On Machines for Water Conduction,

and leaves room for the contraction and condensation of the thicker body; just as we see air escape and evaporate from strongly compressed water.

The argument some people urge is that the expansion, growth, and thinning of bodies implies that some vacuum remains inside them (since they were previously less extended). This is quite absurd and inconsistent. Such growth occurs through the addition of new size or, to speak more clearly, through the resolution of a thicker substance into a more subtle one. For example, air generated from water is much more extended and takes up more space than the original liquid, even if no new substance was added. See these authors for a more extensive discussion: Cornelius Drebbel in his Treatise on the Four Elements and Benjamin Bramer in his work On the Vacuum.

The argument taken from ashes actually strikes against its own authors. For when ash receives and absorbs water, it introduces that water into either a full place or an empty place. It cannot be a full place, because in their own judgment, one body would then have to penetrate another. Therefore, they argue the water must be received or admitted into a vacuum.

But even if we granted this point to please them, it would further imply that this vacuum, which is actually nothing, could be increased, diminished, expanded, or contracted; which is absurd.

Even if we assumed that a vacuum could be stretched and contracted like a body, it would follow that the vacuum and the body are one and the same, and that the vacuum differs in no way from a "plenum" A plenum is a space that is completely full of matter, the opposite of a vacuum.. Thus, they destroy their own vacuum while trying to establish it.

To ensure this argument about ashes leaves no doubt, ERIDEMUS Eridemus is likely a reference to a character or author in a contemporary 17th-century philosophical dialogue. solves it in this way in his Third Treatise on Natural Things: He says that water infused into ashes

is received and seemingly absorbed by them, but not because there were empty passages and corners there acting as vessels to receive the water. Rather, there is a certain intrinsic and innate heat hidden in the ashes (or in lime, which acts the same way). This heat changes the mixed-in liquid into air more quickly than can be described and causes it to evaporate. This is visible to the eye from the rising smoke and vapor.

ARISTOTLE himself solved a second logic puzzle concerning wineskins in his Problems, and did so in this manner:

The question is asked: why does wine, which was enough to fill an entire barrel, not only fit back into that same barrel after being poured into wineskins, but actually leave room for even more wine to be poured in?

The answer given is: because wine contains something airy within itself. The thickness and size of a wooden barrel does not allow this air to exit easily. However, the wineskins allow the air to gradually exhale, which leaves space both in the skins and for the wine that is poured in later.

We see that both liquids and air are pushed out of a larger body with more difficulty than from a smaller one. For example, a large sponge that has absorbed liquid cannot be as thoroughly emptied by squeezing as a sponge of a smaller size. This happens more in wine than in water, because wine includes more air.

This same reasoning agrees perfectly with the experiment regarding ashes. That is, the same vessel can hold the same amount of ash and water together at once as it usually takes of either one separately and successively. It is easy to understand that ashes, being a very light body, have many airy passages and recesses within them. The liquid poured into them (being by nature more subtle and thin) The text cuts off here, continuing the explanation of how water fills the microscopic pores of the ash.