THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND Physical Opinions Written by her Excellency the Lady MARCHIONESSE of NEWCASTLE LONDON Printed for J. Martin and J. Allestrye at the Bell in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1655. Collegium sive Aula S.S. t Trinitatis in Academiâ Cantabrigiensi 1700 TO THE LADY MARQVESSE OF NEVVCASTLE On her Book intitled her Philosophicall and Physicall Opinions WEre the old Grave Philophers alive How they would envy you and all would strive Who first should burn their Books since they so long Thus have abus'd the world and taught us wrong With hard words that mean nothing which non-sense When we have Conn'd by heart then we commence Masters and Doctors with grave looks and then Proud because think thus we are learned men And know not that we do know nothing right Like blinde men now led onely by your sight And for diseases let the Doctors look Those worthy learned men but in your Book They 'le finde such news in their art and so true As old Hippocrates he never knew Nor yet vast Gallen so you need not seek Farther then English to know lesse in Greek If you read this and study it you may Out of dark ignorance see brighter Day W. NEWCASTLE AN EPISTLE To justifie the LADY NEW CASTLE AND Truth against falshood laying those false and malicious aspersions of her that she was not Authour of her BOOKS I Would willingly begin with the common and Dunstable rode of Epistles Gentle Readers but finding you much otherwise I will fall to our discourse in hand First 't is but your envious Supposition that this Lady must have converst with many Scholers of all kindes in learning when 't is well known the contrary that she never convert with any profest Shooler in learning for to learn neither did she need it since she had the conversation of her Honorable and most learned Brother from her cradle and since she was married with my worthy and learned Brother and for my self I have lived in the great world a great while and have thought of what has been brought to me by the senses more then was put into me by learned discourse for I do not love to be led by the nose by Authority and old Authours ipse dixit will not serve my turn were Aristotle made a more Philosophical Bible then he is and all scholers to have a lively faith in him doth not move me to be of their Philosophical churche at all And I assure you her conversation with her Brother and Brother-in-law were enough without a miracle or an impossibility to get the language of the arts and learned professions which are their terms without taking any degrees in Schooles It is not so difficult a thing though they make mountains of mole-hills say they thatthis Lady useth many termes of the Schooles but truly she did never Impe her high-flying Phancies with any old broken Fethers out of any university and if you read well which is to understand and look on her Poems you will 〈◊〉 they are all new born Phansies never toucht of heretofore But for the rarity of the terms or nests of Divines Philosophers Physicians Geometricians Astrono mers and the rest of the Gown-Tribe as one tearms them how is it possible she should know them And first for Divinity when she speaks of Predestination Free-will 〈◊〉 and consubstantiation truly these termes are not so hard to be got by heart as to be understood since I beleeve it puzzels the learned to make sense of them But I beseech you give this Lady so much capacity as to get them by heart since every Tub-preacher discourses of them and every sanctified wife gossips them in wafers and hipocris at every Christening Next are the termes of the Philosophers Certainly 't is no Conjuration to conceive Atomes invisible and indivisible bodies elements earth air water and fire whereof your elementary fire under the moon is much doubted of and then you have but three elements Motion is a difficult thing indeed to understand the varietes of it but certainly not of a body moved that 's no such transcendent thing Dilation a spreading Contraction a gathering together Rarificationthinning and Condensation thickning I confesse in the Latine it seems very learned but in the English very vulgar there-fore I beseech you give this Lady leave to have the wit and the judgement to understand these Great no mysteries And put the case now that this Lady should name materia prima and understand the English of it to be first matter and ask her friend again what they mean by it and he tells her they say they mean matter without form and she should answer there is no matter without some form so materia prima are two Latine words that mean nothing An incorporeal substance is too learned to be understood so that is waved Now for the termes of Physicians when she speaks of Choler Phlegme Melancholy and Blood and of Ventricles in the heart and brain of veines arteries and nerves and discourses of fevers apoplexies convulsions Dropsies and divers other diseases with their particular causes symptoms and cures how should this Lady understand these terms say some truly a good Farmers wife in the country by seeing one of her sheep opened may well understand the tearms of most of these and a Constables wife of a hundred in Essex that useth Physick and Surgery may well talk of the diseases without any great learned mystery they are so plain and so common as none needsto construe Greek in Hippocrates or Galen for them But would you know how we know the great Mystery of these Physical terms I am almost ashamed to tell you not that we have been ever sickly but by Melancholy often supposed our selves to bave such diseases as we had not and learned Physitians were too wise to put us out of that humour and so these tearms cost us much more then they are Worth and I hope there is no body so malicious as to envie our bargain neither truly do I repent my bargain since Physitians are the most rational men I have converst with all and my worthy and very good friends and truly this Lady never converst with any Physitian of any disease but what she thought she had her self neither hath she converst with many of that profession Now for the great learning of knowing the terms of Geometricians when this Lady touches upon Triangles Squares Circles Diameters Circumferences Centers lines straight and crooked c. I will not dissect these great mysteries because they are so very common as the meanest understands all these termes even to Joyners and Carpenters therefore surely this Lady is capable of them Then of Astronomers say they when she speak's of the Horizon Meridian Equator Zodiack Eclyptick Tropicks Poles of the world c. When these termes are understood thats their meaning they are no such subtilties since every boy may be taught them with an apple for the Globe and the parings for the sphears
or if he should lie down in snow there would be his print so it is in air as we move from place to place new figures are made and the former figures moulder or melt out but according as the air is so they last or decay for if the air be congealed with cold thickned with grosse fogs or mist the figures last the longer therein although in a misshapen posture like ruinated buildings or broken statues or like defeated armies here an arm or a piece of an arm or a hand and there leggs here a head there a mangled body but when the air is thin and serene the print dissolves assoon as the figure removes and if the air were as solid as snow we should see the figures as perfect in the one as in the other but the air being very thin and porous the sight of the eye runs thorow without stay or stop taking no notice like water in a sieve wherein nought can be contained because there is no hold to keep the water in from running out Chap. 123. Of External figures and internal forms IN some things there is such sympathy betwixt the internal form and the external figure as the alterations of the one change the nature of the other as for fire when the external figure is altered the internal faculty is gone here the internal nature depends upon the exterior figure but as for water the external figure may be changed as we see when it is frozen but the internal nature not changed for it is as water still though it be not fluid here the internal depends not upon the external but thus much the exterior figures of all things depend so so much upon the exterior form or nature that when the internal is changed the exterior cannot be altered from and to as to change the countenance or face as I may say by contraction and dilation as water and metals and many others but an animal figure may remain as it was for a time when the internal is changed but not long as for example Animals although the internal nature and faculty be changed which is to move after such a manner as is proper for Animal the external figure is not altered for when Animals are dead the external which is the outward shape remains perfect for a time yet the internal motions may be in disorder as they are in animals that sound or are sick or faint or in vegetables that are fading or drooping but when the internal motions move orderly again either of themselves or by the help of assistant motions and figures the Animal is as it was before and the Vegetable flourisheth green again thus there may be an alteration but when there is an absolute change in the internal there can be no return but by a new creation for all alterations of motions do not do it but a total change Chap. 124. Earth water air fire cold heat light darknesse EArth water air fire cold heat light darknesse is made as Animals Vegetables and Minerals that is that such degrees of innated matter works upon the dull part of matter with various motions and several degrees of dull matter produceth such effects joyning parts together and separating parts asunder but joyning and mixing each degree together loseth not the entity of each degree for that can never be altered for as it was from all eternity so it will last to all eternity Chap. 125. The motions of the Sun and Planets THe Sun and the rest of the Planets are questionlesse created as other Animal creatures and their local motions are according to the shape as we see all Animals are for a worm cannot run but onely moves by gathering up the body from one place and then stretching it self out farther or else by rolling and winding his body from place to place nor beasts cannot flee as birds nor birds cannot trot amble nor gallop as beasts because they have no shape fitted thereto for birds want four leggs to pace and gallop and beasts want wings to flee so the Planets move according to their shape turning about as a spherical circle about a center and if the sun runs about the world with such speed as some old opinions are it must turn as a wheel about the spoake or rundle as a bowl in the ecliptick line But if the sun as some Modern opinions hold doth not move out of his place but is as it were fixed and that the Planets move about it in circular wayes according to their shape then the motions of the sun are onely by dilation and attractions from which light and heat proceeds and vapor is drawn or suckt up Chap. 126. Of the motions and figures of the four natural Elements THe motions that make the natural figure of earth are not so curious nor the matter they work on so fine as those which make fire air and water for the materials being grosser their work is rougher like morter that is made of hair and lime and the motions moving not so evenly or distinctly but rather mixtly causeth it to be sad and dark the solidity weight and drought are caused by the contracting attracting and retentive motions which motions are the chief workers and creators of this element which work like ants drawing all thereto making it like a round heap or like a Load-stone that attracts the solid matter The slimie or gelly part of the earth is made by such kinde of motions as spin small lines lik Silk-worms in a round hollow ball water is made after that manner onely those lines extenuate more into perfect circles Natural and pure air is made by such a kinde of motion as spiders spin webs smal lines spread and enterwoven evenly Natural fire is made by such kinde of motions as the art of whetting or sharpening or pointing with a grind-stone or Load-stone or the like and is made like the stings of Bees which pierce and wound whatsoever they can enter Natural light is made by such kinde of motions as wier-drawing or drawing a small thread from a spindle Natural darknesse is made by such kinde of motions as winding up threads upon bottoms in a heap I say natural because they keep their original form and is the right kinde and true shape as I may say of man-kinde For if a creature should be partly a beast and partly a man it were not of the right kinde and true shape Likewise Elements may be of the right kinde and yet be different as mankinde for every particular man is not alike neither in shape nor quality the like may elements differ Chap. 127. The reason of the ebbing and flowing of the sea thus I Will not dispute according to Copernicus that the earth goes about the Sun stands stil upon which ground Galleleo saith the reason of the ebbing and flowing of the sea is the jogging of the earth the old opinion is that the moon is the cause of it which I can hardly beleeve
concave and convex glasses doth objects when presented to the eye thus hollow figures cause a hollow sound if they be struck for the concave draws those motions in which rebounds from fide to side and the rebounds continue 〈◊〉 sound by the Echos repeated for sound lasts longer in hollow figures then in any other and though I will not say that onely hollow figures make sounds yet I say that no sound can enter but through hollow figures as the ear is a hollow figure and all hollow figures and the ear is not onely hollow but circular but sounds are made in the ear or rather enters as light and colours in the eyes for discord is perturbed motion or rather close Antipathetical motions and harmony are sympathetical and regular motions but the more of these extenuating circles break the more lightning there is and the stronger they brea the more thunder rhere is and the harder they strike upon the unbroken circles the lowder is the sound But if the circle lines break onely asunder and extend or shut forth into straight lines without more parts there is onely lightning without thunder but if those lines break into more parts there is thunder also and when there falls r ain at those times of thunder it is when the gentler motions of some of those expulsed parts do not strike hard upon some of those unbroken circles but presse upon them which causeth them to draw and gather into a lesse circle and a grosser line untill they return into the watry compasse where growing too heavy for the hight falls down toward the center of the earth as all heavie bodies if not thick bodies under to bear them up or stronger motions then their weight to hold them up thus in my opinion is thunder and lightning caused and when it rains those unbroken circles return into its nature again Chap. 136. Of the alterations of motions ONe and the same degree of innate matter may change and rechange the natural posture motion in one and the same figure but a general alteration of those motions proper to that figure dissolves the natural form of any one particular figure for a figure moving by several motions proper to its kinde must joyntly consent either by a sympathy or inforcement to make a dissolution as well as a creation but all motions works or alter according as the matter is or figure they work to or forced by stronger motions to alter their natural course likewise several and contrary motions may work by turns in one and the same figure by one and the same degree of innated matter Chap. 137. Of different motions ALL extenuating motions make not fludity or wet but such kind of extenuating on such tempered or on such degrees of dull part of matter for some extenuating motions make light others make heat and infinite the like so all expulsive motions do not burn nor all 〈◊〉 motions do not work alike nor all attractive nor all retentive nor expulsive for there are infinite wayes or kindes of them which works infinite varieties for there are infinite several sorts of heats coldes droughts moistures and infinite kindes of lights and darknesse as well as of colours so infinite wayes of contractions and attractions and infinite wayes of expulsions and so there are such varieties in one and the same kinde as it is impossible for me to describe as for one man to draw the several pictures of mankinde from all eternity but if I could draw but one picture it will be enough to shew my art and skill although but a plain draught but I finde the work too hard for my wit yet I have ventured and mean to hang it on the wall of censure although I know spite will strive to pull it down Chap. 138. Of the local motions of water air and fire I perceive there be other figures that have local motions besides Animals yet it is partly their figures that are proper thereto for though there is no matter but is figured yet all figures move not but of themselves and though all figures aremoved or moving or both moved and moving yet all local motions move not after one and the same manner but I hear mean by local motion that which naturally can move from place to place by their interior nature and exterior shape but if the word is not right to the sense pray pardon it and take the sense and leave the word and Christen it a new but these kindes of local figures are water arie and fire which move after an Animal manner although they have not the shape of those we cal Animals yet they seem Animals by their self motion as moving from place to place unlesse they be stopt by stronger motions or other figures that are more powerful the like of other Animals as for example if one man or more being stronger bindes another man which hath not strength nor power to oppose or hinder them he cannot move according to the property of his nature and shape So likewise if cold contractions be more powerful then the extenuating circles it bindes up the the water with icie fetters wherby it cannot move according to the nature nor circular shape so if any man should go to a place and a high wall should stand betwixt him and that place he cannot passe unlesse there were a passage or that he can clamber which must be by art because there is no footing and to jump over it he cannot for it is so high that the weight of his body will pull him down before the strength or agilnesse of his limbs shall raise him over and he cannot flee over by reason his shape is not fitted thereto having no wings so water being stopt and the passage hindered by a thick bank of earth cannot move according to its property for it is proper for water to move descendingly at least straight forth but when it ascends it is forced by other more powerful motions so likewise it is proper for air to move after a level streaming or spreading manner For fire to ascend after a piercing shooting and perpendicular manner for these elements do as other Animals do for man beasts birds fishes their local motions are different according to their shapes for it is the property of a four legged creature to gallop trot pace run leap but they cannot flee because their shape is not fitted thereto having not wings nor a bird cannot gallop trot nor pace having not four leggs to make changes therewith it is true a two legged creature may leap jump hop and run Likewise those fishes can neither run nor flee that have not wings nor legs but those that have mixt shapes have mixt local motions as there be fleeing fishes and swimming birds and running fishes and swimming beasts indeed most creatures can swim for most shapes are fitted thereto in one kinde or another but mans shape is such as it can imitate most various motions
