kind of Bastard-flesh or some such other Body which that Juice in the Place and other Circumstances 't is in is fitted to constitute Thus we see that not only Wens and Scrophulous Tumors are nourish'd in the Body but mis-shapen Mola's do by Nutriment grow in the Womb as well as Embryo's feed there And to come closer to the present Argument we see that in Wounds Proud-Flesh and perhaps Fungus's are as well produc'd and entertain'd by the Aliment brought to the wounded Part as the true and genuine Flesh so that either Nature seems much mistaken if She designs the Production and Maintenance of such superfluous and inconvenient Bodies or the Chirurgeon is much to blame who is industrious to destroy them though oftentimes he cannot do it without using painful Corrosives But for ought appears Nature is not so shy and reserv'd in Her Bounty but that She sends Nourishment to repair as well Things that do not belong to the Body as genuine Parts of It as to restore Flesh to wounded Parts as may appear by Warts and Corns that grow again after they are skilfully cut And I remember I have seen a Woman in whose Forehead Nature was careful to nourish a Horn about an Inch and more in length which I fully examin'd whilst it was yet growing upon Her Head to avoid being impos'd upon But besides the Diseases hither to discours'd there are many Others as well Acute as Chronical wherein 't is confess'd that Nature alone does not work the Cure so that as to these which are more numerous than the former I may well pretend that the Aphorism that makes Nature the Curer of Diseases is not true otherwise than in a limited Sense But because I know 't is pretended that even in these Diseases Nature is the principal Agent by whose Direction the Physician acts in subserviency to her Designs and Physicians themselves whether out of Modesty or Inadvertence I now enquire not are wont to acknowledg that they are but Nature's Ministers I think it necessary to consider briefly what Sense is fit according to our Doctrine to be given to these Assertions to make them receivable by us But to make way for what we are to say on this Occasion it may be fit to observe that one great Cause of the common Mistakes about this Matter is as hath been partly intimated already That the Body of a Man is look'd upon rather as a System of Parts whereof Most are gross and consistent and not a Few hard and solid too than as what indeed it is a very compounded Engine that besides these Consistent Parts does consist of the Blood Chyle Gall and other Liquors also of more subtil Fluids as Spirits and Air all which Liquors and Fluids are almost incessantly and variously moving and thereby put divers of the Solid Parts as the Heart and Lungs the Diaphragma the Hands Feet c. into frequent and differing Motions So that as when the Constitution or the Motions that in a sound Body do regularly belong to the Fluid Parts happens the former to be Deprav'd or the later to grow Anomalous the Engine is immediately out of Order though the gross solid Parts were not primarily affected So when by proper Remedies whether Visible or not the vitiated Texture or Crasis of the Blood or other Juices is corrected and the inordinate Motions that They and the Spirits are put into or that they also put the consistent Parts into are calm'd and rectify'd the grosser and more solid Parts of the Body and so the whole Animal Oeconomy if I may so call It will be restored to a more convenient State Thus we see that in many Hysterical Women by the fragrant Effluvia of a Spanish Glove or some Other strong Perfume the Spirits and Genus Nervosum being affected several disorderly Symptoms are produc'd and oftentimes the Motion of the Blood is so stopt or abated that any Pulse at all is scarcely to be felt nor Respiration discern'd and the whole Engine unable to sustain itself falls to the Ground and lies moveless on It and yet we have often by barely holding to the Patient's Nostrils a Vial full of very strong Spirit or Volatile Salt or Sal-armoniack or of Harts-horn in less than a quarter of an Hour sometimes in a few Minutes restor'd Women in that Condition to their Senses Speech and Motion We are also here to consider what I have formerly inculcated that the Oeconomy of the human Body is so constituted by the Divine Author of It that it is usually fitted to last many Years if the more General Laws setled by the same Author of the Universe will permit it And therefore 't is not to be wonder'd at that in many Cases the Automaton should be in a Condition to concur though not with Knowledge and Design to its own Preservation when though it had been put somewhat out of Order 't is assisted by the Physicians Hands or Medicines to recover a convenient State And if it be objected that the Examples that have been in this past Discourse frequently drawn from Automata are not adequate and do not fully reach the Difficulties we have been speaking of I shall readily grant it provided it be consider'd that I avowedly and deservedly suppose the Bodies of living Animals to be Originally Engins of God's own framing and consequently Effects of an Omniscient and Almighty Artificer So that 't is not Rational to expect that in the incomparably inferior Productions of human Skill there should be found Engins fit to be compar'd with These which in their Protoplasts had God for their Author Not to mention what yet may be considerable in reference to the Lastingness of human Life that a Man is not a mere Mechanical Thing where nothing is perform'd for the Preservation of the Engine or its Recovery to a good State but by its own Parts or by other Agents acting according to Mechanical Laws without Counsel or Design since though the Body of a Man be indeed an Engine yet there is united to It an Intelligent Being the Rational Soul or Mind which is capable especially if instructed by the Physitians Art to discern in many Cases what may hurt It and what may conduce to the Welfare of It and is also able by the Power it has to govern the Muscles and other Instruments of voluntary Motion to do many of those Things it judges most conducive to the Safety and the Welfare of the Body 't is join'd with So that a Man is not like a Watch or an Empty Boat where there is nothing but what is purely Mechanical but like a Mann'd Boat where besides the Machinal Part if I may so speak there is an Intelligent Being that takes Care of It and both steers It or otherwise guides It and when need requires trimms It and in a word as Occasion serves does what he can to preserve It and keep It fit for the Purposes 't is design'd for These Things being premis'd I think
the East the biting or stinging of a Creature whose offensive Arms were so small that the Eye could very hardly discern the Hurt had so lasting an Effect upon him that for about twelve Years after he was reminded of his Mischance by a Pain he felt in the hurt Place about the same time of the Year that the Mischief was first done him And in some Hereditary Diseases as the Gout Falling-sickness and some kinds of Madness Nature seems to act as if She did with Care as well as Skill transmit to the unhappy Child such Morbifick Seeds or Impressions of the Parents Disease that in spight of all the various Alterations the younger Body passes through during the Course of many Years this constantly protected Enemy is able to exert its Power and Malice after forty or perhaps fifty Years concealment Such Reflections as these to which may be added that the Naturists make no scruple to style That Death which Men are brought to by Diseases a Natural Death make me backward to admit the fam'd Sentence of Hippocrates hitherto consider'd Morborum Naturae Medici without limitations especially those two that are deliver'd in the Fifth Section To which I refer you the rather because they may help you to discern that divers Phaenomena that favour not the receiv'd Notion of a kind and prudent Being as Nature is thought to be are yet very consistent with Divine Providence SECT VIII I have now gone through so many of the celebrated Axioms concerning Nature that I hope I may reasonably presume that the other Sentences of this kind that my Haste makes me leave unmention'd will be thought capable of being fairly explicated and with Congruity to our Hypothesis by the help of the Grounds already laid since with light Variations they may be easily enough improv'd and apply'd to those other Particulars to which they are the most Analogous But this Intimation ought not to hinder me to make a Reflection that not only is pertinent to this place but which I desire may have Retrospect upon a great part of the whole precedent Discourse And it is This that though we could not Intelligibly explicate all the particular Axioms about Nature and the Phaenomena of Inanimate Bodies that are thought but not by me granted to favour them by Mechanical Principles it would not follow that we must therefore yield up the whole Cause to the Naturists For we have already shewn and may do so yet further ere long that the Supposition of such a Being as they call Nature is far from enabling Her Partizans to give intelligible Accounts of these and other Phaenomena of the Universe And though our Doctrine shâ—â—ld be granted to be as well as that generally receiv'd about Nature insufficient to give good Accounts of Things Corporeal Yet I shall have this Advantage in this Case that a less degree of Probability may serve in Arguments imploy'd but to justifie a Doubt than is requir'd in Those that are to demonstrate an Assertion 'T is true that the Naturists tell us that the Nature they assert is the Principle of all Motions and Operations in Bodies which infers that in explicating Them we must have recourse to Her But before we acquiesce in or confidently employ this Principle it were very fit we knew what it is This Question I have discours'd of in the Section But having there intimated a Reference to another Place the Importance as well as Difficulty of the Subject invites me to resume in this Place the Consideration of It and both vary and add to what I formerly noted that I may as well inculcate as clear my Tâ—oughts about It. I demand then oâ— Those that assert such a Nature as is vulgarly describ'd whether it be a Substance or an Accident If it be the later it should be declar'd what kind of Accident it is how a Solitary Accident can have Right to all those Attributes and can produce those numerous manifold and wonderful Effects that they ascribe to Nature and why a complex of such Accidents as are the Mechanical affections of Matter as Figure Bulk Motion c. may not altogether as probably as that Accident they call Nature be conceived to have been Instituted by the perfectly Wise Author of the Universe to produce those Changes among Bodies which are at least for the most part intelligibly referable to Them And if Things be not brought to pass by their Intervention 't were very fit as well as desirable that we should be Inform'd by what other Particular and Intelligible Means Nature can effect them better than they may be by that Complex But if it be said as by Most it is that the Principle call'd Nature is a Substance I shall next demand Whether it be a Corporeal or an Immaterial One If it be said to be an Immaterial Substance I shall further ask Whether it be a Created One or not If it be not then we have God under another Name and our Dispute is at an End by the removal of its Object or Subject which is said by the Schools to be God's Vicegerent not God Himself But if Nature be affirm'd as She is at least by all Christian Philosophers to be a Created Being I then demand Whether or no She be endowed with understanding so as to know what she does and for what Ends and by what Laws She ought to Act If the Answer be Negative the Supposition of Nature will be of very little Use to afford an intelligible Account of Things an unintelligent Nature being liable to the Objections that will a little below be met with against the usefulness of Nature in case She be suppos'd a Corporeal Being And though it should be said that Nature is endowed with Understanding and performs such Functions as divers of the Antients ascribe to the Soul of the World besides that this Hypothesis is near of kin to Heathenism I do not think that they who shall with many Grecian and other Philosophers who preceded Christianism suppose a kind of Soul of the Universe will find this Principle sufficient to explicate the Phaenomena of It. For if we may compare the Macrocosm and Microcosm in This as well as many are wont to do in other Things we may conceive that though Nature be admitted to be indowed with Reason yet a multitude of Phaenomena may be Mechanically produc'd winhout Her immediate Intervention as we see that in Man though the Rational Soul has so narrow a Province to take care of as the Human Body and is suppos'd to be intimately united to all the Parts of It yet abundance of things are done in the Body by the Mechanism of it without being produc'd by that Soul Of this we may alledge as an Instance that in Sleep the Circulation of the Blood the regular Beating of the Heart Digestion Nutrition Respiration c. are perform'd without the immediate Agency or so much as the actual Knowledge of the Mind And when a Man is awake
many things are done in his Body not only without the Direction but against the Bent of his Mind as often happens in Cramps and other Convulsions Coughing Yawnings c. Nay though some Brutes as particularly Apes have the Structure of many Parts of their Bodies very like that of the Analogous Ones of Human Bodies Yet that admirable Work of the Formation and Organization of the Foetus or little Animal in the Womb is granted by Philosophers to be made by the Soul of the Brute that is therefore said to be the Architect of his own Mansion which yet is neither an Incorporeal nor a Rational Substance And even in a Human Foetus if we will admit the general Opinion of Philosophers Physitians Divines and Lawyers I may be allowed to observe that the Human Body as exquisite an Engine as 't is justly esteem'd is form'd without the Intervention of the rational Soul which is not infus'd into the Body 'till This hath obtain'd an Organization that fits it to receive such a Guest which is commonly reputed to happen about the end of the Sixth Week or before that of the Seventh And this Consideration leads me a little further and prompts me to ask How much by the Supposition or Knowledge of the Mind at the newly mention'd time we are enabled to explicate the Manner How the foremention'd Functions of an Embryo are perform'd when at the end of six or seven Week the Rational Soul supervenes and comes to be united to this living Engine And if it be urg'd that Nature being the Principle of Motion in Bodies their various Motions at least which amount to a considerable Part of their Phaenomena must be explainid by having recourse to Her I answer that 't is very difficult to conceive how a Created Substance that is Immaterial can by a Physical Power or Action move a Body The Agent having no impenetrable Part wherewith to impell the Corporeal Mobile I know that God who is an mmaterial Spirit ought to be acknowledg'd the Primary Cause of Motion in Matter because as we may justly with Monsieur Des Cartes infer Motion not belonging to Corporeal Substance as such This must owe That to an Incorporeal One But then I consider that there is that infinite Distance between the Incomprehensible Creator and the least imperfect Order of his Creatures that we ought to be very Cautious how we make Parallels between Him and Them and draw Inferences from His Power manner of Acting to Theirs Since He for Instance can immediately act upon Human Souls as having Created Them but they are not able so to act upon one another And I think it the more difficult to conceive and admit that if Nature be an Incorporeal Substance She should be the greater Mover of the Mundane Matter because we see that in a Human Body the Rational Soul which the School-Philosophers assert to be an Immaterial Spirit tho' vitally united to it can only determin the Motion of some of the Parts but not give Motion to any or so much as Regulate it in most And if Nature be said to move Bodies in another than a Physical Way I doubt whether the Supposition of such a Principle will be of much Use to Physiologers in explicating Phaenomena since I shall scarce think him an Inquisitive or a Judicious Doctor who should imagine that he explains that it gives an intelligible and particular Account of the astonishing Symptoms of those strange Diseases that divers very Learned and Sober Physitians impute to Witchcraft when he says that those strange Distortions and convulsive Motions for Instance and other Prodigious Effects were produc'd by a wicked immaterial Spirit call'd a Devil But having to this purpose said more in another Paper which you may command the Sight of I shall not trouble you with it here The past Discourse opposes their Opinion who assert Nature to be an Immaterial Creature But because 't is thought that a greater Number of Philosophers at least among the Moderns take Her to be Corporeal I shall now address my Discourse to their Hypothesis And though I might object that if Nature be a Body it may be demanded How She can produce in Men Rational Souls that are Immaterial Beings and not capable to be produc'd by any Subtiliation or other Change of Matter whatsoever Yet waving this Objection I shall first demand Whether Those I reason with believe Nature though Corporeal to act Knowingly i. e. with Consciousness of what She does and for pre-designed Ends or else to be blindly and necessarily moved and directed by a Superior Agent indow'd with what She wants an excellent Understanding and then I shall represent a few things appliable some to one or the other of the two Answers that may be made and some to both And first the Cartesians would ask How if Nature be a Corporeal Substance we can conceive Her capable of Thinking and which is more of being a most Wise and Provident Director of all the Motions that are made in the Corporeal World Secondly A Philosophizer may justly ask How a Corporeal Being can so pervade and as it were com-penetrate the Universe as to be intimately present with all its Minute Parts whereof yet 't is said to be the Principle of Motion Thirdly He may also demand Whence Nature being a Material Substance comes itself to have Motion whereof 't is said to be the Principle Since Motion does not belong to Matter in itself and a Body is as truly a Body when it rests as when it moves And if it be answer'd that the First Cause that is God did at first put it into Motion I reply that the same Cause may at least as probably be suppos'd to have put the unquestion'd Mundane Matter into Motion without the Intervention of another Corporeal Being in whose Conception i. e. as 't is Matter Motion is not involv'd Fourthly It may likewise be ask'd How the Laws of Motion come to be observ'd or maintain'd by a Corporeal Being which as merely such is either uncapable of understanding them or of acting with respect to them or at least is not necessarily endow'd with any knowledge of them or power to conform to them to make all the Parts of the unquestion'd Mundane Matter do so too Fifthly And I do not see how the taking in such an unintelligent undesigning Principle will free our Understandings from great Difficulties when we come to explicate the Phaenomena of Bodies For as is elsewhere noted if Nature be a Bodily Creature and acts necessarily and if I may so speak fatally I see no Cause to look upon It but as a kind of Engine and the Difficulty may be as great to conceive how all the several Parts of this supposed Engine call'd Nature are themselves fram'd and mov'd by the Great Author of Things and how they act upon one another as well as upon the undoubted Mundane Bodies as 't is to conceive how in the World itself which is manifestly
the Chaos whilst the Bodies that compos'd it lay shuffled together and were not yet pack'd he says Hanc Deus melior litem Natura diremit To the recital of the Irreligious Errors of the Ancient Heathens about the Divinity of the World and some of its Principal Parts as the Sun Moon Stars Aether c. I should add a redargution of them if I thought it necessary in this place solemnly to refute Opinions some of which are altogether precarious and others very improbable Those Greek and Latin Philosophers that held the Sun to be a Fire were much at a loss to find out Fuel to maintain the Flame But those Zabians and Chaldeans that thought him indow'd not only with a living Soul but with Understanding and Will must if they had duly consider'd things have ben much more puzzled to find not only Food for so vast a Body above 160 times bigger than the Terraqueous Globe but to find in him the Organs necessary to the preparation and digestion of that Food and to the other Functions that belong to Animal-Nutrition And if we admit the Cartesian Hypothesis the Way whereby the Sun fix'd Stars and Planets are Generated will sufficiently manifest them to be neither Intelligent nor Living Bodies And perhaps I could here propose a quite other Hypothesis about the Nature of the Sun and the Fuel of its Fire that may be countenanc'd by some Phaenomena and Experiments without making him other than an Igneous and altogether Inanimate Body whose Flame needs to be repair'd by Fuel furnish'd to it nearer hand than from the Sea or Earth But I purposely omit such Objections against the Opinion I oppose as though drawn from the Dictates of sound Philosophy about the Origine of things may be question'd without being to be clear'd in few words 'T is also without proof that 't is presum'd and asserted That the Coelestial Bodies newly mention'd are indow'd with Understanding and Prudence especially so as to be able to know the particular Conditions and Transactions of Men and hear and grant the Prayers of their Worshippers And the Moon which was one of their Principal Deities and by them prefer'd before all the other Planets and Stars the Sun excepted is so Rude and Mountainous a Body that 't is a wonder that Speculative Men who consider'd how many how various and how noble Functions belong to a sensitive Soul could think a Lump or Mass of Matter so very remote from being fitly Organiz'd should be Animated and Govern'd by a true living sensitive Soul I know that both these Deifiers of the Coelestial Globes and also the Heathen Disciples of Aristotle besides divers of the same mind even among the Christians say great and lofty things of the Quintessential Nature of the Heavenly Bodies and their consequent Incorruptibility of the Regularity of their Motions and of their Divine Quality of Light that makes them refulgent But the persuasion they had of this Quintessential Nature of the Superior Part of the World was not if I guess aright grounded upon any solid Physical Reason but was entertain'd by them for its Congruity to the Opinion they had of the Divinity of the Coelestial Bodies Of which Aristotle himself especially in his Books De Coelo speaks in such a way as hath not a little contributed among his Followers to such an excessive Veneration for those Bodies as is neither agreeable to true Philosophy nor friendly to true Religion He himself takes notice that the Pythagoreans held our Earth to be One of the Planets and that it moved about the Sun which they plac'd in the middle of the World And since this Hypothesis of the Earths Motion was in the last Age reviv'd by Copernicus not only those great Men Keplerus Galileo and Gassendus but most of the best Modern Astronomers and besides Des-Cartes and his Sect many other Naturalists have imbrac'd this Hypothesis Which indeed is far more agreeable to the Phaenomena not only than the Doctrine of Aristotle who was plainly mistaken about the Order and Consistence of the Heavens but than the Ancient and generally received Ptolomaick System Now supposing the Terraqueous Globe to be a Planet he that considers that 't is but a round Mass of very Heterogeneous Substances as appears by the differing Natures of its great constituent Parts Land and Sea whose Surface is very rude and uneven and its Body opacous unless as it happens to be inlightned by the the Sun Moon and Stars and so very Inorganical for so much as Nutrition that it seems wholly unfit to be a living Animal much less a Rational one I say he that considers such things will scarce be forward to ascribe Understanding and Providence much less a Divine Nature to the other Stars As for Instance to the Moon which our best Telescopes manifest to be a very Craggy and Mountainous Body consisting of Parts of very differing Textures as appears by her brighter Parts and permanent Spots and which of herself is Opacous having no manifest Light but what she borrows from the Sun and perhaps from the Earth As for the boasted Immutability of the Heavenly Bodies besides that it may be very probably call'd in question by the Phaenomena of some for I do not say every one of the Comets that by their Parallax were found to be above the Moon and consequently in the Coelestial Region of the World besides this I say the Incorruptibleness and Immutability of the Heavenly Bodies is more than probably disproveable by the sudden and irregular Generation Changes and Destruction of the Spots of the Sun Which are sometimes so suddenly destroyed that I remember in the Year 1660. on the 8 th of May having left in the Morning a Spot whose Motions we had long observ'd through an excellent Telescope with an expectation that it would last many days visible to us we were surpriz'd to find that when we came to observe it again in the Evening it was quite dissipated though it seemed thick and by comparing it to the Sun we estimated the extent of its Surface to be equal to that of all Europe As to the constancy of the motions of the Stars if the Earth which we know to be Inanimated be a Planet it moves as constantly and regularly about the Sun in that which they call the Great Orb as the other Planets do or as the Moon doth about the Earth And I consider that though we should suppose our Globe not to be a Planet yet there would manifestly be a constant motion and Regular enough of a great Part of it Since bating some Anomali's that Shores Winds and some other Extrinsick things occasion there is a Regular Ebbing and Flowing twice a Day and also Spring-Tides twice a Month of that vast Aggregate of Waters the Ocean which perhaps is not inferior in Bulk to the whole Body of the Moon and whereof also vast Tracts are sometimes observed to Shine And Lastly Whereas a great Proof of the
odds the finest pieces of Workmanship to be met with among Bodies is ascrib'd not immediately to Nature but to the Soul itself which they will have to be the Author of the Organization of the Body and therefore call it the Architect of its own Mansion which they say that it frames by an Innate Power and Skill that some call Plastick and to which others give other Names And unto the same Soul operating by Her several Functions they attribute the Concoction of Aliments the Expulsion of Excrements the Production of Milk Semen c. the Appetitive Loco-motive and I know not how many other Faculties ascrib'd to Living Bodies And even in many Inanimate Ones the noblest Properties and Operations are by the same School-Philosophers attributed to what they call their Substantial Forms since from These they derive the wonderful Properties of the Load-stone the attractive Faculty of Amber and other Electricks and the Medical Vertues of Gems and other Mineral Bodies whether Consistent or Fluid But not to insist on this Argument because 't is but ad Hominem as they speak if we consider the Thing itself by a free Examen of the pretended Explanations that the Vulgar Philosophers are wont by recurring to Nature to give of the Phaenomena of the Universe we shall not easily look on those Accounts as meriting the Name of Explications For to explicate a Phaenomenon 't is not enough to ascribe it to one general Efficient but we must intelligibly shew the particular manner how that general Cause produces the propos'd Effect He must be a very dull Enquirer who demanding an Account of the Phaenomena of a Watch shall rest satisfied with being told that 't is an Engine made by a Watch-Maker though nothing be thereby declar'd of the Structure and Co-aptation of the Spring Wheels Ballance and other Parts of the Engine and the manner how they act on one another so as to cooperate to make the Needle point out the true Hour of the Day And to improve to my present purpose an Example formerly touch'd upon as he that knows the Structure and other Mechanical Affections of a Watch will be able by Them to explicate the Phaenomena of It without supposing that it has a Soul or Life to be the internal Principle of its Motions or Operations so he that does not understand the Mechanism of a Watch will never be enabled to give a rational Account of the Operations of It by supposing as those of Chiness did when the Jesuits first brought Watches thither that a Watch is an European Animal or Living Body and indow'd with a Soul This Comparison seems not ill to befit the Occasion of propounding It but to second It by another that is more purely Physical when a Person unacquainted with the Mathematicks admires to see That the Sun rises and sets in Winter in some Parts of the Horizon and in Summer in Others distant enough from them that the Day in the former Season is by great odds shorter than in the Later and sometimes as some days before the Middle of March and of Sept. the Days are equal to the Night that the Moon is sometimes seen in Conjunction with the Sun and sometimes in Opposition to Him and between those two States is every Day variously illuminated and that sometimes one of those Planets and sometimes another suffers an Eclipse this Person I say will be much assisted to understand how these things are brought to pass if he be taught the clear Mathematical Elements of Astronomy But if he be of a Temper to reject these Explications as too defective 't is not like that it will satisfie him to tell him after Aristotle and the School-Men That the Orbs of the Sun and Moon and other Coelestial Spheres are mov'd by Angels or Intelligences since to refer him to such general and undetermin'd Causes will little or not at all assist him to understand how the recited Phaenomena are produc'd If it be here objected That these Examples are drawn from Factitious not from merely Physical Bodies I shall return this brief Answer and desire that it be apply'd not only to the Two freshly mention'd Examples but to All of the like Kind that may be met with in this whole Treatise near the Beginning of which had I remember'd it something to the same purpose should have had Place I say then in short that divers of the Instances we are speaking of are intended but for Illustrations and that others may be useful Instances if they should be no more than Analogous Ones Since Examples drawn from Artificial Bodies and Things may have both the Advantage of being more clearly conceiv'd by ordinary Understandings and That of being less obnoxious to be Question'd in that Particular in which the Comparison or Correspondence consists And I the less scruple to imploy such Examples because Aristotle himself and some of his more learned Followers make Use of divers Comparisons drawn from the Figures and other Accidents of Artificial Things to give an Account of Physical Subjects and even of the Generation Corruption and Forms of Natural Bodies This Advertisement premis'd I persue the Discourse it interrupted by adding That thus we see That confirm'd which was formerly observ'd namely that though Mechanical Principles could not be satisfactorily imploy'd for explaining the Phaenomena of our World we must not therefore necessarily recur to and acquiesce in that Principle that Men call Nature since neither will That intelligibly explain Them But in that Case we should ingeniously confess That we are yet at a loss how they are perform'd and that this Ignorance proceeds rather from the Natural Imperfection of our Understandings than from our not preferring Nature in the Vulgar Notion of It to the Mechanical Principles in the Explication of the Phaenomena of the Universe For whereas Monsieur Des Cartes and other acute Men confidently teach that there are scarce any of these Phaenomena that have been truly and intelligibly deduc'd from the Principles peculiar to the Aristotelians and School-Philosophers it will scarce be deny'd by any that is acquainted with Physico-Mathematical Disciplines such as Opticks Astronomy Hydrostaticks and Mechanicks more strictly so call'd but that very many Effects whereof Some have been handled in this present Tract are clearly explicable by Mechanical Principles which for that Reason Aristotle himself often imploys in his Quaestiones Mechanicae and elswhere So that if because the Corpuscularian Principles cannot be satisfactorily made Use of to account for all that happens among Things Corporeal we must refuse to acquiesce in them It is but just that since a Recourse to what is call'd Nature is yet more dark and insufficient at least we must reject as well the Later as the Former Hypothesis and endeavour to find some Other preferrable to Both. And now if it be demanded what Benefit may redound to a Reader from the Explications given in the foregoing Seventh Section and in general from the Troublesome as well as Free
