will pierce cut out the water almost into as little parts as themselves and mingling themselves with them they will flie away together and so convert the whole body of water into subtile smoke whereas the same Agent after long working upon lead will bring it into no less parts then small grains of dust which it calcines it into And gold that is more dense then lead resists peremptorily all the dividing power of fire and will not at all be reduced into a calx or lime by such operation as reduced lead into it So that remembring how the nature of Quantity is Divisibility and considering that rare things are more divisible then dense ones we must needs acknowledge that the nature of Quantity is some way more perfectly in things that are Rare then in those that are Dense On the other side more compacted and dense things may haply seem to some to have more Quantity then those that are rare and that is but shrunk together which may be stretch'd out and driven into much greater dimensions then the Quantity of rare things taking the quantities of each equal in outward appearance As gold may be beaten into much more and thiner leaf then an equal bulk of silver or lead A wax candle will burn longer with a small light then a tallow candle of the same bigness and consequently be converted into a greater quantity of fire and air Oyl will make much more flame then spirit of wine that is far rarer then it These and such like considerations have much perplex'd Philosophers and driven them into diverse thoughts to find out the reasons of them Some observing that the dividing of a body into little parts makes it less apt to descend then when it is in greater have believ'd the whole cause of lightness and rarity to be derived from division As for example they find that lead cut into little pieces will not go down so fast in water as when it is in bulk and it may be reduced into so smal atomes that it will for some space swim upon the water like dust of wood Which assumption is prov'd by the great Galileus to whose excellent wit and admirable industry the world is beholding not only for his wonderful discoveries made in the Heavens but also for his acurate and learned declaring of those very things that lye under our feet He about the 90. page of his first Dialogue of Motion clearly demonstrates how any real medium must of necessity resist more the descent of a little piece of lead or any other weighty matter than it would a greater piece and the resistance will be greater and greater as the pieces are lesser and lesser So that as the pieces are made less they will in the same medium sink the flower and seem to have acquired a new nature of lightness by the diminution not only of having less weight in them than they had as half an ounce is less than a whole ounce but also of having in themselvs a less proportion of weight to their bulk than they had as a pound of Cork is in regard of its magnitude lighter than a pound of Lead So as they conclude that the thing whose continued parts are the lesser is in its own nature the lighter and the rarer and other things whose continued parts are greater be heavier and denser But this discourse reaches not home for by it the weight of any body being discovered by the proportion it has to the medium in which it descends it must ever suppose a body lighter than it self in which it may sink and go to the bottome Now of that lighter body I enquire what makes it be so and you must answer by what you have concluded that it is lighter then the other because the parts of it are lesse and moreseverd from one another for if they be as close together their division avails them nothing since things sticking fast together work as if they were but one and so a pound of lead though it be filed into small dust if it be compacted hard together will sink as fast as if it were one bulk Now then allowingthe little parts to be seperated I ask what other body fills up the spaces between those little parts of the medium in which your heavy body descends For if the parts of water are more sever'd then the parts of lead there must be some other substance to keep the parts of it asunder let us suppose this to be air and I ask Whether an equal part of air be as heavy as so much water or whether it be not If you say it is then the compound of water and air must be as heavy as lead since their parts one with another are as much compacted as the parts of lead are For there is no difference whether those bodies whose little parts are compacted together be of the same substance or of divers or whether the one be divided into smaller parts then the other or not so they be of equal weights in regard of making the whole equally heavy as you may experience if you mingle pin-dust with a sand of equal weight though it be beaten into far smaller divisions then the pin-dust and put them in a bag together But if you say that air is not so heavy as water it must be because every part of air hath again its parts more sever'd by some other body then the parts of water are sever'd by air And then I make the same instance of that body which severs the parts of air And so at last since there cannot actually be an infinite process of bodies one lighter then another you must come to one whose little parts filling the pores and spaces between the parts of the others have no spaces in themselves to be fil'd up But as soon as you acknowledge such a body to be lighter and rarer then all the rest you contradict and destroy all you said before For by reason of its having no pores it follows by your rule that the little parts of it must be as heavy if not heavier then the little parts of the same bigness of that body whose pores it fills and consequently it is proved by the experience we alledg'd of pin-dust mingled with sand that the little parts of it cannot by their mingling with the parts of the body in which it is immediately contain'd make that lighter then it would be if these little parts were not mingled with it Nor would both their parts mingled with the body which immediately contains them make that body lighter And so proceeding on in the same sort through all the mingled bodies till you come to the last that is immediately mingled with water you will make water nothing the lighter for being mingled with all these and by consequence it should be as heavy and as dense as lead Now that which deceiv'd the Authors of this opinion was that they had not a right intelligence of the causes
in bulk but the small ones very hardly Next the smalness and well-working of the parts by means of the airs penetrating every dense one and sticking close to every one of them and consequently joyning them without any unevenness causes that there can be no ruggedness in it and therfore 't is glibb in like manner as we see plaister or starch become smooth when they are well wrought Then the humidity of it causes it to be catching and the shortness of every part makes that where it sticks it is not easily parted thence Now the rarity of air next to fire admits it to be of all the other Elements most easily brought to the height of fire by the operation of fire upon it And therfore oyls are the proper food of that Element And accordingly we see if a drop of oyl be spill'd upon a sheet of paper and the paper set on fire at a corner as the fire comes near the oyl the oyl will disperse and spread it self upon the paper to a broader compass then it had because the heat rarifies it and so in Oyl it self the fire rarifying the air makes it penetrate the earthy parts adjoynd to it more then it did and so subtilizes them till they be reduced to such a height as they are within the power of fire to communicate its own nature to them and thus it turns them into fire and carries them up in its flame But if fire be predominant over earth and air in a watry compound it makes the body so proportion'd to be subtile rare penetrative hot in operation light in weight and subject to burn Of this kind are all sorts of wines and distil'd Spirits commonly called strong waters or Aquavites in Latine Aquaeardentes These will lose their virtues meerly by remaining uncover'd in the air for fire doth not incorporate strongly with water but if it find means raises it self into the air As we see in the smoke of boyling water which is nothing else but little bodies of fire that entring into the water rarifie some parts of it but have no inclination to stay there and therefore as fast as they can get out fly away but the humide parts of the water which they have rarified being of a sticking nature joyn themselves to them and ascend in the air as high as the fiery atomes have strength to carry them which when it fails them that smoke falls down in a dew and so becomes water again as it was All which one may easily discern in a glasse-vessel of water set over the fire in which one may observe the fire come in at the bottome and presently swim up to the top like a little bubble and immediately rise from thence in smoke and that will at last convert it self into drops and settle upon some solid substance thereabouts Of these fiery spirits some are so subtile as of themselves they will vanish and leave no residue of a body behind them and Alchymists profess to make them so etherial and volatile that being pour'd out of a glass from some reasonable height they shall never reach the ground but before they come thither be so rarified by that little motion as they shall grow invisible like the air and dispersing themselves all about in it fill the chamber with the smell of that body which can no longer be seen The last excess in watery bodies must be of water it self which is when so little a proportion of any of the other is mingled with it as is hardly perceptible Out of this composition arise all those several sorts of juices or liquors we commonly call Waters which by their mixture with the other three Elements have peculiar properties beyond simple Elemental water The general quality whereof we shall not need any further to express because by what we have already said of water in common they are sufficiently known In our next survey we will take Earth for our ground to work upon as hitherto we have done water which if in any body it be in the utmost excess beyond all the other three then rocks and stones will grow out of it whose driness and hardness may assure us that Earth sways in their composition with the least allay that may be Nor doth their lightness in respect of some other earthy compositions impeach this resolution for that proceeds from the greatness and multiplicity of pores wherwith their driness causes them to aboundâ— and hinders not but that their real solid parts may be very heavy Now if we mingle a considerable proportion of water with earth so as to exceed the fire and air but still inferiour to the earth we shall poduce metals whose great weight with their ductility and malleability plainly tells us that the smallest of waters gross parts are the glew that holds the earthy dense ones together such weight belonging to earth and that easie changing of parts being most proper to water Quick-silver that is the general matter wherof all the metals are immediately composed gives us evidence hereof for fire works upon it with the same effect as upon water And the calcination of most of the metals proves that fire can easily part and consume the glew by which they were closed and held together which therfore must be rather of a watry then of an aiery substance Likewise the glibness of Mercury and of melted metals without catching or sticking to other substances gives us to understand that this great temper of a moist Element with earth is water and not air and that the watry parts are comprised and as it were shut up within the earthy ones for air catches and sticks notably to all things it touches and will not be imprisoned the divisibility of it being excceeding great though in never so short parts Now if air mingles it self with earth and be prodominant over water and fire it makes such an oily and fat soil as Husbandmen account their best mould which receiving a betterment from the Sun temperate heat assures us of the concourse of the aire for wherever such heat is air cannot fail of accompanying or being effected by it and the richest of such earth as pot-earth and marl will with much fire grow more compacted and stick closer together then it did as we see in baking them into pots or fine bricks Whereas if water were the glew between the dense parts fire would consume it and crumble them asunder as it doth in those bodies it calcines And excesse of fire will bring them to vitrification which still confirms that air abounds in them for it is the nature of air to stick so close where once it is kneaded in as it cannot be separated without extreme difficulty And to this purpose the viscuous holding together of the parts of glass when it is melted shews evidently that air abounds in vitrified bodies The last mixture we are to meddle with is of fire with earth in an over-ruling
where they are little holes or pores in the places they are compressed driven from which pores they filled up when they were dilated at their own natural liberty But being thus forcibly shrunk up into less room afterwards they squees again out of their croud all such very loose and subtile parts residing till then with them as can find their way out from among them And these subtile parts that thus are deliver'd from the colds compressions get first into the pores that we have shew'd were made by this compression But they cannot long stay there for the atoms of advenient cold that obsess the compressed body do likewise with all their force throng ito those pores and soon drive out the subtile guests they find there because they are more in number bigger in bulk and more violent in their course then they Who therfore must yield to them the little channels and capacities they formerly took up Out of which they are thrust with such an impetuositie that they spin from them with a vehemence as Quick silver doth through leather when to purifie it or bring an Amalgame to a due consistence it is strained through the sides of it Now these showrs or streams of atomes issuing from the compressed body are on all sides round about it at exceeding little distances because the pores out of which they are driven are so likewise And consequently there they remain round about besieging it as though they would return to their original homes as soon as the usurping strangers that were too powerful for them will give them leave And according to the multitude of them and to the force with which they are driven out the compass they take up round about the compressed body is greater or lesser Which besieging atomes are not so soon carried away by any exterior and accidental causes but they are supplied by new emanations succeeding them out of the said compressed body Now this which we have declared by the example of cold compressing a particular body happens in all bodies wherever they be in the world For this being the unavoidable effect of heat and of cold wherever they reside which are the active qualities by whose means not only fire and water and the other two Elements but all other mixed bodies composed of the Elements have their activity and they being in all bodies whatever as we have proved above it follows evidently that there is not a body in the world but has about it self an orbe of emanations of the same nature which that body is of Within the compass of which orbe when any other body comes that receives an immutation by the little atomes whereof that orbe is composed the advenient body seems to be affected and as it were replenished with the qualities of the body from whence they issue Which is then said to work upon the body that imbibes the emanations that flow from it And because this orbe regularly speaking is in the form of a Sphere the passive body is said to be within the Sphere of the others activity Secondly when Philosophers pronounce that No corporeal nature can operari in distans that is that no body can work upon another remote from it without working first upon the body that lies between them which must continue and place up the operation from the agent to the patient The reason and truth of this maxime is in our Philosophy evident For we having shew'd that action among bodies is performed for the most part by the emission of little parts out of one body into another as also that such little parts cannot stream from the body that is their fountain and settle upon a remote body without passing through the interjacent bodies which must furnish them as it were with channels and pipes to convey them whither they are to go it follows manifestly that the active emissaries of the working body can never reach their distant mark unless they be successively ferried over the medium that lies between them in which they must needs leave impressions of their having been there and so work upon it in their passe and leave in it their qualities and complexions as a payment for their wastage over But peradventure some may contend that these invisible Serjeants and workmen are too feeble and impotent to perform those visible great effects we daily see As when fire at the length burns a board that has been a great while opposed to it though it touch not the body of the fire or when a loadstone draws to it a great weight of Iron that is distant from it To whom we shall reply that if he will not grant these subtile emanations from the agent body to be the immediate workers of these effects he must allot that efficacy to the whole corpulency of all the Agent working in bulk for besides the whole the parts there is no third thing to be consider'd in bodies since they are constituted by quantity But the whole cannot work otherwise then by local motion which in this case it cannot do because by the supposition it is determin'd to keep its distance from the passive body and not to move towards it Therfore this is impossible whereas the other can appear but difficult at the worst and therefore must be admitted when no better and more intelligible solution can be found But withal we must note that it is not our intention to say but it may in some circumstances happen that some particular action or effect may be wrought in a remote part or body which shall not be the same in the intermediate body that lies between the agent and the patient and conveyes the agents working atomes to the others body As for example when tinder or Naphtha is by fire made to burn at a yard distance from it when the interjacent air is but warm'd by that fire Or when the Sun by means of a burning-glass or some other reflection sets some bodies on fire and yet only enlightens the glass and the air that are in the way The reason of which is manifest to be the divers dispositions of the different subjects in regard of the Agent and therfore 't is no wonder that divers effects should be produced according to those divers dispositions A third position among Philosophers is that All bodies which work upon others at the same time suffer from those they work upon and contrariwise all bodies which suffer from others at the same time work back again upon them For the better understanding wherof let us consider that all action among bodies is either purely local motion or else local motion with certain particularities which give it a particular name As when we express the local motion of little atomes of fire or of earth or water upon and into other bodies by the words of heating or cooling and so of the like Now if the action be pure local moâ—on and consequently the effect produced by that action be meerly
we have of things without us give names to them according to the passions and affections which those things cause in our senses which being the same in all mankind as long as they are consider'd in common and their effects are look'd upon in gross all the world agrees in one Notion and Name of the same thing for every man living is affected by it just as his neighbour is and as all men else in the world are As for example Heat or Cold works the same feeling in every man composed of flesh and bloud and therfore whoever should be ask'd of them would return the same answer that they cause such and such affects in his sense pleasing or displeasing to him according to their degrees and as they tend to the good or evil of his whole body But if we descend to particulars we shall find that several men of differinâ— constitutions frame different notions of the same things according as they are conformable or disagreeing to their natures and accordingly they give them different names As when the same liquor is sweet to some mens tast which to anothers appears bitter one man takes that for a perfume which to another is an offensive smel In the Turkish Baths where there are many degrees of heat in divers rooms through all which the same person uses to pass and to stay a while in every one of them both at his entrance and going out to season his body by degrees for the contrary excess he is going to that seems chilly-cold at his first return which appear'd melting hot at his going to it as I my self have often made experience in those Countreys Beauty and loveliness will shine to one man in the same face that will give aversion to another All which proclaims that the Sensible Qualities of Bodies are not any positive real thing consisting in an indivisible and distinct from the body it self but are meerly the very body as it affects our senses to discover how they do which must be our labour here Let us therfore begin with considering the difference between sensible and insensible creatures These later lie exposed to the mercy of all outward agents that from time to time by the continual motion which all things are in come within distance of working upon them and they have no power to remove themselvs from what is averse to their nature nor to approach nearer what comforts it But the others having within themselvs a principle of motion as we have already declared are able whenever such effects are wrought on them as on the others upon their own account and by their own action to remove themselvs from what begins to annoy them and to come nearer to what they find a beginning of good by These impressions are made on those parts of us which we call the Organs of our Senses and by them give us seasonable advertisements and knowledges wherby we may govern and order to the best advantage our little charge of a body according to the tune or warnings of change in the great circumstant body of the world as far as it may concern ours Which how it is done and by what steps it proceeds shall be in the following discourse laid open Of this great machine that environs us we who are but a small parcel are not immediately concern'd in every part It imports not us for the conservation of our body to have knowledge of other parts then such are within the distance of working upon us those only within whose sphere of activity we are planted can offend or advantage us and of them some are near us others further from us Those that are next us we discern according as they are qualified either by our Touch or our Tast or our Smelling which three Senses manifestly appear to consist in a meer gradation of more or less gross and their operations are level'd to the three Elements that press upon us Earth Water and Air. By our other two Senses our Hearing and our Seeing we have notice of things further off and the agents which work on them are of a more refined nature But we must treat of them all in particular and that which we will begin with shall be the Touch as being the grossest of them and that which converses with none but the most material and massie objects We see it deals with heavy consistent bodies and judges of them by conjunction to them and by immediate reception of something from them And according to the divers impressions they make in it it distinguishes them by divers names which as we said of the qualities of mixed bodies are generally reduced to certain pairs as hot and cold wet and dry soft and hard smooth and rough thick and thin and some others of the like nature which were needless to enumerate since we pretend not to deliver the science of them but only to shew that they and their actions are all corporeal And this is sufficiently evident by meer repenting but their very names for 't is plain by what we have already said that there are nothing else but certain effections of quantity arising out of different degrees of rarity and density compounded together And 't is manifest by experience that our sense receivs the very same impressions from them which another body doth For our body or our sense will be heated by fire burned by it too if the heat be too great as well as wood it will be constipated by cold water moistened by humide things and dryed by dry bodies in the same manner as any other body whatever Likewise it may in such sort as they be wounded and have its continuity broken by hard things be pleas'd and polish'd by soft and smooth be press'd by thick and heavy and rub'd by those that are rugged c. So that those Masters who will teach us that the impressions upon sense are made by spiritual or spirit-like things or qualities which they call intentional specieses must labour at two works the one to make it appear that there are in nature such things as they would perswade us the other to prove that these material actions we speak of are not able to perform those effâ—cts for which the senses are given to living creatures And till they have done that I conceive we should be much too blame to admit such things as we neither have ground for in reason nor can understand what they are And therfore we must resolve to rest in this belief which experience breeds in us that these bodies work on our senses no other ways then by a corporeal operation and that such a one is sufficient for all the effects we see proceed from them as in the process of this discourse we shall more amply declare The Element immediately next to Earth in grosness is Water And in it is the exercise of our tast or Mouth being perpetually wet within by means of which moysture our Tongue receives into it some
man that seeing the Divider is the agent in division and in Local motion and dense bodies are by their nature dividers the Earth must in that regard be the most active among the Elements since it is the most dense of them all But this seems to be against the Common judgment of all the searchers of nature who unamimously agree that Fire is the most active Element As also it seems to impugne what we our selves have determin'd when we said there were two active qualities heat and cold whereof the first was in its greatest excess in Fire and the latter in water To reconcile these we are to consider that the action of Cold in its greatest height is composed of two parts the one is a kind of pressing and the other is penetration which requires applicability Of which two the former arises out of density but the latter out of moderation of density as I have declared in the precedent Chapter Wherefore the former will exceed more in Earth though the whole be more eminent in Water For though considering only the force of moving which is a a more simple and abstracted notion then the determination and particularization of the Elements and is precedent to it therein Earth hath a precedency over water yet taking the action as it is determin'd to be the action of a particular Element and as it concurs to the composition or dissolution of mixed bodies in that consideration which is the chief work of Elements and requires an intime application of the Agents Water hath the principality and excess over Earth As for Fire it is more active then either of them as will appear clearly if we consider how when Fire is applyed to fewel and the violence of blowing is added to its own motion it incorporates it self with the fewel and in a small time converts a great part of it into its own nature and shatters the rest into smoak and ashes All which proceeds from the exceeding smallness and dryness of the parts of fire which being moved with violence against the fewel and thronging in multitudes upon it easily pierce the porous substance of it like so many extreme sharp Needles And that the force of Fire is as great and greater then of Earth we may gather out of our former discourse where having resolved that density is the virtue by which a body is moved and cuts the medium and again considering that celerity of motion is a kind of density as we shall by and by declare 't is evident that since blowing must of necessity press violently and with a rapid motion the parts of fire against the fewel and so condense them exceedingly there both by their celerity by bringing very many parts together there it must needs also give them activity and vertue to pierce the body they are beaten against New that Celerity is a kind of Density will appear by comparing their natures For if we consider that a dense body may be dilated so as to possess and fill the place of a rare body that exceeded it in bigness and by that dilatation may be divided into as many and as great parts as the rare body was divisible into we may conceive that the substance of those parts was by a secret power of nature folded up in that little extension in which it was before And even so if we reflect upon two Rivers of equal channels and depths whereof the one goes swifter then the other and determine a certain length of each channel and a common measure of Time we shall see that in the same measure of time there passes a greater bulk of water in the designed part of the channel of the swifter stream then in the designed part of the flower though those parts be equal Nor imports it that in Velocity we take a part of time whereas in Density it seems that an instant is sufficient and consequently there would be no proportion between them For knowing Philosophers all agree that there are no Instants in time and that the apprehension of them proceeds meerly from the manner of our understanding And as for parts in time there cannot be assumed any so little in which the comparison is not true and so in this regard it is absolutely good And if the Reader have difficulty at the disparity of the things which are pressed together in Density and in Celerity for that in Density there is only Substance in Celerity there is also Quantity crowded up with the substence he will soon receive satisfaction when he shall consider that this disparity is to the advantage of what we say and makes the nature of density more perfect in celerity and consequently more powerful in fire then in earth Besides if there were no disparity it would be a distinct species of density but the very same By what we have spoken above it appears how fire gets into fewel now let us consider how it comes out for the activity of that fierce body will not let it lie still and rest as long as it has so many enemies round about it to rouse it up We see then that as soon as it has incoporated it self with the fewel and is grown master of it by introducing into it so many of its own parts like so many Souldiers into an Enemies Town they break out again on every side with as much violence as they came in For by reason of the former resistance of the fewel their continual streaming of new parts upon it and one overtaking another there where their journey was stop'd all which is increas'd by the blowing doth so exceedingly condense them into a narrower room then their nature effects that as soon as they get liberty and grow masters of the fewel which at the first was their prison they enlarge their place and consequently come out and flie abroad ever aiming right forwards from the point where they begin their journey for the violence wherewith they seek to extend themselves into a larger room when they have liberty to do so will admit no motion but the shortest which is by a straight line So that if in our phantasie we frame an image of a round body all of fire we must withall presently conceive that the flame proceeding from it would diffuse it self every way indifferently in straight lines so that the source serving for the Center there would be round about it an huge Sphere and of fire and light unless some accidental and extern cause should determine its motion more to one part then to another Which compass because it is round and has the figure of a Sphere is by Philosophers term'd the Sphere of its activity So that it is evident the most simple and primary motition of fire is a flux in a direct line from the center of it to its circumference taking the fewel for its center as also that when 't is beaten against a harder body it may be able to destroy it though that
