Grounds of Natural Philosophy

The book is divided into thirteen parts with an appendix containing five parts, and its second edition is much altered from the first, which went under the name of Philosophical and Physical Opinions. An address to all the universities in Europe says that even if there was not a necessity, the writer would make it the writer’s choice to submit these Grounds of Natural Philosophy willingly to their censures. The text argues that there is but one Matter and but one Motion, and that if Motion is corporeal then Matter, Figure, Place and Motion are but one thing, a corporeal figurative Motion.

The text says that some drugs work by siege, others by urine, some by vomit, others by spitting, and others by sweating. The text says it is not the motions of the drugs but the motion of the humours, which the drugs occasion to flow. The text says that after many disputes they all agreed that those that should be restored should be restored to that degree of age and strength which is the most perfect.