Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana, or, A fabrick of science natural, upon the hypothesis of atoms founded by Epicurus repaired [by] Petrus Gassendus ; augmented [by] Walter Charleton ...

SECT. I.

HAving thus long entertained it self with the most probable Reasons of the se∣veral wayes and means,* 1.1 whereby Compound Bodies exhibite their several Attributes and Proprieties to the judicature of the Sensitive Faculties in Animals, and principally in Man, the Rule, Perfection and grand Exemplar of all the rest; tis high time for our Curiosity to turn a new leaf, and sedulously address it self to the speculation of Another Order, or Classis of Qualities, such as are vulgarly distinguished from all those, which have hitherto been the sub∣ject of our Disquisitions, by the unhappy and discouraging Epithite, OCCULT. Wherein we use the scarce perfect Dialect of the Schools; who too boldly praesuming, that all those Qualities of Concretions, which belong to the jurisdiction of the senses, are dependent upon Known Causes, and deprehended by Known Faculties, have therefore termed them Ma∣nifest: and as incircumspectly concluding, that all those Proprieties of Bodies, which fall not under the Cognizance of either of the Senses, are derived from obscure and undiscoverable Causes, and perceived by Unknown Faculties; have accordingly determined them to be Immanifest or Occult. Not that we dare be guilty of such unpardonable Vanity and Ar∣rogance, as not most willingly to confess, that to Ourselves all the Operati∣ons of Nature are meer Secrets; that in all her ample catalogue of Qua∣lities, we have not met with so much as one, which is not really Im∣manifest and Abstruse, when we convert our thoughts either upon its Genuine and Proxime Causes, or upon the Reason and Manner of its perception by that Sense, whose proper Object it is: and consequently, that as the Sensibility of a thing doth noe way praesuppose its Intel∣ligibility, but that many things, which are most obvious and open to the Sense, as to their Effects, may yet be remote and in the dark to

the Understanding, as to their Causes: so on the Contrary, doth not the Insensibility of a thing necessitate, nay, nor aggravate the Unintel∣ligibility thereof, but that many things, which are above the sphere of the Senses, may yet be as much within the reach of our Reason, as the most sensible whatever. Which being praecogitated, as, when we look back upon our praecedent Discourses, touching the Originals and Per∣ception of Sensible Qualities, we have just ground to fear, that they have not attained the happy shoar of verity, but remain upon the wide and fluctuating ocean of meer Verisimility: So also, when we look for∣ward upon our immediately subsequent Disquisitions into the Causes of many Insensible Qualities, are we not destitute of good reason to hope, that though we herein attempt the consignation of Consentaneous and Probable Causes to sundry of those Effects, which Schollars commonly content themselves only to Admire, and without farther exercise of their Intellectuals, to leave wrapt up in the Chaos of Sympathies and Antipathies; yet will not the Ingenious misunderstand us, or con∣ceive that we esteem or propose those Reasons as Oraculous or Apo∣dicticall, or create an expectation of the Discovery of such Originals, whereupon those Rarer Operations and Magnalia of Nature do proximely and genuinely depend. However, some may think it expedient for us to profess, that as in our former Enquiries, so in this, our Designe is only to explain sundry admired Effects, by such Reasons, as may ap∣pear not altogether Remote and Incongruous, but Consentaneous and Affine to Truth; that so no mans judgement may be impeached by embracing them for most Probable, untill the (in that respect, too slow) wheel of Time shall have brought up some more worthy Explorator, who shall wholly withdrawe that thick Curtain of obscurity, which yet hangs betwixt Natures Laboratory and Us, and enrich the Com∣monweal of Letters, by the discovery of the Real Verity And this we must enterprize, by continuing our progress in the allmost oblite∣rated Tract, that Epicurus and Democritus so long since chalk'd forth; not by treading in the beaten road of Aristotle and his Se••tators, who (for ought we have learned) were They, who first founded that ill contrived Sanctuary of Ignorance, called OCCULT QUA∣LITIES.

