light, which light is sent forth by the action. at the orb of the sun; and when we have got thus far, we have reached what appears to us to be the first mover in the visible world. How this is connected with the invisible fountain of all life and power, or how it stands related to his immediate agency, it is not necessary to inquire, because it cannot possibly be known. Thus much will always be certain, that as matter has no active properties of its own, its motion must both originate and continue by the influence of invisible power; but in applying this rule to particular cases, we must admit that limitation prescribed by the poet, Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus It is the proper business, and ought to be the pleasure of divines, to insist upon the influence of invisible power; but the mode of that influence being inscrutable to philosophers, they should never recur to miracle, till the mechanism of the world will carry them no farther. The grand question with them is only this, How some matter acts upon other matter, for the production of those motions which we observe in the seve ral parts of nature? Nature Nature to be considered as a connected System. It answers no purpose to consider the motion of any single body abstractedly, as à thing by itself, if there is in fact no such motion to be discovered. Speculations which carry us out of the world, can never teach us how things are conducted in the world. Nature appears to be a system of parts connected and related, and every particular part of it should be considered under this relation; without which, neither the nature nor the design of it can be understood. Take the leg of a man, and consider it without any regard to the body it belongs to: it will then have no meaning in it; neither can he that examines it, understand any thing more of it than its substance and figure, which is only to know that it has matter and form. But if you consider the same member with its relation to the body, then all these wonderful things discover themselves to us at once first, that its vessels are supplied with the animating fluids of blood and spirits, which keep up animal life in it: secondly, that its muscles are connected with the superior parts from whence they derive their faculty 6 faculty of motion: thirdly, that it is framed with due strength and exact proportion to the weight of the body, to preserve it in an erect position, and to transport it from place to place fourthly, that it is enabled to do this effectually by its relation to the eyes, which receive light to direct all the motions of the body to their proper ends. A limb considered under these relations becomes a wonderful subject, well worthy to be admir ed by the anatomist and the philosopher: but if you take it out of the body, and consider it abstractedly, it is dead, motionless, and useless; except to the cannibal who could make a meal upon it. The difference will be much the same, if any member of the frame of nature, even so much as a single atom, is taken independent of the rest. Matter subsisting as a part of the created world, has motion; but if separated from the rest, it would have no more motion than a limb divided from the body: so that he who would understand the nature of motion by taking matter abstractedly, is studying motion from that which hath no motion belonging to it. If we proceed thus, we shall not only deceive ourselves, but be great sufferers by losing sight of the true con construction of nature; and if we build a system upon matter so independently considered, we shall raise such a world as never did nor can exist; and, after all our pains, will be as empty as it is arbitrary. If we would account for the motion there is in the world, it must therefore be taken as a connected system: effects must be considered as they stand related to their proper causes; and as motion is not a cause, but an effect, there can be no motion without a cause of motion. If the effect is permanent, the cause must be so too; otherwise we shall relapse into the absurdity we are avoiding, by supposing an effect of which there is no cause. It is by no means necessary that there should be but'one cause of motion acting on a body at the same time. On the contrary, it is very evident there is frequently a concurrence of causes contributing to the same effect. A ship may be at once moved by the wind, the tide, and the cause that acts on projected bodies, whatever that may be. be. When the wind ceases, the tide may continue to act; and if that also should stop, the cause of projection will still keep up the motion till the equilibrium is restored. Parallel Parallel between Life and Motion. It was feigned by Descartes, the French philosopher of the last century, in order to make the world a mere independent machine, that natural bodies are indifferent to motion or rest; that if at rest, they will continue so; if in motion, they will continue to move till they are stopped by some new force. But if this doctrine is transferred to a parallel case, it will make a very strange figure. Life is an effect as truly as motion; and as no body can continue to live without the constant operation of those causes which are acting for the support of life, so no inanimate body can continue to move without the proper causes of motion. When we are told that bodies are indifferent to rest or motion, we learn no more than if it were said in other words, that they are indifferent to life or death: and if we should go on, upon this principle, to assert that a body once moved will move always unless there is something to stop it, we shall be as much mistaken as if we should affirm that the body which lives once, will therefore necessarily live on till something interposes to kill it. In account |