instead of uniting mankind with love to live in peace it makes discords with controversies raises up faction to uphold each-side whose endlesse quarrels are followed with such hatred and fought with such malice and envie and the zeal spits so much blood as if not onely several parties would be rased out but the bulk of mankinde And to study Law is to study dissention to study Logick is to study deceit to make falshood appear like truth to study Rhetorick is to study words more then sense and many the like studies are more painful then useful more time lost then profit got more tedious then pleasant more sophistry then truth Indeed the Mathematicks brings both profit and pleasure to the life of man it gives just measure and equal weight it makes all odd reckonings even it sets all musical notes it brings concord out of discord it gives diminution and extention But as I said before few or none but Monastical men which live contemplary lives despising the vanities of the world next to the service of God seek to be acquainted with nature and to observe the course of her works yet in an humble and respectful manner as to admire her curiosity and to glorifie and adore the God of nature for the wonders they finde by her works and workings for this reason if I had been so learned I would have put my book into Latine which is a general language through all Europe and not have writ it in my native Language which goeth no further then the kingdom of England wherein I fear my book will finde but little applause because few therein study natural Philosophy and what they understand not they cannot judge of yet I beleeve all that read will take upon them to give a censure and what their weak braines is not capable to reach at their active tongues are capable to pull down so that I fear me my book will be lost in oblivion or condemned by ignorance unlesse some generous disposition which hath a genius in natural Philosophy and learned and eloquent in the Latine tongue will translate my work yet I had rather my book should die in Oblivion then to be divulged to disadvantage and instead of cloathing it in a new garment they will dismember the body of sense as to put out the natural eyes and put in glasse eyes in the place or to cut off the legs and then set the body upon wooden stumps but unlesse the Translator hath a genius sutable to the Author of the Original the Original will be disfigured with mistakes yet it is easier to translate prose then verse for rimes number and sense are hard to match in several Languages it is double labour and requires double capacitie for although Ovid and Dubartus were so happy as to meet a Sylvester and a Sands yet very few or no other had the like good fortune in our Language for this reason I would have turned my Atomes out of verse into prose and joyned it to this book but I finding my brain would be like a river that is turned from its natural course which will neither run so smooth swift easie nor free when it is forced from its natural motion and course both which made me desist c. AN EPISTLE TO MY READERS I Must advertise my Readers that though I have writ difserent wayes of one and the same subject yet not to obstruct crosse or contradict but I have used the freedom or taken the liberty to draw several works upon one ground or like as to build several rooms upon one foundation likewise my desire was to expresse the several works that several motions make in printed figures that the sense of my opinions might be explained to the eye as well as to the ear or conceivements of my Readers but by reason the Painters and Cutters in this Country cannot speak nor understand English nor I any other Language which reason perswaded me to let my Book be Printed without them for though I might have had such an Interpreter that could expresse grosse material subjects yet none that were so learned in both Languages as to expresse and instruct them to expresse by their art the figures of the fine curious subtil and obscure motions in nature and to have them all done would have rather puzled my Readers and confounded the sense of my opinions then any wayes have advantaged the one or informed the other Wherefore I must intreat my Readers to take a little more paines and care in the reading and considering part AN EPISTLE TO MY READERS I Desire my Readers to give me the same priviledge to discourse in natural Philosophy as Scholers have in schooles which I have heard speak freely and boldly without being condemned for Atheisme for they speak as natural Philosophers not as Divines and since it is natural Philosophy and not Theologie I treat on pray account me not an Atheist but beleeve as I do in God Almighty A CONDEMNING TREATISE OF ATOMES I Cannot think that the substance of infinite matter is onely a body of dust such as small atoms and that there is no solidity but what they make nor no degrees but what they compose nor no change and variety but as they move as onely by fleeing about as dust and ashes that are blown about with winde which me thinks should make such uncertainties such disproportioned figures and confused creations as there would be an infinite and eternal disorder But surely such wandring and confused figures could never produce such infinite effects such rare compositions such various figures such several kindes such constant continuance of each kinde such exact rules such undissolvable Laws such fixt decrees such order such method such life such sense such faculties such reason such knowledge such power which makes me condemn the general opinions of atoms though not my particular opinions of the figures that the long atoms make air the round water the flat square earth also that all the other figures are partly severed from those also the measure and the weight of atoms of slime flame of burning of quenching of fire and of the several motions compositions and composers in their creating and dissolving of figures also their wars and peace their sympathies and antipathies and many the like but this opinion of mine is if the infinite and eternal matter are atoms but I have considered that if the onely matter were atoms and that every atome is of the same degree and the same quantity as well as of the same matter then every atom must be of a living substance that is innate matter for else they could not move but would be an infinite dull and immoving body for figures cannot make motion unlesse motion be in the matter and it cannot be a motion that sets them at work without substance for motion cannot be without substance or produced therefrom and if motion proceeds from substance that substance is moving innately but if motion is nothing then every several
if 〈◊〉 be out and mistake either in termes of art or otherwise I must intreat my readers to pardon it for I am no Mathematician onely I have gathered here and there some little parcels or crums from the discourse of my friends for I have not much kept the company of strangers nor conversed with dead Authors by books but these parcels I have got I place according to my own fancy if they sound probably I have my ends and the lines of my desires are pointed with a satisfaction Chap. 93. Motion changing the figure from water to fire VVHen these watry circle lines begin to inlarge they grow smaller and thereby become lesse wet and more thinne as vapor which is lesse wet then water and not so grosse for as I said before when the circle comes in such a degree of extenuating it becomes wet and beyond such a degree it becomes lesse wet and so lesse and lesse as beforè it came to such a degree it became more and more wet as from being pores to soft from soft to liquid from liquid to wet likewise from wet to moist from moist to thin which thin is air But when the extenuating lines come to such a degree of smalnesse as to cut as a very smal line will do which is to such a degree as to be sharp as an edge it makes it in a degree towards burning fire so far as to become sulphury hot as we know by the sense of feeling we finde the air to be hot This sort of air which is made of watry circles is like seething hot water for it is a moist heat and not like the natural air for this is but a Metamorphosed air for the interior nature of water is undissolved onely the exterior is altered the lines being become small and edged by the fair extenuations but when those circles extenuate smaller then the quantity of matter will afford to give a compasse it breaks and turns to hot burning fire for the extenuating motions therein ceasing not do stretch those lines so smal as they fall into pointed parts this alters the interior nature from being water to burning fire for the interior nature of water is the circle line but if those lines be drawn by contracting motions into bigger lines and lesse circles it becomes from thin hot air to vapor or mists and from vapor to water and so from water to slime from slime to mud from mud to earth as it did extenuate so it contracts if nothing hinders the same for contraction draws in the lines to such a bignesse like as a smaller thred to a bigger thred so from the thinnest air to the thickest air from grosse air to the thin vapor from thin vapor to thick vapor fromthick vapor to water to slime fromslime to mud from mud to earth but according as the contracting and dilating motions are quick or slow it is sooner or longer turning out of one shape into another and if any of the circular lines break by other motions or figures before it coms to the furthest extention the quantity becomes lesse wasting that matter into figures of other natures being dissolved from that natural figure thus that ball or lump may be dissolved like as Animals or the like For no question these balls are created and dissolved as Animal kinde and are as numerous as other creatures and some lasting longer then others and some dissolving sooner though their creations are different one being produced by procreation the other by extenuation thus these elements are increaseable and decreaseable and other creature are and when the interior nature is altered it dissolves as other creatures do onely the exterior with the interior dissolves which most of other creatures do not for when the interior is altered in Animals the exterior is perfect and dissolves more by degrees Chap. 94. Of Oyl OYL is partly of the nature of fire and partly of the nature of water for as it is soft fluid liquid and moist it is of the nature of water as it is hot burning and flamable it is of the nature of fire for that which makes it fludi and liquid is by extenuations and that which makes it moist and liquid is by extenuating circles and that which makes it burning is that those circular lines are composed of pointed parts which when fire and oyl meets the fire breaking those lines a sunder sets those pointed parts at liberty which causeth it to rise in a flame and the reason why it flames is that it doth not suddenly lose the circular extenuating nature for flame is somewhat of the nature of water as being fluid though not wet and the reason why flame is fluid is because it ascends in a circular motion for though the ascent be in a strict parrelled line yet the matter is after a circular figure as a hollow spungy body as after this manner or the like which shuts upward like an arrow out of a bow onely imagining the arrow to be in serpentine shape and to turn and spin about as it ascends likewise the body to extend or spread outward according to the bulk or quantity which several figures or several motions may be all at one time and in one and the same thing and work to one and the same effect and to several effects at the same time which causeth it to be fluid liquid and light for light as well as oyl water or flame is fluid caused by extenuating motions for as water will run forward when it hath liberty or run backward in a torrent when it is stopt so light will enter when it hath passage or run back by reflection if it be stopt but all those fluidities are different by reason their extenuations are different For light is caused by swift extenuating paralel lines water oyl and the like by extenuating circular lines which make it moist and liquid as well as fluid but flame takes part from all for it is light and fluid by the swift extenuating parallel lines it ascends in and liquid although not wet by the circular motions it ascends up in and burning by the sharp parts it is composed of vitral is after the same nature of oyl onely the lines are edged as a knife or the like or sharp edged tools which make it have an exterior pressing quality as burning fire hath but the exterior of oylie lines are smooth which makes it soft and glib and not so sharp and penetrating as vitrals or the like are Thus flame light oyl fire vitrals waters have mixt motions to make one figure and many figures to make those figures which make them to be of mixt qualities producing mixt effects as indeed all effects are of a mixt nature Chap. 95. Of Metals ALL Metals are created after the manner of circle lines as water onely the lines in metal are contracted as drawing inwards and water circle lines are extended outward but in all metals the circle lines are flat
power and strength doth alter somewhat according to the work and becoms grosser and finer accoring to the temperaments or degrees of that which they work on as for example wood that is set on fire or a firy coal is a grosser body of fire then flaming oyl or the like that is such a sort of moist fluid matter set on fire for fire takes hold of the thinnest parts as well as the thickest if they be such thin bodies which are subject to take fire for when fire is set to wood it doth not onely take hold of the solid'st parts but those that are more porous or fluid as those that rise in smoak which become a flaming body which is a fluid fire but there is a cold dul burning fire as well as a hot bright burning as all strong vitrals and this we call hot water or spirits which have an exterior nature to burn or dissolve other bodies and an interior nature to flame but it hath not an exterior nature to be hot nor shining Also there is another sort of fire which onely hath an interior nature to flame but the exterior is neither actually burning nor hot as sulphur or oyl though oyl is nothing but a liquid sulphur and sulphur a hardened oyl But this cold dul fire hath not the power of transforming to its own likenesse by reason there is some difference in the interiors to their exteriors where the quick hot burning bright shining fire the exterior and interior is all one without any difference Chap. 102. Of such sorts of heating Motions as cause burning melting boiling Evaporating and rarifying BUrning melting boyling and evaporating are caused by several motions or several degrees or temperaments of matter And though burning melting boyling and evaporating are caused by expulsive and dilating motions yet al dilative and expulsive motions work not after one and the same manner but according as the matter is As for example leather doth not burn as wood doth yet both are dissolved by an expulsive motion Besides some figures do dissolve into flame others moulder away into dust and never flame as stone and many more examples may be given but most commonly all burning motions do pierce or shut or wedge in sharp tootht or pointed figures into those figures they work upon and then it dissolves it by expulsions for those sharp pointed figures help motion to loosing and unbinde those parts that they finde joyned and contracted that they may more freely separate those parts and dissolve those figures which as they dissolve the thinner parts dilate into vapor the lighter parts flie out into fiery points which are those we call sparks of fire but the grosser and more solid part moulders away into dust and ashes as being too heavy and solid for the points to spread forth they can onely as it were chew it between their sharp teeth for ashes are nothing but chewed wood yet this manner of chewing doth alter the nature from being wood or any thing that burns after an expulsive manner but those fiery motions that onely melt or rather those figures that are not subject to burn but onely to melt is done by a stretching motion for those motions do as it were thrust out the contracted parts and cause them to extenuate but when the fiery motions cause any thing to boyl they first stretch out the parts so far as causeth those parts to be fluid and as it were liquid if those things were contracted but if they be liquid and fluid of themselves they save those fiery motions that labour and when this motion strives to ascend with those loose parts the liquor riseth up in bubbles or waves but when those fiery motions are over-poured by the weight they fall back again thus the weight of the liquor and the sharp points of the fire strive together one party striving to ascend the other to descend so that those fiery motions are to pull out or to bear up and the watry motion to pull or presse down but evaporating is when the extenuating lines are stretcht so far out as to break or the lighter parts are carried away and dispersed amongst other figures but all rarifying heats are caused by slow dilating motions and not expulsions for if such sorts of dilations as make rarifying heat were extended beyond the line of the matter they work on it alters the nature of the figure and the motions of that nature but rarifying heat is an extenuating motion spreading parts equally and evenly but the farther they are spred the more hot grows the heat as neerer to expulsion and though all rarifying heat is in the way of burning yet not in the manner But I must intreat my reader to take notice that burning motions make use of burning figures for all sorts of motions work according to the matter and figure they work on or in or to Chap. 103. Of quenching of fire THere is such Antipathy betwixt fire and some sorts of wets as such wets as are made by smooth extenuating circles as they never can agree when they do personally meet and indeed such sorts of wets have such power over hot burning bright shining fire as they never incounter but fire is in danger to be quenched out if there be not a sufficient quantity to break the watry circles for it is not the coldnesse that quenches fire but such sorts of wetnesse for scalding water will quench out fire and many sorts of liquors as wine or the like although they be flameable yet if they be cast on this bright hot burning fire it will quench it out by reason they are more of the wet nature then the oyly and sulphurous or the burning or flaming faculty T is true that there are many liquors that are subject to burn but there are few wets that have not power to quench for the spherical drops do either blunt the fiery points or disperse the the united body or intangle them in the porous circles Thus water hath the better unlesse the lines break in the combate but when fire and water treat apart or by an Attorny or hath a body betwixt them to Moderate their spleens they agree better but in this treaty most commonly the water becoms weak by rarification and evaporates into air by too strong or too much extenuating extending further then the wet compasse Chap. 104. Of the quenching of fire and evaporated Water THe reason why water quenches fire is that the figure being spherical and porous gives distance and space of parts where the sharp figures of fire flying about to bite the circular lines asunder that they may ravel out that figure of water lose their strength both in their ffight and compasse breaking their forces by dispersing their parts and intangling their dispersed parts in the hollow places in the watry figure like arrows that are shot into a net seldom break the net but intangle themselves by reason there is no firm substance to strick on or in
