needle will lie parallel to the axis of the stone And the reason of this is manifest for in that case the two poles being equidistant to the needle they draw it equally and by consequence the needle must remain parallel to the axis of the stone Nor doth it import that the inequality of the two poles of the stone is materially or quantitatively greater then the inequality of the two polles of the needle out of which it may at the first sight seem to follow that the stronger pole of the stone should draw the weaker pole of the needle nearer to it self then the weaker pole of the stone can be able to draw the stronger pole of the needle and by consequence that the needle should not lie parallel to the axis of the stone but incline somwhat to the stronger pole of it For after you have well consider'd the matter you will find that the strength of the pole of the stone cannot work according to its material greatness but is confined to work only according to the susceptibility of the needle which being a slender and thin body cannot receive so much as a thicker body may Wherfore seeing the strongest pole of the stone gives most strength to that pole of the needle which lies furthest from it it may well happen that the superiority of strength in the pole of the needle that is applied to the weaker pole of the stone may counterpoise the excess of the stronger pole of the stone over its opposite weaker pole though not in greatness and quantity yet in respect of the virtue which is communicable to the poles of the needle wherby its comportment to the poles of the stone is determin'd And indeed the needles lying parallel to the axis of the stone when the middle of it sticks to the equator of the stone convinces that upon the whole matter there is no excess in the efficacious working of either of the stone's poles but that their excess over one another in regard of themselvs is ballanced by the needles receiving it But if the needle hapen's to touch the loadstone in some part nearer one pole then the other in this case 't is manifest that the force of the stone is greater on the one side of the needles touch then on the other side because there is a greater quantity of the stone on the one side of the needle then on the other and by consequence the needle will incline that way which the greater force draws it so far forth as the other part doth not hinder it Now we know that if the greater part were divided from the rest and so were an entire Loadstone by it self that is if the Loadstone were cut off where the needle touches it then the needle would joyn it self to the pole that is to the end of that part and by consequence would be tending to it as a thing that is suck'd tends towards the sucker against the motion or force which comes from the lesser part and on the other side the lesser part of the stone which is on the other side of the point which the needle touches must hinder this inclination of the needle according to the proportion of its strength and so it followes that the needle will hang by its end not directly set to the end of the greater part but as much inclining towards it as the lesser part doth not hinder by striving to pull it the other way Out of which we gather the true cause of the needles declination to wit the proportion of working of the two unequal parts of the stone between which it touches and is joyn'd to the stone And we likewise discover their errour who judg that the part which draws iron is the next pole to the iron For 't is rather the contrary pole which attracts or to speak more properly 't is the whole body of the stone as streaming in lines almost parallel to the axis from the furthermost end to the other next the iron and in our case 't is that part of the stone which begins from the contrary pole and reaches to the needle For besides the light which this discourse gave us experience assures us that a Loadstone whose poles lie broadways not long-ways is more imperfect and draws more weakly then if the poles lay longways which would not be if the flâ—ours stream'd from all parts of the stone directly to the pole for then however the stone were cast the whole virtue of it would be in the poles Moreover if a needle were drawn freely upon the same Meridian from one pole to the other as soon as it were pass'd the Equator it would leap suddenly at the very first remove of the Equator where 't is parallel with the axis of the Loadstone from being so parallele to make an angle with the axis greater then a half right one â—o the end that it might look upon the pole which is supposed to be the only attractive that draws the needle which great change wrought all at once nature never causes nor admits but in all actions or motions uses to pass through all the Mediums whenever it goes from one extreme to another Besides there would be no variation of the needles aspect towards the North end of the stone for if every part sent its virtue immediately to the poles it were impossible that any other part whatever should be stronger then the polar part seeing that the polar part has the virtue even of that particular part and of all the other parts of the stone beside joyn'd in it self This therfore is evident that the virtue of the loadstone goes from end to end in parallel lines unless it be in such stones as have their polar parts narrower then the rest of the body of the stone for in them the stream will tend with some little declination towards the pole as it were by way of refraction Because without the stone the fluours from the pole of the earth coarct themselvs and so thicken their stream to croud into the stone as soon as they are sensible of any emanations from it that being as we have said before their readiest way to pass along and with in the stone the stream doth the like to meet the advenient stream where it is strongest and thickest which is at that narrow part of the stones end which is most prominent out And by this discourse we discover likewise another errour of them that imagine the Loadstone hath a sphere of activity round about it equal on all sides that is perfectly spherical if the stone be spherical Which clearly is a mistaken speculation for nature having so order'd all her agents that where the strength is greatest there the action must generally speaking extend it self furthest off and it being acknowledg'd that the Loadstone hath greatest strength in its Poles and least in the Equator it must of necessity follow that it works further by its Poles then
entring more particularly into it If a magnetick body lyes North and South 't is easie obvious to conceive that the streams coming from North and South of the world passing through the stone must needs excitate the virtue which is in it and carry a stream of it along with them that way they go But if it lies East West then the streams of North and South of the earth streaming along by the two poles of the stone are suck'd in by them much more weakly yet nevertheless sufficiently to give an excitation to the innate streams which are in the body of the stone to make them move on in their ordinary course The third position is that The virtue of the Loadstone is a double and not one simple virtue Which is manifest in an iron touch'd by a Loadstone for if you touch it only with one pole of the stone it will not be so strong and full of the magnetike virtue as if you touch one end of it with one pole and the other end of it with the other pole of the stone Again if you touch both ends of an iron with the same pole of the stone the iron gains its virtue at that end which was last touch'd changes its virtue from end to end as often as it is rub'd at contrary ends Again one end of the Loadstone or of iron touch'd will have more force on the one side of the Equator and the other end on the other side of it Again the variation on the one side of the Equator and the variation on the other side of it have different laws according to the different ends of the loadstone or of the needle which looks to those Poles Wherefore t is evident that there is a double virtue in the loadstone the one more powerful at one end of it the other at the other Yet these two virtues are found in every sensible part of the stone for cutting it at either end the virtue at the contrary end is also diminish'd and the whole loadstone that is left has both the same virtues in proportion to its bigness Besides cut the Loadstone how you will still the two poles remain in that line which lay under the Meridian when it was in the earth And the like is of the touched iron whose virtue still â—es along the line which goes straight according to the line of the Axis from the point where it was touch'd and at the opposite end constitutes the contrary pole The fourth position is that Though the virtue of the Loadstone be in the whole body Yet its virtue is more seen in the poles then in any other parts For by experience 't is found that a Loadstone of equal bulk works better and more efficaciously if it be in a long form then if it be in any other And from the middle line betwixt the two poles there comes no virtue if an iron be touch'd there but any part towards the pole the nearer it is to the pole the greater party it imparts Lastly the declination teaches us the same which is so much the stronger by how much it is nearer the pole The fifth position is that In the the loadstone there are emanations which issue not only at the poles and about them but also spherically round about the whole body in an orb from all parts of the superficies of it in such sort as happens in all other bodies whatever And these spherical emanations are of two kinds proportionable to the two polar emanations And the greatest force of each sort of them is in that Hemisphere where the Pole is at which they make their chief issue The reason of the first part of this position is because no particular body can be exempt from the Laws of all bodies and we have above declared that every physical body must of necessity have an orb of fluours or a sphere of activity about it The reason of the second part is that seeing these fluours proceed out of the very substance and nature of the loadstone they cannot choose but be found of both sorts in every part how little soever it be where the nature of the loadstone resides The reason of the third part is that because the polar emanations tend wholly towards the poles each of them to their proper pole it follows that in every Hemisphere both those which come from the contrary Hemisphere and those which are bred in that they go out at are all assembled in that Hemisphere and therefore of necessity it must be stronger in that kind of fluours then the opposite end is All which appears true in experience for if a long iron touches any part of that Hemisphere of a loadstone which tends to the North it gains at that end a virtue of tending likewise to the North and the same will be if an iron but hang loose over it And this may be confirm'd by a like experience of an iron bar in respect of the earth which hanging downwards in any part of our Hemisphere is imbued with the like inclination of drawing towards the North. The sixth position is that although every part of one loadstone do in it self agree with every part of another loadstone that is if each of these parts were divided from their wholes each of them made a whole by it self they might be so joyn'd together as they would agree nevertheless when the parts are in their two wholes they do not all of them agree together but of two loadstones only the poles of the one agree with the whole body of the other that is each pole with any part of the contrary Hemisphere of the other loadstone The reason of this is because the fluours which issue out of the stones are in certain different degrees in several parts of the entire loadstones wherby it happens that one loadstone can work by a determinate part of it self most powerfully upon the other if some determinate part of that other lie next it and not so well if any other part lies towards it And accordingly experience shews that if you put the pole of a loadstone towards the middle of a needle that is touch'd at the point the middle part of the needle will turn away and the end of it will convert it self to the pole of the loadstone The seventh position is that If a touched needle and a loadstone come together and touch one another in their agreeing parts whatever parts of them those be the line of the needles length will beÌ„d towards the pole of the stone excepting if they touch by the Equator of the stone the middle of the needle yet not so that if you draw out the line of the needles length it will go through the pole of the stone unless they touch by the end of the one and the pole of the other But if they touch by the Equator of the one and the middle of the other then the
