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
A29007	New experiments physico-mechanical, touching the air; New experiments physico-mechanical, touching the spring of the air, and its effects	Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.; Sharrock, Robert, 1630-1684.; Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691. Defence of the doctrine touching the spring and weight of the air.; Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691. Examen of Mr. T. Hobbes his Dialogus physicus de naturâ aëris.	1682 (1682)	Wing B4000_PARTIAL; Wing B3942_PARTIAL; ESTC R23366	337,085	461

the onely Example whereby he endeavours to illustrate the generation of his Funiculus yet I presume he scarce expects we should think it an apposite one For besides that there here intervenes a conspicuous and powerful Agent namely an actual Fire to sever and agitate the parts of the Candle and besides that there is a manifest wasting of the Wax or Tallow turn'd into flame besides these things I say we must not admit that the Fuel when turn'd into a flame does really fill I say not with our Author more than a thousand times but so much as twice more of genuine space than the Wax 't was made of For it may be said that the flame is little or nothing else than an aggregate of those Corpuscles which before lay upon the upper superficies of the Candle and by the violent heat were divided into minuter particles vehemently agitated and brought from lying as it were upon a flat to beat off one another and make up about the Wiek such a figure as is usual in the flame of Candles burning in the free Air. 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 when as 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 streams 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 than 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 surface 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 metal of Quick-silver 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 require so strong a spring inward as the Examiner all along his books 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 than final causes 't is not easie to conceive how Air by being expanded in which case its force like that of other rarefi'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

for the others he quarrels not with Quod quidem lanx saith he in qua est vesica magis deprimitur quam altera certi esse possunt oculis testibus Quod autem id à gravitate aëris naturali accidit certi esse non possunt praesertim si quae sit gravitatis causa efficiens nesciunt But I know not whom Mr. Hobbs will perswade that a man cannot be sure that Lead is in Specie heavier than Cork unless he knows what is the efficient cause of Gravity And Mr. Hobbs speaks in his 30. Chapter where he expresly treats of that Subject as if that had not been explain'd by any man and consequently not by any Writer of Staticks and perhaps I am therein somewhat of his mind And yet sure all these Writers treating of the Proportion of Heavy Bodies did not write they knew not what And though he mentions his own Hypothesis as that than which nothing is more likely yet I think I could frame Objections against it that would not easily be answer'd if my present task requir'd it or if I found his opinion in this point embrac'd as yet by men of Note Wherefore I shall now say no more of it than he himself doth namely that according to his Doctrine It may well be thought to determine for it is a certain consequent that heavy Bodies descend with less and less velocity as they are more and more remote from the AEquator and that at the Poles themselves they will either not descend at all or not descend by the Axis which whether it be true or false Experience must determine Which till it have done in his favour an event I do not expect I hope he will allow me to distrust his Hypothesis But to return to our Experiment The Account he gives why the Bladder does propend for so he loves to speak is this Quod vesica sive follibus sive flatu oris distenta sit gravior sit quam eadem vesica non distenta negarenolo propter majorem quantitatem Atomorum follibus vel Corpusculorum fuligineorum ab halitu inflatorum Ab experimento autem quod fit à vesica inflata nihil colligunt quod sit satis certum Oportuit lancibus imponere duo vasa pondere aequalia quorum alterum esset accuratè clausum alterum apertum Sic enim non inflatus sed inclusus tantum aër ponderatus esset Quando igitur aërem sic ponderatum videbis meditabimur postea quid dicendum sit de Phaenomeno quod retuleris But as to the First part of this passage it does not deny the gravity of what we call the Air but onely endeavours to shew what Parts they are that make it heavy And as to the Second he seems to mistake the present Case For there is no need that the Air in the Bladder be before the exhaustion of the Receiver in which the foregoing fifteenth Page declares he Supposes the Experiment to be made heavier than the outward Air. Wherefore when he subjoyns that from this Experiment we collect nothing quod sit satis certum the Affirmation is not an Inference but Precarious And as for the annexed way whereby he would wish to have an Experiment made fit to infer the gravity of the Air if he had not over-look'd what I have delivered in the beginning of the 36. Experiment he would easily have perceiv'd that we did make a Trial much of the same nature with that he desires For we weighed in our Receiver the Air in a Glass Hermetically sealed wherein it was not to use his Expression inflated but onely included This is what he here objects against the gravity of the Air in the other place Pag. 8. 