INTRODUCTION. 15 



The impulse to which I refer, indicates only the com- 

 munication of motion as the cause of all terrestrial phe- 

 nomena. Pantheistic views are excluded ; the Godhead) 

 is considered as the highest " ordering unity ^ manifested 

 in all parts of the universe, defining and determining the 

 nature of all formations, and holding together all things as an 

 absolute power." ^Os 1 The main idea and these teleological 

 views are not applied to the subordinate processes of inor- 

 ganic or elementary nature, but refer specially to the higher 

 organizations 25 of the animal and vegetable world. It is 

 worthy of notice, that in these theories, the f'Godhead is 

 attended by a number of astral spirits, who (as if acquainted 

 with perturbations and the distnEution of masses) main- 

 tain the planets in their eternal orbits. 26 The stars here 



unstable in natural bodies, and all terrestrial phenomena are 

 produced." Aristot. Meteor, i. 2, p. 339, and de gener. et 

 corrupt, ii. 10, p. 336. 



24 Aristot. de Ccelo, lib. i. c. 9, p. 279, lib. ii. c. 3, p. 286 ; 

 lib. ii. c. 13, p. 292. Bekker. (Compare Biese, bd. i. s. 352-1, 

 357.) 



25 Aristot. Phys. Auscult. lib. ii. c. 8, p. 199; de Anima, 

 lib. iii. c. 12, p. 434; de Animal, generat. lib. v. c. 1, p. 778. 

 Bekker. 



26 See the passage in Aristot. Meteor, xii. 8, p. 1074, of 

 which there is a remarkable elucidation in the Commentary of 

 Alexander Aphrodisiensis. The stars are not inanimate bodies 

 but must be regarded as active and living beings. (Aristot. 

 de Ccelo, lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 292.) They are the most 

 divine of created things ; TO. Qeiorcpa ra>v (fravep&v. Aristot. 

 de Casio, lib. i. cap. 9, p. 278, and lib. ii. cap. 1,'p. 284.) In the 

 small pseudo- Aristotelian work, de Mundo, which frequently 

 breathes a religious spirit in relation to the preserving 

 almightiness of God, (cap. 6, p. 400,) the high sether is also 

 called divine, (cap. 2, p. 392). That which the imaginative 

 Kepler calls moving spirits (animce matrices) in his work, 

 Mysterium cosmographicum(cap. 20, p. 71) is the distorted idea 

 of a force (virtus), whose main seat is in the sun (anima 