diffused in many several branches peradventure it will not be displeasing to the Reader to see the whole nature of the loadstone sum'd up in short Let him then cast his eyes upon one effect of it very easie to be tried and acknowledg'd by all writers though we have not as yet mention'd it 'T is that a knife drawn from the pole of a loadstone towards the Equator if you hold the point towards the pole gains a respect to one of the poles but contrariwise if the point of the knife be held towards the Equator and be thrust the same way it was drawn before that is towards the Equator it gains a respect towards the contrary pole 'T is evident out of this experience that the virtue of the loadstone is communicated by way of streams and that in it there are two contrary streams for otherwise the motion of the knife this way or that why could not change the efficacity of the same parts of the loadstone 'T is likewise evident that these contrary streams come from the contrary ends of the loadstone As also that the virtues of them both are in every part of the stone Likewise that one loadstone must of necessity turn certain parts of it self to certain parts of another loadstone nay that it must go and joyn to it according to the laws of attraction which we have above deliver'd and consequently that they must turn their disagreeing parts away from one another and so one loadstone seem to fly from another if they be so apply'd that their disagreeing parts be kept still next to one another for in this case the disagreeing and the agreeing parts of the same loadstone being in the same straight line one loadstone seeking to draw his agreeing part near to that part of the other loadstone which agrees with him must of necessity turn away his disagreeing parts to give way to his agreeing parts to approach nearer And thus you see that the flying from one another of two ends of two loadstones which are both of the same denomination as for example the two South ends or the two North ends doth not proceed from a pretended antipathy between those two ends but from the attraction of the agreeing ends Furthermore the earth having to a Loadstone the nature of a Loadstone it follows that a Loadstone must necessarily turn it self to the poles of the earth by the same laws and consequently must tend to the North must vary from the North must incline towards the centre and must be affected with all such accidents as we have deduced of the Loadstone And lastly seeing that iron is to a Loadstone a fit matter for it to impress its nature in and easily retains that magnetike virtue the same effects that follow between two Loadstones must necessarily follow between a Loadstone and a piece of iron fitly proportionated in their degrees excepting some little particularities which proceed out of the naturalness of the magneticke virtue to a Loadstone more then to iron And thus you see the nature of the Load-stone sum'd up in gross the particular joynts and causes whereof you may find treated at large in the main discourse Wherin we have govern'd our selvs chiefly by the experiences that are recorded by Gilbert and Cabeus to whom we remit our Reader for a more ample declaration of particulars CHAP. XXIII A description of the two sorts of Living Creatures Plants and Animals and how they are framed in common to perform vital motion HItherto we have endeavour'd to follow by a continual third all such effects as we have met with among Bodies and to trace them in all their windings and drive them up to their very root original source for the nature of our subject having been yet very common hath not exceeded the compass and power of our search inquiry to descend to the chief circumstances and particulars belonging to it And indeed many of the conveyance wherby the operations we have discoursed of are performed be so secret and abstruse as they that Look into them with less heedfulness and judgment then such a matter requires are too apt to impute them to mysterious causes above the reach of humane nature to comprehend and to calumniate them of being wrought by occult and specifick qualities wherof no more reason could be given then if the effects were infused by Angelical hands without assistance of inferiour bodies which uses to be the last refuge of ignorant men who not knowing what to say and yet presuming to say something fall often upon such expressions as neither themselvs nor their hearers understand but if they be well scan'd imply contradictions Therfore we deem'd it a kind of necessity to strain our selvs to prosecute most of such effects even to their notional connexions with Rarity and Density And the rather because it hath not been our luck yet to meet with any that has had the like design or done any considerable matter to ease our pains VVhich cannot but make the Readers journey somwhat tedious to him to follow all our steps by reason of the ruggedness and untrodenness of the paths we have walk'd in But now the effects we shall henceforward meddle with grow so particular and swarm into such a vast multitude of several little joynts and wreathy labyrinths of nature as were impossible in so summary a treatise as we intend to deliver the causes of every one of them exactly which would require both large discourses and abundance of experiences to acquit our selvs as we ought of such a task Nor is there a like need of doing it as formerly for as much as concerns our design since the causes of them are palpably material and the admirable artifice of them consists only in the Dedalean and wonderful-ingenious ordering and ranging them one with another VVe shall therfore intreat our Reader from this time forwards to expect only the common sequel of those particular effects out of the principles already laid And when some shall occur that may peradventure seem at first sight enacted immediately by a virtue spiritual and that proceeds indivisibly in a different strain from the ordinary process which we see in bodies and bodily things that is by the virtues of rarity and density working by local motion we hope he will be satisfied at our hands if we lay down a method and trace out a course wherby such events and operations may follow out of the principles we have laid Though peradventure we shall not absolutely convince that every effect is done just as we set it down in every particular and that it may not as well be done by some other disposing of parts under the same general scope for 't is enough for our turn if we shew that such effects may be perform'd by corporeal agents working as other bodies do without confining our selvs to an exactness in every link of the long chain that must be wound up in the performance
will the same happen in so difficult and spiny an affair as the writing on such a nice and copious Subject as this is to one who is so wholly ignorant of the Laws of Method as I am This free and ingenuous acknowledgment on my side will I hope prevail with all ingenuous person who shall read what I have written to advertise me fairly if they judg it worth their while of what they dislike in it to the end that in another more accurate Edition I may give them better satisfaction For besides what failings may be in the Matter I cannot doubt but even in the Expressions of it there must often be great obscurity and shortness which I who have my thoughts filled with the things themselvs am not aware of So that what peradventure may seem very full to me because every imperfect touch brings into my mind the entire notion and whole chain of circumstances belonging to that thing I have so often beaten upon may appear very crude and maimed to a Stranger that cannot guess what I should be at otherwise than as my direct words lead him One thing more I shall wish you to desire of them who happily may peruse these two Treatises as well for their own sakes as for mine And that is that they will not pass their censure upon any particular piece or broken parcel of either of them taken by itself Let them draw the entire Thrid through their fingers and examine the consequentness of the Whole Body of the doctrine I deliver and let them compare it by a like survey with what is ordinarily taught in the Schools and if they find in theirs many bracks and short ends which cannot be spun into an even piece and in mine a fair coherence througout I shall promise my self a favourable doom from them and that they will have an acquiescence in themselvs to what I have here presented them Whereas if they but ravel it over looslie and pitch upon dispuiting against particular Conclusions that at the first encounter of them single may seem harsh to them which is the ordinary course of Flashy Wits who cannot fadome the whole extent of a large discourse 't is impossible but that they should be very much unsatisfied of me and go away with a perswasion that some such Truths as upon the whole matter are most evident one stone in the Arch supporting another and the whole are meer Chymeras and wild Paradoxes But Son 't is time my Book should speak it self rather than I speak any longer of it here Read it carefully over and let me see by the effects of your Governing your self that you make such right use of it as I may be comforted in having chosen you to bequeath it to God in Heaven bless you Paris the last of August 1644. Your loving Father KENELM DIGBY TABLE Of the First TREATISE CONCERNING BODIES PREFACE CHAP. I. A Preamble to the whole Discourse Concerning Notions in general 1. Quantity is the first and most obvious affection of a body 2. Words do not express things as they are in themselvs but only as they are painted in the minds of men 3. The first error that may arise from hence which is a multiplying of things where no such multiplication is really found 4. A second errour the conceiving many distinct things as really one thing 5. Great care to be taken to avoid the errours which may arise from our mannner of understanding things 6. Two sorts of words to express