Chapter 14 Of Aiery-Meteors

AIERY Meteors are all Winds whether above or below the Earths surface.1

1. Above commonly cal’d winds consisting of Earthy fumes which [ascend] by the Suns beams reflected are repelled by the Cold watry Clouds [of] the middle region, and being not able to discend because of the beams that lift them up, nor ascend farther because of the Clouds they are put in motion sidwise one way or other according to the Site of the lower Surface of the first repelling Cloud. Of this consider [the turning, ceasing, and Divisions.]

1. The turning which is by another Stronger wind raised in some other parts of the Earth. Hence upon the Change of [a] wind we see the Clouds going another way than that wherein the wind moves near the Surface of the Earth till at last the whole moveable matter is wrapt into one and the same course.

2. Ceasing is by spending all its fume in the motion beyond the repelling Clouds, where it has liberty to Ascend higher, and disperse itself, and then if the Clouds be heavy and Pregnent this obsticle being removed, they [still] fall down in rain, [else] not.

Earth fumes ascending stopt by Clouds is wind

turns by a stronger lets Clouds fall behind.

3. The Division[s] of Winds [are] in respect of [Strength, Time, line, and Purity.]

1. [In respect of] Strength, and Weakness [which] is according to the Quantity (more or less) of the fumes collected togather.

N.B. the Gentle breize that blows from E. to W. Within the tropicks (commonly cal’d the trade [wind]) is not so properly a Wind as the Whole Atmosphere, Slower in its motion than the [Earths Surface], In those parts under the Greater Circles, [for there] the Surface of the Earth must move 21000 miles in [a] day, (or 24 hours) which [is about 900 Miles in an hour; but this] Swiftness decreaseth in the [lesser] parrallels till it come to nothing in the poles. Thus we see in a Still air if a man Rides or runs Swiftly he feeles (as it ware) a Wind beating in his face, when indeed there is none Stirring, as he finds when he slacks his [course] or stops; So it is in this [case] for though the Earth Going about carryes the whole atmosphere with it, yet it being a fluid cannot So soon receive the Impression or continue [the] motion altogather so fast as the Earth itself in that part thereof, [and] therefore it seams to go the Contrary way; and this the more when the Sun arising rarifyes the atmosphere, makes it thinner, [and] lighter, and less adhæring to the Earth because all day the Steams are ascending; but in the Evening when the Steams fall down again or rise less they Stick more firmly to the Earth, are carried more swiftly with it, and near to its own course, and then (in the night) [they] have little or none of the breize, and for this reason also we have [no such] breize neare[r] the poles; Not only for that the Earths Surface moves more slowly [here] having a less compass to go in a day, but because [our] Atmosphere is more heavy and adheres more firmly to the Earth.

The breize within the tropiks is begun,

When Earth dos fluid atmospher out run.

2. In respect of times, Stated, or Irregular.

[1.] Stated, or Certain times, Such as [our] March winds, May Storms, Michelmas winds etc: Caused by the Influence of Heavenly bodyes annually according to the Seasons preparing and [raising] the matter of [the] winds.

N.B. The [Monsoons] in the East-[Indies], with [their] following trade wind[s] ([blowing] one half the year N.E. and the Other half S.W.) must have their particular reason[s] which we cannot so steddyly assign, because we cannot be So distinctly informed of the Circumstances of Counteryes So remote [However] from what we have heard we shall offer [this] conjecture, tis Said that after about a months rayne the mansoons breake up or begin to alter [their course,] generally in October, that is the beginning of their Summer (on the South side of [the] line) and then they settle [45] to blow from N. E. for 6 Months [togather,] this may be answerable to the March winds, it being [our] Spring as October is theirs. Their Summer rarifyes [the] Atmosphere, and So the breize ([for that] the [Indian]-sea [lyes] about the [South] tropick [Line]) may have its Effect and communicate to them so much as is Easterly. The Vast continents of Asia and Affrica may afford Steams [for their continuance, and the vapours arising from the Summers dissolution of Snow in the African Mountains, may afford clouds, to turn the Steams Southwards toward] the Indian sea lying that way from them. Add also to this the bending of the mountaneous Ledg Going forth to the [Cape] of Good-hope all which togather may contribute to the [Southerly] motion of the Steams; these causes continuing may hold the Wind or breize N.E. for all the Summer, half a year; But in aprill (which begins their Winter) Either the Sun going [off] no[r]thward draws the Steams after it, or parhaps the Clouds which first turn’d it, may be dissolved, and discipated or rather the Vapours of the Atlantick sea may be so Great as to turn all the Steams the other way, and overbare the breize. And this may answer our Michaelmass Winds Which are Generally S.W. or at least westerly [and So continue] all the Winter long.

From breizes steams, Clouds the mansoons are N.E.

from the Atlantick vapours South, and West.

2. Irregular [winds (without Stated times)] are more accidental[ly] various, and Unexpected, though they have their natural causes also but not So perceptible by us.

3. In respect [of] the [line] of the Winds motion and that [is] either direct or Circular.

1. Direct, [any] Strait line from any Coast of heaven and So they are discribed in the mariners compass to 32 points whereof

1. Cardinall, 4. E.W.N.S.

2. Collateral all the rest:

Now for getting this [easily] into memory, I recommend the division of them into

1. Whole Winds (the 4 Cardinal[s].)

2. [Half Winds] (the 4 middles) N E: S E: N W: S W.

3. Quarter Winds (the 8 Middles between the Wholes and halfes) as N N E // E N E // E S E // [S S E], etc:

4. By Winds 16. Assigning 2 to each Whole and ½ Wind one upon Each side, as N. and by [E.], N E and by [N N E], etc: Also the Compass useth to be learned with application to time giving [to] Each Point ¾ of an hour; Saying N and by E. ¾ of an hour, N N E. an hour and half, etc

2. Circular winds (Called Whirlwinds) [caused] by the meeting of 2 Winds from Diverse Quarters that are of near Equall strength which when they hinder [one anothers] progress they both joyn in turning round, and So become Stronger than either of [the 2] apart. These Usually lift up things from the Earth, because more of the fume rushes in still from each wind into a narrow space till it can no longer [contain] it, then having still motion it must goe one way or other Downwards it cannot for the Earth; [nor] forwards [because] Each obstructs the other. Therefore upwards is its freest course, where the fume has rome to diffuse itself, and So it Ends. Yet be sides the Circular it has Som what of a progressive motion for a while which is determined by the [Stronger] of the 2 winds. [As Suppose (N.) the] North wind overpowered by [(W.) the Stronger west] wind [do cause] the Whirle to begin at (a) then they have their progression [in] the course (b b b.) because [(W.)] is Stronger then [(N.)] but if the winds ware Supposed to be equal exactly in Strength [then] would be no progression but only ascent. [46]

Direct wind[s] are sea [compass] whirle winds blow

When two winds meat both [round] togather goe.

4. In respect to the purity or mixture, [This Mixture is] with fire or Water.

1. With fire (Called blasts) which may be conceived to have a mixture of Nitro sulphurious particles; which in [the] ascent before they come so high as the place of thunder are snatched aside by [a] wind, and thereby Vehemently impressed on plants, or animals, and dos them hurt especially in their more tender parts as in the buds, leaves, or blossoms of plants, and in the Eyes of Animals.

2. With Water (called Storm) tis when the abundance of Watry Clouds press low, and Streighten the wind[s] into a narrow Space; whereby the matter of [wind] being more dense becomes more vehement; and being mingled with some of the rain which can be no longer held up, [it] falls, and [presses] more heavily on bodyes that Chance to stand in its way this is mischeivous to Ships not only by its force but by moistening the Sails, it makes them hold wind the more, and by wetting the Cords and Decks makes them slippery, and beats the men from their work. And thus much for winds above the Earth.

