Power as in the Purity And the disparity between the Natural and Divine Infinite is such as they cannot joyn mix and work together unless you do believe that Divine Actions can have allay But you may say Purity belongs onely to natural things and none but natural bodies can be said purified but God exceeds all Purity 'T is true But if there were infinite degrees of Purity in Matter Matter might at last become Immaterial and so from an Infinite Material turn to an Infinite Immaterial and from Natrue to be God A great but an impossible Change For I do verily believe that there can be but one Omnipotent God and he cannot admit of addition or diminution and that which is Material cannot be Immaterial and what is Immaterial cannot become Material I mean so as to change their natures for Nature is what God was pleased she should be and will be what she was until God be pleased to make her otherwise Wherefore there can be no new Creation of matter motion or figure nor any annihilation of any matter motion or figure in Nature unless God do create a new Nature For the changing of Matter into several particular Figures doth not prove an annihilation of particular Figures nor the cessation of particular Motions an annihilation of them Neither doth the variation of the Onely Matter produce an annihilation of any part of Matter nor the variation of figures and motions of Matter cause an alteration in the nature of Onely Matter Wherefore there cannot be new Lives Souls or Bodies in Nature for could there be any thing new in Nature or any thing annihilated there would not be any stability in Nature as a continuance of every kind and sort of Creatures but there would be a confusion between the new and old matter motions and figures as between old and new Nature In truth it would be like new Wine in old Vessels by which all would break into disorder Neither can supernatural and natural effects be mixt together no more then material and immaterial things or beings Therefore it is probable God has ordained Nature to work in herself by his Leave Will and Free Gift But there have been and are still strange and erroneous Opinions and great differences amongst Natural Philosophers concerning the Principles of Natural things some will have them Atoms others will have the first Principles to be Salt Sulphur and Mercury some will have them to be the four Elements as Fire Air Water and Earth and others will have but one of these Elements also some will have Gas and Blas Ferments Idea's and the like but what they believe to be Principles and Causes of natural things are onely Effects for in all Probability it appears to humane sense and reason that the cause of every particular material Creature is the onely and Infinite Matter which has Motions and Figures inseparably united for Matter Motion and Figure are but one thing individable in its Nature And as for Immaterial Spirits there is surely no such thing in Infinite Nature to wit so as to be Parts of Nature for Nature is altogether Material but this opinion proceeds from the separation or abstraction of Motion form Matter viz. that man thinks matter and motion to be dividable from each other and believes motion to be a thing by its self naming it an Imaterial thing which has a being but not a bodily substance But various and different effects do not prove a different Matter or Cause neither do they prove an unsetled Cause onely the variety of Effects hath obscured the Cause from the several parts which makes Particular Creatures partly Ignorant and partly knowing But in my opinion Nature is material and not any thing in Nature what belongs to her is immaterial but whatsoever is Immaterial is Supernatural Therefore Motions Forms Thoughts Ideas Conceptions Sympathies Antipathies Accidents Qualities as also Natural Life and Soul are all Material And as for Colours Sents Light Sound Heat Cold and the like those that believe them not to be substances or material things surely their brain or heart take what place you will for the forming of Conceptions moves very Irregularly and they might as well say Our sensitive Organs are not material for what Objects soever that are subject to our senses cannot in sense be denied to be Corporeal when as those things that are not subject to our senses can be conceived in reason to be Immaterial But some Philosophers striving to express their wit obstruct reason and drawing Divinity to prove Sense and Reason weaken Faith so as their mixed Divine Philosophy becomes meer Poetical Fictions and Romancical expressions making material Bodies immaterial Spirits and immaterial Spirits material Bodies and some have conceived some things neither to be Material nor Immaterial but between both Truly Madam I wish their Wits had been less and their Judgments more as not to jumble Natural and Supernatural things together but to distinguish either clearly for such Mixtures are neither Natural nor Divine But as I said the Confufion comes from their too nice abstractions and from the separation of Figure and Motion from Matter as not conceiving them individable but if God and his servant Nature were as Intricate and Confuse in their Works as Men in their Understandings and Words the Universe and Production of all Creatures would soon be without Order and Government so as there would be a horrid and Eternal War both in Heaven and in the World and so pittying their troubled Brains and wishing them the Light of Reason that they may clearly perceive the Truth I rest MADAM Your real Friend and faithful Servant III. MADAM IT seems you are offended at my Opinion that Nature is Eternal without beginning which you say is to make her God or at least coeqnal with God But if you apprehend my meaning rightly you will say I do not For first God is an Immaterial and Spiritual Infinite Being which Propriety God cannot give away to any Creature nor make another God in Essence like to him for Gods Attributes are not communicable to any Creature Yet this doth not hinder that God should not make Infinite and Eternal Matter for that is as easie to him as to make a Finite Creature Infinite Matter being quite of another Nature then God is to wit Corporeal when God is Incorporeal the difference whereof I have declared in my former Letter But as for Nature that it cannot be Eternal without beginning because God is the Creator and Cause of it and that the Creator must be before the Creature as the Cause before the Effect so that it is impossible for Nature to be without a beginning if you will speak naturally as human reason guides you and bring an Argument concluding from the Priority of the Cause before the Effect give me leave to tell you that God is not tied to Natural Rules but that he can do beyond our Understanding and therefore he is neither bound up to time
it has not been before the Flood and before it was made a sign by God as your Author imagines for though it was no sign before the Flood yet it may nevertheless have had its being and existence before the Flood Moreover as for Thunder and Lightning your Authors opinion is That although they may have concurring natural Causes yet the mover of them is an Incorporeal Spirit which is the Devil who having obtained the Principality of this world that he may be a certain executer of the Judgments of the chief Monarch and so the Umpire and Commissioner of Lightning and Thunder stirs up a monstrous and sudden Blas in the Air yet under Covenanted Conditions for unless his power were bridled by divine Goodness he would shake the Earth with one stroke so as to destroy all mortal men and thus the cracking noise or voice of Thunder is nothing but a spiritual Blas of the Evil Spirit I will not deny Madam that Thunder and Lightning do argue the Power of the most Glorious God for so do all the rest of the Creatures but that this is the onely and immediate cause which your Author assigns of Thunder and Lightning I cannot believe for surely in my opinion Thunder and Lightning are as much natural effects as other Creatures in Nature and are not the Devils Blas for I think they may be made without the help of the Devil nay I believe he may be as much affraid of Thunder as those Creatures that live on Earth But what the causes are and how Thunder and Lightning are made I have elsewhere declared more at large especially in my Philosophical Opinions Again your Author speaking of the Trembling of the Earth thinks it is nothing else but the Judgment of God for the sins of Impenitent men For my part Madam I can say little to it either concerning the divine or the natural cause of Earthquakes As for the divine and supernatural Cause which your Author gives if it was so then I wonder much why God should command Earth-quakes in some parts of the World more frequent then in others As for example we here in these parts have very seldom Earthquakes and those we have which is hardly one in many ages are not so furious as to do much harm and so in many other places of the World are as few and as gentle Earth-quakes as here when as in others Earth-quakes are very frequent and dreadful From whence it must needs follow if Earth-quakes be onely a Judgment from God for the sins of Impenitent Men and not a natural effect that then those places where the Earth is not so apt to tremble are the habitations of the blessed and that they which inhabit those parts that are apt to tremble are the accursed when as yet in those places where Earthquakes are not usual and frequent or none at all People are as wicked and impious if not more then in those where Earthquakes are common But the questions is Whether those parts which suffer frequent and terrible Earthquakes would not be so shaken or have such trembling fits were they uninhabited by Man or any other animal Creature Certainly in my opinion they would But as for the Natural Cause of Earthquakes you must pardon me Madam that I cannot knowingly discourse thereof by reason I am not so well skilled in Geography as to know the several Soils Climats Parts Regions or Countries nor what disposed matter may be within those parts that are subject to frequent Earthquakes Onely this I may say that I have observed that the light of a small Fire or Candle will dilate it self round about or rather that the air round about the Fire or Candle will pattern out both its light and its heat Also I have observed That a Man in a raging fit of Madness will have such an unsual strength as ten strong men shall hardly be able to encounter or bind him when as this violent fit being past a single man nay a youth may over-master him Whence I conclude that the actions as the motions of Nature are very powerful when they use their force and that the ordinary actions of Nature are not so forcible as necessary but the extraordinary are more forcible then necessary Lastly your Author takes great pains to prove That the Sun with his light rules the Day and the Moon with hers the Night and that the Moon has her own Native light and that Bats Mice Dormice Owles and many others as also Men which rise at night and walk in their sleep see by the light and power of the Moon also that Plants are more plentifully nourished by the night But lest it might be concluded that all this is said without any probability of Truth by reason the Moon doth not every night shine upon the Earth he makes a difference between the Manner of the Sun 's and Moon 's enlightning the Earth to wit that the Sun strikes his beams in a right line towards the Earth but the Moon doth not respect the Centre of the World which is the Earth in a right line but her Centre is always excentrical and she respects the Earth onely by accident when she is concentrical with the World And therefore he thinks there is another light under the Earth even at Midnight whereby many Eyes do see which owes also its rise to the Moon This opinion of your Author I leave to be examined by those that have skill in Astronomy and know both the Light and the Course of the Moon I will onely say thus much that when the Moon is concentrical as he calls it with the World as when it is Full and New Moon she doth not shine onely at night but also in the day and therefore she may rule the day as well as the night and then there will be two lights for the ruling of the day or at least there will be a strife betwixt the Sun and the Moon which shall rule But as for Men walking asleep by the light of the Moon my opinion is That blind men may walk as well by the light of the Sun as sleeping men by the light of the Moon Neither is it probable that the Moon or her Blas doth nourish Plants for in a cold Moon-shiny night they will often die but it is rather the Regular motions in well tempered matter that cause fruitful productions and maturity And so I repose my Pen lest it trespass too much upon your Patience resting MADAM Your humble and faithful Servant IX MADAM IN my former when I related your Authors opinion concerning Earthquakes I forgot to tell you that he counts the the Doctrine of the Schools absurd when they say that Air or any Exhalation is the cause of them For says he There is no place in the Pavements or soils of the Earth wherein any airy body may be entertained whether that body be a wind or an airy exhalation But since I promised I would not offer to
also be finite in its exterior figure as I have proved in the beginning by the example of a heap of grains of corn Certainly Madam I see no reason but since according to your Author God as the prime Cause Agent and Producer of all things and the action by which he produced all things is Infinite the Matter out of which he produced all particular Creatures may be Infinite also Neither doth it to my sense and reason imply any contradiction or impiety for it derogates nothing from the Glory and Omnipotency of God but God is still the God of Nature and Nature is his Servant although Infinite depending wholly upon the will and pleasure of the All-powerful God Neither do these two Infinites obstruct each other for Nature is corporeal and God is a supernatural and spiritual Infinite Being and although Nature has an Infinite power yet she has but an Infinite Natural power whereas Gods Omnipotency is infinitely extended beyond Nature But your Author is pleased to refute that argument which concludes from the effect to the cause and proves Matter to be infinite because God as the Cause is Infinite saying that this Rule doth onely hold in Univocal things by which I suppose he understands things of the same kind and nature and not in opposites Truly Madam by this he limits Gods power as if God were not able to work beyond Nature and Natural Reason or Understanding and measures Gods actions according to the rules of Logick which whether it be not more impious you may judg your self And as for opposites God and Nature are not opposites except you will call opposites those which bear a certain relation to one another as a Cause and its Effect a Parent and a Child a Master and a Servant and the like Nay I wonder how your Author can limit Gods action when as he confesses himself that the Creation of the World is an Infinite action God acted finitely says he by an Infinite action which in my opinion is meer non-sense and as much as to say a man can act weakly by a strong action basely by an honest action cowardly by a stout action The truth is God being Infinite cannot work finitely for as his Essence so his Actions cannot have any limitation and therefore it is most probable that God made Nature Infinite for though each part of Nature is finite in its own figure yet considered in general they are Infinite as well in number as duration except God be pleased to destroy them nay every particular may in a certain sense be said Infinite to wit Infinite in time or duration for if Nature be Infinite and Eternal and there be no annihilation or perishing in Nature but a perpetual successive change and alteration of natural figures then no part of Nature can perish or be annihilated and if no part of Nature perishes then it lasts infinitely in Nature that is in the substance of natural Matter for though the corporeal motions which make the figures do change yet the ground of the figure which is natural matter never changes The same may be said of corporeal motions for though motions change and vary infinite ways yet none is lost in Nature but some motions are repeated again As for example the natural motions in an Animal Creature although they are altered in the dissolution of the animal figure yet they may be repeated again by piece-meals in other Creatures like as a Commonwealth or united body in society if it should be dissolved and dispersed the particulars which did constitute this Commonwealth or society may joyn to the making of another society and thus the natural motions of a body do not perish when the figure of the body dissolves but joyn with other motions to the forming and producing of some other figures But to return to your Author I perceive his discourse is grounded upon a false supposition which appears by his way of arguing from the course of the Starrs and Planets to prove the finiteness of Nature for by reason the Stars and Planets rowl about and turn to the same point again each within a certain compass of time he concludes Nature or Natural Matter to be finite too And so he takes a part for the whole to wit this visible World for all Nature when as this World is onely a part of Nature or Natural Matter and there may be more and Infinite worlds besides Wherefore his conclusion must needs be false since it is built upon a false ground Moreover he is as much against the Eternity of Matter as he is against Infiniteness concluding likewise from the parts to the whole For says he since the parts of Nature are subject to a beginning and ending the whole must be so too But he is much mistaken when he attributes a beginning and ending to parts for there is no such thing as a beginning and ending in Nature neither in the whole nor in the parts by reason there is no new creation or production of Creatures out of new Matter nor any total destruction or annihilation of any part in Nature but onely a change alteration and transmigration of one figure into another which change and alteration proves rather the contrary to wit that Matter is Eternal and Incorruptible for if particular figures change they must of necessity change in the Infinite Matter which it self and in its nature is not subject to any change or alteration besides though particulars have a finite and limited figure and do change yet their species do not for Mankind never changes nor ceases to be though Peter and Paul die or rather their figures dissolve and divide for to die is nothing else but that the parts of that figure divide and unite into some other figures by the change of motion in those parts Concerning the Inanimate Matter which of it self is a dead dull and idle matter your Author denies it to be a co-agent or assistant to the animate matter For says he how can dead and idle things act To which I answer That your Author being or pretending to be a Philosopher should consider that there is difference betwixt a Principal and Instrumental cause or agent and although this inanimate or dull matter doth not act of it self as a principal agent yet it can and doth act as an Instrument according as it is imploy'd by the animate matter for by reason there is so close a conjunction and commixture of animate and inanimate Matter in Nature as they do make but one body it is impossible that the animate part of matter should move without the inanimate not that the inanimate hath motion in her self but the animate bears up the inanimate in the action of her own substance and makes the inanimate work act and move with her by reason of the aforesaid union and commixture Lastly your Author speaks much of Minima's viz. That all things may be resolved into their minima's and what is beyond them is nothing and
the figures without patterns that is exterior objects which is the cause that they are often erroneous whereas if it were the former Impression of the Objects there could not possibly be imperfect Dreams or Remembrances for fading of Figures requires as much motion as impression and impression and fading are very different and opposite motions nay if Perception was made by Impression there could not possibly be a fading or decay of the figures printed either in the Mind or Body whereas yet as there is alteration of Motions in self-moving Matter so there is also an alteration of figures made by these motions But you will say it doth not follow if Perception be made by Impression that it must needs continue and not decay for if you touch and move a string the motion doth not continue for ever but ceaseth by degrees I answer There is great difference between Prime self-motion and forced or Artificial Motions for Artificial Motions are onely an Imitation of Natural Motions and not the same but caused by Natural Motions for although there is no Art that is not made by Nature yet Nature is not made by Art Wherefore we cannot rationally judg of Perception by comparing it to the motion of a string and its alteration to the ceasing of that motion for Nature moveth not by force but freely 'T is true 't is the freedom in Nature for one man to give another a box on the Ear or to trip up his heels or for one or more men to fight with each other yet these actions are not like the actions of loving Imbraces and Kissing each other neither are the actions one and the same when a man strikes himself and when he strikes another and so is likewise the action of impression and the action of self-figuring not one and the same but different for the action of impression is forced and the action of self-figuring is free Wherefore the comparison of the forced motions of a string rope watch or the like can have no place here for though the rope made of flax or hemp may have the perception of a Vegetable yet not of the hand or the like that touched or struck it and although the hand doth occasion the rope to move in such a manner yet it is not the motion of the hand by which it moveth and when it ceases its natural and inherent power to move is not lessened like as a man that hath left off carving or painting hath no less skill then he had before neither is that skill lost when he plays upon the Lute or Virginals or plows plants and the like but he hath onely altered his action as from carving to painting or from painting to playing and so to plowing and planting which is not through disability but choice But you will say it is nevertheless a cessation of such a motion I grant it but the ceasing of such a motion is not the ceasing of self-moving matter from all motions neither is cessation as much as annihilation for the motion lies in the power of the matter to repeat it as oft it will if it be not overpowred for more parts or more strength or more motions may over-power the less Wherefore forced or artificial and free Natural motions are different in their effects although they have but one Cause which is the self-moving matter and though Matter is but active and passive yet there is great Variety and so great difference in force and liberty objects and perceptions sense and reason and the like But to conclude perception is not made by the pressure of objects no more then hemp is made by the Rope-maker or metal by the Bell-founder or Ringer and yet neither the rope nor the metal is without sense and reason but the natural motions of the metal and the artificial motions of the Ringer are different wherefore a natural effect in truth cannot be produced from an artificial cause neither can the ceasing of particular forced or artificial motions be a proof for the ceasing of general natural free motions as that matter it self should cease to move for there is no such thing as rest in Nature but there is an alteration of motions and figures in self-moving matter which alteration causeth variety as well in opinions as in every thing else Wherefore in my opinion though sense alters yet it doth not decay for the rational and sensitive part of matter is as lasting as matter it self but that which is named decay of sense is onely the alteration of motions and not an obscurity of motions like as the motions of memory and forgetfulness and the repetition of the same motions is called remembrance And thus much of this subject for the present to which I add no more but rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant VI. MADAM YOur Authour discoursing of Imagination saith That as soon as any object is removed from our Eyes though the Impression that is made in us remain yet other objects more present succeeding and working on us the Imagination of the past is obscured and made weak To which I answer first that he conceives Sense and Imagination to be all one for he says Imagination is nothing else but a fading or decaying sense whereas in my opinion they are different not onely their matter but their motions also being distinct and different for Imagination is a rational perception and sense a sensitive perception wherefore as much as the rational matter differs from the sensitive as much doth Imagination differ from Sense Next I say that Impressions do not remain in the body of sensitive matter but it is in its power to make or repeat the like figures Neither is Imagination less when the object is absent then when present but the figure patterned out in the sensitive organs being altered and remaining onely in the Rational part of matter is not so perspicuous and clear as when it was both in the Sense and in the Mind And to prove that Imagination of things past doth not grow weaker by distance of time as your Authour says many a man in his old age will have as perfect an Imagination of what is past in his younger years as if he saw it present And as for your Authours opinion that Imagination and Memory are one and the same I grant that they are made of one kind of Matter but although the Matter is one and the same yet several motions in the several parts make Imagination and Memory several things As for Example a Man may Imagine that which never came into his Senses wherefore Imagination is not one and the same thing with Memory But your Author seems to make all Sense as it were one Motion but not all Motion Sense whereas surely there is no Motion but is either Sensitive or Rational for Reason is but a pure and refined Sense and Sense a grosser Reason Yet all sensitive and rational Motions are not one and the same for forced or Artificial
