other things be seen as being accompanied by light is called Fire What admits the illuminative action of fire and is not seen is called Air What admits the same action and is seen in the rank of Elements is called Water And what through the density of it admits not that action but absolutely reflects it is called Earth And out of all we said of these four Elements it is manifest there cannot be a fifth as is to be seen at large in every Aristotelian Philosopher that writes of this matter I am not ignorant that there are sundry objections used to be made both against these notions of the First Qualities and against the division of the Elements but because they and their solotions are to be found in every ordinary Philosopher and not of any great difficulty and that the handling them is too particular for the design of this discourse and would make it too prolix I refer the Reader to seek them for his satisfaction in those Authors that treat Physick professedly and have deliver'd a compleat body of Phylosophy And I will end this Chapter with advertising him lest I should be misunderstood that though my disquisition here has pitch'd on the four bodies of Fire Air Water and Earth yet it is not my intention to affirme that those which we ordinary call so and fall daily within our use are such as I have here express'd them or that these Phlosophicall ones which arise purely out of the combination of the first qualities have their residence or consistence in great bulks in any places of the World be they never so remote as Fire in the hollow of the Moons Orb Water in the bottom of the Sea Air above the Clouds and Earth below the Mines But these notions are onely to serve for certain Idea's of Elements by which the forenamed bodies and the compounds of them may be tryed and receive their doom of more or lesse pure and approaching to the nature from whence they have their denomination And yet I will not deny but that such perfect Elements may be foumd in some very little quantities in mixed bodies and the greatest abundance of them in these four known bodies that we call in ordinary practise by the names of the pure ones for they are least compounded and approach most to the simpleness of the Elements But to determine absolutely their existence or not existence either in bulk or in little parts depends of the manner of action among bodies which as yet we have not medled with CHAP. V. Of the operations of the Elements in general And of their activities compared with one another HAving by our former discourse inquired out what degrees and proportions of rarity and density compounded with gravity are necessary for the production of the Elements and first qualities whose combinations frame the Elements our next consideration in that orderly progress we have proposed to our selves in this Treatise wherein our aim is to follow successively the steps which nature has printed out to us will be to examine the operations of the Elements by which they work upon one another To which end let us propose to our selves a rare and a dense body encountring one another by the impulse of some exterior agent In this case 't is evident that since rarity implyes a greater proportion of quantity and quantity is nothing but divisibility rare bodies must needs be more divisible then dense ones and consequently when two such bodies are press'd one against another the rare body not being able to resist division so strongly as the dense one is and being not permitted to retire back by reason of the extern violence impelling it against the dense body it follows that the parts of the rare body must be sever'd to let the dense one come between them and so the rare body becomes divided and the dense body the divider And by this we see that the notions of divider and divisible immediately follow rare and dense bodies and so much the more properly agree to them as they exceed in the qualities of Rarity and Density Likewise we are to observe in our case that the dense or dividing body must necessarily cut and enter further and further into the rare or divided body and so the sides of it be joyn'd successively to new and new pars of the rare body that gives way to it and forsake others it parts from Now the rare body being in a determinate situation of the Universe which we call being in a place and is a necessary condition belonging to all particular bodies and the dense body comming to be within the rare body whereas formerly it was not so it follows that it loses the place it had and gains another This effect is that which we call local motion And thus we see by explicating the manner of this action that locall motion is nothing else but the change of that respect or relation which the body moved has to the rest of the Universe following out of Division and the name of Locall Motion formerly signifies only the mutation of a respect to other extrinsecall bodies subsequent to that division And this is so evident and agreeable to the notions that all mankind who as we have said is judge and master of language naturally frames of place as I wonder much why any will labour to give other artificall and intricate doctrine of this that in it self is so plain and clear What need is there to introduce an imaginary space or with Johannes Grammaticus a subsistent quantity that must run through all the World and then entail to every body an aiery entity an unconceiveable mood an unintelligible Ubi that by an intrinsecall relation to such a part of the imaginary space must thereto pin and fasten the body it is in It must needs be a ruinous Phylosophy that is grounded upon such a contradiction as is the allotting of parts to that which the Authors themselvs upon the matter acknowledge to be merely nothing and upon so weak a shift to deliver them from the inconveniences that in their course of doctrine other circumstances bring them to as is the voluntary creating of new imaginary Entities in things without any ground in nature for them Learned men should express the advantage and subtilty of their wits by penetrating further into nature then the vulgar not by vexing and wresting it from its own course They should refine and carry higher not contradict and destroy the notions of mankind in those things it is the competent judge of as it undoubtedly is of those primary notions which Aristotle has rank'd under Ten Heads which as we have touched before every one can conceive in gross and the work of Scholars is to explicate them in particular and not to make the Vulgar believe they are mistaken in framing those apprehensions that nature taught them Out of that which hath been hitherto resolvd 't is manifest that Place really and abstracting from
in bulk but the small ones very hardly Next the smalness and well-working of the parts by means of the airs penetrating every dense one and sticking close to every one of them and consequently joyning them without any unevenness causes that there can be no ruggedness in it and therfore 't is glibb in like manner as we see plaister or starch become smooth when they are well wrought Then the humidity of it causes it to be catching and the shortness of every part makes that where it sticks it is not easily parted thence Now the rarity of air next to fire admits it to be of all the other Elements most easily brought to the height of fire by the operation of fire upon it And therfore oyls are the proper food of that Element And accordingly we see if a drop of oyl be spill'd upon a sheet of paper and the paper set on fire at a corner as the fire comes near the oyl the oyl will disperse and spread it self upon the paper to a broader compass then it had because the heat rarifies it and so in Oyl it self the fire rarifying the air makes it penetrate the earthy parts adjoynd to it more then it did and so subtilizes them till they be reduced to such a height as they are within the power of fire to communicate its own nature to them and thus it turns them into fire and carries them up in its flame But if fire be predominant over earth and air in a watry compound it makes the body so proportion'd to be subtile rare penetrative hot in operation light in weight and subject to burn Of this kind are all sorts of wines and distil'd Spirits commonly called strong waters or Aquavites in Latine Aquaeardentes These will lose their virtues meerly by remaining uncover'd in the air for fire doth not incorporate strongly with water but if it find means raises it self into the air As we see in the smoke of boyling water which is nothing else but little bodies of fire that entring into the water rarifie some parts of it but have no inclination to stay there and therefore as fast as they can get out fly away but the humide parts of the water which they have rarified being of a sticking nature joyn themselves to them and ascend in the air as high as the fiery atomes have strength to carry them which when it fails them that smoke falls down in a dew and so becomes water again as it was All which one may easily discern in a glasse-vessel of water set over the fire in which one may observe the fire come in at the bottome and presently swim up to the top like a little bubble and immediately rise from thence in smoke and that will at last convert it self into drops and settle upon some solid substance thereabouts Of these fiery spirits some are so subtile as of themselves they will vanish and leave no residue of a body behind them and Alchymists profess to make them so etherial and volatile that being pour'd out of a glass from some reasonable height they shall never reach the ground but before they come thither be so rarified by that little motion as they shall grow invisible like the air and dispersing themselves all about in it fill the chamber with the smell of that body which can no longer be seen The last excess in watery bodies must be of water it self which is when so little a proportion of any of the other is mingled with it as is hardly perceptible Out of this composition arise all those several sorts of juices or liquors we commonly call Waters which by their mixture with the other three Elements have peculiar properties beyond simple Elemental water The general quality whereof we shall not need any further to express because by what we have already said of water in common they are sufficiently known In our next survey we will take Earth for our ground to work upon as hitherto we have done water which if in any body it be in the utmost excess beyond all the other three then rocks and stones will grow out of it whose driness and hardness may assure us that Earth sways in their composition with the least allay that may be Nor doth their lightness in respect of some other earthy compositions impeach this resolution for that proceeds from the greatness and multiplicity of pores wherwith their driness causes them to aboundâ— and hinders not but that their real solid parts may be very heavy Now if we mingle a considerable proportion of water with earth so as to exceed the fire and air but still inferiour to the earth we shall poduce metals whose great weight with their ductility and malleability plainly tells us that the smallest of waters gross parts are the glew that holds the earthy dense ones together such weight belonging to earth and that easie changing of parts being most proper to water Quick-silver that is the general matter wherof all the metals are immediately composed gives us evidence hereof for fire works upon it with the same effect as upon water And the calcination of most of the metals proves that fire can easily part and consume the glew by which they were closed and held together which therfore must be rather of a watry then of an aiery substance Likewise the glibness of Mercury and of melted metals without catching or sticking to other substances gives us to understand that this great temper of a moist Element with earth is water and not air and that the watry parts are comprised and as it were shut up within the earthy ones for air catches and sticks notably to all things it touches and will not be imprisoned the divisibility of it being excceeding great though in never so short parts Now if air mingles it self with earth and be prodominant over water and fire it makes such an oily and fat soil as Husbandmen account their best mould which receiving a betterment from the Sun temperate heat assures us of the concourse of the aire for wherever such heat is air cannot fail of accompanying or being effected by it and the richest of such earth as pot-earth and marl will with much fire grow more compacted and stick closer together then it did as we see in baking them into pots or fine bricks Whereas if water were the glew between the dense parts fire would consume it and crumble them asunder as it doth in those bodies it calcines And excesse of fire will bring them to vitrification which still confirms that air abounds in them for it is the nature of air to stick so close where once it is kneaded in as it cannot be separated without extreme difficulty And to this purpose the viscuous holding together of the parts of glass when it is melted shews evidently that air abounds in vitrified bodies The last mixture we are to meddle with is of fire with earth in an over-ruling
continual application to the body it thus anatomises hath harden'd as it were rosted some parts into such greatness and driness as they will not flie nor can be carried up with any moderate heat But great quantity of fire being mingled with the subtiler parts of his baked earth makes them very pungent and acrimonious in tast so that they are of the nature of ordinary Salt and so called and by the help of water may easily be separated from the more gross parts which then remain a dead and useless earth By this discourse 't is apparent that fire has been the instrument which hath wrought all these parts of an entire body into the forms they are in for whiles it carried away the fiery parts it swel'd the watry ones and whiles it lifted up them it digested the Aerial parts and whiles it drove up the Oyle it baked the earth and salt Again all these retaining for the most part the proper nature of the substance from whence they are extracted 't is evident that the substance is not dissolv'd for so the nature of the whole would be dissolv'd and quite destroy'd extinguish'd in every part but that onely some parts containing the whole substance or rather the nature of the whole substance in them are separated fromo ther parts that have likewise the same nature in them The third instrument for the separation and dissolution of bodies is Water whose proper matter to work upon is Salt and it serves to supply what the fire could not perform which is the separation of the salt from the earth in calcined bodies All the other parts fire was able to sever but in these he hath so baked the little humidity he hath left in them with their much earth as he cannot divide them any further and so though he incorporates himself with them yet he can carry nothing away with him If then pure water be put upon that chalk the subtilest dry parts of it easily joyn to the supervenient moysture and sticking close to it draw it down to them But because they are the lighter it happens to them as when a man in a boat pulls the land to him that comes not to him but he removes himself and his boat to it so these ascend in the water as they dissolve And the water more and more penetrating them and by addition of its parts making the humidity which glews their earthy parts together greater and greater makes a wider and wider separation between those little earthy parts and so imbues the whole body of the water with them into which they are dispersed in little atomes Those that are of biggest bulk remain lowest in the water and in the same measure as their quantities dissolve into less and less they ascend higher and higher till at length the water is fully replenish'd with them and they are diffused through the whole body of it whiles the more gross and heavy earthy parts having nothing in them to make a present combination between them and the water fall down to the bottome and settle under the water in dust In which because earth alone predominates in a very great excess we can expect no other virtue to be in it but that which is proper to mere earth to wit driness and weight Which ordinary Alchimists look not after and therfore call it