some invisible obstructions or the eatrh hath drawn or suckt from that part of the sea Chap. 131. The tide and stream flowing against each other THe reason the tide flows against the stream a of River is that the quantity of sea water forceth through the stream and the descent of the river forceth the stream to passe through the motion or rather by the motion of the tide for the natural motions of all waters being to flow and the force of the descent added therto gives it a double if not a treble strength so that when the force of the tide and the force of the stream meets and incounters they make passes as Duellers that fight hand to hand but if one water runs quite through another it is most probable that the tide runs through the stream by reason it is armed strongly with salt which may cause it to be streamproof when the river water is porous and weak by reason it is fresh and thin as I may say Chap. 132. The difference of salt water and fresh water THe difference of salt water and fresh is that salt waters circle lines are flat and edged as a knife or the like and in fresh water round which edge makes it not lesse smooth although more sharp nor hinders the extenuating compasse but the lines being flat make it more solid and so give it more strength then the fresh water circle that is round which makes it more porous then salt water is by the experience of an egge and the like which in fresh water the egge will sink to the bottom but very salt water will bear it up from sinking and according to the strength it will bear more or lesse but those lines may exteriorly alter from flat to round and round to flat and never alter the interiour nature as to break the compasse which is to dissolve the circle or ring as I may say which circle ring is the interior figure Chap. 133. Of winde WInde is wrought by expulsive motions and the strength doth not proceed from the thicknesse or solidity of the body as many think it doth conceiving it to be contracted or prest up air which if it were it could not enter into such small porous and narrow passages as it doth wherefore me thinks the strength should not proceed so much from the solidity as the agilnesse therein for the quick repetition doth so sorcibly presse on each other as upon necessity it must drive all loose and porous bodies before it but the farther it bloweth the fainter is the breadth for as the repetitions grow short so weaker Chap. 134. Of the noise of Tempest and storms AS I have said that sort of air which is made by watry circles is apt to sound with every motion that strikes thereon by reason of the hollow figure being sphericall Likewise this is the reason running brooks make a murmuring noise also this is the reason that the tides do make such a noise in the ebbs and flowes circles pressing or rather strikeing each other Again this is the reason the windes when they blow upon airy or watry circles by striking those spherical circles cause it to sound and make a roaring noise by the confusion it makes therein for winde which is an expulsive vapor doth not onely strike those watry circles but those that are extended into air and when those motions drive circle against circle or circle upon circle makes such quick rebound which rebounds in contracting and crossing each other make a confused sound which we call tempestuous and stormy and it is to be observed that a tempest in the air and a storm in the water and thunder is much after one and the same kinde of noise But as thunder is caused by the expulsion of the most extended circular lines so winde is the expulsion of the more grosser circles as when lines break which are extended no farther then to vapor also these expulsions if they be not very violent cause rain for the expulsed motion being no stronger then to presse upon the unbroken and extended circles either of vapor or air drives it into the watry compasse but when the weather is cloudy it is not altogether so hard prest upon as to drive it into perfect water circles but to the next degree as a thick vapor And when the weather is unconstant as we say that is sometimes grosse and thick and then it will be strait clear and bright is as the presser doth abate or increase but unforced raines as I may call them which is without a violent constraint is when those circles are drawn into a wetry compasse in a natural order and by the natural waight being thicker then natural air that is original air and not transmigrated water it falls down on the earth Likewise the pouring showers make a sound by the force of the falling drops striking as they fall sound but by reason the water is divided by the falling motions into lesse bodies as it were which makes not so strong a sound having lesse compasse as the tides or air having fewer circles in a body as in drops which makes it of a lesse bulk and the lesse the body is the weaker and the smaller is the sound But when the watry lines are drawn into a triangular figure of snow it falls silently without sound by reason the watry line is drawn out of the extended circle Besides that figure is the lightest figure by reason of the inequality for a square hath four equal parts which makes a just number so an equal ballance which gives it a steddy weight and a circle is equally round without parts which gives a steddy weight But a triangular figure is in three parts which is no just number nor equal ballance nor steddy weight which make it of lesse force for being a wavering figure it cannot presse hard nor strike strongly nor fall heavy but flies lightly about Chap. 135. Of thunder and lightning THunder and lightning are caused from watry circles for when they are extended from water to vapor from vapor to air from temperate air to hot air from hot air to fire for if those circles extended beyond the compasse and strength of the line they break which is the cause of thunder and lightning for assoon as the farthest extention of the circle is broken those extended parts do with an extraordinary swift motion run or rather shut forth into bright flaming flashes as spinning lines of light but when those lines extend with a strong strength they break into smal parts which causeth thunder to follow lightnings for those bteaking parts sometimes expulse disorderly beating and striking upon those circle lines that are unbroke which circles being of a hollow figure cause a sound in the higher region whereto they are ascended for their extention causeth them to be light their lightnesse to ascend But all hollow figures being concave within and convex without do present to the ear if they be strong as
though it is the shape that makes al creatures to move different ly yet it is not altogether the shape that makes them move locally but there must be such an interior nature proper to such shapes as Vegetables and Minerals their property is not to move locally that is to have a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It seems their interior nature and exterior 〈◊〉 is not proper thereto or perchance it is only their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their interior nature that makes them unfit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for we finde their interior nature to be more active 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the exterior shapes of Animals But to return to those elements I treat of as first water the interior nature causes it to be liquid and wet the exterior shape to be fluid both agreeing by a sympathetical conjunction give a local motion to descend and bear all before it or with it that is loose and unfixt so fire the interior nature causeth 〈◊〉 to be hot and dry the exterior figure to be sharp to 〈◊〉 both agreeing by a sympathetical conjuncting giving it a local motion to pierce and divide it all it can enter into if not over-powered so 〈◊〉 the interior nature causeth it to be soft and pliant and the exterior figure to be thin and searching both agreeing by a sympathetical conjunction gives it a local motion to enter through all porous bodies in a level line and to fill up all 〈◊〉 places in other figures unlesse it be thrust out and kept out by something more powerful It is the natural property for fire to be hot and dry to be sharp and burning to move ascending And for water to be liquid fluid and wet and to descend in a descending line And air to be soft and yeelding to be thin and searching to move in a level line unlesse they be forc'd otherwaies for fire may be supprest downward and water forc'd upwards and air disperst and fire is not onely subject to be supprest but quenched out for water if there be a sufficient quantity to the fire on which it is cast will over power it for the innated motions which cause water to be wet destroy the motions that cause fire to be sharp and burning and the figure 〈◊〉 destroyed that is disuniting those parts and those motions that keep and maintain those parts in that figure the property is extinguished too as we see many Animal figures do to one another and birds and fish and men destroy beast birds and fish according as they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and advantage for indeed the dissolution of one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cause of the creation of another sometime the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one figure make many figures and sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of many figures make but one figure and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath many several manners of moving locally and the elements as other Animals do move somtimes slower and sometimes faster Chap. 139. Explanations of onely Matter IT is to be observed by those figures that are wrought by the way of lines are soft smooth and shining whether they be paralel lines cupe lines triangular lines or circular lines but the smaller and straighter the lines are the smoother and brighter is their work but there are several sorts of softnesse and several sorts of smoothnesse which are made by several kindes of motions Then it is to be observed that all works of contractions and retentions are stronger and more lasting then those figures that are more light and porous or extenuating Thirdly it is to be observed that the innated matter which works upon the light and thin part of dull matter is more agil and nimbler then that which works upon the thick and solid matter unlesse the strength of the motions be not above or at least equal to the solidity of the matter Also it is to be observed they can make solid figures of light thine matter by their close and curious joynings injectures and mixtures and porous and light figures of solid matter by their dividings and spreadings but though the innated matter can contract and dilate the thick or thin light or heavie fluid or soft yet it cannot alter the nature or degrees of the dull part of matter neither can the innated matter make it self weaker or stronger then by nature it is for the entity of onely matter cannot be changed but though the nature cannot be altered of dull part of matter yet it may be cut and carved and joyned and dispersed into several figures so the innated matter although the nature cannot be altered as to make each degree weaker or stronger yet they may move swifter or flower according as the dull part of matter is they work on or according as the curiosity of the figure requires and as I have said before there be infinite degrees of the dull part of matter as solid and fluid thinner and thicker lighter and heavier harder and softer and infinite degrees of innated matter as stronger and weaker swifter and slower and though I have said that the innated matter is the thinnest part of onely matter yet I do not mean the thin incipit matter as I may call it for distinction sake for there is no incipit in infinite and eternal matter though there be dull in moving matter but the innated matter is the infinite extract of the entity of infinite matter it is the quintessence of nature Chap. 140. The differences and alterations of figures IN the progresse of figures figures are created in figures The reason is that infinite motions which are the gods to create dissolve and dispose of figures as they please to move share as it were the infinite matter in their working and dividing and several motions which is proper to the creation of such kinde of figures assisting each other in their works of creation but not in the figures dissolution for those motions which are proper to create one kinde of figure are not proper to create another for every figure hath different motions in the creation either more or lesse which is the reason few or none are just alike but either in shape or minde will differ but when two figures are made with the same motions among the sensitive innated matter then their figures are just alike as we shall see twins and if the rational matters motion be just alike in several figures their dispositions and understandings are just alike and if they differ in their motions but a little they resemble much either the minde or the body sometimes both but the more they differ the lesse they resemble but almost all 〈◊〉 are distinguishable which shewes such variety of motions as there needs no more repetition to move after one and the same manner for there are not onely different motions in different and several figures but in one and the same figure for the same figure doth not look when it is old as when it was young nor when it is sick as when it is in health nor when it is cold as when it is hot nay
from their own proper principles As likewise a metamorphosed Fire Aire Water and Earth So there are humours in Animal bodies and in other bodies for all I can perceive and though the bodies cannot be metamorphosed yet the humours may But in every Animal body there is natural Melancholy Choler Flegme and blood the natural blood is the vital vapor the natural Flegme is the radical moisture the natural Choler is the radical heat the natural Melancholly is the animal spirits being the highest extract And if we do but observe those that be naturally melancholly have the soundest judgements the clearest understanding the subtilest observation and curiousest inventions the most conceptions the 〈◊〉 fancies and the readiest wits likewise the strongest passions and most constant resolution but humours which are inbred as flegme choler and Melancholy are made as Metamorphosed fire aire water slime mud and earth as for example the chylus is the matter that is metamorphosed The dilating motions transform it from chylus to slime from slime to water from water to blood from blood to vapor from vapor to comfortable and lively heat from comfortable and lively heat to burning fevers and hectick fevers and the like Likewise the chylus by contracting motions turns from chylus to slime If they be cold contractions it turns from slime to flegme from flegme to heavy melancholly If hot contractions it turns from chylus to temperat choler from temperat choler to choler adust from choler adust to melancholly which from a slimy humour to a muddy humor from a muddy humour to an earthy dry humour Some sort of hot contractions make it sharp some salt some bitter Likewise several sorts of salts sharpnesse and bitternesse are wrought with mixt motions cold contractions make the humour glassy and stony Hot contractions make the humours tough clammy glutenous and stony Hot dilatings make the humour oylie cold dilations watry Likewise mixt motions makes mixt humours and mixt tempers inclining to each side as the motions predominate Chap. 169 The five natural Maladies of the body EVery diseased figure is either pained sick dissy numb weak or mad sometimes they meet all in one figure these are distinct senses one from another as for pain although every several part of the body hath different sense yet they agree in the general as to be all pain But sicknesse is quite different from pain for it is another sense for to have a pain in the stomach is not to be sicke in the stomach neither is any part of the body but the stomach is liable to this sense the head may ake and the heart may ake heel or any part of the body but none but the stomach can be sick Indeed it is a different sense from pain Thirdly a swimming or diseases in the head are different from both the other it is a third sort of sense neither is any other part of the body subject to this disease but the head not properly yet faintnesse or weaknesse is a disease as it were tempered with the three former diseases as to have pain sick and dissy or swimming to be mixt or compounded into one disease but it is so mixt and compounded into all three as neither is perfectly or distinctly felt so as it is no distinct sense this disease is generall to the whole body The fift is madnesse this sense is neither painful nor sick nor dissy but light in the head which is different from dissy or swimming but this disease infecteth with a distemper the five outward senses The last is a numbnesse and deadnesse of particular parts and sometimes of the whole body but this disease is not onely a different sense but an other nature which is naturally unknown to the figure for the figure is not any wayes sensible thereof indeed it is of the nature of sowning for those that sown the motions of the animal sense and minde are quite altered for a time but then the animal motions return that is rechanged to the proper motions again so that those dead parts that cannot be restored to the sense of touch are as it were in a continual sown for though in a sown the exterior motion are proper to the sense of touch is changed yet the interior motions proper to the consistence of that figure are not changed for if the interior consistent motions were changed it would turn to 〈◊〉 so in dead palsies if the interior consistent motions were changed those parts would corrupt as do dead carcases Numb palsies ie different from dead palsies as fainting from sowning for fainting is in the next degree to a sown so a numb palsie is the next degree to dead palsies Chap. 170. I will treat first of the motions that make sicknesse THe motions that cause sicknes are different according as the sicknes is or rather the sicknesse is according to the different motions for some motions are like the ebbing and flowing tides of the sea For the humor furdles or folds upwards as the flowing tide which most commonly provokes to cast as overflowing the mouth of the stomack but when the humour folds backward as the ebbing waters do that provokes to the stool for as falling tides run from one place they flows to another so when the humour fals back from the mouth of the stomack it overflows the belly but if the humour neither overflows the belly nor the mouth of the stomack it runs into the nerves like as the water runs through the earth and as the water breaks forth by springs so doth the Humor by several 〈◊〉 eumes Again some sorts of sicknesse in the stomack are made by such kinde of motions as water boyling in a pot over the fire for as ebbing and flowing motions are running backward and so forward so boyling motions are rising upward and falling downward there is as much difference in these motions as betwixt vaughting and running but these rising motions cause vapours to the head for the thin parts which rise highest when their rising strength failes fall not hastily down again but gather to a more solid body as vapor from the earth doht into clouds these clouds cause the dimnesse and darknesse of the sight obstructing the light that is brought by the optick nerves Again there are other sorts of sicknesse in the stomack caused by such motions as are like the rolling of a barrel the humour turning about in the figure of a barrel which figure or the like is somewhat bigger in the middle then the two ends this humour in the stomack is most commonly tough and thick being more united and somtimes one end of this humour is as set upward and the other downward and so turned as a barrel with the head upward and sometimes moved as a barrel the longest way on the ground these motions cause neither purging by vomits nor stool but thrust out into cold sweats for though these are not so strong dilating or expulsing motions as ouer
