or 30 inches high But for the sustaining of it it is acknowledged of every side that 10 pound weight of Mercury 29 inches high is susustained whatever it be that sustain it The elastick Philosophers say it is the elatery of the Air in the Glass-bottle which bears so strongly against the restagnant Mercury that the 29 inches of Mercury that weigh 10 pound weight cannot descend into the restagnant Mercury But our Learned Authour here most rationally denies it averring that if there were so strong an elatery of the Air as to drive up or bear up 10 pound weight of Mercury which is here 29 inches in the Pipe or Tube certainly the same elasticity would drive or bear up one inch of water into the Pipe or Tube it being many hundred times lighter than those 29 inches of Mercury But here the elastick Philosophers seek a witty refuge viz. That it is the Non-resistence of the materia subtilis that is destitute of all elasticity which is the reason of the prevalency of the elatery of the Air to mount up or sustain so great weight of Quick-silver but there being Air in the Pipe of like elasticity with that in the Glass-bottle in this other case that it is that that stops all such motion of the water upward But this is to indulge to pretty phancies against palpable sense and all true reason It is already acknowledged by these elastick Philosophers that there is an elatery of the Air in the Glass that will at least sustain if not raise up a ten pound weight Now if there be not an elatery in the air of the Pipe so strong as might resist such a force but exceedingly far weaker if any at all the water must rise or stand an inch high at least neither which is done But now you may feel with your fingers end how exceeding weak the elatery of just such a Cylinder of Air is as is in the Pipe if you make a Tube of the same diameter with that Pipe and make an Embolus of some wood equiponderant or at least not lighter than water and so fit it to the Pipe that it may slip up and down with all ease imaginable which it may do and be close enough if it be oiled And this easie slipping up and down of it might be an argument how weak the elatery of the Air is in it but that they will straight answer that you move the Emboblus so easily upward because the recoiling elatery helps you but does not the direct as much hinder me But put your Embolus in the water whose surface I suppose the upper end of the Embolus will lie even with then put the Tube on the Embolus and putting your hand into the water with your finger move up the Embolus which you shall find to move against the elatery of the air in the Tube if there be any with extreme ease you will discern that the force of 1 4 of a pound weight at most will repel the air with its elatery How then can it resist the force that will draw up or sustain forty times as much Wherefore it is plain upon supposition that the elasticity of the Air is so strong that it will raise or sustain ten pound weight that it will so forcibly press the water in the Glass-bottle into the Pipe that by reason of the straitness thereof in comparison of that part of the Glass that contains the water it will send it packing through that Pipe as Air sent out through the nozel of a pair of Bellows by him that presseth the Bellows with his hands All the air of the Bellows is pressed at once and the motion of that in the Bellows being much slower that in the nozel comes out quick and smart and so would the water through the Pipe be driven with a swifter force by reason of its straitness and new air coming in at the Orifice B it would never leave running out at K till the water were exhausted as low as E which we seeing not done we see hereby that there is no such elasticity in the Air at all as our Elastick Philosophers suppose We will obviate the vanity of but one evasion more and then conclude The pretense of the recoiling elatery of the Air we took away by placing the little Tube and Embolus of wood in the water Here perhaps they will say that the Elatery of the Air on the surface of the water causes the Embolus so easily to be pressed against the elatery of the Air that is incumbent on it But how can that be whenas the water has no elatery to lift up my hand or bear against the bottom of the Embolus and the water only succeeds the pressure of my finger against the Embolus does not press with it if we can believe our senses so that there is merely a circule of such strength as the pressure of my finger makes and no more And besides this if this be any such advantage the same is found in this Learned Authours Pump the air coming in at B to make a circle of pressure by its elasticity to E and so to A and out at K till it come to B again and yet there is not one inch of water raised by this elasticity above the surface I though this elasticity is pretended to sustain 29 inches of Quick-silver of 10 pound weight And that this mistake may still be laid more open and no creep-holes lest for further evasion from the Valves or littleness of the passages at K and B let us turn this round Glass into a large open Vessel that the pressure of the air may come as free as heart can wish and let into it a Tube 29 inches whereof would contain 10 pound of Mercury and which being immersed in Mercury so many inches of Mercury would be suspended in put upon such an Embolus as was above described whose upper Basis lies equal with the water this empty Tube and then put in your hand into the water and believe your senses with what ease that Embolus is to be pressed up against the elatery of the air in the Tube it requiring as I said before scarce the force of a ¼ of a pound weight Can therefore the elatery of the air sustain 40 times that weight and keep the Mercury about 30 inches high in the same Tube and not raise water into the Tube one inch high which is above 400 times lighter than the 30 inches of Mercury it is pretended to sustain whenas the elatery of air in the Tube is deprehended not to make the fortieth part of resistence against the elatery of air incumbent on the restagnant water which is pretended to press forty times stronger Wherefore the elatery of the air being so certainly deprehended not to do that which is forty times easier for it to do it is impossible that it should do that which is forty times harder and is a manifest demonstration there is no such elatery
plain mistake For neither is that larger Diameter in the shorter leg any advantage but a disadvantage the motion of Fluids being swifter out of a narrow passage into wide than vice versâ nor is there any indication in all these experiments that the Gravitation of the 24 inches of water in the longer leg does gravitate as much more as the column of water of 24 inches impendent over the orifice of the shorter leg For in the first instance where 24 inches of water drives the Quick-silvver 2 inches and ¼ downward in the longer leg it is because of the largeness of the Diameter of the shorter leg or by reason of its wideness So when the 24 inches of water and the Quick-silver was to balance against it it required more Quick-silver to be at a counterpoise with it than if it had had the same Diameter with the longer shank and hence it is that the Quicksilver subsides so far in the longer shank and not the discontinuity of the water in it from other water And now we come to the second instance it is to be noted that the impendent column of water driving the Mercury one inch downward in the short leg and so consequently raising it one in the longer that there will be 9 inches in the longer leg and but 7 in the shorter so that upon the matter the column of 24 inches in the water poizes as much against the Quick-silver in this experiment as that water in the longer shank did in the former For here it ponderates against 2 inches of Quick-silver there but against 2 and ¼ nay I may safely say against above two in this For if it was driven down one inch in the shorter but wider shank it must needs rise above one inch in the other and I doubt not but a quarter of an inch or thereabout if the Authour had taken so punctual notice of it And as in these two instances in several the column of the water in the water is found to be aequiponderant to a column of so many inches in the longer shank of the Siphon so we shall find them in this last and joint experiment For upon the pouring water into the long leg of the Siphon there remained but 6 inches of Mercury in that leg and 8 in the other wherefore upon the immitting of the Siphon into the Glass-Tube and there being found about an inch subsiding in the shorter leg and a rising as much in the longer it is manifest that in each leg there was about 7 inches height of Quicksilver a piece and that the column of water in the water gravitates as much as the column of water in the longer shank of the Siphon and not only half as much as our Authour would have it which is an excellent experiment against his supposed Masonry in the element of water and that each part of water by each part doth most glibly slip And that therefore this imaginary Architecture can contribute nothing to the rising of the round wooden Rundle from the bottom of the Bucket on which I build that notable demonstration of mine in my Enchiridium Metaphysicum Upon Chapter the Fifth REMARK the Eighth THat experiment of Stevinus that a Rundle placed on the bottom of a Vessel with a hole in it so that the Rundle somewhat overlaps the hole p. 94. l. 4. that the Rundle will gravitate upon that hole and the incumbent Cylinder of water commensurate in base to that Rundle so hard and close that it requires a weight in a pair of Scales near commensurate to the weight of the impending Cylinder of water to raise it from the bottom I say this Experiment is an Argument against that Invention of the Cap or Cone and the rest of that Architecture in the foregoing Book For the hole under the Rundle cannot be conceived any Mechanical cause at all why the same Architecture may not be that was imagined before and yet the Rundle ariseth not in the Vessel nor does the water sile thorough REMARK the Ninth That the Rundle ariseth not in the Vessel the Learned Authour offers this reason because the water gravitates now upon the Rundle as having mediately a lighter element namely the Air upon which it gravitates l. 23. But being as firmly sustained as before from passing to the Air why should it gravitate any more than before And besides if the bottom of the Bucket be somewhat higher than the Basis of the Ribs of the Bucket on which it may stand and there be a second bottom made to keep the Air betwixt this second bottom and the former perforated bottom from communicating with the rest of the Air it is worth the enquiring whether the Rundle then will not rise because the Abituriency of the Air which was in the other case is thus sufflaminated Whence it would be plain it was not simply because there was Air beneath that the water gravitated on the Rundle but because that Air was in the state of Abituriency or at least in sufficient quantity to colluctate with the water the Principium Hylarchicum upon such hints by reason of the quick motion of those Laws of Life in it putting this under-Air into that Abiturient state and therewithal carrying the water raptu consensûs into an actual tendency downward and so thrusting the Rundle closer to the Hole intangles it self in its own attempt as not acting by free reason and counsel but by some general Laws of instinct of life which in some such by-cases do not further but hinder the effect generally produced by Nature Whence it is evident that this Spirit of Nature is not the first Cause which is the Aeternal Wisdom but a mere inferiour Creature But this is but by the by REMARK the Tenth Our Authour mentions an experiment of an empty Glass-bottle carefully stopt and sunk a great depth into the Sea that the pressure of the water will break it a-pieces p. 95. l. 9. And he resolves it into this reason because the water presses against a lighter Element the Air though mediately through the Glass But I say that is not the adequate cause thereof that it has a lighter Element near to it but because that the Element is misplaced for the upper part of the water in a Vessel does not press against the Air in the Vessel that is incumbent on it but if a Bottle of Air were let down into the Sea with its mouth downward and well stopt to keep out water yet the water will thrust the Cork upward and drive it in But that is because the Air is misplaced and put in the Element of water which methinks are very apert insinuations that there is no such thing as intrinsick Gravity but that matter moved is moved by a principle distinct from it self For the parts of the water of the Sea do not press one against another neither before nor after the Bottle is let down and yet there is such a pressure on the Bottle once
