A BRIEF Natural History Intermixed with variety OF Philosophical Discourses AND REFUTATIONS Of such VULGAR ERROURS As our Modern Authors have hitherto omitted By Eugenius Philalethes LONDON Printed for Matthew Smelt next door to the Castle near Moor-gate 1669. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER I Presume I shall no sooner appear upon the Stage I am prepared for but I must without evasion expect to be assaulted by that furious and inconsiderate Monster called Censour whose lashes I will receive with the same slight concern the Lacedemonians did the cruelty of their Correctors sporting themselves whilst their backs were torn with the unmerciful Whip Of that efficacy is Resolution that it presents pain but meer Opinion and values a scoffing Lucian or a satyrical Memphus no more then a harmless Hellespont did the vain threats of a proud Xerxes Seneca saith well better aliud agere quam nihil for Idleness is the Devils opportunity the Considerations of which with my assent to the Judgment of Thucidides who sayes To know a thing and not to express it is all one as thongh he knew it not made me to expose my self to publick view My Subject is good and great called by the Name of Nature here I present her expressing mans Ingratitude who is fit to strip her of those Robes of Priviledge that God himself hath endowed her with not considering that what she acts is by the vertue of his Power and that She is one of those Mirrours that represents him to us which a Philosophick Passion adores as the supream Efficient But indeed how can She expect our Veneration till we have divested our selves of that prejudice ignorance possesses us with which must be done by a serious reflex upon her Effects as this little Volumn will acquaint you if you read it with an impartial and unbyased Reason for I have as all others of the same Inclination must do used Philosophy as the Tellescope by which we must make our Observations as you will when you see find my curiosity descending to little Insects and that with wonder at their production out of Corruption from thence I view her care in beautifying this little Globe we live in with Robes sutable to every Season and when I ascend the lower Region and mark the Clouds ranging themselves in such bodies as though they intended another Deluge it occasions wonder so likewise the coldness of the middle Region with the heat of the upper and the Element of Fire must be Miracles to ignorance And if we observe the Moon with the Motion attending that of the Seas flux and reflux it would make us judge that there is some secret contract made ab Origine betwixt her and the watery Element Mercury and Venus I have spoken of in their places the next that presents us with cause of Admiration is the glorious Sun the Luminary of the Universe called by some and not improperly the Anima Mundi for we find her approach gives life to Vegitives sense to Animals and almost a new Nature to Rationals As for Mars Jupiter and Saturn the Eighth Sphere and Christalline Heaven the Empyreum I have treated on if not like a knowing Secretary of Nature yet a submiss Admirer of her And whereas I make a refutation of Errours as an addition to my Title some perhaps will say I am like the Tinker that for stopping of one hole make two or for my refuting of one Errour I have made two it may be I have in the Opinion of some But whether I have or no who shall be judge for what appears an Errour to one is to another a very evident truth sometimes a Week or a Day nay an hour puts a change upon an Opinion of many years standing But let my Errours be as great and as many as I pretend to correct Reason shall convince me and command my Acknowledgment for it 's our Errours that presents us human I have writ this to give Satisfaction to others if I can but if not howsoever I have secured it to my self And let the Reader judge of it as it pleases him I have writ that which delights me And if envie cause a misapplication of my intention it matters not the contempt of it will make me bold to say I value it and thee after the rate as thou dost it and me The assertions here laid down are plain and perspicuous convincing and satisfactory to the intelligent But I know that common prejudice which is usually taken of any thing though never so true which is contrary to any mans belief it does beget such Passion and animosity c. and makes such a breach as is hardly to be repaired And since our own Opinion may make it disputable what reason we have to pretend of convince another by I shall only offer this for common satisfaction that things demonstrable are the most evident marks of Truth and that they are so clearly manifested in this little Book deserves nothing but sobriety and moderation and a well weighing of the matter herein contained Reader I am loth to leave thee but that I would not keep thee from the Book it self which I hope will be to thy ample satisfaction c. Vale. Eugenius Philalethes A Brief Natural History Intermixed With variety of Philosophical Discourses c. GOD by his presential Essence gives unto all things an Essence so that if he should withdraw himself from them as out of Nothing they were first made so into Nothing they would be again resolved In the preservation then of the Creature we are not to consider so much the impotency and weakness thereof as the goodness wisdom and power of the Creator in whom and by whom and for whom they live move and have their being The spirit of the Lord filleth the world saith the Author of the Wisdom of Solomon and the secret working of the Spirit which