examin'd before it be throughly entertain'd Let me therefore make bold to enquire freely Whether That of which we affirm such great Things and to which we ascribe so many Feats be that almost Divine thing whose works among others we are or a Notional thing that in some sense is rather to be reckon'd among our works as owing its Being to Human Intellects I know most men will be forestall'd with no mean prejudices against so venturous an Attempt but I will not do Eleutherius the Injury to measure Him by the prepossess'd generality of Men yet there are two scruples which I think it not amiss to take notice of to clear the way for what shall be presented you in the following Discourse And first it may seem an ingrateful and unfilial thing to dispute against Nature that is taken by Mankind for the Common Parent of us all But though it be an undutiful thing to express a want of respect for an acknowledg'd Parent yet I know not why it may not be allowable to question One that a Man looks upon but as a pretended one or at least does upon probable grounds doubt Whether she be so or no and 'till it appear to me that she is so I think it my duty to pay my gratitude not to I know not what but to that Deity whose Wisdom and Goodness not only design'd to make me a Man and enjoy what I am here bless'd with but contriv'd the World so that even those Creatures of his who by their inanimate condition are not capable of intending to gratifie me should be as serviceable and useful to me as they would be if they could and did design the being so and you may be pleas'd to remember that as men may now accuse such an Enquirer as I am of impiety and ingratitude towards Nature So the Persians and other Worshipers of the Coelestial Bodies accus'd several of the Ancient Philosophers and all the Primitive Christians of the like Crimes in reference to the Sun whose Existence and whose being a Benefactor to Mankind was far more unquestionable than that there is such a Semi-Deity as Men call Nature And it can be no great disparagement to me to suffer on the like Account with 〈◊〉 good Company especially when several of the considerations that Justifie them may also Apologize for me I might add that it not being half so evident to me that what is called Nature is my Parent as that all Men are my Brothers by being the Off-spring of God for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Aratus is adopted by St. Paul I may justly prefer the doing of them a service by disabusing them to the paying of Her a Ceremonial Respect But setting Allegories aside I have sometimes seriously doubted whether the Vulgar Notion of Nature has not been both injurious to the Glory of God and a great Impediment to the solid and useful Discovery of his Works And first it seems to detract from the Honour of the great Author and Governor of the World that Men should ascribe most of the admirable things that are to be met with in it not to him but to a certain Nature which themselves do not well know what to make of â—Tis true that many confess that this Nature is a thing of His establishing and subordinate to Him but though many confess it when they are ask'd Whether they do or no yet besides that many seldom or never lifted up their eyes to any higher Cause he that takes notice of their way of ascribing things to Nature may easily discern that whatever their words sometimes be the Agency of God is little taken notice of in their thoughts And however it does not a little darken the Excellency of the Divine management of things that when a strange Thing is to be effected or accounted for men so often have recourse to Nature and think she must extraordinarily interpose to bring such things about Whereas it much more tends to the Illustration of God's Wisdom to have so fram'd things at first that there can seldom or never need any extraordinary Interposition of his Power And as it more recommends the skill of an Engineer to contrive an Elaborate Engine so as that there should need nothing to reach his ends in it but the contrivance of parts devoid of understanding than if it were necessary that ever and anon a discreet Servant should be employ'd to concur notably to the Operations of this or that Part or to hinder the Engine from being out of order So it more sets off the Wisdom of God in the Fabrick of the Universe that he can make so vast a Machine perform all those many things which he design'd it should by the meer contrivance of Brute matter managed by certain Laws of Local Motion and upheld by his ordinary and general concourse than if he imployed from time to time an Intelligent Overseer such as Nature is fancied to be to regulate assist and controul the Motions of the Parts In confirmation of which you may remember that the later Poets justly reprehended their Predecessors for want of skill in laying the Plots of their Plays because they often suffered things to be reduced to that Pass that they were fain to bring some Deity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the Stage to help them out Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus c. And let me tell you freely that though I will not say That Aristotle meant the mischief his Doctrine did yet I am apt to think that the Grand Enemy of God's Glory made great use of Aristotle's Authority and Errors to detract from it For as Aristotle by introducing the Opinion of the Eternity of the World whereof he owns himself to have been the first Broacher did at least in almost all Mens Opinion openly deny God the Production of the World So by ascribing the admirable Works of God to what he calls Nature he tacitly denies him the Government of the World Which suspicion if you judg severe I shall not at more leisure refuse to acquaint you in a distinct Paper why I take divers of Aristotle's Opinions relating to Religion to be more unfriendly not to say pernicious to It than those of several other Heathen Philosophers And here give me leave to prevent an Objection that some may make as if to deny the receiv'd Notion of Nature a Man must also deny Providence of which Nature is the Grand Instrument For in the first place my Opinion hinders me not at all from acknowledging God to be the Author of the Universe and the continual Preserver and Upholder of it which is much more than the Peripatetick Hypothesis which as we were saying makes the World Eternal will allow its Embracers to admit and those things which the School-Philosophers ascribe to the Agency of Nature interposing according to Emergencies I ascribe to the Wisdom of God in the first Fabrick of the Universe which He so admirably contrived that if
He but continue his ordinary and general concourse there will be no necessity of extraordinary interpositions which may reduce him to seem as it were to Play After-Games all those Exigencies upon whose account Philosophers and Physicians seem to have devis'd what they call Nature being foreseen and provided for in the first Fabrick of the World so that meer Matter so ordered shall in such and such Conjunctures of Circumstances do all that Philosophers ascribe on such occasions to their almost Omniscient Nature without any knowledg of what it does or acting otherwise than according to the Catholick Laws of Motion And methinks the difference betwixt their Opinion of God's Agency in the World and that which I would propose may be somewhat adumbrated by saying That they seem to imagine the World to be after the nature of a Puppet whose Contrivance indeed may be very Artificial but yet is such that almost every particular motion the Artificer is fain by drawing sometimes one Wire or String sometimes another to guide and oftentimes over-rule the Actions of the Engine whereas according to us 't is like a rare Clock such as may be that at Strasbourg where all things are so skilfully contriv'd that the Engine being once set a Moving all things proceed according to the Artificers first design and the Motions of the little Statues that at such hours perform these or those things do not require like those of Puppets the peculiar interposing of the Artificer or any Intelligent Agent imployed by him but perform their functions upon particular occasions by vertue of the General and Primitive Contrivance of the whole Engine The Modern Aristotelians and other Philosophers would not be tax'd as injurious to Providence though they now ascribe to the ordinary course of Nature those regular Motions of the Planets that Aristotle and most of his Followers and among them the Christian School-men did formerly ascribe to the particular guidance of Intelligent and Immaterial Beings which they assign'd to be the Movers of the Coelestial Orbs. And when I consider how many things that seem Anomalies to us do frequently enough happen in the World I think it is more consonant to the respect we owe to Divine Providence to conceive that as God is a most free as well as a most wise Agent and may in many Things have ends unknown to us He very well foresaw and thought fit that such seeming Anomalies should come to pass since he made them as is evident in the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon the Genuine consequences of the Order He was pleas'd to settle in the World by whose Laws the Grand Agents in the Universe were impower'd and determin'd to act according to the respective Natures he had given them and the course of things was allowed to run on though that would infer the happening of seeming Anomalies and things really repugnant to the Good or Welfare of divers particular Portions of the Universe This I say I think to be a Notion more respectful to Divine Providence than to imagine as we commonly do that God has appointed an Intelligent and Powerful Being called Nature to be as his Vice-gerent continually watchful for the good of the Universe in general and of the particular Bodies that compose it whilst in the mean time this Being appears not to have the skill or the power to prevent such Anomalies which oftentimes prove destructive to multitudes of Animals and other Noble Creatures as in Plagues c. and sometimes prejudicial to greater Portions of the Universe as in Earth-quakes of a large spread Eclipses of the Luminaries great and lasting Spots on the Sun Eruptions of Vulcan great Comets or new Stars that pass from one Region of Heaven to another And I am the more tender of admitting such a Lieutenant to Divine Providence as Nature is fancied to be because I shall hereafter give you some Instances in which it seems that if there were such a thing she must be said to act too blindly and impotently to discharge well the Part she is said to be trusted with I shall add that the Doctrine I plead for does much better than its Rival comply with what Religion teaches us about the extraordinary and supernatural Interpositions of Divine Providence For when it pleases God to over-rule or controul the establish'd course of things in the World by his own Omnipotent Hand what is thus perform'd may be much easier discern'd and acknowledg'd to be miraculous by them that admit in the ordinary course of Corporeal Things nothing but Matter and Motion whose Powers Men may well judg of than by those who think there is besides a certain Semi-Deity which they call Nature whose Skill and Power they acknowledg to be exceeding great and yet have no sure way of estimating how great they are and how far they may extend And give me leave to take notice to you on this occasion that I observe the Miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles pleaded by Christians on the behalf of their Religion to have been very differingly look'd on by Epicurean and other Corpuscularian Infidels and by those other Unbelievers who admit of a Soul of the World or Spirits in the Stars or in a word think the Universe to be Governed by Intellectual Beings distinct from the Supream Being we call God For this later sort of Infidels have often admitted those matters of Fact which we Christians call Miracles and yet have endeavour'd to solve them by Astral Operations and other Ways not here to be specified Whereas the Epicureà n Enemies of Christianity have thought themselves oblig'd resolutely to deny the matters of Fact themselves as well discerning that the things said to be perform'd exceeded the Mechanical Powers of Matter and Motion as they were managed by those that wrought the Miracles and consequently must either be deny'd to have been done or be confess'd to have been truly Miraculous But there may hereafter be occasion both to improve the things already said and add others to satisfie Theological scruples about our Hypothesis I formerly told you that 't was not only to the Glory of God as that results from his Wisdom Power an◠Goodness express'd in the World that I suspected the Notion of Nature that I am examining to be prejudicial but also to the Discovery of his Works And you will make no great difficulty to believe me if you consider that whilst Men allow themselves so general and easie a way or rendring accounts of things that are difficult as to attribute them to Nature shame will not reduce them to a more industrious scrutiny into the Reasons of Things and curiosity itself will move them to it the more faintly Of which we have a clear and eminent Example in the Ascension of Water in Pumps and in other Phaenomena's of that kind whose true Physical Causes had never been found out if the Moderns had acquiesced as their Predecessors did in that imaginary one that the World was Govern'd
without frequently interrupting and disordering my Discourse by Exceptions that would either make it appear intricate or would be very troublesome to you or any other that you may think fit to make my Reader I thought I might for others ease and my own be allow'd to set aside the considerations of it in the present Treatise And the rather because all other parts of the Universe being according to the receiv'd Opinion the Works of Nature we shall not want in them Subjects more than sufficiently numerous whereon to make our Examen Though I shall here consider the World but as the great System of things Corporeal as it once really was towards the close of the sixth day of the Creation when God had finish'd all his material Works but had not yet Created Man SECT II. I. A Considering Person may well be tempted to suspect that Men have generally had but imperfect and confused Notions concerning Nature if he but observes that they apply that Name to several things and those too such as have some of them very little dependance on or connexion with such others And I remember that in Aristotle's Metaphysicks I met with a whole Chapter expresly written to enumerate the various Acceptions of the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commonly render'd Nature of which if I mistake not he there reckons up six In English also we have not fewer but rather more numerous significations of that Term. For sometimes we use the word Nature for that Author of Nature whom the School-men harshly enough call Natura Naturans as when 't is said that Nature hath made Man partly Corporeal and partly Immaterial Sometimes we mean by the Nature of a thing the Essence or that which the School-men scruple not to call the Quiddity of a thing namely the Attribute or Attributes on whose score it is what it is whether the thing be corporeal or not as when we attempt to define the Nature of an Angle or of a Triangle or of a Fluid Body as such Sometimes we confound that which a Man has by Nature with what accrues to him by Birth as when we say that such a Man is noble by Nature or such a Child naturally forward or sickly or frightful Sometimes we take Nature for an Internal Principle of Motion as when we say that a Stone let fall in the Air is by Nature carried towards the Centre of the Earth and on the contrary that Fire or Flame does Naturally move upwards towards Heaven Sometimes we understand by Nature the Establish'd course of things as when we say that Nature makes the Night succeed the Day Nature hath made Respiration necessary to the Life of Men. Sometimes we take Nature for an Aggregate of Powers belonging to a Body especially a Living one as when Physicians say that Nature is strong or weak or spent or that in such or such Diseases Nature left to her self will do the Cure Sometimes we take Nature for the Universe or System of the Corporeal works of God as when 't is said of a Phoenix or a Chimera that there is no such thing in Nature i. e. in the World And sometimes too and that most commonly we would express by the Word Nature a Semi-deity or other strange kind of Being such as this Discourse examines the Notion of And besides these more Absolute Acceptions if I may so call them of the word Nature it has divers others more Relative as Nature is wont to be set in Opposition or Contradistinction to other things as when we say of a Stone when it falls downwards that it does it by a Natural motion but that if it be thrown upwards its motion that way is violent So Chymists distinguish Vitriol into Natural and Fictitious or made by Art i. e. by the Intervention of Human Power or Skill so 't is said that water kept suspended in a sucking Pump is not in its natural place as that is which is Stagnant in the Well We say also that Wicked Men are still in the state of Nature but the Regenerate in a state of Grace That Cures wrought by Medicines are Natural Operations but the miraculous ones wrought by Christ and his Apostles were Supernatural Nor are these the only Forms of Speech that a more diligent Collector than I think it necessary I should here be might instance in to manifest the Ambiguity of the word Nature by the many and various things 't is applied to signifie tho' some of those already mentioned should be judged too near to be co-incident Among Latin Writers I found the acceptions of the word Nature to be so many that I remember one Author reckons up no less than fourteen or fifteen From all which 't is not difficult to gather how easie 't is for the generality of Men without excepting those that write of Natural Things to impose upon others and themselves in the use of a word so apt to be mis-imploy'd On this occasion I can scarce forbear to tell you that I have often look'd upon it as an unhappy thing and prejudicial both to Philosophy and Physick that the word Nature hath been so frequently and yet so unskilfully imploy'd both in Books and in Discourse by all sorts of Men Learned and Illiterate For the very great Ambiguity of this term and the promiscuous use Men are wont to make of it without sufficiently attending to its different Significations makes many of the Expressions wherein they imploy it and think they do it well and truly to be either not intelligible or not proper or not true Which Observation tho' it be not heeded may with the help of a little attention be easily verified especially because the Term Nature is so often used that you shall scarce meet with any Man who if he have occasion to discourse any thing long of either Natural or Medicinal Subjects would not find himself at a great loss if he were prohibited the use of the word Nature and of those Phrases whereof it makes the principal part And I confess I could heartily wish that Philosophers and other Learned Men whom the rest in time would follow would by common tho' perhaps Tacite consent introduce some more Significant and less ambiguous Terms and Expressions in the room of the too licenciously abused word Nature and the Forms of Speech that depend on it Or would at least decline the use of it as much as conveniently they can and where they think they must imploy it would add a word or two to declare in what clear and determinate sense they use it For without somewhat of this kind be done Men will very hardly avoid being led into divers mistakes both of things and of one another such wranglings about Words and Names will be if not continually multiplied still kept on foot as are wont to be manag'd with much heat tho' little use and no necessity And here I must take leave to complain in my own excuse of the scarce superable
Difficulty of the Task that the design of a Free Inquiry puts me upon For 't is far more difficult than any one that hath not try'd and I do not know that any Man hath would imagine to Discourse long of the Corporeal Works of God and especially of the Operations and Phaenomena's that are attributed to Nature and yet decline making oftentimes use of that Term or Forms of Speech whereof 't is a main part without much more frequent and perhaps tedious Circumlocutions than I am willing to trouble you with And therefore I hope you will easily excuse me if partly to shun these and to avoid using often the same words too near one another and partly out of unwillingness to imploy Vulgar Terms likely to occasion or countenance Vulgar Errors I have several times been fain to use Paraphrases or other Expressions less short than those commonly received And sometimes for one or other of these Reasons or out of Inadvertence miss'd of avoiding the Terms used by those that admit and applaud the Vulgar Notion of Nature whom I must here advertise you that partly because they do so and partly for brevity's sake I shall hereafter many times call Naturists Which Appellation I rather chuse than that of Naturalists because many even of the Learned among them as Logicians Orators Lawyers Arithmeticians c. are not Physiologers But if on this occasion you should be very urgent to know what Course I would think expedient if I were to propose any for the avoiding the Inconvenient use of so Ambiguous a Word as Nature I should first put you in mind that having but very lately declar'd that I thought it very difficult in Physiological Discourses especially to decline the frequent of that Term you are not to expect from me the satisfaction you may desire in an Answer And then I would add that yet my unwillingness to be altogether silent when you require me to say somewhat makes me content to try whether the mischief complain'd of may not be in some measure either obviated or lessen'd by looking back upon the Eight various significations that were not long since deliver'd of the Word Nature and by endeavouring to express them in other Terms or Forms of Speech 1. Instead then of the Word Nature taken in the first sense for Natura Naturans we may make use of the Term 't is put to signifie namely God wholly discarding an Expression which besides that 't is harsh and needless and in use only among the School-men seems not to me very suitable to the profound Reverence we owe the Divine Majesty since it seems to make the Creator differ too little by far from a Created not to say an Imaginary Being 2. Instead of Nature in the second sense for That on whose account a Thing is what it is and is so call'd we may imploy the Word Essence which is of great Affinity to it if not of an adequate import And sometimes also we may make use of the Word Quiddity which though a somewhat Barbarous Term is yet frequently imploy'd and well enough understood in the Schools and which is more considerable is very comprehensive and yet free enough from Ambiguity 3. What is meant by the Word Nature taken in the third sense of it for what belongs to a living Creature at its Nativity or accrues to it by its Birth may be express'd sometimes by saying that a Man or other Animal is Born so and sometimes by saying that a Thing has been Generated such and sometimes also that 't is thus or thus Qualifi'd by its Original Temperament and Constitution 4. Instead of the Word Nature taken in the fourth Acception for an Internal Principle of Local Motion we may say sometimes that this or that Body Moves as it were or else that it seems to Move spontaneously or of its own accord upwards downwards c. or that 't is put into this or that Motion or determin'd to this or that Action by the concourse of such or such proper Causes 5. For Nature in the fifth signification for the establish'd course of Things Corporeal 't is easie to substitute what it denotes the establish'd Order or the setled Course of Things 6. Instead of Nature in the sixth sense of the Word for as Aggregate of the Powers belonging to a Body especially a Living one we may imploy the Constitution Temperament or the Mechanism or the Complex of the Essential Properties or Qualities and sometimes the Condition the Structure or the Texture of that Body And if we speak of the greater Portions of the World we may make use of one or other of these Terms Fabrick of the World System of the Vniverse Cosmical Mechanism or the like 7. Where Men are wont to imploy the Word Nature in the seventh sense for the Vniverse or the Systeme of the Corporeal Works of God 't is easie and as short to make use of the Word World or Vniverse and instead of the Phaenomena of Nature to substitute the Phaenomena of the Vniverse or of the World 8. And as for the Word Nature taken in the eighth and last of the fore-mention'd Acceptions for either as some Pagans styl'd Her a Goddess or a kind of Semi-Deity the best way is not to imploy it in that sense at all or at least as seldom as may be and that for divers Reasons which may in due place be met with in several Parts of this Essay But though the foregoing Diversity of Terms and Phrases may be much increas'd yet I confess it makes but a part of the Remedy I propose against the future mischiefs of the confus'd Acception of the Word Nature and the Phrases grounded on it For besides the Synonymous Words and more literal Interpretations lately propos'd a dextrous Writer may oftentimes be able to give such a Form or as the Modern Frenchmen speak such a Tour to his many-ways variable Expressions as to avoid the necessity of making use of the Word Nature or sometimes so much as of those shorter Terms that have been lately substituted in its place And to all this I must add that though one or two of the eight fore-mention'd Terms or Phrases as Quiddity and Cosmical Mechanism be Barbarous or Ungenteel and some other expressions be less short than the Word Nature Yet 't is more the Interest of Philosophy to tolerate a harsh Term that has been long received in the Schools in a determinate sense and bear with some Paraphrastical Expressions than not to avoid an Ambiguity that is liable to such great inconveniences as have been lately or may be hereafter represented There are I know some Learned Men who perhaps being startled to find Nature usually spoken of so much like a kind of Goddess will have the Nature of every thing to be only the Law that it receives from the Creator and according to which it acts on all occasions And this Opinion seems much of kin to if not the same with that of the famous
Helmont who justly rejecting the Aristotelian Tenent of the Contrariety or Hostility of the Elements will have every Body without any such respect to act that which 't is commanded to act And indeed this Opinion about Nature though neither clear nor comprehensive enough seems capable of a fair Construction And there is oftentimes some resemblance between the orderly and regular Motions of inanimate Bodies and the Actions of Agents that in what they do act conformably to Laws And even I sometimes scruple not to speak of the Laws of Motion and Rest that God has establish'd among things Corporeal and now and then for brevities sake or out of Custom to call them as Men are wont to do the Laws of Nature Having in due place declar'd in what sense I understand and imploy these Expressions But to speak strictly as becomes Philosophers in so weighty a matter to say that the Nature of this or that Body is but the Law of God prescrib'd to it is but an improper and figurative Expression For besides that this gives us but a very defective Idea of Nature since it omits the general Fabrick of the World and the Contrivances of particular Bodies which yet are as well necessary as Local Motion itself to the production of particular Effects and Phaenomena's besides this I say and other imperfections of this Notion of Nature that I shall not here insist on I must freely observe that to speak properly a Law being but a Notional Rule of Acting according to the declar'd Will of a Superior 't is plain that nothing but an Intellectual Being can be properly capable of receiving and acting by a Law For if it does not understand it cannot know what the Will of the Legislator is nor can it have any Intention to accomplish it nor can it act with regard to it or know when it does in Acting either conform to it or deviate from it And 't is intelligible to me that God should at the Beginning impress determinate Motions upon the Parts of Matter and guide them as he thought requisite for the Primordial Constitution of Things and that ever since he should by his ordinary and general Concourse maintain those Powers which he gave the Parts of Matter to transmit their Motion thus and thus to one another But I cannot conceive how a Body devoid of understanding and sense truly so call'd can moderate and determine its own Motions especially so as to make them conformable to Laws that it has no knowledg or apprehension of And that Inanimate Bodies how strictly soever call'd Natural do properly act by Laws cannot be evinc'd by their sometimes acting Regularly and as Men think in order to determinate Ends Since in Artificial things we see many Motions very orderly perform'd and with a manifest Tendency to particular and pre-design'd Ends as in a Watch the Motions of the Spring Wheels and other parts are so contemperated and regulated that the Hand upon the Dyal moves with a great Uniformity and seems to moderate its Motion so as not to arrive at the Points that denote the time of the day either a minute sooner or a minute later than it should do to declare the hour And when a Man shoots an Arrow at a Mark so as to hit it though the Arrow moves towards the Mark as it would if it could and did design to strike it yet none will say that this Arrow moves by a Law but by an External tho' well directed Impulse SECT III. II. BUT possibly the Definition of a Philosopher may exempt us from the perplexities to which the Ambiguous expressions of common Writers expose us I therefore thought fit to to consider with a somewhat more than ordinary attention the Famous Definition of Nature that is left us by Aristotle which I shall recite rather in Latin than in English not only because 't is very familiarly known among Scholars in that Language but because there is somewhat in it that I confess seems difficult to me to be without Circumlocution render'd intelligibly in English Natura says He est Principium causa Motus Quietis ejus in quo inest primo per se non secundum accidens But though when I consider'd that according to Aristotle the whole World is but a System of the Works of Nature I thought it might well be expected that the Definition of a thing the most important in Natural Philosophy should be clearly and accurately deliver'd yet to me this celebrated Definition seem'd so dark that I cannot brag of any assistance I received from it towards the framing of a clear and satisfactory Notion of Nature For I dare not hope that what as to me is not itself intelligible should make me understand what is to be declared or explicated by it And when I consulted some of Aristotle's Interpreters upon the sense of this Definition I found the more considerate of them so puzzled with it that their Discourses of it seem'd to tend rather to free the Maker of it from Tautology and Self-contradiction than to manifect that the Definition itself is good and instructive and such as affords a fair account of the thing Defin'd And indeed though the immoderate Veneration they cherish for their Master engages them to make the best they can of the Definition given by him even when they cannot justifie it without strain'd Interpretations yet what every one seems to defend in gross almost every one of them censures in parcels this Man attacking one part of the Definition and that Man another with Objections so weighty not to call some of them so unanswerable that if I had no other Arguments to urge against it I might borrow enough from the Commentators on it to justifie my dislike of it However we may hereafter have occasion to consider some of the main parts of this Definition and in the mean while it may suffice that we observe that several things are commonly receiv'd as belonging to the Idea or Notion of Nature that are not manifestly or not at all comprehended in this Aristotelian Definition which doth not declare whether the Principle or Cause which Expression already makes the sense doubtful here mention'd is a Substance or an Accident and if a Substance whether Corporeal or Immaterial nor is it clearly contain'd in this Definition that Nature does all things most wisely and still acts by the most compendious ways without ever missing of her end and that she watches against a vacuum for the welfare of the Universe to omit divers other things that you will find ascrib'd to her in the following Section To which I now proceed That the great shortness of this Third Section may not make it too disproportionate in length to the others this Tract consists of I shall in this place though I doubt it be not the most proper that could be chosen endeavour to remove betimes the Prejudice that some Divines and other Pious Men may perhaps entertain upon the
