shelter of a thicke body doth not hinder the descent of that which is vnder it pag. 91. § 6. The reason why some bodies sinke others swimme pag. 92. § 7. The fifth obiection answered concerning the descending of heauy bodies in streames pag. 93. § 8. The sixt obiection answered and that all heauy elements do weigh in their owne spheres pag. 95. § 9. The seuenth obiection answered and the reason why we do not feele the course of the ayre and atomes that beate continually vpon vs. ibidem § 10. How in the same body grauity may be greater then density and density then grauity though they be the same thing pag. 96. § 11. The opinion of grauities being an intrinsecall inclination of a body to the center refuted by reason pag 97. § 12. The same opinion refuted by seuerall experiences pag. 98. CHAP. XII Of Violent Motion pag. 100. § 1. The state of the question touching the cause of violent motion ibid. § 2. That the medium is the onely cause which continueth violent motion ibidem § 3. A further explication of the former doctrine pag. 101. § 4. That the ayre hath strength enough to continue violent motion in a moueable pag. 102. § 5. An answere to the first obiection that ayre is not apt to conserue motion And how violent motion cometh to cease pag 103. § 6. An answere to the second obiection that the ayre hath no power ouer heauy bodies pag. 104. § 7. An answere to the third obiection that an arrow should fly faster broadwayes then long wayes pag. 105. CHAP. XIII Of three sortes of violent motion Reflexion Vndulation and Refraction pag. 106. § 1. That reflexion is a kind of violent motion ibid. § 2. Reflection is made at equall angles ibid. § 3. The causes and properties of vndulation pag. 107. § 4. Refraction at the entrance into the reflectent body is towardes the perpendicular at the going out it is from it when the second superficies is parallel to the first pag. 108. § 5. A refutation of Monsieur Des Cartes his explication of refraction pag. 109. § 6. An answere to the arguments brought in fauour of Monsieur Des Cartes his opinion pag. 111. § 7. The true cause of refraction of light both at its entrance and at its going out from the reflecting body pag. 112. § 8. A generall rule to know the nature of reflection and refractions in all sortes of surfaces pag. 113. § 9. A body of greater partes and greater pores maketh a greater refraction then one of lesser partes and lesser pores pag. 114. § 10. A confirmation of the former doctrine out of the nature of bodies that refract light pag. 115. CHAP. XIV Of the composition qualities and generation of Mixed bodies pag. 116. § 1. The connexion of this chapter with the rest and the Authors intent in it ibid. § 2. That there is a least cise of bodies and that this least cise is found in fire pag. 117. § 3. The first coniunction of partes is in bodies of least cise and it is made by the force of Quantity ibid. § 4. The second sort of coniunction is compactednesse in simple Elements and it procedeth from density pag. 118. § 5. The third coniunction is of parres of different Elements and it proceedeth from quantity and density together ibid. § 6. The reason why liquide bodies do easily ioyne together and dry ones difficultly pag. 119. § 7. That no two hard bodies can touch one an other immediately ibid. § 8. How mixed bodies are framed in generall pag. 121. § 9. The cause of the seuerall degrees of solidity in mixed bodies ibid. § 10. The rule where vnto are reduced all the seuerall combinations of Elements in compounding of mixed bodies pag. 122. § 11. Earth and water are the basis of all permanent mixed bodies pag. 123. § 12. What kind of bodies those are where water is the basis and earth the predominant Element ouer the other two ibid. § 13. Of those bodies where water being the basis ayre is the predominant Element ibid. § 14. What kind of bodies result where water is the basis and fire the predominant Element pag. 124. § 15. Of those bodies where water is in excesse it alone being both the basis and the predominant Element pag. 125. § 16. Of those bodies where Earth alone is the basis and also the predominant in excesse ouer the other three Elements ibid. § 17. Of those bodies where Earth is the basis and water the predominant Element ouer the other two ibid. § 18. Of those bodies where earth being the basis ayre is the predominant ibid. § 19. Of those bodies where Earth being the basis fire is the predominant pag. 126. § 20. All the secōd qualities of mixed bodies arise from seuerall combinations of the first qualities and are att last resolued into seuerall degrees of rarity and density ibid. § 21. That in the planets and starres there is a like variety of mixed bodies cause by light as here vpon Earth pag. 127. § 22. In what manner the Elements do worke vpon one an other in the composition of mixed bodies and in particular fire which is the most actiue ibid. § 23. A particular declaration touching the generation of mettalls pag. 128. CHAP. XV. Of the dissolution of Mixed bodies pag. 130. § 1. Why some bodies are brittle and others tough or apt to withstand outward violence the first instrument to dissolue mixed bodies ibid. § 2. How outward violence doth worke vpon the most compacted bodies pag. 131. § 3. The seueral effects of fire the second and chiefest instrument to dissolue all compounded bodies ibid. § 4. The reason why some bodies are not dissolued by fire pag. 132. § 5. The reason why fire melteth gold but can not consume it ibid. § 6. Why leade is easily consumed and calcined by fire pag. 133. § 7. Why and how some bodies are diuided by fire into spirits waters oyles saltes and earth And what those partes are ibid. § 8. How water the third instrument to dissolue bodies dissolueth calx into salt and so into Terra damnata pag. 135. § 9. How water mingled with salt becometh a most powerfull Agent to dissolue other bodies pag. 136. § 10. How putrefaction is caused ibid. CHAP. XVI An explication of certaine Maximes touching the operations and qualities of bodies and whether the Elements be found pure in any part of the world pag. 137. § 1. What is the sphere of actiuity in corporeall Agents ibid. § 2. The reason why no body can worke in distance pag. 138. § 3. An obiection answered against the manner of explicating the former axiome pag. 139 § 4. Of reaction and first in pure locall motion that each Agent must suffer in acting and acte in suffering ibid. § 5. The former doctrine applyed to other locall motions designed by particular names And that Suisseths argument is of no force against this way of doctrine pag. 141. § 6. Why some notions do admitt
it findeth within its power to master be they light or heauy or of what contrary natures soeuer it compresseth them as much as it can and draweth them into a lesse compasse and holdeth them strongly together making them sticke fast to one an other Which effect Aristotle tooke for the proper notion of cold and therefore gaue for definition of the nature of it that it gathereth thinges of diuers natures and experience sheweth vs in freesing and all great coolinges that this effect proceedeth from cold But if wee examine which of the two sortes of dense bodies the fluide or the consistent is most efficacious in this operation wee shall find that the lesse dense one is more capable of being applyed round about the body it shall besiege and therefore will stoppe closer euery litle hole of it and will more easily send subtile partes into euery litle veine of it and by consequence shrinke it vp together and coagulate and constringe it more strongly then a body can that is extremely dense which by reason of its great density and the stubbornesse of its partes can not so easily bend and plye them to worke this effect And therefore a body that is moderately dense is colder then an other that is so in excesse seeing that cold is an actiue or working power and that which is lesse dense doth excell in working On the contrary side rare bodies being hoat because theire subtile partes enuironing a compounded body will sinke into the pores of it and to theire power seperate its partes it followeth that those wherein the grauity ouercometh the rarity are lesse hoat then such others as are in the extremity and highest excesse of rarity both because the former are not able to pierce so litle partes of the resisting dense body as extreme rare ones are and likewise because they more easily take plye by the obstacle of the solide ones they meete with then these doe So that out of this discourse wee gather that of such bodies that differ precisely by the proportion of Rarity and Density those which are extremely rare are in the excesse of heate and are dry withall that weighty rare bodies are extremely humide and meanely hoat that fluide dense bodies are moist though not in such excesse as rare ones that are so but are coldest of any and lastly that extreme dense bodies are lesse cold then fluide dense ones and that they are dry But whether the extreme dense bodies be more or lesse dry then such as are extremely rare remaineth yet to be decided Which wee shall easily doe if wee but reflect that it is density which maketh a thing hard to be diuided and that rarity maketh it easie for a facility to yield vnto diuision is nothing else but a plyablenesse in the thing that is to be diuided whereby it easily receiueth the figure which the thing that diuideth it doth cast it into Now this plyablenesse belongeth more to rare then to dense thinges and accordingly wee see fire bend more easily by the concameration of an ouen then a stone can be reduced into due figure by hewing And therefore since drynesse is a quality that maketh those bodies wherein it raigneth to conserue themselues in theire owne figure and limits and to resist the receiuing of any from an other body it is manifest that those are dryest wherein these effects are most seene which is in dense bodies and consequently excesse of drynesse must be allotted vnto them to keepe company with theire moderate coldnesse Thus wee see that the number of Elements assigned by Aristotle is truly and exactly determined by him and that there can be neither more nor lesse of them and that theire qualities are rightly allotted to them which to settle more firmely in our mindes it will not be misse-spent time to summe vp in short the effect of what wee haue hitherto said to bring vs vnto this conclusion First wee shewed that a body is made and constituted a body by quantity Next that the first diuision of bodies is into rare and dense ones as differing onely by hauing more and lesse quantity And lastly that the coniunction of grauity with these two breedeth two other sortes of combinations each of which is also twofold the first sort concerning rarity out of which ariseth one extremely hoat and moderately dry and an other extremely humide and moderately hoat the second sort concerning density out of which is produced one that is extremely cold and moderatly wett and an other extremely dry and moderatly cold And these are the combinations whereby are constituted fire ayre water and earth So that wee haue thus the proper notions of the foure Elements and haue both them and theire qualities driuen vp and resolued into theire most simple principles which are the notions of Quantity and of the two most simple differences of quantatiue thinges Rarity and Density Beyond which mans witt can not penetrate nor can his wishes ayme att more in this particular seeing he hath attained to the knowledge af what they are and of what maketh them be so and that it is impossible they should be otherwise and this by the most simple and first principles which enter into the composition of theire nature Out of which it is euident that these foure bodies are Elements since they can not be resolued into any others by way of physicall composition themselues being constituted by the most simple differences of a body And againe all other bodies whatsoeuer must of necessity be resolued into them for the same reason because no bodies can be exempt from the first differencies of abody Since then wee meane by the name of an Element a body not composed of any former bodies and of which all other bodies are composed wee may rest satisfyed that these are rightly so named But whether euery one of these foure elements do comprehend vnder its name one onely lowest species or many as whether there be one onely species of fire or seuerall and the like of the rest wee intend not here to determine Yet wee note that there is a greate latitude in euery kind seeing that Rarity and Density as wee haue said before are as diuisible as quantity Which latitudes in the bodies wee conuerse withall are so limited that what maketh it selfe and other thinges be seene as being accompanied by light is called fire What admitteth the illuminatiue action of fire and is not seene is called ayre What admitteh the same action and is seene in the ranke of Elements is called water And what through the density of it admitteth not that action but absolutely reflecteth it is called earth And out of all we said of these foure Elements it is manifest there can not be a fifth as is to be seene att large in euery Aristotelian Philosopher that writeth of this matter I am not ignorant that there are sundry obiections vsed to be made both against these notions of the first qualities and against
other can be imagined vnlesse it were variety of figure But that can not be admitted to belong in any constant manner to those least particles where of bodies are framed as though determinate figures were in euery degree of quantity due to the natures of Elements and therefore the Elements would conserue themselues in those figures as well in their least atomes as in massye bulke for seeing how these litle partes are shuffled together without any order and that all liquids easily ioyne and take the figures which the dense ones giue them and that they againe iustling one an other do crush themselues into new shapes which their mixture with the liquide ones maketh them yield the more easily vnto it is impossible that the Elements should haue any other naturall figure in these their least partes then such as chance giueth them But that one part must be bigger then an other is euident for the nature of rarity and density giueth it the first of them causing diuisibility into litle partes and the latter hindering it Hauing then settled in what manner the Elements may be varied in the composition of bodies lett vs now beginne our mixture In which our ground to worke vpon must be earth and water for onely these two are the basis of permanent bodies that suffer our senses to take hold of them and that submitt themselues to tryall whereas if we should make the predominant Element to be ayre or fire and bring in the other two solide ones vnder their iurisdiction to make vp the mixture the compound resulting out of them would be eyther in continuall consumption as ordinary fire is or else imperceptible to our eyes or touch and therefore not a fitt subiect for vs to discourse of since the other two afford vs enough to speculate vpon Peraduenture our smell migh take some cognisance of a body so composed or the effect of it taken in by respiration might in time shew it selfe vpon our health but it concerneth not vs now to look so farre our designe requireth more maniable substances Of which lett water be the first and with it we will mingle the other three Elements in excesse ouer one an other by turnes but still all of them ouerswayed by a predominant quantity of water and then lett vs see what kind of bodies will result out of such proportions First if earth preuayle aboue fire and ayre and arriue next in proportion to the water a body of such a composition must needes prooue hardly liquide and not easy to lett its partes runne a sunder by reason of the great proportion of so dense a body as earth that holdeth it together Yet some inclination it will haue to fluidnesse by reason the water is predominant ouer all which also will make it be easily diuisible and giue very litle resistance to any hard thing that shall be applyed to make way through it In a word this mixture maketh the constitution of mudde durt honey butter and such like thinges where the maine partes are great ones And such are the partes of earth and water in themselues Lett the next proportion of excesse in a watry compound be of ayre which when it preuayleth it incorporateth it selfe chiefely with Earth for the other Elements would not so well retaine it Now because its partes are subtile by reason of the rarity it hath and sticking because of its humidity it driueth the Earth and water likewise into lesser partes The result of such a mixture is that the partes of a boby compounded by it are close catching flowing slowly glibbe and generally it will burne and be easily conuerted into flame Of this kind are those which we call oyly or vnctuous bodies whose great partes are easily separated that is they are easily diuisible in bulke but the small ones very hardly Next the smallnesse and well working of the partes by meanes of the ayres penetrating euery dense one and sticking close to euery one of them and consequently ioyning them without any vneuennesse causeth that there can be no ruggednesse in it and therefore it is glibbe in like manner as we see plaster or starch become smooth when they are well wrought Then the humidity of it causeth it to be catcking and the shortenesse of euery part maketh that where it sticketh it is not easily parted thence Now the rarity of ayre next vnto fire admitteth it to be of all the other Elements most easily brought to the height of fire by the operation of fire vpon it And therefore oyles are the proper foode of that Element And accordingly we see that if a droppe of oyle be spilled vpon a sheete of paper and the paper be sett on fire att a corner as the fire cometh neere the oyle the oyle will disperse and spread it selfe vpon the paper to a broader compasse then it had which is because the heat rarifyeth it and so in oyle it selfe the fire rarifying the ayre maketh it penetrate the earthy partes adioyned vnto it more then it did and so subtiliseth them till they be reduced to such a height as they are within the power of fire to communicate his owne nature vnto them and thus he turneth them into fire and carrieth them vp in his flame But if fire be predominant ouer earth and ayre in a watry compound it maketh the body so proportioned to be subtile rare penetratiue hoat in operation light in weight and subiect to burne Of this kind are all sortes of wines and distilled spirits commonly called strong waters or Aquauites in latine Aquae ardentes These will loose their vertues meerely by remaining vncouered in the ayre for fire doth not incorporate strongly with water but if it find meanes rayseth it selfe into the ayre as we see in the smoake of boyling water which is nothing else but litle bodies of fire that entring into the water do rarify some partes of it but haue no inclination to stay there and therefore as fast as they can gett out they fly away but the humide partes of the water which they haue rarifyed being of a sticking nature do ioyne themselues vnto them and ascend in the ayre as high as the fiery atomes haue strength to carry them which when it faileth them that smoake falleth downe in a dew and so becometh water againe as it was All which one may easily discerne in a glasse vessell of water sett ouer the fire in which one may obserue the fire come in att the bottome and presently swimme vp to the toppe like a litle bubble and immediately rise from thence in smoake and that will att last conuert it selfe into droppes and settle vpon some solide substance thereabouts Of these fyry spirits some are so subtile as of themselues they will vanish and leaue no residue of a body behind them and Alchymistes profâ—sse to make them so etheriall and volatile that being poured out of a glasse from some reasonable height they shall neuer reach the ground but
that before they come thither they will be so rarifyed by that litle motion as they shall grow inuisible like the ayre and dispersing themselues all about in it they will fill the chamber with the smell of that body which can no longer be seene The last excesse in watry bodies must be of water it selfe which is when so litle a proportion of any of the other is mingled with it as is hardly perceptible out of this composition do arise all those seuerall sortes of iuices or liquors which we commonly call waters which by their mixture with the other three Elements haue peculiar properties beyond simple Elementall water The generall qualities whereof we shall not neede any further to expresse because by what we haue already said of water in common they are sufficiently knowne In our next suruay we will take earth for our ground to worke vpon as hitherto we haue done water which if in any body it be in the vtmost excesse of it beyond all the other three then rockes and stones will grow out of it whose dryenesse ad hardnesse may assure vs that Earth swayeth in their composition with the least allay that may be Nor doth their lightnesse in respect of some other Earthy compositions impeach this resolution for that proceedeth from the greatnesse and multiplicity of pores wherewith their dryenesse causeth them to abound and hindereth not but that their reall solide partes may be very heauy Now if we mingle a considerable proportion of water with earth so as to exceede the fire and ayre but still inferior to the earth we shall produce mettalls whose great weight with their ductility and malleability plainely telleth vs that the smallest of waters grosse partes are the glew that holdeth the earthy dense ones together such weight belonging to earth and that easye changing of partes being most proper to water Quickesiluer that is the generall matter whereof all the mettalls are immediately coÌ„posed giueth vs euidence hereof for fire worketh vpon it with the same effect as vpon water And the calcination of most of the mettalls proueth that fire can easily part and consume the glew by which they were closed and held together which therefore must be rather of a watry then of an ayry substance Likewise the glibbenesse of Mercury and of melted mettalls without catching or sticking to other substances giueth vs to vnderstand that this great temper of a moyst Element with Earth is water and not ayre and that the watry partes are comprised and as it were shutt vp within the earthy ones for ayre catcheth and sticketh notably to all thinges it toucheth and will not be imprisoned the diuisibity of it being exceeding great though in neuer so short partes Now if ayre mingleth it selfe with earth and be predominant ouer water and fire it maketh such an oyly and fatt soile as husbandmen account their best mould which receiuing a betterment from the sunne and temperate heat assureth vs of the concurse of the ayre for wheresoeuer suâ—h heate is ayre can not faile of accompanying it or of being effected by it and the richest of such earth as port earth and marle will with much fire grow more compacted and sticke closer together then it did as we see in baking them into pottes or fine brickes Whereas if water were the glew betweene the dense partes fire would consume it and crumble them a sunder as it doth in those bodies it calcineth And excesse of fire will bring them to vitrification which still confirmeth that ayre aboundeth in them for it is the nature of ayre to sticke so close where once it is kneaded in as it can not be seperated without extreme difficulty And to this purpose the viscous holding together of the partes of glasse when it is melted sheweth euidently that ayre aboundeth in vitrifyed bodies The last mixture we are to meddle with is of fire with earth in an ouerruling proportion ouer ayre and water And this I conceiue produceth those substances which we may terme coagulated iuices and which the latines do call Succi concreti whos 's first origine seemeth to haue beene liquors that haue beene afterwardes dryed by the force eyther of heate or of cold Of this nature are all kind of saltes niters sulfurs and diuers sortes of bitumens All which easily bewray the relikes an deffects of fire left in them some more some lesse according to their degrees And thus we haue in generall deduced from their causes the complexions of those bodies whereof the bulke of the world subiected to our vse consisteth and which serue for the production and nourishment of liuing creatures both animall and vegetable Not so exactly I confesse nor so particularly as the matter in it selfe or as a treatise confined to that subiect would require yet sufficiently for our intent In the performance whereof if more accurate searchers of nature shall find that we haue peraduenture beene mistaken in the minute deliuering of some particular bodies complexion their very correction I dare boldly say will iustify our principall scope which is to shew that all the great variety we see among bodies ariseth out of the coÌ„mixtion of the first qualities and of the Elements for they will not be able to correct vs vpon any other groundes then those we haue layed As may easily be perceiued if we cast a summary view vpon the qualities of composed bodies All which we shall find to spring out of rarity and density and to sauour of their origine for the most manifest qualities of bodies may be reduced to certaine paires opposite to one an other As namely some are liquide and flowing others are consistent some are soft others hard some are fatty viscous and smooth others leane gritty and rough some grosse othert subtile some tough others brittle and the like Of which the liquide the soft the fatt and the viscous are so manifestly deriued from rarity that we neede not take any further paines to trace out their origine and the like is of their contraries from the contrary cause to witt of those bodies that are consistent hard leane and gritty all which do euidently spring from density As for smoothnesse we haue already shewed how that proceedeth from an ayry or oyly nature and by consequence from a certaine degree of rarity And therefore roughnesse the contrary of it must proceede from a proportionable degree of density Toughnesse is also a kind of ductility which we haue reduced to watrynesse that is to an other degree of rarity and consequently brittlenesse must arise from the contrary degree of density Lastly grossenesse and subtilenesse do consist in a difficulty or facility to be diuided into small partes which appeareth to be nothing else but a certaine determination of rarity and density And thus we see how the seuerall complexions of bodies are reduced to the foure Elements that compound them and the qualities of those bodies to the two primary differencies of
surfaces 9 A body of greater partes and greater pores maketh a greater refraction then one of lesser partes and lesser pores 10 A coÌ„firmation of the former doctrine out of the nature of bodies that refract light 1 The coÌ„nexion of this chapter with the rest and the Authors intent in it 2 That there is a least cise of bodies and that this least cise is found in fire 3 The first coniunction of partes is in bodies of least cise and it is made by the force of Quantity 4 The second sort of coniunction is coÌ„pactednesse in simple Elements and it proceedeth from density 5 The third coniunction is of partes of different Elements and it proceedeth from quantity and density together 6 The reason why liquide bodies do easily ioyne together and dry ones difficultly 7 That no two hard bodies can touch one an other immediately 8 How mixed bodies arâ— framed in generall 9 The cause of the seuerall degrees of solidity in mixed bodies 10 The rule wherevnto are reduced all the seuerall combinations of Elements in compounding of mixed bodies 11 Earth and water are the basis of all permanent mixed bodies 12 What kind of bodies those are where water is the basis and earth the predominant Element ouer the other two 13 Of those bodies where water being the basis ayre is the predominant Element 14 What kind of bodies result where water is the basis and fire the predominant Element 15 Of those bodies where water is in excesse it alone being both the basis and the predominant Element 16 Of those bodies where Earth alone is the basis and also the predominant in excesse ouer the other threâ— Elements 17 Of those bodies where Earth is the basis and water the predominâ—t Element ouer the other two 18 Of those bodies where earth being the basis ayre is the predominant 19 Of those bodies where Earth being the basis fire is the predominant 20 All the second qualities of mixed bodies arise from seuerall combinations of the first qualities and are att last resolued into seuerall degrees of rarity and density 21 That in the planets and starres there is a like varietâ— of mixed bodies caused by light as here vpon Earth 22 In what maÌ„ner the Elements do worke vpon one an other in the compositioÌ„ of mixed bodies and in particular fire which is the most actiue 23 A particular declaration touching the generation of mettalls 1 Why some bodies are brittle and others tough or apt to withstand outward violence the first instrument to dissolue mixed bodies 2 How outward violence doth worke vpon the most compacted bodies 3 The seuerall effects of fire the second and chiefest instrumeÌ„t to dissolue all coÌ„pounded bodies 4 The reason why some bodies are not dissolued by fire 5 The reason why fire molteth gold but can not consume it 6 Why leade is easily consumed and calcined by fire 7 Why and how some bodies are diuided by fire into spirits waters oyles saltes and earth And what those partes are 8 How water the third iâ—strumeÌ„t to dissolue bodies dissolueth calx into salt and so into Terra damnata 9 How water mingled with salt becometh a most powerfull Agent to dissolue other bodies 10 How putrefactioÌ„ is caused 1 What is the sphere of actiuity in corporeall Agents 2 The reason why no body can worke in distance 3 An obiection answered against the manner of explicating the former axiomâ— 4 Of reaction and first in pure locall motion that each AgeÌ„t must suffer in acting and actâ— in suffering 5 The former doctrine applyed to other locall motions designed by particular names And that Suisseths argument is of no force against this way of doctrine 6 Why some notions do admitt of intension and Remission and others do not 7 That in euery part of our habitable world all the foure ElemeÌ„ts are found pure in small atomes but not in any great bulke 1 The Authors intent in this and the following chapters Mr. Thomas White 2 That bodies may be rarifyed both by outward and inward heat and how this is performed 3 Of the great effects of Rarefaction 4 The first manner of condensation by heate 5 The second manner of condensation by cold 6 That yce is not water rarifyed but condensed 7 How wind snow and haile are made and wind by raine allayed 8 How partes of the same or diuers bodies are ioyned more strongly together by condensation 9 Vacuites can not be the reason why water impregnated to the full with one kind of salt will notwithstaÌ„ding receiue more of an other 10 The true reason of the former effect 11 The reason why bodies of the same nature do ioyne more easily together then others 1 What AttractioÌ„ is and from whence it proceedeth 2 The true sense of the Maxime that Nature abhorreth from vacuity 3 The true reasâ— of attraction 4 Water may be brought by the force of attraction to what height soeuer 5 The doctrine touching the attraction of water in syphons 6 That the syphon doth not proue water to weigh in its owne orbe 7 Concerning attraction caused by fire 8 Concerning attractioÌ„ made by vertue of hoat bodies amulets etc. 9 The naturall reason giuen for diuers operations esteemed by some to be magicall 1 What is Filtration and how it is effected 2 What causeth the water in filtration to ascend 3 Why the filter will not droppe vnlesse the labell hang lower then the water 4 Of the motion of Restitution and why some bodies stand bent others not 5 Why some bodies returne onely in part to their natural figure others entirely 6 Concerning the nature of those bodies which do shrinke and stretch 7 How great and wonderfull effects proceed from small plaine and simple principles 8 Concerning Electricall attraction and the causes of it 9 Cabeus his opinion refuted concerning the cause of Electricall motâ—ons 1 The extreme heat of the sunne vnder the zodiacke draweth a streame of ayre from each Pole into the torride zone Chap. 18. §. 7. 2 The atomes of these two streames coming together are apt to incorporate with one an other 3 By the meeting and mingling together of these streames att the Equator diuers riuolets of atomes of each Pole are continuatâ—d from one Pole to the other 4 Of these atomes incorporated with some fitt matter in the bowels of the earth is made a stone 5 This stone worketh by emanations ioyned with agreeing streames that meete them in the ayre and in fine it is a loadestone 6 A methode for making experiences vpon any subiect 7 The Loadestones generatioÌ„ by atomes flowing from both Poles is confirmed by experiments obserued in the stone it selfe 8 Experiments to proue that the loadestone worketh by emanations meeting with agreeing streames 1 The operations of the loadestone are wrought by bodies and not by qualities 2 Obiections against the former positioÌ„ answered 3 The loadestone is imbued
measured So that looking ouer all the seuerall specieses of Quantity it is euident our definition of it is a true one and expresseth fully the essence of it when we say it is diuisibility or a capacity to be diuided into partes and that no other notion whatsoeuer besides this reacheth the nature of it THE THIRD CHAPTER Of Rarity and Density I INTEND in this Chapter to looke as farre as I can into the nature and causes of the two first differences of bodies which follow out of Quantity as it concurreth with substance to make a body for the discouery of them and of the various proportions of them among themselues will be a great and important steppe in the iourney we are going But the scarcity of our language is such in subiets remooued from ordinary conuersation though in others I thinke none is more copious or expressiue as affordeth vs not apt wordes of our owne to expresse significantly such notions as I must busie my selfe about in this discourse Therefore I will presume to borrow them from the Latine schoole where there is much adoe about them I would expresse the difference betweene bodies that vnder the same measures and outward bulke haue a greater thinnenesse and expansion or thicknesse and solidity one then an other which termes or any I can find in English do not signify fully those affections of Quantity that I intend here to declare therefore I will do it vnder the names of Rarity and Density the true meaning of which will appeare by what we shall hereafter say It is euident vnto vs that there are different sortes of bodies of which though you take equall quantities in one regard yet they will be vnequall in an other Theire magnitudes may be the same but theire weights will be different or contrariwise theire weights being equall theire outward measures will not be so Take a pinte of ayre and weigh it against a pinte of water and you will see the ballance of the last goe downe amaine but if you driue out the ayre by filling the pinte with lead the other pinte in which the water is will rise againe as fast which if you poure out and fill that pinte with quickesiluer you will perceaue the lead to be much lighter and againe you will find a pinte of gold heauier then so much Mercury And in like manner if you take away of the heauy bodies till they agree in weight with the lighter they will take vp and fill different proportions and partes of the measure that shall containe them But from whence this effect ariseth is the difficulty that we would lay open Our measures tell vs theire quantities are equall and reason assureth vs there can not be two bodies in one and the same place therefore when we see that a pinte of one thing outweigheth a pinte of an other that is thinner we must conclude that there is more body compacted together in the heauy thing then in the light for else how could so litle of a solide or dense thing be stretched out to take vp so great roome as we see in a basen of water that being rarifyed into smoake or ayre filleth a whole chamber and againe shrinke backe into so litle roome as when it returneth into water or is contracted into yce But how this comprehension of more body in equall roome is effected doth not a litle trouble Philosophers To find a way that may carry vs through these difficulties that arise out of the Rarity and Density of bodies lett vs do as Astronomers when they enquire the motions of the Spheres and Planets they take all the Phenomena or seuerall appearances of them to our eyes and then attribute to them such orbes courses and periodes as may square and fitt with euery one of them and by supposing them they can exactly calculate all that will euer after happen to them in theire motions So lett vs take into our consideration the cheife properties of rare and dense bodies and then cast with our selues to find out an hypothesis or supposition if it be possible that may agree with them all First it seemeth vnto vs that dense bodies haue theire partes more close and compacted then others haue that are more rare and subtile Secondly they are more heauy then rare ones Againe the rare are more easily diuided then the dense bodies for water oyle milke honey and such like substances will not onely yield easily to any harder thing that shall make its way through them but they are so apt to diuision and to loose theire continuity that theire owne weights will ouercome and breake it whereas in iron gold marble and such dense bodies a much greater weight and force is necessary to worke that effect And indeed if wee looke well into it we shall find that the rarer thinges are as diuisible in a lesser Quantity as the more dense are in a greater and the same force will breake the rarer thing into more and lesser partes then it will an equall one that is more dense Take a sticke of light wood of such a biggenesse that being a foote long you may breake it with your handes and an other of the same biggenesse but of a more heauy and compacted wood and you shall not breake it though it be two foote long and with equall force you may breake a loafe of bread into more and lesse partes then a lumpe of lead that is of the same biggenesse Which also will resist more to the diuision of fire the subtilest diuider that is then so much water will for the litle atomes of fire which we shall discourse of hereafter will pierce and cutt out in the water almost as litle partes as themselues and mingling themselues with them they will fly away together and so conuert the whole body of water into subtile smoake whereas the same Agent after long working vpon lead will bring it into no lesse partes then small graines of dust which it calcineth it into And gold that is more dense then lead resisteth peremptorily all the diuiding power of fire and will not at all be reduced into a calx or lime by such operation as reduced lead into it So that remembring how the nature of Quantity is Diuisibility and considering that rare thinges are more diuisible then dense ones we must needes acknowledge that the nature of Quantity is some way more perfectly in thinges that are rare then in those that are dense On the other side more compacted and dense thinges may happily seeme to some to haue more Quantity then those that are rare and that it is but shruncke together which may be stretched out and driuen into much greater dimensions then the Quantity of rare thinges taking the quantities of each of them equall in outward appearance As gold may be beaten into much more and thinner leafe then an equall bulke of syluer or lead A waxe candle will burne longer with equall light then a tallow candle of
obiections answered against light being fire with a more ample proofe of its being such HAVING then said thus much to persuade vs of the corporeity of this subtile thing that so queintly playeth with our eyes wee will in the next place examine those obiections that at the beginning we did sett downe against its being a body and if after a through discussion of them we find they do in truth conclude nothing of what att the first sight they beare so great a shew of but that we shall be able perfectly to solue and enerue their force no body will thinke it rashnesse in vs to craue leaue of Aristotle that we may dissent from him in a matter that he hath not looked to the bottome of and whose opinion therein can not be defended from plaine contradictions and impossibilities It is true neuer any one man looked so farre as he into the bowels of nature he may rightly be termed the Gemus of it and whosoeuer followeth his principles in the maine can not be led into error but we must not beleeue that he or any man else that relyeth vpon the strength and negotiation of his owne reason euer had a priuiledge of infallibility entayled to all he said Lett vs then admire him for what he hath deliuered vs and where he falleth short or is weary in his search and suffereth himselfe to be borne downe by popular opinions against his owne principles which happeneth very seldome to him lett vs seeke to supply and relieue him But to pursue our intent wee will begin with answering the third obiection which is that if light were fire it must heat as well as enlighten where it shineth There is no doubt but it doth so as is euident by the weather glasses and other artificiall musicall instruments as organs and virginals that played by themselues which Cornelius Drebbel that admirable master of mechanikes made to shew the king All which depended vpon the rarefaction and condensation of some subtile body conserued in a cauity within the bulke of the whole instrument for as soone as the sunne shined they would haue motion and play their partes And there is no doubt but that grew out of the rarefaction of the subtile liquor he made vse of which was dilated as soone as the ayre was warmed by the sunne beames Of whose operation it was so sensible that they no sooner left the horizon but its motion ceased And if but a cloude came betweene the instrument and them the musike would presently goe slower time And the antient miracle of Memnons statue seemeth to be a iuggling of the Aehiopian Priests made by the like inuention But though he and they found some spirituall and refined matter that would receiue such notable impressions from so small alterations of temper Yet it is no wonder that our grosse bodies are not sensible of them for we can not feele heate vnlesse it be greater then that which is in our sense And the heate there must be in proportion to the heate of our blood which is in a high degree of warmeth And therefore it is very possible that an exceeding rarifyed fire may cause a farre lesse impression of heate then we are able to feele Consider how if you sett pure spiritt of wine on fire and so conuert it into actuall flame yet it will not burne nor scarce warme your hand and then can you expect that the light of a candle which filleth a great roome should burne or warme you as farre as it shineth If you would exactly know what degree of heate and power of burning that light hath which for example shineth vpon the wall in a great chamber in the middest whereof there standeth a candle doe but calculate what ouerproportion of quantity all the light in the whole roome beareth to the quantity of the litle flame att the toppe of the candle and that is the ouerproportion of the force of burning which is in the candle to the force of burning which is in so much light att the wall as in extension is equall to the flame of the candle Which when you haue considered you will not quarrell att it s not warming you att that distance although you grant it to be fire streaming out from the flame as from the spring that feedeth it and extremely dilated according to the nature of fire when it is att liberty by going so farre without any other grosse body to imprison or clogge it It is manifest that this rule of examining the proportion of burning in so much of the light as the flame is by calculating the proportion of the quantity or extension of all the light in the roome to the extension of the flame of the candle and then comparing the flame of the candle to a part of light equall in extension vnto it is a good and infallible one if we abstract from accidentall inequalities since both the light and the flame are in a perpetuall fluxe and all the light was first in the flame which is the spring from whence it continually floweth As in a riuer wherein euery part runneth with a settled streame though one place be straighter and an other broader yet of necessity since all the water that is in the broad place came out of the narrow it must follow that in equall portions of time there is no more water where it hath the liberty of a large channell then where the bankes presse it into a narrower bed so that there be no inequalities in the bottome In like manner if in a large stoue a basen of water be conuerted into steame that rarifyed water which then filleth the whole stoue is no more then what the basen contained before and consequently the power of moistening which is in a footes extension for example of the stoue wherein that steame is must be in proportion to the vertue of wetting in the footes extension of water as the quantity of that great roome which the steame filleth is to the quantity of the water contained in the basin for although the rarifyed water be not in euery least part of that great place it seemeth to take vp by reason that there is ayre in which it must swimme Yet the power of wetting that was in the basin of water is dilated through the whole roome by the coniunction of the miste or dew to all the sensible partes of the ayre that is in the roome and consequently the power of wetting which is in any foote of that roome is in a manner as much lesse then the power of wetting which was in the foote of water as if the water were rarifyed to the quantity of the whole roome and no ayre were left with it And in the same manner it fareth with dilated fire as it doth with dilated water with onely this difference peraduenture that fire groweth purer and more towardes its owne nature by dilatation whereas water becometh more mixed and is carried from its nature by suffering the like
