from the Chaos How it was freed from the oppression of the weighty Elements I formerly declared The remainder is to treate briefly of its commerce with the neighbouring Elements viz. with Earth Water and Fire Daily observations make appear to us that a cavity is no sooner ready to open within the Earth or Water but the Air is as ready to strive to enter not only for to fill up that vacuity but out of an eagerness strife and necessity for to gain a Center for its whole body For how can any body enjoy rest without being sustained by a foundation That which is alone apt for such a work is the Center which is a Basis upon which all its parts do rest I prove it The parts of a body being met about the Center cannot use any force or violence against one another because they are of one nature and therefore agree in the same effect Which is of resting about a Center Hence it is That the air besides its own interest being streightned atop through the fires inclination also for to recover its Center doth so much infest pierce attenuate and divide all bodies that lye in the way to its Center and that so vast a proportion of air is entered into the body of water as from a solidity to reduce it to a perfect fluor And although the body of air as I have stated before is of that softness yet through succession of its parts and want of vacuities whereinto to convey it self it cannot yield to any compression into it self but being successively backt by its own parts and those of fire is capable of working the same effects which the hardest body can But now supposing the air to have accomplisht its aime let us inquire what motion it would then exercise Certainly of it self no other but it s continuous lightness whereby it would maintain its parts diffused from its own center into the greatest tenuity imaginable Likewise the other Elements would exercise no other action but the maintenance of their bodies in the greatest density crassitude or rarity and that through the use of their formal contiguous weight continuous weight contiguous levity and as the earth through her concentration would not leave the Circumference although tending hence thither so neither would the light Elements desert their Center although moving thence hither Wherefore let me advertize you in time not to mistake my former definitions of Levity or Gravity implying the former to move from its Center to the Circumference that to move here from the Center is not to leave it but to move thence as from a Basis But now the air being dispossest of its genuine Center is forced to make use of a violent Center situated about the extream parts of the earth and water and thence its parts do take their original to the circumference not leaving their force in the mean while of pressing violently downwards Here may be inquired why the air seeming so far powerful above the earth and water both in extent of compass and energy or activity of parts that its extream subtility should seem more than potent enough to pervade dispossess that small clot of water and earth doth not become victorious I resolve you The energy of the air is much refracted through having its Center upon which all its strength doth consist divided into that dimension which the Circumference of earth and water do make or otherwise it would soon toss that small footbal out of its place and make no more of it than the Heavens may seem to do of the Moon So fire although a great part is flaming and burning hath not the power of invading the earth as many do imagine it would do were the Heavens all a burning fire because it is much more refracted in its Center through the Surface of the air Do we not see that a Durgain is able to wrastle with a great Giant because his low stature doth put him in a capacity of taking the other about the middle where he easily lifts him from his Basis or Center But possibly it may seem strange to you that the air should exercise two contrary motions one upwards and another downwards 2. You may likewise demand how fire can apply any force to earth or water since it is extended into its greatest rarity and possesses a place full large enough to contain its body and consequently is not violently detained To the first I answer That naturally a thing cannot obtain two contrary motions but violently it may As to the second This violence is caused here below 1. Through the incrassation of the air that is water ascending and mingling with the body of air doth force so much of it to strive for another place as it hath taken up of the air which since it cannot procure upwards is forced to effect downwards upon the earth and water and make a violent irruption upon them 2. The air being essentially thin in the second Region as well as it is above must of necessity press down upon the incrassated air because all its parts being to take their suffulsion and Basis from somewhere which it doth from the hither extremity of the air and not proving strong enough to sustain such a force must necessarily depress into the water and earth where neither of these finding themselves strong enough about their surface do necessarily yield and give way to the air pressing downwards for a Basis. The same contrary motion is apparent in a man who is to lift some weight from the ground upwards First he must move all his strength towards his feet which is the Center whereupon this weight must be sustained and lifted up from then doth he reflect all his strength upon that Basis upwards where we observe his center to make a hole into the earth because it is not firm enough to sustain his pressure even so it is with the twofold motion of air which you may easily apply to this in every particular II. The airs innixe being shoved off or refracted through the repercussion of the weighty Elements chooses to turn round that is to bear to the sides rather than to retort into it self And that which irritates this with no obtuse spur is the fire forcing circularly upon the air 2. The universal waters flowing from East to West is no small cause of directing of the airs motion towards the same aime because the air reflecting against the waters flowing from underneath must needs be shoved off thither whither the water flowes I prove it cast a ball from the shore upon a piece of Timber driving down a rapid River its refracted motion will tend towards the drift of the said River 3. The fire moving from East to West and forcing upon the air must beyond all scruple prescribe the air a road in its motion In the next place I prove that the air is agitated in a circular motion 1. If waters that are thick are impelled to a circular
consequently it is nothing Notwithstanding Aristotle recollects himself in his Physicks where we have the forementioned Definition set down The first matter saith he is the first subject of everything Ergo every thing is generated out of the first matter How can that be Then it followeth that every natural being when it is dissolved is dissolved in its first matter or how can the next being be generated out of it else This most of his Followers do deny affirming the contrary viz. That a natural being through its corruption is not dissolved into the first matter This they prove by Aristotle his own Dictates the corruption of one being is the generation of another Generation saith Aristotle is in an instant that is assoon as one form goeth out at the same instant another enters 2. If a being in its dissolution is dissolved into the first matter then it must be deprived from all its Accidents but we observe the contrary for when a beast dieth there still remain Accidents in that body Ergo a being is not dissolved into the first matter This moved Aristotle to assert the forementioned Theoremes to wit That Generation is in an instant and that the corruption of one being is the generation of another because there are Accidents remaining at the same instant when the precedent form is expelled which Accidents remaining do necessarily suppose a form from which they are depending All which infers that every thing is generated out of the second matter and not out of the first How then can Materiaprima be said the first subject of every thing The other part of the Definition is out of which a being is produced this is no less strange then the other How can a being be produced and yet the first matter be remaining For assoon as a being is produced the first matter is not remaining but it is now become a second matter with Accidents which were not in the first V. It is more then probable that naturally and really there is no such first matter 1. Because all natural beings are generated out of a pre-existent Matter this our sense doth testifie as for Aristotles first matter that hath no Existence but an imaginary Essence only 2. All that which doth really exist is a compounded being If there is any such single matter how do you know it Sense never perceived it how can you then tell it Whatever doth exist or did ever exist it hath or had a Form You may say that the Chaos existed without a Form because a Form doth distinguish a being from all others and giveth it unity Now when the Chaos existed there was no other being and it was rude and without form To this I Answer Although there was no other being yet this did not hinder but that the Chaos had its numerical and positive unity existence determination goodness truth c. all which Accidents could not be without a Form 'T is said that the Chaos had no form that is not its formaultima for which it was intended notwithstanding it had its Forma prima It remaineth then that the materia prima is neither an objective being nor much less a real being It is no Objective being because we cannot frame an object of it or like to it For what can we think of it it is confessed it hath neither Essence or Quantity c. The greatest Absurdity is that they give it no limitation and consequently must affirm it to be infinite which of all absurdities is the most absurd for nothing is infinite but God alone Then again to maintain that it is ingenerable and incorruptible is impious for God only is ingenerable and incorruptible VI. There is a first matter which was produced at first and out of which all second matters were and are generated This first matter had also a first Form comproduced with it A Second matter is which is produced out of the first The first matter is the matter of the Elements which are four in number You are to note here that by the first matter is not meant a matter formally different from the second matter but accidentally only in respect of time It is called first because it was first produced VII It doth not as I hinted before appertain to Physicks to explain abstractly what the first matter is that being proper to Metaphysicks Wherefore Arist. 8 Books of Phys. Auscult deserve rather the name of Metaphysicks That which is requisite in this place is to unfold the nature of the first matter as it is a Concrete to natural Substances contracted to Inferiours In Metaphysicks it is treated of as a more universal here as a less for Matter and Form constitute the Elements as more Universals constitute the lesser Again Matter and Form derive their Essence from the Elements for these being abolisht they perish likewise with them So that without or beyond the Elements there is neither Matter or Material Form VIII The first Form of a natural being is the form of the Elements how they further constitute the matter and form of every body shall be demonstrated as we go on The Elements being produced all at once and at the same time it followeth that there never was any Peripatetick first matter existent without a Form for their form and matter were both created together but the alledging some Principles of the Mosaick Philosophy will soon make this case plain 1. God created Heaven and Earth But how not separately or distinctly at several times but united into one and confused at once by one act of his Almighty Power Moses sets down Heaven and Earth disjunctly not because they were constituted as distinct bodies but because Heaven and Earth were next formed out of that confused matter as the Text doth afterwards clearly explain We call one part of that body which ascended that is expanded or moved from the Center to the Circumference heaven because it was heaved up from the other remaining part which was named Earth or as it were Tearth from Terre in French which again is derived from Terra a Terendo quia Partes suo pondere sese invicem terant So Coelum a cernendo quod homines intuitu coelum versus cernant This rude Substance was hit upon doubtless by guess by the ancient Poets calling it Chaos which although rude in regard to the more express Form which it was to receive afterwards yet it was a perfect being consisting of Matter and Form through which it had a positive Unity whereby it was one in it self and distinct from nothing It was a true being in that it was conformable to the Divine Idea It was no less perfect because God created it It was good for it was convenient and apt to have other beings produced out of it So that having all the Attributes of a being it must necessarily be a perfect being consisting of matter and form if then the first created being out of which all other being were afterwards created was a
at an immediate contact are absolutely disagreeing but mediately accompanying other Elements prove good friends the same Law is between Earth and Ayr. Observe although I have explained their forms by more words then one yet apprehend that in their sense they move a single concept Levity with Rarity is really distinct from Levity with Tenuity their operations and manner of operating being also different for Levity with Rarity is more penetrating vibrating and of a stronger force and therefore Fire exceeds the Ayr in Levity The like is to be understood of the Earth and Water to wit that the former is more weighty then the latter These concur equally to the constitution of one another of the world and of its parts the one contributeth as much as the other and therefore they are of an equal dignity and time CHAP. IX Of the Beginning of the World 1. Whence the world had its beginning What the Chaos is That the Chaos had a Form A Scripture Objection Answered That the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters did informate the Chaos 2. That the Chaos consisted of the four Elements is proved by Scripture The Etymology of Heaven What Moses meant by Waters above the Waters The Derivation of the Firmament That the Ayr is comprehended under the Notion of waters in Gen. 3. That the Elements were exactly mixt in the Chaos That all the Elements consist of an equal number of Minima's 4. That none but God alone can be rationally thought to be the Efficient of the Chaos How this Action is expressed in Scripture 5. What Creation is Thom. Aq. his Definition of Creation disproved Austins Observations of the Creation 6. That God is the Authour of the Creation proved by the Testimonies of Scripture of Holy men and of Philosophers 7. An Explanation of the Definition of Creation Whether Creation is an emanant or transient Action Creation is either mediate or immediate Scotus his Errour upon this point The Difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherein mediate Creation differs from Generation 8. Of the Place Magnitude tangible Qualities Colour Temperament Time Figure Extent in Figure Duration Quantity and Number of the Chaos THus much shall suffice concerning the Matter and Form of the Elements as they are considered supposedly separated from each other but notwithstanding are the Particulars last insisted upon really in them primatio per se. Now let us proceed Since these Elements are perfections and as it were forms to each other the one being constituted doth suppose them all to be constituted and but one of them being abolisht they are all abolisht Wherefore it is a simple question to demand which of the Elements we could best miss or which of them is most necessary for the preservation of life they being all of an equal necessity I. The first formation of the world took its Original from the creation of a Chaos which that it did hath been demonstrated in one of the precedent Chapters The Chaos is a great and vast natural body consisting of an exact mixture of all the four Elements It is generally explained to be a Confusion of all the Elements Hereby confusion is not meant an imperfect mixtion but it is called a confusion because it is an universal mixtion of all the Elements The Chaos was a natural body because it was constituted by the natural Matter and Form of all the Elements That it had matter is little doubted of by any all derived natural substances being thereout materiated But a form is not so universally allowed to it Moses telling us in the first Chapt. of Gen. That the Earth was without form For the reconciling of this you must know that a form is not alwaies taken in the same sense A Form is somtimes taken for the compleat and last perfection of a thing so we say that the confusion of genitures in matrico is rude and hath no form that is it hath not that compleat further and last perfection and shape which is intended in it 2ly Form is more commonly taken for that which giveth specification and distinction to Matter or that whereby a thing is that which it is so as in this acception the Chaos of the Microcosmus is termed not to be without a form neither is the Chaos of the Macrocosmus void of form although in the former sense it is I prove it The Chaos was either a thing or nothing It was not nothing for the Text mentions it consisted of Heaven and Earth Was it a thing ergo it must have had a form to be that thing which it was or to be distinguisht from nothing It was not only distinguisht from nothing but also from an infinitum and from a single essence it consisting of Heaven and Earth which constituted both a finitum and a compositum But all distinction derives from a form ergo it ha◠form Further the Scripture doth reveal to us that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and what was the Spirit of God here but the form of the Chaos Again the Spirit of God moving upon the waters doth evidently confirm my former Assertion namely that the form of the Elements is nothing else but a local moving vertue impressed by Nature that is God upon their Matter II. That the whole Clot of each Element contributed to the Matter and Form of this first created body the same Scripture makes clear to us in enumerating them distinctly viz. Chap. 1. 