 One of the ways in which More supported this claim was to repeatedly insist that the Spirit of Nature operated blindly, without perception or intelligence (and so was not in any sense the manifestation of the direct action of God). He illustrates this by reference to the new experiments with an air-pump conducted by Robert Boyle. If the air-pump is fitted with a valve, the air beating against the valve will not only close the valve against itself, but “will bear up with it a ten-pound weight” (More 1662, Antidote Against Atheism, separately paginated, 44). This kind of “self-thwarting” activity (since the air really “intends” to fill up the vacuum in the chamber of the pump) shows not only that the air has “no Power, Knowledge, and liberty of will”, but also that there are no “Divine particles interspersed in the Aire that have”. More concludes at this point,