MAT 
530 
MATERIA SUBTI'LIS, denotes a fine fubtile matter, 
which the Cartefians fuppofe to pervade _and penetrate 
freely the pores of all bodies, and to fill up all the pores 
fo as not to leave the leaft vacuity, or interftice, between 
them. (See Cartesian Philosophy, vol. iii. p. 835.) 
This machine they have recourfe to, to fupport the doc¬ 
trine of an abfolHte plenum, and to make it confiftent 
with the phenomena of motion, &cc and, accordingly, 
they make it a£l and move at pleafure, but in vain ; for, 
were there any fuch matter, in order for it to be able to 
fill up the vacuities of other bodies, it mull, itfelf, be en¬ 
tirely void of any ; i. e. it mud be perfectly folid, vaftly 
more folid than gold, and therefore more ponderous, and 
refill vallly more ; which is Inconfiftent with phenomena. 
Yet fir Ifaac Newton allows of the exiftence of a fubtile 
matter, or medium, much finer than air, penetrating the 
clofefl bodies, and contributing to the produflion of many 
of the phenomena of nature. The exiftence of fuch a 
matter he argues from the experiment of two thermome¬ 
ters, which being inclofed in glafs veffels, “one of them, 
exhaufted of its air, and both carried from a cold to a 
warm place, the thermometer in vacuo grows warm, and 
rifes, altnoft as. foon as that in the air; and, if returned 
into the cold place, both cool and fall about the fame time. 
Hence, fays he, is not the heat of the warm room con¬ 
veyed through the vacuum by the vibrations of a much 
fubtiler medium than air, which remained in vacuo after 
the exhauftion of the air? And is not this medium the 
fame whereby light is refracted, reflected, &c ?” 
MATERIAL, adj. [materiel, Fr. rnaterialis, Lat.] Con¬ 
fiding of matter; corporeal; not fpiritual.—That thefe 
trees of life and knowledge were material trees, though 
figures of the law and the gofpel, it is not doubted by the 
mod religious and learned writers. Raleigh. 
Forms of material things do only take, 
For thoughts or minds in them we cannot fee. Davies. 
Important ; momentous ; eflential ; w ith to before the 
thing to which relation is noted.—In this material point, 
the conftitution of theEnglifli government far exceeds all 
others. Swift. 
I pafs the reft, whofe every race, and name. 
And kinds, are lefs material to my theme. Dryden. 
Not formal : as, Though the material aflion was the fame, 
it was formally different. JohvJ’on. 
MATE'RIAL, /. [feldom ufed in the lingular.] The 
fubftance of which any thing is made.—That lamp in one 
of the heathen temples the art of man might make of fome 
fuch material as the Hone albeftus, which being once en¬ 
kindled will burn without being confumed. Wilkins. — 
Simple ideas, the materials of all our knowledge, are fug- 
gelled to the nliiid only by fenfation and reflection, Locke. 
Such a fool was never found, 
Who pull’d a palace to the ground. 
Only to have the ruins made 
Materials for a houfe decay’d. Swift. 
MATE'RI ALISM, f. The doflrineof the materialifts. 
MATE'RIALIST, /. One who denies fpiritual fub- 
Itances.—He was bent upon making Memmius a materialijl. 
Dryden. 
The materialifts were afefl in the ancient church, rom- 
pofed of perfons who, being prepofleffed with that maxim 
in the ancient philofophy, Ex nihilo nihil Jit, “ Out of no¬ 
thing nothing can arife,” had recourfe to an internal mat¬ 
ter, on which they fuppofed God wrought in the creation ; 
inftead of admitting God alone as the foie caufe of the 
exiftence of all things, Tertullian vigoroufly oppofes the 
doelrine of the materialifts in his treatife againll Hermo- 
geties, who was one of their number. 
