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A27207
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Considerations on a book, entituled The theory of the earth, publisht some years since by the Dr. Burnet
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Beaumont, John, d. 1731.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing B1620; ESTC R170484
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132,774
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195
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be held miraculous considering that lesser Mists and Fogs than those which cover'd Greece with so long darkness do familiarly present our Senses with as great alterations in the Sun and Moon That the Figure should vary questionless was very strange yet I cannot hold it any Prodigy for it stands well with good reason that the side of Venus which the Sun beholds being enlightn'd by him the opposite half should remain shadowed whereby that Planet would unto our Eyes descrying only that part whereon the Light falls appear to be horn'd as the Moon seems if distance as in other things did not hinder the apprehension of our Senses A worthy Astrologer now living who by the help of Perspectives has found in the Stars many things unknown to the Ancients affirms so much to have been discover'd in Venus by his late observations Whether some watery disposition of the Air might present as much to them that liv'd with Ogyges as Galilaeus has seen with his Instrument I cannot tell sure I am that the discovery of a Truth formerly unknown rather convinces men of Ignorance than Nature of Errour So far Ralegh Neither shall I add more here concerning the other Planets being willing first to see whether we can establish any thing certain concerning this Planet we inhabit concerning which we have much more hopes to arrive at some solid Knowledge than of Bodies so remote from us and I little pleasing my self in opining concerning things undeterminable by Man I shall conclude this Book by considering one thing which the Author greatly insists on in several parts of it viz. That the first order of things is regular and simple and that the deformity of this present Earth as it appears all broken and its incommodiousness shew that the present state of it was not original nor dispos'd according to the Laws and order of Gravity and he intimates that in the primigenious Mass the Earth must have held the lower place and the other Elements their proper Seats according to the said Order and as he represents in his Hypothesis Now the true Doctrine as I conceive of the Site and Figure of the Earth and other Elements runs thus Altho the Earth be a terminated Body and seems to have a certain Figure yet the Elements have no proper and natural Figure as Aristotle has truly said because if they had a natural Form they would be corrupted if they lost it But beside this Reason of Aristotle there is another viz. That to each similar Body any Figure agrees it having none proper to it nor does this hold only in the four Elements but in all similar Bodies and it therefore agrees to the Elements because they are similar and the reason why similar Bodies have no proper Figure is because a Figure was not necessary to them a Figure being constituted by Nature for actions as an Arm has such a Figure because by the benefit of that Figure the Arm exercises its actions and by this Figure the Arm is an Arm and such a Figure being lost it is no longer an Arm so in artificial things an Hatchet is therefore an Hatchet because it has such a Figure which being lost the Hatchet is no longer an Hatchet but only Iron and Matter because the action of the Hatchet flows from the Figure which is to cut A Figure is therefore necessary in compounded things but not in similar because the use of Similars is not any Operation but only this that they be the matter of others Now tho the Elements have not a proper Figure yet of necessity their place must be circular and of a spherical Figure as Aristotle says by reason of the extreme evenness of all their parts so that an Element being all ev'n it has not whereby Angles should be made And this must be understood of pure Elements or such as continue fluid but our Earth of which Mountains are made is not pure Elementary Earth or a simple Body but is a certain Compound and aggregate of many Bodies and when a Man considers the infinite variety of Soils and Fossils of which it consists and their differing degrees of Gravity he cannot imagine that an even Surface could be thence made ev'n in that respect without considering any protrusive force of an inward Mover And whatsoever even rotundity the Earth were to have according to its natural Constitution since it agrees most to the advantage of things that certain parts of the Earth should be high rais'd others lying lower it was fit they should have such a Site that so through the differing Complexion of divers parts of the Earth the diversities of Minerals Plants and Animals might arise And since things were first instituted by God not only for having a Being in themselves but that they might be the Principles of others therefore they were produc'd in a perfect State in which they might be the Principles of others And therefore as Philo says the World was created in its Perfection and not left crude and all Plants in their first Rise were laden with their Fruits otherwise than now for now all things are generated in their seasons and not all together So Macrobius says If we grant particular things to have had a Beginning Nature first form'd all Animals perfect and then gave them a perpetual Law that they should continue a sucession by Propagation And so Plutarch says It s probable that the first Generation was entire and accomplisht from the Earth by the vertue and perfection of the Maker without having need of those Instruments and Vessels which Nature has since invented and made in Females which bear and ingender by reason of its impotence and imbecility If we consider Animals in which Nature is much more polite than in forming this Compost of the Earth we see how little the common Laws of Gravity and even'ness in Figure are observ'd in them What Mountain seems so enormous in the body of the Earth as the Bunch on a Camels back in that Quadrupede or the Bill of a Bill bird in that Bird or the head of a Rana piscatrioc in that Fish If it be said that these are organical Bodies and that those parts are form'd so for certain uses I think it as easie to shew Analagous uses in the various Site and parts of the Earth And so as to Gravity in Animals why is the upper Jaw plac'd above the lower Or why in Man are the Heart Liver and Spleen plac'd above the Pancreas Reins and Bladder Is it that they are lighter And why is the Soul it self in the Body The Globe of the Earth therefore as well as the particular Bodies in it have been set in order by an Understanding Principle and have every where a rational distribution of parts for their proper Uses for otherwise as Plutarch says If each thing were left to itself all would return into a Chaodical Confusion And I think Gassendus as he reflects on D. Flud has