1. In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth And the Earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters First you see here is Heaven comprehending fire and air for as I proved before ayr cannot exist without fire nor fire without air Secondly Both these being near companions and relations the Text comprehends them in one for if you observe the Scripture doth all along in this Chapter enumerate the Elements by paires as it were under one name because of their near affinity So by the deep is meant Earth and Water strictly or properly so called and by waters the two fluid Elements which are those that before are explained to be continuous Elements That this is the genuine Interpretation of the said divine Text the ensuing words do clearly make it out for in v. 6. God saith Let there be a Firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters Here the water and ayr being both alike in fluidity and confused together are both called water The ayr then being light and the water weighty God expanding them the ayr through its lightness heaved up from the water and thence constituted a part of Heaven as the Text hath it in v. 8. The water through its weight descended under the ayr and thence it is called in v. 9. the waters under the heaven This must
necessarily be so for water strictly so named had it been heaved up it would have been against its first nature and been moved violently which is improbable since that nullum violentum est perpetuum no violent motion is lasting The nature of air certifieth us that it must be it which moved above the waters under it Lastly The waters above the waters strictly so termed are called the Firmament from its firmness because they are as a deep frame or a strong wall about the waters underneath for to keep them together in a counterpoise from falling to an insinitum but it is ai◠that is above the waters and is a Firmament to them ergo the ayr must be comprehended under the Notion of waters Or thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Hebrew is by the Rabbi's and Hebrews expounded an Expansion or thing expanded for its Root is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to attenuate if so then by the waters above must be implied ayr whose nature it is to be expanded as I shewed before So whether you take the word according to the interpretation of the Septuagints 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Firmament or of the Rabbi's Expansion there can be nothing else intended by it but ayr I say then as by waters a duplicity of Elements is implied so by the Heavens ayr and fire are implied I prove it Light is fire flaming but the light was drawn from the Chaos if from the Chaos ergo not from the earth for by earth there is only meant earth single but from the Heaven which imports a conjunction of Elements viz. of Ayr and Fire Secondly Is light being a flaming fire drawn from the Heaven ergo there was fire latent in it So let this serve to answer Van Helmont his Objection who denieth fire to be an Element because its name is not set down in the first Chap. of Gen. neither is ayr mentioned among the Elements in so many Letters yet it is comprehended among them 'T is true Fowl are called Fowl of the ayr but what of that this doth not infer that ayr is an Element because Fowl are named Fowl of the Ayr. Secondly Earth and Water are there expressed in so many letters ergo the Chaos was made up of all the four Elements III. The Elements in the Chaos underwent an exact mixture because each being a stem and perfection to the other they required it for had they been unequally mixt then that part which had not been sufficiently counterpoysed by its opposite Element would have fallen from the whole Hence it followeth that they must have been of an equal extent and degree in their first vertue or quality and not only so but also in their quantity that is they consisted all of an equal number of minima's that so each minimum of every Element might be fitted sustained and perfectionated by three single minimum's of each of the other Elements Now was there but one minimum of any of the Elements in excess above the other it would overbalance the whole Chaos and so make a discord which is not to be conceived But here may be objected That the earth in comparison with the heavens beares little more proportion to their circumference then a point I confess that the air and fire exceed the earth and water in many degrees but again as will be apparent below there is never a Star which you see yea and many more then you see but containes a great proportion of earth and water in its body the immense to our thinking Region of the air and fire are furnished with no small proportion of water and earth so that numeratis numerandis the earth and water are not wanting of a minimum less then are contained either in the fire or ayr IV. The efficient of this greatest and universal body is the greatest and universal cause the Almighty God I prove it The action through which this vast mole was produced is infinite for that action which takes its procession ab infinito ad terminum finitum sive a non ente ad ens from an infinite to a finite term or from nothing to somthing is to be counted infinite but an infinite action requireth an infinite agent therefore none but God who is in all respects infinite is to be acknowledged the sole cause and agent of this great and miracuious effect It was a Golden saying upon this matter of Chrysippus the Stoick If there is any thing that doth effect that which man although he is indued with a reason cannot that certainly is greater mightier and wiser then man but he cannot make the Heavens Wherefore that which doth make them excels man in Art Counsel and Prudence And what saith Hermes in his Pimand The Maker made the universal world through his Word and not with his Hands Anaxagoras concluded the divine mind to be the distinguisher of the universe It was the Saying of Orpheus That there was but one born through himself and that all other things were created by him And Sophocles There is but one true God who made Heaven and the large earth Aristotle Lib. 2. De Gen. Cor. c. 10. f. 59. asserts God to be the Creator of this Universe And Lib. 12. Metaph. c. 8. He attests God to be the First Cause of all other Causes This action is in the holy texts called Creation Gen. 1. 1. Mark 10. 6. Psal. 89. 12. Mal. 2. 10. Creation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not alwaies intended for one and the same signification sometimes it implying the Creation of the world as in the Scriptures next forementioned other whiles it is restricted to Mankind Mark 16. 15. Mat. 28. 19. Luke 24. 47. In other places it is applied to all created beings Mark 13. 19. Gen. 14. 22. Job 38. 8. Prov. 20. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To create is imported by divers other Expressions 1. By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To Form Gen. 2. 7. Esay 43. 7. 2. By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To make Gen. 1. 31. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He hath establisht Psal. 89. 12. Psal. 104. 5. Mat. 13. 35. Heb. 6. 1. 1 Pet. 1. 20. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To stretch or expand Psal. 10. 2. Es. 42. 5. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To prepare or dispose Prov. 8. 27. Psal. 74. 16. V. Creation is a production of a being out of and from nothing Tho. gives us this Definition in Sent. 2. Dist. 1. Quest. 1. Art 2. Creation is an emanation of an universal Being out of nothing By an universal being he intends a being as it comprehends all material and immaterial beings So that this is rather a definition of the creation of the material and immaterial world then a definition of the Formality of Creation 2. His Definition is defective and erroneous for he adds only out of nothing This is not enough it being possible for a thing to emanate out of nothing and yet not be created the immaterial operations of Angels and
because steel is purified from its grosser parts which did before somewhat hinder the ingress of the Influence of the Loadstone and cohibite the Effluvia of the affected body Sixthly It attracts Copper or Brass because of the likeness of its Pores and mixture to Iron whence it doth aptly receive the Energy of the Loadstone The Reason of the Seventh may be drawn from the Third 8. The Magnete happens to lose its strength through Rust because its decoction is thereby stayed and its temperament subverted Moysture and its being exposed to the air do lessen its vertue because the latter doth so much disperse its emanations and accelerate its decoction the former dissolves its temperament Spices weaken its attraction because through their heat they disperse and discontinuate the emanating spirits the like may be said of the juyce of Garlick and Onions Mercury doth also destroy the temperament of the stone It s vertue happens at last to relinquish it through the natural course of Decoction The Reason of the Eighth is because the emanations do in that position easily joyn together slowing in like course and figure from their bodies Many more Conclusions might be deduced from the Experiments of the Loadstone whose solution may easily be stated from what hath been already proposed VI. It s Nautical Vertue is the great wonder of Nature to all Naturalists to whom the Cause is no less stupendious This Property is whereby one part of the stone moveth towards the South the other to the North. Bodintu Lib. 2. Theat Nat. proposeth an Experiment relating to this Property somewhat different to what others have observed An Iron Needle saith he being gently rubbed against that part of the Magnete where it lookt towards the North whill◠it stuck to the Rock and placed in a Balance doth place that extremity which was rubbed against the stone towards the North. The same vertue it exerciseth towards the South if the Needle be rubbed against the South part of the Loadstone Neither is the strength of the Magnete less in its Eastern and Western part although the stone cannot turn it self towards the Regions of the world yet the Iron Needle can What we have said cannot be understood unless it be experimented for if you lay a piece of the Magnete upon a Board swimming in the water and lay that side of the Magnete which looked towards the South before it was removed out of its natural Seat against the side of another Loadstone which before it was cut out lookt likewise towards the South then will the swimming stone flee to the other side of the Vessel in the water If you should turn the North part of the Magnete to the South part of the other Magnete swimming in the water the swimming part would suddenly come near and through a wonderful consent be both joyned to one another although the wood of the Vessel be between The same will also happen if you put an Iron Needle into a Glass full of water being run through a piece of a Reed and hold a piece of a Magnete in your other hand one side of the Magnete will attract the Needle the other will repel it Thus far Bodinus The last Property of attraction doth not appertain to this place the cause of which may nevertheless be made clear to you by what is foregoing The former touching its Vergency is observable if it be true but I doubt he hath not made tryal of it Besides none else do make mention of it which were it real they would not omit the Observation That which may next be disputed upon is whether the Loadstone turns to the South or North Pole of the earth or to the said Poles of the Heavens or to neither In the first place I wonder what they intend by a North and South Pole of the Earth Those that agree to Copernicus hold that they are the extream points of the Axeltree whereon the Earth doth move Others who deny Earth a motion affirm them to be those points of the Earth that are responding to the Poles of the Heavens that is which do lie perpendicularly or diametrically under the said Poles The former Opinion states the Poles of the Earth different from those of the Heavens Among the latter some have consented to believe the Poles of the Earth to be where the extremities of the Compass-Needles do diametrically point to the arctick and antarctick Poles that is where the length of the Needle is according to a right Line coincident with the imaginary axletree of the Poles of the world The onely place of coincidence is concluded to be near the tenth degree beyond the Fortunate Islands but that is false since the same coincidence is also observed in other places from whence for that reason most do continue their mensuration of the Earths Longitude But grant the Poles of the Earth be at the points forementioned why shall we apprehend the Loadstone rather to move towards the Poles of the Earth then of the Heavens What the Earth say they attracts the points of the Loadstone to her Poles An Absurdity why should not the Earth through the same principle of attraction draw other terrestrial bodies to it or what is it they intend by a principle of attraction I had thought that among the wandering Philosophers nothing but Fire and Air had been attractive Moreover did the Magnete alwaies incline towards the Poles of the Earth then it must be exempted from all deviation which it is not for in divers Meridians it hath divers respects to the Poles of the World and consequently to those of the Earth In Nova Zembla it deflects 17 degrees towards the East In Norway 16. About Neurenburgh 10. So in the Southwest Climates its deviation is no less various Wherefore after all this we must be constrained to assert the Magnete not to incline directly either to the South or North Pole of the Heavens or of the Earth although as I said before its Vergency is towards the North and South The points of the Magnets Vergency are directly tending to the Poles of the Air That is The Poles of the Loadstone are directly coincident with those of the Air. You see its Poles are primarily neither perpendicular to those of the Heavens or of the Earth Ergo its Poles do appropriate a particular situation But before I prove their seat it will not be improper to prefer the probation of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of their Poles The emanations of the Loadstone move circularly ergo they must have real Poles or immoveable points for a Body is uncapable of a circular motion in all its parts A real Axis is no less necessary It being impossible to conceive two extream immoveable points in a globous body without being fastned or continuated to other fixt points which must likewise remain void of the same circular motion and so on from one extream point to the opposite extream point That the steames of the said stone affect a