extend and shrink together and so grow less and bigger according to the extension of the body and when the body dies the soul in my opinion must contract to a very point and if one part of the body die before the other the soul must by degrees withdraw out of those parts also when a part of the body is cut off the soul must needs contract and grow less the like when a man is let blood Which contracting of the soul by your Authors leave doth seem to my imagination just like the contracting of Hodmandod into her shell Besides if the soul be individable and equally spread all over the body then to my opinion she must necessarily be of a human shape and if the body be deformed the soul must be deformed also and if the body be casually extended as by taking Poyson into the body the soul must be so too as being individable and filling every part and if a man be born with six fingers or toes the soul must be so too or if a dwarf the soul must be a dwarf also and if he be born deaf and dumb the soul must be so too But if two Twins as it may fall out should be born united in one body I would fain know then whether they would have two souls or but one As for example if they should have but one body and one stomack liver heart spleen lungs bowels and yet have four legs four hands and two heads It seems to my opinion that then two Immaterial Souls must be joyned as into one neither do I know yet how this could well be the monster having but one body nor how that Immaterial Soul can be divided being inseparably double when the body dies But Madam all this I speak of the Natural Soul of Man not of the Divine Soul which is not subject to natural imperfections and corporeal errors being not made by Nature but a supernatural and divine gift of the Omnipotent God who surely will not give any thing that is not perfect Wherefore it is not probable this Divine Soul being not subject to Nature should be an architect of the body as having an higher and more divine imployment viz. to fix her self on her Creator and being indued with supernatural faculties and residing in the body in a supernatural manner all which I leave to the Church for I should be loth to affirm any thing contrary to their Doctrine or the Information of the holy Scripture as grounding my belief onely upon the sacred Word of God and its true Interpretation made by the Orthodox Church but not upon the opinions of particular persons for particular mens opinions are not authentical being so different and various as a man would be puzled which to adhere to Thus Madam I avoid as much as ever I can not to mix Divinity with Natural Philosophy for I consider that such a mixture would breed more confusion in the Church then do any good to either witness the doctrine of the Soul of Man whereof are so many different opinions The onely cause in my opinion is that men do not conceive the difference between the Divine and Natural material Soul of Man making them both as one and mixing or confounding their faculties and proprieties which yet are quite different thus they make a Hodg-podg Bisk or Olio of both proving Divinity by Nature and Faith by Reason and bringing Arguments for Articles of Faith and sacred Mysteries out of Natural Arts and Sciences whereas yet Faith and Reason are two contrary things and cannot consist together according to the Proverb Where Reason ends Faith begins Neither is it possible that Divinity can be proved by Mathematical Demonstrations for if Nature be not able to do it much less is Art Wherefore it is inconvenient to mix supernatural Spirits with Air Fire Light Heat Cold c. and to apply corporeal actions and qualities to them and the Divine Soul with the Brain Blood Flesh Animal Spirits Muscles Nerves Bones c. of Man all which makes a confusion betwixt the Mind or Natural Soul of Man and the Supernatural and Divine Soul inspired into him by God for both their faculties and proprieties are different and so are their effects as proceeding from so different causes And therefore Madam as for Divinity I pray devoutly and believe without disputing but as for Natural Philosophy I reason freely and argue without believing or adhering to any ones particular opinion which I think is the best and safest way to choose for MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXVII MADAM YOur Author in the continuation of his discourse concerning the Immaterial Soul of Man demonstrating that her seat is not bound up in a certain place of the body but that she pervades all the body and every part thereof takes amongst the rest an argument from Passions and Sympathies Moreover says he Passions and Sympathies in my judgment are more easily to be resolved into this hypothesis of the Soul 's pervading the whole Body then in restraining its essential presence to one part thereof But it is evident that they arise in us against both our will and appetite For who would bear the tortures of fears and jelousies if he could avoid it Concerning Passions Madam I have given my opinion at large in my Book of Philosophy and am of your Authors mind that Passions are made in the Heart but not by an Immaterial spirit but by the Rational soul which is material and there is no doubt but that many Passions as Fear Jealousie c. arise against our will and appetite for so may forreign Nations invade any Kingdom without the will or desire of the Inhabitants and yet they are corporeal men The same may be said of Passions and several parts of matter may invade each other whereof one may be afraid of the other yet all this is but according as corporeal matter moves either Generally or Particularly Generally that is when many parts of Matter unite or joyn together having the like appetites wills designs as we may observe that there are general agreements amongst several parts in Plagues as well as Wars which Plagues are not onely amongst Men but amongst Beasts and sometimes but in one sort of animals as a general Rot amongst Sheep a general Mange amongst Dogs a general Farcy amongst Horses a general Plague amongst Men all which could not be without a general Infection one part infecting another or rather one part imitating the motions of the other that is next adjoyning to it for such infections come by the neer adhesion of parts as is observable which immaterial and individable natural Spirits could not effect that is to make such a general infection in so many several parts of so many several Creatures to the Creatures dissolution Also there will be several Invasions at one time as Plague and War amongst neighbouring and adjoining Creatures or Parts But this is to be observed That the sensitive corporeal motions make
Hell either to enjoy Reward or to suffer Punishment according to man's actions in this life But as for the Natural Soul she being material has no need of any Vehicles neither is natural death any thing else but an alteration of the rational and sensitive motions which from the dissolution of one figure go to the formation or production of another Thus the natural soul is not like a Traveller going out of one body into another neither is air her lodging for certainly if the natural humane soul should travel through the airy regions she would at last grow weary it being so great a journey except she did meet with the soul of a Horse and so ease her self with riding on Horseback Neither can I believe Souls or Daemons in the Air have any Common-wealth Magistrates Officers and Executioners in their airy Kingdom for wheresoever are Governments Magistrates and Executioners there are also Offences and where there is power to offend as well as to obey there may and will be sometimes Rebellions and Civil Wars for there being different forts of Spirits it is impossible they should all fo well agree especially the good and evil Genii which certainly will fight more valiantly then Hector and Achilles nay the Spirits of one sort would have more Civil Wars then ever the Romans had and if the Soul of Caesar and Pompey should meet there would be a cruel fight between those two Heroical souls the like between Augustus's and Antonius's Soul But Madam all these as I said I take for fancies proceeding from the Religion of the Gentiles not fit for Christians to embrace for any truth for if we should we might at last by avoiding to be Atheists become Pagans and so leap out of the Frying-pan into the Fire as turning from Divine Faith to Poetical Fancy and if Ovid should revive again he would perhaps be the chief head or pillar of the Church By this you may plainly see Madam that I am no Platonick for this opinion is dangerous especially for married Women by reason the conversation of the Souls may be a great temptation and a means to bring Platonick Lovers to a neerer acquaintance not allowable by the Laws of Marriage although by the sympathy of the Souls But I conclude and desire you not to interpret amiss this my discourse as if I had been too invective against Poetical Fancies for that I am a great lover of them my Poetical Works will witness onely I think it not fit to bring Fancies into Religion Wherefore what I have writ now to you is rather to express my zeal for God and his true Worship then to prejudice any body and if you be of that same Opinion as above mentioned I wish my Letter may convert you and so I should not account my labour lost but judg my self happy that any good could proceed to the advancement of your Soul from MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXX MADAM I Sent you word in my last I would not meddle with writing any thing of the Divine Soul of Man by reason it belongs to Faith and Religion and not to Natural Philosophy but since you desire my opinion concerning the Immortality of the Divine Soul I cannot but answer you plainly that first I did wonder much you made question of that whose truth in my opinion is so clear as hardly any rational man will make a doubt of it for I think there is almost no Christian in the world but believes the Immortality of the Soul no not Christians onely but Mahometans and Jews But I left to wonder at you when I saw Wise and Learned Men and great Divines take so much pains as to write whole Volumes and bring so many arguments to prove the Immortality of the Soul for this was a greater Miracle to me then if Nature had shewed me some of her secret and hidden effects or if I had seen an Immaterial Spirit Certainly Madam it seems as strange to me to prove the Immortality of the Soul as to convert Atheists for it impossible almost that any Atheist should be found in the World For what Man would be so senceless as to deny a God Wherefore to prove either a God or the Immortality of the Soul is to make a man doubt of either for as Physicians and Surgeons apply strengthening Medicines onely to those parts of the body which they suppose the weakest so it is with proofs and arguments those being for the most part used in such subjects the truth of which is most questionable But in things Divine Disputes do rather weaken Faith then prove Truth and breed several strange opinions for Man being naturally ambitious and endeavouring to excel each other will not content himself with what God has been pleased to reveal in his holy Word but invents and adds something of his own and hence arise so many monstrous expressions and opinions that a simple man is puzzled not knowing which to adhere to which is the cause of so many schismes sects and divisions in Religion Hence it comes also that some pretend to know the very nature and essence of God his divine Counsels all his Actions Designs Rules Decrees Power Attributes nay his Motions Affections and Passions as if the Omnipotent Infinite God were of a humane shape so that there are already more divisions then Religions which disturb the peace and quiet both of mind and body when as the ground of our belief consists but in some few and short Articles which clearly explained and the moral part of Divinity well pressed upon the People would do more good then unnecessary and tedious disputes which rather confound Religion then advance it but if man had a mind to shew Learning and exercise his Wit certainly there are other subjects wherein he can do it with more profit and less danger then by proving Christian Religion by Natural Philosophy which is the way to destroy them both I could wish Madam that every one would but observe the Command of Christ and give to God what is Gods and to Caesar what is Caesars and so distinguish what belongs to the actions of Nature and what to the actions of Religion for it appears to my Reason that God hath given Nature his eternal Servant a peculiar freedom of working and acting as a self-moving Power from Eternity but when the Omnipotent God acts he acts supernaturally as beyong Nature of which devine actions none but the holy Church as one united body mind and soul should discourse and declare the truth of them according to the Revelation made by God in his holy Word to her Flock the Laity not suffering any one single person of what profession or degree soever indifferently to comment interpret explain and declare the meaning or sense of the Scripture after his own fancy And as for Nature's actions let those whom Nature hath indued with such a proportion of Reason as is able to search into the hidden causes of natural effects
contemplate freely without any restraint or consinement for Nature acts freely and so may natural Creatures and amongst the rest Man in things which are purely natural but as for things supernatural man cannot act freely by reason they are beyond his sphere of conception and understanding so as he is forced to set aside Reason and onely to work by Faith And thus Madam you see the cause why I cannot give you a full description of the Divine Soul of Man as I mentioned already in my last but that I do onely send you my opinion of the natural soul which I call the rational soul not that I dare say the supernatural soul is without natural reason but natural reason is not the divine soul neither can natural reason without Faith advance the divine soul to Heaven or beget a pious zeal without divine and supernatural Grace Wherefore Reason or the rational Soul is onely the Soul of Nature which being material is dividable and so becomes numerous in particular natural Creatures like as the sensitive life being also material and dividable becomes numerous as being in every Creature and in every part of every Creature for as there is life in every Creature so there is also a soul in every Creature nay not onely in every Creature but in every particle of every Creature by reason every Creature is made of rational and sensitive Matter and as all Creatures or parts of Nature are but one infinite body of Nature so all their particular souls and lives make but one infinite soul and life of Nature and this natural soul hath onely natural actions not supernatural nor has the supernatural soul natural actions for although they subsist both together in one body yet each works without disturbance to the other and both are Immortal for of the supernatural soul there is no question and of the natural soul I have said before that nothing is perishable or subject to annihilation in nature and so no death but what is called by the name of death is onely an alteration of the corporeal natural motions of such a figure to another figure and therefore as it is impossible that one part of Matter should perish in Nature so is it impossible that the natural or rational soul can perish being material The natural humane soul may alter so as not to move in an animal way or not to have animal motions but this doth not prove her destruction or annihilation but onely a change of the animal figure and its motions all remaining still in Nature Thus my Faith of the Divine and my opinion of the Natural Soul is that they are both Immortal as for the immediate actions of the Divine Soul I leave you to the Church which are the Ministers of God and the faithful dispensers of the sacred mysteries of the Gospel the true Expounders of the Word of God Reformers of mens lives and Tutors of the Ignorant to whom I submit my self in all that belongs to the salvation of my Soul and the regulating of the actions of my life to the honour and glory of God And I hope they will not take any offence at the maintaining and publishing my opinions concerning Nature and Natural effects for they are as harmless and as little prejudicial to them as my designs for my onely and chief design is and ever hath been to understand Nature rightly obey the Church exactly Believe undoubtedly Pray zealously Live vertuously and Wish earnestly that both Church and Schools may increase and flourish in the sacred knowledge of the true Word of God and that each one may live peaceable and happily in this world die quietly and rise blessedly and gloriously to everlasting Life and happiness Which happiness I pray God also to confer upon your Ladiship Till then I rest MADAM Your faithful and constant Friend to serve you XXXI MADAM I Will leave the Controversie of Free-Will and Necessity which your Author is discoursing of to Divines to decide it onely I say this that Nature hath a natural Free-will and power of self-moving and is not necessitated but yet that this Free-will proceeds from God who hath given her both will and power to act freely But as for the question whether there be nothing in the Universe but meer body I answer My opinion is not that there is nothing in the world but meer Body but that Nature is purely material or corporeal and that there is no part of Nature or natural Creature which is not Matter or Body or made of Matter also that there is not any thing else mixt with body as a copartner in natural actions which is distinct from Body or Matter nevertheless there may be supernatural spiritual beings or substances in Nature without any hinderance to Matter or corporeal Nature The same I may say of the natural material and the divine and supernatural Soul for though the divine Soul is in a natural body and both their powers and actions be different yet they cause no ruine or disturbance to each other but do in many cases agree with each other without incroachment upon each others powers or actions for God as he is the God of all things so the God of Order Wherefore it is not probable that created Immaterial or Incorporeal beings should order Corporeal Nature no more then Corporeal Nature orders Immaterial or Incorporeal Creatures Neither can in my opinion Incorporeal Creatures be clearly conceived by Corporeals although they may really exist and subsist in Nature onely as I said before it is well to be considered that there is difference betwixt being in Nature and being a part of Nature for bodiless things and so spiritual substances although they may exist in Nature yet they are not natural nor parts of Nature but supernatural Nature being meerly corporeal and Matter the ground of Nature and all that is not built upon this material ground is nothing in Nature But you will say The divine Soul is a part of Man and Man a part of Nature wherefore the divine Soul must needs be a part of Nature I answer Not For the divine Soul is not a part of Nature but supernatural as a supernatural Gift from God onely to Man and to no other Creature and although in this respect it may be called a part of Man yet it is no natural or material part of Man neither doth this supernatural Gift disturb Nature or natural Matter or natural Matter this supernatural Gist And so leaving them both I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXXII MADAM IF you desire my opinion concerning Witches whereof your Learned Author hath many Discourses and Stories I will tell you really that in my sense and reason I do not believe any except it be the witch of Endor which the Scripture makes mention of for though I believe that there is a Devil as the Word of God and the Church inform me yet I am not of the opinion that God should suffer
effects and as for Water if he doth make it a Principle of Natural things I see no reason why he excludes the rest of the Elements But in my opinion Water and the rest of the Elements are but effects of Nature as other Creatures are and so cannot be prime causes The like the Ferment which to my sense and reason is nothing else but a natural effect of natural matter Concerning his opinion That Causes and Beginnings are all one or that there is but little difference betwixt them I do readily subscribe unto it but when he speaks of those things which are produced without life my reason cannot find out what or where they should be for certainly in Nature they are not Nature being Life and Soul her self and all her parts being enlivened and soulified so that there can be no generation or natural production without Life Neither is my sense and reason capable to understand his meaning when he says That the Seeds of things and the Spirits as the Dispensers thereof are divided from the Material Cause For I do see no difference betwixt the Seed and the material Cause but they are all one thing it being undeniable that the seed is the matter of that which is produced But your Author was pleased to say heretofore that there are but two beginnings or causes of natural things and now he makes so many more for says he Of Efficient and Seminal Causes some are efficiently effecting and others effectively effecting which nice distinctions in my opinion do but make a confusion in natural knowledg setting a mans brain on the rack for who is able to conceive all those Chymaeras and Fancies of the Archeus Ferment various Ideas Blas Gas and many more which are neither something nor no-thing in Nature but betwixt both except a man have the same Fancies Visions and Dreams your Author had Nature is easie to be understood and without any difficulty so as we stand in no need to frame so many strange names able to fright any body Neither do natural bodies know many prime causes and beginnings but there is but one onely chief and prime cause from which all effects and varieties proceed which cause is corporeal Nature or natural self-moving Matter which forms and produces all natural things and all the variety and difference of natural Creatures arises from her various actions which are the various motions in Nature some whereof are Regular some Irregular I mean Irregular as to particular Creatures not as to Nature her self for Nature cannot be disturbed or discomposed or else all would run into confusion Wherefore Irregularities do onely concern particular Creatures not Infinite Nature and the Irregularities of some parts may cause the Irregularities of other Parts as the Regularities of some parts do cause the Regularities of others And thus according as Regularities and Irregularities have power they cause either Peace or War Sickness or Health Delight and Pleasure or Grief and Pain Life or Death to particular Creatures or parts of Nature but all these various actions are but various Effects and not prime Causes which is well to be observed lest we confound Causes with Effects And so leaving this discourse for the present I rest MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant II. MADAM IT is no wonder your Author has so many odd and strange opinions in Philosophy since they do not onely proceed from strange Visions Apparitions and Dreams but are built upon so strange grounds and principles as Ideas Archeus Gas Blas Ferment and the like the names of which sound so harsh and terrifying as they might put any body easily into a fright like so many Hobgoblins or Immaterial spirits but the best is they can do no great harm except it be to trouble the brains of them that love to maintain those opinions for though they are thought to be powerful beings yet being not corporeal substances I cannot imagine wherein their power should consist for Nothing can do nothing But to mention each apart first his Archeus he calls the Spirit of Life a vital Gas or Light the Balsam preserving from Corruption the Vulcan or Smith of Generation the stirrer up and inward director of Generation an Air a skiey or airy Spirit cloathing himself presently with a bodily cloathing in things soulified walking through all the dens and retiring places of the seed and transforming the matter according to the perfect act of its own Image remaining the president and overseer or inward ruler of his bounds even till death the Principle of Life the Inn of Life the onely immediate Witness Executor and Instrument of Life the Prince and Center of Life the Ruler of the Stern the Keeper of Life and promoter of Transmutations the Porter of the Soul a Fountainous being a Flint These and many more names your Author attributes to his Archeus but what properly it is and what its Nature and its peculiar office I am not able to conceive In the next place Gas and Blas are to your Author also true Principles of Natural things for Gas is the Vapour into which Water is dissolved by Cold but yet it is a far more fine and subtil thing then Vapour which he demonstrates by the Art of Chymistry This Gas in another place he calls a Wild Spirit or Breath unknown hitherto which can neither be constrained by Vessels nor reduced into a visible body in some things it is nothing but Water as for example in Salt in Fruits and the like But Blas proceeds from the local and alterative motion of the Stars and is the general beginning of motion producing heat and cold and that especially with the changing of the Winds There is also Blas in all sublunary things witness Amulets or preserving Pomanders whereby they do constrain objects to obey them Which Incorporeal Blas of Government acts without a Corporeal Efflux even as the Moon makes the Sea to swell but the fleshly generation hath a Blas of its own and it is twofold one which existeth by a natural Motion the other voluntary which existeth as a mover to it self by an Internal Willing There is also a Blas of the Heart which is the fuel of the Vital Spirit and consequently of its heat The Ferment he describes to be A true Principle or Original beginning of things to wit a Formal Created being which is neither a substance nor an accident but a Neutral being framed from the beginning of the World in the places of its own Monarchy in the manner of Light Fire the magnal or sheath of the Air Forms c. that it may prepare stir up and go before the Seeds Lastly his Ideas are Certain formal seminal Lights mutually piercing each other without the adultery of Union For says he although at first that which is imagined is nothing but a meer being of reason yet it doth not remain such for truely the Fancy is a sealifying vertue
