The Elastic Force

⁵⁷ The most noble Boyle traces Elastic force back to certain “springs” restoring themselves.

I agree. However, I believe that even this restorative force of those springs must be sought from a higher principle from the circulation of the aether.

I believe that he would acknowledge this.

This is why:

• air, other things being equal, enters narrow spaces with more difficulty than water.
• water in a narrow and long channel ascends beyond equilibrium
• water penetrates mercury, whereas air does not.

This has been referred to the “shagginess” and entanglements of the particles. But the reason for the entanglement of cohesion must be given again; the ultimate reason for cohesion, demonstrated elsewhere, is internal motion.

Therefore, the ultimate reason why air passes through narrows with more difficulty is because air is more Elastic and more cohesive.

• It is not easily dissipated or enters through parts, but rolls, is turned, and formed into one body.

Why so? Because there is more aether in it, therefore more motion, restoration, and cohesion. The parts of water are moved toward each other not by motion but by density; therefore, they have less compression, restoration, and cohesion, and they flow more easily into parts, responding to the opening to be permeated. Thus, let it appear from this that density is not the true cause of hardness and cohesion.

The followers of the great men Descartes and Gassendi, and whoever teaches in sum that every variety in bodies is to be explained by magnitude, figure, and motion, have my full agreement.

Whatever is said of atoms being variously shaped—of vortices, shavings, branches, hooks, or globes and such other apparatus—is more a play of wit, further removed from the simplicity of nature and from experiments, or too meager to be clearly connected with the Phenomena.

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⁵⁸ But my Hypothesis:

• unites vague and slipping corpuscles among themselves through bubbles
• derives the motions and effects of bubbles of every kind from a single universal motion of the entire system.

And so, beginning from the highest and most abstract principles on one hand, and ascending from the lowest chemical experiments on the other, it connects theory to observation mechanically with great clarity and harmony, explained through the simplest state of our entire globe and the phenomena of gravity or elasticity (elater).

The reason for that speed with which a bow restores itself and shoots an arrow, and that impetus with which fulminating powder—whether common or gold—overthrows everything in its path, cannot be explained from the constitution of the body’s parts unless that universal and swiftest motion of the system is called upon.

Every impetus arises from speed, and it is also certain that from many slow motions (unless there is a maximum distance from the center of the thing, which is not the case here) or even from the insensible motions of insensible parts, however fast, such a swift and violent motion of the whole cannot arise.

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Motion is usually increased by constriction, just as the density of bodies is by compression; but this depends on the economy of the system in which all motion of the aether is incorporated as if in its own primum mobile [prime mover], so to speak.

Whence increased compression [results in] an internal effort to restore itself—that is, the solicitation of the ambient aether—because into each single part it [the aether] must be led, and it is increased in proportion.

Therefore, the matter cannot be explained without a new and perpetual pulse of the aether. Since this is also among the principles of our Phoronomia [the laws of motion]: that every virtue, effort, or motion (except for minds) once overcome ceases entirely, nor does it spring back of its own accord once the obstacle is removed or the impediment diminished (see above sections 22, 28).

Whence, things cannot be explained by a reciprocating motion unless the solicitation of the aether is called upon, because nothing returns of its own accord by the same path it came. Likewise, things stretched by an intrinsic virtue, even if dismissed, will not restore themselves; even if that is their intrinsic constitution, the force of the restoring aether operates in them rather than in others.

Because internal air is compressed in hard things and escapes from soft ones, this is the reason why things stretched for a long time finally go slack: because little by little through the subtlest exits, the air compressed here escapes, and being distracted there, returns to its natural state by new supplements. Let us allow others, therefore, to seek the causes of colors, flavors, and other things of that genus from the variety of their figures.

But they will hardly ever explain such admirable motions and battles—both those which occur to the common people and those which chemists detect in resolution—an incredible force, unless there is a concurrent effort (nisu), so to speak, of the entire atmosphere as in our opinion. Nor [will they explain] the operations of the chemical principles, which accordingly prevail like a “mechanical theater”.

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The most learned of the Atomists and Figuralists, Thomas Willis explained fermentation. He rightly selected [the principles of magnitude and figure].

The same Willis, in his book on the brain and nerves, deduces the motion of muscles from the explosions of innumerable insensible “muskets”. This is entirely correct and congruent with this Hypothesis; for what are these insensible muskets but little bubbles, now exhausted, now distended, mixed among themselves and ruptured?

From this, there is a need for perpetual respiration, like a pump and bellows, to re-forge and re-dominate them. Whatever figures of the muscles you suppose, you will never explain that force, that most powerful effort (nisum), which we experience every day in our own selves.

The same will be true if you explain muscle motion with the most learned Lower through the strongest contraction made from both sides into the contrary; for such a great force of contracting or restoring cannot be summoned from anywhere else.

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⁵⁸ From this it is established what the force, origin, and reason is for increasing those three powers in bodies, or the foundations of lifting the heavy by the light: distance from the center, impetus from a fall, and finally an effort (nisus) exerted by a certain species of things, such as animal, pyric powder [gunpowder], magnet, or poison; by which, as if by a miracle, the greatest things are carried out by the smallest, as discussed above in section 20.

For just as those former powers arise from the speed of gravity, so these latter arise from the force of Elasticity (Elateris); yet again, both gravity and elasticity arise from the disturbed circulation of the aether.

They differ only in this: in effecting gravity, the aether moves the thing; in elasticity, it moves itself in gravity, it restores itself into its place; in elasticity—which is more—it restores itself into its degree, its state and rank of rarity, from which it had been disturbed. For the aether, by its circulation, either scatters things denser than is just, or, when it cannot, it depresses them: from this arises gravity, and from the former, Elasticity.

All recent physicists desire things to be explained mechanically: here it is perfectly performed. For just as all things of nature [depend on it] according to our hypothesis, so also all things of art, clocks and machines, depend by common consent either on gravity or elasticity (Elatere), or both joined together.

From gravity depend all those clocks in which the weight of some natural pound is slowed by levers, wheels, pulleys, and screws; and these indeed have the advantage of being durable, constant, and accurate, because the natural impetus for descending is never exhausted.

They can also be exhibited as easily in a large work as in a small model; but the disadvantage is that they cannot be tossed about or transferred from place to place without a loss of gravity, because the tossing makes them sometimes sit on a plane inclined to the horizon, in which case they gravitate less; hence their use at sea is disturbed.

From the elastic force depend those smaller portable clocks [watches] that must be wound up by some means: these have a reasoning contrary to the former; for they have the advantage that they can be transferred here and there without loss of gravity; but on the other hand, they have the disadvantage that because even if left in their original place, they eventually grow weary, just as a bow long bent [is weakened].

They vary according to the inequality of the tension and even the mutations of the air.

Machines which flowing water rules depend on gravity; those which wind [rules], partly on gravity and partly on the Elasticity (Elatere) of the air; those which smoke or fire [rule], on a gravity less than that of the air; those which men or animals [rule], on elasticity. Nor will any motion, natural or artificial, easily be found whose reasoning cannot be deduced from the circulation of light around the earth.