The First Part

The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation.

Psalm. CIV. 24.
How manifold are thy works, O Lord! In Wisdom hast thou made them all.

In these Words are two Clauses, in the first whereof the Psalmist admires the Multitude of God’s Works, How manifold are thy Works, O Lord! In the second he celebrates his Wisdom in the Creation of them; In Wisdom hast thou made them all.

Of the first of these I shall say little, only briefly run over the Works of this visible World, and give some guess at the Number of them; whence it will appear, that upon this account they will deserve Admiration, the Number of them being uninvestigable by us, and; so affording us a demonstrative Proof of the unlimited Extent of the Creator’s Skill, and the Foecundity of his Wisdom and Power. That the number of corporeal Creatures is unmeasurably great, and known only to the Creator himself; may thus probably be collected: First of all, the Numbers of fix’d Stars is on all hands acknowledg’d to be next to infinite: Secondly, Every fix’d Star, in the now-receiv’d Hypothesis, is a Sun or Sun-like Body, and in like manner incircled with a Chorus of Planets moving about it; for the fix’d Stars are not all placed in one and the same concave Spherical Superficies, and equidistant from us, as they seem to be, but are variously and disorderly situate, some nearer, some further off, just like Trees in a Wood or Forest; as Gassendus exemplifies them. And as in a Wood, tho’ the Trees grow never so irregularly, yet the Eye of the Spectator, wherever plac’d, or whithersoever remov’d, describes still a circle of Trees: So would it in like manner wherever it were in the Forest of Stars, decribe a Spherical Superficies about it. Thirdly, each of these Planets is in all likelihood furnished with as great Variety of corporeal Creatures, animate and inanimate, as the earth is, and all as different in Nature as they are in Place firom the Terrestrial, and from each other. Whence it will follow, that these must be much more infinite than the Stars: I do not mean absolutely according to Philosophick Exactness infinite, but only infinite or innumerable as to us, or their Number prodigiously great.

That the fix’d Stars are innumerable, may thus be made out: Those visible to the naked Eye are by the least Account acknowledg’d to be above a Thousand, excluding those towards the south Pole, which are not visible in our Horizon: Besides these, there have been incomparably more detected and brought to light by the Telescope; the Milky-way being found out to be; (as was formerly conjectr’d) nothing but great Companies or Swarms of Minute Stars singly invisible, but by reason of their Proximity mingling and confounding their Lights, and appearing like lucid Clouds. And it’s likely that, had we more perfect Telescopes many Thousands more might be discovered; and yet after all, an incredible Multitude remain, by reason of their immense Distance beyond all Ken by the best Telescopes that could possibly be invented or polish’d by the Wit and Hand of an Angel: For if the World be (as Des Cartes would have it) indefinitely extended; that is, so far as no human Intellect can fansie any Bounds of it; then what we see, or can come to see, must be the least Part of what is undicoverable by us, the whole Universe extending a thousand times further beyond the utmost Stars we can possibly descry, than those be distant from the Earth we live upon. This Hypothesis of the fix’d stars being so many Suns, etc. seems more agreeable to the Divine Greatness and Magnificence. But that which induces me much to doubt of the Magnitude of the Universe, and immense Distance of the fx’d Stars, is the stupendous Phoenomena of Comets, their sudden Accension or Appearance in full Magnitude, the Length of their Tails and Swiftness of their Motion, and gradual Diminution of Bulk and Motion, ‘till at last they disappear. That the Universe is indefinitely extended, Des Cartes, upon a false ground, [that the formal Ratio of a Body was nothing but Extension into Length, Breadth and Proximity, or having partes extra partes, and that Body and Space were synonymous Terms] asserted; it may as well be limited this Way, as in the old Hypothesis, which places the fix’d Stars in the same spherical Superficies; according to which (old Hypothesis) they may also be demonstrated by the same Mediums to be innumerable, only instead of their Distance substituting their Smallness for the Reason of their Invisilbility.

But leaving the Celestial Bodies, I come now to the Terrestrial; which are either inanimate or animate. The inanimate are the Elements, Meteors and Fossils, of all Sorts, at the Number of which last I cannot give any probable Guess: But if the Rule which some considerate Philosophers deliver, holds good, viz. how much more imperfect any Genus or Order of Beings is, so much more numerous are the Species contain’d under it: As for Example Birds being a more perfect Kind of Animal than Fishes, there are more of these than of those; and for the like Reason more Birds than Quadrupeds, and more Insects than of any of the rest, and So more Plants than Animals, Nature being more sparing in her more excellent Productions. If this Rule, I say, hold good, then should there be more Species of Fossils, or generally of inanimate Bodies, than of Vegetables, of which there is some Reason to doubt, unless we will admit all Sorts of formed Stones to be distinct Species.

Animate Bodies are divided into four great Genera or Orders, Beasts, Birds, Fishes and Insects.

The Species of Beasts, including also Serpents, are not very numerous: Of such as are certainly known and describ’d, I dare say not above 150; and yet I believe not many, that are of any considerable Bigness, in the known Regions of the World, have escap’d the Cognizance of the Curious. [I reckon all dogs to be of one Species, they mingling together in Generation, and the Breed of such Mixtures being prolifick.

The Number of Birds known and describ’d may be near 500; and the Number of Fishes, secluding Shell-Fish, as many: But if the Shell-Fish be taken in, more than six times the Number. How many of each Genus remain yet undiscover’d, one cannot certainly nor very nearly conjecture; but we may suppose the whole Sum of Beasts and Birds to exceed by a third part, and Fishes by one Half; those known.

The Insects, if we take in the Exanguious both Terrestrial and Aquatick, may, in Derogation to the precedent Rule, for Number, vie even with Plants themselves: For the Exanguious alone, by what that Learned and Critical Naturalist, my honour’d Friend, Dr. Martin Lister, hath already observ’d and delineated, I conjecture, cannot be fewer than 3000 Species, perhaps many more.

The Butterflies and Beetles are such numerous Tribes, that I believe in our own native Country alone the Species of each Kind may amount to 150 or more. And if we should make the Catterpillers and Hexapods, from whence these come, to be distinct Species, as most Naturalists have done, the Number will be doubled, and these two Genera will afford us 600 Species: But if those be admitted for distiinct Species, I see no Reason but their Aureliae also may pretend to a specifick Difference from the Caterpillers and Butterflies, and so we shall have 300 Species more; therefore we exclude both these from the Degree of Species, making them to be the same Insect under a different Larva or Habit.

The Fly-kind, if under that Name we comprehend all other flying Insects, as well such as have four, as such as have but two Wings, of both which Kinds there are many subordinate Genera, will be found in Multitude of Species, to equal, if not exceed, both the foremention’d Kinds.

The creeping Insects that never come to be wing’d, tho’ for Number they may fall Short of the flying or winged, yet are they also very numerous; as by running over the several Kinds I could easily demonstrate. Supposing then there be a Thousand several Sorts of Insects in this Island and the Sea near it, if the same Proportion holds betnveen the Insects native of England, and those of the rest of the World, as doth between Plants domestick and exotick, (that is, as I guess, near a Decuple) the Species of Insects in the whole Earth (Land and Water) - will amount to 10000, and I do believe they rather exceed than fall short of that Sum.

Since the Writing hereof, having this summer, Ann. I691. with some diiligence prosecuted the History of our English Insects, and making Collections of the Several Species of each Tribe, but particularly and especially of the Butterflies, both nocturnal and diurnal, I find the Number of such of these alone as breed in our Neighbourhood [about Braintree and Notely in Essex] to exceed the Sum I last Year assign’d to all England, having myself observ’d and describ’d about 200 Kinds great and small, many yet remaining, as I have good Reason to believe, by me undiscover’d. This I have, since the writing hereof found true in Experience, having every Year observ’d not a few new Kinds: Nor do I think that, if I should live 20 Years longer, I should by my utmost Diligence and Industry in searching them out, come to an End of them. If then within the small Compass of a Mile or two there are so many Species to be found, surely the most modest Conjecsture cannot estimate the Number of all the Kinds of Papilio’s native of this Island to fall short of 300, which is twice so many as I last Summer guess’d them to be; wherefore, using the same Argumentations, the Number of all the British Insects will amount to 2000 and the total Sum of those of the whole Earth will be 20000.

The Number of Plants contain’d in C. Bauhin’s Penax is about 6000, which are all that had been describ’d by the Authors that wrote before him, or observ’d by himself; in which Work, besides Mistakes and Repetitions incident to the most wary and knowing Men in such a Work as that, there are a great many, I might say some Hundreds, put down for different Species, the which in my Opinion are but accidental Varieties: Which I do not say to detract from the excellent Pains and Performance of that Learned, Judicious and Laborious Herbarist, or to defraud him of his deserv’d Honour, but only to shew that he was too much sway’d by the Opinions then generally current among Herbarists, that different Colour or multiplicity of leaves in the flower and the like Accidents, were sufficient to constitute a specifick difference. But supposing there had been 6000 then known and describ’d, I cannot think but that there are in the World more than triple that Number; there being in the vast Continent of America as great a Variety of Species as with us, and yet but few common to Europe, or perhaps Africk and Asia. And if on the other Side the Equator, there be much Land still remaining undiscover’d, as probably there may, we must suppose the Number of plants to be far greater.

What can we infer from all this? If the Number of Creatures be so exceeding great, how great nay, immense must needs be the Power and Wisdom of him who form’d them all! For (that I may borrow the Words of a noble and excellent Author) as it argues and manifests more Skill by far in an Artiticer, to be able to frame both Clockr and Watches, and Pumps, and Mills and Granadoes, and Rockets, than he could display in making but one of those sorts of Engines; so the Almighty discovers more of his Wisdom in forming such a vast Multitude of different Sorts of Creatures, and all with admirable and irreprovable Art, than if he had created but a few; for this declares the Greatness and unbounded Capacity of his Understanding. Again, the same Superiority of Knowledge would be display’d, by contriving Engines of the same Kind, or for the same Purposes, after different Fashions, as the moving of Clocks or other Engines by Springs instead of Weights: So the infinitely Wise Creator hath shewn many Instances, that he is not confin’d to one only instrument for the working one Effect, but can perform the same thing by divers means. So, though feathers seem necessary for flying, yet hath he enabled several creatures to fly without them, as two Sorts of Fishes, one Sort of Lizard, and the Bat, not to mention the numerous Tribes of flying Insects. In like manner, though the Air bladder in Fishes seems necessary for swimming, yet some are so form’d as to swim without it; viz. First, the Cartilagineous Kind, which by what Artifice they poise themselves, ascend and descend at pleasure, and continue in what Depth of Water they list, is as yet unknown to us. Secondly, the Cetaceous Kind, or Sea-Beasts, differing in nothing almost from Quadrupeds but the want of Feet. The Air which in Respiration these receive into their Lungs, may Serve to render their Bodies equiponderant to the Water; and the Constriction or Dilatation of it, by the help of the Diaphragm and Muscles of Respiration, may probably assist them to ascend or descend in the Water, by a light Impulse thereof with their Fins.

Again, though the Water being a cold Element, the most Wise God hath so attemper’d the blood and Bodies of Fishes in general, that a small degree of heat is sufficient to preserve their due Consistency and Motion, and to maintain Life; yet to shew that he can preserve a Creature in the Sea, and in the coldest Part of the Sea too, that may have as great a degree of heat as Quadrupeds themselves, he hath Created great variety of these Cetaceous fishes, which converse chiefly in the Northern Seas, whose whole Body being encompassed round with a copious Fat or Blubber (which by reflecting and redoubling the internal heat, and keeping off the external Cold, doth the same Thing to them that Clothes do to us) is enabled to abide the greatest Cold of the Sea-Water. The reason why these fishes delight to frequent chiefly the Northern Seas, is, I conceive, not only for the Quiet which they enioy there, but because the Northern Air which they breathe being more fully charg’d with those particles suppos’d nitrous, which are the Aliment of Fire, is fittest to maintain the vital Heat in that Activity which is sufficient to move such an unwieldy bulk, as their bodies are, with due Celerity, and to bear up against and repel the ambient Cold; and may likewise enable them to continue longer under Water than a warmer and thinner Air could.

Another instance to prove that God can, and doth by different Means produce the same Effect, is the various Ways of extracting the nutritious Juice out of the Aliment, in several Kinds of Creatures.

