account thereof from the necessary motion of Matter unguided by Mind for Ends prudently therefore break off their System there when they should come to Animals and so leave it altogether untoucht We acknowledg indeed there is a Posthumous piece extant imputed to Cartes and entituled De la formation du Foetus wherein there is some Pretence made to salve all this by fortuitous Mechanism But as the Theory thereof is built wholly upon a false supposition sufficiently confuted by our Harvey in his Book of Generation that the Seed doth materially enter into the composition of the Egg So is it all along precarious and exceptionable nor doth it extend at all to the differences that are in several Animals nor offer the least reason why an Animal of one Species might not be formed out of the Seed of another Thus far the Doctor with whom for the main I do consent I shall only add that Natural Philosophers when they endeavor to give an account of any of the Works of Nature by preconceived Principles of their own are for the most part grosly mistaken and confuted by Experience as Des Cartes in a matter that lay before him obvious to sense and infinitly more easie to find out the Cause of than to give an account of the Formation of the World that is the Pulse of the Heart which he attributes to an Ebullition and sudden expansion of the Blood in the Ventricles after the manner of Milk which being heated to such a Degree doth suddenly and as it were all at once flush up and run over the Vessel Whether this Ebullition be caused by a Nitro-Sulphureous ferment lodged especially in the left Ventricle of the Heart which mingling with the Blood excites such an Ebullition as we see made by the mixture of some Chymical Liquors viz. Oil of Vitriol and deliquated Salt of Tartar or by the vital flame warming and boyling the Blood But this conceit of his is contrary both to Reason and Experience For first It is altogether unreasonable to imagine and affirm that the cool venal Blood should be heated to so high a degree in so short a time as the interval of two Pulses which is less than the sixth part of a Minute Secondly In cold Animals as for Example Eels the Heart will beat for many hours after it is taken out of the Body yea tho the Ventricle be opened and all the Blood squeezed out Thirdly The process of the Fibres which compound the sides of the Ventricles running in Spiral Lines from the Tip to the Base of the Heart some one way and some the contrary do clearly shew that the Systole of the Heart is nothing but a Muscular constriction as a Purse is shut by drawing the Strings contrary ways Which is also confirm'd by Experience for if the Vertex of the Heart be cut off and a finger thrust up into one of the Ventricles in every Systole the Finger will be sensibly and manifestly pincht by the sides of the Ventricle But for a full Confutation of this Fancy I refer the Reader to Dr. Lower's Treatise de Corde Chap. 2. and his Rules concerning the transferring of Motion from one Body in motion to another are the most of them by Experience found to be false as they affirm which have made Trial of them This Pulse of the Heart Dr. Cudworth would have to be no Mechanical but a Vital motion which to me seems probable because it is not under the command of the Will nor are we conscious of any Power to cause or to restrain it but it is carried on and continued without our knowledge or notice neither can it be caused by the impulse of any external movent unless it be Heat But how can the Spirits agitated by Heat unguided by a vital Principle produce such a regular reciprocal motion If that Site which the Heart and its Fibres have in the Diastole be most natural to them as it seems to be why doth it again contract itself and not rest in that posture If it be once contracted in a Systole by the influx of the Spirits why the Spirits continually flowing in without let doth it not always remain so For the Systole seems to resemble the forcible bending of a Spring and the Diastole its flying out again to its natural site What is the Spring and principal Efficient of this Reciprocation What directs and moderates the motions of the Spirits They being but stupid and senseless matter cannot of themselves continue any regular and constant motion without the guidance and regulation of some intelligent Being You will say what Agent is it which you would have to effect this The sensitive Soul it cannot be because that is indivisible but the Heart when separated wholly from the Body in some Animals continues still to pulse for a considerable time nay when it hath quite ceased it may be brought to beat anew by the Application of warm Spittle or by pricking it gently with a Pin or Needle I answer it may be in these Instances the scattering Spirits remaining in the Heart may for a time being agitated by heat cause these faint Pulsations though I should rather attribute them to a plastick Nature or vital Principle as the Vegetation of Plants must also be But to proceed neither can I wholly