Having rejected this Atheistick Hypothesis of 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 doe,
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 à fine peti solet, in rebus Physicis nullum usum habere existimo; non enim absque temeritate me puto investigare posse fines Dei. Medit. Metaph. And again in his Principles of Philosophy, Nullas unquam rationes circa res Naturales à fine quem Deus aut Natura in iis faciendis sibi proposuit admittimus, quia non tantum nobis debemus arrogare ut ejus Consiliorum participes esse possimus. And more expresly 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 abysso sunt eodem modo reconditi; that is, neither can or 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 reproved by that honourable and excellent Person Mr. Boyl, in his Disquisition about the final Causes of Natural Things, Sect. 1. from Pag. 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 employed by Man and all Animals for the use of Vision, which, as they are framed, is so necessary for them, that they could not live without it; and God Almighty knew that it would be so; and seeing it is so admirably fitted and adapted to this use, that all the Wit and Art of men and Angels could not have contrived it better, if so well; it must needs be highly absurd and unreasonable to affirm, either that it was not designed at all for this use, or that it is impossible 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 never intended.
Thirdly, This Opinion, as I hinted before, supersedes and cassates the best medium we have to demonstrate the Being of a Deity; leaving us no other demonstrative Proof but that taken from the innate Idea; which, if it be a Demonstration, is but an obscure one, not satisfying many of the learned themselves, and being too subtle and metaphysical ro be apprehended by vulgar Capacities, and consequently of no force to persuade and convince them.
Secondly, They endeavour to evacuate and disanul our great Argument, by pretending to solve all the Phaenomena of Nature, and to give an Account of the Production and Efformation of the Universe, and all the corporeal Beings therein, both celestial and terrestrial as well animate as inanimate, not excluding Animals themselves by a sleight Hypothesis of matter so and so divided and moved. The Hypothesis you have in Des Cartes’s Principles of Philosophy, Part. 2. all the matter of this visible World is by him supposed to have been at first divided by God into Parts nearly equal to each other, of a mean size, viz. about the bigness of those whereof the Heavenly Bodies are now compounded; all together having as much motion as is now found in the World; and these to have been equally moved severally every one by itself about its own Center, and among one another, so as to compose a fluid body; and also many of them jointly or in company, about several other points so far distant from one another, and in the same manner disposed as the Centres of the fixt Stars now are. So that God had no more to do than to create the matter, divide it into parts, and put it into motion according to some few Laws, and that would of itself produce the World and all Creatures therein.
For a Confutation of this Hypothesis, I might refer the Reader to Dr. Cudworth’s System p. 603. 604. but for his ease I will transcribe the words:—God in the mean time standing by as an Idle Spectator of this Lusus Atomorum, this sportfull Dance of Atoms, and of the various results thereof. Nay these mechanick Theists have here quite outstripped and outdone the Atomick Atheists themselves, they being much more extravagant then ever those were. For the professed Atheists durst never venture to affirm, that this regular Systeme of things resulted from the fortuitous motions of Atoms at the very first, before they had for a long time together produced many other inept Combinations, or aggregate Forms of particular things and nonsensical Systems of the whole, and they supposedalso that the regularity of things here in this world would not always continue such neither, but that some time or other Confusion and Disorder will break in again. Moreover that besides this World of ours, there are at this very instant innumerable other Worlds irregular, and that there is but one of a thousand or Ten Thousand among the infinite Worlds that have such regularity in them, the reason of all which is, because it was generally taken for granted, and lookt upon as a common notion, that […], as Aristotle expresseth it; none of those things which are from Fortune or Chance come to pass always alike. But our mechanick Theists will have their Atoms never so much as once to have fumbled in these their motions, nor to have produced any inept System, or incongruous forms at all, but from the very first all along to have taken up their places and ranged themselves so orderly, methodically and directly; as that they could not possibly have done it better, had they been directed by the most perfect Wisdom. Wherefore these Atomick Theists utterly evacuate that grand Argument for a God taken from the Phaenomenon of the Artificial frame of things, which hath been so much insisted upon in all Ages, and which commonly makes the strongest impression of any other upon the minds of Men &c. the Atheists in the mean time laughing in their Sleeves, and not a little triumphing to see the Cause of Theism thus betrayed by its professed Friends and Assertors, and the grand Argument for the same totally slurred by them and so their work done, as it were, to their hands.
