places by means whereof the Water justly pays in process of time what is borrowed from the Earth by a perpetual circulation And that hence it comes to pass that in process of time even to our view Channels that were deep and broad yet by a little time of dryness grow narrow and shallow that those Mountains whose chief substance is Rock become cloathed with a superficial Mantle of Earth and Mould that those places which were formerly filled with Wood have buried the fallen Trees three four or five foot deep in the ground by an accretion or cover of Earth derived to them sometimes by Alluvions or Floods sometimes and most ordinarily by the descent of those Terrestrial Particles that are drawn up together with watry Vapours and either together with those Waters or after arefaction thereof in the Air discharged upon the Earth which doth reparare deperditum And as to those Rocks in the Sea they will also tell us that the vicissitudes of the Sea and Land in a long process of time much more in an eternal duration are very many and various Sometimes that becomes Land which was once Sea as appears in that part of Egypt thorough which Nilus runs long since observed by Aristotle and before him by Herodotus and even in our memory great quantities of Land are now firm and habitable where Ships anciently rode and on the other side many parts are become Sea which were once firm Land They instance in that traditional vast Island in the Atlantick Ocean which is drowned and hath left no Remains of it self but those Islands called the Canary Islands but whether that tradition be true or not it is very probable that by particular Inundations the Face and State of the Terrestrial Globe by great vicissitudes is much changed And therefore though they suppose the Terrestrial Globe Eternal yet the Earth and Water hath not eternally kept the same position or site that now it hath And therefore the Sea so often at least in an Eternal Period shifting its Channel hath not eternally washed the same Rocks that now it doth but after an indeterminate and vast uncertain Period it may be of ten or twenty thousand years leaves that Channel which before it had and gives those Rocks that it wasted opportunity to recruit again and then perchance after a like vast Period of Time visits the same Channel again and therefore though the World might be Eternal the alluvion of the Sea upon those Rocks might not be eternally continued but interpolated And though the Earth be not animated with a Sensible Soul yet it is possible that it may be a great Immortal Vegetable which may reproduce or increase Rocks or Mountains in various vicissitudes of vast Periods of Duration And this they think very probably to be collected by the observation of things and yet if it be not to be proved to be thus yet thus possibly it may be which is sufficient to elude the force of those sensible Arguments And the truth is these Solutions do evade the edge and concludency of those Physical Arguments and therefore much weight is not be laid upon them but upon those of another nature whereof in the foregoing part of this Chapter And there is no way to encounter the Solutions that these Men do or may give of these two last Arguments but to have recourse to what hath been before said namely that since the Solutions are grounded upon a Supposition of Eternal successive Motions whereby by vicissitudes of long uncertain Periods of the Decays and Reparations of the inferior World and by eternal vicissitudes of the translation of the Earth and Seas to several sites either by interpolated or successive Motions And since by what hath been before proved there is an utter impossibility in Reason and Nature of any Eternity à parte ante of continued or interpolated Motion there is likewise an impossibility in Nature that there should be this eternal vicissitude of decays and repairs of the Earth or shifting of stations between the Earth and the Sea And thus we are at last driven to resort to those though more obscure yet more concludent Arguments against the Eternity of the World which are mentioned in the beginning of this Chapter or such as are of the like nature some whereof will be hereafter farther considered Averroes who was a strong Assertor of the Eternity of the World insisteth upon a Reason which is witty but upon a mistake of the nature of eternal duration viz. That if the World were not eternal but created in some certain Epocha or Period it could never have been at all because an eternal duration must necessarily have anteceded the first production of the World and that Supposition excludeth the possibility of such its production and is contradictory to that supposed novitas essendi of the World for infinitum non potest pertransiri an infinite duration pre-existing to the Worlds production could never be passed through so no possible accession to the first existence of the World through the vast compass of a pre-existing infinite duration But this reasoning of his is insufficient because it takes in but a portion of Eternity which is à parte ante whereas that Maxim is to be applied to the full and entire compass of Eternity or Infinitude For if that Argument should hold neither Averroes nor Plato nor any man else could have been born in the World but must have had an eternal existence upon the very same reason that Infinitum non potest pertransiri for it is certain that as well an infinite duration anteceded the Birth of Plato or Averroes as it must do the production of the World if admitted to have novitas essendi And thus much touching this preparatory Disquisition concerning the Eternity of the World in general CAP. IV. Concerning the Origination of Mankind and whether the same were Eternal or had a Beginning IF the World it self were not eternal this Disquisition touching the Eternity of Mankind were needless because decided in that decision Therefore our Inquiry touching the Origination of Mankind and whether it had or had not a Beginning is in this place by way of Supposition or Admission namely Whether admitting the great Integrals at least of the Universe the Heavens and Heavenly Bodies the Elementary World were or at least might be eternal whether yet Mankind were or might be eternal And the Question possibly will be much of the same kind with relation to other at least perfect Animals and Vegetables yea and all mixed or compound Bodies for we shall easily find that admitting those greater Integrals of the World were eternal yet whatsoever is said against the Eternity of Mankind will bear as hard against the Eternity of perfect Animals and almost of all compound Bodies And although for the more orderly discussion of this Enquiry concerning the Original of Mankind I must gratia argumenti and according to the Method proposed admit the Eternity of the great
the Seas and established it upon the Floods So that there are greater Store-houses of Water than appear visible to the World If we could suppose that the incumbent Superficies of the Earth should subside and press upon those Store-houses of Water within its bowels it might afford a competent store to drown the Earth without a new Creation 2. Again we may easily compute that the quantity or extension of the Body of the Air even that which is commonly called the Atmosphere which at the lowest account extends seven Miles in height might by condensation into Water afford a competent store for the drowning of the World and yet be again rarified into the same dimension and consistence which before it obtained for there is that vicinity of Nature between those two Elements that we daily see considerable proportions of the one by condensation changed into the other 3. When we consider those immense Inundations that are Annually and with some constant equality occasioned by great Rains as for Instance in the River Nilus which by the Annual Rains in Ethiopia is raised almost every Year twenty Cubits and overflows a considerable part of Egypt yearly between the Months of June and October and the like Inundations yearly hapning by Periodical Showers in the great River of America called Orenoque between May and September whereby it riseth upright above 30 Foot so that many of the Islands and Plains at other times inhabited are 20 Foot yearly at that time under Water And when we see that even the Ocean it self in its daily Tides especially those that happen about the Equinoxes caused as the Copernicans say by the Intersections of the Annual and Diurnal Motions of the Earth we need not have recourse to a new Creation of Waters to perform this Office of the Divine Providence and Justice He might by a stronger elevation of Vapours or by an extraordinary motion of the Seas perform his purpose which though probably it might not at the same time drown Asia and America yet by the successive peragration of these Waters they might drown the whole Earth as the Inundation of Nilus by the Showers of Ethiopia make the Flood there a Month sooner than it happens in Egypt 2. As to the Second Objection I do confess it to be most true that the Universal Deluge was a Judgment upon the Old World for their intolerable degeneration from their Duty to God But I do not think that was the only Reason thereof for the Infinite Power of God might have destroyed those Evil Men by a Pestilence as well as by a Flood without detriment to the harmless Brutes or Birds But as God Almighty is of Infinite Wisdom so it is the high Prerogative of that Wisdom to have variety of Excellent Ends in the same Action I do really think that this Universal Deluge was not only an act of his Vengeance upon Evil Men but possibly an act of Goodness and Bounty to the very Constitution of this Inferior World though the particulars thereof be hid from us And if as some would have it it should be coextended only to the places that were then inhabited and so the Flood particular yet most certain it would be even in such a particular Flood many great Spots of Ground would be necessarily drowned where never any Men were or inhabited 3. And it seems it is too hastily concluded That in the Period of 1656 or as the Septuagint whom he follows 2256 Years between the Creation and the Flood that only Palestine Syria or Mesopotamia were inhabited For considering the longevity of Mens Lives in that Period a small skill in Arithmetical Calculation will render the Number of coexisting Inhabitants of the Earth more than six times as many as would have hapned in 5000 Years when Mens Ages were abridged to that ordinary dimension which now they have and the strait bounds of Syria and Mesopotamia would not have held one fortieth part of the Inhabitants all Europe Asia and Africa were not more than sufficient for them So that as the World grew full of Sin so it grew full of Men and Beasts and stood in need of a Deluge to make room for its future Inhabitants And this is as much as I shall say in this place for the Vindication of the Possibility and Reasonableness of the Universality of that Deluge recorded by Moses And if any shall doubt of the Capacity of the Ark of Noah for the Reception of Brutes Birds and the Family of Noah with the necessary Provisions of Livelihood for them let him but consult Mr. Poole's Synopsis and he will find that which may reasonably satisfie him touching it And now I shall briefly consider the Method and Means and Manner of the Peopling of America and storing that vast Countrey with Men and Beasts and Birds so far forth as we may reasonably conjecture And herein I must confess that I only make an Abstract or brief Collection of what hath been done to my hands by those that had better Opportunities and Abilities to do it as namely Grotius Laetius Breerwood Hornius Josephus Acosta Mr. John Webb Martinius and others who have professedly written De origine gentium Americanarum First therefore I shall consider the Manner of Traduction of Men into America Secondly The Manner of Traduction of Brutes into America Touching the Traduction of Mankind into America I do suppose these things following 1. That the Origination of the common Parents of the Humane Nature hapned in some part of Asia 2. That though the Origination of the common Parents of Mankind were in Asia yet some of their Descendents did come into America 3. That such Migration into America by the Descendents from Adam was not only possibly but fairly probable notwithstanding all the objected Difficulties 4. That the Migrations of the Descendents of Adam and Noah into America was successive and interpolated 5. That although we cannot certainly define the Time or Manner of all these Migrations yet many of them were long since or as we may reasonably conjecture some Thousands of Years since but yet after the Universal Deluge The Means of Transmigration of the Children or Descendents of Adam and Noah from Asia into America must be either by Land or by Sea or by both and if by Sea then it must be designed and ex proposito or casually I think it probable it may be all of these ways but especially by Sea Touching the Transmigration by Land it seems very difficult because though it may be possible that there may be some junctures between the North Continent of America and some part of Tartary Russia or Muscovy yet none are known unless the Frozen Seas in those Parts might be a means to transport Men thither which is difficult to suppose those Parts being unpassable by reason of the great Snows that happen so far Northward though some have thought that Groenland is one Continent with America and that in its farthest North-east extent it is joyned to
