Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	east_n	motion_n	west_n	1,864	5	9.5519	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44631	Remarks on the new philosophy of Des-Cartes in four parts ... / done by a gentleman.	Howard, Edward.	1700 (1700)	Wing H2978; ESTC R11446	138,891	395

from it by Force or Fire So that the Essential Nature of Body cannot be destroy'd tho' it be lessen'd or divided into Innumerable Particles of the same Substance But not so continue in the Qualities of Colour Weight Heat Cold Moisture or the like that were its former Appurtenances Because Alteration must necessarily Change its accidental Qualifications consonant to the Philosophical Maxim a non esse tale ad esse tale Which signifies that it is otherwise than it was in Figure or Dimension together with such like External Qualifications as it precedently had and are naturally diversified according to Corporeal Alterations But amongst the Examples which he presents to his Reader as so many select Jewels of Thought I cannot but observe the blemish that I find in the Diamond of his Idea where he supposes That the Substance of such a Stone may be so Transparent that its Colour might not be visible But how any Thing can be so refinedly splendid as not at all perceptible by its Colour is not less absurd than to Affirm that something is seen without being discern'd It being Optically and Physically impossible to be sensible of any Object of Sight unless its Colour be sufficiently visible with its Substance True it is That a Diamond may be sever'd into Parcels of its Substance and that its Splendours will proportionably lessen with its Corporeal Parts But not suitable to the Alterations made as to Figure Colour or Extent in Bodies of weaker Complexion and Substance For Example Straw or Stubble will sooner yield in all their Capacities to the Alteration enforc'd by Fire or to any natural Method of Change than Wood or Coal So that 't is not provable as Affirm'd by Des-Cartes That with every Corporeal Mutation may equally be rejected the above-mention'd External Attributes that did appertain to their Substance and nothing continue with them but Length Breadth and Depth the common Proprieties of Body To which he adds this Incompatible Proposition That by Idea of Space not Corporeally Replenish'd may be comprehended an Idea of what is call'd Vacuity Was ever Fiction so perfectly supposititious as to Fancy That Space had a Being and not the Local Continent of Substance Or that the Universe the vast Womb of Nature might by its miscarrying admit of Vacuity Which properly Conster'd amounts to the Production of nothing Wherefore the Appellation or Word Vacuity can signifie no more than a cursory Accent of Speech Or such an empty Idea as I may modestly say is not seldom obtruded into the Writings of this Author Some of his subsequent Particulars where he differenceth Space from Place are indeed more nice if not frivolous than could be Thought to drop from the Pen of the Learned Des-Cartes who takes it for granted That if any Corporeal Thing be remov'd from the Local Being in which it was we are not therefore to conceive that its Extension does depart with it Which Position of his may be pertinently wav'd by Affirming the contrary to be true As what is more Essentially annex'd to the Comprehension of Body than its due and proportionable Extension as it Relates to the Place by which it is contain'd Wherefore if a Stone be mov'd from the Local Situation it precedently had it s Extension or proper Space as its natural Capacity does Inseparably remove with it and not remain as this Author would Imply as the same Extension or Place might be possess'd with other Bodies Or under the confus'd Notion of Space not fill'd with any Thing readily Imagin'd we may be so vain to suppose as he gives License to the Conception That Indeterminate Space if so Apprehended may be thought Vacuity Which he Infers by Reflecting on the misapprehension we may have that the same Local Extension does not Remain tho' the Body to which it appertain'd be Remov'd A manner of Inference Philosophically unfound because no Corporeal Substance can be taken from its due Place unless its proper Extension and Space to which it belongs be movable with it Not that it may not leave behind or after its Removal the like Local Capacity as it may at large be said to have been contiguous to that Substance Or instead of its continuance there the Space that it before possess'd is immediately replenish'd by the Accession of some one or more Bodies And this perpetually Executed by the Act of Nature touch'd by the Scepter of Eternal Providence Which otherwise must cease to be