Now as this argues the greatest Insensibility of mind, or Sottishness and Stupidity in pretended Theists not to take the least notice of the regular and artificial frame of things, or of the signatures of the Divine Art and Wisdom in them, nor to look upon the World and things of Nature with any other Eyes than Oxen and Horses do. So are there many Phaenomena in Nature, which being partly above the force of these Mechanick Powers, and partly contrary to the same, can therefore never be salved by them, nor without final Causes and some vital Principle: As for Example, that of Gravity or the tendency of Bodies downward, the motion of the Diaphragm in Respiration, the Systole and Diastole of the Heart, which is nothing but a Muscular Constriction and Relaxation, and therefore not mechanical but vital. We might also add among many others the intersection of the Plains of the Equator and Ecliptick, or the Earth’s diurnal motion upon an Axis not parallel to that of the Ecliptick, nor perpendicular to the Plain thereof. For though Des Cartes would needs imagine this Earth of ours once to have been a Sun, and so itself the centre of a lesser Vortex, whose Axis was then directed after this manner, and which therefore still kept the same Site or Posture by reason of the striate Particles finding no fit Pores or Traces for their passages through it, but only in this direction; yet does he himself confess, that because these two motions of the Earth, the Annual and Diurnal, would be much more conveniently made upon parallel Axes, therefore, according to the Laws of Mechanism, they should be perpetually brought nearer andnearer together, till at length the Equator and Ecliptick come to have their axes parallel, which as it has not yet come to pass, so neither hath there been for these last Two Thousand Years (according to the best Observations and Judgments of Astronomers) any nearer approach made of them one to another. Wherefore the continuation of these two motions of the Earth the Annual and Diurnal upon Axes not parallel is resolvable into nothing but a Final and Mental Cause, or the […], because it was best it should be so, the variety of the Seasons of the year depending thereupon. But the greatest of all the particular Phaenomena is the Formation and Organization of the Bodies of Animals, consisting of such variety and curiosity; that these mechanick Philosophers being no way able to give an account thereof from the necessary motion of Matter, unguided by Mind for Ends, prudently therefore break off their System there, when they should come to Animals, and so leave it altogether untoucht. We acknowledg indeed there is a Posthumous piece extant, imputed to Cartes, and entituled, De la formation du Foetus, wherein there is some Pretence made to salve all this by fortuitous Mechanism. But as the Theory thereof is built wholly upon a false supposition, sufficiently confuted by our Harvey in his Book of Generation, that the Seed doth materially enter into the composition of the Egg: So is it all along precarious and exceptionable; nor doth it extend at all to the differences that are in several Animals, nor offer the least reason why an Animal of one Species might not be formed out of the Seed of another. Thus far the Doctor, with whom for the main I do consent. I shall only add, that Natural Philosophers, when they endeavor to give an account of any of the Works of Nature by preconceived Principles of their own, are for the most part grosly mistaken and confuted by Experience; as Des Cartes in a matter that lay before him, obvious to sense and infinitly more easie to find out the Cause of, than to give an account of the Formation of the World; that is the Pulse of the Heart, which he attributes to an Ebullition and sudden expansion of the Blood in the Ventricles, after the manner of Milk, which being heated to such a Degree doth suddenly and as it were all at once flush up and run over the Vessel. Whether this Ebullition be caused by a Nitro-Sulphureous ferment lodged especially in the left Ventricle of the Heart, which mingling with the Blood excites such an Ebullition, as we see made by the mixture of some Chymical Liquors, viz. Oil of Vitriol, and deliquated Salt of Tartar; or by the vital flame warming and boyling the Blood. But this conceit of his is contrary both to Reason and Experience, For first, It is altogether unreasonable to imagine and affirm that the cool venal Blood should be heated to so high a degree in so short a time as the interval of two Pulses, which is less than the sixth part of a Minute. Secondly, In cold Animals, as for Example Eels, the Heart will beat for many hours after it is taken out of the Body, yea tho the Ventricle be opened and all the Blood squeezed out. Thirdly, The process of the Fibres which compound the sides of the Ventricles running in Spiral Lines from the Tip to the Base of the Heart, some one way and some the contrary, do clearly shew that the Systole of the Heart is nothing but a Muscular constriction, as a Purse is shut by drawing the Strings contrary ways: Which is also confirm’d by Experience; for if the Vertex of the Heart be cut off, and a finger thrust up into one of the Ventricles, in every Systole the Finger will be sensibly and manifestly pincht by the sides of the Ventricle. But for a full Confutation of this Fancy, I refer the Reader to Dr. Lower’s Treatise de Corde, Chap. 2. and his Rules concerning the transferring of Motion from one Body in motion to another are the most of them by Experience found to be false, as they affirm which have made Trial of them.