our notions the one common to all men the other proper to scholars 7. Great errours arise by wresting words from their common meaning to express a more particular or studied notion CHAP. II. Of Quantity 1. We must know the vulgar and common notion of Quantity that we may understand the nature of it 2. Extension or divisibility is the common notion of Quantity 3. Parts of Quantity aâ—e not actually in their whole 4. If parts were actually in their whole Quantity would be composed of indivisibles 5. Qantity cannot be composed of indivisibles 6. An objection to prove that parts are actually in Quantity with a declaration of the mistake from whence it proceeds 7. The solution of the former objection and that sense cannot discern whether one part be distinguished from another or no. 8. An enumeration of the several specieses of Quantity which confirmes that the essence of it is divisibility CHAP. III. Of Rarity and Density 1. What is meant by Rarity and Density 2. It is evedent that some bodies are rare and others Dense though obscure how they are such 3. A brief enumeration of the several properties belonging to rare and dense bodies 4. The Opinion of those Philosophers declared who put rarity to consist in an actual division of a body into little parts 5. The former opinion rejected and the ground of their errour discovered 6. The opinion of those Philosophers related who put rarity to consist in the mixtion of vacuity among bodies 7. The opinion of vacuities refuted 8. Rarity and Density consist in the severall proportions which Quantity hath to its Substance 9. All must admit in Physical bodies a Metaphysical composition CHAP. IV. Of the four First Qualities and of the four Elements 1. The notions of Density and rarity have a latitude capable of infinite variety 2. How moistness and driness are begotten in dense bodies 3. How moistness and dryness are begotten in rare bodie 4. Heat is a property of rare bodies and cold of dense ones 5. Of the two dense bodies the less dense is more cold but of the two rare ones the less rare is less hot 6. The extreme dense body is more dry than the extreme rare one 7. There are but four simple bodies and these are rightly named Elements 8. The Authour doth not determine whether every Element doth comprehend under its name one onely lowest species or many nor whether any of them be found pure CHAP. V. Of the operations of the Elements in general And of their Activities compared with one another 1. The first operation of the Elements is division out of which results local motion 2. What place is both notionally and really 3. Local motion is that division wherby a body changes its place 4. The nature of quantity of it self is sufficient to unite a body to its place 5. All operations amongst bodies are either local motions or such as follow out of local motion 6. Earth compared to Water in activity 7. The manner wherby fire gets into fewel proves that it exceeds earth in activity 8. The same is proved by the manner wherby fire comes out of fewel and works upon other bodies CHAP. VI. Of Light what it is 1. In what sense the Authour rejects qualities 2. In what sense the Authour admits of qualities 3. Five arguments proposed to prove that light is not a body 4. The two first reasons to prove Light a body are the resemblance it hath with fire and because if it were a
if the soul were mortal CHAP. X. Declaring what the Soul of a man separated from his body is and of her knowledg and manner of working 1. That the Soul is one simple knowing act which is a pure substance and nothing but substance 2. That a separated Soul is in no place and yet is not absent from any place 3. That a separated Soul is not in time nor subject to it 4. That the Soul is an active substance and all in it is activity 5. A description of the Soul 6. That a separated Soul knows all that which she knew whilst she was in her body 7. That the least knowledge which the Soul acquires in her body of any one thing causes in her when she is separated from her body a complete knowledge of all things whatever 8. An answer to the objections of some Peripateticks who maintain the Soul to perish with the body 9. The former Peripateticks refuted out of Aristotle 10. The operations of a separated soul compared to her operations in her body 11. That a separated soul is in a state of pure being and consequently immortal CHAP. XI Shewing what effects the divers manners of living in ths world do cause in a soul after she is separated from her body 1. That a Soul in this life is subject to mutation and may be perfected in knowledge 2. That the knowledge which a soul gets in this life will make her knowledge in the next life more perfect and firm 3. That the soul of men addicted to science whilest they lived here are more perfect in the next world than the souls of unlearned men 4. That those souls which embrace virtue in this world will be most perfect in the next and those which imbrace vice most miserable 5. The state of a vitious soul in the next life 6. The fundamenatl reason why as well happiness as misery is so excessive in the next life 7. The reason why mans soul requires to be in a body and to live for some space of time joyn'd with it 8. That the misery of the soul in the next world proceeds out of the inequality and not out of the falsity of her judgments CHAP. XII Of the perseverance of a soul in the state she finds her self in at her first separation from her body 1. The explication and proof of that maxime that If the cause be in act the effect must also be 2. The effects of all such agents as work instantaneously are complete in the first instant that the agents are put 3. All pure spirits work instantaneously 4. That a soul separated from her body cannot suffer any change after the first instant of her separation 5. That temporal sins are justly punished with eternal pains The Conclusion Preface THis Writing was design'd to have seen the light under the name of One Treatise But afer it was drawn in Paper as I cast a view over it I found the Proaemial part which Treats of Bodies so ample in respect of the other which was the End of it and for whose sake I medled with it that I readily apprehended my Reader would think I had gone much astray from my Text when proposing to speak of the Immortality of Mans Soul three parts of four of the whole Discourse should not so much as in one word mention that Soul whose nature and proprieties I aim'd at the discovery of To avoid this incongruity occasioned me to change the Name and Unity of the Work and to make the survay of Bodies a body by it self though subordinate to the Treatise of the Soul Which notwithstanding it be less in bulk than the other yet I dare promise my Reader that if he bestow the painsr equisite to perfect himself in it he will find as much time well spent in the due reading of it as in the reading of the former Treatise though far more large But I discern an Objection obvious to be made or rather a Question Why I should spend so much time in the consideration of Bodies wheras none that has formerly written of this Subject has in any measure done the like I might answer that they had on other occasions first written of the nature of Bodies as I may instance in Aristotle and sundry others who either have themselvs professedly treated the Science of Bodies or have supposed that part sufficiently perform'd by other pens But truly I was by an unavoidable necessity hereto obliged which is a current of doctrin that at this day much reigns in the Christian Schools where Bodies and their overations are explicated after the manner of spiritual things For we having very slender knowledge of Spiritual Substances can reach no further into their nature than to know that they have certain Powers or Qualities but can seldom penetrate so deep as to descend to the particulars of such Qualities or Powers Now our Modern Philosophers have introduced such a course of learning into the Schools that to all questions concerning the proper natures of Bodies and their operations 't is held sufficient to answer they have a Quality or a Power to do such a thing And afterwards they dispute whether this Quality or Power be an Entity distinct from its subject or no and how it is separable or unseparable from it and the like Consormable to this who will look into the Books which are in vogue in these Schools shall find such Answers and such controversies every where and few others As of the Sensible Qalities ask what it is to be white or red what to be sweet or sowr what to be odoriferous or stinking what to be cold or hot And you are presently paid with that it is a Sensible Quality which has the power to make a Wall white or red to make a Meat agreeable or disagreeable to the tast to make a grateful or ungrateful Smell to the nose c. Likewise they make the same Questions and Resolutions of Gravity and Levity as whether they be qualities that is Entities distinct from their subjects and whether they be active or passive which when they have disputed slightly and in common with Logical arguments they rest there without any further searching into the Physical causes or effects of them The like you shall find of all strange Effects of them The Loadstone and Electrical bodies are produced for miraculous and not understandable things and which must be acknowledg'd to work by hidden Qualities that mans wit cannot reach to And ascending to Living Bodies they give it for a Maxim that Life is the action of the same Entity upon it self that Sense is likewise a work of an intrinsecal power in the part we call Sense upon it self Which our predecessors held the greatest absurdities that could be spoken in Philosophy Even some Physicians that take upon them to teach the curing of our Bodies often pay us with such terms among them you have long discourses of a retentive of an expulsive of a purging of a consolidating Faculty
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
