Qu. 22. Are not \gross/ bodies & light convertible into one another: & may not
bodies receive their activity from the rays particles of light w^ch enter their
composition? For all fixt bodies being heated emit light so long as they con-
tinue sufficiently hot, & light mutualy stops in bodies as often as its
rays strike upon their parts, as we shewed above. I know no body less
apt to shine then water, & yet water by frequent destillations changes
into fixed earth & this earth \as M^r Boyle has tried & then this earth being enabled to endure a sufficient heat/ shines as much by heat as any \like/ other
body |i|es. The changing of light into bodies into light & light into bodies is very
conformable to the course of nature, which seems delighted with transmutations
Water, w^ch is a very fluid volatile tastless salt, she changes by heat into
vapour w^ch is a sort of air, & by cold into ice w^ch is a hard pellucid
brittle fusible stone: & this stone returns into water by heat & vapour
returns into water by cold. Earth by heat becomes fire & by cold re-
turns into Earth. Dense bodies by fermentation rarefy into several
sorts of air & this air by fermentation & sometimes without it returns
into dense bodies. Mercury appears sometimes in the form of a fluid
ponderous running Mercury |a fluid metal|, sometimes in the form of a hard brittle
metal, sometimes in the form of a corrosive pellucid salt called sublimate,
sometimes in the form of a tastless pellucid volatile white earth called
Mercurius dulcis, or in that of a red opake volatile earth called Cin-
naber, or in that of a red or white precipitate, or in that of a fluid
salt, |&| In destillation it turns into vapour. |&| Being agitated in vacuo it shines
like fire. And being dropt into a red hot earthen Retort it destills in
the form of common water pellucid & tastless And after all these &
other changes it returns again into Mercury. \Eggs grow from insensible magnitudes & change into animals, Tad-poles into Frogs & worms into Flyes./ All Birds Beasts & Fishes
Insects Trees & other Vegetables with their several parts, grow out of
water & watry tinctures & salts, & by putrefaction return again into
watry substances. And \ destilled / water standing a few days in the open air yeilds
a tincture which (like that of Mault) by standing longer yeilds an sediment
& a spirit, but before putrefaction is fit nourishment for animals &
vegetables. And among such various & strange transmutations why may not
Nature change bodies into light & light into bodies?

Now attraction in bodies of the same kind & vertue attraction is strongest
in the smallest bodies in proportion to their bulk. It is found stronger in small
magnets for their weight then in great ones. For the parts of small ones being
closer together unite their forces more easily. And therefore since the rays of
light are the smallest bodies known to us we may expect to find their attractions
very strong. And how strong they are may be gathered by this proportion \Rule/. The
attraction of a ray of light in proportion to the body \quantity of its matter/ is to the gravity of a
projectile in proportion to its body \the quantity of its matter/ in a compound ratio of the velocity of the
ray of light to the velocity of the projectile \twice/ & of the bent or curvity of the
ray in the place of refraction to the bent or curvity of the line described
by the projectile supposing the inclination of the ray to the ray to the
refracting surface & that of the projectile to the horizon to be alike.
And by this proportion I reccon the attraction of the rays of light to be above