thus pierceth through all things as Virgil AEneid 6 hath excellently exprest Principio coelum ac terras camposque Liquentes Lucentemque globum Lunae Titaniaq astra Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem magno se corpore miscet The Heavens the Earth and all the Liquid Main The Moons bright Globe and Stats Titanian A Spirit within maintains and their whole Mass A Mind which through each part infus'd doth pass Fashions and works and wholly doth transpierce All this great body of the Universe The Spirit the Platonists call the Soul of the World by it it is in some sort quickned and formalized as the body of Man is by its reasonable Soul There is no question then but that this Soul of the World if we may so speak with reverence being in truth no other then the immortal spirit of the Creator is able for to make the Body of the World Immortal and to preserve it from Dissolution as he doth the Angels and the spirits of men were it not that he hath determined to dissolve it by the
notably discovered and confuted by Claudius Espenatus a famous Doctor of Sorbone in a Treatise which he purposely composed on that point de Caelorum animatione In as much as what is denied those bodies in Life in Sense in Reason is abundantly supplied in their constant and unchangeable duration arising from that inviolable knot indissoluble Marriage betwixt the Matter and the Form which can never suffer any Divorce but from that hand which first joyned them And howbeit it cannot be denyed that not only the reasonable Soul of Man but the sensitive of the least Gnat that flies in the Air and the vegetative of the basest Plant that springs out of the Earth are in that they are indued with Life more Divine and nearer approaching the Fountain of Life then the Formes of the Heavenly Bodies yet as the Apostle speaketh of Faith Hope and Charity concludes Charity to be the greatest though by Faith we do apprehend and apply the merits of Christ because it is more universal in operation and lassing in duration so though the Formes of the Creatures endued with Life do in that regard come a step nearer to the Deity then the Formes of the Heavenly Bodies which are without Life yet if we regard their purity their beauty their efficacy their indeficiency in moving their universallity and independency in working there is no question but that the Heavens may in that respect be preferred even before Man himself for whose sake they were made Man being indeed Immortal in regard of his Soul but the Heavens in regard of their Bodies as being made of an incorruptible stuff Which cannot well stand with their opinion who held them to be compos'd of Fire or the Waters which in the first of Genesis are said to be above the Firmament and in the hundred forty eight Psalm Above the Heavens are above the Heavens we now treat of for the tempering and qualifying of their heat as did St. Ambrose and St. Augustine hold and many others venerable for their Antiquity Learning and Piety Touching the former of which Opinions we shall have fitter opportunity to discourse when we come to Treat of the warmth caused by the Heavens But touching the Second it seems to have been grounded upon a mistake of the Word Firmament which by the Ancients was commonly appropriated to the eighth Sphere in which are feated the fixed Starrs whereas the Original Hebrew which properly signifies Extention or Expansion In the first of Genesis is not only applied to the Spheres in which the Sun and Moon are planted but to the lowest Region of the Air in which the Birds flie and so do I with Pareus and Pererius take it to be understood in this controversie This Region of the Air being as St. Augustine somewhere speaks Terminus intransgressibilis a firme and irremoveable wall of seperation betwixt the waters that are bred in the bowels of the Earth and those of the Clouds And for the Word Heaven which is used in the hundred fortyeighth Psalm it is likewise applied to the middle Region of the Air by the Prophet Jereâ—y Jer. 10. 13. Which may serve for a Gloss upon the Text alleaged out of the Psalm When he uttereth his voice there is a noise of the waters in the Heavens and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the Earth Now the Schoolmen finding that the placing of the waters above the Starry Heavens was both unnatural and unuseful and yet not being well acquainted with the propriety of the Hebrew Word to salve the matter tell us of a Christaline or glassie Heaven above the eight Sphere which say they is undoubtedly the waters above the firmament mentioned by Moses which exposition of theirs doth cross the course of Moses his Historical Narration his purpose being as it seems only to write the History of things which were visible and sensible as appeareth in part by his omitting the Creation of Angels whereas the Christaline Heaven they speak of is not only invisible and insensible but was not at all discovered to be till the days of Hipparchus or Ptolomy And as for the fresh lustre and brightness wherewith as is commonly thought the Heavens shall be renewed at the last day as a garment by the turning is changed and by changing refreshed it may be well by the making them more resplendent then now they are or ever at any time were since their first Creation not by the scowring of contracted rust but adding a new gloss and augmentation of glory And whereas some Authors have not doubted to make the spots and shadows appearing in the face of the Moon to be unredoubted arguments of that contracted rust if those spots had not been original and native of