them to a Philosophers esteem as the sight of one Eye skilfully dissected or the unadorn'd Account given of its Structure and the admirable uses of its several parts in Scheiner's Oculus and Des-Cartes's Excellent Dioptricks And though I do not think my self bound to acquiesce in and admire every thing that is propos'd as Mysterious and Rare by many Interpreters and Preachers yet I think I may safely compare several things in the Books we call the Scripture to several others in that of Nature in at least one regard For though I do not believe all the Wonders that Pliny Aelian Porta and other Writers of that stamp relate of the Generation of Animals yet by perusing such faithful and accurate accounts as sometimes Galen De usu Partium sometimes Vesalius sometimes our Harvey de Ovo and our later Anatomists and sometimes other true Naturalists give of the Generation of Animals and of the admirable Structure of their Bodies especially those of Men and such other parts of Zoology as Pliny and the other Writers I nam'd with him could make nothing considerable of by perusing these I say I receive more pleasure and satisfaction and am induc'd more to admire the works of Nature than by all their Romantic and Superficial Narratives And thus to apply this to our present Subject a close and critical account of the more vail'd and pregnant parts of Scripture and Theological Matters with such Reflections on them as their Nature and Collation would suggest to a Philosophical as well as Critical Speculator would far better please a Rational Considerer and give him a higher as well as a better grounded Veneration for the things explain'd than a great many of those sleighter or ill-founded Remarks wherewith the Expositions and Discourses of Superficial Writers though never so florid or witty gain the applause of the less discerning sort of men And here on this occasion I shall venture to add that I despair not but that a further use may be made of the Scripture than either our Divines or Philosophers seem to have thought on Some few Theologues indeed have got the name of Supralapsarians for venturing to look back beyond the Fall of Adam for God's Decrees of Election and Reprobation But besides that their boldness has been dislik'd by the generality of Divines as well as other Christians the Object of their Speculation is much too narrow to be any thing near and adequate to such an Hypothesis as I mean For me-thinks that the Encyclopedia's and Pansophia's that even men of an elevated Genius have aimed at are not diffus'd enough to comprehend all that the Reason of a Man improv'd by Philosophy and elevated by the Revelations already extant in the Scripture may by the help of free Ratiocination and the hints contain'd in those pregnant Writings with those assistances of God's Spirit which he is still ready to vouchsafe to them that duly seek them attain unto in this life The Gospel comprises indeed and unfolds the whole Mystery of Man's Redemption as far forth as 't is necessary to be known for our Salvation And the Corpusculariùm or Mechanical Philosophy strives to deduce all the Phoenomena of Nature from Adiaphorous Matter and Local Motion But neither the Fundamental Doctrine of Christianity nor that of the Powers and Effects of Matter and Motion seems to be more than an Epicycle if I may so call it of the Great and Universal System of God's Contrivances and makes but a part of the more general Theory of things knowable by the Light of Nature improv'd by the Information of the Scriptures So that both these Doctrines though very general in respect of the subordinate parts of Theology and Philosophy seem to be but members of the Universal Hypothesis whose Objects I conceive to be the Nature Counsels and Works of God as far as they are discoverable by us for I say not to us in this Life For those to whom God has vouchsafed the priviledge of mature Reason seem not to enlarge their thoughts enough if they think that the Omniscient and Almighty God has bounded the Operations of his Power and Wisdom and Goodness to the Exercise that may be given them for some Ages by the Production and Government of Matter and Motion and of the Inhabitants of the Terrestrial Globe which we know to be but a Physical Point in comparison of that Portion of Universal Matter which we have already discover'd For I account that there are four grand Communities of Creatures whereof things meerly Corporeal make but one the other three differing from these are distinct also from one another Of the first sort are the Race of Mankind where Intellectual Beings are vitally associated with Gross and Organical Bodies The second are Daemons or evil Angels and the third good Angels whether in each of those two kinds of Spirits the Rational Beings be perfectly free from all union with Matter though never so fine and subtile or whether they be united to Vehicles not Gross but Spirituous and ordinarily invisible to Us. Nor may we think because Angels and Devils are two names quickly utter'd and those Spirits are seldome or never seen by us there are therefore but few of them and the Speculation of them is not considerable For as their Excellency is great as we shall by and by shew so for their number they are represented in Scripture as an Heavenly Host standing on the right and left hand of the Throne of God And of the good Angels our Saviour Speaks of having more than twelve Legions of them at his command Nay the Prophet Daniel saith that to the Antient of days no less than millions ministred unto him and hundreds of millions stood before him And of the evil Angels the Gospel informs us that enough to call them a Legion which you know is usually reckon'd at a moderate rate to consist of betwixt six and seven thousand possess'd one single man For my part when I consider that matter how vastly extended and how curiously shap'd soever is but a brute thing that is onely capable of Local motion and its effects and consequents on other Bodies or the Brain of man without being capable of any True or at least any Intellectual Perception or true Love or Hatred and when I consider the Rational Soul as an immaterial and immortal Being that bears the Image of its Divine Maker being indow'd with a capacious Intellect and a Will that no Creature can force I am by these Considerations dispos'd to think the Soul of Man a nobler and more valuable Being than the whole Corporeal World which though I readily acknowledge it to be admirably contriv'd and worthy of the Almighty and Omniscient Author yet it consists but of an Aggregate of Portions of brute Matter variously shap'd and connected by Local Motion as Dow and Roles and Loves and Cakes and Vermicelli Wafers and Pie-crust are all of them diversified Meal but without any knowledge either of
