this diuision of the Elements but because they and theire solutions are to be found in euery ordinary Philosopher and that they be not of any greate difficulty and that the handling them is too particular for the designe of this discourse and would make it too prolixe I referre the Reader to seeke them for his satisfaction it those authors that treate physickes professedly and haue deliuered a compleate body of Philosophy And I will end this Chapter with aduertising him least I should be misvnderstood that though my disquisition here hath pitched vpon the foure bodies of fire ayre water and earth yet it is not my intention to affirme that those which wee ordinarily call so and do fall dayly within our vse are such as I haue here expressed them or that these Philosophicall ones which arise purely out of the combination of the first qualities haue theire residence or consistence in great bulkes in any places of the world be they neuer fo remote as fire in the hollow of the moones orbe water in the bottome of the sea ayre aboue the cloudes and earth below the mines But these notions are onely to serue for certaine Idaeas of Elements by which the foure named bodies and the compoundes of them may be tryed and receiue theire doome of more or lesse pure and approaching to the nature from whence they haue theire denomination And yet I will not deny but that such perfect Elements may be found in some very litle quantities in mixed bodies and the greatest aboundance of them in these foure knowne bodies that we call in ordinary practise by the names of the pure ones for they are least compounded and approach most to the simplenesse of the Elements But to determine absolutely theire existence or not existence eyther in bulke or in litle partes dependeth of the manner of action among bodies which as yet we haue not meddled with THE FIFTH CHAPTER Of the Operations of the Elements in generall And of their Actiuities compared with one another HAVING by our former discourse inquired out what degrees and proportions of rarity and density compounded with grauity are necessary for the production of the Elements and first qualities whose combinations frame the Elements our next consideration in that orderly progresse we haue proposed vnto our selues in this treatise wherein our ayme is to follow successiuely the steppes which nature hath printed out vnto vs will be to examine the operations of the Elements by which they worke vpon one an other To which end lett vs propose to our selues a rare and a dense body encountring one an other by the impulse of some exterior agent In this case it is euident that since rarity implyeth a greater proportion of Quantity and quantity is nothing but diuisibility rare bodies must needes be more diuisible then dense ones and consequently when two such bodies are pressed one against an other the rare body not being able to resist diuision so strongly as the dense one is and being not permitted to retire backe by reason of the externe violence impelling it against the dense body it followeth that the partes of the rare body must be seuered to lett the dense one come betweene them and so the rare body becometh diuided and the dense body the diuider And by this we see that the notions of diuider and diuisible do immediately follow rare and dense bodies and do so much the more properly agree vnto them as they exceede in the qualities of Rarity and Density Likewise we are to obserue in our case that the dense or diuiding body must necessarily cutt and enter further and further into the rare or diuided body and so the sides of it be ioyned successiuely to new and new partes of the rare body that giueth way vnto it and forsake others it parteth from Now the rare body being in a determinate situation of the vniuerse which we call being in a place and is a necessary condition belonging to all particular bodies and the dense body coming to be within the rare body whereas formerly it was not so it followeth that it looseth the place it had and gaineth an other This effect is that which we call locall motion And thus we see by explicating the manner of this action that locall motion is nothing else but the change of that respect or relation which the body mooued hath to the rest of the vniuerse following out of Diuision and the name of locall motion formally signifyeth onely the mutation of a respect to other extrinsecall bodies subsequent to that diuision And this is so euident and agreeable to the notions that all mankinde who as we haue said is iudge and master of language naturally frameth of place as I wonder much why any will labour to giue other artificiall and intricate doctrine of this that in it selfe is so plaine and cleare What neede is there to introduce an imaginary space or with Ioannes Grammaticus a subsistent quantity that must runne through all the world and then entayle to euery body an ayery entity an vnconceiuable moode an vnintelligible Vbi that by an intrinsecall relation to such a part of the imaginary space must thereunto pinne and fasten the body it is in It must needes be a ruinous Philosophy that is grounded vpon such a contradiction as is the allotting of partes vnto that which the authors themselues vpon the matter acknowledge to be meerely nothing and vpon so weake a shift to deliuer them from the inconueniencies that in theire course of doctrine other circumstances bring them vnto as is the voluntary creating of new imaginary Entities in thinges without any ground in nature for them Learned men should expresse the aduantage and subtility of theire wittes by penetrating further into nature then the vulgar not by vexing and wresting it from its owne course They should refine and carry higher not contradict and destroy the notions of mankind in those thinges that it is the competent Iudge of as it vndoubtedly is of those primary notions which Aristotle hath ranked vnder ten heades which as we haue touched before euery body can conceiue in grosse and the worke of schollers is to explicate them in particular and not to make the vulgar beleeue they are mistaken in framing those apprehensions that nature taught them Out of that which hath been hitherto resolued it is manifest that place really and abstracting from the operation of the vnderstanding is nothing else but the inward superficies of a body that compasseth and immediately containeth an other Which ordinarily being of a rare body that doth not shew it selfe vnto vs namely the ayre is for the most part vnknowne by vs. But because nothing can make impression vpon our mind and cause vs to giue it a name otherwise then by being knowne therefore our vnderstanding to make a compleate notion must adde something else to this fleeting and vnremarkable superficies that may bring it vnto our acquaintance And for this end we may
directed and impelled by extrinsecall AgeÌ„ts lett vs suppose that a body were placed att liberty in the opeÌ„ ayre And then casting whether it would be mooued from the place we suppose it in and which way it would be mooued we shall find that it must of necessity happen that it shall descend and fall downe till it meete with some other grosse body to stay and support it For although of it selfe it would mooue no way yet if we find that any other body striketh efficaciously enough vpon it we can not doubt but that it will mooue that way which the striking body impelleth it Now it is strucken vpon on both sides aboue and below by the ascending and the descending atomes the rare ones striking vpon the bottome of it and driuing it vpwardes and the denser ones pressing vpon the toppe of it and bearing it downewardes But if you compare the impressions that the denser atomes make with those that proceede from the rare ones it is euident that the dense ones must be the more powerfull and therefore will assuredly determine the motion of the body in the ayre that way they goe which is downewardes Nor neede we feare least the litlenesse of the agents or the feeblenesse of their stroakes should not be sufficient to worke this effect since there is no resistance in the body it selfe and the ayre is continually cutt in pieces by the sunne beames and by the motions of litle bodies so that the adhesion vnto ayre of the body to be mooued will be no hinderance to this motion especially considering the perpetuall new percussions and the multitude of them and how no force is so litle but that with time and multiplication it will ouercome any resistance But if any man desireth to looke vpon as it were att one view the whole chaine of this doctrine of grauity lett him turne the first cast of his eyes vpon what we haue said of fire when we explicated the nature of it To witt that it beginneth from a litle source and by extreme multiplication and rarefaction it extendeth it selfe into a great sphere And then he will perceiue the reason why light is darted from the body of the sunne with that incredible celerity wherewith its beames flye to visite the remotest partes of the world and how of necessity it giueth motion to all circumstant bodies since it is violently thrust forward by so extreme a rarefaction and the further it goeth is still the more rarifyed and dilated Next lett him reflect how infinitely the quickenesse of lights motion doth preuent the motion of a moist body such an one as ayre is and then he will plainely see that the first motion which light is able to giue vnto the ayre must needes be a swelling of that moist element perpendicularly round about the earth for the ray descendent and the ray reflectent flying with so great a speede that the ayre betweene them can not take a formall plye any way before the beames of light be on both sides of it it followeth that according to the nature of humide thinges it must first onely swell for that is the beginning of motion in them when heate entereth into them and worketh vpon them And thus he may confidently resolue himselfe that the first motion which light causeth in the ayre will be a swelling of it betweene the two rayes towardes the middle of them That is perpendicularly from the surface of the earth And out of this he will likewise plainely see that if there be any other litle dense bodies floating in the ayre they must likewise mount a litle through this swelling and rising of the ayre But that mounting will be no more then the immediate partes of the ayre themselues do moue Because this motion is not by way of impulse or stroake that the ayre giueth those denser bodies but by way of containing them in it and carrying them with it â—o that it giueth them no more celerity then to make them go with it selfe and as partes of it selfe Then lett him consider that light or fire by much beating vpon the earth diuideth some litle partes of it from others whereof if any do become so small and tractable as not to exceede the strength which the rayes haue to manage them the returning rayes will att their going backe carry away with them or driue before them such litle atomes as they haue made or meete with and so fill the ayre with litle bodies cutt out of the earth After this lett him consider that when light carrieth vp an atome with it the light and the atome do sticke together and do make one ascending body in such sort as when an empty dish lyeth vpon the water the ayre in the dish maketh one descendent body together with the dish it selfe so that the density of the whole body of ayre and dish which in this case are but as one body is to be esteemed according to the density of the two partes one of them being allayed by the other as if the whole were throughout of such a proportion of density as would arise out of the composition and kneading together the seuerall densities of those two partes Now then when these litle compounded bodies of light and earth are carried vp to a determinate height the partes of fire or light do by litle and litle breake away from them and thereby the bulke of the part which is left becometh of a different degree of density quantity for quantity from the bulke of the entire atome when light was part of it and consequently it is denser then it was Besides lett him consider that when these bodies ascend they do goe from a narrow roome to a large one that is from the centerwardes to the circumference but when they come downe againe they goe from a larger part to a narrower Whence it followeth that as they descend they draw closer and closer together and by consequence are subiect to meete and to fall in one with an other and thereby to encrease their bulke and to become more powerfull in density not onely by the losse of their fire but also by the encrease of their quantity And so it is euident that they are denser coming downe then going vp Lastly lett him consider that those atomes which went vp first and are parted from their volatile companions of fire or light must begin to come downe apace when other new atomes which still haue their light incorporated with them do ascend to where they are and do goe beyond them by reason of their greater leuity And as the latter atomes come vp with a violence and a great celerity so must the first goe downe with a smart impulse and by consequence being more dense then the ayre in which they are carryed must of necessity cutt their way through that liquide and rare medium and goe the next way to supply the defect and roome of the atomes which ascend that is perpendicularly to the earth
other can be imagined vnlesse it were variety of figure But that can not be admitted to belong in any constant manner to those least particles where of bodies are framed as though determinate figures were in euery degree of quantity due to the natures of Elements and therefore the Elements would conserue themselues in those figures as well in their least atomes as in massye bulke for seeing how these litle partes are shuffled together without any order and that all liquids easily ioyne and take the figures which the dense ones giue them and that they againe iustling one an other do crush themselues into new shapes which their mixture with the liquide ones maketh them yield the more easily vnto it is impossible that the Elements should haue any other naturall figure in these their least partes then such as chance giueth them But that one part must be bigger then an other is euident for the nature of rarity and density giueth it the first of them causing diuisibility into litle partes and the latter hindering it Hauing then settled in what manner the Elements may be varied in the composition of bodies lett vs now beginne our mixture In which our ground to worke vpon must be earth and water for onely these two are the basis of permanent bodies that suffer our senses to take hold of them and that submitt themselues to tryall whereas if we should make the predominant Element to be ayre or fire and bring in the other two solide ones vnder their iurisdiction to make vp the mixture the compound resulting out of them would be eyther in continuall consumption as ordinary fire is or else imperceptible to our eyes or touch and therefore not a fitt subiect for vs to discourse of since the other two afford vs enough to speculate vpon Peraduenture our smell migh take some cognisance of a body so composed or the effect of it taken in by respiration might in time shew it selfe vpon our health but it concerneth not vs now to look so farre our designe requireth more maniable substances Of which lett water be the first and with it we will mingle the other three Elements in excesse ouer one an other by turnes but still all of them ouerswayed by a predominant quantity of water and then lett vs see what kind of bodies will result out of such proportions First if earth preuayle aboue fire and ayre and arriue next in proportion to the water a body of such a composition must needes prooue hardly liquide and not easy to lett its partes runne a sunder by reason of the great proportion of so dense a body as earth that holdeth it together Yet some inclination it will haue to fluidnesse by reason the water is predominant ouer all which also will make it be easily diuisible and giue very litle resistance to any hard thing that shall be applyed to make way through it In a word this mixture maketh the constitution of mudde durt honey butter and such like thinges where the maine partes are great ones And such are the partes of earth and water in themselues Lett the next proportion of excesse in a watry compound be of ayre which when it preuayleth it incorporateth it selfe chiefely with Earth for the other Elements would not so well retaine it Now because its partes are subtile by reason of the rarity it hath and sticking because of its humidity it driueth the Earth and water likewise into lesser partes The result of such a mixture is that the partes of a boby compounded by it are close catching flowing slowly glibbe and generally it will burne and be easily conuerted into flame Of this kind are those which we call oyly or vnctuous bodies whose great partes are easily separated that is they are easily diuisible in bulke but the small ones very hardly Next the smallnesse and well working of the partes by meanes of the ayres penetrating euery dense one and sticking close to euery one of them and consequently ioyning them without any vneuennesse causeth that there can be no ruggednesse in it and therefore it is glibbe in like manner as we see plaster or starch become smooth when they are well wrought Then the humidity of it causeth it to be catcking and the shortenesse of euery part maketh that where it sticketh it is not easily parted thence Now the rarity of ayre next vnto fire admitteth it to be of all the other Elements most easily brought to the height of fire by the operation of fire vpon it And therefore oyles are the proper foode of that Element And accordingly we see that if a droppe of oyle be spilled vpon a sheete of paper and the paper be sett on fire att a corner as the fire cometh neere the oyle the oyle will disperse and spread it selfe vpon the paper to a broader compasse then it had which is because the heat rarifyeth it and so in oyle it selfe the fire rarifying the ayre maketh it penetrate the earthy partes adioyned vnto it more then it did and so subtiliseth them till they be reduced to such a height as they are within the power of fire to communicate his owne nature vnto them and thus he turneth them into fire and carrieth them vp in his flame But if fire be predominant ouer earth and ayre in a watry compound it maketh the body so proportioned to be subtile rare penetratiue hoat in operation light in weight and subiect to burne Of this kind are all sortes of wines and distilled spirits commonly called strong waters or Aquauites in latine Aquae ardentes These will loose their vertues meerely by remaining vncouered in the ayre for fire doth not incorporate strongly with water but if it find meanes rayseth it selfe into the ayre as we see in the smoake of boyling water which is nothing else but litle bodies of fire that entring into the water do rarify some partes of it but haue no inclination to stay there and therefore as fast as they can gett out they fly away but the humide partes of the water which they haue rarifyed being of a sticking nature do ioyne themselues vnto them and ascend in the ayre as high as the fiery atomes haue strength to carry them which when it faileth them that smoake falleth downe in a dew and so becometh water againe as it was All which one may easily discerne in a glasse vessell of water sett ouer the fire in which one may obserue the fire come in att the bottome and presently swimme vp to the toppe like a litle bubble and immediately rise from thence in smoake and that will att last conuert it selfe into droppes and settle vpon some solide substance thereabouts Of these fyry spirits some are so subtile as of themselues they will vanish and leaue no residue of a body behind them and Alchymistes profâ—sse to make them so etheriall and volatile that being poured out of a glasse from some reasonable height they shall neuer reach the ground but
the distance of working vpon vs those only within whose sphere of actiuity we are planted can offend or aduantage vs and of them some are neere vs others further from vs. Those that are next vnto vs we discerne according as they are qualifyed eyther by our touch or by our tast or by our smelling which three senses do manifestly appeare to consist in a meere gradation of more or lesse grosse and their operations are leuelled to the three Elements that presse vpon vs earth water and ayre By our other two senses our hearing and our seeing we haue notice of thinges further off and the agents which worke vpon them are of a more refined nature But we must treat of them all in particular and that which we will beginne with shall be the touch as being the grossest of them and that which conuerseth with none but the most materiall and massye obiects We see it dealeth with heauy consistent bodies and iudgeth of them by coniunction vnto them and by immediate reception of something from them And according to the diuers impressions they make in it it distinguisheth them by diuers names which as we said of the qualities of mixed bodies are generally reduced to certaine payres as hoat and cold wett and drye soft and hard smooth and rough thicke and thinne and some others of the like nature which were needelesse to enumerate since we pretend not to deliuer the science of them but only to shew that they and their actions are all corporeall And this is sufficiently euident by meere repeating but their very names for it is plaine by what we haue already said that they are nothing else but certaine affections of quantity arising out of different degrees of rarity and density compounded together And it is manifest by experience that our sense receiueth the very same impressions from them which an other body doth for our body or our sense will be heated by fire and will also be burned by it if the heate be too great as well as wood it will be constipated by cold water moystened by humide thinges and dryed by dry bodies in the same manner as any other body whatsoeuer likewise it may in such sort as they be wounded and haue its continuity broken by hard thinges be pleased and polished by those that are soft and smooth be pressed by those that are thicke and heauy and be rubbed by those that are rugged c. So that those masters who will teach vs that the impressions vpon sense are made by spirituall or spiritelike thinges or qualities which they call intentionall specieses must labour att two workes the one to make it appeare that there are in nature such thinges as they would persuade vs the other to proue that these materiall actions we speake of are not able to performe those effects for which the senses are giuen vnto liuing creatures And vntill they haue done that I conceiue we should be much too blame to admitt such thinges as we neyther haue ground for in reason nor can vnderstand what they are And therefore we must resolue to rest in this beliefe which experience breedeth in vs that these bodies worke vpon our senses no other wayes then by a corporeall operation and that such a one is sufficient for all the effects we see proceede from them as in the processe of this discourse we shall more amply declare The element immediately next to earth in grossenesse is water And in it is the exercise of our tast our mouth being perpetually wett within by meanes of which moysture our tongue receiueth into it some litle partes of the substance which we chewe in our teeth and which passeth ouer it You may obserue how if we take any herbe or fruite and hauing chopped or beatē it small we thē putt it into a wooden dish of water and do squeese it a litle the iuice communicating and mingling it selfe with the water infecteth it with the tast of it selfe and remaining a while in the bowle sinketh by litle and litle into the very pores of the wood as is manifest by its retaining a long time after the tast and smell of that herbe In like manner nature hath taught vs by chewing our meate and by turning it into our mouthes and pressing it a litle that we may the more easily swallow it to imbue our spittle with such litle partes as easily diffuse themselues in water And then our spittle being continuate to the moysture which is within our tongue in such sort as we declared of the moysture of the earth that soaketh into the roote of a plant and particularly in the sinewes of it must of necessity affect those litle sensible stringes with the qualities which these petty bodies mixed euery where with the moysture are themselues imbued withall And if you aske what motions or qualities these be Physitians vnto whom it belongeth most particularly to looke into them will tell you that some dilate the tongue more and some lesse as if some of these litle bodies had an aereall and others a watry disposition and these two they expresse by the names of sweete and fatty That some do contract and draw the tongue together as choaky and rough thinges do most and next to them crabby and immature sharpenesse That some do corrode and pierce the tongue as salt and soure thinges That bitter thinges do search the outside of it as if they swept it and that other thinges do as it were pricke it as spices and hoat drinkes Now all these are sensible materiall thinges which admitt to be explicated clearely by the varieties of rarity and density concurring to their compositions and are so proportionable to such materiall instruments as we can not doubt but that they may be throughly declared by our former principles The next element aboue water is ayre which our nosethrilles being our instrument to sucke in we can not doubt but what affecteth a man by his nose must come vnto him in breath or ayre And as humidity receiueth grosser and weightier partes so those which are more subtile and light do rise vp into the ayre and these we know attaine vnto this lightnesse by the commixtion of fire which is hoat and dry And therefore we can not doubt but that the nature of smell is more or lesse tending to heate and drought which is the cause that their commixtion with the braine proueth comfortable vnto it because of its owne disposition it is vsually subiect to be too moyst and too cold Whether there be any immediate instrument of this sense to receiue the passion or effect which by it other bodies make vpon vs or whether the sense it selfe be nothing but a passage of these exhalations and litle bodies vnto the braine fittly accommodated to discerne what is good or hurtfull for it and accordingly to moue the body to admitt or reiect them importeth not vs att present to determine lett Physitians and Anatomistes resolue that question
consider further that as this superficies hath in it selfe so the body enclosed in it gaineth a certaine determinate respect unto the stable and immoouable bodies that enuiron it As for example we vnderstand such a tree to be in such a place by hauing such and such respects to such a hill neere it or to such a house that standeth by it or to such a riuer that runneth vnder it or to such an immoouable point of the heauen that from the sunnes rising in the aequinox is called east and such like To which purpose it importeth not whether these that we call immoouable bodies and pointes be truly so or do but seeme so to mankinde For man talking of thinges according to the notions he frameth of them in his minde speech being nothing else but an expression to an other man of the images he hath within himselfe and his notions being made according to the seeming of the thinges he must needes make the same notions whether the thinges be truly so in themselues or but seeme to be so when that seeming or appearance is alwayes constantly the same Now then when one body diuiding an other getteth a new immediate cloathing and consequently new respects to the stable and immoouable bodies or seeming such that enuiron it we do vary in our selues the notion we first had of that thing conceiuing it now accompanied with other circumstances and other respects then formerly it had Which notion we expresse by saying it hath changed its place and is now no longer where it was att the first And this change of place we call Locall motion to witt the departing of a body from that hollow superficies which inclosed it and its changing vnto an other whereby it gaineth new respects to those partes of the world that haue or in some sort may seeme to haue immobility and fixed stablenesse So as hence it is euident that the substance of locall motion consisteth in diuision and that the alteration of Locality followeth diuision in such sort as becoming like or vnlike of one wall to an other followeth the action whereby one of them becometh white And therefore in nature we are not to seeke for any entity or speciall cause of applying the mooued body to a place as place which is but a respect consequent to the effect of diuision but onely to consider what reall and physicall action vniteth it to that other body which is called its place and truly serueth for that effect And consequently they who thinke they haue discouered a notable subtility by bringing in an Entity to vnite a body to its place haue strained beyond theire strength and haue grasped but a shadow Which will appeare yet more euident if they but marke well how nothing is diuisible but what of it selfe abstracting from diuision is one For the nature of diuision is the making of many which implyeth that what is to be diuided must of necessity be not many before it be diuided Now quantity being the subiect of diuision it is euident that purely of it selfe and without any force or adioyned helpes it must needes be one wheresoeuer some outward agent doth not introduce multiplicity vpon it And whensoeuer other thinges worke vpon quantity as quantity it is not the nature and power of theire operation to produce vnity in it and make it one for it is already one but contrariwise the immediate necessary effect that floweth from them in this case is to make one quantity many according to the circumstances that accompany the diuider and that which is to be diuided And therefore although wee may seeke causes why some one thing sticketh faster together then some other yet to aske absolutely why a body sticketh together were preiudiciall to the nature of quantity whose essence is to haue partes sticking together or rather to haue such vnity as without it all diuisibility must be excluded Out of which discourse it followeth that in locall motion we are to looke only for a cause or power to diuide but not for any to vnite For the very nature of quantity vniteth any two partes that are indistant from one an other without needing any other cement to glew them together as we see the partes of water and all liquide substances do presently vnite themselues to other partes of like bodies when they meete with them and to solide bodies if they chance to be next vnto them And therefore it is vaine to trouble our heades with Vnions and imaginary Moodes to vnite a body to the place it is in when theire owne nature maketh them one as soone as they are immediate to each other And accordingly if when we see a boule mooue we would examine the causes of that motion we must consider the quantity of ayre or water it maketh to breake from the partes next vnto it to giue place vnto it selfe and not speculate vpon an intrinsecall relation from the body to a certaine part of the imaginary space they will haue to runne through all thinges And by ballancing that quantity of ayre or water which it diuideth we may arriue to make an estimate of what force the boule needeth to haue for its motion Thus hauing declared that the locality of motion is but an extrinsecall denomination and no reality in the thing mooued wee may now cast an eye vpon a vast consequence that may be deduced out of what wee haue hitherto said For if we consider the nature of a body that is that a body is a body by quantity and that the formall notion of quantity is nothing else but diuisibility and that the adaequate act of diuisibility is diuision it is euident there can be no other operation vpon quantity nor by consequence among bodies but must eyther be such diuision as we haue here explicated or what must necessarily follow out of such diuision And diuision as we haue euen now explicated being locall motion it is euident that all operations among bodies are either locall motion or such as follow out of locall motion Which conclusion howsoeuer vnexpected and may att the first hearing appeare a Paradoxe will neuerthelesse by the ensuing worke receiue such euidence as it can not be doubted of and that not onely by force of argumentation and by necessity of notions as is already deduced but also by experience and by declaration of particulars as they shall occurre But now to apply what we haue said to our proposed subiect it is obuious to euery man that seeing the diuider is the agent in diuision and in locall motion and that dense bodies are by theire nature diuiders the earth must in that regard be the most actiue among the Elements since it is the most dense of them all But this seemeth to be against the common iudgement of all the searchers of nature who vnanimously agree that fire is the most actiue Element As also it seemeth to impugne what we our selues haue determined when we said there were two
