necessarily that a tender green substance which we call a bud or leaf must appear a little above the earth since tenderness greenness and ascent are the effects of those two principles heat moisture And must not this green substance change from what it was at first by the Sun and Air working upon it as it grows higher till at length it hardens into a stalk All this while the heat in the root sublimes up more moisture which makes the stalk at first grow rank and encrease in length But when the more volatile part of that warm juice is sufficiently depured and sublimed will it not attempt to thrust it self out beyond the stalk with much vigour and smartness And as soon as it meets with the cold air in its eruption will it not be stop'd and thick'ned And new parts flocking still from the root must they not clog that issue and grow into a button which will be a bud This bud being hard'ned at the sides by the same causes which hard'ned the stalk and all the while the inward heat still streaming up not enduring to be long enclosed especially when by its being stop'd it multiplyes it self will it not follow necessarily that the tender bud must cleave and give way to that spiritual juice which being purer then the rest through its great sublimation shews it self in a purer and nobler substance than any that is yet made and so becomes a flower From hence if we proceed as we have begun and weigh all circumstances we shall see evidently that another substance must needs succeed the flower which must be hollow and contain a fruit in it and that this fruit must grow bigger and harder And so to the last period of the generation of new beans Thus by drawing the thrid carefully along through your fingers and staying at every knot to examine how it is tyed you see that this difficult progress of the generation of living creatures is obvious enough to be comprehended and that the steps of it are possible to be set down if one would but take the pains and afford the time that is necessary less then that Philosopher who for so many years gave himself wholy up to the single observing of the nature of Bees to note diligently all the circumstances in every change of it In every one of which the thing that was becoms absolutely a new thing and is endew'd with new properties and qualities different from those it had before as Physicians from their certain experience assure us And yet every change is such as in the ordinary and general course of nature wherin nothing is to be consider'd but the necessary effects following out such Agents working upon such patients in such circumstances 't is impossible that any other thing should be made of the precedent but that which is immediately subsequent to it Now if all this orderly succession of mutations be necessarily made in a Bean by force of sundry circumstances and external accidents why may it not be conceiv'd that the like is also done in sensible creatures but in a more perfect manner they being perfecter substances Surely the progress we have set down is much more reasonable then to conceive that in the meal of the Bean are contain'd in little several similar substances as of a root of a leaf a stalk a flower a cod fruit and the rest and that every one of these being from the first still the same that they shall be afterwards do but suck in more moisture from the earth to swel and enlarge themselvs in quantity Or that in the seed of the male there is already in act the substance of flesh of bone of sinews of veins the rest of those several similar parts which are found in the body of an Animal and that they are but extended to their due magnitude by the humidity drawn from the mother without receiving any substantial mutation from what they were originally in the seed Let us then confidently conclude that all generation is made of a fitting but remote homogenial compounded substance upon which outward Agents working in the due course of nature change it into another substance quite different from the first and make it less homogenal then the first was And other circumstances and agents change this second into a third that third into a fourth and so onwards by successive mutations that still make every new thing become less homogeneal then the former was according to the nature of heat mingling more and more different bodies together till that substance be produced which we consider in the period of all these mutations And this is evident out of many experiences As for example in Trees the bark which is opposed to the North wind is harder thicker then the contrary side which is opposed to the south and a great difference will appear in the grain of the wood even so much that skilful people will by feeling and seeing a round piece of the wood after the Tree is fell'd tell you in what situation it grew and which way each side of that piece look'd And Josephus Acosta writes of a Tree in America that on the one side being situated towards great hills and on the other exposed to the hot Sun the one half of it flourishes at one time of the year and the other half at the opposite season and some such like may be the cause of the strange effects we somtimes see of trees flourishing or bearing leaves at an unseasonable time of the year as in particular in the famous Oak in the New Forrest and in some others in our Island in which peradventure the Soil they grow in may do the same effect as the winds and Sun did in the Tree that Acosta mentions For we daily see how some soiles are so powerful over some kind of corn that they will change the very nature of it so that you shall reap Oats or Rie after you have sown Wheat there Which shews evidently that since the outward circumstances can make the parts or the whole of any substance become different from what they were at first generation is not made by aggregation of like parts to presupposed like ones nor by a specifical worker within but by the compounding of a seminary matter with the juice which accrues to it from without and with the streams of circumstant bodies which by an ordinary course of nature are regularly imbibed in it by degrees and at every degree change it into a different thing such as is capable to result out of the present compound as we have said before till it arrive to its full perfection Which yet is not the utmost period of natures changes for from that for example from corn or an Animal it carries it on still changing it to be meal or a Cadaver from thence to be bread or durt after that to be blood or grass And so still turning about her wheel which suffers nothing to remain