I. In Man and viviparous quadrupeds the Food moisten’d with the Spittle [saliva] is first chew’d and prepar’d in the Mouth, then swallow’d into the Stomach, where being mingled with some dissolvent Juices, it is by the Heat hereof concocted, macerated, and reduc’d into a Chyle or Cremor, and so evacuated into the Intestines, where being mix’d with the Choler and Pancreatick Juice, it is further subtiliz’d and render’d so fluid and penetrant, that the thinner and finer Part of it easily finds its Way in at the streight Orifices of the lacteous Veins. 1. In Birds there is no Mastication or Comminution of the Meat in the Mouth; but in such as are not Carnivorous, it is immediately swallow’d into the Crop or Craw, or at least into a Kind of Antestomach (which I have observ’d in many, especially Piscivorous Birds) where it is moistned and mollified by some proper Juice from the Glandules distilling in there, and thence transferr’d into the Gizzard or Musculous Stomach, where by the working of the Muscles compounding the Sides of that Ventricle, and by the Assistance of small Pebbles (which the Creature swallows for that Purpose) it is, as it were, by Mill-stones ground small, and so transmitted to the Guts, to be further attenuated and subtiliz’d by the foremention’d Choler and Pancreatick Juice.

3. In oviparous Quadrupeds, as Chamaelions, Lizards, Frogs, as also in all Sorts of Serpents, there is no Mastication or Comminution of the Meat, either in Mouth or Stomachs; but as they swallow Insects or other animals whole, so they avoid their Skins unbroken, having a Heat, or Spirits, powerful enough to extract the Juice they have Need of, without breaking that which contains it; as the Parisian Academist tells us. I myself cannot warrant the Truth of the Observation in all. Here, by the by, we take Notice of the wonderful Dilatability or extendableness of the Throats and Gullets of Serpents: I myself have taken two entire adult Mice out of’ the Stomach of an Adder, whose Neck was not bigger than my little Finger. These Creatures, I say, draw out the juice of what they swallow without any comminution, or so much as breaking the Skin; even as it is seen that the juice of grapes is drawn as well from the Rape (Whole grapes pluck’d from the Cluster, and Wine poured upon them in a Vessel), where they remain whole, as from a Vat, where they are bruis’d; to borrow the Parisian Philosophers Similitude.

4. Fishes, which neither chew their Meat their Mouths nor grind it in their Stomachs, do by the Help of a dissolvent Liquor, therey Nature provided, corrode and reduce it, Skin, Bones and all, into a Chylus or Cremor; and yet (which may seem wonderful) this Liquor manifests nothing of Acidity to the Tast: But not withstanding, how mild and gentle soever it seems to be, it corrodes Flesh very strrangely and gradually, as Aqua fortis or the like corrosive Waters do Metals, as appears to the Eye; for I have observ’d Fish in the Stomachs of others thus partially corroded, first the superficial Part of the Flesh, and then deeper and deeper by degrees to the Bones.

I come now to the second part of the words; In Wisdom hast thou made them all. In discoursing whereof I shall endeavour to make out in particulars what the Psalmist here asserts in general concerning the Works of God, that they are all very wisely contriv’d and adapted to Ends both particular and general.

But before I enter upon this Task, I shall, by way of Preface or Introduction, say something concerning those Systems which undertake to give an Account of the Formation of the Universe by Mechanical Hypotheses of Matter, mov’d either uncertainly, or, according to some Catholick Laws, without the intervention and assistance of any superior immaterial Agent.

There is no greater; at least no more palpable and convincing Argument of the Existence of a Deity, than the admirable Art and Wisdom that discovers itself in the Make and Constitution, the Order and Disposition, the Ends and Uses of all the Parts and Members of this stately Fabrick of Heaven and Earth: For if in the Works of Art, as for Example, a curious Edifice or Machine, Counsel, Design, and Direction to an End appearing in the whole Frame, and in all the several pieces of it, do necessarily infer the Being and Operation of some intelligent Architect or Engineer, why shall not also in the Works of Nature, that (grandeur and Magnificence, that excellent Contrivance for Beauty, Order, Use, &c. which is observable in them, wherein they do as much transcend the Effects of humane Art as infinite Power and Wiidom exceeds finite, infer the Existence and Efficiency of an Omnipotent and All-Wise Creator ?

To evade the force of this Argument, and to give some Account of the Original of the World, Atheistical Persons have set up two Hypotheses.

The first is that of Aristotle, that the World was from Eternity in the same Condition that now it is, having run through the Successions of infinite Generations; to which they add, Self-existent and unproduced: For Aristotle doth not deny God to be the efficient Cause of the World; but only asserts, that he created it from Eternity, making him a necessary Cause thereof; it proceeding from him by way of Emanation, as Light from the Sun.

Doctrine they ought to do, being (as we said) all perfectly solid and imporous, and the vacuum not resisting their Motion, they would never the one overtake the other, but like the Drops of a Shower would always keep the same Distances, and so there could be no Concourse or Cohaesion of them, and consequently nothing created; partly to avoid this destructive Consequence, and partly to give some Account of the Freedom of Will (which they did assert contrary to the Democratick Fate) they did absurdly feign a Declination of some of these principles, without any shadow or pretence of Reason. The former of these motives you have set down by Lucretius, de Nat. rerum, 1. 2. in these Words: <> Corpora cum deorsum rectum per inane feruntur Ponderibus propriis, incerto tempore fortè, Incertiq; locis, Spatio discedere paulùm; Tantum quod momen mutatum dicere possis.

And again; <> Quod nisi declinare solerent, omnia deorsum Imbris uti guttae caderent per inane profundum, Nec foret offensus natus, nec plaga creata Principiis, ita nil umquam natura creâsset. Now Seeds in downward Motion must decline, Tho’ vary little from the exactest Line; For did they still move strait, they needs must fall Like Drops of Rain, dissolv’d and scatter’d all, For ever tumbling thro’ the mighty Space, And never join to make one single Mass.

The Second Motive they had to introduce this gratuitous Declination of Atoms, the same Poet gives us in these Verses, Lib. 2.

Si semper motus connectitur omnis, Et vetere exoritur semper novus ordine certo, Nec declinando faciunt primordia motûs Principium quoddam quod fati foedera rumpat, Ex iinito ne caufazn caufa fequatur; Libera per terras unde haec animantibus extat, Unde haec est, inquam, fatis avolsa voluntas ?

Besides, did all things move in direct Line, And still one Motion to another join In certain Order, and no Seeds decline, And make a Motion fit to dissipate The well-wrought Chain of Causes and strong Fate; Whence comes that Freedom living Creatures find ? Whence comes the Will so free, so unconfin’d, Above the Power of the Fate?

The Folly and Unreasonableness of this ridiculous and ungrounded Figment, I cannot better

*34 display and reprove than in the Words of Cicero, in the Beginning of his first Book de finibus Bonorum et Malorum. This Declination (saith he) is altogether childishly feign’d, and yet neither doth it at all solve the Difficulty, or effect what they desire: For First they say the Atoms decline, and yet assign no Reason why. Now nothing is more shameful and unworthy a Natural Philosopher (turpis Physico) than to assert any thing to be done without a Cause, or to give no Reason of it. Besides, this is contradictory to their own Hypothesis taken from sense, that all Weights do naturally move perpendicularly downward.

Secondly, again supposing this were true, and that there were such a Declination of Atoms, yet will it not effect what they intend. For either they do all decline, and so there will be no more Concourse than if they did perpendicularly descend; or some decline, and some fall plum down, which is ridiculously to assign distinct Offices and Tasks to the Atoms which are all of the same Nature and Solidity. Again, in his book de Fato he smartly derides this fond Conceit thus; What Cause is there in nature which turns the Atoms aside? Or do they cast Lots among themselves which shall decline, which not? Or why do they decline the least Interval that may be, and not a greater? Why not two or three minima as well as one; Optare hoc quidem est non disputare, For neither is the Atom by any extrinsical Impulse diverted from its natural Course; neither can there be any Cause imagin’d in the Vacuity through

*35 which it is carried, why it should not move directly; neither is there any Change made in the Atom itself, that it should not retain the Motion natural to it, by Force of its Weight or Gravity.

As for the whole Atomical Hypothesis, either Epicurean or Democritick, I shall not, nor need I, spend time to confute it; this having been already solidly and sufficiently done by many learned Men, but especially Dr. Cudworth, in his Intellectual System of the Universe, and the late Bishop of Worcester, Dr. Stillingfleet, in his Origines Sacrae. Only I cannot omit the Ciceronian confutation thereof, which I find in the place first quoted, and in his first and second Books de Natura Deorum, because it may serve as a general Introduction to the following Particulars.

Such a turbulent Concourse of Atom could never, (saith he) hunc mundi ornatum efficere, compose so well-order’d and beautiful a Structure as the World is; which therefore both in Greek and Latin hath from thence [ ab ornatu et munditie ] obtain’d its Name. And again most fully and appositely in his second De Nat Deorum: If the works of Nature are better, more exact and perfect than the Works of Art, and Art effects nothing without Reason, neither can the Works of Nature be thought to be effected without Reason. For is it not absurd and incongruous that when thou beholdest a Statue or curious Picture, thou shouldest acknowledge that Art was usd to the making of it; or when thou seest the course of a Ship upon the Waters, thou

*36 shouldst not doubt but the Motion of it is regulated and directed by Reason and Art; or when thou considerest a Sun-Dial or Clock, thou shouldst understand presently, that the Hours are shewn by Art, and not by Chance; and yet imagine or believe, that the World, which comprehends all these Arts and Artificers, was made without Counsel or Reason. If one should carry into Scythia or Britain such a Sphere as our Friend Posidonius lately made, each of whose Conversions did the same Thing in the Sun and Moon and other five Planets, which we see affected every Night and Day in the Heavens, who among those Barbarians would doubt that that Sphere was compos’d by Reason and Art? A Wonder then it must needs be, that there should be any Man found so stupid and forsaken of Reason, as to persuade himself; that this most beautiful and adorn’d World was or could be produc’d by the fortuitous concourse of Atoms. He that can prevail with himself to believe this, I do not see why he may not as well admit, that if there were made innumerable Figures of the one and twenty Letters, in Gold, suppose, or any other Metal, and there well shaken and mixt together, and thrown down from some high Place to the Ground, they when they lightted upon the Earth would be so dispos’d and yank’d that a Man might see and read in them Ennius’s Annals; whereas it were a great Chance if he should find one Verse thereof among them all. For if this concourse of Atoms could make a whole World, why may it not sometimes make,

*37 and why hath it not somewhere or other in the Earth made, a Temple, or a Gallery, or a Portico, or a House, or a City? Which yet is so far from doing, and every Man so far from believing, that should anyone of us be cast, suppose, upon a desolate island, and find there a magnificent Palace, artificially contriv’d according to the exact Rules of Architecture, and curiously adorn’d and furnish’d, it would never once enter into his Head, that this was done by an Earthquake, or the fortuitous Shuffling together of its component Materials; or that it had stood there ever since the Construction of the World, or first Cohaesion of Atoms; but would presently conclude that there had been some intelligent Architect there, the Effect of whose Art and Skill it was. Or should he find there but upon one single Sheet of Parchment or Paper, an Epistle or Ora tion written, full of profound Sense, expressed in proper and significant Words, illusrated and adorn’d with elegant Phrase; it were beyond the Possibility of the Wit of Man to persuade him that this was done by the temerarious Dashes of an unguided Pen, or by the rude Scattering of Ink upon the Paper, or by the lucky Projection of so many Letters at all Adventures; but he would be convinc’d by the Evidence of the Thing at first Sight, that there had been not only some Man, but some Scholar there.

The Cartesian hypothesis consider’d and censur’d

Having rejected this Atheistick Hypothesis of

*38 Epicurus and Democritus, I should now proceed to give particular Instances of the Art and Wisdom clearly appearing in the several Parts and Members of the Universe; from which we may justly infer this general Conclusion of the Psalmist, In Wisdom hast thou made them all: But that there is a Sort of professed Theists, I mean, Mons. Des Cartes and his Followers, who endeavour to disarm us of this decretory Weapon, to evacuate and exterminate this Argument, which hath been so successful in all Ages to demonstrate the Existence, and enforce the Belief of a Deity, and to convince and silence all Atheistick Gainsayers. And this they do,

First, By excluding and banishing all Consideration of final Causes from Natural Philosophy, upon Pretence, that they are all and every one in particular undiscoverable by us; and that it is Rashness and Arrogance in us to think we can find out God’s Ends, and be Partakers of his Counsels.

Atque ob hanc unicam rationem totum illud causarum genus quod àe fine peti folet, in rebus Physicis nullum usum habere existimo; non enim absq; temeritate me puto investigare posse fines Dei. Meditat. Metaph.

And for this only Reason, I think, all that Kind of Causes which is wont to be taken from the End, to have no use in Physicks or natural Matters; for I cannot without rashness think myself able to find out the Ends of God.

