estimate of their Figures or take their Dimensions to be yet divisible into less parts whose figure as not necessary to the constituting so not needful to be reckon'd upon in our Calculation of the Nativity of Bodys And Secondly We suppose the natural or physical division of parts to transcend by many degrees that of Mechanism how acutely and artificially soever perform'd which physical sub-division we in our Discourse of Fermentation and in our Tentamen Physiolog ascribe wholly to the Energie of Ferments viz. to the subtile Collisions of our Principles mutually acting which is able to knock off every Angle to perforate every Solid and to split in pieces every Globula of Matter that upon such Figures fall under our cognizance Hydroph But pray Pyroph first Why are your Principles call'd Mechanical Secondly Why do not your Principles as reducible at the long run into Water forfeit their Natures or Essences of Principles Pyroph I answer Hydroph as to the first they are call'd Mechanical because material and next because being as such and set into their peculiar motions are sufficient for the physical Mechanism and structure of all bodys or such as Nature imploys as we suppose in the Mechanism of all specific Concretes throughout its threefold Kingdom so that to the building of all bodys from intrinsic Agents these are according to our Hypothesis necessarily and essentially requisite And as to the second I answer Hydroph that although these Principles be the proximate Agents and primarily to be considered in order to the hewing forth of Bodys from their material original water determining water into this or the other specifical Concrete yet we do not esteem of these active Principles to be otherwise than material only spiritualiz'd or subtiliz'd Matter for Spirit in our Physical sense we only look upon as subtiliz'd matter and therefore as such at the long winding off are reducible into water or convene in such a fluid texture of parts ascribable to water SECT IX Hydroph BUt do not the Atomical Philosophers and you agree in the main in the Principles and general affections of bodys afore-named Pyroph Yes But besides what I have already said wherein ours chiefly differ from theirs we must also crave leave to tell you Hydroph that we dissent from them in those extravagancies which renders it justly to be reputed heathenish or vain Philosophy especially as they sprang from the old Fountain witness the roving fancies of the first starters of the Corpuscularian Doctrine I mean of Epicurus Democritus Leucippus Lucretius and the rest of that Classis whose opinion was that matter and motion was Eternal and that innumerable worlds were generated by the fortuitous Coalition of Atoms as Magnenus tells us out of Diogenes Laert. Seneca c. Witness what Claudianus Pau. elegantly describes in these lines speaking of Democritus Ille ferox unoque tegi haud passus Olympo Immensum per inane volat finemque perosus Parturit innumeros angusto pectore mundos So that according to their opinion the World all the mixt Bodies therein were huddled together by the Justlings Counter Scuffles and Duellings of Atoms which by accidental jumpings into such and such postures and figures produc'd such and such figurative sensible Bodies as make up the whole pompage thereof whence Virgil in his Eclogues gives a hint of that Doctrine Namque canebat uti magnum per inane coacla Semina terrarum animaeque marisque fuissent Et liquidi simul ignis ut his exordia primis Omnia ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis For they suppose matter out of which the World is made Eternal and by their inane an infinite space wherein infinite small Particles or Atoms of that matter are contained which Atoms we might think being gamesome and frolick might make infinite congresses running a tilt upon each other and that without any designation or appointment of any Divine Supreme intelligent power twist upon each other and by a blind I know not what impetus by chance strike the figure of so many Worlds and amongst the rest form the beautiful regular compage of that World we see and that the Earth while in its vigour and fertility brought forth Men and other Animals as now it doth Plants So that they suppose the generation of mixt Bodies to be nothing else but a congregation and corruption to be a segregation of Atoms and all this sine numine divine without any Divine Fiat and therefore may well be called heathenish or vain Philosophy Hydroph But pray Pyroph is not that Philosophy or knowledg of natural things the best whose Principles doth best agree with and come nearest to the Mosaic and consequently Christian Philosophy Pyroph Yes Hydroph without doubt Hydroph Well then surely ours I mean the Aristotelic Doctrine of natural Bodies must be the best for we own a Divine power that has not only created but by the same upholds all things in the World Pyroph So far Hydroph is very well and that which every solid Hypothesis should suppose But to lay such a foundation of fruitful Principles as to make the Doctrine of natural Bodies the most intelligible and thereby to solve the various Phaenomena most demonstrably is the main matter Hydroph Why is not our Doctrine of the four Elements Principles large enough to erect a true Hypothesis thereby of natural Bodies Are not all mixts produc'd therefrom and ultimately resolv'd thereinto Pyroph To which I answer that