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
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
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
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
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
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
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
but a notional Rule cannot in a Physical sense be said to perform these things but they are really performed by Judges Officers Executioners and other Men acting according to that Rule Thus when we say that Custom does this or that we ought to mean only that such things are done by proper Agents acting with Conformity to what is usual or customary on such Occasions And to give you an yet more apposite Instance do but consider how many Events are wont to be ascrib'd to Fortune or Chance and yet Fortune is in reality no Physical Cause of any thing for which Reason probably it is that Ancienter Naturalists than Aristotle as himself intimates take no notice of it when they treat of Natural Causes and only denotes that those Effects that are ascribed to it were produc'd by their true and proper Agents without intending to produce them as when a Man shoots at a Deer and the Arrow lightly glancing upon the Beast wounds some Man that lay beyond him unseen by the Archer 't is plain that the Arrow is a Physical Agent that acts by virtue of its Fabrick and Motion in both these Effects and yet Men will say that the slight hurt it gave the Deer was brought to pass according to the course of Nature because the Archer design'd to shoot the Beast but the mortal Wound it gave the Man happen'd by Chance because the Archer intended not to shoot Him or any Man else And whereas divers of the old Atomical Philosophers pretending without good Reason as well as against Piety to give an account of the Origin of things without recourse to a Deity did sometimes affirm the World to have been made by Nature and sometimes by Fortune promiscuously employing those Terms They did it if I guess aright because they thought neither of them to denote any true and proper Physical Cause but rather certain Conceptions that we Men have of the manner of acting of true and proper Agents And therefore when the Epicureans taught the World to have been made by Chance 't is probable that they did not look upon Chance as a True and Architectonick Cause of the System of the World but believ'd all things to have been made by the Atoms considered as their Conventions and Concretions into the Sun Stars Earth and other Bodies were made without any Design of Constituting those Bodies Whilst this Vein of framing Paradoxes yet continued I ventur'd to proceed so far as to Question Whether one may not infer from what hath been said That the chief Advantage a Philosopher receives from what Men call Nature be not that it affords them on divers occasions a Compendious way of expressing themselves Since thought I to consider things otherwise than in a Popular way when a Man tells me that Nature does such a thing he does not really help me to understand or to explicate how it is done For it seems manifest enough that whatsoever is done in the World at least wherein the rational Soul intervenes not is really effected by Corporeal Causes and Agents acting in a World so fram'd as Ours is according to the Laws of Motion setled by the Omniscient Author of things When a Man knows the contrivance of a Watch or Clock by viewing the several pieces of it and seeing how when they are duely put together the Spring or Weight sets one of the Wheels a work and by that another till by a fit Conse cution of the Motions of these and other parts at length the Index comes to point at the right Hour of the Day The Man if he be wise will be well enough satisfied with this knowledge of the Cause of the propos'd Effect without troubling himself to examine whether a Notional Philosopher will call the time-measuring Instrument an Ens per se or an Ens per accidens And whether it performs its Operations by virtue of an internal Principle such as the Spring of it ought to be or of an external one such as one may think the appended Weight And as he that cannot by the Mechanical affections of the parts of the Universal matter explicate a Phaenomenon will not be much help'd to understand how the Effect is produc'd by being told that Nature did it So if he can explain it Mechanically he has no more need to think or unless for brevity's sake to say that Nature brought it to pass than he that observes the Motions of a Clock has to say that 't is not the Engine but 't is Art that shews the Hour whereas without considering that general and uninstructive Name he sufficiently understands how the parts that make up the Engine are determin'd by their Construction and the Series of their Motions to produce the Effect that is brought to pass When the lower end of a Reed being dipp'd for Instance in Milk or Water he that holds it does cover the upper end with his Lips and fetches his Breath and hereupon the Liquor flows into his Mouth We are told that Nature raiseth it to prevent a Vacuum and this way of raising it is call'd Suction but when this is said the word Nature does but furnish us with a short Term to express a concourse of several Causes and so does in other Cases but what the Word Suction does in this For neither the one nor the other helps us to conceive how this seemingly spontaneous