sort as the Knife it self had it knowledg and will would wish to be used and moves it in such a manner as if it had power of motion it would move it self He goes about the making of it even as Nature would do were it one of her Plants and in a word the Knife in this apprehension made in the man hath those causes proprieties and effects which are natural to it and which nature would give it if it were made by her and which are proportionable to those parts causes proprieties and effects that Nature bestows on her children and creatures according to their several essences What then can we imagine but that the very nature of a thing apprehended is truly in the man who apprehends it And that to apprehend ought is to have the nature of that thing within ones self And that man by apprehending becomes the thing apprehended not by change of his nature to it but by assumption of it to his Here peradventure some will reply that we press our inference too far and will peremptorily deny the things real Being in our mind when we make a true and full apprehension of it accounting it sufficient for our purpose that some likeness or image of the thing be there out of which we may drawall these whether contemplations or works or disposals of the thing But by that time this objection is throughly look'd into and so much as they allow duly examin'd I believe we shall find our quarrel to be only about the word not the matter and that indeed both of us mean the same though diversly conceiv'd their expression in what they grant importing in substance the same as ours which 't is true they first deny in words but that may be because the thing is not by them rightly understood Let us then discuss the matter particularly What is likeness but an imperfect unity between a thing and that which 't is said to be like to If the likeness be imperfect 't is more unlike than like to it and the liker it is the more 't is one with it till at length the growing likeness may arrive to such a perfection and to such an unity with the thing 't is like to that then it shall no longer be like but is become wholly the same with that formerly it had but a resemblance of For example let us consider in what consists the likeness to a Man of a Picture drawn in Black and White representing a Man and we shall find 't is only in the proportion of the limbs and features for the colours the bulk and all things else are unlike But the proportions are the very same in a Man in a Picture yet that Picture is but a likeness because it wants bigness and colour give it them and nevertheless it will be but a likeness because it wants all the dimensions of corporeity or bulk which are in a mans body Add also those to it and still it will be but a likeness or representation of a man because it wants the warmth the sostness and the other qualities of a living body which belongs to a man but if you give it all these then it is no longer a likeness or image of a living creature but a living creature indeed And if peradventure this living creature continue still to be but the likeness of a man 't is because it wants some perfections or proprieties belonging to a man and so in that regard 't is unlike a man but if you allow it
quality it would always produce an equal to it self 5. The third reason because if we imagine to our selvs the substance of fire to be rarified it will have the same appearances which Light hath 6. The fourth reason from the manner of the generation and corruption of light which agrees with fire 7. The fifth reason because such properties belong to light as agree onely to bodies CHAP. VII Two Objections answer'd a gainst light being fire a more ample proof of its being such 1. That all light is hot and apt to heat 2. The reason why our bodies for the most part do not feel the heat of pure light 3. The experience of burning glasses and of soultry gloomy weather prove light to be fire 4. Philosophers ought not to judg of things by the rules of vulgar people 5. The different names of light and fire proceed from different Notions of the same Substance 6. The reason why many times fire and heat are deprived of light 7. What becometh of the body of light when it dies 8. An experiment of some who pretend that light may be precipitated into powder 9. The Authors opinion concerning Lamps pretended to have leen found in Tombs with inconsumptible lights CHAP. VIII An answer to three other Objections formerly proposed against Light being a Substance 1. Light is not really in every part of the room it enlightneth nor fills entirely any sensible part of it though it seem to us to do so 2. The least sensible point of a diaphanous body hath room sufficient to contain both air and light together with a multitude of beams issuing from several lights without penetrating one another 3. That light doth not enlighten any room in an instant and that the great celerity of its motion makes it imperceptible to our senses 4. The reason why the motion of light is not discern'd coming towards us and that there is some real tardity in it 5. The Planets are not certainly ever in that place where they appear to be 6. The reason why light being a body doth not by its motion shatter other bodies into pieces 7. The reason why the body of light is never perceiv'd to be fan'd by the wind 8. The Reasons for and against lights being a body compared together 9. A summary repetition of the reasons which prove that light is fire CHAP. IX Of Local Motion in common 1. No local motion can be perfored without succession 2. Time is the common measure of all succession 3. What velocity is and that it cannot be infinite 4. No force so little but is able to move the greatest weight imâ—nable 5. The chief principle of Mechannicks deduced out of the former discourse 6. No movable can pass from rest to any determinate degree of velocity or from a lesser degree to a greater without passing through all the intermediate degres which are below the obtained degree 7. The conditions which help to motion in the movable are three in the medium one 8. No body hath any intrinsecal virtue to move it self towards any determinate part of the Universe 9. The encrease of motion is always made in the proportion of the odd numbers 20. No motion can encrease for ever or without coming to a period 11. Certain Problems resolved concerning the proportion of some moving Agents compared to their effects 12. When a movable comes to rest the motion decreases according to the Rules of encrease CHAP. X. Of Gravity and Levity and of Local Motion commonly term'd Natural 1. Those motions are call'd natural which have constant causes and those violent which are contrary to them 2. The first and most general opeperation of the Sun is the making and raising of atomes 3. The light rebounding from the earth with atomes causes two streams in the air the one ascending the other descending and both of them in a perpendicular line 4. A dense body placed in the air between the ascending and descending stream must needs descend 5. A more particular explication of all the former doctrine touching gravity 6. Gravity and Levity do not signifie an intrinsecal inclination to such a motion in the bodies themselvs which are term'd heavy and light 7. The more dense a body is the more swiftly it descends 8. The velocity of bodies descending doth not encrease in proportion to the difference that may be between their several densities 9. More or lesse gravity produces a swifter or a slower descending of a heavy body Aristotles argument to disprove motion in vacuo is made good 10. The reason why at the inferior quarter of a circle a body descends faster by the Arch of that quarter than by the cord of it CHAP. XI An answer to objections against the causes of Natural Motion avow'd in the former Chapter and a refutation of the contrary opinion 1. The first objection answered why a hollow body descends slower than a solid one 2. The second objection answer'd and the reason shown why atomes do continually overtake the descending dense body 3. A curious question left undecided 4. The fourth objection answer'd why the descent of the same heavy bodies is equal in so great inequality of the atomes which cause it 5. The reason why the shelter of a thick body doth not hinder the descent of that which is under it 6. The reason why some bodies sink others swim 7. The fifth objection answer'd concerning the descending of heavy bodies in streams 8. The sixth objection answered and that all heavy elements doe weigh in their own spheres 9. The seventh objection answer'd and the reason why we do not feel the course of the air and atomes that beat continually upon us 10. How in the same body gravity may be greater than density and density than gravity though they be the same thing 11. The opinion of gravities being an intrinsecal inclination of a body to the centea refuted by reason 12. The same opinion refutedly several experiences CHAP. XII Of Violent Motion 1. The State of the question touching the cause of violent motion 2. That the medium is the only cause which continues violent motion 3. A further explication of the former doctrine 4. That the air hath strength enough to continue violent motion in a moveable 5. An answer to the first objection that air is not apt to conserve motion and how violent motion comes to cease 6. An answer to the second objection that the air hath no power over heavy bodies 7. An answer to the third objection that an arrow should fly faster broad wayes than long ways CHAP. XIII Of three sorts of Violent motion Reflection Undulation and Refraction 1. That reflection is a kind of violent motion 2. Reflection is made at equal angles 3. The causes and properties of undulation 4. Refraction at the entrance into the reflectent body is towards the perpendicular at the going out is from it when the second superficies is parallel to the first 5. A refutation of Monsieur des Cartes his explication of
the operation of the understanding is nothing else but the inward superficies of a body that compasses and immediately conteines another Which ordinarily being of a rare body that doth not shew it self to us namely the Air is for the most part unknown by us But because nothing can make impression on our minds and cause us to give it a name otherwise then by being known therfore our understanding to make a compleat notion must add something else to this fleeting and unremarkable Superficies that may bring it to our acquaintance And for this end we may consider further that as this Superficies hath in it self so the bodie enclosed in it gains a certain determinate respect to the stable and immoveable bodies that environ it As for example we understand such a Tree to be in such a place by having such and such respects to such a Hill near it or to such a House that stands by it or to such a River that runs under it or to such an immoveable point of the Heaven that from the Suns rising in the Equinox is called East and such like To which purpose it imports not whether these that we call immoveable bodies and points be truly so or do but seem so to mankind For man talking of things according to the notions he frames of them in his mind speech being nothing else but an expression to another man of the images he hath within himself and his notions being made according to the seeming of the things he must needs make the same notions whether the things be truly so in themselvs or but seem to be so when that seeming or appearance is always constantly the same Now then when one body dividing another gets a new immediate clothing and consequently new respects to the stable and immoveable bodies or seeming such that environ it we vary in our selves the notion we first had of that thing conceiving it now accompanied with other circumstances and other respects then formerly it had Which notion we express by saying it has changed its place and is now no longer where it was at the first And this change of place we call Locall motion to wit the departing of a body from that hollow superficies which inclosed it and its changing to another wherby it gains new respects to those parts of the World that have or in some sort may seem to have immobility and fixed stableness So as hence 't is evident that the substance of Locall motion consists in Division and that the alteration of Locality follows Division in such sort as the becoming like or unlike of one wall to another follows the action whereby one of them becomes white And therefore in Nature we are to seek for any entity or special cause of applying the moved body to a place as place which is but a respect consequent to the effect of division but only to consider what real and physical action unites it to that other body which is called its place and truly serves for that effect And consequently they who think they have discover'd a notable subtilty by bringing in an Entity to unite a Body to its Place have strain'd beyond their strength and grasped but a shadow Which will appear yet more evident if they but mark well how nothing is divisible but what of it self abstracting from division is one For the nature of Division is the making of many which implies that what is to be divided must of necessity be not-many before it be divided Now Quantity being the subject of division 't is evident that purely of it self and without any force or adjoyned helps it must needs be one wherever some outward agent doth not introduce multiplicity upon it And whenever other things work upon quantity as quantity it is not the nature and power of their operation to produce unity in it and make it one for it is already one but contrariwise the immediate necessary effect that flows from them in this case is to make one quantity many according to the circumstances that accompany the divider and that which is to be divided And therefore although we may seek causes why some one thing sticks faster together then some other yet to ask absolutely why a body sticks together were prejudicial to the nature of quantity whose essence is to have parts sticking together or rather to have such unity as without which all divisibility must be excluded Out of which discourse it follows that in local motion we are to look onely for a cause or power to divide but not for any to unite For the very nature of quantity unites any two parts that are indistant from one another without needing any other cement to glue them together as we see the parts of water and all liquid substances presently unite themselves to other parts of like bodies when they meet with them and to solid bodies if they chance to be next them And therefore 't is vain to trouble our heads with Unions and imaginary Moods to unite a body to the place it is in when their own nature makes them one as soon as they are immediate to each other And accordingly if when we see a Boul move we would examine the causes of that motion we must consider the quantity of air or water it makes to break from the parts next to it to give place to it self and not speculate upon an intrinsecall relation from the body to a certain part of the imaginary space they will have to run through all things And by ballancing that quantity of air or water which it divides we may arrive to make an estimate of what force the Boul needs to have for its motion Thus having declar'd that the locality of motion is but an extrinsecall denomination and no reality in the thing moved we may now cast an eye upon a vast consequence that may be deduced out of what we have hitherto said For if we consider the nature of a Body that is that a Body is a Body by quantity and that the formall notion of Quantity is nothing else but Divisibility and that the adequate Act of Divisibility is Division 't is evident there can be no other Operation upon Quantity nor by consequence among Bodies but must either be such Division as we have here explicated or what must necessarily follow out of such division And Division as we have even now explicated being Locall Motion 't is evident that All operations among Bodies are either Local Motion or such as follow out of Local motion Which conclusion however unexpected and at first hearing appearing a Paradox will nevertheless by the ensuing work receive such evidence as it it cannot be doubted of and that not only by force of argumentation and by necessity of notions as is already reduced but also by experience and declaratiosns of particulars as they shall occur But now to apply what we have said to our proposed subject 't is obvious to every
dense signifies nothing else but that it is in such a degree of density that some of its own parts by their being assisted and set on work by a general cause which is the fall of the atomes are powerful enough to divide other adjoyning parts of the same density with them one from another as we see water pour'd out of an Ewer into a Basin where there is already other water has the power to divide the water in the Basin by the assistance of the celerity which it gets in descending And now I hope the Reader is fully satisfied that there is no contradiction in puting Density and Gravity to be the same thing materially and that nevertheless the same thing may be more heavy then dense or more dense then heavy as we took it to our several purposes in the investigation of the Elements Having thus laid an intelligible ground to discover how these motions that are general to all bodies and are natural in chief are contrived by nature we will now endeavour to shew that the contrary position is not only voluntary but also impossible Let us therfore suppose that a body has a quality to move it downwards And first we shall ask what downwards signifies For either it signifies towards a fix'd point of Imaginary Space or towards a fix'd point of the Universe or towards some Moveable point As for the first who would maintain it must have more imagnation then judgment to think that a natural quality could have an essence determin'd by a nothing because we can frame a conceit of that nothing As for the second 't is very uncertain whether any such point be in nature for as for the centre of the earthy 't is clear that if the earth be carried about the centre of it cannot be a fixed point Again if the centre signifies a determinate point in the earth that is the Medium of gravity or of quantity 't is chang'd as often as any dust lights unequally upon any one side of the earth which would make that side bigger then it was and I doubt a quality cannot have moral considerations to think that so little does no harm As for the third position likewise 't is not intelligible how a quality should change its inclination or essence according to the change that should light now to make one point now another be the centre to which it should tend Again let us consider that a quality has a determinate essence Then seeing its power is to move to move signifies to cut the Medium 't is moved in it belongs to it of its nature to cut so much of such a Medium in such a time So that if no other cause be added but that you take precisely in abstracto that quality that Medium and that time this effect will follow that so much motion is made And if this effect should not follow 't is clear that The being able to cut so much of such a Medium in such a time is not the essence of this quality as it was supposed to be Dividing then the time and the Medium half the motion should be made in half the time a quarter of the motion in a quarter of the time and so without end as far as you can divide But this is demonstratively impossibly since 't is demonstrated that a moveable coming from rest must of necessity pass through all degrees of tardity and therefore by the demonstration cited out of Galileus we may take a part in which this gravity cannot move its body in a proportionate part of time through a proportionate part of the medium But because in natural Theorems experiences are naturally required let us see whether nature gives us any testimony of this verity To that purpose we may consider a Plummet hang'd in a small string from a beam which being lifted up gently on the one side at the extent of the string and permitted to fall meerly by the power of gravity will ascend very near as high on the contrary side as the place it was held in from whence it fell In this experiment we may note two things First that if gravity be a quality it works against its own nature in lifting up the plummet seeing its nature is only to carry it down For though it may be answer'd that 't is not the gravity but another quality called vis impressa which carries it up nevertheless it cannot be denied but that gravity is either the immediate or at least the mediate cause which makes this vis impressa the effect whereof being contrary to the nature of gravity 't is absurd to make gravity the cause of it that is the cause of an essence whose nature is contrary to its own And the same argument will proceed though you put not vis impressa but suppose some other thing to be the cause of the plummets remounting as long as gravity is said to be a quality for still gravity must be the cause of an effect contrary to its own inclination by setting on foot the immediate cause to produce it The second thing we are to note in this experiment of the plummets ascent is that if gravity be a quality there must be as much resistance to its going up as there was force to its coming down Therefore there must be twice as much force to make it ascend as there was to make it descend that is to say there must be twice as much force as the natural force of the gravity is for there must be once as much to equallize the resistance of the gravity and then another time as much to carry it as far through the same Medium in the same time But 't is impossible that any cause should produce an effect greater then it self Again the gravity must needs be in a determinate degree and the vertue that makes the plummet remount whatever it be may be put as little as we please and consequently not able to oversway the gravity alone if it be an intrinsecal quality and yet the plummet will remount in which case you put an effect withot a cause Another experience we may take from the force of sucking For take the barrel of a long Gun perfectly bored and set it upright with the breech upon the ground and take a bullet that is exactly fit for it but so as it stick not any where both the barrel and it being perfectly polished and then if you suck at the mouth of the barrel though never so gently the bullet will come up so forcibly that it will hazard the striking out your teeth Now let us consider what force were necessary to suck the bullet up and how very Slowly it would ascend if in the barrel it had as much resistance to ascend as in the free air it has inclination to go down But if it had a quality of gravity natural to it it must of necessity have such resistance wheras in our experiment we see it
Treatise So as that which remains for the present is to fall upon the discourse of such qualities as concur to the Constitution of bodies with an aim to discover whether or no they may be effected by the several mixtures of Rarity and Density in such sort as is already declared To which end we are to consider in what manner these two primary differences of bodies may be joyn'd together and what effects such conjuncton will produce As for their conjunction to deliver the nature of it entirely we must begin from the very root of it and consider how the Universe being finite which Mr. White hath demonstrated in the Second Knot of his First Dialogue there cannot be an Infinite Number of Bodies in it for Geometricians shew us how the least quantity that is may be repeated so often as would exceed any the greatest determinate quantity whatever Out of which it follows that although all the other bodies of the world were no bigger then the least quantity that can be designed yet they being infinite in number would be greater then the whole Universe that contains them Therfore of necessity there must be some least body or rather some least size of bodies Which in compounded bodies is not to be expected for their least parts being compounded must needs include compounding parts less then themselvs We must then look for this least size of bodies in the Elements which of all bodies are the simplest And among them we must pitch upon that wherein is greatest divisibility which consequently is divided into least parts that is Fire So as we may conclude that among all the bodies in the world that which of its own nature hath an aptitude to be least must be Fire Now the least body of fire be it never so little is yet divisible into less What is it then that makes it be one To determine this we must resort to the nature of Quantity whose formal notion and essence is To be divisible which signifies that many may be made of it But that of which many may be made is not yet many out of this very reason that many may be made of it But what is not many is one Therfore what hath quantity is by mere having quantity actually and formally as well one as it hath the possibility of being made many and consequently the least body of fire by having quantity has those parts which might be many actually one And this is the first conjunction of parts that is to be consider'd in the composition of bodies which though it be not an actual joyning of actual parts yet is a formal conjunction of what may be many In the next place we may consider how seeing the least bodies that are be of fire it must needs follow that the least parts of the other Elements must be bigger then they And consequently the possible parts of those least parts of the other Elements must have something to conserve them together more then is found in fire And this because Elements are purely distinguish'd by rarity and densiy is straight concluded to be density And thus we have found that as quantity is the cause of the possible parts being one so density is the cause of the like parts sticking together which appears in the very definition of it for to be less divisible which is the notion of density speaks a resistance to division or sticking together Now let us examine how two parts of different Elements are joyn'd together to make a compound In this conjunction we find both the affects we have already touch'd for two such parts must make one and moreover they must have some resistance to divisibility The first of these effects we have already assign'd to the nature of quantity And it being the formal effect of quantity it cannot wherever it is found have any other formal cause then quantity wherfore either the two little parts of different Elements do not become one body or if they do we must agree 't is by the nature of quantity which works as much in Heterogeneal parts as Homogeneal And it must needs do so because Rarity and Density which are the proper differences of Quantity cannot change the common nature of Quantity their Genus which by being so to them must be univocally in them both And this effect comes precisely from the pure notion of the Genus and consequently must be seen as well in two parts of different natures as in two parts of the same nature but in parts of the same nature which once were two and and afterwards become one there can be no other reason why they are one then the very same for which those parts that were never separated but that may be separated are likewise one and this most evidently is the nature of quantity Experience seems to confirm thus much when pouring water out of a basin some of it will remain sticking to the sides of the metal For if the quantity of the basin and of the water had not been one and the same by its own nature the water considering the pliableness of its parts would certainly have come all away and glided from the unevenness of the basin by the attractive unity of its whole and would have preserv'd the unity of its quantity within it self rather then by sticking to the basin have suffer'd division in its own quantity which we are sure was one whiles the water was altogether in the basin But that both the basin and the water making but one quantity and a division being unavoydable in that one quantity it was indifferent in regard of the quantity consider'd singly by it self where this division should be made whether in the parts of the basin or in the parts of the water and then the other circumstances determin'd it in that part of the water which was nearest to the joyning of it with the basin The second effect which was resistance to divisibility we assign'd to density And of that same cause must also depend the like effect in this case of the sticking together of the two parts of different Elements when they are joyn'd to one another For if the two parts whereof one is dense the other rare doe not exceed the quantity of some other part of one Homogeneal rare Element for the dividing wherof such a determinate force and no less can suffice then seeing that the whole composed of these two parts is not so divisible as the whole consisting of that one part the assign'd force will not be able to divide them Wherefore 't is plain that if the rare part had been joyn'd to another rare part instead of the dense one it is joyn'd to it had been more easily dividable from that then now it is from the dense part And by consequence it stickes more closely to the dense part then it would to another of its own nature Out of what we have said a step is made us to understand why
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
therof as we see in wet Hay or Flax laid together in great quantity And if they be not capable of taking fire then they carry them with them to the outside when they can transport them no further part flies away other part staies with them as we see in new Bear or Ale and in must of wine in which a substance usually call'd the mother is wrought up to the top Which in wine wil at the last be converted into Tartar when the spirits that are very volatile are flown away and leave those parts from whence they have evaporated more gross and earthy then the others where the grosser and subtiler parts continue still mixed but in Beer or rather in ale this mother which in them we call Barm wil continue longer in the same consistence and with the same qualities for the spirits of it are not so fiery that they must presently leave the body they have incorporated themselvs with nor are hot enough to bake it into a hard consistence And therfore Bakers make use of it to raise their bread which neither will it do unless it be kept from cold both which are evident signs that it works in force of heat and consequently that it continues still a hot and light substance And again we see that after wine or beer hath wrought once a violent motion wil make it work a new As is daily seen in great lightnings and in thunder and by much rocking of them For such motion rarifies and consequently heats them partly by separating the little parts of the liquor which were before as glew'd together therfore lay quietly but now by their pulling a sunder and the liquors growing therby more loose then it was they have freedom to play up and down and partly by beating one part against another which breaks and divides them into lesser atomes and so brings some of them into the state of fire which you may remember is nothing else but a body brought into such a degree of littleness and rarity of its parts And this is the reason why such hard and dry bodies as have an unctuous substance in them are by motion either easily set on fire or at least fire is easily goten out of them As happens in flints and divers other stones which yields fire when they are strucken and if presently after you smel to them you shall perceive an odour of brimstone and burning which is a certain signe that the motion converted into fire the natural Brimstone that was mingled withthe Flint whose denser parts were grown cold and so stuck to the stone And in like manner the Ivywood and divers others as also the Indian Canes which from thence are called Firecanes being rub'd with some other stick of the same nature if they be first very dry will of themselvs set on fire and the like will happen to Coach-wheels in in the Summer if they be overheated with motion To conclude our discourse of Rarefaction we may look a little into the power and efficacity of it which is no where to be seen so clearly as in fire And as fire is the general cause of rarefaction so is it of all bodies the most rarified And therfore 't is no marvel if its effects be the greatest that are in nature seeing 't is the proper operation of the most active Element The wonderful force of it we daily see in Thunder in Guns in Granado's in Mines of which continual experience as well as several Histories witnesse little less then miracles Leaving them to the remarks of curious persons we wil only look into the way by which so main effects proceed from causes that appear so slender 'T is evident that fire as we have said before dilates it self spherically as nature shews us manifestly in bubbles of boyling water and Milk and generally of such substances as are of a viscuous composition for those bubbles being round assure us that the cause which made them did equally dilate them from the Centre to all parts Now then remembring the infinite multiplication which is in fire we may conceive that when a grain of Gun-powder is turn'd into it there are so many little bubbles of a viscuous substance one backing another with great celerity as there are parts of fire more then there were of Gun-powder And if we make a computation of the number and celerity of these bubbles we shall find that although every one of them single seem to be of an inconsiderable force yet the whole number of them together will exceed the resistance of the body move or broken by them especially if we note that when hard substances have not time allow'd them to yield they break the sooner And then we shall not so much admire the extremities we see acted by these means Thus having look'd into the nature of Rarefaction and trac'd the progress of it from the motion of the Sun fire in the next place we are to examine the nature of Condensation And we shall oftentimes find it likewise aneffect of the same cause otherwise working For there being two different ways to dry any wet thing one by taking away that juyce which makes a body liquid the other by putting more drought to the wet body that it may imbibe the moisture this latter way doth as well as the former condense a body for by the close sticking of wet to dry the most part of condensation is effected in compounded bodies The first of these wayes properly and immediately proceeds from heat For heat entring into a body incorporates it self with the moist and viscuous parts it findes there as purging medicines do with humour they work on which when the stomack can no longer entertain by reason of their unruly motions in wrestling together they are both ejected grappling with one another and the place of their contention is thus by the supervenience of a guest of a contrary nature that will not stay long there purged from the superabundance of the former ones that annoy'd it Even so the fire that is greedily drunk up by the watry and viscuous parts of a compounded body and whose activity and restless nature will not endure to be long imprisoned there quickly pierces quite through the body it enters into and after a while streams out at an opposite side as fast as it enters on the side next to it and carries away with it those glewy parts it is incorporated with and by their absence leaves the body they paâ—t from dryer then at the first it was Which course we may observe in Syrops that are boyl'd to a consistence and in broths that are consumed to a jelly over which whiles they are making by the fire under them you see a great steam which is the watry parts that being incorporated with fire fly away in smoke Likewise when the sea-water is condens'd into salt you see it is an effect of the Sun or fire that exhales or boyls
salts solution As soon as you put the first salt into the water it falls down presently to the bottome of it and as the water by its humidity pierces by degrees the little joynts of this salt so the small parts of it are by little and little separated from one another and united to parts of water And so infusing more and more salt this progress will continue till every part of water is incorporated with some part of salt and then the water can no longer work of it self but in conjunction to the salt with which it is united After which if more salt of the same kind be put into the water that water so impregnated will not be able to divide it because it has not any so subtile parts left as are able to enter between the joynts of a salt so closely compacted but may be compared to that salt as a thing of equal driness with it and therfore is unapt to moisten and pierce it But if you put into this compound of salt and water another kind of salt that is of a stronger and drier nature then the former and whose parts are more grosly united then the first salt dissolv'd in the water will be able to get in betwixt the joynts of the grosser salt and divide it into little parts and will incorporate his already-composed parts of salt and water into a decompound of two salts and water till all his parts be anew impregnated with second grosser salt as before the pure water was with the first subtiler salt And so it will proceed on if proportionate bodies be joyn'd till the dissolving composition grow into a thick body To which discourse we may add that when the water is so fully impregnated with the first salt as it will receive no more remaining in the temper 't is in yet if it be heated it will then afresh dissolve more of the same kind Which shews that the reason of its giving over to dissolve is for want of having the water divided into parts little enough to stick to more salt which as in this case the fire doth so peradventure in the other the acrimoniousness of the salt doth it And this is sufficient to give curious wits occasion by making further experiments to Search out the truth of this matter Only we may note what happens in most of the experiencies we have mention'd to wit that things of the same nature joyn better and more easily then others that are more estranged from one another Which is very agreeable to reason seeing that if nature intends to have things consist long together she must fit them for such consistence Which seems to proceed out of their agreement in four qualities First in weight for bodies of divers degrees in weight if they be at liberty seek divers places and consequently substances of like weight must of necessity find one another out and croud together as we have shew'd it is the nature of heat to make them do Now it is apparent that things of one nature must in equal parts have the same or a near proportion ofweight seeing that in their composition they must have the same proportion of Elements The second reason of the consistence of bodies together that are of the same nature is the agreement of their liquid parts in the same degree of rarity and density For as it is the nature of quantity in common to make all parts be one quantity so it is the nature of the degrees of quantity when two parts meet that are of the same degree to make them one in that degree of quantity which is to make them stick together in that degree of sticking which the degree of density that is common to them both makes of its own nature Wheras parts of different densities cannot have this reason of sticking though peradventure they may upon some other ground have some more efficatious one And in this manner the like humide parts of two bodies becomming one the holes or receptacles in which those humide parts are contain'd must also needs be united The third reason is the agreeable proportion which their several figures have in respect of one another For if any humidity be extracted out of a mixed body especially by the virtue of fire it must have left pores of such figures as the humidity that is drawn out of them is apt to be cut into for every humide body not being absolutely humide but having certain dry parts mixed with it is more apt for one kind of figure and greatness then for another and by consequence whenever that humidity shall meet again with the body it was severed from it will easily run through and into it all and fill exactly the cavities pores it passed before The last quality in which bodies that are to consist long together agree is the bigness of the humide dry parts of the same body For if the humide parts be too big for the dry ones 't is clear that the dry ones must needs hang loosly together by them because their glew is in too great a quantity But if the humide parts be too little for the dry on s then of necessity some portion of every little dry part must be unfurnish of glew by means wherof to stick to his fellow and so the sticking parts not being conveniently proportion'd to one another their adhesion cannot be so solid as if each of them were exactly fitted to his fellow CHAP. XVIII Of another motion belonging to particular bodies call'd Atraction and of certain operations term'd Magicall HAving thus ended the two motions of rarefaction and condensation the next that offer themselvs are the locall motions which some bodies have to others These are somtimes perform'd by a plain force in the body towards which the motion is and other whiles by a hidden cause which is not so easily discern'd The first is chiefly that which is ordinarily said to be done by the force of nature to hinder vacuum and is much practis'd by nature as in drawing our breath in sucking and many other natural operations which are imitated by art in making of Pumps Syphons and such other instuments and in that admirable experiment of taking up a heavy Marble stone merely by another lying flat and smoothly upon it without any ther connexion of the two stones together as also by that sport of boyes when they spread a thin moistned leather upon a smooth broad stone press it all over close to it and then by pulling of a string fastned at the middle of the leather they draw up likewise the heavy stone In all which the first cause of the motion proceeds from that body towards which the motion is made and therfore is properly called Attraction For the better understanding and delaring of which let us suppose two marble stones very broad and exceeding smoothly polished to be laid one flat upon the other and let there be a ring fastned at the back part of the
when he considers with what labour difficulty and slowness he joyns the letters spells syllables forms characters fits and breaks his fingers as though they were upon the rack to stop the right frets and touch the right strings and yet you see how strange a dexterity is gain'd in all these by industry and practise and readiness beyond what we could imagine possible if we saw not dayly the effects If then we can but arrive to decipher the first characters of the hidden Alphabet we are now taking in hand and can but spellingly read the first syllables of it we need not doubt but that the wise Author of nature in the masterpiece of the creature which was to express the excellency of the workman would with excellent cunning art dispose all circumstances so aptly as to speak readily a compleat language rising from those Elements and that should have as large an extent in practise and expression beyond those first principles which we like children only lisp out as the vast discourses of wisest most learned men are beyond the spellings of infants and yet those discourses spring from the same root as the other spellings do and are but a raising of them to a greater height as the admired musick of the best player on a Lute or Harp that ever was is derived from the harsh twangs of course Bowstrings which are composed together and refined till at length they arrive to that wonderful perfection And so without scruple we may in the business we are next falling upon conclude that the admirable and almost miraculous effects we see are but the elevating-to-a-wonderful-height those very actions and motions which we shall produce as causes and principles of them Let us then suppose a solid hard body of an unctuous nature whose parts are so subtile and fiery that with a little agitation they are much rarified and breath out in steams though they be too subtile for our eyes to discern like the steam that issues from sweating men or horses or that which flyes from a candle when 't is put out but that these steams as soon as they come into the cold air are by that cold suddenly condens'd again and by being condens'd shorten themselvs and by little and little retire till they settle themselvs upon the body from whence they sprung in such manner as you may observe the little tender horns of Snails use to shrink back if any thing touch them till they settle in little lumps upon their heads If I say these strings of bituminous vapours should in their way outwards meet with any light and spungy body they would pierce into it and settle in it and if it were of a competent bigness for them to wield they would carry it with them which way soever they go so that if they shrink back again to the fountain from whence they came they must needs carry back with them the light spungy body they have fixed their darts in Consider then that how much heat rarifies so much cold condenses and therfore such parts as by agitation were spun out into a subtile thrid of an inch long for example as they cool grow bigger and bigger and consequently shorter and shorter till at length they gather themselvs back into their main body and there they settle again in cold bitumen as they were at first and the light body they stick to is drawn back with them and consequently sticks to the superficies of the bitumen As if something were tyed at one end of a luâ—estring extended to its utmost capacity and the other end were fastned to some pin as the string shrinks up so that which is tyed at it must needs move nearer and nearer the pin which artifice of nature jugglers imitate when by means of an unseen hair they draw light bodies to them Now if all this operation be done without your seeing the little thrids which cause it the matter appears wonderful and strange But when you consider this progress that we have set down you will judge it possible And this seems to be the case of those bodies which we call Electrical as yellow Amber Jet and the like all which are of a bituminous unctuous nature as appears by their easie combustibility and smel when they are burned And if some do not so apparently shew this unctuous nature it is because either they are too hard or else they have a high degre of aqueous humidity joyn'd with their unctuosity and in them the operation will be duller in that proportion For as we see that unctuous substances are more odoriferous then others and send their streams further off and more efficaciously so we cannot doubt but such bodies as consist in a moist nature accordingly send forth their emanations in a feebler proportion Yet that proportion will not be so feeble but they may have an Electrical effect as well as the more efficacious Electrical bodies which may be perceptible if exact experience be made by an instrument like the Marriners needle as our learned Countryman Dr. Gilbert teaches But that in those eminent agents the spirits wherby they attract are unctuous is plain because the fire consumes them and so if the agents be over heated they cannot work but moderate heat even of fire encreases their operation Again they are clog'd by mysty air or wettine and likewise are pierc'd through and cut asunder by spirit of wine or aquae ardentes but oyl doth not hurt them Likewise they yield more spirits in the Sun then in the shade and they continue longer when the air is cleard by North or Eastern winds They require to be polish'd either because the rubbing which polish'd them takes off from their surfaces the former emanations which returning back stick upon them and so hinder the passage of those that are within or else because their outsides may be foul or lastly because the ports may be dilated by that smoothing Now that hardness and solidity is required argues that these spirits must be quick ones that they may return smartly and not be lost through their languishing in the air Likewise that all bodies which are not either exceeding rare or else set on fire may be drawn by these unctuous thrids concludes that the quality by which they do it is a common one that hath no particular contrarieties such an one as we see in grease or in pitch to stick to any thing from which in like manner nothing is exempted but fire and air And lastly that they work most efficaciously when they are heated by rubbing rather then by fire shews that their spirits are excitated by motion and therby made to fly abroad in such manner as we see in Pomanders and other perfumes which must be heated if you will have them communicate their scent And a like effect as in them agitation doth in Jet yellow Amber and such other Electrical bodies for if upon rubbing them you put them presently to your nose you wil discern
necessity happen that in the air there come Atoms to the Torrid Zone of that grossness that they cannot suddenly be so much rarified as the subtiler parts of air that are there and therfore the more those subtiler parts are rarified and therby happen to be carried up the stronger and the thicker the heavier Atoms must descend And thus this concourse of air from the Polar parts maintains gravity under the Zodiack where otherwise all would be turned into fire and so have no gravity Now who considers the two Hemispheres which by the Equator are divided will find that they are not altogether of equal complexions but that our Hemisphere in which the Northpole is comprised is much dryer then the other by reason of the greater continent of land in this and the vast tract of Sea in the other and therfore the supply which comes from the divers Hemispheres must needs be of different natures that which comes from towards the Southpole being compared to that which comes from towards the North as the more wet to the more dry Yet of how different complexions soever they be you see they are the emanations of one and the same body Not unlike to what nature hath instituted in the rank of Animals among whom the Male and Female are so distinguish'd by heat and cold moisture and drought that nevertheless all belongs but to one nature and that in degrees though manifestly different yet so near together that the body of one is in a manner the same thing as the body of the other Even so the complexions of the two Hemispheres are in such sort different in the same qualities that nevertheless they are of the same nature and are unequal parts of the same body which we call the Earth Now Alchimists assure us that if two extractions of one body meet together they will incorporate one with the other especially if there be some little difference in the complexion of the extractions Whence it follows that these two streams of air making up one continuate floud of various currents â—om one end of the world to the other each stream that come to the Equator from its own Pole by the extraction of the Sun and that is still supply'd with new matter flowing from its own Pole to the Equator before the Sun can sufficiently rarifie and lift up the Atomes that came first Perpendicularly under its beams as it uses to happen in the effects of Physical causes which cannot be rigorously ajusted but must have some latitude in which nature inclines ever rather to abundance then to defect will pass even to the other pole by the conduct of his fellow in case he be by some occasion driven back homewards For as we see in a Bowl or Pail full of water or rather in a Pipe through which the water runs along if there be a little hole at the bottome or side of it the water will wriggle and change its course to creep out at that Pipe especially if there be a little spiggot or quill at the outside of the hole that by the narrow length of it helps in some sort as it were to suck it So if any of the files of the army or floud of Atoms sucked from one of the Poles to the Equator do there find any gaps or chinks or lanes of retiring files in the front of the other poles battalia of atomes they will press in there in such mannner as we have above declared that water doth by the help of a label of cotten and as is exemplyfied in all the attractions of venime by venimous bodies wherof we have given many examples above and they will go along with them the course they go For as when a thick short gilded ingot of silver is drawn out into a long subtile wyre the wyre continuing still perfectly guilded all over manifestly shews that the outside and the inside of the ingot strangely meet together and intermix in the drawing out so this little stream which like an Eddy current runs back from the Equator towards its own Pole will continue to the end still tincted with the mixture of the other Poles atoms it was incorporated with at his coming to the Equator Now that some little rivolets of air and atoms should run back to their own Pole contrary to the course of their main stream will be easy enough to conceive if we but consider that at certain times of the year winds blow more violently and strongly from some determinate part or Rombe of the world then they do at other times and from other parts As for example our East India Marriners tell us of the famous Monsones they find in those parts whch are strong winds that reign constantly six moneths of the year from one polewards and the other six moneths from the other pole beginning precisely about the Suns entring into such a sign or degree of the Zodiac and continue til about its entrance into the opposite degree And in our parts of the world certain smart Easterly or Northeasterly winds reign about the end of March and beginning of April when it seems that some snows are melted by the spring heats of the Sun And other winds have their courses in other seasons upon other causes All which evidently convince that the course of the air and vapours from the poles to the Equator cannot be so regular and uniform but that many impediments and crosses light in the way to make breaches in it and therby to force it in some places to an opposite course In such sort as we see happens in eddy waters and in the course of a tide wherin the stream ruÌ„ning swiftly in the middle beats the edges of the water to the shore and therby makes it run back at the shore And hence we may conclude that although the main course of air atoms for example from North to South in our Hemisphere can never fail of going on towards the Equator constantly at the same rate in gross nevertheless in several particular little parts of it and especially at the edges of those streams that are driven on faster then the rest by an extraordinary and accidental violent cause it is variously interrupted and somtimes intirely stop'd and other times even driven back to the Northwards And if peradventure any man should think that this will not fall out because each stream seems to be always coming from his one Pole to the Equator and therfore will oppose and drive back any bodies that with less force should strive to swim against it or if they stick to them will carry them back to the Equator We answer that we must not conceive the whole air in body doth every where equally incroach from the Polewards upon the Torrid Zone but as it were in certain brooks or rivulets according as the contingency of all causes put together makes it fall out Now then out of what we have said it will follow that since all
