And the opinions of Telesius might, indeed, mating; and so we go on to the elements of have an air of probability, if man were taken out of nature together with the mechanical arts which try matter, and if we simply looked to the fabric of the world. For it is a kind of pastoral philosophy, which tranquilly and, as it were, at ease contemplates the world. For, indeed, he is not amiss in laying down the mundane system, but niserably fails upon the subject of the elements. And there is, indeed, in his system itself, a great failure, in its being supposed capable of an eternal nature, the idea of a chaos and the mutations of the universal scheme of things being altogether omitted. For that philosophy, whether of Telesius or of the Peripatetics, or any other which so prepares and furnishes its system as not to derive it from chaos, is evidently of slight foundation, and altogether conceived from the narrowness of human imagination. For, so in entire accordance with sense doth the philosopher assert the eternity of matter, and deny that of the world, (as the world appears to us,) which was the opinion of the wisest ancients, and to which opinion Democritus seems to have approached. And this is also the testimony of Scripture; but with this great difference, that the Scriptures derive the origin of matter from God, the philosophers from itself. For, we gather from our faith three dogmas on this point; first, that matter was formed Telesius. And here I wish it had been universally and at once agreed upon, not to fetch entities out of nonentities, and elements out of nonelements, and so to fall into manifest contradiction. But an abstract element is not an ens; again, a mortal entity is not an element; so that a necessity plainly invincible drives men (if they would be consistent) to the idea of an atom, which is a true ens, having matter, form, dimension, place, antetype, motion, and emanation. It at the same time remains unshaken and eternal during the dissolution of all natural bodies. For, since there are so many and various corruptions taking place in greater bodies, it is requisite that what remains as the centre immutable, should either be a somewhat potential or very small. But it is not potential, for the first potential cannot be like the rest which are potential, which are one thing in act, another thing in power. But it is requisite that it should be plainly abstract, since it refuses all act and contains all power. And so, it remains that this immutable should be of the smallest size; unless, perchance, some one will assert that no elements exist, but that one thing serves for elements to another, that the law and order of mutation are things constant and eternal, that the essence itself is inconstant and mutable. And it would, indeed, be better plainly to make an asser from nothing; secondly, that the production tion of this sort, than, in laying down some of the system was through the word of Om-eternal principle, to fall into the still greater abnipotence, and not that matter endued itself surdity of making that principle a fantastic one. with form and of itself came forth from chaos; thirdly, that before the fall that form was the best of those which matter (such as it was created) could take: but to none of these dogmas could these philosophical theories ascend. For they shudder at the thoughts of a creation from nothing, and deem that this form of things was produced after many windings and attempts of matter, nor are they troubled as to conceiving of the most excellent kind of system, since theirs is asserted to be liable to decline and to change. We must, then, rest upon the decisions of faith and upon its supports. But, perhaps, we need not inquire whether that created matter, after a long course of ages, from the power at first put into it could gather and change itself into that most excellent form, (which, leaving these windings, it did immediately at the command of the Divine word.) For, the representation of time and the formation of a substance are equally miraculous effects of the same omnipotence. But the Divine Nature seems to have designed glorifying itself equally in either emanation: first, by omnipotently working upon ens and matter by creating substance from nothing; secondly, upon motion and time, oy anticipating the order of nature, and accelerating the process of substance. But these pertain to the parable of heaven, where we will discuss more fully what we are now just inti For, that first method seems to have some design and end, that things should be changed into the world, but this, none, which, for entities, adopts mere notions and mental abstractions. And yet, the impossibility of this being the case I shall hereafter show. Yet, his Hyle pleased Telesius, which he transferred from a later age after the birth of Parmenides' philosophy. But Telesius instituted an evidently unaccountable and unequal contest between his elements in action, whether you consider their forces or their kind of war. For, as to their forces, the earth is alone, but the heaven has a great army; the earth is as a little speck, the heaven hath its immense regions. Nor can it relieve this difficulty that the earth and its