occur other arguments of no less importance to prove this verity than these we have already proposed CHAP. VII Two objections answer'd against light being fire with a more ample proof of its being such HAving then said thus much to perswade us of the corporeity of this subtile thing that so queintly plays with our eyes we will in the next place examine those objections that at the beginning we set down against its being a body and if after a through discussion of them we find they do in truth conclude nothing of what at the first sight they bear so great a shew of but that we shall be able perfectly to solve and enerve their force no body will think it rashness in us to crave leave of Aristotle that we may dissent from him in a matter that he has not look'd to the bottom of and whose opinion therin cannot be defended from plain contradictions and impossibilities 'T is true never any one man looked fo far as he into the bowels of nature he may be rightly termed the Genius of it and whoever follows his principles in the main cannot be led into errour but we must not believe that he or any man else who relies upon the strength and negotiation of his own reason ever had a priviledge of infallibility entail'd to all he said Let us then admire him for what he has deliver'd us and where he falls short or is weary in his search and suffers himself to be born down by popular opinions against his own principles which happens very seldom to him let us seek to supply and relieve him But to pursue our intent We will begin with answerin the third objection which is that if light were fire it must heat as well as enlighten where it shines There 's no doubt but it doth so as is evident by the weather-glasses and other artificiall musical instruments as Organs and Virginals that played by themselvs wâ—ch Cornelius Drebbel That admirable master of Mechanicks made to shew the King All which depends upon the rarefaction and condensation of some subtile body conserv'd in a cavity within the bulk of the whole instrument for assoon as the Sun shined they would have motion and play their parts And questionless that grew out of the rarefaction of the subtile liquor he made use of which was dilated assoon as the air was warmd by the Sun-beams Of whose operation it was so sensible that they no sooner left the Horizon but its motion ceased And if but a cloud came between the instrument and them the musick would presently go slower time And the ancient miracle of Memnons statue seems to be a juggling of the Ethiopian priests made by the like invention But though he and they found some spirituall and refined natter that would receive such notable impressions from so small alterations of temper yet it is no wonder that our gross bodies are not sensible of them for we cannot feel heat unless it be greater then that which is in our sense And the heat there must be in proportion to the heat of our bloud which is an high degree of warmth and therfore 't is very possible that an exceeding rarified fire may cause a far lesse impression of heat then we are able to feel Consider how if you set pure spirit of wine on fire and so convert it into actual flame yet it will not burn nor scarce warm your hand and then can you expect that the light of a candle which fills a great room should burn or warm you as far as it shines If you would exactly know what degree of heat and power of burning that light has which for example shines upon the wall in a great chamber in the midst wherof there stands a candle do but calculate what overproportion of quantitie all the light in the whole room bears to the quantity of the little flame at the top of the candle and that is the overproportion of the force of burning which is in the candle to the force of burning which is in so much light at the wall as in extension is equall to the flame of the candle Which when you have considered you will not quarrel at its not warming you at that distance although you grant it to be fire streaming out from â—e flame as from the spring that feeds it and extreamly dilated according to the nature of fire when it is at liberty by going so far without any other grosse body to imprison or clog it 'T is manifest that this rule of examining the proportion of burning in so much of the light as the flame is by calculating the proportion of the quantity or extension of all the light in the room to the extension of the flame of the candle and then comparing the flame of the candle to a part of light equall in extension unto it is a good and infallible one if we abstract from accidental inequalities since both the light and the flame are in a perpetual flux and all the light was first in the flame which is the spring from whence it continually flows As in a river where every part runs with a settled stream though one place be straighter and another broader yet of necessity since all the water that is in the broad place came out of the narrow it must follow that in equal portions of time there is no more water where it has the liberty of a larg channel then where the banks press it into a narrow bed so that there be no inequalities in the bottome In like manner if in a large stove a basin of water be converted into steam that rarified water which then fills the whole Stove is no more then what the Basin contain'd before and consequently the power of moistening which is in a foot 's extension for example of the stove wherein that steam is must be in proportion to the vertue of wetting in the foot extension of water as the quantity of that great room which the steam fills is to the quantity of the water contain'd in the basin For although the rarified water be not in every least part of that great place it seems to take up by reason that there is Air in which it must swim yet the power of wetting that was in the Basin of water is dilated through the whole room by the conjunction of the Myst or Dew to all the sensible parts of the Air that is in the room and consequently the power of wetting which is in any foot of that room is in a manner as much less then the power of wetting which was in the foot of water as if the water were rarified to the quantity of the whole room and no air were left with it And in the same manner it fares with dilated fire as it doth with dilated water with only this difference peradventure that Fire grows purer and more towards its own nature by dilatation whereas water becomes more mix'd and is carried
from its nature by suffering the like effect Yet dilated water will in proportion moisten more then dilated fire will burn for the rarefaction of water brings it nearer to the nature of air whose chief propriety is moisture and the fire that accompanies it when it raiseth it into steam gives it more powerful ingression into what body it meets withal whereas fire when 't is very pure and at entire liberty to stretch and spread it self as wide as the nature of it will carry it gets no advantage of burning by its mixture with air and although it gains force by its purity yet by reason of its extreme rarefaction it must needs be extreamly faint But if by the help of Glasses you will gather into less room what is diffused into a great one and so condense it as much as it is for example in the flame of a candle then that fire or compacted light will burn much more forcibly then so much flame for there is as much of it in quantity excepting what is lost in the carriage of it and it is held in together in as little room and it has this advantage besides that 't is clog'd with no grosse body to hinder the activity of it It seems to me now that the very answering this objection doth besides repelling the force of it evidently prove that light is nothing but fire in its own nature and exceedingly dilated for if you suppose fire for example the flame of a candle to be stretch'd out to the utmost expansion that you may well imagine such a gross body is capable of 't is impossible it should appear and work otherwise then it doth in light as I have shewd above And again we see plainly that light gather'd together burns more forcibly then any other fire whatever and therefore must needs be fire Why then shall we not confidently conclude that what is fire before it gets abroad and is fire again when it comes together doth likewise remain fire during all its journey Nay even in the journey it self we have particular testimony that it is fire for light returning back from the earth charg'd with little atomes as it doth in soultry gloomy weather heats much more than before just as fire doth when it is imprisoned in a dense body Philosophers ought not to judge by the same rules that the common people doth Their gross sense is all their guide and therfore they cannot apprehend any thing to be fire that doth not make it self to be known for such by burning them But he that judiciously examines the matter and traces the pedigree and period of it and sees the reason why in some circumstances it burns and in others not is too blame if he suffer himself to be led by others ignorance contrary to his own reason When they that are curious in perfumes will have their chamber fil'd with a good scent in a hot season that agrees not with burning perfumes and therfore make some odoriferous water be blown about it by their servants mouthes that are dexterous in that ministery as is used in Spain in the Summer time every one that sees it done though on a sudden the water be lost to his eyes and touch and is only discernable by his nose yet is well satisfied that the scent which recreates him is the very water he saw in the glass extremely dilated by the forcible sprouting of it out from the servants mouth and will by little and little fall down and become again palpable water as it was before and therefore doubts not but it is still water whiles it hangs in the air divided into little atomes Whereas one that saw not the beginning of this operation by water nor observ'd how in the end it shews it self again in water might the better be excused if he should not think that what he smel'd were water blown about the air nor any substance of it self because he neither sees nor handles it but some adventitious quality he knows not how adhering to the air The like difference is between Philosophers that proceed orderly in their discourses and others that pay themselves with terms which they understand not The one see evidence in what they conclude whiles the others guesse wildly at random I hope the Reader will not deem it time lost from our main drift which we take up thus in examples and digressions for if I be not much deceived they serve exceedingly to illustrate the matter Which I hope I have now rendred so plain as no man that shall have well weighed it will expect that Fire dilated into that rarified substance which mankind who according to the different appearance of things to their sense gives different names to them calls Light should burn like that grosser substance which from doing so they call fire nor doubt but that they may be the same thing more or less attenuated as leaf-gold that flies in the air as light as down is as truly gold as that in an ingot which being heavier then any other substance falls most forcibly to the ground What we have said of the unburning fire which we call light streaming from the flame of a Candle may easily be apply'd to all other lights deprived of sensible heat whereof some appear with flame others without it Of the first sort are the innoxious flames that are often seen on the hair of mens heads and horses manes on the Masts of ships over graves and fat marish grounds and the like and of the latter sort are Glow-worms and the light-conserving stones rotten wood some kinds of fish and of flesh when they begin to putrifie and some other things of the like nature Now to answer the second part of this objection That we daily see great heats without any light as well as much light without any heat and therefore light and fire cannot be the same thing You may call to mind how Dense bodies are capable of great quantities of Rare ones and thereby it comes to pass that bodies which repugn to the dilatation of flame may nevertheless have much fire inclosed in them As in a stove let the fire be never so great yet it appears not outwards to the sight although that stove warm all the rooms near it So when many little parts of heat are imprison'd in as many little cells of gross earthly substance which are like so many little stoves to them that imprisonment will not hinder them from being very hot to the sense of feeling which is most perceptible of dense things But because they are choak'd with the closeness of the gross matter wherein they are closed they cannot break out into a body of flame or light so to discover their nature which as we have said before is the most unfit way for burning for we see that light must be condensed to produce flame and fire as flame must be to burn violently Having thus clear'd the third objection as I
to pass his way without hindring his fellow Wherfore seeing that one single light could not send rayes enough to fil every little space of aire that is capable of light and the less the further it is from the flame 't is obvious enough to conceive how in the space where the air is there is capacity for the rays of many candles Which being well sum'd up will take away the great admiration how the beams of light though they be corporeall can in such great multitudes without hindering one another enter into bodies and come to our eye and will shew that 't is the narrowness of our capacities and not the defect of nature which makes these difficulties seem so great For she hath sufficiently provided for all these subtile operations of fire as also for the entrance of it into glass and into all other solid bodies that are Diaphanous upon which was grounded the last instance the second objection pressed for all such bodies being constituted by the operation of fire which is alwaies in motion there must needs be ways left for it both to enter in and to evaporate out And this is most evident in glass which being wrought by an extreme violent fire and swelling with it as water and other things do by the mixture of fire must necessarily have great store fire in it self whiles it is boyling as we see by its being red hot And hence it is that the workmen are forced to let it cool by degrees in such relentings of fire as they call their nealing heats lest it should shiver in pieces by a violent succeeding of air in the room of the fire for that being of greater parts then the fire would strain the pore of the glass too suddenly and break it all in pieces to get ingressions whereas in those nealing heats the air being rarer lesser parts of it succeed to the fire and leisurely stretch the pores without hurt And therefore we need not wonder that light passes so easily through glass and much less that it gets through other bodies seeing the experience of Alchymists assures us 't is hard to find any other body so impenitrable as glass But now to come to the answer of the first and in appearance most powerful objection against the corporeity of light which urges that its motion is perform'd in an instant and therefore cannot belong to what is material and cloth'd with quantity We will endeavour to shew how unable the sense is to judge of sundry sorts of motions of Bodies and how grosly it is mistaken in them And then when it shall appear that the motion of light must necessarily be harder to be observed then those others I conceive all that is rais'd against our opinion by so incompetent a judge will fall flat to the ground First then let me put the Reader in mind how if ever he mark'd children when they play with firesticks they move and whirle them round so fast that the motion will cosen their eyes and represent an entire circle of Fire to them and were it somewhat distant in a dark night that one play'd so with a lighted Torck it would appear a constant Wheele of fire without any discerning of motion in it And then let him consider how slow a motion that is in respect of what 't is possible a body may participate of and he may safely conclude that 't is no wonder though the motion of light be not descried and that indeed no argument can be made from thence to prove that light is not a body But let us examine this consideration a little further and compare it to the motion of the earth or heavens Let the appearing circle of the fire be some three foot Diameter and the time of one entire circulation of it be the sixtieth part of a minute of which minutes there are 60. in an hour so that in a whole day there will but be 86400. of these parts of time Now the Diameter of the wheel of fire being but of three foot the whole quantity of space that it moves in that atome of time will be at the most ten foot which is three paces and a foot of which parts there are near eleven millions in the compass of the earth so that if the earth be moved round in 24. hours it must go near 130. times as fast as the Boy 's stick which by its swift motion deceives our eye But if we allow the Sun the Moon and the fixed Stars to move how extreme swift must their flight be and how imperceptible would their motion be in such a compass as our sight would reach to And this being certain that whether the earth or they move the appearances to us are the same 't is evident that as now they cannot be perceiv'd to move as peradventure they do not so it would be the very same in shew to us although they did move If the Sun were near us and gallop'd at that rate surely we could not distinguish between the beginning and ending of his race but there would appear one permanent Line of light from East to West without any motion at all as the Torch seems to make with so much a slower motion one permanent immoveable wheel of fire But contrary to this effect we see that the Sun and Stars by onely being removed further from our eyes do cosen our sight so grossely that we cannot discern them to be moved at all One would imagine that so rapid and swift a motion should be perceiv'd in some sort or other which whether it be in the earth or in them is all one to this purpose Either we should see them change their places whiles we look upon them as Arrows and Birds do when they fly in the Aire or else they should make a stream of light bigger then themselvs as the Torch doth But none of all this happens Let us gaze upon them so long and so attentively that our eyes be dazled with looking and all that while they seem to stand immovable and our eyes can give us no account of their journey till it be ended They discern it not while it is in doing So that if we consult with no better counsellour then them we may wonder to see that body at night setting in the West which in the morning we beheld rising in the East But that which seems to be yet more strange is that these bodies move cross us and nevertheless are not perceiv'd to have any motion at all Consider then how much easier it is for a thing that moves towards us to be with us before we are aware A nimble Fencer will put in a thrust so quick that the â—oil will be in your bosome when you thought it a yard off because in the same moment you saw his point so far distant and could not discerne it to move towards you till you felt the rude salutation it gave you If then you will compare the body of light with
activity and the great activity shews a great percussion burning being effected by a kind of attrition of the thing burned And the great force which fire shews in Guns and in Mines being but a multiplication of the same evidently convinces that of its own nature it makes a stong percussion when all due circumstances concur Whereas it has but little effect if the due circumstances be wanting as we may observe in the insensible burning of so rarified a body as pure spirit of wine converted into flame But we must examine the matter more parrticularly and seek the cause why a violent effect doth not always appear wherever light strikes For which we are to note that three things concur to make a percussion great The bigness the density and the celerity of the body moved Of which three there is onely one in light to wit celerity for it has the greatest rarity and the rays of it are the smallest parcels of all natural bodies and therfore since only celerity is considerable in the account of lights percussions we must examine what celerity is necessary to make the stroke of a ray sensible First then we see that all the motes of the aire nay even feathers and straws do make no sensible percussion when they fall upon us therefore we must in light have at the least a celerity that may be to the celerity of the straw falling upon our hand for example as the density of the straw is to the density of light that the percussion of light may be in the least degree sensible But let us take a corn of gunpowder instead of a straw between which there cannot be much difference and then putting that the density of fire is to the density of Gunpowder as 1. to 125000. and that the density of the light we have here in the earth is to the density of that part of fire which is in the Suns body as the body of the Sun is to that body which is called Orbis magnus whose Semidiameter is the distance between the Sun and the Earth which must be in subtriple proportion of the Diameter of the Sun to the Diameter of the great Orb it follows that 125000. being multiplyed by the proportion of the great Orb to the Sun which Galileo tells us is as 106000000. to one will give a scantling of what degree of celerity light must have more then a corn of Gunpowder to recompence the excess of weight which is in a corn of Gunpowder above that which is in a ray of light as big as a corn of Gunpowder Which will amount to be much greater than the proportion of the Semediameter of Orbis magnuâ— to the Semidiameter of the corn of Gunpowder for if you reckon five grains of Gunpowder to a Barly-corns breadth and 12. of them in an inch and 12. inches in a foot and 3. feet in a pace and 1000. paces in a mile and 3500. miles in the Semidiameter of the earth and 1208. Semidiamiters of the earth in the Semidiameter of the Orbis magnus there will be in it but 913 2480000000. grains of Gunpowder whereas the other calculation makes light to be 13250000000000 times rarer then gunpowder which is almost ten times a greater proportion then the other And yet this celerity supplies but one of the two conditions wanting in light to make its percussions sensible namely density Now because the same velocity in a body of a lesser bulk doth not make so great a percussion as it doth in a bigger body and that the littleness of the least parts of bodies follows the proportion of their rarity this vast proportion of celerity must again be drawn into it self to supply for the excess in bigness that a corn of gunpowder hath over an atome of light and the product of this multiplication will be the celerity required to supply for both defects Which evidently shews it is impossible that a ray of light should make any sensible percussion though it be a body Especially considering that sense never takes notice of what is perpetually done in a moderate degree And therefore after this minute looking into all circumstances we need not have difficulty in allowing to light the greatest celerity imaginable and a percussion proportionate to such a celerity in so rare a body and yet not fear any violent effect from its blow unless it be condens'd and many parts of it be brought together to work as if they were but one As concerning the last objection that if light were a body It would be fanned by the wind we must consider what is the cause of a thing appearing to be moved and then examine what force that cause hath in light As for the first part we see that when a body is discern'd now in one place now in another then it appears to be moved And this we see happens also in light as when the Sun or a candle is carried or moves the light thereof in the body of the Candle or Sun seems to be moved along with it And the like is in a shining cloud or comet But to apply this to our purpose We must note that the intention of the objection is that the light which goes from the fire to an opacous body far distant without interruption of its continuity should seem to be jog'd or put out of its way by the wind that crosses it Wherein the first failing is that the Objector conceives light to send species to our eye from the midst of its line whereas with a little consideration he may perceive that no light is seen by us but that which is reflected from an opacous body to our eye so that the light he means in his objection is never seen at all Secondly 't is manifest that the light which strikes our eye strikes it in a straight line and seems to be at the end of that straight line wherever that is and so can never appear to be in another place but the light which we see in another place we conceive to be another light Which makes it again evident that the light can never appear to shake though we should suppose that light may be seen from the middle of its line for no part of wind or air can come into any sensible place in that middle of the line with such speed that new light from the sourcce doth not illuminate it sooner then it can be seen by us wherefore it will appear to us illuminated as being in that place and therefore the light can never appear shaken And lastly it is easier for the air or wind to destroy the light then to remove it out of its place wherefore it can never so remove it out of its place as that we should see it in another place But if it should remove it it would wrap it up within it self and hide it In conclusion after this long dispute concerning the nature of light If we consider well what hath been said on both sides
to which much more might be added but that we have already trespassed in length and I conceive enough is said to decide the matter an equal judge will find the ballance of the question to hang upon these termes that to prove the nature of light to be material corporeal are brought a company of accidents well known to be the proprieties of quantitie or bodies and as well known to be in light Even so far as that 't is manifest light in its beginning before it be dispersed is fire and if again it be gathered together it shews it self again to be fire And the receptacles of it are the receptacles of a body being a multitude of pores as the hardness and coldness of transparent things do give us to understand of which we shall hereafter have occasion to discourse On the contrary side whatever arguments are brought against lights being a body are only negative As that we see not any motion of light that we do not discern where the confines are between light and air that we see not room for both of them or for more lights to be together and the like which is to oppose negative proofs against affirmative ones and to build a doctrine upon the defect of our senses or upon the likeness of bodies which are extremely unlike expecting the same effects from the most subtile as from the most gross ones All which together with the authority of Aristotle his followers have turned light into darkness and made us almost deny the light of our own eyes Now then to take our leave of this important question let us return to the principles from whence we began and consider that Seeing Fire is the most rare of the Elements and very dry and that out of the former it hath that it may be cut into very small pieces and out of the later that it conserves its own figure and so is apt to divide what ever fluid body and joyning to these two principles that it multiplies extremely in its source It must of necessity follow that it sends out in great multitudes little small parts into the air and other bodies circumfused with great dilatation in a spherical manner And likewise that these little parts are easily broken and new ones still following the former are still multiplyed in straight lines from the place where they break Out of which 't is evident that of necessity it must in a manner fill all places and that no sensible place is so little but that fire wil be found in it if the medium be capacious As also that its extreme least parts will be very easily swallow'd up in the parts of the air which are humid and by their enfolding be as it were quite lost so as to lose the appearance of fire Again that in its reflections it will follow the nature of grosser bodies and have glidings like them which is that we call refractions That little streamings from it will cross one another in excessive great numbers in an unsensible part of space without hindering one another That its motion will be quicker then sense can judge of and therefore will seem to move in an instant or to stand still as in a stagnation That if there be any bodies so porous with little and thick pores as that the pores arrive near to equalling the substance of the body then such a body will be so fill'd with these little particles of fire that it will appear as if there were no stop in its passage but were all filled with fire and yet many of these little parts will be reflected And whatever qualities else we find in light we shall be able to derive them out of these principles and shew that fire must of necessity do what experience teaches us that light doth That is to say in one word it will shew us that fire is light But if fire be light then light must needs be fire And so we leave this matter CHAP. IX Of Local motion in common THough in the fifth Chapter we made only earth the pretender in the controversie aginst fire for superiority in activity and in very truth the greatest force of gravity appears in those bodies which are eminently earthy nevertheless both water and air as appears out of the 4. Chapter of the Elements do agree with earth in having gravity and gravity is the chief virtue to make them efficients So that upon the matter this plea is common to all the three Elements Wherfore to explicate this virtue wherby these three weighty Elements work let us call to mind what we said in the beginning of the last Chapter concerning local motion to wit that according as the body moved or the divider did more and more enter into the divided body so it joyn'd it self to some new parts of the Medium or divided body and did in like manner forsake others Whence it happens that in every part of motion it possesses a greater part of the Medium then it self can fill at once And because by the limitation and confinedness of every magnitude to just what it is and no more 't is impossible that a lesser body should at once equalize a greater it followes that this division or motion whereby a body attains to fill a place bigger then it self must be done successively that is it must first fill one part of the place it moves in then another and so proceed on till it have measur'd it self with every part of the place from the first beginning of the line of motion to the last period of it where the body rests By which discourse it is evident that there cannot in nature be a strength so great as to make the least or quickest moveable that is to pass in an instant or all together over the least place that can be imagin'd for that would make the moved body remaining what it is in regard of its bigness to equallize and fit a thing bigger then it is Therfore it is manifest that motion must consist of such parts as have this nature that whiles one of them is in being the others are not yet and as by degrees every new one comes to be all the others that were before do vanish and cease to be Which circumstance accompanying motion we call Succession And whatever is so done is said to be done in time which is the common measure of all succession For the change of situation of the Stars but especally of the Sun and Moon is observ'd more or less by all mankind and appears alike to every man and being the most known constant and uniform succession that men are used to is as it were by nature it self set in their way and offer'd them as fittest to estimate and judge all other particular successions by comparing them both to it and among themselves by it And accordingly we see all men naturally measure all other successions and express their quantities by comparing them to the
