can neither be always assured of knowing the Truth for particular Reason may sometimes be deceived as well as sense but when the Perceptions both of sense and reason agree then the information is more true I mean regular sense and reason not irregular which causes mistakes and gives false informations also the Presentation of the objects ought to be true and without delusion 19. Of preserving the Figures of Animal Creatures I Am absolutely of the opinion of those who believe Natural Philosophy may promote not onely Anatomy but all other Arts for else they would not be worth the taking of pains to learn them by reason the rational perceptions are beyond the sensitive I am also of opinion that there may be an Art to preserve the exterior shapes of some animal bodies but not their interior forms for although their exterior shapes even after the dissolution of the animal figure may be some what like the shapes and figures of their bodies when they had the life of an animal yet they being transformed into some other Creatures by the alteration of their interior figurative motions can no ways keep the same interior figure which they had when they were living animals Concerning the preserving of blood by the means of spirit of Wine as some do probably believe my opinion is That spirit of Wine otherwise call'd Hot-water if taken in great quantity will rather dry up or putrifie the blood then preserve it nay not onely the blood but also the more solid parts of an animal body insomuch as it will cause a total dissolution of the animal figure and some animal Creatures that have blood will be dissolved in Wine which yet is not so strong as extracts or spirit of Wine But blood mingled with spirit of Wine may perhaps retain somewhat of the colour of blood although the nature and propriety of blood be quite altered As for the instance of preserving dead fish or flesh from putrifying and stinking alledged by some we see that ordinary salt will do the same with less cost and as spirits of Wine or hot Waters may like salt preserve some dead bodies from corruption so may they by making too much or frequent use of them also cause living bodies to corrupt and dissolve sooner then otherwise they would do But Chymists are so much for extracts that by their frequent use and application they often extract humane life out of humane bodies instead of preserving it 20. Of Chymistry and Chymical Principles IT is sufficiently known and I have partly made mention above what a stir Natural Philosophers do keep concerning the principles of Nature and natural Beings and how different their opinions are The Schools following Aristotle are for the Four Elements which they believe to be simple bodies as having no mixture in themselves and therefore fittest to be principles of all other mixt or compounded bodies But my Reason cannot apprehend what they mean by simple bodies I confess that some bodies are more mixt then others that is they consist of more differing parts such as the learned call Heterogeneous as for example Animals consist of flesh blood skin bones muscles nerves tendons gristles and the like all which are parts of different figures Other bodies again are composed of such parts as are of the same nature which the learned call Homogeneous as for example Water Air c. whose parts have no different figures but are all alike each other at least to our perception besides there are bodies which are more rare and subtile than others according to the degrees of their natural figurative motions and the composion of their parts Nevertheless I see no reason why those Homogeneous bodies should be called simple and all others mixt or composed of them much less why they should be principles of all other natural bodies for they derive their origine from matter as well as the rest so that it is onely the different composure of their parts that makes a difference between them proceeding from the variety of self-motion which is the cause of all different figures in nature for as several work-men join in the building of one house and several men in the framing of one Government so do several parts in the making or forming of one composed figure But they 'l say it is not the likeness of parts that makes the Four Elements to be principles of natural things but because there are no natural bodies besides the mentioned Elements that are not composed of them as is evident in the dissolution of their parts for example A piece of Green wood that is burning in a Chimney we may readily discern the Four Elements in its dissolution out of which it is composed for the fire discovers it self in the flame the smoak turns into air the water hisses and boils at the ends of the wood and the ashes are nothing but the Element of earth But if they have no better arguments to prove their principles they shall not readily gain my consent for I see no reason why wood should be composed of the Four Elements because it burns smoaks hisses and turns into ashes Fire is none of its natural ingredients but a different figure which being mixt with the parts of the wood is an occasion that the Wood turns into ashes neither is Water a principle of Wood for Water is as much a figure by it self as Wood or Fire is which being got into the parts of the wood and mixt with the same is expelled by