REMARKS Upon Two late Ingenious Discourses The One An Essay touching the Gravitation and Non-Gravitation of FLUID BODIES The Other Observations touching the TORRICELLIAN EXPERIMENT So far forth as they may concern any Passages in his Enchiridium Metaphysicum By D r HENRY MORE 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot. LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops Head in S t Paul's Church-Yard 1676. IMPRIMATUR Antonius Saunders Ex Edibus Lamberhanis Novemb. 13. 1675. THE PREFACE Reader I Had not given thee the trouble of a Preface were it not for apologizing for a Phrase which I observe something frequently to occur in my Remarks which may seem to thee hugely Paradoxical if not very absurd It is Gravitation upwards I made use of it in imitation of the Learned Authour upon whose Discourses I make my Remarks Wherefore that thou maist the better discern how allowable or disallowable this form of speech is and that I may withall offer to thee that which may perhaps tend to the better opening thine understanding in Hydrostatical Theories I will lay down a simple Hypothesis for the illustrating that natural poize libration or Gravitation that Philosophers suppose they discover in the Fluid matter of this our Terrestrial world First therefore Let us imagine our Earth environed only with the Materia subtilis that Des Cartes has so curiously described or more plainly and intelligibly with the pure subtil Aether which is a liquid body of that subtilty that it will with ease penetrate all bodies in some measure but abundantly the pores of Glass Secondly Let us consider that a Hail-shot Gravel Quick-silver and the like may be poized in Water and Corn Chaff Currans Powders and such like in the Air and that they will subside or weigh one against another in the said Elements so the particles of these Elements themselves Water and Air and the vapours therein are as it were weighed or poized in this more universal Liquidum of the Aether Thirdly That the particles of Quick-silver Water Vapours Air and in brief what ever is conteined in that which they call the Atmosphere if there be no lett nor new emergent mutation are in this poizing placed according to their solidity chiefly of the very particles they do consist suppose Air Water Quick-silver according as I have declared in my first Hydrostatical Axiom Enchirid. Metaphys cap. 13. sect 10. Fourthly That in some sense all the parts and particles of the Atmosphere even the thinnest Air at the Convexity thereof are heavy namely thus That if they were upon some occasion raised higher than the convexity those thin parts of Air would descend again to the said convexity as sure as the vapours do in Dew on the Grass or raised Dust does upon any pavement or floor Fifthly That this we call heaviness is nothing else but a capacity in the parts or particles of the Atmosphere to be placed according to their solidity by that what ever it is that moves them or disposes them Sixthly That when these particles of Fluids in the Atmosphere are so disposed with regard to their different solidity as is according to the Laws of this moving Principle they press not then on one another but as to any actual Gravitation on one another they are at rest Seventhly This diversity of solidity in the particles is the cause why we see Elements and liquids in such different places and of such different Consistencies As Quick-silver below water water below air the thicker air below the thinner and their Consistencies accordingly Eighthly That the more solid the particles are in fluids the more strong their consistency is as well as they are thereby more heavy Ninthly That as the moving or disposing Principle brought the several Liquids to such various differences of consistency by a positive action so it keeps them in the same consistency by a like positive action or force though upon occasion mutable or vincible Tenthly That there may be a very strong consistency in Liquids without any elasticity or springiness at all as in Quick-silver and Water which are not compressible Elevently That there may be a compressible consistency considerably strong where there is little or no elasticity of parts A thing easily discernible in the wringing or pressing in a mans hand a wet Handkerchief and of such a compressible consistency may be our lower Air stuffed with thick vapours as also consisting of the grosser Aëreal Particles Twelfthly That all poizings suspensions or librations of heavy liquid bodies are not by a mere counterpoize of perpendicular pressure of another body but may be by the firmness or force of its consistency I speak this in reference to the Torricellian experiment and the standing of the water in Pumps and Syringes which is thus solved with the greatest ease and intelligibleness that may be by supposing so strong a consistency in this lower Air that the firmness thereof will resist the weight of suppose 29 inches of Mercury in a Tube or of 34 foot of water in a Pump but will be broke by the weight of 30 or 31 inches of Mercury and 35 or 36 foot of water and suffer compression to the letting in the subtil liquidum or Aether in which the whole Atmosphere is poized into the Glass or Pump whereby the Mercury or Water is made capable to descend And 29 inches of Mercury being of one weight with 34 foot of water in a Tube of the same diameter it is plain that this is the poize that equals either the firmness of consistency or else the weight of the Air. Thirteenthly But here now I say lies the curiosity of the Theory whether this suspension suppose of the Mercury in the Tube be to be conceived to be by perpendicular pressure or actual Gravitation of the Air upon the restagnant Mercury or else as I intimated before by the firmness of its consistency it being not compressible by no greater weight than that of 29 inches of Mercury and so there being no vacuum nor penetration of dimensions the circle of motion is necessarily stopt and the Mercury stands at that pitch To which I conceive is most safely answered That when the Mercury is fallen to 29 inches that there is a kind of libration betwixt the air jointly with the restagnant Mercury and the Mercury in the Tube For upon the infusing of water upon the restagnant Mercury that in the Tube will proportionably ascend And this the Learned Authour upon whom I make the Remarks will call Gravitation upwards because its tendency is towards that more subtil matter in the derelicted space in the Glass And this Libration is not much unlike that in a Siphon with one leg much higher than another into which putting some quick-silver which will presently poize it self into an equality in each shank if you pour water into the longer shank the quick-silver in the other will ascend accordingly which is again a kind of Gravitation upwards against the thin Air and answers to the
REMARK the Nineteenth And further still detected by demonstrating the incredibility of the ascending of any vapours or steams from the Mercury into the derelicted space in the Tube REMARK the Twentieth A notable Objection of the Authour 's against the Opinion of Mercurial effluvia occupying the derelicted space of the Tube and such as himself does not answer REMARK the Twenty first A sound and ingenious demonstration of the Authour 's against the Hypothesis of an Atmospherical Cylinder suspending the Cylinder of Mercury in the Tube from the Tube of Mercury hung upon a Balance with its mouth some half an inch immersed in restagnant Mercury REMARK the Twenty second His ingenious obviating that evasion of a Cylinder of Air pressing on the top of the Tube of Mercury so hung as if that supplied the place of the Mercury in the Tube whose weight was discovered in the opposite Scale of the Balance REMARK the Twenty third His dextrous defeating as weak a subterfuge whereby they would elude the force of his former Answer REMARK the Twenty fourth Two neat Experiments of the Authour 's whereby he meets with all such elusions and unexceptionably demonstrates that the pressure of an Atmospherical Pillar in such like Hydrostatical Experiments is a mere mistake REMARK the Twenty fifth Another ingenious demonstration against the pressure of Atmospherical Cylinders from the standing of the Mercury in the Tube when the surface of the restagnant Mercury is not passing one fourth part of the Basis of the Cylinder of Mercury in the Tube REMARK the Twenty sixth His Argument from the Torricellian Experiment succeeding as well in a closed Receiver as in the open Air not imputable to the elasticity of the Air which supposes pressure it being already confuted here and more particularly in his sixth Chapter by the two Brazen Cylinders in the water REMARK the Twenty seventh His Experiment of the Bottle and heated Bolts-head how well it is levelled against the elasticity of the Air but his solution of the Phaenomenon unsatisfactory REMARK the Twenty eighth The Authour's Opinion that all those Experiments which the Virtuosi would give an account of from the pressure and elasticity of the Air are performed by suction and attraction more strictly to be examined in reference to that Experiment of the weight hung at the Embolus of the Air-Pump REMARK the Twenty ninth The various standing of the Mercury in the Tube according to the change of weather or placing it in higher or lower Air how that Observation is manageable against the opinion of Tension and Mercurial effluvia REMARK the Thirtieth The unexpected motions and agitations of things put into the Receiver upon a strong exhaustion of the Air-Pump that it is not from Tension of the rarefied Air but from some such Principle as the furious and rapid motion of winds is raised from the dissolution of the aqueous particles of the clouds REMARK the Thirty first That Experiment of Regius of drawing Tobacco smoak through water in a covered Cup by two pieces of a Tobacco-pipe can be no instance of such an Attraction and Rarefaction as this Author stands for but will serve to illustrate some of the Phaenomena in the foregoing Remark REMARK the Thirty second A description of the Torricellian Experiment in