And again in his Principles of Philosophy; Nullas unquam rationes circa res Naturales à fine quem Deus aut Natura in iis faciendis fibi proposuit admittiimus, quia non tantum nobis

*39 debemus arrogare ut ejus Conciliorum participes esse possimus.

We can by no Means admit any Reasons about natural Things, taken from the End which God or Nature propos’d to themselves in making of them; because we ought not to arrogate so much to ourselves, as to think we may be Partakers of his Counsels.

And more expressly in his fourth Answer, viz. to Gassendus’s Objections;

Nec fingi potest, aliquos Dei fines magis quàm alios in propatulo esse: omnes enim in imperscrutabili ejus Sapientiae abysse sunt eodem modo reconditi:

That is, Neither can nor ought we to feign or imagine that some of God’s Ends are more manifest than others; for all lie in like Manner or equally hidden in the unsearchable abyss of his Wisdom.

This confident Assertion of Des Cartes is fully examined and reprov’d by that honourable and excellent Person, Mr. Boyl, in his Disiquisition about the final Causes of Natural Things, Sect. 1 from Page 10 to the end; and therefore I shall not need say much to it, only in brief this, that it seems to me false and of evil Consequence, as being derogatory from the Glory of God, and destructive of the Acknowledgment and Belief of a Deity:

For first, Seeing (for Instance) that the Eye is employ’d by Man and all Animals for the Use of Vision, which, as they are fram’d, is necessary for them, that they could not live without it; and God Almighty knew that would be so; and seeing it is so admirably fitted and adapted to this Use, that all the Wit and

*40 Art of Men and Angels could not have contriv’d it better, if so well, it must needs be highly absurd and unreasonable to affirm, either that it was not Design’d at all for this Use, or that it is imposible for Man to know whether it was or not.

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 ‘tis as likely they were not, and that he doth but abuse them to serve Ends for which they were never intended.

Thirdly, This Opinion, as I hinted before, supercedes 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 to be apprehended by vulgar Capacities, and consequently of no Force to persuade and convince them.

Secondly, They endeavour to evacuate and disannul our great Argument, by pretending to solve all the Phenomena 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 slight Hypothesis of Matter so and so divided and mov’d. The Hypothesis you

*41 have in Des Cartes’s Principles of Philosophy, Part 2.

All the Matter of this visible World is by him suppos’d 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 mov’d sevrally every one by itself about its own Centre, 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 dispos’d as the Centres of the fix’d Stars now are.

So that God has 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 outstripp’d and outdone the Atomick Atheists themselves, they being much more extravagant than ever those were; for the professed Atheists durst never venture to affirm, that this regular system 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

*42 Forms of particular Things and nonsensical Systems of the whole; and they suppos’d also, 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 look’d upon as a common Notion, that twn apo tuKEs kai tou automatou ouden aei houtw ginetai, 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 produc’d 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

*43

of Theism thus betray’d by its profess’d 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 Signature of the Divine Art and Wisdom in them, nor to look upon the Wcrlds and Things of Nature with any other Eyes than Oxen and Horses do; So there 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 salv’d by them, nor without final Causes and some vital Principle: As for Example, that of Gravity or the Tendency of Bodie downward, the Motion of the Diaphragm in Respiration, the Systole and Diastole of the Heart, which is nothing but a Muscular Costriction and Relaxation, and therefore not mechanical but vital. We might also add, among many others, the Intersection of the Plains of 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 tho’ 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

*44 it, but only in this Direcrtion; 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 and nearer together, till at length the Equator and Ecliptick come to have their axes parallel, which, as it hath 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 <> to Beltizon, 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 Curioisity; that these mechanick Philosophers being no Way able to give an Account thereof from the necessarv 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 untouch’d. We acknowledg indeed there is a Posthumous piece extant, imputed to Cartes, and entitled, De la formation du Foetus, wherein there is some pretence made to salve all this fortuitous Mechanism. But as the Theory thereof is built wholly upon a false supposition,

*45 sufficiently confuted by our Harvey 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 diffierences 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 endeavour to give an Account of any the Works of Nature by preconceiv’d Principles of their own, are for the most Part grossly mistaken and confuted by Experience; as [example of such error in simple matter of anatomy] obvious to Sense, and infinitely more easie to find out the Cause of, than to give an Account of the Formation of the World; that is, the Pulle 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 caus’d 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 vital flame warming and boiling the Blood.

But this Conceit of his is contrary both to Reason and Experience: For, first, it is altogether

*46 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 squeez’d 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 pinch’d 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 Des Cartes’s rules concerning the transferring of Motion from one Body in Motion to another in Motion or in Rest, are the most of them by Experience found to be false; as they affirm who 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

*47 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 na tural 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 intelligen 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 plastic Nature

*48 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 cf 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 neccesarily 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 contriv’d, as to be fit to become the Seeds or seminal Principles of Plants and Animals. And I further conceive, that he settled such Laws or Rules of local Motion among the Parts of the universal matter, that by his ordinary and preserving Concourse, 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

*49 repeats again pag. 124, 125 of the same Treatise.

This Hypothesis, I say, I cannot fully acquiesce in, because an intelligent Being seems 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, it must necessarily continue to do so the next; unless it were actually possesse’d of its future Motion, which is a Contradiction; but it stands in as much Need of an Efficient to preserve and continue its Motion as it did at first to produce it. Secondly, Let Matter be divided into the subtilest Parts imaginable, and these be mov’d as swiftly as you will, it is but a senseless and stupid Being still, and makes no nearer Approac to Sense, Perception or vital Energy, than it had before; and do but only stop the internal Motion of its Parts, and reduce them to Rest, the finest and most subtile Body that is, may become as gross, and heavy, and stiff as Steel or Stone.

And as for any external Laws or established Rules of Motion, the stupid Matter is not capable of observing or taking any Notice of them, but would be as sullen as the Mountain was that Mahomet commanded to come down to him; neither can those Laws execute themselves. Therefore there must, besides Matter and Law, be some Efficient, and that either a Quality or Power inherent in the Matter itself, which is hard to conceive, or some

*50 external intelligent Agent, either God himself immediately, or some Plastick Nature.

Happening lately to read The Christian Virtuoso, written by the same Author of the Enquiry into the vulgar notions of Nature, (the illustrious Mr. Boyle) I find therein these Words: "Nor will the Force of all that has been said for God’s special Providence be eluded, by saying with some Deists, That afiter the first Formation of the Universe all Things were brought to pass by the settled Laws of Nature. For though this be confidently, and not without Colour, pretended, yet I confess it doth not satisfie me: For I look upon a Law as a Moral, not Physical Cause, as being indeed but a notional Thing, according to which an intelligent and free Agent is bound to regulate its Actions. But inanimate Bodies are utterly uncapable of Understanding; what it is, or what it enjoins, or when they act conformably or unconformably to it: therefore the Actions of inanimate Bodies, which cannot incite or moderate their own Actions, are produced by real Power, not by Law."

All this being consonant to wat I have here written, against what I took to be this Honourable Person’s Hypothesis, I must needs, to do him Right, acknowledge myself mistaken; perceiving, now, that his Opinion was, that God Almiglaty did not only establish Laws and Rules of local motion among the Parts of the Universal Matter, but did, and does also himself, execute them, or move the Parts of Matter, according

*51 to them: So that we are in the main agreed, differing chiefly about the Agent that executes those Laws, which he holds to be God himself immediately, we a Plastick Nature; for the Reasons alledg’d by Dr. Cudworth, in his System, pag. 149. which are,;

First, Because the former, according to vulgar apprehension, would render the Divine Providence operose, solicitous and distractious; and thereby make the Belief of it entertain’d with greater Difficulty, and give Advantage to Atheists.

Secondly, it is not so decorous in Respect of God, that he should <>autourgein hapanta, set his own Hand as it were to every work, and immediately do all the meanest and triflingst things himself drudgingly, without making use of any inferiour or subordinate Ministers. These two Reasons are plausible, but not cogent; the two following are of greater Force.

Thirdly, the slow and gradual Process that is in the Generation of Things, which would seem to be a vain and idle Pomp or trifling formality, if the Agent were omnipotent.

Fourt ly, those <>hamartEmata, as Aristotle calls them, those Errors and Bungles which are committed when the Matter is inept or contumacious, as in Monsters, &c. which argue the Agent not to be irresistible; and that Nature is such a Thing as is not altogether uncapable, as well as human Art, of being sometimes frustrated and disappointed by the Indisposition of the Matter; Whereas an omnipotent agent would always do its Work infallibly and irresistibly, no Ineptitude or Stubbornness of the Matter being ever

*52 able to hinder such an one, or make him bungle or fumble in any thing. So far the Doctor.

For my Part, I should make no Scruple to attribute the Formation of Plants, their Growth and Nutrition, to the vegetative Soul in them; and likewise the Formation of Animals to the vegetative Power of their Souls; but that the Segments and Cuttings of some Plants, nay, the very Chips and smallest Fragments of their Body, Branches or Roots, will grow and become perfect plants themselves, and so the vegetative Soul, if that were the Architect, would be divisible and consequently no spiritual or intelligent Being; which the plastick Principle must be, as we have shewn: For that must preside over the whole Oeconomy of the Plant, and be one single agent, which takes Care of the Bulk and Figure of the whole, and the Situation, Figure, Texture of all the Parts, Root, Stalk, Branches, Leaves, Flowers, Fruit, and all their Vessels and juices. I therefore incline to Dr. Cudworth’s Opinion, that God uses for these Effects the subordinate Ministry of some inferiour Plastick Nature; as in his Works of Providence he doth of Angels. For the Description whereof I refer the Reader to his System.

Secondly, in particular I am difficult to believe, that the bodies of Animala can be form’d by matter divided and mov’d by what Laws you will or can imagine, without the immediate Presidency, Direction and Regulation of some intelligent Being. In the Generation or first Formation of, suppose, the Human Body out of

*53 (thoough not an Homogeneous Liquor, yet) a fluid Substance, the only material Agent or Mover is a moderate Heat. Now, how this, by producing an intestine Motion in the Particles of the Matter, which can be conceiv’d to differ in nothing else but Figure, Magnitude and Gravity, should by Vertue thereof, not only separate the Heterogeneous Parts, but assemble the Homogeneous into Masses or Systems, and that not each Kind into one Mass, but into many and disjoin’d ones, as it were so many Troops; and that in each Troop the particular Particles should take their Places, and cast themselves into such a Figure; as for Example, the Bones being about 300, are form’d of various sizes and shapes, so situate and connected, as to be subservient to many hundred Intentions and Uses, and many of them conspire to one and the same Action, and all this contrarily to the Laws of Specifick Gravity, in whatever Posture the body be formed; for the Bones, whose component Parts are the heavier, will be above some parts of the Flesh which are the lighter; how much more then, seeing it is form’d with the Head, (which for its Bigness is the heaviest of all the Parts) uppermost. This, I say, I cannot by any Means conceive. I might instance in all the Homogenous Parts of the Body, either Sites and Figures, and ask by what imaginable Laws of Motion their Bulk, Figure, Situation and Connection can be made out ? What account can be given of the Valves, of the Veins and Arteries of the Heart, and of the Veins

*54 elsewhere, and of their Situation; of the Figure and Consistency of all the Humours and Membranes of the Eye, all conspiring and exactly fitted to the use of Seeing; but I have touched upon that already, and shall discourse on it largely afterward. You will ask me, who or what is the Operator in the Formation of the Bodies of Man and other Animals? I answer, The sensitive Soul itself, if it be a spiritual and immaterial Subfiance, as I am inclinable to believe: But if it be material, and consequently the whole Animal but a mere Machine or Automaton, as I can hardly admit, then must we have Recourse to a Plastick Nature.

That the Soul of Brutes is material, and the whole Animal, Soul and Body, but a mere Machine, is the Opinion, publickly own’d and declar’d, of DeS Cartes, Gassendus, Dr. Willis, and others. The same is also necessarily consequent upon the Doctrine of the Peripateticks, viz. that the sensitive soul is educed out of the power of the Matter, for nothing can be educed out of the Matter, but what was there before, which must be either Matter or some Modification of it. And therefore they cannot grant it to be a spiritual Substance, unless they will assert it to be educed out of nothing. This Opinion, I say, I can hardly digest. I should rather think Animals to be endued with a lower Degree of Reason, than that they are mere Machines. I could instance in many Actions of Brutes that are hardly to be accounted for without Reason and Argumentation; as that commonly

*55 noted of Dogs, that running before their Masters, they will stop at a Divarication of the way, till they see which Hand their Masters will take; and that when they have gotten a Prey, which they fear their Masters will take from them, they will run away and hide it, and afterwards turn to it. What account can be given why a Dog, being to leap upon a Table which he sees to be too high for him to reach at once, if a Stool Chair happens to stand near it, doth first mount up that, and from thence the Table? If he were a Machine or Piece of Clockwork, and this Motion caused by the striking of a Spring, there is no Reason imaginable why the Spring being set on Work, should not carry the machine in a right Line toward the Object that put it in Motion, as well when the Table is high as when it is low: Whereas I have often observ’d the first Leap the Creature hath taken up the Stool, not to be directly toward the Table, but in a Line oblique and much declining from the Object that mov’d it, or that part of the Table on which it Stood.

