Though I apprehend that the Four Elements of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, may never have been increased or diminished, since the Great God of Order created them, yet I can also apprehend each of them unequally dispers’d in the Universe by various Causes and Events: And when this happens, those which were intended, when in their due Order, to make every thing happy and easy, in their disordered State will create nothing but Confusion.
For Instance, the chief Use of Water seems intended, when descending in warm and gentle Showers, or flowing in kind and easy Streams, to chear and nourish all Kinds of Vegetation, as well in Trees and Plants, as in Herbs and Flowers: But suppose, by the Contrivance of Man, or by the Accidents of Nature, a large Quantity of it lodged on the Tops of high Hills, if it breaks its Bank, it will never stop, till it finds a natural resting Place; and in its Torrent it will overwhelm and destroy those Trees and Plants, with the Herbs and Flowers, it was intended to nourish.
The like may be said of the Fire, which I have been supposing uniformly dispersed over the Creation; which, if its Properties are to invigorate all Nature, you must of course suppose its Power not to be controul’d; but that it passes through all the Animal, Mineral, and Vegetable Creation, whilst they stand in need of Life, or any Increase.
But as I have been conjecturing what different Purposes Water in its disorder’d State may produce, so the same Consideration may be had concerning Fire in its disorder’d State: When too much of it is brought together, either by the Contrivance of Man, or by the Disorders in the other Elements; is it not reasonable to suppose, that it will, according to its natural Appointment, get about its Business, and break as soon as it can from its Confinement?
A very learned and eminent Author, who is now living, says, “That all Life, whether it be vegetable, sensitive, or animal, is only a kindled Fire of Life in such a Variety of States: And every dead insensitive Thing is only so because its Fire is quenched.”
It had been impossible that this wonderful Phænomenon of Electricity should ever have been discover’d, if there had not been such Things as are non-electricable. For, as fast as this Fire had been driven on any thing, its next Neighbour would have carried it further: But, when it was most wonderfully found out, that any thing which was suspended in a silk Cord (that being a Non-electricable) was obliged to retain the Fire, which by electrical Force was driven on it; and when, moreover, it appeared, that any Person or Thing being placed on a Cake of Bees-wax (which also is a Non-electricable), it could no more part with its Fire, than when suspended in a silk Cord, I think it will become worth Inquiry, why they are not electricable.
To prove this, I would reflect upon the Passage before-quoted: For from thence I think it must follow, that if Fire be the Cause of the Life and Increase in any thing, then, whatever ceases to be in a State of Life or Increase, can no longer be supposed to be capable of them; and therefore must be consider’d as a Caput Mortuum. Of this sort are Bees-wax and Silk, both being non-electricable.
To pursue this kind of Reasoning concerning them: They are, in truth, the Excrements only from those Beings which once had Life in them; the Wax being the excrementitious Matter from Bees, which, when made, was to be capable of no further Increase or Addition to its Nature: For, as its primitive Use was only intended to make Combs or Cells to preserve the Honey through the different Changes of the Season, so if this Wax had been liable to Alterations from this Fire (as all Things which are endued with it are) then the Cells would not have remained so intire as the wonderful Architects left them.
As concerning the Silk, I look on it as an excrementitious Matter also; designed by God Almighty (who makes nothing in vain) to become a Capsula or Coffin to preserve the Insect in it safely, for such a Season as was intended it should remain there.
All resinous Bodies are likewise non-electricable; which I think will tend rather to prove my Conjecture to be true than false: For, are there such Things as Pitch or Resin in Nature? Are they not made out of the Juice of Plants? Which Plants, whilst they remained in the Life of Nature, had nothing but their unalter’d Juice in them. Pitch and Resin became so by Art; and therefore no Time or Chance can give an Increase to their Quantity: From whence they may be supposed not to be in the Course of Nature.