9. where he saies something to this Controversie he inculcates also that we should first explicate what is Gravity and then adds Quod Atmosphaerae insunt permistae corpori AEthereo multae tum aquae tum etiam terrae particulae facile persuadeor sed quod in medio AEthere sursum deorsum quaquaversum motae nec semper alterae alteris innitentes gravitent inconceptibile est To which he adds two or three Reflexions whose Examen being here unnecessary would require more time than perhaps it would in reference to the present Controversie deserve for we are now enquiring not how the Air comes to gravitate but whether or no it have gravity And since in his Elements of Philosophy he grants and gives his Reason for it That if Air be blown into a hollow Cylinder or into a Bladder it will increase the Weight of either of them a little and since here he likewise confesses as we have just now seen that there are mingled with the AEther many aqueous and earthly and consequently heavy Particles he confesses that which we labor to evince namely that the Air is not devoid of Weight And it concerns us no more than himself to shew how the Corpuscles upon whose account the Air is heavy make it so And this being what Mr. Hobbs in several places thinks fit to object against the Gravity of the Air the Reader will I suppose easily take notice that he has left the Experiment of the AEolipile and some others unanswered Though these alone prove that the Air is a manifest Weight even when it is not comprest but retains its laxity Having said thus much to evince against Mr. Hobbs the Gravity of the Air let us now examine whether it have not also a Spring in the sense we take that word in This though Mr. Hobbs be pleas'd to call as he also does the weight of the Air a Dream yet he does himself grant in effect as much as is requisite to prove the Spring of the Air in the sense I contend for it For taking upon him to give account how good an one we shall see anon of that known Experiment wherein the Air is comprest in a Glass Bottle by the forcible injection of Water which Water when the Glass is unstop't the Air does again throw out in recovering its former Dimensions of this Experiment I say he gives this account Pag. 24. Aër quo ab initio Sphaera plenus erat à Corpusculis illis terreis motus motu circulari simplice vi injectionis coactus qui quidem purus est exit aquam injectam penetrans in aërem extrinsecum locum relinquens aquae sequitur ergo Corpusculis illis terreis minus relinqui loci in quo motum suum naturalen exercere possint itaque in se mutuo impingentes aquam urgent ad egressum egredientem aër externus quia universum supponitur esse plenum penetrat locumque egredientis aëris successivè occupat donec Corpuscula quantitate aëris eadem restituta libertatem motui suo naturalem recipiant But how little this comes short of granting as much Spring to the Air as the Cartesians do and as I need require may easily be judg'd by divers passages in our Book and particularly by

finding out of the invisible causes of natural things all will be in vain p. 15. Cum ejus c. Seeing almost all its parts are flexil like little soft feathers to fine threds Ibid. Sed quisquis c. But it matters not who was the Author of that Supposition For the very Hypothesis it self wherein is supposed a motion of subtil matter which is swift without any cause assigned and hath moreover divers innumerable circulations of Corpuscles generated from the single motion of that matter is not the conceipt of a man of wit or sense p. 16. Nempe hoc c. This is the thing that the great Des-Cartes somewhere admired that he whether his Positions are true or false doth never in argumentation make any right inference from his Suppositions p. 17. Quod sane c. Which is indeed a most evident argument of the weight of the Air. Ibid. Quod quidem lanx c. That the Scale in which the Bladder is is more deprest than the other they may be certain their eyes bearing them witness but that this comes from the natural gravity of the Air he cannot be assured especially if they are ignorant what is the efficient cause of Gravity p. 18. Quod vesica c. That the Bladder whether it be blown up with a pair of Bellows or with the breath of ones mouth is heavier than when it is not blown up I will not deny because of the greater quantity of Atoms from the Bellows or of fuliginous Corpuseles that are blown in from the breath But notwithstanding