Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/217

Rh , to build ships or houses, and so on. Wherefore it being true that there is such a subordinate Usefulness in the things themselves that are made to our hand, it is but reason in as to impute it to such a Cause as was aware of the Usefulness and Serviceableness of its own works.

5. Nor are We to cavil because these Useful things, such as Stones, Metalls, Coals, and the like, are to be had with so much labour, whenas men were better released from all such drudgery, that they may have the more time to contemplate the World, and seek after God, and exercise those better Faculties of the humane Nature: For we see plainly that the lapsed condition of Man is such, that Idleness is no spur to Vertue or Piety, but rather a Nurse to all beastliness and Sensuality. Besides that few mens Minds are of so Speculative a temper that they can with any great pleasure attend such meditations as will prove worth their leaving of a more Pradicall and laborious life, which does not exclude men from being pious and honest, as certainly no Calling at all does. Wherefore that to the generality of men all Useful things come hardly, is indeed rather an Argument of Providence, and that that Cause that framed the Earth knew well aforehand what the disposition of the terrestriall Man would be.

4. The second Objection is against our Argument from the Beauty of Plants, which I contend to have its first original from an Intellectual Cause, Beauty it self being such an Intellectual Object. But to this are objected two things. First, that Beauty is a necessary result of the mere motion of the Matter. Secondly, that it is no intellectual Object, sith Women and Children seem to be more taken with it then Men, and Brutes as well as either.

The former they will prove thus; That Colour, which is one part of Beauty, is the result of mere Matter, is, say they, plain from the Rain-bow, which is assuredly such a mere natural result: And for Symmetry, which is the other part of Beauty, and in Plants consists in their leaves and branches parallely answering one another, as also the several parts of the same leaf; there is, say they, a kind of Natural necessity that there should be such an uniform correspondency as this in these branches and leaves, because the nourishment must follow the tract of the Vessels of the Seed, which being regular in their first conformation, the branches and leaves which sprout out must also be regular. Now this regular con- formation of the Seed came from the uniform motion of particles in the Mother-plant; and lastly, the first Mother-plant of any kind from the regular motion of the Matter.

But I answer, That though the Positure as well as the Colours themselves of the Rain-bow be necessary results of the mere Matter, and are nothing but the Reflexion and Refraction of the light of the Sun in the round drops of a rorid cloud, as Cartesius has admirably demonstrated; and that there is nothing at all further required hereunto saving the position of our Eyes in a line drawn from the Sun, and continued to this rorid cloud spred out so that the coloured circle may have for its Radius either about forty two or fifty one degrees, for then this Effect will necessarily follow; and if this rorid cloud extend it self so far every way, that there Rh