all Arithmetical Calculation So that it should seem there needed no other Reductive of the Numbers of Men to an Equability than the Wars that have happened in the World And although Wars are in a great measure accidental or at least proceed in a great measure from the Wills of Men their Pride Ambition impatience of Injuries affectation of Dominion mutual Jealousies and Fears of the Potency of each other and oftentimes accidental Emergencies and Occurrences yet it seems that abstracting from all these Occasions Wars seem to be in a manner a Natural Consequence of the over-plenitude and redundancy of the Number of Men in the World And so by a kind of congruity and consequence morally necessary when the World grows too full of Inhabitants that there is not room one by another or that the common Supplies which the World should afford to Mankind begin to be too few too strait or too narrow for the Numbers of Men that natural propension of Self-love and natural principle of Self-preservation will necessarily break out into Wars and Internecions to make room for those that find themselves straitned or inconvenienced So that as when the Channel of a River is over-charged with Water more than it can deliver it necessarily breaks over the Banks to make it self room or when the very Brutes or Animals find themselves oppressed and straitned in their provisions and supplies by the redundance of their numbers one necessarily preys upon another or destroys another to preserve it self So Wars among Mankind are a kind of necessary Consequence of Redundance of Mankind and will by a kind of Natural necessity make it self room and give it self ease by the destruction of others if it can get power and opportunity to do it And consequently there seems to be no fear of the surcharge of the World with Mankind because there is this natural and necessary Remedy at hand the very Redundance it self of Mankind seeming by a natural consecution to yield and subminister this Remedy for its Reduction and Equation As in a redundance of Humors in the Body the most lively and active do naturally thrust out those that are weaker or noxious to make room for themselves or as Bees swarm to get new habitations when they are so increased that their Hives will not hold them 4. Concerning the Fourth and also inclusively the Fifth Corrective of the Excess of Mankind namely Inundations and Conflagrations Those that have been Observers of things in Nature and Histories of former times have given us Instances of two kinds of Mutations in this Terrestrial Globe of Earth and Waters some that are more ordinary and of less moment and of such various have been in the World such are those mentioned especially by Pliny in his Natural History lib. 2. cap. 85. seqq some places severed from the Continent by the interruption of the Sea thus he tells us that Sicily was divided from Italy Cyprus from Syria Euboea from Boeotia Atlantis and Macris from Euboea Bosticum from Bythinia and some have thought though perhaps upon very small evidence that England and France were sometimes one Continent and divided by the interruption of the Sea and Spain from Africa Again some Cities and Countries swallowed up by the Sea as Pirrha and Antissa Elis and Buta half the City of Tyndaris in Sicily and 30 Miles of the Island Cea with a great destruction of Men and Cattel some Countries wholly swallowed up and drowned in the Sea as Acarnania Achaia part of Europe and Asia in Propontis but above all that great Island of Atlantis supposed by Plato in his Timaeus to be greater than Lybia and Asia swallowed up in the Atlantick Ocean to which it gives its denomination but Plato is oftentimes so Poetical that we can hardly tell where he means in earnest But on the other side many times the Sea by a certain recompence makes new room for the Inhabitants of the World sometimes by producing notable Islands thus the same Pliny tells us that Delos Rhodes Anaphe Nea Thera and Teresia Hiera Automate Thia were produced Again the Sea hath deserted vast Tracts of Ground in divers places and left them dry Land as is related by Aristotle in the second of his Meteors Cap. 14. and by Pliny in a great measure out of him and Herodotus Thus considerable quantities of Land were left by the Sea at Ephesus at Ambracia and other Parts and that a very great part of Egypt namely that called Delta is but the accretion of Nilus and was sometime covered with Water and according to the conjecture of Herodotus the Sea possessed Memphis and a great part of Egypt to the Mountains of Ethiopia But these are but Conjectures of the Historian of what might be in some thousand Years before he was born Aristotle indeed supposeth that the City Thebes and the adjacent Parts were all that were habitable in Egypt in the time of Homer because he makes no mention of Memphis But these smaller Vicissitudes and mutual borrowings and payments between the Earth and Sea are not those Mutations which so much contribute to the Reduction of Mankind partly because they are gradual and give Men opportunity to escape and partly because they are not such Devastations as may be pares huic negotio unless we believe that wonderful swallowing up of the vast Island or rather Continent of Atlantis and partly because the Sea which commonly gives in one place what it takes in another and so makes room for the Inhabitants of the World in compensation of what it takes 2. Therefore I come to those greater supposed Correctives namely 1. Floods and Inundations 2. Incendia Burnings and again both or either of those are also varied according to the Opinions of some of the Ancients 1. They are either such as were all at one time and did wholly overwhelm and confound this lower World or 2. They are such as did not wholly dissolve the lower Word or put a period to all things living therein Again the former Opinion that held these Cataclysms and Empyroses universal was such as either held that it put a total Consummation unto things in this lower World especially that of Conflagration Or else such as though it quite for the present confounded the Face of things especially in this inferior World yet it was but preparative to a new Formation of things wherein all things would be put into better Order till in process of time they again degenerate and so were to receive another Purgation by Fire or Water according to the fatal Vicissitudes to which the World is subject And they suppose that these successive unmaking and making again of the World not unlike the Suppositions of Anaxagoras or Empedocles were Eternal and should eternally continue in this Vicissitude that the last Destruction of the World was by Water and that which is to succeed is by Fire And this was for the most part the Opinion of the Stoicks whereof Lipsius in his second Book
this time it is apparent there were no Clouds neither had it rained upon the Earth Gen. 2.6 It seems therefore that this Expansum rendred here Firmament is nothing else but that limit or boundary between the more refined liquid nature which we usually call Air and Aether and the grosser or fluid Element properly called Water So the Firmament was nothing else but that Expansum of Air and Aether that are contiguous to the Superficies of the Water The Reasons that induce me so to think which also explicate the Notion of the Supposition are these 1. Because frequently both in the Language of the Holy Scripture and of divers of the ancient Heathen Authors the whole Diaphanum of the Air and Aether is in one common appellation called Heaven which is the denomination here given to this Expansum God called the Firmament or Expansum Heaven thus we have frequent mention of the Fowls of the Heavens the Clouds of Heaven which yet are situated in that part of Heaven which is the Aiery Region And again here Vers 14. the Sun and Moon are said to be great Lights placed in the Firmament of the Heaven which are yet placed in a Region of the Aether though above the Atmosphere and the region of the common Air yet are far below that liquid region of the Aether wherein the Stars move and Vers 20. the Fowls habitation is said to be in the open Firmament of Heaven which yet fly no higher than the lower region of the Air. So that the Heaven and the Expansum here called the Heaven seems to be that great Expansum of the Diaphanum including the more sublime and pure part thereof called the Aether and the grosser and lower part thereof called the Air and the Waters above the Firmament were that refined rarified liquid Matter which was Aether and Air and the 〈◊〉 Waters below the Firmament were those gross and fluid parts of Nature called ordinarily Water 2. Because it appears Vers 9. that the Waters which were gathered together in the Constitution of the Air were the Waters under the Heavens Waters that were next contiguous to that common Expansum consisting of Air and Aether called Heaven there was nothing interposed between that fluid Water which constituted the Sea and that common Expansum called Heaven consisting of Air and Aether 3. It seems that the great Moles Chaotica was in its appearance and external consistency of a waterish nature for it is said that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters which though it contained the confused Mass of all things as well those that grew into a more solid consistence as the more reformed or subtil Matter yet in its first deformed exhibition of its appearance it had the shape of Water and therefore Plutarch de placitis Philosophorum lib. 1. cap. 3. tells us that Thales Milesius held that Water was the common Principle of all things which Position he learned partly by the Analogy that he found therewith in things existing whose first Rudiments and last Resolution seems to be a watry or fluid substance and partly by Tradition from the Egyptians or rather from the Hebrews whose first habitation was in that Country And the manner of the resolution of this Aqueous appearance into Aether and Air seems to be this This great aqueous Chaotical Mass contained in it Particles of various natures some more feculent and gross as the Earthy Particles which floated up and down in it till they were driven down by the Fire and Heat or otherwise by some disposition 〈◊〉 or agitation of that Incubation of the Spirit of God were disposed and subsided in the middle of this Aqueous substance which became in time the Moles terrestris Other parts less feculent than these resided in a Region or Circle next to that grosser and more feculent Sediment but by virtue of the Divine Disposal the Incubation of the Spirit and the Energy and Efficacy of that great circulating Fiery Nature which was maintained in a continued rotation about the Massa Chaotica called Light and that internal hot and fiery Nature that still resided within the Body of the Massa Chaotica the more subtil and pure particles of this Watrish Matter were separated divided and exhaled from it and constituted that Consistency that is called the Air and Aether here called Heaven And this diaphanous Body of the Air and Aether thus extracted from the Water varied in degrees of Subtilty or Rarity according to the degrees of its elevation the more high and elevated parts being more pure according to the degrees of their ascent and the lower more feculent and thick and filled with more gross Exhalations and Vapours arising from the contiguously subjected parts and therefore it is said Gen. 2.6 There went up a mist from the earth and watered the face of the ground And I am farther induced to think that those Waters above the Firmament or Expansum were no other than this Aether and Air raised and separated from the Massa Chaotica upon these Reasons 1. Because there seems to be a great congruity between the Water and the Air in their quality of liquidity or moisture 2. Because there seems to be a more connatural Transmutation of either into other the Air and for ought I know the Aether which is but a purer sublimated Air by condensation easily re-assuming the nature of Water and the Water by heat and rarefaction easily assuming the nature of Air and by the continuance and constancy of that heat containing it self in that consistency And from hence it is that the Waters were the common material Principle of both the Fishes and Fowls And if we may conjecture that great Inundation Gen. 7.1 was not by a new Creation of Water but by the wonderful and powerful Condensation of the Region of the Air which seems to be that opening of the Windows of Heaven whereby great portions of the Aerial and Etherial Matter discovered themselves to be Water 3. Because we have no other part of Holy History that gives us an account of the production of that vast Continent of the Air and Aether out of the Chaotick Mass but this place And here we must observe once for all That there was no Creation of Matter after the Beginning it was all created in that moment of Beginning 2. That from that Creation till the first Day wherein Light was produced there was that continued preparation impregnation disposition and agitation of Matter by the Spirit of God 3. That all the Productions of the Six Days except the Creation of the Soul of Man and Angels were not by any new Creation but by separation of the parts of that pre-existing Matter formation of them and composition and effection of Beings out of the first created disposed and ordered Matter by the Power of Almighty God and the influencing them with those active Principles which we usually call Forms Energies and Active Qualities 3. The Third great Integral of this lower
