he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The renown of this Story is not questioned by the Chymists and I finde the learned Joannes Langius to give credit unto it quoting for the truth of it in his margin besides Suidas Orosius l. 7. c. 16. And Paulus Diaconus in tho life of Diocletian Neither doth Libavius or Rolfincius elevate the authority thereof though he mention the passage of Suidas And to give a further colour unto this relation I am informed that Aeneas Gazaeus who lived in the latter end of the fifth Century when Zeno and Anastasius were Emperours treating of the Resurrection hath this passage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But these Narrations are rejected by such as deny that other metalls may be transmuted into Gold It is replied by Erastus that either those Egyptian books contained nothing but the Art of melting down of metalls and separating the latent Gold therefrom or that Suidas being a late writer living but 500 years ago about 800 years or more after Diocletian might have been imposed upon by the Chymists of those times in Greece and during the disputing Ages mark that Mr. Glanvill who even then might have feigned some such stories as that and the Allegorising of the Golden Fleece just as they have within the last Centuries counterfeited the Works of Moses and Solomon and entitle them unto their Fictions There are an infinity of stories in Suidas which render his Assertions suspected and in this he hath not the countenance of any ancient Writer to second him It seems strange that the Romans having so long ruled in Egypt absolutely and their Governours they not being to be supposed free from all desires of gain how they should never apprehend the Artifice nor have the least mention of it in their Writers Greek or Latine till the end of the fourth Century and that so remarkable a passage as this is should be omitted by those ancient Writers who relate both the war and actings of Diocletian after his victory As for that saying of Aenaeas Gazaeus it is replied that he speaks by hear-say rather then certain knowledge of the operation that there have not wanted many learned persons who have with a great deal of confidence illustrated the Resurrection by contemplations of the Phoenix and of the forms of Plants resuscitated in their several Salts as if both were realities yet is there no such thing as either the one or the other Out of all which it is evident that Chymistry was a practice known and in use among the Sectators of Aristotle and that the Grecian and disputing Ages were not unacquainted with those Processes though these latter times have been more various and inquisitive and have reduced that Art into better Method and enlarged the Practice of Physick with an infinity of Medicines and indeed we must confess our selves very much obliged by the labours of ingenious Chymists and that they have afforded multitudes of Experiments such as contribute to the delight of all Philosophical heads and to the Cure of many that being sick have either better opinion of Chymical Medicines then of others or are pleased with their small and commonly more pleasant dose But that those parts into which Chymists reduce things are latent in the compound body otherwise then by the Aristotelean distinction of formaliter and materialiter so much laughed at by Mr. Glanvill pag. 119. This is an Assertion which doth not become any man that pretends to have read Mr. Boyle in his Sceptical Chymist where that Point is too amply debated to be here transcribed or ever I think refuted Having denied Mr. Glanvill that by those useful and luciferous processes Nature is unwound and resolved into the minute Rudiments of its composition Which Rudiments were not made use of at the first Creation when one Fiat created those compound bodies which Artful Fires sometimes and but sometimes analyse into several parts as Salts Oyle or Sulphur and Spirit and those grosser Elements of Earth and water All which are not found in many bodies and when they are it is with a great discrepancy betwixt those of one Concrete and those of another nor any of them to be separated from Gold Which Libavius no nor Dr. Willis doth not make to be the last unmixt and simple Constituents of natural bodies sed ejusmodi tantum substantias in quas veluti partes ultimo sensibiles res Physicae resolvuntur Substances into which natural bodies are resolved finally as far as sense can judge and when the Analysis is prosecuted in one sort of procedure for another method different Solvents and different Fires discover different parts and those sensible too from what the usual Chymistry builds upon Having denied him this I must further tell him that when the Countreywoman sets her Eggs to be hatched she produceth by those means such bodies as no Chymical fires with their vexatious Analysis ever would discover so she doth when she doth brew and churms her butter Nor is this more evident then it is clear that the Chymical principles when they come to be accommodated to the solving of the Phaenomena in nature or in diseases have as much of darkness and dissatisfaction in them as occurs in the Peripatetick way so that now we are more dubious not more knowing then before and this any man that hath considered how the Chymical Physicians disagree about the causes of diseases and even about the common Phaenomena of Nature will easily grant me nor will it appear