the four Elements as they are by Aristotle and his Commentators laid down as the materia proxima of all Bodies are both too strait and narrow to raise up a Structure of Bodies therefrom as also too many to enter the composition of natural Concretes Hydroph Why How are they too strait Are not all Bodies made up with Fire and Air Water and Earth Are not these Pyroph the beginnings of all Bodies Pyroph These four Elements Hydroph are too strait because all natural Bodies in their genuine Analysis are not resoluble thereinto and such are demonstrably Principles or Elements into which mixts are ultimately reducible Hydroph Are not our Quaternary of Elements such In as much as they are according to our Hypothesis simple Homogenial Bodies from which all Concretes are primarily compounded and into which they are ultimately resolv'd which for instance enter the composition of the Body of Man as well as other mixts For we read Gen. 3. That upon the Curse Man was to return to the ground out of which he was taken So that Earth must be one main ingredient of the Body of Man which Earth unless it be bound up with a Watery moisture as with Glew would fall from together and therefore must needs suppose Water another Element in the Fabrick of the humane Body So that there is Earth and Water and because as we suppose all Generation is made up of contraries therefore Air and Fire as contraries to Earth and Water must also be of necessity there That the immoderate driness
and coldness of Earth and Water may be temper'd with the moisture and heat of Air and Fire and so all be brought to a kind of equality Besides Ex iis constamus ex quibus nutrimur but we are nourished by the four Elements and Bodies thence made Ergo. Pyroph Here indeed you seem to come pretty close to the point Hydroph by an experimental Induction as you suppose of the humane Body in the Fabrick whereof you conjecture the four Elements to become the principia materiata and that not only of man 's but also of all other mixt Bodies in the World and this you do by first taking in the Element of Earth as the Basis of the rest and that you ground from Adam's return to Earth from whence he was taken which was part of the sentence God pronounc'd against Man for his disobedience at the fall I must tell you Hydroph that this is no Argument for Earth as a simple Homogenial Element to enter the composition of the Body of Man for that sentence Thou shalt return to the ground for out of it wast thou taken For dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return seems to me to intimate no more than thus viz. that seeing Man by his transgression had forfeited his right to an Eternal and Immutable Inheritance which upon his obedience had then been confirm'd upon him he had now upon his disobedience a Sentence of the Mortality of Body pass'd upon him and that after the revolution of some years his Body should undergo the same vicissitude and Law of Mutability with other temporary transient mixt Bodies in the World Dust thou art and unto Dust thou shalt return intimates a Reduction of the Body into its primitive minute parts whether in a liquid or dry form whether reduc'd into a Juice or Leffas of the Earth by the fracedo of the Grave or that Juice further coagulated into some Species of Earth For the word in the Original is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which Earth is signified as being the Sublunary part of the World distinguished from the Heavens or Coelestial Bodies but is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which intimates a red elixerated Earth where an efflorescence of the Panspermion of the Macrocosme becomes concentred in as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which takes its original from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Microcosme or little World which is the Epitome of the great World And although Hydroph we should admit Earth as a constituent Principle or Element of Bodies which yet in our Hydrologia Chymic by several Mechanical Experiments have demonstrated Water not Earth to be the material Principle of all Concrete Bodies and so to take in Water and Earth as two Elements of Bodies I say notwithstanding that Adoption of Earth to be an Element we see no reason for a necessity of taking in the other two of Air and Fire as Principles of Bodies which you ground upon this Supposition that all Generation is made up of contraries which yet in some sense is true as elsewhere in our Doctrine of Fermentation we shew and therefore having Earth and Water granted as two Elements you conclude a necessity of Air and Fire to temper the other and bring them into an equality by their contrary qualities For if we can Hydroph as we may elsewhere solve those primary qualities of heat and cold dryness and moisture without having recourse to their subjects of inhesion as the Elements are reputed to be then those Elements at least as to the quaternary of them must of necessity cease to be primary constituent Principles of Bodies seeing the Elements in order to the Fabric thereof are to do it by their supposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or combination of qualities And altho that of Aristotle be true viz. Ex iis constamus ex quibus nutrimur yet the Assumption or minor which commonly is annexed annexed thereto viz. but we are nourished by the four Elements and their Concrete Bodies is as