changed to our sight or perception yet they are not really changed in Nature I answer Their Principle which is a natural matter of which all Creatures are made cannot be changed because it is one simple and unalterable in its Nature but the figures of several Creatures are changed continually by the various motions of this matter not from being matter but onely from such or such a figure into another and those figures which do change in their room are others produced to keep up the certain kinds of Creatures by a continual successive alteration And as there are changes of parts so there are also mixtures of several parts figures and motions in one and the same Matter for there are not different kinds in the nature of Matter But although Matter is of several degrees as partly animate and partly inanimate and the animate Matter is partly rational and partly sensitive Nevertheless in all those degrees it remains the same onely or meer Matter that is it is nothing else but Matter and the onely ground in which all changes are made And therefore I cannot perceive it to be impossible in Nature as to your Author it seems That Water should not be transchangeable into Air for that he says The Air would have increased into a huge bulk and all Water would have long since failed It is no consequence because there is a Mutual transmutation of all figures and parts of Nature as I declared above and when one part is transchanged into another that part is supplied again by the change of another so that there can be no total mutation of kinds or sorts of figures but onely a mutual change of the particulars Neither is it of any consequence when your Author says That if Water should once beturned into Air it would always remain Air because a returning agent is wanting which may turn Air again into Water For he might as well say a Man cannot go or turn backward being once gone forward And although he brings a General Rule That every thing as much as in it lies doth desire to remain in it self Yet it is impossible to be done by reason there is no rest in Nature she being in a perpetual motion either working to the consistance of a figure or to the uniting of several parts or to the dissolving or dividing of several parts or any other ways By dissolving I do not mean annihilating but such a dissolving of parts as is proper for the altering of such a figure into one or many other figures But rather then your Author will consent to the transchanging of Water into Air he will feign several grounds soils or pavements in the Air which he calls Peroledes and so many Flood-gates and Folding-dores and make the Planets their Key-keepers which are pretty Fancies but not able to prove any thing in Natural Philosophy And so leaving them to their Author I rest MADAM Your humble and faithful Servant V. MADAM I Cannot in reason give my consent to your Authors opinion That Fishes do by the force or vertue of an inbred Seed transchange simple water into fat bones and their own flesh and that materially they are nothing but water transchanged and that they return into water by art For though my opinion is that bodies change and alter from one figure into another yet they do not all change into water neither is water changed into all other figures and certainly Fishes do not live nor subsist meerly by Water but by several other meats as other animals do either by feeding upon other Fishes the stronger devouring the weaker or upon Mud and Grass and Weeds in the bottom of Seas Rivers and Ponds and the like As for example put Fish into a Pool or Sluce wherein there is not any thing but clear pure water and in a short time they will be starved to death for want of Food and as they cannot live onely by water so neither can they breed by the power of water but by the power of their food as a more solid substance And if all Creatures be nourished by those things whereof they consist then Fishes do not consist of water being not nourished by water for it is not the transchanging of water by which Fishes live and by which they produce but it is the transchange of food proceeding from other Creatures as I mentioned above T is true Water is a proper element for them to live in but not to live on and though I have neither learning nor experience in Chymistry yet I believe that your Author with all the subtilest Art he had could not turn or convert all Creatures into pure and simple water but there would have been dregs and several mixtures left I will not say that the Furnace may not rarifie bodies extreamly but not convert them into such a substance or form as Nature can And although he thinks Gold is made of Water yet I do not believe he could convert it into Water by the help of Fire he might make it soluble fluid and rare but all things that are supple soluble flowing and liquid are not Water I am confident no Gas or Blas will or can transform it nor no Art whatsoever what Nature may do I know not But since your Authors opinion is that Air is also a Primigenial Element and in its nature a substance Why doth he not make it a Principle of natural bodies as well as Water I think it had not been so improper to liken Juices to Water but to make the onely Principle of the composition and dissolution of all Creatures to be Water seems to me very improbable Neither can I admit in reason that the Elements should be called first pure and simple beings we might as well call all other creatures first pure and simple beings for although the word Element sounds as much as Principle yet they are in my reason no more Principles of Nature then other Creatures are there being but one Principle in Nature out of which all things are composed viz. the onely matter which is a pure and simple corporeal substance and what Man names impure dregs and filths these are onely irregular and cross motions of that matter in respect to the nature of such or such a figure or such motions as are not agreeable and sympathetical to our Passions Humors Appetites and the like Concerning the Contrarieties Differences and Wars in Nature which your Author denies I have spoken thereof already and though he endeavours in a long discourse to prove that there is no War in nature yet in my opinion it is to little purpose and it makes but a war in the thoughts of the Reader I know not what it did in his own But I observe he appeals often to Divinity to bear him up in Natural Philosophy but how the Church doth approve his Interpretations of the Scripture I know not Wherefore I will not meddle with them lest I offend the Truth of the Divine Scripture
appoint or assign any natural causes of Earthquakes I have only taken occasion hence to enquire whether it may not be probably affirmed that there is air in the bowels of the Earth And to my reason it seems very probable I mean not this Exterior air flowing about the circumference of the Earth we inhabite but such an airy matter as is pure refined and subtil there being great difference in the Elements as well as in all other sorts of Creatures for what difference is there not between the natural heat of an animal and the natural heat of the Sun and what difference is there not between the natural moisture of an Animal and the natural moisture of Water And so for the Purity of Air Dryness of Earth and the like Nay there is great difference also in the production of those Effects As for example the heat of the Earth is not produced from the Sun nor the natural heat in Animals nor the natural heat in Vegetables for if it were so then all Creatures in one Region or place of the Earth would be of one temper As for example Poppy Night-shade Lettuce Thyme Sage Parsly c. would be all of one temper and degree growing all in one Garden and upon one patch of Ground whereon the Sun equally casts his beams when as yet they are all different in their natural tempers and degrees And so certainly there is Air Fire and Water in the bowels of the Earth which were never made by the Sun the Sea and this Exterior elemental Air. Wherefore those in my opinion are in gross Errors who imagine that these Interior Effects in the Earth are produced from the mentioned Exterior Elements or from some other forreign and external Causes for an external cause can onely produce an external effect or be an occasion to the production of such or such an effect but not be the immediate efficient or essential cause of an interior natural effect in another Creature unless the Interior natures of different Creatures have such an active power and influence upon each other as to work interiously at a distance such effects as are proper and essential to their Natures which is improbable for though their natures and dispositions may mutually agree and sympathize yet their powers cannot work upon their Interior Natures so as to produce internal natural effects and proprieties in them The truth is it cannot be for as the Cause is so is the Effect and if the Cause be an exterior Cause the Effect must prove so too As for example the heat of the Sun and the heat of the Earth although they may both agree yet one is not the cause of the other for the Suns heat cannot pierce into the bowels of the Earth neither can the heat of the Earth ascend so far as to the Center of the Sun As for the heat of the Earth it is certain enough and needs no proof but as for the heat of the Sun our senses will sufficiently inform us that although his beams are shot forth in direct lines upon the face of the Earth yet they have not so much force as to pierce into a low Celler or Vault Wherefore it is not probable that the Earth hath its natural heat from the Sun and so neither its dryness from the Air nor its moisture from the Sea but these interior effects in the Earth proceed from some other interior causes And thus there may be great difference between the heat cold moisture and drought which is in the Elements and between those which are in Vegetables Minerals and Animals not onely in their General kinds but also in their Particulars And not onely a difference in the aforesaid qualities of heat cold moisture and drought but also in all other motions as Dilations Contractions Rarefactions Densations c. nay in their Mixtures and Temperaments As for example the temper of a Mineral is not the temper of an Animal or of a Vegetable neither is the temper of these the temper of the exterior Elements no more then the temper of the Elements is the temper of them for every Creature has a temper natural and peculiar to it self nay every particular Creature has not onely different tempers compositions or mixtures but also different productions or else if there were no difference in their productions every Creature would be alike when as yet there are seldom two that do exactly resemble each other But I desire you to understand me well Madam when I speak of Particular heats colds droughts and moistures for I do not believe that all Creatures are made out of the four Elements no more then that the Elements are produced from other Creatures for the Matter of all Creatures is but one and the same but although the Matter is the same nevertheless the Tempers Compositions Productions Motions c. of particular Creatures may be different which is the cause of their different exterior figures or shapes as also of their different Interiour Natures Qualities Properties and the like And so to conclude there is no impossibility or absurdity in affirming that there may be Air Fire and Water in the bowels of the Earth proper for those Creatures which are in her although not such an Elemental Air Fire and Water as is subject here to our senses but another kind of Air Fire and Water different from those But this being a subject for Learned and Ingenious men to work and contemplate upon better perhaps then I can do I will leave it to them and so remain MADAM Your constant Friend and faithful Servant X. MADAM YOur Author mentioning in his Works several Seeds of several Creatures makes me express my opinion thus in short concerning this Subject Several Seeds seem to me no otherwise then several Humours or several Elements or several other Creatures made of one and the same Matter that produce one thing out of another and the barrenness of seeds proceeds either from the irregularity of their natural motions or from their unaptness or unactivity of producing But it is to be observed Madam that not every thing doth produce always its like but one and the same thing or one and the same Creature hath many various and different productions for sometimes Vegetables do produce Animals Animals produce Minerals Minerals produce Elements and Elements again Minerals and so forth for proof I will bring but a mean and common example Do not Animals produce Stones some in one and some in another part of their bodies as some in the Heart some in the Stomack some in the Head some in the Gall some in the Kidnies and some in the Bladder I do not say that this Generation of Stone is made the same way as the natural generation of Animals as for example Man is born of his Parents but I speak of the generation or production of Creatures in general for otherwise all Creatures would be alike if all generations were after one and the same manner and way
Physician in France Dr. Davison who used in continual Fevers to prescribe onely cooling Ptisan made of a little Barley and a great quantity of Water so thin as the Barley was hardly perceived and a spoonfull of syrup of Limmon put into a quart of the said Ptisan but in case of a Flux he ordered some few seeds of Pomegranats to be put into it and this cold Ptisan was to be the Patients onely drink Besides once in Twenty four hours he prescribed a couple of potched Eggs with a little Verjuice and to let the Patient blood if he was dry and hot I mean dry exteriously as from sweat and that either often or seldom according as occasion was found Also he prescribed two grains of Laudanum every night but neither to give the Patient meat nor drink two hours before and after Which advice and Practice of the mentioned Physician concerning Fevers with several others I declared to this Irish Doctor and he observing this rule cured many and so recovered his lost esteem and repute But your Author being all for Wine and against cooling drinks or Julips in hot Fevers says That cooling means are more like to death to cessation from motion and to defect but heat from moderate Wine is a mean like unto life To which I answer first That cold or cooling things are as active as hot or heating things neither is death more cold then hot nor life more hot then cold for we see that Frost is as active and strong as burning heat and Water Air and Earth are as full of life as Fire and Vegetables Minerals and Elements have life as well as Animals But we feeling a Man's flesh cold when he is dissolving from an Animal think death is cold and seeing he was hot before the same alteration say Life is hot Also finding an animal when it is dissolving to be without external local Motion we say it is dead and when it hath as yet this local motion before its alteration we call it alive which certainly is not proper Next I say that a wise Man when his house is fired will fling or squirt water upon it to quench it and take out all moveables lest they should increase the flame likewise he will make vent for the flame to issue forth But perchance your Author may say that Fevers are not hot Truly in my opinion he might say as well that Fire is cold Again he may say That although the effect be hot yet the cause is cold I answer That in some diseases the effects become so firmly rooted and so powerfull that they must be more look'd upon then the cause for such variety there is in Nature that oftentimes that which was now an effect turns to be a cause and again a cause an effect For example A cold cause often produces a hot effect and this hot effect becomes again a cause of a cold effect Which variation is not onely a trouble but a great obstruction to wise Physicians for Nature hath more varieties in diseases then Physicians have remedies And as for drink if Fevers be neither hot nor dry nor require drink for want of moisture then I see no reason why drink should be urged and those Physicians blamed that forbid it for if thirst proceed from an evil digestion drink will rather weaken the stomack for heat and driness draw soon away the drink in the stomack and putting much into a weak stomack doth rather hurt then good But if necessity require it then I approve rather of raw and crude Water then of hot inflaming Wiue And so taking my leave I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and humble Servant XXXVII MADAM IN your Authors Treatise of Fevers I find one Chapter whose Inscription is A Perfect Curing of all Fevers wherein he declares the secrets of the Cures of Fevers consisting all in Chymical Medicines But considering that if all Fevers could be cured by such Medicines then all Physicians would strive to obtain them I can hardly believe by your Authors favour that any such perfect curing of all Fevers can be effected but that your Authors prescriptions if they should come to the tryal might fail as well as any other Likewise he mentions a Medicine of Paracelsus named Diaceltesson or the Coraline Secret which he says cures radically the Gout no less then Fevers Which if so I wonder why so many Great Noble and Rich Persons groan so much under the pains of the Gout certainly it is not for want of cost to have them prepared nor for want of an ingenious and experienced Chymist for this age doth not want skilful workmen in that Art nor worthy and wise Physicians which if they knew such soveraign medicines would soon apply them to their Patients but I suppose that they finding their effects to be less then the cost and labour bestowed upon them forbear to use them Moreover he mentions another remedy for most diseases by him call'd Driff prepared also by the Art of Chymistry but I believe all those remedies will not so often cure as fail of cure like as the Sympathetical Powder for if there were such soveraign medicines that did never fail of a successful effect certainly men being curious inquisitive and searching would never leave till they had found them out Also amongst Vegetables the herb Chameleon and Arsmart are in great request with your Author For says he they by their touching alone do presently take away cruel diseases or at leastwise ease them Which if so I wonder that there is not more use made of them and they held in greater esteem then they are Also that your Author doth not declare the vertue of them and the manner and way how and in what diseases to use them for the benefit of his neighbour to which end he says all his labours and actions are directed But again your Author confirms as an Eye-witness That the bone of the arm of a Toad presently has taken away the Tooth-ach at the first co-touching Which remedy if it was constant few in my opinion would suffer such cruel pains and cause their teeth to be drawn out especially if sound Likewise of the mineral Electrum or Amber of Paracelsus he affirms to have seen that hung about the neck it has freed those that were persecuted by unclean spirits and that many simples have done the like effects but surely Madam I cannot be perswaded that the Devil should be put away so easily for he being a Spirit will not be chased by corporeal means but by spiritual which is Faith and Prayer and the cure of dispossessing the Devil belongs to Divines and not to Natural Philosopers or Physicians But though exterior remedies as Amulets Pomanders and the like may perform sometimes such effects as to cure or preserve from some diseases yet they are not ordinary and constant but meerly by chance But there are more false remedies then true ones and if one remedy chance to work successfully with