less manifest that if the Chymical hypotheses do take place that it will subject the Mechanick Philosophy and establish that of Anaximander revived by the ingenious Berigardus But Mr. Glanvill adds That Chymistry directs Medicines less lothsom and far more vigorous and freeth the spirits and purer parts from the clogging and noxious appendices of grosser matter which not only hinder and disable the operation but leave hurtful dregs in the body behind them This Plea for the preferring CHYMICAL Medicines before those commonly called Galenical is much insisted on by Beguinus Quercetanus and others of that way Yet first it is observable that whether we regard taste or smell those very Authors recommend as odious medicaments and as loathsom as ever Coerdus or Foesius in their Dispensatories if not worse Will any man in his Wits condemn Wormwood and Centory because of their bitter taste or Castoreum for the smell Secondly every thing is not the better for being extracted Thus the Extract of Rhubarb though quickned with its Salt is not so efficacious as plain Rhubarb except it be sophisticated with Diagridium Nor is Cynnamom improved by Extraction Their being more vigorous and freed from grosser parts is not always a commendation and sometimes it carries danger with it That those grosser parts and those natural vehicles are requisite seems even thence clear that their spirits essences must be tempered and mixed often with other gross bodies before
was accused of Magick to Pope Clement the fourth and thereupon imprisoned but the accusation was founded on nothing but his skill in Mathematicks and the ignorance of his Accusers Assertions of this nature are not so easily passed by so many learned and judicious persons having reckoned him in the number of Magicians such are Joannes Wierus and other Daemonographers That the said Writer might declaim against Magick or deny the possibility of it and yet practise it is an usual procedure with that sort of people and that his works have in them sundry Propositions that are superstitious and magical is granted by Delcio such haply was that which Franciscus Picus says he had read in his book of the sixth Science where he affirms that a man may become a Prophet and foretel things to come by the means of the Glass Almucheti composed according to the rules of perspective provided he made use of it under a good constellation and had before-hand made his body very even and put it into a good temper by Chymistry As to what I say about Orontius I adde the words of Sir H. Savile in his Lectures p. 71. Josephus Scaliger homâ— omnium mortalium ne Orontio quidem excepto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereas I say p. 3. that the ancient Physicians did not only cure cut-fingers and invented Diapalma and and other Medicaments in order thereunto I adde what I know not how was omitted that it is notorious how all our Herbals and Druggists have explained the nature and use of Medicaments according to the Doctrine of the Elements and qualities either arising therfrom or from the peculiar mixture of the parts and whosoever hath acted or shall proceed according to those notions in compliance with the Ancients shall not stand in need of any novel Method from the Virtuosi to salve a cut-finger What I have said in the first and second sheet concerning the Barometer as they call it that it doth not determine exactly neither the weight nor pressure of the aire winde or clouds is an opinion which the more I think upon the more I am confirmed in nor do I doubt that others will be as scrupulous as I in their assent to our dogmatizing Virtuoso when they shall seriously consider what follows and accommodate it to the Elasticity and gravity of the Atmosphear First when our Virtuoso speaks of the Elasticity of the Air he understands thereby a body whose constituent particles are of a peculiar configuration and texture distinct from what can be ascribed to earth water or fire That the Air near the earth is such an heap of little bodies lying one upon another as may be resembled to a fleece of wooll for this to omit other likenesses betwixt them consists of many slender flexible hairs each of which may indeed like a little Spring be easily bent or rouled up but will also like a Spring be still endeavouring to stretch it self out again For though both these Hairs and the Aerial corpuscles to which we like them do easily yield to external pressures yet each of them by vertue of its structure is endowed with a poweâ— or principle of self-dilatation by vertue whereof though the Hairs may by a mans hand be bent and crowded closer together and into a narrower room then suits best with the nature of the body yet whilst the compression lasts there is in the fleece they compose or endeavour outwards whereby it continually thrusts against the hand that opposes its expansion And upon the removal of the external pressure by opening the hand more or less the compressed wooll does as it were spontaneously expand or display it self towards the recovery of iâ—s former loose and free condition till the fleece have either regain'd its former dimensions or at least approved them as near as the compressing hand perchance not quite opened will permit Against this I except not only that this supposition is far from a sensible Philosophy but that whosoever would weigh the Air exactly and estimate the accession of weight which the