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The importance of the Question, you propose, would oblige me to refer you to the Dialogue about a good Hypothesis, and some other Papers of that kind, where you may find my thoughts about the advantages of the Mechanical Hypothesis somewhat amply set down, and discoursed of. But, since your desires confine me to deliver in few words, not what I believe resolvedly, but what I think may be probably said for the Preference or the Preeminence of the Corpuscular Philosophy above Aristotle’s, or that of the Chemists, you must be content to receive from me, without any Preamble, or exact Method, or ample Discourses, or any other thing that may cost many words, a succinct mention of some of the chief Advantages of the Hypothesis we incline to. And I the rather comply, on this occasion, with your Curiosity, because I have often observed you to be alarmed and disquieted, when you hear of any Book that pretends to uphold, or repair the decaying Philosophy of the Schools, or some bold Chemist, that arrogates to those of his Sect the Title of Philosophers, and pretends to build wholly upon Experience, to which he would have all other Naturalists thought strangers. That therefore you may not be so tempted to despond, by the Confidence or Reputation of those Writers, that do some of them applaud, and others censure, what, I fear, they do not understand, (as when the Peripatetics cry up, Substantial Forms, and the Chemists, Mechanical Explications) of Nature’s Phenomena, I will propose some Considerations, that, I hope, will not only keep you kind to the Philosophy you have embraced, but perhaps, (by some Considerations which you have not yet met with,) make you think it probable, that the new Attempts you hear of from time to time, will not overthrow the Corpuscularian Philosophy, but either be foiled by it, or found reconcilable to it.
But when I speak of the Corpuscular or Mechanical Philosophy, I am far from meaning with the Epicureans, that Atoms, meeting together by chance in an infinite Vacuum, are able of themselves to produce the World, and all its Phenomena; nor with some Modern Philosophers, that, supposing God to have put into the whole Mass of Matter such an invariable quantity of Motion, he needed do no more to make the World, the material parts being able by their own unguided Motions, to cast themselves into such a System (as we call by that name); But I plead only for such a Philosophy, as reaches but to things purely Corporeal, and distinguishing between the first original of things, and the subsequent course of Nature, teaches, concerning the former, not only that God gave Motion to Matter, but that in the beginning He so guided the various Motions of the parts of it, as to contrive them into the World he designed they should compose, (furnished with the Seminal Principles and Structures or Models of Living Creatures,) and established those Rules of Motion, and that order amongst things Corporeal, which we are wont to call the Laws of Nature.And having told this as to the former, it may be allowed as to the latter to teach, That the Universe being once framed by God, and the Laws of Motion being settled and all upheld by His incessant concourse and general Providence; the Phenomena of the World thus constituted, are Physically produced by the Mechanical affections of the parts of Matter, and what they operate upon one another according to Mechanical Laws. And now having shewn what kind of Corpuscular Philosophy ‘tis that I speak of I proceed to the particulars that I thought the most proper to recommend it.
