seldome are we are not to maintain Controversy as if they were the way of nature This Sir I have written not to Inform but confirm your judgement which I know so well versed in the Syntaxe of this our humane body that it cannot dissent from what is The Fifth Answer That immense volatility may consist with immense ponderousness That tincturs may be altered by maturation without any addition Whether the appearing and motion of comets may be before their appearance predicted That no such particular predictions can be made concerning the meteors which are in the Atmosphear of the earth nor of the first appearances of such Comets as are supposed to have their Original from new amassements of Cometical matter in other Atmospheares though after their first appearance upon some observations accurately made somewhat though nothing so peremptorily as in other cases may be predicted relating to their future motion That it is not impossible but concerning Comets which are permanent bodies and not new amassements predictions may be made long before of their future appearances and motion SIR I Take your satisfaction upon my last proposed clear and doubtless Experiments now since by you proved and approved as a fair acknowledgment of that Truth which however to me upon its former evidences needed no farther confirmation Viz. that so different are the genuine notions and qualities of fixednes and gravity that immense volatility may and is ordinarily consistent with an immense specifick ponderousness arising not from the moles and quantity of the bodies under consideration but rather from their natures and kinds That what in your first velitation you assumed as absurdly grosse inconsistent and impossible is now upon your own acknowledgments most easily and obviously demonstrable by experience No less certainly is to be acknowledged in what you propose for the tingeing of metalline bodies only by ordering and attending them in the management of their maturations without the addition either of body or spirit as being all the time of this operation under the sure seal Could I perswade my self it should not be resented as a grand unkindnes to be silent in what you call for my thoughts in in the close of yours Viz. Whether prognosticks at certainty such as are of Eclipses of Coitions oppositions motions of other Starrs whether I say such prognosticks and of like certainty may not also be made of Comets of their Appearances common impediments removed and of their motions I should if it might be herein lay Harpocrates finger upon my lip and seal them up into a pertinacions silence Not but I am desirous to know and willing to search after truth only I fear me these are secrets of nature by their peculiar mysteriousnes sinking themselves so low into the pit of obscurity that the stock of observations and disquisitions about them which the world as yet hath is not able to raise them so high and place them so near day as to be within humane reach and discovery What I now offer is a Caesarean birth of the mind not brought forth by me but cut out of the womb by your importunity if it want shape licking and lineaments accept it as an unripe Abort and either hatch it to perfection in your Thigh or give it a little dust to cover it I take by way of praesumption that in this Quaery and Question you mean not by Comets any of those more usual less permanent is regularly moved Meteors bred gathered fired and burning in the Atmosphaere of our Earth after their Appearance there cannot be much certainty of their Motion though sometimes there may be conjectures probable enough and in the Event by observation justifyed when the fuel or fovent matter of such Meteors is manifestly upon what account soever known to be only or most copiously situate and disposed some one particular way but of the generation and first appearance of such Meteors particularly the moment when and the point or exact place where they shall appear much less of certainty in such pronosticks is to be expected there being so much variety contingency and uncertainty in the causes and meeting together of those causes which contribute to their production And though there are and have been many praedictions in general and Rules of praedicting Astrologically or Physiologically from the seasons of the year the temperature and distemper of seasons c. Concerning such meteors in general yet in a matter so unallyed unto certainty replenished with all manner of casualties to promote or retard such productions I have not known any offer peremptory Pronosticks of the kind of the meteor its shape magnitude duration motion with absolute determinations of its time and places at any time beforehand The quality and condition of the subject matter making it as impossible to bolt out scientifical and oracularly certain predictions of such meteors as it is a year before to prove or shew that in such an hour and in such a quarter shall be a Rainbow so colour'd so continued or discontinued and of such limited dimensions or that such a moment from such a point of such an Azymuth shall a devolant Star spring forth which in its