the light whereof man discerned of every living creature, and imposed names according to their propriety, was not the occasion of the fall; but the moral knowledge of good and evil, affected to the end to depend no more upon God's commandments, but for man to direct himself. Neither could he find in any Scripture, that the inquiry and science of man in any thing, under the mysteries of the Deity, is determined and restrained, but contrariwise allowed and provoked. For concerning all other knowledge the Scripture pronounceth, "That it is the glory of God to conceal, but it is the glory of man (or of the king, for the king is but the excellency of man) to invent;" and again, "The spirit of man is as the lamp of God, wherewith he searcheth every secret;" and again most effectually, "That God hath made all things beautiful and decent, according to the re turn of their seasons; also that he hath set the world in man's heart, and yet man cannot find out the work which God worketh from the beginning to the end;" showing that the heart of man is a continent of that concave or capacity, wherein the content of the world, that is, all forms of the creatures, and whatsoever is not God, may be placed or received; and complaining, that through the variety of things, and vicissitudes of times, which are but impediments and not impuissances, man cannot accomplish his invention. In precedent also he set before his eyes, that in those few memorials before the flood, the Scripture honoureth the name of the inventors of music and works in metal; that Moses had this addition of praise, that he was seen in all the learning of the Egyptians; that Solomon, in his grant of wisdom from God, had contained, as a branch thereof, that knowledge whereby he wrote a natural history of all verdure, from the cedar to the moss, and of all that breatheth: that the book of Job, and many places of the prophets, have great aspersion of natural philosophy; that the church in the bosom and lap thereof, in the greatest injuries of times, ever preserved, as holy relics, the books of philosophy and all heathen learning; and that when Gregory, the bishop of Rome, became adverse and unjust to the memory of heathen antiquity, it was censured for pusillanimity in him, and the honour thereof soon after restored, and his own memory almost persecuted by his successor Sabinian; and lastly, in our times, and the ages of our fathers, when Luther and the divines of the Protestant church on the one side, and the Jesuits on the other, have enterprised to reform, the one the doctrine, the other the discipline and manners of the church of Rome, he saw well how both of them have awaked to their great honour and succour, all human learning. And for reason, there cannot be a greater and more evident than and benefits, appearing and engraven in his works, which without this knowledge are beheld but as through a veil: for if the heavens in the body of them do declare the glory of God to the eye, much more do they in the rule and decrees of them declare it to the understanding. And another reason, not inferior to this, is, that the same natural philosophy principally amongst all other human knowledge, doth give an excellent defence against both extremes of religion, superstition, and infidelity; for both it freeth the mind from a number of weak fancies and imaginations, and it raiseth the mind to acknowledge that to God all things are possible: for to that purpose speaketh our Saviour in that first canon against heresies, delivered upon the case of the resurrection, "You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God;" teaching that there are but two fountains of heresy, not knowing the will of God revealed in the Scriptures, and not knowing the power of God revealed or at least made most sensible in his creatures. So as he saw well, that natural philosophy was of excellent use to the exaltation of the Divine Majesty; and, that which is admirable, that being a remedy of superstition, it is nevertheless an help to faith. He saw likewise, that the former opinions to the prejudice hereof had no true ground; but must spring either out of mere ignorance, or out of an excess of devotion, to have divinity all in all; whereas it should be only above all; both which states of mind may be best pardoned; or else out of worse causes, namely out of envy, which is proud weakness, and deserveth to be despised; or out of some mixture of imposture, to tell a lie for God's cause; or out of an impious diffidence, as if men should fear to discover som things in nature which might subvert faith. But still he saw well, howsoever these opinions are in right reason reproved, yet they leave not to be most effectual hinderances to natural philosophy and invention. 