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
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
account as they think of Religion against the care I take to decline the frequent use of that Word Nature in the Vulgar Notion of it Reserving to another and fitter place some other things that may relate to the Theological scruples if any occur to me that our Free Inquiry may occasion The Philosophical Reason that inclines me to forbear as much as conveniently I can the frequent use of the Word Nature and the Forms of Speech that are deriv'd from it is That 't is a Term of great Ambiguity On which score I have observ'd that being frequently and unwarily imploy'd it has occasion'd much darkness and confusion in many Mens Writings and Discourses And I little doubt but that others would make the like Observations if early Prejudices and universal Custom did not keep them from taking notice of it Nor do I think my self oblig'd by the just Veneration I owe and pay Religion to make use of a Term so inconvenient to Philosophy For I do not find that for many Ages the Israelites that then were the only People and Church of God made use of the Word Nature in the Vulgar Notion of it Moses in the whole History of the Creation where it had been so proper to bring in this first of second Causes has not a word of Nature And whereas Philosophers presume that she by her Plastick Power and Skill forms Plants and Animals out of the Universal Matter the Divine Historian ascribes the Formation of them to Gods immediate Fiat Gen. i. 11. And God said let the Earth bring forth Grass and the Herb yielding Seed and the Fruit tree yielding Fruit after his kind c. And again Vers. 24 God said Let the Earth bring forth the living Creature after its kind c. Vers. 25 And God without any mention of Nature made the Beast of the Earth after his kind And I do not remember that in the Old Testament I have met with any one Hebrew word that properly signifies Nature in the sense we take it in And it seems that our English Translators of the Bible were not more fortunate in that than I for having purposely consulted a late Concordance I found not that Word Nature in any Text of the Old Testament So likewise though Iob David and Solomon and other Israelitish Writers do on divers occasions many times mention the Corporeal Works of God yet they do not take notice of Nature which our Philosophers would have his great Vicegerent in what relates to them To which perhaps it may not be impertinent to add that though the late famous Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel has purposely written a Book of numerous Problems touching the Creation yet I do not remember that he imploys the Word Nature in the receiv'd Notion of it to give an account of any of Gods Mundane Creatures And when St. Paul himself who was no stranger to the Heathen Learning writing to the Corinthians who were Greeks speaks of the Production of Corn out of Seed sown he does not attribute the produc'd Body to Nature but when he had spoken of a grain of Wheat or some other seed put into the ground he adds that God gives it such a Body as he pleaseth and to every seed it s own Body i. e. the Body belonging to its kind And a greater than St. Paul speaking of the gaudiness of the Lillies or as some will have it Tulips uses this Expression If God so cloath the grass of the Field c. Matt. vi 28 29 30. The Celebrations that David Iob and other Holy Hebrews mention'd in the Old Testament make an occasion of the admirable Works they contemplated in the Universe are address'd directly to God himself without taking notice of Nature Of this I could multiply Instances but shall here for brevity's sake be contented to name a few taken from the Book of Psalms alone In the hundredth of those Hymns the Penman of it makes this That God has made us the ground of an Exhortation To enter into his Gates with Thanksgiving and into his Courts with Praise Psal. lxxix 34. And in another Let the Heaven and Earth praise God that is give Men ground and occasion to Praise Him congruously to what David elsewhere says to the Great Creator of the Universe All thy work 's shall praise thee O Lord and thy Saints shall bless thee Psal. cxlv 10. And in another of the Sacred Hymns the same Royal Poet says to his Maker Thou hast cover'd me in my Mothers womb I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made marvellous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right well Psal. cxxxix 13 14. I have sometimes doubted whether one may not on this occasion add that if Men will need takes in a Being subordinate to God for the management of the World it seems more consonant to the Holy Scripture to depute Angels to that charge than Nature For I consider that as to the Coelestial Part of the Universe in comparison of which the Sublunary is not perhaps the ten-thousandth part both the Heathen Aristotelian's and the School Philosophers among the Christians teach the Coelestial Orbs to be moved or guided by Intelligences or Angels And as to the lower or sublunary World besides that the Holy Writings teach us that Angels have been often imploy'd by God for the Government of Kingdoms as is evident out of the Book of Daniel and the Welfare and Punishment of particular Persons one of those Glorious Spirits is in the Apocalypse expresly styl'd the Angel of the Waters Which Title divers Learned Interpreters think to be given him because of his Charge or Office to oversee and preserve the Waters And I remember that in the same Book there is mention made of an Angel that had Power Authority or Iurisdiction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over the Fire And though the Excellent Grotius gives another conjecture of the Title given the Angel of the Waters yet in his Notes upon the next Verse save one he teaches That there was an Angel appointed to preserve the Souls that were kept under the Altar there-mention'd And if we take the Angel of the Waters to be the Guardian or Conserver of them perhaps as the Romans in whose Empire St. Iohn wrote had special Officers to look to their Aqueducts and other Waters it may not be amiss to observe upon the by that he is introduc'd Praising his and his fellow-Spirits Great Creator Which is an Act of Religion that for ought I know none of the Naturists whether Pagan or even Christians ever mention'd their Nature to have perform'd I know it may on this occasion be alledg'd that subordinata non pugnant and Nature being God's Vicegerent her Works are indeed his But that he has such a Vicegerent it is one of the main businesses of this Discourse to call in Question and till the Affirmative be solidly prov'd nay and tho' it were so I hope I shall be excus'd if with