a glibby and moist body rather then a soaking wet body but when this watry extenuation extenuates beyond the degree of water they turn to vapour which causeth the diseased to be puft or blown like a bladder rather then swell'd out as we shall perceive that a little time before the patients fall into a consumption they will be so puft out as their flesh wil be like a fire-bal the next degree they fall into a fiery extenuation For when the humour extenuates beyond vapor which is a kinde of an aire then it becomes hot like fire which is a hective fevour and when the humour hath extenuated to the farthest degree it expulses and so pulls down and throws out the life of the diseased but in the hidropical diseases there must first be applied attractive medicines to draw out the watry overflows by issues cupping-glasses or the like then there must be applyed expulsive medicines as purgings and bleeding and sweatings yet they must be gently applyed for fear of weakning the body by drawing out the humour too suddenly then there must be applied contracting medicines to draw into an united substance as to gather or draw up those parts that have been made loose porous and spungie with the disease then there must be applied retentive medicines to confirm and settle them after their natural manner or form then last there must be applied disgestive medicines to restore what is wasted but if any of the principal parts be impaired wasted or expulsed they neither can be restored nor mended but by a new creation which uncreating braines perhaps conceive not but I must intreat my readers to observe that some sorts of motions begin a disease that is they lay the foundations thereof and other sorts of motions work upon those foundations Chap. 193. Of apoplexies SOme sorts of apoplexies are caused by an inbred superfluous water in the brain which being congealed by a cold contraction falling to the knitting part of the head which is the hinder part it stupifies the senses stopping the natural motions as a flowing river that is turned into ice but those sorts of apoplexies are curable if assistance be taken in time which is by hot dilating medicines not onely to stretch out the icy contraction but to expell that cold watry humour by a rarification but if the apoplexie be caused by an inbred slime as flegme which is of a thicker nature then water and is become crusted or peterated by hot contractions it is seldom or never cured no more then brick which is once baked by the sun or in a fire can be made to such clay as it was before it was burnt But mistake me not for I do not mean the humour is as hard as stone or brick in the head but so hard as to the nature of the brain that is the flegme is grown so dry and tough as not to be dissolved so soon as the nature of the brain requires it for though flegme will be contracted into stone as in the bladder and kidnies yet not in the brain by reason the nature of the brain is so tender and so sensible as it cannot indure so solid a substance therein nor suffer so long a time as the humour will be penetrating to stop the passages to the brain not but those kinde of motions that produce stone may be so strong and so swift as to turn matter into stone immediately but I do beleeve not in the animal bodies for they are too weak figures for so strong motions to work in but as I said these hot or cold contractions for both sorts of contractions produce stone so both sorts of contractions make tough clammy crusted hard flegme which is some degree towards stone flegme if it stop the passages to the brain it causeth an apoplexie but the 〈◊〉 why the watry contractions are more apt for cure is because the nature of water is fluid and is easily dissolved by dilations having interior nature to extenuations but slime and flegme are more solid and so not so flexible to be wrought upon as suddenly to change shape or nature in being dissolved or transformed The third cause is a fulnesse of blood or a thicknesse of blood for when the veins are too full there is not vacuity enough for the blood to run so stops the motion thereof or if the blood is too thick or clammy it becoms lesse fluid and the more solid it is the slower the motion is and though the blood may have too quick a motion by reason of heat so it may have too slow a motion by reason of thicknesse and if the veines are filled too full of hot blood wherein are many spirits it endangers the breaking some of the veines like as when strong liquor is put into a barrel if it be filled too ful the strength of the spirits striving for liberty break the barrel the like will the blood in the veins and if a vein chance to break in the head it overflows the brain and drowns the life therein The last is grosse vapor which may ascend from the bowels or stomack which causeth so great a smoak as it suffocates or choaks the brain smothering out the life of the body All apoplexies are somewhat of the nature of dead palsies Chap. 194. Of Epilepses which is called falling-sicknesse THis disease is caused by a water in the brain which water is most commonly green like sea water and hath an ebbing and flowing motion like the tides thereof and when the water is at full tide on the forepart of the head it takes the diseased after the manner of panting and short breathing beating themselves and foaming at the mouth neither can they hear see smell nor speak the reason is that the flowing motion driving the watry humour so far out as it extends the pia mater and dia mater of the brain farther then the natural extention which extention swelling out towards the outward part of the head hinders all recourse stopping those passages which should receive the objects through the exterior senses and the froth or slimy humor which is betwixt the skin where the brain lies and the skull being pressed out fals through the throat into the mouth and there works forth like yeast which is called foaming but though the motions of the head are thus altered for a time so as there is neither sense nor rational knowledg yet the body may be after the natural course and not any wayes altered but the body feeling life opprest in the head the several parts or members in the body strive and struggle with what power and strength they have to release it Like as a loyal people that would defend or release their natural and true born King from being prisoner to a foraign enemy but when this water flows to the hinder part of the head the pia mater and dia mater extending out that way stops all the nerves in the nodel of the head by which
the matter that was the cause of those figures hath an eternal being and as long as the cause lasts the effects cannot be Annihilated Chap. 74. Of creation and dissolving of Nature THe divisions and substractions joynings and creations are not alike nor do they continue and dissolve with the like measures of time for some Vegetables are old and decrepit at a day old others are but in their prime after a hundred yeers and so some Animals as flies and the like are old and decrepit at a yeer old others as man is but at his prime at twenty yeers and will live a hundred yeers if he be healthy and sound so in the Minerals perchance lead or tin or the like is but a flie for continuance to gold or like a flower to an oak then it is probable that the Sun and the rest of the Planets Stars and Millions more that we know not may be at their full strength at ten hundred thousand yeers nay million of millions of yeers which is nothing to eternity or perchance as it is likely other figures were at full strength when matter and motion created them and shall last until matter dissolves them Again it is to be observed that all Spherical figures last longest I think it is because that figure hath no ends to ravel out at Chap. 75. Of Gold SOme say that Gold is not to be altered from the figure that makes it gold because Chymists have tried and cannot do it but certainly that innated motion that joyns those parts and so made it in the figure of Minerals can dissolve those parts and make it into some figure else to expresse an other thing but being a 〈◊〉 solid part of dull matter then that which makes other minerals it is longer a creating and dissolving then the other figures are that are of a light or softer substance and may be the motions that make gold are of slower nature so as it is caused from the hardnesse of the matter or the slownesse of the spirit caused by the curiosity of the work wherein they must use more different motions then in other figures so as it may be a thousand yeers uniting or a thousand yeers a dispersing a thousand nay ten thousand for there is no account nor time in nature infinite and because we last not so song as to perceive it shall we say that Gold was eternal and shall last eternally so we may as well say an Oak that is a hundred yeers ere it comes to full maturity and a hundred yeers ere it comes to be dissoved that it was an Oak eternally and shall be so eternally because a flower is created and dissolved in two or three dayes but the solidity of the matter and the cūriosity in the several changes and enterchanges of motions prolong the work yet it is hastened or retarded by the quantity of spirits that work therein for when there is more it is sooner formed when less longer ere it come to its figurative perfection Chap. 76. Of Sympathies and Antipathies which is to agree or disagree to joyn or to crosse THere are infinite sorts of figures or Creatures that have Sympathy and infinite sorts of figures that have Antipathies both by their exterior and interior motions and some exterior Sympathie with some interior and some interior with some exteriors and some exterior with exteriors and interiors with interiors both in one and the same figure and with one and the same kinde and with different kinds and with several sorts which works various effects and here I will treat a little of Vegetables and Minerals with Antipathy or Sympathies with Animals of all Animals First man thinks himself to have the Supreme knowledge but he can but think so for he doth not absolutely know it for thought is not an absolute knowledge but a suppositive knowledge for there are as many several degrees of knowledge as of innate matter which is infinite and therefore not absolute and as much variety of knowledge as there is of motions and though all innated matter is knowing yet all innated matter is not known this makes figures to have of each others a suppositive but not an absolute knowledge thus infinite makes innated matter in some kinde a stranger to it self yet being knowing although not known it makes an acquaintance with parts of it self and being various by interchanging motions it also loseth acquaintance the acquaintance we call learning invention experience or memory the unknown or not acquainted we call stupidity ignorance forgetfulnesse illiterate but by the acquaintance of experience we come to finde the use of many things and by the use we come to learn and from our learning we come to practise and by our practise we come to produce many effects from the hidden and mystical causes which are the effects from the onely cause which is the onely matter thus we come to finde the use of Earth Water Air and Fire Vegetables Minerals and so Animal with Animal and we do not onely get new acquaintance which is new experience but we make use of our acquaintance to our own benefit or at least we strive to do so for it is the nature of life which life is innated matter to strive for preheminency and absolute power that is onely matter would rule it self but being infinite it neither absolutely knows it self nor can absolutely rule or govern it self and though it be an endlesse work yet motion which is the moving part of nature cannot desist because it is infinite and eternal thus moving matter running perpetually towards absolute power makes a perpetual war for infinite and onely matter is alwayes at strife for absolute power for matter would have power over infinite and infinite would have over matter and eternity would have power over both Thus infinit and eternal matter joyned all as to one is alwayes at strife in it self yet the war is regular not confused For there this is a natural order and discipline is in nature as much as cruel Tyrannie for there is a naturall order and discipline often-times in cruel Tyranny Chap. 77. Of different knowledge in different figures CErtainly there are infinite several kindes as well as infinite several sorts and particular creatures in nature and certainly every several kinde nay every several sort in every kinde Knowledge works after a different manner in every different figure which different manners we call particular knowledges which works according to the figure so infinite knowledge lies in infinite figure and infinite figure in infinite matter and as there are infinite degrees of matter so there are infinite degrees of knowledge and as there are infinite degrees of knowledge so there are infinite degrees of motions so there are infinite degrees of figures and as there are infinite degrees so there are infinite kinds and as there are infinite kindes so there are infinite sorts and so infinite particulars in every sort yet no kinde can be said to
part of an Animal is of a different figure and every part hath different figures belonging thereunto as man for example to the hand there is the palm the back the fingers the nailes yet all makes but one hand So the head there is the brain the pia mater the dura mater the scul the nose the eyes the fore-head the ears the mouth the lips the tongue the chin yet all this is but a head likewise the head the neck the brest the arms the hands the back the hips the bowels the thighes the legs the feet besides the bones the nerves the muscles the veins the arteries the heart the liver the lights the midrif the bladder the kidnies the guts the stomacke the brain the marrow the blood the flesh the skin yet all these different figurative parts make but the figure of one man So for Vegetables the root the sap the peath the bole the bark the branches make but the figure of one tree likewise every figure is different this man is not like that man this tree is not like that tree for some trees are larger or lesser higher or lower more or lesse branched crooked or straghter so in Animals some are of one shape some of another as men some are slender and tall some little and low some big and tall others thick and low some high-nos'd some flat-nos'd some thick some thin lipt some high fore-heads some low some broad some narrow and numbers of like examples may be given not onely to man but all other Animal creatures according to their shapes that every particular in one and the same kinde hath different figures yet every particular kinde hath but one and the same motion which properly and naturally belong to that Kinde of figure as a horse to gallop to amble to trot to runn to leap to kick and the like and man to lift to carry to walk to run to pitch to dig to shut to chop to pull back to thrust forward likewise every particular part in one and the same Kinde hath but one and the same kinde of motions local or otherwise and ever particular bird hath but one and the same kinde of motion in their flights and in their feeding So beasts every particular kinde hath but one and the same manner of motion and feeding so likewise all mankinde hath after one and the same Kinde of motions belonging naturally to every particular part of his body the onely difference is in the strength or weaknesse their restraints or facilities but not different in manner of the movings But to return to the figures I say there are different figures belonging to one and the same kinde of figure but the ground or fundamental figures in every particular figure are there As for example a tree at first is the figure of wood the second is such a sort of wood as a Cedar an Oak an Elm an Ash and the like also of such a nature of wood some fitter to burn then to build others that will grow but on such or such soils others to last longer or die sooner or bud and bear in such and such seasons some to bear fruit others to bear none Likewise for Animals the first figure is to be an Animal that is to have a local figure the second figure is to be flesh not wood The third is to be such a kinde of flesh as mans flesh not bears flesh or dogs flesh or horse flesh or cows flesh and more examples may be given then I am able to repeat or my book to infold but Animals and Vegetables have more different figures belonging to every particular figure or Kinde then Minerals especially metals which are as it were