and Arithmatick the Mathematicians call drawing one number or one side into another for as in Mathematicks to draw one number into another is to apply the number drawn to every part of the number into which it is drawn as if we draw three into seven we make twenty one by making every unity or part of the number seven to be three and the like is of lines in Geometry So in the present case to every part of the hands motion we add the whole virtue of the cutting faculty which is in the knife and to every part of the motion of the knife we add the whole pressing virtue of the hand Therfore the encrease of the effect proceeding from two causes so working must also be parallel to the encrease of the quantities arising out of the like drawing in Mathematicks But in those 't is evident that the encrease is according to the order of the odd numbers and therfore it must in our case be the like that is the encrease must be in the said proportion of odd numbers Now that in those the encrease proceeds so will be evident if you consider the encrease of an Equicrure Triangle which because it goes upon a certain proportion of length and breadth if you compare the encreases of the whole Triangle that gains on each side with the encreases of the perpendicular which gains only in length you will see that they will proceed in the foresaid proportion of odd numbers But we must not imagine that the velocity of motion will always encrease thus for as long as we can fancy any motion but when it is arrived to the utmost period that such a moveable with such causes is capable of then it keeps constantly the same pace and goes equally and uniformly at the same rate For since the density of the moveable the force of the Agent moving it which two cause the motion have a limited proportion to the resistance of the medium how yeilding soever it be it must needs follow that when the motion is arrived to that height which arises out of this proportion it cannot exceed it but must continue at that rate unless some other cause give yet a greater impulse to the movable For velocity consisting in this that the movable cuts through more of the medium in an equal time 't is evident that in the encrease of velocity the resistance of the medium which is overcome by it grows greater and greater and by little and little gains upon the force of the Agent so that the superproportion of the Agent grows still lesser and lesser as the velocity encreases and therfore at the length they must come to be ballanced and then the velocity can encrease no more And the reason of the encrease of it for a while at the beginning is because coming from rest it must pass through all the intermediate degrees of velocity before it can attain to the height of it which requires time to perform and therfore falls under the power of our sense to observe But because we see it do so for some time we must not therfore conclude the nature of such motion is still to encrease without any period or limit like those lines that perpetually grow nearer and yet can never meet for we see our reason examining the causes of this velocity assures us that in continuance of time and space it may come to its height which it cannot exceed And there would be the pitch at which distance weights being let fall would give the greatest strokes and make greatest impressions 'T is true that Galileus and Mersenius two exact experimenters do think they find this verity by their experiences But surely that is impossible to be done For the encrease of velocity being in a proportion ever diminishing must of necessity come to an insensible increase in proportion before it ends for the space which the movable goes through is still encreased and the time wherin it passes through that space remains still the same little one as was taken up in passing a less space immediately before such little differences of great spaces passed over in a little time come soon to be undiscernible by sense But reason which shews us that if velocity never ceased from encreasing it would in time arive to exceed any particular velocity and by consequence the proportion which the mover has to the medium because of the adding still a determinate part to its velocity concludes plainly that it is impossible motion should increase for ever without coming to a period Now the impression which falling weights make is of two kinds for the body into which impression is made either can yield backward or it cannot If it can yield backward then the impression made is a motion as we see a stroke with a Racket upon a Ball or with a Pail-mail beetle upon a Bowl makes it flie from it But if the strucken body cannot yield backwards then it makes it yield on the sides And this in divers matters for if the smitten body be drie and brittle 't is subject to break it and make the pieces flie round about but if it be a tough body it squeeses it into a larger form But because the effect in any of these ways is eminently greater than the force of the Agent seems to be 't is worth our labour to look into the causes of it To which end we may remember how we have already declared that the force of the velocity is equall to a reciprocall force of weight in the virtue movent wherefore the effect of a blow that a man gives with a hammer depends on the weight of the hammer on the velocity of the motion and on the hand in case the hand accompanies the blow But if the motion of the hand ceases before as when we throw a thing then only the velocity and the weight of the hammer remain to be consider'd However let us put the hand and weight in one sum which we may equalize by some other virtue or weight Then let us consider the way or space which a weight lying upon the thing is to go forwards to do the same effect in the same time as the percussion doth and what excess the line of the blow hath over the line of that way or space such an excess we must add of equal weight or force to the weight we had already taken And the weight composed of both will be a fit Agent to make the like impression This Problem was proposed to me by that worthy religious man Father Mersenius who is not content with advancing learning by his own industry and labours but besides is alwayes out of his generous affection to verity inciting others to contribute to the publick stock of it He proposed to me likewise this following question to wit why there is required a weight of water in double Geometrical proportion to make a pipe run twice as fast as it did or have twice as much
