manner of working But not to spend time in examining those obscure niceties I answer in short That since the Agent be he what he will is but a Physical and finite Agent and since what way soever he works he can do nothing repugnant to the nature of things the difficulty that sticks with me will still remain For if the Form produc'd in Generation be as they would have it a Substance that was not before to be found any where out of that portion of Matter wherewith it constitutes the Generated Body I say that either it must be produc'd by refining or subtiliating some parts of the Matter into Form or else it must bâ— produc'd out of nothing that is Creâ—ted for I see no Third way how a Substance can be produc'd de novo If they allow the First then will the Form bâ— indeed a Substance but not as they holâ— it is distinct from Matter since Matter however subtiliated is Matter still â— the finest Spirit of Wine is as truly Body as was the Wine it self that yeâ—ded it or as is the Grosser Flegm from which it was extracted besides that the Peripateticks teach that the Form is noâ— made of any thing of the Matter nâ—â— indeed is it conceivable how a Physicaâ— Agent can turn a Material into an Immaterial Substance especially Matteâ— being as they themselves confesse aâ— well incorruptible as ingenerable Bâ— if they will not allow as indeed they do not that the substantial Form is made of any thing that is Material they must give me leave to believe that t is produc'd out of Nothing till they shew me how a Substance can be produc'd otherwise that existed no where before And at this rate every Natural Body of a special Denomination as Gold Marble Nitre c. must not be produc'd barely by Generation but partly by Generation and partly by Creation And since t is confess'd on all sides that no Natural Agent can produce the least Atome of Matter t is strange they should in Generation allow every Physical Agent the power of producing a Form which according to them is not onely a Substance but a far nobler one then Matter and thereby attribute to the meanest Creatures that power of creating Substances which the Antient Naturalists thought too great to be ascrib'd to God himself and which indeed is too great to be ascrib'd to any other then Him and therefore some Schoolmen and Philosophers have deriv'd Forms immediately from God but this is not onely to desert Aristotle and the Peripatetick Philosophy they would seem to maintain but to put Omnipotence upon working I know not how many thousand Miracles every hour to performe that I mean the Generation of Bodies of new Denominations in a supernatural way which seems the most familiar effect of Nature in her ordinary course And as the Production of Forms out of the Power of Matter is for these Reasons incomprehensible to me so those things which the Peripateticks ascribe to their substantial Forms are some of them such as I confesse I cannot reconcile my Reason to for they tell us positively that these Forms are Substances and yet at the same time they teach that they depend upon Matter both in fieri and in esse as they speak so that out of the Matter that supports them they cannot so much as exist whence they are usually call'd Material Forms which is to make them Substances in name and but Accidents in truth for not to ask how among Physical things one Substance can be said to depend upon another in fieri that is not made of any part of it that very notion of a Substance is to be a self-subsisting Entity or that which needs no other Created Being to support it or to make it exist Besides that there being but two sorts of Substances Material and Immaterial a substantial Form must appertain to one of the two and yet they ascribe things to it that make it very unfit to be referr'd to either To all this I adde that these imaginary Material Forms do almost as much trouble the Doctrine of Corruption as that of Generation for if a Form be a true Substance really distinct from Matter it must as I lately noted be able to exist of it self without any other Substance to support it as those I reason with confess that the Soul of Man survives the Body it did before Death inform whereas they will have it that in Corruption the Form is quite abolish'd and utterly perishes as not being capable of existing separated from the Matter whereunto it was united so that here again what they call a Substance they make indeed an Accident and besides contradict their own vulgar Doctrine That Natural things are upon their Corruption resolv'd into the first Matter since at this rate they should say that such things are but partly resolv'd into the first Matter and partly either into Nothing or into Forms which being as well immaterial as the Souls of Men must for ought appears be also like them accounted immortal I should now examine those Arguments that are wont to be imploy'd by the Schools to evince their substantial Forms but besides that the nature and scope of my present Work