Terra damnata but others find a fixing quality in it by which they perform very admirable operations Now if you prove the impregnated water from the Terra damnata and then evaporate it you will find a pure white substance remaining Which by its bulk shews it self to be very earthy and by its pricking and corrasive taste will inform you much fire is in it and by its easie dissolution in a moist place that water had a great share in the production of it And thus the salts of bodies are made and extracted Now as water dissolves salt so by the incorporation and virtue of that corrosive substance it doth more then salt it self can do for having gotten acrimony and more weight by the mixture and dissolution of salt in it it makes it self away into solide bodies even into metalls as we see in brass and iron which are easily rusted by salt dissolving upon them And according as the salts are stronger so this corrasive virtue encreases in them even so much as neither silver nor gold are free from their eating quality But they as well as the rest are divided into most small parts and made to swim in water in such sort as we have explicated above and wherof every ordinary Alchymist teaches the practise But this is not all salts help as well to melt hard bodies and metalls as to corrode them For fome fusible salts flowing upon them by the heat of the fire and others dissolv'd by the steam of the metal that incorporates with them as soon as they are in flux mingle with the natural juice of the metals and penetrate deeper then without them the fire could do and swell them and make them fit to run These are the principal ways of the two last instruments in dissolving of bodies taking each of them by it self But there remains one more of very great importance as well in the works of nature as of art in which both the former are joyned and concur and that is putrefaction Whose way of working is by gentle heat and moisture to wet and pierce the body it works upon wherby 't is made to swel and the hot parts of it being loosen'd they are at length drunk up and drown'd in the moist ones from whence by fire they are easily separated as we have already declared and those moist parts afterwards leaving it the substance remaines dry and falls in pieces for want of the glew that held it together CHAP. XVI An explication of certain Maxims touching the operations and qualities of bodies and whether the Elements be found pure in any part of the World OUt of what we have determin'd concerning the natural actions of bodies in their making and destroying one another 't is easie to understand the right meaning of some terms and the true reason of some maxims much used in the Schools As first when Philosophers attribute to all sorts of corporeal Agents a Sphere of Activity The sense of that manner of expression in fire appears plainly by what we have already declared of the nature and manner of operation of that Element And in like manner if we consider how the force of cold consists in a compression of the body that is made cold we may perceive that if in the cooled body there be any subtile parts which can break forth from the rest such compression wil make them do so Especially if the compression be of little parts of the compressed body within themselvs as well as of the outward bulk of the whole body round about For at first the compression of such causes in the body
refraction 6. An answer to the arguments brought in favour of Monsieur des Cartes his opinion 7. The true cause of refraction of light both at its entrance and at its going out from the refleing body 8. A general rule to know the nature of reflection and refractions in all sorts of surface 9. A body of greater parts and greater pores makes a greater refraction than one of lesser parts and lesser pores 10. A confirmation of the former doctrine out of the nature of bodies that refract light CHAP. XIV Of the composition qualities Generation of mixed Bodies 1. The connexion of this chapter with the rest and the Authours intent in it 2. That there is a least sise of bodies and that this least sise is found in fire 3. The first conjunction of parts is in bodies of least sise and it is made by the force of Quantity 4. The second sort of conjunction is compactedness in simple Elements and it proceeds from density 5. The third conjunction is of parts of different Elements and it proceeds from quantity and density together 6. The reason why liquid bodies do easily joyn together and dry ones difficultly 7. That no two hard bodies can touch one another immediately 8. How mixed bodies are framed in general 9. The cause of the several degrees of solidity in mixed bodies 10. The Rule whereto are reduced all the several combinations of Elements in compounding of mixed bodies 11. Earth and water are the basis of all permanent mixed bodies 12. What kind of bodies those are where water is the basis and earth the predominant Element over the other two 13. Of those bodies where water being the basis air is the predominant Element 14. What kind of bodies result where water is the basis and fire the predominant Element 15. Of those bodies where water is in excess it alone being both the basis and the predominant Element 16. Of those bodies where earth alone is the basis and also the predominant in excess over the other three Elements 17. Of those bodies where earth is the basis water is the predominant element over the other two 18. Of those bodies where earth being the basis air is the predominant 19. Of those bodies where earth being the basis fire is the predominant 20. All the second qualities of mixed bodies arise from several combinations of the first qualities and are at last resolv'd into several degrees of rarity density 21. That in the Planets Stars there is a like variety of mixed bodies caused by light as here on earth 22. In what manner the Elements work on one another in the composition of mixed bodies and in particular fire which is the most active 23. A particular declaration touching the generation of Metals CHAP. XV. Of the Dissolution of Mixed Bodies 1. Why some bodies are brittle and others tough or apt to withstand outward violence the first instrument to dissolve mixed bodies 2. How outward violence doth work on the most compacted bodies 3. The several effects of fire the second and chiefest instrument to dissolve all compounded bodies 4. The reason why some bodies are not dissolved by fire 5. The reason why fire melteth gold but cannot consume it 6. Why Lead is easily consumed and calcinted by fire 7. Why and how some bodies are divided by fire into Spirits Waters Oyls Salts and Earth And what those parts are 8. How water the third instrument to dissolve bodies dissolvs calx into salt and so into terra damnata 9. How water mingled with salt becomes a most powerful Agent to dissolve other bodies 10. How putrefaction is caused CHAP. XVI An Explication of certain Maxims touching the operations and qualies of bodies and whether the Elements be found pure in any part of the world 1. What is the Sphere of activity in corporeal agents 2. The reason why no body can work in distance 3. An objection answer'd against the manner of explicating the former axiome 4. Of re-action and first in pure local motion that each Agent must suffer in acting and act in suffering 5. The former Doctrine applyed to other local motions design'd by particular names And that Suisseths argument is of no force against this way of doctrine 6. Why some notions do admit of intension and remission and others not 7. That in every part of our habitable world all the four elements are found pure in small atoms but not in any great bulk CHAP. XVII Of Rarefaction and Condensation the two first motions of Particular bodies 1. The Authours intent in this and the following chapters 2. That bodies may be rarified both by outward and inward heart and how this is perform'd 3. Of the great effects of Rarefaction 4. The first manner of condensation by heat 5. The second manner of condensation by cold 6. That Ice is not water rarified but condensed 7. How Wind Snow and Hail are made and wind by rain allaid 8. How parts of the same or divers bodies are joyn'd more strongly together by condensation 9. Vacuities cannot be the reason why water impregnated to the full with one kind of salt will notwithstanding receive more of another 10. The true reason of the former effect 11. The reason why bodies of the same nature do joyn more easily together than others CHAP. XVIII Of another motion belonging to Particular bodies called Attraction and of certain operations term'd Magical 1. What Attraction is and from whence it proceeds 2. The true sense of the Maxime that Nature abhors from vacuitys 3. The true reason of attraction 4. Water may be brought by the force of attraction to what height soever 5. The doctrine touching the attraction of water in Syphons 6. That the Syphon doth not prove water to weigh in its own orb 7. Concerning attraction caus'd by fire 8. Concerning attraction made by virture of hot bodies amulets c 9. The natural reason given for divers operations esteem'd by some to be magical CHAP. XIX Of three other motions belonging to particular bodies Filtration Restitution and Electrical attraction 1. What is Filtration and how it is effected 2. What causes the water in Filtration to ascend 3. Why the filter will not drop unless the label hang lower than the water 4. Of the motion of Restitution and why some bodies stand bent others not 5. Why some bodies return only in part to their natural figure others entirely 6. Concerning the nature of those bodies which shrink aand stretch 7. How great and wonderful effects proceed from small plain and simple principles 8. Concerning Electrical attratâ—on and the causes of it 9. Cabeus his opinion refuted concerning the cause of Electrical motions CHAP. XX. Of the Loadstones generation and its particulas motions 1. The extreme heat of the Sun under the Zodiack draws a stream of air from each Pole into the torrid Zone 2. The atomes of these two streams coming together are apt to incorporate with one another 3. By the meeting and mingling together
water by sinking in one place to rise round about it must of necessity follow that the bullet which in entring has press'd down the first parts of the water has withal therby put others further off in a motion of rising and therfore the bullet in its going on must meet with some water swelling upwards and from it receive a ply that way which cannot fail of carrying it above the mark it was level'd at And so we see this effect proceeds from reflection or the bounding of the water and not from refraction Besides that it may justly be suspected the shooter took his aim too high by reason of the marks appearing in the water higher than in truth it is unless such false aiming were duly prevented Neither is Monsir des Cartes his excuse to be admitted when he saies that light goes otherwise than a ball would do because in a glass or water the etherial substance which he surposes to run through all bodies is more efficaciously moved than in air and thersore light must go faster in the glass than in the air and so turn on that side of the straight line which is contrary to the side that the ball takes because the ball goes not so swiftly For not to dispute the verity of this proposition the effect he pretends is impossible for if the etherial suhstance in the air before the glass be flowly moved the motion of which he calls light 't is impossible that the etherial substance in the glass or in the water should be more smartly moved than it Well it may be less but without all doubt the impulse of the etherial substance in the Glass cannot be greater than its adequate cause which is the motion of the other parts that are in the air precedent to glass Again after it is pass'd the glass it should return to be a straight line with the line that it made in the air precedent to the glass in the subsequent air must take off just as much and no more as the glas did add the contrary wherof experience shews us Thirdly in this explication it would always go one way in the air and another way in the glass wheras all experience testifies that in a glass convex on both sides it still goes in the air after its going out to the same side as it did in the glass but more And the like happens in glasses on both sides concave Wherfore 't is evident that 't is the snperficies of the Glass that is the worker on both sides and not the substance of the air on one side and of the glass on the other And lastly his answer no way solvs our objection which proves that the resistance both ways is proportionate to the force that moves and by consequence that the thing moved must go straight As we may imagine would happen if a bullet were shot stoping through a green mud wall in which there were many round sticks so thin set that the bullet might pass with ease through them for as long as the bullet touched none of them which express his case it would go straight but if it touch'd any which resembles ours as by and by will apperar it would glance according to the quality of the touch and move from the stick in another line Some peradventure may answer for Monsieur des Cartes that this subtile body which he supposes to run through all things is stiff and no ways pliable But that is so repugnant to the nature of rarity and so many insuperable inconveniences follow out of it as I cannot imagin he will own it and therfore I will not spend any time in replying therto We must therfore seek some other cause of the refraction of light which is made at the entrance of it into a Diaphanous body Which is plainly as we said before because the ray striking against the inside of a body it cannot penetrate turns by reflection towards that side on which the illuminant stands and if it findes clear passage through the whole resistent it follows the course it first takes if not then 't is lost by many reflections to and fro But because crooked surfaces may have many irregulalities it will not be amiss to give a rule by which all of them may be brought to a certainty And this it is that Reflections from crooked superficieses are equal to the reflections that are made from such plain superficieses as are tangents to the crooked ones in that point from whence the reflections are made Which Principle the Masters of Opticks take out of a Mathematecal supposition of the Unity of the reflecting point in both the surfaces the crooked and the plain But we take it out of the insensibility of the difference of so little a part in the two different surfaces as serves to reflect a ray of light For where the difference is insensible in the causes there likewise the difference is so little in the effects as sense cannot judge of them which is as much as is requisite to our purpose Now since in the Mathematical supposition the point where the reflection is made is indifferent to both the surfaces it follows that it imports not whether superficies you take to know the quality of reflection by This principle then being setled that the reflection must follow the nature of the tangent surfaces and it being proved that in plain surfaces it will happen as we have explicated it follows that in any crooked supersicies of what Figure soever the same also will happen Now seeing we have formerly declared that refractions are but a certain kind of reflexions what we have said here of reflections may be apply'd to refractions But there remains yet untouch'd one affection more of refractions which is that some Diaphanous bodies in their inward parts reflect more than others which is that we call refraction as experience shews us Concerning which effect we are to consider that Diaphanous bodies may in their composition have two differences for some are composed of greater parts and greater pores others of lesser parts and lesser pores 'T is true there may be other combinations of pores and parts yet by these two the rest may be esteem'd As for the first combination we see that because the pores are greater a greater multitude of parts of light may pass together through one pore and because the parts are greater likewise a greater multitude of rays may reflect from the same part and find the same passage quite throughout the Diaphanous body On the contrary side in the second combination where both the pores and the parts of the Diaphanous body are little the light must be but little that finds the same passage Now that refraction is greater or lesser happens two ways for 't is either when one Diaphanous body reflects light at more angles than another and by consequence in a greater extent of the superficies or else when one body reflects light from the
