A treatise of the bulk and selvedge of the world wherein the greatness, littleness, and lastingness of bodies are freely handled : with an answer to Tentamine [sic] de Deo by S.P. ... / by N. Fairfax ...

To the Reader.

IF I may measure others by my self, 'tis a more ticklish thing to pen a Preface, than 'tis to write a Book. For when ever I lay hands on a New piece, as soon as I have once spell'd the Great letters of its Name, I am wont hastily to take forth to the Fore∣speech for the Reader, as thinking that to be the handle, that I am to hold the Book by, which, according as I relish or mislike, oftentimes so fares the whole with me. For if I find the man has it not in him to erect a Scheme in the Say that he has for me there, I am shrewdly given to mistrust, that he will never conjure much in the Book that comes after: or when the first Greeting me is sowre or faint, I am ready to fear the after treat will be none of the sweetest or the win∣ningest. Whether others conne Books with these kind of reckonings, I can't tell; but while I can tell my self that I do so, it stands me in hand to be a little wary of trip∣ping upon such slippery ground. Now to speak truth, all the tale that I have to tell the Reader is but this: That finding in my self a kind of forwardness towards Philoso∣phy, and mainly to that part of it which

takes knowledge of Bodies; as which, of all others, I found I could receive most helps and furtherance in, from those spreading lights and wealthy stores, with which the Royal Society at home and others abroad, set into the way by their showing and en∣heartned to go on by their works, had both embellisht and enricht it, I let my mind alone to take its full swing in the Conning of Bodies, this and that; and forth∣with or ere I could well help it, I fell a Roving, and plung'd out from what I was medling with and tossing of, to another thing that was earlyer and Bulkier, and to somwhat still that was more betimes and more of Boak; and being quite lost in a wilde and a frightful on and on, I'een took back again where I was, and fell to unra∣vel the thing that was too big to be fa∣thom'd, that I might make it little enough for my mind to grapple with: but I was as unluckie at lessening and narrowing as I had been before at widening and big∣ning. As the one had wrackt and limm'd my thoughts, with endless tenters and boundless retchings out; so had the other nipt in my soul and shrivell'd up my thoughts, with restless gripes and unwearyed parings off: so that I had both lost and be∣nothing'd my self in the lessenings made

within my self, as I had lost and bewildred my self in the scopes still left without my self. Nor could I be at rest in my mind, till I had tryed, whether I could not cut off Bound∣lessness and endlessness, so as at length I might have ease, to find, that Body, which I had to do withal, had both beginning and end, an inmost part and an outmost whole, as I my self had: and so the remarks and ex∣periments that I was to make, were not up∣on Bodies that carried Boundlessness in their bellies, & were themselves a swimming in a boundless gulf, so that I must needs have my thoughts to dance after them in an endless round, or launch into a boundless width; but that I might settle here or pitch down there, and tell the first and ken the last, and cope with the biggest and the least: and as soon as I got to the spring head of Lasting∣ness, I sate me down and drank a health to sweet rest, and blisst my self that I was there; and when I came at the Selvedge of Bulk, I took heart afresh to think with my self, that there was all, and nothing at all beyond, and I need weary my self with no more wandrings in a wast, but might come home again fair and soft, and fasten on this or that, or little or great, as I thought best, to set a mark on or make a Tryal of. For then I saw that all was not wood within a

wood: but me-thought the world was a curi∣ous Frame of well set Bodies, the beginning of which the least of which, and the whole of which, might all be come at.

Thus having shaken off the things I could never grasp, and taken Body by the right han∣dle, I found I was freer to think, and better at ease to work: and deeming there were more in the world that were of my make, I did not know but they might think, and do so too; and it was but a friendly part to set any man into his way, that I thought was out of it: and therefore what I thought I writ, and what I writ, the Reader sees is comen abroad.

Which if it takes, I shall not mislike it, that another man has found that which he lookt for; and if it does not, the worst on't is but this, that that which has not yet been made out by any man, nor has it been by me. And whatever ill luck betides it, I have no body else to blame for it; for I writ it all at home, and 'twas given at my self. And to tell troth, I don't love to ask another man, whether my Child be not pretty or hopeful; for I think, that must needs be a crotchet piece of un∣luckyness, that is not fit to be Printed if a friend has it to read over for that end, or to be prais'd, if another man has it to make a New song upon.