injoynes me Brevity I confesse that one or two excepted the Arguments I have found mention'd as the chief are rather Metaphysical or Logical then grounded upon the Principles and Phaenomena of Nature and respect rather Words then Things and therefore I who have neither inclination nor leasure to wrangle about Terms shall content my self to propose and very briefly answer two or three of those that are thought the plausiblest First then they thus argue Omne Compositum substantiale for it is hard to English well such Uncouth Terms requirit materiam formam substantialem ex quibus componatur Omne corpus naturale est composituÌ„ substantiale Ergo c. In this Syllogisme some do plausibly enough deny the Consequence but for brevities sake I shall rather choose to deny the Minor and desire the Proposers to prove it For I know not any thing in Nature that is compos'd of Matter and a Substance distinct from Matter except Man who alone is made up of an immaterial Form and a humane Body and if it be urg'd that then other Bodies cannot be properly said to be Composita substantialia I shall rather then wrangle with them give them leave to find out some other name for other Natural things But then they argue in the next place that if there were no substantial Forms all Bodies would be but Entia per accidens as they speak which is absurd To which I answer That in the Notion that divers Learned men have of an Ens per Accidens namely that t is That which consists of those things quae non ordinantur ad unum it may be said That though we do not admit substantial Forms yet we need not admit Natural Bodies to be Entia per accidens because in
argue in it any Inhaerent Quality of Heat distinct from the Power it hath of putting the smalâ— parts of the Wax into such a Motion as that their Agitation surmounts their Cohaesion which Motion together with their Gravity is enough to make them pro tempore constitute a Fluid Body and Aqua Fortis without any sensible Heat will make Camphire casâ— on it assume the form of a Liquor distinct from it as I have try'd that â— strong Fire will also make Camphiâ— fluid not to adde that I know a Liquor into which certain Bodies being put when both it Self as well as They is actually cold and consequently when You would not suspect it of an Actual Inhaerent Heat will not onely speedily dissipate many of their parts into Smoak but leave the rest Black and burnt almost like a Coal So that though we suppose the Fire to do no more then variously and briskly to agitate the Insensible parts of the Wax That may suffice to make us think the Wax endow'd with a Quality of Heat because if such an Agitation be greater then that of the Spirit and other parts of our Organs of Touching That is enough to produce in us that Sensation we call Heat which is so much a Relative to the Sensory which apprehends it that vve see that the same Lukevvarm Water that is vvhose Corpuscles are moderately agitated by the Fire will appear hot to one of a Man's hands if That be very cold and cold to the other in case it be very hot though both of them be the same Man's hands To be short if we fancy any two of the Bodies about us as a Stone a Mettal c. to have nothing at all to do with any other Body in the Universe 't is not easy to conceive either how one can act upon the other but by Local Motion of the whole Body or its Corporeal Effluvia or how by Motion it can do any more then put the Parts of the other Body into Motion too and thereby produce in them a Change of Scituation and Texture or of some other of its Mechanical Affections though this Passive Body being plac'd among other Bodies in a World constituted as ours now is and being brought to act upon the most curiously contriv'd Sensories of Animals may upon both these accounts exhibit many differing sensible Phaenomena which however we look upon them as distinct Qualities are consequently but the Effects of the often mention'd Catholick affections of Matter and deducible from the Size Shape Motion or Rest Posture Order and the resulting Texture of the Insensible parts of Bodies And therefore though for shortness of speech I shall not scruple to make use of the word Qualities since it is already so generally receiv'd yet I would be understood to mean them in a sense suitable to the Doctrine above deliver'd As if I should say that Roughnesse is apt to grate and offend the Skin I should mean that a File or other Body by having upon its Surface a multitude of little hard and exstant Parts and of an Angular or sharp Figure is qualify'd to work the mention'd Effect and so if I should say that Heat melts Mettals I should mean that this Fusion is effected by Fire or some other Body which by the various and vehement Motion of its insensible parts does to us appear Hot. And hence by the way I presume You will easily guess at what I think of the Controversy so hotly disputed of late betwixt two parties of Learned Men whereof the One would have all Accidents to