8. He thought also, that there wanted not great contrariety to the further discovery of sciences in regard of the orders and customs of universities, and also in regard of common opinion. For in universities and colleges men's studies are almost confined to certain authors, from which if any dissenteth or propoundeth matter of redargution, it is enough to make him thought a person turbulent; whereas if it be well advised, there is a great dif ference to be made between matters contemplative and active. For in government change is suspected, though the better; but it is natural to arts to be in perpetual agitation and growth. Neither is the danger alike of new light, and of new motion or remove; and for vulgar and received opinions, nothing is more usual, or more usually complained of, than that it is imposed for arrogancy this, that all knowledge, and specially that of na- and presumption, for men to authorize themselves tural philosophy, tendeth highly to the magnify- against antiquity and authors, towards whom ing of the glory of God, in his power, providence, | envy is ceased, and reverence by time amortised it not being considered what Aristotle himself did, upon whom the philosophy that now is chiefly dependeth, who came with a professed contradiction to all the world, and did put all his opinions upon his own authority and argument, and never so much as nameth an author but to confute and reprove him; and yet his success well fulfilled the observation of Him that said, "If a man come in his own name, him will you receive." Men think, likewise, that if they should give themselves to the liberty of invention and travail of inquiry, that they shall light again upon some conceits and contemplations which have been formerly offered to the world, and have been put down by the better, which have prevailed and brought them to oblivion; not seeing, that howsoever the property and breeding of knowledges is in great and excellent wits, yet the estimation and price of them is in the multitude, or in the inclinations of princes and great persons meanly learned. So as those knowledges are like to be received and honoured, which have their foundation in the subtilty or finest trial of common sense, or such as fill the imagination, and not such knowledge as is digged out of the hard mine of history and experience, and falleth out to be in some points as adverse to common sense, or popular reason, as religion, or more. Which kind of knowledge, except it be delivered with strange advantages of eloquence and power, may be likely to appear and disclose a little to the world, and straight to vanish and shut again. So that time seemeth to be of the nature of a river or flood, that bringeth down to us that which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is solid and grave. So he saw well, that both in the state of religion, and in the administration of learning, and in common opinion, there were many and continual stops and traverses to the course of invention. 9. He thought also, that the invention of works and further possibility was prejudiced in a more special manner than that of speculative truth; for besides the impediments common to both, it hath pass, hold much more of imagination and belief than of sense and demonstration. But to use the poet's language, men ought to have remembered, that although Ixion of a cloud in the likeness of Juno begat Centaurs and Chimæras, yet Jupiter also of the true Juno begat Vulcan and Hebe. Neither is it just to deny credit to the greatness of the acts of Alexander, because the like or more strange have been feigned of an Amadis or an Arthur, or other fabulous worthies. But though this in true reason should be, and that men ought not to make a confusion of unbelief; yet he saw well it could not otherwise be in event, but that experience of untruth had made access to truth more difficult, and that the ignominy of vanity had abated all greatness of mind. 10. He thought also, there was found in the mind of man an affection naturally bred and fortified, and furthered by discourse and doctrine, which did pervert the true proceeding towards active and operative knowledge. This was a false estimation, that it should be as a diminution to the mind of man to be much conversant in experiences and particulars, subject to sense, and bound in matter, and which are laborious to search, ignoble to meditate, harsh to deliver, illiberal to practise, infinite as is supposed in number, and noways accommodate to the glory of arts. This opinion or state of mind received much credit and strength by the school of Plato, who thinking that particulars rather revived the notions, or excited the faculties of the mind, than merely informed: and having mingled his philosophy with superstition, which never favoureth the sense, extolleth too much the understanding of man in the inward light thereof. And again, Aristotle's school, which giveth the due to the sense in