cleared the third obiection as I conceiue lett vs goe on to the fourth which requireth that we satisfy their inquisition who aske what becometh of that vast body of shining light if it be a body that filleth all the distance betweene heauen and earth and vanisheth in a moment as soone as a cloude or the moone interpâ—seth it selfe betweene the sunne and vs or that the sunne quitteth our hemisphere No signe att all remaineth of it after the extinction of it as doth of all other substances whose destruction is the birth of some new thing Whither then is it flowne We may be persuaded that a mist is a corporeall substance because it turneth to droppes of water vpon the twigges that it enuironeth and so we might beleeue light to be fire if after the burning of it out we found any ashes remaining but experience assureth vs that after it is extinguished it leaueth not the least vestigium behind it of hauing beene there Now before we answere this obiection we will entreate our aduersary to call to minde how we haue in our solution of the former declared and proued that the light which for example shineth from à candle is no more then the flame is from whence it springeth the one being condensed and the other dilated and that the flame is in a perpetuall fluxe of consumption about the circumference and of restauration att the center where it sucketh in the fewell and then we will enquire of him what becometh of that body of flame which so continually dyeth and is renewed and leaueth no remainder behind it as well as he doth of vs what becometh of our body of light which in like manner is alwayes dying and alwayes springing fresh And when he hath well considered it he will find that one answere will serue for both Which is that as the fire streameth out from the fountaine of it and groweth more subtile by its dilatation it sinketh the more easily into those bodies it meeteth withall the first of which and that enuironeth it round about is ayre With ayre then it mingleth and incorporateth it selfe and by consequence with the other litle bodies that are mingled with the ayre and in them it receiueth the changes which nature worketh by which it may be turned into the other Elements if there be occasion or be still conserued in bodies that require heate Vpon this occasion I remember a rare experiment that a noble man of much sincerity and a singular frind of mine told me he had seene which was that by meanes of glasses made in a very particular manner and artificially placed one by an other he had seene the sunne beames gathered together and precipitated downe into a brownish or purplish red pouder There could be no fallacy in this operation for nothing whatsoeuer was in the glasses when they were placed and disposed for this intent and it must be in the hoat time of the yeare else the effect would not follow And of this Magistery he could gather some dayes neere two ounces in a day And it was of a strange volatile nature and would pierce and imprint his spirituall quality into gold it selfe the heauiest and most fixed body we conuerse withall in a very short time If this be plainely so without any mistaking then mens eyes and handes may tell them what becometh of light when it dyeth if a great deale of it were swept together But from what cause soeuer this experience had its effect our reason may be satisfyed with what we haue said aboue for I confesse for my part I beleeue the appearing body might be some thing that came along with the sunne beames and was gathered by them but not their pure substance Some peraduenture will obiect those lampes which both auncient and moderne writers haue reported to haue been found in tombes and vrnes long time before closed vp from mens repayre vnto them to supply them with new fewell and therefore they beleeue such fires to feede vpon nothing and consequently to be inconsumptible and perpetuall Which if they be then our doctrine that will haue light to be nothing but the body of fire perpetually flowing from its center and perpetually dying can not be sound for in time such fires would necessarily spend themselues in light although light be so subtile a substance that an exceeding litle quantity of fewell may be dilated into a vast quantity of light Yet still there would be some consumption which how imperceptible soeuer in a short time yet after a multitude of reuolutions of yeares it must needes discouer it selfe To this I answere that for the most part the wittnesses who testify originally the stories of these lights are such as a rationall man can not expect from them that exactnesse or nicety of obseruation which is requisite for our purpose for they are vsually grosse labouring people who as they digge the ground for other intentions do stumble vpon these lampes by chance before they are aware and for the most part they breake them in the finding and they imagine they see a glimpse of light which vanisheth before they can in a manner take notice of it and is peraduanture but the glistering of the broken glasse or glased pott which reflecteth the outward light as soone as by rummaging in the ground and discouering the glasse the light striketh vpon it in such manner as some times a diamond by a certaine encountring of light in a dusky place may in the first twincling of the motion seeme to sparkle like fire and afterwardes when they shew their broken lampe and tell their tale to some man of a pitch of witt aboue them who is curious to informe himselfe of all the circumstances that may concerne such lights they straine their memory to answere him satisfactorily vnto all his demandes and thus for his sake they persuade themselues to remember what they neuer saw And he againe on his side is willing to helpe out the story a litle And so after awhile a very formall and particular relation is made of it As happeneth in like sort in reporting of all strange and vnusuall thinges which euen those that in their nature abhorre from lying are naturally apt to straine a litle and fashion vp in a handsome mould and almost to persuade themselues they saw more then they did so innate it is vnto euery man to desire the hauing of some preeminence beyond his neighbours be it but in pretending to haue seene some thing which they haue not Therefore before I engage my selfe in giuing any particular answere to this obiection of pretended inconsumptible lights I would gladly see the effect certainely auerred and vndoubtedly proued for the testimonies which Fortunius Licetus produceth who hath been very diligent in gathering them and very subtile in discoursing vpon them and is the exactest author that hath written vpon this subiect do not seeme vnto mee to make that certainty which is required for the establishing of a
light which two termes passe through all the bodies we haue notice of Therefore proceeding vpon our groundes before layed to witt that no body can be mooued of it selfe wee may determine those motions to be naturall vnto bodies which haue constant causes or percutients to make them alwayse in such bodies and those violent which are contrary to such naturall motions Which being supposed we must search out the causes that so constantly make some bodies descend towardes the center or middle of the earth and others to rise and goe from the center by which the world is subiect to those restlesse motions that keepe all thinges in perpetuall fluxe in this changeing sphere of action and passion Lett vs then begin with considering what effects the sunne which is a constant and perpetuall cause worketh vpon inferior bodies by his being regularly sometimes present and sometimes absent Obserue in a pott of water hanging ouer a fire how the heate maketh some partes of the water to ascend and others to supply the roome by descending so that as long as it boyleth it is in a perpetuall confused motion vp and downe Now hauing formely cōcluded that fire is light and light is fire it can not be doubted but that the sunne doth serue instead of fire to our globe of earth and water which may be fittly compared to the boyling pott and all the day long draweth vapors from those bodies that his beames strike vpon For he shooting his little darts of fire in multitudes and in continued streames from his owne center against the Python the earth we liue on they do there ouertake one an other and cause some degree of heate as farre as they sinke in But not being able by reason of their great expansion in their long iorney to conuert it into their owne nature and sett it on fire which requireth a high degree of condensation of the beames they do but pierce and diuide it very subtilely and cutt some of the outward partes of it into extreme litle atomes Vnto which they sticking very close and being in a manner incorporated with them by reason of the moisture that is in thē they do in their rebound backe from the earth carry them along with them like a ball that struck against a moist wall doth in its returne from it bring backe some of the mortar sticking vpon it For the distance of the earth from the sunne is not the vtmost periode of these nimble bodies flight so that when by this solide body they are stopped in their course forwardes on they leape backe from it and carry some litle partes of it with them some of them a farther some of them a shorter iorney according as their litlenesse and rarity make them fitt to ascend As is manifest by the consent of all authors that write of the regions of the ayre who determine the lower region to reach as farre as the reflexion of the sunne and conclude this region to be very hoat For if we marke how the heate of fire is greatest when it is incorporated in some dense body as in iron or in seacoale we shall easily conceiue that the heate of this region proceedeth mainely out of the incorporation of light with those litle bodies which sticke to it in its reflexion And experience testifyeth the same both in our sultry dayes which we see are of a grosse temper and ordinarily goe before raine as also in the hoat springes of extreme cold countries where the first heates are vnsufferable which proceede out of the resolution of humidity congealed and in hoat windes which the Spaniards call Bochornos from Boca de horno by allusion to the breathing steame of an ouen when it is opened which do manifestly shew that the heate of the sunne is incorporated in the litle bodies which compose the steame of that wind And by the principles we haue already layed the same would be euident though we had no experience to instruct vs for seeing that the body of fire is dry the wett partes which are easilyest resolued by fire must needes sticke vnto them and accompany them in their returne from the earth Now whiles these ascend the ayre must needes cause others that are of a grosser complexion to descend as fast to make roome for the former and to fill the places they left that there may be no vacuity in nature And to find what partes they are and from whence they come that succeede in the roome of light and atomes glewed together that thus ascend we may take a hinte from the maxime of the Optikes that light reflecting maketh equall angles whence supposing the superficies of the earth to be circular it will follow that a perpendicular to the center passeth iust in the middle betweene the two rayes the incident and the reflected Wherefore the ayre betweene these two rayes and such dodies as are in it being equally pressed on both sides those bodies which are iust in the middle are neerest and likelyest to succeede immediately in the roome of the light and atomes which ascend from the superficies of the earth and their motion to that point is vpon the perpendicular Hence it is euident that the ayre and all such bodies as descend to supply the place of light and atomes which ascend from the earth do descend perpendicularly towardes the center of the earth And againe such bodies as by the force of light being cutt from the earth or water do not ascend in forme of light but do incorporate a hidden light and heate within them and thereby are rarer then these descending bodies must of necessity be lifted vp by the descent of those denser bodies that goe downewardes because they by reason of their density are mooued with a greater force And this lifting vp must be in a perpendicular line because the others descending on all sides perpendicularly must needes raise those that are betweene them equally from all sides that is perpendicularly from the center of the earth And thus we see a motion sett on foote of some bodies continually descending and others continually ascending all in perpendicular lines excepting those which follow the course of lights reflexion Againe as soone as the declining sunne groweth weaker or leaueth our horizon and that his beames vanishing do leaue the litle horsemen which rode vpon them to their owne temper and nature from whence they forced them they finding themselues surrounded by a smart descending streame do tumble downe againe in the night as fast as in the day they were carryed vp and crowding into their former habitations they exclude those that they find had vsurped them in their absence And thus all bodies within reach of the sunnes power but especially our ayre are in perpetuall motion the more rarifyed ones ascending and the dense ones descending Now thē because no bodies wheresoeuer they be as we haue already shewed haue any inclination to moue towardes a particular place otherwise thē as they are
such a body as we haue described it to be where we treated of the nature of it it is euident that the effect which we haue expressed must necessarily follow by way of reflexion and that refraction is nothing else but a certaine kind of reflexion Which last assertion is likewise conuinced out of this that the same effects proceede from reflexion as from refraction for by reflexion a thing may be seene greater then it is in a different place from the true one where it is colours may be made by reflexion as also gloating light and fire likewise and peraduenture all other effects which are caused by refraction may as well as these be performed by reflexion And therefore it is euident they must be of the same nature seing that children are the resemblances of their parents THE FOVRETEENTH CHAPTER Of the composition qualities and generation of Mixed bodies HAuing now declared the vertues by which fire and earth worke vpon one an other and vpon the rest of the elements which is by light and by the motions we haue discoursed of Our taske shall be in this chapter first to obserue what will result out of such action of theirs and next to search into the wayes and manner of compassing and performing it Which latter we shall the more easily attaine vnto when we first know the end that their operation leuelleth att In this pursute we shall find that the effect of the Elements combinations by meanes of the motions that happen among them is a long pedigree of compounded qualities and bodies wherein the first combinations like marriages are the breeders of the next more composed substances and they againe are the parents of others in greater variety and so are multiplyed without end for the further this worke proceedeth the more subiects it maketh for new businesse of the like kind To descend in particular vnto all these is impossible And to looke further then the generall heades of them were superfluous and troublesome in this discourse wherein I ayme onely att shewing what sorts of thinges in common may de done by bodies that if hereafter we meete with thinges of an other nature and straine we may be sure they are not the ofspring of bodies and of quantity which is the maine scope of what I haue designed here And to do this with confidence and certainety requireth of necessity this leisurely and orderly proceeding that hitherto we haue vsed and shall continue to the end for walking thus softly we haue alwayes one foote vpon the ground so as the other may be sure of firme footing before it settle Whereas they that for more hast will leape ouer rugged passages and broken ground when both their feete are in the ayre can not helpe themselues but must light as chance throweth them To this purpose then we may consider that the qualities of bodies in common are of three sortes for they are belonging either to the constitution of a compounded body or else to the operation of it and the operation of a body is of two kindes the one vpon other bodies the other vpon sense The last of these three sortes of qualities shall be handled in a peculiar chapter by themselues Those of the second sort whereby they worke vpon other bodies haue beene partly declared in the former chapters and will be further discoursed of in the rest of this first treatise so as that which remaineth for the present is to fall vpon the discourse of such qualities as concurre to the constitution of bodies with an ayme to discouer whether or no they may be effected by the seuerall mixtures of rarity and density in such sort as is already declared To which end we are to consider in what manner these two primary differences of bodies may be ioyned together and what effects such coniunction will produce As for their coniunction to deliuer the nature of it entirely we must begin from the very roote of it and consider how the Vniuerse being finite which Mr. White hath demonstrated in the second knott of his first Dialogue there can not be an infinite number of bodies in it for Geometricians shew vs how the least quantity that is may be repeated so often as would exceede any the greatest determinate quantity whatsoeuer Out of which it followeth that although all the other bodies of the world were no bigger then the least quantity that can be designed yet they being infinite in number would be greater then the whole Vniuerse that containeth them And therefore of necessity there must be some least body or rather some least cise of bodies which in compounded bodies is not to be expected for their least partes being compounded must needes include compounding partes lesse then themselues We must then looke for this least cise of bodies in the Elements which of all bodies are the simplest And among them we must pitch vpon that wherein is greatest diuisibility and which consequently is diuided into least partes that is fire so as we may conclude that among all the bodies in the world that which of its owne nature hath an aptitude to be least must be fire Now the least body of fire be it neuer so litle is yet diuisible into lesse What is it then that maketh it be one To determine this we must resort vnto the nature of Quantity whose formall notion and essence is To be diuisible which signifyeth that many may be made of it but thar of which many may be made is not yet many out of this very reason that many may be made of it But what is not many is one Therefore what hath quantity is by meere hauing quantity actually and formally as well one as it hath the possibility of being made many And consequently the least body of fire by hauing quantity hath those partes which might be many actually one And this is the first coniunction of partes that is to be considered in the composition of bodies which though it be not an actuall ioyning of actuall partes yet it is a formall coniunction of what may be many In the next place we may consider how seeing the least bodies that are be of fire it must needes follow that the least partes of the other Elements must be bigger then they And consequently the possible partes of those least partes of the other Elements must haue something to conserue them together more then is found in fire And this because Elements are purely distinguished by rarity and density is straight concluded to be density And thus we haue found that as quantity is the cause of the possible partes being one so density is the cause of the like partes sticking together which appeareth in the very definition of it for to be lesse diuisible which is the notion of density speaketh a resistance to diuision or a sticking together Now lett vs examine how two partes of different Elements are ioyned together to make a compound In this coniunction we
thriddes of iett or amber do in their streaming abroad meete with a piece of straw or of hay or of a dryed leafe or some such light and spungy body it is no maruayle if they glew themselues vnto it like birdlime and that in their shrinking backe by being condensed againe and repulsed through the coldnesse of the ayre they carry it along with them to their entire body Which they that onely see the effect and can not penetrate into a possibility of a naturall cause thereof are much troubled withall And this seemeth vnto me to beare a fairer semblance of truth then what Cabeus deliuereth for cause of Electricall attractions Whose speculation herein though I can not allow for solide yet I must for ingenious And certainely euen errors are to be commended when they are witty ones and do proceed from a casting further about then the beaten tracke of verball learning or rather termes which explicate not the nature of the thing in question He sayth that the coming of strawes and such other light bodies vnto amber iett and the like proceedeth from a wind raysed by the forcible breaking out of subtile emanations from the Electricall bodies into the ayre which bringeth those light bodies along with it to the Electricall ones But this discourse can not hold for first it is not the nature of vnctuous emanations Generally speaking to cause smart motions singly of themselues Secondly although they should rayse a wind I do not comprehend how this wind should driue bodies directly backe to the source that raysed it but rather any other way and so consequently should driue the light bodies it meeteth with in its way rather from then towardes the Electricall body Thirdly if there should be such a wind raysed and it should bring light bodies to the Electricall ones yet it could not make them sticke therevnto which we see they do turne them which way you will as though they were glewed together Neyther do his experiences conuince any thing for what he sayth that the light bodies are sometimes brought to the Electricall body with such a violence that they rebound backe from it and then returne againe to it maketh rather against him for if wind were the cause of their motion they would not returne againe after they had leaped backe from the Electricall body no more then we can imagine that the wind it selfe doth The like is of his other experience when he obserued that some little graines of sawdust hanging att an Electricall body the furthermost of them not onely fell of but seemed to be driuen away forcibly for they did not fall directly downe but sidewayes and besides did fly away with a violence and smartnesse that argued some strong impulse The reason whereof might be that new emanations might smite them which not sticking and fastening vpon them whereby to draw them neerer must needes push them further or it might be that the emanations vnto which they were glewed shrinking backe vnto their maine body the latter graines were shouldered of by others that already besieged the superficies and then the emanations retiring swiftly the graines must breake of with a force or else we may conceiue it was the force of the ayre that bore them vp a little which made an appearance of their being driuen away as we see feathers and other light thinges descend not straight downe THE TWENTIETH CHAPTER Of the Loadstones generation and its particular motions THere is yet remaining the great mystery of the Loadstone to discourse of Which all Authors both auntient and moderne haue agreed vpon as an vndenyable example and euidence of the shortenesse of mans reach in comprehending and of the impossibility of his reason in penetrating into and explicating such secrets as nature hath a mind to hide from vs. Wherefore our reader I am sure will not in this subiect expect cleare satisfaction or plaine demonstrations att our handes but will iugde we haue fairely acquitted our selues if what we say be any whitt plausible Therefore to vse our best endeauours to content him lett vs reflect vpon the disposition of partes of this habitable globe whereof we are tenants for liues And we shall find that the sunne by his constant course vnder the zodiake heateth a great part of it vnmeasurably more then he doth the rest And consequently that this zodiake being in the middest betweene two as it were endes which we call the Poles these poles must necessarily be extremely cold in respect of the torride zone for so we call that part of the earth which lyeth vnder the zodiake Now looking into the consequence of this we find that the sunne or the sunnes heate which reflecteth from the earth in the torride zone must rarify the ayre extremely and according to the nature of all heate and fire must needes carry away from thence many partes of the ayre and of the earth sticking to that heate in such sort as we haue formerly declared Whence it followeth that other ayre must necessarily come from the regions towardes both the poles to supply what is carryed away from the middle as is the course in other fires and as we haue explicated aboue especially cōsidering that the ayre which cometh from the polewardes is heauyer then the ayre of the torride zone and therefore must naturally presse to be still neerer the earth and so as it were shouldereth vp the ayre of the torride zone towardes the circumference by rouling into its place and this in great quantities and consequently the polar ayre must draw a great trayne after it Which if we consider the great extent of the torride zone we shall easily persuade our selues that it must reach on each side to the very pole for taking from Archimedes that the sphericall superficies of a portion of a spher◠is to the superficies of the whole sphere according as the part of the axis of that sphere comprised within the said portion is to the whole axis and considering that in our case the part of the axis comprised within the torride zone is to the whole axis of the earth in about the proportion of 4. to 10 it must of necessity follow that a fire or great heate raigning in so vast an extent will draw ayre very powerfully from the rest of the world Neyther lett any man apprehend that this course of the sunnes eleuating so great quantities of atomes in the torride zone should hinder the course of grauity there for first the medium is much rarer in the torride zone then in other partes of the earth and therefore the force of the descending atomes needeth not to be so great there as in other places to make bodies descend there as fast as they do else where Secondly there being a perpetuall supply of fresh ayre from the polar partes streaming continually into the torride zone it must of necessity happen that in the ayre there come atomes to the torride zone of that grossenesse that
acknowledged that they worke by hidden qualities that mans witt cannot reach vnto And ascending to liuing bodies they giue it for a Maxime that life is the action of the same Entity vpon it selfe that sense is likewise a worke of an intrinsecall power in the part we call sense vpon it selfe Which our predecessors held the greatest absurdities that could be spoken in Philosophy Euen some Physitians that take vpon them to teach the curing of our bodies do often pay vs with such termes among them you haue long discourses of a retentiue of an expulsiue of a purging of a consolidating faculty and so of euery thing that eyther passeth in our body or is applied for remedy And the meaner sort of Physitians know no more but that such faculties are though indeed they that are truly Physitians know also in what they consist without which knowledge it is much to be feared Physitians will do more harme then good But to returne to our subiect this course of doctrine in the schooles hath forced me to a greate deale of paines in seeking to discouer the nature of all such actions or of the maine part of them as were famed for incomprehensible for what hope could I haue out of the actions of the soule to conuince the nature of it to be incorporeall if I could giue no other account of bodies operations then that they were performed by qualities occult specificall or incomprehensible Would not my aduersary presently answere that any operation out of which I should presse the soules being spirituall was performed by a corporeall occult quality and that as he must acknowledge it to be incomprehensible so must I likewise acknowledge other qualities of bodies to be as incomprehensible and therefore could not with reason presse him to shew how a body was able to doe such an operation as I should inferre must of necessity proceede from a spiritt since that neyther could I giue account how the loadestone drew iron or looked to the north how a stone and other heauy thinges were carried downewardes how sight or fantasie was made how digestion or purging were effected and many other such questions which are so slightly resolued in the schooles Besides this reason the very desire of knowledge in my selfe and a willingnesse to be auaylable vnto others att the least so farre as to sett them on seeking for it without hauing a preiudice of impossibity in attaining it was vnto me a sufficient motiue to enlarge my discourse to the bulke it is risen vnto For what a misery is it that the flower and best wittes of Christendome which flocke to the Vniuersities vnder pretence and vpon hope of gaining knowledge should be there deluded and after many yeares of toyle and expence be sent home againe with nothing acquired more then a faculty and readynesse to talke like parrats of many thinges but not to vnderstand so much as anyone and withall with a persuasion that in truth nothing can be knowne For setting knowledge aside what can it auayle a man to be able to talke of any thing What are those wranglinges where the discouery of truth is neyther sought nor hoped for but meerely vanity and ostentation Doth not all tend to make him seeme and appeare that which indeed he is not Nor lett any body take it ill at my handes that I speake thus of the moderne schooles for indeed it is rather themselues then I that say it Excepting Mathematikes lett all the other schooles pronounce their owne mindes and say ingenuously whether they themselues beleeue they haue so much as any one demonstration from the beginning to the ending of the whole course of their learning And if all or the most part will agree that any one position is demonstrated perfectly and as it ought to be and as thousands of conclusions are demonstrated in Mathematikes I am ready to vndergoe the blame of hauing calumniated them and will as readily make them amendes But if they neither will nor can then their owne verdict cleareth me and it is not so much I as they that make this profession of the shallownesse of their doctrine And to this purpose I haue often hard the lamentations of diuers as greate wittes as any that conuerse in the schooles complaining of this defect But in so greate an euidence of the effect proofes are superfluous Wherefore I will leaue this subiect to declare what I haue here designed and gone about towardes the remedy of this inconuenience Which is that whereas in the schooles there is a loose methode or rather none but that it is lawfull by the liberty of a commentator to handle any question in any place which is the cause of the slightnesse of their doctrine and can neuer be the way to any science or certitude I haue taken my beginninges from the commonest thinges that are in nature namely from the notions of Quantity and its first differences which are the most simple and radicall notions that are and in which all the rest are to be grounded From them I endeauour by immediate composition of them and deriuation from them to bring downe my discourse to the Elements which are the primary and most simple bodies in nature From these I proceed to compounded bodies first to those that are called mixed and then to liuing bodies declaring in common the proprieties and operations that belong vnto them And by occasion as I passe along I light here and there on those operations which seeme most admirable in nature to shew how they are performed or att the least how they may be performed that though I misse in particular of the industry of nature yet I may neuerthelesse hitt my intent which is to trace out a way how these and such like operations may be effected by an exact disposition and ordering though intricate of quantitatiue and corporeall partes and to shew that they oblige vs not to recurre vnto hidden and vnexplicable qualities And if I haue declared so many of these as may begett a probable persuasion in my reader that the rest which I haue not touched may likewise be displayed and shewed to spring out of the same groundes if curious and constant searchers into nature will make their taske to penetrate into them I haue therein obtained my desire and intent which is onely to shew from what principles all kindes of corporeall operations do proceed and what kind of operations all these must be which may issue out of these principles to the end that I may from thence make a steppe to raise my discourse to the contemplation of the soule and shew that her operations are such as cannot proceed from those principles which being adequate and common to all bodies we may rest assured that what cannot issue from them cannot haue a body for its source I will therefore end this preface with entreating my reader to consider that in a discourse proceeding in such order as I haue declared he must not expect to vnderstand
