Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/86

44 the Resistance that this laxe and disunited Element could make, call it Natural or Divine, (for words have no force) could no more keep down the above-said Bullet from receding from the Earth, then an army of the smallest Flyes stop a Cannon-bullet flying in the Aire, let them resist it as stoutly as they can. So plain a Demonstration is this Phænomenon of Gravity, that there is a Spirit of Nature which is the Vicarious power of God upon the Motion of the Matter of the Universe.

8. And that neither the Aire it self has any such Power, Knowledge and liberty of will, nor that there are any such Divine particles interspersed in the Aire that have, in my opinion is plainly manifest from the second & thirty second Experiments of the abovenamed Treatise of that Learned * Gentleman. For whereas in the first of those Experiments, the Brass Key or Stopple of the Cover of the Receiver, after the Receiver is emptied well of Aire, is with much difficulty listed up, and in the other, if you apply a tapering Valve of brass to the lower branch of the Stop-cock of the Receiver well emptied of Aire, as before, and turn the Key of the Stop-cock, the external Aire beating like a forcible stream upon the Valve to get in there, will suddenly both shut the Valve, and keep it shut so strongly, that it will bear up with it a ten-pound weight (which are evident arguments of an earnest endeavour in Nature to fill the Receiver again with Aire, as it was naturally before, though this motion whereby it attempts so strongly to get in, does more accurately exclude it out:) it is apparent from hence that neither the Aire it self, nor any more subtile and Divine Matter (which is more strongly congregated together in the Receiver upon the pumping out of the Aire) has any freedome of will, or any knowledge or perception to doe any thing, they being so puzzel'd and acting so fondly and preposterously in their endeavours to replenish the Receiver again with Aire.

For if the external Aire and that subtiler Matter in the Receiver had been knowing and free Agents, there would have been that Correspondence betwixt them, that the Exteriour Aire would have suspended or withdrawn its pressure without, and the subtile and Divine Matter within would have directed its motion against the Stopple and Valve to let in the Aire, according to the intention of Nature. Or if nothing but that subtile body be free and knowing, that alone by mutual Correspondence (that in the Aire without bearing off the pressure of the outward Aire against the Receiver, & that part within bearing against the Valve or Stopple) would let in the Aire, according to the earnest and serious purpose of Nature. But their acting being so clear contrary to the End designed, and their attempts so inept, (whenas yet the thing were easily done, if there were Knowledge and free Agency in either the Aire or any other more subtile Matter) it is a Demonstration that the Impetus of Motion in all Matter is blinde and necessary, and that there is no Matter at all that is free and knowing, but moves and acts of it self (if undirected by some other Immaterial Principle) according to the mere Mechanical laws of Motion.

9. According to which that notable * Phænomenon, which now at last I come to cannot be brought to pass, namely. That the Sucker of the