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 of experience, in joining heat with dryness. turns the earth, and those things that are entities For that the drying of substances by heat is into such bodies as itself, is not to be inquired accidental merely; namely in a dissimilar body, into, since we have no means of coming to this and that is composed of some parts more thick, knowledge. For on what principle shall it be of others more thin, by drawing out, and (by allowed us to distribute the strength of heat, and means of attenuation) giving vent to the thinner heat itself, as it were, into degrees, or to perceive part, till the thicker part is forced thence, and clearly the copiousness and quantity of matter compresses itself more; which thicker part, which is endowed with it, and to assign a certain nevertheless, if a rather violent heat comes, flows quantity, disposition, and certain actions of mat- also of itself, as is evident in bricks: for, in the ter to certain and determinate powers and co- first place, heat, not so fervent, makes the loam piousness of heat, or, on the contrary, to assign into bricks on the thinner part having evaporated; a fixed and certain copiousness of heat to a but a more powerful heat even dissolves that certain quantity and certain actions of matter: bricky substance into glass. And these two O, that this might be obtained by those who dogmata can be considered as the answers to have both time and intellect at command adequate errors; the third plainly affirms, and not only so, to this investigation, and who could, in the but clearly distinguishes the method of reduction. possession of the most perfect tranquillity, search | This is twofold, either by rejection or conversion: into nature; that mankind might not only become and one or other of these modes is brought out then masters of every kind of knowledge, but into act, according to the power of the heat, and almost of every kind of power." This, indeed, the arrangement of matter. But two canons is said with more honesty than is found in his belong to this subject. The one is, that when opponents, who, if they cannot attain their ob- heat and cold concur in vast bulk, and, as it were, jects, affirm that their attainment is impossible with any even force, an ejection follows. For from the nature of the art or object itself, so that entities, like armies, are moved from their place no art can be condemned, since itself is both and thrust forward. But when it takes place in pleader and judge. There remains that which a less quantity, then a conversion follows: for was the third, namely, the method of reduction. the entities are destroyed, and lose rather their This Telesius despatches by a threefold sentence. nature than their place. There is a remarkable The first is that which we noticed by the way exemplification of this in the higher regions of before, that no symbolization is understood (as in the air, which, although they come nearer to the the doctrine of the Peripatetics) through which celestial heat, are yet found colder than the consubstances, by an agreement, as it were, are fines of the earth. For in those regions, after nourished, and act in unison: for that all genera- arriving nearer to the seat of the prime heat, the tion, and every effect in a natural body, is the heat, collecting itself, at once casts down, and 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, power of the cold which had ascended. He since Aristotle remarked it in the doctrine of saith that the same thing, moreover, may happen, Empedocles; for that Empedocles, indeed, though that there may be through the depths of the he maintains contention and amity to be the earth greater heats than on the surface; to wit, efficient principles of things, yet in his explica- after the approach to the seat of the prime tions of causes generally makes use of their 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: notions. 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 Telesius. And here I wish it had been univer 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 from nothing; secondly, that the production of the system was through the word of Omnipotence, and not that matter endued itself 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, by 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 sally 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 assertion of this sort, than, in laying down some eternal principle, to fall into the still greater absurdity of making that principle a fantastic one. 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 elewill involve himself in an inextricable difficulty. ments, should not operate on similar equally or In the dialogue, therefore, of Plutarch, "De facie more than opposite bodies; so that the heaven in orbe lunæ," this consideration is very wisely ought already to be lit up and the stars to be enproposed, that it is improbable that nature in the gaged in mutual conflict. But to come nearer the dispersion of matter shut up the properties of a point, those four demonstrations ought to be set compact body into the sole globe of the earth, forth, which even singly, much more conjointly, when there were in the mean time so many revolv- can evidently subvert the philosophy of Telesius ing bodies in the heavens. Yet Gilbertus in- respecting the elements. Of these, the first is that dulged to such excess in this imagination as to there are found in things some actions and effects, assert that not only the earth and the moon, but even of things the most potent and the most widemany other solid and opaque globes were scat-ly diffused, which cannot by any means be referred tered amongst the bodies of light through the ex- to heat and cold. The second is, that there are panse of heaven. Nay, the Peripatetics them- found some natures of which heat and cold are the selves, after they had made the heavens eternal consequences and effects, and that not through the through their own condition, and things sublunary by succession and renovation, did not imagine that they had sufficiently guarded their tenet till they assigned to the elements as it were equal portions of matter. For this is that which they fable concerning that tenfold portion by which the surrounding element is superior to the inner element. But I do not bring these things forward, because none 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 earth and its confines. Nor does this well harmonize, that that power of imparting and multiplying its own nature and of turning other things VOL. I.