orderly manner therefore the discovery of the interpretation of Nature contains chiefly two parts The first tends to the drawing out and raising Axioms from experience the second teacheth how to take and derive Experiments from new Axioms The first part is divided in a threefold manner into three ministrations into that which relates to sense into that which relates to the memory and to that which relates to the mind or understanding First we must have a Natural and Experimental History sufficient and good which is the foundation of the thing It must not be feigned or contrived onely but we must find what Nature doth or bears But the Natural and Experimental History is so various and scattered that it confounds and disturbs the understanding unless it be limited and placed in a right order therefore we must form some tables and ranks of instances in such a manner and order that the understanding may work upon them Which when it is done the understanding left to it self and moving of it self is not sufficient but unable for the working of Axioms unless it be ruled and assisted therefore in the third place a lawful and true induction is to be brought in which is the Key of the Interpretation we must begin at the End and proceed back-wards to the rest An inquisition of forms proceeds in this manner first upon nature given we must bring to the understanding all the instances of notes that agree in the same Nature though by different matters Therefore such a collection is to be Historical without any hasty contemplation or greater subtilty than ordinary for example in the inquisition of the form of Hot. Convenient Instances in the Nature of Hot. 1. THe Sun beams chiefly in Summer and at Noon 2. The Sun beams beaten back and pressed together specially between Mountains Walls and through Burning-glasses 3. All fiery Meteors 4. Fiery Thunderbolts 5. The bursting forth of flames out of the Caves of Mountains c. 6. All Flame 7. All solid bodies of fires 8. Hot and Natural Baths 9. All liquids heated or boiling 10. Vapors and hot smoak and the air it self which receives a strong and furious heat when it is shut up as in all places of reflection 11. Some kind of storms by the constitution of the air when there is no respect to the time of the year 12. The air shut up in subterraneous Caves chiefly in winter 13. All hair and shag as wooll the skins of beasts feathers have something of heat 14. All bodies as well solid as liquid as well thick as thin as the air may be heated for a time 15. Sparks of fire out of Iron or steel when they are struck out 16. All bodies rubb'd together as a stone wood cloth c. So that the axle-trees and wheels of Carts sometimes are enflamed And the custome amongst the Western Indians is to make fire by rubbing 17. All green Herbs and moist shut up close together as Roses Pease in a basket and Hay if it he laid up wet will often take fire 18. Lime watered 19. Iron when it is first dissolved by strong waters in glass without any assistance of fire and likewise Pewter c. which is not so hot 20. All animals chiefly in their inwards though the heat in insects because of the smalness of their bodies cannot be perceived by our feeling 21. Horse-dung and the new excrements of such like creatures 22. Strong oil of Sulphur and Vitriol performs the office of heat in burning linning 23. The oyl of wilde Majoram and the like doth the office of heat in burning bones and teeth 24. The strong spirit of wine well rectified performs the office of heat so that if the white of an Egg be cast into it it will thicken and whiten almost in the same manner as when it is boiled and cloth being cast into it will burn and be brown as a toasted piece of bread 25. All sweet sents and hot herbs as dragon wort cresses c. Although the hand feels not their heat neither when they are entire nor when reduced to ashes but when they are chewed a little they heat the tongue and the pallet as if they did burn 26. Strong vinegar and all things acide or sharp are hot in a member where there is no Epidermis as in the eye and tongue and in a wounded part or where the skin is taken off they cause pain like to that of heat 27. Also extroardinary cold seems to be burning 28. Garlick This List we are want to name the Table Essence and Presence Secondly we must examine with our understanding the instances which are deprived of nature given The Instances at hand which have not the nature of heat THe beams of the Moon of the Stars and of the Comets seem not to be hot to our feeling for we may observe that the greatest frosts are in the full Moon but the fixed and bigger Stars when the Sun goes under them or draws near them they are thought to be heated by the heat of the Sun as when the Sun is in Leo or in the Dog Days The Sun beams in the middle region of the air are not hot The reason is because that region is not near enough to the body of the Sun from whence the beams burst forth nor to the earth that reflects them back therefore this is plain upon the tops of mountains which are not the highest snow abides upon them alwayes But on the contrary some have taken notice that on the top of the Pick of Tenerif and on the top of the Mountains of Peru there is no snow to be seen but upon the sides of these hills snow remains therefore the air on the top of those Mountains is not cold but subtil and sharp so that in the mountains of Peru it pricks and offends the eyes with its sharpness and the stomack so that it makes men inclinable to vomit The Ancients have taken notice that on the top of mount Olympus the air is so subtil that such as climb up to the top must carry with them spunges dipt in water and vinegar and often put them to their mouths and noses because the air is there so subtil that it sufficeth not for respiration They say also that there is there so great a calm free from all rain storms snow and winds that some who sacrificed there upon Jupiters altar having made with their fingers an impression in the Ashes upon the Altar the next year the same Letters and impression were to be seen without the least alteration And such as venture up to the top of the Pick of Tenerif go by night and not by day they are called upon a little after the rising of the Sun by their guides to hasten down again because of the danger as it seems caused by the subtilty of the air for fear that it should stiffle the spirits The reflection of the Sun beams near the northern pole are very weak and