composed of one piece Chap. 80. Of the gloomy figures and figures of parts and of one piece AYre is not a shining body of it self but as the lines of light shine upon it it is smooth and may be aglossie body but not a shining for though there are infinite several sorts of brightnesse and shining yet two I will describe As there are two sorts of shining figures some that cast forth beams of light as bright shining fire and likewise from some sorts of stones bones and wood so there are some sorts of figures that onely retain a bright shining quality in themselves but cast forth no beams there-from or else so weak and small as not useful to our sight but what is represented to us thereon by other lights this sort is water metal and vulgar stones which perchance ayre may have such a shining body These shining bodies as water or metal or the like are not perceived in the dark but when light is cast thereon we do not onely perceive the light but their own natural shining quality by that light Again some figures have onely a glosse which is a faint shining like as a fained light or an eclipsed shadow as all the pores Vegetables and Animals skins have and some figures are glossy through the thinnesse or transparentnesse not in the nature for by reason the figure is thin and transparent the light shining though transparent doth not onely shew the light but the light gives those figures a glosse Some figures as I have said are as it were all of one piece as some sorts of earth water vapor and ayr which may be metamorphosed by contracting and dilation Others of divers pieces and several works as Vegetables and Animals wherein are joynts and knots some parts soft and some liquid some firme some hard every part having a several figure which varieties and contrarieties serve to the consistence and preservation but of one perfect figure but Animals of all other figures have the most variety of works and several motions Chap. 81. Of the dull and innated matter SOme may say that if there were infinite dull and in-moving matter some of it may lie unmoved eternally I answer that cannot be for as there is infinite dulnesse and solidity so there is infinite acutenes and facility by which I mean searching and penetrating which in some sense makes it equal if there be equality in infinite but the innating matter works not upon the dull matter as upon a new material for the innate matter is mixt with the dull part of matter For the innated matter moves in the dull part of matter and on the dull part of matter as I have described in my first part for the innated matter takes not fresh and new as I may say for distinction sake to make a figure with but turns the dull matter into several figures joyning each degree as the innate matter will or as it is proper for such a kinde of figure for some degrees of matter will not make I do beleeve some kinde of figures but the dull part of matter is not mixed in the innate matter although the innate matter is mixed in that for the innate matter is pure in it self without any gross mixture for it is the infinite pure part of
The Metamorphosing of the exterior forms of some figures ALL figures that are of a united piece as water and fire are and not in parts as not having several parts of different natures as Animals and Vegetables have may be Metamorphosed out of one form into another and rechange into the original form again yet it is onely their exterior form not their interior nature As for example water that is frozen or turned to hail or snow the exterior is onely metamorphosed For the interior nature which is the circular line is unaltered likewise when the circular line is extenuated into air the interior circle line is not changed but when the interior nature is dissolved and the matter it was composed of transmigrates into other figures Likewise metals when the interior nature is changed it cannot be rechanged again without a new creation for if we can turn onemetal into another yet it is not as the way of metamorphosing but transmigrating otherwayes we may say we can turn Animals and Vegetables into water when we distil them but the magick of Chymistry shall nor return them to their interior nature nor exterior shape Again although their desires make them beleeve it possible to be done but substracting is not metamorphosing but rather transmigrating and substracting is one of the chiefest faculties of transmigration And as for those creatures that are composed of parts of different natures as I have said their exterior form cannot be metamorphosed 〈◊〉 those motions that metamorphose one part cannot metamorphose another And though every part is different yet they generally unite to the consistence of the whole figure whereby the several transforming motions on the several parts would make such a confusion as upon necessity must dissolve the intellect nature and interior form of that 〈◊〉 figure thus striving to alter would destroy AN EPISTLE TO THE Unbeleeving Readers IN NATURAL PHILOSOPHY MAny say that in natural Philosophy nothing is to be known not the cause of any one thing which I cannot perswade my self is truth for if we know effects we must needs know some causes by reason that effects are the causes of effects and if we can knowbut one effect it is an hundred to one but we shall know how to produce more effects thereby Secondly the natural Philosophy is an endless study without any profitable advantage but I may answer that there is no Art nor Science but is produced thereby if they will without partiality consider from whence they are derived Thirdly that it is impossible that any thing should be known in natural Philosophy by reason it is obscure and hid from the knowledge of man-kinde I answer that it is impossible that nature should perfectly understand and absolutly know her self because she is infinite much lesse can any of her works know her Yet it doth not follow that nothing can be known because all is not known As for example there are several parts of the world discovered yet it is most likely not all nor may be never shall be yet most think that the whole world is found because Drake and Cavendish went in a circular line until they came to the place where they set out at first And I am most confident that most of all thought all the world was known unto them before the West-Indies were discovered and the man which discovered it in his brain before he had travelled on the navigable sea and offered it to King Henry the seventh who slighted him as a foolish fellow not beleeving his intelligence and no question there were many that laughed at him as a vain fool others pitied him as thinking him mad and others scorned him as a cheating fellow which would have couzened the King of England of a sum of money but the Queen of Portugal being wiser then 〈◊〉 rest imployed him and adventured a great summe of money to set him forth on his way which when the successe was according to the mans Genius brain and had brought the Queen by the discovery gold and silver mines for her Coine then all other nations envied the King of Spain who was heir and like a company of dogs which fight for a bone went together by the ears to be sharers with him So the Bishop who declared his opinion of the Antipodes was not onely cryed down and exclaimed against by the vulgar which hates all ingenuity but learned Scholers stood up against him and the great and grave Magistrates condemned him as an Atheist for that opinion and for that reason put him from his Bishoprick and though he had favour to spare his life which opinion hath since been found out by Navigators but the ignorant unpractised brains think all impossible that is unknown unto them But put the case many went about to finde that which can never be found as they said natural Philosophy is yet they might finde in the search that they did not expect which might prove very beneficial to them or put the case ten thousand should go ten thousand wayes to seek for a cabinet of precious Jewels and all should misse of it but one shall that one be scorned and laughed at for his good fortune or industry this were a great injustice But ignorance and envy strives to take off the glosse of truth if they cannot wholy overthrow it and those that write must arm themselves with negligence against censure For my part I do for I verily beleeve that ignorance and present envie will slight my book yet I make no question when envy is worn out by time but understanding will remember me in after ages when I am changed from this life but I had rather live in a general remembrance then in a particular life Earth Metamorphosed into water water Metamorphosed to vapor Aire and fire at least into heat PART III. CHAP. 86. MOtion forms a round lump of earth or such like matter by extenuating swels it out and as the swelling increases the circumferent enlargeth and when it s extended further then this solid form it becomes pores and the parts looser This degree of extenuation makes it mud when it extends further then the degree of mud it turns to a softer form as that of slime the fourth extenuating degree shapes it into a perfect ring drawing all the loose parts into a compasse line this becomes water and the difference of a lump or ball of earth to the watry circle for a round lump is when there is no space or distinct lines and a circular ring is a distinct line with a hollow center that is an empty place in the midst of a round line so they may be a round ball but not a ring or a round circle line and a circle line and not a ball and as I said when it comes to such a degree of extenuating it turns water that is to be wet liquid and fluid and according as the circles are is the water more or lesse and according as the lines are
extenuated or contracted is the water thicker or thinner colder or hotter heavier or lighter and according as the lines are round or flat-edge pointed or smooth is the water fresh sharp salt or bitter but these circles may not onely dilate and contract several wayes but after several fashions as to make vapor air fire snow hail ice and frost as I shall declare in my following chapters Chap. 87. Of wetnesse WE may perceive that whatsoever is hot and dry and cold and dry shrinks inward as towards the center and whatsoever is hot and moist and cold and moist dilates as towards the circumference so that all moisture is wrought by extenuating motions and drought by contracting motions and not onely extenuating motions but such sorts of extenuating motions and drought by contracting motions and notonely extenuating motions but such sorts of extenuating motions as in circular figures which circular figures make water so soft smooth and flowing smooth because circular for Circles make it smooth the figures having no end extenuating makes it softby spreading and loosing the parts as flowing by reason dilations drive all outward as toward the circumference yet the degree of extenuating may out-run the degree of wet for wet is in such a degree of extenuating circles as I may say the middle degree yet there are many sorts of wet as oylie wet and watry but I have described that in my chapter of oyl but I take oyl rather to be liquid and moist then wet For there is difference betwixt moist liquid and wet for though moist and liquid is in a degree of wet yet it is not an absolute wet for dissolved gums are liquid not wet melted Sugers are liquid not wet oyl is more liquid then wet and smoak may be said to be liquid as being of an oyly nature and air rather to be moist then wet and dust Ashes flame light winde may be said to be fluid but not liquid nor wet Chap. 88. Of Circles A Circle is a round figure without ends having a circumference and a center and the figure of a circle may be many wayes contracted but can be but in one way extenuated which is by inlarging the compasse of the line and the reason is because it is a round piece without ends for a straight line may be drawn out at either end but if a circle be drawn out of the compasse it may stretch out of the one side but it will pull in the other side after it unlesse the line be broke and then it is no longer a circle thus we can extend no part out but another part must contract to give way to that part that goeth out Chap. 89. Of Softnesse ALL that is wett is soft I mean that which is naturally wet but all that is soft is not wet as hair wool feathers and the like Likewise all that is soft or wet is made by extenuating motions now some may ask me why extenuating motions should cause figures to be soft more then any other I answer first that all extentions causeth porousnesse or spunginesse by spreading or loosing parts and all that are porous tend to hollownesse and all that is hollow tends to slacknesse and all that are porous hollow and slack tend to softnesse for we may perceive whatsoever figure is porous is not so firm strong nor hard as those which are close compact for that which hath no Vacuum or Convenient distance hath not so much Liberty as that which hath Vacuum for Vacuum is space and distance betwixt parts which gives those parts liberty to move and remove and that which hath most liberty is most loose and that which is most loose is least contracted and that which is least contracted is most pliant and that which is most pliant is soft But I desire my Readers would not mistake me for as there is hard soft light heavy thick thin quick slow belonging to the nature of the onely infinite matter so there are belonging to such shapes or figures made by the working of the infinite motions making infinite figures out of infinite matter but the difference is that what is in the nature cannot be altered but what is done by the working of motions may be undone again for the effects may alter but not the cause thus motion and figure or figure by motion may alter but not the nature of the matter For motion and figure are but the effects of the onely and infinite matter c. Chap. 90. Of Liquors ALL liquors are wrought by extenuating motions and all that is liquid and wet are circles extenuated to such a degree and after such a manner and all that are liquid and wet is either water or of the nature of water as also of oyls vitrals strong-waters all juices from fruits herbs or the like or any thing that is liquid and wet but though all that is liquid and wet naturally agree in extenuating circles yet their circle lines are different which causeth the different effects for some have different effects interiorly others exteriorly and some both interiorly and exteriorly for some have circular lines of points others have circular lines pointed others have circular lines of points pointed others have circular lines of points edged some have smooth circle lines onely edged as the sharp edge of a knife or the like others have circle lines edged of one side of the line and pointed on the other side some their circle lines are flat others their circle lines are round some their circle lines are twisted others plain some checkred others smooth some more sharpe-edged or pointed then other some smoother and some rougher then other And infinite more that I know not how to describe But these lines nor circle points nor edges are not subject to our senses although their effects may make them subject to our reason for nature works beyond our sense but reason is part of the sense of nature but of all wet liquors oyl is most different from the effects of water for all other wet liquors do strive to quench fire but oyl doth assist it yet all vitrals have an exterior burning faculty which oyl hath not and although all strong wet liquors will flame when it is set on fire yet they will quench out fire if enough be cast thereon Chap. 91. The extention and contraction of circles THe nature of extention strives to get ground that is space or compasse and to disperse or level parts as it were and the nature of contraction strives to thrust out space and compasse and to thrust up parts close together and this is the reason that a circle may contract so many several wayes because contraction flings out the compasse and makes use of the line laying the line into millions of several works And yet the exterior form which is the circular line be one and the same that is the circular line is not divided but when those works are undone and the line extended to the full