in it self for Nature and her creatures know of no rest but are in a perpetual motion though not always exterior and local yet they have their proper and certain motions which are not so easily perceived by our grosser senses nevertheless the motion of the bowl would not move by such an exterior local motion did not the motion of the hand or any other exterior moving body give it occasion to move that way Wherefore the motion of the hand may very well be said to be the cause of that exterior local motion of the bowl but not to be the same motion by which the bowl moves Neither is it requisite that the hand should quit its own motion because it uses it in stirring up or putting on the motion of the bowl for it is one thing to use and another to quit as for example it is one thing to offer his life for his friends service another to imploy it and another to quit or lose it But Madam there may be infinite questions or exceptions and infinite answers made upon one truth but the wisest and most probable way is to rely upon sense and reason and not to trouble the mind thoughts and actions of life with improbabilities or rather impossibilities which sense and reason knows not of nor cannot conceive You may say A Man hath sometimes improbable or impossible Fancies Imaginations or Chymaera's in his mind which are No-things I answer That those Fancies and Imaginations are not No-things but as perfectly imbodied as any other Creatures but by reason they are not so grosly imbodied as those creatures that are composed of more sensitive and inanimate matter man thinks or believes them to be no bodies but were they substanceless figures he could not have them in his mind or thoughts The truth is the purity of reason is not so perspicuous and plain to sense as sense is to reason the sensitive matter being a grosser substance then the rational And thus Madam I have answered your proposed question according to the ability of my Reason which I leave to your better examination and rest in the mean while MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant VII MADAM HAving made some mention in my former Letter of the Receiving of Food and discharging of Excrements as also of Respiration which consists in the sucking in of air and sending out of breath in an animal body you desire to know Whether Respiration be common to all animal Creatures Truly I have not the experience as to tell you really whether all animals respire or not for my life being for the most part solitary and contemplative but not active I please my self more with the motions of my thoughts then of my senses and therefore I shall give you an answer according to the conceivement of my reason onely which is That I believe all animals require Respiration not onely those which live in the air but those also which live in waters and within the earth but they do not respire all after one and the same manner for the matter which they imbreath is not every where the same nor have they all the same organs or parts nor the same motions As for example Some Creatures require a more thin and rarer substance for their imbreathing or inspiring then others and some a more thick and grosser substance then others according to their several Natures for as there are several kinds of Creatures according to their several habitations or places they live in so they have each a distinct and several sort of matter or substance for their inspiraration As for example Some live in the Air some upon the face of the Earth some in the bowels of the Earth and some in Waters There is some report of a Salamander who lives in the Fire but it being not certainly known deserves not our speculation And as in my opinion all animal Creatures require Respiration so I do verily believe that also all other kinds of Creatures besides animals have some certain manmer of imbreathing and transpiring viz. Vegetables Minerals and Elements although not after the same way as Animals yet in a way peculiar and proper to the nature of their own kind For example Take away the earth from Vegetables and they will die as being in my opinion stifled or smothered in the same manner as when the Air is taken away from some Animals Also take Minerals out of the bowels of the Earth and though we cannot say they die or are dead because we have not as yet found out the alterative motions of Minerals as well as of Vegetables or Animals yet we know that they are dead from production and increase for not any Metal increases being out of the Earth And as for Elements it is manifest that Fire will die for want of vent but the rest of the Elements if we could come to know the matter manner and ways of their Vital Breathing we might kill or revive them as we do Fire And therefore all Creatures to my Reason require a certain matter and manner of inspiration and expiration which is nothing else but an adjoyning and disjoyning of parts to and from parts for not any natural part or creature can subsist single and by it self but requires assistance from others as this and the rest of my opinions in Natural Philosophy desire the assistance of your favour or else they will die to the grief of MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant VIII MADAM TH other day I met with the Work of that Learned Author Dr. Ch. which treats of Natural Philosophy and amongst the rest in the Chapter of Place I found that he blames Aristotle for saying there are none but corporeal dimensions Length Breadth and Depth in Nature making besides these corporeal other incorporeal dimensions which he attributes to Vacuum Truly Madam an incorporeal dimension or extension seems in my opinion a meer contradiction for I cannot conceive how nothing can have a dimension or extension having nothing to be extended or measured His words are these Imagine we therefore that God should please to annihilate the whole stock or mass of Elements and all concretions resulting therefrom that is all corporeal substances now contained within the ambit or concave of the lowest Heaven or Lunar sphear and having thus imagined can we conceive that all the vast space or region circumscribed by the concave superfice of the Lunar sphere would not remain the same in all its dimensions after as before the reduction of all bodies included therein to nothing To which I answer That in my opinion he makes Nature Supernatural for although God's Power may make Vacuum yet Nature cannot for God's and Nature's Power are not to be compared neither is God's invisible Power perceptible by Natures parts but according to Natural Perception it is impossible to conceive a Vacuum for we cannot immagine a Vacuum but we must think of a body as your Author of the Circle of the Moon neither could he think of
Power as in the Purity And the disparity between the Natural and Divine Infinite is such as they cannot joyn mix and work together unless you do believe that Divine Actions can have allay But you may say Purity belongs onely to natural things and none but natural bodies can be said purified but God exceeds all Purity 'T is true But if there were infinite degrees of Purity in Matter Matter might at last become Immaterial and so from an Infinite Material turn to an Infinite Immaterial and from Natrue to be God A great but an impossible Change For I do verily believe that there can be but one Omnipotent God and he cannot admit of addition or diminution and that which is Material cannot be Immaterial and what is Immaterial cannot become Material I mean so as to change their natures for Nature is what God was pleased she should be and will be what she was until God be pleased to make her otherwise Wherefore there can be no new Creation of matter motion or figure nor any annihilation of any matter motion or figure in Nature unless God do create a new Nature For the changing of Matter into several particular Figures doth not prove an annihilation of particular Figures nor the cessation of particular Motions an annihilation of them Neither doth the variation of the Onely Matter produce an annihilation of any part of Matter nor the variation of figures and motions of Matter cause an alteration in the nature of Onely Matter Wherefore there cannot be new Lives Souls or Bodies in Nature for could there be any thing new in Nature or any thing annihilated there would not be any stability in Nature as a continuance of every kind and sort of Creatures but there would be a confusion between the new and old matter motions and figures as between old and new Nature In truth it would be like new Wine in old Vessels by which all would break into disorder Neither can supernatural and natural effects be mixt together no more then material and immaterial things or beings Therefore it is probable God has ordained Nature to work in herself by his Leave Will and Free Gift But there have been and are still strange and erroneous Opinions and great differences amongst Natural Philosophers concerning the Principles of Natural things some will have them Atoms others will have the first Principles to be Salt Sulphur and Mercury some will have them to be the four Elements as Fire Air Water and Earth and others will have but one of these Elements also some will have Gas and Blas Ferments Idea's and the like but what they believe to be Principles and Causes of natural things are onely Effects for in all Probability it appears to humane sense and reason that the cause of every particular material Creature is the onely and Infinite Matter which has Motions and Figures inseparably united for Matter Motion and Figure are but one thing individable in its Nature And as for Immaterial Spirits there is surely no such thing in Infinite Nature to wit so as to be Parts of Nature for Nature is altogether Material but this opinion proceeds from the separation or abstraction of Motion form Matter viz. that man thinks matter and motion to be dividable from each other and believes motion to be a thing by its self naming it an Imaterial thing which has a being but not a bodily substance But various and different effects do not prove a different Matter or Cause neither do they prove an unsetled Cause onely the variety of Effects hath obscured the Cause from the several parts which makes Particular Creatures partly Ignorant and partly knowing But in my opinion Nature is material and not any thing in Nature what belongs to her is immaterial but whatsoever is Immaterial is Supernatural Therefore Motions Forms Thoughts Ideas Conceptions Sympathies Antipathies Accidents Qualities as also Natural Life and Soul are all Material And as for Colours Sents Light Sound Heat Cold and the like those that believe them not to be substances or material things surely their brain or heart take what place you will for the forming of Conceptions moves very Irregularly and they might as well say Our sensitive Organs are not material for what Objects soever that are subject to our senses cannot in sense be denied to be Corporeal when as those things that are not subject to our senses can be conceived in reason to be Immaterial But some Philosophers striving to express their wit obstruct reason and drawing Divinity to prove Sense and Reason weaken Faith so as their mixed Divine Philosophy becomes meer Poetical Fictions and Romancical expressions making material Bodies immaterial Spirits and immaterial Spirits material Bodies and some have conceived some things neither to be Material nor Immaterial but between both Truly Madam I wish their Wits had been less and their Judgments more as not to jumble Natural and Supernatural things together but to distinguish either clearly for such Mixtures are neither Natural nor Divine But as I said the Confufion comes from their too nice abstractions and from the separation of Figure and Motion from Matter as not conceiving them individable but if God and his servant Nature were as Intricate and Confuse in their Works as Men in their Understandings and Words the Universe and Production of all Creatures would soon be without Order and Government so as there would be a horrid and Eternal War both in Heaven and in the World and so pittying their troubled Brains and wishing them the Light of Reason that they may clearly perceive the Truth I rest MADAM Your real Friend and faithful Servant III. MADAM IT seems you are offended at my Opinion that Nature is Eternal without beginning which you say is to make her God or at least coeqnal with God But if you apprehend my meaning rightly you will say I do not For first God is an Immaterial and Spiritual Infinite Being which Propriety God cannot give away to any Creature nor make another God in Essence like to him for Gods Attributes are not communicable to any Creature Yet this doth not hinder that God should not make Infinite and Eternal Matter for that is as easie to him as to make a Finite Creature Infinite Matter being quite of another Nature then God is to wit Corporeal when God is Incorporeal the difference whereof I have declared in my former Letter But as for Nature that it cannot be Eternal without beginning because God is the Creator and Cause of it and that the Creator must be before the Creature as the Cause before the Effect so that it is impossible for Nature to be without a beginning if you will speak naturally as human reason guides you and bring an Argument concluding from the Priority of the Cause before the Effect give me leave to tell you that God is not tied to Natural Rules but that he can do beyond our Understanding and therefore he is neither bound up to time
flame the smoak changing it self by its figurative motions into flame but when smoak is above the flame the flame cannot force the smoak to fire or enkindle it self for the flame cannot so well encounter it which shews as if smoak had a swifter motion then flame although flame is more rarified then smoak and if moisture predominate there is onely smoak if fire then there is flame But there are many figures that do not flame until they are quite dissolved as Leather and many other things Neither can fire work upon all bodies alike but according to their several natures like as men cannot encounter several sorts of creatures after one and the same manner for not any part in nature hath an absolute power although it hath self-motion and this is the reason that wax by fire is melted and clay hardened The third question is Why some few drops of water sprinkled upon fire do encrease its flame I answer by reason of their little quantity which being over-powred by the greater quantity and force of fire is by its self-motions converted into fire for water being of a rare nature and fire for the most part of a rarifying quality it cannot suddenly convert it self into a more solid body then its nature is but following its nature by force it turns into flame The fourth question is Why the flame of spirit of Wine doth consume the Wine and yet cannot burn or hurt a linnen cloth I answer The Wine is the fuel that feeds the flame and upon what it feeds it devoureth and with the food and feeder but by reason Wine is a rarer body then Oyle or Wood or any other fuel its flame is also weaker And thus much of these questions I rest MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant XLII MADAM TO conclude my discourse upon the Opinions of these two famous and learned Authors which I have hitherto sent you in several Letters I could not chuse but repeat the ground of my own opinions in this present which I desire you to observe well left you mistake any thing whereof I have formerly discoursed First I am for self-moving matter which I call the sensitive and rational matter and the perceptive and architectonical part of nature which is the life and knowledg of nature Next I am of an opinion That all Perception is made by corporeal figuring self-motions and that the perception of forreign objects is made by patterning them out as for example The sensitive perception of forreign objects is by making or taking copies from these objects so as the sensitive corporeal motions in the eyes copy out the objects of sight and the sensitive corporeal motions in the ears copy out the objects of sound the sensitive corporeal motions in the nostrils copy out the objects of sent the sensitive corporeal motions in the tongue and mouth copy out the objects of taste and the sensitive corporeal motions in the flesh and skin of the body copy out the forreign objects of touch for when you stand by the fire it is not that the fire or the heat of the fire enters your flesh but that the sensitive motions copy out the objects of fire and heat As for my Book of Philosophy I must tell you that it treats more of the production and architecture of Creatures then of their perceptions and more of the causes then the effects more in a general then peculiar way which I thought necessary to inform you of and so I remain MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XLIII MADAM I Received your questions in your last the first was Whether there be more body compact together in a heavy then in a light thing I answer That purity rarity little quantity exteriour shape as also motion cause lightnesse and grossness of bulk density much quantity exterior figure and motion cause heaviness as it may be confirmed by many examples but lightness and heaviness are onely conceptions of man as also ascent and descent and it may be questioned whether there be such things really in nature for change of motions of one and the same body will make lightness and heaviness as also rarity and density besides the several figures and compositions of bodies will cause them to ascend or descend for Snow is a light body and yet descends fron the clouds and Water is a heavie body and yet ascends in springs out of the Earth Dust is a dense body and yet is apt to ascend Rain or Dew is a rare body and yet is apt to descend Also a Bird ascends by his shape and a small worm although of less body and lighter will fall down and there can be no other prof of light and heavy bodies but by their ascent and descent But as really there is no such thing as heavie or light in nature more then words and comparisons of different corporeal motions so there is no such thing as high or low place or time but onely words to make comparisons and to distinguish different corporeal motions The second question was When a Bason with water is wasted into smoak which fills up a whole Room Whether the air in the room doth as the sensitive motions of the eye pattern out the figure of the smoak or whether all the room is really fill'd with the vapour or smoak I answer If it be onely the pattern or figure of smoak or vapour the extension and dilation is not so much as man imagines but why may not the air which in my opinion hath self-motion pattern out the figure of smoak as well as the eye for that the eye surely doth it may be proved because smoak if it enter the eye makes it not onely smart and water much but blinds it quite for the present wherefore smoak doth not enter the eye when the eye seeth it but the eye patterns out the figure of smoak and this is perception In the same manner may the air pattern out the figure of smoak The third question was Whether all that they name qualities of bodies as thickness thinness hardness softness gravity levity transparentness and the like be substances I answer That all those they call qualities are nothing else but change of motion and figure of the same body and several changes of motions are not several bodies but several actions of one body for change of motion doth not create new matter or multiply its quantity for though corporeal motions may divide and compose contract and dilate yet they cannot create new matter or make matter any otherwise then it is by nature neither can they add or substract any thing from its nature And therefore my opinion is not that they are things subsisting by themselves without matter but that there can no abstraction be made of motion and figure from matter and that matter and motion being but one thing and inseparable make but one substance Wherefore density and rarity gravity and levity c. being nothing else but change of motions cannot be without matter
