Philosophical Dialogues Concerning the Principles of Natural Bodies: wherein the Principles of the Old and New Philosophy are stated, and the new demonstrated, more agreeable to Reason, from Mechanical Experiments and its usefulness to the benefit of Man-kind.

Bookseller Notes

William Simpson was a medical doctor from York, whose dates in ESTC are given as 'active 1665-1677', this being the span of his printed works, all of which relate to his spat with Robert Wittie over Scarsborough Spaw. The present work deals more with Wittie's stubborn support of Aristotelianism. The two characters in the dialogues are Hydrophilus (intended for Wittie, as made clear in the Preface) and Pyrophilus (Simpson himself, or the type of the new philosopher as exemplified by Bacon, Harvey and Boyle - all mentioned in the text). The dispute with Wittie was characterised by some choice terminology, a feature of the present work. The dialogues begin with Hydrophilus in high choler: 'Would it not, Pyrophilus, raise the spleen of any, even the calmest Dogmatists, to see you appear upon the stage of the World, like so many Americans, presenting new and unheard of things...'