Philosophical Letters: or, modest Reflections upon some Opinions in Natural PhilosophyNewcastle, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of
Philosophy
Philosophical Letters: or, modest Reflections upon some Opinions in Natural Philosophy
Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of
Newcastle, William Cavendish, Duke of, 1592-1676; Philosophy
is, in my opinion, not probable, that Minerals are produced by way of
seeds. Neither can I perceive that any of the Elements is produced by
seed, unless Fire, which seems, to my sense and reason, to encrease
numerously by its seed, but not any other of the Elements. And thus
productions are almost as various as Creatures, or rather parts of
Creatures, are; for we see how many productions there are in one animal
body, as the production of flesh, bones, marrow, brains, gristles,
veines, sinews, blood, and the like, and all this comes from Food,
and Food from some other Creatures, but all have their original from
the onely matter, and the various motions of Nature. And thus, in my
opinion, all things are made easily, and not by such constrained ways
as your _Author_ describes, by Gas, Blas, Ideas, and the like; for I
am confident, Nature has more various ways of producing natural things
then any Creature is able to conceive. I'le give another example of
Vegetables, I pray you but to consider, _Madam_, how many several ways
Vegetables are produced, as some by seeds, some by slips, some by
grafts, &c. The graft infuses and commixes with the whole stock and
the branches, and these do the like with the graft: As for example;
an Apple grafted in Colewort produces Apples; but those Apples will
have a taste and sent of the Colewort, which shews that several parts
of several Creatures mix, joyn, and act together; and as for seeds,
they are transchanged wholly, and every part thereof into the produced
fruit, and every part of the seed makes a several production by the
help of the co-working parts of the Earth, which is the reason that so
many seeds are produced from one single seed; But Producers, that waste
not themselves in productions, do not produce so numerously as those
that do dissolve; yet all Creatures increase more or less, according
to their supplies or assistances; for seeds will encrease and multiply
more in manured and fertile then in barren grounds; nay, if the ground
be very barren, no production at all will be; which shews, that
productions come not barely from the seed, but require of necessity
some assistance, and therefore neither Archeus, nor seminal Ideas, nor
Gas, nor Blas, would do any good in Vegetables, if the ground did not
assist them in their generations or productions, no more then a house
would be built without the assistance of labourers or workmen; for let
the materials lie never so long, surely they will never joyn together
of themselves to the artificial structure of an house. Wherefore since
there is so much variety in the production of one kind of Creatures,
nay of every particular in every kind, what needs Man to trouble
his brain for the manner and way to describe circumstantially every
particular production of every Creature by seminal or printing Ideas,
or any other far-fetched termes, since it is impossible to be done?
And as for those Creatures whose producers are of two different sorts,
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