This Pulse of the Heart Dr. Cudworth would have to be no Mechanical but a Vital motion, which to me seems probable, because it is not under the command of the Will, nor are we conscious of any Power to cause or to restrain it, but it is carried on and continued without our knowledge or notice; neither can it be caused by the impulse of any external movent, unless it be Heat. But how can the Spirits agitated by Heat, unguided by a vital Principle produce such a regular reciprocal motion? If that Site which the Heart and its Fibres have in the Diastole be most natural to them, (as it seems to be) why doth it again contract itself, and not rest in that posture? If it be once contracted in a Systole by the influx of the Spirits, why, the Spirits continually flowing in without let, doth it not always remain so? [For the Systole seems to resemble the forcible bending of a Spring, and the Diastole its flying out again to its natural site.] What is the Spring and principal Efficient of this Reciprocation? What directs and moderates the motions of the Spirits? They being but stupid and senseless matter, cannot of themselves continue any regular and constant motion, without the guidance and regulation of some intelligent Being. You will say, what Agent is it which you would have to effect this? The sensitive Soul it cannot be, because that is indivisible, but the Heart, when separated wholly from the Body in some Animals; continues still to pulse for a considerable time; nay when it hath quite ceased, it may be brought to beat anew by the Application of warm Spittle, or by pricking it gently with a Pin or Needle. I answer, it may be in these Instances, the scattering Spirits remaining in the Heart, may for a time being agitated by heat, cause these faint Pulsations; though I should rather attribute them to a plastick Nature or vital Principle, as the Vegetation of Plants must also be.
But to proceed, neither can I wholly acquiesce in the Hypothesis of that Honourable and deservedly famous Author I formerly had occasion to mention; which I find in his free Enquiry into the vulgar Notion of Nature, P. 77, 78. delivered in these Words, I think it probable, that the great and wise Author of things did, when he first formed the Universal and Undistinguished Matter into the World, put its parts into various Motions, whereby they were necessarily divided into numberless Portions of differing Bulks, Figures and Situations in respect of each other. And that by his infinite Wisdom and Power he did so guide and over-rule the motions of these Parts, at the beginning of things, as that (whether in a shorter or a longer time Reason cannot determine) they were finally disposed into that Beautiful and Orderly Frame that we call the World; among whose Parts some were so curiously contrived, as to be fit to become the Seeds or feminal Principles of Plants and Animals. And I further conceive, that he setled such Laws or Rules of local Motion, among the parts of the Universal Matter, that by his ordinary and preserving Concurse the several parts of the Universe thus once completed, should be able to maintain the great Construction or System and Oeconomy of the mundane Bodies, and propagate the Species of living Creatures. The same Hypothesis he repeats again, Pag. 124, 125. of the same Treatise.
This Hypothesis, I say, I cannot fully acquiesce in, because an intelligent Being seems to me requisite to execute the Laws of Motion. For first Motion being a fluent thing, and one part of its Duration being absolutely independent upon another: it doth not follow that because any thing moves this moment, it must necessarily continue to do so the next; 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 moved as swiftly as you will; it is but a sensless and stupid Being still, and makes no nearer approach 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; 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 external intelligent Agent, either God himself immediately, or some Plastick Nature. This latter I incline to, for the Reasons alledged 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 entertained with greater difficulty, and give advantage to Atheists. Secondly, It is not so decorous in respect of God, that he should […], 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. Fourthly, Those […], 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 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 Animals can be formed by Matter divided and moved 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 (though 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 conceived to differ in nothing else but Figure, Magnitude and Gravity, should by virtue 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 disjoyned ones, as it were so many Troups; and that in each Troup the particular Particles should take their places, and cast themselves into such a figure; as for Example, the Bones being about 300 are formed 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, this, I say, I cannot by any means conceive. I might instance in all the Homogeneous Parts of the body, their Sites and Figures; and ask by what imaginable laws of Motion their bulk, figure, situation and connexion can be made out? What account can be given of the Valves, of the Veins and Arteries of the heart, and of the Veins 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 of 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 Substance, as I am inclineable 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 owned and declared, 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 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 return to it; and many the like Actions, which I shall not spend time to relate. Should this be true, that Beasts were Automata or Machines, they could have no sense or perception of Pleasure or Pain, and consequently no Cruelty could be exercised 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 a 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. 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 too imperfect to believe it of them, such as are Oysters and Sponges and the like. To which I answer that there is no Necessity they should be immortal, 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. More, Dr. Cudworth, Des Cartes, Dr. Willis and others, Pro and Con.
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