assertion, denieth it in practice much more than that of Plato. For we see the schoolmen, Aristotle's successors, which were utterly ignorant of history, rested only upon agitation of wit; whereas Plato giveth good example of inquiry by induction and view of particulars: though in such a wandering manner as is of no force or by itself been notably hurt and discredited by the fruit. So that he saw well, that the supposition of vain promises and pretences of alchemy, magic, the sufficiency of man's mind hath lost the means astrology, and such other arts, which, as they now I thereof. SEQUELA CHARTARUM; SIVE INQUISITIO LEGITIMA DE CALORE ET FRIGORE. THE sunbeams hot to sense. SECTIO ORDINIS. Charta suggestionis, sive memoria fixa. The moonbeams not hot, but rather conceived to have a quality of cold, for that the greatest colds are noted to be about the full, and the greatest heats about the change. Query. The beams of the stars have no sensible heat by themselves; but are conceived to have an augmentative heat of the sunbeams by the instance following. The same climate arctic and antarctic are observed to differ in cold, viz. that the antarctic is the more cold, and it is manifest the antarctic hemisphere is thinner planted with stars. The heats observed to be greater in July than in June; at which time the sun is nearest the greatest fixed stars, viz. Cor Leonis, Cauda Leonis, Spica, Virginis, Sirius, Canicula. The conjunction of any two of the three highest planets noted to cause great heats. Comets conceived by some to be as well causes as effects of heat, much more the stars. The sunbeams have greater heat when they are more perpendicular than when they are more oblique: as appeareth in difference of regions, and the difference of the times of summer and winter in the same region; and chiefly in the difference of the hours of mid-day, mornings, evenings, in the same day. The heats more extreme in July and August than in May or June, commonly imputed to the stay and continuance of heat. The heats more extreme under the tropics than under the line: commonly imputed to the stay and continuance of heat, because the sun there doth as it were double a cape. The heats more about three or four of clock than at noon; commonly imputed to the stay and continuance of heat. 100 The sun noted to be hotter when it shineth forth between clouds, than when the sky is open and serene. The middle region of the air hath manifest effects of cold, notwithstanding locally it be nearer the sun, commonly imputed to antiperistasis, assuming that the beams of the sun are hot either by approach or by reflection, and that falleth in the middle term between both; or if, as some conceive, it be only by reflection, then the cold of that region resteth chiefly upon distance. The instances showing the cold of that region, are the snows which descend, the hails which descend, and the snows and extreme colds which are upon high mountains. But Qu. of such mountains as adjoin to sandy vales, and not to fruitful vales, which minister no vapours: or of mountains above the region of vapours, as is reported of Olympus, where any inscription upon the ashes of the altar remained untouched of wind or dew. And note, it is also reported that men carry up sponges with vinegar to thicken their breath, the air growing too fine for respiration, which seemeth not to stand with coldness. The clouds make a mitigation of the heat of the So doth the interposition of any body, which we term shades: but yet the nights in summer are many times as hot to the feeling of men's bodies as the days are within doors, where the beams of the sun actually beat not. sun. There is no other nature of heat known from the celestial bodies or from the air, but that which cometh by the sunbeams. For in the countries near the pole, we see the extreme colds end in the summer months, as in the voyage of Nova Zembla, where they could not disengage their barks from the ice, no, not in July, and met with The heat or beams of the sun doth take away great mountains of ice, some floating, some fixed, the smell of flowers, specially such as are of a at that time of the year, being the heart of summer. | milder odour. The caves under the earth noted to be warmer The beams of the sun do disclose summer in winter than in summer, and so the waters that spring from within the earth.. Great quantity of sulphur, and sometimes naturally burning after the manner of Etna, in Iceland; the like written of Groenland, and divers others the cold countries.