same point of incidence in a shorter line and a greater angle than another does In both these wayes 't is apparent that a body composed of greater parts and greater pores exceeds bodies of the opposite kind for by reason that in the first kind more light may beat against one part a body in which that happens will wake an appearance from a further part of its superficies wheras in a body of the other sort the light that beats against one of the little parts of it will be so little as 't will presently vanish Again because in the first the part at the incidence is greater the surface from which the reflection is made inwards has more of a plain and straight superficies and consequently reflects at a greater angle than that whose superficies hath more of inclining But we must not pass from this question without looking a little into the nature of those bodies in which refraction is made for if they as well as the immediate causes of refraction likewise favour us it will not a little advance the certainty of our determination To this purpose we may call to mind how experience shews us that great refractions are made in smoke and mists and glasses and thick-bodied waters and Monsir des Cartes adds certain Oyls and Spirits or strong Waters Now most of these we see are composed of little consistent bodies swimming in another liquid body As is plain in smoke and mists for the little bubbles which rise in the water before they get out of it and that are smoke when they get into the air assure us that smoke is nothing else but a company of little round bodies swimming in the air and the round consistence of water upon herbs leavs twigs in a rind or dew gives us also to understand that a Mist is likewise a company of little round bodies that sometimes stand sometimes float in the air as the wind drives them Our very eyes bear witness to us that the thicker sort of waters are full of little bodies which is the cause of their not being clear As for Glass the blowing of it convinces that the little darts of fire which pierce it every way do naturally in the melting of it convert it into little round hollow bodies which in their cooling must settle into parts of the like figure Then for Chrystal and other transparent stones which are found in cold places it cannot be otherwise but that the nature of cold piercing into the main body and contracting every little part in it self this contraction must needs leave vacant pores between part and part And that such transparent stones as are made by heat have the like effect and property may be judg'd out of what we see in Bricks and Tiles which are left full of holes by the operation of the fire And I have seen in bones that have lain a long time in the Sun a multitude of sensible little pores close to one another as if they had been formerly stack all over with subtile sharp needles as close as they could be thrust in by one another The Chymical Oyles and Spirits which Monsir des Cartes speaks of are likely to be of the same composition since such use to be extracted by violent fires for a violent fire is made by the conjunction of many rayes together and that must needs cause great pores in the body it works on and the sticking nature of these spirits is capable of conserving them Out of all these observations it follows that the bodies in which greatest refractions happen are compounded as we have said of great parts and great pores and therfore by only taking light to be such a body as we have described it where we treated of its nature 't is evident the effect we have exprest must necessarily follow by way of reflection and refraction is nothing else but a certain kind of reflection Which last assertion is likewise convinced out of this that the same effects proceed from reflection as from refraction for by reflection a thing may be seen greater than it is in a different place from the true one where it is colours may be made by reflection as also gloating light and fire likewise and peradventure all other effects which are caused by refraction may as well as these be perform'd by reflection And therfore 't is evident they must be of the same nature since children are the resemblances of their parents CHAP. XIV Of the composition qualities and generation of mixed bodies HAving now declar'd the vertues by which Fire and Earth work upon one another and upon the rest of the Elements which is by Light and the motions we have discours'd of Our task shall be in this Chapter first to observe what will result out of such action of theirs and next to search into the ways and manner of compassing and performing it Which latter we shall the more easily attain to when we first know the end that their operation levels at In this pursuit we shall find that the effect of the Elements combinations by means of the motions that happen among them is a long pedegree of compounded qualities and bodies wherein the first combinations like marriages are the breeders of the next more-composed substances and they again are the parents of others in greater variety and so are multiplied without end for the further this work proceeds the more subjects it makes for new business of the like kind To descend in particular to all these is impossible And to look further then the general heads of them were superfluous and troublesome in this discourse wherin I aim only at shewing what sorts of things in common may be done by Bodies that if hereafter we meet with things of another nature and strain we may be sure they are not the off-spring of bodies and quantity which is the main scope of what I have design'd here And to do this with confidence certainty requires of necessity this leisurely and orderly proceeding we have hitherto used and shall continue to the end For walking thus softly we have always one foot upon the ground so as the other may be sure of firm footing before it settle Wheras they that for more hast will leap over rugged passages and broken ground when both their feet are in the air cannot help themselvs but must light as chance throws them To this purpose then we may consider that the qualities of bodies in common are of three sorts For they are belonging either to the Constitution of a compounded body or else to the Operation of it and the Operation of a body is of two kinds one upon Other Bodies the other upon Sense The last of these three sorts of qualities shall be handled in a peculiar Chapter by themselvs Those of the second sort wherby they work upon Other bodies have been partly declar'd in the former chapters and will be further discours'd of in the rest of this first
either losing his course by steering after a wrong compass or being forced back again with short and obscure relations of discoveries since others that went out before him are return'd with a large account to such as are able to understand and sum it up Which surely our learned Countryman and my best and most honoured Friend and to whom of all men living I am most obliged for to him I ow that little which I know and what I have and shall set down in all this discourse is but a few sparks kindled by me at his great fire has both profoundly and accutely and in every regard judiciously performed in his Dialogues of the World Our task then in a lower strain and more proportionate to so weak shoulders is to look no further then among those bodies we converse with Of which having declared by what course and Engines Nature governs their common motions that are found even in the Elements and from thence are derived to all bodies composed of them we intend now to consider such motions as accompany divers particular bodies and are much admired by whoever understands not the the causes of them To begin from the easiest and most connexed with the actions of the Elements the handsel of our labour will light upon the motions of Rarefaction and Condensation as they are the passions of mixed bodies And first for Rarefaction we may remember how it proceeds originally from fire and depends of heat as is declared in the former Chapter and wherever we find Rarefaction we may be confident the body which suffers it is not without fire working upon it From hence we may gather that when the Air imprison'd in a baloon or bladder swells against what contains it and stretches its case and seeks to break out this effect must proceed from fire or heat though we see not the fire working either within the very bowels of the air or without by pressing upon what contains it and so making it self a way to it And that this latter way is able to work this effect may be convinced by the contrary effect from a contrary cause for ' take a bladder stretch'd out to its greatest extent by air shut up within it and hang it in a cold place you will see it presently contract it self into a less room and the bladder will grow wrinckled and become too big for the air within it But for immediate proof of this position we see that the addition of a very smal degree of heat rarifies the air in a Weather-glass the air receiving the impression of heat sooner then water and so makes it extend it self into a greater place and consequently it presses upon the water and forces it down into a less room then formerly it possessed And likewise we see Quicksilver and other liquors if they be shut up in glasses close stop'd and set in sufficient heat and a little is sufficient for this effect will swell and fill their glasses and at the last break them rather then not find a way to give themselvs more room which is then grown too straight in the glass by reason of the rarefaction of the liquors by the fire working upon them Now again that this effect may be wrought by the inward heat that is inclosed in the bowels of the substance thus shut up both reason and experience assure us For they teach us that if a body which is not extremely compacted but that by its loosness is easily divisible into little parts such a one as Wine or other spiritual liquors be inclosed in a vessel the little atoms that perpetually move up and down in every space of the whole World making their way through every body will set on work the little parts in the Wine for example to play their game so that the hot and light parts if they be many not enduring to be compressed and kept in by the heavie and cold ones seek to break out with force and till they can free themselvs from the dense ones that would imprison them they carry them along with them and make them swell out as well as themselvs Now if they be kept in by the vessel so that they have not play enough they drive the dense ones like so many little hammers or wedges against the sides of it and at length break it and so make themselvs way to a larger room But if they have vent the more fiery hot spirits fly away and leave the other grosser parts quiet and at rest On the other side if the hot and light parts in a liquor be not many nor very active and the vessel be so ful that the parts have not free scope to remove and make way for one another there will not follow any great effect in this kind as we see in Bottle Beer or Ale that works little unless there be some space left empty in the bottle And again if the vessel be very much too big for the liquor in it the fiery parts find room first to swel up the heavie ones and at length to get out from them though the vessel be close stopped for they have scope enough to float up and down between the surface of the liquor and the roof of the vessel And this is the reason that if a little beer or small wine be left long in a great cask be it never so close stop'd it will in time grow dead And then if at the opening of the bung after the cask hath been long unstir'd you hold a candle close to it you shall at the instant see a flash of flame environing the vent Which is no other thing but the subtile spirits that parting from the beer or wine have left it dead and flying abroad as soon as they are permited are set on fire by the flame they meet with in their journey as being more combustible because more subtile then that spirit of wine which is kept in form of liquor and yet that likewise though much grosser is set on fire by the touch of flame And this happens not only to Wine and Beer or Ale but even to water As dayly experience shews in the East Indian Ships that having been five or six yeers at Sea when they open some of their casks of Thames Water in their return homewards for they keep that water till the last as being their best and most durable and that grows lighter and purer by the often purifyings through violent motions in storms every one of which makes new gross and earthy parts fall down to the bottom and other volatile ones ascend to the top a flame is seen about their bungs if a candle be near as we said before of wine And to proceed with confirming this doctrine by further experience we dayly see that the little parts of heat being agitated and brought into motion in any body enter and pierce into other parts and incorporate themselvs with them and set them on fire if they be capable
away all the palpable moisture And so when wet cloathes are hang'd either in the Sun or at the fire we see a smoake about the cloathes and heat within them which being all drawn out from them they become dry And this deserves a particular note that although they should be not quite dry when you take them from the fire yet by that time they are cool they will be dry for the fire that is in them when removed from the main stock of fire flying away carries with it the moisture that was incorporated with it And therfore whiles they were hot that is whiles the fire was in them they must also be moist because the fire and the moisture were grown to be one body and could not become through dry with that measure of fire for more would have dry'd them even whiles they were hot until they were also grown through cold And in like manner Syrups Hydromels Gellies and the like grow much thicker after they are taken off from the fire than they were upon the fire and much of their humidity flies away with the fire in their cooling wherby they lessen much of their quantity even after the outward fire hath ceased from working upon them Now if the moist parts that remain after the drying be by the heat well incorporated in the dry parts and so occasion the dry parts to stick close together then that body is condensed and will to the proportion of it be heavier in a less bulk as we see that Metals are heavier than Stones Although this effect be in those examples wrought by heat yet generally speaking it is more proper to cold which is the Second Way of drying a moist body As when in Greenland the extreme cold freeses the Whalefishes Beer into Ice so that the stewards divide it with Axes and Wedges and deliver their portions of drinks to their ships company and their Shallops gings in their bare hands but in the innermost part of the Butt they find some quantity of very strong liquor not inferiour to moderate spirit of Wine At first before custome had made it familiar to them they wonder'd that every time they drew at the tap when first it came from their ships to the shore for the heat of the hold would not let it freese no liquor would come unless they new tap'd it with a longer gimlet but they thought that pains well recompen'd by finding it in the tast to grow stronger and stronger till at last their longest gimlets would bring nothing out and yet the vessel not a quarter drawn off which obliged them then to stave the Cask that so they might make use of the substance that remain'd The reason of this is evident That cold seeking to condense the beer by mingling its dry and cold parts with it those that would indure this mixture were imbibed and shrunk up by them But the other rare and hot parts that were squees'd out by the dense ones which enter'd to congeal the beer and were forced into the middle of the vessel which was the furthest part for them to retire to from their invironing enemies conserv'd themselvs in their liquid form in defiance of the assaulting cold whiles their fellows remaining by their departure more gross and earthy then they were