Materialifts is alfo a name given to thofe who maintain 
that the foul of man is material ; or that the principle of 
perception and thought is not a fubftance diftinfl from 
the body, but the refult of corporeal organization. The 
M A T 
Valenlinians formerly applied the ternvmaterial to all peo¬ 
ple but thofe of their own feCl; afferting that their fouls 
perilhed with their bodies. Thus alfo the Stoics main¬ 
tained, that none but the fouls of their wile men furvived 
the body. 
There are others, called by this name, who have main¬ 
tained that there is nothing but matter in the univerfe 3 
and that the Deity himfelf is material. 
To MATERIALIZE, v. a. To regard as matter, — 
Thefe analogies will be apt to impofe upon philofophers, 
as well as upon the vulgar, and to lead them to materialize 
the mind and its faculties. Reid's Inquiry. 
MATERIAL'ITY, / Corporeity; materia! exiftence; 
not fpirituality.—Confidering that corporeity could not 
agree with this univerfal fubfillent nature, abllracling from 
ali materiality in his ideas, and giving them an aftual-fub- 
fiftence in nature, he made them like angels, whofe ef- 
fences were to be the eflence, and to give exiftence to cor¬ 
poreal individuals ; and fo each idea was embodied in 
every individual of its fpecies. Digby. 
MATERIALLY, adv. In the Itate of matter.—I do 
not mean, that any thing is feparable from a body by fire 
that was not materially pre-exiftent in if. Boyle. —Not for¬ 
mally.—Though an ill-intention is certainly fufficient to 
fpoil and corrupt an act in itfelf materially good, yet no 
good intention whatfoever can redlify or infufe a moral 
goodr.efs into an aft otherwise evil. South .—Importantly; 
eftentially.— All this concerneth the cuftoms of the Irifft 
very materially ; as well to reform thofe which are evil, 
as to confirm and continue thofe which are good. Spenfer 
on Ireland. 
MATERIALNESS,/. State of being material. 
MATE'RIATE, or Mate'rjated, adj. Confiding of 
matter.—Alter long enquiry of tilings immerfed in matter, 
interpofe fome fubjeft which is immateriate or lefs materiatc, 
fuch as this of founds, to the end that the intellect may 
be rectified, and become not partial. Bacon's Natural Hiflory. 
MATER'IATE, f. That which is made of matter, the 
thing conllituted.—The matter for the materiate. Johnfon. 
M ATER I A'LION, /. The act of forming matter.— 
Creation is the production of all things out of nothing; a 
formation not only of matter but of form, and a materiation 
even of matter itfelf. Brown. 
MATER'NAL, adj. [Fr. from malernus , Lat.] Mo¬ 
therly ; befitting or pertaining to a mother: 
The babe had all that infant care beguiles. 
And early knew his mother in her fmiles ; 
At his firft aptnefs the maternal love 
Thole rudiments of reafon did improve. Dryden. 
M ATERRITY, _/! The eharadteror relation of a mo¬ 
ther. 
MA'TESHOLM, a fmail ifland in the North Sea, near 
the coaft of Lapland. Lon. 6S. 8. N. 
MATE'SI, a lake of Naples, in the county of Molife s 
three miles fouth of Boiano. 
MAT'GAR, a town of Hindooftan, in the circar of 
Kotta : fifteen miles fouth-fouth-weft of Kotta. 
MATH,/. A mowing, that which is cut at one mowing. 
MA'THA, a town of France, in the department of the 
Lower Charente : fourteen miles north-eall of Saintes, 
and nine fouth-eaft of St. Jean d’Angely. 
MA'THAM (James), an engraver of the Low Countries, 
was born at Haerlem in the year 1571. He became the 
fon-in-law and pupil of Henry Golrzius, in confequence 
of his widowed mother marrying that dirtinguilhed artill. 
Advifed, no doubt, by his tutors, he travelled to Italy to 
complete his liudies, and in that country produced a con- 
fiderable number of engravings; yet after his return he 
continued to work under the eye and the direction of 
Goltzius; and, though he produced many valuable prints,, 
they poflefs little originality as engravings, being executed 
in the Ityle, or rather in the manner, of his father-in-law. 
In ftiorr, though flis manual cammtyid of the graver* 
which, 