I. The first thing that I shall mention to this purpose, is the Intelligibleness or Clearness of Mechanical Principles and Explications. I need not tell you, that among the Peripatetics, the Disputes are many and intricate about Matter, Privation, Substantial Forms, and their Eduction, &c. And the Chemists are sufficiently puzzled, (as I have elsewhere shewn,) to give such definitions and accounts of their Hypostatical Principles, as are reconcilable to one another, and even to some obvious Phenomena. And much more dark and intricate are their Doctrines about the Archeus, Astral Beings, Gas, Blass, and other odd Notions, which perhaps have in part occasioned the darkness and ambiguity of their expressions, that could not be very clear, when their Conceptions were far from being so. And if the Principles of the Aristotelians and Spagyrists are thus obscure, ‘tis not to be expected, the Explications that are made by the help only of such Principles should be clear. And indeed many of them are either so general and slight, or otherwise so unsatisfactory, that granting their Principles, ‘tis very hard to understand or admit their applications of them to particular Phenomena. And even in some of the more ingenious and subtle of the Peripatetic Discourses upon their superficial and narrow Theories, me thinks, the Authors have better plaid the part of Painters than Philosophers, and have only had the skill, like Drawers of Landships, to make men fancy, they see Castles and Towns, and other Structures that appear solid and magnificent, and to reach to a large extent, when the whole Piece is superficial, and made up of Colors and Art, and comprised within a Frame perhaps scarce a yard long. But to come now to the CorpuscularPhilosophy, men do so easily understand one another’s meaning, when they talk of Local Motion, Rest, Bigness, Shape, Order, Situation, and Contexture of Material Substances; and these Principles do afford such clear accounts of those things, that are rightly deduced from them only, that even those Peripatetics or Chemists, that maintain other Principles, acquiesce in the Explications made by these, when they can be had, and seek not any further, though perhaps the effect be so admirable, as would make it pass for that of a hidden Form, or Occult Quality. Those very Aristotelians, that believe the Celestial Bodies to be moved by Intelligences, have no recourse to any peculiar agency of theirs to account for Eclipses. And we laugh at those East-Indians that, to this day, go out in multitudes, with some Instruments that may relieve the distressed Luminary, whose loss of Light they fancy to proceed from some fainting fit, out of which it must be roused. For no Intelligent man whether Chemist or Peripatetic, flies to his peculiar Principles, after he is informed, that the Moon is Eclipsed by the interposition of the Earth betwixt her and it, and the Sun by that of the Moon betwixt him and the Earth. And when we see the Image of a Man cast into the Air by a Concave Spherical Looking-glass, though most men are amazed at it, and some suspect it to be no less than an effect of Witchcraft, yet he that is skilled enough in Catoptricks,will, without consulting Aristotle, or Paracelsus, or flying to Hypostatical Principles and Substantial Forms, be satisfied, that the Phenomenon is produced by the beams of Light reflected, and thereby made convergent according to Optical, and consequently Mathematical Laws.
But I must not now repeat what I elsewhere say, to shew, that the Corpuscular Principles have been declined by Philosophers of different Sects, not because they think not our Explications clear, if not much more so, than their own; but because they imagine, that the applications of them can be made but to few things, and consequently are insufficient.
II. In the next place I observe, that there cannot be fewer Principles than the two grand ones of Mechanical Philosophy, Matter and Motion. For, Matter alone, unless it be moved, is altogether inactive; and whilst all the parts of a Body continue in one state without any Motion at all, that Body will not exercise any action, nor suffer any alteration itself, though it may perhaps modify the action of other Bodies that move against it.
III. Nor can we conceive any Principles more primary, than Matter and Motion. For, either both of them were immediately created by God, or, (to add that for their sakes that would have Matter to be unproduced,) if Matter be eternal, Motion must either be produced by some Immaterial Supernatural Agent, or it must immediately flow by way of Emanation from the nature of the matter it appertains to.
IV. Neither can there be any Physical Principles more simple than Matter and Motion; neither of them being resoluble into any things, whereof it may be truly, or so much as tolerably, said to be compounded.
V. The next thing I shall name to recommend the Corpuscular Principle, is their great Comprehensiveness. I consider then, that the genuine and necessary effect of the sufficiently strong Motion of one part of Matter against another, is, either to drive it on in its entire bulk, or else to break or divide it into particles of determinate Motion, Figure, Size, Posture, Rest, Order, or Texture. The two first of these, for instance, are each of them capable of numerous varieties. For the Figure of a portion of Matter may either be one of the five Regular Figures treated of by Geometricians, or some determinate Species of solid Figures, as that of a Cone, Cylinder, &c. or Irregular, though not perhaps Anonymous, as the Grains of Sand, Hoops, Feathers, Branches, Forks, Files, &c. And as the Figure, so the Motion of one of these particles may be exceedingly diversified, not only by the determination to this or that part of the world, but by several other things, as particularly by the almost infinitely varying degrees of Celerity, by the manner of its progression with, or without, Rotation, and other modifying Circumstances; and more yet by the Line wherein it moves, as (besides Straight) Circular, Elliptical, Parabolical, Hyperbolical, Spiral, and I know not how many others. For, as later Geometricians have shewn, that those crooked Lines may be compounded of several Motions, (that is, traced by a Body whose motion is mixt of, and results from, two or more simpler Motions,) so how many more curves may, or rather may not be made by new Compositions and Decompositions of Motion, is no easy task to determine.
