We know, that a Cart or Coach-Wheel, for Want of Grease, by Friction will be set on Fire; and Fire-Canes, rubbed together smartly, will take Fire; but neither of these, I believe, nor any thing else, will beget or generate the Element of Fire. They must either collect it out of the Air, or else it must be lodged within them, as we find it to be in Steel in an eminent Degree: For, if you drop the Filings of Steel through the Flame of a Candle, it sends out the most fierce Fire of any thing in Nature.
The Reason to be given why a greater Quantity of Fire is produced from Steel-Filings, than from any other Thing, I take to be owing to a larger Share of that Element which is impacted in it from its being made out of Iron long impregnated with Fire.
Many other Bodies have actual Fire impacted in them, as Flints, and many other hard Stones and Metals; but whenever you produce Fire from Steel-Filings, you find that Steel melted: So when Fire is produced from Stones, and the like, each Spark is Part of that Stone burnt to a Calx.
Now, as I am endeavouring to shew to you the natural Cohesion of Fire, and the Propensity there is in it to extend itself, I shall offer to your Consideration a very familiar Instance to prove it; which is that of the Snuff of a Candle just blown out. You cannot but have observ’d at how great a Distance from the Snuff the Flame will descend down the Smoke, and light it.
I shall further take the Liberty to observe to you another Proof of this; which, I think, will not only shew a Propensity in Fire to cohere, but will greatly strengthen my Conjecture, that this Fire, produced in Electricity, is extracted from that I have supposed to be universally dispersed.
A Person, who liv’d in the Town of Warham in Dorsetshire, in the Year 1703, informed me, that in the Night of the great Hurricane and high Wind, in the strongest Part of the Tempest, he saw from his Window, on the neighbouring Hills, great Bodies of Fire, swiftly passing over them on the Ground. – Now whence arose that Fire, if it came not from the Air impelling it into those Flakes? And its subsisting together in that Hurricane shews, I think, very plainly, that if its Cohesion had not been natural, the Wind would then have scatter’d it.
Though I apprehend that the Four Elements of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, may never have been increased or diminished, since the Great God of Order created them, yet I can also apprehend each of them unequally dispers’d in the Universe by various Causes and Events: And when this happens, those which were intended, when in their due Order, to make every thing happy and easy, in their disordered State will create nothing but Confusion.
For Instance, the chief Use of Water seems intended, when descending in warm and gentle Showers, or flowing in kind and easy Streams, to chear and nourish all Kinds of Vegetation, as well in Trees and Plants, as in Herbs and Flowers: But suppose, by the Contrivance of Man, or by the Accidents of Nature, a large Quantity of it lodged on the Tops of high Hills, if it breaks its Bank, it will never stop, till it finds a natural resting Place; and in its Torrent it will overwhelm and destroy those Trees and Plants, with the Herbs and Flowers, it was intended to nourish.
The like may be said of the Fire, which I have been supposing uniformly dispersed over the Creation; which, if its Properties are to invigorate all Nature, you must of course suppose its Power not to be controul’d; but that it passes through all the Animal, Mineral, and Vegetable Creation, whilst they stand in need of Life, or any Increase.
But as I have been conjecturing what different Purposes Water in its disorder’d State may produce, so the same Consideration may be had concerning Fire in its disorder’d State: When too much of it is brought together, either by the Contrivance of Man, or by the Disorders in the other Elements; is it not reasonable to suppose, that it will, according to its natural Appointment, get about its Business, and break as soon as it can from its Confinement?
A very learned and eminent Author, who is now living, says, “That all Life, whether it be vegetable, sensitive, or animal, is only a kindled Fire of Life in such a Variety of States: And every dead insensitive Thing is only so because its Fire is quenched.”