before yielded to the conquerour they could not shift away from and so were dry'd and condens'd in ice which when the Marriners thaw'd they found like fair water without any spirits in it or comforting heat to the stomack This manner of condensation which we have described in the freezing of Beer is the way most practis'd by nature I mean for immediate condensation for condensation is secondarily wherever there is rarefaction which we have determin'd to be an effect of heat And the course of it is that a multitude of earthy and dry bodies being driven against any liquor easily divide it by means of their density their driness and their littleness all which in this case accompany one another and are by us determin'd to be powerful dividers and when they are gotten into it they partly suck into their own pores the wet and diffused parts of the liquid body and partly they make them when themselvs are full stick fast to their dry sides and become as a glew to hold themselves strongly together And thus they dry up the liquor and by the natural pressing of gravity contract it into a lesser room No otherwise then when we force much wind or water into a bottle and by pressing it more and more make it lye closser then of its own nature it would do Or rather as when ashes are mingled with water both those substances stick so close to one another that they take up less room theâ— they did each apart This is the method of Frosts and Snow and Ice both natural and artificial For in natural freezing ordinarily the North or Northeast Wind by its force brings and drives into our liquors such earthy bodies as it has gather'd from rocks cover'd with snow which being mix'd with the light vapours whereof the wind is made easily find way into the liquors and then they dry them into that consistence we call Ice Which in token of the wind it has in it swims upon the water and in the vessel where it is made rises higher then the water did wherof it is composed and ordinarily it breaks from the sides of the vessel so giving way to more wind to come in and freeze deeper and thicker But because Galileus In his Discourses Intorno alle cose che stanno in su l' accqua pag. 4. was of opinion that Ice was water rarified and not condens'd we must not pass over this verity without maintaining it against the opposition of so powerful an adversary His arguments are first that Ice takes up more place then the water did of which it was made which is against the nature of condensation Secondly that quantity for quantity Ice is lighter then water wheras things that are more dense are proportionally more heavie And lastly that Ice swims in water wheras we have aften taught that the more dense desends in the more rare Now to reply to these arguments we say first that We would gladly know how he did to measure the quantity of the Ice with the quantity of the Water of which it was made and then when he hath shew'd it and shew'd withall that Ice holds more place then water we must tell him that his experiment concludes nothing against our doctrine because there is an addition of other bodies mingled with the water to make Ice of it as we touch'd above and therefore that compound may well take up a greater place then the water alone did and yet be denser then it and the water also be denser then it was And that other bodies do come into the water and are mingled with it is evident out of the exceeding coldness of the aire or some very old wind one of
which two never misses to reign whenever the water freezes and both of them argue great store of little earthy dry bodies abounding in them which sweeping over all those that ly in their way and course must of necessity be mixed with such as give them admittance which water doth very easily And accordingly we see that when in the freezing of water the Ice grows any thing deep it either shrinks about the borders or at least lies very loose so as we cannot doubt but there is a free passage more of such subtile bodies to get still to the water and freez it deeper To his second argument we ask How he knows that Ice quantity for quantity is lighter then water For though of a Spunge that is ful of water it be easie to know what the spunge weighs and what the water that was soaked into it because we can part the one of them from the other and keep each apart to examine their weights yet to do the like between Ice and water if Ice be throughout full of air as of necessity it must be we believe impossible And therfore it may be lighter in the bulk then water by reason of the great pores caus'd in it through the shrinking up of the parts of water together which pores must then necessarily be fill'd with air and yet every part by it self in which no air is be heavier then so much water And by this it appears that his last argument grounded upon the the swiming of Ice in water has no more force then if he would prove that an iron or earthen dish were lighter and consequently more rare then water because it swims upon it which is an effect of the airs being contain'd in the belly of it as it is in Ice not a sign of the metals being more rare then water Wheras on the contrary side the proof is positive and clear for us For it cannot be denied but the mingling of the water with other bodies more dense then it must of necessity make the compound also the water it self become more dense then it was alone And accordingly we see that Ice half thaw'd for then much of the air is driven out and the water begins to fill the pores wherin the air resided before sinks to the bottom as an Iron dish with holes in it wherby the water might get into it would do And besides we see that water is more Diaphanous then Ice and Ice more consistent then water Therfore I hope we shall be excused if in this particular we be of a contrary opinion to this great personage But to return to the thrid of our discourse The same that passes here before us passes also in the Sky with Snow Hail Rain Wind. Which that we may the better understand let us consider how Winds are made for they have a main influence into all the rest When the Sun by some particular occurrent raises great multitudes of Atoms from some one place and they either by the attraction of the Sun or some other occasion take their course a certain way this motion of those atoms we call a wind which according to the continuance of the matter from whence these atoms rise endures a longer or a shorter time and goes a farther or a shorter way like a river or rather like those eruptions of waters which in the Northern parts of England they call Gypsies which break out at uncertain times and upon uncertain causes and flow likewise with an uncertain duration So these winds being composed of bodies in a determinate proportion heavier then the air run their course from their height to the ground where they are supported as water is by the floor of its channel whiles they perform their carreer that is till they be wasted either by the drawing of the Sun or by their sticking and incorporating into grosser bodies Some of these winds according to the complexion of the body out of which they are extracted are dry as those which come from barren mountains cover'd with snow others are moist as those that come out of marrishy or watry places others have other qualities as of heat or cold of wholsomness or unwholsomness and the like partly from the source and partly from the bodies they are mingled within their way Such then being the nature and origine of wind if a cold one meet in the air with that moist body wherof otherwise rain would have been made it changes that moist body into Snow or into Hail if a dry wind meet with a wet body it makes it more dry and so hinders the rain that was likely to be but if the wet body overcome the dry wind it brings the wind down along with it as we see when a showre of rain allays a great wind And that all this is so experience will in some particulars instruct us as well as reason from whence the rest may be evidently infer'd For we see that those who in imitation of nature would convert water into Ice take snow or ice mingle it with some active dry body that may force the cold parts of the snow from it and then they set the water in some fit vessel in the way that those little bodies are to take which by that means entring into it strait incorporate themselves therewith and of a suden convert it into ice Which process you may easily try by mingling Salt Armoniacke with snow but much more powerfully by setting the snow over the fire whiles the glass of water to be congealed stands in it after the manner of an egg in salt And thus fire it self though it be the enemy destroyer of all cold is made the instrument of freezing And the same reason holds in the cooling of wine with snow or ice when after it has been a competent time in the snow they whose charge it is use to give the vessel that contains the wine three or four turns in the snow so to mingle through the whole body of the wine the cold receiv'd first but in the outward parts of it and by pressing too make that without to have a more forcible ingression But the whole doctrin of Meteors is so amply so ingeniously and so exactly perform'd by that never-enough-praised Gentleman Mounsir Des Cartes in his Meteorological discourses as I should wrong my self and my Reader if I dwell any longer upon this subject And whose Physical discourses had they been divulged before I had entred upon this work I am perswaded would have excused the greatest part of my pains in delivering the nature of bodies It were a fault to pass from treating of Condensation without noting so ordinary an effect of it as is the joyning together parts of the same body or of divers bodies In which we see for the most part that the solide bodies which are to be joyn'd together are first either heated or moistned that is they are rarified and then they are left to cold
air or other cold bodies to thicken and condense as above we mentioned of Syrups and Jellies and so they are brought to stick firmly together In like manner we see that when two metals are heated till they be almost brought to running and then are pressed together by the hammer they become one continued body The like we see in glass the like in wax and in divers other things Onthe contrary side when a broken stone is to be pieced together the pieces of it must be wetted and the cement must be likewise moistned and then joyning them aptly and drying them they stick fast together Glew is moistned that it may by drying afterwards hold pieces of wood together And the Spectale-makers have a composition which must be both heated and moistned to joyn to handles of wood the glasses they are to grind And broken glasses are cemented with cheese and chalk or with garlick All these effects our sense evidently shews us arise out of condensation but to our reason it belongs to examine particularly by what steps thy are perform'd First then we know that heat subtilizes the little bodies which are in the pores of the heated body and partly also it opens the pores of the body it self if it be of a nature that permits it as it seems those bodies are which by heat are mollified or are liquofactable Again we know that moisture is more subtile to enter into small creeks then dry bodies are especially when it is pressed for then it will be divided into very little parts and will fill up every little chinck and nevertheless if it be of a gross and viscuous nature all the parts of it will stick together Out of these two properties we have that since every body has a kind of orb of its own exhalations or vapours round about it self as is before declared the vapours which are about one of the bodies will more strongly and solidly that is in more abundant and greater parts enter into the pores of the other body against which it is pressed when they are opened and dilated and thus they becoming common to both bodies by flowing from the one and streaming into the other and sticking to them both will make them stick to one another And then as they grow cold dry these little parts shrink on both sides and by their shrinking draw the bodies together and withal leave greater pores by their being compressed together then were there when by heat and moysture they were dilated into which pores the circumstant cold parts enter and therby as it were wedge in the others and consequently make them hold firmly tostether the bodies which they joyn But if art or nature should apply to this juncture any liquor or vapour which had the nature and power to insinuate it self more efficaciously to one of these bodier then the glew which was between them did of necessity in this case these bodies must fall in pieces And so it happens in the separation of metals by corrosive waters as also in the precipitation of metals or salts when they are dissolv'd into such corrosive waters by means of other metals or salts of a different nature in both which cases the entrance of a latter body that penetrates more strongly and unites it self to one of the joyn'd bodies but not to the other tears them asunder and that which the piercing body rejects falls into little pieces and if formerly it were joyn'd with the liquor 't is then precipitated down from it in a dust Out of which discourse we may resolve the question of that learned and ingenious man Petrus Gassendus who by experience found that water impregnated to fulness with ordinary salt would yet receive a quantity of other salt and when it would imbibe no more of that would neverthless take into it a proportion of a third and so of several kinds of salts one after another which effect he attributed to Vacuities or porous spaces of divers figures that he conceived to be in the water wherof some were fit for the figure of one salt and some for the figure of another Very ingeniously yet if I miss not my mark most assuredly he hath missed his For first how could he attribute divers sorts of Vacuities to water without giving it divers figures And this would be against his own discourse by which every body should have one determinate natural figure Secondly I would ask him if he measured his water after every salting and if he did whether he did not find the quantity greater then before that salt was dissolv'd in it Which if he did as without doubt he must then he might safely conclude that his salts were not receiv'd in vacuities but that the very substance of the water gave them place and so encreas'd by the receiving them Thirdly seeing that in his doctrine every substance has a particular figure we must allow a strange multitude of different shapes of vacuities to be naturally in water if we will have every different substance wherwith it may be impregnated by making decoctions extractions solutions and the like to find a fit vacuity in the water to lodg it self in What a difform net with a strange variety of mashes would this be And indeed how extremely uncapable must it be of the quantity of every various kind of vacuity that you will find must be in it if in the dissolution of every particular substance you calculate the proportion between it and the water that dissolveth it and then multiply it according to the number of several kinds of substances that may be dissolved in water By this proceeding you will find the vacuities to exceed infinitely the whole body of the water even so much that it could not afford subtile thrids enough to hold it self together Fourthly if this doctrine were true it would never happen that one body or salt should precipitate down to the bottom of the water by the solution of another in it which every Alchymist knows never fails in due circumstances for seeing that the body which precipitates and the other which remains dissolv'd in the water are of different figures and therfore require dâ—fferent vacuities they might both of them have kept their places in the water without thrusting one another out of it Lastly this doctrine gives no account why one part of salt is separated from another by being put in the water and why the parts are there kept so separated which is the whole effect of that motion we call dissolution The true reason therfore of this effect is as I conceive that one salt makes the water apt to receive another for the lighter salt being incorporated with the water makes the water more proper to stick to an heavier and by dividing the small parts of it to bear them up that otherwise would have sunk in it The truth and reason of which will appear more plain if at every joynt we observe the particular steps of every