false which although they further endeavour to prove by the instance of Plants of which we feed these are they say nourished by Earth and Water are cherished by Heat which proceeds from Fire and are preserv'd by Air and therefore we feeding upon them feed upon the four Elements of which they are made Whereas Hydroph we elsewhere acquaint you how Plants have not their original from the Quaternary of Elements but from Seeds and specifical Ferments which determine the motion of matter into such variety of shapes which we usually see them distinguished into and that chiefly upon matter whose parts are so wrought as to become fluid I mean Water which is the proximate material Subject of most if not all Concretes whether in their Genesis or Metastasis Hydroph But I will give you another instance how we understand the four Elements to be the Principles of mixt Bodies and that is by the destruction or reduction of things into those Principles from whence they take their Original as suppose in burning a piece of Wood you may Pyroph view a separation of the four Elements for the fumes go into Air the expressed moisture of the Wood is of the nature of Water the Ashes is of the nature of Earth and lastly the Fire or Flame is obvious enough to the Eye Pyroph This experiment of the burning of Wood evinceth nothing Hydroph of the pre-existency of the Quaternary of Elements by its reduction into Fume Moisture Ashes and Flame For that by which according to the Peripatetie Doctrine you would have Air to be demonstrated to be a constitutive Principle of Wood is the fume which if so then must this Fume be like the Air a simple Homogenial Body which yet how simple so ever you may repute we know Hydroph how to separate by the Pyrotechnic Art five or six several distinguishable things as if done in close Vessels a four Spirit if openly it separates a soot to the sides of the Chimney as of a great receiver from which we have separated a Phlegm Spirit Volatile-Salt Oyl and Caput Mort. enough to make it justly be denied the being a simple Elementary Principle and therefore some do two things at once viz. both char their Wood and at the same condense the Fumes in large receivers or pipes whereby they get the four Spirit For the charing of the Wood is nothing but a fixation of the Sulphur with the Salt which Sulphur before would flame forth but now being smothered it only glows in the Coal So that that whereby you would demonstrate a reduction of Wood into the Element of Air by the Fumes thereof you see Hydro how we find it to be a mixt Body it self consisting of Heterogeneous parts many of which are further reducible into more primary Principles yea even the very acid Spirit made by distillation of Woods as of Guaiacum Box c. Which one would deem if any to be a simple Liquor is yet by addition of Alkalizate Bodies
such as are Coral Crabs-Eyes Pearl fixt Salts of Herbs c. is reducible into a piercing Liquor quite of another sort than before which I have also observ'd from the acid Spirit of Verdigrease dinted or mortified by a fixt Alcali to have by further distillation been reducible into a quick penetrating Spirit not acid at all but very much emulating the Spirit of crude Tartar which will not as Acids usually do change the Syrup of Violets into a red Colour And as to what you say Hydroph that the expressed moisture in burning the Wood is of the nature of Water this very thing I say has an Empyreumatic odour which is further reducible and therefore forfeits its badge of a primary or Elementary Principle As for the remaining Ashes which you suppose to be of the nature of Earth you are mistaken for they are a great part of them separable in the form of a fixt Salt which is quite another thing than that you call Earth And further that this very Earth separable after the Calcination of the Vegetable and Elixiviation of the Salt is not Elementary will be evident from the following experimental Observation for from about 200 weight of Oak-wood first char'd and then burnt to Ashes I had but 3 pound of Ashes which by Lixiviating gave me 5 ounces of fixt Salt and about 2 pound 8 ounces of insipid Earth which very Earth I say was no more to be accounted an Elementary Principle of the aforesaid Wood than fixt Salt thence produc'd by Calcination because the like quantity of Wood being otherwise handled by Fire besides what different products would result from other Agents viz. by a naked firing without any previous charing gives a larger proportion by much of fixt Salt than the former which very fixt Salt may also by frequent Calcination Solution Filtration Evaporation or Distillation may I say be all converted into an Earth the same the Wood char'd was reducible to and Phlegm no Philosopher ever admitted fixt Alcalies such as are produc'd by Fire from a Plant amongst Elementary Principles or if any did yet was easily refutable by the aforesaid experiment so that it s hence clear beyond Ambiguity that Earth in the composition of Bodies is not an Element but a Product of the Fire as we further illustrate by other parallel experiments in our Tentamen Physiologic And lastly that the flaming of the Wood should indicate an Elementary Fire is somewhat strange For this Fire in the Wood which we reckon to be made by our fourth Complication of the Principles as aforesaid consumes or rather reduceth it into more simple Bodies which yet are most what new