or self-moving matter do bear up and cause the inanimate parts to move and work with them and thus there is an activity in all parts of matter moving and working as one body without any fixation or rest for all is moveable moving and moved All which Madam if it were well observed there would not be so many strange opinions concerning nature and her actions making the purest and subtillest part of matter immaterial or incorporeal which is as much as to extend her beyond nature and to rack her quite to nothing But I fear the opinion of Immaterial substances in Nature will at last bring in again the Heathen Religion and make us believe a god Pan Bacchus Ceres Venus and the like so as we may become worshippers of Groves and shadows Beans and Onions as our Forefathers I say not this as if I would ascribe any worship to Nature or make her a Deity for she is onely a servant to God and so are all her parts or creatures which parts or creatures although they are transformed yet cannot be annihilated except Nature her self be annihilated which may be whensoever the Great God pleases for her existence and resolution or total destruction depends upon Gods Will and Decree whom she fears adores admires praises and prayes unto as being her God and Master and as she adores God so do all her parts and creatures and amongst the rest Man so that there is no Atheist in Infinite Nature at least not in the opinion of MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant V. MADAM I Cannot well conceive what your Author means by the Common Laws of Nature But if you desire my opinion how many Laws Nature hath and what they are I say Nature hath but One Law which is a wise Law viz. to keep Infinite matter in order and to keep so much Peace as not to disturb the Foundation of her Government for though Natures actions are various and so many times opposite which would seem to make wars between several Parts yet those active Parts being united into one Infinite body cannot break Natures general Peace for that which Man names War Sickness Sleep Death and the like are but various particular actions of the onely matter not as your Author imagines in a confusion like Bullets or such like things juggled together in a mans Hat but very orderly and methodical And the Playing motions of nature are the actions of Art but her serious actions are the actions of Production Generation and Transformation in several kinds sorts and particulars of her Creatures as also the action of ruling and governing these her several active Parts Concerning the Preeminence and Prerogative of Man whom your Author calls The flower and chief of all the products of nature upon this Globe of the earth I answer That Man cannot well be judged of himself because he is a Party and so may be Partial But if we observe well we shall find that the Elemental Creatures are as excellent as Man and as able to be a friend or foe to Man as Man to them and so the rest of all Creatures so that I cannot perceive more abilities in Man then in the rest of natural Creatures for though he can build a stately House yet he cannot make a Honey-comb and though he can plant a Slip yet he cannot make a Tree though he can make a Sword or Knife yet he cannot make the Mettal And as Man makes use of other Creatures so other Creatures make use of Man as far as he is good for any thing But Man is not so useful to his neighbour or fellow-creatures as his neighbour or fellow-creatures to him being not so profitable for use as apt to make spoil And so leaving him I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant VI. MADAM YOur Author demands Whether there was ever any man that was not mortal and whether there be any mortal that had not a beginning Truly if nature be eternal all the material figures which ever were are and can be must be also eternal in nature for the figures cannot be annihilated unless nature be destroyed and although a Creature is dissolved and transformed into numerous different figures yet all these several figures remain still in those parts of matter whereof that creature was made for matter never changes but is always one and the same and figure is nothing else but matter transposed or transformed by motion several modes or ways But if you conceive Matter to be one thing Figure another and Motion a third several distinct and dividable from each other it will produce gross errors for matter motion and figure are but one thing And as for that common question whether the Egg was before the Chick or the Chick before the Egg it is but a thred-bare argument which proves nothing for there is no such thing as First in Eternity neither doth Time make productions or generations but Matter and whatsoever matter can produce or generate was in matter before it was produced wherefore the question is whether Matter which is Nature had a beginning or not I say not for put the case the figures of Earth Air Water and Fire Light and Colours Heat and Cold Animals Vegetables and Minerals c. were not produced from all Eternity yet those figures have nevertheless been in Matter which is Nature from all eternity for these mentioned Creatures are onely made by the corporeal motions of Matter transforming Matter into such several figures Neither can there be any perishing or dying in Nature for that which Man calls so is onely an alteration of Figure And as all other productions are but a change of Matters sensitive motions so all irregular and extravagant opinions are nothing but a change of Matters rational motions onely productions by rational motions are interior and those by sensitive motions exterior For the Natural Mind is not less material then the body onely the Matter of the Mind is much purer and subtiller then the Matter of the Body And thus there is nothing in Nature but what is material but he that thinks it absurd to say the World is composed of meer self-moving Matter may consider that it is more absurd to believe Immaterial substances or spirits in Nature as also a spirit of Nature which is the Vicarious power of God upon Matter For why should it not be as probable that God did give Matter a self-moving power to her self as to have made another Creature to govern her For Nature is not a Babe or Child to need such a Spiritual Nurse to teach her to go or to move neither is she so young a Lady as to have need of a Governess for surely she can govern her self she needs not a Guardian for fear she should run away with a younger Brother or one that cannot make her a Jointure But leaving those strange opinions to the fancies of their Authors He add no more but that I am MADAM Your faithful Friend
that there is one maximum or biggest which is the world and what is beyond that is Infinite Truly Madam I must ingeniously confess I am not so high learned as to penetrate into the true sense of these words for he says they are both divisible and indivisible and yet no atomes which surpasses my Understanding for there is no such thing as biggest and smallest in Nature or in the Infinite matter for who can know how far this World goes or what is beyond it There may be Infinite Worlds as I said before for ought we know for God and Nature cannot be comprehended ' nor their works measured if we cannot find out the nature of particular things which are subject to our exterior senses how shall we be able to judg of things not subject to our senses But your Author doth speak so presumptuously of Gods Actions Designs Decrees Laws Attributes Power and secret Counsels and describes the manner how God created all things and the mixture of the Elements to an hair as if he had been Gods Counsellor and Assistant in the work of Creation which whether it be not more impiety then to say Matter is Infinite I 'le let others judg Neither do I think this expression to be against the holy Scripture for though I speak as a natural Philosopher and am unwilling to cite the Scripture which onely treats of things belonging to Faith and and not to Reason yet I think there is not any passage which plainly denies Matter to be Infinite and Eternal unless it be drawn by force to that sense Solomon says That there is not any thing new and in another place it is said That God is all fulfilling that is The Will of God is the fulfilling of the actions of Nature also the Scripture says That Gods ways are unsearchable and past finding out Wherefore it is easier to treat of Nature then the God of Nature neither should God be treated of by vain Philosophers but by holy Divines which are to deliver and interpret the Word of God without sophistry and to inform us as much of Gods Works as he hath been pleased to declare and make known And this is the safest way in the opinion of MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XI MADAM YOur new Author endeavours to prove that Water in its own proper nature is thicker then Earth which to my sense and reason seems not probable for although water is less porous then earth in its exterior figure yet 't is not so thick as earth in its interior nature Neither can I conceive it to be true that water in its own nature and as long as it remains water should be as hard as Crystal or stone as his opinion is for though Elements are so pliant being not composed of many different parts and figures as they can change and rechange their exterior figures yet they do not alter their interior nature without a total dissolution but your Author may as well say that the interior nature of man is dust and ashes as that water in its interior nature is as thick as earth and as hard as Christal or stone whereas yet a man when he becomes dust and ashes is not a man and therefore when water is become so thick as earth or so hard as stone it is not water I mean when it is so in its interior nature not in its exterior figure for the exterior figure may be contracted when yet the interior nature is dilative and so the exterior may be thick or hard when the interior is soft and rare But you may say that water is a close and heavy as also a smooth and glossy body I answer That doth not prove its interior nature to be hard dense thick or contracted for the interior nature and parts of a body may be different from the exterior figure or parts neither doth the close joyning of parts hinder dilatation for if so a line or circle could not dilate or extend But this close uniting of the parts of water is caused through its wet and glutinous quality which wet and sticking quality is caused by a watery dilatation for though water hath not interiously so rare a dilatation as Air Fire and Light yet it hath not so close a contraction as Earth Stone or Metal neither are all bodies that are smooth and shining more solid and dense then those that are rough and dark for light is more smooth glossy and shining then Water Metal Earth or Transparent-stones and yet is of a dilative nature But because some bodies and figures which are transparent and smooth are dense hard and thick we cannot in reason or sense say that all bodies and figures are so As for Transparency it is caused through a purity of substance and an evenness of parts the like is glossiness onely glossiness requires not so much regularity as transparency But to return to Water its exterior Circle-figure may easily dilate beyond the degree of the propriety or nature of water or contract beneath the propriety or nature of water Your Author may say Water is a globous body and all globous bodies tend to a Center I answer That my sense and reason cannot perceive but that Circles and Globes do as easily dilate as contract for if all Globes and Circles should endeavour to draw or fall from the circumference to the Center the Center of the whole World or at least of some parts of the World would be as a Chaos besides it is against sense and reason that all Matter should strive to a Center for humane sense and reason may observe that all Creatures and so Matter desire liberty and a Center is but a Prison in comparison to the Circumference wherefore if Matter crowds it is rather by force then a voluntary action You will say All Creatures desire rest and in a Center there 's rest I answer Humane sense and reason cannot perccive any rest in Nature for all things as I have proved heretofore are in a perpetual motion But concerning Water you may ask me Madam Whether congeal'd Water as Ice if it never thaw remains Water To which I answer That the interior nature of Water remains as long as the Ice remains although the outward form is changed but if Ice be contracted into the firmness and density of Crystal or Diamond or the like so as to be beyond the nature of Water and not capable to be that Water again then it is transformed into another Creature or thing which is neither Water nor Ice but a Stone for the Icy contraction doth no more alter the interior nature of Water which is dilating then the binding of a man with Chains alters his nature from being a man and it might be said as well that the nature of Air is not dilating when inclosed in a bladder as that Water doth not remain Water in its interior nature when it is contracted into Ice But you may ask Whether one extreme can change into another I
answer To my sense and reason it were possible if extremes were in Nature but I do not perceive that in Nature there be any although my sense and reason doth perceive alterations in the effects of Nature for though one and the same part may alter from contraction to dilation and from dilation to contraction yet this contraction and dilation are not extremes neither are they performed at one and the same time but at different times But having sufficiently declared my opinion hereof in my former Letters I 'l add no more but rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XII MADAM MY discourse of Water in my last Letter has given you occasion to enquire after the reason Why the weight of a great body of water doth not press so hard and heavily as to bruise or crush a body when it is sunk down to the bottom As for example If a man should be drowned and afterwards cast out from the bottom of a great Sea or River upon the shore he would onely be found smother'd or choak'd to death and not press'd crush'd or bruised by the weight of water I answer The reasons are plain for first the nature of a mans respiration requires such a temperature of breath to suck in as is neither too thick nor too thin for his lungs and the rest of his interior parts as also for the organs and passages of his exterior senses but fit proper and proportionable to those mentioned parts of his body As for example in a too thin and rarified air man will be as apt to die for want of breath as in a too gross and thick air he is apt to die with a superfluity of the substance he imbreaths for thick smoak or thick vapour as also too gross air will soon smother a man to death and as for choaking if a man takes more into his throat then he can swallow he will die and if his stomack be filled with more food then it is able to digest if it cannot discharge it self he will die with the excess of food and if there be no food or too little put into it he will also die for want of food So the eye if it receives too many or too gross or too bright objects it will be dazled or blinded and some objects through their purity are not to be seen at all The same for Hearing and the rest of the exterior senses And this is the reason why man or some animal Creatures are smother'd and choak'd with water because water is thicker then the grossest air or vapour for if smoak which is rarer then water will smother and choak a man well may water being so much thicker But yet this smothering or choaking doth not prove that water hath an interior or innate density as your Authors opinion is no more then smoak or thick and gross air hath but the density of water is caused more through the wet and moist exterior parts joyning and uniting closely together and the interior nature of smoak being more moist or glutinous then thin air and so more apt to unite its exterior parts it makes it to come in effect nearer to water for though water and smoak are both of rare natures yet not so rare as clear and pure air neither is water or smoak so porous as pure air by reason the exterior parts of water and smoak are more moist or glutinous then pure air But the thickness of water and smoak is the onely cause of the smothering of men or some animals as by stopping their breath for a man can no more live without air then he can without food and a well tempered or middle degree of air is the most proper for animal Respiration for if the air be too thick it may soon smother or choak him and if too thin it is not sufficient to give him breath And this is the reason that a man being drown'd is not onely smother'd but choak'd by water because there enters more through the exterior passages into his body then can be digested for water is apt to flow more forcibly and with greater strength then air not that it is more dilating then air but by reason it is thicker and so stronger or of more force for the denser a body is the stronger it is and a heavy body when moved is more forcible then a light body But I pray by this expression mistake not the nature of water for the interior nature of water hath not that gravity which heavy or dense bodies have its nature being rare and light as air or fire but the weight of water as I said before proceeds onely from the closeness and compactness of its exterior parts not through a contraction in its interior nature and there is no argument which proves better that water in its interior nature is dilating then that its weight is not apt to press to a point for though water is apt to descend through the union of its parts yet it cannot press hard by reason of its dilating nature which hinders that heavy pressing quality for a dilating body cannot have a contracted weight I mean so as to press to a Center which is to a point and this is the reason that when a grave or heavy body sinks down to the bottom of water it is not opprest hurt crusht or bruised by the weight of water for as I said the nature of water being dilating it can no more press hard to a center then vapour air or fire The truth is water would be as apt to ascend as descend if it were not for the wet glutinous and sticking cleaving quality of its exterior parts but as the quantity and quality of the exterior parts makes water apt to sink or descend so the dilating nature makes it apt to flow if no hinderance stop its course also the quantity and quality of its exterior parts is the cause that some heavy bodies do swim without sinking as for example a great heavy Ship will not readily sink unless its weight be so contracted as to break asunder the united parts of water for the wet quality of water causing its exterior parts to joyn close gives it such an united strength as to be able to bear a heavy burden if the weight be dilated or level and not piercing or penetrating for those bodies that are most compact will sink sooner although of less weight then those that are more dilated although of greater weight Also the exterior and outward shape or form makes some bodies more apt to sink then others Indeed the outward form and shape of Creatures is one of the chief causes of either sinking or swimming But to conclude water in its interior nature is of a mean or middle degree as neither too rare nor too grave a body and for its exterior quality it is in as high a degree for wetness as fire is for heat and being apt both to divide and to unite it can bear a burden and devour a