moisture as may force them through their intumescence to raise a womb where they meet where being arrived they are immediately cherished and further actuated united and condensed by the close and cold temperature of the womb This actuation conceives a flame because through it the fire happens to be united and thence dilated by the incrassated air whose immediate effect is a flame now being come to a flame they attract nutriment out from their matrix in the same manner as was set down before The spiritous parts of this advening nutriment is united to the central parts of the flame which it doth increase it s other parts that are more humorous and less defecated are concreased by the lesser heat of the extreme parts or a heat lessened through the greater force of the extrinsick cold That which is worthy of inquiry here is Why the heat or vital flame strives to maintain the central parts moreover this seems to thwart what I have inserted before viz. That it is the nature of fire to be diffused from the center 2. Whence it is occasioned that the weighty parts as the dense and humoral ones are expelled to the Circumference For solution of the first you are to call to mind that the Elements in that stare wherein they are at present do war one against the other for the Center which if each did possess this motion would cease in them the fire then being now in possession of the Center contracts it self and strives to maintain its place nevertheless it doth not forbear diffusing its parts circularly to the circumference because through its natural rarity it is obliged to extend it self to a certain sphere The reason of the second is Because the igneous and ayry parts being united into a flame and into a greater force do over-power the other Elements and impell them to the Periphery where they being strengthned by the ambient coldness of the Matrix are stayed and do concrease into a thick skin by this also the internal flame is prevented from dissipating its life and the better fitted to elaborate its design which is to work it self into shapes of small bodies of several Figures and of various Properties and in those shapes to diffuse each within a proportion of other Elements likewise variously tempered And so you have in brief a perfect delineation of the Earths conception and formation of Seeds whose spirits being now beset with thick dense parts are catochizated that is the flame is maintained in such a posture which it had when it had just accomplisht the plasis of the internal organical parts or in some the flame may be extinguisht through the near oppression by heavy parts which afterwards being stirred and fortified by an extrinsick heat relaxing its parts returns to a flame Whence it happens that seeds may be kept several months yea years without protruding their parts but being committed to the ground especially where the mild heat of the heavens doth penetrate perfused also with a moderate moysture do soon after come to a germination The same may be effected by any other mild heat like we see that many seeds are perduced to a growth before the spring of the year in warm chests or in dunged ground Eggs are frequently harched by the heat of an Athanor or by being placed between two Cushions stuft with hot dungs Silk-worms Eggs are likewise brought to life by childrens heat being carried for two or three weeks between their shirts and wascoats all which instances testifie that the heat of the Sun is no more then Elementary since other Elementary heats agree with it in its noblest efficience which is of actuating and exciting life within the genitures of living bodies possibly it may somewhat exceed them as being more universal equal less opposed and consequently more vigorous and subtil The time when the Earth is most marked with Matrices is in the Spring and Fall because the astral heat is then so tempered that it doth gently attract great quantity of exhalations and humours neither is it long after before they conceive the influences of the Stars being then pregnant in subtilizing and raising seminal matter The cause of the variety of Seeds and Plants thence resulting I have set down above and withall why it is that Non omnis fert omnia tellus every kind of Earth doth not produce all kinds of herbs but why herbs of the hottest nature are sometime conceived within the body of water might be further examined In order to the solution of this Probleme you must note that the seeds of such herbs as do bud forth out of the water were not first conceived within the water as water but where it was somewhat condensed by Earth as usually it is towards the sides where those Plants do most shew themselves for water in other places where it is fluid is uncapable of receiving the impression of a womb excepting only where it is rendred tenacious and consistent through its qualification with glutinous or clayish earth And this shall serve for a reason to shew that herbs germinate out of water although they are not conceived within it The ground why the hottest herbs as Brooklime Watercresses Water crowfoot c. are generated in the water is in that the spirits informating those Plants are subtil and rare easily escaping their detention by any terrestrial matrix as not being close enough by reason of its contiguity of parts but water be the spirits never so subtil or rare is sufficient to retain stay congregate and impell them to a more dense union whence it is that such substances prove very acre and igneous to the pallat by reason of its continuous weight Next let us enumerate the properties of a vegetable Seed 1. Is to be an abridgment of a greater body or in a small quantity to comprehend the rudiments of a greater substance so that there is no similar or organical part of a germinated plant but which was rudimentally contained within its seed 2. To be included within one or more pellicles 3. To lye as it were dead for a certain time 4. To need an efficient for the kindling of its life whence it is that the Earth was uncapable of protruding any plants before the Heavens were separated from the Earth through whose efficiency to wit their heat living substances were produced 5. To need an internal matrix for its production and germination which is not alwaies necessary for the seeds of animals as appears in the Eggs of Fowl and Silk-worms 6. Only to be qualified with a nutritive accretive and propagative vertue 7. To consist intrinsecally of a farinaceous matter VII The germination of a plant is its motion out of the Seed to the same compleat constitution of a Being or Essence which it hath at its perfection Motion in this definition comprehends the same kinds of motion which Accretion was said to do and withall is specified by its terminus a quo the seed and a
the greatest prevailing and increase of waters would have sufficed Wherefore the words of ver 19. viz. And all the Hills that were under the whole heaven were covered are to be understood only of all the hills that were covered by the whole heaven described by their Horizon And still in the popular speech when we say the whole heaven we mean no more than the Horizon that is as far as we can see round about us II. Next let us consider the manner of this great Deluge 1. It was not caused through the irruption of the Ocean into the earth because then the said Deluge would have been extreamly sudden viz. in six hours time the floud must have brought in the waters and it must have left a large Gulph where it brake in Neither was the Sea high enough to have made such an assault 2. The beginning of it was taken as the Text holds forth v. 11 12. From the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep and the opening of the windows of heaven and the violent rain These sudden impetuous tempests must needs have caused a great astonishment and anguish upon those who had so justly deserved The breaking up of the Fountains were the bursting of the peregrin Elements contained within the bowels of the earth especially of water air and fire out of the great deep that is the vast Mediterranean Sea by men of that Age called and accounted the great deep The great occasion of this bursting out of the waters were 1. The heavy innixe of earth in the shallows of the Mediterranean pressing the waters underneath from its Center 2. The air and fire forced through the earth of the said shallows to pass to their own Element 3. The tearing winds sent down through the opening of the windows of heaven which piercing the pores of the earth contributed not a little to the stirring up of the air and fire contained within the earth and to the vibration of the terrestrial Mass. 4. The impetuous showers of rain breaking down and dividing the earth Through this tempest the waters of the Mediterranean got above the earth and a great proportion of the tract of air brake into the earth having so fair an opportunity as at the nick of bursting to get nearer to the Center But being inclosed by water separated from its Element was by the potent compression of the said water forced to return whereby the waters must necessarily be much tumefied listed up and cast out of their mole whence they were constrained to float over the earth but the air being most returned the rain restrained and the winds directed to pass over the earth the waters setled and retired into their Cavern leaving the earth very much disposed to germination of plants and so the stopping up of the Fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven was accomplished III. Not many years after there hapned another deluge somewhat less than the former caused through the bursting up of those waters that now constitute the Mare majus or Euxiun Sea and the Lake Maeotis Some hundred years after another deluge came upon Persia and Tartary by the bursting up of the Hircanian or Caspian Sea The West-Indians have successively retained in their memory a great Inundation which they imagine was universal came upon them through the bursting up of the Lake Haneygaban or Perime in Guiana Through these before-mentioned deluges a great part of the Island Cea half of the Town Tyndarida in Sicily Acarnania being drowned in the Gulph of Ambracia and Achaia in the Gulph of Corinsh and other great Countries must have been swallowed up and laid even with the bottom of the said waters as likewise hapned to Pyrrha Antissa Elice Bura and many other places others must have appeared through the thrusting up of that Land in whose stead the waters succeeded This occasioned the new appearances of Delos and Rhodus of Nea situated between Lemnus and the Hollespont of Abone Thera Therasia Hiera and Anaphe IV. Through the said discontinued and unequal bursting up of the waters and breaking of the land Sicily was separated from Italy Cyprus from Syria Besby from Bithynia Atlas and Macria from Euboea Euboea from Boeotia Leucosta from the Sirenian Promontory and many other Islands comprehended within the Mediterranean from the Continent Likewise have many Sea port Towns in Europe been separated from the Continent as witness many Ships that have run a ground upon their steeples and houses Thus in the year 1421 many Towns and Villages of Holland and Freezland were swallovved up by the Sea and the Sea-men to this day are forced to take notice vvhere such and such of their Tovvns vvere drovvned for fear of inhabiting them again The vvaters through their pressing vveight do sometimes decline from one place vvhich they then leave dry to another vvhere they have moulded a deeper Cavern by such an occasion vvere the Islands of Antissa left dry and so united to the Continent of Lesbos Zephyrius to Halicarnassus Ethuso to Mindus Dromiscon and Peres to Miletus Narthecusa to the Parthenian Promontory Hybanda Epidaurus Magnesia and Oricon to the Continent The same hath arrived to many other places namely that some part of a shore hath been deserted through the Seas declination as hapned to the Country about Ambracia Ephesus the Plain of Arabia and above Memphis as far as the AEthiopian Mountains having been all over covered by the Sea in such a manner that Ships vvhich had been cast avvay upon the sands near to that shore vvere after some hundreds of years found some miles off from the Sea deeply covered vvith earth by length of time cast upon them partly from the adjacent hills by the vvind and partly by the heaving up of the sand through the seas diurnal Tides Hence vve may easily knovv vvhence that Mast came that vvas found vvith a Pulley to it sticking out of the top of one of the steep hills of Spitsberg in Greenland near vvhere they usually fish for Whales Before I go further I must convince those of their mistake that state Earthquakes the occasion of the disappearance of some Islands and appearance of others formed through the violent and unequal bursting up of earth 1. Let them take notice that Earthquakes are fresh enough in mens memories in the West-Indies and those great ones too yet they never or very seldom have protruded any Islands there neither is their eruption large enough for to compass such an effect 2. Earthquakes happen most through the Earths belching up of wind that hapned to be inclosed vvithin her belly but it is impossible that a wind should drown a Country or raise an Island Possibly you may reply That together with a wind there oft bursteth out a floud of water I grant it and what is this else but a Deluge Thus many Towns and Villages in Holland and Friesland have been formerly swallowed up by such deluges as their great Lakes are still testimonies of and
of the first knock or division of the Chaos By what means the Earth got the Center and how the waters Ayr and Fire got above it Why a Squib turnes into so many whirles in the Ayr. ib. 6. The qualifications of the first Light of the Creation A plain demonstration proving the circular motion of the Heavens or of the Element of fire to be natural and of an Eval Duration ib. 59 CHAP. XI Of the second Division of the Chaos 1. An Enarration of Effects befalling the Elements through the second knock The proportion of each of the Elements in their purity to the Peregrine Elements p. 60. 2. The ground of the forementioned proportion of the Elements 61 62. 3. That fire and ayr constitute the Firmament p. 63. 4. A grand Objection answered ib. 64. CHAP. XII Of the Third Division of the Chaos 1. The effects of the third knock Why earth is heavier than water Why water is more weighty near the top than towards the bottom Why a man when he is drowned doth not go down to the bottom of the Ocean Why a potch'd Egge doth commonly rest it self about the middle of the water in a Skillet Why the middle parts of Salt-water are more saltish than the upper parts p. 66 67. 2. Whence the earth hapned to be thrust out into great protuberancies How the earth arrived to be disposed to germination of Plants A vast Grove pressed into the earth p. 68. 3. The cause of the waters continual circular motion ib. 69. 4. The cause of the rise of such a variety of Plants p. 71. CHAP. XIII Of the Fourth Fifth Sixth and Seventh Division of the Chaos 1. An Enarration of the Effects of the fourth Division That Nature created the first bodies of every Species the greatest is instanced in Bees Fishes and Fowl That all Species are derived from one individuum That Adam was the greatest man that ever was since the Creation What those Glants were which the Poets faigned p. 72 73 74. 2. How the Sun and Moon were created That a Lioness is not more vigorous than a Lion p. 75. 3. How the Stars of the Firmament were created p. 76. 4. How the durable Clouds of the Ayr were created ib. 5. The Effects of the fifth Division ib. 6. The Effects of the sixth Division ib. 7. The Effects of the last Division ib. CHAP. XIV Of the Second and Third Absolute Qualities of the Elements 1. What is understood by Second Qualities p 78. 2. What the Second Quality of Earth is p. 79. 3. Aristotle's Definition of Density rejected ib. 4. The Opinions of Philosophers touching the Nature of Density p. 80. 5. The forementioned Opinions confuted p. 81. 6. The Description of Indivisibles according to Democritus disproved That all Figures are divisible excepting a Circular Minimum That Strength united proveth strongest in around Figure and why ib. 82 83. 7. What the Second Quality of Fire is Cardan Averrhoes Zimara Aristotle Tolet and Zabarel their Opinions touching the Nature of Rarity confuted p. 84 85 86 87. 8. The Second Quality of Water Aristotle Joh. Grammat Tolet Zabarel and Barthol their sence of Thickness and Thinness disproved p. 88. 9. What the Second Quality of Ayr is p. 89. 