connaturals are asserted to be of the most compact matter, and the heaven and the ethereal substances, on the other hand, of the most expanded. For although this indeed is a very essential difference, yet it will by no means equalize the forces even with so great an intermediate space. But the strength of the opinion of Telesius turns chiefly upon this, if an equal portion, as it were, of Hyle (according to the quantum, not according to the expansion) be assigned to both acting elements, so that the things can last, and the system be made and established. For whoever will think with Telesius on other points, and will receive the surpassing power of Hyle, especially in so great an excess, in one principle compared with another, into itself, which Telesius attributes to the ele will involve himself in an inextricable difficulty. In the dialogue, therefore, of Plutarch, "De facie in orbe lune," this consideration is very wisely proposed, that it is improbable that nature in the dispersion of matter shut up the properties of a compact body into the sole globe of the earth, when there were in the mean time so many revolving bodies in the heavens. Yet Gilbertus indulged to such excess in this imagination as to assert that not only the earth and the moon, but many other solid and opaque globes were scattered amongst the bodies of light through the expanse of heaven. Nay, the Peripatetics themselves, after they had made the heavens eternal ments, should not operate on similar equally or more than opposite bodies; so that the heaven ought already to be lit up and the stars to be engaged in mutual conflict. But to come nearer the point, those four demonstrations ought to be set forth, which even singly, much more conjointly, can evidently subvert the philosophy of Telesius respecting the elements. Of these, the first is that there are found in things some actions and effects, even of things the most potent and the most widely diffused, which cannot by any means be referred to heat and cold. The second is, that there are found some natures of which heat and cold are the consequences and effects, and that not through the through their own condition, and things sublunary excitation of preinexistent heat, or through the by succession and renovation, did not imagine that application of heat approximating to them, but they had sufficiently guarded their tenet till they through those things by which heat and cold are assigned to the elements as it were equal portions infused and generated in their first esse. The of matter. For this is that which they fable con- ground of an element, therefore, fails in either cerning that tenfold portion by which the surround- side in them, both because there is a something ing element is superior to the inner element. But not from them, and because themselves are from I do not bring these things forward, because none something. The third is, that even those which of them are to my mind, but to show that it is perfectly improbable and unnatural to maintain with Telesius that the earth is a principle acting in contrariety to the heavens. And the difficulty will be greatly increased if besides the quantum itself we consider the unequal influence and action of the heaven and the earth. For the condition of contest must be lost altogether, if the attack of the hostile weapons be borne by the one side, but do not reach the other, but fall first. But it is plain | that the power of the sun is projected toward the earth, but none can promise that the influence of the earth ever reaches the sun. For of all the influences of nature, the influence of light and shade is conveyed to the greatest distance and is circumfused with the greatest space or orbit. But the shade of the earth is bounded on this side the sun, whilst the light of the sun, if the earth were transparent, could beat across the globe of the earth. Heat and cold, in particular, (of which we are now treating,) are never found to overcome so great a space in the conveyance of their influence, as light and shade. Therefore, if the shade of the earth does not reach the sun, much less is it in accordance with this to suppose that the cold of the earth travels thither. If indeed the sun and heat acted upon certain mediate bodies, whether the influence of a contrary principle could not ascend, or by any means hinder their action, it is requisite that the sun and heat should occupy whatever are the nearest bodies to them, and then should join also the more remote, so that in time the conflagration of Heraclitus should take place by the solar and celestial nature gradually descending, and making a nearer approach to the derive their origin from heat and cold, (which certainly are very many,) yet proceed from them as from an efficient and organs, not as from their proper and nearest source. Fourthly, that that conjugation of the four connaturals is altogether blended and confused. Therefore I will speak of these singly. But some may think the time misspent in so minute an examination of the philosophy of Telesius, a philosopher of no great popularity or celebrity. But the fastidiousness of such objectors I dismiss. I have a favourable opinion of Telesius, and recognise in