things unaccurate if not impertinent or that he will be oblig'd to repeat many things that others have said before and if he write but small Tracts as is the custome of the Judiciousest Authors who have no mind to publish but what is New and Considerable as their Excellency will make them to be the sooner dispers'd so the smallness of the Bulk will endanger them to be quickly lost as Experience shows us of divers Excellent little Tracts which though publish'd not many years ago are already out of Print as they speak and not to be met with save by chance in Stationers Shops So that these Writings which deserve a better fate come after a while either to be lost which is the case of divers or to have their Memory preserv'd onely in the larger Volume of some Compiler whose Industry is onely preferable to his Judgment it being observable that by I know not what unlucky fate very few for I do not say None that addict themselves to make Collections out of others have the Judgment to cull out the choisest things in them and the small Tracts we are speaking of being preserv'd but in such a Quoter or Abridger will run a very great danger of being convey'd to posterity but under such a Representation as it pleases the Compiler And This that I may proceed to my third Consideration may make the Naturalists Fame very uncertain not onely because of the want of Judgment that as I newly said is too often observable in Compilers whereby they frequently leave far better things than they take but for the want of skill to understand the Author they Cite and Epitomize or Candor to do him right For sometimes mens Physical Opinions and several Passages of their Writings are so misrepresented by Mistake or Design especially if those that recite their Opinions be not Of them that men are made to teach or deliver things quite differing from their Sense and perhaps quite contrary to it of which I my self have had some unwelcome Experience a Learned Writer pretending I know not how often that I asserted an Opinion about which I did expressly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And another noted Writer having not out of design but unacquaintedness with Mechanicks and the Subject I writ of given me commendations for having by a new Experiment prov'd a thing the quite contrary whereof I intended thereby to evince and am not Alone mistaken if I did not do it Other Naturalists I have met with whose Writings Compilers have traduc'd out of hatred to their Persons or their Religion as if Truth could in nothing be a Friend to one that is the Traducers's Enemy or as if a man that falls into an Errour in Religion could not light upon a good Notion in Philosophy in spite of all the Truths we owe to Aristotle Epicurus and the other Heathen Philosophers Nay some there are that will set themselves to decry a man's Writings not because they are directly His Enemies but because He is esteem'd by Theirs as you may remember an Instance in a Servant of yours who had divers things written against Him upon this very Account Nor is it onely by the Citations of profess'd Adversaries or Opponents that a worthy Writer's Reputation may be prejudic'd since 't is not unfrequently so by those that mention him with an Encomium and seem dispos'd to honour him For I have observ'd it to be the Trick of certain Writers to name an Author with much Complement onely for some one or few of the least considerable things they borrow of Him by which artifice they endeavour to conceal their being Plagiaries of more and better which yet is more excusable than the Practise of some who proceed to that pitch of disingenuity that they will rail at an Author to whom indeed they owe too much that they may not be thought to be beholden to him But 4. I must add that besides these dangers that a Naturalists Reputation with posterity may run through the Ignorance or Perversness of men it is liable to divers other hazards from the very Nature both of Men of Opinions and of Things For as men's Genius's and Inclinations are naturally various in reference to Studies one man passionately affecting one sort of them and another being fond of quite differing ones so those Inclinations are oftentimes variously and generally determin'd by external and accidental Causes As when some great Monarch happens to be a great Patron or a Despiser and perhaps Adversary of this or that kind of Learning And when some one man has gain'd much applause for this or that kind of Study Imitation or Emulation oftentimes makes many others addict themselves to it Thus though Rome under the Consuls was inconsiderable for Learning yet the Reputation of Cicero and Favour of Augustus brought Learning into request there where the small countenance it met with among most of the succeeding Emperours kept it far inferiour to what it had been among the Greeks about Alexander's Age. And the Age of the same Augustus was enobled with store of Poets not onely by the countenance which He and Maecenas afforded them but probably also by the Examples they gave to and the Emulation they excited in one another And after the decay of the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century Natural Philosophy and the Mathematicks being very little valued and less understood by reason that mens Studies were by the Genius of those Ages apply'd to other Subjects every hundred years scarce produc'd One Improver not to say one Eminent Cultivator either of Mathematicks or of Physicks By which you may see how little Certainty there is that because a man is skill'd in Natural Philosophy and that Science is now in Request his Reputation shall be as great as now when perhaps the Science it self will be grown out of Repute But besides the Contingencies that may happen to a Naturalist's Fame upon this Account That the Science He cultivates is as well as others subject to Wanes and Eclipses in the general esteem of men there is another uncertainty arising from the Vicissitudes that are to be met with in the Estimates men make of differing Hypotheses Sects and ways of Philosophizing about the same Science and particularly about Natural Philosophy For during those Learned Times when Physicks first and most flourish'd among the Grecians Democritus Leucippus Epicurus Anaxagoras Plato and almost all the Naturalists that preceded Aristotle were Corpuscularians endeavouring though not all by the same way to give an account of the Phaenomena of Nature and even of Qualities themselves by the Bigness Shape Motion c. of Corpuscles or the minutest active parts of Matter Whereas Aristotle having attempted to deduce the Phaenomena from the four first Qualities the four Elements and some few other barren Hypotheses ascribing what could not be explicated by them and consequently far the greatest part of Natures Phaenomena to Substantial Forms and Occult Qualities Principles that are readily nam'd but scarce
so much as pretended to be understood and having upon these slight and narrow Principles reduc'd Physicks into a kind of System which the judicious Modesty of the Corpuscularians had made them backward to do the Reputation that his great Pupil Alexander as well as his Learning gave him the Easiness of the way he propos'd to the attainment of Natural Philosophy the good luck his Writings had to survive those of Democritus and almost all the rest of the Corpuscularians when Charles the Great began to establish Learning in Europe These I say and some other lucky Accidents that concurr'd did for about seven or eight hundred years together make the Corpuscularian Philosophy not onely be Justled but even Exploded out of the Schools by the Peripatetick which in our Times is by very many upon the Revival of the Corpuscularian Philosophy rejected and by more than a few derided as precarious unintelligible and useless And to give an instance in a particular thing which though formerly named deserves to be again mention'd to our present purpose Aristotle himself somewhere confesses not to say brags that the Greek Philosophers his Predecessors did unanimously teach that the World was I say not Created but Made and yet He almost by his single Authority and the subtile Arguments as some have been pleased to think them that he employ'd though divers of them were borrow'd of Ocellus Lucanus was able for many Ages to introduce into the Schools of Philosophers that Irreligious and Ill-grounded Opinion of the Eternity of the World which afterwards the Christian Doctrine made men begin to question and which now both that and Right Reason have perswaded