122 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



ufe to the firfl: animal on tliis earth, that is Man ; and fo fitted for 

 his ufe, that nothing elfe could fupply their place. 



To what f have fald concerning the goodnefs of God, manifefled 

 in the natural world, where every thing appears to he formed for 

 the nourifhment and prefervation of the moft valual)le beings on this 

 earth, I mean the animals, it may be objefled, that there are fome 

 things in our earth, which fecm to deftroy the order and regularity 

 of things in it, fuch as earthquakes, inundations, and eruptions of 

 burning mountains, by which great mifchief has been done in many 

 countries and in different yges of the world. But to this my anfwer 

 is, that all thefe events, extraordinary as they may appear to us, 

 are the confequence of general laws, by which the fyftem of the 

 univerfe, and every other fyllem, mufi: be governed, otherwife it 

 would not be, as I have faid, a fyftem * All thefe events, therefore, 

 which I have mentioned, mull: be the effeifl of fome natural and ne- 

 cefTary caufes, which produce in one place the overflowing of water, 

 in another the trembling of the earth, proceeding from fome intef- 

 tine commotion in its bowels; and, laftly, the eruptions of burn- 

 ing mountains, produced by fire in the bowels of the moun- 

 tains, which difcharges itfelf in fmoke and flame, and throws out 

 from the mountain that fluid which is called lava. That all thofe 

 phaenomena happen by chance, no body will fuppofe who believes 

 that this univerfe is a fyftem, and a fyftem governed by general 

 laws ; which, in fome cafes, make it neceflary that thofe eflfedls 

 fliould be produced, as neceflary as rain, or hail, or fnow, or the 

 overflowing of rivers, which we fee happen fo often: And the only- 

 difference betwixt thefe common phaenomena, and the other extra- 

 ordinary phaenomena that I have mentioned, is, that the firft of thefe 

 proceed from caufes which operate more conftantly than the other, 

 and which therefore we underfland better, and can often forefee their 



operations; 

 * Page 75. 



