I come now to consider the Terrestrial Bodies; I shall say nothing of the whole Body of the Earth in general, because I reserve that as one of the Particulars I shall more carefully and curiously examine.
Terrestrial Bodies according to our Method before propounded are either inanimate or animate, and the inanimate either simple or mixt: Simple, as the four Elements, Fire, Water, Earth, and Air; I call these Elements in compliance (as I said before) with the vulgarly received Opinion; not that I think them to be the Principles or component Ingredients of all other sublunary Bodies: I might call them the four great Aggregates of Bodies of the same Species, or four sorts of Bodies of which there are great Aggregates. These notwithstanding they are endued with contrary Qualities, and are continually encroaching one upon another, yet they are so balanced and kept in such an aequilibrium, that neither prevaileth over other, but what one gets in one place it loseth in another.
First, Fire cherisheth and reviveth by its Heat, without which all things would be torpid and without Motion, nay without Fire no Life; it being the vital Flame residing in the Blood that keeps the bodily Machine in motion, and renders it a fit Organ for the Soul to work by. The Uses of Fire (I do not here speak of the Peripateticks Elementary Fire in the concave of the Moon, which is but a mere Figment, but our ordinary Culinary) are in a manner infinite for dressing and preparing of Victuals baked, boyled and roast; for melting and refining of Metals and Minerals; for the fusion of Glass, a Material whose Uses are so many that it is not easie to enumerate them, it serving us to make Windows for our Houses, drinking Vessels, Vessels to contain and preserve all sorts of fermented Liquors, destilled Waters, Spirits, Oils, Extracts, and other Chymical Preparations, as also Vessels to destil and prepare them in; for Looking Glasses, Spectacles, Microscopes and Telescopes, whereby our Sight is not only relieved, but wonderfully assisted to make rare Discoveries: For making all sorts of Instruments for Husbandry, mechanick Arts and Trades, all sorts of Arms or Weapons of War defensive and offensive; for fulminating Engines; for burning of Lime, baking of Bricks, Tiles, and all sorts of Potters Vessels or earthen Ware; for casting and forging metalline Vessels and Utensils; for Destillations, and all Chymical Operations hinted before in the use of Glass. For affording us Light for any Work or Exercise in winter Nights; for digging in Mines and dark Carvens: And finally by its comfortable Warmth securing us from the injuries of Cold, or relieving when we have been bitten and benummed with it. A Subject or Utensil of so various and inexplicable use, who could have invented and formed, but an infinitely wise and powerful Efficient?
Secondly, The Air serves us and all Animals to breath in, containing the fewel of that vital Flame we spake of, without which it would speedily languish and go out. So necessary is it for us and other Land-Animals, that without the use of it we could live but very few minutes: Nay Fishes and other Water-Animals cannot abide without the use of it: For if you put Fish into a Vessel of a narrow mouth full of Water, they will live and swim there not only days and months but even years. But if with your Hand or any other cover you stop the Vessel so as wholly to exclude the Air, or interrupt its communication with the Water, they will suddenly be suffocated; as Rondeletius affirms he often experimented: If you fill not the Vessel up to the top, but leave some space empty for the Air to take up, and then clap your hand upon the mouth of the Vessel; the Fishes will presently contend which shall get uppermost in the Water, that so they may enjoy the open Air; which I have also observed them to do in a Pool of Water that hath been almost dry in the Summer-time because the Air that insinuated itself into the Water did not suffice them for Respiration. Neither is it less necessary for Insects than it is for other Animals but rather more, these having more Air-vessels for their Bulk by far than they, there being many Orifices on each side their Bodies for the admission of Air, which if you stop with Oil or Hony, the Insect presently dies, and revives no more. This was an Observation of the Ancients, though the reason of it they did not understand (Oleo illito Insecta omnia exanimantur. Plin.) which was nothing but the intercluding of the Air; for though you put Oil upon them, if you put it not upon or obstruct those Orifices therewith whereby they draw the Air, they suffer nothing: If you obstruct only some and not others, the parts which are near and supplied with Air from thence are by and by convulsed and shortly relaxed and deprived of Motion, the rest that were untoucht still retaining it. Nay more than all this, Plants themselves have a kind of respiration, being furnished with plenty of Vessels for the derivation of Air to all their parts, as hath been observed, nay first discovered by that great and curious Naturalist Malpighius. Another use of the Air is to sustain the flight of Birds and Insects. Moreover by its gravity it raises the Water in Pumps, Siphons and other Engines, and performs all those feats which former Philosophers through Ignorance of the Efficient Cause attributed to a Final, namely Natures abhorrence of a Vacuity or empty space. The Elastick or expansive faculty of the Air, whereby it dilates itself, when compressed (indeed this lower Region of it by reason of the weight of the superincumbent is always in a compressed State) hath been made use of in the common Weather-glasses, in Wind guns, and in several ingenious Waterworks, and doubtless hath a great Interest in many natural Effects and Operations.