the chiefest example The groundlesness of the Authour's reasons of this Phaenomenon from the tension of the Mercurial effluvia in the derelicted space discovered REMARK the Thirty third A discovery of the Repugnancies of his solution of this Phaenomenon His ingenuous confession touching the Phaenomenon of Gravity that mechanical reasons are in vain attempted thereof That Aristotle's Philosophy implies a Spirit of Nature REMARK the Thirty fourth That the suspension of the Mercury is not to save the Vniverse from Discontinuity but to preserve the Air in its due consistency And that it is not Air but one common Spirit that is the Cement of the Universe REMARK the Thirty fifth That Attraction is not to be proved from Cupping-Glasses or the expansion of squeezed Bladders at the top of the Torricellian Tube REMARK the Thirty sixt What account is to be given of the jointly weighing of a Tube and Mercury of a Tube and Water and of a Glass and Water inverted on Mercury and Water REMARK the Thirty seventh The Authour 's plain declaration that the Laws of Nature are not mechanical together with the consequences of that concession and the necessity of introducing a Spirit of Nature The fond humour of the Philosophizers of this Age who whenas their Nature consists of Spirit as well as Body take all their measures of Philosophizing from Body none from Spirit REMARK the Thirty eighth Of the sticking together of two Marbles and that Fuga Vacui is but the final cause thereof and what may be the Efficient REMARK the Thirty ninth Stevinus his Experiment of a Rundle of wood lighter than water laid upon the hole of a bottom of a Vessel to be filled with water c. What an Argument it is against the Gravitation of water on water and against that monstrous Elasticity by some supposed of the Air. REMARK the Fortieth Of the close sticking together of the Magdeburg Hemispheres That neither Tension of the inward rarefied matter nor the Elasticity of the outward Air is the cause of it as also what in all likelyhood is REMARK the Forty first The Authour 's ingeniously contrived Pump and his mistake in attributing a Phaenomenon in it to inward Tension which is rather to be referred to the strength of the Consistency of the outward Air. REMARK the Forty second Other Phaenomena observable in the Authour's Pump and how there is no need of Tension for the solving of them but that they are notable intimations of the necessity of an Hylostatick Spirit in the world REMARK the Forty third An Argument from the Author 's own Pump that water is not suspended in Pumps by Tension but by Gravitation upwards more expresly here explained and at last resolved into the Hylarchick Principle together with a particular reason why in the proposed case of the Authour's Pump upon the elevation of the Embolus not one drop of water comes out REMARK the Forty fourth The uncertainty of success if the Pump were longer or heat applied to the Glass but certain Tension would find no place therein REMARK the Forty fifth The raising water and suspension of it in a Pump how it is effected REMARK the Forty sixth The insinuation of the Air into the Cavity of a Well whether it be the effect or the cause of the recession of the water or whether not rather both REMARK the Forty seventh Whether the protrusive force in a Pillar of free Air add any thing to the Elastick pressure thereof and whether the least proportion of Air has the same strength of spring that a greater As also a notable Argument from the elasticity of Air not raising the water in the Authour's Pump one inch whenas it is pretended that
it will sustain 10 l. of Mercury 29 inches high that there is no such Elasticity at all The Conclusion Errata sic corrige PAGE 9. line 21. read bodies p. 37. l. 17 r. intrinsecalness p. 107. l. 21. r. Tube p. 146. l. 6. r. ordered p. 177. l. 1. l. r. considerate Remarks upon two late ingenious Discourses THE ONE An Essay touching the Gravitation and Non-Gravitation of Fluid Bodies THE OTHER observations touching the Torricellian Experiment On the Essay touching the Gravitation or Non-Gravitation of Fluid Bodies c. Upon Chapter the Second The first REMARK IN this Chapter there are things said that are repugnant one to another For in the very entrance of the Chapter the learned Author asserts that Gravity is an intrinsecal quality of bodies whereby they tend Downwards to or towards the Center of the Earth and yet afterwards toward the end of the Chapter he affirms that fire may rightly be said to gravitate Upwards c. Now if that Definition be true That Gravity is an intrinsecal quality of bodies whereby they tend towards the center of the Earth whether by Gravity be understood a faculty or capacity of so tending or the actual exercise thereof we cannot avoid a repugnancy For if an actual exercise thereof be understood that is Gravitation Which here being affirmed to be the tending downwards of bodies towards the center of the Earth it is a contradiction that the tendency of them upwards should be Gravitation but rather Levitation But if by Gravity be understood only their Capacity of tending downwards to the center yet the actuality thereof will be Gravitation as that of Levity Levitation and therefore according to this Notion of Gravity can be only downwards when as the learned Author after asserts that Gravitation is also upwards which I say seems a contradiction But I rather interpret it an emendation of his former assertion and by after affirming that Gravitation is upwards as well as downwards that he would insinuate that it is really and in truth against that sense that Gravity and Gravitation is understood in the Schools as well upwards transverse oblique as downwards there being no way such Gravity or Gravitation as the Schools dream of that is from any inherent quality of the body it self that may be called Gravity but that it is a mere Idolum Fori as My Lord Verulam would call it a false Notion sticking to the vulgar use and sense of that word which me thinks this learned Author does apertly acknowledge and consequently explode that usual Notion in these words where he says That Gravitation is nothing else but Motus or Nisus ad motum secundùm lineam directionis ejusdem and a little before That Gravitation is nothing else but motion or at least Conatus or Nisus ad motum Which in my judgment plainly takes away that false notion of Gravity and Gravitation entertained by the Vulgar and the Schools For it as plainly follows by denying all intrinsecal nature to Gravitation saving motus or nisus ad motum that that Scholastick Gravitation or the specifick nature thereof is taken away as by denying that Homo is any thing but Animal vitâ sensúque praeditum would take away the specifick nature of man out of the Universe The first part therefore of this my first Remark shall be That even according to the judgment of this learned Author there is nothing in bodies but mobility and actual motus or Nisus ad motum however they may be disguized under the vulgar Phrases of Gravity and levity of Gravitation or levitation c. Secondly That the Author though in processe of his discourse he use these vulgar Phrases of Gravity and Gravitation he is to remember that the true and Philosophical sense of them is nothing else but Mobility and actual motion or actual Nisus ad motum which if it be considered in its direction towards the Center of the Earth is more specially noted with the name of Gravity or Gravitation Thirdly That if we will cautiously and severely Philosophise we are not to imagine this actual motion or actual Nisus ad motum to be in any body unless it be discovered there to be by clear sense or reason but rather not to be when we have diligently used these two faculties for to discover them and yet they appear not Fourthly It is deprehensible neither by sense nor reason that because water for example will nimbly run up a Tube let down into water stopt with ones finger at the neather orifice and then opened that there was before any actual motion upwards in the water or any actual Nisus ad istiusmodi motum but that as to any such motion it was at rest Fifthly That if the quick running up of the water into such a Tube be a solid argument of an actual Nisus of the water upwards even then when it has no such occasion to discover it self the quickness of the ascent of the water is so great and so equal to the descent of water in a crooked Tube of water opened at one end in the Air after it is immersed into the water I mean the other orifice stopt also with ones finger and them opened again when it is let down at a sufficient depth that the actual Nisus of the water suspended suppose in a Bucket downwards and upwards will be in a manner equal So that the water will have no weight at all in so much that another Bucket of the same weight and size without any water in it would be equiponderant to it From whence Sixthly and Lastly it would follow That we finding so great a weight from the water in the full Bucket with an actual Nisus downwards there must be a Being distinct from the water that directs its motion thitherward But this is an Observation beyond my present scope The rest at least will be useful for the better understanding our selves in our following Remarks Upon Chapter the Third The second REMARK IN the beginning of this Chapter the Author seems to affirm that it belongs to solid bodies as such to have an actual pressure or Conatus ad Motum towards the Center of the Earth but to fluids onely as they are reducible to solids by being put into some Vessel when as yet it is evident that some fluid bodies have a stronger pressure towards the Center of the Earth than many solid bodies Thus bulk for bulk water presses more strongly towards the Center than most kinds of Wood and Quicksilver than most kind of metals Whence it is plain that Gravity is not to be esteemed from the fixedness of parts but from the solidity of the particles which that Principle that orders matter ranges accordingly REMARK the Third That also I conceive is a mistake in that he says p. 15. l. 3. That though solid bodies do actually gravitate yet the parts thereof do not gravitate one upon another because mutually and mechanically sustained one by another and in a state