it upon a hedge as that dries away so will their sore amend In other parts they observe that if milk newly come from the cow in the boyling run over into the fire and that this happen often and near together to the same cows milk that cow will have her udder sore inflamed and the prevention is to cast salt immediately into the fire upon the milk The herb Persicaria if it be well rub'd upon Warts and then be laid in some fit place to putrifie causes the Warts to wear away as it rots some say the like of fresh Beef Many examples also there are of hurting living creatures by the like means which I set not down for fear of doing more harm by the evil inclination of some persons into whose hands they may fall then profit by their knowing them to whom I intend this work But to make these operations of nature not incredible let us remember how we have determin'd that every body whatever yields some steam or vents a kind of vapour from it self and consider how they must needs do so most of all that are hot and moist as bloud and milk and all wounds and sores generally are We see that the foot of a Hare or Bear leaves such an impression where the beast has passed as a dog can discern it a long time after and a Fox breaths out so strong a vapour that the hunters themselvs can wind it a great way off and a good while after he is parted from the place Now joyning this to the experiences we have already allow'd of concerning the attraction of heat we may conclude that if any of these vapours light upon a solid warm body which has the nature of a source to them they will naturally congregate and incorporate there and if those vapours be joyn'd with any medicative quality or body they will apply that medicament better then any Chirurgeon can Then if the steam of bloud bloud and spirits carry with it from the weapon or cloth the balsamike qualities of the salve or powder and with them settle upon the wound what can follow but a bettering in it Likewise if the steam of the corruption that is upon the clod carry the drying quality of the wind which sweeps over it when it hangs high in the air to the sore part of the cows foot why is it not possible that it should dry the corruption there as well as it dryes it upon the hedge And if the steam of burned milk can hurt by carrying fire to the dug why should not salt cast upon it be a preservative against it Or rather why should not salt hinder the fire from being carried thither Since the nature of salt always hinders and suppresses the activity of fire as we see by experience when we throw salt into the fire below to hinder the flaming of soot in the top of a chimney which presently ceases when new fire from beneath doth not continue it And thus we might proceed in sundry other effects to declare the reason and possibility were we certain of the truth of them therfore we remit this whole question to the authority of the testimonies CHAP. XIX Of three other motions belonging to particular bodies Filtration Restitution and Electrical attraction AFter these let us cast our eye upon another motion very familiar among Alchymists which they call Filtration It is effected by putting one end of a tongue or label of Flannen or Cotten or Flax into a vessel of water and letting the other end hang over the brim of it And it will by little and little draw all the water out of that vessel so that the end which hangs qâ—t be lower then the superficies of the water and make it all come over into any lower vessel you will reserve it in The end of this operation is when any water is mingled with gross and muddy parts not dissolv'd in the water to separate the pure light ones from the impure By which we are taught that the lighter parts of the water are those which most easily catch And if we will examine in particular how 't is likely this business passes we may conceive that the body or linguet by which the water ascends being a dry one some lighter parts of the water whose chance it is to be near the climbing body of Flax begin to stick fast to it and then they require nothing near so great force nor so much pressing to make them climb up along the flax as they would do to make them mount in the pure air As you may see if you hold a stick in running water shelving against the stream the water will run up along the stick much higher then it could be forced up in the open air without any support though the agent were much stronger then the current of the stream And a ball will on a rebound run much higher upon a shelving board then it would if nothing touch'd it And I have been told that if an egsshell fill'd with dew be set at the foot of a hollow stick the Sun will draw it to the top of the shelving stick wheras without a prop it will not stir it With much more reason then we may conceive that water finding as it were little steps in the Cotton to facilitate its journy upwards must ascend more easily then those other things do so as it once receive any impulse to drive it upwards For the gravity both of that water which is upon the Cotton as also of so many of the confining parts of water as can reach the Cotton is exceedingly allay'd either by sticking to the Cotton and so weighing in one bulk with that dry body or else by not tending down straight to the Center but resting as it were upon a steep plain according to what we said of the arm of a Syphon that hangs very sloping out of the water and therfore draws not after it a less proportion of water in the other arm that is more in a direct line to the Center by which means the water as soon as it begins to climb comes to stand in a kind of cone neither breaking from the water below its bulk being big enough to reach to it nor yet falling down to it But our chief labour must be to finde a cause that may make the water begin to ascend To which purpose consider how water of its own nature compresses it self together to exclude any other body lighter then it is Now in respect of the whole mass of the water those parts which stick to the cotton are to be acounted muchlighter then water not because in their own nature they are so but for the circumstances which accompany and give them a greater disposition to receive a motion upwards then much lighter bodies whiles they are destitute of such helps Wherfore as the bulk of water weighing and striving downwards it follows that if there were any air mingled with it it would to
of them To come then to the matter Now that we have explicated the natures of those motions by means wherof bodies are made and destroy'd and in which they are to be consider'd chiefly as passive whiles some exterior agent working upon them causes such alterations in them and brings them to such pass as we see in the changes that are daily wrought among substances The next thing we are to imploy our selves about is to take a survey of those motions which some bodies have wherin they seem to be not so much patients as agents and contain within themselvs the principle of their own motion having no relation to any outward object more then to stir up that principle of motion and set it on work which when it is once in act hath as it were within the limits of its own kingdom and sever'd from commerce with all other bodies whatever many other subaltern motions over which it presides To which purpose we may consider that among the compounded bodies whose natures we have explicated there are some in whom the parts of different complexions are so small so wel mingled together that they make a compound which to our sense seems all quite through of one Homogeneous nature and however it be divided each part retains the entire and compleat nature of the whole Others again there are in which 't is easie to discern that the whole is made up of several great parts of very differing natures and tempers And of these there are two kinds one of such as their differing parts seem to have no relation to one another or correspondence together to perform any particular work in which all of them are necessary but rather they seem to be made what they are by chance and accident and if one part be sever'd from another each is an entire thing by it self of the same nature as it was in the whole and no harmony is destroy'd by such division As may be observ'd in some bodies dig'd out of Mines in which one may see lumps of Metal or stone and glass and such different substances in their several distinct situations perfectly compacted into one continuate body which if you divide the glass remains what it was before the Emerald is still an Emerald the silver is good silver and the like of the other substances the causes of which may be easily deduced out of what we have formerly said But there are other bodies in which this manifest and notable difference of parts carries with it such a subordination of one of them to another as we cannot doubt but that nature made such engines if so I may call them by design and intended that this variety should be in One thing whose unity and being what it is should depend of the harmony of the several differing parts and should be destroy'd by their separation As we see in living Creatures whose particular parts and members being once sever'd there is no longer a living creature to be found among them Now of this kind of bodies there are two sorts The first is of those that seem to be one continuate substance wherin we may observe one and the same constant progress throughout from the lowest to the highest part of it so that the operation of one part is not at all different from that of another but the whole body seems to be the course and throughfare of one constant action varying it self in divers occasions and occurrences according to the disposition of the subject The bodies of the second sort have their parts so notably separated one from the other and each have such a peculiar motion proper to them that one might conceive they were every one a complete distinct total thing by it self and that all of them were artificially tied together were it not that the subordination of these parts to one another is so great and the correspondence between them so strict the one not being able to subsist without the other from whom he derives what is needful for him and again being so useful to that other and having its action and motion so fitting and necessary for it as without it that other cannot be as plainly convinces that the compound of all these several parts must needs be one individuol thing I remember that when I travel'd in Spain I saw there two Engines that in some sort express the natures of these two kinds of bodies One at Toledo the other a Segovia both of them set on work by the current of the river in which the foundation of their machine was laid That at Toledo was to force up water at a great height from the river Tagus to the Alcazar the Kings palace that stands upon a high steep hill or rock almost perpendicular over the river In the bottome there was an indented wheel which turning round with the stream gave motion at the same time to the whole engine which consisted of a multitude of little troughs or square ladles set one over another in two parallel rows over against one another from the bottom to the top and upon two several divided frames of timber These troughs were closed at one end with a traverse board to retain the water from running out there which end being bigger then the rest of the trough made it somewhat like a ladle and the rest of it seem'd to be the handle with a channel in it the little end of which channel or trough was open to let the water pass freely away And these troughs were fasten'd by an axletree in the middle of them to the frame of timber that went from the bottome up to the top so that they could upon that center move at liberty either the shut end downwards or the open end like the beam of a ballance Now at a certain position of the root-wheel if so I may call it all one side of the machine sunk down a little lower towards the water and the other was raised a little higher Which motion was changed as soon as the ground-wheel had ended the remnant of his revolution for then the side that was lowest before sprung up and the other sunk down And thus the two sides of the machine were like two legs that by turns trod the water as in the Vintage men press Grapes in a watte Now the troughs that were fast'ned to the timber which descended turn'd that part of them downwards which was like a Box shut to hold the water and consequently the open end was up in the air like the arm of the ballance to which the lightest scale is fasten'd and in the mean time the troughs upon the ascending timber were moved by a contrary motion keeping their boxends aloft and letting the open ends incline downwards so that if any water were in them they would let it run out wher'as the others retain'd any that came into them VVhen you have made an image of this Machine in your phantasie consider what will follow out
cultivating mans voice as Rhetorick Meetering and Singing 'T is admirable how finely Galileo hath deliver'd us the consonances of Musick towards the end of his First Dialogue of Motion from the 95 page forward on and now he hath shew'd that matter clearly to the sight so making the eye as well as the ear Judge of it in motions of the water in Pendants hanging loose in the air and in permanent notes or traces made upon letton To the moderation of the same many other mechanical arts are imply'd as the Trade of Belfounders and of all Makers of musical instruments by wind or by water or by strings Neither can I slip over without mention the two curious Arts of Echoing and Whispering The first of which teaches to iterate voices several times and is frequently put in practice by those that are delighted with rarities in their gardens And the other shews how to gather into a narrow room the motions of the air that are diffused in a great extent wherby one that shall put his ear to that place where all the several motions meet shall hear what is spoken so low as no body between him and the speaker can discern any sound at all Of which kind there are very fine curiosities in some Churches of England and my self have seen in an upper room of a capacious round Tower vaulted overhead the walls so contrived by chance I believe that two men standing at the utmost opposite points of the Diameter of it could talk very currently and clearly with one another and yet none that stood in the middle could hear a sillable And if one turn'd his face to the wall and spoke against that though never so softly the others ear at the opposite point would discern every word Which puts me in mind of a note made by one that was no friend to Auricular Confession upon occasion of his being with me in a Church that had been of a Monastery where in one corner of it one might sit and hear almost all that was whisper'd through the whole extent of the Church who would not be perswaded but that it was on purpose contrived so by the subtilty of the Friars to the end that the Prior or some of them might sit there and hear whatever the several Penitents accused themselvs of to their Ghostly Fathers so to make advantage by this artifice of what the Confessors durst not of themselvs immediately reveal He allow'd better of the use in Rome of making voyces rebound from the top of the Cupula of St. Peters in the Vatican down to the floor of the Church when on great days they make a Quire of Musick go up to the very highest part of the arch which is into the Lanthorn from whence while they sing the people below just under it are surprised with the smart sound of their voices as though they stood close by them and yet can see no body from whom these notes should proceed And in the the same Cupula if two men stand upon the large cornish or border which circles the bottom of it they may observe the like effect as that I spoke of above in the round Tower In like manner they that are called Ventriloqui perswade ignorant people that the Devil speaks from within them deep in their belly by their sucking their breath inwards in a certain manner whiles they speak whence it follows that their voice seems to come not from them but from somwhat else hidden within them if at least you perceive it comes out of them but if you do not then