acquiesce in the Hypothesis of that Honourable and deservedly famous Author I formerly had occasion to mention which I find in his free Enquiry into the vulgar Notion of Nature P. 77 78. delivered in these Words I think it probable that the great and wise Author of things did when he first formed the Universal and Undistinguished Matter into the World put its parts into various Motions whereby they were necessarily divided into numberless Portions of differing Bulks Figures and Situations in respect of each other And that by his infinite Wisdom and Power he did so guide and over-rule the motions of these Parts at the beginning of things as that whether in a shorter or a longer time Reason cannot determine they were finally disposed into that Beautiful and Orderly Frame that we call the World among whose Parts some were so curiously contrived as to be fit to become the Seeds or feminal Principles of Plants and Animals And I further conceive that he setled such Laws or Rules of local Motion among the parts of the Universal Matter that by his ordinary and preserving Concurse the several parts of the Universe thus once completed should be able to maintain the great Construction or System and Oeconomy of the mundane Bodies and propagate the Species of living Creatures The same Hypothesis he repeats again Pag. 124 125. of the same Treatise This Hypothesis I say I cannot fully acquiesce in because an intelligent Being seems to me requisite to execute the Laws of Motion For first Motion being a fluent thing and one part of its Duration being absolutely independent upon another it doth not follow that because any thing moves this moment
a Skinny Substance or hinder the swallowing of our Meat therefore these annulary Gristles are not made round or entire Circles but where the Gullet touches the Windpipe there to fill up the Circle is only a soft Membrane which may easily give way to the Dilatation of the Gullet And to demonstrate that this was designedly done for this End and Use so soon as the Windpipe enters the Lungs its Cartilages are no longer deficient but perfect Circles or Rings because there was no necessity they should be so but it was more convenient they should be entire Lâ—â—â—ly for the various modulation of the Voice the upper end of the Wind-pipe is endued with several Cartilages and Muscles to contract or dilate it as we would have our Voice Flat or Sharp and moreover the whole is continually moistened with a glutinous Humor issuing out of the small Glandules that are upon its inner Coat to fence it against the sharp Air received in or Breath forced out yet is it of quick and tender Sense that it may be easily provoked to cast out by coughing whatever may fall into it from without or be discharged into it from within Seventhly The Heart which hath been always esteemed and really is one of the principal Parts of the Body the primum vivens ultimum moriens by its uncessant Motion distributing the Blood the Vehicle of Life and with it the Vital Heat and Spirits throughout the whole Body whereby it doth continually irrigate nourish and keep hot and supple all the Members Is it not admirable that from this Fountain of Life and Heat there should be Channels and Conduit-pipes to every even the least and most remote Part of the Body just as if from one Waterhouse there should be Pipes conveying the Water to every House in a Town and to every Room in each House or from one Fountain in a Garden there should be little Channels or Dikes cut to every Bed and every Plant growing therein as we have seen more than once done beyond the Seas I confess the Heart seems not to be designed to so noble an Use as is generally believed that is to be the Fountain or Conservatory of the vital Flame and to inspire the Blood therewith for the Lungs serve rather for the accension or maintaining that Flame the Blood receiving there from the Air those Particles which are one Part of the Pabulum or Fewel thereof and so impregnated running back to the Heart but to serve as a Machine to receive the Blood from the Veins and to force it out by the Arteries through the whole Body as a Syringe doth any Liquor though not by the same Artifice And yet this is no ignoble Use the continuance of the Circulation of the Blood being indispensibly necessary for the quickening and enlivening of all the Members of the Body and supplying of Matter to the Brain for the preparation of the Animal Spirits the Instruments of all Sense and Motion Now for this use of receiving and pumping out of the Blood the Heart is admirably contrived For First being a Muscular Part the Sides of it are composed of two orders of Fibres running circularly or spirally from Base to Tip contrarily one to the other and so being drawn or contracted contrary ways do violently constringe and straiten the Ventricles and strongly force out the Blood as we have formerly intimated Then the Vessels we call Arteries which carry from the Heart to the several Parts have Valves which open outwards like Trap-doors and give the