Many the like Actions there are, which I shall not spend Time to relate. Should this true, that Beasts were Automata or Machines, they could have no Sense or Perception of Pleasure or Pain, and consequently no Cruelty could be exercis’d towards them; which is contrary to the doleful Significations they make when beaten or tormented, and contrary to the common Sense of Mankind, all Men naturally pitying them, as apprehending them to have such

*56 Sense and Feeling of Pain and Misery as themselves have; whereas no Man is troubled to see a Plant torn, or cut, or stampt, or mangled how you please; and at last seemingly contrary to the Scripture too: For it is said, Proverbs 12 10 A righteous Man regardeth the life of his Beast; but the tender Mercies of the Wicked are cruel. The former Clause is usually English’d , A good Man is merciful to his Beast; which is the true Exposition of it; as appears by the opposite Clause, that the Wicked are cruel, What less then can be inferr’d from this Place, than that Cruelty may be exercis’d towards Beasts, which, were they meer Machines, it could not be? To which I do not see what can be answer’d, but that the Scripture accommodates itself to the common, tho’ false, Opinion of Mankind, who take these Animals to be endued with Sense of Pain, and think that Cruelty may be exercis’d towards them; tho’ in Reality there is no such thing. Besides, having the same members and Organs of Sense as we have, it is very probable they have the same Sensations and Perceptions with us.

To this Des Cartes answers, or indeed saith, he hath nothing to Answer; but that if they think as well as we, they have an immortal Soul as well as we: Which is not at all likely, because there is no Reason to believe it of some Animals without believing it of all, whereas there are many too imperfect to belleve it of them, such as are Oysters and Sponges, and the like. To which I answer, That there is no Necessity that they should be immortal,

*57 because it is possible they may be destroyed or annihilated. But I shall not wade further into this Controversie, because it is beside my Scope, and there hath been as much written of it already as I have to say, by Dr. Moore, Dr. Cudworth, Des Cartes, Dr. Willis and others Pro and Con.

Of the visible works of God, and their Division.

I come now to take aView of the Works of the Creation, and to observe something of the Wisdom of Ciocl discernible in the Formation of them, in their Order and Harmony, and in their Ends and Uses: And first I shall run them over slightly, remarking chiefly what is obvious and expos’d to the Eyes and Notice of the more careless and incurious Observer. Secondly, I shall select one or two particular Pieces, and take a more exact Survey of them; though even in these, more will escape our Notice tha can be discover’d by the most diligent Scrutiny: for our Eyes and Senses, however armed or assisted, are too grosss to discern the curiosity of the workmanship of Nature, or those minute Parts by which it acts, and of which Bodies are compos’d; and our Understanding too dark and infirm to discover and comprehend all the Ends and Uses to which the infinitely wise Creator did design them.

But before I proceed, being put in Mind thereof by the Mention of the Assistance of our Eyes, I cannot omit one general Observation concerning the Curiosity of the Works of Nature

*58 in Comparison of the Works of Art which I shall propose in the late Bishop of Chester’s Words, (Treatise of Natural Religion, Lib. I. C. 6.) "The Observations which have been made in these latter Times by the Help of the Microscope, since we had the Use and Improvement of it, discover a vast difference between Natural and Artificial Things. Whatever is natural, beheld thro’ that, appears exquisitely form’d, and adorn’d with all imaginable Elegancy and Beauty. There are such inimitable Glidings in the smallest Seeds of Plants, but especially in the Parts of Animals in the Head or Eye of a small Fly; such Accuracy, Order and Symmetry in the Frame of the most minute Creatures, a Louse, for example, or a Mite, as no Man were able to conceive without seeing of them.

Whereas the most curious Works of Art, the sharpest and finest Needle, doth appear as a blunt rough Bar of Iron, coming from the Furnace or the Forge: The most accurate Engravings or Embellishments seem such rude, bungling and deform’d Work, as if they had been done with a Mattock or Trowel; so vast a Difference is there betwixt the Skill of Nature, and the Rudeness and Imperfection of Art. I might add, that the Works of Nature, the better Lights and Glasses you use, the more clearer and exactly form’d they appear; whereas the Effects of Human Art, the more curiously they are view’d and examin’d, the more of Deformity they discover.

*59 This being premised, for our more clear and distinct Proceeding in our cursory View of the Creation, I shall rank the Parts of this material and visible World under several Heads. Bodies are either inanimate or animate. Inanimate Bodies are either celestial or terrestrial. Celestial as the Sun, Moon and Stars: Terrestrial are either simple, as the four Elements, Fire, Water, Earth and Air; or mixt, either imperfectly, as the Meteors, or more perfectly, as Stones, Metals, Minerals, and the like. Animate Bodies are either such as are endued with a Vegetable Soul as Plants; or a Sensitive Soul, as the Bodies of Animals, Birds, Beasts, Fishes, and Insects; or a Rational Soul, as the Body of Man and the Vehicles of Angels, if any such there be.

I make use of this division to comply with the common and receiv’d Opinion, and for easier Comprehension and Memory; tho’ I do not think it agreeable to Philosophick Verity and Accuracy, but do rather incline to the Atomick Hypothesis. For these Bodies we call elements are not only the only Ingredients of mix’d Bodies; neither are they absolutely simple themselves, as they do exist in the World, the Sea-water containing a copious Salt manifest to Sense; and both Sea and Fresh-water sufficing to nourish many Species of Fish, and consequently containing the various Parts of which their Bodies are compounded. And I believe there are many Species of Bodies which the Peripateticks call mix’d, which are as simple as the Elements themselves, as Metals, Salts and some sorts of

*60 stones. I should therefore, with Dr. Grew and others, rather attribute the various Species of inanimate Bodies to the divers Figures of the minute Particles of which they are made up: And the Reason why there is a set and constant Number of them in the World, none destroy’d nor any new ones produc’d, I take to be, Because the Sum of the Figures of those minute Bodies into which Matter was at first divided, is determinate and fix’d.

2. Because those minute Parts are indivisible, not absolutely, but by any natural Force; so that there neither is nor can be more or fewer of them: For were they divisible into small and diversly figur’d parts by Fire or any other natural Agent, the Species of Nature must be confounded, some might be lost and destroyed, but new ones would certainly be produc’d; unless we could suppose these new diminutive Particles should again assemble and marshal themselves into Corpuscles of such Figures as they compounded before; which I see no Possibility for them to do, without some theos apo mEKanEs to direct them: Not that I think these inanimate Bodies to consist wholly of one Sort of Atoms, but that their Bulk consists mainly or chiefly of one Sort. But whereas it may be objected that Metals ( which of all others seem to be most simple ) may be transmitted one into another, and so the Species doth not depend upon the being compounded of Atoms of one Figure; I Answer, I am not fully satisfied of the Matter of Fact: But if any such Transmutation be, possibly all Metals may be of one

*61 Species, and the Diversity may proceed from the Admixture of different Bodies with the Principle of the Metal. If it be ask’d, why may not atoms of different Species concur to the Composition of Bodies? and so, tho’ there be but a few Sorts of original Principles, may there not be produced infinite Species of compound Bodies, as by the various Dispositions and Combinations of Twenty-four Letters innumerabl Words may be made up? I answer, because the Heterogeneous Atoms or Principles are not naturally apt to cohere and stick together when they are mingled in the same Liquor, as the Homooeneous readily do.

I do not believe that the Species of Principles or indivisible Particles are exceeding numerous but possibly the immediate component Particles of the Bodies of Plants and Animals may be themselves compounded.

Of the Heavenly Bodies.

Before I come to treat of the Heavenly Bodies in particular, I shall premise in general, that the whole Universe is divided into two Sorts of Bodies, the one very thin and fluid, the other more dense, solid and consistent. The thin and fluid is the Ether, comprehending the Air or Atmosphere encompassing the particular Stars and Planets. Now, for the Stability and Perpetuity of the whole Universe, Divine Wisdom and Providence hath given the solid and stable Parts a two-fold Power, one

*62 of Gravity, and the other of Circular Motion. By the first they are preserv’d from Dissolution and Dissipation, which the Second would otherwise infer: For it being by the Consent of Philosophers, an innate Property of every Body moved circularly about any Centre to recede or endeavour to recede from that Centre of its Motion, and the more strongly the swifter it is mov’d, the Stars and Planets being whirled about with great Velocity, wouid suddenly, did nothing inhibit it, at least in a short Time be shatter’d in Pieces, and Scatter’d every Way through the Ether. But now their Gravity unites and binds them up fast, hindring the Dispersion of their Parts, I will not dispute what Gravity is; only I will add, that, for ought I have heard or read, the Mechanical Philosophers have not as yet given a clear and satisfactory Account of it.

The Second Thing is a Circular Motion upon their own Axes, and in some of them also, it’s probable, about other Points, if we admit the Hypothesis of every fix’d Star’s being a Sun or Sun-like Body, and having a Choire of Planets, in like manner moving about him. These Revolutions, we have Reason to believe, are as exactly equal and uniform as the Earth’s are; which could not be, were there any Place for chance, and did not a Providence continually over-see and secure them from all Alteration or Immunition, which either internal Changes in their own Parts, or external Accidents and Occurrences, would at one time or other necessarily

*63 induce. Without this circular motion of the Earth, here could be no living: One Hemisphere would be condemn’d to perpetual Cold and Darkness, the other continually roasted and parch’d by the Sun-beams. And it is reasonable to think, that this circular Motion is as necessary to most other Planetary Bodies, as it is to the Earth. As for the fix’d Stars, if they be Sun-like Bodies, it is is probable also each of them moves circularly upon its own Axis as the Sun doth: But what Necessity there is of such a Motion, for Want of understanding the Nature of those Bodies, I must confess myself not yet to comprehend; tho’ that it is very great I doubt not, both for themselves, and for Bodies about them.

First, for the Celestial or Heavenly Bodies, the Equability and Constancy of their Motions, the Certainty of their Periods and Revolutions, the Conveniency of their Order and Situations, argue then to be ordain’d and govern’d by Wisdom and Understanding; yea, so much Wisdom as Man cannot easily fathom or comprehend: For we see, by how much the hypotheses of Astronomers are more simple and conformable to reason, by so much do they give a better Account of the Heavenly Motions. It is reported of Alphonsus King of Aragon, (I know not whether truly) that when he saw and consider’d the many Eccentricks, Epicycles, Epicycles upon Epicycles, Librations, and Contrariety of Motions, which were requisite in th old Hypothesis to give an Account of the Celestial

*64 Phaenomena, he should prefume blasphemously to say, that the Universe was a bungling Piece; and that if he had been of God’s Counsel, he could have directed him to have made it better. A Speech as rash and ignorant, as daring and prophane.

For it was nothing but Ignorance of the true Process of Nature that induced the Contrivers of that Hypothesis to invent such absurd Suppositions, and him to accept them for true, and attribute them to the great Author of the Heavenly Motions: For in the New Hypothesis of the modern Astronomers, we see most of those Absurdities and Irregularities rectified and remov’d, and I doubt not but they would all vanish, could we certainly discover the true Method and Process of Nature in those Revolutions: for Seeing in those Works of Nature which we converse with, we constantly find those Axioms true, <>Natura non facit circuitus, Nature doth not fetch a Compass when it may proceed in a streight Line; and <>Natura nec abundat in superfluis, nec deficit in necessariis, Nature abounds not in what is superfluous, neither is deficient in what is necessary. We may also rationally conclude concerning the Heavenly Bodies, seeing there is so much Exactness observ’d in the Time of their Motions, that they punctually come about in the same Periods to the Hundredth Part of a Minute, as may beyond Exception be demonstrated by comparing their Revolutions, surely there is also used the most simple, facile, and convenient Way for

*65 the Performance of them.