water run out in the same time To which I answer out of the same ground as before That because in running twice as fast there goes out double the water in every part of time and again every part of water goes a double space in the same part of time that is to say because double the celerity is drawn into double the water and double the water into doule the celerity therfore the present effect is to the former effect as the effect or quadrate of a double line drawn into into it self is to the effect or quadrate of half the said line drawn into it self And consequently the cause of the latter effect which is the weight then must be to the cause of the former effect that is to the former weight in the same proportion namely as the quadrate of a double line is to the quadrate of half that line And so you see the reason of what he by experience finds to be true Though I doubt not but when he shall set out the treatise which he has made on this subject the Reader will have better satisfaction In the mean while an experiment which Galileo delivers will confirm this doctrine He sayes that to make the same Pendant go twice as fast as it did or to make every undulation of it in half the time it did you must make the line at which it hangs double in Geometrical proportion to the line at which it hang'd before Whence it follows that the circle by which it goes is likewise in double Geometrical proportion And this being certain that celerity to celerity has the proportion of force which weight has to weight 't is evident that as in one case there must be weight in Geometrical proportion so in theother case where only celerity makes the variance the celerity must be in double Geometrical proportion according as Galileo finds it by experience But to return to our main intent there is to be further noted that If the subject strucken be of a proportionate cessibility it seems to dull and deaden the stroke wheras if the thing strucken be hard the stroke seems to lose no force but to work a greater effect Though indeed the truth be that in both cases the effects are equal but diverse according to the natures of the things that are strucken for no force that once is in nature can be lost but must have its adequate effect one way or other Let us then first suppose the body strucken to be a hard body of no exceeding bigness in which case if the stroke light perpendicularly upon it it will carry such a body before it But if the body be too great and have its parts so conjoyn'd that they are weaker then the stroke in this case the stroke drives one part before it and so breaks it from the rest But lastly if the parts of the strucken body be so easily cessible as without difficulty the stroke can divide them then it enters into such a body till it has spent its force So that now making up our account we see that an equal effect proceeds from an equal force in all the three cases though in themselves they be far different But we are apt to account that effect greater which is more considerable to us by the profit or damage it brings us And therefore we usually say that the blow which shakes a wall or beats it down and kills men with the stones it scatters abroad hath a greater effect then that which penetrates far into a mud wall and doth little harm for that innocuousness of the effect makes that although in it self it be as great as the other yet 't is little observ'd or consider'd This discourse draws on another which is to declare how motion ceases And to sum that up in short we say that When motion comes to rest it decreases and passes through all the degrees of celerity and tardity that are between rest and the height of that motion which so declines and that in the proportion of the odd numbers as we declared above it encreas'd The reason is clear because that which makes a motion cease is the resistance it findes which resistance is an action of a mover that moves something against the body moved or something equivalent to such an action wherefore it must follow the laws that are common to all motions of which kind those two are that we have expressed in this conclusion Now that resistance is a countermotion or equivalent to one is plain by this that any body which is pressed must needs press again on the body that presses it wherefore the cause that hinders such a body from yielding is a force moving that body against the body which presses it The particulars of all which we shall more at large declare where we speak of the action and reaction of particular bodies CHAP. X. Of Gravity and Levity and of Local Motion commonly term'd Natural IT is now time to consider that distinction of motions which is so famous in Aristotle to wit that some motions are natural others violent and to determine what may be signified by these terms For seeing we have said that no body hath a natural intrinsecal inclination to any place to which 't is able to move it self we must needs conclude that the motion of every body follows the percussion of extrinsecal Agents It seems therefore impossible that any body should have any motion natural to it self and if there be none natural there can be none violent and so this distinction will vanish to nothing But on the otherside Living creatures manifestly shew natural motions having natural instruments to perform certain motions wherefore such motions must of necessity be natural to them But these are not the motions we are to speak of for Aristotles division is common to all bodies or at the least to all those we converse with and particularly to those which are call'd heavy and light which two terms pass through all the bodies we have notice of Therefore proceeding on our grounds before lay'd to wit that no body can be moved of it self we may determine those motions to be natural to bodies which have constant causes or percutients to make them always in such bodies and those violent which are contrary to such natural motions Which being suppos'd we much search out the causes that so constantly make some bodies descend towards the center or the middle of the earth others to rise and go from the center by which the world is subject to those restless motions that keep all things in perpetual flux in this changing sphere of action and passion Let us then begin with considering what effects the Sun which is a constant and perpetual cause works on inferiour bodies by his being regularly sometimes present and sometimes absent Observe in a pot of water hanging over a fire how the heat makes some parts of the water ascend and others to supply the room