whom and Dr. Harvey our Nation may claim even in this latter age as deserved a crown for solid Philosophical learning as for many ages together it hath done formerly for acute and subtile speculations in Divinity But before I fall to particulars I think it worth warning my Reader how this Great Man arrived to discover so much of Magnetical Philosophy that he likewise if he be desirous to search into nature may by imitation advance his thoughts and knowledge that way In short then all the knowledg he got of this subject was by forming a little Loadstone into the shape of the earth By which means he compassed a wonderful design which was to make the whole globe of the earth maniable for he found the properties of the whole earth in that little body which he therfore called a Terrella or little earth and which he could manage and try experiences on at his will And in like manner any man that has an aim to advance much in natural Sciences must endeavour to draw the matter he enquires of into some smal model or into some kind of manageable method which he may turn and wind as he pleases and then let him be sure if he hath a competent understanding that he will not miss of his mark But to our intent the first thing we are to prove is that the Loadstone is generated in such sort as we have described For proof wherof the first ground we will lay shall be to consider how in divers other effects it is manifest that the differences of being exposed to the North or to the South cause very great variety in the same thing as hereafter we shall have occasion to touch in the barks and grains of trees and the like Next we find by experience that this virtue of the Loadstone is receivd into other bodies that resemble its nature by heatings and coolings for so it passes in iron bars which being throughly heated and then laid to cool North and South are therby imbued with a Magnetick virtue heat opening their bodies and disposing them to suck in such atoms as are convenient to their nature that flow to them whiles they are cooling So that we cannot doubt but convenient matter fermenting in its warm bed under the earth becomes a Loadstone by the like sucking in of affluent streams of a like complexion to the former And it fares in like manner with those fiery instruments as fireforks tongues shovels and the like which stand constantly upwards and downwards for they by being often heated and cool'd again gain a very strong verticity or turning to the Pole and indeed they cannot stand upwards and downwards so little a while but they will in that short space gain a manifest verticity and change it at every turning Now since the force and vigour of this verticity is in the end that stands downwards 't is evident that this effect proceeds out of an influence receiv'd from the earth And because in a Load-stone made into a globe or consider'd so to the end you may reckon Hemispheres in it as in the great earth either Hemisphere gives to a needle touch'd upon it not only the virtue of that Hemisphere where it is touch'd but likewise the vertue of the contrary Hemisphere we may boldly conclude that the virtue which a Loadstone is impregnated with in the womb or bed of the earth where it is form'd and grows proceeds as well from the contrary Hemisphere of the earth as from that wherin it lyes in such sort as we have above described And as we feel oftentimes in our own bodies that some cold we catch remains in us a long while after the taking it and somtimes seems even to change the nature of some part of our body into which it is chiefly enter'd and hath taken particular possession of so that whenever new atoms of the like nature again range about in the circumstant air that part so deeply affected with the former ones of-kin to these in a particular manner seems to rissent and attract them to it and to have its guests within it as it were waken'd and rous'd up by the strokes of the advenient ones that knock at their doors Even so but much more strongly by reason of the longer time and less hinderances we may conceive that the two virtues or atoms proceeding from the two different Hemisphere constitute a certain permanent and constant nature in the stone that imbibes them which then we call a Loadstone and is exceeding sensible as we shall hereafter declare of the advenience to it of new atoms a like in nature and complexion to those it is impregnated with And this virtue consisting in a kind of softer and tenderer substance then the rest of the stone becomes thereby subject to be consumed by fire From whence we may gather the reason why a Loadstone never recovers its magnetick virtue after it hath once lost it though iron doth for the humidity of iron is inseparable from its substance but the humidity of a Loadstone which makes it capable of this effect may be quite consumed by fire and so the stone may be left too dry for ever being capable of imbibing any new influence from the earth unless it be by a kind of new making it In the next place we are to prove that the Loadstone works in that manner we have shew'd For which end let us consider how the atoms that are drawn from each Pole and Hemisphere of the earth to the Equator making up their course by a manuduction of one another the hindermost cannot chose but still follow on after the formost And as it happens in filtration by a cotton cloath if some one part of the cotton have its disposition to the ascent of the water more perfect and ready then the other parts have the water will assuredly ascend faster in that part then in any of the rest so if the atoms find a greater disposition for their passage in any one part of the Medium they range through then in another they will certainly not fail of taking that way in greater abundance and with more vigour and strength then any other But 't is evident that when they meet with such a stone as we have described the helps by which they advance in their journey are notably encreas'd by the floud of atoms they meet coming out of that stone which being of the nature of their opposite pole they seise greedily upon them and therby pluck themselvs faster on like a Ferry man that draws on his boat the swiftlier the more vigourously he tâ—gs and pulls at the rope that lyes thwart the river for him to hale himself over by And therfore we cannot doubt but this floud of atoms streaming from the pole of the earth must needs pass through that stone with more speed and vigour then they can do any other way And as we see in the running of water if it meets with any lower
diffused in many several branches peradventure it will not be displeasing to the Reader to see the whole nature of the loadstone sum'd up in short Let him then cast his eyes upon one effect of it very easie to be tried and acknowledg'd by all writers though we have not as yet mention'd it 'T is that a knife drawn from the pole of a loadstone towards the Equator if you hold the point towards the pole gains a respect to one of the poles but contrariwise if the point of the knife be held towards the Equator and be thrust the same way it was drawn before that is towards the Equator it gains a respect towards the contrary pole 'T is evident out of this experience that the virtue of the loadstone is communicated by way of streams and that in it there are two contrary streams for otherwise the motion of the knife this way or that why could not change the efficacity of the same parts of the loadstone 'T is likewise evident that these contrary streams come from the contrary ends of the loadstone As also that the virtues of them both are in every part of the stone Likewise that one loadstone must of necessity turn certain parts of it self to certain parts of another loadstone nay that it must go and joyn to it according to the laws of attraction which we have above deliver'd and consequently that they must turn their disagreeing parts away from one another and so one loadstone seem to fly from another if they be so apply'd that their disagreeing parts be kept still next to one another for in this case the disagreeing and the agreeing parts of the same loadstone being in the same straight line one loadstone seeking to draw his agreeing part near to that part of the other loadstone which agrees with him must of necessity turn away his disagreeing parts to give way to his agreeing parts to approach nearer And thus you see that the flying from one another of two ends of two loadstones which are both of the same denomination as for example the two South ends or the two North ends doth not proceed from a pretended antipathy between those two ends but from the attraction of the agreeing ends Furthermore the earth having to a Loadstone the nature of a Loadstone it follows that a Loadstone must necessarily turn it self to the poles of the earth by the same laws and consequently must tend to the North must vary from the North must incline towards the centre and must be affected with all such accidents as we have deduced of the Loadstone And lastly seeing that iron is to a Loadstone a fit matter for it to impress its nature in and easily retains that magnetike virtue the same effects that follow between two Loadstones must necessarily follow between a Loadstone and a piece of iron fitly proportionated in their degrees excepting some little particularities which proceed out of the naturalness of the magneticke virtue to a Loadstone more then to iron And thus you see the nature of the Load-stone sum'd up in gross the particular joynts and causes whereof you may find treated at large in the main discourse Wherin we have govern'd our selvs chiefly by the experiences that are recorded by Gilbert and Cabeus to whom we remit our Reader for a more ample declaration of particulars CHAP. XXIII A description of the two sorts of Living Creatures Plants and Animals and how they are framed in common to perform vital motion HItherto we have endeavour'd to follow by a continual third all such effects as we have met with among Bodies and to trace them in all their windings and drive them up to their very root original source for the nature of our subject having been yet very common hath not exceeded the compass and power of our search inquiry to descend to the chief circumstances and particulars belonging to it And indeed many of the conveyance wherby the operations we have discoursed of are performed be so secret and abstruse as they that Look into them with less heedfulness and judgment then such a matter requires are too apt to impute them to mysterious causes above the reach of humane nature to comprehend and to calumniate them of being wrought by occult and specifick qualities wherof no more reason could be given then if the effects were infused by Angelical hands without assistance of inferiour bodies which uses to be the last refuge of ignorant men who not knowing what to say and yet presuming to say something fall often upon such expressions as neither themselvs nor their hearers understand but if they be well scan'd imply contradictions Therfore we deem'd it a kind of necessity to strain our selvs to prosecute most of such effects even to their notional connexions with Rarity and Density And the rather because it hath not been our luck yet to meet with any that has had the like design or done any considerable matter to ease our pains VVhich cannot but make the Readers journey somwhat tedious to him to follow all our steps by reason of the ruggedness and untrodenness of the paths we have walk'd in But now the effects we shall henceforward meddle with grow so particular and swarm into such a vast multitude of several little joynts and wreathy labyrinths of nature as were impossible in so summary a treatise as we intend to deliver the causes of every one of them exactly which would require both large discourses and abundance of experiences to acquit our selvs as we ought of such a task Nor is there a like need of doing it as formerly for as much as concerns our design since the causes of them are palpably material and the admirable artifice of them consists only in the Dedalean and wonderful-ingenious ordering and ranging them one with another VVe shall therfore intreat our Reader from this time forwards to expect only the common sequel of those particular effects out of the principles already laid And when some shall occur that may peradventure seem at first sight enacted immediately by a virtue spiritual and that proceeds indivisibly in a different strain from the ordinary process which we see in bodies and bodily things that is by the virtues of rarity and density working by local motion we hope he will be satisfied at our hands if we lay down a method and trace out a course wherby such events and operations may follow out of the principles we have laid Though peradventure we shall not absolutely convince that every effect is done just as we set it down in every particular and that it may not as well be done by some other disposing of parts under the same general scope for 't is enough for our turn if we shew that such effects may be perform'd by corporeal agents working as other bodies do without confining our selvs to an exactness in every link of the long chain that must be wound up in the performance
driness and the like which by much mixstion and consequent alteration may in the end become such as constitute a living creature of such a kind And thus it appears that although other substances and liquors and steams are from time to time mingled with the seed and then with the heart and afterwards with the other parts as they grow on and encrease yet the main virtue of the ensuing Animal is first in the seed and afterwards in the heart Whence the reason is evident why both defects and excrescences pass somtimes from the parents to the children to wit when nothing supplies the defect or corrects the exorbitancy Rather after this which we have said the difficulty will appear greater in that such accidents are not always hereditary from the parents but happen only now and then some rare times But the same grounds we have laid wil likewise solve this objection For seeing that the heart of the Animal from whence the seed receives its proper nature as we have declared is impregnated with the specifick virtue of each several part of the body it cannot be doubted but that the heart will supply for any defect hapned in another part after it hath been imbued with that virtue and is grown to a firmness and vigorous consistence with that virtue moulded and deeply imbibed into the very substance of it And although the heart should be tincted from its first origine with an undue virtue from some part as it seems to have been in the mother of those daughters that had two thumbs upon one hand yet it is not necessary that all the off-spring of that parent should be formed after that model for the other partners seed may be more efficacious and predominant in the geniture over the faulty seed of the other parent and then it will supply for and correct the others deviation from the general rule of nature Which seems to be the cause of that womans male children for in them the fathers seed being strongest all their fingers imitated the regularity of their Fathers wheras the daughters whose sex implies that the fathers seed was less active carried upon some of theirs the resemblance of their mothers irregularity And in confirmation of this doctrine we daily see that the Children of Parents who have any of their noble parts much and long distempred wherby there must be a great distemper in the bloud which is made and concocted by their assistance seldom fail of having strong inclinations to the distempers and diseases that either of their parents were violently subject to Scarce any Father or Mother dyes of the Consumption of the Lungs but their children inherit that disease in some measure the like is of the Stone the like of the Gout the like of diseases of the brain and of sundry others when they infested the parents with any notable eminency For the bloud coming continually to the heart from such ill-affected parts by its circulation through the whole body must needs in process of time alter and change the temper of the heart and then both the heart gives a tainted impression to the blood that must be boyl'd into seed and the parts themselvs communicate their debilites and distempers to it so that it is no wonder if the seed partake of such depraved qualities since it is a maxime among Physicians that subsequent concoctions can never amend or repair the faults of the precedent ones Having waded thus far into this matter and all experience agreeing that the whole Animal is not formed at once I conceive there can be no great difficulty in determining what part of it is first generated which we have already said to be the heart but peradventure the Reader may expect some more particular and immediate proof of it 'T is evident that all the motions and changes we have observ'd in the Egg and in the Doe proceed from heat and t is as certain that heat is greatest in the centre of it from whence it disperses it self to less and less It must then necessarily follow that the part in which heat most abounds and which is the interiour fountain of it from whence as from a stock of their own all the other parts derive theirs must be formed first and the others successively after it according as they partake more or less of this heat which is the Architect that moulds and frames them all Undoubtedly this can be none other but the heart whose motion and manner of working evidently appears in the twinckling of the first red spot which is the first change in the Egg and in the first matter of other living creatures Yet I do not intend to say that the heart is perfectly framed and compleatly made up with all its parts and instruments before any other part be begun to be made but only the most vertuous part and as it were the marrow of it which servs as a shop or hot forge to mold spirits in from whence they are dispers'd abroad to form and nourish other parts that stand in need of them to that effect The shootings or little red strings that stream out from it must surely be arteries through which the bloud issuing from the heart and there made and imbued with the nature of the seed runs till encountering with fit matter it engrosses it self into brain liver lights c. From the brain chiefly grows the marrow and by consequent the bones containing it which seem to be originally but the outward part of the marrow baked and hardned into a strong crust by the great heat that is kept in as also the sinews which are the next principal bodies of strength after the bones The marrow being very hot dries the bones and yet with its actual moisture it humects and nourishes them too in some sort The spirits that are sent from the brain do the like to the sinews And lastly the arteries and veins by their bloud cherish and bedew the flesh And thus the whole living creature is begun framed and made up CHAP. XXV How a Plant or Animal câ—mes to that figure it hath BUt before we go any further and search into the operations of this Animal a wonderful effect calls our consideration to it which is how a Plant or Animal comes by the figure it hath both in the whole and in every part of it Aristotle after he had beaten his thoughts as far as he could upon this question pronounced that this effect could not possibly be wrought by the virtue of the first qualities but that it sprung from a more divine origine And most of the contemplatours of Nature since him seem to agree that no cause can be render'd of it but that it is to be refer'd merely to the specifical nature of the thing Neither do we intend to derogate from either of these causes since both Divine Providence is eminently shown in contriving all circumstances necessary for this work and likewise the first temperament that is
in the seed must needs be the principal immediate cause of this admirable effect This latter then being supposed our labour and endeavour will be to unfold as far as so weak and dim eyes can reach the excellency and exactness of Gods Providence which cannot be enough adored when it is reflected on and mark'd in the apt laying of adequate causes to produce such a figure out of such a mixture first laid From them so artificially ranged we shall see this miracle of nature to proceed and not from an immediate working of God or nature without convenient and ordinary instruments to mediate and effect this configuration through the force and virtue of their own particular natures Such a necessity to interest the chief workman at every turn in particular effects would argue him of want of skill and providence in the first laying of the foundations of his designed Machine He were an improvident Clockmaker that should have cast his work so as when it were wound up and going it would require the Masters hand at every hour to make the Hammer strike upon the Bell. Let us not then too familiarly and irreverently ingage the Almighty Architect's immediate handy-work in every particular effect of nature Tali non est dignus vindice noduâ— But let us take principles within our own kenning and consider how a body hath of its own nature three dimensions as Mathematicians use to demonstrate and that the variety we see of figures in bodies proceeds out of the defect of some of these dimensions in proportion to the rest As for example that a thing be in the form of a Square Tablet is for that the cause which gave it length and breadth could not also give it thickness in the same proportion for had it been able to give profundity as well as the other two it had made a Cube instead of a Tablet In like manner the former of a lamine or very long square is occasion'd by some accident which hinders the cause from giving breadth and thickness proportionable to the length And so other figures are made by reason that their causes are some ways bound to give more of some dimension to one part then another As for example when water falls out of the skie it hath all the little corners or extancies of its body grated off by the air as it rolls and tumbles down in it so that it becomes round and continues in that form till setling on some flat body as Grass or a Leaf it receives a little plainness to the proportion of his weight mastering the continuity of it And therfore if the drop be great upon that plain body it seems to be half a Sphere or some less portion of one but if it be a little drop then the flat part of it which is that next the grass is very little and undiscernable because it hath not weight enough to press it much and spread it broad upon the grass and so the whole seems in a manner to be a Sphere But if the extern causes had press'd upon this drop only broadways and thick ways as when a Turner makes a round Pillar of a square one then it would have proved a Cylinder nothing working upon it to grate off any of its length but only the corners of the breadth and thickness of it And thus you see how the fundamental figures upon which all the rest are grounded are contrived by nature not by the work of any particular Agent that immediately Imprints a determinate figure into a particular body as though it wrought it there at once according to a foreconceiv'd design or intelligent aim of producing such a figure in such a body but by the concurrence of several accidental causes that all joyn in bringing the body they file and work upon into such a shape Only we had like to have forgotten the reason and cause of the concave figure in some parts of Plants which in the ordinary course of nature we shall find to grow from hence That a round outside being filled with some liquor which makes it grow higher and higher it happens that the succeeding causes contract this liquor and harden the outside and then of necessity there must be a hollow Cylinder remaining in lieu of the juice which before fill'd it As we see every day in corn and in Reeds and in Canes and in the stalks of many herbs which whilst they are tender and in their first growth are full of juice and become afterwards hallow and dry But because this discourse may peradventure seem too much in common it will not be amiss to apply it to some particulars that seem very strange And first let us examine how the rocking of concrete juices which seems to be such an admirable mystery of Nature is performed Allom falls down in lumps Saltpeter in long icicles and common Salt in squares and this not once or somtimes now or then but always constantly in the same order The reason of these effects will easily be deduced out of what we have said For if all three be dissolv'd in the same water Allom being the grossest falls first and fastest and being of an unctious nature the first part which falls doth not harden till the second comes to it wherby this second sticks to the first and crushes it down and this is serv'd in the same manner by the third and so it goes on one part squeezing another till what is undermost grow hard enough to resist the weight of new falling parts or rather till no more fall but the liquor they were dissolv'd in is deliver'd of them all and then they harden in that figure they were compress'd into As for Salt which descends in the second place that swims first upon the water and there gets its figure which must be equally long and broad because the water is indifferent to those two positions but its thickness is not equal to its other two dimensions by reason that before it can attain to that thickness it grows too heavy to swim any longer and after it is encreas'd to a certain bulk the weight of it carries it down to the bottom of the water and consequently it can encrease no more for it encreases by the joyning of little parts to it as it swims on the top of the water The Saltpeter falls last which being more difficult to be figured then the other two because it is more dry then either of them as consisting chiefly of earthy and of fiery parts is not equally encreased neither in all three nor in two dimensions but hath its length exceeding both its breadth and thickness and its lightness makes it fall last because it requires least water to sustain it To give the causes of the figures of divers mixts and particularly of some precious stones which seems to be cast by Nature in exactest moulds would oblige us to enter into the particular manner of their generation which were exceeding hard if
thither the objects that come into the brain and this we shall find carries back to the brain the passion or motion which by the object is rais'd in the heart Concerning this part of our body you are to note that it is a musculous membrane which in the middle of it hath a sinewy circle wherto is fastned the case of the heart call'd the Pericardium This Diaphragma is very sensible receiving its vertue of feeling from the above mention'd branch of the sixth couple of nervs and being of a trembling nature is by our respiration kept in continual moon and flaps upon all occasions as a drum head would do if it were slack and moist or as a sail would do that were brought into the wind Out of this description of it 't is obvious to conceive that all the changes of motion in the heart must needs be express'd in the Diaphragma For the heart beating upon the Pericardium and the Pericardium being join'd to the Diaphragma such jogs and vibrations must needs be imprinted and ecchoed there as are formed in the heart which from thence cannot chuse but be carried to the brain by the sixth couple of nervs And thus it comes about that we feel and have sensation of all the passions that are moved in our heart Which peradventure is the reason why the Greeks call this part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and from it derive the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in Latine signifies Sapere with Us to Savour or to like for by this part of our body we have a liking of any object or a motion of inclination towards it from whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived by composition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a prudent man is he that likes and is moved to compass wholsom and good things Which Etymology of the word seems to me more natural than from the phrensy from whence some derive it because a great distemper or inflammation in the Diaphragma often causes that disease Now because the object is covey'd from the brain to the heart some part of its way by the same passage as the motion of the heart is re-convey'd back to the brain it must of necessity follow that who is more attentive to outward sense less considers or reflects on his passion and who is more attentive to observe and be govern'd by what passes in his heart is less wrought upon by external things For if his fantasy draws strongly to it the emanations from outward agents upon the senses the stream of those emanations will descend so strongly from the overfill'd fantasy into the heart that it will hinder the ascent of any fewer and weaker spirits by the same pipe But if the current set strongest upwards from the heart by the Diaphragma to the brain then it will so fill the pipe by which it ascends that little of a weaker tide can make a contrary eddy water in the same channel And by this means nature effects a second pleasure or pain in a living creature which moves it oftentimes very powerfully in absence of the primary object as we may observe when thinking of any pleasing or displeasing action we find about our heart a motion which entices us to it or averts us from it For as the first pleasure was occasioned by the stroke which the object apply'd to the outward sense made upon the fantasy which can judg of nothing without being strucken by it so the second pleasure springs from the spirits moved in the heart by messengers from the brain which by the Diaphragma rebound a stroke back again upon the fantasy And from hence it proceeds that Memory delights or afflicts us and that we think of past things with sweetness or with remorse and therby assuefaction is wrought in beasts as far as the appetitive part contributes therto to perfect what was begun in their cognoscitive part by the ingression of corporeal specieses into their fantasy in order to the same effect as we have touch'd before But now let us examine how so small a quantity of a body as comes from an object into our sense can be the cause of so great a motion about our heart To which purpose we are to remember that this motion is perform'd in the most subtile and thin substance that can be imagin'd They are the vital spirits that do all this work which are so subtile so agil and so hot that they may in some sort be termed fire Now if we reflect how violent fire is we need not wonder at the suddain and great motion of these passions But we must further take notice that they are not in the greatest excess but where the living creature hath been long inured and exercised to them either directly or indirectly so that they arrive not to that pitch so much out of the power of the agent as out of the preparation and disposition of the patient As when cold water hath been often heated by extinguishing red hot irons in it after some repetitions a few quenchings will reduce it from cold to boiling that at the first would scarce have made it lukewarm and accordingly we see a heart that for a long time hath loved and vehemently desired enjoying is transported in a high degree at the least sight and renuance of strokes from its beloved object and is as much dejected upon any the least deprivation of it For to such an object the living creature is hurried away by a force much resembling the gravity or celerity of a dense body that is set on runing down a steep hill to which the only taking away of a weak let or the least stop gives a precipitate course not out of the force of what is done to it but out of the force which was formerly in the thing though for the present it lay there undiscovered and so likewise in these cases the object rather gives the occasion of the violent motion than the force or power to it These things being thus determined some peradventure may ask how it comes to pass that the spirits which cause motion being sent on their errand by the brain alwayes hit the right way and light duly into those very sinews which move the living creature according as is requisite for its nature Since all the passages are open what is it that governs them so as they never mistake and the animal is never driven towards harm in stead of flying from it Who is their guide in these obscure paths But it were to impute ignorance to the Maker to think that he framed all the passages alike and so every one of them promiscuously apt to receive into them all sorts of spirits however they be moved And therfore we may assure our selvs that since in these diversities of occasions there are likewise divers kinds of motions from the heart either there is proportionable to them divers kinds of passages fit to receive and entertain
due measure And if we will mark it in our selvs we shall see that although in the first learning of a lesson on the Lute we imploy our reason and discourse about it yet when we have it very perfect our fingers guided by a slight fantasie fall by custome without any reflection at all to play it as well as if we thought never so carefully upon it And there is no comparison between the difficulty of a Gittar and of a Lute I have been told that at the Duke of Florence's marriage there was a dance of Horses in which they kept exact time of Musick The means used for bringing them to it is said to have been by tying and hampering their legs in such a sort that they could lift them up but in a determinate way and then seting them upon a pavement that was heated underneath so hot that they could not endure to stand still whiles such Musical Airs were plaid to them as fitted their motions All which being often repeated the Horses took a habit that in hearing those Airs they would lift up their legs in that fashion and so danced to the tune they had been taught Of the Elephants 't is said that they may be taught to write and that purely upon words and commanding them they 'l do what they are bidden and that they are able to keep account and will leave working at a precise number of revolutions of the same action which measures out their task to them All which as I said before if it were plainly and literally true would require a very great consideration but because the teachers of Beasts have certain secrets in their art which standers by do not reach to we are not able upon such scanty relations as we have of them to make sufficient judgment how such things are done unless we had the managing of those creatures wherby to try them in several occasions and observe what cause produces every operation they do and by what steps they attain to their instructions and serviceableness 'T is true the uncontrolled reports of them oblige us to believe some extraordinary matter of their docility and of strange things done by them but with all the example of other taughtbeasts among us and of the strange judgments that are made of them by persons who do not penetrate into their causes may instruct us how easily it is to mistake the matter and assure us that the relations made us do not always punctually agree with the truth of what passed He that should tell an Indian what feats Banks's Horse would do how he would restore a glove to the due owner after his Master had whisper'd that mans name in his ear how he would tell the just number of pence in any piece of silver coyn barely shew'd him by his Master and even obey presently his command in discharging himself of his excrements when ever he bad him so great a power art may have over nature would make him I believe admire more at this learned beast than we do at their docile Elephants upon the relations we have of them Wheras every one of us knows by what means his painful Tutor brought him to do all his tricks and they are no whit more extxaordinary than a Fawkners manning of a Hawk and training her to kill Partridges and to flie at the retrive but do all of them both these and all other jugling artifices of beasts depend upon the same or like principles and are known to be but directions of nature order'd by one that composes and levels her operations to another end further of off in those actions than she of her self would aim at The particulars of which we need not trouble our selvs to meddle with But 't is time we come to the third sort of actions perform'd by beasts which we promised to discourse of These seem to be more admirable than any we have yet touched and are chiefly concerning the breeding of their young ones Above all others the orderly course of Birds in this affair is most remarkable After they have coupled they make their nest they line it with 〈◊〉 sâ—w and fathers they lay their eggs they 〈◊〉 upon them they 〈◊〉 them they feed their young one and they teach them to she all which they do with so continuate and regular a method as no man can direct or imagine a better But as for the regularity orderliness and continuance of these actions the matter is easie enough to be conceiv'd For seeing the operation of the male makes a change in the female and this change beginning from the very first grows by time into divers proportions 't is no wonder that it breeds divers dispositions in the female which cause her to do different actions correspondent to those divers dispositions Now those actions must of necessity be constant and orderly because the causes whence they proceed are such But to determine in particular how it comes to pass that every change in the female disposes her to such and such actions there is the difficulty and it is no small one as well for that there are no careful and due observations made of the effects and circumstances which should guide us to judg of their causes as because these actions are the most refined ones of Sensitive creatures and flow from the top and perfection of their nature and are the last strain of their utmost vigour to which all others are subordinate As in our enquiry into the motions and operations of the bodies of a lower Orb than these we meet with some namely the Loadstone and such like of which it is very hard to give exact and plain account the Author of them reserving something from our clear and distinct knowledge and suffering us to look upon them but through a mist in like manner we cannot but expect that in the depth of this other perfecter nature there must be somwhat wherof we can have but a glimering and imperfect notion But as in the other it serv'd our turn to trace out a way how these operations might be effected by bodies and by local motion though peradventure we did not in every circumstance hit exactly upon the right therby to defend our selvs from admiting those chymerical Qualities which we had already condemned upon all other occasions so I conceive it will be sufficient for us in this to shew how these actions may be done by the senses by the motion of corporeal spirits and by material impressions upon them without being constrain'd to resort to an immaterial principle which must furnish birds with reason and discourse In which it is not necessary for my purpose to determine precisely every step by which these actions are performed and to settle the rigorous truth of them but leaving that to those who shall take pains to deliver the history of their nature I will content my self with the possibility and probability of my conjectures The first of which qualities
then he will discern how these are but material instruments of a rational agent working by them from whose orderly prescriptions they have not power to swerve in the least circumstance that is Every one of which consider'd singly by it self hath a face of no more diffrently than that for example an Engineer should so order his matters that a Mine should be ready to play exactly at such an hour by leaving such a proportion of kindled match hanging our of one of the barrels of powder whiles in the mean time he either sleeps or attends to somthing else And when you have once gain'd thus much of your self to agree to an orderly course and generation of any single effect by the power of a material cause working in it raise but your discourse a strain higher and look with reverence and duty up-the Immensity of That Provident Architect out of whose hands these master-pieces issue and to whom it is as easy to make a chain of causes of a thousand or million of links as to make one link alone and then you will no longer stick at allowing the whole oeconomy of those actions to be nothing else but a production of material effects by a due ranging and ordering of material causes But let us return to our theam As we see that milk coming into the breasts of live-bearing female creatures when they grow very big heats and makes them seek the mouths of their young ones to disburthen and cool them so the carriage and bigness of the Eggs heats exceedingly the breasts and bodies of the Birds and this causes them to be still rubbing of their breasts against the sides of the nests wherto their unwieldiness then contines them very much and with their Beaks to be still picking their Feathers which being then apt to fall off and mew as we see the hair of women with child is apt to shed it happens that by then they are ready to lay their Eggs they have a soft bed of their own Feathers made in their Nests over their courser mattress of straws they first brought thither And then the Eggs powerful attracting of the annoying heat from the Hens breast whose imbibing of the warmth and stone-like shell cannot choose but cool her much invites her to sit constantly upon them till sitting hatches them And 't is evident that this sitting must proceed from their temper at that time or from some other immediate cause which works that effect and not from a judgment that doth it for a remote end for house-wives tells us that at such a season their Hens will be sitting in every convenient place they come to as though they had Eggs to hatch when never a one is under them so as it seems that at such time there is some inconvenience in their bodies which by sitting is eased When the Chickens are hatched what wonder is it if the little cryings of tender creatures of a like nature and language with their Dam move those affections or passions in her bosome which causes her to feed them and so defend and breed them till they be able to shift for themselvs For all this there needs no discourse or reason but only the motion of the blood about the heart which we have determin'd to be passion stir'd by the young ones chirpings so as may carry them to those actions which by nature the supreme intellect are order'd for their preservation Wherin the Birds as we have already said are but passive instruments and know not why they do those actions but do them they must whenever such and such objects which infallibly work in their due times make such and such impressions upon their fantasies like the allarum that necessarily strikes when the hand of the Dial comes to such a point or the Gun-powder that necessarily makes a ruine and breach in the wall when the burning of the match reaches to it Now this love in the Dam growing by little and little wearisome and troublesome to her and not being able to supply their encreased needs which they grow every day stronger to provide for of themselvs the strait commerce begins to die on both sides and by these degrees the Dam leaves her young ones to their own conduct And thus you see how this long series of actions may have orderly causes made and chain'd together by him that knew what was fitting for the work he went about Of which though 't is likely I have missed the right ones as it cannot choose but happen in all disquisitions where one is the first to break the Ice and so slenderly informed of the particular circumstances of the matter in question as I profess to be in this yet I concieve this discourse plainly shews that he who hath done more than we are able to comprehend and understand may have set causes sufficient for all these effects in a better order and in completer ranks than those we have here expressed and yet in them so coursely hew'd out appears a possibility of having the work done by corporeal agents Surely it were very well worth the while for some curious and judicious person to observe carefully and often the several steps of nature in this progress for I am strongly perswaded that by such industry we might in time arrive to very particular knowledge of the immediate and precise causes that work all these effects And I conceive that such observation needs not be very troublesome as not requiring any great variety of creatures to institute it upon for by marking carefully all that passes among our home-bred Hens I believe it were easy to guess very nearly at all the rest CHAP. XXXVIII Of Prescience of future events Providences the knowing of things never seen before and such other actions observed in some living creatures which seem to be even above the reason that is in man himself THe fourth and last kind of actions which we may with astonishment observ among beasts I conceive will avail little to infer that the creatures which do them are endew'd with reason and understanding for such they are as if we should admit that yet we should still be as far to seek for the causes whence they proceed What should move a Lamb to tremble at the first sight of a Woolf or a Hen at a Kite never before seen neither the grimest Mastiff nor the biggest Owl will at all affright them That which in the ordinary course of nature causes beasts to be afraid of men or of other beasts is the hurt and evil they recive from them which coming into their fantasie together with the Idea of him that did it is also lodg'd together with it in the memory from whence they come link'd or glew'd together when ever the stroke of any new object calls either of them back into the fantasie This is confirm'd by the tameness of the birds and beasts which the first discoverers of Islands not inhabited by men found in those they met with there
Their stories tell us that at their first arrival upon those coasts where it seems men had never been the birds would not flie away but suffer'd the Mariners to take them in their hands nor the beasts which with us are wild would run from them but their discourteous guests used them so hardly as they soon chang'd their confidence into distrust and aversion and by little and little grew by their commerce with men and receiving injuries from them to be as wild as any of the like kind in our parts From the Dams and Sires this apprehension and fear at the sight of men so deeply rooted in them is doubtless transmitted to their young ones for it proceeds out of the disposition of the body and the passion immediately made in the heart and that is as truly a material motion as any whatever can be and must have setled material instruments fitted to it if it be constant as well as any other natural operation whatever And this passion of the heart proceeds again from a perpetual connexion of the two objects in the memory which being a perpetually constant thing is as true a quality of that beasts brain in whom it is as the being of a quick or dull apprehension or apt to know one kind of meat from another which is natural to the whole species or any other quality whatever residing in that beast Wherfore 't is no wonder that it passes by generation to the off-spring which is a thing so common even in mankind as there can be no doubt of it and is at first made by a violent cause that greatly alters the body and consequently the seed must be imbew'd with a like disposition and so it passes together with the nature of the Sire or of the Dam into the brood From hence proceeds that children love the same meats and exercises that their Fathers and Mothers were affected with and fear the like harms This is the reason why a Grand-child of my Lord of Dorset whose honour'd name must never be mention'd by me without a particular respect and humble acknowledgment of the noble and steady friendship he hath ever been pleas'd to honour me with was always extremely sick if but the Nurse did eat any Capers against which my Lord's antipathy is famous whiles she gave suck to that pretty infant The Children of great Mathematicians who have been used to busie their fantasies continually with figures and proportions have been oftentimes observ'd to have a natural bent to those Sciences And we may note that even in particular gestures and in little singularities in familiar conversation children will oftentimes resemble their Parents as well as in the lineaments of their faces The young ones of excellent setting Dogs will have a notable aptitude to that exercise and may be taught with half the pains that their sire or dam was if they were chosen out of a race of Spaniels not trained to setting All which effects can proceed from no other cause but as we have touch'd already that the fantasy of the parent alters the temper and disposition of his body and seed according as it self is temper'd and disposed and consequently such a creature must be made of it as retains the same qualities as 't is said that sufficient Tartar put at the root of a tree will make the fruit have a winy taste But nothing confirms this so much as certain notable accidents wherof though every one in particular would seem incredible yet the number of them and the weight of the reporters who are the witnesses cannot choose but purchase a general credit to the kind of them These accidents are that out of some strong imagination of the parents but especially of the mother in the time of conception the children draw such main differences as were incredible if the testifying authority were not so great but being true they convince beyond all question the truth we have proposed of the parents imagination working upon and making an impression in the seed wherof children or young ones of their kind are made Some children of white parents are reported to havebeen black upon occasion of a Black-moors picture too much in the mothers eye Others are said to have been born with their skins all hairy out of the sight of St Baptist's picture as he was in the desart or of some other hairy image Another child is famed to have been born disformed so as Devils are painted because the sather was in a Devils habit when he got the child There was a Lady a kinswoman of mine who used much to wear black patches upon her face as was the fashion among young women which I to put her from used to tell her in jest that the next child she should go with whiles the sollicitude and care of those patches was so strong in her fantasy would come into the world with a great black spot in the midst of its forehead and this apprehension was so lively in her imagination at the time she proved with child that her daughter was born mark'd just as the mother had fansied which there are at hand witnesses enough to confirm but non more pregnant than the young Lady her self upon whom the mark is yet remaining Among other creatures 't is said that a Hen hatch'd a Chicken with a Kites bill because she was frighted with a Kite whiles the Cock was treading her The story of Jacol's Sheep is known to all and some write that the painting of beautiful colour'd pigeons in a Dove-house will make the following race become like them and in Authors store of such examples may be found To give a reasonable and fully satisfying cause of this great effect I confess is very difficult since for the most part the parents seed is made long time before the accoupling of the male and female and though it were not we should be mainly to seek for a rational ground to discourse in particular upon it Yet not to leav our Reader without a hint which way to drive his inquisition we will note thus much that Aristotle and other natural Philosophers and Physicians affirm that in some persons the passion is so great in the time of their accoupling that for the present it quite bereavs them of the use of reason and they are for the while in a kind of short fit of an Epilepsie By which 't is manifest that abundance of animal spirits then part from the head and descend into those parts which are the instruments of generation Wherfore if there be abundance of specieses of any one kind of object then strong in the imagination it must of necessity be carryed down together with the spirits into the seed and by consequence when the seed infected with this nature begins to separate and distribute it self to the forming of the several parts of the Embryon the spirits which resort into the brain of the child as to their proper Element and from thence finish all the
had never come into his fantasie accompanied with other circumstances than of play or of warmth and therfore hunger which calls only the species of meat out of the memory into the fantasy would never bring the Deer thither for remedy of that passion And that which often happens to those men in whom the fantasie only works is not much unlike to this among whom I have seen some frentick persons that if they be perswaded they are tyed and cannot stir from the place where they are will lye still and make great complaints for their imprisonment and not go a step to reach any meat or drink that should lie in sight near them though they were never so much pressed with hunger or thirst The reason is evident for the apprehension of being tyed is so strong in their fantasie that their fantasie can send no spirits into other parts of their body wherby to cause motion And thus the Deer was beholding to the Tyger's fantasie not to his discourse of moral honesty for his life The like of this Tyger and Deer is to be seen every day in the Tower of London where a little Dog that was bred with a Lion from his birth is so familiar and bold with him that they not only sleep together but somtimes the Dog will be angry with him and bite him which the Lion never resents from him though any other Dog that is put to him he presently tears in pieces And thus we plainly see how it comes about that beasts may have strange aversions from things which are of an annoying or destructive nature to them even at the first sight of them and again may have great likings of other things in a manner contrary to their nature without needing to allow them reason wherby to discourse and judge what is hurtful to them or to instruct the Tyger we have spoken of or Androdus's Lion the duties of friendship and gratitude The Longing marks which are oftentimes seen in children and remain with them all their life seem to be an off-spring of the same root or cause but in truth they proceed from another though of kin to this for the operation of the seed is pass'd when these Longing marks are imprinted the child being then already form'd and quickn'd and they seem to be made suddenly as by the print of a seal Therfore to render the cause of them let us consider another sympathy which is more plain and common We see that the laughing of one man will set another on laughing that sees him laugh though he know not the cause why the first man laughs and the like we see in yawning and stretching which breed the like effect in the looker on I have heard of a man that seeing a roasted Pig after our English fashion with the mouth gaping could not shut his own mouth as long as he look'd upon the Pigs and of another that when he saw any man make a certain motion with his hand could not choose but he must make the same so that being a Tyler by his Trade and having one hand imploy'd with holding his tools while he held himself with the other upon the eav's of a house he was mending a man standing below on the ground made that sign or motion to him wherupon he quited his holdfast to imitate that motion and fell down in danger of breaking his neck All these effects proceed out of the action of the seen object upon the fantasie of the looker on which making the picture or likeness of its own action in the others fantasie makes his spirits run to the same parts and consequenty move the same members that is do the same actions And hence it is that when we hear one speak with love and tenderness of an absent person we are also inclined to love that person though we never saw nor heard of him before and that whatever a good Oratour delivers well that is with a semblance of passion agreeable to his words raises of its own nature like affection in the hearers aod that generally men learn and imitate without design the customs and manners of the company they much haunt To apply this to our intent 't is easie to conceive that although the child in the mothers wombe can neither see nor hear what the mother doth nevertheless there cannot pass any great or violent motion in the mothers body wherof some effect doth not reach to the child which is then one continuate piece with her and the proper effect of motion or trembling in one body being to produce a like motion or trembling in another as we see in that ordinary example of tuned strings wherof one is moved at the striking of the other by reason of the stroke given to the air which finding a movable easily moved with a motion of the same tenour communicates motion to it it follows that the fantasie of the child being as it were well tuned to the fantasie of the mother and the mothers fantasie making a special and very quick motion in her own whole body as we see sudden passions do this motion or trembling of the mother must needs cause the like motion and trembling in the child even to the very swiftness of the mothers motion Now as we see when one blushes the blood comes into his face so the blood runs in the mother to a certain place where she is strucken by the thing long'd for and the like hap'ning to the child the violence of that sudden motion dyes the mark or print of the thing in the tender skin of it the blood in some measure piercing the skin and not returning wholly into its natural course which effect is not permanent in the mother because her skin being harder doth not receive the blood into it but sends it back again without receiving a tincture from it Far more easie is it to discover the secret cause of many antipathies or sympathies which are seen in children and endure with them the greatest part if not the whole term of their life without any apparent ground for them As some do not love Cheese others Garlick others Ducks others divers other kinds of meat which their parents loved well and yet in token that this aversion is natural to them and not arising from some dislike accidentally taken and imprinted in their fantasie they will be much harmed if they chance to eat any such meat though by the much disguising it they neither know nor so much as suspect they have done so The story of the Lady Hennage who was of the Bed-chamber to the late Queen Elizabeth that had her cheek blister'd by laying a Rose upon it whiles she was asleep to try if her antipathy against that flower were so great as she used to pretend is famous in the Court of England A Kinsman of mine whiles he was a Child had like to have died of drought before his Nurse came to understand that he had an antipathy against Beer