of Physickes hath demonstrated that there can be no motion in vacuity It is true they endeauour to euade his demonstration as not reaching home to theire supposition by acknowledging it to be an euident one in such a vacuity as he there speaketh of which he supposed to be so great a one that a body may swimme in it as in an ocean and not touch or be neere any other body whereas this opinion excludeth all such vast inanity and admitteth no vacuities but so litle ones as no body whatsoeuer can come vnto but will be bigger then they and consequently must on some side or other touch the corporeall partes which those vacuities diuide for they are the seperations of the least partes that are or can be actually diuided from one an other which partes must of necessity touch one an other on some side or else they could not hang together to compose one substance and therefore the diuiding vacuities must be lesse then the diuided partes And thus no body will euer be in danger of floating vp and downe without touching any thing which is the difficulty that Aristotle chiefely impugneth I confesse I should be very glad that this supposition might serue our turne and saue the Phoenomena that appeare among bodies through theire variety of Rarity and Density which if it might be then would I straight go on to the inquiring after what followed out of this ground as Astronomers to vse our former similitude do calculate the future appearances of the celestiall bodies out of those motions and orbes they assigne vnto the heauens For as this apprehension of vacuity in bodies is very easy and intelligibile so the other which I conceiue to be the truth of the case is exceedingly abstracted and one of the most difficult pointes in all the Metaphysickes and therefore I would if it were possible auoyde touching vpon it in this discourse which I desire should be as plaine and easy and as much remooued from scholasticke termes as may be But indeed the inconueniences that follow out of this supposition of vacuities are so great as it is impossible by any meanes to slide them ouer As for example lett vs borrow of Galilaeus the proportion of weight betweene water and ayre He sheweth vs how the one is 400 times heauyer then the other And Marinus Ghetaldus teacheth vs that gold is 19 times heauyer then water so that gold must be 7600 times heauyer then ayre Now then considering that nothing in a body can weigh but the solide partes of it it followeth that the proportion of the partes of gold in a sphere of an inch diameter is to the partes of ayre of a like dimension as 7600 is to one Therefore in ayre it selfe the vacuities that are supposed in it will be to the solide partes of it in the same proportion as 7600 to one Indeed the proportion of difference will be greater for euen in gold many vacuities must be admitted as appeareth by the heating of it which sheweth that in euery the least part it is exceeding porous But according to this rate without pressing the inconuenience any further the ayre will by this reckoning appeare to be like a nett whose holes and distances are to the lines and thriddes in the proportion of 7600 to one and so would be lyable to haue litle partes of its body swimme in those greater vacuities contrary to what they striue to auoyde Which would be exceedingly more if we found on the one side any bodies heauyer and denser then gold and that were so solide as to exclude all vacuities and on the other side should ballance them with such bodies as are lighter and rarer then ayre as fire is and as some will haue the aether to be But already the disproportion is so great and the vacuity so strangely exceedeth the body in which it is as were too great an absurdity to be admitted And besides it would destroy all motion of small bodies in the ayre if it be true as Aristotle hath demonstrated in the 4th booke of his Physickes that motion can not be made but among bodies and not in vacuo Againe if rarity were made by vacuity rare bodies could not be gathered together without loosing theire rarity and becoming dense The contrary of which we learne by constant experience as when the smith and glassemender driue theire white and fury fires as they terme them when ayre pierceth most in the sharpe wind and generally we see that more of the same kind of rare bodies in lesse place worketh most efficaciously according to the nature that resulteth out of that degree of rarity Which argueth that euery litle part is as rare as it was before for else it would loose the vertue of working according to that nature but that by theire being crowded together they exclude all other bodies that before did mediate betweene the litle partes of theire maine body and so more partes being gotten together in the same place then formerly there were they worke more forcibly Thirdly if such vacuities were the cause of rarity it would follow that fluide bodies being rarer then solide ones they would be of themselues standing like nettes or cobbewebbes whereas contrariwise we see theire natures are to runne together and to fill vp euery litle creeke and corner which effect following out of the very nature of the thinges themselues must needes exclude vacuities out of that nature And lastly if it be true as we haue shewed in the last Chapter that there are no actuall partes in Quantity it followeth of necessity that all Quantity must of it selâ—e be one as Metaphysickes teach vs and then no distance can be admitted betweene one Quantity and an other And truly if I vnderstand Aristotle right he hath perfectly demonstrated that no vacuity is possible in nature neither great nor litle and consequently the whole machine raysed vpon that supposition must be ruinous His argument is to this purpose What is nothing can not haue partes but vacuum is nothing because as the aduersaries conceiue it vacuum is the want of a corporeall substance in an enclosing body within whose sides nothing is whereas a certaine body might be contained whithin them as if in a paile or bowle of a gallon there were neither milke nor water nor ayre nor any other body whatsoeuer therefore vacuum can not haue partes Yet those who admitt it do putt it expressely for a space which doth essentially include partes And thus they putt two contradictories nothing and partes that is partes and no partes or something and nothing in the same proposition And this I conceiue to be absolutely vnauoydable For these reasons therefore I must entreate my readers fauour that he will allow me to touch vpon metaphysickes a litle more then I desire or intended but it shall be no otherwise then as is said of the dogges by the riuer Nilus side who being thirsty lappe hastily of the water onely to serue
it findeth within its power to master be they light or heauy or of what contrary natures soeuer it compresseth them as much as it can and draweth them into a lesse compasse and holdeth them strongly together making them sticke fast to one an other Which effect Aristotle tooke for the proper notion of cold and therefore gaue for definition of the nature of it that it gathereth thinges of diuers natures and experience sheweth vs in freesing and all great coolinges that this effect proceedeth from cold But if wee examine which of the two sortes of dense bodies the fluide or the consistent is most efficacious in this operation wee shall find that the lesse dense one is more capable of being applyed round about the body it shall besiege and therefore will stoppe closer euery litle hole of it and will more easily send subtile partes into euery litle veine of it and by consequence shrinke it vp together and coagulate and constringe it more strongly then a body can that is extremely dense which by reason of its great density and the stubbornesse of its partes can not so easily bend and plye them to worke this effect And therefore a body that is moderately dense is colder then an other that is so in excesse seeing that cold is an actiue or working power and that which is lesse dense doth excell in working On the contrary side rare bodies being hoat because theire subtile partes enuironing a compounded body will sinke into the pores of it and to theire power seperate its partes it followeth that those wherein the grauity ouercometh the rarity are lesse hoat then such others as are in the extremity and highest excesse of rarity both because the former are not able to pierce so litle partes of the resisting dense body as extreme rare ones are and likewise because they more easily take plye by the obstacle of the solide ones they meete with then these doe So that out of this discourse wee gather that of such bodies that differ precisely by the proportion of Rarity and Density those which are extremely rare are in the excesse of heate and are dry withall that weighty rare bodies are extremely humide and meanely hoat that fluide dense bodies are moist though not in such excesse as rare ones that are so but are coldest of any and lastly that extreme dense bodies are lesse cold then fluide dense ones and that they are dry But whether the extreme dense bodies be more or lesse dry then such as are extremely rare remaineth yet to be decided Which wee shall easily doe if wee but reflect that it is density which maketh a thing hard to be diuided and that rarity maketh it easie for a facility to yield vnto diuision is nothing else but a plyablenesse in the thing that is to be diuided whereby it easily receiueth the figure which the thing that diuideth it doth cast it into Now this plyablenesse belongeth more to rare then to dense thinges and accordingly wee see fire bend more easily by the concameration of an ouen then a stone can be reduced into due figure by hewing And therefore since drynesse is a quality that maketh those bodies wherein it raigneth to conserue themselues in theire owne figure and limits and to resist the receiuing of any from an other body it is manifest that those are dryest wherein these effects are most seene which is in dense bodies and consequently excesse of drynesse must be allotted vnto them to keepe company with theire moderate coldnesse Thus wee see that the number of Elements assigned by Aristotle is truly and exactly determined by him and that there can be neither more nor lesse of them and that theire qualities are rightly allotted to them which to settle more firmely in our mindes it will not be misse-spent time to summe vp in short the effect of what wee haue hitherto said to bring vs vnto this conclusion First wee shewed that a body is made and constituted a body by quantity Next that the first diuision of bodies is into rare and dense ones as differing onely by hauing more and lesse quantity And lastly that the coniunction of grauity with these two breedeth two other sortes of combinations each of which is also twofold the first sort concerning rarity out of which ariseth one extremely hoat and moderately dry and an other extremely humide and moderately hoat the second sort concerning density out of which is produced one that is extremely cold and moderatly wett and an other extremely dry and moderatly cold And these are the combinations whereby are constituted fire ayre water and earth So that wee haue thus the proper notions of the foure Elements and haue both them and theire qualities driuen vp and resolued into theire most simple principles which are the notions of Quantity and of the two most simple differences of quantatiue thinges Rarity and Density Beyond which mans witt can not penetrate nor can his wishes ayme att more in this particular seeing he hath attained to the knowledge af what they are and of what maketh them be so and that it is impossible they should be otherwise and this by the most simple and first principles which enter into the composition of theire nature Out of which it is euident that these foure bodies are Elements since they can not be resolued into any others by way of physicall composition themselues being constituted by the most simple differences of a body And againe all other bodies whatsoeuer must of necessity be resolued into them for the same reason because no bodies can be exempt from the first differencies of abody Since then wee meane by the name of an Element a body not composed of any former bodies and of which all other bodies are composed wee may rest satisfyed that these are rightly so named But whether euery one of these foure elements do comprehend vnder its name one onely lowest species or many as whether there be one onely species of fire or seuerall and the like of the rest wee intend not here to determine Yet wee note that there is a greate latitude in euery kind seeing that Rarity and Density as wee haue said before are as diuisible as quantity Which latitudes in the bodies wee conuerse withall are so limited that what maketh it selfe and other thinges be seene as being accompanied by light is called fire What admitteth the illuminatiue action of fire and is not seene is called ayre What admitteh the same action and is seene in the ranke of Elements is called water And what through the density of it admitteth not that action but absolutely reflecteth it is called earth And out of all we said of these foure Elements it is manifest there can not be a fifth as is to be seene att large in euery Aristotelian Philosopher that writeth of this matter I am not ignorant that there are sundry obiections vsed to be made both against these notions of the first qualities and against
actiue qualities heate and cold whereof the first was in its greatest excesse in fire and the latter in water To reconcile these we are to consider that the action of cold in its greatest height is composed of two partes the one is a kind of pressing and the other is penetration which requireth applicability Of which two the former ariseth out of density but the latter out of moderation of density as I haue declared in the precedent Chapter Wherefore the former will exceede more in earth though the whole be more eminent in water For though considering onely the force of moouing which is a more simple and abstracted notion then the determination and particularisation of the Elements and is precedent to it therein earth hath a precedency ouer water yet taking the action as it is determined to be the action of a particular Element and as it concurreth to the composition or dissolution of mixed bodies in that consideration which is the chiefe worke of Elements and requireth an intime application of the Agents water hath the principality and excesse ouer earth As for fire it is more actiue then eyther of them as it will appeare clearely if we consider how when fire is applyed to fewell and the violence of blowing is added to its owne motion it incorporateth it selfe with the fewell and in a small time conuerteth a great part of it into its owne nature and shattereth the rest into smoake and ashes All which proceedeth from the exceeding smallnesse and drynesse of the partes of fire which being mooued with violence against the fewell and thronging in multitudes vpon it they easily pierce the porous substance of it like so many extreme sharpe needles And that the force of fire is as greate and greater then of earth we may gather out of our former discourse where hauing resolued that density is the vertue by which a body is moued and doth cutt the medium and againe considering that celerity of motion is a kind of density as we shall by and by declare it is euident that since blowing must of necessity presse violently and with a rapide motion the partes of fire against the fewell and so condense them exceedingly there both by theire celerity and by bringing very many partes together there it must needes also giue them actiuity and vertue to pierce the body they are beaten against Now that celerity is a kind of density will appeare by comparing theire natures For if we consider that a dense body may be dilated so as to possesse and fill the place of a rare body that exceeded it in bignesse and by that dilatation may be diuided into as many and as greate partes as the rare body was diuisible into wee may conceiue that the substance of those partes was by a secret power of nature foulded vp in that litle extension in which it was before And euen so if we reflect vpon two riuers of equall channels and depths whereof the one goeth swifter then the other and determine a certaine length of each channell and a common measure of time wee shall see that in the same measure of time there passeth a greater bulke of water in the designed part of the channell of the swifter streame then in the designed part of the slower though those partes be equall Neither doth it import that in velocity we take a part of time whereas in density it seemeth that an instant is sufficient and consequently there would be no proportion betweene them For knowing Philosophers do all agree that there are no instants in time and that the apprehension of them proceedeth meerely from the manner of our vnderstanding And as for partes in time there can not be assumed any so litle in which the comparison is not true and so in this regard it is absolutely good And if the Reader haue difficulty att the disparity of the thinges which are pressed together in density and in celerity for that in density there is onely substance and in celerity there is also quantity crowded vp with the substance he will soone receiue satisfaction when he shall consider that this disparity is to the aduantage of what we say and maketh the nature of density more perfect in celerity and consequently more powerfull in fire then in earth Besides if there were no disparity it would not be a distinct species of density but the very same By what we haue spoken aboue it appeareth how fire getteth into fewell now lett vs consider how it cometh out for the actiuity of that fierce body will not lett it lye still and rest as long as it hath so many enemies round about it to rouse it vp Wee see then that as soone as it hath incorporated it selfe with the fewell and is growne master of it by introducing into it so many of its owne partes like so many soldiers into an enemies towne they breake out againe on euery side with as much violence as they came in For by reason of the former resistance of the fewell theire continuall streaming of new partes vpon it and one ouertaking an other there where theire iourney was stopped all which is encreased by the blowing doth so exceedingly condense them into a narrower roome then theire nature affecteth that as soone as they gett liberty and grow masters of the fewel which att the first was theire prison they enlarge theire place and consequently come out and flye abroad euer ayming right forwardes from the point where they begin theire iourney for the violence wherewith they seeke to extend themselues into a larger roome when they haue liberty to do so will admitt no motion but the shortest which is by a straight line So that if in our fantasie we frame an image of a round body all of fire wee must withall presently conceiue that the flame proceeding from it would diffuse it selfe euery way indifferently in straight lines in such sort that the source seruing for the center there would be round about it an huge sphere of fire and of light vnlesse some accidentall and externe cause should determine its motion more to one part then to an other Which compasse because it is round and hath the figure of a sphere is by Philosophers termed the sphere of its actiuity So that it is euident that the most simple and primary motion of fire is a fluxe in a direct line from the center of it to its circumference taking the fewell for its center as also that when it is beaten against a harder body it may be able to destroy it although that body be in its owne nature more dense then fire For the body against which it presseth eyther hath pores or hath none as the Elements haue none if it hath pores then the fire by reason of the violent motion of the impellent driueth out the litle bodies which fill vp those pores and succeeding in theire roome and being multiplyed there causeth those effects which in our discourse of the
obiections answered against light being fire with a more ample proofe of its being such HAVING then said thus much to persuade vs of the corporeity of this subtile thing that so queintly playeth with our eyes wee will in the next place examine those obiections that at the beginning we did sett downe against its being a body and if after a through discussion of them we find they do in truth conclude nothing of what att the first sight they beare so great a shew of but that we shall be able perfectly to solue and enerue their force no body will thinke it rashnesse in vs to craue leaue of Aristotle that we may dissent from him in a matter that he hath not looked to the bottome of and whose opinion therein can not be defended from plaine contradictions and impossibilities It is true neuer any one man looked so farre as he into the bowels of nature he may rightly be termed the Gemus of it and whosoeuer followeth his principles in the maine can not be led into error but we must not beleeue that he or any man else that relyeth vpon the strength and negotiation of his owne reason euer had a priuiledge of infallibility entayled to all he said Lett vs then admire him for what he hath deliuered vs and where he falleth short or is weary in his search and suffereth himselfe to be borne downe by popular opinions against his owne principles which happeneth very seldome to him lett vs seeke to supply and relieue him But to pursue our intent wee will begin with answering the third obiection which is that if light were fire it must heat as well as enlighten where it shineth There is no doubt but it doth so as is euident by the weather glasses and other artificiall musicall instruments as organs and virginals that played by themselues which Cornelius Drebbel that admirable master of mechanikes made to shew the king All which depended vpon the rarefaction and condensation of some subtile body conserued in a cauity within the bulke of the whole instrument for as soone as the sunne shined they would haue motion and play their partes And there is no doubt but that grew out of the rarefaction of the subtile liquor he made vse of which was dilated as soone as the ayre was warmed by the sunne beames Of whose operation it was so sensible that they no sooner left the horizon but its motion ceased And if but a cloude came betweene the instrument and them the musike would presently goe slower time And the antient miracle of Memnons statue seemeth to be a iuggling of the Aehiopian Priests made by the like inuention But though he and they found some spirituall and refined matter that would receiue such notable impressions from so small alterations of temper Yet it is no wonder that our grosse bodies are not sensible of them for we can not feele heate vnlesse it be greater then that which is in our sense And the heate there must be in proportion to the heate of our blood which is in a high degree of warmeth And therefore it is very possible that an exceeding rarifyed fire may cause a farre lesse impression of heate then we are able to feele Consider how if you sett pure spiritt of wine on fire and so conuert it into actuall flame yet it will not burne nor scarce warme your hand and then can you expect that the light of a candle which filleth a great roome should burne or warme you as farre as it shineth If you would exactly know what degree of heate and power of burning that light hath which for example shineth vpon the wall in a great chamber in the middest whereof there standeth a candle doe but calculate what ouerproportion of quantity all the light in the whole roome beareth to the quantity of the litle flame att the toppe of the candle and that is the ouerproportion of the force of burning which is in the candle to the force of burning which is in so much light att the wall as in extension is equall to the flame of the candle Which when you haue considered you will not quarrell att it s not warming you att that distance although you grant it to be fire streaming out from the flame as from the spring that feedeth it and extremely dilated according to the nature of fire when it is att liberty by going so farre without any other grosse body to imprison or clogge it It is manifest that this rule of examining the proportion of burning in so much of the light as the flame is by calculating the proportion of the quantity or extension of all the light in the roome to the extension of the flame of the candle and then comparing the flame of the candle to a part of light equall in extension vnto it is a good and infallible one if we abstract from accidentall inequalities since both the light and the flame are in a perpetuall fluxe and all the light was first in the flame which is the spring from whence it continually floweth As in a riuer wherein euery part runneth with a settled streame though one place be straighter and an other broader yet of necessity since all the water that is in the broad place came out of the narrow it must follow that in equall portions of time there is no more water where it hath the liberty of a large channell then where the bankes presse it into a narrower bed so that there be no inequalities in the bottome In like manner if in a large stoue a basen of water be conuerted into steame that rarifyed water which then filleth the whole stoue is no more then what the basen contained before and consequently the power of moistening which is in a footes extension for example of the stoue wherein that steame is must be in proportion to the vertue of wetting in the footes extension of water as the quantity of that great roome which the steame filleth is to the quantity of the water contained in the basin for although the rarifyed water be not in euery least part of that great place it seemeth to take vp by reason that there is ayre in which it must swimme Yet the power of wetting that was in the basin of water is dilated through the whole roome by the coniunction of the miste or dew to all the sensible partes of the ayre that is in the roome and consequently the power of wetting which is in any foote of that roome is in a manner as much lesse then the power of wetting which was in the foote of water as if the water were rarifyed to the quantity of the whole roome and no ayre were left with it And in the same manner it fareth with dilated fire as it doth with dilated water with onely this difference peraduenture that fire groweth purer and more towardes its owne nature by dilatation whereas water becometh more mixed and is carried from its nature by suffering the like
effect Yet dilated water will in proportion moisten more then dilated fire will burne for the rarefaction of water bringeth it neerer to the nature of ayre whose chief propriety is moisture and the fire that accompanieth it when it raiseth it into steame giueth it more powerfull ingression into what body it meeteth withall whereas fire when it is very pure and att entire liberty to stretch and spread it selfe as wyde as the nature of it will carry it getteth no aduantage of burning by its mixture with ayre and allthough it gaineth force by its purity yet by reason of its extreme rarefaction it must needes be extremely fainte But if by the helpe of glasses you will gather into lesse roome that which is diffused into a great one and so condense it as much as it is for example in the flame of a candle then that fire or compacted light will burne much more forcibly then so much flame for there is as much of it in quantity excepting what is lost in the carriage of it and it is held in together in as litle roome and it hath this aduantage besides that it is clogged with no grosse body to hinder the actiuity of it It seemeth to me now that the very answering this obiection doth besides repelling the force of it euidently prooue that light is nothing but fire in his owne nature and exceedingly dilated for if you suppose fire for example the flame of a candle to be stretched out to the vtmost expansion that you may well imagine such a grosse body is capable of it is impossible it should appeare and worke otherwise then it doth in light as I haue shewed aboue And againe we see plainely that light gathered together burneth more forcibly then any other fire whatsoeuer and therefore must needes be fire Why then shall we not confidently conclude that what is fire before it getteth abroade and is fire againe when it cometh together doth likewise remaine fire during all its iourney Nay euen in the iourney it selfe we haue particular testimony that it is fire for light returning backe from the earth charged with litle atomes as it doth in soultry gloomy weather heateth much more then before iust as fire doth when it is imprisoned in a dense body Philosophers ought not to iudge by the same rules that the common people doth Their grosse sense is all their guide and therefore they can not apprehend any thing to be fire that doth not make it selfe be knowne for such by burning them But he that iudiciously examineth the matter and traceth the pedigree and periode of it and seeth the reason why in some circumstances it burneth and in others it doth not is too blame if he suffer himselfe to be led by others ignorance contrary to his owne reason When they that are curious in perfumes will haue their chamber filled with a good sent in a hoat season that agreeth not with burning perfumes and therefore make some odoriferous water be blowne about it by their seruants mouthes that are dexterous in that Ministery as is vsed in Spaine in the summer time euery one that seeth it done though on a suddaine the water be lost to his eyes and touch and is onely discernable by his nose yet he is well satisfyed that the sent which recreateth him is the very water he saw in the glasse extremely dilated by the forcible sprouting of it out from the seruants mouth and will by litle and litle fall downe and become againe palpable water as it was before and therefore doubteth not but it is still water whiles it hangeth in the ayre diuided into litle atomes Whereas one that saw not the beginning of this operation by water nor obserued how in the end it sheweth it selfe againe in water might the better be excused if he should not thinke that what he smelled were water blowne about the ayre nor any substance of it selfe because he neither seeth nor handleth it but some aduentitious quality he knoweth not how adhering to the ayre The like difference is betweene Philosophers that proceede orderly in their discourses and others that pay themselues with termes which they vnderstand not The one see euidence in what they conclude whiles the others guesse wildely att randome I hope the Reader will not deeme it time lost from our maine drift which we take vp thus in examples and digressions for if I be not much deceiued they serue exceedingly to illustrate the matter which I hope I haue now rendred so plaine as no man that shall haue well weighed it will expect that fire dilated into that rarifyed substance which mankind who according to the different appearance of thinges to their sense giueth different names vnto them calleth light should burne like that grosser substance which from doing so they call fire nor doubt but that they may be the same thing more or lesse attenuated as leafe gold that flyeth in the ayre as light as downe is as truly gold as that in an ingott which being heauier then any other substance falleth most forcibly vnto the ground What we haue said of the vnburning fire which we call light streaming from the flame of a candle may easily be applyed to all other lights depriued of sensible heat whereof some appeare with flame others without it of the first sort of which are the innoxious flames that are often seene on the haire of mens heads and horses manes on the mastes of shippes ouer graues and fatt marish groundes and the like and of the latter sort are glow wormes and the light conseruing stones rotten wood some kindes of fish and of flesh when they begin to putrify and some other thinges of the like nature Now to answere the second part of this obiection that we dayly see great heates without any light as well as much light without any heat and therefore light and fire can not be the same thing you may call to mind how dense bodies are capable of great quantities of rare ones and thereby it cometh to passe that bodies which repugne to the dilatation of flame may neuerthelesse haue much fire enclosed in them As in a stoue let the fire be neuer so great yet it appeareth not outwardes to the sight although that stoue warme all the roomes neere it So when many litle partes of heate are imprisoned in as many litle celles of grosse earthy substance which are like so many litle stoues to them that imprisonement will not hinder them from being very hoat to the sense of feeling which is most perceptible of dense thinges But because they are choaked with the closenesse of the grosse matter wherein they are enclosed they can not breake out into a body of flame or light so to discouer their nature which as we haue said before is the most vnfitt way for burning for we see that light must be condensed to produce flame and fire as flame must be to burne violently Hauing thus
ground in Philosophy Neuerthelesse if there be any certaine experience in this particular I should thinke that there might be some art by circulation of fewell to maintaine the same light for a great company of yeares But I should not easily be persuaded that eyther flame or light could be made without any manner of consuming the body which serueth them for fewell THE EIGHTH CHAPTER An answere to three other obiections formerly proposed against light being a substance HAVING thus defended our selues from their obiections who would not allow light to be fire and hauing satisfyed their inquisition who would know what becometh of it when it dyeth if it be a body we will now apply our selues to answere their difficulties who will not lett it passe for a body because it is in the same place with an other body as when the sunne beames enlighten all the ayre and when the seuerall lights of two distinct candles are both of them euery where in the same roome Which is the substance of the second maine obiection This of the iustling of the ayre is easily answered thus that the ayre being a very diuisible body doth without resistance yield as much place as is requisite for light And that light though our eyes iudge it diffused euery where yet is not truly in euery point or atome of ayre but to make vs see it euery where it sufficeth that it be in euery part of the ayre which is as bigge as the blacke or sight of our eye so that we can not sett our eye in any position where it receiueth not impressions of light In the same manner as perfumes which though they be so grosse bodies that they may be sensibly wasted by the wind neuerthelesse they do so fill the ayre that we can putt our nose in no part of the roome where a perfume is burned but we shall smell it And the like is of mistes as also of the sprouted water to make a perfume which we mentioned aboue But because pure discourses in such small thriddes as these do but weakly bind such readers as are not accustomed vnto them and that I woudl if it be possible render this treatise intelligible to euery rationall man how euer litle versed in scholastike learning among whom I expect it will haue a fairer passage then among those that are already deepely imbued with other principles lett vs try if we can herein informe our selues by our sense and bring our eyes for wittnesse of what we say He then that is desirous to satisfy himselfe in this particular may putt himselfe in a darke roome through which the sunne sendeth his beames by a cranie or litle hole in the wall and he will discouer a multitude of litle atomes flying about in that litle streame of light which his eye can not discerne when he is enuironed on all sides with a full light Then lett him examine whether or no there be light in the middest of those litle bodies and his owne reason will easily tell him that if those bodies were as perspicuous as the ayre they would not reflect vpon our eyes the beames by which wee see them And therefore he will boldly conclude that att the least such partes of them as reflect light vnto vs do not admitt it nor lett it sinke into them Then let him consider the multitude of them and the litle distance betwixt one an other and how neuerthelesse they hinder not our sight but we haue it free to discouer all obiects beyond them in what position soeuer we place our eye and when he thus perceiueth that these opacous bodies which are euery where do not hinder the eye from iudging light to haue an equall plenary diffusion through the whole place that it irradiateth he can haue no difficulty to allow ayre that is diaphanous and more subtile farre then they and consequently diuisible into lesser atomes and hauing lesser pores giueth lesse scope vnto our eyes to misse light then they do to be euery where mingled with light though we see nothing but light and can not discerne any breach or diuision of it Especially when he shall adde vnto this consideration that the subtile body which thus filleth the ayre is the most visible thing in the world and that whereby all other thinges are seene and that the ayre which it mingleth it selfe with is not at all visible by reason of the extreme diaphaneity of it and easy reception of the light into euery pore of it without any resistance or reflection and that such is the nature of light as it easily drowneth an obscure body if it be not too bigge and not onely such but euen other light bodies for so we know as well the fixed starrs as the planets are concealed from our sight by neerenesse to the sunne neither the lightnesse of the one nor the bignesse of the other preuailing against the darkening of an exuperant light and we haue dayly experience of the same in very pure chrystall glasses and in very cleare water which though we can not discerne by our sight if they be in certaine positions neuerthelesse by experience we find that they reflect much light and consequently haue great store of opacous partes and then he can not choose but conclude that it is impossible but light should appeare as it doth to be euery where and to be one continued thing though his discourse withall assure him it is euery where mingled with ayre And this very answere I thinke will draw with it by consequence the solution of the other part of the same obiection which is of many lights ioyning in the same place and the same is likewise concerning the images of colours euery where crossing one an other without hinderance But to raise this contemplation a straine higher lett vs consider how light being the most rare of all knowne bodies is of its owne nature by reason of the diuisibility that followeth rarity diuisible into lesser partes then any other and particularly then flame which being mixed with smoake and other corpulency falleth very short of light And this to the proportion in which it is more rare then the body it is compared vnto Now a great Mathematician hauing deuised how to measure the rarefaction of gunnepowder into flame found the diameter to times encreased and so concluded that the body of the flame was in proportion to the body of the gunnepowder it was made of as 125000 is to one Wherefore by the immediately proceeding consequence we find that 125000 partes of flame may be couched in the roome of one least part of gunnepowder and peraduenture many more considering how porous a body gunnepowder is Which being admitted it is euident that although light were as grosse as the flame of gunnepowder and gunnepowder were as solide as gold yet there might passe 125000 rayes of light in the space wherein one least part of gunnepowder might be contained which space would be absolutely inuisible vnto vs