equal date with the Moon her self but had been contracted by the continuance of time as wrinkles are in the most beautiful faces they had said somewhat but that they were above fifteen hundred years agoe appeareth by Plutarch's discourse de Maculis in facie Lunae and that they have any whit since increased it cannot be sufficiently proved Perchance by the help of the late invented perspective-glass they have been more clearly and distinctly discerned then in former ages but that proves no more that they were not there before then that the Sydera Medcaeo lately discovered by the vertue of the same Instruments were not before in being which the discoverers themselves knew well enough they could not with any colour of reason affirm Howbeit it cannot be denyed but that new Stars have at times appeared in the Firmament as some think that was at our Saviours Birth in as much as it appointed out the very House in which he was born by standing over it and was not for ought we find observed by the Mathematicians of those times I would rather think it to be a blazing Light created in the Region of the Air carrying the resemblance of a Star seated in the Firmament As for that which appeared in Cassiopaea in the year One thousand five hundred and seventy two the very year of the great Massacre in France I think it cannot well be gainsaid to have been a true Star it being observed by the most skillful and famous Astronomers of that time to hold the same Aspect in all places in Christendom to run the same course to keep the same proportion distance and situation every-where and in every point with the fixed Stars for the space of two whole years But this I take not to have been the effect of Nature but the Supernatural and miraculous work of Almighty God the first Author and free disposer of Nature And the like may be said of all such Comets which have at any time evidently appeared if any such evidence can be given to be above the Globe of the Moon St. Augustine in his de Civitate Dei reports of Varro's book entituled de Gente Populi Romani and he out of Castor touching the Planet Venus which to add the greater
moveable Spheres and Starrs since every part of the same Climate successively but equally enjoyes the same Aspect It remains then that these Effects be finally reduced to some Superiour immoveable cause which can be none other then that Empyreal Heaven neither can it produce these effects by means of the Light alone which is uniformly dispersed through the whole but by some secret quality which is diversified according to the divers parts thereof and without this we should not only find wanting that connexion and unity of order in the parts of the World which make it so comly but withal should be forced to make one of the worthiest peeces of it void of Action the chief end of every Created thing Neither can this Action mis-beseem the worthiness of so glorious a piece since both the Creatour is still busied in the works of Providence and the Inhabitants in the works of Ministration The other kind is that which is derived from the Starrs the Aspect of several Constellations the Opposition and Conjunction of the Planets and the like These we have warranted by the mouth of God himself in Job 38. 31. according to our last and most exact Translation Canst thou bind the sweet Influences of the Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion canst thou bring forth Mazoreth in his season or canst thou guide Arcturus with his Sons know'st thou the Ordinances of Heaven canst thou set the dominion thereof in the Earth where by the Ordinances of Heaven it may be thought is meant the course and order of these hidden qualities which without Divine and Supernatural Revelation can never perfectly be known to any mortal Creature Besides as Sr. Walter Raleigh hath well and truly observed it cannot be doubted but the Starrs are Instruments of far greater use then to give an obscure Light and for men only to gaze at after Sun set it being manifest that the diversity of Seasons the Winters and Summers more hot or cold more dry or wet are not so uncertained by the Sun and Moon alone who alwayes keep one and the same Course but that the Starrs have also their working therein as also in producing of several kinds of Mettals and Minerals in the bowels of the Earth where neither Light nor Heat can pierce For as Heat pierces where Light cannot so the Influence pierces where the Heat cannot Moreover if we cannot deny but that God hath given Vertues to Springs and Fountains to the cold Earth to Plants to Stones and Minerals nay to the excremental parts of the basest living Creatures why should we rob the beautiful Stars of their working Powers for seeing they are many in number and of eminent beauty and Magnitude we may not think in the Treasury of his Wisdom who is Infinite there can be wanting even for every Star a peculiar Vertue and Operation As every Herb Plant Fruit and Flower adorning the face of the Earth hath the like As then these were not Created to beautifie the Earth alone or to cover and shaddow her dusty face but otherwise for the use of Man and Beast to feed them and cure them so were not those incomparably glorious Bodies set in the Firmament to none other end then to adorn it but for Instruments and Organs of his Divine Providence and Power so far as it hath pleased his just Will for to determine which Bartas admirably expresseth I 'le ne'r believe that the Arch-Architect With all these Fires the Heavenly Arches deckt Only for shew and with these glistering Shields T' amaze poor Shepheards