most men to reject And this invites me to consider farther That the present success of the Opinions that your Physeophilus befriends ought not to make him so sure as he thinks he is that the same Opinions will be always in the same or greater Vogue and have the same Advantages in point of General Esteem that they now have over their Corrivals For Opinions seem to have their Fatal Seasons and Vicissitudes as well as other things as may appear not onely by the Examples of it newly given but also by the Hypothesis of the Earths Motion which having been in great request before Pythagoras who yet is commonly thought the Inventor of it had its Reputation much increas'd by the suffrage of the famous Sect of the Pythagoreans whom Aristotle himself takes notice of as the Patrons of that Opinion and yet afterwards for near 2000 years it was laugh'd at as not onely false but ridiculous After all which time this so long antiquated Opinion being reviv'd by Copernicus has in a little time made so great a progress among the modern Astronomers and Philosophers that if it go on to prevail at the same rate the Motion of the Earth will be acknowledg'd by all its Mathematical Inhabitants But though it be often the Fate of an oppress'd Truth to have at length a Resurrection yet 't is not always its peculiar priviledge for Obsolete Errours are sometimes reviv'd as well as discredited Truths So that the general disrepute of an Opinion in one Age will not give us an absolute security that 't will not be in as general Request in another in which it may perhaps not onely Revive but Reign Nor is it onely in the Credit of mens Opinions about Philosophical Matters that we may observe an Inconstancy and Vicissitude but in the very Way and Method of Philosophizing for Democritus Plato Pythagoras and others who were of the more sincere and ingenious Cultivators of Physicks among the Greeks exercis'd themselves chiefly either in making particular Experiments and Observations as Democritus did in his manifold Dissections of Animals or else apply'd the Mathematicks to the Explicating of a particular Phaenomenon of Nature as may appear not to mention what Hero teaches in his Pneumaticks by the Accounts Democritus Plato and others give of Fire and other Elements from the Figure and Motion of the Corpuscles they consist of And although this way of Philosophizing were so much in request before Aristotle that albeit he unluckily brought in another yet there are manifest and considerable footsteps of it to be met with in some of his Writings and particularly in his Books of Animals and his Mechanical Questions yet the Scholastick followers of Aristotle did for many Ages neglect the way of Philosophizing of the Antients and to the great prejudice of Learning introduc'd every where in stead of it a quite contrary way of Writing For not onely they laid aside the Mathematicks of which they were for the most part very ignorant but instead of giving us Intelligible and Explicite if not Accurate Accounts of particular Subjects grounded upon a distinct and heedful Consideration of them they contented themselves with hotly disputing in general certain unnecessary or at least unimportant questions about the Objects of Physicks about Materia Prima Substantial Forms Privation Place Generation Corruption and other such general things with which when they had quite tyr'd themselves and their Readers they usually remain'd utter strangers to the particular Productions of that Nature about which they had so much wrangled and were not able to give a man so much true and useful Information about Particular Bodies as even the meanest Mechanicks such as Mine-diggers Butchers Smiths and even Dary-maids could do Which made their Philosophy appear so Imperfect and Useless not onely to the Generality of Men but to the more Elevated and Philosophical Wits that our great Verulam attempted with much Skill and Industry and not without some Indignation to restore the more modest and useful way practis'd by the Antients of Inquiring into particular Bodies without hastening to make Systems into the Request it formerly had wherein the admirable Industry of two of our London Physicians Gilbert and Harvey has not a little assisted him And I need not tell you that since Him Des-Cartes Gassendus and others having taken in the Application of Geometrical Theorems for the Explication of Physical Problems He and They and Other Restorers of Natural Philosophy have brought the Experimental and Mathematical way of Inquiring into Nature into at least as high and growing an Esteem as ever it possess'd when it was most in Vogue among the Naturalists that preceded Aristotle To the Considerations I have hitherto deduc'd which perhaps might alone suffice for my purpose I shall yet subjoyn one that I take to be of greater weight than any of them for the manifesting how difficult it is to be sure that the Physical Opinions which at present procure a Champion or Promoter of them Veneration shall be still in request For besides that inconstant Fate of applauded Opinions which may be imputed to the Inconstancy of Men there is a greater danger that threatens the Aspirers Reputation from the very Nature of things For the most general Principles of all viz. the Figure Bigness Motion and other Mechanical Affections of the
does little more than name some of the Heads treated of in the Dialogue yet according to the exigency of the Occasion the other part contains several things either pretermitted or but more lightly touched on in the Discourse But although the Author's design were to reserve these thoughts as a kind of Paralipomena to his Dialogue yet since he is not willing to let that at least quickly come abroad and these are fallen into my hands I will make bold with his good leave to annex them to the fore-going Treatise not onely to compleat the Bulk of the Book but because oâ— some affinity between them since both aim at manifesting the Excellency of the Studies they would recommend And perhaps 't will not be unwelcome to some of the Curious to find that our Noble Author in the same Book wherein he prefers the Study of Divine things to that of Natural ones does himself prefer the Mechanical Principles before all other Hypotheses about Natural things they being in their own Nature so accommodate to make considering men understand rather than dispute of the Effects of Nature Of the Excellency and Grounds Of the CORPUSCULAR Or MECHANICAL Philosophy THe importance of the Question you propose would oblige me to refer you to the Dialogue about a good Hypothesis and some other Papers of that kind where you may find my thoughts about the advantages of the Mechanical Hypothesis somewhat amply set down and discours'd of But since your desires confine me to deliver in few words not what I believe resolvedly but what I think may be probably said for the Preference or the Preeminence of the Corpuscular Philosophy above Aristotles or that of the Chymists you must be content to receive from me without any Preamble or exact Method or ample Discourses or any other thing that may cost many words a succinct mention of some of the chief Advantages of the Hypothesis we incline to And I the rather comply on this occasion with your Curiosity because I have often observ'd you to be allarm'd and disquieted when you hear of any Book that pretends to uphold or repair the decaying Philosophy of the Schools or some bold Chymist that arrogates to those of his Sect the Title of Philosophers and pretends to build wholly upon Experience to which he would have all other Naturalists thought strangers That therefore you may not be so tempted to despond by