41 6 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



things purely corporeal, and, distinguishing between the 

 first original of things and the subsequent course of nature, 

 teaches concerning the former, not only that God gave 

 motion to matter, but, in the beginning, He so guided the 

 motions of the various parts of it, as to contrive them into 

 the world He designed they should compose . . . and 

 established those rules of motion, and that order among 

 things corporeal, which we are wont to call the laws of 

 nature. . . . The laws of motion being settled and all up- 

 held by His incessant concourse and general providence, 

 the phenomena of the world, thus constituted, are physi- 

 cally produced by the mechanical affections of the parts of 

 matter and what they operate upon one another, according 

 to mechanical laws." 



Surely it cannot be said that Boyle had not perceived 

 that it was the province of science to concern herself not 

 with matter, but with the changes in matter. "I am apt 

 to think," he avers, "that men will never be able to ex- 

 plain the phenomena of nature while they endeavor to 

 deduce them only from the presence and proportions of 

 such and such material ingredients, and consider such in- 

 gredients or elements as bodies in a state of rest; whereas, 

 indeed, the greatest part of the affections of matter, and 

 consequently of the phenomena of nature, seem to depend 

 upon the motion and contrivance of the small parts of 

 bodies." 



By this corpuscular or mechanical philosophy Boyle ex- 

 plains such things as he regards as natural phenomena 

 such as heat and cold, tastes, corrosiveness, fixedness, 

 volatility, chemical precipitation, and finally, magnetism 

 and electricity. Thus, heat, he says, is "that mechanical 

 affection of matter we call local motion, mechanically 

 modified" in three ways: first, by the vehement agitation 

 of the parts; second, that the motions be very various in 

 direction; and third, that the agitated particles, or at least 

 the greatest number of them, be so minute as to be singly 

 insensible. 