coms as easily as the very air So that in this example as wll as in the other nature teaches us that gravity is no quality And all or most of the arguments which we have urg'd against the quality of gravity in that explication we have consider'd it in have force likewise against it although it be said to be an Inclination of its subject to move it self to unity with the main stock of its own nature as divers witty men put it For this supposition doth but change the intention or end of gravity and is but to make it another kind of intellectual or knowing Entity that determines it self to an other end which is as impossible for a natural quality to do as to determine it self to the former ends And thus much the arguments we have proposed do convince evidently if they be apply'd against this opinion CHAP. XII Of Violent Motion ANd thus we have given a shortscantling wherby to understand in some measure the causes of that motion we call natural by reason it has its birth from the universal Oeconomy of nature here among us that is from the general working of the Sun wherby all natural things have their course and by reason that the cause of it is at all times and in all places constantly the same Next which the order of discourse leads us to take a survey of those forced motions whose first causes the more apparent they are the more obscurity they leave us in to determine by what means they are continued When a Tennis-ball is stroken by a Racket or an Arrow shot from a Bow we plainly see the causes of their motion namely the strings which first yielding and then returning with a greater celerity cause the missives to speed so fast towards their appointed homes Experience informs us what qualities the missives must be endued with to move fast and stedily They must be so heavy that the air may not break their course and yet so light that they may be within the command of the stroke which gives them motion the striker must be dense and in its best velocity the angle which the missive is to mount by if we will have it go to its furthest randome must be the half of a right one and lastly the figure of the missive must be such as may give scope to the air to bear it up and yet not hinder its course by taking too much hold of it All this we see But when with all we see that the mover deserts the moveable assoon as he has given the blow we are at a stand and know not where to seek for that which afterwards makes it flie For motion being a transient not a permanent thing assoon as the cause ceases that begot it in that very point it must be at an end and as long as the motion continues there must be some permanent cause to make it do so so that as soon as the Racket or bow string go back and leave the ball or arrow why should not they presently fall straight down to the ground Aristotle and hs followers have attributed the cause hereof to the air but Galileo relishes not this conception His arguments against it are as I remember to this tenor Frst air by reason of its rarity and divisibility seems not apt to conserve motion next we see that light things are best carried by the air and it has no power over weighty ones lastly it is evident that air takes most hold of the broadest superficies and therfore an arrow would fly faster broad waies then long waies if this were true Nevertheless since every effect must have a proportionable cause from whence it immediately flows and a body must have another body to thrust it on as long as it moves let us examin what bodies touch a moveable whilst it is in motion as the only means to find an issue out of this difficulty for to have recourse to a quality or impressed force for deliverance out of this straight is a shift that will not serve the turn in this way of discourse we use In this Philosophy no knot admits such a solution If then we enquire what body 't is that immediately touches the ball or arrow while it flies we shall find none others does so but the air and the atoms in it after the strings have given their stroke and are parted from the missive And though we have Galileo's authority and arguments to discourage us from believing the air can work this effect yet since there is no other body besides it left for us to consider in this case let us at the least examin how the air behaves it self after the stroke is given by the strings First then t is evident that as soon as the rocket or bow-string shrinks back from the missive and leavs a space between the missive and it as 't is clear it does assoon as it has strucken the resisting body the air must needs clap in with as much velocity as they retire and with somwhat more because the missive goes forward at the same time and therefore the air must hasten to overtake it least any vacuity should be left between the string and the arrow 'T is certain likewise that the air on the sides also upon the division of it slides back and helps to fill that space which the departed arrow leaves void Now this forcible closing of the air at the nock of the arrow must needs give an impulse or blow upon it If it seem to be but a little one you may consider 't is yet much greater then what the air and the bodies swiming in it at the first give to a stone falling from high and how at the last those little atoms that drive a stone in its natural motion with their little blows force it peradventure more violently and swiftly than any impelling agent we are acquainted with can do So that the impulse which they make on the arrow pressing violently upon it after such a vehement concussion and with a great velocity must needs cause a powerful effect in that which of it self is indifferent to any motion any way But unless this motion of the air continue to beat still upon the arrow it will soon fall to the ground for want of a cause to drive it forward and because the natural motion of the air being then the only one will determine it downwards Let us consider then how this violent rending of the air by the blow the bow-string gives to the Arrow must needs disorder the little atones that swim to and fro in it and that being heavier then the air are continually descending downwards This disorder makes some of the heavier parts of them get above others that are lighter then they which they not abiding presse upon those that are next them and they upon their fellows so that there is great commotion and undulation caused in the whole masse of air round about the arrow which must
