ancient bounds so as to conceive that whatever | contracted, since they do not fill their own mea

was situated above the moon was the same with
the moon itself, or whether he thought that an
opposing power ascended higher. But he held
a portion of the earth (which is the seat of an
opposite nature) to be in the same way quite of
an unmixed and solid nature, and impenetrable
by heavenly influences. But he considered that
there was no reason for inquiring into the nature
of that portion, only that it was endowed with
these four natures, cold, darkness, density, and
rest, and those perfect, and no way impaired.
But he assigns to the generation of things the
part of the earth toward its surface as a kind of
bark or incrustation, and that all the entities
which have come to our knowledge in any way,
even the heaviest, hardest, and the lowest down,
metals, stones, the sea, are produced from the
earth, subdued in some part by the heat of the
heaven, and which has already conceived some-
what of heat, radiation, tenuity, and mobility, and
which partakes of a middle nature between the
sun and the pure earth. It is requisite, therefore,
that pure earth be placed lower than the bottom
of the sea, than minerals, and every thing that is
generated: and that from that pure earth, even to
the moon, or perhaps higher, there be placed a
certain middle nature, proceeding from the tem-
peraments and refractions of the heaven and earth.
But having sufficiently fortified the interior of both
kingdoms, he proceeds to the march and to the
war. For in the space within the outermost
region of heaven and the innermost of earth, is all
kind of tumult, and conflict, and horror; as it is
with empires, the borders of which are infested
with incursions whilst the interior provinces enjoy
profound peace. That so these natures with their
concretions have the power of incessantly gene-
rating and multiplying themselves, and of pour-
ing themselves on every side, and of occupying
the whole bulk of nature, and of mutually op-
posing and invading each other, and of casting
one the other from their proper seats, and of
establishing themselves in them; that they also
have the power of another nature and its actions,
both those that are proper to perception and appre-
hension, and that from this kind of perception
they have the power of moving and adjusting
themselves; and that from this conflict is deduced
the whole variety of all entities, actions, and
influences. But it seems elsewhere to have
ascribed to it, though rather by the way and
hesitatingly, somewhat of the property of matter;
first, that it should not admit of increase or dimi-
nution through forms and active entities, but
should be made up of one whole: then, that the
motion of gravity or descent should be referred to
it. He moreover inserts something on the black-
ness of matter: but that he does plainly; that
heat and cold by the same force and power remit
their strength in extended matter expand it in

sure, but that of matter. But Telesius devises a
method by which to explain the rise of so various
a fecundity of entities out of this discord. And
first he has regard to the earth, though the inferior
element, and shows why it is that it has not been
and never will be absorbed and destroyed by the
sun. The chief reason he makes to be the im-
mense distance of the earth from the fixed stars,
sufficiently great from the sun itself, and such
as it should be, well proportioned in measure.
Secondly, the declination of the sun's rays from
the perpendicular, respect being had to the different
parts of the earth, that for instance the sun should
never be vertically above the greater part of the
earth, or the falling of his rays perpendicular; so
that it can never occupy the whole globe of the
earth with any very powerful body of heat.
Thirdly, the obliquity of the sun's motion in its
passage through the zodiac, respect being had to
the same parts of the earth whence the heat of the
sun, in whatever power it is, is not incessantly
increased, but returns by greater intervals.
Fourthly, the celerity of the sun in respect of his
diurnal motion, which accomplishes so great a
course in so small a space of time, whence arises
a less delay of heat, nor is there any moment of
time in which the heat may settle. Fifthly, the
continuation of series of bodies between the sun
and the earth; so that the sun does not send forth
an unbroken power of heat through a vacuum, but
passing through so many resisting bodies, and
having to do and to contend with each, is weak-
ened over this immense space; and so much the
more, since the further it proceeds and the weaker
it becomes, so much the more increase of resist-
ance does it find in the bodies, and most of all
after arriving at the surface of the earth, where
there seems not only a resistance, but even some
degree of repulsion. And he thus lays down his
theory on the process of change. That there is
as it were a deadly and interminable war, and
that those contrary natures do not come together
by any compact, nor by a third, excepting primi-
tive matter. That either nature, therefore, natu-
rally seeks the destruction of the other, and the
putting into matter itself, and our nature only, so
that it is the object of each (as he repeatedly and
very plainly saith) to effect a change of the other,
of the sun, the change of the earth into the sun;
and of the earth, the change of the sun into the
earth; and that the regularity and justly propor-
tioned motions of all things present no obstacle to
this theory; nor that every action has in its due
course its beginning, its progress, its increase, its
diminution, and its rest: that, nevertheless, not
any of these happen through the laws of order,
but entirely through want of restraint and order;
for that the whole difference, whether of excess or
inferiority in influence and action, is not occasioned
by the direction of the effort of the motion itself.