account as they think of Religion against the care I take to decline the frequent use of that Word Nature in the Vulgar Notion of it Reserving to another and fitter place some other things that may relate to the Theological scruples if any occur to me that our Free Inquiry may occasion The Philosophical Reason that inclines me to forbear as much as conveniently I can the frequent use of the Word Nature and the Forms of Speech that are deriv'd from it is That 't is a Term of great Ambiguity On which score I have observ'd that being frequently and unwarily imploy'd it has occasion'd much darkness and confusion in many Mens Writings and Discourses And I little doubt but that others would make the like Observations if early Prejudices and universal Custom did not keep them from taking notice of it Nor do I think my self oblig'd by the just Veneration I owe and pay Religion to make use of a Term so inconvenient to Philosophy For I do not find that for many Ages the Israelites that then were the only People and Church of God made use of the Word Nature in the Vulgar Notion of it Moses in the whole History of the Creation where it had been so proper to bring in this first of second Causes has not a word of Nature And whereas Philosophers presume that she by her Plastick Power and Skill forms Plants and Animals out of the Universal Matter the Divine Historian ascribes the Formation of them to Gods immediate Fiat Gen. i. 11. And God said let the Earth bring forth Grass and the Herb yielding Seed and the Fruit tree yielding Fruit after his kind c. And again Vers. 24 God said Let the Earth bring forth the living Creature after its kind c. Vers. 25 And God without any mention of Nature made the Beast of the Earth after his kind And I do not remember that in the Old Testament I have met with any one Hebrew word that properly signifies Nature in the sense we take it in And it seems that our English Translators of the Bible were not more fortunate in that than I for having purposely consulted a late Concordance I found not that Word Nature in any Text of the Old Testament So likewise though Iob David and Solomon and other Israelitish Writers do on divers occasions many times mention the Corporeal Works of God yet they do not take notice of Nature which our Philosophers would have his great Vicegerent in what relates to them To which perhaps it may not be impertinent to add that though the late famous Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel has purposely written a Book of numerous Problems touching the Creation yet I do not remember that he imploys the Word Nature in the receiv'd Notion of it to give an account of any of Gods Mundane Creatures And when St. Paul himself who was no stranger to the Heathen Learning writing to the Corinthians who were Greeks speaks of the Production of Corn out of Seed sown he does not attribute the produc'd Body to Nature but when he had spoken of a grain of Wheat or some other seed put into the ground he adds that God gives it such a Body as he pleaseth and to every seed it s own Body i. e. the Body belonging to its kind And a greater than St. Paul speaking of the gaudiness of the Lillies or as some will have it Tulips uses this Expression If God so cloath the grass of the Field c. Matt. vi 28 29 30. The Celebrations that David Iob and other Holy Hebrews mention'd in the Old Testament make an occasion of the admirable Works they contemplated in the Universe are address'd directly to God himself without taking notice of Nature Of this I could multiply Instances but shall here for brevity's sake be contented to name a few taken from the Book of Psalms alone In the hundredth of those Hymns the Penman of it makes this That God has made us the ground of an Exhortation To enter into his Gates with Thanksgiving and into his Courts with Praise Psal. lxxix 34. And in another Let the Heaven and Earth praise God that is give Men ground and occasion to Praise Him congruously to what David elsewhere says to the Great Creator of the Universe All thy work 's shall praise thee O Lord and thy Saints shall bless thee Psal. cxlv 10. And in another of the Sacred Hymns the same Royal Poet says to his Maker Thou hast cover'd me in my Mothers womb I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made marvellous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right well Psal. cxxxix 13 14. I have sometimes doubted whether one may not on this occasion add that if Men will need takes in a Being subordinate to God for the management of the World it seems more consonant to the Holy Scripture to depute Angels to that charge than Nature For I consider that as to the Coelestial Part of the Universe in comparison of which the Sublunary is not perhaps the ten-thousandth part both the Heathen Aristotelian's and the School Philosophers among the Christians teach the Coelestial Orbs to be moved or guided by Intelligences or Angels And as to the lower or sublunary World besides that the Holy Writings teach us that Angels have been often imploy'd by God for the Government of Kingdoms as is evident out of the Book of Daniel and the Welfare and Punishment of particular Persons one of those Glorious Spirits is in the Apocalypse expresly styl'd the Angel of the Waters Which Title divers Learned Interpreters think to be given him because of his Charge or Office to oversee and preserve the Waters And I remember that in the same Book there is mention made of an Angel that had Power Authority or Iurisdiction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over the Fire And though the Excellent Grotius gives another conjecture of the Title given the Angel of the Waters yet in his Notes upon the next Verse save one he teaches That there was an Angel appointed to preserve the Souls that were kept under the Altar there-mention'd And if we take the Angel of the Waters to be the Guardian or Conserver of them perhaps as the Romans in whose Empire St. Iohn wrote had special Officers to look to their Aqueducts and other Waters it may not be amiss to observe upon the by that he is introduc'd Praising his and his fellow-Spirits Great Creator Which is an Act of Religion that for ought I know none of the Naturists whether Pagan or even Christians ever mention'd their Nature to have perform'd I know it may on this occasion be alledg'd that subordinata non pugnant and Nature being God's Vicegerent her Works are indeed his But that he has such a Vicegerent it is one of the main businesses of this Discourse to call in Question and till the Affirmative be solidly prov'd nay and tho' it were so I hope I shall be excus'd if with
Moses Iob and David I call the Creatures I admire in the visiible World the Works of God not of Nature and praise rather Him than Her for the wisdom and goodness displayed in them Since among the Israelites till they were over-run and corrupted by Idolatrous Nations there was for many Ages a deep silence of such a Being as we now call Nature And I think it much more safe and fit to speak as did those who for so long a time were the peculiar People of God than which the Heathen Poets and Philosophers who were very prone to ascribe Divinity to his Creatures and sometimes even to their own I mention these things not with Design to ingage in the Controversie about the Authority or Use of the Scripture in Physical Speculations but to obviate or remove a prejudice that as I formerly intimated I fear may be taken up upon the account of Theology or Religion against my studiously unfrequent imploying the word Nature in the vulgar sense of it by shewing that Whether or no the Scriptures be not design'd to teach us higher and more necessary Truths than those that concern Bodies and are discoverable by the meer light of Reason both its expressions and its silence give more countenance to our Hypothesis than to that of the Naturists SECT IV. III. HAving shewn that the Definition given of Nature by Aristotle himself as great a Logician as he was has not been able to satisfie so much as his Interpreters and Disciples what his own Idea of Nature was 't would be to little purpose to trouble you and my self with enquiring into the Definitions and Disputes of other Peripateticks about so obscure and perplex'd a Subject especially since 't is not my business in this Tract solicitously to examine what Aristotle thought Nature to be but what is to be thought of the vulgarly receiv'd Notion of Nature and tho' of this the Schools have been the chief Propagators for which Reason it was fit to take notice of their Master Aristotle's Definition yet the best way I know to investigate the commonly receiv'd Opinion of Nature is to consider what Effata or Axioms do pass for current about Her and what Titles and Epithets are unanimously given Her both by Philosophers and other Writers and by the generality of Men that have occasion to Discourse of Her and Her actings Of these Axioms and Epithets the principal seen to be these that follow Natura est sapientissima adeoque opus Naturae est opus Intelligentiae Natura nihil facit frustra Natura fine suo nunquam excidit Natura semper facit quod optimum est Natura semper agit per vias brevissimas Natura neque redundat in superfluis neque deficit in necessariis Omnis Natura est conservatrix sui Natura est morborum medicatrix Natura semper invigilat conservationi Vniversi Natura vacuum horret From all these Particulars put together it may appear that the vulgar Notion of Nature may be conveniently enough expres'd by some such Description as this Nature is a most wise Being that does nothing in vain does not miss of her Ends does always that which of the things she can do is best to be done and this she does by the most direct or compendious ways neither employing any things superfluous nor being wanting in things necessary she teaches inclines every one of her Works to preserve it self And as in the Microcosm Man 't is she that is the Curer of Diseases so in the Macrocosm the World for the conservation of the Universe she abhors a Vacuum making particular Bodies act contrary to their own Inclinations and Interests to prevent it for the publick Good What I think of the Particulars that make up this Paneygrical Description of Nature will God permitting be told you in due place my present work being only to make you the clearest Representation I can of what Men generally if they understand themselves do or with Congruity to the Axioms they admit and use ought to conceive Nature to be 'T is not unlike that you may expect or wish that on this occasion I should propose some Definition or Description of Nature as my own But declining at least at present to say any thing Dogmatically about this matter I know not whether I may not on this occasion confess to you that I have sometimes been so Paradoxical or if you please so Extravagant as to entertain as a serious Doubt what I formerly intimated viz. Whether Nature be a Thing or a Name I mean whether it be a real Existent Being or a notional Entity somewhat of kin to those fictitious Terms that Men have devis'd that they might compendiously express several things together by one Name as when for Instance we speak of the Concocting Faculty ascrib'd to Animals those that consider and are careful to understand what they say do not mean I know not what Entity that is distinct from the Human Body as 't is an Engine curiously contriv'd and made up of stable and fluid parts but observing an actuating power and fitness in the Teeth Tongue Spittle Fibres and Membranes of the Gullet and Stomach together with the natural Heat the Ferment or else the Menstruum and some other Agents by their Co-operation to cook or dress the Aliments and change them into Chyle observing these things I say they thought it convenient for brevity's sake to express the Complex of those Causes and the Train of their Actions by the summary Appellation of concocting Faculty Whilst I was indulging my self in this kind of Ravings it came into my mind that the Natuists might demand of me How without admitting their Notion I could give any tolerable Account of those most useful Forms of Speech which Men imploy when they say That Nature does this or that or That such a thing is done by Nature or according to Nature or else happens against Nature And this Question I thought the more worth answering because these Phrases are so very frequently us'd by Men of all sorts as well Learned as Illiterate that this Custom hath made them be thought not only very convenient but necessary insomuch that I look upon it as none of the least things that has procur'd so general a reception to the vulgar notion of Nature that these ready and commodious Forms of Speech suppose the Truth of it It may therefore in this place be pertinent to add That such Phrases as that Nature or Faculty or Faculty or Suction doth this or that are not the only ones wherein I observe that Men ascribe to a notional thing that which indeed is perform'd by real Agents as when we say that the Law punishes Murder with Death that it protects the Innocent releases a Debtor out of Prison when he has satisfied his Creditors and the Ministers of Justice on which or the like occasions we may justly say That 't is plain that the Law which being in it self a dead Letter is
some Definition or Description of Nature as Mine I hope you will be pleas'd to remember that the Design of this Paper was to examine the Vulgar Notion of Nature not propose a new one of my own And indeed the Ambiguity of the Word is so great and 't is even by Learned Men usually employ'd to signifie such different things that without enumerating distinguishing its various Acceptions 't were very unsafe to give a Definition of it if not impossible to deliver one that would not be liable to Censure I shall not therefore presume to Define a thing of which there is yet no settled and stated Notion agreed on among Men. And yet that I may as far as I dare comply with your couriosity I shall tell you that if I were to propose a Notion as less unfit than any I have met with to pass for the principal Notion of Nature with regard to which many Axioms and Expressions relating to that Word may be not inconveniently understood I should distinguish between the universal and the particular Nature of Things And of universal Nature the Notion I would offer should be some such as this That Nature is the Aggregate of the Bodies that make up the World framed as it is considered as a Principle by virtue whereof they Act and Suffer according to the Laws of Motion prescrib'd by the Author of Things Which Desrciption may be thus Paphras'd That Nature in general is The Result of the Vniversal Matter or Corporeal Substance of the Vniverse considered as it is contrived into the present Structure and Constitution of the World whereby all the Bodies that compose it are inabled to act upon and fitted to suffer from one another according to the setled Laws of Motion I expect that this Description will appear Prolix and require to be heedfully perus'd But the Intricateness and Importance of the Subject hindred me from making it shorter and made me chuse rather to presume upon your Attention that not endeavour to express my self intelligibly and warily about a Subject of such moment And this will make way for the other Subordinate Notion that is to attend the former Description Since the particular Nature of an Individual Body consists in the general Nature apply'd to a distinct portion of the Vniverse Or rather supposing it to be plac'd as it is in a World fram'd by God like Ours it consists in a Convention of the Mechanical affections such as Bigness Figure Order Scituation Contexture and Local Motion of its parts whether sensible or insensible convenient and sufficient to constitute in or to entitle to its particular Species or Denominations the particular Body they make up as the Concourse of all these is considered as the Principle of Motion Rest and Changes in that Body If you will have me give to these two Notions more compendious Expessions now that by what hath been said I presume you apprehend my Meaning I shall express what I call'd General Nature by Cosmical Mechanism that is a Comprisal of all the Mechanical Affections Figure Size Motion c. that belong to the matter of the great System of the Universe And to denote the Nature of this or that Particular Body I shall style it the Private the Particular or if you please the Individual Mechanism of That Body or for Brevity's sake barely the Mechanism of it that is the Essential Modification if I may so speak by which I mean the Comprisal of all its Mechanical Affections conven'd in the Particular Body consider'd as 't is determinately plac'd in a World so constituted as Ours is 'T is like you will think it strange that in this Description I should make the present Fabrick of the Vniverse a Part as it were of the Notion I frame of Nature though the generality of Philosophers as well as other Men speak of Her as a plastick Principle of all the Mundane Bodies as if they were Her Effects and therefore they usually call them the Works of Nature and the Changes that are observ'd in them the Phaenomena of Nature But for my part I confess I see no need to acknowledg any Architectonick Being besides God Antecedent to the first Formation of the World The Peripateticks whose School either devis'd or mainly propagated the Received Notion of Nature conceiving not only Matter but the World to be Eternal might look upon it as the Province but could not as the Work of Nature which in their Hypothesis is its Guardian without having been its Architect The Epicureans themselves that would refer all things that are done in the World to Nature cannot according to their Principles make what they now call Nature to have been Antecedent to the first Formation of our present World For according to their Hypothesis whilst their numberless Atoms wildly rov'd in their infinite Vacuity they had nothing belonging to them but Bigness Figure and Motion And 't was by the Coalition or Convention of these Atoms that the World had its Beginning So that according to them it was not Nature but Chance that Fram'd the World though afterwards this Original Fabrick of things does by virtue of its Structure and the innate and unloseable motive power of Atoms continue things in the same state for the main this course though casually fallen into continued without Design is that which according to their Hypothesis ought to pass for Nature And as meer Reason doth not oblige me to acknowledge such a Nature as we call in Question Antecedent to the Origin of the World so neither do I find that any Revelation contain'd in the Holy Scriptures clearly teaches that there was then such a Being For in the History of the Creation 't is expresly said that In the beginning God made the Heavens and the Earth and in the whole Account that Moses gives of the progress of it there is not a word of the Agency of Nature and at the later end when God is introduc'd as making a re-view of all the Parts of the Universe 't is said that God saw every thing that he had made and 't is soon after added that He blessed and sanctified the Seventh Day because in it or rather just before it as I find the Hebrew Particle elsewhere us'd He had rested from all his Works which God created and made And tho' there be a passage in the Book of Iob that probably enough argues the Angels there call'd the Sons of God to have existed either at the beginning of the first Day 's Work or some time before it yet 't is not there so much as intimated that they were Co-operators with their Maker in the Framing of the World of which they are represented as Spectators and Applauders but not so much as Instruments But since Revelation as much as I always reverence it is I confess a Foreign Principle in this Philosophical Enquiry I shall wave it here and tell you That when I consult only the Light of Reason I am
inclin'd to apprehend the First Formation of the World after some such manner as this I think it probable for I would not Dogmatize on so weighty and so difficult a Subject that the Great and Wise Author of Things did when he first Form'd the universal and undistinguish'd matter into the World put its Parts into various Motions whereby they were necessarily divided into numberless Portions of differing Bulks Figures and Scituations in respect of each other And that by his Infinite Wisdom and Power he did so guide and over-rule the Motions of these Parts at the beginning of things as that whether in a shorter or a longer time Reason cannot well determine they were finally dispos'd into that Beautiful and Orderly Frame we call the World among whose Parts some were so curiously contriv'd as to be fit to become the Seeds or Seminal Principles of Plants and Animals And I further conceive that he setled such Laws or Rules of Local Motion among the Parts of the Universal Matter that by his ordinary and preserving Concourse the several Parts of the Universe thus once completed should be able to maintain the great Construction or System and Oeconomy of the Mundane Bodies and propagate the Species of Living Creatures So that according to this Hypothesis I suppose no other Efficient of the Universe but God himself whose Almighty Power still accompanied with his Infinite Wisdom did at first Frame the Corporeal World according to the Divine Idea's which he had as well most freely as most wisely determin'd to conform them to For I think it is a Mistake to imagine as we are wont to do that what is call'd the Nature of this or that Body is wholly compris'd in its own Matter and its I say not Substantial but Essential Form as if from that or these only all its Operations must flow For an Individual Body being but a Part of the World and incompass'd with other Parts of the same great Automaton needs the Assistance or Concourse of other Bodies which are external Agents to perform divers of its Operations and exhibit several Phaenomena's that belong to it This would quickly and manifestly appear if for Instance an Animal or an Herb could be remov'd into those Imaginary Spaces the School-men tell us of beyond the World or into such a place as the Epicureans fancy their Intermundia or empty Intervals between those numerous Worlds their Master dream'd of For whatever the Structures of these living Engines be they would as little without the Co-operations of external Agents such as the Sun Aether Air c. be able to exercise their Functions as the great Mills commonly us'd with us would be to Grind Corn without the assistance of Wind or running Water Which may be thought the more credible if it be considered that by the meer Exclusion of the Air tho' not of Light or the Earth's Magnetical Effluvia c. procur'd by the Air-pump Bodies plac'd in an extraordinary large Glass will presently come into so differing a state that warm Animals cannot live in it nor flame tho' of pure Spirit of Wine burn nor Syringes draw up Water nor Bees or such winged Insects fly nor Caterpillars crawl nay nor Fire run along a train of dryed Gunpowder All which I speak upon my own experience According to the foregoing Hypothesis I consider the frame of the World already made as a Great and if I may so speak Pregnant Automaton that like a Woman with Twins in her Womb or a Ship furnish'd with Pumps Ordnance c. is such an Engine as comprises or consists of several lesser Engines And this Compounded Machine in conjunction with the Laws of Motion freely establish'd and still maintain'd by God among its Parts I look upon as a Complex Principle whence results the setled Order or Course of things Corporeal And that which happens according to this course may generally speaking be said to come to pass according to Nature or to be done by Nature and that which thwarts this Order may be said to be Preternatural or contrary to Nature And indeed though Men talk of Nature as they please yet whatever is done among things Inanimate which make incomparably the greatest part of the Universe is really done but by particular Bodies acting on one another by Local Motion Modifi'd by the other Mechanical Affections of the Agent of the Patient and of those other Bodies that necessarily concur to the Effect or the Phaenomenon produc'd N. B. Those that do not relish the knowledg of the Opinions and Rights of the Ancient Iews and Heathens may pass on to the next or V. Section and skip the whole following Excursion compris'd between double Paratheses's which though neither impertinent nor useless to the scope of this Treatise is not absolutely necessary to it In the foregoing III. Section of this Treatise I hope I have given a sufficient Reason of my backwardness to make frequent use of the Word Nature and now in this IV. Section having laid down such a Description of Nature as shews that her Votaries represent her as a Goddess or at least a Semi-Deity 'T will not be improper in this place to declare some of the Reasons of my dissatisfaction with the Notion or Thing it self as well as with the use of the Name and to shew why I am not willing to comply with those Many that would impose it upon us as very friendly to Religion And these reasons I shall the rather propose because not only the Generality of other Learned Men as I just now intimated but that of Divines themselves for want of Information or for some other cause seem not to have well consider'd so weighty a matter To manifest therefore the Malevolent Aspect that the Vulgar Notion of Nature has had and therefore possibly may have on Religion I think fit in a general way to premise what things they are which seem to me to have been the Fundamental Errors that mis-led the Heathen World as well Philosophers as others For if I mistake not the looking upon meerly Corporeal and oftentimes Inanimate Things as if they were endow'd with Life Sense and Understanding and the ascribing to Nature and some other Beings whether real or imaginary things that belong but to God have been some if not the chief of the Grand Causes of the Polytheism and Idolatry of the Gentiles The most Ancient Idolatry taking the word in its laxer sense or at least one of the earliest seems to have been the Worship of the Coelestial Lights especially the Sun and Moon That kind of Aboda zara 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Iewish Writers call strange or false Worships being the most Natural as having for its Objects Glorious Bodies Immortal always regularly mov'd and very beneficial to Men. There is Recorded in the Holy Scripture a Passage of Iob who is probably reputed to be at least as Antient as Moses which seems to argue that this Worship of the two great Luminaries was
Divinity of the Stars is taken from their Light though I grant it to be the noblest of Sensible Qualities yet I cannot think it a good proof of the Divine or very Excellent Nature of Bodies endow'd with it whether they be Coelestial or not For whereas the Zabians and Chaldeans Consider'd and Ador'd the Planets as the Chief Gods our Telescopes discover to us that except the Sun if he be one rather than a Fix'd Star they Shine but by a borrow'd Light in so much that Venus as vividly Luminous as it appears to the naked Eye is sometimes seen as I have beheld it Horn'd like the Moon in no long time after her Change And at this rate also the Earth whether it be a Planet or no is a Luminous Body being enlightned by the Sun And possibly as a Body forty times bigger communicates more Light to the Moon than it receives from Her as is probably Argued from the Light seen on the Surface of the Moon in some of Her Eclipses And though in the Night when the darkness hath widened the Pupils of our Eyes and the Moon Shines with an unrival'd Lustre she seems exceeding Bright yet she may be for ought I know more Opacous than the solid Part of the Terrestrial Globe For I remember that I have more than once heedfully observ'd a small Cloud in the West where the Moon then was about Sun-set and comparing them together the little Cloud as Opacous and Loose a Body as it was reflected the Light as strongly to my Eye as did the Moon that seem'd perhaps to be not far from It both of them appearing like little whitish Clouds though afterwards as the Sun descended lower and lower beneath the Horizon the Moon grew more and more Luminous And speaking of Light Indfienitely 't is so far from Arguing a Divine Nature in the Bodies that are endow'd with it whether as the Planets by participation from an External Illuminant or as the Sun from an Internal Principle that a burn'd Stone witness that of Bolonia will afford in proportion to its Bulk incomparably more borrow'd Light than one of the Planets And a Light from its Internal Constitution may be found not only in such abject Creatures as Insects whether winged as the Cucupias of Hispaniola or creeping as our Glow-worms but also in Bodies Inanimate and Corrupted as in rotten Wood in stinking Whitings and divers other putrify'd Fishes I cannot now stay to Enquire how the Zabians and such Idolaters as they could make out the Connexion Symmetry and Subordination or Dependance of the several Parts of the World compos'd of so many different and distant Beings endowed not only with Animal Souls but with their Distinct and Peculiar Understandings and Wills and many of them also with Divine Nature Nor shall I consider how strange a Monster rather than an Animal and a Deity those many Heathen Philosophers and their Adherents must make of the Universe who held it to be but one and yet were of the Paradoxical Opinion that as hath been elsewhere noted is roundly profess'd by Stobaeus at the very beginning of his Physical Eclogues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. i. e. Iupiter quidem totus Mundus est Animal ex Animalibus Numen ex Numinibus compositum These I say and the like Objections against the Pagan Doctrine I must not now insist on because I perceive that I have slipp'd into a somewhat long Digression which yet perhaps may not be altogether unseasonable or useless which therefore I shall here break off to resume and conclude the Discourse that this Section was allotted to which I might easily have enlarg'd but I presume there is enough said in it already to let you see that 't is a dangerous thing to Believe other Creatures than Angels and Men to be Intelligent and Rational especially to afcribe to any of them an Architectonick Provident and Governing Power And though I readily acknowledge that that there is no great danger that well Instructed Christians should like some Heathens Worship Nature as a Goddess yet the things I formerly alledg'd to shew it unsafe to cherish Opinions of kin to those that mis-led a Multitude even of Philosophers make me fear too many and not a few of the Learned themselves may have a Veneration for what they call Nature much greater than belongs to a meer Creature If they do not to use a Scripture Expresssion Worship the Creature above or besides the Creator who and not the World nor the Soul of It is the True God And though I should grant that the received Notion of Nature doth neither subvert nor much endanger any Principle of Religion Yet that is not enough for the purpose of those Naturists I Reason with since they are here supposed to make it a fault in others not to ascribe to the Nature they Venerate as much as themselves do And they represent their own Notion of it not only as Innocent but as very Useful if not necessary to Religion SECT V. IV. I Come now Eleutherius to acquaint you with some of the Reasons that have made me backward to entertain such a Notion of Nature as I have hitherto Discours'd of And I shall at present comprise them under the following five I. The first whereof is That such a Nature as we are speaking of seems to me to be either asserted or assum'd without sufficient Proof And this single Reason if it be well made out may I think suffice for my turn For in matters of Philosophy where we ought not to take up any thing upon Trust or believe it without Proof 't is enough to keep us from believing a thing That we have no positive Argument to induce us to assent to it though we have no particular Arguments against it And if this Rule be to take place in lesser Cases sure it ought to hold in this where we are to entertain the belief of so Catholick an Agent that all the others are look'd upon but as its Instruments that act in subordination to it and which being said to have an immediate Agency in many of the Phaenomena of the World cannot but be suppos'd to be Demonstrable by divers of them I have yet met with no Physical Arguments either Demonstrative or so much as considerably Probable to evince the Existence of the Nature we examin And though I should admit the use that some Divines contend for of the Holy Scriptures in Philosophical Controversies yet I should not be persuaded of the Existence of the Nature we Dispute of For I do not remember that the Scripture any where declares to us that there is such a thing in the sense by me question'd though as I formerly noted more fully in the IV. Section in Genesis and some other places where the Corporeal Works of God are expresly treated of though in order to Spiritual ends one might probably enough expect to find some mention of God's Grand Vicegerent in the Universe of Bodies if
he had establish'd any such But whatever be the true cause of the Scriptur's silence about this matter the silence itself is sufficient to justifie me for examining freely by Reason a thing that is not impos'd on my belief by Revelation And as for the Physical Arguments that may be brought in favour of the question'd Notion of Nature I shall e're long examine the Principal of them and shew that they are not Convincing To these things may be added as to the Proof drawn from the General Opinion about Nature That being a Popular not a Physical Argument it may indeed pass for currant with the Vulgar but ought not to do so with Philosophers II. The second Reason is taken from the Unnecessariness of such a Nature as is pretended For since a great part of the Work of true Philosophers has been to reduce the Principles of things to the smallest Number they can without making them insufficient I see not why we should take in a Principle of which we have no need For supposing the common Matter of all Bodies to have been at first divided into innumerable minute Parts by the Wise Author of Nature and these Parts to have been so dispos'd of as to form the World constituted as it now is and especially supposing that the Vniversal Laws of Motion among the Parts of the Matter have been establish'd and several Conventions of Particles contrived into the Seminal Principles of various things all which may be effected by the meer Local Motion of Matter not left to itself but skilfully guided at the beginning of the World if I say we suppose these things together with God's ordinary and general Concourse which we very reasonably may I see not why the same Phaenomena that we now observe in the World should not be produc'd without taking in any such Powerful and Intelligent Being distinct from God as Nature is represented to be And 'till I see some Instance produc'd to the contrary I am like to continue of this mind and to think that the Phaenomena we observe will genuinely follow from the meer Fabrick and Constitution of the World As supposing the Sun and Moon to have been put at first into such Motions about the Earth as Experience shews they have the determinate Celerity of these Motions and the Lines wherein they are performed will make it necessary that the Moon should be sometimes Full sometimes scarce Illuminated at all to us-ward sometimes Horned and in a word should exhibit such several Phases as every Month she doth and that at some times She and the Sun should have a Trine or a Quadrate Aspect c. and that now one and now the other of them should at set times suffer an Eclipse Though these Eclipses were by the Romans and others of old and are by many Unlearn'd Nations at this day look'd upon as Supernatural things and though also Aristotle and a multitude of his Followers fancy'd that such Regular Motions could not be maintain'd without an Assistent Intelligence which He and They therefore Assign'd to each of the Heavenly Orbs. And indeed the difficulty we find to conceive how so great a Fabrick as the World can be preserved in Order and kept from running again to a Chaos seems to arise from hence that Men do not sufficiently consider the unsearchable Wisdom of the Divine Architect or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Scripture styles him of the World whose piercing Eyes were able to look at once quite through the Universe and take into his Prospect both the beginning and end of Time So that perfectly fore-knowing what would be the Consequences of all the possible Conjunctures of Circumstances into which Matter divided and mov'd according to such Laws could in an Automaton so Constituted as the Present World is happen to be put there can nothing fall out unless when a Miracle is wrought that shall be able to alter the Course of things or prejudice the Constitution of them any further than He did from the Beginning foresee and think fit to allow Nor am I sure that the received Notion of Nature though it be not necessary is at least very useful to explicate Physical Phaenomena For besides that I shall shew e're long that several Explications where recourse to it is presum'd to be the most advantagious are not to be allow'd To give the Nature of a Things for the Cause of this or that particular Quality or Operation of it is to leave Men as ignorant as they were before or at least is to acknowledg that a Philosopher can in such Cases assign no better particular and immediate Causes of Things than a Shepherd or a Tradesman that never learnt Natural Philosophy can assign of the same things and of a Thousand others And though it be true as I formerly also intimated that in many Cases Philosophers themselves can answer no otherwise to such Questions as may be Propos'd to them than by having recourse to the Nature of the Thing yet such Answerers do not declare the proper Cause of a Dark Phaenomenon but only that he who imploys them does not yet know it And so this indefinite Notion of Nature which is equally applicable to the resolving of all difficulties is not useful to disclose the thing but to delude the Maker of the Question or hide the ignorance of the Answerer III. My third Argument is That the Nature I question is so dark and odd a thing that 't is hard to know what to make of it it being scarce if at all intelligibly propos'd by them that lay most weight upon it For it appears not clearly whether they will have it to be a Corporeal Substance or an Immaterial One or some such thing as may seem to be betwixt both such as many Peripateticks do represent substantial Forms and what they call real Qualities which divers School-men hold to be at least by Miracle separable from all Matter whatsoever If it be merely Corporeal I confess I understand not how it can be so Wise and almost Omniscient an Agent as they would have it pass for Besides that if it be a Body I would gladly know what kind of Body it is and how since among Bodies there can be no Penetration of Dimensions this Body can so intimately pervade as they pretend Nature does all the other Bodies of the World And to this I would add divers other Questions that would not be easily answered But I shall resume this Third Argument in another place If it be said that Nature is a Semi-substantia as some of the Modernest Schoolmen are pleas'd to call substantial Forms and real Qualities I roundly answer that I acknowledge no such Chymerical and Unintelligible Beings and shall only desire you to apply to them a good part of the Discourse made in certain Papers occasion'd by a Chymico-Physical Essay about Salt-petre against the pretended Origine and inexplicable Nature of the imaginary substantial Forms of the Peripateticks It remains
