its determinate Bulk and Figure And he that looks upon Sand in a good Microscope will easily perceive that each minute Grain of it has as well it s own size and shape as a Rock or Mountain And when we let fall a great stone and a pibble from the top of a high Building we find not but that the latter as well as the former moves conformably to the Laws of acceleration in heavy Bodies descending And the Rules of Motion are observ'd not onely in Canon Bullets but in Small Shot and the one strikes down a Bird according to the same Laws that the other batters down a Wall And though Nature or rather its Divine Author be wont to work with much finer materials and employ more curious contrivances than Art whence the Structure even of the rarest Watch is incomparably inferiour to that of a Humane Body yet an Artist himself according to the quantity of the matter he imploys the exigency of the design he undertakes and the bigness and shape of the Instruments he makes use of is able to make pieces of work of the same nature or kind of extremely differing bulk where yet the like though not equal Art and Contrivance and oftentimes Motion too may be observ'd As a Smith who with a Hammer and other large Instruments can out of masses of Iron forge great Bars or Wedges and make those strong and heavy Chains that were imploy'd to load Malefactors and even to secure Streets and Gates may with lesser Instruments make smaller Nails and Filings almost as minute as Dust and may yet with finer Tools make Links of a strange Slenderness and Lightness insomuch that good Authors tell us of a Chain of divers Links that was fastned to a Flea and could be mov'd by it and if I mis-remember not I saw something like this besides other Instances that I beheld with pleasure of the Littleness that Art can give to such pieces of Work as are usually made of a considerable bigness And therefore to say that though in Natural Bodies whose bulk is manifest and their structure visible the Mechanical Principles may be usefully admitted that are not to be extended to such portions of Matter whose parts and Texture are invisible may perhaps look to some as if a man should allow that the Laws of Mechanism may take place in a Town-Clock but cannot in a Pocket-Watch or to give you an instance mixt of Natural and Artificial as if because the Terraqueous Globe is a vast Magnetical Body of seven or eight thousand miles in Diameter one should affirm that Magnetical Laws are not to be expected to be of force in a spherical piece of Loadstone that is not perhaps an inch long And yet Experience shews us that notwithstanding the inestimable disproportion betwixt these two Globes the Terrella as well as the Earth hath its Poles Aequator and Meridians and in divers other Magnetical Properties emulates the Terrestrial Globe They that to solve the Phaenomena of Nature have recourse to Agents which though they involve no self-repugnancy in their very Notions as many of the Judicious think Substantial Forms and Real Qualities to do yet are such that we conceive not how they operate to bring effects to pass These I say when they tell us of such indeterminate Agents as the Soul of the World the Universal Spirit the Plastic Power and the like though they may in certain cases tell us some things yet they tell us nothing that will satisfie the Curiosity of an Inquisitive Person who seeks not so much to know what is the general Agent that produces a Phenomenon as by what Means and after what Manner the Phenomenon is produc'd The famous Sennerâ—us and some other Learned Physicians tell us of Diseases which proceed from Incantation but sure 't is but a very slight account that a sober Physician that comes to visit a Patient reported to be bewitch'd receives of the strange Symptoms he meets with and would have an account of if he be coldly answer'd That 't is a Witch or the Devil that produces them and he will never sit down with so short an account if he can by any means reduce those extravagant Symptoms to any more known and stated Diseases as Epilepsies Convulsions Hysterical Fits c. and if he can not he will confess his knowledge of this Distemper to come far short of what might be expected and attain'd in other Diseases wherein he thinks himself bound to search into the Nature of the Morbific Matter and will not be satisfi'd till he can probably at least deduce from that and the structure of an Humane Body and other concurring Physical Causes the Phaenomena of the Malady And it would be but little satisfaction to one that desires to understand the causes of what occurrs to observation in a Watch and how it comes to point at and strike the hours to be told That 't was such a Watch-maker that so contriv'd it Or to him that would know the true cause of an Eccho to be answer'd That 't is a Man a Vault or a Wood that makes it And now at length I come to consider that which I observe the most to alienate other Sects from the Mechanical Philosophy namely that they think it pretends to have Principles so Universal and so Mathematical