[XIV.]
MADAM,
I have read your Authors discourse concerning Sensation,[1] but it was as difficult to me to understand it, ash was tedious to read it; Truly, all the business, might have been easily declared in a short Chapter, and with more clearness and perspicuity: For Sensation, is nothing else but the action of sense proceeding from the corporeal sensitive motions, which are in all Creatures or parts of Nature, and so all have sense and sensation, although not alike after one and the same manner, but some more, some less, each according to the nature and propriety of its figure. But your Author speaks of Motion without Sense, and Sense without Motion, which is a meer impossibility; for there is not, nor cannot be any Motion in Nature without Sense, nor any Sense without Motion; there being no Creature without self-motion, although not always perceptible by us, or our external senses; for all motion is not exteriously local, and visible. Wherefore, not any part of Nature, according to my opinion, wants Sense and Reason, Life and Knowledg; but not such a substanceless Life as your Author describes, but a substantial, that is a corporeal Life. Neither is Light the principle of Motion, but Motion, is the principle of Light: Neither is Heat the principle of Motion, but its effect as well as Cold is; for I cannot perceive that Heat should be more active then Cold. Neither is there any such thing as Unsensibleness in Nature, except it be in respect of some particular Sensation in some particular Figure: As for example, when an Animal dies, or its Figure is dissolved from the Figure of an Animal; we may say it hath not animal sense or motion, but we cannot say, it hath no sense or motion at all; for as long as Matter is in Nature, Sense and Motion will be; so that it is absurd and impossible to believe, or at least to think, that Matter, as a body, can be totally deprived of Life, Sense, and Motion, or that Life can perish and be corrupted, be it the smallest part of Matter conceivable, and the same turned or changed into millions of Figures; for the Life and Soul of Nature is self-moving Matter, which by Gods Power, and leave, is the onely Framer and Maker, as also the Dissolver and Transformer of all Creatures in Nature, making as well Light, Heat, and Cold, Gas, Blas, and Ferments, as all other natural Creatures beside, as also Passions, Appetites, Digestions, Nourishments, Inclination, Aversion, Sickness and Health; nay, all Particular Ideas, Thoughts, Fancies, Conceptions, Arts, Sciences, &c. In brief, it makes all that is to be made in Nature. But many great Philosophers conceive Nature to be fuller of Intricacy, Difficulty, and Obscurity, then she is, puzling themselves about her ordinary actions, which yet are easie and free, and making their arguments hard, constrained, and mystical, many of them containing neither sense nor reason; when as, in my opinion, there is nothing else to be studied in Nature, but her substance and her actions. But I will leave them to their own Fancies and Humors, and say no more, but rest,
Madam,
Your humble and
faithful Servant.
[1] Of the Disease of the Stone. Ch. 9.
[XV.]
MADAM,