Now, since a single particle of Matter, by virtue of two only of the Mechanical affections, that belong to it, be diversifiable so many ways; how vast a number of variations may we suppose capable of being produced by the Compositions and Decompositions of Myriads of single invisible Corpuscles, that may be contained and contexed in one small Body, and each of them be imbued with more than two or three of the fertile Catholic Principles above mentioned? Especially since the aggregate of those Corpuscles may be farther diversified by the Texture resulting from their Convention into a Body, which, as so made up, has its own Bigness, and Shape, and Pores, (perhaps very many, and various) and has also many capacities of acting and suffering upon the score of the place it holds among other Bodies in a World constituted as ours is: So that, when I consider the almost innumerable diversifications, that Compositions and Decompositions may make of a small number, not perhaps exceeding twenty of distinct things, I am apt to look upon those, who think the Mechanical Principles may serve indeed to give an account of the Phenomena of this or that particular part of Natural Philosophy, as Statics, Hydrostatics, the Theory of the Planetary Motions, &c. but can never be applied to all the Phenomena of things Corporeal; I am apt, I say, to look upon those, otherwise Learned, men, as I would do upon him, that should affirm, that by putting together the Letters of the Alphabet, one may indeed make up all the words to be found in one Book, as in Euclid, or Virgil; or in one Language, as Latin, or English; but that they can by no means suffice to supply words to all the Books of a great Library, much less to all the Languages in the world.
And whereas there is another sort of Philosophers, that, observing the great efficacy of the bigness, and shape, and situation, and motion, and connection in Engines, are willing to allow, that those Mechanical Principles may have a great stroke in the Operations of Bodies of a sensible bulk, and manifest Mechanism, and therefore may be usefully employed in accounting for the effects and Phenomena of such Bodies, who yet will not admit, that these Principles can be applied to the hidden Transactions that pass among the minute Particles of Bodies; and therefore think it necessary to refer these to what they call Nature, Substantial Forms, Real Qualities and the like Un-mechanical Principles and Agents.
But this is not necessary; for, both the Mechanical affections of Matter are to be found, and the Laws of Motion take place, not only in the great Masses, and the middle-sized Lumps, but in the smallest Fragments of Matter; and a lesser portion of it, being as well a Body as a greater, must, as necessarily as it, have its determinate Bulk and Figure: And he that looks upon Sand in a good Microscope, will easily perceive, that each minute Grain of it has as well its own size and shape, as a Rock or Mountain. And when we let fall a great stone and a pebble from the top of a high Building, we find not but that the latter as well as the former moves conformably to the Laws of acceleration in heavy Bodies descending. And the Rules of Motion are observed, not only in Canon Bullets, but in Small Shot; and the one strikes down a Bird according to the same Laws, that the other batters down a Wall. And though Nature (or rather its Divine Author) be wont to work with much finer materials, and employ more curious contrivances than Art, (whence the Structure even of the rarest Watch is incomparably inferior to that of a Humane Body;) yet an Artist himself, according to the quantity of the matter he employs, the exigency of the design he undertakes, and the bigness and shape of the Instruments he makes use of, is able to make pieces of work of the same nature or kind of extremely differing bulk, where yet the like, though not equal, Art and Contrivance, and oftentimes Motion too, may be observed: As a Smith, who with a Hammer, and other large Instruments, can, out of masses of Iron, forge great Bars or Wedges, and make those strong and heavy Chains that were employed to load Malefactors, and even to secure Streets and Gates, may, with lesser Instruments, make smaller Nails and Filings, almost as minute as Dust; and may yet, with finer Tools, make Links of a strange Slenderness and Lightness, insomuch that good Authors tell us of a Chain of divers Links that was fastened to a Flea, and could be moved by it; and, if I misremember not, I saw something like this, besides other Instances that I beheld with pleasure of the Littleness that Art can give to such pieces of Work, as are usually made of a considerable bigness. And therefore to say, that, though in Natural Bodies, whose bulk is manifest and their structure visible, the Mechanical Principles may be usefully admitted, that are not to be extended to such portions of Matter, whose parts and Texture are invisible; may perhaps look to some, as if a man should allow, that the Laws of Mechanism may take place in a Town-Clock; but cannot in a Pocket-Watch; or (to give you an instance, mixt of Natural and Artificial,) as if, because the Terraqueous Globe is a vast Magnetical Body of seven or eight thousand miles in Diameter, one should affirm, that Magnetical Laws are not to be expected to be of force in a sphericalpiece of Loadstone that is not perhaps an inch long: And yet Experience shews us, that notwithstanding the inestimable disproportion betwixt these two Globes, the Terrella, as well as the Earth, hath its Poles, Equator, and Meridians, and in divers other Magnetical Properties, emulates the Terrestrial Globe.
