SECT. III. Of the Element of Air.

PHilosophers have been long in doubt, whether there was an Element of Air, and whether that space wherein Animals do move and live, was not voyd of all substance; but the invention Page  39and use of Bellowes, and the necessity of respiration, have at last abolisht this error. Therefore, there is no debate or difference between Chymist and Peripateticks at present, concerning the exi∣stency and place of this Element; but they agree not amongst themselves concerning its use in Nature: for these last do make the Air to bear a part in the composition of Mixt Bodies, which the former utterly reject and deny, because it never falls under their senses, in the last resolution of the Compound. The chief use which Chymists do assign to this Element, is, that it serves as Matrix to the Universal Spirit, which doth begin in it to take some bodily Idea, before it be wholly corporified in the Elements of Water and Earth, who produce Mixt Bodies, that are as fruits of the said Elements. And because we see no Element which doth not bear and produce its fruits, some have been for∣ward to affirm, that Birds were the fruits of the Air. But this opinion is wrong and erroneous; for although these Birds be vo∣latile, and for the most part abide in the Air, yet can they not be deprived of Commerce with the Earth either for the necessi∣ty of generation or food: they that maintain Meteors to be the right fruits of the Air, are much more in the right, since they take in it their true Meteoric• Idea.

Some do call that part of Philosophy, which concerns the knowledge of Nature, the fruits and effects of this Element, Chormancy, but it is corruptly, and by a mistake instead of Aero∣mancy; for Chormancy is something more general, and more universal: since it is the Doctrine and knowledge of the Chaos, which is to say, this great Matrix, whence all the Elements have been drawn: it is the Tohu and Bohu, or the hyle of Cabalists, which in Holy Scripture is called Water, where it is said, that the Spirit of God did move upon the Waters, or rather lay hovering over the Wa∣ters,* as a Hen doth over her Brood, Spiritus Dei incubabat aquis.

But a question may here be moved, that whereas we have said above, that Elements cannot but difficulty quit their own na∣ture to put on that of another Element, how it comes to pass, that Air is said to be the food and aliment of Fire, and that in reality it seems so necessary for its subsistance, that it perisheth Page  40as soon as the passage or communication of Air becomes inter∣cepted. The answer is at hand; for as we have already shewed, the fire of our Hearths, or material fire, is not pure, the com∣bustible matter set on fire, doth send forth abundance of vapours and fuliginous excrements, which do very much prejudice the durableness and action of it; therefore it requires still a stream of continual Air, to remove the fuliginous matter, because with∣out it the flame should immediately be choaked; so that by this appears, how this conversion or imaginary food, is to be ta∣ken, and how much d•fference there is between true and false Philosophy.

Another question may be yet started, touching the use of respiration or breathing in Animals: Whether that Air which they draw in their breathing, hath any other end but meerly to refresh them, as the ordinary Philosophers do give out, only re∣lying upon their Teachers words, without any industrious enquiry touching the truth of it, and contenting themselves to quote their Authority, as the sum and ground of all reasons: But those that look more narrowly into the nature of things, say, that there is another much more excellent and necessary use thereof, viz. to attract the Universal Spirit, which by th• influx of the Heavens, is conveyed into the Air, where it is endowed with an Idea al∣together Celestial, Spiritual, and full of vertue and efficacy; it is converted in the heart into Animal spirit, where it receives a perfect and vivifying Idea, which renders the Animal capable by its help to exercise all the functions of life: For it is this spirit contained in the Air we breath in, which subtilizeth, and maketh volatile, all the superfluities that are found both in the venal and arterial blood, the shop and matter of vital and animal spirits; and it is by the force and efficacy of this Spirit, that Na∣ture is enabled to expell the impurities of nutriment insinuated in the last digestions, by entertaining a continual transpiration through the pores. This appears even in the Plants, though very obscurely: for although they be deprived of Lungs, or any other material Instrument, for the performance of respiration; yet have they something Analogous to it, which is their Magnetisme, by which they draw that Spirit residing in the Air, without which they could not perform their natural Operations, as to Page  41nourish themselves, increase, produce their like, &c. Which ma∣nifestly doth appear when they are buried too deep in the ground, and by this means deprived from that vivifying Spirit, by which they are animated, for they immediately die as if they were suffocated.