worke onely in virtue of the Matter they reside in and the Other would have the Matter to act onely in virtue of its Accidents for considering that on the one side the Qualities we here speak of do so depend upon Matter that they cannot so much as have a Being but in and by it and on the other side if all Matter were but quite devoid of Motion to name now no other Accidents I do not readily conceive how it could operate at all I think it is safest to conclude That neither Matter nor Qualities apart but both or them conjointly do perform what we see done by Bodies to one another according to the Doctrine of Qualities just now deliver'd Of the Nature of a Forme VII WE may now advance somewhat farther and consider that Men having taken notice that certain conspicuous Accidents were to be found associated in some Bodies and other Conventions of Accidents in other Bodies they did for conveniency and for the more expeditious Expression of their Conceptions agree to distinguish them into several Sorts which they call Genders or Species according as they referr'd them either upwards to a more Comprehensive sort of Bodies or downward to a narrower Species or to Individuals As observing many Bodies to agree in being Fusible Malleable Heavy and the like they gave to that sort of Body the name of Mettal which is a Genus in reference to Gold Silver Lead and but a Species in reference to that sort of mixt Bodies they call Fossilia This superior Genus comprehending both Mettals Stones and diverse other Concretions though it self be but a Species in respect of Mixt Bodies Now when any Body is referr'd to any particular Species as of a Mettal a Stone or the like because Men have for their Convenience agreed to signifie all the Essentials requisite to constitute such a Body by one Name most of the Writers of Physicks have been apt to think that besides the common Matter of all Bodies there is but One thing that discriminates it from other Kinds and makes it what it is and this for brevities sake they call a Forme which because all the Qualities and other Accidents of the Body must depend on it they also imagine to be a very Substance and indeed a kind of Soule which united to the gross Matter composes with it a Natural Body and acts in it by the several Qualities to be found therein which Men are wont to ascribe to the Creature so compos'd But as to this affair I observe that if for Instance You ask a Man what Gold is if he cannot shew you a piece of Gold and tell You This is Gold he will describe it to You as a Body that is extremely Ponderous very Malleable and Ductile Fusible and yet Fixt in the Fire and of a Yellowish colour and if You offer to put off to him a piece of Brass for a piece of Gold he will presently refuse it and if he understand Mettals tell You that though Your Brass be coloured like it 't is not so heavy nor so malleable neither will it like Gold resist the utmost brunt of the Fire or resist Aqua Fortis and if You ask Men what they mean by a Ruby or Niter or a Pearl they will still make You such Answers that You may clearly perceive that whatever Men talk in Theory of Substantial Forms yet That upon whose account they really distinguish
design seems rather to have been to deliver Principles and Summaries of Philosophy then to insist upon Particulars but for this purpose that since the Nature of Qualities is so beneficiall a speculation my labours may not be look'd upon as wholly Uselesse though I can contribute but a little to the clearing of it and that since 't is so abstruse a subject I may be pardon'd if I sometimes misse the marke and leave diverse things uncompleated That being but what such great Philosophers have done before mee But Pyrophylus before I proceed to give You my Notes upon this part of our Author's Essay that you may rightly understand my Intention in them it will be requisite to give you three or foure Advertisements And first when ever I shall speake indefinitely of Substantiall forms I would alwayes be understood to except the Reasonable Soule that is said to inform the humane Body which Declaration I here desire may be taken notice of once for all Secondly Nor am I willing to treat of the Origine of Qualities in beasts partly because I would not be engaged to examine of what Nature their Soules are and partly because it is difficult in most cases at least for one that is compassionate enough either to make experiments upon Living animals or to judg what influence their Life may have upon the change of Qualities produc'd by such Experiments Thirdly The occasion of the following Reflections being onely this that our Author in that part of his Essay concerning Salt-peter whereto these Notes referre does briefly Intimate some Notions about the Nature and Origine of Qualities You must not exspect that I whose Method leads me but to Write some Notes upon this and some other parts of this Essay should make Solemne or Elaborate discourses concerning the Nature of