They that, to solve the Phenomena of Nature, have recourse to Agents which, though they involve no self-repugnancy in their very Notions, as many of the Judicious think Substantial Forms and Real Qualities to do; yet are such that we conceive not, how they operate to bring effects to pass: These, I say, when they tell us of such indeterminate Agents, as the Soul of the World, the Universal Spirit, the Plastic Power, and the like; though they may in certain cases tell us some things, yet they tell us nothing that will satisfy the Curiosity of an Inquisitive Person, who seeks not so much to know, what is the general Agent, that produces a Phenomenon, as, by what Means, and after what Manner, the Phenomenon is produced. The famous Sennerius, and some other Learned Physicians, tell us of Diseases which proceed from Incantation; but sure ‘tis but a very slight account, that a sober Physician, that comes to visit a Patient reported to be bewitched, receives of the strange Symptoms he meets with, and would have an account of, if he be coldly answered, That ‘tis a Witch or the Devil that produces them; and he will never sit down with so short an account, if he can by any means reduce those extravagant Symptoms to any more known and stated Diseases, as Epilepsies, Convulsions, Hysterical Fits, &c. and, if he cannot, he will confess his knowledge of this Distemper to come far short of what might be expected and attained in other Diseases, wherein he thinks himself bound to search into the Nature of the Morbific Matter, and will not be satisfied till he can, probably at least, deduce from that, and the structure of an Human Body, and other concurring Physical Causes, the Phenomena of the Malady. And it would be but little satisfaction to one, that desires to understand the causes of what occurs to observation in a Watch, and how it comes to point at, and strike, the hours, to be told, That ‘twas such a Watch-maker that so contrived it: Or to him that would know the true cause of an Echo, to be answered, That ‘tis a Man, a Vault, or a Wood that makes it.
And now at length I come to consider that which I observe the most to alienate other Sects from the Mechanical Philosophy; namely, that they think it pretends to have Principles so Universal and so Mathematical, that no other Physical Hypothesis can comport with it, or be tolerated by it.
But this I look upon as an easy indeed, but an important, mistake; because by this very thing, that the Mechanical Principles are so universal, and therefore applicable to so many things, they are rather fitted to include, than necessitated to exclude, any other Hypothesis that is founded in Nature, as far as it is so. And such Hypotheses, if prudently considered by a skillful and moderate person, who is rather disposed to unite Sects than multiply them, will be found, as far as they have Truth in them, to be either Legitimately, (though perhaps not immediately,) deducible from the Mechanical Principles, or fairly reconcilable to them. For, such Hypotheses will probably attempt to account for the Phenomena of Nature, either by the help of a determinate number of material Ingredients, such as the Tria Prima of the Chemists, by participation whereof other Bodies obtain their Qualities; or else by introducing some general Agents, as the Platonic Soul of the World, or the Universal Spirit, asserted by some Spagyrists; or by both these ways together.