[Blasts mixt with fire hurts plants and Animals

And watry Storm grevious on Sailor falls.]

2. Under the Earth in the Caverns thereof are [also] winds raised and included Commonly cal’d Earthquakes from the Effect [thereof]. The Production of these may be thus conceived, the Earth in its looser composition hath air [and] water intermixed, and these togather fill all the Space within the [Earth’s] Surface. But upon the Accression for the Stone Sticking [closer] to the rocks, [there] must [be left] cleffs [or] spaces which become the Allimbicks [for] fountains in their ordinary Use (as is before noted) but when the steams [that arise in them] are [too] hot to be condensed to water which may happen either from certain influences of the heavens or from extraordinary fermentation, or from the disposition of the matter steaming, and being so sent up in greater [quantity] than can Evaporate, and being also agitated by [their] Greater fermenting heat, they Vehemently seek an outlet, and meeting with obstruction therein, they rush violently [where they can] in those caverns, and [cause] the Adjacent parts of the Earth to Shake in diverse [manners]. [Hence they distinguish] Earthquakes into [the] stroake, and trembling.

1. [The] Stroake whereby the Surface of the Earth is moved upwards, and downwards.

2. The trembling whereby the motion is forwards, and backwards horizontally; both [are] according to the Site and [figure] of the Caverns and the motion of the Exhalation; the Issue of [this is] breaking forth either in the many outlets of Springs, or in [some] one place by rending the Surface and making a Great Chasm [in] the Earth. This if it happens [in] the Sea throws up [those] wonderfull and daingerous Spouts, common in some seas, but If at Land it somtimes distroys Sityes, and overturns mountains, [and] removes them [intire] out of their [place]. These things happen most in rocky, mountain[ou]s, and mineral countryes and are commonly accompanyed with Subterraneous noys (like [that of] thunder,) by the Impetuous stroakes of the Exhalation against the sides and Ends of the Caverns.

In Subterraneous caverns winds do frollick,

When Mother Earth is troubled with the Cholick.

1. There are notices of Morton in the Dictionary of National Biography, the Dictionary of American Biography, and Arnold G. Matthews, Calamy Revised. The earliest biography is in Edmund Calamy’s “Account of Ministers Ejected” in his Abridgment of Mr. Baxter’s History of his Life and Times (London, 1702; 2d ed., 1713). This is supplemented by Calamy’s Continuation of the Account of the Ministers Ejected (London, 1727), and by Matthews’ Calamy Revised (Oxford, 1934). No corpus of Morton letters has survived; but his MS. notebook, with records of ministers’ meetings in Cornwall and New England, and a few letters are in the Massachusetts Historical Society. I have profited greatly by a MS. dissertation on Morton by Mr. Wilbur J. Bender, who wrote the notice in the Dictionary of American Biography.

2. John and John A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, iii. 218. Walter Wilson, the biographer of Defoe, has the best account of the Morton family (Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel Defoe, 1830 ed., i. 24 n). He says that the family originated in Nottinghamshire, and was the same as that of Cardinal Morton and Thomas Morton, Bishop of Durham. It appears to have had no connection with the Morton family of Yorkshire, who came early to Plymouth Colony.

3. The aged Lawrence Chaderton was master of Emmanuel in his time, and Thomas Hooker a fellow. Among Morton’s contemporaries as undergraduates were William Blackstone and Isaac Johnson, the founders of Boston, and Nathaniel Rogers and Samuel Whiting, the future ministers of Rowley and Lynn respectively; as well as Bastwick, the Puritan pamphleteer, and Samuel Clarke the martyrologist.

4. George C. Boase, Collectanea Cornubiensia, p. 1402.

5. The date of the marriage given by Venn, following Sir John MacLean, Parochial and Family History of the Deanery of Trigg Minor (i. 461), is May 11, 1616. It seems probable that the right date is 1626, and that the Mortons’ first child was born nine months, not ten years and nine months, after their marriage. Nor is it likely that Morton would have resigned his fellowship at Emmanuel, immediately after taking his first degree, in order to marry.

6. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, iii. 217; Dictionary of National Biography, xxxix. 149.

7. For a succinct Harvard pedigree, see my Founding of Harvard College, p. 104.

8. “I appoint my loveing frend Mr Moreton our minister of St Saviours aforesaid for one [of the overseers], and to him in token of my love I give three pounds and my paire of silver hafted knyves” (will of John Harvard’s mother, 1635, in Henry F. Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England, I. 125). “I give and bequeath unto Mr Nichollas Morton Minister and Preacher in the parishe of Saint Saviors in Southwarke the some of Forty shillinges in recompence of a Sermon which I desire he should preach at my funerall, for the better Comforte edifyinge and instruccion of such my freinds and neighboures and other people as there shalbe assembled” (will of John’s brother Thomas, 1636, id., p. 128).

9. John became rector of Auton-Gifford, Devon, and Nicholas followed his oldest brother to Wadham College, Oxford, and into the ministry.

10. His will, dated 1640, is in Waters, Genealogical Gleanings, ii. 782–783.

11. Nicholas Morton in his will appoints his “living father in law Mr. Thomas Kestle of Plenderie” his executor; but MacLean (Deanery of Trigg Minor, i. 461) has Thomas Kestell buried in 1626, and succeeded as lord of the manor of Pendavy by his son John Kestell, Charles Morton’s uncle.

12. So Morton wrote to Increase Mather in 1685. Richard Frothingham, History of Charles-town, p. 195.

13. Sir Charles E. Mallet, History of the University of Oxford, ii. 382–390; Montagu Burrows, Register of the Visitors of the University of Oxford (Camden Society), Introduction, passim.

14. Frothingham, Charlestown, p. 195. Samuel Mather, elder brother of Increase, did not obtain an Oxford degree, as Cotton Mather relates; but the records of Magdalen College show that he was a chaplain there, c 1650–1653.

15. Quoted by Mallet, History of Oxford, II. 383.

16. Burrows, Register, p. 569.

17. Robert B. Gardiner, Registers of Wadham College, Part I, p. 180.

18. Id. His age is wrongly given in the records as nineteen.

19. MS. in British Museum by John Wallis. It is quoted in F. A. Dixey, The Early Connexion of the Royal Society with Wadham College and the University of Oxford, a pamphlet from which I have obtained most of the following data about this scientific group. Cf. Thomas Sprat, History of the Royal Society (1667); Irvine Masson, “The Genesis of the Royal Society,” Nature, cxiii. 197–198; Dorothy Stimson, “Dr. Wilkins and the Royal Society,” Journal of Modern History, iii. 539–563. Dean Stimson, in a paper on “Puritanism and the New Science” read before the History of Science Society in 1934, showed that almost all members of this group were of Puritan training or antecedents. That made it easy for them to obtain professorial chairs and other appointments in the reformed Oxford.

20. Joseph Wells, Wadham College, p. 75.

21. Andrew Clark, Life and Times of Anthony Wood, i. 265.

22. 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, viii. 541–542.

23. Printed, with notes by George Lyman Kittredge, in our Publications, xiv. 142–186.

24. Volume x (1676), pp. 293–296.

25. Nonconformist’s Memorial, i. 347; see also Matthews, Calamy Revised, pp. 356–357.

26. Calamy also states that Morton was converted to Puritanism at Oxford. It is unlikely that he would have come to Oxford in 1648, or taken up residence in a Hall already noted for Puritanism, if he had not already come around to that point of view. His father, describing himself in his will as “minister of God’s Word” rather than “rector,” showed himself at least a moderate Puritan; but his Cornish grandparents may well have been Church-and-King men.