-5 excitation of preinexistent heat, or through the application of heat approximating to them, but through those things by which heat and cold are infused and generated in their first esse. The ground of an element, therefore, fails in either side in them, both because there is a something not from them, and because themselves are from something. The third is, that even those which 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 pertaining more to the measure of quantity than to form and action, as if there were no need of reckoning it to heat or cold, which are considered the 2 P 2 sources of acting forms only and influences, for there for the denying and refuting of a vacuuio, that matter is not simply but altogether destitute and drawing out and enlarging these in such a of active influence. And these assertions flow manner as that the ens may appear to keep that from an incredible error, unless the miracle be re- contiguity by being placed in a certain light moved by its having been an inveterate and gene- necessity; but that if they were very much ral opinion. For there is scarcely any error similar agitated they would admit a vacuum; as in than that a person should not deem the active in- water hourglasses, in which if there be rather a fluence that virtue infused into matter, (through small aperture through which the water can which it is kept from decay, so that the very least descend, they will want a spiracle for the water portion of matter is not buried in the whole bulk to descend; but if a larger foramen even without of the world, nor destroyed by the power of all a spiracle, the water being incumbent with a the active influences, or in any way annihilated, greater bulk on the foramen, and in no way imand can be reduced to order; nay, can occupy a peding the vacuum above, is carried downwards. portion of space and preserve resistance with im- So in bellows, in which if you compress and shut penetrable dimension, and itself by turns be capa- them so that there be left no place for the air to ole of some action, and not forsake itself.) When, glide in, and you afterward elevate and expand on the contrary, it is by far the most potent of all them, if the skin of the bellows be slight and nfluences, and evidently insuperable, and, as it weak, it will break, not so if very thick and firm; were, a mere fate and necessity. Yet this virtue and other experiments in like manner. But these Telesius does not attempt to refer to heat or cold. experiments are neither exactly proved, nor are And rightly so for neither do fire or numbness they quite satisfactory, nor conclusive on the and congelation add or detract any thing from it question, and though Telesius thinks he adds to nor have any power over it, when it yet meanwhile discoveries by means of them, and endeavours flourishes in the sun, at the centre of the earth, after a more subtle discernment of what others and everywhere. But he seems to fail, in that have seen but confusedly, yet he does not come he recognises a certain and defined bulk of mat- off equal to his subject, nor educe a true concluter, is blind to that influence which should defend sion, but fails in the means: the misfortune, itself and preserve itself in its several parts, and indeed, of Telesius and the Peripatetics, who in (as it were, be clouded in the darkest shades of looking into experiments are like owls, not the Peripatetics) puts that in the place of an ac- through the inefficiency of their faculties, but cessory, when it is mainly the principal, poising through the cataracts of opinions and impatience its own body, removing another, solid and ada- of fixed and full contemplation. But the very mantine in itself, and whence emanate by an difficult question how far a vacuum is to be adinviolable authority the decrees of the possible and mitted, and with respect to what spaces there can the impossible. In the same manner the vulgar be a coition or separation of seeds, and what there school puerilely catches at it with an easy grasp is on this head that is peremptory and invariable, of words, imagining that the judgment is satisfied I leave to my dissertation on the vacuum. Nor 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; overlooking how much depends upon it, and how great 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 subuued violence, and he endeavoured to demonstrate this by sundry experiments, adducing especially those things which are cited here and ties delight in mutual contact. This we hold to be plain that whether it be avoidance of a vacuum 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 4 heat and cold, but by a right badly explicated. I mean those influences through which entities matter is laid on the space than is in proportion to the heat or cold. But these assertions, though not absolutely absurd, seem, nevertheless, like the imaginations of men unwilling to go from 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 extin 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 open and rarefy themselves, dilate and expand so as to occupy a greater space, and dispose them selves into a more extensive orbit; or, other hand, shut up and condense themselves, so as to retire 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 pecu-guish the impetus of recovery. We have, then, liar 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 sub-than that which they call natural; if that be more traction 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 discharged, 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 according to nature which is more powerful, or but yet |