Ascension of a heavy Liquor is effected which they that know that the outward Air is a heavy fluid and gravitates or presses more upon the other parts of the Liquor than the Air contained in the Reed which is rarefy'd by the Dilatation of the Sucker's Thorax does upon the included part of the Surface will readily apprehend that the smaller pressure will be surmounted by the greater and consequently yield to the Ascension of the Liquor which is by the prevalent external pressure impell'd up into the Pipe and so into the Mouth as I among others have elswhere fully made out So that according to this Doctrine without recurring to Nature's Care to prevent a Vacuum one that had never heard of the Peripatetick Notions of Nature or of Suction might very well understand the mention'd Phaenomenon And if afterwards he should be made acquainted with the receiv'd Opinions and Forms of Speech us'd on this occasion he would think that so to ascribe the Effect to Nature is needless if not also erroneous and that the common Theory of Suction can afford him nothing but a compendious Term to express at once the Concourse of the Agents that make the Water ascend How far I think these extravagant Reasonings may be admitted you will be enabled to discern by what you will hereafter meet with relating to the same Subjects in the VII Section of this Discourse And therefore returning now to the rise of this Digression namely That 't is not unlike you may expect I should after the Vulgar Notion of Nature that I lately mention'd without acquiescing in it substitute
remember too that among the Observations I have met with of famous Physitians there are Instances of Periodical and Critical Evacuations at very inconvenient as well as unusual Vents as some Women are Recorded to have had their Menses sometimes at the Eyes sometimes at the Navil and sometimes at the Mouth of which there seems no cause so probable as some peculiar Structure whether Native or Adventitious of the Internal Parts concern'd in that discharge and of such unusual Structures Anatomists must have seen Many since I my self have observ'd more than One or Two If these uncommon Ways of disposing of the Morbifick Matter were always Salutary to the Patient the Argument grounded on them would have more weight But though most Men take notice of this sort of Crises's but when they are Lucky yet an Impartial Observer shall often find that ill-condition'd and hurtful Crises's may be made by unusual and unexpected ways And in some Translations of the Morbifick Matter to distant and nobler Parts perhaps it will be as difficult to shew by what Channels or known Ways the Matter pass'd from one to another as 't is to determine how it was conducted to those Parts at which it was the most happily Vented In the foregoing Discourse about Crises's there is I confess much of Paradox and 't was unwillingly enough that I made an Excursion or In-road into a Subject that has been look'd upon as the Physitians peculiar Province And you may remember that not far from the beginning of this little Book I told you that I was willing to decline medling with Other than Inanimate Bodies Living Ones being as of a less simple Sort so of a more intricate Speculation which Reflexion will I hope excuse me to you if you find that my propos'd Brevity or the difficulty of the Subject has had any great Influence on what I write about Health Diseases and Crises's And as for the Sons of Aesculapius it may be represented to them in my favour that besides that I have treated of Sickness and Crises's rather as a Physiologer than a Physician I could not leave them unconsider'd without being thought if not to betray at least to be wanting to the Cause I was to plead for If it should be dislik'd that I make the Phaenomena of the merely Corporeal Part of the World under which I comprize the Bodies of Animals though not the Rational Souls of Men to be too generally referr'd to Laws Mechanical I hope you will remember for me several things dispers'd in this Treatise that may when laid together afford a sufficient Answer to this Surmize and particularly that almost all the Modern Philosophers and among Them divers eminent Divines scruple not to forsake the spread Opinion That the Coelestial Orbs were mov'd and guided by Intelligences and to explicate by Physical Causes the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon the Production or Apparition and Phaenomena of Comets and other Things that the Romans as well as other Heathens both Ancient and Modern have ascrib'd to the immediate Agency of Divine Causes This allows me to observe to you that since these Modern Naturalists and Divines are wont to explicate the Phaenomena of the vast Coelestial Bodies by their Local Motions and the Consequences of Them They do as well as I endeavour to account for what happens in the incomparably greatest Part of the Vniverse by Physico-Mechanical Principles and Laws And even in the Terrestrial Part of the World which we Men inhabit most of the Moderns that have freed themselves from the Prejudices of the Schools do not stick to give Statical Hydro-Statical and other Mechanical Explications of the Ascension of Water in Pumps the Detention of it in Watering-Pots whose upper Orifices are clos'd and of other various Phaenomena which were formerly unanimously ascrib'd to Nature's wonderful Providence express'd in Her care to hinder a Vacuum But perhaps you will think it fitter for me to provide