43.0 Additional Notes. 



formed particles, of which this earth, and the several metals, 

 minerals, and other solid substances in it, and in the other 

 solid orbs, arc composed, God at first created ail that subtile 

 fluid which now is, and from the creation has been, in the 

 condition of fire, light, or air, and goes under the name of 

 the Heavens. 



" llie particles of this fluid (vyhichour author calls atoms), 

 when they are single and uncompounded, are inconceivably- 

 minute, and so subtile as to pervade the pores of all substances 

 whatever, whether solid or fluid, without any great difliculty 

 or resistance : when they are pushed forward in straight lines, 

 by the action of fire, or are reflected or refracted in straight 

 lines, they produce light, and are so called; but when the 

 interposition of any opaque body hinders their progress in 

 straight lines, they pass, but cease to produce light. 



" These particles or atoms, which, when moving in straight 

 lines, produce light, and, if collected and put into another 

 sort of motion, would produce heat and fire, are, as our au- 

 thor insists, when the force impelling them ceases to act with 

 vigour, and when their motion is retarded, so made, that they 

 are apt to adhere in small masses or grains, which the author 

 calls spirit or air, and is of the same kind and texture with that 

 air which we daily breathe, and which we feel in wind when 

 it blows. 



" The sun, which our author places at the centre of this 

 system, is an orb included in a vast collection of this subtile 

 matter in the action of fire, which continually melts down all 

 the air that is brought into It by the powerful action of the 

 firmament or expansion, hereafter to be explained, into the 

 subtile matter just mentioned; and with an immense force 

 sends forth, in perpetual streams of light, tills same subtile 

 matter, so melted down, to die circumference of this system, 

 which the author says Is bounded, as he avers the space com^ 

 prehended within It is absolutely full. 



" I'he matter thus melted down at the orb of the sun into 

 light must, as every thing Is full, either stand still or make 

 its way outwards to the circumference, being forced by the 

 particles which are concreted Into air at the utmost extremi- 

 ties; and return towards the sun, where the fluid being most 

 subtile, gives least resistance, and take up the place that die 

 light left. 



" And therefore this endless uninterrupted flux of mattei,- 

 from the sun In light, in place of being an expense that should 

 destroy that orb (which our author takes to be an Insupporc^ 