But if any man ask me what I think on't my

self? I answer, The very same that I think of o∣ther mens writings, and that is, that they are the writings of Man and nothing more, wri∣ting and miswriting mingled together. Only I can say the Writer indeed is neither Green nor Grey. So though the Reader may fear he shall find little that is full ripe, I hope he will find less that is altogether raw. As I think o∣therwise from what I did some years agoe, so happily I may think otherwise from what I do some years hence, even about some things here spoken to: and therefore I love to speak soft for my own sake as well as others. I do be∣lieve too if I had kept it longer I could have drawn it up better, but that bare no sway with me to do so; for then the only day of its coming into the world must have been the day of my going out of it. Notwithstanding though I don't believe 'tis the best that can be done, or the best that I could do my self, yet 'tis rid of as many mislikes as I could strike out at twice reading, and I did not think it worth while to read it again to find more. As 'tis, I neither reckon it my God nor my Golden Calf, nor am I fond on't or a∣shamd on't. Should I say I had slighty thoughts of it, I can't tell how it would be wit or good manners to put it into the hands of my Betters; and if I give out I set highly by it, I should lacken it as much by making

such a Fondling the Penman of it. However the management of it may seem weak or low, I am sure the drift and scope was manly & lofty. There being no lower nor other aims in it, than that we might not think amiss of that Almighty Being which has made us, nor of the sundry Beings he has made, that we may neither dote nor dare, stragle nor be lost: but may be led by such a clue of understand∣ing, & softned by such a bashfulness of know∣ledge, that we may be wise and awful both in one; that the knowledg of things may be less a weariness to the flesh, and that thoughts of things without us may less gall that Being within us; that, as God beholding what he had made, said with himself that all was good, we may see it & say it too, & love the spring from whence they came, while we wonder at the wisdom by which they are; worshipping the same with a more becoming dread, a fuller enlightned mind, freer out-goings of heart, steddyer & closer thoughts about things that he has made more easeful to the mind, and better sorted in it: that so giving to God his right, we may take to our selves our own rest.

In the doing of which, the freedom that I have taken, I give too. Think and let think, are engraven upon my very soul. And I shall never think amiss of the Reader for not being of my mind, any more than I do of those

Learned men which I thought meet somwhere to name. Which I did, not from any itching to thwart them: but I thought it would speak no∣thing of Breeding, to look full on a Great man standing in my way, and not to vouchsafe him worth Doffing to, or to write my self of another mind from what some men of Name are, whose reasons for what they hold have fallen into a many good hands, without I should also say why I am not of their mind for their reason. But as for any lessenings of them, who have done huge well, as I think, elsewhere, and may have done well enough, as others think, where I take them to be out; 'tis so much against my meaning and the very Grain of me to let any such fall from my Pen, that if in any thing I so much as but seem to do it, 'tis all my unwariness, and no∣thing of my aim. And I do think my self so much the more bound to take heed how I han∣dle the good name of others, by how mnch the more I see, how an ill will'd and frampled was∣pishness has broken forth, to the royling and fi∣ring of the age wherein we live, and for ought I can foretel, even those too, that are coming after.

Indeed, when I read such things as are spoken to, further on, in a late Writer, I can't for my life but think, he may mistake a little, as you and I and all men do, and have done & shall do. And that thereupon he would not willingly be call'd Names, such as can't be spoken without a stink∣ing

breath, nor written but with a brazen pen, nor spell'd but with the letters of the Dog and the Goose, the grinning and the hissing. And re∣membring 'tis good Bible, Do as you would be done by, I can easily let go my self in some for∣ward wishes leading to self love in behalf of such a one, heartily bespeaking him, for Gods sake, for that of self, & the Commonwealth of Learn∣ing, that hereafter we might read writings with other sentences besides those of Condemnation, with other wit besides that which lies in the forehead, and where all the Dashes of the pen may not be stroaks upon men; as knowing that such Doomesday Books, may soonest be burnt themselves, which are readiest to enflame others.