For, generally setting up their rest in the Commistion of Ele∣ments,* 1.2 and their supposed Immateriall Qualities; and being not able ever to explicate any Insensible Propriety, from those narrow and barren Principles: they thought it a sufficient Salvo for their Ignorance, simply to affirme all such Proprieties to be Occult; and without due reflection up∣on the Invalidity of their Fundamentals, they blushed not to charge Na∣ture Herself with too much Closeness and Obscurity, in that point, as if she intended that all Qualities, that are Insensible, should also be Inex∣plicable.

The ingenious Sanchez, among many Sceptical Arguments of the Uncertainty of Sciences,* 1.3 seasonably urgeth this one, as very con∣siderable, against Physiologists; that when any Natural Problem, such as that of the Attraction of Iron by a Loadstone, of straws by Amber, &c. is objected to them; instead of setting their Curiosity on work to

to investigate the Causes thereof, they lay it in a deep sleep, with that infatuating opium of Ignote Qualities: and yet expect that men should believe them to know all that is to be known, and to have spoken like Oracles cencerning that Theorem; though at the same instant, they do as much as confess, that indeed they know nothing at all of its Nature and Causes. For, what difference is there, whether we say, that such a thing is Occult; or that we know nothing of it?

Nor is it a Course either less dishonorable to the Professors,* 1.4 or dan∣gerous to the Students of Philosophy, to refer such Effects, upon which men commonly look with the eye only of Wonder, to Secret Sympathies and Antipathies: forasmuch as those Windy Terms are no less a Re∣fuge for the Idle and Ignorant, than that of Occult Proprieties, it be∣ing the very same in importance, whether we have recourse to the One, or to the other. For, no sooner doe we betake ourselves to Either, but we openly confess, that, all our Learning is at a stand, and our Rea∣son wholly vanquisht, and beaten out of the field by the Difficulty pro∣posed. We deny not, that most, if not All of those Admired Effects of Nature, which even the Gravest Heads have too long thought suffici∣ent Excuses of their Despair of Cognition, do arise from some Sympa∣thy, or Antipathy betwixt the Agent and Patient: but yet for all that, have we no reason to concede, that Nature doth institute or Cause that sympathy or Antipathy, or the Effect resulting from either, by any o∣ther Lawes, or Means, but what she hath ordained and constantly useth, to the production of all other Common and familiar Effects. We ac∣knowlddge also, that Sympathy is a certain Consent, and Antipathy a cer∣tain Dissent betwixt Two Natures, from one, or both of which there usu∣ally ariseth some such Effect, as may seem to deserve our limited Admira∣tion: but is it therefore reasonable for us to infer, that those Natures are not subject unto, nor regulated by the General and Ordinary Rules of Acti∣on and Passion, whereto Nature hath fitmely obliged Herself in the rest of Her Operations?

To lance and cleanse this Cacoethical Ulcer, to the bottom,* 1.5 Con∣sider we, that the General Laws of Nature, whereby she produceth All Effects, by the Action of one and Passion of another thing, as may be collected from sundry of our praecedent Discertations, are these: (1.) That every Effect must have its Cause; (2) That no Cause can act but by Motion; (3) That Nothing can act upon a Distant subject, or upon such whereunto it is not actually Praesent, either by it self, or by some instrument, and that either Conjunct, or Trans∣mitted; and consequently, that no body can move another, but by con∣tact Mediate, or Immediate, i. e. by the mediation of some con∣tinued Organ, and that a Corporeal one too, or by it self alone. Which considered, it will be very hard not to allowe it necessary, that when two things are said either to Attract and Embrace one the other by mutual Sympathy, or to Repell and Avoid one the other, by mutual Antipathy; this is performed by the same wayes and means, whereby we observe one Body to Attract and hold fast another, or one Body to Repell and Avoid conjunction with another, in all Sen∣sible and Mechanique Operations. This small Difference only allowed,