against their Censure who will dislike what I have written about Crises's not because I have ascrib'd too much to merely Physical Causes but on the contrary because I do not strictly confine my self to Them For I doubt that if you should shew these Papers to some of your Friends that affect to be strict Naturalists they will think it strange that in one of the Clauses in the foregoing Discourse about Crises's I mean that to which this Mark N. B. is prefix'd I admit that their Events may sometimes be vary'd by some peculiar Interposition of God But yet I own to you that the Clause 't is like they would take Exceptions at did not unawares slip from my Pen. For 't is my setled Opinion that Divine Prudence is often at least conversant in a peculiar manner about the Actions of Men and the things that happen to Them or have a necessary Connexion with the One or the Other or Both. And tho' I think it probable that in the Conduct of that far greatest Part of the Universe which is merely Corporeal the Wise Author of it does seldom manifestly procure a Recession from the settled Course of the Universe and especially from the most Catholick Laws of Motion Yet where Men who are Creatures that He is pleas'd to indow with Free Wills at least in reference to things not Spiritual are nearly and highly concern'd I think he has not only sometimes by those signal and manifest Interpositions we call Miracles acted by a Supernatural way but as the Sovereign Lord and Governor of the World doth divers times and perhaps oftner than mere Philosophers imagine give by the Intervention of Rational Minds as well united as not united to human Bodies divers such determinations to the Motion of Parts in those Bodies and of Others which may be affected by Them as by Laws merely Mechanical those Parts of Matter would not have had By which Motions so determin'd either Salutary or Fatal Crises's and many other Things conducive to the Welfare or Detriment of Men are produc'd The Interposition of Divine Providences in cases of Life and Death might be easily shewn to Christians out of divers Passages of Scripture which expresly propos'd long Life as a Reward to Obedient Children and to other Righteous Persons among the Iews and threatens bloody and deceitful Men that they shall not live out half their days and which relates that a King of Israel had his Disease made Mortal by his Impious recourse to the false God of Eckron and that upon Hezekiah's Prayers and Tears God was pleased to add fifteen Years to his Life and grant a special Benediction to an outward Medicine apply'd to his threatning Sore To which Passages divers may be added out of the New-Testament also and especially that of St. Iames who exhorts the Sick to seek for Recovery by Prayer and that of St. Paul where speaking to the Corinthians of the unworthy Receivers of the Sacrament of the Eucharist he tells them that For that cause
divers were become sick and weak among them and many also died But though the nature of this Discourse dissuades me from imploying here the Authority of Scripture yet it allows me to observe what is considerable on this occasion that Natural Theology and Right Reason comport very well with our propos'd Doctrine For as I lately intimated and do more fully shew in another Paper God has left to the Will of Man the direction of many Local Motions in the Parts of his own Body and thereby of some others though the Mechanical Laws on which the ordinary Course of Things mainly depends do not only regulate the Motions of Bodies but the Determinations too And since Man himself is vouchsaf'd a Power to alter in several Cases the usual Course of Things it should not seem incredible that the latent Interposition of Men or perhaps Angels or other Causes unthought of by Us should sometimes be imploy'd to the like purposes by God who is not only the All-wise Maker but the Absolute and yet most Just and Benign Rector of the Universe and of Men. To conclude the Excursion which I hope will not appear useless that has been occasion'd by the Discourse of Crises's I think it becomes a Christian Philosopher to admit in general that God doth sometimes in a peculiar though hidden way interpose in the ordinary Phaenomena and events of Crises's but yet that this is done so seldom at least in a way that we can certainly discern that we are not hastily to have recourse to an extraordinary Providence and much less to the strange care and skill of that question'd Being call'd Nature in this or that particular Case though perhaps unexpected if it may be probably accounted for by Mechanical Laws and the ordinary Course of Things And here though in a place less proper than I might have chosen if I had timely remembred it I shall both in reference to the extraordinary Accidents that sometimes happen in Crises's and more generally to the seemingly irregular Phaenomena of the Universe venture to offer you a Notion that perhaps you will not dislike I think then that when we consider the World and the Physical Changes that happen in It with reference to the Divine Wisdom and Providence the Arguments for the Affirmative ought in their kind to have more force than those for the Negative For it seems more allowable to argue a Providence from the exquisite Structure and Symmetry of the Mundane Bodies and the apt Subordination and Train of Causes than to infer from some Physical Anomalies that Things are not fram'd and administred by a wise Author and