bodies are framed Out of which discourse we may ballance the degrees of solidity in bodies For all bodies being composed of humide and dry parts we may conceive either kind of those parts to be bigger or lesser or to be more rare or more dense Now if the dry parts of any body be extreme little and dense and the moist parts that joyn the dry ones together be very great and rare then that body will be very easie to be dissolv'd But if the moist parts which glew together such extreme little and dense dry parts be either lesser in bulk or not so rare then the body composed of them will be in a stronger degree of consistence And if the moist parts which serve for this effect be in an excess of littleness and withal dense then the body they compose will be in the highest degree of consistence that nature can frame On the other side if you glew together great dry parts which are moderately dense great by the admixtion of humid parts that are of the least size in bulk and dense withal then the consistence will decrease from its height by how much the parts are greater and the density less But if to dry parts of the greatest size and in the greatest remisness of density you add humid parts both very great and very rare then the composed body will prove the most easily dissolveable of all that nature affords After this casting our eyes a little further towards the composition of particular bodies we shall find still greater mixtures the further we go for as the first and simplest compounded bodies are made of the four Elements so others are made of these and again a third sort of them and so on-wards according as by motion the parts of every one are broken in sunder and mingled with others Those of the first order must be of various tempers according to the proportions of the Elements whereof they are immediatly made As for example such a proportion of Fire to the other three Elements will make one kind of simple body and another proportion will make another kind and so throughout by various combinations and proportions among all the Elements In the effecting of which work it will not be amiss to look a little upon nature and observe how she mingles and tempers different bodies one with another wherby she begets that great variety of creatures we see in the World But because the degrees of composition are infinite according to the encrease of number we will contain our selves within the common notions of excess in the four primary components for if we should descend once to specifie any determinate proportions we should endanger losing our selvs in a wood of particular natures which belong not to us at present to examin Then taking the four Elements as materials to work upon let us first consider how they may be varied that differing compositions may result out of their mixtures I conceive that all the ways of varying the Elements in this regard may be reduced to the several sizes of Bigness of the Parts of each Element that enter into the composition of any body and to the Number of those Parts for certainly no other can be imagin'd unless it were variety of Figure But that cannot be admited to belong in any constant manner to those least particulars wherof bodies are framed as if determinate figures were in every degree of quantity due to the natures of Elements and therfore the Elements would conserve themselves in those figures as well in their least atoms as massie bulk For seeing how these little parts are shuffled together without any order and that all liquids easily joyn and take the figures which the dense ones give them and that they again justling one another crush themselves into new shapes to which their mixture with the liquid ones makes them yield the more easily t is impossible the elements should have any other natural figure in these their least parts then such as chance gives them But that one part must be bigger then another is evident for the nature of rarity and density gives it the first of them causing divisibility into little parts and the latter hindring it Having then settled in what manner the Elements may be varied in the composition of bodies let us now begin our mixture In which our ground to work upon must be Earth and Water For only these two are the Basis of permanent bodies that suffer our senses to take hold of them and submit themselvs to trial Wheras if we should make the predominant Element to be Air or Fire and bring in the other two solid ones under their jurisdiction only to make up the mixture the compound resulting out of them would be either in continual consumption as ordinary fire is or else through too much subtlety imperceptible to our eyes or touch therfore not a fit subject for us to discourse of especially since the other two Elements afford us enough to speculate on Peradventure our Smel might take some cognisance of a body so composed or the effect of it taken in by respiration might in time shew it self upon our health but it concerns not us now to look so far our design requires more maniable substances Of these then let Water be the first and with it we will mingle the other three elements in excess over one another by turns but stil all of them oversway'd by a predominant quantity of water and then let us see what kind of bodies will result out of such proportions First if earth prevail above fire and air and arrive next in proportion to the water a body of such a composition must needs prove hardly liquid and not easie to let its parts run a sunder by reason of the great proportion of so dense a body as earth that holds it together Yet some inclination it will have to fluidness by reason the water is predominant over all which also will make it be easily divisible and give every little resistance to any hard thing that shall be apply'd to make way through it In a word this mixture makes the constitution of Mud Dirt Honey Butter and such like things where the main parts are great ones And such are the parts of earth and water in themselvs Let the next proportion of excess in a watry compound be of air which when it prevails incorporates it self chiefly with earth for the other Elements would not so well retain it Now because its parts are subtile by reason of the rarity it hath and sticking because of its humidity it drives the earth and water likewise into lesser parts The result of such a mixture is that the parts of a body compounded by it are close catching flowing slowly glibb and generally it will burn and be easily converted into flame Of this kind are those we call Oyly or unctuous bodies whose great parts are easily separated that is easily divisible
shake notably in a fierce wind The reason of all which may be deduced out of what we have said above For since the bending of a body makes the spirits or humours within it to sally forth 't is clear if the violence which forces it be not so sudden nor the motion it receives so quick but that the moisture may oose gently out the body will bend stil more and more as their absence gives it leave But if the motion wrought in it be too quick then the spirits not having time allow'd them to go leisurely and gently out force their prison and break out with a violence and so the body is snap'd in two Here peradventure some remembring what we have said in another place namly that it is the shortness and littleness of the humid parts in a body which makes it stick together and that this shortness may be in so high a degree as nothing can come between the parts they glew together to divide them may ask how a very dense body of such a strain can be broken or divided But the difficulty is not great for since the humid parts in whatever degree of shortness they be must necessarily have stil some latitude it cannot be doubted but there may be some force assign'd greater then their resistance can be All the question is how to apply it to work its effect upon so close a compacted body in which peradventure the continuity of the humid parts that bind the others together may be so small as no other body whatever no not fire can go between them so as to separate part from part At the worst it cannot be doubted but that the force may be so apply'd at the outside of that body as to make the parts of it press and fight one against another and at length by multiplication of the force constrain it to yield and suffer division And this I conceive to be the condition of gold and some precious stones in which the elements are united by such little parts as nothing but a civil war within themselvs stir'd up by some subtile outward enemy wherby they are made to tear their own bowels could bring to passe their destruction But this way of dissolving such bodies more properly belongs to the next way of working upon them by fire yet the same is done when some exteriour violence pressing upon those parts it touches makes them cut a way betwixt their next neighbours and so continuing the force divide the whole body As when the chisel or even the hammer with beating breaks gold asunder for it is neither the chisel nor the hammer that doth that effect immediately but they make those parts they touch cut the others that they are forced upon As I remember hap'ned to a Gentleman that stood by me in a Sea-fight I was in with a coat of mail upon his body when a bullet coming against a bony part in him made a great wound and shatter'd all the bones near where it struck and yet the coat of mail was whole it seems the little links of the mail yielding to the bullets force made their way into the flesh and to the bone But now 't is time to come to the other two instuments of separation of bodies Fire and water and to examine how they dissolve compounds Of these two the way of working of fire is the easiest and most apparant to be discerned We may readily observe how it proceeds if we but set a piece of wood on fire in which it makes little holes as if with bodkins it pierced it So that the manner of its operation in common being plain we need but reflect a little upon the several particular degrees of it Some bodies it seems not to touch as clothes made of Asbestus which are only purifyed by it Others it melts but consumes not as gold Others it turns into powder suddenly dissolving their body as lead and such metalls as are calcined by pure fire Others again it separates into a greater number of differing parts as into Spirits Waters Oyls Salt Earth and Glass of which rank are all vegetables And lastly others it converts into pure fire as strong Waters or Aquavites called Aquae ardentes and some pure Oyls for the smoak that is made by their setting on fire and peradventure their salt is so little as is scarce discernable These are in sum the divisions which fire makes upon bodies according to their nature and its due application to them for by the help and mediation of other things it may peradventure work other effects Now to examine a little in particular how the same fire in differing subjects produces such different effects Limus ut hic durescit haec ut câ—ra liquescit Uno eodemque igni We will consider the nature of every one of the subjects apart by it self First for the Asbestus 't is clear it is of a very dry substance so that to look upon it when it is broken into very little pieces they seem to be little bundles of short hairs the liquidity within being so little as it affords the parts neither length nor breadth and therefore fire meets with little there that it can dilate But what it cannot dilate it cannot separate nor carry away any thing of it but what is accidentally adherent to the outsides of it And so it seems only to pass through the pores and cleanse the little thrids but brings no detriment at all to the substance of it In this I speak only of an ordinary fire for I doubt not but such a one it might be as would perfectly calcine it The next body we spake of is Gold This abounds so much in liquidity that it stickes to the fire if duly apply'd but its humidity is so well united to its earthy parts and so perfectly incorporated with them as it cannot carry away one without both but both are too heavy a weight for the little agile parts of fire to remove Thus it is able to make Gold swell as we see in melting it in which the Gold receives the fire into its bowels and retains it a long time with it but at its departure it permits the fire to carry nothing away upon its wings as is apparant by the Golds no whit decay of weight after never so long fusion And therefore to have fire make any separation in Gold requires the assistance of some other moist body that on the one side may stick closely to the Gold when the fire drives it into it and on the othe rside may be capable of dilatation by the action of the fire upon it As in some sort we see in Strong Waters made of Salts being a proper subject for the fire to dilate which by the assistance of fire mingling themselves closely with little parts of the Gold pull them away from their whole substance and force them to bear them company in their journey upwards in which multitudes of little parts of fire
continual application to the body it thus anatomises hath harden'd as it were rosted some parts into such greatness and driness as they will not flie nor can be carried up with any moderate heat But great quantity of fire being mingled with the subtiler parts of his baked earth makes them very pungent and acrimonious in tast so that they are of the nature of ordinary Salt and so called and by the help of water may easily be separated from the more gross parts which then remain a dead and useless earth By this discourse 't is apparent that fire has been the instrument which hath wrought all these parts of an entire body into the forms they are in for whiles it carried away the fiery parts it swel'd the watry ones and whiles it lifted up them it digested the Aerial parts and whiles it drove up the Oyle it baked the earth and salt Again all these retaining for the most part the proper nature of the substance from whence they are extracted 't is evident that the substance is not dissolv'd for so the nature of the whole would be dissolv'd and quite destroy'd extinguish'd in every part but that onely some parts containing the whole substance or rather the nature of the whole substance in them are separated fromo ther parts that have likewise the same nature in them The third instrument for the separation and dissolution of bodies is Water whose proper matter to work upon is Salt and it serves to supply what the fire could not perform which is the separation of the salt from the earth in calcined bodies All the other parts fire was able to sever but in these he hath so baked the little humidity he hath left in them with their much earth as he cannot divide them any further and so though he incorporates himself with them yet he can carry nothing away with him If then pure water be put upon that chalk the subtilest dry parts of it easily joyn to the supervenient moysture and sticking close to it draw it down to them But because they are the lighter it happens to them as when a man in a boat pulls the land to him that comes not to him but he removes himself and his boat to it so these ascend in the water as they dissolve And the water more and more penetrating them and by addition of its parts making the humidity which glews their earthy parts together greater and greater makes a wider and wider separation between those little earthy parts and so imbues the whole body of the water with them into which they are dispersed in little atomes Those that are of biggest bulk remain lowest in the water and in the same measure as their quantities dissolve into less and less they ascend higher and higher till at length the water is fully replenish'd with them and they are diffused through the whole body of it whiles the more gross and heavy earthy parts having nothing in them to make a present combination between them and the water fall down to the bottome and settle under the water in dust In which because earth alone predominates in a very great excess we can expect no other virtue to be in it but that which is proper to mere earth to wit driness and weight Which ordinary Alchimists look not after and therfore call it Terra damnata but others find a fixing quality in it by which they perform very admirable operations Now if you prove the impregnated water from the Terra damnata and then evaporate it you will find a pure white substance remaining Which by its bulk shews it self to be very earthy and by its pricking and corrasive taste will inform you much fire is in it and by its easie dissolution in a moist place that water had a great share in the production of it And thus the salts of bodies are made and extracted Now as water dissolves salt so by the incorporation and virtue of that corrosive substance it doth more then salt it self can do for having gotten acrimony and more weight by the mixture and dissolution of salt in it it makes it self away into solide bodies even into metalls as we see in brass and iron which are easily rusted by salt dissolving upon them And according as the salts are stronger so this corrasive virtue encreases in them even so much as neither silver nor gold are free from their eating quality But they as well as the rest are divided into most small parts and made to swim in water in such sort as we have explicated above and wherof every ordinary Alchymist teaches the practise But this is not all salts help as well to melt hard bodies and metalls as to corrode them For fome fusible salts flowing upon them by the heat of the fire and others dissolv'd by the steam of the metal that incorporates with them as soon as they are in flux mingle with the natural juice of the metals and penetrate deeper then without them the fire could do and swell them and make them fit to run These are the principal ways of the two last instruments in dissolving of bodies taking each of them by it self But there remains one more of very great importance as well in the works of nature as of art in which both the former are joyned and concur and that is putrefaction Whose way of working is by gentle heat and moisture to wet and pierce the body it works upon wherby 't is made to swel and the hot parts of it being loosen'd they are at length drunk up and drown'd in the moist ones from whence by fire they are easily separated as we have already declared and those moist parts afterwards leaving it the substance remaines dry and falls in pieces for want of the glew that held it together CHAP. XVI An explication of certain Maxims touching the operations and qualities of bodies and whether the Elements be found pure in any part of the World OUt of what we have determin'd concerning the natural actions of bodies in their making and destroying one another 't is easie to understand the right meaning of some terms and the true reason of some maxims much used in the Schools As first when Philosophers attribute to all sorts of corporeal Agents a Sphere of Activity The sense of that manner of expression in fire appears plainly by what we have already declared of the nature and manner of operation of that Element And in like manner if we consider how the force of cold consists in a compression of the body that is made cold we may perceive that if in the cooled body there be any subtile parts which can break forth from the rest such compression wil make them do so Especially if the compression be of little parts of the compressed body within themselvs as well as of the outward bulk of the whole body round about For at first the compression of such causes in the body
therof as we see in wet Hay or Flax laid together in great quantity And if they be not capable of taking fire then they carry them with them to the outside when they can transport them no further part flies away other part staies with them as we see in new Bear or Ale and in must of wine in which a substance usually call'd the mother is wrought up to the top Which in wine wil at the last be converted into Tartar when the spirits that are very volatile are flown away and leave those parts from whence they have evaporated more gross and earthy then the others where the grosser and subtiler parts continue still mixed but in Beer or rather in ale this mother which in them we call Barm wil continue longer in the same consistence and with the same qualities for the spirits of it are not so fiery that they must presently leave the body they have incorporated themselvs with nor are hot enough to bake it into a hard consistence And therfore Bakers make use of it to raise their bread which neither will it do unless it be kept from cold both which are evident signs that it works in force of heat and consequently that it continues still a hot and light substance And again we see that after wine or beer hath wrought once a violent motion wil make it work a new As is daily seen in great lightnings and in thunder and by much rocking of them For such motion rarifies and consequently heats them partly by separating the little parts of the liquor which were before as glew'd together therfore lay quietly but now by their pulling a sunder and the liquors growing therby more loose then it was they have freedom to play up and down and partly by beating one part against another which breaks and divides them into lesser atomes and so brings some of them into the state of fire which you may remember is nothing else but a body brought into such a degree of littleness and rarity of its parts And this is the reason why such hard and dry bodies as have an unctuous substance in them are by motion either easily set on fire or at least fire is easily goten out of them As happens in flints and divers other stones which yields fire when they are strucken and if presently after you smel to them you shall perceive an odour of brimstone and burning which is a certain signe that the motion converted into fire the natural Brimstone that was mingled withthe Flint whose denser parts were grown cold and so stuck to the stone And in like manner the Ivywood and divers others as also the Indian Canes which from thence are called Firecanes being rub'd with some other stick of the same nature if they be first very dry will of themselvs set on fire and the like will happen to Coach-wheels in in the Summer if they be overheated with motion To conclude our discourse of Rarefaction we may look a little into the power and efficacity of it which is no where to be seen so clearly as in fire And as fire is the general cause of rarefaction so is it of all bodies the most rarified And therfore 't is no marvel if its effects be the greatest that are in nature seeing 't is the proper operation of the most active Element The wonderful force of it we daily see in Thunder in Guns in Granado's in Mines of which continual experience as well as several Histories witnesse little less then miracles Leaving them to the remarks of curious persons we wil only look into the way by which so main effects proceed from causes that appear so slender 'T is evident that fire as we have said before dilates it self spherically as nature shews us manifestly in bubbles of boyling water and Milk and generally of such substances as are of a viscuous composition for those bubbles being round assure us that the cause which made them did equally dilate them from the Centre to all parts Now then remembring the infinite multiplication which is in fire we may conceive that when a grain of Gun-powder is turn'd into it there are so many little bubbles of a viscuous substance one backing another with great celerity as there are parts of fire more then there were of Gun-powder And if we make a computation of the number and celerity of these bubbles we shall find that although every one of them single seem to be of an inconsiderable force yet the whole number of them together will exceed the resistance of the body move or broken by them especially if we note that when hard substances have not time allow'd them to yield they break the sooner And then we shall not so much admire the extremities we see acted by these means Thus having look'd into the nature of Rarefaction and trac'd the progress of it from the motion of the Sun fire in the next place we are to examine the nature of Condensation And we shall oftentimes find it likewise aneffect of the same cause otherwise working For there being two different ways to dry any wet thing one by taking away that juyce which makes a body liquid the other by putting more drought to the wet body that it may imbibe the moisture this latter way doth as well as the former condense a body for by the close sticking of wet to dry the most part of condensation is effected in compounded bodies The first of these wayes properly and immediately proceeds from heat For heat entring into a body incorporates it self with the moist and viscuous parts it findes there as purging medicines do with humour they work on which when the stomack can no longer entertain by reason of their unruly motions in wrestling together they are both ejected grappling with one another and the place of their contention is thus by the supervenience of a guest of a contrary nature that will not stay long there purged from the superabundance of the former ones that annoy'd it Even so the fire that is greedily drunk up by the watry and viscuous parts of a compounded body and whose activity and restless nature will not endure to be long imprisoned there quickly pierces quite through the body it enters into and after a while streams out at an opposite side as fast as it enters on the side next to it and carries away with it those glewy parts it is incorporated with and by their absence leaves the body they paâ—t from dryer then at the first it was Which course we may observe in Syrops that are boyl'd to a consistence and in broths that are consumed to a jelly over which whiles they are making by the fire under them you see a great steam which is the watry parts that being incorporated with fire fly away in smoke Likewise when the sea-sea-water is condens'd into salt you see it is an effect of the Sun or fire that exhales or boyls
is drawn the more must needs follow Now if there be floating in this air any other atoms subject to the current which the air takes they must also come with it to the fire and by it be rarified and exported out of that little orb Hence it is that men with very good reason hold that fire airs a chamber as we term it that is purifies it both because it purifies it as wind doth by drawing a current of air into it that sweeps through it or by making it purifie it self by motion as a stream of water doth by running as also because those vapours which approach the fire are burned dissolv'd So that the air being noisome and unwholesome by reason of its grossness proceeding from its standing unmoved like a stagnation of dead water in a marish place the fire takes away that cause of annoyance By this very rule we learn that other hot things which participate the nature of fire must likewise in other respects have a resemblance in this quality And accordingly we see that hot loaves in a Bakers shop newly drawn out of the Oven are accounted to draw to them any infection which is in the air The like we say of onyons and other strong breathing substances which by their smel shew much heat in them In like manner 't is conceiv'd that Pigeons and Rabbets and Cats easily take infection by reason of their extraordinary warmth which they have in themselvs And this is confirm'd by the practise of Physitians who use to lay warm Pigeons newly killed to the feet wrists or heads of sick persons and young Puppies to their stomacks and somtimes certain hot gums to their navels to draw out such vapours or humours as infest the body for the same reason they hang amulets of arsenick sublimate dryed Toads or Spiders about their patients necks to draw to them venimous qualities from their bodie Hence also it is that if a man be strucken by a Viper or a Scorpion they use to break the body of the beast it self that stung him if they can get it upon the wound but if the beast be crawl'd out of their finding they do the like by some other venimous creature as I have seen a bruised Toad laid to the biting of a Viper And they manifestly perceive the apply'd body to swel with the Poyson suck'd out from the wound the patient to be reliev'd have less poyson in the same manner as by cupping-glasses the poyson is likewise drawn out from the wound so that you may see the reason of both is the very same or at least very like one another Only we are to note that the proper body of the beast out of which the venome was driven into the wound is more efficacious than any other to suck it out And the like is to be observ'd in all other kinds that such vapours as are to be drawn come better and incorporate faster in bodies of like nature then in those which have only the common conditions of heat and dryness the one of which serves to attract the other to fasten and incorporate into itself the moisture which the first draws to it So we see that water soaks into a dry body whence it was extracted almost inseparably and is hidden in it as when it rains first after hot weather the ground is presently dried after the shower Likewise we see that in most cements you must mingle a dust of the nature of the things which are to be cemented if you will have them bind strongly Out of this discourse we may yield a reason for those Magical operations which some attribute to the Devils assistance peradventure because mans wickedness hath bin more ingenious then his good will and so has found more means to hurt then to help nay when he hath arrived some way to help those very helps have undergone the same calumny because of the likeness which their operations have to the others Without doubt very unjustly if there be truth in the effects For where have we any such good suggestions of the enemy of mankind proposed to us that we may with reason believe he would duly settledly and constantly concur to the help and service of all those he so much hates as he must needs do if he be the Author of such effects Or is it not a wrong to Almighty God and to his careful instruments rather to impute to the Devil the aids which to some may seem supernatural then to them of whom we may justly believe and expect such good Offices and assistances I mean those operations both good and bad which ordinarily are called Magnetical though peradventure wrongfully as not having that property whcih denominates the loadstone One thing I may assure that if the reports be true they have the perfect imitation of nature in them As for example that the Weapons-Salve or the Sympathetick-Powder requires in the using it to be conserved in an equal moderate temper and that the weapon which made the wound or the cloth upon which the blood remains that issued from it be orderly and frequently dressed or else the wounded person will not be cured Likewise the steam or spirits which at the giving of the wound enter'd into the pores of the weapon must not be driven out of it which will be done by fire and so when it is heated by holding over coals you may see a moisture sweat out of the blade at the opposite side to the fire as far as it entred into the wounded persons body which being once all sweated out you shall see no more the like steam upon the sword neither must the blood be washed out of the bloudy cloth for in these cases the powder or salve will work nothing Likewise if there be any excess either of heat or cold in keeping the medicated weapon or cloth the patient feels that as he would do if the like excess where in any remedy that were applyed to the wound it self Likewise if the medicated weapon or bloudy cloth be kept too close no effect follows Likewise the natures of the things used in these cures are of themselves soveraign for healing the like griefs though peradventure too violent if they were apply'd in body without much attenuation And truly if we will deny all effects of this kind we must in a manner renounce all humane faith men of all sorts and qualities and many of them such in my own knowledge as I cannot question their prudence in observing or their sincerity in relating having very frequently made experience of such medicines and all affirming after one fashion to have found the same effects Adde to these the multitude of other like effects appearing or conceited to appear in other things In some Countries 't is a familiar disease with Kine to have a swelling in the soles of their feet and the ordinary cure is to cut a turf upon which they have troden with their sore foot and to hang