effect Yet dilated water will in proportion moisten more then dilated fire will burne for the rarefaction of water bringeth it neerer to the nature of ayre whose chief propriety is moisture and the fire that accompanieth it when it raiseth it into steame giueth it more powerfull ingression into what body it meeteth withall whereas fire when it is very pure and att entire liberty to stretch and spread it selfe as wyde as the nature of it will carry it getteth no aduantage of burning by its mixture with ayre and allthough it gaineth force by its purity yet by reason of its extreme rarefaction it must needes be extremely fainte But if by the helpe of glasses you will gather into lesse roome that which is diffused into a great one and so condense it as much as it is for example in the flame of a candle then that fire or compacted light will burne much more forcibly then so much flame for there is as much of it in quantity excepting what is lost in the carriage of it and it is held in together in as litle roome and it hath this aduantage besides that it is clogged with no grosse body to hinder the actiuity of it It seemeth to me now that the very answering this obiection doth besides repelling the force of it euidently prooue that light is nothing but fire in his owne nature and exceedingly dilated for if you suppose fire for example the flame of a candle to be stretched out to the vtmost expansion that you may well imagine such a grosse body is capable of it is impossible it should appeare and worke otherwise then it doth in light as I haue shewed aboue And againe we see plainely that light gathered together burneth more forcibly then any other fire whatsoeuer and therefore must needes be fire Why then shall we not confidently conclude that what is fire before it getteth abroade and is fire againe when it cometh together doth likewise remaine fire during all its iourney Nay euen in the iourney it selfe we haue particular testimony that it is fire for light returning backe from the earth charged with litle atomes as it doth in soultry gloomy weather heateth much more then before iust as fire doth when it is imprisoned in a dense body Philosophers ought not to iudge by the same rules that the common people doth Their grosse sense is all their guide and therefore they can not apprehend any thing to be fire that doth not make it selfe be knowne for such by burning them But he that iudiciously examineth the matter and traceth the pedigree and periode of it and seeth the reason why in some circumstances it burneth and in others it doth not is too blame if he suffer himselfe to be led by others ignorance contrary to his owne reason When they that are curious in perfumes will haue their chamber filled with a good sent in a hoat season that agreeth not with burning perfumes and therefore make some odoriferous water be blowne about it by their seruants mouthes that are dexterous in that Ministery as is vsed in Spaine in the summer time euery one that seeth it done though on a suddaine the water be lost to his eyes and touch and is onely discernable by his nose yet he is well satisfyed that the sent which recreateth him is the very water he saw in the glasse extremely dilated by the forcible sprouting of it out from the seruants mouth and will by litle and litle fall downe and become againe palpable water as it was before and therefore doubteth not but it is still water whiles it hangeth in the ayre diuided into litle atomes Whereas one that saw not the beginning of this operation by water nor obserued how in the end it sheweth it selfe againe in water might the better be excused if he should not thinke that what he smelled were water blowne about the ayre nor any substance of it selfe because he neither seeth nor handleth it but some aduentitious quality he knoweth not how adhering to the ayre The like difference is betweene Philosophers that proceede orderly in their discourses and others that pay themselues with termes which they vnderstand not The one see euidence in what they conclude whiles the others guesse wildely att randome I hope the Reader will not deeme it time lost from our maine drift which we take vp thus in examples and digressions for if I be not much deceiued they serue exceedingly to illustrate the matter which I hope I haue now rendred so plaine as no man that shall haue well weighed it will expect that fire dilated into that rarifyed substance which mankind who according to the different appearance of thinges to their sense giueth different names vnto them calleth light should burne like that grosser substance which from doing so they call fire nor doubt but that they may be the same thing more or lesse attenuated as leafe gold that flyeth in the ayre as light as downe is as truly gold as that in an ingott which being heauier then any other substance falleth most forcibly vnto the ground What we haue said of the vnburning fire which we call light streaming from the flame of a candle may easily be applyed to all other lights depriued of sensible heat whereof some appeare with flame others without it of the first sort of which are the innoxious flames that are often seene on the haire of mens heads and horses manes on the mastes of shippes ouer graues and fatt marish groundes and the like and of the latter sort are glow wormes and the light conseruing stones rotten wood some kindes of fish and of flesh when they begin to putrify and some other thinges of the like nature Now to answere the second part of this obiection that we dayly see great heates without any light as well as much light without any heat and therefore light and fire can not be the same thing you may call to mind how dense bodies are capable of great quantities of rare ones and thereby it cometh to passe that bodies which repugne to the dilatation of flame may neuerthelesse haue much fire enclosed in them As in a stoue let the fire be neuer so great yet it appeareth not outwardes to the sight although that stoue warme all the roomes neere it So when many litle partes of heate are imprisoned in as many litle celles of grosse earthy substance which are like so many litle stoues to them that imprisonement will not hinder them from being very hoat to the sense of feeling which is most perceptible of dense thinges But because they are choaked with the closenesse of the grosse matter wherein they are enclosed they can not breake out into a body of flame or light so to discouer their nature which as we haue said before is the most vnfitt way for burning for we see that light must be condensed to produce flame and fire as flame must be to burne violently Hauing thus
light which two termes passe through all the bodies we haue notice of Therefore proceeding vpon our groundes before layed to witt that no body can be mooued of it selfe wee may determine those motions to be naturall vnto bodies which haue constant causes or percutients to make them alwayse in such bodies and those violent which are contrary to such naturall motions Which being supposed we must search out the causes that so constantly make some bodies descend towardes the center or middle of the earth and others to rise and goe from the center by which the world is subiect to those restlesse motions that keepe all thinges in perpetuall fluxe in this changeing sphere of action and passion Lett vs then begin with considering what effects the sunne which is a constant and perpetuall cause worketh vpon inferior bodies by his being regularly sometimes present and sometimes absent Obserue in a pott of water hanging ouer a fire how the heate maketh some partes of the water to ascend and others to supply the roome by descending so that as long as it boyleth it is in a perpetuall confused motion vp and downe Now hauing formely cōcluded that fire is light and light is fire it can not be doubted but that the sunne doth serue instead of fire to our globe of earth and water which may be fittly compared to the boyling pott and all the day long draweth vapors from those bodies that his beames strike vpon For he shooting his little darts of fire in multitudes and in continued streames from his owne center against the Python the earth we liue on they do there ouertake one an other and cause some degree of heate as farre as they sinke in But not being able by reason of their great expansion in their long iorney to conuert it into their owne nature and sett it on fire which requireth a high degree of condensation of the beames they do but pierce and diuide it very subtilely and cutt some of the outward partes of it into extreme litle atomes Vnto which they sticking very close and being in a manner incorporated with them by reason of the moisture that is in thē they do in their rebound backe from the earth carry them along with them like a ball that struck against a moist wall doth in its returne from it bring backe some of the mortar sticking vpon it For the distance of the earth from the sunne is not the vtmost periode of these nimble bodies flight so that when by this solide body they are stopped in their course forwardes on they leape backe from it and carry some litle partes of it with them some of them a farther some of them a shorter iorney according as their litlenesse and rarity make them fitt to ascend As is manifest by the consent of all authors that write of the regions of the ayre who determine the lower region to reach as farre as the reflexion of the sunne and conclude this region to be very hoat For if we marke how the heate of fire is greatest when it is incorporated in some dense body as in iron or in seacoale we shall easily conceiue that the heate of this region proceedeth mainely out of the incorporation of light with those litle bodies which sticke to it in its reflexion And experience testifyeth the same both in our sultry dayes which we see are of a grosse temper and ordinarily goe before raine as also in the hoat springes of extreme cold countries where the first heates are vnsufferable which proceede out of the resolution of humidity congealed and in hoat windes which the Spaniards call Bochornos from Boca de horno by allusion to the breathing steame of an ouen when it is opened which do manifestly shew that the heate of the sunne is incorporated in the litle bodies which compose the steame of that wind And by the principles we haue already layed the same would be euident though we had no experience to instruct vs for seeing that the body of fire is dry the wett partes which are easilyest resolued by fire must needes sticke vnto them and accompany them in their returne from the earth Now whiles these ascend the ayre must needes cause others that are of a grosser complexion to descend as fast to make roome for the former and to fill the places they left that there may be no vacuity in nature And to find what partes they are and from whence they come that succeede in the roome of light and atomes glewed together that thus ascend we may take a hinte from the maxime of the Optikes that light reflecting maketh equall angles whence supposing the superficies of the earth to be circular it will follow that a perpendicular to the center passeth iust in the middle betweene the two rayes the incident and the reflected Wherefore the ayre betweene these two rayes and such dodies as are in it being equally pressed on both sides those bodies which are iust in the middle are neerest and likelyest to succeede immediately in the roome of the light and atomes which ascend from the superficies of the earth and their motion to that point is vpon the perpendicular Hence it is euident that the ayre and all such bodies as descend to supply the place of light and atomes which ascend from the earth do descend perpendicularly towardes the center of the earth And againe such bodies as by the force of light being cutt from the earth or water do not ascend in forme of light but do incorporate a hidden light and heate within them and thereby are rarer then these descending bodies must of necessity be lifted vp by the descent of those denser bodies that goe downewardes because they by reason of their density are mooued with a greater force And this lifting vp must be in a perpendicular line because the others descending on all sides perpendicularly must needes raise those that are betweene them equally from all sides that is perpendicularly from the center of the earth And thus we see a motion sett on foote of some bodies continually descending and others continually ascending all in perpendicular lines excepting those which follow the course of lights reflexion Againe as soone as the declining sunne groweth weaker or leaueth our horizon and that his beames vanishing do leaue the litle horsemen which rode vpon them to their owne temper and nature from whence they forced them they finding themselues surrounded by a smart descending streame do tumble downe againe in the night as fast as in the day they were carryed vp and crowding into their former habitations they exclude those that they find had vsurped them in their absence And thus all bodies within reach of the sunnes power but especially our ayre are in perpetuall motion the more rarifyed ones ascending and the dense ones descending Now thē because no bodies wheresoeuer they be as we haue already shewed haue any inclination to moue towardes a particular place otherwise thē as they are
it be in the streame of a riuer and notwithstanding it will still mooue downewardes we may answere that considering the litle decliuity of the bed of such a streame the strongest motion of the partes of the streame must necessarily be downewardes and consequently they will beate the stone downewardes And if they do not the like to a feather or other light body it is because other partes of the streame do gett vnder the light body and beate it vpwardes which they haue not power enough to do to the stone Sixthly it may be obiected that if Elements do not weigh in their owne spheres then their grauity and descending must proceede from some other cause and not from this percussion of the atomes we attribute it to which percussion we haue determined goeth through all bodies whatsoeuer and beateth vpon euery sensible part of them But that Elements weigh not in their owne spheres appeareth out of the experience of a syphon for though one legge of the syphon be suncke neuer so much deeper into the body of the water then the other legge reacheth below the superficies of the water neuerthelesse if once the outward legge become full of water it will draw it out of the other longer legge which it should not do if the partes of water that are comprised within their whole bulke did weigh seeing that the bulke of water is much greater in the sunke legge then in the other and therefore these should rather draw backe the other water into the cisterne then be themselues drawne out of it into the ayre To this we answere that it is euident the Elements do weigh in their owne spheres att least as farre as we can reach to their spheres for we see that a ballone stuffed hard with ayre is heauyer then an empty one Againe more water would not be heauyer then lesse if the inward partes of it did not weigh and if a hole were digged in the bottome of the sea the water would not runne into it and fill it if it did not grauitate ouer it Lastly there are those who vndertake to distinguish in a deepe water the diuers weights which seuerall partes of it haue as they grow still heauyer and heauyer towardes the bottome and they are so cunning in this art that they professe to make instruments which by their equality of their weight to a determinate part of the water shall stand iust in that part and neyther rise nor fall higher or lower but if it be putt lower it shall ascend to its exact equally weighing orbe of the water and if it be putt higher it shall descend vntill it cometh to rest precisely in that place Whence it is euident that partes of water do weigh within the bulke of their maine body and of the like we haue no reason to doubt in the other two weighty Elements As for the opposition of the syphon we referre that point to where we shall haue occasion to declare the nature of that engine of sett purpose And there we shall shew that it could not succeede in its operation vnlesse the partes of water did grauitate in their maine bulke into which one legge of the syphon is sunke Lastly it may be obiected that if there were such a course of atomes as we say and that their stroakes were the cause of so notable an effect as the grauity of heauy bodies we should feele it palpably in our owne bodies which experience sheweth vs we do not To this we answere first that their is no necessity we should feele this course of atomes since by their subtility they penetrate all bodies and consequently do not giue such stroakes as are sensible Secondly if we consider that dustes and strawes and feathers do light vpon vs without causing any sense in vs much more we may cōceiue that atomes which are infinitely more subtile and light can not cause in vs any feeling of them Thirdly we see that what is continuall with vs and mingled in all thinges doth not make vs take any especiall notice of it and this is the case of the smiting of atomes Neuerthelesse peraduenture we feele them in truth as often as we feele hoat and cold weather and in all catarres or other such changes which do as it were sinke into our body without our perceiuing any sensible cause of them for no question but these atomes are the immediate causes of all good and bad qualities in the ayre Lastly when we consider that we can not long together hold out our arme att length or our foote from the ground and reflect vpon such like impotencies of our resisting the grauity of our owne body we can not doubt but that in these cases we feele the effect of these atomes working vpon those partes although we can not by our sense discerne immediately that these are the causes of it But now it is time to draw our Reader out of a difficulty which may peraduenture haue perplexed him in the greatest part of what he hath hitherto gone ouer In our inuestigation of the Elements we tooke for a principle therevnto that grauity is sometimes more sometimes lesse then the density of the body in which it is But in our explication of rarity and density and againe in our explication of grauity we seeme to putt that grauity and density is all one This thorne I apprehend may in all this distance haue putt some to paine but it was impossible for mee to remedy it because I had not yet deliuered the manner of grauitation Here then I will do my best to asswage their greefe by reconciling these appearing repugnancies We are therefore to consider that density in it selfe doth signify a difficultie to haue the partes of its subiect in which it is seperated one from an other and that grauity likewise in it selfe doth signify a quality by which a heauy body doth descend towardes the center or which is consequent therevnto a force to make an other body descend Now this power we haue shewed doth belong vnto density so farre forth as a dense body being strucken by an other doth not yield by suffering its partes to be diuided but with its whole bulke striketh the next before it and diuideth it if it be more diuisible then it selfe is So that you see density hath the name of density in consideration of a passiue quality or rather of an impassibility which it hath and the same density is called grauity in respect of an actiue quality it hath which followeth this impassibility And both of them are estimated by the different respects which the same body or subiect in which they are haue vnto different bodies that are the termes whereunto it is compared for the actiue quality or grauity of a dense body is esteemed by its respect to the body it striketh vpon whereas its density includeth a respect singly to the body that striketh it Now it is no wonder that this change of comparison worketh a disparity
fro And taking a body of concaue surfaces we shall according to this doctrine of ours find the causes of refraction iust contrary and accordingly experience likewise sheweth vs the effects to be so too And therefore since experience agreeth exactly with our rules we can not doubt but that the principles vpon which we goe are well layd But because crooked surfaces may haue many irregularities it will not be amisse to giue a rule by which all of them may be brought vnto a certainety And this it is that reflexions from crooked superficieses are equall to the reflexions that are made from such plaine superficieses as are tangents to the crooked ones in that point from whence the reflexions are made Which principall the Masters of Optikes do take out of a Mathematicall supposition of the vnity of the reflecting point in both the surfaces the crooked and the plaine But we take it out of the insensibility of the difference of so litle a part in the two different surfaces as serueth to reflect a ray of light for where the difference is insensible in the causes there likewise the difference is so litle in the effects as sense can not iudge of them which is as much as is requisite to our purpose Now seeing that in the Mathematicall supposition the point where the reflexion is made is indifferent to both the surfaces it followeth that it importeth not whether superficies you take to know the quality of reflexion by This principle then being settled that the reflexion must follow the nature of the tangent surfaces and it being prooued that in plaine surfaces it will happen in such sort as we haue explicated it followeth that in any crooked superficies of what figure soeuer the same also will happen Now seeing we haue formerly declared that refractions are but a certaine kind of reflexions what we haue said here of reflexions may be applyed to refractions But there remaineth yet vntouched one affection more of refractions which is that some diaphanous bodies do in their inward partes reflect more then others which is that which we call refraction as experience sheweth vs. Concerning which effect we are to consider that diaphanous bodies may in their composition haue two differences for some are composed of greater partes and greater pores others of lesser partes and lesser pores It is true there may be other combinations of pores and partes yet by these two the rest may be esteemed As for the first combination we see that because the pores are greater a greater multitude of partes of light may passe together through one pore and because the partes are greater likewise a greater multitude of rayes may reflect from the same part and may find the same passage quite throughout the diaphanous body On the contrary side in the second combination where both the pores and the partes of the diaphanous body are litle the light must be but litle that findeth the same passage Now that refraction is greater or lesser happeneth two wayes for it is eyther when one diaphanous body reflecteth light att more angles then an other and by consequence in a greater extent of the superficies or else when one body reflecteth light from the same point of incidence in a shorter line and in a greater angle then an other doth In both these wayes it is apparant that a body composed of greater partes and greater pores exceedeth bodies of the opposite kind for by reason that in the first kind more light may beate against one part a body in which that happeneth will make an appearance from a further part of its superficies whereas in a body of the other sort the light that beateth against one of the litle partes of it will be so litle as it will presently vanish Againe because in the first the part att the incidence is greater the surface from which the reflexion is made inwardes hath more of a plaine and straight superficies and consequently doth reflect att a greater angle then that whose superficies hath more of inclining But we must not passe from this question without looking a litle into the nature of those bodies in which refraction is made for if they as well as the immediate causes of refraction do likewise fauour vs it will not a litle aduance the certainety of our determination To this purpose we may call to mind how experience sheweth vs that great refractions are made in smoake and in mistes and in glasses and in thicke bodied waters and Monsieur Des Cartes addeth certaine oyles and spirits or strong waters Now most of these we see are composed of litle consistent bodies swimming in an other liquide body As is plaine in smoake and mistes for the litle bubbles which rise in the water before they gett out of it and that are smoake when they gett into the ayre do assure vs that smoake is nothing else but a company of litle round bodies swimming in the ayre and the round consistence of water vpon herbes leafes and twigges in a rynde or dew giueth vs also to vnderstand that a mist is likewise a company of litle round bodies that sometimes stand sometimes floate in the ayre as the wind driueth them Our very eyes beare wittnesse to vs that the thicker sort of waters are full of litle bodies which is the cause of their not being cleare As for glasse the blowing of it conuinceth that the litle dartes of fire which pierce it euery way do naturally in the melting of it conuert it into litle round hollow bodies which in their cooling must settle into partes of the like figure Then for crystall and other transparent stones which are found in cold places it can not be otherwise but that the nature of cold piercing into the maine body and contracting euery litle part in it selfe this contraction must needes leaue vacant pores betweene part and part And that such transparent stones as are made by heate haue the like effect and property may be iudged out of what we see in brickes and tiles which are left full of holes by the operation of the fire And I haue seene in bones that haue layne a long time in the sunne a multitude of sensible litle pores close to one an other as if they had beene formerly stucke all ouer with subtile sharpe needles as close as they could be thrust in by one other The Chymicall oyles and spirits which Monsieur Des Cartes speaketh of are likely to be of the same composition since that such vse to be extracted by violent fires for a violent fire is made by the coniunction of many rayes together and that must needes cause great pores in the body it worketh vpon and the sticking nature of these spirits is capable of conseruing them Out of all these obseruations it followeth that the bodies in which greatest refractions do happen are compounded as we haue said of great partes and great pores And therefore by onely taking light to be
between them it is wounded and enfeebled like those souldiers that first enter a breach in a owne from whence when they haue driuen the enemy they pursue him to the cittadell and force him from thence too and so how maymed soeuer they proue they make a free and easy way without resistance for the whole body of their army to follow them and take quiett possession of that which did cost them so much to winne And thus we see how it may happen that one of these mouing bodies doth not suffer so much as to be stayed in its iourney much lesse to be driuen backe And yet the other body att the same time worke in some measure vpon it by working vpon what is next to it which recoyling against it must needes make some impression vpon it since there can be no opposition but must haue some effect Now this impression or effect though it be not perceptible by causing a contrary motion yet it must needes enfeeble the vertue of the conquering Agent and deaden the celerity of its motion And thus it is euident that in all pure locall motions of corporeall Agents euery one of them must in some proportion suffer in acting and in suffering must act And what we haue said of this kind of action may easily be applyed to the other where the effect of locall motion is designed by a particular name as it is in the exāples we gaue of heating and cooling And in that the proceeding will appeare to be the very same as in this for if fire doth heate water the water reacteth againe eyther vpō the fire and cooleth it if it be immediate vnto it or else vpon the interiacent ayre if it be att a distance from the fire And so the ayre is in some measure cooled by the cold atomes that issue from the water whose compasse or sphere of actiuity being lesser then the fires they can not coole so farre off as the others can heate but where they do arriue they giue their proportion of cold in the very middest of the others army of fiery atomes notwithstanding their multitude and violence According to which doctrine our countryman Suisseth his argument that in the schooles is held insoluble hath not so much as any semblance of the least difficulty for it is euident that such atomes of fire and of water as we determine heate and cold to be may passe and croude by one an other into the subiects they are sent vnto by diuers little streames without hindering one an other as we haue declared of ayre and light and each of them be receiued in their owne nature and temper by the same subiect though sense can iudge onely according to which of them is predominant and according to the proportion of its superiority Vpon which occasion we can not choose but note how the doctrine of qualities is not onely vnable to giue account of the ordinary and plaine effects of nature but also vseth to end in cleere impossibilities and contradictions if it be driuen farre as this argument of Suisseth sheweth and many others of the like nature A fourth position among Philosophers is that some notions do admitt the denominations of Intension and Remission but that others do not The reason of which we shall cleerely see if we but consider how these termes of intension and remission do but expresse more or lesse of the thing that is said to be intended or remitted for the nature of more and lesse doth imply a latitude and diuisibility and therefore can not agree with the nature of such thinges as consist in an indiuisible being As for example to be a whole or to be an equall can not be sometimes more sometimes lesse for they consist in such a rigorous indiuisible being that if the least part imaginable be wanting it is no longer a whole and if there be the least excesse between two thinges they are no longer equall but are in some other proportion then of equality in regard of one an other And hence it is that Aristotle teacheth vs that substance and the species of Quantity do not admitt of intension and remission but that Quality doth For first in substance we know that the signification of this word is that which maketh a thing be what it is as is euident by our giuing it for an answere to the question what a thing is And therefore if there were any diuisibility in substance it would be in what the thing is and consequently euery diuision following that diuisibility would make the thing an other what that is an other thing And so the substance that is pretended to be changed by intension or remission would not be diuided as is supposed but would cease to be and an other substance would succeede in the roome of it Whereby you see that euery mutation in substance maketh a new thing and that more and lesse in Quiddity can not be pronounced of the same thing Likewise in Quantity it is cleere that its Specieses do consist in an indiuisible for as in numbers tenne lions for example or tenne Elephants are no more in regard of multitude then tenne fleas or tenne moates in the sunne and if you adde or take any thing from tenne it is no more tenne but some other number so likewise in continued extension a spanne an elle an ounce or any other measure whatsoeuer ceaseth to be a spanne and the rest if you adde to it or diminish from it the least quantity imaginable And peraduenture the same is also of figures as of a sphere a cube a circle a square c. though they be in the ranke of Qualities But if we consider such qualities as heat cold moysture drynesse softnesse hardnesse weight lightnesse and the like we shall find that they may be in any body sometimes more sometimes lesse according as the excesse of any Element or mixture is greater in it att one time then att an other and yet the body in which these qualities are intended or remitted remaine still with the same denomination As when durt continueth still softe though sometimes it be lesse softe other whiles softer and waxe remaineth figurable whether it be melted or congealed and wood is still hoat though it loose or gaine some degree of heate But such intension in any subiect whatsoeuer hath its determinate limits that it can not passe for when more of that quality that we say is intended that is more of the atomes of the actiue body is brought into the body that suffereth the intension then its complexion can brooke it resigneth its nature to their violence and becometh a new thing such an one as they are pleased to make it As when wood with extremity of heating that is with bringing into it so many atomes of fire that the fire is stronger in it then its owne nature is conuerted into fire smoake water and ashes and nothing remaineth of the nature of wood But before we end this chapter
were lighter and consequently more rare then water because it swimmeth vpon it which is an effect of the ayres being contained in the belly of it as it is in yce not a signe of the mettalls being more rare then water Whereas on the contrary side the proofe is positiue and cleare for vs for it can not be denyed but that the mingling of the water with other bodies more dense then it must of necessity make the compound and also the water it selfe become more dense then it was alone And accordingly we see that yce halfe thawed for then much of the ayre is driuen out and the water beginneth to fill the pores wherein the ayre resided before sinketh to the bottome as an iron dish with holes in it whereby the water might gett into it would do And besides we see that water is more diaphanous then yce and yce more consistent then water Therefore I hope we shall be excused if in this particular we be of a contrary opinion to this great personage But to returne vnto the thridde of our discourse The same that passeth here before vs passeth also in the skye with snow haile raine and wind Which that we may the better vnderstand lett vs consider how windes are made for they haue a maine influence into all the rest When the sunne or by some particular occurrent rayseth great multitudes of atomes from some one place and they eyther by the attraction of the sunne by some other occasion do take their course a certaine way this motion of those atomes we call a wind which according to the continuance of the matter from whence these atomes rise endureth a longer or a shorter time and goeth a farther or a shorter way like a riuer or rather like those eruptions of waters which in the Notherne partes of England they call Gypsies the which do breake out att vncertaine times and vpon vncertaine causes and flow likewise with an vncertaine duration So these windes being composed of bodies in a determinate proportion heauyer then the ayre do runne their course from their hight to the ground where they are supported as water is by the floore of its channell whiles they performe their carrire that is vntill they be wasted eyther by the drawing of the sunne or by their sticking and incorporating into grosser bodies Some of these windes according to the complexion of the body out of which they are extracted are dry as those which come from barren mountaines couered with snow others are moist as those that come out of marishy or watry places others haue other qualities as of heate or cold of wholesomenesse or vnwholesomenesse and the like partly from the source and partly frō the bodies they are mingled with in their way Such then being the nature and origine of windes if a cold one do meete in the ayre with that moist body whereof otherwise raine would haue been made it changeth that moist body into snow or into haile if a dry wind meete with a wett body it maketh it more dry and so hindereth the raine that was likely to be but if the wett body ouercome the dry wind it bringeth the wind downe along with it as we see when a shoure of raine allayeth a great wind And that all this is so experience will in some particulars instruct vs as well as reason from whence the rest may be euidently inferred For we see that those who in imitation of nature would conuert water into yce do take snow or yce and mingle it with some actiue dry body that may force the cold partes of the snow from it and then they sett the water in some fitt vessell in the way that those little bodies are to take which by that meanes entering into it do straight incorporate themselues therewith and of a soddaine do conuert it into yce Which processe you may easily trye by mingling salt armoniake with the snow but much more powerfully by setting the snow ouer the fire whiles the glasse of water to be congealed standeth in it after the manner of an egg in salt And thus fire it selfe though it be the enemy and destroyer of all cold is made the instrument of freesing And the same reason holdeth in the cooling of wine with snow or yce when after it hath beene a competent time in the snow they whose charge it is do vse to giue the vessell that containeth the wine three or foure turnes in the snow so to mingle through the whole body of the wine the cold receiued first but in the outward partes of it and by pressing to make that without haue a more forcible ingression But the whole doctrine of Meteores is so amply so ingeniously and so exactely performed by that neuer enough praysed Gentleman Monsieur Des Cartes in his Meteorologicall discourses as I should wrong my selfe and my Reader if I dwelled any longer vpon this subiect And whose Physicall discourses had they beene diuulged before I had entered vpon this worke I am persuaded would haue excused the greatest part of my paines in deliuering the nature of bodies It were a fault to passe from treating of condensation without noting so ordinary an effect of it as is the ioyning together of partes of the same body or of diuers bodies In which we see for the most part that the solide bodies which are to be ioyned together are first eyther heated or moistened that is they are rarifyed and then they are left to cold ayre or to other cold bodies to thicken and condense as aboue we mentioned of syrupes and gellies and so they are brought to sticke firmely together In the like manner we see that when two mettalls are heated till they be almost brought to runninge and then are pressed together by the hammer they become one continued body The like we see in glasse the like in waxe and in diuers other thinges On the contrary side when a broken stone is to be pieced together the pieces of it must be wetted and the ciment must be likewise moistened and then ioyning them aptly and drying them they sticke fast together Glew is moistened that it may by drying afterwardes hold pieces of wood together And the spectaclemakers haue a composition which must be both heated and moistened to ioyne vnto handles of wood the glasses which they are to grinde And broken glasses are cimented with cheese and chalke or with garlike All these effects our sense euidently sheweth vs arise out of condēsation but to our reasō it belōgeth to examine particularly by what steppes they are performed Frst then we know that heate doth subtilise the little bodies which are in the pores of the heated body and partly also it openeth the pores of the body it selfe if it be of a nature that permitteth it as it seemeth those bodies are which by heate are mollifyed or are liquefactible Againe we know that moysture is more subtile to enter into small creekes then dry bodies are especially