There was and There shall be but onely There is Neither can it properly be said from this to that place but onely in reference to the several moving parts of the onely Infinite Matter And thus much to your Questions I add no more but rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and humble Servant XXX MADAM IN your last you were pleased to express that some men who think themselves wise did laugh in a scornful manner at my opinion when I say that every Creature hath life and knowledg sense and reason counting it not onely ridiculous but absurd and asking whether you did or could believe a piece of wood metal or stone had as much sense as a beast or as much reason as a man having neither brain blood heart nor flesh nor such organs passages parts nor shapes as animals To which I answer That it is not any of these mentioned things that makes life and knowledg but life and knowledg is the cause of them which life and knowledg is animate matter and is in all parts of all Creatures and to make it more plain and perspicuous humane sense and reason may perceive that wood stone or metal acts as wisely as an animal As for example Rhubarb or the like drugs will act very wisely in Purging and Antimony or the like will act very wisely in Vomiting and Opium will act very wisely in Sleeping also Quicksilver or Mercury will act very wisely as those that have the French disease can best witness likewise the Loadstone acts very wisely as Mariners or Navigators will tell you Also Wine made of Fruit and Ale of Malt and distilled Aqua-vitae will act very subtilly ask the Drunkards and they can inform you Thus Infinite examples may be given and yet man says all Vegetables and Minerals are insensible and irrational as also the Planets and Elements when as yet the Planets move very orderly and wisely and the Elements are more active nay more subtil and searching then any of the animal Creatures witness Fire Air and Water As for the Earth she brings forth her fruit if the other Elements do not cause abortives in due season and yet man believes Vegetables Minerals and Elements are dead dull senseless and irrational Creatures because they have not such shapes parts nor passages as Animals nor such exterior and local motions as Animals have but Man doth not consider the various intricate and obscure ways of Nature unknown to any particular Creature for what our senses are not capable to know our reason is apt to deny Truly in my opinion Man is more irrational then any of those Creatures when he believes that all knowledg is not onely confined to one sort of Creatures but to one part of one particular Creature as the head or brain of man for who can in reason think that there is no other sensitive and rational knowledg in Infinite Matter but what is onely in Man or animal Creatures It is a very simple and weak conclusion to say Other Creatures have no eyes to see no ears to hear no tongues to taste no noses to smell as animals have wherefore they have no sense or sensitive knowledg or because they have no head nor brain as Man hath therefore they have no reason nor rational knowledg at all for sense and reason and consequently sensitive and rational knowledg extends further then to be bound to the animal eye ear nose tongue head or brain but as these organs are onely in one kind of Natures Creatures as Animals in which organs the sensitive corporeal motions make the perception of exterior objects so there may be infinite other kinds of passages or organs in other Creatures unknown to Man which Creatures may have their sense and reason that is sensitive and rational knowledg each according to the nature of its figure for as it is absurd to say that all Creatures in Nature are Animals so it is absurd to confine sense and reason onely to Animals or to say that all other Creatures if they have sense and reason life and knowledg it must be the same as is in Animals I confess it is of the same degree that is of the same animate part of matter but the motions of life and knowledg work so differently and variously in every kind and sort nay in every particular Creature that no single Creature can find them out But in my opinion not any Creature is without life and knowledg which life and knowledg is made by the self-moving part of matter that is by the sensitive and rational corporeal motions and as it is no consequence that all Creatures must be alike in their exterior shapes figures and motions because they are all produced out of one and the same matter so neither doth it follow that all Creatures must have the same interior motions natures and proprieties and so consequently the same life and knowledg because all life and knowledg is made by the same degree of matter to wit the animate Wherefore though every kind or sort of Creatures has different perceptions yet they are not less knowing for Vegetables Minerals and Elements may have as numerous and as various perceptions as Animals and they may be as different from animal perceptions as their kinds are but a different perception is not therefore no perception Neither is it the animal organs that make perception nor the animal shape that makes life but the motions of life make them But some may say it is Irreligious to believe any Creature has rational knowledg but Man Surely Madam the God of Nature in my opinion will be adored by all Creatures and adoration cannot be without sense and knowledg Wherefore it is not probable that onely Man and no Creature else is capable to adore and worship the Infinite and Omnipotent God who is the God of Nature and of all Creatures I should rather think it irreligious to confine sense and reason onely to Man and to say that no Creature adores and worships God but Man which in my judgment argues a great pride self-conceit and presumption And thus Madam having declared my opinion plainly concerning this subject I will detain you no longer at this present but rest MADAM Your constant Friend and faithful Servant XXXI MADAM I Perceive you do not well apprehend my meaning when I say in my Philosophical Opinions That the Infinite degrees of Infinite Matter are all Infinite For say you the degrees of Matter cannot be Infinite by reason there cannot be two Infinites but one would obstruct the other My answer is I do not mean that the degrees of Matter are Infinite each in its self that is that the animate and inanimate are several Infinite matters but my opinion is that the animate degree of matter is in a perpetual motion and the inanimate doth not move of it self and that those degrees are infinite in their effects as producing and making infinite figures for since the cause which is the onely matter is infinite the
Animals do often see in the dark and in sleep I will not say but that the animate matter which by self-motion doth make the Perception of light with other perceptive Figures and so animal perceptive light may be the presenter or ground perceptive figure of sight yet the sensitive corporeal motions can make other figures without the help of light and such as light did never present But when the eye patterns out an exterior object presented by light it patterns also out the object of light for the sensitive motions can make many figures by one act not onely in several organs but in one organ as for example there is presented to sight a piece of Imbroydery wherein is silk silver and gold upon Sattin in several forms or figures as several flowers the sensitive motions streight by one and the same act pattern out all those several figures of flowers as also the figures of Silk Silver Gold and Sattin without any pressure of these objects or motions in the medium for if they all should press the eye would no more see the exterior objects then the nose being stopt could smell a presented perfume Thirdly They may ask me if sight be made in the eye and proceeds not from the outward object what is the reason that we do not see inwardly but outwardly as from us I answer when we see objects outwardly as from us then the sensitive motions work on the outside of the organ which organ being outwardly convex causes us to see outwardly as from us but in dreams we see inwardly also the sensitive motions do pattern out the distance together with the object But you will say the body of the distance as the air cannot be perceived and yet we can perceive the distance I answer you could not perceive the distance but by such or such an object as is subject to your sight for you do not see the distance more then the air or the like rare body that is between grosser objects for if there were no stars nor planets nor clouds nor earth nor water but onely air you would not see any space or distance but light being a more visible body then air you might figure the body of air by light but so as in an extensive or dilating way for when the mind or the rational matter conceives any thing that hath not such an exact figure or is not so perceptible by our senses then the mind uses art and makes such figures which stand like to that as for example to express infinite to it self it dilates it parts without alteration and without limitation or circumference Likewise when it will conceive a constant succession of Time it draws out its parts into the figure of a line and if eternity it figures a line without beginning and end But as for Immaterial no mind can conceive that for it cannot put it self into nothing although it can dilate and rarifie it self to an higher degree but must stay within the circle of natural bodies as I within the circle of your Commands to express my self MADAM Your faithful Friend and obedient Servant XXI MADAM HEat and Cold according to your Authors opinion are made by Dilation and Contraction for says he When the Motion of the ambient aethereal substance makes the spirits and fluid parts of our bodies tend outwards we acknowledg heat but by the indeavour inwards of the same spirits and humors we feel cold so that to cool is to make the exterior parts of the body endeavour inwards by a motion contrary to that of calefaction by which the internal parts are called outwards He therefore that would know the cause of Cold must find by what motion the exterior parts of any body endeavour to retire inwards But I desire you to consider Madam that there be moist Colds and dry Heats as well as dry Colds and moist Heats wherefore all sorts of Cold are not made by the retyring of parts inwards which is contraction or attraction neither are all sorts of Heat made by parts tending outwards which is dilation or rarefaction for a moist cold is made by dilation and a dry heat by contraction as well as a moist heat is made by dilation and a dry cold by contraction But your Author makes not this difference but onely a difference between a dilated heat and a contracted cold but because a cold wind is made by breath blown thorow pinched or contracted lips and an hot wind by breath through opened and extended lips should we judg that all heat and cold must be made after one manner or way The contracted mouth makes Wind as well as the dilated but yet Wind is not made that way as heat and cold for it may be that onely the air pressed together makes wind or it may be that the corporeal motions in the air may change air into wind as they change water into vapour and vapour into air or it may be something else that is invisible and rare as air and there may be several sorts of wind air heat cold as of all other Creatures more then man is capable to know As for your Authors opinion concerning the congealing of Water and how Ice is made I will not contradict it onely I think nature hath an easier way to effect it then he describes Wherefore my opinion is that it is done by altering motions as for example the corporeal motions making the figure of water by dilation in a Circle figure onely alter from such a dilating circular figure into a contracted square which is Ice or into such a contracted triangle as is snow And thus water and vapour may be changed with ease without any forcing pressing raking or the like The same may be said of hard and bent bodies and of restitution as also of air thunder and lightning which are all done by an easie change of motion and changing into such or such a figure is not the motion of Generation which is to build a new house with old materials but onely a Transformation I say a new house with old materials not that I mean there is any new Creation in nature of any thing that was not before in nature for nature is not God to make new beings out of nothing but any thing may be called new when it is altered from one figure into another I add no more at this time but rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXII MADAM THe Generation of sound according to your worthy Authors opinion is as follows As Vision says he so hearing is Generated by the medium but but not in the same manner for sight is from pressure that is from an endeavour in which there is no perceptible progression of any of the parts of the medium but one part urging or thrusting on another propagateth that action successively to any distance whatsoever where as the motion of the medium by which sound is made is a stroke for when we hear the drum of the
out the object of sent besides the nose but those are interior parts and take their patterns from the nose as the organ properly designed for it neither is their resentment the same because their motions are not alike for the stomack may perceive and pattern out a sent with aversion when the nose may pattern it out with pleasure And thus much also of Sent I conclude and rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXIX MADAM COncerning your Learned Authors discourse of Density and Rality he defines Thick to be that which takes up more parts of a space given and thin which containes fewer parts of the same magnitude not that there is more matter in one place then in an other equal place but a greater quantity of some named body wherefore the multitude and paucity of the parts contained within the same space do constitute density and rarity Where of my opinion is That there is no more nor less space or place then body according to its ' dilation or contraction and that space and place are dilated and contracted with the body according to the magnitude of the body for body place and magnitude are the same thing only place is in regard of the several parts of the body and there is as well space betwixt things distant a hairs breadth from one another as betwixt things distant a million of miles but yet this space is nothing from the body but it makes that that body has not the same place with this body that is that this body is not that body and that this bodies place is not that bodies place Next your Author sayes He hath already clearly enough demonstrated that there can be no beginning of motion but from an external and moved body and that heavy bodies being once cast upwards cannot be cast down again but by external motion Truly Madam I will not speak of your Authors demonstrations for it is done most by art which I have no knowledg in but I think I have probably declared that all the actions of nature are not forced by one part driving pressing or shoving another as a man doth a wheel-barrow or a whip a horse nor by reactions as if men were at foot-ball or cuffs or as men with carts meeting each other in a narrow lane But to prove there is no self-motion in nature he goes on and says To attribute to created bodies the power to move themselves what is it else then to say that there be creatures which have no dependance upon the Creator To which I answer That if man who is but a single part of nature hath given him by God the power and a free will of moving himself why should not God give it to Nature Neither can I see how it can take off the dependance upon God more then Eternity for if there be an Eternal Creator there is also an Eternal Creature and if an Eternal Master an Eternal Servant which is Nature and yet Nature is subject to Gods Command and depends upon him and if all Gods Attributes be Infinite then his Bounty is Infinite also which cannot be exercised but by an Infinite Gift but a Gift doth