10. What is intended by third fourth or fifth Qualities An Enumeration of the said Qualities What Obtuseness Acuteness Asperity Levor Hardness Rigidity Softness Solidity Liquidity and Lentor are and their kinds ib. 90 91 92. CHAP. XV. Of the Respective Qualities of the Eements particularly of Fire Earth and Water 1. What is meant by the Respective Qualities of the Elements Why they are termed Second Qualities p. 93. 2. That heat is the second respective or accidental quality of fire That fire is not burning hot within its own Region That fire doth not burn unless it flames is proved by an Experiment through Aq. fort ib. 3. That heat in fire is violently produced The manner of the production of a Flame What it is which we call hot warm or burning How fire dissolves and consumes a body into ashes p. 94. 4. That Heat is nothing else but a Multiplication Condensation and Retention of the parts of fire The degrees of Heat in fire and how it cometh to be warm hot scorching hot blistering hot burning hot and consuming hot p. 95. 5. A way how to try the force of fire by Scales Why fire doth not alwayes feel hot in the Ayr. ib. 96. 6. Plato and Scaliger their Opinion touching heat p. 97. 7. The Parepatetick Description of Heat rejected How fire separateth Silver from Gold and Lead from Silver p. 98. 8. What the second respective quality of Earth is What Cold is The manner of operation of Cold upon our Tâ—â—ct p. 100. 9. The second respective quality of Water That Water cooles differently from Earth ib. 10. Aristotle and Zabarel their wavering Opinions touching Cold. That Earth is the primum frigidum ib. 101. CHAP. XVI Of the remaining Respective Qualilities of the Elements 1. The second Respective Quality of the Ayr. That water cannot be really and essentially attenuated The state of the Controversie 102 103. 2. That Ayr cannot be really and essentially incrassated Why a man whilest he is alive sinkes down into the water and is drowned and afterwards is cast up again That a woman is longer in sinking or drowning than a man The great errour committed in trying of witches by casting them into the water p. 104 105 106. 3. That a greater Condensation or Rarefaction is impossible in the Earth p. 107. 4. In what sense the Author understands and intends Rarefaction and Condensation throughout his Philosophy p. 108. 5. The third Respective Quality of Fire What Driness is The definition of Moysture The third Respective Qualities of water and Ayr. Aristotles description of Moysture That Water is the primum humidum In what sense Ayr is termed dry in what moyst p. 109. CHAP. XVII Of Mixtion 1. What Mixtion is Three conditions required in a Mixtion p 110. 2. Whether Mixtion and the generation of a mixt body differ really p. 111. 3. Aristotles definition of Mixtion examined Whether the Elements remain entire in mixt bodies 112. 4. That there is no such Intension or Remission of Qualities as the Peripateticks do apprehend The Authors sense of Remission and Intention p. 113. 5. That a Mixtion is erroneously divided into a perfect and imperfect Mixtion p. 114. CHAP. XVIII Of Temperament 1. That Temperament is the form of Mixtion That Temperament is a real and positive quality p. 115. 2. The definition of a Temperament Whether a Temperament is a single or manifold quality Whether a complexion of qualities may be called one compounded quality p. 116. 3. VVhether a Temperament be a fift quality A Contradiction among Physitians touching Temperament Whether the congress of the four qualities effects be one Temperament or more ib. 117. 4. That there is no such thing as a Distemper What a substantial Change is p. 118. 5.
necessarily and by Instinct of Nature This Conclusion may seem to contradict what is set down in the precedent Paragraph containing that to act necessarily is to act alwaies in the same manner whereas Beasts act in sundry manners and produce various Effects as sometimes they feed other times they run or lie down which are all various acts and performed in various manners These Acts are called spontaneous which generally are received as differing from Natural and Voluntary and constituting a Mean between Necessary and Contingent although improperly for there is no Mean between Necessary and Contingent because whatever is Necessary cannot be Contingent and whatever is Contingent cannot be Necessary These Acts must be either the one or the other They are not contingent for then a Beast as a Beast could not act necessarily Since then it is more evident that they act necessarily at most times it is an invincible Argument that they do not act contingently This by the way I return to the forementioned Objection and to reconciliate them seeming Contradictions I say that 1. Nature doth act alwaies in the same manner through the same Principles and upon the same Object 2. Nature doth not act alwaies in the same manner through different Principles and upon different Objects For example Opium raises fury in a Turk and layeth it in an European These are different Effects because the Objects are different Coral is heavy and weighty from its Earth and thence proveth obstructive in the body of man Coral is also informated by a sublime spirit through which it is aperitive and cordial The difference of these effects proceeds from the difference of Principles I apply this to the Acts of a Beast which are different because they proceed from different Principles Nevertheless them Acts are alwaies the same as far as they proceed from the same Principles although different from one another But as for a voluntary Principle that acteth effects different from it self as it is one and the same Principle The Proprieties of voluntary are 1. To act different Effects through one and the same Principle 2. To have a power of suspending an Action 3. To act with Election The Proprieties of Naturals are 1. To act the same Acts through the same Principle 2. To act alwaies and withal necessarily without having a power of suspending its Action 3. To act through an Impulse of Nature A Brute doth feed from an Instinct of Nature and therefore cannot but obey it at the same Instant of that Instinct provided there be food for it to feed upon Neither can it suspend that Action for a moment but as soon as it is impelled it moveth towards its food This is evident in a Dog if he be very hungry and have a bone in his sight he will move towards that bone although you beat him never so much A Brute moveth locally either to avoid pain or to search for food If a Beast move after it is filled it moveth to avoid pain and in that it answereth to the Impression of Nature whereby all natural beings move to avoid that which is inconvenient to them or disagreeing with them which it feels in lying long through the weight of his bones one pressing the other and therefore moves to else himself either by standing going or running He goeth or runneth so long until he is pained by it and then to ease himself and to avoid that pain he lieth down again VIII All Matter hath a Form because it would be nothing if it had no Form For from thence it is thought to receive unity now without unity a being is no being All Matter hath but one essential Form for had it two essential Forms it would be two Beings and consequently no Being because whatever is not one or is more then one is no Being The Form giveth Unity and Distinction to the Matter Matter is capable of many Forms successively that is one after another as for example The Matter which is in an Herb is capable of receiving the form of Chyle of Bloud and of Flesh Or if burnt of Ashes if then melted of Glass In like manner man receiveth first the form of a Plant afterwards of an Animal or sensible Living Creature lastly of a Man A Form doth act without intermission For should its Action cease at any time at the same moment would the Form cease also with it THE DOCTRINE AND CONTROVERSIES Of POVVER The FIRST PART The third Book The Doctrine and Controversies of Power The Third Book CHAP. I. Of Powers according to the Peripateticks 1. The Opinion of the Peripateticks touching the Soules Action That according to the same Opinion a Substance is said not to act immediately through it self but through superadded Powers 2. That a Substance acteth through as many different Powers as it produceth different Acts. 3. That the said Powers are really and formally distinct from the essence of the Soul 4. That Powers are concreated with the Soul and do immediately emanate from her Essence 5. That immaterial Powers are inherent in the Soul as in their Agent Material ones in the Matter as in their Subject 6. That Powers are distinguisht by their Acts and Objects The Authours Intent in treating of the Faculties of the Soul IT is an universal Truth That all Essences which have a Being have it for an Operation Wherefore there is nothing idle within the Creation but all its parts from the Center of the Earth to the Circumference of the Heavens are found to perform some Action or other without Intermission which ceasing the essence from whence it issued forth ceaseth with it When fire and Water cease from diffusion and concentration then their being ceaseth withal Hence it is evident that the Soul of man since it hath a being performeth an operation or Action the which according to the sense of the Peripatetick School is impossible to be effected through the substance of the Soul their Reason being grounded upon that Dictate of their great Master viz. No substance acteth immediately through it self but by a superadded power This they do illustrate by this Instance The Elements do not act through their Substance or Form but through their heat coldness c. which are qualities distinct from their Form and Substance Hence doth Aristotle conclude 1. That nothing is contrary to a Substance but to its power and qualities because a substance cannot act through it self 2. That no Substance can be affirmed to be more or less a substance then another that is no substance can be either remitted or intended for example one fire cannot be said to be more a fire then another because it doth cast a greater heat which proceedeth from its stronger power and heating quality and not from its being more a fire then another fire is but one fire may be said to be hotter and greater then another which happeneth as I hinted before through the intention of its quality and access of quantity II. A Substance being
Prophet is haec didicisset Whence saith he had Plato learned that Jupiter rid in a flying Chariot but out of the Histories of the Prophets which he had over-lookt for out of the Books of the Prophets he understood all those things that were thus written concerning the Cherubims and the glory of the Lord went out of the house and came to the Cherubims The Cherubims took their feathers and they hung together in circles and the Glory of the Lord of Israel did abide upon them in Heaven Hence Plato descending cries out these words Iupiter great in the Heavens driving his flying Chariot Otherwise from whom should he else have learned these things but from the Prophets And so Clem. Alexand. lib. 1. Strom. orat ad Gent. speaking as it were to Plato Leges quaecunque verae sunt tibi ab Hebrais suppeditatae sunt What ever true Laws thou hast set down are supplied thee by the Hebrews To this I answer That it is very improbable that Plato should have collected his Divinity out of Moses or the Prophets their writings being in his time not yet translated out of the Hebrew I should rather believe with others that he had sifted his divine Notions out of Hermes Trismegistus an AEgyptian who according to Suidas flourished before Pharho and was called Trismegistus because he had through a divine inspiration written of the Trinity And Sugul saith that he was called Ter optimus maximus the thrice best and greatest because of his greatest wit or according to others because he was a Priest King and a Prophet 'T is not only thought of Plato that he had gathered some riddles of God from the AEgyptans but also of Theodorus Anaxagoras and Pythagoras But I continue Plato's sentences The body being compounded is dissolved by death the soul being simple passeth into another life and is uncapable of corruption The souls of men are divine to whom when they goe out of the body the way of their return to Heaven is open for whom to be best and most just is most expedient The souls of the good after death are in a happy state united to God in a blessed inaccessible place the wicked in convenient places suffer condign punishment But to define what those places are is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whence being demanded what things were in the other world he answered Neither was I ever there or ever did speak with any that came from thence VIII We must not forget Aristotle who lib. 3. de anim c. 3. closes with Homer in these Verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Homer agreed in the same That the minds of mortal men were such as the Father of Gods and men did daily infuse into them Moreover lib. 1. de anim cap. 3. t. 65 66. he calleth our understanding Divine and asserts it to be without danger of perishing And lib. 2. de gener cap. 3. delivers his sense thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore it remains that the mind alone doth advene from without and that she alone is Divine for the action of the body hath not at all any communication with her action IX Virgil 4. Georg. wittily sets down God's ubiquity Deum namque ire per omnes Et terras tractusque Maris Coelumque profundum Hinc pecudes armenta viros genus omne ferarum Quemque sibitenues nascentem arcessere vitas Et 6. AEneid Principio Coelum ac terras composque liquentes Lucentemque Globum Lunae Titaniaque astra Spirit us intus alit totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem magno se corpore miscet That is For God doth go through all the earth the tracts of the Sea and the deep of the Heavens Hence do beasts and men and what ever is born draw their thin breath And in the sixth Book of his AEneids In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth and the melting fields and the shining Globe of the Moon together with the Titanian Star A spirit doth nourish it within speaking of the world and a mind being infused through its members doth move its mole and mingles its self with that great body X. The admirable Poesie of that Divine Orpheus lib. de Mundo is worth our observation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jupiter is the first Jupiter is the last Jupiter is the head Jupiter is the middle God made all things Jupiter is the foundation of the earth and of the starry heavens Jupiter is a male Jupiter is an immortall Nymph Jupiter is the spirit of all things Jupiter is the mover of the unruly fite Jupiter is the root of the Sea Jupiter is the Sun and the Moon Jupiter is a King Jupiter is the sulminating Prince of all for he covereth all he is a lighr to all the earth out of his breast he doth wonderfull things XI Trismegistus lib. 1. Pimandr renders himself very divinely The mind of the divine power did in the beginning change its shape and suddenly revealed all things and I saw that all things were changed into a very sweet and pleasant light And below in another place A certain shadow fell underneath through a thwart revolution And Serm. 3. Pimandr The shadow was infinite in the deep but the water and the thin spirit were in the chaos and there slourished a holy splendour which impelled the Elements under the sand and the moist nature and the weighty bodies being submerst under the darkness did abide under the moist sand Empedocles defined God a sphere whose center is every where and circumference no where Vincent in spec hist. l. 4. c. 44. Pythagoras described God to be a mind diffused throughout the universal parts of the world and the whole nature out of which all living creatures that are born do draw their life In another place he cals him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The soul of the universe Heraclitus being at a certain time of the winter crept into a Cottage for to warm himself and being enquired for by some who were ashamed to come into so mean a place called to them to come near for said he the gods are also to be found here Athenagoras an Athenian Philosopher expresseth himself very profoundly God saith he hath given man a judgement of reason and understanding for to know intelligible things the Goodnesse of God his Wisdom and Justice ERRATA PAg. 4. lin 6. read of their l. 31 wisdom it self p. 6. l. 8. r. with those p. 8. l. 17. r. those l. 25. r. into good p 13. l. 19. r. wherein p. 15. l. 12. r. into that l. 28. r. according to p. 17. l. 29. r. those of the. l. 35. r. these causes p. 22. l 33. r. a man doth p. 25. l. 32.