refraction 6. An answer to the arguments brought in favour of Monsieur des Cartes his opinion 7. The true cause of refraction of light both at its entrance and at its going out from the refleing body 8. A general rule to know the nature of reflection and refractions in all sorts of surface 9. A body of greater parts and greater pores makes a greater refraction than one of lesser parts and lesser pores 10. A confirmation of the former doctrine out of the nature of bodies that refract light CHAP. XIV Of the composition qualities Generation of mixed Bodies 1. The connexion of this chapter with the rest and the Authours intent in it 2. That there is a least sise of bodies and that this least sise is found in fire 3. The first conjunction of parts is in bodies of least sise and it is made by the force of Quantity 4. The second sort of conjunction is compactedness in simple Elements and it proceeds from density 5. The third conjunction is of parts of different Elements and it proceeds from quantity and density together 6. The reason why liquid bodies do easily joyn together and dry ones difficultly 7. That no two hard bodies can touch one another immediately 8. How mixed bodies are framed in general 9. The cause of the several degrees of solidity in mixed bodies 10. The Rule whereto are reduced all the several combinations of Elements in compounding of mixed bodies 11. Earth and water are the basis of all permanent mixed bodies 12. What kind of bodies those are where water is the basis and earth the predominant Element over the other two 13. Of those bodies where water being the basis air is the predominant Element 14. What kind of bodies result where water is the basis and fire the predominant Element 15. Of those bodies where water is in excess it alone being both the basis and the predominant Element 16. Of those bodies where earth alone is the basis and also the predominant in excess over the other three Elements 17. Of those bodies where earth is the basis water is the predominant element over the other two 18. Of those bodies where earth being the basis air is the predominant 19. Of those bodies where earth being the basis fire is the predominant 20. All the second qualities of mixed bodies arise from several combinations of the first qualities and are at last resolv'd into several degrees of rarity density 21. That in the Planets Stars there is a like variety of mixed bodies caused by light as here on earth 22. In what manner the Elements work on one another in the composition of mixed bodies and in particular fire which is the most active 23. A particular declaration touching the generation of Metals CHAP. XV. Of the Dissolution of Mixed Bodies 1. Why some bodies are brittle and others tough or apt to withstand outward violence the first instrument to dissolve mixed bodies 2. How outward violence doth work on the most compacted bodies 3. The several effects of fire the second and chiefest instrument to dissolve all compounded bodies 4. The reason why some bodies are not dissolved by fire 5. The reason why fire melteth gold but cannot consume it 6. Why Lead is easily consumed and calcinted by fire 7. Why and how some bodies are divided by fire into Spirits Waters Oyls Salts and Earth And what those parts are 8. How water the third instrument to dissolve bodies dissolvs calx into salt and so into terra damnata 9. How water mingled with salt becomes a most powerful Agent to dissolve other bodies 10. How putrefaction is caused CHAP. XVI An Explication of certain Maxims touching the operations and qualies of bodies and whether the Elements be found pure in any part of the world 1. What is the Sphere of activity in corporeal agents 2. The reason why no body can work in distance 3. An objection answer'd against the manner of explicating the former axiome 4. Of re-action and first in pure local motion that each Agent must suffer in acting and act in suffering 5. The former Doctrine applyed to other local motions design'd by particular names And that Suisseths argument is of no force against this way of doctrine 6. Why some notions do admit of intension and remission and others not 7. That in every part of our habitable world all the four elements are found pure in small atoms but not in any great bulk CHAP. XVII Of Rarefaction and Condensation the two first motions of Particular bodies 1. The Authours intent in this and the following chapters 2. That bodies may be rarified both by outward and inward heart and how this is perform'd 3. Of the great effects of Rarefaction 4. The first manner of condensation by heat 5. The second manner of condensation by cold 6. That Ice is not water rarified but condensed 7. How Wind Snow and Hail are made and wind by rain allaid 8. How parts of the same or divers bodies are joyn'd more strongly together by condensation 9. Vacuities cannot be the reason why water impregnated to the full with one kind of salt will notwithstanding receive more of another 10. The true reason of the former effect 11. The reason why bodies of the same nature do joyn more easily together than others CHAP. XVIII Of another motion belonging to Particular bodies called Attraction and of certain operations term'd Magical 1. What Attraction is and from whence it proceeds 2. The true sense of the Maxime that Nature abhors from vacuitys 3. The true reason of attraction 4. Water may be brought by the force of attraction to what height soever 5. The doctrine touching the attraction of water in Syphons 6. That the Syphon doth not prove water to weigh in its own orb 7. Concerning attraction caus'd by fire 8. Concerning attraction made by virture of hot bodies amulets c 9. The natural reason given for divers operations esteem'd by some to be magical CHAP. XIX Of three other motions belonging to particular bodies Filtration Restitution and Electrical attraction 1. What is Filtration and how it is effected 2. What causes the water in Filtration to ascend 3. Why the filter will not drop unless the label hang lower than the water 4. Of the motion of Restitution and why some bodies stand bent others not 5. Why some bodies return only in part to their natural figure others entirely 6. Concerning the nature of those bodies which shrink aand stretch 7. How great and wonderful effects proceed from small plain and simple principles 8. Concerning Electrical attratâ—on and the causes of it 9. Cabeus his opinion refuted concerning the cause of Electrical motions CHAP. XX. Of the Loadstones generation and its particulas motions 1. The extreme heat of the Sun under the Zodiack draws a stream of air from each Pole into the torrid Zone 2. The atomes of these two streams coming together are apt to incorporate with one another 3. By the meeting and mingling together
of this subject but to enumerate the several specieses of Quantity according to that division which Logitians for more facilitie of discourse have made of it Namely these six Magnitude Place Motion Time Number and Weight Of which the two first are Permanent and lie still exposed to the pleasure of whoever has a mind to take a survey of them Which he may doe by measuring what parts they are divisible into how many ells feet inches a thing is long broad or deep how great a place is whether it be not biger or lesser then such another and by such considerations as these which all agree in this that they express the essence of those two Specieses of Quantity to consist in a Capacity of being divided into parts The two next Motion and Time though they be of a fleeting propriety yet 't is evident that in regard of their original and essential nature they are nothing else but a like divisibility into parts which is measured by passing over so great or so little distance and by years days hours minutes and the like Number we also see is of the same nature for it is divisible into so many determinate parts and is measured by unities or by lesser numbers so or so often contain'd in a proposed greater And the like is evident of Weight which is divisible into pounds ounces drams or grains and by them is measured So that looking over all the several specieses of Quantitie 't is evident our definition of it is a true one and expresses fully the essence of it when we say it is Divisibilitie or a Capacitie to be divided into parts and that no other notion whatever besides this reaches the nature of of it CHAP. III. Of Rarity and Density I Intend in this Chapter to look as far as I can into the nature and causes of the two first differences of Bodies which follow out of Quantity as it concurs with Substance to make a Body for the discovery of them and of the various proportions of them among themselves will be a great and important step in the journey we are going But the scarcity of our language is such in subjects remov'd from ordinary conversation though in others I think none is more copious or expressive as affords us not apt words of our own to express significantly such notions as I must busie my self about in this discourse therefore I will presume to borrow them from the Latine School where there is much adoe about them I would express the difference between bodies that under the same measures and outward bulk have a greater thinness and expansion or thickness and solidity one than another which terms or any I can find in English do not signifie fully those differences of Quantity which I intend here to declare therefore I will do it under the names of Rarity and Density the true meaning of which will appear by what we shall hereafter say 'T is evident to us that there are different sorts of Bodies of which though you take equal quantities in one regard yet they will be unequal in another Their magnitudes may be the same but their weights will be different or contrarywise their weights being equal their outward measures will not be so Take a pinte of Air and weigh it against a pinte of Water and you will see the ballance of the last go down amain but if you drive out the Aire by filling the pinte with Lead the other pinte in which the Water is will rise again as fast which if you pour out and fill that pinte with Quicksilver you will perceive the Lead to be much lighter and again you will find a pinte of Gold heavier then so much Mercury And in like manner if you take away of the heavy bodies till they agree in weight with the lighter they wil take up fill different proportions and parts of the measure that shall contain them But whence this effect arises is the difficulty we would lay open Our measures tel us their quantities are equal and reason assures us there cannot be two bodies in one and the same place therfore when we see a pinte of one thing outweighs a pinte of another that is thiner we must conclude there is more body compacted together in the heavy thing than in the light for else how could so little of a solid or dense thing be stretch'd out to take up so great room as we see in a basin of water that being rarified into smoke or air fills the whole chamber and again shrink back into so little room as when it returns into water or is contracted into ice But how this comprehension of more body in equal room is effected doth not a little trouble Philosophers To find a way that may carry us through these difficulties arising out of the Rarity and Density of Bodies let us do as Astronomers when they inquire the motions of the Spheres and Planets they take all the Phenomena or several appearances of them to our eyes and then attribute to them such Orbs courses and periods as may square and fit with every one of them and by supposing them they can exactly calculate all that will ever after happen to them in their motions So let us take into our consideration the chief properties of rare and dense bodies and then cast with our selvs to find out an hypothesis or supposition if it be possible that may agree with them all First it seems to us that dense bodies have their parts more close and compacted than others have that are more rare and subtile Secondly they are more heavy than rare ones Again the rare are more easily divided than the dense bodies for water oyl milk honey and such like substances will not only yield easily to any harder thing than shall make its way through them but they are so apt to division and to lose their continuity that their own weights will overcome and break it wheras in iron gold marble and such dense bodies a much greater weight and force is necessary to work that effect And indeed if we look wel into it we shall find that the rarer things are as divisible in a lesser Quantity as the more dense are in a greater and the same force will break the rarer thing into more and lesser parts than it will an equal one that is more dense Take a Stick of light wood of such a bigness that being a foot long you may break it with your hands and another of the same bigness but of a more heavy and compacted wood and you shall not break it though it be two foot long and with equal force you may break a loaf of bread into more and less parts then a lump of lead that is of the same bigness Which also will resist more to the division of Fire the subtillest divider that is then so much water will For the little atomes of fire which we shall discourse on hereafter
compounded one will be gathered into one place and those of divers kinds into divers places which is the notion whereby Aristotle hath express'd the nature of heat and is an effect which daily experience in burning and boiling teaches us to proceed from heat And therefore we cannot doubt but such extreme rare bodies are as well hot as dry On the other side if a Dense thing be apply'd to a compound it will because it is weighty press it together and if that application be continu'd on all sides so that no part of the body that is pressed be free from the siege of the dense body that presses it it will form it into a narrower room and keep in the parts of it not permitting any of them to slip out So that what things soever it finds within its power to master be they light or heavy or of what contrary nature soever it compresses them as much as it can and draws them into a less compass and holds them strongly together making them stick fast to one another Which effect Aristotle took for the proper notion of cold and therefore gave for definition of the nature of it that it gathers things of divers natures and experience shews us in freezing and all great coolings that this effect proceds from cold But if we examine which of the two sorts of dense bodies the fluide or the consistent is most efficacious in this operation we shall find that the less dense one is more capable of being apply'd round about the body it shall besiege and therefore will stop closer every little hole and more easily send subtile parts into every little vein of it and by consequence shrink it up together and coagulate and constringe it more strongly then a body can that is extremely dense which by reason of its great density and the stubbornness of its parts cannot so easily bend and ply them to work this effect And therefore a body that is immoderately dense is colder then another that is so in excess since cold is an active or working power and that which is less dense excells in working On the contrary side rare bodies being hot because their subtile parts environing a compounded body will sink into the pores of it and to their power separate its parts it follows that those wherein the gravity overcomes the rarity are less hot then such others as are in the extremity and highest excess of rarity both because the former are not able to pierce so little parts of the resisting dense body as extreme rare ones are and likewise because they more easily take ply by the obstacle of the solid ones they meet with then these do So that out of this discourse we gather that of such bodies as differ precisely by the proportion of Rarity and Density those which are extremely rare are in the excesse of heat and are dry withall that weighty rare bodies are extremely humid and meanly hot that fluide dense bodies are moist though not in such excess as rare ones that are so but are coldest of any and lastly that extreme dense bodies are less cold then fluide dense ones and that they are dry But whether the extreme dense bodies be more or less dry then such as are extremely rare remains yet to be decided Which we shall easily do if we but reflect that it is density which makes a thing hard to be divided and rarity makes it easie for a facility to yeeld to division is nothing else but a pliableness in the thing that is to be divided wherby it easily receives the figure which the thing that divides it doth cast it into Now this plyablenss belongs more to rare then to dense things and accordingly we see fire more easily bend by the concameration of an oven then a stone can be reduced into due figure by hewing And therfore since dryness is a quality that makes those bodies wherein it reigns conserve themselves in their own figure and limits and resist the receiving of any from another body it is manifest that those are driest wherein these effects are most seen which is in dense dodies and consequently excess of dryness must be allotted to them to keep company with their moderate coldness Thus we see that the number of Elements assign'd by Aristotle is truly and exactly determin'd by him and that there can be neither more nor less of them and their qualities are rightly allotted to them Which to settle more firmly in our minds it will not be mis-spent time to sum up in short the effect of what we have hitherto said to bring us to this Conclusion First we shew'd that a body is made and constituted a Body by Quantity Next that the first division of Bodies is into Rare and Dense ones as differing only by having more less Quantity And lastly that the conjunction of Gravity with these two breeds two other sorts of combinations each of which is also twofold the first sort concerning Rarity out of which arises one extremely hot and moderately dry and another extremely humide and moderately hot the second sort concerning Density out of which is produced one that is extremely cold and moderately wet and another extremely dry and moderately cold And these are the combinations whereby are constituted Fire Air Water and Earth So that we have thus the proper notions of the Four Elements and both them and their qualities driven up and resolv'd into their most simple Principles which are the notions of Quantity and of the two most simple differences of quantitive things Rarity and Density Beyond which mans wit cannot penetrate nor can his wishes aim at more in this particular seeing he has attain'd to the knowledge of what they are and of what makes them be so and that it is impossible they should be otherwise and this by the most simple and first principles which enter into the composition of their nature Out of which it is evident these Four bodies are Elements since they cannot be resolv'd into any others by way of physicall composition themselves being constituted by the most simple Differences of a Body And again all other bodies whatever must of necessity be resolv'd into them for the same reason because no bodies can be exempt from the First defferences of a Body Since then we mean by the name of an Element a Body not composed of any former bodies and of which all other bodies are composed we may rest satisfied that these are rightly so named But whether every one of these four Elements comprehend under its name one only lowest Species or mady as whether there be one only Species of fire or several and the like of the rest we intend not here to determine Yet we note that there is a great latitude in every kind since Rarity and Density as we have said before are as divisible as Quantity Which Latitudes in the bodies we converse with are so limited that What makes it self and
other things be seen as being accompanied by light is called Fire What admits the illuminative action of fire and is not seen is called Air What admits the same action and is seen in the rank of Elements is called Water And what through the density of it admits not that action but absolutely reflects it is called Earth And out of all we said of these four Elements it is manifest there cannot be a fifth as is to be seen at large in every Aristotelian Philosopher that writes of this matter I am not ignorant that there are sundry objections used to be made both against these notions of the First Qualities and against the division of the Elements but because they and their solotions are to be found in every ordinary Philosopher and not of any great difficulty and that the handling them is too particular for the design of this discourse and would make it too prolix I refer the Reader to seek them for his satisfaction in those Authors that treat Physick professedly and have deliver'd a compleat body of Phylosophy And I will end this Chapter with advertising him lest I should be misunderstood that though my disquisition here has pitch'd on the four bodies of Fire Air Water and Earth yet it is not my intention to affirme that those which we ordinary call so and fall daily within our use are such as I have here express'd them or that these Phlosophicall ones which arise purely out of the combination of the first qualities have their residence or consistence in great bulks in any places of the World be they never so remote as Fire in the hollow of the Moons Orb Water in the bottom of the Sea Air above the Clouds and Earth below the Mines But these notions are onely to serve for certain Idea's of Elements by which the forenamed bodies and the compounds of them may be tryed and receive their doom of more or lesse pure and approaching to the nature from whence they have their denomination And yet I will not deny but that such perfect Elements may be foumd in some very little quantities in mixed bodies and the greatest abundance of them in these four known bodies that we call in ordinary practise by the names of the pure ones for they are least compounded and approach most to the simpleness of the Elements But to determine absolutely their existence or not existence either in bulk or in little parts depends of the manner of action among bodies which as yet we have not medled with CHAP. V. Of the operations of the Elements in general And of their activities compared with one another HAving by our former discourse inquired out what degrees and proportions of rarity and density compounded with gravity are necessary for the production of the Elements and first qualities whose combinations frame the Elements our next consideration in that orderly progress we have proposed to our selves in this Treatise wherein our aim is to follow successively the steps which nature has printed out to us will be to examine the operations of the Elements by which they work upon one another To which end let us propose to our selves a rare and a dense body encountring one another by the impulse of some exterior agent In this case 't is evident that since rarity implyes a greater proportion of quantity and quantity is nothing but divisibility rare bodies must needs be more divisible then dense ones and consequently when two such bodies are press'd one against another the rare body not being able to resist division so strongly as the dense one is and being not permitted to retire back by reason of the extern violence impelling it against the dense body it follows that the parts of the rare body must be sever'd to let the dense one come between them and so the rare body becomes divided and the dense body the divider And by this we see that the notions of divider and divisible immediately follow rare and dense bodies and so much the more properly agree to them as they exceed in the qualities of Rarity and Density Likewise we are to observe in our case that the dense or dividing body must necessarily cut and enter further and further into the rare or divided body and so the sides of it be joyn'd successively to new and new pars of the rare body that gives way to it and forsake others it parts from Now the rare body being in a determinate situation of the Universe which we call being in a place and is a necessary condition belonging to all particular bodies and the dense body comming to be within the rare body whereas formerly it was not so it follows that it loses the place it had and gains another This effect is that which we call local motion And thus we see by explicating the manner of this action that locall motion is nothing else but the change of that respect or relation which the body moved has to the rest of the Universe following out of Division and the name of Locall Motion formerly signifies only the mutation of a respect to other extrinsecall bodies subsequent to that division And this is so evident and agreeable to the notions that all mankind who as we have said is judge and master of language naturally frames of place as I wonder much why any will labour to give other artificall and intricate doctrine of this that in it self is so plain and clear What need is there to introduce an imaginary space or with Johannes Grammaticus a subsistent quantity that must run through all the World and then entail to every body an aiery entity an unconceiveable mood an unintelligible Ubi that by an intrinsecall relation to such a part of the imaginary space must thereto pin and fasten the body it is in It must needs be a ruinous Phylosophy that is grounded upon such a contradiction as is the allotting of parts to that which the Authors themselvs upon the matter acknowledge to be merely nothing and upon so weak a shift to deliver them from the inconveniences that in their course of doctrine other circumstances bring them to as is the voluntary creating of new imaginary Entities in things without any ground in nature for them Learned men should express the advantage and subtilty of their wits by penetrating further into nature then the vulgar not by vexing and wresting it from its own course They should refine and carry higher not contradict and destroy the notions of mankind in those things it is the competent judge of as it undoubtedly is of those primary notions which Aristotle has rank'd under Ten Heads which as we have touched before every one can conceive in gross and the work of Scholars is to explicate them in particular and not to make the Vulgar believe they are mistaken in framing those apprehensions that nature taught them Out of that which hath been hitherto resolvd 't is manifest that Place really and abstracting from
Logicians call substantiall Differences substantiall Qualities and say they are predicated in Quale quid But the Predicament of Quality is orderd by Aristole to conclude in it those differences of things which are neither Substantiall nor quantitative and yet are intrinsecall and absolute And so that which the understanding calls heat and makes a notion of distinct from the notion of the fire from whence it issues to burn the wood that is near it is nothing else in the fire but the very sustance of it in such a degree of rarity or a continual stream of parts issuing out of the main stock of the same fire that enters into the wood and by its rarity makes its way through every little part and divides them All which actions are comprised by the understanding under one notion of burning and the power which is fire it self to do these actions under one notion of the qualitie of heat though burning in effect and explicated Philosophically be nothing else but the continuance of those material motions we have even now described In like manner the cubical figure of a deye is nothing else but the very bodie of the deye it self limited by other bodies from being extended beyond those dimentions it hath and so the qualitie of figure or squareness which in common speech is said to be in it is truly substance it self under such a consideration as is expressed by that word But to come to our question on the decision of which depends the fate of all the fictitious Entities which the Schools are term'd Qualities The chief motives that perswade Light to be one of those may to my best remembrance be reduced to five several heads The first is that it illuminates the Air in an instant and therefore cannot be a body for a body requires succession of time to move in wherereas this seems to spread it self over the whole Hemisphere in an instant For as far as the Sun is distant from us he no sooner raises his head above our Horizon but his darts are in our face and generally no imagination can be framed of any motion it has in its dilatation The next is that whereas no body can admit another into its place without being removed away it self to leave that room to the advenient one plain experience shews us daily that two lights may be in the same place and the first is so far from going away at the coming of the second that the bringing in of a second Candle and setting it near the first increases the light in the room which diminishes again when the second is removed away And by the same reason if light were a body it should drive away the aire which is likewise a body wherever it is admitted for within the whole sphere of the irradiation of it there is no point wherein one may set their eye but light is found And therefore if it were a body there would be no room for air in that place which light takes up And likewise we see that it penetrates all solid bodies and particularly glass as experience shews in wood stone metals and any other body whatever if it be made thin enough The third argument why light cannot be a body is that if it were so it can be none other but fire which is the subtilest and most rarified of all bodies whatever But if it be fire then it cannot be without heat and consequently a man could not feel cold in a sun-shining day The contrary of which is apparent all winter long whose brightest dayes oftentimes prove the coldest And Galileus with divers others since did use from the Sun to gather light in a kind of stone that is found in Italy which is therefore by them call'd la calamita della luce and yet no heat appeared in it A Glow-worm will give light to read by but not to warm you any whit at all And it is said that Diamonds and carbuncles will shine like fire in the greatest darks yet no man ever complain'd of being serv'd by them as the foolish Satyre was by kissing a burning coal On the contrary side if one consider how great heats may be made without any light at all how can one be perswaded that light heat should be the same thing or indeed any whit of kin The fourth motive to induce us to believe that light cannot be a body is the sudden extinction of it when any solid body comes between the fountain of it and the place where it sends its beams What becomes of that great expansion of light that shined all about when a cloud enterposes it self between the body of the Sun and the streams that come from it Or when it leaves our Horizon to enlighten the other world His head is no sooner out of our sight but at the instant all his beams are vanished If that which fills so vast a room were a body something would become of it it would at the least be chang'd to some other substance and some reliques would be left of it as when ashes remain of burned bodies for nature admits not the annihilation of any thing And in the last place we may conceive that if light were a body it would be shaken by the winds and by the motion of the air and we should see it quaver in all blustring weather Therefore summing up all we have said it seems most improbable and indeed wholly impossible that light should be a Body and consequently it must have his place among Qualities But on the otherside before we apply our selves to answer these objections let us make a short survey of those inducements that prevail with us to believe light a body notwithstanding so forcible oppositions I admit so far of the third argument as to allow light to be fire for indeed it cannot be imagin'd any thing else all properties agreeing so fully between them But withal I must adde that it is not fire in every form or fire joyn'd with every substance that expresses it self by light but it is fire extremely dilated and without mixture of any other grosse body Let me hold a piece of linen or paper close by the flame of a candle and by little and little remove it further and further off and methinks my very eyes tell me that there is upon the paper some part of that which I see in the candle and that it grows still less and less as I remove the paper further from it so that if I would trust my sense I should believe it as very a body upon the paper as in the candle though infeebled by the laxity of the channel in which it flows And this seems to be strengthen'd by the consideration of the adversaries position for if it were a quality then seeing it hath no contrary to destroy or stop it it should still produce an equal to it self without end or growing feeble whenever it meets with a subject capable to entertain it as air