or vanish with the World her Universal Habitation by Annihilating her Existence And therefore exorbitantly Impossible to allow any Epithet to Vacuity That by all the Representatives of Nature is determin'd to have no Propriety within her spacious Dominion As improper is the Example he gives in the same Paragraph Of a Person suppos'd to be seated in a Ship and moves not although the Ship removes whilst he sits still But were his sole Corporeal Extensions in Length Breadth and Depth in Motion as he late in the Ship his Local Space would Remove with him without depending on the Sailing of the Ship Before he makes a Close on this Head he gives a more than ordinary Instance of a Ship under Sail and the Earth in Motion at the same time which according to the Copernican System he would Insinuate but in general Affirms That if a Ship sailes as far from East to West as the Earth Revolves from West to East according to its Motion in the Ecliptick as the Copernicans Imagine a Man sitting in the Ship does not Change his Place because the Local Determination both of the Motion of the Ship and Earth is to be consider'd as relating to some Immovable Points of Heaven This Ship according to his Supposition of the Earth's Motion must be committed to the desperate Conduct of a Copernican Pilot For if the Ocean together with all the Rivers and Streams that the World affords be Affirm'd to compleat in Conjunction with the Earth one Globulous Circumference and Figure as is the Opinion of many Learned Philosophers The rapid and mounting Motion that the Sea must have in being contiguous to the Earth's Revolution considering that it is naturally Lighter and therefore Higher than the Earth would soon overwhelm the Ship with vast Mountains of boisterous Waves in spite of the best Marriners Skill and Compass and doubtless in that Irresistible Storm the Man he supposes seated in the Ship would be totally toss'd from his Station So that if granted the Copernican Hypothesis as it Implys the Conjoyn'd and Revolving Motion of the Superficies of the Earth and Ocean 't is impossible to conceive how a Naval Voyage could be at any time perform'd or the Intercourse and Trade of Nations by Sea at this Day or heretofore practicable an Objection that gives no Inconsiderable Confutation to the Copernican System Which whether or no perceiv'd by this Author he seems at least in this Place to be Indifferent as to that Opinion by granting where he Concludes this Particular That it may

Page and entrance he makes into his Fourth Part of his Philosophical Treatise he transfers the Principles which he had apply'd to the Constituting of Superior Beings in his Third Part to the original Forming and Existence of the Earth we Inhabit Which in his First Paragraph according to his design'd Imagination in Substance is thus Let us feign saies he That the Earth was primarily Constituted solely of the Matter of the first Element which has been mention'd by me in the Third Part of his Philosophy as was the Sun tho' much less as likewise to have a vast Vortex or whirling Substance about her the Center of which Vortex was the Center of the Earth But as some Particulars or Globuli as he calls them were channell'd or hollow'd and some but not all very diminutive of that First Element they adher'd and so were converted into the Matter of the Third Element which I likewise noted in the foreg-oing Tractate and from thence first of all were the opacous Spots engender'd on the Superficies of the Earth resembling those we behold continually to generate and dissolve about the Sun And next tells how such Particulars were Thinn'd or Condens'd Ascending and Descending some to Etherial Parts some to the Higher others to the Lower Region of the Air As also how the thicker of their opacous Spots cover'd and darken'd the whole Surface of the Earth Thus I have briefly summ'd his Sense the doing of which has caus'd such a wonderful Confusion in the utmost extent of my Intellect that I cannot there find room for the whirling of his Vortices and Globuli Or were the Brain of Man as big as the Earth it might prove too small for the comprehensive Understanding of his Hypothesis By which he displays his Scene of Chaos together with the diffusion from its Womb of such Particles or Seeds of Nature That by their Motions and continu'd Involutions and Revolutions Thin or Thicken without the operative concurrence of Heat Cold or any other Elementary Quality untill a sufficient quantity of them meet in a Lump that might produce the Figure and Magnitude of the Earth But from what shadow of Reason or Philosophical Authority could Des-Cartes fancy That either the Universe or Earth part of