it is but one 2. Were there more then one all the others would be created in vain because the Chaos being the greatest is sufficient to produce a thousand worlds for otherwise it could not be said to be the greatest 3. Or thus in other terms The Chaos is an universal quantity but were there more then one it could not be universal 4. Unity is the beginning and root of all plurality but the Chaos is the beginning and root of all plurality of bodies ergo it is but one 5. The Scripture mentions but of one Chaos Gen. 1. 1 2. 6. The Chaos is eval naturally like as the soul of man is eval and also immortal Eval that is of sempiternal duration yet counting from a beginning I prove it Eccles. 12. Let the dust return to its earth and the spirit return to God who gave it Here the body first returns to dust thence to earth but not to an annihilation for then the Scripture would have mentioned it Eccles. 1. 4. 2. The Chaos is to remain were it but to retribute the matter of humane bodies in order to their Resurrection 3. Annihilation is the greatest defect or imperfection for it supposeth an imperfect Matter and Form which cannot be imagined to be immediately created by God 4. Goodness lasteth for ever but the Chaos was good Gen. 1. 31. 1 Tim. 4. 4. Ergo. 5. Should the Chaos be annihilated then God would have created it in vain But that is impossible Ergo. CHAP. X. Of the first Division of the Chaos 1. Why the Chaos was broken 2. That the Chaos could never have wrought its own change through it self The Efficient of its mutation 3. The several Changes which the Chaos underwent through its disruption The manner of the said Disruption 4. How Light was first produced out of the Chaos What a Flame is 5. A perfect Description of the first knock or division of the Chaos By what means the Earth got to the Center and how the Waters Ayr and Fire got above it Why a Squib turnes into so many whirles in the Ayr. 6. The Qualifications of the first Light of the Creation A plain demonstration proving the circular motion of the Heavens or of the Element of Fire to be natural and of an Eval Duration I. IT was an Elegant Expression of Clem. Alex. Lib. 3. De Recogn Like the shell of an Egge although it seemeth to be beautifully made and diligently formed nevertheless it is necessary that it should be broken and opened that the Chicken may thence come forth and that that may appear for which the shape of the whole Egge seems to be formed Wherefore it is also necessary that the state of this world do pass that so the more sublime state of the Heavenly Kingdom may appear in its brightness The same I may aptly apply to the Chaos that it is to be broken and opened that so a more glorious substance may thence appear and come forth II. One Substance can have but one first power or vertue of acting and therefore the Chaos having no more could not act any effect but which it did act and so had no principle of changing it self from that which it was and consequently would have remained in that shape for ever For this reason we must grant that the Creative power and universal efficient wrought a mutation upon it This mutation was gradual a perfecto ad perfectius It was not by way of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or creation of the first manner but of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as Moses sets down through that he said fiat let there be and this was the Note of the mediate Creation The manner as we may best conceive to our selves was by expansion division or opening of the Chaos III. Through the first diduction and opening the Fire and Ayr being light Elements and so entirely knitted into one must necessarily have diffused themselves above the superficial weighty Elements these falling nearer to the Center The fire having hereby acquired a greater liberty and more force by being less oppressed by the water its contiguous parts were notwithstanding united and suppressed through the continuity of the ayr and conveyed a great part of earth and water with them the ayr also could not be detracted from the universal mixture without the adherence of some water and earth wherefore that appeared also very thick IV. The fire being the lightest and of most activity towards the Circumference must have been vented in the greatest quantity yet not as I said without incraffated ayr which united to the vibrating parts of the fire were both changed into a flame A Flame is a splendent heat Flamma est calidum splendens wherefore by this two new qualities were produced to wit heat and splendor By Calidum heat understand a red hot fire Ignis candens Fire is named candent quod candorem efficiat because it begetteth a candour that is the brightest light But how fire became at once through this division burning and candent I shall distinctly evidence hereafter The Representation of the Chaos after its first Division V. Through this concussion the waters being also somewhat freed from the minima's of the earth tending to the Center were continuated a top of the earth like unto a fleece or skin for the points of the earth which did before discontinue the water being through their more potent gravity descended the water getting a top must needs have acquired its continuity which as you have read â—â—fore is the first quality of water The water therefore got above the earth not because it is less weighty per se but per accidens through its continuation The flame of the first division was yet thick and reddy not exalted to that brightness which afterwards it was The heat of this division was hot in the first degree because there was not yet so much fire drawn out as to make a greater heat This flame I may compare to the flame of a torch or candle which is either but newly lighted or near upon going out the heats which these flames then cast forth are in reference to their highest state as it were but in the first degree Their light is a dusky red The first motion of this fire being to diffuse it self to the circumference of the ambient ayr is there arriving beaten back and reflected through the external surface or coat of the ayr not through the thickness of it for no doubt that was rather thinner there then below but through its own natural motion whereby it moves to its preservation for a same cannot subsist but by the help and sustenance of the ayr It so whither can it move not directly back again retorting into it self that being its extream contrary motion but rather to the sides moving circularly about the surface of the ayr in the same manner as fire in a rooft Furnace where we see it first diffuseth its self directly towards the Circumference of
a Porringer Poole or Lake striving no longer for a Center for it enjoyes one there doth not move downwards of it self or is thence circularly reflected as water is when it is deprived from its Center wherefore that motion downwards which is in the water in a Porringer Lake or Pool is not caused intrinsecally through a bent for a center but by an extrinsick impulse of the air striving downwards for it center and meeting with thick water which it cannot easily pass it bends and forceth the stronger upon it that so it may give way But the air in a Compass box is still detained from its center especially by the intercurrent emanations of the Needle about whose extremity both air and Magnetical steames move circularly together as upon one of the Poles More than all this the air within the Box is still continuated to the whole tract of the air whereby it is assisted and furthered in its circular motion Whereas water is discontinuated from its intire body But you may instance That the Box together with the glass atop doth interrupt the continuation of the air within the Compass from its Elementary body without or if that did not certainly the whole Compass Box being thrust deep under water would and nevertheless the Needle would point South and North. I answer That a thousand glasses or boxes would scarce be sufficient to hinder the communication of the air since they are all pervious Yet I cannot but grant that the water may which if it doth it doth only diminish the strength of the Needles Vergency but doth not quite abolish it unless the air within begins to be incrassated by water entring in vapours and then its circular motion and consequently the Needles Vergency is quite lost and abolished Wherefore I conclude That the air in the Box although under water doth continue in a circular motion because of its detention from a center untill it is incrassated by water XII But before I come too near to the conclusion of this Chapter let me take the leasure to balance what Cartesius sets down upon this matter After the enumeration of the properties of the Magnete he observes that there are striated particles that are sent down from the South part of Heaven and bowed quite into another kind of shape different from those that rain down from the North whence it is that the one cannot enter into those Channels and passages which the other can He further observes that the South particles do pass directly from their seat through the midst of the earth and when passed return back again with the air that is cast about the earth because the passages through which they pass are such that they cannot return back again through the same The like is to be understood of those particles that press through the earth from the North. In the mean time as many new parts as there do alwaies come on from the South and North part of the Heavens so many there do return or fall back through the East and West parts of the Heavens or else are dispersed in their journey and lose their Figures not in passing the middle Region of the earth because there their passages are made fit for them through which they flow very swiftly without any hinderance but in returning through the air water and other bodies of the outward earth wherein they find no such passages they are moved with much more difficulty and do constantly meet with particles of the second and third Element by which they labouring to expel them are sometimes diminisht Now in case these striated particles hit against the Loadstone lying in its natural position then they find a clear passage and go through because he saith a Loadstone is pervious in the same manner as the earth is and therefore calleth the Earth also a Magnete The Poles of the Loadstone he states to be the middle points of its passages on both ends That which is the middle point between those passages that are disposed to receive the particles descending from the North part of the Heavens is the North Pole and its opposite point is the South Pole But when the striated particles that come from the Poles of the Earth hit against the passages of the Magnete lying athwart then they do by that force which they have of persevering in their motion according to right Lines impell it untill they have reduced it to its natural position and so they effect that its South Pole provided it be not detained by any external force turns towards the North Pole of the Earth and its North Pole towards the South Pole of the Earth Because those particles that tend from the North Pole of the Earth through the air to the South came first from the South part of the Heavens through the midst of the earth and the others that return to the North came from the North. Here you have the chief of the forementioned Authors fansie upon the demonstration of the properties of the Loadstone In the first place how can any one probably conceive that there are striated parts sent down from Heaven for consider the immense distance which he agrees to the interposition of thick clouds filled up with dense exhalations and the continuous depth of the air Is not the air potent enough to dissolve all bodies contained within its bowels doth it not dissolve the thick frozen clouds into snow hail and thick rain Doth it not dissolve the coagulated exhalations of the earth that are so tenacious Much more those striated parts which he himself confesses are dissipated at their return through the force of the ambient air that in so short a time passage Why should these striated particles descend more from the polar Regions of the Heavens than from the East and West parts Are not the Poles of the Heavens immoveable of the least efficacy Are not those parts of the Firmament alwaies discerned to be clearest and most freed from obscure bodies Is not the North and South air so much condensed and congealed that it is impossible for it to give passage to such subtil bodies as the pores of the Magnet do require I say impossible to subtil bodies because they need force to press through and so much the more because they are discontinuated But had our Author asserted them to rain down from the East and West parts where the air is thinnest and less nebulous and where the Coelestial bodies exercise their greatest influences it would have deserved a freer reception but then his Chimera would have been rendred monstrous and unfit to explain the reasons of the Magnetical vertues The south streaks saith he are intorted in a form different from those of the North whence had he that news what Because one Pole of the Magnete inclineth to the North and the other to the South therefore these streaks must needs be sent down from the North and South Is this a Mathematical Demonstration to conclude
