Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/81

Rh, it may be, will not stick to affirm, that either the parts of the Matter are Specifically different, or though they be not, yet some are Moveable of themselves, others inclinable to Rest, and were ever so; for it happened so to be, though there be no reason for it in the thing it self: which is to wound our Faculties with so wide a gap, that after this they will let in any thing, and take away all pretence to any principles of Knowledge.

But to scuffle & combat with them in their own dark Caverns, let the Universal Matter be a heterogeneal Chaos of confusion, variously moved and as it happens; I say, there is no likelihood that this mad Motion would ever amount to so wise a Contrivance as is discernable even in the general Delineations of Nature; nay, it will not amount to a Natural appearance of what we see, and what is conceived most easy thus to come to pass, to wit, a round Sun, Moon, and Earth. For it is shrewdly to be suspeded, if there were no Superintendent over the Motions of those Æthereall Whirle-pools, which the French Philosophy supposes, that the form of the Sun and the rest of the Stars would be oblong, not round, because the Matter recedes all along the Axis of a Vortex, as well as from the Centre; and therefore naturally the Space that is left for the finest and subtilest Element of all, of which the Sun and Stars are to consist, will be long, not round. Wherefore this round Figure we see them in must proceed from some higher Principle then the mere Agitation of the Matter: but whether simply Spermatical, or Sensitive also and Intellectual, I'll leave to the disquisition of others, who are more at leisure to meddle with such curiosities.

5. The Business that lies me in hand to make good is this. That taking that for granted which these great Naturalists would have allowed, to wit, That the Earth moves about the Sun; I say, the Laws of its Motion are such, that if they had been imposed on her by humane reason and counsel, they would have been no other then they are. So that appealing to our own Faculties, we are to confess that the motion of the Sun and Stars, or of the Earth, as our Naturalists would have it, is from a knowing Principle, or at least hath passed the Approbation and Allowance of such a Principle.

For as Art takes what Nature will afford for her purpose, and makes up the rest her self; so the Eternal Mind (that put the Universal Matter upon Motion, as I conceive most reasonable, or if the Matter be confusedly mov'd of its self, as the Atheist wilfully contends) this Eternal Mind, I say, takes the easie and natural results of this general Impress of Motion, where they are for his purpose; where they are not, he rectifies and compleats them.

6. And verily it is far more sutable to Reason, that God making the Matter of that nature, that it can by mere Motion produce something, that it should goe on so far as that single advantage could naturally carry it; that so the Wit of man, whom God hath made to contemplate the Phænemena of Nature, may have a more fit object to exercise it self upon. For thus is the Understanding of Man very highly gratifi'd, when the works of God and their manner of production are made intelligible unto him by a natural deduction of one thing from another; which would