any order but what they perpetually slip from and how perfectly they are dis-intangled one from another and slippery is manifest to our very senses as I noted before REMARK the Eighteenth He supposes p. 54. l. 6. that the union of the parts of water are much more close than that of the Monads of Callice-sand because the water is quid continuum though fluidum But I have offered reasons that I hope are sufficient to evince that it is not quid continuum but contiguum and I farther add that the parts of Sand being crammed so hard together and at rest come nearer to the nature of continuity than where the parts are in motion and come closer together as it is in water REMARK the Nineteenth The Learned Authour p. 57. l. 3. does acknowledge that in a Bucket of Water with a rundle at the bottom if the bottom have an hole in it the whole column of Water will gravitate on the Rundle and not only a Cap or Cone Here I demand how this hole at the bottom of the Vessel under the Rundle the Water not running out can concern the supposed Arch and cause a whole Cylinder of Gravitation on the Rundle if there was this Masonry in this Phaenomenon and it were not to be salved by another Principle REMARK the Twentieth Again upon what occurrs l. 12. That the Water will undermine a lighter body than the like quantity of water commensurable to its bulk I would propound this experiment Supposing the Bucket with an hole at the bottom as before and that heavier-wood-rundle almost equal to the bottom of the Bucket placed on it and then a lighter-wood-rundle of equal diameter with the heavier placed on it Whether the whole Cylinder of Water does not press on these Rundles and not a Cap only and whether notwithstanding the upper Rundle will not ascend which is a sign that its ascending at other times is not to be imputed to the Architecture of the Arch so ingeniously excogitated by this Learned Authour But I will appeal to one Experiment more which will take away both these two mechanical Accounts at once that of Continuity and this of Architecture and the Experiment is this Let there be a Bucket whose concavity is perfectly Cylindraceous and the diameter of the bottom 63 parts Let there be another Cylindraceous Vessel whose internal diameter shall be 61 parts external 62 Let there be at the bottom of this Vessel 4 little equidistant holes in the sides slooping inwards so as to come just to the bottom that the Water may no otherwise go out than just from the bottom upwards nor ascend at all but by pressing to the bottom first Put this Vessel into a Bucket to the bottom thereof and hold it there so as that the top of the Vessel shall be equal to the top of the Bucket Then pour in water till they be full to their brims then take away your hand that held the Vessel to the bottom of the Bucket The Vessel in the Bucket will rise up higher and higher till there be no more thereof immersed in water than is equal to such a moles of water as is equal to the whole Vessel in weight The weight of the water on the bottom of this Vessel is near upon thirty times more than the water betwixt this Vessel and the sides of the Bucket which should undermine it and yet the Vessel rises of which no account can be given neither from the Continuity of the water for the water in the Vessel is not continued with the exteriour water in the Bucket but is only contiguous to the sides of the Vessel nor from that Masonry of an Arch upon the Rundle or bottom of the Vessel for the whole moles of the water in the Vessel does as much entirely press on the bottom of the Vessel as the whole moles of water in any Bucket does upon the bottom thereof So wholly ineffectual are these Mechanical Inventions of Continuity and the Arch or Cone on the subjected bodies in water for solving the Non-Gravitation thereof We shall now examine the Natural Account Upon Chapter the Eighth I observe that the Authour p. 58. l. 13. lays the main stress of all upon this Natural Account of the Non-Gravitation of Water either upon its inferiour parts or any subjected body heavier or equal in weight to the like bulk of water For this says he I take to be the true natural specifical reason of the Non-Gravitation of Fluids though the Mechanical reason before given is not wholly useless but contributes its part to it We will therefore be more diligent in examining this Natural Account REMARK the Twenty first And for the better procedure in this business upon his mentioning the intrinsecal Heaviness of a body p. 59. l. 16. we are here to remember what we were I thought agreed upon in my first Remark part the first and the second That Heaviness or Gravity in a Body is nothing but its Mobility nor Gravitation but its motion or actual Nisus ad motum and that that Notion of Gravity in the Schools is but Idolum Fori That mobility and motion upwards is as intrinsecal to a body as mobility and motion downwards That there is no motion nor Nisus ad motum discernible in water to any term but when it is misplaced so that all such motion is only upon occasion in it And therefore when water ascends in a Tube in such sort as is described Remark 1. part 4. That Mobility and Motion upward is as intrinsecal to the water as its Nisus downward for that Nisus downward is not but pro re nata when it is misplaced These things I hope will not be stuck at if we have but recourse to my first Remark and the parts thereof REMARK the Twenty second This Natural Account of the Non-Gravitation of Fluids which the Authour lays so much stress upon is this p. 62. l. 5. That they have several lines of their direction of Gravitation that is of their motion by Remark the first and therefore necessarily one must be refracted impeded and abated by the other and consequently the direction of its perpendicular or lateral Gravitation or motion downward is corrected or very near wholly suspended by the other tendencies or directions of its motion This is the Learned Authours Natural Account of the Non-Gravitation of the parts of water upon water c. REMARK the Twenty third The Learned Authour brings in again p. 63. l. 5. the notion and distinction of the terminal motions or tendencies of water as it is an heavy body which are perpendicular towards the earth which he calls the primitive Conatus of all heavy bodies and the effect of their intrinsick Gravity and the other motions and directions as it is a Fluid body This distinction he repeats again p. 68. l. penult Which language if we will uncipher according to our agreement in my first Remark the sense is this That water as it
That the reason why a Glass Tube of Oyl immersed to such a depth into a Vessel of Water will some of it go out but immersed lower it will stay in and if lower will ascend in the Tube c. is this because there is a greater pressure or renitence in the last place than in the second and in the second than in the first and therefore less force is required to raise the superficies in this first case than in the second and in the second than in the third This is ingenious but there is this obstacle to the truth thereof For let the first place be A. the second B. the third C. And let us consider that the Oyl going out at A. the whole body of the water from A. to the superficies is raised up at once and there appears no hillock of water above the Oyl at A. on the superficies or on a Vessel of Oyl above the water at A. supposing water let into a Vessel of Oyl after the same manner by a Glass Tube Now besides that it is incredible that so little portion of water or Oyl effused at A. should at all be able to-raise the whole bulk of water or Oyl in the Vessels from the whole superficies where A. is though never so little towards the tōp of the Vessels it is also further demonstrable that the increase of Renitence or Pressure of the water against its being raised higher in B. more than in A. and in C. more than in B. is not the reason that the Oyl in the Tube put in Water or Water in a Tube put into Oyl does not go out at B. and ascends at C. For it would follow that a Tube of Oyl put into a Vessel of Water of a far greater diameter than before suppose twice as great and the Tube again immersed to A. that is to an equal depth as before the Oyl would not go out since the bulk of the water from A. to the superficies is four times as big as it was before and therefore the Renitence against being raised higher should nigh hand increase in proportion And yet the Oyl goes out at A. as before notwithstanding this imagined Renitency Whence it is plain it is not the force of effused Water in the Oyl or Oyl in the Water that can raise the Water or Oyl one Atoms breadth higher but the preventing activity of that immaterial Principle that disposes all the parts of the Liquors in the Vessel orderly and at once there being no crowding nor pressing any way one part on another And that the Pewter Porringer full of Hail-shot weighed in Water p. 43. l. 23. is found from the bottom to the top in a manner of equal weight is not because it forces the superficies of the water no higher in one position than another but because the water is no heavier at one depth than another that is is not heavy at all Upon Chapter the Fourth REMARK the Fourth P. 50. l. 23. IN this page the Learned Authour does in a manner acknowledge what I so diligently endeavoured to prove in my first Remark part 4. For he compares the Air to a vast Net with small Mashes or interstitia fitted gradually with parts more and more subtil wherein he judges right saving that by the comparison of the Net he would insinuate a continuity of the Air which I have sufficiently disproved Remark 1. part 3. REMARK the Fifth The Compression of divers particles of the Air saith our Authour p. 51. l. 13. may render that compressed body of Air sensibly heavy whence he inferrs that we may not wholly exclude those Particles from all kind of Gravity before compression For no weighty body can arise from the coalition of such parts as had no manner of Gravity before The conclusion bears some show of concinnity with it but methinks the Inference would be more safe if one should argue from hence that there is no such thing as innate Gravity since that which appeared a light body before without adding any real quality but by only thrusting the parts nearer together it got a motion downwards Which therefore implies that that motion is from some other substance not from the compressed Air it self and that fire if it could be compressed would also tend downwards As the matter thereof does tend downwards plainly in wood but the parts of wood attenuated and agitated tend upwards in the form of fire which is no obscure intimation that it is not any inward particular form or quality that is that which moveth things upward or downward but a distinct immaterial Principle that is the orderer and disposer of the matter of the universe according to the more or less solidity in its consistency REMARK the Sixth He asserts in this page 63. as also p. 51. l. 2. That there is not that strict cohaesion of one part of water with another as with one part of air with another and yet as I have above noted the Air is dividable by the thred of a Spinner hanging on ones Hat how dividable then and separable is one part of water from another that is more easily disjungible than Air it self and how unfit for such Architecture of the imagined Cone or Cap in the former Treatise REMARK the Seventh After an experiment made with a Glass-Siphon with Quick-Silver and Water the longer leg of the Siphon being 32 inches the shorter 8. and the shorter leg having something a larger Diameter than the longer which experiment is thus 1. He filled the shorter leg with Mercury till it ran up as high in the longer that is 8 inches according to the law of Fluids and stopping the shorter with his finger filled the residue of the longer with water whereupon the Mercury in the longer leg subsided to two inches and a quarter 24 inches of water driving it so far down though 28 inches of water is the usual counterpoise to two inches of Mercury 2 Having filled again the Siphon with Quick-silver as at first and immersing it into a Tube of water 32 inches high so that the column of water over the shorter leg was full 24 inches yet those 24 inches drive the Mercury in the shorter leg but one inch down and raised it one inch in the longer 3. Having poured water into the longer leg of the Siphon so that the Mercury subsided two inches and as much flowed out at the shorter and then immersing again the Siphon into the Glass-vessel 32 inches deep filled with water the Mercury subsided near an inch in the shorter leg and accordingly impelled the Mercury into the longer Upon this experiment I say he makes this observation p. 67. l. 1. That notwithstanding the advantage of the larger Diameter of the shorter leg the Gravitation of the external water or any imaginary column thereof was not half so much as the Gravitation of the Cylinder of water included in the Tube he means the longer leg of the Siphon which I conceive to be a