appeare shaken And lastly it is easier for the ayre or wind to destroy the light then it is to remooue it out of its place wherefore it can neuer so remoue it out of its place as that we should see it in an other place But if it should remooue it it would wrappe it vp within it selfe and hide it In conclusion after this long dispute concerning the nature of light if we consider well what hath beene said on both sides to which much more might be added but that we haue already trespassed in length and I conceiue enough is said to decide the matter an equall iudge will find the ballance of the question to hang vpon these termes that to proue the nature of light to be materiall and corporeall are brought a company of accidents well knowne to be the proprieties of quantity or bodies and as well knowne to be in light Euen so farre as that it is manifest that light in its begining before it be dispersed is fire and if againe it be gathered together it sheweth it selfe againe to be fire And the receptacles of it are the receptacles of a body being a multitude of pores as the hardnesse and coldnesse of transparent thinges do giue vs to vnderstand of which we shall hereafter haue occasion to discourse On the contrary side whatsoeuer arguments are brought against lights being a body are onely negatiues As that we see not any motion of light that we do not discerne where the confines are betweene light and ayre that we see not roome for both of them or for more lights to be together and the like which is to oppose negatiue proofes against affirmatiue ones and to build a doctrine vpon the defect of our senses or vpon the likenesse of bodies which are extremely vnlike expecting the same effects from the most subtile as from the most grosse ones All which together with the autority of Aristotle and his followers haue turned light into darknesse and haue made vs almost deny the light of our owne eyes Now then to take our leaue of this important question lett vs returne to the principles from whence we began and consider that seeing fire is the most rare of all the Elements and very dry and that out of the former it hath that it may be cutt into very small pieces and out of the latter that it conserueth its owne figure and so is apt to diuide whatsoeuer fluide body and ioyning to these two principles that it multiplyeth extremely in its source It must of necessity follow that it shooteth out in great multitudes litle small partes into the ayre and into other bodies circūfused with great dilatation in a sphericall manner And likewise that these litle partes are easily broken and new ones still following the former are still multiplyed in straight lines from the place where they breake Out of which it is euident that of necessity it must in a manner fill all places and that no sensible place is so litle but that fire will be found in it if the medium be capacious As also that its extreme least partes will be very easily swallowed vp in the partes of the ayre which are humide and by their enfolding be as it were quite lost so as to loose the appearance of fire Againe that in its reflections it will follow the nature of grosser bodies and haue glidinges like them which is that we call refractions That litle streaminges from it will crosse one an other in excessiue great numbers in an vnsensible part of space without hindering one an other That its motion will be quicker then sense can iudge of and therefore will seeme to mooue in an instant or to stand still as in a stagnation That if there be any bodies so porous with litle and thicke pores as that the pores arriue neere vnto equalling the substance of the body then such a body will be so filled with these litle particles of fire that it will appeare as if there were no stoppe in its passage but were all filled with fire and yet many of these litle partes will be reflected And whatsoeuer qnalities else we find in light we shall be able to deriue them out of these principles and shew that fire must of necessity doe what experience teacheth vs that light doeth That is to say in one word it will shew vs that fire is light But if fire be light then light must needes be fire And so we leaue this matter THE NINETH CHAPTER Of Locall Motion in common THOVGH in the fifth chapter we made onely earth the pretender in the controuersy against fire for superiority in actiuity and in very truth the greatest force of grauity doth appeare in those bodies which are eminently earthy neuerthelesse both water and ayre as appeareth out of the fourth chapter of the Elements do agree with earth in hauing grauity And grauity is the chiefe vertue to make them efficients So that vpon the matter this plea is common to all the three Elements Wherefore to explicate this vertue whereby these three weighty Elemēts do worke lett vs call to minde what we said in the beginning of the last chapter concerning locall motion to witt that according as the body mooued or the diuider did more and more enter into the diuided body so it did ioyne it selfe to some new partes of the medium or diuided body and did in like manner forsake others Whence it happeneth that in euery part of motion it possesseth a greater part of the medium then it selfe can fill att once And because by the limitation and confinednesse of euery magnitude vnto iust what it is and no more it is impossible that a lesser body should att once equallise a greater It followeth that this diuision or motion whereby a body attaineth to fill a place bigger then it selfe must be done successiuely that is it must first fill one part of the place it mooueth in then an other and so proceede on till it haue measured it selfe with euery part of the place from the first beginning of the line of motion to the last periode of it where the body resteth By which discourse it is euident that there can not in nature be a strength so great as to make the least or quickest mooueable that is to passe in an instāt or all together ouer the least place that can be imagined for that would make the mooued body remaining what it is in regard of its biggenesse to equallise ad fitt a thing bigger then it is Therefore it is manifest that motion must consist of such partes as haue this nature that whiles one of them is in being the others are not yet and as by degrees euery new one cometh to be all the others that were before do vanish and cease to be Which circumstance accompanying motion we call succession And whatsoeuer is so done is said to be done in time which is the common measure of all succession for the
is manifest that in a violent motion the force which mooueth a body in the end of its course is weaker then that which mooueth it in the beginning and the like is of the two stringes But here it is not amisse to solue a Probleme he putteth which belongeth to our present subiect He findeth by experience that if two bodies descend att the same time from the same point and do goe to the same point the one by the inferiour quarter of the cercle the other by the chord to that arch or by any other lines which are chordes to partes of that arch he findeth I say that the mooueable goeth faster by the arch then by any of the chordes And the reason is euident if we consider that the neerer any motion doth come vnto a perpendicular one downewardes the greater velocity it must haue and that in the arch of such a quadrant euery particular part of it inclineth to the perpendicular of the place where it is more then the part of the chord answerable vnto it doth THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER An answere to obiections against the causes of naturall motion auowed in the former chapter and a refutation of the contrary opinion BVt to returne to the thridde of our doctrine there may peraduenture be obiected against it that if the violence of a bodies descent towardes the center did proceede onely from the density of it which giueth it an aptitude the better to cutt the medium and from the multitude of litle atomes descending that strike vpon it and presse it the way they goe which is downewardes then it would not import whether the inner part of that body were as solide as the outward partes for it cutteth with onely the outward and is smitten onely vpon the outward And yet experience sheweth vs the contrary for a great bullet of lead that is solide and lead throughout descendeth faster then if three quarters of the diameter were hollow within and such a one falling vpon any resisting substance worketh a greater effect then a hollow one And a ball of brasse that hath but a thinne outside of mettall will swimme vpon the water when a massie one sinketh presently Whereby it appeareth that it is rather some other quality belonging to the very bulke of the metall in it selfe and not these outward causes that occasion grauity But this difficulty is easily ouercome if you consider how subtile those atomes are which descending downewardes and striking vpon a body in their way do cause its motion likewise downewardes for you may remember how we haue shewed them to be the subtilest and the minutest diuisions that light the subtilest and sharpest diuider in nature can make It is then easye to conceiue that these extreme subtile bodies do penetrate all others as light doth glasse and do runne through them as sand doth through a small sieue or as water through a spunge so that they strike not onely vpon the superficies but aswell in euery most interiour part of the whole body running quite through it all by the pores of it And then it must needes follow that the solider it is and the more partes it hath within as well as without to be strucken vpon the faster it must goe and the greater effect it must worke in what it falleth vpon whereas if three quarters of the diameter of it within should be filled with nothing but with ayre the atomes would fly without any considerable effect through all that space by reason of the rarity and cessibility of it And that these atomes are thus subtile is manifest by seuerall effects which we see in nature Diuers Authors that write of Egypt do assure vs that though their houses be built of strong stone neuerthelesse a clodde of earth layed in the inmost roomes and shutt vp from all appearing communication with ayre will encrease its weight so notably as thereby they can iudge the change of weather which will shortly ensue Which can proceede from no other cause but from a multitude of litle atomes of saltpeter which floating in the ayre do penetrate through the strongest walls and all the massie defences in their way and do settle in the clodde of earth as soone as they meete with it because it is of a temper fitt to entertaine and to conserue and to embody them Delights haue shewed vs the way how to make the spirits or atomes of snow and saltpeter passe through a glasse vessell which Alchimists hold to be the most impenetrable of all they can find to worke with In our owne bodies the aches which feeble partes do feele before change of weather and the heauynesse of our heades and shoulders if we remaine in the open ayre presently after sunnesett do aboundantly testify that euen the grosser of these atomes which are the first that fall do vehemently penetrate our bodies so as sense will make vs beleeue what reason peraduenture could not But besides all this there is yet a more conuincing reason why the descending atomes should mooue the whole density of a body euen though it were so dense that they could not penetrate it and gett into the bowels of it but must be content to strike barely vpon the outside of it For nature hath so ordered the matter that when dense partes sticke close together and make the length composed of them to be very stiffe one can not be mooued but that all the rest which are in that line must likewise be thereby mooued so that if all the world wery composed of atomes close sticking together the least motion imaginable must driue on all that were in a straight line to the very end of the world This you see is euident in reason And experience confirmeth it when by a litle knocke giuen att the end of a long beame the shaking which maketh sound reacheth sensibly to the other end The blind man that gouerneth his steppes by feeling in defect of eyes receiueth aduertisements of remote thinges through a staffe which he holdeth in his handes peraduenture more particularly then his eyes could haue directed him And the like is of a deafe man that heareth the sound of an instrument by holding one end of a sticke in his mouth whiles the other end resteth vpō the instrumēt And some are of opiniō and they not of the ranke of vulgar Philosophers that if a staffe were as long as to reach from the sunne to vs it would haue the same effect in a moment of time Although for my part I am hard to beleeue that we could receiue an aduertisement so farre vnlesse the staffe were of such a thicknesse as being proportionable to the length might keepe it from facile bending for if it should be very plyant it would do vs no seruice as we experience in a thridde which reaching from our hand to the ground if it knocke against any thing maketh no sensible impression in our hand So that in fine reason sense and authority do all of them
the cause of the plummets remounting as long as grauity is said to be a quality for still grauity must be the cause of an effect contrary to its owne inclination by setting on foote the immediate cause to produce it The second thing we are to note in this experiment of the plummets ascent is that if grauity be a quality there must bee as much resistance to its going vp as there was force to its coming downe Therefore there must be twice as much force to make it ascend as there was to make it descend that is to say there must be twice as much force as the naturall force of the grauity is for there must be once as much to equalise the resistance of the grauity and then an other time as much to carry it as farre through the same medium in the same time But it is impossible that any cause should produce an effect greater then it selfe Againe the grauity must needes be in a determinate degree and the vertue that maketh the plummett remount whatsoeuer it be may be putt as litle as we please and consequently not able to ouersway the grauity alone if it be an intrinsecall quality and yet the plummet will remount in which case you putt an effect without a cause An other experience we may take from the force of sucking for take the barrell of a long gunne perfectly bored and sett it vpright with the breech vpon the ground and take a bullett that is exactly fitt for it but so as it sticke not any where both the barrell and it being perfectly polished and then if you sucke att the mouth of the barrell though neuer so gently the bullett will come vp so forcibly that it will hazard the striking out of your teeth Now lett vs consider what force were necessary to sucke the bullett vp and how very slowly it would ascend if in the barrell it had as much resistance to ascend as in the free ayre it hath inclination to goe downe But if it had a quality of grauity naturall to it it must of necessity haue such resistance whereas in our experiment we see it cometh as easily as the very ayre So that in this example as well as in the other nature teacheth vs that grauity is no quality And all or most of the arguments which we haue vrged against the quality of grauity in that explication we haue considered it in haue force likewise against it although it be said to be an inclination of its subiect to mooue it selfe vnto vnity with the maine stocke of its owne nature as diuers witty men do putt it for this supposition doth but chāge the intention or end of grauity and is but to make it an other kind of intellectuall or knowing Entity that determineth it selfe to an other end which is as impossible for a naturall quality to do as to determine it selfe to the former endes And thus much the arguments we haue proposed do conuince euidently if they be applyed against this opinion THE TWELTH CHAPTER Of Violent Motion ANd thus we haue giuen a short scātling whereby to vnderstand in some measure the causes of that motion which we call naturall by reason it hath its birth from the vniuersall oeconomy of nature here among vs that is from the generall working of the sunne whereby all naturall thinges haue their course and by reason that the cause of it is att all times and in all places constantly the same Next vnto which the order of discourse leadeth vs to take a suruay of those forced motions whose first causes the more apparent they are the more obscurity they leaue vs in to determine by what meanes they are continued When a tennis ball is strucken by a rackett or an arrow is shott from a bow we plainely see the causes of their motion namely the stringes which first yielding and then returning with a greater celerity do cause the missiues to speed so fast towardes their appoynted homes Experience informeth vs what qualities the missiues must be endued withall to mooue fast and steadily They must be so heauy that the ayre may not breake their course and yet so light that they may be within the command of the stroake which giueth them motion the striker must be dense and in its best velocity the angle which the missiue is to mount by if we will haue it goe to its furthest randome must be the halfe of a right one and lastly the figure of the missiue must be such as may giue scope vnto the ayre to beare it vp and yet not hinder its course by taking too much hold of it All this we see but when withall wee see that the moouer deserteth the moueable as soone as he hath giuen the blow wee are att a stand and know not where to seeke for that which afterwardes maketh it flye for motion being a transient not a permanent thing as soone as the cause ceaseth that begott it in that very point it must be att an end and as long as the motion continueth there must be some permanent cause to make it do so so that as soone as the rackett or bowstring goe backe and leaue the ball or arrow why should not they presently fall straight downe to the ground Aristotle and his followers haue attributed the cause hereof to the ayre but Galileo relisheth not this conception His arguments against it are as I remember to this tenor first ayre by reason of its rarity and diuisibility seemeth not apt to conserue motion next we see that light thinges are best carried by the ayre and it hath no power ouer weighty ones lastly it is euident that ayre taketh most hold of the broadest superficies and therefore an arrow would flye faster broadwayes then longwayes if this were true Neuerthelesse since euery effect must haue a proportionable cause from whence it immediately floweth and that a body must haue an other body to thrust it on as long as it mooueth lett vs examine what bodies do touch a moueable whilest it is in motion as the onely meanes to find an issue out of this difficulty for to haue recourse vnto a quality or impressed force for deliuerance out of this straight is a shift that will not serue the turne in this way of discourse we vse In this Philosophy no knott admitteth such a solution If then we enquire what body it is that immediately toucheth the ball or arrow whiles it flyeth we shall find that none other doth so but the ayre and the atomes in it after the stringes haue giuen their stroake and are parted from the missiue And although we haue Galileos authority and arguments to discourage vs from beleeuing that the ayre can worke this effect yet since there is no other body besides it left for vs to consider in this case lett vs att the least examine how the ayre behaueth it selfe after the stroake is giuen by the stringes First then it is euident that as soone
as the rackett or bowstring shrinketh backe from the missiue and leaueth a space betweene the missiue and it as it is cleare it doth as soone as it hath strucken the resisting body the ayre must ' needes clappe in with as much velocity as they retire and with some what more because the missiue goeth forward att the same time and therefore the ayre must hasten to ouertake it least any vacuity should be left betweene the string and the arrow It is certaine likewise that the ayre on the sides doth also vpon the diuision of it slide backe and helpe to fill that space which the departed arrow leaueth voyde Now this forcible cloosing of the ayre att the nocke of the arrow must ' needes giue an impulse or blow vpon it if it seeme to be but a litle one you may consider how it is yet much greater then what the ayre and the bodies swimming in it do att the first giue vnto a stone falling frō high and how att the last those litle atomes that driue a stone in its naturall motion do with their litle blowes force it peraduenture more violenty and swiftly then any impelling Agent we are acquainted with can do So that the impulse which they make vpon the arrow pressing violently vpon it after such a vehement concussion and with a great velocity must needes cause a powerfull effect in that which of it selfe is indifferent to any motion any way But vnlesse this motion of the ayre do continue to beate still vpon the arrow it will soone fall to the ground for want of a cause to driue it forward and because the naturall motion of the ayre being then the onely one will determine it downewardes Lett vs consider then how this violent rending of the ayre by the blow that the bowstring giueth vnto the arrow must needes disorder the litle atomes that swimme too and fro in it and that being heauyer then the ayre are continually descending downewardes This disorder maketh some of the heauyer partes of them gett aboue others that are lighter then they which they not abiding do presse vpon those that are next them and they vpon their fellowes so that there is a great commorion and vndulation caused in the whole masse of ayre round about the arrow which must continue some time before it can be settled and it being determined by the motion of the arrow that way that it slideth it followeth that all this commotion and vndulation of the ayre serueth to continue the arrow in its flight And thus faster then any part behind can be settled new ones before are stirred till the resistance of the medium do grow stronger then the impulse of the moouers Besides this the arrow pressing vpon the ayre before it with a greater velocity then the ayre which is a liquide rare body can admitt to moue all of a piece without breaking it must of necessity happen that the partes of the ayre immediately before the arrow be driuen vpon others further of before these can be moued to giue place vnto them so that in some places the ayre becometh condensed and consequently in others rarifyed Which also the wind that we make in walking which will shake a paper pinned loosely att the wall of a chamber towardes which we walke and the cooling ayre caused by fanning when we are hoat do euidently confirme So that it can not be doubted but that condensation and rarefaction of the ayre must necessarily follow the motion of any solide body which being admitted it is euident that a great disorder and for some remarkable time must necessarily be in the ayre since it can not brooke to continue in more rarity or density then is naturall vnto it Nor can weighty and light partes agree to rest in an equal height or lownesse which the violence of the arrowes motion forceth them vnto for the present Therefore it can not be denyed but that though the arrow slide away neuerthelesse there still remaineth behind it by this condensation and confusion of partes in the ayre motion enough to giue impulse vnto the arrow so as to make it continue its motion after the bowstring hath left it But here will arise a difficulty which is how this clapping in and vndulation of the ayre should haue strength and efficacy enough to cause the continuance of so smart a motion as is an arrowes shott from a bow To this I neede no other argument for an answere then to produce Galileos testimony how great a body one single mans breath alone can in due circumstances giue a rapide motion vnto and withall lett vs consider how the arrow and the ayre about it are already in a certaine degree of velocity that is to say the obstacle that would hinder it from moouing that way namely the resistance of the ayre is taken away and the causes that are to produce it namely the determining of the ayres and of the atomes motion that way are hightened And then we may safely conclude that the arrow which of it selfe is indifferent to be mooued vpwardes or downewardes or forwardes must needes obey that motion which is caused in it by the atomes and the ayres pressing vpon it either according to the impulse of the string or when the string beginneth to flagge according to the beatinges that follow the generall constitution of nature or in a mixt manner according to the proportions that these two hold to one an other Which proportions Galileus in his 4th Dialogue of motion hath attempted to explicate very ingeniously but hauing missed in one of his suppositions to witt that forced motion vpon an horizontall line is throughout vniforme his great labours therein haue taken litle effect towardes the aduancing the knowledge of nature as he pretended for his conclusions succeede not in experience as Mersenius assureth vs after very exact trials nor can they in their reasons be fitted to nature So that to conclude this point I find no difficulty in allowing this motion of the ayre strength enough to force the mooueable onwardes for some time after the first moouer is seuered from it and long after we see no motions of this nature do endure so that we neede seeke no further cause for the continuance of it but may rest satisfyed vpon the whole matter that since the causes and circumstances our reason suggesteth vnto vs are after mature and particular examination proportionable to the effects we see the doctrine we deliuer must be sound and true For the establishing whereof we neede not considering what we haue already said spend much time in soluing Galileos arguments against it seeing that out of what we haue sett downe the answeres to them appeare plaine enough for first we haue assigned causes how the ayre may continue its motion long enough to giue as much impression as is needefull vnto the arrow to make it goe on as it doth Which motion is not requisite to be neere so great in the ayre
find both the effects we haue already touched for two such partes must make one and moreouer they must haue some resistance to diuisibility The first of these effects we haue already assigned vnto the nature of quantity And it being the formall effect of quantity it can not wheresoeuer it is found haue any other formall cause then quantity and therefore eyther the two litle partes of different Elements do not become one body or if they doe we must agree that it is by the nature of quantity which worketh as much in heterogeneall partes as it doth in homogeneall ones And it must needes do so because Rarity and Dēsity which are the proper differencies of Quantity can not change the common nature of Quantity that is their Genus which by being so to them must be vniuocally in them both And this effect cometh precisely from the pure notion of the Genus and consequently must be seene as well in two partes of different natures as in two partes of the same nature but in partes of the same nature which once were two and afterwardes become one there can be no other reason why they are one then the very same for which those partes that were neuer seperated but that may be seperated are likewise one and this most euidently is the nature of quantity Experience seemeth to confirme thus much when pouring water out of a basin some of it will remaine sticking to the sides of the mettall for if the quantity of the basin and of the water had not beene one and the same by its owne nature the water considering the plyablenesse of its partes would certainely haue commen all away and haue glided from the vneuennesse of the basin by the attractive vnity of its whole and would haue preserued the vnity of its quantity within it selfe rather then by sticking to the basin haue suffered diuision in its owne quantity which we are sure was one whiles the water was altogether in the basin but that both the basin and the water making but one quantity and a diuision being vnauoydable in that one quantity it was indifferent in regard of the quantity considered singly by it selfe where this diuision should be made whether in the partes of the basin or in the partes of the water and then the other circumstances determined it in that part of the water which was neerest to the ioyning of it with the basin The second effect which was resistance to diuisibility we assigned vnto density And of that same cause must also depend the like effect in this case of the sticking together of the two partes of different Elements when they are ioyned to one an other for if the two partes whereof one is dense the other is rare do not exceede the quantity of some other part of one homogeneall rare Element for the diuiding whereof such a determinate force and no lesse can suffice then seeing that the whole composed of these two partes is not so diuisible as the whole consisting of that one part the assigned force will not be able to diuide them Wherefore it is plaine that if the rare part had beene ioyned to an other rare part in steed of the dense one it is ioyned vnto it had beene more easily diuidable from that then now it is from the dense part And by consequence it sticketh more closely to the dense part then it would to an other of its owne nature Out of what we haue said a steppe is made vs to vnderstand why soft and liqnid bodies do easily ioyne and incorporate into one continued body but hard and dry bodies so difficulty as by experience we find to be true Water with water or wine eyther with other wine or with water so vniteth that it is very hard to part them but sand or stones can not be made to sticke together without very great force and industry The reasons whereof must necessarily depend of what we haue said aboue To witt that two bodies can not touch one an other without becoming one and that if two bodies of one degree of density do touch they must sticke together according to the force of that degree of density Out of which two is manifestly inferred that if two hard thinges should come to touch they must needes be more difficultly seperated then two liquid thinges And consequently they can not come to touch without as much difficulty as that whereby they are made one But to deduce this more particularly lett vs consider that all the litle surfaces by which one hard body may be conceiued to touch an other as for example when a stone lyeth vpon a stone must of necessity be eyther plane or concaue or conuexe Now if a plane superficies should be supposed to touch an other plane one coming perpendicularly to it it must of necessity be granted to touch it as soone in the middle as on the sides Wherefore if there were any ayre as of necessity there must be betwixt the two surfaces before they touched it will follow that the ayre which was in the middle must haue fled quite out from betweene the two surfaces as soone as any part of the surfaces do touch that is as soone as the ayre which was betweene the vtmost edges of the surfaces did fly out and by consequence it must haue moued in an instant But if a plane surface be said to touch a conuexe surface it toucheth it onely by a line as Mathematicans demonstrate or onely by a point But to touch by a line or a point is in truth not to touch by the forme or notion of Quantity which requireth diuisibility in all that belongeth vnto it and dy consequence among bodies it is not to touch and so one such surface doth not touch the other Now for a plaine surface to touch a concaue euery man seeth is impossible Likewise for two cōuexe surfaces to touch one an other they must be allowed to touch eyther in a line or in a point which we haue shewed not to be a physicall touching And if a conuexe surface should bee said to touch a concaue they must touch all att once as we said of plane surfaces and therefore the same impossibility will arise therein so that it is euident that no two surfaces mouing perpendicularly towardes one an other can come to touch one an other if neyther of them yieldeth and changeth its hew Now then if it be supposed that they come slidingly one ouer an other in the same line whereby first the very tippes of the edges come to touch one an other and still as you shooue the vpermost on forwardes and that it slideth ouer more of the nether surface it gaineth to touch more of it I say that neither in this case do they touch immediately one an other for as soone as the two first partes should meete if they did touch and that there were no ayre betweene them they must presently become one quantity or body as we