the want of a continuall sucker But if the nose of that arme that hangeth out of the water be but euen with the water then the water will stand still in both pipes or armes of the syphon after they are filled with sucking But if by the running out of the water the outward pipe do grow shorter then to reach as low as the superficies of the water in the fountaine from whence it runneth in this case the water in each arme of the syphon will runne backe into the fountaine Withall it is to be noted that though the arme which is out of the water be neuer so long yet if it reach not lower then the superficies of the fountaine the ouer quantity and weight of the water there more then in the other arme helpeth it nothing to make it runne out Which is because the decliuity of the other arme ouerrecompenceth this ouerweight Not that the weight in the shorter pipe hath so much force as the weight in the longer pipe but because it hath more force then the greater weight doth exercise there in its running for the greatest part of its force tendeth an other way then to the end of the pipe to witt perpendicularly towardes the center And so is hindered from effect by the great sloaping or little decliuity of the pipe vpon which it leaneth But some considering how the water that is in the longer arme of the syphon is more in quantity then the water that is in the other arme of it whereat it runneth out do admire why the greater quantity of water doth not draw backe the lesse into the cisterne but suffereth it selfe to be lifted vp and drayned away as if it runne steeply downewardes And they imagine that hence may be deduced that the partes of water in the cisterne doe not weigh as long as they are within the orbe of their owne body Vnto when we answere that they should consider how that to haue the greater quantity of water which is in the longer arme of the syphon which arme is immersed in the water of the cisterne to draw backe into the cisterne the water which is in the other arme of the syphon that hangeth out in the ayre it must both raise as much of the water of the cisterne as its owne bulke is aboue the leuell which att present the whole bulke of water hath and withall it must att the same time pull vp the water which is in the other arme Now it is manifest that these two quantities of water together are heauyer then the water in the sunke arme of the syphon since one of them single is equall vnto it And by consequence the more water in the sunke arme can not weigh backe the lesse water in the hanging arme since that to do that it must att the same time weigh vp ouer and aboue as much more in the cisterne as it selfe weigheth But turning the argument I say that if once the arme of the syphon that is in the ayre be supposed to draw any water be it neuer so little out of the cisterne whether occasioned by sucking or by whatsoeuer other meanes it followeth that as much water as is drawne vp aboue the leuell of the whole bulke in the cisterne must needes presse into the suncken arme from the next adiacent partes that is from the bottome to supply its emptying and as much must of it selfe presse downe from aboue according to its naturall course when nothing violenteth it to rest in the place that the ascending water which is lower then it leaueth att liberty for it to take possession of And then it can not be doubted but that this descending water hauing all its weight in pressing downe applyed to driue vp the rising water in the sunke arme of the syphon and the water in the other arme of the syphon without hauing all its weight in running out applyed att the same time to draw vp the same water in the sunke arme this single resistant must yield to their double and mastering force And consequently the water in the arme of the syphon that is in the ayre must needes draw the water that is in the other immersed arme as long as the end of its pipe reacheth lower then the leuell of the water in the cisterne for so long it appeareth by what we haue said it must needes be more weighty since part of the rising water in the sunke arme of the syphon is counterpoysed by as much descending water in the cisterne And thus it is euident that out of this experiment it can not be inferred that partes of water do not weigh within the orbe of their owne whole but onely that two equall partes of water in their owne orbe namely that which riseth in the sunken arme and that which presseth downe from the whole bulke in the cisterne are of equall weight and do ballance one an othet So that neuer so little oddes between the two counterpoysing parcells of water which are in the ayre must needes make the water runne out att that end of the syphon where the ouerweight of water is The attraction whose cause next to this is most manifest is that which is made by the force of heate or of fire for we see that fire euer draweth ayre vnto it so notably that if in a close roome there be a good fire a man that standeth att the dore or att the window especially without shall heare such a noise that he will thinke there is a great wind within the chamber The reason of this attraction is that fire rarifying the ayre which is next vnto it and withall spending it selfe perpetually causeth the ayre and his owne body mingled together to fly vp through the chimney or by some other passage Whence it followeth of necessity that the next body must succeed into the place of the body that is flowne away This next body generally is ayre whose mobility and fluidity beyond all other bodies maketh it of all others the fittest to be drawne and the more of it that is drawne the more must needes follow Now if there be floating in this ayre any other atomes subiect to the current which the ayre taketh they must also come with it to the fire and by it must be rarifyed and be exported out of that little orbe Hence it is that men with very good reason do hold that fire ayreth a chamber as we terme it that is purifyeth it both because it purifyeth it as wind doth by drawing a current of ayre into it that sweepeth through it or by making it purify it selfe by motion as a streame of water doth by running as also because those vapours which approach the fire are burned and dissolued So that the ayre being noysome and vnwholesome by reason of its grossenesse proceeding from its standing vnmoued like a stagnation of dead water in a marish place the fire taketh away that cause of annoyance By this very rule we learne that other hoat
ibid. § 2. What place is both notionally and really pag. 33. § 3. Locall motion is that diuision whereby a body chāeth its place pag. 34. § 4. The nature of quantity of it selfe is sufficient to vnite a body to its place ibidem § 5. All operations amongst bodies are eyther locall motion or such as follow out of locall motion pag. 35. § 6. Earth compared to water in actiuity pag. 36. § 7. The manner whereby fire getteth in fewel prooueth that it exceedeth earth in actiuity ibid. § 8. The same is prooued by the manner whereby fire cometh ut of fewell and worketh vpon other bodies pag. 37. CHAP. VI. Of Light what it is pag. 39. § 1. In what sense the Author reiecteth qualities ibid. § 2. In what sense the Author doth admitt of qualities pag. 40. § 3. Fiue arguments proposed to proue that light is not a body pag. 41. § 4. The two first reasons to proue light to be a body are the resemblance it hath with fire and because if it were a quality it would alwayes produce an equall to it selfe pag. 42. § 5. The third reason because if we imagine to our selues the substance of fire to be rarifyed it will haue the same appearences which light hath pag. 43. § 6. The fourth reason from the manner of the genertion and corruption of light which agreeth with fire ibid. § 7. The fifth reason because such properies belong to light as agree only vnto bodies pag. 45. CHAP. VII Two objections answered against light being fire a more ample proofe of its being such ibid. § 1. That all light is hoat and apt o heate ibid. § 2. The reason why our bodies for the most part do not feele the heate of pure light pag. 46. § 3. The experience of burningglasses and of soultry gloomy weather proue light to be fire pag. 48. § 4. Philosophers ought not to be iudge ot thinges by the rules of vulgar people ibidem § 5. the different names of light and fire proceede from different notions of the same substance pag. 49. § 6. The reason why many times fire and heate are depriued of light pag. 50. § 7. What becometh of the body of light when it dyeth ibid. § 8. An experiment of some who pretend that light may be precipitated into pouder pag. 51. § 9. The Authors opinion concerning lampes pretended to haue been found in tombes with inconsumptible lights ibid. CHAP. VIII An answere to three other objections formely proposed against light being a substance pag. 53. § 1. Light is not really in euery part of the roome it enlighteneth nor filleth entirely any sensible part of it though it seeme to vs to do so ibid. § 2. Tha least sensible poynt of a diaphanous body hath roome sufficient to containe both ayre and light together with a multitude of beames issuing from seuerall lights without penetrating one another pag. 54. § 3. That light doth not enlighten any roome in an instant and that the great celerity of its motion doth make it inperceptible to our senses pag. 56. § 4. The reason why the motion of light is not discerned comingtowardes vs and that there is some reall tardity in it pag. 58. § 5. The planets are not certainely euer in that place where they appeare to be pag. 59. § 6. The reason why light being a body doth not by its motion shatter other bodies into pieces ibid. § 7. The reason why the body of light is neuer perceiued to be fanned by the wind pag. 61. § 8. The reasons for and against lights being a body compared together pag. 62. § 9. A summary repetition of the reasons which prooue that light is fire ibidem CHAP. IX Of locall Motion in common pag 63. § 1. No locall motion can be performed without succession ibid. § 2. Time is the common measure of all succession pag. 64. § 3. What velocity is and that it can not be infinite ibid. § 4. No force so litle that is not able to moue the greatest weight imaginable pag. 65. § 5. The cheife principle of Mechanikes deduced out of the former discourse pag. 66. § 6. No moueable can passe from rest to any determinate degree of velocity or from a lesser degree to a greater without passing through all the intermediate degrees which are below the obtained degree pag. 67. § 7. The conditions which helpe to motion in the moueable are three in the medium one pag 69. § 8. No body hath any intrinsecall vertue to moue it selfe towardes any determinate part of the vniuerse pag. 70. § 9. The encrease of motion is alwayes made in the proportion of the odde numbers ibid. § 10. No motion can encrease for euer without coming to a periode pag. 72. § 11. Certaine problemes resolued concerning the proportion of some mouing Agents compared to their effects pag 73. § 12. When a moueable cometh to rest the motion doth decrease according to the rules of encrease pag. 75. CHAP. X. Of Grauity and Leuity and of Locall Motion commonly termed Naturall pag. 76. § 1. Those motions are called naturall which haue constant causes and those violent which are contrary to them ibid. § 2. The first and most generall operation of the sunne is the making and raising of atomes ibid. § 3. The light rebounding from the earth with atomes causeth two streames in the ayre the one ascending the other descending and both of them in a perpendicular line pag. 77. § 4. A dense body placed in the ayre betweene the ascending and descending streame must needes descend pag. 78. § 5. A more particular explication of all the former doctrine touching grauity pag. 79. § 6. Grauity and leuity do not signify an intrinsecall inclination to such a motion in the bodies themselues which are termed heauy and light pag. 81. § 7. The more dense a body is the more swiftly it descendeth ibid. § 8. The velocity of bodies descending doth not encrease in proportion to the difference that may be betweene their seuerall densities pag. 82. § 9. More or lesse grauity doth produce a swifter or a slower descending of a heauy body Aristotles argument to disproue motion in vacuo is made good pag. 84. § 10. The reason why att the inferiour quarter of a circle a body doth descend faster by the arch of that quarter then by the chord if it pag. 85. CHAP. XI An answere to objections against the causes of naturall motion auowed in the former chapter and a refutation of the contrary opinion pag. 86. § 1. The first obiection answered why a hollow body descendeth slower then a solide one pag. 86. § 2. The second obiection answered and the reasons shewne why atomes do continually ouertake the descending dense body pag. 88. § 3. A curious question left vndecided pag. 89. § 4. The fourth obiection answered why the descent of the same heauy bodies is equall in so great inequality of the atomes which cause it ibidem § 5. The reason why the
of intension and Remission and others do not ibid. § 7. That in euery part of our habitable world all the foure Elements are found pure in small atomes but not in any great bulke pag. 142. CHAP. XVII Of Rarefaction and Condensation the two first motions of particular bodies pag. 144. § 1. The Authors intent in this and the following chapters ibid. § 2. That bodies may be rarifyed both by outward heat aud how this is performed pag. 145. § 3. Of the great effects fo Rarefaction pag. 147. § 4. The first manner of condensation by heate pag. 148. § 5. The second manner of condensation by cold pag. 149. § 6. That yce is not water rarifyed but condensed pag. 151. § 7. How wind snow and haile are made and wind by raine allayed pag. 152. § 8. How partes of the same or diuers bodies are ioyned more strongly together by condensation pag. 153. § 9. Vacuites can not be the reason why water impregnated to the full with one kind of salt will notwithstanding receiue more of an other pag. 154. § 10. The true reason of the former effect pag. 155. § 11. The reason why bodies of the same nature do ioyne more easily together then others pag. 156. CHAP. XVIII Of an other motion belonging to particular bodies called Attraction and of certaine operations termed Magicall pag. 157. § 1. What Attraction is and from whence it proceedeth ibid. § 2. The true sense of the Maxime that Nature abhorreth from vacuity pag. 158. § 3. The true reason of attraction pag. 159. § 4. Water may be brought by the force of attraction to what height soeuer pag. 160. § 5. The doctrine touching the attraction of water in syphons ibid § 6. That the syphon doth not proue water to weigh in its owne orbe pag. 161. § 7. Concerning attraction caused by fire pag. 162. § 8. Concerning attraction made by vertue of hoat bodies amulets etc. pag. 163. § 9. The naturall reason giuen for diuers operations esteemed by some to be magicall ibid. CHAP. XIX Of three other motions belonging to particular bodies Filtration Restitution and Electricall attraction pag. 166. § 1. What is Filtration and how it is effected ibid. § 2. What causeth the water in filtration to ascend pag. 167. § 3. Why the filter will not droppe vnlesse the labell hang lower then the water ibid. § 4. Of the motion of Restitution and why some bodies stand bent others not pag. 168. § 5. Why some bodies returne onely in part to their natural figure others entirely pag. 170. § 6. Concerning the nature of those bodies which do shrinke and stretch pag. 171. § 7. How great and wonderfull effects proceed from small plaine and simple principles ibid. § 8. Concerning Electricall attraction and the causes of it pag. 172. § 9. Cabeus his opinion refuted concerning the cause of Electricall motions pag. 174. CHAP. XX. Of the Loadestones generation and its particular motions pag. 175. § 1. The extreme heat of the sunne vnder the zodiake draweth a streame of ayre from each Pole into the torride zone ibid. § 2. The atomes of these two streames coming together are apt to incorporate with one an other pag. 176. § 3. By the meeting and mingling together of these streames att the Equator diuers riuolets of atomes of each Pole are continuated from one Pole to te other pag. 177. § 4. Of these atomes incorporated with some fitt matter in the bowels of the earth is made a stone pag. 179. § 5. This stone worketh by emanations ioyned with agreeing streames that meete them in the ayre and in fine it is a loadestone ibid. § 6. A methode for making experiences vpon any subiect pag. 181. § 7. The loadestones generation by atomes flowing from both Poles is confirmed by experiments obserued in the stone it selfe ibid. § 8. Experiments to proue that the loadestone worketh by emanations meeting with agreeing streames pag. 182. CHAP. XXI Positions drawne out of the former doctrine and confirmed by experimentall proofes pag. 185. .1 The operations of the loadestone are wrought by bodies and not by qualities ibid. § 2. Obiections against the former position answered pag. 186. § 3. The loadestone is imbued with his vertue from an other body ibid. § 4. The vertue of the loadestone is a double and not one simple vertue 188. § 5. The vertue of the laodestone worketh more strongly in the Poles of it then in any other part ibid. § 6. The laodestone sendeth forth its emanations spherically Which are of two kindes and each kind is strongest in that hemisphere through whose polary partes they issue out ibid. § 7. Putting two loadestones within the sphere of one an other euery part of one laodestone doth not agree with euery part of the other loadestone pag 189. § 8. Concerning the declination and other respects of a needle towardes the loadestone it toucheth ibid. § 9. The vertue of the laodestone goeth from end to end in lines almost paralelle to the axis pag. 191. § 10. The vertue of loadestone is not perfectly sphericall though the stone be such pag. 192. § 11. The intention of nature in all the operations of the loadestone is to make an vnion betwixt the attractiue and attracted bodies ibid. § 12. The maine globe of the earth is not a loadestone ibid. § 13. The laodestone is generated in all partes or climats of the earth pag. 193. § 14. The conformity betwixt the two motions of magnetike thinges and of heauy thinges ibid. CHAP. XXII A solution of certaine Problemes concerning the loadestone and a short summe of the whole doctrine touching it pag. 194. § 1. Which is the North and which the South Pole of a loadestone ibid. § 2. Whether any bodies besides magnetike ones be attractiue ibid. § 3. Whether an iron placed perpendicularly towardes the earth doth gett a magneticall vertue of pointing towardes the north or towardes the south in that end that lyeth downewardes pag. 195. § 4. Why loadestones affect iron better then one an other ibid. § 5. Gilberts reason refuted touching a capped loadestone that taketh vp more iron then one not capped and an iron impregnated that in some case draweth more strongly then the stone it selfe ibid. § 6. Galileus his opinion touching the former effects refuted pag. 196. § 7. The Authors solution to the former questions pag. 197. § 8. The reason why in the former case a lesser loadestone doth draw the interiacent iron from the greater pag. 198. § 9. Why the variation of a touched needle from the north is greater the neerer you go to the Pole pag. 199. § 10. Whether in the same part of the world a touched needle may att one time vary more from the north and att an other time lesse pag. 200. § 11. The whole doctrine of the loadestone summed vp in short pag. 201. CHAP. XXIII A description of the two sortes of liuing creatures Plantes and Animals and how they are framed in common
the same biggenesse and consequently be conuerted into a greater Quantity of fire and ayre Oyle will make much more flame then spiritt of wine that is farre rarer then it These and such like considerations haue much perplexed Philosophers and haue driuen them into diuerse thoughts to find out the reasons of them Some obseruing that the diuiding of a body into litle partes maketh it lesse apt to descend then when it is in greater haue beleeued the whole cause of litghnesse and rarity to be deriued from diuision As for example they find that lead cutt into litle pieces will not goe downe so fast in water as when it is in bulke and it may be reduced into so small atomes that it will for some space swimme vpon the water like dust of wood Which assumption is prooued by the greate Galileus vnto whose excellent witt and admirable industry the world is beholding not onely for his wonderfull discoueries made in the heauens but also for his accurate and learned declaring of those very thinges that lye vnder our feete He about the 90th page of his first Dialogue of motion doth clearly demonstrate how any reall medium must of necessity resist more the descent of a litle piece of lead or any other weighty matter then it would a greater piece and the resistence will be greater and greater as the pieces are lesser and lesser So that as the pieces are made lesse they will in the same medium sinke the slower and do seeme to haue acquired a new nature of lightnesse by theire diminution not onely of hauing lesse weight in them then they had as halfe an ounce is lesse then a whole ounce but also of hauing in themselues a lesse proportion of weight to theire bulke then they had as a pound of corke is in regard of its magnitude lighter then a pound of lead so as they conclude that the thing whose continued partes are the lesser is in its owne nature the lighter and the rarer and other thinges whose continued partes are greater they be heauier and denser But this discourse reacheth not home for by it the weight of any body being discouered by the proportion it hath to the medium in which it descendeth it must euer suppose a body lighter then it selfe in which it may sinke and goe to the bottome Now of that lighter body I enquire what maketh it be so and you must answere by what you haue concluded that it is lighter then the other because the partes of it are lesse and more seuered from one an other for if they be as close together theire diuision auayleth them nothing since thinges sticking fast together do worke as if they were but one and so a pound of lead though it be filed into small dust if it be compacted hard together will sinke as fast as if it were in one bulke Now then allowing the litle partes to be seperated I aske what other body filleth vp the spaces betweene those litle partes of the medium in which your heauy body descended For if the partes of water are more seuered then the partes of lead there must be some other substance to keepe the partes of it a sunder lett vs suppose this to be ayre and I aske whether an equall part of ayre be as heauy as so much water or whether it be not If you say it is then the compound of water and ayre must be as heauy as lead seeing that theire partes one with an other are as much compacted as the partes of lead are For there is no difference whether those bodies whose litle partes are compacted together be of the same substance or of diuers or whether the one be diuided into smaller partes then the other or no so they be of equall weights in regard of making the whole equally heauy as you may experience if you mingle pinnedust with a sand of equall weight though it be beaten into farre smaller diuisions then the pinnedust and putt them in a bagge together But if you say that ayre is not so heauy as water it must be because euery part of ayre hath againe its partes more seuered by some other body then the partes of water are seuered by ayre And then I make the same instance of that body which seuereth the partes of ayre And so att the last since there can not actually be an infinite processe of bodies one lighter then an other you must come to one whose litle partes filling the pores and spaces between the partes of the others haue no spaces in themselues to be filled vp But as soone as you acknowledge such a body to be lighter and rarer then all the rest you contradict and destroy all you said before For by reason of its hauing no pores it followeth by your rule that the litle partes of it must be as heauy if not heauier then the litle partes of the same bignesse of that body whose pores it filleth and consequently it is proued by the experience we alleadged of pinnedust mingled with sand that the litle partes of it can not by theire mingling with the partes of the body in which it is immediately contained make that lighter then it would be if these litle partes were not mingled with it Nor would both theire partes mingled with the body which immediately containeth them make that body lighter And so proceeding on in the same sort through all the mingled bodies till you come to the last that is immediately mingled with water you will make water nothing the lighter for being mingled with all these and by consequence it should be as heauy and as dense as lead Now that which deceiued the authors of this opiniion was that they had not a right intelligence of the causes which made litle partes of bodies naturally heauy descend slowly in regard of the velocity of greater partes of the same bodies descending the doctrine of which we intend to deliuer hereafter Others therefore perceiuing this rule to fall short haue endeauoured to piece it out by the mixtion of vacuity among bodies belieuing it is that which maketh one rarer then an other Which mixtion they do not putt alwayes immediate to the maine body they consider but if it haue other rarer and lighter bodies mingled with it they conceiue this mixtion immediate onely to the rarest or lightest As for example a crystall being lighter and consequently rarer then a diamond they will not say that there is more vacuity in a crystall then in a diamond but that the pores of a crystall are greater and that consequently there is more ayre in a crystall to fill the pores of it then is in a diamond and the vacuities are in the ayre which abounding in a crystall more then in a diamond maketh that lighter and rarer then this by the more vacuities that are in the greater Quantity of ayre which is migled with it But against this supposition a powerfull aduersary is vrged for Aristotle in his 4th booke
of Physickes hath demonstrated that there can be no motion in vacuity It is true they endeauour to euade his demonstration as not reaching home to theire supposition by acknowledging it to be an euident one in such a vacuity as he there speaketh of which he supposed to be so great a one that a body may swimme in it as in an ocean and not touch or be neere any other body whereas this opinion excludeth all such vast inanity and admitteth no vacuities but so litle ones as no body whatsoeuer can come vnto but will be bigger then they and consequently must on some side or other touch the corporeall partes which those vacuities diuide for they are the seperations of the least partes that are or can be actually diuided from one an other which partes must of necessity touch one an other on some side or else they could not hang together to compose one substance and therefore the diuiding vacuities must be lesse then the diuided partes And thus no body will euer be in danger of floating vp and downe without touching any thing which is the difficulty that Aristotle chiefely impugneth I confesse I should be very glad that this supposition might serue our turne and saue the Phoenomena that appeare among bodies through theire variety of Rarity and Density which if it might be then would I straight go on to the inquiring after what followed out of this ground as Astronomers to vse our former similitude do calculate the future appearances of the celestiall bodies out of those motions and orbes they assigne vnto the heauens For as this apprehension of vacuity in bodies is very easy and intelligibile so the other which I conceiue to be the truth of the case is exceedingly abstracted and one of the most difficult pointes in all the Metaphysickes and therefore I would if it were possible auoyde touching vpon it in this discourse which I desire should be as plaine and easy and as much remooued from scholasticke termes as may be But indeed the inconueniences that follow out of this supposition of vacuities are so great as it is impossible by any meanes to slide them ouer As for example lett vs borrow of Galilaeus the proportion of weight betweene water and ayre He sheweth vs how the one is 400 times heauyer then the other And Marinus Ghetaldus teacheth vs that gold is 19 times heauyer then water so that gold must be 7600 times heauyer then ayre Now then considering that nothing in a body can weigh but the solide partes of it it followeth that the proportion of the partes of gold in a sphere of an inch diameter is to the partes of ayre of a like dimension as 7600 is to one Therefore in ayre it selfe the vacuities that are supposed in it will be to the solide partes of it in the same proportion as 7600 to one Indeed the proportion of difference will be greater for euen in gold many vacuities must be admitted as appeareth by the heating of it which sheweth that in euery the least part it is exceeding porous But according to this rate without pressing the inconuenience any further the ayre will by this reckoning appeare to be like a nett whose holes and distances are to the lines and thriddes in the proportion of 7600 to one and so would be lyable to haue litle partes of its body swimme in those greater vacuities contrary to what they striue to auoyde Which would be exceedingly more if we found on the one side any bodies heauyer and denser then gold and that were so solide as to exclude all vacuities and on the other side should ballance them with such bodies as are lighter and rarer then ayre as fire is and as some will haue the aether to be But already the disproportion is so great and the vacuity so strangely exceedeth the body in which it is as were too great an absurdity to be admitted And besides it would destroy all motion of small bodies in the ayre if it be true as Aristotle hath demonstrated in the 4th booke of his Physickes that motion can not be made but among bodies and not in vacuo Againe if rarity were made by vacuity rare bodies could not be gathered together without loosing theire rarity and becoming dense The contrary of which we learne by constant experience as when the smith and glassemender driue theire white and fury fires as they terme them when ayre pierceth most in the sharpe wind and generally we see that more of the same kind of rare bodies in lesse place worketh most efficaciously according to the nature that resulteth out of that degree of rarity Which argueth that euery litle part is as rare as it was before for else it would loose the vertue of working according to that nature but that by theire being crowded together they exclude all other bodies that before did mediate betweene the litle partes of theire maine body and so more partes being gotten together in the same place then formerly there were they worke more forcibly Thirdly if such vacuities were the cause of rarity it would follow that fluide bodies being rarer then solide ones they would be of themselues standing like nettes or cobbewebbes whereas contrariwise we see theire natures are to runne together and to fill vp euery litle creeke and corner which effect following out of the very nature of the thinges themselues must needes exclude vacuities out of that nature And lastly if it be true as we haue shewed in the last Chapter that there are no actuall partes in Quantity it followeth of necessity that all Quantity must of it selâ—e be one as Metaphysickes teach vs and then no distance can be admitted betweene one Quantity and an other And truly if I vnderstand Aristotle right he hath perfectly demonstrated that no vacuity is possible in nature neither great nor litle and consequently the whole machine raysed vpon that supposition must be ruinous His argument is to this purpose What is nothing can not haue partes but vacuum is nothing because as the aduersaries conceiue it vacuum is the want of a corporeall substance in an enclosing body within whose sides nothing is whereas a certaine body might be contained whithin them as if in a paile or bowle of a gallon there were neither milke nor water nor ayre nor any other body whatsoeuer therefore vacuum can not haue partes Yet those who admitt it do putt it expressely for a space which doth essentially include partes And thus they putt two contradictories nothing and partes that is partes and no partes or something and nothing in the same proposition And this I conceiue to be absolutely vnauoydable For these reasons therefore I must entreate my readers fauour that he will allow me to touch vpon metaphysickes a litle more then I desire or intended but it shall be no otherwise then as is said of the dogges by the riuer Nilus side who being thirsty lappe hastily of the water onely to serue
theire necessity as they runne along the shore Thus then remembring how wee determined that Quantity is Diuisibility it followeth that if besides Quantity there be a substance or thing which is diuisible that thing if it be condistinguished from its Quantity or Diuisibility must of it selfe be indiuisible or to speake more properly it must be not diuisible Putt then such substance to be capable of the Quantity of the whole world or vniuerse and consequently you putt it of it selfe indifferent to all and to any part of Quantity for in it by reason of the negation of Diuisibility there is no variety of partes whereof one should be the subiect of one part of Quantity or another of another or that one should be a capacity of more another of lesse This then being so wee haue the ground of more or lesse proportion between substance and quantity for if the whole quantity of the vniuerse bee putt into it the proportion of Quantity to the capacity of that substance will bee greater then if but halfe that quantity were imbibed in the same substance And because proportion changeth on both sides by the single change of onely one side it followeth that in the latter the proportion of that substance to its Quantity is greater and that in the former it is lesse howbeit the substance in it selfe be indiuisible What wee haue said thus in abstract will sinke more easily into vs if we apply it to some particular bodies here among vs in which we see a difference of Rarity and Density as to ayre water gold or the like and examine if the effects that happen to them do follow out of this disproportion betweene substance and Quantity For example lett vs conceiue that all the Quantity of the world were in one vniforme substance then the whole vniuerse would be in one and the same degree of Rarity ad Density lett that degree be the degree of water it will then follow that in what part soeuer there happeneth to be a change from this degree that part will not haue that proportion of quantity to its substance which the quantity of the whole world had to the presupposed vniforme substance But if it happeneth to haue the degree of rarity which is in the ayre it will then haue more quantity in proportion to its substance then would be due vnto it according to the presupposed proportion of the quantity of the vniuerse to the foresaid vniforme substance which in this case is as it were the standard to try all other proportions by And contrariwise if it happeneth to haue the degree of Density which is found in Earth or in gold then it will haue lesse quantity in proportion to its substance then would be due vnto it according to the fore said proportion or common standard Now to proceede from hence with examining the effects which result out of this compounding of Quantity with substance we may first consider that the definitions which Aristotle hath giuen vs of Rarity and Density are the same wee driue att hee telleth vs that that body is rare whose quantity is more and its substance lesse that contrariwise dense where the substance is more and the quantity lesse Now if wee looke into the proprieties of the bodies wee haue named or of any others wee shall see them all follow cleerely out of these definitions For first that one is more diffused an other more compacted such diffusion and compaction seeme to be the very natures of Rarity and Density supposing them to be such as we haue defined them to be seeing that substance is more diffused by hauing more partes or by being in more partes and is more compacted by the contrary And then that rare bodies are more diuisible then dense ones you see is coincident into the same conceit with their diffusion and compaction And from hence againe it followeth that they are more easily diuided in great and likewise that they are by the force of naturall Agents diuisible into lesser partes for both these that is facility of being diuided and easye diuisibility into lesser partes are contained in being more diuisible or in more enioying the effect of quantity which is diuisibility From this againe followeth that in rare bodies there is lesse resistance to the motion of an other body through it then in dense ones and therefore a like force passeth more easily through the one then through the other Againe rare bodies are more penetratiue and actiue then dense ones because being by theire ouerproportion of quantity easily diuisible into small partes they can runne into euery litle pore and so incorporate themselues better into other bodies then more dense ones can Light bodies likewise must be rarer because most diuisible if other circumstances concurre equally Thus you see decyphered vnto your hand the first diuision of bodies flowing from Quantity as it is ordained to substance for the composition of a bodie for since the definition of a body is A thing which hath partes and quantity is that by which it hath partes and the first propriety of quantity is to be bigger or lesse and consequently the first differences of haueing partes are to haue bigger or lesse more or fewer what diuision of a body can be more simple more plaine or more immediate then to diuide it by its Quantity as making it to haue bigger or lesse more or fewer partes in proportion to its substance Neither can I iustly be blamed for touching thus on Metaphysickes to explicate the nature of these two kindes of bodies for Metaphysickes being the science aboue Physickes it belongeth vnto her to declare the principles of Physickes of which these wee haue now in hand are the very first steppe But much more if wee consider that the composition of quantity with substance is purely Metaphysicall wee must necessarily allow the inquiry into the nature of Rarity and Density to be wholy Metaphysicall seeing that the essence of Rarity and Density standeth in the proportion of quantity to substance if we beleeue Aristotle the greatest master that euer was of finding out definitions and notions and trust to the vncontroulable reasons we haue brought in the precedent discourse This explication of Rarity and Density by the composition of substance with quantity may peraduenture giue litle satisfaction vnto such as are not vsed to raise theire thoughts aboue Physicall and naturall speculations who are apt to conceiue there is no other composition or resolution but such as our senses shew vs in compounding and diuiding of bodies according to quantatiue partes Now this obligeth vs to shew that such a kind of composition and diuision as this must necessarily be allowed of euen in that course of doctrine which seemes most contrary to ours To which purpose lett vs suppose that the position of Democritus or of Epicurus is true to witt that the originall composition of all bodies is out of very litle ones of various figures all of them indiuisible not
this diuision of the Elements but because they and theire solutions are to be found in euery ordinary Philosopher and that they be not of any greate difficulty and that the handling them is too particular for the designe of this discourse and would make it too prolixe I referre the Reader to seeke them for his satisfaction it those authors that treate physickes professedly and haue deliuered a compleate body of Philosophy And I will end this Chapter with aduertising him least I should be misvnderstood that though my disquisition here hath pitched vpon the foure bodies of fire ayre water and earth yet it is not my intention to affirme that those which wee ordinarily call so and do fall dayly within our vse are such as I haue here expressed them or that these Philosophicall ones which arise purely out of the combination of the first qualities haue theire residence or consistence in great bulkes in any places of the world be they neuer fo remote as fire in the hollow of the moones orbe water in the bottome of the sea ayre aboue the cloudes and earth below the mines But these notions are onely to serue for certaine Idaeas of Elements by which the foure named bodies and the compoundes of them may be tryed and receiue theire doome of more or lesse pure and approaching to the nature from whence they haue theire denomination And yet I will not deny but that such perfect Elements may be found in some very litle quantities in mixed bodies and the greatest aboundance of them in these foure knowne bodies that we call in ordinary practise by the names of the pure ones for they are least compounded and approach most to the simplenesse of the Elements But to determine absolutely theire existence or not existence eyther in bulke or in litle partes dependeth of the manner of action among bodies which as yet we haue not meddled with THE FIFTH CHAPTER Of the Operations of the Elements in generall And of their Actiuities compared with one another HAVING by our former discourse inquired out what degrees and proportions of rarity and density compounded with grauity are necessary for the production of the Elements and first qualities whose combinations frame the Elements our next consideration in that orderly progresse we haue proposed vnto our selues in this treatise wherein our ayme is to follow successiuely the steppes which nature hath printed out vnto vs will be to examine the operations of the Elements by which they worke vpon one an other To which end lett vs propose to our selues a rare and a dense body encountring one an other by the impulse of some exterior agent In this case it is euident that since rarity implyeth a greater proportion of Quantity and quantity is nothing but diuisibility rare bodies must needes be more diuisible then dense ones and consequently when two such bodies are pressed one against an other the rare body not being able to resist diuision so strongly as the dense one is and being not permitted to retire backe by reason of the externe violence impelling it against the dense body it followeth that the partes of the rare body must be seuered to lett the dense one come betweene them and so the rare body becometh diuided and the dense body the diuider And by this we see that the notions of diuider and diuisible do immediately follow rare and dense bodies and do so much the more properly agree vnto them as they exceede in the qualities of Rarity and Density Likewise we are to obserue in our case that the dense or diuiding body must necessarily cutt and enter further and further into the rare or diuided body and so the sides of it be ioyned successiuely to new and new partes of the rare body that giueth way vnto it and forsake others it parteth from Now the rare body being in a determinate situation of the vniuerse which we call being in a place and is a necessary condition belonging to all particular bodies and the dense body coming to be within the rare body whereas formerly it was not so it followeth that it looseth the place it had and gaineth an other This effect is that which we call locall motion And thus we see by explicating the manner of this action that locall motion is nothing else but the change of that respect or relation which the body mooued hath to the rest of the vniuerse following out of Diuision and the name of locall motion formally signifyeth onely the mutation of a respect to other extrinsecall bodies subsequent to that diuision And this is so euident and agreeable to the notions that all mankinde who as we haue said is iudge and master of language naturally frameth of place as I wonder much why any will labour to giue other artificiall and intricate doctrine of this that in it selfe is so plaine and cleare What neede is there to introduce an imaginary space or with Ioannes Grammaticus a subsistent quantity that must runne through all the world and then entayle to euery body an ayery entity an vnconceiuable moode an vnintelligible Vbi that by an intrinsecall relation to such a part of the imaginary space must thereunto pinne and fasten the body it is in It must needes be a ruinous Philosophy that is grounded vpon such a contradiction as is the allotting of partes vnto that which the authors themselues vpon the matter acknowledge to be meerely nothing and vpon so weake a shift to deliuer them from the inconueniencies that in theire course of doctrine other circumstances bring them vnto as is the voluntary creating of new imaginary Entities in thinges without any ground in nature for them Learned men should expresse the aduantage and subtility of theire wittes by penetrating further into nature then the vulgar not by vexing and wresting it from its owne course They should refine and carry higher not contradict and destroy the notions of mankind in those thinges that it is the competent Iudge of as it vndoubtedly is of those primary notions which Aristotle hath ranked vnder ten heades which as we haue touched before euery body can conceiue in grosse and the worke of schollers is to explicate them in particular and not to make the vulgar beleeue they are mistaken in framing those apprehensions that nature taught them Out of that which hath been hitherto resolued it is manifest that place really and abstracting from the operation of the vnderstanding is nothing else but the inward superficies of a body that compasseth and immediately containeth an other Which ordinarily being of a rare body that doth not shew it selfe vnto vs namely the ayre is for the most part vnknowne by vs. But because nothing can make impression vpon our mind and cause vs to giue it a name otherwise then by being knowne therefore our vnderstanding to make a compleate notion must adde something else to this fleeting and vnremarkable superficies that may bring it vnto our acquaintance And for this end we may
