Chapter VIII: Madam,

Having hitherto considered your _Authors_ Elements or Principles of Natural things, you will give me leave to present you now with a short view of his Opinions concerning Wind, Vacuum, Rainbows, Thunder, Lightning, Earth-quakes, and the like; which I will do as briefly as I can, lest I betray my Ignorance; for I confess my self not to be well versed in the knowledg of Meteors, nor in those things which properly belong to the Mathematicks, as in Astrology, Geography, Opticks, and the like. But your _Author_ says, in the first place,[1] That _Natural Wind is nothing but a flowing Air, moved by the Blas of the Stars._ Certainly, _Madam_, if this were so, then, in my judgment, when the Stars blaze, we should have constant Winds, and the more they blaze, the more violent winds there would be: But I have rather observed the contrary, that when the Stars blaze most apparently, we have the calmest weather either in Summer or Winter. Perchance your _Author_ will say, he doth not mean this apparant and visible Blas, but another invisible Blas. I answer; I know not, nor cannot conceive any other Blas in the Stars, except I had seen it in a Vision; neither do I think that Nature her self knows of any other, But your _Author_ doth refer himself upon the Authority of _Hypocrates_, who says, That _not onely the Wind is a blast, but that all Diseases are from blasts; and that there is in us a Spirit stirring up all things by its Blas; which Spirit, by a Microcosmical Analogy, or the proportion of a little World, he compares to the blasts of the world._ As for my particular, _Madam_, I dare say, I could never perceive, by my sense and reason, any such blazing Spirit in me; but I have found by experience, that when my mind and thoughts have been benighted with Melancholy, my Imagination hath been more active and subtil, then when my mind has been clear from dark Melancholy: Also I find that my thoughts and conceptions are as active, if not more, in the night then in the day; and though we may sometimes dream of several Lights, yet I cannot perceive a constant light in us; however Light, Blazes, and all those effects are no more then other effects of Nature are; nor can they have more power on other Creatures, then other Creatures have on them: Neither are they made otherwise then by the corporeal motions of Natural Matter, and are dissolved and transchanged as other Creatures, out of one form or figure into another. Next your _Author_ discoursing[2] whether there be any Vacuum in Nature, doth incline to the affirming party, that there is a Vacuum in the Air; to wit, _There is in the air something, that is less then a body, which fills up the emptinesses or little holes and pores in the air, and which is wholly annihilated by fire; It is actually void of all matter, and is a middle thing between a body and an Incorporeal Spirit, and almost nothing in respect of bodies; for it came from Nothing, and so may easily be reduced to nothing._ All this, _Madam_, surpasses my capacity; for I can in no ways conceive any thing between something and nothing, as to be less then something, and more then nothing; for all that is corporeal in Nature, is to my reason something; that is, some really existent thing; but what is incorporeal in Nature, is nothing; and if there be any absolute vacuum in Nature, as your _Author_ endeavours to prove, then certainly this Vacuum cannot be any thing whatsoever; for a Vacuum is a pure Nothing. But many ingenious and learned men have brought as many arguments and reasons against Vacuum, as others bring for it, and so it is a thing which I leave to them to exercise their brains withal. The like is the opinion which many maintain concerning Place, _viz._ that there is a constant succession of Place and Parts, so that when one part removes, another doth succeed in its place; the truth and manner whereof I was never able to comprehend: for, in my opinion, there can be no place without body, nor no body without place, body and place being all but one thing. But as for the perpetual Creation and annihilation of your _Authors_ Vacuities, give me leave to tell you, _Madam_, that it would be a more laborious work, then to make a new World, or then it was to make this present World; for God made this World in six days, and rested the seventh day; but this is a perpetual making of something out of nothing. Again: concerning Rainbows, your _Author_ says,[3] That _a Rainbow is not a natural effect of a natural Cause, but a divine Mystery in its original; and that it has no matter, but yet is in a place, and has its colours immediately in a place, but in the air mediately, and that it is of the nature of Light._ This is indeed a great mystery to my reason; for I cannot conceive, as I said before, a place without a body, nor how Light and Colours can be bodiless: But as for Rainbows, I have observed, when as water hath been blown up into the air into bubles, that by the reflexion of light on the watery bubles, they have had the like colours of the Rainbow; and I have heard, that there hath been often seen at the rising and setting of the Sun, Clouds of divers colours; Wherefore I cannot be perswaded to believe that a Rainbow should not have a natural cause, and consequently be a natural effect; For that God has made it a sign of the Covenant between him and mortal men, is no proof, that it is not a natural effect; Neither can I believe that it has not been before the Flood, and before it was made a sign by God, as your _Author_ imagines; for though it was no sign before the Flood, yet it may nevertheless have had its being and existence before the Flood. Moreover, as for Thunder and Lightning, your _Authors_ opinion is; _That although they may have concurring natural Causes, yet the mover of them is an Incorporeal Spirit, which is the Devil; who having obtained the Principality of this world, that he may be a certain executer