World especially in the Work of the third day was the dividing of the Earth and Waters Vers 9. And God said Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together and let the dry land appear and it was so and God called the dry land earth and the gathering together of the waters he called seas The Divine Historian herein brings us to the Formation of this lower Globe of Water and Earth and the distinction thereof This portion of the lower World seems to be the whole residue of the visible Chaotical Mass which by the former Rectification was reduced to a small portion like the Caput mortuum after Distillation for out of it had been before drawn those two mighty and large portions of Matter namely the Fiery and Flammeous and Lucid Nature imbodied in a Vehicle sufficient to contain and receive it in the Work of the first day and secondly the Expansum the vast Body of the Air and Aether in the Work of the second Day So that this Elementary portion of Earth and Water seems to be as it were the sediment and relique of the Massa Chaotica And those other two vast Extractions being drawn from it it seems this lower Region of Nature consisting of an aggregation of Water and Earth by the Divine Disposition of things either immediately or partly by the instrumentality either of the ambient Fire or by the implanted tendency of the grosser Particles to one common Center of this residue of a Chaotick Mass the gross Terrestrial parts subsided into the middle of the Water and though it was in bulk far greater than the Water yet it had there two concomitants with it 1. The Water by reason of its fluidity and penetration mingled it self as far as it could at least with the superficies of the Terrestrial Sediment to some considerable depth into it so far as it could pierce until it were excluded by the denser coagulation of the Earth 2. The Water did encompass the whole Terrestrial Globe to some proportionable depth or thickness though not equal to the quantity of the Earth So that as the circular Scales of a Pearl incompass one another so did the several extâ—racted great Integrals cover one another The first extracted Nature was the Light the Fiery or Luminous Body which must needs be uppermost because first drawn off from the Chaotick Mass The second the Aether and Air drawn off encompassing the remaining part of the Chaotick Mass The third the Watry Consistence left in a circular subsistence by the subsiding of the Ball of Earth into the common Center of the Universe And by this means the Earth was not at all conspicuous but involved in an involucrum of Water so that it must necessarily be 1. That hereby the whole Superficies of the Earth was covered with Water 2. That the upper part of it must needs be a moist muddy substance fluid and lubricous like Slime or Mud. The appearance therefore of the dry Land was by the excavation of certain Sinus and Tracts of the Earth and exaggerating or lifting up other parts of the Terrestrial Matter and by this means the Water subsided into those Caverns and Valleys prepared for its reception Whether this excavation of the Terrestrial Body or elevation of other parts thereof whereby the Water subsided were immediately by the immediate Power of God or whether he did it by the instrumentality of the Water working room for it self in the more soft and penetrable part of the Earth and exaggerating and raising Islands and Continents in other parts by such exaggeration as we see is done at this day by the Ocean producing Islands and enlarging Continents Or whether by the instrumentality of the Fire either subterraneous or ambient raising up the Earth or what other immediate way it was done most certainly it was done by the Will Direction and Regiment of the Divine Wisdom and Power so that it is truly said Job 38.10 He brake up for it its decreed place Prov. 8.28 He gave the sea its decree that the waters should not pass his commandment Hitherto the Divine History hath given us an account 1. Of the Materia prima of all Corporeal Beings the Massa Chaotica 2. The Materia proxima or secunda of all other Corporeal Beings being the simple Elements and the next Matter of all Mixtions or Composition 3. The Natura ignea calefactive lucid and penetrating the Elementary Matter 4. The Natura aetherea and aerea the Expansum 5. The Natura aquea or the Water 6. The Natura terrestris or the Earth And then he proceeds to those mixed or compounded Natures drawn out of those or some of those simpler Existences the Furniture of the Earth and Heaven I shall therefore now proceed to his Description of the Production of Mixt Natures and Vegetables in part of the third day Celestial Bodies in the fourth day Fish and Fowls in the fifth day Brutes and Man in the sixth day 1. Therefore touching the production of Vegetables Vers 11. And God said Let the earth bring forth grass the herb yielding seed and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after her kind whose seed is in it self upon the earth and it was so Here we have the beginning of the Vegetable Nature and mark what I say concerning this will be applicable with some variation to the Brutes and Fish We have three sorts of Vegetables here described 1. Some that seem to be of the lowest rank and such as we do find oftentimes sponte orta the Grass 2. Those Herbs that are of a more perfect nature which as they bear Seed so they do not usually arise but by it 3. Trees bearing Fruit and Seed being the nobler sort of Trees but this includes all kind of Vegetables as well Trees that bear not Fruit or Seed as those which do In the production of these Vegetables these things are observable 1. The Supreme Efficient the Word of Command of the Divine Will was that which was the Supreme productive Efficient 2. The subordinate Instrument germinet terra wherein we have these two great Truths delivered 1. That the Earth yielded the Matter of Vegetables 2. That the Earth was now impregnated to be an active Instrument to this production and concurred therein at least instrumentally with the Supreme Efficient and that Activity that was in the Earth did not arise meerly from the Matter for that in the beginning was purely passive but 1. by the Fecundating Principle the Spirit of God moving upon the Face of the Chaotick Matter 2. by the powerful Energy of the Fiery and Luminous Principle that partly resided in the Earth partly incompassed it 3. but principally by the Efficacy of the Word of the Divine Command which was no other but the determination of His Efficacious Will 3. But though the more solid Matter of these Vegetable Productions was the Earth yet it was the Earth conjoined with that vigorous Fire which was mingled with that active Air or Aether that was
of that very Scripture which this Man in Complement at least seems to venerate might have remembred That the Tradition of the Universal Flood hath obtained in all places even among the Americans themselves and that the Race of Mankind was thereby destroyed except some few that were preserved That the most severe and observing Sect of the Philosophers namely the Stoicks have constantly held vicissitudes of Destructions of Mankind by successive Deluges and Conflagrations and a new Peopling of the World successively by the Power of God That Aristotle himself insinuates those great Vicissitudes especially of Deluges in those Periodical great Winters which he supposeth to have hapned and for the future to happen in this lower World But of this hereafter And although this Author in his 8 th Chapter of his 4 th Book gives us a computation of a declivity of 600 Perches from the Fountain of Danubius until its fall into the Pontus Euxinus and supposeth the highest Mountains of Armenia whereof Ararat where the Ark rested was the highest doth not exceed the perpendicular height of one Mile above the plain of the Earth and therefore that an excess of 15 Cubits above Ararat would not reach the Head of Danubius or at least the upper Plains of the Upper Asia yet he might have remembred That though it were admitted that usually the heights of most Mountains do not exceed a Mile in perpendicular height above their Basis yet many Mountains are situate in the more elevated parts of the Earth and have the advantage thereby of the height of their Basis and possibly it will be found that the Basis of the Mountains of Armenia is situate in higher ground than the Fountain of Danubius or Euphrates So that an excess of 15 Cubits above their height must in all probability cover the Plain of the Upper Asia Again he might have remembred that Egypt that from the Authority of the Fable of the Egyptian Priest is favoured by him with an immunity from Inundation lyes much lower than the Plains of Palestine yea than the Superficies of the Red Sea it self And therefore the Water that naturally keeps its level neither without a Miracle can lose it which overflowed the whole Continent of Palestine even to 15 Cubits above its highest Mountains must of necessity overflow Egypt which Aristotle by impregnable Evidences concludes to be one of the lowest Countries in the World and the very Production and Accretion of the Slime of Nilus so that if the Flood covered Palestine nothing but a Miracle could protect Egypt from it The Author of the Dissertation De Aetate Mundi cap. 12. though he reprehend the Praeadamitae and confutes the extravagancy of their Opinion yet he seems to mince the Universality of the Flood Nullum itaque relinquitur dubium quin unum tantum fuerit diluvium idque universale cujus apud omnes penè gentes extat memoria Verùm hîc minime probo eorum sententiam qui totum terrae globum it a aquis tectum fuisse existimant ut nulla prorsus extaret ejus portio ad hoc efficiendum multa debuissent concurrere miracula Cum enim universae orbis aquae non sufficiant ad obruendam tam altè terram etiamsi omnia maria siccentur debuissent vel plures aquae creari vel dicendum cum aliquibus istam aquarum molem ex aliis coeli orbibus decidisse demum finito diluvio ad sedes suas revolasse Verùm hoc est piè nugari Deus non facit miracula sine causa Quid opus erat mergere terras ubi nec olim fuere homines ac ne nunc quidem sunt Stultum est putare ante diluvium adeò multiplicatum fuisse genius hominum ut omnes terrae angulos pervaserit c. Ut verò diluvii inundationem ultra orbis habitati termines producamus nulla jubet ratio imo prorsus absurdum est dicere ubi nulla hominum sedes illic etiam viguisse effectus poenae solis hominibus inflictae This indeed salves the necessity of drowning America and the greatest part of the New habitable World when it extends the Flood no farther than there were Mankind inhabiting and confines those Habitations possibly within the Circle of Syria and Mesopotamia And so all the Brutes that possibly in their first Creation were produced sparsim through all the parts of the habitable World as well in America as Asia or Europe were safe and untouched and all those Birds and Fowl that were within 40 or 50 Miles of the Circulus diluvii might easily preserve themselves by flight out of the extent of it yea and the Brutes and Birds which were out of that supposed narrow extent of Syria and Mesopotamia where the Flood prevailed might easily refurnish the same Continent after the subsiding of the Flood without the wonderful and difficult including of their kinds within the Ark for their preservation which if this Supposition hold seems a needless Institution and Miracle by the wise God Gen. 7.1 Therefore I confess I am no way satisfied with this Gratification of that Author to the Prae-Adamitae For first although I take this Flood to be somewhat more than Natural and a thing instituted by the Will of God yet do I not esteem it a thing purely Supernatural or Miraculous neither do I suppose those Waters created de novo nor sent out of the Orbs of Heaven to drown the Earth I do not think the Face of the Earth and Waters were altogether the same before the Universal Deluge and after but possibly the Face of the Earth was more even than now it is the Seas possibly more dilate and extended and not so deep as now the Waters possibly more than now and in those respects more capable of diffusion over the dry Land For though there be many great variations in process of time in the Sea and Land yet it seems that ad plurimum the Seas grow deeper and eat lower into the Earth and consequently more dry Land is daily acquired and the Seas grow narrower and deeper Now to deliver this Supposition of an Universal Deluge from those difficulties and that necessity of multiplication of Miracles which that Author hath substituted we are to consider 1. That we are not to make our estimate of the quantity of Waters meerly by the Superficies of the Sea but by its vast depth which in some places is unfathomable and by those vast subterraneous Receptacles of Water which pour themselves out in several great Ebullitions and Marine Springs Neither is it altogether improbable that the Waters of the Sea naturally tending downward and being of a fluid searching consistency might in process of time have worked themselves even almost to the Center of the Earth and there residing in great and vast quantities and possibly have in a manner undermined much of the appearing Continent of the Earth so that that which the Prophet speaketh may be true literally Psal 24.2 He hath founded it upon