that no other Physical Hypothesis can comport with it or be tolerated by it But this I look upon as an easie indeed but an important mistake because by this very thing that the Mechanical Principles are so universal and therefore applicable to so many things they are rather fitted to include than necessitated to exclude any other Hypothesis that is founded in Nature as far as it is so And such Hypotheses if prudently consider'd by a skilful and moderate person who is rather dispos'd to unite Sects than multiply them will be found as far as they have Truth in them to be either Legitimately though perhaps not immediately deducible from the Mechanical Principles or fairly reconcilable to them For such Hypotheses will probably attempt to account for the Phaenomena of Nature either by the help of a determinate number of material Ingredients such as the Tria Prima of the Chymists by participation whereof other Bodies obtain their Qualities or else by introducing some general Agents as the Platonic Soul of the World or the Universal Spirit asserted by some Spagyrists or by both these ways together Now to dispatch first those that I named in the second place I consider that the chief thing that Inquisitive Naturalists should look after in the explicating of difficult Phaenomena is not so much what the Agent is or does as what changes are made in the Patient to bring it to exhibit the Phaenomena that are propos'd and by what means and after what manner those changes are effected So that the Mechanical Philosopher being satisfied that one part of Matter can act upon another but by vertue of Local Motion or the effects and
my self in the Esteem I had for them And though I freely confess that the following Discourse doth not consist of nothing but Ratiocinations and consequently is not altogether of an Uniform Contexture yet that will I hope be thought no more than was fit in a Discourse design'd not onely to Convince but to Perswade Which if it prove so happy as to do as I hope the Peruser will have no cause to regret the trouble of Reading it so I shall not repent that of Writing it THE INTRODUCTION SIR I Hop'd you had known me better than to doubt in good earnest how I relish'd the Discourse your Learned Friend entertain'd us with yester-night And I am the more troubled at your Question because your way of inquiring how much your Friends Discourse obtain'd of my Approbation gives me cause to fear that you vouchsafe it more of yours then I could wish it But before I can safely offer you my sense of the Discourses about which you desire to know it I must put you in mind that they were not all upon one Subject nor of the same Nature And I am enough his Servant to acknowledge without the least reluctancy that he is wont to shew a great deal of wit when he speaks like a Naturalist onely of things purely Physical and when he is in the right seldom wrongs a good cause by his way of managing it But as for those passages wherein he gave himself the liberty of disparaging the learned Dr. N. onely because that Doctor cultivates Theological as well as Physical Studies and does both oftentimes read Books of Devotion and sometimes write them I am not so much a Courtier as to pretend that I liked them 'T is true he did not deny the Doctor to be a learned and a witty Man as indeed the wise providence of God has so ordered it That to stop the bold mouthes of some who would be easily tempted to imagine and more easily to give out that none are Philosophers but such as like themselves desire to be nothing else Our Nation is happy in several men who are as eminent for Humane as studious of Divine Learning and as great a veneration as they pay to Moses and St. Paul are as well vers'd in the Doctrine of Aristotle and of Euclid nay of Epicurus and Des Cartes too as those that care not to study any thing else But though for this reason Mr. N. had not the confidence to despise the Doctor and some of his Resemblers whom he took occasion to mention yet he too plainly disclos'd himself to be one of those who though they will not deny but that some who own a value for Theology are men of parts yet they talk as if such persons were so in spight of their being Religiously given That being in their opinion such a blemish that a man must have very great Abilities otherwise to make amends for the disadvantage of valuing Sacred Studies and surmount the disparagement it procures him Wherefore since this disdainful humour begins to spread much more than I could wish it did among differing sorts of men among whom I should be glad not to find any Naturalists and since the Question you ask'd me and the esteem you have for your Friend makes me fear you may look on it with very favourable eyes I shall not decline the Opportunity you put into my hands of giving you together with a profession of my dislike of this practice some of my Reasons for that dislike and the rather because I may do it without too much exceeding the limits of an Epistle or those which the haste wherewith I must write this does prescribe