let down that either the Cork is driven in or the Bottle broke in pieces The other two instances also the Authour mentions in this page tend to the same purpose I mean those of Oyl driving Water upwards and Water Quick-silver of which he declares p. 96. 1. thus For in these instances though the immediate contiguity be of the heavier body to the lighter as Oyl to Water and Water to Mercury yet the Air being behind the Mercury in the longer leg of the Siphon and behind the Water in the Tube the Water in the one case and the Oyl in the other doth in truth gravitate upon the Air mediately and effectively rather than upon the immediate heavier fluid Which would plainly be a Gravitation upwards and therefore the more harsh phrase and sense but may justly insinuate to this Authour the reasonableness of their opinion that hold there is no inward Gravitation at all but that the matter is moved pro re nata and ranged by the Spirit of Nature according to certain Laws generally good for the Universe and essentially implanted in the said Spirit And these last Phaenomena are easily resolved into the first Hydrostatical Axiom in my Enchirid. Metaphys c. 13. sect 10. Upon Chapter the Sixth REMARK the Eleventh The reason assigned p. 101. l. 6. why a small Glass-Tube of so many Inches long and filled up with water and stopt with ones finger at the lower end and let into a Vessel of Water of a competent diameter and depth upon the unstopping of the lower end all the water in the Tube above the superficies of the water in the Vessel will run down till ' it be no higher than the said superficies namely because if it obtain never so little more height in the Pipe than in the Vessel it has a greater force to press downwards than the water in the Vessel has strength to resist it this reason I conceive does not quite exhaust the difficulty For suppose this Pipe of but a quarter of an inch diameter and a Bucket of a foot and a half and deep a foot and the Pipe 9 inches and half a quarter long and 9 inches thereof in the water so that there is but half a quarter of an inch of the water to press up by its force to some though very little height a moles of water of 9 inches deep and a foot and an half diameter how is it possible that the force of intrinsick Gravity of a Cylinder of water but a quarter of an inch diameter and half a quarter of an inch altitude should raise at all a Cylinder of 18 inches diameter and 9 inches in altitude if some principle distinct from both did not assist For the one Cylinder exceeds the other above some hundred thousand times and yet the pressure of this little Cylinder must raise the great one by its own force if there be no other principle to help nor penetration of dimensions which is even as absurd as the other Or if you take the 9 inches of water more in the Tube into your compute yet this added to the abovesaid Cylinder of but half a quarter of an inch high will be above 5000 times less than the exteriour Cylinder So big is the absurdity still REMARK the Twelfth The falling off and sticking to of the obturaculum in a Tube with a valve according as the Tube is less or more immersed in the water my reason of this Phaenomenon given in my Enchiridium Metaphysicum cap. 13. sect 17. this Learned Authour says p. 103. he is as much dissatisfied with as with the reason of the excellent Authour of the Hydrostatical Paradoxes but he alledges nothing against it but that it is an obscure solution When as yet this I think therein is very plain and intelligible that if there be what I declare quaedam quasi sursum suctio Aëris in Tubo contenti conformis ac contemporanea aquae compulsio in obturaculum GIH c. that that is a very solid Reason why the obturaculum when this suction is strong enough which is when the Tube is let down deep enough by a circle of motion or at least a joint compression of the water at the same time against it should be kept up from falling For upon this abiturient state of the Air it being more vigorous than that impulse that should carry down the Obturaculum or rather that Principle that moves the matter being rapt into one consent of circular motion from the bottom of the Air in the Tube to the top and then down into the water till it reach the Obturaculum under the Tube urging the water as if it would ascend up which it would do but for the Obturaculum in pursuit of the Air so drawn upwards till it was even with the superficies of the water it is manifest that the Obturaculum upon that abituriency is driven upwards and that the motion in order of Nature is first there in the air of the Tube for as much as if the abituriency of the Air in the Tube be stopt with a mans finger at a due nearness or by a moveable Embolus the Obturaculum that at such a depth clave close before to the Valve will presently fall down which is a plain demonstration that the rise of the motion of pressure against the Obturaculum is from the air in the Tube first moved according to that Law of the Principium Hylarchicum conteined in my first Hydrostatical Axiom Enchirid. Metaphys cap. 13. sect 10. which causes this joint motion or pressure against the Obturaculum This cannot be obscure to any that acknowledge that a Spirit endued with plastick life though devoid of understanding and it may be of any acute sense is able to move matter REMARK the Thirteenth And from what we have said in the foregoing Remark it is evident I conceive that this Learned Authour is out in the account of this Phenomenon For p. 110 and III. he resolves the sticking of the Obturaculum to the Valve into the Tubes pressing up a portion of water of a greater weight than it If the Sucker says he which answers to that which I call the Obturaculum be drawn up p. 110. l. 12. and then immersed so low that the portion of water impelled up by the Tube does exceed the weight of the Sucker the Sucker will be sustained by the pressure of the water upon it But if the weight of a moles of water saith he commensurate to so much of the Tube as is immersed in the water be less than the weight of the Sucker the Sucker by its own weight will subside That this reason is maim is apparent from hence That if the Tube be let in so low that it raised a moles of water whose weight is much greater than the weight of the Obturaculum or Sucker and that for the present the Obturaculum will stick to the Valve yet if the Tube be stopt with ones finger or rather by a moveable
Embolus at a due nearness to the Valve the Obturaculum will suddenly fall whence it is manifest that the Solution is not finally to be made into the raising of the water to several heights upon which its pressure should encrease against the Obturaculum but into the abituriency of the Air in the Tube or just quantity thereof and of the several forces of that abituriency into the laws of motion innate or essential to the Spirit of Nature or universal Transposer of the parts of the matter of the world For where there is no raising of the water higher at a deeper descent to make its pressure greater in the immitting Air into Water as in a Glass filled with Air and well stopt let down into the bottom of the Sea upon a deep descent it will break though upon a moderate it will not though it raises the water alike in both cases Which is resolvible into nothing but the greater excitement of the force of the Principium Hylarchicum upon the greater transgression of those Hylostatick laws vitally and essentially included in it For the parts of water in water do not gravitate one against another and they have as much room to play in when a Bottle of Air is sent down into the Water as when a Bottle of Water of the same size is sent thereinto But the Air in the former is misplaced contrary to the Hylostatick laws of the Universe Upon Chapter the Seventh REMARK the Fourteenth IT is a very notable and pleasant Experiment the Learned Authour mentions p. 118. l. 19. It is most evident to any mans sense quoth he that will but try that if a Tube be open at both ends and filled up with Mercury and then one end stopped with the finger and the other end inverted and immersed in the restagnant Mercury whereby it descends from the top of the Tube a strong and sensible attraction is wrought upon the pulp of the upper finger that closeth it which continues and grows more and more forcible sensible and evident the further the Mercury is removed from the upper end and approaches to its usual station of 29 inches This is his experiment which to me is a seasonable confirmation of what in the foregoing Remark I observed That the force of activity in the Principium Hylarchicum or Hylostaticum is excited proportionably to the measure of misplacement of the parts of the matter of the Universe But as for the Learned Authours solution of this Phaenomenon I mean of this attraction of the pulp of his finger at the top of the Tube I must confess I am not at all satisfied with and look upon it as a kind of Philosophical incivility whenas so eminent a fellow Creature as this Hylostatick spirit took the opportunity of pulling him by the finger when he could not shake him by the hand that he would not embrace this offer of acquaintance nor take notice of the existence of such a Being in the world which I must confess I think this Phaenomenon is a notable evidence of so circumstantiated as this Authour hath described for it is not Impulsion ab extrà as he describes it For says he most evidently the force the finger feels is from within and not from without and when he says it is upon the pulp of the finger and not the quitching of the skin it is apparent that that force is in his very finger not on the outside whether in the Tube or without And therefore it cannot be the contiguity of any body in the Tube as our Learned Authour would have it by which this attraction is made but it is the Hylostatick spirit of Nature that upon unexpected occasions after an unexpected manner moves the matter and it was a kind of an attempt of this Hylarchick Principle to expand and rarifie the pulp of the finger to supply the absence of the Mercury It s tugging therefore of the pulp of the finger toward the Cavity of the Tube made the sense of the Attraction into it But that this Attraction could be by no contiguity of any body in the Tube appears from hence that then it would have been felt more particularly and distinctly in the very exteriour skin REMARK the Fifteenth The other two instances out of Honoratus Faber which this Learned Authour brings p. 120. seem to favour my sense of the first For the Papyr extendible by force but otherwise contracting it self made fast at the upper end of the Tube and upon the descent of the Mercury being extended as also a Bladder so fastned and close tyed in the neck and being blown out at the descent of the Quick-silver both these seem effects of an ineffectual effort in the Hylarchical Spirit of the world to supply that nakedness or emptiness of the Tube of that matter it ought to be replenished with as far as it can and that makes it extend the Papyr to supply as far as it will go and to blow up the Bladder by putting the grosser Particles in it upon motion that is rarefying what moisture there is in the Bladder which it is