Notwithstanding with nature it cometh sometimes to pass as with art. Let Phidias have rude and obstinate stuff to carve, though his art do that it should, his work will lack that beauty which otherwise in fitter matter it might have had. He that striketh an instrument with skill may cause notwithstanding a very unpleasant sound, if the string whereon he striketh chance to be uncapable of harmony. In the matter whereof things natural consist, that of Theophrastus taketh place, Πολὺ τὸ οὐχ ὑπακου̑ον οὐδὲ δεχόμενον τὸ εὐ̑⁹. “Much of it is oftentimes such as will by no means yield to receive that impression which were best and most perfect.” Which defect in the matter of things natural, they who gave themselves unto the contemplation of nature amongst the heathen observed often: but the true original cause thereof, divine malediction, laid for the sin of man upon these creatures which God had made for the use of man, this being an article of that saving truth which God hath revealed unto his Church, was above the reach of their merely natural capacity and understanding. But howsoever these swervings are now and then incident into the course of nature, nevertheless so constantly the laws of nature are by natural agents observed, that no man denieth but those things which nature worketh are wrought, either always or for the most part, after one and the same manner¹⁰.

If here it be demanded what that is which keepeth nature in obedience to her own law, we must have recourse to that higher law whereof we have already spoken, and because all other laws do thereon depend, from thence we must borrow so much as shall need for brief resolution in this point. Although we are not of opinion therefore, as some are, that nature in working hath before her certain exemplary draughts or patterns, which subsisting in the bosom of the Highest, and being thence discovered, she fixeth her eye upon them, as travellers by sea upon the pole-star of the world, and that according thereunto she guideth her hand to work by imitation: although we rather embrace the oracle of Hippocrates¹¹, that “each thing both in small and in great fulfilleth the task which destiny hath set down;” and concerning the manner of executing and fulfilling the same, “what they do they know not, yet is it in show and appearance as though they did know what they do; and the truth is they do not discern the things which they look on:” nevertheless, forasmuch as the works of nature are no less exact, than if she did both behold and study how to express some absolute shape or mirror always present before her; yea, such her dexterity and skill appeareth, that no intellectual creature in the world were able by capacity to do that which nature doth without capacity and knowledge; it cannot be but nature hath some director of infinite knowledge to guide her in all her ways. Who the guide of nature, but only the God of nature? “In him we live, move, and are¹².” Those things which nature is said to do, are by divine art performed, using nature as an instrument; nor is there any such art or knowledge divine in nature herself working, but in the Guide of nature’s work.

Whereas therefore things natural which are not in the number of voluntary agents, (for of such only we now speak, and of no other,) do so necessarily observe their certain laws, that as long as they keep those forms¹³ which give them their being, they cannot possibly be apt or inclinable to do otherwise than they do; seeing the kinds of their operations are both constantly and exactly framed according to the several ends for which they serve, they themselves in the meanwhile, though doing that which is fit, yet knowing neither what they do, nor why: it followeth that all which they do in this sort proceedeth originally from some such agent, as knoweth, appointeth, holdeth up, and even actually frameth the same.

The manner of this divine efficiency, being far above us, we are no more able to conceive by our reason than creatures unreasonable by their sense are able to apprehend after what manner we dispose and order the course of our affairs. Only thus much is discerned, that the natural generation and process of all things receiveth order of proceeding from the settled stability of divine understanding. This appointeth unto them their kinds of working; the disposition whereof in the purity of God’s own knowledge and will is rightly termed by the name of Providence. The same being referred unto the things themselves here disposed by it, was wont by the ancient to be called natural Destiny. That law, the performance whereof we behold in things natural, is as it were an authentical or an original draught written in the bosom of God himself; whose Spirit being to execute the same useth every particular nature, every mere natural agent, only as an instrument created at the beginning, and ever since the beginning used, to work his own will and pleasure withal. Nature therefore is nothing else but God’s instrument¹⁴: in the course whereof Dionysius perceiving some sudden disturbance is said to have cried out, “Aut Deus naturæ patitur, aut mundi machina dissolvetur¹⁵:” “either God doth suffer impediment, and is by a greater than himself hindered; or if that be impossible, then hath he determined to make a present dissolution of the world; the execution of that law beginning now to stand still, without which the world cannot stand.”

This workman, whose servitor nature is, being in truth but only one, the heathens imagining to be moe, gave him in the sky the name of Jupiter, in the air the name of Juno, in the water the name of Neptune, in the earth the name of Vesta and sometimes of Ceres, the name of Apollo in the sun, in the moon the name of Diana, the name of Æolus and divers other in the winds; and to conclude, even so many guides of nature they dreamed of, as they saw there were kinds of things natural in the world. These they honoured, as having power to work or cease accordingly as men deserved of them. But unto us there is one only¹⁶ Guide of all agents natural, and he both the Creator and the Worker of all in all, alone to be blessed, adored and honoured by all for ever.

That which hitherto hath been spoken concerneth natural agents considered in themselves. But we must further remember also, (which thing to touch in a word shall suffice,) that as in this respect they have their law, which law directeth them in the means whereby they tend to their own perfection: so likewise another law there is, which toucheth them as they are sociable parts united into one body; a law which bindeth them each to serve unto other’s good, and all to prefer the good of the whole before whatsoever their own particular; as we plainly see they do, when things natural in that regard forget their ordinary natural wont; that which is heavy mounting sometime upwards of it¹⁷ own accord, and forsaking the centre of the earth which to itself is most natural, even as if it did hear itself commanded to let go the good it privately wisheth, and to relieve the present distress of nature in common.

