IV. I Come now, Eleutherius, to acquaint you with some of the Reasons, that have made me backward to entertain such a Notion of Nature, as I have hitherto Discours’d of. And I shall at present comprise them under the following five.
I. The first whereof, is, That such a Nature, as we are speaking of, seems to me to be either asserted, or assum’d without sufficient Proof. And this single Reason, if it be well made out, may, I think, suffice for my turn. For, in matters of Philosophy, where we ought not to take up any thing upon Trust, or believe it without Proof, ‘tis enough to keep us from believing a thing, That we have no positive Argument to induce us to assent to it, though we have no particular Arguments against it. And, if this Rule be to take place in lesser Cases, sure it ought to hold in this, where we are to entertain the belief of so Catholick an Agent, that all the others are look’d upon but as its Instruments, that act in subordination to it; and which, being said to have an immediate Agency in many of the Phaenomena of the World, cannot but be suppos’d to be Demonstrable by divers of them. I have yet met with no Physical Arguments, either Demonstrative, or so much as considerably Probable, to evince the Existence of the Nature, we examin. And, though I should admit the use, that some Divines contend for, of the Holy Scriptures in Philosophical Controversies, yet I should not be persuaded of the Existence of the Nature, we Dispute of. For, I do not remember, that the Scripture any where declares to us, that there is such a thing, (in the sense by me question’d) though (as I formerly noted more fully in the IV. Section,) in Genesis and some other places, where the Corporeal Works of God are expresly treated of, (though in order to Spiritual ends) one might probably enough expect to find some mention of God’s Grand Vicegerent in the Universe of Bodies, if he had establish’d any such. But, whatever be the true cause of the Scriptur’s silence about this matter, the silence itself is sufficient to justifie me, for examining freely, by Reason, a thing that is not impos’d on my belief by Revelation. And, as for the Physical Arguments that may be brought in favour of the question’d Notion of Nature, I shall, e’re long, examine the Principal of them, and shew that they are not Convincing. To these things may be added, as to the Proof drawn from the General Opinion about Nature, That, being a Popular, not a Physical Argument, it may indeed pass for currant with the Vulgar, but ought not to do so with Philosophers.
II. The second Reason is taken from the Unnecessariness of such a Nature, as is pretended. For, since a great part of the Work of true Philosophers has been, to reduce the Principles of things to the smallest Number they can, without making them insufficient; I see not, why we should take in a Principle, of which we have no need. For, supposing the common Matter of all Bodies to have been at first divided into innumerable minute Parts, by the Wise Author of Nature, and these Parts to have been so dispos’d of, as to form the World, constituted as it now is; and especially, supposing that the Vniversal Laws of Motion, among the Parts of the Matter, have been establish’d, and several Conventions of Particles contrived into the Seminal Principles of various things; all which may be effected by the meer Local Motion of Matter, (not left to itself, but skilfully guided at the beginning of the World) if (I say) we suppose these things, together with God’s ordinary and general Concourse, which we very reasonably may: I see not, why the same Phaenomena, that we now observe in the World, should not be produc’d, without taking in any such Powerful and Intelligent Being, distinct from God, as Nature is represented to be. And, ‘till I see some Instance produc’d to the contrary, I am like to continue of this mind, and to think that the Phaenomena, we observe, will genuinely follow from the meer Fabrick and Constitution of the World. As, supposing the Sun and Moon to have been put, at first, into such Motions about the Earth, as Experience shews they have; the determinate Celerity of these Motions, and the Lines, wherein they are performed, will make it necessary, that the Moon should be sometimes Full, sometimes scarce Illuminated at all to us-ward, sometimes Horned, and, in a word, should exhibit such several Phases as every Month she doth, and that at some times She and the Sun should have a Trine, or a Quadrate Aspect, &c. and that now one, and now the other of them, should at set times suffer an Eclipse: Though these Eclipses were by the Romans and others of old, and are by many Unlearn’d Nations at this day, look’d upon as Supernatural things; and though also Aristotle, and a multitude of his Followers, fancy’d, that such Regular Motions could not be maintain’d without an Assistent Intelligence, which He and They therefore Assign’d to each of the Heavenly Orbs. And indeed the difficulty, we find, to conceive, how so great a Fabrick, as the World, can be preserved in Order, and kept from running again to a Chaos, seems to arise from hence, that Men do not sufficiently consider the unsearchable Wisdom of the Divine Architect or Δημιουργὸς (as the Scripture styles him) of the World,1 whose piercing Eyes were able to look at once quite through the Universe, and take into his Prospect both the beginning and end of Time: So that perfectly fore-knowing, what would be the Consequences of all the possible Conjunctures of Circumstances, into which Matter, divided and mov’d according to such Laws, could, in an Automaton so Constituted as the Present World is, happen to be put; there can nothing fall out, unless when a Miracle is wrought, that shall be able to alter the Course of things, or prejudice the Constitution of them, any further, than He did from the Beginning foresee, and think fit to allow.