Against what we have said of the necessity of the Air for the maintenance of the Vital Flame, it may be objected, That the Foetus in the Womb Lives; its Heart Pulsses; and its Blood Circulates; and yet it draws in no Air, neither hath the Air any Access to it. To which I Answer, That it doth receive Air so much as is sufficient for it in its present state from the maternal Blood by the Placenta uterina, or the Cotyledones. This Opinion generally propounded, viz. That the Respiration of the Dam, did serve the Foetus also; or supply sufficient Air to it, I have met with in Books, but the explicit Notion of it I owe to my Learned and worthy Friend Dr. Edward Hulse, which comparing with mine own Anatomical Observations, I found so consonant to Reason, and highly probable, that I could not but yield a firm Assent to it. I say then, That the chief Use of the Circulation of the Blood through the Cotyledones of a Calf in the Womb, (which I have often dissected) and by Analogy through the Placenta uterina in an Humane Foetus, seems to be the Impregnation of the Blood with Air; for the feeding of the vital Flame. For if it were only for Nutrition, what need of two such great Arteries to convey the Blood thither? It would (one might rationally think) be more likely, that as in the Abdomen of every Animal, so here there should have been some lacteal Veins formed, beginning from the Placenta, or Cotyledons, which concurring in one common ductus, should at last empty themselves into the vena cava. Secondly, I have observed in a Calf, the umbilical Vessels to terminate in certain Bodies divided into a multitude of carneous papillae, as I may so call them, which are received into so many Sockets of the Cotyledons growing on the Womb; which carneous papillae may without force or laceration be drawn out of those Sockets. Now these papillae do well resemble the Aristae or radii of a Fishes Gills, and very probably have the same use to take in the Air. So that the maternal Blood which flows to the Cotyledons, and encircles these papillae, communicates by them to the Blood of the Foetus, the Air wherewith it self is impregnate; as the Water flowing about the carneous radii of the Fishes Gills doth the Air that is lodged therein to them. Thirdly, That the maternal Blood flows most copiously to the Placenta uterina in Women, is manifest from the great Hemorrhagy that succeeds the separation thereof at the Birth. Fourthly, After the Stomach and Intestines are formed, the foetus seems to take in its whole nourishment by the Mouth; there being always found in the Stomach of a Calf, plenty of the liquor contained in the Amnios wherein he swims, and faeces in his intestines, and abundance of urine in the Allantoides. So that the foetus in the Womb doth live as it were the life of a Fish. Lastly, Why else should there be such an instant necessity of Respiration so soon as ever the foetus is fallen off from the Womb?
This way we may give a facile and very probable account of it, to wit, because receiving no more Communications of Air from its Dam or Mother, it must needs have a speedy supply from without, or else extinguish and die for want of it: Being not able to live longer without Air at its first Birth, than it can do afterward.