Now to dispatch first those, that I named in the second place; I consider, that the chief thing, that Inquisitive Naturalists should look after in the explicating of difficult Phenomena, is not so much what the Agent is or does, as, what changes are made in the Patient, to bring it to exhibit the Phenomena that are proposed; and by what means, and after what manner, those changes are effected. So that the Mechanical Philosopher being satisfied, that one part of Matter can act upon another but by virtue of Local Motion, or the effects and consequences of Local Motion, he considers, that as, if the proposed Agent be not Intelligible and Physical, it can never Physically explain the Phenomena; so, if it be Intelligible and Physical, ‘twill be reducible to Matter, and some or other of those only Catholic affections of Matter, already often mentioned. And, the indefinite divisibility of Matter, the wonderful efficacy of Motion, and the almost infinite variety of Coalitions and Structures, that may be made of minute and insensible Corpuscles, being duly weighed, I see not why a Philosopher should think it impossible, to make out by their help the Mechanical possibility of any corporeal Agent, how subtle, or diffused, or active soever it be, that can be solidly proved to be really existent in Nature, by what name soever it be called or disguised. And though the Cartesians be Mechanical Philosophers, yet, according to them, their Materia Subtilis, which the very name declares to be a corporeal Substance, is, for ought I know, little (if it be at all) less diffused through the Universe, or less active in it than the Universal Spirit of some Spagyrists, not to say, the Anima Mundi of the Platonists. But this upon the by; after which I proceed, and shall venture to add, That whatever be the Physical Agent, whether it be inanimate or living, purely Corporeal, or united to an Intellectual Substance, the above mentioned changes, that are wrought in the Body that is made to exhibit the Phenomena, may be effected by the same or the like means, or after the same or the like manner; as, for instance, if Corn be reduced to Meal, the Materials and shape of the Millstones, and their peculiar Motion and Adaptation, will be much of the same kind, and (though they should not, yet) to be sure the grains of Corn will suffer a various contrition and comminution in their passage to the form of Meal; whether the Corn be ground by a Water-mill, or a Wind-mill, or a Horse-mill, or a Hand-mill; that is, by a Mill whose Stones are turned by Inanimate, by Brute, or by Rational, Agents. And, if an Angel himself should work a real change in the nature of a Body, ‘tis scarce conceivable to us Men, how he could do it without the assistance of Local Motion; since, if nothing were displaced or otherwise moved than before, (the like happening also to all external Bodies to which it related,) ‘tis hardly conceivable, how it should be in itself other, than just what it was before.
But to come now to the other sort of Hypotheses formerly mentioned; if the Chemists, or others that would deduce a complete Natural Philosophy from Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury, or any other set number of Ingredients of things, would well consider what they undertake, they might easily discover, That the material parts of Bodies, as such, can reach but to a small part of the Phenomena of Nature, whilst these Ingredients are considered but as Quiescent things, and therefore they would find themselves necessitated to suppose them to be active; and That things purely Corporeal cannot be but by means of Local Motion, and the effects that may result from that, accompanying variously shaped, sized, and aggregated parts of Matter: So that the Chemists and other Materialists, (if I may so call them,) must (as indeed they are wont to do) leave the greatest part of the Phenomena of the Universe unexplicated by the help of the Ingredients, (be they fewer or more than three,) of Bodies, without taking in the Mechanical and more comprehensive affections of Matter, especially Local Motion. I willingly grant, that Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury, or some Substances analogous to them, are to be obtained by the action of the Fire, from a very great many dissipable Bodies here below; nor would I deny, that, in explicating divers of the Phenomena of such Bodies, it may be of use to a skillful Naturalist to know and consider, that this or that Ingredient, as Sulphur, for instance, does abound in the Body proposed, whence it may be probably argued, that the Qualities, that