2 JQ Of Light and Colour^

a darkcn’d Room ; also from the Shadow®which Bodies of every Figure cast, heinAsuch as would be determined by Righ®Lines drawn from the luminous Poio*touching the Extremities of those Bodic®(CXI),

TtfS

(CXI) i. before S.ir Isaac Newton’s Time, sca^any thing of the Nature or Properties of Lightknown. It had been esteem’d a mere Quality or M 0 'dification of Matter, and was propagated by PrelB 01 )’and I know not what of such Kind of Stuff and sensed 5Jargon; than which nothing can be more tiresome sread, or irksome to repeat. Leaving therefore the is e, Reveries of the Cartesians, we stiall contemplate th 1 *

glorious Phænomenon in the Newtonian Manner, wh>ediffuses Lustre over the whole Face of Nature, and a “new Splendor even to Light itself.

2. That Light is a material Substance, and what'

properly call Body, is not to be doubted ; because s,find it is something that has Motion, or is propagate ^ 1T'ime ; something that acts upon Bodies,- and produe^great Alterations and Changes in their Natures aI LForms. It is something that Bodies act upon, by 1 ^.stecting, inducting, and refracting it on their Surfa cej ’and in their Pores : And it would appear to h aWeight, and all other sensible Qualities of comm°Matter, were it not that the Smallness of its Quant**?renders them entirely imperceptible by us. ^

3. Nor are we to consider Light only as a Body,as the most active Principle or most general Agent 1Nature. I greatly question if it be not the true Brit’sMobile in Nature, or the Spring of Motion and A^*"n all other Bodies. Were the Particles of Light to ,

annihilated, we should fee no Marks or Footstep®Fire or Heat remaining^ and therefore no Power of 1 0%pn in Bodies, but all Things would put on the ApP^j