particular Qualities and that I should fully deliver my own apprehensions concerning those Subjects For as I elsewhere sufficiently Intimate that in these first Notes I Write as a Corpuscularian set down those Things onely that seem to have a tendency to Illustrate or Countenance the Notions or Fancies imply'd in our Author's Essay So I must here Tell you that I neither have now the Leasure nor Pretend to the Skill to deliver Fully the History or to Explicate Particularly the Nature of Each several Quality Fourthly But I consider that the Schools have of late much Amus'd the World with a way they have got of Referring all Naturall Effects to certain Entities that they call Reall Qualities and accordingly Attribute to them a Nature distinct from the Modification of the Matter they belong to in some cases Separable from all Matter whatsoever by which Meanes they have as farre forth as their Doctrine is Acquiesc'd in made it thought Needlesse or Hopeless for men to Employ their Industry in searching into the Nature of Particular Qualities their Effects As if for Instance it be Demanded how Snow comes to dazle the Eyes they will answer that 't is by a Quality of Whiteness that is in It which makes all very white Bodies produce the same Effect And if You ask what this Whiteness is They will tell you no more in substance then that t is a reall Entity which denominates the Parcel of Matter to which it is Joyn'd White if You further Enquire what this real Entity which They call a Quality is You will find as Wee shall see anon that They either Speak of it much after the same rate that They do of their Substantiall Forms as indeed some of the Modern'st teach That a Quality affects the Matter it belongs to per modum formae secundariae as they speak or at least they will not Explicate it more Intelligibly And accordingly if you further Ask them how white Bodies in Generall do rather Produce this effect of dazling the Eyes then Green or Blew ones instead of being told that the former sort of Bodies reflect Outwards and so to the Eye farre more of the Incident Light then the Latter You shall perchance be told that 't is their respective Natures so to act by which way of dispatching difficulties they make it very easy to solve All the Phoenomena of Nature in Generall but make men think it impossible to explicate almost Any of them in Particular And though the Unsatisfactorisness and Barrennesse of the School Philosophy have perswaded a great many Learned Men especially Physicians to substitute the Chymists Three principles instead of those of the Schools and though I have a very good opinion of Chymistry it self as 't is a Practical Art yet as 't is by Chymists pretended to containe a Systeme of Theoricall Principles of Philosophy I fear it will afford but very little satisfaction to a severe enquirer into the Nature of Qualities For besides that as we shall more particularly see anon there are Many Qualities which cannot with any probability be deduc'd from Any of the three Principles those that are ascrib'd to One or other of them cannot Intelligibly be explicated without recourse to the more Comprehensive Principles of the Corpuscularian Philosophy To tell us for instance that all Solidity proceeds from Salt onely informing us where it can plausibly be pretended in what materiall principle or ingredient that Quality resides not how it is produced for this doth not teach us for example how Water even in exactly clos'd vessels comes to be frozen into Ice that is turn'd from a fluid to a Solid Body without the accession of a saline ingredient which I have not yet found pretended especially Glasse being held Impervious to Salts Wherefore Pyrophilus I thought it might much conduce to the understanding the Nature of Qualities To shew how they are Generated and by the same way I hop'd it might remove in some measure the obstacle that these Dark and Narrow Theories of the Peripateticks and Chymists may prove to the Advancement of solid and usefull Philosophy That then which I chiefly aime at is to make it Probable to you by Experiments which I Think hath not yet beene done That allmost all sorts of Qualities most of which have been by the Schooles either left Unexplicated or Generally referr'd to I know not what Incomprehensible Substantiall Formes may be produced Mechanically I mean by such Corporeall Agents as do not appear either to Work otherwise then by vertue of the Motion Size Figure and Contrivance of their own Parts which Attributes I call the Mechanicall Affections of Matter because to Them men willingly Referre the various Operations of Mechanical Engines or to Produce the new Qualities exhibited by those Bodies their Action changes by any other way then by changing the Texture or Motion or some other Mechanical Affection of the Body wrought upon And this if I can in any Passable measure do though but in a generall way in some or other of each of these Three Sorts into which the Peripateticks are wont to Divide the Qualities of Bodies I hope I shall have done no