Rector For the Characters and Impressions of Wisdom that are Conspicuous in the curious Fabrick and orderly Train of Things can with no probability be referr'd to blind Chance but must be to a most Intelligent and Designing Agent Whereas on the other hand besides that the Anomalies we speak of are incomparably fewer than those Things which are regular and are produc'd in an orderly Way besides this I say the Divine Maker of the Universe being a most free Agent and having an Intellect infinitely Superior to Ours may in the Production of seemingly irregular Phaenomena have Ends unknown to us which even the Anomalies may be very fit to compass Thus when a Man not vers'd in the Mathematicks looks upon a curious Geographical Globe though as soon as he perceives that the differing Bignesses and particular Confines of Kingdoms and Provinces and the apt Situations true Distances and Bearings of the Cities and Towns he knows by Sight or Fame be rightly set down he cannot but conclude from these Impresses of Art or Skill that this was the Work of a designing Artificer But though he also sees on the same Globe several Circles as the Tropicks the Zodiack the Meridians c. if he be a sober Man he will not think that these were made by Chance only because he knows not the Reasons or Uses of Them or because some of the Lines as those Curve-Lines the Seamen call Rumbs are not like the other Circular but do odly and with a seeming Irregularity intersect them But will rather think that the Artist that had knowledg enough to represent the Globe of the Earth and Waters in a Body not two foot in Diameter had also skill enough to draw those Lines with some Design worthy of the same Skill though not obvious to those that are unacquainted with his Art I did not incogitantly speak of Irregularities as if they might sometimes be but seeming Ones For I think it very possible that an Artificer of so vast a Comprehension and so piercing a Sight as is the Maker of the World might in this great Automaton of His have so order'd Things that divers of Them may appear to us and as it were break out abruptly and unexpectedly and at great distances of Time or Place from one another and on such accounts be thought Irregular which yet really have both in his Preordination and in the Connection of their Genuine Causes a reference that would if we discern'd it keep us from imputing it either to Chance or to Nature's Aberrations To illustrate this a little let us consider that if when the Jesuits that first came into China presented a curious striking Watch to the King he that look'd to it had wound up the Alarm so as to strike a little after One if I say this had been done and that these Chineses that look'd upon it as a living Creature or some European Animal would think that when the Index pointing at two of the Clock likewise struck the same Hour and so three four and onward they would judg that these Noises were regularly produc'd because they at equal Intervals of time heard them and whensoever the Index pointed at an Hour and never but then but when the Alarm came unexpectedly to make a loud confus'd and more lasting Noise they could scarce avoid thinking that the Animal was sick or exceedingly disorder'd And yet the Alarming noise did as properly flow from the Structure of the little Engine and was as much design'd by the Manager of it as those Sounds of the Clock that appear'd manifestly Regular SECT VII I proceed now to the Sixth and Difficultest part of my Task which is to shew That the most general and current Effata and Axioms concerning Nature that are wont to be imploy'd in the Writings of Philosophers may have a fair Account given of them agreeably to the Doctrine I have hitherto propos'd tho' these Axioms do some of them suppose and others seem strongly to support the receiv'd Notion of Nature To clear the way for the ensuing Explications I must desire you to recall to mind the two Cautions I have formerly offer'd you in the Fifth Section wherewith I would have the common Doctrine about the Ends or Designs of Nature to be understood or limited And therefore I shall not here repeat what I there said but only
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
to give an account of Physical Subjects and even of the Generation Corruption and Forms of Natural Bodies This Advertisement premis'd I persue this Discourse it interrupted by adding Thus in a human Body the Causes that disorder it are oftentimes but Transient whereas the Structure of the Body itself and the Causes that conduce to the Preservation of that Structure are more stable and durable and on that account may enable the Engine to out-last many Things that are Hostile to It. This may be somewhat illustrated by considering that Sleep though it be not properly a Disease easily becomes One when it frequently transgresseth its due Bounds and even whilst it keeps within them it does for the time it lasts hinder the exercise of many Functions of the Body more than several Diseases do and yet according to the common course of Things the Matter that lock't up the Senses being spent the Man of himself recovers that sensible and active State on whose score he is said to be awake But to come somewhat closer to the Point We see that many Persons who get a Praeter natural Thirst with over-much Drinking get rid of it again in a few days by forbearing such Excesses and many that by too plentiful Meals are brought to a want of Appetite Recover as