to me For your Friend does not oppose but onely undervalue Theology and professing to believe the Scriptures which I so far credit as to think he believes himself when he says so we agree upon the principles So that I am not to dispute with him as against an Atheist that denies the Authour of Nature but onely against a Naturalist that over-values the study of it And the Truths of Theology are things which I need not bring Arguments for but am allowed to draw Arguments from them But though as I just now intimated I design brevity yet for fear the fruitfulness and importance of my Subject should suggest things enough to me to make some little method requisite to keep them from appearing confused I shall divide the following Epistle into two distinct parts In the former of which I shall offer you the chief positive Considerations by which I would represent to you the study of Divinity as preferable to that of Physicks And in the second part I shall consider the Allegations that I foresee your Friend may interpose in favour of Natural Philosophy From which distribution you will easily gather that the Motives on the one hand and the Objections on the other will challenge to themselves distinct Sections in the respective parts whereto they belong So that of the Order of the particulars you will meet with I shall not need to trouble you with any further Account THE EXCELLENCY OF THEOLOGY OR The Preeminence of the Study of Divinity above that of Natural Philosophy THE FIRST PART TO address my self then without any farther Circumstance or Preamble to the things themselves that I mainly intend in this Discourse I consider in the General That as there are scarce any Motives accounted fitter to engage a Rational man in a study than That the Subject is Noble That 't is his Duty to apply himself to it and That his Proficiency in it will bring him great Advantages So there is not any of these three Inducements that does not concur in a very plentiful measure to recommend to us the Study of Theological Truths THE FIRST SECTION ANd first The Excellency and Sublimity of the Object we are invited to contemplate is such that none that does truly acknowledge a Deity can deny but that there is no Speculation whose Object is comparable in point of Nobleness to the Nature and Attributes of God The Souls of inquisitive men are commonly so curious to learn the Nature and Condition of Spirits as that the over-greedy desire to discover so much as That there are other Spiritual Substances besides the Souls of Men has prevail'd with too many to try forbidden ways of attaining satisfaction and many have chosen rather to venture the putting themselves within the power of Daemons than remain ignorant whether or no there are any such Beings As I have learned by the private acknowledgments made me of such unhappy though not unsuccessful Attempts by divers learned men both of other Professions and that of Physick who themselves made them in differing places and were persons neither Timerous nor Superstitious But this onely upon the By. And certainly that man must have as Wrong as Mean a Notion of the Deity and must but very little consider the Nature and Attributes of that infinitely perfect Being and as little the
multitudes in the world that have no need of the assistance the Naturalist would give the Physician and a healthy man as such is already in a better condition than the Philosopher can hope to place him in and is no more advantag'd by the Naturalist's contribution to Physick than a sound man that sleeps in a whole skin is by all the fine Tools of a Chirurgeons Case of Instruments and the various Compositions of his Chest And as the Benefits that may be derived from Theology much surpass those that accrue from Physicks in the Nobleness of the Subject they relate to so have they a great advantage in point of Duration For all the service that Medicines and Engines and Improvements can do a man as they relate but to this Life so they determine with it Physick indeed and Chymistry do the one more faintly and the other more boldly pretend sometimes not onely to the Cure of Diseases but the Prolongation of Life But since none will suspect but that the Masters of those parts of knowledge would employ their utmost skill to protract their own Lives those that remember that Solomon and Helmont liv'd no longer than millions that were strangers to Philosophy and that even Paracelsus himself for all his boasted Arcana is by Helmont and other Chymists confessed to have died some years short of 50 we may very justly fear that Nature will not be so kind to her greatest Votaries as to give them much more time than other men for the payment of the last Debt all men owe her And if a few years respite could by a scrupulous and troublesome use of Diet and Remedies be obtain'd yet that in comparison of the Eternity that is to follow is not at all considerable But whereas within no great number of years a little sooner or a little later all the Remedies and Reliefs and Pleasures and Accommodations that