New Philosophy of Our Sublunary World

OF CHAPTERS

OF THE FIRST BOOK.

CHAPTER I.

How and by whom Philosophy began concerning nature and the Principles of things. Page 1
2. On the simplicity and ignorance of the ancients, both in the sciences and the Mechanical arts. 2
3. Who first devised the fable of the four Elements, and how that opinion has remained to this day. 4
4. That the world, from the circle of the Moon to the center of the earth, is not filled with elements. 8
5. That four elements do not exist. 9
6. That the simple Aristotelian elements The "Aristotelian elements" refer to the traditional Four Elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, which Aristotle argued made up everything in the sublunary world. do not exist in our world. 12
7. On Fire. 14
8. On Air. 22
9. On the substance and origin of Air, its system, and its quantity in nature. 28
10. On what Air is. 30
11. On the movement of Air. 31
12. On Water and Earth. 34
13. Water is not generated from cold. 40
14. On the composition of the elements. 41
15. That those ill-conceived elements are not made from one another through their qualities. 42
16. That the whole space between the earth and the Moon is not full of elements; but only certain effluvia effluvia: microscopic vapors or "exhalations" given off by bodies, which Gilbert believed created a thin atmosphere near the earth. rise to a height of a few miles. 43
17. On the proportions and quantities of the Elements among themselves. 44
18. That there are no mixtures of Elements, nor of qualities, when bodies are generated. 46
19. On the motion of heavy and light things. ibid.

20. On separate vacuum. 48
21. On the commonly conceived motion of the Elements, and also on weight and lightness. 54
22. On separable and inseparable vacuum. 63
23. Philosophers, being ignorant of the nature of the Earth, imagined four bodies among us to be Elements and the beginnings of bodies. 74
24. On the Elements and those primary qualities, and how they exist in mixtures. 75
25. That the secondary qualities of bodies do not come from those primary ones. 76
26. On heat. 77
27. That celestial heat so often mentioned by Philosophers, their Elementary heat, and also the heat in the bodies of Animals, are all of one nature. 79
28. On Heat, and what it is. 82
29. On the heat of the earth, air, water, and fire. 85
30. That heat is not produced by the motion of the Sun and the friction of the air. 88
31. Heat is not a quality. ibid.
32. That the thinning of humors humors: here referring generally to fluids or liquids that can be thinned or evaporated. occurs through friction, not after heat caused by heat, so that the cause of thinning is joined simultaneously with the heat. 89
33. On Cold. 90
34. On natural Attraction. 95
35. On Attraction from pain original: "Attractione à dolore." This refers to a physical concept where nature "feels" the lack of matter in a void and pulls matter in to fill it.. 99

OF THE SECOND BOOK.

CHAPTER I.

On the sensible substance of the earth. Page 107
2. On the location of the earth. 112
3. On