is The better to apprehend how much this faint resemblance of flame upon the paper maketh for our purpose let us turn the leaf and imagine in our thoughts after what fashion that fire which is in the flame of a little candle would appear to us if it were dilated and stretch'd out to the utmost extent that excess of rarity can bring it to Suppose that so much flame as would fill a cone of two inches height and half an inch Diameter should suffer so great an expansion as to replenish with his light body a large chamber and then what can we imagine it would seem to be How would the continual driving it into a thinner substance as it streams in a perpetual flood from the flame seem to play upon the paper And then judg whether it be likely to be a body or no when our discourse suggests to us that if it be a body those very appearances must follow which our eyes give us evidence are so in effect If gold beaten into so airy a thinness as we see gilders use remains still Gold notwithstanding the wonderfull expansion of it why shall we not allow that fire dilated to its utmost period shall still remain fire though extreamly rarified beyond what it was We know that fire is the rarest and the subtilest substance that nature hath made among bodies and we know likewise that it is ingendred by the destroying and feeding upon some other more grosse body let us then calculate when the oyl or tallow or wax of a candle or the bulk of a faggot or billet is dilated and rarified to the degree of fire how vast a place must it take up To this let us add what Aristotle teaches us that fire is not like a standing pool which continues full with the same water and as it has no waste so has it no supply but it is a fluent and brook-like current Which also we may learn out of the perpetual nutriment it requires for a new part of fewel being converted into a new part of fire as we may observe in the little atomes of Oyl or melted wax that continually ascend apace up the wieke of a burning candle or lamp of necessity the former must be gone to make room for the latter and so a new part of the river is continually flowing Now then this perpetual flux of fire being made of a grosse body that so rarified will take up such a vast room if it die not at the instant of its birth but have some time to subsist be it never so short it must needs run some distance from the fountain whence it springs Which if it do you need not wonder that there should be so great an extent of fire as is requisite to fill all that space which light replenishes nor that it should be still supplyed with new as fast as the cold of the aire kills it For considering that flame is a much grosser substance then grosse fire by reason of the mixture with it of that viscous oyly matter which being drawn out of the wood and candle serves for fewel to the fire and is by little and little converted into it and withal reflecting on the nature and motion of fire which is to dilate it self extreamly and to fly all about from the center to the circumference you cannot choose but conceive that the pure fire strugling to break away from the oyly fewel which is still turning into new fire doth at length free his wings from that birdlime and then flies abroad with extream swiftness swels and dilates it self to a huge bulk now that it has gotten liberty and so fills a vast room but remains still fire till it die Which it no sooner doth but it is still supply'd with new streams of it that are continually strain'd as it were squees'd out of the thick flame which imprison'd and kept it within it till growing fuller of fire then it could contain by reason of the continual attenuating the oyly parts of it and converting them into fire it gives liberty to those parts of fire that are next the superficies to fly whither their nature will carry them And thus discourse would inform a Blind man after he has well reflected on the nature of fire how it must needs fill a mighty extent of place though it have but a narrow beginning at its spring head and that there by reason of the condensation of it and mixture with a grosser body it must needs burn other bodies but that when it is freed from such mixture and suffers an extream expansion it cannot have force to burn but may have means to express it self to be there present by some operation of it upon some body that is refin'd and subtilized enough to perceive it And this operation a seeing man will tell you is done upon his eyes whose fitness to receive impression from so subtile an Agent Anatomists will teach you And I remember how a blind Schoolmaster that I kept in my house to teach my children who had extream subtile spirits and a great tenderness through his whole body and met with few distractions to hinder him from observing any impression never so nicely made upon him used often to tell me that he felt it very perceptibly in several parts of his body but especially in his brain But to settle us more firmly in the perswasion of light 's being a body and consequently fire let us consider that the properties of a body are perpetually incident to light look what rules a ball will keep in its rebounds the same doth light in its reflections and the same demonstration alike convinces the one and the other Besides light is broken like a body as when 't is snapped in pieces by a tougher body it is gather'd together in a little room by looking or burning glasses as water is by ordering the gutters of a house so as to bring into one cistern all that rains dispersedly upon the whole roof It is sever'd and dispers'd by other glasses and is to be wrought upon and cast hither and thither at pleasure all by the rule of other bodies And what is done in light the same will likewise be done in heat in cold in wind and in sound And the very same instruments that are made for light will work their effects in all these others if they be duly managed So that certainly were it not for the authority of Aristotle and his learned followers that presses us on the one side and for the seemingness of those reasons we have already mention'd which perswades us on the other side our very eyes would carry us by stream into this consent that light is no other thing but the nature and substance of fire spread far and wide and freed from the mixture of all other gross bodies Which will appear yet more evident in the solutions of the oppositions we have brought against our own opinion for in them there will
water run out in the same time To which I answer out of the same ground as before That because in running twice as fast there goes out double the water in every part of time and again every part of water goes a double space in the same part of time that is to say because double the celerity is drawn into double the water and double the water into doule the celerity therfore the present effect is to the former effect as the effect or quadrate of a double line drawn into into it self is to the effect or quadrate of half the said line drawn into it self And consequently the cause of the latter effect which is the weight then must be to the cause of the former effect that is to the former weight in the same proportion namely as the quadrate of a double line is to the quadrate of half that line And so you see the reason of what he by experience finds to be true Though I doubt not but when he shall set out the treatise which he has made on this subject the Reader will have better satisfaction In the mean while an experiment which Galileo delivers will confirm this doctrine He sayes that to make the same Pendant go twice as fast as it did or to make every undulation of it in half the time it did you must make the line at which it hangs double in Geometrical proportion to the line at which it hang'd before Whence it follows that the circle by which it goes is likewise in double Geometrical proportion And this being certain that celerity to celerity has the proportion of force which weight has to weight 't is evident that as in one case there must be weight in Geometrical proportion so in theother case where only celerity makes the variance the celerity must be in double Geometrical proportion according as Galileo finds it by experience But to return to our main intent there is to be further noted that If the subject strucken be of a proportionate cessibility it seems to dull and deaden the stroke wheras if the thing strucken be hard the stroke seems to lose no force but to work a greater effect Though indeed the truth be that in both cases the effects are equal but diverse according to the natures of the things that are strucken for no force that once is in nature can be lost but must have its adequate effect one way or other Let us then first suppose the body strucken to be a hard body of no exceeding bigness in which case if the stroke light perpendicularly upon it it will carry such a body before it But if the body be too great and have its parts so conjoyn'd that they are weaker then the stroke in this case the stroke drives one part before it and so breaks it from the rest But lastly if the parts of the strucken body be so easily cessible as without difficulty the stroke can divide them then it enters into such a body till it has spent its force So that now making up our account we see that an equal effect proceeds from an equal force in all the three cases though in themselves they be far different But we are apt to account that effect greater which is more considerable to us by the profit or damage it brings us And therefore we usually say that the blow which shakes a wall or beats it down and kills men with the stones it scatters abroad hath a greater effect then that which penetrates far into a mud wall and doth little harm for that innocuousness of the effect makes that although in it self it be as great as the other yet 't is little observ'd or consider'd This discourse draws on another which is to declare how motion ceases And to sum that up in short we say that When motion comes to rest it decreases and passes through all the degrees of celerity and tardity that are between rest and the height of that motion which so declines and that in the proportion of the odd numbers as we declared above it encreas'd The reason is clear because that which makes a motion cease is the resistance it findes which resistance is an action of a mover that moves something against the body moved or something equivalent to such an action wherefore it must follow the laws that are common to all motions of which kind those two are that we have expressed in this conclusion Now that resistance is a countermotion or equivalent to one is plain by this that any body which is pressed must needs press again on the body that presses it wherefore the cause that hinders such a body from yielding is a force moving that body against the body which presses it The particulars of all which we shall more at large declare where we speak of the action and reaction of particular bodies CHAP. X. Of Gravity and Levity and of Local Motion commonly term'd Natural IT is now time to consider that distinction of motions which is so famous in Aristotle to wit that some motions are natural others violent and to determine what may be signified by these terms For seeing we have said that no body hath a natural intrinsecal inclination to any place to which 't is able to move it self we must needs conclude that the motion of every body follows the percussion of extrinsecal Agents It seems therefore impossible that any body should have any motion natural to it self and if there be none natural there can be none violent and so this distinction will vanish to nothing But on the otherside Living creatures manifestly shew natural motions having natural instruments to perform certain motions wherefore such motions must of necessity be natural to them But these are not the motions we are to speak of for Aristotles division is common to all bodies or at the least to all those we converse with and particularly to those which are call'd heavy and light which two terms pass through all the bodies we have notice of Therefore proceeding on our grounds before lay'd to wit that no body can be moved of it self we may determine those motions to be natural to bodies which have constant causes or percutients to make them always in such bodies and those violent which are contrary to such natural motions Which being suppos'd we much search out the causes that so constantly make some bodies descend towards the center or the middle of the earth others to rise and go from the center by which the world is subject to those restless motions that keep all things in perpetual flux in this changing sphere of action and passion Let us then begin with considering what effects the Sun which is a constant and perpetual cause works on inferiour bodies by his being regularly sometimes present and sometimes absent Observe in a pot of water hanging over a fire how the heat makes some parts of the water ascend and others to supply the room
by descending so that as long as it boyls 't is in a perpetual confused motion up and down Now having formerly concluded that fire is light and light is fire it cannot be doubted but that the Sun serves instead of fire to our Globe of Earth and water which may be fitly compared to the boyling pot and all the day long draws vapours from those bodies that his beams strike upon For he shooting his little darts of fire in multitudes and in continued streams from his own center against the Python the earth we live on they there overtake one another and cause some degrees of heat as far as they sink in But not being able by reason of their great expansion in their long journey to convert it into their own nature and set it on fire which requires a high degree of condensation of the beams they but pierce and divide it very subtilly and cut some of the outwardparts of it into extreme little atomes To which sticking very close and being in a manner incorporated with them by reason of the moisture that is in them they in their rebound back from the earth carry them along with them like a ball that struck against a moist wall in its return from it brings back some of the mortar sticking upon it For the distance of the Earth from the Sun is not the utmost period of these nimble bodie 's flight so that when by this solid body they are stop'd in their course forwards on they leap back from it and carry some little parts of it with them som of them a farther some of them a shorter journey according to their littleness and rarity make them fit to ascend As is manifest by the consent of all Authors that write of the Regions of the Air who determine the Lower Region to reach as far as the reflection of the Sun and conclude this Region to be very hot For if we mark how the heat of fire is greatest when it is incorporated in some dense body as in Iron or in Sea-coal we shall easily conceive that the heat of this Region proceeds mainly out of the incorporation of light with those little bodies which stick to it in its reflection And experience testifies the same both in our soultry days which we see are of a gross temper and ordinarily go before rain as also in the hot Springs of extreme cold countrys where the first heats are unsufferable which proceed out of the resolution of humidity congeal'd in hot winds which the Spaniards call Bochornos from Boca de horno by allusion to the breathing stream of an Oven when it is open'd which manifestly shew that the heat of the Sun is incorporated in the little bodies which compose the steam of that wind And by the principles we have already laid the same would be evident though we had no experience to instruct us for seeing that the body of fire is dry the wet parts which are easiest resolved by fire must needs stick to them and accompany them in their return from the earth Now whiles these ascend the air must needs cause others that are of a grosser complexion to descend as fast to make room for the former and to fill the places they left that there may be no vacuity in nature And to find what parts they are and from whence they come that succeed in the room of light and atomes glew'd together that thus ascend we may take a hint from the Maxime of the Opticks that Light reflecting makes equal angles whence supposing the Superficies of the earth to be circular it will follow that a Perpendicular to the center passes just in the middle between the two rayes the incident and the reflected Wherefore the air between these two rayes and such bodies as are in it being equally pressed on both sides those bodies which are just in the middle are nearest and likeliest to succeed immediately in the room of the light and atomes which ascend from the Superficies of the earth and their motion to that point is upon the Perpendicular Hence 't is evident that the Air and all such bodies as descend to supply the place of light and atomes which ascend from the Earth descend perpendicularly towards the center of the earth And again such bodies as by the force of light being cut from the earth or water do not ascend in form of light but incorporate a hidden light and heat within them and thereby are rarer then these descending bodies must of necessity be lifted up by the descent of those denser bodies that go downwards because they by reason of their density are moved with a greater force And this lifting up must be in a perpendicular line because the others descending on all sides perpendicularly must needs raise those that are between them equally from all sides that is perpendicularly from the center of the earth And thus we see a motion set on foot of some bodies continually descending and others continually ascending all in perpendicular lines excepting those which follow the course of lights reflexion Again as soon as the declining Sun grows weaker or leaves our Horizon and his beams vanishing leave the little hors-men which rode upon them to their own temper and nature from whence they forced them they finding themselvs surrounded by a smart descending stream tumble down again in the night as fast as in the day they were carried up and crowding into their former habitations exclude those they find had usurped them in their absence And thus all bodies within reach of the Suns power but especially our air are in perpetual motion the more rarified ones ascending and the dense ones descending Now then because no bodies wherever they be as we have already shew'd have any inclination to move towards a particular place otherwise then as they are directed and impel'd by extrinsecal Agents let us suppose that a body were placed at liberty in the open air And then casting whether it would be moved from the place we suppose it in and which way it would be moved we shall find it must of necessity happen that it shall descend and fall down till it meet with some other gross body to stay and support it For though of it self it would move no way yet if we find that any other body strikes efficaciously enough upon it we cannot doubt but it will move that way which the striking body impels it Now it is strucken upon on both sides above and below by the ascending and the descending atoms the rare ones striking upon the bottome of it and driving it upwards and the denser ones pressing upon the top of it and bearing it downwards But if you compare the the impressions the denser atoms make with those that proceed from the rare ones 't is evident the dense ones must be the more powerful and therfore will assuredly determine the motion of the body in the air that way they go which is
if afterwards by any accident there comes a great compression they force them to lose their natural rarity and to become some other Element Thus it fares with fire both in acting and suffering And the same course we have in both these regards expressed of it passes likewise in the rest of the Elements to the proportion of their contrarieties Hence it follows that when fire meets with humidity in any body it divides and subtilises it and disperses it gently and in a kind of equal manner through the whole body it is in if the operation of it be a natural and a gentle one and so drives it into other parts which at the same time it prepares to receive it by subtilising likewise those parts And thus moderate fire makes humour in very smal parts to incorporate it self in an even or uninform manner with the dry parts it meets with which being done whether the heat afterwards continues or the cold succeeds in lieu of it the effect must of necessity be that the body thus compos'd be bound up and fastn'd more or less according to the proportion of the Matter 't is made of of the Agents that work upon it and of the Time they employ about it This is every day seen in the ripening of fruits and in other frequent works as well of art as of nature and is so obvious and sensible to any reasonable observation that t is needless to enlarge my self much upon this subject Only it will not be amiss for examples sake to consider the progress of it in the composing or augmenting of metals or earths of divers sorts First heat as we have said draws humour out of all the bodies it works on then if the extracted humour be in quantity and the steams of it happen to come together in some hollow place fit to assemble them into greater parts they are condens'd and fall down in a liquid and running body These streams being corporified the body resulting out of them makes it self in the earth a channel to run in and if there be any loose parts in the channel they mingle themselvs with the running liquor and though there be none such yet in time liquor it self loosens the channel all about and imbibes into its own substance the parts it raises And thus all of them compacted together roll along till they tumble into some low place out of which they cannot so easily get to wander further When they are thus settled they the more easily receive into them and retain such heat as is every where to be met withal because it is diffused more or less through the earth This heat if it be sufficient digests it into a solid body the temper of cold likewise concurring in its measure to this effect And according to the variety of the substances wherof the first liquor was made and which it afterwards drew along with it the body that results out of them is diversifyed In confirmation of all which they that deal in Mines tell us they use to find metalls oftentimes mingled with stones as also coagulated juyces with both and earths of divers natures with all three and they with it and one with another among themselvs And that sometimes they find the mines not yet consolidated and digested throughly into metal when by their experience knowing after how many years they will be ripe they shut them up again till then Now if the hollow place wherin the body stay'd which at first was liquid and rolling be not at once filled by it but it takes up only part of it and the same liquor continues afterwards to flow thither then this body is augmented and groweth bigger and bigger And though the liquors should come at several times yet they become not therfore two several bodies but both grow into one body for the wet parts of the adventititious liquor mollifie the sides of the body already baked and both of them being of a like temper and cognation they easily stick and grow together Out of this discourse it follows evidently that in all sorts of compounded bodies whatever there must of necessity be actually comprised sundry parts of divers natures for otherwise they would be but so many pure degrees of rarity and density that is they would be but so many pure Elements and each of them have but one determinate virtue or operation CHAP. XV. Of the dissolution of mixed bodies THus much for composition of Bodies Their dissolution is made three wayes either by fire or by water or by some outward violence We will begin with examining how this last is done To which end we may consider that the unity of any body consisting in the connexion of its parts 't is evident the force of motion if it be exercised upon them must of necessity separate them as we see inbreaking cutting filing drawing asunder and the like All these motions because they are done by gross bodies require great parts to work upon are easily discern'd how they work so that it is not difficult to find the reason why some hard bodies break easily and others with much ado The first of which are called brittle the others tough For if you mark it all breaking requires that bending should precede which on the one side compresses the parts of the bended body and condenses them into a lesser room then they possess'd before and on the other side stretches them out and makes them take up more place This requires some fluid or moveable substance to be within the body else it could not be done for without such help the parts could not remove Therfore such hard bodies as have most fluid parts in them are most flexible that is are toughest and those whcih have fewest though they become therby hardest to have impression made upon them yet if the force be able to do it they rather yield to break then to bend and thence are called brittle Out of this we may infer that some bodies may be so suddenly bent as that therby they break afunder wheras if they were leisurely and gently dealt withal they would take what play one desires And likewise that there is no body be it never so brittle and hard but it will bend a little and indeed more then one would expect if it be wrought upon with time dexterity for there is none but contains in it some liquid parts more or less even glass and brick Upon which occasion I remember how once in a great storm of wind I saw the high slender brick Chimneys of the Kings house at S. James's one winter when the Court lay there bend from the wind like boughs and shake exceedingly and totter And at other times I have seen some very high and pointy Spire Steeples do the like And I have been assured the like of the whole pile of a high castle standing in a gullet in the course of the winde namely the castle of Wardour who have often seen it
concur to press on and hasten them and so the weight of gold being at length overcome by these two powerful Agents whereof one supplies what the other wants the whole substance of the metal is in little atomes diffused through the whole body of the water But this is not truly a dissolution or separation of the substantial parts of Gold one from another 't is only a corrosion which brings it into a subtile powder when the water salts are separated from it much like what filing though far smaller or grinding of leaf gold upon a porphyre stone may reduce it into for neither the parts of the water nor of the fire that make themselvs a way into the body of the gold are small and subtile enough to get between the parts that compose the essence of it and therefore all they can attain to is to divide it only in its quantity or bulk not in the composition of its nature Yet I intend not to deny but this is possible to be arrived to either by pure fire duly apply'd or by some other assistance as peradventure by some kind of Mercury which being of a nearer cognation to Metals then any other Liquor is may happily have a more powerful ingression into gold then any other body whatever and being withal very subject to rarefaction may after it is inter'd so perfectly penetrate the gold as it may separate every least part of it and so reduce it into an absolute calx But in this place I explicate no more then what ordinarily passes leaving the mysteries of this Art to those who profess it To go on then with what we have in hand Lead hath abundance of water overmingled with its earth as appears by its easie yielding to be bent any way and by its quiet standing bent in the same position that the force which bowed it leaves it in And therefore the liquid parts of Lead are easily separated from its dry and earthy ones and when it is melted the very shaking of it causes the gross parts to descend and many liquid ones to flie away with the fire so that suddenly it is thus converted into powder But this powder is gross in respect of other metals unless this operation be often reiterated or the fire more powerfully apply'd then what is just enough to bring the body of the Lead into powder The next consideration of bodies that fire works upon is of such as it divides into Spirits Salts Oyls Waters or Phlegms and Earth Now these are not pure and simple parts of the dissolv'd body but new compounded bodies made of the first by the operation of heat As Smoak is not pure water but water and fire together and therefore becomes not water but by cooling that is by the fire flying away from it So likewise those Spirits Salts Oyls and the rest are but degrees of things which fire makes of diverse parts of the dissolved body by separating them one from another and incorporating it self with them And so they are all of them compounded of the four Element and are further resolvable into them Yet I intend not to say that there are not originally in the body before its dissolution some loose parts which have the properties of these bodies that are made by the fire in the dissolving of it For seeing that nature works by the like instruments as art uses she must need in her excesses and defects produce like bodies to what art doth in dissolution which operation of art is but a kind of excess in the progress of nature But my meaning is that in such dissolution there are more of these parts made by the working of fire then were in the body before Now because this is the natural and most ordinary dissolution of things let us see in particular how it is done Suppose then that fire were in a convenient manner apply'd to a body that hath all sorts of parts in it and our own discourse will tell us the first effect it works will be that as the subtile parts of fire divide and pass through that body they will adhere to the most subtile parts in it which being most agile and least bound and incorporated to the bowels of the body and lying as 't were loosly scatter'd in it the fire will carry them away with it These will be the first that are separated from the main body which being retain'd in a fit receiver will by the coldness of the circumdant air grow outwardly cool themselves and become first a dew upon the sides of the glass and then still as they grow cooler condense more and more till at length they fall down congeal'd into a palpable liquor which is composed as you see of the hotest parts of the body mingled with the fire that carried them out and therfore this liquor is very inflamable and easily turn'd into actual fire as you see all Spirits and aquae ardentes of vegetables are The hot and loose parts being extracted and the fire continuing and encreasing those that will follow next are such as though they be not of themselvs loose yet are easiest to be made so and are therfore most separable These must be humide and those little dry parts which are incorporated with the overflowing humide ones in them for no parts that we can arrive to are of one pure simple nature but all mixed and composed of the four Elements in some proportion must be held together with such gross glew as the fire may easily penetrate and separate them And then the humide parts divided into little atoms stick to the lesser ones of the fire which by their multitude of number and velocity of motion supplying what they want of them in bulk carry them away with them And thus these Phlegmatick parts flie up with the fire and are afterwards congeal'd into an insipide water which if it have any savour 't is because the first ardent spirits are not totally separated from it but some few of them remain in it and give some little life to the whole body of that otherwise flat liquor Now those parts which the fire separates next from the remaining body after the fiery and watry ones are carryed away must be such as it can work upon and therfore must abound in humidity But since they stir not till the watry ones are gone 't is evident they are composed of many dry parts strongly incorporated and very subtilly mixed with the moist ones and that both of them are exceeding small and so closely and finely knit together that the fire hath much ado to get between and cut the thrids that tie them together and therfore they require a very great force of fire to carry them up Now the composition of these shewes them to be Aerial and together with the fire that is mingled with them they congeal into that consistence which we call Oyl Lastly it cannot be otherwise but that the fire in all this while of