waies some of those External Bodies being fitted to affect the Eye others the Ear others the Nostrils c. And to these Operations of the Objects on the Sensories the Mind of Man which upon the account of its Union with the Body perceives them giveth distinct Names calling the one Light or Colour the other Sound the other Odour c. And because also each Organ of Sense as the Eye or the Palat may be it self differingly affected by External Objects the Mind likewise gives the Objects of the same Sense distinct Appellations calling one colour Green the other Blew and one tast Sweet and another Bitter c. Whence Men have been induc'd to frame a long Catalogue of such Things as for their relating to our Senses we call Sensible Qualities and because we have been conversant with them before we had the use of Reason and the Mind of Man is prone to conceive almost every Thing nay even Privations as Blindness Death c. under the notion of a true Entitie or Substance as it self is we have been from our Infancy apt to imagine that these Sensible Qualities are Real Beings in the Objects they denominate and have the faculty or power to work such and such things as Gravity hath a power to stop the motion of a Bullet shot upwards and carry that solid Globe of Matter toward the Center of the Earth whereas indeed according to what we have largely shewn above there is in the Body to which these Sensible Qualities are attributed nothing of Real and Physical but the Size Shape and Motion or Rest of its component Particles together with that Texture of the whole which results from their being so contriv'd as they are nor is it necessary they should have in them any thing more like to the Ideas they occasion in us those Ideas being either the Effects of our Praejudices or Inconsiderateness or else to be fetcht from the Relation that happens to be betwixt those Primary Accidents of the Sensible Object and the peculiar Texture of the Organ it affects as when a Pin being run into my Finger causeth pain there is no distinct Quality in the Pin answerable to what I am apt to fancie Pain to be but the Pin in it self is onely slender stiff and sharp and by those qualities happens to make a Solution of Continuity in my Organ of Touching upon which by reason of the Fabrick of the Body and the intimate Union of the Soul with it there ariseth that troublesome kind of Perception which we call Pain and I shall anon more particularly shew how much that depends upon the peculiar fabrick of the Body VI. But here I foresee a Difficulty which being perhaps the chiefest that we shall meet with against the Corpuscular Hypothesis it will deserve to be before we proceed any farther taken notice of And it is this that whereas we explicate Colours Odours and the like sensible Qualities by a relation to our Senses it seems evident that they have an absolute Being irrelative to Us for Snow for instance would be white and a glowing Coal would be hot though there were no Man or any other Animal in the World and 't is plain that Bodies do not onely by their Qualities work upon Our senses but upon other and those Inanimate Bodies as the Coal will not onely heat or burn a Man's hand if he touch it but would likewise heat Wax even so much as to melt it and make it slow and thaw Ice into Water though all the Men and sensitive Beings in the World were annihilated To clear this Difficulty I have several things to represent and 1. I say not that there are no other Accidents in Bodies then Colours Odours and the like for I have already taught that there are simpler and more Primitive Affections of Matter from which these Secondary Qualities if I may so call them do depend and that the Operations of Bodies upon one another spring from the same we shall see by and by 2. Nor do I say that all Qualities of Bodies are directly Sensible but I observe that when one Body works upon another the knowledg we have of their Operation proceeds either from some sensible Quality or some more Catholick affection of Matter as Motion Rest or Texture generated or destroy'd in one of them for else it is hard to conceive how we should come to discover what passes betwixt them 3. We must not look upon every distinct Body that works upon our Senses as a bare lump of Matter of that bigness and outward shape that it appears of many of them having their parts curiously contriv'd and most of them perhaps in motion too Noâ— must we look upon the Universe that surrounds us as upon a moveless and undistinguish'd Heap of Matter but as upon a great Engine which having either no Vacuity or none that is considerable betwixt its parts known to us the actions of particular Bodies upon one another must not be barely aestimated as if two Portions of Matter of their Bulk and Figure were plac'd in some imaginary Space beyond the World but as being scituated in the World constituted as it now is and consequently as