Air receives from winds clouds or vapors the thing Mr. Glanvill promiseth us must weigh the Air singly first and in its utmost degree of expansion otherwise he can never tell what its gravity is or what accessional it receives by its Elasticity by exhalations and different mixtures But this is not done by the Barometer however it be essayed in the experiment of Aristotle very judiciously but only an imaginary column or Cylinder of Air and its pressure upon the Mercury is considered which procedure seems to me as ridiculous as if a man should lay a fleece of wooll or any other body upon any thing and there being above that an incumbent body of lead or the like bearing thereon yet should he proceed to say that he weighed the fleece of wooll and not the incumbent lead for as yet no discoveries have acquainted the world with the nature of that Aether which is above the Atmosphere whether it gravitate or press upon the subjacent Air which a very subtile but rapid body may do nor what effects the Libration of the Moon and other Planets may have by way of pressure upon the contiguous bodies which pressure may be communicated to the terrestrial Air and without the determination hereof it is as vain to pretend to weigh the Air by this Barometer as to determine of the weight of a board that presseth a Cheese in the Vat without considering the superinâ—â—mbent stone Neither are we informed sufficiently what the Figure of the Aether is whether it make a conâ—â—â—â— and so encompass the Atmosphear or also be interspersed with and differently move therein nor what effects those motions and agitations of it have upon the grosser corpuscles of the Atmosphere not only in abating of their gravity somtimes but adding to them a levitation nor is it explicated yet what effects the corpuscular rays of the fixed Stars and Planets may have in or upon the Atmosphere adding to its gravity as t is just to imagine since that eminent Virtuoso the Pliny of our Age for lying but a Virtuoso could wash his hands in the beams of the Moon or Elasticity of which those intercurrent corpuscles seem not void though not Aiery which constitute Thunder Lightning c. or diminishing them both in order to the Phaenomena which occurre daily Secondly it doth not yet appear by any thing alledged by our Experimental Philosophers that for certain the Air which encompasseth the Earth is a distinct body of a different structure from the Earth and Water that compose the Terraqueous Globe Isaac Vossius doth think the Air to be nothing else but watrish exhalations drawn up by the Sunne Credimus Aerem esse Aquam seu humorem dilatatum ad legem aequilibrii quaquaversum se extendentem If it be so it is a vain supposition which attributes such a structure to the Air as is repugnant to the
denies it Kepler Ricciolus and others affirming it and the latter gives this reason why they are less frequently observed there Vera causa cur raro asperitas illa Limborum videatur est partim imperfectio Telescopii c. Neither are they better satisfied about the Atmosphear of the Moon that there is one Galilaeo Kepler Antonius Maria de Rheita Kircher Cysatus Scheiner with others do avow and Langrenus saith that we may observe it with a Telescope eandem Tubo specillis conspici affirmat Michael Florentius Langrenus But others deny it as peremptorily Interim mihi faith Ricciolus nondum quocunque Telescopio adhibito aer hic ita patuit ut illum potius prope ac circa Lunam quam in aere nostro in quo Halones siunt cogar agnoscere And Zucchius at large proveth this Corollary Non elevantur vi luminis Solis vapores e Luna sicut elevantur ex Globo e terra aqua integrato Neque datur circa Lunam Sphaera vaporosa ulla qualis circa dictum Globum deprehenditur Having proceeded thus far I shall take notice of some extravagant opinions that possess many of our Comical wits and their Associates or Admirers which are extended to the prejudice of Christianity and the growth of Atheism in this Age viz. That the resemblance betwixt the Moon and the Earth is such that it is a Terraqueous Globe inhabited by men and they hereupon concern themselves about their Progeny Salvation c. I shall from hence take occasion to instruct those phantastical persons that even Hevelius who accommodated the Terrestrial Geography to the Lunar Globe and seems to conclude that the illuminated part is earth the darker is water yet did it only because He knew no fitter comparison amongst sublunary bodies Non est autem quod quispiam ideo existimet Lunam ex ejusmodi sabulo luto aut lapide esse compositam ut haec terra nostra siquidem fortassis ex alia poterit constare materia ab imaginatione nostra prorsus diversa modo adhuc incomprehensibili Minime etiam hasce Lunares aquas nostrisâ— similes assero sed quod nihil quicquam similius propter magnam utrarumque affinitatem hic in terra habeamus cum quo illas comparare valeamus It was indiscreetly done of Kepler Kircher Hevelius and such Writers to carry on the comparison so far the resemblance betwixt the two Globes being so little as the most unprejudic'd persons findit to be Hevelius perinde acsi Luna esset altera tellus Geographica nostratis Telluris nomina in Lunam transtulit licet quoad figuram situm symmetriam c. nulla fere sit Analogia inter utriusque superficiem The truth whereof will further appear from those considerations which the inquisitive Zucchius after thirty five years use of all manner of