it upon a hedge as that dries away so will their sore amend In other parts they observe that if milk newly come from the cow in the boyling run over into the fire and that this happen often and near together to the same cows milk that cow will have her udder sore inflamed and the prevention is to cast salt immediately into the fire upon the milk The herb Persicaria if it be well rub'd upon Warts and then be laid in some fit place to putrifie causes the Warts to wear away as it rots some say the like of fresh Beef Many examples also there are of hurting living creatures by the like means which I set not down for fear of doing more harm by the evil inclination of some persons into whose hands they may fall then profit by their knowing them to whom I intend this work But to make these operations of nature not incredible let us remember how we have determin'd that every body whatever yields some steam or vents a kind of vapour from it self and consider how they must needs do so most of all that are hot and moist as bloud and milk and all wounds and sores generally are We see that the foot of a Hare or Bear leaves such an impression where the beast has passed as a dog can discern it a long time after and a Fox breaths out so strong a vapour that the hunters themselvs can wind it a great way off and a good while after he is parted from the place Now joyning this to the experiences we have already allow'd of concerning the attraction of heat we may conclude that if any of these vapours light upon a solid warm body which has the nature of a source to them they will naturally congregate and incorporate there and if those vapours be joyn'd with any medicative quality or body they will apply that medicament better then any Chirurgeon can Then if the steam of bloud bloud and spirits carry with it from the weapon or cloth the balsamike qualities of the salve or powder and with them settle upon the wound what can follow but a bettering in it Likewise if the steam of the corruption that is upon the clod carry the drying quality of the wind which sweeps over it when it hangs high in the air to the sore part of the cows foot why is it not possible that it should dry the corruption there as well as it dryes it upon the hedge And if the steam of burned milk can hurt by carrying fire to the dug why should not salt cast upon it be a preservative against it Or rather why should not salt hinder the fire from being carried thither Since the nature of salt always hinders and suppresses the activity of fire as we see by experience when we throw salt into the fire below to hinder the flaming of soot in the top of a chimney which presently ceases when new fire from beneath doth not continue it And thus we might proceed in sundry other effects to declare the reason and possibility were we certain of the truth of them therfore we remit this whole question to the authority of the testimonies CHAP. XIX Of three other motions belonging to particular bodies Filtration Restitution and Electrical attraction AFter these let us cast our eye upon another motion very familiar among Alchymists which they call Filtration It is effected by putting one end of a tongue or label of Flannen or Cotten or Flax into a vessel of water and letting the other end hang over the brim of it And it will by little and little draw all the water out of that vessel so that the end which hangs qâ—t be lower then the superficies of the water and make it all come over into any lower vessel you will reserve it in The end of this operation is when any water is mingled with gross and muddy parts not dissolv'd in the water to separate the pure light ones from the impure By which we are taught that the lighter parts of the water are those which most easily catch And if we will examine in particular how 't is likely this business passes we may conceive that the body or linguet by which the water ascends being a dry one some lighter parts of the water whose chance it is to be near the climbing body of Flax begin to stick fast to it and then they require nothing near so great force nor so much pressing to make them climb up along the flax as they would do to make them mount in the pure air As you may see if you hold a stick in running water shelving against the stream the water will run up along the stick much higher then it could be forced up in the open air without any support though the agent were much stronger then the current of the stream And a ball will on a rebound run much higher upon a shelving board then it would if nothing touch'd it And I have been told that if an egsshell fill'd with dew be set at the foot of a hollow stick the Sun will draw it to the top of the shelving stick wheras without a prop it will not stir it With much more reason then we may conceive that water finding as it were little steps in the Cotton to facilitate its journy upwards must ascend more easily then those other things do so as it once receive any impulse to drive it upwards For the gravity both of that water which is upon the Cotton as also of so many of the confining parts of water as can reach the Cotton is exceedingly allay'd either by sticking to the Cotton and so weighing in one bulk with that dry body or else by not tending down straight to the Center but resting as it were upon a steep plain according to what we said of the arm of a Syphon that hangs very sloping out of the water and therfore draws not after it a less proportion of water in the other arm that is more in a direct line to the Center by which means the water as soon as it begins to climb comes to stand in a kind of cone neither breaking from the water below its bulk being big enough to reach to it nor yet falling down to it But our chief labour must be to finde a cause that may make the water begin to ascend To which purpose consider how water of its own nature compresses it self together to exclude any other body lighter then it is Now in respect of the whole mass of the water those parts which stick to the cotton are to be acounted muchlighter then water not because in their own nature they are so but for the circumstances which accompany and give them a greater disposition to receive a motion upwards then much lighter bodies whiles they are destitute of such helps Wherfore as the bulk of water weighing and striving downwards it follows that if there were any air mingled with it it would to
possess a lesser place drive out the aire so here in this case the water at the foot of the ladder of cotton ready to climb with a very small impulse may be after some sort compared in respect of the water to air by reason of the lightness of it and consequently is forced up by the compressing of the rest of water round about it Which no faster gets up but other parts at the foot of the ladder follow the first and drive them still upwards along the tow and new ones drive the second and others the third and so forth so that with ease they climb up to the top of the filter still driving one another forwards as you may do a fine towel through a musket barrel which though it be too limber to be thrust straight through yet craming still new parts into it at length you will drive the first quite through And thus when these parts of water are got up to the top of the vessel on which the filter hangs and over it on the other side by sticking still to the tow and by their natural gravity against which nothing presses on this side the label they fall down again by little and little and by drops break again into water in the vessel set to receive them But now if you ask why it will not drop unless the end of the label that hangs be lower then the water I conceive it is because the water which is all along upon the flannen is one continued body hanging together as it were a thrid of wire and is subject to like accidents as such a continued body is Now suppose you lay wire upon the edge of the basin which the filter rests on and so make that edge the Centre to ballance it upon if the end that is outermost be heaviest it will weigh down the other otherwise not So fares it with this thrid of water if the end of it that hangs out of the pot be longer and consequently heavier then that which rises it must needs raise the other upwards and fall it self downwards Now the raising of the other implies lifting more water from the Cistern and the sliding of it self further downwards is the cause of its converting into drops So that the water in the cistern serves like the flax upon a distaff and is spun into a thrid of water still as it comes to the flannen by the drawing it up occasion'd by the overweight of the thrid on the other side of the center Which to express better by a similitude in a solid body I remember I have oftentimes seen in a Mercers shop a great heap of massy gold lace lie upon their stall and a little way above it a round smooth pin of wood over which they use to have their lace when they wind it into bottoms Now over this pin I have put one end of the lace as long as it hung no lower then the board upon which the rest of the lace did lie it stird'd not for as the weight of the loose end carried it one way so the weight of the otherside where the whole was drew it the otherway in this manner kept it in equalibrity But as soon as I drew on the hanging end to the heavier then the climbing side for no more weights then is in the air that which lies upon the board having another center then it began to roule to the ground and still drew up new parts of that which lay upon the board till all was tumbled down upon the floor In the same manner it hap'nes to the water in which the thrid of it upon the filter is to be compared fitly to that part of the lace which hung upon the pin and the whole quantity in the cistern is like the bulk of lace upon the Shopboard for as fast as the filter draws it up 't is converted into a thrid like that which is already upon the filter in like manner as the wheel converts the flax into yarn as fast as it draws it out from the distaff Our next consideration will very aptly fall upon the motion of those things which being bent leap with violence to their former figure wheras others return but a little and others stand in that ply wherin the bending hath set them For finding the reason of which effects our first reflection may be to note that a Superficies which is more long then broad contains a less floor then that whose sides are equal or nearer being equal and that of those surfaces whose lines and angles are all equal that which hath most sides and angles contains still the greater floor Whence it is that Mathematicians conclude a circle to be the most capacious of all figures and what they say of lines in respect of a superficies the same with proportion they say of surfaces in respect of the body contained And accordingly we see by consequence that in the making a bag of a long napkin if the napkin be sew'd together longwise it holds a great deal less then if it be sewd together broadwise By this we see plainly that if any body in a thick and short figure be forced into a thinner which by becoming thinner must likewise become either longer or broader for what it loses one way it must get another then that superficies must needs be stretched which in our case is a Physical outside or material part of a solid body not a Mathematical consideration of an indivisible Entity We see also that this change of figures happens in the bending of all those bodies wherof we are now enquiring the reason why some of them restore themselves to their original figures and others stand as they are bent Then to begin with the latter sort we find that they are of a moist nature as among metalls lead and tin and among other bodies those â—which we account soft And we may determine that this effect proceeds partly from the humidity of the body that stands bent and partly from a driness peculiar to it that comprehends and fixes the humidity of it For by the first they are render'd capable of being driven into any figure which nature or art desires and by the second they are preserv'd from having their gravity put them out of what figure they have once receiv'd But because these two conditions are common to all solid bodies we may conclude that if no other circumstance concur'd the effect arising out of them would likewise be common to all such and therfore where we find it otherwise we must seek further for a cause of that transgression As for example if you bend the bodies of young trees or the branches of others they will return to their due figure 'T is true they will somtimes lean towards that way they have been bent as may be seen even in great trees after violent tempests and generally the heads of trees the ears of corn and the grown hedg rows will all bend one way