no wonder when there is a hole in the Bladder is not done for then those Particles get out and are dispersed throughout the whole vacuity But that the whole Bladder should be blown up by attraction I shall take occasion hereafter to show to be a mistake REMARK the Sixteenth That Aphorism of our Learned Authour p. 122. That regularly all natural bodily effects are wrought by a contact of some active body upon the patient This to me seems to contradict the Phaenomena of Nature and in motion confessedly so called most numerously and universally which is not unless ex accidenti Mechanical but vital The descent of a stone is vital as I have proved in my Enchiridium Metaphysicum but its hitting or occursion against any thing whereby it moves that is only Mechanical motion in the thing so moved otherwise motion is not by knocking or crowding but by vital transposing of parts as is most manifest in Fluids the parts not gravitating one against another but being jointly and freely moved by that vital Principle which we call the Hylarchick Spirit of the world Upon Chapter the Eighth REMARK the Seventeenth OUR Authour reasons passing-well against a free permeation of the Aether into the Glass-Tube derelicted of the Quick-silver because the Quicksilver then would subside to the bottom as when there is but a hole at the top of the Tube no bigger than a Pins point because then the Air he thinks may come in freely so if the Aether could come in freely through the pores of the Glass the Mercury would subside in that case too But that the subtiler parts of the Air or Aether cannot upon occasion though not so freely penetrate the pores of the Glass His Arguments for this Assertion seem to me altogether unsatisfactory For if I understand him aright the first thing he offers to prove it by is That if they
as much in weight as that of the Mercury in the Tube which is a very gross absurdity REMARK the Twenty third And as weak a subterfuge is that whereby they would elude this Answer namely by pretending that the Glass-Tube being a body specifically lighter than Mercury is it self sustained by the restagnant Mercury as if that broke the force of the column of Air that presses 9 times as strong on the head of the Tube as the other column of Air on the restagnant Quick-silver when-as it is a thing plainly prodigious that a single force should keep Mercury 29 inches and 1 2 above the surface of the restagnant Mercury up in the Air though it be I know not how many thousand times lighter than Mercury and yet that the Glass should not be kept down 6 inches under the surface of the restagnant Mercury though not fourteen times heavier than Glass by a force nine times as great as the former REMARK the Twenty fourth But the Authour does very handsomely meet with all such elusions by two neat experiments The one is of a Glass-Tube the Diameter of whose Cavity was 48 the Diameter of the whole 58 of an inch the length 18 inches the weight thereof in the Air 2 ounces 34 the water it would contain near 1 ounce 34. This Tube tyed at the closed end to the Scale of a Balance and being filled with water and stopt with ones finger and so let down into water and so settled there as that the lower end was near about a quarter of an inch from the surface there was required in the opposite Scale four ounces and 12 which is equal to the weight of the Water and Tube together to hold the Tube in an Aequilibrium and here the Glass-Tube is not held up by the restagnant water the Glass being so heavy that it would sink to the bottom as being a body specifically heavier than water Wherefore this Aequilibrium being from hence according to the Principles of those that hold the pressure of the Atmosphere either because the Tube and the water jointly do weigh against the Weights in the other scale or because the column of Air on the head of the Tube with the Tube weigh against them this second being impossible for as much as the diameter of that column is five such parts as the diameter of the column of water in the Tube and that of Air on the restagnant water is four and therefore would press at least half as much again as the water in the Tube namely in the proportion of 25 to 16 which the Scale discovers to be false for there is only one ounce ◠4 added to the two ounces 3 ◠not 1 ◠3 2 of an ounce more it remains that it is the Water with the Tube jointly that weighs against the Weights in the other Scale for as much as the restagnant Water does not hinder the Tube from whence it follows that the water in the Tube is not sustained by any column of Air on the restagnant Water which will be more apparent in the other experiment which is this He took suppose the same Tube heated it very hot and hung the closed end upon one Scale of a Balance and let the open end sink a little into a Vessel of water and counterpoized it in the other Scale with 2 ounces 3 ◠the weight the empty Tube weighed in the Air which because the end of it did little more than touch the water it still retained but within the space of half a quarter of an hour the Tube was filled 12 inches of its 18 with water which 12 inches of water was found to weigh one ounce and ¼ and one ounce and ¼ more put in the opposite Scale and the Scales held so that the Tube might only touch the surface of the water the Tube with the 12 inches of water in it was found to weigh just 4 ounces Now therefore since the Tube could weigh no more if so much on the top of the water than it did when it was hung only in the Air for the pillar of Air incumbent on the top of the Tube is the same in both cases it is manifest against the principles of those that hold the pressure of the Atmosphere that the water in the Tube weighs its part namely one ounce and ¼ to make the weight 4 ounces and consequently that the water in the Tube is not sustained by any pressure of a Pillar of Air incumbent on the restagnant Water REMARK the Twenty fifth That also is an ingenious demonstration against the opinion of the pressure of Atmospherical Cylinders p. 175. l. 9. namely the inverting a Glass-Tube of Quicksilver suppose of a diameter of 9. such parts as the Vessels diameter of restagnant Quick-silver is 10. so that it may be apparent that the Rim or round superficies of the restagnant Mercury in the Vessel is not a full fourth part of the area of the Mercurial Cylinder in the Tube and yet the Mercury in the Tube will be sustained as in other cases Which therefore cannot be from the pressure of the Air on the restagnant Mercury the superficies thereof being less than one fourth part to the area of the Cylinder of Mercury REMARK the Twenty sixth And this last Instance surely is no wise to be contemned That the Torricellian experiment will succeed as well in a great Receiver as in the open Air when-as notwithstanding there can be no Atmospherical column on the restagnant Mercury in the Receiver nor is there any refuge here to the elasticity of the Air p. 186. because that supposes the Gravitation thereof which has been so plainly disproved by the Authour not only by these last Experiments but in his 6. Chapter and particularly by the two Brass Cylinders weighed in water of Diameters of a double proportion one to another and the one side of a quadruple to the other For things being so contrived that a column of Air of two inches diameter press on the one and not a quarter of an inch diameter on the other the Cylinders yet shall be equiponderant in the water The Experiment there has a threefold improvement and the very first strong enough considering there is no elasticity or rebounding in the water see p. 75. l. 4. though the Authour phansie there is and that equal weights pressed by unequal force the stronger must prevail And moreover if this elasticity of the Air were admitted he does not unskilfully urge that every part of the included Air does act so equally in a manner against every part every way that there is a suspension of the pressure any way to any effect c. p. 194. l. 23. Upon Chapter the Thirteenth REMARK the Twenty seventh THat Experiment also of the Bottle and the Bolts-head is notably levelled against the elasticity of the Air p. 196. l. 22. That a Bolts-head soundly heated and placed upon a Glass-bottle with some fix ounces of water in
it which may fill it about half full but not so closely luted but that some Air though but at a pins hole may come in the water in the Bottle will be wholly drawn up into the Bolts-head But if the Bolts-head were hastily so closed that no Air could enter into it some water would indeed rise as far as into the shank of the Bolts-head but the whole water would not ascend into the Bolts-head as before it did which says this Learned Authour is a plain argument against that huge elasticity of the Air that some imagine For no fresh Air being let in by this strict closure the force of the rarefied Air in the Bolts-head is more entire and as he conceives the attraction more powerful to raise the water as before if there were any thing near that elasticity in the common Air that is imagined there that it can expand it self into 40 times a larger space if need be nor would the weight says he of the interposed water be too great for the Elatery of the Air in this case to drive it up so high as before since in a close Receiver it is able according to their opinion to thrust and keep up a column of Mercury to 29 inches high possibly of a pound weight or more Why therefore if there were any such forcible Elatery of the Air cannot it thrust up 5 or 6 ounces of water about 5 or 6 inches high into the Bolts-head which is rationally argued against that huge elasticity of the Air. But as for the Authours own solution of this Problem from Tension and Attraction I am as little satisfied with as he with their elastacity and am reminded of that saying in Pliny Quid mirabilius esse potest aquis in coelo stantibus But the same miracle is in the Bolts-head neither of which I can resolve into any meaner Principle than that which I call the Hylarchical or Hylostatical Spirit of the world As for that of Tension we shall consider in Chap. 14 and 15. Upon Chapter the Fourteenth REMARK the Twenty eighth HEre the Learned Authour does declare himself that all those experiments which the Virtuosi would give an account of from the pressure and elasticity of the Air p. 203. are plainly performed by suction and Attraction of the Air when put under a greater Tension or Rarefaction which I must confess I am much concerned to examine how true it is in reference to what I have writ of the experiment of the weight hung at the Embolus of the Air-pump in my Enchiridium Metaphysicum On which therefore I may touch something in this Chapter but more fully discover the mistake of this opinion in the next where the Learned Authour pretends to deliver the true cause of the suspension of the Mercury in the Torricellian Experiment REMARK the Twenty ninth That the Mercury in the Torricellian Experiment p. 203. l. 12. will fall 2 or 3 inches as it shall be placed at the bottom of an hill or at the top of the hill or upon the change of weather is reasonable to me because of the different consistency of the Air which abounds more or less with the materia subtilissima and so can more easily transmit it through the pores of the Glass with less violence done to its consistence Which very experiment methinks to me is an argument against the opinion of Tension and subtil parts coming from the Mercury it self for then it were all one in what