Sheep Goats Deer Apes Monkies Peacocks Parrots c. of which America is furnished there is as little difficulty but they might be transported by shipping either for use or commerce especially by the Africans who had store of them and even Peacocks and Apes were an ancient part of commerce 2 Chron. 9.21 and Acosta lib. 4. cap. 33. tells us that the Dogs and Cattel transported not much above 20 Years before his coming thither from Spain were in that space so exceedingly multiplied in S t Domingo and other Islands possessed by the Spaniards where there were none formerly that they became wild and filled all the Country that they were forced to use what means they could for the destruction of the Dogs and killed infinite numbers of Cows meerly for their Skins 4. The only difficulty that seems to remain is touching those ferine noxious and untamable Beasts as Lions Tigers Wolves Bears and Foxes with which that Continent abounds for it is not probable that these should be transported by shipping no Men would probably be at that charge and hazard with such Beasts that would do more harm than good And although possibly the frozen Northern Seas might be a Bridge for their passage yet that seems unlikely in respect of the great Snows that accompany such Frosts and the impossibility of a supply of food in so great and troublesom a Journey And as to Swimming though it hath been observed that Bears have swimmed into Islands many Leagues from the Continent to prey upon Fowls and to return again and though the Seas between Tartary and Cathay and some parts of America be not so wide as the Atlantick or Pacifick Ocean yet they are too large to afford a passage by Sea especially for Tigers and Lions which are not so apt to take the Water And it is not yet certainly discovered though conjectured that there is any Neck of Ground or passage by Land from any part of Europe or Asia into any part of the Continent of America There remains therefore nothing that I can reasonably conjecture to accommodate the difficulty but to suppose what I have formerly intimated That although it should be granted that there is now no such Land-passage extant yet within the compass of 4000 Years elapsed since the Flood there have been some such Junctures or Land-passages between the Northern parts of Asia or Europe and some Northern parts of the Continent of America or between the South-east parts of China or the Philippine Islands and the Southern Continent though lately there be discovered an interposition of Sea between the Island del Fuogo and that Southern Continent whereby either from Asia to Groenland in the North or from China to Terra australis incognita on the South a Land-passage might be from Asia to America for Men and Brutes though for some Ages past either by the violence of the Water or by Floods or Earthquakes which hath made great alterations in the Globe of the Earth and Seas that Bridge or Line of Communication be now broken and obliterated And truly he that observes the infinite company of Islands lying between the Continent of China and Nova Guinea almost contiguous to each other hath probable reason to believe that these were all formerly one Continent joyning China and Nova Guinea together though now by the irruption of the Sea crumbled into many small Islands CAP. VIII The Seventh Evidence of Fact proving the Origination of Man namely The Gradual Increase of Mankind I Come to the Seventh Evidence of Fact which seems with much strength and clearness to evince the Origination of Mankind and that within such a Period of Time as the Sacred Scriptures propound namely The Gradual Increase of Mankind upon the Earth And because I mean throughly to examin this Consideration I shall propound to my Enquiry these ensuing Particulars 1. Whether according to the ordinary course and procedure of Nature in the Generations of Mankind there be not a gradual and considerable Increase of Mankind upon the face of the Earth unless some collateral Emergency or Occurrence interrupt or correct that Increase 2. What Correctives there may be supposed that may check and restrain that Increase of Mankind that otherwise according to the ordinary course of Nature would have obtained in the World 3. Whether those Correctives or collateral Occurrences which have been or may be supposed to have been in the World have so far prevailed as totally to stop that Increase of Mankind which upon a Natural account without the intervention of such Correctives would have obtained 4. Whether notwithstanding all these Correctives of the Increase or Excesses of Generations yet if still the numbers of Mankind have increased it be not a sufficient Argument to satisfie a reasonable Man that Mankind had an Inception and that within such a period or compass of Duration as is not of a vast or prodigious Excess I shall begin with the first of these and I shall suppose and I think clearly evidence That without the intervention of some accidental or collateral Corrective Mankind must needs increase upon the Earth and that the Generations and Productions of Men and Woman in an ordinary regular and constant course of Nature do very much exceed the Decays of Mankind by Natural course of Mortality allowing into the Account those common Decays of Mankind by ordinary usual and common Diseases incident to Individuals The Laws especially of the Romans and others have determined the Legal Ages of Matrimonial Conjunction of a Man to be 14 of a Woman to be 12 Prudential Considerations have protracted it longer Plato in his Third De Legibus allows and determins the Age of the Woman should be between 16 and 20 of the Man to be between 30 and 35 we will suppose the medium to be for the Man 26 for the Woman 20. Aristotle determins the extreme time for Generation in the Man to be 70 for the Woman 50 the medium to be 65 for the former 45 for the latter we will take a shorter medium for both and suppose the extreme term for Procreation for Man to be 55 for the Woman to be 40 Years upon this account the terminus or periodus procreativa to be 20 Years And although within that Period there is a possibility of procreation of 20 Children yet considering that all Pairs are not of that fertility we will take the medium to be less than a third part viz. 6. And because upon a due Observation of the Sexes of Mankind especially by such as have curiously observed the Registers and Calculations of Births and Burials there is some though not very considerable excess of Males above Females viz. as 14 to 13 or in some places as 16 to 15 an evidence of the wise Providence of God to bring the number of each Sex to so near a parity yet allowing a redundance to the Males to supply those many Casualties whereunto Males are subject by Wars Navigations and other Occurrences that more
others arising ad plurimum ex ovo 2. In the great variety of their bodily composure the texture of the Bodies of Brutes being far more curious and fuller of variety than others 3. Ad plurimum the animal Faculties of the brutal Soul are far more perfect than those of others their Phantasies and Memories refined they have greater and more lively Images of Reason and more capable of Discipline than either Fowls or Fishes Now touching the production of Animals whether Terrestrial Aquatil or Volatil we may observe that they are in the ordinary course of Nature of two kinds Some which arise among us no otherwise nor in any other manner than ex semine which we usually call perfect Animals and arising by univocal generation others there are that be imperfect arising spontaneously in the Earth Air and Water as Worms Flies and some sort of small Fishes and watry Insects This being premised I shall now set down some Suppositions which seem to me truly to explicate the production of these Animals which are these that follow 1. Although the predominat Matter in the constitution of Fowls and Fishes were Water and in the constitution of Terrestrial Animals were Earth yet that Water nor that Earth were not simply such but were mixed and impregnated with the other Elementary Principles 2. That all the Species of perfect Animals of all kinds were constituted in their several Sexes in the fifth and sixth day of the Creation but yet we must not think that all those kinds which we now see were at first created but only those primitive and radical Species How many sorts of Animals do we now see that yet possibly are not of the same Species but have accidental diversifications as we may observe in the several Shapes and Bodies of Dogs Sheep Pyes Parots which possibly at first were not so diversified some variation of the same Species happen by mixt Coition some by diversity of Climates and other accidents 3. That the first Individuals in their distinction of Sexes were not produced according to those Methods of Nature which they now hold nor ex aliquo praeexistente semine but by the immediate efficiency of Almighty God out of the Matter prepared or designed for their Constitution 4. That they were made in the first instant of their Constitution in the full perfection and complement and stature of their individual and specifical nature and did not gradually increase according to the procedure of animal augmentation at this day and the reason is because those gradual augmentations arise from the Seminal Principle which gradually expands it self to the full growth but here they arose not from any such Seminal Principle but the Hen was before the Egg. 5. There was no mean portion of Time between their Formation and Animation but both were together they were living Beings and living Souls and living Creatures as soon as they were formed 6. That consequently the Formation of the Body of these Animals was not as now it is by the Formative Power of the Soul which must needs be gradual and successive as we see it is and must be at this day in all natural Generations but the Formation and Information of them was by virtue of the immediate Fiat Determination or Ordination of the Divine Will 7. That in their Origination the Species of these Animals were determined neither from the Matter nor from the universal Cause the Celestial Heat but by the Divine Intention and Ordination 8. That by the same Divine Ordination and Intention the Faculties specifically belonging to every Individual were annexed and alligated to it especially the power conficiendi semen prolificum speciei propagandae ex mutua utriusque fexus conjunctione 9. That although by the Divine Power and Ordination all these perfect Animals did arise from the Earth yet that Prolifick Power of propagating of them was never delegated or committed to the Earth or any 〈◊〉 other Casual or Natural Cause but only to the Seminal Nature derived from their Individuals and disposed according to that Law of propagation of their kind alligated as before to their specifical and individual nature And therefore it its perfectly impossible that any of these perfect Animals can be casually or naturally or accidentally produced by any Preparation of Matter or by any Influence of the Heavens without the miraculous interposition of Almighty Power because the Earth or those Influences have not this power concredited to them but their production is irresistibly alligated to the Semen innatum and conjunction of Sexes the Earth can as naturally produce a Sun or a Star as it can a Man or a perfect Animal 10. Whether those imperfect or equivocal Animals were created or no it is not altogether clear possibly some might be then produced whose kinds were likewise producible spontaneously after but it seems beyond contradiction that all were not 11. As by virtue of that general Commission or intrinsick Prolifick Power given to the Earth to produce spontaneous Herbs as Grass c. it doth naturally produce such Herbs so by virtue of that common Commission given by Almighty God to the Earth and Water and to that Spirit of Nature diffused in it it doth naturally produce those equivocal insect Animals which arise out of them The same Law of the Creator that hath eternally excluded or rather not committed to the Earth or Water the power of producing perfect Animals hath given and committed to them by concurrence of that Vital Heat of the Sun and the common Spirit of Nature residing in them a Productive Power of some equivocal insect Animals in Matter fitly prepared Touching therefore the Origination of Insects I shall declare my thoughts as followeth 1. That by virtue of the Divine Fiat the Earth at first did produce some Individuals of several kinds which is imported under the words Every creeping thing after its kind 2. That as I have before shewn the greatest part of the Insects that are commonly produced and seem to be spontaneous productions are yet the univocal and seminal productions of Insects of the same kind 3. That yet it is a certain Truth that some Insects are and have an Origination since the first Creation without any formal univocal seminal production some out of Putrefaction some out of Vegetables some by very strength and fracedo of the Earth and Waters quickned by the vigorous Heat of the Sun which infuseth into some Particles of Matter well prepared and digested a kind of Vital and Seminal Principle Some have thought the very Sun and Earth are endued with a Vital yea and with a kind of Sensitive Nature and thereby enabled as it were to spin some prepared Matter into vital and sentient Semina for those insect Animals But we shall not need to trouble our selves with that incertain Speculation we are sure that the greatest part of the Superficies of the Earth being daily and hourly impregnated with the corrupted and dissolved Particles of Vegetables and Animals is