* The trees in the cold countries are such as are fuller of rosin, pitch, tar, which are matters apt for fire, and the woods themselves more combustible than those in much hotter countries; as, for example, fir, pineapple, juniper. Qu. Whether their trees of the same kind that ours are, as oak and ash, bear not, in the more cold countries, a wood more brittle and ready to take fire than the same kinds with us? flowers, as the pimpernel, marigold, and almost all flowers else, for they close commonly morning and evening, or in overcast weather, and open in the brightness of the sun: which is but imputed to dryness and moisture, which doth make the beams heavy or erect, and not to any other propriety in the sunbeams; so they report not only a closing, but a bending or inclining in the heliotropium" and "calendula." Qu. The sunbeams do ripen all fruits, and addeth to them a sweetness or fatness; and yet some sultry hot days overcast, are noted to ripen more than bright days. The sunbeams are thought to mend distilled waters, the glasses being well-stopped, and to make them more virtuous and fragrant. The sunbeams do turn wine into vinegar; but The sunbeams heat manifestly by reflection, as in countries pent in with hills, upon walls or buildings, upon pavements, upon gravel more than | Qu. whether they would not sweeten verjuice ? earth, upon arable more than grass, upon rivers if they be not very open, &c. The uniting or collection of the sunbeams multiplieth heat, as in burning-glasses, which are made thinner in the middle than on the sides, as I take it, contrary to spectacles; and the operation of them is, as I remember, first to place them between the sun and the body to be fired, and then to draw them upward towards the sun, which it is true maketh the angle of the cone sharper. But then I take it if the glass had been first placed at the same distance to which it is after drawn, it would not have had that force, and yet that had been all one to the sharpness of the angle. Qu. So in that the sun's beams are hotter perpendicularly than obliquely, it may be imputed to the union of the beams, which in case of perpendicularity reflect into the very same lines with the direct; and the further from perpendicularity the more obtuse the angle, and the greater distance between the direct beam and the reflected beam. The sunbeams raise vapours out of the earth, and when they withdraw they fall back in dews. The sunbeams do many times scatter the mists which are in the mornings. The sunbeams cause the divers returns of the herbs, plants, and fruits of the earth; for we see in lemon-trees and the like, that there is coming | on at once fruit ripe, fruit unripe, and blossoms; which may show that the plant worketh to put forth continually, were it not for the variations of the excesses and recesses of the sun, which call forth, and put back. The excessive heat of the sun doth wither and destroy vegetables, as well as the cold doth nip and blast them. * No doubt but infinite power the heat of the sun in cold countries, though it be not to the analogy of men and fruits, &c. The sunbeams do pall any wine or beer that is set in them. The sunbeams do take away the lustre of any silks or arras. There is almost no mine but lieth some depth in the earth; gold is conceived to lie highest, and in the hottest countries; yet Thracia and Hungary are cold, and the hills of Scotland have yielded gold, but in small grains or quantity. If you set a root of a tree too deep in the ground, that root will perish, and the stock will put forth a new root nearer the superficies of the earth. Some trees and plants prosper best in the shade; as the bays, strawberries, some wood-flowers. Almost all flies love the sunbeams, so do snakes; toads and worms the contrary. The sunbeams tanneth the skin of man; and in some places turneth it to black. The sunbeams are hardly endured by many, but cause headache, faintness, and with many they cause rheums; yet to aged men they are comfortable. The sun causes pestilence, which with us rages about autumn: but it is reported in Barbary they break up about June, and rage most in the winter. The heat of the sun, and of fire, and living creatures, agree in some things which pertain to vivification; as the back of a chimney will set forward an apricot-tree as well as the sun; the fire will raise a dead butterfly as well as the sun; and so will the heat of a living creature. The heat of the sun in sand will hatch an egg. Qu. The heat of the sun in the hottest countries nothing so violent as that of fire, no not scarcely so hot to the sense as that of a living creature. The sun, a fountain of light as well as heat The other celestial bodies manifest in light, and yet "non constat" whether all borrowed, as in the moon, but obscure in heat. The southern and western wind with us is the warmest, thereof the one bloweth from the sun, the other from the sea: the northern and eastern the more cold. Qu. Whether in the coast of Florida, or at Brasil, the east wind be not the warmest, and the west the coldest; and so beyond the antarctic tropic, the southern wind the coldest. The air useth to be extreme hot before