I Ignore not that not onely Leucippus, Epicurus, and other Atomists of old, but of late some Persons, for the most part Adorers of Aristotle’s Writings, have pretended to be able to explicate the first Beginning of Things, and the Worlds Phaenomena, without taking in, or acknowledging any Divine Author of it: And therefore, though we may elsewhere, by the assistance of that Author, have an opportunity to give You an Account of our unsatisfiedness with the Attempts made by some bold Wits in favor of such Pretensions; Yet since the main Truth We plead for, in this Discourse, is so nearly concern’d in what hath been taught by those that would keep God from being thought to have any share in the Production of the Universe; I can scarce forbear (as unwilling as I am to digress) to represent to You, on the present occasion, a few Considerations which may assist You, if not to lessen the Arrogance of such Persons, at least, to keep Your self from thinking their Evidence as great as their Confidence is wont to be. Now of the Philosophers we speak of, some being Atomists, and others not, it will be requisite to say something to each of the two sorts: And because we not long since, in an Illustrious Company, where You, Pyrophilus, are not unknown, met with one of them, who avowedly, grounded his Opinions on the Aristotelean or vulgar Physiology, We shall first recommend to You two or three Considerations concerning such arrogant Peripateticks (For I speak not of that Sect in general, of which I know there are divers excellent Men.)
First then, You will in many Passages of the following Essays, finde, that divers things that have been very Magisterially taught, and confidently believ’d among the Followers of Aristotle, are Errors or Mistakes; and that as several, even of the obvious Phaenomena of Nature, do contradict the common Peripatetick Doctrine, so divers, at least of those that are more abstruse, are not explicable by it; and as confidently as these his Followers talk of the expounding the very Riddles of Nature; yet I remember that he himself somewhere (for I cannot call to minde the place) did not scruple to confess, that As the Eyes of Owls are to the splendor of the Day, so are those of our Minds even to things obvious and manifest.
I shall next take notice, That Philosophers, who scorn to ascribe any thing to God, do often deceive themselves, in thinking they have sufficiently satisfied our Enquiries, when they have given us the nearest and most immediate causes of some things; whereas oftentimes the assignment of those Causes is but the manifesting that such and such Effects may be deduc’d from the more Catholick affections of things, though these be not unfrequently as abstruse as the Phaenomena explicated by them, as having onely their Effects more obvious, not their Nature better understood: As when, for instance, an account is demanded of that strange supposed Sympathy betwixt Quick-silver and Gold; in that we finde, that whereas all other Bodies swim upon Quick-silver, it will readily swallow up Gold, and hide it in its Bosom. This pretended Sympathy the Naturalist may explicate, by saying, That Gold being the onely Body heavier then Quick-silver of the same bulk, the known Laws of the Hydrostaticks make it necessary, that Gold should sink in it, and all lighter Bodies swim on it: But though the cause of this Effect be thus plausibly assign’d, by deducing it from so known and obvious an affection of Bodies, as Gravity, which every man is apt to think he sufficiently understands; yet will not this put a satisfactorie period to a severe Inquirers Curiositie, who will, perchance, be apt to alledge,1 That though the Effects of Gravity indeed be very obvious, yet the Cause and Nature of it are as obscure as those of almost any Phaenomena it can be brought to explicate. And that therefore he that desires no further account, desists too soon from his Enquiries, and acquiesces long before he comes to his Journies end. And indeed, the investigation of the true nature and adequate cause of gravity, is a task of that difficulty, that in spight of ought I have hitherto seen or read, I must yet retain great doubts whether they have been clearly and solidly made out by any Man. And sure, Pyrophilus, there are divers Effects in Nature, of which, though the immediate Cause may be plausibly assign’d, yet if we further enquire into the Causes of those Causes, and desist not from ascending in the Scale of Causes till we are arriv’d at the top of it, we shall perhaps finde the more Catholick and Primary causes of Things, to be either certain, primitive, general and fix’d Laws of Nature (or rules of Action and Passion among the parcels of the Universal Matter) or else the Shape, Size, Motion, and other primary Affections of the smallest parts of Matter, and of their first Coalitions or Clusters: especially those endowed with seminal Faculties or Properties, or (to dispatch) the admirable conspiring of the several parts of the Universe to the production of particular Effects; of all which it will be difficult to give a satisfactory Account, without acknowledging an intelligent Author or Disposer of Things.