Among these Heavenly Bodies;

First, the Sun, a vast Globe of Fire, esteeemed by the ancienter and most modest Computation above 160 times bigger than the Earth, the very Life of this inferiour World, without whose salutary and vivifick Beams all Motion both Animal, Vital and Natural would speedily cease, and nothing be left here below but Darkness and Death. All Plants and Animals must needs in a very short Time be not only mortified, but, together with the Surface of Land and Water, frozen as hard as a Flint or Adamant: So that of all the Creatures of the World the ancient Heathen had most Reason to worship him as a God, tho’ no true Reason; because he was but a Creature, and not God: And we Christians do think that the Service of the Animals that live upon the Earth, and principally Man, was one End of his Creation; seeing without him there could no such Things have been. This Sun, I say, according to the old Hypothesis, whirl’d round about the Earth daily with incredible Celerity, making Night and Day by his rising and setting; Winter and Summer by his Access to the Several Tropicks, creating such a grateful variety of Seasons, enlightning all Parts of the Earth by his Beams, and cherishing them by his Heat, situate and mov’d so in Respect of this sublunary World (and it’s likely also in Respect of all the Planets about him) that Art and Counsel could not have Design’d either to have placed him better,

*66 or mov’d him more conveniently for the Service thereof, as I could easily make appear by the Inconveniences that would follow upon the Supposition of any other Situation and Motion, shews forth the great Wisdom of him who so dispos’d and mov’d him.

Secondly, The Moon, a Body in all Probability somewhat like the Earth we live upon, by its constant and regular Motion, helps us to divide our Time, reflects the Sun-beams to us, and so by illuminating the Air, takes away in some Measure the disconsolate darkness of our winter Nights; procures or at least regulates the Fluxes and Refluxes of the Sea, whereby the Water is kept in constant Motion, and preserv’d from Putrefaction, and so render’d more salutary for the Maintenance of its Breed, and useful and serviceable for Man’s Convenience of Fishing and Navigation; not to mention the great Influence it is suppos’d to have upon all moist Bodies, and the Growth and Increase of Vegetables and Animals: Men generally observing the Age of the Moon in the planting of all Kinds of Trees, sowing of Grain, grafting and inoculating, and pruning of Fruit-Trees, gathering of Fruit, bcutting of Corn or Grass; and thence also making Prognosticks of Weather, Because such Observations seems to me uncertain. Did this Luminary serve to no other Ends and Uses, as I am Persuaded it doth many, especially to maintain the Creatures which in all likelyhood breed and inhabit there, for which I refer you to the ingenious Treatises written by Bishop Wilkins and

*67 Monsieur Fontenelle on that Subject, yet these were enough to evince it to be the Effect and Product of Divine Wisdom and Power.

Thirdly, As for the rest of the Planets besides their particular Uses, which are to Us unknown, or meerly conjectural, their Courses and Revolutions, their Stations and Retrogradations, observ’d constantly so many Ages together in most certain and determinate Periods of Time, do sufficiently demonstrate that their Motions are instituted and govern’d by Counsel, Wisdom and Understanding.

Fourthly, The like may be said of the fix’d Stars, whose Motions are regular, equal and constant: So that we see nothing in the Heavens which argues Chance, Vanity of Error; but, on the contrary, Rule, Order, and Constancy; the Effects and Arguments of Wisdom: Wherefore, as Cicero excellently concludes, <>Coelestem ergo admirabilem ordinem incredibilemque constantium, ex qua conservatio et salus omnium omnis oritur, qui vacare mente putat, noe ipse mentis expers habendus est. : Wherfore whoever thinketh that the admirable Order and incredible Constancy of the Heavenly Bodies and their Motions, whereupon the Preservation and Welfare of all Things doth depend, is not governed by Mind and Understanding, he himself is to be accounted void thereof.

And again, "shall we (saith he) when we see an Artificial Engine, as a Sphere or Dyal, or the like, at first Sight acknowledge, that it is a Work of Reason and Art? <>Cum autem impetum

*68 coeli, admirabili cum celeritate moveri vertique videamus, constantissime conscientem vicissitudines anniversarias, cum summa Salute et conservatione rerum omnium, dubitare quin ea non solum ratione fiant, sed excellenti quadam Divinaque ratione: " And can we, when we see the Force of the Heavens mov’d and whirl’d about with admirable Celerity, most constantly finishing its anniversary Vicissitudes, to the eminent Welfare and Preser vation of all Things, doubt at all that these Things are perform’d not only by Reason, but by a certain excellent and divine Reason?

To these Things I shall add an Observation which I must confess myself to have borrowed of the honourable Person more than once mention’d already, that even the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon, though they be frightful Things to the superstitious Vulgar, and of ill Influence on Mankind, if we may believe the no less superstitious astrologers, yet to knowing Men, that can skilfully apply them, they are of great Use, and such as common Heads could never have imagin’d: Since not only they may on divers Occasions help to settle Chronology, and rectifie the Mistakes of Historians that writ many Ages ago; but which is, though a less Wonder, yet of greater Utility, they are (as Things yet Stand) necessary to define with competent certainty, the Longitude of Places or Points on the Terraqueous Globe, which is a Thing of very great Moment not only to Geography, but to the most useful and important

*69 Art of Navigation. To which may be added, which I shall hereafter mention, that they serve to demonstrate the spherical Roundness of the Earth: So that I may well conclude with the Psalmist, Psalm 19.1. The Heavens declare the Glory of God, and the Firmament sheweth his handy Work.

Of Terrestrial and Inanimate Simple Bodies

I come now to consider the Terrestrial Bodies; I shall say nothing of the whole Body of the Earth in general, Because I reserve that as one of the Particulars I shall more carefully and curiously examine.

Terrestrial Bodies, according to our Method before propounded, are either inanimate or animate, and the inanimate either simple or mixt. Simple, as the four Elements, leire, Waters EartaJ and Sir: I call these Eleznents in Compliance (as I said before) with the vulgarly-receiv’d Opinion; not that I think them to be: the Principles or component Ingredients of all other sublunary Bodies: I might call them the four great Aggregates of Bodies of the same Species, or four Sorts of Bodies, of which there are great Aggregates. These, notwithstanding that they are endued with contrary Qualities, and are continually encroaching one upon another, yet they are so balanc’d, and kept in such an Equilibrium, that neither prevaileth over other, but what one gets in one Place it loseth in another.

First, Fire cherisheth and reviveth by its Heat, without which all Things would be torpid

*70 and without Motion, nay, without Fire no Life, it being the vital Flame residing in the Blood that keeps the bodily Machine in Motion, and renders it a fit Organ for the Soul to work by. The Uses of Fire (I do not here speak of the Peripateticks’ Elementary Fire in the Concave of the Moon, which is but a meer figment, but our ordinary Culinary) are in a manner infinite for dressing and preparing of Victuals, bak’d, boil’d and rost; for melting and refining of Metals and Minerals; for the fusion of Glass, [a Material whose Uses are so many, that it is not easie to enumerate them, it serving us to make Windows for our Houses, Drinking-Vessels, Vessels to contain and preserve all Sorts of fermented Liquors, distill’d Waters, Spirits, Oils, Extracts, and other Chymical Preparations, as also Vessels to distil and prepare them in; for Looking-Glasses, Spectacles, Microscopes and Telescopes, whereby our Sight is not only reliev’d, but wonderfully assisted to make rare Discoveries] for making all Sorts of Instruments for Husbandry, mechanick Arts and Trade, all Sorts of Arms or Weapons of War defensive and offensive; for fulminating Engines; for burning of Lime, baking of Bricks, Tiles, and all Sorts of Potters Vessels or Earthen Ware, for casting and forging Metaline Vessels and Utensils; for Distillations, and all Chymical Operations hinted before in the Use of Glass; for affording us Lights for any Work or Exercise in Winter Nights; for digging in Mines and dark Caverns; and, finally, by its comfortable Warmth

*7l securing us from the Injuries of Cold, or relieving us when we have been bitten and benum’d with it. A Subject or Utensil of so various and inexplicable Use, who could have invented and formed, but an infinitely wise and powerful Efficient ?

Secondly, The Air serves us and all Animals to breath in, containing the Fewel of tha vital Flame we speak of, without which it would speedily languish and go out; so necessary it is for us and other Land-Animals that without the Use of it we could live but very few Minutes: Nay, Fishes and other Water-Animals cannot abide without the Use of it; for if you put Fish into a Vessel of a narrow Mouth full of Water, they will live and swim there, not only Days and Months, but even Years; but if with your Hand or any other Cover you stop the Vessel so as wholly to exclude the Air, or interrupt its Communication with the Water, they will suddenly be suffocated; as Rondeletius affirms he often experimented.

If you fill not the Vessel up to the Top, but leave some Space empty for the Air to take up, and then clap your Hand upon the Mouth of the Vessel, the Fishes will presently contend which shall get uppermost in the Water, that so they may enjoy the open Air; which I have also observ’d them to do in a Pool of Water that hath been almost dry in the Summer-Time, because the Air that insinuated itself into the Water did not suffice them for Respiration. Neither is it less

*72 necessary for Insects than it is for other Animals, but rather more, these having more Air-Vessels for their Bulk by far than they, there being many Orifices on each Side their Bodies for the Admission of Air, which if you stop with Oil or Honey, the Insect presently dies, and revives no more. This was an Observation of the Ancients, though the Reason of it they did not understand; (<>Oleo illito Insecta omnia ex animantur.<> Pliny.) which was nothing but the intercluding of the Air; for tho’ you put Oil upon them, if you put it not upon or obstruct those Orifices therewith, whereby they draw the Air, they suffer nothing: If you obstruct only some, and not others, the Parts which are near and supplied with Air, from thence are by and by convulsed and shortly relaxed and deprived of Motion, the rest that were untouched still retaining it. Nay, more than all this, Plants themselves have a Kind of Respiration, being furnish’d with plenty of Vessels for the Derivation of Air to all their Parts; as hath been observ’d, nay, first discover’d, by that great and curious Naturalist <>Malpighius<>.

Another Use of the Air is to sustain the Flight of Birds and Insects. Moreover, by its gravity it raises the Water in Pumps, Siphons and other Engines, and performs all those Feats which former Philosophers through Ignorance of the Efficient Cause attributed to a Final, namely, Nature’s abhorrence of a Vacuity or empty space. The elastic or expansive Faculty of the Air, whereby it dilates itself, when compressed,

*73 (indeed this lower Region of it, by Reason of the Weight of the Superincumbent, is always in a compressed State) hath been made Use in the common Weather-glasses, in Wind-guns, and in several ingenious Water-Works, and doubtless hath a great Interest in many natural Effects and Operations.

Against what we have said of the Necesssity of the Air for the Maintenance of the Vital Flame it may be objected, That the Foetus in the Womb lives, its Heart pulses, and its Blood circulates; and yet it draws in no Air, neither hath the Air any Access to it. To which I answer; That it doth receive Air, so much as sufficient for it in its present State, from the maternal Blood by the <>Placenta uterina<> or the Cotyledons. This Opinion generally propounded, viz. That the Respiration of the Dam dl serve the Foetus also, or supply sufficient Air to it, I have met with in Books; but the explicit Notion of it I owe to my Learned and Worthy Friend Dr. Edward Hulse<>, which, comparing with mine own Anatomical Observations, I found so consonant to Reason, and highly probable, that I could not but yield a firm Assent to it. I say then, That the chief Use of the Circulation of the Blood through the Cotyledons of a Calf in the Womb (which I have often dissected) and by Analogy thro’ the Placenta uterina in an Humane Foetus, seems to be the Impregnation of the Blood with Air, for the feeding of the vital Flame: For if it were only for Nutrition, what Need of two such great

*74 Arteries to convey the Blood thither ? It would (one might rationally think) be more likely, that as in the Abdomen of every Animal, so here, there should have been some lacteal Veins form’d, beginning from the Placenta or Cotyledons, which concurring in one common Ductus, should at last empty themselves into the <>Vena cava.

Secondly, I have observed in a Calf, the Umbilical Vessels to terminate in certain Bodies divided into a Multitude of carneous Papillae, (as I may so call them) which are receiv’d into so many Sockets of the Cotyledons growing on the Womb; which carneous Papillae may without Force or Laceration be drawn out of those Sockets. Now these Papillae do well resemble the Aristoe or Radii of a Fish’s Gills, and very probably have the same Use to take in the Air; so that the maternal Blood which flows to the Cotyledons, and encircles these Papillae, communicates by them to the Blood of the Foetus, the Air wherewith itself is impregnate; as the Water flowing about the carneous Radii of the Fish’s Gills doth the Air that is lodg’d therein to them.

Thirdly, That the maternal Blood flows most copiously to the Placenta uterina in Women, is manifest from the great Hemorrhagy that succeeds the Separation thereof at the Birth.