the Confidence or Reputation of those Writers that do some of them applaud and others censure what I fear they do not understand as when the Peripateticks cry up Substantial Forms and the Chymists Mechanical Explications of Nature's Phaenomena I will propose some Considerations that I hope will not onely keep you kind to the Philosophy you have embrac'd but perhaps by some Considerations which you have not yet met with make you think it probable that the new Attempts you hear of from time to time will not overthrow the Corpuscularian Philosophy but either be foiled by it or found reconcilable to it But when I speak of the Corpuscular or Mechanical Philosophy I am far from meaning with the Epicureans that Atoms meeting together by chance in an infinite Vacuum are able of themselves to produce the World and all its Phaenomena nor with some Modern Philosophers that supposing God to have put into the whole Mass of Matter such an invariable quantity of Motion he needed do no more to make the World the material parts being able by their own unguided Motions to cast themselves into such a System as we call by that name But I plead onely for such a Philosophy as reaches but to things purely Corporeal and distinguishing between the first original of things and the subsequent course of Nature teaches concerning the former not onely that God gave Motion to Matter but that in the beginning He so guided the various Motions of the parts of it as to contrive them into the World he design'd they should compose furnish'd with the Seminal Principles and Structures or Models of Living Creatures and establish'd those Rules of Motion and that order amongst things Corporeal which we are wont to call the Laws of Nature And having told this as to the former it may be allowed as to the latter to teach That the Universe being once fram'd by God and the Laws of Motion being setled and all upheld by His incessant concourse and general Providence the Phaenomena of the World thus constituted are Physically produc'd by the Mechanical affections of the parts of Matter and what they operate upon one another according to Meâ—hanical Laws And now having shewn what kind of Corpuscular Philosophy 't is that I speak of I pâ—oceed to the particulars that I thought the most proper to recommend it I. The first thing that I shall mention to this purpose is the Intelligibleness or Clearness of Mechanical Principles and Explications I need not tell you that among the Peripateticks the Disputes are many and intricate about Matter Privation Substantial Forms and their Eduction c. And the Chymists are sufficiently puzled as I have elsewhere shewn to give such definitions and accounts of their Hypostatical Principles as are reconcileable to one another and even to some obvious Phaenomena And much more dark and intricate are their Doctrines about the Archeus Astral Beings Gas Blass and other odd Notions which perhaps have in part occasion'd the darkness and ambiguity of their expressions that could not be very clear when their Conceptions were far from being so And if the Principles of the Aristotelians and Spagyrists are thus obscure 't is not to be expected the Explications that are made by the help onely of such Principles should be clear And indeed many of them are either so general and slight or otherwise so unsatisfactory that granting their Principles 't is very hard to understand or admit their applications of them to particular Phaenomena And even in some of the more ingenious and subtle of the Peripatetick Discourses upon their superficial and narrow Theories me thinks the Authors have better plaid the part of Painters than Philosophers and have onely had the skill like Drawers of Landskips to make men fancy they see Castles and Towns and other Structures that appear solid and magnificent and to reach to a large extent when the whole Piece is superficial and made up of Colours and Art and compris'd within a Frame perhaps scarce a yard long But to come now to the Corpuscular Philosophy men do so easily understand one anothers meaning when they talk of Local Motion Rest Bigness Shape Order Situation and Contexture of Material Substances and these Principles do afford such clear accounts of those things that are rightly deduc'd from them onely that even those Peripateticks or Chymists that maintain other Principles acquiesce in the Explications made by these when they can be had and seek not any further though perhaps the effect be so admirable as would make it pass for that of a hidden
Form or Occult Quality Those very Aristotelians that believe the Celestial Bodies to be mov'd by Intelligences have no recourse to any peculiar agency of theirs to account for Eclipses And we laugh at those East-Indians that to this day go out in multitudes with some Instruments that may relieve the distressed Luminary whose loss of Light they fancy to proceed from some fainting fit out of which it must be rouz'd For no Intelligent man whether Chymist or Peripatetic flies to his peculiar Principles after he is informed that the Moon is Eclipsed by the interposition of the Earth betwixt her and it and the Sun by that of the Moon betwixt him and the Earth And when we see the Image of a Man cast into the Air by a Concave Spherical Looking-glass though most men are amaz'd at it and some suspect it to be no less than an effect of Witchcraft yet he that is skill'd enough in Catoptricks will without consulting Aristotle or Paracelsus or flying to Hypostatical Principles and Substantial Forms be satisfied that the Phaenomenon is produc'd by the beams of Light reflected and thereby made convergent according to Optical and consequently Mathematical Laws But I must not now repeat what I elsewhere say to shew that the Corpuscular Principles have been declin'd by Philosophers of different Sects not because they think not our Explications clear if not much more so than their own but because they imagine that the applications of them can be made but to few things and consequently are insufficient II. In the next place I observe that there cannot be fewer Principles than the two grand ones of Mechanical Philosophy Matter and Motion For Matter alone unless it be moved is altogether unactive and whilst all the parts of a Body continue in one state without any Motion at all that Body will not exercise any action nor suffer any alteration it self though it may perhaps modifie the action of other Bodies that move against it III. Nor can we conceive any Principles more primary than Matter and Motion For either both of them were immediately created by God or to add that for their sakes that would have Matter to be unproduc'd if Matter be eternal Motion must either be produc'd by some Immaterial Supernatural Agent or it must immediately flow by way of Emanation from the nature of the matter it appertains to IV. Neither can there be any Physical Principles more simple than Matter and Motion neither of them being resoluble into any things whereof it may be truly or so much as tolerably said to be compounded V. The next thing I shall name to recommend the Corpuscular Principle is their great Comprehensiveness I consider then that the genuine and necessary effect of the sufficiently strong Motion of one part of Matter against another is either to drive it on in its intire bulk or else to break or divide it into particles of determinate Motion Figure Size Posture Rest Order or Texture The two first of these for instance are each of them capable of numerous varieties For the Figure of a portion of Matter may either be one of the five Regular Figures treated of by Geometricians or some determinate Species of solid Figures