the fire as by its opposite but if it be a piece of dry and not of green wood where is then the water that boils out Surely dry wood hath no less principles then green wood and as for smoak it proves no more that it is the Element of Air in Wood then that Wood is the Element of Fire for Wood as experience witnesses may last in water where it is kept from the air and smoak is rather an effect of moisture occasioned into such a figure by the commixture of fire Others as Helmont who derives his opinion from Thales and others of the ancient Philosophers are only for the Element of Water affirming that that is the sole principle out of which all natural things consist for say they the Chaos where of all things were made was nothing else but water which first setled into slime and then condensed into solid earth nay some endeavour to prove by Chymical Experiments that they have disposed water according to their Chymical way so that it visibly turn'd into earth which earth produced animals vegetables and minerals But put the case it were so yet this doth not prove water to be the onely principle of all natural beings for first we cannot think that animals vegetables and minerals are the onely kinds of creatures in Nature and that there are no more but them for nature being infinitely various may have infinite Worlds and so infinite sorts of Creatures Next I say that the change of water
interior figurative motions being dilating but yet this doth not prove that all other Creatures may as easily be metamorphosed into stone as they for the parts of water are composed but of one sort of figure and are all of the same nature and so is wood clay shells c. whose parts are but of one figure at least not of so many different figures as the parts of Animals or other Creatures for as Animals have different parts so these parts are of different figures not onely exteriously but intericusly as for example in some or most Animals there are Bones Gristles Nerves Sinews Muscles Flesh Blood Brains Marrow Choler Phlegme and the like besides there are several sorts of flesh witness their interior and exterior parts as the Heart Lungs Liver Spleen Guts and the like as also the Head Breast Armes Body Legs and the like all which would puzzle and withstand the power of Ovid's Metamophosing of Gods and Goddesses Wherefore it is but a weak argument to conclude because some Creatures or parts can change out of one figure into another without a dissolution of their composed parts therefore all Creatures can do the like for if all Creatures could or should be metamorphosed into one sort of figure then this whole World would perhaps come to be one Stone which would be a hard World But this Opinion I suppose proceeds from Chymistry for since the last Art of Chimystry as I have heard is the Production of glass it makes perhaps Chymists believe that at the last day when this Word shall be dissolved with Fire the Fire will calcine or turn it into Glass A brittle World indeed but whether it will be transparent or no I know not for it will be very thick 23. Of the Nature of Water THe Ascending of VVater in Pipes Pumps and the like Engines is commonly alledged as an argument to prove there is no Vacuum But in my opinion VVater or the like things that are moist liquid and wet their interior corporeal and natural motion is flowing as being of a dilating figure and when other parts or Creatures suppress those liquors so that they cannot rise they will dilate but when solid and heavy bodies are put into them as Stones Metals c. which do sink then they will rise above them as being their nature to over-flow any other body if they can have the better of it or get passage For concerning the floating of some bodies the reason is not so much their levity or porousness but both their exterior shape and the waters restlesness or activity the several parts of water endeavouring to drive those floating bodies from them like as when several men playing at Ball or Shittle-cock or the like endeavour to beat those things from and to each other or like as one should blow up a feather into the Air which makes it not onely keep up in the air but to wave about The like doth water with floating bodies and the lighter the floating parts are the more power have the liquid parts to force and thrust them about And this is also the reason why two floating bodies of one Nature endeavour to meet and joyn because by joyning they receive more strength to resist the force of the watry parts The same may be said when as floating bodies stick or join to the sides of Vessels but many times the watry parts will not suffer them to be at rest or quiet but drive them from their strong holds or defences Concerning the suppression of water and of some floating bodies in water by air or light as that air and light should suppress water and bodies floating upon it as some do conceive I see no reason to believe it but the contrary rather appears by the levity of air which is so much lighter and therefore of less force then either the floating bodies or the water on which they float Some again are of opinion That Water is a more dense body then Ice and prove it by the Refractions of light because VVater doth more refract the rays of light then Ice doth but whatsoever their experiments be yet my reason