Blood a free passage out of the Heart but will not suffer it to return back again thither and the Veins which bring it back from the several Members to the Heart have Valves or Trap-doors which open inwards so as to give way to the Blood to run into the Heart but prevent it from running back again that way Besides the Arteries consist of a quandruple Coat the Third of which is made up of annular or orbicular carneous Fibres to a good thickness and is of a Muscular Nature after every Pulse of the Heart serving to contract the Vessel successively with incredible celerity so by a kind of peristaltick Motion impelling the Blood onwards to the capillary Extremities and through the Muscles with great force and swiftness So the Pulse of the Arteries is not only caused by the pulsation of the Heart driving the Blood through them in manner of a Wave or Flush as Des Cartes and others would have it but by the Coats of the Arteries themselves which the experiments of a certain Lovain Physitian the first whereof is Galens do in my opinion make good against him First saith he if you slit the Artery and thrust into it a Pipe so big as to fill the Cavity of it and cast a strait ligature upon that part of the Artery containing the Pipe and so bind it fast to the Pipe notwithstanding the Blood hath free passage through the Pipe yet will not the Artery beat below the ligature but do but take off the ligature it will commence again to beat immediately But because one might be ready to reply to this Experiment that the reason why when bound it did not beat was because the current of the Blood being straitned by the Pipe when beneath the Pipe it came to have more liberty was not sufficient to stretch the Coats of the Artery and so cause a Pulse but when the ligature was taken off it might flow between the enclosed tube and the Coat of the Artery therefore he adds another which clearly evinces that this could not be the reason but that it is something flowing down the Coats of the Artery that causes the Pulse that is If you straiten the Artery never so much provided the sides of it do not quite meet and stop all passage of the Blood the Vessel will notwithstanding continue still to beat below or beyond the Coarctation So we see some Physitians both Ancient as Galen and Modern were of opinion that the Pulse of the Arteries was owing to their Coats though the first that I know of who observed the third Coat of an Artery to be a muscular Body composed of annulary Fibres was Dr. Willis The mention of the peristaltick Motion puts me in mind of an ocular Demonstration of it in the Gullet of Kine when they chew the Cud which I have often beheld with pleasure For after they have swallowed one morsel if you look stedfastly upon their Throat you will soon see another ascend and run pretty swiftly all along the Throat up to the Mouth which it could not do unless it were impelled by the successive contraction or peristaltick Motion of the Gullet continually following it And it is remarkable that these ruminant Creatures have a power by the imperium of their wills of directing this peristaltick Motion upwards or downwards I shall add no more concerning the Heart but that it and the Brain do mutuas operas tradere enable one another
Secondly How can Man give thanks and praise to God for the use of his Limbs and Senses and those his good Creatures which serve for his sustenance when he cannot be sure they were made in any respect for him nay when 't is as likely they were not and that he doth but abuse them to serve ends for which they never intended Thirdly This Opinion as I hinted before supersedes and cassates the best medium we have to demonstrate the Being of a Deity leaving us no other demonstrative Proof but that taken from the innate Idea which if it be a Demonstration is but an obscure one not satisfying many of the learned themselves and being too subtle and metaphysical ro be apprehended by vulgar Capacities and consequently of no force to persuade and convince them Secondly They endeavour to evacuate and disanul our great Argument by pretending to solve all the Phaenomena of Nature and to give an Account of the Production and Efformation of the Universe and all the corporeal Beings therein both celestial and terrestrial as well animate as inanimate not excluding Animals themselves by a sleight Hypothesis of matter so and so divided and moved The Hypothesis you have in Des Cartes's Principles of Philosophy Part. 2. all the matter of this visible World is by him supposed to have been at first divided by God into Parts nearly equal to each other of a mean size viz. about the bigness of those whereof the Heavenly Bodies are now compounded all together having as much motion as is now found in the World and these to have been equally moved severally every one by itself about its own Center and among one another so as to compose a fluid body and also many of them jointly or in company about several other points so far distant from one another and in the same manner disposed as the Centres of the fixt Stars now are So that God had no more to do than to create the matter divide it into parts and put it into motion according to some few Laws and that would of itself produce the World and all Creatures therein For a Confutation of this Hypothesis I might refer the Reader to Dr. Cudworth's System p. 603. 