ncè feed hich alfo and e was - uni duced, And it aertius iple of rating as well nmedi rifh, to to pro and orable or hich, as the mi s fuppo s of fire to mean ng thro' the form y be faid hereof in verfly re fubjects. he light; 1, yellow, f the obbook De mundo, mundo, fuppofeth a certain fifth effefice, an ethe real nature unchangeable and impaffive; and next în order a fubtile, flaming fubftance, lighted up, or fet on fire by that æthereal and divine nature. He fuppofeth, indeed, that God is în heaven, but that his power, or a force derived from him, döth 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 pro mifcuously fometimes fire and fometimes air. For they diftinguished two forts of air. Plato in the Timæus speaking of air, faich there are two kinds, the one more fine and fubtile, called æther; the o ther more grofs and replété 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 treatife 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 ftyles it, come into evidence, that is to exist, every one in it's time, and according to its deftiny. 169. This pure fire, æther, or fubftance of light, was accounted in itfelf 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 heavielt. And by an experiment of Mr. Homberg's, four ounces of regulus of antimony, being calcined by a burning glafs for for an hour together, were found to have and fixed feven drams of the fubftance of li 170. Such is the rarefying and expanf of this element, as to produce in an inftan the greatest and moft ftupendous effects: ent proof, not only of the power of fire of the wisdom with which it is managed, held from bursting forth every moment t ter ravage and deftruction of all things.. very remarkable, that this fame element. and destructive, fhould yet be fo varioufl ed and applied, as to be withal the falutar the genial, cherishing, and vital flame of It is not therefore to be won Ariftotle thought, the heat of a living t fomewhat divine and celeftial, derived pure æther to which he fuppofed the i deity (xgisovaldos) to be immediate or on which he fuppofed it immediately creatures. 171. The Platonifts held their intelled foul, and foul in an æthereal vehicle. A the foul was a middle nature reconcilin with æther; so æther was another mid which reconciled and connected the foulbodies (d). Galen likewife taught, that the foul to be incorporeal, it hath for i ate tegument or vehicle a body of æt by the intervention whereof it moveth c and is mutually affected by them. T clothing was fuppofed to remain up not only after death, but after the moft gation, which in length of time acco followers of Plato and Pythagoras clear purumque Æthereum fenfum atque auraï fimpl (d) 152, 154. S bibed. force: E time. Tufficiut alfo withthe utnd it is o fierce. cemperwarmth, 1 living red that dy to be om that corporeal united, act. refided in nd that as le nature, ith groffer admitting s immedi er or fire, her bodies his interior n the foul, perfect pur ding to the ed the foul, eliquit cis ignem. This This tunicle of the foul's whether it be called pure ther, or luciform vehicle, or animal fpirit feemeth 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 said of æthereal vehicles, as mere jargon or words without a meaning. But they fhould have confidered, that all speech 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, ftyled avyondès, 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 refident or prefent in fire, to dwell therein, and to act thereby. Briefly, they conceived God to be an intellectual and fiery fpirit, veμa νοερὸν καὶ πυρώδες. Therefore though they looked on fire (f) as the Toyeμovov 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 Aristotle obferves in his book De mundo, all things feem full of divinities, whofe apparitions on all fides ftrike and dazzle our eyes. And it must be owned, the chief philofophers and wife antiquity, how much foever they attribut cond causes and the force of fire, yet they a mind or intellect always refident therei or provident, restraining it's force and dire operations. 174. Thus Hipocrates in his treatise, I fpeaks of a strong but invifible fire (g), t all things without noife. Herein, faith h foul, understanding, prudence, growth, diminution, change, fleep and waking. what governs all things and is never in rep the fame author, in his tract De carnibu ferious preface, setting forth that he is ab clare his own opinion, expreffeth it in the "That which we call heat, Seguin, appea "fomething immortal, which underf "things, which fees and knows both wh fent, and what is to come." 175. This fame heat is also what Hippoc nature, the author of life and death, good It is farther to be noted of this heat, that h it the object of no fenfe. It is that occult fal nature, and inward invisible force, w ates and animates the whole world, and shipped by the ancients under the name which Voffius judges, not improbably, to from the Hebrew word Satar, to lye hidd cealed. And what hath been delivered pocrates agrees with the notions of othe phers: Heraclitus, (b) for inftance, who to be the principle and cause of the gen all things, did not mean thereby an inar ment, but, as he termed it, aug dsięwov living fire. (g) 168. (b) 166. I 1 of o fe ›ofed Etive g it's liæta, refides otion, This is . And after a to determs: to me ds all is pre tes calls nd evil. maketh univer ch actu vas wor Saturn; e derived nor con by Hip philofo held fire ration of mate ele an ever 6. Theo 176. Theophraftus, in his Book, De igne, diftinguifheth between heat and fire. The firft he confiders as a principle or cause, not that which appeareth to fenfe as a paffion or accident existing in a fubject, and which is in truth the effect of that unfeen principle. And it is remarkable, that he re-. fers the treating of this invifible fire or heat, to the investigation of the first causes. Fire, the principle, is neither generated nor deftroyed, is every where and always prefent (a); while its effects in different times and places fhew themselves more or lefs, and are very various, foft, and cherishing, or violent and deftructive, terrible or agreeable, conveying good and evil, growth and decay, life and death, throughout the mundane fystem. 177. It is allowed by all, that the Greeks derived much of their philofophy from the Eaftern nations. And Heraclitus is thought by fome to have drawn his principles from Orpheus, as Orpheus did from the Egyptians; or, as others write, he had been auditor of Hippafus a Pythagorean, who held the fame notion of fire, and might have derived it from Egypt by his mafter Pythagoras, who had travelled into Egypt, and been inftructed by the fages of that nation. One of whofe tenets it was, that fire was the principle of all action; which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Stoics, that the whole of things is adminiftred by a fiery intellectual fpirit. In the Afclepian Dialogue, we find this notion, that all parts of the world vegetate by a fine fubtil æther, which acts as an engine or inftrument, fubject to the will of the fupreme God. 178. As the Platonifts held intellect to be lodged in foul, and foul in æther (b); so it paffeth (a) 43. (b) 157. for |