(which begets a whole,) but from the force and curb of the opposite nature. That the diversity, multiplicity, and even perplexity of operation is owing altogether to one of these three; the power of heat, the arrangement of the matter, or the mode of its reduction: which three have, nevertheless, an inherent and mutual connexion and causality. That heat itself differs in power, quantity, speed, mean, and succession: that succession itself is varied in most bodies by tendency to approach or recede, whether by greater or less effort, by sudden motion, by gradual, or by return or repetition through greater and less intervals, and by changes of this kind. That calorics are, therefore, of a vast diversity in their nature and power, according to their purity and impurity, respect being had to their first source, the sun. Nor does heat cherish every kind of heat: but after they differ mutually a good number of degrees, they mutually destroy themselves not less than cold natures, and assume their peculiar powers of action, and are opposed to the acts the one of the other; so that Telesius makes the less with respect to the much greater caloric natures to hold the place as it were of traitors and conspirators with the cold against them. And so that vivid heat, which is in fire and darts, utterly destroys that slight heat which seems to glide secretly in water; and in like manner the preternatural heat of putrid humours, suffocates and extinguishes natural heat: but that there is a great difference as to the fulness of a body of heat, is too plain to need explanation. For one or two coals of fire do not throw out such a warmth as many do together; and that the effect of the fulness of heat is remarkably shown in the multiplication of the sun's heat through the reflection of his rays; for the number of his rays is doubled through simple reflection, multiplied though various. But to the quantity or copiousness of heat, there should be ascribed or added also its union, which is best seen by the obliquity and perpendicular of rays, with which the nearer the direct and reflex ray meets, and toward the acuter angles, the greater degree of heat it sends forth in proportion. Nay, even the sun himself, when amongst those greater and more potent fires of the fixed stars, the Serpent, the Dogstar, Spica, emit greater heat. But that the delay of heat is evidently an operation of the greatest moment, since all the influences of nature have respect to times, so as that some time is required to the putting its influences into action, and a considerable time to the giving them strength. That so the delay of heat turns equal heat into progressive and unequal, because the antecedent and subsequent heat is joined at the same time; that that is apparent in the autumnal heats, because they are perceived to be more ardent in the solstitial heats, and in the afternoons of summer, because they are found to be more ardent in the middays of those seasons;

also, that in colder regions the feebleness of the heat is sometimes compensated by the delay and length of the summer days; but that the power and efficacy of the mean is remarkable in the conveyance of heat. For that hence, the temperature of the seasons is very various, so that the atmosphere is found, by an inconstancy that is discoverable, to be sometimes cold in summer days, sometimes moist in winter days, the sun in the mean while preserving his legitimate course and ordinary distance; that the corn and vine are more changed by the south winds and a stormy sky; and that the whole position and emission of the atmosphere, at one time pestilential and morbid, at another genial and healthful, according to the various revolutions of the year, has its rise from this, namely, from the varying of the medium of the air, which gathers its diverse disposition from the very vicissitude and alteration of the seasons, perhaps in a long series. But that, as there is a multifold ratio, so is there a very great virtue of the succession of heat, and of the order in which heat follows heat. For that the sun could not send out so numerous and prolific a generation, unless the configuration of the body of the sun moving toward the earth, and the parts of the earth, were a partaker of the very great inequality and variation; for the sun is moved both in a circle and rapidly, and obliquely, and recalls itself, so as to be both absent and present, both nearer and more remote, and more perpendicular and more oblique, and returning swifter and slower, so as that the heat emanating from the sun is never the same, nor ever recovers itself in a little while, (excepting under the tropics;) so that so great a variation of the power generating admirably agrees with this so great variation in that which is generated. To which can be added the very diverse nature of the medium or vehicle. That the other circumstances asserted of the inequality and degrees of heat alone, can be referred to the vicissitudes and varieties of succession in different heats. That Aristotle, therefore, rightly attributed the generation and corruption of things to the oblique path of the sun, making that as it were their efficient cause, if he had not indeed corrupted the truth he discovered, through his unbounded rage for uttering decisions and of making himself the lawgiver of nature, and of adapting and of settling all things so as to make them harmonize with his dogmas. For that he ought to have assigned generation and corruption (which is never entirely privative, but is productive of a second generation) to the inequality of the sun's heat, according to the whole that is of the approaching and receding of the sun jointly, not the generation to the approaching, the corruption to the receding separately, which he did, blunderingly and following the vulgar error. But if any should think it strange that the generation of things is attributed to the sun, when it is

