_MADAM,_
I am absolutely of your _Authors_ opinion, when he sayes,[1] _That all
bodies of this Universe are of one and the same matter, really divided
into many parts, and that these parts are diversly moved_: But that
these motions should be circular more then of any other sort, I cannot
believe, although he thinks that this is the most probable way, to find
out the causes of natural effects: for nature is not bound to one sort
of motions more then to another, and it is but in vain to indeavour to
know how, and by what motions God did make the World, since Creation
is an action of God, and Gods actions are incomprehensible; Wherefore
his æthereal Whirlpools, and little particles of matter, which he
reduceth to three sorts and calls them the three elements of the
Universe, their circular motions, several figures, shavings, and many
the like, which you may better read, then I rehearse to you, are to
my thinking, rather Fancies, then rational or probable conceptions;
for how can we imagine that the Universe was set a moving as a Top by
a Whip, or a Wheele by the hand of a Spinster, and that the vacuities
were fill'd up with shavings? for these violent motions would rather
have disturbed and disordered Nature; and though Nature uses variety
in her motions or actions, yet these are not extravagant, nor by force
or violence, but orderly, temperate, free, and easie, which causes
me to believe, the Earth turns about rather then the Sun; and though
corporeal motions for variety make Whirl-winds, yet Whirl-winds are
not constant, Neither can I believe that the swiftness of motion could
make the matter more subtil and pure then it was by nature, for it is
the purity and subtilty of the matter, that causes motion, and makes it
swifter or slower, and not motion the subtilty and purity of matter;
motion being onely the action of matter; and the self-moving part of
matter is the working part of nature, which is wise, and knows how to
move and form every creature without instruction; and this self-motion
is as much her own as the other parts of her body, matter and figure,
and is one and the same with her self, as a corporeal, living, knowing,
and inseparable being, and a part of her self. As for the several
parts of matter, I do believe, that they are not all of one and the
same bigness, nor of one and the same figure, neither do I hold their
figures to be unalterable; for if all parts in nature be corporeal,
they are dividable, composable, and intermixable, and then they cannot
be always of one and the same sort of figure; besides nature would not
have so much work if there were no change of figures: and since her
onely action is change of motion, change of motion must needs make
change of figures: and thus natural parts of matter may change from
lines to points, and from points to lines, from squares to circles,
and so forth, infinite ways, according to the change of motions; but
though they change their figures, yet they cannot change their matter;
for matter as it has been, so it remaines constantly in each degree, as
the Rational, Sensitive and Inanimate, none becomes purer, none grosser
then ever it was, notwithstanding the infinite changes of motions,
which their figures undergo; for Motion changes onely the figure, not
the matter it self, which continues still the same in its nature, and
cannot be altered without a confusion or destruction of Nature. And
this is the constant opinion of,
Madam,
_Your faithful Friend_
_and humble Servant._
[1] _Philos. part._ 3. _a._ 40.