it seems to come from a good way off To this art belongs the making of Sarabatanes or Trunks to help the hearing and of Echo-glasses that multiply sounds as Burning-glasses do light All which arts and the rules of them follow the laws of motion and every effect of them is to be demonstrated by the principles and proportions of motion therfore we cannot with reason imagine them to be any thing else We see likewise that great noises not only offend the hearing but even shake houses and Towers I have been told by inhabitants of Dover that when the Arch-Duke Albertus made his great battery aganst Calais which for the time was a very furious one for he endeavor'd all he could to take the Town before it could be reliev'd the very houses were shaken and the glass-windows shiver'd with the report of his Artillery And I have been told by one that in Sevil when the gunpowder-house of that Town which was some two miles distant from that place where he lived was blown up that it made the wooden shutters of the windows in his house beat and clap against the walls with great violence and split the very walls of a fair Church that standing next it though at a good distance hand no other building between to shelter it from the impetuosity of the airs sudden violent motion And after a fight I once had with some Galleasses and Galliones in the rode of Scanderone which was a very hot one for the time and a scarce credible number of pieces of Ordnance were shot from my Fleet the English Consul of that place coming afterwards aboard my ship told me that the report of our guns had during all the time of the fight shaken the drinking-glasses that stood upon shelvs in his house and split the paper-windows all about and spoil'd and crack'd all the eggs that his Pigeons were then sitting uppon which loss he lamented exceedingly for they were of that kind which commonly it called Carriers and serve them daily in their commerce between that place and Aleppo And I have often observed at Sea in smooth water that the Ordnance shot off in a ship some miles distant would violently shake the glass-windows in another And I have perceiv'd this effect in my own more then once at the report of a single gun from a ship so far off that we could not descry her I remember how one time upon such an occasion we alter'd our course and steer'd with the sound or rather with the motion at first observing upon which point of the Compass the shaking appear'd for we heard nothing though soon after with much attention and silence we could discerna dul clumsie noise And such a motion grows at the end of it so faint that if any strong resisting body check it in its course 't is presently deaded and will afterwards shake nothing beyond that body and therfore 't is perceptible onely at the outside of the ship if some light and very moveable body hang loosly on that side it comes to receive the impression of it as this sound at the gallery windows of my Cabin upon the poop which were of light Moscovia glass And by then we had run somwhat more then a watch with all the sails abroad we could make and in a fair loom gale we found our selvs near enough to part the fray of two ships that in a little
evident that white which is the chiefest colour reflects most light and as evident that black reflects least light so that it reflects shadows in lieu of colours as the Obsidian stone among the Romanes witness as also that to be dense and hard and of small parts is the disposition of the object which is most apt to reflect light we cannot doubt but that white is that disposition of the superficies That is to say It is the superficies of a body consisting of dense of hard and of small parts and on the contrary side black is the disposition of the superficies which is most soft and full of greatest pores for when light meets with such a superficies it gets easily into it and is there as it were absorpt and hidden in caves and comes not out again to reflect towards our eye This doctrine of ours of the Generation of Colours agrees exactly with Aristotles principles and follows evidently out of his definitions of Light and of Colours And for suming up the general sentiments of mankinde in making his Logical definitions I think none will deny his being the greatest Master that ever was He defines Light to be actus Diaphani which we may thus explicate It is that thing which makes a body that hath an aptitude or capacity of being seen quite through in every interior part of it to be actually seen quite through according to that capacity of it And he defines Colours to be The term or ending of a diaphanous body the meaning wherof is That Colour is a thing which makes a diaphanous body reach no further or the cause why a body is no further diaphanous then till where it begins or that Colour is the reason why we can see no further then to such a degree through or into such a body Which definition fits most exactly with the thing it gives us the nature of For 't is evident that when we see a body the body we see hinders us from seeing any other that is in a straight line beyond it and therfore it cannot be denied but that Colour terminates and ends the diaphaneity of a body by making it self be seen And all men agree in conceiving this to be the nature of Colour and that it is a certain disposition of a body wherby that body comes to be seen On the other side nothing is more evident then that to have us see a body light must reach from that body to our eye Then adding to this what Aristotle teaches concerning the producton of seeing which he sayes is made by the action of the seen body upon our sense it follows that the object must work upon our sense either by light or at least with light for light rebounding from the object round about by straight lines some part of it must needs come fom the object to our eye Therfore by how much an object sends more light to our eye by so much that object works more upon it Now seeing that divers objects send light in divers manners to our eye according to the divers natures of those objects in regard of hardness density and littleness of parts we must agree that such bodies work diversly and make different motions or impressions upon our eye and consequently the passion of our eye from such objects must be divers But there is no other diversity of passion in the eye from the object in regard of seeing but that the object appear divers to us in point of Colour Therfore we must conclude That divers bodies I mean divers or different in that kind we hear talk of must necessarily seem to be of divers colours meerly by the sending of light to our eye in divers fashions Nay the very same object must appear of different colours whenever it happens that it reflects light differently to us As we see in Cloth if it be gather'd together in foulds the bottoms of those foulds shew to be of one kind of colour and the tops of them or where the cloth is stretch'd out to the full percussion of light appears to be of another much brighter colour And accordingly Painters are fain to use almost opposite colours to express them In like manner if you look upon two pieces of the same cloth or plush whose grains lie contrariwise to one another they will likewise appear to be of different colours Both which accidents and many other like them in begetting various representations of Colours arise out of lights being more or less reflected from one part then from another Thus then you see how Colour is nothing else but the disposition of the bodies superficies as it is more or less apt to reflect light since the reflection of light is made from the superficies of the seen body and the variety of its reflection begets variety of colours But a superficies is more or less apt to reflect light according to the degrees of its being more or less penetrable by the force of light striking upon it For the rays of light that gain no entrance into a body they are darted upon must of necessity fly back again from it But if light gets entrance and penetrates into the body it either passes quite through it or else it is swallow'd up and lost in that body The former constitutes a diaphanous body as we have already determin'd and the semblance which the latter will have in regard of colour we have also shew'd must be black But let us proceed a little further We know that two things render a body penetrable or easie to admit another body into it Holes such as we call pores and softness or humidity so that driness hardness and compactedness must be proproperties which render a body impenetrable And accordingly we see that if a diaphanous body which suffers light to run through it be much compress'd beyond what it was as when water is compress'd into ice it becomes more visible that is reflects more light and consequently it becomes more white for white is that which reflects more light On the contrary side softness unctuousness and viscousness encreases blackness As you may experience in oyling or greasing of Wood which before was but brown for therby it becomes more black by reason that the unctuous parts added to the other more easily then they single admit into them the light that sticks upon them and when it is gotten in it is so entangled there as though the wings of it were bird-limed over that it cannot flie out again And thus it is evident how the origine of all colours in bodies is plainly deduced out of the various degrees of rarity and density variously mixed and compounded Likewise out of this discourse the reason is obvious why some bodies are diaphanous and others are opacous for since it falls out in the constitution of bodies that one is composed of greater parts then another it must needs happen that light be more hindred in passing through a body composed of bigger
the first the doubting of Beasts and their long wavering somtimes between objects that draw them several ways and at last their resolving upon some one of them and their steady pursuance of that afterwards these will not be matter of hard digestion to him that shall have well relished meditated on the contents of the last Chapter For 't is evident that if several objects of different natures at the same time present themselvs to a living creature they must of necessity make divers impressions in the heart of it proportionable to the causes from whence they proceed so that if one of them be a motion of hope and the other of fear it cannot choose but follow thence that what one of them begins the other will presently break off By which means it will come to pass that in the Beasts heart there must needs be such waverings as we may observe in the Sea when at the beginning of a tide of flood it meets with a bank that checks the coming in of the waves and for a while bears them back as fast as they press upon it they offer at getting over it and by and by retire back again from the steepness of it as though they were apprehensive of some danger on the other side and then again attempt it afresh and thus continue labouring one while one way another while another till at length the floud increasing the water seems to grow bolder and breaks amain over the banks and then flows on till it meets with another that resists it as the first did And thus you see how the Sea can doubt and resolve without any discoursing In like manner it fares with the heart of a Beast whose motions steer the rest of the body when it beats betwen hope and fear or between any other two contrary passions without requiring any other principles from whence to deduce it than those we have already explicated But now to speak of their invention I must confess that among several of them there appears so much cunning in laying of their plots which when they have compassed they seem to grow careless and unbend their intention as having obtain'd what with earnestness they desired that one might think they wrought by design and had a distinct view of an end for the effecting of which they used discourse to choose the likeliest means To this purpose the subtilties of the Fox are of most note They say he uses to lie as if he were dead therby to make Hens and Ducks come boldly to him That in the night when his body is unseen he will fix his eyes upon poultry and so make them come down to him from their roost That to rid himself of the fleas that afflict him in the Summer he will sink his body by little and little into the water while the fleas creep up to his head to save themselves from drowning and from thence to a bough he holds in his mouth and will then swim away leaving them there That to cousen the Badger of his earth he will piss in it as knowing that the rank smell of his Urine will drive the other cleanlier beast to quit it That when Dogs are close upon him and catching at him he will piss upon his Tail and by firking that up and down will endeavour you may believe to make their eyes smart and so retard their pursuit that he may escape from them And there are particular stories that express yet more cunning than all these As of a Fox that being sore hunted hang'd himself by the teeth among dead vermin in a Warren till the Doggs were pass'd by him and had lost him Of another that in like distress would take into his mouth a broom bush growing upon a sleep cliff on the side hand neer his Den which had another way to it easie enough of access and by help of that would securely cast himself into his hole while the Dogs that follow'd him hastily and were ignorant of the danger would break their necks down the rocks 'T is said that in Thracia the Countrey people know whether the rivers that are frozen in the winter will bear them or no by marking whether the Foxes venture boldly over them or retire after they have lai'd their ears to the Ice to listen whether they can hear the noise of the water running under it from whence you may imagine they collect that if they hear the current of the stream the Ice must needs be thin and consequently dangerous to trust their weight to it And to busie my self no longer with their subtilties I will conclude with a famous tale of one of these crafty animals that having kill'd a Goose on the other side of the river and being desirous to swim over with it to carry it to his den before he would attempt it lest his prey might prove too heavy for him to swim withal and so he might lose it he first weigh'd the Goose with a piece of wood and then tri'd to carry that over the river whiles he left his Goose behind in a safe place which when he perciev'd he was able to do with ease he then came back again and ventured over with his heavy bird They say it is the nature of the Iacatray to hide it self and imitate the voice of such beasts as it uses to prey upon which makes them come to him as to one of their own fellows and then he seises on and devours them The Iaccal that has a subtile sent hunts after beasts and in the chase by his barking guides the Lion whose nose is not so good till they overtake what they hunt which peradventure would be too strong for the Iaccall but the Lion kills the quarry and having first fed himself leaves the Iaccal his share and so between them both by the ones dexterity and the others strength they get meat for nourishment of them both Like stories are recorded of some Fishes And every day we see the invention of Beasts to save themselvs from catching as Hares when they are hunted seeks always to confound the sent somtimes by taking hedges otherwhiles waters somtimes running among sheep and other beasts of stronger sent somtimes making doubles and treading the same path over and over and somtimes leaping with great jumps hither and thither before they betake themselves to their rest that so the continuateness of the sent may not lead doggs to their form Now to penetrate into the causes of these and of such like actions we may remember how we shew'd in the last Chapter that the beating of the heart works two things one is that it turns about the specieses or little corporeities streaming from outward objects which remain in the memory the other is that it is always pressing on to some motion or other Out of which it happens that when the ordinary ways of getting victuals or escaping from enemies fail a creature whose constitution is active it lights somtimes though