1. That the disburdening of the Eastern Rivers into the Ocean is not the cause of its Circulation neither are the Sun or Moon the principal causes of this motion 2. The periodical course of the Ocean The causes of the high and low waters of the Ocean 3. How it is possible that the Ocean should move so swiftly as in 24 hours and somewhat more to flow about the terrestrial Globe 4. A further Explanation of the causes of the intumescence and detumescence of the Ocean The causes of the anticipation of the floud of the Ocean 5. That the Suns intense heat in the torrid Zone is a potent adjuvant cause of the Oceans Circulation and likewise the minima's descending from the Moon and the Polar Regions I. HAving in one of the Chapt. of the precedent Book posed a demonstrative and evident ground of the universal course of the great Ocean and the straitness of that Chapt. not permitting the finishing of the fabrick intended by us upon it Therefore this present plain shall serve for to compleat the delineation thereof but encountring with some rocky stones thereon it is requisite they should be rowled aside before the said Atlantick waves may procure a necessary assent of the true cause of their dayly circular floating The conceit of some Philosophers hath induced them to state the copious irreption of many large and deep Rivers into the Eoan Sea for the principal cause of its circulation the which tumefying its body do thereby press it westward This solution seems void of all reason the evacuation of the presupposed Rivers having no proportion to the replenishing of so extended a body as the Ocean scarce of a Lake or an inland Sea as we have observed of the lake Haneygaban and the Euxian Sea Besides many great Rivers disburdening themselves into the Occiduan Sea might upon the same ground return the course of the Ocean Eastward But imagine it was so why should not the said tumefaction rather incline the sea westward than further eastward Others rejecting the former opinion have in their fansie groven the ground whereon the sea beats deeper and deeper towards the west and so the ground being situated higher in the East shelving down gradually to the west the sea doth through its natural gravity rowl it self to the deeper lower Plane but then the eastern waters being arrived to the west how shall they return to the east again for to continue the said motion Wherefore this opinion may take its place among the Castles in the air Shall we then ascribe the cause of this motion to the rarefaction of the sea through the beams of the Sun which as it is successively rarefied doth swell and press its preceding parts forward As touching the Moon she cannot come into consideration here as being rather noted for condensation than rarefaction First I deny that the Sun doth any whit rarifie the Eastern Ocean because according to their Tenent the rarefaction of the sea happens through the commotion of the subsidencies and terrestrial exhalations contained within the bowels of the sea and scattered through its substance whereby it becomes tumefied which I grant in case the Sun casts its beams obliquely into the depth of the Ocean but I prove the contrary supposing the Sun doth cast its beams directly into the Eastern waters In AEgypt it seldom rains because the Sun casting its beams directly into the waters doth through the same degree of heat through which it might raise vapours dissolve them again likewise in the East Ocean the Sun subtilizing the waters doth doubtless through its heat commove exhalations and subsidencies but the waters being through the same heat attenuated are rendred uncapable of sustaining those terrestrial bodies wherefore they sinking deeper to the ground rather cause a detumescence of the sea I have alwaies observed that waters swell more through the cold than heat and that inundations happen for the most part after a frost besides it is obvious that Rivers are much tumefied when they are frozen and that by reason of the foresaid tumefaction inundations happen more frequently in the winter than at any other time of the year Des-Cartes imagineth the compression of the Moon together with the Earths motion about her own Axis to be the cause of the waters circular motion pressing it from East to West and the variation of this pressure to depend upon the various removal of the Moon from the Center of the Earth effecting the anticipation and various celerity of the waters motion So that where the Earth is obverted to the face of the Moon there the waters must be at their lowest being pressed towards the next quarter of the Surface where they are at their highest whence they are carried about through the Earths proper motion c. 1. I deny his supposition of the Earths motion as being fabulous which we have confuted elsewhere He might as well assert that there be as many Neptunes under water moving it circularly as Aristotle stated intelligencies to drive the Heavens for even this he might excuse by saying it was but an Assumption to prove a Phaenomenon of the water 2. What needs he to affirm a tumour of the water for since he assumes the Earth to move circularly we cannot but grant that the water must also move with it as constituting one Globe together 5. Why doth he in vain reassume in the 55 Sect. that out-worn Doctr. of Aristotle touching the Moons driving of the water which argues him to be very unconstant with himself 4. His stating the air to be so complicable and soft a body renders it very unfit for compressing and driving so vast and weighty a body as the Ocean 5. Can any one rationally or probably conceive that the Sun much less the Moon being so remore and whose forcible effects are so little felt by sublunary bodies should be capable of driving so deep so large and so heavy a body as the Ocean which is as powerful to resist through its extream gravity as all the Celestial bodies are potent to move through their extream lightness What because the Ocean and the Moon move one way therefore the one must either follow or move the other What can a passion so durable and constant and so equal depend upon a violent cause Since then such phansies are ridiculous and not to be proposed by any Philosopher let us now proceed in the unfolding of so difficult and admirable a matter as the course of the Ocean which we have formerly demonstrated to flow about the earth once in 12 hours and somewhat more II. Moreover besides this single motion making a sharper inspection into the drift of the Ocean it will appear to us to absolve a compounded periodical course in a perfixt time namely in 15 daies which space may be called a marinal or nautical month The meaning hereof is imagining a part of the Ocean to flow circularly from a certain point or more plainly a Bowle to rowl circularly
cause of the multitude of Hills in some Countries and scarcity in others 8. How it is possible for the Sea to penetrate into the bowels of the earth I. THe opinion of Fountains scattering out of the earth and supplied by waters rained down and collected within Caverns of the earth as it hath vulgarly taken place among many so it is very suspitious experience tells us that many perennal Fountains spring forth out of sandy and every where about dry Mountains whereunto notwithstanding but little is contributed by the moisture of the heavens since the rain falleth but seldom as in AEgypt and other places and the Sun is very hot the Country very dry insomuch that did the rain fall in twice that quantity it would scarce be sufficient to irrigate the soile much less of supplying moisture for Fountains 2. Many Fountains draw their water very deep near a hundred foot yea two or three hundred deep out of the earth Whereas rain seldom penetrates deeper into the earth than ten or eleven foot 3. Some Fountains break forth out of Rocky Mountains which are uncapable of imbibing rain Ergo their rice and continuation are not from rain II. The opinion of Aristotle is much more absurd asserting subterraneous air converted into water to be the cause of Springs since we have formerly made it appear that the conversion of air into water is impossible or were it not it would seem very irrational to suppose the earth to be so hollow as to be capable of containing such an infinite quantity of air as to continuate the course of a Fountain because a great quantity of air condensed as they call it would produce but little more than a drop III. 1. In brief Fountains owe their beginning and continuation to great quantities of water collected within great Caverns of the earth This the diggers of Mines confirm to us who sometime through digging too deep meet with great and sudden burstings out of waters which oft do prove perennal Such mischances have hapned not once in the Coal-pits near Newcastle to the drowning of many a man Moreover there are no great hills but which rest upon great gulphs of water underneath them insomuch that a hill is nothing else but the raising of the earth through a great gulph of water lodging underneath it Hence it is that hills are generally the store-houses of Rivers and their sides or tops their Springs How many slouds of water are there discovered to break out of the sides of several great hills in Kent Surrey and innumerous other places of the world Whence should those pregnant Pewter Mines in Cornwal or Lead Mines in Derbishire and all other Mines in the world be supplied with a sufficient quantity of water for their matter were it not that the hills afforded it out of their Caverns Whereout should all those vast stony and rocky Mountains of the Universe consist but out of water derived from the Earths bowels Whence should those great perennal Rivers that spout forth from under the Alpes and Peruvian Mountains take their rice but from those gulphs of water whereby they are raised to that height Whence should all the water of those great Lakes upon hills arrive As that between the middle of the three tops of the hill Taihu in China whose depth was yet never fathomed and that upon the Mount Jenkin near the City So being of no less depth and near a quarter of a Mile in compass likewise that of Tieuchi near Mien that deep Lake upon the Mount Tienlu called the Lake of the Drake because it is so horrible through its depth and commotion that if any should cast a stone into it it would render a great noise like unto a thunder besides many others in Europe as those in Ireland c. In fine do not all the greatest Rivers of the world viz. Ganges Nilus Senaga Nuba Tana Nieper Morava Garumna Thames c. yea and all others spout out of hills or are they not derived from Lakes Lakes usually are environned by a Plain because those waters which should thrust up hills about them are collected in an open Cavern Notwithstanding are the same waters of Lakes through the ait's pressure forced underneath into the earth where at some distance they do cast up hils for to disburden the earth whereat they spout out Rivers for a Lake is uncapable of it self to spout out a River because being situated low wants force to spout it out from it whereas waters that are protruded and continually impacted and crusht very thick or close into Caverns of hills do by a renitency press against the earth above and below and swallow up the air contained within the said Caverns into their substance and the earth doth reciprocally press against them but the air being thin smooth and glib is at last violently protruded by both their gravities which erupting with a great force and discontinuation of the earth doth make way upwards for the water to be pressed out the easier by the earth with such a force as may square to the protruding of a long River Wherefore it is necessary that Rivers should derive either immediately or mediately from hills Thus immediately the Rhein springs forth out of the Mount Adula aliás Vogel The Danow out of a Mount within the black wood some 6 Leagues off from Tubingen The Necker out of another near the same Town The Garona out of one of the Perinean Mountains The Jaxartes out of the Sogdian Mountains as Ptolomy names them The Dnieper out of some Mountains near Dnieperco The River of Jordan out of two Issues of the Mount Lebanon viz. Jor and Dan both which meeting communicate in one name of Jordan The River Euphrates out of the Mount standing in the midst of the Garden of Eden The Boetis in Spain out of the Mount Orespeda near Castao The Anien out of the Mountains among the Trebani the Zepusium out of some Mountain in Poland and so a million of others Mediately The River of Nile descends out of some Hills that draw their water out of the Lake Zembre The River Niger salies vigorously out of some hills near the Lake Borno whose Caverns are filled the length of threescore Leagues under ground by streams flowing out of a Lake between Guidan and Vangue The River Nuba out of Mountains deriving their water from the Lake Nuba and in like manner many others Touching narrow short Rivers that flow from their head downwards to a low place they may draw their rice immediately from a Lake because they need not that vigour of impulse IV. Holland and Zealand although very rich in water yet are poo◠in Mountains because their ground is so much thorow soakt and masht with water that being changed into a mud it would sooner break into crums than be raised up into hills Wherefore the name of Holland was very aptly imposed upon that Countrey since that underneath it is hollow filled up only with water the
most to tend through the disposition of water and earth contained within those vapours and the greater force of the heavens driving them towards the Poles as the weaker places for there motion is least observed where being arrived are by the privative coldness of that Region assisted to free themselves of the fire and air the water now cleaving to the earth and divided into millions upon millions of minima's make up a dense body whence through the depression of the air they are devolved down to the earth Waters that are least in motion less fiery and aerial are most disposed to concretion Hence fresh waters are aptest to be frozen Whereas the Sea is seldom reduced to concretion because of its continual motion expelling the frosty minima's as fast as they are received or precipating them to the bottom or by melting their body through the fiery salin and aerial particles contained within it Notwithstanding is the Sea reduced to concretion in some Climates viz. within the Polars where you have the Oceanus Glacialis or Icy Ocean whose Ice is in some places 60 or 80 fathom deep in others reaching from the bottom of the Sea to the top insomuch that the tops of many of those Icy mountains stick out as far above the Surface of the liquid Sea as the same Sea is deep underneath The properties of that Ice is to be clear and transparent like glass Herodotus doth likewise make mention of the freezing of the Bosphorus so Beda lib. de natur rer c. 9. writes that within a daies sail from the Isle Tyle towards the North the Sea is frozen Olans Magn. tells us of the Gothiek Sea being frozen But this hapneth because the Sea thereabout may be deprived of its saltness yea some assert that those mountains of Ice are most fresh water concreased which being precipitated to the bottom through the density of the frosty minima's constantly descending like showers under the Pole the remaining Surface of fresh water is soon congealed Before I close this Paragraph I shall only adde the cause of a strange passion befalling the Glacial Sea where sometimes of a sudden and in a moment a whole mountain of Ice is melted away causing a dangerous current subverting or carrying away many a ship and yet the frost continueth The cause of this is not the broyling and melting heat of the Sun for the Sun is never so kind there but the union of those fiery salin particles precipitated as we told you above by the frosty minims down into the mud whence working or bursting with an united condensed force upwards do occasion such sudden degelations VIII Lastly Waters in respect of wholsomness differ very much in excellency and choice Spring water and those of Rivers are commended above others of Pools Lakes and Pit waters because these latter through their standing still contract a muddiness and filth out of the earth and sometimes noxious particles co gulated out of exhalations transpiring out the said mud besides that they are disposed to putrefactions through the abundance of peregrin bodies protruding venomous herbs and generating Toads Frogs Leeches Snails Eeles and other filthy Insects Snow waters are no less noxious than the former because of their crudity nitrosity and thickness Waters gathered and kept in a Leaden Cistern through Leaden or Tin spouts are crude and windy because they descend out of the cold region of the air Moreover as Galen doth well except they contract a pernicious quality from the Lead Wherefore Fountain or River waters carry the bell before them all but which of these two excells the