fall shall run obliquely thorow such and such Azymuths and expire at such an height above the Horison or that such an hour in such a Longitude and Latitude shall in such Altitudet and positions and of such dimensions be seen by day four Suns or by night three Moons To lay aside therefore the consideration of these as supposed impertinent to our present purpose what may judiciously be concluded upon your Questions concerning those other Comets which lye without the compasse of this Earths Atmospaere If there be not two sorts of such celestial Comets there are at least two several and very different Hypotheses and notions under which they are considered by Artists and Artists of equal worth and fame order their reasonings some upon the one supposition some upon the other Viz. Some as if Comets were new made bodies amassed and gathered in some of the superior Atmosphaeres many of which are not without fair reason supposed to be in those vastly remote aethereal regions others as if Comets were coaeval to and neither less permanent nor more new then the rest of the Stars only seldome seen and when seen soon passing again out of sight by reason of the Line upon which their Center is moved and nothing as yet appears hindering the truth of the possibility and consistency of both these Opinions leaving it especially indifferent in the later Hypothesis to call such stars at pleasure by the name either of Comets or New-stars or rather seldome appearing Stars Comets upon the first supposition seem not to want some affinity with several especially of the more eminent meteors of our Atmosphaere yet allowing a vast difference between them in place proportion duration motion and the like circumstantials And as our Globe though in its self large is but a minute thing compared with many
of time are able to beat off from you your old Philosophical genius You can swallow nothing upon the mere Tradition of others nor yet upon their reasons till first examined concocted and digested in your own Your doubts seem not causeless which you move upon that point whether the motion of the Celestial bodies turning themselves about upon their own Axes may be allowed for a just proof of the Copernican systeme It is a golden and noble branch of intellectual Justice so far as is possible mathematically and to a punctillio to clear and set forth the bounders of Truth yet as your modesty delivers your judgement I doubt not by way of doubt so I desire you read my Answer as writ only in the same Dialect that I in like manner may not appear a rash Judger of what it seems has been concluded by men of great parts and learning The Artfullness of the Instruments and diligence of the Observers that from several marks in several Stars have noted this their circumvolution I love and honour and am apt to conjecture the like motions may in future be discovered in other Stars in which they have not as yet been noted and shall be ready to improve the Observation in all inferences authorized and recommended unto us by the necessity of their consequence But as things at first glance commonly offer a fuller raye then they hold in constant so I suspect the glimmering probability of the Earths motion according to the Copernican Hypothesis upon the first discovery of this circumgyration of Stars about their own Axes will upon farther consideration and deliberation grow still more faint There being very few Hypotheses with which to give it a short name this circumaxal motion of the Stars is expressely inconsistent it not being impossible if all things else would consist and cohaere but such a motion might be accomplished in the Hypothesis of Orbes and Sphaeres so the Star were but unfixed and set lax and free to move according to its nature in its own orb by a motion discharged different and distinct from the motion of its orb So in the old Hypothesis while they affixed and bound the Starre unto its proper Epicycle yet in its larger Orb they allowed it to be therein carryed sometimes progressively sometimes retrogradely and sometimes stationarily according to the motion of the Epicycle or Episphaere in the larger sphaere And without any sense as yet that it deserves a blush I willingly profess I want the Lyncean eyes and judgment from such a circumaxall moving of Stars to deduce the Suns or Earths central either rest or motion especially the vast distance at which these bodyes are distant one from another being on all hands yielded which if it do not necessarily altogether amort and abolish the powers which one of these bodyes may possibly have upon the others yet till such their powers over one another in this point of motion be fairly proved it leaves it easily manifest that any of these bodyes may be moved according to its own peculiar nature without laying by so long a reach laws of necessity upon other Bodyes at so great a distance for their motion As for example the bodyes A. and B. either of the same general or special nature they being severed and severally placed at competent distance one from another both or either may be at rest or in motion neither inferring upon the other