them are but the exudations and sweatings the first out of the sap of trees the Second out of Rocks from hence proceeds the clearness and splendor of both Namely from the thin and subtil percolation from hence it is also that the hairs of animals are not so beautiful and of such a lively colour as the plumes of birds for their sweat is not so fine when it issues out of their skin as when it comes out of a Feathers Other conformable instances are the Fins of Fishes and the Feet of four Footed Beasts or the Feet and Wings of Birds unto which Aristotle adds four Circles in the motion of Serpents Therefore in this great Fabrick of the World the motion of living creatures seems to be performed by four Arters or flexions Also in terrestrial animals the teeth and in birds their bills are alike from whence it is evident that in all perfect animals there is a certain hard substance that draws to the mouth The Seventh are irregular instances such as discover bodies in their whole which are extravagant and broken off in Nature and do not agree with other things of the same gender but are only like to themselves therefore stiled Monodicae They are useful to raise and unite nature to find out the genders and common natures to limit them by their true differences Neither are we to desist from an inquisition until the properties and qualities which are found in such things as are thought to be miracles in nature may be reduced and comprehended under some form or certain Law that all irregularity and singularity might be found to depend upon some common form Such instances are the Sun and Moon amongst the Stars the Loadstone among the Stones quick-silver amongst metals the Elephant amongst the four Footed Beasts c. The eighth sort of instances are named Diviantes because they are Natures errors and Monsters when Nature declines and goes aside from its ordinary course The use of these is to rectifie the understanding to reveal the common Forms neither in these ought we to desist from the inquisition until we have found out the cause of the deviation But this cause doth not rise properly to any Form but onely to the hidden proceeding to a Form for he that knows the ways of Nature he shall with more ease observe its deviations And again he that understands its Deviations can better discover its ordinary ways and methods The Ninth sort of instances are Named Limitanea such as discover the species of bodies which seem to be composed of two species or the Rudiments between one species and another such are Flies between rottenness and a plant certain Comets between stars and fiery meteors Flying Fishes between Birds and Fishes c. The Tenth are instances of Power which are the noblest and the most perfect as the most excellent in every art for as this is our business chiefly that Nature should be obedient and yield to the benefits of men it is fitting that the works which are in the power of men as so many provinces be overcome and subdued should be taken notice of and reckoned specially such as are most plain and perfect because from them there is an easier and a nearer way to new inventions never found out before The Eleventh instance are stiled Comitatus and Hostiles They are such as discover a concrete body such in which the nature inquired after doth always follow it as an individual companion and on the contrary in which the Nature required doth always fly from it is excluded out of its company as an enemy for out of such instances propositions may be formed which may be certain universal affirmative and negative in which the subject shall be such a body in concrete the predicate the nature it self that is sought for example if you seek for hot the Iustantia comitatus is the flame c. The Twelth are subjunctive c. The Thirteenth are instances of Union which confound and joyn together Natures which are esteemed to be heterogeneous and for such are noted and confirmed by the received divisions For example if the nature required is hot That division seems to be good and authentick that there are three kinds of heat the Coelestial the animal and that of the fire These heats especially one of them being compared with the other two are in essence and species or by a specifick nature differing and altogether heterogeneous for the heat of the Coelestial Globes and the animate heat encourage and help generation but the heat of the fire corrupts and destroyes It is therefore an instance of Union This experiment is common enough when the branch of a vine is brought into the house where there is a continual fire by which the Grapes will ripen a month sooner than those that are in the air so that fruits may be brought to Maturity when they hang upon the tree by the fire whereas this seems to be a work proper only to the Sun Therefore the understanding is perswaded from hence to inquire what are the differences which are really between the heat of the Sun and that of the fire from whence it happens that their operations are so unlike and they nevertheless partake of the same common nature The differences are found to be four First that the heat of the Sun in respect of the heat of the fire is a degree much milder and more favourable Secondly That it is conveyed to us through the air which of it self is humide Thirdly and chiefly that it is very unequal sometimes drawing near and increasing in strength anon departing and diminishing which very much contributes to the generation