him a lover of truth, a profitable servant of science, a reformer of some tenets, and the first indeed of the moderns. Nor have I to do with him so much as Telesius as in his character of restorer of the philosophy of Parmenides, and as such he is entitled to great regard. But my chief reason for so largely discussing this part of our subject is, that in Telesius, who is the first who meets our view, we find occasion to consider very many subjects which can be transferred, as replies to following sects, (of whom we shall hereafter speak,) to avoid repetition. For there are fibres of errors, (though of different kinds,) wonderfully complicated, which can yet in many instances be cut away by one answer. But as we began to say, we must see what kind of influences and actions are found in things which cannot by any concord of things or violence of ingenuity be referred to heat and cold. We must assume, then, in the first place, what is granted by Telesius, that the sum of matter remains eternally the same, without increase or diminution. This property, by which matter preserves and sustains itself, he transmits as passive, and as it were per earth and its confines. Nor does this well har- taining more to the measure of quantity than to monize, that that power of imparting and multi-form and action, as if there were no need of reckplying its own nature and of turning other things oning it to heat or cold, which are considered the VOL. I.-5" 450 sources of acting forms only and influences, for that matter is not simply but altogether destitute of active influence. And these assertions flow from an incredible error, unless the miracle be removed by its having been an inveterate and general opinion. For there is scarcely any error similar than that a person should not deem the active influence that virtue infused into matter, (through which it is kept from decay, so that the very least portion of matter is not buried in the whole bulk of the world, nor destroyed by the power of all the active influences, or in any way annihilated, and can be reduced to order; nay, can occupy a portion of space and preserve resistance with impenetrable dimension, and itself by turns be capable of some action, and not forsake itself.) When, on the contrary, it is by far the most potent of all influences, and evidently insuperable, and, as it were, a mere fate and necessity. Yet this virtue Telesius does not attempt to refer to heat or cold. And rightly so: for neither do fire or numbness and congelation add or detract any thing from it nor have any power over it, when it yet meanwhile flourishes in the sun, at the centre of the earth, and everywhere. But he seems to fail, in that he recognises a certain and defined bulk of matter, is blind to that influence which should defend itself and preserve itself in its several parts, and (as it were, be clouded in the darkest shades of the Peripatetics) puts that in the place of an accessory, when it is mainly the principal, poising its own body, removing another, solid and adamantine in itself, and whence emanate by an inviolable authority the decrees of the possible and the impossible. In the same manner the vulgar school puerilely catches at it with an easy grasp there for the denying and refuting of a vacuum, But these Nor of words, imagining that the judgment is satisfied I leave to my dissertation on the vacuum. by making a canon of the impossibility of two does it relate much to my present purpose whether bodies occupying the same space, but does not nature utterly abhors a vacuum, or (as Telesius take into actual and full consideration that influ- | imagines himself to speak more accurately) entience and the measure of which we speak; over-ties delight in mutual contact. This we hold to looking how much depends upon it, and how great be plain that whether it be avoidance of a vacuum a light would thence be thrown upon science. But to our point, that influence, whatever is its nature, is not comprehended in the elements of Telesius. We must now pass to that influence itself, which is, as it were, the antistrophe to this former, that namely which preserves the connexion of matter. For as matter will not suffer itself to be overwhelmed and perish by matter, so neither can it be separated from matter. And yet it is very doubtful whether this law of nature is equally peremptory with that other. But Telesius like Democritus supposed a vacuum heaped together and unbounded, that each ens singly might lay down its contiguous ens, and sometimes desert it involuntarily and with difficulty, (as they say,) but with a greater and a subdued violence, and he endeavoured to demonstrate this by sundry experiments, adducing especially those things which are cited here and or inclination to contact does not in any degree depend on heat and cold, nor does Telesius assert that it doth, nor can it be so ascribed from any appearance in the things themselves: since matter moved from its place attracts doubtless other matter, whether that be hot or cold, liquid or dry, hard or soft, friendly or adverse, so that a warm would sooner attract the coldest body to come to it, than suffer itself to be disjoined from and deserted by every