therefore that this Nature we speak of if it be any thing positive should be an Immaterial Substance But to have Recourse to such an one as a Physical Agent and not only a Determiner but the Grand Author of the Motion of Bodies and that especially in such familiar Phaenomena as the Ascension of Water in Pumps the Suspension of it in Watering-Pots for Gardens the running of it through Siphons and I know not how many others and to Explain its Casuality as they speak will I think prove a Work exceeding difficult Though I shall not here spend time to shew you the farther inconveniences of such a Supposition being to do that hereafter and in the mean-while contenting myself to observe as to many of the Naturists That though their Doctrine may favour it they seem rather content to talk darkly and uncertainly of what they call Nature than by clearly-Defining it expose it to Objections not easie to be answered and who foresee the advantage that the unsetledness of the Notion gives them to pretend Knowledg or disguise Ignorance IV. Since many of the most Learned amongst the Naturists are Christians and not few of them Divines too it may not be improper which else I should perhaps think it would be to add in this place that the next thing for which I dislike the Vulgar Notion or Idea of Nature is That I think it dangerous to Religion in general and consequently to the Christian. For this Erroneous Conceit defrauds the True God of divers Acts of Veneration and Gratitude that are due to Him from Men upon the account of the Visible World and diverts them to that Imaginary Being they call Nature which has no Title to them for whilst Nature is suppos'd to be an Intelligent Thing that wisely and benignly Administers all that is done among Bodies 't is no wonder that the generality of Philosophers and after their Example of other Men should admire and praise Her for the wonderful and for the useful things that they observe in the World And in effect though Nature in that sense of the Word I am speaking of be never that I remember to be found in the Sacred Writings yet nothing is to be more frequently met with and that adorn'd with Titles and Encomiums in the Books of Philosophers than Nature and Her Effects And if we consider that whatever has been said by some in excuse of Aristotle himself yet the generality of the Peripateticks from whom the Vulgar Notion of Nature is chiefly receiv'd made the World to be Eternal and referr'd all the Transactions among the Bodies it contains to what they call'd Nature Whence 't will not be difficult to perceive that if they do not quite exclude God yet as they leave him no Interest in the first Formation of the Universe so they leave him but very little in the Administration of the Parts it consists of especially the Sublunary Ones So that instead of the True God they have substituted for us a kind of a Goddess with the Title of Nature Which as they look upon as the immediate Agent and Director in all excellent Productions so they ascribe to Her the Praise and Glory of Them Whether this great Error in a Point of such Importance may not Undermine the Foundation of Religion I think it may not irrationally be suspected For since the most General and Efficacious Argument that has persuaded Philosophers and other Men that there is a God and a consideration of the Providence is afforded by the visible World wherein so many Operations and other Things are observ'd that are manag'd or perform'd with such Conduct and Benignity as cannot justly be ascrib'd but to the Wisdom and Goodness of a Deity They that ascribe these Things to mere Nature do much weaken the force of that Argument if they do not quite take away the necessity of acknowledging a Deity by shewing that without any need of having Recourse to Him of the Administration of the World and of what is perform'd among Things Corporeal an Account may be given Though when Men are put upon considering the matter and press'd to declare themselves more clearly they are asham'd to affirm that God and Nature are the same Thing and will confess that She is but his Vicegerent yet in Practise their Admiration and their Praises are frequently given to Nature not to God In like manner as though the Sun be the Fountain of Light and the Moon derives all Hers from the Sun yet the Sea in Its grand Motions of Ebbing and Flowing appears to respect the Moon and not the Sun For thus the generality of Men though they will acknowledg that Nature is inferior and subordinate to God do yet appear to regard Her more than Him To be short Nature uses to be so frequently recurr'd to and is so magnifi'd in the Writings of Physiologers that the excessive Veneration Men have for Nature as it has made some Philosophers as the Epicureans deny God so 't is to be fear'd that it makes many forget Him And perhaps a suspicious Person would venture to add That if other Principles hindred not as I know that in many and think that in most of the Christian Naturists they do the Erroneous Idea of Nature would too often be found to have a strong tendency to shake if not to subvert the very Foundations of all Religion mis-leading those that are inclin'd to be its Enemies from overlooking the Necessity of a God to the Questioning if not to the denyal of his Existence V. My Fifth and Last Argument is taken from hence That I observe divers Phaenomena which do not agree with the Notion or Representation of Nature that I Question For if indeed there were such an Intelligent Powerful and Vigilant Being as Philosophers are wont to Describe Nature to be divers things would not be done which Experience assures us are done And here I shall once for all give an Advertisement which I desire may be call'd to mind whenever there shall be Occasion in the following part of this Tract which is this That because Inanimate Bodies are usually more simple or less compounded and of a slighter and less complicated or curious Contrivance than Animals or Plants I thought fit to chuse most of the Instances I employ rather among lifeless Bodies whose Structure and Qualities are more easy to be Intelligibly and with Brevity Discours'd of than among living Creatures whose Textures being Organical are much more intricate and subtil And this Course I did not scruple to take because the Celebraters of Nature give her a Province or rather an Empire as large as the World and will have her Care and Jurisdiction reach as well to Inanimate as to Living Bodies and accordingly most of the conspicuous Instances they Alledge of her Providence and Power are taken from Bodies destitute of Life as when they tell us That the Ascension of Water in Sucking-Pumps and the Sustentation of it in Gardeners Watering-Pots are caus'd by
Nature's abhorrence of a Vacuum That heavy Bodies unhinder'd fall to the Ground in a Perpendicular Line because Nature directs them the shortest way to the Centre of the Earth and that Bubbles Rise thro' the Water and Flames Ascend in the Air because Nature directs these Bodies to re-join themselves to their respective Elements to omit other Instances of this sort that there will be occasion to mention hereafter Till when these may suffice to warrant my taking most of my Instances from Inanimate Bodies though I shall not confine my self to these especially when I shall come to Answer Objections that are taken from living Creatures The foregoing Advertisement will be I hope found conducive to clear the way for my Fifth Argument lately propos'd which concludes that if indeed there were such a Being as Nature is usually Represented to be several things would be otherwise Administred in the Universe than Experience shews they are To enumerate all the Particulars that may be propos'd to make this good would swell this Discourse much beyond the Bulk to which my Haste obliges me to confine it But to make you amends for the Paucity of Instances I shall now name by the kind of them I shall propose such as for the most part are taken from those very things whence the Wisdom and Vigilancy of Nature is wont to be confidently Argued which I the rather do that by such I may make way for and shorten the Answers I am to give to the Arguments e're-long to be Examined First then Whereas the great Care and Vigilancy of Nature for the common Good of the Universe is wont to be Demonstrated from the watchful Care she takes to prevent or replenish a Vacuum which would be very Prejudicial to the Fabrick of the World I Argue the quite contrary from the Phaenomena that occur about a Vacuum For whereas 't is Alledg'd that Nature in great Pumps and in the like Cases lifts up the heavy Body of Water in spight of its tendency towards the Centre of the Earth to obviate or fill up a Vacuity and that out of a Gardener's Pot or Inverted Pipe stopp'd at one end neither the Water nor even Quick-Silver that is near fourteen times as heavy will fall down lest it should leave a Vacuum behind it I demand how it comes to pass that if a Glass-Pipe be but a Foot longer than 34 or 35 Feet or an Inverted Tube fill'd with Quick-silver be but a Finger's breadth longer than 30 Inches the Water in the one and the Quick-silver in the other will subside though the one will leave but about a Foot and the other but about an Inch of deserted Space which they call Vacuum at the top of the Glass Is it possible that Nature that in Pumps is said to raise up every Day so many Hundred Ton of Water and if you will believe the Schools would raise it to any height left there should be a Vacuum should not have the Discretion or the Power to lift up or sustain as much Water as would serve to fill one Foot in a Glass-Tube or as much Quick-silver as an Inch of a slender Pipe will contain to obviate or replenish the Vacuum she is said so much to abhor sure at this rate she must either have very little Power or very little Knowledge of the Power she has So likewise when a Glass-Bubble is blown very thin at the Flame of a Lamp and Hermetically seal'd whilst 't is very hot the Cause that is rendered why 't is apt to break when it grows cold is that the inward Air which was before rarefied by the Heat coming to be Condens'd by the Cold left the space deserted by the Air that thus Contracts itself should be left void Nature with violence breaks the Glass in pieces But by these Learned Mens favour if the Glass be blown but a little stronger than ordinary though at the Flame of a Lamp the Bubble as I have often tryed will continue unbroken in spight of Natures pretended abhorrency of a Vacuum Which needs not at all to be recurr'd to in the Case For the Reason why the thin Glass-Bubble broke not when 't was hot and did when it grew cold is plainly this That in the former state the Agitation of the Included Air by the Heat did so strengthen the Spring of it that the Glass was thereby assisted and enabled to resist the weight of the Incumbent Air Whereas upon the Cessation of that Heat the Debilitated Spring of the Internal being unable to assist the Glass as formerly to resist the Pressure of the External Air the Glass itself being too thin becomes unable to support the Weight or Pressure of the Incumbent Air the Atmosphaerical Pillar that leans upon a Bubble of about two Inches Diameter amounting to above one Hundred Pound Weight as may be manifestly concluded from a late Experiment that I have try'd and you may meet with in another Paper And the Reason why if the Bubble be blown of a due thickness it will continue whole after it is Cold is that the thickness of it though but faintly assisted by the weakned Spring of the Included Air is sufficient to support the Weight of the Incumbent Air though several times I have observed the Pressure of the Atmosphaere and the resistence of the Bubble to have been by Accident so near the aequipollent that a much less outward Force than one would imagine applyed to the Glass as perhaps a Pound or a less Weight gently laid on it would enable the outward Air to break it with Noise into a Multitude of pieces And now give me leave to consider how ill this Experiment and the above-mentioned Phaenomena that happen in Glass-Pipes wherein Water and Quick-silver subside agree with the Vulgar Apprehension Men have of Nature For if in case She did not hinder the falling down of the Water or the Quicksilver there would be no such Vacuum produced as She is said to abhor Why does She seem so solicitious to hinder it And why does She keep three or four and thirty Foot of Water in Perpendicular height contrary to the nature of all heavy Bodies suspended in the Tube And Why does she furiously break in pieces a thin seal'd Bubble such as I come from speaking of to hinder a Vacuum if in case She did not break it no Vacuum would ensue And on the other side if we admit her Endeavours to hinder a Vacuum not to have been superfluous and consequently foolish we must confess that where these endeavours succeed not there is really produc'd such a Vacuum as She is said to abhor So that as I was saying either She must be very indiscreet to trouble Herself and to transgress Her own ordinary Laws to prevent a danger She need not fear or Her strength must be very small that is not able to fill a Vacuity that half a Pint of Water or an Ounce of Quick-silver may replenish or break a tender Glass-Bubble which
perhaps a Pound Weight on it would with the help of so light a Body as the Incumbent Air crush in pieces The other Grand Instance that is given of the Wisdom of Nature and Her watchfulness for the Good of the whole World is the Appetite She has Implanted in all heavy Bodies to descend to the Centre of the Earth and in all light Ones to ascend towards Heaven or as some would have it towards the Element of Fire contiguous to the Orb of the Moon But for positive Levity 'till I see it better prov'd than it hath hitherto been I allow no such thing Implanted in Sublunary Bodies the praepollent Gravity of some sufficing to give others a Comparative or Respective Lightness As a piece of Oak or the like Wood being let go in the Air falls down by its own Gravity or rather by virtue of the Efficient of that Gravity but if it be let go under Water it will though it be never so great a Log or piece of Timber ascend with a considerable force to the top of the Water which I hope will not be ascribed to a positive Levity since when it descended in the Air 't was by its Gravity that it did so But not to insist on this nor to take notice how wisely Nature has Implanted into all heavy Bodies an Appetite to Descend to the Centre of the Earth which being but a Point is not able to contain any one of Them not to urge these things I say I will only invite you to consider one of the most familiar things that occur among heavy Bodies For if for Example you let fall a Ball upon the Ground it will Rebound to a good height proportionable to that from whence you let it fall or perhaps will make several lesser Rebounds before it come to rest It it be now ask'd Why the Ball being let out of your Hand does not fall on this or that side or move upwards but falls directly toward the Centre of the Earth by that shortest Line which Mechanitians call Linea Directionis which is the Diameter of the Earth prolong'd to the Centre of Gravity of the Ball 'T will be readily Answer'd That this proceeds from the Balls Gravity i. e. an Innate Appetite whereby it tends to the Centre of the Earth the nearest way But then I demand Whence comes this Rebound i. e. this Motion upwards For 't is plain 't is the Genuine Consequence of the Motion downwards and therefore is encreas'd according as that Motion in the Ball was encreas'd by falling from a greater height So that it seems that Nature does in such Cases play a very odd Game since She forces a Ball against the Laws of heavy Bodies to ascend divers times upwards upon the Account of that very Gravity whose Office it is to carry it downwards the directest way And at least She seems in spight of the Wisdom ascribed to Her to take Her Mâ—asures very ill in making the Ball move downwards with so much violence as makes it divers times fly back from the place She intended it should go to As if a Ball which a Child can play with and direct as he pleases were so unweildy a Thing that Nature cannot manage it without letting it be hurried on with far greater violence than her Design requires The Reflection I have been making on a Ball may mutatis mutandis as they speak be applyed to a Pendulum For since 't is unanimously affirm'd by all that have written of it that it falls to the Perpendicular upon the Account of its Gravity It must not be deny'd that 't is from a Motion proceeding from the same Gravity that the swinging Weight passes beyond the Perpendicular and consequently ascends and oftentimes makes a multitude of Diadroms or Vibrations and consequently does very frequently ascend before it comes to rest in the Perpendicular Which is the Position wherein its Gravity is best comply'd with and which therefore it had been best setled in at first I shall not here mention those Grand Anomalies or Exorbitances even in the vaster Bodies of the Universe such as Earth-quakes that reach some Hundreds of Leagues Deluges Destructive Eruptions of Fire Famines of a large spread Raging Pestilences Coelestial Comets Spots in the Sun that are recorded to have obscured it for many Months the sudden Appearing the Dis-appearing and the Re-appearing of Stars that have been judg'd to be as high as the Region of the fix'd Ones I will not I say enquire how far these Anomalies agree to the Character wont to be given of Natures Watchfulness and Vigilancy because probably I may have hereafter a fit opportunity to do it and must now proceed to the remaining Instances I promis'd you which are taken from what happens to Animals As soon as I shall have dispatch'd some Considerations and Advertisements that seem necessary to be premis'd to what I have to offer about that difficult Subject If the past Discourse give rise to a Question Whether the World and the Creatures that compose it are as perfect as they could be made The Question seems to me because of the Ambiguity of the Terms too intricate to be resolv'd by a single Answer But yet because the Problem is not wont to be discuss'd and is in my Opinion of Moment in reference to Natural Theology I shall venture briefly to intimate some of the Thoughts that occurr'd to me about it Having first declar'd that I am with reason very backward to be positive in a matter of this Nature the Extent of the Divine Power and Wisdom being such that its Bounds in case it have any are not known to me This premis'd I consider that the sense of the Question may be Whether God could make the Material World and the Corporeal Creatures It consists of better and more perfect that they are speaking in a general way and absolute sense Or else Whether the particular Kinds or Orders of the Creatures in the World could any of them be made more perfect or better than they have been made To Answer the Question in the first-nam'd sense of it I think it very unsafe to deny that God who is Almighty and Omniscient and an Owner of Perfections which for ought we know are participable in more different manners and degrees than we can comprehend could not Display if it be not fitter to say Adumbrate them by Creating a Work more excellent than this World And his Immense Power and Unexhausted Wisdom considered it will not follow either that because this World of Ours is an admirable piece of Workmanship the Divine Architect could not have better'd It or because God himself is able to make a greater Master-piece this exquisitely contriv'd System is not admirably Excellent But the propos'd Question in the other sense of it will require some more words to resolve it For if we look upon the several Species of Visible Creatures under a more absolute Consideration without respect to the Great System of the
Universe of which they are Parts or to the more particular Designs of the Creator it seems manifest that many sorts of Creatures might have been more perfect than they are since they want many compleating things that others are indow'd with as an Oyster that can neither hear nor see nor walk nor swim nor fly c. is not so perfect a Creature as an Eagle or an Elephant that have both those Senses that the Oyster wants and a far more active Faculty of changing places And of this inequality of perfection in Creatures of differing kinds the Examples are too obvious to need to be enumerated But if the Question be better propos'd and it be inquir'd not whether God could have made more perfect Creatures than many of those he has made for that 't is plain He could do because He has done it but Whether the Creatures were not so curiously and skilfully made that 't was scarce possibly they could have been better made with due regard to all the wise Ends He may be suppos'd to have had in making them it will be hard to prove a Negative Answer This I shall indeavour to illustrate by a Supposition If one should come into the well-furnish'd Shop of an excellent Watch-maker and should there see a plain Watch design'd barely to shew the Hour of the Day another that strikes the Hours a third that is also furnish'd with an Alarm a fourth that besides these shews the Month Current and the Day of it and lastly a fifth that over and above all these shews the Motions of the Sun Moon and Planets the Tydes and other Things which may be seen in some Curious Watches In this Case I say the Spectator supposing him judicious would indeed think one of these Watches far more Excellent and Compleat than another but yet he would conclude each of them to be perfect in its own own kind and the Plain Watch to answer the Artificer's Idea and Design in making it as well as the more Compounded and Elaborate one did The same thing may in some Circumstances be further Illustrated by considering the Copy of some excellent Writing-Master for though there we may find some Leaves written in an Italian Hand others in a Secretary and in others Hands of other Denominations though one of these Patterns may be much Fairer and more Curious than another if they be compar'd together yet if we consider their equal Conformity to the respective Idea's of the Author and the suitableness to the Design he had of making each Copy not as Curious Sightly and Flourishing as he could but as Conformable to the true Idea of the sort of Hand he meant to exhibit and the Design he had to shew the Variety Number and Justness of his Skill by that of the Patterns he made Compleat in the respective Kinds we shall not think that any of them could have been better'd by him And if he should have made a Text-Hand as fair as a Roman-Hand by giving it more Beauty and Ornament he would not have made it better in its Kind but spoil'd it and by a Flourish of his Skill might have given a Proof of his want of Judgment But to return thither whence I began to make this Excursion perhaps Eleutherius you will object against the Examples I have produc'd before it that the Exceptions I have taken at some of the Proceedings of Nature may be as well urg'd against Providence and exclude the One as well as the Other from the Government of the World But to this I Answer that this Objection is Foreign to the Question which is about Mens Notion of Nature not God's Providence which if it were here my Task to Assert I should establish It upon Its proper and solid Grounds such as the Infinite Perfections of the Divine Nature which both engage and enable Him to Administer His Dominion over all things His being the Author and Supporter of the World The exquisite Contrivance of the Bodies of Animals which could not proceed but from a stupendious Wisdom The supernatural Revelations and Discoveries He has made of Himself and of His particular care of His Creatures by Prophecies Apparitions true Miracles and other ways that transcend the Power or overthrow or at least over-rule the Physical Laws of Motion in Matter By these I say and the like proper Means I would evince Divine Providence But being not now oblig'd to make an Attempt which deserves to be made very solemnly and not in such haste as I now write in I shall at present only observe to you that the Case is very differing between Providence and Nature and therefore there is no necessity that the Objections I have made against the Later should hold against the Former As to give you a few Instances of the Disparity in the first place it appears not nor is it likely that 't is the Design of Providence to hinder those Anomalies and Defects I have been mentioning Whereas 't is said to be the Duty and Design of Nature and Her only Task to keep the Universe in Order and procure in all the Bodies that compose it that things be carried on in the best and most regular way that may be for their Advantage Secondly Nature is confess'd to be a Thing inferior to God and so but a subordinate Agent and therefore cannot without disparagement to Her Power or Wisdom or Vigilancy suffer divers things to be done which may without Degradation to God be permitted by Him who is not only a self-existent and Independent Being but the Supream and Absolute Lord and if I may so speak the Proprietor of the whole Creation Whence both Melchizedec and Abram style Him Gen. xiv 19 23. not only the most High God but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Koneh Possessing or as our Version has it Possessor of Heaven and Earth And Who when He made the World and established the Laws of Motion gave them to Matter not to Himself And so being obliged to none either as His Superior or Benefactor He was not bound to Make or Administer Corporeal Things after the best manner that He could for the good of the things themselves Among which those that are capable of Gratitude ought to Praise and Thank Him for having vouchsafed them so much as they have and have no Right to except against His having granted them no more And as being thus oblig'd to none of his Works He has a Sovereign Right to dispose of them so He has other Attributes which He may justly Exercise and both intend And expect to be Glorified for besides his Goodness to Inferior Creatures and His Wisdom may be better set off to Men and perhaps to Angels or Intelligences by the great Variety of His Contrivances in His Works than by making them all of the excellentest Kind As Shadows in Pictures and Discords in Musick skilfully Plac'd and Order'd do much recommend the Painter and the Musician Perhaps it may be added That the permitting the
Course of Things to be somewhat violated shews by the Mischief such Exorbitances do how good God has been in setling and preserving the orderly Course of Things Thirdly As God is a most Absolute and Free so He is an Omniscient Being and as by His Supream Dominion over the Works of His Hands He has a Right to dispose of them as He thinks best for His own Glory so upon the score of His unfathomable Wisdom He may have Designs and if I may so speak Reaches in the Anomalies that happen in the World which we Men are too short-sighted to discern and may exercise as much Wisdom nay and as much Providence in reference to Man the Noblest Visible Object of His Providence in sometimes as in Divine Miracles receding from what Men call the Laws of Nature as He did at first in establishing them Whereas the Office of Nature being but to preserve the Universe in General and Particular Bodies in It after the best manner that their respective Conditions will permit we know what 't is She aims at and consequently can better discern when She misses of Her Aims by not well Acting what is presum'd to be Her Part. Fourthly We must consider that as God is an Independent Free and Wise so He is also a Just Agent and therefore may very well be suppos'd to cause many Irregularities and Exorbitances in the World to punish those that Men have been guilty of And whereas Nature is but a Nursing-Mother to the Creatures and looks e'ne upon wicked Men not in their Moral but in their Physical capacities God expresly declares in the Sacred Scriptures that upon Adam's Fall He Curs'd the Ground or Earth for Man's sake Gen. iii. 17 18. and that there is no penal evil in the City that is not deriv'd from Him Amos iii. 6. He is not over-rul'd as Men are fain to say of Erring Nature by the head-strong Motions of the Matter but sometimes purposely over-rules the regular Ones to execute His Justice therefore Plagues Earth-quakes Inundations and the like destructive Calamities though they are sometimes Irregularities in Nature yet for that very Reason they are design'd by Providence which intends by them to deprive wicked Men of that Life or of those blessings of Life whereof their Sins have render'd them unworthy But whil'st I mention Designs I must not forget that Mine was only to give you a Tast of the Considerations by which one may shew that such things as manifest Nature to act unsuitably to the Representation that is made of Her may yet when attributed to Divine Providence be made out to have nothing inconsistent with It. And yet somewhat further to clear this weighty matter and particularly some things but briefly hinted in what I have been lately Discoursing I think it fit before I descend to the Particulars that I am to employ against the Vulgar Notion of Nature to premise somewhat by way of Caution that I may do some Right though I can never do enough to Divine Providence and take care betimes that no Use Injurious to It may be made of any thing that my Argument hath oblig'd me or will oblige me to say about that Imaginary Thing Vulgarly call'd Nature either in This or the VI. Section or any other Part of our present Enquiry I conceive then that the Divine Author of Things in making the World and the particular Creatures that compose it had respect to several Ends some of them knowable by us Men and others hid in the Abyss of the Divine Wisdom and Counsels And that of those Ends which are either manifest enough to us or at least discoverable by Human Sagacity and Industry some of the Principal are The manifestation of the Glory of God The Utility of Man and The maintenance of the System of the World under which is comprised the Conservation of particular Creatures and also the Propagation of some Kinds of them But this General Design of God for the welfare of Man and other Creatures is not as I conceive to be understood but with a twofold Limitation For First though Men and other Animals be furnish'd with Faculties or Powers and other Requisites to enable them to preserve themselves and procure what is necessary for their own welfare yet this Provision that God has been pleas'd to make for them is made with reference to what regularly or what most usually happens to Beings of that Species or Sort that they belong to but not with regard to such things as may happen to them irregularly contingently and in comparison of the others unfrequently Thus it is in General far better for Mankind that Women when they are brought to Bed should have their Breasts fill'd with Milk to give Suck to the new-born Babe than that they should not though sometimes as if the Child die in the Delivery or presently after and in some other Cases also the plentiful recourse of Milk to the Mothers Breasts proves troublesome and inconvenient and sometimes also dangerous to her Thus a Head of Hair is for the most part useful to the Person whether Man or Woman that Nature has furnish'd with it though in some Cases as of Consumptions and in a few other Circumstances it happens to be prejudicial to the Wearer and therefore Physicians do often with good success prescribe that it be shaven off Thus the Instinct that Hens have to Hatch their Eggs and take care of their Young is in General very useful if not necessary for the Conservation of that Species of Birds and yet it sometimes mis-guides and deludes them when it makes them take a great deal of pains to Brood upon those Duck-eggs that Housewives having taken a way the Birds own Eggs lay in her Nest which makes her very solicitous to Hatch and take care of Ducklings instead of Chickens Thus 't is an Institution that ordinarily is profitable for Man that his Stomach should nauseate or reject things that have a loathsome taste or smell because the generality of those things that are provided for his Nourishment are well or at least not ill-tasted and yet on some occasions of Sickness that disposition of the Stomach to refuse or vomit up nauseous Purges and other dis-tastful Medicines as such Remedies are usually loathsom enough proves very prejudicial by being a great impediment to the Recovery of Health And thus to be short the Passions of the Mind such as Fear Joy and Grief are given to Man for his Good and when rightly us'd are very advantageous if not absolutely necessary to him Though when they grow unruly or are ill-manag'd as it but too often happens they frequently prove the Causes of Diseases and of great Mischief as well to the passionate Man himself as to Others The second Limitation which has a natural Connexion with the former is this That the Omniscient Author of Things who in His Vast and Boundless Understanding comprehended at once the whole System of His Works and every Part of