having their action upon each other liable to be promoted or hindred or modify'd by the Actions of other Bodies besides them as in a Clock a small force apply'd to move the Index to the Figure of 12 will make the Haromer strike often and forcibly against the Bell and will make a far greater Commotion among the Wheels and Weights then a far greater force would do if the Texture and Contrivance of the Clock did not abundantly contribute to the Production of so great an Effect And in agitating Water into Froth the Whiteness would never be produc'd by that Motion were it not that the Sun or other Lucid Body shining upon that Aggregate of small Bubbles enables them to reflect confusedly great store of little and as it were contiguous lucid images to the Eye And so the giving to a large Metalline Speculum a Concave figure would never enable it to set Wood on fire and even to melt down Mettals readily if the Sun beams that in Cloudless dayes do as to sense fill the Air were not by the help of that Concavity thrown together to a Point And to shew You by an eminent Instance how various and how differing Effects the Same action of a Natural Agent may produce according to the several Dispositions of the Bodies it works upon do but consider that in two Eggs the one Prolifick the otheâ— Barren the sense can perhaps distinguish before Incubation no difference at all and yet these Bodies outwardly so like do so differ in the internal disposition of their parts that if they be both expos'd to the same degree of Heat whether of a Hen or an Artificial Oven that Heat will change the one into a putrid and stinking Substance and the other into a Chick furnish'd with great variety of Organical
parts of very differing consistences and curious as well as differing Textures 4. I do not deny but that Bodies may be said in a very favourable sense to have those Qualities we call Sensible though there were no Animals in the World for a Body in that case may differ from those Bodies which now are quite devoid of Quality in its having such a disposition of its Constituent Corpuscles that in case it were duely apply'd to the Sensory of an Animal it would produce such a sensible Quality which a Body of another Texture would not as though if there were no Animals there would be no such thing as Pain yet a Pin may upon the account of its Figure be fitted to cause pain in case it were mov'd against a Man's finger whereas a Bullet or other blunt Body mov'd against it with no greater force will not cause any such perception of pain And thus Snow though if there were no Lucid Body nor Organ of Sight in the World it would exhibit no Colour at all for I could not find it had any in places exactly darkned yet it hath a greater disposition then a Coal or Soot to reflect store of Light outwards when the Sun shines upon them all three And so we say that a Lute is in tune whether it be actually plaid upon or no if the Strings be all so duly stretcht as that it would appear to be in Tune if it were play'd upon But as if You should thrust a Pin into a man's Finger both a while before and after his Death though the Pin be as sharp at one time as at another and maketh in both cases alike a Solution of Continuity yet in the former case the Action of the Pin will produce Pain and not in the latter because in this the prick'd Body wants the Soule and consequently the Perceptive Faculty so if there were no Sensitive Beings those Bodies that are now the Objects of our Senses would be but dispositively if I may so speak endow'd with Colours Tasts and the like and actually but onely with those more Catholick Affections of Bodies Figure Motion Texture c. To illustrate this yet a little farther suppose a Man should beat a Drum at some distance from the mouth of a Cave conveniently scituated to return the Noise he makes although Men will presently conclude that That Cave hath an Echo and will be apt to fancy upon that account some Real Property in the place to which the Echo is said to belong and although indeed the same Noise made in many other of the neighbouring places would not be reflected to the Eare and consequently would manifest those places to have no Echos yet to speak Physically of things this Peculiar Quality or Property we fancy in the Cave is in It nothing else but the Hollowness of its Figure whereby 't is so dispos'd as when the Air beats against it to reflect the Motion towards the place whence that Motion began and that which passeth on this occasion is indeed but this That the Drum stick falling upon the Drum makes a Percussion of the Air and puts that Fluid Body into an Undulating Motion and the Aery Waves thrusting on one another 'till they arrive at the hollow Superficies of the Cave have by reason of its resistance and figure their Motion determin'd the contrary way namely backwards towards that part where the Drum was vvhen it vvas struck so that in That vvhich here happens there intervenes nothing but the Figure of one