United States or Guernsey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And herein I particularly insisted, to make it appear, that if there were such Machines which had organs, and the exteriour figure of an Ape, or of any other unreasonable creature, we should finde no means of knowing them not to be altogether of the same nature as those Animals: whereas, if there were any which resembled our bodies, and imitated our actions as much as morally it were possible, we should always have two most certain ways to know, that for all that they were not reall men: The first of which is, that they could never have the use of speech, nor of other signes in framing it, as we have, to declare our thoughts to others: for we may well conceive, that a Machine may be so made, that it may utter words, and even some proper to the corporal actions, which may cause some change in its organs; as if we touch it in some part, and it should ask what we would say; or so as it might cry out that one hurts it, and the like: but not that they can diversifie them to answer sensibly to all what shall be spoken in its presence, as the dullest men may do.
And next, though the Beams of Light are such subtil Bodies, that in respect of them, even Surfaces that are sensibly Smooth, are not exactly so, but have their own degree of Roughness, consisting of little Protuberances and Depressions; and though consequently such Inequalities may suffice to give Bodies differing Colours, as we see in Marble that appears White or Black, or Red or Blew, even when the most carefully Polish'd, yet 'tis plain by the late Instance of Red Marble, and many others, that even bigger Protuberances and greater Shades may likewise so Diversifie the Roughness of a Bodies Superficies, as manifestly to concurr to the varying of its Colour, whereby such Examples appear to be proper enough to be employ'd in such a Subject as we have now in hand.
But to return to what I was saying before I began to make mention of our Blind Organist, what we have deliver'd touching the causes of the several Forms or Asperity that may Diversifie the Surfaces of Colour'd Bodies, may perchance somewhat assist us to make some Conjectures in the general, at several of the ways whereby 'tis possible for the Experiments hereafter to be mention'd, to produce the suddain changes of Colours that are wont to be Consequent upon them; for most of these Phænomena being produc'd by the Intervention of Liquors, and these for the most part abounding with very Minute, Active, and Variously Figur'd Saline Corpuscles, Liquors so Qualify'd may well enough very Nimbly after the Texture of the Body they are imploy'd to Work upon, and so may change the form of Asperity, and thereby make them Remit to the Eye the Light that falls on them, after another manner than they did before, and by that means Vary the Colour, so farr forth as it depends upon the Texture or Disposition of the Seen Parts of the Object, which I say, Pyrophilus, that you may not think I would absolutely exclude all other ways of Modifying the Beams of Light between their Parting from the Lucid Body, and their Reception into the common Sensory.
And as with Iron it will produce a Reddish, and on White Quills a Yellowish, so much may the Coalition of the Parts of the same Liquor, with the differingly Figur'd Particles of Stable Bodies, divers ways Asperate the differingly Dispos'd Surfaces, and to Diversifie the Colour of those Bodies.
Word Of The Day