add in two words that if those and some few other such things had been observ'd and duly consider'd they might perhaps have prevented much of the Obscurity and some of the Errors that relate to the Notion of Nature I hope you have not forgot that the design of this Paper was to examine the Vulgar Notion of Nature not to establish a new One of my own And indeed the Ambiguity of the Word is so great as hath in the Second Section been made appear and 't is even by Learned Men frequently imploy'd to signifie such different Things that without Enumerating and Distinguishing its various Acceptions it were very unsafe to venture a giving a Definition of it and perhaps it were very impossible to give any that would not be liable to censure I shall not therefore here presume to define a Thing of which I have not found a stated and setled Notion so far agreed on amongst Men but that I was oblig'd out of Aristotle and Others to compile in the Fourth Section a Collective Representation of the vulgarly receiv'd Idea or Notion of Nature And afterwards to draw up as well as I could instead of an accurate Definition tolerable Descriptions of what on most occasions may be intelligibly meant by It. Wherefore desiring and presuming that you will retain in your Mind and as occasion shall require apply in the following Part of this Essay the Things already delivered in the Fourth Section I will not trouble you with the Repetition of Them But before I descend to treat of the particular Effata or Sentences that are Receiv'd concerning Nature's Actings it may not be improper nor unuseful to try if we can clear the way by considering in what sense Nature may or may not be said to act at all or to do this or that For for ought I can clearly discern whatsoever is perform'd in the merely Material World is really done by particular Bodies acting according to the Laws of Motion Rest c. that are setled and maintain'd by God among Things Corporeal In which Hypothesis Nature seems rather a Notional Thing than a true Physical and distinct or separate Efficient such as would be in case Aristotles Doctrine were true one of those Intelligences that he presum'd to be the Movers of the Coelestial Orbs. But Men do oftentimes express themselves so very ambiguously or intricately when they say that Nature does this and that or that She acts thus and thus that 't is scarce if at all possible to translate their Expressions into any Forms of Speech adequate to the Original and yet Intelligible For which Reason though I have in the Section said something to the same purpose with what I am now to propose yet the difficulty and weight of the Subject makes me think it may be expedient if not necessary in this place somewhat more fully to declare what Men do or should mean when they speak of Nature's acting or of a Thing 's being Naturally done or performed by giving their Words and Phrases sometimes one Interpretation and sometimes another I. Sometimes when 't is said that Nature does this or that 't is less proper to say that 't is done by Nature than that it is done according to Nature So that Nature is not here to be look'd on as a distinct or separate Agent but as a Rule or rather a Systeme of Rules according to which those Agents and the Bodies they work on are by the Great Author of Things determin'd to act and suffer Thus when Water is rais'd in a Sucking-Pump 't is said that Nature makes the Water ascend after the Sucker to prevent a Vacuum though in reality this Ascension is made not by such a separate Agent as Nature is fancied to be but by the Pressure of the Atmosphere acting upon the Water according to Statical Rules or the Laws or the Aequilibrium of Liquors settled by God among Fluids whether Visible or Pneumatical So when the strict Peripateticks tell us that all the Visible Coelestial Orbs being by a Motion that they call Violent hurried about the Earth every four and twenty Hours from East to West each of the Planetary Orbs has a Natural Motion that is quite contrary tending from the West to the East If they will speak congruously to their Master's Doctrine they must use the term Natural in the sense our Observation gives It Since Aristotle will have the Coelestial Orbs to be moved by external or separate Agents namely Spiritual Intelligences Our Observation may be also illustrated by other forms of Speech that are in use as when 't is said that the Law takes care of Infants and Lunaticks that their indiscreet Actions or Omissions should not damnifie their Inheritances and that the Law Hangs Men for Murther but only Burns them in the Hand for some lesser Faults of which Phrases the Meaning is that Magistrates and other Ministers of Justice acting according to the Law of the Land do the things mention'd And it tends yet more directly to our purpose to take Notice that 't is common to ascribe to Art those things that are really perform'd by Artificers according to the Prescriptions of the Art as when 't is said that Geometry as the Name imports measures Lands Astrology foretels Changes of Weather and other future Accidents Architecture makes Buildings and Chymistry prepares Medicines II. Sometimes when divers Things such as the Growth of Trees the Maturations of Fruits c. are said to be perform'd by the course of Nature the Meaning ought to be that such things will be brought to pass by their proper and immediate Causes according to the wonted Manner and Series or Order of their Actings Thus 't is said that by the course of Nature the Summer days are longer than those of the Winter That when the Moon is in Opposition to the Sun that is in the Full Moon that Part of Her Body which respects the Earth is more Enlightned than at the New Moon or at either of the Quadratures And lastly That when She enters more or less into the Conical Shadow of the Earth She suffers a total or a partial Eclipse And yet these and other Illustrious Phaenomena may be clearly explicated without recourse to any such Being as the Aristotelians Nature barely by considering the Situations and wonted Motions of the Sun or Earth and the Moon with reference to each other and to the Terrestrial Globe And here it may not be amiss to take notice that we may sometimes usefully distinguish between the Laws of Nature more properly so call'd and the Custom of Nature or if you please between the Fundamental and General Constitutions among Bodily Things and the Municipal Laws if I may so call them that belong to this or that particular sort of Bodies As to resume and somewhat vary our Instance drawn ftom Water when this falls to the Ground it may be said to do so by virtue of the Custom of Nature it being almost constantly usual for