Fourthly, After the Stomach and Intestines are form’d, the Foetus seems to take in its whole Nourishment by the Mouth; there being always found in the Stomach of a Calf plenty of the Liquor contain’d in the Amnios wherein he swims, and Faeces in his Intestines) and

*75 Abundance of Urine in the <>Allantoides; so that the Foetus in the Womb doth live as it were the Life of a Fish.

Lastly, Why else should there be such an instant Necesity of Respiration so soon as ever the Foetus is fallen off from the Womb.

I know that if the Foetus be taken out of the Womb inclos’d in the Secundines, it will continue to live, and the Blood to circulate for a considerable Time, as Dr. Harvey observes. The reason whereof I conceive to be, because the Blood still circulates through the Cotyledons or Placenta, which are now expos’d to the open Air, and so from thence receives sufficient Supplies thereof, to continue its gentle Motion and feed the vital Flame. But when, upon exclusion of the Young, the Umbilical Vessels are broken, and no more Air is receiv’d that Way, the Plastick Nature, to preserve the Life of the Animal, speedily raises the Lungs, and draws into them Air in great Abundance, which causes a sudden and mighty Accension in the Blood; to the Maintenance whereof a far greater Quantity of Air is requisite, than would serve to feed the mild and languid Flame before.

This Way we may give a facile and very probable Account of it, to wit, because receiving no more Communications of Air from its Dam or Mother, it must needs have a speedy Supply from without, or else extinguish and die for Want of it; being not able to live longer

*76 without Air at its first Birth, than it can do afterward.

Upon this Occasion, give me leave to discourse a little concerning the Air’s insinuating itself into the Water. I say therefore, That the Air, at least that Part of it which is the Aliment of Fire, and Fewel of the vital Flame in Animals, easily penetrates the Body of Water expos’d to it, and diffuseth itself through every Part of it. Hence it is that we’ find Fish in subterraneous Rivers, and some Fish in the Earth itself; which can no more live without Air there than in the open Waters: Hence the Miners, when they come once at water, are out of all Danger of Damps. You’ll say, How gets the Air into the Water in Subterraneous Rivers, and into the Earth to the fossil Fishes; I Answer, The same Way that the Water doth: Which I suppose to be by its upper Superficies; the Water descending by Pores and Passages that there it finds into Chinks and Veins, and by Confluence of many of them by Degrees swelling into a Stream, the Air accompanies and follows it by a conltant Succession.

As for fossil Fishes, some make their Way into the Earth up the Veins of Water opening into the Banks of Rivers, where they lie till they grow so great that they cannot return: In which Veins they find Air enough to serve their Turn, needing not much by Reason that they lie still, and move but little. Others in Times of Floods are left in the Meadows and with the Water sink into the Earth

*77 at some Holes and Pores that the Water finds or makes, by which also they are supplied with Air. The Reason why the Miners are out of Danger of Damps when they come to Water, I conceive is, becausc then presently the Air that stagnated in the Shaft sinks into the Water, and fresh Air descends and succeeds, and so there is a Circulation; in the same Manner as by the sinking of an Air-Shaft the Air hath Liberty tc circulate, and carry out the Steams both of the Miners Breath and the Damps, which would otherwise stagnate there. Indeed, though there were no Damps, yet the nitrous Part of the Air being spent and consum’d by the breathing of the Miners, the remaining Part would be render’d altogether unfit for Respiration, unless new and fresh Air could succeed.

And here methinks appears a Necessity of bringing in the Agency of some Super-intendent intelligent Being, be it a Plastick Nature, or what you will: For what else should put the Diaphragm, and all the Muscles Serving to Respiration, in Motion all of a sudden so soon as ever the Foetus is brought forth ? Why could they not have rested as well as they did in the Womb ? What aileth them that they must needs bestir themselves to get in Air to maintain the Creature’s Life ? Why could they not patiently suffer it to die ? That the Air of itself could not rush in, is clear; for that, on the contrary there is requir’d some Force to remove the incumbent Air, and make Room for the External to enter. You will say, the Spirits do at this

*78 Time flow to the Organs of Respiration, the Diaphragm and other Muscles which concur to that Action, and move them. But what rouses the Spirits, which were quiescent during the Continuance of the Foetus in the Womb ? Here is no appearing Impellent but the external Air, the Body suffering no Change but of Place, out of its close and warm Prison into the open and cool Air: But how or why that Should have such an Influence upon the Spirits, as to drive them into those Muscles electively, I am not subtil enough to discern. As for the Respiration of the Chick in the Egg, I suppose the Air not only to be included in the White, but also to be supply’d through the Shell and Membranes.

Thirdly, Water is one Part, and that not the least of our Sustenance, and that affords the greatest Share of Matter in all Productions, being not (as it exists in the World) a simple and unmix’d Body, but containing in it the Principles or minute component Particles of all Bodies: To speak nothing of those inferiour Uses of Washing and Bathing, dressing and preparing victuals. But if we shall consider the great Concepticula and Congregations of Water, and the Distribution of it all over the dry Land in Springs and Rivers, there will occur abundant Arguments of Wisdom and Understanding. The Sea, what infinite Variety of Fishes doth it nourish ! Psalm 104. 25. In the Verse next to my Text; The Earth is full of thy Riches: So is this great and wide Sea, wherein are Things

*79 creeping innumerable, both small and great Beasts, &c. How doth it exactly compose itself to Level or equal Superficies, and with the Earth make up one Spherical Roundness? How doth it constantly observe its Ebbs and Flows, its Spring and Nepe-tides, and still retain its Saltness, so convenient for the Maintenance of its Inhabitants, serving also the Uses of Man for Navigation, and the Convenience of Carriage ? That it should be defined by Shores and Strands and Limits, I mean at first, when it was natural to it to overflow and stand above the Earth. All these Particulars declare Abundance of Wisdom in their primitive Constitution. This last the Psalmist takes Notice of in the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th Verses of this Psalm: Speaking of the Earth at the first Creation, he saith, Thou coveredst it with the Deep as with a Garment, the waters stood above the Mountains: At thy rebuke they fled, at the Voice of thy Thunder they hasted away (the Mountains ascend, the Valleys descend) unto the Place thou hast prepared for them. Thou hast set a Bound that they may not pass over: That they turn not again to cover the Earth. But what Need was there (may some say) that the Sea should be made so large, the its Superficies should equal if not exceed that of the dry Land ? Where is the Wisdom of the Creator in making so much useless Sea, and so little dry Land, which would have been far more beneficial and serviceable to Mankind ? Might not at least half the Sea have been spar’d and added to the Land, for the Entertainment

*80 and Maintenance of Men, who by their continual Striving and Fighting to enlarge their Bounds, and encroaching upon one another, seems to be straitened for Want of Room.

To this Objection against the Wisdom of God in thus dividing Sea and Land, Mr. Keil, in his Examination of Dr. Burnet’s Theory of the Earth, p.92, 93. thus answers: This, as most other of the Atheists’ Arguments, proceeds froon a deep ignorance of Natural Philosophy; for if there were but half the Sea that now is, there would be also but half the Quantity of Vapours, and consequently we could have but half so many Rivers as now there are to supply all the dry Land we have at present, and half as much more; for the Quantity of Vapours which are rais’d, bears a Proportion to the Surface whence they are rais’d, as well as to the Heat which rais’d them. The wise Creator therefore did so prudently order it that the Sea should be large enough to supply Vapours sufficient for all the Land, which it would not do if it were less than now it is.

But against this it may be objected, Why should not all the Vapours which are rais’d out of the Sea fall down again into it by Rain ? Is there not as much Reason that the Vapours which are exhaled out of the Earth should be carried down to the Sea, as that those raised out of the Sea be brought up upon the dry Land ? If some by Winds be driven from the Sea up Land, others by the same Cause will be blown down from Land to Sea, and so balancing one another, they will in Sum fall

*81 equally upon Sea and Land; and consequently the Sea contribute nothing to the Watering the Earth, or the Maintenance of Rivers.

To which I answer, That as to the Watering of the Earth these needs no Supply from the Sea, there being suffiicient Water exhaled out of itself to do that; there is no more return’d upon it by Rain so as to Rest upon it, than an equivalent quantity to what was rais’d of of it.

But the Rivers must be supplied otherways. Our Opinion is, That they have their Supply from Rain and Vapours. The Queftion is, Whence these Vapours are brought? We answer, From the Sea. But what brings them up from the Sea? I answer, The Winds: And so I am arriv’d at the main Difficulty. Why should not the Winds carry them that are exhaled out of the Eartb down to the Sea, as well as bring them up upon the Earth, which are rais’d from the Sea. Or which is all one, why should not the Winds blow indifferently from Sea and Land ? To which I answer, That I must needs acknowledge myself not to comprehend the Reason hereof. God is truly said, Psalm 135.7. To bring the Wind out of his Treapures. But the Matter of Fact is most certain, viz. That the Winds do bring abundantly more Vapour up from the Sea than they carry down thither.

First, because otherwise there can no Account be given of Floods. It is clear, That Floods with us proceed from Rain; and it is often a vast Quantity of Water they carry down

*82 to the Sea. Whence come those Vapours which supply all this Water ? I hope those who bring up Springs and Rivers from the great Abyss, will not bring those Vapours, which unite into Drops, and descend in Rain from thence too. Should they rise from the dry Land only, they would soon render it dry indeed; more parch’d than the Desarts of Libya. We should quickly come to an End of Floods, and of Rain too, if nothing were return’d from the Sea again, not to mention, that the Sea must needs in such a Case overflow its Shores, and enlarge its bounds.

But this Way there is an easy Account to be given. It is clear, that the Sun doth exhale Vapours both from Sea and Land; and that the Superficies of Sea and Land is sufficient to yield Vapours for Rain, Rivers and Floods, when heated to such a Degree as the Sun heats it : So that there wants only Wind to bring up so great a Proportion of Vapours from the Sea as may afford Water for the Floods ; that is, so much as is return’d back again to the Sea.

Some may perchance demand, To what Purpose serve the Floods ? What use is there of them ? I answer, To return back tothe Sea the Surplusage of Water after the Earth is sated with Rain. It may be further ask’d, What need more Rain be poured upon the Earth than is sufficient to water it ? I reply, That the Rain brings down from the Mountains and higher grounds a great Quantity of Earth, and in Times of Floods spreads it upon the Meadows and Levels, rendering them thereby so fruitful as to

*83 stand in Need of no Culture or Manuring. So we see the Land of Egypt owes its great Fertility to the Annual Overflowing of the River Nilus : And it’s likely the Countries bordering upon the River of Ganges may receive the like benefit by the Overflowing thereof. Moreover, all Rain-water contains in it a copious Sediment of Terrestrial Matter, which by standing it precipitates, and is not a simple Elementary Water. This Terrestrial Matter serves for the Nourishment of Plants, and not the Water itself, which is but a Vehicle to derive this Nutriment to all the Parts of the Plants : And therefore the more Rain, the more of this Nutricious Matter may be precipitated upon the Earth, and so the Earth render’d more fruitful. Besides all this, it’s not unlikely, that the Rain-water may be endu’d with some vegetating or prolifick Virtue, deriv’d from some Saline or Oleose Particles it contains : For we see, that Aquatick Plants, which grow in the very Water, do not thrive and flourish in dry Summers, when they are not also water’d with the Dew of Heaven.

Secondly, Another Argument to prove, That the Winds bring up more Vapours from the Sea than they carry down thither, is, Because the Winds do more frequently blow from the Sea than to the Sea. This appears from the Trees which grow on and near the Sea-shores all along the Western Coast of England, whose Heads and Boughs I have observ’d to run out far to Landward, but toward the Sea to be so snub’d by the

*84 Winds, as if their Boughs and Leaves had been par’d or shaven off on that Side.

It is also observ’d, that the Western Wind, which is the most violent and boisterous of all with us in England, which comes from off the great Atlantick Ocean, is of longest Continuance. Julius Caesar, in his 5th Book of Commentaries de Bello Gallico, saith of it, Magnam partem omnis temporis in his locis fluere consuevit; it is wont to blow in these Quarters a great Part of the whole Year : Which Observation holds true at this Day, the Wind lying in that Corner at least three Quarters of the Year.

Since this Motion of the Winds is constant, there is doubtless a constant and settled Cause of it, which deserves to be enquir’d into, and search’d out by the Study and Endeavours of the most sagacious Naturalists. But however the Wind be rais’d, it may more easily blow from Sea to Land, than from Land to Sea, because the Superficies of the Sea being even or level, there is nothing to stop its Course; but on the Land there are not only Woods, but Mountains to hinder and divert it.