may be drawn to what height one pleases However the force which nature applies to maintain the continuity of quantity can have no limit seeing it is grounded upon contradiction And therefore Galileo was much mistaken when he thought to make an instrument wherby to discover the limits of this force We may then conclude that the breaking of the water must depend from the strength of other causes As for example when the gravity is so great by increasing the bulk of the water that it will either overcome the strength of the pipe or else make the sucker of the pump rather yield way to air then draw up so great a weight for which defects if remedies be found the art may surely be inlarged without end This is particular in a Syphon that when that arm of it which hangs out of the water is lower then the superficies of the water then it will run of it self after it is once set on running by sucking The reason whereof is because the weight which is in the water pendant is greater then the weight of the ascending water and therby supplyes the want of a continual suckeâ— But if the nose of that arm that hangs out of the water be put even with the water then the water will stand still in both pipes or arms of the Syphon after thy are filled with sucking But if by the running out of the water the outward pipe grow shorter then to reach as low as the superficies of the water in the fountain from whence it runs in this case the water in each arm of the Syphon will run back into the fountain Withall it is to be noted that though the arm which is out of the water be never so long yet if it reach not lower then the superficies of the fountain the over quantity and weight of the water there more then in the other arm helps it nothing to make it run out Which is because the declivity of the other arm over-recompences this overweight Not that the weight in the shorter pipe has so much force as the weight in the longer pipe but because it has more force then the greater weight exercises therin its running for the greatest part of its force tends another way then to the end of the pipe to wit perpendicularly towards the Centre and so is hindred from effect by the great sloping or little declivity of the pipe upon which it leans But some considering how the water in that longer arm of the Syphon is more in quantity than the water in the other arm of it wherat it runs out admire why the greater quantity of water doth noâ—d raw back the less into the cistern but suffers it self to be lifted up and drain'd away as if it run steeply downwards And they imagine that hence may be deduced that the parts of water in the cistern do not weigh as long as they are within the orb of their own body To whom we answer that they should consider how that to have the greater quantity of water in the longer arme of the Syphon which arm is immersed in the water of the cistern draw back into the cistern the water in the other arm of the Syphon that hangs out in the air it must both raise as much of the water of the cistern as its own bulk is above the level which at present the whole bulk of water has and withal at the same time pull up the water in the other arm Now 't is manifest that these two quantities of water together are heavier then the water in the sunk arm of the Syphon since one of them single is equal unto it And by consequence the more water in the sunk arm cannot weigh back the less water in the hanging arm since to do that it must at the same time weigh up over and above as much more in the cistern as it self weighs But turning the argument I say that if once the arm of the Syphon that is in the air be supposed to draw any water be it never so little out of the cistern whether occasioned by sucking or by whatever other means it follows that as much water as is drawn up above the level of the whole bulk in the cistern must needs press into the sunken arm from the next adjacent parts that is from the bottom to supply its emptying and as much must of it self press down from above according to its natural course when nothing violents it to rest in the place that the ascending water which is lower then it leavs at liberty for it to take possession of And then it cannot be doubted but that this descending water having all its weight in pressing down applied to drive up the rising water in the sunk arm of the Syphon the water in the other arm of the Syphon without having all its weight in ruÌ„ning out appli'd at the same time to draw up the same water in the sunk arm this single resistant must yield to their double mastering force And consequently the water in the arm of the Syphon that is in the air must needs draw the water that is the other immersed arm as long as the end of its pipe reaches lower then the level of the water in the cistern for so long it appears by what we have said it must needs be more weighty since part of the rising water in the sunk arm of the syphon is couÌ„ erpois'd by as much descending water in the cistern And thus 't is evident that out of this experiment it cannot be infer'd that parts of water do not weigh within the orb of their own whole but only that two equal parts of water in their own orb namely that which rises in the sunken arm and that which presses down from the whole bulke in the cistern are of equal weight and ballance one another So that never so little odds between the two counterpoysing parcels of water which are in the air must needs make the water run out at that end of the syphon where the overweight of water is The Attraction whose cause next to this is most manifest is that which is made by the force of heat or fire for we see that fire ever draws air to it so notably that if in a close room there be a good fire a man that stands at the door or window especially without shall hear such a noise that he will think there is a great wind within the chamber The reason of this attraction is that fire rarifying the air next it and withall spending it self perpetually causes the air and his own body mingled together to fly up through the chimney or by some other passage Whence it follows of necessity that the next body must succeed into the place of the body that is flown away The next body generally is air whose mobility and fluidity beyond all other bodies makes it of all others the fittest to be drawn and the more of it