Telescopes at length fixed upon viz. That the discrepancy of Parts in the illuminated Moon may be explained without attributing thereunto any variety of colours yea it ought to be so explained The first part of which Assertion he proves thus because in Opace bodies the difference of a greater and lesser Obliquity in their scituation towards the body that shines upon them doth cause a diverse manner of illustration Thus the same wall of one uniform colour according as it is differently illuminated seems in some parts to be white in others pale in others dark-coloured and black besides that a greater or lesser asperity or inequality of the superficies may cause an intermixture of the enlightned and over-shadowed parts and so create different appearances of light and opacity in their most observable parts The second part He proves thus because that the face of the Moon being looked on with a Tube of an extraordinary length with Glasses excellently polished such as He used for many years appears all of it like a great Tract of Land covered over with Snow which the Sunne variously illuminates accordingly as the parts are differently framed and scituated Where there is any change of scituation in the parts illuminated in reference to the body that irradiates them then do such parts abate of their whiteness and although they still continue in such a position that his beams may in some degree and manner reach them yet by reason of the unequal surface of the Moon in which some parts are more elevated then others some parts are directly opposite to the Sunne others are glanced upon with an oblique ray and this mixture of shades and brightness occasions those spots which we so talk of Thus upon the libration of the body of Jupiter the girdle which otherwise seems remarkably black above the other adjacent parts of the Planet becomes like unto the rest of the body in whiteness and so disappears As to the distinction of the Moon into Sea and Land consisting of Mountains and Valleys although the Analogy may seem allowable by reason of the Asperities in the surface of the Moon which is a thing not to be denied albeit that the calculation of the heighth of those more elevated parts are ridiculous except the nature of the Cavities were better to be discovered as Zucchius shews yet the imagination of Seas and Lakes therein or any thing of that Nature except what borders upon the Peninsula deliâ—â—orum in the Lunar Chart of Ricciolus 't is all an improbable phancie For that the more pale and obscure spots are not water appears hence that those spots keep the same Phasis or appearance for many days though the Site of the Moon both in respect of the Sunne and of us the Spectators do vary much in that time whereas when the Sunne casts his beams upon Seas or great waters on Earth the Phaenomena differ according as the Sunne or the beholder vary their station And this alone might convince us but that I finde now in Zucchius viz Similiter transitum successivâ—m radiis Solis ad fundum usque ad magnis maculis intra margines illustriores contentis praebent ut diximus in apparentiis pag. 239. quod non evenit in liquido profundo instar aquae ut in aquis eâ—perimur etiam in multa vicinitate illustratis quando not abilem habent profunditatem tum quia constantem inaequalitatem illustrationis exhibent in horizonte Lunari quidem juxta dicta in Apparentiis num 3. secundum magnam extensionem illustratam intra reliquas partes nondum Solis radiis perfusas imo aliquae Soli proximiores alias sequentes in eadem majori macula inumbrabant hujusmodi autem convenire non possunt corpori inconsistenti liquido aquam referenti quae tamen certum est convenire aliquâ—bus Lunae partibus ab omnibus inter maculas computatis I must confess I think these reasons convincing to any persons not prepossessed and they are much more inforced by him with a discourse concerning eâ—halations and an Atmosphear about the Moon which he denies absolutely yet considering
the proportion of the imaginary Waters to the Land in the Moon and the heat and continuance of the Sunne-beams thereupon common reason would tell us that the vaporous exhalatious would proportionably exceed those about the Earth here and produce an Atmosphear that should be observable whereas the most accurate inspection at most opportune times with the best Telescopes could not satisfie Zucchius that there was any such thing at all Kepler and his Master Moestlinus did believe that the Moon was a World consisting of Sea and Land making up one entire Globe as the Earth does and that the Mountains there were much higher and bigger comparatively then those of the Earth and adds by way of jocundry that since the Men and other Animals commonly participate of the nature of the soyl and climate they dwell in that the inhabitants of the Moon must be of a greater stature and more robust constitution then those of the Earth The Day there making up fifteen days of ours and the Heaâ—s seem so scorching and so unexpressible by reason of the Suns being vertical to them so long In fine he thinks it no absurd opinion of the Gentiles that made the Moon a kinde of Purgatory for departed Souls Upon the most serious consideration of all circumstances whereunto I could ever engage my thoughts when I reflected upon the great difference betwixt the Days here and there the different influence which the Sunne must have here and there through the Diversity