they gather nothing of sufficient certainty from this Experiment of a blown Bladder They ought to have put into the Scales two Vessels of equal weight whereof one should be shut and the other open For by this means Air not blown in but onely inclosed had been weighed When therefore you shall see Air so weighed we will afterwards consider what may be said concerning the Phaenomenon you bring p. 19. Quod Atmosphaerae c. That many Particles both of Earth and Water mingled with the AEthereal body are in the Atmosphere I am easily persuaded but that in the middle of the AEther they should move upwards downwards every way and that one leaning on the back of another they should not gravitate is a thing utterly unconceivable p. 20. Aer quo c. The Air with which in the beginning the Spherical Glass was full being moved by those Earthy Corpuscles in a simple circular motion and being comprest by the force of the Injection that of it which is pure penetrating the injected Water gets out into the open Air and gives place to the Water It follows therefore that those earthy Corpuscles have less place left in which they can exercise their natural motion therefore beating one upon another they force the water to go out it thus going out the external Air because the Universe is supposed to be full penetrates it and successively takes up the place of the Air that goes out until the Corpuscles the same quantity of Air being restored regain a liberty natural to their motion p. 21. Quoniam per c. Because by the drawing back of the Sucker the pure Air was thrust in but the earthy parts were not thrust in there was a greater proportion of earthy Particles which without the Cylinder were near the Sucker unto the pure Air in which they exercised their motion as well after this revulsion as before Wherefore these Particles so moved having less place to exercise their natural motion in some of them fell foul and beat upon the rest So that of necessity the Particles that were near the surface of the Sucker must drive it upwards Ibid. Vidisti c. You see now that the Spring of the Air which they fuppose is either an impossible thing or they must for its defence have recourse to the Hypothesis of Mr. Hobbs p. 23. Quia cuticula omnis c. Because every skin is made up of small threds or filaments which by reason of their figures cannot accurately touch in all points The Bladder therefore being a skin must be pervious not onely to Air but to Water also as to sweat Therefore of the Air beat in by force there is the same compression within the Bladder that there is without The endeavour of which the way of its motions being every way cross tends every way to the concave superficies of the Bladder Wherefore it is of necessity that it must swell every way and the vehemency of the endeavour increasing be torn at last p. 26. Intellexti c. Have you understood my Hypotheses 1. That there are with the Air intersperst many earthy Particles endued with a simple circular motion congenite to its nature 2. That there is a greater quantity of these Particles in the Air that is near the Earth than in that which is more remote from it p. 27. Neque est c. nor is there any one that hitherto has brought any reason why it may not be so p. 29. Nihil c. Nothing is moved but by a contiguous Body that is in motion Ibid. Dum Suctor c. While the Sucker is drawn back by how much a greater place is left within by so much a lesser place is left to the external Air which being thrust backwards by the motion of the Sucker towards the outmost parts doth move in like manner the Air that is next it self and that Air the next and so forwards so that it is of necessity at last that the Air must be compell'd into the space deserted by the Sucker and to enter between the convex and surface of the Sucker and the concave of the Cylinder For it being supposed that the parts of the Air are infinitely subtil it is impossible but they should insinuate themselves that way by which the Sucker is drawn down For first the contact of those surfaces cannot be perfect in all points because the surfaces themselves cannot be made infinitely smooth Then that force which is applied to draw back the Sucker doth distend in some measure the cavity of the Cylinder Lastly if in the confines of that is betwixt the two surfaces any one single hard Atom should enter pure Air will enter at the same way although with a weak endeavour I might also have accounted that Air which for the same cause insinuates it self through the Valve of the Cylinder You see therefore the consequence from the retraction of the Sucker to the being of an Empty place is taken away It will follow also that the Air which is driven up into the place deserted by the Sucker because it is driven up thither by a great force is moved with a very swift and circular motion betwixt the top and the bottom in the Cylinder because there is nothing there that can weaken its motion and you know that there is nothing that can give motion to its own self or diminish it p. 39. Haerent hic