it hath been before observed that he that goes about to make the whole Universe and all the several parts thereof the business of his Enquiry as he shall find that there are many things therein that he cannot come at or make any discovery of so among those parts of the Universe that are objected to a greater discovery of our Senses the multiplicity is so great that a man of the most equal and firm constitution must despair of Life enough to make a satisfactory particular and deep enquiry into them But the Object in hand is but one it is Man and the Nature of Man I confess it is true that he that shall make it his business to take in as it were by way of a common place all those things that may be taken up under this consideration and follow all those Lines that concenter in this or almost any other the most single piece of Contemplation will make this Subject large enough and upon that account may be drawn in almost all things imaginable We find in the consideration of the Humane Nature a Substance a Body a Spirit We find the several Objects of his Senses Light Colour Sound and infinite more He that upon this account will take in the distinct and large considerations of these and the like Appendices to Humane Nature in their full amplitude will have a large Plain that will more than exhaust his Life before he come to the Subject it self which he designes Again there is an infinite multitude of collateral considerations that yet are relative to man hither comes all the considerations of Theology Physick Natural Philosophy Politicks the considerations of Speech Government Laws of History Topography of Arts of those Sciences that relate to the Senses of Opticks Musick and infinite more for all these have a relation to Man and are like so many Lines drawn from several Objects that some way relate to him and concenter in him and he that shall make it his business to follow all those Lines to their utmost shall make the contemplation of Man almost as large as the contemplation of the whole Universe When I say therefore the contemplation of Man is the contemplation of a single Object I mean when it is kept into those single bounds of Man in his own specifical Nature and under the physical contemplation of his Nature Parts and Faculties as they are appropriate unto him And then it is a Subject that we may possibly make some progress in its contemplation and conception within the period of the time that by the ordinary time of Life and the permission of necessary avocations a man may employ in such a contemplation And yet secondly though in this restrained notion the Subject seems to be restrained and single we shall find it no very narrow Subject but there will be business enough in it to employ our Faculty and to take up that time which either more necessary or more imporunate thoughts or employments will allow us and variety enough to entertain our thoughts with delight contentation and usefulness 3. The Third Commendation of this Object to our contemplation is this that therein we have more opportunity of certainty and true knowledge of the Object enquired into than we can have in any other Object at least of equal use worth and value Many excellent things there are in Nature which were very well worth our Knowledge but yet as hath been said either by reason of their remoteness from us unaccessibleness to them subtilty and imperceptibleness to us either are not at all suspected to be or are not so much as within any of our Faculties to apprehend or discover what they are or in case we have any conception that there may be something of that kind yet our Notions touching them are but products of Imagination and Phantasie or at best very faint weak ungrounded and uncertain conjectures and such as we can never prove to the satisfaction of others or our selves Our Sense is the best evidence that we have in Nature touching the existence of corporeal things without us and where that is not possibly to be exercised we are naturally at a great uncertainty whether things are or what they are Now the Understanding perceives or understands things by the assistance of Sense in a double manner 1. It either perceives them immediately as being immediately objected to and perceptible to the Sense as I perceive the Sun and the Stars by my sight I find that there is a Body hard or gentle or hot or cold by my Touch and accordingly my Understanding judgeth of them Or secondly though the Sense perceive not the Object immediately yet it doth represent certain sensible effects or operations and though by those effects or operations the Understanding doth not immediately conclude anything else to be but what the Sense thus feels or sees yet the Understanding sometimes by ratiocination and sometimes by the Memory doth infer and conclude something else to be besides what the Sense immediately represents either as the cause or the concomitant of it and doth as forcibly and truly conclude the thing to be and also sometimes what the nature of that cause or concomitant is as if it were seen by the Eye or felt by the Hand I do not see nor by any Sense perceive the quiet undisturbed Air yet because I do see that a Bladder that was before flaccid doth swell by the reception of that which I see not I do as truly and certainly conclude that there is such a subtil Body which we call Air as if I could see it as plain as I see the Water I do not see the Animal or Vital Spirits neither can they by reason of their subtilty and volatileness be discovered immediately to the Sense yet when I see that forcible motion of the Nerves and Muscles I do as certainly conclude there are such Instruments which the Soul useth for the performance of those motions as if I saw them I come into a Room where there is no visible or tangible Fire yet I find by my Sense the Smoke ascending I do as forcibly conclude that Fire is or hath been near as if I saw it because my sensible experience and memory tells me they are concomitant Upon the same account it is that when my Sense and sensible experience shews me that these and these effects there are and that they are successively generated and corrupted though my eye sees not that God that first made those things yet my Sense having shewed me these sensible Objects and the state and vicisstude of them my Understanding doth truly conclude that all this vicissitude of things must terminate in a first cause of things with as great evidence and conviction as if my Sense could immediately see or perceive him So that in the ordinary way of Nature and without the help of divine Revelation all our certainty of things natural begins at our Senses namely the immediate sense of the things themselves
answer that imaginary Obligation or Necessity of his nature to do good ad ultimum posse for still it might have been made before any hora signata 3. Consequently the time of the Creation of the World if it were on this side an eternal period could neither be determined by his want of Power nor by his necessitated Benignity agere ad ultimum posse for in that indefinite time within the limits of Eternity no time can be assigned before which he could not have made the World though it be admitted it could not be eternal 4. Consequently there could be nothing that could determin the time or period wherein the World was to have been made but the absolute Divinum beneplacitum there could be nothing without him to determin it for nothing was till he made it nor any thing but his own Will within him that could determin it for his power and goodness were undetermined to do it sooner or later since no time could be assigned for the doing of it but it might be done sooner And when all is done his Beneficence nor the good which the created Beings might receive from that Beneficence had had no imaginable advance or enlargement if the World had been created millions of millions of years before it was and that upon these plain evident Reasons 1. Because though the World had indeed been at this hour ancienter and lasted longer if it had been created a million of years sooner yet the future Eternity or Sempiternity of the World being of all hands admitted though the Eternity à parte ante be denied there will be a future infinity for the emanation of the Divine Goodness and Beneficence to his Creatures 2. Considering the nature of the Beings themselves that partake of the Divine Beneficence there is no advance at all to them by receiving it sooner or later If Plato had been a million of years before he in truth was and had lived his proportion of eighty years he had tasted no more of the Divine Beneficence than if he had lived as he did about two thousand years since 3. Neither is there any difference in respect of the ever-glorious God for he received no access of happiness by the Creation of the World nor stood at all in need of it And if he might be imagined to have received any contentment in it yet he had an eternal prospect of all things as if they had been really made eternally And besides if the World had been myriads of millions of years sooner than it was yet it was still infinitely short of an eternal duration Almighty God had been an infinite duration before without that World which had it been made millions of years before it was yet had not held any proportion to that infinite duration that preceded And whatsoever hath been formerly said against the Eternity of this World doth equally conclude against an eternal being of any World antecedent to this much more against an eternal succession of infinite Worlds either of which can have no certainty nor have any evidence or probability so that as there cannot be attributed an eternal duration à parte ante to any one such supposed pre-existing World so much less to a succession of Worlds The very same Arguments that conclude against the possibility of eternal Motion or the eternal successions of Generation and Corruption or of successive Individuals of Mankind do as effectually conclude against an eternal succession of infinite Worlds and therefore I shall spare the repetition of them The Arguments which I have before used are such as though at the first view they seem intricate yet they have strength of evidence in them and such as are accommodate to the nature of the thing which requires Arguments of such a nature and those Arguments that are more experimental and obvious to sense though they are more easie to be apprehended yet are more easie to be evaded by the Assertors of the Eternity of the World In the before-mentioned Book De Aetate Mundi two experimental Arguments are brought against the Eternity of the World upon which the Author lays some weight 1. That if the World were eternal by the continual fall and wearing of Waters all the protuberances of the Earth would infinite Ages since have been levelled and the Superficies of the Earth rendred plain no Mountains no Vallies no inequalities would be therein but the Superficies thereof would have been as level as the Superficies of the Water 2. That if this World had been eternal there would have been no Rocks appearing in the Seas above the Water whereof there are very many visible for the motion and agitation of the Water doth wear and eat off gradually the roots and other parts thereof as is visible to our observation some whereof have their roots so corroded by the Water that they are ready to fall and others have apparently by that means been either wasted or decayed that now they are not extant which in some mens memory have been standing and if the bredth of a Barley-corn had been consumed in a million of years there had been nothing of them left That these things are true in fact and that the reason why many of these effects are apparent to us to be as they are is because that these Rocks and these Protuberances have not been eternal may bp well attributed to that novitas essendi that finite period wherein they have continued is very probable and evident to him that is satisfied otherwise that the World had a beginning I easily grant But he that asserts the Eternity of the World will find out easie evasions of these sensible Arguments They will tell us and with truth enough that in a great tract even of a finite duration the Earth must have and hath had great mutations That by the eruption of Bituminous and Sulphureous Vapours and the firing thereof these protuberances of Mountains and Hills may be made and have been made in many parts That as Warts or Wenns growing in our Hands are thrust up by the humors ministred by the extremity of the orifice of some Capillary Vein and increase so in the great Body of the Earth such protuberances may be thrust out and gradually increased though not so easily perceptible in one Age and by this means there may be a continued supply of what is successively abraded from them by decursion of Waters That Matter is never lost or annihilated That what is decayed by that decursion of Waters is in some measure supplied by the terrene faeces which that Water brings with it That by continued vicissitudes the Earth is repaired by the insensible descent of Atoms of Matter raised in others places the Atmosphere being evermore filled with little particles and concretes of Matter which are uncessantly discharged upon the Earth and as uncessantly again supplied in the Air by the more gross and terrestrial parts of those Vapours that are raised principally from the Sea and watrish