oore in which she suffers by reason of that oore she presently becomes impassible as being purely of her own nature a fixed substance that is a pure Being Both which states of the Soul may in some sort be adumbrated by what we see passes in the coppelling of a fixed metal For as long as any lead or dross or allay remains with it it continues melted flowing and in motion under the muffle but as soon as they are parted from it and that it is become pure without any mixture and singly it self it contracts it self to a narrower room and at that very instant ceases from all motion grows hard permanent resistent to all operations of fire and suffers no change or diminution in its substance by any outward violence we can use to it CHAP. XI Shewing what effects the divers manners of living in this world cause in a Soul after she is separated from her Body ONe thing may peradventure seem of hard digestion in our past discourse and it is that out of the grounds we have laid it seems to follow that all Souls will have an equality since we have concluded that the greatest shall see or know no more than the least And indeed there appears no cause why this great and noble creature should ly imprison'd in the obscure dungeon of noisom flesh if in the first instant in which it hath its first knowledg it hath then already gain'd whatever it is capable of gaining in the whole progress of a long life afterwards Truly the Platonick Philosophers who are perswaded that a humane Soul doth not profit in this life nor acquired any knowledg here as being of her self compleatly perfect and that all our discoursings are but her remembrings of what she had forgotten will find themselvs ill bestead to render a Philosophical and sufficient cause of her being lock'd into a Body For to put forgetfulness in a pure Spirit so palpable an effect of corporeity and so great a corruption in respect of a creature whose nature is to know of it self is an unsufferable error Besides when they tell us she cannot be changed because all change would prejudice the spiritual nature which they attribute to her but that well she may be warned and excited by being in a Body they meerly trifle For either there is some true mutation made in her by that which they call a warning or there is not If there be not how becomes it a warning to her or what is it more to her than if a straw were wag'd at the Antipodes But if there be some mutation be it never so little made in her by a corporeal motion what should hinder why she may not by means of her Body attain to Science she never had as well as by it receive any the least intrinsecal mutation whatever For if once we admit any mutability in her from any corporeal motion 't is far more conformable to reason to suppose it in regard of that which is her natural perfection and of that which by her operation we see she hath immediately after such corporeal motions and wherof before them there appear'd in her no marks at all than to suppose it in regard of a dark intimation of which we neither know it is nor how it is performed Surely no Rational Philosopher seeing a thing whose nature is to know have a Being wheras formerly it existed not and observing how that thing by little and little gives sign of more and more knowledg can doubt but that as she could be changed from not Being to Being so may she likewise be changed from less knowing to more knowing This then being irrefragably setled that in the Body she encreases in knowledg let us come to our difficulty and examine what this encrease in the Body avails her Since as soon as she parts from it she shall of her own nature enjoy and be replenish'd with the knowledg of all things why should she laboriously strive to anticipate the geting of a few drops which but encrease her thirst and anxiety when having but a little patience she shall at one full and everlasting draught drink up the whole sea of it We know that the Soul is a thing made proportionably to the making of its Body seeing it is the Bodies compartner and we have concluded that while it is in the Body it acquires perfection in that way which the nature of it is capable of that is in knowledg as the Body acquires perfection in its way which is in strength and agility Now then let us compare the proceedings of the one with those of the other substance and peradventure we may gain some light to discern what advantage it may prove to a Soul to remain long in its Body if it make right use of its dwelling there Let us consider the Body of a Man well and exactly shaped in all his members yet if he never use care nor pains to exercise those well framed limbs of his he will want much of those corporeal perfections which others will have who employ them sedulouslâ— Though his leggs arms and hands be of an exact symmetry yet he will not be able to run to wrestle or to throw a dart with those who labour to perfect themselvs in such exercises Though his fingers be never so neatly moulded or composed to all advantages of quick and smart motion yet if he never learn'd and practis'd on the Lute he will not be able with them to make any musick upon that instrument even after he sees plainly and comprehends fully all that the cunning Lutenist doth neither will he be able to play as he doth with his fingers which of themselvs are peradventure less apt to those voluble motions than his are That which makes a man dexterous in any of these Arts or in any other operations proper to any of the parts or limbs of his body is the often repetitions of the same Acts which amend and perfect those limbs in their motions and make them fit and ready for the actions they are design'd to In the same manner it fares with the Soul whose essence is that which she knows her several knowledges may be compared to arms hands fingers leggs thighs c. in a Body and all her knowledges taken together compose as I may say and make her up what she is Now those limbs of hers though they be when they are at the worst entire and well shaped in bulk to use the comparison of Bodies yet they are susceptible of further perfection as our corporeal limbs are by often and orderly usage of them When we iterate our acts of understanding any object the second act is of the same nature as the first the third as the second and so of the rest every one of which perfects the understanding of that thing and of all that depends on the knowledg of it and makes it become more vigorous and strong Even the often throwing of a Boul at the same
design'd to be in a 〈◊〉 Bâ—t â—er being in a Body is her being one thing with the Body she is sais â—o be in And so she is one part of a whole which from its weaker part is denominated to be a Body Again since the matter of any thing is to be prepared before the end is prepared for which that matter is to serve according to that Axiom Quodest primum in intentione est ultimum in executione we may not deny but that the Body is in being some time before the Soul or at least that it exists as soon as she doth And therfore it appears wholly unreasonable to say that the Soul was first made out of the Body and was afterwards thrust into it since the Body was prepared for the Soul before or at least as soon as she had any begining And so we may conclude that of necessity the Soul must be begun lay'd hatch'd and perfected in the Body And though it be true that such Souls as are separated from their Bodies in the first instant of their being there are notwithstanding imbued with the knowledg of all things yet is not their longer abode there in vain not only because therby the species is multiplied for nature is not content with barely doing that without addition ofsome good to the Soul it self as we for the wonderful and I may say infinite advantage that may therby accrew to the Soul if she make right use of it For as any act of the abstracted Soul is infinite in comparison of the acts which men exercise in this life according to what we have already shew'd so by consequence must any encrease of it be likewise infinite And therfore we may conclude that a long life well spent is the greatest and most excellent gift which nature can bestow on a man The unwary reader may perhaps have difficulty at our often repeating the infelicity of a miserable Soul since we say that it proceeds out of the judgments she had formerly made inthis life which without all doubt were false ones and nevertheless it is evident that no false judgments can remain in a Soul after she is separated from her Body as we have above determined How then can a Soul's judgments be the cause of her misery But the more heedful reader will have noted that the misery which we put in a Soul proceeds out of the Inequality not out of the Falsity of her judgments For if a man be inclined to a lesser good more than to a greater he will in action betake himself to the lessergood desert the greater wherin neither judgment is false nor either inclination is naught meerly out of the improportion of the two inclinations or judgments to the ir objects For that a Soul may be duely order'd and in a state of being well she must have a lesser inclination to a lesser good and a greater inclination to a greater good And in pure Spirits these inclinations are nothing else but the strength of their judgments which judgments in Soul's while they are in their Bodies are made by the repetition of more acts from stronger causes or in more favourable circumstances And so it appears how without any falsity in any judgment a Soul may become miserable by her conversation in this world where all her inclinations generally are good unless the disproportion of them make them bad CHAP. XII Of the perseverance of a Soul in the state she finds her self in aâ— her first separation from her Body THus we have brought Mans Soul out of the Body shelived in here by which she convers'd had commerce with the other parts of this world we have assign'd her her first array and stole with which she may be seen in the next world so that now there remains only forus to consider what shallbetide her afterwards and whether any change may happen to and be made in her after the first instant of her being a pure Spirit separated from all consortship with material substances To determine this point the more clearly let us call tomind an Axiom which Aristotle gives us in his Logick That As it is true if the effect be there is a cause so likewise 't is most true that if the cause be in act or causing the effect must also be Which Axiom may be understood two ways One that if the cause hath its effect then the effect also is and this is no great mystery norfor it are any thanks due to the teacher itbeing but a repetition and saying-over-again of the same thing The other way is that if the cause be perfect in the nature of a cause then the effect is which is as much as to say that if nothing be wanting to the cause abstracting precisely from the effect then neither is the effect wanting And this is the meaning of Aristotle's Axiome of the truth evidence wherof in this sense if any man should make the least doubt it were easie to evince it As thus If nothing be wanting but the effect yet the effect doth not immediately follow it must needs be that it cannot follow at all for if it can and doth not then somthing more must be done to make it follow which is against the supposition that nothing was wanting but the effect for that for which it is to be done was wanting To say it will follow without any change is sensles for if it will follow without change it follows out of this which is already put but if it follow out of this which is precisely put then it follows against the supposition which was that it did not follow although this were put This then being evident let us apply it to our purpose and put three or more things namely A. B. C. and D wherof none can work otherwise than in a instant or indivisibly And I say that whatever these four things are able to do without respect to any other thing besides them is compleatly done in the first instant of their being put and if they remain for all eternity without communication or respect to any other thing there shall never be any innovation in any of them or any further working among them but they will alwaies remain immutable in the same state they were in at the very first instant of their being put For whatever A can do in the first instant is in that first instant actually done because he works indivisibly and what can be done precisely by A. by his action joyned to B. precisely follows out of A. and his action and out of B. and his action if B. have any action independent of A And because all these are in the same instant whatever follows precisely out of these and nothing else that is in the same instant and works indivisibly as they do is necessarily done in that very instant but all the actions of C. D. of whatever by reflection from them may be done by A. and
to express our notions the one common to all men the other proper to Scholars 7. Great errours arise by wresting words from their common meaning to express a more particular or studied notion 1. We must know the vulgar and common notion of Quantity that we may understand the nature of it 2. Extension or Divisibility is the common notion of Quantity 3 Parts of Quantity are not actually in their whole 4 If parts were actually in their whole Quantity would be composed of indivisibles 5. Quantity cannot be composed of indivisibles 6 An objection to prove that parts are actually in Quantity with a declaration of the mistake from whence it proceed 7 The solution of the former objection and that Sense and not discern whether one part be distinguish'd from another or no. Chap 〈◊〉 8. 2. 3. 8. An enumeration of the several specieses of Quantity which confirms that the essente of it is divisibilitie 1 What is meant by Rarity and Densitie 2. 'T is evident that some bodies are rare and others dense though obscure how they are such 3. A brief enumeration of the several properties belonging to rare and dense bodies 4. The opinion of those Philosophers declared who put Rarity to consist in an actual division of a Body into little parts 5. The former opinion rejected and the ground of their errour discover'd 6 The opinion of those Philosophers related who put Rarity to consist in the mixtion of Vacuity among bodies The opinion of Vacuities refuted Dialog 1. del Movim pag. 18. Archimed promot 8. Rarity and Density consist in the severall proportions which Quantity hath to its Substance 9. All must admit in Physical bodies a Metaphysical composition 1. The notions of density and rarity have a latitude capable of infinite variety 2. How mâ—istness and dryness are begotten in dense bodies 3. How moistness and drieess are begotten in rare bodies 4. Heat is a propertie of rare bodies and cold of dense ones 5. Of the two dense bodies the less dense is more cold but of the two rare ones the less rare is less hot 6 The extreme dense body is more dry then the extreme rare one 7. There are but four simplebodies and these are rightly named Elements 8 The Author doth not determine whether every Element comprehends under its name one only lower species or many nor whether any of them be found pure 1. The first operation of the Elements is division out of which resulreth local motion What place is both notionally and really 3. Locall motion is that division whereby a body changes its place 4. The nature of quantity of it self is sufficient to unite a body to its place 5. All operations amongst bodies are either local motion or such as follow out of local motion 6. Earth compared to water in activity S. 6. 7. The manner whereby fire gets into fewel proves that it exceeds earth in activity 8. The same is proved by the manner wherby fire comes out of fewel and works upon other bodies 1. In what sense the Author rejects Qualities In what sense the Author admits of qualities 3. Five arguments proposed to prove that light iâ— not a body 4. The two first reasons to prove light a body are the resemblance it hath with fire and because if it were a quality it would always produce an equall to it self 5. The third reason because if we imagine to our selves the substance of fire to be rarified it will have the sâ—me appearances which light hath 6. The fourth reason from the manner of the generation and corruption of light whcih agrees with fire 7. The fifth reason because such properties belong to light as agree only to bodies 1. That all light is hot and apt to heat 2. The reason why our bodies for the most part do not feel the heat of pure light 3. The experience of burning glasses and of soultry gloomy weather prove light to be fire 4. Philosophers ought not to judge of things by the rules of vulgar people 5. The different names of light and fire proceed from different notions of the same substance 6. The reason why many times fire and head are deprived of light 7. What becoms of the body of light when it dies 8. An experiment of some who petend that light may be precipitated into powder 9. The Authors opinion concerning lamps pretended to have been found in Tombes with inconsumptible lights 1. Light is not really in every part of the room it enlightens nor fills entirely any sensible part of it though it seem to us to do so 2. The least sensible point of a diaphanous body hath room sufficient to contain both air and light together with a multitude of beams issuing from several lights without penetrating one another * Willibrord Snell 3. That light doth not enlighten any room in an instant and that the great celerity of its motion doth make it imperceptible to our senses 4. The reason why the motion of light is not discern'd coming towards us and that there is some reall tardity in it 5. The Planets are not certainly ever in that place where they appear to be 6. The reason why light being a body doth not by its motion shatter other bodies into pieces 7. The reason why the body of light is never perceiv'd to be fanned by the wind The reasons for and against lights being a body compared together A summary repetition of the reasons which prove that light is fire 1. No local motion can be perform'd without succession 2. Time is the common measure of all sucessione 3 What velocity is and that it cannot be infinite 4. No force so little that is not able to move the greatest weight imaginable 5. The chief principle of Mechanicks deduced out of the former discourse 6. No moveable can passe from rest to any determinate degree of velocity or from a lesser degree to a greater without passing through all the intermediate degrees which are below the obtained degree 7. The conditions which help to motion in the movable are three in the medium one Dialog 1. of Motion 8. No body hath any intrinsecal vertue to move it self towards any determinate part of the Universe 9. The encrease of motion is always made in the proportion of the odd numbers 11. Certain problems resolved concerning the proportion of some moving agents compared to their effects 12. When a moveable comes to rest the motion decreases according to the rules of encrease 1. Those motions are call'd natural which have constant causes and those violent which are contrary to them 2. The first and most general operation of the Sun is the making and raising of atomes 3. The light rebounding from the earth with atomes causes two streams in the air the one ascending the other descending and both of them in a perpendicular line 4. A dense body placed in the air between the ascending and descending streams must needs descend 5. A more particular explication of all the former doctrine
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
of these streams at the Equator divers Rivolets of Atomes of each Pole are continuated from one Pole to the other 4. Of these Atomes incorporated with some fit matter in the bowels of the earth is made a stone 5. This stone works by emanatitions joyn'd with agreeing streams that meet them in the air and in fine it is a Loadstone 6. A Method for making experiences upon any subject 7. The Loadstones generation by Atomes flowing from both Poles is confirmed by experiments observed in the stone it self 8. Experiments to prove that the Loadstone works by emanations meeting with agreeing streams CHAP. XXI Positions drawn out of the former doctrine and confirm'd by experimental proofs 1. The operations of the Loadstone are wrought by bodies and not by qualities 2. Objections against the former position answer'd 3. The Loadstone is imbu'd with his vertue from another body 4. The vertue of the loadstone is a double and not one simple virtue 5. The vertue of the Loadstone works more strongly in the Poles of it than in any other part 6. The loadstone sends forth its emanations spherically Which are of two kinds and each kind is strongest in that hemisphere through whose polary parts they issue out 7. Putting two loadstones within the sphere of one another every part of one loadstone doth not agree with every part of the other loadstone 8. Concerning the declination and other respects of a needle towards the loadstone it touches 9. The vertue of the loadstone goes from end to end in lines almost parallel to the axis 10. The virtue of a loadstone is not perfectly spherical though the stone be such 11. The intention of nature in all the operations of the loadstone is to make an union betwixt the attractive and the attracted bodies 12. The main Globe of the earth not a loadstone 13. The loadstone is generated in all parts or climates of the earth 14. The conformity betwixt the two motions of magnetick things and of heavy things CHAP. XXII A solution of certain Problems concerning the Loadstone and a short summ of the whole doctrine touching it 1. Which is the North and which the South Pole of a loadstone 2. Whether any bodies besides magnetick ones be attractive 3. Whether an iron placed perpendicularly towards the earth doth get a magnetical virtue of pointing towards the North or towards the South in that end that lies downwards 4. Why loadstones affect iron better than one another 5. Gilbert's reason refuted touching a capped loadstone that takes up more iron than one not capped and an iron impregnated that in some case draws more strongly than the stone it self 6. Galileus his opinion touching the former effects refuted 7. The Authours solution to the former questions 8. The reason why in the former case a lesser Load stone draws the interjacent iron from the greater 9. Why the variation of a touched needle from the North is greater the nearer you go to the Pole 10. Whether in the same part of the world a touched needle may at one time vary more from the North and at another time lesse 11. The whole doctrine of the load stone summ'd up in short CHAP. XXIII A description of two sorts of Living creatures Plants and Animals and how they are framed in common to perform vital motion 1. The connexion of the following Chapters with the precedent 2. Concerning several compositions of mix'd bodies 3. Two sorts of living creatures 4. An engin to express the first sort of living creatures 5. An other engin by which may be express'd the second sort of living creatures 6. The two former enginâ— and some other compâ—risons upplyed express 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of living creatures 7. How plants are fram'd 8. How Sensitive creatures are form'd CHAP. XXIV A more particular survey of the generation of Animals in which is discover'd what part of the animal is first generated 1. The opinion that the seed contains formally every part of the parent 2. The former opinion rejected 3. The Authours opinion of this question 4. Their opinion refuted who hold that every thing contains formally all things 5. The Authours opinion concerning the generation of Animals declared and confirm'd 6. That one substance is chang'd into another 7. Concerning the â—atching of Chickens and the generation of other animals 8. From whence it â—ppens that the defi◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—scences of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seen in their children 9. The difference between the Authours opinion and the former 10. That the heart is iâ—ued with the generalâ— spâ—ific virtues of the whole body 〈◊〉 confirm'd the doctrine of the two former paragraphs 11. That the heart is the first part generated in a living creature CHAP. XXV How a Plant or Animal comes to that Figure it hath 1. That the Figure of an Animal is produced by ordinary second causes as well as any other corporeal effect 2. That the several figures of bodies proceed from a defect in one of the three dimensions caused by the concurrence of accidental causes 3. The former doctrine is confirmed by several instances 4. The same doctrine apply'd to Plants 5. The same doctrine declared in leafs of trees 6. The same apply'd to the bodies of Animals 7. In what sense the Authour admits of Vis formatrix CHAP. XXVI How motion begins in Living creatures And of the Motion of the Heart Circulation of the Blood Nutrition Augmentation and corruption or death 1. From whence proceeds the primary motion and growth in Plants 2. Monsieur des Cartes his opinion touching the motion of the heart 3. The former opinion rejected 4. The Authours opinion concerning the motion of the heart 5. The motion of the heart depends originally of its fibers irrigated by bloud 6. An objection answer'd against the former doctrine 7. The circulation of the bloud and other effects that follow the motion of the heart 8. Of Nutrition 9. Of Augmentation 10. Of death and sickness CHAP. XXVII Of the motions of Sense and of the Sensible Qualities in gegeral in particular of those which belong to Touch Tast and Smelling 1. The connexion of the subsequent Chapters with the precedent 2. Of the senses and sensible qualities in general And of the end for which they serve 3. Of the sense of touching and that both it and its qualities are bodies 4. Of the tast and its qualities that they are bodies 5. That the smell and its qualities are real bodies 6. Of the conformity betwixt the two senses of smelling and tasting 7. The reason why the sense of smelling is not so perfect in man as in beasts with a wonderful history of a man who could wind sent as well as any beast CHAP. XXVIII Of the sense of Hearing and of the sensible quality Sound 1. Of the sense of hearing and that sound is purely motion 2. Of divers arts belonging to the sense of hearing all which confirm that sound is nothing but motion 3. The same is confirmed by the effects caused
if the soul were mortal CHAP. X. Declaring what the Soul of a man separated from his body is and of her knowledg and manner of working 1. That the Soul is one simple knowing act which is a pure substance and nothing but substance 2. That a separated Soul is in no place and yet is not absent from any place 3. That a separated Soul is not in time nor subject to it 4. That the Soul is an active substance and all in it is activity 5. A description of the Soul 6. That a separated Soul knows all that which she knew whilst she was in her body 7. That the least knowledge which the Soul acquires in her body of any one thing causes in her when she is separated from her body a complete knowledge of all things whatever 8. An answer to the objections of some Peripateticks who maintain the Soul to perish with the body 9. The former Peripateticks refuted out of Aristotle 10. The operations of a separated soul compared to her operations in her body 11. That a separated soul is in a state of pure being and consequently immortal CHAP. XI Shewing what effects the divers manners of living in ths world do cause in a soul after she is separated from her body 1. That a Soul in this life is subject to mutation and may be perfected in knowledge 2. That the knowledge which a soul gets in this life will make her knowledge in the next life more perfect and firm 3. That the soul of men addicted to science whilest they lived here are more perfect in the next world than the souls of unlearned men 4. That those souls which embrace virtue in this world will be most perfect in the next and those which imbrace vice most miserable 5. The state of a vitious soul in the next life 6. The fundamenatl reason why as well happiness as misery is so excessive in the next life 7. The reason why mans soul requires to be in a body and to live for some space of time joyn'd with it 8. That the misery of the soul in the next world proceeds out of the inequality and not out of the falsity of her judgments CHAP. XII Of the perseverance of a soul in the state she finds her self in at her first separation from her body 1. The explication and proof of that maxime that If the cause be in act the effect must also be 2. The effects of all such agents as work instantaneously are complete in the first instant that the agents are put 3. All pure spirits work instantaneously 4. That a soul separated from her body cannot suffer any change after the first instant of her separation 5. That temporal sins are justly punished with eternal pains The Conclusion Preface THis Writing was design'd to have seen the light under the name of One Treatise But afer it was drawn in Paper as I cast a view over it I found the Proaemial part which Treats of Bodies so ample in respect of the other which was the End of it and for whose sake I medled with it that I readily apprehended my Reader would think I had gone much astray from my Text when proposing to speak of the Immortality of Mans Soul three parts of four of the whole Discourse should not so much as in one word mention that Soul whose nature and proprieties I aim'd at the discovery of To avoid this incongruity occasioned me to change the Name and Unity of the Work and to make the survay of Bodies a body by it self though subordinate to the Treatise of the Soul Which notwithstanding it be less in bulk than the other yet I dare promise my Reader that if he bestow the painsr equisite to perfect himself in it he will find as much time well spent in the due reading of it as in the reading of the former Treatise though far more large But I discern an Objection obvious to be made or rather a Question Why I should spend so much time in the consideration of Bodies wheras none that has formerly written of this Subject has in any measure done the like I might answer that they had on other occasions first written of the nature of Bodies as I may instance in Aristotle and sundry others who either have themselvs professedly treated the Science of Bodies or have supposed that part sufficiently perform'd by other pens But truly I was by an unavoidable necessity hereto obliged which is a current of doctrin that at this day much reigns in the Christian Schools where Bodies and their overations are explicated after the manner of spiritual things For we having very slender knowledge of Spiritual Substances can reach no further into their nature than to know that they have certain Powers or Qualities but can seldom penetrate so deep as to descend to the particulars of such Qualities or Powers Now our Modern Philosophers have introduced such a course of learning into the Schools that to all questions concerning the proper natures of Bodies and their operations 't is held sufficient to answer they have a Quality or a Power to do such a thing And afterwards they dispute whether this Quality or Power be an Entity distinct from its subject or no and how it is separable or unseparable from it and the like Consormable to this who will look into the Books which are in vogue in these Schools shall find such Answers and such controversies every where and few others As of the Sensible Qalities ask what it is to be white or red what to be sweet or sowr what to be odoriferous or stinking what to be cold or hot And you are presently paid with that it is a Sensible Quality which has the power to make a Wall white or red to make a Meat agreeable or disagreeable to the tast to make a grateful or ungrateful Smell to the nose c. Likewise they make the same Questions and Resolutions of Gravity and Levity as whether they be qualities that is Entities distinct from their subjects and whether they be active or passive which when they have disputed slightly and in common with Logical arguments they rest there without any further searching into the Physical causes or effects of them The like you shall find of all strange Effects of them The Loadstone and Electrical bodies are produced for miraculous and not understandable things and which must be acknowledg'd to work by hidden Qualities that mans wit cannot reach to And ascending to Living Bodies they give it for a Maxim that Life is the action of the same Entity upon it self that Sense is likewise a work of an intrinsecal power in the part we call Sense upon it self Which our predecessors held the greatest absurdities that could be spoken in Philosophy Even some Physicians that take upon them to teach the curing of our Bodies often pay us with such terms among them you have long discourses of a retentive of an expulsive of a purging of a consolidating Faculty
and so of every thing that either passes in our body or is apply'd for remedy And the meaner sort of Physicians know no more but that such faculties are though indeed they that are truly Physicians know also in what they consist without which knowledg it is much to be fear'd Physicians will do more harm than good But to return to our subject This course of doctrine in the Schools hath forced me to a great deal of pains in seeking to discover the nature of all such actions or of the main part of them as were famed for incomprehensible For what hope could I have out of the Actions of the Soul to convince the nature of it to be incorporeal If I could give no other account of Bodies Operations than that they were perform'd by qualities occult specifical or incomprehensible Would not my Adversary presently answer that any operation out of which I should press the Souls being spiritual was perform'd by a corporeal occult quality and that as he must acknowledg it to be incomprehensible so must I likewise acknowledg other qualities of Bodies to be as incomprehensible and therfore could not with reason press him to shew how a Body was able to do such an operation as I should infer must of necessity proceed from a spirit since that neither could I give account how the Loadstone drew Iron or looked to the North how a stone and other heavy things were carried downwards how sight or fantasie was made how Digestion or purging were effected and many other such questions which are so slightly resolv'd in the Schools Besides this Reason the very desire of knowledge in my self and a willingness to be available to others at the least so far as to set them on seeking for it without having a prejudice of impossibility to attain it was to me a sufficient motive to inlarge my discourse to the Bulk it is risen to For what a misery is it that the Flower and best Wits of Christendom which flock to the Universities under pretence and upon hope of gaining knowledge should be there deluded and after many years of toyl and expence be sent home again with nothing acquired more than a faculty and readiness to talk like Parrats of many things but not to understand so much as any one and withal with a perswasion that in truth nothing can be known For setting knowledge aside what can it avail a man to be able to talk of any thing What are those wranglings where the discovery of Truth is neither sought nor hoped for but meerly Vanity and Ostentation Doth not all tend to make one seem and appear that which indeed he is not Nor let any body take it ill at my hands that I speak thâ— of the Modern Schools for indeed it is rather themselvs than I that say it Excepting Mathematicks let all the other Schools pronounce their own minds and say ingenuosly whether they themselvs believe they have so much as any one Demonstration from the beginning to the end of the whole course of their Learning And if all or the most part will agree that any one position is demonstrated perfectly and as it ought to be and as thousands of conclusions are demonstrated in Mathematicks I am ready to undergo the blame of having calumniated them and will as readily make them amends But if they neither will nor can then their own Verdict clears me and it is not so much I as they that make this profession of the shallowness of their Doctrine And to this purpose I have often heard the Lamentations of divers as great wits as any that converse in the Shools complaining of this defect But in so great an evidence of the effect proofs are superfluous Wherfore I will leave this Subject to declare what I have here design'd and gone about towards the Remedy of this inconvenience Which is that whereas in the Schools there is a loose method or rather none but that it is lawful by the liberty of a Commentator to handle any Question in any place which is the cause of the slightness of their doctrine and can never be the way to any Science or Certitude I have taken my beginnings from the commonest things that are in Nature Namely from the Notions of Quantity and its first Differences which are the most simple and radical Notions that are and in which all the rest are to be grounded From them I endeavour byimmediate composition of them and derivation from them to bring down my discouse to the Elements which are the primary and most simple bodies in nature From these I proceed to Compounded Bodies first to those that are call'd Mixed and then to living bodies declaring in common the Proprieties and operations that belong to them And by occasion as I pass along I light here and there on those operations which seem most admirable in nature to shew how they are or at least may be performed that though I miss in particular of the industry of Nature yet I may nevertheless hit my intent which is to trace out a way how these and such like Operations may be effected by an Exact disposition and ordering though intricate of Quantitative and Corporeal parts and to shew that they oblige us not to recur to hidden and unexplicable qualities And if I have declared so many of these as may beget a probable perswasion in my Reader that the rest which I have not touched may likewise be display'd and shew'd to spring out of the same grounds if curious and constant searchers into Nature will make it their task to penetrate into them I have therein obtain'd my desire and intent Which is only to shew from what principles all kinds of corporeal operations proceed and what kind of operations all these must be which may issue out of these principles to the end that I may from thence make a step to raise my discourse to the contemplation of the Soul and shew that her Operations are such as cannot proceed from those principles which being adequate and common to all Bodies we may rest assured that what cannot issue from them cannot have a Body for its source I will therefore end this Preface with entreating my Reader to consider that in a discourse proceeding in such order as I have declared he must not expect to understand and be satisfied with what is said in any middle or latter part unless he first have read and understood what goes before Wherefore if he cannot resolve with himself to take it along orderly as it lyes from the begining he shall do himself as well as me right not to meddle at all with this Book But if he will employ any time upon it to receive advantage by it he must be content to take the pains to understand throughly every particular as it is set down And if his memory will not serve him to carry every one along with him yet at least let him be sure to remember the Place where
first of his Dialogues De Mundo To which Book I shall from time to time according as I shall have occasion refer my Reader in those subjects the Author takes upon him to prove being confident that his Metaphysical Demonstrations there are as firm as any Mathematical ones for Metaphysical Demonstrations have in themselvs as much firmness certainty and evidence as they and will appear as evident to whoever shall understand them throughly and frame right conceptions of them which how plain soever they seem is not the work of every pretender to learning CHAP. II. Of Quantity AMong those primary affections which occur in the perusal of a Body Quantity as I have observ'd in the precedent Chapter is one and in a manner the first and root of all the rest Therfore according to the caution we have been so prolix in giving because it is of so main importance if we aim at right understanding the true nature of it we must examin what apprehension all kinds of people that is mankind in general make of it By which proceeding we do not make the ignorant Multitude judg of that Learning which grows out of the consideration of Quantity but only of the natural notion which serves learned men for a basis and foundation to build Scientifical superstructures on For though Sciences be the works and structures of the understanding govern'd and level'd by the wary and strict rules of most ingenuous Artificers yet the ground on which they are rais'd are such plain notion of things as naturally and without any art present themselvs to every mans apprehension without which for matter to work upon those artificial reflections would leave the understanding as unsatisfied as a Cook would the appetite by a dish upon which he should have exercised all his art in dressing it but whose first substance were not meat of solid nutriment 'T is the course Market that must deliver him plain materials to imploy his cunning on And in like manner 't is the indisciplin'd Multitude that must furnish learned men with natural apprehensions and notions to exercise their wits about Which when they have they may use and order and reflect upon them as they please but they must first receive them in that plain and naked form as mankind in general pictures them out in their imaginations And therfore the first work of Scholars is to learn of the People Quem penes arbitrium est jus norma loquendi what is the true meaning and signification of these primary names and what notions they beget in the generality of mankind of the things they design Of the Common People then we must enquire What Quantity is and we shall soon be informed if we but consider what answer any sensible man will make on the sudden to a question wherof that is the subject for such unstudied replies express sincerely the plain and natural conceptions which they that make them have of the things they speak of And this of Quantity is the plainest and the first that nature prints in us of all the things we see feel and converse with and that must serve for a ground to all our other inquiries and reflections for which cause we must be sure not to receive it wrested or disguised from its own nature If then any one be asked What Quantity there is in such a thing or how great it is he will presently in his understanding compare it with some other thing equally known by both parties that may serve for a measure to it and then answer That it is as big as it or twice as big or not half so big or the like in fine that it is bigger or lesser then another thing or equal to it 'T is of main importance to have this point throughly and clearly understood therfore it will not be amiss to turn it and view it a little more particularly If thou ask what Quantity there is of such a parcel of Cloth how much Wood in such a piece of Timber how much Gold in such an Ingot how much Wine in such a Vessel how much Time was taken up in such an Action he that is to give you an account of them measures them by ells by feet by inches by pounds by ounces by gallons by pints by days by hours and the like and then tells you how many of those parts are in the whole that you inquire of Which answer every man living will at the instant without study make to this question and with it every man that shall ask will be fully appay'd and satisfied so that 't is most evident it fully expresses the notions of them both and of all mankind in this particular Wherfore when we consider that Quantity is nothing else but the Extension of a thing and that this Extension is exprest by a determinate number of lesser extensions of the same nature which lesser ones are sooner and more easily apprehended then greater because we are first acquainted and conversant with such and our understanding grasps weighs and discerns such more steadily and makes an exacter judgment of them and that such lesser ones are in the greater which they measure as parts in a whole and that the whole by comprehending those parts is a mere capacity to be divided into them we conclude That Quantity or Bigness is nothing else but Divisibility and that a thing is big by having a capacity to be divided or which is the same to have parts made of it This is yet more evident if more may be in Discrete Quantity that is in Number then in Continued Quantity or Extension For if we consider any number whatever we shall find the essence of it consists in a capacity of being resolv'd and divided into so many Unities as are contain'd in it which are the parts of it And this species of Quantity being simpler then the other servs for a rule to determine it by as we may observe in the familiar answers to questions of Continued Quantity which express by number the Content of it as when one delivers the Quantity of a piece of ground by such a number of furlongs acres perches or the like But we must take heed of conceiving that those parts which we consider to discern the nature of Quantity are actually and really in the whole of any continued one that contains them Ells feet inches are no more real Entities in the whole that is measur'd by them and makes impressions of such notions in our Understanding then in our former example colour figure mellowness tast and the like are several substances in the Apple that affects our several Senses with such various impressions 'T is but one whole that may indeed be cut into so many several parts but those parts are not really there till by division they are parceled out and then the whole out of which they are made ceases to be any longer and the parts succeed in lieu of it and are every one of
which made little parts of bodies naturally heavie descend slowly in regard of the velocity of greater parts of the same bodies descending the Doctrine of which we intend to deliver hereafter Others therfore perceiving this rule to fall short have indeavour'd to piece it out by the mixtion of Vacuitie among bodies believing it is that which makes one rarer then another Which mixtion they do not put always immediate to the main body they consider but if it have other rarer and lighter bodies mingled with it they conceive this mixtion immediate only to the rarest or lightest As for example a Crystal being lighter and consequently rarer then a Diamond they will not say there is more vacuity in a Crystal then in a Diamond but that the pores of a Crystal are greater and consequently there is more aire in a Crystal to fil the pores of it then is in a Diamond and the vacuities are in the aire which abounding in a Crystal more then in a Diamond makes that lighter and rarer then this by the more vacuites that are in the greater Quantity of aire which is mingled with it But against this suppsition a powerful adversary is urged for Aristotle in his 4. Book of Physicks hath demonstrated that there can be no motion in vacuity 'T is true they indeavour to evade his demonstration as not reaching home to their supposition by acknowledging it to be an evident one in such a vacuity as he there speaks of which he supposed so great that a body may swim in it as in an Ocean and not touch or be near any other body whereas this opinion exclude all such vast inanity admit no vacuities but so little ones as no body whatever can come to but wil be biger than they and consequently must on some side orother touch the corporal parts which those vacuities divide for they are the separations of the least parts that are or can be actually divided from one another which parts must of necessity touch one another on some side or else they could not hang together to compose one substance and and therefore the dividing vacuities must be less then the divided parts And thus no body will ever be in danger of floating up and down without touching any thing which is the difficulty that Aristotle chiefly impugns I confess I should be very glad that this supposition might serve our turne and save the Phenomena that appear among bodies through their variety of Rarity and Density Which if it might be then would I straight go on to the inquiring after what follow'd out of this ground as Astronomers to use our former similitude calculate the future appearances of the Celestial bodies out of those motions and orbs they assign to the Heavens For as this apprehension of vacuity in bodies is very easie and intelligible so the other which I conceive to be the truth of the case is exceedingly abstracted and one of the most difficult points in all the Metaphysicks and therefore I would if it were possible avoid touching upon it in this discourse which I desire should be as plain and easie and as much removed from Scholastick terms as may be But indeed the inconveniences that follow out of this supposition of vacuities are so great as it is impossible by any means to slide them over As for example let us borrow of Gallileus the proportion of weight between water and air He shews us how the one is 400 times heavier then the other And Marinus Ghetaldus teaches us that gold is 19 times heavier then water so that gold must be 7600 times heavier then air Now then considering that nothing in a body can weigh but the solid parts of it it follows that the proportion of the parts of gold in a sphere of an inch Diameter is to the parts of the air of a like dimension as 7600 is to one Therfore in air it self the vacuities that are supposed in it will be to the solid parts of it in the same proportion as 7600 to one Indeed the proportion of difference shal be greater for even in gold many vacuities must be admitted as appears by the heating of it which shews that in every least part it is exceeding porous But according to this rate without pressing the inconvenience any further the air will by this reckoning appear to be like a net whose holes distances are to the lines and threds in the proportion of 7600 to one and so would be lyable to have little parts of its body swim in those greater vacuities contrary to what they strive to avoid Which would be excedingly more if we found on the one side any bodies heavier denser then gold that were so solid as to exclude all vacuities on the other side should balance them withsuch bodies as are lighter and rarer then air as fire is and as some say will have the aether to be But already the disproportion is so great and the vacuity so strangely exceeds the body in which it is as were too great an absurdity to be admitted And besides it would destroy all motion of small bodies in the air if it be true as Aristotle hath demonstrated in the fourth Book of his Physicks that motion cannot be made but among bodies and not in vacuo Again if rarity were made by vacuity rare bodies could not be gather'd together without losing their rarity and becoming dense The contrary of which we learn by constant experience as when the Smith and Glassemender drive their white and fury fires as they term them when aire pierces most in the sharp wind and generally we see that more of the same kind of rare bodies in less place works more efficaciously according to the nature that results out of that degree of rarity Which argues that every little part is as rare as it was before for else it would lose the vertue of working according to the nature but that by their being crowded together they exclude all other bodies that before mediated between the little parts of their main body and so more parts being gotten together in the same place then formerly there were they work more forcibly Thirdly if such vacuities were the cause of rarity it would follow that fluid bodies being rarer then solid ones would be of themselvs standing like nets or cobwebs wheras contrariwise we see their natures are to run together and to fill up every little creek and corner which effect following out of the very nature of the things themselves needs must exclude vacuities out of that nature And lastly if it be true as we have shew'd in the last Chapter that there are no actual parts in Quantity it follows of necessity that all Quantity must of it self be one as Metaphysicks teach us and then no distance can be admitted between one Quantity and another And truely if I understand Aristotle right he hath perfectly demonstrated that no vacuity is possible in nature