It had been impossible that this wonderful Phænomenon of Electricity should ever have been discover’d, if there had not been such Things as are non-electricable. For, as fast as this Fire had been driven on any thing, its next Neighbour would have carried it further: But, when it was most wonderfully found out, that any thing which was suspended in a silk Cord (that being a Non-electricable) was obliged to retain the Fire, which by electrical Force was driven on it; and when, moreover, it appeared, that any Person or Thing being placed on a Cake of Bees-wax (which also is a Non-electricable), it could no more part with its Fire, than when suspended in a silk Cord, I think it will become worth Inquiry, why they are not electricable.
To prove this, I would reflect upon the Passage before-quoted: For from thence I think it must follow, that if Fire be the Cause of the Life and Increase in any thing, then, whatever ceases to be in a State of Life or Increase, can no longer be supposed to be capable of them; and therefore must be consider’d as a Caput Mortuum. Of this sort are Bees-wax and Silk, both being non-electricable.
To pursue this kind of Reasoning concerning them: They are, in truth, the Excrements only from those Beings which once had Life in them; the Wax being the excrementitious Matter from Bees, which, when made, was to be capable of no further Increase or Addition to its Nature: For, as its primitive Use was only intended to make Combs or Cells to preserve the Honey through the different Changes of the Season, so if this Wax had been liable to Alterations from this Fire (as all Things which are endued with it are) then the Cells would not have remained so intire as the wonderful Architects left them.
As concerning the Silk, I look on it as an excrementitious Matter also; designed by God Almighty (who makes nothing in vain) to become a Capsula or Coffin to preserve the Insect in it safely, for such a Season as was intended it should remain there.
All resinous Bodies are likewise non-electricable; which I think will tend rather to prove my Conjecture to be true than false: For, are there such Things as Pitch or Resin in Nature? Are they not made out of the Juice of Plants? Which Plants, whilst they remained in the Life of Nature, had nothing but their unalter’d Juice in them. Pitch and Resin became so by Art; and therefore no Time or Chance can give an Increase to their Quantity: From whence they may be supposed not to be in the Course of Nature.
I am aware what Objection this is liable to; for, though it must be acknowleg’d that these Things are non-electricable, it may be asked, If they are not the most inflammable Things that can be imagined, and, consequently, susceptible of Fire; because Candles are made out of Wax, and Torches out of Pitch and Resin? To which I answer, That here it may be necessary to inquire, what occasions this Flame, which is produced either from the Candle or Torch? Can this Flame subsist one Moment, without the Passage of Air through it? I answer, No. Well then, as this Treatise is not intended merely to state Facts, but to account for the Nature of them, by the best Conjectures I can make, pray why does Air keep this Flame subsisting? If you will suppose, with me, that the Cause of all Heat, and the Appearance of all Fire in the World, is collected out of this universal Element of Fire; which, perhaps, will never increase nor diminish; it being dispersed where it is most invited; if therefore, I say, you will suppose with me, that this Air, which is full of a lambent Flame, when it has been invited by the Property supposed to be in it, that the biggest Body congregates the less; from these Considerations, I think it may be supposed, that the Flame of Fire is produced out of the Air, only; the Wax or Resin being a fatty sulphureous Matter, which, as Coals, may likewise be supposed to serve as a Pabulum, fitly adapted only to let this Element pass through it, for the Purposes here described.
The more of the Air that passes through them, the quicker they burn; as when the Snuff of a Candle is taken off, which hindered the Quantity to pass thro’ it, it increases the Flame; though, before, the same Materials were employ’d. The same may be said of clearing the Ashes from, and stirring the Fire; which impeded the Quantity of Air from leaving its Fire behind, in its Passage through the Coals.
If the Wax had any Inherency of Fire in its Nature, Why, if you turn a lighted Candle downwards, does the Wax extinguish the Flame? If this my Conjecture be difficultly conceiv’d, pray let me farther ask, Why does a Candle, which is lighted, and let down into a Mine where there is a Damp, go out? In a large Mine there is Space enough surely for a Candle to burn in, if there had been enough of that Pabulum Vitæ left in the stagnated Air which occupy’d that large Cavern.