[II.]
MADAM,
It is no wonder, your Author has so many odd and strange opinions in Philosophy, since they do not onely proceed from strange Visions, Apparitions, and Dreams, but are built upon so strange grounds and principles as Ideas, Archeus, Gas, Blas, Ferment, and the like, the names of which sound so harsh and terrifying, as they might put any body easily into a fright, like so many Hobgoblins or Immaterial spirits; but the best is, they can do no great harm, except it be to trouble the brains of them, that love to maintain those opinions; for though they are thought to be powerful beings, yet being not corporeal substances, I cannot imagine wherein their power should consist; for Nothing can do nothing. But to mention each apart; first his Archeus he calls[1] the Spirit of Life; a vital gas or Light; the Balsam preferring from Corruption; the Vulcan or Smith of Generation; the stirrer up, and inward director of generation; an Air; a skiey or airy Spirit; cloathing himself presently with a bodily cloathing, in things soulified, walking through all the dens and retiring places of the seed, and transforming the matter according to the perfect act of its own Image, remaining the president and overseer or inward ruler of his bounds even till death; the Principle of Life: the Inn of Life, the onely immediate Witness, Executor, and Instrument of Life; the Prince and Center of Life; the Ruler of the Stern; the Keeper of Life, and promoter of Transmutations; the Porter of the Soul; a Fountainous being; a Flint.[2] These, and many more names your Author attributes to his Archeus, but what properly it is, and what its Nature and its peculiar office, I am not able to conceive. In the next place, Gas and Blas are to your Author also true Principles of Natural things; for[3] Gas is the Vapour into which Water is dissolved by Cold, but yet it is a far more fine and subtil thing then Vapour; which he demonstrates by the Art of Chymistry. This Gas in another place he calls[4] a Wild Spirit, or Breath, unknown hitherto; which can neither be constrained by Vessels, nor reduced into a visible body; in some things it is nothing but Water, as for example in Salt, in Fruits, and the like. But[5] Blas proceeds from the local and alterative motion of the Stars, and is the general beginning of motion, producing heat and cold, and that especially with the changing of the Winds. There is also[6] Blas in all sublunary things; witness Amulets or preserving Pomanders, whereby they do constrain objects to obey them; Which Incorporeal Blas of Government acts without a Corporeal Efflux, even as the Moon makes the Sea to swell; but the fleshly generation[7] hath a Blas of its own, and it is twofold, one which existeth by a natural Motion, the other voluntary, which existeth as a mover to it self by an Internal Willing. There is also a Blas of the Heart, which is the fuel of the Vital Spirit, and consequently of its heat. The Ferment[8] he describes to be A true Principle or Original beginning of things, to wit, a Formal Created beginning, which is neither a substance, nor an accident, but a Neutral being, framed from the beginning of the World in the places of its own Monarchy, in the manner of Light, Fire, the magnal or sheath of the Air, Forms, &c. that it may prepare, stir up, and go before the Seeds. Lastly, his Ideas are Certain formal seminal Lights,[9] mutually piercing each other without the adultery of Union; For, says he, although at first, that, which is imagined, is nothing, but a meer being of reason, yet it doth not remain such; for truely the Fancy is a sealifying vertue, and in this respect is called Imaginative, because it forms the Images of Likenesses, or Ideas of things conceived, and doth characterize them in its own Vital Spirit, and therefore that Idea is made a spiritual or seminal powerful being, to perform things of great moment. And those Ideas he makes various and numerous; as Archeal Ideas, Ideas of Diseases, Sealifying Ideas, Piercing Ideas, Forreign and strange Ideas, Mad Ideas, Irrational and Incorrigible Ideas, Staggering Ideas, and a hundred others: the like of Gas, Blas, and the rest. Thus, Madam, I have made a rehearsal of your Authors strange, and hitherto unknown, Principles (as his Confession is) of Natural things, which, to my sense and reason, are so obscure, intricate and perplex, as is almost impossible exactly to conceive them; when as Principles ought to be easie, plain, and without any difficulty to be understood; Wherefore what with his Spirits, meer-beings, non-beings, and neutral-beings, he troubles Nature, and puzles the brains of his Readers so, that, I think, if all men were of his opinion, or did follow the way of his Philosophy, Nature would desire God she might be annihilated: Onely, of all other, she doth not fear his Non-beings, for they are the weakest of all, and can do her the least hurt, as not being able to obstruct real and corporeal actions of Nature; for Nature is a corporeal substance, and without a substance Motion cannot be, and without Motion opposition cannot be made, nor any action in Nature, whether Prints, Seals, Stamps, Productions, Generations, Thoughts, Conceptions, Imaginations, Passions, Appetites, or the like: and if motions cannot be without substance; then all Creatures, their