it did not mainly intend the Welfare of such or such particular Creatures but subordinated His Care of their Preservation and Welfare to His Care of maintaining the Universal System and Primitive Scheme or Contrivance of His Works and especially those Catholick Rules of Motion and other Grand Laws which He at first establish'd among the Portions of the Mundane Matter So that when there happens such a Concourse of Circumstances that particular Bodies fewer or more must suffer or else the setled Frame or the usual Course of Things must be alter'd or some general Law of Motion must be hinder'd from taking place In such Cases I say the Welfare and Interest of Man himself as an Animal and much more That of inferior Animals and of other Particular Creatures must give way to the Care that Providence takes of Things of a more General and Important Nature or Condition Thus as I formerly noted God establish'd the Lines of Motion which the Sun and the Moon observe tho' he foresaw that from thence there would necessarily from time to time ensue Eclipses of those Luminaries which he chose rather to permit than to alter that Course which on several accounts was the most convenient Thus a blown Bladder or a Foot-Ball falling from a considerable height upon the Ground rebounds upwards and so contrary to the Nature of Heavy Bodies moves from the Centre of the Earth lest the Catholick Laws of Motion whereby the Springyness and Reflection of Bodies in such Circumstances are established should be violated or intrench'd upon Thus He thought not fit to furnish Sheep with Paws or Tusks or Swiftness or Animosity or Craft to defend or preserve themselves from Wolves and Foxes and other Beasts of Prey And tame and fearful Birds such as Hens are so ill provided for defence that they seem designed to be the food of Hawks Kites and other rapacious Ones Thus Oysters having neither Eyes nor Ears are not near so well provided for as the generality of Beasts and Birds and even most other Fishes And thus Silk-Worms to name no other Catterpillars usually at least in these Countries live not much above half a Year being less furnish'd with the Requisites of longaevity than the generality of Birds and Beasts and Fishes I have thought fit to lay down the two foregoing Limitations partly because they will be of use to me hereafter and partly because they contain something that may be added to what hath been lately Represented on behalf of the Divine Providence as it falls under the Naturalist's Consideration For by these Limitations we may perceive that 't is not just presently to deny or censure the Providence of God when-ever we see some Creatures less compleatly furnish'd to maintain themselves or some Cases less provided for than we think they might be or seeming Anomalies permitted which we look upon as mischievous Irregularities For the Welfare of Men or of this or that other Particular sort of Creatures being not the Only nor in likelihood the Principal End of God in making the World it is neither to be admir'd nor reprehended that He has not provided for the safety and conveniency of Particular Beings any further than well consists with the Welfare of Beings of a more considerable Order and also will comport with his Higher Ends and with the maintenance of the more General Laws and Customs setled by Him among Things Corporeal So that divers seeming Anomalies and Incongruities whence some take occasion to Question the Administration of Things and to deny the Agency of Providence do not only comport with it but serve to accomplish the Designs of It. I have the more expresly declar'd my Mind on this occasion because indeed of the two main Reasons which put me upon so difficult a Work as I foresaw this Treatise would be as one was the Love I bear to Truth and Philosophical Freedom so the other was a just Concern for Religion For thinking it very probable that in so Inquisitive an Age as This some Observations like Mine about Nature itself might come into the minds of Persons ill-affected to Divine Providence who would be glad and forward to wrest them and make a perverse use of them I thought it better that such Notions should be candidly propos'd by One that would take care to accompany them with those Cautions that may keep them from being injurious to Religion Having premis'd the two foregoing Advertisements to obviate Misconstructions I hope I may now safely proceed to Particulars whereof for Brevity's sake I shall here mention but a few leaving you to add to them those others that occur in other parts of this Treatise In the first place then I shall take notice that there are several Instances of Persons that have been choak'd with a Hair which they were unable either to cough up or swallow down The reason of this fatal Accident is probably said to be the Irritation that is made by the stay of so unusual a thing as a Hair in the Throat which Irritation occasions very violent and disorderly or convulsive Motions to expel it in the Organs of Respiration by which Means the continual Circulation of the Blood necessary to the Life of Man is hinder'd the Consequence whereof is speedy Death But this agrees very ill with the Vulgar Supposition of such a Kind and Provident Being as they represent Nature which is always at hand to preserve the Life of Animals and succour them in their Physical dangers and distresses as occasion requires For since a Hair is so slender a Body that it cannot stop the Throat so as to hinder either the free passage of Meat and Drink into the Stomach or that of the Air to or from the Lungs as may be argued from divers no-way Mortal Excrescences and Ulcers in the Throat were it not a great deal better for Nature to let the Hair alone and stay 'till the Juices of the Body have resolv'd or consum'd it or some favourable Accident have remov'd it than like a passionate and transported Thing oppose it like a Fury with such blind violence as instead of ejecting the Hair expels the Life of him that was troubled with it How the Care and Wisdom of Nature will be reconcil'd to so improper and disorderly a Proceeding I leave Her Admirers to consider But it will appear very reconcileable to Providence if we reflect back upon the lately given Advertisement For in regard of the use and necessity of Deglutition and in many Cases of Coughing and Vomiting it was in the General most convenient that the Parts that minister to these Motions should be irritated by the sudden Sense of things that are unusual though perhaps they would not be otherwise dangerous or offensive because as we formerly noted 't was fit that the Providence of God should in making Provision for the Welfare of Animals have more regard to that which usually and regularly befalls them than to extraordinary Cases or unfrequent Accidents Though most
Women are offended with the Stink of the smoaking Wick of a Candle which is no more than Men also are yet it has been frequently observ'd that Big-bellied Women have been made to Miscarry by the smell of an extinguish'd Candle which would before have indeed displeas'd but not endanger'd the same Persons So that it seems Nature is in these Cases very far from being so prudent and careful as Men are wont to fancy Her since by an Odour which if calmly receiv'd would have done no harm to the Teeming Woman She is put into such unruly Transports And instead of watching for the Welfare of the Teeming Woman whose Condition needed a more than ordinary measure of Her care and tenderness She violently precipitates her poor Charge into a danger that oftentimes proves fatal not only to the Mother but the Child also The improper and oftentimes hurtful Courses that Nature takes in Persons that are sick some of one Disease some of another will be hereafter taken notice of in opportune places and therefore for the present I shall only observe that Nature seems to do Her Work very weakly or bunglingly in the Production of Monsters whose Variety and Numerousness is almost as great as their Deformity or their Irregularity insomuch that several Volums have been written and many more might have been to give the Description of them How these gross Aberrations will agree with that great Uniformity and exquisite Skill that is ascrib'd to Nature in her seminal Productions I leave the Naturists to make out I know that some of them lay the fault upon the stubbornness of the Matter that would not be obsequious to the Plastick Power of Nature but I can hardly admit of this Account from Men of such Principles as they are that give it for 't is strange to me they should pretend that Nature which they make a kind of Semi-Deity should not be able to mould and fashion so small and soft and tractable a Portion of Matter as that wherein the first Model and Efformation of the Embrio is made when at the same time they tell us That 't is able in Sucking-Pumps to raise and if need be sustain whole Tons of Water to prevent a Vacuum And can in Mines toss up into the Air Houses Walls and Castles and perhaps the Rocks they are built on to give the kindled Gun-powder the Expansion that its New state requires Other Arguments that by a light Change and easie Application may be made use of and added to these against the Vulgar Notion of Nature may be met with in divers Parts of this Treatise and especially in the VII Section for which Reason among others I decline lengthning this Part of my Discourse with the mention of them I foresee it may be said that unless we admit such a Being as Nature to contrive and manage Things Corporeal and in a Regular and Methodical way direct them to their respective Ends there will appear no visible Footsteps or Proof of a Divine Wisdom in the Corporeal World And this Argument I confess is so specious that 't was one of the things that made me the longest hesitate what I should think of the Receiv'd Notion of Nature But having further consider'd the matter I saw it might be answer'd that the curious Contrivance of the Universe and many of Its Parts and the orderly Course of Things Corporeal with a manifest Tendency to determinate Ends are Matters of Fact and do not depend upon the Supposition of such a Being as they call Nature but setting aside this or that Hypothesis may be known by Inspection if those that make the Inspection be Attentive and Impartial As when a Man sees a Humane Body skilfully Dissected by a dexterous Anatomist he cannot if he be intelligent and unprejudic'd but acknowledg that there is a most curious and exquisite Contrivance in that Incomparable Engine and in the various Parts of it that are admirably fitted for distinct and determinate Functions or Uses So that I do not at all nor indeed can suppress the manifest Tokens of Wisdom and Design that are to be observed in the wonderful Construction and orderly Operations of the World and Its Parts But I endeavour to refer these Indications of Wisdom to the true and proper Cause And whereas in the Hypothesis of the Objectors there may be three Causes assign'd of these Specimens or Foot-steps of Wisdom namely God Nature and Chance if according to the Doctrine by me propos'd Nature be laid aside the Competition will remain only between God and Chance And sure he must be very dull or very strongly prejudic'd that shall think it reasonable to attribute such admirable Contrivances and such regular Conducts as are observable in the Corporeal World rather to Chance which is a blind and senseless Cause or indeed no proper Cause at all but a kind of Ens rationis than to a most Intelligent Being from which the curiousest Productions may with Congruity be expected Whereas if such a Celebrated Thing as Nature is commonly thought be admitted 't will not be near so easie to prove the Wisdom and consequently the Existence of God by His Works since they may have another Cause namely that most watchful and provident Being which Men call Nature And this will be especially difficult in the Peripatetick Hypothesis of the Eternity not of Matter only for in that the Atomists and others agreed with them but of the World For according to this Account of the Universe there appears no necessity that God should have any thing to do with it since he did not make this Automaton but it was always Self-existent not only as to Matter but to Form too And as for the Government or Administration of the Bodies it consists of that is the proper business of Nature And if it be Objected that this Being is by its Assertors acknowledg'd to be subordinate to God I shall answer That as upon the Reasons and Authorities I elsewhere deliver it may justly be question'd Whether many Philosophers and perhaps some Sects of them who are Adorers of Nature confess'd Her to be but the Substitute of a Superior and Divine Being So this distinction and subordination is not so easie to be prov'd against those that side with those other Ancient Philosophers who either acknowledg'd no such thing or expresly deny'd it Besides that this Objection supposes the Existence and Superiority of a Deity which therefore needs to be prov'd by other ways whereas in the Hypothesis I propose the same Phaenomena that discover admirable Wisdom and manifest Designs in the Corporeal World do themselves afford a solid Argument both of the Existence and of some of the grand Attributes of God with which the rest that properly belong to Him have a necessary Connexion SECT VI. V. HAving in the foregoing Section propos'd some of the Considerations that have dissatisfied me with the Receiv'd Notion of Nature it may now be justly expected that I should also
consider what I foresee will be alledg'd in Its behalf by the more Intelligent of Its Favourers And I shall not deny the Objections I am going to name against my Opinion to be considerable especially for this Reason that I am very unwilling to seem to put such an Affront upon the generality as well of Learned Men as of Others as to maintain that they have built a Notion of so great weight and importance upon slight and inconsiderable Grounds The Reasons that I conceive may have induced Philosophers to take up and rely on the Receiv'd Notion of Nature are such as these that follow And the first Argument as one of the most obvious may be taken from the general Belief or as Men suppose Observation that divers Bodies as particularly Earth Water and other Elements have each of them its natural Place assign'd it in the Universe from which Place if any portion of the Element or any mixt Body wherein that Element predominates happens to be remov'd it has a strong incessant Appetite to return to it because when 't is there it ceases either to gravitate or as some School-men speak to levitate and is now in a place which Nature has qualifi'd to preserve it according to the Axiom that Locus conservat locatum To this Argument I answer that I readily grant that there being such a Quantity of very bulky Bodies in the World 't was necessary they should have Places adequate to their bigness and 't was thought fit by the wise Architect of the Universe that they should not be all blended together but that a great Portion of each of them should at the beginning of things be dispos'd of and lodg'd in a distinct and convenient Place But when I have granted this I see not any necessity of granting likewise what is asserted in the Argument above-propos'd For Inanimate Bodies having no Sense or Perception which is the Prerogative of Animadversive Beings it must be all one to them in what Place they are because they cannot be concern'd to be in one Place rather than in another since such a preference would require a knowledg that Inanimate things are destitute of And for the same reason a Portion of an Element remov'd by force or chance from what they call its proper Place can have no real Appetite to return thither For who tells it 'tis in an undue Place and that it may better its Condition by removing into another And who informs it whether that Place lies on this hand of it or that hand of it or above it or beneath it Some Philosophers indeed have been somewhat aware of the weakness of the Argument drawn from the vulgarly propos'd Instance which yet is the best that is wont to be imploy'd of Earthy Bodies which being let fall from the top of an House or thrown into the Air do of themselves fall in a direct Line towards the Centre of the Earth and therefore they have strengthned this Argument as far as might be by pretending that these Bodies have not indeed as former Philosophers were wont to think an Appetite to descend to the Centre of the Earth but to the great Mass of their Connatural Bodies I I will not therefore accuse these Philosophers of the inconsiderate Opinion of their Predecessors who would have Nature make all heavy Things affect to lodg themselves in the Centre of the Earth which as was formerly noted being but a Point cannot contain any one of them how little soever it be but yet the Hypothesis of these Moderns is liable though not to that yet to other weighty Objections For the First Argument I lately imploy'd will hold good against these Philosophers too it not being conceivable how an Inanimate Body should have an Appetite to re-joyn Homogeneous Bodies neither whose situation nor whose distance from it it does at all know Secondly It does not appear that all Bodies have such an Appetite as is presum'd of joyning themselves to greater Masses of Connatural Bodies as if you File the end of an Ingot or Bar of Silver or of Gold the Filings will not stick to their own Mass though it be approach'd never so near or made to touch them and much less will they leap to it when 't is at a distance from them The like may be said almost of all Consistent Bodies we are acquainted with except the Loadstone and Iron and Bodies that participate of one of those two Thirdly 'T is obvious to them that will observe that that which makes Lumps of Earth or Terrestrial Matter fall through the Air to the Earth is some general Agent whatever that be which according to the wise disposition of the Author of the Universe determines the Motion of those Bodies we call heavy by the shortest ways that are permitted them towards the Central part of the Terraqueous Globe Whether the Body put into Motion downwards be of the same or a like or a quite differing nature from the greater Mass of Matter to which when 't is aggregated it rests there If from the side of a Ship you let fall a Chip of Wood out of your Hand when your Arm is so stretch'd out that the Perpendicular or shortest Line between that and the Water lies never so little without the Ship that Chip will fall into the Sea which is a fluid Body and quite of another Nature than itself rather than swerve in the least from the Line of Direction as Mechanicians call it to rejoyn itself to the great bulk of Wood whereof the Ship though never so big consists And on the other side if a Man standing upon the Shore just by the Sea shall pour out a Glass of Water holding the Glass just over his Feet that Water will fall into the Sand where 't will be immediately soak'd up and dispersed rather than deviate a little to joyn itself to so great a Mass of Connatural Body as the Ocean is And as to what is generally believ'd and made part of the Argument that I am answering That Water does not weigh in Water because it is in its own natural Place and Elementa in proprio loco non gravitant I deny the matter of Fact and have convinc'd divers curious Persons by Experiment that Water does gravitate in Water as well as out of it though indeed it does not praegravitate because 't is Counter-ballanc'd by an equal weight of Collateral Water which keeps it from descending And Lastly For the Maxim that Locus conservat locatum besides that it has been prooflesly asserted and therefore unless it be cautiously explain'd I do not think my self bound to admit it besides this I say I think that either the proper Place of a Body cannot be inferr'd as my Adversaries would have it from the Natural tendency of a Body to it or else it will not hold true in general that Locus conservat locatum as when for Instance a poor unluky Seaman falls from the Main-yard of a Ship into the
Water does the Sea to which he makes such hast preserve him or destroy him And when in a foul Chimney a lump of Soot falls into the Hearth and presently burns up there can we think that the Wisdom of Nature gave the Soot an Appetite to hasten to the Fire as a greater Bulk of its Connatural Body or a Place provided by Nature for its Conservation And now I speak of such an Innate Appetite of Conjunction between Bodies I remember what I lately forgot to mention in a fitter place That Bubbles themselves may overthrow the Argument I was Answering For if a Bubble happens to arise from the bottom of a Vessel to the upper Part of it we are told that the Haste wherewith the Air moves thorow Water proceeds from the Appetite it has to quit that Preternatural Place and re-joyn the Element or great Mass of Air detain'd at the very Surface of the Water by a very thin skin of that Liquor together with which it constitutes a Bubble Now I demand how it comes to pass that this Appetite of the Air which when it was at the bottom of the Water and also in its passage upwards is suppos'd to have enabled it to Ascend with so much eagerness and force as to make its way thorow all the incumbent Water which possibly was very deep should not be able when the Air is arriv'd at the very top of the Water to break thorow so thin a Membrane of Water as usually serves to make a Bubble and which suffices to keep it from the beloved Conjunction with the great Mass of the External Air especially since they tell us that Natural Motion grows more quick the nearer it comes to the End or Place of rest the Appetites of Bodies encreasing with their approaches to the Good they aspire to upon which account Falling Bodies as Stones c. are said though falsesly to encrease their swiftness the nearer they come to the Earth But if setting aside the Imaginary Appetite of the Air we attribute the Ascension of Bubbles to the Gravity and Pressure upwards of the Water 't is easie Hydrostatically to Explicate why Bubbles often move slower when they come near the Surface of the Water and why they are detain'd there which last Phaenomenon proceeds from this that the Pressure of the Water being There incosiderable 't is not able to make the Air quite Surmount the Resistence made by the Tenacity of the Superficial Part of the Water And therefore in good Spirit of Wine whose Tenacity and Glutinousness is far less than that of Water Bubbles rarely continue upon the Surface of the Liquor but are presently broken and vanish And to make this presum'd Appetite of the smaller Portions of the Air to unite with the great Mass of it appear the less probable I shall add that I have often observ'd that Water in that state which is usually call'd its Natural State is wont to have store of Aerial Particles mingled with it notwithstanding the Neighbourhood of the External Air that is incumbent on the Water as may appear by putting a Glass full of Water into the Receiver of the new Pneumatical Engine For the Pressure of the External Air being by the Pump taken off there will from time to time disclose themselves in the Water a multitude of Bubbles made by the Aerial Particles that lay conceal'd in that Liquor And I have further try'd as I doubt not but some others also have done that by exactly inclosing in a conveniently shap'd Glass some Water thus freed from the Air and leaving a little Air at the top of the Vessel which was afterwards set by in a quiet place the Corpuscles of that incumbent Air did one after another insinuate themselves into the Water and remain'd lodg'd in it so little Appetite has Air in general to flee all Association with Water and make its escape out of that Liquor though when sensible Portions of it happen to be under Water the great inequality in Gravity between those two Fluids makes the Water press up the Air. But though 't were easie to give a Mechanical Account of the Phaenomena of mingled Air and Water yet because it cannot be done in few Words I shall not here undertake it the Phaenomena themselves being sufficient to render the Supposition of my Adversaries improbable Another Argument in favour of the Received Opinion of Nature may be drawn from the strong Appetite that Bodies have to recover their Natural state when by any means they are put out of it and thereby forced into a State that is called Preternatural as we see that Air being violently compress'd in a blown Bladder as soon as the force is remov'd will return to its first Dimensions And the Blade of a Sword being bent by being thrust against the Floor as soon as the force ceases restores itself by its innate power to its former straightness And Water being made Hot by the fire when 't is removed thence hastens to recover its former Coldness But though I take this Argument to have much more weight in it than the foregoing because it seems to be grounded upon such real Phaenomena of Nature as those newly recited yet I do not look upon it as Cogent In Answer to it therefore I shall represent that it appears by the Instances lately mention'd that the Proposers of the Argument ground it on the affections of Inanimate Bodies Now an Inanimate Portion of Matter being confessedly devoid of Knowledge and Sense I see no Reason why we should not think it uncapable of being concern'd to be in One state or constitution rather than Another since it has no knowledge of that which it is in at present nor remembrance of that from which it was forc'd and consequently no Appetite to forsake the Former that it may return to the Latter But every Inanimate Body to say nothing now of Plants and Bruit Animals because I want time to launch into an ample Discourse being of itself indifferent to all Places and States continues in in that Place or State to which the action and resistence of Other Bodies and especially Contiguous Ones effectually determine it As to the Instance afforded by Water I consider that before it be asserted That Water being Heated returns of itself to its Natural Coldness it were fit that the Assertors should determine what degree or measure of Coldness is Natural to that Liquor and this if I mistake not will be no easie Task 'T is true indeed that in reference to us Men Water is usually Cold because its minute Parts are not so briskly agitated as those of the Blood and Juices that are to be found in our Hands or other Organs of Feeling But that Water is actually cold in reference to Frogs and those Fishes that live in it whose Blood is cold as to our Sense has not that I know of been prov'd nor is easie to be so And I think it yet more difficult to determine what degree of
Coldness is natural to Water since this Liquor perpetually varies its Temperature as to Cold and Heat according to the temper of the Contiguous or the Neighbouring Bodies especially the Ambient Air. And therefore the Water of an unshaded Pond for Instance though it rests in its proper and natural Place as they speak yet in Autumn if the Weather be fair the Temperature of it will much vary in the compass of the same Day and the Liquor will be much hotter at Noon than early in the Morning or at Midnight though this great diversity be the Effect only of a Natural Agent the Sun acting according to its regular Course And in the depth of Winter 't is generally confess'd that Water is much colder than in the Heat of Summer which seems to be the Reason of what is observ'd by Watermen as a wonderful thing namely that in Rivers Boats equally Laden will not sink so deep in Winter as in Summer the cold Condensing the Water and consequently making it heavier in specie than it is in Summer when the Heat of the Ambient Air makes it more thin In divers parts of Africk that Temperature is thought natural to the Water because 't is that which it usually has which is far hotter than that which is thought natural to the same Liquor in the frigid Zone And I remember on this occasion what perhaps I have elsewhere mention'd upon another that the Russian Czars chief Physician inform'd me that in some Parts of Siberia one of the more Northern Provinces of that Monarch's Empire Water is so much more Cold not only than in the Torrid Zone but than in England that two or three foot beneath the surface of the Ground all the Year long even in Summer itself it continues Concreted in the form of Ice so Intense is the Degree of Cold that there seems natural to it This odd Phaenomenon much confirms what I lately intimated of the Power of Contiguous Bodies and especially of the Air to vary the Degree of the coldness of Water I particularly mention the Air because as far as I have try'd it has more Power to bring Water to its own Temperature than is commonly suppos'd For though if in Summer-time a Man puts his Hand into Water that has lain expos'd to the Sun he will usually feel it Cold and so conclude it much colder than the Ambient Air yet that may often happen upon another Account namely that the Water being many Hundred times a more Dense Fluid than the Air and consisting of Particles more apt to insinuate themselves into the Pores of the Skin a greater Part of the Agitation of the Blood and Spirits contained in the Hand is communicated to the Water and thereby lost by the Fluids that part with it And the Minute Particles of the Water which are perhaps more Supple and Flexible insinuating themselves into the Pores of the Skin which the Aerial Particles by Reason of their Stifness and perhaps Length cannot do they come to affect the somewhat more Internal Parts of the Hand which being much Hotter than the Cuticula or Scarf-skin makes us feel them very Cold as when a Sweating Hand is plung'd into Luke-warm Water the Liquor will be judg'd Cold by Him who if his Other Hand be very Cold will with it feel the same Water Hot. To confirm which Conjecture I shall add that having sometimes purposely taken a Seal'd Weather-glass whose included Liquor was brought to the Temperature of the Ambient Air and thrust the Ball of it under Water kept in the same Air there would be discover'd no such Coldness in the Water as One would have expected the former Reason of the sensible Cold the Hand feels when thrust into that Liquor having here no Place To which I shall add that having for Tryal's sake made Water very Cold by dissolving Sal-armoniac in it in Summer time it would after a while return to its usual degree of Warmth And having made the same Experiment in Winter it would return to such a Coldness as belong'd to it in that Season So that it did not return to any Determinate degree of Coldness as Natural to it but to that Greater or Lesser that had been Accidentally given it by the Ambient Air before the Sal-armoniac had Refrigerated It. As to the Motion of Restitution observable upon the Removal or Ceasing of the Force in Air violently compress'd and in the Blade of a Sword forcibly bent I confess it seems to me a very difficult Thing to assign the true Mechanical Cause of It. But yet I think it far more likely that the Cause should be Mechanical than that the Effect proceeds from such a Watchfulness of Nature as is pretended For First I question Whether we have any Air here Below that is in Other than a Preternatural or Violent State the Lower Parts of our Atmospherical Air being constantly compress'd by the weight of the Upper Parts of the same Air that lean upon them As for the Restitution of the bent Blade of a Sword and such like Springy Bodies when the force that bent them is remov'd my Thoughts about the Theory of Springynes belong to another Paper And therefore I shall here only by way of Argument ad Hominem consider in Answer to the Objection That if for Example you take a somewhat long and narrow Plate of Silver that has not been hammer'd or compress'd or which is surer has been made red-hot in the Fire and suffer'd to cool leasurely you may bend it which way you will and it will constantly retain the last curve Figure that you gave It. But if having again streightned this Plate you give it some smart stroaks of a Hammer it will by that meerly Mechanical Change become a Springy Body So that if with your Hand you force it a little from its Rectitude as soon as you remove your Hand it will endeavour to regain its former Streightness The like may be observ'd in Copper but nothing near so much or scarce at all in Lead Now upon these Phaenomena I demand Why if Nature be so careful to restore Bodies to their former State She does not restore the Silver Blade or Plate to its Rectitude when it is bent this way or that way before it be Hammer'd And why a few stroaks of a Hammer which acting violently seems likely to have put the Metal into a Preternatural State should entitle the Blade to Nature's peculiar Care and make Her solicitous to restore it to its Rectitude when it is forc'd from It And Why if the Springy Plate be again Ignited and Refrigerated of itself Nature abandons Her former Care of It and suffers it quietly to continue in what crooked Posture One pleases to put it into Not now to demand a Reason of Nature's greater Partiality to Silver and Copper and Iron than to Lead and Gold itself in Reference to the Motion of Restitution I shall add to what I was just now saying that even in