as that of a Cone Cylinder c. or Irregular though not perhaps Anonymous as the Grains of Sand Hoops Feathers Branches Forks Files c. And as the Figure so the Motion of one of these particles may be exceedingly diversified not onely by the determination to this or that part of the world but by several other things as particularly by the almost infinitely varying degrees of Celerity by the manner of its progression with or without Rotation and other modifying Circumstances and more yet by the Line wherein it moves as besides Streight Circular Elliptical Parabolical Hyperbolical Spiral and I know not how many others For as later Geometricians have shewn that those crooked Lines may be compounded of several Motions that is trac'd by a Body whose motion is mixt of and results from two or more simpler Motions so how many more curves may or rather may not be made by new Compositions and Decompositions of Motion is no easie task to determine Now since a single particle of Matter by vertue of two onely of the Mechanical affections that belong to it be diversifiable so many ways how vast a number of variations may we suppose capable of being produc'd by the Compositions and Decompositions of Myriads of single invisible Corpuscles that may be contained and contex'd in one small Body and each of them be imbued with more than two or three of the fertile Catholick Principles above mention'd Especially since the aggregate of those Corpuscles may be farther diversifi'd by the Texture resulting from their Convention into a Body which as so made up has its own Bigness and Shape and Pores perhaps very many and various and has also many capacities of acting and suffering upon the score of the place it holds among other Bodies in a World constituted as ours is So that when I consider the almost innumerable diversifications that Compositions and Decompositions may make of a small number not perhaps exceeding twenty of distinct things I am apt to look upon those who think the Mechanical Principles may serve indeed to give an account of the Phaenomena of this or that particular part of Natural Philosophy as Staticks Hydrostaticks the Theory of the Planetary Motions c. but can never be applied to all the Phaenomena of things Corporeal I am apt I say to look upon those otherwise Learned men as I would do upon him that should affirm that by putting together the Letters of the Alphabet one may indeed make up all the words to be found in one Book as in Euclid or Virgil or in one Language as Latine or English but that they can by no means suffice to supply words to all the Books of a great Library much less to all the Languages in the world And whereas there is another sort of Philosophers that observing the great efficacy of the bigness and shape and situation and motion and connexion in Engines are willing to allow that those Mechanical Principles may have a great stroke in the Operations of Bodies of a sensible bulk and manifest Mechanism and therefore may be usefully imploy'd in accounting for the effects and Phaenomena of such Bodies who yet will not admit that these Principles can be apply'd to the hidden Transactions that pass among the minute Particles of Bodies and therefore think it necessary to refer these to what they call Nature Substantial Forms Real Qualities and the like Un-mechanical Principles and Agents But this is not necessary for both the Mechanical affections of Matter are to be found and the Laws of Motion take place not onely in the great Masses and the middle-siz'd Lumps but in the smallest Fragments of Matter and a lesser portion of it being as well a Body as a greater must as necessarily as it have
consequences of Local Motion he considers that as if the propos'd Agent be not Intelligible and Physical it can never Physically explain the Phaenomena so if it be Intelligible and Physical 't will be reducible to Matter and some or other of those onely Catholick affections of Matter already often mentioned And the indefinite divisibility of Matter the wonderful efficacy of Motion and the almost infinite variety of Coalitions and Structures that may be made of minute and insensible Corpuscles being duly weighed I see not why a Philosopher should think it impossible to make out by their help the Mechanical possibility of any corporeal Agent how subtil or diffus'd or active soever it be that can be solidly proved to be really existent in Nature by what name soever it be call'd or disguis'd And though the Cartesians be Mechanical Philosophers yet according to them their Materia Subtilis which the very name declares to be a corporeal Substance is for ought I know little if it be at all less diffus'd through the Universe or less active in it than the Universal Spirit of some Spagyrists not to say the Anima Mundi of the Platonists But this upon the by after which I proceed and shall venture to add That whatever be the Physical Agent whether it be inanimate or living purely Corporeal or united to an Intellectual Substance the above mention'd changes that are wrought in the Body that is made to exhibit the Phaenomena may be effected by the same or the like means or after the same or the like manner as for instance if Corn be reduc'd to Meal the Materials and shape of the Milstones and their peculiar Motion and Adaptation will be much of the same kind and though they should not yet to be sure the grains of Corn will suffer a various contrition and comminution in their passage to the form of Meal whether the Corn be ground by a Water-mill or a Wind-mill or a Horse-mill or a Hand-mill that is by a Mill whose Stones are turned by Inanimate by Brute or by Rational Agents And if an Angel himself should work a real change in the nature of a Body 't is scarce conceivable to us Men how he could do it without the assistance of Local Motion since if nothing were displac'd or otherwise mov'd than before the like hapning also to all external Bodies to which it related 't is hardly conceivable how it should be in it self other than just what it was before But to come now to the other sort of Hypotheses formerly mention'd if the Chymists or others that would deduce a compleat Natural Philosophy from Salt Sulphur and Mercury or any other set number of Ingredients of things would well consider what they undertake they might easily discover That the material parts of Bodies as such can reach but to a small part of the Phaenomena of Nature whilst these Ingredients are consider'd but as Quiescent things and therefore they would find themselves necessitated to suppose them to be active and That things purely Corporeal cannot be but by means of Local Motion and the effects that may result from that accompanying variously shap'd siz'd and aggregated parts of Matter So that the Chymists and other Materialists if I may so call them must as indeed they are wont to do leave the greatest part of the Phaenomena of the Universe unexplicated by the help of the Ingredients be they fewer or more than three of Bodies without taking in the Mechanical and more comprehensive affections of Matter especially Local Motion I willingly grant that Salt Sulphur and Mercury or some Substances analogous to them are to be obtain'd by the action of the Fire from a very great many dissipable Bodies here below nor would I deny that in explicating divers of the Phaenomena of such Bodies it may be of use to a skilful Naturalist to know and consider that this or that Ingredient as Sulphur for instance does abound in the Body propos'd whence it may be probably argu'd that the Qualities that usually accompany that Principle when Predominant may be also upon its score found in the Body that so