Assertion yet because they do it by several Suppositions the Arguments that I shall use shall be of three natures 1. Such as oppose in special the two first Assertions 2. Such as especially oppose the two last 3. Such as in common oppose both 1. The Argument that I use against the two first Suppositions is this That it is evident to Experience and the Concessions of those very men that the Body of a Man and all other compounded Bodies consist not only of Matter antecedent to their Composition but also of such a Matter as is digested from those more simple Bodies which we call the four Elements Fire Air Water and Earth And therefore of necessity and according to the Principles of these very men before the existence of any compounded Body there must be of necessity 1. A pre-existence of those simple Bodies out of which this compounded or mixed Body is compounded 2. A pre-existence of those more active Principles in Nature that are necessarily pre-requisite to the mixing of these particles of Elementary Bodies and to the disposition of them to the Union and Constitution of that mixed Body whereinto it is to be formed namely the Motions and Influx of the Heavens the Activity of the fiery Nature subduing the more passive parts of Matter to the susception of that Form wherein it is to be brought 3. A mora or due space of time intervening between the first coagulation of Matter and the first instant of the disposing thereof and the complement thereof in its determinate Species which according to the degree of its specifical perfection is sometimes longer and sometimes shorter as the Statuary strikes more strokes upon that piece of Marble that is completed into the Statue of Caesar than into the Cube or Pedestal whereon he stands all these must precede not only in nature but in time before the complement of any compounded Body in its specifical constitution And therefore since all mixed Bodies require necessarily the antecedence of these simple Bodies this action of the more active Principles this mora in the full disposition and digestion of them into their complement of a mixed Being it is simply necessary that there must be a posteriority in time of every compounded Body especially the Body of Man to these more simple Bodies out of which it is constituted and those successive and gradual actions and of the more active Nature by which it is disposed and completed in its being And if once we admit a priority and posteriority it is impossible the latter can be eternal because it hath necessarily something that actually preceded it 2. The Argument against the Eternity of Mankind upon the two latter Suppositions is thus If Man were eternally created or con-created with the rest of the World it is of absolute necessity that that Creation must be terminated in that individual Person that was thus created For whether Creation be eternal or not eternal it must necessarily be terminated in some individual Being that is so created And it is necessary also that that created Person were created in some determinate state and in a state answerable to the nature of these Men that we now see and though his Life were longer than ours yet it would be certain that he lived as we do one day one month one year after another and that those first created Persons did generate their kind by the conjunction of Sexes as is done in the World And therefore if both Sexes were created yet sooner or later they propagated their kind as is now done for though they themselves had a differing manner of production from those that succeeded them we must conceive that their Constitution was the same otherwise we shall not so much suppose an eternal Creation of Man as of something else of a nature essentially differing from Man which is contrary to the Hypothesis it self And if this be supposed we shall never deliver our selves from intollerable difficulties and absurdities For 1. There would of a necessity be a first Man which cannot be consistent with the attribution of Eternity to Mankind Again 2. That first Man if created eternally must needs be distant from us by a less portion of duration after he had lived a year or two and consequently the duration from his age of two years could not be eternal for it is short of the period of his Creation by two years and therefore not eternal neither could his Creation be eternal for then the adding of two years to a duration less than infinite should make it infinite which is absurd and impossible Again 3. Was the generation of the first born Man at an infinite distance from us and eternal or no If it were then it must be of the same antiquity with the Creation of the first Man and so the first born Man was eternal and was consequently before he was born and his Eternity should be ten twenty thirty or forty years short of the Eternity of his Father yet both eternal If the Birth of that Man were not eternal then consequently the Generations of Mankind are neither infinite nor eternal nay consequently the Creation of the first Man could not be eternal nor an infinite distance from us for there must necessarily be a determinate Period between the Creation of the first Man and the Birth of the second and that time must necessarily be finite and the addition of a finite duration to a finite duration can never make an infinite duration Eternity therefore and a duration actually infinite cannot be applied to successive Beings The absurdities and incongruities that arise upon such an application are infinite and uncurable and not to be attempted Nothing but an infinite and indivisible Being is able to sustain an infinite and eternal duration it will never fit other things it is too great for them 3. I now come to consider those Reasons that are applicable indifferently to all the former four Suppositions and render them all alike vain absurd and impossible I shall resume some of those that I used before against the Supposition of the World's Eternity and I shall subjoyn some others more particularly applicable to the condition of Man 1. If the successive Generations of Mankind were eternal then of necessity some one Man among them that preceded us was infinitely distant from us that are now living in point of duration and infinite numbers of Men have intervened between us and him this is plain and undeniable If so then if this Man lived to the ordinary age of man for the purpose till thirty years old and then had a Son and after this he lived to seventy years old and died Was this Son of his distant from us an infinite duration an infinite period of years or were there infinite Persons that intervened between this Son and us his remote descendants or no If there were then the duration from his Father which was thirty years before his Son must be thirty years greater
the Continent of Asia about Japan or Cathay so that a Land-passage might be out of Asia into Groenland and thence into America But this is only conjectured and not fully discovered to be so But however the Case now stands with the three known Parts of the World in relation to its contiguity with the Continent of America it is not impossible but in that long tract of 4000 Years at least which hath hapned since the Universal Deluge there hath been great alterations in the situations of the Sea and Earth possibly there might be anciently Necks of Land that maintained passage and communication by Land between the two Continents Many Instances of this kind are remembred by Pliny not only of the great Atlantick Island mentioned by the Egyptian Priest in Plato's Timaeus of a great bigness almost contiguous to the Western parts of Spain and Africa yet wholly swallowed up by that Ocean to which it hath given its Name of the Atlantick Ocean which if true might for ought we know afford a Passage from Africa to America by Land before that Submersion but also many more Instances of the like Variations thus he reports that Sicily was anciently divided from Italy Cyprus from Syria Euboea from Boetia Vide Plin. l. 2. cap. 88 89 90 91. Strabo also in his first Book seems to referr the Straits or Apertures of the Euxin and Mediterranean Seas to the like separations made by the force of the Sea and attributes those great Floods and Inundations to the elevation and subsiding of the Moles terrestris in these words Restat ut causam adscribamus solo sive quod mari subest sive quod inundatur potius tamen ei quod mari subest hoc enim multo est mobilius quod ob humiditatem celerius mutari possit Spiritus enim hujusmodi omnium rerum causa ibi est copiosior Sed sicuti dixi causa horum efficiens accidentium est quod eadem sola alias attolluntur alias subsidunt and he resembles the ordinary Elevations and Depressions whereby the ordinary Fluxes and Refluxes are made to the Exspiration and Respiration of Animals but those greater and extraordinary Elevations and Depressions of the Earth to the greater Accidents Nam diluvia terraemotus eruptiones flatuum tumores subiti terrae in mari latentis mare quoque extollunt subsidentésque in se eaedem terrae faciunt ut mare dimittatur And it is no new or feigned Observation That as the Volcans in the Land as Aetna and Vesuvius raise up those great Protuberances which seem Natural Mountains so the like Volcans or Fiery Eruptions happen sometimes in the Land subjected to the Sea whereby great quantities of Earth together with Fire are thrown up and grow into Islands De quibus videsis Strabonem Plinium in locis citatis And if we may give credit to the Conjectures of Verstegan the Countries of England and France were formerly conjoyned and after separated by the Irruption of the Sea between Dover and Calais And therefore although it may be that at this day there is no Land-passage from this Elder World unto that of America yet within the tract of 4000 Years such there might have been whereby both Men and Beasts especially from about Tartary or China might pass or between Norway or Finland and the Northern part of the American Continent But we need not go so far from home nor resort to the Ages of ancient times for the evincing the great Changes that have been between the Sea and Lands sometimes by tempestuous Winds sometimes by Earthquakes sometimes and that most commonly by the working of the Sea by casting up Silt and Sand and by exaggerations thereby wrought elegantly described by Ovid 15. Metamorph. Vidi ego quod fuerat quondam solidissima tellus Esse fretum vidi factas ex aequore terras Et procul à pelago conchae jacuere marinae Et vetus inventa est in montibus anchora summis Quódque fuit campus vallem decursus aquarum Fecit eluvie mons est deductus in aequor Eque paludosa siccis humus aret arenis The Instances of latter Discoveries which make evident this various state of the Globe of Earth and Water thus described by the Poet are among others those that follow 1. Some Towns that were anciently Havens and Ports where Ships did ride are now by exaggeration of Sand between those Towns and the Sea converted into firm Land 2 3 4 Miles distant from the Sea such was S t Omer in Flanders Old Rumney in Kent Rye in Suffolk vide Mr. Dugdale his History of Draining pag. 173. and the Authors there cited by him 2. some whole Countries as well as the Egyptian Delta recovered to be dry Land partly by the exaggeration of Sand by the Sea or the out-falls of great Rivers thus the whole Country of Holland seems to be an Accretion partly by the Sea partly by the River Rhine Dugdale ibid. p. 12. 3. Some great Continents and Tracts of Ground were anciently firm Land and full of great Woods that could not have less time than 500 Years continuance and yet were afterwards reduced again into the Dominion of the Ocean and after all that re-reduced into firm Land leaving the infallible Signatures of these several Changes though the precise times thereof exceed the Memory of any Men alive Instances whereof are as follow In the great Level near Thorny several Trees of Oak and Firr some severed from their Roots others joyned to their Roots which stand in firm Earth below the Moor and in all probability have lain there hundreds of Years till covered by the inundation of the fresh and salt Waters and the Silt and Moorish Earth exaggerated upon them and the like monuments of great Trees buried in great quantities in the Isle of Axholm about 3 Foot and some 5 Foot under ground whereof there are multitudes some Oaks of 5 Yards in compass Firr-Trees of 30 Foot long Vide Dugd. ubi supra pag. 141 171. Mr. Ray in his Ingenious Observations upon his Travels in the Netherlands c. pag. 6. gives us the like account of great quantities of subterraneous Woods lying 10 and 20 Ells below the Superficies of the Ground prostrate towards the East which are supposed to be anciently thrown down by the irruption of the Sea and strong Western Winds which yet now and for all the time of the Memory of Man or History extant are firm Land namely Bruges in Flanders But that one Instance is instar omnium remembred by Mr. Dugdale ubi supra pag. 172 but of known and notorious truth the Sceleton of a great Sea-fish above 20 Foot long found in the Downs or Uplands of Cammington in Huntingdonshire very far distant from the Sea which is an unquestionable Evidence that the Sea was sometime Master of that Tract of Ground 4. Touching the Conchae marinae of several sorts it is most unquestionable I referr my self herein to the Relation of Mr.