Philosophical Improvements can afford a man will not keep him from the Grave which within very few days will make the body of the greatest Virtuoso as hideous and as loathsome a Carcase as that of any ordinary man the Benefits that may accrue to us by Divinity as they relate Chiefly though not Onely to the other World so they will follow us out of this and prove then incomparably greater than ever when they alone shall be capable of being enjoy'd So that Philosophy in the capacity we here consider it does but as it were provide us some little Conveniences for our passage like some Accommodations for a Cabbin which out-lasts not the Voyage but Religion provides us a vast and durable Estate or as the Scripture styles it an unshaken Kingdom when we are arriv'd at our Journeys end And therefore the Benefits accruing from Religion may well be concluded preferible to their Competitors since they not onely reach to the Mind of Man but reach beyond the End of Time it self whereas all the variety of Inventions that Philosophy so much boasts of as whilst they were in season they were devis'd for the service of the Body so they make us busie and pride our selves about things that within a short time will not so much as upon Its score at all concern us The third Section I Expect you should here urge on your Friends behalf That the study of Physicks has one Prerogative above that of Divinity which as it is otherwise a great Excellency so does much add to the Delightfulness of it I mean the Certainty and Clearness and the thence resulting Satisfactoriness of our Knowledge of Physical in comparison of any we can have of Theological matters whose being Dark and Uncertain the Nature of the things themselves and the numerous Controversies of differing Sects about them sufficiently manifest But upon this Subject divers things are to be consider'd For first as to the Fundamental and Necessary Articles of Religion I do not admit the Allegation but take those Articles to be both Evident and capable of a Moral Demonstration And if there be any Articles of Religion for which a Rational and Cogent Proof cannot be brought I shall for that very reason conclude that such Articles are not absolutely Necessary to be believ'd since it seems no way reasonable to imagine that God having been pleased to send not onely his Prophets and his Apostles but his onely Son into the World to promulgate to Mankind the Christian Religion and both to cause it to be consign'd to writing that it may be known and to alter the course of Nature by numerous Miracles that it might be believ'd it seems not reasonable I say to imagine that he should not propose those Truths which he in so wonderful and so solemn a manner recommended with at least so much Clearness as that studious and well-dispos'd Readers may certainly understand such as are necessary for them to believe 2. Though I will not here engage my self in a Disquisition of the several kinds or if you please Degrees of Demonstration which yet is a Subject that I judge far more considerable than cultivated yet I must tell you that as a Moral certainty such as we may attain about the Fundamentals of Religion is enough in many cases for a wise man and even a Philopher to acquiesce in so that Physical Certainty which is pretended for the Truths demonstrated by Naturalists is even where 't is rightfully claim'd but an inferiour kind or degree of certainty as Moral certainty also is For even Physical Demonstrations can beget but a Physical Certainty that is a Certainty upon supposition that the Principles of Physick be true not a Metaphysical Certainty wherein 't is absolutely impossible that the thing believ'd should be other than true For instance All the Physical Demonstrations of the Antients about the causes of particular Phaenomena of Bodies suppose that ex nihilo nihil fit and this may readily be admitted in a Physical sense because according to the course of Nature no Body can be produc'd out of Nothing but speaking universally it may be false as Christians generally and even the Cartesian Naturalists asserting the Creation of the World must believe that de facto it is And so whereas Epicurus does I remember prove that a Body once dead cannot be made alive again by reason of the dissipation and dispersion of the Atoms 't was when alive compos'd of though all men will allow this assertion to be Physically demonstrable yet the contrary may be true if God's Omnipotence intervenes as all the Philosophers that acknowledge the Authority of the New Testament where Lazarus and others are recorded to have been raised from the dead must believe that it actually did appear and even all unprejudic'd Reasoners must allow it to be Possible there being no Contradiction impli'd in the Nature of the thing But now to affirm that such things as are indeed Contradictories cannot be both true or that factum infectum reddi non potest are Metaphysical Truths which cannot possibly be other than