Body and the Motion of another though if a Man's Ear chance to be in the way of these Motions of the Air forwards and backvvards it gives him a Perception of them which he calls Sounds and because these Perceptions which are suppos'd to proceed from the same percussion of the Drum and thereby of the Air are made at distinct times one after another That hollow Body from whence the Last Sound is conceiv'd to come to the Air is imagin'd to have a peculiar Faculty upon whose account Men are wont to say that such a place hath an Echo 5. And whereas one Body doth often seem to produce in another divers such Qualities as we call Sensible which Qualities therefore seem not to need any reference to our Senses I consider that when one Inanimate Body works upon another there is nothing really produc'd by the Agent in the Patient save some Local Motion of its Parts or some Change of Texture consequent upon that Motion and so if the Patient come to have any sensible Quality that it had not before it acquires it upon the same account upon which other Bodies have it and it is but a consequent to this Mechanical Change of Texture that by means of its Effects upon our Organs of Sense we are induc'd to attribute this or that sensible Quality to it As in case a Pin should chance by some inanimate Body to be driven against a Man's Finger that which the Agent doth is but to put a sharp and slendeâ— Body into such a kind of Motion anâ— that which the Pin doth is to pierce into a Body that it meets with not haâ—â— enough to resist its Motion and so thaâ— upon this there should ensue such a thing as Pain is but a Consequent thaâ— superadds nothing of Real to the Pâ—â— that occasions that Pain So if a piece of Transparent Ice be by the falling oâ— some heavy and hard Body upon it broken into a Gross Powder that look Whitish the falling Body doth nothing to the Ice but break it into very smaâ— Fragments lying confusedly upon onâ— another though by reason of the Fabrick of the World and of our Eyes there doth in the day time upon this Comminution ensue such a kind of copious Reflection of the incident Light to our Eyes as we call Whitenesse and when the Sun by thawing this broken Ice destroyes the Whiteness of that portion of Matter and makes it become Diaphanous which it was not before it doth no more then alter the Texture of the Component parts by putting them into Motion and thereby into a new Order in which by reason of the disposition of the Pores intercepted betwixt them they reflect but few of the incident beams of Light and transmit most of them Thus when with a Burnisher You polish a rough piece of Silver that which is really done is but the Depression of the little Protuberant parts into one Level with the rest of the Superficies though upon this Mechanical change of the Texture of the Superficial parts we Men say that it hath lost the Quality of Roughness and acquir'd that of Smoothness because that whereas before the little Exstancies by their Figure resisted a little the Motion of our Finger and grated upon them a little our Fingers now meet with no such offensive Resistance 'T is true that the Fire doth thaw Ice and also both make Wax slow and enable it to burn a Man's hand and yet this doth not necessarily
knowingly Confess'd themselves unable to explain them or unwittingly Prov'd themselves to be so by giving but unsatisfactory Explications of them It will not I presume be expected that I who now write but Notes should enumerate much lesse examine all the various Opinions touching the Origine and Nature of Forms it being enough for our purpose if having already intimated in our Hypothesis what according to that may be thought of this Subject we now briefly consider the general Opinion of our Modern Aristotelians and the Schools concerning it I say the Modern Aristotelians because diverse of the Antient especially Greek Commentators of Aristotle seem to have understood their Masters Doctrine of Forms much otherwise and lesse incongruously then his Latin followers the Schoolmen and others have since done Nor do I expresly mention Aristotle himself among the Champions of substantial Forms because though he seem in a place or two expresly enough to reckon Formes among Substances yet elsewhere the Examples he imploies to set forth the Forms of Natural things by being taken from the Figures of artificial things as of a Statue c. which are confessedly but Accidents and making very little use if any of Substantial Forms to explain the Phaenomena of Nature He seems to me upon the whole matter either to have been irresolv'd whether there were any such Substances or no or to speak ambiguously and obscurely enough of them to make it questionable what his Opinions of them were But the summe of the Controversy betwixt Us and the Schools is this whether or no the Forms of Natural things the Souls of Men alwaies excepted be in Generation educed as they speak out of the power of the Matter and whether these