Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	efficient_a	end_n	final_a	2,172	5	9.9792	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28956	A defence of the doctrine touching the spring and weight of the air propos'd by Mr. R. Boyle in his new physico-mechanical experiments, against the objections of Franciscus Linus ; wherewith the objector's funicular hypothesis is also examin'd, by the author of those experiments.	Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.; Sharrock, Robert, 1630-1684.	1662 (1662)	Wing B3941; ESTC R26549	92,713	134

Nor will it necessarily follow that the space which the flame seems to take up should contain neither Air nor Aether nor any thing else save the parts of that flame because the eye cannot discern any other body there For even the smoke ascending from the snuff of a newly-extinguish'd Candle appears a dark pillar which to the eye at some distance seems to consist of smoke whenas yet there are so many Aerial and other invisible Corpuscles mingled with it as if all those parts of smoke that make a great show in the Air were collected and contiguous they would not perhaps amount to the bigness of a Pins head as may appear by the great quantity of steams that in Chymical Vessels are wont to go to the making up of one drop of Spirit And therefore it does not ill fall out for our turn that the Examiner to inforce his former Example alledges the turning of a particle of Quicksilver into vapour by putting fire under it for if such be the Rarefaction of Mercury 't is not at all like to make such a Funiculus as he talks of since those Mercurial Fumes appear by divers Experiments to be Mercury divided and thrown abroad into minute parts whereby though the body obtain more of Surface then it had before yet it really fills no more of true and genuine space since if all the particular little spaces fill'd by these scatter'd Corpuscles were reduc'd into one as the Corpuscles themselves often are in Chymical Operations they would amount but to one total space equal to that of the whole Mercury before rarefaction But these Objections against this Explication are not all that I have to say against our Adversaries Funiculus it self For I farther demand how the Funiculus comes by such hooks or graple-irons or parts of the like shape to take fast hold of all contiguous bodies and even the smoothest such as Glass and the calm surfaces of Quicksilver Water Oyle and other fluids And how these slender and invisible hooks cannot onely in the tersest bodies find an innumerable company of ears or loops to take hold on but hold so strongly that they are able not alone to lift up a tall Cylinder of that very ponderous metall of Quicksilver but to draw inwards the sides of strong Glasses so forcibly as to break them all to pieces And 't is also somewhat strange that Water and other fluid bodies whose parts are wont to be so easily separable should when the Funiculus once layes hold on the superficial Corpuscles presently emulate the nature of consistent bodies and be drawn up like Masses each of them of an intire piece though even in the exhausted Receiver they appear by their undulation when they are stir'd by Bubbles that pass freely through them and many other signs to continue fluid bodies It seems also very difficult to conceive how this extenuated substance should acquire so strong a spring inward as the Examiner all along his book ascribes to it Nor will it serve his turn to require of us in exchange an Explication of the Airs spring outward since he acknowledges as well as we that it has such a spring I know that by calling this extenuated substance a Funiculus he seems plainly to intimate that it has its spring inward upon the same account that Lute-strings and Ropes forcibly stretch'd have theirs But there is no small disparity betwixt them for whereas in strings there is requir'd either wreathing or some peculiar and artificial texture of the component parts a rarefaction of Air were it granted does not include or infer any such contrivance of parts as is requisite to make bodies Elastical And if the Cartesian Notion of the cause of Springiness be admitted then our extenuated substance having no Pores to be pervaded by the materia subtilis to which besides our Author also makes Glass impervious will be destitute of Springiness And however since Lute-strings Ropes c. must when they shrink inwards either fill up or lessen their Pores and increase in thickness as they diminish in length our Examiners Funiculus must differ very much from them since it has no Pores to receive the shrinking parts and contracts it self as to length without increasing its thickness Nor can it well be pretended that this self-contraction is done ob fugam vacui since though it should not be made a Vacuum would not ensue And if it be said that it is made that the preternaturally stretch'd body might restore it self to its natural dimensions I answer That I am not very forward to allow acting for ends to bodies inanimate and consequently devoid of knowledge and therefore should gladly see some unquestionable Examples produc'd of Operations of that nature And however to me who in Physical enquiries of this nature look for efficient rather then final causes 't is not easie to conceive how Air by being expanded in which case its force like that of other rarify'd bodies seems principally to tend outwards as we see in fired Gun-powder in Aeolipiles in warm'd Weather-glasses c. should acquire so prodigious a force of moving contiguous bodies inwards Nor does it to me seem very probable that when for instance part of a polish'd Marble is extended into a Funiculus that Funiculus does so strongly aspire to turn into Marble again I might likewise wish our Author had more clearly explicated how it comes to pass which he all along takes for granted that the access of the outward Air does so much and so suddenly relax the tension of his Funiculus since that being according to him a real and Poreless body 't is not so obvious how the presence of another can so easily and to so strange a degree make it shrink But I will rather observe that 't is very unlikely that the space which our Adversary would have replenish'd with his Funicular substance should be full of little highly-stretcht strings that lay fast hold of the Surfaces of all contiguous bodies and alwayes violently endeavour to pull them inwards For we have related in our 26. Experiment that a Pendulum being set a moving in our exhausted Receiver did swing to and fro as freely and with the string stretch'd as streight as for ought we could perceive it would have done in the common Air. Nay the Balance of a Watch did there move freely and nimbly to and fro which 't is hard to conceive those bodies could do if they were to break through a medium consisting of innumerable exceedingly-stretch'd strings On which occasion we might adde that 't is somewhat strange that these strings thus cut or broken by the passage of these bodies through them could so readily have their parts re-united and without any more ado be made intire again And we might also take notice of this as another strange peculiarity in our Authors Funiculus That in this case the two divided parts of each small string that is broken do not like those of other broken strings shrink and