consider further that as this superficies hath in it selfe so the body enclosed in it gaineth a certaine determinate respect unto the stable and immoouable bodies that enuiron it As for example we vnderstand such a tree to be in such a place by hauing such and such respects to such a hill neere it or to such a house that standeth by it or to such a riuer that runneth vnder it or to such an immoouable point of the heauen that from the sunnes rising in the aequinox is called east and such like To which purpose it importeth not whether these that we call immoouable bodies and pointes be truly so or do but seeme so to mankinde For man talking of thinges according to the notions he frameth of them in his minde speech being nothing else but an expression to an other man of the images he hath within himselfe and his notions being made according to the seeming of the thinges he must needes make the same notions whether the thinges be truly so in themselues or but seeme to be so when that seeming or appearance is alwayes constantly the same Now then when one body diuiding an other getteth a new immediate cloathing and consequently new respects to the stable and immoouable bodies or seeming such that enuiron it we do vary in our selues the notion we first had of that thing conceiuing it now accompanied with other circumstances and other respects then formerly it had Which notion we expresse by saying it hath changed its place and is now no longer where it was att the first And this change of place we call Locall motion to witt the departing of a body from that hollow superficies which inclosed it and its changing vnto an other whereby it gaineth new respects to those partes of the world that haue or in some sort may seeme to haue immobility and fixed stablenesse So as hence it is euident that the substance of locall motion consisteth in diuision and that the alteration of Locality followeth diuision in such sort as becoming like or vnlike of one wall to an other followeth the action whereby one of them becometh white And therefore in nature we are not to seeke for any entity or speciall cause of applying the mooued body to a place as place which is but a respect consequent to the effect of diuision but onely to consider what reall and physicall action vniteth it to that other body which is called its place and truly serueth for that effect And consequently they who thinke they haue discouered a notable subtility by bringing in an Entity to vnite a body to its place haue strained beyond theire strength and haue grasped but a shadow Which will appeare yet more euident if they but marke well how nothing is diuisible but what of it selfe abstracting from diuision is one For the nature of diuision is the making of many which implyeth that what is to be diuided must of necessity be not many before it be diuided Now quantity being the subiect of diuision it is euident that purely of it selfe and without any force or adioyned helpes it must needes be one wheresoeuer some outward agent doth not introduce multiplicity vpon it And whensoeuer other thinges worke vpon quantity as quantity it is not the nature and power of theire operation to produce vnity in it and make it one for it is already one but contrariwise the immediate necessary effect that floweth from them in this case is to make one quantity many according to the circumstances that accompany the diuider and that which is to be diuided And therefore although wee may seeke causes why some one thing sticketh faster together then some other yet to aske absolutely why a body sticketh together were preiudiciall to the nature of quantity whose essence is to haue partes sticking together or rather to haue such vnity as without it all diuisibility must be excluded Out of which discourse it followeth that in locall motion we are to looke only for a cause or power to diuide but not for any to vnite For the very nature of quantity vniteth any two partes that are indistant from one an other without needing any other cement to glew them together as we see the partes of water and all liquide substances do presently vnite themselues to other partes of like bodies when they meete with them and to solide bodies if they chance to be next vnto them And therefore it is vaine to trouble our heades with Vnions and imaginary Moodes to vnite a body to the place it is in when theire owne nature maketh them one as soone as they are immediate to each other And accordingly if when we see a boule mooue we would examine the causes of that motion we must consider the quantity of ayre or water it maketh to breake from the partes next vnto it to giue place vnto it selfe and not speculate vpon an intrinsecall relation from the body to a certaine part of the imaginary space they will haue to runne through all thinges And by ballancing that quantity of ayre or water which it diuideth we may arriue to make an estimate of what force the boule needeth to haue for its motion Thus hauing declared that the locality of motion is but an extrinsecall denomination and no reality in the thing mooued wee may now cast an eye vpon a vast consequence that may be deduced out of what wee haue hitherto said For if we consider the nature of a body that is that a body is a body by quantity and that the formall notion of quantity is nothing else but diuisibility and that the adaequate act of diuisibility is diuision it is euident there can be no other operation vpon quantity nor by consequence among bodies but must eyther be such diuision as we haue here explicated or what must necessarily follow out of such diuision And diuision as we haue euen now explicated being locall motion it is euident that all operations among bodies are either locall motion or such as follow out of locall motion Which conclusion howsoeuer vnexpected and may att the first hearing appeare a Paradoxe will neuerthelesse by the ensuing worke receiue such euidence as it can not be doubted of and that not onely by force of argumentation and by necessity of notions as is already deduced but also by experience and by declaration of particulars as they shall occurre But now to apply what we haue said to our proposed subiect it is obuious to euery man that seeing the diuider is the agent in diuision and in locall motion and that dense bodies are by theire nature diuiders the earth must in that regard be the most actiue among the Elements since it is the most dense of them all But this seemeth to be against the common iudgement of all the searchers of nature who vnanimously agree that fire is the most actiue Element As also it seemeth to impugne what we our selues haue determined when we said there were two
actiue qualities heate and cold whereof the first was in its greatest excesse in fire and the latter in water To reconcile these we are to consider that the action of cold in its greatest height is composed of two partes the one is a kind of pressing and the other is penetration which requireth applicability Of which two the former ariseth out of density but the latter out of moderation of density as I haue declared in the precedent Chapter Wherefore the former will exceede more in earth though the whole be more eminent in water For though considering onely the force of moouing which is a more simple and abstracted notion then the determination and particularisation of the Elements and is precedent to it therein earth hath a precedency ouer water yet taking the action as it is determined to be the action of a particular Element and as it concurreth to the composition or dissolution of mixed bodies in that consideration which is the chiefe worke of Elements and requireth an intime application of the Agents water hath the principality and excesse ouer earth As for fire it is more actiue then eyther of them as it will appeare clearely if we consider how when fire is applyed to fewell and the violence of blowing is added to its owne motion it incorporateth it selfe with the fewell and in a small time conuerteth a great part of it into its owne nature and shattereth the rest into smoake and ashes All which proceedeth from the exceeding smallnesse and drynesse of the partes of fire which being mooued with violence against the fewell and thronging in multitudes vpon it they easily pierce the porous substance of it like so many extreme sharpe needles And that the force of fire is as greate and greater then of earth we may gather out of our former discourse where hauing resolued that density is the vertue by which a body is moued and doth cutt the medium and againe considering that celerity of motion is a kind of density as we shall by and by declare it is euident that since blowing must of necessity presse violently and with a rapide motion the partes of fire against the fewell and so condense them exceedingly there both by theire celerity and by bringing very many partes together there it must needes also giue them actiuity and vertue to pierce the body they are beaten against Now that celerity is a kind of density will appeare by comparing theire natures For if we consider that a dense body may be dilated so as to possesse and fill the place of a rare body that exceeded it in bignesse and by that dilatation may be diuided into as many and as greate partes as the rare body was diuisible into wee may conceiue that the substance of those partes was by a secret power of nature foulded vp in that litle extension in which it was before And euen so if we reflect vpon two riuers of equall channels and depths whereof the one goeth swifter then the other and determine a certaine length of each channell and a common measure of time wee shall see that in the same measure of time there passeth a greater bulke of water in the designed part of the channell of the swifter streame then in the designed part of the slower though those partes be equall Neither doth it import that in velocity we take a part of time whereas in density it seemeth that an instant is sufficient and consequently there would be no proportion betweene them For knowing Philosophers do all agree that there are no instants in time and that the apprehension of them proceedeth meerely from the manner of our vnderstanding And as for partes in time there can not be assumed any so litle in which the comparison is not true and so in this regard it is absolutely good And if the Reader haue difficulty att the disparity of the thinges which are pressed together in density and in celerity for that in density there is onely substance and in celerity there is also quantity crowded vp with the substance he will soone receiue satisfaction when he shall consider that this disparity is to the aduantage of what we say and maketh the nature of density more perfect in celerity and consequently more powerfull in fire then in earth Besides if there were no disparity it would not be a distinct species of density but the very same By what we haue spoken aboue it appeareth how fire getteth into fewell now lett vs consider how it cometh out for the actiuity of that fierce body will not lett it lye still and rest as long as it hath so many enemies round about it to rouse it vp Wee see then that as soone as it hath incorporated it selfe with the fewell and is growne master of it by introducing into it so many of its owne partes like so many soldiers into an enemies towne they breake out againe on euery side with as much violence as they came in For by reason of the former resistance of the fewell theire continuall streaming of new partes vpon it and one ouertaking an other there where theire iourney was stopped all which is encreased by the blowing doth so exceedingly condense them into a narrower roome then theire nature affecteth that as soone as they gett liberty and grow masters of the fewel which att the first was theire prison they enlarge theire place and consequently come out and flye abroad euer ayming right forwardes from the point where they begin theire iourney for the violence wherewith they seeke to extend themselues into a larger roome when they haue liberty to do so will admitt no motion but the shortest which is by a straight line So that if in our fantasie we frame an image of a round body all of fire wee must withall presently conceiue that the flame proceeding from it would diffuse it selfe euery way indifferently in straight lines in such sort that the source seruing for the center there would be round about it an huge sphere of fire and of light vnlesse some accidentall and externe cause should determine its motion more to one part then to an other Which compasse because it is round and hath the figure of a sphere is by Philosophers termed the sphere of its actiuity So that it is euident that the most simple and primary motion of fire is a fluxe in a direct line from the center of it to its circumference taking the fewell for its center as also that when it is beaten against a harder body it may be able to destroy it although that body be in its owne nature more dense then fire For the body against which it presseth eyther hath pores or hath none as the Elements haue none if it hath pores then the fire by reason of the violent motion of the impellent driueth out the litle bodies which fill vp those pores and succeeding in theire roome and being multiplyed there causeth those effects which in our discourse of the
which is in the flame of a litle candle would appeare vnto vs if it were dilated and stretched out to the vtmost extent that excesse of rarity can bring it vnto Suppose that so much flame as would fill a cone of two inches height and halfe an inch diameter should suffer so great an expansion as to replenish with his light body a large chamber and then what can we imagine it would seeme to be How would the continuall driuing it into a thinner substance as it streameth in a perpetuall flood from the flame seeme to play vpon the paper And then iudge whether it be likely to be a body or no when our discourse suggesteth vnto vs that if it be a body those very appearances must follow which our eyes giue vs euidence are so in effect If gold beaten into so ayery a thinnenesse as we see guilders vse doth remaine still gold notwithstanding the wonderfull expansion of it why shall we not allow that fire dilated to his vtmost periode shall still remaine fire though extremely rarifyed beyond what is was We know that fire is the rarest and the subtilest substance that nature hath made among bodies and we know likewise that it is engendered by the destroying and feeding vpon some other more grosse body lett vs then calculate when the oyle or tallow or waxe of a candle or the bulke of a fagott or billet is dilated and rarifyed to the degree of fire how vast a place must it take vp To this lett vs adde what Aristotle teacheth vs that fire is not like a standing poole which continueth full with the same water and as it hath no wast so hath it no supply but it is a fluent and brookelike current Which also we may learne out of the perpetuall nutriment it requireth for a new part of fewell being conuerted into a new part of fire as we may obserue in the litle atomes of oyle or melted waxe that continually ascend apace vp the weeke of a burning candle or lampe of necessity the former must be gone to make roome for the latter and so a new part of the riuer is continually flowing Now then this perpetuall fluxe of fire being made of a grosse body that so rarifyed will take vp such a vast roome if it dye not att the instant of its birth but haue some time to subsist be it neuer so short it must needes runne some distance from the fountaine whence it springeth Which if it do you neede not wonder that there should be so great an extent of fire as is requisite to fill all that space which light replenisheth nor that it should be still supplyed with new as fast as the cold of the ayre killeth it for considering that flame is a much grosser substance then pure fire by reason of the mixture with it of that viscous oyly matter which being drawne out of the wood and candle serueth for fewell to the fire and is by litle and litle conuerted into it and with all reflecting vpon the nature and motion of fire which is to dilate it selfe extremely and to fly all about from the center to the circumference you can not choose but conceiue that the pure fire struggling to breake away from the oyly fewell which is still turning into new fire doth att length free his winges from that birdlime and then flyeth abroad with extreme swiftnesse and swelleth and dilateth it selfe to a huge bulke now that it hath gotten liberty and so filleth a vast roome but remaineth still fire till it dye which it no sooner doth but it is still supplyed with new streames of it that are continually strained and as it were squeesed out of the thicke flame which did imprison it and kept it within it till growing fuller of fire then it could containe by reason of the continuall attenuating the oyly partes of it and conuerting them into fire it giueth liberty vnto those partes of fire that are next the superficies to fly whither theire nature will carry them And thus discourse would informe a blind man after he hath well reflected on the nature of fire how it must needes fill a mighty extent of place though it haue but a narrow begining att the spring-head of it and that there by reason of the condensation of it and mixture with a grosser body it must needes burne other bodies but that when it is freed from such mixture and suffereth an extreme expansion it can not haue force to burne but may haue meanes to expresse it selfe to be there present by some operation of it vpon some body that is refined and subtilised enough to perceiue it And this operation a seeing man will tell you is done vpon his eyes whose fittenesse to receiue impression from so subtile an Agent Anatomistes will teach you And I remember how a blind schoolemaster that I kept in my house to teach my children who had extreme subtile spirits and a great tendernesse through his whole body and mett with few distractions to hinder him from obseruing any impression neuer so nicely made vpon him vsed often to tell me that he felt it very perceptibly in seuerall partes of his body but especially in his braine But to settle vs more firmely in the persuasion of light his being a body and consequently fire lett vs consider that the properties of a body are perpetually incident to light looke what rules a ball will keepe in its reboundes the same doth light in its reflexions and the same demonstration doth alike conuince the one and the other Besides light is broken like a body as when it is snapped in pieces by a tougher body It is gathered together into a litle roome by looking or burning glasses as water is by ordering the gutters of a house so as to bring into one cisterne all that raineth dispersedly vpon the whole roofe It is seuered and dispersed by other glasses and is to be wrought vpon and cast hither and thither att pleasure all by the rule of other bodies And what is done in light the same will likewise be done in heate in cold in wind and in sound And the very same instruments that are made for light will worke their effects in all these others if they be duly managed So that certainely were it not for the authority of Aristotle and of his learned followers that presseth vs on the one side and for the seemingnesse of those reasons we haue already mentioned which persuadeth vs on the other side our very eyes would carry vs by streame into this consent that light is no other thing but the nature and substance of fire spred farre and wide and freed from the mixture of all other grosse bodies Which will appeare yet more euident in the solutions of the oppositions we haue brought against our owne opinion for in them there will occurre other arguments of no lesse importance to prooue this verity then these we haue already proposed THE SEVENTH CHAPTER Two
cleared the third obiection as I conceiue lett vs goe on to the fourth which requireth that we satisfy their inquisition who aske what becometh of that vast body of shining light if it be a body that filleth all the distance betweene heauen and earth and vanisheth in a moment as soone as a cloude or the moone interpâ—seth it selfe betweene the sunne and vs or that the sunne quitteth our hemisphere No signe att all remaineth of it after the extinction of it as doth of all other substances whose destruction is the birth of some new thing Whither then is it flowne We may be persuaded that a mist is a corporeall substance because it turneth to droppes of water vpon the twigges that it enuironeth and so we might beleeue light to be fire if after the burning of it out we found any ashes remaining but experience assureth vs that after it is extinguished it leaueth not the least vestigium behind it of hauing beene there Now before we answere this obiection we will entreate our aduersary to call to minde how we haue in our solution of the former declared and proued that the light which for example shineth from à candle is no more then the flame is from whence it springeth the one being condensed and the other dilated and that the flame is in a perpetuall fluxe of consumption about the circumference and of restauration att the center where it sucketh in the fewell and then we will enquire of him what becometh of that body of flame which so continually dyeth and is renewed and leaueth no remainder behind it as well as he doth of vs what becometh of our body of light which in like manner is alwayes dying and alwayes springing fresh And when he hath well considered it he will find that one answere will serue for both Which is that as the fire streameth out from the fountaine of it and groweth more subtile by its dilatation it sinketh the more easily into those bodies it meeteth withall the first of which and that enuironeth it round about is ayre With ayre then it mingleth and incorporateth it selfe and by consequence with the other litle bodies that are mingled with the ayre and in them it receiueth the changes which nature worketh by which it may be turned into the other Elements if there be occasion or be still conserued in bodies that require heate Vpon this occasion I remember a rare experiment that a noble man of much sincerity and a singular frind of mine told me he had seene which was that by meanes of glasses made in a very particular manner and artificially placed one by an other he had seene the sunne beames gathered together and precipitated downe into a brownish or purplish red pouder There could be no fallacy in this operation for nothing whatsoeuer was in the glasses when they were placed and disposed for this intent and it must be in the hoat time of the yeare else the effect would not follow And of this Magistery he could gather some dayes neere two ounces in a day And it was of a strange volatile nature and would pierce and imprint his spirituall quality into gold it selfe the heauiest and most fixed body we conuerse withall in a very short time If this be plainely so without any mistaking then mens eyes and handes may tell them what becometh of light when it dyeth if a great deale of it were swept together But from what cause soeuer this experience had its effect our reason may be satisfyed with what we haue said aboue for I confesse for my part I beleeue the appearing body might be some thing that came along with the sunne beames and was gathered by them but not their pure substance Some peraduenture will obiect those lampes which both auncient and moderne writers haue reported to haue been found in tombes and vrnes long time before closed vp from mens repayre vnto them to supply them with new fewell and therefore they beleeue such fires to feede vpon nothing and consequently to be inconsumptible and perpetuall Which if they be then our doctrine that will haue light to be nothing but the body of fire perpetually flowing from its center and perpetually dying can not be sound for in time such fires would necessarily spend themselues in light although light be so subtile a substance that an exceeding litle quantity of fewell may be dilated into a vast quantity of light Yet still there would be some consumption which how imperceptible soeuer in a short time yet after a multitude of reuolutions of yeares it must needes discouer it selfe To this I answere that for the most part the wittnesses who testify originally the stories of these lights are such as a rationall man can not expect from them that exactnesse or nicety of obseruation which is requisite for our purpose for they are vsually grosse labouring people who as they digge the ground for other intentions do stumble vpon these lampes by chance before they are aware and for the most part they breake them in the finding and they imagine they see a glimpse of light which vanisheth before they can in a manner take notice of it and is peraduanture but the glistering of the broken glasse or glased pott which reflecteth the outward light as soone as by rummaging in the ground and discouering the glasse the light striketh vpon it in such manner as some times a diamond by a certaine encountring of light in a dusky place may in the first twincling of the motion seeme to sparkle like fire and afterwardes when they shew their broken lampe and tell their tale to some man of a pitch of witt aboue them who is curious to informe himselfe of all the circumstances that may concerne such lights they straine their memory to answere him satisfactorily vnto all his demandes and thus for his sake they persuade themselues to remember what they neuer saw And he againe on his side is willing to helpe out the story a litle And so after awhile a very formall and particular relation is made of it As happeneth in like sort in reporting of all strange and vnusuall thinges which euen those that in their nature abhorre from lying are naturally apt to straine a litle and fashion vp in a handsome mould and almost to persuade themselues they saw more then they did so innate it is vnto euery man to desire the hauing of some preeminence beyond his neighbours be it but in pretending to haue seene some thing which they haue not Therefore before I engage my selfe in giuing any particular answere to this obiection of pretended inconsumptible lights I would gladly see the effect certainely auerred and vndoubtedly proued for the testimonies which Fortunius Licetus produceth who hath been very diligent in gathering them and very subtile in discoursing vpon them and is the exactest author that hath written vpon this subiect do not seeme vnto mee to make that certainty which is required for the establishing of a
ground in Philosophy Neuerthelesse if there be any certaine experience in this particular I should thinke that there might be some art by circulation of fewell to maintaine the same light for a great company of yeares But I should not easily be persuaded that eyther flame or light could be made without any manner of consuming the body which serueth them for fewell THE EIGHTH CHAPTER An answere to three other obiections formerly proposed against light being a substance HAVING thus defended our selues from their obiections who would not allow light to be fire and hauing satisfyed their inquisition who would know what becometh of it when it dyeth if it be a body we will now apply our selues to answere their difficulties who will not lett it passe for a body because it is in the same place with an other body as when the sunne beames enlighten all the ayre and when the seuerall lights of two distinct candles are both of them euery where in the same roome Which is the substance of the second maine obiection This of the iustling of the ayre is easily answered thus that the ayre being a very diuisible body doth without resistance yield as much place as is requisite for light And that light though our eyes iudge it diffused euery where yet is not truly in euery point or atome of ayre but to make vs see it euery where it sufficeth that it be in euery part of the ayre which is as bigge as the blacke or sight of our eye so that we can not sett our eye in any position where it receiueth not impressions of light In the same manner as perfumes which though they be so grosse bodies that they may be sensibly wasted by the wind neuerthelesse they do so fill the ayre that we can putt our nose in no part of the roome where a perfume is burned but we shall smell it And the like is of mistes as also of the sprouted water to make a perfume which we mentioned aboue But because pure discourses in such small thriddes as these do but weakly bind such readers as are not accustomed vnto them and that I woudl if it be possible render this treatise intelligible to euery rationall man how euer litle versed in scholastike learning among whom I expect it will haue a fairer passage then among those that are already deepely imbued with other principles lett vs try if we can herein informe our selues by our sense and bring our eyes for wittnesse of what we say He then that is desirous to satisfy himselfe in this particular may putt himselfe in a darke roome through which the sunne sendeth his beames by a cranie or litle hole in the wall and he will discouer a multitude of litle atomes flying about in that litle streame of light which his eye can not discerne when he is enuironed on all sides with a full light Then lett him examine whether or no there be light in the middest of those litle bodies and his owne reason will easily tell him that if those bodies were as perspicuous as the ayre they would not reflect vpon our eyes the beames by which wee see them And therefore he will boldly conclude that att the least such partes of them as reflect light vnto vs do not admitt it nor lett it sinke into them Then let him consider the multitude of them and the litle distance betwixt one an other and how neuerthelesse they hinder not our sight but we haue it free to discouer all obiects beyond them in what position soeuer we place our eye and when he thus perceiueth that these opacous bodies which are euery where do not hinder the eye from iudging light to haue an equall plenary diffusion through the whole place that it irradiateth he can haue no difficulty to allow ayre that is diaphanous and more subtile farre then they and consequently diuisible into lesser atomes and hauing lesser pores giueth lesse scope vnto our eyes to misse light then they do to be euery where mingled with light though we see nothing but light and can not discerne any breach or diuision of it Especially when he shall adde vnto this consideration that the subtile body which thus filleth the ayre is the most visible thing in the world and that whereby all other thinges are seene and that the ayre which it mingleth it selfe with is not at all visible by reason of the extreme diaphaneity of it and easy reception of the light into euery pore of it without any resistance or reflection and that such is the nature of light as it easily drowneth an obscure body if it be not too bigge and not onely such but euen other light bodies for so we know as well the fixed starrs as the planets are concealed from our sight by neerenesse to the sunne neither the lightnesse of the one nor the bignesse of the other preuailing against the darkening of an exuperant light and we haue dayly experience of the same in very pure chrystall glasses and in very cleare water which though we can not discerne by our sight if they be in certaine positions neuerthelesse by experience we find that they reflect much light and consequently haue great store of opacous partes and then he can not choose but conclude that it is impossible but light should appeare as it doth to be euery where and to be one continued thing though his discourse withall assure him it is euery where mingled with ayre And this very answere I thinke will draw with it by consequence the solution of the other part of the same obiection which is of many lights ioyning in the same place and the same is likewise concerning the images of colours euery where crossing one an other without hinderance But to raise this contemplation a straine higher lett vs consider how light being the most rare of all knowne bodies is of its owne nature by reason of the diuisibility that followeth rarity diuisible into lesser partes then any other and particularly then flame which being mixed with smoake and other corpulency falleth very short of light And this to the proportion in which it is more rare then the body it is compared vnto Now a great Mathematician hauing deuised how to measure the rarefaction of gunnepowder into flame found the diameter to times encreased and so concluded that the body of the flame was in proportion to the body of the gunnepowder it was made of as 125000 is to one Wherefore by the immediately proceeding consequence we find that 125000 partes of flame may be couched in the roome of one least part of gunnepowder and peraduenture many more considering how porous a body gunnepowder is Which being admitted it is euident that although light were as grosse as the flame of gunnepowder and gunnepowder were as solide as gold yet there might passe 125000 rayes of light in the space wherein one least part of gunnepowder might be contained which space would be absolutely inuisible vnto vs
and be contained many times in the bignesse of the sight of a mans eye Out of which we may gather what an infinity of obiects may seeme vnto us to crosse themselues in the same indiuisible place and yet may haue roome sufficient for euery one to passe his way without hindering his fellow Wherefore seeing that one single light could not send rayes enough to fill euery litle space of ayre that is capable of light and the lesse the further it is from the flame it is obuious enough to conceiue how in the space where the ayre is there is capacity for the rayes of many candles Which being well summed vp will take away the great admiration how the beames of light though they be corporeall can in such great multitudes without hindering one an other enter into bodies and come to our eye and will shew that it is the narrownesse of our capacities and not the defect of nature which maketh these difficulties seeme so great for she hath sufficiently prouided for all these subtile operations of fire as also for the entrance of it into glasse and into all other solide bodies that are diaphanous vpon which was grounded the last instance the second obiection pressed for all such bodies being constituted by the operation of fire which is alwayes in motion there must needes be wayes left for it both to enter in and to euaporate out And this is most euident in glasse which being wrought by an extreme violent fire and swelling with it as water and other thinges do by the mixture of fire must necessarily haue great store of fire in it selfe whiles it is boyling as we see by its being red hoat And hence it is that the workemen are forced to lett it coole by degrees in such relentinges of fire as they call their nealing heates least it should shiuer in pieces by a violent succeeding of ayre in the roome of the fire for that being of greater partes then the fire would straine the pores of the glasse too soddainly and breake it all in pieces to gett ingression whereas in those nealing heates the ayre being rarer lesser partes of it succeede to the fire and leisurely stretch the pores without hurt And therefore we neede not wonder that light passeth so easily through glasse and much lesse that it getteth through other bodies seeing the experience of Alchymistes doth assure vs that it is hard to find any other body so impenetrable as glasse But now to come to the answere of the first and in appearance most powerfull obiection against the corporeity of light which vrgeth that his motion is performed in an instant and therefore can not belong to what is materiall and clothed with quantity Wee will endeauour to shew how vnable the sense is to iudge of sundry sortes of motions of Bodies and how grossely it is mistaken in them And then when it shall appeare that the motion of light must necessarily be harder to be obserued then those others I conceiue all that is raised against our opinion by so incompetent a iudge will fall flatt to the ground First then lett mee putt the reader in minde how if euer he marked children when they play with firestickes they mooue and whirle them round so fast that the motion will cosen their eyes and represent an entire circle of fire vnto them and were it somewhat distant in a darke night that one played so with a lighted torch it would appeare a constant wheele of fire without any discerning of motion in it And then lett him consider how slow a motion that is in respect of what it is possible a body may participate of and he may safely conclude that it is no wonder though the motion of light be not descryed and that indeede no argument can be made from thence to prooue that light is not a body But lett vs examine this consideration a litle further and compare it to the motion of the earth or heauens lett the appearing circle of the fire be some three foote diameter and the time of one entire circulation of it be the sixtieth part of a minute of which minutes there are 60. in an houre so that in a whole day there will be but 86400. of these partes of time Now the diameter of the wheele of fire being but of three foote the whole quantity of space that it mooueth in that atome of time will be att the most 10. foote which is three paces and a foote of which partes there are neere eleuen millions in the compasse of the earth so that if the earth be mooued round in 24. houres it must go neere 130. times as fast as the boyes sticke doth which by its swift motion deceiueth our eye But if we allow the sunne the moone and the fixed starrs to moue how extreme swift must their flight be and how imperceptible would their motion be in such a compasse as our sight would reach vnto And this being certaine that whether the earth or they do moue the appearances to vs are the same it is euident that as now they can not be perceiued to moue as peraduenture they do not so it would be the very same in shew to vs although they did moue If the sunne were neere vs and galloped att that rate surely we could not distinguish betweene the beginning and ending of his race but there would appeare one permanent line of light from East to West without any motion att all as the torch seemeth to make with so much a slower motion one permanent immooueable wheele of fire But contrary to this effect we see that the sunne and starrs by onely being remooued further from our eyes do cosen our sight so grossely that we can not discerne them to be mooued att all One would imagine that so rapide and swift a motion should be perceiued in some sort or other which whether it be in the earth or in them is all one to this purpose Eyther we should see them change their places whiles we looke vpon them as arrowes and birdes do when they fly in the ayre or else they should make a streame of light bigger then themselues as the torch doth But none of all this happeneth lett vs gaze vpon them so long and so attentiuely that our eyes be dazeled with looking and all that while they seeme to stand immooueable and our eyes can giue vs no account of their iourney till it be ended They discerne it not whiles it is in doing so that if we consult with no better cownsailour then them we may wonder to see that body at night setting in the West which in the morning we beheld rising in the East But that which seemeth to be yett more strange is that these bodies mooue crosse vs and neuerthelesse are not perceiued to haue any motion att all Consider then how much easier it is for a thing that mooueth towardes vs to be with vs before we are aware A nimble fencer will put in
