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
Your _Authors_[1] opinion is, That _a bright burning Iron doth not
burn a dead Carcass after an equal manner as it doth a live one; For
in live bodies_, saith he, _it primarily hurts the sensitive Soul,
the which therefore being impatient, rages after a wonderful manner,
doth by degrees resolve and exasperate its own and vital liquors into
a sharp poyson, and then contracts the fibres of the flesh, and turns
them into an escharre, yea, into the way of a coal; but a dead Carcass
is burnt by bright burning Iron, no otherwise, then if Wood, or if any
other unsensitive thing should be; that is, it burns by a proper action
of the fire, but not of the life._ To which opinion, I answer: That my
Reason cannot conceive any thing to be without life, and so neither
without sense; for whatsoever hath self-motion, has sense and life; and
that self-motion is in every Creature, is sufficiently discoursed of in
my former Letters, and in my _Philosophical Opinions_; for self-motion,
sense, life, and reason, are the grounds and principles of Nature,
without which no Creature could subsist. I do not say, That there is
no difference between the life of a dead Carcass, and a live one,
for there is a difference between the lives of every Creature; but to
differ in the manner of life, and to have neither life nor sense at
all, are quite different things: But your _Author_ affirms himself,
that all things have a certain sense of feeling, when he speaks of
Sympathy and Magnetisme, and yet he denies that they have life: And
others again, do grant life to some Creatures, as to Vegetables, and
not sense. Thus they vary in their Opinions, and divide sense, life,
and motion, when all is but one and the same thing; for no life is
without sense and motion, nor no motion without sense and life; nay,
not without Reason; for the chief Architect of all Creatures, is
sensitive and rational Matter. But the mistake is, that most men, do
not, or will not conceive, that there is a difference and variety
of the corporeal sensitive and rational motions in every Creature;
but they imagine, that if all Creatures should have life, sense, and
reason, they must of necessity have all alike the same motions, without
any difference; and because they do not perceive the animal motions
in a Stone or Tree, they are apt to deny to them all life, sense, and
motion. Truly, _Madam_, I think no man will be so mad, or irrational,
as to say a Stone is an Animal, or an Animal is a Tree, because a Stone
and Tree have sense, life, and motion; for every body knows, that their
Natural figures are different, and if their Natures be different,
then they cannot have the same Motions, for the corporeal motions do
make the nature of every particular Creature, and their differences;
and as the corporeal motions act, work, or move, so is the nature of
every figure, Wherefore, nobody, I hope, will count me so senseless,
that I believe sense and life to be after the like manner in every
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