other we must next distinguish Fountain waters as they spring out of the mountains are yet filled with wind and earthy minima's and therefore must yield to River waters I mean such as are derived from a Fountain In these the waters through their rapid streams depose those earthy crude and windy bodies which they brought along with them out of the Fountains Cavern and are attenuated and clarified through the Sun beams and lastly depose their dregs into the earth through being strained through its dense and clear sands And among these there is a great difference those that take their rice from a standing water or a Lake and flow through a muddy ground are much inferiour to many fountain waters But others that stream rapidly from a bright fountain and take their course through a pure sandy or gravelly ground and meet the East Sun are the best River waters in hot Countries where the air is clear are preferred before others in cold Climats Hence Rivers of a Continent take place before those of an Iland because the latter is generally beset with a nubilous air filling the said waters with mud and keeping off the rayes of the Sun from concocting them Wherefore River waters in the Southeast parts of France are esteemed before any in England those of the Southeast parts of Spain before others of the same Continent where the River Tago is much extolled for its wholsomeness of water In Persia the Choaspis affords the best waters In India the Ganges c. The Rivers of Thames affords the best water in England but further up towards the Woodmongers Gallows Oxford not about London where the ground is muddy besides that it is infected by the Tides flowing out of the Sea with many saltish particles dirt dung carkasses c. There must also notice be taken of the rice of a River viz. That it do not spring out of a Mine and of the Countries through which it passeth whether Chalky Gravelly or Clayish Insumma waters that are the lightest thinnest clearest and most limpid of no strong tangue but of a sweet pleasing rellish are the best The weight of waters is known by weighing one with the other in Scales By letting them run through a small sieve or thick close linnen their tenuity is known by dropping them upon a Looking-glass whereof that which drops the least drops and makes the greatest splatch is the subtillest by distillation boyling dissolving Salt or Soape in them by their shaking smalness and number of streams by the swimming of a piece of wood in them viz. that wherein it smimmeth deepest is the lightest and thinnest c. CHAP. XIV Of the commerce of the air with the other Elements 1. How the air moves downwards What motions the Elements would exercise supposing they enjoyed their Center Why the Air doth not easily toss the terraqueous Globe out of its place How the Air is capable of two contrary motions 2. That the Air moves continually from East through the South to West and thence back again to the East through the North. 3. An objection against the airs circular motion answered 4. The Poles of the Air. 5. The proportion of Air to Fire its distinction into three profundities 1. AIr is a debtor for its name to aer in Latine which again to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to lift up because it was lifted up as it were
with bodies discontinuating its substance doth press those heterogeneous bodies together into clouds through its vertue of moving to an union and not through its coldness for air of it self where it doth in any wise enjoy its purity is estranged from cold and is naturally rather inclined to warmth The reason why clouds are less apt to concrease where the Sun hath power is because the parts of the air there are weakned through the rarefaction and discontinuation by torrid minima's These clouds according to their mixture vary in continuation viz. some are thicker and more concreased than others which through their greater renixe are propelled from the others of a less renitency Clouds containing much earth and thence rendred dense appear black if they are much expanded according to their diduction they refract the light variously appearing red white blew c. The clouds through their gradual proportion of renitency being disrupted and sinking gradually under one another refract the light of the Sun according to their graduall situation seeming to be illuminated with several and gradual colours whose appearance is called a Rainbow viz. The lower being more thick and dense than the rest refract the light blackish that above it being less dense brownish that above this purple or greenish the other reddish yellowish c. A Rainbow is not seen by us unless we be interposed between the Sun and the Clouds reflecting and refracting that is we must stand on that side of the clouds that is irradiated In Thomas's Island the Moon doth sometimes cause a light kind of a Rainbow after a rain Touching the figure of a Rainbow it is semicircular because the air is expanded in a circular figure and moved circularly towards us Many do make a scruple whether there ever appeared any Rainbow before the Floud gathering their ground of doubting from Gen. 9. 13. I do set my Bow in the cloud and it shall be for a token of a Covenant between me and the earth Hereunto I answer That these words do not seem to make out any thing else but that God did assume the Bow for a sign rather implying that the Heavens had been disposed to the susception of Rainbows from the Creation For even then were the Heavens filled up with clouds fit for the reflection of such a light That a Morning Rainbow doth portend wet and an Evening one fair weather is vulgarly reported which nevertheless is very uncertain For the most part it either doth precede rain or follow it The reason is because the forementioned gradual declination and incrassation doth cause a rain Rain is the decidence of clouds in drops Clouds although incrassated and condensed gathered and compressed by the ambient air striving to be freed of them yet cannot be expelled and protruded all at once because their extent is too large and their circumference obtuse whence they are unfit to be protruded at once unless they were most condensed into an acute or cutting Surface Why they cannot be compressed into a less compass and a greater acuteness is because of a great quantity of air contained within them Touching their diruption into drops it is to be imputed to the external compression of the clouds squeezing the internal air into particles which as they burst out do each protrude a drop of rain Or thus Suppose the clouds at such times to be puft up with bubbles of internal air and the diruption of each bubble to send down a drop of rain Oft times with rain a great wind blows down along with it which is nothing else but the air pent within the said clouds and bursting out of them A windiness doth oft hold up the rain because it shatters and disperses the parts of the said dense clouds wherby their consistency is broken Rains are very frequent in the Autumn and the Winter because the Sun casting its rayes obliquely towards those Countries where the seasons of the year are manifestly observed doth raise a greater abundance of vapours more than it can dissolve or disperse besides a great number of clouds are sent from other places where the Sun doth through its Summer heat raise such a great quantity of vapours which meeting and being impacted upon one another and etruded cause great rains at those times of the year The Moon hath also great power in dissolving a cloud into rain for she sending down and impelling great abundance of dense weighty minims doth very much further the descent of drops Frosty minims exercise a strong vertue in stifning the air whereby it is rendred more firm to contain the clouds and hinder their precipitation besides they do also disperse the clouds through their effective crassitude Whence it is that it rains so seldom in frosty weather But as soon as the thow is begun likely the clouds meet and fall down in a rain Which if sometimes pouring down in great showers is called a Nimbus if in small drops but descending close is called an Imber The cause of this difference depends upon the density of the clouds and the proportion of air pent within them Those rainy clouds do sometimes contain a great quantity of earthy minims which meeting are through a petrisick vertue changed into stones raining down at the dissolution of the said clouds Other contents consisting of reddish or whitish exhalations drawn up from the earth may give such a red or white tincture to the clouds which when dispersed into rain may appear bloudy or milky Frog or Fish-spawns have sometimes been attracted up into the air being inclosed within vapours where within the matrix of a close cloud they have been vivified and afterwards rained down again A Nebula is a small thin cloud generated in the lower Region of the air out of thin vapours The reason why those vapours ascended no higher is because they were concreased in the lower parts of the lower Region of the air through the force of the air in the night being rendred potent through the absence of the Suns discontinuating raies A mist is the incrassation of vapours contained in the lowermost parts of the air The dew is the decidence of drops from subtil vapours concreased through the privative coldness of nocturnal air III. Snow is the decidence of clouds in flocks whose production depends upon the concrescence of drops by frosty minima's and their attenuation through aerial particles whence they are soft and do reflect the light whitish It usually falls after a degelation when the congealed clouds are somewhat loosened It dissolves or melts through deserting the frosty minima's Hail is the decidence of drops in hard small quadrangular bodies Their congelation is also occasioned through the detention of frosty minima's within the drops of water Their hardness is from a less commixture of air whence the water doth the more enjoy her own crassitude and hardness IV. Wind is a violent eruption of incrassated air pent within the clouds puffing disrupting and taring the Element of air asunder Hence when
sudden an alteration Wolfgang Meverer in his Com. Meteor p. 140. makes mention of a man being suddenly seized upon on the way between Leipsich and Torga and lifted up into the skies by a lightning never appearing again to any Wine hath sometimes been bound up together with a thin skin through the like accident the cask being broke asunder This doubtless depended upon the incrassation and condensation of the external parts of the Wine through the compressing force of the Lightning impelling the aerial and igneous parts to the Center Wine thus affected becomes very noxious and poysonous through the infection of the Celestial sulphur I must not forget to insert a word or two touching Thunder stones differing in hardness and figure some being Pyramidal others Globous Oval or like to a wedge c. Touching their generation Authors are much at variance Sennert opiniates that they are generated upon the Earth through the great heat of the Lightning melting and afterwards concreasing the sands into a very hard stone A gross mistake 1. These stones are observed to fall down from the Heavens after a thunder with such an acute pressing weight that they are forced according to Pliny lib. 2. c. 55. five foot deep into the earth according to others 9 yards and some would have them press to the Center of the Earth but that is ridiculous 2. A stone of that hardness is not generated in so short a time 3. These stones must then be supposed to be generated without a matrix But to the matter They are generated within very dense and thick clouds whose denser and thicker part is sequestred into a closer seat for a womb where after some time it concreases into a stone And lastly its greatest hardness is accomplisht through the intense heat of the fire united within the same clouds and happens to fall down through the great concussion and disruption caused by a Thunder III. To these Igneous Meteors a Comet is likewise to be referred touching whose seat and production a deal of dispute is made But before I direct my Pen to those particulars it will not be amiss first to set down its description A Comet or blazing Star is a fiery Meteor that is a mixt body of no long duration sublimed into the air generated out of some dense fiery and thick airy parts contained within the clouds of the second region of the air It chuseth a difference from its figure colour time motion duration and place whence some are globous beset round with fiery hairs and therefore are called Cometae criniti Or others seem to be barded whence they are termed Cometae barbati Or others again appear with a tail and for that reason are named Cometae caudati Some appear in a light golden or yellow flame others redish bloudy dusky red c. Some are moved slowly others swiftly some are moved more regularly than others Some appear in the Spring others more frequently in the Autumn rarely in the Summer more rarely in the Winter Some are of a weekly or monthly duration others remain six months in sight Commonly they keep their station without the tropicks and but rarely some do appear within the Tropicks But in reference to their place of production many believe their seat to be in the Elementary Region viz. The upper Region of the air that is according to their meaning near the Concave of the Moon where the actual flame of the Stars may the better kindle them judging the coldness of the second Region to be very unapt for the generation of these bodies Others again allott the Celestial Plage for their reception And among these Anaxagoras and Democritus thought them to be the appearance of several Planets united in company and in their lights Pythagoras asserted them to be Planets but none of the seven Common ones that had remained hidden all this while under the beams of the Sun and through their digress from him came now into sight in the same manner as oft befals to Mercury The first opinion owned by the Peripateticks doth somewhat thwart their own Tenents 1. They asserted that the kindling of all the preceding fiery Meteors was occasioned through the intense coldness of the air in the second Region effecting a violent commotion upon exhalations contained within its jurisdiction whereby they were inflamed or took fire and that in the night because its season doth superadd somewhat to the cold Whereas here they contradict themselves and maintain the second Region to be too cold for to kindle a flame 2. There they proclaime the Solar or other intense heat to discusse and disperse the exhalations in the torrid Zone and therefore fiery Meteors appear seldom there here nothing but a flaming actual heat will do it What inconstancies are these 3. Can any one probably imagine that such great heaps and mountains of exhalations as the great Mole of a Comet requires at that distance should be attracted to the highest Region of the air It is a question whether the whole Earth can afford so much sulphureous matter were it all exhausted Or if she could would that intense coldness as they imagine of the second Region of the air or those thick dense clouds of the lower Region give passage to such numerous and thick passengers Or do you not think that they would be sooner discussed through the intense heat of the upper Region than concrease into a body Neither can Astronomers with their Telescopes discern in them such a propinquity to the fiery Region or Moon but to the contrary a very great distance As for Democritus his opinion it is scarce worth the time to confute it but let me confirm my own I say they are generated in the second Region of the air not that second Region which the Peripateticks have chalckt out but the middle between the lower and upper Region where those stiff and permanent clouds are swimming not beginning from the tops of the mountains but from the tops of the Erratick clouds The said permanent clouds move with the body of the air from East to West and so do the Comets 2. The permanent clouds are alone capable of condensing and uniting those subtil exhalations that are escaped the thick dense clouds of the inferiour Region into a compact flame durable for a certain term of daies weeks or months according to the seat of that Region and the quantity of exhalations Neither is this flame apt to spend it self much because it is as it were partially catochizated through the privative coldness of the air and positive coldness of its clouds 2. It is supplied with pure incrassated air not infected with many dense terrestrial or thick waterish particles Touching its hairs they are nothing else but the light of its flame illustrating or obtending the air contained within those clouds in so many streaks for it cannot obtend it equally all about because it is permixt with water whose crassitude will not bear obtension wherefore it divides