directed and impelled by extrinsecall AgeÌ„ts lett vs suppose that a body were placed att liberty in the opeÌ„ ayre And then casting whether it would be mooued from the place we suppose it in and which way it would be mooued we shall find that it must of necessity happen that it shall descend and fall downe till it meete with some other grosse body to stay and support it For although of it selfe it would mooue no way yet if we find that any other body striketh efficaciously enough vpon it we can not doubt but that it will mooue that way which the striking body impelleth it Now it is strucken vpon on both sides aboue and below by the ascending and the descending atomes the rare ones striking vpon the bottome of it and driuing it vpwardes and the denser ones pressing vpon the toppe of it and bearing it downewardes But if you compare the impressions that the denser atomes make with those that proceede from the rare ones it is euident that the dense ones must be the more powerfull and therefore will assuredly determine the motion of the body in the ayre that way they goe which is downewardes Nor neede we feare least the litlenesse of the agents or the feeblenesse of their stroakes should not be sufficient to worke this effect since there is no resistance in the body it selfe and the ayre is continually cutt in pieces by the sunne beames and by the motions of litle bodies so that the adhesion vnto ayre of the body to be mooued will be no hinderance to this motion especially considering the perpetuall new percussions and the multitude of them and how no force is so litle but that with time and multiplication it will ouercome any resistance But if any man desireth to looke vpon as it were att one view the whole chaine of this doctrine of grauity lett him turne the first cast of his eyes vpon what we haue said of fire when we explicated the nature of it To witt that it beginneth from a litle source and by extreme multiplication and rarefaction it extendeth it selfe into a great sphere And then he will perceiue the reason why light is darted from the body of the sunne with that incredible celerity wherewith its beames flye to visite the remotest partes of the world and how of necessity it giueth motion to all circumstant bodies since it is violently thrust forward by so extreme a rarefaction and the further it goeth is still the more rarifyed and dilated Next lett him reflect how infinitely the quickenesse of lights motion doth preuent the motion of a moist body such an one as ayre is and then he will plainely see that the first motion which light is able to giue vnto the ayre must needes be a swelling of that moist element perpendicularly round about the earth for the ray descendent and the ray reflectent flying with so great a speede that the ayre betweene them can not take a formall plye any way before the beames of light be on both sides of it it followeth that according to the nature of humide thinges it must first onely swell for that is the beginning of motion in them when heate entereth into them and worketh vpon them And thus he may confidently resolue himselfe that the first motion which light causeth in the ayre will be a swelling of it betweene the two rayes towardes the middle of them That is perpendicularly from the surface of the earth And out of this he will likewise plainely see that if there be any other litle dense bodies floating in the ayre they must likewise mount a litle through this swelling and rising of the ayre But that mounting will be no more then the immediate partes of the ayre themselues do moue Because this motion is not by way of impulse or stroake that the ayre giueth those denser bodies but by way of containing them in it and carrying them with it â—o that it giueth them no more celerity then to make them go with it selfe and as partes of it selfe Then lett him consider that light or fire by much beating vpon the earth diuideth some litle partes of it from others whereof if any do become so small and tractable as not to exceede the strength which the rayes haue to manage them the returning rayes will att their going backe carry away with them or driue before them such litle atomes as they haue made or meete with and so fill the ayre with litle bodies cutt out of the earth After this lett him consider that when light carrieth vp an atome with it the light and the atome do sticke together and do make one ascending body in such sort as when an empty dish lyeth vpon the water the ayre in the dish maketh one descendent body together with the dish it selfe so that the density of the whole body of ayre and dish which in this case are but as one body is to be esteemed according to the density of the two partes one of them being allayed by the other as if the whole were throughout of such a proportion of density as would arise out of the composition and kneading together the seuerall densities of those two partes Now then when these litle compounded bodies of light and earth are carried vp to a determinate height the partes of fire or light do by litle and litle breake away from them and thereby the bulke of the part which is left becometh of a different degree of density quantity for quantity from the bulke of the entire atome when light was part of it and consequently it is denser then it was Besides lett him consider that when these bodies ascend they do goe from a narrow roome to a large one that is from the centerwardes to the circumference but when they come downe againe they goe from a larger part to a narrower Whence it followeth that as they descend they draw closer and closer together and by consequence are subiect to meete and to fall in one with an other and thereby to encrease their bulke and to become more powerfull in density not onely by the losse of their fire but also by the encrease of their quantity And so it is euident that they are denser coming downe then going vp Lastly lett him consider that those atomes which went vp first and are parted from their volatile companions of fire or light must begin to come downe apace when other new atomes which still haue their light incorporated with them do ascend to where they are and do goe beyond them by reason of their greater leuity And as the latter atomes come vp with a violence and a great celerity so must the first goe downe with a smart impulse and by consequence being more dense then the ayre in which they are carryed must of necessity cutt their way through that liquide and rare medium and goe the next way to supply the defect and roome of the atomes which ascend that is perpendicularly to the earth
and giue the like motion to any body they find in their way if it be susceptible of such a motion which it is euident that all bodies are vnlesse they be strucken by some contrary impulse For since that a bodies being in a place is nothing else but the continuity of its outside to the inside of the body that containeth it and is its place it can haue no other repugnance to locall motion which is nothing else but a successiue changing of place besides this continuity Now the nature of density being the power of diuiding and euery least power hauing some force and efficacy as we haue shewed aboue it followeth that the stroake of euery atome eyther descending or ascending will worke some thing vpon any body though neuer so bigge it chanceth to encounter with and strike vpon in its way vnlesse there be as strong an impulse the contrary way to oppose it But it being determined that the descending atomes are denser then those that ascend it followeth that the descending ones will preuayle And consequently all dense bodies must necessarily tend downewardes to the center which is to be Heauy if some other more dense body do not hinder them Out of this discourse we may conclude that there is no such thing among bodies as positiue grauity or leuity but that their course vpwardes or downewardes happeneth vnto them by the order of nature which by outward causes giueth them an impulse one of these wayes without which they would rest quietly wheresoeuer they are as being of themselues indifferent to any motion But because our wordes expresse our notions and they are framed according to what appeareth vnto vs when we obserue any body to descend constantly towardes our earth we call it heauy and if it mooue contrarywise we call it light But we must take heed of considering such grauity and leuity as if they were Entities that worke such effects since vpon examination it appeareth that these wordes are but short expressions of the effects themselues the causes whereof the vulgar of mankinde who impose names to thinges do not consider but leaue that worke vnto Philosophers to examine whiles they onely obserue what they see done and agree vpon wordes to expresse that Which wordes neither will in all circumstances alwayes agree to the same thing for as corke doth descend in ayre and ascend in water so also will any other body descend if it lighteth among others more rare then it selfe and will ascend if it lighteth among bodies that are more dense then it And we terme bodies light and heauy onely according to the course which we vsually see them take Now proceeding further on and considering how there are various degrees of density or grauity it were irrationall to conceiue that all bodies should descend att the same rate and keepe equall pace with one an other in their iourney downewardes For as two knifes whereof one hath a keener edge then the other being pressed with equall strength into like yielding matter the sharper will cutt deeper then the other so if of two bodies one be more dense then the other that which is so will cutt the ayre more powerfully and will descend faster then the other for in this case density may be compared to the knifes edge since in it consisteth the power of diuiding as we haue heretofore determined And therefore the pressing them downewardes by the descending atomes being equall in both or peraduenture greater in the more dense body as anone we shall haue occasion to touch and there being no other cause to determine them that way the effect of diuision must be the greater where the diuider is the more powerfull Which the more dense body is and therefore cutteth more strongly through the resistance of the ayre and consequently passeth more swiftly that way it is determined to mooue I do not meane that the velocities of their descent shall be in the same proportion to one an other as their densities are for besides their density those other considerations which we haue discoursed of aboue when we examined the causes of velocity in motion must likewise be ballanced And out of the comparison of all them not out of the consideration of any one alone resulteth the differences of their velocities and that neither but in as much as concerneth the consideration of the mooueables for to make the calculation exact the medium must likewise be considered as by and by we shall declare for since the motion dependeth of all them together although there should be difference betweene the mooueables in regard of one onely and that the rest were equall yet the proportion of the difference of their motions must not follow the proportion of their difference in that one regard because their difference considered single in that regard will haue one proportion and with the addition of the other considerations though alike in both to their difference in this they will haue an other As for example reckon the density of one mooueable to be double the density of an other mooueable so that in that regard it hath two degrees of power to descend whereas the other hath but one suppose then the other causes of their descent to be alike in both and reckon them all three and then ioyne these three to the one which is caused by the density in one of the mooueables as likewise to the two which is caused by the density in the other mooueable and you will find that thus altogether their difference of power to descend is no longer in a double proportion as it would be if nothing but their density were considered but is in the proportion of fiue to foure But after we haue considered all that concerneth the mooueables we are then to cast an eye vpon the medium they are to mooue in and we shall find the addition of that to decrease the proportion of their difference exceedingly more according to the cessibility of the medium Which if it be ayre the great disproportion of its weight to the weight of those bodies which men vse to take in making experiences of their descent in that yielding medium will cause their difference of velocity in descending to be hardly perceptible Euen as the difference of a sharpe or dull knife which is easily perceiued in cutting of flesh or bread is not to be distinguished in diuiding of water or oyle And likewise in weights a pound and a scruple will beare downe a dramme in no sensible proportion of velocity more then a pound alone would do and yet putt a pound in that scale instead of the dramme and then the difference of the scruple will be very notable So then those bodies whose difference of descending in water is very sensible because of the greater proportion of weight in water to the bodies that descend in it will yield no sensible difference of velocity when they descend in ayre by reason of the great disproportion of weight betweene
ayre and the bodies that descend in it The reason of this will clearely shew it selfe in abstracted proportions Thus suppose ayre to haue one degree of density and water to haue 400 then lett the mooueable A haue 410 degrees of density and the mooueable B haue 500. Now compare their motion to one an other in the seuerall mediums of ayre and water The exuperance of the density of A to water is 10 degrees but the exuperace of B vnto the same water is 100 degrees so that B must mooue in water swifter then A in the proportion of 100 to tenne that is of 10 to one Then lett vs compre the exuperance of the two mooueables ouer ayre A is 409 times more dense then ayre but B is 499 times more dense then it By which account the motion of B must be in that medium swifter then the motion of A in the proportion of 499 to 409 that is about 50 to 41 which to auoyde fractions we may account as 10 to 8. But in water they exceede one an other as 10 to one so that their difference of velocity must be scarce perceptible in ayre in respect of what it is in water Out of all which discourse I onely inferre in common that a greater velocity in motion will follow the greater density of the mooueable without determining here their proportions which I leaue vnto them who make that examination their taske for thus much serueth my present turne wherein I take a suruay of nature but in grosse And my chiefe drift in this particular is onely to open the way for the discouering how bodies that of themselues haue no propension vnto any determinate place do neuerthelesse mooue constantly and perpetually one way the dense ones descending and the rare ones ascending not by any intrinsecall quality that worketh vpon them but by the oeconomy of nature that hath sett on foote due and plaine causes to produce knowne effects Here we must craue patience of the great soule of Galileo whose admirable learning all posterity must reuerence whiles we reprehend in him that which we can not terme lesse then absurd and yet he not onely mainetaineth it in seuerall places but also professeth Dial. P o de motu pag. 8 to make it more cleare then day His position is that more or lesse grauity contributeth nothing att all to the faster or slower descending of a naturall body but that all the effect it giueth vnto a body is to make it descend or not descend in such a medium Which is against the first and most knowne principle that is in bodies to witt that more doth more and lesse doth lesse for he alloweth that grauity causeth a body to descend and yet will not allow that more grauity causeth it to descend more I wonder that he neuer marked how in a paire of scales a superproportion of ouerweight in one ballance lifted vp the other faster then a lesse proportion of ouerweight would do Or that more weight hanged to a iacke made the spitt turne faster or to the lines of a clocke made it goe faster and the like But his argument whereby he endeauoureth to prooue his position is yet more wonderfull for finding in pendants vnequall in grauity that the lighter went in the same time almost as fast as the heauyer he gathereth from thence that the different weights haue each of them the same celerity and that it is the opposition of the ayre which maketh the lighter body not reach so farre at each vndulation as the heauyer doth For reply wherevnto first we must aske him whether experience or reason taught him that the slower going of the lighter pendant proceeded onely from the medium and not from want of grauity And when he shall haue answered as he needes must that experience doth not shew this then we must importune him for a good reason but I do not find that he bringeth any att all Againe if he admitteth which he doth in expresse termes that a lighter body can not resist the medium so much as a heauyer body can we must aske him whether it be not the weight that maketh the heauyer body resist more which when he hath acknowledged that it is he hath therein likewise acknowledged that whensoeuer this happeneth in the descending of a body the more weight must make the heauyer body descend faster But we can not passe this matter without noting how himselfe maketh good those arguments of Aristotle which he seemeth by no meanes to esteeme of for since the grauity doth ouercome the resistance of the medium in some proportion it followeth that the proportions betweene the grauity and the medium may be multiplyed without end so as if he suppose that the grauity of a body do make it goe att a certaine rate in imaginary space which is his manner of putting the force of grauity then there may be giuen such a proportion of a heauy body to the medium as it shall goe in such a medium att the same rate and neuerthelesse there will be an infinite difference betwixt the resistance of the medium compared to that body and the resistance of the imaginary space compared to that other body which he supposeth to be mooued in it at the same rate which no man will sticke att confessing to be very absurd Then turning the scales because the resistance of the medium doth somewhat hinder grauity and that with lesse resistance the heauy body mooueth faster it must follow that since there is no proportion betwixt the medium and imaginary space there must neither be any proportion betwixt the time in which a heauy body shall passe through a certaine quantity of the medium and the time in which it shall passe through as much imaginary space wherefore it must passe ouer so much imaginary space in an instant Which is the argument that Aristotle is so much laughed att for pressing And in a word nothing is more euident then that for this effect which Galileo attributeth to grauity it is vnreasonable to putt a diuisible quality since the effect is indiuisible And therefore as euident it is that in his doctrine such aquality as intrinsecall grauity is conceiued to be ought not to be putt since euery power should be fitted to the effect or end for which it is putt An other argument of Galileo is as bad as this when he endeauoureth to prooue that all bodies goe of a like velocity because it happeneth that a lighter body in some case goeth faster then a heauyer body in an other case as for example in two pendants whereof the lighter is in the beginning of its motion and the heauyer towardes the end of it or if the lighter hangeth att a longer string and the heauyer att a shorter we see that the lighter will goe faster then the heauyer But this concludeth no more then if a man should prooue that a lighter goeth faster then a heauyer because a greater force can make it goe faster for it
of the ascending atomes and thereby determineth it to weigh to the centerwardes and not rise floating vpwardes which is all the sensible effect we can perceiue Next we may obserue that the first particulars of the obiection do not reach home to enfeeble our doctrine in this particular although we admitt them to be in such sort as they are proposed for they do withall implye such a perpetuall variation of causes euer fauourable to our position that nothing can be inferred out of them to repugne against it As thus when there are many atomes descending in the ayre the same generall cause which maketh them be many maketh them also be light in proportion to their multitude And so when they are few they are heauy likewise when the atomes are light the ayre is rarifyed and thinne and when they are heauy the ayre is thicke and so vpon the whole matter it is euident that we can not make such a precise and exact iudgement of the variety of circumstances as to be able to determine when there is absolutely more cause of weight and when lesse And as we find not weight enough in either side of these opposite circumstances to turne the scales in our discourse so likewise we find the same indifference in experience it selfe for the weights we vse do weigh equally in mysty weather and in cleare and yet in rigour of discourse we can not doubt but that in truth they do not grauitate or weigh so much though the difference be imperceptible to sense when the ayre is thicke and foggy as when it is pure and rarifyed which thickenesse of the medium when it arriueth to a very notable degree as for example to water maketh then a great difference of a heauy bobies grauitation in it and accordingly we see a great difference betweene heauy bodies descending in water and in ayre though betweene two kindes of ayre none is to be obserued their difference is so small in respect of the density of the body that descendeth in thē And therefore seeing that an assured and certaine difference in circumstances maketh no sensible inequality in the effect we can not expect any from such circumstances as we may reasonably doubt whether there be any inequality among thē or no. Besides that if in any of the proposed cases a heauy body should grauitate more and be heauyer one time then an other yet by weighing it we could not discerne it since that the counterpoise which is to determine its weight must likewise be in the same proportion heauyer then it was And besides weighing no other meanes remaineth to discouer its greater grauitation but to compare it to time in its descent and I beleeue that in all such distances as we can try it in its inequalities will be no whitt lesse difficult to be obserued that way then any other Lastly to bend our discourse particularly to that instance of the obiection where it is conceiued that if grauity or descending downewardes of bodies proceeded from atomes striking vpon them as they mooue downewardes it would follow that a stone or other dense body lying vnder shelter of a thicke hard and impenetrable adamantine rocke would haue no impulse downewardes and consequently would not weigh there We may note that no body whatsoeuer compacted by physicall causes and agents can be so dense and imporous but that such atomes as these we speake of must be in them and in euery part of them and euery where passe through and through them as water doth through a seeue or through a spunge and this vniuersall maxime must extend as farre as the sunne or as any other heate communicating with the sunne doth reach and is found The reason whereof is because these atomes are no other thing but such extreme litle bodies as are resolued by heate out of the maine stocke of those massy bodies vpon which the sunne and heate do worke Now then it being certaine out of what we haue heretofore said that all mixt bodies haue their temper and consistence and generation from the mingling of fire with the rest of the Elements that compose them and from the concoction or digestion which fire maketh in those bodies it is euident that no mixt body whatsoeuer nor any sensible part of a mixt body can be voyde of pores capable of such atomes nor can be without such atomes passing through those pores which atomes by mediation of the ayre that likewise hath its share in such pores must haue communication with the rest of the great sea of ayre and with the motions that passe in it And consequently in all and in euery sensible part of any such extreme dense and pretended impenetrable body to the notice whereof we can arriue this percussion of atomes must be found and they will haue no difficulty in running through nor by meanes of it in striking any other body lying vnder the shelter of it and thus both in and from that hard body there must be still an vninterrupted continuation of grauity or of descending towardes the center Vnto which we may adde that the stone or dense body can not lye so close to the rocke that couereth it but that some ayre must be betweene for if nothing were betweene they would be vnited and become one continued body and in that ayre which is a creeke of the great ocean of ayre spread ouer the world that is euery where bestrewed with moouing atomes and which is continually fed like a running streame with new ayre that driueth on the ayre it ouertaketh there is no doubt but there are descending atomes as well as in all the rest of its maine body and these descending atomes meeting with the stone must needes giue some stroake vpon it and that stroake be it neuer so litle can not choose but worke some effect in making the stone remooue a litle that way they goe and that motion whereby the space is enlarged betweene the stone and the sheltering rocke must draw in a greater quantity of ayre and atomes to strike vpon it And thus by litle and litle the stone passeth through all the degrees of tardity by which a descending body parteth from rest which is by so much the more speedily done by how much the body is more eminent in density But this difference of time in regard of the atomes stroakes onely and abstracting from the bodies density will be insensible to vs seeing as we haue said no more is required of them but to giue a determination downewardes And out of this we clearely see the reason why the same atomes striking vpon one body lying vpon the water do make it sinke and vpon an other they do not As for example if you lay vpon the superficies of some water a piece of iron and a piece of corke of equall biggenesse and of the same figure the iron will be beaten downe to the bottome and the corke will floate att the toppe The reason whereof is the different
proportions of the comparison of their densities with the density of water for as we haue said the efficacy and force of desceÌ„ding is to be measured by that So then the stroakes of the atomes being more efficacious vpon water then vpon corke because the density of water is greater then the density of corke considering the aboundance of ayre that is harboured in the large pores of it it followeth that the atomes will make the water goe downe more forcibly then they will corke But the density of iron exceeding the density of water the same stroakes will make the iron descend faster then the water and consequently the iron must sinke in the water and the corke will swimme vpon it And this same is the cause why if a piece of corke be held by force att the bottome of the water it will rise vp to the toppe of the water as soone as the violence is taken away that kept it downe for the atomes stroakes hauing more force vpon the water then vpon the corke they make the water sinke and slide vnder it first a litle thinne plate of water and then an other a litle thicker and so by degrees more and more till it hath lifted the corke quite vp to the toppe Fiâ—thly it may be obiected that these atomes do not descend alwayse perpendicularly be sometimes sloapingly and in that case if their stroakes be the cause of dense bodies mouing they should moue sloaping and not downeward Now that these atomes descend sometimes sloapingly is euident as when for example they meete with a streame of water or with a strong wind or euen with any other litle motion of the ayre such as carryeth feathers vp and downe hither and thither which must needes waft the atomes in some measure along with them their way seeing then that such a gentle motion of the ayre is able to putt a feather out of its way notwithstanding the percussions of the atomes vpon it why shall it not likewise putt a piece of iron out of its way downewardes since the iron hath nothing from the atomes but a determination to its way But much more why should not a strong wind or a current of water do it since the atomes themselues that giue the iron its determination must needes be hurryed along with them To this we answere that we must consider how any wind or water which runneth in that sort is it selfe originally full of such atomes which continually and euery where presse into it and cutt through it in pursuing their constant perpetuall course of descending in such sort as we haue shewed in their running through any hard rocke or other densest body And these atomes do make the wind or the water primarily tend downewardes though other accidentall causes impell them secondarily to a sloaping motion And still their primary naturall motion will be in truth strongest though their not hauing scope to obey that but their hauing enough to obey the violent motion maketh this become the more obseruable Which appeareth euidently out of this that if there be a hole in the bottome of the pipe that conueyeth water sloapingly be the pipe neuer so long and consequently the sloaping motion neuer so forcible yet the water will runne out att that hole to obey its more powerfull impulse to the centerwardes rather then continue the violent motion in which it had arriued to a great degree of celerity Which being so it is easy to conceiue that the atomes in the wind or water which mooue perpendicularly downewardes will still continue the irons motion downewardes notwithstanding the mediums sloaping motion since the preuailing force determineth both the iron and the medium downewardes and the iron hath a superproportion of density to cutt its way according as the preualent motion determineth it But if the descending atomes be in part carryed along downe the streame by the current of wind or water yet still the current bringeth with it new atomes into the place of those that are carryed away and these atomes in euery point of place wheresoeuer they are do of themselues tend perpendicularly downewardes howbeit they are forced from the complete effect of their tendance by the violence of the current so that in this case they are mooued by a declining motion compounded of their owne naturall motion and of the forced motion with which the streame carryeth them Now then if a dense body do fall into such a current where these different motions giue their seuerall impulses it will be carryed in such sort as we say of the atomes but in an other proportion not in a perpendicular but in a mixt declining line compounded of the seuerall impulses which the atomes and the current do giue it in which also it is to be remembred how the current giueth an impulse downewardes as well as sloaping and peraduenture the strongest downewardes and the declination will be more or lesse according as the violent impulse preuayleth more or lesse against the naturall motion But this is not all that is to be considered in estimating the declination of a dense bodies motion when it is sinking in a current of wind or water you must remember that the dense body it selfe hath a particular vertue of its owne namely its density by which it receiueth and prosecuteth more fully its determination downewardes and therefore the force of that body in cutting its way through the medium is also to be considered in this case as well as aboue in calculating its declining from the perpendicular and out of all these causes will result a middle declination coÌ„pounded of the motioÌ„ of the water or wind both wayse and of its owne motion by the perpendicular line And since of these three causes of a dense bodies motion it s owne vertue in prosecuting by its density the determination it requireth is the most efficacious by much after it hath once receiued a determination from without its declination will be but litle if it be very dense and heauy But if it recede much from density so as to haue some neere proportion to the density of the medium the declination will be great And in a word according as the body is heauyer or lighter the declination will be more or lesse in the same current though not exactly according to the proportion of the diminishing of its density as long as there is a superproportion of its density to the medium since that such a superproportion as we haue declared heretofore maketh the mediums operation vpon the dense body scarce considerable And hence you see why a stone or piece of iron is not carried out of its way as well as feather because the stones motion downewardes is greater and stronger then the motion of a feather downewardes And by consequence the force that can deturne a feather from its course downewardes is not able to deturne a stone And if it be replyed that it may be so ordered that the stone shall haue no motion before
our whole scope both in this and in all other occasions where like qualities are vrged is to prooue superfluous and ill grounded in nature and to be but meere termes to confound and leaue in the darke whosoeuer is forced to fly vnto them THE THERTEENTH CHAPTER Of three sortes of violent motion Reflexion Vndulation and Refraction THe motion we haue last spoken of because it is ordinarily either in part or wholy contrary to grauity which is accounted the naturall motion of most bodies vseth to be called violent or forced And thus you haue deliuered vnto you the natures and causes both of naturall and of forced motion yet it remaineth that we aduertise you of some particular kindes of this forced motion which seeme to be different from it but indeed are not As first the motion of reflexion which if we do but consider how forced motion is made we shall find that it is nothing else but a forced motion whose line wherevpon it is made is as it were snapped in two by the encounter of a hard body For euen as we see in a spoute of water that is strongly shott against a wall the water following driueth the precedent partes first to the wall and afterwardes coming themselues to the wall forceth them againe an other way from the wall right so the latter partes of the torrent of ayre which is caused by the force that occasioneth the forced motion driueth the former partes first vpon the resistent body and afterwardes againe from it But this is more eminent in light then in any other body because light doth lesse rissent grauity and so obserueth the pure course of the stroake better then any other body from which others do for the most part decline some way by reason of their weight Now the particular law of reflexion is that the line incident and the line of reflexion must make equall angles with that line of the resistent superficies which is in the same superficies with themselues The demonstration whereof that great witt Renatus Des Cartes hath excellently sett downe in his booke of Dioptrikes by the example of a ball strucken by a rackett against the earth or any resisting body the substance where of is as followeth The motion which we call vndulation needeth no further explication for it is manifest that since a pendant when it is remooued from its perpendicular will restore it selfe therevnto by the naturall force of grauity and that in so doing it gaineth a velocity and therefore can not cease on a suddaine it must needes be carried out of the force of that motion directly the coÌ„trary way vntill the force of grauity ouercoming the velocity it must be brought backe againe to the perpeÌ„dicular which being done likewise with velocity it must send it againe towardes the place from which it fell att the first And in this course of motion it must coÌ„tinue for a while euery vndulation being weaker then other vntill att last it quite ceaseth by the course of nature settling the ayre in its due situatioÌ„ according to the naturall causes that worke vpon it And in this very manner also is performed that vndulation which we see in water when it is stirred from the naturall situation of its sphericall superficies Galileo hath noted that the time in which the vndulations are made which follow one an other of their owne accord is the same in euery one of them and that as much time precisely is take vp in a pendants going a very short arch towardes the end of its vibration as was in its going of the greatest arch att the beginning of its motion The reason whereof seemeth strange to him and he thinketh it to be an accident naturall to the body out of its grauity and that this effect conuinceth it is not the ayre which mooueth such bodies Whereas in truth it is clearely the ayre which causeth this effect Because the ayre striuing att each end where it is furthest from the force of the motion to quiett it selfe getteth att euery bout somewhat vpon the space and so contracteth that into a shorter arch That motion also which we call Refraction and is manifest to sense onely in light though peraduenture hereafter more diligent searchers of nature may likewise find it in such other bodies as are called qualities as in cold or heate c. is but a kind of Reflexion for there being certaine bodies in which the passages are so well ordered with their resistances that all the partes of them seeme to permitt light to passe through them and yet all partes of them seeme to reflect it when light passeth through such bodies it findeth att the very entrance of them such resistances where it passeth as serue it for a reflectent body and yet such a reflectent body as hindereth not the passage through but onely hindereth the passage from being in a straight line with the line incident Wherefore the light must needes take a plye as beaten from those partes towardes a line drawne from the illuminant and falling perpendicularly vpon the resisting superficies and therefore is termed by mathematicians to be refracted or broken towardes the Perpendicular Now at the very going out againe of the light the second superficies if it be parallel to the former must needes vpon a contrary cause strike it the contrary way which is termed from the Perpendicular But before we wade any deeper into this difficulty we can not omitt a word of the manner of explicating refraction which Monsieur Des Cartes vseth so witty a one as I am sorry it wanteth successe He therefore following the demonstration aboue giuen of reflexion supposeth the superficies which a ball lighteth vpon to be a thinne linnen cloth or some other such matter as will breake cleanely by the force of the ball striking smartly vpon it And because that superficies resisteth onely one way therefore he inferreth that the velocity of the ball is lessened onely one way and not the other so that the velocity of its motion that way in which it findeth no resistance must be after the balles passage through the linnen in a greater proportion to the velocity which it hath the other way where it findeth resistance then it was before And therefore the ball will in lesse time arriue to its periode on the one side then on the other and consequently it will leane towardes that side vnto which the course wherein it findeth no opposition doth carry it Which to shâ—w how it is contrary vnto his owne principle lett vs conceiue the cloth CE to be of some thickenesse and so draw the line OP to determine that thicknesse And lett vs make from B vpon AL an other Parallelogramme like the Parallelogramme AL whose diameter shall be BQ And it must necessarilly follow that the motion from B to Q if there were no resistance were in the same proportion as from A to B. But the proportion of the motion from
A to B is the proportion of CB to CA that is it goeth in the same time faster towardes D then it doth towardes M in the proportion which CB hath to CA. By which account the resistance it hath in the way towardes D must also be greater then the resistance it hath in the way towardes M in the proportion which CB hath to CA and therefore the more tardity must be in the way to D and not in the way to M and consequently the declination must be from Ewardes and to Mwardes For where there is most resistance that way likewise must the tardity be greatest and the declination must be from that way but which way the thickenesse to be passed in the same time is most that way the resistance is greatest and the thickenesse is clearely greater towardes E then towardes M therefore the resistance must be greatest towardes E and consequently the declination from the line BL must be towardes M and not towardes E. But the truth is that in his doctrine the ball would goe in a straight line as if there were no resistance vnlesse peraduenture towardes the contrary side of the cloth att which it goeth out into the free ayre for as the resistance of the cloth is greater in the way towardes D then in the way towardes M because it passeth a longer line in the same time as also it did formerly in the ayre so likewise is the force that mooueth it that way greater then the force which mooueth it the other And therefore the same proportions that were in the motion before it came to the resisting passage will remaine also in it att the least vntill coming neere the side att which it goeth out the resistance be weakned by the thinnenesse of the resistent there which because it must needes happen on the side that hath least thicknesse the ball must consequently turne the other way where it findeth greatest yielding and so att its getting out into the free ayre it will bend from the greater resistance in such manner as we haue said aboue Neither do the examples brought by Monsieur Des Cartes and others in maintenance of this doctrine any thing auayle them for when a canon bullett shott into a riuer hurteth the people on the other side it is not caused by refraction but by reflexion as Monsieur Des Cartes himselfe acknowledgeth and therefore hath no force to prooue any thing in refraction whose lawes are diuers from those of pure reflexion And the same answere serueth against the instance of a muskett bullett shott att a marke vnder water which perpetually lighteth higher then the marke though it be exactly iust aymed att For we knowing that it is the nature of water by sinking in one place to rise round about it must of necessity follow that the bullett which in entring hath pressed downe the first partes of the water hath withall thereby putt others further off in a motion of rising and therefore the bullet in its goeing on must meete with some water swelling vpwardes and must from it receiue a ply that way which can not faile of carrying it aboue the marke it was leuelled att And so we see this effect proceedeth from reflection or the bounding of the water and not from refraction Besides that it may iustly be suspected the shooter tooke his ayme too high by reason of the markes appearing in the water higher then in truth it is vnlesse such false ayming were duly preuented Neither is Monsieur Des Cartes his excuse to be admitted when he sayth that light goeth otherwise then a ball would do because that in a glasse or in water the etheriall substance which he supposeth to runne through all bodies is more efficaciously mooued then in ayre and that therefore light must go faster in the glasse then in the ayre and so turne on that side of the straight line which is contrary to the side that the ball taketh because the ball goeth not so swiftly For not to dispute of the verity of this proposition the effect he pretendeth is impossible for if the etheriall substance in the ayre before the glasse be slowly mooued the motion of which he calleth light it is impossible that the etheriall substance in the glasse or in the water should be more smartly mooued then it Well it may be lesse but without all doubt the impulse of the etheriall substance in the glasse can not be greater then its adequate cause which is the motion of the other partes that are in the ayre precedent to the glasse Againe after it is passed the glasse it should returne to be a straight line with the line that it made in the ayre precedent to the glasse seeing that the subsequent ayre must take off iust as much and no more as the glasse did adde the contrary whereof experience sheweth vs. Thirdly in this explication it would alwayes go one way in the ayre and an other way in the glasse whereas all experience testifyeth that in a glasse conuexe on both sides it still goeth in the ayre after its going out to the same side as it did in the glasse but more And the like happeneth in glasses on both sides concaue Wherefore it is euident that it is the superficies of the glasse that is the worker on both sides and not the substance of the ayre on the one side and of the glasse on the other And lastly his answere doth no wayes solue our obiection which prooueth that the resistance both wayes is proportionate to the force that mooueth and by consequence that the thing moued must go straight As we may imagine would happen if a bullett were shott sloaping through a greene mudde wall in which there were many round stickes so thinne sett that the bullett mighr passe with ease through them for as long as the bullett touched none of them which expresseth his case it would go straight but if it touched any of them which resembleth ours as by and by will appeare it would glance according to the quality of the touch and mooue from the sticke in an other line Some peraduenture may answere for Monsieur Des Cartes that this subtile body which he supposeth to runne through all thinges is stiffe and no wayes plyable But that is so repugnant to the nature of rarity and so many insuperable inconueniencies do follow out of it as I can not imagine he will owne it and therefore I will not spend any time in replying therevnto We must therefore seeke some other cause of the refraction of light which is made att the entrance of it into a diaphanous body Which is plainely as we said before because the ray striking against the inside of a body it can not penetrate turneth by reflexion towardes that side on which the illuminant standeth and if it findeth cleare passage through the whole resistent it followeth the course it first taketh if not then it is lost by many reflexions too and