when he considers with what labour difficulty and slowness he joyns the letters spells syllables forms characters fits and breaks his fingers as though they were upon the rack to stop the right frets and touch the right strings and yet you see how strange a dexterity is gain'd in all these by industry and practise and readiness beyond what we could imagine possible if we saw not dayly the effects If then we can but arrive to decipher the first characters of the hidden Alphabet we are now taking in hand and can but spellingly read the first syllables of it we need not doubt but that the wise Author of nature in the masterpiece of the creature which was to express the excellency of the workman would with excellent cunning art dispose all circumstances so aptly as to speak readily a compleat language rising from those Elements and that should have as large an extent in practise and expression beyond those first principles which we like children only lisp out as the vast discourses of wisest most learned men are beyond the spellings of infants and yet those discourses spring from the same root as the other spellings do and are but a raising of them to a greater height as the admired musick of the best player on a Lute or Harp that ever was is derived from the harsh twangs of course Bowstrings which are composed together and refined till at length they arrive to that wonderful perfection And so without scruple we may in the business we are next falling upon conclude that the admirable and almost miraculous effects we see are but the elevating-to-a-wonderful-height those very actions and motions which we shall produce as causes and principles of them Let us then suppose a solid hard body of an unctuous nature whose parts are so subtile and fiery that with a little agitation they are much rarified and breath out in steams though they be too subtile for our eyes to discern like the steam that issues from sweating men or horses or that which flyes from a candle when 't is put out but that these steams as soon as they come into the cold air are by that cold suddenly condens'd again and by being condens'd shorten themselvs and by little and little retire till they settle themselvs upon the body from whence they sprung in such manner as you may observe the little tender horns of Snails use to shrink back if any thing touch them till they settle in little lumps upon their heads If I say these strings of bituminous vapours should in their way outwards meet with any light and spungy body they would pierce into it and settle in it and if it were of a competent bigness for them to wield they would carry it with them which way soever they go so that if they shrink back again to the fountain from whence they came they must needs carry back with them the light spungy body they have fixed their darts in Consider then that how much heat rarifies so much cold condenses and therfore such parts as by agitation were spun out into a subtile thrid of an inch long for example as they cool grow bigger and bigger and consequently shorter and shorter till at length they gather themselvs back into their main body and there they settle again in cold bitumen as they were at first and the light body they stick to is drawn back with them and consequently sticks to the superficies of the bitumen As if something were tyed at one end of a luâ—estring extended to its utmost capacity and the other end were fastned to some pin as the string shrinks up so that which is tyed at it must needs move nearer and nearer the pin which artifice of nature jugglers imitate when by means of an unseen hair they draw light bodies to them Now if all this operation be done without your seeing the little thrids which cause it the matter appears wonderful and strange But when you consider this progress that we have set down you will judge it possible And this seems to be the case of those bodies which we call Electrical as yellow Amber Jet and the like all which are of a bituminous unctuous nature as appears by their easie combustibility and smel when they are burned And if some do not so apparently shew this unctuous nature it is because either they are too hard or else they have a high degre of aqueous humidity joyn'd with their unctuosity and in them the operation will be duller in that proportion For as we see that unctuous substances are more odoriferous then others and send their streams further off and more efficaciously so we cannot doubt but such bodies as consist in a moist nature accordingly send forth their emanations in a feebler proportion Yet that proportion will not be so feeble but they may have an Electrical effect as well as the more efficacious Electrical bodies which may be perceptible if exact experience be made by an instrument like the Marriners needle as our learned Countryman Dr. Gilbert teaches But that in those eminent agents the spirits wherby they attract are unctuous is plain because the fire consumes them and so if the agents be over heated they cannot work but moderate heat even of fire encreases their operation Again they are clog'd by mysty air or wettine and likewise are pierc'd through and cut asunder by spirit of wine or aquae ardentes but oyl doth not hurt them Likewise they yield more spirits in the Sun then in the shade and they continue longer when the air is cleard by North or Eastern winds They require to be polish'd either because the rubbing which polish'd them takes off from their surfaces the former emanations which returning back stick upon them and so hinder the passage of those that are within or else because their outsides may be foul or lastly because the ports may be dilated by that smoothing Now that hardness and solidity is required argues that these spirits must be quick ones that they may return smartly and not be lost through their languishing in the air Likewise that all bodies which are not either exceeding rare or else set on fire may be drawn by these unctuous thrids concludes that the quality by which they do it is a common one that hath no particular contrarieties such an one as we see in grease or in pitch to stick to any thing from which in like manner nothing is exempted but fire and air And lastly that they work most efficaciously when they are heated by rubbing rather then by fire shews that their spirits are excitated by motion and therby made to fly abroad in such manner as we see in Pomanders and other perfumes which must be heated if you will have them communicate their scent And a like effect as in them agitation doth in Jet yellow Amber and such other Electrical bodies for if upon rubbing them you put them presently to your nose you wil discern
necessity happen that in the air there come Atoms to the Torrid Zone of that grossness that they cannot suddenly be so much rarified as the subtiler parts of air that are there and therfore the more those subtiler parts are rarified and therby happen to be carried up the stronger and the thicker the heavier Atoms must descend And thus this concourse of air from the Polar parts maintains gravity under the Zodiack where otherwise all would be turned into fire and so have no gravity Now who considers the two Hemispheres which by the Equator are divided will find that they are not altogether of equal complexions but that our Hemisphere in which the Northpole is comprised is much dryer then the other by reason of the greater continent of land in this and the vast tract of Sea in the other and therfore the supply which comes from the divers Hemispheres must needs be of different natures that which comes from towards the Southpole being compared to that which comes from towards the North as the more wet to the more dry Yet of how different complexions soever they be you see they are the emanations of one and the same body Not unlike to what nature hath instituted in the rank of Animals among whom the Male and Female are so distinguish'd by heat and cold moisture and drought that nevertheless all belongs but to one nature and that in degrees though manifestly different yet so near together that the body of one is in a manner the same thing as the body of the other Even so the complexions of the two Hemispheres are in such sort different in the same qualities that nevertheless they are of the same nature and are unequal parts of the same body which we call the Earth Now Alchimists assure us that if two extractions of one body meet together they will incorporate one with the other especially if there be some little difference in the complexion of the extractions Whence it follows that these two streams of air making up one continuate floud of various currents â—om one end of the world to the other each stream that come to the Equator from its own Pole by the extraction of the Sun and that is still supply'd with new matter flowing from its own Pole to the Equator before the Sun can sufficiently rarifie and lift up the Atomes that came first Perpendicularly under its beams as it uses to happen in the effects of Physical causes which cannot be rigorously ajusted but must have some latitude in which nature inclines ever rather to abundance then to defect will pass even to the other pole by the conduct of his fellow in case he be by some occasion driven back homewards For as we see in a Bowl or Pail full of water or rather in a Pipe through which the water runs along if there be a little hole at the bottome or side of it the water will wriggle and change its course to creep out at that Pipe especially if there be a little spiggot or quill at the outside of the hole that by the narrow length of it helps in some sort as it were to suck it So if any of the files of the army or floud of Atoms sucked from one of the Poles to the Equator do there find any gaps or chinks or lanes of retiring files in the front of the other poles battalia of atomes they will press in there in such mannner as we have above declared that water doth by the help of a label of cotten and as is exemplyfied in all the attractions of venime by venimous bodies wherof we have given many examples above and they will go along with them the course they go For as when a thick short gilded ingot of silver is drawn out into a long subtile wyre the wyre continuing still perfectly guilded all over manifestly shews that the outside and the inside of the ingot strangely meet together and intermix in the drawing out so this little stream which like an Eddy current runs back from the Equator towards its own Pole will continue to the end still tincted with the mixture of the other Poles atoms it was incorporated with at his coming to the Equator Now that some little rivolets of air and atoms should run back to their own Pole contrary to the course of their main stream will be easy enough to conceive if we but consider that at certain times of the year winds blow more violently and strongly from some determinate part or Rombe of the world then they do at other times and from other parts As for example our East India Marriners tell us of the famous Monsones they find in those parts whch are strong winds that reign constantly six moneths of the year from one polewards and the other six moneths from the other pole beginning precisely about the Suns entring into such a sign or degree of the Zodiac and continue til about its entrance into the opposite degree And in our parts of the world certain smart Easterly or Northeasterly winds reign about the end of March and beginning of April when it seems that some