plentifully partakes of it But not to mention what I have elsewhere shown that there are many Phaenomena to whose explication this knowledge will contribute very little or nothing at all I shall onely heâ—e observe that though Chymical Explications be sometimes the most obvious and ready yet they are not the most fundamental and satisfactory For the Chymical Ingredient it self whether Sulphur or any other must owe its nature and other qualities to the union of insensible particles in a convenient Size Shape Motion or Rest and Contexture all which are but Mechanical Affections of convening Corpuscles And this may be illustrated by what happens in Artificial Fire-works For though in most of those many differing sorts that are made either for the use of War or for Recreation Gunpowder be a main Ingredient and divers of the Phaenomena may be deriv'd from the greater or lesser measure wherein the Compositions partake of it yet besides that there may be Fire-works made without Gun-powder as appears by those made of old by the Greeks and Romans Gun-powder it self owes its aptness to be fir'd and exploded to the Mechanical Contexture of more simple portions of Matter Nitre Charcoal and Sulphur and Sulphur it self though it be by many Chymists mistaken for an Hypostatical Principle owes its Inflammability to the convention of yet more simple and primary Corpuscles since Chymists confess that it has an inflammable Ingredient and experience shews that it very much abounds with an acid and uninflammable Salt and is not quite devoide of Terrestreity I know it may be here alledg'd that the productions of Chymical Analyses are simple Bodies and upon that account irresoluble But that divers Substances which Chymists are pleased to call the Salts or Sulphurs or Mercuries of the Bodies that afforded them are not simple and homogeneous has elsewhere been sufficiently proved nor is their not being easily dissipable or resoluble a clear proof of their not being made up of more primitive portions of matter For compounded and even decompounded Bodies may be as difficultly resoluble as most of those that Chymists obtain by what they call their Analysis by the Fire witness common green Glass which is far more durable and irresoluble than many of those that pass for Hypostatical Substances And we see that some Amels will be several times even vitrified in the Fire without losing their Nature or oftentimes so much as their colour and yet Amel is manifestly not onely a compounded but a decompounded Body consisting of Salt and Powder of Pebbles or Sand and calcin'd Tinn and if the Amel be not white usually of some tinging Metall or Mineral But how indestructible soever the Chymical Principles be suppos'd divers of the Operations ascrib'd to them will never be well made out without the help of Local Motion and that diversified too without which we can
Impressions on the Sensories they variously move the Fibres or Threds of the Nerves wherewith those parts are endow'd and by which the Motion is propagated to that little Kernel in the Brain call'd by many Writers the Conarion where these differing motions being perceiv'd by the there residing Soul become Sensations because of the intimate union and as it were Permistion as Cartesius himself expresses it of the Soul with the Body But now Sir give me leave to take notice that this Union of an Incorporeal with a Corporeal Substance and that without a Medium is a thing so unexampled in Nature and so difficult to comprehend that I somewhat question whether the profound Secrets of Theology not to say the adorable Mystery it self of the Incarnation be more abstruse than this For how can I conceive that a Substance purely immaterial should be united without a Physical Medium for in this case there can be none with the Body which cannot possibly lay hold on It and which It can pervade and flie away from at pleasure as Des-Cartes must confess the Soul actually does in Death And 't is almost as difficult to conceive how any part of the Body without excepting the Animal Spirits or the Conarion for these are as truly Corporeal as other parts of the Humane Statue can make Impressions upon a Substance perfectly Incorporeal and which is not immediately affected by the motions of any other parts besides the Genus Nervosum Nor is it a small difficulty to a meer Naturalist who as such does not in Physical matters take notice of Revelations about Angels to conceive how a finite Spirit can either move or which is much the same thing regulate and determine the motion of a Body But that which I would on this occasion invite you to consider is that supposing the Soul does in the Brain perceive the differing motions communicated to the outward Senses yet this however it may give some account of Sensation in general will not at all show us a satisfactory Reason of particular and distinct Sensations For if I demand why for Instance when I look upon a Bell that is ringing such a motion or impression in the Conarion produces in the mind that peculiar sort of perception Seeing and not Hearing and another motion though coming from the same Bell at the same time produces that quite differing sort of perception that we call Sound but not Vision what can be answered but that it was the good pleasure of the Author of Humane Nature to have it so And if the question be ask'd about the differing Objects of any one particular Sense as Why the great plenty of unperturbed Light that is reflected from Snow Milk c does produce a Sensation of whiteness rather than redness or yellowness Or why the smell of Castor or Assa foetida produces in most persons that which they call a Stink rather than a Perfume especially since we know some Hysterical Women that think it not onely a wholesome but a pleasing smell And if also you further ask why Melody and sweet things do generally delight us and discords and bitter things do generally displease us Nay why a little more than enough of some Objects that produce pleasure will produce pain as may be exemplifi'd in a cold hand as it happens to be held out at a just or at too near a distance from the fire If I say these and a thousand other questions of the like kind be ask'd the Answer will be but the general one that is already given that such is the nature of Man For to say that moderate Motions are agreeable to the nature of the Sensory they are excited in but violent and disorderly ones as jâ—ring Sounds and scorching Heat do put it into too violent a motion for its Texture will by no means satisfie For besides that this Answer gives no account of the variety of Sensations of the same kind as of differing Colours Tastes c. but reaches onely to Pleasure and Pain even as to these it will reach but a very little way unless the Givers of it can show how an Immaterial Substance should be more harm'd by the brisker motion of a Body than by the more languid And as you and your Friend think you may justly smile at the Aristotelians for imagining that they have given a tolerable account of the Qualities of Bodies when they have told us that they spring from certain substantial Forms though when they are ask'd particular Questions about these Incomprehensible Forms they do in effect but tell us in general that they have such and such Faculties or Effects because Nature or the Author of Nature endow'd them therewith so I hope you will give me leave to think that it may keep us from boasting of the Clearness and Certainty of our knowledge about the Operations of sensible Objects whilst as the Aristotelians cannot particularly show how their Qualities are produc'd so we cannot particularly explicate how they are perceiv'd the