27. Wells, Wadham College, pp. 78–79.

28. John Evelyn, Diary (Bohn ed., 1889), i. 305–308.

29. Matthews, Calamy Revised, p. 356, quoting Lambeth Palace Library MSS.

30. Complete Parochial History of Cornwall, i. 67; MacLean, Deanery of Trigg Minor, i. 53.

31. Calamy, Nonconformist’s Memorial, i. 348.

32. Matthews, Calamy Revised, p. 356.

33. Herbert McLachlan, English Education under the Test Acts, p. 76. This is the best work on the dissenting academies. See also Irene Parker, Dissenting Academies in England, pp. 45–63. There were two academies at Newington Green. The first was kept by Theophilus Gale, ejected fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, later a benefactor of the Harvard College Library.

34. Luke Tyerman, Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, p. 74.

35. A Letter from a Country Divine to His Friend in London, Concerning the Education of the Dissenters, in their Private Academies (London, 1703), pp. 7–8.

36. A Defence of a Letter concerning the Education of Dissenters in their Private Academies (1704), pp. 44, 51. Other references to Morton and his academy will be found in the same tract, pp. 4, 14, 27, 43, 44, 48 (pupils going to hear Bunyan preach, and Morton commending him), 53.

37. Continuation, i. 211 where a list of Morton’s published pamphlets and manuscript treatises is given. Calamy reprints Morton’s MS. “Advice to Candidates for the Ministry” on pp. 198–210. It is full of wit and common sense: “Let your Discourses be mostly Practical, both as to the Subjects, and Manner of Handling. ’Tis but a Crack, for young Divines to be much medling with Controversies. Wrangling Divinity will but put your Spirits out of the comely Christian Frame….”

38. Defoe, “More Short Ways with the Dissenters” (1704), as reprinted in his Collection of Writings (1703–1705), ii. 276. Samuel Palmer, Vindication of the Learning of the Dissenters (1705), pp. 53–54, and Joshua Toulmin, Historical View of the State of the Protestant Dissenters (1814), p. 233, say that the system of Politics called Eutaxia, modelled on More’s Utopia, was “equal, if not superior, to any printed composition of that kind.” No copy of it is now known to exist.

39. Tyerman, Life of Samuel Wesley, pp. 71–72.

40. Toulmin, Historical View of the Dissenters, p. 234.

41. McLachlan, English Education under the Test Acts, pp. 2, 76; text in Calamy, Continuation, i. 177. This was not one of the Test Oaths. It had been instituted in the fourteenth century to force the seceding scholars at Stamford to return to England. Dean Peacock, in his Observations on the Statutes of the University of Cambridge (1841), remarked that it had been consistently violated from the time of its imposition to his own day.

42. Samuel Wesley, Defence of a Letter, p. 53; Tyerman, Life of Samuel Wesley, p. 67.

43. Printed in Calamy, Continuation, i. 177–197.

44. McLachlan, English Education under the Test Acts, p. 65. Other academies were founded by Presbyterian, Congregational, and Baptist societies in the following century. The most famous of these was Warrington Academy, “The Athens of the North,” where Priestley taught. See John F. Fulton, “The Warrington Academy and its Influence upon Medicine and Science,” Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine (Johns Hopkins University), I. 50–80.

45. Prince MSS., Mass. Hist. Soc.; printed in Frothingham, Charlestown, p. 195.

46. Edward Randolph, in a letter dated July 28, to the Lords of Trade (Hutchinson Papers, Prince Society, ii. 287), and in another, dated August 2, to Archbishop Sancroft (N. E. Hist. Gen. Register, xxxvii. 271), says that Morton arrived “about 2 months agoe.” Samuel Sewall first mentions Morton when Morton was giving the weekly lecture in Cambridge meeting on July 21 (Diary, 1. 144–145).

47. John Dunton, Letters from New England (Prince Society), p. 296. Both here and in his Life and Errors (1818 ed., i. 123), Dunton makes an elaborate and complimentary characterization of Morton. Dunton certainly knew Morton, who asked Increase Mather to be kind to the young bookseller, and who had taught Dunton’s uncle, the Reverend Obadiah Marriott. But Dunton’s characterizations are so frequently lifted from other books, as Chester N. Greenough has shown (our Publications, xiv. 212–257; xxi. 232–251), that I have not seen fit to quote him further.

48. Henry Horsey to his brother in New England, Prince MSS., Mass. Hist. Soc.; printed in William I. Budington, History of the First Church, Charlestown, p. 221; extract from Penhallow’s autobiography in 2 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., i. 161.

49. Hutchinson Papers, ii. 287, 293.

50. Sewall, Diary, i. 155. The issue was that Morton had already been ordained in England and so refused to be ordained again, insisting on being merely “installed.” He set a precedent since followed in New England Congregational churches.

51. Budington, First Church, Charlestown, pp. 103, 106–113.

52. Sewall, Diary, i. 446–447.

53. Sewall, Diary, i. 349.

54. John G. Palfrey, History of New England (1890 ed.), iii. 549; Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, Am. and W. I., 1689–1692, p. 165.

55. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, Am. and W. I., 1685–1688, pp. 470–471.

56. Frothingham, Charlestown, pp. 221–223.

57. Horsey’s letter in Budington, First Church, Charlestown, p. 221.

58. So says John Dunton, 2 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., I. 115–116.

59. 2 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., i. 162; 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 111–112.

60. Our Publications, xv. cxlix, xliii n, cl.

61. Id.; p 345.

62. The record book, which after Morton’s death belonged to the Rogers family of Ipswich, is now in the Massachusetts Historical Society. It is printed in I Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., xvii. 254–280. Cotton Mather printed some of the conclusions arrived at by the Association as Thirty Important Cases (Boston, 1699), and reprinted it as Book V of the Magnolia Christi Americana (1702).

63. George L. Kittredge, Witchcraft in Old and New England, p. 336.

64. Id., p. 335

65. See Edward Wyllys Taylor, “Some Medical Aspects of Witchcraft,” in Problems of Personality (the nearest to a rational explanation of the frenzy that we have), and Charles W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, 11. 112.

66. Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., VIII. 368; Magnolia (1853 ed.), 11. 457, 463, 465.

67. George L. Burr, Editor, Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, p. 97.

68. I Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., XVII. 268.

69. Id.

70. See Thomas J. Holmes’s able and detailed discussion of Increase Mather’s Cases of Conscience and its influence in his Increase Mather, A Bibliography of His Works, I. 117–138.

71. 1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, xvii. 271; Magnolia, Book v.

72. Preface to Increase Mather, An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences (Boston, 1684).

73. Our Publications, xv. xlvii, cl.

74. Diary, I. 468.

75. Id., I. 471.

76. I Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, viii. 76.

77. Thomas B. Wyman, Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, pp. 687–688. Mrs. Morton, of whom nothing seems to have been known except her first name, Joan, had died in 1693, and his nephew Nicholas died soon after graduating from Harvard. No children are mentioned in the will.

78. Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 236–251.

79. Josiah Quincy, History of Harvard University, II. 482–483.

80. Annals of the American Pulpit, I. 218.

81. “1 Harvard Text-Books and Reference Books of the Seventeenth Century,” our Publications, xxviii. 361–438.