thunders. The sea and air ambient, appeareth to be hotter than that at land; for in the northern voyages two or three degrees farther at the open sea, they find less ice than two or three degrees more south near land; but Qu. for that may be by reason of the shores and shallows. The snows dissolve fastest upon the sea-coasts, yet the winds are counted the bitterest from the sea, and such as trees will bend from. Qu. The streams or clouds of brightness which appear in the firmament, being such through which the stars may be seen, and shoot not, but rest, are signs of heat. The pillars of light, which are so upright, and do commonly shoot and vary, are signs of cold; but both these are signs of drought. The air when it is moved is to the sense colder; as in winds, fannings, ventilabra. The air in things fibrous, as fleeces, furs, &c. warm; and those stuffs to the feeling warm. The water to man's body seemeth colder than the air; and so in summer, in swimming it seemeth at the first going in; and yet after one hath been in a while, at the coming forth again, the air seemeth colder than the water. The snow more cold to the sense than water, and the ice than snow; and they have in Italy means to keep snow and ice for the cooling of their drinks. Qu. Whether it be so in froth in respect of the liquor ? Baths of hot water feel hottest at the first going in. The frost dew which we see in hoar-frost, and in the rimes upon trees or the like, accounted more mortifying cold than snow; for snow cherisheth the ground, and any thing sowed in it: the other biteth and killeth. Stone and metal exceeding cold to the feeling more than wood: yea more than jet or amber, or horn, which are no less smooth. The snow is ever in the winter season, but the hail, which is more of the nature of ice, is ever in the summer season; whereupon it is conceived, that as the hollows of the earth are warmest in the winter, so that region of the air is coldest in the summer; as if they were a fugue of the nature of either from the contrary, and a collecting itself to an union, and so to a further strength. So in the shades under trees, in the summer, which stand in an open field, the shade noted to be colder than in a wood. Cold breaketh glasses, if they be close stopped, in frost, when the liquor freezeth within. Cold in extreme maketh metals, that are dry and brittle, cleft and crack, " Æraque dissiliunt;" so of pots of earth and glass. Cold maketh bones of living creatures more fragile. Cold maketh living creatures to swell in the joints, and the blood to clot, and turn more blue. Bitter frosts do make all drinks to taste more dead and flat. Cold maketh the arteries and flesh more asper and rough. Cold causes rheums and distillations by compressing the brain, and laxes by like reason. Cold increases appetite in the stomach, and willingness to stir. Cold maketh the fire to scald and sparkle. Paracelsus reporteth, that if a glass of wine be set upon a terras in a bitter frost, it will leave some liquor unfrozen in the centre of the glass, which excelleth "spiritus vini" drawn by fire. Cold in Muscovy, and the like countries, causes those parts which are voidest of blood, as the nose, the ears, the toes, the fingers, to mortify and rot; especially if you come suddenly to fire, after you have been in the air abroad, they are sure to moulder and dissolve. They use for remedy, as is said, washing in snow water. If a man come out of a bitter cold suddenly to the fire, he is ready to swoon, or be overcome. So contrariwise at Nova Zembla, when they opened their door at times to go forth, he that opened the door was in danger to be overcome. The quantity of fish in the cold countries, Norway, &c. very abundant. The quantity of fowl and eggs laid in the cliffs in great abundance. In Nova Zembla they found no beasts but bears and foxes, whereof the bears gave over to be seen about September, and the foxes began. Meat will keep from putrifying longer in frosty weather, than at other times. In Iceland they keep fish, by exposing it to the cold, from putrifying without salt. The nature of man endureth the colds in the countries of Scricfinnia, Biarmia, Lappia, Iceland, Groenland; and that not by perpetual keeping in stoves in the winter time, as they do in Russia: but contrariwise, their chief fairs and intercourse is written to be in the winter, because the ice evens and levelleth the passages of waters, plashes, &c. A thaw after a frost doth greatly rot and mellow the ground. Extreme cold hurteth the eyes and causeth blindness in many beasts, as is reported. The cold maketh any solid substance, as wood, stone, metal, put to the flesh, to cleave to it, and to pull the flesh after it, and so put to any cloth Cold effecteth congelation in liquors, so as they do consist and hold together. which before did run. | that is moist. |