principal thing that we can say being in substance this that our Sensations depend upon such an union or permistion of the Soul and Body as we can give no Example of in all Nature nor no more distinct account of than that it pleased God so to couple them together But I beg your pardon for having detain'd you so long upon one Subject though perhaps it will not prove time mis-spent if it have made you take notice that in spight of the clearness and certainty for which your Friend so much prefers Physicks before Theology we are Yet to seek I say Yet because I know not what Time may Hereafter discover both for the Definition of a Corporeal Substance and a satisfactory account of the manner of Sensation though without the true Notion of a Body we cannot understand that Object of Physicks in general and without knowing the Nature of Sensation we cannot know That from whence we derive almost all that we know of any Body in particular If after all this your Friend shall say That Des-Cartes's account of Body and other things in Physicks being the best that men can give if they be not satisfactory it must be imputed to Humane Nature not to the Cartesian Doctrine I shall not stay to dispute how far the allegation is true especially since though it be admitted it will not prejudice my Discourse For whatsoever the Cause of the imperfection of our Knowledge about Physical matters be that there is an Imperfection in that Knowledge is manifest and that ought to be enough to keep us from being puffed up by such an imperfect Knowledge and from undervaluing upon its account the study of those mysteries of Divinity which by reason of the Nobleness and Remoteness of the Objects may much better than the Nature of Corporeal things which we see and feel and continually converse with have their obscurity attributed to the weakness of our humane Understandings And if it be a necessary Imperfection
its determinate Bulk and Figure And he that looks upon Sand in a good Microscope will easily perceive that each minute Grain of it has as well it s own size and shape as a Rock or Mountain And when we let fall a great stone and a pibble from the top of a high Building we find not but that the latter as well as the former moves conformably to the Laws of acceleration in heavy Bodies descending And the Rules of Motion are observ'd not onely in Canon Bullets but in Small Shot and the one strikes down a Bird according to the same Laws that the other batters down a Wall And though Nature or rather its Divine Author be wont to work with much finer materials and employ more curious contrivances than Art whence the Structure even of the rarest Watch is incomparably inferiour to that of a Humane Body yet an Artist himself according to the quantity of the matter he imploys the exigency of the design he undertakes and the bigness and shape of the Instruments he makes use of is able to make pieces of work of the same nature or kind of extremely differing bulk where yet the like though not equal Art and Contrivance and oftentimes Motion too may be observ'd As a Smith who with a Hammer and other large Instruments can out of masses of Iron forge great Bars or Wedges and make those strong and heavy Chains that were imploy'd to load Malefactors and even to secure Streets and Gates may with lesser Instruments make smaller Nails and Filings almost as minute as Dust and may yet with finer Tools make Links of a strange Slenderness and Lightness insomuch that good Authors tell us of a Chain of divers Links that was fastned to a Flea and could be mov'd by it and if I mis-remember not I saw something like this besides other Instances that I beheld with pleasure of the Littleness that Art can give to such pieces of Work as are usually made of a considerable bigness And therefore to say that though in Natural Bodies whose bulk is manifest and their structure visible the Mechanical Principles may be usefully admitted that are not to be extended to such portions of Matter whose parts and Texture are invisible may perhaps look to some as if a man should allow that the Laws of Mechanism may take place in a Town-Clock but cannot in a Pocket-Watch or to give you an instance mixt of Natural and Artificial as if because the Terraqueous Globe is a vast Magnetical Body of seven or eight thousand miles in Diameter one should affirm that Magnetical Laws are not to be expected to be of force in a spherical piece of Loadstone that is not perhaps an inch long And yet Experience shews us that notwithstanding the inestimable disproportion betwixt these two Globes the Terrella as well as the Earth hath its Poles Aequator and Meridians and in divers other Magnetical Properties emulates the Terrestrial Globe They that to solve the Phaenomena of Nature have recourse to Agents which though they involve no self-repugnancy in their very Notions as many of the Judicious think Substantial Forms and Real Qualities to do yet are such that we conceive not how they operate to bring effects to pass These I say when they tell us of such indeterminate Agents as the Soul of the World the Universal Spirit the Plastic Power and the like though they may in certain cases tell us some things yet they tell us nothing that will satisfie the Curiosity of an Inquisitive Person who seeks not so much to know what is the general Agent that produces a Phenomenon as by what Means and after what Manner the Phenomenon is produc'd The famous Sennerâ—us and some other Learned Physicians tell us of Diseases which proceed from Incantation but sure 't is but a very slight account that a sober Physician that comes to visit a Patient reported to be bewitch'd receives of the strange Symptoms he meets with and would have an account of if he be coldly answer'd That 't is a Witch or the Devil that produces them and he will never sit down with so short an account if he can by any means reduce those extravagant Symptoms to any more known and stated Diseases as Epilepsies Convulsions Hysterical Fits c. and if he can not he will confess his knowledge of this Distemper to come far short of what might be expected and attain'd in other Diseases wherein he thinks himself bound to search into the Nature of the Morbific Matter and will not be satisfi'd till he can probably at least deduce from that and the structure of an Humane Body and other concurring Physical Causes the Phaenomena of the Malady And it would be but little satisfaction to one that desires to understand the causes of what occurrs to observation in a Watch and how it comes to point at and strike the hours to be told That 't was such a Watch-maker that so contriv'd it Or to him that would know the true cause of an Eccho to be answer'd That 't is a Man a Vault or a Wood that makes it And now at length I come to consider that which I observe the most to alienate other Sects from the Mechanical Philosophy namely that they think it pretends to have Principles so Universal and so Mathematical that no other Physical Hypothesis can comport with it or be tolerated by it But this I look upon as an easie indeed but an important mistake because by this very thing that the Mechanical Principles are so universal and therefore applicable to so many things they are rather fitted to include than necessitated to exclude any other Hypothesis that is founded in Nature as far as it is so And such Hypotheses if prudently consider'd by a skilful and moderate person who is rather dispos'd to unite Sects than multiply them will be found as far as they have Truth in them to be either Legitimately though perhaps not immediately deducible from the Mechanical Principles or fairly reconcilable to them For such Hypotheses will probably attempt to account for the Phaenomena of Nature either by the help of a determinate number of material Ingredients such as the Tria Prima of the Chymists by participation whereof other Bodies obtain their Qualities or else by introducing some general Agents as the Platonic Soul of the World or the Universal Spirit asserted by some Spagyrists or by both these ways together Now to dispatch first those that I named in the second place I consider that the chief thing that Inquisitive Naturalists should look after in the explicating of difficult Phaenomena is not so much what the Agent is or does as what changes are made in the Patient to bring it to exhibit the Phaenomena that are propos'd and by what means and after what manner those changes are effected So that the Mechanical Philosopher being satisfied that one part of Matter can act upon another but by vertue of Local Motion or the effects and