not cause a less dependance I do not say That man hath an absolute Free-will or power to move according to his desire for it is not conceived that a part can have an absolute power nevertheless his motion both of body and mind is a free and self-motion and such a self-motion hath every thing in Nature according to its figure or shape for motion and figure being inherent in matter matter moves figuratively Yet do I not say That there is no hindrance obstruction and opposition in nature but as there is no particular Creature that hath an absolute power of self-moving so that Creature which hath the advantage of strength subtilty or policy shape or figure and the like may oppose and over-power another which is inferior to it in all this yet this hinderance and opposition doth not take away self-motion But I perceive your Author is much for necessitation and against free-will which I leave to Moral Philosophers and Divines And as for the ascending of light and descending of heavy bodies there may be many causes but these four are perceiveable by our senses as bulk or quantity of body grossness of substance density and shape or figure which make heavy bodies descend But little quantity purity of substance rarity and figure or shape make light bodies ascend Wherefore I cannot believe that there are certain little bodies as atoms and by reason of their smallness invisible differing from one another in consistence figure motion and magnitude intermingled with the air which should be the cause of the descending of heavy bodies And concerning air whether it be subject to our senses or not I say that if air be neither hot nor cold it is not subject but if it be the sensitive motions will soon pattern it out and declare it I 'le conclude with your Authors question What the cause is that a man doth not feel the weight of Water in Water and answer it is the dilating nature of Water But of this question and of Water I shall treat more fully hereafter and so I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXX MADAM I Am reading now the works of that Famous and most Renowned Author Des Cartes out of which I intend to pick out onely those discourses which I like best and not to examine his opinions as they go along from the beginning to the end of his books And in order to this I have chosen in the first place his discourse of motion and do not assent to his opinion when he defines Motion to be onely a Mode of a thing and not the thing or body it selfe for in my opinion there can be no abstraction made of motion from body neither really nor in the manner of our conception for how can I conceive that which is not nor cannot be in nature that is to conceive motion without body Wherefore Motion is but one thing with body without any separation or abstraction soever Neither doth it agree with my reason that one body can give or transferr motion into another body and as much motion it gives or transferrs into that body as much loses it As for example in two hard bodies thrown against one another where one that is thrown with greater force takes the other along with it and loses as much motion as it gives it For how can motion being no substance but onely a mode quit one body and pass into another One body may either occasion or imitate anothers motion but it can neither give nor take away what belongs to its own or another bodies substance no more then matter can quit its nature from being matter and therefore my opinion is that if motion doth go out of one body into another then substance goes too for motion and substance or body
as afore-mentioned are all one thing and then all bodies that receive motion from other bodies must needs increase in their substance and quantity and those bodies which impart or transferr motion must decrease as much as they increase Truly Madam that neither Motion nor Figure should subsist by themselves and yet be transferrable into other bodies is very strange and as much as to prove them to be nothing and yet to say they are something The like may be said of all others which they call accidents as skill learning knowledge c. saying they are no bodies because they have no extension but inherent in bodies or substances as in their subjects for although the body may subsist without them yet they being always with the body body and they are all one thing And so is power and body for body cannot quit power nor power the body being all one thing But to return to Motion my opinion is That all matter is partly animate and partly inanimate and all matter is moving and moved and that there is no part of Nature that hath not life and knowledg for there is no Part that has not a comixture of animate and inanimate matter and though the inanimate matter has no motion nor life and knowledg of it self as the animate has nevertheless being both so closely joyned and commixed as in one body the inanimate moves as well as the animate although not in the same manner for the animate moves of it self and the inanimate moves by the help of the animate and thus the animate is moving and the inanimate moved not that the animate matter transfers infuses or communicates its own motion to the inanimate for this is impossible by reason it cannot part with its own nature nor alter the nature of inanimate matter but each retains its own nature for the inanimate matter remains inanimate that is without self-motion and the animate loses nothing of its self-motion which otherwise it would if it should impart or transferr its motion into the inanimate matter but onely as I said heretofore the inanimate works or moves with the animate because of their close union and commixture for the animate forces or causes the inanimate matter to work with her and thus one is moving the other moved and consequently there is life and knowledg in all parts of nature by reason in all parts of nature there is a commixture of animate and inanimate matter and this Life and Knowledg is sense and reason or sensitive and rational corporeal motions which are all one thing with animate matter without any distinction or abstraction and can no more quit matter then matter can quit motion Wherefore every creature being composed of this commixture of animate and inanimate matter has also selfe-motion that is life and knowledg sense and reason so that no part hath need to give or receive motion to or from another part although it may be an occasion of such a manner of motion to another part and cause it to move thus or thus as for example A Watch-maker doth not give the watch its motion but he is onely the occasion that the watch moves after that manner for the motion of the watch is the watches own motion inherent in those parts ever since that matter was and if the watch ceases to move after such a manner or way that manner or way of motion is never the less in those parts of matter the watch is made of and if several other figures should be made of that matter the power of moving in the said manner or mode would yet still remain in all those parts of matter as long as they are body and have motion in them Wherefore one body may occasion another body to move so or so but not give it any motion but everybody though occasioned by another to move in such a way moves by its own natural motion for self-motion is the very nature of animate matter and is as much in hard as in fluid bodies although your Author denies it saying The nature of fluid bodies consists in the motion of those little insensible parts into which they are divided and the nature of bard bodies when those little particles joyned closely together do rest for there is no rest in nature wherefore if there were a World of Gold and a World of Air I do verily believe that the World of Gold would be as much interiously active as the World of Air exteriously for Natures motions are not all external or perceptible by our senses neither are they all circular or onely of one sort but there is an infinite change and variety of motions for though I say in my Philosophical opinions As there is but one onely Matter so there is but one onely Motion yet I do not mean there is but one particular sort of motions as either circular or straight or the like but that the nature of motion is one and the same simple and intire in it self that is it is meer motion or nothing else but corporeal motion and that as there are infinite divisions or parts of matter so there are infinite changes and varieties of motions which is the reason that I call motion as well infinite as matter first that matter and motion are but one thing and if matter be infinite motion must be so too and secondly that motion is infinite in its changes and variations as matter is in its parts And thus much of motion for this time I add no more but rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXXI MADAM I Observe your Author in his discourse of Place makes a difference betwixt an Interior and Exterior place and that according to this distinction one body may be said to change and not to change its place at the same time and that one body may succeed into anothers place But I am not of this opinion for I believe not that there is any more place then body as for example Water being mix'd with Earth the water doth not take the Earths place but as their parts intermix so do their places and as their parts change so do their places so that there is no more place then there is water and earth the same may be said of Air and Water or Air and Earth or did they all mix together for as their bodies join so do their places and as they are separated from each other so are their places Say a man travels a hundred miles and so a hundred thousand paces but yet this man has not been in a hundred thousand places for he never had any other place but his own he hath joined and separated himselfe from a hundred thousand nay millions of parts but he has left no places behind him You will say if he travel the same way back again then he is said to travel thorow the same places I answer It may be the vulgar way of expression or the common phrase but to speak properly
after a Philosophical way and according to the truth in nature he cannot be said to go back again thorow the same places he went because he left none behind him or els all his way would be nothing but place after place all the hundred miles along besides if place should be taken so as to express the joyning to the neerest bodies which compass him about certainly he would never find his places again for the air being fluid changes or moves continually and perchance the same parts of the air which compassed him once will never come near him again But you may say If a man be hurt or hath some mischance in his body so as to have a piece of flesh cut out and new flesh growing there then we say because the adjoyning parts do not change that a new piece of flesh is grown in the same place where the former flesh was and that the place of the former flesh cut or fallen out is the same of this new grown flesh I answer In my opinion it is not for the parts being not the same the places are not but every one hath its own place But if the wound be not filled or closed up with other new flesh you will say that according to my opinion there is no place then at all I say Yes for the air or any thing else may be there as new parts joyning to the other parts nevertheless the air or that same body which is there hath not taken the fleshes place which was there before but hath its own but by reason the adjoyning parts remain man thinks the place remains there also which is no consequence 'T is true a man may return to the same adjoining bodies where he was before but then he brings his place with him again and as his body so his place returnes also and if a mans arm be cut off you may say there was an arm heretofore but you cannot say properly this is the place where the arm was But to return to my first example of the mixture of Water and Earth or Air Suppose water is not porous but onely dividable and hath no other place but what is its own bodies ' and that other parts of water intermix with it by dividing and composing I say there is no more place required then what belongs to their own parts for if some contract others dilate some divide others joyn the places are the same according to the magnitude of each part or body The same may be said of all kinds or sorts of mixtures for one body hath but one place and so if many parts of the same nature joyn into one body and increase the bulk of the body the place of that same body is accordingly and if they be bodies of different natures which intermix and joyne each several keeps its place And so each body and each particular part of a body hath its place for you cannot name body or part of a body but you must also understand place to be with them and if a point should dilate to a world or a world contract to a point the place would always be the same with the body And thus I have declared my opinion of this subject which I submit to the correction of your better judgment and rest MADAM Your Ladiships faithful Friend and humble Servant XXXII MADAM IN my last I hope I have sufficiently declared my opinion That to one body belongs but one place and that no body can leave a place behind it but wheresoever is body there is place also Now give me leave to examine this question when a bodies figure is printed on snow or any other fluid or soft matter as air water and the like whether it be the body that prints its own figure upon the snow or whether it be the snow that patterns the figure of the body My answer is That it is not the body which prints its figure upon the snow but the snow that patterns out the figure of the body for if a seal be printed upon wax 't is true it is the figure of the seal which is printed on the wax but yet the seal doth not give the wax the print of its own figure but it is the wax that takes the print or pattern from the seal and patterns or copies it out in its own substance just as the sensitive motions in the eye do pattern out the figure of an object as I have declared heretofore But you will say perhaps A body being printed upon snow as it leaves its print so it leaves also its place with the print in the snow I answer That doth not follow For the place remains still the bodies place and when the body removes out of the snow it takes its place along with it Just like a man whose picture is drawn by a Painter when he goes away he leaves not his place with his picture but his place goes with his body and as the place of the picture is the place of the colour or paint and the place of the copie of an exterior object patterned out by the sensitive corporeal motions is the place of the sensitive organ so the place of the print in snow is the snows place or else if the print were the bodies place that is printed and not the snow's it might as well be said that the motion and shape of a watch were not the motion and shape of the watch but of the hand of him that made it And as it is with snow so it is with air for a mans figure is patterned out by the parts and motions of the air wheresoever he moveth the difference is onely that air being a fluid body doth not retain the print so long as snow or a harder body doth but when the body removes the print is presently dissolved But I wonder much your Author denies that there can be two bodies in one place and yet makes two places for one body when all is but the motions of one body Wherefore a man sailing in a Ship cannot be said to keep place and to change his place for it is not place he changes but onely the adjoyning parts as leaving some and joyning to others and it is very improper to attribute that to place which belongs to parts and to make a change of place out of change of parts I conclude repeating once again that figure and place are still remaining the same with body For example let a stone be beat to dust and this dust be severally dispersed nay changed into numerous figures I say as long as the substance of the stone remains in the power of those dispersed and changed parts and their corporeal motions the place of it continues also and as the corporeal motions change and vary so doth place magnitude and figure together with their parts or bodies for they are but one thing And so I conclude and rest MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant XXXIII MADAM I Am absolutely of your
