108 The Life of William, Duke of Newcastle 



to them, that he will never maintain or defend such opinions 

 which are in the least prejudicial to either K 



One proof more I'll add to confirm his natural understand- 

 ing and judgment, which was upon some discourse I held 

 with him one time, concerning that famous chemist Van 

 Helmont, who in his writings is very invective against the 

 schoolmen, and, amongst the rest, accuses them for taking 

 the radical moisture for the fat of animal bodies. Where- 

 upon my Lord answered, that surely the schoolmen were 

 too wise to commit such an error ; for, said he, the radical 

 moisture is not the fat or tallow of an animal, but an oily 

 and balsamous substance ; for the fat and tallow, as also the 

 watery parts, are cold ; whereas the oily and balsamous parts 

 have at all times a lively heat, which makes that those crea- 

 tures which have much of that oil or balsam are long lived, 

 and appear young ; and not only animals, but also vegetables, 

 which have much of that oil of balsam, as ivy, bays, laurel, 

 holly, and the like, live long, and appear fresh and green, 

 not only in winter, but when they are old. Then I asked 

 my Lord's opinion concerning the radical heat : to which 

 he answered, that the radical heat lived in the radical mois- 

 ture ; and when the one decayed, the other decayed also ; 

 and then was produced either an unnatural heat, which caused 

 an unnatural dryness, or an unnatural moisture, which caused 

 dropsies, and these, an unnatural coldness. 



Lastly, his natural wit appears by his delight in poetry ; 

 for I may justly call him the best lyric and dramatic poet 



1 The Duke, like most of his contemporaries, made occasional scientific experiments 

 and held views of his own about natural science. In a preface written by.him to the Philo- 

 sophical and Physical Opinions of his wife he says : ' Since it is now a la mode to write of 

 natural philosophy, and I know nobody knows what is the cause of anything, and since 

 they are all but guessers, not knowing, it gives every man room to think what he lists, 

 and so I mean to set up for myself, and play at this philosophical game as follows, without 

 patching or stealing from anybody.' He then proceeds to deliver his opinion concern- 

 ing the grounds of natural philosophy : ' Salt is the life that giveth motion to all things 

 in the world ', which he proves, amongst other reasons, by the following experiment : 

 ' The sun, no doubt, is a great fire, and must have something to maintain it ; but before 

 I deliver my opinion to you, I desire leave to make you a little relation, and it is this : 

 Dr. Payn, a divine, and my chaplain, who hath a very witty searching brain of his own, 

 being at my house at Bolsover, locked up with me in a chamber to make Lapis Prunellae, 

 which is saltpetre and brimstone inflamed, looking at it a while, I said, Mark it, Mr. 

 Payn, the flame is pale, like the Sun, and hath a violent motion in it, like the Sun ; saith 

 he, It hath so, and the more to confirm you, says he, look what abundance of little suns, 

 round like a globe, appear to us everywhere, just the same motion as the Sun makes in 

 every one's eyes. So we concluded the Sun could be nothing else but a very solid body 

 of salt and sulphur, inflamed by his own violent motions upon his own axis. . . . 



' This ', he concludes, ' is my opinion, which I think can as hardly be disproved as 

 proved ; since any opinion may be right or wrong, for anything that anybody knows, 

 for certainly there is none can make a mathematical demonstration of natural philosophy '. 



