planets, or the effects of medicines, or the refult of chemical or mechanical experiments, may be faid to do it by natural vaticination.

253. We know a thing when we understand it: and we understand it, when we can interpret or tell what it fignifies. Strictly the fenfe knows nothing. We perceive indeed founds by hearing, and characters by fight but we are not therefore faid to understand them. After the fame manner, the phænomena of nature are alike vifible to all : but all have not alike learned the connexion of natural things, or understand what they fignify, or know how to vaticinate by them. There is no question, faith Socrates, in Theæteto, concerning that which is agreeable to each perfon; but concerning what will in time to come be agreeable, of which all men are not equally judges. He who foreknoweth what will be in every kind, is the wifeft. According to Socrates, you and the cook may judge of a difh on the table equally well; but while the difh is making, the cook can better foretel what will enfue from this or that manner of compofing it. Nor is this manner of reasoning confined only to morals or politics; but extends alfo to natural fcience.

254. As the natural connexion of figns with the things fignified is regular and conftant, it forms a fort of rational difcourfe (a), and is therefore the immediate effect of an intelligent caufe. This is agreeable to the philofophy of Plato and other an-. cients. Plotinus indeed faith, that which acts naturally is not intellection, but a certain power of moving matter, which doth not know, but only do. And it must be owned, that, as faculties are multiplied by philofophers according to their operations, the will may be distinguished from the intellect.

But it will not therefore follow, that the will, which operates in the course of nature, is not conducted and applied by intellect, although it be granted that neither will understands, nor intellect wills. Therefore, the phænomena of nature, which strike on the fenfes and are understood by the mind, form not only a magnificent fpectacle, but also a most coherent, entertaining, and inftructive difcourfe; and to effect this, they are conducted, adjusted, and ranged by the greatest wisdom. This language or difcourfe is ftudied with different attention, and interpreted with different degrees of fkill. But fo far as men have ftudied and remarked its rules, and can interpret right, fo far they may be faid to be knowing in nature. A beaft is like a man who hears a strange tongue, but understands nothing.

255. Nature, faith the learned Doctor Čudworth, is not master of art or wifdom: Nature is ratio merfa et confufa, reafon immerfed and plunged into matter, and as it were fuddled in it and confounded with it. But the formation of plants and animals, the motions of natural bodies, their various properties, appearances, and viciffitudes, in a word, the whole series of things in this vifible world, which we call the courfe of nature, is fo wisely managed and carried on, that the most improved human reafon cannot thoroughly comprehend even the leaft particle thereof; fo far is it from feeming to be produced by fuddled or confounded reafon.

256. Natural productions, it is true, are not all equally perfect. But neither doth it fuit with the order of things, the ftructure of the univerfe, or the ends of providence, that they fhould be fo. General rules, we have feen (a), are neceffary to

(a) 249, 252.

make

make the world intelligible: and from the conftant obfervation of fuch rules, natural evils will fometimes unavoidably enfue: things will be produced in a flow length of time, and arrive at different degrees of perfection.

257. It must be owned, we are not confcious of the fyftole and diastole of the heart, or the motion of the diaphragm. It may not nevertheless be thence inferred, that unknowing nature can act regularly, as well as ourselves. The true inference is, that the felf-thinking individual, or human perfon, is not the real author of thofe natural motions. And in fact no man blames himself if they are wrong, or values himself if they are right. The fame may be faid of the fingers of a mufician, which fome object to be moved by habit which understands not; it being evident, that what is done by rule must proceed from fomething that understands the rule; therefore, if not from the musician himself, from fome other active intelligence, the fame perhaps which governs bees and fpiders, and moves the limbs of those who walk in their fleep.

258. Inftruments, occafions, and figns (6) occur in, or rather make up, the whole vifible courfe of nature. Thefe, being no agents themfelves, are under the direction of one agent concerting all for one end, the fupreme good. All those motions, whether in animal bodies or in other parts of the system of nature, which are not effects of particular wills, feem to fpring from the fame general caufe with the vegetation of plants, an ætherial spirit actuated by a mind.

259. The first poets and theologers of Greece. and the Eaft confidered the generation of things, as afcribed rather to a divine caufe; but the Phylici

(b) 160.

1

Q 2

to

to natural causes, fubordinate to, and directed still by a divine; except fome corporealifts and mechanics, who vainly pretended to make a world without a God. The hidden force that unites, adjusts, and caufeth all things to hang together, and move in harmony, which Orpheus and Empedocles ftyled love; this principle of union, is no blind principle, but acts with intellect. This divine love and intellect are not themselves obvious to our view, or otherwife difcerned than in their effects. Intellect enlightens, Love connects, and the fovereign Good attracts all things.

260. All things are made for the fupreme good, all things tend to that end: and we may be said to account for a thing, when we fhew that it is fo beft. In the Phædon, Socrates declares it to be his opinion, that he, who fuppofed all things to have been difpofed and ordered by a mind (c), fhould not pretend to affign any other cause of them. He blames phyfiologers for attempting to account for phænomena, particularly for gravity and cohesion, by vortexes and æther, overlooking the τὸ ἀγαθὸν and τὸ δέον, the ftrongeft bond and cement which holds together all the parts of the univerfe, and not difcerning the cause it felf from thofe things which only attend it.

261. As in the microcofm, the constant regular tenor of the motions of the vifcera and contained juices doth not hinder particular voluntary motions to be impreffed by the mind on the animal fpirit; even fo in the mundane fyftem, the fteddy obfervance of certain laws of nature, in the groffer maffes and more confpicuous motions, doth not hinder but a voluntarily agent may fometimes communicate particular impreffions to the fine ætherial medium, (c) 154, 160.

which

which in the world answers the animal spirit in man. Which two (if they are two) although invifible and inconceivably small, yet feem the real latent springs, whereby all the parts of this vifible world are moved, albeit they are not to be regarded as a true cause, but only an inftrument of motion; and the inftrument not as a help to the creator, but only as a fign to the creature.

.

262. Plotinus fuppofeth that the foul of the univerfe is not the original caufe or author of the fpecies, but receives them from intellect, the true principle of order and diftinction, the fource and giver of forms. Others confider the vegetative foul only as fome lower faculty of a higher foul, which animates the fiery ætherial fpirit (d). As for the blots and defects which appear in the courfe of this world, which fome have thought to proceed from a fatality or neceffity in nature, and others from an evil principle, that fame philofopher obferves, that, it may be, the governing reafon produceth and ordained all those things; and, not intending that all parts fhould be equally good, maketh fome worfe than others by defign, as all parts in an animal are not eyes and in a city, comedy, or picture, all ranks, characters, and colours are not equal or like; even so exceffes, defects, and contrary qualities, confpire to the beauty and harmony of the world,

263. It cannot be denied, that with respect to the universe of things, we in this mortal ftate are like men educated in Plato's cave, looking on shadows with our backs turned to the light. But though our light be dim, and our fituation bad, yet if the beft ufe be made of both, perhaps fomething may be feen. Proclus, in his commentary on the theology of Plato, obferves there are two