the analogy either of its rest or motion or to be suspected so to doe till it be pregnantly either so observed or proved Viz. That either has upon the other even at distance such a strong and efficacions power· And if the stress of the ratiocination hang upon this that otherwise there would not be a conformity between the motions of the Earth the Sun Saturn Jupiter c. to my apprehension nothing is more easy then not only to turn the edge but break the back and overturn the foundation of such an Argument For first the motions or unmovednes of these bodyes is not to be made conform unto our retired thoughts and speculations in a close study or to the motions which we have observed and justly concluded certain in other noble Bodyes in the world but they are rather by all ingenions Arts and instruments to be each by its self particularly observed how in Truth they are and so to be accepted and acknowledged in their appropriate sciences And what greater necessity is there of making the Sun or the Earth in rest and motion to be conform to Saturn Jupiter c. then to be conform to them in shape magnitude respective distances which on no hand is ascerted but for the impossibility and demonstrablenes thereof by observation rather the contrary And why should there not be as great a necessity for them to be conform in rest and motion to the Stars passing generally under the notion and title of Fixed which has never yet been offered because it is clâ—â—â— it cannot be defended And what less necessity is there why they should not conform in the celerity and nimbleness of their motion as well as the form kind and manner of it And what greater necessity for conformity of motion in Stars then in Animals in which some creep some fly some go upon feet some swim neither in their supposed and called Elements can any such necessity of the same kind of motion be observed though in the same Element Upon the same way method and force of reasoning when Jacob is at the Dancing or Fencing Schools in Oxford Joga must be Galliarding or Brandishing it at the like Schools in Salamanca Every stone has not in it the mysteryes of the Magnet and several Jewels have their several splendours virtues and properties so several Stars considering their several situations shapes magnitudes distances and diversities of nature cannot but in rest and motion each have something proper and peculiar at least may not without cause be suspected to have otherwise till it be possible by some medium to evince the contrary And as the Copernican Systeme receives not much confirmation from the praecedent circumaxal motion of Stars so that Comets are nearest the Earth when opposite to the Sun with what greater strength doth it as others urge prove the Earths motion wherein is requisite that the Hypothesis it self be confirmed by frequent Observation in several Comets before it be allowed as general that as by way of Induction may be inferred that every Comet when it is nearest to the Earth is then opposite to the Sun and when this is allowed and fairly proved there is no necessity by which it follows or can be inferred from hence that the Earth hath its annual Revolutions about the Sun all that is in the allowed and supposedly proved Hypothesis being many ways accomplishable and as easily and clearly the Sun moving about the Earth as the Earth moving about the Sun in which I doubt not your judgment The Second SECTION of PHILOSOPHICAL ANSWERS CONTEINING
with it and so methinks may this be interpretable to wit subtilly to contrive find out and order expedients ingenious helps and advantages to condense free and open exhalations into a watery form with dispatch and expeditely especially at any season or time of the year so as by this Art out of the arrial vapours within a limited time to give any limited measure of water which reason can expect from Art or without abjuring and putting off its own nature handsomely make demand of And that this is the Philosophy of Nature appears in every days dewes the trickling moisture hanging on the chamber-side of the Glass when the Air is very sharp and full of a nitrous coldness without and we cannot rightly conceive the Idea of that famously known and frequently mentioned and in hot Countries though rare yet sometimes by sad experience attested disease the Diabetes without admitting both the possibility of such a Chymistry and of Expedients for the more ready dispatch of it for without an aptness to imbibe attract and condense the vapid exhalations which successively come to be near and about the Patient and that with very singular advantages for expedition how possibly should the Patients Urine come in a few weeks to weigh more than all both the drinks and meats taken by the Patient all along that time and all the weight of the Body whensoever it was heaviest during that time besides To contract all into few the possibility of the Probleme according to this explication needs not be doubted being an every where obvious work of Nature as in the other sense it seems vain and frivolous And in researches about expedients for dispatch it is possible here as