200 NOVUM ORGAN UM. 



This is, however, most incorrect. For the air is not dimi 

 nished in quantity, but contracted in dimensions^ nor does 

 this motion of the rising of the water begin till the flame is 

 extinguished, or the air cooled, so that physicians place 

 cold sponges, moistened with water, on the cups, in order 

 to increase their attraction. There is, therefore, no reason 

 why men should fear much from the ready escape of air : 

 for although it be true that the most solid bodies have their 

 pores, yet neither air, nor spirit, readily suffers itself to be 

 rarefied to such an extreme degree ; just as water will not 

 escape by a small chink. 



II. With regard to the second of the seven above men 

 tioned methods, we must especially observe, that compres 

 sion and similar violence have a most powerful effect either in 

 producing locomotion, and other motions of the same nature, 

 as may be observed in engines and projectiles, or in destroy 

 ing the organic body and those qualities which consist en 

 tirely in motion (for all life, and every description of flame 

 and ignition are destroyed by compression, which also injures 

 and deranges every machine) ; or in destroying those quali 

 ties which consist in position and a coarse difference of 

 parts, as in colours ; for the colour of a flower when whole 

 differs from that it presents when bruised, and the same 

 may be observed of whole and powdered amber; or in tastes, 

 for the taste of a pear before it is ripe and of the same pear 

 when bruised and softened is different, since it becomes 

 perceptibly more sweet. But such violence is of little avail 

 in the more noble transformations and changes of homoge 

 neous bodies, for they do not, by such means, acquire any 

 constantly and permanently new state, but one that is 

 transitory, and always struggling to return to its former 

 habit and freedom. It would not, however, be useless to 

 make some more diligent experiments with regard to this; 

 whether, for instance, the condensation of a perfectly ho 

 mogeneous body (such as air, water, oil, and the like) or 

 their rarefaction, when effected by violence, can become 

 permanent, fixed, and as it were so changed as to become 

 a nature. This might at first be tried by simple perse 

 verance, and then by means of helps and harmonies. It 

 might readily have been attempted (if we had but thought 



* Part of the air is expanded and escapes, and part is consumed by the flame. 

 When condensed, therefore, by the cold application, it cannot offer sufficient 

 resistance to the external atmosphere to prevent the liquid or flesh from being 

 forced into the glass. 