snows are melted by the spring heats of the Sun And other winds have their courses in other seasons upon other causes All which evidently convince that the course of the air and vapours from the poles to the Equator cannot be so regular and uniform but that many impediments and crosses light in the way to make breaches in it and therby to force it in some places to an opposite course In such sort as we see happens in eddy waters and in the course of a tide wherin the stream ruÌ„ning swiftly in the middle beats the edges of the water to the shore and therby makes it run back at the shore And hence we may conclude that although the main course of air atoms for example from North to South in our Hemisphere can never fail of going on towards the Equator constantly at the same rate in gross nevertheless in several particular little parts of it and especially at the edges of those streams that are driven on faster then the rest by an extraordinary and accidental violent cause it is variously interrupted and somtimes intirely stop'd and other times even driven back to the Northwards And if peradventure any man should think that this will not fall out because each stream seems to be always coming from his one Pole to the Equator and therfore will oppose and drive back any bodies that with less force should strive to swim against it or if they stick to them will carry them back to the Equator We answer that we must not conceive the whole air in body doth every where equally incroach from the Polewards upon the Torrid Zone but as it were in certain brooks or rivulets according as the contingency of all causes put together makes it fall out Now then out of what we have said it will follow that since all
point Dr. Gilbert seems also to have another controversie with all Writers to wit whether any bodies besides Magnetical ones be attractive Which he seems to deny all others to affirm But this also being fairly put will peradventure prove no controversie for the question is either in common of attraction or else in particular of such an attraction as is made by the loadone Of the first part there can be no doubt as we have declared above and is manifest betwixt gold and quicksilver when a man holding Gold in his mouth it draws to it the quicksilver that is in his body But for the attractive to draw a body to it self not wholly but one determinate part of the body drawn to one determinate part of the drawer is an attraction which for my part I cannot exemplifie in any other bodies but Magnetical ones A third question is Whether an iron that stands long unmoved in a window or any other part of a building perpendicularly to the earth contracts a Magnetical virtue of drawing or pointing towards the North in that end which looks downwards For Cabeus who wrote since Gilbert affirms it out of experience but either his experiment or his expression was defective For assuredly if the iron stands so in the Northern Hemisphere it will turn to the North and if in the Southern Hemisphere it will turn to the South for seeing the virtue of the loadstone proceeds from the earth and the earth has different tempers towards the North and toward the South pole as hath been already declared the virtue which comes out of the earth in the Northern Hemisphere will give to the end of the iron next it an inclination to the North pole and the earth of the Southern Hemisphere will yield the contrary disposition to the end which is nearest it The next Question is why a loadstone seems to love iron better then another loadstone The answer is because iron is indifferent in all its parts to receive the impression of a loadstone wheras another loadstone receives it only in a determinate part and therfore a loadstone draws iron more easily then it can another loadstone because it finds repugnance in the parts of another Loadstone unless it be exactly situated in a right position Besides iron seems to be compared to a Loadstone like a more humid body to a dryer of the same nature and the difference of male and female sexes in Animals manifestly shew the great appetence of conjunction between moisture and dryness when they belong to bodies of the same species Another question is that great one Why a Loadstone cap'd with steel takes up more iron then it would do if it were without that caping Another conclusion like this is that if by a Loadstone you take up an iron and by that iron a second iron and then pull away the second iron the first iron in some position will leave the Loadstone to stick to the second iron as long as the second iron is within the sphere of the Loadstones activity but if you remove the second out of that sphere then the first iron remaining within it though the other be out of it will leave the second and leap back to the Loadstone To the same purpose is this other conclusion that The greater the iron is which is entirely within the compass of the Loadstones virtue the more strongly the Loadstone will be moved to it and the more forcibly stick to it The reasons of all these three we must give at once for they hang all upon on string And in my conceit neither Gilbert nor Galileo have hit upon the right As for Gilbert he thinks that in iron there is originally the virtue of the loadstone but that it is as it were asleep till by the touch of the Loadstone it be awaked and set on work and therfore the virtue of bath joyn'd together is greater then the virtue of the Loadstone alone But if this were the reason the virtue of the iron would be greater in every regard and not only in sticking or in taking up wheras himself confesses that a cap'd stone draws no further then a naked stone nor hardly so far Besides it would continue its virtue out of the sphere of activity of the loadstone which it doth not Again seeing that if you compare them severally the virtue of the Loadstone is greater then the virtue of the iron why should not the middle iron stick closer to the stone then to the further iron which must of necessity have less virtue Galileo yeelds the cause of this effect that when an iron touches an iron there are more parts which touch one another then when a Loadstone touches the iron First because the Loadstone hath generally much impurity in it and therfore divers parts of it have no virtue wheras iron by being melted hath all its parts pure and secondly because iron can be smooth'd and polish'd more then a Loadstone can be and therfore its superficies touches in a manner with all its parts whereas divers parts of the stones superficies cannot touch by reason of its ruggedness And he confirms his opinion by experience for if you put the head of a needle to a bare stone and the point of it to an iron and then pluck away the iron the needle will leave the iron and stick to the stone but if you turn the needle the other way it will leave the stone and stick to the iron Out of which he infers that 't is the multitude of parts which causes the closs and strong sticking And it seems he found the same in the caping of his Loadstones for he used flat irons for that purpose which by their whole plane did take up other irons wheras Gilbert cap'd his with convex irons which not applying themselvs to other irons so strongly or with so many ports as Galileo's did would not by much take up so great weights as his Nevertheless it seems not to me that his answer is sufficient or that his reasons convince For we are to consider that the virtue which he puts in the iron must according to his own supposition proceed from the Loadstone and then what imports it whether the superficies of the iron which touches another iron be so exactly plain or no or that the parts of it be more solid then the parts of the stone For all this conduces nothing to make the virtue greater then it was since no more virtue can go from one iron to the other then goes from the Loadstone to the first iron and if this virtue cannot tie the first iron to the Loadstone it cannot proceed out of this virtue that the second iron be tyed to the first Again if a paper be put betwixt the cap and another iron it doth not hinder the magnetical virtue from passing through it to the iron but the virtue of taking up more weight then the naked stone was able to do is therby
in part the other defect Hope on the other side is in such sort defective from joy that nevertheless it hath a kind of constancy and moderate quantity and regularity in its motion and therefore is accounted to be the least hurtful of all the passions and that which more prolongs mans life And thus you see how those motions which we call passions are engender'd in the heart and what they are Let us then in the next place consider what will follow in the rest of the body out of these varieties of Passions once rais'd in the heart and sent into the brain 'T is evident that according to the nature and quality of these motions the heart must needs in every one of them void out of it self into the arteries a greater or lesser quantity of blood and that in divers fashions and the arteries which lie fittest to receive these sudden egestions of blood are those which go into the brain which course being directly upwards we cannot doubt but that it is the hottest and subtilest part of the blood and the fullest of spirits that flies that way These spirits then running a long and perplexed journey up and down in the brain by various meanders and anfractuosities are there mingled with the humid steam of the brain it self and therwith cooled and come at last to smoak at liberty in the hollow ventricles of the brain by reeking out of the little arterial branches that weave the plexus choroides or net we spoke of erewhile and they being now grown heavy fall by their natural course into that part or process of the brain which is called medulla spinalis or the marrow of the back-bone which being beset by the nervs that run through the body it cannot happen otherwise but that these thick'ned and descending spirits must either fall themselvs into those nervs or else press into them other spirits which are before them that without such new force to drive them violently forwards would have slided down more leisurely Now this motion being downwards and meeting with no obstacle till it arrive to its utmost period that way the lowest nervs are those which naturally feel the communication of these spirits first But 't is true if the flowing tide of them be great and plentiful all the other nerves will also be so suddenly fill'd upon the filling of the lowermost that the succession of their swellings will hardly be perceptible as a sudden and violent inundation of water seems to rise on the sides of the channel as it doth at at the Mill-dam though reason assures us it must begin there because there it is first stop't On the contrary side if the spirits be few they may be in such a proportion as to fill only the lower nervs and to communicate little of themselvs to any of the others And this is the case in the passion of fear which being stored with fewer spirits than any other passion that causes a motion in the body it moves the leggs most and so carries the animal that is afraid with violence from the object that affrights him Although in truth it is a faint hope of escaping mingled with fear which begets this motion for when fear is single and at its height it stops all motion by contracting the spirits and thence is called Stupor as well as grief for