that in Gross and Mechanique operations, the Attraction, or Repul∣sion is performed by Sensible Instruments: but, in those finer performances of Nature, called Sympathies and Antipathies, the Attraction or Re∣pulsion is made by Subtle and Insensible. The means used in every common and Sensible Attraction and Complection of one Bodie by an∣other, every man observes to be Hooks, Lines, or some such intermedi∣ate Instrument continued from the Attrahent to the Attracted; and in every Repulsion or Disjunction of one Bodie from another, there is used some Pole, Lever, or other Organ intercedent, or somewhat ex∣ploded or discharged from the Impellent to the Impulsed. Why there∣fore should we not conceive, that in every Curious and Insensible Attra∣ction of one bodie by another, Nature makes use of certain slender Hooks, Lines, Chains, or the like intercedent Instruments, continued from the Attrahent to the Attracted, and likewise that in every Secret Repulsion or Sejunction, she useth certain small Goads, Poles, Levers, or the like protruding Instruments, continued from the Repellent to the Repulsed bodie? Because, albeit those Her Instruments be invisible and imper∣ceptible; yet are we not therefore to conclude, that there are none such at all. We every day behold Spiders letting themselves down from high roofs, and as nimbly winding themselves up again at pleasure, by such slender threads of their own occasionall and extemporary spinning, as tis not every common eye that can discern them. Nay, in a Mask at Court, we have seen a whole Chorus of Gods descend into the theatre, as from the clouds, only by Wires and other lines, so fine and slender, as that all the light of the tapers burning therein was not sufficient to dis∣cover them to the sight of the Spectators: and vast and ponderous Scenes so suddenly and dextrously shifted, by the almost inobservable motions of Skrews, Elevators, Pulleys, and the like Archimedean Engines and De∣vices, that the common Beholders, judging only by the Apparence, or (rather) Non-apparence, have thought those great machines to have been Automatous, or to have moved themselves, and at last to vanish into nothing. And shall we not then allowe the incomparably more Cu∣rious Mechaniques of Natures, the Exemplar of Art, to be wrought by Instruments of Subtility incomparably greater: and that many of those small Engines, whereby she usually moves and susteins bodies of conside∣rable bulk and weight, are Corporeal, though by incomputable excesses below the perception of our acutest sense? Certainly, for us to affirm, that nothing Material is emitted from the Loadstone to Iron, which by continuity may Attract it; only because our sense doth deprehend nothing intercedent betwixt them: is an Argument of equal weight with that of the Blind man, who denied the Being of Light and Colours, because He could perceive none. In a word, if there be any validity in what we have so plainly asserted, and frequently inculcated, touching the Hebetude or Grossness of our Senses, on one part, and the great Exility of all Aporraea's or Effuxes streaming from Bodies, on the other; and if tha•• Oracle, Reason, be to be heard, which so long since persuaded Hippo∣crates, and many other, Secretaries of Nature, that most, if not All Bodies are [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] Perspirable and Conspirable, i. e. that they continually emit insensible Effluvia's from themselves to others: We say, if there be any weight in all this, men cannot think it unrea∣sonable in us to conceive, that those Admired Effects, which they com∣monly

ascribe to Hidden Sympathies and Antipathies, are brought about by the same ways and means, which Nature and Art use in the Causation of the like Ordinary and Sensible Effects; and that the Instruments of Natural Attraction, Complectence, Repulsion, Sejunction, are Corporeal, and hold a neer Analogie to those of Artificial; only these are Gross and Perceptible, those Subtile and Imperceptible.

