Madam,
Your Ladiships
faithful Friend, and humble Servant.
[1] In his Treatise of Time.
[XVIII.]
MADAM,
Your Authors[1] opinion is, That a bright burning Iron doth not burn a dead Carcass after an equal manner as it doth a live one; For in live bodies, saith he, it primarily hurts the sensitive Soul, the which therefore being impatient, rages after a wonderful manner, doth by degrees resolve and exasperate its own and vital liquors into a sharp poyson, and then contracts the fibres of the flesh, and turns them into an escharre, yea, into the way of a coal; but a dead Carcass is burnt by bright burning Iron, no otherwise, then if Wood, or if any other unsensitive thing should be; that is, it burns by a proper action of the fire, but not of the life. To which opinion, I answer: That my Reason cannot conceive any thing to be without life, and so neither without sense; for whatsoever hath self-motion, has sense and life; and that self-motion is in every Creature, is sufficiently discoursed of in my former Letters, and in my Philosophical Opinions; for self-motion, sense, life, and reason, are the grounds and principles of Nature, without which no Creature could subsist. I do not say, That there is no difference between the life of a dead Carcass, and a live one, for there is a difference between the lives of every Creature; but to differ in the manner of life, and to have neither life nor sense at all, are quite different things: But your Author affirms himself, that all things have a certain sense of feeling, when he speaks of Sympathy and Magnetisme, and yet he denies that they have life: And others again, do grant life to some Creatures, as to Vegetables, and not sense. Thus they vary in their Opinions, and divide sense, life, and motion, when all is but one and the same thing; for no life is without sense and motion, nor no motion without sense and life; nay, not without Reason; for the chief Architect of all Creatures, is sensitive and rational Matter. But the mistake is, that most men, do not, or will not conceive, that there is a difference and variety of the corporeal sensitive and rational motions in every Creature; but they imagine, that if all Creatures should have life, sense, and reason, they must of necessity have all alike the same motions, without any difference; and because they do not perceive the animal motions in a Stone or Tree, they are apt to deny to them all life, sense, and motion. Truly, Madam, I think no man will be so mad, or irrational, as to say a Stone is an Animal, or an Animal is a Tree, because a Stone and Tree have sense, life, and motion; for every body knows, that their Natural figures are different, and if their Natures be different, then they cannot have the same Motions, for the corporeal motions do make the nature of every particular Creature, and their differences; and as the corporeal motions act, work, or move, so is the nature of every figure, Wherefore, nobody, I hope, will count me so senseless, that I believe sense and life to be after the like manner in every particular Creature or part of Nature; as for example, that a Stone or Tree has animal motions, and doth see, touch, taste, smell and hear by such sensitive organs as an Animal doth; but, my opinion is, that all Sense is not bound up to the sensitive organs of an Animal, nor Reason to the kernel of a man's brain, or the orifice of the stomack, or the fourth ventricle of the brain, or onely to a mans body; for though we do not see all Creatures move in that manner as Man or Animals do, as to walk, run, leap, ride, &c. and perform exterior acts by various local motions; nevertheless, we cannot in reason say, they are void and destitute of all motion; For what man knows the variety of motions in Nature: Do not we see, that Nature is active in every thing, yea, the least of her Creatures. For example; how some things do unanimously conspire and agree, others antipathetically flee from each other; and how some do increase, others decrease; some dissolve, some consist, and how all things are subject to perpetual changes and alterations; and do you think all this is done without motion, life, sense, and reason? I pray you consider, Madam, that there are internal motions as well as external, alterative as well as constitutive; and several other sorts of motions not perceptible by our senses, and therefore it is impossible that all Creatures should move after one sort of motions. But you will say, Motion may be granted, but not Life, Sense, and Reason. I answer, I would fain know the reason why not; for I am confident that no man can in truth affirm the contrary: What is Life, but sensitive Motion? what is Reason, but rational motion? and do you think, Madam, that any thing can move it self without life, sense and reason? I, for my part, cannot imagine it should; for it would neither know why, whither, nor what way, or how to move. But you may reply, Motion may be granted, but not self-motion; and life, sense, and reason, do consist in self-motion. I answer: this is impossible; for not any thing in Nature can move naturally without natural motion, and all natural motion is self-motion. If you say it may be moved by another; My answer is, first, that if a thing has no motion in it self, but is moved by another which has