Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	body_n	moon_n	sun_n	6,017	5	7.8244	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56609	A brief account of the new sect of latitude-men together with some reflections upon the nevv philosophy / by S.P. of Cambridge, in answer to a letter from his friend at Oxford.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1662 (1662)	Wing P754; ESTC R18217	17,337	26

substantial or accidental form whether a clock and a watch were specifically or gradually distinct with many more which he forbore to mention as he told them because they could not understand them 10. All this while the Landlord of this Farmer was in the house to take order about some repartions who being an ingenuous Gentleman that had used to take in pieces his own Watch and set it together again and therefore could not be ignorant of the fabrick of a clock having with much patience heard all this Targon at last delivered the good man who though no fool yet was never the wiser for all this discourse from the impertinences of the Clock-mender and the young Philosopher shewing him that the cause of motion was in the weights which by the multiplication of indented wheels and Nuts was so moderated that the last wheel to the end of whose Axel the hand was fixed was just twelve hours in turning about that there were in every twelfth part of that wheel certain peggs that lifted up the hold-fast of the hammer which by the motion of other wheels springs would be made to strike several successive stroaks upon the Bell till the holdfast catch in the next notch of a wheele indented several distances according to the number of stroaks at each time to be strucken he shewed him also that the teeth of the great wheel were so worn that it would not answer to the just proportion of time it should move in and therefore he must get a new one made in fine he taught him how the motion was derived from part to part that he throughly understood the whole fabrick and could be able to rectifie any ordinary fault that should happen in it But the Son all this while being as inept at understanding things as apt Parrot-like to catch at words was dissatisfied that he should take no more notice of the substantial form and qualities of a Clock and told him that he rejected principles and therefore he would not dispute with him 11. How far the Clock-menders discourse resembles the Scholastick Philosophy or the Gentleman 's the atomicall let others judge I shall onely propound this general Query whether it be any better Philosophy to say that nature makes the fire to burn or there is an inward principle of gravity in a stone that makes it fall down than it would be mechanicall skill to say that Art makes the Clock strike or to say that some inward device makes the hand of the dyall move for as Art is to artificials so is nature to naturals and may be he spake more truly than he was aware of that called it Ars Dei Then certainly it must be the Office of Philosophy to find out the process of this Divine Art in the great automaton of the world by observing how one part moves another and how those motions are varied by the severall magnitudes figures positions of each part from the first springs or plummets as I may say to the hand that points out the visible and last effects This Physicians have taken the boldnesse in part to do in those little watches if I may so call them the bodies of animals and Descartes hath proceeded farthest in the like attempt in that vast machin the Universe with how good successe others are better able to Judge But this I dare boldly say it was a noble effort and if he had wholly failed in it he would have been more pitied and less envied 12. This farther I shall adde in the behalf of new and free Philosophy That the Theater of nature is much enlarged since Aristotles time and there is no part of the world wherein there are not some notable new Phoenomena lately discovered that must needs be of great accompt in natural Philosophy for in the Heavens by the help of telescopes a new invention there are found an innumerable company of fixed Stars unknown to the ancients and amongst the planets the ansulae of Saturn and four Moons about Jupiter were never heard of till Galileo's Nuncius Sidereus brought the news the various phases of Venus and other Planets as also her being sometimes on this side the Sun sometimes beyond were the suspicions of the Pythagoreans of old and the certain knowledge of latter times but not agreeable with Aristotles doctrine Mountains and valleys in the Moon were never seen before this age and no body now will venture to deny but that she is as opake as the earth and borrows as much light from her as she lends That the Sun is full of scummy spots continually generated and destroyed and that he turns round upon his own axis They that will not trust Schiner may be informed by their own eyes the appearing of new Stars disappearing of old was not considered by the ancients nor their appearing somtimes bigger somtimes less that comets are above the moon the Heavens fluid since Tycho few men have doubted and therefore Aristotles Intelligences that moved the solid Orbs have leave to play and since that arched roof is gone I know not how the Elementary fire will be kept in But if it should chance to prove true and who knows what posterity may beleive since we have been so hardy as to admit Antipodes which our ancestours beheld as no less formidable a bugbear that the Earth is a planet and the Sun a fixed Starr and by consequence every planet an Earth every fixed Starr a Sun it would make foul work in the Vulgar Philosophy 13. But let us descend upon the Earth where we shall find that Dr. Gilbert instead of the Oxford Fryers great black rock at the North Pole hath perswaded all men that the whole Earthly Globe is a Magnet and though the Ancients knew no more of the Loadstone than its coition which they improperly called attraction we now find it to be no lesse remarkable for its polar direction not without some variation in severall places as also its various inclination according to its severall disstance from the Aequator and Poles but the nature of the loadstone can scarce be unknown since we have seen the circles of the dust about it The distinct History of the Flux and Reflux of the Sea is also amongst the nova rep●rta The ancients overlook't that most Luciferous though obvious experiment of the sling nor did they know what use to make of the Chrystall prisme They were over-carelesse spectatours of the rainbow the rosy-figured particles of snow escaped their sight but it were infinite to persue particulars I will not stand to reckon up the severall discoveries we are beholden to the new invented microscope for nor shall I insist upon the many Chymical experiments that are of use in Philosophy I passe by the wonderous effects of Gun-powder nor shall I mention the discoveries of the Air-pump lately exhibited to the world by that Noble Gentleman or the ingenious experiments of Galileo Lord Bacon and many others 14. I shall onely touch