can hardly believe it for although Ice may be more transparent then water yet it may be more dense then water for Glass is more transparent then water and yet more dense then water and some bodies will not be trasparent if they be thick that is if they have a great number of parts upon parts when as they will be transparent if they be thin that is if they have few thin parts upon each other so that transparent bodies may be darkned and those that are not transparent of themselves may be made so by the thickness or thinness of parts that one may see or not see through them and thus a thin body of Water may be more transparent then a thick body of Ice and a thin body of Ice may be more transparent then a thick body of water As for the expansion of Water it doth not prove that Water is more dense then Ice but on the contrary it rather proves that it is more rare for that body whose parts are close and united is more dense then that whose parts are fluid and dilating Neither doth Expansion alter the interior nature of a body any more then contraction but it alters onely the exterior posture as for example when a man puts his body into several postures it doth not alter him from being a man to some other Creature for the stretching of his legs spreading out of his armes puffing up his cheeks c. changes his nature or natural figure no more then when he contracts his limbs close together crumpling up his body or folding his armes c. but his posture is onely changed the like for the expansions and contractions of other sorts of Creatures Nor can I readily give my assent to their opinion that some liquors are more dense then others I mean such as are perfectly moist liquid and wet as water is for there be numerous sorts of liquors which are not throughly wet as water and although their Circular lines may be different as some edged some pointed some twisted and the like yet they do not differ so much but that their inherent figures are all of Circular lines for the interior nature or figure of water and so of all other moist and wet liquors is Circular and it is observable that as Art may be an occasion of diminishing those points or edges of the Circular lines of some liquors or of untwisting them so it may also be an occasion that some liquid and wet bodies may become so pointed edged twisted c. as may occasion those circles to move or turn into such or such exterior figures not onely into triangular square round and several other forms or figures as appears in Ice Hail Frost and flakes of Snow but into such figures as they name Spirits which several sorts of figures belonging all to one sort of
stiff rare dense moist dry contracting dilating ascending descending and other numerous sorts of colds nay there are some sorts of candied figures made by heat which appear as if they were frozen Also there are fluid colds which are not wet as well as fluid heats that are not dry for Phlegm is fluid and yet not wet and some sorts of air are fluid and not wet I say some not all for some are hot and moist others hot and dry The same may be said of some sorts of heat and cold for some are moist and some dry and there may be at one and the same time a moist cold in the air and a dry cold in water which in my opinion is the reason that in sealed Weather-glasses according to some Experimenters relations sometimes the air doth not shrink but rather seems to be expanded when the weather grows colder and that the water contracts not that the cold contraction of water causes an expansion of the air to prevent a Vacuum for there cannot be any such thing as a Vacuum in Nature but that there is a moist cold in the air and a dry cold in the water whereof the dry cold causes a contraction and the moist cold an expansion nay there is often a moist and dry cold in the air at one and the same time so that some parts of the air may have a moist cold and the next adjoying parts a dry cold and that but in a very little compass for there may be such contractions and dilations in Nature which make not a hairs breadth difference Nature being so subtil and curious as no particular can trace her ways and therefore when I speak of contractions and dilations I do not mean they are all such gross actions perceptible by our exterior senses as the works of Art but such as the curiosity of Nature works Concerning the several sorts of animal heat and cold they are quite different from the Elemental and other sorts of heat and cold for some men may have cold fits of an Ague under the Line or in the hottest Climates and others Burning-Feavers under the Poles or in the coldest climates 'T is true that Animals by their perceptions may pattern out the heat or cold of the air but these perceptions are not always regular or perfect neither are the objects at all times exactly presented as they should which may cause an obscurity both in Art and in particular sensitive perceptions and through this variety the same sort of Creatures may have different perceptions of the same sorts of heat and cold Besides it is to be observed that some parts or Creatures as for example Water and the like liquors if kept close from the perception either of heat or cold will neither freeze nor grow hot and if Ice and Snow be kept in a deep Pit from the exterior object of heat it will never thaw