Notwithstanding the perspicuity of these Arguments,* 1.6 we shall not supererogate, to heighten the lustre of so desirable a Truth, by the ver∣nish of a convenient and praegnant Simile, or two. If we attentively ob∣serve a Chamaeleon catching Gnats and other small Flyes in the Aer, for his food; we shall see him dart out a long and slender tongue, with a small recurvation at the tip, and birdlimed with a certain tenacious and inviscating moisture, wherewith, in a trice, laying hold of a Fly, at some distance from his mouth, he conveys the same into it with such cleanly speed, as exceeds the Legerdemane of our cunningst Juglers, and may have been the cheif occasion of that popular Error, that he lives meer∣ly upon Aer. And when we see a peice of Amber, Jet, hard Wax, or other Electrique, after sufficient friction, to attract straws, shavings of wood, quils, and other festucous bodies of the same lightness, object∣ed within the orbe of their Alliciency; and that with a cleanly and quick motion: Why should we not conceive, that this Electricity or At∣traction may hold a very neer Analogy to that attraction of Gnats, by the exserted and nimbly retracted tongue of a Chamaeleon. For (1) it is not improbable, that the Attraction of all Electriques is per∣formed by the mediation of swarms of subtle Emanations, or Continued Rayes of exile particles, comparative to so many Chamaeleons Tongues; which through the whole Sphere of their Virtue, in various points mu∣tually intersecting, or decussating, and more especially toward their Extreams, doe not only insinuate themselves into the pores of those small and light festucous bodies occurrent, but lay hold upon several in∣sensible Asperities in their superfices, and then returning (by way of Retraction) back to their Original or Source, bring them along in their twined arms, and so long hold them fast in their Complicate em∣braces, as the warmth and radial Diffusion, excited by affriction, lasteth. (2) All the Disparity, that can be objected, seems to consist onely in the Manner of their Return, or Retraction; the Tongue of the Chamaeleon being both darted forth, and retracted by help of certain Muscles, wherewith Nature, by a peculiar provi∣dence, hath accommodated that otherwise Helpless Animal: but, Electriques are destitute of any such organs, either for the Exser∣tion, or Reduction of their Rayes. And this is not so great, but it may be solved, by supposing, that as if the Chamaeleons Tongue were drawn forth at length by a mans hand, and not extruded by the instruments of Voluntary Motion, it would again Contract and Reduce it self spontaneously, after the same manner as Nerves and Lutestrings retract and curle up themselves, after violent Distensi∣on: so may the Rayes, which stream from an Electrique, being ab∣duced from their fountains, not spontaneously, but by the force of praecedent Affriction, be conceived to Reduce and Retract them∣selves, after the manner of Sinews and Lutestrings violently extended.

(3) That such tenacious Rayes are abduced from Amber and other Ele∣ctriques, is easily convincible (besides the experiment of their Attraction of convenient objects) from hence; that all Electriques are Unc••uous and Pinguous Concretions, and that in no mean degree: and manifest it is, that a viscid and unctuous Bodie is no sooner Warmed by rubbing, but there rise out of it certain small Lines or Threads, which adhaere to a mans finger that toucheth it, and such as may, by gentle abduction of the finger, be prolonged to considerable distance. But, however this may be contro∣verted, and the Way of all Electrique Attractions variously explicated, according to the various Conceptions of men; the Itch of Phancy being soonest allayed by the liberty of ones singular Conjecture, in such curi¦ous Theorems: yet still is it firme and indubitable, that though the At∣traction of straws by Amber, be in some sort Admirable, yet is it not Mi∣raculous, as is implied in that opinion, which would have it to be by some Immaterial (i e. Supernatural) Virtue; and that it is effected by some Cor∣poreal, though both impalpable and invisible Organs continued from the Attrahent to the Attracted.

* 1.7On the Other side, as for the Abaction, or Repulsion of one thing by another, in respect whereunto Vulgar Philosophers have thought and taught, that the Abacted or Repulsed doth (if an Animal) voluntarily (if Inanimate) spontaneously Flie from and avoid Conjunction with the Abacting, or Repellent, by reason of some hidden Enmity or Antipathy betwixt their Forms: though the Reasons and Manner of such Fugation, so far forth as concerns Animals, may be collected from our former Dis∣courses of the Gratefulness and Offensiveness of Sensible Objects; yet shall we here f••rther illustrate the same by certain Analogies and Simili∣tudes. When a Nettle is objected to a mans Hand, why doth He with∣draw it from the same? Not upon the account of any Antipathy in his hand to the Nettle; because being bruised, or withered, no Childe but will boldly handle it: but, because the Nettle is pallizado'd with millions of small stings, or prickles, which like so many Darts, wounding the the skin, cause a pain therein, and so the man, for avoidance of harm, catch∣eth his hand from it, as an injurious object. Why likewise doth the Nose abominate and avoid stinking Odours, whenever they are brought neer it? Is it not because such Foelid and Offensive Odours consist, for the most part, of such sharp and pungent Particles, as holding no Cor∣respondence to the pores and contexture of the Odoratory Nerves, are no sooner admitted, but they in a manner scratch, wound and dilacerate the Sensory? And may we not conceive those disproportionate Particles of the ungrateful Odour to be as so many small Lances or Darts, which offer the same injury to the Mammillary Processes of the brain, that the Prickles of a Nettle offer to the skin? Certainly, as the Nettle strikes its Darts into the skin, and not into the Nayles of a mans hand; because those are of too close and firm a Contexture to admit them: so doth an offensive Odour immit its painted and angular Particles into the tender smelling Nerves, and not into the skin, because its Contexture is more Com∣pact, than to be capable of Puncture or Dilaceration thereby. Lastly, Why doth the Eye abhor and turne from Ugly and Odious Objects? Is it not only because the Visible Species emitted from such Bodies, doth consist of Particles of such Configurations and Contexture, as carry no

