and cold. Nor can any such fine argument be made upon this doctrine of Telesius, as to say, that to every natural dimension there is assigned a quantity of heat and cold, in a certain proportion; therefore it may be that although no heat and cold are added, yet if the dimensions of the material body be extended or contracted it will come to the same thing; because more or less of matter is put in the space than is proportionate to the heat and cold. Such things, though not absurd in words, are yet the suggestions of men who are always seeking some device by which they may maintain their first thought, and do not follow out the inquiry in nature and fact. For if heat and cold be added to such extended or compressed bodies, and that in a greater measure than is proportionate to the nature of the body itself (let the stretched cloth for instance be warmed by the fire), yet it will by no means restore the balance, nor extinguish the force of restitution. I have therefore now made it plain that this virtue of dimension does not depend in any notable proportion on heat or cold; although it is this very virtue which has given most authority to these principles. Next come two virtues, which are in everybody's mouth, and are spread far and wide, namely those by which bodies are carried towards the greater masses and collections of their connaturals; in the observation whereof, as in the rest, men either trifle or go quite wrong. For the common philosophy of the school holds it enough to distinguish natural from violent motion; and to assert that heavy bodies by a natural motion are borne downwards and light bodies upwards. But such speculations are of little help to philosophy. For these words, nature, art, and violence, are but compendious phrases and trifles. They ought not only to refer this motion to nature, but likewise to seek in this very motion for the particular and proper affection and appetite of the natural body. For there are a great many other natural motions arising from very different passions of things. Therefore the thing is to be propounded according to its differences. Nay, those very motions which they call violent may be said to be more according to nature than that which they call natural; if that be more according to nature which is stronger, or even which is more according to the system of the universe. For this motion of ascent and descent is not very imperious, nor even universal; but provincial as it were, and confined to certain regions; and it is moreover obedient and subject to other motions. And as for saying that heavy things move downwards and light upwards, it is the same as saying that heavy things are heavy and light light. For that which is predicated is assumed in the subject by the very force of the term. But if by heavy they mean dense and by light rare, they do advance somewhat; yet so as to arrive at an adjunct and concomitant rather than a cause. Those on the other hand who explain the appetites of heavy and light things by contending that the one are borne to the centre of the earth, and the other to the circumference and compass of the heaven, as to their proper places, certainly assert something, and likewise point towards a cause; but altogether wrongly. For place has no forces, nor is body acted on except by body; and all swift motion of a body, which seems as if it were seeking a place for itself, is really in pursuit not of location or position simply, but with reference to some other body. A DESCRIPTION OF THE INTELLECTUAL GLOBE. CHAPTER I. Division of all Human Learning into History, Poesy, and Philosophy, according to the three faculties of the mind, Memory, Imagination, and Reason: and that the same division holds good likewise in Theology; the vessel (that is, the human understanding) being the same, though the matter and the manner of conveyance be different. I ADOPT that division of human learning which corresponds to the three faculties of the understanding. Its parts therefore are three; History, Poesy, and Philosophy. History is referred to the Memory; poesy to the Imagination; philosophy to the Reason. And by poesy here I mean nothing else than feigned history. History is properly concerned with individuals; the impressions whereof are the first and most ancient guests of the human mind, and are as the primary material of knowledge. With these individuals and this material the human mind perpetually exercises itself, and sometimes sports. For as all knowledge is the exercise and work of the mind, so poesy may be regarded as its sport. In philosophy the mind is bound to things; in poesy it is released from that bond, and wanders forth, and feigns what it pleases. That this is so any one may see, who seeks ever so simply and without subtlety into the origins of intellectual impressions. For the images of individuals are received by the sense and fixed in the memory. They pass into the memory whole, just as they present themselves. Then the mind recalls and reviews them, and (which is |