watching in the Fields I 'le ne'r believe that the least Power that pranks Our Golden Borders or the common Banks And the lest Stone that in her warming lap Our kind nurse Earth covetously doth wrap Hath some peculiar Vertue of its own And that the Glorious Starrs of Heaven have none But shine in vaine and have no charge precise But to be walking in Heavens Galleries And through that Pallace up and down to Clamber As golden Guls about a Princes Chamber But how far it hath pleased God in his Divine Wisdom to determine of these Influences it is hard I confess to be determined by any human Knowledg For if in the peculiar vertues of Herbs and Plants which our selves sow and set and which grow under our feet and we daily apply to our several uses we are notwithstanding in effect ignorant much more in the Powers and workings of the Coelestial Bodies For as to this purpose we said before Hardly do we guess at the things that are on the Earth and with labour do we find the things that are before us but the things which are in Heaven who hath searched out Wisd. 9. 16. It cannot well be denyed but that they are not Signes only but at least wise concurrent Causes of immoderate cold or heat drought or moisture lightning thunder raging winds Inundations Earthquakes and consequently of Famine and Pestilence yet such cross accidents may and often do fall out in the matter upon which they work that the Prognostication of these casual Events by the most skillful Astronomers is very uncertain And for the common Alminacks a man by observation shall easily find that the contrary to their Predictions is commonly truest Now for the things which rest in the liberty of Mans Will the Starrs have doubtless no power over them except it be led by the sensitive appetite and that again stirred up by the constitution and complexion of the body as too often it is specially when the humours of the Body are strong to assault and the Vertues of the Mind weak to resist If they have dominion over Beasts what shall we judge of Men who differ little from Beasts I cannot tell but sure I am that though the Starrs incline a Man to this or that course of life they do but incline inforce they cannot Education and Reason and most of all Religion may alter and over-master that Inclination as they may produce a clean contrary Effect It was to this purpose a good and Memorable speech of Cardinal Poole who being certified by one of his acquaintance who professed the knowledg of these secret favours of the Starrs that he should be raised and advanced to a great Calling in the World made answer that whatsoever was portended by the figure of his birth for natural Generation was cancelled and altered by the grace of his second Birth or Regeneration in the Blood of his Redeemer Again we may not forget that Almighty God created the Starrs as he did the rest of the Universal whose secret Influences may be called his reserved and unwritten Laws which by his Prerogative Royal he may put in execution or dispence with at his pleasure For were the strength of the Starrs such as God hath quitted unto them all Dominion over his Creatures that Petition in the Lords Prayer Lead us not into Temptation but deliver us from Evil had been none other but a vain expence of words and time Nay
Dam which is undoubtedly false The derivation then of the Word Vipera being Quasi vi parism is but a trick of wit grounded upon an Erroneous suspicion It being rather as I conceive from vinum parientâ— there being no other kind of Seâ—pent that bringeth forth her young hatched out of an Egge but only the Viper For the Readers ampler and fuller satisfaction in such curiosities I referr him to Doctor Browns Learned discourse of the Errors of the Vulgar For though I might give many more instances both in Philosophy and History to shew that it is a thing neither new nor unjustifiable by the practice of Wisemen to examine and impugne received Opinions if they be found Erroneous Nevertheless for the present Let it suffice that amongst many others throughout this Treatise I have also removed these few stumbling blocks out of the way I shall next make good my promise according to the brevity of my former Method to treat of the decay of the Powers of the minde in the Arts and Sciences their helps and hindrances in matter of Learning ballanced as also that there is both in Wits and Arts as in all things besides a kind of a circular progress as well in regard of places as tunes that they have their rise and fall increase and decrease and so through the Divine assistance I shall set a period to this discourse Since it is a received conclusion of the choiceest both Divines and Philosophers that the reasonable Soul of Man is not converted into him by his Parents but infused immediately by the Creatour and with all that the Souls of all men at their first Creation and Infusion are equal and perfect alike endued with the fame Essence and abilities it must needs be that the inequality and disparity of actions which they produce arise from the diverle temper of the matter which they informe and by which as by an instrument they work Now the matter being tempered by the disposition of the bodies of our Parents the influences of the Heavens the quality of the Elements Diet Exercise and the like it remains that as there is a variety and Vicissitude or these in regard of goodness so is there likewise in the temper of the matter whereof we consist and the actions which by it our Souls produce yea where both the Agents and the instruments are alike yet by the diversity of education and