small parts of Matter being as your Friend believes sufficiently and clearly establish'd already he must expect to raise his Reputation from subordinate Hypotheses and Theories and in these I shall not scruple to say that 't is extremely difficult even for those that are more exercis'd than He in framing Them and in making of Experiments to have so reaching and attentive a prospect of all things fit to be known as not to be liable to have their Doctrine made doubtful or disprov'd by something that He did not discover or that After-times may This I doubt not but you would easily be prevail'd with to allow if I had leisure and conveniency to transmit to you my Sceptical Naturalist And without having recourse to that Tract it may possibly suffice that we consider that one of the Conditions of a good Hypothesis is that It fairly comport not onely with all other Truths but with all other Phaenomena of Nature as well as those 't is fram'd to explicate For this being granted which cannot be deny'd He that establishes a Theory which he expects shall be acquiesc'd in by all succeeding Times and make Him famous in them must not onely have a care that none of the Phaenomena of Nature that are already taken notice of do contradict his Hypothesis at the present but that no Phaenomena that may be hereafter discover'd shall do it for the future And I very much question whether Physiophilus do know or upon no greater a number and variety of Experiments than most men build upon can know how incompleat the History of Nature we yet have is and how difficult it is to build an Accurate Hypothesis upon an Incompleat History of the Phaenomena 't is to be fitted to especially considering that as I was saying many things may be discover'd in After-times by Industry or Chance which are not now so much as dream'd of and which may yet overthrow Doctrines speciously enough accommodated to the Observations that have been hitherto made Those Antient Philosophers that thought the Torrid Zone to be uninhabitable did not establish their Opinion upon wild Reasonings and as it continu'd uncontrol'd for many Ages so perhaps it would have always done if the Discoveries made by Modern Navigations had not manifested it to be Erroneous The Solidity of the Celestial Orbs was for divers Centuries above 1000 years the general opinion of Astronomers and Philosophers and yet in the last Age and in Ours the free Trajection that has been observ'd in the Motion of some Comets from one of the supposed Orbs to another and the Intricate Motions in the Planet Mars observ'd by Kepler and others to be sometimes nearer as well as sometimes remoter from the Earth than is the Sun these I say and other Phenomena undiscover'd by the Antients have made even Tycho as well as most of the recent Astronomers exchange the too long receiv'd Opinion of solid Orbs for the more warrantable belief of a Fluid Aether And though the Celestial part of the World by reason of its remoteness from us be the most unlikely of any other to afford us the means of overthrowing old Theories by new Discoveries yet even in that we may take notice of divers Instances to our present purpose though I shall here name but this One viz. That after the Ptolemaick Number and Order of the Planets had past uncontradicted for very many Ages and even the Tychonians and Copernicans however they did by their differing Hypotheses dissent from the Ptolemaick System as to the Order did yet acquiesce in it as to the number of the Planets by the happy Discoveries made by Galilaeo of the Satellites of Jupiter and by the excellent Hugenius of the New Planet about Saturn which I think I had the luck to be the first that observ'd and shew'd Disbelievers of it in England the Astronomers of all perswasions are brought to add to the old Septenary number of the Planets and take in Five others that their Predecessors did not dream of That the Chyle prepar'd in the Stomach pass'd through the Mesaraick Veins to the Liver and so to the Heart was for many Ages the unanimous Opinion not onely of Physicians but Anatomists whose numerous Diffections did not tempt them to question it and yet since the casual though lucky Discoveries made of the Milky Vessels in the Thorax by the dextrous Pecquet those that have had with you and I the curiosity to make the requisite Experiments are generally convinc'd that at least a good part of the Chyle goes from the Stomach to the Heart without passing through the Mesaraick Veins or coming at all to the Liver 'T were easie to multiply Instances of this kind but I rather choose to add that 't is not onely about the Qualities and other Attributes of things but about their Causes also that New and oftentimes Accidental Discoveries may destroy the credit of Long and generally approv'd Opinions That Quick-lime exceedingly heats the Water that is pour'd on to quench it on the account of Antiperistasis has been very long and universally receiv'd by the School-Philosophers where 't is the grand and usual Argument urg'd to Establish Antiperistasis and yet I presume you have taken notice that this Proof is made wholly Ineffectual in the judgment of many of the Virtuosi by some contrary Experiments of mine and particularly that of exciting in Quick-lime full as great an Effervescence by the Affusion of Hot water in stead of Cold So it has been generally believ'd that in the Congelation of Water that Liquor is condens'd into a narrower room whereas our late Experiments have satisfied most of the curious that Ice is Water expanded or if you please that Ice takes up more room than the Water did whilst it remain'd unfrozen And whereas the Notion of Natures abhorrence of a Vacuum has not onely ever since Aristotle's time made a great noise in the Schools but seems to be Confirmable by a multitude of Phaenomena the Experiments of Torricellius and some of Ours evidencing that the Air has a great Weight and a strong Spring have I think perswaded almost all that have impartially consider'd them that whether there be or be not such a thing as they call Fuga Vacui yet Suction and the Ascension of Water in Pumps and those other Phaenomena that are generally ascrib'd to It may be very well Explicated without it and are indeed caus'd by the Weight of the Atmosphere and the Elastical power of the Air. And this puts me in mind to take notice that even practical Inventions where one would think the Matter of Fact to be Evident may by undream'd of Discoveries be brought to lose the general Reputation they had for compleatness in their kind For to endear the Invention of Sucking Pumps and of Syphons it has been generally presum'd that by means of either of these Water and any other Liquor may ob fugam vacui be rais'd to what height one pleases