were Cattle in it but Dwarfish no Gold nor Silver in it and therefore despis'd by all Men whereas it 's now as pleasant a Counrry almost in all respects as France Spain or Italy Indeed in refetence to the Civil or Moral World it might be said that by the Golden Age is meant the Ancient simplicity which the Poets or others would represent in our Forefathers as leading a quiet and calm Life free from all Treachery Voluptuousness and other burthensome circumstances to humane Nature as we find some of the Ancients formerly had so great a hatred and detestation of Pleasures Superfluities and Voluptuousness that in the Temple of the Town of Thebes there was a famous square Pillar erected on which were engraven Curses and Execrations against King Menis who was the first that withdrew the Egyptians from a simple and sober Life without Mony and Riches But it cannot be thought that ever this Humour was general in the World though it might happen sometimes in one place and sometimes in another according to the vicissitude of humane Affairs Or we may say with Natalis Comes what is the Golden Age but a common liberty of all Men in a City well govern'd by Laws where wild Beasts live freely with domestick Animals Dogs with Hares Lambs with Wolves and the like For in a time of Peace good Men live safe under the protection of the Laws among Cut-throats and Thieves Some by the Golden Age understand the time when Men were govern'd by the Law of Nature written in their Hearts before the written Law was in being And others by the four Ages will have four sorts of Men to be signified But to pass from the Moral World to the Natural though as to the place which God appointed for Paradise it must be allow'd to have been adorn'd with all advantages and delights from the Beginning yet as to the rest of the Earth I know not what warrant we have from the Scriptures or other History Or what may be suggested from Reason for any advantagious furniture it had for supplying Men with Necessaries or Pleasures Indeed the Scriptures tell us of the Longaevity of the Antediluvian Patriarchs and we have suggested Conjectures already of what it may be imputed too but as to the great Fertility ascrib'd to the Primigenial Soil that of necessity must have added to the inconvenience of Habitation by an overgrowth without Persons to cultivate it and it seems likely to me that Adam as soon as he was turn'd out of Paradise was hardly put to his shifts Plutarch also sufficiently tells us what Conveniencies for the support of humane Life a recent World could afford so that a Golden Age in any such respect seems to me to have been represented rather for gratifying the Fancy than the Judgment And all I can bring it to is this that as the Ancients by the Golden Age in the moral World would represent an Ideal state of pure Nature and of Innocency so by all their Flourishes on the then Course of external Nature they would personate an Idaeal state of it correspondent to the other Having thus far shewn how little the Author's Hypothesis is backt by the Sentiments of the Ancients concerning Paradise I shall now briefly set forth what as far as my Reading has gone seems to me most probable in this matter The Learned Mr. Gregory on that passage of Zach. C. 6.12 Behold the man whose name is East whom he makes out to be Christ lays down this as a Ground That the special Presence of God as he superintends this World ever was and is in that part of the Heav'n or Heav'ns which answers to the Aequinoctial East of the holy Land To make this good he says the Ancients always attributed to the Gods the Eastern parts as Porphyry says and those parts are called by Varro and Festus the Seats of the Gods c. He proves it also from Reason according to Aristotle thus The first Mover viz. God must of necessity be present either to the Center or Circumference of his Orb and since Motions are most rapid in the nearest distance to the Impression and since that part of the Sphere is most rapidly mov'd which is most remote from the Poles therefore the movers Place is about the middle Line and this he thinks is the reason why the Aequinoxes are believ'd to be of so sacred an Import and signification in Astrology for by them as Ptolomy says it 's judg'd concerning things Divine and the Service belonging to the House of God Now the Philosophers meaning is not as if the Mover presented himself alike unto the whole Circumference but assisting especially to that part from whence the motion does begin viz. the East whence Averrhoes rightly says some Religious worship God that way Since therefore the Aequinoctial East passes through the whole Circle of necessity 't is to be meant of some certain Position nor is it possible to mean it but of the horizontal Segment of the then habitable World the uttermost bounds whereof from Sun to Sun they absolutely term'd East and West In the Philosophers time the Circle of this Horizon past through the Pillars of Hercules in the West Calpe and Abyla and the Altars of Alexander in the East And at the Pillars of Hercules the Arabians fixt their Great Meridian Now this Meridian passes through the tenth degree of Longitude from that of Ptolomy and the River Hyphasis on the furthest banks of which Alexanders Altars were rais'd as being the place where his Journeys ended is plac'd by Ptolomy in 131.35 the difference of Longitude is about 120 degrees the second part of which is 60. and because the Meridian of Jerusalem is 70 degrees from that of Ptolomy that is 60 from the Arabian the Holy City was as it was anciently term'd Vmbilicus Terrae being precisely plac'd betwixt the East and West of the habitable World Therefore the Aequinoctial East of Jerusalem is the Aequinoctial East of the whole and answering to the first movers Receipt which therefore was said to be in Oriente aequinoctiali Now the Notion of Paradise in the Christian acceptation was that part of the Heaven where the Throne of God and the Lamb is it being as Zoroaster terms it in the Chaldean Oracles the all enlightned recess of Souls And Irenaeus says as he heard from Disciples of the Apostles the Receipt of just and perfect Men is a certain Paradise in the Eastern part of the third Heaven and many others of the Fathers agree with him herein And Paâ— 68.32.33 David says according to the Arabick Translation Sing unto God ye Kingdoms of the Earth O sing praises to the Lord Selah to him that rides upon the heaven of heavens in the Eastern part Gen. 2.8 It 's said And the Lord planted a Garden Eastward or toward the East In the Apostolical Constitutions it 's said And turning toward the East let them pray unto God who sits upon