the same reason And accordingly we see extreme cowards in the extremity of their fear have not the courage to run away no more than to defend or help themselvs by any other motions But if there be more abundance of spirits then the upper parts are also moved as well as the leggs whose motion contributes to defence but the brain it self and the senses which are in the head being the first in the course of this floud of spirits that is sent from the heart to the head 't is impossible but that some part of them should be press'd into the nervs of those senses and so will make the animal vigilant and attentive to the cause of its fear or grief But if the fear be so great that it contracts all the spirits and quite hinders their motion as in the case we touch'd above then it leaves also the nervs of the senses destitute of spirits and so by too strong apprehension of a danger the animal neither sees nor apprehends it but as easily precipitates it self into it as it happens to avoid it being meerly govern'd by chance and may peradventure seem valiant through extremity of fear And thus you see in common how all the natural operations of the body follow by natural consequence out of the passions of the mind without needing to attribute discourse or reason either to men or beasts to perform them Although at first sight some of them may appear to those that look not into their principles and true causes to flow from a source of intelligence wheras 't is evident by what we have laid open they all proceed from the due ranging and ordering of quantitative parts so or so proportioned by rarity and density And there is no doubt but who would follow this search deeply might certainly retrive the reasons of all those external motions which we see use to accompany the several passions in Men and Beasts But for our intent we have said enough to shew by what kind of order and course of nature they may be effected without confining our selves over scrupulously to every cincumstance that we have touch'd and to give a hint wherby others that will make this inquiry their task may compile an intire and well grounded and intelligible doctrine of this matter Only we will add one advertisment more which is that these external motions caused by passion are of two kinds for some of them are as it were the beginnings of the actions which nature intends to have follow out of the passions that cause them but others are only bare signs of passions that produce them and are made by the connexion of parts unnecessary for the main action that is to follow out of the passion with other parts that by the passion are necessarily moved As for example when an hungry mans mouth waters at the sight of good meat it is a kind of beginning of eating or of preparation for eating for when we eat nature draws a moisture into our mouth to humectate our meat and convey the tast of it into the nervs of the tongue which are to make report of it to the brain but when we laugh the motion of our face aims at no further end and follows only by the connexion of those muscles which draw the face in such a sort to some inward parts that are moved by the passion out of which laughing proceeds But we must not leave this subject without some mention of the Diaphragma into which the other branch of those nervs that are called of the sixth conjugation comes for the first branch we have said goes into the heart and carries
latter can but rove wildly at the nature of the thing he apprehends and will never be able to draw any operation into act out of the apprehension he hath framed of it As for example if a man be to work upon Gold and by reason of its resemblance to brass hath form'd an apprehension of Brass instead of an apprehension of Gold and then knowing that the action of fire will resolve Brass into its least parts and sever its moist from its dry ones will go about to calcine Gold in the same manner as he would do Brass he will soon find that he loses his labour and that ordinary fire is not an adequate Agent to destroy the homogeneal nature and sever the minute parts of that fixed mettal All which happens out of the wrong apprehension he hath made of Gold Wheras on the other side he that apprehends a thing rightly if he pleases to discourse of what he apprehends finds in his apprehension all the parts and qualities which are in the thing he discourses of For example if he apprehends rightly a Knife or a Beetle or a Sieve or any other thing whatever in the Knife he will find Haft and Blade the Blade of iron thick on the back and thin on the edg temper'd to be hard and tough thus beaten so ground in such manner softned thus quenched and whatever else concerns the Being or making of a Knife And all this he draws out of his notion or apprehension of a Knife which is that 't is An instrument fitted to cut such and such things in such a manner for hence he finds that it has a Haft fit to hold it by in ones hand to the end it may not hurt the hand whiles it presses upon the Knife and that the Blade is apt to slide in betwixt the parts of the thing which is to be cut by the motion of being pressed or drawn by the hand and so he proceeds on descending to the qualities of both parts and how they are to be joyn'd and held fast together In the like manner he discourses of a Beetle a Sieve or whatever else comes in his way And he doth this not only in such manufactures as are of mans invention but if he be capable he doth the like in Beasts in Birds in Trees in Herbs in Fishes in Fossiles and in what creature soever he meets within the whole extent of nature He findes what they are made for and having discover'd Natures aim in their production he can instruct others what parts and manner of generation they have or ought to have and if he that in this manner apprehends any thing rightly hath a mind to work upon it either to make or use and order it to some end of his own he is able by his right apprehension to compare it to other things to prepare what is any way fitting for the making of it to apply it to what it will work its effect upon and to conserve it from what may wrong or destroy it So if he have framed a right apprehension of a Sieve he will not employ it in drawing water if of a Beetle he will not go about to cut with it neither will he offer if he have a due apprehension of a Knife to cut stone or steel with it but wood or what is softer He knows what will whet and maintain the edge of it and understands what will blunt or break it In fine he uses it in such sort as the Knife it self had it knowledg and will would wish to be used and moves it in such a manner as if it had power of motion it would move it self He goes about the making of it even as Nature would do were it one of her Plants and in a word the Knife in this apprehension made in the man hath those causes proprieties and effects which are natural to it and which nature would give it if it were made by her and which are proportionable to those parts causes proprieties and effects that Nature bestows on her children and creatures according to their several essences What then can we imagine but that the very nature of a thing apprehended is truly in the man who apprehends it And that to apprehend ought is to have the nature of that thing within ones self And that man by apprehending becomes the thing apprehended not by change of his nature to it but by assumption of it to his Here peradventure some will reply that we press our inference too far and will peremptorily deny the things real Being in our mind when we make a true and full apprehension of it accounting it sufficient for our purpose that some likeness or image of the thing be there out of which we may drawall these whether contemplations or works or disposals of the thing But by that time this objection is throughly look'd into and so much as they allow duly examin'd I believe we shall find our quarrel to be only about the word not the matter and that indeed both of us mean the same though diversly conceiv'd their expression in what they grant importing in substance the same as ours which 't is true they first deny in words but that may be because the thing is not by them rightly understood Let us then discuss the matter particularly What is likeness but an imperfect unity between a thing and that which 't is said to be like to If the likeness be imperfect 't is more unlike than like to it and the liker it is the more 't is one with it till at length the growing likeness may arrive to such a perfection and to such an unity with the thing 't is like to that then it shall no longer be like but is become wholly the same with that formerly it had but a resemblance of For example let us consider in what consists the likeness to a Man of a Picture drawn in Black and White representing a Man and we shall find 't is only in the proportion of the limbs and features for the colours the bulk and all things else are unlike But the proportions are the very same in a Man in a Picture yet that Picture is but a likeness because it wants bigness and colour give it them and nevertheless it will be but a likeness because it wants all the dimensions of corporeity or bulk which are in a mans body Add also those to it and still it will be but a likeness or representation of a man because it wants the warmth the sostness and the other qualities of a living body which belongs to a man but if you give it all these then it is no longer a likeness or image of a living creature but a living creature indeed And if peradventure this living creature continue still to be but the likeness of a man 't is because it wants some perfections or proprieties belonging to a man and so in that regard 't is unlike a man but if you allow it