those partes they touch cutt the others that they are forced vpon In such sort as I remember happened to a gentleman that stood by me in a sea fight I was in with a coate of maile vpon his body when a bullett coming against a bony part in him made a great wound and shattered all the bones neere where it strucke and yet the coate of maile was whole it seemeth the little linkes of the maile yielding to the bullets force made their way into the flesh and to the bone But now it is time to come to the other two instruments of separation of bodies fire and water and to examine how they dissolue compounds Of these two the way of working of fire is the easiest and most apparant to be discerned We may readily obserue how it proceedeth if we but sett a piece of wood on fire in which it maketh little holes as if with bodkins it pierced it So that the manner of its operation in common being plaine wee neede but reflect a little vpon the seuerall particular degrees of it Some bodies it seemeth not to touch as clothes made of Asbestus which are onely purifyed by it Others it melteth but consumeth not as gold Others it turneth into pouder suddainely dissoluing their body as lead and such mettalls as are calcined by pure fire Others againe it seperateth into a greater number of differing partes as into spirits waters oyles salts earth and glasse of which ranke are all vegetables And lastly others it conuerteth into pure fire as strong waters or Aquauites called aquae ardentes and some pure oyles for the smoake that is made by their setting on fire and peraduenture their salt is so little as is scarce discernable These are in summe the diuisions which fire maketh vpon bodies according to the nature of them and to the due application of it vnto them for by the helppe and mediation of other thinges it may peraduenture worke other effects Now to examine a little in particular how the same fire in differing subiects produceth such defferent effects Limus vt hic durescit haec vt cera liquescit Vno eodemque igni We will consider the nature of euery one of the subiects apart by it selfe First for the Asbestus it is cleare that it is of a very dry substance so that to looke vpon it when it is broken into very little pieces they seeme to be little bundles of short haires the liquidity within being so little as it affordeth the partes neyther length nor breadth and therefore fire meeteth with litle there that it can dilate But what it can not dilate it can not separate nor carry away any thing of it but what is accidentally adhereÌ„t vnto the outsides of it And so it seemeth onely to passe through the pores and to cleaÌ„se the litle thriddes of it but bringeth no detriment att all to the substance of it In this I speake onely of an ordinary fire for I doubt not but such a one it might be as would perfectly calcine it The next body we spoke of is gold This aboundeth so much in liquidity that it sticketh to the fire if duely applyed but its humidity is so well vnited to its earthy partes and is so perfectly incorporated with theÌ„ as it can not carry away one without likewise carrying away both but both are too heauy a weight for the litle agile partes of fire to remoue Thus it is able to make gold swell as we see in melting it in which the gold receiueth the fire into its bowels and retaineth it a loÌ„g time with it but at its departure it permitteth the fire to carry nothing away vpon its winges as is apparant by the goldes no whitt decay of weight after neuer so long fusion And therefore to haue fire make any separation in gold requireth the assistance of some other moyst body that an the one side may sticke closely to the gold when the fire driueth it into it and on the other side may be capable of dilatation by the action of the fire vpon it As in some sort we see in strong waters made of saltes which are a proper subiect for the fire to dilate who by the assistance of fire mingling themselues closely with litle partes of the gold do pull them away from their whole substaÌ„ce and do force them to beare them coÌ„pany in their iourny vpwardes in which multitudes of litle partes of fire do concurre to presse theÌ„ on and hasteÌ„ theÌ„ and so the weight of gold being att leÌ„gth ouercome by these two powerfull Agents whereof one supplyeth what the other wanteth the whole substance of the metall is in litle atomes diffused through the whole body of the water But this is not truly a dissolution or a separation of the substantiall partes of gold one from an other it is onely a corrosion which bringeth it into a subtile pouder when the water and saltes are seperated from it much like what filing though farre smaller or grinding of leafe gold vpon a porphyre stone may reduce it into for neyther the partes of the water nor of the fire that make themselues a way into the body of the gold are small and subtile enough to gett betweene the partes that compose the essence of it and therefore all they can attaine vnto is to diuide it onely in his quantity or bulke not in the composition of its nature Yet I intend not to deny but that this is possible to be arriued vnto eyther by pure fire duly applyed or by some other assistance as peraduenture by some kind of Mercury which being of a neerer cognation vnto mettalls then any other liquor is may happily haue a more powerfull ingression into gold then any other body whatsoeuer and being withall very subiect to rarefaction it may after it is entered so perfectly penetrate the gold as it may seperate euery least part of it and so reduce it into an absolute calx But in this place I explicate no more then what ordinarily passeth leauing the mysteries of this art to those who professe it To goe on then with what we haue in hand lead hath aboundance of water ouermingled with its earth as appeareth by its easy yielding to be bend any wâ—y and by its quiet standing bent in the same position that the force which bowed it leaueth it in And therefore the liquide partes of lead are easily separated from its dry and earthy ones and when it is melted the very shaking of it causeth the grosse partes to descend and many liquid ones to fly away with the fire so that suddainely it is thus conuerted into pouder But this pouder is grosse in respect of other mettalls vnlesse this operation be often reiterated or the fire more powerfully applyed then what is iust enough to bring the body of the lead into pouder The next consideration of bodies that fire worketh vpon is of such as it diuideth into spirits saltes oyles waters or
phlegmes and earth Now these are not pure and simple partes of the dissolued body but new coÌ„pounded bodies made of the first by the operation of heat As smoake is not pure water but water and fire together and therefore becometh not water but by cooling that is by the fire flying away from it So likewise those spirits salts oyles and the rest are but degrees of thinges which fire maketh of diuers partes of the dissolued body by seperating them one from an other and incorporating it selfe with them And so they are all of them compounded of the foure Elements and are further resoluable into them Yet I intend not to say that there are not originally in the body before its dissolution some loose partes which haue the properties of these bodies that are made by the fire in the dissoluing of it for seeing that nature worketh by the like instruments as art vseth she must needes in her excesses and defects produce like bodies to what art doth in dissolution which operation of art is but a kind of excesse in the progresse of nature but my meaning is that in such dissolution there are more of these partes made by the working of fire then were in the body before Now because this is the naturall and most ordinary dissolution of thinges lett vs see in particular how it is done suppose then that fire were in a conuenient manner applyed to a body that hath all sortes of partes in it and our owne discourse will tell vs that the first effect it worketh will be that as the subtile partes of fire do diuide and passe through that body they will adhere to the most subtile partes in it which being most agile and least bound and incorporated to the bowels of the body and lying as it were loosely scattered in it the fire will carry them away with it Thâ—se will be the first that are seperated from the maine body which being retained in a fitt receiuer will by the coldenesse of the circumdant ayre grow outwardly coole themselues and become first a dew vpon the sides of the glasse and then still as they grow cooler condense more and more till att the length they fall downe congealed into a palpable liquor which is composed as you see of the hoatest partes of the body mingled with the fire that carried them out and therefore this liquor is very inflammable and easily turned into actuall fire as you see all spirits and Aquae ardentes of vegetables are The hoat and loose partes being extracted and the fire continuing and encreasing those that will follow next are such as though they be not of themselues loose yet are easyest to be made so and are therefore most separable These must be humide and those little dry partes which are incorporated with the ouerflowing humide ones in them for no partes that we can arriue vnto are of one pure simple nature but all are mixed and composed of the 4 Elements in some proportion must be held together with such grosse glew as the fire may easily penetrate and separate them And then the humide partes diuided into little atomes do sticke to the lesser ones of the fire which by their multitude of number and velocity of motion supplying what they want of them in bulke do carry them away with them And thus these phlegmaticke partes fly vp with the fire and are afterwardes congealed into an insipide water which if it haue any sauour is because the first ardent spirits are not totally separated from it but some few of them remaine in it and giue some little life to the whole body of that otherwise flatt liquor Now those partes which the fire separateth next from the remaining body after the firy and watry ones are carryed away must be such as it can worke vpon and therefore must abound in humidity But since they stirre not till the watry ones are gone it is euident that they are composed of many dry partes strongly incorporated and very subtilely mixed with the moist ones and that both of them are exceeding small and are so closely and finely knitt together that the fire hath much adoe to gett betweene them and cutt the thriddes that tye them together and therefore they require a very great force of fire to cary them vp Now the composition of these sheweth them to be aeriall and together with the fire that is mingled with them they congeale into that consistence which we call oyle Lastly it can not be otherwise but that the fire in all this while of continuall application to the body it thus anatomiseth hath hardned and as it were rosted some partes into such greatnesse and drynesse as they will not fly nor can be carried vp with any moderate heate But greate quantity of fire being mingled with the subtiler partes of his baked earth maketh them very pungent and acrimonious in tast so that they are of the nature of ordinary salt and are so called and by the helpe of water may easily be separated from the more grosse partes which then remaine a dead and vselesse earth By this discourse it is apparant that fire hath been the instrument which hath wrought all these partes of an entire body into the formes they are in for whiles it carryed away the fiery partes it swelled the watry ones and whiles it lifted vp them it digested the aeriall partes and whiles it droue vp the oyles it baked the earth and salt Againe all these retaining for the most part the proper nature of the substance from whence they are extracted it is euident that the substance is not dissolued for so the nature of the whole would be dissolued and quite destroyed and extinguished in euery part but that onely some partes containing the whole substance or rather the nature of the whole substance in them are separated from other partes that haue likewise the same nature in them The third instrument for the separation and dissolution of bodies is water Whose proper matter to worke vpon is salt And it serueth to supply what the fire could not performe which is the separation of the salt from the earth in calcined bodies All the other partes fire was able to seuer But in these he hath so baked the little humidity he hath left in them with their much earth as he can not diuide them any further And so though he incorporateth him selfe with them yet he can carry nothing away with him If then pure water be putt vpon that chalke the subtilest dry partes of it do easily ioyne to the superuenient moysture and sticking close to it do draw it downe to them but because they are the lighter it happeneth to them as when a man in a boate pulleth the land to him that cometh not to him but he remoueth himselfe and his boate to it so these ascend in the water as they dissolue And the water more and more penetrating them and by addition of its partes making the humidity which
gleweth their earthy partes together greater and greater doth make a wider and wider separation betweene those little earthy partes And so imbueth the whole body of the water with thē into which they are dispersed in little atomes Those that are of biggest bulke remaine lowest in the water And in the same measure as their quantities dissolue into lesse and lesse they ascend higher and higher in the water till att the length the water is fully replenished with them and they are diffused through the whole body of it whiles the more grosse and heauy earthy partes hauing nothing in them to make a present combination betweene them and the water do fall downe to the bottome and settle vnder the water in dust In which because earth alone doth predominate in a very great excesse we can expect no other vertue to be in it but that which is proper to meere earth to witt drynesse and weight Which ordinary Alchymistes looke not after and therefore call it Terra damnata but others find a fixing quality in it by which they performe very admirable operations Now if you powre the impregnated water from the Terra damnata and then euaporate it you will find a pure white substance remaining Which by its bulke sheweth it selfe to be very earthy and by its pricking and corrosiue tast will informe you much fire is in it and by its easy dissolution in a moist place that water had a great share in the production of it And thus the saltes of bodies are made and extracted Now as water doth dissolue salt so by the incorporation and vertue of that corrosiue substance it doth more then salt it selfe can doe for hauing gotten acrimony and more weight by the mixture and dissolution of salt in it it maketh it selfe a way into solide bodies euen into mettals as we see in brasse and iron which are easily rusted by salt dissoluing vpon them And according as the saltes are stronger so this corrosiue vertue encreaseth in them euen so much as neyther syluer nor gold are free from their eating quality But they as well as the rest are diuided into most small partes and are made to swimme in water in such sort as we haue explicated aboue and whereof euery ordinary Alchymist teacheth the practise But this is not all salts do helpe as well to melt hard bodies and mettalls as to corrode them for some fusible salts flowing vpon them by the heate of the fire and others dissolued by the streame of the mettall that incorporateth with them as soone as they are in fluxe they mingle with the naturall iuice of the mettall and penetrate them deeper then without them the fire could doe and swell them and make them fitt to runne These are the principall wayes of the two last instruments in dissoluing of bodies taking each of them by it selfe But there remaineth one more of very great importance as well in the workes of nature as of art in which both the former are ioyned and do concure and that is putrefraction Whose way of working is by gentle heate and moisture to wett and pierce the body it worketh vpon whereby it is made to swell and the hoat partes of it being loosened they are att length druncke vp and drowned in the moist ones from whence by fire they are easily separated as we haue already declared and those moist partes afterwardes leauing it the substance remaineth dry and falleth in pieces for want of the glew that held it together THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER An explication of certaine Maximes touching the operations and qualities af bodies and whether the Elements be found pure in any part of the world OVt of what we haue determined concerning the naturall actions of bodies in their making and destroying one an other it is easy to vnderstand the right meaning of some termes and the true reason of some maximes much vsed in the schooles As first when Philosophers attribute vnto all sortes of corporeall Agents a Sphere of Actiuity The sense of that manner of expression in fire appeareth plainely by what we haue already declared of the nature and manner of operation of that Element And in like manner if we consider how the force of cold consisteth in a compression of the body that is made cold we may preceiue that if in the cooled body there be any subtile partes which can breake forth from the rest such compression will make them do so Especially if the compression be of little partes of the compressed body within themselues as well as of the outward bulke of the whole body round about for at first the compression of such causeth in the body where they are little holes or pores in the places they are compressed and driuen from which pores they filled vp when they were dilated att their owne naturall liberty But being thus forcibly shrunke vp into lesse roome afterwardes they squeese againe out of their croude all such very loose and subtile partes residing till then with them as can find their way out from among them And these subtile partes that thus are deliuered from the colds compression gett first into the pores that we haue shewed were made by this compression But they can not long stay there for the atomes of aduenient cold that obsesse the compressed body do likewise with all their force throng into those pores and soone driue out the subtile guestes they find there because they are more in number bigger in bulke and more violent in their course then they Who therefore must yield vnto them the little channels and capacities they formerly tooke vp Out of which they are thrust with such an impetuosity that they spinne from them with a vehemence as quickesiluer doth through leather when to purify it or to bring an Amalgame to a due consistence it is strained through the sides of it Now these shoures or streames of atomes issuing from the compressed body are on all sides round about it att exceeding little distances because the pores out of which they are driuen are so likewise And consequently there they remaine round about besieging it as though they would returne to their originall homes as soone as the vsurping strāgers that were too powerfull for thē will giue thē leaue And according to the multitude of thē and to the force with which they are driuen out the compasse they take vp round about the cōpressed body is greater or lesser Which besieging atomes are not so soone carried away by any exterior and accidentall causes but they are supplyed by new emanations succeeding them out of the said compressed body Now this which we haue declared by the example of cold cōpressing a particular body happeneth in all bodies wheresoeuer they be in the world for this being the vnauoydable effect of heate and of cold wheresoeuer they reside which are the actiue qualities by whose meanes not onely fire and water and the other two Elements but all other mixed bodies composed of the
or without by pressing vpon what containeth it and so making it selfe a way vnto it And that this latter way is able to worke this effect may be conuinced by the contrary effect from a contrary cause for take a bladder stretched out vnto its greatest extent by ayre shutt vp within it and hang it in a cold place and you will see it presently contract it selfe into a lesse roome and the bladder will grow wrinckeled and become too bigge for the ayre within it But for immediate proofe of this position we see that the addition of a very small degree of heate rarifyeth the ayre in a weather glasse the ayre receiuing the impression of heate sooner then water and so maketh it extend it selfe into a greater place and consequently it presseth vpon the water and forceth it downe into a lesse roome then formerly it possessed And likewise we see quickesyluer and other liquors if they be shutt vp in glasses close stopped and sett in sufficient heate and a little is sufficient for this effect they will swell and fill their glasses and att the last breake them rather then not find a way to giue themselues more roome which is then growne too straight in the glasse by reason of the rarefaction of the liquors by the fire working vpon them Now againe that this effect may be wrought by the inward heate that is enclosed in the bowels of the substance thus shutt vp both reason and experience do assure vs for they teach vs that if a body which is not extremely compacted but that by its loosenesse is easily diuisible into little partes such a one as wine or other spirittfull liquors be enclosed in a vessell the little atomes that perpetually moue vp and downe in euery space of the whole world making their way through euery body will sett on worke the little partes in the wine for example to play their game so that the hoat and light partes if they be many not enduring to be compressed and kept in by the heauy and cold ones do seeke to breake out with force and till they can free themselues from the dense ones that would imprison them they carry them along with them and make them to swell out as well as themselues Now if they be kept in by the vessell so that they haue not play enough they driue the dense ones like so many little hammers or wedges against the sides of it and att the length do breake it and so do make themselues way to a larger roome But if they haue vent the more fiery hoat spirits fly away and leaue the other grosser partes quiett and att rest On the other side if the hoat and light partes in a liquor be not many nor very actiue and the vessell be so full that the partes haue not free scope to remoue and make way for one an other there will not follow any great effect in this kind as we see in bottled beere or ale that worketh little vnlesse there be some space left empty in the bottle And againe if the vessell be very much too bigge for the liquor in it the fiery partes find roome first to swell vp the heauy ones and att the length to gett out from them though the vessell be close stopped for they haue scope enough to floate vp and downe between the surface of the liquor and the roofe of the vessell And this is the reason that if a little beere or small wine be left long in a great caske be it neuer so close stopped it will in time grow dead And then if att the opening of the bunge after the caske hath beene long vnstirred you hold a candle close to it you shall att the instant see a flash of flame enuironing the veâ—t Which is no other thing but the subtile spirits that parting from the beere or wine haue left it dead and flying abroad as soone as they are permitted are sett on fire by the flame that they meete with in their iourney as being more combustible because more subtile then that spiritt of wine which is kept in forme of liquor and yet that likewise though much grosser is sett on fire by the touch of flame And this happeneth not onely to wine and beere or ale but euen to water As dayly experience sheweth in the east Indian shippes that hauing beene 5. or 6. yeares att sea when they open some of their caskes of Thames water in their returne homewardes for they keepe that water till the last as being their best and most durable and that groweth lighter and purer by the often putrifyinges through violent motions in stormes euery one of which maketh new grosse and earthy partes fall downe to the bottome and other volatile ones ascend to the toppe a flame is seene about their bunges if a candle be neere as we said before of wine And to proceed with confirming this doctrine by further experience we dayly see that the little partes of heate being agitated and brought into motioÌ„ in any body they enter and pierce into other partes and incorporate themselues with them and sett them on fire if they be capable thereof as we see in wett hay or flaxe layed together in great quantity And if they be not capable of taking fire then they carry them with them to the outside and when they can transport them no further part flyeth away and other part stayeth with them as we see in new beere or ale and in must of wine in which a substance vsually called the mother is wrought vp to the toppe Which in wine will att the last be conuerted into Tartar when the spirits that are very volatile are flowne away and do leaue those partes from whence they haue euaporated more grosse and earthy then the others where the grosser and subtiler partes continue still mixed But in beere or rather in ale this mother which in them we call barme will continue longer in the same consistence and with the same qualities for the spirits of it are not so firy that they must presently leaue the body they haue incorporated themselues withall nor are hoat enough to bake it into a hard consistence And therefore bakers make vse of it to raise their bread which neyther it will do vnlesse it be kept from cold both which are euident signes that it worketh in force of heate and consequently that it continueth still a hoat and light substance And againe we see that after wine or beere hath wrought once a violent motion will make it worke anew As is dayly seene in great lightninges and in thunder and by much rocking of them for such motion rarifyeth and consequently heateth them partly by separating the little partes of the liquor which were before as glewed together and therefore lay quietly but now by their pulling asunder and by the liquors growing thereby more loose then it was they haue freedome to play vp and downe and partly by beating one part against an other which
breaketh and diuideth them into lesser atomes and so bringeth some of them into the state of fire which you may remember is nothing else but a body brought into such a degree of littlenesse and rarity of its partes And this is the reason why such hard and dry bodies as haue an vnctuous substance in them are by motion eyther easily sett on fire or att the least fire is easily gotten out of them As happeneth in flintes and in diuers other stones which yield fire when they are strucken and if presently after you smell vnto them you shall perceiue an odour of brimstone and of burning which is a certaine signe that the motion did conuert into fire the naturall brimstone that was mingled with the flint and whose denser partes were growne cold and so stucke to the stone And in like manner the iuywood and diuers others as also the Indian canes which from thence are called firecanes being rubbed with some other sticke of the same nature if they be first very dry will of themselues sett on fire and the like will happen to coach wheeles in summer if they be ouerheated with motion To conclude our discourse of rarefaction we may looke a little into the power and efficacity of it which is no where to be seene so clearly as in fire And as fire is the generall cause of rarefaction so is it of all bodies that which is most rarifyed And therefore it is no maruayle if its effects be the greatest that are in nature seeing it is the proper operatioÌ„ of the most actiue Element The wonderfull force of it we dayly see in thunder in gunnes in granados and in mines of which continuall experience as well as seuerall historyes wittnesseth litle lesse then miracles Leauing them to the remarkes of curious Persons we will onely looke into the way by which so maine effects do proceed from causes that appeare so slender It is euident that fire as we haue said before dilateth it selfe spherically as nature sheweth vs manifestly in bubbles of boyling water and of mike and generally of such substances as are of a viscous composition for those bubbles being round do assure vs that the cause which made them did equally dilate them from the center vnto all partes Now then remembring the infinite multiplication which is in fire we may conceiue that when a graine of gunnepouder is turned thereinto there are so many little bubbles of a viscous substance one backing an other with great celerity as there are partes of fire more then there were of gunnepouder And if we make a computation of the number and of the celerity of these bubbles we shall find that although euery one of them single do seeme to be of an inconsiderable force yet the whole number of them together will exceed the resistance of the body moued or broken by them especially if we note that when hard substances haue not time allowed them to yield they break the sooner And then we shall not so much admire the extremities we see acted by these meanes Thus hauing looked into the nature of rarefaction and traced the progresse of it from the motion of the sunne and fire in the next place we are to examine the nature of condensation And we shall oftentimes find it likewise an effect of the same cause otherwise working for there being two different wayes to dry any wett thing the one by taking away that iuice which maketh a body liquid the other by putting more drought to the wett body that it may imbibe the moisture this latter way doth as well as the former condense a body for by the close sticking of wett to dry the most part of condensation is effected in compounded bodies The first of these wayes doth properly and immediately proceed from heate for heate entering into a body incorporateth it selfe with the moist and viscous partes it findeth there as purging medicines do with the humors they worke vpon which when the stomacke can no longer entertaine by reason of their vnruly motions in wrestling together they are both eiected grappling with one an other and the place of their contention is thus by the superuenience of a guest of a contrary nature that will not stay long there purged from the superaboundance of the former ones that annoyed it Euen so the fire that is greedily drunke vp by the watry and viscous partes of a compounded body and whose actiuity and restlesse nature will not endure to be long emprisoned there quickly pierceth quite through â—he body it entereth into and after a while streameth out att the opposite side as fast as it entered on the side next to it and carryeth away with it those glewy partes it is incorporated with and by their absence leaueth the body they part from dryer then att the first it was Which course we may obserue in sirupes that are boyled to a consistence and in brothes that are consumed vnto a gelly ouer which whiles they are making by the fire vnder them you see a great steame which is the watry partes that being incorporated with fire fly away in smoake Likewise when the sea water is condensed into salt you see it is an effect of the sunne or fire that exhaleth or boyleth away all the palpable moisture And so when wett clothes are hanged eyther in the sunne or att the fire we see a smoake about the clothes and heate within them which being all drawne out from them they become dry And this deserueth a particular note that although they should be not quite dry when you take them from the fire yet by then they are coole they will be dry for the fire that is in them when they are remoued from the maine stocke of fire flying away carryeth with it the moisture that was incorporated with it and therefore whiles they were hoat that is whiles the fire was in them they must also be moist because the fire and the moisture were growne to be one body and could not become through dry with that measure of fire for more would haue dryed them euen whiles they where hoat vntill they were also growne through cold And in like manner sirupes hydromels gellies and the like grow much thicker after they are taken off from the fire then they were vpon the fire and much of their humidity flyeth away with the fire in their cooling whereby they lessen much of their quantity euen after the outward fire hath ceased from working vpon them Now if the moist partes that remaine after the drying be by the heate well incorporated in the dry partes and so do occasion the dry partes to sticke close together then that body is condensed and will to the proportion of it be heauyer in a lesse bulke as we see that mettalls are heauyer then stones Allthough this effect be in these examples wrought by heate yet generally speaking it is more proper to cold which is the second way of drying a moist body As
when in Greeneland the extreme cold freeseth the whalefishers beere into yce so that the stewardes diuide it with axes and wedges and deliuer their portions of drink to their shippes company and their shallopes gings in their bare handes but in the innermost part of the butte they find some quantity of very strong liquor not inferior to moderate spiritt of wine Att the first before custome had made it familiar vnto them they wondered that euery time they drew att the tappe when first it came from their shippes to the shore for the heate of the hold would not lett it freese no liquor would come vnlesse they new tapped it with a longer gimlett but they thought that paines well recompenced by finding it in the tast to grow stronger and stronger till att the last their longest gimlets would bring nothing out and yet the vessell not a quarter drawne off which obliged them then to staue the caske that so they might make vse of the substance that remained The reason of this is euident that cold seeking to condense the beere by mingling its dry and cold partes with it those that would endure this mixture were imbibed and shrunke vp by them But the other rare and hoat partes that were squeesed out by the dense ones which entered to congeale the beere and were forced into the middle of the vessell which was the furthest part for them to retire vnto from their enuironing enemies did conserue themselues in their liquid forme in defyance of the assaulting cold whiles their fellowes remaining by their departure more grosse and earthy then they were before yielded to the conqueror they could not shift away from and so were dryed and condensed into yce which when the mariners thawed they found it like faire water without any spirits in it or comforting heate to the stomacke This māner of condensation which we haue described in the freesing of beere is the way most practised by nature I meane for immediate condensation for cōdentsation is secondarily wheresoeuer there is rarefaction which we haue determined to be an effect of heate And the course of it is that a multitude of earthy and dry bodies being driuen against any liquor they easily diuide it by meanes of their density their drynesse and their littlenesse all which in this case do accompany one an other and are by vs determined to be powerfull diuiders and when they are gotten into it they partly sucke into their owne pores the wett and diffused partes of the liquide body and partly they make them when themselues are full sticke fast to their dry sides and become as a glew to hold themselues strongly together And thus they dry vp the liquor and by the naturall pressing of grauity they contract it into a lesser roome No otherwise then when we force much wind or water into a bottle and by pressing it more and more make it lye closer then of its owne nature it would do Or rather as when ashes being mingled with water both those substances do sticke so close to one an other that they take vp lesse roome then they did each apart This is the methode of frostes and of snow and of yce both naturall and artificcall for in naturall freesing ordinarily the north or northeast wind by its force bringeth and driueth into our liquors such earthy bodies as it hath gathered from rockes couered with snow which being mixed with the light vapors whereof the wind is made do easily find way into the liquors and thē they dry thē into that consistēce which we call yce Which in token of the wind it hath in it swimmeth vpon the water and in the vessel where it is made riseth higher then the water did whereof it is cōposed and ordinarily it breaketh frō the sides of the vessell so giuing way to more wind to come in and freese deeper and thicker But because Galileus Nel discorso intorno alle cose che stanno in su l'acqua pag. 4. was of opinion that yce was water rarifyed and not condensed we must not passe ouer this verity without maintaining it against the opposition of so powerfull an aduersary His arguments are first that yce taketh vp more place then the water did of which it was made which is against the nature of condensation Secondly that quantity for quantity yce is lighter then water whereas thinges that are more dense are proportionally more heauy And lastly that yce swimmeth in water whereas we haue often taught that the more dense descendeth in the more rare Now to reply to these arguments we say first that we would gladly know how he did to measure the quantity of the yce with the quantity of the water of which it was made and then when he hath shewed it and shewed withall that yce holdeth more place then water we must tell him that his experiment concludeth nothing against our doctrine because there is an addition of other bodies mingled with the water to make yce of it as we touched aboue and therefore that compound may well take vp a greater place then the water alone did and yet be denser then it and the water also be denser then it was And that other bodies do come into the water and are mingled with it is euident out of the exceeding coldnesse of the ayre or some very cold wind one of which two neuer misseth to raigne whensoeuer the water freeseth and both of them do argue great store of little earthy dry bodies abounding in them which sweeping ouer all those that lye in their way and course must of necessity be mixed with such as giue them admittance which water doth very easily And accordingly we see that when in the freesing of water the yce groweth any thing deepe it eyther shrinketh about the borders or att the least lyeth very loose so as we can not doubt but that there is a free passage for more of such subtile bodies to gett still to the water and freese it deeper To his second argument we aske how he knoweth that yce quantity for quantity is lighter then water For although of a spunge that is full of water it be easy to know what the spunge weigheth and what the water that was soaked into it because we can part the one of them from the other and keepe each apart to examine their weights yet to do the like between yce and water if yce be throughout full of ayre as of necessity it must be we beleeue impossible And therefore it may be lighter in the bulke then water by reason of the great pores caused in it through the shrinking vp of the partes of water together which pores must then necessarily be filled with ayre and yet euery part by it selfe in which no ayre is be heauyer then so much water And by this it appeareth that his last argument grounded vpon the swimming of yce in water hath no more force then if he would proue that an iron or an earthen dish
and water into a decompound of two saltes and water vntill all his partes be anew impregnated with the second grosser salt as before the pure water was with the first subtiler salt And so it will proceed on if proportionate bodies be ioyned vntill the dissoluing composition do grow into a thicke body Vnto which discourse we may adde that when the water is so fully impregnated with the first salt as it will receiue no more remayning in the temper it is in yet if it be heated it will then afresh dissolue more of the same kind Which sheweth that the reason of its giuing ouer to dissolue is for want of hauing the water diuided into partes little enough to sticke vnto more salt which as in this case the fire doth so peraduenture in the other the acrimoniousnesse of the salt doth it And this is sufficient to giue curious wittes occasion by making further experiments to search out the truth of this matter Onely we may note what happeneth in most of the experiencies we haue mentioned to witt that thinges of the same nature do ioyne better and more easily then others that are more estranged from one an other Which is very agreeable to reason seeing that if nature do intend to haue thinges consist long together she must fitt them for such consistence Which seemeth to proceed out of their agreement in foure qualities first in weight for bobies of diuers degrees in weight if they be att liberty do seeke diuers places and consequently substances of like weight must of necessity find one an other out and croud together as we haue shewed it is the natute of heate to make them do now it is apparent that thinges of one nature must in equall partes haue the same or a neere proportion of weight seeing that in their composition they must haue the same proportion of Elements The second reason of the consistence of bodies together that are of the same nature is the agreement of their liquid partes in the same degree of rarity and density for as it is the nature of quantity in common to make all partes be one quantity so it is the nature of the degrees of quantity when two partes do meete that are of the same degree to make them one in that degree of quantity which is to make them stick together in that degree of sticking which the degree of density that is common to them both maketh of its owne nature Whereas partes of different densities can not haue this reason of sticking though peraduenture they may vpon some other ground haue some more efficacious one And in this manner the like humide partes of two bodies becoming one the holes or receptacles in which those humide partes are contained must also needes be vnited The third reason is the agreeable proportion which their seuerall figures haue in respect of one an other for if any humidity be extracted out of a mixed body especially by the vertue of fire it must haue left pores of such figures as the humidity that is drawne out of them is apt to be cutt into for euery humide body not being absolutely humide but hauing certaine dry partes mixed with it is more apt for one kind of figure and greatnesse then for an other and by consequence whensoeuer that humidity shall meete againe with the body it was seuered from it will easily runne through and into it all and will fill exactly the cauities and pores it possessed before The last quality in which bodies that are to consist long together do agree is the biggnesse of the humide and dry partes of the same body for if the humide partes be too bigge for the dry ones it is cleare that the dry ones must needes hang loosely together by them because their glew is in too greate a quantity But if the humide partes bee too little for the dry ones then of necessity some portion of euery little dry part must be vnfurnished of glew by meanes whereof to sticke vnto his fellow and so the sticking partes not being conueniently proportioned to one an other their adhesion can not be so solide as if each of them were exactly fitted to his fellow THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER Of an other motion belonging to particular bodies called Attraction and of certaine operations termed Magicall HAuing thus ended the two motions of rarefaction and of condensation the next that offer themselues are the locall motions which some bodies haue vnto others These are sometimes performed by a plaine force in the body towardes which the motion is and other whiles by a hidden cause which is not so easily discerned The first is chiefely that which is ordinarily said to be done by the force of nature to hinder Vacuum and is much practised by nature as in drawing our breath in sucking and in many other naturall operations which are imitated by art in making of pumpes syphons and such other instruments and in that admirable experiment of taking vp a heauy marble stone meerely by an other lying flatt and smoothly vpon it without any other connexion of the two stones together as also by that sport of boyes when they spread a thinne moystned leather vpon a smooth broad stone and presse it all ouer close to it and then by pulling of a string fastened att the middle of the leather they draw vp likewise the heauy stone In all which the first cause of the motion proceedeth from that body towardes which the motion is made And therefore is properly called Attraction For the better vnderstanding and declaring of which lett vs suppose two marble stones very broad and exceeding smoothly polished to be laid one flatt vpon the other and lett there be a ring fastened att the backe part of the vppermost stone and exactly in the middle of it Then by that ring pull it vp perpendicularly and steadily and the vndermost will follow sticking fast to the ouermost and though they were not very perfectly polished yet the nethermost would follow for a while if the ring be suddainely plucked vp but then it will soone fall downe againe Now this plainely sheweth that the cause of their sticking so strongly together when both the stones are very well polished is for that nothing can well enter between them to part them and so it is reduced to the shortnesse of the ayre that is betwixt them which not being capable of so great an expansion nor admitting to be diuided thickewayes so much as is necessary to fill the first growing distance between the two stones till new ayre findeth a course thither that so the swelling of the one may hinder vacuity till the other come in to the rescue the two stones must needes sticke together to certaine limits which limits will depend of the proportion that is between the weight and the continuity of the nethermost stone And when we haue examined this we shall vnderstand in what sense it is meaned that Nature abhorreth from Vacuity and what
