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Credit: The works. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Earth and Water; Parmenides holds, of Earth and Fire; Oakn PART I, that it is Heat; Hippocrates, that it is a spirit (jijfused through ^cct. lo. the body. Some others have held it to be Light; Plato saith, 'tis a Substance moving itself; after cometh Aristotle (whom the Author here reproveth) and goeth a degree farther, and saith it is Entelechia, that is, that which naturally makes the body to move. But this definition is as rigid as any of the other; for this tells us not what the essence, origine or nature of the soul is, but only marks an effect of it, and therefore signifieth no more than if he had said (as the Author's Phrase is) that it is Angelas hominis, or an Intelligence that moveth man, as he supposed those other to do the Heavens. Now to come to the definition of Light, in which the Author is also unsatisfied with the School of Aristotle, he saith. It satis- fieth him no more to tell him that Lux est actus perspicui, than if you should tell him that it is umbra Dei. The ground of this definition given by the Peripateticks, is taken from a passage in Aristot. de anima I. 2, cap. 7, where Aristotle saith. That the colour of the thing seen, doth move that which is perspicuum actu (i.e. illustratam naturam quce sit in acre aliove corpore trans- parente) and that that, in regard of its continuation to the eye, moveth the eye, and by its help the internal sensorium; and that so vision is perform'd. Now as it is true that the Sectators of Aristotle are to blame, by fastening upon him by occasion of this passage, that he meant that those things that made this impress upon the Organs are meer accidents, and have nothing of sub- stance ; which is more than ever he meant, and cannot be main- tained without violence to Reason, and his own Principles; so for Aristotle himself, no man is beholding to him for any Science acquir'd by this definition : for what is any man the near for his telling him that Colour (admitting it to be a body, as indeed it 18, and in that place he doth not deny) doth move actu per- spicuum, when as the perspicuity is in relation to the eye; and he doth not say how it comes to be perspicuous, which is the thing enquired after, but gives it that donation before the eye hath perform'd its office; so that if he had said it had been umbra Dei, it would have been as intelligible, as what he hath said. He that would be satisfied how Vision is perform'd, let him see Mr. Hohbs in Tract, de nat. human, cap. 2. For God hath not caused it to ruin upon the Earth.] St. Aug. de Genes, ad literam, cap. 6, 6, salves that expression from any inconvenience; but the Author in Pseudodox. Epidemic. 1. 7, cap. 1, shews that we have no reason to be confident that this Fruit was an Apple. I believe that the Serpent (if we shall literally understand it) from his proper form and figure made his motion on his belly before the curse.] Yet the Author himself sheweth in Pseudodox. Epidemic, lib. 1, cap. 1, that the form or kind of the Serpent is](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22650349_0001_0029.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