usually accompany that Principle when Predominant, may be also, upon its score, found in the Body that so plentifully partakes of it. But not to mention, what I have elsewhere shown, that there are many Phenomena, to whose explication this knowledge will contribute very little or nothing at all; I shall only here observe, that, though Chemical Explications be sometimes the most obvious and ready, yet they are not the most fundamental and satisfactory: For, the Chemical Ingredient itself, whether Sulphur or any other, must owe its nature and other qualities to the union of insensible particles in a convenient Size, Shape, Motion or Rest, and Contexture; all which are but Mechanical Affections of convening Corpuscles. And this may be illustrated by what happens in Artificial Fireworks. For, though in most of those many differing sorts that are made either for the use of War, or for Recreation, Gunpowder be a main Ingredient, and divers of the Phenomena may be derived from the greater or lesser measure, wherein the Compositions partake of it; yet, besides that there may be Fire-works made without Gun-powder, (as appears by those made of old by the Greeks and Romans,) Gun-powder itself owes its aptness to be fired and exploded to the Mechanical Contexture of more simple portions of Matter, Nitre, Charcoal, and Sulphur; and Sulphur itself, though it be by many Chemists mistaken for an Hypostatical Principle, owes its Inflammability to the convention of yet more simple and primary Corpuscles; since Chemists confess, that it has an inflammable Ingredient, and experience shews, that it very much abounds with an acid and uninflammable Salt, and is not quite devoid of Terrestreity. I know, it may be here alleged, that the productions of Chemical Analyses are simple Bodies, and upon that account irresoluble. But, that divers Substances, which Chemists are pleased to call the Salts, or Sulphurs, or Mercuries of the Bodies that afforded them, are not simple and homogeneous, has elsewhere been sufficiently proved; nor is their not being easily dissipable or resoluble a clear proof of their not being made up of more primitive portions of matter. For, compounded and even decompounded Bodies, may be as difficultly resoluble, as most of those that Chemists obtain by what they call their Analysis by the Fire; witness common green Glass, which is far more durable and irresoluble than many of those that pass for Hypostatical Substances. And we see, that some Amels will be several times even vitrified in the Fire, without losing their Nature, or oftentimes so much as their color; and yet Amel is manifestly not only a compounded, but a decompounded Body, consisting of Salt and Powder of Pebbles or Sand, and calcined Tinn, and, if the Amel be not white, usually of some tinging Metal or Mineral. But how indestructible soever the Chemical Principles be supposed, divers of the Operations ascribed to them will never be well made out, without the help of Local Motion, (and that diversified too;) without which, we can little better give an account of the Phenomena of many Bodies, by knowing what Ingredients compose them, than we can explain the Operations of a Watch, by knowing of how many and of what Metals the Balance, the Wheels, the Chain, and other parts, are made; or than we can derive the Operations of a Wind-mill from the bare knowledge, that ‘tis made up of Wood, and Stone; and Canvas, and Iron. And here let me add, that it would not at all overthrow the Corpuscularian Hypothesis, though either by more exquisite Purifications, or by some other Operations than the usual Analysis of the Fire, it should be made appear, that the Material Principles or Elements of mixt Bodies should not be the Tria Prima of the vulgar Chemists, but either Substances of another nature, or else fewer, or more in number; as would be, if that were true, which some Spagyrists affirm, (but I could never find,) that from all sorts of mixt Bodies, five, and but five, differing similar Substances can be separated: Or, as if it were true, that the Helmontians had such a resolving Menstruum as the Alkahest of their Master, by which he affirms, that he could reduce Stones into Salt of the same weight with the Mineral, and bring both that Salt and all other kind of mixt and tangible Bodies into insipid Water. For, whatever be the number or qualities of the Chemical Principles, if they be really existent in Nature, it may very possibly be shewn, that they may be made up of insensible Corpuscles of determinate bulks and shapes; and by the various Coalitions and Contextures of such