82. In collecting this information I have been aided by the courtesy of the officials of all the libraries mentioned, together with those of the Henry E. Huntington Library. I particularly wish to acknowledge the kindnesses of Mr. Stewart Mitchell of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Mr. Robert W. G. Vail of the American Antiquarian Society, and Mr. Gerald G. Wilder, Librarian of Bowdoin College. Photostats of the Bodleian MS. have been made available through the co-operation of Bodley’s Librarian and the Harvard College Library; photostats of the Greenleaf, Eells, and Webb MSS. have been purchased for the General Library of the University of Michigan through a grant from the faculty research fund.

83. The MS. carries the inscription “Ex Libris Β Beale” and the date 1683 in handwriting somewhat like that of the transcription. For the Beales, see Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England (1849 ed.), ii. 537–545. There is little certainty, however, about this identification.

84. William D. Ross, Aristotle; William D. Ross, Editor, The Works of Aristotle, translated into English. The Scholastic use of Aristotle’s scientific works is to be observed in numerous commentaries. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, wrote commentaries on every book here mentioned except the Historia Animalium.

85. Sterling P. Lamprecht, “The Role of Descartes in Seventeenth-Century England,” Studies in the History of Ideas (edited by the Department of Philosophy of Columbia University), III. 180–240.

86. Cf. (except for the De Homine) Elizabeth S. Haldane and George R. T. Ross, Editors, The Philosophical Works of Descartes (translated into English). Part IV of the Principia Philosophiae, most important for comparison with Morton, is barely outlined; for it and for the De Homine it is necessary to consult the originals.

87. Morison, Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 233–234. Other such text-books, to which Morton’s is vastly superior, include Daniel Widdowes, Natural Philosophy (2d ed., 1631), John Johnstone, An History of the Wonderful Things of Nature; Set Forth in Ten Severall Classes (1657), and Thirteen Books of Natural Philosophy by D. Sennert, translated by Nicholas Culpeper and others (1661).

88. Richard Blome, Entire Body of Philosophy, p. 106.

89. Cf., below, Chapters 2, 6–8, 12, 15, 17–20, 23.

90. See Morison, Founding of Harvard College, pp. 250–251. There are two eighteenth-century editions of Boyle’s works, one in five volumes in 1744, the other in six volumes in 1772. An indispensable guide is John F. Fulton, “A Bibliography of The Honourable Robert Boyle,” Oxford Bibliographical Society Proceedings and Papers, iii. 1–172, 339–365.

91. Certain Physiological Essays (London, 1661); in Works (1772 ed.), i. 300.

92. The Massachusetts Historical Society owns two transcriptions of Morton’s “Treatise of Logick,” another of his manuscript text-books which was used for a time at Harvard. One was made by Timothy Lindall (H. C. 1695); the other, by Daniel Greenleaf, as extracted by Jabez Fitch, is in the same notebook as his copy of the Compendium. The nature of Morton’s logic appears from later references; see especially below, p. 10, note 2.

93. This and the following chapter are based ultimately upon Aristotle’s Physica. The divisions, however, are typically Scholastic, and one can see the same method and terminology in other text-books. Compare, for example, Antoine Legrand’s Institutio Philosophic (London, 1672), Pt. iv, ch. i. In Richard Blome’s translation is the information that: “Natural Philosophy … or Physiology, is the Science of Natural Bodies, and their Various Affections…. And those are called Natural Things, or Bodies, which are endued with Nature, or that are compounded of Matter and Form…. Natural Things are considered two manner of ways in Physiology, either Generally or Specially.” Entire Body of Philosophy, p. 93.

94. The specific references to Aristotle in this chapter are to distinctions made in the Categoriae, the Physica, and De Generatione et Corruptione. Morton, following Scholastic precedent, is more systematic than Aristotle will be found to be.

95. See John, xi, and Mark, x: 46–52.

96. Morton assumes that his readers, with the background of his text-book on logic, are familiar with the basis of all Scholastic dialectic—Aristotle’s ten predicaments: substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and affection. These are named in the Categoriae, ch. iv, and again in the Topica, Bk. 1, ch. ix.

97. Robert Boyle, in The Origine of Formes and Qualities (Oxford, 1666), summarizes much of the anti-Aristotelian thinking on the concepts of form, matter, motion, etc. This book Morton knew well. Compare, however, Descartes, Principia Philosophiae, Pt. 11.

98. Morton’s discussion of matter appears to depend in part upon Boyle’s Some Physico-Theological Considerations about the Possibility of the Resurrection (London, 1675). The simile of the soft wax which may be molded into any desired form is developed there in terms very like those used by Morton.

99. This, as Mr. Morison has shown, was a principle of ancient natural philosophy which Morton was especially loath to give up. See Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century, p. 241.

100. Morton’s distinctions here should be compared with those in the Physica. His six species of motion are exactly correspondent to those in the Categoriae, ch. xiv.

101. William Petty, in his Discourse Concerning the Use of Duplicate Proportion (London, 1674), attempted to re-define such concepts as place, time, and motion. See a convenient review of the work in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 108 (November 23, 1674). Morton seems to be indebted to Petty not only for materials in this chapter, but also for portions of Chapters 2 and 6.

102. The chief of the “Corpuscularian Phylosophers” was Pierre Gassendi, but Descartes and Boyle were sometimes, and with reason, counted among the corpuscularians or atomists. See under corpuscle and related words in the New English Dictionary, and, for a brief discussion of the importance of the atomist hypothesis, Morison, Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century, p. 250.

103. Morton’s references to Descartes suggest either direct knowledge of the Principia Philosophiae or acquaintance with such a text-book as Legrand’s. Legrand covers the same ground in Pt. iv, chs. xi–xxv, with ch. xii, which discusses place, chs. xiv and xv, dealing with local motion, and ch. xxiv, which treats of time, being especially in point.

104. Boyle’s definition of time as “duration measured” is thought by Mr. Morison to have come from either The Excellency of Theology (London, 1674) or The Great Effects of Even Languid and Unheeded Motion (London, 1685). The words also occur in Some Considerations about the Reconcileableness of Reason and Religion (London, 1675), by “T. E., a Layman,” a tract to which Boyle’s Possibilities of the Resurrection was appended. See Boyle, Works (1744 ed.), 111. 525.

105. The organization here suggests Aristotle’s De Caelo and De Mundo, but the information is almost wholly from more modern sources. It is doubtful if Morton knew at first hand all the scientific writers whom he cites: Ptolemy, Pythagoras, Copernicus, Kepler, Gassendi, Tycho Brahe, and John Wilkins. Most of them are mentioned in Legrand, Institutio Philosophiae, Pt. v, chs. viii–xi, where there may also be seen three diagrams very similar to those in Morton. Such information and diagrams were common in other text-books and popular treatises of the period, although they were originally taken from such books as the De Revolutionibus. See, for a study of the provenience of these materials, Francis R. Johnson and Sanford V. Larkey, “Thomas Digges, the Copernican System, and the Idea of the Infinity of the Universe in 1576,” Huntington Library Bulletin, No. 5, pp. 69–117. Morton diverges sharply from Legrand by omitting all mention of the Cartesian vortices.

106. The “Platonic Year,” really not Platonic at all, was a favorite notion of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The references in the New English Dictionary give an interesting brief history.

107. This is an admirable illustration of the bookishness of Morton’s science. He points out that there is an arithmetical progression in the velocity of falling bodies, but he ignores the familiar and useful fact that that velocity is in definite proportion to the distance and the time of the fall (s = ½gt²).

108. Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy was first printed at Oxford in 1621. It is comparable at many points with Morton’s notions on physiology and related subjects, and even on astronomy, as is suggested in some of the notes below.