because mans discerning them to be able to discourse accordingly of them is the princpal respect for which their denominations are to be allotted them we may with reason call those things dense wherein a man finds a sensible difficulty to part them and those rare where the resistance is imperceptible And to these two notions of rarity and density we must allow a great latitude far from consisting in an indivisible state for since rare faction makes a lesser body equal to a bigger and all inequalitie betwixt two bodies has the conditions of a Body it follows that the excess of one body over another consists of infinite parts into which it might be divided and consequently that what is rarified passes as many degrees as the inequality or excess hath parts And the same law being in condensations both dense and rare things must be acknowledg'd capable of infinite variety and diversity of states in regard of more and less in the same kind These things being premised and calling to mind that 't is the nature of density to make the parts of a dense thing compact and stick together and be hardly divisible and on the contrary side that 't is the nature of rarity to diffuse and extend a rare thing and prepare and approach it to division according to the proportion of the degree of rarity which it has and that weight abounds where there is excess of density and is very little or none in excess of rarity we may now begin in our imagination to put these Qualities into the scales one against another to see what effects they produce in Bodies And first let us weigh Gravity against Density or sticking together of parts which sticking or compactedness being natural to density requires some excess of gravity in proportion to the density or some other outward violence to break it If then in a dense body the gravity overcome the density and make the parts of it break asunder it will draw them downwards towards the center that gravity tends to and never let them rest till they come thither unless some impediment meet them by the way and stop their journey so that such a body will as near as it possibly can lie in a perfect spherical figure in respect of the center and the parts of it will be chang'd and alter'd and thrust on any side that is the ready way thither the force of gravity therefore working upon it it will run as far as it meets with nothing to hinder it from attaining this spherical superficies Wherefore such bodies for the most part have no setled outside of their own but receive their figure and limits from such lets as hinder them from attaining to that sphericalness they aim at Now Aristotle whose definitions are in these matters generally receiv'd as fully expressing the notions of mankind tells us and our own experience confirms it that we use to call those things moist which run in such sort as we have here set down and that we term those things dry which have a Consistence within themselves and which to enjoy a determinate figure do not require the stop or hinderance of another body to limit and circle them in which will be the nature of those that have a greater proportion of density in respect of their gravity And thus out of the comparison of density with weight we have found two more qualities then we yet had met withall namely wetness and dryness For though a body be dense which of its own nature singly considered would preserve the continuity of its parts as making the body hardly divisible whereby it would be dry yet if the gravity that works upon it be in proportion greater then the density it will sever the parts of it and make them run to the center and so become fluide and moist though not in the eminentest degree that may be of fluidity and moisture because that if the like over proportion of gravity happen in a rare body it will there more powerfully work its effect then it can in a dense body because a rare body will more easily obey and yield to the gravity that masters it then a dense one will and consequently will be more fluide and moist then it Now on the other side in weighing Rarity against Gravity if it happen that the Rarity overcome the Gravity then the gravity will not change the figure of a body so proportion'd but what figure it has from its proper natural causes the same will still remain with it and consequently such a body will have terms of its own and not require an ambient body to limit and circle it in which nature we call dry But if the proportion of the gravity be the greater and overcome the rarity then by how much the rarity is greater so much the more will the gravity force it to apply it self equally and on all sides to the center and such a body will the more easily receive its figure from another and will be less able to consist of it self which properties we attribute to wetness or moisture So that it appears how the qualities of wet and dry which first we found in things that were dense are also common to that nature of bodies which we term rare And thus by our first inquiry after what kind of bodies result out of the compounding of rarity and density with gravity we discover four different sorts some dense ones that are dry and others likewise dense that are moist then again some rare ones that are likewise moist and other rare ones that are dry But we must not rest here let us proceed a little further to search what other properties these four kinds of bodies will have which we shall best discover if we apply them severally to some other compounded bodie of which nature are all those we converse with or see and then consider the effects which these work upon it To begin with that which we said is so excessively Rare that gravity has no power over it If we look on the multitude of little parts it may be divided into whereof every one will subsist by it self for we have already proved it dry and then suppose them to be moved with force and strength against the body we apply them to it must necessarily follow that they will forcibily get into the porousness of it and pass with violence between part and part and of necessity separate the parts of that thing one from another as a knife or wedge doth a solid substance by having their thinnest parts press'd into it So that if in the compounded thing some parts be more weighty others more light as of necessity there must be the heaviest will all fall lowest the lightest will fly uppermost and those which are of a mean nature between the two extremes will remain in the middle In summe by this action an extreme rare body upon a compounded one all the parts of one kind that were in the
activity and the great activity shews a great percussion burning being effected by a kind of attrition of the thing burned And the great force which fire shews in Guns and in Mines being but a multiplication of the same evidently convinces that of its own nature it makes a stong percussion when all due circumstances concur Whereas it has but little effect if the due circumstances be wanting as we may observe in the insensible burning of so rarified a body as pure spirit of wine converted into flame But we must examine the matter more parrticularly and seek the cause why a violent effect doth not always appear wherever light strikes For which we are to note that three things concur to make a percussion great The bigness the density and the celerity of the body moved Of which three there is onely one in light to wit celerity for it has the greatest rarity and the rays of it are the smallest parcels of all natural bodies and therfore since only celerity is considerable in the account of lights percussions we must examine what celerity is necessary to make the stroke of a ray sensible First then we see that all the motes of the aire nay even feathers and straws do make no sensible percussion when they fall upon us therefore we must in light have at the least a celerity that may be to the celerity of the straw falling upon our hand for example as the density of the straw is to the density of light that the percussion of light may be in the least degree sensible But let us take a corn of gunpowder instead of a straw between which there cannot be much difference and then putting that the density of fire is to the density of Gunpowder as 1. to 125000. and that the density of the light we have here in the earth is to the density of that part of fire which is in the Suns body as the body of the Sun is to that body which is called Orbis magnus whose Semidiameter is the distance between the Sun and the Earth which must be in subtriple proportion of the Diameter of the Sun to the Diameter of the great Orb it follows that 125000. being multiplyed by the proportion of the great Orb to the Sun which Galileo tells us is as 106000000. to one will give a scantling of what degree of celerity light must have more then a corn of Gunpowder to recompence the excess of weight which is in a corn of Gunpowder above that which is in a ray of light as big as a corn of Gunpowder Which will amount to be much greater than the proportion of the Semediameter of Orbis magnuâ— to the Semidiameter of the corn of Gunpowder for if you reckon five grains of Gunpowder to a Barly-corns breadth and 12. of them in an inch and 12. inches in a foot and 3. feet in a pace and 1000. paces in a mile and 3500. miles in the Semidiameter of the earth and 1208. Semidiamiters of the earth in the Semidiameter of the Orbis magnus there will be in it but 913 2480000000. grains of Gunpowder whereas the other calculation makes light to be 13250000000000 times rarer then gunpowder which is almost ten times a greater proportion then the other And yet this celerity supplies but one of the two conditions wanting in light to make its percussions sensible namely density Now because the same velocity in a body of a lesser bulk doth not make so great a percussion as it doth in a bigger body and that the littleness of the least parts of bodies follows the proportion of their rarity this vast proportion of celerity must again be drawn into it self to supply for the excess in bigness that a corn of gunpowder hath over an atome of light and the product of this multiplication will be the celerity required to supply for both defects Which evidently shews it is impossible that a ray of light should make any sensible percussion though it be a body Especially considering that sense never takes notice of what is perpetually done in a moderate degree And therefore after this minute looking into all circumstances we need not have difficulty in allowing to light the greatest celerity imaginable and a percussion proportionate to such a celerity in so rare a body and yet not fear any violent effect from its blow unless it be condens'd and many parts of it be brought together to work as if they were but one As concerning the last objection that if light were a body It would be fanned by the wind we must consider what is the cause of a thing appearing to be moved and then examine what force that cause hath in light As for the first part we see that when a body is discern'd now in one place now in another then it appears to be moved And this we see happens also in light as when the Sun or a candle is carried or moves the light thereof in the body of the Candle or Sun seems to be moved along with it And the like is in a shining cloud or comet But to apply this to our purpose We must note that the intention of the objection is that the light which goes from the fire to an opacous body far distant without interruption of its continuity should seem to be jog'd or put out of its way by the wind that crosses it Wherein the first failing is that the Objector conceives light to send species to our eye from the midst of its line whereas with a little consideration he may perceive that no light is seen by us but that which is reflected from an opacous body to our eye so that the light he means in his objection is never seen at all Secondly 't is manifest that the light which strikes our eye strikes it in a straight line and seems to be at the end of that straight line wherever that is and so can never appear to be in another place but the light which we see in another place we conceive to be another light Which makes it again evident that the light can never appear to shake though we should suppose that light may be seen from the middle of its line for no part of wind or air can come into any sensible place in that middle of the line with such speed that new light from the sourcce doth not illuminate it sooner then it can be seen by us wherefore it will appear to us illuminated as being in that place and therefore the light can never appear shaken And lastly it is easier for the air or wind to destroy the light then to remove it out of its place wherefore it can never so remove it out of its place as that we should see it in another place But if it should remove it it would wrap it up within it self and hide it In conclusion after this long dispute concerning the nature of light If we consider well what hath been said on both sides
revolutions of the Heavens for dayes houres and yeares are nothing else but they or some determinate parts of them to some of which all other motions and successions must of necessity be refer'd if we will measure them And thus we see how all the mystery of applying time to particular motions is nothing else but the considering how far the Agent that moves the Sun causes it to go on in its journey whiles the Agent that moves a particular body causes it to perform its motion So that 't is evident that Velocity is the effect of the superproportion of the one Agent over a certain Medium in respect of the proportion which another Agent hath to the same Medium And therefore Velocity is a quality by which One succession is intrinsically distinguishd from Another though our explication uses to include time in the notions of velocity and tardity Velocity then is the effect as we said of more strength in the Agent And having before expressed that velocity is a kind of density we find that this kind of density is an excellency in succession as permanent density is an excellency in the nature of Substance though an imperfection in the nature of Quantity by which we see that quantity is a kind of base alloy added to substance And out of this it is evident that by how much the quicker the motion is in equall Mediums by so much the agent is the perfecter which causes it to so quick Wherfore if the velocity should ascend so much as to admit no proportion between the quickness of the one and the tardity of the other all other circumstances being even excepting the difference of the Agents then there must be no proportion between the Agents Nor indeed can there be any proportion between them though there were never so many differences in other circumstances as long as those differences be within any proportion And consequently you see that if one Agent be supposed to move in an instant and another in time whatever other differences be in the bodies moved and in the Mediums nevertheless the agent which causes motion in an instant will be infinite in respect of the agent which moves in time Which is impossible it being the nature of a body that greater quantity of the same thing hath greater virtue then a less quantity hath and therfore for a body to have infinite virtue it must have infinite magnitude If any should say the contrary affirming the infinite virtue may be in a finite body I ask whether in half that body were it divided the virtue would be infinite or no If he acknowledge that it would not I infer thence that neither in the two parts together there can be infinite virtue for two finites cannot compose and make up one infinite But if he will have the virtue be infinite in each half he therin allows that there is no more virtue in the whole body then in one half of it which is against the nature of bodies Now that a body cannot be infinite in greatness is proved in the Second Knot of Mr. White 's first Dialogue De Mundo And thus it is evident that by the virtue of pure bodies there can be no motion in an instant On the other side it followes that there cannot be so little a force in nature but that giving it time enough it will move the greatest weight that can be imagined For the things we treat of being all of them quantities may by Division and Multiplication be brought to equality As for example Supposing the weight of a moveable to be a million of pounds and that the mover is able to move the millioneth part of one of those pounds in a million of yeares the millioneth part of a pace through a Medium of a certain rarity seeing yeers may be multiplied so as to equalize the force of this mover to the weight of the moveable it follows clearly that this force may move the whole weight of a million of pounds through the determined Medium in a determinate number of millions of years a million of paces For such a force is equal to the required effect and by consequence if the effect should not follow there would be a compleat cause put and no effect result from it But peradventure 't is needful to illustrate this point yet further Suppose then a weight never so great to be A and a force never so little to be B. Now if you conceive that some other force moves A you must withall conceive it moves A some space since all motion implies necessarily that it be through some space Let that space be CD And because a body cannot be moved a space in an instant but requires some time to have its motion perform'd in it follows that there must be a determin'd time in which the conceiv'd force must move the weight A through the space CD Let that time be EF. Now then this is evident that 't is all one to say that B moves A and to say that B moves A through a space in a time so that if any part of this be left out it cannot be understood that B moves A. Therfore to express particularly the effect which B is to do upon A we must say B must move A a certain space in a certain time Which being so we may in the next place consider that this effect of moving A may be diminish'd two waies either because the space 't is to be moved in is lessened or the time taken up in its motion is encreas'd for as it is a greater effect to move A through the space CD in a less time then EF so it is a less effect to move the same A through the space CD in a greater time then EF or through a less space then CD in the time EF. Now then this being suposed that it is a less effect to move A through CD in a greater time then EF it follows also that a lesser virtue is able to move it through CD in a greater time then EF then the virtue which is requir'd to move it through the same space in the time EF. Which if it be once granted as it cannot be denied then multiplying the time as much as the virtue or force required to move A through CD in the time EF is greater then the force B in so much time the force B will be able to move A through CD Which discourse is evident if we take it in common terms but it be applied to action wherin physical accidents intervene the artificer must have the judgment to provide for them according to the nature of his matter Upon this last discourse hangs the Principle which governs Mechanicks to wit that the force and the distance of weights counterpoysing one another ought to reciprocal That is by how much the one weight is heavier then the other by so much must the distance of the lighter from the fixed point upon which
they are moved be greater then the distance of the greater weight from the same point For 't is plain that the weight which is more distant must be moved a greater space then the nearer weight in the proportion of the two distances Wherfore the force moving it must carry it in a velocity of the said proportion to the velocity of the other And consequently the Agent or mover must be in that proportion more powerfull then the contrary mover And out of this practise of Geometricians in Mechanicks which is confirmd by experience 't is made evident that if other conditions be equal the excess of so much Gravity will make so much Velocity and so much velocity in proportion will recompence so much gravity Out of the precedent Conclusions another follows which is that nothing receds from quiet or rest and attains a great degree of Celerity but it must pass through all the degrees of Celerity that are below the obtain'd degree And the like is in passing from any lesser degree of velocity to a greater because it must pass through all the intermediate degrees of velocity For by the declaration of velocity which we have even now made we see that there is as much resistance in the Medium to be overcome with speed as there is for it to be overcome in regard of the quantity or line of extent of it because as we have said the force of the Agent in counterpoises ought to be encreas'd as much as the line of extent of the Medium which is to be overcome by the Agent in equal time exceeds the line of extent of the other Medium along which the resistant body is to be moved Wherfore it being proved that no line of extent can be overcome in an instant it follows that no defect of velocity which requires as great a superproportion in the cause can be overcome likewise in an instant And by the same reason by which we prove that a moveable cannot be drawn in an instant from a lower degree of velocity to a higher 't is with no less evidence concluded that no degree of velocity can be attain'd in an instant For divide that degree of velocity into two halfs and if the Agent had overcome the one half he could not overcome the other half in an instant much less therfore is he able to overcome the whole that is to reduce the moveable from quiet to the said degree of velocity in an instant Another reason may be because the movers themselvs such movers as we treat of here are Bodies likewise moved and consist of parts wherof not every one part but a competent number of them makes the moving body a fit Agent able to move the proposed body in a proposed degree of celerity Now this Agent meeting with resistance in the moveable and not being in the utmost extremity of density but condensable yet further because it is a body and every resistance be it never so small works something upon the mover though never so hard to condense it the parts of the mover that are to overcome this resistance in the moveable must to work that effect be condens'd and brought together as close as is needful by this resistance of the moveable to the mover and so the remote parts of the mover become nearer to the moveable which cannot be done but successively because it enclud's local motion And this application being likewise divisible and not all the parts flocking together in an instant to the place where they are to exercise their power it follows that whiles there are fewer moving parts knit together they must needs move less and more weakly then when more or all of them are assembled and appled to that work So that the motive virtue encreasing thus in proportion to the multiplying of the parts applied to cause the motion of necessity the effect which is obedience to be moved and quickness of motion in them oveable must do so too that is it must from nothing or from rest passe through al the degrees of celerityun till it arrive to that which all the parts together are able to cause As for example when with my hand I strike a ball till my hand touches it 't is in quiet but then it begins to move yet with such resistance that although it obey in some measure the stroke of my hand nevetiheless it presses the yeelding flesh of my palm backwards towards the upper and bony part of it That part then overtaking the other by the continu'd motion of my hand and both of them joyning together to force the ball away the impulse becomes stronger then at the first touching of it And the longer it presses upon it the more the parts of my hand condense and unite themselvs to excercise their force and the ball therfore must yeeld the more and consequent the motion of it 〈◊〉 quicker and quicker till my hand parts from it Which condensation of the parts of my hand encreasing successively by the parts joyning closer to one another the velocity of the balls motion which is an effect of it must also encrease proportionably therto And in like manner the motion of my hand and arm must grow quicker and quicker and pass all the degrees of velocity between rest and the utmost degree it attains unto For seeing they are the Spirits swelling the Nervs that cause the arms motion as we shall hereafter shew upon its resistance they flock from other parts of the body to evercome that resistance And since their journey thither requires time to perform it in and the nearest come first it must needs follow that as they grow more and more in number they must more powerfully overcome the resistance and consequently encrease the velocity of the motion in the same proportion as they flock thither till it attain that degree of velocity which is the utmost period that the power which the Agent hath to overcome the resistance of the medium can bring it self to Between which and rest or any other inferiour degree of velocity there may be design'd infinite intermediate degrees proportionable to the infinite divisibility of time and space in which the mover moves Which degrees arise out of the reciprocal yeilding of the medium And that is likewise divisible in the same infinite proportion Since then the power of all natural Agents is limited the mover be it never so powerful must be confined to observe these proportions and cannot pass over all these infinite designable degrees in an instant but must allot some time which hath a like infinity of designable parts to ballance this infinity of degrees of velocity and so consequently it requires time to attain to any determinate degree And therfore cannot recede immediately from rest to any degree of celerity but must necessarily pass through all the intermediate ones Thus 't is evident that all motion which hath a beginning must of necessity increase for some time And since the works of nature are
in proportion to their causes it follows that this encrease is in a determinate proportion Which Galileus to whom we owe the greatest part of what is known concerning motion teaches us how to find out and to discover what degree of celerity any movable that is moved by nature has in any determinate part of the space it moves in Having settled these conditions of motion we shall do well in the next place to enquire after the causes of it as well in the body moved as also in the mover that occasions the motion And because we have already shewed that local motion is nothing in substance but division we may determine that those causes which cōtribute to division or resist it are the causes which make or resist local motion It has also been said that Density has in it a power of dividing and that Rarity is the cause of being divided likewise we have said that fire by reason of its smal parts intow ch it may be cut which makes them sharp has also an eminence in dividing So that we have two qualities density and tenuity or sharpness which concur actively to division We have told you also how Galileus has demonstrated that a greater quantity of the same figure and density has a priviledge of descending faster than a lesser And that priviledge consists in this that the proportion of the superficies to the body it limits which proportion the greater it is the more it retards is less in a greater bulk than in a smaller We have therfore three conditions concurring to make the motion more efficacious namely the density the sharpness and the bulk of the movable and more then these three we cannot expect to find in a moved body For quantity hath but three determinations one by density rarity of which density is one of the three conditions another by its parts as by a foot a span c. and in this way we have found that the greater excells the lesser the third and last is by its figure and in this we find that subtile or edged quantities do prevail over blunt ones Seeing therfore that these three determinations be all that are in quantity there can be no more conditions in the body moved which of necessity is a finite quantity but the three named And as for the medium which is to be divided there is only rarity and density the one to help the other to hinder that require consideration on its side For neither figure nor littleness and greatness do make any variation in it And as for the Agent it is not as yet time before we have look'd further into the nature of motion to determine his qualities Now then let us reflect how these three conditions do all agree in this circumstance that they help nothing to division unless the body in which they are to be moved and press'd against the body that is to be divided so that we see no principle to perswade us that any body can move it self towards any determinate part or place of the universe of its own intrinsecal inclination For besides that the learned Author of the Dialogues de Mundo in his third Dialogue and the second Knot hath demonstrated that a body cannot move unless it be moved by some extrinsecal Agent we may easily frame to our selves a conceit how absurd it is to think that a body by a quality in it can work upon it self as if we should say that rarity which is but more quantity could work upon quantity or that figure which is but that the body reaches no further could work upon the body and in general that the manner of any thing can work upon that thing whose manner it is For Aristotle and St. Thomas and their Intelligent Commentators declaring the notion of Quality tell us that to be a Quality is nothing else but to be the determination or modification of the thing whose quality it is Besides the natural manner of operation is to work according to the capacity of the subject but when a body is in the midst of an uniform medium or space the subject is equally prepar'd on all sides to receive the action of that body Wherfore though we should allow it a force to move if it be a natural Agent and have no understanding it must work indifferently on all sides and by consequence cannot move on any side For if you say that the Agent in this case where the medium is uniform works rather upon one side than upon another it must be because this determination is within the Agent it self and not out of the circumstant dispositions which is the manner of working of those substances that work for an end of their own that is of understanding creatures and not of natural hodies Now he that would exactly determine what motion a body has or is apt to have determining by supposition the force of the Agent must calculate the proportions of all these three conditions of the movable and the quality of the medium which is a proceeding too particular for the intention of our discourse But to speak in common it will not be amiss to examine in what proportion motion doth increase since we have concluded that all motion proceeds from quiet by a continual encrease Galileus that miracle of our age and whose wit was able to discover whatever he had a mind to employ it about hath told us that natural motion encreases in the proportion of the odd numbers Which to express by example is thus suppose that in the going of the first yard it has one degree of velocity then in the going of the second yard it will have three degrees and in going of the third it will have five and so onwards still adding two to the degrees of the velocity for every one to the space Or to express it more plainly if in the first minute of time it goes one yard of space then in the next minute it will go three yards in the third it will go five in the fourth seaven and so forth But we must enlarge this proposition to all motions as we have done the former of the encrease it self in velocity because the reason of it is common to all motions Which is that all motion as may appear out of what we have formerly said proceeds from two causes namely the Agent or the force that moves and the disposition of the body moved as it is composed of the three qualities we lately explicated In which is to be noted that the Agent doth not move simply by its own virtue but applyes also the virtue of the body moved which it hath to divide the medium when it is put on As when we cut with a knife the effect proceeds from the knife press'd on by the hand or from the hand as applying and putting in action the edge and cutting power of the knife Now this in Physicks and Nature is clearly parallel to what in Geometry
and Arithmatick the Mathematicians call drawing one number or one side into another for as in Mathematicks to draw one number into another is to apply the number drawn to every part of the number into which it is drawn as if we draw three into seven we make twenty one by making every unity or part of the number seven to be three and the like is of lines in Geometry So in the present case to every part of the hands motion we add the whole virtue of the cutting faculty which is in the knife and to every part of the motion of the knife we add the whole pressing virtue of the hand Therfore the encrease of the effect proceeding from two causes so working must also be parallel to the encrease of the quantities arising out of the like drawing in Mathematicks But in those 't is evident that the encrease is according to the order of the odd numbers and therfore it must in our case be the like that is the encrease must be in the said proportion of odd numbers Now that in those the encrease proceeds so will be evident if you consider the encrease of an Equicrure Triangle which because it goes upon a certain proportion of length and breadth if you compare the encreases of the whole Triangle that gains on each side with the encreases of the perpendicular which gains only in length you will see that they will proceed in the foresaid proportion of odd numbers But we must not imagine that the velocity of motion will always encrease thus for as long as we can fancy any motion but when it is arrived to the utmost period that such a moveable with such causes is capable of then it keeps constantly the same pace and goes equally and uniformly at the same rate For since the density of the moveable the force of the Agent moving it which two cause the motion have a limited proportion to the resistance of the medium how yeilding soever it be it must needs follow that when the motion is arrived to that height which arises out of this proportion it cannot exceed it but must continue at that rate unless some other cause give yet a greater impulse to the movable For velocity consisting in this that the movable cuts through more of the medium in an equal time 't is evident that in the encrease of velocity the resistance of the medium which is overcome by it grows greater and greater and by little and little gains upon the force of the Agent so that the superproportion of the Agent grows still lesser and lesser as the velocity encreases and therfore at the length they must come to be ballanced and then the velocity can encrease no more And the reason of the encrease of it for a while at the beginning is because coming from rest it must pass through all the intermediate degrees of velocity before it can attain to the height of it which requires time to perform and therfore falls under the power of our sense to observe But because we see it do so for some time we must not therfore conclude the nature of such motion is still to encrease without any period or limit like those lines that perpetually grow nearer and yet can never meet for we see our reason examining the causes of this velocity assures us that in continuance of time and space it may come to its height which it cannot exceed And there would be the pitch at which distance weights being let fall would give the greatest strokes and make greatest impressions 'T is true that Galileus and Mersenius two exact experimenters do think they find this verity by their experiences But surely that is impossible to be done For the encrease of velocity being in a proportion ever diminishing must of necessity come to an insensible increase in proportion before it ends for the space which the movable goes through is still encreased and the time wherin it passes through that space remains still the same little one as was taken up in passing a less space immediately before such little differences of great spaces passed over in a little time come soon to be undiscernible by sense But reason which shews us that if velocity never ceased from encreasing it would in time arive to exceed any particular velocity and by consequence the proportion which the mover has to the medium because of the adding still a determinate part to its velocity concludes plainly that it is impossible motion should increase for ever without coming to a period Now the impression which falling weights make is of two kinds for the body into which impression is made either can yield backward or it cannot If it can yield backward then the impression made is a motion as we see a stroke with a Racket upon a Ball or with a Pail-mail beetle upon a Bowl makes it flie from it But if the strucken body cannot yield backwards then it makes it yield on the sides And this in divers matters for if the smitten body be drie and brittle 't is subject to break it and make the pieces flie round about but if it be a tough body it squeeses it into a larger form But because the effect in any of these ways is eminently greater than the force of the Agent seems to be 't is worth our labour to look into the causes of it To which end we may remember how we have already declared that the force of the velocity is equall to a reciprocall force of weight in the virtue movent wherefore the effect of a blow that a man gives with a hammer depends on the weight of the hammer on the velocity of the motion and on the hand in case the hand accompanies the blow But if the motion of the hand ceases before as when we throw a thing then only the velocity and the weight of the hammer remain to be consider'd However let us put the hand and weight in one sum which we may equalize by some other virtue or weight Then let us consider the way or space which a weight lying upon the thing is to go forwards to do the same effect in the same time as the percussion doth and what excess the line of the blow hath over the line of that way or space such an excess we must add of equal weight or force to the weight we had already taken And the weight composed of both will be a fit Agent to make the like impression This Problem was proposed to me by that worthy religious man Father Mersenius who is not content with advancing learning by his own industry and labours but besides is alwayes out of his generous affection to verity inciting others to contribute to the publick stock of it He proposed to me likewise this following question to wit why there is required a weight of water in double Geometrical proportion to make a pipe run twice as fast as it did or have twice as much
water run out in the same time To which I answer out of the same ground as before That because in running twice as fast there goes out double the water in every part of time and again every part of water goes a double space in the same part of time that is to say because double the celerity is drawn into double the water and double the water into doule the celerity therfore the present effect is to the former effect as the effect or quadrate of a double line drawn into into it self is to the effect or quadrate of half the said line drawn into it self And consequently the cause of the latter effect which is the weight then must be to the cause of the former effect that is to the former weight in the same proportion namely as the quadrate of a double line is to the quadrate of half that line And so you see the reason of what he by experience finds to be true Though I doubt not but when he shall set out the treatise which he has made on this subject the Reader will have better satisfaction In the mean while an experiment which Galileo delivers will confirm this doctrine He sayes that to make the same Pendant go twice as fast as it did or to make every undulation of it in half the time it did you must make the line at which it hangs double in Geometrical proportion to the line at which it hang'd before Whence it follows that the circle by which it goes is likewise in double Geometrical proportion And this being certain that celerity to celerity has the proportion of force which weight has to weight 't is evident that as in one case there must be weight in Geometrical proportion so in theother case where only celerity makes the variance the celerity must be in double Geometrical proportion according as Galileo finds it by experience But to return to our main intent there is to be further noted that If the subject strucken be of a proportionate cessibility it seems to dull and deaden the stroke wheras if the thing strucken be hard the stroke seems to lose no force but to work a greater effect Though indeed the truth be that in both cases the effects are equal but diverse according to the natures of the things that are strucken for no force that once is in nature can be lost but must have its adequate effect one way or other Let us then first suppose the body strucken to be a hard body of no exceeding bigness in which case if the stroke light perpendicularly upon it it will carry such a body before it But if the body be too great and have its parts so conjoyn'd that they are weaker then the stroke in this case the stroke drives one part before it and so breaks it from the rest But lastly if the parts of the strucken body be so easily cessible as without difficulty the stroke can divide them then it enters into such a body till it has spent its force So that now making up our account we see that an equal effect proceeds from an equal force in all the three cases though in themselves they be far different But we are apt to account that effect greater which is more considerable to us by the profit or damage it brings us And therefore we usually say that the blow which shakes a wall or beats it down and kills men with the stones it scatters abroad hath a greater effect then that which penetrates far into a mud wall and doth little harm for that innocuousness of the effect makes that although in it self it be as great as the other yet 't is little observ'd or consider'd This discourse draws on another which is to declare how motion ceases And to sum that up in short we say that When motion comes to rest it decreases and passes through all the degrees of celerity and tardity that are between rest and the height of that motion which so declines and that in the proportion of the odd numbers as we declared above it encreas'd The reason is clear because that which makes a motion cease is the resistance it findes which resistance is an action of a mover that moves something against the body moved or something equivalent to such an action wherefore it must follow the laws that are common to all motions of which kind those two are that we have expressed in this conclusion Now that resistance is a countermotion or equivalent to one is plain by this that any body which is pressed must needs press again on the body that presses it wherefore the cause that hinders such a body from yielding is a force moving that body against the body which presses it The particulars of all which we shall more at large declare where we speak of the action and reaction of particular bodies CHAP. X. Of Gravity and Levity and of Local Motion commonly term'd Natural IT is now time to consider that distinction of motions which is so famous in Aristotle to wit that some motions are natural others violent and to determine what may be signified by these terms For seeing we have said that no body hath a natural intrinsecal inclination to any place to which 't is able to move it self we must needs conclude that the motion of every body follows the percussion of extrinsecal Agents It seems therefore impossible that any body should have any motion natural to it self and if there be none natural there can be none violent and so this distinction will vanish to nothing But on the otherside Living creatures manifestly shew natural motions having natural instruments to perform certain motions wherefore such motions must of necessity be natural to them But these are not the motions we are to speak of for Aristotles division is common to all bodies or at the least to all those we converse with and particularly to those which are call'd heavy and light which two terms pass through all the bodies we have notice of Therefore proceeding on our grounds before lay'd to wit that no body can be moved of it self we may determine those motions to be natural to bodies which have constant causes or percutients to make them always in such bodies and those violent which are contrary to such natural motions Which being suppos'd we much search out the causes that so constantly make some bodies descend towards the center or the middle of the earth others to rise and go from the center by which the world is subject to those restless motions that keep all things in perpetual flux in this changing sphere of action and passion Let us then begin with considering what effects the Sun which is a constant and perpetual cause works on inferiour bodies by his being regularly sometimes present and sometimes absent Observe in a pot of water hanging over a fire how the heat makes some parts of the water ascend and others to supply the room
as positive gravity or levity but that their course upwards or downwards happens to them by the order of nature which by outward causes gives them an impulse one of these wayes without which they would rest quietly wherever they are as being of themselvs indifferent to any motion But because our words express our notions and they are fram'd according to what appears to us when we observe any body to descend constantly towards our earth we call it heavie and if it move contrarywise we call it light But we must take heed of considering such gravity and levity as if they were Entities that work such effects since upon examination it appears that these words are but short expressions of the effects themselves the causes whereof the vulgar of mankind who impose names to things do not consider but leave that work to Philosophers to examine whiles they onely observe what they see done and agree upon words to express that Which words neither will in all circumstances always agree to the same thing for as cork descends in aire and ascends in water so also will any other body descend if it lights among others more rare then it self and will ascend if it lights among others that are more dense then it And we term Bodies light and heavy only according to the course which we usually see them take Now proceeding further on and considering how there are various degrees of density or gravity it were irrational to conceive that all bodies should descend at the same rate and keep equal pace with one another in their journey downwards For as two knives whereof one hath a keener edge then the other being press'd with equal strength into like yielding matter the sharper will cut deeper then the other so if of two bodies one be more dense then the others that which is so will cut the air more powerfully and descend faster then the other for in this case density may be compared to the kniefs edge since in it consists the power of dividing as we have heretofore determin'd And therefore the pressing them downwards by the descending atomes being equal in both or peradventure greater in the more dense body as anon we shall have occasion to touch and there being no other cause to determine them that way the effect of division must be the greater where the divider is the more powerful Which the more dense body is and therefore cuts more strongly through the resistance of the air and consequently passes more swiftly that way 't is determin'd to move I do not mean that the velocities of their descent shall be in the same proportion to one another as their densities are for besides their density those other considerations which we have discours'd of above when we examin'd the causes of velocity in motion must likewise be ballanced And out of the comparisons of all them not out of the consideration of any one alone results the differences of their velocities nor that neither but in as much as concerns the consideration of the moveables for to make the calculation exact the Medium must likewise be considered as by and by we shall declare For since the motion depends of all them together though there should be difference between the moveables in regard of one only and that the rest were equal yet the proportion of the difference of their motions must not follow the proportion of their difference in that one regard because their difference consider'd single in that regard will have one proportion and with the addition of the other considerations though alike in both to their difference in this they will have another As for example reckon the density of one moveable to be double the density of another moveable so that in that regard it has two degrees of power to descend whereas the other has but one suppose then the other causes of thier descent to be alike in both and reckon them all three and then joyn these three to the one which is caused by the density in one of the moveables as likewise to the two which is caused by the density in the other moveable and you will find that thus altogether their difference of power to descend is no longer in a double proportion as it would be if nothing but their density were considered but is in the proportion of five to four But after we have consider'd all that concerns the moveables we are then to cast an eye upon the Medium they are to move in and we shall find the addition of that decreases the proportion of their difference exceedingly more according to the cessibility of the Medium Which if it be Air the great disproportion of its weight to the weight of those bodies which men use to take in making experiences of their descent in that yeelding Medium will cause their difference of velocity in descending to be hardly perceptible Even as the difference of a sharp or dull knife which is easily perceiv'd in cutting of flesh or bread is not to be distinguish'd in dividing of water or oyl And likewise in Weights a pound and a scruple will bear down a dram in no sensible proportion of velocity more then a pound alone would do and yet put a pound in that scale in stead of the dram and then the difference of the scruple will be very notable So then those bodies whose difference of descending in water is very sensible because of the greater proportion of weight in water to the bodies that descend in it will yield no sensible difference of velocity when they descend in air by reason of the great disproportion of weight between air and the bodies that descend in it The reason of this will clearly shew it self in abstracted proportions Thus Suppose air to have one degree of density and water to have 400 then let the moveable A. have 410 degrees of density and the moveable B. have 500. Now compare their motion to one another in the several mediums of air and water The exuperance of the density of A. to water is 10 degrees but the exuperance of B. to the same water is 100 degrees so that B. must have in water swifter then A in the proportion of 103 to ten that is of 10 to one Then let us compare the exuperance of the two moveables over air A is 409 times more dense then air but B is 499 times more dense then it by which account the motion of B. must be in that medium swifter then the motion of A in the proportion of 499 to 409 that is about 50 to 41 which to avoid fractions we may account as 10 to 8. But in water they exceed one another as 10 to one so that their difference of velocity must be scarce perceptible in air in respect of what it is in water Out of all which discourse I only infer in common that a greater velocity in motion will follow the greater density of the moveable without determining
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
either losing his course by steering after a wrong compass or being forced back again with short and obscure relations of discoveries since others that went out before him are return'd with a large account to such as are able to understand and sum it up Which surely our learned Countryman and my best and most honoured Friend and to whom of all men living I am most obliged for to him I ow that little which I know and what I have and shall set down in all this discourse is but a few sparks kindled by me at his great fire has both profoundly and accutely and in every regard judiciously performed in his Dialogues of the World Our task then in a lower strain and more proportionate to so weak shoulders is to look no further then among those bodies we converse with Of which having declared by what course and Engines Nature governs their common motions that are found even in the Elements and from thence are derived to all bodies composed of them we intend now to consider such motions as accompany divers particular bodies and are much admired by whoever understands not the the causes of them To begin from the easiest and most connexed with the actions of the Elements the handsel of our labour will light upon the motions of Rarefaction and Condensation as they are the passions of mixed bodies And first for Rarefaction we may remember how it proceeds originally from fire and depends of heat as is declared in the former Chapter and wherever we find Rarefaction we may be confident the body which suffers it is not without fire working upon it From hence we may gather that when the Air imprison'd in a baloon or bladder swells against what contains it and stretches its case and seeks to break out this effect must proceed from fire or heat though we see not the fire working either within the very bowels of the air or without by pressing upon what contains it and so making it self a way to it And that this latter way is able to work this effect may be convinced by the contrary effect from a contrary cause for ' take a bladder stretch'd out to its greatest extent by air shut up within it and hang it in a cold place you will see it presently contract it self into a less room and the bladder will grow wrinckled and become too big for the air within it But for immediate proof of this position we see that the addition of a very smal degree of heat rarifies the air in a Weather-glass the air receiving the impression of heat sooner then water and so makes it extend it self into a greater place and consequently it presses upon the water and forces it down into a less room then formerly it possessed And likewise we see Quicksilver and other liquors if they be shut up in glasses close stop'd and set in sufficient heat and a little is sufficient for this effect will swell and fill their glasses and at the last break them rather then not find a way to give themselvs more room which is then grown too straight in the glass by reason of the rarefaction of the liquors by the fire working upon them Now again that this effect may be wrought by the inward heat that is inclosed in the bowels of the substance thus shut up both reason and experience assure us For they teach us that if a body which is not extremely compacted but that by its loosness is easily divisible into little parts such a one as Wine or other spiritual liquors be inclosed in a vessel the little atoms that perpetually move up and down in every space of the whole World making their way through every body will set on work the little parts in the Wine for example to play their game so that the hot and light parts if they be many not enduring to be compressed and kept in by the heavie and cold ones seek to break out with force and till they can free themselvs from the dense ones that would imprison them they carry them along with them and make them swell out as well as themselvs Now if they be kept in by the vessel so that they have not play enough they drive the dense ones like so many little hammers or wedges against the sides of it and at length break it and so make themselvs way to a larger room But if they have vent the more fiery hot spirits fly away and leave the other grosser parts quiet and at rest On the other side if the hot and light parts in a liquor be not many nor very active and the vessel be so ful that the parts have not free scope to remove and make way for one another there will not follow any great effect in this kind as we see in Bottle Beer or Ale that works little unless there be some space left empty in the bottle And again if the vessel be very much too big for the liquor in it the fiery parts find room first to swel up the heavie ones and at length to get out from them though the vessel be close stopped for they have scope enough to float up and down between the surface of the liquor and the roof of the vessel And this is the reason that if a little beer or small wine be left long in a great cask be it never so close stop'd it will in time grow dead And then if at the opening of the bung after the cask hath been long unstir'd you hold a candle close to it you shall at the instant see a flash of flame environing the vent Which is no other thing but the subtile spirits that parting from the beer or wine have left it dead and flying abroad as soon as they are permited are set on fire by the flame they meet with in their journey as being more combustible because more subtile then that spirit of wine which is kept in form of liquor and yet that likewise though much grosser is set on fire by the touch of flame And this happens not only to Wine and Beer or Ale but even to water As dayly experience shews in the East Indian Ships that having been five or six yeers at Sea when they open some of their casks of Thames Water in their return homewards for they keep that water till the last as being their best and most durable and that grows lighter and purer by the often purifyings through violent motions in storms every one of which makes new gross and earthy parts fall down to the bottom and other volatile ones ascend to the top a flame is seen about their bungs if a candle be near as we said before of wine And to proceed with confirming this doctrine by further experience we dayly see that the little parts of heat being agitated and brought into motion in any body enter and pierce into other parts and incorporate themselvs with them and set them on fire if they be capable