the spirits according to the condition they are in so as the passages which are ajusted to one kind of spirits will not admit any of another nature orelse the first motions of liking or disliking in the heart which as we have said cause a swelling or a contradiction of it against this or that part stops and hinders the entrance of the spirits into some sinews and opens others and drives the spirits into them so as in the end by a result of a chain of swellings and contractions of several parts successively one against another the due motions of prosecution or aversion are brought about As for example an object that affects the heart with liking by dilating the spirits about the heart sends some into the optick nervs and makes the living creature turn his eye towards it and keep it steady upon what he desires as contrariwise if he dislike and fear it he naturally turns his eye and head from it Now of this motion of the eye and head may depend the running to the thing in one case and the running from it in the other for the turning of the neck one way may open a passage for the spirits into those sinews which carry the rest of the body towards the object and the turning of it to the other side may open other sinews which shall work a contrary effect and carry the animal from the object And the moving of those sinews which at first turn the neck proceeds from the quality and number of the spirits that ascend from the heart and from the region of the heart whence they are sent according to the variety wherof there are divers sinews fitted to receive them To make up which discourse we call to mind what we have said a little above concerning the motions caused in the external parts of the body by passion moving within as when Fear mingled with hope gives a motion to the legs Anger to the arms and hands and all the rest of the body as wel as to the legs all of them an attention in the outward senses which neverthelessperverts every one of their functions if the passion be in extremity And then surely we may satisfie our selves that either this or some way like it which I leave to the curious in Anatomy to settle with exactness for 't is enough for my intent to shew in gross how these operations may be done without calling in some incomprehensible qualities to our aid is the course of nature in motions where no other cause intervenes besides the object working upon the sense which all the while it doth it is the office of the eye of fantasie or common sense to lie ever open still watching to observe what warnings the outward senses send to him that accordingly he may direct and chang the motions of the heart and whole body But if the object make violent impressions upon the sense and the heart being then vehemently moved therupon send abundance of spirits up to the brain this multitude of spirits thronging upon the common sense oppresses it as we have already said in such sort that the notice which the sense gives of particular circumstances cannot prevail to any effect in the brain and thus by the misguidance of the heart the work of nature is disordered Which when it happens we express in short by saying that Passion blinds the creature in whom such violent and disorderly motions have course for Passion is nothing else but a Motion of the Bloud and Spirits about the Heart and is the preparation or beginning of the Animals working as we have above particularly displai'd And thus you see in common how the circuit is made from the Object to the Sense and from it by the Common sense and Fantasie to the Heart and from the heart back again to the brain which then sets on work those Organs or parts the animal is to make use of in that occasion and they either bring him to or carry him from the object that at the first caused all this motion and in the end becomes the period of it CHAP. XXXVI Of some actions of Beasts that seem formal acts of reason as doubting resolving inventing IN the last Chapter the foundations are laid and the way is opened for discovering how all operations which proceed from nature and passion are perform'd among living creatures and therfore I conceive I have therby sufficiently compli'd with the obligation of my intention which is but to express and shew in common how all the actions of sensible bodies may be reduced to local motion and material application of one body to another in a like manner though in a different degree as those motions which we see in lifeless bodies Yet because among such animals as pass for irrational there happen some operations of so admirable a strain as resemble very much the higest effects which proceed from a man I think it not a miss to give some further light by extending my discourse to some more particulars than hitherto I have done wherby the course and way how they are performed may be more clearly and easily look'd into And the rather because I have met with some men who either wanting patience to bestow on thoughts of this kind so much time as is necessary for the due scanning of them or else through a promptitude of nature passing swiftly from the effect they look upon in gross to the most obvious seeming cause suddenly and strongly resolve that beasts use discourse upon occasions and are endued with reason Yet I intend not here to run through all the several species of their operations for that were to write the history of every particular animal but will content my self with touching the causes in common yet in such sort that the indifferent Reader may be satisfied of a possibility that these effects may proceed from material causes and that I have pointed out the way to those who are more curious and have the patience and leasure to observe diligently what passes among beasts how they may trace these effects from step to step till at length they discover their true causes To begin then I concieve we may reduce all those actions of Beasts which seem admirable and above the reach of an irrational animal to three or four several heads The first may be of such as seem to be the very practice of reason as doubting resolving inventing and the like The next shall be of such as by docility or practice beasts oftentimes arrive to In the third place we will consider certain continuate actions of a long tract of time so orderly perform'd by them as that discourse and rational knowledge seem clearly to shine through them And lastly we will cast our eye upon some others which seem to be even above the reason that is in man himself as the knowing of things which the sense never had impression of before a prescience of future events providences and the like As for