haue declared and must sticke firmely together according to their degree of density and cōsequently could not be moued on without still breaking a sūderatt euery impulse as much of the massy body as were already made one by their touching And if you should say they did not become one and yet allow them to touch immediately one an other without hauing any ayre or fluide body betweene them then if you suppose them to moue onwardes vpon these termes they would be changed locally without any intrinsecall change which in the booke De Mundo as we haue formerly alleadged is demonstrated to be impossible There remayneth onely a third way for two hard surfaces to come together which is that first they should rest sloaping one vpon an other and make an angle where they meete as two lines that cutt one an other do in their point of their intersection and so containe as it were a wedge of ayre betweene them which wedge they should lessen by litle and litle through their mouing towardes one an other att their most distant edges whiles the touching edges are like immoueable centers that the others turne vpon till att length they shutt out all the ayre and close together like the two legges of a compasse But neither is it possible that this way they should touch for after their first touch by one line which neyther is in effect a touching as we haue shewed no other partes of them can touch though still they approach neerer and neerer vntill their whole surfaces do entirely touch att one and therefore the ayre must in this case leap out in an instant a greater space then if the surfaces came perpendicularly to one an other for here it must fly from one extremity to the other whereas in the former case it was to goe but from the middle to each side And thus it is euident that no two bodies can arriue to touch one an other vnlesse one of them att the least haue a superficies plyable to the superficies of the other that is vnlesse one of them be lost which is to be liquide in some degree Seeing then that by touching bodies do become one and that liquidity is the cause and meanes whereby bodies arriue to touch we may boldly conclude that two liquide bodies do most easily and readily become one and next to two such a liquide and a hard body are soonest vnited but two hard ones most difficultly To proceede then with our reflections vpon the composition of bodies and vpon what resulteth out of the ioyning and mixture of their first differences Rarity and Density we see how if a liquide substance happeneth to touch a dry body it sticketh easily therevnto Then consider that there may be so small a quantity of such a liquide body as it may be almost impossible for any naturall agent to diuide it further into any lesse partes and suppose that such a liquide part is betweene two dry partes of a dense body and sticking to them both becometh in the nature of a glew to hold them together will it not follow out of what wee haue said that these two dense partes will be as hard to be seuered from one an other as the small liquide part by which they sticke together is to be diuided So that when the viscous ligaments which in a body do hold together the dense partes are so small and subtile as no force we can apply vnto them can diuide them the adhesion of the partes must needes grow then inseparable And therefore we vse to moysten dry bodies to make them the more easily be diuided whereas those that are ouermoyst are of themselues ready to fall in pieces And thus you see how in generall bodies are framed Out of which discourse we may ballance the degrees of solidity in bodies for all bodies being composed of humide and dry partes we may conceiue either kind of those partes to be bigger or lesser or to be more rare or more dense Now if the dry partes of any body be extreme litle and dense and the moyst partes that ioyne the dry ones together be very great and rare then that body will be very easy to be dissolued But if the moyst partes which glew together such extreme litle and dense dry partes be eyther lesser in bulke or not so rare then the body composed of them will be in a stronger degree of consistence And if the moyst partes which serue for this effect be in an excesse of littlenesse and withall dense then the body they compose will be in the highest degree of consistence that nature can frame On the other side if you glew together great dry partes which are moderately dense and great by the admixtion of humide partes that are of the least cise in bulke and dense withall then the consistence will decrease from the height of it by how much the partes are greater and the density lesse But if vnto dry partes of the greatest cise and in the greatest remissenesse of density you adde humide partes that are both very great and very rare then the composed body will proue the most easily dissolueable of all that nature affordeth After this casting our eyes a litle further towardes the composition of particular bodies wee shall find still greater mixtures the further we goe for as the first and simplest compounded bodies are made of the foure Elements so others are made of these and againe a third sort of them and so onwardes according as by motion the partes of euery one are broken in sunder and mingled with others Those of the first order must be of various tempers according to the proportions of the Elements whereof they are immediately made As for example such a proportion of fire to the other three Elements will make one kind of simple body and an other proportion will make an other kind and so throughout by various combinations and proportions among all the Elements In the effecting of which worke it will not be amisse to looke a litle vpon nature and obserue how she mingleth and tempereth different bodies one with an other whereby she begetteth that great variety of creatures which we see in the world But because the degrees of composition are infinite according to the encrease of number we will containe our selues within the common notions of excesse in the foure primary components for if we should descend once to specify any determinate proportions we should endanger loosing our selues in a wood of particular natures which belong not to vs att present to examine Then taking the foure Elements as materials to worke vpon lett vs first consider how they may be varyed that differing compositions may result out of their mixtures I conceiue that all the wayes of varying the Elements in this regard may be reduced to the seuerall cises of bignesse of the partes of each Element that enter into the composition of any body and to the number of those partes for certainely no
that before they come thither they will be so rarifyed by that litle motion as they shall grow inuisible like the ayre and dispersing themselues all about in it they will fill the chamber with the smell of that body which can no longer be seene The last excesse in watry bodies must be of water it selfe which is when so litle a proportion of any of the other is mingled with it as is hardly perceptible out of this composition do arise all those seuerall sortes of iuices or liquors which we commonly call waters which by their mixture with the other three Elements haue peculiar properties beyond simple Elementall water The generall qualities whereof we shall not neede any further to expresse because by what we haue already said of water in common they are sufficiently knowne In our next suruay we will take earth for our ground to worke vpon as hitherto we haue done water which if in any body it be in the vtmost excesse of it beyond all the other three then rockes and stones will grow out of it whose dryenesse ad hardnesse may assure vs that Earth swayeth in their composition with the least allay that may be Nor doth their lightnesse in respect of some other Earthy compositions impeach this resolution for that proceedeth from the greatnesse and multiplicity of pores wherewith their dryenesse causeth them to abound and hindereth not but that their reall solide partes may be very heauy Now if we mingle a considerable proportion of water with earth so as to exceede the fire and ayre but still inferior to the earth we shall produce mettalls whose great weight with their ductility and malleability plainely telleth vs that the smallest of waters grosse partes are the glew that holdeth the earthy dense ones together such weight belonging to earth and that easye changing of partes being most proper to water Quickesiluer that is the generall matter whereof all the mettalls are immediately coÌ„posed giueth vs euidence hereof for fire worketh vpon it with the same effect as vpon water And the calcination of most of the mettalls proueth that fire can easily part and consume the glew by which they were closed and held together which therefore must be rather of a watry then of an ayry substance Likewise the glibbenesse of Mercury and of melted mettalls without catching or sticking to other substances giueth vs to vnderstand that this great temper of a moyst Element with Earth is water and not ayre and that the watry partes are comprised and as it were shutt vp within the earthy ones for ayre catcheth and sticketh notably to all thinges it toucheth and will not be imprisoned the diuisibity of it being exceeding great though in neuer so short partes Now if ayre mingleth it selfe with earth and be predominant ouer water and fire it maketh such an oyly and fatt soile as husbandmen account their best mould which receiuing a betterment from the sunne and temperate heat assureth vs of the concurse of the ayre for wheresoeuer suâ—h heate is ayre can not faile of accompanying it or of being effected by it and the richest of such earth as port earth and marle will with much fire grow more compacted and sticke closer together then it did as we see in baking them into pottes or fine brickes Whereas if water were the glew betweene the dense partes fire would consume it and crumble them a sunder as it doth in those bodies it calcineth And excesse of fire will bring them to vitrification which still confirmeth that ayre aboundeth in them for it is the nature of ayre to sticke so close where once it is kneaded in as it can not be seperated without extreme difficulty And to this purpose the viscous holding together of the partes of glasse when it is melted sheweth euidently that ayre aboundeth in vitrifyed bodies The last mixture we are to meddle with is of fire with earth in an ouerruling proportion ouer ayre and water And this I conceiue produceth those substances which we may terme coagulated iuices and which the latines do call Succi concreti whos 's first origine seemeth to haue beene liquors that haue beene afterwardes dryed by the force eyther of heate or of cold Of this nature are all kind of saltes niters sulfurs and diuers sortes of bitumens All which easily bewray the relikes an deffects of fire left in them some more some lesse according to their degrees And thus we haue in generall deduced from their causes the complexions of those bodies whereof the bulke of the world subiected to our vse consisteth and which serue for the production and nourishment of liuing creatures both animall and vegetable Not so exactly I confesse nor so particularly as the matter in it selfe or as a treatise confined to that subiect would require yet sufficiently for our intent In the performance whereof if more accurate searchers of nature shall find that we haue peraduenture beene mistaken in the minute deliuering of some particular bodies complexion their very correction I dare boldly say will iustify our principall scope which is to shew that all the great variety we see among bodies ariseth out of the coÌ„mixtion of the first qualities and of the Elements for they will not be able to correct vs vpon any other groundes then those we haue layed As may easily be perceiued if we cast a summary view vpon the qualities of composed bodies All which we shall find to spring out of rarity and density and to sauour of their origine for the most manifest qualities of bodies may be reduced to certaine paires opposite to one an other As namely some are liquide and flowing others are consistent some are soft others hard some are fatty viscous and smooth others leane gritty and rough some grosse othert subtile some tough others brittle and the like Of which the liquide the soft the fatt and the viscous are so manifestly deriued from rarity that we neede not take any further paines to trace out their origine and the like is of their contraries from the contrary cause to witt of those bodies that are consistent hard leane and gritty all which do euidently spring from density As for smoothnesse we haue already shewed how that proceedeth from an ayry or oyly nature and by consequence from a certaine degree of rarity And therefore roughnesse the contrary of it must proceede from a proportionable degree of density Toughnesse is also a kind of ductility which we haue reduced to watrynesse that is to an other degree of rarity and consequently brittlenesse must arise from the contrary degree of density Lastly grossenesse and subtilenesse do consist in a difficulty or facility to be diuided into small partes which appeareth to be nothing else but a certaine determination of rarity and density And thus we see how the seuerall complexions of bodies are reduced to the foure Elements that compound them and the qualities of those bodies to the two primary differencies of
and which it afterwardes drew along with it the body that resulteth out of them is diuersifyed In confirmation of all which they that deale in mines tell vs they vse to find mettalls oftentimes mingled with stones as also coagulated iuices with both and earths of diuers natures with all three and they with it and one with an other among themselues And that sometimes they find the mines not yet consolidated and digested throughly into mettall when by their experience knowing after how many yeares they will be ripe they shutt them vp againe till then Now if the hollow place wherein the body stayed which att the first was liquid and rouling be not att once filled by it but it taketh vp onely part of it and the same liquor continueth afterwardes to flow thither then this body is augmented and groweth bigger and bigger And although the liquors should come att seuerall times yet they become not therefore two seuerall bodies but both liquors do grow into one body for the wett parts of the aduentitious liquor do mollify the sides of the body already baked and both of them being of a like temper and cognation they easily sticke and grow together Out of this discours it followeth euidently that in all sortes of compounded bodies whatsoeuer there must of necessity be actually comprised sundry partes of diuers natures for otherwise they would be but so many pure degrees of rarity and density that is they would be but so many pure Elements and each of them haue but one determinate vertue or operation THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER Of the dissolution of Mixed bodies THus much for composition of bodies Their dissolution is made three wayes eyther by fire or by water or by some outward violence We will beginne with examining how this last is done To which end we may consider that the vnity of any body consisting in the connexion of its partes it is euident that the force of motion if it be exercised vpon them must of necessity separate them as we see in breaking cutting filing drawing a sunder and the like All these motions because they are done by grosse bodies do require great partes to worke vpon and are easily discerned how they worke so that it is not difficult to find the reason why some hard bodies breake easily and others with much adoe The first of which are called brittle the others tough For if you marke it all breaking requireth that beÌ„ding hould precede which on the one side compresseth the partes of the bended body and condenseth them into a lesser roome then they possessed before and on the otherside stretcheth them out and maketh them take vp more place This requireth some fluide or moueable substance to be within the body else it could not be done for without such helpe the partes could not remoue Therefore such hard bodies as haue most fluide partes in them are most flexible that is are toughest And those which haue fewest though they become thereby hardest to haue impression made vpon them yet if the force be able to do it they rather yield to breake then to bend and thence are called brittle Out of this we may inferre that some bodies may be so soddainely bent as that thereby they breake asunder whereas if they were leisurely and gently dealed withall they would take what ply one desireth And likewise that there is no body be it neuer so brittle and hard but that it will bend a litle and indeed more then one would expect if it be wrought vpon with time and dexterity for there is none but coÌ„taineth in it some liquide partes more or lesse euen glasse and bricke Vpon which occasion I remember how once in a great storme of wind I saw the high slender bricke chimnyes of the Kinges house att St Iames one winter when the ourt lay there bend from the wind like bowes and sharke exceedingly and totter And at other times I haue seen some very high and pointy spire steeples do the like And I haue beene assured the like of the whole pile of a high castle standing in a gullett in the course of the wind namely the castle of Wardour by those who haue often seene it shake notably in a fierce wind The reason of all which may be deduced out of what we haue said aboue for seeing that the bending of a body maketh the spirits or humors that are within it to sally forth it is cleare that if the violence which forceth it be not so soddaine nor the motion it receiueth be not so quicke but that the moisture may oose gently out the body will bend still more and more as their absence glueth it leaue But if the motion that is wrought in it be too quicke then the spirits not hauing time allowed them to goe leisurely and gently out do force their prison and breake out with a violence and so the body is snapped into two Here peraduenture some remembring what we haue said in an other place namely that it is the shortenesse and littlenesse of the humide partes in a body which maketh it sticke together and that this shortenesse may be in so high a degree as nothing can come betweene the partes they glew together to diuide them may aske how a very dense body of such a straine can be broken or diuided But the difficulty is not great for seeing that the humide partes in whatsoeuer degree of shortenesse they be must necessarily haue still some latitude it can not be doubted but there may be some force assigned greater then their resistance can be All the question is how to apply it to worke its effect vpon so close a compacted body in which peraduenture the continuity of the humide partes that bind the others together may be so small as no other body whatsoeuer no not fire can goe betweene them in such sort as to separate part from part Att the worst it can not be doubted but that the force may be so applyed att the outside of that body as to make the partes of it presse and fight one against an other and att the length by multiplication of the force constraine it to yield and suffer diuision And this I conceiue to be the condition of gold and of some pretious stones in which the Elements are vnited by such little partes as nothing but a ciuill warre within themselues stirred vp by some subtile outward enemy whereby they are made to teare their owne bowels could bring to passe their destruction But this way of dissoluing such bodies more properly belongeth to the next way of working vpon them by fire yet the same is done when some exterior violence pressing vpon those partes it toucheth maketh them cuâ—t a way betweene their next neighbours and so continuing the force diuide the whole body As when the chisell or euen the hammer with beating breaketh gold a sunder for it is neyther the chisell nor the hammer that doth that effect immediately but they make
phlegmes and earth Now these are not pure and simple partes of the dissolued body but new coÌ„pounded bodies made of the first by the operation of heat As smoake is not pure water but water and fire together and therefore becometh not water but by cooling that is by the fire flying away from it So likewise those spirits salts oyles and the rest are but degrees of thinges which fire maketh of diuers partes of the dissolued body by seperating them one from an other and incorporating it selfe with them And so they are all of them compounded of the foure Elements and are further resoluable into them Yet I intend not to say that there are not originally in the body before its dissolution some loose partes which haue the properties of these bodies that are made by the fire in the dissoluing of it for seeing that nature worketh by the like instruments as art vseth she must needes in her excesses and defects produce like bodies to what art doth in dissolution which operation of art is but a kind of excesse in the progresse of nature but my meaning is that in such dissolution there are more of these partes made by the working of fire then were in the body before Now because this is the naturall and most ordinary dissolution of thinges lett vs see in particular how it is done suppose then that fire were in a conuenient manner applyed to a body that hath all sortes of partes in it and our owne discourse will tell vs that the first effect it worketh will be that as the subtile partes of fire do diuide and passe through that body they will adhere to the most subtile partes in it which being most agile and least bound and incorporated to the bowels of the body and lying as it were loosely scattered in it the fire will carry them away with it Thâ—se will be the first that are seperated from the maine body which being retained in a fitt receiuer will by the coldenesse of the circumdant ayre grow outwardly coole themselues and become first a dew vpon the sides of the glasse and then still as they grow cooler condense more and more till att the length they fall downe congealed into a palpable liquor which is composed as you see of the hoatest partes of the body mingled with the fire that carried them out and therefore this liquor is very inflammable and easily turned into actuall fire as you see all spirits and Aquae ardentes of vegetables are The hoat and loose partes being extracted and the fire continuing and encreasing those that will follow next are such as though they be not of themselues loose yet are easyest to be made so and are therefore most separable These must be humide and those little dry partes which are incorporated with the ouerflowing humide ones in them for no partes that we can arriue vnto are of one pure simple nature but all are mixed and composed of the 4 Elements in some proportion must be held together with such grosse glew as the fire may easily penetrate and separate them And then the humide partes diuided into little atomes do sticke to the lesser ones of the fire which by their multitude of number and velocity of motion supplying what they want of them in bulke do carry them away with them And thus these phlegmaticke partes fly vp with the fire and are afterwardes congealed into an insipide water which if it haue any sauour is because the first ardent spirits are not totally separated from it but some few of them remaine in it and giue some little life to the whole body of that otherwise flatt liquor Now those partes which the fire separateth next from the remaining body after the firy and watry ones are carryed away must be such as it can worke vpon and therefore must abound in humidity But since they stirre not till the watry ones are gone it is euident that they are composed of many dry partes strongly incorporated and very subtilely mixed with the moist ones and that both of them are exceeding small and are so closely and finely knitt together that the fire hath much adoe to gett betweene them and cutt the thriddes that tye them together and therefore they require a very great force of fire to cary them vp Now the composition of these sheweth them to be aeriall and together with the fire that is mingled with them they congeale into that consistence which we call oyle Lastly it can not be otherwise but that the fire in all this while of continuall application to the body it thus anatomiseth hath hardned and as it were rosted some partes into such greatnesse and drynesse as they will not fly nor can be carried vp with any moderate heate But greate quantity of fire being mingled with the subtiler partes of his baked earth maketh them very pungent and acrimonious in tast so that they are of the nature of ordinary salt and are so called and by the helpe of water may easily be separated from the more grosse partes which then remaine a dead and vselesse earth By this discourse it is apparant that fire hath been the instrument which hath wrought all these partes of an entire body into the formes they are in for whiles it carryed away the fiery partes it swelled the watry ones and whiles it lifted vp them it digested the aeriall partes and whiles it droue vp the oyles it baked the earth and salt Againe all these retaining for the most part the proper nature of the substance from whence they are extracted it is euident that the substance is not dissolued for so the nature of the whole would be dissolued and quite destroyed and extinguished in euery part but that onely some partes containing the whole substance or rather the nature of the whole substance in them are separated from other partes that haue likewise the same nature in them The third instrument for the separation and dissolution of bodies is water Whose proper matter to worke vpon is salt And it serueth to supply what the fire could not performe which is the separation of the salt from the earth in calcined bodies All the other partes fire was able to seuer But in these he hath so baked the little humidity he hath left in them with their much earth as he can not diuide them any further And so though he incorporateth him selfe with them yet he can carry nothing away with him If then pure water be putt vpon that chalke the subtilest dry partes of it do easily ioyne to the superuenient moysture and sticking close to it do draw it downe to them but because they are the lighter it happeneth to them as when a man in a boate pulleth the land to him that cometh not to him but he remoueth himselfe and his boate to it so these ascend in the water as they dissolue And the water more and more penetrating them and by addition of its partes making the humidity which
gleweth their earthy partes together greater and greater doth make a wider and wider separation betweene those little earthy partes And so imbueth the whole body of the water with thē into which they are dispersed in little atomes Those that are of biggest bulke remaine lowest in the water And in the same measure as their quantities dissolue into lesse and lesse they ascend higher and higher in the water till att the length the water is fully replenished with them and they are diffused through the whole body of it whiles the more grosse and heauy earthy partes hauing nothing in them to make a present combination betweene them and the water do fall downe to the bottome and settle vnder the water in dust In which because earth alone doth predominate in a very great excesse we can expect no other vertue to be in it but that which is proper to meere earth to witt drynesse and weight Which ordinary Alchymistes looke not after and therefore call it Terra damnata but others find a fixing quality in it by which they performe very admirable operations Now if you powre the impregnated water from the Terra damnata and then euaporate it you will find a pure white substance remaining Which by its bulke sheweth it selfe to be very earthy and by its pricking and corrosiue tast will informe you much fire is in it and by its easy dissolution in a moist place that water had a great share in the production of it And thus the saltes of bodies are made and extracted Now as water doth dissolue salt so by the incorporation and vertue of that corrosiue substance it doth more then salt it selfe can doe for hauing gotten acrimony and more weight by the mixture and dissolution of salt in it it maketh it selfe a way into solide bodies euen into mettals as we see in brasse and iron which are easily rusted by salt dissoluing vpon them And according as the saltes are stronger so this corrosiue vertue encreaseth in them euen so much as neyther syluer nor gold are free from their eating quality But they as well as the rest are diuided into most small partes and are made to swimme in water in such sort as we haue explicated aboue and whereof euery ordinary Alchymist teacheth the practise But this is not all salts do helpe as well to melt hard bodies and mettalls as to corrode them for some fusible salts flowing vpon them by the heate of the fire and others dissolued by the streame of the mettall that incorporateth with them as soone as they are in fluxe they mingle with the naturall iuice of the mettall and penetrate them deeper then without them the fire could doe and swell them and make them fitt to runne These are the principall wayes of the two last instruments in dissoluing of bodies taking each of them by it selfe But there remaineth one more of very great importance as well in the workes of nature as of art in which both the former are ioyned and do concure and that is putrefraction Whose way of working is by gentle heate and moisture to wett and pierce the body it worketh vpon whereby it is made to swell and the hoat partes of it being loosened they are att length druncke vp and drowned in the moist ones from whence by fire they are easily separated as we haue already declared and those moist partes afterwardes leauing it the substance remaineth dry and falleth in pieces for want of the glew that held it together THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER An explication of certaine Maximes touching the operations and qualities af bodies and whether the Elements be found pure in any part of the world OVt of what we haue determined concerning the naturall actions of bodies in their making and destroying one an other it is easy to vnderstand the right meaning of some termes and the true reason of some maximes much vsed in the schooles As first when Philosophers attribute vnto all sortes of corporeall Agents a Sphere of Actiuity The sense of that manner of expression in fire appeareth plainely by what we haue already declared of the nature and manner of operation of that Element And in like manner if we consider how the force of cold consisteth in a compression of the body that is made cold we may preceiue that if in the cooled body there be any subtile partes which can breake forth from the rest such compression will make them do so Especially if the compression be of little partes of the compressed body within themselues as well as of the outward bulke of the whole body round about for at first the compression of such causeth in the body where they are little holes or pores in the places they are compressed and driuen from which pores they filled vp when they were dilated att their owne naturall liberty But being thus forcibly shrunke vp into lesse roome afterwardes they squeese againe out of their croude all such very loose and subtile partes residing till then with them as can find their way out from among them And these subtile partes that thus are deliuered from the colds compression gett first into the pores that we haue shewed were made by this compression But they can not long stay there for the atomes of aduenient cold that obsesse the compressed body do likewise with all their force throng into those pores and soone driue out the subtile guestes they find there because they are more in number bigger in bulke and more violent in their course then they Who therefore must yield vnto them the little channels and capacities they formerly tooke vp Out of which they are thrust with such an impetuosity that they spinne from them with a vehemence as quickesiluer doth through leather when to purify it or to bring an Amalgame to a due consistence it is strained through the sides of it Now these shoures or streames of atomes issuing from the compressed body are on all sides round about it att exceeding little distances because the pores out of which they are driuen are so likewise And consequently there they remaine round about besieging it as though they would returne to their originall homes as soone as the vsurping strāgers that were too powerfull for thē will giue thē leaue And according to the multitude of thē and to the force with which they are driuen out the compasse they take vp round about the cōpressed body is greater or lesser Which besieging atomes are not so soone carried away by any exterior and accidentall causes but they are supplyed by new emanations succeeding them out of the said compressed body Now this which we haue declared by the example of cold cōpressing a particular body happeneth in all bodies wheresoeuer they be in the world for this being the vnauoydable effect of heate and of cold wheresoeuer they reside which are the actiue qualities by whose meanes not onely fire and water and the other two Elements but all other mixed bodies composed of the