of the judgments of the chief Monarch, and so the Umpire and Commissioner of Lightning and Thunder, stirs up a monstrous and sudden Blas in the Air, yet under Covenanted Conditions; for unless his power were bridled by divine Goodness, he would shake the Earth with one stroke so, as to destroy all mortal men: and thus the cracking noise or voice of Thunder is nothing but a spiritual Blas of the Evil Spirit._ I will not deny, _Madam_, that Thunder and Lightning do argue the Power of the most Glorious God, for so do all the rest of the Creatures; but that this is the onely and immediate cause, which your _Author_ assigns of Thunder and Lightning, I cannot believe; for surely, in my opinion, Thunder and Lightning are as much natural effects as other Creatures in Nature; and are not the Devils Blas, for I think they may be made without the help of the Devil; nay, I believe, he may be as much affraid of Thunder, as those Creatures that live on Earth. But what the causes are, and how Thunder and Lightning are made, I have elsewhere declared more at large, especially in my _Philosophical Opinions._ Again your _Author_ speaking[4] of the _Trembling of the Earth, thinks it is nothing else but the Judgment of God for the sins of Impenitent men._ For my part, _Madam_, I can say little to it, either concerning the divine, or the natural cause of Earthquakes: As for the divine and supernatural Cause, which your _Author_ gives, if it was so, then I wonder much, why God should command Earth-quakes in some parts of the World more frequent then in others. As for example; we here in these parts have very seldom Earthquakes, and those we have, which is hardly one in many ages, are not so furious, as to do much harm; and so in many other places of the World, are as few and as gentle Earth-quakes as here; when as in others, Earth-quakes are very frequent and dreadful: From whence it must needs follow, if Earth-quakes be onely a Judgment from God for the sins of Impenitent Men, and not a natural effect, that then those places, where the Earth is not so apt to tremble, are the habitations of the blessed, and that they, which inhabit those parts that are apt to tremble, are the accursed; when as yet, in those places where Earthquakes are not usual and frequent, or none at all, People are as wicked and impious, if not more, then in those where Earthquakes are common. But the question is, Whether those parts which suffer frequent and terrible Earthquakes, would not be so shaken or have such trembling fits, were they uninhabited by Man, or any other animal Creature? Certainly, in my opinion, they would. But as for the Natural Cause of Earthquakes, you must pardon me, _Madam_, that I cannot knowingly discourse thereof, by reason I am not so well skilled in Geography, as to know the several Soils, Climats, Parts, Regions, or Countries, nor what disposed matter may be within those parts that are subject to frequent Earthquakes: Onely this I may say, that I have observed, that the light of a small Fire or Candle, will dilate it self round about; or rather that the air round about the Fire or Candle, will pattern out both its light and its heat. Also I have observed, That a Man in a raging fit of Madness will have such an unusual strength, as ten strong men shall hardly be able to encounter or bind him, when as, this violent fit being past, a single man, nay a youth, may over-master him: Whence I conclude, that the actions, as the motions of Nature, are very powerful when they use their force, and that the ordinary actions of Nature are not so forcible as necessary; but the extraordinary are more forcible then necessary. Lastly, your _Author_ takes great pains to prove,[5] That _the Sun with his light rules the Day, and the Moon with hers the Night; and that the Moon has her own Native light; and that Bats, Mice, Dormice, Owles, and many others, as also Men, which rise at night, and walk in their sleep, see by the light and power of the Moon; also that Plants are more plentifully nourished by the night._ But lest it might be concluded, that all this is said without any probability of Truth, by reason the Moon doth not every night shine upon the Earth, he makes a difference between the Manner of the Sun's and Moon's enlightning the Earth; to wit, that the Sun strikes his beams in a right line towards the Earth, but the Moon doth not respect the Centre of the World, which is the Earth, in a right line; but her Centre is always excentrical, and she respects the Earth onely by accident, when she is concentrical with the World; And therefore he thinks there is another light under the Earth even at Midnight, whereby many Eyes do see, which owes also its rise to the Moon. This opinion of your _Author_ I leave to be examined by those that have skill in Astronomy, and know both the Light and the Course of the Moon: I will onely say thus much, that when the Moon is concentrical, as he calls it, with the World, as when it is Full and New Moon, she doth not shine onely at night, but also in the day, and therefore she may rule the day as well as the night, and then there will be two lights for the ruling of the day, or at least there will be a strife betwixt the Sun and the Moon, which shall rule. But as for Men walking asleep by the light of the Moon, my opinion is, That blind men may walk as well by the light of the Sun, as sleeping men by the light of the Moon. Neither is it probable, that _the Moon or her Blas doth nourish Plants_; for in a cold Moon-shiny night they will often die; but it is rather the Regular motions in well tempered matter that cause fruitful productions and maturity. And so I repose my Pen, lest it trespass too much upon your Patience, resting,

Madam,

_Your humble and_

_faithful Servant._

[1] _Ch._ Of the Blas of Meteors.

[2] _Ch._ Of Vacuum.

[3] _Ch._ Of an Irregular Meteor.

[4] _Ch._ Of the Earthquake.

[5] _Ch._ Of the Birth or Original of Forms.