is drawn the more must needs follow Now if there be floating in this air any other atoms subject to the current which the air takes they must also come with it to the fire and by it be rarified and exported out of that little orb Hence it is that men with very good reason hold that fire airs a chamber as we term it that is purifies it both because it purifies it as wind doth by drawing a current of air into it that sweeps through it or by making it purifie it self by motion as a stream of water doth by running as also because those vapours which approach the fire are burned dissolv'd So that the air being noisome and unwholesome by reason of its grossness proceeding from its standing unmoved like a stagnation of dead water in a marish place the fire takes away that cause of annoyance By this very rule we learn that other hot things which participate the nature of fire must likewise in other respects have a resemblance in this quality And accordingly we see that hot loaves in a Bakers shop newly drawn out of the Oven are accounted to draw to them any infection which is in the air The like we say of onyons and other strong breathing substances which by their smel shew much heat in them In like manner 't is conceiv'd that Pigeons and Rabbets and Cats easily take infection by reason of their extraordinary warmth which they have in themselvs And this is confirm'd by the practise of Physitians who use to lay warm Pigeons newly killed to the feet wrists or heads of sick persons and young Puppies to their stomacks and somtimes certain hot gums to their navels to draw out such vapours or humours as infest the body for the same reason they hang amulets of arsenick sublimate dryed Toads or Spiders about their patients necks to draw to them venimous qualities from their bodie Hence also it is that if a man be strucken by a Viper or a Scorpion they use to break the body of the beast it self that stung him if they can get it upon the wound but if the beast be crawl'd out of their finding they do the like by some other venimous creature as I have seen a bruised Toad laid to the biting of a Viper And they manifestly perceive the apply'd body to swel with the Poyson suck'd out from the wound the patient to be reliev'd have less poyson in the same manner as by cupping-glasses the poyson is likewise drawn out from the wound so that you may see the reason of both is the very same or at least very like one another Only we are to note that the proper body of the beast out of which the venome was driven into the wound is more efficacious than any other to suck it out And the like is to be observ'd in all other kinds that such vapours as are to be drawn come better and incorporate faster in bodies of like nature then in those which have only the common conditions of heat and dryness the one of which serves to attract the other to fasten and incorporate into itself the moisture which the first draws to it So we see that water soaks into a dry body whence it was extracted almost inseparably and is hidden in it as when it rains first after hot weather the ground is presently dried after the shower Likewise we see that in most cements you must mingle a dust of the nature of the things which are to be cemented if you will have them bind strongly Out of this discourse we may yield a reason for those Magical operations which some attribute to the Devils assistance peradventure because mans wickedness hath bin more ingenious then his good will and so has found more means to hurt then to help nay when he hath arrived some way to help those very helps have undergone the same calumny because of the likeness which their operations have to the others Without doubt very unjustly if there be truth in the effects For where have we any such good suggestions of the enemy of mankind proposed to us that we may with reason believe he would duly settledly and constantly concur to the help and service of all those he so much hates as he must needs do if he be the Author of such effects Or is it not a wrong to Almighty God and to his careful instruments rather to impute to the Devil the aids which to some may seem supernatural then to them of whom we may justly believe and expect such good Offices and assistances I mean those operations both good and bad which ordinarily are called Magnetical though peradventure wrongfully as not having that property whcih denominates the loadstone One thing I may assure that if the reports be true they have the perfect imitation of nature in them As for example that the Weapons-Salve or the Sympathetick-Powder requires in the using it to be conserved in an equal moderate temper and that the weapon which made the wound or the cloth upon which the blood remains that issued from it be orderly and frequently dressed or else the wounded person will not be cured Likewise the steam or spirits which at the giving of the wound enter'd into the pores of the weapon must not be driven out of it which will be done by fire and so when it is heated by holding over coals you may see a moisture sweat out of the blade at the opposite side to the fire as far as it entred into the wounded persons body which being once all sweated out you shall see no more the like steam upon the sword neither must the blood be washed out of the bloudy cloth for in these cases the powder or salve will work nothing Likewise if there be any excess either of heat or cold in keeping the medicated weapon or cloth the patient feels that as he would do if the like excess where in any remedy that were applyed to the wound it self Likewise if the medicated weapon or bloudy cloth be kept too close no effect follows Likewise the natures of the things used in these cures are of themselves soveraign for healing the like griefs though peradventure too violent if they were apply'd in body without much attenuation And truly if we will deny all effects of this kind we must in a manner renounce all humane faith men of all sorts and qualities and many of them such in my own knowledge as I cannot question their prudence in observing or their sincerity in relating having very frequently made experience of such medicines and all affirming after one fashion to have found the same effects Adde to these the multitude of other like effects appearing or conceited to appear in other things In some Countries 't is a familiar disease with Kine to have a swelling in the soles of their feet and the ordinary cure is to cut a turf upon which they have troden with their sore foot and to hang
it upon a hedge as that dries away so will their sore amend In other parts they observe that if milk newly come from the cow in the boyling run over into the fire and that this happen often and near together to the same cows milk that cow will have her udder sore inflamed and the prevention is to cast salt immediately into the fire upon the milk The herb Persicaria if it be well rub'd upon Warts and then be laid in some fit place to putrifie causes the Warts to wear away as it rots some say the like of fresh Beef Many examples also there are of hurting living creatures by the like means which I set not down for fear of doing more harm by the evil inclination of some persons into whose hands they may fall then profit by their knowing them to whom I intend this work But to make these operations of nature not incredible let us remember how we have determin'd that every body whatever yields some steam or vents a kind of vapour from it self and consider how they must needs do so most of all that are hot and moist as bloud and milk and all wounds and sores generally are We see that the foot of a Hare or Bear leaves such an impression where the beast has passed as a dog can discern it a long time after and a Fox breaths out so strong a vapour that the hunters themselvs can wind it a great way off and a good while after he is parted from the place Now joyning this to the experiences we have already allow'd of concerning the attraction of heat we may conclude that if any of these vapours light upon a solid warm body which has the nature of a source to them they will naturally congregate and incorporate there and if those vapours be joyn'd with any medicative quality or body they will apply that medicament better then any Chirurgeon can Then if the steam of bloud bloud and spirits carry with it from the weapon or cloth the balsamike qualities of the salve or powder and with them settle upon the wound what can follow but a bettering in it Likewise if the steam of the corruption that is upon the clod carry the drying quality of the wind which sweeps over it when it hangs high in the air to the sore part of the cows foot why is it not possible that it should dry the corruption there as well as it dryes it upon the hedge And if the steam of burned milk can hurt by carrying fire to the dug why should not salt cast upon it be a preservative against it Or rather why should not salt hinder the fire from being carried thither Since the nature of salt always hinders and suppresses the activity of fire as we see by experience when we throw salt into the fire below to hinder the flaming of soot in the top of a chimney which presently ceases when new fire from beneath doth not continue it And thus we might proceed in sundry other effects to declare the reason and possibility were we certain of the truth of them therfore we remit this whole question to the authority of the testimonies CHAP. XIX Of three other motions belonging to particular bodies Filtration Restitution and Electrical attraction AFter these let us cast our eye upon another motion very familiar among Alchymists which they call Filtration It is effected by putting one end of a tongue or label of Flannen or Cotten or Flax into a vessel of water and letting the other end hang over the brim of it And it will by little and little draw all the water out of that vessel so that the end which hangs qâ—t be lower then the superficies of the water and make it all come over into any lower vessel you will reserve it in The end of this operation is when any water is mingled with gross and muddy parts not dissolv'd in the water to separate the pure light ones from the impure By which we are taught that the lighter parts of the water are those which most easily catch And if we will examine in particular how 't is likely this business passes we may conceive that the body or linguet by which the water ascends being a dry one some lighter parts of the water whose chance it is to be near the climbing body of Flax begin to stick fast to it and then they require nothing near so great force nor so much pressing to make them climb up along the flax as they would do to make them mount in the pure air As you may see if you hold a stick in running water shelving against the stream the water will run up along the stick much higher then it could be forced up in the open air without any support though the agent were much stronger then the current of the stream And a ball will on a rebound run much higher upon a shelving board then it would if nothing touch'd it And I have been told that if an egsshell fill'd with dew be set at the foot of a hollow stick the Sun will draw it to the top of the shelving stick wheras without a prop it will not stir it With much more reason then we may conceive that water finding as it were little steps in the Cotton to facilitate its journy upwards must ascend more easily then those other things do so as it once receive any impulse to drive it upwards For the gravity both of that water which is upon the Cotton as also of so many of the confining parts of water as can reach the Cotton is exceedingly allay'd either by sticking to the Cotton and so weighing in one bulk with that dry body or else by not tending down straight to the Center but resting as it were upon a steep plain according to what we said of the arm of a Syphon that hangs very sloping out of the water and therfore draws not after it a less proportion of water in the other arm that is more in a direct line to the Center by which means the water as soon as it begins to climb comes to stand in a kind of cone neither breaking from the water below its bulk being big enough to reach to it nor yet falling down to it But our chief labour must be to finde a cause that may make the water begin to ascend To which purpose consider how water of its own nature compresses it self together to exclude any other body lighter then it is Now in respect of the whole mass of the water those parts which stick to the cotton are to be acounted muchlighter then water not because in their own nature they are so but for the circumstances which accompany and give them a greater disposition to receive a motion upwards then much lighter bodies whiles they are destitute of such helps Wherfore as the bulk of water weighing and striving downwards it follows that if there were any air mingled with it it would to
possess a lesser place drive out the aire so here in this case the water at the foot of the ladder of cotton ready to climb with a very small impulse may be after some sort compared in respect of the water to air by reason of the lightness of it and consequently is forced up by the compressing of the rest of water round about it Which no faster gets up but other parts at the foot of the ladder follow the first and drive them still upwards along the tow and new ones drive the second and others the third and so forth so that with ease they climb up to the top of the filter still driving one another forwards as you may do a fine towel through a musket barrel which though it be too limber to be thrust straight through yet craming still new parts into it at length you will drive the first quite through And thus when these parts of water are got up to the top of the vessel on which the filter hangs and over it on the other side by sticking still to the tow and by their natural gravity against which nothing presses on this side the label they fall down again by little and little and by drops break again into water in the vessel set to receive them But now if you ask why it will not drop unless the end of the label that hangs be lower then the water I conceive it is because the water which is all along upon the flannen is one continued body hanging together as it were a thrid of wire and is subject to like accidents as such a continued body is Now suppose you lay wire upon the edge of the basin which the filter rests on and so make that edge the Centre to ballance it upon if the end that is outermost be heaviest it will weigh down the other otherwise not So fares it with this thrid of water if the end of it that hangs out of the pot be longer and consequently heavier then that which rises it must needs raise the other upwards and fall it self downwards Now the raising of the other implies lifting more water from the Cistern and the sliding of it self further downwards is the cause of its converting into drops So that the water in the cistern serves like the flax upon a distaff and is spun into a thrid of water still as it comes to the flannen by the drawing it up occasion'd by the overweight of the thrid on the other side of the center Which to express better by a similitude in a solid body I remember I have oftentimes seen in a Mercers shop a great heap of massy gold lace lie upon their stall and a little way above it a round smooth pin of wood over which they use to have their lace when they wind it into bottoms Now over this pin I have put one end of the lace as long as it hung no lower then the board upon which the rest of the lace did lie it stird'd not for as the weight of the loose end carried it one way so the weight of the otherside where the whole was drew it the otherway in this manner kept it in equalibrity But as soon as I drew on the hanging end to the heavier then the climbing side for no more weights then is in the air that which lies upon the board having another center then it began to roule to the ground and still drew up new parts of that which lay upon the board till all was tumbled down upon the floor In the same manner it hap'nes to the water in which the thrid of it upon the filter is to be compared fitly to that part of the lace which hung upon the pin and the whole quantity in the cistern is like the bulk of lace upon the Shopboard for as fast as the filter draws it up 't is converted into a thrid like that which is already upon the filter in like manner as the wheel converts the flax into yarn as fast as it draws it out from the distaff Our next consideration will very aptly fall upon the motion of those things which being bent leap with violence to their former figure wheras others return but a little and others stand in that ply wherin the bending hath set them For finding the reason of which effects our first reflection may be to note that a Superficies which is more long then broad contains a less floor then that whose sides are equal or nearer being equal and that of those surfaces whose lines and angles are all equal that which hath most sides and angles contains still the greater floor Whence it is that Mathematicians conclude a circle to be the most capacious of all figures and what they say of lines in respect of a superficies the same with proportion they say of surfaces in respect of the body contained And accordingly we see by consequence that in the making a bag of a long napkin if the napkin be sew'd together longwise it holds a great deal less then if it be sewd together broadwise By this we see plainly that if any body in a thick and short figure be forced into a thinner which by becoming thinner must likewise become either longer or broader for what it loses one way it must get another then that superficies must needs be stretched which in our case is a Physical outside or material part of a solid body not a Mathematical consideration of an indivisible Entity We see also that this change of figures happens in the bending of all those bodies wherof we are now enquiring the reason why some of them restore themselves to their original figures and others stand as they are bent Then to begin with the latter sort we find that they are of a moist nature as among metalls lead and tin and among other bodies those â—which we account soft And we may determine that this effect proceeds partly from the humidity of the body that stands bent and partly from a driness peculiar to it that comprehends and fixes the humidity of it For by the first they are render'd capable of being driven into any figure which nature or art desires and by the second they are preserv'd from having their gravity put them out of what figure they have once receiv'd But because these two conditions are common to all solid bodies we may conclude that if no other circumstance concur'd the effect arising out of them would likewise be common to all such and therfore where we find it otherwise we must seek further for a cause of that transgression As for example if you bend the bodies of young trees or the branches of others they will return to their due figure 'T is true they will somtimes lean towards that way they have been bent as may be seen even in great trees after violent tempests and generally the heads of trees the ears of corn and the grown hedg rows will all bend one way
in some countries where some one wind has a main predominance and reigns most continually as near the Seashore upon the western coast of England where the South-West wind blows constantly the greatest part of the year may be observed but this effect proceeding from a particular and extraordinary cause concerns not our matter in hand We are to examine the reason of the motion of Restitution which we generally see in young trees and branches of others as we said before In such we see that the earthy part which makes them stiff or rather stark abounds more then in the others that stand as they were bent at least in proportion to their natures but I conceive this is not the cause of the effect we enquire about but that 't is a subtile spirit which hath a great proportion of fire in it For as in rarefaction we found that fire which was either within or without the body to be rarified did cause the rarefaction either by entring into it or by working within it so seeing here the question is for a body to go out of a lesser superficies into a greater which is the progress of rarefaction and hapen's in the motion of restitution the work must needs be done by the force of heat And because this effect proceeds evidently out of the nature of the thing in which it is wrought and not from any outward cause we may conclude it has its origine from a heat within the thing it self or else that was in it and may be press'd to the outward parts of it and would sink into it again As for example when a young tree is bended both every mans conceit is and the nature of the thing makes us believe that the force which brings the tree back again to its figure comes from the inner side that is bent which is compress'd together as being shrunk into a circular figure from a straight one for when solid bodies that were plain on both sides are bent so as on each side to make a portion of a Circle the convex superficies will be longer then it was before when it was plain but the concave will be shorter And therfore we may conceive that the spirits which are in the contracted part being there squeez'd into less room then their nature well brooks work themselvs into a greater space or else that the spirits which are crush'd out of the convex side by the extension of it remain besieging it and strive to get in again in such manner as we have declared when we spoke of attraction wherin we shew'd how the emited spirits of any body will move to their own source and settle again in it if they be within a convenient compass and accordingly bring back the extended parts to their former situation or rather that both these causes in their kinds concur to drive the tree into its natural figure But as we see when a stick is broken 't is very hard to replace all the splinters every one in its proper situation so it must of necessity fall out in this bending that certain insensible parts both inward and outward are therby displaced and can hardly be perfectly rejoynted Whence it follows that as you see the splinters of a half broken stick meeting with one another hold the stick somwhat crooked so these invisible parts do the like in such bodies as after bending stand a little that way but because they are very little ones the tree or branch that has been never so much bended may so nothing be broken in it be set strait again by pains without any notable detriment of its strength And thus you see the reason of some bodies returning in part to their natural figures after the force leaves them that bent them Out of which you may proceed to those bodies that restore themselvs entirely whereof steel is the most eminent And of it we know that there is a fiery spirit in it which may be extracted out of it not only by the long operations of calcining digesting and distilling it but even by gross heating and then extinguishing it in wine and other convenient Liquors as Physicians use to do Which is also confirm'd by the burning of steel-dust in the flame of a candle before it has been thus wrought upon which after-wards it will not do wherby we are taught that originally there are store of spirits in steel till they are sucked out Being then assured that in steel there is such abundance of spirits and knowing that it is the nature of spirits to give a quick motion and seeing that duller spirits in trees make this motion of Restitution we need seek no further what it is that doth it in steel or in any other things that have the like nature which through the multitude of spirits that abound in them especially steel returns back with so strong a jerk that their whole body will tremble a great while after by the force of its own motion By what is said the nature of those bodies which shrink and stretch may easily be understood for they are generally composed of stringy parts to which if humidity happen to arrive they grow therby thicker and shorter As we see that drops of water getting into a new rope of a well or into a new cable will swell it much thicker and by consequence make it shorter Galileus notes such wetting to be of so great efficacy that it will shrink a new cable and shorten it notably notwithstanding the violence of a tempest the weight and jerks of a loaden ship strain it what is possible for them to stretch it Of this nature leather seems to be and parchment and divers other things which if they be proportionably moistned and no exteriour force apply'd to extend them will shrink up but if they be overweted they will become flaccide Again if they be suddenly dryed they 'l shrivel up but if they be fairly dried after moderate weting they will extend themselvs again to their first length The way having been open'd by what we have discoursed before we came to the motion of Restitution towards the discovery of the manner how heavy bodies may be forced upward contrary to their natural motion by very smal means in outward appearance let us now examine upon the same grounds if like motions to this of water may not be done in some other bodies in a subtiler manner In which more or less needs not trouble us since we know that neither quantitâ—â—or the operations of it consist in an indivisible or are limited or determin'd by periods they may not pass 'T is enough for us to find a ground for the possibility of the operation and then the perfecting and reducing of it to such a height as at first might seem impossible incredible we may leave to the Oeconomy of wise nature He that learns to read write or play on the Lute is in the beginning ready to lose heart at every step
the air in this our Hemisphere is as it were strew'd over and sow'd with abundance of Northern atoms and that some brooks of them are in station others in a motion of retrogradation back to their own North Poles the Southern atoms which coming upon them at the Equator do not only press in among them wherever they can find admittance but also go on forwards to the North Poles in several files by themselvs being driven that way by the same accidental causes which make the others retire back seizing in their way upon the northern ones in such manner as we described in filtration and therby creeping along by them wherever they find them standing stil and going along with them wherever they find them going back must of necessity find passage in great quantites towards and even to the North Pole though some parts of them will ever and anon be check'd in this their journey by the main current prevailing over some accidental one and so be carried back again to the Equator whose line they had crossed And this affect cannot choose but be more or less according to the seasons of the year For when the Sun is in the Tropick of Capricorn the southern atoms will flow in much more abundance and with far greater speed into the Torrid Zone then the northern atoms can by reason of the Suns approximation to the South and his distance from the North Pole since he works faintest where he is furthest off and therfore from the North no more emanations or Atoms will be drawn but such as are most subtilised and duly prepared for that course And since only these selected bands do now march towards the Equator their files must needs be thinner then when the Suns being in the Equator or Tropick of Cancer wakens and musters up all their forces And consequently the quiet parts of air between their files in which like Atoms are also scatter'd are the greater wherby the advenient Southern Atoms have the larger filter to climb up by And the like happens in the other Hemisphere when the Sun is in the Tropick of Cancer as who will bestow the pains to compare them will presently see Now then let us consider what these two streams thus incorporated must of necessity do in the surface or upper parts of the Earth First 't is evident they must needs penetrate a pretty depth into the Earth for so freezing perswades us and much more the subtile penetration of divers more spiritual bodies of which we have sufficiently discoursed above Now let us conceive that these steams find a body of a convenient density to incorporate themselvs in in the way of density as we see fire doth in iron and in other dense bodies and this not for an hour or two as happens in fire but for years as I have been told that in the extreme cold hills in the Peak in Darbyshire happens to the dry Atoms of cold which are permanently incorporated in water by long continual freezing and so make a kind of Chrystal In this case certainly it must come to pass that this body will become in a manner wholly of the nature of these steams which being drawn from the Poles that abound in cold and driness for others that have not these qualities do not contribute to the intended effect the body is aptest to become a stone for so we see that cold and drought turns the superficial parts of the earth into stones rocks accordingly wherever cold dry winds reign powerfully all such Countries are mainly rocky Now then let us suppose this stone to be taken out of the earth and hang'd in the air or set conveniently on some little pin or otherwise put in liberty so as a small impulse may easily turn it any way it will in this case certainly follow that the end of the stone which in the earth lay towards the North pole will now in the air convert it self in the same manner towards the same point and the other end which lay towards the South turn by consequence to the South I speak of these Countries which lie between the Equator and the North in which of necessity the stream going from the North to the Equator must be stronger then the opposite one Now to explicate how this is done Suppose the stone hang'd East and West freely in the air the steam which is drawn from the North Pole of the earth ranges along by it in its course to the Equator and finding in the stone the South steam which is grown innate to it very strong it must needs incorporate it self with it and most by those parts of the steam in the stone which are strongest which are they that come directly from the North of the stone by which I mean that part of the stone that lay Northward in the Earth and that still looks to the North pole of the Earth now it is in the air And therfore the great floud of atoms coming from the North pole of the earth will incorporate it self most strongly by the North end of the stone with the little floud of Southern atomes it findes in the stone for that end serves for the coming out of the Southern atomes and sends them abroad as the South end doth the Northern steam since the steams come in at one end and go out at the other From hence we may gather that this stone will joyn and cleave to its attractive whenever it happens to be within the Sphere of its activity Besides if by some accident it should happen that the atomes or steams which are drawn by the Sun from the Polewards to the Equator should come stronger from some part of the earth which is on the side hand of the Pole then from the very Pole it self in this case the stone will turn from the Pole towards that side Lastly whatever this stone will do towards the Pole of the earth the very same a lesser stone of the same kind will do towards a greater And if there be any kind of other substance that has participation of the nature of this stone such a substance will behave it self towards this stone in the same manner as such a stone behaves it self towards the earth all the Phenomens whereof may be the more plainly observed if the stone be cut into the form of the earth And thus we have found a perfect delineation of the Loadstone from its causes For there is no man so ignorant of the nature of a Loadstone but he knows that the properties of it are to tend towards the North to vary somtimes to joyn with another Loadstone to draw iron to it and such like whose causes you see deliver'd But to come to experimental proofs and observations on the Loadstone by which it will appear that these causes are well esteem'd and apply'd we must be beholding to that admirable searcher of the nature of the Loadstones Dr. Gilbert by means of
by its Equator And consequently it is impossible that its sphere of activity should be perfectly spherical Nor doth Cabeus his experience move us to conceive the loadstone hath a greater strength to retain an iron laid upon it by its Equator then by its Poles for to justifie his assertion he should have tried it in an iron wire that were so short as the poles could not have any notable operation upon the ends of it since otherwise the force of retaining it wil be attributed to the Poles according to what we have above deliver'd and not to the Equator The eighth position is that The intention of nature in all the operations of the Loadstone is to make an union betwixt the attractive and the atracted â—bodies Which is evident out of the sticking of them together as also out of the violence wherwith iron comes to a Loadstone which when it is drawn by a powerful one is so great that through the force of the blow hitting the stone it will rebound back and then fall again to the stone And in like manner a needle upon a pin if a Loadstone be set near it turns with so great a force towards the pole of the stone that it goes beyond it and coming back again the celerity wherwith it moves maketh it retire it self too far on the other side and so by many undulations at last it comes to rest directly opposite to the pole Likewise by the declination by means of which the iron to the stone or the stone to the earth approaches in such a disposition as is most convenient to joyn the due ends together And lastly out of the flying away of the contrary ends from one another which clearly is to no other purpose but that the due ends may come together And in general there is no doubt but ones going to another is instituted by the order of nature for their coming together and for their being together which is but a perseverance of their coming together The ninth position is that The nature of a Loadstone doth not sink deeply into the main body of the earth as to have the substance of its whole body be magnetical but only remans near the surface of it And this is evident by the inequality in virtue of the two ends for if this magnetick virtue were the nature of the whole body both ends would be equally strong For would the disposition of one of the ends be different from the disposition of the other Again there could be no variation of the tending towards the North for the bulk of the whole body would have a strength so eminently greater then the prominences and disparities of hils or seas as the varieties of these would be absolutely insensible Again if the motion of the Loadstone came from the body of the earth it would be perpetually from the center not from the Poles so there could be no declination more in one part of the earth then in another Nor would the Loadstone tend from North to South but from the centre to the circumference or rather from the circumference to the centre And so we may learn the difference between the loadstone and the earth in their attractive operations to wit that the earth doth not receive its influence from another body nor doth its magnetick virtue depend of another magnetick agent that impresses it into it which nevertheless is the most remarkable condition of a Loadstone Again the stongest vertue of the Loadstone is from pole to pole but the strongest virtue of the earth is from the centre upwards as appears by fireforks gaining a much greater magnetick strength in a short time then a Loadstone in a longer Neither can it be thence objected that the loadstone should therfore receive the earths influences more strongly from the centerwards then from the poles of the earth which by its operation and what we have discours'd of it is certain it doth not since the beds where Loadstones lie and are form'd be towards the bottome of that part or back of the earth which is imbued with magnetick virtue Again this virtue which we see in a Loadstone is substantial to it wheras the like virtue is but accidental to the earth by means of the Suns drawing the northern and southern exhalations to the Equator The last position is that The loadstone must be found over all the earth and in every country And so we see it is both because iron mines are found in some measure almost in all countries cause at least other sorts of the earth as we have declared of potearths cannot be wanting in any large extent of country which when they are baked and cool'd in due positions have this effect of the Loadstone and are of the nature of it And Dr. Gilbert shews that the loadstone is nothing else but the Ore of Steel or perfectest iron and that it is to be found of all colours and fashions and almost of all consistences So that we may easily conceive that the emanations of the Loadstone being every where as well as the causes of gravity the two motions of magnetick and weighty things both of them derive their origine from the same source I mean from the very same emanations coming from the earth which by a divers ordination of nature make this affect in the loadstone and that other in weighty things And who knows but that a like sucking to this which we have shew'd in magnetick things passes also in the motion of gravity in a word gravity bears a fair testimony in behalf of the magnetick force and the Loadstones working returns no mean verdict for the causes of gravity according to what we have delivered of them CHAP. XXII A Solution of certain Problemes concerning the Loadstone and a short sum of the whole doctrine touching it OUt of what is said upon this subject we may proceed to the Solution of certain questions or problemes which are or may be made in this matter And first of that which Dr. Gilbert disputes against all former writers of the Loadstone to wit which is the North and which the South pole of a stone Which seems to me only a question of the name for if by the name of North and South we understand that end of the stone which has that virtue that the North or South pole of the earth have then 't is certain that the end of the stone which looks to the South pole of the earth is to be called the North pole of the loadstone and contrariwise that which looks to the North is to be called the South pole of it But if by the names of North and South pole of the stone yoâ— mean those ends of it that lie and point to the North and South poles of the earth then you must reckon their poles contrariwise to the former account So that the terms being once defined there will remain no further controversie about the
render'd quite useless Therfore 't is evident that this virtue must be put in somthing else and not in the application of the magnetical vertue And to examine his reasons particularly it may very well fall out that whatever the cause be the point of a needle may be too little to make an exact experience in and therfore a new doctrine ought not lightly be grounded upon what appears in the application of that And likewise the greatness of the surfaces of the two irons may be a condition helpful to the cause whatever it be for greater and lesser are the common conditions of all bodies and therfore avail all kinds of corporeal causes so that no one cause can be affirm'd more then another meerly out of this that great doth more and little doth less To come then to our own solution I have consider'd how fire hath in a manner the same effect in iron as the virtue of the Loadstone hath by means of the cap for I find that fire coming through iron red-glowing hot will burn more strongly then if it should come immediatly through the air also we see that in Pitcole the fire is stronger then in Charcole And nevertheless the fire will heat further if it come immediately from the source of it then if it come through a red iron that burns more violently where it touches and likewise charcoal will heat further then pitcoal that near hand burns more fiercely In the same manner the Loadstone will draw further without a cap then with one but with a cap it sticks faster then without one Whence I see that it is not purely the virtue of the Loadstone but the virtue of it being in iron which causes this effect Now this modification may proceed either from the multitude of parts which come out of the Loadstone and are as it were stop'd in the iron so the sphere of their activity becomes shorter but stronger or else from some quality of the iron joyn'd to the influence of the loadstone The first seems not to give a good account of the effect for why should a little paper take it away seeing we are sure that it stops not the passage of the loadstones influence Again the influence of the Loadstone seems in its motion to be of the nature of light which goes in an insensible time as far as it can reach and therfore were it multiply'd in the iron it would reach further then without it and from it the virtue of the Loadstone would begin a new sphere of activity Therfore we more willingly cleave to the latter part of our determination And therupon enquiring what quality there is in iron whence this effect may follow we find that it is distinguish'd from a loadstone as a metal is from a stone Now we know that metals have generally more humidity than stones and we have discours'd above that humidity is the cause of sticking especially when it is little and dense These qualities must needs be in iron which of all metals is the most terrestrial and such humidity as is able to stick to the influence of the loadstone as it passes through the body of the iron must be exceeding subtile and small And it seems necessary that such humidity should stâ—k to the influence of the loadstone when it meets with it coâ—sidering that the influence is of it self dry and that the nature of iron is a kin to the loadstone wherfore the humidity of the one the drought of the other will not fail of incorporating together Now then if two irons well polish'd and plain be united by such a glew as results ouâ— of this composition there is a manifest appearance of much reason for them to stick strongly together This is confirm'd by the nature of iron in very cold Countreys and very cold weather for the very humidity of the air in times of frost will make upon iron sooner then upon other things such a sticking glew as will pull off the skin of a mans hand that touches it hard And by this discourse you will perceive that Galileo's arguments confirm our opinion as well as his own and that according to our doctrine all circumstances must fall out just as they do in his experiences And the reason is clear why the interposition of another body hinders the strong sticking of iron to the cap of the loadstone for it makes the mediation between them greater which we have shew'd to be the general reason why things are easily parted Let us then proceed to the resolution of the other cases proposed The second is already resolv'd for if this glew be made of the influence of the loadstone it cannot have force further then the loadstone it self has and so far it must have more force then the bare influence of the loadstone Or rather the humidity of two irons makes the glew of a fitter temper to hold then that which is between a dry loadstone and iron and the glew enters better when both sides are moist then when only one is so But this resolution though it be in part good yet doth not evacuate the whole difficulty since the same case happens between a stronger and a weaker Loadstone as between a Loadstone and iron for the weaker Loadstone while it is within the sphere of activity of the greater Loadstone draws away an iron set betwixt them as well as a second iron doth For the reason therfore of the little Loadstones drawing away the iron we may consider that the greater Loadstone hath two effects upon the iron betwixt it and a lesser Loadstone and a third effect upon the little loadstone it self The first is that it impregnates the iron and gives it a permanent vertue by which it works like a weak Loadstone The second is that as it makes the iron work towards the lesser Loadstone by its permanent virtue so also it accompanies the steam that goes from the iron towards the little Loadstone with its own steam which goes the same way so that both these steams in company climb up the steam of the little Loadstone which meets them and that steam climbs up the enlarged one of both theirs together The third effect which the greater Loadstone works is that it makes the steam of the little loadstone become stronger by augmenting its innate virtue in some degree Now then the going of the iron to either of the Loadstones must follow the greater and quicker conjunction of the two meeting steams and not the greatness of one alone So that if the conjunction of the two steams between the iron and the little Loadstone be greater quicker then the conjunction of the two steams which meet betwixt the greater Loadstone and the iron the iron must stick to the lesser Loadstone And this must happen more often then otherwise for the steam which goes from the iron to the greater Loadstone will for the most part be less then the steam which goes from the lesser Loadstone
of them To come then to the matter Now that we have explicated the natures of those motions by means wherof bodies are made and destroy'd and in which they are to be consider'd chiefly as passive whiles some exterior agent working upon them causes such alterations in them and brings them to such pass as we see in the changes that are daily wrought among substances The next thing we are to imploy our selves about is to take a survey of those motions which some bodies have wherin they seem to be not so much patients as agents and contain within themselvs the principle of their own motion having no relation to any outward object more then to stir up that principle of motion and set it on work which when it is once in act hath as it were within the limits of its own kingdom and sever'd from commerce with all other bodies whatever many other subaltern motions over which it presides To which purpose we may consider that among the compounded bodies whose natures we have explicated there are some in whom the parts of different complexions are so small so wel mingled together that they make a compound which to our sense seems all quite through of one Homogeneous nature and however it be divided each part retains the entire and compleat nature of the whole Others again there are in which 't is easie to discern that the whole is made up of several great parts of very differing natures and tempers And of these there are two kinds one of such as their differing parts seem to have no relation to one another or correspondence together to perform any particular work in which all of them are necessary but rather they seem to be made what they are by chance and accident and if one part be sever'd from another each is an entire thing by it self of the same nature as it was in the whole and no harmony is destroy'd by such division As may be observ'd in some bodies dig'd out of Mines in which one may see lumps of Metal or stone and glass and such different substances in their several distinct situations perfectly compacted into one continuate body which if you divide the glass remains what it was before the Emerald is still an Emerald the silver is good silver and the like of the other substances the causes of which may be easily deduced out of what we have formerly said But there are other bodies in which this manifest and notable difference of parts carries with it such a subordination of one of them to another as we cannot doubt but that nature made such engines if so I may call them by design and intended that this variety should be in One thing whose unity and being what it is should depend of the harmony of the several differing parts and should be destroy'd by their separation As we see in living Creatures whose particular parts and members being once sever'd there is no longer a living creature to be found among them Now of this kind of bodies there are two sorts The first is of those that seem to be one continuate substance wherin we may observe one and the same constant progress throughout from the lowest to the highest part of it so that the operation of one part is not at all different from that of another but the whole body seems to be the course and throughfare of one constant action varying it self in divers occasions and occurrences according to the disposition of the subject The bodies of the second sort have their parts so notably separated one from the other and each have such a peculiar motion proper to them that one might conceive they were every one a complete distinct total thing by it self and that all of them were artificially tied together were it not that the subordination of these parts to one another is so great and the correspondence between them so strict the one not being able to subsist without the other from whom he derives what is needful for him and again being so useful to that other and having its action and motion so fitting and necessary for it as without it that other cannot be as plainly convinces that the compound of all these several parts must needs be one individuol thing I remember that when I travel'd in Spain I saw there two Engines that in some sort express the natures of these two kinds of bodies One at Toledo the other a Segovia both of them set on work by the current of the river in which the foundation of their machine was laid That at Toledo was to force up water at a great height from the river Tagus to the Alcazar the Kings palace that stands upon a high steep hill or rock almost perpendicular over the river In the bottome there was an indented wheel which turning round with the stream gave motion at the same time to the whole engine which consisted of a multitude of little troughs or square ladles set one over another in two parallel rows over against one another from the bottom to the top and upon two several divided frames of timber These troughs were closed at one end with a traverse board to retain the water from running out there which end being bigger then the rest of the trough made it somewhat like a ladle and the rest of it seem'd to be the handle with a channel in it the little end of which channel or trough was open to let the water pass freely away And these troughs were fasten'd by an axletree in the middle of them to the frame of timber that went from the bottome up to the top so that they could upon that center move at liberty either the shut end downwards or the open end like the beam of a ballance Now at a certain position of the root-wheel if so I may call it all one side of the machine sunk down a little lower towards the water and the other was raised a little higher Which motion was changed as soon as the ground-wheel had ended the remnant of his revolution for then the side that was lowest before sprung up and the other sunk down And thus the two sides of the machine were like two legs that by turns trod the water as in the Vintage men press Grapes in a watte Now the troughs that were fast'ned to the timber which descended turn'd that part of them downwards which was like a Box shut to hold the water and consequently the open end was up in the air like the arm of the ballance to which the lightest scale is fasten'd and in the mean time the troughs upon the ascending timber were moved by a contrary motion keeping their boxends aloft and letting the open ends incline downwards so that if any water were in them they would let it run out wher'as the others retain'd any that came into them VVhen you have made an image of this Machine in your phantasie consider what will follow out