change of place we must call to mind how two dense bodies moving one against the other each of them bear before them some little quantity of a rarer body immediately joyn'd to them and consequently these more rare bodies must be the first to feel the power of the dense bodies and receive impressions from their motions each of them by the opposite rare body which like an Huissier goes before to make way for his following Master that obliges him to this service Now when these rare Ushers have strugled a while like the first lightly armed Ranks of two Armies in the interjacent Field between their main Battails that follow them close at the heels they must at the length yield when they are overborn by a greater weight then they can sustain and then they recoil back as it were to save themselves by getting in among the files of the dense bodies that drove them on Which not opening to admit them and yet they still flying violently from the mastering force that pursues them they presse so hard upon what at the first pressed them on as notwithstanding their density and strength they force them to retire back for unless they do so they are not of the number of those that work upon one another And this retiring is either on both sides or but of one side If both then 't is evident how each of them is an Agent and each of them a sufferer each of them overcoming his opposite in such sort as himself likewise receives blows and loss But if only one of the dense bodies be so shocked as to recoil back then that only suffers in its body and the other suffers only in its vertue that is in the air or other rare body it sends before it which it drives with such a violence that it masters and quells the opposition of the other body before it can reach to shake the dense body before which it runs Yet that rare body must be pressed and broken into in some measure by the incounter of the other which though never so weak yet makes some resistance but much more when it comes to grapple with the dense body it self and so between them it is wounded and infeebled like those souldiers that first enter a Breach in a Town from whence when they have driven the enemy they pursue him to the Cittadel and force him from thence too and so how maimed so ever they prove they make a free and easie way without resistance for the whole body of their army to follow them and take quiet possession of that which cost them so much to win And thus we see how it may happen that one of these moving bodies doth not suffer so much as to be stay'd in its journey much less to be driven back And yet the other body at the same time work in some measure upon it by working upon what is next to it which recoiling against it must needs make some impression upon it since there can be no opposition but must have some effect Now this impression or effect though it be not perceptible by causing a contrary motion yet it must needs infeeble the virtue of the conquering Agent and deaden the celerity of its motion And thus it is evident that in all pure local motions of corporeal Agents every one of them must in some proportion suffer in acting and in suffering must act And what we have said of this kind of action may easily be apply'd to the other where the effect of local motion is design'd by a particular name as it is in the examples we gave of heating and cooling And in that the proceeding will appear to be the very same as in this For if fire heats water the water reacts again either upon the fire and cools it if it be immediate to it or else upon the interjacent air if it be at a distance from the fire And so the air is in some measure cooled by the cold atomes that issue from the water whose compass or sphere of activity being lesser then the fire 's they cannot cool so far off as others can heat but where they a rrive they give their proportion of cold in the very midst of the others army of fiery atomes notwithstanding their multitude and violence According to which doctrine our Countryman Suisseth's argument that in the Schools is held insoluble hath not so much as any semblance of the least difficult For 't is evident that such atomes of fire and water as we determine heat and cold to be may pass and croud by one another into the subjects they are sent to by divers little streams without hindring one another as we have declared of air and light and each of them be receiv'd in their own nature temper by the same subject though sense can judge only according to which of them is predominant and according to the proportion of its superiority Upon which occasion we cannot chuse but note how the doctrine of qualities is not only unable to give account of the ordinary and plain effects of nature but also uses to end in clear impossibilities and contradictions if it be driven far as this argument of Suisseth shews and many others of the like nature A fourth position among Philosophers is that Some Notions admit the denominations of Intention and remission but that others do not The reason of which we shall clearly see if we but consider how these terms of intention and remission do but express more or less of the thing that is said to be intended or remitted for the nature of more and less implyes a latitude and divisibility and therefore cannot agree with the nature of such things as consist in an indivisible being As for example to be a whole or an equal cannot be sometimes more sometimes less for they consist in such a rigorous indivisible being that if the least part imaginable be wanting it is no longer a whole if there be the least excess between two things they are no longer equal but in some other proportion then of equality in regard of one another And hence it is that Aristotle teaches us that Substance and the species of Quantity do not admit of intention and remission but that Quality doth For first in Substance we know that the signification of this word is that which makes a thing be what it is as is evident by our giving it for an answer to the question what a thing is And therfore if there were any divisibility in Substance it would be in what the thing is and consequently every division following that divisibility would make the thing another what that is another thing and so the Substance that 's pretended to be changed by intension or remission would not be divided as is supposed but would cease to be and another substance would succeed in the room of it Wherby you see that every mutation in Substance makes a new thing and that more and
less in quiddity cannot be pronounced of the same thing Likewise in Quantity 't is clear that its Specieses consist in an indivsible For as in Numbers ten Lions for example or ten Elephants are no more in regard of multitude then ten Fleas or ten Motes in the Sun and if you add or take any thing from ten it is no more ten but some other number so likewise in Continued extension a span an ell an ounce or any other measure whatever ceaseth to be a span c. if you add to it or diminish from it the least quantity imaginable And peradventure the same is also of Figures as of a Sphere a Cube a Circle a Square c. though they be in the rank of Qualites But if we consider such Qualities as Heat Cold Moisture Driness Softness Hardness Weight Lightness and the like we shall find that they may be in any body somtims more somtimes less according as the excess of any Element or mixture is greater in it at one time then at another and yet the body in which these qualities are intended or remitted remain still with the same denomination As when Dirt continues still soft though sometimes it be less soft other whiles softer and wax remains figurable whether it be melted or congealed and wood is still hot though it lose or gain some degrees of heat But such intention in any subject whatever hath its determinate limits that it cannot pass for when more of that quality which we say is intended that is more of the atoms of the active body is brought into the body that suffers the intension then its complexion can brook it resigns its nature to their violence and becomes a new thing such an one as they are pleased to make it As when wood with extremity of heating that is with bringing into it so many atoms of fire that the fire is wronger in it then its own nature is converted into fire smoak water and ashes and nothing remains of the nature of wood But before we end this Chapter we may remember how in the of the Fourth we remitted a question concerning the Existence of the Elements that is whether in any places of the world there were any pure elements either in bulk or in little parts as being not ready to resolve it till we had declared the manner of working of bodies one upon another Here then will be a fit place to determine that out of what we have discoursed concerning the actions wherby bodies are made and corrupted For considering the universal action of fire that runs through all the bodies we have commerce withal by reason of the Suns influence into them and operation upon them with his light and beams which reach far and near and looking upon the effects we have shew'd follow thence 't is manifest there cannot be any great quantity of any body whatever in which fire is not intrinsecally mixed And on the other side we see that where fire is once mixed 't is very hard to separate it totally from thence Again we see it is impossible that pure fire should be conserved without being adjoyn'd to some other body both because of its violent nativity still streaming forth with a great impetuosity as also because it is so easily overcome by any obsident body when it is dilated And therfore we may safely conclude that no simple Element can consist in any great quantity in this course of nature we live in and take a survey of Neither doth it appear to what purpose nature should have placed any such storehouses of Simples seeing she can make all needful complexions by the dissolutions of mixed bodies into other mixed bodies favouring of the nature of the Elements without needing their purity to begin upon But on the other side it is as evident that the Elements must remain pure in every compounded body in such extreme small parts as we use to call atoms For if they did not the variety of bodies would be nothing else but so many degrees of rarity and density or somany pure Homogeneal Elements and not bodies composed of heterogeneal parts and consequently would not be able to shew that variety of parts which we see in bodies nor could produce the complicated effects which proced from them And accordingly we are sure that the least parts which our senses can arrive to discover have many varieties in them even so much that a whole living creature whose organical parts must needs be of exceeding different natures may be so little as to our eyes to seem indivisible we not distinguishing any difference of parts in it without the help of a multiplying glass as in the least kind of mites and in worms pick'd out of childrens hands we daily experience So as it is evident that no sensible part can be unmingled But then again when we call to mind how we have shew'd that the qualities which we find in bodies result out of the composition and mixtion of the Elements we must needs conclude that they must of necessity remain in their own essences in the mixed body and so out of the whole discourse determine that they are not there in any visible quantity but in those least atoms that are too subtile for our senses to discern Which position we do not understand so Metaphysically as to say that their Substantial form remain actually in the mixed body but only that their accidental qualities are found in the compound remitting that other question to Metaphysicians those spiriâ—al Anatomists to decide CHAP. XVII Of Rarefaction and Condensation the two first motions of particular bodies OUr intention in this discourse concerning the natures and motions of bodies aiming no further then at the discovery of what is or may be done by corporeal Agents thereby to determin what is the work of Immaterial and Spiritual Substances it cannot be expected at our hands that we should deliver here an entire and complete body of Natural Philosophy But only take so much of it in our way as is needful to carry us with truth and evidence to our journeys end It belongs not then to us to meddle with those sublime contemplations which search into the nature of the vast Universe and determine the unity and limitation of it and shew by what strings and upon what pins and wheels and hinges the whole World moves and from thence ascend to an awful acknowledgment and humble admiration of the Primary Cause from whence and of which both the being of it and the beginning of the first motion and the continuance of all others proceed and depend Nor indeed vvould it be to any purpose for any man to sail in this Ocean and begin a new voyage of navigation upon it unless he were assured he had ballast enough in his Ship to make her sink deep into the water and carry her steddily through those unruly waves and that he were furnish'd with skill provision sufficient to go through without
either losing his course by steering after a wrong compass or being forced back again with short and obscure relations of discoveries since others that went out before him are return'd with a large account to such as are able to understand and sum it up Which surely our learned Countryman and my best and most honoured Friend and to whom of all men living I am most obliged for to him I ow that little which I know and what I have and shall set down in all this discourse is but a few sparks kindled by me at his great fire has both profoundly and accutely and in every regard judiciously performed in his Dialogues of the World Our task then in a lower strain and more proportionate to so weak shoulders is to look no further then among those bodies we converse with Of which having declared by what course and Engines Nature governs their common motions that are found even in the Elements and from thence are derived to all bodies composed of them we intend now to consider such motions as accompany divers particular bodies and are much admired by whoever understands not the the causes of them To begin from the easiest and most connexed with the actions of the Elements the handsel of our labour will light upon the motions of Rarefaction and Condensation as they are the passions of mixed bodies And first for Rarefaction we may remember how it proceeds originally from fire and depends of heat as is declared in the former Chapter and wherever we find Rarefaction we may be confident the body which suffers it is not without fire working upon it From hence we may gather that when the Air imprison'd in a baloon or bladder swells against what contains it and stretches its case and seeks to break out this effect must proceed from fire or heat though we see not the fire working either within the very bowels of the air or without by pressing upon what contains it and so making it self a way to it And that this latter way is able to work this effect may be convinced by the contrary effect from a contrary cause for ' take a bladder stretch'd out to its greatest extent by air shut up within it and hang it in a cold place you will see it presently contract it self into a less room and the bladder will grow wrinckled and become too big for the air within it But for immediate proof of this position we see that the addition of a very smal degree of heat rarifies the air in a Weather-glass the air receiving the impression of heat sooner then water and so makes it extend it self into a greater place and consequently it presses upon the water and forces it down into a less room then formerly it possessed And likewise we see Quicksilver and other liquors if they be shut up in glasses close stop'd and set in sufficient heat and a little is sufficient for this effect will swell and fill their glasses and at the last break them rather then not find a way to give themselvs more room which is then grown too straight in the glass by reason of the rarefaction of the liquors by the fire working upon them Now again that this effect may be wrought by the inward heat that is inclosed in the bowels of the substance thus shut up both reason and experience assure us For they teach us that if a body which is not extremely compacted but that by its loosness is easily divisible into little parts such a one as Wine or other spiritual liquors be inclosed in a vessel the little atoms that perpetually move up and down in every space of the whole World making their way through every body will set on work the little parts in the Wine for example to play their game so that the hot and light parts if they be many not enduring to be compressed and kept in by the heavie and cold ones seek to break out with force and till they can free themselvs from the dense ones that would imprison them they carry them along with them and make them swell out as well as themselvs Now if they be kept in by the vessel so that they have not play enough they drive the dense ones like so many little hammers or wedges against the sides of it and at length break it and so make themselvs way to a larger room But if they have vent the more fiery hot spirits fly away and leave the other grosser parts quiet and at rest On the other side if the hot and light parts in a liquor be not many nor very active and the vessel be so ful that the parts have not free scope to remove and make way for one another there will not follow any great effect in this kind as we see in Bottle Beer or Ale that works little unless there be some space left empty in the bottle And again if the vessel be very much too big for the liquor in it the fiery parts find room first to swel up the heavie ones and at length to get out from them though the vessel be close stopped for they have scope enough to float up and down between the surface of the liquor and the roof of the vessel And this is the reason that if a little beer or small wine be left long in a great cask be it never so close stop'd it will in time grow dead And then if at the opening of the bung after the cask hath been long unstir'd you hold a candle close to it you shall at the instant see a flash of flame environing the vent Which is no other thing but the subtile spirits that parting from the beer or wine have left it dead and flying abroad as soon as they are permited are set on fire by the flame they meet with in their journey as being more combustible because more subtile then that spirit of wine which is kept in form of liquor and yet that likewise though much grosser is set on fire by the touch of flame And this happens not only to Wine and Beer or Ale but even to water As dayly experience shews in the East Indian Ships that having been five or six yeers at Sea when they open some of their casks of Thames Water in their return homewards for they keep that water till the last as being their best and most durable and that grows lighter and purer by the often purifyings through violent motions in storms every one of which makes new gross and earthy parts fall down to the bottom and other volatile ones ascend to the top a flame is seen about their bungs if a candle be near as we said before of wine And to proceed with confirming this doctrine by further experience we dayly see that the little parts of heat being agitated and brought into motion in any body enter and pierce into other parts and incorporate themselvs with them and set them on fire if they be capable
which two never misses to reign whenever the water freezes and both of them argue great store of little earthy dry bodies abounding in them which sweeping over all those that ly in their way and course must of necessity be mixed with such as give them admittance which water doth very easily And accordingly we see that when in the freezing of water the Ice grows any thing deep it either shrinks about the borders or at least lies very loose so as we cannot doubt but there is a free passage more of such subtile bodies to get still to the water and freez it deeper To his second argument we ask How he knows that Ice quantity for quantity is lighter then water For though of a Spunge that is ful of water it be easie to know what the spunge weighs and what the water that was soaked into it because we can part the one of them from the other and keep each apart to examine their weights yet to do the like between Ice and water if Ice be throughout full of air as of necessity it must be we believe impossible And therfore it may be lighter in the bulk then water by reason of the great pores caus'd in it through the shrinking up of the parts of water together which pores must then necessarily be fill'd with air and yet every part by it self in which no air is be heavier then so much water And by this it appears that his last argument grounded upon the the swiming of Ice in water has no more force then if he would prove that an iron or earthen dish were lighter and consequently more rare then water because it swims upon it which is an effect of the airs being contain'd in the belly of it as it is in Ice not a sign of the metals being more rare then water Wheras on the contrary side the proof is positive and clear for us For it cannot be denied but the mingling of the water with other bodies more dense then it must of necessity make the compound also the water it self become more dense then it was alone And accordingly we see that Ice half thaw'd for then much of the air is driven out and the water begins to fill the pores wherin the air resided before sinks to the bottom as an Iron dish with holes in it wherby the water might get into it would do And besides we see that water is more Diaphanous then Ice and Ice more consistent then water Therfore I hope we shall be excused if in this particular we be of a contrary opinion to this great personage But to return to the thrid of our discourse The same that passes here before us passes also in the Sky with Snow Hail Rain Wind. Which that we may the better understand let us consider how Winds are made for they have a main influence into all the rest When the Sun by some particular occurrent raises great multitudes of Atoms from some one place and they either by the attraction of the Sun or some other occasion take their course a certain way this motion of those atoms we call a wind which according to the continuance of the matter from whence these atoms rise endures a longer or a shorter time and goes a farther or a shorter way like a river or rather like those eruptions of waters which in the Northern parts of England they call Gypsies which break out at uncertain times and upon uncertain causes and flow likewise with an uncertain duration So these winds being composed of bodies in a determinate proportion heavier then the air run their course from their height to the ground where they are supported as water is by the floor of its channel whiles they perform their carreer that is till they be wasted either by the drawing of the Sun or by their sticking and incorporating into grosser bodies Some of these winds according to the complexion of the body out of which they are extracted are dry as those which come from barren mountains cover'd with snow others are moist as those that come out of marrishy or watry places others have other qualities as of heat or cold of wholsomness or unwholsomness and the like partly from the source and partly from the bodies they are mingled within their way Such then being the nature and origine of wind if a cold one meet in the air with that moist body wherof otherwise rain would have been made it changes that moist body into Snow or into Hail if a dry wind meet with a wet body it makes it more dry and so hinders the rain that was likely to be but if the wet body overcome the dry wind it brings the wind down along with it as we see when a showre of rain allays a great wind And that all this is so experience will in some particulars instruct us as well as reason from whence the rest may be evidently infer'd For we see that those who in imitation of nature would convert water into Ice take snow or ice mingle it with some active dry body that may force the cold parts of the snow from it and then they set the water in some fit vessel in the way that those little bodies are to take which by that means entring into it strait incorporate themselves therewith and of a suden convert it into ice Which process you may easily try by mingling Salt Armoniacke with snow but much more powerfully by setting the snow over the fire whiles the glass of water to be congealed stands in it after the manner of an egg in salt And thus fire it self though it be the enemy destroyer of all cold is made the instrument of freezing And the same reason holds in the cooling of wine with snow or ice when after it has been a competent time in the snow they whose charge it is use to give the vessel that contains the wine three or four turns in the snow so to mingle through the whole body of the wine the cold receiv'd first but in the outward parts of it and by pressing too make that without to have a more forcible ingression But the whole doctrin of Meteors is so amply so ingeniously and so exactly perform'd by that never-enough-praised Gentleman Mounsir Des Cartes in his Meteorological discourses as I should wrong my self and my Reader if I dwell any longer upon this subject And whose Physical discourses had they been divulged before I had entred upon this work I am perswaded would have excused the greatest part of my pains in delivering the nature of bodies It were a fault to pass from treating of Condensation without noting so ordinary an effect of it as is the joyning together parts of the same body or of divers bodies In which we see for the most part that the solide bodies which are to be joyn'd together are first either heated or moistned that is they are rarified and then they are left to cold
the air in this our Hemisphere is as it were strew'd over and sow'd with abundance of Northern atoms and that some brooks of them are in station others in a motion of retrogradation back to their own North Poles the Southern atoms which coming upon them at the Equator do not only press in among them wherever they can find admittance but also go on forwards to the North Poles in several files by themselvs being driven that way by the same accidental causes which make the others retire back seizing in their way upon the northern ones in such manner as we described in filtration and therby creeping along by them wherever they find them standing stil and going along with them wherever they find them going back must of necessity find passage in great quantites towards and even to the North Pole though some parts of them will ever and anon be check'd in this their journey by the main current prevailing over some accidental one and so be carried back again to the Equator whose line they had crossed And this affect cannot choose but be more or less according to the seasons of the year For when the Sun is in the Tropick of Capricorn the southern atoms will flow in much more abundance and with far greater speed into the Torrid Zone then the northern atoms can by reason of the Suns approximation to the South and his distance from the North Pole since he works faintest where he is furthest off and therfore from the North no more emanations or Atoms will be drawn but such as are most subtilised and duly prepared for that course And since only these selected bands do now march towards the Equator their files must needs be thinner then when the Suns being in the Equator or Tropick of Cancer wakens and musters up all their forces And consequently the quiet parts of air between their files in which like Atoms are also scatter'd are the greater wherby the advenient Southern Atoms have the larger filter to climb up by And the like happens in the other Hemisphere when the Sun is in the Tropick of Cancer as who will bestow the pains to compare them will presently see Now then let us consider what these two streams thus incorporated must of necessity do in the surface or upper parts of the Earth First 't is evident they must needs penetrate a pretty depth into the Earth for so freezing perswades us and much more the subtile penetration of divers more spiritual bodies of which we have sufficiently discoursed above Now let us conceive that these steams find a body of a convenient density to incorporate themselvs in in the way of density as we see fire doth in iron and in other dense bodies and this not for an hour or two as happens in fire but for years as I have been told that in the extreme cold hills in the Peak in Darbyshire happens to the dry Atoms of cold which are permanently incorporated in water by long continual freezing and so make a kind of Chrystal In this case certainly it must come to pass that this body will become in a manner wholly of the nature of these steams which being drawn from the Poles that abound in cold and driness for others that have not these qualities do not contribute to the intended effect the body is aptest to become a stone for so we see that cold and drought turns the superficial parts of the earth into stones rocks accordingly wherever cold dry winds reign powerfully all such Countries are mainly rocky Now then let us suppose this stone to be taken out of the earth and hang'd in the air or set conveniently on some little pin or otherwise put in liberty so as a small impulse may easily turn it any way it will in this case certainly follow that the end of the stone which in the earth lay towards the North pole will now in the air convert it self in the same manner towards the same point and the other end which lay towards the South turn by consequence to the South I speak of these Countries which lie between the Equator and the North in which of necessity the stream going from the North to the Equator must be stronger then the opposite one Now to explicate how this is done Suppose the stone hang'd East and West freely in the air the steam which is drawn from the North Pole of the earth ranges along by it in its course to the Equator and finding in the stone the South steam which is grown innate to it very strong it must needs incorporate it self with it and most by those parts of the steam in the stone which are strongest which are they that come directly from the North of the stone by which I mean that part of the stone that lay Northward in the Earth and that still looks to the North pole of the Earth now it is in the air And therfore the great floud of atoms coming from the North pole of the earth will incorporate it self most strongly by the North end of the stone with the little floud of Southern atomes it findes in the stone for that end serves for the coming out of the Southern atomes and sends them abroad as the South end doth the Northern steam since the steams come in at one end and go out at the other From hence we may gather that this stone will joyn and cleave to its attractive whenever it happens to be within the Sphere of its activity Besides if by some accident it should happen that the atomes or steams which are drawn by the Sun from the Polewards to the Equator should come stronger from some part of the earth which is on the side hand of the Pole then from the very Pole it self in this case the stone will turn from the Pole towards that side Lastly whatever this stone will do towards the Pole of the earth the very same a lesser stone of the same kind will do towards a greater And if there be any kind of other substance that has participation of the nature of this stone such a substance will behave it self towards this stone in the same manner as such a stone behaves it self towards the earth all the Phenomens whereof may be the more plainly observed if the stone be cut into the form of the earth And thus we have found a perfect delineation of the Loadstone from its causes For there is no man so ignorant of the nature of a Loadstone but he knows that the properties of it are to tend towards the North to vary somtimes to joyn with another Loadstone to draw iron to it and such like whose causes you see deliver'd But to come to experimental proofs and observations on the Loadstone by which it will appear that these causes are well esteem'd and apply'd we must be beholding to that admirable searcher of the nature of the Loadstones Dr. Gilbert by means of
