fire, whofe particles they attract and adhere to (k), there is produced a new fluid, more volatile than water or earth, and more fixed than fire. There fore the virtues and operations imputed to air muft be ultimately attributed to fire, as that which imparts activity to air it self. 164. The element of æthereal fire or light feems to comprehend, in a mixed ftate, the feeds, the natural caufes and forms (g) of all fublunary things. The groffer bodies do feparate, attract, and repel the feveral constituent particles of that heterogeneous element; which, being parted from the common mafs, make diftinct effences, producing and combining together fuch qualities and properties, as are peculiar to the several subjects, and thence often extracted in effential oils or odoriferous waters, from whence they exhale into the open air, and return into their original element. 165. Blue, red, yellow, and other colours, have been discovered by Sir Ifaac Newton to depend on the parted rays or particles of light. And in like manner, a particular odour or flavour, feemeth to depend on peculiar particles of light or fire (b); as appears from heats being neceffary to all vegetation whatsoever, and from the extreme minuteness and volatility of thofe vegetable fouls or forms, flying off from the subjects without any fenfible diminution of their weight. These particles, blended in one common ocean, fhould feem to conceal the diftinct forms, but, parted and attracted by proper fubjects, difclofe or produce them. As the particles of light, which, when feparated, form diftinct colours, being blended are loft in one uniform appearance. (k) 1472 (g) 43. (b) 40. K 2 166. A: 166. Agreeably thereto, an æthereal substance or fire was fuppofed by Heraclitus to be the feed of the generation of all things, or that from which all things drew their original. The Stoics alfo tanght, that all fubftance was originally fire, and fhould return to fire: that an active fubtile fire was diffused or expanded throughout the whole univerfe; the feveral parts whereof were produced, fustained, and held together by it's force. And it was the opinion of the Pythagoreans, as Laertius informs us, that heat or fire was the principle of life animating the whole fyftem, and penetrating all the elements (a). The Platonifts too, as well as the Pythagoræans, held fire to be the immediate natural agent, or animal fpirit; to cherish, to warm, to heat, to enlighten, to vegetate, to produce the digeftions, circulations, fecretions, and organical motions in all living bodies, vegetable or animal, being effects of that element, which, as it actuates the macrocofm, fo it animates the microcofin. In the Timæus of Plato, there is fuppofed something like a net of fire, and rays of fire in a human body. Doth not this feem to mean the animal fpirit, flowing, or rather darting through the nerves ? 167. According to the Peripatetics, the form of heaven, or the fiery æthereal fubftance, contains the forms of all inferior beings (e). It may be faid to teem with forms, and impart them to fubjects fitted to receive them. The vital force thereof in the Peripatetic fenfe is vital to all, but diverfly received according to the diversity of the fubjects. So all colours are virtually contained in the light; but their actual diftinctions of blue, red, yellow, and the reft, depend on the difference of the ob(a) 152, 153. (e) 43. jects jects which it illuftrates. Ariftotle, in the book de mundo, fuppofeth a certain fifth effence, an æthereal nature unchangeable and impaffive; and next in order a fubtile, flaming fubftance, lighted up, or fet on fire by that æthereal and divine nature. He fuppofeth, indeed, that God is in heaven, but that his power, or a force derived from him, doth actuate and pervade the universe. 168. If we may credit Plutarch, Empedocles thought æther or heat to be Jupiter. Æther by the ancient philofophers was used to fignify promifcuously fometimes fire and fometimes air. For they diftinguished two forts of air. Plato in the Timæus fpeaking of air faith there are two kinds, the one more fine and fubtile, called æther, the other more grofs and replete with vapours! This æther or purer medium feems to have been the air or principle, from which all things according to Anaximenes derived their birth, and into which they were back again refolved at their death. Hippocrates, in his treatise de diæta, fpeaketh of a fire pure and invifible; and this fire, according to him, is that which, ftirring and giving movement to all things, caufes them to appear, or, as he ftiles it, come into evidence, that is to exift, every one in it's time, and according to it's destiny. 169. This pure fire, æther, or fubftance of light, was accounted in it felf invifible and imperceptible to all our fenfes, being perceived only by it's effects, fuch as heat, flame, and rarefaction. To which we may add, that the moderns pretend farther to have perceived it by weight, inafmuch as the aromatic oils which moft abound with fire, as being the most readily and vehemently enflamed, are above all others the heavieft. And by an experiment of Mr. Homberg's, four ounces of regu lus of antimony, being calcined by a burning glass for an hour together, were found to have imbibed and fixed feven drams of the substance of light. 170. Such is the rarefying and expansive force of this element, as to produce in an inftant of time the greatest and most stupendous effects: a fufficient proof not only of the power of fire, but also of the wisdom with which it is managed, and withheld from burfting forth every moment to the utter ravage and deftruction of all things. And it is very remarkable, that this fame element, fo fierce and deftructive, fhould yet be fo variously tempered and applied, as to be withal the falutary warmth, the genial, cherishing, and vital flame of all living creatures. It is not therefore to be wondered that Ariftotle thought, the heat of a living body to be fomewhat divine and celeftial, derived from that pure æther to which he supposed the incorporeal deity (xwgisov sidos) to be immediately united, or on which he fuppofed it immediately to act. 171. The Platonifts held that intellect refided in foul, and foul in an æthereal vehicle. And that as the foul was a middle nature reconciling intellect with æther; fo æther was another middle nature, which reconciled and connected the foul with groffer bodies (d). Galen likewife taught that, admitting the foul to be incorporeal, it hath for it's immedi ate tegument or vehicle a body of æther or fire, by the intervention whereof it moveth other bodies and is mutually affected by them. This interior clothing was fuppofed to remain upon the foul, not only after death, but after the most perfect purgation, which in length of time according to the followers of Plato and Pythagoras cleansed the foul, -purumque reliquit Æthereum fenfum atque auräi fimplicis ignem. (d) 152, 154. This This tunicle of the foul, whether it be called pure æther, or luciform vehicle, or animal spirit seemeth to be that which moves and acts upon the grofs organs, as it is determined by the foul from which it immediately receives impreffion, and in which the moving force truly and properly refides. Some moderns have thought fit to deride all that is faid of æthereal vehicles, as mere jargon or words without a meaning. But they should have confidered, that all fpeech concerning the foul is altogether, or for the most part, metaphorical; and that, agreeably thereunto, Plato fpeaketh of the mind or foul, as a driver that guides and governs a chariot, which is, not unfitly, ftiled augosides a luciform æthereal vehicle or xua, terms expreffive of the purity, lightness, fubtilty and mobility of that fine celeftial nature, in which the foul immediately refides and operates. 172. It was a tenet of the Stoics that the world was an animal, and that providence answered to the reasonable foul in man. But then the providence or mind was fuppofed by them to be immediately resident or prefent in fire, to dwell therein, and to act thereby. Briefly, they conceived God to be an intellectual and fiery fpirit, veuα νοερὸν Καὶ πυρῶδες. Therefore though they looked on fire (f) as the to geμovinov or governing principle of the world; yet it was not fimply fire, but animated with a mind. 173. Such are the bright and lively fignatures of a divine mind, operating and difplaying itself in fire and light throughout the world, that, as Ariftotle obferves in his book de mundo, all things feem full of divinities, whofe apparitions on all fides strike and dazzle our eyes. And it must be (f) 166. owned, |