out into an extasie of admiration and hymns of praise as great Galen did upon the like occasion when we reverently consider the infinite Wisedome and deep far-looking Providence of the all-seeing Creatour and Orderer of the World in so punctually adopting such a multitude and swarm of causes to produce by so long a progress so wonderful an effect in the whole course of which if any one the very least of them all went never so little awry the whole fabrick would be discomposed and changed from the nature it is design'd to Out of our short survey of which answerable to our weak talents and slender experience I perswade mv self it appears evident enough that to effect this work of generation there needs not be supposed a forming virtue or Vis formatrix of an anknown power and operation as those that consider things suddenly and but in gross use to put Yet in discourse for conveniency and shortness of expression we shall not quite banish that term from all commerce with us so that what we mean by it be rightly understood which is the complex assemblement or chain of all the causes that concur to produce this effect as they are set on foot to this end by the great Architect and Moderatour of them God Almighty whose instrument Nature is that is the same thing or rather the same things so order'd as we have declared but express'd and compriz'd under another name CHAP. XXVI How motion begins in Living Creatures And of the motion of the Heart circulation of the Bloud Nutrition Augmentation and Corruption or Death BUt we must not take our leave of this subject til we have examin'd how motion begins in living things as well Plants as Sensative creatures We can readily pitch upon the part we are to make our observations in for retriving the origine of this primary motion for having concluded that the roots of Plants and the hearts of Animals are the parts of them which are first made and from which the forming virtue is derived to all the rest it were unreasonable to seek for their first motion any where else But in what manner and by what means doth it begin there For roots the difficulty is not great for the moysture of the earth pressing upon the seed and soaking into it the hot parts of it which were imprison'd in cold and dry ones are therby stir'd up and set on work then they mingling themselves with that moysture ferment and distend the whole seed til making it open and break the skin more juice comes in which imcorporating it self with the heat those hot and now moyst parts will not be contain'd in so narrow a room as at the first but strugling to get out on all sides and striving to enlarge themselvs they thrust forth little parts Which if they stay in the earth grow white and make the root but those which ascend and make their way into the air being less compressed and more full of heat and moysture turn green and as fast as they grow up new moysture coming to the root is sent up through the pores of it and this fails not till the heat of the root it self fails For it being the nature of heat to rarifie and elevate there must of necessity be caus'd in the earth a kind of sucking in of moysture into the root from the next parts to it to fill those capacities which the dilating heat hath made that else would be empty and to supply the rooms of those which the heat continually sends upwards for the moysture of the root hath a continuity with that in the earth and therfore they adhere together as in a Pump or rather as in filtration and follow one another when any of them are in motion and still the next must needs come in and fill the room where it finds an empty space immediate to it The like of which happens to the Air when we breath for our lungs being like a Bladder when we open them the air must needs come in to fill that capacity which else would be empty and when we shut them again as in a pair of Bellows we put it out This may suffice concerning the primary motion of roots but in that of the heart we shall find the matter not altogether so plain Monsieur des Cartes following herein the steps of the learned and ingenuous Dr. Harvey who hath invented and teaches that curious and excellent Doctrine of the Cerculation of the Bloud as indeed what secret of nature can be hidden from so sharp a wit when he applyes himself to penetrate into the bottome of it explicates the matter much after this sort That the heart within the substance of it is like a hollow Cavern in whose bottome were an hot stone on which should drop as much liquor as the fiery stone could blow into smoke and this smoke or steam should be more then the Cave could contain wherfore it must break out which to do it presses on all sides to get an issue or door to let it out It finds of two sorts but only one kind of them will serve it for this purpose for the one sort of these doors opens inwards the other outwards which is the cause that the more it strives to get out the faster it shuts the doors of the first kind but by the same means it beats back the other doors and so gets out Now when it is gone quite out of this Cavern and consequently leaves it to its natural disposition whereas before it violently stretched it out and by doing so kept close the doors that open inwards then all the parts of it begin to slacken and those Doors give way to new liquor to drop in anew which the heat in the bottome of the heart rarifies again in-into smoke as before And thus he conceives the motion of the heart to be made taking the substance of it to be as I may say like to limber Leather which upon the feeling of it with bloud and steam opens and dilates it self and at the going of it out it shrinks together like a bladder But I doubt this Explication will not go through the difficulty For first both Galen and Dr. Harvey shew that as soon as the bloud is come into the heart it contracts it self which agrees not with Monsir des Cartes his supposition for in his doctrine there appears no cause why it should contract it self when it is full but contrariwise it should go on dilating it self till enough of the bloud which drops into the heart were converted into steam to force the doors open that so it may gain an issue thence and a passage into the body Next Monsir des Cartes supposes that the substance of the heart is like a bladder which hath no motion of it self but opens and shuts according as what is within it stretches it out or permits it to shrink and fall together again Wheras Dr. Harvey proves
to the sides of the ventricles and consequently new bloud drops in So that in conclusion we see the motion of the heart depends originally of its fibers irrigated by the blood and not from the force of the vapour as Monsieur des Cartes supposes This motion of the heart drives the blood which is warm'd and spiritualiz'd by being boyl'd in this furnace through due passages into the arteries whence it runs into the veins and is a main cause of making and nourishing other parts as the Liver the Lungs the Brains and whatsoever else depends of those veins and arteries through which the bloud goes Which being ever freshly heated and receiving the tincture of the hearts nature by passing through the heart wherever it stayes and curdles it grows into a substance of a nature conformable to the heart though every one of such substances be of exceeding different conditions in themselves the very grossest excrements not being excluded from some participation of that nature But if you desire to follow the blood all along every step in its progress from the heart round about the body till it return back again to its center Dr. Harvey who most acutely teaches this doctrine must be your guide He will shew you how it issues from the heart by the Arteries from whence it goes on warming the flesh til it arrive to some of the extremities of the body and against it is grown so cool by long absence from the fountain of its heart and by evaporating its own stock of spirits without any new supply that it hath need of being warmed anew it findes it self return'd back again to the Heart and is there heated again which return is made by the Veins as its going forwards is perform'd only by the Arteries And were it not for this continual circulation of the blood and this new heating it in its proper caldron the Heart it could not be avoided but that the extreme parts of the body would soon grow cold and die For flesh being of it self of a cold nature as is apparent in dead flesh and being kept warm meerly by the blood that bedews it and the bloud likewise being of a nature that soon grows cold and congeals unless it be preserv'd in due temper by actual heat working upon it how can we imagine that they two singly without any other assistance should keep one another warm especially in those parts that are far distant from the heart by only being together Surely we must allow the blood which is a substance fit for motion to have recourse back to the heart where only it can be supply'd with new heat and spirits and from thence be driven out again by its pulses or strokes which are its shuttings And as fast as it flies out like a reeking thick steam which rises from perfumed water falling upon a heated pan that which is next before it must flie yet further on to make way for it and newt arterial blood stil issuing forth at every pulse it must still drive on what issued thence the last precedent pulse and that part must press on what is next before it And thus it fares with the whole mass of blood which having no other course but in the body must at length run round and by new vessels which are the veins return back to the place from whence it issued first and by that time it comes thither it is grown cool and thick needs a vigorous restauration of spirits and a new rarifying that then it may warm the flesh it passes again through without which it would suddenly grow stone cold As is manifest if by tying or cutting the arteries you intercept the blood which is to nourish any part for then that part grows presently cold and benum'd But referring the particulars of this doctrine to Dr. Harvey who hath both invented and perfected it our task in hand calls upon us to declare in common the residue of motions that all Living Creatures agree in How Generation is perform'd we have determin'd in the past discourse Our next consideration then ought to be of Nutrition and Augmentation Between which there is very little difference in the nature of their actions and the difference of their names is grounded more upon the different result in the period of them then upon the thing it self as will by and by appear Thus then is the progress of this matter As soon as a living creature is formed it endeavours straight to augment it self and employs it self only about that the parts of it being yet too young and tender to perform the other functions which nature hath produced them for That is to say the Living Creature at its first production is in such a state and condition that it is able to do nothing else but by means of the great heat in it to turn into its own substance the abundance of moysture that overflows it They who are curious in this matter tell us that the performance of this work consists in five actions which they call Attraction Adhesion Concoction Assimulation and Unition The nature of Atraction we have already declared when we explicated how the heart and the root sends juice into the other parts of the Animal or Plant for they abounding in themselves with inward heat and besides that much other circumstant heat working likewise upon them it cannot be otherwise but that they must needs suck and draw into them the moisture that is about them As for Adhesion the nature of that is likewise explicated when we shew'd how such parts as are moist but especially aerial or oily ones such as are made by the operation of a soft and continual heat are catching and easily stick to any body they happen to touch and how a little part of moysture between two dry parts joyns them together Upon which occasion it is to be noted that parts of the same kind joyn best together and therfore the powder of glass is used to ciment broken glass withal as we have touch'd somwhere above and the powder of marble to ciment marble with and so of other bodies In like manner Alchimists find no better expedient to extract a small proportion of silver mixed with a great one of gold then to put more silver to it nor any more effectual way to get out the heart or tincture or spirits of any thing they distil or make an extract of then to infuse its own flegme upon it and to water it with that Now whether the reason of this be that continuity because it is an unity must be firmest between parts that are most conformable to one another and consequently nearest one among themselves or whether it be for some other hidden cause belongs not to this place to discourse but in fine so it is And the adhesion is strongest of such parts as are most conformable to that which needs encrease and nourishment and that is made up by the other three actions Of which
of the instrument which is the reason that the concave figure is affected in most and so when it breaks out of the instrument in greater quantity then the string immediately did shake it causes the same undulations in the whole body of Air round about And that striking the Drum of the ear gives notice therin what tenour the string moves whose vibrations if one stop by laying his finger upon it the sound is instantly at an end for then there is no cause on foot that continues the motion of the Air which without a continuation of the impulse returns speedily to quiet through the resistance made to it by other parts of it that are further off Out of all which 't is plain that motion alone is able to effect and give account of all things whatever that are attributed to Sound and that Sound and motion go hand in hand together so that whatever is said of the one is likewise true of the other Wherfore it cannot be deny'd but that hearing is nothing else but the due perception of motion and that motion and sound are in themselvs one and the same thing though expressâ—d by different names and comprised in our understanding under different notions Which proposition seems to be yet further convinced by the ordinary experience of perceiving musick by mediation of a stick for how should a deaf man be capable of musick by holding a stick in his Teeth whose other end lies upon the Vial or Virginals were it not that the proportional shaking of the stick working a like dancing in the mans head make a like motion in his brain without passing through his ear and consequently without being otherwise sound then as bear motion is sound Or if any man will still persist in having sound be some other thing then as we say and that it effects the sense otherwise then purely by motion he must nevertheless acknowledge that whatever it be it hath neither cause nor effect nor breeding nor dying that we either know or can imagine And then if he will let reason sway he will conclude it unreasonable to say or suspect so ill grounded a surmise against so clear and solid proofs which our ears themselvs not a little confirm their whole figure and nature tending to the perfect receiving conserving and multiplying the motions of air which happen without a man as who is curious may plainly see in the Anatomists books and discourses CHAP. XXIX Of Sight and Colours THere is yet left the object of our Sight which we call Colours to take a survey of for as for light we have at large display'd the nature and properties of it from which whether colour be different or no will be the question we shall next discuss For those who are cunning in Opticks will by refractions and reflexions make all sorts of colours out of pure light as we see in Rainbows in those Triangular Glasses or Prisms which some call Fools Paradises and in other inventions for this purpose Wherfore in brief to shew what colour is let us lay for a ground that Light is of all other things in the world the greatest and the most powerful agent upon our eye either by it self or by what comes in with it and that where light is not darkness is Then consider that light may be diversly cast especially through or from a transparent body into which it sinks in part and in part it doth not and you will conclude that it cannot choose but come out from such a body in divers sorts mingled with darkness Which if it be in a sensible quantity accordingly makes divers appearances and those appearances must of necessity have divers hues representing the colours which are middle colours between white and black since white is the colour of light and darkness seems black Thus those colours are ingendred which are call'd apparent ones And they appear somtimes but in some one position as in the Rainbow which changes place as the looker on doth but at other times they may be seen from any part as those which light makes by a double refraction through a Triangular Glass And that this is rightly deliver'd may be gather'd out of the conditions requisite to their production For that Chrystal or water or any refracting body doth not admit light in all its parts is evident by reason of the reflection it makes which is exceeding great and not only from the superficies but even from the middle of the body within as you may see plainly if you put it in a dark place and enlighten but one part of it for then you may perceive as it were a current of light pass quite through the body although your eye be not opposite to the passage so that manifestly it reflects to your eye from all the inward parts which it lights upon Now a more oblique reflection or refractiom more disperses the light and admits more privations of light in its parts then a less oblique one as Galileo hath demonstrated in the First Dialogue of his Systeme Wherefore a less oblique reflection or refraction may receive that in quality of light which a more oblique one makes appear mingled with darkness and consequently the same thing will appear colour in one which shews it self plain light in another for the greater the inclination of an angle is the greater also is the dispersion of the light And as colours are made in this sort by the medium through which light passes so if we conceive the superficies from which the light reflects to be diversly order'd in respect of reflexion it must of necessity follow that it will have a divers lustre and sight as we see by experience in the necks of Pigeons and in certain positions of our eye in which the light passing through our eye-brows makes an appearance as though we saw divers colours streaming from a candle we look upon And accordingly we may observe how some things or rather most appear of a colour more inclining to white when they are irradiated with a great light then when they stand in a lesser And we see Painters heighten their colours and make them appear lighter by placing deep shadows by them even so much that they will make objects appear nearer and further off meerly by their mixtion of their colours Because objects the nearer they are the more strongly and lively they reflect light and therfore appear the clearer as the others do more dusky Wherfore if we put the superficies of one body to have a better disposition for the reflection of light then another hath we cannot but conceive that such difference in the superficies must needs beget variety of permanent colours in the bodies and according as the superficies of the same body is better or worse disposed to reflection of light by polishing or by compressure together or the like so the same body remaining the same in substance will shew it self of a different colour And it being
evident that white which is the chiefest colour reflects most light and as evident that black reflects least light so that it reflects shadows in lieu of colours as the Obsidian stone among the Romanes witness as also that to be dense and hard and of small parts is the disposition of the object which is most apt to reflect light we cannot doubt but that white is that disposition of the superficies That is to say It is the superficies of a body consisting of dense of hard and of small parts and on the contrary side black is the disposition of the superficies which is most soft and full of greatest pores for when light meets with such a superficies it gets easily into it and is there as it were absorpt and hidden in caves and comes not out again to reflect towards our eye This doctrine of ours of the Generation of Colours agrees exactly with Aristotles principles and follows evidently out of his definitions of Light and of Colours And for suming up the general sentiments of mankinde in making his Logical definitions I think none will deny his being the greatest Master that ever was He defines Light to be actus Diaphani which we may thus explicate It is that thing which makes a body that hath an aptitude or capacity of being seen quite through in every interior part of it to be actually seen quite through according to that capacity of it And he defines Colours to be The term or ending of a diaphanous body the meaning wherof is That Colour is a thing which makes a diaphanous body reach no further or the cause why a body is no further diaphanous then till where it begins or that Colour is the reason why we can see no further then to such a degree through or into such a body Which definition fits most exactly with the thing it gives us the nature of For 't is evident that when we see a body the body we see hinders us from seeing any other that is in a straight line beyond it and therfore it cannot be denied but that Colour terminates and ends the diaphaneity of a body by making it self be seen And all men agree in conceiving this to be the nature of Colour and that it is a certain disposition of a body wherby that body comes to be seen On the other side nothing is more evident then that to have us see a body light must reach from that body to our eye Then adding to this what Aristotle teaches concerning the producton of seeing which he sayes is made by the action of the seen body upon our sense it follows that the object must work upon our sense either by light or at least with light for light rebounding from the object round about by straight lines some part of it must needs come fom the object to our eye Therfore by how much an object sends more light to our eye by so much that object works more upon it Now seeing that divers objects send light in divers manners to our eye according to the divers natures of those objects in regard of hardness density and littleness of parts we must agree that such bodies work diversly and make different motions or impressions upon our eye and consequently the passion of our eye from such objects must be divers But there is no other diversity of passion in the eye from the object in regard of seeing but that the object appear divers to us in point of Colour Therfore we must conclude That divers bodies I mean divers or different in that kind we hear talk of must necessarily seem to be of divers colours meerly by the sending of light to our eye in divers fashions Nay the very same object must appear of different colours whenever it happens that it reflects light differently to us As we see in Cloth if it be gather'd together in foulds the bottoms of those foulds shew to be of one kind of colour and the tops of them or where the cloth is stretch'd out to the full percussion of light appears to be of another much brighter colour And accordingly Painters are fain to use almost opposite colours to express them In like manner if you look upon two pieces of the same cloth or plush whose grains lie contrariwise to one another they will likewise appear to be of different colours Both which accidents and many other like them in begetting various representations of Colours arise out of lights being more or less reflected from one part then from another Thus then you see how Colour is nothing else but the disposition of the bodies superficies as it is more or less apt to reflect light since the reflection of light is made from the superficies of the seen body and the variety of its reflection begets variety of colours But a superficies is more or less apt to reflect light according to the degrees of its being more or less penetrable by the force of light striking upon it For the rays of light that gain no entrance into a body they are darted upon must of necessity fly back again from it But if light gets entrance and penetrates into the body it either passes quite through it or else it is swallow'd up and lost in that body The former constitutes a diaphanous body as we have already determin'd and the semblance which the latter will have in regard of colour we have also shew'd must be black But let us proceed a little further We know that two things render a body penetrable or easie to admit another body into it Holes such as we call pores and softness or humidity so that driness hardness and compactedness must be proproperties which render a body impenetrable And accordingly we see that if a diaphanous body which suffers light to run through it be much compress'd beyond what it was as when water is compress'd into ice it becomes more visible that is reflects more light and consequently it becomes more white for white is that which reflects more light On the contrary side softness unctuousness and viscousness encreases blackness As you may experience in oyling or greasing of Wood which before was but brown for therby it becomes more black by reason that the unctuous parts added to the other more easily then they single admit into them the light that sticks upon them and when it is gotten in it is so entangled there as though the wings of it were bird-limed over that it cannot flie out again And thus it is evident how the origine of all colours in bodies is plainly deduced out of the various degrees of rarity and density variously mixed and compounded Likewise out of this discourse the reason is obvious why some bodies are diaphanous and others are opacous for since it falls out in the constitution of bodies that one is composed of greater parts then another it must needs happen that light be more hindred in passing through a body composed of bigger
towards that side on which the shadow appears in respect of the opacous body or of the illuminant and so be a cause of deepness of Colour on that side if it happen to be fringed with colour CHAP. XXXI The causes of certain appearances in luminous Colours with a Conclusion of the discourse touching the Senses and the Sensible Qualities OUt of these grounds we are to seek the resolution of all such Symptoms as appear to us in this kind of colours First therfore calling to mind how we have already declared that the red colour is made by a greater proportion of light mingled with darkness and the blew with a less proportion it must follow that when light passes through a glass in such sort as to make colours the mixture of the light and darkness on that side where the light is strongest will encline to a red and their mixture on the otherside where the light is weakest will make a violet or blew And this we see fall out accordingly in the light which is tincted by going through a Prism for a red colour appears on that side from which the light dilates or encreases and a blew is on that side towards which it decreases Now if a dark body be placed within this light so as to have the light come on both sides of it we shall see the contrary happen about the borders of the picture or shadow of the dark body that is to say the red colour will be on that side of the picture which is towards or over against the blew colour made by the glass and the blew of the picture will be on that side which is towards the red made by the glass as you may experience if you place a slender opacous body along the Prism in the way of the light either before or behind the Prism The reason wherof is that the opacous body standing in the middle environ'd by light divides it and makes two lights of that which was but one each of which lights is comprised between two darknesses to wit between each border of Shadow that joyns to each extreme of the light that comes from the glass and each side of the Opacous bodies shadow Wherfore in each of these lights or rather in each of their comixtions with darkness there must be red on the one side and blew on the other according to the course of light which we have explicated And thus it falls out agreeable to the Rule we have given that blew comes to be on that side of the opacous bodies shadow on which the glass casts red and red on that side of it on which the glass casts blew Likewise when light going through a convex glass makes two cones the edges of the cone betwixt the glass the point of concourse will appear red if the room be dark enough and the edges of the further cone will appear blew both for the reason given For in this case the point of concourse is the strong light betwixt the two cones of which that betwixt the glass and the point is the stronger that beyond the point the weaker And for this very reason if an opacous body be put in the axis of these two cones both the sides of its picture will be red if it be held in the first cone which is next to the glass and both will be blew if the body be situated in the further cone for both sides being equally situated to the course of the light within its own cone there is nothing to vary the colours but only the strength and weakness of the two lights of the cones on this that side the point of the concourse which point being in this case the strong and clear light wherof we made general mention in our precedent note the cone towards the glass and the illuminant is the stronger side and the cone from the glass is the weaker In those cases where this reason is not concern'd we shall see the victory carried in the question of colours by the shady side of the opacous body that is the blew colour will still appear on that side of the opacous bodies shadow that is furthest from the illuminant But where both causes concur and contest for precedence there the course of the light carries it that is to say the red will be on that side of the opacous bodies shadow where it is thicker and darker and blew on the otherside where the shadow is not so strong although the shadow be cast that way that the red appears as is to be seen when a slender body is placed betwixt the Prism and the reflectant body upon which the light colours are cast through the Prism And 't is evident that this cause of the course of the shadow is in it self a weaker cause than the other of the course of light and must give way to it whenever they incounter as it cannot be expected but that in all circumstances shadows should be light because the colours which the glass casts in this case are much more faint and dusky than in the other For effects of this latter cause we see that when an opacous body lyes cross the Prism whiles it stands end-ways the red or blew colour will appear on the upper or lower side of its picture according as the illuminant is higher or lower then the transverse opacous body the blew ever keeping to that side of the picture that is furthest from the body and the illuminant that make it and the red the contrary Likewise if an opacous body be placed out of the axis in either of the cones we have explicated before the blew will appear on that side of the picture which is furthest advanced in the way that the shadow is cast and the red on the contrary And so if the opacous body be placed in the first cone beside the axis the red will appear on that side of the picture in the basis of the second cone which is next to the circumference and the blew on that side next the axis but if it be placed on one side of the axis in the second cone then the blew will appear on that side the picture is next the circumference and the red on that side which is next the center of the basis of the cone There remains yet one difficulty of moment to be determined which is Why when through a glass two colours namely blew and red are cast from a Candle upon a paper or wall if you put your eye in the place of one of the colours that shines upon the wall and so that colour comes to shine upon your eye so that another man who looks upon it will see thot colour plainly upon your eye nevertheless you shall see the other colour in the glass as for example if on your eye there shines a red you shall see a blew in the glass and if a blew shines upon your eye you shall see a
red The reason hereof is that The colours which appear in the glasse are of the nature of those luminous colours we first explicated that arise from looking upon white and black bordering together For a candle standing in the air is as it were a white situated between two blacks the circumstant dusky air having the nature of a black so then that side of the candle which is seen through the thicker part of the glass appears red and that which is seen through the thinner appears blew in the same manner as when we look through the glass Whereas the colours shine contrariwise upon a paper or reflecting object as we have already declared together with the reasons of both these appearances each fitted to its proper case of looking through the glass upon the luminous object surrounded with darkness in the one and of observing the effect wrought by the same luminous object in some medium or upon some reflectent superficies in the other And to confirm this if a white paper be set standing hollow before the glass like half a hollow pillar whose flats stands edgeways towards the glass so as both the edges may be seen through it the further edge will seem blew and the nearer will be red and the like will happen if the paper be held in the free air parallel to the lower superficies of the glass without any black carpet to limit both ends of it which serves to make the colours the smarter So that in both cases the air serves manifestly for a black in the first between the two white edges and in the second limiting the two white ends and by consequence the air about the candle must likewise serve for two blacks including the light candle between them Several other delightful experiments of luminous colour I might produce to confirm the grounds I have laid for the nature and making of them But I conceive these I have mention'd are abundantly enough for the end I propose to my self Therfore I will take my leave of this subtle and nice subject referring my Reader if he be curious to entertain himself with a full variety of such shining wonders to our ingenious Countreyman and my worthy friend Mr. Hall who at my last being at Liege shew'd me there most of the experiences I have mention'd together with several other very fine and remarkable curiosities concerning light which he promised me he would shortly publish in a work that he had already cast and almost finished upon that svbject And in it I doubt not but He will give entire satisfaction to all the doubts and Problems that may occur in this subject wheras my little exercise formerly in making experiments of this kind and my less conveniency of attempting any now makes me content my self with thus spining a course thred from wooll carded me by others that may run through the whole doctrine of colours whose causes have hitherto been so much admired and that it will do so I am strongly perswaded both because if I look upon the causes which I have assigned à prirori me thinks they appear very agreeable to nature and to reason and if I apply them to the several Phenomens which Mr. Hall shew'd me and to as many others as I have otherwise met with I find they agree exactly with them and render a full account of them And thus you have the whole nature of luminous colours resolv'd into the mixion of light and darkness by the due ordering of which who have skil therin may produce any middle colour he please as I my self have seen the experience of infinite changes in such sort made so that it seems to me nothing can be more manifest then that luminous colours are generated in the way here deliver'd Of which how that gentle and obedient Philosophy of Qualities readily obedient to what hard task soever you assign it will render a rational account and what discreet vertue it will give the same things to produce different colours and maked different appearances meerly by such nice changes of situation I do not well understand But peradventure the Patrones of it may say that every such circumstance is a Conditio sine qua non and therwith no doubt their Auditors will be much the wiser in comprehending the particular nature of light and of the colours that have their origine from it The Rainbow for whose sake most men handle this matter of luminous colours is generated in the first of the two ways we have deliver'd for the production of such colours and hath its origine from refraction when the eye being at a convenient distance from the refracting body looks upon it to discern what apears in it The speculation of which may be found in that excellent discourse of Mounsir des Cartes which is the sixth of his Meteors where he hath with great accurateness deliver'd a most ingenious doctrine of this mystery had not his bad chance of missing in a former principle as I conceive somwhat obscured it For he there gives the cause so neat and so justly calculated to the apearances as no man can doubt but that he hath found out the true reason of this wonder of nature which hath perplex'd so many great wits as may almost be seen with our very eyes when looking upon the fresh dew in a Sunshiny morning we may in due positions perceive the Rainbow colours not three yards distant from us in which we may distinguish even single drops with their effects But he having deterned the nature of light to consist in motion and proceeding consequently concludes colours to be but certain kinds of motion by which I fear it is impossible that any good account should be given of the experiences we see But what we have already said in that point I conceive is sufficient to give the Reader satisfaction therin and to secure him that the generation of the colours in the Rain-bow as well as all other colours is reduced to the mingling of light and darkness which is our principal intent to prove Adding therto by way of advertisement for others whose leisure may permit them to make use thereof that who shall ballance the proportions of luminous colours may peradventure make himself a step to judg of the natures of those bodes which really and constantly wear like dyes for the figures of the least parts of such bodies joyntly with the connexion or mingling of them with pores must of necessity be that which makes them reflect light to our eyes in such proportions as the luminous colours of their tincture and semblance do For two things are to be consider'd in bodies in order to reflecting of light either the extancies and cavities of them or their hardness and softness As for the first the proportions of light mingled with darkness will be varied according as the extancies or the cavities exceed and as each of them is great or small since cavities have the nature of darkness in respect
that the effect which we call pain is nothing else but a compression For although this solution of continuity may seem to be a dilatation yet in truth it is a compression in the part where the evil is which happens to it in the same manner as we shew'd when we spoke of the motion of Restitution it doth to stiff bodies that by violence are compress'd and drawn into a lesse capacious figure than their nature affects and return into their own state as soon as the mastring violence leaves them at liberty Pleasure therfore must be contrary to this and consist in a moderate dilatation for an immoderate one would cause a compression in some adherent parts and there would become pain And conformable to this we experience that generally they are hard things which breed pain to us and those which breed pleasure are oily and soft as meats and odours which are sweet to the taste and smell and soft substances which are grateful to the touch the excess of all which proves offensive and painful so that from the extremity of pleasure one enters presently upon the confines of pain Now then let us consider how the little similitudes of bodies which from without come into the fantasy must of necessity work there according to their little power effects proportionable to what they wrought first in the outward senses from whence they were convey'd to the brain For the senses that is the nervs and the Septum lucidum having both of them their origin from the very substance of the brain and differing only in degrees of purity and refinement the same object must needs work like effects in both compressing or dilating them proportionaby to one another Which compression or dilatation is not pain or pleasure as it is in the outward sense but as it is reported to the heart and that being the seat of all pains or pleasures wrought in other parts and that as it were dies them into those qualities is not capable of feeling either it self so that the strokes of any little similitudes upon the fantasie make only compressions or dilatations there not pains or pleasures Now these bodies or similitudes if they be reverberated from the fantasie or Septum Lucidum upon the little roots of the nervs of the fixt couple which go to the heart must needs work there a proportionable impression to what they wrought upon the fansie either compressing or dilating it and the heart being extremely passive by reason of its exceeding tenderness and heat cannot choose but change its motion at least in part if not in whole and this with relation to two causes one the disposition of the heart it self the other the vehemency of the stroke This change of motion and different beating of the heat is that which properly is called Passion and is ever accompanied with pleasure or with grief according to the nature of the impression that either contracts or dilates the heart and the spirits about it and is discovered by the beating of the arteries and of the pulse Conformable wherunto Physicians tell us that every passion hath a distinct pulse The pulses are divided in common by abundance or by want of spirits yet it both kinds they may have common disferences for in abundance the pulse may be quick or slow regular or irregular equal or unequal and the like may happen in defect of spirits according to the motions of the heart which are their causes Again the object by being present or further off makes the stroke greater or lesser and accordingly varies the motion of the heart Let us then call to mind how we have formerly declared that life consists in heat and humidity and that these two join'd together make a thing great and we may conclude that of necessity the motion which is most lively must have a great full and large stroke like the even rolling waves of a wide and smooth sea and not too quick or smart like the breaches of a narrow Fretum agitated by tempestuous winds From this other motions may vary either by excess or by deficiency the first makes the stroke become smart violent and thick the other slackens it and makes it grow little slow weak and thin or seldom And if we look into the motions of our heart we shall see these three differences of them follow three several chief passions The first follows the passion of Joy the second the passion of Anger and the third the passion of Grief Nor need we look any further into the causes of the several motions for we see that Joy and Grief following the stroke of sense the one of them must consist in an oily dilatation that is the spirits about the heart must be dilated by a gentle large great and sweet motion in a moderation between velocity and slowness the other contrariwise following the stroke of sense in pain as the first did in pleasure must contract the spirits and consequently make their motion or stroke become little and deficient from all the properties we have above set down As for Anger the motion following that passion is when the abundance of spirits in the heart is a little check'd by the contrary stroke of sense but presently overcomes that opposition and then as we see a hinder'd water or a man that suddainly or forcibly brake through what withstood their motion go on with a greater violence than they did and as it were precipitately so the heart having overcome the contraction which the sense made in it dilates it self with a fury and makes its motion smart and vehement Whence also it follows that the spirits grow hotter than they were and accordingly it is often seen that in the scoulding of a woman and in the irritation of a dog if ever now and then one thwart them and interpose a little opposition their fury will be so sharpned and heightned that the woman will be transported beyond all limits of reason and the dog will be made mad with nothing else done to him but angring him at convenient times and some men likewise have by slight oppositions iterated speedily upon them before their spirits could relent their vehement motion and therfore must still encrease it been angred into feavors This passion of Anger seems almost to be solitary on the side of excess beyond joy which is as it were the standard and perfection of all passions as light or whiteness is of all colours but on the other side of deficiency there are several middle passions which participate more or less of joy and grief As particularly those two famous ones which govern mans life Hope and Fear Concerning which Physicians tell us that the pulse or beating of Fear is quick hard and unequal to which I conceive we may safely add that it must also be small and feeble the perfection of joy decreasing in it on one side to wit from greatness and largeness but not intirely so that a kind of quickness supplies
the spirits according to the condition they are in so as the passages which are ajusted to one kind of spirits will not admit any of another nature orelse the first motions of liking or disliking in the heart which as we have said cause a swelling or a contradiction of it against this or that part stops and hinders the entrance of the spirits into some sinews and opens others and drives the spirits into them so as in the end by a result of a chain of swellings and contractions of several parts successively one against another the due motions of prosecution or aversion are brought about As for example an object that affects the heart with liking by dilating the spirits about the heart sends some into the optick nervs and makes the living creature turn his eye towards it and keep it steady upon what he desires as contrariwise if he dislike and fear it he naturally turns his eye and head from it Now of this motion of the eye and head may depend the running to the thing in one case and the running from it in the other for the turning of the neck one way may open a passage for the spirits into those sinews which carry the rest of the body towards the object and the turning of it to the other side may open other sinews which shall work a contrary effect and carry the animal from the object And the moving of those sinews which at first turn the neck proceeds from the quality and number of the spirits that ascend from the heart and from the region of the heart whence they are sent according to the variety wherof there are divers sinews fitted to receive them To make up which discourse we call to mind what we have said a little above concerning the motions caused in the external parts of the body by passion moving within as when Fear mingled with hope gives a motion to the legs Anger to the arms and hands and all the rest of the body as wel as to the legs all of them an attention in the outward senses which neverthelessperverts every one of their functions if the passion be in extremity And then surely we may satisfie our selves that either this or some way like it which I leave to the curious in Anatomy to settle with exactness for 't is enough for my intent to shew in gross how these operations may be done without calling in some incomprehensible qualities to our aid is the course of nature in motions where no other cause intervenes besides the object working upon the sense which all the while it doth it is the office of the eye of fantasie or common sense to lie ever open still watching to observe what warnings the outward senses send to him that accordingly he may direct and chang the motions of the heart and whole body But if the object make violent impressions upon the sense and the heart being then vehemently moved therupon send abundance of spirits up to the brain this multitude of spirits thronging upon the common sense oppresses it as we have already said in such sort that the notice which the sense gives of particular circumstances cannot prevail to any effect in the brain and thus by the misguidance of the heart the work of nature is disordered Which when it happens we express in short by saying that Passion blinds the creature in whom such violent and disorderly motions have course for Passion is nothing else but a Motion of the Bloud and Spirits about the Heart and is the preparation or beginning of the Animals working as we have above particularly displai'd And thus you see in common how the circuit is made from the Object to the Sense and from it by the Common sense and Fantasie to the Heart and from the heart back again to the brain which then sets on work those Organs or parts the animal is to make use of in that occasion and they either bring him to or carry him from the object that at the first caused all this motion and in the end becomes the period of it CHAP. XXXVI Of some actions of Beasts that seem formal acts of reason as doubting resolving inventing IN the last Chapter the foundations are laid and the way is opened for discovering how all operations which proceed from nature and passion are perform'd among living creatures and therfore I conceive I have therby sufficiently compli'd with the obligation of my intention which is but to express and shew in common how all the actions of sensible bodies may be reduced to local motion and material application of one body to another in a like manner though in a different degree as those motions which we see in lifeless bodies Yet because among such animals as pass for irrational there happen some operations of so admirable a strain as resemble very much the higest effects which proceed from a man I think it not a miss to give some further light by extending my discourse to some more particulars than hitherto I have done wherby the course and way how they are performed may be more clearly and easily look'd into And the rather because I have met with some men who either wanting patience to bestow on thoughts of this kind so much time as is necessary for the due scanning of them or else through a promptitude of nature passing swiftly from the effect they look upon in gross to the most obvious seeming cause suddenly and strongly resolve that beasts use discourse upon occasions and are endued with reason Yet I intend not here to run through all the several species of their operations for that were to write the history of every particular animal but will content my self with touching the causes in common yet in such sort that the indifferent Reader may be satisfied of a possibility that these effects may proceed from material causes and that I have pointed out the way to those who are more curious and have the patience and leasure to observe diligently what passes among beasts how they may trace these effects from step to step till at length they discover their true causes To begin then I concieve we may reduce all those actions of Beasts which seem admirable and above the reach of an irrational animal to three or four several heads The first may be of such as seem to be the very practice of reason as doubting resolving inventing and the like The next shall be of such as by docility or practice beasts oftentimes arrive to In the third place we will consider certain continuate actions of a long tract of time so orderly perform'd by them as that discourse and rational knowledge seem clearly to shine through them And lastly we will cast our eye upon some others which seem to be even above the reason that is in man himself as the knowing of things which the sense never had impression of before a prescience of future events providences and the like As for
I am obliged to make plain but the latter concerns this Treatise no more than it would do a man to enquire anxiously into the particulars of what it is that a beast is doing whiles looking upon it at a great distance he perceivs plainly that it moves it self and his errant is but to be assured whether it be alive or dead which the moving of it self in common sufficiently demonstrates without descending into a particular search of what his motions are But let us come to the matter First I conceive no man will make any difficulty in allowing that it is the temper of the blood and spirits in Birds brought therto by the quality of their food and the season of the year which makes them couple with one another and not any aim or desire of having young ones that occasions this action in them Then it follows that the Hens eggs will encrease in her belly and when they grow big they cannot choose but be troublesome unto her and therfore must of necessity breed in her an inclination to rest in some soft place and to be rid of them And as we see a Dog or a Cat press'd by nature searches about to find a convenient place to disburthen themselvs in not only of their young ones but even of their excrements so do Birds whose eggs within them making them heavy and unfit to flie they begin to sit much and are pleas'd in a soft and warm place and thereupon are delighted with straws and mosse and other gentle substances and so carry them to their sitting place Which that they do not by design is evident by the manner of it for when they have met with a straw or other fit material they flie not with it directly to their nest but first to a bough of some tree or to the top of a house and there they hop and dance a while with it in their beaks and from thence skip to another place where they entertain themselvs in like manner and at last they get to their nest Where if the straws should lie confusedly their ends would prick and hurt them and therfore they turn and alter their positions till they lie smooth which we that look upon the effect and compare them with our performing of like actions if we had occasion may call a judicious ordering of them wheras in them it is nothing but removing such things as press upon their sense till they cause them no more pain or unquierness Their plaistering of their nests may be attributed to the great heat reigning in them at that time which makes them still be dabling in moist clay and water and gravel without which all birds will soon grow sick blind and at length die which for the coolness of it they bring home to their nests in their beaks and upon their feet and when it grows dry and consequently troublesome to them they wipe it off and rub their dirty parts upon the place where they use to sit and then flie for more to refresh themselvs with Out of all which actions set on foot by the wise orderer of nature to compass a remote end quite different from the immediate end that every one of them is done for there results a fit and convenient place for these little builders that know not what they do whiles they build themselvs houses to lie and lay their eggs in which the next year when the like occasion occurrs they build again peradventure then as much through memory of the former as upon their temper and other circumstances moving their fantasy so as we have set down In like manner that whiles the Halcyon layes and hatches her eggs the Sea is calm needs no more be attributed to the wisdom and providence of that bird in choosing a fit season than to any good nature or discourse in that rouling and merciless Element as though it had a pious care of preserving the eggs committed to his trust no such supplements are requisite to be added to the distributions of nature who hath set material causes on foot to produce a conjuncture of both those effects at the same period of time for the propagation of this animal's species In fine both the time and place of the Halcyon's breeding and the manner and order and season of all birds making their nests proceeds from secret motions which require great observing and attention to understand them and serve for directions to every bird according to her kind to make her nest fittest for her use Which secret motions we cannot doubt but are material ones and aâ—se out of the constitution and temper of their bodies and spirits which in like circumstances are alike in them all for all the birds of one kind make their nests exactly alike Which they would not do if this work proceeded from reason in them and were govern'd by their own election and design as we see it happen among men upon all occasions either of building houses or of making clothes or of what action soever is guided by their reason governing their fantasy in all which we see so great variety and inconstancy Therfore this invariability in the birds operations must proceed from a higher intellect that hath determinately and precisely ordered a complex or assembly of sundry causes to meet infallibly and by necessity for the production of an effect he hath designed and so the birds are but material instruments to perform without their knowledg or reflexion a superiour reason's counsels even as in a clock that is composed of several pieces and wheels all the parts conspire to give notice of the several effluxes and periods of time which the maker hath order'd it for And though this be a work of reason and discourse in him that set it together yet the instrumental performance of it depends meerly of local motion and the revolutions of bodies so orderly proportion'd to one another that their effects cannot fail when once the engine is wound up In like manner then the Bird is the engine of the Artificer infinitely more perfect and knowing and dexterous than a poor clock-maker and the plummets which make it go are the row and order of causes chain'd together which by the design of the supream workman bring to pass such effects as we see in the building of their nests and in doing such other actions as may be compared to the strikings of the clock and the ringing of the alarm at due times And as that King of Claina upon his first seeing a Watch thought it a living and judicious creature because it moved so regularly of it self and believ'd it to be dead when it was run out till the opening and winding it up discover'd to him the artifice of it So any man may be excused that looking upon these strange actions and this admirable oeconomy of some living creatures should believe them endew'd with reason till he have well reflected upon every particular circumstance of their nature and operations for