proportion to the particles and contexture of the Optique Nerves, but striking upon the Retina Tunica, instantly wound and exasperate the slender and tender filaments thereof, and so cause the Eye, for fear of far∣ther injury, to close, or avert it self? And are not those Acute and Dis∣proportionate Particles, composing the visible Species, worthily resembla∣ble to so many small Prickles or Lancets, which though too subtile to wound the Skin, Nostrils, or other parts of the body, whose Compo∣sure is less delicate, do yet instantly mis-affect and pain the Optique Nerves, whose singular Contexture doth appropriate to them the Capacity of be∣ing sensible of that compunction? Now, putting all these Considerati∣ons into the scale together, and ponderating them with an equal hand; we shall find their weight amount to no less than this: that as every Sympathy is displayd by certain Corporeal, though Invisible Organs, comparated to Attraction and Amplectence; so is every Antipathy, by the like invisible Organs, comparated to Repulsion and Sejunction; which is what we As∣sumed.

Hence may we, without much difficulty,* 1.8 extract more than a Conjectu∣ral judgement, What are the First and General Causes of all Love and Hatred. For, look what kind of Motions, whether Grateful or Ungrate∣ful, are by the Species impressed upon the Nerves peculiarly inservient to that sense, by which the Object is apprehended; the very same are con∣tinued quite home to the Brain, and therein accordingly move and affect the Common Sensory: so as that, according to the Pleasure or Offence of the Perception, there is instantly excited an Affection either of Prosecuti∣on of the thing, by whose species that pleasant motion was Caused, and that is the Hint and Ground of Loving and Desiring it; or of Aversation from it, and that is the Ground of Hating and Declining it.

Nay, the same may be well admitted also for the Cause,* 1.9 Why things A like in their Natures, love and delight in the Society each of other; and on the contrary, Why Unlike Natures abhor and avoid each other. For, as those which are Consimilar in their Temperaments, affect each other with Con∣generous and Grateful Emanations: So doe those of Dissimilar mis-affect each other with Discordant and Ungrateful. And therefore it is no longer a wonder, that men Love, or Dislike each other commonly at first inter∣view, though they scarce know why: nor can we longer withold our Assent to that unmarkable Opinion of Plato, that Similitude of Temperaments and so of Inclinations, is not only the Cement, but Basis also of Amity and Friendship.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Art. 1. That the Insen∣sibility of Qua∣lities doth not import their Vnintelligibili∣ty; contrary to the presumpti∣on of the Ari∣stotelean.
• * 1.2

  Art. 2. Upon what grounds; and by wh••m, the Sanctuary of Occult Qualities was erected.
• * 1.3

  Art. 3. Occult Qualities and profest Ig∣norance, all one.
• * 1.4

  Art. 4. The Refuge of Sympathies and Antipathies, equally ob∣structive to the advance of Natural Sci∣ence, with that of Igno••e Pro∣prieties.
• * 1.5

  Art. 5. Thatall Attra∣ction, referred to Secret Sym∣pathy; and all Repulsion, ad∣scribed to se∣cret Antipathy, betwixt the Agent and Pa∣tient, is effect∣ed by Corporeal Instruments, and such as resem∣ble those, whereby one body Attract∣eth, or Repel∣leth another, in sensible and mechanique operations.
• * 1.6

  Art. 6. The Means of Attractions sympathetical, explicated by a convenient Simile.
• * 1.7

  Art. 7. The Means of Abaction and Repulsions Antipathetical, explicated likewise by sundry simili∣tudes.
• * 1.8

  Art. 8. The First and General Ca••ses of all Love and Hatred, betwixt Animals.
• * 1.9

  Art. 9. Why things Alike in their natures, love and delight in the Society each of other: and why Vn∣like natures ab∣hor and avoid each other.