the whole might be Constituted or any ways generated by Motion unless of Bodies Compos'd of such Elements that are common to our Apprehensions Because nothing if not so temper'd is capable of Motion or computable by Time the natural Propriety of Motion and therefore not of such Chimerical Maaterials or unqualified Particles of Nature as he numbers in the actings of his devis'd Triplicity of Elements Which if granted 't were in effect to Assert That Motion Time and the Elements we usually understand and by which we subsist were operative and original Causes of the World's Existence So that the Earth together with Mankind and whatsoever it contains might have had in the Opinion of this Author a capacity of subsisting or wonderfully forming it self without a miraculous Creation Nor can his Supposition be excus'd by alledging That the Almighty might Ordain the Fabrick and Structure of the Earth by any Motion of Substances that were not Elementary Because impossible to conceive any other temperature of Things that could be motionally capacitated to produce other Beings But of what Composition or how establish'd the Heavens above are Thoughts too remote and spiritual as I have prov'd by Learned Authority in the precedent Treatise to be definitively reach'd by the Humane Intellect Notwithstanding which sublime Consideration the Earth is plac'd by Des-Cartes above and instead of the Sun as a Planet according to the Copernican System in as lofty a Room as is the Orbite betwixt Mars and Venus In answer to which enough I believe has been objected in the former Third Part But now having suppos'd the Matter of the Earth before intermingled with that of the Heavens he tells us how the Materials of the Earth delaps'd or slipt from above towards the Inferior Place according to his Phaenomena of the Sun and next distinguishes the Earth into three Regions The First of these which he calls the most Inward he supposes to contain so much of the Matter of the First Elements not otherwise there Moving or of other Nature than as it was in the Sun except that its Substance was less pure But thinks that the Earth in passing from the Sun and surely in his Sense upwards because by his Hypothesis he has preferr'd the ministerial Situation of the Terrene composition much Superior to Phoebus the King of Illuminating Beings as also that it continually became spotted and could not be purg'd or clear'd of them From whence saies he I am easily persuaded That the Earth was then full of the Third Element did not it follow that she could not if at that time so solid be so near the Sun he means downwards as now she is To which purpose he has devis'd a Right-worshipful Scheme but left by me to the Inspection of such as have no other Imployment for their Eyes The Second Element of the Earth he determines opacous and thickly Substantiated as consisting of divers Minute Particles that appertain'd to the first Element And this in his judgment Experience assures by the Spots in the Face of the Sun which excepting their refin'dness and subtility are the same with those of the Earth Yet notwithstanding hinder the Light that would else more appear in the Sun But concludes after some offer'd Reasons which I do not mention because I think 'em Irrational That these two Elements have little to do with us because no living Man ever ascended to their Stations But by what Authority does he present us with a Theory of Things that he confesses no Body could ever be assur'd of And for that Reason I might pass from them with no less neglect than the Man who reading an Inscription at Athens that was Dedicated to the unknown God thought it had little to do with his Contemplation And no more my concern what this Author delivers here these Elements having been sufficiently I doubt not Remark'd by me in the Third fore-going Part of his Philosophy Notwithstanding I will briefly add something avoiding if possible Reiteration of Words on the same Subject already written Or only by way of Interrogation were Des-Cartes present desire to be inform'd in what Mint of Nature he Coin'd these Elements and as her Bank-stock Pay's them off in Parcels to his Reader In doing of which he introduces and a while continues the original Empire of Nature in Power and Credit numerously attended by very inconsiderable Subjects which he calls petty Globuli surrounding her Throne and immediately committed to the Government and disposal of revolving Vortices that whirl'd them without any orderly Method or Proportion either East West South or North or sometimes only upward to the height of Heaven and as soon precipitately downward by which medly of Motion he conceives abundance of their