impression of exterior objects there would be so much difference betwixt them by reason of the diversity of objects as they would have no resemblance at all But for a further proof of my own opinion did the perception proceed meerly from the motion impression and resistance of the objects the hand could not perceive those objects unless they touched the hand it self as the stick doth for it is not probable that the motions of the stone water sand c. should leave their bodies and enter into the stick and so into the hand for motion must be either something or nothing if something the stick and the hand would grow bigger and the objects touched less or else the touching and the touched must exchange their motions which cannot be done so suddenly especially between solid bodies But if motion has no body it is nothing and how nothing can pass or enter or move some body I cannot conceive T is true there is no part that can subsist singly by it self without dependance upon each other and so parts do always joyn and touch each other which I am not against but onely I say perception is not made by the exterior motions of exterior parts of objects but by the interior motions of the parts of the body sentient But I have discoursed hereof before and so I take my leave resting MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXXVIII MADAM ICannot conceive why your Author is so much for little and insensible parts out of which the Elements and all other bodies are made for though Nature is divideable yet she is also composeable and I think there is no need to dissect every creature into such little parts to know their nature but we can do it by another way as well for we may dissect or divide them into never so little parts and yet gain never the more knowledg by it But according to these principles he describing amongst the rest the nature of Water says That those little parts out of which Water consists are in figure somewhat long light and slippery like little Eeles which are never so closely joyned and entangled but may easily be separated To which I answer That I observe the nature and figure of water to be flowing dilating divideable and circular for we may see in Tides overflowings and breaking into parts as in rain it will always move in a round and circular figure And I think if its parts were long and entangled like a knot of Eeles it could never be so easily contracted and denced into snow or ice Neither do I think That Salt-water hath a mixture of somewhat grosser parts not so apt to bend for to my observation and reason the nature of salt-water consists herein that its circle-lines are pointed which sharp and pointed figure makes it so penetrating yet may those points be separated from the circle lines of water as it is seen in the making of Salt But I am not of your Authors opinion That those little points do stick so fast in flesh as little nails to keep it from putrefaction for points do not always fasten or else fire which certainly is composed of sharp-pointed parts would harden and keep other bodies from dissolving whereas on the contrary it separates and divides them although after several manners But Putrefaction is onely a dissolving and separating of parts after the manner of dilation and the motion of salt is contracting as well as penetrating for we may observe what flesh soever is dry-salted doth shrink and contract close together I will not say but the pointed parts of salt may fasten like nayls in some sorts of bodies but not in all they work on And this is the reason also that Sea-water is of more weight then fresh-water for being composed of points those points stick within each other and so become more strong But yet do they not hinder the circular dilating motion of water for the circle-lines are within and the points without but onely they make it more strong from being divided by other exterior bodies that swim upon it And this is the cause that Salt-water is not so easily forced or turned to vapour as Fresh for the points piercing into each other hold it more strongly together but this is to be considered that the points of salt are on the outside of the watry Circle not on the inside which causes it to be divideable from the watry Circles I will conclude when I have given the reason why water is so soon suckt up by sand lime and the like bodies and say that it is the nature of all spongy dry and porous bodies meeting with liquid and pliable bodies as water do draw and suck them up like as animal Creatures being thirsty do drink And so I take my leave and rest MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant XXXIX MADAM COncerning Vapour Clouds Wind and Rain I am of your Authors opinion That Water is changed into Vapour and Vapour into Air and that dilated Vapours make Wind and condensed Vapours Clouds and Mists But I am not for his little particles whereof he says Vapours are made by the motion of a rare and subtil matter in the pores of terrestrial bodies which certainly I should conceive to be loose atoms did he not make them of several figures and magnitude for in my opinion there are no such things in nature which like little Flyes or Bees do fly up into the air and although I grant that in Nature are several parts whereof some are more rare others more dense according to the several degrees of matter yet they are not single but all mixt together in one body and the change of motions in those joyned parts is the cause of all changes of figures whatever without the assistance of any forreign parts And thus Water of it self is changed to Snow Ice or Hail by its inherent figurative Motions that is the circular dilation of Water by contraction changes into the figure of Snow Ice or Hail or by rarifying motions it turns into the figure of Vapour and this Vapour again by contracting motions into the figure of hoar-frost and when all these motions change again into the former then the figure of Ice Snow Hail Vapour and Frost turns again into the figure of Water And this in all sense and reason is the most facil and probable way of making Ice Snow Hail c. As for rarefaction and condensation I will not say that they may be forced by forreign parts but yet they are made by change and alteration of the inherent motions of their own parts for though the motions of forreign parts may be the occasion of them yet they are not the immediate cause or actors thereof And as for Thunder that clouds of Ice and Snow the uppermost being condensed by heat and so made heavy should fall upon another and produce the noise of thunder is very improbable for the breaking of a little small string will make
but a dense or rare heavie or light matter is but one substance or body And thus having obeyed your commands I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XLIV MADAM IAm very ready to give you my opinion of those two questions you sent me whereof the first was Whether that which is rare and subtil be not withal pure To which I answer That all rare bodies are not subtil nor pure and that all which is dense is not gross and dull As for example Puddle-water or also clear water is rarer then Quicksilver and yet not so subtil and pure as Quicksilver the like of Gold for Quicksilver and Gold may be rarified to a transparentness and yet be so dense as not to be easily dissolved and Quicksilver is very subtil and searching so as to be able to force other bodies to divide as well as it can divide and compose its own parts Wherefore my opinion is that the purest and subtilest degree of matter in nature is that degree of matter which can dilate and contract compose and divide into any figure by corporeal self-motion Your second question was Why a man's hand cannot break a little hard body as a little nail whereas yet it is bigger then the nail I answer It is not because the hand is softer then the nail for one hard body will not break suddenly another hard body and a man may easily break an iron nail with his hand as I have bin informed but it is some kind of motion which can easier do it then another for I have seen a strong cord wound about both a man's hands who pulled his hands as hard and strongly asunder as he could and yet was not able to break it when as a Youth taking the same cord and winding it about his hands as the former did immediately broke it the cause was that he did it with another kind of motion or pulling then the other did which though he used as much force and strength as he was able yet could not break it when the boy did break it with the greatest ease and turning onely his hands a little which shews that many things may be done by a slight of motion which otherwise a great strength and force cannot do This is my answer and opinion concerning your proposed questions if you have any more I shall be ready to obey you as MADAM Your faithful Friend and humble Servant XLV MADAM I understand by your last that you are very desirous to know Whether there be not in nature such animal creatures both for purity and size as we are not capable to perceive by our sight Truly Madam in my opinion it is very probable there may be animal creatures of such rare bodies as are not subject to our exterior senses as well as there are elements which are not subject to all our exterior senses as for example fire is onely subject to our sight and feeling and not to any other sense water is subject to our sight taste touch and hearing but not to smelling and earth is subject to our sight taste touch and smelling but not to our hearing and vapour is onely subject to our sight and wind onely to our hearing but pure air is not subject to any of our senses but onely known by its effects and so there may likewise be animal creatures which are not subject to any of our senses both for their purity and life as for example I have seen pumpt out of a water pump small worms which could hardly be discerned but by a bright Sun-light for they were smaller then the smallest hair some of a pure scarlet colour and some white but though they were the smallest creatures that ever I did see yet they were more agil and fuller of life then many a creature of a bigger size and so small they were as I am confident they were neither subject to tast smell touch nor hearing but onely to sight and that neither without dificulty requiring both a sharp sight and a clear light to perceive them and I do verily believe that these small animal creatures may be great in comparison to others which may be in nature But if it be probable that there may be such small animal creatures in nature as are not subject to our exterior senses by reason of their littleness it is also probable that there may be such great and big animal creatures in nature as are beyond the reach and knowledg of our exterior senses for bigness and smallness are not to be judged by our exterior senses onely but as sense and reason inform us that there are different degrees in Purity and Rarity so also in shapes figures and sizes in all natural creatures Next you desired to know VVhether there can be an artificial Life or a Life made by Art My answer is Not for although there is Life in all natures parts yet not all the parts are life for there is one part of natural matter which in its nature is inanimate or without life and though natural Life doth produce Art yet Art cannot produce natural Life for though Art is the action of Life yet it is not Life it self not but that there is Life in Art but not art in life for Life is natural and not artificial and thus the several parts of a watch may have sense and reason according to the nature of their natural figure which is steel but not as they have an artificial shape for Art cannot put Life into the watch Life being onely natural not artificial Lastly your desire was to know Whether a part of matter may be so small as it cannot be made less I answer there is no such thing in nature as biggest or least nature being Infinite as well in her actions as in her substance and I have mentioned in my book of Philosophy and in a letter I sent you heretofore concerning Infinite that there are several forts of Infinites as Infinite in quantity or bulk Infinite in number Infinite in quality as Infinite degrees of hardness softness thickness thinness swiftness slowness c. as also Infinite compositions divisions creations dissolutions c. in nature and my meaning is that all these Infinite actions do belong to the Infinite body of nature which being infinite in substance must also of necessity be infinite in its actions but although these Infinite actions are inherent in the power of the Infinite substance of nature yet they are never put in act in her parts by reason there being contraries in nature and every one of the aforementioned actions having its opposite they do hinder and obstruct each other so that none can actually run into infinite for the Infinite degrees of compositions hinder the infinite degrees of divisions and the infinite degrees of rarity softness swiftness c. hinder the infinite degrees of density hardness slowness c. all which nature has ordered with great wisdom and Prudence to make an amiable combination between her parts
and Servant VII MADAM YOur Author being very earnest in arguing against those that maintain the opinion of Matter being self-moving amongst the rest of his arguments brings in this Suppose says he Matter could move it self would meer Matter with self-motion amount to that admirable wise contrivance of things which we see in the World All the evasion I can imagine our adversaries may use here will be this That Matter is capable of sense and the finest and most subtil of the most refined sense and consequently of Imagination too yea happily of Reason and Understanding I answer it is very probable that not onely all the Matter in the World or Universe hath Sense but also Reason and that the sensitive part of matter is the builder and the rational the designer whereof I have spoken of before and you may find more of it in my Book of Philosophy But says your Author Let us see if all their heads laid together can contrive the anatomical Fabrick of any Creature that liveth I answer all parts of Nature are not bound to have heads or tayls but if they have surely they are wiser then many a man's I demand says he Has every one of these Particles that must have a hand in the framing of the body of an animal the whole design of the work by the Impress of some Phantasme upon it or as they have several offices so have they several parts of the design I answer All the actions of self-moving Matter are not Impresses nor is every part a hand-labourer but every part unites by degrees into such or such a Figure Again says he How is it conceiveable that any one Particle of Matter or many together there not existing yet in Nature an animal can have the Idea Impressed of that Creature they are to frame I answer all figures whatsoever have been are or can be in Nature are existent in nature How says he can they in framing several parts confer notes by what language or speech can they communicate their Counsels one to another I answer Knowledg doth not always require speech for speech is an effect and not a cause but knowledg is a cause and not an effect and nature hath infinite more ways to express knowledg then man can imagine Wherefore he concludes that they should mutually serve one another in such a design is more impossible then that so many men blind and dumb from their nativity should joyn their forces and wits together to build a Castle or carve a statue of such a Creature as none of them knew any more in several then some one of the smallest parts thereof but not the relation it bore to the whole I answer Nature is neither blind nor dumb nor any ways defective but infinitely wife and knowing for blindness and dumbness are but effects of some of her particular actions but there is no defect in self-moving matter nor in her actions in general and it is absurd to conceive the Generality of wisdom according to an Irregular effect or defect of a particular Creature for the General actions of Nature are both life and knowledg which are the architects of all Creatures and know better how to frame all kinds and sorts of Creatures then man can conceive and the several parts of Matter have a more easie way of communication then Mans head hath with his hand or his hand with pen ink and paper when he is going to write which later example will make you understand my opinion the better if you do but compare the rational part of Matter to the head the sensitive to the hand the inanimate to pen ink and paper their action to writing and their framed figures to those figures or letters which are written in all which is a mutual agreement without noise or trouble But give me leave Madam to tell you That self-moving Matter may sometimes erre and move irregularly and in some parts not move so strong curious or subtil at sometimes as in other parts for Nature delights in variety Nevertheless she is more wise then any Particular Creature or part can conceive which is the cause that Man thinks Nature's wise subtil and lively actions are as his own gross actions conceiving them to be constrained and turbulent not free and easie as well as wise and knowing Whereas Nature's Creating Generating and Producing actions are by an easie connexion of parts to parts without Counterbuffs Joggs and Jolts producing a particular figure by degrees and in order and method as humane sense and reason may well perceive And why may not the sensitive and rational part of Matter know better how to make a Bee then a Bee doth how to make Honey and Wax or have a better communication betwixt them then Bees that fly several ways meeting and joyning to make their Combes in their Hives But pardon Madam for I think it a Crime to compare the Creating Generating and producing Coporeal Life and Wisdom of Nature unto any particular Creature although every particular Creature hath their share being a part of Nature Wherefore those in my opinion do grosly err that bind up the sensitive matter onely to taste touch hearing seeing and smelling as if the sensitive parts of Nature had not more variety of actions then to make five senses for we may well observe in every Creature there is difference of sense and reason according to the several modes of self-motion For the Sun Stars Earth Air Fire Water Plants Animals Minerals although they have all sense and knowledg yet they have not all sense and knowledg alike because sense and knowledg moves not alike in every kind or sort of Creatures nay many times very different in one and the same Creature but yet this doth not cause a general Ignorance as to be altogether Insensible or Irrational neither do the erroneous and irregular actions of sense and reason prove an annihilation of sense and reason as for example a man may become Mad or a Fool through the irregular motions of sense and reason and yet have still the Perception of sense and reason onely the alteration is caused through the alteration of the sensitive and rational corporeal motions or actions from regular to irregular nevertheless he has Perceptions Thoughts Ideas Passions and whatsoever is made by sensitive and rational Matter neither can Perception be divided from Motion nor Motion from Matter for all sensation is Corporeal and so is Perception I can add no more but take my leave and rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant VIII MADAM YOur Author is pleased to say that Matter is a Principle purely passive and no otherwise moved or modified then as some other thing moves and modifies it but cannot move it self at all which is most demonstrable to them that contend for sense and perception in it For if it had any such perception it would by vertue of its self-motion withdraw its self from under the knocks of hammers or fury of the