peradventure very seldom upon doing something out of which the desired effect follows as it cannot choose but fall out now and then though chance only govern their actions and when their action proves succesful it leaves such an impression in the memory that whenever the like occasion occurrs that animal will follow the same method for the same specieses do come together from the memory into the fantasie But the many attempts that miscarry and the ineffectual motions which straights do cast beasts upon are never observ'd nor are there any stories recorded of them no more than in the Temple of Neptune were kept upon the registers the relations of those unfortunate wretches who making vows to that God in their distress were nevertheless drowned Thus peradventure when the Fox sees his labour in chasing the hens to be to no purpose and that by his pursute of them he drives them further out of his reach he laies himself down to rest with a watchful eye and perceiving those silly animals to grow bolder and bolder by their not seeing him stir he continues his lying still till some one of them comes within his reach and then on a sudden he springs up and catches her Or peradventure some poultry might have strai'd within his reach whiles he was asleep and have then wakened him with some noise they made and so he happned to seise upon one of them without either design or pains taking before-hand By such degrees he might chance to catch one the first time and they being setled in his memory together with the effect it hap'ned that another time when hunger pressed him and sent up to his brain like spirits to those which ascended thither whiles he say watching the hens these spirits brought the other from his memory into the fantasie in such sort as we have shew'd in the last Chapter and so drove him to the same course till by frequent repetition it became ordinary and familiar with him And then they that look only upon the performance of the artifice are apt to infer discourse and a design of reason out of the orderly conduct of it But how can we concieve the Fox hath judgment to know when the hen is come within his leap and accordingly offers not at her till then unless we resort to some other principles than what is yet declared The answer to this objection I think will not be hard to find for if the motion which the presence of the object makes in the heart be proportion'd out by nature as there is no doubt but it is it will not be so great and powerful as to make the Fox leap at it till it be arrived so near him that he by his nimbleness can reach it and so without any aim further than by the meer flux of his passion conveniently rais'd he doth the feat But if his passion be too violent it makes him miss his aim as we may frequently observe both in men and beasts and particularly when fear presses either of them to leap over a ditch which being too broad he lights in the midst of it The same watchfulness and desire to have the poulen which then sit upon a tree out of his reach makes him fix his eyes on them when they are at roost and at length either the brightness and sparkilng of them dazles the birds and makes them come down to him as flies do in the night about the flame of a candle or as fishes do to a light in a boats head or else they are afraid and their fear increasing their spirits return to the heart which therby is oppressed and their outward parts are bereav'd of strength and motion from whence it follows necessarily that their footing looses their hold fast and they tumble down half dead with fear which happens also frequently to cats when they look wishly upon little birds that sit quietly Or peradventure their fear makes them giddy as when some man looking down a precipice from a dangerous standing falls by the turning of his brain though nothing be behind him to thrust him forwards Or it may be some steam comes from the Fox which draws such creatures to him as 't is reported that a great and very poisonous Toad will do a Weasel who will run about the Toad a great while and still make his circle lesser and lesser till at length he peâ—ishes in the center were his foe sits still and draws him to him Which he doth in such sort as animated Mercury will draw leaf-gold duly prepared or as the Load stone attracts Iron and yet 't is apparent the Weasel comes not with his good will but that there are some powerful chains steaming from the body of the Toad which pluck him thither against his liking for by his motions and runing he will express the greatest fear that can be The method which Foxes practise to rid themselvs of their fleas if it be true is obvious enough for them to fall upon for in Summer their sleas together with their thick fur'd coat cannot choose but cause an exceeding great itching and heat in their bodies which will readily invite them to go into the water to cool themselves As the Merchants at the Isles of Zante and of Cephalonia told me when I was there it was the custom of our English Dogs who were habituated to a colder clime to run into the Sea in the heat of Summer and lie there most part of the day with only their noses out of the water that they might draw breath and would sleep there with their heads laid upon some stone which raised them up whiles their bodies were cover'd with the Sea and those Dogs which did not thus would in one Summer usually be kill'd with heat and Fleas Now when the Fox feels the ease that the coolness of the water affords that part of him which sits in it he goes further and further yet would not put himself to swim which is a labour and would heat him and therfore he avoids it so that whiles he thus cools himself in some shady place for 't is natural to him in such an occasion to resort to the cool shade rather than to I le in the Son and in such there being for the most part some boughs hanging over the water it happens naturally enough that he takes some of the lowest in his mouth to support him and save hi m the labour of swiming whiles he lies at his ease soaking and cooling himself in the River By which means it comes to pass that the Fleas finding no part of him free from water creep up the bough to rescue themselvs from drowning and so when he is cool'd enough he goes away and leaves them there In all which finding a benefit and satisfaction whenever the like occasion brings those species from his memory into his fantasy he betakes himself to the same course and therin finding his remedy at length it grows familiar to him In like manner
our Sensual part and its antagonist which maintains the resolution set by reason and observe how exceedingly their courses and proceedings differ from one another we shall more plainly discern the nature and power and efficacy of both of them We may perceive that the motions against Reason rise up turbulently as it were in billows and like a hill of boiling water as truly Passion is a conglobation of spirits put us into an unquiet and distemper'd heat and confusion On the other side Reason endeavours to keep us in our due temper by somtimes commanding down this growing sea otherwhile contenting in some measure the desires of it and so diverting another way its unruly force somtimes she terrifies it by the proposal of offensive things joyn'd to those 't is so earnest to enjoy again somtimes she prevents it by cuting off all the causes and helps that promote on its impotent desires and by engaging before hand the power of it in other things and the like All which evidently convince that as Reason hath a great strength and power in opposition of Sense so it must be a quite different thing and of a contrary nature to it We may add that the work of Reason can never be well perform'd but in a great quiet and tranquillity wheras the motions of Passion are always accompanied with disorder and perturbation So as it appears manifestly that the force of Reason is not purely the force of its Instruments but the force of its instruments as they are guided and as the quantities of them are proportioned by it And this force of Reason is different from the force of its instruments of themselvs as the force of a Song is different from the force of the same sounds wherof it is composed taken without that Order which the Musitian puts in them for otherwise the more spirits that are rais'd by any thought which Spirits are the Instruments whereby Reason performs all her operations in us the more strongly reason should work the contrary of which is evident for we see that too great abundance of Spirits confounds Reason This is as much as at present I intend to insist upon for proof that our Understanding hath its proper and distinct operations and works in a peculiar manner and in a quite different strain from all that is done by our Senses Peradventure some may conceive that the watchfulness and recalling of our thoughts back to their enjoyn'd work when they break loose and run astray and our not letting them range abroad at random doth also convince this assertion but I confess ingenuously the testimony of it seems not clear to me and therfore I rank it not with those that I would have if it may be solidly weighty and undeniable to one who shall consider maturely the bottom and full efficaciousness of them Of such a few or any one is enough to settle ones mind in the belief of a truth and I hope that this which I have labour'd for in this Chapter is so sufficiently proved as we need not make up our evidence with number of Testimonies But to shew the exceptions I take against this argument let us examine how this act within us which we call watchfulness is perform'd Truly me-thinks it appears to be nothing else but the promptitude and recourse of some spirits that are proper for this effect which by a mans earnestness in his resolution take a strong impression and so are still ready to knock frequently at the door of our understanding and therby enable it with power to recal our stray'd thoughts Nay the very reflection itself which we make upon our thoughts seems to me only this that the object beating upon the fansie carries back with it at its retiring from thence some little particle or atome of the brain or Septum Lucidum against which it beats sticking upon it in like manner as upon another occasion we instanced in a Ball rebounding from a green Mud-wall to which some of the matter of the wall must needs adhere Now this object together with the addition it gets by its stroak upon the fansie rebounding thence and having no more to do there at present betakes it self to rest quietly in some Cell it is disposed into in the brain as we have deliver'd at large in our former Treatise where we discoursed of Memory but whenever it is called for again by the fansie or upon any other occasion returns thither it comes as it were capped with this additional piece it acquir'd formerly in the fansie and so makes a representation of its own having been formerly there Yet be these actions perform'd how they will it cannot be deny'd but both of them are such as are not fit nor would be any ways useful to creatures that have not the power of ordering their own thoughts and fansies but are govern'd throughout meerly by an uniform course of nature Which ordering of thoughts being an operation feasible only by rational creatures and none others these two actions which would be in vain where such ordering is not used seem to be specially ordain'd by nature for the service of Reason and of the Understanding although peradventure a precise proper working of the understanding do not clearly shine in it Much less can we by experience find among all the actions we have hither to spoken of that our Reason or Understanding works singly and alone by it self without the assistance and consortship of the fansie and as little can I tell how to go about to seek any experience of it But what Reason may do in this particular we shall hereafter enquire and end this Chapter with collecting out of what is said how it fares with us when we do any thing against Reason or against our own knowledge If this happen by surprise 't is plain that the watch of Reason was not so strong as it should have been to prevent the admittance or continuance of those thoughts which work that transgression Again if it be occasion'd by Passion 't is evident that in this case the multitude and violence of those spirits which Passion sends boyling up to the fansie is so great as the other spirits which are in the jurisdiction and government of Reason are not able for the present to ballence them and stay their impetuosity whiles she makes truth appear Somtimes we may observe that Reason hath warning enough to mustet together all her forces to encounter as it were in battail the assault of some concupiscence that sends his unruly bands to take possession of the fansie and constrain it to serve their desires and by it to bring Reason to their bent Now if in this pitch'd field she lose the bridle and be carried away against her own resolutions and forced like a captive to obey the others laws 't is clear that her strength was not so great as the contrary factions The cause of which is evident for we know she can do nothing but by the
we should be certain that thy parting from this life waft thee over to assured happiness For thou well know'st that there are noxious actions which deprave infect the Soul while it is forging and moulding here in its Body and tempering for its future Being and if thou should'st sally hence in such a pervers disposition unhappiness would betide theeinstead of thy presumed Bliss I see some men so ravenous after those pleasures which cannot be enjoy'd out of the Body that if those impotent desires accompany their Souls into Eternity I cannot doubt of their enduring an eternity of Misery I cannot doubt of their being tormented with such a dire extremity of unsatisfiable desire and violent grief as were able to tear all this world into pieces were it converted into one heart and to rive in sunder any thing less than the necessity of contradiction How high the Bliss of a well-govern'd Soul is above all power of quantity so extreme must be the ravenous inclemency and Vulture-like cruelty of such an uncompassable desire gnawing eternally upon the Soul for the same reason holds in both and which way soever the gravitation and desires of a Separated Soul carry it it is hurried on with a like impetuosity and unlimited activity Let me then cast a heedful and wary eye on the actions of the generality of mankind from whence I may guess at the weal or wo of their future state and if I find that the greatest number weighs down in the scale of misery have I not reason to fear lest my lot should prove among theirs For the greatest part sweeps along with it every particular that hath not some particular reason to exempt it from the general law Instead then of a few that wisely settle their hearts on legitimate desires what multitudes of wretched men do I see some hungry after Flesh and Blood others gaping after the empty wind of Honour and Vanity others breathing nothing but Ambitious thoughts others grasping all and grov'ling upon heaps of melted Earth So that they put me all in a horror and make me fear lest very few they be that are exempted from the dreadful fate of this incomprehensible misery to which I see and grieve to see the whole face of mankind desperately turned May it not then be my sad chance to be one of their unhappy number Be content then fond man to live Live yet till thou hast first secured the passage which thou art but once to venture on Be sure before thou throwst thy self into it to put thy Soul into the Scales ballance all thy thoughts examine all thy inclinations put thy self to the test try what dross what pure gold is in thy self and what thou findest wanting be sure to supply before nature calls thee to thy dreadful account 'T is soon done if thou beest what thy nature dictates thee to be Follow but evident reason and knowledg and thy wants are supply'd thy accounts made up The same evershining truth which makes thee see that two and two are four will shew thee without any contradiction how all these base allurements are vain and idle and that there is no comparison between the highest of them and the meanest of what thou maist hope for hast thou but strength to settle thy heart by the steerage of this most evident Science In this very moment thou maist be secure But the hazard is great in missing to examine thy self truly and throughly And if thou miscarry there thou art lost for ever Apply therfore all thy care all thy industry to that