109. John Beale (1603–1683?) was elected to the Royal Society in 1662–63, at a time when that body was much interested in making a history of the weather. On September 2, 1663, for instance, John Wilkins suggested that from constant observations it might be possible to prognosticate changes, and Sir Kenelm Digby remarked that Dr. John Dee, by such observations for a seven-year period, “acquired such a prognosticating skill of weather, that he was, on that account, accounted a witch.” Thomas Birch, The History of the Royal Society of London (London, 1760), 1. 300. A week later Mr. Oldenburg “mentioned, that Mr. Beal was willing to engage in the observation of the weather, and in registering the changes thereof; and that he hoped to set the same at work in other parts of the country.” Id., 1. 302. The foremost investigator in this matter was, however, Robert Hooke, whose “Method for Making a History of the Weather” was printed in Thomas Sprat’s History of the Royal Society of London (pp. 173–179) and, in part, in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 24 (April 8, 1667).

110. Morton may have had in mind Anthony Griffin’s An Astrological Judgment touching Theft (London, 1665).

111. John Gadbury (1627–1704) was a notorious and immensely popular astrologer, one of the most colorful charlatans of Morton’s time.

112. See Esther, iii: 7.

113. Thomas Gataker (1577?–1654), a Puritan divine, became involved in a controversy about astrology when he published for the Westminster Assembly his annotations on Jeremiah x: 2: “Learn not the way of the heathen and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the heathen are dismayed at them.” In his Vindication of the Annotations (London, 1653), Gataker defended himself against the famous William Lillie; in A Discours Apologetical (London, 1654), he leveled a postscript at Gadbury.

114. Sir Christopher Heydon (d 1623) was the author of a learned Defence of Judicial Astrologie (London, 1603). Why Morton cites him in the same breath with Thomas Gataker is not clear.

115. Morton’s information on stars and planets probably comes from some text-book. Legrand, Institutio Philosophiae, Pt. v, ch. xxiii, agrees with Morton that there are 48 constellations, 6 degrees of magnitude, and 1022 most visible stars. But Morton’s table of periodical motions differs radically from the figures given by Legrand, as does his estimate of the circumference of the earth.

116. This allusion appears to be to the Mercator projection, but it may be to some other of the many new projections which were used by experimentally minded map-makers in the seventeenth century. See Arthur R. Hinks, Map Projections (2d ed., Cambridge, 1921), p. 148.

117. Legrand (“History of Nature,” p. 81) gives Willebrod Snell’s figure of 24,600 miles. Boyle, in The Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy (London, 1663), says that the common account makes the circuit of the globe to be 22,600 Italian miles, which the “more accurate” Gassendus has amended to 26,255 of the same measure. See Boyle, Works (1772 ed.), 11. 20. Burton, in his long “Digression of Air” in the Anatomy of Melancholy, gives 21,500 miles as the circumference; 7,000 miles as the diameter.

118. The discussion of the light of the moon is paralleled in Legrand, Institutio Philosophiae, Pt. v, ch. xx, where it is attributed to Galileo. There is some possibility that Morton knew Galileo’s writings, either directly or through the English translations in Thomas Salusbury’s Mathematical Collections (London, 1661).

119. The description of the elements goes back to Aristotle’s De Generatione et Corruptione and Meteorologica, while gravity and levity are treated in the De Caelo. The same matters are considered by Descartes in Principia Philosophiae, Pt. iv. This chapter is most closely related, however, to Boyle’s famous book, The Sceptical Chymist (London, 1661), where Morton may well have found his information on the chemical theories of Descartes, the “Chymists,” and “Gassendus and other Atomists.” A number of points seem to suggest some knowledge of Boyle’s “History of Fluidity,” in Certain Physiological Essays (London, 1661). There, for instance, are to be found a discussion of the nature of fluids and the experiment, which Morton mentions on another occasion, of the two flat polished marbles.

120. The word electrical is here used in an obsolete sense; as Mr. Morison has noted, Morton in Chapter 10 uses elatery instead of electricity. See under these words in the New English Dictionary.

121. In this chapter again the chief influences are Aristotle and Boyle, with the De Generatione et Corruptione and Meteorologica on the one hand, The Sceptical Chymist on the other.

122. This allusion suggests some knowledge of Boyle’s experiments with combustion, described in The Relation betwixt Flame and the Air (London, 1672).

123. Compare pp. 155–157, below.

124. As Mr. Morison has noted, Morton here reveals his familiarity with the work of Harvey, Malpighi, and Leeuwenhoek.

125. Although there are hints of the De Generatione et Corruptione in Morton’s treatment of the air, he is more largely indebted to Boyle’s The Spring and Weight of the Air (Oxford, 1660). There one may find some discussion of the height of the atmosphere, the use of the word restitutive to describe elasticity, and the analogy of wool; consideration of air-pump experiments and of what happens in rarefaction (not accepted by Morton, who will not give up “nature abhors a vacuum”); some treatment of the weight of the air; and a description of Pascal’s investigation of the effects of altitude on barometric pressure. Indeed, this whole chapter is saturated with Boyle’s ideas, even though Morton retains the ancient division of the air into three regions, of which the upper and lower were thought to be hotter than the middle. Boyle had refuted this Aristotelian concept in “An Examen of Antiperistasis,” a portion of The Experimental History of Cold (London, 1665).

126. Here Morton’s memory seems to have been in error; at least the editor has not discovered the relation referred to in the Philosophical Transactions. From the first, however, the Royal Society was much interested in the famous peak of Teneriffe, proposing experiments to be tried there, collecting accounts of it, and inquiring what time of year was best for climbing it. See Birch, History of the Royal Society, 1. 8–10, 18, 397. One account was printed in Thomas Sprat’s History of the Royal Society, and another in Robert Hooke’s Lectiones Cutlerianae (London, 1679), the latter being a book used by Morton for certain points in Chapters 13 and 21. In both cases, however, the details are in some respects different from those given by Morton.

127. Morton’s reference is to Henry Power’s Experimental Philosophy (London, 1664), a book which he refers to again in Chapter 31. To Power (1623–1668), Morton probably owed more than appears from these references; see, for a description of the book, Thomas Cowles, “Dr. Henry Power, Disciple of Sir Thomas Browne,” Isis, xx. 344–366.

128. Morton’s remarks on water form the most interesting and most “modern” section of his book. His superiority to Legrand, for instance, is marked, and his very considerable power of combining his theory with practicalities, especially evident.

129. Morton’s hydrodynamics reflect vaguely the investigations of Torricelli. See A. Wolf, A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, pp. 222–223.

130. The diagram of the Archimedean screw for raising water probably comes from a famous description of the water-works at Augsburg in Germany, printed originally in Girolamo Cardan, De Subtilitate (Nuremberg, 1550). See Wolf, History of Science, pp. 524–534, where is also described and illustrated the water engine at London Bridge, mentioned by Morton just above.

131. Speculation on why the sea is salt is of course an ancient pastime, and may be observed as far back as the Meteorologica. But Morton’s comments appear to be related to contemporary discussion. He could have obtained his information from a review of some of Boyle’s tracts which appeared in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 97 (October 6, 1673). Some phrases, however, suggest that he knew a letter by Martin Lister which appeared in the same periodical, No. 156 (Feb. 20, 1683/4), in which case the Compendium must have been added to later than 1680. Or Morton may have known Boyle’s Tracts Consisting of Observations about the Saltness of the Sea (London, 1674).

132. A description of the salt springs and of salt-making at Nantwich in Cheshire appeared in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 53 (November 15, 1669).

