_MADAM,_
I received your questions in your last: the first was, _Whether there
be more body compact together in a heavy then in a light thing?_ I
answer, That purity, rarity, little quantity, exteriour shape, as also
motion cause lightnesse; and grossness of bulk, density, much quantity,
exterior figure and motion cause heaviness, as it may be confirmed by
many examples: but lightness and heaviness are onely conceptions of
man, as also ascent and descent; and it may be questioned, whether
there be such things really in nature; for change of motions of one
and the same body will make lightness, and heaviness, as also rarity
and density: besides, the several figures and compositions of bodies
will cause them to ascend or descend, for Snow is a light body and yet
descends from the clouds, and Water is a heavie body, and yet ascends
in springs out of the Earth; Dust is a dense body and yet is apt to
ascend, Rain or Dew is a rare body and yet is apt to descend; Also
a Bird ascends by his shape, and a small worm although of less body
and lighter will fall down; and there can be no other proof of light
and heavy bodies but by their ascent and descent; But as really there
is no such thing as heavie or light in nature more then words, and
comparisons of different corporeal motions, so there is no such thing,
as high or low, place or time, but onely words to make comparisons and
to distinguish different corporeal motions. The second question was;
_When a Bason with water is wasted into smoak, which fills up a whole
Room, Whether the air in the room doth, as the sensitive motions of the
eye, pattern out the figure of the smoak; or whether all the room is
really fill'd with the vapour or smoak?_ I answer, If it be onely the
pattern or figure of smoak or vapour, the extension and dilation is not
so much as man imagines; but why may not the air, which in my opinion
hath self-motion, pattern out the figure of smoak as well as the eye;
for that the eye surely doth it, may be proved; because smoak, if it
enter the eye, makes it not onely smart and water much, but blinds it
quite for the present; wherefore smoak doth not enter the eye, when the
eye seeth it, but the eye patterns out the figure of smoak, and this is
perception; In the same manner may the air pattern out the figure of
smoak. The third question was, _Whether all that they name qualities
of bodies, as thickness, thinness, hardness, softness, gravity,
levity, transparentness and the like, be substances?_ I answer, That
all those, they call qualities, are nothing else but change of motion
and figure of the same body, and several changes of motions are not
several bodies, but several actions of one body; for change of motion
doth not create new matter or multiply its quantity: for though
corporeal motions may divide and compose, contract and dilate, yet they
cannot create new matter, or make matter any otherwise then it is by
nature, neither can they add or substract any thing from its nature.
And therefore my opinion is, not that they are things subsisting by
themselves without matter, but that there can no abstraction be made
of motion and figure from matter, and that matter and motion being but
one thing and inseparable, make but one substance. Wherefore density
and rarity, gravity and levity, &c. being nothing else but change of
motions, cannot be without matter, but a dense or rare, heavie or
light matter is but one substance or body; And thus having obeyed your
commands, I rest,
Madam,
_Your faithful Friend,_
_and Servant._