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Footnotes

1. [So edd. A, B, “conditions,” K.] 1886. ↩

2. [Uniformly written “swarve” in the early edd.] ↩

3. “Id omne, quod in rebus creatis fit, est materia legis æternæ.” Th. I. 1, 2. q. 93, art. 4, 5, 6. [Thom. Aquin. Opp. xi. 202.] “Nullo modo aliquid legibus summi Creatoris ordinationique subtrahitur, a quo pax universitatis administratur.” August. de Civit. Dei, lib. xix. cap. 12. [t. VII. 556.] Immo et peccatum, quatenus a Deo juste permittitur, cadit in legem æternam. Etiam legi æternæ subjicitur peccatum, quatenus voluntaria legis transgressio pœnale quoddam incommodum animæ inserit, juxta illud Augustini, “Jussisti Domine, et sic est, ut pœna sua sibi sit omnis animus inordinatus.” Confess. lib. i. cap. 12. [t. I. 77.] Nec male scholastici, “Quemadmodum,” inquiunt, videmus res naturales contingentes, hoc ipso quod a fine particulari suo atque adeo a lege æterna exorbitant, in eandem legem æternam incidere, quatenus consequuntur alium finem a lege etiam æterna ipsis in casu particulari constitutum; sic verisimile est homines, etiam cum peccant et desciscunt a lege æterna ut præcipiente, reincidere in ordinem æternæ legis ut punientis.” ↩

4. [Eccles. III. 9, 10: “I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.”Compare the use which Lord Bacon has made of the same text, Advancement of Learning, b. ii: “Knowledges are as pyramids, whereof history is the basis. So of natural philosophy, the basis is natural history; the stage next the basis is physic; the stage next the vertical point is metaphysic. As for the vertical point, Opus, quod operatur Deus a principio usque ad finem, the summary law of nature, we know not whether man’s inquiry can attain unto it.” Works, I. p. 104, 8vo. London, 1803.] ↩

5. [Job xxviii. 26.] ↩

6. [Jer. v. 22.] ↩

7. Psalm xix. 5. ↩

8. [Hooker seems to have had in his mind the following passage:“Postquam esse nomen in terris Christianæ religionis occœpit, quidnam inusitatum, quid incognitum, quid contra leges principaliter institutas aut sensit aut passa est rerum ipsa quæ dicitur appellaturque Natura? Nunquid in contrarias qualitates prima illa elementa mutata sunt, ex quibus res omnes consensum est esse concretas? Nunquid machinæ hujus, et molis, qua universi tegimur et continemur inclusi, parte est in aliqua relaxata aut dissoluta constructio? Nunquid vertigo hæc mundi, primogenii motus moderamen excedens, aut tardius repere, aut præcipiti cœpit volubilitate raptari? Nunquid ab occiduis partibus attollere se astra, atque in ortus fieri signorum cœpta est inclinatio? Nunquid ipse syderum sol princeps, cujus omnia luce vestiuntur atque animantur, calore exarsit, intepuit, atque in contrarios habitus moderaminis soliti temperamenta corrupit? Nunquid luna desivit redintegrare seipsam, atque in veteres formas, novellarum semper restitutione, traducere? Nunquid frigora, nunquid calores, nunquid tepores medii, inæqualium temporum confusionibus occiderunt? Nunquid longos habere dies bruma, et revocare tardissimas luces nox cœpit æstatis? Nunquid suas animas expiraverunt venti? emortuisque flaminibus neque cœlum coarctatur in nubila, nec madidari ex imbribus arva suescunt? Commendata semina tellus recusat accipere? aut frondescere arbores nolunt?” Arnob. adv. Gent. I. 2.] ↩

9. Theophrast. in Metaph. [p. 271, l. 10, ed. Basil, 1541.] ↩

10. Arist. Rhet. i. cap. 39. [ἢ γὰρ αἰεὶ, ἢ ὡς ἐπιτοπολὺ ὡσαύτως ἀποβαίνει.] ↩

11. Τὴν πεπρωμένην μοίρην ἕκαστον ἐκπληροι̑ καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ μέζον καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ μει̑ον … ὃ πρήσσουσιν οὐκ οἴδασιν, ὃ δὲ πρήσσουσι δοκέουσιν εἰδέναι, καί θ’ ἃ μὲν ὁρω̑σι οὐ γινώσκουσι. [p. 342, 48. ed. Genev. 1657. It need hardly be observed, that the beginning of the sentence alludes to Plato’s doctrine.] ↩

12. Acts xvii. 28. ↩

13. Form in other creatures is a thing proportionable unto the soul in living creatures. Sensible it is not, nor otherwise discernible than only by effects. According to the diversity of inward forms, things of the world are distinguished into their kinds. ↩

14. Vide Thom. in Compend. Theol. cap. 3: “Omne quod movetur ab aliquo est quasi instrumentum quoddam primi moventis. Ridiculum est autem, etiam apud indoctos, ponere, instrumentum moveri non ab aliquo principali agente.” [t. xvii. fol. 10.] ↩

15. [Vid. Breviar. Roman. 9 Oct. “Dionysius … unus ex Areopagitis … cum adhuc in Gentilitatis errore versaretur, eo die quo Christus Dominus cruci affixus est, solem præter naturam defecisse animadvertens, exclamasse traditur: ‘aut Deus,’ &c.” Suidas (in Dionysio) makes him say, Ἢ τὸ Θει̑ον πάσχει, ἢ τῳ̑ πάσχοντι συμπάσχει. Michael Syngelus in Encomio; Ὁ ἄγνωστος, ἔϕη, σαρκὶ πάσχει Θεός. Apud Opp. S. Dionys. II. 213. See also, p. 91, 253-259.] ↩

16. [Suggested by 1 Cor. viii. 6. ἡμι̑ν εἷς Θεὸς, ὁ Πατήρ.] ↩

17. [So all the early edd. On It, possessive, v. Morris, Spec. Early English, p. xxxi.] 1886. ↩