weather or where the Glass were placed But the Mercury subsiding in clearer and colder weather in higher places on the top of the hills where the Air is not so much stuft with vapours it is plain this change depends on the more easie entrance of the materia subtilissima through the pores of the Glass and that the consistency of Air is not so strong there but a lesser weight will break it than in a thicker REMARK the Thirtieth That upon a strong exhaustion in the Air-pump a dry Bladder well tyed and blown moderately full is broken as likewise Glass-bubbles c. That a Bladder the greatest part of its air squeezed out and the neck tied very close and a weight fastned to it and put into a large Glass filled with water to be placed on the Air-pump and then covered with a large Receiver well luted to the Pump the Air pumped out of the large Receiver this Bladder below the water would swell till by continuing the pumping it will be full blown And lastly that Water Spirit of Wine c. will be raised to run out of a Glass and that Bubbles will be formed at the bottom of an included Glass of Water in such a great Receiver so that all is put into a various agitation All this the Learned Authour resolves into the Tension of the rarefied Air in the Receiver Which I must again confess I am as little satisfied with as he is with their elasticity of the Air nor do I think either of them true but this I think that in the Bladders and Glass-bubbles that break there is a stronger agitation of the parts of the Air and that it is that which materially acts against the inward-sides of the Glass-bubbles and Bladders not the exteriour matter by attraction but there is a furious agitation of the interiour which is not from any former elasticity but which it acquires pro re nata as furious winds are raised in the North in the great world upon dissolution of aqueous particles of the clouds which furious and rapid motion it is impossible for them to acquire from mere heat but from some higher principle and the same principle I suppose to act here being raised into a fierce or quick activity to reduce the matter in the exhausted Receiver as near as it could to a consistency more sutable to the rest of the Air at this pitch from the Earth but there is no heat in the Bladder or Glass-bubles or in the Receiver that can so furiously agitate the matter in them and that here is such a boiling agitation and bubling in water spirit of Wine c. it is a plain indication that these things happen not by way of tension but of excitation and a furious dispersion of the parts to thicken as much as may be the whole matter in the Receiver that is so highly thin above the measure of matter so near the Earth and amidst our crass Air. Not to speak of other things that may be alledged which I shall reserve for the ensuing Chapter REMARK the Thirty first As for that Experiment in Regius it is very improperly brought in p. 212. l. 21. for such an attraction as our Authour stands for namely such as is made upon this kind of Rarefaction and Tension For there is not the least pretence to any Rarefaction or Tension of this kind in that experiment but only a circle of motion in the Air The mouth draws in the air into the thorax by one part
of a Tobacco-pipe and the thorax being distended presses the external Air which find its way into the other Tobacco-pipe lighted with Tobacco in it the smaller end immersed into the water and through the water the air and smoke passes and continues its course till it come into the other piece of a Tobacco-pipe which though it passes the close cover of the Vial yet does not pass into the water it self but falls short of it and so getting into that piece of a Tobacco-pipe after it has passed through the water and got into the Air betwixt the cover of the Glass and water it goes into the Tobacconists mouth and so completes the whole Circle but here is not one jot of Tension or Rarefaction of the Air all this time but only of the Tobacco which is turned into a fume But that all the parts of the water to the very bottom of it and the granules of Sand lying at the bottom of the water are put into a tumultuary motion that is no wonder when-as the Air and smoke are forced to find their way through the water and may a little illustrate and facilitate the conception of the true reason of those tumults and agitations of water and the spirit of wine above mentioned observed in the exhausted Receiver namely because a more subtil and active element came in through the pores of the Glass as the hurry of the Tobacco-fume and Air through the water in this last experiment and that they had a more than ordinary excitation in them from the moving Principle for the reasons above specified but that Tension has nothing to do in these things I shall further confirm upon what occurrs in the following Chapters Upon Chapter the Fifteenth REMARK the Twenty second In this Chapter the Learned Authour lays down the true cause as he conceives of the suspension of the Mercury in the Glass-Tube in the Torricellian experiment and he takes occasion to speak of three kinds thereof but I shall take notice only of one and that the chief of them in which if I plainly discover his mistake I suppose there will be no controversie touching the other two This experiment then is when a Tube suppose of four foot long is filled full of Quick-silver and so inverted and immitted into a vessel of restagnant Quick-silver upon which the Mercury in the Glass-Tube will descend to 29 inches and an half and leave about 18 inches in the Tube destitute of Mercury The reason of this Phaenomenon the Authour gives to be this The expression and ascension of some mercurial vapours or particles at large forced up by the agitation and pression of the parts of the Mercury and withal their Tension that they may be able to fill so great a space as the 18 inches of the Tube devoid of the body of Mercury This is his solution of this Problem But the Reasons upon which this solution is built are not sufficiently firm For first He supposes no Aëreal particles passing through the Mercury to get into the derelicted space of the Tube that it must necessarily be the effluvia of the Mercury it self that ascends when-as by the 3. and 4. part of my first Remark there are such subtil parts in the Air that they penetrate the pores of the Glass And then secondly For the pression and agitation of the parts of the Mercury the pression of Fluids on Fluids of the same kind is nothing in a manner and the agitation observed might be much diminished if not wholly prevented by a leasurely oblique immission of the Tube and so by degrees bringing it to a perpendicular whence there would be either no mercurial effluvia raised or else the copiousness of them so varied accordingly as they shall take heed to prevent the tumultuary agitation that the suspension of the Mercury will not be the same at all times but sometimes lower sometimes higher Nor is that lucta in the Mercury from the endeavouring of Nature to give Tension to the effluvia but betwixt the weight of the column of Mercury and the resistency of the consistence of the compressible Air. Nor lastly will that experiment of the Quick-silver so forcibly rising against the top of the Tube if it be suddenly lifted up prove any such Lute-string-like Tension in the supposed effluvia For in this case there is that which this Learned Authour admits of both phrase and thing that is Gravitatio sursum and upon the more sudden plucking up the Tube the consistence of the Air not letting in the subtil Element and there being no vacuum any where nor penetration of dimensions the Air is driven upon the restagnant Quick-silver and the restagnant Quick-silver into the mouth of the Tube and so is as it were a flux of water into a far straiter Channel and therefore it must there proportionably run the swifter And this swift motion in so heavy a body as Mercury must needs be the stronger and more peremptory coming against so thin a body as that subtil matter in the Tube even to the danger of breaking it So that the whole is as it were a quick Gravitation sursum by a circle of motion against that thin Element at the upper end of the Tube Which plainly shows that there is no ground for Tension there being such reason for Circumpulsion And thus I have shown the groundlesness of his Reasons but in the next Chapter I shall discover the repugnancy of his assertion Upon Chapter the Sixteenth REMARK the Thirty third In this Chapter he sets down the two suppositions he holds necessary for the maintaining of his former solution of the Torricellian Phaenomenon The first is that there is no vacuum in Nature The second that thin or subtil bodies are capable of Tension and of attraction and strong adhaesion to other bodies and cohaesion of one part to another as in a Lute-string as is his familiar illustration saving that in a Lute-string the Tension one way straitens it another way and makes the Lute-string narrower but here the Tension and Cohaesion is every way at once As for the first that there is no vacuum it is granted which makes his denial of the passing of any aërial parts or particles in the Air through the Glass or Mercury repugnant to his own supposed principle For it being plain that the immersion of the Tube may be made so obliquely and leasurely as neither to press out nor fridge out any mercurial effluvia it follows there would be a vacuum or if some few should arise what would they do when the top of the Tube is like a Bolts-head containing the capacity of many pounds of Mercury there must be a vacuum or such a Tension of those few effluvia that I should think it would exceed all belief in the very Authour himself But let this go There is enough in what remains utterly to destroy this Hypothesis of the Authour I mean these two things comprized in the second member mere Tension