133. The discussion of tides makes perhaps the most extended use of a single source which Morton allowed himself. Although he says that “these times are taken out of Galleleus,” it is clear, as Mr. Morison has said, that Morton has carefully studied John Wallis’s essay “exhibiting his Hypothesis about the Flux and Reflux of the Sea,” which appeared in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 16 (August 6, 1666). There Wallis summarized Galileo’s theories, agreed with them in general, and then suggested a theory to account for phenomena left unexplained by his predecessor. Nearly one third of this chapter will be found to derive from Wallis’s essay, whence come also the figure on p. 65 and the first figure on p. 67. Furthermore, as the text indicates, Morton made a synopsis of Wallis’s article, with further diagrams, which was inserted as an appendix to the Compendium. It is to be found at the end of the Rogers MS., but it was evidently an integral part of the original, since it is mentioned twice in all the American transcriptions. Morton’s skill as a teacher is well exemplified in his use of Wallis; he condenses, simplifies, and everywhere makes the material more concrete by the use of homely illustration.

134. Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella was the most celebrated writer on agriculture of the ancient world. A Roman, he composed, some time in the first century A.D., his De Re Rustica in twelve books. Morton’s reference is probably to this work, but to what part of it the editor has not discovered. The De Re Rustica, first published at Venice in 1472, is known in many later editions.

135. One such proposal, which attracted wide attention, and in which Robert Boyle was interested, was that of Captain Robert Fitzgerald. He described his process with extreme caution—lest he reveal its secrets—in Salt Water Sweetned (London, 1683), a book which was in its tenth edition by 1685. However, a method of distillation of sea water was described in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 67 (January 16, 1670/1), fifteen years earlier.

136. The ancients’ definition of earth comes from the De Generatione et Corruptione. The remainder of Morton’s discussion is largely Cartesian, and should be compared with the Principia Philosophiae, Pt. iv. There are hints of the same ideas, too, in Boyle’s writings, especially the Essays of Effluviums (London, 1673) and An Essay of the Great Effects of Even Languid and Unheeded Motion (London, 1685). Legrand (Institutio Philosophiae, Pt. vi, ch. x) covers the problems of magnetic and electrical attraction in very similar terms.

137. There is little evidence that Morton knew at first hand the work of William Gilbert of Colchester (1540–1603), whose De Magnete was published at London in 1600. This reference shows, however, that Morton was familiar with some of Gilbert’s ideas, acquired, perhaps, through some secondary source.

138. Most of the definitions and divisions in this section are based ultimately upon Aristotle, both the De Generatione et Corruptione and the Meteorologica contributing something. The discussion of temperament, essentially medieval in outlook, leads to the ancient medical works in the Hippocratic Collection as well as to Galen, and touches one of the most tangled problems in medical history.

139. Livinus Lemnius (1505–1568) was author of De Habitu et Constitutione Corporis (Antwerp, 1561). As Mr. Morison notes, a later edition of this book was in the library of John Harvard.

140. Both the Meteorologica and the De Mundo underlie Morton’s comment on fiery meteors. Aristotle’s notions have been modified markedly, however, by the seventeenth-century enthusiasm for nitre as an explanation for all kinds of atmospheric phenomena. This may be observed in Descartes, Principia Philosophiae, Pt. iv, in Boyle’s Essays of Effluviums, and in a long-forgotten book by William Clark, The Natural History of Nitre (London, 1670), where Morton’s explanation of thunder and lightning is paralleled rather closely. See also under nitre and kindred words in the New English Dictionary.

141. Mr. Morison has indicated the background of Morton’s error here; see also under nostoc in the New English Dictionary. Star-shoot was one of the early subjects of investigation by the Royal Society. See a letter from Henry Oldenburg to Boyle, November 10, 1664, in Boyle’s Works (1772 ed.), vi. 174.

142. Morton’s explanations of comets show a rather curious use of sources. A great deal of his information comes from two books, neither of which can really be regarded as an impressive authority. Robert Hooke’s Cometa, a part of Lectures and Collections (London, 1678), consists of rather disorganized remarks, from which Morton apparently culled much, including, perhaps, the figure on page 90. Hooke’s book was included in his Lectiones Cutlerianae (London, 1679), which has recently been reprinted by R. T. Gunther in Early Science in Oxford, viii These are the Gresham College lectures to which Morton refers. The second source, John Spencer’s A Discourse Concerning Prodigies (Cambridge, 1663), has about three pages out of one hundred on Morton’s point, but more comes from those three pages than is suggested by the citations. See, for example, the note on page 92, below.

143. See the first number of that journal, March 6, 1664/5.

144. Cf. Spencer, A Discourse Concerning Prodigies (p. 15): “… Tycho measur’d in the tayle or train of the Comet, An. 1577 ninety six semidiamiters of the earth; and some astronomers found in the beard of that which shone An. 1618. the extent of 382,700 German miles.”

145. The information on winds follows Aristotle’s Meteorologica and De Mundo, and Morton does not accept Descartes’ variant explanation of earthquakes. Boxing the compass was a familiar text-book exercise; see, for example, the popular manual by Joseph Moxon, A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographic, first published in London in 1659. The explanation of trade winds and monsoons, a matter which interested Francis Bacon among others, is strikingly paralleled in a letter by Dr. George Garden which appeared in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 175 (September, 1685).

146. Here again the Meteorologica and the De Mundo are basic, even though Morton makes much of nitre and nitrosulphurious particles, as in Chapter 12. Mr. Morison has noted that the discussion of ice owes much to Boyle’s Experimental History of Cold.

147. The “circumforaneous water drinker” is mentioned by Boyle in his Experimental History of Colours (London, 1663; Works, 1772 ed., 1. 772). Boyle says that the tricks of “those mountebanks that are commonly called water-drinkers” had been exposed “in a little pamphlet printed divers years ago in English.” The editor has been unable to identify this pamphlet, but Morton obviously got his rather full information from some other source than Boyle. The trick is described, with somewhat differing details, in Sports and Pastimes: or, Sport for the City, and Pastime for the Country; with a Touch of Hocus Pocus, or Legerdemain. Fitted for the Delight and Recreation of Youth by J. M. Amat. Ant. (London, 1676).

148. Mr. Morison has shown that this is the latest event mentioned in the Compendium, and the best evidence for the conclusion that Morton composed his book about 1680. As has been suggested, however, certain allusions hint at additions or revisions as late, perhaps, as 1685.

149. Although haloes, parhelia, and paraselenae, as well as rainbows, are treated in the Meteorologica, they were particularly interesting to the seventeenth century. Boyle touches upon them in the Experimental History of Colours, which Morton cites; Descartes’ considerable investigation of this branch of optics is echoed in Legrand, Institutio Philosophiae, Pt. vi, ch. xx, where may be found diagrams quite similar to the figures on the next page. Discussions of the same phenomena, somewhat unlike Morton’s, may be found in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 13 (June 4, 1666), and No. 60 (June 20, 1670).

150. Legrand’s treatment of stone (Institutio Philosophiae, Pt. vi, ch. ix) suggests that he and Morton drew upon similar Scholastic sources, but there are traces in this chapter of both Descartes and Boyle.

151. See Historia Naturalis, Bk. xxxvii, ch. lx. It is rather surprising that this is Morton’s only mention of Pliny the Elder, whose famous book is comparable at many points with the Compendium.

152. Boyle’s The Origin and Virtue of Gems (London, 1672), is again referred to in Chapter 20.

153. Morton may allude to Petty’s A Dialogue of Diamonds rather than to the Discourse of Duplicate Proportion. See The Petty Papers, edited by the Marquis of Lansdowne (London, 1927), 11. 263.