Products of the Fire and other twistings of the same Principles whereas an Elementary Principle should rather constitute than destroy Bodies So that none of those are at all demonstrative of the Quaternary of Elements SECT X. Hydroph WEll Pyroph but we do not suppose that all mixts are immediately reducible into the four Elements but many bodys first change into other forms by a kind of vicissitude and yet at the last are resolvable into the four Elements of which they consist Thus Herbs and other Food we take for our nourishment undergo various changes in our Bodys into Chyle Blood Flesh Bones c. and after Excretion is converted into a Stercus which at length is resolv'd into Earth Pyroph It 's true Hydroph let us imagin what Hypothesis we please yet are not concrete bodys always immediately reducible into their first constituent Principles but sometimes undergo a transposition of parts whereby they acquire a new form and so a second third and so on in a round of vicissitudes before there happen a total Analysis into its primitive Principles or through-resolution of a Concrete into its Minima But that this ultimate reduction of Concretes should always at the long run prove the four Elements is not me-thinks Hydroph demonstrable by your propounded instance of Herbs or other Aliment taken into our bodys for nourishment For that they admit of various Mutations according to the different digestions they pass through is that we cannot deny but that these should be intermediate changes of our Food before it be ultimately reduc'd into the Quaternary of Elements is that we are not to let slip unexamined And first we are to consider that towards the making of changes amongst bodys out of one form into another where there is the same material Principles substituted and only a Metastasis happens there must I say of necessity concur the super-induction of new Ferments or other sorts of extrinsic Agents as aforesaid which by macerating subjugating and altering the parts may raise up a new Structure of a different form than was before and yet that body no whit the nearer to a reduction into its Elements now than before So that what changes or alterations our Food undergoes in the several digestions of our bodys are to be ascrib'd to no other than the different Ferments it passeth through which altering the texture of the parts subverts the first and bringeth on a new form so from the form of Beef Mutton Bread Beer c. though different amongst themselves yet by the uniform operation of the Spirituous elixerated Ferment of the Blood thither in its circulation transmitted as aforesaid become altered or transmuted into a similar Chyle or Cremor which being refin'd through the strait Colanders of the Venae lacteae by which it is percolated from the dreggy Feces along the Duodenum Colon and Ilion and further purify'd in the Glandules is sent up by the Thoracical Vessels into the Jugulars where it 's let into the ascending Branch of the Vena Cava becomes dasht with blood and by coming to the Heart where by the Air in its circuit through the Lungs it 's volatiz'd and assumes the form of vital blood which being carried along the Aorta and other thence branching Arteries sublimes or distils into pure volatile Spirits for the supply of the genus Nervosum part of which mean while being carried into the whole habit of the body becomes coagulated in the fibrous parts into Sinews Flesh Bones c. according as it is determin'd and arrested by the particular assimilative Ferments of the several parts Next to which Hydroph we are to consider the humane as well as other mixt bodys during the revolution of their specifical Ferments are in a constant perspirability always I mean during the season of the vigour of their genuine Ferments a making up and as often resolving or taking in pieces viz. in a perpetual flux of constituent Elements otherwise what means the continual supply we have from daily nourishment by fresh Food For if there were not a constant flux and wasting by perspiration we need not so constant a supply by Food In as much as when we come to a full maturity of years as to the Vegetation or growth of our bodys which is from 18 or 20 till towards 30 years some sooner others later
but that I pretend not here to give a Body of Philosophy therefore shall designedly contract Hydroph Well but seeing Pyroph we have been discoursing of Colours and that you say light is essential in the Fabric thereof Pray what do you think of Light it self do not we rightly define it to be actus perspicui quatenus est perspicuum and do not we truly distinguish betwixt lux and lumen in that we say lux est lucidi corporis qualitas being a quality of a luminous body as it abides and is fixt in the lucid body as for instance that light which is in the Sun Stars or Fire while it is in those bodies we call it lux but when it is dispers'd in a perspicuous body as the Air then it is properly lumen and that in Fire the lux or quality thereof sendeth forth that we call lumen which illuminates the body of Air and thereby makes it perspicuous Pyroph To which Hydroph I answer That your definition of lumen to be the act of a perspicuous body as it is perspicuous and your distinction of lux and lumen are all too short in my apprehension of the offence of a lucid or luminous body and that because what you call actus perspicui as you define lumen is no more according to your