Forms be true substantial Entities distinct from the other substantial Principle of Natural Bodies namely Matter The Reasons that move me to embrace the Negative are principally these three First That I see no necessity of admitting in Natural things any such substantial Forms Matter and the Accidents of Matter being sufficient to explicate as much of the Phaenomena of Nature as we either do or are like to understand The next That I see not what use this puzling Doctrine of substantial Forms is of in Natural Philosophy the Acute Scaliger and those that have most busied themselves in the Indagation of them having freely acknowledg'd as the more Candid of the Peripateticks generally do That the true Knowledg of Forms is too difficult and abstruse to be attain'd by them And how like it is that particular Phaenomena will be explain'd by a Principal whose Nature is confessedly ignor'd I leave you to judg but because to these considerations I often have had and shall have here and there occasion to say something in the body of these Notes I shall at present insist upon the third which is That I cannot conceive neither how Forms can be generated as the Peripateticks would have it nor how the things they ascribe to them are consistent with the Principles of true Philosophy or even with what themselves otherwise teach The Manner how Forms are educed out of the Power of the Matter according to that part of the Doctrine of Forms wherein the Schools generally enough agree is a thing so Inexplicable that I wonder not it hath put Acute men upon several Hypotheses to make it out And indeed the number of These is of late grown too great to be fit to be here recited especially since I find them all so very unsatisfactory that I cannot but think the acute Sticklers for any of them are rather driven to embrace it by the palpable inconveniences of the wayes they reject then by any thing they find to satisfy them in that which they make choice of and for my part I confess I find so much Reason in what each Party sayes against the Explications of the rest that I think they all Confute well and none does well Establish But my present way of Writing forbidding me to insist on many Arguments against the Doctrine where they most agree I shall onely urge That which I confess chiefly sticks with me namely that I find it not Comprehensible I know the Modern Schoolmen fly here to their wonted Refuge of an Obscure Distinction and tell us that the Power of Matter in reference to Forms is partly Eductive as the Agent caâ— make the Form out of it and partly Receptive whereby it can receive the Forâ— so made but since those that say this will not allow that the Form of a generated Body was actually praeexistenâ— in its Matter or indeed any where else 't is hard to conceive how a Substance can be educ'd out of another Substance totally distinct in Nature from it without being before such Eduction actually existent in it And as for the Receptive Power of the Matter That but fitting it to receive or lodge a Form when brought to be United with it how can it be intelligibly made out to contribute to the Production of a new Substance of a quite differing Nature from that Matter though it harbours it when produc'd And 't is plain that the Humane Body hath a receptive Power in reference to the Humane Soule which yet themselves confess both to be a substantial Form and not to be educ'd out of the Power of Matter Indeed if they would admit the Form of a Natural Body to be but a more fine and subtle part of the Matter as Spirit of Wine is of Wine which upon its recess remains no longer Wine but Flegm or Vinegar then the Eductive Power of Matter might signifie something and so it might if with us they would allow the Form to be but a Modification of the Mattter for then it would import bâ— that the Matter may be so order'd â—â— dispos'd by fit Agents as to constitutâ— a Body of such a sort and Denomination and so to resume that Example the Form of a Sphaere may be said 〈◊〉 lurk potentially in a piece of Brass in aâ— much as that Brass may by casting tuâ—ning or otherwise be so figur'd as â— become a Sphaere But this they wâ— not admit least they should make Form to be but Accidents though it is â—o ought I know as little intelligible hoâ— what is educ'd out of any Matter without being either praeexistent or being any part of the Matter can be a trâ— Substance as how that Roundness thaâ— makes a piece of Brass become a Sphere can be a new Substance in it Nor caâ— they admit the other way of educing 〈◊〉 Form out of Matter as Spirit is out oâ— Wine because then not onely Matter will be corruptible against their grounds but Matter and Form would not be two differing and substantial Principles but one and the same though diversify'd by firmness and grosseness c. which are but Accidental differences I know they speak much of the efficacy of the Agent upon the Matter in the Generation of Natural Bodies and tell us strange things of his