meanes she vseth to auoyde it For to putt it as an enemy that nature fighteth against or to discourse of effects that would follow from it in case it were admitted is a great mistake and a lost labour seeing it is nothing and therefore can do nothing but is meerely a forme of expression to declare in short nothing else but that it is a contradiction or implication in termes and an impossibility in nature for vacuity to haue or to be supposed to haue a Being Thus then since in our case after we haue cast all about we can pitch vpon nothing to be considered but that the two stones do touch one an other and that they are weighty we must apply our selues onely to reflect vpon the effects proceeding from these two causes their contiguity and their heauynesse and we shall find that as the one of them namely the weight hindereth the vndermost from following the vppermost so contiguity obligeth it vnto that course and according as the one ouercometh the other so will this action be continued or interrupted Now that contiguity of substances do make one follow an other is euident by what our Masters in Metaphysickes teach vs when they shew that without this effect no motion att all could be made in the world nor no reason could be giuen for those motions we dayly see For since the nature of quantity is such that whensoeuer there is nothing between two partes of it they must needes touch and adhere and ioyne to one an other for how should they be kept asunder when there is nothing betweene them to part them if you pull one part away eyther some new substance must come to de close vnto that which remoueth or else the other which was formerly close to it must still be close to it and so follow it for if nothing do come between it is still close to it Thus then it being necessary that something must be ioyned close to euery thing vacuity which is nothing is excluded from hauing any being in nature And when we say that one body must follow an other to auoyde vacuity the meaning is that vnder the necessity of a contradiction they must follow one an other and that they can not do otherwise For it would be a contradiction to say that nothing were between two thinges and yet that they are not ioyned close to one an other And therefore if you should say it you would in other wordes say they are close together and they are not close together In like manner to say that vacuity is any where is a pure contradiction for vacuity being nothing hath no Being att all and yet by those wordes it is said to be in such a place so that they affirme it to be and not to be att the same time But now lett vs examine if there be no meanes to auoyde this contradiction and vacuity other then by the adhesion and following of one body vpon the motion of an other that is closely ioyned to it and euery where contiguous For sense is not easily quieted with such Metaphysicall contemplations that seeme to repugne against her dictamens and therefore for her satisfaction we can do no lesse then giue her leaue to range about and cast all wayes in hope of finding some one that may better content her which when she findeth that she can not she will the lesse repine to yield her assent to the rigourous sequeles and proofes of reason In this difficulty then after turning on euery side I for my part can discerne no pretence of probability in any other meanes then in pulling downe the lower stone by one corner that so there may be a gaping between the two stones to lett in ayre by little and little And in this case you may say that by the interuention of ayre vacuity is hindered aud yett the lower stone is left att liberty to follow its owne naturall inclination and be gouerned by its weight But indeed if you consider the matter well you will find that the doing this requireth a much greater force then to haue the lower stone follow the vpper for it can not gape in a straight line to lett in ayre since in that position it must open at the bottome where the angle is made at the same time that it openeth at the mouth and then ayre requiring time to passe from the edges to the bottome it must in the meane while fall into the contradiction of vacuity So that if it should open to lett in ayre the stone to compasse that effect must bend in such sort as wood doth when a wedge is putt into it to cleaue it Iudge then what force it must be that should make hard marble of a great thicknesse bend like a wand and whether it would not rather breake and slide off then do so you will allow that a much lesse will raise vp the lower stone together with the vppermost It must then of necessity fall out that it will follow it if it be moued perpendicularly vpwardes And the like effect will be though it should be raysed at oblique angles so that the lowermost edge do rest all the way vpon some thing that may hinder the inferior stone from sliding aside from the vppermost And this is the very case of all those other experiments of art and nature which we haue mentioned aboue for the reason holdeth as well in water and in liquide thinges as in solide bodies vntill the weight of the liquide body ouercometh the continuity of it for then the thridde breaketh and it will ascend no higher Which height Galileo telleth vs from the workmen in the Arsenall of Venice is neere 40. foote if the water be drawne vp in a close pipe in which the aduantage of the sides helpeth the ascent But others say that the inuention is enlarged and that water may be drawne to what height one pleaseth Howsoeuer the force which nature applyeth to maintaine the continuity of quantity can haue no limitt seeing it is grounded vpon contradiction And therefore Galileo was much mistaken when he throught to make an instrument whereby to discouer the limits of this force We may then conclude that the breaking of the water must depend from the strength of other causes As for example when the grauity is so great by encreasing the bulke of the water that it will eyther ouercome the strength of the pipe or else make the sucker of the pumpe rather yield way to ayre then draw vp so great a weight for which defects if remedies be found the art may surely be enlarged without end This is particular in a syphon that when that arme of it which hangeth out of the water is lower then the superficies of the water then it will runne of it selfe after it is once sett on running by sucking The reason whereof is because the weight which is in water pendant is greater then the weight of the ascending water and thereby supplyeth
vnto whom I intend this worke But to make these operations of nature not incredible lett vs remember how we haue determined that euery body whatsoeuer doth yield some steame or vent a kind of vapour from it selfe and consider how they must needes do so most of all that are hoat and moyst as blood and milke are and as all woundes and sores generally are We see that the foote of a hare or deere leaueth such an impression where the beast hath passed as a dog can discerne it a long time after and a foxe breatheth out so strong a vapour that the hunters themselues can wind it a great way of and a good while after he is parted from the place Now ioyning this to the experiences we haue already allowed of concerning the attraction of heate wee may conclude that if any of these vapours do light vpon a solide warme body which hath the nature of a source vnto them they will naturally congregate and incorporate there and if those vapors be ioyned with any medicatiue quality or body they will apply that medicament better then any surgeon can apply it Then if the steame of blood and spirits do carry with it from the weapon or cloth the balsamike qualities of the salue or pouder and with them do settle vpon the wound what can follow but a bettering in it Likewise if the steame of the corruption that is vpon the clodde do carry the drying quality of the wind which sweepeth ouer it when it hangeth high in the ayre vnto the sore part of the cowes foote why is it not possible that it should dry the corruption there as well as it dryeth it vpon the hedge And if the steame of burned milke caÌ„ hurt by carrying fire to the dugge why should not salt cast vpon it be a preseruatiue against it Or rather why should not salt hinder the fire from being carryed thither Since the nature of salt alwayes hindereth and suppresseth the actiuity of fire as we see by experience when we throw salt into the fire below to hinder the flaming of soute in the toppe of a chimney which presently ceaseth when new fire from beneath doth not continue it And thus we might proceed in sundry other effects to declare the reason and the possibility of them were we certaine of the truth of them therefore we remitt this whole question to the autority of the testimonies THE NINETEENTH CHAPTER Of three other motions belonging to particular bodies Filtration Restitution and Electricall attraction AFter these lett vs cast our eye vpon an other motion very familiar among Alchymistes which they call Filtration It is effected by putting one end of a tongue or labell of flannen or of cotton or of flaxe into a vessell of water and letting the other end hang ouer the brimme of it And it will by little and little draw all the water out of that vessell so that the end which hangeth out be lower then the superficies of the water and will make it all come ouer into any lower vessell you will reserue it in The end of this operation is when any water is mingled with grosse and muddy partes not dissolued in the water to separate the pure and light ones from the impure By which we are taught that the lighter partes of the water are those which most easily do catch And if we will examine in particular how it is likely this businesse passeth wee may conceiue that the body or linguet by which â—hâ— water ascendeth being a dry one some lighter partes of the water whose chance it is to be neere the clymbing body of flaxe do beginne to sticke fast vnto it and then they require nothing neere so great force nor so much pressing to make them clymbe vp along the flaxe as they would do to make them mount in the pure ayre As you may see if you hold a sticke in running water sheluing against the streame the water will runne vp along the sticke much higher then it could be forced vp in the open ayre without any support though the Agent were much stronger then the current of the streame And a ball will vpon a rebound runne much higher vp a sheluing board then it would if nothing touched it And I haue beene told that if an eggeshell filled with dew bee sett att â—he foote of a hollow sticke the sunne will draw it to the toppe of the sheluing sticke whereas without a proppe it will not stirre it With much more reason then we may conceiue that water finding as it were little steppes in the cotton to facilitate its iourney vpwardes must ascend more easily then those other thinges do so as it once receiue any impulse to driue it vpwardes for the grauity both of that water which is vpon the cotton as also of so many of the confining partes of water as can reach the cotton is exceedingly allayed eyther by sticking vnto the cotton and so weighing in one bulke with â—hat dry body or else by not tending downe straight to the center but resting as it were vpon a steepe plaine according to what we said of the arme of a syphon that hangeth very sloaping out of the water and therefore draweth not after it a lesse proportion of water in the other arme that is more in a direct line to the center by which meanes the water as soone as it beginneth to clymbe cometh to stand in a kind of cone nether breaking from the water below its bulke being bigge enough to reach vnto it nor yet falling downe vnto it But our chiefe labour must be to find a cause that may make the water beginne to ascend To which purpose consider how water of its owne nature compresseth it selfe together to exclude any other body lighter then it is Now in respect of the whole masse of the water those partes which sticke to the cotton are to be accounted much lighter then water not because in their owne nature they are so but for the circumstances which accompany them and do giue them a greater disposition to receiue a motion vpwardes then much lighter bodies whiles they are destitute of such helpes Wherefore as the bulke of water weighing and striuing downewardes it followeth that if there were any ayre mingled with it it would to possesse a lesser place driue out the ayre so here in this case the water that is att the foote of the ladder of cotton ready to clymbe with a very small impulse may be after some sort compared in respect of the water to ayre by reason of the lightnesse of it and consequently is forced vp by the compressing of the rest of the water round about it Which no faster getteth vp but other partes att the foote of the ladder do follow the first and driue them still vpwardes along the towe and new ones driue the second and others the third and so forth So that with ease they clymbe vp to the toppe of the filter still driuing one
an other forwardes as you may do a fine towel through a muskett barrell which though it be too limber to be thrust straight through yet cramming still new partes into it att the length you will driue the first quite through And thus when these partes of water are gott vp to the toppe of the vessell on which the filter hangeth and ouer it on the other side by sticking still to the towe and by their naturall grauity against which nothing presseth on this side the labell they fall downe againe by little and little and by droppes breake againe into water in the vessell sett to receiue them But now if you aske why it will not droppe vnlesse the end of the labell that hangeth be lower then the water I conceiue it is because the water which is all along vpon the flannen is one continued body hanging together as it were a thridde of wyre and is subiect to like accidents as such a continued body is Now suppose you lay a wyre vpon the edge of the basin which the filter resteth vpon and so make that edge the center to ballance it vpon if the end that is outermost be heauyest it will weigh downe the other otherwise not So fareth it with this thridde of water if the end of it that hangeth out of the pott that is to be filtred be longer and consequently heauyer then that which riseth it must needes raise the other vpwardes and fall it selfe downewardes Now the raising of the other implyeth lifting more water from the cisterne and the sliding of it selfe further downewardes is the cause of its conuerting into droppes So that the water in the cisterne serueth like the flaxe vpon a distaffe and is spunne into a thridde of water still as it commeth to the flannen by the drawing it vp occasioned by the ouerweight of the thridde on the other side of the center Which to expresse better by a similitude in a solide body I remēber I haue oftētimes seene in a Mercers shoppe a great heap of massy goldlace lye vpon their stall and a little way aboue it a round smooth pinne of wood ouer which they vse to hale their lace when they wind it into bottomes Now ouer this pinne I haue putt one end of the lace and as long as it hung no lower thē the board vpō which the rest of the lace did lye it stirred not for as the weight of the loose end carried it one way so the weight of the other side where the whole was drew it the other way and in this manner kept it in equilibrity But as soone as I drew on the hāging end to be heauyer thē the clymbing side for no more weigheth thē is in the ayre that which lyeth vpon the board hauing an other cēter then it began to roule to the ground and still drew vp new partes of that which lay vpon the board vntill all was tumbled downe vpon the floore In the same manner it happeneth to the water in which the thridde of it vpon the filter is to be compared fittly vnto that part of the lace which hung vpon the pinne and the whole quantity in the cisterne is like the bulke of lace vpon the shoppeboard for as fast as the filter draweth it vp it is conuerted into a thridde like that which is already vpon the filter in like manner as the wheele conuerteth the flaxe into yarne as fast as it draweth it out from the distaffe Our next consideration will very aptly fall vpon the motion of those thinges which being bent do leape with violence to their former figure whereas others returne but a little and others do stand in that ply wherein the bending of them hath sett them For finding the reason of which effects our first reflection may be to note that a superficies which is more long then broad containeth a lesse floore then that whose sides are equall or neerer being equall and that of those surfaces whose lines and angles are all equall that which hath most sides and angles containeth still the greater floore Whence it is that Mathematicians conclude a circle to be the most capacious of all figures and what they say of lines in respect of a superficies the same with proportion they say of surfaces in respect of the body contained And accordingly we see by consequence that in the making a bagge of a long napkin if the napkin be sowed together longwise it holdeth a great deale lesse then if it be sowed together broadwise By this we see plainely that if any body which is in a thicke and short figure be forced into a thinner which by becoming thinner must likewise become eyther longer or broader for what it looseth one way it must gett an other then that superfieies must needes be stretched which in our case is a Physicall outside or materiall part of a solide body not a Mathematicall consideration of an indiuisible Entity We see also that this change of figures happeneth in the bending of all those bodies whereof we are now enquiring the reason why some of them restore themselues to their originall figures and others stand as they are bent Then to begin with the latter sort we find that they are of a moist nature as among mettalls lead and tinne and among other bodies those which we account soft And we may determine that this effect proceedeth partly from the humidity of the body that standeth bent and partly from a drynesse peculiar to it that comprehendeth and fixeth the humidity of it For by the first they are rendred capable of being driuen into any figure which nature or art desireth and by the second they are preserued from hauing their grauity putt them out of what figure they haue once receiued But because these two conditions are common to all solide bodies we may conclude that if no other circumstance concurred the effect arising out of them would likewise be common to all such and therefore where we find it otherwise we must seeke further for a cause of that transgression As for example if you bend the bodies of young trees or the branches of others they will returne to their due figure It is true they will sometime leane towardes that way they haue beene bent as may be seene euen in great trees after violent tempestes and generally the heades of trees and the eares of corne and the growne hedgerowes will all bend one way in some countries where some one wind hath a maine predominance and raigneth most continually as neere the sea-shore vpon the westerne coast of England where the southwest wind bloweth constantly the greatest part of the yeare may be obserued but this effect proceeding from a particular and extraordinary cause concerneth not our matter in hand We are to examine the reason of the motion of Restitution which we generally see in yong trees and branches of others as we said before In such we see that the earthy part which maketh them stiffe or
end being bigger then the rest of the trough made it somewhat like a ladle and the rest of it seemed to be the handle with a channell in it the little end of which channell or trough was open to lett the water passe freely away And these troughes were fastened by an axeltree in the middle of them to the frame of tymber that went from the bottome vp to the toppe so that they could vpon that center moue att liberty eyther the shutt end downewardes or the open end like the beame of a ballance Now att a certaine position of the roote wheele if so I may call it all one side of the machine sunke downe a little lower towardes the water and the other was raised a little higher Which motion was changed as soone as the ground wheele had ended the remnant of his reuolution for then the side thâ—t was lowest before sprung vp and the other sunke downe And thus the two sides of the machine were like two legges that by turnes trode the water as in the vintage men presse grapes in a watte Now the troughes that were fastened to the tymber which descended turned that part of them downewardes which was like a boxe shutt to hold the water and consequently the open end was vp in the ayre like the arme of the ballance vnto which the lightest scale is fastened and in the meane time the troughes vpon the asceÌ„ding timber were moued by a contrary motion keeping their boxe endes aloft and letting the open endes incline downewardes so that if any water were in them it would lett it runne out whereas the others retained any that came into them When you haue made an image of this machine in your fantasie coÌ„sider what will follow out of its motion You will perceiue that when one legge sinketh downe towardes the water that trough which is next to the superficies of it putting downe his boxe end and dipping it a little in the water must needes bring vp as much as it can retaine when that legge ascendeth which when it is att its height the trough moueth vpon his owne center and the boxe end which was lowest becometh now highest and so the water runneth out of it Now the other legge descending att the same time it falleth out that the trough on its side which would be a steppe aboue that which hath the water in it if they stood in equilibrity becometh now a steppe lower then it and is so placed that the water which runneth out of that which is aloft falleth into the head or boxe of it which no sooner hath receiued it but that legge on which it is fastened springeth vp and the other descendeth so that the water of the second legge runneth now into the boxe of the first legge that is next aboue that which first laded the water out of the riuer And thus the troughes of the two legges deliuer their water by turnes from one side to the other and att euery remooue it getteth a steppe vpwardes till it cometh to the toppe whiles att euery ascent and descent of the whole side the lowest ladle or trough taketh new water from the riuer which ladefull followeth immediately in its ascent that which was taken vp the time before And thus in a little while all the troughes from the bottome to the toppe are full vnlesse there happen to be some failing in some ladle and in that case the water breaketh out there and all the ladles aboue that are dry The other engine or rather multitude of seuerall engines to performe sundry different operations all conducing to one worke whereas that of Toledo is but one tenour of motion from the first to the last is in the minte at Segouia Which is so artificially made that one part of it distendeth an ingott of siluer or gold into that breadth and thicknesse as is requisite to make coyne of Which being done it deliuereth the plate it hath wrought vnto an other that printeth the figure of the coyne vpon it And from thence it is turned ouer to an other that cutteth it according to the print into due shape and weight And lastly the seuerall peeces fall into a reserue in an other roome where the officer whose charge it is findeth treasure ready coyned without any thing there to informe him of the seuerall different motions that the siluer or the gold passed before they came to that state But if he goe on the other side of the wall into the roome where the other machines stand and are att worke he will then discerne that euery one of them which considered by it selfe might seeme a distinct complete engine is but a seruing part of the whole whose office is to make money and that for this worke any one of them seperated from the rest ceaseth to be the part of a minte and the whole is maymed and destroyed Now lett vs apply the consideration of these different kindes of engines to the natures of the bodies we treate of Which I doubt not would fitt much better were they liuely and exactly described But it is so long since I saw them and I was then so very young that I retaine but a confufed and clowdy remembrance of them especially of the minte att Segouia in the which there are many more particulars then I haue touched as conueniency for refining the oore or mettall and then casting it into ingots and driuing them into roddes and such like vnto all which there is little helpe of handes requisite more then to apply the matter duly att the first But what I haue said of them is enough to illustrate what I ayme att and though I should erre in the particulars it is no great matter for I intend not to deliuer the history of them but only out of the remembrance of such note full and artificiall Masterpeeces to frame a modell in their fancies that shall reade this of something like them whereby they may with more ease make a right conception of what we are handling Thus then all sortes of plants both great and small may be compared to our first engine of the waterworke att Toledo for in them all the motion we can discerne is of one part transmitting vnto the next to it the iuice which it receiued from that immediately before it so that it hath one constant course from the roote which sucketh it from the earth vnto the toppe of the highest sprigge in which if it should be intercepted and stopped by any mayming of the barke the channell it ascendeth by it would there breake out and turne into droppes or gumme or some such other substance as the nature of the plant requireth and all that part of it vnto which none of this iuice can ascend would drye and wither and grow dead But sensible liuing creatures we may fittly compare to the second machine of the minte att Segouia For in them though euery part and member be as it were a complete thing
haue formerly declared in the making of salt by force of fire This button thus dilated and brought to this passe we call the fruite of the plant whose harder part encloseth oftentimes an other not so hard as dry The reason whereof is because the outward hardenesse permitteth no moysture to soake in any aboundance through it and then that which is enclosed in it must needes be much dryed though not so much but that it still retaineth the common nature of the plant This drought maketh these inner partes to be like a kind of dult or att the least such as may be easily dryed into dust when they are brused out of the huske that encloseth them And in euery parcell of this dust the nature of the whole resideth as it were contracted into a small quantity for the iuice which was first in the button and had passed from the roote through the manifold varieties of the diuers partes of the plant and had suffered much concoction partly from the sunne and partly from the inward heate imprisoned in that harder part of the fruite is by these passages strainings and concoctions become att the length to be like a tincture extracted out of the whole plant and is att the last dryed vp into a kind of magistery This we call the seede which is of a fitt nature by being buried in the earth and dissolued with humour to renew and reciprocate the operation we haue thus described And thus you haue the formation of a Plant. But a sensiue creature being compared to a plant as a plant is to a mixed body you can not but conceiue that he must be compounded as it were of many plantes in like sort as a plant is of many mixed bodies But so that all the plants which concurre to make one animal are of one kind of nature and cognation and besides the matter of which such diuersity is to be made must of necessity be more humid and figurable then that of an ordinary plant and the artificer which worketh and mouldeth it must be more actiue Wherefore we must suppose that the masse of which an animal is to be made must be actually liquid and the fire that worketh vpon it must be so powerfull that of its owne nature it may be able to conuert this liquide matter into such breathes and steames as we see do vse to rise from water when the sunne or fire worketh vpon it Yet if the masse were altogether as liquide as water it would vanish away by heate boyling it and be dryed vp therefore it must be of such a conuenient temper that although in some of its partes it be fluide and apt to runne yet by others it must be held together as we see that vnctuous thinges for the most part are which will swell by heate but not flye away So then if we imagine a great heate to be imprisoned in such a liquour and that it seeketh by boyling to breake out but that the solidenesse and viscousnesse of the substance will not permitt it to euaporate it can not choose but comport it selfe in some such sort as we see butter or oyle in a frying panne ouer the fire when it riseth in bubbles but much more efficaciously for their body is not strong enough to keepe in the heate and therefore those bubbles fall againe whereas if it were those bubbles would rise higher and higher and stretch themselues longer and longer as when the soape boylers do boyle a strong vnctuous lye into soape and euery one of them would be as it were a litle brooke whereof the channell would be the enclosing substance and the inward smoake that extendeth it might be compared to the water of it as when a glasse is blowne out by fire and ayre into a long figure Now we may remember how we haue said where we treated of the production and resolution of mixed bodies that there are two sortes of liquide substantiall partes which by the operation of fire are sent out of the body it worketh vpon the watry and the oyly partes For though there appeare some times some very subtile and aethereall partes of a third kind which are the aquae ardentes or burning spirits yet in such a close distilling of circulation as this is they are not seuered by themselues but do accompagny the rest and especially the watry partes which are of a nature that the rising Ethereall spirits easily mingle with and extend themselues in it whereby the water becometh more efficacious and the spirits lesse fugitiue Of these liquide partes which the fire sendeth away the watry ones are the first as being the easiest to be raysed the oyly partes rise more difficultly and therefore do come last And in the same manner it happeneth in this emission of brookes the watry and oyly steames will each of them flye into different reserues and if there arriue vnto them aboundance of their owne quality each of them must make a substance of its owne nature by settling in a conuenient place and by due concoction Which substance after it is made and confirmed if more humidity and heate do presse it will againe break forth into other litle channels But when the watry and oyly partes are boyled away there remaine yet behind other more solide and fixed partes and more strongly incorporated with fire then eyther of these which yet can not drye vp into a fiery salt because a continuall accessiō of humour keepeth them alwayes flowing and so they become like a couldron of boyling fire Which must propagate it selfe as wide as eyther of the others since the actiuity of it must needes be greater then theirs as being the source of motion vnto them and that there wanteth not humidity for it to extend it selfe by And thus you see three rootes of three diuers plants all in the same plant proceeding by naturall resolution from one primitiue source Whereof that which is most watry is fittest to fabricate the body and common outside of the triformed plant since water is the most figurable principle that is in nature and the most susceptible of multiplication and by its cold is easyest to be hardened and therefore fittest to resist the iniuries of enemy bodies that may infest it The oyly partes are fittest for the continuance and solidity of the plant for we see that viscosity and oylinesse hold together the partes where they abound and they are slowly wasted by fire but do conserue and are an aliment to the fire that consumeth them The partes of the third kind are fittest for the conseruation of heate which though in them it be too violent yet it is necessary for working vpon other partes and for mainetaining a due temper in them And thus we haue armed our plant with three sortes of riuers or brookes to runne through him with as many different streames the one of a gentle balsamike oyle an other of streaming fire and the third of a connaturall and cooler water to irrigate
and temper him The streames of water as we haue said must runne through the whole fabrike of this triformed plant and because it is not a simple water but warme in a good degree and as it were a middle substance betwixt water and ayre by reason of the ardent volatile spiritt that is with it it is of a fitt nature to swell as ayre doth and yet withall to resist violence in a conuenient degree as water doth Therefore if from its source nature sendeth aboundance into any one part that part must swell and grow thicker and shorter and so must be contracted that way which nature hath ordered it Whence we perceiue a meanes by which nature may draw any part of the outward fabrike which way soeuer she is pleased by sett instruments for such an effect But when there is no motion or but litle in these pipes the standing streame that is in a very litle though long channell must needes be troubled in its whole body if any one part of it be pressed vpon so as to receiue thereby any impression and therefore whatsoeuer is done vpon it though att the very furthest end of it maketh a commotion and sendeth an impression vp to its very source Which appearing by our former discourse to be the origine of particular and occasionall motions it is obuious to conceiue how it is apt to be moued and wrought by such an impression to sett on foote the beginning of any motion which by natures prouidence is conuenient for the plant when such an impression is made vpon it And thus you see this plant hath the vertue both of sense or feeling that is of being moued and affected by externe obiects lightly striking vpon it as also of mouing it selfe to or from such an obiect according as nature shall haue ordained Which in summe is that this plant is a sensitiue creature composed of three sources the heart the braine and the liuer whose offspringes are the arteries the nerues and the veines which are filled with vitall spirits with animal spirits and with blood and by these the animal is heated nourished and made partaker of sense and motion Now referring the particular motions of liuing creatures to an other time we may obserue that both kindes of them as well vegetables as animals do agree in the nature of sustaining themselues in the three common actions of generation nutrition and augmentation which are the beginning the progresse and the conseruing of life Vnto which three we may adde the not so much action as passion of death and of sicknesse or decay which is the way to death THE FOVRE AND TWENTIETH CHAPTER A more particular suruay of the generation of Animals in which is discouered what part of the animal is first generated TO beginne then with examining how liuing creatures are ingendered our maine question shall be whether they be framed entirely att once or successiuely one part after an other And if this later way which part first Vpon the discussion of which all that concerneth generation will be explicated as much as concerneth our purpose in hand To deduce this from its origine we may remember how our Masters tell vs that when any liuing creature is passed the heate of its augmentation or growing the superfluous nourishment settleth it selfe in some appoynted place of the body to serue for the production of some other Now it is euident that this superfluity cometh from all partes of the body and may be said to containe in it after some sort the perfection of the whole liuing creature Be it how it will it is manifest that the liuing creature is made of this superfluous moysture of the parent which according to the opinion of some being compounded of seuerall partes deriued from the seuerall limbes of the parent those partes when they come to be fermented in conuenient heate and moysture do take their posture and situation according to the posture and disposition of partes that the liuing creature had from whence they issued and then they growing dayly greater and solider the effects of moysture and of heate do att the length become such a creature as that was from whence they had their origine Which an accident that I remember seemeth much to confirme It was of a catt that had its tayle cutt of when it was very yong which catt happening afterwardes to haue yong ones halfe the kittlinges proued without tayles and the other halfe had them in an ordinary manner as if nature could supply but on the partners side not on both And an other particular that I saw when I was att Argiers maketh to this purpose which was of a woman that hauing two thumbes vpon the left hand foure daugthers that she had did all resemble her in the same accident and so did a litle child a girle of her eldest daugthers but none of her sonnes Whiles I was there I had a particular curiosity to see them all and though it be not easily permitted vnto Christians to speake familiarly with Mahometan women yet the condition I was in there and the ciuility of the Bassha gaue me the opportunity of full view and discourse with them and the old woman told me that her mother and Grandmother had beene in the same manner But for them it resteth vpon her creditt the others I saw my self But the opinion which these accidents seeme to support though att the first view it seemeth smoothly to satisfy our inquiry and fairely to compasse the making of a liuing creature yet looking further into it we shall find it fall exceeding short of its promising and meete with such difficulties as it can not ouercome For first lett vs cast about how this compound of seuerall partes that serueth for the generation of a new liuing creature can be gathered from euery part and member of the parent so to carry with it in litle the complete nature of it The meaning hereof must be that this superfluous aliment eyther passeth through all and euery litle part and particle of the parents body and in its passage receiueth something from them or else that it receiueth only from all similar and great partes The former seemeth impossible for how can one imagine that such iuice should circulate the whole body of an animall and visit euery atome of it and retire to the reserue where it is kept for generatiō and no part of it remaine absolutely hehind sticking to the flesh or bones that it bedeaweth but that still some part returneth backe from euery part of the animall Besides consider how those partes that are most remote from the channels which conuey this iuice when they are fuller of nourishment then they neede the iuice which ouerfloweth from them cometh to the next part and settling there and seruing it for its due nourishment driueth backe into the channell that which was betwixt the channell and it selfe so that here there is no returne att all from some of the remote pattes