but continne Ice or Snow whenas being placed near the perception of the Sun Fire or warm Air its exterior figure will alter from being Ice to Water and from being cold to hot or to an intermediate temper betwixt both nay it may alter from an extream degree of cold to an extream degree of heat according as the exterior object of heat doth occasion the sensitive perceptive motions of Water or Ice to work for extreams are apt to alter the natural temper of a particular Creature and many times so as to cause a total dissolution of its interior natural figure when I name extreams I do not mean any uttermost extreams in Nature for Nature being Infinite and her particular actions being poised and ballanced by opposites can never run into extreams but I call them so in reference onely to our perception as we use to say it is extream hot or extream cold And the reason of it is that Water by its natural perceptive motions imitates the motions of heat or cold but being kept from the perception of them it cannot imitate them The same reason may be given upon the experiment that some bodies being put into water will be preserved from being frozen or congealed for they being in water are not onely kept from the perception of cold but the water doth as a guard preserve them which guard if it be overcome that is if the water begin to freeze then they will do so too But yet all colds are not airy nor all heats sunny or fiery for a man as I mentioned before may have shaking fits of an Ague in the hottest climate or season and burning fits of a Fever in the coldest climate or season and as there is difference between elemental and animal cold and heat so betwixt other sorts so that it is but in vain to prove all sorts of heat and cold by Artificial Weather-glasses suppressions and elevations of water Atmosphaerical parts and the like for it is not the air that makes all cold no not that cold which is called Elementary no more then it makes heat but the corporeal figurative self-moving perceptive rational and sensitive parts of Nature which make all other Creatures make also heat and cold Some Learned make much ado about Antiperistasis and the flight of those two contrary qualities heat and cold from each other where according to their opinion one of them being surrounded and besieged by the other retires to the innermost parts of the body which it possesses and there by recollecting its forces and animating it self to a defence is intended or increased in its degree and so becomes able to resist its adversary which they prove by the cold expelled from the Earth and Water by the Sun-beams which they say retires to the middle region of the Air and there defends it self against the heat that is in the two other viz. the upper and the lower Regions and so it doth in the Earth for say they we find in Summer when the air is sultry hot the cold retreats into Cellars and Vaults and in Winter when the air is cold they are the Sanctuary and receptacle of heat so that the water in wells and springs and the like places under ground is found warm and smoaking when as the water which is exposed to the open air by cold is congealed into Ice But whatsoever their opinion be I cannot believe that heat and cold run from each other as Children at Boe-peep for concerning the Earths being warm in Winter and cold in Summer it is not in my opinion caused by hot or cold Atoms flying like Birds out of their nests and returning to the same nor is the Earth like a Store-house that hoards up cold and heat at several seasons in the year but there is a natural temper of cold and heat as well in the Earth as in other Creatures and that Vaults Wells and Springs under ground are warm in Winter when the exterior air is cold the reason is not that the heat of the air or the Calorifick atomes as they call them are retired
into earth and of this again into vegetables minerals and animals proves no more but what our senses perceive every day to wit that there is a perpetual change and alteration in all natural parts caused by corporeal self-motion by which rare bodies change into dense and dense into rare water into slime slime into earth earth into animals vegetables and minerals and those again into earth earth into slime slime into water and so forth But I wonder why rational men should onely rest upon water and go no further since daily experience informs them that water is changed into vapour and vapour into air for if water be resolveable into other bodies it cannot be a prime cause and consequently no principle of Nature wherefore they had better in my opinion to make Air the principle of all things 'T is true Water may produce many creatures as I said before by a composition with other or change of its own parts but yet I dare say it doth kill or destroy as many nay more then it produces witness vegetables and others which Husbandmen and Planters have best experience of and though some animals live in water as their proper Element yet to most it is destructive I mean as for their particular natures nay if men do but dwell in a moist place or near marrish grounds or have too much watery humors in their bodies they 'l sooner die then otherwise But put the case water were a principle of Natural things yet it must have motion or else it would never be able to change into