LXXVI. The Aristotelites, who are great adepts at the easy invention of giving the name of quality, virtue, or faculty, to express the cause they are enquiring after, and by the addition of an adjective to that name, which is a denomination taken from the effect, say, that the cause of the elastic motion, is an elastic virtue which is inherent in the wand or sword-blade. This is in reality, having found out a master key, to unlock all the mysteries of nature; for there is nothing so obscure, that with this invention may not be made manifest. If you ask, what is the cause of the marvellous properties of the load-stone, the answer is, the magnetic virtue; if you ask, what are the causes that perform in us the operations, of the concoction of aliments, the expulsion of excrements, and that of nutrition, &c. the answer is, that they are performed by a concoctive virtue, an expulsive virtue, and a nutritive one; and according to the same mode of reasoning, the cause of the winds, is a ventilating virtue, that of lightning a fulminating one, and that of the flux and reflux of the sea, is owing to two opposite virtues, the one fluxive, and the other refluxive. By this cheap mode of philosophizing, every thing is demonstrated at a glance. But to speak seriously, what is this, but answering in the very language of the question? Saying that the cause of the elastic motion, is the elastic virtue, is in effect the same as saying, the cause of the elastic motion, is the cause of the elastic motion; and saying the magnetic virtue, is that which causes the load-stone to attract the iron, is answering in the stile of pleasantry, which some children have studied, and are very ready at; who when a person asks one of them, _My lad, whose son are you? the boy answers my father’s_. SECT. XIX.