Industry their works are many times infinitely diversified The principal faculties of the Soul are Imagination Judgment and Memory One of the most famous for Memory amongst the Ancients was Seneca the Father who reports of himself Proaemic Lib. 1. Controver That he could repeat a thousand names or two hundred verses brought to his Master by his School fellows backwards or forwards But that which Muretus Lib. 3. Variar Lection reports of a young Man of Corsica a Student in the Civil Law whom himself saw at Paedua far exceeds it he could saith he recite Thirty thousand Names in the same order as they were delivered without any stop or staggering as readily as if he had read them out of a Book his conclusion is Huic ego nec ex antiquitate quidam quem opponam haebeo nisi forte Cyrum quem Plinius Quintilianus alii Latini Scriptores tradiderunt tenuisse omnium militum nomixa I find none among the Ancients whom I may set against him unless Cyrus perchance whom Pliny Quintillian and other Latin Writers report to have remembred the names of all his Souldiers which yet Muretus himself doubts was mistaken of them Zenophon of whom only or principally they could learn it affirming only that he remembred the names of his principal Captains or chief Commanders And AEneus Sylvius in his History of the Council of Basil at which himself was present tells us of Lodovicus Pontanus of Spoleta a Lawyer likewise by Profession who dyed of the Pestilence at the Council at Thirty years of age that he could recite not the Titles only but the intire Bodies of the Laws being for vastness and fastness of Memory Nemini Antiquorum inferior as he speaks nothing inferiour to any of the Ancients Famianus Straeda in his first Book of Academical Prolusions relates of Francis Suarâ—z who had saith he so strong a Memory that he had St. Augustine the most copious and various of the Fathers ready by heart alledging every where as occasion presented it self fully and faithfully his Sentences and which is stranger his very words nay if he demanded any thing touching any passage in any of his Volumes which of them will make a great shew towards the filling of a Library Statim quo lequo quaque pagina disseruerit ea super re expedite docentem ac digito commonstrantem saepè videmus I my self have often seen him instantly shewing and pointing with his Finger to the place and Page in which he disputed of that Matter this is I confess the Testimony of one Jesuit touching another but of Dr. Rainolds it is most certain that he excelled this way to the astonishment of all that were inwardly acquainted with him not only for St. Augustines works but also all Classick Authors so that as in this respect it might truly be said of him which hath been applyed to some others that he was a living Library or a third University for it hath been very credibly reported of him that upon occasion of some writings which passed to and fro betwixt him and Dr. Gentilis then a professour in our Civil Laws he publickly professed that he thought Dr. Reynolds had read and did remember more of those Laws then himself though it were his Profession in which he admirably excelled And for the excellency of the other faculties of the Mind together with that of the Memory it is a wonderful Testimony that Vines a Man of eminent parts in his Commentaries on the second Book and 17. Cap. de Civit. Dei gives Budaeus Que viro saith he Gaellia accutiore ingenio acriore judicio exactiore diligentia majore cruditione nuâ—tum nunquam produxit haec vera etate nos Italia quidem then which man France never brought forth a sharper wit or pierceing judgment of more exact diligence or greater Learning nor in this age Italie it self And then going on tells us that there was nothing written in Greek or Latin which he had not turned over read and exmined Greek and Latin were both alike to him yet was he in both most excellent speaking either of them as readily and perchance with more ease then the French his Mother Tongue he would read out a Greek Book in Latin and out of the Latin Book into Greek Those things which we see so exquisitely written by him flowed from him ex tempore he writ more skilfully both in Greek and Latin then as he affirms the most skilfull in those Languages understand Nothing in those Tongues being so abstruce and difficult which he had not ransacked entred upon looked into and
same supernatural and extraordinary Power by which at the first he gave it existence For my own part I constantly believe that it had a beginning and shall have an ending and judg him not worthy of the name of a Christian who is not of the same mind yet so as I believe both to be matter of faith Through Faith we understand that the Worlds were framed by the Word of God Heb. 11. 3. And through the same Faith we understand likewise that they shall be again unframed by the same Word Reason may grope at this truth in the dark howbeit it can never clearly apprehend it till it be enlightned by the bright beams of Faith Though I deny not but that it is probable though not demonstrative and convincing Arguments may be drawn from the discourse of Reason to prove either the one or the other I remember the Philosophers propose a question Uirum Mundus filo generall concursu Dei perpetâ—â— durare possit and for the most part they conclude it affirmatively even such as professed the Christian Religion and for the proof of this assertion they bring in effect this reason The Heavens say they are of a nature which is not capable of it self of corruption the loss of the Elements is recovered by compensation of mixt bodies without Life by accretion of living bodies by succession the fall of the one being the rise of the other as Rome triumphed in the ruines of Alba and the depression of one Scale is the elevation of another according to that of Solomon One generation passeth away and another generation cometh but the Earth abideth for ever Eccles. 