Their stories tell us that at their first arrival upon those coasts where it seems men had never been the birds would not flie away but suffer'd the Mariners to take them in their hands nor the beasts which with us are wild would run from them but their discourteous guests used them so hardly as they soon chang'd their confidence into distrust and aversion and by little and little grew by their commerce with men and receiving injuries from them to be as wild as any of the like kind in our parts From the Dams and Sires this apprehension and fear at the sight of men so deeply rooted in them is doubtless transmitted to their young ones for it proceeds out of the disposition of the body and the passion immediately made in the heart and that is as truly a material motion as any whatever can be and must have setled material instruments fitted to it if it be constant as well as any other natural operation whatever And this passion of the heart proceeds again from a perpetual connexion of the two objects in the memory which being a perpetually constant thing is as true a quality of that beasts brain in whom it is as the being of a quick or dull apprehension or apt to know one kind of meat from another which is natural to the whole species or any other quality whatever residing in that beast Wherfore 't is no wonder that it passes by generation to the off-spring which is a thing so common even in mankind as there can be no doubt of it and is at first made by a violent cause that greatly alters the body and consequently the seed must be imbew'd with a like disposition and so it passes together with the nature of the Sire or of the Dam into the brood From hence proceeds that children love the same meats and exercises that their Fathers and Mothers were affected with and fear the like harms This is the reason why a Grand-child of my Lord of Dorset whose honour'd name must never be mention'd by me without a particular respect and humble acknowledgment of the noble and steady friendship he hath ever been pleas'd to honour me with was always extremely sick if but the Nurse did eat any Capers against which my Lord's antipathy is famous whiles she gave suck to that pretty infant The Children of great Mathematicians who have been used to busie their fantasies continually with figures and proportions have been oftentimes observ'd to have a natural bent to those Sciences And we may note that even in particular gestures and in little singularities in familiar conversation children will oftentimes resemble their Parents as well as in the lineaments of their faces The young ones of excellent setting Dogs will have a notable aptitude to that exercise and may be taught with half the pains that their sire or dam was if they were chosen out of a race of Spaniels not trained to setting All which effects can proceed from no other cause but as we have touch'd already that the fantasy of the parent alters the temper and disposition of his body and seed according as it self is temper'd and disposed and consequently such a creature must be made of it as retains the same qualities as 't is said that sufficient Tartar put at the root of a tree will make the fruit have a winy taste But nothing confirms this so much as certain notable accidents wherof though every one in particular would seem incredible yet the number of them and the weight of the reporters who are the witnesses cannot choose but purchase a general credit to the kind of them These accidents are that out of some strong imagination of the parents but especially of the mother in the time of conception the children draw such main differences as were incredible if the testifying authority were not so great but being true they convince beyond all question the truth we have proposed of the parents imagination working upon and making an impression in the seed wherof children or young ones of their kind are made Some children of white parents are reported to havebeen black upon occasion of a Black-moors picture too much in the mothers eye Others are said to have been born with their skins all hairy out of the sight of St Baptist's picture as he was in the desart or of some other hairy image Another child is famed to have been born disformed so as Devils are painted because the sather was in a Devils habit when he got the child There was a Lady a kinswoman of mine who used much to wear black patches upon her face as was the fashion among young women which I to put her from used to tell her in jest that the next child she should go with whiles the sollicitude and care of those patches was so strong in her fantasy would come into the world with a great black spot in the midst of its forehead and this apprehension was so lively in her imagination at the time she proved with child that her daughter was born mark'd just as the mother had fansied which there are at hand witnesses enough to confirm but non more pregnant than the young Lady her self upon whom the mark is yet remaining Among other creatures 't is said that a Hen hatch'd a Chicken with a Kites bill because she was frighted with a Kite whiles the Cock was treading her The story of Jacol's Sheep is known to all and some write that the painting of beautiful colour'd pigeons in a Dove-house will make the following race become like them and in Authors store of such examples may be found To give a reasonable and fully satisfying cause of this great effect I confess is very difficult since for the most part the parents seed is made long time before the accoupling of the male and female and though it were not we should be mainly to seek for a rational ground to discourse in particular upon it Yet not to leav our Reader without a hint which way to drive his inquisition we will note thus much that Aristotle and other natural Philosophers and Physicians affirm that in some persons the passion is so great in the time of their accoupling that for the present it quite bereavs them of the use of reason and they are for the while in a kind of short fit of an Epilepsie By which 't is manifest that abundance of animal spirits then part from the head and descend into those parts which are the instruments of generation Wherfore if there be abundance of specieses of any one kind of object then strong in the imagination it must of necessity be carryed down together with the spirits into the seed and by consequence when the seed infected with this nature begins to separate and distribute it self to the forming of the several parts of the Embryon the spirits which resort into the brain of the child as to their proper Element and from thence finish all the