the sensitive which is the Life of Nature as the other is the Soul not the Divine but natural Soul neither is this Soul Immaterial bnt Corporeal not composed of raggs and shreds but it is the purest simplest and subtillest matter in Nature But to conclude I desire you to remember Madam that this rational and sensitive Matter in one united and finite Figure or particular Creature has both common and particular actions for as there are several kinds and sorts of Creatures and particulars in every kind and sort so the like for the actions of the rational and sensitive matter in one particular Creature Also it is to be noted That the Parts of rational matter can more suddenly give and take Intelligence to and from each other then the sensitive nevertheless all Parts in Nature at least adjoyning parts have Intelligence between each other more or less because all parts make but one body for it is not with the parts of Matter as with several Constables in several Hundreds or several Parishes which are a great way distant from each other but they may be as close as the combs of Bees and yet as partable and as active as Bees But concerning the Intelligence of Natures Parts I have sufficiently spoken in other places and so I 'le add no more but that I unfeignedly remain MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XVI MADAM SEnsation in corporeal motion is first and Perception follows sayes your Author to which opinion I give no assent but do believe that Perception and Sensation are done both at one and the same time as being one and the same thing without division either in reason or sense and are performed without any knocks or jolts or hitting against But let me tell you Madam there arises a great mistake by many from not distinguishing well sensitive Motion and rational Motion for though all motions are in one onely matter yet that matter doth not move always in the same manner for then there could be no variety in Nature and truly if man who is but a part of Nature may move diversly and put himself into numerous postures Why may not Nature But concerning Motions and their variety to avoid tedious repetitions I must still referr you to my Book of Philosophical Opinions I 'le add onely this that it is well to be observed That all Motions are not Impressions neither do all Impressions make such dents as to disturb the adjoyning Parts Wherefore those in my opinion understand Nature best which say that Sensation and Perception are really one and the same but they are out that say there can be no communication at a distance unless by pressing and crowding for the patterning of an outward object may be done without any inforcement or disturbance jogging or crowding as I have declared heretofore for the sensitive and rational motions in the sensitive and rational parts of matter in one creature observing the exterior motions in outward objects move accordingly either regularly or irregularly in patterns and if they have no exterior objects as in dreams they work by rote And so to conclude I am absolutely of their opinion who believe that there is nothing existent in Nature but what is purely Corporeal for this seems most probable in sense and reason to me MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant XVII MADAM OUtward Objects as I have told you before do not make Sense and Reason but Sense and Reason do perceive and judg of outward objects For the Sun doth not make sight nor doth sight make light but sense and reason in a Man or any other creature do perceive and know there are such objects as Sun and Light or whatsoever objects are presented to them Neither doth Dumbness Deafness Blindness c. cause an Insensibility but Sense through irregular actions causes them I say through Irregular actions because those effects do not properly belong to the nature of that kind of Creatures for every Creature if regularly made hath particular motions proper to its figure for natural Matters wisdom makes distinctions by her distinct corporeal motions giving every particular Creature their due Portion and Proportion according to the nature of their figures and to the rules of her actions but not to the rules of Arts Mathematical Compasses Lines Figures and the like And thus the Sun Stars Meteors Air Fire Water Earth Minerals Vegetables and Animals may all have Sense and Reason although it doth not move in one kind or sort of Creatures or in one particular as in another For the corporeal motions differ not onely in kinds and sorts but also in Particulars as is perceivable by human sense and reason Which is the cause that Elements have elemental sense and knowledg and Animals animal sense and knowledg and so of Vegetables Minerals and the like Wherefore the Sun and Stars may have as much sensitive and rational life and knowledg as other Creatures but such as is according to the nature of their figures and not animal or vegetable or mineral sense and knowledg And so leaving them I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XVIII MADAM YOur Author denying that Fancy Reason and Animadversion are seated in the Brain and that the Brain is figured into this or that Conception I demand says he in what knot loop or interval thereof doth this faculty of free Fancy and active Reason reside My answer is that in my opinion Fancy and Reason are not made in the Brain as there is a Brain but as there is sensitive and rational matter which makes not onely the Brain but all Thoughts Conceptions Imaginations Fancy Understanding Memory Remembrance and whatsoever motions are in the Head or Brain neither doth this sensitive and rational mattet remain or act in one place of the Brain but in every part thereof and not onely in every part of the Brain but in every part of the Body nay not onely in every part of a Mans Body but in every part of Nature But Madam I would ask those that say the Brain has neither sense reason nor self-motion and therefore no Perception but that all proceeds from an Immaterial Principle as an Incorporeal Spirit distinct from the body which moveth and actuates corporeal matter I would fain ask them I say where their Immaterial Ideas reside in what part or place of the Body and whether they be little or great Also I would ask them whether there can be many or but one Idea of God If they say many then there must be several distinct Deitical Ideas if but one Where doth this Idea reside If they say in the head then the heart is ignorant of God if in the heart then the head is ignorant thereof and so for all parts of the body but if they say in every part then that Idea may be disfigured by a lost member if they say it may dilate and contract then I say it is not the Idea of God for God can neither contract nor
Ruler and Governor of all Perhaps you will say it is because I make Matter Eternal T is true Madam I do so but I think Eternity doth not take off the dependance upon God for God may nevertheless be above Matter as I have told you before You may ask me how that can be I say As well as any thing else that God can do beyond our understanding For I do but tell you my opinion that I think it most probable to be so but I can give you no Mathematical Demonstrations for it Onely this I am sure of That it is not impossible for the Omnipotent God and he that questions the truth of it may question Gods Omnipotency Truly Madam I wonder how man can say God is Omnipotent and can do beyond our Understanding and yet deny all that he is not able to comprehend with his reason However as I said it is my opinion That Matter is self-moving by the power of God Neither can Animadversion and Perception as also the variety of Figures prove that there must be another external Agent or Power to work all this in Matter but it proves rather the contrary for were there no self-motion in Matter there would be no Perception nor no variety of Creatures in their Figures Shapes Natures Qualities Faculties Proprieties as also in their Productions Creations or Generations Transformations Compositions Dissolutions and the like as Growth Maturity Decay c. and for Animals were not Corporeal Matter self-moving dividable and composable there could not be such variety of Passions Complexions Humors Features Statures Appetites Diseases Infirmities Youth Age c. Neither would they have any nourishing Food healing Salves soveraign Medicines reviving Cordials or deadly Poysons In short there is so much variety in Nature proceeding from the self-motion of Matter as not possible to be numbred nor thorowly known by any Creature Wherefore I should labour in vain if I endeavoured to express any more thereof and this is the cause that I break off here and onely subscribe my self MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXIII MADAM COncerning the comparison your Author makes between an Immaterial Spirit and Light That as Light is contractive and dilative and yet not divisible so is also an Immaterial substance Give me leave to tell you that in my opinion all that is contractive and dilative is also dividable and so is light As for example when a Candle is snuff'd the Snuffers do not onely clip the wick but also the light The like when a dark body is interposed or crosses the rays of the Sun it cuts those rays asunder which by reason they cannot joyn together again because of the interposed body the light cut off suddenly goeth out that is the matter of light is altered from the figure of light to some other thing but not annihilated And since no more light can flow into the room from the Fountain or Spring of Light the Sun because the passage is stopt close the room remaineth dark For Light is somewhat of the nature of Water so long as the Spring is open the Water flows and whatsoever is taken away the Spring supplies and if another body onely presses thorow it it immediately joyns and closes its severed parts again without any difficulty or loss The same doth Light onely the difference is that the substance of Light is extraordinary rare and pure for as Air is so much rarer then Water so Light is so much rarer and purer then Air and its matter may be of so dilating a nature as to dilate from a point into numerous rayes As for ordinary Fire-light it doth not last longer then it hath fuel to feed it and so likewise it is with the light of the Sun for Light is according to the substance that feeds it and though it is a substance it self yet it increases and decreases according as it hath something that succours or nourishes it But some may object that if Light were a body and did contract and dilate as I say it is impossible that it could display it self in so great and vast a compass and remove so suddenly and instantly as it doth To which objection I answer first That although I say Light is a real corporeal substance and doth contract and dilate it self from a point into numerous rayes as also in another Letter I sent you before That Light and Darkness do succeed each other nevertheless as for the perception of Light I am not so eager in maintaining this opinion as if it was an Infallible Truth and impossible to be otherwise but I say onely That to my sense and reason it seems very probable that it may be so that the light of the Sun doth really dilate it self into so vast a compass as we see and that light and darkness do really succeed each other as all other Creatures do But yet it seems also probable to mee that the parts of the Air may onely pattern out the figure of light and that the light we see in the Air may be onely patterns taken from the real figure of the light of the Sun And therefore if it be according to the former opinion to wit That the light of the Sun doth really dilate it self into so vast a compass My answer is That contraction and dilation are natural corporeal actions or motions and that there is no alteration of motion in Nature but is done in Time that is successively not instantly for Time is nothing else but the alteration of motion Besides I do not perceive any so sudden and swift alteration and succession of light but that it is done by degrees As for example in the morning when it begins to dawn and grow light it appears clearly to our sight how light doth come forth and darkness remove by degrees and so at night when it grows dark how light removes and darkness succeeds nay if there be any such sudden change of the motions of Light I desire you to consider Madam that light is a very subtil rare piercing and active body and therefore its motions are much quicker then those of grosser bodies and cannot so well be perceived by our gross exterior senses But if it be that the Air doth pattern out the light of the Sun then the framed objection can prove nothing because there is not then such a real dilation or succession of light but the corporeal figurative motions of the Air do make patterns of the light of the Sun and dissolve those patterns or figures again more suddenly and quickly then man can shut and open his eyes as being more subtil then his gross exterior senses But it may be said that if Air did pattern out the light of the Sun the light would increase by these numerous patterns I answer that cannot appear to our Eyes for we see onely the pattern'd figure of light and that a great compass is enlightned also that the further the air is from the Sun the darker
wherein I desire to submit to the Judgment of the Church which is much wiser then I or any single Person can be However for all what your Author says I do nevertheless verily believe there is a war between Natural motions For example between the Regular motions of Health and the Irregular motions of Sickness and that things applied do oftentimes give assistance to one side or other but many times in the conflict the applied remedies are destroyed and sometimes they are forced to be Neutrals Wherefore though the nature of Infinite Matter is simple and knows of no discord yet her actions may be cross and opposite the truth is Nature could never make such variety did her actions never oppose each other but live in a constant Peace and Unity And thus leaving them to agree I am confident your Ladiship and I shall never disagree for as long as my life doth last I shall always prove MADAM Your constant Friend and faithful Servant VI. MADAM YOur Author condemns the Schools for saying That Air is moist or that it may be converted into Water by pressing it together bringing an example of an Iron Pipe wherein Air has been pressed together which afterwards in its driving out has like a Hand-gun discharged with Gun-powder sent a bullet thorow a board or plank Truly Madam concerning the moisture of Air I am against it but the transchanging of Air into Water I do verily believe viz. that some sorts of Air may be contracted or condensed into Water and that Water again may be dilated into Air but not readily commonly and easily by Art but onely by Nature Wherefore your Authors Experiment can serve for no proof for an artificial trial cannot be an infallible natural demonstration the actions of Art and the actions of Nature being for the most part very different especially in productions and transmutations of natural things Neither can an alteration of parts cause an utter destruction of the whole because when some parts change from their figures other parts of matter change again into the like figures by which successive change the continuation of the whole is kept up Next your Author reproves the Schools for maintaining the opinion that Air is hot for says he Water Air and Earth are cold by Creation because without Light Heat and the partaking of Life He might in my opinion conclude as well that Man is cold by Creation because a Chameleon or a Fish is cold being all of animal kind But why may not some sorts of Air Water and Earth be hot and some be cold as well as some sorts of Light are hot and some cold and so several other Creatures His Reasons prove nothing for Light doth not make Heat nor is it the principle of Heat and it is no consequence to say all that is without Light is without Heat there being many things without Light which nevertheless are Hot But to say Water Air and Earth are cold because they are without heat is no proof but a meer begging of the principle for it is but the same thing as if I should say this is no Stone because it is no Glass And that Water Air and Earth do not partake of Life must be proved first for that is not granted as yet there being according to my opinion not one Creature that wants Life in all Nature Again your Author is of opinion That Water is the first and chief Principle of all Natural things But this I can no more believe then that Water should never change or degenerate from its essence nay if your Author means there shall always be Water in Nature it is another thing but if he thinks that not any part of water doth or can change or degenerate in its nature and is the principle and chief producer of all other Creatures then he makes Water rather a Creator then a Creature and it seems that those Gentiles which did worship Water were of the same opinion whereas yet he condemns all Pagan opinions and all those that follow them Moreover I cannot subscribe to his opinion That Gas and Blas from the Stars do make heat For heat is made several ways according to its several sorts sor there is a dry heat and a moist heat a burning melting and evaporating heat and many more But as for Meteors that they are made by Gas and Blas I can say nothing by reason I am not skilled in Astrology and the science of the Heavens Stars and Planets wherefore if I did offer to meddle with them I should rather express my Ignorance then give your Ladiship any solid reasons and so I am willing to leave this speculation to others resting content with that knowledg Nature hath given me without the help of Learning Which I wholly dedicate and offer to your Ladiship as becomes MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant VII MADAM HAving made mention in my last of your Authors opinion That Air is in its nature Cold I thought it fit to take a stricter view of the temper of Air and to send you withal my own opinion thereof First of all I would fain know what sort of Air your Author means for if he thinks there is but one sort of Air he might as well say that there is but one sort of Animals or Vegetables whereas yet there are not onely different sorts of animal and vegetable kind but also different particulars in one and the same sort As for example what difference is not amongst Horses as between a Barb a Turk a Ginnet a Courser of Naples a Flanders-horse a Galloway an English-horse and so forth not onely in their shapes but also in their natures tempers and dispositions The like for Cows Oxen Sheep Goats Dogs as also for Fowl and Fish nay for Men. And as for Vegetables What difference is there not between Barly and Wheat and between French-barly Pine-barly and ordinary Barly as also our English-wheat Spanish-wheat Turkish-wheat Indian-wheat and the like What difference is there not amongst Grapes as the Malago Muscadel and other Grapes and so of all the rest of Vegetables The same may be said of the Elements for there is as much difference amongst the Elements as amongst other Creatures And so of Air for Air in some places as in the Indies especially about Brasilia is very much different from our air or from the air that is in other places Indeed in every different Climate you shall find a difference of air wherefore 't is impossible to assign a certain temper of heat or cold to air in general But although my sense and reason inform me that air in its own nature or essence is neither hot nor cold yet it may become hot or cold by hot or cold motions for the sensitive perceptive motions of Air may pattern out heat or cold and hence it is that in Summer when as heat predominates the air is hot and in Winter when as cold predominates the air is cold But perhaps you