Ray ubi supra pag. 114. seqq wherein he gives us an account of these Petrified Shells found in great quantities within Continents at a vast distance from the Sea and some Shells that are found in the Continent which are strangers in the Ports of the Sea conterminous to those Continents There are two Opinions concerning the Origination of these Petrified Shells 1. Of those that have thought and with great probability that these were left in those places by the Sea either by the Universal Deluge or that really the Sea did possess those places where it left these Relicks and Memorials of it self upon its recess to a more setled Channel And certainly if this be so we must needs suppose anciently another Face of the Sea and Earth than what now is possibly many of these Vallies and lower grounds might be entirely Sea and the Hills and Mountains and other Prominences of the Earth where these Petrified Shells are often found being the Shoars of that great Ocean in those elder times those Shells were there cast up as they are at this day upon the Shoars The second Opinion is of those that think that these Conchae or Petrified Shells were no other than the Lusus naturae the Effects of the Plastick power of the Earth 1. Because they are found at such great distances from the Sea 2. Because they are many times of such a kind of Fabrick as are not to be found in those parts of the Sea that is conterminous to those Continents where they are found some are found in the middle of Germany 200 Miles distant from the Sea at the nearest Scallop-shells are found in the Ditches of Antwerp and yet they are rarely to be gotten on the Sea or Sea-shoar nearer than Gallicia in Spain 3. Because these Shells are ordinarily filled with Stone suitable to the Stone of those places where they are found These and the like Reasons though not evidently concludent against the former Supposition yet have induced many Learned Men to attribute these Phaenomena to the Plastick power of the Earth For my own part I have seen such apparent Evidences in and near the place where I live of things of this nature that I am satisfied that many of them are but the Relicks of Fish-shells left by the Sea and there in length of time actually Petrified and the Instance of the great Fish-sceleton found at Cammington seems an undeniable Evidence thereof And I remember in my youth in the Lisne of a Rock at Kingscote in Glocestershire I found at least a Bushel of Petrified Cockles actually distinct one from another each near as big as my Fist and at Adderly mentioned by Mr. Cambden about 40 or 50 Years since those Configurations of great Shells in Stones were frequently found and for their curiosity as many as could be found were taken up by several persons and carried away since which time for above 20 Years last past there are none or very few found which nevertheless if they had been the Product of the Plastick power of the Earth would have been Annually re-produced And yet I do think that all these Petrifications are not always necessarily the Monuments of the Sea possessing those places as its constant or usual Seat but that many of those Shells arise de novo not barely from the Plastick power of the Earth as some Insects and Vegetables arise spontaneously but from certain Seminal Ferments brought thither which are as it were the Seminium of their production And these Seminal Ferments were first in the Sea and sea-Sea-Waters and might by many means by brought into those new parts of firm Land 1. By the Universal Deluge 2. By the various mutable stations of the Land and fluxes of the Sea 3. By elevation of those Seminal Ferments from the Sea or some desiccated places thereof by the heat of the Sun and discharging them by Rain upon several parts of the dry Land and where possibly those Seminal Ferments might be digested and ripened gradually into these Configurations But touching these kinds of Seminal Ferments and their Energy more will be said hereafter By this digression I mean but thus much namely That we can by no means reasonably suppose the Face Figure Position and Disposition of the Sea and dry Land to be the same anciently as now but there might then be Sea where there is now dry Land and dry Land where there is now Sea and that there might have been in former times Necks of Land whereby communication between the parts of the Earth and mutual passage and re-passage for Men and Animals might have been which in long process of time within a Period of 4000 Years may have been since altered That those parts of Asia and America which are now dis-joyned by the interluency of the Sea might have been formerly in some Age of the World contiguous to each other and those Spots of Ground namely the Philippine Islands and others that are now crumbled into small Islands might anciently have been one entire Continent And if in places that have been long inhabited and observed by Men these mutations have happened as are apparent to our very Senses yet the precise Times Manner and Circumstances thereof are wholly lost to us as in divers parts of Europe is apparent much more the like Changes may happen in those remote and vast Marine Tracts which have been long unknown and unobserved and scarce possible to be observed by Mankind as in the Scythian Atlantick Pacifick and other Northern and Southern parts of the Seas Touching the Second Means namely the Passage by Sea It seems very probable that the greatest and readiest means of the migration of Colonies or Plantations into the Western World from the Eastern was by Sea and the help of Navigation whereof much might be casual by Tempests or contrary Winds but some and the more principal might be ex instituto industria Navigation and the use of Ships is of that great Antiquity that it is difficult to assign when it began to be in use It seems probable that it was not unknown to the Old World before the Flood and yet not in that perfection that it was after their Vessels being not reduced to that perfection as to endure a wide Sea such as the Universal Deluge was neither were they probably fitted with such Stores as might be requisite for so long and unexpected a Navigation as the Flood lasted But the Ark of Noah was certainly a most exact piece of Architecture and might give a Pattern or Instruction for Vessels of great burthen and very probably since that time the skill of Making and Navigating of Ships was much ripened and improved If we consult the Heathenish Histories we shall find Navigation very ancient among the Grecians but especially among the Phenicians Tyrians and Carthaginians Polydore Virgil de Inventione Rerum l. 3. cap. 15. and before him Pliny in his Natural History lib. 5. cap. 57. gives us an Account of
by an Earthquake JugÃque unius diei noctis illuvione Afterwards Timaeus begins and proceeds with his Narrative touching the Production of the Universe and therein particularly of Mankind which I shall have occasion hereafter to mention Thus this great Master seems to countenance the Supposition of the vicissitudes of Conflagrations and Floods especially of the latter certis temporum curriculis and thereby the excessive multiplication of Mankind corrected and the vicissitudes of Arts and Laws interrupted lost restored and repaired Only he supposeth Egypt free from those Floods and Conflagrations though it seems necessary that if Inundations prevailed in Greece and those upper Countries Egypt that seems to lye much lower could not easily escape them though they have no Rain that might occasion them But the Priest mingles some strange and improbable Stories with his Supposition of those Vicissitudes Aristotle the Scholar of Plato differed much from his Master 1. In his manner of writing which was much more steady and severe than the Writings of Plato who mingled Poetical Fancies with the things he delivered and seems very uncertain and unresolved in most things of great importance 2. In his Position for Plato seems not to hold at least the Elementary World Eternal though very Ancient But Aristotle following rather the Opinion of Ocellus Lucanus and not being able to digest those many difficulties he found in the Hypotheses of the Inception of the World supposeth it Eternal and an eternal consistency in the state it now stands but not without some partial successive and periodical Changes in the Elementary World And therefore in this Supposition of the successive partial Floods or Inundations and Conflagrations whereby great Changes happen and a fair Corrective and Reduction of the Excess of Mankind he much agrees with Plato And he gives us a large and learned Account of his Judgment herein Lib. 1. Meteor cap. 14. in these Words Eadem terrae loca neque semper fluida neque semper arida sunt sed pro fluminum ortu aut defectu faciem mutant suam Quamobrem diversitas inter Mare Continentem existit nec perpetuo alia pro Continenti alia pro Mari habentur sed ubi terra aliquando patuit mare superfunditur ubi nunc mare terra exaggerabatur SuspicarÃque debemus haec omnia ita fieri ordine quodam ambitu horum autem principium causáque existit quod interiores quoque telluris partes perinde atque animantium plantarúmque corpora juventutem atque senectutem habeant Verum istis haec per partem subire nequaquam contingit sed simul totum javenescat aut senescat necesse est Terrae particulatim hoc idem ob frigus calorem accidit haec igitur accrescere simul ac decrescere propter Solis calorem conversionémque assolent Then he proceeds to shew how that successively some parts of the Earth grow moorish or watrish others dry where it becomes barren Fountains and Rivers decay and sometimes break out in other places that this makes Changes in the Sea and Land At quia omnis quae circa terram fit generatio non nisi successione tempore respectu vitae nostrae quam longo fieri solet ista nobis haudquaquam advertentibus fiunt Atque prius universae gentes intereunt pereúntque quà m horum mutatio ab initio ad finem usque memoriâ teneri queat Maximas itaque celerrimásque clades praelia advehunt alias morbi nonnullas sterilitates hae quasdam statim magnas quasdam lentas adeò ut talium quoque gentium transmigrationes nos lateant propterea quod alii regionem deserant alii eo usque sustinent quoad nullam amplius multitudinem alere regio queat Inter primam igitur novissimámque loci derelictionem tempora interveniant adeò longa par est ut nemo meminisse possit imò incolumibus etiamnum hisoe qui remanserint longi temporis injuriâ oblivio irrepserit Eodem autem modo latere existimandum est quando primùm singuli populi quae permutata essent arida à palustribus aquosÃsve facta inhabitare coeperint Then he gives Instance in Egypt Etenim locus ille totáque regio quae fluminis tantum invectu nata est semper aridior fieri videtur That all the Ostia Nili except one were made by Art and not by the River That anciently Egypt was no more but the City of Thebes which he proves out of Homer shews that in the time of Troy that part of Greece inhabited by the Argivi was Marish and had but few Inhabitants but now become fruitful and populous That part of Greece inhabited by the Miceni was fruitful and populous now become barren Quod igitur in isto loco qui parvus accidit hoc idem etiam circa loca magna accidere censeamus oportet That there is no cause to conceive the Sea less than formerly for though some places sometimes covered with Water are added to the Continent yet in other places the Sea hath gained upon the Land Attamen hujusce rei causa ad mundi generationem haudquaquam referenda ridiculum enim foret ob parvas brevésque mutationes Universum moveri asserere Porrò Terrae moles atque magnitudo ad totum Coelum nihil profectò est Verum horum omnium causam existimemus oportet quod ut elapsis certis temporum spatiis inter anni tempora hyems ita magno quodam circuitu hyems magna imbrium excessu sieri solet at hic non semper eisdem in locis efficitur sed perinde ut vocatum dilivium quod tempore Dencalionis accidit etenim hoc circa Graeciam maximè eam potissimam partem quam antiquam Hellada vocitant factum est c. Cum autem necesse sit quandam mutationem esse Universi non tamen ortum interitum siquidem ipsum maneat necesse est non semper eadem loca mari aut amnibus humectari atque siccescere quod reipsa quae fieri solet liquidò constat And concludes That Egypt Cujus homines antiquissimos esse diximus is nothing but a Production of the River Nilus that is lower than the Red Sea and therefore that Sesostris and Darius gave over that Attempt of cutting the Neck of Land between the Red Sea and Egypt for fear of drowning that Country That the Lake Moeotis is shallower and not able to bear Ships of that burthen as it did 60 Years before by reason of the Slime carried thither which will in time dry it up That Lakes grow by the exaggeration of Sand by the Sea which Lakes in time grow dry That Tanais or Nilus and all other Rivers were sometime dry Land and did not run where now they do At verò si amnes habent ortum occasum nec semper eadem terrae loca scatent aquis ipsum quoque mare simili modo mutari oportet quod cum assiduè alia deserat alia invadat patet universae
