Thomas Willard Testing the Waters: Early Modern Studies Introduction “All men by nature desire to know,” wrote Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.). The first phi- losophers, he said, wanted to know the causes and principles of things and espe- cially how the material world arose. He noted that Thales (ca. 624–ca. 546 B.C.E.), “the founder of this group, says the first principle is water (for which reason he says the earth rests on water).” He added that Anaximenes (ca. 585–ca. 528 B.C.E.) thought air came before water, while Heraclitus (ca. 535–ca. 475 B.C.E.) thought fire came first and Empedocles (ca. 490– ca. 430 B.C.E.) thought all three ele- ments came into existence at the same time as earth, the fourth element. Because none of these four elements was adequate to generate “the nature of things,” Anaxagoras (ca. 510–428 B.C.E.) concluded that reason preceded all the world’s order and beauty.¹ That did not stop thinkers from wondering how all other sub- stances emerged or from positing the existence of a “first matter,” suggested in a fragment of Anaxagoras: “In everything there is a portion of everything else, except of mind [nous]; and in some things there is a fragment of mind also.”² As Europe entered the early modern period, almost two thousand years later, no one had really got beyond the thought of Thales as recalled by Aristotle: that the “seeds” (spermata) of all things are moist, and that moisture drives heat and growth. Of all the four known elements, water seemed the most essential to life itself. But there was little further understanding of water beyond its place in the cosmic dance of elements that Aristotle had described.³ However, the next three centuries between 1500 and 1800 saw a breakthrough in the understanding of water: what it was and how it blended with other substances to form waters of great variety. This chapter will review the contributions of several men and 1 Aristotle, Metaphysics, bk. 1, chpts. 1, 3; 980a, 983b–984b. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes, 2 vols. Bollingen Series, 71 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), vol. 2, 1552, 1555–56. 2 Anaxagoras, Fragment 7, in The Presocratics, ed. Philip Wheelwright (New York: Macmillan, 1966), 160. 3 Aristotle, Meteorology, bk. 1, ch. 2; 339a; Complete Works of Aristotle (see note 1), vol. 1, 556–57 Thomas Willard, The University of Arizona DOI 10.1515/9783110523799-020 .-032E-L; B1E ?P-5-T8BL 9;H-F1F -1 <FE-F9BL B1E 6B5L; <2EF51 -TF5BT85F - 6WPL25BT-21S 2G #FWT8BL =5FSF1TBT-21S 2G 7-LTI B1E ABTF5.-0 FE-TFE C; 2LC5FDIT 4LBSSF1 5F 858;TF5 :1D  =52>8FST 6C22. 4F1T5BL ITTP-FC22.DF1T5BLP52Q8FSTD2ML-C8B<EFTB-LBDT-211E2D:5/ 45FBTFE G52M 8B< 21 , -- 42P;5-HIT =  5F 858;TF5 :1D 2LL 5-HITS 5FSF59FE