first liuing with other people a woman that had compassion of him to see a man so neere like a beast and that had no language to call for what he wished or needed to haue tooke particular care of him and was alwayes very sollicitous to see him furnished with what he wanted which made him so apply himselfe vnto her in all his occurrents that whensoeuer he stood in neede of ought if she were out of the way and were gone abroad into the fieldes or to any other village neere by he would hunt her out presently by his sent in such sort as with vs those dogges vse to do which are taught to draw dry foote I imagine he his yet aliue to tell a better story of himselfe then I haue done and to confirme what I haue here said of him for I haue from them who saw him but few yeares agone that he was an able strong man and likely to last yet a good while longer And of an other man I can speake assuredly my selfe who being of a very temperate or rather spare diett could likewise perfectly discerne by his smell the qualities of whatsoeuer was afterwardes to passe the examination of his taste euen to his bread and beere Wherefore to conclude it is euident both by reason and by experience that the obiects of our touch our taste and our smell are materiall and corporeall thinges deriued from the diuision of quantity into more rare and more dense partes and may with ease be resolued into their heades and springes sufficiently to content any iuditious and rationall man Who if he be curious to haue further satisfaction in this particular as farre as concerneth odours and sauours may looke ouer what Ioannes Brauus that iuditious though vnpolished Physitian of Salamanca hath written thereof THE EIGHT AND TWENTIETH CHAPTER Of the sense of hearing and of the sensible quality sound BVt to proceede with the rest of the senses because nature saw that some thinges came soddainely vpon a liuing creature which might do it hurt if they were not perceiued a farre off and that other thinges were placed att distance from it which would greatly helpe it if it could come neere vnto them she found a meanes to giue vs two senses more for the discouery of remote thinges The one principally and particularly to descry their motion The other to marke their bulke and situation And so to beginne with the former of these we must needes acknowledge after due examination of the matter that the thing which we call sound is purely motion And if it be obiected that many motions are made without any discernable sound We shall not make difficulty to grant it considering that many motions dye before they come to touch the eare or else are so weake that they are drowned by other stronger motions which round about besiege our eares in such manner that notice is not taken of these for so it fareth in what dependeth meerely of quantity especially concerning our senses that not euery thing of the kind but a determinate quantity or multitude of parts of it maketh an obiect sensible But to come close to the point we see that sound for the most part is made in the ayre and that to produce it there is required a quicke and smart motion of that Element which of all the rest is the most moueable And in motion velocity or quickenesse is proportionate to density in magnitude as we haue att large declared Which maketh quantity become perceptible in bulke as this doth in motion And as the one consisteth in a greater proportion of substance to the same quantity so the other doth in the passage of more partes of the medium in the same time And in the moderating of this such of the liberall artes are employed which belong to the cultiuating mans voyce as Rhetorike meetering and singing It is admirable how finely Galileo hath deliuered vs the consonances of musike towardes the end of his first Dialogue of motion from the 95 page forward on and how he hath shewed that matter clearely vnto the sight so making the eye as well as the eare iudge of it in motions of the water in pendants hanging loose in the ayre and in permanent notes or races made vpon letton To the moderation of the same many other mechanicall artes are applyed as the trade of bellfounders and of all makers of musicall instruments by wind or by water or by strings Neyther can I slippe ouer without mentioning the two curious artes of Ecchoing and of whispering The first of which teacheth to iterate voyces seuerall times and is frequently putt in practise by those that are delighted with rarities in their gardens And the other sheweth how to gather into a narrow roome the motions of the ayre that are diffused in a great extent whereby one that shall putt his eare to that place where all the seuerall motions do meete shall heare what is spoken so lowe as no body betweene him and the speaker can discerne any sound att all Of which kind there are very fine curiosities in some churches of England and my selfe haue seene in an vpper roome of a capacious round tower vaulted ouerhead the walles so contriued by chance I beleeue that two men standing att the vtmost opposite poyntes of the Diameter of it could talke very currently and clearely with one an other and yet none that stoode in the middle could heare a syllable And if he turned his face to the wall and spoke against that though neuer so softly the others eare att the opposite poynt would discerne euery word Which putteth me in minde of a note made by one that was no frend to auricular confession vpon his occasion of his being with me in a church that had been of a Monastery where in one corner of it one might sitt and heare almost all that was whispered through the whole extent of the church who would not be persuaded but that it was on purpose contriued so by the suttlety of the fryars to the end that the Prior or some one of them might sitt there and heare whatsoeuer the seuerall Penitents accused themselues of to their Ghostly fathers so to make aduantage by this artifice of what the confessors durst not of themselues immediately reueale He allowed better of the vse in Rome of making voyces rebound from the toppe of the cupula of st Peters in the Vatican downe to the floore of the church when on great dayes they make a quire of musike goe vp to the very highest part of the arch which is into the lanterne from whence whiles they sing the people below iust vnder it are surprised with the smart sound of thaeir voices as though they stoode close by them and yet can see no body from whom those notes should pâ—oceede And in the same cupula if two men stand vpon the large cornish or bord which circleth the bottome of it they may obserue the like effect as that
which I spoke of aboue in the round tower In the like manner they that are called ventriloqui do persuade ignorant people that the Diuell speaketh from within them deepe in their belly by their sucking their breath inwardes in a certaine manner whiles they speake whence it followeth that their voice seemeth to come not from them but from somewhat else hidden within them if att the least you perceiue it cometh out of them but if you do not then it seemeth to come from a good way off To this art belongeth the making of sarabatanes or trunkes to helpe the hearing and of Eccho glasses that multiply soundes as burning glasses do light All which artes and the rules of them do follow the lawes of motion and euery effect of them is to be demonstrated by the principles and proportions of motion and therefore we can not with reason imagine them to be any thing else Wee see likewise that great noises not only offend the hearing but euen shake houses and towers I haue beene told by inhabitants of Douer that when the Arch Duke Albertus made his great battery against Calais which for the time was a very furious one for he endeauoured all he could to take the towne before it could be relieued the very houses were shakē and the glasse windowes were shiuered with the report of his artillery And I haue beene told by one that was in Seuill when the gunnepouder house of that towne which was some two miles distant from the place where he liued was blowne vp that it made the wodden shutters of the windowes in his house beate and clappe against the walles with greate violence and did splitte the very walles of a faire church that standing next it though att a good distance had no other building betweene to shelter it from the impetuosity of the ayres soddaine violent motion And after a fight I once had with some galleasses and Galliones in the roade of Scanderone which was a very hoat one for the time and a scarce credible number of pieces of ordinance were shott from my fleete the English Consull of that place coming afterwardes aboard my shippe tould me that the report of our gunnes had during all the time of the fight shaken the drinking glasses that stood vpon shelues in his house and had splitte the paper windowes all about and had spoyled and cracked all the egges that his pigeons were then sitting vpon which losse he lamented exceedingly for they were of that kind which commonly is called Carriers and serue them dayly in their commerce betweene that place and Aleppo And I haue often obserued att sea in smooth water that the ordinance shott of in a shippe some miles distant would violently shake the glasse windowes in an other And I haue perceiued this effect in my owne more then once att the report of a single gunne from a shippe so farre off that we could not descry her I remember how one time vpon such an occasion we altered our course and steared with the sound or rather with the motion att the first obseruing vpon which poynt of the compasse the shaking appeared for as yet we heard nothing though soone after with much attention and silence we could discerne a dull clumsy noise and such a motion groweth att the end of it so faint that if any strong resisting body checke it in its course it is presently deaded and will afterwardes shake nothing beyond that body and therefore it is perceptible only att the outside of the shippe if some light and very moueable body do hang loosely on that side it cometh to receiue the impression of it as this did att the gallery windowes of my cabin vpon the poope which were of light moscouia glasse or talke and by then we had runne somewhat more then a watch with all the sayles abroad we could make and in a faire loome gale we found our salues neere enough to part the fray of two shippes that in a litle while longer fighting would haue sunke one an other But besides the motions of the ayre which receiueth them easily by reason of the fluidity of it we see that euen solide bodies do participate of it As if you knocke neuer so lightly att one end of the longest beame you can find it will be distinctly hard att the other end the trampling of men and horses in a quiet might will be heard some miles off if one lay their eare to the ground and more sensibly if one make a litle hole in the earth and putt ones eare into the mouth of it but most of all if one sett a drumme smooth vpon the ground and lay ones eare to the vpper edge of it for the lower membrane of the drumme is shaked by the motion of the earth and then multiplyeth that sound by the hollow figure of the drumme in the conueying it to the vpper membrane vpon which your eare leaneth Not much vnlike the tympane or drumme of the eare which being shaked by outward motion causeth a second motion on the inside of it correspondent to this first and this hauing a free passage to the braine striketh it immediately and so informeth it how thinges moue without which is all the mystery of hearing If any thing do breake or stoppe this motion before it shake our eare it is not heard And accordingly we see that the sound of belles or artillery is heard much further if it haue the conduct of waters then through the pure ayre because in such bodies the great continuity of them maketh that one part can not shake alone and vpon their superficies there is no notable vneuenesse nor no dense thing in the way to checke the motion as in the ayre hilles buildinges trees and such like so that the same shaking goeth a great way And to confirme that this is the true reason I haue seuerall times obserued that standing by a riuers side I haue heard the sound of a ring of belles much more distinctly and lowde then if I went some distance from the water though neerer to the steeple from whence the sound came And it is not only the motion of the ayre that maketh sound in our eares but any motion that hath accesse to them in such a manner as to shake the quiuering membranous tympane within them will represent vnto vs those motions which are without and so make such a sound there as if it were conueyed only by the ayre Which is plainely seene when a man lying a good way vnder water shall there heare the same soundes as are made aboue in the ayre but in a more clumsie manner according as the water by being thicker and more corpulent is more vnwieldy in its motions And this I haue tryed often staying vnder water as long as the necessity of breathing would permitt me Which sheweth that the ayre being smartly moued moueth the water also by meanes of its continuity with it and that liquid element being
density for to omitt those which our touch taketh notice of as too plaine to be questioned Physitians iudge and determine the naturall qualities of meates and of medecines and of simples by their tastes and smels by those qualities they find out powers in them to doe materiall operatioÌ„s and such as our instrumeÌ„ts for cutting filing brushing and the like doe vnto ruder and grosser bodies All which vertues being in these instruments by the different tempers of rarity and density is a conuincing argument that it must be the same causes which must produce effects of the same kind in their smels and tastes and as for light it is knowne how corporeally it worketh vpon our eyes Againe if we looke particularly into the composition of the organes of our senses we shall meet with nothing but such qualities as we find in the composition of all other naturall bodies If we search into our eye we shall discouer in it nothing but diaphaneity softenesse diuers colours and consistencies which all Anatomistes to explicate doe parallele in other bodies the like is of our tongue our nosethrilles and our eares As for our touch that is so materiall a sense and so diffused ouer the whole body we can haue no difficulty about it Seeing then that all the qualities we can discouer in the organes of our senses are made by the various minglings of rarity with density how can we doubt but that the actiue powers ouer these patients must be of the same nature and kind Againe seing that the examples aboue brought doe conuince that the obiects of one sense may be knowne by an other who can doubt of a community among them if not of degree at â—â—e least of the whole kind As we see that the touch is the groundworke of all the rest and consequently that being euidently corporeâ—â—â— and consisting in a temper of rarity and density why should we mâ—â—e difficulty in allowing the like of the rest Besides lett vs compose of rarity and density such tempers as we find in our seÌ„ses and lett vs againe compose of rarity and density such actors as we haue determined the qualities which we call sensible to be and will it not manifestly follow that these two applyed to one an other must produce such effects as we affirme our senses haue that is to passe the outward obiects by different degrees vnto an inward receiuer Againe lett vs cast our eyes vpon the naturall resolution of bodies and how they moue vs and we shall thâ—reby discouer both what the senses are and why they are iust so many and that they can not be more For an outward body may moue vs eyther in its owne bulke or quantity or as it worketh vpon an other The first is done by the touch the second by the eare when a body mouing the ayre maketh vs take notice of his motion Now in resolution there are three actiue partes proceeding from a body which haue power to moue vs. The fiery part which you see worketh vpon our eyes by the vertue of light The ayry part which we know moueth our nosethrilles by being sucked in with the ayre And lastly the salt which dissolueth in water and so moueth our watry sense which is our taste And these being all the actiue partes that shew themselues in the resolution of a body how can we imagine there should be any more senses to be wrought vpon for what the stable body sheweth of it selfe will be reduced to the touch what as it moueth to hearing what the resolutions of it according to the nature of the resolued atomes that fly abroade will concerne the other three senses as we haue declared And more wayes of working or of actiue partes we can not conceiue to spring out of the nature of a body Finally if we cast our eyes vpon the intention of nature to what purpose are our senses but to bring vs into knowledge of the natures of the substances we conuerse with all surely to effect this there can not be inuented a better or more reasonable expedient then to bring vnto our iudgement seate the likenesses or extractes of those substances in so delicate a modell that they may not be offensiue or cumbersome like so many patternes presented vnto vs to know by them what the whole piece is for all similitude is a communication betweene two thinges in that quality wherein there likenesse consisteth and therefore we can not doubt but that nature hath giuen vs by the meanes we haue explicated an essay of all the thinges in the world that fall vnder our commerce whereby to iudge whether they be profitable or nociue vnto vs and yet in so delicate and subtile a quantity as may in no wayes be offensiue to vs whiles we take our measures to attract what is good and auoyde what is noxious THE TWO AND THIRTIETH CHAPTER Of sensation or the motion whereby sense is properly exercised OVt of the considerations which we haue deliuered in these last Chapters the Reader may gather the vnreasonablenesse of vulgar Phylosophers who to explicate life and sense are not content to giue vs termes without explicating them but will force vs to beleeue contradictions telling vs that life consisteth in this that the same thing hath a power to worke vpon it selfe and that sensation is a working of the actiue part of the same sense vpon its passiue part and yet will admitt no partes in it but will haue the same indiuisible power worke vpon it selfe And this with such violence and downebearing of all opposition that they deeme him not considerable in the schooles who shall offer only to doubt of what they teach him hereabout but brand him with the censure of one who knoweth not and contradicteth the very first principles of Phylosophy And therefore it is requisite we should looke somewhat more particularly into the manner how sensation is made Monsieur des Cartes who by his great and heroyke attempts and by shewing mankinde how to steere and husband their reason to best aduantage hath left vs no excuse for being ignorant of any thing worth the knowing explicating the nature of sense is of opinion that the bodies without vs in certaine circumstances do giue a blow vpon our exterior organes from whence by the continuity of the partes that blow or motion is continued till it come to our braine and seate of knowledge vpon which it giueth a stroke answerable to that which the outward sense first receiued and there this knocke causing a particular effect according to the particular nature of the motion which dependeth off the nature of the obiect that produced it our soule and mind hath notice by this meanes of euery thing that knocketh at our gates and by the great variety of knockes or motions that our braine feeleth which ariseth from as great a variety of natures in the obiects that cause them we are enabled to iudge of the nature and conditions of euery thing we
vniuersality or particularity for that vnity which the two termes whose identification is enquired after must haue by being ioyned with the third becometh much varied by such diuers application and from hence shooteth vp that multitude of kindes of syllogismes which our Logitians call moodes All which I haue thus particularly expressed to the end we may obserue how this great variety hangeth vpon the sole string of identity Now these Syllogismes being as it were interlaced and wouen one within an other so that many of them do make a long chaine whereof each of them is a linke do breede or rather are all the variety of mans life they are the stepps by which we walke in all our conuersations and in all our businesses man as he is man doth nothing else but weaue such chaines whatsoeuer he doth swaruing from this worke he doth as deficient from the nature of man and if he do ought beyond this by breaking out into diuers sortes of exteriour actions he findeth neuerthelesse in this linked sequele of simple discourses the art the cause the rule the boundes and the modell of it Lett vs take a summary view of the vast extent of it and in what an immeÌ„se Ocean one may securely sayle by that neuer varying compasse when the needle is rightly touched and fitted to a well moulded boxe making still new discoueries of regions farre out of the sight and beliefe of them who stand vpon the hither shore Humane operations are comprised vnder the two generall heades of knowledge and of action if we looke but in grosse vpon what an infinity of diuisions these branch themselues into we shall become giddy our braines will turne our eyes will grow weary and dimme with ayming only att a suddaine and rouing measure of the most conspicuous among them in the way of knowledge We see what mighty workes men haue extended their labours vnto not only by wild discourses of which huge volumes are coÌ„posed but euen in the rigorous methode of Geometry Arithmetike and Algebra in which an Euclide an Apollonius an Archimedes a Diophantus and their followers haue reached such admirable heights and haue wound vp such vast bottomes sometimes shewing by effects that the thing proposed must needes be as they haue sett downe and can not possibly be any otherwise otherwhiles appaying the vnderstanding which is neuer truly at rest till it hath found the causes of the effects it seeth by exposing how it cometh to be so that the reader calling to mind how such a thing was taught him before and now finding an other vnexpectedly conuinced vpon him easily seeth that these two put together do make and force that third to be whereof he was before in admiration how it could be effected which two wayes of discourse are ordinarily knowne by the names of Demonstrations the one called a Priori the other a Posteriori Now if we looke into the extent of the deductions out of these we shall find no end In the heaueÌ„s we may perceiue Astronomy measuring whatsoeuer we can imagine and ordering those glorious lights which our Creator hath hanged out for vs and shewing them their wayes and pricking out their pathes and prescribing them for as many ages as he pleaseth before hand the various motions they may not swarue from in the least circumstance Nor want there sublime soules that tell vs what mettall they are made of what figures they haue vpon what pillars they are fixed and vpon what gimals they moue and performâ— their various periodes wittnesse that excellent and admirable worke I haue so often mentioned in my former Treatise If we looke vpon the earth we shall meete with those that will tell vs how thicke it is and how much roome it taketh vp they will shew vs how men and beastes are hanged vnto it by the heeles how the water and ayre do couer it what force and power fire hath vpon them all what working is in the depths of it and of what composition the maine body of it is framed where neyther our eyes can reach nor any of our senses can send its messengers to gather and bring back any relations of it Yet are not our Masters contented with all this the whole world of bodies is not enough to satisfy them the knowledge of all corporeall thinges and of this vast machine of heauen and earth with all that they enclose can not quench the vnlimited thirst of a noble minde once sett on fire with the beauty and loue of truth Aestuat infoelix angusto limite mundi Vt Gyarae clausus scopulis paruâque seripho But such heroike spirits cast their subtile nettes into an other world after the winged inhabitans of the heauens and find meanes to bring them also into account and to serue them how imperceptible soeuer they be to the senses as daynties at the soules table They enquire after a maker of the world we see and are ourselues a maine part of and hauing found him they conclude him oâ—t of the force of contradiction to be aeternall infinite omnipotent omniscient immutable and a thousand other admirable qualities they determine of him They search after his tooles and instruments wherewith he built this vast and admirable pallace and seeke to grow acquainted with the officiers and stewardes that vnder him gouerne this orderly and numerous family They find them to be inuisible creatures exalted aboue vs more then we can estimate yet infinitely further short of their and our maker then we are of them If this do occasion them to cast their thoughts vpon man himselfe they find a nature in him it is true much inferiour to these admirable Intelligences yet such an one as they hope may one day arriue vnto the likenesse of them and that euen at the present is of so noble a moulde as nothing is too bigge for it to faddome nor any thing too small for it to discerne Thus we see knowledge hath no limits nothing escapeth the toyles of science all that euer was that is or can euer be is by them circled in their extent is so vast that our very thoughts and ambitioÌ„s are too weake and too poore to hope for or to ayme at what by them may be coÌ„passed And if any man that is not invred to raise his thoughts aboue the pitch of the outward obiects he coÌ„uerseth dayly with should suspect that what I haue now said is rather like the longing dreames of passionate louers whose desires feede them with impossibilities then that it is any reall truth or should imagine that it is but a poetike Idea of science that neuer was or will be in act or if any other that hath his discoursing faculty vitiated and peruerted by hauing beene imbued in the schooles with vnsound and vmbratile principles should persuade himselfe that howsoeuer the pretenders vnto learning and science may talke loude of all thinges and make a noise with scholastike termes and persuade their ignorant hearers that they speake
to imagine any bodily thing whatsoeuer to be at any time without all kind of figure or without any place at all or indifferent to this or to that and neuerthelesse all thinges whatsoeuer when they are vniuersally apprehended by the soule haue this condition in her by reason of their abstraction there which in themselues is impossible vnto them When we say water fire gold siluer bread c do we meane or expresse any determinate figure If we do none but that precise figure will serue or content vs but it is euident that of a hundred different ones any and euery one doth a like entirely satisfy vs when we call for money if we reflect vpon our fansy peraduenture we shall find there a purse of crownes neuerthelesse if our messenger bringes vs a purse of pistoles we shall not except against it as not being what we intended in our mind because it is not that which was painted in our fansie it is therefore euident that our meaning and our fansie were different for otherwise nothing would haue satisfyed vs but that which was in our fansy Likewise in the very word which is the picture of our notion we see an indifferency for no dictionary will tell vs that this word Money doth not signify as well pistoles as crownes and accordingly we see that if our meaning had beene precisely of crownes we should haue blamed ourselues for not hauing named crownes and not him that brought vs pistoles when we spoke to him by the name of money and therefore it is most cleare that our vnderstanding or meaning is not fixed or determined to any one particular but is equally indifferent to all and consequently that it can not be like any thing which entereth by the senses and therefore not corporeall The second coÌ„dition of Vniuersall Apprehensions is their vniuersality which addeth vnto their abstractioÌ„ one admirable particularity and it is that they abstract in such sort as to expresse at the same time euen the very thing they abstract from How is it possible that the same thing can be and not be in the same notion Yet lett a man consider what he meaneth when he saith Euery man hath two eyes and he shall see that he expresseth nothing whereby any one man is distinguished from an other and yet the force of this word Euery doth expresse that euery man is distinguished from an other so that in truth he expresseth particularity it selfe in common Now lett our smartest and ingeniousest aduersary shew or imagine if he can how this may be done in a picture or in a statue or in any resemblance of a body or bodily thing but if he can not lett him acknowledge an eminent and singular propriety in the soule that is able to do it Let vs reflect that particularity in a body is a collection of diuerse qualities and circumstances as that it is white of such a figure in such a place in such a time and an infinitude of such like conditions conglobated together then if our soule be a body the expression of the particularity of a body in the soule must be a participation in her of such a conglobation or of such thinges conglobated Now lett vs imagine if we can how such a participation should be in common and should abstract from all colour all place and all those thinges of which the conglobation consisteth and yet we see that in the soule this is done and he who saiâ—h Euery man doth not expresse any colour place or time and neuerthelesse he doth by saying so expresse that in euery man there is a conglobation of colour place and time for it could not be Euery one vnlesse there were such conglobations to make Euery one one and if any conglobation were expressed in this terme Euery one it would not be Euery one but only one alone Now if any coordination of partes can vnfould and lay open this riddle I will renounce all Philosophy and vnderstanding Collectiue apprehensions will afford vs no meaner testimony then the other two for the spirituality of our soule for although it may seeme vnto vs before we reflect throughly on the matter that we see or otherwise discerne by our sense the numbers of thinges as that the men in the next roome are three that the chaires there are tenne and the like of other thinges yet after due consideration we shall find that our eye or sense telleth vs but singly of each one that it is one and so runneth ouer euery one of them keeping them still each by themselues vnder their owne seuerall vnities but then the vnderstanding cometh and ioyneth vnder one notion what the sense kept a sunder in so many seuerall ones as there are thinges The notion of three or of teÌ„ne is not in the thinges but in our mind for why three rather then fiue or teÌ„ne rather then twelue if the matter of which we speake were not determined and such determination of the matter is an effect of the vnderstanding If I had spoken of thinges as I did of men or of chaires there had beene more then three or tenne it is then euident that what determined my speech made the number be three or tenne Againe we see that the notion of tenne is but one notion for as the name of tenne is but one signe so it argueth that there is but one notion by which it is the signe of tenne thinges Besides we see that Arithmetitians do find out the proprieties and particular nature of any determinate number and therefore we may conclude that euery number hath a definition and a peculiar nature of its owne as it is a number If then this definition or nature or notion of tenne be a corporeall one it is a corporeall similitude of the obiect But is it like to any one of the thinges or is it like to all the tenne If to any one then that one will be tenne if it be like to the whole made of tenne then that whole being but one tenne will be iust one and not tenne thinges Besides to be tenne doth expressely imply to be not one how then can that be a materiall thing which by being one representeth many Seeing that in materiall thinges one and many are opposite and exclude one an other from the same subiect And yet this notion could not represent many together but by being one Againe if it be a materiall notion or similitude it is eyther in an indiuisible of the braine or it is in a diuisible part of it I meane that the whole essence of the notion be in euery part neuer so litle of the braine or that one part of the essence be in one part of the braine and that an other part of the essence be in an other part of the braine If you say that the whole essence is in euery part of the braine though neuer so litle you make it impossible that it should be a body for you make it the
fountaine of blisse and cast my selfe headlong into that sea of felicity where I can neither apprehend shallow waters nor feare I shall be so litle immersed and drowned as to meete with any shelfe or dry ground to moderate and stinte my happinesse A selfe actiuity and vnbounded extent and essence free from time and place assure me sufficiently that I neede desire no more Which way soeuer I looke I loose my sight in seeing an infinity round about me Length without pointes Breadth without Lines Depth without any surface All content all pleasure all restlesse rest all an vnquietnesse and transport of delight all an extasy of fruition Happy forgetfulnesse how deepely am I obliged to thee for making roome for this soule rauishing contemplation by remouing this whiles all other images of things farre from me I would to God thou mightest endure whiles I endure that so I might be drowned in this present thought and neuer wake againe but into the enioying and accompletion of my present enflamed desires But alas that may not be The eternal light whom my soule and I haue chosen for Arbiter to determine vnto vs what is most expedient for vs will not permit it We must returne and that into feares and miseries For as a good life breedeth encrease of happinesse so doth an euell one heape vp Iliades of woe First my soule before I venture we should be certaine that thy parting from this life waft thee ouer to assured happinesse For thou well knowest that there are noxious actions which depraue and infect the soule whiles it is forging and moulding here it its body and tempering for its future being and if thou shouldest sally hence in such a peruerse disposition vnhappinesse would betyde thee insteed of thy presumed blisse I see some men so rauenous after those pleasures which cannot be enioyed out of the body that if those impotent desires accompany their soules into eternity I can not doubt of their enduring an eternity of misery I can not doubt of their being tormented with such a dire extremity of vnsatisfyable desire and violent greife as were able to teare all this world into pieces were it conuerted into one hart and to riue in sunder any thing lesse then the necessity of contradiction How high the blisse of a well gouerned soule is aboue all power of quantity so extreme must the rauenous inclemency and vulturelike cruelty be of such an vncompassable desire gnawing eternally vpon the soule for the same reason holdeth in both and which way soeuer the grauitation and desires of a separated soule do carry it it is hurried on with a like impetuosity and vnlimited actiuity Lett me then cast an heedfull and wary eye vpon the actions of the generality of mankind from whence I may guesse at the weale or woe of their future state and if I find that the greatest number weigheth downe in the scale of misery haue I not reason to feare least my lott should prooue among theirs For the greatest part sweepeth along with it euery particular that hath not some particular reason to exempt it from the generall law Insteede then of a few that wisely settle their hartes on legitimate desires what multitudes of wretched men do I see some hungry after flesh and bloud others gaping after the empty wind of honour and vanity others breathing nothing but ambitious thoughts others grasping all and groueling vpon heapes of melted earth So that they put me all in a horrour and make me feare least very few they be that are exempted from the dreadfull fate of this incomprehensible misery to which I see and grieue to see the whole face of mankind desperately turned May it not then be my sad chance to be one of their vnhappy number Be content then fond man to liue Liue yet till thou hast first secured the passage which thou art but once to venture on Be sure before thou throwest thy selfe into it to put thy soule into the scales ballance all thy thougths examine all thy inclinations put thy selfe to the reste try what drosse what pure gold is in thy selfe and what thou findest wanting be sure to supply before nature calleth thee to thy dreadfull account It is soone done if thou beest what thy nature dictateth thee to be Follow but euident reason and knowledge and thy wantes are supplyed thy accountes are made vp The same euershining truth which maketh thee see that two and two are foure will shew thee without any contradiction how all these base allurements are vaine and idle and that there is no comparison betweene the highest of them and the meanest of what thou mayest hope for hast thou but strength to settle thy hart by the steerage of this most euident science in this very moment thou mayst be secure But the hazard is great in missing to examine thy selfe truly and throughly And if thou miscarry there thou art lost for euer Apply therefore all thy care all thy industry to that Lett that be thy continuall study and thy perpetuall entertainement Thinke nothing else worth the knowing nothing else worth the doing but screwing vp thy soule vnto this hight but directing it by this leuell by this rule Then feare not nor admit the least doubt of thy being happy when thy time shall come and that time shall haue no more power ouer thee In the meane season spare no paines forbeare no diligence employ all exactnesse burne in summer freese in winter watch by night and labour by day ioyne monthes to monthes and entayle yeares vpon yeares Thinke nothing sufficient to preuent so maine a hazard and deeme nothing long or tedious in this life to purchace so happy an eternity The first discouerers of the Indies cast themselues among swarmes of maneaters they fought and strugled with vnknowne waues so horrid ones that oftentimes they perswaded themselues they climbed vp mountaines of waters and straight againe were precipitated headlong downe betweene the clouen sea vpon the foaming sand from whence they could not hope for a resource hunger was their foode snakes and serpents were their daynties sword and fire were their dayly exercise and all this only to be masters of a litle gold which after a short possession was to quitt them for euer Our searchers after the Northerne passage haue cutt their way through mountaines of yce more affrightfull and horrid then the Symplegades They haue imprisoned themselues in halfe yeare nights they haue chayned themselues in perpetuall stone cleauing coldes some haue beene found closely embracing one an other to conserue as long as they were able a litle fewell in their freesing harts at lenght petrifyed by the hardnesse of that vnmercifull winter others haue beene made the prey of vnhumane men more sauage then the wildest beasts others haue beene neuer found nor heard of so that surely they haue proued the foode of the vgly monsters of that vast ycy sea and these haue beene able and vnderstanding men What motiues what hopes had
vp the extent of nature What sight is sharpe enough to penetrate into the mysterious essence sprouting into different persons Who can looke vpon the selfe multiplyed vnity vpon the incomprehensible circumincession vpon those wondrous processions and idiomes reserued for Angels eyes Of these my soule whose shootinges reach infinitely higher beyond all that we haue said then what we haue sayd is beyond the dull and muddy motions of this life thou art not capable now of receiuing any instructions lett first the mystagogicall illuminations of the great Areopagite and the Ascetike discipline of the Anachoreticall inhabitants of the wildernesse purify thy eye before thou attemptest to speake or to ayme att the discouery of these abisming depths By them thou must be first irrigated with the sweete shoures of morninges and eueninges with the gentle deawes and mannadroppes which fall aboundantly from those bounteous fauours that reside in a higher sphere then nature and that poure out vnknowne and vnconceiuable blessinges vpon prepared hartes which fructify into that true blisse in comparison where of all that we haue hitherto declared is but shaddow vanity and nothing FINIS PRIVILEGE DV ROY LOVYS PAR LA GRACE DE DIEV ROY DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARRE A nos amez feaux les gens tenans nos Cours de Parlemens Baillifs Seneschaux Preuosts leurs Lieutenans tous autres nos Iusticiers Officiers qu'il appartiendra Salut Le Sieur Kenelme Digby Cheualier Anglois nous a fait remonstrer qu'il a composé vn Liure en langue Angloise contenant deux Traitez l'vn de la nature du corps l'autre de la nature des ames auec vne recherche de l'immortalité de celles qui sont raisonnables Lequel il desireroit mettre en lumiere faire imprimer s'il auoit nos lettres à ce necessaires lesquelles nous faisant supplier luy vouloir octroyer A ces causes luy auons permis accordé permettons accordons par ces presentes faire imprimer debiter ledit Liure pendant six ans Durant lesquels nous faisons deffenses à tous Libraires Imprimeurs de nostredit Royaume de l'imprimer vendre ny debiter soit sous quelque marque de déguisement ou traduction que ce soit sans le consentement dudit sieur Digby à peine de trois mille liures d'amende confiscation des exemplaires qui s'en trouueront de tous despens dommages interests enuers luy Si vous mandons à chacun de vous enioignons tenir la main à l'execution des presentes lesquelles voulons estre tenuës pour deuëment signifiées en mettant copie d'icelles au commencement ou à la fin de chacun desdits Liures A la charge de mettre par ledit sieur Digby vne exemplaire dudit Liure en nostre Biblioteque vne autre en celle de nostre tres-cher feal Chancelier à peine de nullité desdites presentes Car tel est nostre plaisir nonobstant oppositions ou appellations quelconques clameur de Haro chartre Normande lettres à ce contraires Donné à Fontainebleau le vingt-sixiesme iour de Septembre l'an de grace mil six cens quarantequatre de nostre Regne le deuxiesme Par le Roy en son Conseil GVITONNEAV Ar. 3. de anima 1 Quantity is the first and most obuious affection of a body 2 Wordes do not expresse thinges as they are in themselues but onely as they are painted in the mindes of men 3 The first error that may arise from hence which is a multiplying of things where â—o such multiplication is really found 4 A second error the conceiuing of many distinct thinges as really one thing 5 Great care to be taken to auoyde the errors which may arise from our manner of vnderstanding thinges 6 Two sorts of wordes to expresse our notions the one common to all men the other proper to schollers 7 Great errors arise by wresting wordes from theire common meaning to expresse a more particular or studied notion 1 Wee must know the vulgar and common notion of Quantity that wee may vnderstand the nature of it 2 Extension or diuisibility is the common notion of Quantity 3 Partes of Quantity are not actually in theire whole 4 If partes were actually in theire whole QuaÌ„tity would bee composed of indiuisibles 5 Quantity cannot be composed of indiuisibles 6 An obiection to prooue that partes are actually in Quantity with a declaration of the mistake from whence it procedeth 7 The solution of the former obiection and that sense cannot discerne whether one part be distinguished from another or no. Chap. 1. §. 2.3 8 An enumeration of the seuerall specieses of Quantity which confirmeth that the essence of it is diuisibility 1 What is meant by Rarity and Density 2 It is euident that some bodies are rare and others dense though obsuâ—e how they are such 3 A breife enumeration of the seuerall properties belonging to rare and dense bodies 4 The opinion of those Philosophers declared who putt rarity to consist in an actuall diuision of a body into litle partes 5 The former opinion reiected and the ground of theire error discoâ—ered 6 The opinion of those Philosophers related who putt rarity to consist in the mixtion of vacuity among bodies 7 The opinion of vacuities refuted Dialog 1. del Mouim pag. 81. Archimed Promot 8 Rarity and Désity consist in the seuerall proportions which Quantity hath to its substance 9 All must admitt in Physicall bodies a Metaphysicall composition 1 The notions of density and rarity haue a latitude capable of infinite variety 2 How moystnesse and drynesse are begotten in dense bodies 3 How moystnesse and drynesse are begotten in rare bodies 4 Heate is a property of rare bodies and cold of dense ones 5 Of the two dense bodies the lesse dense is more cold but of the two rare ones the lesse rare is lesse hoat 6 The extreme dense body is more dry then the extreme rare one 7 There are but foure simple bodies and these are rightly named Elements 8 The Author doth nott determine whether euery element doth comprehend vnder its name one only lowest species or many nor whether any of them be found pure 1 The first operation of the Elements is diuision out of which resulteth locall motion 2 What place is both notionally and really 3 Locall motion is that diuision whereby a body changeth its place 4 The nature of quantity of it selfe is sufficient to vnite a body to its place 5 All operations amongst bodies are eyther locall motion or such as follow out of locall motion 6 Earth compared to water in actiuity § 6. 7 The manner whereby fire getteth into fewel prooueth that it excâ—edeth earth in actiuity 8 The same is prooued by the manner whereby fire cometh out of fewell and worketh vpon other bodies 1 In what sense the Author reiecteth qualities 2 In what