between them it is wounded and enfeebled like those souldiers that first enter a breach in a owne from whence when they haue driuen the enemy they pursue him to the cittadell and force him from thence too and so how maymed soeuer they proue they make a free and easy way without resistance for the whole body of their army to follow them and take quiett possession of that which did cost them so much to winne And thus we see how it may happen that one of these mouing bodies doth not suffer so much as to be stayed in its iourney much lesse to be driuen backe And yet the other body att the same time worke in some measure vpon it by working vpon what is next to it which recoyling against it must needes make some impression vpon it since there can be no opposition but must haue some effect Now this impression or effect though it be not perceptible by causing a contrary motion yet it must needes enfeeble the vertue of the conquering Agent and deaden the celerity of its motion And thus it is euident that in all pure locall motions of corporeall Agents euery one of them must in some proportion suffer in acting and in suffering must act And what we haue said of this kind of action may easily be applyed to the other where the effect of locall motion is designed by a particular name as it is in the exāples we gaue of heating and cooling And in that the proceeding will appeare to be the very same as in this for if fire doth heate water the water reacteth againe eyther vpō the fire and cooleth it if it be immediate vnto it or else vpon the interiacent ayre if it be att a distance from the fire And so the ayre is in some measure cooled by the cold atomes that issue from the water whose compasse or sphere of actiuity being lesser then the fires they can not coole so farre off as the others can heate but where they do arriue they giue their proportion of cold in the very middest of the others army of fiery atomes notwithstanding their multitude and violence According to which doctrine our countryman Suisseth his argument that in the schooles is held insoluble hath not so much as any semblance of the least difficulty for it is euident that such atomes of fire and of water as we determine heate and cold to be may passe and croude by one an other into the subiects they are sent vnto by diuers little streames without hindering one an other as we haue declared of ayre and light and each of them be receiued in their owne nature and temper by the same subiect though sense can iudge onely according to which of them is predominant and according to the proportion of its superiority Vpon which occasion we can not choose but note how the doctrine of qualities is not onely vnable to giue account of the ordinary and plaine effects of nature but also vseth to end in cleere impossibilities and contradictions if it be driuen farre as this argument of Suisseth sheweth and many others of the like nature A fourth position among Philosophers is that some notions do admitt the denominations of Intension and Remission but that others do not The reason of which we shall cleerely see if we but consider how these termes of intension and remission do but expresse more or lesse of the thing that is said to be intended or remitted for the nature of more and lesse doth imply a latitude and diuisibility and therefore can not agree with the nature of such thinges as consist in an indiuisible being As for example to be a whole or to be an equall can not be sometimes more sometimes lesse for they consist in such a rigorous indiuisible being that if the least part imaginable be wanting it is no longer a whole and if there be the least excesse between two thinges they are no longer equall but are in some other proportion then of equality in regard of one an other And hence it is that Aristotle teacheth vs that substance and the species of Quantity do not admitt of intension and remission but that Quality doth For first in substance we know that the signification of this word is that which maketh a thing be what it is as is euident by our giuing it for an answere to the question what a thing is And therefore if there were any diuisibility in substance it would be in what the thing is and consequently euery diuision following that diuisibility would make the thing an other what that is an other thing And so the substance that is pretended to be changed by intension or remission would not be diuided as is supposed but would cease to be and an other substance would succeede in the roome of it Whereby you see that euery mutation in substance maketh a new thing and that more and lesse in Quiddity can not be pronounced of the same thing Likewise in Quantity it is cleere that its Specieses do consist in an indiuisible for as in numbers tenne lions for example or tenne Elephants are no more in regard of multitude then tenne fleas or tenne moates in the sunne and if you adde or take any thing from tenne it is no more tenne but some other number so likewise in continued extension a spanne an elle an ounce or any other measure whatsoeuer ceaseth to be a spanne and the rest if you adde to it or diminish from it the least quantity imaginable And peraduenture the same is also of figures as of a sphere a cube a circle a square c. though they be in the ranke of Qualities But if we consider such qualities as heat cold moysture drynesse softnesse hardnesse weight lightnesse and the like we shall find that they may be in any body sometimes more sometimes lesse according as the excesse of any Element or mixture is greater in it att one time then att an other and yet the body in which these qualities are intended or remitted remaine still with the same denomination As when durt continueth still softe though sometimes it be lesse softe other whiles softer and waxe remaineth figurable whether it be melted or congealed and wood is still hoat though it loose or gaine some degree of heate But such intension in any subiect whatsoeuer hath its determinate limits that it can not passe for when more of that quality that we say is intended that is more of the atomes of the actiue body is brought into the body that suffereth the intension then its complexion can brooke it resigneth its nature to their violence and becometh a new thing such an one as they are pleased to make it As when wood with extremity of heating that is with bringing into it so many atomes of fire that the fire is stronger in it then its owne nature is conuerted into fire smoake water and ashes and nothing remaineth of the nature of wood But before we end this chapter
we may remember how in the close of the fourth we remitted a question concerning the existence of the Elements that is whether in any places of the world there were any pure Elements eyther in bulke or in little partes as being not ready to resolue it till we had declared the manner of working of bodies one vpon an other Here then will be a fitt place to determine that out of what we haue discoursed concerning the actions whereby bodies are made and corrupted for considering the vniuersall action of fire that runneth through all the bodies we haue commerce withall by reason of the sunnes influence into them and operation vpon them with his light and beames which reacheth farre and neere and looking vpon the effects which we haue shewed do follow thence it is manifest there can not be any great quantity of any body whatsoeuer in which fire is not intrinsecally mixed And on the other side we see that where fire is once mixed it is very hard to seperate it totally from thence Againe we see it is impossible that pure fire should be conserued without being adioyned to some other body both because of its violent natiuity still streaming forth with a great impetuosity as also because it is so easily ouercome by any obsident body when it is dilated And therefore we may safely conclude that no simple Element can consist in any great quantity in this course of nature which we liue in and take a suruay of Neyther doth it appeare to what purpose nature should haue placed any such storehouses of simples seeing she can make all needefull complexions by the dissolutions of mixed bodies into other mixed bodies sauouring of the nature of the Elements without needing their purity to beginne vpon But on the other side it is as euident that the Elements must remaine pure in euery compounded body in such extreme small partes as we vse to call atomes for if they did not the variety of bodies would be nothing else but so many degrees of rarity and density or so many pure homogeneall Elements and not bodies composed of heterogeneall partes and consequently would not be able to shew that variety of partes which we see in bodies nor could produce the complicated effects which proceede from them And accordingly we are sure that the least partes which our senses can arriue to discouer haue many varieties in them euen so much that a whole liuing creature whose organicall partes must needes be of exceeding different natures may be so litle as vnto our eyes to seeme indiuisible we not distinguishing any difference of partes in it without the helpe of a multiplying glasse as in the least kind of mites and in wormes picked out of Childrens handes we dayly experience So as it is euident that no sensible part can be vnmingled But then againe when we call to mind how we haue shewed that the qualities which we find in bodies do result out of the composition and mixtion of the Elements we must needes conclude that they must of necessity remaine in their owne essences in the mixed body And so out of the whole discourse determine that they are not there in any visible quantity but in those least atomes that are too subtile for our senses to discerne Which position we do not vnderstand so Metaphysically as to say that their substantiall formes remaine actually in the mixed body but onely that their accidentall qualities are found in the compound remitting that other question vnto Metaphysicians those spirituall Anatomistes to decide THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER Of Rarefaction and Condensation the two first motions of particular bodies OVr intention in this discourse concerning the natures and motions of bodies ayming no further then att the discouery of what is or may be done by corporeall Agents thereby to determine what is the worke of immateriall and spirituall substances it can not be expected att our handes that we should deliuer here an entire and complete body of naturall Philosophy But onely that we should take so much of it in our way as is needfull to carry vs with truth and euidence to our iourneys end It belongeth not then to vs to meddle with those sublime contemplations which search into the nature of the vast Vniuerse and that determine the vnity and limitation of it and that shew by what stringes and vpon what pinnes and wheeles and hinges the whole world moueth and that from thence do ascend vnto an awfull acknowledgment and humble admiration of the primary cause from whence and of which both the being of it and the beginning of the first motion and the continuance of all others doth proceed and depend Nor in deede would it be to the purpose for anyman to sayle in this Ocean and to beginne a new voyage of nauigation vpon it vnlesse he were assured he had ballast enough in his shippe to make her sinke deepe into the water and to carry her steadily through those vnruly waues and that he were furnished with skill and prouision sufficient to go through without eyther loosing his course by steering after a wrong compasse or being forced backe againe with shorte and obscure relations of discoueries since others that went out before him are returned with a large account to such as are able to vnderstand and summe it vp Which surely our learned countryman and my best and most honoured frend and to whom of all men liuing I am most obliged for to him I owe that litle which I know and what I haue and shall sett downe in all this discourse is but a few sparkes kindled by me att his greate fire hath both profoundly and acutely and in euery regard iudiciously performed in his Dialogues of the world Our taske then in a lower straine and more proportionate to so weake shoulders is to looke no further then among those bodies we conuerse withall Of which hauing declared by what course and engines nature gouerneth their common motions that are found euen in the Elements and from thence are deriued to all bodies composed of them we intend now to consider such motions as accompany diuers particular bodies and are much admired by whosoeuer vnderstandeth not the causes of them To beginne from the easiest and most connexed with the actions of the Elements the handsell of our labour will light vpon the motions of Rarefaction and Condensation as they are the passions of mixed bodies And first for Rarefaction we may remember how it proceedeth originally from fire and dependeth of heate as is declared in the former chapter and wheresoeuer we find Rarefaction we may be confident the body which suffereth it is not without fire working vpon it From hence we may gather that when the ayre imprisoned in a baloone or bladder swelleth against what cōtaineth it and stretcheth its case and seeketh to breake out this effect must proceed from fire or heate though we see not the fire working eyther within the very bowels of the ayre
breaketh and diuideth them into lesser atomes and so bringeth some of them into the state of fire which you may remember is nothing else but a body brought into such a degree of littlenesse and rarity of its partes And this is the reason why such hard and dry bodies as haue an vnctuous substance in them are by motion eyther easily sett on fire or att the least fire is easily gotten out of them As happeneth in flintes and in diuers other stones which yield fire when they are strucken and if presently after you smell vnto them you shall perceiue an odour of brimstone and of burning which is a certaine signe that the motion did conuert into fire the naturall brimstone that was mingled with the flint and whose denser partes were growne cold and so stucke to the stone And in like manner the iuywood and diuers others as also the Indian canes which from thence are called firecanes being rubbed with some other sticke of the same nature if they be first very dry will of themselues sett on fire and the like will happen to coach wheeles in summer if they be ouerheated with motion To conclude our discourse of rarefaction we may looke a little into the power and efficacity of it which is no where to be seene so clearly as in fire And as fire is the generall cause of rarefaction so is it of all bodies that which is most rarifyed And therefore it is no maruayle if its effects be the greatest that are in nature seeing it is the proper operatioÌ„ of the most actiue Element The wonderfull force of it we dayly see in thunder in gunnes in granados and in mines of which continuall experience as well as seuerall historyes wittnesseth litle lesse then miracles Leauing them to the remarkes of curious Persons we will onely looke into the way by which so maine effects do proceed from causes that appeare so slender It is euident that fire as we haue said before dilateth it selfe spherically as nature sheweth vs manifestly in bubbles of boyling water and of mike and generally of such substances as are of a viscous composition for those bubbles being round do assure vs that the cause which made them did equally dilate them from the center vnto all partes Now then remembring the infinite multiplication which is in fire we may conceiue that when a graine of gunnepouder is turned thereinto there are so many little bubbles of a viscous substance one backing an other with great celerity as there are partes of fire more then there were of gunnepouder And if we make a computation of the number and of the celerity of these bubbles we shall find that although euery one of them single do seeme to be of an inconsiderable force yet the whole number of them together will exceed the resistance of the body moued or broken by them especially if we note that when hard substances haue not time allowed them to yield they break the sooner And then we shall not so much admire the extremities we see acted by these meanes Thus hauing looked into the nature of rarefaction and traced the progresse of it from the motion of the sunne and fire in the next place we are to examine the nature of condensation And we shall oftentimes find it likewise an effect of the same cause otherwise working for there being two different wayes to dry any wett thing the one by taking away that iuice which maketh a body liquid the other by putting more drought to the wett body that it may imbibe the moisture this latter way doth as well as the former condense a body for by the close sticking of wett to dry the most part of condensation is effected in compounded bodies The first of these wayes doth properly and immediately proceed from heate for heate entering into a body incorporateth it selfe with the moist and viscous partes it findeth there as purging medicines do with the humors they worke vpon which when the stomacke can no longer entertaine by reason of their vnruly motions in wrestling together they are both eiected grappling with one an other and the place of their contention is thus by the superuenience of a guest of a contrary nature that will not stay long there purged from the superaboundance of the former ones that annoyed it Euen so the fire that is greedily drunke vp by the watry and viscous partes of a compounded body and whose actiuity and restlesse nature will not endure to be long emprisoned there quickly pierceth quite through â—he body it entereth into and after a while streameth out att the opposite side as fast as it entered on the side next to it and carryeth away with it those glewy partes it is incorporated with and by their absence leaueth the body they part from dryer then att the first it was Which course we may obserue in sirupes that are boyled to a consistence and in brothes that are consumed vnto a gelly ouer which whiles they are making by the fire vnder them you see a great steame which is the watry partes that being incorporated with fire fly away in smoake Likewise when the sea water is condensed into salt you see it is an effect of the sunne or fire that exhaleth or boyleth away all the palpable moisture And so when wett clothes are hanged eyther in the sunne or att the fire we see a smoake about the clothes and heate within them which being all drawne out from them they become dry And this deserueth a particular note that although they should be not quite dry when you take them from the fire yet by then they are coole they will be dry for the fire that is in them when they are remoued from the maine stocke of fire flying away carryeth with it the moisture that was incorporated with it and therefore whiles they were hoat that is whiles the fire was in them they must also be moist because the fire and the moisture were growne to be one body and could not become through dry with that measure of fire for more would haue dryed them euen whiles they where hoat vntill they were also growne through cold And in like manner sirupes hydromels gellies and the like grow much thicker after they are taken off from the fire then they were vpon the fire and much of their humidity flyeth away with the fire in their cooling whereby they lessen much of their quantity euen after the outward fire hath ceased from working vpon them Now if the moist partes that remaine after the drying be by the heate well incorporated in the dry partes and so do occasion the dry partes to sticke close together then that body is condensed and will to the proportion of it be heauyer in a lesse bulke as we see that mettalls are heauyer then stones Allthough this effect be in these examples wrought by heate yet generally speaking it is more proper to cold which is the second way of drying a moist body As
and water into a decompound of two saltes and water vntill all his partes be anew impregnated with the second grosser salt as before the pure water was with the first subtiler salt And so it will proceed on if proportionate bodies be ioyned vntill the dissoluing composition do grow into a thicke body Vnto which discourse we may adde that when the water is so fully impregnated with the first salt as it will receiue no more remayning in the temper it is in yet if it be heated it will then afresh dissolue more of the same kind Which sheweth that the reason of its giuing ouer to dissolue is for want of hauing the water diuided into partes little enough to sticke vnto more salt which as in this case the fire doth so peraduenture in the other the acrimoniousnesse of the salt doth it And this is sufficient to giue curious wittes occasion by making further experiments to search out the truth of this matter Onely we may note what happeneth in most of the experiencies we haue mentioned to witt that thinges of the same nature do ioyne better and more easily then others that are more estranged from one an other Which is very agreeable to reason seeing that if nature do intend to haue thinges consist long together she must fitt them for such consistence Which seemeth to proceed out of their agreement in foure qualities first in weight for bobies of diuers degrees in weight if they be att liberty do seeke diuers places and consequently substances of like weight must of necessity find one an other out and croud together as we haue shewed it is the natute of heate to make them do now it is apparent that thinges of one nature must in equall partes haue the same or a neere proportion of weight seeing that in their composition they must haue the same proportion of Elements The second reason of the consistence of bodies together that are of the same nature is the agreement of their liquid partes in the same degree of rarity and density for as it is the nature of quantity in common to make all partes be one quantity so it is the nature of the degrees of quantity when two partes do meete that are of the same degree to make them one in that degree of quantity which is to make them stick together in that degree of sticking which the degree of density that is common to them both maketh of its owne nature Whereas partes of different densities can not haue this reason of sticking though peraduenture they may vpon some other ground haue some more efficacious one And in this manner the like humide partes of two bodies becoming one the holes or receptacles in which those humide partes are contained must also needes be vnited The third reason is the agreeable proportion which their seuerall figures haue in respect of one an other for if any humidity be extracted out of a mixed body especially by the vertue of fire it must haue left pores of such figures as the humidity that is drawne out of them is apt to be cutt into for euery humide body not being absolutely humide but hauing certaine dry partes mixed with it is more apt for one kind of figure and greatnesse then for an other and by consequence whensoeuer that humidity shall meete againe with the body it was seuered from it will easily runne through and into it all and will fill exactly the cauities and pores it possessed before The last quality in which bodies that are to consist long together do agree is the biggnesse of the humide and dry partes of the same body for if the humide partes be too bigge for the dry ones it is cleare that the dry ones must needes hang loosely together by them because their glew is in too greate a quantity But if the humide partes bee too little for the dry ones then of necessity some portion of euery little dry part must be vnfurnished of glew by meanes whereof to sticke vnto his fellow and so the sticking partes not being conueniently proportioned to one an other their adhesion can not be so solide as if each of them were exactly fitted to his fellow THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER Of an other motion belonging to particular bodies called Attraction and of certaine operations termed Magicall HAuing thus ended the two motions of rarefaction and of condensation the next that offer themselues are the locall motions which some bodies haue vnto others These are sometimes performed by a plaine force in the body towardes which the motion is and other whiles by a hidden cause which is not so easily discerned The first is chiefely that which is ordinarily said to be done by the force of nature to hinder Vacuum and is much practised by nature as in drawing our breath in sucking and in many other naturall operations which are imitated by art in making of pumpes syphons and such other instruments and in that admirable experiment of taking vp a heauy marble stone meerely by an other lying flatt and smoothly vpon it without any other connexion of the two stones together as also by that sport of boyes when they spread a thinne moystned leather vpon a smooth broad stone and presse it all ouer close to it and then by pulling of a string fastened att the middle of the leather they draw vp likewise the heauy stone In all which the first cause of the motion proceedeth from that body towardes which the motion is made And therefore is properly called Attraction For the better vnderstanding and declaring of which lett vs suppose two marble stones very broad and exceeding smoothly polished to be laid one flatt vpon the other and lett there be a ring fastened att the backe part of the vppermost stone and exactly in the middle of it Then by that ring pull it vp perpendicularly and steadily and the vndermost will follow sticking fast to the ouermost and though they were not very perfectly polished yet the nethermost would follow for a while if the ring be suddainely plucked vp but then it will soone fall downe againe Now this plainely sheweth that the cause of their sticking so strongly together when both the stones are very well polished is for that nothing can well enter between them to part them and so it is reduced to the shortnesse of the ayre that is betwixt them which not being capable of so great an expansion nor admitting to be diuided thickewayes so much as is necessary to fill the first growing distance between the two stones till new ayre findeth a course thither that so the swelling of the one may hinder vacuity till the other come in to the rescue the two stones must needes sticke together to certaine limits which limits will depend of the proportion that is between the weight and the continuity of the nethermost stone And when we haue examined this we shall vnderstand in what sense it is meaned that Nature abhorreth from Vacuity and what
not dayly the effects If then we can but arriue to decypher the first characters of the hidden Alphabet we are now taking in hand and can but spellingly reade the first syllabes of it we neede not doubt but that the wise Author of nature in the masterpiece of the creature which was to expresse the excellency of the workeman would with excellent cunning and art dispose all circumstances so aptly as to speake readily a complete language rising from those Elements and that should haue as large an extent in practise and expression beyond those first principles which we like children onely lispe out as the vast discourses of wisest and most learned men are beyond the spellinges of infantes and yet those discourses spring from the same roote as the others spellinges doe and are but a raysing of them to a greater height as the admired musike of the best player of a lute or harpe that euer was is deriued from the harsh twanges of course bowestringes which are composed together and refined till att length they arriue to that wonderfull perfection And so without scruple we may in the businesse we are next falling vpon conclude that the admirable and almost miraculous effects we see are but the eleuating to a wonderfull height those very actions and motions which we shall produce as causes and principles of them Letr vs then suppose that there is a solide hard body of an vnctuous nature whose partes are so subtile and fiery that with a little agitation they are much rarifyed and do breath out in steames though they be too subtile for our eyes to discerne like vnto the steame that issueth from sweating men or horses or like the steame that flyeth from a candle when it is putt out but that these steames as soone as they come into the cold ayre are by that cold soddainely condensed againe and by being condensed do shorten themselues and by little and little do retire till they settle themselues vpon the body from whence they sprung in such manner as you may obserue the little tender hornes of snailes vse to shrinke backe if any thing touch them till they settle in little lumpes vpon their heades If I say these stringes of bituminous vapour should in their way outwardes meete with any light and spungie body they would pierce into it and settle in it and if it were of a competent biggenesse for them to wield they would carry it with them which way soeuer they goe so that if they shrinke backe againe to the fountaine from whence they came they must needes carry backe with them the light spungy body they haue fixed their dartes in Consider then that how much heate rarifyeth so much cold cōdenseth and therefore such partes as by agitatiō were spūne out into a subtile thridde of an inch long for exāple as they coole do grow bigger and bigger and consequently shorter and shorter till att length they gather thēselues backe into their maine body and there they settle againe in cold bitumen as they were att the first and the light body that they sticke vnto is drawne backe with them and consequently sticketh to the superficies of the bitumen As if something were tyed att one end of a lutestring extended to its vtmost capacity and the other end were fastened to some pinne as the string shrinketh vp so that which is tyed att it must needes moue neerer and neerer the pinne which artifice of nature iugglers do imitate when by meanes of an vnseene haire they draw light bodies to them Now if all this operation be done without your seeing the little thriddes which cause it the matter appeareth wonderfull and strange But when you consider this progresse that we haue sett downe you will iudge it possible And this seemeth to be the case of those bodies which we call Electricall as yellow amber iett and the like All which are of a bituminous vnctuous nature as appeareth by their easy combustibility and smell when they are burned And if some do not so apparently shew this vnctuous nature it is because eyther they are too hard or else they haue a high degree of aqueous humidiry ioyned with their vnctuosity and in them the operation will be duller in that proportion for as we see that vnctuous substances are more odoriferous then others and do send their steames further off and more efficaciously so we can not doubt but that such bodies as consist in a moist nature do accordingly send forth their emanations in a feebler proportion Yet that proportion will not be so feeble but that they may haue an Electricall effect as well as the more efficacious Electricall bodies which may be perceptible if exact experience be made by an instrument like the mariners needle as our learned countryman Doctor Gilbert teacheth But that in those eminent agents the spirits whereby they attract are vnctuous is plaine because the fire consumeth them and so if the agents be ouerheated they can not worke but moderate heate euen of fire encreaseth their operation Againe they are clogged by mysty ayre or by wetting and likewise are pierced through and cutt asunder by spiritt of wine or aquae ardentes but oyle doth not hurt them Likewise they yield more spirits in the sunne then in the shade and they continue longer when the ayre is cleared by North or by Easterne windes They require to be polished eyther because the rubbing which polisheth them doth take off from their surfaces the former emanations which returning backe do sticke vpon them and so do hinder the passage of those that are within or else because their outsides may be foule or lastly because the pores may be dilated by that smoothing Now that hardnesse and solidity is required doth argue that these spirits must be quicke ones that they may returne smartly and not be lost through their languishing in the ayre Likewise that all bodies which are not eyther exceeding rare or else sett on fire may be drawne by these vnctuous thriddes concludeth that the quality by which they do it is a common one that hath no particular contrarieties such a one as we see is in grease or in pitch to sticke to any thing from which in like manner nothing is exempted but fire and ayre And lastly that they worke most efficaciously when they are heated by rubbing rather then by fire sheweth that their spirits are excitated by motion and are thereby made to flye abroad in such manner as we see in pomanders and in other perfumes which must be heated if you will haue them communicate their sent and alike effect as in them agitation doth in iett yellow amber and such other Electricall bodies for if vpon rubbing them you putt them presently to your nose you will discerne a strong bituminous smell in them all which circumstances do shew that this Electricall vertue consisteth in a certaine degree of rarity or density of the bodies vnctuous emanations Now if these refined and viscous