I believe no man wishes with more earnestness than I do, that all men of Learning and know∣ledg were men of kindness and sweetness, & that such as can out do others would outlove them too; especially while self bewhispers us, that it stands us all in hand to be forgiven as well as to forgive. The hardest things that I know, had their beginnings layd in the softness and yield∣ingness of a kind of dew; and whoever would have all men stand up stiffly for what he holds, will find it best at length to lead them in those easier paths of Nature. Sure I am, it would be more than a wonder to me, should any ones sight be better'd by spitting fire into clay & be∣smearing eyes with it. For every mans mind is

his Castle; and if it can't be taken by strength of reason, the throwing in Granadoes, will be no∣thing but a smutty, stinking token to the world, that ill will would have done more mischief, but weak Gear could not. So long as he who has but a teeming brain, may have leave to lay his eggs in his own nest, which is built beyond the reach of every mans puddering pole, why should the ears of all the neighborhood be dinn'd & grated with the Cackle, as if the whole world besides were all Weasils and Poulcats, vermine and Lur∣chers? I do verily bear my self in hand, that if the humor of huffing be but a little further cocker'd & more warmed, the Leyden gown must needs take place of the Long robe at Cambridge & Ox∣ford, instead of the side thing the thing by the side, and snicking and sneeing will be nothing else in the world but writing of Book a la mode d' An∣gleterre. For so long as men have but unlike thinkings, and that will be as long as they have unlike faces, they must look for no better fare from a world of Bears and Scratchers, than first to be gall'd in the tenderest part of their good name, and then to fall under the rods and axes of a cutting hate, and ill will set on fire. Were I but to whisper to him of whom so many talk a∣loud, I should rown him thus much in the ear, with all the heartiness of a friend, that the next time he has left to bless us with his Day breaks, he would chuse a softer quill to make his pen of;

that the Reader at length might be as ready to have good thoughts for him, as he has been to have bad words for others.

As for the way of wording it, I know afore∣hand, 'tis not trim enough for these Gay days of ours; but dressing is none of my business. When I look at things, I can afford to overlook words, and I had rather speak home than fair, nor do I care how blunt it be, so it be strong. Every man has his way of writing and speaking, and I have mine; which as I allow it to others, I may look it should be allow'd me. Only tis like there is one thing which I may be blam'd for by many; and that is a kind of shiness all along of those bor∣rowed words & gaynesses, that Englishmen have pickt and cull••d from other Tongues, under the name of Choyce words and Sparkling sayings. To which, after I have markt, how a greater man than I, in the same business of Bodies, has gone a good way towards it already, I mean the Learned Sir Kenhelm Digby, I have but thus much more to say, That thinking with my self, how I an English man would write a Book in English tongue, I made it now and than a little of my care, to bring in so many words of that speech, that the Book might thence be call'd English, without mis-calling it. And indeed however our smoother tongued Neighbours may put in a claim for those bewitcheries of speech that flow from Gloss and Chimingness; yet I verily be∣lieve

that there is no tongue under heaven, that goes beyond our English for speaking manly strong and full. And if words be more to teach than tickle, as I reckon they are, our Mother tongue will get as much by speaking fit and af∣ter kind, as it can loose by faring rough and taking up the tongue to utter, and more than any else can gain by kembing better and run∣ning glibber. Besides where I thought an out∣landish word would be better taken, I have often for the Readers sake set it down, as for my own sake set an English by it, as thinking it unmeet to force my words upon another, in such a piece as where I was to leave all free, as to the things I spake about. Only I thought it not amiss, after I was once in, for the taking off that charge that some have too heedlesly layd upon our speech, of a patcht up Tongue from Lands and kinreds round about, to shew, that a Book of thus many sheets, might be under∣standingly and roundly written, in hail and clear English, without taking in from abroad, so much as twice so many words (and he that writes it in the most unbroken tongue upon earth, shall go near to light upon so many), un∣less where the same thing is fuller and kind∣lyer spoken by those we have at home, taking but out the Cant words or terms of art, as they are call'd, which are rather tallies or spells in the tongue, that is, no bodies, because every bodies,

than the homebred vvords of any vvhatsoever; and are taken up and forged at will, by the whole stock of learned men in all Lands, where∣with to fish out one anothers meaning. And as for a tongue that borrows not nor spends, I be∣lieve 'tis no where to be found, or ever will be: all tongues through time being so far blended, that there are not any of those now in the world in whole, that were at the great Speech∣break at Babel, any more than there would be the same bodies crew of atoms to those Speakers now that they had then, or the same kinreds of men unmingled with Out-setters that were a∣mong them then, should they have liv'd and jugg'd together to this day. Yet that some tongues lose more than others at home, and get from abroad, is easie to be seen, and our own is enough to bring any man to believe it. And in earnest, if the knack of borrowing, or robbing and pilfering rather, gets but a little further ground amongst us, at the scantling it has done hitherto, it will in time to come be harder for an English-man to speak his own tongue without mingling others with it, than to speak a medly of sundry others without bringing in his own. But for my part, I am of the mind, that the lard∣ing of Latine with High-Dutch, in what is writ∣ten to the whole world, as some Germans in their Motley Books have already done, is even as praise-worthy, as the haling in of Latine or o∣ther