more dimm and imperfect knowledge of God and the Mysteries of Religion may be more desirable and upon that account more delightful than a clearer knowledge of those Inferior Truths that Physicks are wont to teach I must now mention one particular more which may well be added to those that peculiarly indear Physicks to the Divine that is studious of them For as he contemplates the works of Nature not barely for themselves but to be the better qualified and excited to admire and praise the Author of Nature so his Contemplations are delightful to him not barely as they afford a pleasing Exercise to his Reason but as they procure him a more welcome approbation from his Conscience these distinct satisfactions being not at all inconsistent And questionless though Esau did at length miss of his aim yet while he was hunting Venison for the good old Patriark that desired it of him besides the pleasure he was us'd to take in pursuing the Deer he chas'd he took a great one in considering that now he hunted to please his Father and in order to obtain of him an inestimable Blessing So when David imployd his skilful Hand and Voice in praising God with Vocal and Instrumental Musick he receiv'd in one Act a double satisfaction by exercising his Skill and his Devotion and was no less pleas'd with those melodious sounds as they were Hymns than as they were Songs And this Example prompts me to add that as the devout Student of Nature we were speaking of does Intentionally refer the knowledge he seeks of the Creatures to the glory of the Creator so in his Discoveries that which most contents him is that the Wonders he observes in Nature heighten that Admiration he would fain raise to a less disproportion to the Wisdom of God and furnish him with a nobler Holocaust for those Sacrifices of Praise he is justly ambitious to offer up to the Deity And as there is no doubt to be made but that when David invented as the Scripture intimates that he did new Instruments of Musick there was nothing in that Invention that pleas'd him so much as that they could assist him to praise God the more melodiously go the pious Student of Nature finds nothing more welcome in the Discoveries he makes of her Wonders than the Rises and Helps they may afford him the more worthily to celebrate and glorifie the Divine Attributes adumbrated in the Creatures And as a Huntsman or a Fowler if he meets with some strange Bird or Beast or other Natural Rarity thinks himself much the more fortunate if it happen to be near the Court where he may have the King to present it to than if he were to keep it but for himself or some of his Companions So our Devout Naturalist has his Discoveries of Natures Wonders indear'd to him by having the Deity to present them to in the Veneration they excite in the Finder and which they inable him to ingage others to joyn in The fourth Section BUt I confess Sir I much fear that That which makes your Friend have such detracting thoughts of Theology is a certain secret Pride grounded upon a Conceit that the Attainments of Natural Philosophers are of so noble a kind and argue so transcendant an Excellency of Parts in the Attainer that he may justly undervalue all other Learning without excepting Theology it self You will not I suppose expect that a person who has written so much in the praise of Physiques and laboured so much for a little skill in it should now here endeavour to depretiate that so useful part of Philosophy But I do not conceive that it will be at all injurious to it to prefer the knowledge of Supernatural to that of meer Natural things and to think that the Truths which God indiscriminately exposes to the whole Race of Mankind and to the bad as well as to the good are inferiour to those Mysterious ones whose Disclosure he reckons among his peculiar Favours and whose Contemplation employs the Curiosity and in some points exacts the wonder of the very Angels That I may therefore repress a little the overweening Opinion your Friend has of his Physical Attainments give me leave to represent a few particulars conducive to that purpose And first as for the Nobleness of the Truths taught by Theology and Physicks those of the former sort have manifestly the Advantage being not onely conversant about far nobler Objects but discovering things that Humane Reason of it self can by no means reach unto as has been sufficiently declared in the foregoing part of this Letter Next we may consider that whatever may be said to excuse Pride if there were any in Moscus the Phoenician who is affirmed to have first Invented the Atomical Hypothesis and in Democritus and Leucippus for Epicurus scarce deserves to be named with them that highly Advanc'd that Philosophy and in Monsieur Des-Cartes who either Improv'd or at least much Innovated the Corpusculaâ—ian Hypothesis Whatever I say may be alledged on the behalf of these Mens pride I see no great Reason why it should be allowed in such as your Friend who though Ingenious Men are neither Inventors nor eminent Promoters of the Philosophy they would be admir'd for but content themselves to Learn what others have Taught or at least to