1. 4. Again all Subcoelestial Bodies as is evident consist of Matter and Form now the first Matter having nothing contrary unto it cannot by the force of Nature be destroyed and being Created immediately by God it cannot be abolished by any inferiour Agent And as for the Forms of Natural Bodies no sooner doth any one abandon the Matter it informed but another instantly steps into the place thereof no sooner hath one acted his part and is retired but another presently comes forth upon the Stage though it may be in a different shape and to act a different part so that no proportion of Matter is or at any time can be altogether void and empty but like Vertumnes or Proteus it turns it self into a thousand Shapes and is alwayes supplied and furnished with one Form or other by a power Divine above Nature but to proceed such and so great is the Wisdom the Bounty and the Omnipotence which God hath expressed in the Frame of the Heavens that the Psalmist might justly say The Heavens declare the glory of God Psal. 19. 1. The Sun and the Moon and the Stars serving as so many Silver and Golden Characters embroidered upon azure for the daily Preaching and Publishing thereof to the World And surely if he have made the floor of this great house so beautiful and garnished it with such wonderful variety of Beasts of Trees of Herbs of Flowers we need wonder the less at the Magnificence of the Roof which is the highest part of the World and the nearest to the Mansion House of Saints and Angels Now as the excellency of these bodies appear in their Situation their Matter their Magnitude and their Spherical and Circular Figure so specially in their great use and efficacy not only that they are for Signes and Seasons and for Days and Years but in that by their Motion their Light their warmth and Influence they guide and govern nay cherish and maintain breed and beget these Inferiour Bodies even of Man himself for whose sake the Heavens were made It is truly said of the Prince of Philosophers Sol homo generunt hominem the Sun and Man beget Man Man concurring in the generation of Man as an immediate and the Sun as a remote cause And in another place he doubts not to affirm of this inferiour World in general Necessa est Mundum inferiorem super in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibus continuari ut â—â—â—â—is inde Virtus â—â—rivetur It is requisite that these inferiour parts of the World should be co-joyned to the Motions of the higher Bodies that so all their Virtue and vigour might be from thence derived There is no question but the Heavens have a marvellous great stroak upon the Air the Water the Earth the Plants the Mettals the Beasts and upon Man himself at least wise in regard of his body and natural faculties To let pass the quailing and withering of all things by their recess and their reviving and resurrection as it were by the reaccess of the Sun I am of opinion that the sap of the trees so precisely follows the motion of the Sun that it never rests but is in a continual agitation as the Sun it self which no sooner arrives at the Tropick but he instantly returns and even at the very instant as I conceive and I think it may be demonstrated by experimental Conclusions the sap which by degrees descended with the declination of the Sun begins to remove at the approach thereof by the same steps that it descended And as the approach of the Sun is scarce sensible at his first return but afterwards the day increases more in one week than before in two in like manner also fares it with the Sap in Plants which at the first ascends up insensibly and slowly but within a while much more swiftly and apparently It is certain that the Tulip Marigold and Sun-flower open with the rising and shut with the setting of the Sun so that though the Sun appear not a man may more infallibly know when it is high noon by their full spreading then by the Index of a Clock or Watch. The Hop in its growing windeth it self about the Pole always following the course of the Sun from East to West and can by no means be drawn to the contrary choosing rather to break then yield It is observed by those that Sayl between the Tropicks that there is a constant set Wind blowing from the East to the West Saylers call it the Breeze which rises and falls with the Sun and is always highest at noon and is commonly so strong partly by its own blowing and partly by over-ruling the Currant that they who sayl to Peru cannot well return the same way they came forth And generally Marriners do observe that caeteris paribus they sayl with more speed from the East to the West then back again from the West to the East in the same compass of time All which should argue a wheeling about of the Air and Waters by the diurnal Motion of the Heavens and especial by the motion of the Sun Whereunto may be added that high-Sea springs of the year are always nearer about the two AEquinoctials and Solstices and the Cock as a trusty Watchman both at midnight and break of day gives notice of the Suns approach These be the strange and secret effects of