of bodies Fourthly that the Sun works upon a body in a long space of time but the working of the fire through mens impatiency performs the business in a shorter time If any will be careful to attemper and reduce the heat of the fire to a more moderate and milder degree which may be done several ways if he will besprinkle it and cause it to send forth something of humidity cheifly if he imitates the Suns inequality Lastly if he stayes a little by this means he shall imitate or equal or in some things cause the fires heat to be better than the Suns The Fourteenth sort of instances are the Judicial which is when an inquisition is made and the understanding is placed in an Equilibrium in an uncertainty where to assign the cause of the Nature inquired for For example suppose any man seeks the cause of the flux and reflux of the sea twice a 〈◊〉 This motion must needs proceeds from the progress and regress of the waters in the manner of water troubled up and down in a bason which when it toucheth the one side of the bason it leaves the other Or it must proceed from the rising and falling of the waters in the bottom as boiling water now there is a doubt unto which of these causes the ebbing and flowing or flux and reflux of the sea is to be assigned which if the first of these be asserted then it will follow that when the flux is on this side the 〈◊〉 will be at the sametime on the other But Acosco with some others have found after a diligent inquiry that upon the Coast of Florida and upon the Coast of Spain and Africa the ebbing and flowing of the Sea happens at the same moment of time This question is further examined in the Original The Fifteenth sort of instances are of divorce because they discover the separations of those 〈◊〉 which often meet The Sixteenth are the Instances of the lamp or of the first information which assist the sense for as all interpretation of nature begins by the sense and from the perception of the sense leads by a right and straight-way to inform the understanding which are the true notions and axioms it must needs be that the more copious and exact the representations of the senses are so much the better and the happier all things must succeed The Seventeenth sort of Instances are stiled of the Gate because they help the immediate actions of the senses Amongst the senses it is certain that the sight is the chief in regard of information therefore we must seek assistances to this sight The eighteenth are Instances called Citantes which deduce that which is not sensible to be sensible The Nineteenth are Named Instances of supplement because they supply the understanding with a right information when the senses fail therefore we must Fly to them when we have no proper instances This is done in a two fold manner either by Gradation or by Analogy For example the Medium is not to be found which stop the Load-stone in moving the Iron neither gold if we put it between nor silver nor stone nor glass nor wood c. Nevertheless after an exact tryal there may be a certain medium sound which might dull its vertue more than any thing else comparatively and in some degree as that the loadstone should not be able to drawIron to it self through gold of such a thickness c. The Twentieth sort are stiled Instances persecantes because they cut nature asunder c. The One and Twenty sort are instances of the Rod or of non ultra The Two and Twentieth are called Instances Curriculi They measure nature by the moments of time as the instances of the Rod measure it by the degrees of space For all motion and natural action is performed in a time some quicker some softer c The Three and Twentieth sort are instances Quanti c. The Four and Twentieth sort are instances of Predominancy The 25. sort are called Innuentes because they discover and design the benefits of men The Six and Twentieth sort are named Instantiae Polychrestas The Seven and Twentieth are the Magick instances They are such in which the matter or the officient is but little and slender if compared with the greatness of the work or of the effect that follows in somuch that though they are common they are looked upon as miracles c. I am forced to out short and abbreviate many excellent directions and to pass over several weighty observations because I am limited However this abbreviation may give the Reader 〈◊〉 of the whole FINIS * Or skin to cover such as covers the body * Natura data * Gaping of the firmament
and the authorities of them who are honoured and admired by every one or through the different impressions which occur in a prepossessed and predisposed or in a calm and equal mind or the like so that the Spirit of man as it is placed or qualified in every Man is a various a troubled and a fortuitous thing wherefore Heraclitus said well that men sought after Siences in lesser worlds and not in the great and common World There are also Idols or mis-apprehensions arising from the mutual contracts and also ciations of Men which by reason of humane commerce and society we call Idola Fori For Men are associated by speech but words are imposed according to the vulgar capacity therefore a vitious and an improper imposition of words doth wonderfully mislead and clog the Understanding Neither the definitions and explications wherewith learned men are wont to defend and vindicate themselves in some things do mend the matter for words do plainly force the Understanding and disturb all things they lead men into many idle controversies and foolish inventions Lastly there are Idols or misapprehensions which are entered into Mens minds from divers opinions of the Philosophers as also from the 〈◊〉 Laws of demonstrations these we call Idola Theatri Because all the kinds of Philosophy which have been invented and received we look upon as so many Fables produced and acted to make fictitious and senical Worlds Neither speak we of those amongst us or only of the ancient Philosophers and Sects seeing