properties, faculties, natures, &c., being made by corporeal motions, cannot be Non-beings, no nor anything else that is in Nature; for non-beings are not in the number of Natural things, Nature containing nothing within her, but what is substantially, really, and corporeally existent. But your Authors Ideal Entity, (whereof he is speaking in another place of his Works,)[10] which performs all the Works of Nature, seems to me, as if it were the Jack of all Offices, or like the Jack in a Clock, that makes every Wheel move; for it hath an admirable power to put off and on Corporeality and Incorporeality, and to make it self Something and Nothing as often as it has occasion; but if this Proteus have such power, it may well be named the Magick of Nature. Your Author saith, it is not the Devil, nor any effect thereof: but certainly, in my opinion, according to its description, and the effects laid to its performance, it must be more then the Devil; wherefore, in my Reason, I cannot conceive it, neither am I able to understand his Phantastick Activity, Fancy of Forms, the Souls acting by an insensible way, and many more such like expressions. But I conceive that all these can be nothing else but the several motions of the sensitive and rational matter, which is the Active, Ingenious, Distinguishing, Knowing, Wise and Understanding part of Infinite corporeal Nature; and though Infinite Matter hath Infinite parts in general, yet there is a finiteness in every part considered by it self: not that I think a Part can really subsist single and by it self, but it is onely considered so in the manner of our Conception, by reason of the difference and variousness of natural Creatures: for these being different from each other in their figures, and not all alike, so that we can make a distinction betwixt them; this difference and distinction causes us to conceive every part of a different figure by it self: but properly and according to the Truth of Nature, there is no part by it self subsisting; for all parts are to be considered, not onely as parts of the whole, but as parts of other parts, all parts being joyned in Infinite Nature, and tied by an inseparable tie one way or other, although we do not altogether perceive it. But to return to Ideas: I had almost forgot to tell you, Madam, of another kind of Ideas, by your Author named, Bewitching or Inchanting Ideas,[11] which are for the most part found in Women, against which I cannot but take exception in the behalf of our Sex: For, says he, Women stamp Ideas on themselves, whereby they, no otherwise then Witches driven about with a malignant spirit of despair, are oftentimes governed or snatched away unto those things, which otherwise they would not, and do bewail unto us their own and unvoluntary Madness: These Ideas are hurtful to themselves, and do, as it were, Inchant, Infatuate, and weaken themselves; for so (as Plutarch witnesses) a desire of death by hanging took hold of all the young Maids in the Island Chios. By this it appears, that your Author has never been in Love, or else he would have found, that Men have as well bewitching Ideas as Women, and that they are as hurtful to Men, as to Women. Neither can I be perswaded to believe, that men should not have as well Mad Ideas as Women; for to mention no other example, some, (I will not speak of your Author) their Writings and strange Opinions in Philosophy do sufficiently witness it; but whence those Ideas do proceed, whether from the Bride-bed of the Soul, or the Splene, your Author doth not declare. As for the young Maids in Chios, I must confess, it is a very strange example; but I think there have been as many Men that have killed themselves, as Women, if not more: However, I hope, by the Grace of God, the young Maids in this Kingdom are better advised; for if they should do the like, it would be a sad fate for all young Men. To conclude, Madam, all these rehearsed opinions of your Author, concerning the Grounds or Principles of Natural Philosophy, if you desire my Unfeigned Judgment, I can say no more, but that they shew more Fancy, then Reason and Truth, and so do many others; and, perhaps, my opinions may be as far from Truth as his, although their Ground is Sense and Reason; for there is no single Creature in Nature, that is able to know the perfectest Truth: but some opinions, to humane sense and reason, may have more probability then others, and every one thinks his to be most probable, according to his own fancy and imagination, and so I think of mine; nevertheless, I leave them to the censure of those, that are endued with solid judgment and reason, and know how to discern betwixt things of fancy and reason, and amongst the rest, I submit them to the censure of your Ladiship, whose solid and wise Judgment is the rule of all the actions of,
Madam,
Your Faithful Friend
and Servant.
[1] In his ch. called The Fiction of Elementary Complexions and Mixtures.
[2] In the ch. of the Birth and Original of Forms. In the ch. Of the Ideas of Diseases. See his ch. called The Seat of Diseases in the Soul is confirmed. Ch. of Archeal Diseases. Ch. called The Subject of inhering of Diseases is in the point of Life, &c.
[3] In the ch. Of the Gas of the Water.
[4] In the ch. of the Fiction of Elementary Complexions and Mixtures.