Sword-Blades it has been often observ'd That though if soon after they are bent the force that bent them be withdrawn they will nimbly return to their former straightness yet if they which are not the only Springy Bodies of which this has been observ'd be kept too long bent they will lose the Power of recovering their former streightness and continue in that crooked Posture though the force that put them into it cease to act So that it seems Nature easily forgets the care She was presum'd to take of it at first There is an Axiom that passes for current among Learned Men viz. Nullum violentum durabile that seems much to favour the Opinion of the Naturists since 't is grounded upon a Supposition that what is violent is as such contrary to Nature and for that Reason cannot last long And this trite Sentence is by the Schools and even some Modern Philosophers so particularly apply'd to Local Motion that some of them have not improbably made it the Characteristick token whereby to distinguish Natural Motions from those that are not so that the Former are perpetual or at least very durable whereas the Later being continually check'd more and more by the Renitency of Nature do continually decay and within no long time are suppress'd or extinguish'd But on this occasion I must crave leave to make the following Reflections 1. It may be justly Question'd upon Grounds laid down in another Part of this Essay Whether there be any Motion among Inanimate Bodies that deserves to be call'd Violent in Contradistinction to Natural since among such all Motions where no Intelligent Spirit intervenes are made according to Catholick and almost if not more than almost Mechanical Laws 2. Methinks the Peripateticks who are wont to be the most forward to imploy this Axiom should find but little Reason to do so if they consider how unsuitable it is to their Doctrine That the vast Body of the Firmament and all the Planetary Orbs are by the Primum Mobile with a stupendious swiftness whirl'd about from East to West in four and twenty Hours contrary to their Natural tendency and That this violent and rapid Motion of the incomparably greater Part of the Universe has lasted as long as the World itself that is according to Aristotle for innumerable Ages 3. We may observe here below that the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea which is generally suppos'd to proceed either from the Motion of the Moon or that of the Terrestrial Globe or some other External Cause has lasted for some Thousands of Years and probably will do so as long as the present System of our Vortex shall continue I consider also that the other great Ocean the Atmosphere consists of numberless Myriads of Corpuscles that are here below continually kept in a violent State since they are Elastical Bodies whereof the Lower are still compress'd by the weight of the Higher And to make a Spring of a Body it is requisite that it be forcibly bent or stretch'd and have such a perpetual endeavour to fly open or to shrink in that it will not fail to do so as soon as the External Force that hinder'd it is remov'd And as for the States of Inanimate Bodies I do not see that their being or not being Natural can be with any certainty concluded from their being or not being very Durable For not to mention that Leaves that wither in a few Months and even Blossoms that often fade and fall off in few Days are as well Natural Bodies as the solid and durable Trees that bear them 't is obvious that whether we make the State of Fluidity or that of Congelation to be that which is Natural to Water and the other that which is Violent Its change from one of those States into another and even its return to its former State is oftentimes at some Seasons and in some Places made very speedily perhaps in an Hour or less by Causes that are acknowledg'd to be Natural And Mists Hail Whirlwinds Lightning Falling-Stars to name no more notwithstanding their being Natural Bodies are far from being lasting especially in comparison of Glass wherein the Ingredients Sand and Fixt Salt are brought together by great violence of Fire And the Motion that a thin Plate or slender Wire of this Glass can exercise to restore itself to its former Position when forcibly bent is in great part a lasting Effect of the same violence of the Fire And so is the most durable perseverance of the Indissolubleness of the Alcalisate Salt that is one of the two Ingredients of Glass notwithstanding its being very easily dissoluble in Water and other Liquors and not uneasily e'ne in the moist Air itself There is a distinction of Local Motion into Natural and Violent that is so generally receiv'd and us'd both by Philosophers and Physicians that I think it deserves to have special Notice taken of it in this Section since it implicitely contains an Argument for the Existence of the Thing call'd Nature by supposing it so manifest a Thing as that an Important Distinction may justly be grounded on It. This imply'd Objection I confess is somewhat difficult to clear not for any great Force that is contained in It but because of the Ambiguity of the Terms wherein the Distinction is wont to be imploy'd For most Men speak of the propos'd Distinction of Motion in so obscure or so uncertain a way that 't is not easie to know what they mean by either of the Members of It. But yet some there are who endeavour to speak Intelligibly and for that are to be commended and define Natural Motion to be That whose Principle is within the Moving Body itself and Violent Motion That which Bodies are put into by an External Agent or Cause And in in regard these speak more clearly than the rest I shall here principally consider the lately mention'd Distinction In the Sense They give It. I say then that even according to this Explication I am not satisfied with the Distinction For whereas 't is a Principle received and frequently employ'd by Aristotle and his Followers Quicquid movetur ab alio movetur it seems that according to this Axiom all Motion may be called Violent since it proceedes from an External Agent and indeed according to the School Philosophers the Motion of far the greatest Part of the Visible World though this Motion be most Regular and Lasting must according to the propos'd Distinction be reputed Violent since they assert that the Immense Firmament itself and all the Planetary Orbs in comparison of which vast Coelestial Part of the World the Sublunary Part is little more than a Physical Point is perpetually and against its Native Tendency hurry'd about the the Centre of the World once in Twenty four Hours by an External though Invisible Agent which they therefore call the Primum Mobile And as for the Criterion of Natural Motion that Its Principle is within the Moving Body it may be said
that all Bodies once in the State of Actual Motion whatever Cause first brought them to It are mov'd by an Internal Principle As for Instance an Arrow that actually flies in the Air towards a Mark moves by some Principle or other residing within itself for it does not depend on the Bow 't was shot out of since 't would continue tho' That were Broken or even annihilated nor does it depend upon the Medium which more resists than assists its Progress as might be easily shewn if it were needful and if we should suppose the Ambient Air either to be annihilated or which in our Case would be Aequialent render'd uncapable of either furthering or hindring its Progress I see not why the Motion of the Arrow must necessarily cease since in this Case there remains no Medium to be penetrated and on that account oppose its Progress When in a Watch that is wound up the Spring endeavours to unbend or display itself and when the String of a drawn Bow is broken or let go the Spring of the former and the wooâ—y Part of the later does each return to a less crooked Line And though these Motions be occasioned by the forcible Acts of External Agents yet the Watch Spring and the Bow have in themselves for ought appears to those I Reason with an inward Principle by which they are mov'd till they have attain'd their Position Some perhaps would add that a Squib or a Rocket though an artificial Body seems as well as a falling Star to move from an Internal Principle But I shall rather observe that on the other side External Agents are requisite to many Motions that are acknowledg'd to be Natural as to omit the Germination and Flourishing of divers Plants as Onions Leeks Potato's c. though hung up in the Air by the heat of the Sun in the Spring to pass by this I say if in the Pneumatical Engine or Air-Pump you place divers Insects as Bees Flies Catterpillars c. and withdraw the Common Air from the Receiver they will lye moveless as if they were dead though it be for several hours whilst they are kept from enjoying the presence of the Air But when the External Air is permitted again to return upon them they will presently be reviv'd as I have with pleasure try'd and be brought to move again according to their respective Kinds as if a Fly for Instance resembled a little Windmill in this that being Moveless of itself it required the Action of the Air to put its Wings and other Parts into Motion But to insist no farther on these Arguments ad Hominem we may consider that since Motion does not essentially belong to Matter as Divisibility and Impenetrableness are believ'd to do the Motions of all Bodies at least at the beginning of Things and the Motions of most Bodies the Causes of whose Motions we can discern were impress'd on them either by an External Immaterial Agent God or by other Portions of Matter which are also Extrinsecal Impellers acting on them And this occasion invites me to observe that though Motion be deservedly made one of the Principal Parts of Aristotle's Definition of Nature yet Men are wont to call such Motions Natural as are very hard to distinguish from those they call Violent Thus when Water falls down to the Ground they tell us that this Motion is Natural to that Liquor as 't is a heavy Body but when a Man spurts up Water out of his Mouth into the Air they pronounce that Motion because of its tendency upwards to be contrary to Nature And yet when he draws Water into his Mouth by sucking it through a long Pipe held Perpendicularly they will have this Motion of the Water though directly upwards to be not Violent but Natural So when a Foot-Ball or Blown Bladder being let fall upon a hard Floor rebounds up to a good height the Descent and Ascent are both said to be Natural Motions though the former tends towards the Centre of the Earth and the later recedes as far as it can do from it And so if from a considerable height you let fall a Ball of some close Wood that yet is not too heavy as Oak or the like into a deep Vessel of Water it will descend a great way in that Liquor by a Natural Motion and yet its contrary Motion upwards ought not to be esteem'd Violent since according to the Schools being lighter in Specie than Water 't is Natural to it to affect its proper Place for which purpose it must ascend to the top of the Liquor and lye afloat there and yet 't is from these tendencies to opposite Points as the Zenith and the Nadir that Men are wont to judg many Motions of Bodies to be Natural or Violent And indeed since it must be indifferent to a Lifeless and Insensible Body to what place 't is made to move all its Motions may in some respect be said to be Natural and in another Violent For as very many Bodies of visible Bulk are set a moving by External Impellents and on that score their Motions may be said to be Violent so the generality of Impell'd Bodies do move either upwards downwards c. toward any Part of the World in what Line or Way soever they find their Motion least resisted which Impulse and Tendency being given by vertue of what they call the general Laws of Nature the Motion may be said to be Natural I might here take notice that according to the Epicurean Hypothesis it need not at all be admitted that Motion must be produc'd by such a Principle as the Schoolmens Nature For according to that great and ancient Sect of Philosophers the Atomists every indivisible Corpuscle has actual Motion or an incessant endeavour to change Place essentially belonging to it as 't is an Atom Insomuch that in no case it can be depriv'd of this Property or Power And all sensible Bodies being according to these Physiologers but casual Concretions or Coalitions of Atoms each of them needs no other Principle of Motion than that unloseable endeavour of the Atoms that compose it and happen on the account of Circumstance to have the Tendency of the more numerous or at least the predominant Corpuscles determin'd one way And to these I might add some other such Reflections But I shall in this place say no more concerning Motion not only because even after having consider'd the differing Definitions that Aristotle Cartesius and some other Philosophers have given of it I take it to be too difficult a Subject to be clearly explicated in few words but because the only occasion I had to mention it here was to shew that the vulgar Distinction of it into Natural and Violent is not so clear and well-grounded as to oblige us to admit what it supposes that there is such a Being as the Naturists assert I come now to consider the Argument that may be drawn in favour of the Receiv'd Notion of Nature
from the Critical Evacuations which happen at certain times in Diseases and the strange Shifts that Nature sometimes makes use of in them to free Herself from the Noxious Humours that oppress'd Her This Argument I willingly acknowledg to be very considerable For we really see that in Continual Feavers especially in hotter Climates there do usually happen at certain times of the Diseases Notable and Critical Commotions or Conflicts after which the Morbifick Matter is dispos'd of and discharg'd by Ways strange and surprising to the great and speedy Relief of the Patient if not to his perfect Cure as may appear by many Instances to be met with in the Observations of Physcians about Feavers Pleurisies c. Upon this Account I take the Argument drawn from Crises's to be much the weightiest that can be urg'd for the Opinion from which I Dissent and therefore I shall employ the more words in clearing this important Difficulty In order to this I desire it may be kept in mind that I do not only acknowledge but teach that the Body of a Man is an incomparable Engine which the most wise Author of Things has so skilfully fram'd for lasting very many Years that if there were in it an Intelligent Principle of Self-preservation as the Naturists suppose there is Things would not in most Cases be better or otherwise manag'd for the Conservation of the Animals Life than they generally are So that the Question is not Whether there is a great deal of Providence and Wisdom exercis'd in the Crises's of Diseases but upon what Account it is that these apposite Things are perform'd The Universal Opinion of Physcians is that 't is that Intelligent Principle they call Nature which being solicitous for the Welfare of the Patient and distress'd by the quantity or hurtfulness of the Morbifick Matter watches Her opportunity especially when 't is concocted to expel it hastily out of the Body by the most safe and convenient Ways which in the present condition of the Patient can be taken And I on the other side attribute Crises's to the Wisdom and ordinary Providence of God exerting Itself by the Mechanism partly of that great Machine the World and partly of that smaller Engine the Human Body as 't is constituted in the Patients present Circumstance And the Reasons that hinder me from acquiescing in the general Opinion of Physicians about Crises's are principally these First I observe that Crises's properly so call'd do very seldom happen in other than Feavers and the like acute Diseases where according to the common Course of Things the Malady is terminated in no long time either by Recovery or Death or a change into some other Disease But Chronical-sicknesses such as Coughs Dropsies Gouts c. unless they happen to be accompany'd with Feaverish Distempers are not wont to have Crises's which argues that Nature doth not make Critical Evacuations upon the account of such Care and Watchfulness as Physicians ascribe them to Since She neglects to employ so Salutary an Expedient in Diseases that are oftentimes no less Dangerous and Mortal than divers acute Diseases which She attempts to Cure by Crises's Next I consider that Critical Evacuations may be procur'd by the bare Mechanism of the Body For by vertue of That it will often happen that the Fibres or motive Organs of the Stomach Bowels and other Parts being Distended or Vellicated by the Plenty or Acrimony of the Peccant Matter will by that Irritation be brought to contract themselves vigorously and to throw out the Matter that offends the Parts either by the Emunctories or Common-Shores of the Body or by whatever Passages the proscrib'd Matter can be with most ease discharg'd Thus when some Men find their Stomachs burden'd with a Clog of Meat or Drink they use to thrust their Fingers into their Throats and by that Mechanical way provoke the Stomach to disburden itself of its offensive Load without being beholden to Natures Watchfulness for a Crisis which probably She would not at least so seasonably attempt And thus whereas 't is usual enough for Crises's to be made in Feavers by large Haemorrhagi's at the Nose and sometimes at other Parts which is ascrib'd to Natures Watchful Solicitude for the Patients Recovery I must take leave to add that it hath been divers times observ'd that even after Death large Bleedings have succeeded at the Nose and other Parts of the Body Which shews that such Excretions may be made by vertue of the Structure of it and the Turgescence and Acrimony of the Humours without any Design of Nature to save the Life of the Patient already Dead Indeed if it did appear by Experience that all or almost all the Crises's of Diseases did either expel the Morbifick Matter or at least notably relieve the Patient the Critical Attempts of Nature would much favour the Opinion Men have conceiv'd of her Vigilance and Conduct But unwelcome Instances daily shew that as some Crises's are Salutary as they call them so others prove Mortal And among those that do not directly or presently kill the Patient there are divers that leave him in a worse Condition than he was before And therefore I wonder not that Physicians have thought themselves oblig'd to lay down several Circumstances as necessary Requisites of a laudable Crisis if any of which be wanting 't is not thought of the best kind and if the contrary to some of them happen 't is to be judg'd either pernicious or at least hurtful For whereas there are two general Ways suppos'd to be employ'd by Nature in making Crises's the one by expulsion of the Peccant Matter out of the Body and the other by the setling of the Matter somewhere within it Neither of these two Ways is constantly successful And therefore Experience hath oblig'd Physicians to divide Crises's not only into perfect that fully determine the event of the Disease and imperfect that do but alter it for the better or the worse but into Salutary that quite deliver the Patient and Mortal that destroy him And to a Perfect and Salutary Crisis some Learned Men require no less than six Conditions namely that it be preceded by Signs of Coction of the Peccant Matter that it be made by a manifest and sufficiently copious Excretion or Translation that it be made upon a Critical Day as the seventh fourteenth twentieth c. that it leave no Relicks behind it that may indanger a Relapse that it be made safely that is without dangerous Symptoms And lastly that it be suitable to the Nature of the Disease and the Patient By this it may appear that 't is no common thing to meet with a Perfect and Salutary Crisis so many laudable Conditions must concur in it and indeed Nature doth usually take up with but imperfectly good Ones and it were happy if She made not better provided She made no worse But 't is found by sad Experience that She rouses Herself up to make a Crisis not only upon improper
and as Physicians call them Intercident Days such as the Third Fifth Ninth c. or upon those they call Empty or Medicinal Days which seldom afford any Crisis and much seldomer a good One but also when there appear not any signs of Coction or at least of due Coction and by these unseasonable Attempts weaken the Patient and encrease the Malady or perhaps make it speedily Mortal Nor will it justifie Nature to say with some Learned Physicians that these Attempts are Accidentally brought on by the Acrimony or Importunity of the Morbifick Matter by which She is provok'd before the time to endeavour an Expulsion of it For if Nature be indeed so Prudent and Watchful a Guardian as She is thought She ought not to suffer Herself to be provok'd to act Preposterously and make furious Attempts that lavish to no purpose or worse than no purpose that little strength the Patient hath so much need of And therefore Physicians do oftentimes very well when to act agreeably to the Dictates of Prudence they forget how much Wisdom they are wont to ascribe to Nature and employ their best Skill and Remedies to suppress or moderate the inordinate Motions or the improper and profuse Evacuations that irritated Nature rashly begins to make And though the Crises's that are made by a Metastasis of the Peccant Matter or by lodging it in some particular Part of the Body whether External or Internal be oftentimes when they are not Salutary somewhat less Hurtful than those that are made by Excretion yet these do frequently though perhaps more slowly prove Dangerous enough producing sometimes inward Imposthumes and sometimes External Tumors in Parts that are either Noble by their Functions or by their Situation or Connexion or Sympathy with others that are not to be without Hazard or great Inconvenience oppress'd I know that Physicians make it a great Argument of Nature's Providence and Skill that She watches for the Concoction of the Peccant Matter before She rouses Herself up to expel it by a Crisis What is to be meant by this Coction of Humours for it ought not to be confounded with the Coction of the Aliments they are not wont so clearly to declare But as I understand it when they say that a Portion of Peccant Matter is brought to Coction they mean that it has acquir'd such a Disposition as makes it more fit than before to be separated from the sounder Portion of the Mass of Blood or from the consistent Parts to which it perhaps formerly adhered and to be afterwards expell'd out of the Body This may be partly exemplifi'd by what happens in some recent Colds where the Lungs are affected in which we see that after a few days the Phlegm is made more fluid and that which is lodg'd in the Lungs not sticking so fast to the inside of the Aspera Arteria is easily brought up by Coughing which could not dislodg it before And in Feavers that separation in the Urine formerly Cloudless that Physicians look upon as a good sign of Coction seems to be produc'd by some part of the Peccant Matter that beginning to be separated from the Blood mingles with the Urine and is not usually distinguish'd from it whilst this Liquor is warm but when it is grown cold does on the score of its Weight or Texture somewhat recede and appear in a distinct Form as of a Cloud a Sediment c. But whatever they mean by Coction 't is plain enough by what hath been lately noted that on many occasions Nature doth not wait for it but unseasonably and oftentimes dangerously attempts to proscribe the Matter that offends Her before it be duly prepar'd for Expulsion I come now to that Circumstance of Crises's that is thought the most Wonderful which is that Nature does oftentimes by very unusual Ways and at unexpected Places discharge the Matter that offends Her and thereby either Cures or notably Relieves the Patient And it must not be deny'd that in some cases the Critical Evacuations have somewhat of Suprising in them and I shall also readily grant that N. B. Divine Providence may expressly interpose not only in the infliction of Diseases by way of Punishment but in the removal of them in the way of Mercy But setting aside these extraordinary Cases I think it not absurd to conjecture that the performances of Nature in common Crises's may be probably referr'd partly to the particular condition of the Matter to be expell'd and partly and indeed principally to some peculiar Disposition in the Primitive Fabrick of some Parts of the Patients Body or some unusual change made in the Construction of these Parts by the Disease itself or other Accidents which Original or Adventitious disposition of the Sick Man's Body not being visible to us at least whilst he is alive we are apt to ascribe the unexpected Accidents of a Crisis if it prove Salutary to the wonderful Providence of Nature And if it happen to be other than Salutary we are wont to overlook them To illustrate this Matter we may consider that plentiful Evacuations procured by Medicines are a kind of Artificial Crises's We see that some Bodies are so constituted that although the peccant Humour wrought on by the Medicine ought as the Physitian thinks to be expell'd by Siege and indeed is wont to be so in the Generality of those that take that kind of Medicine as for Instance Rhubarb or Senna yet the peculiar disposition of the Patient's Stomach will make that an Emetick which was intended to be and regularly should be a Cathartick Nor does this Constitution of the Stomach equally regard all Purging Medicines for the same Stomach that will reject them in the Form for Instance of a Potion will quietly entertain them being in the Form of Pills And to this let me add what we observe of the Operation of Mercury which though if it be duly prepared it is usually given to procure Salivation especially to Succulent Bodies yet there are some Patients wherein instead of Salivating 't will violently and dangerously work downwards like a Purge or make some other unexpected Evacuation And I have seen a Patient who though Young and very Fat could not be brought to Salivate neither by the Gentler ways nor by Turbith-Mineral and Other harsher Medicines though administred by very skilful Physitians and Chyrurgeons And this Peculiarity may be as well Contracted as Native For some Persons especially after Surfeits having been rufly dealt with or at least tyr'd out with a Medicine of this or that kind of Form will afterwards Nauseate and Vomit up the like Medicine tho' in other Bodies it be never so far from â—â—ing Emetick We see also that sometimes Sudorifick Medicines instead of procuring Sweat prove briskly Diuretick and sometimes either Purging or Vomitive From all this we may Argue that the qualities of the irritating Matter and much more the particular disposition of the Patients Body may procure Evacuations at unexpected Places I
add in two words that if those and some few other such things had been observ'd and duly consider'd they might perhaps have prevented much of the Obscurity and some of the Errors that relate to the Notion of Nature I hope you have not forgot that the design of this Paper was to examine the Vulgar Notion of Nature not to establish a new One of my own And indeed the Ambiguity of the Word is so great as hath in the Second Section been made appear and 't is even by Learned Men frequently imploy'd to signifie such different Things that without Enumerating and Distinguishing its various Acceptions it were very unsafe to venture a giving a Definition of it and perhaps it were very impossible to give any that would not be liable to censure I shall not therefore here presume to define a Thing of which I have not found a stated and setled Notion so far agreed on amongst Men but that I was oblig'd out of Aristotle and Others to compile in the Fourth Section a Collective Representation of the vulgarly receiv'd Idea or Notion of Nature And afterwards to draw up as well as I could instead of an accurate Definition tolerable Descriptions of what on most occasions may be intelligibly meant by It. Wherefore desiring and presuming that you will retain in your Mind and as occasion shall require apply in the following Part of this Essay the Things already delivered in the Fourth Section I will not trouble you with the Repetition of Them But before I descend to treat of the particular Effata or Sentences that are Receiv'd concerning Nature's Actings it may not be improper nor unuseful to try if we can clear the way by considering in what sense Nature may or may not be said to act at all or to do this or that For for ought I can clearly discern whatsoever is perform'd in the merely Material World is really done by particular Bodies acting according to the Laws of Motion Rest c. that are setled and maintain'd by God among Things Corporeal In which Hypothesis Nature seems rather a Notional Thing than a true Physical and distinct or separate Efficient such as would be in case Aristotles Doctrine were true one of those Intelligences that he presum'd to be the Movers of the Coelestial Orbs. But Men do oftentimes express themselves so very ambiguously or intricately when they say that Nature does this and that or that She acts thus and thus that 't is scarce if at all possible to translate their Expressions into any Forms of Speech adequate to the Original and yet Intelligible For which Reason though I have in the Section said something to the same purpose with what I am now to propose yet the difficulty and weight of the Subject makes me think it may be expedient if not necessary in this place somewhat more fully to declare what Men do or should mean when they speak of Nature's acting or of a Thing 's being Naturally done or performed by giving their Words and Phrases sometimes one Interpretation and sometimes another I. Sometimes when 't is said that Nature does this or that 't is less proper to say that 't is done by Nature than that it is done according to Nature So that Nature is not here to be look'd on as a distinct or separate Agent but as a Rule or rather a Systeme of Rules according to which those Agents and the Bodies they work on are by the Great Author of Things determin'd to act and suffer Thus when Water is rais'd in a Sucking-Pump 't is said that Nature makes the Water ascend after the Sucker to prevent a Vacuum though in reality this Ascension is made not by such a separate Agent as Nature is fancied to be but by the Pressure of the Atmosphere acting upon the Water according to Statical Rules or the Laws or the Aequilibrium of Liquors settled by God among Fluids whether Visible or Pneumatical So when the strict Peripateticks tell us that all the Visible Coelestial Orbs being by a Motion that they call Violent hurried about the Earth every four and twenty Hours from East to West each of the Planetary Orbs has a Natural Motion that is quite contrary tending from the West to the East If they will speak congruously to their Master's Doctrine they must use the term Natural in the sense our Observation gives It Since Aristotle will have the Coelestial Orbs to be moved by external or separate Agents namely Spiritual Intelligences Our Observation may be also illustrated by other forms of Speech that are in use as when 't is said that the Law takes care of Infants and Lunaticks that their indiscreet Actions or Omissions should not damnifie their Inheritances and that the Law Hangs Men for Murther but only Burns them in the Hand for some lesser Faults of which Phrases the Meaning is that Magistrates and other Ministers of Justice acting according to the Law of the Land do the things mention'd And it tends yet more directly to our purpose to take Notice that 't is common to ascribe to Art those things that are really perform'd by Artificers according to the Prescriptions of the Art as when 't is said that Geometry as the Name imports measures Lands Astrology foretels Changes of Weather and other future Accidents Architecture makes Buildings and Chymistry prepares Medicines II. Sometimes when divers Things such as the Growth of Trees the Maturations of Fruits c. are said to be perform'd by the course of Nature the Meaning ought to be that such things will be brought to pass by their proper and immediate Causes according to the wonted Manner and Series or Order of their Actings Thus 't is said that by the course of Nature the Summer days are longer than those of the Winter That when the Moon is in Opposition to the Sun that is in the Full Moon that Part of Her Body which respects the Earth is more Enlightned than at the New Moon or at either of the Quadratures And lastly That when She enters more or less into the Conical Shadow of the Earth She suffers a total or a partial Eclipse And yet these and other Illustrious Phaenomena may be clearly explicated without recourse to any such Being as the Aristotelians Nature barely by considering the Situations and wonted Motions of the Sun or Earth and the Moon with reference to each other and to the Terrestrial Globe And here it may not be amiss to take notice that we may sometimes usefully distinguish between the Laws of Nature more properly so call'd and the Custom of Nature or if you please between the Fundamental and General Constitutions among Bodily Things and the Municipal Laws if I may so call them that belong to this or that particular sort of Bodies As to resume and somewhat vary our Instance drawn ftom Water when this falls to the Ground it may be said to do so by virtue of the Custom of Nature it being almost constantly usual for
that Liquor to tend downwards and actually to fall down if it be not externally hinder'd But when Water ascends by Suction in a Pump or other Instrument that Motion being contrary to that which is wonted is made in virtue of a more Catholick Law of Nature by which 't is provided that a greater Pressure which in our case the Water suffers from the weight of the Incumbent Air should surmount a lesser such as is here the Gravity of the Water that ascends in the Pump or Pipe The two foregoing Observations may be farther illustrated by considering in what sense Men speak of things which they call Praeter-natural or else Contrary to Nature For divers if not most of their Expressions of this kind argue that Nature is in Them taken for the Particular and Subordinate or as it were the Municipal Laws establish'd among Bodies Thus Water when 't is intensly Hot is said to be in a Praeter-natural State because it is in One that 't is not usual to It and Men think doth not regularly belong to It though the Fire or Sun that thus agitates It and puts it into this State is confess'd to be a Natural Agent and is not thought to act otherwise than according to Nature Thus when a Spring forcibly bent is conceiv'd to be in a State contrary to its Nature as is argued from its incessant Endeavour to remove the compressing Body this State whether Praeter-natural or contrary to Nature should be thought such but in reference to the Springy Body For otherwise 't is as agreeable to the grand Laws that obtain among Things Corporeal that such a Spring should remain bent by the degree of Force that actually keeps it so as that it should display itself in spight of a less or incompetent Degree of Force And to omit the Six Non-natural Things so much spoken of by Physitians I must here take notice that though a Disease be generally reckon'd as a Praeter-natural Thing or as Others carry the Notion further a State contrary to Nature yet that must be understood only with reference to what customarily happens to a human Body Since excessively cold Winds and immoderate Rains and sultry Air and other Usual Causes of Diseases are as Natural Agents and act as agreeably to the Catholick Laws of the Universe when they produce Diseases as when they condense the Clouds into Rain or Snow blow Ships into their Harbour make Rivers overflow ripen Corn and Fruit and do such other Things whether they be hurtful or beneficial to Men. And upon a like Account when Monsters are said to be Praeternatural Things the Expression is to be understood with regard to that particular Species of Bodies from which the Monster does enormously deviate though the Causes that produce that Deviation act but according to the general Laws whereby Things Corporeal are guided 3. I doubt whether I should add as a Third Remark or as somewhat that is referrable to one or both of the Two foregoing that sometimes when 't is said that Nature performs this or that Thing we are not to conceive that this Thing is an Effect really produc'd by other than by proper Physical Causes or Agents but in such Expressions we are rather to look upon Nature either as a Relative Thing or as a Term imployed to denote a Notional Thing with reference whereunto Physical Causes are consider'd as acting after some peculiar manner whereby we may distinguish their Operations from those that are produc'd by other Agents or perhaps by the same consider'd as acting in another Way This I think may be Illustrated by some other receiv'd Expressions or Forms of Speech As when many of the Ancient and some of the Modern Philosophers have said that Things are brought Fatally to pass they did not mean that Fate was a distinct and separate Agent but only that the Physical Causes perform'd the Effect as in their Actings they had a necessary Dependance upon one another or an inviolable Connexion that link'd them together And on the other side when Men say as they too frequently do that Fortune or Chance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Aristotle and his Followers distinguish Them ascribing to the former what unexpectedly happens to Deliberating or Designing and to the later what happens to Inanimate or Undesigning Beings has done this or that Considerate Philosophers do not look upon Fortune or Chance as a true and distinct Physical Cause but as a Notional Thing that denotes that the proper Agents produc'd the Effect without an Intention to do so as I have more fully declar'd in the Fourth Section One may for ought I know without Impertinence refer to this our Third Observation That many Things are wont to be attributed to Time as when we say that Time ripens some Fruits that are too early gather'd that it makes many things moulder and decay Tempus edax rerum that 't is the Mother of Truth that it produces great Alterations both in the Affairs of Men and in their Dispositions and their Bodies To omit many other Vulgar Expressions which represent Time as the Cause of several Things whereof really it is but an Adjunct or a Concomitant of the Effects however Coincident with the successive Parts of Time and so some way related to It being indeed produc'd by other Agents that are their true and proper Efficients Sometimes likewise when it is said that Nature does this or that we ought not to suppose that the Effect is produc'd by a distinct or separate Being but on such Occasions the Word Nature is to be conceiâ—â—d to signifie a Complex or Convention of all the Essential Properties or necessary Qualities that belong to a Body of that Species whereof the real Agent is or to more Bodies respectively if more must concur to the Production of the Effect To this sense we are to expound many of those Forms of Speech that are wont to be imploy'd when Physicians or others speak of what Nature does in reference to Diseases or the Cure of them And to give a right sense to such Expressions I consider Nature not as a Principal and Distinct Agent but a kind of Compounded Accident that is as it were made up of or results from the divers Properties and Qualities that belong to the true Agents And that the Name of a Compounded Accident may not be startled at I shall to explain what I mean by it observe that as there are some Qualities or Accidents that at least in comparison of others may be call'd Simple as Roundness Streightness Heat Graviâ—â— c. so there are others that may be conceiv'd as Compounded or made up of several Qualities united in one Subject As in divers Pigments Greenness is made up of Blew and Yellow exquisitely mix'd Beauty is made up of fit Colours taking Features just Stature fine Shape graceful Motions and some other Accidents of the Human Body and its Parts And of this sort of Compounded Accidents
