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THE HISTORY OF HEAVY AND LIGHT. 



THE ENTRANCE. 



THE motion of gravity and lightness the ancients did illus 

 trate with the name of natural motion ; for they saw no 

 external efficient, nor no apparent resistance ; yea, the mo- 

 | tion seemed swifter in its progress. This contemplation, 

 I or rather speech, they seasoned with that mathematical 

 phantasy of the staying or stopping of heavy things at the 

 centre of the earth (although the earth should be bored 

 quite thorow), and that scholastical invention of the motion 

 of bodies to their several places. Having laid or set down 

 these things, supposing they had done their parts, they 

 looked no further, but only that which some of them more 

 carefully inquired after, namely, of the centre of gravity in 

 divers figures, and of such things as are carried by water. 

 Neither did any of the modern authors do any thing worth 

 j speaking of concerning this, only by adding some few me 

 chanical things which they had also wrested with their 

 demonstrations ; but laying many words aside, it is most 

 certain that a body cannot suffer but by a body; neither 

 can there be any local motion made, unless it be solicited 

 or set forward, either by the parts of the body itself which 

 is moved, or by the adjacent bodies, which either touch it 

 or are near unto it, or are at least within the orb of its 

 activity. So that Gilbertus did not unknowingly introduce 

 magnetic powers, he also becoming a loadstone, namely, 

 drawing more things by those powers than he should have 

 done, and building a ship as it were of a round piece of 

 wood. 



THE HISTORY OF THE SYMPATHY AND 

 ANTIPATHY OF THINGS. 



THE ENTRANCE. 



STRIFE and amity in nature are the eggers on of motions, 

 and the keys of works. Hence proceeds the union and 

 dissension of bodies ; hence the mixion and separation of 

 bodies ; hence the high and intimate impressions of virtues, 

 and that which they call joining of actives with passives : 