the touched part Again the longer an iron is in touching the greater vertue it gets and the more constant And both an iron and a loadstone may lose their vertue by long lying out of their due order and situation either to the earth or to another loadstone Besides if a loadstone touch a long iron in the middle of it he diffuses his vertue equally towards both ends and if it be a round plate he diffuses his vertue equally to all sides And lastly the vertue of a loadstone as also of an iron touched is lost by burning it in the fire All which symptoms agreeing exactly with the rules of bodies make it undeniable that the vertue of the loadstone is a real and solid body Against this position Cabeus objects that little atomes would not be able to penetrate all sorts of bodies as we see the vertue of the loadstone doth And argues that although they should be allow'd to do so yet they could not be imagin'd to penetrate thick and solid bodies so suddenly as they would do thin ones and would certainly shew then some sign of facility or difficulty of passing in the interposition and taking away of bodies put between the loadstone and the body it works upon Secondly he objects that atomes being little bodies cannot move in an instant as the working of the loadstone seems to do And lastly that the loadstone by such abundance of continual evaporations would quickly be consumed To the first we answer That atomes whose nature 't is to pierce iron cannot reasonbly be suspected of inability to penetrate any other body and that atomes can penetrate iron is evident in the melting of it by fire And indeed this objection comes now too late after we have so largely declared the divisibility of quantity and the subtility of nature in reducing all things into extreme small parts for this difficulty has no other avow then the tardity of our imaginations in subtilizing sufficiently the quantitative parts that issue out of the loadstone As for any tardity that may be expected by the interposition of a thick or dense body there is no appearance of such since we see light pass through thick glasses without giving any sign of meeting with the least opposition in its passage as we have above declared at large and magnetical emanations have the advantage of light in this that they are not obliged to straight lines as light is Lastly as for Loadstones spending themselves by still venting their emanations odoriferous bodies furnish us with a full answer to that objection for they continue many years palpably spending themselvs and yet keep their odour in vigour wheras a loadstone if it be laid in a wrong position will not continue half so long The reason of the duration of both which makes the matter manifest and takes away all difficulty which is that as in the root of a vegeâ—able there is a power to change the advenient juyce into its nature so is there in such like things as these a power to change the ambient air into their own substance as evident experience shews in the Hermetike Salt as some modern writers call it which is found to be repair'd and encreas'd in its weight by lying in the air and the like happens to Saltpeter And in our present subject experience informs us that a Loadstone will grow stronger by lying in due position either to the earth or to astronger Loadstone whereby it may be better impregnated and as it were feed it self with the emanations issuing out of them into it Our next position is that This virtue comes to a magnetick body from another body as the nature of bodies is to require a being moved that they may move And this is evident in iron which by the touch orby standing in due position near the loadstone gains the power of the Loadstone Again if a Smith in beating his iron into a rod observe to lay it North South it gets a direction to the North by the very beating of it Likewise if an iron rod be made red hot in the fire and kept there a good while together and when it is taken out be laid to cool just North and South it will acquire the same direction towards the North. And this is true not only of iron but also of all other sorts of bodies whatever that endure such ignition particularly of pot-earths which if they be moulded in a long form and when they are taken out of the Kiln be laid as we said of the iron to cool North and South will have the same effect wrought in them And iron though it has not been heated but only continued long unmoved in the some situation of North and South in a building yet it will have the same effect So as it cannot be denied but this virtue comes to iron from other bodies wherof one must be a secret influence from the North. And this is confirmd by a Loadstones losing its virtue as we said before by lying a long time unduly disposed either towards the earth or towards a stronger Loadstone wherby in stead of the former it gains a new virtue according to that situation And this happens not only in the virtue which is resident and permanent in a Loadstone or a touch'd iron but likewise in the actual motion or operation of them As may be experienc'd First in this that the same loadstone or touch'd iron in the South hemisphere of the world hath its operation strongest at that end of it which tends to the North and in the North Hemisphere at the end which tends to the South each pole communicating a vigour proportionable to its own strength in the climate where it is receiv'd Secondly in this that an iron joyn'd to a Loadstone or within the Sphere of the Loadstones working will take up another piece of iron greater then the Loadstone of it self can hold and as soon as the holding iron is removed out of the sphere of the Loadstones activity it presently lets fall the iron it formerly held up And this is so true that a lesser loadstone may be placed so within the sphere of a greater loadstones operation as to take away a piece of iron from the greater Loadstone and this in virtue of the same greater Loadstone from which it plucks it for but remove the lesser out of the sphere of the greater and then it can no longer do it So that 't is evident in these cases the very actual operation of the lesser Loadstone or of the iron proceeds from the actual influence of the greater Loadstone upon and into them And hence we may understand that whenever a magnetick body works it has an excitation from without which makes it issue out and send its streams abroad so as 't is the nature of all bodies to do and as we have given examples of the like done by heat when we discours'd of Rarefaction But to explicate this point more clearly by
render'd quite useless Therfore 't is evident that this virtue must be put in somthing else and not in the application of the magnetical vertue And to examine his reasons particularly it may very well fall out that whatever the cause be the point of a needle may be too little to make an exact experience in and therfore a new doctrine ought not lightly be grounded upon what appears in the application of that And likewise the greatness of the surfaces of the two irons may be a condition helpful to the cause whatever it be for greater and lesser are the common conditions of all bodies and therfore avail all kinds of corporeal causes so that no one cause can be affirm'd more then another meerly out of this that great doth more and little doth less To come then to our own solution I have consider'd how fire hath in a manner the same effect in iron as the virtue of the Loadstone hath by means of the cap for I find that fire coming through iron red-glowing hot will burn more strongly then if it should come immediatly through the air also we see that in Pitcole the fire is stronger then in Charcole And nevertheless the fire will heat further if it come immediately from the source of it then if it come through a red iron that burns more violently where it touches and likewise charcoal will heat further then pitcoal that near hand burns more fiercely In the same manner the Loadstone will draw further without a cap then with one but with a cap it sticks faster then without one Whence I see that it is not purely the virtue of the Loadstone but the virtue of it being in iron which causes this effect Now this modification may proceed either from the multitude of parts which come out of the Loadstone and are as it were stop'd in the iron so the sphere of their activity becomes shorter but stronger or else from some quality of the iron joyn'd to the influence of the loadstone The first seems not to give a good account of the effect for why should a little paper take it away seeing we are sure that it stops not the passage of the loadstones influence Again the influence of the Loadstone seems in its motion to be of the nature of light which goes in an insensible time as far as it can reach and therfore were it multiply'd in the iron it would reach further then without it and from it the virtue of the Loadstone would begin a new sphere of activity Therfore we more willingly cleave to the latter part of our determination And therupon enquiring what quality there is in iron whence this effect may follow we find that it is distinguish'd from a loadstone as a metal is from a stone Now we know that metals have generally more humidity than stones and we have discours'd above that humidity is the cause of sticking especially when it is little and dense These qualities must needs be in iron which of all metals is the most terrestrial and such humidity as is able to stick to the influence of the loadstone as it passes through the body of the iron must be exceeding subtile and small And it seems necessary that such humidity should stâ—k to the influence of the loadstone when it meets with it coâ—sidering that the influence is of it self dry and that the nature of iron is a kin to the loadstone wherfore the humidity of the one the drought of the other will not fail of incorporating together Now then if two irons well polish'd and plain be united by such a glew as results ouâ— of this composition there is a manifest appearance of much reason for them to stick strongly together This is confirm'd by the nature of iron in very cold Countreys and very cold weather for the very humidity of the air in times of frost will make upon iron sooner then upon other things such a sticking glew as will pull off the skin of a mans hand that touches it hard And by this discourse you will perceive that Galileo's arguments confirm our opinion as well as his own and that according to our doctrine all circumstances must fall out just as they do in his experiences And the reason is clear why the interposition of another body hinders the strong sticking of iron to the cap of the loadstone for it makes the mediation between them greater which we have shew'd to be the general reason why things are easily parted Let us then proceed to the resolution of the other cases proposed The second is already resolv'd for if this glew be made of the influence of the loadstone it cannot have force further then the loadstone it self has and so far it must have more force then the bare influence of the loadstone Or rather the humidity of two irons makes the glew of a fitter temper to hold then that which is between a dry loadstone and iron and the glew enters better when both sides are moist then when only one is so But this resolution though it be in part good yet doth not evacuate the whole difficulty since the same case happens between a stronger and a weaker Loadstone as between a Loadstone and iron for the weaker Loadstone while it is within the sphere of activity of the greater Loadstone draws away an iron set betwixt them as well as a second iron doth For the reason therfore of the little Loadstones drawing away the iron we may consider that the greater Loadstone hath two effects upon the iron betwixt it and a lesser Loadstone and a third effect upon the little loadstone it self The first is that it impregnates the iron and gives it a permanent vertue by which it works like a weak Loadstone The second is that as it makes the iron work towards the lesser Loadstone by its permanent virtue so also it accompanies the steam that goes from the iron towards the little Loadstone with its own steam which goes the same way so that both these steams in company climb up the steam of the little Loadstone which meets them and that steam climbs up the enlarged one of both theirs together The third effect which the greater Loadstone works is that it makes the steam of the little loadstone become stronger by augmenting its innate virtue in some degree Now then the going of the iron to either of the Loadstones must follow the greater and quicker conjunction of the two meeting steams and not the greatness of one alone So that if the conjunction of the two steams between the iron and the little Loadstone be greater quicker then the conjunction of the two steams which meet betwixt the greater Loadstone and the iron the iron must stick to the lesser Loadstone And this must happen more often then otherwise for the steam which goes from the iron to the greater Loadstone will for the most part be less then the steam which goes from the lesser Loadstone
of necessity be more humid and figurable then that of an ordinary plant and the Artificer which works and moulds it must be more active Wherfore we must suppose that the mass of which an Animal is to be made must be actually liquid and the fire that works upon it must be so powerful that of its own nature it may be able to convert this liquid matter into such breaths and steams as we see use to rise from water when the Sun or fire works upon it Yet if the mass were altogether as liquid as water it would vanish away by heat boyling it and be dried up therfore it must be of such a convenient temper that although in some of its parts it be fluid and apt to run yet by others it must be held together as we see that unctuous things for the most part are which will swell by heat but not fly away So then if we imagine a great heat to be imprison'd in such a liquor and that it seeks by boyling to break out but that the solidness and viscousness of the substance will not permit it to evaporate it cannot chuse but comport it self in some such sort as we see butter or oyl in a frying-pan over the fire when it rises in bubbles but much more efficaciously For their body is not strong enough to keep in the heat and therfore those bubbles fall again wheras if it were those bubbles would rise higher and higher and stretch themselvs longer and longer as when the Soap-boylers boyl a strong unctuous lye into Soap and every one of them would be as it were a little brook wherof the channel would be the enclosing substance and the inward smoak that extends it might be compared to the water of it as when a glass is blown out by fire and air into a long figure Now we may remember how we have said where we treated of the Production and Resolution of Mixed bodies that there are two sorts of liquid substantial parts which by the operation of fire are sent out of the body it works upon the watery and the oyly parts For thouh there appear somtimes some very subtile and Ethereal parts of a third kind wich are the Aquae Ardentes or borning spirits yet in such a close distilling of circulation as this is they are not sever'd by themselvs but accompany the rest and especially the watery parts which are of a nature that the rising Ethereal spirits easily mingle with and extend themselves in it wherby the water becomes more efficacious and the spiritt less fugitive Of these liquid parts which the fire sends away the watry ones are the first as being the easiest to be raised the oyly parts rise more difficultly and therfore come last And in the same manner it happens in this emission of brooks the watry and oyly steams will each of them fly into different reservs and if there arrive to them abundance of their own quality each of them must make a substance of its own nature by by setling in a convenient place and by due concoction Which substance after it is made and confirm'd if more humidity and heat press it will again break forth into other little channels But when the watry and oyly parts are boyl'd away there remain yet behind other more solid and fixed parts and more strongly incorporated with fire then either of these which yet cannot drie up into a fiery salt because a continual accession of humour keeps them always flowing and so they become like a cauldron of boyling fire Which must propagate it self as wide as either of the other since the activity of it must needs be greater then theirs as being the source of motion to them and that there wants not humidity for it to extend it self by And thus you see three roots of three divers plants all in the same plant proceeding by natural resolution from one primitive source Wherof that which is most watry is fittest to fabricate the body and common outside of the triformed plant since water is the most figurable principle in nature and most susceptible of multiplication and by its cold is easiest to be hardned and therfore fittest to resist the injuries of enemy-bodies that may infest it The oily parts are fittest for the continuance and solidity of the plant for we see that viscuosity and oyliness hold together the parts where they abound and they are slowly wasted by fire but conserve and are an aliment to the fire that consumes them The parts of the third kind are fittest for the conservation of heat which though in them it be too violent yet is necessary for working upon other parts and maintaining a due temper in them And thus we have armed our plant with three sorts of rivers or brooks to run through him with as many different streams the one of a gentle balsamike oyle another of streaming fire and the third of a con-natural and cooler water to irrigate and temper him The streams of water as we have said must run through the whole fabrick of this triformed plant and because it is not a simple water but warm in a good degree and as it were a middle substance betwixt water and air by reason of the ardent volatile spirit that is with it 't is of a fit nature to swell as air doth and yet withall to resist violence in a convenient degree as water doth Therfore if from its source nature sends abundance into any one part that part must swell and grow thicker and shorter and so must be contracted that way which nature has order'd it Whence we perceive a means by which nature may draw any part of the outward fabrick which way soever she is pleased by set instruments for such an effect But when there is no motion or but little in these pipes the standing stream that is in a very little though long channel must needs be troubled in its whole body if any one part of it be press'd upon so as to receive therby any impression and therfore whatever is done upon it though at the very furthest end of it makes a commotion and sends an impression up to its very source Which appearing by our former d scourse to be the origine of particular and accasional motion 't is obvious to conceive how it is apt to be moved and wrought by such an impression to set on foot the begining of any motion which by natures providence is convenient for the plant when such an impression is made upon it And thus you see this plant hath the virtue both of sense or feeling that is of being moved and effected by extern objects lightly striking upon it as also of moving it self to or from such an object according as nature shall have ordain'd Which in sum is that This Plant is a Sensitive Creature composed of three sources the Heart the Brain and the Liver whose off-springs are the Arteries the Nervs and the Veins which are fil'd with Vital
outward cast of its body as we have above described somtimes happen to fill certain places of the childs body with the infection and tincture of this object and that according to the impression with which they were in the mothers fantasy for so we have said that things which come together into the fantasy naturally stick together in the animal spirits The hairiness therfore will be occasioned in those parts where the Mother fansied it to be the colour likewise and such extancies or defects as may any way proceed from such a cause will happen to be in those parts in which they were fansied And this is as far as is fit to wade into this point for so general a discourse as ours is and more than was necessary for our turn to the serving wherof the verity of the fact only and not the knowledg of the cause was required for we were to shew no more but that the apprehensions of the parents may descend to the children Out of this discourse the reason appears why beasts have an aversion from those who use to do them harm and why this aversion descends from the old ones to their brood though it should never have hapned that they had formerly encountred with what at the first sight they fly from and avoid But yet the reason appears not why for example a Sheep in England where there are no Wolves bred nor have been these many ages should be afraid and tremble at sight of a Wolf since neither he nor his dam or sire nor theis in multitudes of generations ever saw a Wolf or receiv'd hurt by any In like manner how should a tame Weasell brought into England from Ireland where there are no poisonous creatures be afraid of a Toad as soon as he sees one Neither he nor any of his race ever had any impressions of following harm made upon their fantasies and as little can a Lion receive hurt from a houshold Cock therfore we must seek the reasons of these and such like Antipathies a little further and we shall find them hanging upon the same string with Sympathies proportionable to them Let us go by degrees We daily see that Dogs will have an aversion from Glovers that make their ware of Dogs skins they will bark at and be churlish to them and not endure to come near them though they never saw them before The like hatred they will express to the Dog-killers in the time of the Plague and to those that flea Dogs I have known of a man that used to be imploid in such affairs who passing somtimes over the grounds near my Mothers house for he dwellt at a Village not far off the Dogs would wind him at a very great distance and all run furiously out the way he was and fiercely fall upon him which made him go always well provided for them and yet he has been somtimes hard put to it by the fierce Mastiffs there had it not been for some of the Servants coming in to his rescue who by the frequent hapning of such accidents were warned to look out when they observ'd so great commotion and fury in the dogs and yet perceiv'd no present cause for it Warreners observe that vermin will hardly come into a trap wherin another of their kind hath been lately kill'd and the like happens in Mouse-traps into which no Mouse will come to take the bait if a Mouse or two have already been kill'd in 't unless it be made very clean so that no scent of them remain upon the Trap which can hardly be done on the sudden otherwise than by fire 'T is evident that these effects are to be refer'd to an activity of the object upon the sense for some smell of the skins or of the dead dogs or of the vermine or of the Mice cannot choose but remain upon the Men and Traps which being alter'd from their due nature and temper must needs offend them Their conformity on the one side for somthing of the canine nature remains makes them have easy ingression into them and so they presently make a deep impression but on the other side their distemper from what they should be makes the impression repugnant to their nature and be disliked by them and to affect them worse than if they were of other creatures that had no conformity with them As we may observe that stinks offend us more when they are accompanied with some weak perfume than if they set upon us single for the perfume gets the stink easier admittance into our sense and in like manner 't is said that poisons are more dangerous when they are mingled with a cordial that is not able to resist them for it serves to convey them to the heart though it be not able to overcome their malignity From hence then it follows that if any beast or bird prey upon some of another kind there will be some smell about them exceedingly noisom to all others of that kind and not only to beasts of that same kind but for the same reason even to others likewise that have a correspondence and agreement of temper and constitution with that kind of beast whose hurt is the original cause of this aversion Which being assented to the same reason holds to make those creatures whose constitutions and tempers consist of things repugnant and odious to one another be at perpetual enmity and fly from one another at the first sight or at least the sufferer from the more active creature as we see among those men whose unhappy trade and continual exercise it is to empty Jakeses such horrid stinks are by time grown so conformable to their nature as a strong perfume will as much offend them and make them as sick as such stinks would do another man bred up among perfumes and a Cordial to their spirits is some noysome smell that would almost poison another man And thus if in the breach of the Wolf or the steam coming from his body any quality be offensive to the Lamb as it may very well be where there is so great a contrariety of natures it is not strange that at the first sight and approach of him he should be distemper'd and flie from him as one fighting Cock will do from another that hath eaten Garlike and the same happens between the Weasel and the Toad the Lion and the Cock the Toad and the Spider and several other creatures of whom like enmities are reported All which are caus'd in them not by secret instincts and Antipathies and Sympathies wherof we can give no account with the bare sound of which words most men pay themselvs without examining what they mean but by downright material qualities that are of contrary natures as fire and water are and are either begotten in them in their original constitution or implanted afterwards by their continual food which nourishing them changes their constitution to its complexion And I am perswaded this would go so far that if one
is in them nothing else but each of them to be white and two quantities to be half and whole is in theÌ„ nothing else but each quantity to be just what it is But a respect in its own nature is a kind of tye co mparison tending or order of one of those things to another and is no where to be found in its formal subsistence but in the apprehensiou of man therfore it cannot be described by any similitude nor be expressed by any means but like Being by the sound of a word which we are agreed on to stir up in such a notion For in the things it is not such as our notion of it is which notion is that we use to express by Prepositions and Conjunctions and which Aristotle Logicians express in common by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or ad therfore there is nothing out of us to paint it by as I could do white or square or round or the like because these have a beings in the things that are white or square c. consequently they may be expressed by others of the like nature but the likeness that one white hath to another or the respect that either of them hath to mans imagination is only in man who by comparing them gives birth to the nature and being of respect Out of this discourse we may collect two Singularities of Man which 't will much import us to take particular notice of One is that Being or a thing the formal notion of which is merely Being is the proper affection of man For every particular thing is in him by being as I may say grafted upon the stock of Existence or being And accordingly we see that whatever we speak of we say is something and whatever we conceive we give the nature of a thing as when we have said the wall is white we frame whiteness as a thing so immediately before speaking of Respect we took respect as it were a thing and enquired where it is so that 't is evident all the negotiation of our understanding trades in all that is apprehended by it as if they were things The other Singularity we may observe in man is that he is a coÌ„paring power for all his particular knowledges are nothing else but respectsa nd comparisons between particular things as for example for a manto know heat or cold c. is to know what effects fire or water c. can work upon such or such bodies Out of the first of these proprieties it follows that what effects a man or makes impression upon his understanding doth not therby lose its own peculiar nature nor is modified to the recipient the contrary of which we see happens perpepetually in bodies Observe the sustenance we take which that it may become part of our body is first changed into a substance like our body and ceases being what it was When water or any liquid body is receiv'd into a vessel it loses its own figure puts on the figure of the vessel it is in If heat enters into a body that is already hot that heat becomes therby more heat if into a cold body it is converted into warmth And in like manner all other corporeal things are accommodated to the quallities of the recipient and in it they lose their own proper terms and cosistences but what comes into the understanding of a man is so received by or joyn'd to him that it still retains its own proper limitations and particular nature notwithstanding its assumption to him For Being is joyn'd to every thing there since as we have said 't is by Being that any thing comes thither consequently this stock of Being makes every graft that is inoculated into it Be what of its own nature it is For Being joyn'd to another motion doth not change that notion but makes it be what it was befoâ—e since if it should be changed Being were not added to it as for example add Being to the notion of knife and it makes a knife or that notion to Be a knife and if after the addition it doth not remain a knife it was not Being that was added to a knife Out of the later of the singularities proper to man it follows that a multitude of things may beunited in him without suffering any confusion among themselvs but every one of them will remain with its proprieties and distinct limitations For so of necessity it must be when that which unites them to him is the comparing them to something besides themselvs which work could not be perform'd unless what is to be compared retain exactly its own nature wherby the comparison may be made no more than one can weigh two quantities one against another unless he keep asunder what is in each seal and keep all other weights from mingling with them And accordingly we see that we cannot compare black to white or a Horse to an Oxe unless we take together the properties by which black differs from white or an oxe from an horse and consequently they must remain unmingled and without confusion precisely what in themselvs they are and be indifferent in the sight of the comparer But indeed if we look well into the matter we shall find that setting aside the notion of Existence or Being all our other notions are nothing else but comparisons and respects and that by the mediation of respects the natures of all things are in us and by the varying of them we multiply our Notions Which in their first division that reduces their several kinds into general heads increase into the Ten famous Tribes that Logicians call Predicaments and they comprehend under them all the particular notions that man hath or can have according to the course of knowledge in this life Of which Predicaments the seven last are so manifestly respective that all men acknowledg them to be so Substance we have already shew'd to have a respect to Being Quantity we proved in the first Chapter of the former Treatise of the Nature and Operation of Bodies to consist in a respect to Parts Quality is divided into four branches wherof Power is clearly a respect to that over which it hath power or from which it may suffer Habite is a respect to the substance wherin it is as being the property by which it is well or ill conveniently or inconveniently affected in regard of its own nature as you may observe in health or sickness or the like The Passible Qualities are those we have explicated in discoursing of the Elements and of Mixts and whose natures we have there shew'd consist in respects of acting or suffering Figure or shape which is the last branch of the division of the Predicament of Quality is nothing else but a certain disposition of one part of a body to another And so you see how all the Ten Predicaments consist purely in diversity of Respects by consequence all our conceits and notions excepting that
