Positions, blind Fate could never make all the Planets move one and the
same way in Orbs concentrick, some inconsiderable Irregularities
excepted, which may have risen from the mutual Actions of Comets and
Planets upon one another, and which will be apt to increase, till this
System wants a Reformation. Such a wonderful Uniformity in the Planetary
System must be allowed the Effect of Choice. And so must the Uniformity
in the Bodies of Animals, they having generally a right and a left side
shaped alike, and on either side of their Bodies two Legs behind, and
either two Arms, or two Legs, or two Wings before upon their Shoulders,
and between their Shoulders a Neck running down into a Back-bone, and a
Head upon it; and in the Head two Ears, two Eyes, a Nose, a Mouth, and
a Tongue, alike situated. Also the first Contrivance of those very
artificial Parts of Animals, the Eyes, Ears, Brain, Muscles, Heart,
Lungs, Midriff, Glands, Larynx, Hands, Wings, swimming Bladders, natural
Spectacles, and other Organs of Sense and Motion; and the Instinct of
Brutes and Insects, can be the effect of nothing else than the Wisdom
and Skill of a powerful ever-living Agent, who being in all Places, is
more able by his Will to move the Bodies within his boundless uniform
Sensorium, and thereby to form and reform the Parts of the Universe,
than we are by our Will to move the Parts of our own Bodies. And yet we
are not to consider the World as the Body of God, or the several Parts
thereof, as the Parts of God. He is an uniform Being, void of Organs,
Members or Parts, and they are his Creatures subordinate to him, and
subservient to his Will; and he is no more the Soul of them, than the
Soul of Man is the Soul of the Species of Things carried through the
Organs of Sense into the place of its Sensation, where it perceives them
by means of its immediate Presence, without the Intervention of any
third thing. The Organs of Sense are not for enabling the Soul to
perceive the Species of Things in its Sensorium, but only for conveying
them thither; and God has no need of such Organs, he being every where
present to the Things themselves. And since Space is divisible _in
infinitum_, and Matter is not necessarily in all places, it may be also
allow'd that God is able to create Particles of Matter of several Sizes
and Figures, and in several Proportions to Space, and perhaps of
different Densities and Forces, and thereby to vary the Laws of Nature,
and make Worlds of several sorts in several Parts of the Universe. At
least, I see nothing of Contradiction in all this.
As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of
difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the
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