I am apt to think there are far more than at the first mention of them one would imagine And to this kind of Beings the Expressions that Naturists do on divers occasions imploy incline me to think that what is call'd Nature has a great Affinity at least in reference to those Occasions On which Supposition one may conceive that as when 't is said that Health makes a Man Eat well Digest well Sleep well c. Considering Men do not look upon Health as a Distinct and Separate Cause of these Effects but as what we lately call'd a Compounded Accident that is a Complex of all the Real and Genuine Causes of good Appetite Digestion Sleep c. insomuch that Health is not so properly the Cause of these as their Effect or Result So in divers Things that Nature is said to do we need conceive no more than that the Effects are produc'd by Physical Bodies and Qualities or other proper Causes which when we consider as conspiring or rather concurring to produce the same Effect by a Compendious Term we call Nature By these and the like ways of Interpretation I thought fit to try whether I could give an Intelligible and Commodious sense to divers of the Maxims or Sentences and other Forms of Speech that are imploy'd by those that on many Occasions and in differing Expressions say That Nature does this or that and acts thus and thus But I confess that to clear all those ambiguous and unskilfully fram'd Axioms and Phrases I found to be so intricate and difficult a Task that for want of Time and perhaps too of Patience I grew weary before I had prosecuted it to the utmost For which Reason though 't is not improbable that some Light may be given in this dark Subject by what I have been now saying as immature and unfinish'd as it is especially if it be reflected on in Conjunction with what hath been formerly deliver'd in the Fourth Section about Nature General and Particular yet I shall at present make but very little use of the Things that have been now said in expounding the Axioms I am particularly to consider in this Seventh Section hoping that I may by the help of other Mediums dispatch my Work without them And to do it the more easily I shall without tying myself to the Order wherein they are marshall'd after the beginning of the Fourth Section treat of them in the Order wherein I think their Explications may give most Light to one another or in That wherein the Papers that belong'd to them were retriev'd The first of the receiv'd Axioms I shall consider is that which pronounces that Omnis Natura est conservatrix sui where by the Word Nature I suppose they understand a Natural Body for otherwise I know not what they meant Now this Axiom easily admits of a twofold Interpretation For either it may signifie no more than that no one Body does tend to its own Destruction that is to destroy Itself Or else that in every Body there is a Principle call'd Nature upon whose Score the Body is vigilant and industrious to preserve Its Natural State and to defend Itself from the Violence and Attempts of all other Bodies that oppugn It or endeavour to destroy or harm It. In the former of these two Senses the Axiom may be admitted without any prejudice to our Doctrine For since according to our Hypothesis Inanimate Bodies can have neither Appetites nor Hatreds nor Designs which are all of them Affections not of Bruit Matter but of Intelligent Beings I that think Inanimate Bodies have no Appetites at all may easily grant that they have not any to destroy themselves But according to the other Sense of the propos'd Axiom 't will import that every Body has within itself a Principle whereby it does desire and with all its Power endeavour to compass its own Preservation And both to do those things that tend thereunto and oppose all endeavours that outward Agents or internal Distempers may use in order to the Destruction of It. And as this is the most Vulgar Sense of this Axiom so 't is chiefly in this Sense that I am concern'd to Examine It. I conceive then that the most Wise Creator of Things did at first so frame the World and settle such Laws of Motion between the Bodies that as Parts compose It that by the Assistence of his General Concourse the Parts of the Universe especially those that are the Greater and the more Noble are lodg'd in such Places and furnish'd with such Powers that by the help of his general Providence they may have their Beings continued and maintained as long and as far forth as the Course he thought fit to establish amongst Things Corporeal requires Upon this Supposition which is but a reasonable one there will appear no necessity to have any recourse for the Preservation of particular Bodies to such an Internal Appetite and Inbred Knowledg in each of them as our Adversaries presume Since by virtue of the Original Frame of Things and established Laws of Motion Bodies are necessarily determined to act on such Occasions after the Manner they would do if they had really an Aim at Self-preservation As you see that if a blown Bladder be compress'd and thereby the included Air be forc'd out of its wonted Dimensions and Figure it will uncessantly endeavour to throw off and repel that which offers Violence unto It and first displace that Part of the compressing Body that it finds Weakest though in all this there be no Appetite in the Air as I elswhere shew no more than in the Bladder to that particular Figure to maintain itself in which it seems so concern'd Thus 't is all one to a â—lump of Dough whether you make it into a round Loaf or a long Rowl or a flat Cake or give it any other Form For whatever Figure your Hands or your Instruments leave in It that it will retain without having any Appetite to return to that which it last had So 't is all one to a piece of Wax whether your Seal Imprints on It the Figure of a Wolf or that of a Lamb. And for Brevity's sake to pass by the Instances that might be drawn from what happens to Wood and Marble and Metals as they are differently shap'd by the Statuaries Art and Tools I will only observe that the Mariner's Needle before it is excited may have no particular Propensity to have respect to one Part of Heaven more than another but when it has been duly touch'd upon a Load-stone the Flwer-de-Luce will be determin'd to regard the North and the opposite Extream the South So that if the Lilly be drawn aside towards the East or towards the West as soon as the Force that detain'd it is remov'd it will return to its former Position and never rest 'till it regard the North. But in spight of this seeming Affection of the Lilly to that Point of the Horizon yet if the Needle be duly
touch'd upon the contrary Pole of the same or another vigorous Load-stone the Lilly will presently forget its former Inclination and regard the Southern Part of Heaven to which Position it will as it were spontaneously return having been forc'd aside towards the East or towards the West if it be again left to its Liberty So that though it formerly seem'd so much to affect one Point of Heaven yet it may in a trice be brought to have a strong Propensity for the Opposite The Lilly having indeed no Inclination for one Point of Heaven more than another but resting in that Position to which it was last determin'd by the prevalence of Magnetical Effluvia And this Example may serve to illustrate and confirm what we have been lately saying in General II. Another Received Axiom concerning Nature is That She never fails or misses of Her End Natura sine suo nunquam excidit This is a Proposition whose Ambiguity makes it uneasie for me to deliver my Sense of It. But yet to say somewhat if by Nature we here understand that Being that the School-men Style Natura Naturans I grant or rather assert that Nature never misseth its End For the Omniscient and Almighty Author of Things having once fram'd the Word and establish'd in It the Laws of Motion which he constantly maintains there can no Irregularity or Anomaly happen especially among the greater Mundane Bodies that he did not from the Beginning foresee and think fit to permit since they are but genuine Consequences of that Order of Things that at the Beginning he most wisely Instituted As I have formerly declar'd in Instances of the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon to which I could add Others as the Inundations of Nilus so necessary to the Health and Plenty of Aegypt And though on some special Occasions this Instituted Order either seemingly or really has been violated as when the Sun is said to have Stood still in the days of Ioshua and the Red Sea to have Divided itself to give free Passage to the Israelites led by Moses yet these things having been rarely done for weighty Ends and Purposes by the peculiar Intervention of the first Cause either guiding or over-ruling the Propensities and Motions of Secundary Agents it cannot be said that God is frustrated of his Ends by these design'd though seeming Exorbitances by which he most Wisely and Effectually accomplishes Them But if by Nature be meant such a Subordinate Principle as Men are wont to understand by that Name I doubt the Axiom is in many Cases false for though it it be true as I have often said that the Material World is so constituted that for the most part Things are brought to pass by Corporeal Agents as regularly as if they designed the Effects they produce yet there are several Cases wherein Things happen quite otherwise Thus 't is confess'd that when a Woman is with Child the Aim of Nature is to produce a Perfect or Genuine human Foetus and yet we often see that Nature widely missing Her Mark instead of That produces a Monster And of This we have such frequent Instances that whole Volumes have been publish'd to recount and describe these gross and deform'd Aberrations of Nature We many times see and have formerly noted that in Feavers and other acute Diseases She makes Critical Attempts upon improper Days and in these unseasonable Attempts does not only for the most part miss of her End which is to Cure the Patient but often brings him to a far worse Condition than he was in before She us'd those miscarrying Endeavours To this may may be referr'd the Cheats Men put upon Nature as when by Grafting the Sap that Nature raises with Intention to feed the Fruit of a white Thorn for Instance is by the Gardener brought to nourish a Fruit of quite another Kind So when Maulsters make Barley to sprout that Germination whereby Nature intended to produce Stalks and Ears is perverted to a far differing Purpose and She deluded And now to annex some Arguments ad Hominem we are told that Nature makes every Agent aim at assimulating the Patient to itself and that upon this account the Fire aims at converting Wood and the other Bodies it works on into Fire But if this be so Nature must often miss of Her End in Chymical Furnaces where the Flame does never turn the Bricks that it makes red-hot into Fire nor the Crucibles nor the Cuples nor yet the Gold and Silver that it throughly pervades and brings to be of a Colour the same or very near the same with its own and keeps in a very intense Degree of Heat and in actual Fusion And even when Fire acts upon Wood there is but one Part of it turn'd into Fire since to say nothing of the Soot and concreted Smoke the Ashes remain fix'd and incombustible And so to add another Instance ad Hominem when we are told that Nature makes Water ascend in Sucking-Pumps ob fugam Vacui She must needs as I formerly noted to another Purpose miss of Her Aim when the Pump exceeds Five and Thirty or Forty Foot in Height for then though you Pump never so much and withdraw the Air from the upper Part of the Engine the Water will not ascend to the Top and consequently will leave a Cavity for whole replenishing She was suppos'd to have rais'd that Liquor Two or Three and Thirty Foot III. Another of the celebrated Axioms concerning Nature is that She always acts by the shortest or most compendious Ways Natura semper agit per vias brevissimas But this Rule as well as divers Others does I think require to be somewhat explained and limited before it be admitted For 't is true â—hat as I have frequently occasion to inculcate the Omniscient Author of the Universe has so Fram'd It that most of the Parts of it act as regularly in order to the Ends of It as if they did it with Design But since Inanimate Bodies at least have no Knowledge it cannot reasonably be suppos'd that they moderate and vary their own Actions according to the Exigency of particular Circumstances wherewith they must of necessity be unacquainted and therefore it were strange if there were not divers Occurrences wherein they are determin'd to Act by Other than the shortest Ways that lead to particular Ends if those Other Ways be more congruous to the General Laws or Customs established among Things Corporeal This I prove by Instances taken from Gravity itself which is perhaps that Quality which of all others is most probably referr'd to an inbred Power and Propension For 't is true that if a Stone or another heavy Body be let fall into the free Air 't will take its Course directly towards the Centre of the Earth and if it meet with an inclining Plane which puts it out of its Way it will not for all that loss its Tendency towards the Centre but run along that Plane by which Means its Tendency downwards
is prosecuted though not as before in a perpendicular Line yet in the shortest Way it is permitted to take These obvious Phaenomena I confess agree very well with the Vulgar Axiom and possibly were the chief Things that induc'd Men to frame it But now let us suppose that a small Bullet of Marble or Steel after having for a pretty space fallen through the Air lights upon a Pavement of Marble or some such hard Stone that lies as Floors are wont to do Horizontal in this Case Experience shews as was formerly noted on another occasion that the falling Stone will rebound to a considerable Height in Proportion to That it fell from and falling down again rebound the second time tho' not so high as before and in short rebound several times before by setling upon the Floor it approaches as near as is permitted it to the Centre of heavy Bodies Whereas if Nature did in all Cases act by the most Compendious ways this Bullet ought not to rebound at all but as soon as it found by the hardness of the Floor it could descend no lower it ought to have rested there as in the nearest place it could obtain to the Centre of the Earth whence every Rebound must necessarily remove it to a greater Distance And so likewise when a Pendulum or Bullet fasten'd to the end of a String is so held that the String is praeter propter Perpendicular to the Horizon if it be thence let fall it will not stop at the Perpendicular Line or Line of Direction which is suppos'd to reach from the Nail or other Prop through the Centre of the Bullet to the Centre of the Earth but will pass beyond it and vibrate or swing to and fro 'till it have pass'd again and again the Line of Direction for a great while before the Bullet come to settle in it though whenever it removes out of it towards either hand it must really ascend or move upwards and so go further off from the Centre of the Earth to which 't is pretended its innate Propensity determines it to approach as much and as soon as is possible But this Instance having been formerly touch'd upon I shall now observe to the same purpose that having taken a good Sea-Compass and the Experiment succeeded with a naked yet nicely pois'd Needle and suffer'd the Magnetick Needle to rest North and South if I held the proper Pole of a good Loadstone at a convenient Distance on the right or left hand of the Lilly this would be drawn aside from the North Point towards the East or West as I pleas'd and then the Loadstone being remov'd quite away the Lilly of the Needle would indeed return Northward but would not stop in the Magnetick Meridian but pass on divers Degrees beyond it and would thence return without stopping at the Meridian Line And so would by its Vibrations describe many Arches still shorter and shorter 'till at length it came to settle on it and recover that Position which if Nature always acted by the most Compendious Ways it should have rested at the first time that by the removal of the Loadstone it had regain'd it But the Truth is that at least Inanimate Bodies acting without knowledg or design of their own cannot stop or moderate their own Action but must necessarily move as they are determin'd by the Catholick Laws of Motion according to which in one Case the Impetus that the Bullet acquires by falling is more powerful to carry it on beyond the Line of Direction than the Action of the Causes of Gravity is to stop it assoon as it comes to the nearest place they can give it to the Centre of the Earth And something like this happens in Levity as well as Gravity for if you take an oblong and conveniently shap'd piece of light Wood as Firr or Deal and having thrust or sunk it to the Bottom of a somewhat deep stagnant Water give it Liberty to ascend it will not only regain the Surface of the Water where by the Laws of Gravity it ought to rest and did rest before it was forc'd down but it will pass far beyond that Surface and in part as it were shoot itself up into the Incumbent Air and then fall down again and rise a second time and perhaps much oftner and fall again before it come to settle in its due place in which it is in an aequilibrium with the Water that endeavours to press it upwards Another of the Sentences that are generally receiv'd concerning Nature is that She always does what is best to be done Natura semper quod optimum est facit But of this it will not be safe for me to deliver my Opinion 'till I have endeavour'd to remove the ambiguity of the Words for they easily admit of two different Senses since they may signifie that Nature in the whole Universe does always that which is best for the conservation of It in its present State or that in reference to each Body in particular Nature does still what is best that is what most conduces to the Preservation and Welfare of that Body If the first of these Senses be pitch'd upon the Axiom will be less liable to Exception But then I fear it will be difficult to be positively made out by such Instances as will prove that Nature acts otherwise than necessarily according to Laws Mechanical and therefore 'till I meet with such Proofs I shall proceed to the other Sense that may be given our Axiom which though it be the most usual yet I confess I cannot admit without it be both explain'd and limited I readily grant that the All-wise Author of Things Corporeal has so fram'd the World that most things happen in it as if the particular Bodies that compose it were watchful both for their Own Welfare and That of the Universe But I think withall that particular Bodies at least Those that are Inanimate acting without either Knowledg or Design their Actions do not tend to what is best for them in their private Capacities any further than will comport with the general Laws of Motion and the important Customs establish'd among Things Corporeal So that to conform to these divers Things are done that are neither the Best nor so much as Good in reference to the welfare of particular Bodies These Sentiments I am induc'd to take up not only by the more Speculative Considerations that have been formerly discours'd of and therefore shall not here be repeated but by daily Observations and obvious Experience We see oftentimes that Fruit-Trees especially when they grow old will for one Season be so overcharg'd with Fruit that soon after they decay and die and even whilst they flourish the excessive Weight of the too numerous Fruits does not seldom break off the Branches they grow upon and thereby both hinders the Maturity of the Fruit and hastens the Death of the Tree Whereas this fatal Profuseness would have been prevented if a wise Nature
harbour'd in the Plant did as is presum'd solicitously intend its Welfare We see also in divers Diseases and in the unseasonable and hurtful Crises's of Feavers how far what Men call Nature oftentimes is from doing that which is best for the Sick Man's Preservation And indeed as hath been formerly noted on another Ocsicaon in many Diseases as Bleedings Convulsions Cholera's c. a great Part of the Physicians Work is to appease the Fury and to correct the Errors of Nature which being as 't were transported with a blind and impetuous Passion unseasonably produces those dangerous Disorders in the Body that if She were wise and watchful of its Welfare She would have been as careful to prevent as the Physicians to remedy Them Add to all this that if Nature be so Provident and Watchful for the Good of Men and other Animals and of that Part of the World wherein they live How comes it to pass that from time to time She destroys such Multitudes of Men and Beasts by Earthquakes Pestilences Famine and other Anomalies And How comes it so often to pass in Teeming Women that perhaps by a Fright or a longing Desire or the bare Sight of any outward Object Nature suffers Herself to be so disordered and is brought to forget Her Plastick Skill so much as instead of well-form'd Infants to produce hideous Monsters and those oftentimes so mishapen and ill-contriv'd that not only Themselves are unfit to live one Day or perhaps one Hour but cannot come into the World without killing the Mother that bare Them These and such other Anomalies though as I have elsewhere shewn they be not repugnant to the Catholick Laws of the Universe and may be accounted for in the Doctrine of God's General Providence yet they would seem to be Aberrations incongruous enough to the Idaea the Schools give of Nature as of a Being that according to the Axiom hitherto consider'd does always that which is best But 't is time that we pass from that to the Examen of another Though I have had occasion to treat of Vacuum in the Fifth Section yet I must also say something about it in This because I there consider'd it but as it is imploy'd by the Peripateticks and others to shew the Necessity of the Principle they call Nature But now I am to treat of it not so much as an Argument to be confuted as on the score of its belonging to a very plausible Axiom to be consider'd although I fear that by reason of the Identity of the Subiect though consider'd in the Fifth Sect. and here to differing purposes I shall scarce avoid saying something or other co-incident with what has been said already V. The Word Vacuum being ambiguous and us'd in differing Senses I think it requisite before I declare my Opinion about the generally receiv'd Axiom of the Schools that Natura Vacuum horret or as some express it abhorret à Vacuo to premise the chief Acceptions in which I have observ'd the Term Vacuum to be made use of For it has sometimes a Vulgar and sometimes a Philosophical or strict Signification In common Speech To be empty usually denotes not to be devoid of all Body whatsoever but of that Body that Men suppose should be in the Thing spoken of or of That which it was fram'd or design'd to contain as when Men say that a Purse is empty if there be no Mony in it or a Bladder when the Air is squeez'd out or a Barrel when either it has not been yet fill'd with Liquor or has had the Wine or other Drink drawn out of it The Word Vacuum is also taken in another sense by Philosophers that speak strictly when they mean by it a Space within the World for I here meddle not with the Imaginary Spaces of the School-men beyond the bounds of the Universe wherein there is not contain'd any Body whatsoever This Distinction being premis'd I shall inform you that taking the Word Vacuum in the strict Sense though many and among them some of my best Friends press'd me to a Declaration of my Sense about that famous Controversie An detur Vacuum because they were pleas'd to suppose I had made more Tryals than others had done about it yet I have refus'd to declare myself either Pro or Contra in that Dispute Since the decision of the Question seems to depend upon the stating of the true Notion of a Body whose Essence the Cartesians affirm and most other Philosophers deny to consist only in Extension according to the three Dimensions Length Breadth and Depth or Thickness For if Mr. Des Cartes's Notion be admitted 't will be irrational to admit a Vacuum since any Space that is pretended to be empty must be acknowledg'd to have the three Dimensions and consequently all that is necessary to Essentiate a Body And all the Experiments that can be made with Quicksilver or the Machina Boyliana as they call it or other Instruments contriv'd for the like Uses will be eluded by the Cartesians who will say that the space deserted by the Mercury or the Air is not empty since it has Length Breadth and Depth but is fill'd by their Materia Subtilis that is fine enough to get freely in and out of the Pores of the Glasses as the Effluvia of the Loadstone can do But though for these and other Reasons I still forbear as I lately said I have formerly done to declare either way in the Controversie about Vacuum yet I shall not stick to acknowledg that I do not acquiesce in the Axiom of the Schools that Nature abhors a Vacuum For First I consider that the chief if not the only Reason that moves the Generality of Philosophers to believe that Nature abhors a Vacrum is that in some Cases as the Ascension of Water in Sucking-Pumps c. they observe that there is an unusual endeavour and perhaps a forcible Motion in Water and other Bodies to oppose a Vacuum But I that see nothing to be manifest here save that some Bodies not devoid of Weight have a Motion upwards or otherwise differing from their usual Motions as in Determination Swiftness c. am not apt without absolute necessity to ascribe to Inanimate and Senseless Bodies such as Water Air c. the Appetites and Hatreds that belong to Rational or or least to Sensitive Beings and therefore think it a sufficient Reason to decline imploying such improper Causes if without them the Motions wont to be ascrib'd to Them can be accounted for 2. If the Cartesian Notion of the Essence of a Body be admitted by us as 't is by many Modern Philosophers and Mathematicians it can scarce be deny'd but that Nature does not produce these oftentimes Great and oftner Irregular Efforts to hinder a Vacuum since it being impossible there should be any 't were a fond thing to suppose that Nature who is represented to us as a most wise Agent should bestir Herself and do Extravagant Feats to prevent
an impossible Mischief 3. If the Atomical Hypothesis be admitted it must be granted not only that Nature does not abhor a Vacuum but that a great Part of the Things She does require it since they are brought to pass by Local Motion and yet there are very many Cases wherein according to these Philosophers the necessary Motions of Bodies cannot be perform'd unless the Corpuscles that lie in their way have little empty Spaces to retire or be impell'd into when the Body that pushes them endeavours to displace them So that the Effatum That Nature abhors a Vacuum agrees with neither of the two great Sects of the Modern Philosophers But without insisting on the Authority of either of them I consider that for ought appears by the Phaenomena imploy'd to demonstrate Nature's abhorrency of a Vacuum it may be rational enough to think either that Nature does not abhor a Vacuum even when She seems solicitous to hinder It or that She has but a very moderate Hatred of It in that Sense wherein the Vulgar Philosophers take the Word Vacuum For if we consider that in almost all visible Bodies here below and even in the Atmospherical Air Itself there is more or less of Gravity or Tendency towards the Centre of our Terraqueous Globe we may perceive that there is no need that Nature should disquiet Herself and act irregularly to hinder a Vacuum Since without Her abhorrence of It it may be prevented or replenish'd by Her affecting to place all heavy Bodies as near the Centre of the Earth as heavier than they will permit And even without any Design of Hers not to say without Her Existence a Vacuity will be as much oppos'd as we really find it to be by the Gravity of most if not of all Bodies here below and the Confluxibility of Liquors and other Fluids For by vertue of their Gravity and the Minuteness of their Parts they will be determin'd to insinuate themselves into and fill all the Spaces that they do not find already possess'd by other Bodies either more ponderous in Specie than themselves or by reason of their firmness of Structure capable of resisting or hindring their Descent Agreeably to which Notion we may observe that where there is no danger of a Vacuum Bodies may move as they do when they are said to endeavour its Prevention As if you would thrust your Fist deep into a Pail full of Sand and afterwards draw it out again there will need nothing but the Gravity of the Sand to make it fill up the greatest Part of the space deserted by your Fist. And if the Pail be replenish'd instead of Sand with an Aggregate of Corpuscles more Minute and Glib than the Grains of Sand as for Instance with Quicksilver or with Water then the Space deserted by your Hand will be at least as to Sense compleatly fill'd up by the Corpuscles of the Liquor which by their Gravity Minuteness and the Fluidity of the Body they compose are determin'd to replenish the Space deserted by the Hand that was plung'd into either of those Liquors And I elsewhere shew that if you take a Pipe of Glass whose Cavity is too narrow to let Water and Quick-silver pass by one another in It if I say you take such a Pipe and having by the help of Suction lodg'd a small Cylinder of Mercury of about half an Inch long in the lower Part of It you carefully stop the upper Orifice with the Pulp of your Finger the Quick-silver will remain suspended in the Pipe And if then you thrust the Quick-silver directly downwards into a somewhat deep Glass or other Vessel full of Water till the Quick-silver be depress'd about a Foot or more beneath the Surface of the Water if then you take off your Finger from the Orifice of the Pipe which it stopt before you shall immediately see the Quick-silver ascend swiftly five or six Inches and remain suspended at this new Station Which Experiment seems manifestly to prove what I did long ago devise and do now alledge it for Since here we have a sudden Ascent of so heavy a Body as is Quick-silver and a Suspension of It in the Glass not produc'd to prevent or fill a Vacuum for the Pipe was open at both Ends the Phaenomena being but genuine Consequences of the Laws of the Aequilibrium of Liquors as I elsewhere clearly and particularly declare When I consider how great a Power the School-Philosophers ascribe to Nature I am the less inclin'd to think that Her abhorrence of a Vacuum is so great as they believ'd For I have shewn in the Fifth Section that Her aversion from It and Her watchfulness against It are not so great but that in the sense of the Peripateticks She can quietly enough admit it in some Cases where with a very small Endeavour She might prevent or replenish It as I have particularly manifested in the fore-cited Section I just now mention'd a Vacuum in the Sense of the Peripateticks because when the Torricellian Experiment is made though it cannot perhaps be cogently prov'd either against the Cartesians or some other Plenists that in the upper Part of the Tube deserted by the Quick-Silver there is a Vacuum in the strict Philosophical Sense of the Word yet as the Peripateticks declare their Sense by divers of their Reasonings against a Vacuum mention'd in that Section 't will to a heedful Peruser appear very hard for them to shew that there is not One in that Tube And as by the School-mens Way of Arguing Nature's hatred of a Vacuum from the Suspension of Water and other Liquors in Tubes and Conical Watring-Pots it appears that they thought that any Space here below deserted by a visible Body not succeeded by another Visible Body or at least by common Air may be reputed Empty So by the Space deserted by the Quick-silver at the top of the Pipe of a Baroscope Thirty One Inches long One may be Invited to doubt Whether a Vacuum ought to be thought so formidable a Thing to Nature as they imagine She does and ought to think It For what Mischief do we see insue to the Universe upon the producing or continuance of such a Vacuum though the deserted Space were many time greater than an Inch and continued many Years as has divers times happen'd in the taller sort of Mercurial Baroscopes And those Peripateticks that tell us that if there were a Vacuum the Influences of the Coelestial Bodies that are absolutely necessary to the Preservation of Sublunary Ones would be Intercepted since Motion cannot be made in Vacuo would do well to prove not suppose such a Necessity and also to consider that in our Case the top of the Quick-silver to which the Vacuum reaches does usually appear Protuberant which shews that the Beams of Light which they think of great Affinity to Influences if not the Vehicle are able to traverse that Vacuum being in spight of It reflected from the Mercury to the Beholder's Eye And in
