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16 The Production of an Alternative Law In this chapter, we will see that the experimental data support the production of another scienti¤c law, one more amenable to hylozoism and so to the radical politics that rested upon hylozoism. Because Linus had said that the funiculus is unable to draw mercury up beyond 29 or 30 inches, Boyle presented a counter-experiment in which mercury is drawn up more than 100 inches. Filling the J tube with mercury, Boyle says, we took care, when the mercurial cylinder in the longer leg of the pipe was about an hundred inches high, to cause one to suck at the open ori¤ce; whereupon (as we expected) the mercury in the tube did notably ascend. Which considerable phaenomenon cannot be ascribed to our examiner’s Funiculus, since by his own confession that cannot pull up the mercury, if the mercurial cylinder be above 29 or 30 inches of mercury. And therefore we shall render this reason of it, that the pressure of the incumbent air being in part taken off by its expanding itself into the sucker’s dilated chest; the imprisoned air was thereby enabled to dilate itself manifestly, and repel the mercury , that comprest it, till there was an equality of force betwixt the strong spring of that comprest air on the one part, and the tall mercurial cylinder, together with the contiguous dilated air, on the other part. (W, I, 159) The rising mercury, Boyle says, cannot be explained by the funicular hypothesis because Linus had said that the funiculus is unable to draw mercury up beyond 29 or 30 inches. On the other hand, he is happy to give us the mechanical reason for it, viz., when his assistant sucked air from the top of the tube, he took pressure off both the mercury and the air beneath it so that the air beneath expanded (dilated or rare¤ed). 151 But raising a 100-inch column of mercury to a height of 100 + n inches by suction certainly does not refute the funicular hypothesis. More than likely, Linus would simply have stayed with the traditional Aristotelian explanation of suction and argued that as the assistant covered the top of the tube with his mouth and drew the air from it into his lungs, the mercury followed the air upward by attraction, consenting to overcome its natural inclination downward for the good of the whole, i.e., to prevent a vacuum. But let us suppose Linus (and ourselves) to be persuaded that the conditions in this case were relevantly similar to the conditions produced by the Torricelli experiment; he might then explain that when Boyle’s assistant sucked on the tube, a funiculus formed connecting the surface of the mercury to the surface of the assistant’s lungs. The funiculus contracted and, aided by the suction from the assistant’s lungs, drew the mercury up. Here Linus has an opportunity to develop or elaborate the funicular hypothesis. An unhindered and unaided funiculus can raise a column of mercury to 292 inches, but under certain auxiliary conditions, it can raise the column higher. In the case under consideration, the funiculus is aided by suction. We have found that the strength of a funiculus is quanti¤able (for example, by measuring the height of the column of liquid it holds up) and temperature, suction, and other factors affecting the operation of funiculi are also quanti¤able; thus, it will be possible to produce mathematically expressed general funicular laws. Suppose, for instance, that Boyle had ¤lled the J tube in the same way that one ¤lled and inverted a Torricelli tube (as far as we know, he never did). Linus might then agree that a funiculus had been produced at the tip of the short leg. According to his hypothesis, the funiculus contracts until it is holding up the equivalent of a 292 inch column of mercury. Why, then, does the little space at the tip of the J tube shrink as more mercury is poured into the tube? (Or when more air is pumped into a receiver containing the Torricelli apparatus?) We may rephrase Linus’s hypothesis as follows: an unaided funiculus can lift the weight of 292 inches of mercury plus the weight of one atmosphere (whatever that weight might be; Linus agrees that the air has some weight, but not enough to account for Boyle’s experimental results). And Boyle’s experiments with the J tube show that, if...

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