many the like Fables may be composed and made because the causes of the different errours are for the most part common neither do we understand this only of universal Philosophy but also of many Principles and Axioms of Sciences which have prevailed by tradition credulity and neglect But of all these kinds of Idols we must speak more largely and distinctly that so the humane intellect may take more heed Humane Understanding is inclinable of it self to suppose a greater order and equality in things than it finds And whereas many things in Nature are monodical and altogether unlike yet it appropriates to them parallels correspondencies and relatives which are not from hence are derived those Figments In Coelestial Bodies all things are moved by perfect Circles In the mean time they reject Spiral and Serpentine lines retaining yet the names From hence it is that the Element of Fire is introduced to make a quaternion with the other three which are within the reach of our senses To the Elements also as they call them fancy ascribes to them a double proportion of excess in their mutual rarefaction and such like dreames are invented Nor is this vanity predominant in opinions only but also in simple notions The Humane Understanding attracts all other things to give its suffrage and consent unto those things which once please it either because they are received and believed or because they delight And though a greater strength and number of contrary instances occur yet it doth either not observe or contemn them or remove or reject them by a distinction not without great and dangerous prejudice by which an inviolable authority remains in those former conceptions Therefore he gave a right answer who when a list of the Names of such as had paid there their vows for escaping the danger of Shipwrack was shewn to him hung up in a Temple and when he was questioned whether he did not acknowledge the Deity of the gods He in answer demanded what was become of their pictures who had perished after that they had paid their Vows There is almost the same reason for all Superstition as in Astrological dreams presages c. Men delight in such vanities they mind the events when they come to pass but when they fail which is very often they neglect and pass them by But this evil more subtilly invades Philosophy and Sciences wherein that which once takes infects and corrupts the rest though more firm and better But in case this delight and vanity were wanting yet it is a proper and perpetual error in Humane Understanding to be rather moved and stirred up by affirmatives than by negatives although in truth it ought to be indifferent to both Yet on the other hand the strength of a negative Instance is greater in constituting every Axiom Humane Understanding is for the most part moved with those things which suddenly and at once effect and reach the mind and wherewith the fancy is wont to be filled and puffed up As for the rest it supposes and fancies to have them in a kind of inperceptible manner even like those few things that possess the mind But as to that quick running over remote and heterogeneous instances whereby Axioms are tried as it were by fire the Understanding is altogether slow and unable unless severe Laws and violent commands be imposed upon it Humane Understanding cannot rest but still desires more and more though all in vain Therefore it is not to be imagined that Heaven should hear any extream or extime parts for it may be alwayes necessarily urged that there is something further Again it cannot be conceived how Eternity hath run along until now because there is a common distinction usually admitted that it is infinite a parte ante a parte pòst which can in no wise be proved for then it would follow that one infinite is greater than another and that an infinite consumeth and tends to a finite The like nicety occurs through the weakness of our imagination concerning lines alwayes divisible but this mental infinity more dangerously interposes in the invention of causes For whereas Universals chiefly ought to be in a positive nature as they are found out being not really causable yet the Humane Understanding being unable to rest still desires things more known but whiles it tends to further things it falls back to nearer ones viz. Final causes which indeed arise rather from Humane Nature than the nature of the Universe Out of this Fountain Philosophy is strangely corrupted But he is equally an unskilful and a slight Philosopher who seeks out a cause in primary universals as he who desires it not in subordinate and subaltern things Humane Understanding is not an Ignis fatuus a meer light but it receives an impression from the Will and the Affections which produces the reason why it desires Sciences for what a Man had rather have true that he resolves to believe Therefore he rejects difficult things through impatiency of inquiry sober things because they confine the hope the high Mystery of Nature because of our natural Superstition the light of experience because of an arrogancy and pride least the mind should seem to converse in vile and transitory affairs he rejects Paradoxes being too much over-ruled by the mistakes of the vulgar Lastly affection qualifies and infects the Soul many wayes which cannot be conceived But the greatest hinderance of the Humane Understanding and its most dangerous errors proceed from the