the Sun upon the inferiour Bodies whence by the Gentiles he was held the visible God of the World and termed the Eye thereof which alone saw all things in the World and by which the World saw all things in it self Omnia qui videt per quem videt omnia Mundus And most notably it is described by the Psalmist in them hath he set a Tabernacle for the Sun which is as a Bridegroom coming out of his Chamber and rejoyceth as a strong man to run a race his going forth is from the beginning of the Heaven and his Circuite to the end of it and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof Psal. 19 4 5 6. Now as the effects of the Sun the head-spring of Light and warmth are upon these inferiour Bodies more active so those of the Moon as being Ultima caelo Citima terris nearer the Earth and holding a greater resemblance therewith are no less Manifest And therefore the Husbandman in sowing and setting grafting and planting lopping of Trees and felling of Timber and the like upon good reason observes the waxing and waining of the Moon which Learned Zanchius in his Operibus Dei well allows of commending Hesiod for his rules therein Quod ex Lunae decrementis incrementis totius agricolationis signa notet quis improbet who can mislike it that Hesiod sets down the signs in the whole course of Husbandry from the waxing and waining of the Moon the Tides and ebbs of the Sea follow the course of it so exactly as the Sea-men will tell you the age of the Moon only by the sight of the Tide as certainly as if he saw it in the water It is the observation of Aristotle and Pliny out of him That Oysters Mussels Cockles Lobsters Crabbs c. and generally all Shell-fish grow fuller in the increase of the Moon but emptier in the decrease thereof Such a strong predominancy it hath upon the Brain of Man that Lunaticks borrow their very name from it as also doth the Stone Selenites whose property as St. Augustine and Georgius Agricola records it is to increase and decrease in Light with the Moon carrying always the resemblance thereof with it self Neither can it reasonably be imagined that other Planets and Stars and parts of Heaven are without their forcible operations upon these lower Bodies specially considering that the very Plants and Herbs of the Earth which we tread upon have their several vertues as well single by themselves as in composition with other ingredients The Physitian in opening of a Vein hath ever an eye to the Sign then reigning The Canicular Star especially in those hotter Climates was by the Ancients always held a dangerous Enemy to the practise of Physick and all kind of Evacuations Nay Galen himself the Oracle of that profession adviseth practitioners in that Art in all their cures to have a special regard to the reigning Constellations and Conjunctions of the Planets But the most admirable mâ—stery of Nature in my Mind is the turning of Iron touched with the Load-stone towards the North Pole of which I shall have occasion to discourse more largely hereafter in another Tract neither were it hard to add much more to that which hath been said to shew the dependance of these Elementary Bodies upon the Heavenly Almighty God having ordained that the higher should serve as intermediate Agents or secondary Causes but so as in the Wheels of a Clock though the failing of the Superiour cannot but cause a failing in the Inferiour yet the failing of the Inferiour may well argue somewhat for it self though it cannot cause a failing in the Superiour we have great Reason then as I conceive to begin with the examination of the State of Coelestial Bodies in as much as upon them the condition of the subcoelestial depends Wherein five things will offer themselves to our consideration their Substances their Motion their Light their Warmth and their Influence That the Heavens are endued with some kind of Matter though some Philosophers in their jangling humours have made a doubt of it yet I think no sober and wise Christian will deny it But whether the Matter of it be the same with that of these inferiour Bodies adhuc sub Judice lis est it hath been and still is a great question among Divines The Ancient Fathers and Doctors of the Primitive Church for the most part following Plato hold that it agrees with the nature of the Elementary Bodies yet so as it is compounded of the finest flower and choicest delicacy of the Elements But the Schoolmen on the one side that follow Aristotle adhere to his Quintessence and by no means will be beaten from it since say they If the Elements and the Heavens should agree in the same Matter it should consequently follow that there should be a mutual Traffique and Commerce a reciprocal Action and Passion between them which would soon draw on a change and by degrees a ruine upon those glorious Bodies Now though this point will never I think be fully and finally determined till we come to be inhabitants of that place whereof we dispute for hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon Earth And with labour do we find the things that aâ—e at hand but the things that are in Heaven who hath searched out Wisâ— 9. 