of his Aspects whereupon depend Terrestrial productions that there is no rain no clouds there no Atmosphear like ours proportioned to such respiration and life no intermixture of earth and water no innate diversity of colours which occasion the Phaenomena that perplex our over-curious Mortals and that all the Enquiries hitherto made have so little of evidence that 't is more clear that the Moon is a Cheese not fat for then it would melt odly figured and made with Asperities in its Superficies and perhaps a little vinnyed in some parts then an Earth resembling ours I could not but condemn those our Comical and Atheistical Wits who use so little of modesty or scrupulousness in their discourses about this so uncertain subject They are men of so little reading and inquisitiveness whatever they pretend unto as if this Nation produced no persons equal to them for Learning and Abâ—lities that they never examined these debates but the opinions which they take up and transform into Assertions are onely the raillery or casual and imperfect pieces of conversation betwixt more intelligent persons or some Coffee house-talk which they confidently obtrude and impose upon speculative or more considerate Gentlemen and render themselves insupportable in any Society A young Gentleman a friend of mine who was not a little valued in the world who was no stranger to the Mathematicks and whose wit and learning far transcended any thing I can observe in a droll and Comediantes of these times entertain'd me with a discourse once of this nature Having spoken of the Celestial Phaenomena how differently they were represented by sundry men he was more prone to suspect their dioptrick Tubes then their inâ—egrity He thought our Eyes were Telescopes of God Almighty's making and the model by which the others were regulated and amended and that any man who regarded the daily Occurrents in vision could never believe it possible that any certainty could be derived from Telescopes about such Phaenomena as we could employ only one sense about and that not in a due distance and with such circumstances as legitimate the judgement thereof That we were to look through their different mediums granting that our Air makes but one Diaphanum and those not contrived dioptrically that we know and that since every medium thicker or thinner besides the intercurrencies of irregular and unknown particles like to moats in and upon a Glass did cause a different Refraction and that neither the constitution of our Atmosphear as not proportionate to our sensible enquiries and air nor the intermundial Aether nor the Sphaera vaporosa of the Planets could ever be accurately and satisfactorily searched into no man could particularly know what he beheld and deduce with prudence any theoremes and conclusions from such infirm hypotheses He added that our senses and the daily objects we converse with on earth did prejudicate rather then qualifie us for these speculations that we might easily observe what mistakes arise from the contemplation of resemblances that similitudes though very slender engage the unwary and some that are cautious too to conclude an identity in objects that it would be impossible for any man without the aid of a nearer approach and even of his other senses to conclude whether a stick lying part in part out of the water were streight or crooked by reason of the refraction in the different mediums of Air and Water and that a Glow-worm or an Indian fire-Fly would create strange disputes and contests amongst mankind had they no other helps to discover the Phaenomenon then a Telescope magnifying the object and its parts thirty fourty or one hundred times He admired that saying of Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and commended him that in his doctrine of Meteors he pretended not to arise higher then a low degree of probability That it was possible to imagine such things to our selves as were not really in the Moon but not such as were there except in a very general and indefinite manner Posse quidem excogitari nonnulla quae in Luna neque sunt neque esse possunt nihil autem eorum quae ibi sunt aut esse possunt nisi largissima generalitate That the appearance of an Earth did not infer the inhabitation of men much less Animals and Plants like ours that our own Geography might undeceive us herein some parts of this Globe being not peopled and the animals and plants and nature of the soyle differing so much from our European productions as we could not have conceived had not our Eyes and authentick testimonies gained us to a belief of it That the most clear Eyes have in this case a kinde of a suffusion and the most unbiassed persons their Intellectuals prejudicated and had no reason to condemn the opinion of that Peasant who imaginer the Grandeur of Rome to be like unto his Village or the Scot who represented London to be such another town as Edinburgh It is an opinion wherein the Peripateticks and Lyncei are agreed Quicquid sub nostram cadit imaginationem id aut jam ante viderimus oportet aut ex rebus rerurâ—ve partibus jam ante visis compositum sit quales sunt Sphynges Sirenes Chimerae Centauri c. He smiled at those who thought they had much improved solid knowledge by telling men of Quasi-terra Quasi-mare Quasi-sylvae which he suppposed to be as insignificant termes as the Canting of Chymists or the Quasi-corpus and Quasi sanguis in the gods of Epicurus that