the first smart impulse The truth of the foresaid reason and manner is apparent in shooting a pole through the water where we may see the water at the farther end raised into a tumor which running about the sides to the other end causeth its propulsion Whence it is also that when there appears no more of the tumor of the water before the pole its motion doth instantly cease XI Disruption or bursting is a sudden separation of the parts of a body through a violent force moving from within This we see happens oft in Canons when over-charged or in bottels filled with water being frozen in the Winter o. Wine in the Summer being close stopt The cause of these latter must be imputed to frosty or fiery minims entring through the pores of the bottels in greater quantity than their capacity can take in and disrupting them for to avoid a penetration of bodies Bodies are oft said to burst through driness as Instruments c. but very improperly since it is the fiery or frosty minims entring their pores and filling their capacities and afterwards disrupting them because of avoiding a penetration of bodies So Instrument-strings are apt to break in moist weather because their continuation is disrupted through penetration of moist bodies into their pores Undulation is a motion whereby a body is moved to and fro like to water shaken in a basin or to the motion of a Bell. The cause is likewise adscribed to the first motion of the Impulsor which being terminated at the end of its return is beat back through the direct descent of the air impelling it by reason it lieth athwart Recurrent motion being but little different from this I shall therefore say no more of it The cause of reflection is the return of the impulse impressed upon the air or water both being media deferentia perpendicularly or obliquely upwards from a hard and plane reflecting body Of refraction the cause is the shuving off of the impulse downwards by the shelving sides of an angular hard body CHAP. XXI Of Fire being an Introduction to a New Astronomy 1. The Fires division into three Regions 2. The qualification of the inferiour Region What the Sun is What his torrid Rayes are and how generated 3. How the other Planets were generated 4. How the fixed Stars were generated 5. A further explanation of the Stars their Ventilation That there are many Stars within the Planetary Region that are invisible Of the appearance of new Stars or Comets Of the Galaxia or Milk-way 6. That the fiery Regions are much attenuated I. THe ground of the fires tending downwards you may easily collect from what I have set down touching the waters and airs commerce with the other Elements It s profundity we may likewise divide into three Regions The first whereof containing the Planetary bodies the next the fixed Stars and the third consisting most of purefire II. The inferiour Region through its nearer approximation to the air and its immersion into it is cast into a subtil flame whose subtility doth effuge our sight and Tact. The Sun is a great body generated out of the peregrin Elements contained in the inferiour igneous Region consisting most of condensed fire and incrassated air extended and blown up into the greatest flame and conglomerated within the greatest fiery cloud These igneous clouds are like to the windy clouds of the air which as they do daily blast down wind upon the earth so do these cast fiery rayes among which that which surrounds the Sun doth vendicate the greatest power to it selfe The manner of casting of its fiery rayes is the same with that of winds viz. The Region of fire forceth up every day or continually a great quantity of air somewhat incrassated and condensed into its own sphere through its descending force striving for a Center This incrassated and condensed air is impelled violently into the body of the Stars by other subtil flames as being more forcible to drive the said adventitious matter from them because their parts are so closely ingaged that they can scarce slow a minim without a penetration Wherefore they must necessarily be impelled gradually into the bodies of the Stars because these are mixt bodies that give way so much in themselves by expelling fiery or torrid minima's down into the air as to be capacious enough of receiving so many airy particles as the Elementary fire doth force up every moment But before I proceed in unfolding the manner of the Celestial mixt bodies their ventilations I must insist somewhat further upon their constitution III. The Celestial mixt bodies are not only like to clouds in their daily and minutely ventilations but also in their constitutions viz. The inferiour ones as the Planets are constituted out of the courser and more mixt matter of the finer cloudy air in the inferiour Region of the Element of fire like the clouds of the inferiour Region of air are constituted out of the courser part of vapours Their coagulation is effected through the force of the fiery Element crushing their matter from below upwards and again is repelled back from the superiour parts of the said fiery Elements because through its being pressed up are scanted of room and therefore do press downwards not only for room but also because of reuniting where they are divided by the said coagulated bodies Now it may easily appear to you 1. Whence that rotundity or rather globosity doth arrive to them viz. because they are circularly crusht 2. Because the air and fire of the said Planets do naturally spread themselves equally from the Center to the Circumference whence a circular figure must needs follow Also 3. That Stars are nothing else but the thicker and denser part of the Heavens coagulated into fiery mixt bodies to wit flames 3. That as they do decrease by Ventilation every day so they do also increase by the introsusception of new aerial particles 4. That they must necessarily be very durable because of the duration of their causes For as the great force of the inferiour parts of the igneous Heavens never desist from striving for the Center and do every day cast up great proportions of aerial matter so do the superiour parts never cease from compressing them into the bodies of the other condensed flames being disposed as I said before through their ventilation to receive them 2. Because the aerial parts being got into the Center of the flames cease from all external Local motion striving only to maintain their Center in rest IV. Fixed Stars are generated out of the subtiler parts of the forementioned aerial evaporations being through their less resisting gravity redounding from water earth in them rendred capable of being screwed up higher to the second Region where they are coagulated through the same motions of the Heavens that Planetary clouds are These are responding to the permanent clouds of the second Region of the air which as they are spread into more large
then the Sun at once must illustrate more then the mediety of the Globe and consequently the nights would be shorter then the daies although under the Line at the season of the AEquinoxe but that is false ergo Again were the Sun greater than the Earth ergo its heat would be communicated in an equal violence upon all the parts of it for why should it not as much powr out showers of heat conically as you say it doth its light Here you cannot accur to excuse your self by the distance or remoteness of the Sun thence contracting its heat for then it must likewise contract its light 3. They assert supposing the shadow of the Earth to be conical that therefore the Sun must be necessarily greater But for what reason Not because the Sun is greater but because the light is larger wherefore the largeness of the light doth not conclude any thing touching the bigness of the Sun I not the light of a Candle or Touch much larger than its flame Is not the same Candle apt to overcast an Object much bigger than it self with light that shall exceed its mediety and consequently the shadow of such a body must be conical Whence it is that a body ten thousand times less than the air is capable of illuminating its whole tract because a body of that proportion is big enough to obtend the air throughout its whole depth But if you should imagine with the Peripateticks that light is efficiently produced by the lucid substance of the Sun I know not how then indeed the body of the Sun must be many times bigger than the earth because the Lumen would be but just of the same extent with the Lux. But I need not to answer to this since the contrary hath been plainly proved After all this I state II. 1. That the Sun were he so much lesser than the terraqueous globe than I suppose he is would be big enough to illuminate its whole Hemisphere at once for if the light of a Candle doth illuminate the air thirty leagues round much more would the Sun the whole Hemisphere whose substance is by far more pure lucid and bigger in that proportion in comparison with the aerial region then a focal light being of an impure dark substance is in comparison to the Circumference of 30 Leagues III. 2. The shadow of the earth is to some extent cylindrical I prove it Is not the shadow of a man standing in the Sun cylindrical to some extent Is not the shadow of a Pen or other small body being held at some distance before a Candle whose Lux is bigger than the body objected cylindrical to some extent Besides as I proved above it is evident in the Equinoxes The reason is because a dense body doth obscure and dead the light as far as it is dense now the earth being dense all about the entire Horizon no wonder if it doth dead and obscure the Suns light to the extent of its Hemisphere IV. 3. The Sun existing in the Equinoctial doth at once illuminate the whole Hemisphere of the earth from one Pole to the other If the Sun existing in the Meridian is seen at once by those under the torrid Zone from the Ascension of the AEquator that are 90 degrees off Eastward and as many Westward from its Descension then the Sun must also be seen as many degr off to the Southward as to the Northward that is to each Pole because the Sun being globous doth obtend the air equally about to all the parts of the Compass But the Sun in the Meridian is seen at one time by those that are 90 degr Eastward or Westward ergo V. 4. By so many degrees as the Sun declineth to the North by so many degrees doth a perfect shadow or darkness cover the South polar Earth and the like conceive of the South Declination 5. The Suns gradual declination causes a prolongation or abbreviation of its diurnal light and shadow or the equality and inequality of the daies and nights 6. The Sun is much greater than he appeares to be because the clouds and depth of the air do diminish its species in the manner of a great fire appearing but like a small spark at a great distance Astronomers are not only forward in prescribing the bigness of the Stars but also their distances And how is that possible since they cannot sensibly demonstrate the Diameter of the World or define any certain extent in the Heavens for to compare another Terrestrial length unto neither can they ever find out an exact account of any length upon the Earth responding to a degree of any of the Orbs of Heaven If so what do all their observations touching the Stars Paralaxis amount unto VI. The body of the Sun is usually expressed as resembling a mans face whose Marks and Signatures are nothing else but certain protuberancies and spots The like is apparent in the Moons face These protuberancies are nothing but inequalities of their cloudy bodies appearing like unto clouds in the air thicker or more compact in one place and thinner and looser in another The Telescopium or Prospective Glass discerns those spots to be moveable and not unlikely since they being the external parts of those gross and looser clouds are apt to be displaced and change their situation through the obtrusion befalling them by the most rapid motion of the Heavens These do sometimes increase and accrease either through dispersion or apposition of new clouds floating here and there in the Planets their way as they move which oft causes a distinction of their bigger or lesser appearance at some times than at others VII The Moon is by all Astronomers believed to be less than the terrestrial globe because the shadow of the eclipse of the Sun is much too little to obtenebrate all the Earth But supposing the Sun to be of so inapparent a bigness and distance from the Earth as the vulgar of Astronomers do receive him to be of and the Moon to be of a far greater distance from the Earth than she is certainly the shadow which she would cast must be much less than her body although it were forty times bigger than it is because the Sun being greater than she must according to the ordinary Doctrine of shadows only suffer her to cast a conical shadow whose extreme point not reaching to the Earth or if it did could not be a certain token whence to draw the proportion or distance of Stars Wherefore according to their own principles the Moon may be conceived to exceed the Earth far in bigness since they cannot attain to any probable account of the distances of the Stars 2. We must also suppose the Moon to be a lucid body although yielding to the Sun in that particular and therefore to illuminate the Earth somewhat for otherwise in every total perfect Eclipse it would prove as dark as pitch if so what ground doth there remain to take measure of her shadow since