and edged having a cutting and a subdividing nature and by reason the exteriour nature is of a circle figure it is apt to be fluid and to flow as water doth when the exterior is melted by forcible motions then it is one as that of fire which draws out the contracted circles of metals causing it to be fluid by extention yet the extention is not natural as it is in water but forced by an over-powerful motion for the nature of metal is not to be fluid which is the reason that assoon as it can get libertie that is when the moer strong motions let go their hold it contracts into a firm and hard body again it breaks not the interior circle for then the nature alters for as much as metals loseth in the weight so much is changed of that quantity from the natural quality and though some metals do not wast in quantity which is to change in quality so soon as others yet they are all dissolvable although some say gold is not dissolvable but sure that opinion proceeds from impatience in man-kinde not to stay the time or rather for want of longer time of life having not so lasting a life as to observe the alteration as the dissolution of gold or perhaps they have not the right wayes to dissolve it for certainly it is as all other figures are dissolvable and not fixt everlastingly in one body Chymists make gold as a god unalterable Chap. 96. Of the Load-stone ME thinks 't is strange that men should wonder more at the nature of the Load-stone in attracting iron and in the norths attracting o f the needle touched with the Loadstone then at the suns attracting of vapor But some will say that it is the nature of fluiditie of which nature vapor is one to move with facility and not the nature of solidity of which nature iron is one which is heavy and slow but I say if the attracting motion in one body be stronger then the contracting and retentive motions in the other body and those figures motions work with be advantagious I see no reason but a fluid body may attract a solid body For it is not the substance of the body that works or produceth effects but the agility subtility or strength of motion and advantage of the shape so that the working power is more in motion and figure then meerly the matter as for example doth not experience prove that fluid vitral will work through solid metal the reason is because the expulsive motions in the vitral and sharp points are stronger then the contracting motions in the metal and blunt edges but some will ask me why the Load-stone attracts onely iron such a question I ask why beauty should forcibly attract the eye they will answer by sympathy and I have heard that it was the opinion of learned men that sympathy had the same effect betwixt the Load-stone and iron but I think it not so much in sympathy as supremacy Besides it is the nature of contracting motions of which the Load-stone is strongly inhabited withal to work on that which is without it as from it not within it or as it were upon it which no other visible kinde of motion doth And certainly the Load-stone is composed of sharp figures yet not of such sorts as heats or burns and those figures do issue out as beams do from the sun and as they draw the iron they back return and as the bright beams issue from the sun do neither weaken nor lessen it so the visible beams that issue out of the Load-stone neither make it lesser or weaker yet the beams of the Load-stone do as the sun beams the farther they spread out the lesse strength they have to draw Besides if other motions which oppose and are stronger then the natural motions may weaken the strength as accidental maladies mayweaken Animals or shrewd and froward weather vegetables or the natural consisting motions proper to that figure may turn to expulsive motions and over-power the natural attracting motions that issued there-from But as I have said it seems the attractive power of the Loadstone is stronger then the irons retentive power and sharp figures that issue there-from are more advantagious then the blunt edges in the iron and as the sharp figures in fire unknit and loosen the contractive body of metals making them fluid so the sharp points that issue in lines from the Load-stone fasten to iron drawing it to it and as fire works upon several bodies after a different manner of way according to the nature of the body it works on producing divers effects so for all I can perceive may the Load-stone for certainly we do not know nor never can come to that knowledge as to perceive the several effects that are produced from the least or as we account the most inconsiderable creature made in nature so that the Load-stone may work as variously upon several bodies as fire and produce as various effects although nor to our sense nor after the same manner of wayes that fire doth and as fire works variously upon various bodies so there are fires as several sorts and those several ral sorts have several effects yet one and the same kinde but as the causes in nature are hid from us so are most of the effects but to conclude my discourse we have onely found that effect of the Load-stone as to draw iron to it but the attracting motion is in obscurity being invisible to the sense of man so that his reason can onely discourse bring probabilities to strengthen his arguments having no perfect knowledge in that nor in any thing else besides that knowledge we have of several things comes as it were by chance or by experience for certainly all the reason man hath would never have found out that one effect of the Load-stone as to draw iron had not experience or chance presented it to us nor the effect of the needle and all the ages before I mean those we have Records of were ignorant of that one effect and perchance other ages may finde out some other effects produced therefrom which these ages are ignorant of And as our knowledge comes slow and in parts and pieces so we know but parts and pieces of every particular thing neither is the generality of our senses capable of one and the same knowledge for what one sense knowes another sense is ignorant of and questionlesse there are some things in nature that it is impossible for our senses to be made acquainted therewith as being too curious for our senses but not to some other senses for 〈◊〉 nature hath as many different senses as other works indeed all things are wrought by sensitive motions which 〈◊〉 needs create a sensitive knowledge in every thing and where knowledge is reason is for knowledge is reason and sense is knowledge but sense and reason work in several figures different wayes and not onely in different figures but in one and
for being soft and spungy there is no stop nor hold besides water being wet and wet in the nature is sticking that when those sharp points do at any time break the lines they joyn again for being fluid each part moves to each other and being wet they joyn and being circular they unite into the natural figure Thus in a plain combat water most commonly hath the better of fire if there be not too much odds on the fires fide for quantity but when fire doth come by an undermining motion as when some other figures are betwixt them then fire gets the better by the help of those undermining motions Chap. 105. Of a bright-shining hot glowing fire IT is the nature of bright-shining hot-glowing fires to have both an interior and an exterior burning and is of such a kinde of subdividing nature as it strives to dissolve all united parts or bodies and if it doth not dissolve all bodies it works on as we shall see many things which grow harder with fire yet is not that the nature would not dissolve such a thing but the power cannot for those bodies that grow harder with fire opposes the power of fire and strives by contraction to unite the looser parts in a more solid body to resist with more strength Also some bodies grow hard by shrinking inward for assoon as they feel the fire they draw back as from an enemy having an Antipathy thereunto Thus it is not the fire that dries or hardens or maks more solidity but the opposite body that will not burn having a strength to oppose or a nature not to subject to this fire or the fire hath not a sufficient power to overcome but this sort of fire hath a general power though some bodies will strongly resist it but it is the nature of this sort of fire that most bodies they overcome they first convert them into their own likenesse but their natures being different their prisoners die in the fiery arms of their enemies Chap. 106. Of the drinesse of hot burning bright shining fire DRinesse hath such a relation to hot burning bright shining fire as moistnesse to water for though interior motions are expulsive yet the exterior is attractive drawing all unto it like a greedy appetite and as the teeth doth mince the the food that is chewed so doth the pointed figure of fire all it laies hold on or enters into Chap. 107. Of moist colds and moist heats of dry colds and dry heats c. HEat doth not make drought for there is a temper of heat and moist nor cold doth not make drought for there is a temper of cold and moist nor heat doth not make moisture for there is a temper of hot and dry nor cold doth not make moisture for there is a temper of cold and dry but when the motions of heat and the motions of drought joyn they cause hot and dry effects and when the motions of cold and the motions of drought joyn they cause cold and dry effects and when the motions of heat and the motions of moisture joyns they cause hot and moist effects and when the motions of cold and the motions of moisture joyn they cause cold and moist effects yet there are infinite varieties in their several effects but those motions which make cold and heat I may fimilife to wandring armies of the Gothes and Vandals which over-run all figures as they all the world sometimes they work attractive contractive retentive disgustive expulsive according to the temper and degree of matter and proportion and shape of the figures they meet or according to their own power and strength and although both cold and heat are motions that work more or lesse upon all the figures in this world yet cold heat works not upon figure alike but differ as their figures differ nor are cold and heat directly the same motions although they be of the same kinde of motions no more then several sorts of beasts kinde yet all beasts are of Animal kinde and most commonly like several sorts of beasts that falleth out or rather like two equal powerful Monarchies that oppose one anothers power and fight for preheminency where sometimes one gets the better and then the other sometimes by strength and sometimes by advantage but when there is a truce or a league they have a common commerce joyning their motions working sympathetically together which produceth an equall temper Chap. 108. Of the motions of cold and heat drouth and Moisture COld and heat are not wrought by different kinds of motions but after a different manner of workings or movings for a moist cold and a moist heat are but one kinde of motions as being motions that extenuate and enlarges from the center to the circumference for a moist heat doth thrust or drive outward as toward the circumference A moist cold doth pull or draw from the center towards the circumference As for example we shall often see a gardiner that rolles a green turft walk to thrust the roll before him and when he is weary with pressing forward he will turn his arms behinde him and pull the roll after him Also a dry or congealed cold and a dry heat are not several kindes of motions but moves after several manners for as moist cold and heat extends and enlarges from the center to the circumference so a dry heat or a dry or congealed cold contracts from the circumference towards the center the congealed cold in several works a dry cold or a dry heat onely draws into a lesse space or compasse yet the same difference in the manner of the motions is between a dry heat and a dry cold as was between a moist heat and a most cold for a dry heat drives from the circumference to the center a dry cold draws from the circumference to the center for although al drought is from the circumference to the center and all moisture from the center to the circumference yet the several manner of movings are infinite also cold and heat are not several kindes of motions but different motions as every man is of man-kinde but they are different men And if we observe the effects of heat and cold we shall finde them to work after one and the same manner for very sharp colds and great heats paines equally and sharp colds destroy with as great strong fury as burning heats neither can I perceive that burning heats have swifter motions then sharp colds for water to the quantity shall freez assoon as any light matter shall burn for water shall be assoon frozen as straw burnt take quantity for quantity and Animals shall be assoon frozen to death if they be touched or struck with very sharp colds such as are neer the poles as be burnt under the torrid Zone as for plants we oftener see them killed with cold then heat and I perceive there is no thaw so sudden as a frost for when any thing is
there can be no more truth but this in colour take a triangular glasse it is all of one colour and was never sent to the diers and look in it and you shall see the most various colours in the world the colours are not in the glasse therefore with rational man it suffers no dispute at all that colour is nothing else but the lines of light broken by several forms and figures that produceth all the various colours that are in the world And for excellent disputants that make Aristotle their church of reason that cannot erre and will maintain his nonsense against reason I leave them to their ignorance and wish they would rather follow his Logick and his Rhetorick then his natural Philosophy for their own sakes Chap. 121. Of Colours SOme say colours are made by perturbed or obstructed light but in my opinion colours are broken lines of light for when light is obstructed as being stopped it reflects with double light those lines returning back like double strings and if it were perturbed light like over-agitated air or troubled and rough waters the light would be onely thicker and mudier having not liberty to move in so level even and straight paralel lines it is true those perturbed motions may be the cause many times of breaking the light which broken parts contracting into several figures or works causeth several colours every particular work being a several colour and when these several figurative works are mixt being part of one work and part of another the colors are also mixt For the several works made of the pieces of light are that which makes several colours and not the pieces of light without those works for if those pieces of light lay scattered and not contracted into several figurative workes they could or would not make colours but if colours are not made by pieces of light they are made by contracting the straight unbroken lines of light which contraction turns light into colours as contractions do water into snow ice hail frost Now it is to be observed that it is not onely the contracted motions on the water that make the difference but being contracted into such or such a figure for whensoever water is contracted into such a manner of figure it is snow if into such a figure it is hail if in such a figure it is ice into such a figure frost and may do so constantly and eternally and so when light is contracted into such a figure it is red when into such a figure blue into such a figure yellow into such a figure green and when it is contracted partly into the figure of red and partly into the figure of blue it makes a figure of purple and if it be contracted partly into the figure of red and partly into the figure of blue and partly into the figure of purple it makes a fourth figure which is a fourth colour and so a fift and so infinites likewise one and the same figure which is one perfect colour may vary with each patticular figure which is each particular colour and upon what body soever these figures are printed they take colours and according as the figures differ the colours are changed or alter for it is not the body that they are printed on or the reflections of light cast upon such bodies that make colours but such figures made by contracted lines of light which figurative works give such colours to any thing they can print or place on but the reason why I think they are rather broken pieces of light contracted then contracted streight lines is because they are so lasting for though some colours will fade sooner yet some will last a long time for whatsoever work is wrought with parts as I may say several pieces of thread is not so apt to undo or ravel out as that which is but of one piece unlesse the thread were circular without ends but lines of light are paralels and not circles as for shadows of colours in my opinion they are produced after this manner as I said the figure of blue or the like which is one perfect colour and the figure of red which is another perfect colour makes a third figure which is a mixt colour likewise blue and yellow makes a different figure which is a different colour from blue and red and blue and yellow makes a different figure which is a different colour from blue and green so we may match figures until we be weary but whatsoever hath constantly part of one and the same figure in the several or single compartments of other figures which are other colours as blue and green blue and red blue and yellow and the like appears in shadows by reason one particular figure or figurative part is the ground-work which is the ground colour which makes all the colours it mixes with partly of its own complection and according as there are more or lesse of that figure the shadow is fainter or stronger and according as the contractions are more or lesse the colours are deeper or paler for those figures that are closer contracted and rougher wrought are the darkest colours as neerest to black and those figures that are loosest contracted and finer wrought ars the the lightest or palest colours as being most light when the parts are loosest and most at liberty and the brightest as the most glorious colours that are made of the purest and clearest light which is of the smallest lines of light as I may say the finest threaded light for some lights are thicker then others by reason their lines are grosser Also colours which are broken contracted lines of light may appear darker or brighter according to the reflection of other lights or rather according to the straight and unbroken lines of light are that cast upon them likewise some light doth alter the colours that are made by other lights as some colours appear not by candle-light as by day-light and the reason is that several lines of several lights being grosser or finer causeth the colour to appear duller or brighter and some particular lights make some colours appear more then others and some particular lights obscure some particular colours more then others according as they are further or neerer off the nature of each other for though the several figurative works make the several colours yet it is the lines and pieces of light that make those figures and works Chap. 122. Of airy figures AS I said before the solid bodies moving in the soft more porous bodies make many figures therein some as printed some as painted others as sculpture as cut or carved in wood or stone or cast in metal or moulded in earth some are as if a man or the like creature should print themselves in snow others as if they should make themselves in snow as for example as if a man should stand and let the snow fall thick upon him until he were all covered over there would be his figure in snow