604. but for his ease I will transcribe the words God in the mean time standing by as an Idle Spectator of this Lusus Atomorum this sportfull Dance of Atoms and of the various results thereof Nay these mechanick Theists have here quite outstripped and outdone the Atomick Atheists themselves they being much more extravagant then ever those were For the professed Atheists durst never venture to affirm that this regular Systeme of things resulted from the fortuitous motions of Atoms at the very first before they had for a long time together produced many other inept Combinations or aggregate Forms of particular things and nonsensical Systems of the whole and they supposedalso that the regularity of things here in this world would not always continue such neither but that some time or other Confusion and Disorder will break in again Moreover that besides this World of ours there are at this very instant innumerable other Worlds irregular and that there is but one of a thousand or Ten Thousand among the infinite Worlds that have such regularity in them the reason of all which is because it was generally taken for granted and lookt upon as a common notion that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle expresseth it none of those things which are from Fortune or Chance come to pass always alike But our mechanick Theists will have their Atoms never so much as once to have fumbled in these their motions nor to have produced any inept System or incongruous forms at all but from the very first all along to have taken up their places and ranged themselves so orderly methodically and directly as that they could not possibly have done it better had they been directed by the most perfect Wisdom Wherefore these Atomick Theists utterly evacuate that grand Argument for a God taken from the Phaenomenon of the Artificial frame of things which hath been so much insisted upon in all Ages and which commonly makes the strongest impression of any other upon the minds of Men c. the Atheists in the mean time laughing in their Sleeves and not a little triumphing to see the Cause of Theism thus betrayed by its professed Friends and Assertors and the grand Argument for the same totally slurred by them and so their work done as it were to their hands Now as this argues the greatest Insensibility of mind or Sottishness and Stupidity in pretended Theists not to take the least notice of the regular and artificial frame of things or of the signatures of the Divine Art and Wisdom in them nor to look upon the World and things of Nature with any other Eyes than Oxen and Horses do So are there many Phaenomena in Nature which being partly above the force of these Mechanick Powers and partly contrary to the same can therefore never be salved by them nor without final Causes and some vital Principle As for Example that of Gravity or the tendency of Bodies downward the motion of the Diaphragm in Respiration the Systole and Diastole of the Heart which is nothing but a Muscular Constriction and Relaxation and therefore not mechanical but vital We might also add among many others the intersection of the Plains of the Equator and Ecliptick or the Earth's diurnal motion upon an Axis not parallel to that of the Ecliptick nor perpendicular to the Plain thereof For though Des Cartes would needs imagine this Earth of ours once to have been a Sun and so itself the centre of a lesser Vortex whose Axis was then directed after this manner and which therefore still kept the same Site or Posture by reason of the striate Particles finding no fit Pores or Traces for their passages through it but only in this direction yet does he himself confess that because these two motions of the Earth the Annual and Diurnal would be much more conveniently made upon parallel Axes therefore according to the Laws of Mechanism they should be perpetually brought nearer andnearer together till at length the Equator and Ecliptick come to have their axes parallel which as it has not yet come to pass so neither hath there been for these last Two Thousand Years according to the best Observations and Judgments of Astronomers any nearer approach made of them one to another Wherefore the continuation of these two motions of the Earth the Annual and Diurnal upon Axes not parallel is resolvable into nothing but a Final and Mental Cause or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it was best it should be so the variety of the Seasons of the year depending thereupon But the greatest of all the particular Phaenomena is the Formation and Organization of the Bodies of Animals consisting of such variety and curiosity that these mechanick Philosophers being no way able to give an