encounter and that the fruits which Antiquity hath believed to be mixt bodies and those composed from a concurrence of four Elements are materially of one onely Element also that those three Elements are naturally cold nor that native heat is any where in things except from Light Life Motion and an altering Blas In like manner that all actual moisture is of Water but all virtual moisture from the property of the seeds Likewise that dryness is by it self in the Air and Earth but in Fruits by reason of the Seeds and Coagulations and that there are not Contraries in Nature To give you my opinion hereof first I think it too great a presumption in any man to feign himself so much above the rest as to accuse all others of ignorance and that none but he alone hath the true knowledg of all things as infallible and undeniable and that so many Learned Wise and Ingenious Men in so many ages have been blinded with errors for certainly no particular Creature in Nature can have any exact or perfect knowledg of Natural things and therefore opinions cannot be infallible truths although they may seem probable for how is it possible that a single finite Creature should know the numberless varieties and hidden actions of Nature Wherefore your Author cannot say that he hath demonstrated any thing which could not be as much contradicted and perhaps with more reason then he hath brought proofs and demonstrations And thus when he speaks of Elements that there are not four in Nature and that they cannot go together or encounter it may be his opinion but others have brought as many reasons to the contrary and I think with more probability so as it is unnecessary to make a tedious discourse thereof and therefore I 'le refer you to those that have treated of it more learnedly and solidly then I can do But I perceive your Author is much for Art and since he can make solid bodies liquid and liquid bodies solid he believes that all bodies are composed out of the Element of Water and that Water therefore is the first Principle of all things when as Water in my opinion is but an Effect as all other natural Creatures and therefore cannot be a cause or principle of them Concerning the Natural coldness of Water Air and Earth it may be or not be so for any thing your Author can truly know but to my sense and reason it seems probable that there are things naturally hot and moist and hot and dry as well as cold and moist and cold and dry But all these are but several effects produced by the several actions of Natural Matter which Natural Matter is the onely Principle of all Natural Effects and Creatures whatever and this Principle I am confident your Author can no more prove to be Water then he can prove that Heat Light Life Motion and Blas are not material Concerning what he saith That Native Heat is no where in things except from Light Life Motion and an altering Blas I believe that motion of life makes not onely heat but all effects whatsoever but this native heat is not produced onely from the motions of Particular lives in particular Creatures but it is made by the motions of Natures life which life in all probability is the self-moving Matter which no doubt can and doth make Light and Blas without Heat and Heat without Light or Blas Wherefore Light and Blas are not principles of native Heat no more then native Heat is the principle of Light and Blas Neither is Water the Principle of Actual moisture nor the propriety of seeds the Principle of all Virtual moisture but self-moving Matter is the Principle of all and makes both actual and virtual moisture and there is no question but there are many sorts of moistures As for Dryness which he says is by it self in the Air and Earth and in Fruits by reason of the Seeds and Coagulations I cannot conceive how any thing can be by it self in Nature by reason there is nothing alone and single in Nature but all are inseparable parts of one body perchance he means it is naturally and essentially inherent in Air and Earth but neither can that be in my reason because all Creatures and Effects of Nature are Intermixt and there is as much dryness in other Creatures as in Air and Earth Lastly as for his opinion That there are no Contraries in Nature I believe not in the essence or nature of Matter but sense and reason inform us that there are Contraries in Natures actions which are Corporeal motions which cause mixtures qualities degrees discords as also harmonious conjunctions and concords compositions divisions and the like effects whatsoever But though your Author seems to be an enemy to the mixtures of Elements yet he makes such a mixture of Divinity and natural Philosophy that all his Philosophy is nothing but a meer Hotch-potch spoiling one with the other And so I will leave it to those that delight in it resting MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant IV. MADAM WAter according to your Authors opinion is frozen into Snow Ice or Hail not by Cold but by its own Gas But since I am not able to conceive what his Gas is being a term invented by himself I will briefly declare my own opinion which is That Snow Ice and Hail in my judgment are made in the like manner as Passions or Colours are made and raised in Man for a sad discourse or a cruel object will make a Man pale and cold and a fearful object will make him tremble whereas a wanton and obscene discourse will make some red and hot But yet these discourses and objects are onely external occasional and not immediate efficient causes of such alterations Also when a Man eats or drinks any thing that is actually hot or cold or enters into a cold or hot room bath or air he becomes hot or cold by the actions of those external agents that work upon him or rather whose motions the sensitive motions of his body do pattern out The like for diseases for they may be caused either by hearing ill reports or by taking either hurtful or superfluous food into the Body or by Infections inwardly or outwardly and many other ways Likewise may Colours be made different ways And so may Snow Ice and Hail for all loose rare and porous Bodies are more apt to alter and change then close solid and dense bodies and not onely to change from what they are but to rechange to what they were But Madam many studious persons study Nature more in her own substance then in her various actions which is the cause they arrive to no knowledg of Natures Works for the same parts of Matter may act or work several ways Like as a Man or other animal creature may put one part of his body into various and several postures and move it many different ways Your Author may say that although several Creatures may be
will say air may be cooled by moving it with a Fan or such like thing which can make wind wherefore it follows that air must needs be naturally cold I answer That doth not prove Air to be in its nature cold for this moving or making of wind may contract or condense the air into cold motions which may cause a cold wind like as Ventiducts where the air running thorow narrow Pipes makes a cold wind The same may be done with a mans breath for if he contract his lips close his breath will be cold but if he opens his mouth wide his breath will be warm Again you may say that rain is congealed by the coldness of the air into Snow Hail and Ice I answer Frost Ice Snow and Hail do not proceed from the coldness of the air but rather the coldness of the air proceeds from them for Ice Snow and Hail proceed from cold contraction and condensation of a vaporous or watery substance and as Frost and Snow cause air to be cold so Thunder and Lightning cause it to be hot so long as they last Thus Madam though Air may be altered either to heat or cold yet it is neither hot nor cold in it self And this is all for the present that I can say concerning the Temper of Air I conclude and rest MADAM Your constant Friend and faithful Servant VIII MADAM HAving hitherto considered your Authors Elements or Principles of Natural things you will give me leave to present you now with a short view of his Opinions concerning Wind Vacuum Rainbows Thunder Lightning Earth-quakes and the like which I will do as briefly as I can lest I betray my Ignorance for I confess my self not to be well versed in the knowledg of Meteors nor in those things which properly belong to the Mathematicks as in Astrology Geography Opticks and the like But your Author says in the first place That Natural Wind is nothing but a flowing Air moved by the Blas of the Stars Certainly Madam if this were so then in my judgment when the Stars blaze we should have constant Winds and the more they blaze the more violent winds there would be But I have rather observed the contrary that when the Stars blaze most apparently we have the calmest weather either in Summer or Winter Perchance your Author will say he doth not mean this apparant and visible Blas but another invisible Blas I answer I know not nor cannot conceive any other Blas in the Stars except I had seen it in a Vision neither do I think that Nature her self knows of any other But your Author doth refer himself upon the Authority of Hypocrates who says That not onely the Wind is a blast but that all Diseases are from blasts and that there is in us a Spirit stirring up all things by its Blas which Spirit by a Microcosmical Analogy or the proportion of a little World he compares to the blasts of the world As for my particular Madam I dare say I could never perceive by my sense and reason any such blazing Spirit in me but I have found by experience that when my mind and thoughts have been benighted with Melancholy my Imagination hath been more active and subtil then when my mind has been clear from dark Melancholy Also I find that my thoughts and conceptions are as active if not more in the night then in the day and though we may sometimes dream of several Lights yet I cannot perceive a constant light in us however Light Blazes and all those effects are no more then other effects of Nature are nor can they have more power on other Creatures then other Creatures have on them Neither are they made otherwise then by the corporeal motions of Natural Matter and are dissolved and transchanged as other Creatures out of one form or figure into another Next your Author discoursing whether there be any Vacuum in Nature doth incline to the affirming party that there is a Vacuum in the Air to wit There is in the air something that is less then a body which fills up the emptinesses or little holes and pores in the air and which is wholly annihilated by fire It is actually void of all matter and is a middle thing between a body and an Incorporeal Spirit and almost nothing in respect of bodies for it came from Nothing and so may easily be reduced to nothing All this Madam surpasses my capacity for I can in no ways conceive any thing between something and nothing as to be less then something and more then nothing for all that is corporeal in Nature is to my reason something that is some really existent thing but what is incorporeal in Nature is nothing and if there be any absolute vacuum in Nature as your Author endeavours to prove then certainly this Vacuum cannot be any thing whatsoever for a Vacuum is a pure Nothing But many ingenious and learned men have brought as many arguments and reasons against Vacuum as others bring for it and so it is a thing which I leave to them to exercise their brains withal The like is the opinion which many maintain concerning Place viz. that there is a constant succession of Place and Parts so that when one part removes another doth succeed in its place the truth and manner whereof I was never able to comprehend for in my opinion there can be no place without body nor no body without place body and place being all but one thing But as for the perpetual Creation and annihilation of your Authors Vacuities give me leave to tell you Madam that it would be a more laborious work then to make a new World or then it was to make this present World for God made this World in six days and rested the seventh day but this is a perpetual making of something out of nothing Again concerning Rainbows your Author says That a Rainbow is not a natural effect of a natural Cause but a divine Mystery in its original and that it has no matter but yet is in a place and has its colours immediately in a place but in the air mediately and that it is of the nature of Light This is indeed a great mystery to my reason for I cannot conceive as I said before a place without a body nor how Light and Colours can be bodiless But as for Rainbows I have observed when as water hath been blown up into the air into bubles that by the reflexion of light on the watery bubles they have had the like colours of the Rainbow and I have heard that there hath been often seen at the rising and setting of the Sun Clouds of divers colours Wherefore I cannot be perswaded to believe that a Rainbow should not have a natural cause and consequently be a natural effect For that God has made it a sign of the Covenant between him and mortal men is no proof that it is not a natural effect Neither can I believe that
appoint or assign any natural causes of Earthquakes I have only taken occasion hence to enquire whether it may not be probably affirmed that there is air in the bowels of the Earth And to my reason it seems very probable I mean not this Exterior air flowing about the circumference of the Earth we inhabite but such an airy matter as is pure refined and subtil there being great difference in the Elements as well as in all other sorts of Creatures for what difference is there not between the natural heat of an animal and the natural heat of the Sun and what difference is there not between the natural moisture of an Animal and the natural moisture of Water And so for the Purity of Air Dryness of Earth and the like Nay there is great difference also in the production of those Effects As for example the heat of the Earth is not produced from the Sun nor the natural heat in Animals nor the natural heat in Vegetables for if it were so then all Creatures in one Region or place of the Earth would be of one temper As for example Poppy Night-shade Lettuce Thyme Sage Parsly c. would be all of one temper and degree growing all in one Garden and upon one patch of Ground whereon the Sun equally casts his beams when as yet they are all different in their natural tempers and degrees And so certainly there is Air Fire and Water in the bowels of the Earth which were never made by the Sun the Sea and this Exterior elemental Air. Wherefore those in my opinion are in gross Errors who imagine that these Interior Effects in the Earth are produced from the mentioned Exterior Elements or from some other forreign and external Causes for an external cause can onely produce an external effect or be an occasion to the production of such or such an effect but not be the immediate efficient or essential cause of an interior natural effect in another Creature unless the Interior natures of different Creatures have such an active power and influence upon each other as to work interiously at a distance such effects as are proper and essential to their Natures which is improbable for though their natures and dispositions may mutually agree and sympathize yet their powers cannot work upon their Interior Natures so as to produce internal natural effects and proprieties in them The truth is it cannot be for as the Cause is so is the Effect and if the Cause be an exterior Cause the Effect must prove so too As for example the heat of the Sun and the heat of the Earth although they may both agree yet one is not the cause of the other for the Suns heat cannot pierce into the bowels of the Earth neither can the heat of the Earth ascend so far as to the Center of the Sun As for the heat of the Earth it is certain enough and needs no proof but as for the heat of the Sun our senses will sufficiently inform us that although his beams are shot forth in direct lines upon the face of the Earth yet they have not so much force as to pierce into a low Celler or Vault Wherefore it is not probable that the Earth hath its natural heat from the Sun and so neither its dryness from the Air nor its moisture from the Sea but these interior effects in the Earth proceed from some other interior causes And thus there may be great difference between the heat cold moisture and drought which is in the Elements and between those which are in Vegetables Minerals and Animals not onely in their General kinds but also in their Particulars And not onely a difference in the aforesaid qualities of heat cold moisture and drought but also in all other motions as Dilations Contractions Rarefactions Densations c. nay in their Mixtures and Temperaments As for example the temper of a Mineral is not the temper of an Animal or of a Vegetable neither is the temper of these the temper of the exterior Elements no more then the temper of the Elements is the temper of them for every Creature has a temper natural and peculiar to it self nay every particular Creature has not onely different tempers compositions or mixtures but also different productions or else if there were no difference in their productions every Creature would be alike when as yet there are seldom two that do exactly resemble each other But I desire you to understand me well Madam when I speak of Particular heats colds droughts and moistures for I do not believe that all Creatures are made out of the four Elements no more then that the Elements are produced from other Creatures for the Matter of all Creatures is but one and the same but although the Matter is the same nevertheless the Tempers Compositions Productions Motions c. of particular Creatures may be different which is the cause of their different exterior figures or shapes as also of their different Interiour Natures Qualities Properties and the like And so to conclude there is no impossibility or absurdity in affirming that there may be Air Fire and Water in the bowels of the Earth proper for those Creatures which are in her although not such an Elemental Air Fire and Water as is subject here to our senses but another kind of Air Fire and Water different from those But this being a subject for Learned and Ingenious men to work and contemplate upon better perhaps then I can do I will leave it to them and so remain MADAM Your constant Friend and faithful Servant X. MADAM YOur Author mentioning in his Works several Seeds of several Creatures makes me express my opinion thus in short concerning this Subject Several Seeds seem to me no otherwise then several Humours or several Elements or several other Creatures made of one and the same Matter that produce one thing out of another and the barrenness of seeds proceeds either from the irregularity of their natural motions or from their unaptness or unactivity of producing But it is to be observed Madam that not every thing doth produce always its like but one and the same thing or one and the same Creature hath many various and different productions for sometimes Vegetables do produce Animals Animals produce Minerals Minerals produce Elements and Elements again Minerals and so forth for proof I will bring but a mean and common example Do not Animals produce Stones some in one and some in another part of their bodies as some in the Heart some in the Stomack some in the Head some in the Gall some in the Kidnies and some in the Bladder I do not say that this Generation of Stone is made the same way as the natural generation of Animals as for example Man is born of his Parents but I speak of the generation or production of Creatures in general for otherwise all Creatures would be alike if all generations were after one and the same manner and way
Art steal from Nature she may trouble Nature or rather make variety in Nature but not take any thing from her for Art is the insnarled motions of Nature But your Author being a Chymist is much for the Art of Fire although it is impossible for Art to work as Nature doth for Art makes of natural Creatures artificial Monsters and doth oftner obscure and disturb Natures ordinary actions then prove any Truth in Nature But Nature loving variety doth rather smile at Arts follies then that she should be angry with her curiosity like as for example a Poet will smile in expressing the part or action of a Fool. Wherefore Pure natural Philosophers shall by natural sense and reason trace Natures ways and observe her actions more readily then Chymists can do by Fire and Furnaces for Fire and Furnaces do often delude the Reason blind the Understanding and make the Judgment stagger Nevertheless your Author is so taken with Fire that from thence he imagines a Formal Light which he believes to be the Tip-top of Life but certainly he had in my opinion not so much light as to observe that all sorts of light are but Creatures and not Creators for he judges of several Parts of Matter as if they were several kinds of Matter which causes him often to err although he conceits himself without any Error In which conceit I leave him and rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and humble Servant XIII MADAM THe Art of Fire as I perceive is in greater esteem and respect with your Author then Nature her self For he says That some things can be done by Art which Nature cannot do nay he calls Art The Mistress of Nature and subjects whole Nature unto Chymical speculation For nothing says he doth more fully bring a Man that is greedy of knowing to the knowledg of all things knowable then the Fire for the root or radical knowledg of natural things consists in the Fire It pierces the secrets of Nature and causes a further searching out in Nature then all other Sciences being put together and pierces even into the utmost depths of real truth It creates things which never were before These and many more the like expressions he has in the praise of Chymistry And truly Madam I cannot blame your Author for commending this Art because it was his own profession and no man will be so unwise as to dispraise his own Art which he professes but whether those praises and commendations do not exceed truth and express more then the Art of Fire can perform I will let those judg that have more knowledg therein then I But this I may say That what Art or Science soever is in Nature let it be the chief of all yet it can never be call'd the Mistress of Nature nor be said to perform more then Nature doth except it be by a divine and supernatural Power much less to create things which never were before for this is an action which onely belongs to God The truth is Art is but a Particular effect of Nature and as it were Nature's Mimick or Fool in whose playing actions she sometimes takes delight nay your Author confesses it himself when he calls the Art of Chymistry Nature's emulating Ape and her Chamber-maid and yet he says she is now and then the Mistress of Nature which in my opinion doth not agree for I cannot conceive how it is possible to be a Chamber-maid and yet to be the Mistress too I suppose your Author believes they justle sometimes each other out or take by turns one anothers place But whatever his opinion be I am sure that the Art of Fire cannot create and produce so as Nature doth nor dissolve substances so as she doth nor transform and transchange as she doth nor do any effect like Nature And therefore I cannot so much admire this Art as others do for it appears to me rather to be a troubler then an assistant to Nature producing more Monsters then perfect Creatures nay it rather doth shut the Gates of Truth then unlock the Gates of Nature For how can Art inform us of Nature when as it is but an effect of Nature You may say The cause cannot be better known then by its effect for the knowledg of the effect leads us to the knowledg of the cause I answer T is true but you will consider that Nature is an Infinite cause and has Infinite effects and if you knew all the Infinite effects in nature then perhaps you might come to some knowledg of the cause but to know nature by one single effect as art is is impossible nay no man knows this particular effect as yet perfectly For who is he that has studied the art of fire so as to produce all that this art may be able to afford witness the Philosophers-stone Besides how is it possible to find out the onely cause by so numerous variations of the effects Wherefore it is more easie in my opinion to know the various effects in Nature by studying the Prime cause then by the uncertain study of the inconstant effects to arrive to the true knowledg of the prime cause truly it is much easier to walk in a Labyrinth without a Guide then to gain a certain knowledg in any one art or natural effect without Nature her self be the guide for Nature is the onely Mistress and cause of all which as she has made all other effects so she has also made arts for varieties sake but most men study Chymistry more for imployment then for profit not but that I believe there may be some excellent Medicines found out and made by that art but the expence and labour is more then the benefit neither are all those Medicines sure and certain nor in all diseases safe neither can this art produce so many medicines as there are several diseases in Nature and for the Universal Medicine and the Philosophers-stone or Elixir which Chymists brag of so much it consists rather in hope and expectation then in assurance for could Chymists find it out they would not be so poor as most commonly they are but richer then Solomon was or any Prince in the World and might have done many famous acts with the supply of their vast Golden Treasures to the eternal and immortal fame of their Art nay Gold being the Idol of this world they would be worshipped as well for the sake of Gold as for their splendorous Art but how many have endeavored and laboured in vain and without any effect Gold is easier to be made then to be destroyed says your Author but I believe one is as difficult or impossible nay more then the other for there is more probability of dissolving or destroying a natural effect by Art then of generating or producing one for Art cannot go beyond her sphere of activity she can but produce an artificial effect and Gold is a natural Creature neither were it Justice that a
