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
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
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