of a violent jarring Motion, or a strong and nimble
vibrative one, we may have from a piece of iron
grated on very strongly with a file: for
if into that a pin screw’d so firm and
hard, that though it has a convenient head to it,
yet it can by no means be unscrew’d by
the fingers; if, I say, you attempt to unscrew this
whilst grated on by the file, it will be found
to undoe and turn very easily. The first
of these Examples manifests, how a body actually divided
into small parts, becomes a fluid. And
the latter manifests by what means the agitation of
heat so easily loosens and unties the
parts of solid and firm bodies.
Nor need we suppose heat to be any thing else, besides
such a motion; for supposing we could Mechanically
produce such a one quick and strong
enough, we need not spend fuel to melt
a body. Now, that I do not speak this altogether
groundless, I must refer the Reader to the Observations
I have made upon the shining sparks of Steel, for
there he shall find that the same effects are
produced upon small chips or parcels of Steel by the
flame, and by a quick and violent motion;
and if the body of steel may be thus melted
(as I there shew it may) I think we have little reason
to doubt that almost any other may not also.
Every Smith can inform one how quickly both his File
and the Iron grows hot with filing,
and if you rub almost any two hard bodies
together, they will do the same: And we know,
that a sufficient degree of heat causes fluidity,
in some bodies much sooner, and in others later; that
is, the parts of the body of some are so loose
from one another, and so unapt to cohere, and
so minute and little, that a very small
degree of agitation keeps them always in the state
of fluidity. Of this kind, I suppose, the
AEther, that is the medium or fluid
body, in which all other bodies do as it were swim
and move; and particularly, the Air, which seems
nothing else but a kind of tincture or solution
of terrestrial and aqueous particles dissolv’d
into it, and agitated by it, just as the tincture
of Cocheneel is nothing but some finer dissoluble
parts of that Concrete lick’d up or dissolv’d
by the fluid water. And from this Notion
of it, we may easily give a more Intelligible reason
how the Air becomes so capable of Rarefaction
and Condensation. For, as in tinctures,
one grain of some strongly tinging substance
may sensibly colour some hundred thousand
grains of appropriated Liquors, so as every
drop of it has its proportionate share, and
be sensibly ting’d, as I have try’d both
with Logwood and Cocheneel: And
as some few grains of Salt is able to infect