kind of body. For the bond of matter is stronger than the aversion of heat and cold: and the sequacity of matter has no respec to the diversity of special forms; and so this influence of connexion is by no means from thos elements of heat and cold. The two influence that are mutually opposite follow, which confe red (as may be seen) this rule of elements up i heat and cold, but by a right badly explicated. I mean those influences through which entities open and rarefy themselves, dilate and expand so | matter is laid on the space than is in proportion as to occupy a greater space, and dispose them- to the heat or cold. But these assertions, though selves into a more extensive orbit; or, other hand, not absolutely absurd, seem, nevertheless, like shut up and condense themselves, so as to retire the imaginations of men unwilling to go from from the space they occupied and betake themselves to a narrower sphere. We must show, therefore, how far that influence hath its rise in heat and cold, and how far it dwells apart, and has a separate nature from that other influence. And that is certainly true, which Telesius affirms, that rarity and density are, as it were, the peculiar works of heat and cold; for the most essential requisite, in respect of these, is that the bodies should occupy a greater and a less space; but yet these dogmas are received rather confusedly: for bodies seem sometimes to migrate from one natural site to another, and to transfer themselves, and that freely and, as it were, willingly, and changing their forms; but sometimes they seem only driven from their natural site, and to return to their accustomed site, their old form remaining the same. And that progressive influence entering on a new site is commonly determined by heat and cold: but that other restorative influence is not so. For water expands itself into vapour and air, oil likewise, and fat substances, into steam and flame, by the power of heat, and, if they have completely transmigrated, do not return. Nay, even the air itself is dilated and extended by heat. But if the migration shall have been half full after the departure of heat, it easily falls back into itself; so as that there are also some properties of heat and cold in the restorative influence itself. But those which, without any intervening heat or violence, are extended and divided, even without any addition of cold or subtraction of heat, most readily are returned to their former sites when the force ceases, as in the blowing of a glass egg, and in the emptying of bellows. But that is far more evident in solid and dense bodies. For if cloth, or a string of an instrument be stretched, when the force is taken away, they leap back with great swiftness, and the same is the nature of compression. For the air, drawn together and confined with some violence, breaks forth with a considerable effort, and so the whole of that mechanical motion by which a hard is struck by a hard body, which is commonly called the motion of force, through which solid bodies are ischarged, and fly through the air or water, is nothing else than the contending of the parts of the discharged body to free themselves from compression. And yet here are no traces of heat and cold. Nor can any one take occasion from Telesius to say, that a certain portion of heat and cold is assigned to each natural site, according to a fixed analogy. And that it can thus happen, that though there be no additional heat or cold, yet if the space of the body of matter be extended or contracted, the thing would return to the same state, because more or less their first opinions, and who do not follow reality and nature. For if heat and cold be added to bodies thus extended or compressed, and that in a greater degree accords with the body itself, as, if the stretched cloth be warmed at the fire, it will not in any way make up for the thing, or extinguish the impetus of recovery. We have, then, made it plain that the influence of changing site does not depend, in a remarkable degree, upon heat and cold, when yet this is that very influence which assigns the greatest power to these principles. Those two influences follow which are universally recognised, through which bodies seek masses or greater congregations of things connatural with them, in observing of which, as of other subjects, men either trifle or err. For the vulgar school thinks it sufficient to have distinguished the natural from the forced motion, and to give out that heavy bodies are, by a natural motion, borne downward; light, upward. But these speculations are of very little help to philosophy. For their "nature," "art," "force," are only terms of terms and trifles. They should refer this motion not only to nature, but should seek in this very motion the particular and proper bias and inclination of the natural body. For there are many other natural motions, according to very different passive natures of things from these. The subject, therefore, is to be laid down according to these differences. Nay, those very motions which they call violent, are more truly natural than that which they call natural; if that be more according to nature which is more powerful, or even which is more of