make some little further Application of the Principles that others have Established and the Discoveries they have made And whereas your Friend is not a little proud of being able to confute several Errours of Aristotle and the Antients it were not amiss if he consider'd that many of the chief Truths that overthrow those Errours were the Productions of Time and Chance and not of his daring Ratiocinations For there needs no great Wit to disprove those that maintain the Uninhabitableness of the Torrid Zone or deny the Antipodes since Navigators have found many Parts of the former well Peopl'd and Sailing round the Earth have found men living in Countreys Diametrically opposite to Ours Nor will it warrant a man's Pride that he believes not the Moon to be the onely Planet that shines with a borrowed Light or the Galaxy to be a Meteor since that now the Telescope shows us that Venus has her Full and Wain like the Moon and that the Milky way is made up of a vast multitude of little Stars inconspicuous to the naked Eye And indeed of those other Discoveries that overthrow the Astronomy of the Antients and much of their Philosophy about the Celestial Bodies few or none have any cause to boast but the excellent Galileus who pretends to have been the Inventor of the Telescope For that Instrument once discover'd to be able to reject the Septenary number of the Planets by the Detection of the four Satellites of Jupiter or talk of the Mountains and Valleys in the Moon requires not much more excellency in your Friend than it would to descry in a Ship where the naked Eye could discern but the Body of the
who determines in favour of Divine Truths were such an one as was less acquainted than our over-weening Naturalists with the secrets of their Idoliz'd Physicks or if he were though an Intelligent yet like an Angel a Bare Contemplator of what we call the Works of Nature without having any Interest in their Productions your Friends not acquiescing in his estimate of things might have though not a fair Excuse yet a stronger Temptation But when he by whose direction we prefer the higher Truths revealed in the Scripture before those which Reason alone teaches us concerning those comparatively mean Subjects things Corporeal is the same God that not onely understands the whole Universe and all its parts far more perfectly than a Watch-maker can understand one of his own Watches in which he can give an account onely of the Contrivance and not of the Cause of the Spring nor the Nature of the Gold Steel and other Bodies his Watch consists of but did make both this great Automaton the World and Man in it We have no colour to imagine that he should either be ignorant of or injuriously disparage his own Workmanship or impose upon his Favourite-Creature Man in directing him what sort of Knowledge he ought most to covet and prize So that since 't is He who fram'd the World and all those things in it we most admire that would have us prefer the knowledge he has vouchsafed us in his Word before that which he has allow'd us of his Works sure 't is very unreasonable and unkind to make the Excellencies of the Workmanship a disparagement to the Author and the Effects of his Wisdom a Motive against acquiescing in the Decisions of his Judgment as if because he is to be admir'd for his Visible Productions he were not to be believ'd when he tells us that there are Discoveries that contain Truths more valuable than those which relate but to the Objects that he has expos'd to all men's Eyes The fifth Section I Doubt I should be guilty of a most important Omission if I should here forget to consider One thing which I fear has a main stroak in the Partiality your Friend expresseth in his preference of Physicks to Theology and that is That he supposes he shall by the Former acquire a Fame both more Certain and more Durable than can be hop'd for from the Latter And I acknowledge not onely with readiness but with somewhat of Gratulation of the felicity of this Age That there is scarce any sort of Knowledge more in request than that which Natural Philosophy pretends to teach and that among the awaken'd and inquisitive part of Mankind as much Reputation and Esteem may be gain'd by an insight into the Secrets of Nature as by being intrusted with those of Princes or dignifi'd with the splendid'st marks of their favour But though I readily confess thus much and though perhaps I may be thought to have had I know not by what fate as great a share of that perfum'd Smoak Applause as at least some of those which among the Writers that are now alive your Friend seems most to Envy for it yet I shall not scruple to tell you partly from observation of what has happen'd to others and partly too upon some little Experience of my own that neither is it so easie as your Friend seems to believe it to get by the study of Nature a sure and lasting Reputation neither ought the Expectation of it in reason make men undervalue the study of Divinity Nor would it here avail to object by way of prevention that the Difficulties and