asserted that the sun is fire, but fire generates rience does not furnish us with any certain deduc

nothing, this, saith he, is a groundless objection: for that which is asserted respecting a heterogeneous nature of the heats of the sun and of fire, is a mere fantasy. For that the operations are infinite in which the action of the sun and the action of fire come together, as in the ripening of fruits, the conservation of tender plants, and of those which are used to a clement temperature; in cold regions, in the hatching of eggs, the restoration of waters to their clearness, (for we join the solar and animal heat,) in the resuscitation of frozen animalculæ, in the calling of them up, and of vapours and the like. But, nevertheless, that our fire is a bad imitator, and does not well imitate the actions of the sun or come near them, since the sun's heat hath three properties, which common fire can but poorly imitate under any circumstances. First, that from its distance it is less and more bland in its very degree; but that this of a kind imitable in some way; for such a measure of heat is rather unknown than unattainable. Secondly, that in flowing and increasing through so many and such

tions respecting it. We have, therefore, our common fire, the representative, as it were, of the sun, to show to us the nature of heat. But there is no substitution of the cold of the earth, within man's reach, for the trying experiments with. For that those hardenings and congealings of snow which, in winter and in cold regions, breathe themselves out into air from the globe and circuit of the earth, are plainly warmths and baths, owing to the nature of the first cold shut up in the bowels of the earth; so that the cold, which is in the power and under the perception of men, is something like as if they had no other heat than that which emanates from the sun in summer, and in warm regions; which, if compared with the fire of a heated furnace, may be deemed a refreshing coolness. But I shall take up less time upon those things that are pretended on this subject. We will inquire, therefore, in order into the nature of what Telesius has asserted respecting the arrangement of matter upon which heat acts; the power of which is such as to advance, impede, or

media it borrows, and obtains a considerable | change the action itself of heat. The ratio of this

degree of generative influence; but chiefly because it is increased, lessened, advances or retires with so regular an inequality, but never succeeds to itself capriciously or with haste. Which two last properties are almost inimitable by fire, though the thing may be accomplished by very considerate and laborious measures. Such are the assertions of Telesius on the diversity of heats.

He esteems ita

is fourfold. The first difference is taken from the
preinexistent or nonpreinexistent heat; the second
from the abundance or the scarcity of the matter;
the third from the degrees of the reduction; the
fourth from the closing or opening of the body re-
duced. As for the first, Telesius supposes in all
entities known to us, that there exists a certain
latent heat, though not subject to the touch, which
heat is joined with a new or overspreading heat;
moreover, that itself is excited and inflamed by
the same adventitious heat to the performing its
acts even in its proper measure.
considerable proof of this, that there is no one en-
tity, neither metal, stone, water, nor air, which
does not acquire warmth by touch, and also by the
application of fire or of a warm body. Which
would not surely be the case, unless there were a
preinexistent heat of a certain latent preparation
for a new and manifest heat. That even that ex-
cess or diminution, or facility and slowness, which
are found in the conceiving of heat in entities,
agrees with the measure of the preinexistent heat;
that the air grows warm by a small heat, and such
as is quite imperceptible in an aqueous body;
also that water is more easily endued with warmth
than a stone, or metal, or glass. For that any of
these, as a metal or a stone, should appear to ac-
quire warmth sooner than water, that is, only on
the surface, not within the body, because consis-
tent bodies are less communicable in their parts
than liquids. That, therefore, the outermost parts
of a metal are sooner warmed than those of water,
the whole bulk later. The second difference is
made to depend upon the coacervation and exten-
sion of matter. If it be dense, the strength of the
heat is more united, and through the union in

But he scarcely takes any notice of the contrary principle of cold and of its distribution; except perhaps what will be now said in the second place on the disposition of matter, might seem to him to suffice upon this head, which, nevertheless, he ought not to have supposed, since it was not his mind to make cold by any means the privation of heat, but as an active principle its rival and competitor. But his dissertations on the arrangement of matter go to show how matter is affected by heat, subdued or changed by it, the subject of cold being entirely overlooked. But I will add what he could, on his principles, have said respecting this subject, for it is my desire to go through, and with impartiality, the theories and suppositions of all the philosophers. He could have said that the seat of cold, being fixed and unmoved, most admirably agreed with the mobile and versatile structure of heat, as the anvil to the hammer. For if both principles were possessed of variation and change, they would doubtless produce contrary and momentaneous entities. That the immense regions of heat, (that is, the heavens,) moreover, were in some degree compensated by the compact nature of the globe of the earth and circumjacent bodies, since not the space, but the quantity of matter in the space, is taken into the account, but that the nature of cold, its powers and proportions need but few words, since expe-creased and made more intense; if, on the other

