Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A64764
|
A brief natural history intermixed with variety of philosophical discourses and refutations of such vulgar errours as our modern authors have hitherto omitted / by Eugenius Philalethes.
|
Vaughan, Thomas, 1622-1666.
|
1669
(1669)
|
Wing V145; ESTC R1446
|
49,654
|
136
|
A BRIEF Natural History Intermixed with variety OF Philosophical Discourses AND REFUTATIONS Of such VULGAR ERROURS As our Modern Authors have hitherto omitted By Eugenius Philalethes LONDON Printed for Matthew Smelt next door to the Castle near Moor-gate 1669. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER I Presume I shall no sooner appear upon the Stage I am prepared for but I must without evasion expect to be assaulted by that furious and inconsiderate Monster called Censour whose lashes I will receive with the same slight concern the Lacedemonians did the cruelty of their Correctors sporting themselves whilst their backs were torn with the unmerciful Whip Of that efficacy is Resolution that it presents pain but meer Opinion and values a scoffing Lucian or a satyrical Memphus no more then a harmless Hellespont did the vain threats of a proud Xerxes Seneca saith well better aliud agere quam nihil for Idleness is the Devils opportunity the Considerations of which with my assent to the Judgment of Thucidides who sayes To know a thing and not to express it is all one as thongh he knew it not made me to expose my self to publick view My Subject is good and great called by the Name of Nature here I present her expressing mans Ingratitude who is fit to strip her of those Robes of Priviledge that God himself hath endowed her with not considering that what she acts is by the vertue of his Power and that She is one of those Mirrours that represents him to us which a Philosophick Passion adores as the supream Efficient But indeed how can She expect our Veneration till we have divested our selves of that prejudice ignorance possesses us with which must be done by a serious reflex upon her Effects as this little Volumn will acquaint you if you read it with an impartial and unbyased Reason for I have as all others of the same Inclination must do used Philosophy as the Tellescope by which we must make our Observations as you will when you see find my curiosity descending to little Insects and that with wonder at their production out of Corruption from thence I view her care in beautifying this little Globe we live in with Robes sutable to every Season and when I ascend the lower Region and mark the Clouds ranging themselves in such bodies as though they intended another Deluge it occasions wonder so likewise the coldness of the middle Region with the heat of the upper and the Element of Fire must be Miracles to ignorance And if we observe the Moon with the Motion attending that of the Seas flux and reflux it would make us judge that there is some secret contract made ab Origine betwixt her and the watery Element Mercury and Venus I have spoken of in their places the next that presents us with cause of Admiration is the glorious Sun the Luminary of the Universe called by some and not improperly the Anima Mundi for we find her approach gives life to Vegitives sense to Animals and almost a new Nature to Rationals As for Mars Jupiter and Saturn the Eighth Sphere and Christalline Heaven the Empyreum I have treated on if not like a knowing Secretary of Nature yet a submiss Admirer of her And whereas I make a refutation of Errours as an addition to my Title some perhaps will say I am like the Tinker that for stopping of one hole make two or for my refuting of one Errour I have made two it may be I have in the Opinion of some But whether I have or no who shall be judge for what appears an Errour to one is to another a very evident truth sometimes a Week or a Day nay an hour puts a change upon an Opinion of many years standing But let my Errours be as great and as many as I pretend to correct Reason shall convince me and command my Acknowledgment for it 's our Errours that presents us human I have writ this to give Satisfaction to others if I can but if not howsoever I have secured it to my self And let the Reader judge of it as it pleases him I have writ that which delights me And if envie cause a misapplication of my intention it matters not the contempt of it will make me bold to say I value it and thee after the rate as thou dost it and me The assertions here laid down are plain and perspicuous convincing and satisfactory to the intelligent But I know that common prejudice which is usually taken of any thing though never so true which is contrary to any mans belief it does beget such Passion and animosity c. and makes such a breach as is hardly to be repaired And since our own Opinion may make it disputable what reason we have to pretend of convince another by I shall only offer this for common satisfaction that things demonstrable are the most evident marks of Truth and that they are so clearly manifested in this little Book deserves nothing but sobriety and moderation and a well weighing of the matter herein contained Reader I am loth to leave thee but that I would not keep thee from the Book it self which I hope will be to thy ample satisfaction c. Vale. Eugenius Philalethes A Brief Natural History Intermixed With variety of Philosophical Discourses c. GOD by his presential Essence gives unto all things an Essence so that if he should withdraw himself from them as out of Nothing they were first made so into Nothing they would be again resolved In the preservation then of the Creature we are not to consider so much the impotency and weakness thereof as the goodness wisdom and power of the Creator in whom and by whom and for whom they live move and have their being The spirit of the Lord filleth the world saith the Author of the Wisdom of Solomon and the secret working of the Spirit which thus pierceth through all things as Virgil AEneid 6 hath excellently exprest Principio coelum ac terras camposque Liquentes Lucentemque globum Lunae Titaniaq astra Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem magno se corpore miscet The Heavens the Earth and all the Liquid Main The Moons bright Globe and Stats Titanian A Spirit within maintains and their whole Mass A Mind which through each part infus'd doth pass Fashions and works and wholly doth transpierce All this great body of the Universe The Spirit the Platonists call the Soul of the World by it it is in some sort quickned and formalized as the body of Man is by its reasonable Soul There is no question then but that this Soul of the World if we may so speak with reverence being in truth no other then the immortal spirit of the Creator is able for to make the Body of the World Immortal and to preserve it from Dissolution as he doth the Angels and the spirits of men were it not that he hath determined to dissolve it by the