and temper him The streames of water as we haue said must runne through the whole fabrike of this triformed plant and because it is not a simple water but warme in a good degree and as it were a middle substance betwixt water and ayre by reason of the ardent volatile spiritt that is with it it is of a fitt nature to swell as ayre doth and yet withall to resist violence in a conuenient degree as water doth Therefore if from its source nature sendeth aboundance into any one part that part must swell and grow thicker and shorter and so must be contracted that way which nature hath ordered it Whence we perceiue a meanes by which nature may draw any part of the outward fabrike which way soeuer she is pleased by sett instruments for such an effect But when there is no motion or but litle in these pipes the standing streame that is in a very litle though long channell must needes be troubled in its whole body if any one part of it be pressed vpon so as to receiue thereby any impression and therefore whatsoeuer is done vpon it though att the very furthest end of it maketh a commotion and sendeth an impression vp to its very source Which appearing by our former discourse to be the origine of particular and occasionall motions it is obuious to conceiue how it is apt to be moued and wrought by such an impression to sett on foote the beginning of any motion which by natures prouidence is conuenient for the plant when such an impression is made vpon it And thus you see this plant hath the vertue both of sense or feeling that is of being moued and affected by externe obiects lightly striking vpon it as also of mouing it selfe to or from such an obiect according as nature shall haue ordained Which in summe is that this plant is a sensitiue creature composed of three sources the heart the braine and the liuer whose offspringes are the arteries the nerues and the veines which are filled with vitall spirits with animal spirits and with blood and by these the animal is heated nourished and made partaker of sense and motion Now referring the particular motions of liuing creatures to an other time we may obserue that both kindes of them as well vegetables as animals do agree in the nature of sustaining themselues in the three common actions of generation nutrition and augmentation which are the beginning the progresse and the conseruing of life Vnto which three we may adde the not so much action as passion of death and of sicknesse or decay which is the way to death THE FOVRE AND TWENTIETH CHAPTER A more particular suruay of the generation of Animals in which is discouered what part of the animal is first generated TO beginne then with examining how liuing creatures are ingendered our maine question shall be whether they be framed entirely att once or successiuely one part after an other And if this later way which part first Vpon the discussion of which all that concerneth generation will be explicated as much as concerneth our purpose in hand To deduce this from its origine we may remember how our Masters tell vs that when any liuing creature is passed the heate of its augmentation or growing the superfluous nourishment settleth it selfe in some appoynted place of the body to serue for the production of some other Now it is euident that this superfluity cometh from all partes of the body and may be said to containe in it after some sort the perfection of the whole liuing creature Be it how it will it is manifest that the liuing creature is made of this superfluous moysture of the parent which according to the opinion of some being compounded of seuerall partes deriued from the seuerall limbes of the parent those partes when they come to be fermented in conuenient heate and moysture do take their posture and situation according to the posture and disposition of partes that the liuing creature had from whence they issued and then they growing dayly greater and solider the effects of moysture and of heate do att the length become such a creature as that was from whence they had their origine Which an accident that I remember seemeth much to confirme It was of a catt that had its tayle cutt of when it was very yong which catt happening afterwardes to haue yong ones halfe the kittlinges proued without tayles and the other halfe had them in an ordinary manner as if nature could supply but on the partners side not on both And an other particular that I saw when I was att Argiers maketh to this purpose which was of a woman that hauing two thumbes vpon the left hand foure daugthers that she had did all resemble her in the same accident and so did a litle child a girle of her eldest daugthers but none of her sonnes Whiles I was there I had a particular curiosity to see them all and though it be not easily permitted vnto Christians to speake familiarly with Mahometan women yet the condition I was in there and the ciuility of the Bassha gaue me the opportunity of full view and discourse with them and the old woman told me that her mother and Grandmother had beene in the same manner But for them it resteth vpon her creditt the others I saw my self But the opinion which these accidents seeme to support though att the first view it seemeth smoothly to satisfy our inquiry and fairely to compasse the making of a liuing creature yet looking further into it we shall find it fall exceeding short of its promising and meete with such difficulties as it can not ouercome For first lett vs cast about how this compound of seuerall partes that serueth for the generation of a new liuing creature can be gathered from euery part and member of the parent so to carry with it in litle the complete nature of it The meaning hereof must be that this superfluous aliment eyther passeth through all and euery litle part and particle of the parents body and in its passage receiueth something from them or else that it receiueth only from all similar and great partes The former seemeth impossible for how can one imagine that such iuice should circulate the whole body of an animall and visit euery atome of it and retire to the reserue where it is kept for generatiō and no part of it remaine absolutely hehind sticking to the flesh or bones that it bedeaweth but that still some part returneth backe from euery part of the animall Besides consider how those partes that are most remote from the channels which conuey this iuice when they are fuller of nourishment then they neede the iuice which ouerfloweth from them cometh to the next part and settling there and seruing it for its due nourishment driueth backe into the channell that which was betwixt the channell and it selfe so that here there is no returne att all from some of the remote pattes
leafe doth not incorporate it selfe with an other but as soone as they feele the heate of the sunne after they are broken out into liberty their tender branches by litle and litle grow more straight the concaue partes of them drawing more towardes the sunne because he extracteth and sucketh their moysture from their hinder partes into their former that are more exposed to his beames and thereby the hinder partes are contracted and grow shorter and those before grow longer Which if it be in excesse maketh the leafe become crooked the contrary way as we see in diuers flowers and in sundry leafes during the summers heate wittenesse the yuy roses full blowne tulipes and all flowers in forme of bells and indeede all kindes of flowers whatsoeuer when the sunne hath wrought vpon them to that degree we speake of and that their ioyning to their stalke and the next partes thereunto allow them scope to obey the impulse of those outward causes And when any do vary from this rule we shall as plainely see other manifest causes producing those different effects as now we do these working in this manner As for fruites though we see that when they grow att liberty vpon the tree they seeme to haue a particular figure alloted them by nature yet in truth it is the ordered series of naturall causes and not an intrinsecall formatiue vertue which breedeth this effect as is euident by the great power which art hath to change their figures att pleasure whereof you may see examples enough in Campanella and euery curious gardner can furnish you with store Out of these and such like principles a man that would make it his study with lesse trouble or tediousnesse then that patient contemplator of one of natures litle workes the Bees whom we mentioned a while agone might without all doubt trace the causes in the growing of an Embryon till he discouered the reason of euery bones figure of euery notable hole or passage that is in them of the ligaments by which they are tyed together of the membranes that couer them and of all the other partes of the body How out of a first masse that was soft and had no such partes distinguishable in it euery one of thē came to be formed by contracting that masse in one place by dilating it in an other by moystening it in a third by drying it here hardening it there Vt his exordia primis Omnia ipse tener hominis concreuerit orbis till in the end this admirable machine and frame of mans body was composed and fashioned vp by such litle and almost insensible steppes and degrees Which when it is looked vpon in bulke and entirely formed seemeth impossible to haue beene made and to haue sprung meerely out of these principle without an Intelligence immediately working and moulding it att euery turne from the beginning to the end But withall we can not choose but breake out into an extasye of admiration and hymnes of prayse as great Galen did vpon the like occasion when we reuerently consider the infinite wisedome and deepe farrelooking prouidence of the allseeing Creator and orderer of the world in so punctually adapting such a multitude and swarme of causes to produce by so long a progresse so wonderfull an effect in the whole course of which if any one the very least of them all went neuer so litle awry the whole fabrike would be discomposed and changed from the nature it is designed vnto Out of our short suruay of which answerable to our weake talents and slender experience I persuade my selfe it appeareth euident enough that to effect this worke of generation there needeth not be supposed a forming vertue or Vis formatrix of an vnknowne power and operation as those that consider thinges soddainely and but in grosse do vse to putt Yet in discourse for conueniency and shortenesse of expression we shall not quite banish that terme from all commerce with vs so that what we meane by it be rightly vnderstood which is the complexe assemblement or chayne of all the causes that concurre to produce this effect as they are sett on foote to this end by the great Architect and Moderator of them God almighty whose instrument nature is that is the same thing or rather the same thinges so ordered as we haue declared but expressed and comprised vnder an other name THE SIX AND TWENTIETH CHAPTER How motion beginneth in liuing creatures And of the motion of the hart circulation of the bloud Nutrition Augmentation and corruption or death BVt we must not take our leaue of this subiect vntill we haue examined how motion beginneth in liuing thinges as well plants as sensitiue creatures We can readily pitch vpon the part we are to make our obseruations in for retriuing the origine of this primary motion for hauing concluded that the rootes of plants and the harts of animals are the partes of them which are first made and from which the forming vertue is deriued to all the rest it were vnreasonable to seeke for their first motion any where else But in what manner and by what meanes doth it beginne there For rootes the difficulty is not great for the moysture of the earth pressing vpon the seede and soaking into it the hoat partes of it which were imprisoned in cold and dry ones are thereby stirred vp and sett on worke then they mingling themselues with that moysture do ferment and distend the whole seede till making it open and breake the skinne more iuice cometh in which incorporating it selfe with the heate those hoat and now moyst partes will not be contained in so narrow a roome as att the first but struggling to gett out on all sides and striuing to enlarge thēselues they thrust forth litle partes which if they stay in the earth do grow white and make the roote but those which ascēd and make their way into the ayre being lesse compressed and more full of heate and moysture do turne greene and as fast as they grow vp new moysture coming to the roote is sent vp through the pores of it and this faileth not vntill the heate of the roote it selfe doth faile For it being the nature of heate to rarify and eleuate there must of necessity be caused in the earth a kind of sucking in of moysture into the roote frō the next partes vnto it to fill those capacities which the dilating heate hath made that else would be empty and to supply the roomes of those which the heate continually sendeth vpwardes for the moysture of the roote hath a continuity with that in the earth and therefore they adhere together as in a pumpe or rather as in filtration and do follow one an other when any of them are in motion and still the next must needes come in and fill the roome where it findeth an empty space immediate to it The like of which happeneth to the ayre when we breath for our lunges being like a bladder
the glasse and each side of the opacous bodies shadow Wherefore in each of these lights or rather in each of their commixtions with darkenesse there must be red on the one side and blew on the other according to the course of light which we haue explicated And thus it falleth out agreable to the rule we haue giuen that blew cometh to be on that side of the opacous bodies shadow on which the glasse casteth red and red on that side of it on which the glasse casteth blew likewise when light going through a conuexe glasse maketh two cones the edges of the cone betwixt the glasse and the point of concurse will appeare red if the roome be darke enough and the edges of the further cone will appeare blew both for the reason giuen for in this case the point of concurse is the strong light betwixt the two cones of which that betwixt the glasse and the point is the stronger that beyond the point the weaker and for this very reason if an opacous body be put in the axis of thâ—se two cones both the sides of its picture will be red if it be held in the first cone which is next to the glasse and both will be blew if the body be situated in the further cone for both sides being equally situated to the course of the light within its owne cone there is nothing to vary the colours but only the strength and the weakenesse of the two lights of the cones on this side and on that side the point of concurse which point being in this case the strong and cleare light whereof we made generall mention in our precedent note the cone towardes the glasse and the illuminant is the stronger side and the cone from the glasse is the weaker In those cases where this reason is not concerned we shall see the victory carried in the question of colours by the shady side of the opacous body that is the blew colour will still appeare on that side of thâ— opacous bodies shadow that is furthest from the illuminant But where both causes do concurre and contrast for precedence there the course of the light carryeth it that is to say the red will be on that side of the opacous bodies shadow where it is thicker and darker and blew on the other side where the shadow is not so strong although the shadow be cast that way that the red appeareth as is to be seene when a slender body is placed betwixt the prisme and the reflectent body vpon which the light and colours are cast through the prisme and it is euident that this cause of the course of the shadow is in it selfe a weaker cause then the other of the course of light and must giue way vnto it whensoeuer they encounter as it can not be expected but that in all circumstances shadowes should to light because the colours which the glasse casteth in this case are much more faint and dusky then in the other For effects of this later cause we see that when an opacous body lyeth crosse the prisme whiles it standeth endwayes the red or blew colour will appeare on the vpper or lower side of its picture according as the illuminant is higher or lower theÌ„ the transuerse opacous body the blew euer keeping to that side of the picture that is furthest from the body and the illuminant that make it and the red the contrary likewise if an opacous body be placed out of the axis in eyther of the cones we haue explicated before the blew will appeare on that side of the picture which is furthest aduanced in the way that the shadow is cast and the red on the contrary and so if the opacous body be placed in the first cone beside the axis the red will appeare on that side of the picture in the basis of the second cone which is next to the circumference and the blew on that side which is next the axis but if it be placed on one side of the axis in the second cone then the blew will appeare on that side the picture which is next the circumference and the red on that side which is next the center of the basis of the cone There remayneth yet one difficulty of moment to be determined which is why when through a glasse two colours namely blew and red are cast from a candle vpon a paper or wall if you put your eye in the place of one of the colours that shineth vpon the wall and so that colour cometh to shine vpon your eye in such sort that an other man who looketh vpon it will see that colour plainely vpon your eye neuerthelesse you shall see the other colour in the glasse As for example if on your eye there shineth a red you shall see a blew in the glasse and if a blew shineth vpon your eye you shall see a red The reason hereof is that the colours which appeare in the glasse are of the nature of those luminous colours which we first explicated that arise from looking vpon white and blacke bordering together for a candle standing in the ayre is as it were a white situated betweene two blackes the circumstant dusky ayre hauing the nature of a blacke so then that side of the candle which is seene through the thicker part of the glasse appeareth red and that which is seene through the thinner appeareth blew in the same manner as when we looke through the glasse whereas the colours shine coÌ„trarywise vpon a paper or reflecting obiect as we haue already declared together with the reasons of both these appearances each fitted to its proper case of looking through the glasse vpon the luminous obiect serrownded with darkenesse in the one and of obseruing the effect wrought by the same luminous obiect in some medium or vpon some reflectent superficies in the other And to confirme this if a white paper be sett standing hollow before the glasse like halfe a hollow pillar whose flatt standeth edgewayes towardes the glasse so as both the edges may be seene through it the further edge will seeme blew and the neerer will be red and the like will happen if the paper be held in the free ayre parallele to the lower superficies of the glasse without any blacke carpet to limit both endes of it which serueth to make the colours the smarter so that in both cases the ayre serueth manifestly for a blacke in the first betweene the two white edges and in the second limiting the two white endes and by consequence the ayre about the candle must likewise serue for two blackes including the light candle betweene them Seuerall other delightfull experiments of luminous colours I might produce to confirme the groundes I haue layed for the nature and making of them But I conceiue that these I haue mentioned are aboundantly enough for the end I propose vnto my selfe therefore I will take my leaue of this supple and nice subiect referring
the name of Feare and the other that carrieth one to the pursuite of the obiect we call Hope Anger or Audaciâ—y is mixed of both these for it seeketh to auoyde an euill by embracing and ouercoming it and proceedeth out of aboundance of spirits Now if the proportion of spirits sent from the hart be too great for the braine it hindereth or peruerteth the due operation both in man and beast All which it will not be amisse to open a litle more particularly and first why painefull or displeasing obiects do contract the spirits and gratefull ones do contrary wise dilate them It is because the good of the hart consisteth in life that is in heate and moysture and it is the nature of heate to dilate it selfe in moysture whereas cold and drie thinges do contract the bodies they worke vpon and such are enemyes to the nature of men and beasts and accordingly experience as well as reason teacheth vs that all obiects which be naturally good are such as be hoat and moyst in the due proportion to the creature that is affected and pleased with them Now the liuing creature being composed of the same principles as the world round about him is and the hart being an abridgement of the whole sensible creature and being moreouer full of bloud and that very hoat it cometh to passe that if any of these little extracts of the outward world do arriue to the hoat bloud about the hart it worketh in this bloud such like an effect as we see a droppe of water falling into a glasse of wine which is presently dispersed into a competent compasse of the wine so that any little obiect must needes make a notable motion in the bloud about the hart This motion according to the nature of the obiect will be eyther conformable or contrary vnlesse it be so little a one as no effect will follow of it and then it is of that kind which aboue we called indifferent If the ensuing effect be connaturall to the hart there riseth a motion of a certaine fume about the hart which motion we call pleasure and it neuer fayleth of accompanying all those motions which are good as Ioy Loue Hope and the like but if the motion be displeasing there is likewise a common sense of a heauynesse about the hart which we call griefe and it is common to sorrow feare hate and the like Now it is manifest by experience that thâ—se motions are all of them different ones and do strike against diuers of those partes of our body which encompasse the hart out of which striking followeth that the spirits sent from the hart do affect the braine diuersly and are by it conueyed into diuers nerues and so do sett diuers members in action Whence followeth that certaine members are generally moued vpon the motion of such a passion in the hart especially in beaste â—ho haue a more determinate course of working then man hath and if â—ometimes we see variety euen in beasts vpon knowledge of the circumstances we may easily guesse at the causes of that variety the particularities of all which motions we remitt to Physitians and to Anatomistes aduertising only that the fume of pleasure and the heauinesse of griefe do plainely shew that the first motions do participate of dilatation and the latter of compression Thus you see how by the senses a liuing creature becometh iudge of what is good and of what is bad for him which operation is performed more perfectly in beasts and especially in those who liue in the free ayre remote from humane conuersation for their senses are fresh and vntaynted as nature made them then in men Yet without doubt nature hath beene as fauourable in this particular to men as vnto them were it not that with disorder and excesse we corrupt and oppresse our senses as appeareth euidently by the story we haue recorded of Iohn of Liege as also by the ordinary practise of some Hermites in the diserts who by their tast or smell would presently be informed whether the herbes and rootes and fruits thâ—y mett withall were good or hurtfull for them though they neuer before had had triall of them Of which excellency of the senses there remaineth in vs only some dimme sparkes in those qualities which we call sympathies and antipathies whereof the reasons are plaine out of our late discourse and are nothing elâ—e but a conformity or opposition of a liuing creature by some indiuiduall property of it vnto some body without it in such sort as its conformity or opposition vnto thinges by its specificall qualities is termed naturall or against nature But of this we shall discourse more at large hereafter Thus it appeareth how the senses are seated in vs principally for the end of mouing vs to or from obiects that are good for vs or hurtfull to vs. But though our Reader be content to allow this intent of nature in our three inferiour senses yet he may peraduenture not be satisfyed how the two more noble ones the hearing and the seeing do cause such motions to or from obiects as are requisite to be in liuing creatures for the preseruation of them for may he say how can a man by only seeing an obiect or by hearing the sound of it tell what qualities it is embued withall Or what motion of liking or disliking can be caused in his hart by his meere receiuing the visible species of an obiect at his eyes or by his eares hearing some noyse it maketh And if there be no such motion there what should occasion him to prosecute or auoyd that obiect When he tasteth or smelleth or toucheth a thing he findeth it sweet or bitter or stincking or hoat or cold and is therewith eyther pleased or displeased but when he only seeth or heareth it what liking or disliking can he haue of it in order to the preseruation of his nature The solution of this difficulty may in part appeare out of what we haue already said But for the most part the obiects of thâ—se two nobler senses dâ—â—moue vs by being ioyned in the memory with some other thing that did eyther please or displease some of the other three senses And from thence it is that the motion of going to embrace the obiect or â—uersion from it doth immediately proceed as when a dogg seeth a man that vseth to giue him meate the species of the man coming into his fansie calleth out of his memory the others which are of the same nature and are former participations of that man as well as this fâ—esh one is but these are ioyned with specieses of meate because at other times they did vse to come in together and therefore the meate being a good vnto him and causing him in the manner we haue said to moue towardes it it will follow that the dogg will presently moue towardes that man and expresse a contentednesse in being with him And this is the ground of all assuefaction in beasts and
and by materiall impressions vpon them without being constrained to resort vnto an immateriall principle which must furnish birdes with reason and discourse in which it is not necessary for my purpose to determine precisely euery steppe by which these actions are performed and to settle the rigorous of them but leauing that vnto those who shall take paines to deliuer the history of their nature I will content my selfe with the possibility and probability of my coÌ„iectures The first of which qualities I am obliged to make plaine but the later concerneth this treatise no more then it would do a man to enquire anxiously into the particulars of what it is that a beast is doing whiles looking vpon it at a great distance he perceiueth plainely that it moueth it seâ—fe and his arrant is but to be assured whether it be aliue or dead which the mouing of it selfe in common doth sufficiently demonstrate without descending into a particular search of what his motions are But lett vs come to the matter first I conceiue no man will make any difficulty in allowing that it is the temper of the bloud and spirits in birdes brought therevnto by the quality of their foode and by the season of the yeare which maketh them accouple with one an other and not any ayme or desire of hauing yong ones that occasioneth this action in theÌ„ Then it followeth that the hennes egges will encrease in her belly and wheÌ„ they grow bigge they can not choose but be troublesome vnto her and therefore must of necessity breede in her an inclination to rest in some soft place and to be ridde of them And as we see a dogg or a catt pressed by nature searcheth about to find a conuenient place to disburthen themselues in not only of their yong ones but euen of their excrements so do birdes whose egges within them making them heauy and vnfitt to flye they beginne to sitt much and are pleased in a soft and warme place and therevpon they are delighted with strawes and mosse and other gentle substances and so carry them to their sitting place which that they do not by designe is euident by the manner of it for when they haue mette with a straw or other fitt materiall they fly not with it directly to their nest but first to a bough of some tree or to the toppe of a house and there they hoppe and dance a while with it in their beakes and from thence skippe to an other place where they entertaine themselues in like manner and at the last they gett to their nest where if the strawes should lye confusedly their endes would pricke and hurt them and therefore they turne and alter their positions till they lye smooth which we that looke vpon the effect and compare them with our performing of like actions if we had occasion may call a iuditious ordering of them whereas in them it is nothing but remouing such thinges as presse vpon their sense vntill they cause them no more paine or vnquietnesse Their plastering of their nestes may be attributed to the great heat raigning in them at that time which maketh them still be dabbling in moist clay and in water and in grauell without which all birdes will soone grow sicke blind and at length dye which for the coolenesse of it they bring home to their nestes in their beakes and vpon their feete and when it groweth dry and consequently troublesome to them they wipe it off and rubbe their durty partes vpon the place where they vse to sitt and then flye for more refresh themselues withall Out of all which actions sett on foote by the wise orderer of nature to compasse a remote end quite different from the immediate end that euery one of them is done for there resulteth a fitt and conuenient place for these litle builders that know not whay they do whiles they build themselues houses to lye in and to lay their egges in Which the next yeare when the like occasion occurreth they build againe peraduenture then as much through memory of the former as vpon their temper and other circumstances mouing their fantasy in such sort as we haue sett downe In like manner that whiles the Halcyon layeth and hatcheth her egges the sea is calme needeth no more be attributed to the wisedome and prouidence of that bird in choosing a fitt season then to any good nature or discourse in that rouling and mercilesse Element as though it had a pious care of preseruing the egges committed to his trust no such supplements are requisite to be added vnto the distributions of nature who hath sett materiall causes on foote to produce a coniuncture of both those effects at the same periode of time for the propagation of this animals species In fine both the time and the place of the Halcyons breeding and the manner and order and season of all birdes making their nestes proceedeth from secret motions which do require great obseruing and attention to vnderstand them and do serue for directions vnto euery bird according to her kind to make her neste fittest for her vse Which secret motions we can not doubt but are materiall ones and do arise out of the constitution and temper of their bodies and spirits which in like circumstances are alike in them all for all the birdes of one kind do make their nestes exactly alike which they would not do if this worke proceeded from reason in them and were gouerned by their owne election and designe as we see it happen amoÌ„g men vpon all occasions eyther of building houses or of making clothes or of what action soeuer is guided by their reason gouerning their fantasy in all which we see so great variety and inconstancy And therefore this in variability in the birdes operations must proceed from a higher intellect that hath determinately and precisely ordered a complexe or assembly of sundry causes to meete infaillibly and by necessity for the production of an effect that he hath designed and so the birdes are but materiall instruments to performe without their knowledge or reflection a superiour reasons counselles euen as in a clocke that is composed of seuerall pieces and wheeles all the partes of it do conspire to giue notice of the seuerall effluxes and periodes of time which the maker hath ordered it for And although this be a worke of reason and discourse in him that dâ—d sett it together yet the instrumentall performance of it dependeth meerely of locall motion and of the reuolutions of bodies so orderly proportioned to one an other that their effects can not faile when once the engine is wound vp in like manner then the bird is the engine of the Artificer infinitely more perfect and knowing and dexterous then a poore clockemaker and the plummets which do make it goe are the rowe and order of causes chained together which by the designe of the supreme workeman do bring to passe such effects as we see in the building of their
our Reader without a hinte which way to driue his inquisition we will note thus much that Aristotele and other naturall Philosophers and Physitians do affirme that in some persons the passioÌ„ is so great in the time of their accoupling that for the present it quite bereaueth them of the vse of reason and that they are for the while in a kind of short fitt of an epylepsie By which it is manifest that aboundance of animal spirits do then part from the head and descend into those partes which are the instruments of generation Wherefore if there be aboundance of specieses of any one kind of obiect then strong in thâ— imagination it must of necessity be carryed downe together with the spirits into the seede and by consequence when the seede infected with this nature beginneth to seperate and distribute it selfe to the forming of the seuerall partes of the Embryon the spirits which do resort into the braine of the child as to their proper Element and from thence do finish all the outward cast of its body in such sort as we haue aboue described do sometimes happen to fill certaine places of the childes body with the infection and tincture of this obiect and that according to the impression with which they were in the mothers faÌ„tasy for so we haue said that thinges which come together into the fantasy do naturally sticke together in the animall spirits The hairynesse therefore will be occasioned in those partes where the mother fansyed it to be the colour likewise and such extancies or defects as may any way proceed from such a cause will happen to be in those partes in which they were fansyed And this is as farre as is fitt to wade into this point for so generall a discourse as ours is and more theÌ„ was necessary for our turne to the seruing whereof the verity of the fact only and not the knowledge of the cause was required for we were to shew no more but that the apprehensions of the parents may descend to the children Out of this discourse the reason appeareth why beastes haue an auersion from those who vse to do them harme and why this auersion descendeth from the old ones to their broode though it should neuer haue happened that they had formerly encountred with what at the first sight they flye from and auoyde But yet the reason appeareth not why for example a sheepe in EnglaÌ„d where there are no wolues bred nor haue beene these many ages should be affraide and tremble at sight of a wolfe since neyther he nor his damme or sire nor theirs in multitudes of generations euer saw a wolfe or receiued hurt by any In like manner how should a tame weasell brought into England from Ireland where there are no poysonous creatures be affraide of a toade as soone as he seeth one Neyther he nor any of his race euer had any impressions following harme made vpon their fantasies and as litle can a lyon receiue hurt from a household cocke therefore we must seeke the reasons of these and such like antipathies a litle further and we shall find them hanging vpon the same string with sympathies proportionable to them Lett vs goe by degrees we dayly see that dogges will haue an auersion from glouers that make their ware of dogges skinnes they will barke at them and be churlish to them and not endure to come neere them although they neuer saw theÌ„ before The like hatred they will expresse to the dogge killers in the time of the plague and to those that flea dogges I haue knowne of a man that vsed to be employed in such affaires who passing sometimes ouer the groundes neere my mothers house for he dwelled at a village not farre off the dogges would winde him at a very great distance and would all runne furiously out the way he was and fiercely fall vpon him which made him goe alwayes well prouided for them and yet he hath beene sometimes hard put to it by the fierce mastifes there had it not beene for some of the seruantes coming in to his reskew who by the frequent happening of such accidents were warned to looke out when they obserued so great commotion and fury in the dogges and yet perceiued no present cause for it Warreners obserue that vermine will hardly come into a trappe wherein an other of their kind hath beene lately killed and the like happeneth in mouse-trappes into which no mouse will come to take the bayte if a mouse or two haue already beene killed in it vnlesse it be made very cleane so that no sent of them remaine vpon the trappe which can hardly be done on the suddaine otherwise then by fire It is euident that these effects are to be referred to an actiuity of the obiect vpon the sense for some smell of the skinnes or of the dead dogges or of the vermine or of the mice can not choose but remaine vpon the men and vpon the trappes which being altered from their due nature and temper must needes offend â—hâ—m Their conformity on the one side for something of the canine nature remaineth maketh them haue easy ingression into them and so they presently make a deepe impression but on the other side their distemper from what they should be maketh the impression repugnant to their nature and be disliked by them and to affect them worse then if they were of other creatures thaâ— had no conformity with them as we may obserue that stinkes offend vs more when they are accompanied with some weake perfume then if they sett vpon vs single for the perfume getteth the stinke easyer admittance into our sense and in like manner it is said that poisons are more dangerous when they are mingled with a cordiall that is not able to resist them for it serueth to conuey them to the hart though it be not able to ouercome their malignity From hence then it followeth that if any beast or bird do prey vpon some of an other kind there will be some smell about them exceedingly noysome to all others of that kind and not only to beastes of that same kind but for the same reason euen to others likewise that haue a correspondence and agreement of temper and constitution with that kind of beast whose hurt is the originall cause of this auersion Which being assented vnto the same reason holdeth to make those creatures whose constitutions and tempers do consist of thinges repugnant and odious to one an other beat perpetuall enmity and flye from one an other at the first sight or at the least the sufferer from the more actiue creature as we see among those men whose vnhappy trade and continuall exercises it is to empty iakeses such horride stinkes are by time growne so conformable to their nature as a strong perfume will as much offend them and make them as sicke as such stinks would do an other man bred vp among perfumes and a cordiall to their spirits is some