Impediments of acquiring and securing Reputation lie as well in the way of Divines as Philosophers since this Objection has been already consider'd at the beginning of this Second Part of our present Tract Besides that the progress of our Discourse will shew that the Naturalist aspiring to fame is liable to some Inconveniences which are either not at all or not near equally incident to the Divine Wherefore without staying to take any further notice of this preventive Allegation I shall proceed to make good the first part of the Assertion that preceded it which that I may the more fully do give me leave after having premised That a man must either be a Writer or forbear to Print what he knows to propose to you the following Considerations And first if your Physeophilus should think to secure a great Reputation by forbearing to couch any of his Thoughts or Experiments in Writing he may thereby find himself not a little mistaken For if once he have gain'd a repute upon what account soever of knowing some things that may be useful to others or of which studious men are wont to be very desirous he will not avoid the Visits and Questions of the Curious Or if he should affect a Solitude and be content to hide himself that he may hide the things he knows yet he will not escape the sollicitations that will be made him by Letters And if these ways of tempting him to disclose himself prevail not at all with him to do so he will provoke the Persons that have employ'd them who finding themselves disoblieg'd by being defeated of their Desires if not also their Expectations will for the most part endeavour to revenge themselves on him by giving him the Character of an uncourteous and ill-natur'd person and will endeavour perhaps successfully enough to decry his parts by suggesting That his affected Concealments proceed but from a Conscientiousness that the things he is presum'd to possess are but such as if they should begin to be known would cease to be valu'd You will say perchance that so much reservedness is a fault Nor shall I dispute it with you whether it be or not but if he be open and communicative in Discourse to those Strangers that come to pump him such is the disingenious temper of too too many that he will be in great danger of having his Notions or Experiments arrogated by those to whom he imparts them or at least by others to whom those may though perchance designlessly happen to discourse of them And then if either Physeophylus or any of his Friends that know him to be Author of what is thus usurp'd should mention him as such the Usurpers and their Friends would presently become his Enemies and to secure their own Reputation will be sollicitous to lessen and blemish his And if you should now tell me that your Friend might here take a Middle way as that which in most cases is thought to be the best by discoursing at such a rate of his Discoveries as may somewhat gratifie those that have a Curiosity to learn them and yet not speak so clearly as divest himself of his Propriety in them I should reply That neither is this Expedient a sure one nor free from Inconveniences For most men are so self-opinionated that they will easily believe themselves Masters of things if they do but half understand them And
Vessel to descry I say by the help of a Prospective Glass the Masts and Sails and Deck and perceive a Boat tow'd at her Stern Though indeed Galileo himself had no great cause to boast of the Invention though we are much oblig'd to him for the Improvement of the Telescope since no less a Master of Dioptricks than Des-Cartes does acknowledge with other Writers that Perspective-Glasses were not first found out by Mathematicians or Philosophers but casually by one Metius a Dutch Spectacle-maker On which occasion I shall mind you that to hide Pride from Man divers others of the chief Discoveries that have been made in Physicks have been the Productions not of Philosophy but Chance by which Gunpowder Glass and for ought we know the Verticity of the Load-stone to which we owe both the Indies came to be found in these later Ages as more recently the Milky Vessels of the Mesentery the new Receptacle of the Chyle and that other sort of Vessels which most men call the Lymphae-ducts were lighted on but by Chance according to the Ingenious Confession of the Discoverers themselves We may farther consider that those very things which are justly are alledg'd in the praise of the Corpuscularian Philosophy it self ought to lessen the pride of those that but make use of it For that Hypothesis supposing the whole Universe the Soul of Man excepted to be but a great Automaton or self-moving Engine wherein all things are perform'd by the bare motion or rest the size the shape and the scituation or texture of the parts of the Universal Matter it consists of all the Phaenomena result from those few Principles single or combin'd as the several Tunes or Chimes that are rung on five Bells and these fertile Principles being already establish'd by the Inventors and Promoters of the Particularian