Having myself seen so much of the Bottom of the Sea round about the Coasts of England and a great Part of the Low Countries, of Italy and Sicily, I must needs adhere to what I deliver’d, That where the Bottom of the Sea is not Rocky, but Earth, Owze or Sand, and that is incomparably the greatest Part of it, it is by the Motion of the Waters, so far as the Reciprocation of the Sea extends to the Bottom, brought

*85 to a Level; and if it should be now unequal, would in Time be level’d again. By Level I do not mean so as to have no Declivity (for the Reciprocation preserves that, the Flood hindering the constant carrying down of the Bottom) but only to have an equal and uniform Descent from the Shores to the Deeps. Now all those Relations of Urinators belong only to those Places where they have dived, which are always Rocky for there is no Reason why they should dive wbere the Bottom is level and sandy. That the Motion of the Water deccends to a good Depth, I prove from those Plants that grow deepest in the Sea, because they all generally grow flat, in Manner of a Fan, and not with Branches on all Sides like Trees; which is so contriv’d by the Providence of Nature, for that the Edges of them do in that Posture with most ease cut the Water flowing to and fro; and should the flat Side be objeeted to the Stream, it would soon be turn’d Edge-Wise by the Force of it, because in that Site it doth least resist the Motion of the Water : Whereas did the Branches of these Plants grow round, they would be thrown backward and forward every Tide. Nay, not only the Herbaceous and Woody Submarine Plants, but also the Lithophyta Stone-Plants themselves affect this Manner of growing, as I have observ’d in various Kinds of Corals and Pori. Hence I suepect all those Relations concerning Trees growing at the Bottom of the Sea and bringing forth Fruit there : And as for the Maldiva Nut, till better Information, I adhere

*86 to Garcia’s Opinion, which may be seen in Clusius. Further I do believe, that in the great Depths of the Sea there grow no Plants at all, the bottom being too remote from the external Air, which though it may pierce the Water so low, yet I doubt whether in quantity sufficient for the Vegetation of Plants : Nay, we are told, That in those deep and bottomless Seas there are no Fish at all; yet not Because there are no Plants or Insects to feed them, for that they can live upon Water alone, Rondeletius’s Experiment about keeping them in a Glass doth undeniably prove, but because their Spawn would be lost in those Seas, the Bottom being too cold for it to quicken there; or rather because being lighter than the Water there, it would not sink to the Bottom, but be buoy’d up by it, and carried away to the Shallows.

Again, The great Use and Convenience, the Beauty and Variety of so many Springs and Fountains, so many Brooks and Rivers, so many Lakes and Standing Pools of Water, and these so scatter’d and diepers’d all the Earth over; that no great Part of it is destitute of them, without which it must, without a Supply otherways, be desolate and void of Inhabitants; afford abundant Arguments of Wisdom and Counsel : That Springs should break forth on the sides of Mountains most remote from the Sea: That there should Way be made for Rivers thro’ Straits and Rocks, and subterraneous Vaults, so that one would think that Nature had cut a Way on Purpose to derive the Water, which else

*87 would overflow and drown whole Countries : That the Water passing thro’ the Veins of Earth, should be rendred fresh and potable, which it cannot be by any Percolations we can make, but the saline Particles will pass throug a tenfold Filtre : That in some Places there should spring forth Metallick and Mineral Waters, and hot Baths, and these so constant and permanent for many Ages; so convenient for divers Medicinal Intentions and Uses, the Causes of which Things, or the Means and Methods which they are perform’d, have not been as certainly discover’d; only in general, Pliny’s Remark may be true, Tales sunt aquae, qulais terra per quam fluunt. Hence they are Cold, Hot, Sweet, Stinking, Purgative, Diuretick or Ferrugineous, Saline, Petrefying, Bituminose, Venenose, and of other Qualities.

Lastly, The Earth, which is the Basis and Support of all Animals and Plants, and affords them the hard and solid Part of their Bodies, yielding us Food and Sustenance, and partly also Cloathing; for I do not think that Water supplies Man and other Animals, or even Plants themselves, with their Nourishment, but serves chiefly for a Vehicle to the alimentary Particles, to convey and distribute them to the severl Parts of the Body. Water, as it exists in the World, is not a simple unmix’d Body, but contains the Terrestrial component Parts of the Bodies of Animals and Plants : Simple Elementary Water nourishes not at all. How variously is the Surface of this Earth distinguish’d into

*88 Hills, and Valleys, and Plains, and high Mountains, affording pleasant Prospects ? How Curiously cloath’d and adorn’d with the grateful verdure of Herbs and stately Trees, either dispers’d and scatter’d singly, or as it were assembled in Woods and Groves, and all these beautified and illustrated with Elegant Flowers and Fruits, quorum omnium incredibilis multitudo, insatiabili varietate distinguitur, as Tully saith. This also shews forth to them that consider it, both the Power and Wisdom of God: So that we may conclude with Solomon, Prov. 3. 19. The Lord by Wisdom hath founded the Earth, by Understanding hath he establish’d the Heavens.

But now, if we pass from Simple to Mix’d Bodies, we shall still find more Matter of Admiration, and argument of Wisdom. Of these we shall first consider those they call imperfectly Mix’d, or Meteors.

Of Meteors.

As first of all, Rain, which is nothing else but Water, by the Heat of the Sun divided into very small invisible Parts, ascending in the Air, till encountring the Cold, it be by Degrees condens’d into Clouds, and descends in Drops; this, though it be exhaled from the Salt Sea, yet by this Natural Distillation is render’d fresh and potable, which our Artificial Distillations have hitherto been hardly able to effiect; notwithstanding the Erninent Use it would be of to Navigators, and the Rewards promis’d to those that

*89 should resolve that Problem of distilling fresh Water out of Salt. That the Clouds should be so carried about by the Winds, as to be almost equally diepers’d and distributed, no Part of the Earth wanting convenient Showers, unless when it Pleaseth God, for the Punishment of a Nation, to with-hold Rain by a special Interposition of his Providence, or, if any Land wants Rain, they have a Supply some other Way; as the Land of Egypt, though there seldom falls any Rain there, yet hath abundant recompence made it by the annual Overflowing of the River. This Distribution of the Clouds and Rain is to me (I say) a great Argument of Providence and Divine Disposition; for else I do not see but why there might be in some Lands continual successive Droughts for many Years, till they were quite depopulated; in others as lasting Rains till they were overflown and drown’d; and these, if the Clouds mov’d casually, often happening; whereas since the ancientest Records of History we do not read or hear of any such Droughts or Inundations, unless perhaps that of Cyprus, wherein there fell no Rain there for Thirty six Years, till the Island was almost quite deserted, in the Reign of Constantine; which doubtless fell not out without the Wise Disposition of Providence, for great and weighty Reasons.

Again, If we consider the Manner of the Rain’s Descent, distilling down gradually, and by Drops, which is most convenient for the watering of the Earth ; whereas, if it should fall down

*90 in a continual Stream like a River, it would gall the Ground, wash away Plants by the Roots, overthrow Houses, and greatly incommode, if not suffocate Animals: If, I say, we consider these Things, and many more that might be added, we might in this respecrt also cry out with the Apostle, O the Depth of the Riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God !

Secondly, Another Meteor is the Wind; Which how many Uses it doth serve to, is not easie to enumerate, but many it doth, qviz. to ventilate and break the Air, and dissipate noisom and contagious Vapours, which otherwise stagnating, might occasion many Diseases in Animals; and therefore it is an Observation concerning our Native Country, Anglia ventosa, si non ventosa, venenosa : To transfer the Clouds from Place to Place, for the more commodious watering of the Earth: To temper the Excesses of the Heat, as they find, who in Brazil, New Spain, the Neighbouring Islands, and other the like Countries near the Equator, reap the Benefit of the Breezes: To fill the Sails of Ships, and carry them on their Voyages to remote Countries, which, of what eminent Advantage it is to Mankind, for the procuring and continuing of Trade and mutual Commerce betsvcen the most distant Nations, the illustrating every Corner of the Earth, and the perfecting Geography and Natural History, is apparent to every Man. That the Monsoons and Trade-winds should be so constant and periodical even to the 30th Degree of Latitude all round the Globe,

*91 and that they should so seldom transgress or fall short of those Bounds, is a Subject worthy of the Thoughts of the greatest Philosophers. To this may be added the driving about of Windmills for grinding of Corn, making of Oil, draining of Pools, raising of Water, sawing of Wood, fulling of Cloth, &c. That it should seldom or never be so violent and boisterous, as to overturn Houses; yea, whole Cities; to tear up Trees by the Roots, and prostrate Woods; to drive the Sea over the lower Countries; as were it the Effeet of Chance, or mere natural Causes not moderated by a superiour Power, it would in all likelihood often do. Hurricanes, Spouts, and Inundations would be more frequent than they are. All these Things declare the wisdom and Goodness of Him who bringeth the Wind out of his Treasures.

Of Inanimate Mix’d Bodies.

I proceed now to such inanimate Bodies are called Perfecte Mixta, perfectly mixt, improperly enough, they being many of them (for ought I know) as simple as those they call Elements. These are Stones, Metals, Minerals and Salts.

In Stones, which one would think were a neglected Genus, what Variety? What Beauty and Elegancy ? What Constancy in their Temper and Consistency in their Figures and Colours ? I shall speak of first some notable Qualities wherewith some of them are endued. Secondly, the

*92 remarkable Uses they are of to us. The Qualities I shall instance in are, First, Colour, which in some of them is most lively, sparkling, and beautiful; the Carbuncle or Rubine shining with red, the Sapphire with blue, the Emerald with green, the Topaz, or Chrysolyte of the Ancients, with a yellow or Gold-colour, the Amethyst as it were tinctured with Wine, the Opal varying its Colours like changeable Taffata, as it is diverisy expos’d to the Light. Secondly, Hardness, wherein some Stones exceed all other Bodies, and among them the Adamant all other Stones, being exalted to that Degree thereof, that Art in vain endeavours to counterfeit it, the factitious Stones of Chymists in Imitation being easily detected by an ordinary Lapidist. Thirdly, Figure, Many of them shoot into regular Figures, as Crystal and bastard Diamonds into hexagonal; others into those that are more elegant and compounded, as those form’d in Imitation of the Shells of Testaceous Fishes of all Sorts, Sharks Teeth and Vertebres, &c. If these be originally Stones, or primary Productions of Nature in Imitation of Shells and Fishes Bones, and not the Shells and Bones themselves petrified, as we have sometimes thought. Some have a Kind of Vegetation and Resemblance of Plants, as Corals, Pori, and Fungites, which grow upon the Rocks like Shrubs: To which I might add our ordinary Star-stones and Trochites, which I look upon as a Sort of Rock-Plants.

*93 Secondly, For the Uses; some serve for Building and many sorts of Vessels and Utensils; for Pillars and Statues and other carved works in relieve, for the Temples, Ornaments of Palaces, Portico’s, Piazza’s, Conduits, &c. as Freestone and Marble; some to burn into Lime, as Chalk and Limestone; some, with the Mixture of Beriglia or Kelp, to make Glass, as that the Venetians call Cuogolo, and common Flints, which serve also to strike Fire; some to cover Houses, as Slates, some for marking, as Morochthus, and the fore-mentioned Chalk, which is a poluKrEson, serving moreover for manuring Land, and some Medicinal Uses; some to make Vessels of which will endure the Fire, as that found in the Country of Chiavenna near Plurs. To these useful Stones I might add the Warming-Stone, digg’d in Cornwall, which being once well heated at the Fire, retains its Warmth a great while, and hath been found to give Ease and Relief in several Pains and Diseases, particularly in that of the internal Haemorrhoids. I might also take Notice, that some Stones are endued with an Electrical or attractical Virtue.

My honoured friend Dr Tancred Robinson in his Manuscript Itinerary of Italy, relates the many various Figures he observ’d naturally delineated and drawn on several Sorts of Stones digged up in the Quarries, Caves and Rocks, about Florence, and other parts of Italy, not only representing Cities, Mountains, Ruins, Clouds, Oriental Characters, Rivers, Woods, Animals, but also some

*94 Plants (as Ivy, Mosses, Maiden-hair, Ferns, and such Vegetables as grow in those Places) so exactly design’d and impress’d upen several Kinds of Stones, as though some skilful Painters or Sculpters had been working upon them. The Doctor observes also the wonderful Diversity of Shapes and Colours that Oars and other fossils shoot into, resembling almost every Thing in Nature, for which it seems very difficult to him to assign any Cause or Principle. In the Pyrites alone he believes he himself may have seen at home and abroad above a hundred Vareties, and yet he confesses he has been but a rude Observer of them.