it were of course by a spare Diet in a few days the renewed Ferment or Menstruum of the Stomach being able in that time to concoct by little and little or expell the indigested Aliments or peccant Humours that offended the Stomach and caus'd the want of Appetite And here I desire to have it taken Notice of as a thing that may be considerable to our present Purpose that I look not on a Human Body as on a Watch or a Hand-mill i. e. as a Machine made up only of Solid or at least Consistent Parts but as an Hydraulical or rather Hydraulo-pneumatical Engine that consists not only of Solid and Stable Parts but of Fuids and those in Organical Motion And not only so but I consider that these Fluids the Liquors and Spirits are in a living Man so constituted that in eertain Circumstances the Liquors are dispos'd to be put into a Fermentation or Commotion whereby either some Depuration of Themselves or some Discharge of hurtful Matter by Excretion or both are produc'd so as for the most part to conduce to the Recovery or Welfare of the Body And that even Consistent Parts may be so fram'd and so connected with other Parts as to act as it were pro re nata varying their Motions as differing Circumstances make it convenient they should be varied I purposely shew in another Paper To this I might altogether refer you but in regard the Thing is a Paradox and lays a Foundation for Another not Inferior to itself I shall here borrow thence one Instance not mention'd that I know of by Others to this purpose that may both declare my Meaning and confirm the Thing itself I consider then that what is call'd the Pupil or Apple of the Eye is not as 't is known a substantial Part of the Organ but only a round Hole or Window made in the Vvea at which the Modify'd Beams of Light enter to fall upon the Chrystalline Humour and thence be refracted to the bottom of the Eye or seat of Vision to make there an Impression that is usually a kind of Picture for 't is not always a neat One of the Object Now the Wise and All-foreseeing Author of Things has so admirably contriv'd this Instrument of Sight that as it happens to be employ'd in differing Lights so the Bigness or Area of the Pupil varies For when the Light is vivid and would be too gteat if all the Beams were let in that might enter at an Aperture as large as the usual the Curtain is every way drawn towards the Middle and thereby the round Window made Narrower And on the other side when the Light is but faint and the Object but dimly illustrated there being more Light requisite to make a sufficient Impression at the bottom of the Eye the Curtain is every way drawn open to let in more Light And when the Eye is well constituted this is regularly done according as the Organ has need of more or less Light Of this some late Masters of Opticks have well Treated and I have spoken about it more fully in another place And the truth of the Observation you may easily find if you look upon the Eyes of a Boy or a Girl for in young Persons the change is the most notable when the Eyes are turn'd from looking on dark Objects towards bright or more illuminated Ones And I have found the Variation yet more conspicuous in the Eyes of a young Cat as I elsewhere particularly relate So that referring you to the Writings already pointed at I shall only add in this place that these various Motions in the Eye are produc'd by mere Mechanism without the Direction or so much as Knowledg or Perception of the Rational Soul And upon the like Account it is that other Motions in several Parts belonging to the Eye are produc'd as 't were spontaneously as occasion requires And so as to the Fluid Parts of the Body we find that according to the Institution of the Author of Things when healthy Women are of a fit Age there is a Monthly Fermentation or Commotion made in the Blood which usually produces a kind of Separation and then an Excretion advantagious to the Body And that you may the better make out what I meant by the Disposition or Tendency of the Parts to return to their former Constitution I shall desire you to consider with me a thin and narrow Plate of good Steel or refined Silver for if one End of it be forcibly drawn aside the changed Texture of the Parts becomes such or the Congruity and Incongruity of the Pores in reference to the ambient Aether that endeavours to permeate them is made such that as soon as the Force that bent it is remov'd the Plate does as it were spontaneously return to its former Position And yet here is no internal watchful Principle that is solicitous to make this Restitution for otherwise it is indifferent to the Plate what Figure it settle in for if the Springy Body stand long Bent then as if Nature forgot her Office or were unable to execute it though the Force that held the Spring bent be remov'd it will not endeavour to regain its former streightness And I have tryed in a Silver Plate that if you only heat it red-hot and let it cool if you put it into a crooked Posture it will retain it but barely with two or three stroaks of a Hammer which can only make an invisible change of Texture the Plate will acquire a manifest and considerable Springyness which you may again deprive it of by sufficiently heating it in the Fire without so much as melting it But to return to the Discourse formerly
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
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
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