154. This information is of special interest because Morton’s only contribution to the Philosophical Transactions (No. 113, April 26, 1675) was “The Improvement of Cornwall by Sea-sand, communicated by an Intelligent Gentleman well acquainted in those parts to Dr. Dan. Cox.”

155. Perhaps because of his Cornish connections, Morton shared to an unusual degree in the widespread interest of his time in mines and mining. Boyle wrote some articles of inquiry touching mines, printed in the Philosophical Transactions (No. 19, November 19, 1666), which seem to be condensed in Morton’s judgment on how to find “where the mine is.” Other interesting parallels in the same journal are to be found in No. 5 (July 3, 1665), where adits and their use are described; No. 69 (March 25, 1671), in which there is a long account, with diagrams, of Cornish tin mines; and No. 137 (February 10, 1677/8), where Dr. Christopher Merret discusses the Godolphin Ball or mine in Cornwall, Cornish diamonds, “mundick,” and other aspects of tin-working.

156. The proverb quoted by Morton may be found in almost any book on Cornwall. See, for instance, Gilbert Davies, The Parochial History of Cornwall, i. 152; S. P. B. Mais, The Cornish Riviera (3d ed., London, 1934), p. 19. Thomas Bushell’s proposal was but one of many projects for Hingston Down, and but one of many schemes by that energetic mining man. Mr. Morison has indicated the recent study by J. W. Gough, The Superlative Prodigall, A Life of Thomas Bushell (London, 1932). But Bushell’s bellows were not new in principle; they and other of the methods noticed by Morton may be studied in Georgius Agricola, De Re Metallica (Basel, 1556), a famous book translated, with notes, by Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover (London, 1912). The Hoovers have many suggestions for a reader of Morton; they describe, for instance, the vast literature on Hannibal’s supposed use of vinegar to split the rocks of the Alps. It is worth noting, too, that bellows were actually used at St. Agnes in Cornwall in 1696, before Morton’s death. See The Victoria History of the County of Cornwall, i. 546.

157. For the value of gold and its place in English coinage, see A. E. Feaveryear, The Found Sterling, pp.71–90.

158. Morton here repeats a popular, and probably erroneous, story about the death of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1612. See the articles in the Dictionary of National Biography on Henry, William Butler (1535–1618), the royal physician, and Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne (1573–1655). There is also a pamphlet by Sir Norman Moore, On the Illness and Death of Henry Prince of Wales, which demonstrates that the prince died of typhoid fever.

159. This story probably refers to Sir Francis Godolphin, who some time in the sixteenth century imported a Dutch mining expert to show him how to improve mining methods in the famous Godolphin Ball. See The Victoria History of the County of Cornwall, 1. 548.

160. Morton means here the American Indians. The first instance of “American” meaning a “native or citizen of the United States, or the earlier British colonies included in these” is, according to the Dictionary of American English, in the introduction to Cotton Mather’s Magnolia (1702).

161. From this point on through Chapter 30, Aristotle’s De Anima shapes the general outline of the discussion. Evidently, however, Morton was familiar with the anatomical and physiological notions of his own time, as they were summarized in medical books designed for the general public. Comparison with Legrand and with the “Digression of Anatomy” in Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy shows how much Morton’s knowledge of the nutritive process, procreation, and the processes of sensation was common property.

162. Walter Charleton (1619–1707) was author of Natural History of Nutrition (London, 1659).

163. William Cole (1635–1716) published his De Secretione Animali at Oxford in 1674.

164. Jean Fernel (1497–1558) was a prolific medical writer, whose works were long popular throughout Europe. Where he relates this story the editor has not discovered.

165. Morton’s acquaintance with Harvey may have been directly through the De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis, or through some intermediate source. See the note on p. 193, below.

166. Morton’s knowledge of Sanctorius’ De Statica Medicina (Venice, 1614) may easily have been through Boyle’s almost identical mention of insensible perspiration in The Spring and Weight of the Air. See Boyle, Works (1772 ed.), 1. 105; for Sanctorius (1561–1636), see Wolf, History of Science in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, pp. 433–435.

167. The backgrounds of this chapter include Theophrastus’ De Natura et Causis Plantarum and Aristotle’s De Plantis. It is obvious, however, that the science of plant morphology was in its infancy in the seventeenth century, and Morton was none too well informed of the ideas of the Neoterics (i.e., Moderns). Burton, by the way, uses Neoterics in this same sense in the Anatomy of Melancholy.

168. Morton’s comments on procreation owe something to Robert Hooke’s Lampas (London, 1677), and something to William Harvey’s pioneer work in embryology, Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium (London, 1651). From Hooke’s book, a part of the same Gresham College lectures used for the chapter on comets, comes some of the knowledge of microscopical investigations of maiden-hair, male-fern, and other plants, as well as the speculation about the grass that grew after the Great Fire of London. See Gunther, Early Science in Oxford, viii. 198–206. The account of the hen’s egg is, as Mr. Morison has shown, a condensation of Harvey’s book. Note that Morton knows there is discussion regarding the sexuality of plants, a fact not fully established until the eighteenth century, and that he does not believe in spontaneous generation, though he makes no mention of the experiments of Francesco Redi.

169. This chapter, together with portions of Chapters 26, 28, and 30, hinges upon one of the central points in Cartesian discussion: the distinction between man and the animals. See, for a convenient summary, Albert G. A. Balz, “Cartesian Doctrine and the Animal Soul: An Incident in the Formation of the Modern Philosophical Tradition,” Studies in the History of Ideas, 111. 115–177. Although Aristotle’s De Anima has some relation to the ideas here, it would seem likely that Morton had read such contemporary books as Thomas Willis’ De Anima Brutorum (London, 1672) and Antoine Legrand’s Dissertatio de Carentia Sensus et Cognitionis in Brutis (London, 1675). Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, Pt. 1, is again a convenient place to observe the background of the ideas presented from this point on through Chapter 30.

170. Despite the influence of the De Anima and the De Sensu et Sensibili, this chapter is dominated by contemporary discussion. Most important, as Mr. Morison has indicated, is Isaac Newton’s letter in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 80 (February 19, 1671/2), a famous theory of vision which was followed by a long series of attacks and defenses in the same journal. Morton’s definition of light follows Newton’s, as does his description of white light (see the Philosophical Transactions, No. 88, November 18, 1672). Many things, moreover, suggest Boyle’s Experimental History of Colours, twice cited by Morton. The description of the anatomy of the eye is paralleled in Legrand, Institutio Philosophiae, Pt. viii, ch. xvi, where there is a somewhat similar diagram.

171. This brief rejection of the belief in the evil eye has considerable interest because of Morton’s quiescent part in the Salem witchcraft proceedings of 1692. Thomas Brattle wrote that some of the Salem justices undertook to explain the cure of afflicted persons by the touch of their supposed tormentors on the basis of Cartesian philosophy and the doctrine of effluvia: “… and the account they give of it is this; that by this touch, the venemous and malignant particles, that were ejected from the eye, do, by this means, return to the body whence they came, and so leave the afflicted persons pure and whole.” Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, George L. Burr, Editor, p. 171. Neither Brattle nor Morton held this opinion, nor did Increase Mather, who wrote that “the notion of Fascination by the Eye is unphilosophical.” Increase Mather, Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits Personating Men (Boston, 1693 [1692]), p. 42.

172. Aristotle’s brief treatise De Audibilibus supplements the De Anima and the De Sensu as the background for Morton’s acoustics. This chapter, too, is closely related, although not perhaps indebted, to Francis Bacon’s extensive experiments and discussions of sound in the Sylva Sylvarum, Centuries ii and iii.