man were nourish'd continually with such meat and greedily affected it which another had aversion from there would naturally follow much dislike between them unless some superiour regard should master this aversion of the sense And I remember to have seen two notable examples of it One in Spain of a Gentleman that had a horrour to Garlike who though he was very subject to the impressions of beauty could never wean himself from an aversion he had setled in him to a very handsome woman that used to eat much Garlike though to win him she forbore the use of that meat which to her was the most savoury of all others And the like I knew in England between two whereof one extremely loved Cheese and the other as much hated it and would fall into a strange agony and be reduced one would think to the point of death if by inadvertency or others trial of him he had swallow'd never so little of what the other would have quitted all meats else to live upon And not only such aversions as spring from differences of complexions in the constitutions of several animals cause these effects of fear and trembling and flying from those that make such impressions but even the seeing them angry and in fury doth the like for such passions alters the spirits and they issuing from the body of the animal in passion cannot choose but be receiv'd by another in a different manner than if they were of another temper Then if the one kind be agreeable to their nature the other must needs be displeasing And this may be the reason why Bees never sting such as are of a milde and gentle disposition and will never agree with others that are of a froward and angry nature And the same one may observe among Dogs And peradventure a mans fantasie may be raised to such a height of fury that the fiercest beast may be afraid to look on him and cannot endure that those mastering spirits which stream out of the mans eye should come into his so much they distemper his fantasie and therfore he will turn away from the man and avoid him Which discourse may be confirm'd by sundry examples of Lions and Bears that have run from angry and confident men and the like Since then a man that in his naturall hew gives no distast so much affrights fiercest beasts when he puts on his threatning looks 't is no wonder that beasts of a milder and softer nature should have fear of him setled in them when they never saw him otherwise than angry and working mischief to them And since their brood receive from their parents a nature easily moved to fear or anger by the sight of what moved them 't is not strange that at the first sight they should tremble or swell according as the inward wotion of the spirits affords Now if this hath render'd the Birds in the wild Islands afraid of men who otherwise would be indifferent to them 't is no marvel to see more violent effects in the Lambs aversion from the Wolf or in the Larks from the Hobbey since they peradventure have over and above the hurt they use to do them a deformity in their constitutions and therfore though a Lark will flie as well from a man as from a Hobbey yet because there is one cause more for his dislike against the Hobbey than against the man namely the deformity of their constitutions he will flie into the mans hand to avoid the Hawks talons To some of these causes all Antipathies may be reduced and the like reason may be given for the Sympathies we see between some creatures The little corporeities which issue from the one have such a conformity with the temper of the other that it is therby moved to joyn it self to the body from whence they flow and affects union with it in that way as it receives the impression If the smell please it the beast will always be smelling at it if the tast nothing shall hinder it from feeding upon it when it can reach it The Fishermen upon the bank over against Newfound Land report that there flocks about them a kind of Bird so greedy of the Fishes livers which they take there as that to come at and feed on them they will suffer the men to take them in their hands and not flie away as long as any of their desired meat is in their eye whence the French-men that fish there call them Happe Foyes. The like power a certain Worm has with Nightingales And thus you see how they are strong impressions upon sense and not any discouse of reason that govern Beasts in their actions For if their avoiding men did proceed from any sâ—gacity in their nature surely they would exercise it when they see that for a bit of meat they incur their destruction and yet neither the examples of their fellows kill'd before their eyes in the same pursuit not the blows which themselvs do feel can serve them for warning where the sense is so strongly affected but as soon as the blow that removed them is passed if it miss killing or laming them and they be gotten on wing again they 'l return to their prey as eagerly and as confidently as if nothing were there to hinder them This then being the true reason of all Sympathy and Antipathy we cannot admit that any Beasts should love or hate one another for any other cause than some of those we have touched All which are reduced to local motion and to material application of bodies of one nature to bodies of another and are as well trasmitted to their young ones as begotten in themselvs And as the satisfying of their sense is more prevalent in the Happe Foyes than the fear which from other grounds is begotten in their fantasy and so makes them approach to what the other would drive them from In like manner any aversion of the fantasy may be master'd not only by a more powerful agent upon the present sense but also by assuefaction and bringing into the fantasy with pleasing circumstances that object which before was displeasing and affrightful to it As we see that all sorts of Beasts or Birds if they be taken young may be â—amed and will live quietly together Dogs that are used to hunt and kill Deer will live friendly with one that is bred with them and that Fawn which otherwise would have bin afraid of them by such education grows confident and plays boldly with them Of which we can no longer remain in doubt if we will believe the story of a Tyger accounted the cruellest beast of all others who being shut up with a Deer that had bin bred with him from a Kid and from his being a Whelp and no meat given him used means to break prison when he was half starved rather than he would hurt his familiar friend You will not suspect that it was a moral consideration which made him so kind but the Deer
feel it and that the Air being changed by the forerunners of worse weather works upon the crasiest parts of our body when the others feel not so small a change So beasts are more sensible than we for they have less to distract them of the first degrees of a changing weather and that mutation of the air without them makes some change within them which they express by some outward actions or gestures Now they who observe how such mutations and actions are constantly in them before such or such weather think they know beforehand that rain for example or wind or drought is coming according to the several signs they have mark'd in them Which proceeds out of the narrowness of their discourse that makes them resort to the same causes when ever they meet with like effects and so they conceive that things must needs pass in Beasts after the same tenour as they do in men And this is a general and main errour runing through all the conceptions of mankind unless great heed be taken to prevent it that what subject soever they speculate on whether it be of substances that have a superiour nature to theirs or of creatures inferiour to them they are still apt to bring them to their own standard and to frame such conceptions of them as they would do of themselvs As when they will have Angels discourse and move and be in place in such sort as is natural to men or when they will have beasts ratiocinate and understand upon their observing some orderly actions perform'd by them which in men would proceed from discourse and reason And this dangerous Rock against which many fine conceptions suffer shipwrack whoever studies truth must have a main caution to avoid Sed nos immensum spatiis confecimus aequor Et jam tempus equum fumantia solvere colle CONCLVSION THus at last by Gods assistance we have climb'd up to the top of the Hill from whence looking down over the whole region of bodies we may delight our selvs with seeing what a height the weary steps we ascended by have brought us to 'T is true the path we have walk'd in is of late so untrodden and so overgrown with briars as it hath not been without much labour that we have made our way through And peradventure it may seem toilsome to others to follow us especially such as are not much enured to like journeys but I hope the fruit which both we and they are now arrived to gather of our pains in this general view we have taken of the Empire of matter and of corporeal agents is such as none of us hath reason to be ill satisfied with the imploying of them For what can more powerfully delight or more nobly entertain an understanding soul than the search and discovery of those works of nature which being in their effects so plainly exposed to our eyes are in their causes so abstruâ—e and hidden from our comprehension as through despair of success they deter most men from enquiring into them And I am perswaded that by this summary discourse short indeed in regard of so large a scope how ever my lame expressions may peradventure make it appear tedious it appears evidently that none of natures greatest secrets wherof our senses give us notice in the effects are so overshaded with an impenetrable veil but that the diligent and wary hand of reason might unmask and shew them to us in their naked and genuine forms and delight us with the contemplation of their native beauties if we had as much care and constancy in the pursuit of them as we daily see men have in heaping up wealth or in striving to satisfie their boundless ambitions or in making their senses swim in the muddy lake of base and contemptible pleasures For who shall throughly consider and weigh what we have hitherto said will plainly see a continual and orderly progress from the simplest highest and most common conception that we frame of a Body in general to the furthest and most abstruse effects that in particular are to be found in any Body whatever I mean any that is meerly corporeal without mixture of a nobler nature for hitherto we have not moved nor so much as look'd out of that Orb. He shall find one continued thread spun out from the begining to the end He will see that the various twisting of the two species of Bodies Rare and Dense make the yarn of which all things and actions within the sphere of matter are woven And though peradventure in the drawing out of the thread there may be some little bracks or the stuff made of it be not every where so close wrought as a better workman at more leisure might have done yet truly I believe that the very consent of things throughout is such as demonstrates that the main contexture of the doctrine I have here touch'd is beyond quarreling at It may well be that in sundry particulars I have not lighted on exact truth and I am so far from maintaining peremptorily any thing I have here said as I shall most readily hearken to whatever shall be objected against it and be as ready upon cause to desert my own opinions and yield to better Reason But withal I conceive that as the failing of a brick here and there in the rearing of the walls of a house doth nothing at all prejudice the strength and security of the fabrick no more I hope will the slight escapes which so difficult a task as this is subject to endamage or weaken the main body of what I have here deliver'd I have not yet seen any piece upon this subject made up with this method begining from the simplest and plainest notions and composing them orderly till all the principal variety which their nature is capable of be gone through and therfore it cannot be expected but the first model of this kind and moulded by one distracted with continual thoughts of a much different strain and whose exercise as well as profession hath allow'd him but little commerce with books and study must needs be very rough hew'd and require a great deal of polishing Which whoever shall do and be as exact and orderly in treating of Philosophy and Theology as Mathematicians are in delivering their Sciences I assure my self that Demonstrations might be made and would proceed in them as currently and the conclusions be as certain and full as in the Mathematicks themselves But that is not all these Demonstrations would have the odds exceedingly of the other and be to us inestimably more advantagious for out of them spring much higher and nobler effects for mans use and life than out of any Mathematical ones Especially when they extend themselvs to the government of Man as Man which is an art as far beyond all the rules of Physick or other government of our Body or Temporal goods as the End is beyond the Means we employ to gain it for all the others but serve instrumentally to
this end That we may live well wheras these immediately teach it These are the fruits in general that I hope may in some measure grow out of this discourse in the hands of equal and judicious Readers but the particular aim of it is to shew what actions can proceed from a Body and what cannot In the conduct wherof one of our chief endeavours has been to shew that those actions which seem to draw strongly into the order of bodies the unknown nature of certain Entities named Qualities either do or may proceed from the same causes which produce those known effects that all sides agree do not stand in need of any such mystical Phylosophy And this being the main hinge upon which hangs and moves the full and clear resolving of onr main and great question Of the immortallity of the Soul I assure my self the pains I have taken in this particular will not be deem'd superfluous or tedious and withall I hope I have employ'd th'em with so good succes as henceforward we shall not be any more troubled with objections drawn from their hidden and incomprehensible nature and that we stand upon even ground with those of the cnotrary opinion for since we have shew d how all actions may be perform'd among Bodies without having any recourse to such Entities and Qualities as they pretend and paint out to us 't is now their parts if they will have them admitted to prove that in nature there are such Having then brought the Phylosophy of Bodies to these terms that which remains for us to perform is to shew that those actions of our Souls for which we call her a Spirit are of such a nature as cannot be reduced to those principles by which all corporeal actions are effected For the proof of our original intent no more than this can be exacted at our hands so that if our positive proofs shall carry us yet beyond this it cannot be denyd but that we give over-measure and illustrate with a greater light what is already sufficiently discerned In our proceeding we have nature preceding as for laying for our ground the natural conceptions which mankind makes of Quantity we find that a Body is a meer passive thing consisting of divers parts which by motion may be diversly ordered and consequently that it is capable of no other change or operation than such as Motion may produce by various ordering the divers parts of it And then seeing that Rare and Dense is the primary and adequate division of Bodies it follows evidently that what cannot be effected by the various disposition of rare and dense parts cannot proceed or be effected by a pure body And consequently it will be sufficient for us to shew that the Motions of our Soules are such And they who will not agree to this conclusion must take upon them to shew that our first premise is defective by proving that other unknown ways are necessary for bodies to be wrought on or work by and that the motion and various ordering of rare and dense parts in them is not cause sufficient for the effects we see among them Which whoever shall attempt to do must remember he has this disadvantage before he begins that whatever has been hitherto discover'd 〈◊〉 the science of Bodies by the help either of Mathematicks or Physicks has all been resolvd and faln into this way which we declare Here I should set a period to all further discourse conceurning this first Treatise of Bodies did not I apprehend that the prejudice of Aristotle's Authority may dispose many to a harsh conceit of the draught we have made But if they knew how little reason they have to urge that against us they would not cry us down for contradicting that Oracle of nature not only because he himself both by word and example exhorts us when verity leads us another way to forsake the tracts which our Forefathers have beaten for us so we do it with respect and gratitude for the much they have left us nor yet because Christian Religion as it will not hear of any man purely such free from sin so it inclines to perswade us that no man can be exempt from errour and therfore it savours not well to defend peremptorily any mans sayings especially if they be many as uncontroulable howbeit I intend not to prejudice any person that to defend a worthy Authors honour shall indeavour to vindicate him from absurdities and gross errors nor lastly because it ever hath been the common practice of all grave Peripateticks and Thomists to leave their Masters some in one article some in another But indeed because the very truth is that the way we take is directly the same solid way which Aristotle walked in before us and they who are scandalised at us for leaving him are exceedingly mistaken in the matter and out of the sound of his words not rightly understood frame a wrong sense of the doctrine he hath left us which generally we follow Let any unpartial Aristotelian answer whether the conceptions we have delivered of Quantity of Rarity and Density of the four first Qualities of the combinations of the Elements of the repugnance of vacuities be not exactly and rigorously Aristotles Whether the motion of weighty and light things and of such as are forced be not by him as well as by us attributed to extern causes In which all the difference between us is that we enlarge our selvs to more particulars than he hath done Let any man read his Books of Generation and Corruption and say whether he doth not expresly teach that Mixtion which he delivers to be the generation or making of a mixt body is done por minima that is in our language and in one word by Atomes signifies that all the qualities which are natural ones following the composition of the Elements are made by the mingling of the least parts or atomes of the said Elements which is in effect to say that all the Nature of Bodies their Qualities and their Operations are compassed by the mingling of atomes the shewing and explicating of which hath been our labour in this whole Treatise Let him read his Books of Meteors and judg whether he doth not give the causes of all the effects he treats of there by mingling and separating of great and little gross and subtile fiery and watery aiery and earthy parts just as we do The same he doth in his Problems and in his Perva naturalia and in all other places wherever he hath occasion to render Physically the causes of Physical effects The same do Hippocrates and Galen the same their Master Democritus and with them the best sort of Physicians The same do Alchymists with their Master Geber whose Maxime to this purpose we cited above the same do all natural Philosophers either antient Commentators on Aristotle or modern enquirers into natural effects in a sensible and understandable way as who will take the paines to look into them will
Which being so no body can quarrel with us for Aristotle's sake who as he was the greatest Logician and Metaphysician and universal Scholar peradventure that ever lived and so highly esteem'd that the good turn which Sylla did the world in saving his works was thought to recompence his many outragious cruelties and tyranny so his name must never be mention'd among Scholars but with reverence for his unparalleld'd worth and with gratitude for the large stock of knowledge he hath enriched us with Yet withal we are to consider that since his reign was but at the beginning of Sciences he could not choose but have some defects and shortnesses among his many great and admirable perfections SECOND TREATISE DECLARING THE NATURE AND OPERATIONS OF MANS SOUL OUT OF WHICH THE IMMORTALITY OF REASONABLE SOULS IS CONVINCED LONDON Printed in the Year 1669. PREFACE 'T Is now high time for us to cast an Eye on the other Leaf of our Accounts or peradventure I may more properly say to fall to the perusal of our own accounts for hitherto our time and pains have been taken up in examining and casting the accounts of others to the end that from the Foot and Total of them we may drive on our own the more smoothly In ours then we shall meet with a new Capital we shall discover a new World of a quite different strain and nature from that which all this while we have imploy'd our selves about We will enter into them with taking a survey of the great Master of all that large Family we have so summarily view'd I mean of Man as Man that is not as he is subject to those Laws wherby other bodies are govern'd for therin he hath no preeminence to raise him out of their throng but as he exceeds the rest of Creatures subject to his managing and rules over nature her self making her serve his designes and subjecting her noblest powers to his Laws and is distinguish'd from all other creatures whatever To the end we may discover whether that principle in him from whence those actions proceed which are properly his be but some refined composition of the same kind we have already treated of or whether it derives its Sourse and Origine from some higher Spring and Stock and be of a quite different nature Having then by our former Treatise master'd the oppositions which else would have taken arms against us when we should have been in the midst of our edifice and clear'd the objections which lay in our way from the perverse Qualities of the Souls Neighbours the several Common-wealths of Bodies we must now begin with David to gather together our Materials and take a survey of our own provisions that so we may proceed with Solomon to the sacred building of Gods Temple But before we go about it it will not be amiss that we shew the reason why we have made our Porch so great and added so long an entry that the house is not likely to have therto a correspondent bulk and when the necessity of doing so shall appear I hope my pains will meet with a favourable censure and receive a fair admittance We proposed to our selves to shew That our Souls are immortal wherupon casting about to find the grounds of Immortality and discerning it to be a negative we conceiv'd that we ought to begin our search with enquiring what Mortality is and what be the causes of it Which when we should have discover'd and brought the Soul to their test if we found they trench'd not upon her nor any way concern'd her condition we might safely conclude that of necessity she must be immortal Looking then into the causes of mortality we saw that all Bodies round about us were Mortal whence perceiving that Mortality extended it self as far corporeity we found our selvs obliged if we would free the Soul from that Law to shew that she is not corporeal This could not be done without enquiring what corporeity was Now it being a rule among Logicians that a definition cannot be good unless it comprehend and reach to every particular of that which is defined we perceiv'd it impossible to know compleatly what a Body is without taking a general view of all those things which we comprise under the name and meaning of Bodies This is the cause we spent so much time in the First Treatise and I hope to good purpose for there we found that the nature of a Body consisted in being made of parts that all the Differences of Bodies are reduced to having more or less parts in comparison to their substance thus and thus order'd and lastly that all their operations are nothing else but Local Motions which follows naturally out of having parts So as it appears evidently from hence that if any thing have a being and yet have no parts it is not a body but a substance of another quality and condition and consequently if we can find the Soul's being to be without parts and that her operations are no local translation we evidently conclude her to be an immaterial or spiritual substance Peradventure it may be objected that all this might have been done a much more shorter way than we have taken and that we needed not have branc'd our discourse into so many particulars nor driven them so home as we have done but might have taken out our first rise from this ground which is as evident as light of reason can make it that seeing we know bigness and a body to be one and the same as well in the notion as in the thing it must of necessity follow that what hath not parts nor works nor is wrought upon by Division is not a Body I confess this Objection appears very reasonable and the consideration of it weigh'd so much with me as were all men of a free judgment and not imbued with artificial errours I would for its sake have saved my self a great deal of pains but I find as in the former Treatise I have frequently complain'd that there is crept into the world a Fansy so contrary to this pregnant truth and that it is so deeply setled in many mens minds not of the meanest note as all we have said is peradventure too little to root it out If any satisfied with the rational Maxime we even now mentioned therfore not deeming it needful to employ his time in reading the former Treatise should wish to know how this is come to pass I shall here represent to to him the Summe of what I have more at large scatter'd in several places of the former Treatise And shall intreat him to consider how Nature teaches us to call the Proprieties of things wherby one is distinguished from another the Qualities of those things and that according to their varieties they have divers names suited out to divers of them some being called Habits others Powers and others by other names Now what Aristotle and the Learned Grecians meant by these things is clear by the examples
judgment can acquire no denomination of perfection or deficiency from length or shortness for they belong originally to the matter of the judgment and the judgment must accordingly fit it self to that and therfore is liable neither to commendations nor reproach for being long or short It remains then that the vertue in judging answerable to the quantity of motion must consist in quickness and celerity and the contrary vice in slowness and heaviness As for order in the several parts of motion we know that if they be well order'd they are distinct and easily discernable which vertue in our subject is called clearness of judgment as the contrary vice is confusion CHAP. III. Of Discoursing IN the last Chapter we have shew'd how two Apprehensions joyn'd together make a Judgment How in this our first employment will be to shew how three of these thoughts or Judgments well chosen and duly order'd compose the first and most simple of perfect discourses which Logicians call a Syllogism whose end and effect is to gain the knowledge of somthing before hidden and unknown The means wherby this is compassed is thus By the two first Judgments we joyn the extremes of the proposition we desire to know to some third thing and then by seeing that they both are one third thing and that one can be but one we come to discern that truly one of them is the other which before we saw not So that the Identity which first made an Identical proposition be known and agreed to and afterwards caused the like assent to be yielded to those maximes whose Identification presently shew'd it self now by a little circuit and bringing in of a third term makes the two first whose Identification was hidden and obscure whiles we look'd upon the terms themselvs appear to be in very truth but one thing The various mingling and disposing of these three terms in the two first propositions begets a variety in the Syllogisms composed of them and it consists in this that the assumed term to which the other two are interchangably joyn'd is either said of them or they of it And from hence spring three different kinds of Syllogisms for either the assumed or middle term is said of both the other two or both they are said of it or it is said of one of them and the other is said of it Nither is there any deeper mystery than this in the three figures our great Clerks talk so much of which being brought into Rules to help our memory in the ready use of this transposition of the terms if we spin our thoughts upon them into over small threds and therof weave too intricate webs mean while not reflecting upon the solid ground within our selvs wheron these rules are built nor considering the true end why we may spend our time in trivial and useless subtilities and at length confound and misapply the right use of our natural discourse with a multitude of precepts drawn from artificial Logick But to return to our matter in hand Under this primary threefold variety is another of greater extent growing out of the divers composition of the three terms as they are qualifyed by affirmation or negation and by universality or particularity for that unity which the two terms whose Identification is enquired after must have by being joyn'd with the third becomes much varied by such divers application and from hence shoots up that multitude of kinds of Syllogisms which our Logicians call Moods All which I have thus particularly expressed to the end we may observe how this great variety hangs upon the sole string of Identity Now these Syllogisms being as it were interlaced and woven one within another so that many of them make a long chain wherof each is a link breed or rather are all the variety of mans life They are the steps by which we walk in all our conversations and businesses Man as Man doth nothing else but weave such chains whatever he doth swerving from this work he doth as deficient from the nature of man and if he do ought beyond this by breaking out into divers sorts of exteriour actions he findes nevertheless in this linked sequel of simple discourses the art the cause the rule the bounds and the model of it Let us take a summary view of the vast extent of it in what an immense Ocean one may securely sail by that never varying Compass when the needle is rightly touch'd and fitted to a well moulded box making still new discoveries of regions far out of the sight and belief of them who stand upon the hither shore Humane Operations are comprised under the two general heads of Knowledge and Action if we look but in gross upon what an infinity of divisions these branch themselvs into we shall become giddy our brains will turn our eyes grow weary and dim with aiming only at a suddain and roving measure of the most conspicuous among them in the way of knowledge We see what mighty works men have intended their labours to not only by wild discourses of which huge volums are composed but even in the rigorous method of Geometry Arithmetick and Algebra in which an Euclide an Apollonius an Archimedes a Diophantus and their followers have reach'd such admirable heights and have wound up such vast bottoms Somtimes shewing by effects that the thing proposed must needs be as they have set down and cannot possibly be any otherwise otherwhiles appaying the understanding which is never truly at rest till it hath found the Causes of the effects it sees by exposing how it comes to be so that the Reader calling to mind how such a thing was taught him before and now finding another unexpectedly convinced upon him easily sees that these two put together make and force that third to be wherof he was before in admiration how it could be effected which two ways of discourse are ordinarily known by the names of Demonstrations the one called a priori the other a posteriori Now if we look into the extent of the deductions outof these we shall find no end In the Heavens we may perceive Astronomy measuring whatever we can imagine and ordering those glorious lights which our Creatour hath hang'd out for us and shewing them their ways and picking out their paths and prescribing them for as many ages as he pleases before hand the various motions they may not swerve from in the least circumstance Nor want their Sublime Souls that tell us what metal they are made of what figures they have upon what pillars they are fixed upon what gimals they move and perform their various perious witness that excellent and admirable work I have so often mention'd in my former Treatise If we look upon the Earth we shal meet with those that will tell us how thick it is and how much room it takes up they will shew us how Men and Beasts are hang'd to it by the heels how the Water
else but various mixtures of light and of darkness in bodies our Discourse assures us that by several compoundings of these extreams Reds Blews Yellows Greens and all other intermediate colours may be generated accordingly we shall find in effect that by the several minglings of black and white bodies because they reflect or drown light most powerfully or by interweaving streams of pure light and shadows one with another we may procreate new colours in bodies and beget new luminous appearances to our eys So that hence it appears clearly that the same nature is in our Understanding and in the Things and that the same Ordering which in the one makes Science in the other causes natural transmutations Another reflexion which will be fit for us to make upon these long discourses is this that of necessity there must be a joyning of some things now actually in our knowledg to other things we think not of For it is manifest that we cannot at the same time actually think of a whole book of Euclide and yet to the due knowledg of some of the last Propositions the knowledg of almost all the former is required likewise it is impossible we should at the same time think of all the multitude of rules belonging to any Art as of Grammar of Metering of Architecture and yet when we write in Latine make a Poem or lay the design of a House we practise them whiles we think not of them and are assured we go not against them however we remember them not Nay even before we know a thing we seem to know it for since we can have a desire of nothing but of what we know how could we desire to know such or such a thing unless we know both it and the knowledg of it And for the most part we see a horse or man or herb or workmanship and by our sense have knowledg that such a thing it is before we know what or who or how it is That grows afterwards out of the diligent observation of what we see which is that wherby learned men differ from the unlearned For what strikes the sense is known alike by them both but then here is the difference between them the latter sort sits still with those notions that are made at first by the beating of our sense upon us without driving them any further and those that are learned resolve such compounded notions into others made by more common beatings and therfore more simple and this is all the odds in regard of knowledg that a Scholar has of an unletter'd man One observation more we will draw out of what we have said and then end this Chapter it is how a man oftentimes enquires among his own thoughts and turns up and down the images he hath in his head and beats his brains to call such things into his mind as are useful to him and are for the present out of his memory Which as we see so necessary that without it no matter of importance can be perform'd in the way of discourse wherof I my self have too frequent experience in writing this Treatise so on the other side we cannot perceive that any creature besides Man doth it of set purpose and formally as man doth CHAP. IV. How a man proceeds to Action HAving thus taken a summary view of the principal Qualities a man is endued with Apprehending Judging and Discoursing and shew'd how he is inrich'd in and by them with the natures of all things in the world it remains for our last work in this part to consider in what manner he makes use of this treasure in his ordinary Actions which 't is evident are of two different kinds and consequently have two several principles Understanding and Sense they sway by turns and somtimes joyn together to produce a mixed action of both If only Sense were the fountain from whence his actions spring we should observe no other strain in any of them than meerly that according to which Beasts perform theirs they would proceed evermore in a constant unvariable tenour according to the law of material things one body working upon another in such sort as we have declared in the former Treatise On the other side if a man were all Understanding and had not this bright lamp enclosed in a pitcher of clay the beams of it would shine without any allay of dimness thorough all he did and he could do nothing contrary to reason in pursuit of the highest end he hath prefix'd unto himself For he neither would nor could do any thing whatever till he had first consider'd all the particular circumstances that had relation to his action in hand and had then concluded that upon the whole matter at this time and in this place to attain this End 't is fitting and best to do thus or thus which conclusion could be no sooner made but the action would without any further disposition on his side immediately ensue agreeable to the principles it spring from Both parts of this assertion are manifest For the first 't is evident that whenever an Agent works by knowledge he is unresolved whether he shall work or not work as also of his manner of working till his knowledg that ought to direct and govern his working be perfect and complete but that cannot be as long as any circumstance not-as-yet consider'd may make it seem fit or unfit to proceed and therfore such actions as are done without exact consideration of every particular circumstance do not flow from a pure understanding From whence it follows that when an understanding is not satisfied of every particular circumstance and consequently cannot determine what he must immediately do but apprehends that some of the circumstances not-as-yet consider'd may or rather must change some part of his action he must of necessity be undetermin'd in respect of the immediate action and consequently must refrain absolutely from working The other part is clear to wit that when the understanding upon consideration of all circumstances knows absolutely what is best the action follows immediately as far as depends of the understanding without any further disposition on his behalf For since nothing but knowledge belongs to the understanding he who supposes all knowledg in it allows all that is requisite or possible for it to work by Now if all be put nothing is wanting that should cause it to work but where no cause is wanting but all requisite causes actually in being the effect must also actually be and follow immediately out of them and consequently the action is done in as much as concerns the understanding and indeed absolutely unless some other cause fail as soon as the understanding knows all the circumstances belonging to it So as it is manifest out of this whole discourse that if a man wrought only by his understanding all his actions would be discreet and rational in respect of the end he hath proposed to himself and till he were assured what were best he
assistance of the spirits which inhabit the brain now then it follows that if she have not the command of those spirits which flock thither she must of necessity be carried along by the stream of the greater and stronger multitude which in our case is the throng of those that are sent up into the brain by the desired object and they come thither so thick and so forcibly that they displace the others which fought under Reasons Standard Which if they do totally and excluding Reasons party entirely possess the fansie with their troops as in madness and extremity of sudden passion it happens then must Reason wholly follow their sway without any strugling at all against it for whatever beats on the fansie occasions her to work and therfore when nothing beats there but the messengers of some sensual object she can make no resistance to what they impose But if it happen that these tumultuary ones be not the only spirits which beat there but Reason hath likewise some under her jurisdiction which keep possession for her though they be too weak to turn the others out of doors then 't is true she can still direct fairly how in that case a man should govern himself but when he comes to execute he finds his sinews already possess'd and swel'd with the contrary spirits and they keeping out the smaller and weaker number which reason has rank'd in order and would furnish those parts with he is drawn even against his judgment and reason to obey their appetites and move himself in prosecution of what they propose experimenting in himself what the Poet expresses in Medea when she complain'd and bemoan'd her self in these words Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor And in this case a man foresees his misery all the way he rouls towards it and leaps into the precipice with his eyes open Which shews that the Army of thoughts on Reason's side should be increas'd in number to have her strong enough to wage battle with the rebellious adversary or else that her adversary should be so much weakned that she though not grown stronger in her self yet might through the others enfeebling beable to make her party good and hence is the use of corporeal Mortifications to subject our Passions to the command of Reason Even as when we see that when we are in health our arms and legs and all our limbs obey our will reaching what we command them and carrying us whither we desire because the spirits which are sent into them from our brain are strong enough to raise and move them as they are directed but if our sinews be so steep'd in some cold and watry humour that the spirits coming down find not means to swell and harden them well we may wish and strive but all in vain for we shall not be able to make them perform their due functions In like manner if Reason send her emissaries into the arm or leg or other member and no other spirits there strive against them then that limb is moved and govern'd absolutely according to her directions but if at the same time a greater multitude of others hinder Reasons servants from coming thither or flocking into other sinews carry that limb a contrary way in vain Reason strives to move them to her byas for those obeying parts must observe the rules which the violent conqueror prescribes CHAP. V. Containing proofs out of our Single Apprehensions that our Soul is Incorporeal AS in our First Treatise we dissected Nature and shew'd how out of the notion and first division of Quantity arises that vast multiplicity of things which filling this world falls under the consideration of our senses so in the begining of this Second Treatise we have search'd into those operations of a Man attributed to his Soul by which he is conceiv'd to excel all other living creatures and there discover'd that the admirable and unlimited variety of works which is seen in mens writings and actions doth all flow from the source of Single Apprehensions and even from one bare notion of Being which is the root and principle from whence all others derive their origine and into which all may be resolved Works proceeding from Resolutions they from Discourses these being composed of Judgments and Judgments of Single Apprehensions This part we must now review and enquire what we can find in mans operation arguing the Quality of his Soul whether it be corporeal or no. For if these Single Apprehensions and the processes compounded of them may be perform'd by the Ordering of Rare and Dense parts as the other works of nature are then they will be corporeal and of the same kind with those which we opened in the first Treatise but if we shall prove that they cannot possibly be deduced from Multiplicity and Order of Quantitative parts then we may confidently resolve of our selvs that in the cause from which they flow there is a nature wholly discrepant from that which resides among bodies and corporeal things This we shall here labour to do and to that end we will begin our work with reflecting on what we have deliver'd of a Single Apprehension in the First Chapter of this Second Treatise whose nature we there first explicated in common and thence proceeded to some particular apprehensions and lastly shew'd the extent they comprehended These then must be the subject of our present speculation As for their nature we may remember how we resolv'd three things first that by apprehension the very thing apprehended is by it self in our Soul next that the notion of Being is the first of all notions and resumed in all others and thirdly that what is added to the notion of Being is but respects to other things Now then let us consider what kind of Engines they must be that may have the power to make things themselvs to be in our Soul if they were to be there materially How shall the place or the time pass'd be removed and put in another place and in another time How shall the quantity of the Heavens of the whole World nay of Bigness exceeding all that by millions of proportional encreases be shut up in the little circuit of Mans Brain And if we examine our selves strictly we shall find nothing wanting all is there How shall the same thing be corporeally in two nay in two thousand places at the same time And yet in so many is the Sun when two thousand men think of it at once We must then allow that things are there immaterially and consequently that what receives them is immaterial since every thing is received according to the measure and nature of what receives it But I easily conceive that the strangeness and incredibility of our position may counterballance the force of it for who can perswade himself that the very thing he apprehends is in his mind I acknowledg that if its being there were to be understood corporeally it were impossible but on the other
side who shall consider that he knows the thing which he rightly apprehends that it works in him and makes him work agreeable to its nature and that all the properties and singularities of it may be display'd by what is in him and are as it were unfolded in his mind he can neither deny nor doubt but that it is there in an admirable and spiritual manner If you ask me how this comes to pass and by what artifice Bodies are thus spiritualized I confesse I shall not be able to satisfie you but must answer that it is done I know not how by the power of the Soul Shew me a Soul and I will tell you how it works but as we are sure there is a Soul that is to say a Principle from whence these operations spring though we cannot see it so we may and do certainly know that this mystery is as we say though because we understand not the true and compleat na-nature of a Soul we can as little express the manner how it is done by a Soul Yet before we take our leave of this matter of Apprehensions we will in due place endeavour to say somthing towards the clearing of this obscure point Our second consideration upon the nature of Apprehension was that our primary and main notion is of Being This discovers some little glimpse of the nature of the Soul For 't is manifest that she applyes this notion as well to no-parts as to parts Which we prov'd in the first Treatise when we shew'd that we have a particular notion of Substance distinct from the notion of Quantity for Quantity and Parts being the same it follows that if there be a notion supposed by Quantity as in Substance there is it must of necessity abstract from parts and consequently we may conclude that the notion of Being which is indifferently applyable either to Quantity or Substance of its own nature wholly abstracts either from Parts or no-Parts I then infer that since this notion of Being is the very first and virgin notion our Soul is imbued with or capable of and is the root of all other notions and into which she resolvs every other notion so as when we have sifted and searsed the essence of any notion whatever we can discover nothing deeper than this or precedent to it and that it agrees so compleatly with our Soul as she seems to be nothing else but a capacity fitted to Being it cannot be denied but that our Soul must needs have a very near affinity and resemblance of nature with it But 't is evident that Being hath not of it self any parts in it nor of it self is capable of division and therfore 't is as evident that the Soul which is fram'd as it were by that patern and Idea and fitted for Being as for its End must also of it self be void of parts and incapable of division For how can parts be fitted to an indivisible thing And how can two such different natures ever meet proportionably If it be objected that the very notion of Being from whence we estimate the nature of the Soul is accommodable to parts as for example we see that Substance is endew'd with Quantity We answer that even this corroborates our proof For since all the substances which our senses are acquainted with have parts and cannot be without parts and yet nevertheless in our Soul the notion of such substance is found without parts 't is clear that such substance hath this meerly from our Soul and because it hath this indivisibility from our Soul it follows that our Soul hath a power and nature to bestow indivisibility upon what comes into her And since it cannot be deny'd but that if any substance were once existent without parts it could never after have parts 't is evident that the nature of the Soul is incapable of parts because it is existent without parts And that it is in such sort existent is clear for this effect of the Souls giving indivisibility to what she receives into her proceeds from her as she is existent Now since this notion of Being is of all others the first and Original notion that is in the Soul it must needs above all others savour most of the proper and genuine nature of the Soul in and by which it is what it is and hath its indivisibility If then it be press'd how can Substance in reality or in things be accommodated to Quantity since of it self it is indivisible We answer that such Substance as is the subject of and hath Quantity is not indivisible for such Substance cannot be subsistent without Quantity and when we frame a notion of it as indivisible 't is an effect of the force of our Soul that is able to draw a notion out of a thing that hath parts without drawing the notion of the parts Which shews manifestly that in her there is a power above having of parts and this vertue in her argues her existence to be such Our last consideration upon the nature of Appehension was how all that is added to the notion of Being is nothing else but respects of one thing to another and how by these respects all the things of the world come to be in our Soul The evidence we may draw from hence of our Souls immateriality will be not a whit less than either of the two former For let us cast our looks over all that comes into our senses see if from one end to another we can meet with such a thing as we call a respect it hath neither figure nor colour nor smell nor motion nor taste nor touch it hath no similitude to be drawn from by means of our senses To be like to be half or be cause or effect what is it The things indeed that are so have their resemblances and pictures but which way should a Painter go about to draw a likeness or to paint a half or a cause or an effect If we have any understanding we cannot chuse but understand that these notions are extremely different from whatever comes in to us by the mediation of our senses and then if we reflect how the whole negotiation of our understanding is in by respects must it not follow necessarily that our Soul is of an extream different nature from our Senses and Imagination Nay If we look well into this argument we shall see that wheras Aristotle pretends that Nihil est in intellectu quâ—d non prius fuit in sensu this Maxime is so far from true in rigour of the words that the quite contrary follows undeniably out of it to wit that Nihil est in intellectu quâ—d fuit prius in sensu Which I do not say to contradict Aristotle for his words are true in the meaning he spoke them but to shew how things are so much changed by coming into the understanding into the Soul that although on the one side they be the very same things yet on the