And here methinks appears a necessity of bringing in the agency of some Superintendent intelligent Being, be it a Plastick Nature, or what you will. For what else should put the Diaphragm, and all the Muscles serving to Respiration in motion all of a sudden so soon as ever the foetus is brought forth? Why could they not have rested as well as they did in the Womb? What aileth them that they must needs bestir themselves to get in Air to maintain the Creatures life? Why could they not patiently suffer it to die? That the Air of it self could not rush in is clear; for that on the contrary there is required a great force to remove the incumbent Air, and make room for the external to enter. You will say the Spirits do at this time flow to the Organs of Respiration; the Diaphragm and other Muscles which concur to that action, and move them. But what rouses the Spirits which were quiescent during the continuance of the foetus in the Womb? Here is no appearing impellent but the external Air, the Body suffering no change but of place, out of its close and warm Prison into the open and cool Air. But how or why that should have such influence upon the Spirits, as to drive them into those Muscles electively, I am not subtil enough to discern.
Thirdly, Water is one part, and that not the least of our Sustenance, and that affords the greatest share of Matter in all Productions; containing in it the Principles or minute component particles of all Bodies. To speak nothing of those inferiour Uses of Washing and Bathing, Dressing and preparing of Victuals. But if we shall consider the great Conceptacula and Congregations of Water, and the distribution of it all over the dry Land in Springs and Rivers; there will occur abundant Arguments of Wisdom and Understanding. The Sea, what infinite variety of Fishes doth it nourish? Psalm 104. 25. in the verse next to my Text. The earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide Sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts, &c. How doth it exactly compose itself to a level or equal Superficies, and with the Earth make up one spherical Roundness? How doth it constantly observe its Ebbs and Flows, its Spring and Nepe-tides, and still retain its saltness so convenient for the maintenance of its Inhabitants? serving also the uses of Man for Navigation, and the convenience of Carriage. That it should be defined by Shores and Strands and Limits, I mean at first, when it was natural to it to overflow and stand above the Earth. All these particulars declare abundance of Wisdom in their primitive Constitution. This last the Psalmist takes notice of in the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th verses of this Psalm. Speaking of the Earth at the first Creation, he saith, Thou coveredst it with the Deep as with a garment, the waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled, at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. (The mountains ascend, the valleys descend) unto the place thou hast prepared for them. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over: That they turn not again to cover the earth. Again, the great use and convenience, the beauty and variety of so many Springs and Fountains, so many Brooks and Rivers, so many Lakes and standing Pools of Water, and these so scattered and dispersed all the Earth over; that no great part of it is destitute of them, without which it must without a supply other ways be desolate and void of Inhabitants; afford abundant Arguments of Wisdom and Counsel. That Springs should break forth on the sides of Mountains most remote from the Sea. That there should way be made for Rivers through Straits and Rocks, and subterraneous Vaults, so that one would think that Nature had cut a way on purpose to derive the Water, which else would overflow and drown whole Countries. That the water passing through the Veins of the Earth, should be rendred fresh and potable, which it cannot be by any percolations we can make, but the saline Particles will pass through a tenfold Filtre. That in some places there should spring forth metallick and mineral Waters, and hot Baths, and these so constant and permanent for many Ages; so convenient for divers medicinal Intentions and Uses, the Causes of which things, or the Means and Methods by which they are performed, have not been as yet certainly discovered; how can we reasonably deny that they are the Products and Effects of profound Counsel and Understanding?
Lastly, The Earth, which is the basis and support of all Animals and Plants, and affords them the hard and solid part of their Bodies, yielding us Food and Sustenance and partly also Cloathing. How variously is the Surface of it distinguished into Hills, and Valleys, and Plains, and high Mountains affording pleasant Prospects? how curiously cloathed and adorned with the grateful verdure of Herbs and stately Trees, either dispersed and scattered singly, or as it were assembled in Woods and Groves, and all these beautified and illustrated with elegant Flowers and Fruits, quorum omnium incredibilis multitudo, insatiabili varietate distinguitur, as Tully saith. This also shews forth to them that consider it both the Power and Wisdom of God: So that we may conclude with Solomon Prov. 3, 19. The Lord by Wisdom hath founded the Earth, by Understanding hath he established the Heavens.
But now, if we pass from Simple to Mixt Bodies, we shall still find more matter of Admiration and Argument of Wisdom. Of these we shall first consider those they call imperfectly Mixt, or Meteors.