Hypothesis all that such Persons as your Friend are wont farther to do is but to investigate or guess by what kind of Motions the three or four other Principles are varied So that the World being but as it were a great piece of Clock-work the Naturalist as such is but a Mechanitian however the parts of the Engine he considers be some of them much larger and others much minuter than those of Clocks or Watches And for an ordinary Naturalist to despise those that study the Mysteries of Religion as much inferiour to Physical Truths is no less unreasonable than it were for a Watch-maker because he understands his own Trade to despise Privy-Counsellers who are acquainted with the secrets of Monarchs and Mysteries of State or than it were for a Ship-carpenter because he understands more of the Fabrick of the Vessel to despise the Admiral that is acquainted with the secret Designs of the Prince and imploy'd about his most important affairs That great Restorer of Physicks the illustrious Verulam who has trac'd out a most useful way to make Discoveries in the Intellectual Globe as he calls it confesses that his work was to speak in his own terms partus temporis potius quám ingenii And though I am not of his opinion where he says in another place that his way of Philosophizing does exaequare ingenia yet I am apt to think that the fertile Principles of the Mechanical Philosophy being once setled the Methods of inquiring and experimenting being found out and the Physico-mechanical Instruments of working on Natures and Arts Productions being happily invented the making of several lesser improvements especially by rectifying of some almost obvious or supine Errours of the Schools by the assistance of such facilitating helps may fall to the lot of persons not endow'd with any extraordinary Sagacity or acuteness of parts And though the Investigation and clear establishment of the true Principles of Philosophy and the devising the Instruments of Knowledge be things that may be allowed to be the proper work of sublimer Wits yet if a man be furnish'd with such assistances 't is not every Discourse that he makes or thing which he does by the help of them that is difficult enough to raise him to that illustrious rank And indeed divers of the vulgar Errours as well as of Scholars as other men being mainly grounded upon the meer and often mistaken Authority of Aristotle and perhaps some frivolous Reasons of his Scholastic Interpreters of such precarious and ungrounded things that to ruine them does oftentimes require more of boldness than skill it may perhaps be said of your Friend in relation to his Philosophical Successes against such vulgar Errours as I am speaking of what a Roman said of Alexander's Triumph over the effeminate Asiaticks Quod nihil aliud quám bene ausus sit Vana contemnere And in some cases it happens that when once a grand Truth or a happy way of Experimenting has been found divers Phaenomena of Nature that had been left unexplain'd or were left mis-explain'd by the Schools did in my opinion require a far less straining Exercise of the mind to unriddle and explain them than must have been requisite to dispel the darkness that attended divers Theological Truths that are now clear'd up and perhaps than I have my self now and then imploy'd in some of those Attempts to illustrate Theological Matters that you may have met in some Papers that I have presum'd to write on such Subjects And indeed the Improvements that such Virtuosi as your Friend are wont to make of the fertile Theorems and Hints that have been presented them by the Founders or prime Benefactors of true Natural Philosophy are so poor and slender and do so much oftner proceed from Industry and Chance than they argue a transcendent sagacity or a sublimity of Reason that though such persons may have cause enough to be Delighted with what they have done yet they have none to be Proud of it and their Performances may deserve our Thanks and perhaps some of our Praise but reach not so high as to merit our Admiration which is to be reserv'd for Those that have been either Framers or Grand Promoters of True and Comprehensive Hypotheses or else the Authors of other noble and useful Discoveries many ways applicable It will not perhaps be improper to add on this occasion that as our knowledge is not very deep not reaching with any certainty to the bottom of Things nor penetrating to their intimate or innermost Natures so its Extent is not very large not being able to give us with any Clearness and particularity an account of the Celestial and deeply Subterraneal parts of the World of which all the others make but a very small not to say contemptible portion For as to the very Globe that we inhabit not to mention how many Plants Animals and Minerals we are as yet wholly ignorant of and how many others we are but slenderly acquainted with I consider that the objects about which our Experiments and Inquiries are conversant do all belong to the Superficial parts of the Terrestrial Globe of which the Earth known to us