a universal kind. For that motion of ascent and descent is not very potent, nor even universal, but as it were provincial, and for certain regions, and even yielding and subjected to other motions. Their saying that heavy bodies are borne downward, light, upward, is no more than saying that heavy are heavy, light, light bodies. For what is so predicated is assumed from the very force of the term in the subject. But if by heavy they mean dense, by light, rare, they do not advance the subject, only they lead it back rather to the adjunct and concomitant, than to the cause. But they who so explain the bias of heavy bodies as to assert that they are borne to the earth's centre, and light to the circumference and circuit of heaven, as to their proper destinations, certainly advance something, and hint at a cause, but yet with much inconsideration. For places are not influences, nor is a body affected but by a body, and every incitation of a body which seems to be seat itself, affects and endeavours a configuration toward another body, not collocation or simple site. A. T. R. 1 TOPICS OF INQUIRY, CONCERNING LIGHT AND THE MATTER OF LIGHT. I. Presence Tables. III. Table of Degrees. We have first to note which are the substances, We must remark which sorts of light are more intense and vibrating, which less: the flame of wood produces a strong light; the flame of spirit of wine, a weaker; the flame of coals when fully kindled, a very dim and scarcely visible light. IV. Colours of Light. We have to consider the colours of light, what they are, what not; some stars are white, others glittering, some red, some lead-coloured; the common sorts of flame are generally croceous, and among these the coruscations from the sky, and the sparks from flint, tend most to whiteness; the flame of sulphur is ceruleous and beautiful; but in some substances are purple flames. No green flames are observed: what most inclines to greenness, is that of the glowworm. Neither are there any crimson flames discovered: heated iron is red, but if heated somewhat more intensely, it becomes as it were white. of whatever kind, that generate light; as stars, fiery meteors, flame, wood, metals, and other burning bodies, sugar in scraping or breaking it, the glowworm, the dews of salt water when it is agitated or scattered, the eyes of certain animals, some sorts of rotten wood, large quantities of snow; perhaps the air itself may possess a weak light adapted to the vision of the animals which see by night; iron and tin, when put into aqua fortis to be dissolved, boil, and without any fire produce intense heat, but whether or not they give out any light demands inquiry; the oil of lamps sparkles in very cold weather; a kind of faint light is sometimes observed in a clear night around a horse that is sweating; around the hair of certain persons, there is seen, though rarely, also a faint light, like a lambent flamule, as occured to Lucius Marcius in Spain; there was lately found an apron of a certain woman which was said to shine, yet only when rubbed; but it had been dyed in green, of which dye alum is an ingredient, and it rustled somewhat when shining. Whether alum shines or not when scraped or broken is matter of inquiry; but, I suppose, it requires more violent breaking, because it is firmer than sugar. In like manner, some stockings bright; but brightness is a certain small degree V. Reflections of Light. We have to observe what bodies reflect light: as mirrors, water, polished metals, the moon, precious stones. All liquid bodies and such as have very equal smooth surfaces are somewhat shine whilst you are pulling them off, whether of light. from sweat or the dye of alum. II. Absence Tables. We must also observe which are the substances that give no light, yet have much similitude to such as do produce it. Boiling water does not give light; air though unusually heated does not give light; mirrors and diamonds, which so strikingly reflect light, give no light of their own. In this kind of instances we have also to con We have to remark attentively, whether or not the light of one lucid body can be reflected by another lucid body; as if you took heated iron and opposed it to the sun's rays. For the reflections of light are reflected on, yet becoming gradually feebler, from mirror to mirror. VI. Multiplication of Light. The multiplication of light must next be considered: as by mirrors, perspectives, and the like, by which light may be sharpened and thrown to sider diligently the instances migratory, namely, a distance, or also rendered subtler and softer for when light, as if transient, is present, and when absent. A burning coal gives light, but loses it instantly when strongly compressed; the crystalline humour of the glowworm, after the worm's death, even when broken and divided into parts, retains light for a short time, which, however, soon after fades away distinguishing visible objects; as you may see among painters, who use a phial filled with water beside their candle. Whether all bodies of any considerable size do not reflect light, must also be considered. For light, as may be believed, either goes through or is reflected: from which cause the moon, though 452 |