•

hand it be looser, the strength is more dispersed, reckoned as the limits of the means. But, beand through the dispersion weakened. That the sides these simple degrees, he searches out a heat, therefore, of unknown metals is more power- great diversity in the arrangement of matter ful than of boiling water, nay, than of flame itself, according to the similarity or dissimilarity of the unless that the flame would, from its subtile na- body, since portions of matter compounded and ture, pierce more. For that the flame of coals or united in one body can be referred equally either of fuel, unless roused by wind, so as through mo- to one of the beforementioned degrees, or unetion to penetrate more easily, is not very violent; qually to different. For that a very great differnay, that some flame (as of spirit of wine, espe-ence follows thence in the operation of heat. cially if inflamed, and in a small quantity and And that so a fourth difference is necessarily

dispersed) is of so mild a heat, as to be endurable by the hand. The third difference, which is taken from the reduction of matter, is manifold; for he makes seven degrees of reduction, of which the first is milder, which is the arrangement of matter, showing the body in some degree yielding to greater violence, and especially susceptible of extension, in fine, flexible or ductile. The second is softness, when there is no need of greater force, but the body yields even by a light impulsion and to the touch, or the hand itself, without any apparent resistance. The third is viscosity or tenacity, which is in a high degree the principle of fluidity. For a viscous body seems to begin to flow and go on at the contact and embrace of another body, and not to come to an end of itself, although it does not flow willingly and of itself; for the fluid easily follows itself, but is more viscous with respect to another body. The fourth is the fluid itself, when the body partaking of the interior spirit is in willing motion and follows itself, and is not easily bounded or brought to a stand. The fifth is vapour, when a body is attenuated till it becomes intangible, which yields, flows, undulates, and becomes tremulous, with a

brought in from the nature and even position of a body upon which heat acts, whether close or porous and open. For when heat operates in an open and exposed situation, it does so in order and severally, by attenuating and at the same time by drawing out and separating. But when in a confined and compact body, it operates in the mass, not putting out any heat, but by the new and the old heat uniting and conspiring, whence it follows that it causes more powerful, intrinsic, and subtle alterations and reductions. But more will be said on this subject when we come to treat of the method of reduction. But in the meanwhile Telesius is fully occupied, and is strangely put to it to account for the method of the divorce and separation of their primary connatural qualities, heat, light, tenuity, and mobility, and the four opposite qualities, as they happen to be in bodies: since some bodies are found to be warm or admirably prepared to receive warmth, and yet to be at the same time dense, motionless, and dark; others are found to be subtle, mobile, lucid, or white, and yet cold; and so of the rest, one certain quality, to wit, existing in some things, whilst the remaining qualities are not in accord

greater agility and mobility. The sixth is breath-ance with it, but others participate in two of ing, which is a certain vapour more concocted, these natures, but are without other two, by a

and matured, and subdued, so as to be capable of receiving the nature of fire. The seventh is the air itself, but Telesius contends that the air is endued with a native heat, and that considerable and very powerful, for that in the coldest regions the air is never congealed or condensed: and that another proof of this is, that all air that is confined and separated from the main body of air, and left to itself, evidently collects heat, as in wool and fibrous substances; and that the air in confined situations is found to suffocate respiration, which is the consequence of its heat; and that this arises from the confined air beginning to exert its own nature, since the air out of doors, and under the open sky, is cooled by the cold which the globe of the earth is constantly emitting and exhaling;

very singular exchange and intercourse. And this part Telesius does not skilfully manage, but carries himself like his opponents; who making their conjectures before their experiments, when they come to the particular subjects themselves, abuse their talents and their subjects, and wretchedly pervert both, and are yet admirably dexterous and successful, (if you believe their own words,) in whatever way they explain themselves. But he concludes the subject in despair, intimating that although the quantity and copiousness of heat and the arrangement of the matter can be marked out in a vague manner and in the mass, that yet their accurate and exact proportions and their distinct measures are out of the reach of human inquiry: yet so that (by what

and also that our common air hath a certain celestial manner is placed among the things that cannot property, since it in some degree partakes of light; be settled) the diversity of the disposition of which appears from the power of those animals matter can be better known than the strength and which can see in the night and in dark places. degrees of heat, and that yet in these very things And such, according to Telesius, is the order of is placed (if anywhere) the highest point of

the arrangement of matter, in the means, to wit, since the extremes, although on one side hard bodies, and on the other fire itself, are not

human knowledge and power. But after a plain acknowledgment of despair, he still goes further than mere wishes and prayers for more certainty