stories in brief is this My Sense and Reason doth inform me that there is Natural Witchcraft as I may call it which is Sympathy Antipathy Magnetisme and the like which are made by the sensitive and rational motions between several Creatures as by Imagination Fancy Love Aversion and many the like but these Motions being sometimes unusual and strange to us we not knowing their causes For what Creature knows all motions in Nature and their ways do stand amazed at their working power and by reason we cannot assign any Natural cause for them are apt to ascribe their effects to the Devil but that there should be any such devillish Witchcraft which is made by a Covenant and Agreement with the Devil by whose power Men do enchaunt or bewitch other Creatures I cannot readily believe Certainly I dare say that many a good old honest woman hath been condemned innocently and suffered death wrongfully by the sentence of some foolish and cruel Judges meerly upon this suspition of Witchcraft when as really there hath been no such thing for many things are done by slights or juggling Arts wherein neither the Devil nor Witches are Actors And thus an English-man whose name was Banks was like to be burnt beyond the Seas for a Witch as I have been inform'd onely for making a Horse shew tricks by Art There have been also several others as one that could vomit up several kinds of Liquors and other things and another who did make a Drum beat of it self But all these were nothing but slights and jugling tricks as also the talking and walking Bell and the Brazen-Head which spake these words Time was Time is and Time is past and so fell down Which may easily have been performed by speaking through a Pipe conveighed into the said head But such and the like trifles will amaze many grave and wise men when they do not know the manner or way how they are done so as they are apt to judg them to be effected by Witchcraft or Combination with the Devil But as I said before I believe there is Natural Magick which is that the sensitive and rational Matter oft moves such a way as is unknown to us and in the number of these is also the bleeding of a murdered body at the presence of the Murderer which your Author mentions for the corporeal motions in the murthered body may move so as to work such effects which are more then ordinary for the animal Figure being not so quickly dissolved the animal motions are not so soon altered for the dissolving of the Figure is nothing else but an alteration of its Motions and this dissolution is not done in an instant of time but by degrees But yet I must confess it is not a common action in Nature for Nature hath both common and singular or particular actions As for example Madness natural Folly and many the like are but in some particular persons for if those actions were general and common then all or most men would be either mad or fools but though there are too many already yet all men are not so and so some murthered bodies may bleed or express some alterations at the presence of the Murtherer but I do not believe that all do so for surely in many not any alteration will be perceived and others will have the same alterations without the presence of the Murtherer And thus you see Madam that this is done naturally without the help of the Devil nay your Author doth himself confess it to be so for says he The act of the Witch is plainly Natural onely the stirring up of the vertue or power in the Witch comes from Satan But I cannot understand what your Author means by the departing of spiritual rays from the Witch into Man or any other animal which she intends to kill or hurt nor how Spirits wander about in the Air and have their mansions there for men may talk as well of impossibilities as of such things which are not composed of Natural Matter If man were an Incorporeal Spirit himself he might perhaps sooner conceive the essence of a Spirit as being of the same Nature but as long as he is material and composed of Natural Matter he might as well pretend to know the Essence of God as of an Incorporeal Spirit Truly I must confess I have had some fancies oftentimes of such pure and subtil substances purer and subtiler then the Sky or AEthereal substance is whereof I have spoken in my Poetical Works but these substances which I conceived within my fancy were material and had bodies though never so small and subtil for I was never able to conceive a substance abstracted from all Matter for even Fancy it self is material and all Thoughts and Conceptions are made by the rational Matter and so are those which Philosophers call Animal Spirits but a material Fancy cannot produce immaterial effects that is Ideas of Incorporeal Spirits And this was the cause that in the first impression of my Philosophical Opinions I named the sensitive and rational Matter sensitive and rational Spirits because of its subtilty activity and agility not that I thought them to be immaterial but material Spirits but since Spirits are commonly taken to be immaterial and Spirit and Body are counted opposite to one another to prevent a misapprehension in the thoughts of my Readers as if I meant Incorporeal Spirits I altered this expression in the last Edition and call'd it onely sensitive and rational Matter or which is all one sensitive and rational corporeal motions You will say perhaps That the divine Soul in Man is a Spirit but I desire you to call to mind what I oftentimes have told you to wit that when I speak of the Soul of Man I mean onely the Natural not the Divine Soul which as she is supernatural so she acts also supernaturally but all the effects of the natural Soul of which I discourse are natural and not divine or supernatural But to return to Magnetisme I am absolutely of opinion that it is naturally effected by natural means without the concurrence of Immaterial Spirits either good or bad meerly by natural corporeal sensitive and rational motions and for the most part there must be a due approach between the Agent and the Patient or otherwise the effect will hardly follow as you may see by the Loadstone and Iron Neither is the influence of the Stars performed beyond a certain distance that is such a distance as is beyond sight or their natural power to work for if their light comes to our Eyes I know no reason against it but their effects may come to our bodies And as for infectious Diseases they come by a corporeal imitation as by touch either of the infected air drawn in by breath or entring through the Pores of the Body or of some things brought from infected places or else by hearing but diseases caused by Conceit have their beginning as all alterations have from
understand then what I do understand for first I do not understand their sophistical Logick as to perswade with arguments that black is white and white is black and that fire is not hot nor water wet and other such things for the glory in Logick is rather to make doubts then to find truth indeed that Art now is like thick dark clouds which darken the light of truth Next I do not understand in particular what they mean by second matter for if they name figures and forms second matter they may as well say all several motions which are the several actions of Nature are several matters and so there would be infinite several matters which would produce a meer confusion in Nature Neither do I understand when they say a body dissolves into the first matter for I am not able to conceive their first matter nor what they mean by magna and major materia for I believe there is but one matter and the motion of that matter is its action by which it produces several figures and effects so that the nature of the matter is one and the same although its motions that is its actions be various for the various effects alter not the nature or unity of the onely matter Neither do I understand what they mean by corruption for surely Nature is not corruptible Nor do I understand their individables in Nature nor a bodiless form nor a privation nor a being without a body nor any such thing as they call rest for there 's not any thing without motion in Nature Some do talk of moving minima's but they do not tell what those minima's or their motions are or how they were produced or how they came to move Neither do I understand when they say there is but one World and that finite for if there be no more Matter then that which they call the whole World and may be measured by a Jacob's staff then certainly there is but little matter and that no bigger then an atome in comparison to Infinite Neither can my reason comprehend when they say that not any thing hath power from its interior nature to move exteriously and locally for common sense and reason that is sight and observation doth prove the contrary Neither do I know what they mean by making a difference between matter and form power and act for there can be no form without matter nor no matter without form and as act includes power so power is nothing without act Neither can I conceive Reason to be separable from matter nor what is meant when they say that onely that is real which moves the understanding without Nor do I understand what they mean by intentionals accidentals incorporeal beings formal ratio formal unity and hundreds the like enough to puzle truth when all is but the several actions of one cause to wit the onely matter But most men make such cross narrow and intricate ways in Nature with their over-nice distinctions that Nature appears like a Labyrinth whenas really she is as plain as an un-plowed ditched or hedged champion Nay some make Nature so full that she can neither move nor stir and others again will have her so empty as they leave not anything within her and some with their penetrations pressings squeezings and the like make such holes in her as they do almost wound press and squeeze her to death And some are so learned witty and ingenious as they understand and know to discourse of the true compass just weight exact rules measures and proportions of the Universe as also of the exact division of the Chaos and the architecture of the world to an atome Thus Madam I have made my confession to you of what I understand not and have endeavoured to make my ignorance as brief as I could but the great God knows that my ignorance is longer then that which is named life and death and as for my understanding I can onely say that I understand nothing better but my self to be MADAM Your most faithful Friend and humble Servant XIX MADAM SInce I have given you in my last an account how much I did understand the Philosophical works of both the ancient and modern Philosophers or rather what I did not understand of them you would fain have my opâ—â—â—on now of the persons themselves Truly Madam as for those that are dead or those that are living I cannot say any thing but that I believe they all were or are worthy persons men of vast understandings subtil conceptions ingenious wits painful students and learned writers But as for their works as I told you heretofore I confess ingeniously I understand them not by reason I am ignorant in their Scholastical Arts as Logick Metaphysick Mathematicks and the like For to my simple apprehension when as Logicians argue of natural causes and effects they make natural causes to produce natural effects with more difficulty and enforcement then Nature knows of and as for Mathematicians they endeavour to inchant Nature with Circles and bind her with lines so hard as if she were so mad that she would do some mischief when left at liberty Geometricians weigh Nature to an Atome and measure her so exactly as less then a hairs breadth besides they do press and squeeze her so hard and close as they almost stifle her And Natural Philosophers do so stuff her with dull dead senceless minima's like as a sack with meal or sand by which they raise such a dust as quite blinds Nature and natural reason But Chymists torture Nature worst of all for they extract and distil her beyond substance nay into no substance if they could As for natural Theologers I understand them least of any for they make such a gallamalfry of Philosophy and Divinity as neither can be distinguished from the other In short Madam They all with their intricate definitions and distinctions set my brain on the rack but some Philosophers are like some Poets for they endeavour to write strong lines You may ask me what is meant by strong lines I answer Weak sense To which leaving them I rest MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant XX. MADAM I Am not of your opinion That nice distinctions and Logistical arguments discover truth dissolve doubts and clear the understanding but I say they rather make doubts of truth and blind-fold the understanding Indeed nice distinctions and sophistical arguments are very pernicious both in Schools Church and State As for the Church although in Divinity there is but one Truth yet nice distinctions and Logistical sophistry have made such confufion in it as has caused almost as many several opinions as there are words in the Scripture and as for natural Theology which is moral Philosophy they have divided vertues and vices into so many parts and minced them so small that neither can be clearly distinguished The same in Government they endeavour to cut between command and obedience to a hairs breadth Concerning causes of Law they have
them with a fine coloured Covering of Logick and Geometry and set them out in a handsome array by which I might have also cover'd my ignorance like as Stage-Players do cover their mean persons or degrees with fine Cloathes But as I said I being void of Learning and Art did put them forth according to my own conceptions and as I did understand them my self but since I have hitherto by the reading of those famous and learned Authors you sent me attained to the knowledg of some artificial Terms I shall not spare any labour and pains to make my opinions so intelligible that every one who without partiality spleen or malice doth read them may also easily understand them And thus I shall likewise endeavour to give such answers to your scruples objections or questions as may explain those passages which seem obscure and satisfie your desire In the first place and in general you desire to know Whether any truth may be had in Natural Philosophy for since all this study is grounded upon probability and he that thinks he has the most probable reasons for his opinion may be as far off from truth as he who is thought to have the least nay what seems most probable to day may seem least probable to morrow especially if an ingenious opposer bring rational arguments against it Therefore you think it is but vain for any one to trouble his brain with searching and enquiring after such things wherein neither truth nor certainty can be had To which I answer That the undoubted truth in Natural Philosophy is in my opinion like the Philopher's Stone in Chymistry which has been sought for by many learned and ingenious Persons and will be sought as long as the Art of Chymistry doth last but although they cannot find the Philosophers Stone yet by the help of this Art they have found out many rare things both for use and knowledg The like in Natural Philosophy although Natural Philosophers cannot find out the absolute truth of Nature or Natures ground-works or the hidden causes of natural effects neverthelss they have found out many necessary and profitable Arts and Sciences to benefit the life of man for without Natural Philosophy we should have lived in dark ignorance not knowing the motions of the Heavens the cause of the Eclipses the influences of the Stars the use of Numbers Measures and Weights the vertues and effects of Vegetables and Minerals the Art of Architecture Navigation and the like Indeed all Arts and Sciences do adscribe their original to the study of Natural Philosophy and those men are both unwise and ungrateful that will refuse rich gifts because they cannot be masters of all Wealth and they are fools that will not take remedies when they are sick because Medicines can onely recover them from death for a time but not make them live for ever But to conclude Probability is next to truth and the search of a hidden cause finds out visible effects and this truth do natural Philosophers find that there are more fools then wise men which fools will never attain to the honour of being Natural Philosophers And thus leaving them I rest MADAM Your Ladiships humble and faithful Servant XXVIII MADAM YOur desire is to know since I say Nature is Wise Whether all her parts must be wise also To which I answer That by your favour all her parts are not fools but yet it is no necessary consequence that because Nature is infinitely wise all her parts must be so too no more then if I should say Nature is Infinite therefore every part must be Infinite But it is rather necessary that because Nature is Infinite therefore not any single part of hers can be Infinite but must be finite Next you desire to know Whether Nature or the self-moving matter is subject to err and to commit mistakes I answer Although Nature has naturally an Infinite wisdom and knowledg yet she has not a most pure and intire perfection no more then she has an absolute power for a most pure and intire perfection belongs onely to God and though she is infinitely naturally wise in her self yet her parts or particular creatures may commit errors and mistakes the truth is it is impossible but that parts or particular Creatures must be subject to errors because no part can have a perfect or general knowledg as being but a part and not a whole for knowledg is in parts as parts are in Matter Besides several corporeal motions that is several self-moving parts do delude and oppose each other by their opposite motions and this opposition is very requisite in Nature to keep a mean and hinder extreams for were there not opposition of parts Nature would run into extreams which would confound her and all her parts And as for delusion it is part of Natures delight causing the more variety but there be some actions in Nature which are neither perfect mistakes nor delusions but onely want of a clear and thorow perception As for example when a man is sailing in a Ship he thinks the shore moves from the ship when as it is the ship that moves from the shore Also when a man is going backward from a Looking-glass he thinks the figure in the Glass goeth inward whereas it is himself that goes backward and not his figure in the glass The cause of it is That the perception in the eye perceives the distanced body but not the motion of the distance or medium for though the man may partly see the motion of the visible parts yet he doth not see the parts or motion of the distance or medium which is invisible and not subject to the perception of sight and since a pattern cannot be made if the object be not visible hence I conclude that the motion of the medium cannot make perception but that it is the perceptive motions of the eye which pattern out an object as it is visibly presented to the corporeal motions in the eye for according as the object is presented the pattern is made if the motions be regular For example a fired end of a stick if you move it in a circular figure the sensitive corporeal motions in the eye pattern out the figure of fire together with the exterior or circular motion and apprehend it as a fiery circle and if the stick be moved any otherwise they pattern out such a figure as the fired end of the stick is moved in so that the sensitive pattern is made according to the exterior corporeal figurative motion of the object and not according to its interior figure or motions And this Madam is in short my answer to your propounded questions by which I hope you understand plainly the meaning of MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant XXIX MADAM THe scruples or questions you sent me last are these following First you desire to be informed what I mean by Phantasmes and Ideas I answer They are figures made by the purest and subtilest degree of
Motions though they proceed from sensitive matter yet are they so different from the free and Prime Natural Motions that they seem as it were quite of another nature And this distinction neglected is the Cause that many make Appetites and Passions Perceptions and Objects and the like as one without any or but little difference But having discoursed of the difference of these Motions in my former Letter I will not be tedious to you with repeating it again but remain MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant VII MADAM YOur Authours opinion concerning Dreams seemeth to me in some part very rational and probable in some part not For when he sayes that Dreams are onely Imaginations of them that sleep which imaginations have been before either totally or by parcels in the Sense and that the organs of Sense as the Brain and the Nerves being benumb'd in sleep as not easily to be moved by external objects those Imaginations proceed onely from the agitation of the inward parts of mans body which for the connexion they have with the Brain and other organs when they be distemper'd do keep the same in motion whereby the Imaginations there formerly made appear as if a man were waking This seems to my Reason not very probable For first Dreams are not absolutely Imaginations except we do call all Motions and Actions of the Sensitive and Rational Matter Imaginations Neither is it necessary that all Imaginations must have been before either totally or by parcels in the Sense neither is there any benumbing of the organs of Sense in sleep But Dreams according to my opinion are made by the Sensitive and Rational Corporeal Motions by figuring several objects as awake onely the difference is that the Sensitive motions in Dreams work by rote and on the inside of the Sensitive organs when as awake they work according to the patterns of outward objects and exteriously or on the outside of the sensitive Organs so that sleep or dreams are nothing else but an alteration of motions from moving exteriously to move interiously and from working after a Pattern to work by rote I do not say that the body is without all exterior motions when asleep as breathing and beating of the Pulse although these motions are rather interior then exterior but that onely the sensitive organs are outwardly shut so as not to receive the patterns of outward Objects nevertheless the sensitive Motions do not cease from moving inwardly or on the inside of the sensitive Organs But the rational matter doth often as awake so asleep or in dreams make such figures as the sensitive did never make either from outward objects or of its own accord for the sensitive hath sometimes liberty to work without Objects but the Rational much more which is not bound either to the patterns of Exterior objects or of the sensitive voluntary Figures Wherefore it is not divers distempers as your Authour sayes that cause different Dreams or Cold or Heat neither are Dreams the reverse of our waking Imaginations nor all the Figures in Dreams are not made with their heels up and their heads downwards though some are but this error or irregularity proceeds from want of exterior Objects or Patterns and by reason the sensitive Motions work by rote neither are the Motions reverse because they work inwardly asleep and outwardly awake for Mad-men awake see several Figures without Objects In short sleeping and waking is somewhat after that manner when men are called either out of their doors or stay within their houses or like a Ship where the Mariners work all under hatches whereof you will find more in my Philosophical Opinions and so taking my leave I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant VIII MADAM YOur Author going on in his discourse of Imagination says That as we have no Imagination whereof we have not formerly had sense in whole or in parts so we have not Transition from one Imagination to another whereof we never had the like before in our senses To which my answer is in short that the Rational part of Matter in one composed figure as in Man or the like Creature may make such figures as the senses did never make in that composed Figure or Creature And though your Authour reproves those that say Imaginations rise of themselves yet if the self-moving part of Matter which I call Rational makes Imaginations they must needs rise of themselves for the Rational part of matter being free and self-moving depends upon nothing neither Sense nor Object I mean so as not to be able to work without them Next when your Author defining Vnderstanding says that it is nothing else but an Imagination raised by words or other voluntary signs My Answer is that Understanding and so Words and Signs are made by self-moving Matter that is Sense and Reason and not Sense and Reason by Words and Signs wherefore Thoughts are not like Water upon a plain Table which is drawn and guided by the finger this or that way for every Part of self-moving matter is not alwayes forced perswaded or directed for if all the Parts of Sense and Reason were ruled by force or perswasion not any wounded Creature would fail to be healed or any disease to be cured by outward Applications for outward Applications to Wounds and Diseases might have more force then any Object to the Eye But though there is great affinity and sympathy between parts yet there is also great difference and antipathy betwixt them which is the cause that many objects cannot with all their endeavours work such effects upon the Interiour parts although they are closely press'd for Impressions of objects do not always affect those parts they press Wherefore I am not of your Author's opinion that all Parts of Matter press one another It is true Madam there cannot be any part single but yet this doth not prove that parts must needs press each other And as for his Train of Thoughts I must confess that Thoughts for the most part are made orderly but yet they do not follow each other like Geese for surely man has sometimes very different thoughts as for Example a man sometime is very sad for the death of his Friend and thinks of his own death and immediately thinks of a wanton Mistress which later thought surely the thought of Death did not draw in wherefore though some thought may be the Ring-leader of others yet many are made without leaders Again your Author in his description of the Mind sayes that the discourse of the mind when it it is govern'd by design is nothing but seeking or the Faculty of Invention a hunting out of the Causes of some Effects present or past or of the Effects of some present or past Cause Sometimes a man seeks what he has lost and from that Place and Time wherein he misses it his mind runs back from place to place and time to time to find where and when he had it that
