First Physical Dissertation on the Bond Connecting Soul and Body

I bring together the opinions of BECKE into one. The first of these ought to have proven that Light, or radiance original: "Lux sive Lumen", is a particular creature, just as we see other created things to be, and that it existed, produced at the beginning of the world, before it was placed by God in the globe of the sun. For I, not led by mere whims, dare to defend that Light is nothing other than an effect represented by the most rapid and rectilinear motion of the Aether. This motion, in the most subtle matter which DESCARTES, in Principles of Philosophy, Part III, has called the first Element throughout, the Creator at the beginning stirred up in the sun original: "sole" and the stars by the word of His power, to be propagated to us afterwards, and once propagated, to remain.

And according to this opinion, the inquiry into a bond in this place would be in vain, for the reason that in this manner the World Soul would be no substance at all, but a mere mode, depending upon a certain modification of a substance, and, being defined by it, would be clearly nothing. If, however, it is said of Fire, that it is the same as the Spirit of the Universe, then everyone sees that this is meant to be understood as Heat or Warmth. Now, however, Heat is motion original: "Calor motus est"

() Conceding something for the present to this method of writing which that anonymous author uses, I use the words "Light" and "radiance" without distinction. For he said "radiance" Lumen, which, by physicists accustomed to more accurate terminology, is usually called "Light" Lux. For it is known that physicists call "Light" that motion (or, if you prefer, the effect of that motion) which the supreme Creator, at the very beginning by the word of His power: "Let there be light," stirred up in the sun and stars as aggregates of that most subtle matter. "Radiance," however, is said by them to be the motion impressed by those same luminous bodies upon the fluid aether surrounding them, by which light is carried to our eyes. Compare the most experienced Dr. VATER, Experimental Physiology, Special Part, Section II, Chapter VIII, Theorems I, II, III, & VI.
() DESCARTES affirms that the sun, since it is a most fluid body, is composed of this matter of the first element. L.c. Part III, LXXII, page 92, and following.
() Or, if it pleases again: the consequence or effect of that motion.