self-motion, then it must give that immovable body motion of its own, or else it could not move, having no motion at all; for it must move by the power of motion, which is certain; and then it must move either by its own motion, or by a communicated or imparted motion; if by a communicated motion, then the self-moveable thing or body must transfer its own motion into the immoveable, and lose so much of its own motion as it gives away, which is impossible, as I have declared heretofore at large, unless it do also transfer its moving parts together with it, for motion cannot be transfered without substance. But experience and observation witnesseth the contrary. Next, I say, if it were possible that one body did move another, then most part of natural Creatures, which are counted immoveable of themselves, or inanimate, and destitute of self-motion, must be moved by a forced or violent, and not by a natural motion; for all motion that proceeds from an external agent or moving power, is not natural, but forced, onely self-motion is natural; and then one thing moving another in this manner, we must at last proceed to such a thing which is not moved by another, but hath motion in it self, and moves all others; and, perhaps, since man, and the rest of animals have self-motion, it might be said, that the motions of all other inanimate Creatures, as they call them, doth proceed from them; but man being so proud, ambitious, and self-conceited, would soon exclude all other animals, and adscribe this power onely to himself, especially since he thinks himself onely endued with Reason, and to have this prerogative above all the rest, as to be the sole rational Creature in the World. Thus you see, Madam, what confusion, absurdity, and constrained work will follow from the opinion of denying self-motion, and so consequently, life and sense to natural Creatures. But I, having made too long a digression, will return to your Authors discourse: And as for that he says, A dead Carcass burns by the proper action of the fire, I answer, That if the dissolving motions of the fire be too strong for the consistent motions of that body which fire works upon, then fire is the cause of its alteration; but if the consistent motions of the body be too strong for the dissolving motions of the fire, then the fire can make no alteration in it. Again: he says, Calx vive, at long as it remains dry, it gnaws not a dead Carcass; but it presently gnaws live flesh, and makes an escharre; and a dead carcass is by lime wholly resolved into a liquor, and is combibed, except the bone and gristle thereof; but it doth not consume live flesh into a liquor, but translates it into an escharre. I will say no more to this, but that I have fully enough declared my opinion before, that the actions or motions of life alter in that which is named a dead Carcass, from what they were in that which is called a Living body; but although the actions of Life alter, yet life is not gone or annihilated; for life is life, and remains full the same, but the actions or motions of life change and differ in every figure; and this is the cause that the actions of Fire, Time, and Calx-vive, have not the same effects in a dead Carcass, as in a living Body; for the difference of their figures, and their different motions, produce different effects in them; and this is the cause, that one and the same fire doth not burn or act upon all bodies alike: for some it dissolves, and some not; and some it hardens, and some it consumes; and some later, some sooner: For put things of several natures into the same Fire, and you will see how they will burn, or how fire will act upon them after several manners; so that fire cannot alter the actions of several bodies to its own blas; and therefore, since a living and a dead Body (as they call them) are not the same, (for the actions or motions of life, by their change or alteration, have altered the nature or figure of the body) the effects cannot be the same; for a Carcass has neither the interior nor exterior motions of that figure which it was before it was a Carcass, and so the figure is quite alter'd from what it was, by the change and alteration of the motions. But to conclude, the motions of the exterior Agent, and the motions of the Patient, do sometimes joyn and unite, as in one action, or to one effect, and sometimes the motions of the Agent are onely an occasion, but not a co-workman in the production of such or such an effect, as the motions of the Patient do work; neither can the motions of the Agent work totally and meerly of themselves, such or such effects, without the assistance or concurrence of the motions of the Patient, but the motions of the Patient can; and there is nothing that can prove more evidently that Matter moves it self, and that exterior agents or bodies are onely an occasion to such or such a motion in another body, then to see how several things put into one and the same fire, do alter after several modes; which shews, it is not the onely action of fire, but the interior motions of the body thrown into the fire, which do alter its exterior form or figure. And thus, I think I have said enough to make my opinions clear, that they may be the better understood: which is the onely aim and desire of,
Madam,
Your humble and