is to say to find some certain and limited Time and Place in which to begin a method of Seeking And from thence his thoughts run over the same places and times to find what action or other occasion might make him lose it This we call Remembrance or calling to mind Sometimes a man knows a place determinate within the compass whereof he is to seek and then his thoughts run over all the Parts thereof in the same manner as one would sweep a room to find a Jewel or as a Spaniel ranges the field till he find a sent or as a Man should run over the Alphabet to start a Rime Thus far your Author In which discourse I do not perceive that he defineth what the Mind is but I say that if according to his opinion nothing moves it self but one thing moves another then the Mind must do nothing but move backward and forward nay onely forward and if all actions were thrusting or pressing of parts it would be like a crowd of People and there would be but little or no motion for the crowd would make a stoppage like water in a glass the mouth of the Glass being turned downwards no water can pass out by reason the numerous drops are so closely press'd as they cannot move exteriously Next I cannot conceive how the Mind can run back either to Time or Place for as for Place the mind is inclosed in the body and the running about in the parts of the body or brain will not inform it of an Exterior place or object besides objects being the cause of the minds motion it must return to its Cause and so move until it come to the object that moved it first so that the mind must run out of the body to that object which moved it to such a Thought although that object were removed out of the World as the phrase is But for the mind to move backward to Time past is more then it can do Wherefore in my opinion Remembrance or the like is onely a repetition of such Figures as were like to the Objects and for Thoughts in Particular they are several figures made by the mind which is the Rational Part of matter in its own substance either voluntarily or by imitation whereof you may see more in my Book of Philosophical Opinions Hence I conclude that Prudence is nothing else but a comparing of Figures to Figures and of the several actions of those Figures as repeating former Figures and comparing them to others of the like nature qualities proprieties as also chances fortunes c. Which figuring and repeating is done actually in and by the Rational Matter so that all the observation of the mind on outward Objects is onely an actual repetition of the mind as moving in such or such figures and actions and when the mind makes voluntary Figures with those repeated Figures and compares them together this comparing is Examination and when several Figures agree and joyn it is Conclusion or Judgment likewise doth Experience proceed from repeating and comparing of several Figures in the Mind and the more several Figures are repeated and compared the greater the experience is One thing more there is in the same Chapter which I cannot let pass without examination Your Authour says That things Present onely have a being in Nature things Past onely a being in the Memory but things to come have no being at all Which how it possibly can be I am not able to conceive for certainly if nothing in nature is lost or annihilated what is past and what is to come hath as well a being as what is present and if that which is now had its being before why may it not also have its being hereafter It might as well be said that what is once forgot cannot be remembred for whatsoever is in Nature has as much a being as the Mind and there is not any action or motion or figure in Nature but may be repeated that is may return to its former Figure when it is altered and dissolved But by reason Nature delights in variety repetitions are not so frequently made especially of those things or creatures which are composed by the sensitive corporeal motions in the inanimate part of Matter because they are not so easily wrought as the Rational matter can work upon its own parts being more pliant in its self then the Inanimate matter is And this is the reason that there are so many repetitions of one and the same Figure in the Rational matter which is the Mind but seldom any in the Gross and inanimate part of Matter for Nature loves ease and freedom But to conclude Madam I perceive your Author confines Sense onely to Animal-kind and Reason onely to Man-kind Truly it is out of self-love when one Creature prefers his own Excellency before another for nature being endued with self-love all Creatures have self-love too because they are all Parts of Nature and when Parts agree or disagree it is out of Interest and Self-love but Man herein exceeds all the rest as having a supernatural Soul whose actions also are supernatural To which I leave him and rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant IX MADAM WHen your Author discourseth of the use of Speech or Words and Names he is pleas'd to say That their use is to serve for marks and notes of Remembrance Whereof to give you my opinion I say That Speech is natural to the shape of Man and though sometimes it serves for marks or notes of remembrance yet it doth not always for all other Animals have Memory without the help of Speech and so have deaf and dumb men nay more then those that hear and speak Wherefore though Words are useful to the mind and so to the memory yet both can be without them whereas Words cannot be without Memory for take a Bird and teach him to speak if he had not Memory before he heard the words he could never learn them You will ask me Madam What then is Memory the Cause of Speech I answer Life and Knowledg which is Sense and Reason as it creates and makes all sorts of Creatures so also amongst the rest it makes Words And as I said before that Memory may be without the help of Speech or Words so I say also that there is a possibility of reckoning of numbers as also of magnitudes of swiftness of force and other things without words although your Author denies it But some men are so much for Art as they endeavour to make Art which is onely a Drudgery-maid of Nature the chief Mistress and Nature her Servant which is as much as to prefer Effects before the Cause Nature before God Discord before Unity and Concord Again your Author in his Chapter of Reason defines Reason to be nothing else but Reckoning I answer That in my opinion Reckoning is not Reason it self but onely an effect or action of Reason for Reason as it is the chiefest and purest degree
of animate matter works variously and in divers motions by which it produces various and divers effects which are several Perceptions as Conception Imagination Fancy Memory Remembrance Understanding Judgment Knowledg and all the Passions with many more Wherefore this Reason is not in one undivided part nor bound to one motion for it is in every Creature more or less and moves in its own parts variously and in some Creatures as for example in some men it moves more variously then in others which is the cause that some men are more dull and stupid then others neither doth Reason always move in one Creature regularly which is the cause that some men are mad or foolish And though all men are made by the direction of Reason and endued with Reason from the first time of their birth yet all have not the like Capacities Understandings Imaginations Wits Fancies Passions c. but some more some less and some regular some irregular according to the motions of Reason or Rational part of animate matter and though some rational parts may make use of other rational Parts as one man of another mans Conceptions yet all these parts cannot associate together as for example all the Material parts of several objects no not their species cannot enter or touch the eye without danger of hurting or loosing it nevertheless the eye makes use of the objects by patterning them out and so doth the rational matter by taking patterns from the sensitive And thus knowledg or perception of objects both sensitive and rational is taken without the pressure of any other parts for though parts joyn to parts for no part can be single yet this joining doth not necessarily infer the pressure of objects upon the sensitive organs Whereof I have already discoursed sufficiently heretofore to which I refer you and rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant X. MADAM UNderstanding says your Author is nothing else but Conception caused by speech and therefore if speech be peculiar to man as for ought I know it is then is understanding peculiar to him also Where he confineth Understanding onely to speech and to Mankind But by his leave Madam I surely believe that there is more understanding in Nature then that which is in speech for if there were not I cannot conceive how all the exact forms in Generations could be produced or how there could be such distinct degrees of several sorts and kinds of Creatures or distinctions of times and seasons and so many exact motions and figures in Nature Considering all this my reason perswadeth me that all Understanding which is a part of Knowledg is not caused by speech for all the motions of the Celestial Orbs are not made by speech neither is the knowledg or understanding which a man hath when sick as to know or understand he is sick made by speech nor by outward objects especially in a disease he never heard nor saw nor smelt nor tasted nor touched Wherefore all Perception Sensation Memory Imagination Appetite Understanding and the like are not made nor caused by outward objects nor by speech And as for names of things they are but different postures of the figures in our mind or thoughts made by the Rational matter But Reasoning is a comparing of the several figures with their several postures and actions in the Mind which joyned with the several words made by the sensitive motions inform another distinct and separate part as an other man of their minds conceptions understanding opinions and the like Concerning Addition and Substraction wherein your Author sayes Reasoning consists I grant that it is an act of Reasoning yet it doth not make Sense or Reason which is Life and Knowledge but Sense and Reason which is self-motion makes addition and substraction of several Parts of matter for had matter not self-motion it could not divide nor compose nor make such varieties without great and lingring retardments if not confusion Wherefore all what is made in Nature is made by self-moving matter which self-moving matter doth not at all times move regularly but often irregularly which causes false Logick false Arithmetick and the like and if there be not a certainty in these self-motions or actions of Nature much less in Art which is but a secundary action and therefore neither speech words nor exterior objects cause Understanding or Reason And although many parts of the Rational and Sensitive Matter joyned into one may be stronger by their association and over-power other parts that are not so well knit and united yet these are not the less pure onely these Parts and Motions being not equal in several Creatures make their Knowledge and Reason more or less For when a man hath more Rational Matter well regulated and so more Wisdom then an other that same man may chance to over-power the other whose Rational Matter is more irreregular but yet not so much by strength of the united Parts as by their subtilty for the Rational Matter moving regularly is more strong with subtilty then the sensitive with force so that Wisdom is stronger then Life being more pure and so more active for in my opinion there is a degree of difference between Life and Knowledge as my Book of Philosophical Opinions will inform you Again your Author sayes That Man doth excel all other Animals in this faculty that when he conceives any thing whatsoever he is apt to enquire the Consequences of it and what effects he can do with it Besides this sayes he Man hath an other degree of Excellence that he can by Words reduce the Consequences he finds to General Rules called Theoremes or Aphorisms that is he can reason or reckon not onely in Number but in all other things whereof one may be added unto or substracted from an other To which I answer That according to my Reason I cannot perceive but that all Creatures may do as much but by reason they do it not after the same manner or way as Man Man denies they can do it at all which is very hard for what man knows whether Fish do not Know more of the nature of Water and ebbing and flowing and the saltness of the Sea or whether Birds do not know more of the nature and degrees of Air or the cause of Tempests or whether Worms do not know more of the nature of Earth and how Plants are produced or Bees of the several sorts of juices of Flowers then Men And whether they do not make there Aphorismes and Theoremes by their manner of Intelligence For though they have not the speech of Man yet thence doth not follow that they have no Intelligence at all But the Ignorance of Men concerning other Creatures is the cause of despising other Creatures imagining themselves as petty Gods in Nature when as Nature is not capable to make one God much less so many as Mankind and were it not for Mans supernatural Soul Man would not be more Supreme then other Creatures in Nature
and that they depend upon a precedent thought of whither which way and what and that Imagination is the first Internal beginning of them I think by your Authors leave it doth imply a contradiction to call them Voluntary Motions and yet to say they are caused and depend upon our Imagination for if the Imagination draws them this way or that way how can they be voluntary motions being in a manner forced and necessitated to move according to Fancy or Imagination But when he goes on in the same place and treats of Endeavour Appetite Desire Hunger Thirst Aversion Love Hate and the like he derives one from the other and treats well as a Moral Philosopher but whether it be according to the truth or probability of Natural Philosophy I will leave to others to judge for in my opinion Passions and Appetites are very different Appetites being made by the motions of the sensitive Life and Passions as also Imagination Memory c. by the motions of the rational Life which is the cause that Appetites belong more to the actions of the Body then the Mind T is true the Sensitive and Rational self-moving matter doth so much resemble each other in their actions as it is difficult to distinguish them But having treated hereof at large in my other Philosophical Work to cut off repetitions I will refer you to that and desire you to compare our opinions together But certainly there is so much variety in one and the same sort of Passions and so of Appetites as it cannot be easily express'd To conclude I do not perceive that your Author tells or expresses what the cause is of such or such actions onely he mentions their dependance which is as if a man should converse with a Nobleman's Friend or Servant and not know the Lord himself But leaving him for this time it is sufficient to me that I know your Ladyship and your Ladyship knows me that I am MADAM Your faithful Friend and humble Servant XIII MADAM HAving obey'd your Commands in giving you my opinion of the First Part of the Book of that famous and learned Author you sent me I would go on but seeing he treats in his following Parts of the Politicks I was forced to stay my Pen because of these following Reasons First That a Woman is not imployed in State Affairs unless an absolute Queen Next That to study the Politicks is but loss of Time unless a man were sure to be a Favourite to an absolute Prince Thirdly That it is but a deceiving Profession and requires more Craft then Wisdom All which considered I did not read that part of your Author But as for his Natural Philosophy I will send you my opinion so far as I understand it For what belongs to Art as to Geometry being no Scholar I shall not trouble my self withal And so I 'l take my leave of you when I have in two or three words answered the Question you sent me last which was Whether Nature be the Art of God Man the Art of Nature and a Politick Government the Art of Man To which I answer T is probable it may be so onely I add this That Nature doth not rule God nor Man Nature nor Politick Government Man for the Effect cannot rule the Cause but the Cause doth rule the Effect Wherefore if men do not naturally agree Art cannot make unity amongst them or associate them into one Politick Body and so rule them But man thinks he governs when as it is Nature that doth it for as nature doth unite or divide parts regularly or irregularly and moves the several minds of men and the several parts of mens bodies so war is made or peace kept Thus it is not the artificial form that governs men in a Politick Government but a natural power for though natural motion can make artificial things yet artificial things cannot make natural power and we might as well say nature is governed by the art of nature as to say man is ruled by the art and invention of men The truth is Man rules an artificial Government and not the Government Man just like as a Watch-maker rules his Watch and not the Watch the Watch-maker And thus I conclude and rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XIV MADAM COncerning the other Book of that learned Author Hobbs you sent me called Elements of Philosophy I shall likewise according to your desire give you my judgment and opinion of it as I have done of the former not that I intend to prejudice him any ways thereby but onely to mark those places wherein I seem to dissent from his opinions which liberty I hope he will not deny me And in order to this I have read over the first Chapter of the mentioned Book treating of Philosophy in General wherein amongst the rest discoursing of the Utility of Natural Philosophy and relating the commodities and benefits which proceed from so many arts and sciences he is pleased to say that they are injoyed almost by all people of Europe Asia and some of Africa onely the Americans and those that live neer the Poles do want them But why says he have they sharper wits then these Have not all men one kind of soul and the same faculties of mind To which give me leave Madam to add That my opinion is that there is a difference between the Divine and the Natural soul of man and though the natural mind or soul is of one kind yet being made of rational matter it is divideable and composeable by which division and composition men may have more or less wit or quicker and slower wit the like for Judgments Imaginations Fancies Opinions c. For were the natural rational mind individeable all men would have the like degree of wit or understanding all men would be Philosophers or fools which by reason they are not it proves the natural rational mind is divideable and composeable making variations of its own several parts by self-motion for it is not the several outward objects or forreign instructions that make the variety of the mind neither is wit or ingenuity alike in all men for some are natural Poets Philosophers and the like without learning and some are far more ingenious then others although their breeding is obscure and mean Neither will learning make all men Scholars for some will continue Dunces all their life time Neither doth much experience make all men wise for some are not any ways advanced in their wisdom by much and long experiences And as for Poetry it is according to the common Proverb a Poet is born not made Indeed learning doth rather hurt Fancy for great Scholars are not always good Poets nor all States-men Natural Philosophers nor all Experienced Men Wise Men nor all Judges Just nor all Divines Pious nor all Pleaders or Preachers Eloquent nor all Moral Philosophers Vertuous But all this is occasioned by the various Motions of the rational self-moving matter which is the
and Servant VII MADAM YOur Author being very earnest in arguing against those that maintain the opinion of Matter being self-moving amongst the rest of his arguments brings in this Suppose says he Matter could move it self would meer Matter with self-motion amount to that admirable wise contrivance of things which we see in the World All the evasion I can imagine our adversaries may use here will be this That Matter is capable of sense and the finest and most subtil of the most refined sense and consequently of Imagination too yea happily of Reason and Understanding I answer it is very probable that not onely all the Matter in the World or Universe hath Sense but also Reason and that the sensitive part of matter is the builder and the rational the designer whereof I have spoken of before and you may find more of it in my Book of Philosophy But says your Author Let us see if all their heads laid together can contrive the anatomical Fabrick of any Creature that liveth I answer all parts of Nature are not bound to have heads or tayls but if they have surely they are wiser then many a man's I demand says he Has every one of these Particles that must have a hand in the framing of the body of an animal the whole design of the work by the Impress of some Phantasme upon it or as they have several offices so have they several parts of the design I answer All the actions of self-moving Matter are not Impresses nor is every part a hand-labourer but every part unites by degrees into such or such a Figure Again says he How is it conceiveable that any one Particle of Matter or many together there not existing yet in Nature an animal can have the Idea Impressed of that Creature they are to frame I answer all figures whatsoever have been are or can be in Nature are existent in nature How says he can they in framing several parts confer notes by what language or speech can they communicate their Counsels one to another I answer Knowledg doth not always require speech for speech is an effect and not a cause but knowledg is a cause and not an effect and nature hath infinite more ways to express knowledg then man can imagine Wherefore he concludes that they should mutually serve one another in such a design is more impossible then that so many men blind and dumb from their nativity should joyn their forces and wits together to build a Castle or carve a statue of such a Creature as none of them knew any more in several then some one of the smallest parts thereof but not the relation it bore to the whole I answer Nature is neither blind nor dumb nor any ways defective but infinitely wife and knowing for blindness and dumbness are but effects of some of her particular actions but there is no defect in self-moving matter nor in her actions in general and it is absurd to conceive the Generality of wisdom according to an Irregular effect or defect of a particular Creature for the General actions of Nature are both life and knowledg which are the architects of all Creatures and know better how to frame all kinds and sorts of Creatures then man can conceive and the several parts of Matter have a more easie way of communication then Mans head hath with his hand or his hand with pen ink and paper when he is going to write which later example will make you understand my opinion the better if you do but compare the rational part of Matter to the head the sensitive to the hand the inanimate to pen ink and paper their action to writing and their framed figures to those figures or letters which are written in all which is a mutual agreement without noise or trouble But give me leave Madam to tell you That self-moving Matter may sometimes erre and move irregularly and in some parts not move so strong curious or subtil at sometimes as in other parts for Nature delights in variety Nevertheless she is more wise then any Particular Creature or part can conceive which is the cause that Man thinks Nature's wise subtil and lively actions are as his own gross actions conceiving them to be constrained and turbulent not free and easie as well as wise and knowing Whereas Nature's Creating Generating and Producing actions are by an easie connexion of parts to parts without Counterbuffs Joggs and Jolts producing a particular figure by degrees and in order and method as humane sense and reason may well perceive And why may not the sensitive and rational part of Matter know better how to make a Bee then a Bee doth how to make Honey and Wax or have a better communication betwixt them then Bees that fly several ways meeting and joyning to make their Combes in their Hives But pardon Madam for I think it a Crime to compare the Creating Generating and producing Coporeal Life and Wisdom of Nature unto any particular Creature although every particular Creature hath their share being a part of Nature Wherefore those in my opinion do grosly err that bind up the sensitive matter onely to taste touch hearing seeing and smelling as if the sensitive parts of Nature had not more variety of actions then to make five senses for we may well observe in every Creature there is difference of sense and reason according to the several modes of self-motion For the Sun Stars Earth Air Fire Water Plants Animals Minerals although they have all sense and knowledg yet they have not all sense and knowledg alike because sense and knowledg moves not alike in every kind or sort of Creatures nay many times very different in one and the same Creature but yet this doth not cause a general Ignorance as to be altogether Insensible or Irrational neither do the erroneous and irregular actions of sense and reason prove an annihilation of sense and reason as for example a man may become Mad or a Fool through the irregular motions of sense and reason and yet have still the Perception of sense and reason onely the alteration is caused through the alteration of the sensitive and rational corporeal motions or actions from regular to irregular nevertheless he has Perceptions Thoughts Ideas Passions and whatsoever is made by sensitive and rational Matter neither can Perception be divided from Motion nor Motion from Matter for all sensation is Corporeal and so is Perception I can add no more but take my leave and rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant VIII MADAM YOur Author is pleased to say that Matter is a Principle purely passive and no otherwise moved or modified then as some other thing moves and modifies it but cannot move it self at all which is most demonstrable to them that contend for sense and perception in it For if it had any such perception it would by vertue of its self-motion withdraw its self from under the knocks of hammers or fury of the