in other pieces of that ingenious Art several Artists may have several methods and contrivances to suck in still more vapours in a continued succession and proportionably to condense them when sucked in also to dispose the vapours before they are sucked in for more expedite and easie condensation at after as every one has his peculiar Still his peculiar Solvent Bath Ferment and Furnace And that this point of Philosophy were a little more cultivated were to be wished for the advantage of natural Philosophy and the concernes of it in some practical Arts for so hereby the difference of the Airs at several seasons or at the same season in several places might come in some measure to be known by the Taste and Eye as well as by the Nostril and the concerns of Rokes Fogs Mists and Airs any wayes altered or infected may be hereby more happily discovered in relation to the health and sickliness of Man and so of other Animals so what difference there is between the Breathings of several Animals of the same or several Sexes and Kinds or of the same Animal at several times of its age rest motion fear joy hope love anger health sickness peculiar conditions or evacuations and the discriminations between simple Airs and the Airs altered by sprinklings strewings fumigations from Minerals Vegetables Animals may be made more evident Your tying up Mercury to the old Elemental Laws is a true semblance of the old Mezentian cruelty and I should pity the poor Fugitive were I not ascertained from his constant course that as a slippery Hocas he will never leave transhaping himself till to your own confession he has slipt the Collar Four qualities will assoon solve all questions as four Elements which some of the learned Antients vainly hoped not to say foolishly boasted to do As Philosophers distinguish between the sights of Age and Time Age first sees without and after not without Spectacles Time first sees with them and after better without them the Elements were as Spectacles in the Beginnings of those times when men first set themselves about the studies of Arts that helped them in a sort to conceive somewhat of Bodies but now the Eye of time grown clearer seeth much more happily as is by many supposed without them More crass and thin solid and fluid parts are not denyed but apparently to be seen offering themselves to view in several plain and easie methods of analysing Bodies but the simplicity of those parts obtained in such Analysmes is not yet demonstrated The strange Monster reported with so much averment to you which seems so much to have startled your patience to wit that a person of parts educated only to read and write the Language of the Nation wherein he was born may in an hours time be taught to set down any matter secret or other in another language as Latine Greek French c. and the Latine or other Language to be true and the sense good and continued believe me though it be true as it is yet it is not to be esteemed worthy your least discomposure it may be done many several wayes and yet when all is done it is but a slight of the Brain like many of the mimical Miracles performed by nimble handed Egyptians That there may be no room for distrust of the truth of it if affiance in me may so far prevail you may be assured I have seen the whole Model and Systeme of it in several Languages besides our own and but that it would make my Letter of too great a Bulk should herewith have sent you a Transcript of one of them In this as in the foregoing Probleme of multiplying Chymistry in words speaking and containing truth something seems to be offered to the understanding of the hearer which is an Herculian shot beyond it Pardon the length in which I have laboured discursively to send back all the Quaeries and Objections of your last fully answered The Second Answer Wherein of Sympathies between several parts of the same Animal Body in general and particularly of the Sympathy which is between the Breasts and the Womb and that the ground of that Sympathy is not founded upon the inosculations of the Epigastrick and Mammary Veins and Arteries That that Sympathy instructs not from the sight of the Breast concerning the Sex of the unborn Conception Yet parts of the same side more especially Sympathize one with another than those that are on contrary sides That to found the Sympathy between the Breasts and Womb is no necessity of vessels passing directly between the one part and the other but the grounds of their Sympathy may be several other wayes clearly explicable by manifest Arteries Sinews and other Vessels That the several shapes of the Moon have their original forming and alteration from the parts of its mutuatitious light and their situation in respect of our Eye That there is not one general original of all light And why the enlightned part of the Moon is still toward the Sun And why the Moon appears plane and not sphaeral I should wrong the truth if I should not acknowledge all your Arguments and Instances prove fairly the Sympathies which nature has lodged in us between some special parts above others to which may be added by way of Declaration