side who shall consider that he knows the thing which he rightly apprehends that it works in him and makes him work agreeable to its nature and that all the properties and singularities of it may be display'd by what is in him and are as it were unfolded in his mind he can neither deny nor doubt but that it is there in an admirable and spiritual manner If you ask me how this comes to pass and by what artifice Bodies are thus spiritualized I confesse I shall not be able to satisfie you but must answer that it is done I know not how by the power of the Soul Shew me a Soul and I will tell you how it works but as we are sure there is a Soul that is to say a Principle from whence these operations spring though we cannot see it so we may and do certainly know that this mystery is as we say though because we understand not the true and compleat na-nature of a Soul we can as little express the manner how it is done by a Soul Yet before we take our leave of this matter of Apprehensions we will in due place endeavour to say somthing towards the clearing of this obscure point Our second consideration upon the nature of Apprehension was that our primary and main notion is of Being This discovers some little glimpse of the nature of the Soul For 't is manifest that she applyes this notion as well to no-parts as to parts Which we prov'd in the first Treatise when we shew'd that we have a particular notion of Substance distinct from the notion of Quantity for Quantity and Parts being the same it follows that if there be a notion supposed by Quantity as in Substance there is it must of necessity abstract from parts and consequently we may conclude that the notion of Being which is indifferently applyable either to Quantity or Substance of its own nature wholly abstracts either from Parts or no-Parts I then infer that since this notion of Being is the very first and virgin notion our Soul is imbued with or capable of and is the root of all other notions and into which she resolvs every other notion so as when we have sifted and searsed the essence of any notion whatever we can discover nothing deeper than this or precedent to it and that it agrees so compleatly with our Soul as she seems to be nothing else but a capacity fitted to Being it cannot be denied but that our Soul must needs have a very near affinity and resemblance of nature with it But 't is evident that Being hath not of it self any parts in it nor of it self is capable of division and therfore 't is as evident that the Soul which is fram'd as it were by that patern and Idea and fitted for Being as for its End must also of it self be void of parts and incapable of division For how can parts be fitted to an indivisible thing And how can two such different natures ever meet proportionably If it be objected that the very notion of Being from whence we estimate the nature of the Soul is accommodable to parts as for example we see that Substance is endew'd with Quantity We answer that even this corroborates our proof For since all the substances which our senses are acquainted with have parts and cannot be without parts and yet nevertheless in our Soul the notion of such substance is found without parts 't is clear that such substance hath this meerly from our Soul and because it hath this indivisibility from our Soul it follows that our Soul hath a power and nature to bestow indivisibility upon what comes into her And since it cannot be deny'd but that if any substance were once existent without parts it could never after have parts 't is evident that the nature of the Soul is incapable of parts because it is existent without parts And that it is in such sort existent is clear for this effect of the Souls giving indivisibility to what she receives into her proceeds from her as she is existent Now since this notion of Being is of all others the first and Original notion that is in the Soul it must needs above all others savour most of the proper and genuine nature of the Soul in and by which it is what it is and hath its indivisibility If then it be press'd how can Substance in reality or in things be accommodated to Quantity since of it self it is indivisible We answer that such Substance as is the subject of and hath Quantity is not indivisible for such Substance cannot be subsistent without Quantity and when we frame a notion of it as indivisible 't is an effect of the force of our Soul that is able to draw a notion out of a thing that hath parts without drawing the notion of the parts Which shews manifestly that in her there is a power above having of parts and this vertue in her argues her existence to be such Our last consideration upon the nature of Appehension was how all that is added to the notion of Being is nothing else but respects of one thing to another and how by these respects all the things of the world come to be in our Soul The evidence we may draw from hence of our Souls immateriality will be not a whit less than either of the two former For let us cast our looks over all that comes into our senses see if from one end to another we can meet with such a thing as we call a respect it hath neither figure nor colour nor smell nor motion nor taste nor touch it hath no similitude to be drawn from by means of our senses To be like to be half or be cause or effect what is it The things indeed that are so have their resemblances and pictures but which way should a Painter go about to draw a likeness or to paint a half or a cause or an effect If we have any understanding we cannot chuse but understand that these notions are extremely different from whatever comes in to us by the mediation of our senses and then if we reflect how the whole negotiation of our understanding is in by respects must it not follow necessarily that our Soul is of an extream different nature from our Senses and Imagination Nay If we look well into this argument we shall see that wheras Aristotle pretends that Nihil est in intellectu quâ—d non prius fuit in sensu this Maxime is so far from true in rigour of the words that the quite contrary follows undeniably out of it to wit that Nihil est in intellectu quâ—d fuit prius in sensu Which I do not say to contradict Aristotle for his words are true in the meaning he spoke them but to shew how things are so much changed by coming into the understanding into the Soul that although on the one side they be the very same things yet on the
that every action of thine be it never so slight is mainly mischievous or be it never so bedeckt with those specious considerations which the wise men of the world judg important is foolish absurd and unworthy of a man unworthy of one that understands and acknowledges thy dignity if in it there be any speck or through it there appear any spark of those mean and flat motives which with a false byas draw any way aside from attaining that happiness we expect in thee That happiness ought to be the end and mark we level at that the rule and model of all our actions that the measure of every circumstance of every atome of whatever we bestow so precious a thing upon as the employment of thee is But we must not so slightly pass over the intenseness and vehemence of that Felicity which thou my Soul shalt injoy when thou art sever'd from thy benuming compartner I see evidently that thou dost not survive a simple dull essence but art replenish'd with a vast incomprehensible extent of riches delight within thy self I see that golden chain which here by long discourses fills huge volumes of Books and dives into the Hidden natures of several Bodies all in thee resumed into one circle or link which contains in it self the large scope of whatever screwing discourse can reach to I see it comprehend and master the whole world of Bodies I see every particular nature as it were imbossed out to the life in thy celestial garment I see every solitary substance rank'd in its due place and order not crush'd or throng'd by the multitude of its fellows but each of them in its full extent in the full propriety of every part and effect of it and distinguish'd into more divisions than ever nature sever'd it into In thee I see an infinite multitude enjoy place enough I see that neither height nor profundity nor longitude nor latitude are able to exempt themselvs from thy defused powers they faddom all they comprehend all they master all they inrich thee with the stock of all and thou thy self art all and somwhat more than all and yet now but one of all I see that every one of this all in thee encreases the strength by which thou know'st any other of the same all al encreases the knowledg of all by a multiplication beyond the skill of Arithmetick being in its kind absolutely infinite by having a nature incapable of being either infinite or finite I see again that those things which have not knowledg are situated in the lowest and meanest rank of creatures and are in no wise comparable to those which know I see there is no pleasure at all no happiness no felicity but by and in knowledg Experience teaches me how the purer and nobler race of mankind adores in their hearts this idol of knowledg and scorns whatever else they seem to court and be fond of And I see that this excess or Sea of knowledg which is in thee grows not by the succession of one thought after another but it is like a full swoln Ocean never ebing on any coast but equally pushing at all its bounds and tumbling out its flowing waves on every side and into every creek so that every where it makes high tide Or like a pure Sun which from all parts of it shoots its radiant beams with a like extremity of violence And I see likewise that this admirable knowledg is not begotten and conserv'd in thee by the accidentary help of defective causes but rooted in thy self and steep'd in thy own essence like an unextinguishable sourse of a perpetual streaming fire or the living head of an everruning spring beholding to none out of thy self save only to thy Almighty Creator and begging of none but being in thy self all that of which thou should'st beg This then my Soul being thy lot and such a height of pleasure being reserv'd for thee such an extremity of felicity within a short space attending thee can any degenerate thought ever gain strength enough to shake the evidence which these considerations implant and rivet in thee Can any dull oblivion deface this so lively and so beautiful image or any length of time draw in thy memory a veil between it and thy present attention Can any perversity so distort thy straight eys that thou should'st not look alwaies fix'd on this Mark and level thy aim directly at this White How is it possible that thou canst brook to live and not expire presently therby to ingulf thy self and be throughly imbibed with such an overflowing bliss Why dost thou not break the walls and chains of thy flesh and blood and leap into this glorious liberty Here Stoicks you are to use your swords Upon these considerations you may justifie the letting out the blood which by your discourses you seem so prodigal of To die upon these terms is not to part with that which you fondly call happy life feeding your selvs and flattering your hearts with empty words but rather it is to plunge your selvs into a felicity you were never able to imagine or frame to your misguided thoughts any scantling of But nature pulls me by the ear and warns me from being so wrongful to her as to conceive that so wise a governess should to no advantage condemn mankind to so long a banishment as the ordinary extent of his dull life wearisom pilgrimage here under the Sun reaches to Can we imagine she would allow him so much lazy time to effect nothing in Or can we suspect she intends him no further advantage than what an abortive child arrives to in his mothers womb For whatever the nets and toils of discourse can circle in all that he who but once knows that himself is can attain to as fully as he that is enrich'd with the Science of all things in the world For the connexion of things is so linked together that proceeding from any one you reach the knowledg of many and from many you cannot 〈◊〉 of attaining all So that a Separated Soul which but knows her self cannot choose but know her Body too and from her Body she cannot miss in proceeding from the causes of them both as far as immediate causes proceed from others over them and as little can she be ignorant of all the effects of those causes she reaches to And thus all that huge masse of knowleg and happ ness which we have consider'd in our last reflection amounts to no more than the silliest Soul buried in warm blood can and will infallibly attain to when its time comes We 〈◊〉 then assure our selvs that just nature hath provided and 〈◊〉 a greater measure of such felicity for longer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much greater as may well be worth the pains and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so miserable and tedious a passage as here my Soul 〈◊〉 â—gglest through For certainly if the dull percussion which by natures institution hammers out a spiritual Soul from gross 〈◊〉