to give such power to Matter as to an other Incorporeal substance But I suppose this opinion of natural Immaterial Spirits doth proceed from Chymistry where the extracts are vulgarly called Spirits and from that degree of Matter which by reason of its purity subtilty and activity is not subject to our grosser senses However these are not Incorporeal be they never so pure and subtil And I wonder much that men endeavour to prove Immaterial Spirits by corporeal Arts when as Art is not able to demonstrate Nature and her actions for Art is but the effect of Nature and expresses rather the variety then the truth of natural motions and if Art cannot do this much less will it be able to express what is not in Nature or what is beyond Nature as to trace the Visible or rather Invisible footsteps of the divine Councel and Providence or to demonstrate things supernatural and which go beyond mans reach and capacity But to return to Immaterial Spirits that they should rule and govern infinite corporeal matter like so many demy-Gods by a dilating nod and a contracting frown and cause so many kinds and sorts of Corporeal Figures to arise being Incorporeal themselves is Impossible for me to conceive for how can an Immaterial substance cause a Material corporeal substance which has no motion in it self to form so many several and various figures and creatures and make so many alterations and continue their kinds and sorts by perpetual successions of Particulars But perchance the Immaterial substance gives corporeal matter motion I answer My sense and reason cannot understand how it can give motion unless motion be different distinct and separable from it nay if it were yet being no substance or body it self according to your Authors and others opinion the question is how it can be transmitted or given away to corporeal matter Your Author may say That his Immaterial and Incorporeal spirit of Nature having self-motion doth form Matter into several Figures I answer Then that Immaterial substance must be transformed and metamorphosed into as many several figures as there are figures in Matter or there must be as many spirits as there are figures but when the figures change what doth become of the spirits Neither can I imagine that an Immaterial substance being without body can have such a great strength as to grapple with gross heavy dull and dead Matter Certainly in my opinion no Angel nor Devil except God Impower him would be able to move corporeal Matter were it not selfmoving much less any Natural Spirit But God is a Spirit and Immovable and if created natural Immaterials participate of that Nature as they do of the Name then they must be Immovable also Your Author Madam may make many several degrees of Spirits but certainly not I nor I think any natural Creature else will be able naturally to conceive them He may say perchance There is such a close conjunction betwixt Body and Spirit as I make betwixt rational sensitive and inanimate Matter I answer That these degrees are all but one Matter and of one and the same Nature as meer Matter different onely in degrees of purity subtilty and activity whereas Spirit and Body are things of contrary Natures In fine I cannot conceive how a Spirit should fill up a place or space having no body nor how it can have the effects of a body being none it self for the effects flow from the cause and as the cause is so are its effects And so confessing my ignorance I can say no more but rest MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant XXII MADAM YOur Author having assigned Indivisibility to the Soul or Spirit that moves and actuates matter I desire to know how one Indivisible Spirit can be in so many dividable parts For there being Infinite parts in Nature they must either have one Infinite Spirit to move them which must be dilated infinitely or this Spirit must move severally in every part of Nature If the first then I cannot conceive but all motion must be uniform or after one and the same manner nay I cannot understand how there can be any dilation and contraction or rather any motion of the same spirit by reason if it dilate then being equally spread out in all the parts of Matter it must dilate beyond Matter and if it contract it must leave some parts of matter void and without motion But if the Spirit moves every part severally then he is divisible neither can I think that there are so many Spirits as there are Parts in Nature for your Author says there is but one Spirit of Nature I will give an easie and plain example When a Worm is cut into two or three parts we see there is sensitive life and motion in every part for every part will strive and endeavour to meet and joyn again to make up the whole body now if there were but one indivisible Life Spirit and Motion I would fain know how these severed parts could move all by one Spirit Wherefore Matter in my opinion has self-motion in it self which is the onely soul and life of Nature and is dividable as well as composable and full of variety of action for it is as easie for several parts to act in separation as in composition and as easie in composition as in separation Neither is every part bound to one kind or sort of Motions for we see in exterior local motions that one man can put his body into several shapes and postures much more can Nature But is it not strange Madam that a man accounts it absurd ridiculous and a prejudice to Gods Omnipotency to attribute self-motion to Matter or a material Creature when it is not absurd ridiculous or any prejudice to God to attribute it to an Immaterial Creature What reason of absurdity lies herein Surely I can conceive none except it be absurd and ridiculous to make that which no man can know or conceive what it is viz. an immaterial natural Spirit which is as much as to say a natural No-thing to have motion and not onely motion but self-motion nay not onely self-motion but to move actuate rule govern and guide Matter or corporeal Nature and to be the cause of all the most curious varieties and effects in nature Was not God able to give self-motion as well to a Material as to an Immaterial Creature and endow Matter with a self-moving power I do not say Madam that Matter hath motion of it self so that it is the prime cause and principle of its own self-motion for that were to make Matter a God which I am far from believing but my opinion is That the self-motion of Matter proceeds from God as well as the self-motion of an Immaterial Spirit and that I am of this opinion the last Chapter of my Book of Philosophy will enform you where I treat of the Deitical Centre as the Fountain from whence all things do flow and which is the supream Cause Author
antipathetical Foes and all such Quarrels proceed from a sympathy to their own interest But you may ask me what the reason is that some Creatures as for example Mankind some of them will not onely like one sort of meat better then another of equal goodness and nourishment but will like and prefer sometimes a worse sort of meat before the best to wit such as hath neither a good taste nor nourishment I answer This is nothing else but a particular and most commonly an inconstant Appetite for after much eating of that they like best especially if they get a surfeit their appetite is changd to aversion for then all their feeding motions and parts have as much if not more antipathy to those meats as before they had a sympathy to them Again you may ask me the reason why a Man seeing two persons together which are strangers to him doth affect one better then the other nay if one of these Persons be deformed or ill-favoured and the other well-shaped and handsom yet it may chance that the deformed Person shall be more acceptable in the affections and eyes of the beholder then he that is handsom I answer There is no Creature so deformed but hath some agreeable and attractive parts unless it be a Monster which is never loved but for its rarity and novelty and Nature is many times pleased with changes taking delight in variety and the proof that such a sympathetical affection proceeds from some agreeableness of Parts is that if those persons were vail'd there would not proceed such a partial choice or judgment from any to them You may ask me further whether Passion and Appetite are also the cause of the sympathy which is in the Loadstone towards Iron and in the Needle towards the North I answer Yes for it is either for nourishment or refreshment or love and desire of association or the like that the Loadstone draws Iron and the Needle turns towards the North. The difference onely betwixt the sympathy in the Needle towards the North and betwixt the sympathy in the Loadstone towards the Iron is that the Needle doth always turn towards the North but the Loadstone doth not always draw Iron The reason is because the sympathy of the Needle towards the North requires no certain distance as I said in the beginning and the North-pole continuing constantly in the same place the Needle knows whither to turn when as the sympathy between the Loadstone and Iron requires a certain distance and when the Loadstone is not within this compass or distance it cannot perform its effect to wit to draw the Iron but the effect ceases although the cause remains in vigour The same may be said of the Flower that turns towards the Sun for though the Sun be out of sight yet the Flower watches for the return of the Sun from which it receives benefit Like as faithful Servants watch and wait for their Master or hungry Beggers at a Rich man's door for relief and so doth the aforesaid Flower nay not the Flower onely but any thing that has freedom and liberty of motion will turn towards those Places or Creatures whence it expects relief Concerning ravenous Beasts that feed on dead Carcasfes they having more eager appetites then food make long flights into far distant Countries to seek food to live on but surely I think if they had food enough at home although not dead Carcasses they would not make such great Journies or if a battel were fought and many slain and they upon their journey should meet with sufficient food they would hardly travel further before they had devoured that food first But many Birds travel for the temper of the Air as well as for food witness Woodcocks Cranes Swallows Fieldfares and the like some for cold some for hot and some for temperate Air. And as for such Diseases as are produced by conceit and at distance the cause is the fearfulness of the Patient which produces Irregularities in the Mind and these occasion Irregularities in the Body which produce such a disease as the Mind did fearfully apprehend when as without that Passion and Irregularity the Patient would perhaps not fall sick of that disease But to draw towards an end I 'le answer briefly to your Authors alledged example which he gives of Wine that it is troubled while the Vine flowreth The reason in my opinion may perhaps be that the Wine being the effect of the Vine and proceeding from its stock as the producer has not so quite alter'd Nature as not to be sensible at all of the alteration of the Vine For many effects do retain the proprieties of their causes for example many Children are generated which have the same proprieties of their Parents who do often propagate some or other vertuous or vitious qualities with their off-spring And this is rather a proof that there are sensitive and rational motions and sensitive and rational knowledge in all Creatures and so in Wine according to the nature or propriety of its Figure for without motion sense and reason no effect could be nor no sympathy or antipathy But it is to be observed that many do mistake the true Causes and ascribe an effect to some cause which is no more the cause of that same effect then a particular Creature is the cause of Nature and so they are apt to take the Fiddle for the hot Bricks as if the Fiddle did make the Ass dance when as it was the hot Bricks that did it for several effects may proceed from one cause and one effect from several causes and so in the aforesaid example the Wine may perhaps be disturbed by the alteration of the weather at the same time of the flowring of the Vines and so may Animals as well as Vegetables and other Creatures alter alike at one and the same point of time and yet none be the cause of each others alteration And thus to shut up my discourse I repeat again that sympathy and antipathy are nothing else but ordinary Passions and Appetites amongst several Creatures which Passions are made by the rational animate Matter and the Appetites by the sensitive both giving such or such motions to such or such Creatures for cross motions in Appetites and Passions make Antipathy and agreeable motions in Appetites and Passions make Sympathy although the Creatures be different wherein these motions Passions and Appetites are made and as without an object a Pattern cannot be so without inherent or natural Passions and Appetites there can be no Sympathy or Antipathy And there being also such Sympathy betwixt your Ladiship and me I think my self the happiest Creature for it and shall make it my whole study to imitate your Ladiship and conform all my actions to the rule and pattern of yours as becomes MADAM Your Ladiships faithful Friend and humble Servant XVI MADAM MY opinion of Witches and Witchcraft of whose Power and strange effects your Author is pleased to relate many
they cannot have the same Motions for the corporeal motions do make the nature of every particular Creature and their differences and as the corporeal motions act work or move so is the nature of every figure Wherefore no body I hope will count me so senseless that I believe sense and life to be after the like manner in every particular Creature or part of Nature as for example that a Stone or Tree has animal motions and doth see touch taste smell and hear by such sensitive organs as an Animal doth but my opinion is that all Sense is not bound up to the sensitive organs of an Animal nor Reason to the kernel of a man's brain or the orifice of the stomack or the fourth ventricle of the brain or onely to a mans body for though we do not see all Creatures move in that manner as Man or Animals do as to walk run leap ride c. and perform exterior acts by various local motions nevertheless we cannot in reason say they are void and destitute of all motion For what man knows the variety of motions in Nature Do not we see that Nature is active in every thing yea the least of her Creatures For example how some things do unanimously conspire and agree others antipathetically flee from each other and how some do increase others decrease some dissolve some consist and how all things are subject to perpetual changes and alterations and do you think all this is done without motion life sense and reason I pray you consider Madam that there are internal motions as well as external alterative as well as constitutive and several other sorts of motions not perceptible by our senses and therefore it is impossible that all Creatures should move after one sort of motions But you will say Motion may be granted but not Life Sense and Reason I answer I would fain know the reason why not for I am confident that no man can in truth affirm the contrary What is Life but sensitive Motion what is Reason but rational motion and do you think Madam that any thing can move it self without life sense and reason I for my part cannot imagine it should for it would neither know why whither nor what way or how to move But you may reply Motion may be granted but not self-motion and life sense and reason do consist in self-motion I answer this is imposible for not any thing in Nature can move naturally without natural motion and all natural motion is self-motion If you say it may be moved by another My answer is first that if a thing has no motion in it self but is moved by another which has self-motion then it must give that immovable body motion of its own or else it could not move having no motion at all for it must move by the power of motion which is certain and then it must move either by its own motion or by a communicated or imparted motion if by a communicated motion then the self-moveable thing or body must transfer its own motion into the immoveable and lose so much of its own motion as it gives away which is impossible as I have declared heretofore at large unless it do also transfer its moving parts together with it for motion cannot be transfered without substance But experience and observation witnesseth the contrary Next I say if it were possible that one body did move another then most part of natural Creatures which are counted immoveable of themselves or inanimate and destitute of self-motion must be moved by a forced or violent and not by a natural motion for all motion that proceeds from an external agent or moving power is not natural but forced onely self-motion is natural and then one thing moving another in this manner we must at last proceed to such a thing whch is not moved by another but hath motion in it self and moves all others and perhaps since man and the rest of animals have self-motion it might be said that the motions of all other inanimate Creatures as they call them doth proceed from them but man being so proud ambitious and self-conceited would soon exclude all other animals and adscribe this power onely to himself especially since he thinks himself onely endued with Reason and to have this prerogative above all the rest as to be the sole rational Creature in the World Thus you see Madam what confusion absurdity and constrained work will follow from the opinion of denying self-motion and so consequently life and sense to natural Creatures But I having made too long a digresion will return to your Authors discourse And as for that he says A dead Carcass burns by the proper action of the fire I answer That if the dissolving motions of the fire be too strong for the consistent motions of that body which fire works upon then fire is the cause of its alteration but if the consistent motions of the body be too strong for the dissolving motions of the fire then the fire can make no alteration in it Again he says Calx vive as long as it remains dry it gnaws not a dead Carcass but it presently gnaws live flesh and makes an escharre and a dead carcass is by lime wholly resolved into a liquor and is combibed except the bone and gristle thereof but it doth not consume live flesh into a liquor but translates it into an escharre I will say no more to this but that I have fully enough declared my opinion before that the actions or motions of life alter in that which is named a dead Carcass from what they were in that which is called a Living body but although the actions of Life alter yet life is not gone or annihilated for life is life and remains still the same but the actions or motions of life change and differ in every figure and this is the cause that the actions of Fire Time and Calx-vive have not the same effects in a dead Carcass as in a living Body for the difference of their figures and their different motions produce different effects in them and this is the cause that one and the same fire doth not burn or act upon all bodies alike for some it dissolves and some not and some it hardens and some it consumes and some later some sooner For put things of several natures into the same Fire and you will see how they will burn or how fire will act upon them after several manners so that fire cannot alter the actions of several bodies to its own blas and therefore since a living and a dead Body as they call them are not the same for the actions or motions of life by their change or alteration have altered the nature or figure of the body the effects cannot be the same for a Carcass has neither the interior nor exterior motions of that figure which it was before it was a Carcass and so the figure is quite alter'd from what it was by the
Souls in Heaven as well as on Earth have reason to adore love and praise God But Madam my study is in natural Philosophy not in Theology and therefore I 'le refer you to Divines and leave your Author to his own fancy who by his singular Visions tells us more news of our Souls then our Saviour did after his Death and Resurrection Resting in the mean time MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXVI MADAM COncerning those parts and chapters of your Authors Works which treat of Physick before I begin to examine them I beg leave of you in this present to make some reflections first upon his Opinions concerning the Nature of Health and Diseases As for Health he is pleased to say That it consists not in a just Temperature of the body but in a sound and intire Life for otherwise a Temperature of body is as yet in a dead Carcass newly kill'd where notwithstanding there is now death but not life not health Also he says That no disease is in a dead Carcass To which I answer That in my opinion Life is in a dead Carcass as well as in a living Animal although not such a Life as that Creature had before it became a Carcass and the Temperature of that Creature is altered with the alteration of its particular life for the temperature of that particular life which was before in the Animal doth not remain in the Carcass in such a manner as it was when it had the life of such or such an Animal nevertheless a dead Carcass hath life and such a temperature of life as is proper and belonging to its own figure for there are as many different lives as there be different creatures and each creature has its particular life and soul as partaking of sensitive and rational Matter And if a dead Carcass hath life and such a temperature of motions as belong to its own life then there is no question but these motions may move sometimes irregularly in a dead Carcass as well as in any other Creature and since health and diseases are nothing else but the regularity or irregularity of sensitive corporeal Motions a dead Carcass having Irregular motions may be said as well to have diseases as a living body as they name it although it is no proper or usual term for other Creatures but onely for Animals However if there were no such thing as a disease or term it what you will I will call it Irregularity of sensitive motions in a dead Carcass How comes it that the infection of a disease proceeds often from dead Carcasses into living Animals For certainly it is not meerly the odour or stink of a dead body for then all stinking Carcasses would produce an Infection wherefore this Infection must necessarily be inherent in the Carcass and proceed from the Irregularity of its motions Next I 'le ask you Whether a Consumption be a disease or not If it be then a dead Carcass might be said to have a disease as well as a living body and the AEgyptians knew a soveraign remedy against this disease which would keep a dead Carcass intire and undissolved many ages but as I said above a dead Carcass is not that which it was being a living Animal wherefore their effects cannot be the same having not the same causes Next your Author is pleased to call with Hippocrates Nature the onely Physicianess of Diseases I affirm it and say moreover that as she is the onely Physicianess so she is also the onely Destroyeress and Murtheress of all particular Creatures and their particular lives for she dissolves and transforms as well as she frames and creates and acts according to her pleasure either for the increase or decrease augmentation or destruction sickness or health life or death of Particular Creatures But concerning Diseases your Authors opinion is That a Disease is as Natural as Health I answer 't is true Diseases are natural but if we could find out the art of healing as well as the art of killing and destroying and the art of uniting and composing as well as the art of separating and dividing it would be very beneficial to man but this may easier be wished for then obtained for Nature being a corporeal substance has infinite parts as well as an infinite body and Art which is onely the playing action of Nature and a particular Creature can easier divide and separate parts then unite and make parts for Art cannot match unite and joyn parts so as Nature doth for Nature is not onely dividable and composeable being a corporeal substance but she is also full of curiosity and variety being partly self-moving and there is great difference between forced actions and natural actions for the one sort is regular the other irregular But you may say Irregularities are as natural as Regularities I grant it but Nature leaves the irregular part most commonly to her daughter or creature Art that is she makes irregularities for varieties sake but she her self orders the regular part that is she is more careful of her regular actions and thus Nature taking delight in variety suffers irregularities for otherwise if there were onely regularities there could not be so much variety Again your Author says That a disease doth not consist but in living bodies I answer there is not any body that has not life for if life is general then all figures or parts have life but though all bodies have life yet all bodies have not diseases for diseases are but accidental to bodies and are nothing else but irregular motions in particular Creatures which may be not onely in Animals but generally in all Creatures for there may be Irregularities in all sorts of Creatures which may cause untimely dissolutions but yet all dissolutions are not made by irregular motions for many creatures dissolve regularly but onely those which are untimely In the same place your Author mentions That a Disease consists immediately in Life it self but not in the dregs and filthinesses which are erroneous forreigners and strangers to the life I grant that a Disease is made by the motions of Life but not such a life as your Author describes which doth go out like the snuff of a Candle or as one of Lucian's Poetical Lights but by the life of Nature which cannot go out without the destruction of Infinite Nature and as the Motions of Nature's life make diseases or irregularities so they make that which man names dregs and filths which dregs filths sickness and death are nothing but changes of corporeal motions different from those motions or actions that are proper to the health perfection and consistence of such or such a figure or creature But to conclude there is no such thing as corruption sickness or death properly in Nature for they are made by natural actions and are onely varieties in Nature but not obstructions or destructions of Nature or annihilations of particular Creatures and so is that we name
