Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/111

Rh and an Ox, or a Wasp and an Horse, that those Insects should arise out of the putrefi'd bodies of these Creatures? It is but some rude and general congruity of vital preparation that sets this Archeus on work rather then another: As mere Choler engages the Phansie to dream of firing of Guns and fighting of Armies, Sanguine figures the Imagination into the representation of fair Women and beautiful Children; Phlegm transforms her into Water and Fishes; and the shadowy Melancholy intangles her in colluctation with old Hags and Hobgoblins, and frights her with dead mens faces in the dark. But I have dwelt on this Subject; longer then I intended.

 

1. That the Fabrick of the Bodies of Animals argues a Deity: as namely the number and situation of their Eyes and Ears; 2. As also of their Legs. 3. The Armature of Beasts, and their Use thereof. 4. Of the general structure of Birds and Fishes. 5. The admirable Fabrick of the Mole. 6. Cardan’s rapture upon the consideration thereof. 7. Of the Hare and Grey-hound. 8. Of the structure of the body of the Camel.

Come now to the last consideration of Animals, the outward Shape and Fabrick of their Bodies; which when I have shew'd you that they might have been otherwise, and yet are made according to the most exquisite pitch of Reason that the wit of Man can conceive of, it will naturally follow that they were really made by Wisdom and Providence and consequently That there is a God. And I demand first in general, concerning all those Creatures that have Eyes and Ears, whether they might not have had only one Eye and one Eare apiece, and to make the supposition more tolerable, had the Eye on the one side the head,and the Eare on the other, or the Eare on the Crown of the head, and the Eye in the Forehead: for they might have lived and subsisted though they had been no better provided for then thus. But it is evident that their having two Eyes and two Ears, so placed as they are, is more safe, more sightly, and more useful. Therefore that being made so constantly choice of which our own Reason deemeth best, we are to infer, that that choice proceeded from Reason and Counsel.

2. Again, I desire to know why there be no three-footed Beasts, (when I speak thus, I do not mean Monsters, but a constant Species or kind of Animals) for such a Creature as that would make a limping shift to live as well as they that have four. Or why have not some Beasts more then four feet, suppose six, and the two middlemost shorter then the rest, hanging like the two legs of a Man a horse-back by the horse-sides? For it is no harder a thing for Nature to make such frames of Bodies then others that are more elegant and useful. But the works of Nature being neither useless nor inept, she must either be wise her self, or be guided by some  Rh