feel it and that the Air being changed by the forerunners of worse weather works upon the crasiest parts of our body when the others feel not so small a change So beasts are more sensible than we for they have less to distract them of the first degrees of a changing weather and that mutation of the air without them makes some change within them which they express by some outward actions or gestures Now they who observe how such mutations and actions are constantly in them before such or such weather think they know beforehand that rain for example or wind or drought is coming according to the several signs they have mark'd in them Which proceeds out of the narrowness of their discourse that makes them resort to the same causes when ever they meet with like effects and so they conceive that things must needs pass in Beasts after the same tenour as they do in men And this is a general and main errour runing through all the conceptions of mankind unless great heed be taken to prevent it that what subject soever they speculate on whether it be of substances that have a superiour nature to theirs or of creatures inferiour to them they are still apt to bring them to their own standard and to frame such conceptions of them as they would do of themselvs As when they will have Angels discourse and move and be in place in such sort as is natural to men or when they will have beasts ratiocinate and understand upon their observing some orderly actions perform'd by them which in men would proceed from discourse and reason And this dangerous Rock against which many fine conceptions suffer shipwrack whoever studies truth must have a main caution to avoid Sed nos immensum spatiis confecimus aequor Et jam tempus equum fumantia solvere colle CONCLVSION THus at last by Gods assistance we have climb'd up to the top of the Hill from whence looking down over the whole region of bodies we may delight our selvs with seeing what a height the weary steps we ascended by have brought us to 'T is true the path we have walk'd in is of late so untrodden and so overgrown with briars as it hath not been without much labour that we have made our way through And peradventure it may seem toilsome to others to follow us especially such as are not much enured to like journeys but I hope the fruit which both we and they are now arrived to gather of our pains in this general view we have taken of the Empire of matter and of corporeal agents is such as none of us hath reason to be ill satisfied with the imploying of them For what can more powerfully delight or more nobly entertain an understanding soul than the search and discovery of those works of nature which being in their effects so plainly exposed to our eyes are in their causes so abstruâ—e and hidden from our comprehension as through despair of success they deter most men from enquiring into them And I am perswaded that by this summary discourse short indeed in regard of so large a scope how ever my lame expressions may peradventure make it appear tedious it appears evidently that none of natures greatest secrets wherof our senses give us notice in the effects are so overshaded with an impenetrable veil but that the diligent and wary hand of reason might unmask and shew them to us in their naked and genuine forms and delight us with the contemplation of their native beauties if we had as much care and constancy in the pursuit of them as we daily see men have in heaping up wealth or in striving to satisfie their boundless ambitions or in making their senses swim in the muddy lake of base and contemptible pleasures For who shall throughly consider and weigh what we have hitherto said will plainly see a continual and orderly progress from the simplest highest and most common conception that we frame of a Body in general to the furthest and most abstruse effects that in particular are to be found in any Body whatever I mean any that is meerly corporeal without mixture of a nobler nature for hitherto we have not moved nor so much as look'd out of that Orb. He shall find one continued thread spun out from the begining to the end He will see that the various twisting of the two species of Bodies Rare and Dense make the yarn of which all things and actions within the sphere of matter are woven And though peradventure in the drawing out of the thread there may be some little bracks or the stuff made of it be not every where so close wrought as a better workman at more leisure might have done yet truly I believe that the very consent of things throughout is such as demonstrates that the main contexture of the doctrine I have here touch'd is beyond quarreling at It may well be that in sundry particulars I have not lighted on exact truth and I am so far from maintaining peremptorily any thing I have here said as I shall most readily hearken to whatever shall be objected against it and be as ready upon cause to desert my own opinions and yield to better Reason But withal I conceive that as the failing of a brick here and there in the rearing of the walls of a house doth nothing at all prejudice the strength and security of the fabrick no more I hope will the slight escapes which so difficult a task as this is subject to endamage or weaken the main body of what I have here deliver'd I have not yet seen any piece upon this subject made up with this method begining from the simplest and plainest notions and composing them orderly till all the principal variety which their nature is capable of be gone through and therfore it cannot be expected but the first model of this kind and moulded by one distracted with continual thoughts of a much different strain and whose exercise as well as profession hath allow'd him but little commerce with books and study must needs be very rough hew'd and require a great deal of polishing Which whoever shall do and be as exact and orderly in treating of Philosophy and Theology as Mathematicians are in delivering their Sciences I assure my self that Demonstrations might be made and would proceed in them as currently and the conclusions be as certain and full as in the Mathematicks themselves But that is not all these Demonstrations would have the odds exceedingly of the other and be to us inestimably more advantagious for out of them spring much higher and nobler effects for mans use and life than out of any Mathematical ones Especially when they extend themselvs to the government of Man as Man which is an art as far beyond all the rules of Physick or other government of our Body or Temporal goods as the End is beyond the Means we employ to gain it for all the others but serve instrumentally to