Wherefore I will return to my simple opinion and as I cannot conceive any thing that is beyond Matter or a Body so I believe according to my reason that there is not any part in Nature be it never so subtil or small but is a self-moving substance or endued with self-motion and according to the regularity and irregularity of these motions all natural effects are produced either perfect or imperfect timely births or untimely and monstrous births death health and diseases good and ill dispositions natural and extravagant Appetites and Passions I say natural that is according to the nature of their figures Sympathy and Antipathy Peace and War Rational and Phantastical opinions Nevertheless all these motions whether regular or irregular are natural for regularity and irregularity hath but a respect to particulars and to our conceptions because those motions which move not after the ordinary common or usual way or manner we call Irregular But the curiosity and variety in Nature is unconceiveable by any particular Creature and so leaving it I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXX MADAM YOur Author says it is an ancient Truth That whatsoever things meats being digested and cast out by vomit are of a sowre taste and smell yea although they were seasoned with much sugar But I do not assent to this opinion for I think that some Vomits have no more taste then pure Water hath Neither am I of his mind That Digestion is hastened by sharpness or tartness For do but try it by one simple experiment take any kind of flesh-meat boyl or stew it with Vinegar or sowre wine or with much salt and you will find that it doth require a longer time or rather more motions to dissolve then if you boyl it in fair water without such ingredients as are sowre sharp or salt also if you do but observe you will find the dregs more sandy stony and hard being drest with much salt and sharp wine or vinegar then when they are not mixt with such contracting and fixing Ingredients Wherefore if the Ferment of the stomack hath such a restringent and contracting quality certainly digestions will be but slow and unprofitable but Nature requires expulsion as much as attraction and dilation as much as contraction and digestion is a kind of dilation Wherefore in my judgment contracting tartness and sharpness doth rather hinder digestion then further it Next I perceive your Author inclines to the opinion That Choler is not made by meat But I would ask him whether any humor be made ofmeat or whether blood flesh c. are made and nourished by meat If they be not then my answer is That we eat to no purpose but if they be then Choler is made so too But if he says That sorne are made and some not then I would ask what that humor is made of that is not made by meat or food received into the body But we find that humors blood flesh c. will be sometimes more sometimes less according either to feeding or to digestion which digestion is a contribution of food to every several part of the body for its nourishment and when there is a decay ofthose parts then it is caused either by fasting or by irregular digestion or by extraordinary evacuation or by distempered matter c. all which causes sickness paleness leanness weakness and the like Again your Author is against the opinion of the Schools That the Gall is a receptacle of superfluous humors and dregs for he says it has rather the constitution of a necessary and vital bowel and is the balsom of the liver and blood Truly it may be so for any thing I know or it may be not for your Author could but guess not assuredly know unless he had been in a man as big as the Whale in whose belly Jonas was three days and had observed the interior parts and motions of every part for three years time and yet he might perchance have been as ignorant at the coming forth as if he never had been there for Natures actions are not onely curious but very various and not onely various but very obscure in so much as the most ingenious Artists cannot trace her ways or imitate her actions for Art being but a Creature can do or know no more then a Creature and although she is an ingenious Creature which can and hath found out some things profitable and useful for the life of others yet she is but a handmaid to Nature and not her Mistress which your Author in my opinion too rashly affirms when he says That the Art of Chymistry is not onely the Chambermaid and emulating Ape but now and then the Mistress of Nature For Art is an effect of Nature and to prefer the effect before the cause is absurd But concerning Chymistry I have spoken in another place I 'le return to my former Discourse and I wonder much why your Author is so opposite to the Schools concerning the doctrine of the Gall's being a receptacle for superfluities and dregs for I think there is not any Creature that has not places or receptacles for superfluous matter such as we call dregs for even the purest and hardest Mineral as Gold has its dross although in a less proportion then some other Creatures nay I am perswaded that even Light which your Author doth so much worship may have some superfluous matter which may be named dregs and since Nature has made parts in all Creatures to receive and discharge superfluous matter which receiving and discharging is nothing else but a joyning and dividing of parts to and from parts why may not the Gall be as well for that use as any other part But I pray mistake me not when I say superfluous matter or dregs for I understand by it that which is not useful to the nourishment or confistence of such or such a Creature but to speak properly there is neither superfluity of matter nor dregs in Nature Moreover your Author mentions a six-fold digestion and makes every digestion to be performed by inbreathing or inspiration For in the first digestion he says The spleen doth inspire a sowre Ferment into the Meat In the second The Gall doth inspire a ferment or fermental blas into the slender entrails In the third The Liver doth inspire a bloody ferment into the veins of the Mensentery c. I answer first I am confident Nature has more ways then to work onely by Inspirations not onely in General but in every Particular Next I believe there are not onely six but many more digestions in an animal Creature for not onely every sort of food but every bit that is eaten may require a several digestion and every several part of the body works either to expel or preserve or for both so that there are numerous several Motions in every Creature and many changes of motions in each particular part but Nature is in them all And so leaving her
Physician in France Dr. Davison who used in continual Fevers to prescribe onely cooling Ptisan made of a little Barley and a great quantity of Water so thin as the Barley was hardly perceived and a spoonfull of syrup of Limmon put into a quart of the said Ptisan but in case of a Flux he ordered some few seeds of Pomegranats to be put into it and this cold Ptisan was to be the Patients onely drink Besides once in Twenty four hours he prescribed a couple of potched Eggs with a little Verjuice and to let the Patient blood if he was dry and hot I mean dry exteriously as from sweat and that either often or seldom according as occasion was found Also he prescribed two grains of Laudanum every night but neither to give the Patient meat nor drink two hours before and after Which advice and Practice of the mentioned Physician concerning Fevers with several others I declared to this Irish Doctor and he observing this rule cured many and so recovered his lost esteem and repute But your Author being all for Wine and against cooling drinks or Julips in hot Fevers says That cooling means are more like to death to cessation from motion and to defect but heat from moderate Wine is a mean like unto life To which I answer first That cold or cooling things are as active as hot or heating things neither is death more cold then hot nor life more hot then cold for we see that Frost is as active and strong as burning heat and Water Air and Earth are as full of life as Fire and Vegetables Minerals and Elements have life as well as Animals But we feeling a Man's flesh cold when he is dissolving from an Animal think death is cold and seeing he was hot before the same alteration say Life is hot Also finding an animal when it is dissolving to be without external local Motion we say it is dead and when it hath as yet this local motion before its alteration we call it alive which certainly is not proper Next I say that a wise Man when his house is fired will fling or squirt water upon it to quench it and take out all moveables lest they should increase the flame likewise he will make vent for the flame to issue forth But perchance your Author may say that Fevers are not hot Truly in my opinion he might say as well that Fire is cold Again he may say That although the effect be hot yet the cause is cold I answer That in some diseases the effects become so firmly rooted and so powerfull that they must be more look'd upon then the cause for such variety there is in Nature that oftentimes that which was now an effect turns to be a cause and again a cause an effect For example A cold cause often produces a hot effect and this hot effect becomes again a cause of a cold effect Which variation is not onely a trouble but a great obstruction to wise Physicians for Nature hath more varieties in diseases then Physicians have remedies And as for drink if Fevers be neither hot nor dry nor require drink for want of moisture then I see no reason why drink should be urged and those Physicians blamed that forbid it for if thirst proceed from an evil digestion drink will rather weaken the stomack for heat and driness draw soon away the drink in the stomack and putting much into a weak stomack doth rather hurt then good But if necessity require it then I approve rather of raw and crude Water then of hot inflaming Wiue And so taking my leave I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and humble Servant XXXVII MADAM IN your Authors Treatise of Fevers I find one Chapter whose Inscription is A Perfect Curing of all Fevers wherein he declares the secrets of the Cures of Fevers consisting all in Chymical Medicines But considering that if all Fevers could be cured by such Medicines then all Physicians would strive to obtain them I can hardly believe by your Authors favour that any such perfect curing of all Fevers can be effected but that your Authors prescriptions if they should come to the tryal might fail as well as any other Likewise he mentions a Medicine of Paracelsus named Diaceltesson or the Coraline Secret which he says cures radically the Gout no less then Fevers Which if so I wonder why so many Great Noble and Rich Persons groan so much under the pains of the Gout certainly it is not for want of cost to have them prepared nor for want of an ingenious and experienced Chymist for this age doth not want skilful workmen in that Art nor worthy and wise Physicians which if they knew such soveraign medicines would soon apply them to their Patients but I suppose that they finding their effects to be less then the cost and labour bestowed upon them forbear to use them Moreover he mentions another remedy for most diseases by him call'd Driff prepared also by the Art of Chymistry but I believe all those remedies will not so often cure as fail of cure like as the Sympathetical Powder for if there were such soveraign medicines that did never fail of a successful effect certainly men being curious inquisitive and searching would never leave till they had found them out Also amongst Vegetables the herb Chameleon and Arsmart are in great request with your Author For says he they by their touching alone do presently take away cruel diseases or at leastwise ease them Which if so I wonder that there is not more use made of them and they held in greater esteem then they are Also that your Author doth not declare the vertue of them and the manner and way how and in what diseases to use them for the benefit of his neighbour to which end he says all his labours and actions are directed But again your Author confirms as an Eye-witness That the bone of the arm of a Toad presently has taken away the Tooth-ach at the first co-touching Which remedy if it was constant few in my opinion would suffer such cruel pains and cause their teeth to be drawn out especially if sound Likewise of the mineral Electrum or Amber of Paracelsus he affirms to have seen that hung about the neck it has freed those that were persecuted by unclean spirits and that many simples have done the like effects but surely Madam I cannot be perswaded that the Devil should be put away so easily for he being a Spirit will not be chased by corporeal means but by spiritual which is Faith and Prayer and the cure of dispossessing the Devil belongs to Divines and not to Natural Philosopers or Physicians But though exterior remedies as Amulets Pomanders and the like may perform sometimes such effects as to cure or preserve from some diseases yet they are not ordinary and constant but meerly by chance But there are more false remedies then true ones and if one remedy chance to work successfully with
one distempered person it may fail of its success applyed to others in the same kind of distemper nay it may cure perhaps one and the same person of a distemper once and in the return of the same disease effect little or nothing witness those remedies that are applyed in Agues Tooth-aches and the like especially Amulets for one and the same disease in several persons or in one and the same person at several times may vary and change so often and proceed from so different causes and be of so different tempers and have such different motions as one and the same medicine can do no good And what would the skill of Physicians be if one remedy should cure all diseases Why should they take so much pains in studying the various causes motions and tempers of diseases if one medicine had a general power over all Nay for what use should God have created such a number of different simples Vegetables and Minerals if one could do all the business Lastly your Author rehearses some strange examples of Child-bearing Women who having seen terrible and cruel sights as Executions of Malefactors and dismembring of their bodies have brought forth monstrous births without heads hands arms leggs c. according to the objects they had seen I must confess Madam that all Creatures are not always formed perfect for Nature works irregularly sometimes wherefore a Child may be born defective in some member or other or have double members instead of one and so may other animal Creatures but this is nevertheless natural although irregular to us but to have a Child born perfect in the womb and the lost member to be taken off there and so brought forth defective as your Author mentions cannot enter my belief neither can your Author himself give any reason but he makes onely a bare relation of it for certainly if it was true that the member was chopt rent or pluckt off from the whole body of the Child it could not have been done without a violent shock or motion of the Mother which I am confident would never have been able to endure it for such a great alteration in her body would of necessity besides the death of the Child have caused a total dissolution of her own animal parts by altering the natural animal motions But as I said above those births are caused by irregular motions and are not frequent and ordinary for if upon every strange sight or cruel object a Child-bearing-woman should produce such effects Monsters would be more frequent then they are In short Nature loves variety and this is the cause of all strange and unusual natural effects and so leaving Nature to her will and pleasure my onely delight and pleasure is to be MADAM faithful Friend and humble Servant XXXVIII MADAM YOur Author reproving the Schools that they forbid Salt to some diseased persons as pernicious to their health Good God says he how unsavoury are the Schools and how unsavoury do they bid us to be But I suppose the Schools do not absolutely forbid all diseased persons to abstein from salt but onely not to use it excessively or too frequently for experience proves that salt meats have not onely increased but caused diseases as the Stone the Gout Sciatica Fistula's Cancers sore Eyes sore Throats and the like I do not say that those diseases are always bred with the excess of salt diets for diseases of one and the same kind may be bred variously but this hath been observed that whosoever is affected with such diseases shall after a salt meal find himself in more pain then before wherefore a constant or common salt diet cannot but be hurtful Neither are those persons that feed much on salt meats or use strong drinks take number for number so healthful or long-lived as those that are temperate and abstaining Next your Author bewails The shameful simplicity of those that give their Patients Leaf-Gold Pearls and bruised or powderd pretious Stones as Cordials in fainting fits and other distempers For says he they may be dissolved but not altered wherefore they cannot produce any powerful effect to the health of the Patient Truly Madam I am not of his mind for were it that those remedies or cordials could not be transchanged yet their vertues may nevertheless be very beneficial to the fick For example a man that is assaulted by enemies or by chance is fallen into a deep Pit or is ready to be strangled and in all not able to help himself yet by the help of another man may be rescued and freed from his danger and from death using such means as are able to release him which either by drawing his Sword against his ememies or by throwing a rope down into the Pit and haling him out or by cutting the rope by which he hung may save him and yet neither the man nor any of his Instruments as Sword Rope Knife and the like need to be transchanged The like may be said of the aforementioned medicines or remedies which if they be not transchangeable yet they may nevertheless do such operations as by their natural active qualities and proprieties to over-power the irregular motions in the natural parts of the body of the Patient for many diseases proceed more from irregular motions then irregular parts and although there is no motion without matter yet one and the same matter may have divers and various changes of motions and moving parts will either oppose or assist each other without transchanging And truly Madam I wonder that your Author doth condemn such Cordials made of Leaf-gold Pearls powdered precious Stones or the like and yet verily believe that Amber Saphires Emeraulds Beads Bracelets c. outwardly applied or worn can cure more then when inwardly taken surely if this be so they cure more by Faith then by Reason But it seems your Author regulates the actions of Nature to the artificial actions of his Furnace which although sometimes they produce wonderful effects yet not such as Nature doth for if they cure one they commonly kill ten nay the best of their Medicine is so dangerous as it ought not to be applied but in desperate cases Wherefore Wise Physicians must needs be Provident and Cautious when they use them And so leaving them I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and humble Servant XXXIX MADAM I Will not dispute your Authors opinion concerning the Plague of Men which he says doth not infect Beasts neither doth the plague of Beasts infect Men but rather believe it to be so for I have observed that Beasts infect onely each other to wit those of their own kind as Men do infect other Men. For example the Plague amongst Horses continues in their own kind and so doth the Plague amongst Sheep and for any thing we know there may be a plague amongst Vegetables as well as amongst Animals and they may not onely infect each other but also those Animals that do feed on those
infectious Vegetables so that Infections may be caused several ways either by inbreathing and attracting or sucking in the Poyson of the Plague or by eating and converting it into the substance of the body for some kinds of poyson are so powerful as to work onely by way of inbreathing Also some sorts of Air may be full of infection and infect many Men Beasts Birds Vegetables and the like for Infections are variously produced Internally as well as Externally amongst several particular Creatures for as the Plague may be made internally or within the body of a particular Creature without any exterior infection entring from without into the body so an external Infection again may enter many several ways into the body And thus there be many contagious diseases caused meerly by the internal motions of the body as by fright terror conceit fancy imagination and the like and many by the taking of poysonous matter from without into the body but all are made by the natural motions or actions of animate matter by which all is made that is in Nature and nothing is new as Solomon says but what is thought or seems to be new is onely the variation of the Motions of this old Matter which is Nature And this is the reason that not every Age Nation or Creature has always the like diseases for as all the actions of Nature vary so also do diseases But to speak of the Plague although I am of opinion that the Plague of Beasts doth not infect Men unless they be eaten nor the plague of Men Beasts yet Magistrates do wisely in some places that in the beginning of the plague of Men they command Dogs and Cats to be kill'd by reason as your Author saith The skins and flesh of Brutes may be defiled with our Plague and they may be pestiferous contagions unto us I will add one thing more which doth concern the Poyson of Measels whereof your Author is saying That it is onely proper to humane kind What kind of Measles he means I know not but certainly Hogs are often affected with that disease as is vulgarly known but whether they be different diseases in their kinds and proceed from different motions I will let others inquire And so I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XL. MADAM COncerning the disease of the Stone your Author seems to be of an opinion That the stone in the Bladder and the stone in the Kidnies are not made after one and the same manne For says he The Bladder and the same Vrine in number procreates a duelech of another condition then that which is made in the Kidney And truly Madam it may be so for there are several ways or modes in irregularities as well as regularities and not every kind is alike no not every Particular but there is some difference between them Wherefore it may very well be that the corporeal motions that make the stone in the Kidneys are not just alike to those that make the stone in the Bladder and as each sort of stone is different so their particular causes ought to be different but this is to be observed that generally all diseases which produce hardness are made by contracting condensing and retenting motions and therefore the remedies of them must be dilating rarifying and dissolving Next your Author says The Stone is not bred by heat but heat is rather an effect of the stone neither is a certain muscilage or a slimy snivelly Phlegme the cause or matter of the stone but the stone is the cause of the phlegme But in my judgment it seems more probable that a slimy matter is more proper for a stone to be made of then that a stone should make slime except it be in its dissolution that is when the stone as in its generation or production it did change from a slimy or liquid substance to a stone by condensing and contracting motions doth by dilating and rarifying motions dissolve again into such a liquid and slimy body I will not say always to wit that the stone must needs be resolved into a slimy matter but oftentimes it may be so Neither can I absolutely affirm that either heat or cold onely is the cause of a stone for some may be produced by hot and some by cold contractions and densations there being as many several sorts of stones as there are of other Creatures But this is to be well noted that as some sorts of hot contractions do make stones so some sorts of hot dilations do dissolve them The like of cold contractions and dilations Again your Author speaking of the womb wherein the stone is made Every generated thing or being says he must of necessity have a certain place or womb where it is produced for there must needs be places wherein things may be made before they are bred I answer As there is not any body without place nor any place without body so the womb is not the place of the body generated neither before nor after its generation no more then a man can be said to be in a room when he is not there but every body carries its place along with it Moreover concerning the voiding of bloody Urine which happens sometimes in the disease of the Stone my opinion is That it doth not always proceed from the Stone but many times from the breaking or voluntary opening of some Veins But as for the cure of the disease of the Stone your Author is pleased to affirm That no disease is incurable and so neither the disease oâ— the Stone For he himself has cured many of the Stone to which they had been obedient for some years Indeed Madam I fear his words are more cheerful then effectual however it may be possible if the Kidneys be no ways impaired or the Bladder hurt but if there be some such imperfection in either or both then it is as much in my opinion as to say Man can do more then Nature doth Neither can I believe that then any of your Authors Chymical preparations as Aroph Ludus Alkahest and the like if they were to be had would do any good no nor Daucus or wild Carrot-seed if the disease be as yet curable will prove an effectual remedy for it although your Author is pleased to relate an example of a man to whom it did much good for I can affirm the contrary by other the like Examples that it never did any good to those that used it nor the liquor of the Birch-tree whose vertue and efficacy I do not believe to be so great as your Author describes But for the stoppage of Urine Marsh-mallow and oyl of Almonds which he despises I approve to be good and better then any of his Unknown Chymical Secrets for those Chymical Medicines as he himself confesses are hard to be had especially Alkahest which is onely to be obtained by a Particular favour from Heaven and is rather a supernatural Gift then a natural remedy
