Top 15 Jean Rey Quotes

Thus the opinion of Cardan appears so frivolous, that I am grieved that a great man, and one who is justly esteemed by all the world, should have lately declared to me that he inclines towards it.

Plants too ought to become heavy by death, the celestial heat being expelled: but the contrary is evident to all. As to the increased weight of animals by death, the true cause, far remote from that which increases the weight of lead when calcined, is this: in the living animal its natural heat subtilizes, dilates, and augments the dimensions of the humours, the flesh, and every thing in it capable of dilatation—but losing this heat by death, the whole on this becoming cold, contracts and diminishes, whence the increase of weight, as I have often said already. What is there like this in lead?

Neither can the loss of this heat render them heavy, for I have already proved that nothing increases in weight but by the addition of matter, or by diminution of volume; but here there is nothing of the kind; so that the disappearance of the heat cannot add any thing, and as to its bulk, it is visibly enlarged; the compact and solid substance of the lead being reduced (amenuisée) to so many small parcels, that their number is almost infinite.

With regard to the celestial heat making bodies light, Scaliger very properly objects that the heavens, which abound in this heat, as being the source of it, must be light (feut leger) and consequently univocal (univoque) with the other bodies, which is absurd.

Moreover, all the world is agreed, that from death to life there is no return. Yet the chemists assure us, if we moisten the calx of lead, and mix it with water in which samphire (salicot) has been dissolved, then, having dried it, put it in a crucible with a small vent, and heat strongly and quickly, that we shall reduce it to its original state.

This opinion is defective, to say no worse of it, in many respects. First, in attributing life to lead. Secondly, in supposing that the presence of the celestial heat makes it light, and its absence heavy. Thirdly, because it assigns the same reason for the increased weight of lead by calcination, and of animals by death. There is nothing of the kind. For as to life, how can lead possess it, since it is a homogeneous body, without difference of parts, without organs, and without any vital effect or action? If it move downwards, so does ceruse, which is only its corpse; if it be cooling (rafraischit), so is ceruse. Then how could it preserve this life, under a million of forms, that it may be made to assume and to cast off, yet always continuing to be lead? How, in the furnace (which would be a much greater wonder), where it may be kept in fusion a day, a month, or a whole year? It must have a very tenacious soul to undergo so much without being dislodged!

This he confirms by the example of animals, which become heavier after death, from the extinction of the celestial heat, the soul, (as he thinks), both of animals and all other mixed and compound bodies.

Cardan is the first, who in his fifth book, De Subtilitate, says, that , by conversion into ceruse, or by , gains one-thirteenth part in weight, and gives this reason for it—The lead dies, for the celestial heart, which was its soul, vanishes; whose presence gives it life, and renders it light; as its absence occasions its death, and makes it heavy.

On this account I have been obliged to shew, that air is possessed of weight; that it is proved by other investigation than that of the balance; and that even by that instrument, a portion previously altered and thickened, may make its weight manifest.

I imagine there are many persons who would have been startled (effarouchées) at the mere statement of this answer, had I given it in the outset, that will now receive it willingly, being, as I may say, tamed (apprivoisées) and rendered tractable, by the evident truth of the preceding essays. For doubtless they whose minds were preoccupied with the opinion that air is absolutely light, would have rushed to the encounter, exclaiming, Why do we not extract heat from cold, white from black, light from darkness, if from air, a thing absolutely light, we can extract so much weight? And they, who might have given credit to the weight of air, would have been unable to persuade themselves, that it could ever increase the weight of a substance balanced in itself.

I answer, and proudly maintain, "That this increase of weight comes from the air, thickened and made heavy, and in some measure rendered adhesive in the vessel by the violent and long—continued heat of the furnace—which air mixes with the calx (its union being assisted by the continual stirring), and attaches itself to its smallest particles—no otherwise than as water, when sand is thrown into it, makes it heavier by moistening it, and adhering to its smallest grains."

[W]e must not only inquire whence these seven ounces are derived, but, moreover, whence that which has replaced the loss of weight, necessarily arising from the enlargement of volume of the tin, by its conversion into calx, and from the vapours and exhalations that have escaped.

I have now made the preparation; laid as it were the foundations of my answer to the Sieur Burn's [or Brun's] demand; namely, that having put two pounds six ounces of fine English tin into an iron vessel, and heated it strongly on an open fire for six hours, stirring it continually, without having added anything, he obtained two pounds thirteen ounces of a white ; which at first occasioned him great surprise, and the desire to ascertain whence these seven ounces of increase were derived.

[T]wo ingots one... of gold, and the other of iron, which appear by the balance to be equal, are nevertheless not so—for the iron is as much heavier than the gold, according to reason, as the air which it displaces is heavier than that displaced by the gold...

Hammer a piece of cold iron for a considerable time; you will unite its parts and diminish its bulk, and then it will appear heavier when put into the balance.