as one body with the water he attributing the suspension of the water in both to the attraction of the rarefied Air. But that Hypothesis being so fully confuted by me I am more sollicitous in these instances to give an handsom account of the jointly weighing of the Tube and Mercury of the Tube and Water and of the Glass and 〈◊〉 each of them as one joint 〈◊〉 than of confuting what is already confuted And the case I conceive stands thus By the Hylostatick laws of the Vniverse it is that heavy bodies will even press upwards as light upon heavy and jointly both against a far lighter though there be an heavy body betwixt which I a little above noted in the resiliency of the Quick-silver against the top of the Tube Now as there the Air and restagnant Quick-silver gravitated against the subtil matter in the top of the Tube through the column of Quick-silver in the Tube so the Air and Water gravitate both in the Tube and Drinking-glass against the rarefied Air therein it being thinner than the common Air and ascended in each so far according to Hylostatick laws As I doubt not but that if a whole Tube of such subtil matter as is at the top in the Torricellian experiment could be had and were inverted into restagnant Mercury the Mercury would be seen to ascend to 29 inches in the Tube as the water is seen to ascend in the Beer-glass and Tube In all which cases both the Mercury and Water ascend by a Libration which this Authour calls a Gravitation upwards and are held there by the same Law at such a gage and not by attraction or suspension But how then will you say does the Tube and Mercury the Tube and Water the Beer-glass and Water weigh each of them together as one joint body 'T is a considerable Problem but I answer The same Hylostatick Principle that thus librates them which is the Spirit of Nature does also but with a vincible and mutable union unite them For both motion and union is from Spirit as I have showed in my Enchiridium Metaphysicum And from hence it will be easily understood how when with the hand p. 247. l. 12. you lift up the Beer-glass towards the superficies of the restagnant water the water included will arise with it much above the superficies of the external water Which though it be not by that monstrous Elastick pressure of the Air that some are for yet it is by a Gravitation of the Air upon the water and of the water upwards and both of them jointly against the rarefyed Air in the Concave of the Glasse So little need is there of any Tension but merely of this Hylostatick Libration REMARK the Thirty seventh The Learned Authour p. 248. l. 16. speaks of the power and efficacy of the Laws of Nature in colligating strictly parts of the most distantial Textures and Consistencies without the help of Vellicles Hooks or Grappers or Atomi hamatae and p. 238. he says and that very truly and eloquently That all the men in the world can never give any satisfactory Reason why the motion of a Stone is downwards to the Earth more than to the Moon but only Nature that is the principium motûs quietis or rather the God of Nature whose standing and statuminated Law Nature is has so odered it and ordered it so in the best way for the use beauty and accommodation of the Vniverse Wherein he does plainly declare that the laws of Nature are not mechanical which if they be not they must be vital and if they be vital Laws what is the immediate Fountain next to God and subject in which this life is or this principium motûs quietis Is it a substance distinct from matter or is it an essential power or modification of matter it self For every thing is either substance or modification of substance If these Laws of Nature be an essential power or modification of matter matter is self-moving and is also herself-orderer even to the expression of all those curious footsteps of the Divine Wisdom in the Creation which is most apertly against Aristotle whom our Learned Authour has no mean respect for and who expresly gives only passivity to matter but derives activity from another Principle This is his frequent doctrine And then which is still worse it confounds the nature of Body and Spirit the motive and unitive power being immediately and originally in Spirit but the moveable and unitable in matter But if these vital Laws in Nature that conduce to the good of the Universe be not essential to the matter and act from it it remains there is a Spirit of Nature to which they are essential which is the mover and moderatour of the matter which wants no Vellicles Hooks or Grappers to hold those parts of matter together that are to be held or while they are to be held together nor Chissels to loose them as the Laws of Nature shall require This this Learned Authour seems to be assured a Spirit is capable of by the union of his Soul and Body and it is a wonder to me being we consist of those two Principles that the Genius of the Age is so generally such that they take all their measures of Philosophizing from their corporeal part none from their Spiritual as if they had forgot they had any such or were utterly unacquainted with its faculties or as if their entire personal compages were nothing else but a certain modified mass of Philosophizing matter But that mere matter should so peremptorily hold together without those Atomi hamatae the Epicureans talk of would be to me a greater wonder than that they should with them but that there remains the same wonder still how the parts of the Atomi hamatae hold together for Physical parts they must have or else they could have no figure Upon Chapter the Seventeenth REMARK the Thirty eighth OUR Learned Author p. 251. l. 12. resolves the close sticking together of two smoothed Marbles with a weight hung at the lowermost into Fuga vacui for as much as if there should be a parallel divulsion of them there would be some time motion not being in an instant before the interiour distance could be supplyed with matter Which therefore would cause a Vacuum in Nature Which no question Nature does abhor from and which might be without any Logical Repugnancy there being so plainly an Extensum every where distinct from matter as I have abundantly demonstrated in my Enchiridium Metaphysicum did not the Laws of Nature oppose it But we must note also that Fuga vacui is but the final Cause but those that slight this solution seek after an efficient Cause and here again we must either make matter self-moving and self-uniting or self-fixing or else we must have recourse to the Spirit of Nature and its Hylostatick Laws whereby it governs the matter and whereby indeed it holds the whole compages of the world
contrived Pump p. 293 294. will require some few more Remarks and then we shall have done The Orifice B being luted up the Embolus was raised but not with equal facility as it was when it was open the reason whereof the Learned Authour resolves into the violent Tension every elevation of the Embolus gives to the Air in the upper Cavity of the Glass that it may thereby be able to supply the place of the water drawn up by the Pump But I conceive it is to be resolved into the strength of the consistency of the Air without which without some violence will not suffer the materia subtilis to be squeezed out of it into the Cavity of the Glass So that there wants no Tension for the making up this Phaenomenon REMARK the Forty second The Glass-bottle A B C holding 5 quarts of water and first freely by pumping being evacuated of 2 ½ the Orifice at B after being luted close a quart more with much ado was pumped out so that there was but one and 1 2 left into which notwithstanding the Pipe of the Pump did reach But after this be the Embolus never so often listed up not a drop of water comes But the Air only says our Authour included in the Pump is rarefied by lifting up the Embolus and condensated by depressing it Which very experiment methinks should be a sufficient confutation of this kind of rarefaction and condensation as if one mans strength were able to cause so monstrous a thing as Penetration of dimensions see Remark 1. part 6 7. Nor is the reason of no more water coming because the Air is now tended to the utmost that such a strength of the pulling up the Embolus can extend it but it is from the greater firmness or obsistency of the external Air whose strength is invigorated by the Hylostatick spirit of the world against that unfit constitution of having already so much subtil matter misplaced as in the Magdeburg Hemispheres besides that it were against the Hylostatick laws that so heavy a body as water should shoot up so high into so extreme thin a body as that subtil matter in the Glass and that without any fresh Air succeeding thereinto or extreme heat preceeding And I do not question but that if the Torricellian experiment were made under water the Quick-silver in the Tube would stand hugely much higher than it does now in the Air. And therefore that consideration may have also its weight in this Phaenomenon But it is apparent there is no need of any Tension in these Problems there being subtil matter to supply its room And yet for this subtil matter if the motions of the parts of the Air were wholly mechanical and not vital we can find no reason but that the force of the Embolus that at first pumping overcame the consistence of the Air should not overcome it still that Glassful of subtil matter being nothing to that Ocean of it in the Air. So evident every way is our Hypothesis of an Hylarchick Principle REMARK the Forty third Moreover the Embolus reaching near H and being elevable near to the top of the Laton Syringe or Pump the Air if we can gather any thing from the figure of the Instrument and its proportions is upon the elevation of the Embolus to its full height stretched in the Pump so when-as the Tension of the Air in the Cavity of the Glass occupies a space to what it did before but in the proportion of 7 to 5. as to occupy a space that is to its former at least as 5 to 1. which is a greater sign that there is no such Tension For if there were the Air in the Cavity of the Glass that is but tended as 7 to 5. would receive more Tension and so make the water ascend than that in the Pump should be so overproportionately tended And consequently that the water is not suspended in a Pump by Tension nor made to ascend to such an height by that means but by Gravitation-upwards either upon an actual misplacement of the subtiler Element or upon the imminent danger thereof which would be if the water receded therefore it goes up till such an height or measure the Air and Water above the bottom of the Pump gravitating upwards not being so much crowded by reason of impenetrability of matter as conducted and vitally moved by the Hylarchick Principle in this Gravitation-upwards The force whereof is according to the solidity of the Elements that thus gravitate And hence also may emerge a reason why in this case not one drop of water comes upon the elevation of the Embolus namely because the Gravitation of the rarefied Air in the Cavity of the Glass added to the restagnant water above the Orifice of the Pipe by reason of the tenuity of the one and small quantity of the other is too weak to raise or sustain a pillar of water in the Pipe that would reach up into the Pump and so no water comes REMARK the Forty fourth But now upon supposition that the Pump were longer p. 297. I. penult or that there were a strong external heat applied to the superiour Air in the Glass if the water in that case would be as easily raised as at the first as our Authour affirms In the first way it must be when the Pump is so long that the space the subtil matter occupies there upon the pulling up the Embolus is larger than that it occupies in the Glass or the matter rather more subtile And in the second the reason might be that the application of this heat changes the vital energy that is that peremptory firmness and obsistency I spoke of before into a more relaxate operation as I noted in the Magdeburg-Hemispheres But I am not certain that either way will find success But certain I am upon no account of Tension and Restitution it will be if success answer expectation REMARK the Forty fifth The Learned Authour collects out of the experiments of his Pump p. 298. I. 16. That the Gravitation or pressure of the external Air is not the cause of raising the water in a Pump and as touching that springie Atmospherical way his collection I conceive is true but I said above and here again repeat That the raising of water and the suspension of it in a Pump is by a circular pressure and Gravitation of the Air and Water incumbent on the superficies of water that the bottom of the Pump is on which jointly gravitates upward with the water ascending in the Pump as I above declared the Air and Quick-silver gravitates upward in regard of that subtil Element in the top of the Tube and here the Air and Water gravitate upwards that there may be no bare subtil matter in the Pump to the disorder of the Universe which gravitation of Air and Quick-silver and of Air and Water upwards is not as I said by any crouding or gravitating part upon part