_MADAM,_
Your _Authors_[1] opinion is, That _a bright burning Iron doth not
burn a dead Carcass after an equal manner as it doth a live one; For
in live bodies_, saith he, _it primarily hurts the sensitive Soul,
the which therefore being impatient, rages after a wonderful manner,
doth by degrees resolve and exasperate its own and vital liquors into
a sharp poyson, and then contracts the fibres of the flesh, and turns
them into an escharre, yea, into the way of a coal; but a dead Carcass
is burnt by bright burning Iron, no otherwise, then if Wood, or if any
other unsensitive thing should be; that is, it burns by a proper action
of the fire, but not of the life._ To which opinion, I answer: That my
Reason cannot conceive any thing to be without life, and so neither
without sense; for whatsoever hath self-motion, has sense and life; and
that self-motion is in every Creature, is sufficiently discoursed of in
my former Letters, and in my _Philosophical Opinions_; for self-motion,
sense, life, and reason, are the grounds and principles of Nature,
without which no Creature could subsist. I do not say, That there is
no difference between the life of a dead Carcass, and a live one,
for there is a difference between the lives of every Creature; but to
differ in the manner of life, and to have neither life nor sense at
all, are quite different things: But your _Author_ affirms himself,
that all things have a certain sense of feeling, when he speaks of
Sympathy and Magnetisme, and yet he denies that they have life: And
others again, do grant life to some Creatures, as to Vegetables, and
not sense. Thus they vary in their Opinions, and divide sense, life,
and motion, when all is but one and the same thing; for no life is
without sense and motion, nor no motion without sense and life; nay,
not without Reason; for the chief Architect of all Creatures, is
sensitive and rational Matter. But the mistake is, that most men, do
not, or will not conceive, that there is a difference and variety
of the corporeal sensitive and rational motions in every Creature;
but they imagine, that if all Creatures should have life, sense, and
reason, they must of necessity have all alike the same motions, without
any difference; and because they do not perceive the animal motions
in a Stone or Tree, they are apt to deny to them all life, sense, and
motion. Truly, _Madam_, I think no man will be so mad, or irrational,
as to say a Stone is an Animal, or an Animal is a Tree, because a Stone
and Tree have sense, life, and motion; for every body knows, that their
Natural figures are different, and if their Natures be different,
then they cannot have the same Motions, for the corporeal motions do
make the nature of every particular Creature, and their differences;
and as the corporeal motions act, work, or move, so is the nature of
every figure, Wherefore, nobody, I hope, will count me so senseless,
that I believe sense and life to be after the like manner in every
particular Creature or part of Nature; as for example, that a Stone or
Tree has animal motions, and doth see, touch, taste, smell and hear by
such sensitive organs as an Animal doth; but, my opinion is, that all
Sense is not bound up to the sensitive organs of an Animal, nor Reason
to the kernel of a man's brain, or the orifice of the stomack, or the
fourth ventricle of the brain, or onely to a mans body; for though we
do not see all Creatures move in that manner as Man or Animals do, as
to walk, run, leap, ride, &c. and perform exterior acts by various
local motions; nevertheless, we cannot in reason say, they are void and
destitute of all motion; For what man knows the variety of motions in
Nature: Do not we see, that Nature is active in every thing, yea, the
least of her Creatures. For example; how some things do unanimously
conspire and agree, others antipathetically flee from each other; and
how some do increase, others decrease; some dissolve, some consist,
and how all things are subject to perpetual changes and alterations;
and do you think all this is done without motion, life, sense, and
reason? I pray you consider, _Madam_, that there are internal motions
as well as external, alterative as well as constitutive; and several
other sorts of motions not perceptible by our senses, and therefore
it is impossible that all Creatures should move after one sort of
motions. But you will say, Motion may be granted, but not Life, Sense,
and Reason. I answer, I would fain know the reason why not; for I am
confident that no man can in truth affirm the contrary: What is Life,
but sensitive Motion? what is Reason, but rational motion? and do you
think, _Madam_, that any thing can move it self without life, sense
and reason? I, for my part, cannot imagine it should; for it would
neither know why, whither, nor what way, or how to move. But you may
reply, Motion may be granted, but not self-motion; and life, sense,
and reason, do consist in self-motion. I answer: this is impossible;
for not any thing in Nature can move naturally without natural motion,
and all natural motion is self-motion. If you say it may be moved by
another; My answer is, first, that if a thing has no motion in it self,
but is moved by another which has self-motion, then it must give that
immovable body motion of its own, or else it could not move, having