will say air may be cooled by moving it with a Fan or such like thing which can make wind wherefore it follows that air must needs be naturally cold I answer That doth not prove Air to be in its nature cold for this moving or making of wind may contract or condense the air into cold motions which may cause a cold wind like as Ventiducts where the air running thorow narrow Pipes makes a cold wind The same may be done with a mans breath for if he contract his lips close his breath will be cold but if he opens his mouth wide his breath will be warm Again you may say that rain is congealed by the coldness of the air into Snow Hail and Ice I answer Frost Ice Snow and Hail do not proceed from the coldness of the air but rather the coldness of the air proceeds from them for Ice Snow and Hail proceed from cold contraction and condensation of a vaporous or watery substance and as Frost and Snow cause air to be cold so Thunder and Lightning cause it to be hot so long as they last Thus Madam though Air may be altered either to heat or cold yet it is neither hot nor cold in it self And this is all for the present that I can say concerning the Temper of Air I conclude and rest MADAM Your constant Friend and faithful Servant VIII MADAM HAving hitherto considered your Authors Elements or Principles of Natural things you will give me leave to present you now with a short view of his Opinions concerning Wind Vacuum Rainbows Thunder Lightning Earth-quakes and the like which I will do as briefly as I can lest I betray my Ignorance for I confess my self not to be well versed in the knowledg of Meteors nor in those things which properly belong to the Mathematicks as in Astrology Geography Opticks and the like But your Author says in the first place That Natural Wind is nothing but a flowing Air moved by the Blas of the Stars Certainly Madam if this were so then in my judgment when the Stars blaze we should have constant Winds and the more they blaze the more violent winds there would be But I have rather observed the contrary that when the Stars blaze most apparently we have the calmest weather either in Summer or Winter Perchance your Author will say he doth not mean this apparant and visible Blas but another invisible Blas I answer I know not nor cannot conceive any other Blas in the Stars except I had seen it in a Vision neither do I think that Nature her self knows of any other But your Author doth refer himself upon the Authority of Hypocrates who says That not onely the Wind is a blast but that all Diseases are from blasts and that there is in us a Spirit stirring up all things by its Blas which Spirit by a Microcosmical Analogy or the proportion of a little World he compares to the blasts of the world As for my particular Madam I dare say I could never perceive by my sense and reason any such blazing Spirit in me but I have found by experience that when my mind and thoughts have been benighted with Melancholy my Imagination hath been more active and subtil then when my mind has been clear from dark Melancholy Also I find that my thoughts and conceptions are as active if not more in the night then in the day and though we may sometimes dream of several Lights yet I cannot perceive a constant light in us however Light Blazes and all those effects are no more then other effects of Nature are nor can they have more power on other Creatures then other Creatures have on them Neither are they made otherwise then by the corporeal motions of Natural Matter and are dissolved and transchanged as other Creatures out of one form or figure into another Next your Author discoursing whether there be any Vacuum in Nature doth incline to the affirming party that there is a Vacuum in the Air to wit There is in the air something that is less then a body which fills up the emptinesses or little holes and pores in the air and which is wholly annihilated by fire It is actually void of all matter and is a middle thing between a body and an Incorporeal Spirit and almost nothing in respect of bodies for it came from Nothing and so may easily be reduced to nothing All this Madam surpasses my capacity for I can in no ways conceive any thing between something and nothing as to be less then something and more then nothing for all that is corporeal in Nature is to my reason something that is some really existent thing but what is incorporeal in Nature is nothing and if there be any absolute vacuum in Nature as your Author endeavours to prove then certainly this Vacuum cannot be any thing whatsoever for a Vacuum is a pure Nothing But many ingenious and learned men have brought as many arguments and reasons against Vacuum as others bring for it and so it is a thing which I leave to them to exercise their brains withal The like is the opinion which many maintain concerning Place viz. that there is a constant succession of Place and Parts so that when one part removes another doth succeed in its place the truth and manner whereof I was never able to comprehend for in my opinion there can be no place without body nor no body without place body and place being all but one thing But as for the perpetual Creation and annihilation of your Authors Vacuities give me leave to tell you Madam that it would be a more laborious work then to make a new World or then it was to make this present World for God made this World in six days and rested the seventh day but this is a perpetual making of something out of nothing Again concerning Rainbows your Author says That a Rainbow is not a natural effect of a natural Cause but a divine Mystery in its original and that it has no matter but yet is in a place and has its colours immediately in a place but in the air mediately and that it is of the nature of Light This is indeed a great mystery to my reason for I cannot conceive as I said before a place without a body nor how Light and Colours can be bodiless But as for Rainbows I have observed when as water hath been blown up into the air into bubles that by the reflexion of light on the watery bubles they have had the like colours of the Rainbow and I have heard that there hath been often seen at the rising and setting of the Sun Clouds of divers colours Wherefore I cannot be perswaded to believe that a Rainbow should not have a natural cause and consequently be a natural effect For that God has made it a sign of the Covenant between him and mortal men is no proof that it is not a natural effect Neither can I believe that
they make Ice Surely Nature is wiser then to trouble her self with unnecessary labour and to make an easie work difficult as Art her Creature doth or as some dull humane capacities conceive for it is more easie for Nature to make Snow by some sorts of cold contractions as she makes Ice by other sorts of cold contractions then to force Air and Wind to beat grinde or pound Ice into Snow which would cause a confusion and disturbance through the Irregularity of several parts being jumbled in a confused manner together The truth is it would rather cause a War in Nature then a natural production alteration or transformation Neither can I conceive in what region this turbulent and laborious work should be acted certainly not in the caverns of the Earth for snow descends from the upper Region But perchance this Author believes that Nature imploys Wind as a Hand and the Cold air as a Spoon to beat Ice like the white of an Egg into a froth of Snow But the great quantity of Snow in many places doth prove that Snow is not made of the fragments of Ice but that some sorts of cold contractions on a watery body make the figure of snow in the substance of water as other sorts of cold contractions make the figure of ice which motions and figures I have treated of in my Book of Philosophy according to that Judgment and Reason which Nature has bestowed upon me The Author of this Fancy gives the same reason for Snow being white For Ice says he is a transparent body and all transparent bodies when beaten into powder appear white and since Snow is nothing else but Ice powder d small it must of necessity shew white Truly Madam I am not so experienced as to know that all transparent bodies being beaten small shew white but grant it be so yet that doth not prove that the whiteness of snow proceeds from the broken parts of Ice unless it be proved that the whiteness of all bodies proceeds from the powdering of transparent bodies which I am sure he cannot do for Silver and millions of other things are white which were never produced from the powder of transparent bodies Neither do I know any reason against it but that which makes a Lilly white may also be the cause of the whiteness of Snow that is such a figure as makes a white colour for different figures in my opinion are the cause of different colours as you will find in my Book of Philosophy where I say that Nature by contraction of lines draws such or such a Figure which is such or such a Colour as such a Fgure is red and such a Figure is green and so of all the rest But the Palest colours and so white are the loosest and slackest figures Indeed white which is the nearest colour to light is the smoothest evenest and straightest figure and composed of the smallest lines As for example suppose the figure of 8. were the colour of Red and the figure of 1. the colour of White or suppose the figure of Red to be a z. and the figure of an r. to be the figure of Green and a straight l. the figure of White And mixt figures make mixt colours The like examples may be brought of other Figures as of a Harpsichord and its strings a Lute and its strings a Harp and its strings c. By which your Reason shall judg whether it be not easier for Nature to make Snow and its whiteness by the way of contraction then by the way of dissolution As for example Nature in making Snow contracts or congeals the exterior figure of Water into the figure of a Harp which is a Triangular figure with the figure of straight strings within it for the exterior figure of the Harp represents the exterior figure of Snow and the figure of the strings extended in straight lines represent the figure of its whiteness And thus it is easier to make Snow and its whiteness at one act then first to contract or congeal water into Ice and then to cause wind and cold air to beat and break that Ice into powder and lastly to contract or congeal that powder into flakes of Snow Which would be a very troublesom work for Nature viz. to produce one effect by so many violent actions and several labours when the making of two figures by one action will serve the turn But Nature is wiser then any of her Creatures can conceive for she knows how to make and how to dissolve form and transform with facility and ease without any difficulty for her actions are all easie and free yet so subtil curious and various as not any part or creature of Nature can exactly or throughly trace her ways or know her wisdom And thus leaving her I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XV. MADAM I Have taken several questions out of your new Author which I intend to answer in this present Letter according to the conceptions of my own sense and reason and to submit them to your censure which if you vouchsafe to grant me without partiality I shall acknowledge my self much obliged to you for this favour The first question is Why wet Linnen is dried in the Air I answer That according to my sense and reason the water which is spred upon the linnen being not united in a full and close body dilates beyond the Circle-degree of water and wetness and so doth easily change from water to vapour and from vapour to air whereby the linnen becomes as dry as it was before it became wet The second question is Why Water and Wine intermix so easily and suddenly together I answer All wet liquors although their exterior figures do differ yet their interior natures figures and forms are much alike and those things that are of the same interior nature do easily and suddenly joyn as into one Wherefore Wine and Water having both wet natures do soon incorporate together whereas were they of different natures they would not so peaceably joyn together but by their contrary natures become enemies and strive to destroy each other but this is to be observed that the sharp points of the Circle-lines of Wine by passing through the smooth Circle-lines of Water help to make a more hasty and sudden conjunction The third question is Why Light which in its nature is white shining through a coloured Glass doth appear of the same colour which the Glass is of either Blew Green Red or the like I answer The reason is that though Light in its nature be white and the Glass clear and transparent yet when as the Glass is stained or painted with colours both the clearness of the glass and the whiteness of the light is obstructed by the figure of that colour the glass is stained or painted withal and the light spreading upon or thorow the glass represents it self in the figure of that same colour indeed in all probability to sense and reason it appears that
abolish'd the intended benefit and banish'd equity and instead of keeping Peace they make War causing enmity betwixt men As for Natural Philosophy they will not suffer sense and reason to appear in that study And as for Physick they have kill'd more men then Wars Plagues or Famine Wherefore from nice distinctions and Logistical sophistry Good God deliver us especially from those that concern Divinity for they weaken Faith trouble Conscience and bring in Atheism In short they make controversies and endless disputes But least the opening of my meaning in such plain terms should raise a controversie also between you and me I 'le cut off here and rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXI MADAM YEsterday I received a visit from the Lady N. M. who you know hath a quick wit rational opinions and subtil conceptions all which she is ready and free to divulge in her discourse But when she came to my Chamber I was casting up some small accounts which when she did see What said she are you at Numeration Yes said I but I cannot number well nor much for I do not understand Arithrnetick Said she You can number to three Yes said I I can number to four Nay faith said she the number of three is enough if you could but understand that number well for it is a mystical number Said I There is no great mystery to count that number for one and two makes three Said she That is not the mystery for the mystery is That three makes one and without this mystery no man can understand Dlvinity Nature nor himself Then I desired her to make me understand that mystery She said It required more time to inform me then a short visit for this mystery was such as did puzle all wise men in the world aud the not understanding of this mystery perfectly had caused endless divisions and disputes I desired if she could not make me understand the mystery she would but inform me how three made one in Divinity Nature and Man She said That was easie to do for in Divinity there are three Persons in one Essence as God the Father the Son and the holy Ghost whose Essence being individable they make but one God And as for Philosophy there is but Matter Motion and Figure which being individable make but one Nature And as for Man there is Soul Life and Body all three joyned in one Man But I replied Man's Life Soul and Body is dividable That is true said she but then he is no more a Man for these three are his essential parts which make him to be a man and when these parts are dissolved then his interior nature is changed so that he can no longer be call'd a man As for example Water being turned into Air and having lost its interior nature can no more be called Water but it is perfect Air the same is with Man But as long as he is a Man then these three forementioned parts which make him to be of that figure are individably united as long as man lasts Besides said she this is but in the particular considering man single and by himself but in general these three as life soul and body are individably united so that they remain as long as manking lasts Nay although they do dissolve in the particulars yet it is but for a time for they shall be united again at the last day which is the time of their resurrection so that also in this respect we may justly call them individable for man shall remain with an united soul life and body eternally And as she was thus discoursing in came a Sophisterian whom when she spied away she went as fast as she could but I followed her close and got hold of her then asked her why she ran away She answer'd if she stayed the Logician would dissolve her into nothing for the profession of Logicians is to make something nothing and nothing something I pray'd her to stay and discourse with the Logician Not for a world said she for his discourse will make my brain like a confused Chaos full of senseless minima's and after that he will so knock jolt and jog it and make such whirls and pits as will so torture my brain that I shall wish I had not any Wherefore said she I will not stay now but visit you again to morrow And I wish with all my heart Madam you were so near as to be here at the same time that we three might make a Triumvirate in discourse as well as we do in friendship But since that cannot be I must rest satisfied that I am MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXII MADAM YOu were pleased to desire my opinion of the works of that Learned and Ingenious Writer B. Truly Madam I have read but some part of his works but as much as I have read I have observed he is a very civil eloquent and rational Writer the truth is his style is a Gentleman's style And in particular concerning his experiments I must needs say this that in my judgment he hath expressed himself to be a very industrious and ingenious person for he doth neither puzle Nature nor darken truth with hard words and compounded languages or nice distinctions besides his experiments are proved by his own action But give me leave to tell you that I observe he studies the different parts and alterations more then the motions which cause the alterations in those parts whereas did he study and observe the several and different motions in those parts how they change in one and the same part and how the different alterations in bodies are caused by the different motions of their parts he might arrive to a vast knowledg by the means of his experiments for certainly experiments are very beneficial to man In the next place you desire my opinion of the Book call'd The Discourses of the Virtuosi in France I am sorry Madam this book comes so late to my hands that I cannot read it so slowly and observingly as to give you a clear judgment of their opinions or discourses in particular however in general and for what I have read in it I may say it expresses the French to be very learned and eloquent Writers wherein I thought our English had exceeded them and that they did onely excel in wit and ingenuity but I perceive most Nations have of all sorts The truth is ingenious and subtil wit brings news but learning and experience brings proofs at least argumental discourses and the French are much to be commended that they endeavour to spend their time wisely honourably honestly and profitably not onely for the good and benefit of their own but also of other Nations But before I conclude give me leave to tell you that concerning the curious and profitable Arts mentioned in their discourses I confess I do much admire them and partly believe they may arrive to the use of many of them but there are two arts which I