166. Agreeably thereto, an æthereal fubftance 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 taught, 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, fuftained, and held together by it's force. And it was the opinion of the Pythagoræans, 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, so it animates the microcofm. In the Timæus of Plato, there is fuppofed fomething 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 thro the nerves?

167. According to the Peripatetics, the form of heaven, or the fiery æthereal fubftance, contains the forms of all inferior beings (b). 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 diverfity 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-jects which it illuftrates. Ariftotle in the book De (b) 43.1

(a) 152, 153.

mundo,

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.

For

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. they diftinguifhed 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 treatife De diæta, speaketh of a fire pure and invisible; 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 exift, every one in it's time, and according to its destiny.

169. This pure fire, æther, or fubftance of light, was accounted in itself 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 further to have perceived it by weight, inasmuch 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 regulus of antimony, being calcined by a burning glass

for

for an hour together, were found to have imbibed and fixed feven drams of the substance of light.

170. Such is the rarefying and expanfive 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 wifdom with which it is managed, and withheld from bursting forth every moment to the utter ravage and deftruction of all things. And it is very remarkable, that this fame element, fo fierce and destructive, 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 (xweisov &dos) to be immediately united, (χωριςόν or on which he fuppofed it immediately to act.

171. The Platonifts held their 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 immediate tegument or vehicle 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, cleanfed the foul, -purumque reliquit Ethereum fenfum atque auraï fimplicis ignem.

(d) 152, 154.

This

This tunicle of the foul, whether it be called pure æther, 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 faid 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 govern a chariot, which is, not unfitly, ftyled avyoides, a luciform æthereal vehicle, or xua, terms expreffive of the purity, lightnefs, 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 present in fire, to dwell therein, and to act thereby. Briefly, they conceived God to be an intellectual and fiery fpirit, aveux νοερὸν καὶ πυρῶδες. Therefore though they looked on fire (f) as the toysμovinov, 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 ftrike and dazzle our eyes. And it must be (ƒ) 166.

Owned

owned, the chief philofophers and wife men of antiquity, how much foever they attributed to fecond caufes and the force of fire, yet they fuppofed a mind or intellect always refident therein, active or provident, restraining it's force and directing it's operations.

174. Thus Hipocrates, in his treatise De diæta, fpeaks of a strong but invifible fire (g), that rules all things without noife. Herein, faith he, refides foul, understanding, prudence, growth, motion, dimunition, change, fleep, and waking. This is what governs all things and is never in repofe. And the fame author, in his tract De carnibus, after a ferious preface, fetting forth that he is about to declare his own opinion, expreffeth it in these terms; "That which we call heat, 9eeμov, appears to me fomething immortal, which underftands all things, which fees and knows both what is pre"fent, and what is to come."

دو

175. This fame heat is also what Hippocrates calls nature, the author of life and death, good and evil. It is farther to be noted of this heat, that he maketh it the object of no fenfe. It is that occult, univerfal nature, and inward invisible force, which actuates and animates the whole world, and was worshipped by the ancients under the name of Saturn; which Voffius judges, not improbably, to be derived from the Hebrew word Satar, to lye hidden or concealed. And what hath been delivered by Hippocrates agrees with the notions of other philofophers Heraclitus (b), for instance, who held fire to be the principle and cause of the generation of all things, did not mean thereby an inanimate element, but, as he termed it, ug disiwov, an everliving fire.

(g) 168.

(b) 166.

176. Theo