Aristotles Whether the motion of weighty and light thinges and of such as are forced be not by him as well as by vs atttibuted to externe causes In which all the differēce betweene vs is that we enlarge ourselues to more particulars then he hath done Lett any man reade his bookes of Generation and Corruption and say whether he doth not expressely teach that mixtion which he deliuereth to be the generation or making of a mixt body is done per minima that is in our language and in one word by atomes and signifyeth that all the qualities which are naturall qualities following the composition of the Elements are made by the mingling of the least partes or atomes of the said Elements which is in effect to say that all the nature of bodies their qualities and their operations are compassed by the mingling of atomes the shewing and explicating of which hath beene our labour in this whole Treatise Lett him reade his bookes of Meteores and iudge whether he doth not giue the causes of all the effects he treateth of there by mingling and seperating of great and litle grosse and subtile fiery and watry aery and earthy partes iust as we do The same he doth in his Problemes and in his Parua naturalia and in all other places wheresoeuer he hath occasion to render Physically the causes of Physicall effects The same do Hippocrates and Galen the same their Master Democritus and with them the best sort of Physitians the same do Alchymistes with their Master Geber whose maxime to this purpose we cited aboue the same do all naturall Philosophers eyther auncient commentatours of Aristotle or else moderne inquirers into naturall effects in a sensible and vnderstandable way as who will take the paines to looke into them will easily perceiue Wherefore lett any iuditious Reader that hath looked further into Aristotle then only vpon his Logicall and Metaphysicall workes iudge whether in bulke our doctrine be not conformable to the course of his and of all the best Philosophers that haue beene and are though in detaile or particulars we sometimes mingle therewith our owne priuate iudgements as euery one of them hath likewise shewed vs the way to do by the liberty themselues haue taken to dissent in some pointes from their predecessours And were it our turne to declare and teach Logike and Metaphisikes we should be forced to goe the way of matter and of formes and of priuations in such sort as Aristotle hath trodden it out to vs in his workes of that straine But this is not our taske for the present for no man that contemplateth nature as he aught can choose but see that these notions are no more necessary when we consider the framing of the elements then when we examine the making of compounded bodies and therefore these are to be sett apart as higher principles and of an other straine then neede be made vse of for the actuall composition of compounded thinges and for the resolution of them into their materiall ingredients or to cause their particular motions which are the subiects we now diseourse of Vpon this occasion I thinke it not amisse to touch how the latter sectatours or rather pretenders of Aristotle for truly they haue not his way haue introduced a modell of doctrine or rather of ignorance out of his wordes which he neuer so much as dreamed of howbeit they alleage textes out of him to confirme what they say as Heretikes do out of scripture to prooue their assertions for whereas he called certaine collections or positions of thinges by certaine common names as the art of Logike requireth terming some of them Qualities others actions others places or habites or relatiues or the like these his latter followers haue conceited that these names did not designe a concurrence of sundry thinges or a diuers disposition of the partes of any thing out of which some effect resulted which the vnderstanding considering all together hath expressed the notion of it by one name but haue imagined that euery one of these names had correspondent vnto it some reall positiue entity or thing seperated in its owne nature from the maine thing or substance in which it was and indifferent to any other substance but in all vnto which it is linked working still that effect which is to be expected from the nature of such a quality or action c. And thus to the very negatiues of thinges as to the names of pointes lines instantes and the like they haue imagined positiue Entities to correspond likewise to the names of actions places and the like they haue framed other Entities as also to the names of colours soundes tastes smels touches and the rest of the sensible qualities they haue vnto euery one of them allotted speciall Entities and generally to all qualities whatsoeuer Whereas nothing is more euidēt then that Aristotle meaned by qualities no other thing but that disposition of partes which is proper to one body and is not found in all as you will plainely see if you but examine what beauty health agility science and such other qualities are for by that name he calleth them and by such examples giueth vs to vnderstand what he meaneth by the word Quality the first of which is nothing else but a composition of seuerall partes and colours in due proportion to one an other the next but a due temper of the humours and the being of euery part of the body in the state it should be the third but a due proportion of the spirits and strength of the sinnewes and the last but ordered Phantasmes Now when these peruerters of Aristotle haue framed such Entities vnder that conception which nature hath attributed to substances they do immediately vpon the nicke with the same breath that described them as substances deny them to be substances and thus they confound the first apprehensions of nature by seeking learned and strained definitions for plaine thinges After which they are faine to looke for glew and paste to ioyne these entities vnto the substance they accompany which they find with the same facility by imagining a new Entity whose nature it is to do that which they haue neede of And this is the generall course of their Philosophy whose great subtility and queint speculations in enquiring how thinges do come to passe afford no better satisfaction then to say vpon euery occasion that there is an Entity which maketh it be so As if you aske them how a wall is white or blacke They will tell you there is an Entity or Quality whose essence is to be whitenesse or blackenesse diffused through the wall If you continue to aske how doth whitenesse sticke to the wall They reply that it is by meanes of an Entity called Vnion whose nature it is actually to ioyne whitenesse and the wall together And then if you enquire how it cometh to passe that one white is like an other They will as readily answere that this is wrought by an
will remaine with its proprieties and distinct limitations for so of necessity it must be when that which vniteth them to him is the comparing of them to something besides themselues which worke could not be performed vnlesse what is to be compared do retaine exactly its owne nature whereby the comparison may be made no more then one can weigh two quantities one against an other vnlesse he keepe asunder what is in each scale and keepe all other weights from mingling with them and accordingly we see that we can not compare blacke to white or a horse to an oxe vnlesse we take together the properties by which blacke differeth from white or an oxe from a horse and consequently they must remaine vnmingled and without confusion precisely what in themselues they are and be different in the sight of the comparer But indeede if we looke well into the matter we shall find that setting a side the notion of Existence or of Being all our other notions are nothing else but comparisons and respects and that by the mediation of respects the natures of all thinges are in vs and that by the varying of them we multiply our notions which in their first diuision that reduceth their seuerall kindes into generall heades do encrease into the tenne famous tribes that Logitians call Predicaments and they do comprehend vnder them all the particular notions that man hath or can haue according to the course of knowledge in this life Of which Predicaments the seuen last are so manifestly respectiue that all men acknowledge them to be so Substance we haue already shewed to haue a respect vnto Being Quantity we proued in the first Chapter of the former Treatise of the nature and of the operation of Bodies to consist in a respect vnto partes Quality is diuided into foure branches whereof Power is clearely a respect to that ouer which it hath power or from which it may suffer Habite is a respect to the substance wherein it is as being the property by which it is well or ill conueniently or inconueniently affected in regard of its owne nature as you may obserue in health or sicknesse or the like The passible Qualities are those which we haue explicated in discoursing of the Elements and of Mixtes and whose natures we haue there shewed do consist in respects of acting or of suffering Figure or shape which is the last branch of the diuision of the Predicament of Quality is nothing else but a certaine disposition of one part of a body to an other And so you see how all the tenne Predicaments do consist purely in diuersity of Respects and by consequence all our conceites and notions excepting that of Being which is the stocke vpon which all the rest are grafted are nothing else but various respects since all of them whatsoeuer are comprised vnder those generall heades Concerning which we shall not neede to dilate ourselues any further seeing they are to be found in Aristotle and in his Commentators largely discoursed of In the next place lett vs obserue how our vnderstanding behaueth it selfe in considering and in apprehending these respects We haue already declared that the variety of our notions doth arise out of the respects which diuers thinges haue to one an other hence will follow that of the same thing we may haue various notions for comparing it to different thinges we shall meete with different respects betweene them and consequently we shall consider the same thing vnder different notions as when we consider an apple vnder the notions of greenenesse of sweetnesse of roundenesse of mellownesse c in such sort as we haue amply declared in the first Treatise and therefore neede not here enlarge ourselues any further vpon this particular Now these notions are so absolutely seuered one from an other and euery one of them hath such a completenesse within it selfe that we may vse any one of them without meddling at all with any of the others And this we do two seuerall wayes the one when our māner of apprehension determineth vs to one precise notion which is so summed vp within it selfe as it not only abstracteth from all other notions but also quite excludeth them and admitteth no society with them The other way is when we consider a thing vnder a determinate notion yet we do it in such a manner that although we abstract from all other notions neuerthelesse we do so rather by neglecting then by excluding them and euen in the manner of our expression of it we insinuate that there are other notions without specifying what belonging vnto it Of the first kind of notions are whitenesse weight heate and such like whose names are called abstracted termes which although they arise out of our comparing of the thinges that are white heauy hoat c to our fantasy or to other thinges yet these notions are so precise and shutt vp within themselues that they absolutely exclude all others as of long short square rough sharpe or whatsoeuer else which may in the thinges accompany the whitenesse weight heate c that our consideration is then busied only withall Of the second kind of abstracted notions are white heauy hoat c whose names expressing them are called concrete termes which although they cause in vs no other apprehensions then of whitenesse of weight of heate c yet they are not so rigorously paled in as the others are from admitting society with any besides but do imply tacitely that the thing which is white heauy hoat c hath besides that some other consideration belonging vnto it whatsoeuer it be which is not expressed Now in this later abstraction it happeneth sometimes that the notion expressed hath but an accidentall connexion with the other notions that are in the thing vnexpressed as for example it is meerely accidentall to the white wall as it is white to be high or lowe of stone of plaster or the like But otherwhiles the expressed notion is so essentiall to the concealed ones that they can not be without it as when we apprehend a clouen foote although this apprehension do abstract from all other notions besides clouenfootednesse if so I may say yet as aboue we haue declared it is in such a manner that it implyeth other considerations not yet expressed in that clouen foote among which some may be of that nature that they can not haue a Being without presupposing clouenfootednesse but others may be meerely accidentall to that notion as for instance sake lett one be that the foote is clouen into three partes and lett an other be that it is blacke or hairy of these this later notion of blacke or hairy is of the first kind of abstractions which we said had but an accidentall connexion with that which comprehended them without expressing them for other thinges besides the clouen foote may be blacke or hairy in such sort as height or lownesse to be of stone or of plaster may belong vnto other structures besides
connexion of things is so linked together that proceeding from any one you reach the knowledge of many and from many you cannot faile of attaining vnto all so that a separated soule which doth but know herselfe can not choose but know her body too and from her body she cannot misse in proceeding from the causes of them both as farre as immediate causes do proceede from others ouer them and as litle can she be ignorant of all the effects of those causes she reacheth vnto And thus all that huge masse of knowledge and happinesse which we haue coÌ„sidered in our last reflexion amounteth to no more then the seeliest soule buried in warme blood can and will infallibly attaine vnto when its time cometh Wee may then assure our selues that iust nature hath prouided and designed a greater measure of such felicity for longer liuers and so much greater as may well be worth the paines and hazards of so miserable and tedious a passage as here my soule thou strugglest through For certainely if the dull percussion which by natures institution hammereth out a spirituall soule from grosse flesh and bloud can atcheiue so wondrous an effect by such blunt instruments as are vsed in the contriuing of a man how can it be imagined but that fifty or a hundred yeares beating vpon farre more subtile elements refined in so long a time as a child is becoming a man and arriuing to his perfect discourse must necessarily forge out in such a soule a strange and admirable excellency aboue the vnlicked forme of an abortiue embryon Surely those innumerable strokes euery one of which maketh a strong impression in the soule vpon whom they beate cannot choose but worke a mighty difference in the subiect that receiueth them changing it strangely from the condition it was in before they begunne to new mould it What if I should say the oddes betweene two such soules may peraduenture be not vnlike the difference betweene the wittes and iudgements of the subtilest Philosopher that euer was and of the dullest child or idiote liuing But this comparison falleth too short by farre euen so much that there is no resemblance or proportion betweene the thinges compared for as the excesse of great numbers ouer one an other drowneth the excesse of small ones and maketh it not considerable in respect of theirs although they should be in the same proportion so the aduantages of a soule forged to its highest perfection in a mans body by its long abode there and by its making right vse of that pretious time allowed it must needes in positiue valew though not in geometricall proportion infinitely exceed when it shall be deliuered out of prison the aduantages which the newly hatched soule of an abortiue infant shall acquire att the breaking of its chaines In this case I beleeue no man would be of Cesars mind when he wished to be rather the first man in a contemptible poore village he passed through among the desert mountains then the second man in Rome Lett vs suppose the wealth of the richest man in that barren habitation to be one hundred Crownes and that the next to him in substance had but halfe as much as he in like manner in that opulent citty the head of the world where millions were as familiar as pence in other places lett the excesse of the richest mans wealth be but as in the former double ouer his that cometh next vnto him and there you shall find that if the poorest of the two be worth fifty millions the other hath fifty millions more then he whereas the formers petty treasure exceedeth his neighbours but by fifty crownes What proportion is there in the common estimation of affaires betweene that triuiall summe and fifty millions Much lesse is there betweene the excellency of a separated soule first perfected in its body and an other that is sett loose into complete liberty before its body arriued in a naturall course to be deliuered into this world and by its eyes to enioy the light of it The change of euery soule att its separation from the body to a degree of perfectioÌ„ aboue what it enioyed in the body is in a manner infinite and by a like infinite proportion euery degree of perfection it had in the body is also then multiplyed what a vast product then of infinity must necessarily be raysed by this multiplying instaÌ„t of the soules attaining liberty in a well moulded soule infinitely beyond that perfection which the soule of an infant dying before it be borne arriueth vnto And yet we haue determined that to be a in manner infinite Here our skill of Arithmetike and proportions fayleth vs. Here wee find infinite excesse ouer what we also know to be infinite How this can be the feeble eyes of our limited vnderstanding are too dull to penetrate into but that it is so we are sure the rigour of discourse conuinceth and necessarily concludeth it That assureth vs that since euery impression vpon the soule whiles it is in its body maketh a change in it were there no others made but meerely the iterating of those actes which brought it from ignorance to knowledge that soule vpon which a hundred of those actes had wrought must haue a hundred degrees of aduantage ouer an other vpon which only one had beaten though by that one it had acquired perfect knowledge of that thing and then in the separation these hundred degrees being each of them infinitely multiplyed how infinitely must such a soule exceed in that particular though we know not how the knowledge of the other soule which though it be perfect in its kind yet had but one act to forge it out When wee arriue to vnderstand the difference of knowledge betweene the superiour and inferiour rankes of intelligences among whome the lowest knoweth as much as the highest and yet the knowledge of the highest is infinitely more perfect and admirable then the knowledge of his inferiours then and not before we shall throughly comprehend this mystery In the meane time it is enough for vs that we are sure that thus it faireth with soules and that by how much the excellency and perfection of an all knowing and all comprehending soule deliuered out of the body of a wretched embryon is aboue the vilenesse of that heauy lumpe of flesh it lately quitted in his mothers wombe euen by so mâ—â—h and according to the same proportion must the excellency of a complete soule completed in its body be in a pitch aboue the adorable maiesty wisedome and augustnesse of the greatest and most admired oracle in the world liuing embodyed in flesh and bloud Which as it is in a height and eminency ouer such an excellent and admirable man infinitely beyond the excesse of such a man ouer that seely lumpe of flesh which composeth the most contemptible idiote or embryon so likewise is the excesse of it ouer the soule of an abortiue embryon though by the separation growne neuer so knowing and
the want of a continuall sucker But if the nose of that arme that hangeth out of the water be but euen with the water then the water will stand still in both pipes or armes of the syphon after they are filled with sucking But if by the running out of the water the outward pipe do grow shorter then to reach as low as the superficies of the water in the fountaine from whence it runneth in this case the water in each arme of the syphon will runne backe into the fountaine Withall it is to be noted that though the arme which is out of the water be neuer so long yet if it reach not lower then the superficies of the fountaine the ouer quantity and weight of the water there more then in the other arme helpeth it nothing to make it runne out Which is because the decliuity of the other arme ouerrecompenceth this ouerweight Not that the weight in the shorter pipe hath so much force as the weight in the longer pipe but because it hath more force then the greater weight doth exercise there in its running for the greatest part of its force tendeth an other way then to the end of the pipe to witt perpendicularly towardes the center And so is hindered from effect by the great sloaping or little decliuity of the pipe vpon which it leaneth But some considering how the water that is in the longer arme of the syphon is more in quantity then the water that is in the other arme of it whereat it runneth out do admire why the greater quantity of water doth not draw backe the lesse into the cisterne but suffereth it selfe to be lifted vp and drayned away as if it runne steeply downewardes And they imagine that hence may be deduced that the partes of water in the cisterne doe not weigh as long as they are within the orbe of their owne body Vnto when we answere that they should consider how that to haue the greater quantity of water which is in the longer arme of the syphon which arme is immersed in the water of the cisterne to draw backe into the cisterne the water which is in the other arme of the syphon that hangeth out in the ayre it must both raise as much of the water of the cisterne as its owne bulke is aboue the leuell which att present the whole bulke of water hath and withall it must att the same time pull vp the water which is in the other arme Now it is manifest that these two quantities of water together are heauyer then the water in the sunke arme of the syphon since one of them single is equall vnto it And by consequence the more water in the sunke arme can not weigh backe the lesse water in the hanging arme since that to do that it must att the same time weigh vp ouer and aboue as much more in the cisterne as it selfe weigheth But turning the argument I say that if once the arme of the syphon that is in the ayre be supposed to draw any water be it neuer so little out of the cisterne whether occasioned by sucking or by whatsoeuer other meanes it followeth that as much water as is drawne vp aboue the leuell of the whole bulke in the cisterne must needes presse into the suncken arme from the next adiacent partes that is from the bottome to supply its emptying and as much must of it selfe presse downe from aboue according to its naturall course when nothing violenteth it to rest in the place that the ascending water which is lower then it leaueth att liberty for it to take possession of And then it can not be doubted but that this descending water hauing all its weight in pressing downe applyed to driue vp the rising water in the sunke arme of the syphon and the water in the other arme of the syphon without hauing all its weight in running out applyed att the same time to draw vp the same water in the sunke arme this single resistant must yield to their double and mastering force And consequently the water in the arme of the syphon that is in the ayre must needes draw the water that is in the other immersed arme as long as the end of its pipe reacheth lower then the leuell of the water in the cisterne for so long it appeareth by what we haue said it must needes be more weighty since part of the rising water in the sunke arme of the syphon is counterpoysed by as much descending water in the cisterne And thus it is euident that out of this experiment it can not be inferred that partes of water do not weigh within the orbe of their owne whole but onely that two equall partes of water in their owne orbe namely that which riseth in the sunken arme and that which presseth downe from the whole bulke in the cisterne are of equall weight and do ballance one an othet So that neuer so little oddes between the two counterpoysing parcells of water which are in the ayre must needes make the water runne out att that end of the syphon where the ouerweight of water is The attraction whose cause next to this is most manifest is that which is made by the force of heate or of fire for we see that fire euer draweth ayre vnto it so notably that if in a close roome there be a good fire a man that standeth att the dore or att the window especially without shall heare such a noise that he will thinke there is a great wind within the chamber The reason of this attraction is that fire rarifying the ayre which is next vnto it and withall spending it selfe perpetually causeth the ayre and his owne body mingled together to fly vp through the chimney or by some other passage Whence it followeth of necessity that the next body must succeed into the place of the body that is flowne away This next body generally is ayre whose mobility and fluidity beyond all other bodies maketh it of all others the fittest to be drawne and the more of it that is drawne the more must needes follow Now if there be floating in this ayre any other atomes subiect to the current which the ayre taketh they must also come with it to the fire and by it must be rarifyed and be exported out of that little orbe Hence it is that men with very good reason do hold that fire ayreth a chamber as we terme it that is purifyeth it both because it purifyeth it as wind doth by drawing a current of ayre into it that sweepeth through it or by making it purify it selfe by motion as a streame of water doth by running as also because those vapours which approach the fire are burned and dissolued So that the ayre being noysome and vnwholesome by reason of its grossenesse proceeding from its standing vnmoued like a stagnation of dead water in a marish place the fire taketh away that cause of annoyance By this very rule we learne that other hoat
thinges which participate the nature of fire must likewise in other respects haue a resemblance in this quality And accordingly wee see that hoat loafes in a bakers shoppe newly drawne out of the ouen are accounted to draw vnto them any infection which is in the ayre The like we say of onyons and other strong breathing substances which by their smell shew much heate in them In like manner it is conceiued that pigeons and rabets and catts easily take infection by reason of their extraordinary warmth which they haue in themselves And this is confirmed by the practise of Physitians who vse to lay warme pigeons newly killed to the feete wristes or heades of sicke persons and young puppies to their stomakes and sometimes certaine hoat gummes to their nauels to draw out such vapors or humors as infest the body for the same reason they hang amuletes of arsenike sublimate dryed toades or spiders about their patients neckes to draw vnto them venimous qualities from their bodies Hence also it is that if a man be strucken by a viper or a scorpion they vse to breake the body of the beast it selfe that stung him if they can gett it vpon the wound but if that beast be crawled out of their finding they do the like by some other venimous creature as I haue seene a bruised toad layed to the biting of a viper And they manifestly perceiue the applyed body to swell with the poyson sucked out from the wound and the patient to be relieued and haue lesse poyson in the same manner as by cupping glasses the poyson is likewise drawne out from the wound so that you may see the reason of both is the very same or att the least very like one an other Onely we are to note that the proper body of the beast out of which the venome was driuen into the wound is more efficacious then any other to sucke it out And the like is to be obserued in all other kindes that such vapors as are to be drawne do come better and incorporate faster in bodies of like nature then in those which haue onely the common conditions of heate and drynesse the one of which serueth to attract the other to fasten and incorporate into it selfe the moisture which the first draweth vnto it So we see that water soaketh into a dry body whence it was extracted allmost inseparably and is hidden in it as when it raineth first after hoat weather the ground is presently dryed after the shoure Likewise we see that in most ciments you must mingle a dust of the nature of the thinges which are to be cimented if you will haue them bind strongly Out of this discourse we may yield a reason for those magicall operations which some attribute to the Diuels assistance peraduenture because mans wickednesse hath beene more ingenious then his good will and so hath found more meanes to hurt then to helpe nay when he hath arriued some way to helpe those very helpes haue vndergone the same calumny because of the likenesse which their operations haue to the others Without doubt very vniustly if there be truth in the effects For where haue we any such good suggestions of the enemy of mankind proposed vnto vs that we may with reason beleeue he would duly settledly and constantly concurre to the helpe and seruice of all those he so much hateth as he must needes do if he be the Author of such effects Or is it not a wrong to almighty God and to his carefull instruments rather to impute vnto the Diuell the aydes which to some may seeme supernaturall then vnto them of whom we may iustly beleeue and expect such good officies and assistances I meane those operations both good and bad which ordinarily are called Magneticall though peraduenture wrongfully as not hauing that property which denominateth the loadestone One thing I may assure that if the reportes be true they haue the perfect imitation of nature in them As for example that the weapons salue or the sympathetike pouder doth require in the vsing it to be conserued in an equall and moderate temper and that the weapon which made the wound or the cloth vpon which the blood remaineth that issued from it be orderly and frequently dressed or else the wounded person will not be cured likewise the steame or spirits which att the giuing of the wound did enter into the pores of the weapon must not be driuen out of it which will be done by fire and so when it is heated by holding ouer coales you may see a moysture sweate out of the blade att the opposite side to the fire as farre as it entered into the wounded persons body which being once all sweated out you shall see no more the like steame vpon the sword neyther must the blood be washed out of the bloody cloth for in these cases the pouder or salue will worke nothing Likewise if there be any excesse eyther of heate or of cold in keeping the medicated weapon or cloth the patient feeleth that as he would do if the like excesse were in any remedy that were applyed to the wound it selfe likewise if the medicated weapon or bloody cloth be kept too close no effect followeth likewise the natures of the thinges vsed in these cures are of themselues soueraigne for healing the like griefes though peraduenture too violent if they were applyed in body without much attenuation And truly if we will deny all effects of this kind we must in a manner renounce all humane fayth men of all sortes and qualities and many of them such in my owne knowledge as I can not question their prudence in obseruing or their sincerity in relating hauing very frequently made experience of such medicines and all affirming after one fashion to haue found the same effects Adde to these the multitude of other like effects appearing or conceited to appeare in other thinges In some countries it is a familiar disease with kine to haue a swelling in the soales of their feete and the ordinary cure is to cutt a turfe vpon which they haue troden with their sore foote and to hang it vpon a hedge and as that dryeth away so will their sore amend In other partes they obserue that if milke newly come from the cowe do in the boyling runne ouer into the fire and that this do happen often and neere together to the same cowes milke that cowe will haue her vdder sore and inflamed and the preuention is to cast salt immediately into the fire vpon the milke The herbe Persicaria if it be well rubbed vpon wartes and then be layed in some fitt place to putrify causeth the wartes to weare away as it rotteth some say the like of fresh beefe Many examples also there are of hurting liuing creatures by the like meanes which I sett not downe for feare of doing more harme by the euill inclination of some persons into whose handes they may fall then profitt by their knowing them