〈◊〉 which forceth to vomit or to purge yet it extenuates by thrusting weakly out into a faint sweat then there are other sorts of sickness which are caused by such motions as if meat were turning about on a spit for the center of the humor removes not out of the place although the circumference turns about this is a constant sickness and the stomach hath no ease untill the humor is taken out of the stomach by some stronger motions as you would take a spit from the fire or by 〈◊〉 motions to hold the humor from turning so there are millions of several motions which makes several sicknesses in the stomach for though the stomach can be but sick yet the sickness is not always after one and the same manner Chap. 171. Of the motions which cause pains PAin is caused not onely by irregular motions but cross motions or rather as I may say jumbling motions that is motion beats upon motion or as I may say runs upon each other thronging and justling each other and several sorts of pain in several parts of the body are caused by different cross or beating motions but if they be dilating motions they beat upon one another by shufling outward like as foolish women do for place tumbling upon each other to get foremost those painful motions turn to sores and putrifie because dilating motions make moisture and being perturbed make corruption but if they be such contracting motions which cause pains they turn those parts that are pained to be harder then naturally those parts are as the stone dry liver or brain or the like but if those pains be made of mixt motions as some beat inward and some outward and so run cross they are hard swelling that extends to the exterior parts but will not break as the King 's Evil or Gouts that lie in the flesh or Sciatica and many the like for though the extenuating motions would burst out yet the contracting motions keep in and being both equally strong neither get the better for the time the pain is and if the pain be amongst the sinews it is caused either by contracting motions or 〈◊〉 motions but not mixt but as it were divided for if it be extenuating motions 〈◊〉 sinews are irregularly stretch'd too far if contracting or atracting motions they irregularly draw or pull or gather the sinews strings too short if the paines be in the bones they are onely cross motions as if one should run one against the other yet neither shuff backward nor push forwards being equally strong if in the flesh they are intangled motions which make it incline towards black as to seem purple or read or black And if the pain be in the skin they are pricking motions as if a needle should draw a thread in and out upon a cloath or the like but in every pained part there is some difference in the manner of motions although not in the nature of the motions Chap. 172. Of swiming or dissiness in the head DIssiness and swimming in the head is made by several sorts of motions of such vapor as is condensed into winde if winde be condensed if not it is rarified vapor turned into winde and the agilness of the motions therein causeth the force thereof by an often repetition giving no time for a repulse but howsoever winde is made either by rarification or condensation it is winde most commonly which causeth that we call a swimming and dissiness in the head for this condensed or rarified vapor which you will when it is expulsed flies violently about carrying or driving whatsoever is bearable loose or moveable along or about with it according to the strength thereof and if this winde be in those veins which incompass and run through the brain it carries the bloud therein with such an extraordinary and swift motion about the head or brain as it carries the senses as it were along with it which makes the diseased think the brain turned round in the head when it is onely the vapor that wheels round therein or about but the lasting strength wasting by the violent swiftness brings but a short trouble to the diseased and seldom or never causeth a ruine unless there be some vein broken by the violence thereof but if it be a windy vapor in the 〈◊〉 and larger parts of the head it sometimes will gather like a ball or like that we 〈◊〉 a spinning top which spins about in the brain whilest it hath strength and when the strength fails the spinning motion is done and the vapor disperseth so the dissiness ceaseth at other times those vapors will move like a whirlwinde moving ascendingly in lesser and lesser circles until it brings a circle to a point in the shape of a pyramid and when the strength abates or that it breaks it self against more solid matter the vapor disperses and so expulses but this sort of motions is so violent as it causes the diseas'd to fall but soon to recover for what is supernaturally violent cannot last long Chap. 173. Where the brain turns round or not in the head ALthough thin vapor may get betwixt the skull and the brain and likewise slimy 〈◊〉 yet I imagine not that the brain is loose from the skull so as to flap flash or to strike against the sides of the skull when the head is moved or to turn round although it is a common phrase to say my brain turns round in my head when they are dissie but imagine it is not in the brain that turnes round but the vapor or the humor therein it is true the brain turns round when the whole body turns round but so as it turns round with the head as one part not in the head as a part by it self and the reason that the dissiness is cured by turning the contrary way is that the sensitive motions therein are turned toward their moderate naturall and accustomed manner of moving for the violence of turning round forces the sensitive motions as the winde doth the air or water driving all one way as before it or rather like a scrue or a wheel that windes up those motions as thread upon a spindle and so unwinds the contrary way Chap. 174. Of the sound or noise in the head WHen there is a thin vapor got into the head as betwixt the skull and the brain and runs about in Circular lines as a string about a wheele it makes a humming noise as a turning wheel doth and the more by reason the head as well as the vaporous lines is spherical and though the brain may stick close to the scull yet not so close but a thin vapor may get betwixt but if the vapor be gathered into little hollow balls like cymbals and runs about the head it causeth a noise like those cymbals as a tickling or gingling noise But if the vapour in the head hath intermitting motions the sound is like musical instruments for the stops like notes make the divisions
others are in the bowels as the guts some in the sides and sometimes in the veins but those Collicks are Cramps but the cause of all Collicks are by extenuating motions though the effects are oft times contracting but if the cause be contracting it is a Cramp not a Collick for a Collick is properly winde produced from the aforesaid humors that is when those humors extenuate farther then a watry extenuation which turns into vapor or winde which vaporous winde or windy vapor striving to get vent being stopped by grosser vapor or thicker humor runs about in cross motions which cause pain for the extenuating motions thrusting outward and the resisting motions thrusting backward run cross or beat on each other which causeth pain and as long as the strife lasts the body hath no ease until some assistance in medicines be given or that it can over-master the resistent motions but when once it hath liberty it flies out in expulsive motions at all vents but if the extenuating humors are broke or dissolved in the body by the well tempered motion therein or expulsing of its self it evaporates through the pores of the body in insensible transpirations but if the extenuating can finde no way to be expulsed it gathers inward in small and smaller rings like a scrue drawing in the guts or stomach therein stopping the passages thereof whereby the body can neither receive nourishment nor send out excrement with which the body is brought to an utter destruction but these kinds of windes causing this distember this distemper is oft times produced from sharp hot cholerick humors which sharpness hath a natural contracting quality which is rather of the nature of a cramp or a convulsion then the nature of a collick howsoever expulsive medicines are good in these cases of diseases Convulsions are collicks in the nerves and cramps collicks in the veins and as the collick in the stomach or guts proceeds sometimes from winde and sometimes from crude bilious sharp humors so doth this Chap. 198. Of the diseases in the head and vapors to the head DIseases and swimming which are diseases belonging onely to the head differ as the motions and mixture and forms of matter differ for no disease although of one and the same sort is just alike but although these diseases belongs onely to the head yet the motions and humors of the stomach have greater affinity to the head and many times cause the diseases therein by the course and recourse thereto and therefrom for some humors falling from the head into the stomach do so disaffect that part as it returns more malignity up again and sometimes the stomach begins the war sending up such an army of ill vapors as many times they do not onely disorder the head but totally ruinate it but most commonly the vapors which ascend to the head are gathered by contracting motions into clouds as vapor is which ariseth from the earth and as long as the vapor is in a cloudy body it makes that part feel heavy and the senses dull by obstructions for it stops the nose dims the sight fills the ears blunts the taste and numbs the touch especially if the obstruction be caused from a cold contraction which congeals the vapor to an icy substance but when it is expulsed by a hot dilation it falls down like hail or flakes of snow by which I mean cold glassie flegme which cold flegme doth most commonly as snow doth which covers the face of the earth so this flegme covers as it were stops the mouth of the stomack and deads the appetite thereof but the danger is in these cold contractions that 〈◊〉 they should last too long they may cause numb palsies or the like and if contracted so as one may say christalined it may cause an incurable dead palsie but if it be disperst by a hot expulsion it is dissolved in thundring coughs or falls like pouring shoures of rain running through the spouts of the noise eyes and mouth and through the pores of the skin and sometimes falls into the cabberns or bowels of the body as the stomack and the intrals but if some of the floud-gats chance to be stopped by obstructions these shoures may chance to overflow the body and make an utter destruction otherwise it onely washes and clenses these parts but if vapor be gathered by a hot contraction they become sharp and salt as being of a burning quality and if they be disperst by a hot expulsion they fall down like a misling rain which hath a soaking and penetrating faculty cutting and piercing those parts they fall on by insensible degrees which rots the vital parts not onely by the sharpnesse which ulcerates but by a continuated unnatural weaknesse which if once the parts begin to decay which is the foundation the building must needs fall Chap. 199. Of catching cold ONe is apter to catch cold standing against a crevis or door or window then in a wide plain For narrow passages receive air as pipes do water though there comes in lesse quantity it passes with a greater force The like cause makes us catch cold after great heats by reason the pores of the body are extended there-with and are like so many windows set open which receive air with too great a force Chap. 200. Of the several motions in an animal body VVHen a body is in perfect health the motions therin do not onely work regularly and proportionably placing every part of matter rightly and properly mixing and tempering the matter as it should be or as I may say fittly that is when the quantity of matter or humour is proportionably and the motion moves equally for though every kinde or sort of motion may move evenly and keep just time yet not equally or harmoniously as for example say there were a company of musicians and every one played skilfuly justly tunable timely on the same notes yet may there be too many trebles for the tenor and bases or too many tenors for the trebles and bases and too many bases for the tenors and trebles to make a harmony So in the body there may be too much of one or more kinde of motions for other kindes to make a harmony of health as for proof too many contracting motions make the body too dry and contract diseases as for example instead of binding any thing we should break it by pulling or drawing too hard together or instead of joyning of parts we should knock them so close as to rivet or split them or instead of gathering such a quantity of matter or joyning such a number of parts we should gather twice or thrice the quantity or numbers of the like examples might be given for all other kinde of motions as dilating or expulsive instead of throwing out the 〈◊〉 or rubbish in a house we should pull down the house and disperse the materials therein digging up the foundation thereof Likewise too many dilating or expulsive motions may disperse or
divide parts or unsettle or unground parts which disunites weaknes and dissolves parts or bodies Wherefore all contracting attracting retentive disgestive dilating expulsive motions in a well tempered body must move like the several Planets every sort in their proper sphears keeping their times motions tempers and degrees but too many or too strong contracting motions cause the gout stone plurisie hective fevers numb and dead palsies dry-liver brain and many the like and too many dilating motions cause dropsies winde-colicks rhumes shaking palsies sweats or fainting sicknes milions the like and too many or too strong expulsive motions cause fluxes vomiting bleeding and the like and too many or too strong digestive motions cause too much blood fat and flesh which is apt to choak the vital parts or may nourish some particular parts so much as may make them grow and swell out so bigg as they may be disproportionable for the rest of the parts in the body But still I must remember my readers that all dilating motions are in the way of expulsion and all attractions in the way of contraction and digestion are mixt motions taking part from either side then I must remember my readers that there are infinite wayes or manners of contractions and infinite wayes or manners of wayes of attraction and so of retentions dilations expulsions and disgestions where every change makes a several effect Chap. 201. Of the several tempers of the body A Healthful temper of the body is an equal temper of the body and mixture of 〈◊〉 well set parts and justly tuned motions whereby life dances the true measure of health making several figures and changes with the feet of times and a sick distempered body is when the humours of body are superabundant or unequally tempered and the motion perturbed and irregular keeping neither time nor measure but all diseases proceed from too much cold or too much heat or too much drought or too much moisture or too much humor or too much motion or mistempered humor or unequal motion or too swift motion or too slow motion all contracting motions make the body dry al dilating motions make the bodie moist some sorts of contracting motions make the body hot and dry other sorts of contracting motions make the bodie cold and dry some sorts of dilating motions make the body hot and moist other sorts of dilating motions make the body cold and moist all slow or quick motions cause the humours of the body to be heavy thick and clammy all swift motions cause the humors of the body to be thin sharp and salt all crosse-justling or beating motions causeth pain and according to such and such irregularities are such or such sorts or kinde or sorts or degrees of diseases are produced there-from Chap. 202. The nature of purging medicines MOst purging drugs are of the nature of hot burning fire for the inherent motions therein work according to the humour or matter it meets with some humor they melt making it thin and fluid although it be hard tough or clammy and as fire doth oare which is unmelted metal makes it so fluid as it will run through a gutter of earth like water so do some drugs make some sorts of humour through the body either upward or downward Again some drugs will work upon some humours as fire upon wood dividing the humour into small parts as ashes from wood which naturally falls downward And some they will dissolve by mouldring and crumbling as fire doth stone which runs forth like sand which is stone indeed bred in the body Some drugs rarifie the humors into wind as fire will rarifie and evaporate water which is set boyling theron Other drugs will at fire that distils out the moist and watry substance from that which is more grosse but it is to be observed that all purging drugs that work by vomit are somewhat of the nature of that kinde of fire we call sulphur or oyl that is melted or fluid sulphur when these sorts of drugs are set on fire as I may say by the natural or distempered heat in the body it flies out ascendingly like AEtna for it is of the nature of sulphur to ascend as flame doth and certainly al bodies have such motions naturally inherent in them as make and produce such effects as fire doth on several sorts of humours by which motions the body hath a natural cleansing faculty which makes the natural purging quality but when the motions are so violent they oftentimes destroy the body with burning fevers or violent fluxes or the like for the fire in the body is like a fire in a chimnie for when the chimny is clean and the fire proportionable to lie therein it warms and comforts all about and is useful for many imployments for the necessaries of life but if the chimny be foul or the fire too big or too much for the chimny it sets all in a flame consuming whatsoever it incompasses if it be not quenched out with cooling julips as with water or by casting on rubbish or grosse materials to smother it out as in great fluxes they will not onely give restringent medicines as having a natural restringent faculty but thick meats as thicked milk or the like but when the body is restringent or hath taken restringent medicines it is produced by drying motions as contracting or retentive motion if they be hot retentive or contracting motions they they harden and confirm the humours as the heat of the sun or the heat of the fire doth clay which turns it to brick or tile or those things we call earthen pots and according as the humour is grosse or fine the more britle or hard or thick or heavie or thinne or light It is for some humor as Proselnye or Chyney others as the grosser earthen vessels Again some sorts of contracting or retentive motions draw the humour as when bacon neats tongues or the like are dryed in a chimney or oven or the like other sorts of hot contractions draw the humour as the sun doth the earth drying up the watry spring therein but if the restringencies either of the body or of the medicines be caused by cold retentive or contracting motions it dries the humors as cold frost dries the earth or bindes up the humors as frost binds up the waters in icy fetters or thickens the humors as cold thickens the water or vapor drawn from the earth into clouds of snow But I am to advertise my readers that all expulsive motions are not fiery expulsions for there are infinite several wayes of expulsive motions and dilations Secondly these fiery motions do not alwayes work expulsively but contractively attractively and retentively and disgestively Thirdly all expulsive dilative disgestive contractive attractive retentive motions are not fiery but there is such a kinde or sort of contractions attractions retentions disgestions dilations and expulsions as belong to fire or heat or as I may better say produces heat or fire and as I