173. The reference is to Boyle’s Spring and Weight of the Air, to which, as Mr. Morison has said, Morton owes much in this chapter.

174. As Mr. Morison has noted, Morton’s whole chapter owes much to Sir Samuel Morland (1625–1695), An Account of the Speaking Trumpet (London, 1672). This study, which was also printed in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 79, includes a discussion of the nature of sound. As Mr. Morison recalls in his foreword, Samuel Wesley was particularly shocked because some of his schoolmates at Morton’s academy shouted insults through a speaking trumpet at the local Anglican clergyman. In 1678, by the way, Increase Mather appears to have been interested in Morland’s speaking trumpet. See Kenneth B. Murdock, Increase Mather, p. 147.

175. This music room was presumably at Mamhead, the Ball mansion near Exeter, but the editor has been unable to discover any other description of it.

176. A long description of the whispering place at Gloucester was read before the Royal Society on November 5, 1662. See Birch, History of the Royal Society, 1. 120–123.

177. Morton’s introduction to music is not very helpful, for he appears to be in error both in his description of concord and in his scale of musical notes. See, for a convenient view of the musical knowledge upon which Morton could draw, Thomas Morley, A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (London, 1597), pp. 2, 70–71, etc. Although Morton mentions the monochord, he appears to be ignorant of the discovery that strings vibrate in segments, communicated by John Wallis in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 134 (April 23, 1677).

178. In this chapter, once more the background is Aristotelian, the De Anima and the De Sensu being in point. But with the older ideas Morton combines some seventeenth-century physiology. For comparison, see Legrand, Institutio Philosophiae, Pt. viii, chs. xii–xiv, and Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy.

179. With the addition of Aristotle’s De Memoria et Reminiscentia, the comments on the “interior senses” follow much the same sources as were suggested for the preceding chapter. There is a trace, however, of the Cartesian discussion mentioned in connection with Chapter 22.

180. As Morton indicates, the “Popish Schoolmen” were his chief predecessors in discussing the object, seat, acts, and passions of the sensitive appetite. Here are echoes, for instance, of Thomas Aquinas’s “Treatise on Man,” Q. lxxvi–lxxxi, and his “Treatise on Human Acts,” Pt. 11. See The “Summa Theologica” of St. Thomas Aquinas, translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province (22 vols., London, 1911–1925). Descartes covered the same material, under a classification somewhat varying from Morton’s, in Les Passions de l’Âme.

181. Two of Aristotle’s biological treatises, De Incessu Animalium and De Motu Animalium will be found to have some bearing on this section. Morton’s physiology of the nervous system is derived, however, from Descartes’ De Homine, perhaps through some such intermediary as Legrand, Institutio Philosophiae, Pt. viii, ch. vi. See Charles Singer, A Short History of Medicine, pp. 127–129. The mechanistic implications, here quite evident, were more fully developed by Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, whose De Motu Animalium (Rome, 1680–1681) may possibly have been known by Morton. The discussion of the souls of brutes continues the question raised before in Chapters 22 and 26.

182. Morton, perhaps influenced by his teacher, John Wilkins, had more than ordinary interest in the conquest of the air. See Morton’s “Enquiry into the Physical and Literal Sense of that Scripture Jeremiah viii, 7,” in the Harleian Miscellany (2nd ed., London, 1744), 11. 558–567; and cf. Marjorie Nicolson, “A World in the Moon,” Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, xvii. No. 2. Morton was proposing the hypothesis that swallows and storks and their kind wintered in the moon.

183. In the Ward MS., used by Mr. Morison, this statement is attributed to “Hevel.” In the other American transcriptions it is clearly “Slegelius,” and may perhaps refer to Paulus Marquart Slegel, author of Disputatio de Haemorrhagia (Jena, 1640), listed in the British Museum catalogue. In the Bodleian MS., however, “Spigelius” is inserted as a correction. The reference is probably to De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Venice, 1627) by Adrian van den Spieghel (1578–1625), a Flemish anatomist.

184. In his remarks on the pulse Morton deals with what has been called “the crucial point in Harvey’s argument,” and “a most important question ever since.” See William Harvey, Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (Tercentennial Edition, with an English translation and annotations by Chauncy D. Leake, Springfield, Ill., and Baltimore, Md., 1928), pp. 75–76 n. Apparently Morton does not draw directly either from Harvey or from Harvey’s most important follower, Richard Lower (Tractatus de Corde, London, 1669). See Harvey’s treatise in Leake’s edition, pp. 73–76, and Lower’s treatise, prefaced by an introduction and translation by K. J. Franklin, in R. T. Gunther, Early Science in Oxford, ix. sigs. G¹–G². Harvey supposes, for the sake of his argument, that the left ventricle holds one half ounce (four drams), three drams, or, as he says, even one dram. Lower says, perhaps through information from other sources, that Harvey estimated two ounces. On this vital point in the computation Harvey is indefinite, since it does not matter to his argument. Legrand, Institutio Philosophiae, Pt. viii, ch. vii, estimates that there are 64 pulses per minute, 3,840 per hour; that there is one dram of blood in the left ventricle; and that the weight of the whole mass of blood is “scarcely above 10 Pounds.” Hence he arrives at the estimate that all the blood circulates through the heart three times each hour. Lower estimates six times, Morton thirteen.

185. Many of the notions here go back to some of the brief treatises in Aristotle’s Parva Naturalia: namely, De Somno et Vigilia, De Somnis, and De Divinatione per Somnum. Legrand, Institutio Philosophiae, Pt. viii, ch. xx, reveals close verbal correspondences; for example: “Waking is the free Exercise of the Senses, depending on the uninterrupted influence of Spirits into the Organs.”

186. This chapter, somewhat remotely related to the Historia Animalium, echoes the Cartesian discussion of the animal soul touched upon previously in Chapters 22, 26, and 28.

187. Morton’s “reactionary” logic is discussed at some length in Perry Miller, The New England Mind (pp. 121–123). A glance at Mr. Miller’s index will reveal, moreover, his considerable use of the Compendium Physicae in the synthesis of seventeenth-century New England thought which he has made.

188. The creation, duration, and end of the world, old problems all, were peculiarly the concern of seventeenth-century thinkers. Scientists, literary men, and theologians were alike anxious to defend theistic first causes against the “modern Epicureans,” by whom were meant Gassendi and Thomas Hobbes; while even Sir Isaac Newton gave of his enthusiasm to the interpretation of the apocalyptic writings. The full story of the innumerable attacks upon the elusive Epicureans, i.e., materialists, is still to be written. Some hints may be gained from J. M. Robertson, A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern (2nd ed., London, 1906), 11. 60–125; G. D. Hadzits, Lucretius and His Influence, pp. 284–317; and L. I. Bredvold, “Dryden, Hobbes, and the Royal Society,” Modern Philology, xxv. 417–438. For an introduction to the enormous literature on the duration and end of the world, see the articles on Chiliasm, Eschatology, and the Millennium in any good encyclopaedia.

189. In addition to comment on the matter in his Experimental Philosophy, Power wrote a manuscript “Essay on the World’s Duration,” now in the British Museum. See the article on Power in the Dictionary of National Biography, and compare with the note on p. 51, above.

190. From the Rogers MS.

191. Giovanni Battista Baliano (d 1666) was an Italian physician and mathematician.

192. The reference is to Giovanni Battista Riccioli, Almagestum Novum (Bologna, 1651).

193. Johann Hevel, Selenographia sive Lunae Descriptio (Danzig, 1647). The information here, however, is in Wallis’s article.