own Hypothesis than a product of a quality or a quality of a quality For it is you say produc'd from that you call lux and this you say is a quality of a lucid body so that lumen must be the product of lux a quality of its quality and by consequence one quality must be the subject of another and why not of a third viz. splendour and so a fourth and so ad infinitum Nay further to suppose light to be a quality of a lucid body as it abides and is fixt in that body and yet that this should produce that you call lumen in another body which it has or can have no essential dependence upon is to admit of qualities without the predicate of a subject which according to your own Doctrine is absurd enough Hydroph But what think you Pyroph of the genus of light is it a substance or body or is it not rather a quality or quid incorporeum That it is not a corporeal substance we have several Arguments to urge as first If it were a body it could not so suddenly be diffus'd through the whole Hemisphere and that by reason of resistence of the medium Next to that it would suppose a penetration of bodies and that because there is no part of a perspicuous body as of Water and Air but is illuminated thereby And lastly if light was a body so would also darkness be because contraries Pyroph These are indeed Hydroph the main Arguments of Aristotle and his followers against the corporealness of Light which we shall easily impugne As to the first therefore we say that it is not so difficult to apprehend that an essential luminous body such I mean whose light springs from the evibrations of the intestine Fermentation of its kind of its intrinsic Principles that is whose light is from it self and not from another should upon its extensive motion immediately reach to the periphery of its Orbs activity then that it should perform that work of illumination by an imaginary quality of a quality by a lumen which has its being from a quality of a lucid body As to the resistency of such mediums the constitution of whose parts by its teniousness and facil recess render them diaphanous upon the access of the Rays of light is no more an obstacle to the speedy diffusion of the body of light than the Air doth resist the explosive motion of Gun-powder or than the Air doth oppose the activity of Fire within its own Orb. And therefore Hydroph we might better and I think more agreeable to its nature define Light to be a quick Evibration or extensive and of its kind fermentative motion of the intrinsic Principles of lucid bodies stretching its nimble corporeal Rays from its self as the center to the periphery of its Orbs activity a quick Vibration and extensive Motion I said because that adds to the quickness of its transmission through a proper medium For we see that one spark of Fire or fired matter mov'd suddenly in a round makes an apparition of a whole circle of Fire which suppose it were a Radius or a Ray of Fire whirl'd suddenly about its own center would immediately appear as a whole sphere of Fire and that meerly from the quickness of its motion which seemingly makes Fire or Light appear much more than really it is So that we can no sooner consider a lucid body in motion that is its Principles or parts in an intestine collision or fermentative extrusion but at the same instant we must apprehend it extended and that extension is terminated by the utmost circle of its activity in so much as supposing a luminous body mov'd and extended as aforesaid is it self but the center to the whole Orb of its light whose Rays probably in their extensive motion are globular bodies whirl'd about their own Axis which very Orb may not improperly be call'd the Luminary unless we take in another notion of the co-existency of firy Particles liquidi simul ignis the liquid Fire as Virgil speaks in his Eglog to Sileno interspers'd in the depth of the great Sphere which becomes enkindled and takes flame upon the access of the Rays of the great Luminary the Sun Whether way we please to take it amounts to the same thing For whether we consider suppose the Sun as the great Luminary in Motion extending its Rays instantaneously to the greatest circle of its lucid Orb reaching from it self round to the supposed Vortices of the otherwise conceiv'd fixt Stars and illuminates the whole Orb save the shades of the opake bodies the Earth Moon and other Planets which in their motion about it have always some parts shaded which is that we call Darkness which I say whether we consider the solar Luminary that great fountain and treasure of light mov'd extended and thereby filling its whole Orb the shades excepted even to the periphery thereof with corporeal Rays through the whole medium of the vast Expansum is the same as to apprehend a liquid Fire or firy Principle interspers'd in the whole depth of the Fabric of the World which upon the access of its Compeer the Rays of light immediately darted from the Sun or mediately reflected from other bodies joyns issue therewith takes Flame and together by the agil Motion of their parts compose one great luminous Orb. So that motion and consequently extension is proper to both making either way light to diffuse it self speedily through our Hemisphere For whether it be darted immediately from the Luminary and so fill up the whole Orb of light or it meeting with congeneal firy or sulphureous Particles floating in the great deep giving flame to one