_MADAM,_
I have read your _Authors_ discourse concerning _Sensation_,[1] but it
was as difficult to me to understand it, ash was tedious to read it;
Truly, all the business, might have been easily declared in a short
Chapter, and with more clearness and perspicuity: For Sensation, is
nothing else but the action of sense proceeding from the corporeal
sensitive motions, which are in all Creatures or parts of Nature, and
so all have sense and sensation, although not alike after one and the
same manner, but some more, some less, each according to the nature and
propriety of its figure. But your _Author_ speaks of _Motion without
Sense, and Sense without Motion_, which is a meer impossibility; for
there is not, nor cannot be any Motion in Nature without Sense, nor
any Sense without Motion; there being no Creature without self-motion,
although not always perceptible by us, or our external senses; for all
motion is not exteriously local, and visible. Wherefore, not any part
of Nature, according to my opinion, wants Sense and Reason, Life and
Knowledg; but not such a substanceless Life as your _Author_ describes,
but a substantial, that is a corporeal Life. Neither is Light the
principle of Motion, but Motion, is the principle of Light: Neither is
Heat the principle of Motion, but its effect as well as Cold is; for
I cannot perceive that Heat should be more active then Cold. Neither
is there any such thing as Unsensibleness in Nature, except it be in
respect of some particular Sensation in some particular Figure: As
for example, when an Animal dies, or its Figure is dissolved from the
Figure of an Animal; we may say it hath not animal sense or motion,
but we cannot say, it hath no sense or motion at all; for as long as
Matter is in Nature, Sense and Motion will be; so that it is absurd and
impossible to believe, or at least to think, that Matter, as a body,
can be totally deprived of Life, Sense, and Motion, or that Life can
perish and be corrupted, be it the smallest part of Matter conceivable,
and the same turned or changed into millions of Figures; for the
Life and Soul of Nature is self-moving Matter, which by Gods Power,
and leave, is the onely Framer and Maker, as also the Dissolver and
Transformer of all Creatures in Nature, making as well Light, Heat, and
Cold, Gas, Blas, and Ferments, as all other natural Creatures beside,
as also Passions, Appetites, Digestions, Nourishments, Inclination,
Aversion, Sickness and Health; nay, all Particular Ideas, Thoughts,
Fancies, Conceptions, Arts, Sciences, &c. In brief, it makes all that
is to be made in Nature. But many great Philosophers conceive Nature to
be fuller of Intricacy, Difficulty, and Obscurity, then she is, puzling
themselves about her ordinary actions, which yet are easie and free,
and making their arguments hard, constrained, and mystical, many of
them containing neither sense nor reason; when as, in my opinion, there
is nothing else to be studied in Nature, but her substance and her
actions. But I will leave them to their own Fancies and Humors, and say
no more, but rest,
Madam,
_Your humble and_
_faithful Servant._
[1] Of the Disease of the Stone. _Ch._ 9.