Corpuscles, not only three or five, but many more material Ingredients, may be composed or made to result: But, though the Alkahestical Reductions newly mentioned should be admitted, yet the Mechanical Principles might well be accommodated, even to them. For, the Solidity, Taste, &c. of Salt, may be fairly accounted for, by the Stiffness, Sharpness, and other Mechanical Affections of the minute Particles, whereof Salts consist; and if, by a farther action of the Alkahest, the Salt or any other solid Body, be reduced into insipid Water, this also may be explicated by the same Principles, supposing a further Comminution of the parts, and such an attrition, as wears off the edges and points that enabled them to strike briskly the Organ of Taste: For, as to Fluidity and Firmness, those mainly depend upon two of our grand Principles, Motion and Rest. And I have else-where shewn, by several proofs, that the Agitation or Rest, and the looser contact, or closer cohesion, of the particles, is able to make the same portion of Matter, at one time a firm,and at another time, a fluid Body. So that, though the further Sagacity and Industry of Chemists (which I would by no means discourage) should be able to obtain from mixt Bodies homogeneous substances differing in number, or nature, or both, from their vulgar Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury; yet the Corpuscular Philosophy is so general and fertile, as to be fairly reconcilable to such a Discovery; and also so useful, that these new material Principles will, as well as the old Tria Prima, stand in need of the more Catholic Principles of the Corpuscularians, especially Local Motion. And indeed, whatever Elements or Ingredients men have (that I know of) pitched upon, yet if they take not in the Mechanical Affections of Matter, their Principles have been so deficient, that I have usually observed, that the Materialists, without at all excepting the Chemists, do not only, as I was saying, leave many things unexplained, to which their narrow Principles will not extend; but, even in the particulars they presume to give an account of, they either content themselves to assign such common and indefinite Causes, as are too general to signify much towards an inquisitive man’s satisfaction; or if they venture to give particular Causes, they assign precarious or false ones, and liable to be easily disproved by Circumstances, or Instances, whereto their Doctrine will not agree, as I have often elsewhere had occasion to shew. And yet the Chemists need not be frighted from acknowledging the Prerogative of the Mechanical Philosophy, since that may be reconcilable with the Truth of their own Principles, as far as these agree with the Phenomena they are applied to. For these more confined Hypotheses may be subordinated to those more general and fertile Principles, and there can be no Ingredient assigned, that has a real existence in Nature, that may not be derived either immediately, or by a row of Decompositions, from the Universal Matter, modified by its Mechanical Affections. For, if with the same Bricks, diversely put together and ranged, several Walls, Houses, Furnaces, and other Structures, as Vaults, Bridges, Pyramids, &c. may be built, merely by a various contrivement of parts of the same kind; how much more may great variety of Ingredients be produced by, or, according to the institution of Nature, result from, the various coalitions and contextures of Corpuscles, that need not be supposed, like Bricks, all of the same, or near the same, size and shape, but may have amongst them, both of the one and the other, as great a variety as need be wished for, and indeed a greater than can easily be so much as imagined. And the primary and minute Concretions that belong to these Ingredients, may, without Opposition from the Mechanical Philosophy, be supposed to have their particles so minute and strongly coherent, that Nature of herself does scarce ever tear them asunder; as we see, that Mercury and Gold may be successively made to put on a multitude of disguises, and yet so retain their nature, as to be reducible to their pristine forms. And you know, I lately told you, that common Glass and good Amels, though both of them but factitious Bodies, and not only mixed, but decompounded Concretions, have yet their component parts so strictly united by the skill of illiterate Tradesmen, as to maintain their union in the vitrifying violence of the Fire. Nor do we find, that common Glass will be wrought upon by Aqua fortis, or Aqua Regis, though the former of them will dissolve Mercury, and the later Gold.