in the name Hand there is a secret exclusion of any thing that is not in the definition of a hand it follows that in our speech we must say that a hand is not a foot Likewise though it be confessed that the Thing which is rationality is also risibility nevertheless it is a solecism in Logick to say that rationality is risibility because it is the nature of these abstracted names to consine their significations to one definition and the definitions of these two terms are diverse Out of this consideration it follows clearly that seeing the nature of parts is contrary to the nature of identity and that the Soul in her judgments works altogether by identity 't is impossible that her operations should consist of parts or in any sort resemble any proceeding of Quantitative things The like will be convinced out of the Oppositions we find in our thoughts In it we may consider two things first the generation of it next the incompossibility of Opposites in the Soul To begin with the first We see that in speaking opposition is produced by the addition of this word Not as when we say not a man not a peny not a word and therfore it follows that in our Soul there is a notion of it correspondent to the word that expresses it Now seeing that a notion is a thing and that it is the likeness of its object or rather the same with the object let us cast about how we should of parts and of quantity make a nothing or an identification to Not and when we find that it is ridiculous and absurd to go about it let us conclude that the manner of working which our Soul uses is far different from that which is used in bodies and among material things And if you object that not only a body but even any other substance whatever suppose it as spiritual as you will cannot be either like or identified to nothing and therfore this argument will as well prove that the Soul is not a thing or substance as that it is not a body We answer that it is evident out of what we have already said that the Understanding is not the Objects it understands by way of Similitude but by a higher means which we have shew'd to be by way of Respects Now then the respect which the thing hath to another thing by not having such a respect to it as a third thing formerly consider'd hath thereto may be express'd in way of Respects though it cannot in way of Similitude and so our understanding is able to express what neither our fansie nor any corporeal thing can arrive to the expression of As when first we find that one man hath a respect to the wall which we call the power of seeing if afterwards we find that another man hath a respect to the wall of impotence that he cannot see it this second respect the understanding hath a power to express as well as the first as we have touch'd above As for the opposition that occurrs in our thoughts we may consider it of two kinds The one is of the things or objects that come into our thoughts or Soul and this is not properly an opposition in the Soul For though the things be opposite by their own nature in themselvs yet they do not exercise their opposition in the Soul Nay though the opposition be even in the Soul it self if the Soul with this opposition be consider'd as an object it makes no opposition in her for so you may consider your Soul learned and unlearned ignorant and knowing good and bad and the like all which are oppositions in a Soul supposed to be so qualified but none in a Soul that considers them No more than fire and water heavy things and light white and black being and not being an affirmative proposition and its negative and the like all which are in themselvs so contrary and opposite to one another that they cannot consist together in one subject they have an incompossibility among themselvs wherever the one of them is by its very entrance it drives out its opposite and yet in the Soul they agree together without reluctance she knows and considers and weighs both sides of the scale at the same time and ballances them evenly one against another For unless both the opposites were in the same instant in the same comparing power that power could not by one act whose begining implys its ending judg the difference and opposition of them as when we say black is contrary to white or darkness is the want of light we pronounce one common Not being of both extremes We may then boldly conclude that since no body whatever can entertain at the same time and in the same place these quarrelling Antagonists but that by their conflict they presently destroy one another and peradventure the body too into which they presse for entrance and the entire possession of which each of them strives for those of them I mean that are proportion'd to the reception of bodies and that the Soul imbibes them together without any difficulty or contract and preservs them always friends even in the face of one another lodges them together in the same bed and that in a word there opposite things enjoy an admirable and unknown manner of Being in the Soul which hath no parallel in bodily things we may I say boldly conclude that the Soul it self in which all these are is of a nature and hath a manner of Being altogether unlike the nature of bodies and their manner of Being Out of this agreeing of all Objects in the Soul their having no opposition there even whiles she knows the opposition that is between them in themselvs there follows another consideration of no less importance which is that the amplitude of our Soul in respect of knowledg is absolutely infinite that is to say she is capable of knowing at the same time objects without end or measure For the explicating wherof we are to consider that the latter conclusions which the Soul gains knowledg of hang to the former by identification or by the Soul 's seeing that two notions are identified because they are identified to athird as is before expressed the first principles which seem to be immediately joyn'd to the Soul have the identity of their terms plain and evident even in the very terms themselvs Nay if we insist further we shall find that the First Truths must have an identification to the very Soul it self For it being evident that Truth or Falshood is not in the Soul but so far forth as she applys her self to the external object or to the existence of things in themselvs and that we find that the Souls knowing with evidence that any thing is or hath being implys her knowing that her self is for she cannot know that a thing seems so to her or makes such an impression in her without knowing that her self is though peradventure
touching Gravity 6. Gravity and levity do not signifie an intrinsecal inclination to such a motion in the bodies themselvs which are term'd heavy and light 7. The more dense a body is the more swiftly it descends 8. The velocity of bodies descending doth not encrease in proportion to the difference that may be between their several densities 9. More or less gravity produces a swister or a slower descending a heavy body Aristotles argument to disprove motion in 〈◊〉 is made good 10. The reason why at the inferior quarter of a circle a body descends faster by the arch of that quarter then by the chord of it 1. The first objection answered why a hollow body descends flower then a solid one 2 The second objection answer'd and the reasons shown why atoms continually overtake the descending dense body 3. A curious queston left undecided 4. The fourth objection answer'd Why the descent of the same heavy bodies is equal in so great inequality of the atoms which cause it 5. The reason why the shelter of a thick-body doth not hinder the descent of that which is under it 6. The reason why some bodies sink others swims 7. The fifth objection answer'd concerning the descending of heavy bodies in streams 8. The sixth objection answered and that all heavy Elements do weigh in their own Spheres 9 The seventh objection answer'd and the reason why we do not feel the course of the air and atoms that beat continually upon us 10. How in the some body gravity may be greater than density and density than gravity though they be the same thing 11. The opinion of gravities being an intrinsecal inclination of a body to the centre refuted by reason â—2 The same opinion refuted by several experiences 1. The State of the question touching the cause of violent motion 2 That the medium is the only cause which continues violent motion 3. A further explication of the former Doctrine 4. That the air has strength enough to continue violent motion in a moveable Dial. 1. of motion pag. 98. 5. An answer to the first objection that air is not apt to conserve motion And how violent motion comes to cease 6. An answer to the second objection that the air has no power over heavy bodies 7. An answer to the third objection that an arrow should fly faster broadways than long ways 1. That reflection is a kind of violent motion 2. Reflection is made at equal angles 3. The causes and properties of Undulation 4. Refraction at the entrance into the reflectent body is towà rds the perpendicular at the going out is from it when the second superficies is parallel to the first 6. An answer to the arguments brought in favovr of Monsir des Cartes his opinion 7. The true cause of refraction of light both at its entrance and at its going out from the reflecting body 8. A general rule to know the nature of reflections and refractions in all sorts of surfaces 9. A body of greater parts and greater pores makes a greater refraction than one of lesser parts and lesser pores 10. A confirmation of the former doctrine out of the nature of bodies that refract light 1. The connexion of this Chapter with the rest and the Authors intent in it 2. That there is a least size of bodies And that this least size is found in fire 3. The first conjunction of parts is in bodies of least size and it is made by the force of Quantity 4. The second sort of conjunction â—s compactedness in simple Elements and it proceeds from Density 5. The third conjunction is of parts of different Elements and it proceeds from quantity and density together 6. The reason why liquid bodies easily joyn together and dry ones difficultly 7. That no two hard bodies can touch one another immediately 8. How mixed bodies are framed in general 9. The cause of the several degrees of solidity in mixed bodies 10. The rule whereto are reduced all the several combinations of Elements in compounding of mixed bodies 11. Earth and water are the Basis of all permanent mixed bodies 12. What kind of bodies those are where water is the Basis and earth the pedominant element over the other two 13. Of these bodies where water bing the B sis air is the predominant Element 14. What kind of bodies result where water is the Basis and fire the predominant Element 15. Of those bodies where water is in excess it alone being both the Basis and the predominant Element 16. Of those bodies were Earth alone is the Basis and also the predominant in excess over the other three Elements 17. Of those bodies where Earth is the basis and Water the predominant Element over the other two 18. Of those bodies where earth being the basis air is the predominant 19. Of those bodies where earth being the basis fire is the predominant 20. All the Second Qualities of mixed bodies arise from several combinations of the First Qualities and are at last resolv'd into several degrees of rarity and density 21. That in the Planets and Stars there is a like variety of mixed bodies caused by light as here upon Earth 22. In what manner the Elements work upon one another in the position of mixed bodies and in particular fire is the most active 23. A particular declaration touching the generation of Metals 1. Why some bodies are brittle and others tough or apt to withstand outward violence the first instrument to dissolve mixed bodies 2. How outward violence work upon the most compacted bodies 3. The several effects of fiâ—e the second and chiefest instrument to dissolve compounded bodies 4. The reason why some bodies are not dissolv'd by fire 5. The reason why fire melts gold but cannot consume it 6. Why Lead is easily consumed and calcined by fire 7. Why and how some bodies are divided by fire into spirits waters oyls salts and earth what those parts are 〈◊〉 How water the third instrument to dissolve bodies dissolves Calx into Salt and so into Terra damnata 9. How water mingled with salt becomes almost powerfull Agent to dissolve other bodies 20. How putrefaction is caused 1. What is the Sphere of Activity in corporeal Agents 2. The reason why no body can work in distance 3. An objection answer'd against the manner of explicating the former Axiome 4 Of reaction and first in pure local motion that each Agent must suffer in acting and act in suffering 5. The former doctrine applyed to other local motions design'd by particular names And that Suisseths argument is of no force against this way of doctrine 6. Why some notions admit of intension and remission and others not 7. That in every part of our habitable world all the four Elements are found pure in smal atoms but not in any great bulk 1. The Authors intent in this and the following chapters Mr. Thomas White 2. That bodies may be rarified both by outward and inward heat and how this is perform'd 3.
Of the great effects of Rarefaction 4. The first manner of condensation by heat 5. The second manner of condensation by cold 3. That Ice is not water rarifiâ—d but condensed 7. How wind snow and hail are made and wind by rain allayed 8. How parts of the same or divers bodies are joyned more strongly together by condensation 9. Vacuities cannot be the reason why water impregnated to the full with one kind of salt will notwithstanding receive more of another 10. The true reason of the former effect 11. The reason why bodies of the same nature jâ—yn more easily together then others 1. What attraction is and from whence it proceeds 1. The true sense of the Maxime that Nature abhors from vacuity 3. The true rea son of attraction 4. Water may be brought by the force of attraction to what height soever 5. The doctrine touching the attraction of water in Syphons 6. That the Syphon doth not prove water to weigh in its own orb 7. Concerning attraction caused by fire 8. Concerning attraction made by virtue of hot bodies amulets c. 9. The natural reason given for divers operations esteemed by some to be magical 1. What is Filtration and how it is effected 2. What causes the water in filtration to ascend 3. Why the filter will not drop unless the label hang lower then the water 4. Of the motion of Râ—stitution and why some bodies stand bent others not 5. Why some bo dies return only in part to their natural figure others entirely 6. Concerning the nature of those bodies which shrink and stretch 7. How great wonderful effects proceed from smal plain and simple principles 8. Concerning Electrical at action and the causes of it 6. Cabeus his opinion reâ—uted concerning the cause of Electrical motions 1. The extreme heat of the Sun under the Zodiack draws a stream of air from each pole into the Torrid Zone * Chap. 18. Sect. 7. 2. The Atoms of these two streams coming together are apt to incorporate with one another 3. By the meeting and mingling together of these streams at the Equator divers rivolets of Atoms of each Pole are continuated from one Pole to the other 4. Of these Atoms incorporated with some fit matter in the bowels of the earth is made a stone 5. This stone works by emanations joyned with agreeing streams that meet them in the air and in fine it is a Loadstone 6 A methode for making experiences on any subject 7. The Loadstones generation by atoms flowing from both Poles is confirmd by experiments observ'd in the stone it self 8. Experiments to prove that the Loadstone works by emanations meeting with agreeing streames 1. The operations of the loadstone are wrought by bodies and not by qualities 2. Objections against the former position answer'd 3. The Loadstone is imbued with his virtue from another body 4 The virtue of the Loadstone is a double and not one simple virtue 5. The virtue of the Loadstone works more strongly in the poles of it then in any other part 6. The loadstone sends forth its emanations spherically Which are of two kindâ— and each kind is strongest in that Hemisphere through whose polary parts they issue out 7. Putting two loadstones within the sphere of one another every part of one loadstone doth not agree wâ—th every part of the other loadstone 8. Concetning the declination and other respects of a needle towards the loadstone it touches 8. The virtue of the Loadstone goes from end to end in lines almost parallel to the Axis 10. The virtue of the Loadstone is not perfectly spherical though the stone be such 11. The intention of nature in all the operations of the loadstone is to make an union betwixt the attractive and attracted bodies 12. The main globe of the earth is not a Loadstone 13. The loadstone is generated in all parts or Climâ—t's of the earth 14. The conformity betwixt the two motions of magnetick things and of heavy things 1. Which is the North and which the South Pole of a Loadstone 2. Whether any bodies besides magnetick ones be attractive 3. Whether an iron placed perpendicularly towards the earth gets a magnetical virtue of pointing towards the north or towards the south in that end that lies downwards 4. Why loadstones affect iron better than one another 5. Gilberts reason refuted touching a cap'd Loadstone that takes up more iron then one not cap'd and an iron impregnated that in some case draws more strongly then the stone it self Galileus his opinion touching the former effects refuted 7. The Authors solution to the former questions 8. The reason why in the former case a lesser Loadstones draws the interjacent iron from the greater 9. Why the variation of a touched needle from the North is greater the nearer you go to the Pole 10. Whether in the same part of the world a touched needle may it one time vary more fâ—om the North and at another time less 11. The whâ—le doctrine of the loâ—dstone sum'd up in short 1. The connexion of the following Chapters with the precedent ones 2. Concerning several compositions of mixed bodies 3. Two sorts of Living Creatures 4. An engine to express the first sort of living creatures 5. Another Engine by which may be expressed the second sort of living creatures 4. The two former engines and some other comparisons applied to express the two several sorts of living creatures 7. How plants are framed 8. How Sensitive Creatures are formed 1. The opinion that the seed contains formally every part of the parent 2. The former opinion rejected 3. The Authours opinion of this question 4. Their opinion refuted who hold that every thing contains formally all things 5. The Authors opinion concerning the generation of Animals declared and confirm'd That one substance is changed into another 7. Concerning the hatching of Chickens and the generation of the other Animals 8. From whence it happens that the deficiences or excresences of the parents body are often seen in their children 9. The difference between the Authors opinion anâ—â—he former 〈◊〉 10 That the heart is imbued with the general specifike vertues of the whole body wherby is confirm'd the doctrine of the two former Paragraphes 11 That the heart is the first part generated in a living creatures 1. That the figure of an Animal is produced by ordinary second causes as well as any other corporeal effect 2. That the several figures of bodies proceed from a defect in one of three dimensions caused by the circumference of accidental causes 3. The former doctrine is confirmd by several instances 4. The same doctrine applyed to plants 4. The same doctrine declared in leaves of trees 16. The same applied to the bodies of Animals 7. In what sense the Author admits of vis formatrix 1. From whence proceeds the primary motion growth in Plants 2. Mr. des Cartes his opinion touching the motion of the heart 3. The former opinion rejected 4. The Authors opinion
these others that thus deceive us in regard of motion you must needs agree it is much rashness to conclude it has no motion because we cannot discern the succession of it Consider that it is the subtilest of all the bodies that God has made Examine the paths of it which for the smalness of their thrids and the extreme divisibility of them and their pliant application of themseles to whatever hath pores are almost without resistance Calculate the strange multiplication of it by a perpetual momentary renovation of its streams And cast with your self with what extreme force it springs out and flyes abroad And on the other side reflect how all these things are directly opposite and contrary in those other great bodies whose motion nevertheless appears not to us till it be done and past And when you have well weigh'd all this you must needs grant that they who in this case guided themselves meerely by what appears to their eyes are ill judgers of what they have not well examin'd But peradventure some who cannot all of a sudden be wean'd from what their sence hath so long fed them with may ask yet further How it chances that we have no effects of this motion It shews not it self in the air coming to us a far off It stays not a thought or slackens its speed in flying so vast a space as is from the Sun to us In fine there is no discovery of it But if Galileus his conception be well grounded that Lightning gives us an inkling of its motion beginning from a little and encreasing to a greater or if Monsieur des Cartes his opinion that it goes slower in refraction be true we shall not need to study long for an answer But in Galileus his experience it may be the breaking of the cloud which receives that succession of motion we see and no slowness that light can acquire by the resistance of the refracting body can be so great as to make that difference of lines which Monsieur des Cartes most ingeniously though I much doubt not truly hath apply'd to yield the reason of refraction as will appear in our further discourse Therefore these being uncertain we will to shew the unreasonableness of this question suppose there may be some observable tardity in the motion of light and then ask of them how we should arrive to perceive it What sense should we imploy in this discovery It is true we are satisfied that sound takes up time in coming to our ears but it is because our eyes are nimbler then they and can perceive a good way distant the Carpenters ax falling upon the timber that he hews or the fire flashing out of the cannon before they hear any news of them but shut your eyes or inquire of a blind man and then neither you nor he can tell whether those sounds will fill your ears at the very instant they were begotten or have spent some time in their journey to you Thus then our eyes instruct our ears But is there any sense quicker than the sight or means to know speedier than by our eyes Or can they see light or any thing else until it be with them We may then assuredly conclude that its motion is not to be discern'd as it comes upon us nor it self to be perceiv'd till its beams are in our eyes But if there be any means to discover its motion surely it must be in some medium through which it must struggle to get as fire doth through Iron which increasing there by degrees at last when it is red hot sends beams of light quite through the plate that at the first refused them passage And it makes to this purpose that the light-conserving stones which are gathered in Italy must be set in the Sun for some while before they retain light and the light will appear in them when they are brought back into the dark greater or lesser until they come to their utmost period according as they have been longer or a lesser while in the Sun And our eyes the longer they remain in the light the more dazel'd they are if they be suddenly passed into the dark And a curious Experiencer did affirm that the likeness of any object but particularly he had often observ'd it of an iron grate if it be strongly inlightned will appear to another in the eye of him that looks strongly and steadily upon it till he be dazel'd by it even after he shall have turn'd his eyes from it And the wheel of fire could never be made appear to our eye by the whirling of the firestick we even now spoke of unless the impression made by the fire from one place did remain in the eye a while after the fire was gone from the place whence it sent that ray Whence 't is evident that light and the pictures of objects do require time to settle and to unsettle in a subject If then light makes a greater impression with time why should we doubt but the first comes also in time were our sense so nimble as to perceive it But then it may be objected that the Sun would never be truly in that place in which to our eyes it appears to be because it being seen by means of the light which issues from it if that light required time to move in the Sun whose motions is so swift would be removed from the place where the light left it before that could be with us to give tidings of it To this I answer allowing that peradventure it may be so Who knows the contrary Or what inconvenience would follow if it be admitted Indeed how can it be otherwise In refraction we are sure it is so and therefore at no time but when the Sun is Perpendicularly over our heads we can be certain of the contrary although it should send its light to us in an instant Unless happily the truth of the case should be that the Sun doth not move about us but we turn to his light and then the objection also loses its aim But the more we press the quickness of light the more we engage our selves in the difficulty why light doth not shatter the aire in pieces as likewise all solid bodies whatever for the Masters of Natural Philosophy tells us that a softer thing with a great velocity is as powerfull in effect when it gives a blow as a harder thing going slowly And accordingly experience teaches us that a tallow candle shot in a Gun will go through a board or kill a man Wherfore light having such an infinite celerity should also have an unresistable force to pierce and shatter not onely the air but even the hardest bodies that are Peradventure some may think it reasonable to grant the consequence in the circumstances since experience teaches us that the congregation of a little light by a glasse will set very solid bodies on fire and will melt metals in a very short space which shews a great
proportion over air and water And this I conceive produces those substāces which we may term co-agulated juyces and which the Latines call succi concreti whos 's first origine seems to have been liquours that have been afterwards dried by the force either of heat or cold Of this nature are all kind of Salts Niters Sulfurs and divers sorts of Bitumens All which easily bewray the relicks and effects of fire left in them some more some less according to their degrees And thus we have in general deduced from their causes the complexions of those bodies whereof the bulk of the world subjected to our use consists and which serve for the production and nourishment of living creatures both animal and vegetable Not so exactly I confess nor so particularly as the matter in it self or as a Treatise confined to that subject would require yet sufficiently for our intent In the performance whereof if more accurate searchers of nature shall find that we have peradventure been mistaken in the minute delivering of some particular bodies complexion their very correction I dare boldly say will justifie our principal scope which is to shew that all the great variety we see among bodies arises out of the commixion of the First Qualities and of the Elements for they will not be able to correct us upon any other grounds then those we have laid As may easily be perceiv'd if we cast a summary view upon the qualities of compounded bodies All which we shall find to spring out of rarity and density and to savour of their origine for the most manifest qualities of bodies may be reduced to certain pairs opposite to one another As namely some are liquid and flowing others are consistent some are soft others hard some are fatty viscuous and smooth others lean gritty and rough some gross others subtile some tough others brittle and the like Of which the liquid the soft the fat and the viscuous are so manifestly derived from rarity that we need not take any further pains to trace out their origine and the like is of their contraries from the contrary cause to wit of those bodies that are consistent hard lean and gritty all which evidently spring from density As for smoothness we have already shew'd how that proceeds from an airy or oily nature and by consequence from a certain degree of rarity And therefore roughness the contrary of it must proceed from a proportionable degree of density Toughness is also a kind of ductility which we have reduced to watriness that is to another degree of rarity and consequently brittleness must arise from the contrary degree of density Lastly grossness and subtilness consist in a difficulty or facility to be divided into small parts which appears to be nothing else but a certain determination of rarity and density And thus we see how the several complexions of bodies are reduced to the four Elements that compound them and the qualities of those bodies to the two primary differences of quantitative things by which the elements are diversified And out of this discourse it will be evident that these complexions and qualities though in diverse degrees must of necessity be found wherever there is any variation in bodies For seeing there can be no variation in bodies but by rarity and density and that the pure degrees of rarity and density make heat cold moisture and driness and in a word the four Elements 't is evident that wherever there is variety of bodies there must be the four Elements though peradventure far unlike these miked bodies which we call Elements And again because these Elements cannot consist without motion and by motion they of necessity produce Mixed bodies and forge out those Qualities which we come from explicating it must by like necessity follow that wherever there is any variety of active and passive bodies there mixed bodies likewise must reside of the same kinds and be indued with qualities of the like natures as those we have treated of though peradventure such as are in other places of the world remote from us may be in a degree far different from ours Since then it cannot be denied but that there must be notable variety of active and passive bodies wherever there is light neither can it be denied but that in all those Great Bodies from which light is reflected to us there must be a like variety of complexions and qualities and of bodies temper'd by them as we find here in the Orb we live in Which Systeme how different it is from that which Aristotle and the most of the School have deliver'd us as well in the evidencies of the proofs for its being so as in the position and model of it I leave to the prudent Readers to consider and judge Out of what has been already said 't is not hard to discover in what manner the composition of bodies is made In effecting which the main hinge wheron that motion depends is fire or heat as it likewise is in all other motions whatever Now because the composition of a mixed body proceeds from the action of one simple body or element upon the others it will not be amiss to declare by some example how this work passes for that purpose let us examine how fire or heat works upon his fellows By what we have formerly deliver'd 't is clear that fire streaming out from its centre and diffusing it self abroad so as to fill the circumference of a larger circle it must needs follow that the beams of it are most condens'd and compacted together near the centre and the further they stream from the centre the more thin and rarified they must grow yet this is with such moderation as we cannot any where discern that one beam doth not touch another and therfore the distances must be very smal Now let us suppose that fire happens to be in a viscuous and tenacious body and then consider what will happen in this case of one side the fire spreads it self abroad on the other side the parts of the tenacious body being moist as I have formerly determin'd their edges on all hands will stick fast to the dry beams of the fire that pass between them Then they stretching wider and wider from one another must needs draw with them the parts of that tenacious body which stick to them and stretch them into a greater widness or largness then they enjoy'd before from whence it follows that seeing there is no other body near therabouts but they two either there must be a vacuity left or else the tenacious body must hold and fill a greater space then it did before and consequently be more rare Contrariwise of any of the other elements be stronger then fire the denser Elements break off from their continu'd stream the little parts of fire which were gotten into their greater parts and sticking on all sides about them so enclose them that they have no more semblance of fire and