so many figures and this motion must either be naturally inherent in the substance of water or it must proceed from some exterior agent if from an exterior agent then this agent must either be material or immaterial also if all motion in Nature did proceed from pressure of parts upon parts then those parts which press others must either have motion inherent in themselves or if they be moved by others we must at last proceed to something which has motion in it self and is not moved by another but moves all things and if we allow this Why may not we allow self-motion in all things for if one part of Matter has self-motion it cannot be denied of all the rest but if immaterial it must either be God himself or created supernatural spirits As for God he being immoveable and beyond all natural motion cannot actually move Matter neither is it Religious to say God is the Soul of Nature for God is no part of Nature as the soul is of the body And immaterial spirits being supernatural cannot have natural attributes or actions such as is corporeal natural motion Wherefore it remains that Matter must be naturally self-moving and consequently all parts of Nature all being material so that not onely Water Earth Fire and Air but all other natural bodies whatsoever have natural self-motion inherent in themselves by which it is evident that there can be no other principle in Nature but this self-moving Matter and that all the rest are but effects of this onely cause Some are of opinion That the three Catholick or Universal principles of Nature are Matter Motion and Rest and others with Epicure that they are Magnitude Figure and Weight but although Matter and Motion or rather self-moving Matter be the onely principle of Nature yet they are mistaken in dividing them from each other and adding rest to the number of them for Matter and Motion are but one thing and cannot make different principles aud so is figure weight and magnitude 'T is true Matter might subsist without Motion but not Motion without Matter for there is no such thing as an immaterial Motion but Motion must necessarily be of something also if there be a figure it must of necessity be a figure of something the same may be said of magnitude and weight there being no such thing as a mean between something and nothing that is between body and no body in Nature If Motion were immaterial it is beyond all humane capacity to conceive how it could be abstracted from something much more how it could be a principle to produce a natural being it might easier be believed that Matter was perishable or reduceable into nothing then that motion figure and magnitude should be separable from Matter or be immaterial as the opinion is of those who introduce a Vacuum in Nature and as for Rest I wonder how that can be a principle of any production change or alteration which it self acts nothing Others are for Atomes and insensible particles consisting of different figures and particular natures not otherwise united but by a bare apposition as they call it by which although perhaps the composed body obtains new qualities yet still the ingredients retain each their own Nature and in the destruction of the composed body those that are of one sort associate and return into Fire Water Earth c. as they were before But whatever their opinion of Atoms be first I have heretofore declared that there can be no such things as single bodies or Atomes in Nature Next if there were any such particles in composed bodies yet they are but parts or effects of Matter and not principles of Nature or Natural beings Lastly Chymists do constitute the principles of all natural bodies Salt Sulphur and Mercury But although I am not averse from believing that those ingredients may be mixt with other parts of Nature in the composition of natural figures and that especially Salt may be extracted out of many Creatures yet that it should be the constitutive principle of all other natural parts or figures seems no ways conformable to truth for salt is no more then other effects of Nature and although some extractions may convert some substances into salt figures and some into others for Art by the leave of her Mistress Nature doth oftentimes occasion an alteration of natural Creatures into artificial yet these extractions cannot inform us how those natural creatures are made and of what ingredients they consist for they do not prove that the same Creatures are composed of Salt or mixt with Salt but cause onely those substances which they extract to change into saline figures like as others do convert them into Chymical spirits all which are but Hermaphroditical effects that is between natural and artificial Just as a Mule partakes both of the nature or figure of a Horse and an Ass Nevertheless as Mules are very beneficial for use so many Chymical effects provided they be discreetly and seasonably used for Minerals are no less beneficial to the life and health of Man then Vegetables and Vegetables may be as hurtful and destructive as Minerals by an unseasonable and unskilful application besides there may be Chymical extracts made of Vegetables as well as of Minerals but these are bestused in the height or extremity of some diseases like as cordial waters in fainting fits and some Chymical spirits are as far beyond cordial waters