no motion at all; for it must move by the power of motion, which is
certain; and then it must move either by its own motion, or by a
communicated or imparted motion; if by a communicated motion, then
the self-moveable thing or body must transfer its own motion into the
immoveable, and lose so much of its own motion as it gives away, which
is impossible, as I have declared heretofore at large, unless it do
also transfer its moving parts together with it, for motion cannot be
transfered without substance. But experience and observation witnesseth
the contrary. Next, I say, if it were possible that one body did
move another, then most part of natural Creatures, which are counted
immoveable of themselves, or inanimate, and destitute of self-motion,
must be moved by a forced or violent, and not by a natural motion; for
all motion that proceeds from an external agent or moving power, is
not natural, but forced, onely self-motion is natural; and then one
thing moving another in this manner, we must at last proceed to such
a thing which is not moved by another, but hath motion in it self,
and moves all others; and, perhaps, since man, and the rest of animals
have self-motion, it might be said, that the motions of all other
inanimate Creatures, as they call them, doth proceed from them; but man
being so proud, ambitious, and self-conceited, would soon exclude all
other animals, and adscribe this power onely to himself, especially
since he thinks himself onely endued with Reason, and to have this
prerogative above all the rest, as to be the sole rational Creature
in the World. Thus you see, _Madam_, what confusion, absurdity, and
constrained work will follow from the opinion of denying self-motion,
and so consequently, life and sense to natural Creatures. But I, having
made too long a digression, will return to your _Authors_ discourse:
And as for that he says, _A dead Carcass burns by the proper action of
the fire_, I answer, That if the dissolving motions of the fire be too
strong for the consistent motions of that body which fire works upon,
then fire is the cause of its alteration; but if the consistent motions
of the body be too strong for the dissolving motions of the fire, then
the fire can make no alteration in it. Again: he says, _Calx vive, at
long as it remains dry, it gnaws not a dead Carcass; but it presently
gnaws live flesh, and makes an escharre; and a dead carcass is by lime
wholly resolved into a liquor, and is combibed, except the bone and
gristle thereof; but it doth not consume live flesh into a liquor,
but translates it into an escharre_. I will say no more to this, but
that I have fully enough declared my opinion before, that the actions
or motions of life alter in that which is named a dead Carcass, from
what they were in that which is called a Living body; but although
the actions of Life alter, yet life is not gone or annihilated; for
life is life, and remains full the same, but the actions or motions of
life change and differ in every figure; and this is the cause that the
actions of Fire, Time, and _Calx-vive_, have not the same effects in a
dead Carcass, as in a living Body; for the difference of their figures,
and their different motions, produce different effects in them; and
this is the cause, that one and the same fire doth not burn or act
upon all bodies alike: for some it dissolves, and some not; and some
it hardens, and some it consumes; and some later, some sooner: For put
things of several natures into the same Fire, and you will see how they
will burn, or how fire will act upon them after several manners; so
that fire cannot alter the actions of several bodies to its own blas;
and therefore, since a living and a dead Body (as they call them) are
not the same, (for the actions or motions of life, by their change or
alteration, have altered the nature or figure of the body) the effects
cannot be the same; for a Carcass has neither the interior nor exterior
motions of that figure which it was before it was a Carcass, and so the
figure is quite alter'd from what it was, by the change and alteration
of the motions. But to conclude, the motions of the exterior Agent,
and the motions of the Patient, do sometimes joyn and unite, as in one
action, or to one effect, and sometimes the motions of the Agent are
onely an occasion, but not a co-workman in the production of such or
such an effect, as the motions of the Patient do work; neither can the
motions of the Agent work totally and meerly of themselves, such or
such effects, without the assistance or concurrence of the motions
of the Patient, but the motions of the Patient can; and there is
nothing that can prove more evidently that Matter moves it self, and
that exterior agents or bodies are onely an occasion to such or such
a motion in another body, then to see how several things put into one
and the same fire, do alter after several modes; which shews, it is not
the onely action of fire, but the interior motions of the body thrown
into the fire, which do alter its exterior form or figure. And thus, I
think I have said enough to make my opinions clear, that they may be
the better understood: which is the onely aim and desire of,
Madam,
_Your humble and_
_faithful Servant._
[1] Of the disease of the Stone, _Ch._ 9.