16. Yet for the present I should state it thus that they agree in the same Original Matter and surely Moses methinks seems to favour this opinion making but one Matter as far as I can gather from the Text out of which all bodily substances were Created Unus irat toto vultus in Orbe Ovid. 1. Metam So as the Heavens though they be not compounded of the Elements yet are they made of the same Matter that the Elements are compounded of They are not subject to the qualities of heat cold or drought or moisture nor yet to weight or lightness which arise from those qualities but have a Form given them which differeth from the Forms of all corruptible Bodies so as it suffereth nor nor can it suffer from any of them being so excellent and perfect in it self as it wholly satiateth the appetite of the Matter that is informeth The Coelestial Bodies then meeting with so noble a Form to actuate them are not nor cannot in the course of Nature be lyable to any Generation or Corruption in regard of their Substance to any augmentation or diminution in regard of their quantity no nor any obstructive alteration in respect of their qualities I am not ignorant that the controversies touching the Form what it should be is no less then touching the Matter some holding it to be a living and a quickning Spirit nay a sensitive and rational Soul which opinion is stiffly maintained by many great and learned Clerks both Jews and Gentiles and Christians supposing it unreasonable that the Heavens which impart life to other Bodies should themselves be destitute of Life But this Errour is
Liâ—aker Englishmen And it is worth the observing that about this time the slumbering drowzie Spirit of the Graecians began again to be revived and awakened in Bessaerion Gemistius Trapenzâ—ntius Gaza Argyropolus Galâ—ondilus and others nay these very Northern Nations which before had given the greatest wound to Learning began now by way of recompence to advance the honour of it by the fame of their Studies as Olaus Magnus Holsterus Tycho Brabe Frixius Crumerus Polonians But the number of those Worthies who like so many sparkling Stars have since thorow Christendom succeeded and many of them exceeded these in Learning and Knowledge â— is so infinite that the very recital of their names were enough to fill whole Volumes And if we descend to a particular examination of the several Professions Arts Sciences and Manufactures we shall sure find the Praediction of the Divine Seneca accomplished Natural Quest. Lib. 7. Cap. 31. Multâ— vâ—nientis aevi populus ignota nâ—bis sciâ—t The People of future Ages shall come to the knowledge of many things unknown to us And that of Tacitus is most true Annal Lib. 3. Cap. 12. Nec omnia apud prures melioresâ— prioria sed nostra quoque aeâ—â— multa laudis artium imitanda posteris tulit Neither were all things in ancient times better than ours but our Age hath left ro Posterity many things worthy of Praise and Imitation I shall conclude with what Ramus writes further and perhaps warrantably enough in his Preface Scholast Mathemat Majorem doctorum hominum operum proventum seculo uno vidimus quam tot is antea 14. Majores nostri viderunt We have seen within the space of one Age a more plentious Crop of learned Men and Works then ourPredecessors saw in fourteen next going before us But our prejudice is so great against all things poâ—ited without the Sphere of our Knowledg that all the advantage we can make of it is to condemn to the flame both Works and Authors To acquaint Ignorance with the glory of the Heavens the Magnitude Distance Motion and Influence of the Stars is to present our selves guilty of that folly never to be pardoned by that Multitude amongst which to appear wise is a crime so Capital that a punishment less then what the good Bishop suffered for holding Antipodes cannot expâ—ate which was no less than Death it self Judge then what courage a man ought to be master of that will expose his Judgment to Publick Censour Cesar and Alexander had not more occasion to use it then that man hath which shall dare to oppose an Opinion which hath Generallity and Antiquity for its guard to tell them that the Eight Sphere is Sixty five millions two hundred eighty five thousand and five hundred of miles from us and that the least Star in that Sphere is greater then the Globe we tread on and to maintain it amongst the rabble is as dangerous as to be a Daeniel in the Den with the Lyons to speak of the seven Planets their Natures with the Effects that attends their Times Squares Conjunctions and Oppositions to any 〈…〉 Ingenious is madness it self the Zodiack with its Duodessiâ— division of Signes with their quaternal Triplicities and the Suns progress through those Signes with the alterations that it occasions as to heat and coldness of the weather the length and shortness of the days and nights the flourish and decay of all the fruits of the Earth astonishes Ignorance but to the Learned observation hath made the reason of it obvious to understand The language of the Heavens how excellent a thing it is all that have Souls of the first Magnitude can witness Augustus himself was so great a lover of this Science that he caused the Sign Capricorn it being the Ascendant of his Nativity to be Stamped upon his Coin and advanced the same in his Standard Tiberius did so dote upon the knowledge of the Heavens that he learnt the same of Thrasillus at Rodes and indeed the Wonders that hath been told by those that have understood the speech of the Coelestials might justly encourage all to the same Study for how could Gauricus have admonished Henry the Second King of France from Tilting in the one and fortieth year of his age but that he read the danger of it in the Starrs or the Bishop of Vienna assured Don Frederick that he should be King of Naples Twenty years before it happened I could quote many more examples of the like nature if I thought it were to any purpose but my dread is that most of the Sons of Men are so prepossest with an injury against all intelligibleness but that which tends to the filâ—ing of their Coffers that a truth may expect the same welcome amongst them that a true Saviour found amongst the false Jâ—â—â— FINIS