onely that this sensitive and rational self-moving Matter is the life and soul of Nature But by reason this Matter is not subject to our gross senses although our senses are subject to it as being made subsisting and acting through the power of its actions we are not apt to believe it no more then a simple Country-wench will believe that Air is a substance if she neither hear see smell taste or touch it although Air touches and surrounds her But yet the effects of this animate matter prove that there is such a matter onely as I said before this self-moving matter causing a self-division as well as a general action is the cause of a self-obscurity which obscurity causes doubts disputes and inconstancies in humane opinions although not so much obscurity as to make all Creatures blindfold for surely there is no Creature but perceives more or less But to conclude The Rational degree of Matter is the most intelligible and the wisest part of Nature and the Sensitive is the most laborious and provident part in Nature both which are the Creators of all Creatures in Infinite Matter and if you intend to know more of this Rational and Sensitive Matter you may consult my Book of Philosophy to which I refer you And so taking my leave for the present I rest MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant II. MADAM I Understand by your last that you have read the Book of that most learned and famous Physician and Anatomist Dr. Harvey which treats of Generation and in the reading of it you have mark'd several scruples which you have framed into several questions concerning that subject to which you desire my answer Truly Madam I am loth to imbarque my self in this difficult argument not onely for the reasons I have given you heretofore but also that I do not find my self able enough to give you such a satisfactory answer as perhaps you do expect But since your Commands are so powerful with me that I can hardly resist them and your Nature so good that you easily pardon any thing that is amiss I will venture upon it according to the strength of my Natural Reason and endeavour to give you my opinion as well and as clearly as I can Your first question is Whether the action of one or more producers be the onely cause of Natural Production or Generation without imparting or transferring any of their own substance or Matter I answer The sole co-action of the Producers may make a change of exterior forms or figures but not produce another Creature for if there were not substance or matter as well as action both transferred together there would not be new Creatures made out of old Matter but every production would require new Matter which is impossible if there be but one Matter and that infinite and certainly humane sense and reason may well perceive that there can be but one Matter for several kinds of Matter would make a confusion and thus if new Creatures were made onely by substanceless motion it would not onely be an infinite trouble to Nature to create something out of nothing perpetually but as I said it would make a confusion amongst all Nature's works which are her several Parts or Creatures But by reason there is but one Matter which is Infinite and Eternel and this Matter has self-motion in it both Matter and Motion must of necessity transmigrate or be transferred together without any separation as being but one thing to wit Corporeal Motion 'T is true one part of animate or self-moving Matter may without Translation move or rather occasion other parts to move but one Creature cannot naturally produce another without the transferring of its corporeal motions But it is well to be observed that there is great difference between the actions of Nature for all actions are not generating but some are patterning and some transforming and the like and as for the transforming action that may be without translation as being nothing else but a change of motions in one and the same part or parts of Matter to wit when the same parts of Matter do change into several figures and return into the same figures again Also the action of Patterning is without Translation for to pattern out is nothing else but to imitate and to make a figure in its own substance or parts of Matter like another figure But in generation every producer doth transfer both Matter and Motion that is Corporeal Motion into the produced and if there be more producers then one they all do contribute to the produced and if one Creature produces many Creatures those many Creatures do partake more or less of their producer But you may say If the producer transfers its own Matter or rather its own corporeal motions into the produced many productions will soon dissolve the producer and he will become a sacrifice to his off-spring I answer That doth not follow for as one or more Creatures contribute to one or more other Creatures so other Creatures do contribute to them although not after one and the same manner or way but after divers manners or ways but all manners and ways must be by translation to repair and assist for no Creature can subsist alone and of it self but all Creatures traffick and commerce from and to each other and must of necessity do so since they are all parts of the same Matter Neither can Motion subsist without Matter nor quit Matter nor act without Matter no more then an Artificer can work without materials and without self-motion Matter would be dead and useless Wherefore Matter and Motion must upon necessity not onely be inseparable but be one body to wit corporeal motion which motion by dividing and composing its several parts and acting variously is the cause of all Production Generation Metamorphosing or any other thing that is done in Nature But if according to your Author the sole action be the cause of Generation without transferring of substance then Matter is useless and of none or little effect which in my opinion is not probable Your second question is Whether the Production or Generation of animals is as the Conceptions of the Brain which the Learned say are Immaterial I answer The Conceptions of the Brain in my opinion are not Immaterial but Corporeal for though the corporeal motions of the brain or the matter of its conceptions is invisible to humane Creatures and that when the brain is dissected there is no such matter found yet that doth not prove that there is no Matter because it is not so gross a substance as to be perceptible by our exterior senses Neither will your Authors example hold that as a builder erects a house according to his conception in the brain the same happens in all other natural productions or generations for in my opinion the house is materially made in the brain which is the conception of the builder although not of such gross materials as Stone Brick Wood
motion to tend to its former state Wherefore when the Line moves backwards or forwards it is not that the Line gets what it had not before that is a new corporeal motion but it uses its own motion onely as I said that exterior body is the occasion that it moves after such a manner or way and therefore this motion of the line although it is the lines own motion yet in respect of the exterior body that causes it to move that way it may be called a forced or rather an occasioned motion And thus no body can get motion from another body except it get matter too for all that motion that a body has proceeds from the self-moving part of matter and motion and matter are but one thing neither is there any inanimate part of matter in Nature which is not co-mixed with the animate and consequently there is no part which is not moving or moved the Animate part of matter is the onely self-moving part and the Inanimate the moved not that the animate matter doth give away its own motion to the inanimate and that the inanimate becomes self-moving but the animate by reason of the close conjunction and commixture works together with the inanimate or causes the inanimate to work with it and thus the inanimate remains as simple in its own nature as the animate doth in its nature although they are mixt for those mixtures do not alter the simplicity of each others Nature But having discoursed of this subject in my former Letters I take my leave and rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant VI. MADAM IT seems my former Letter concerning Motion has given you occasion to propound this following question to me to wit When I throw a bowl or strike a ball with my hand whether the motion by which the bowl or ball is moved be the hands or the balls own motion or whether it be transferred out of my hand into the ball To which I return this short answer That the motion by which for example the bowl is moved is the bowls own motion and not the hands that threw it for the hand cannot transfer its own motion which hath a material being out of it self into the bowl or any other thing it handles touches or moves or else if it did the hand would in a short time become weak and useless by losing so much substance unless new motions were as fast created as expended You 'l say perhaps that the hand and the bowl may exchange motions as that the bowls own motion doth enter into the hand and supply that motion which went out of the hand into the bowl by a close joyning or touch for in all things moving and moved must be a joyning of the mover to the moved either immediate or by the means of another body I answer That this is more probable then that the hand should give out or impart motion to the bowl and receive none from the bowl but by reason motion cannot be transferred without matter as being both inseparably united and but one thing I cannot think it probable that any of the animate or self-moving matter in the hand quits the hand and enters into the bowl nor that the animate matter which is in the bowl leaves the bowl and enters into the hand because that self-moving substance is not readily prepared for so sudden a Translation or Transmigration You may say It may as easily be done as food is received into an animal body and excrement discharged or as air is taken in and breath sent out by the way of respiration and that all Creatures are not onely produced from each other but do subsist by each other and act by each others assistance I answer It is very true that all Creatures have more power and strength by a joyned assistance then if every part were single and subsisted of it self But as some parts do assist each other so on the other side some parts do resist each other for though there be a unity in the nature of Infinite Matter yet there are divisions also in the Infinite parts of Infinite Matter which causes Antipathy as much as Sympathy but they being equal in assistance as well as in resistance it causes a conformity in the whole nature of Infinite Matter for if there were not contrary or rather I may say different effects proceeding from the onely cause which is the onely matter there could not possibly be any or at least so much variety in Nature as humane sense and reason perceives there is But to return to our first argument You may say that motion may be transferred out of one body into another without transferring any of the Matter I answer That is impossible unless motion were that which some call No-thing but how No-thing can be transferred I cannot imagine Indeed no sense and reason in Nature can conceive that which is No-thing for how should it conceive that which is not in Nature to be found You 'l say perhaps It is a substanceless thing or an incorporeal immaterial being or form I answer In my opinion it is a meer contradiction to say a substanceless thing form or being for surely in Nature it cannot be But if it be not possible that motion can be divided from matter you may say that body from whence the motion is transferred would become less in bulk and weight and weaker with every act of motion and those bodies into which corporeal motion or self-moving matter was received would grow bigger heavier and stronger To which I answer That this is the reason which denies that there can be a translation of motion out of the moving body into the moved for questionless the one would grow less and the other bigger that by loosing so much substance this by receiving Nay if it were possible as it is not that motion could be transferred without matter the body out of which it goes would nevertheless grow weaker for the strength lies in the motion unless you believe this motion which is transferred to have been useless in the mover and onely useful to the moved or else it would be superfluous in the moved except you say it became to be annihilated after it was transferr'd and had done its effect but if so then there would be a perpetual and infinite creation and annihilation of substanceless motion and how there could be a creation and annihilation of nothing my reason cannot conceive neither is it possible unless Nature had more power then God to create Nothing and to annihilate Nothing The truth is it is more probable for sense and reason to believe a Creation of Something out of Nothing then a Creation of Nothing out of Nothing Wherefore it cannot in sense and reason be that the motion of the hand is transferr'd into the bowl But yet I do not say that the motion of the hand doth not contribute to the motion of the bowl for though the bowl hath its own natural motion
There was and There shall be but onely There is Neither can it properly be said from this to that place but onely in reference to the several moving parts of the onely Infinite Matter And thus much to your Questions I add no more but rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and humble Servant XXX MADAM IN your last you were pleased to express that some men who think themselves wise did laugh in a scornful manner at my opinion when I say that every Creature hath life and knowledg sense and reason counting it not onely ridiculous but absurd and asking whether you did or could believe a piece of wood metal or stone had as much sense as a beast or as much reason as a man having neither brain blood heart nor flesh nor such organs passages parts nor shapes as animals To which I answer That it is not any of these mentioned things that makes life and knowledg but life and knowledg is the cause of them which life and knowledg is animate matter and is in all parts of all Creatures and to make it more plain and perspicuous humane sense and reason may perceive that wood stone or metal acts as wisely as an animal As for example Rhubarb or the like drugs will act very wisely in Purging and Antimony or the like will act very wisely in Vomiting and Opium will act very wisely in Sleeping also Quicksilver or Mercury will act very wisely as those that have the French disease can best witness likewise the Loadstone acts very wisely as Mariners or Navigators will tell you Also Wine made of Fruit and Ale of Malt and distilled Aqua-vitae will act very subtilly ask the Drunkards and they can inform you Thus Infinite examples may be given and yet man says all Vegetables and Minerals are insensible and irrational as also the Planets and Elements when as yet the Planets move very orderly and wisely and the Elements are more active nay more subtil and searching then any of the animal Creatures witness Fire Air and Water As for the Earth she brings forth her fruit if the other Elements do not cause abortives in due season and yet man believes Vegetables Minerals and Elements are dead dull senseless and irrational Creatures because they have not such shapes parts nor passages as Animals nor such exterior and local motions as Animals have but Man doth not consider the various intricate and obscure ways of Nature unknown to any particular Creature for what our senses are not capable to know our reason is apt to deny Truly in my opinion Man is more irrational then any of those Creatures when he believes that all knowledg is not onely confined to one sort of Creatures but to one part of one particular Creature as the head or brain of man for who can in reason think that there is no other sensitive and rational knowledg in Infinite Matter but what is onely in Man or animal Creatures It is a very simple and weak conclusion to say Other Creatures have no eyes to see no ears to hear no tongues to taste no noses to smell as animals have wherefore they have no sense or sensitive knowledg or because they have no head nor brain as Man hath therefore they have no reason nor rational knowledg at all for sense and reason and consequently sensitive and rational knowledg extends further then to be bound to the animal eye ear nose tongue head or brain but as these organs are onely in one kind of Natures Creatures as Animals in which organs the sensitive corporeal motions make the perception of exterior objects so there may be infinite other kinds of passages or organs in other Creatures unknown to Man which Creatures may have their sense and reason that is sensitive and rational knowledg each according to the nature of its figure for as it is absurd to say that all Creatures in Nature are Animals so it is absurd to confine sense and reason onely to Animals or to say that all other Creatures if they have sense and reason life and knowledg it must be the same as is in Animals I confess it is of the same degree that is of the same animate part of matter but the motions of life and knowledg work so differently and variously in every kind and sort nay in every particular Creature that no single Creature can find them out But in my opinion not any Creature is without life and knowledg which life and knowledg is made by the self-moving part of matter that is by the sensitive and rational corporeal motions and as it is no consequence that all Creatures must be alike in their exterior shapes figures and motions because they are all produced out of one and the same matter so neither doth it follow that all Creatures must have the same interior motions natures and proprieties and so consequently the same life and knowledg because all life and knowledg is made by the same degree of matter to wit the animate Wherefore though every kind or sort of Creatures has different perceptions yet they are not less knowing for Vegetables Minerals and Elements may have as numerous and as various perceptions as Animals and they may be as different from animal perceptions as their kinds are but a different perception is not therefore no perception Neither is it the animal organs that make perception nor the animal shape that makes life but the motions of life make them But some may say it is Irreligious to believe any Creature has rational knowledg but Man Surely Madam the God of Nature in my opinion will be adored by all Creatures and adoration cannot be without sense and knowledg Wherefore it is not probable that onely Man and no Creature else is capable to adore and worship the Infinite and Omnipotent God who is the God of Nature and of all Creatures I should rather think it irreligious to confine sense and reason onely to Man and to say that no Creature adores and worships God but Man which in my judgment argues a great pride self-conceit and presumption And thus Madam having declared my opinion plainly concerning this subject I will detain you no longer at this present but rest MADAM Your constant Friend and faithful Servant XXXI MADAM I Perceive you do not well apprehend my meaning when I say in my Philosophical Opinions That the Infinite degrees of Infinite Matter are all Infinite For say you the degrees of Matter cannot be Infinite by reason there cannot be two Infinites but one would obstruct the other My answer is I do not mean that the degrees of Matter are Infinite each in its self that is that the animate and inanimate are several Infinite matters but my opinion is that the animate degree of matter is in a perpetual motion and the inanimate doth not move of it self and that those degrees are infinite in their effects as producing and making infinite figures for since the cause which is the onely matter is infinite the
effects must of necessity be infinite also the cause is infinite in its substance the effects are Infinite in number And this is my meaning when I say that although in Nature there is but one kind of matter yet there are Infinite degrees Infinite motions and Infinite parts in that onely matter and though Infinite and Eternal matter has no perfect or exact figure by reason it is Infinite and therefore unlimited yet there being infinite parts in number made by the infinite variations of motions in infinite Matter these parts have perfect or exact figures considered as parts that is single or each in its particular figure And therefore if there be Infinite degrees considering the effects of the animate and inanimate matter infinite motions for changes infinite parts for number infinite compositions and divisions for variety and diversity of Creatures then there may also be infinite sizes each part or figure differing more or less infinite smalness and bigness lightness and heaviness rarity and density strength and power life and knowledg and the like But by reason Nature or Natural matter is not all animate or inanimate nor all composing or dividing there can be no Infinite in a part nor can there be something biggest or smallest strongest or weakest heaviest or lightest softest or hardest in Infinite Nature or her parts but all those several Infinites are as it were included in one Infinite which is Corporeal Nature or Natural Matter Next you desire my opinion of Vacuum whether there be any or not for you say I determine nothing of it in my Book of Philosophical Opinions Truly Madam my sense and reason cannot believe a Vacuum because there cannot be an empty Nothing but change of motion makes all the alteration of figures and consequently all that which is called place magnitude space and the like for matter motion figure place magnitude c. are but one thing But some men perceiving the alteration but not the subtil motions believe that bodies move into each others place which is impossible because several places are onely several parts so that unless one part could make it self another part no part can be said to succeed into anothers place but it is impossible that one part should make it self another part for it cannot be another and it self no more then Nature can be Nature and not Nature wherefore change of place is onely change of motion and this change of motion makes alteration of Figures Thirdly you say You cannot understand what I mean by Creation for you think that Creation is a production or making of Something out of Nothing To tell you really Madam this word is used by me for want of a better expression and I do not take it in so strict a sense as to understand by it a Divine or supernatural Creation which onely belongs to God but a natural Creation that is a natural production or Generation for Nature cannot create or produce Something out of Nothing And this Production may be taken in a double sence First in General as for example when it is said that all Creatures are produced out of Infinite Matter and in this respect every particular Creature which is finite that is of a circumscribed and limited figure is produced of Infinite Matter as being a part thereof Next Production is taken in a more strict sense to wit when one single Creature is produced from another and this is either Generation properly so called as when in every kind and sort each particular produces its like or it is such a Generation whereby one creature produces another each being of a different kind or species as for example when an Animal produces a Mineral as when a Stone is generated in the Kidneys or the like and in this sence one finite creature generates or produces another finite creature the producer as well as the produced being finite but in the first sence finite creatures are produced out of infinite matter Fourthly you confess You cannot well apprehend my meaning when I say that the several kinds are as Infinite as the particulars for your opinion is That the number of particulars must needs exceed the number of kinds I answer I mean in general the Infinite effects of Nature which are Infinite in number and the several kinds or sorts of Creatures are Infinite in duration for nothing can perish in Nature Fifthly When I say that ascending and descending is often caused by the exterior figure or shape of a body witness a Bird who although he is of a much bigger size and bulk then a Worm yet can by his shape lift himself up more agilly and nimbly then a Worm Your opinion is That his exterior shape doth not contribute any thing towards his flying by reason a Bird being dead retains the same shape but yet cannot fly at all But truly Madam I would not have you think that I do exclude the proper and interior natural motion of the figure of a Bird and the natural and proper motions of every part and particle thereof for that a Bird when dead keeps his shape and yet cannot fly the reason is that the natural and internal motions of the Bird and the Birds wings are altered towards some other shape or figure if not exteriously yet interiously but yet the interior natural motions could not effect any flying or ascending without the help of the exterior shape for a Man or any other animal may have the same interior motions as a Bird hath but wanting such an exterior shape he cannot fly whereas had he wings like a Bird and the interior natural motions of those wings he might without doubt fly as well as a Bird doth Sixthly Concerning the descent of heavy bodies that it is more forcible then the ascent of light bodies you do question the Truth of this my opinion Certainly Madam I cannot conceive it to be otherwise by my sense and reason for though Fire that is rare doth ascend with an extraordinary quick motion yet this motion is in my opinion not so strong and piercing as when grosser parts of Creatures do descend but there is difference in strength and quickness for had not Water a stronger motion and another sort of figure then Fire it could not suppress Fire much less quench it But Smoak which is heavier then Flame flies up or rises before or rather above it Wherefore I am still of the same opinion that heavy bodies descend more forcibly then light bodies do ascend and it seems most rational to me Lastly I perceive you cannot believe that all bodies have weight by reason if this were so the Sun and the Stars would have long since cover'd the Earth In answer to this objection I say That as there can be no body without figure and magnitude so consequently not without weight were it no bigger then an atome and as for the Sun 's and the Stars not falling down or rising higher the reason is not their