From the foregoing Discourse it may (probably at least) result, That if, besides Rational Souls, there are any Immaterial Substances (such as the Heavenly Intelligences, and the Substantial Forms of the Aristotelians) that regularly are to be numbered among Natural Agents, their way of working being unknown to us, they can but help to constitute and effect things, but will very little help us to conceive how things are effected; so that, by whatever Principles Natural things be constituted, ‘tis by the Mechanical Principles that their Phenomena must be clearly explicated. As for instance, though we should grant the Aristotelians, that the Planets are made of a quintessential matter, and moved by Angels, or Immaterial Intelligences; yet, to explain the Stations, Progressions, and Retrogradations, and other Phenomena of the Planets, we must have recourse either to Eccentrics, Epicycles, &c. or to motions made in Elliptical or other peculiar Lines; and, in a word, to Theories, wherein the Motion, and Figure, Situation, and other Mathematical or Mechanical Affections of Bodies are mainly employed. But if the Principles proposed be corporeal things, they will be then fairly Reducible, or Reconcilable, to the Mechanical Principles; these being so general and pregnant, that, among things corporeal, there is nothing real, (and I meddle not with Chimerical Beings, such as some of Paracelsus’,) that may not be derived from, or be brought to, a subordination to such comprehensive Principles. And when the Chemists shall shew, that mixed Bodies owe their qualities to the predominance of this or that of their three grand Ingredients, the Corpuscularians will shew, that the very Qualities of this or that Ingredient flow from its peculiar Texture, and the Mechanical affections of the Corpuscles ‘tis made up of. And to affirm, that, because the Furnaces of Chemists afford a great number of uncommon Productions and Phenomena, there are Bodies or Operations amongst things purely Corporeal, that cannot be derived from, or reconciled to, the comprehensive and pregnant Principles of the Mechanical Philosophy, is, as if, because there are a great number and variety of Anthems, Hymns, Pavins, Threnodies, Courants, Gavots, Branles, Sarabands, Jigs, and other (grave and sprightly) Tunes to be met with in the Books and Practices of Musicians, one should maintain, that there are in them a great many Tunes, or at least Notes, that have no dependence on the Scale of Music; or, as if, because, besides Rhombuses, Rhomboids, Trapeziums, Squares, Pentagons, Chiliagons, Myriagons, and innumerable other Polygons, Regular and Irregular, one should presume to affirm, that there are among them some Rectilinear Figures, that are not reducible to Triangles, or have Affections that will overthrow what Euclid has taught of Triangles and Polygons.
To what has been said, I shall add but one thing more; That, as, according to what I formerly intimated, Mechanical Principles and Explications are for their clearness preferred, even by Materialists themselves, to others in the cases where they can be had; so, the Sagacity and Industry of modern Naturalists and Mathematicians, having happily applied them to several of those difficult Phenomena, (in Hydrostatics, the practical part of Optics, Gunnery, &c.) that before were, or might be referred as Qualities, ‘tis probable, that, when this Philosophy is deeplier searched into, and farther improved, it will be found applicable to the solution of more and more of the Phenomena of Nature. And on this occasion let me observe, that ‘tis not always necessary, though it be always desirable, that he that propounds an Hypothesis in Astronomy, Chemistry, Anatomy, or other part of Physics, be able, à priori, to prove his Hypothesis to be true, or demonstratively to shew, that the other Hypotheses proposed about the same subject must be false. For as, if I mistake not, Plato said, That the World was God’s Epistle written to Mankind, & might have added, consonantly to another saying of his, ‘twas written in Mathematical Letters: So, in the Physical Explications of the Parts and System of the World, me thinks, there is somewhat like what happens, when men conjecturally frame several Keys to enable us to understand a Letter written in Cyphers. For, though one man by his sagacity have found out the right Key, it will be very difficult for him, either to prove otherwise than by trial, that this or that word is not such as ‘tis guessed to be by others according to their Keys; or to evince, à priori, that theirs are to be rejected, and his to be preferred; yet, if due trial being made, the Key he proposes, shall be found so agreeable to the Characters of the Letter, as to enable one to understand them, and make a coherent sense of them, its suitableness to what it should decipher, is, without either confutations, or extraneous positive proofs, sufficient to make it be accepted as the right Key of that Cypher. And so, in Physical Hypotheses, there are some, that, without noise, or falling foul upon others, peaceably obtain discerning men’s approbation only by their fitness to solve the Phenomena, for which they were devised, without crossing any known Observation or Law of Nature. And therefore, if the Mechanical Philosophy go on to explicate things Corporeal at the rate it has of late years proceeded at, ‘tis scarce to be doubted, but that in time unprejudiced persons will think it sufficiently recommended by its consistency with itself, and its applicableness to so many Phenomena of Nature.
Reading and Discussion Questions
1.How would you characterize what Boyle calls the corpuscular or mechanical philosophy?
2.What are Boyle’s attitudes toward the Aristotelians and chymists? How is Boyle thinking about the relation between chymical explanations and the corpuscular philosophy?
3.What place does Boyle allow for hypothesis and conjecture in natural philosophy?