For so he said; "What heat moreover or quanti- | where Aristotle deems him deficient in acuteness, ty, that is, what strength of heat, and what and inconsistent, and impatient of the decisions

quantity of it, that is which turns, and how it turns the earth, and those things that are entities into such bodies as itself, is not to be inquired into, since we have no means of coming to this knowledge. For on what principle shall it be allowed us to distribute the strength of heat, and heat itself, as it were, into degrees, or to perceive clearly the copiousness and quantity of matter which is endowed with it, and to assign a certain quantity, disposition, and certain actions of matter to certain and determinate powers and copiousness of heat, or, on the contrary, to assign a fixed and certain copiousness of heat to a certain quantity and certain actions of matter: O, that this might be obtained by those who have both time and intellect at command adequate to this investigation, and who could, in the possession of the most perfect tranquillity, search | into nature; that mankind might not only become then masters of every kind of knowledge, but almost of every kind of power." This, indeed, is said with more honesty than is found in his opponents, who, if they cannot attain their objects, affirm that their attainment is impossible from the nature of the art or object itself, so that no art can be condemned, since itself is both pleader and judge. There remains that which was the third, namely, the method of reduction. This Telesius despatches by a threefold sentence. The first is that which we noticed by the way before, that no symbolization is understood (as in the doctrine of the Peripatetics) through which substances, by an agreement, as it were, are nourished, and act in unison: for that all generation, and every effect in a natural body, is the

And these two

of experience, in joining heat with dryness.
For that the drying of substances by heat is
accidental merely; namely in a dissimilar body,
and that is composed of some parts more thick,
of others more thin, by drawing out, and (by
means of attenuation) giving vent to the thinner
part, till the thicker part is forced thence, and
compresses itself more; which thicker part,
nevertheless, if a rather violent heat comes, flows
also of itself, as is evident in bricks: for, in the
first place, heat, not so fervent, makes the loam
into bricks on the thinner part having evaporated;
but a more powerful heat even dissolves that
bricky substance into glass.
dogmata can be considered as the answers to
errors; the third plainly affirms, and not only so,
but clearly distinguishes the method of reduction.
This is twofold, either by rejection or conversion :
and one or other of these modes is brought out
into act, according to the power of the heat, and
the arrangement of matter.
belong to this subject. The one is, that when
heat and cold concur in vast bulk, and, as it were,
with any even force, an ejection follows. For
entities, like armies, are moved from their place
and thrust forward. But when it takes place in
a less quantity, then a conversion follows: for
the entities are destroyed, and lose rather their
nature than their place. There is a remarkable
exemplification of this in the higher regions of
the air, which, although they come nearer to the
celestial heat, are yet found colder than the con-
fines of the earth. For in those regions, after
arriving nearer to the seat of the prime heat, the
heat, collecting itself, at once casts down, and

But two canons

result of victory and predominance, not of agree-thrusts off, and hinders from approach the whole

ment or treaty. This, indeed, is no new dogma, since Aristotle remarked it in the doctrine of Empedocles; for that Empedocles, indeed, though he maintains contention and amity to be the efficient principles of things, yet in his explications of causes generally makes use of their

power of the cold which had ascended. He saith that the same thing, moreover, may happen, that there may be through the depths of the earth greater heats than on the surface; to wit, after the approach to the seat of the prime cold, which rousing itself throws off the heat

contention, and seems to forget their amity. The with great force, and avoids it, and returns into second is, that heat by its own proper action its own nature. The second canon is, that in an constantly changes a substance into moisture, open body ejection in a close conversion foland that dryness by no means coalesces with lows. He asserts that this is notably instanced heat, nor moisture with cold; for that to attenuate in closed vessels, where the emission of an and to moisten is the same, and that what is attenuated body (which we commonly call spirit) extremely thin is also extremely moist; if through being restrained, begets deep and intrinsical humid be understood that which very easily alterations and fermentations in bodies; but yields, is divided into parts, again recovers itself, that this takes place in like manner when a and is with difficuty limited or made to settle. body, from its parts being compacted, is to All which are more the properties of fire than of itself like a closed vessel. Such are the opiair, which is for the most part moist, according | nions of Telesius, and, perhaps, of Parmeto the Peripatetics; and that so heat continually nides, on the elements of things, excepting draws, feeds upon, extends, inserts, and generates that Telesius added, of his own accord, Hyle, humidity; that cold, on the contrary, acts alto- through his being led astray by the Peripatetic gether on dryness, concretion, and hardness: Inotions.