Please read the text that follows, which is excerpted from Newton’s…

Question Answered step-by-step Please read the text that follows, which is excerpted from Newton’s… Please read the text that follows, which is excerpted from Newton’s manuscript “Of Natures obvious laws & processes in vegetation””1 Of Natures obvious laws & processes in vegetation. 2 That metalls vegetate after the same laws. Proved transitorily fr From the circumstances observed by miners, more fully from The consent of the Sophy [wise men or philosophers] with one another & with natures processe, & the strange distractions of all other chymists from both nature & one another. And the corruptibility of all things 3 A description of their vegetation in the earth 4 A description of their vegetation in a glasse. & that this is as much naturall as tother 5 The circumstances in which they agree with plants & animalls. And of met trees by nature & Art 6 That vegetation is the sole effect of a latent spirit & that this spirit is the same in all things only discriminated by its degrees of maturity & the rude matter Thus instancd in metalls etc. In fermentation of wines in Autumn, in Antypathys in the contagiousnes of putrefaction In crocus metallorum. 7 Of the actions & passions of grosser matter & how far that is common. 8 Of the degrees of maturity in all kingdoms mixture putrefaction conjunction vegetation etc. & that is only observable mineralls 9 How things conserve their species & how a tree might bee conserved & nourishd In the glass & that its probable those metalline trees in the earth grew after this manner & why the continuall mutations in mans body are insensible. Note in the sam minerall are found divers metalls or degrees 10 Of seed & propagation in number bulk & quality. Why the ejection of it debilitates. Why the product is sometimes male & sometimes female 11 Of protoplasts that nature can onely nourish, not form them, Thats Gods mechanisme the other natures 12 Why the two Elixirs are the most amicable & universall medicine to all beings what ever …”   “In the same Oare severall metalls are found all which vegetate distinctly. 17 That salt cheifly excites to vegetation 18 That in the first days of the stone green is the only permanent colour & so in the least mature vegetables. 19 That sometimes metalls grow like trees in the earth. 20 That nothing has so great powers on animalls as mineralls witnes not only the Alkahest [a universal solvent] to destroy & the Elixir [the philosopher’s stone] to conserve but their operations in common chymicall physick & in springs etc & therefore since wee live in the air where their most subtile vapours are ever disperst wee must of necessity have a great dependance on them, witnes healthfull & sickly yeares, the barronnes of grownd over mines etc. “They therefore unite with our bodys & become parte of which they could not doe if they had not a principle of vegetation in them & that of the same disposion with the matter of the rest of our bodys. therefore our bodys vegetate as they doe in a glas.”   “Art may set nature on work & promote her working in the production of any thing what ever.* Nor is the product less naturall then if nature had produced it alone. Is the child artificiall because the mother took physick, or a tree less naturall which is planted in a garden & watered then that which grows alone in the feild. or if a carcass bee put in a glasse & kept warm in Balneum Mariae that it may putrefy & breed insects are not those insects as naturall as others bred in a ditch without any such artifice.* Thus an oak may stand 100 years without rotting But if it bee scraped thin & kept twixt moyst & dry it may soon by art bee brought to dirt & praepared for a new generation. Thus metalls though in a massy body & above grownd where minerall humidity is but weak & thin are in mans memory observed to rot & though they may long persist in the earth with corruption yet duly ordered and mixt with due minerall humidity; may by art soon rot & putrefy & consc “Natures actions are either vegetable or purely mechanicall (grav. flux. meteors. vulgar Chymistry) “The principles of her vegetable actions are noe other then the seeds or seminall vessels of things those are her onely agents, her fire, her soule, her life …”   “Vegetation is nothing else but the acting of what is most maturated or specificate upon that which is less specificate or mature to make it as mature as it selfe     And in that degree of maturity nature ever rests. “The portion fully mature in all things is but very small, & never to bee seene alone, but only as tis inclothed with watry humidity. The whole substance is never maturated but only that part of it which is most disposed The maine bulk being but a watry insipid substance in which rather then upon which the action is performed “Putrefaction is the reduction of a thing from that maturity & specificatenes it had attained by generation”. Discuss the following questions.What is “vegetation”? Find an argument by analogy, in Newton’s textNewton mentions “two Elixirs” that “are the most amicable & universall medicine to all beings what ever”. What are they? Why does he think so?    Science Environmental Science Share QuestionEmailCopy link Comments (0)