I come now to take a view of the Works of the Creation, and to observe something of the Wisdom of God discernable 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 exposed 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 than can be discovered by the most diligent Scrutiny: For our Eyes and Senses, however armed or assisted, are too gross to discern the curiosity of the Workmanship of Nature, or those minute Parts by which it acts, and of which Bodies are composed; 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 in comparison of the Works of Art, which I shall propose in the late Bishop of Chesters Words. The Observations1 which have been made in these latter times by the help of the Microscrope, since we had the use and improvement of it, discover a vast difference between Natural and Artificial Things. Whatever is natural beheld through that appears exquisitely formed, and adorned with all imaginable Elegancy and Beauty. There are such inimitable gildings 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 embossments seem such rude, bungling and deformed Work, as if they had been done with a Mattock or a 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 cleaver and exactly formed they appear; whereas the effects of human Art the more curiously they are viewed and examined, the more of Deformity they discover.
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 Vegetative 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 received Opinion, and for easier Comprehension and Memory; though 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 the only ingredients of mixt 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 Mixt, which are as simple as the Elements themselves, as Metals, Salts, and some sorts of 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 destroyed, nor any new ones produced, I take to be, because the sum of the figures of those minute Bodies into which matter was at first divided, is determinate and fixt. 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 figured 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 produced; 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 […] 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 transmuted 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 Species, and the diversity may proceed from the admixture of different Bodies with the principles of the Metal. If it be asked, why may not Atoms of different Species concur to the composition of Bodies? and so though 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 innumerable 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 Homogeneous 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.
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Footnotes
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Treat. of Nat. Religion. Lib. 1. c. 6. ↩