inefficacious in matter of heat Let this Experiment be tried take a Looking Gloss made contrary to the burning-glasses and put it between your hand and the Sun beams and take notice whether it don't diminish the heat of the Sun as the burning-glass increaseth it Try this other Experiment whether by the best and strongest burning-glasses it is not possible to gather together the beams of the Moon in one point and cause thereby a small degree of warmth Try also a burning-glass upon any thing that is hot but not luminous or shining as upon hot urine or hot stone which is not fiery or upon boiling water or the like and see whether it increaseth not the heat as at the rayes of the Sun Try also a burning glass before the flame of the fire The Comets have not always the same effects in encreasing the heat of the year though some have observed that grievous droughts have succeeded them Bright beams and columns and Chasmata and such like meteors appear more frequently in the winter than in the Summer and especially in great frosts when the air is very dry Thunder and Lightnings seldom happen in Winter but in the time of great heats But falling Stars are thought to consist for the most part of a thin substance bright and kindled near a kin to the strongest fire There are some Lightnings that yield light but don't burn such happen alwayes without thunder The breaking out and eruptions of flames are to be seen in cold regions as well as in hot as in Istandia Greenland as the trees which grow in cold Countreys are more combustible more full of Pitch and Rosom than others that grow in hot Regions All flame is hot more or less Nevertheless they say that Ignus fatuus which lights sometimes against a wall hath but little heat it may be like the flame of the spirit of wine which is mild and soft but that flame is yet milder which some credible and discreet Historians affirm to have been seen about the hair and heads of Boys and Girls which did not so much as singe the hair but did softly wave above them Every thing that is fiery when it turns into a fiery red when it should not yield any flame it is always hot Of hot Baths which happen by the scituation and nature of the Sun there hath not been sufficient inquiry All boiling liquors in their own nature are cold for there is no liquor to be toucht which is so naturally which remains always hot heat therefore is given to it for a time as an acquired nature or quality so that the things themselves which are in their operations most hot as the spirit of Wine some chymical Oiles and the Oyl of Vitriol and of Sulphur and the ike which at the first touching are cold but soon after they burn There is a doubt whether the warmth of wool of skins and of feathers and the like proceed not from some small inherent heat as it riseth from animals or whether it proceeds not from a fatness and Oyliness which is agreeable to warmth or whether it comes not from the inclusion and fraction of the Air. There is nothing Tangible or yielding spirit but is apt to take fire yet many things differ in this that some receive heat sooner as Air Oyl and water ohers not so quickly as Stone and Metals There can be no sparks struck out of Stone or Steel or out of any other hard substance unless some minute parts of the substance of the Stone or Metal be also struck out There is no Tangible Body to be found but becomes warm by rubbing therefore the Ancients did fancy that the heavenly Globes had no other warmth or vertue to cause heat but that which was derived to them from the 〈◊〉 of the air when they were rowled about in their swift and surious course Some Herbs and Vegetables when they are green and moist seem to have in them some secret heat but that heat is so small that it is not to be perceived by feeling when they are single but when they are heaped together and shut up that their spirits cannot escape out into the air but encourge one another then the heat appears and sometimes a flame in convenient matter New lime becomes hot when it is sprinkled with water either because of the union of heat which before was dispersed or by the irritation and exasperation of the spirits of water and of fire for there is a kind of conflict and antiperistasis How the heat is caused will easily appear if instead of Water Oyl be cast into it for Oyl as well as Water Unites the Spirits shut up but it will not Irritate or anger them All dung of Animals when it is old hath the power of heating as we may see in the fatting of ground Aromatick substances and Herbs sharp at the taste are much hotter when they are taken inwardly we may try upon what other substances they discover any hot vertue The Seamen tell us that when heaps and lumps of Spices or Aromatick substances are long shut up closs and then opened there is some danger for such as stir them or take them out first for the fumes that arise from them are apt to inflame the spirits and to give feavers Likewise an Experiment may be tried whether their dust will not be able to dry Bacon and other flesh hung over it as over the smoak of a fire There is an accrimony or penetration in cold things as Vinegar and Oyl of 〈◊〉 as well as in hot as in the Oyl of wilde Marjoram and the like therefore they cause a like pain in animals and in inanimate substances they dissolve and confirm the parts In animals there is no pain but is accompanied with a certain sense of heat Cold and hot have many effects common to them both tho produced in a different manner for snow seems to burn the hands of children and cold preserves flesh from putrefaction as well as fire and heat draws together some substances to a lesser bulk as well as cold A Table of degrees or of such things as are comparatively hot WE must first speak of those things which seem not to the feeling to be hot and yet are so potentially afterwards we shall descend to mention such things as are actually or at the feeling hot and to examine their strength and degrees of heat 1. Amongst the solid and Tangible bodies there is none found which is hot naturally or Originally neither Stone nor Metal nor Sulphur nor any Mineral nor Wood nor Water nor the Carcase of any anima but in baths there is hot water by accident either by subterraneous flames as fire such as is in Etna and many other mountains or by the conflict of bodies as heat is produced in the dissolution of Iron and Pewter Therefore our feeling cannot be sensible of any degree of heat in inanimate substances but they differ in their degrees of cold for