production is speedy and hasty and consequently that spontaneous Seed by which they may be produced and the spontaneous production it self is soon dispatcht and perfected a small portion and continuance of heat and time may perfect the whole process But it is otherwise in the perfect Animals especially in those that are Vivipara a long time is required for their formation and maturation notwithstanding the great advantage of the place and heat and supplies of their formation and support namely the Uterus foemineus Thus the same Aristotle lib. 6. Histor Animal gives us an account whereof some go above 18 Months as the Elephant some 10 Months as Cows and Mares some 5 Months as Sheep and Goats the least about 2 Months as Dogs and Wolves and this is one Reason that Aristotle Problemat ubi supra gives why these perfect Animals are not producible spontaneè nor sine conjunctione maris foeminae vel sine utero foemineo These Uteri terrestres fabled by Lucretius would never be warm or close enough for the production of those Animals who naturally are producible in utero foemineo and the intervening Winter would soon make them abortive especially on either side of the Tropicks where the heat and cold have their vicissitudes And therefore it was providently though fictitiously supposed by Cisalpinus that Ethiopia must be the only native Country for such spontaneous productions of the greater Animals and Men. 4. As the Earth was not a fit or competent Arvum genitale for viviparous Animals so the nourishment increase and support of these viviparous Animals dum in uteris morentur according to the very exigence and formation of these Embryones cannot consist with any such spontaneous Productions for besides the soft and warm involucra of the Chorion and Amnios we know the very fabrick of their nature hath given them a means and Instrument of Nutrition per venam umbilicalem sanguinem maternum attrahentem dirigentem This could never be supplied from any Terrestrial Veins unless we should suppose that Succus mutritius of the Earth to become menstruous and converted into Blood or other suitable consistence for the nourishment of the Embryo or without any Reason or Experience warranting it so suppose that some other way of nourishment should be in Embryonibus terrigenis 5. Again post partum viviparorum praecipuè generis humani it is evident that naturally the foetus is weak unable to support it self without the supplemental helps care and superintendence of their Dams or Parents some are blind as Whelps or Kitlins some are destitute of those teguments that are necessary to defend them against the cold as many kinds of Birds that stand in need of the hovering of their Dams Wings for a considerable time after they are hatched and are utterly unable to provide their own food but are hourly supplied by their Dams without which they must necessarily perish and generally all viviparous Animals that are of univocal production are for a long time fed by their Dams Milk without which or some other artificial provision subministred to them by the help of others they could not support themselves after their production as young Horses Dogs Calves Lambs But this is much more conspicuous in Humane Infants who from the time of their Birth for many Months can neither go nor stand nor procure their own food but stand in need of the care of others to keep them warm provide them covering and preserve them from being destroyed with their own Excrements But on the other side those small Animals which are supposed to be spontaneously produced stand in need of no other means for their preservation being produced but that heat and circumjacent menstruum by or in which they are produced and although these spontaneous productions being produced seem to propagate their Species by the coition of their Sexes yet for the most part these generated Individuals Mice excepted retain still that natural indoles to preserve themselves without any other supervenient assistance than what was at first sufficient after their equivocal production this we daily see in the Eggs of Silkworms of all sorts of Flies Caterpillers and Worms which though in their secondary productions by Generation yet being ripen'd to foetation by the heat of the Sun they live upon Leaves and Grass and take their food without the care or assistance of those Parents that produced them and carry along with them the indication of that Method of Life which might be consistent with the condition of a spontaneous production which is no way competible to the condition of greater Animals after their production 6. Again though the Faculties and Organs of a sensible as well as a vegetable Life appear in the smallest Insects yet it is but a weak and imperfect Life of Sensation and very little advanced above the Vegetable Nature And this appears by very many Instances as namely in their generation many Insects do seem to arise from Vegetables without any other production and they seem to be little else but the Flos vegetabilis naturae the more pure active lively Effluvia thereof as the Flies that grow in the little Vesiculae of the Leaves of Elms and Currants the Worms in the Galls of Oaks and the Burrs of Wild Rose the Worms and Flies which grow in the husks of Burrs yea many times the Parts of Vegetables divided from the Stock will turn into Animals as the Seeds of Lavander kept a little warm and moist will turn into Moths the Plant called the Horse-tail laid into Water will grow into an Insect 2. This also appears that as the several parts of Vegetables the Leaves the Branches as well as the formatum semen are seminal and productive of their Species so many times the parts of Insects carry with them a Seminal Nature effectual enough to produce their Species as hath been asserted by the Experience of many which no way happens in perfect Animals 3. This also appears in the manner of their Life for we often see in Insects divided each part keeps its motion as the several parts of Vegetables keep their animation a Fly or Wasp whose Head is cut off yet the residue of his Body will live a considerable time Flies that seem dead either with Water or Cold and continue so for some considerable time by the Heat of the Sun or warm Embers will revive and return to Life and Motion as a Branch torn from a Tree that hath been severed from it three or four days or more will resume Life by re-implantation and the Solar Heat And whereas the Eggs of a perfect Animal as of Hens Geese c. will lose their Animatick Faculties being frozen or concrete with Cold or being kept two Months or thereabouts the Seeds of Insects will continue fruitful a whole Winter or more and possibly as long as the Seed of Corn Oaks or other Vegetables as is apparent in the Eggs of Flies and Silkworms which though excluded in the last
the instituted nature of Corporeal Beings he did observe the same method or order still in the Generation of things Wherein we may observe that the greater and more comprehensive Rudiments and Stamina are laid and in some good measure formed before the lesser and derivative parts are formed and compleated as we shall have occasion to observe when we come to consider the processus generationis of Man and Brutes And now to come to those greater Productions which are principally these the Light the Aether the Air the Water the Earth First therefore touching the Light Vers 3. And God said let there be light and there was light and God divided the light from the darkness and the light he called day and the darkness he called night and the evening and the morning were the first day Herein it might be fit to examin 1. What this Light was 2. How it was produced 3. How it was disposed or ordered 4. In what order and character of time it was so produced and ordered Touching these briefly and first touching the nature of this Light We may observe in Fire two great operations or effects first Heat secondly Light It should seem that active Element as it is commonly called or rather that powerful vigorous Entity or Vis ignea lucida calefactiva was produced by the Incubation of the Spirit of God upon the face of the Abyss and diffused through the confused Particles of the Materia Chaotica and that it was the great Instrument which that Spirit did both communicate and use for the preparation digestion and agitation of that Matter but this fiery nature being mingled and dispersed through the Matter though it had one of its useful effects namely Heat yet it neither had nor could have Light at least till it were in some measure disintangled and severed from the Moles of gross Matter with which it was confounded and mingled and till the lucid and flammeous particles or rather Vis ignea lucida were lodged in a fit Vehicle for its emission So that in the work of this day Light was not created but only a considerable part thereof separated from the grosser Matter and disposed into an apt Vehicle to contain it 2. And this answers partly the second Inquiry namely How it was produced not as it seems by Creation but the powerful Fiat of Almighty God called the Light out of Darkness that is separated and severed the most lucid fiery nature and invested them with fit Vehicles desumed out of the Materia Chaotica whereby great part of that flammeous and lucid fiery nature which was created by the Incubation of the Spirit of God was in a great measure discharged from the bond and incumbrance of the grosser Matter and rendred useful for the beauty and service of the Universe but yet so that there remained still in the parts of the Moles a sufficient stock of connatural Fire and fiery Particles for the heating agitating and digesting of their several parts for their several uses and ends As to the Third it should seem that 1. This luminous nature was lodged in a suitable Vehicle to derive its Light and Influence to the exteriour Superficies of this Moles Chaotica 2. That it was put into a circular Motion whereby in the space of a Natural Day it visited the whole Expansum by successive rotation so that as by its presence in any part of the Chaotical Horizon it made Day so by its absence there-from it caused Night as the Sun doth at this day And this diurnal Rotation of this luminous Body was really such because there could not be otherwise that which the Text supposeth viz. separation of the Light from the Darkness and thereby the distribution of Day and Night so it was convenient for the better digestion and preparation of the remaining indigested parts of Nature For doubtless that Light was of a very great and penetrating Influence being as it were the Flos and Elixir of that most active and powerful Element 4. The Time and Order wherein this production of Light was is said to be the first Day what portion of duration the disorderly Chaos had before this first production is utterly uncertain because not revealed possibly it might be a very long time but the perfecting of the World in its formal order and constitutum seems to be in the compass of six Natural Days and the first Days Work is this of Light And although we must finally resolve the ordering and methodizing of all things to the Divinum beneplacitum whose Wisdom and Ways are unsearchable and past finding out farther than he is pleased to reveal them yet it should seem to be very consonant to the reason of things that this eduction and circulation of the Light should begin and be continued at least for the first three Days of the World without parcelling or distributing into those Luminaries of the Sun and Stars For doubtless the collection of this lucid fiery active nature into so great a Body as probably it was had even naturally a most forcible energy influence and penetration into the subjected Chaos and strangely prepared it for its ensuing offices and uses Although we must ever with all humility acknowledge that the Great and Omnipotent God needed not the subsidiary Instrumentalities of Nature to compleat his Work but could do all things immediately as he did most evidently in many of the productions of Nature yet if he were pleased to use this order in things we have reason to believe that though he needed it not yet when we see it done it was certainly so done with most exquisite Wisdom and Reason He could in the first moment have produced the whole World compleat in all particulars but he chose not so to do but did things in a successive order of six Days and in such a Method as was most agreeable to his good pleasure and infinite Wisdom What became of this Fiery Luminous Nature and Body we shall see in the fourth Days Work 2. The Second great Integral seems to be that great and vast Body consisting of the Air and Aether called the Firmament Vers 6. And God said Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water and God made the firmament and divided the waters which are above the firmament from the waters that are under the firmament and it was so and God called the firmament heaven and the evening and the morning were the second day This word that is translated in our English Firmament is rendred by Linguists understanding the propriety of the word to be Expansum or Expansio and much controversie hath been what is meant by the Waters above the Heavens some supposing a real existence of Waters above the Starry Heavens to cool the heat contracted by them or their rapid motion others conjecturing it to be the Clouds which are above the middle region of the Air both improbable enough the former a meer imagination the latter little more for at