not bound for the continuation of that things Being to prove that it is not changed but on the other side he tbat averrs it changed is bound to bring in his evidence of a sufficient cause to change it for to have a thing remain is natures own dictamen and follows out of the causes which gave it Being but to make an alteration supposes a change in the causes and therfore the obligation of proof lyes on that side Nevertheless to give satisfaction to those who are earnest to see every article positively proved we will make that part to our Province Let us then remember that Immortality signifies a negation or not-having of Mortality and that a positive term is required to express a change by since nature teaches us that whatever is will remain with the Being it hath unless it be forced out of it If then we shew that Mans Soul hath not those grounds in her which make all things we see to be mortal we must be allow'd to have acquitted our selvs of the charg of proving her Immortal For this end let us look round about us and inquire of all the things we meet with by what means they are changed and come to a period and are no more The pure Elements will tell you that they have their change by rarefaction and condensation and no otherwise Mixed bodies by alteration of their mixture Smal bodies by the activity of the Elements working upon them and by the means of rarefaction and condensation entring into their very constitution and breeding another temperament by separation of some of their parts and in their stead mingling others Plants and trees and other living creatures will tell you that their nourishment being insinuated through their whole bodies by subtile pores and blind passages if they either be stop'd by any accident or else fill'd with bad nourishment the mixture of the whole fails of it self and they come to die Those things which are violently destroy'd we see are made away for the most part by division so fire by division destroyes all that comes in its way so living creatures are destroy'd by parting their blood from their flesh or one member from another or by the evaporation or extinction of their natural heat In fine we are sure that all things which within our knowledg lose their Being do so by reason of their Quantity which by division or by rarefaction and compression gains some new temperature that doth not consist with their former temper After these premisses I need say no more the conclusion displays it self readily and plainly without any further trouble For if our labour hath been hitherto to shew that our Soul is indivisible and that her operations are such as admit not quantitative parts in her 't is clear she cannot be mortal by any of those ways wherby we see things round about us to perish The like argument we may frame out of Local motion For seeing that all the alterative actions we are acquainted with be perform'd by local motion as is deliver'd both in gross and by retail in our first Treatise and that Aristotle and all understanding Philosophers agree there can be no Local motion in an indivisible thing the reason wherof is evident to whomsoever reflects upon the nature of Place and of Local motion 't is manifest there can be no motion to hurt the Soul since she is concluded to be indivisible The common argument likewise used in this matter amounts to the same effect to wit that since things are destroy'd only by their contraries that thing which hath no contrary is not subject to destruction which principle both Reason and Experience every where confirm but a humane Soul is not subject to contrariety therfore such an one cannot be destroy'd The truth of the assumption may be known two ways First because all the contrarieties that are found within our cognisance rise out of the primary opposition of Rarity and Density from which the Soul being absolutely free she likewise is so from all that grows out of that root and Secondly we may be sure that our Soul can receive no harm from contrariety since all contraries are so far from hurting her as contrary wise the one helps her in the contemplation of the other And as for contradiction in thoughts which at different times our Soul is capable of admitting experience teaches us that such thoughts change in her without any prejudice to her substance they being accidents and having their contrariety only betwixt themselvs within her but no opposition at all to her which only is the contrariety that may have power to harm her and therfore whethersoever of such contrary thoughts be in the Soul pertains no more to her subsistence than it doth to the subsistence of a Body whether it be here or there on the right hand or on the left And thus I conceive my task is perform'd and that I am discharg'd of my undertaking to shew the Souls Immortality which imports no more than to shew that the causes of other things mortality do not reach her Yet being well perswaded that my Reader will not be offended with the addition of any new light in this dark subject I will strive to discover if it be possible some positive proof or guess out of the property and nature of the Soul it self why she must remain and enjoy another life after this To this end let us cast our eye back upon what hath been already said concerning her nature We found that Truth is the natural perfection of Mans Soul and that she cannot be assured of truth naturally otherwise than by evidence and therfore 't is manifest that evidence of truth is the full compleat perfection at which the Soul doth aim We found also that the Soul is capable of an absolute infinity of truth or evidence To these two we will ad only one thing more which of it self is past question and therfore needs no proof and then we will deduce our conclusion and this is that a mans Soul is a far nobler and perfecter part of him than his Body and therfore by the rules of nature and wisedom his Body was made for his Soul and not his Soul finally for his Body These grounds being thus lay'd let us examine whether our Soul doth in this life arrive to the end she was ordain'd for or no and if she do not then it must follow of necessity that our Body was made but for a passage by which our Soul should be ferried over into that state where she is to attain to that end for which her nature is fram'd and fited The great skill and artifice of Nature shewing and assuring us that she never fails of compassing her end even in her meanest works and therfore without doubt she would not break her course in her greatest whereof man is absolutely the head and chief among all those we are acquainted with Now what the end is to which our
Soul ayms is evident since the perfection of every thing in the end for which it is made the perfection then and end of the Soul being evidence she being capable of infinite evidence let us inquire whether in this life she may compass it or no. To determine this question let us compare infinite evidence to that evidence which the greatest and most knowing man that ever lived hath acquir'd by the work of nature alone or to the evidence which by aym we may imagine possible ever to happen any one man should arrive to and balancing them well together let us judg whether all that any man can know here is not in respect of what a mans Soul is capable of to be stiled as nothing and deservs not the name of evidence nor to be accounted of that nature And if our sentence conclude upon this let us acknowledg that our Soul arrives not to her perfection nor enjoys her end in this world and therfore must have infallibly an other habitation inthe next world to which nature intends her Experience teaches us that we cannot fully comprehend any one of natures works and those Philosophers who in a disciplinable way search into nature therfore are called Mathematicians after they have written large volums of some very slender subject ever find that they have left untouch'd an endless abyss of knowledg for whomsoever shall please to build upon their foundations that they can never arrive near saying all that may be said â—f hat subject though they have said never so much of it We may not then make difficulty to believe that the wisest and learnedest men in the world have reason to profess with the father of Philosophers that indeed they know nothing And if so how far are they from that happiness perfection which consists in knowing all things Of which full sea we nevertheless find even in this low ebb our Soul is a chanel capable and is framed a fit vessel and instrument to receive it when the tide shall come in upon it which we are sure it can not do till the banks of our Body which hinder it be broken down This last consideration without doubt hath added no small corroboration to our former proofs which are so numerous so clear as peradventure it may appear superfluous to say any more to this point since one convinceing argument establishes the verity of a conclusion as efficaciously as a hundred therfore Mathematicians use but one single proof in all their Propositions after which other supernumerary ones would be but tedious Nevertheless since all the several ways by which we may look into the nature of our Soul the importantest subject we can busie our thoughts upon cannot fail of being pleasing and delightful to us we must not omit to reflect a little upon that great property of our Soul by which she is able to move to work without her self being moved or touched To which adding that all Life consists in motion and that all motion of Bodies comes from some other thing without them we may evidently conclude that our Soul who can move withot receiving her motion from abroad hath in her se lf a spring of life for which she is not beholding as Bodies are o some extrinsecal cause of a nature like to her but only to him who gave her to be what she is But if she have such a spring of Life within her it were unreasonable to imagine that she died upon the occasion of the death of anohther thing that exercises no action of life but as it is caused by another Neither we may neglect that ordinary consideration which takes notice that our Soul makes use of Propositions of eternal truth which we have above produced among our proofs for her being of a spiritual nature and shall now imploy it for the proving her Immortal by considering that the notion of Being which settles these Propositions so as they fear no mutation or shaking by time is the very riot of the Soul that which gives her nature which shews it self in all her operations So that if from Being arrives to these Propositions to fear no time the like must of necessity betide also the substance of the Soul And thus we see that her nature is out of the reach of time that she can comprehend time and set it limits can think of things beyond it and cast about for them All which are clear testimonies that she is free and secure from the all-devouring and destroying tyranny of that Saturnial Conqueror of the whole world of matter and of Bodies whose servant is Death After all these proofs drawn from the nature of the Soul it self every one of them of force to convince her Immortality I must crave leave to add one consideration more though it seems to belong to anothers harvest namely to the Science of Morals and it is that the position of mortality in the Soul takes away all morality and changes men into beasts by taking away the ground of all difference in those things which are to govern our actions For supposing that the Soul dyes with the Body and seeing that man hath a comprehension or notion of time without end 't is evident that the spain of this life must needs appear contemptible to him that well considers and weighs it against the other infinite duration And by consequence all the goods and evils which are parts of this life must needs become as despicable and inconsiderable so that better or worse in this life hath not any appearance of difference between them at least not enough to make him labour with paâ—n to compass the one and eschew the other and for that end to cross his present inclination in any thing and engage himself in any the least difficult task And so it would ensue that if to an understanding man some course or actions were proposed as better than that he were going about or for the instant had a mind to he would relish it as a great Merchant or a Banquier would do whom dealing for Millions one should presse with earnestness to change his resolved course for the gain of a farthing more this way than the other which being inconsiderable he would not trouble his head with it nor stop at what he was in hand with In like manner whoever is perswaded that for an infinite of time he shall be nothing without sense of all things he scorns for this little twinkling of his life to take any present pains to be in the next moment well or to avoid being ill since in this case dying is a secure remedy to any present evil and he is as ready to die now as a hundred years hence Nor can he esteem the loss of a hundred years to be a matter of moment and therfore he will without any further guidance or discourse betake himself to do whatever his present inclination bears him to with most facility
Syllogisms cannot be made without Universal propositions So that we see unless these things be strip'd from Place and Time they are not according to our meaning and yet nevertheless we give them both the name and nature of a Thing or of a Substance or of a living Thing or of whatsoever else may by manner of our conceiving or endeavors be freed from the subjection to Time and Place Thus then we plainly see that it is a very different thing to be and to be in a place and therfore out of a Things being in no Place it cannot be infer'd That it is not or is no Substance nor contrariwise out of its being can it be infer'd that it is in a Place There is no man but of himself perceives the false consequence of this Argument A thing Is therefore it is Hot or Cold and the reason is because hot and cold are particular accidents of a body and therfore a body can be without either of them The like proportion is between Being in general and Being a Body or Being in a Body for both these are particulars in respect of Being but to be in a place is nothing else but to be in a circumstant Body and so what is not in a Body is not in a Place therfore as it were an absurd illation to say it is therfore it is in a Body no less is it to say it is therfore it is somwhere which is equivalent to in some Body And so a great Master peradventure one of the greatest and judiciousest that ever have been tells us plainly that of it self 't is evident to those who are truly learned that Incorporeal Substances are not in Place and Aristotle teaches us that the Universe is not in Place But now to make use of this discourse we must intimate what 't is we level at in it We direct it to two ends First to lead on our thoughts and help our apprehension in framing some conception of a Spiritual Substance without residence in Place and to prevent our fancies checking at such abstraction since we see that we use it in our ordinary speech when we think not on it nor labour for it in all universal and indefinite terms Next to trace out an eminent propriety of a Separated Soul namely that she is no where and yet upon the matter every where that she is bound to no place and yet remote from none that she is able to work upon all without shifting from one to another or coming neer any and that she is free from all without removing or parting from any one A second propriety not much unlike the first we shall discover in a Separated Soul if we compare her with Time We have heretofore explicated how Time is the motion of the Heavens which give us our motion which measures all particular motions and which comprehends all bodies and makes them awaite his leisure From the large Empire of this proud Commander a Separated Soul is free For though she consist with time that is to say she is while time is yet is she not in time nor in any of her actions expects time but she is able to frame time to spin or weave it out of her self and master it All which will appear manifestly if we consider what it is to be in time Aristotle shews us that to be comprehended under time or to be in time is to be one of those moveables whose being consisting in motion takes up but a part of time and hath its terms before and behind in time is measured by it and must expect the flowing of it both for being and action Now all this manifestly belongs to Bodies whose both action and being is subject to a perpetual local motion and alteration and consequently a Separated Soul who is totally a being and hath her whole operation altogether as being nothing but her self when we speak of her perfective operation cannot be said to be in time but is absolutely free from it though time glide by her as it doth by other things And so all that she knows or can do she does and knows at once with one act of the understanding or rather She is indeed and really all that and therfore she doth not require time to mannage or order her thoughts nor do they succeed one another by such vicissitudes as men are forced to think of things by because their fansie and the Images in it which beat upon the Soul to make her think whiles she is in the body are corporal and therfore require time to move in and give way to one another but she thinks of all the things in the world and of all that she can think of together and at once as hereafter we intend to shew A third propriety we may conceiveto be in a Separated Soul by apprehending her to be an activity which that we may rightly understand let us compare her in regard of working with a Body Reflecting then upon the nature of Bodies we shall find that not any of them will do the functions they are framed for unless some other thing stir them up and cause them so to do As for example a Knife if it be thrust or pressed will cut otherwise it will lye still and have no effect and as it fares with a knife so with those bodies which seem most to move themselvs as upon a little consideration will appear plainly A Beast seems to move it self but if we call to mind what we have delivered upon this subject in the First Treatise we shall find that when ever he begins to move he either perceivs somthing by his Sense which causes his motion or elâ—e he remembers somthing that is in his brain which works the like effect Now if Sense presents him an object that causes his motion we see manifestly it is an external cause which makes him move But if Memory do it we shall find that stirr'd by some other part as by the stomack or the heart which is empty or heated or hath receiv'd some other impression from another body so that sooner or later we shall discover an outward mover The like is in natural motions as in Heavy things their easie following if they be sucked another way than downwards testifies that their motion downwards hath an extrinsecal motor as is before declared And not only in these but throughout in all other corporal things So that in a wotd all Bodies are of this nature that unless some other thing press and alter them when they are quiet they remain so and have no activity otherwise than from an extrinsecal mover but of the Soul we have declared the contrary and that by its nature motion may proceed from it without any mutation in it or without its receiving any order direction or impulse from an extrinsecal cause So that now suming up together all we have said upon this occasion we find a Soul exempted from the Body to be An indivisible
Substance exempted from Place and Time yet present to both an actual and present knowledg of all things that may be known and a skil or rule even by what it self is to all things whatever This she is if she be perfect but if she be imperfect then is she all this to the proportion of her growth if so I may say and she is powerful according to the measure of her knowledg and of her will So that in fine a Separated Soul is of a nature to have and to know and to govern all things I may reasonably suspect that my saying how imperfect Souls are rules to the proportion of their growth may have occasion'd great reflection and bred some trouble in the curious and heedful Reader I confess this expression was deliver'd by me only to free my self for the present from the labour of shewing what knowledg every Separated Soul hath but upon second thoughts I find that such sliding over this difficult point will not serve my turn nor save me the pains of untying this knot for unless I explicate what I mean by that speech I shall leave my Reader in great doubt and anxiety Which to free him from I must wade a little further in this question of the extent of a separated Souls knowledg into which I have thus upon the by engaged my self But let him first be advertis'd that I do not here meddle with what a Separated Soul may know by Revelatation or by Supernatural means but that I only track out her natural paths and guess at what she is or knows by that light which her conversation in her body affords us Our entrance into this matter must be to consider what mutation in respect of knowledg a Soul's first change out of her Body makes in her for it is not unlikely but nature may some way enlighten us so far as to understand what must follow out of the negation of the Bodies consortship added to what we know of her and Natures other works in this world This then first occurrs that surely she cannot choose but still know in that state all that she knew while she was in the Body since we are certain the Body hath no part in that which is true knowledg as is above declared when we shew'd first that all true knowledg is respective secondly that the first impressions of the fansy do not reach to the interiour Soul and lastly that she works by much more than what hath any actual correspondence in the fansy and that all things are united to her by the force of Being From which last it follows that all things she knows are her self and she is all that she knows wherefore if she keeps her self and her own Being she must needs keep the knowledg of all that she knew in this world Next she must undoubtedly know then somwhat more than she knew in the Body For since out of the things she already knows others will follow by the meer ordering and connexion of them and the Souls proper work is to order things we cannot doubt but that both the things she knows in this world must of necessity be order'd in her to the best advantage and likewise that all that will be known which wants no other cause for the knowing of it but the ordering of these things For if the nature of a thing were Order who can doubt but what were put into that thing were put into Order Now that the nature of the Soul is such we collect easily For since all order proceeds from her it must be acknowledg'd that Order is first in her but what is in her is her nature her nature then is Order and what is in her is order'd In saying of which I do not mean that there is such an order between the notions of a Separated Soul as is between material things that are order'd by the Soul while she is in the Body for since the Soul is an adaequate cause of such order that is to say a cause which can make any one such and the whole kind of it it follows that such order is not in her for if it were she would be cause of her self or of her own parts Order therfore in her must signifie a thing more eminent than such inferiour Order in which resides the power of making that inferiour Order and this is nothing else but the connexion of her notions by the necessity of Being which we have often explicated And out of this eminent or superiour kind of Order our conclusion follows no less than if the inferiour Order which we see in our fansies while our Soul is in our Body did reside in our interiour Soul for it is the necessity of identification which doth the effect and makes the Soul know and the order of fantasms is but a precedent condition in the bodily Agent that it may work upon the Soul and if more fantasms than one could be together this order would not be necessary Out of this a notable and vast conclusion manifestly follows to wit that if a Soul can know any one thing more when she is out of the Body than what she knew while she was in the Body without any manner of doubt she knows all that can be drawn and forced out of these knowledges which she had in her Body How much this is and how far it will reach I am afraid to speak Only I intreat Mathematicians and such as are acquainted with the manner how Sciences proceed to consider how some of their Definitions are made to wit by composing together sundry known terms and giving a new name to the compound that results out of them Wherfore clear it is that out of fewer notions had at the first the Soul can make many more and the more she hath or makes the more she can multiply Again the Maximes which are necessary to be added to the Definitions for gaining of knowledg we see are also compounded of ordinary and known terms So that a Separated Soul can want neither the Definitions nor the Maximes out of which the Books of Sciences are composed and therfore neither can the Sciences themselves be wanting to her Now if we consider that in the same fashion as Demonstrations are made and knowledg is acquired in one Science by the same means there is a transcendence from Science to Science and that there is a connexion among all the Sciences which fall into the consideration of man and indeed among all at least corporal things for of spiritual things we cannot so assuredly affirm it though their perfection may perswade us that there is rather a greater connexion among them than among corporal things it will follow that a Soul which hath but any indifferent knowledg in This World shall be replenish'd with all knowledg in the Next But how much is this indifferent knowledg that for this purpose is requir'd in this world Upon mature consideration of this point 't is true I find it
side an Incorporated Soul by reason of her being confined to the use her Senses can look on but one single definite place or time at once and needs a long chain of many discourses to comprehend all the circumstances of any one action and yet after all how short is she of comprehending all So that comparing one of these with the other 't is evident that the proportion of a Separated Soul to one in the Body is as all time or all place in respect of any one piece or least parcel of them or as the entire absolute comprehender of all time and all place is to the discoverer of a small measure of them For whatever a Soul wills in that state she wills it for the whole extent of her duration because she is then out of the state or capacitity of changing and wishes for whatever she wishes as for her absolute good and therfore employs the whole force of her judgment upon every particular wish Likewise the eminencie which a Separated Soul hath over place is also then entirely employ'd upon every particular wish of hers since in that state there is no variety of place left her to wish for such good in one place and to refuse it in another as while she is in the Body hapneth to every thing she desires Wherefore whatever she then wishes for she wishes for it according to her comparison to place that is to say that as such a Soul hath a power to work at the same time in all places by the absolute comprehension which she hath of place in abstract so every wish of that Soul if it were concerning a thing to be made in place were able to make it in all places through the excessive force and efficacy which she employs upon every particular wish The third effect by which among bodies we gather the vigour and energy of the cause that produces it to wiâ— the doing of the like action in a lesser time in a larger extent is but a combination of the two former 〈◊〉 therfore it requires no further particular insistance upon it to shew tha◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this the proportion of a Separated to an 〈◊〉 Soul must needs be the self same as in the other seeing a Separated Soul's activity is upon all place is in an Indivisible of time Therfore to shut up this point there remains only for us to consider what addition may be made to the efficacity of a judgment by the concurrence of other extrinsecal helps We see that when an understanding man will settle any judgment or conclusion in his mind he weighs throughly all that follows out of such a judgment and considers likewise all the antecedents that lead him to iâ— and if after due reflection and examination of whatever concerns this conclusion which he is establishing in his mind he finds nothing to cross it but that every particular and circumstance goes smoothly along with and strengthens it he is then satisfied and quiet in his thoughts and yields a full assent therto which assent is the stronger the more concurrent testimonies he has for it And though he should have a perfect demonstration or sight of the thing in it self yet every one of the other extrinsecal proofs being as it were a new perswasion hath in it a further vigour to strengthen and content his mind in the fore-had demonstration for if every one of these be in it self sufficient to make the thing evident it cannot happen that any one of them should hinder the others but contrariwise every one of them must needs concurr with all the rest to the effectual quieting of his understanding in its assent to that judgment Now then according to this rate let us calculate if we can what concurrence of proofs and witnesses a Separated Soul will have to settle and strengthen her in every one of her judgments We know that all verities are chain'd and connected one to another and that there is no true conclusion so far remote from any other but may by more or less consequences and discourses be deduced evidently out of it it follows then that in the abstracted Soul where all such consequences are ready drawn and seen in themselvs without extention of time or employing of pains to collect them every particular verity bears testimony to any other so that every one of them is believ'd and works in the sence and virtue of all Out of which it is manifest that every judgment in such a Separated Soul hath an infinite strength and efficacity over any made by an embodyed one To sum all up in a few words We find three roots of infinity in every action of a Separated Soul compar'd to one in the Body First the freedom of her essence or substance it self Next that quality of hers by which she comprehends place and time that is all permanent and successive quantity and Lastly the concurrence of infinite knowledges to every action of hers Having then this measure in our hands let us apply it to a Well-order'd and to a Disorder'd Soul passing out of this world let us consider the oneset upon those goods which she shall there have present and shall fully enjoy the other languishing after and pining away for those which are impossible for her ever to obtain What joy what content what exultation of mind in any living man can be conceiv'd so great as to be compared with the happiness of one of these Souls And what grief what discontent what misery can be like the others These are the different effects which the divers manners of living in this world cause in Souls after they are deliver'd from their Bodies Out of which and the discourse that hath discover'd these effects to us we see a clear resolution of that so main and agitated question among the Philosophers Why a rational Soul is imprison'd in a gross Body of Flesh and Blood In truth the question is an illegitimate one as supposing a false ground for the Soul 's being in the Body is not an imprisonment of a thing that was existent before the Soul and Body met together but her being there is the natural course of begining that which can no other way come into the lists of nature For should a Soul by the course of nature obtain her first being without a Body either she would in the first instant of her being be perfect in knowledg or she would not if she were then would she be a perfect compleat immaterial substance not a Soul whose nature is to be a copartner to the Body and to acquire her perfection by the medâ—ation and service of corporeal senseâ— but if she were not perfect in Science but were only a capacity therto and like white paper in which nothing were yet written then unless she were 〈◊〉 into a Body she could never arrive to know any thing because motion alteration are effects peculiar to Bodies Therfore 〈◊〉 be agreed that she is naturally
that every action of thine be it never so slight is mainly mischievous or be it never so bedeckt with those specious considerations which the wise men of the world judg important is foolish absurd and unworthy of a man unworthy of one that understands and acknowledges thy dignity if in it there be any speck or through it there appear any spark of those mean and flat motives which with a false byas draw any way aside from attaining that happiness we expect in thee That happiness ought to be the end and mark we level at that the rule and model of all our actions that the measure of every circumstance of every atome of whatever we bestow so precious a thing upon as the employment of thee is But we must not so slightly pass over the intenseness and vehemence of that Felicity which thou my Soul shalt injoy when thou art sever'd from thy benuming compartner I see evidently that thou dost not survive a simple dull essence but art replenish'd with a vast incomprehensible extent of riches delight within thy self I see that golden chain which here by long discourses fills huge volumes of Books and dives into the Hidden natures of several Bodies all in thee resumed into one circle or link which contains in it self the large scope of whatever screwing discourse can reach to I see it comprehend and master the whole world of Bodies I see every particular nature as it were imbossed out to the life in thy celestial garment I see every solitary substance rank'd in its due place and order not crush'd or throng'd by the multitude of its fellows but each of them in its full extent in the full propriety of every part and effect of it and distinguish'd into more divisions than ever nature sever'd it into In thee I see an infinite multitude enjoy place enough I see that neither height nor profundity nor longitude nor latitude are able to exempt themselvs from thy defused powers they faddom all they comprehend all they master all they inrich thee with the stock of all and thou thy self art all and somwhat more than all and yet now but one of all I see that every one of this all in thee encreases the strength by which thou know'st any other of the same all al encreases the knowledg of all by a multiplication beyond the skill of Arithmetick being in its kind absolutely infinite by having a nature incapable of being either infinite or finite I see again that those things which have not knowledg are situated in the lowest and meanest rank of creatures and are in no wise comparable to those which know I see there is no pleasure at all no happiness no felicity but by and in knowledg Experience teaches me how the purer and nobler race of mankind adores in their hearts this idol of knowledg and scorns whatever else they seem to court and be fond of And I see that this excess or Sea of knowledg which is in thee grows not by the succession of one thought after another but it is like a full swoln Ocean never ebing on any coast but equally pushing at all its bounds and tumbling out its flowing waves on every side and into every creek so that every where it makes high tide Or like a pure Sun which from all parts of it shoots its radiant beams with a like extremity of violence And I see likewise that this admirable knowledg is not begotten and conserv'd in thee by the accidentary help of defective causes but rooted in thy self and steep'd in thy own essence like an unextinguishable sourse of a perpetual streaming fire or the living head of an everruning spring beholding to none out of thy self save only to thy Almighty Creator and begging of none but being in thy self all that of which thou should'st beg This then my Soul being thy lot and such a height of pleasure being reserv'd for thee such an extremity of felicity within a short space attending thee can any degenerate thought ever gain strength enough to shake the evidence which these considerations implant and rivet in thee Can any dull oblivion deface this so lively and so beautiful image or any length of time draw in thy memory a veil between it and thy present attention Can any perversity so distort thy straight eys that thou should'st not look alwaies fix'd on this Mark and level thy aim directly at this White How is it possible that thou canst brook to live and not expire presently therby to ingulf thy self and be throughly imbibed with such an overflowing bliss Why dost thou not break the walls and chains of thy flesh and blood and leap into this glorious liberty Here Stoicks you are to use your swords Upon these considerations you may justifie the letting out the blood which by your discourses you seem so prodigal of To die upon these terms is not to part with that which you fondly call happy life feeding your selvs and flattering your hearts with empty words but rather it is to plunge your selvs into a felicity you were never able to imagine or frame to your misguided thoughts any scantling of But nature pulls me by the ear and warns me from being so wrongful to her as to conceive that so wise a governess should to no advantage condemn mankind to so long a banishment as the ordinary extent of his dull life wearisom pilgrimage here under the Sun reaches to Can we imagine she would allow him so much lazy time to effect nothing in Or can we suspect she intends him no further advantage than what an abortive child arrives to in his mothers womb For whatever the nets and toils of discourse can circle in all that he who but once knows that himself is can attain to as fully as he that is enrich'd with the Science of all things in the world For the connexion of things is so linked together that proceeding from any one you reach the knowledg of many and from many you cannot 〈◊〉 of attaining all So that a Separated Soul which but knows her self cannot choose but know her Body too and from her Body she cannot miss in proceeding from the causes of them both as far as immediate causes proceed from others over them and as little can she be ignorant of all the effects of those causes she reaches to And thus all that huge masse of knowleg and happ ness which we have consider'd in our last reflection amounts to no more than the silliest Soul buried in warm blood can and will infallibly attain to when its time comes We 〈◊〉 then assure our selvs that just nature hath provided and 〈◊〉 a greater measure of such felicity for longer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much greater as may well be worth the pains and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so miserable and tedious a passage as here my Soul 〈◊〉 â—gglest through For certainly if the dull percussion which by natures institution hammers out a spiritual Soul from gross 〈◊〉
touching Gravity 6. Gravity and levity do not signifie an intrinsecal inclination to such a motion in the bodies themselvs which are term'd heavy and light 7. The more dense a body is the more swiftly it descends 8. The velocity of bodies descending doth not encrease in proportion to the difference that may be between their several densities 9. More or less gravity produces a swister or a slower descending a heavy body Aristotles argument to disprove motion in 〈◊〉 is made good 10. The reason why at the inferior quarter of a circle a body descends faster by the arch of that quarter then by the chord of it 1. The first objection answered why a hollow body descends flower then a solid one 2 The second objection answer'd and the reasons shown why atoms continually overtake the descending dense body 3. A curious queston left undecided 4. The fourth objection answer'd Why the descent of the same heavy bodies is equal in so great inequality of the atoms which cause it 5. The reason why the shelter of a thick-body doth not hinder the descent of that which is under it 6. The reason why some bodies sink others swims 7. The fifth objection answer'd concerning the descending of heavy bodies in streams 8. The sixth objection answered and that all heavy Elements do weigh in their own Spheres 9 The seventh objection answer'd and the reason why we do not feel the course of the air and atoms that beat continually upon us 10. How in the some body gravity may be greater than density and density than gravity though they be the same thing 11. The opinion of gravities being an intrinsecal inclination of a body to the centre refuted by reason â—2 The same opinion refuted by several experiences 1. The State of the question touching the cause of violent motion 2 That the medium is the only cause which continues violent motion 3. A further explication of the former Doctrine 4. That the air has strength enough to continue violent motion in a moveable Dial. 1. of motion pag. 98. 5. An answer to the first objection that air is not apt to conserve motion And how violent motion comes to cease 6. An answer to the second objection that the air has no power over heavy bodies 7. An answer to the third objection that an arrow should fly faster broadways than long ways 1. That reflection is a kind of violent motion 2. Reflection is made at equal angles 3. The causes and properties of Undulation 4. Refraction at the entrance into the reflectent body is towà rds the perpendicular at the going out is from it when the second superficies is parallel to the first 6. An answer to the arguments brought in favovr of Monsir des Cartes his opinion 7. The true cause of refraction of light both at its entrance and at its going out from the reflecting body 8. A general rule to know the nature of reflections and refractions in all sorts of surfaces 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 1. The connexion of this Chapter with the rest and the Authors intent in it 2. That there is a least size of bodies And that this least size is found in fire 3. The first conjunction of parts is in bodies of least size and it is made by the force of Quantity 4. The second sort of conjunction â—s 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 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 pedominant element over the other two 13. Of these bodies where water bing the B sis 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 were 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 and Water 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 and density 21. That in the Planets and Stars there is a like variety of mixed bodies caused by light as here upon Earth 22. In what manner the Elements work upon one another in the position of mixed bodies and in particular fire is the most active 23. A particular declaration touching the generation of Metals 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 work upon the most compacted bodies 3. The several effects of fiâ—e the second and chiefest instrument to dissolve compounded bodies 4. The reason why some bodies are not dissolv'd by fire 5. The reason why fire melts gold but cannot consume it 6. Why Lead is easily consumed and calcined by fire 7. Why and how some bodies are divided by fire into spirits waters oyls salts and earth what those parts are 〈◊〉 How water the third instrument to dissolve bodies dissolves Calx into Salt and so into Terra damnata 9. How water mingled with salt becomes almost powerfull Agent to dissolve other bodies 20. How putrefaction is caused 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 reaction 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 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 smal atoms but not in any great bulk 1. The Authors intent in this and the following chapters Mr. Thomas White 2. That bodies may be rarified both by outward and inward heat and how this is perform'd 3.
Concoction is nothing else but a thickning of that juice which already sticks to any part of the Animals body by the good digestion that heat makes in it And Assimilation is the effect of Concoction for this juice being used in the same manner as the first juice was that made the part wherto this is to be joyn'd it cannot chuse but become like it in substance And then there being no other substance between it is of it self united to it without any further help Hitherto this action belongs to Nutrition But if on the one side the heat and spirituality of the blood and on the other side the due temper and disposition of the part be such as the bloud is greedily suck'd into the part which therby swells to make room for it and will not let it go away but turns it into a like substance as it self is and is greater in quantity then what is consumed and decayes continually by transpiration then this action is called likewise Augmentation Which Galen explicates by a sport the boys of Ionia used who were accustom'd to fill a bladder with wind and when they could force no more into it they could rub the bladder and after rubbing of it they found it capable of receiving new breath and so they would proceed on till their bladder were as full as by use they knew it could be made Now saith he nature doth the like by filling our flesh and other parts with bloud that is to say it stretches the fibers but she hath over and above a power which the boys had not namely to make the fibers as strong after they are stretched to their utmost extension as they were before they were extended whence it happens that she can extend them again as well as at the first and this without end as far as concerns that part The reason wherof is because she extends them by means of a liquor which is of the same nature as that wherof they were made at first and from thence it followes that by concoction that liquour settles in the parts of the fibers which have most need and so makes those parts as great in the length they are extended to as they were in their shortness before they were drawn out Whereby the whole part of the Animal wherin this happens grows greater and the like being done in every part as well as in any one single one the whole Animal becomes bigger and is in such sort augmented Out of all which discourse we may collect that in the essential composition of Living Creatures there may peradventure be a phisical possibility for them to continue always without decay and so become immortals even in their bodies if all hurtful accidents coming from without might be prevented For seeing that a man besides the encrease which he makes of himself can also impart to his children a vertue by which they are able to do the like and to give again to theirs as much as they receiv'd from their Fathers 't is clear that what makes him die is no more the want of any radical power in him to encrease or nourish himself then in fire it is the want of power to burn which makes it go out But it must be some accidental want which Gallen attributes chiefly to the driness of our bones and sinews c. as you may in him see more at large For driness with density alows not easie admittance to moysture and therfore it causes the heat which is in the dry body either to evaporate or to be extinguish'd and want of heat is that from whence the failing of life proceeds which he thinks cannot be prevented by any art or industry And herein God hath express'd his great mercy and goodness towards us For seeing that by the corruption of our own nature we are so immers'd in flesh and blood as we should for ever delight to wallow in their mire without raising our thoughts at any time above that low and brutal condition he hath engaged us by a happy necessity to think of and provide for a nobler and far more excellent state of living that will never change or end In pursuance of which inevitable ordinance Man as if he were grown weary and out of love with this life and scorn'd any Term in his farm here since he cannot purchase the Fee-simple of it hastens on his death by his unwary and rash use of meats which poyson his blood and then his infected blood passing through his whole body must needs in like manner taint it all at once For the redress of which mischief the assistance of physick is made use of and that passing likewise the same way purifies the blood and recovers the corruption occasion'd by the peccant humour or other whiles gathering it together it thrusts and carries out that evil guest by the passages contriv'd by nature to disburden the body of unprofitable or hurtful supersluites CHAP. XXVII Of the motions of Sence and of the Sensible Qualities in general and in particular of those which belong to Touch Tast and Smelling HAving thus brought on the course of Nature as high as Living Creatures whose chief species or division is those that have sense and having declared the operations which are common to the whole tribe of them which includes both Plants and Animals 't is now time we take a particular view of those whose action and passion is the reason why that chief portion of life is termed sensitive I mean the Senses and the qualities by which the outward world comes into the living creature through his senses Which when we shall have gone through we shall scarcely have left any qualities among bodies to plead for a spiritual manner of being or working that is for a selfentity an instantaneous operation which kind of things and properties vulgar Philosophy is very earnest to attribute to our senses with what reason and upon what ground let us now consider These qualities are reduced to five several heads answerable to so many different wayes wherby we receive notice of the bodies that are without us And accordingly they constitute a like number of different Senses of every one of which we will discourse particularly when we have examined the natures of the qualities that affect them But now all the consideration we shall need to have of them is only this That it is manifest the organs in us by which sensible qualites work upon us are corporeal and made of the like ingredients as the rest of our body is and therfore must of necessity be liable to suffer evil and receive good as all other bodies do from those active qualities which make and mar all things within the limits of Nature By which terms of Evil and Good I mean those effects that are averse or conformable to the particular nature of any thing and therby tend to the preservation or destruction of that individual Now we receiving from our senses the knowledge
we have of things without us give names to them according to the passions and affections which those things cause in our senses which being the same in all mankind as long as they are consider'd in common and their effects are look'd upon in gross all the world agrees in one Notion and Name of the same thing for every man living is affected by it just as his neighbour is and as all men else in the world are As for example Heat or Cold works the same feeling in every man composed of flesh and bloud and therfore whoever should be ask'd of them would return the same answer that they cause such and such affects in his sense pleasing or displeasing to him according to their degrees and as they tend to the good or evil of his whole body But if we descend to particulars we shall find that several men of differinâ— constitutions frame different notions of the same things according as they are conformable or disagreeing to their natures and accordingly they give them different names As when the same liquor is sweet to some mens tast which to anothers appears bitter one man takes that for a perfume which to another is an offensive smel In the Turkish Baths where there are many degrees of heat in divers rooms through all which the same person uses to pass and to stay a while in every one of them both at his entrance and going out to season his body by degrees for the contrary excess he is going to that seems chilly-cold at his first return which appear'd melting hot at his going to it as I my self have often made experience in those Countreys Beauty and loveliness will shine to one man in the same face that will give aversion to another All which proclaims that the Sensible Qualities of Bodies are not any positive real thing consisting in an indivisible and distinct from the body it self but are meerly the very body as it affects our senses to discover how they do which must be our labour here Let us therfore begin with considering the difference between sensible and insensible creatures These later lie exposed to the mercy of all outward agents that from time to time by the continual motion which all things are in come within distance of working upon them and they have no power to remove themselvs from what is averse to their nature nor to approach nearer what comforts it But the others having within themselvs a principle of motion as we have already declared are able whenever such effects are wrought on them as on the others upon their own account and by their own action to remove themselvs from what begins to annoy them and to come nearer to what they find a beginning of good by These impressions are made on those parts of us which we call the Organs of our Senses and by them give us seasonable advertisements and knowledges wherby we may govern and order to the best advantage our little charge of a body according to the tune or warnings of change in the great circumstant body of the world as far as it may concern ours Which how it is done and by what steps it proceeds shall be in the following discourse laid open Of this great machine that environs us we who are but a small parcel are not immediately concern'd in every part It imports not us for the conservation of our body to have knowledge of other parts then such are within the distance of working upon us those only within whose sphere of activity we are planted can offend or advantage us and of them some are near us others further from us Those that are next us we discern according as they are qualified either by our Touch or our Tast or our Smelling which three Senses manifestly appear to consist in a meer gradation of more or less gross and their operations are level'd to the three Elements that press upon us Earth Water and Air. By our other two Senses our Hearing and our Seeing we have notice of things further off and the agents which work on them are of a more refined nature But we must treat of them all in particular and that which we will begin with shall be the Touch as being the grossest of them and that which converses with none but the most material and massie objects We see it deals with heavy consistent bodies and judges of them by conjunction to them and by immediate reception of something from them And according to the divers impressions they make in it it distinguishes them by divers names which as we said of the qualities of mixed bodies are generally reduced to certain pairs as hot and cold wet and dry soft and hard smooth and rough thick and thin and some others of the like nature which were needless to enumerate since we pretend not to deliver the science of them but only to shew that they and their actions are all corporeal And this is sufficiently evident by meer repenting but their very names for 't is plain by what we have already said that there are nothing else but certain effections of quantity arising out of different degrees of rarity and density compounded together And 't is manifest by experience that our sense receivs the very same impressions from them which another body doth For our body or our sense will be heated by fire burned by it too if the heat be too great as well as wood it will be constipated by cold water moistened by humide things and dryed by dry bodies in the same manner as any other body whatever Likewise it may in such sort as they be wounded and have its continuity broken by hard things be pleas'd and polish'd by soft and smooth be press'd by thick and heavy and rub'd by those that are rugged c. So that those Masters who will teach us that the impressions upon sense are made by spiritual or spirit-like things or qualities which they call intentional specieses must labour at two works the one to make it appear that there are in nature such things as they would perswade us the other to prove that these material actions we speak of are not able to perform those effâ—cts for which the senses are given to living creatures And till they have done that I conceive we should be much too blame to admit such things as we neither have ground for in reason nor can understand what they are And therfore we must resolve to rest in this belief which experience breeds in us that these bodies work on our senses no other ways then by a corporeal operation and that such a one is sufficient for all the effects we see proceed from them as in the process of this discourse we shall more amply declare The Element immediately next to Earth in grosness is Water And in it is the exercise of our tast or Mouth being perpetually wet within by means of which moysture our Tongue receives into it some