tongues, when we are speaking in English to English; and the rather, for that the words thus foisted in, are of such a sort most an end, that if you look but to their rists, and lay their beto∣kenings to the things whose names they bear, I dare undertake twenty for one, that even the slighted and off-cast words in the mouths of Handy-crafts-men and Earth-tillers shal be bet∣ter drawn and more patly brought in. And inas∣much as that Fellowship of Worthies in London, who are now embodied under the name of Roy∣al, have given us already so many new things, and are daily starting more, neither named nor known by those before us; and for the enriching of the English tongue, as well as fulfilling of Englands stores, have thought fit their discove∣ries should almost wholly come abroad in our own Speech, as they are happily made in our own Land: I think it will well become those of us, who have a more hearty love for what is our own than wanton longings after what is others, to take light and life from such happy begin∣nings, and either to fetch back some of our own words, that have been justled out in wrong that worse from elsewhere might be hoisted in, or else to call in from the fields and waters, shops and work-housen, from the inbred stock of more homely women and less filching Thorps-men, that well-fraught world of words that answers works, by which all Learners are taught to do,

and not to make a Clatter; And perhaps if we slip this tide, we shall never come again at such a nicking one. For inasmuch as almost the whole of those words, that we speak in things or knowledges of things that are not body, are ta∣ken from things that are body, and spoken in a borrowed meaning from thence, either as they have Beings from God, or a Suchness of being from our handy-work: so all the words about body and hangers on to body that we have to do with, are either such as flow from or mainly well fall in with those that are utter'd by Work∣men, for such things as are done by hand-deed. Now the Philosophy of our day and Land being so much workful as the world knows it to be, methinks this of all times should be the time, wherein, if ever, we should gather up those scat∣ter'd words of ours that speak works, rather than to suck in those of learned air from beyond Sea, which are as far off sometimes from the things they speak, as they are from us to whom they are spoken.

Besides, it may well be doubted, whether Latine can now be made so fit to set forth the things of a Working Philosophy by, as our own Speech, or those other of our Neighbours, who are with us carrying on that way of Doing. For we must know, that almost all the old pieces of good Latine that we draw by, have been taken up by that sort of learning that is wont to be

worded in the Schools, & spent in the setting to sale of such things as could best be glazed with the froth of ink, by the men of Closets. Whence he that is best skill'd in it, is so hard put to it, in the Kitchin, that Shop, and the Ship; and ever will be, though Plautus should be as well understood as Tully. For the words that are every day run∣ning to and fro in the Chat of Workers, have not been gotten into Books and put aboard for other Lands, until this way of Knowing by Do∣ing was started amongst us. So that we and o∣thers of the Handed Philosophers may either find better words among our own Yeomanry, for such businesses of workmanship as are al∣ready known by name, or at least coin fitter for new ones in a likewiseness to the old, than can be lent us from that Tongue wherein we know not how the Folks talkt in the Country, nor do any body else or ever shall do. Whereby too we shall not only vvith more ease and kindliness be understood by the Pains-taking men amongst us, whose Crafts will be more helpful to an hail Philosopher, than the Bookishness of others. But as Learnings being lockt up in the Tongues of the Schools, or Love's being lickt up in the more womanly simprings of the lips, and the smiling kissing speeches of some others abroad, have been enough to enkindle in us a panting after, and fondness for some of those Outlandish dynns: So if the works of our own men shall

be shipt over by words of our own tongue, it may happily make others who have love enough for the things, to seek as much after our words, as we upon other scores have done after theirs; the first draught being English, name and thing, doing and speaking. Which while we forbear to do, and snip here and snatch there from some of them, being as much beholden to them for new and handsom words, as they to us for fresh and useful things, the works are not more greatned by their spreading name, than the workers seem lessened by the unluckiness of the slur, That English-men can do by their own Hands, what they can't speak in their own Tongues.