Let that be thy continual study and thy perpetual entertainment Think nothing else worth the knowing nothing else worth the doing but screwing up thy Soul to this height but directing it by this level by this rule Then fear not nor admit the least doubt of thy being happy when thy time shall come and that time shall have no more power over thee In the mean season spare no pains forbear no diligence employ all exactness burn in Summer freeze in Winter watch by night labour by day joyn months to months entail years upon years Think nothing sufficient to prevent so main a hazard and deem nothing long or tedious in this life to purchase so happy an Eternity The first discoverers of the Indies cast themselvs among swarms of Man eaters they fought and strugled with unknown ways so horrid ones that often times they perswaded themselvs they climb'd up mountains of waters and straight again were precipitated headlong down between the cloven sea upon the foaming sand from whence they could not hope for a resource Hunger was their food Snakes and Serpents were their dainties sword and fire were their daily exercise and all this only to be masters of a little Gold which after a short possession was to quit them for ever Our searchers after the Northern passage have cut their way through mountains of ice more affrightful and horrible than the Simplegades They have imprison'd themselvs in half-year nights they have chain'd themselvs up in perpetual stone-cleaving colds some have been found closely embracing one another to conserve as long as they were able a little sewell in their freezing hearts at length petrefy'd by the hardness of that unmerciful winter Others have been made the prey of inhumane men more savage than the wildest Beasts others have been never found nor heard of so that surely they have proved the food of ugly monsters of that vast icy Sea And these have been able and understanding men What motives what hopes had these daring men What gains could they promise themselvs to countervail their desperate attempts They aim'd not so much as at the purchase of any treasure for themselvs but meerly to second the desires of those that set them on work or to fill the mouths of others from whence some few crumes might fall to them What is required at thy hands my Soul like this And yet the hazard thou art to avoid and the wealth thou art to attain imcomparably over-sets all that they could hope for Live then and be glad of long and numerous years that like ripe fruit thou maiest drop securely into that passage which duely entred into shall deliver thee into an eternity of Bliss and unperishable happinesâ— And yet my Soul be thou not too sore agast with the apprehension of the dreadful hazard thou art in Let not a tormenting fear of the dangers that surround thee make thy whole life here bitter and uncomfortable unto thee Let the serious and due consideration of them arm thee with caution and wisedom to prevent miscarriage by them But to look upon them with horrour and affrightedness would freez thy spirits and benum thy actions and peradventure engulf thee through pusillanimity in as great mischâ—iefs as thou seekest to avoid 'T is true the harm which would accrue from misgoverning thy passage out of this life is unspeakable is unimaginable But why shouldst thou take so deep thoughts of
with them their way Seeing then that such a gentle motion of the air is able to put a feather out of its way notwithstanding the percussions of the atoms upon it why shall it not likewise put a piece of iron out of its way downwards since the iron hath nothing from the atoms but a determination to its way But much more why should not a strong wind or a currant of water do it since the atoms themselv's that give the iron its determination must needs be hurried along with them To this we answer that we must consider how any wind or water which runs in that sort is it self originally full of such atoms which continually and every where press into and cut through it in pursuing their constant perpetual course of descending in such sort as we shewed in their running through any hard rock or other densest body And these atoms make the wind or water primarily tend downwards though other accidental causes impel them secundarily to a sloping motion And still their primary natural motion will be in truth strongest though their not having scope to obey that but having enough to obey the violent motion makes this become the more observeable Which appears evidently out of this that if there be a hole in the bottome of the pipe that conveys water slopingly be the pipe never so long and consequently the sloping motion never so forcible yet the water will run out at that hole to obey its more powerful impulse to the centrewards rather then continue the violent motion in which it had arrived to a great degree of celerity Which being so 't is easie to conceive that the atoms in the wind or water which move perpendicularly downwards will still continue the irons motion downwards notwithstanding the Mediums sloping motion since the prevailing force determines both the iron and the Medium downward and the iron has a superproportion of density to cut its way according as the prevalent motion determines it But if the descending atoms be in part carried along down the stream by the current of wind or water yet still the current brings with it new atoms into the place of those that are carried away and these atoms in every point or place wherever they are of themselvs tend perpendicularly downwards though they are forced from the compleat effect of their tendance by the violence of the current so that in this case they are moved by a declining motion compounded of their own natural motion and the force one with which the stream carries them Now then if a dense body fall into such a current where these different motions give their several impulses it will be carried in such sort as we say of the atoms but in another proportion not in a perpendicular but in a mixt declining line compounded of the several impulses which the atoms and current give it in which also 't is to be remembred how the current gives an impulse downwards as well as sloping and peradventure the strongest downwards and the declination will be more or less according as the violent impulse prevails more or less against the natural motion But this is not all that is to be consider'd in estimating the declination of a dense bodies motion when it is sinking in a current of wind or water You must remember that the dense body it self has a particular virtue of its own namely its density by which it receivs and prosecutes more fully its determination downwards and therfore the force of that body in cutting its way through the Medium is also to be considered in this case as well as above calculating its declining from the perpendicular and out of all these causes will result a middle declination compounded of the motion of the water or wind both ways and of its own motion by the perpendicular line And since of these three causes of a dense bodies motion it s own virtue in prosecuting by its density the determination it requires is the most efficacious by much after it has once receiv'd a determination from without its declination will be but little if it be very dense and heavy But if it recede much from density as so have some near proportion to the density of the Medium the declination will be great And in a word according as the body is heavier or lighter the declination will be more or less in the some current though not exactly according to the proportion of the diminishing of its density as long as there is a superproportion of its density to the Medium since such a superproportion as we have declared heretofore makes the Mediums operation upon the dense body scarce considerable And hence you see why a stone or piece of iron is not carried out of its way as well as a feather because the stones motion downwards is greater and stronger then the motion of a feather downwards And by consequence the force that can turn a feather from its course downwards is not able to deturn a stone And if it be repli'd that it may be so order'd that the stone shall have no motion before it be in the stream of a river and notwithstanding it will still move downwards we may answer that considering the little declivity of the bed of such a stream the strongest motion of the parts of the stream must necessiariy be downwards and consequently they will beat the stone downwards And if they do not the like to a feather or other light body 't is because other parts of the stream get under the light body and beat it upwards which they have not power enough to do to the stone Sixthly it may be objected that if Elements do not weigh in their own Spheres then their gravity and descending must proceed from some other cause and not from this percussion of the atoms we attribute to it which percussion we have determin'd goes through all bodies whatever and beats upon every sensible part of them But that Elements weigh not in their own Spheres appears out of the experience of a Syphon for though one leg of a Syphon be sunk never so much deeper into the body of the water then the other leg reaches below the superficies of the water nevertheless if once the outward leg become full of water it will draw it out of the other longer leg Which it should not do if the parts of water that are comprised within their whole bulk did weigh since the bulk of water is much greater in the sunk leg then in the other and therfore these should rather draw back the other water into the Cistern then be themselves drawn out of it into the air To this we answer that 't is evident the Elements do weigh in their own Spheres at least as far as we can reach to their Spheres for we see that a ball once stuff'd hard with air is heavier then an empty one Again more water would not be heavier then less if the inward
parts of it did not weigh and if a hole were dig'd in the bottome of the Sea the water would not run into and fill it if it did not gravitate over it Lastly there are those who undertake to distinguish in a deep water the divers weights which several parts of it have as they grow still heavier and heavier towards the bottom and they are so cunning in this art that they profess to make instruments which by their equality of weight to a determinate part of the water shall stand just in that part and neither rise or fall higher or lower but if it be put lower it shall ascend to its exact equally weighing Orbe of the water and if it be put higher it shall descend till it comes to rest precisely in that place Whence 't is evident that parts of water do weigh within the bulk of their main body and of the like we have no reason to doubt in the other two weighty Elements As for the opposition of the Syphon we refer that point to where we shall have occasion to declare the nature of that engine on set purpose And there we shall shew that it could not succeed in its operation unless the parts of water did gravitate in their main bulk into which one leg of the Syphon is sunk Lastly it may be objected that if there were such a course of atoms as we say and their strokes were the cause of so notable an effect as the gravity of heavy bodies we should feel it palpably in our own bodies which experience shews us we do not To this we answer first that there is no necessity we should feel this course of atoms since by their subtilty they penetrate all bodies and consequently do not give such strokes as are sensible Secondly if we consider that dusts and straws and feathers light upon us without causing any sense in us much more we may conceive that atoms which are infinitely more subtile and light cannot cause in us any feeling of them Thirdly we see that what is continual with us and mingled in all things doth not make us take any especial notice of it and this is the cause of the smiting of atoms Nevertheless peradventure we feel them in truth as often as we feel hot and cold weather and in all Catars or other such changes which as it were sink into our body without our perceiving any sensible cause of them for no question these atomes are the immediate causes of all good and bad qualities in the air Lastly when we consider that we cannot long together hold out our arm at length or our foot from the ground and reflect upon such like impotencies of our resisting the gravity of our own body we cannot doubt but that in these cases we feel the effect of these atomes working upon those parts though we cannot by our sense discern immediately that these are the causes of it But now it is time to draw our Reader out of a difficulty which may peradventure have perplext him in the greatest part of what he hath hitherto gone over In our investigation of the Elements we took for a principle thereto that gravity is sometimes more sometimes less then the density of the body in which it is but in our explication of rarity and density and again in our explication of gravity we seem to put that gravity and density is all one This thorn I apprehend may in all this distance have put some to pain but it was impossible for me to remedy it because I had not yet deliver'd the manner of gravitation Here then I will do my best to asswage their grief by reconciling these appearing repugnancies We are therefore to consider that density in it self signifies a difficulty to have the parts of its subject separated one from another and that gravity likewise in it self signifies a quality by which a heavy body descends towards the center or which is consequent thereto a force to make another body descend Now this power we have shew'd belong to density so far forth as a dense body being strucken by another doth not yield by suffering its parts to be divided but with its whole bulk strikes the next before it and divides it if it be more divisible then it self is So that you see Density has the name of Density in consideration of a passive quality or rather of an impassibility which it hath and the same density is call'd Gravity in respect of an active quality it has which follows this impassibility And both of them are estimated by the different respects which the same body or subject in which they are has to different bodies that are the terms whereto it is compared for the active quality or Gravity of a dense body is esteem'd by its respect to the body it strikes upon whereas its Density includes a respect singly to the body that strikes it Now 't is no wonder that this change of comparison works a disparity in the denominations and that thereby the same body may be conceiv'd to be more or less impartible then it is active or heavy A for example let us of a dense Element take any one least part which must of necessity be in its own nature and kind absolutely impartible and yet 't is evident that the gravity of this part must be exceeding little by reason of the littleness of its quantity so that thus you see an extremity of the effect of density joyn'd together in one body by the accident of its littleness with a contrary extremity of the effect of gravity or rather with the want of it each of them within the limits of the same species In like manner it happens that the same body in one circumstance is more weighty in another or rather in the contrary is more partible So water in a Pail because 't is thereby â—hinder'd from spreading abroad has the effect of gravity predominating in it but if it be pour'd out it has the effect of partibility more And thus it happens that meerly by the gradation of rarity and density one dense body may be apt out of the general course of natural causes to be more divisible then to be a divider though according to the nature of the degrees consider'd absolutely in themselves what is more powerful to divide is also more resistent and harder to be divided And this arrives in that degree which makes water for the falling and beating of the atomes upon water hath the power both to divide and make it descend but so that by making it descend it divideth it And therefore we say it has more gravity then density though it be the very density of it which is the cause that makes it partible by the working of one part upon another for if the atomes did not find the body so dense as it is they could not by their beating upon one part make another be divided So that a dense body to be more heavy then