But when the Nourishment grows unfit to be assimilated, or the central
Earth grows too feeble to assimilate it, the Motion ends in Confusion,
Putrefaction, and Death.
If a very small quantity of any Salt or Vitriol be dissolved in a great
quantity of Water, the Particles of the Salt or Vitriol will not sink to
the bottom, though they be heavier in Specie than the Water, but will
evenly diffuse themselves into all the Water, so as to make it as saline
at the top as at the bottom. And does not this imply that the Parts of
the Salt or Vitriol recede from one another, and endeavour to expand
themselves, and get as far asunder as the quantity of Water in which
they float, will allow? And does not this Endeavour imply that they have
a repulsive Force by which they fly from one another, or at least, that
they attract the Water more strongly than they do one another? For as
all things ascend in Water which are less attracted than Water, by the
gravitating Power of the Earth; so all the Particles of Salt which float
in Water, and are less attracted than Water by any one Particle of Salt,
must recede from that Particle, and give way to the more attracted
Water.
When any saline Liquor is evaporated to a Cuticle and let cool, the Salt
concretes in regular Figures; which argues, that the Particles of the
Salt before they concreted, floated in the Liquor at equal distances in
rank and file, and by consequence that they acted upon one another by
some Power which at equal distances is equal, at unequal distances
unequal. For by such a Power they will range themselves uniformly, and
without it they will float irregularly, and come together as
irregularly. And since the Particles of Island-Crystal act all the same
way upon the Rays of Light for causing the unusual Refraction, may it
not be supposed that in the Formation of this Crystal, the Particles not
only ranged themselves in rank and file for concreting in regular
Figures, but also by some kind of polar Virtue turned their homogeneal
Sides the same way.
The Parts of all homogeneal hard Bodies which fully touch one another,
stick together very strongly. And for explaining how this may be, some
have invented hooked Atoms, which is begging the Question; and others
tell us that Bodies are glued together by rest, that is, by an occult
Quality, or rather by nothing; and others, that they stick together by
conspiring Motions, that is, by relative rest amongst themselves. I had
222