such a Vacuum as to common Air I have try'd that a Load-stone will emit his Effluvia and move Iron or Steel plac'd in It. In short it is not Evident that here below Nature so much strains Herself to hinder or fill up a Vacuum as to manifest an Abhorrence of It. And without much peculiar Solicitude a Vacuum at least a Philosophical One is as much provided against as the Welfare of the Universe requires by Gravity and Confluxibility of the Liquors and other Bodies that are placed here below And as for those that tell us that Nature abhors and prevents a Vacuum as well in the Upper Part of the World as the Lower I think we need not trouble ourselves to answer the Allegation till they have prov'd It. Which I think will be very hard for Them to do not to mention that a Cartesian may tell Them that 't were as needless for Nature to oppose a Vacuum in Heaven as in Earth since the Production of It is every where alike Impossible VI. I come now to the celebrated Saying that Natura est Morborum Medicatrix taken from Hippocrat who expresses it in the plural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And because this Axiom is generally Receiv'd among Physicians and Philosophers and seems to be one of the principal Things that has made them introduce such a Being as they call Nature I think it may be Time well employ'd to consider somewhat attentively in what Sense and how far this famous Sentence may or should not be admitted First then I conceive it may be taken in a Negative Sense so as to import that Diseases cannot be cur'd in such Persons in whom the Aggregate of the Vital Powers or Faculties of the Body is so far weaken'd or deprav'd as to be utterly unable to perform the Functions necessary to Life or at least to actuate and assist the Remedies employ'd by the Physitian to preserve or recover the Patient This I take to be the Meaning of such usual Phrases as that Physick comes too late and that Nature is quite spent And in this Sense I readily acknowledge the Axiom to be true For where the Engine has some necessary Parts whether Fluid or Solid so far deprav'd or weakn'd as to render it altogether unable to co-operate with the Medicine it cannot be rationally expected that the Administration of that Medicine should be effectual But in this I presume there is no Difficulty worthy to detain us I proceed therefore to the positive Sense whereof our Axiom is capable and wherein it is the most usually imploy'd For Men are wont to believe that there resides in the Body of a sick Person a certain Provident or Watchful Being that still industriously employs itself by its own Endeavours as well as by any occasional Assistence that may be afforded it by the Physitian to rectifie whatever is amiss and restore the distemper'd Body to its Pristine state of Health What I think of this Doctrine I shall leave you to gather from the following Discourse I conceive then in the first Place that the Wise and Beneficent Maker of the World and of Man intending that Men should for the most part live a considerable number of Years in a Condition to act their Parts on the Mundane Stage He was pleas'd to frame those Living Automata Human Bodies that with the ordinary succours of Reason making use of their exquisite Structure fitted for Durableness and of the friendly though undesign'd Assistence of the various Bodies among which they are plac'd they may in many Cases recover a State of Health if they chance to be put out of it by lesser Accidents than those that God in compliance with the great Ends of his General Providence did not think fit to secure them from or enable them to surmount Many things therefore that are commonly ascrib'd to Nature I think may be better ascrib'd to the Mechanisms of the Macrocosm and Microcosm I mean of the Universe and the Human Body And to illustrate a little my Meaning by a gross Example or two I desire you will consider with me a Sea-compass wherein the excited Magnetick Needle and the Box that holds It are duly pois'd by Means of a competent number of opposite Pivats For though if you give this Instrument a somewhat rude Shake you will make the Box totter and encline this way and that way and at the same time drive the Points of the Magnetick Needle many Degrees to the East or to the West yet the Construction of the Instrument and the Magnetism of one main Part of It are such that if the Force that first put it into a disorderly Motion cease from acting on It the Box will after some Reciprocations return to its Horizontal Situation and the Needle that was forc'd to deviate will after a few irregular Motions to this and to that side of the Magnetical Meridian settle itself again in a Position wherein the Flower-de-Luce stedfastly regards the North. And yet this recovery to its former State is effected in a factitious Body by the bare Mechanism of the Instrument itself and of the Earth and other Bodies within whose Sphere of Activity it is plac'd But because Many have not seen a Mariner's Compass I will add a less apposite but more obvious and familiar Example For if when an empty Ballance is duly counterpois'd you shall by your Breath or Hand depress one of the Scales and thereby for the time destroy the Aequilibrium yet when the Force is once remov'd the depress'd Ballance will presently ascend and the Opposite will descend and after a few Motions up and down they will both of them of their own accord settle again in an exact Aequilibrium without the help of any such Provident Internal Principle 〈◊〉 Nature The absence of whose Agency may be confirm'd by This that the depress'd Scale does not at first stop at the Horizontal Line beneath which it was first depress'd as it ought to do if it were rais'd by an Intelligent Being but rises far above It. If it be here objected that these Examples are drawn from Factitious not from merely Physical Bodies I shall return this brief Answer and desire that it be apply'd not only to the Two freshly mention'd Examples but to All of the like Kind that may be met with in this whole Treatise I say then in short that divers of the Instances we are speaking of are intended but for Illustrations and that Others may be useful Instances if they should be no more than Analogous Ones Since Examples drawn from Artificial Bodies and Things may have both the Advantage of being more clearly conceiv'd by ordinary Understandings and That of being less obnoxâ—â—s to be question'd in that Paâ—â—â—â—ar in which the Comparison or Correspondence consists And I the less scruple to employ such Examples because Aristotle himself and some of his more learned Followers make use of divers Comparisons drawn from the Figures and other Accidents of Artificial Things
begun about Distempers wont to be harmless by being Transient we may observe that the third or fourth day after Women are brought to Bed there is commonly a kind of Feaver produc'd upon the plentiful resort of the Milk to the Breasts for which cause this Distemper is by many call'd the Feaver of Milk And this is wont in a short time to pass away of itself as depending upon Causes far less durable than the Oeconomy of the Womans Body And if it be objected that these are not Diseases because they happen according to the Instituted Course of Nature I will not now dispute the validity of the Consequence though I could represent that the Labour of Teeming Woemen and the breeding of Teeth in Children happen as much according to the Institution of Nature and yet are usually very painful and oftentimes dangerous But I will rather answer that if the troublesome Accidents I have alledg'd cannot serve to prove they may at least to illustrate what I aim at And I shall proceed to take notice of a Distemper that Physicians generally reckon among Diseases I mean the flowing of Blood at the Haemorrhoidal Veins For though oftentimes this Flux of Blood is excessive and so becomes very dangerous and therefore must be check'd by the Physician which is no great Argument that a Being wise and watchful manages this Evacuation yet frequently if not for the most part the Constitution of the Body is such that the superfluous or vitiated Blood goes off before it has been able to do any considerable mischief or perhaps any at all to the Body And so we see that many Coughs and Hoarsenesses and Coryzas are said to be cur'd that is do cease to trouble Men though no Medicine be us'd against them the Structure of the Body being durable enough to out-last the Peccant Matters or the Operation of those other Causes that pro-duce these Distempers It is a known thing that most Persons the first time they go to Sea especially if the Weather be any thing Stormy are by the unwonted Agitations which those of the Ship produce in them assisted perhaps by the Sea-Air and Smells of the Ship cast into that Disease that from the Cause of it is call'd the Sea-sickness which is sometimes dangerous and always very troublesome usually causing a loss of Appetite and almost continual Faintness a pain in the Head and almost constant Nauseousness accompany'd with frequent and oftentimes violent Vomitings which Symptoms make many complain that for the time they never felt so troublesome a Sickness and yet usually after not many days this Distemper by degrees is master'd by the Powers of the Body tending still to persevere in their orderly and friendly Course and suppressing the adventitious Motions that oppose it and the sick Person recovers without other help And so though Persons unaccustom'd to the Sea whether they be sick or no are by the inconvenient Motions of the Ship usually brought to a kind of habitual Giddiness which disposes them to reel and falter when they walk upon firm ground Yet when they come a Shore they are wont in no long time to be freed from this uneasie Giddiness without the help of any Medicine The usual and regular Motions of the Parts of the Body obliterating by degrees in a few days I us'd to be free from it within some hours that adventitious Impression that caus'd the Discomposure To the same purpose we may take notice of that which happens to many Persons who riding backwards in a Coach are not only much distemper'd in their Heads but are made very sick in their Stomachs and forced to Vomit as violently and frequently as if they had taken an Emetick And yet all this Disorder is wont quickly to cease when the Patient leaves the Coach without the continuance of whose Motion that continues a preposterous One in some Parts of the Patient the Distemper will quickly yield to the more ordinary and regular Motions of the Blood and other Fluids of the Body So when in a Coach or elsewhere a Man happens to be brought to Faintness or cast into a Swoon by the closeness of the Place or the over-charging of the Air with the fuliginous Reeks of Mens Bodies tho' the Disease be formidable yet if the Patient be seasonably brought into the free Air the friendly Operation of That External Body assisting the usual Endeavours or Tendency of the Parts of the Patients Body to maintain his Life and Heath is wont quickly to restore him to the State he was in before this sudden Sickness invaded him Divers things that happen in some Diseases may be grosly illustrated by supposing that into a Vial of fair Water some Mud be put and then the Vial be well shaken for the Water will be troubled and dirty and will lose its Transparency upon a double Account that of the Mud whose opacous Particles are confounded with It and that of the newly generated Bubbles that swim at the top of it and yet to clarifie this Water and and make it recover its former Limpidness there needs no particular Care or Design of Nature but according to the common Course of Things after some time the Bubbles will break and vanish at the top and the earthy Particles that compose the Mud will by their Gravity subside to the bottom and settle there and so the Water will become clear again Thus also Must which is the lately express'd Juice of Grapes will for a good while continue a troubled Liquor but though there be no Substantial Form to guide the Motions of this factitious Body yet according to the Course of Things a Fermentation is excited and some Corpuscles are driven away in the Form of Exhalations or Vapours others are thrown against the sides of the Cask and harden'd there into Tartar and others again subside to the bottom and settle there in the Form of Lees and by this means leave the Liquor clear and as to Sense uniform And why may not some Depurations and Proscriptions of Heterogeneous Parts be made in the Blood as well as they are usually in Must without any peculiar and solicitous Direction of Nature There is indeed one Thing to which the Sentence of Nature's being the Curer of Diseases may be very speciously apply'd and that is the healing of Cuts and Wounds which if they be but in the Flesh may oftentimes be cured without Plaisters Salves or other Medicines but not to mention Haemorrhagies and some other Symptoms wherein the Chriurgeon is fain to curb or remedy the Exorbitancies of Nature this Healing of the Solutio continui seems to be but an Effect or Consequent of that Fabrick of the Body on which Nutrition depends For the Alimental Juice being by the Circulation of the Blood and Chile carried to all Parts of the Body to be nourish'd if it meets any where either with preternatural Concretions or with a Gap made by a Cut or Wound its Particles do there concrete into a
the Physitian here suppos'd to be free from Prejudices and Mistakes is to look upon his Patients Body as an Engine that is out of Order but yet is so constituted that by his Concurrence with the Endeavours or rather Tendencies of the Parts of the Automaton itself it may be brought to a better State If therefore he find that in the present Disposition of the Body there is a Propensity or Tendency to throw off the Matter that offends It and which ought to be some way or other expell'd in a convenient Way and at commodious Places he will then act so as to comply with and further that Way of Discharge rather than Another As if there be a great Appearance that a Disease will quickly have a Crisis by Sweat he will rather further It by covering the Patient with warm Cloaths and giving Sudorifick Medicines than by endeavouring to carry off the peccant Matter by Purging or Vomiting unseasonably hinder a Discharge that probably will be beneficial And in this Sense Men may say if they please that the Physicians are Ministers or Servants of Nature as Sea-Men when the Ship goes before a good Wind will not shift their Sails nor alter the Ships Motion because they need not But to shew that 't is as 't were by Accident that the Physitian does in the fore-mention'd Case obey Nature to speak in the Language of the Naturists I reason with I need but represent that there are many other Cases wherein the Physitian if he be skilful will be so far from taking Nature for his Mistress to direct him by Her Example what should be done that a great Part of his Care and Skill is imploy'd to hinder Her from doing what She seems to Design and to bring to pass Other Things very differing from if not contrary to what She Endeavours Thus though Nature in Dropsies inportunately crave store of Drink the Physician thinks himself oblig'd to deny It as he does what they greedily desire to his Patients of the Green-Sickness or that Distemper they call Pica Though the absurd and hurtful Things as very unripe Fruit Lime Coals and other incongruous Things be earnestly long'd for Thus also the Chirurgeon does often hinder Nature from closing up the Lips of a Wound as She would unskilfully do before it be well and securely heal'd at the bottom So the Physician does often by Purging or Phlebotomy carry off that Matter that Nature would more dangerously throw into the Lungs and expel by frequent and violent Coughs And so if a Nerve or Tendon be prick'd the Chirurgeon is fain with Anodynes and other convenient Medicines to prevent or appease the unreasonable Transports of Nature when being in a Fury by violent and threatning Convulsions She not only much disorders but endangers the Patient And so likewise when in those Evacuations that are peculiar to Women Nature affects in some Individuals to make them by undue and inconvenient Places as the Nipples the Mouth or the Eyes whereof we have divers Instances among the Observations collected by Schenckius or related by other good Authors The Physitian is careful by Bleeding the Patient in the Foot and by using other Means to oblige Nature to alter Her Purpose and make the intended Evacuations by the proper Uterine Vessels And tho' according to the Institution of Nature as they speak there ought to be a Monthly discharge of these Superfluities and therefore whilst this is moderately made the Physician does rather further than suppress It Yet if as it often happens in other Patients Nature overlashes in making those Evacuations to the great weakning or endangering the Sick Person the Physitian is careful by contemperating Medicines and other Ways to correct Nature's exorbitancy and check Her profuseness of so necessary a Liquor as the Blood Other Instances more considerable than some of these hitherto mention'd might be given to the same purpose but I forbear to do it because there being some though perhaps very needless Controversies about Them I could not make out their fitness to be here alledg'd without more Words than I am now willing to employ about unnecessary Proofs fearing it might be thought I have dwelt too long already upon the Explication of One Aphorism I shall therefore only observe in short that I look upon a good Physician not so properly as a Servant to Nature as One that is a Counsellor and a Friendly Assistant who in his Patient's Body furthers these Motions and other Things that he judges conducive to the Welfare and Recovery of It but as to Those that he perceives likely to be hurtful either by encreasing the Disease or otherwise endangering the Patient he think it is his Part to oppose or hinder though Nature do manifestly enough seem to endeavour the exercising or carrying on those hurtful Motions On this occasion I shall take notice of the Practice of the more Prudent among Physicians themselves who being call'd to a Patient subject to the Flux of the Haemorrhoids if they find the Evacuation to be moderate and likely either to benefit the Patient on another account as in some Cases 't is or at least to end well they do as some of them speak commit the whole business to Nature that is to speak intelligibly they suffer It to take its Course being incouraged to do so in some Cases by the Doctrine of Hippocrates and in others by Experience But if the Evacuation prove to be too lasting or too copious they then are careful to hinder Nature from proceeding in it and think themselves oblig'd to imploy both inward and outward Means to put a stop to an Evacuation which may bring on a Dropsie or some other formidable Disease And if it be said that Nature makes this Profusion of so necessary a Liquor as Blood only because She is irritated by the Acrimony of some Humour mix'd with it I say that this Answer which for Substance is the same that Naturists may be compell'd to fly to on many Occasions is in effect a Confession that Nature is no such wise Being as they pretend since She is so often provok'd to act as it were in a Fury and do those things in the Body that would be very mischievous to It if the Physitian more calm and wise than She did not hinder Her So that notwithstanding the reverence I pay the great Hippocrates it is not without due Caution and some Limitations that I admit that notable Sentence of his where he thus speaks Invenit Natura ipsa sibi-ipsi aggressiones And after three or four lines Non edocta Natura nullo Magistro usa ea quibus opus est facit Which I fear makes many Physitians less couragious and careful than they should or perhaps would be to employ their own Skill on divers Occasions that much require It. I shall now add that as in some Cases the Physitian relieves his Patient in a Negative Way by opposing Nature in her unseasonable or disorderly
Attempts So in other Cases he may do it in a Positive Way by employing Medicines that either strengthen the Parts as well Fluid as Stable or make sensible Evacuations of Matters necessary to be proscrib'd by Them or he may do it by using Remedies that by their manifest Qualities oppugn those of the Morbifick Matter or Causes as when by Alcaly's or absorbing Medicaments he mortify's Praeter-natural Acids or disables Them to do Mischief And perhaps One may venture to say that in some Cases the Physitian may in a Positive Way contribute more to the Cure even of an inward Disease than Nature Herself seems able to do For if there be any such Medicine preparable by Art as Helmont affirms may be made of Paracelsus's Ludus by the Liquor Alkahest or as Cardan relates that an Empirick had in his Time who travell'd up and down Italy curing Those where-ever he came that were tormented with the Stone of the Bladder If I say there be any such Medicines the Physitian may by such Instruments perform that which for ought appears is not to be done by Nature Herself since we never find that She dissolves a confirm'd Stone in the Bladder Nay sometimes the Physician does even without the help of a Medicine controle and over-rule Nature to the great and sudden Advantage of the Patient For when a Person otherwise not very weak happens by a Fright or some surprising ill News to be so discompos'd that the Spirits hastily and disorderly thronging to some inward Part especially the Heart hinder the regular and wonted Motion of It by which disorder the Circulation of the Blood is hinder'd or made very imperfect In this Case I say the Patient is by Nature's great Care of the Heart as is commonly suppos'd even by Physitians cast into a Swoon whence the Physitian sometimes quickly frees him by rubbing and pinching the Limbs the Ears and the Nose that the Spirits may be speedily brought to the External Parts of the Body which must be done by a Motion to the Circumference as they call It quite opposite to That towards the Centre or Heart which Nature had given Them before But as to the Theory of Swoonings I shall not now examine its Truth it being sufficient to warrant my drawing from thence an Argument ad Hominem that the Theory is made Use of by Those I reason with By what has been discours'd One may perceive that as there are some Phaenomena that seem to favour the Doctrine of the Naturists about the Cure of Diseases so there are Others that appear more manifestly favourable to the Hypothesis we propose And both these sorts of Phaenomena being consider'd together may well suggest a Suspition that the most Wise and yet most Free Author of Things having fram'd the first Individuals of Mankin'd so as to be fit to last many Years and endow'd those Protoplasts with the Power of propagating their Species it thereupon comes to pass that in the subsequent Hydraulico-pneumatical Engines we call Human Bodies when neither particular Providence nor the Rational Soul nor over-ruling Impediments interpose Things are generally perform'd according to Mechanical Laws and Courses whether the Effects and Events of these prove to be conducive to the welfare of the Engine itself or else cherish and foment Extraneous Bodies or Causes whose Preservation and Prospering are hurtful to It. On which Supposition it may be said That the happy things referr'd to Nature's prudent Care of the Recovery and Welfare of sick Persons are usually genuine Consequences of the Mechanism of the World and the Patients Body which Effects luckily happen to be co-incident with his Recovery rather than to have been purposely and wisely produced in order to It since I observe that Nature seems to be careful to produce preserve and cherish Things hurtful to the Body as well as Things beneficial to It. For we see in the Stone of the Kidneys and Bladder that out of Vegetable or Animal Substances of a slighter Texture such as are the Alimental Juices which in Sucking Children who are observ'd to be frequently subject to the Stone in the Bladder are afforded by so mild a Liquor as Milk Nature skilfully frames a hard Body of so firm a Texture that it puzzles Physicians and Chymists to tell how such a Coagulation can be made of such Substances And I have found more than one Calculus to resist both Spirit of Salt that readily dissolves Iron and Steel and that highly Corrosive Menstruum Oyl of Vitriol itself We see also that divers times the Seeds or Seminal Principles of Worms that lye conceal'd in unwholesome Fruits and other ill-qualifi'd Aliments are preserv'd and cherish'd in the Body so as in spight of the Menstruum's ferments c. they meet with there they grow to be perfect Worms of their respective kinds that are often very troublesome and sometimes very dangerous to the Body that harbours them Producing though perhaps not immediately both more and more various Distempers especially here in England than every Physician is aware of This Reflection may very well be applied to those Instances we meet with in good Authors of Frogs and even Toads whose Spawn being taken in with corrupted Water hath been cherished in the Stomach 'till the Eggs being grown to be compleat Animals they produc'd horrid Symptoms in the Body that had lodg'd and fed them And if according to the receiv'd Opinion of Physicians stubborn Quartans are produc'd by a Melancholy Humour seated in the Spleen it may be said that Nature seems to busie Herself to convert some Parts of the Fluid Chile into so tenacious and hardly dissipable a Juice that in many Patients notwithstanding the Neighbourhood of the Spleen and Stomach neither strong Emeticks nor Purges nor other usual Remedies are able in a long time to dislodg it or resolve it or correct it But that is yet more conducive to my present purpose that is afforded me by the Consideration of the Poyson of a Mad-dog which Nature sometimes seems industriously and solicitously to preserve Since we have Instances in approved Authors that a little Foam convey'd into the Blood by a slight hurt perhaps quickly heal'd up is notwithstanding the constant Heat and perspirable Frame of the Human Body and the dissipable Texture of the Foam so preserved and that sometimes for many Years that at the end of that long time it breaks out and displays its fatal Efficacy with as much vigour and fury as if it had but newly been receiv'd into the Body To this agrees That which is well known in Italy about the biting of the Tarantula For though the Quantity of Poyson can scarce be visible since 't is communicated by the Tooth of so small an Animal as a Spider yet in many Patients 't is preserved during a great part of of their Lives and manifests its Continuance in the Body by Annual Paroxysms And I know a Person of great Quality who complain'd to me that being in
an admirably contriv'd Automaton the Phaenomena may by the same Author who was able to endow Bodies themselves with Active Powers as well as he could on other scores make them Causes be produc'd by Vertue and in consequence of the Primitive Construction and Motions that He gave it and still maintains in it without the Intervention of such a thing as they call Nature For This as well as the World being a Corporeal Creature we cannot conceive that either of them act otherwise than Mechanically And it seems very suitable to the Divine Wisdom that is so excellently display'd in the Fabrick and Conduct of the Universe to imploy in the World already fram'd and compleated the fewest and most simple Means by which the Phaenomena design'd to be exhibited in the World could be produc'd Nor need we be much mov'd by hearing some Naturists say that Nature though not an Incorporeal Being is of an Order Superior to mere Matter as divers of the School-men teach the Things they call Material Forms to be For who can clearly conceive an Order or Kind of Beings that shall be Real Substances and yet neither Corporeal nor Immaterial Nor do I see how the Supposition of this Unintelligible or at least Unintelligent Being though we should grant it to have a kind of Life or Soul will much assist us to explicate the Phaenomena as if a Man be acquainted with the Construction of Mills he he may as well conceive how Corn is ground by a Mill driven by the Wind or by a Stream of Water which are Brute and Senseless Beings as he can by knowing that 't is kept at Work by a Horse who though an Animated Being acts in our Case but as a Part of an Engine that is determin'd to go round and who does neither intend to grind the Corn nor know that he grinds It. And in this Place though perhaps not the very fittest I may Question With what Congruity to their Master's Doctrine the School-Philosophers teach that Nature is the Principle of Motion in all the Bodies they call Natural For not to urge that those great Masses of Sublunary Matter to which they give the Name of Elements and the Mixt Bodies that consist of them are by divers learned Men said to be mov'd to or from the Centre of the Earth by distinct Internal Principles which they call Gravity in the Earth and Water and Levity in the Fire and Air and that there is ascrib'd also to every compounded Body that Quality of the Two which belongs to the Element that predominates in It. Not to urge this I say consider that the Coelestial Part of the World does so far exceed the Sub-Coelestial in Vastness that there is scarce any Comparison between them and yet the Generality of the Peripateticks after Aristotle tell us that the Coelestial Globes of Light and the vast Orbs they suppose them to be fix'd in are mov'd from West to East by Intelligences that is Rational and Separate Beings without whose Conduct they presume that the Motions of the Heavens could not be so Regular and Durable as we see they are So that in that Part of the Universe which is incompararably vaster than the Sublunary is Intelligences being the Causes of Motion there is no Recourse to be had to Nature as the true and internal Principle of It. And here it may not perhaps be improper to declare somewhat more fully a Point already touch'd upon namely that if to know what is the general Efficient Cause of Motion can much contribute to the Explication of particular Phaenomena the Hypothesis of those Naturists I now reason with will have no considerable Advantage if any at all of Ours which derives them from the Primitive Impulse given by God to Matter and from the Mechanical Affections of the greater and lesser Portions of It. For 't is all one to Him that would declare by what particular Motion as Swift Slow Uniform Accelerated Direct Circular Parabolical c. this or that Phaenomenon is produc'd to know whether the Motions of the Parts of Matter were Originally impress'd on them by Nature or immediately by God unless it be that He being of infinitely Perfect Knowledge may be more probably than a Creature suppos'd to have at first produc'd in Matter Motions best accommodated to the Phaenomena that were to be exhibited in the World Nor do I see sufficient Cause to grant that Nature Herself whatever She be produces any Motion de Novo but only that She transfers and regulates That which was communicated to Matter at the beginning of Things As we formerly noted that in the Human Body the Rational Soul or Mind has no Power to make new Motions but only to direct those of the Spirits and of the grosser Organs and Instruments of voluntary Motion For besides that many of the Modern Naturalists approve of the Cartesian Opinion That the same Quantity of Motion is always preserv'd in the whole Mass of of the Mundane Matter that was communicated to it at first though it be perpetually transferring it from one Part to another Besides this I say I consider that if Nature produces in these those Bodies Motion that were never before in Beings unless much Motion be annihilated which is a thing as yet unprov'd the Quantity of Motion in the Universe must have for some Thousands of Years perpetually increas'd and must continue to do so which is a Concession that would much disorder the whole Theory of Local Motion and much perplex Philosophers instead of assisting Them in explicating the Phaenomena of Bodies And as for the Effects of Local Motion in the Parts of the Universal Matter which Effects make a great Part of the Phaenomena of the World After what I have formerly declar'd you will not wonder to hear me confess that to me the Supposition of Nature whether Men will have Her an Immaterial or Corporeal Substance and either without Knowledge or else indowed with Understanding doth not seem absolutely Necessary nor perhaps very Useful to make us comprehend how they are produc'd The Bodies of Animals are divers of them little less curiously fram'd than Mens and most of them more exquisitely than for ought we know the great Inanimate Mass of the Corporeal World is And yet in the Judgment of no mean Naturalists some of the Mechanical Philosophers that deny Cogitation and even Sense properly so call'd to Beasts do at least as Intelligibly and Plausibly as those that ascribe to them Souls indow'd with such Faculties as make them scarce more than gradually different from Human Ones explicate the Phaenomena that are observ'd in them And I know not whether I may not on this Occasion add that the Peripateticks themselves especially the Moderns teach some things whence One may argue that the Necessity of recurring to Nature does not reach to so many things by far as is by them suppos'd For the Efformation or Framing of the Bodies of Plants and Animals which are by great