the Sun upon the inferiour Bodies whence by the Gentiles he was held the visible God of the World and termed the Eye thereof which alone saw all things in the World and by which the World saw all things in it self Omnia qui videt per quem videt omnia Mundus And most notably it is described by the Psalmist in them hath he set a Tabernacle for the Sun which is as a Bridegroom coming out of his Chamber and rejoyceth as a strong man to run a race his going forth is from the beginning of the Heaven and his Circuite to the end of it and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof Psal. 19 4 5 6. Now as the effects of the Sun the head-spring of Light and warmth are upon these inferiour Bodies more active so those of the Moon as being Ultima caelo Citima terris nearer the Earth and holding a greater resemblance therewith are no less Manifest And therefore the Husbandman in sowing and setting grafting and planting lopping of Trees and felling of Timber and the like upon good reason observes the waxing and waining of the Moon which Learned Zanchius in his Operibus Dei well allows of commending Hesiod for his rules therein Quod ex Lunae decrementis incrementis totius agricolationis signa notet quis improbet who can mislike it that Hesiod sets down the signs in the whole course of Husbandry from the waxing and waining of the Moon the Tides and ebbs of the Sea follow the course of it so exactly as the Sea-men will tell you the age of the Moon only by the sight of the Tide as certainly as if he saw it in the water It is the observation of Aristotle and Pliny out of him That Oysters Mussels Cockles Lobsters Crabbs c. and generally all Shell-fish grow fuller in the increase of the Moon but emptier in the decrease thereof Such a strong predominancy it hath upon the Brain of Man that Lunaticks borrow their very name from it as also doth the Stone Selenites whose property as St. Augustine and Georgius Agricola records it is to increase and decrease in Light with the Moon carrying always the resemblance thereof with it self Neither can it reasonably be imagined that other Planets and Stars and parts of Heaven are without their forcible operations upon these lower Bodies specially considering that the very Plants and Herbs of the Earth which we tread upon have their several vertues as well single by themselves as in composition with other ingredients The Physitian in opening of a Vein hath ever an eye to the Sign then reigning The Canicular Star especially in those hotter Climates was by the Ancients always held a dangerous Enemy to the practise of Physick and all kind of Evacuations Nay Galen himself the Oracle of that profession adviseth practitioners in that Art in all their cures to have a special regard to the reigning Constellations and Conjunctions of the Planets But the most admirable mâ—stery of Nature in my Mind is the turning of Iron touched with the Load-stone towards the North Pole of which I shall have occasion to discourse more largely hereafter in another Tract neither were it hard to add much more to that which hath been said to shew the dependance of these Elementary Bodies upon the Heavenly Almighty God having ordained that the higher should serve as intermediate Agents or secondary Causes but so as in the Wheels of a Clock though the failing of the Superiour cannot but cause a failing in the Inferiour yet the failing of the Inferiour may well argue somewhat for it self though it cannot cause a failing in the Superiour we have great Reason then as I conceive to begin with the examination of the State of Coelestial Bodies in as much as upon them the condition of the subcoelestial depends Wherein five things will offer themselves to our consideration their Substances their Motion their Light their Warmth and their Influence That the Heavens are endued with some kind of Matter though some Philosophers in their jangling humours have made a doubt of it yet I think no sober and wise Christian will deny it But whether the Matter of it be the same with that of these inferiour Bodies adhuc sub Judice lis est it hath been and still is a great question among Divines The Ancient Fathers and Doctors of the Primitive Church for the most part following Plato hold that it agrees with the nature of the Elementary Bodies yet so as it is compounded of the finest flower and choicest delicacy of the Elements But the Schoolmen on the one side that follow Aristotle adhere to his Quintessence and by no means will be beaten from it since say they If the Elements and the Heavens should agree in the same Matter it should consequently follow that there should be a mutual Traffique and Commerce a reciprocal Action and Passion between them which would soon draw on a change and by degrees a ruine upon those glorious Bodies Now though this point will never I think be fully and finally determined till we come to be inhabitants of that place whereof we dispute for hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon Earth And with labour do we find the things that aâ—e at hand but the things that are in Heaven who hath searched out Wisâ— 9. 16. Yet for the present I should state it thus that they agree in the same Original Matter and surely Moses methinks seems to favour this opinion making but one Matter as far as I can gather from the Text out of which all bodily substances were Created Unus irat toto vultus in Orbe Ovid. 1. Metam So as the Heavens though they be not compounded of the Elements yet are they made of the same Matter that the Elements are compounded of They are not subject to the qualities of heat cold or drought or moisture nor yet to weight or lightness which arise from those qualities but have a Form given them which differeth from the Forms of all corruptible Bodies so as it suffereth nor nor can it suffer from any of them being so excellent and perfect in it self as it wholly satiateth the appetite of the Matter that is informeth The Coelestial Bodies then meeting with so noble a Form to actuate them are not nor cannot in the course of Nature be lyable to any Generation or Corruption in regard of their Substance to any augmentation or diminution in regard of their quantity no nor any obstructive alteration in respect of their qualities I am not ignorant that the controversies touching the Form what it should be is no less then touching the Matter some holding it to be a living and a quickning Spirit nay a sensitive and rational Soul which opinion is stiffly maintained by many great and learned Clerks both Jews and Gentiles and Christians supposing it unreasonable that the Heavens which impart life to other Bodies should themselves be destitute of Life But this Errour is