In the Diaphanous Fossils (as Ambers, Crystals, Agates, &c. ) preserv’d in the Cabinets of the great Duke of Tuscany, Cardinal Chigi, Settali, Moscardi, and other Repositories or Musaeums of that Curious Country, he takes Notice of the admiral Diversity of Bodies included, and naturally imprifon’d within them, as Flies, Spiders, Frogs, Locusts, Bees, Pismires, Gnats, Grashoppers, Drops of Liquor, Hair, Leaves, Rushes, Moss, Seeds, and other Herbage; which seem to prove them to have been once in a State of Fluidity. The Bononia Stone digg’d up in the Appenines is remarkable for its shlning Quality. The Amianthus for its Incombustibility. The Oculus Mundi for its Motion and Change of Colour. The Lapis Nephriticus, Calaminaris, Ostiocolla, Aetites, &c. for their Medicinal Uses."

*95 I might spend much Time in the discoursing of the most strange and unaccountable Nature and Powers of the Loadstone, a Subject which hath exercis’d the Wits and Pens of the most acute and ingenious Philosophers; and yet the Hypotheses which they have invented to give an Account of its admirable phaenomena seems tc me lame and unsatisfactory. What can we say of the subtlety, activity, and penetrancy of its Effluvia, which no Obstacle can stop or repel, but they will make their Way through all sorts of Bodies, firm and fluid, dense and rare, heavy and light, pellucid and opake ? Nay, they will pass through a Vacuity or empty Space, at least devoid of Air and any other sensible Body. Its attractive Power of Iron was known to the Ancients: its Verticity and Direction to the Poles of the Earth is of later Invention; which, of how infinite Advantage it hath been to these two or three last Ages, the great Improvement of Navigation, and Advancement of Trade and Commerce, by rendring the remotest Countries easily accessible; the noble Discovery of a vast Continent or new World, besides a Multitude of unknown Kingdoms and Islands; the Resolving experimentally those ancient Problems of the Spherical Roundness of the Earth; of the Being of Antipodes, or the Habitableness of the Torrid Zone, and the Rendring the whole Terraqueous Globe circumnavigable; do abundantly demonstrate: whereas formerly they were wont to coast it, and creep along the Shores, scarce daring to venture out of the Ken of Land,

*96 when they did, having no other Guide but the Cynosura or Pole-Star, and those near it, and in cloudy Weather none at all.

As for Metals, they are so many ways useful to Mankind, and those Uses so well known to all, that it would be lost Labour to say any Thing of them: Without the Use of these we could have nothing of Culture or Civility; no Tillage or Agriculture; no Reaping or Mowing; no Plowing or Digging, no Pruning or Lopping, Grafting or Incision; no mechanical Arts or Trades; no Vessels or Utensils of Household-stuff; no convenient Houses or Edifices, no Shipping or Navigation. What a Kind of barbarous and sordid life we must necessarily have lived, the Indians in the Northern Part of America are a clear Demonstration. Only it is remarkable, that those which are of most frequent and necessary Use, as Iron, Brass and Lead, are the most common and plentiful: Others that are more rare, may better be spar’d, yet are they thereby qualifiied to be made the common Measure and Standard of the Value of all other Commodities, and so serve for Coin or Money, to which Use they have been employ’d by all civil Nations in all Ages.

Now, of what mighty Importance the use of Money is to Mankind, the Learned and Ingenious Dr. Cockburn shews us, in the Second Part of his Essays concerning the Nature of Christian Faith, p. 88.

Whenever; saith he, the Use of Money began, it was an admirable Contrivance br rewarding and encouraging Industry,

*97 for carrying on Trade and Commerce certainly, easily, and speedily, for obliging all to imploy their various Parts and several Capacities for the common Good, and engaging every one to communicate the Benefit of his particular Labour without any Prejudice to himself. Covetousness indeed, or an inordinate Love of Money, is vicious, and the Root of much Evil, and ought to be remedied; but the Use of Money is necessary, and attended with manifold Advantages. Where Money has not yet taken Place, where the Use of it hath not yet been introduc’d, Arts and Sciences are not cultivated, nor any of those Exercises ply’d, which polite Mens Spirits, and which abate the Uneasinss of Life. Men there are brutish and savage, none mind any thing but Eating and Drinking, and the other Acts of brutal Nature; their Thoughts aspire no higher than merely to maintain their Life and Breath: Like the Beasts they walk abroad all the Day long, and range about from Place to Place, only to seek their Food. Whatever may be suppos’d to follow if all were acted with great Generosity and true Charity, yet according to the present Temper of Mankind it is absolutely necesary that there be some Method and Means of Commutation, as that of Money, for rendring all and every one mutually useful and serviceable.

Now Gold and Silver by their Rarity at wonderfully fitted and accommodated for this Use of Permutation for all Sorts of Commodities or making Money of: Whereas were they

*98 as common and easie to come by as Straw or Stubble, Sand or Stones, they would be of no more Use for Bartering and Commerce than these.

And here he goes on to shew the Wonderful Providence of God, in keeping up the Value of Gold and Silver, notwithstanding the vast Quantities which have been digg’d out of the Earth in all Ages, and so continuing them a fit Material to make Money of. For which I refer to the Book.

Of these, Gold is remarkable for its admirable Ductility and Ponderosity, wherein it excels all other Bodies hitherto known. I shall only add concerning Metals, that they do pertinaciously resist all Transmutation; and tho’ one would sometimes think they were turn’d into a different Substance, yet do they but as it were lurk under a Larva or Vizzard, and may be reduc’d again into their natural Form and Complexions, in Dispite of all the Tortures of Vulcan or corrosive Waters. Note, That this was written above Thirty Years since, when I thought I had Reason to distrust whatever had then been reported or written to affirm the Transmutation of Metals one into another.

I shall omit the Consideration of other Minerals, and of Salts and Earths, because I have nothing to say of their Uses, but only such as refer to Man, which I cannot affirm to have been the sole or primary End of the Formation of them. Indeed, to speak in general of these Terrestrial Inanimate Bodies, they having no such Organization of Parts as the Bodies of Animals,

*99 nor any so intricate variety of Texture, but that their production may plausibly be accounted for by an Hypothesis of Matter divided in minute Particles or Atoms naturally indivisible, of various but a determinate number of Figures, and perhaps also differing in Magnitude and these mov’d, and continually kept in Motion according to certain establish’d Laws or Rules; we cannot so clearly discover the Uses for which they were created, but may probably conclude, that among other Ends they were made for those for which they serve us and other Animals; as I shall more fully make out hereafter. It is here to be noted, That, according to our Hypothesis, the Number of the Atoms of each several Kind that is of the same Figure and Magnitude is not nearly equal, but there be infinitely more of some Species than of others, as of those that compound those vast Aggregates of Air, Water, and Earth, more abundantly than of such as make up Metals and Minerals: The Reason whereof may probably be, because those are necessary to the Life and Being of Man and all other Animals, and therefore must be always at Hand; these only useful to Man, and serving rather his Convenience than Necessities. The Reason why I affirm the minute component Particles of Bodies to be naturally indivisible by any Agent we can imploy (even Fire itself ) which is the only Catholick Dissolvent, other Menstruums being rather Instrumcnts than Efficients in all Solutions, apt by Reason of the Figure and Smalness of their

*100 Parts to cut and divide other Bodies (as Wedges cleave Wood) when actuated by Fire or its Heat, which else would have no Efficacy at all (as wedges have not, unless driven by a Beetle:) the reason, I say, I have already given; I shall now instance in a Body whose minute Parts appear to be indissoluble by the Force of Fire and that is common Water, which distil, boil, circulate, work upon how you will by Fire, you can only dissolve it into Vapour, which when the Motion ceases, easily returns into Water again; Vapour being nothing else but the minute Parts thereof, by Heat agitated and separated one from another. For another Instance, some of the most learn’d and experienc’d Chymists do affirm Quicksilver to be intransmutable, and therefore call it Liquoor aeternus. And I am of Opinion, that the same holds of all simple Bodies, that their component Particles are indissoluble, by any natural Agent.

We may here note the Order and Method that Metals and Mincrals observe in their Growth, how regularly they shoot, ferment, and as it were vegetate and regenerate; Salts in their proper and constant Figures; as our ingenious Countryman Dr. Jordan observes at large in his Discourse of Barhs and Mineral Waters.

Of Vegetables or Plants.

I have now done with inanimate bodies both simple and mix’d. The Animate are,

First, Such as are endued only with a Vegetative

*101 Soul, and therefore commonly called Vegetables or Plants; of which if we consider either their Stature and Shape, or their Age and Duration, we shall find it wonderful; for why should some Plants rise up to a great Height, others creep upon the Ground, which perhaps may have equal seeds, nay the lesser P1ant many Times the greater Seed. Why should each Particular so observe its Kind, as constantly to produce the same Leaf for Consistency, Figure, Division, and Edging, and bring forth the same Kind of Flower, and Fruit, and Seed ? and that tho’ you translate it into a Soil which naturally puts forth no such Kind of Plant, so that it is some logos spermatikos Seminal form or vertue which doth effect this or rather some intelligent plastick Nature; as we have before intimated: For what Account can be given of the Determination of the Growth and Magnitude of Plants from Mechanical Principles, of Matter mov’d without the Presidency and Guidance of some superiour Agent ? Why may not Trees grow up as high as the Clouds or Vapours ascend; or if you say the Cold of the superiour Air checks them, Why may they not spread and extend their lateral Branches so far till their Distance from the Centre of Gravity depress them to the Earth, be the Tree never so high ? How comes it to pass that tho’ by Culture and Manure they may be highly improv’d, augmented to a double, treble, nay, some a much greater Proportion in magnitude of all their Parts; yet is this Advance restrain’d within certain Limits ?

*102 There is a maximum quod sic which they cannot exceed. You can by no Culture or Art extend a Fennel Stalk to the Stature and Bigness of an Oak: Then why Should some be very long-livd, others only Annual or Biennial ? How can we imagine that any Laws of Motion can determine the Situation of the Leaves, to come forth by Pairs, or alternately, or circling the Stalk; the Flowers to grow singly, or in company and tufts, to come forth the Bosoms of the Leaves and Branches, or on the Tops of Branches and Stalks ? the Figure of the Leaves, that they should be divided into so many Jags or Escallops, and curiously indented round the Edges; as also of the Flower-leaves, their Number and Site, the Figure and Number of the Stamina and their Apices, the Figure of the Stilc and Seed-Vessel, and the number of Cells into which it is divided. That all this be done, and all these Parts duly proportion’d one to another there seems to be necessary some intelligent plastick Nature, which may understand and regulate the whole Oeconomy of the Plant: For this cannot be the Vegetative Soul, because that is material and divisible together with the Body; which appears, in that a Branch cut off of a Plant will take Root, and grow, and become a perfect Plant itself; as we have already observ’d. I had almost forgotten the Complication of the Seed-leaves of some Plants in the Seed, which is so strange, that one cannot believe it to be done by Matter, however mov’d by any Laws or Rules imaginable. Some of them being so

*103 close-plaited, and straitly folded up and thrust together within the Membranes of the Seed that it would puzzle a Man to imitate it, and yet none of the Folds sticking or growing together; so that they may easily be taken out of their Cafes, and spread and extended even with one’s Fingers.

Secondly, if we consider each particular Part of a Plant, we shall find it not without its End or Use; the Roots, for its stability and drawing Nourishment from the Earth, the Fibre to contain and convey the Sap; besides which there is a large Sort of Vessels to contain the proper and specifick Juice of the Plant, and others to carry Air for such a Kind of Repiration as it needeth; of which we have already spoken. The outer and inner Bark in Trees serve to defend the Trunk and Boughs from the Excesses of Heat and Cold and Drought and to convey the Sap for the annual Augmentation of the Tree; for, in Truth, every Tree may in some Sense be said to be an annual Plant, both Leaf, Flower and Fruit, proceeding from the Coat that was superinduced over the Wood the last Year, which Coat also never beareth any more, but together with the old Wood serves as a Form or Block to sustain the succeeding annual Coat.

The Leaves before the Gemma or Bud be explicated to embrace, and defend the Flower and Fruit, which is even then perfectly form’d; afterwards to preserve the Branches, Flowers and Fruit from the Injuries of the Summer Sun, which would

*104 too much parch and dry them, if they lay open and expos’d to its Beams without any Shelter: The Leaves, I say, qualifie and contemper the Heat, and serve also to hinder the too hasty Eva