said there are infinite several wayes of each kinde of motion as for example I will treat of one of them a bee gather wax a bird gather straws and a man gathers sticks the bees gather and carie the wax to the hive to make a comb to lay or hold and keep the honey the bird gathers and carries the straw to build a nest to hatch her young ones in the man gathers wood to mend his house these all gather to one end but yet several wayes for the bees gather the wax and carie it on their thighs the bird gathers the straw and carries it with their bill the man gathers with his hands but carries it several wayes as on his head or on his shoulders or at his back or in his armes and milions of the like examples may be given upon each kinde or sort of motion or moved matter Again I must advertise my readers that though I say there are fiery motions in drugs and natural fiery motions in every animal creature and so in many other figures yet I mean not a bright shining fire although some are of opinion that in the heart is a thin flame and when that is put out or goeth out the creature dies but I mean not such a fire for to my apprehension there are three sorts of fire to our perceivance although there may be numberlesse sorts yet all of one kinde as for example there are those creatures we call animals though some are beasts birds fish and men but not onely so for some are of one sort and some of another for a lennit is not a parot nor a parot an owl nor a horse a cow nor a sheep a dog nor a whale a herring nor a herring a plaise nor a plaise a lobster nor a black-more is not a tauny-more nor a Europian an Ethiopian yet all are of animal kinde so although there may be several sorts of fire and so of the other elements yet all are of the fiery kinde or likewise the fiery motions make several figures and several figures have several fiery motions for every sort of animals have a several shape and several motions belonging to that shape so in fiery figures and fiery motions but as I said before there are three sorts of fire The first is a bright-shining hot-burning fire that is when the interior and exterior temperament of matter and the interior and exterior figure and the interior and exterior motions be all as one The second is a hot-burning fire but not a bright shining fire such as Aqua-fortis vitrals and such sorts of the same nature which will burn as fire doth but not thin as the other fire doth for though they are both of an interior nature yet not of an exterior for the bright-shining fire is all composed of sharp points as I may say lines of points but this vitral fire is as sharp edged lines like a rasor or knife or the like neither is there external motions alike for bright-shining fire mounts upwards when it is not supprest or in a straight paralel line for flame which is the liquid part of bright-shining fire although it moves in several lines as it ascends yet the lines they ascend in are a straight diameter line but this vitral fire descends as it were downward or divides as streames of water do that digs it self a passage through the earth so this vitral cuts a passage through what it works on neither can this sort of fire work so variously as bright-shining fire can by reason it hath not so many parts for points will fall into more parts and are more swift in motion then the edged line as for example dust which is numerous little parts heapt together will be more agile upon the least motion although it be of a weighty nature as of the nature of a stone The smal haires which be of a light and weightlesse nature but being not divided into so many parts cannot move so nimble as being united lines but if you cut the hair into smal parts it shall move with more restlesse motion then the sand by so much the more as the substance is lighter The third sort of fire is that which I call a cold dull fire such as brimstone or sulphur mercury salt oyl or the like this sort in the interior nature is of the nature of bright-shining fire both in the motions and temperaments of matter but not in the exterior for it is composed of points but those points are turned inward as toward the Center but assoon as it touches the bright-shining fire it straight turns the points outward for those points soon catch hold of those straight circumferent lines and break them in sunder which as soon as they are broke the points are at liberty and taking their freedom they mount in a flame but when those lines are not dissolved by fire but crack as we will snap a string asunder then they onely sparkle fire out but not flame out but mercury or quick-silver the interior is fire but the exterior is water for the exterior moves extenuating circles as water doth and so much as to make it soft and fluid but not so much as to make it wet for though it alwayes gathers into sphiratical figures which shews that the exterior would run into wet but that the interior hinder it by drawing the circles inward as cold doth water into hail-stones but yet the interior wants the force to make it so hard and firm but as I did advertise my Readers before that all sorts of fire work according to the matter it meets with yet none work so variously as the bright-shining fire which makes me think that drugs are more of the nature of bright-shining fire then of the two other sorts because they work in the body according to the humour it meets with for if it meets wit watrish humors it boyls it as water in a pot which either boiles over the mouth of the stomack or evaporates out in sweat like dewes or draws downward like as in showers ofrain it melts humors like metal or turns humors like wood into ashes or calcines the humor where some part is fixed other parts are volable As for example Rubarb hath a double faculty some humors it expels out others it bindes up for Rubarb is both purging and restringent as it is to be observed in great fluxes for what it doth not cast forth it confirms to a more solid substance so as it doth expulse and contract at one time as I may say according as it findes the humour it works with Again some drugs move several expulsive wayes as by vomit and stool where the vomiting is produced with ascending expulsions siege with descending expulsions but that expulses descending are of the nature of vitral fire all that expulses ascendingly is of the nature of sulphurous fire but the generality of drugs works like bright-shining fire according to the nature of the matter it meets
l. 25. r. print p. 123. l. 6. r. foul p. 130. l. 6. r. dissolution and l. 27. add and swooning p. 143. l. 3. r. sensitive p. 144. l. 24. r. gold p. 148. l. 10. r. veines p. 149. l. 6. r. fursball p. 157. l. 18. blot out or quick and l. 42. r. as p. 158. l. 30. r. dry and l. 33. r. dry p. 160. l. 11. r. then p. 161. l. 19. r. are not all expulsive p. 162. l. 22. r. matter from the. FINIS I mean of Form dull Matter Some think there was a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confused Heap The Readers may take either Opinion Several Motitions and severall Figures * Not the Matter but the Degrees * Not the 〈◊〉 of Figures but the manner of shapes which makes some shapes to have the advantage over others much bigger as a Mouse will kill an Elephant * Which is in Likenesse * Unlikenesse One Shape hath power over another one Minde knowes more then another Either by Growth or Sense or Reason For when Matter comes to such a degree it quickens That it begins to move and Motion is Life * I mean when I say Obstruct that it either turns their motion another way or makes them move slower * I do not say that bones are the solid'st matter in Nature * As the figure of man * All Motion 〈◊〉 Life I mean the Figure of dull matter As a plentiful Crop or a great Brood These degrees are visible to us Dancing is a measur'd Motion * Scorching is when the Motioh is too quick * That is when there come so many spirits as they disagree pressing upon one another * Those degrees that are neerest have the greatest Sympathy * Like Chess-men Table-men Nine-pins or the like * I say higher for expressions sake * Nothing can be made or known absolute out of Infinite and Eternal * Though it may mave oMotions yet not the Animal Motion * The Figure might be without an Animal Motion but an Animal motion cannot be untill there is an Animal Figure * Which food is when such Materials are not proper for such a Figure * The greater the number is the more variety of Motion is made which makes Figures in the brain * in Animal Shapes * To prove that it is the several Motion is that we shall have the same sense in our sleep either to move pleasure or feel pain * Like glasse * Natural power I say extract because it is the essence of matter This for example Drawing motions Driving m tions Bearing motions Throwing striking darting motions Lofty motions Low 〈◊〉 Conjunction of those different motions First the earth bears Vegetables and the plants bear seed and the seed and earth bear Vegetables again Unlesse a greater power destroy it before the natural time Life is in every thing It is but one thing but three words That is to weaken the degree Fish is a kind of flesh The yolk and white is mixt into one substance which we call an adle egge before it be a 〈◊〉 it is bloody T is a lump of flesh before it be bone or sinew And then it is no metamorphosing I shal declare And then it is called a new creature rather then a metamorphosed creature c. Which circular lines I shal expresse hereafter I mean natural extenuations As the pores of the skin Oyl hot-waters wine vitrals aquafortis From earth to water * As thns Or rather like flame As if an Ani mal creature should be pulled and dragged out of ' its natural garb I mean here the exterior nature not the interior nature I mean the heaviest metal to the hardest stone as gold to diamonds or tin or lead to a soft stone * As Vessels wherein water is put and fire underneath This sort of contraction is drawing inward Those sorts are falling backward The contracting motions too strong for the expulsive motions Yet there are but few bodies that are not overcome at last I mean the matter that made it As several men will as peace among neighbours and friends I say aptest not as they do I speak this as a comparison for I know the sun is much bigger then the earth As we say dead I thimk them to be Animals I say natural because there are metamorphosed elements If one powers water on the ground it flows with a Convex In a pear figure See my chapter of Fame Sound enters into all hollow places as well as into the Animal ear I call 〈◊〉 natural that are propper to the figure Fethers wool hair and the like which are neither liquid 〈◊〉 nor wet onely soft and sympathy All animals are not of one shape And as a man may pick a hole through the wall so water will pick a passage through the earth I mean all exterior motions Which moves in figures like dancing The world is presented like a popitplay in the head a Sleep nonrisheth and gives health and strength b Nourishment c Healing decayes 〈◊〉 Strengthening Knitting the muscles nervs and the like Urin to the bladder Excrements into the guts Vapors The innate matter can move slower then their strength or natural agilnesse but not above nor beyond their natural strength and agilnesse I call that matter so 〈◊〉 distinction * As we finde in Churches and caves made hollow arched a noise sounds loudest Lines of light may be made by the sensisitive spirits on the side of the optick nerve as on the outside as in sleep All innate matter is as the minde or life of nature All without outward help The property of each sense Fools have lesse rational innated matter in their braines then those that are wise * As for touch the pores of the flesh are like harpsical keys and the nerves like the wyer strings 〈◊〉 move when those keyes are touch'd which cause pleasure or pain like discord or harmony according as they are struck or plaid upon The head ake is different from the tooth ake or stomack ake and so every 〈◊〉 be it never so small differs As sauces may be equally mixt with several sorts of things as none can tast any one thing in it Like the over flowing of banks Ebbing from the mouth of the stomack as from the river Like low marshy grounds * I think it is rar fied vapor because it is so easily dispersed The stronger motions forceth the weaker to their wayes As on the opticks or as on the drum of the ear the pia mater or the skin for touch and taste As to see hear taste touch smell that which is not present or perhaps not in nature * Figures of innated matter In mad fits * If I mistake not Which is corrupt humors As a sound body Surfets or unholsom meats The stronger motions over power the the weaker Some dayes the body 〈◊〉 better then others so in an hour or half an hour As hot and dry Cordials As to draw every day an ounce or two as long as the violence of the discase lasts I meane there interior strength * As by letting bloud or the like Yet it is first caused by other distempered motions before they come to be distempered expulsions There are hot expulsions and cold expulsions and hot contractions and cold contractions As witnesse the frost and ice The like of other kinde of motions See in the chap of extenuations of water Sometimes longer and some times shorter For as long as the humor remains the 〈◊〉 are repeated Winde Collick A bilious Collick Cramps oft times taken for Collicks * Rheums * Sweats I have treated of the several sorts of fire That is when it works and converts a thinner substance to its own nature But bound about with straight smooth lines without as to the circumference As a flint hard suger brimstone or the like * That which is most apt to I mean purning motions Restraining motions Attractive motion Restoring motion * The humor that staies behiude We may hear a tune so often repeated that it may grow hateful although delightful at first
bullet the pistol or that which makes the sound is the center which spreads sound as fire doth light and when such a compass of air is filled with sound either vocal or verbal every ear that stands in the compass must needs receive the sound if they 〈◊〉 not deaf likewise every eye may see day-light that is not blinde and the rebounds of sound are as the reflections of light and verbals are received into the ear as figures into the eyes and as cross lines of light make various colours so different notes make various tunes But some may say that if the air were full of one and the same words or notes that more would enter the ears then was sent I say that is impossible unless the ear could draw the spreading or streaming lines from the circumference to a point which the ear cannot But I believe art may do the same for sound as it can with light for art can draw with glasses made for that purpose many beams to appoint but if the eyes did so it would burn them out Also they can draw several species through a small hole I believe artificial echoes are or may be made after such a manner Chap. 165. Of taste touch and smell THese senses are made by such motions as sound is and as they are set on the drum of the ear so these are set on the nerves of the tongue or on the skin for when the skin is off our tongue we cannot taste likewise for touch they are set on the nerves and sinnews and when these notes are set harmoniously it pleaseth the senses otherwise it displeaseth them which displeasure is pain amongst the sensitive innated matter and hate amongst the rational innate matter As for scent they are motions that draw like lines like a plat-form upon the pia mater of the brain indeed the second draught of the sensitive innated matter is to draw all their figures upon the pia mater of the brain Chap. 166. Of Touch. TOuch is the general sense of the whole body which the other senses are not for though every part of the body is of a several touch yet it is all touch When sight onely belongs to the eyes sound onely to the ears scent onely to the nostrils and taste onely to the tongue besides the loss of any of these senses nay all of them may be wanting as if they were not belonging to life as indeed they are not but onely as conveniencies to the life but not of necessity whereas touch is as it were the life of the figure for when this sense is generally wanting in the animal figure it is as we say dead that is the natural motion belonging thereto is generally altered or quite changed as we say This sense is received through the pores of the flesh and the nerves are the instrumental strings whereon motion playes either a harmony of pleasure or a discord of pain for as their strings are struck so is pain or pleasure felt but I have treated sufficiently of this sense in my chapter of numb'd palsies Chap. 167. Of the pores of the body THe pores are passages which let out the smoke or vapor unnatural heat and the superfluous humors in the body also they are passages to let in comfortable warmth refreshing colds nourishing air these passages have their inconveniencies for they are a means to conveigh out the good with the bad and many times takes in infections as malignant diseases that passe through the pores for infection comes in as much through the pores as any other part of the body Besides many times the radical moisture is carried out by unnatural heats and sometimes the vital spirits by too many transparations but these pores passages are drawn or shut closer together by contracting motions or set wider open by extenuating motions but if these common and necessary passages to the interiour parts be 〈◊〉 close shut either by cold contractions or hot contractions it smoothers and choakes the vital parts by keeping the vapor or smoke that should go forth for the pores in this case are as the funnels of chimneys wherein the smoke ascends up and goeth out and if they are set too wide open by the extenuating motions they cause the body to starve by giving passage to such matter as should be kept in to feed the body or by giving too free passage to the natural moisture that should quench or temper the heat in the body or by giving too free a passage to the gadding spirits that should stay in the body to be imployed to the substance and strength thereof besides when they are too open they are as apt to take in by giving passage to that which is a prejudice to the 〈◊〉 of the body as infections malignity or unnatural colds or the like But the pores of the body are always imployed where the other passages of the body are imployed but some times THE NATVRAL VVARS IN ANIMAL FIGVRES PART V. CHAP. 167. ALL animals after they are created and have an animal life the figure is inlarged by nourishing motions and sympathetical matter these nourishing motions are disgesting motions carrying those parts which are received by the senses unto those parts that are created therein building thereon and fitting therewith strengthning by adding thicknesse as well as inlarging by extention yet all that is received into the stomack is not nourishing the reason is that the temperament of the matter is not sympathetical that is agreeing not with the motions therein For though it is not so antipathetical to make an open war which war is sicknesse yet they do hinder and obstruct like several factions those natural motions which make health but when the natural motions and tempers of humours are quite opposite to the food that is received or the unnatural humours bred in the body by evil digestion they become mutanous by the quantity that is received or that ariseth from obstructions whereupon there becomes a fierce and cruel fight of contrary motions and temperaments of matter and whilest they are in the battle we say the body is sick and if the natural motions be not strong enough to beat that evil and dangerous matter out or at least able to resist them so far as to guard themselves until the evil parts do spend themselves with their own fury or till the natural motions and temperaments can have some assistance as cordials or physick it destroyes the figure it fights with but if the natural motions be more powerfull either by their own strength or by their assistance then the mutinous and rebellious humours or the foreign enemy as surfets and the like but when they are beaten out killed or taken prisoners which is to be purged corrected or purified which makes the humours obedient and peaceable Chap. 168. Of the four natural Humours of the Body and those that are inbred AS there is natural Fire Aire Water and Earth that is made by an intire creation derived