THE SECOND BOOK. 91 



mansion of Uving creatures;&quot; and the like, is well inquired 

 and collected inmetaphysic, but in physic they are impertinent 

 Nay they are indeed, but remoras and hindrances to stay and 

 slug the ship from further sailing; and have brought this to 

 pass, that the search of the physical causes hath been neglected 

 and passed in silence. And, therefore, the natural philosophy 

 of Democritus and some others, who did not suppose a mind 

 or reason in the frame of things, but attributed the form there 

 of able to maintain itself to infinite essays or proofs of Nature 

 which they term fortune, seemeth to me (as far as I can iudze 

 by the recital and fragments which remain unto us) in pa? 

 2ularities of physical causes more real and better inquired 

 than that of Aristotle and Plato ; whereof both intermixed 

 final causes, the one as a part of theology, and the other as a 

 part of logic, which were the favourite studies respectively of 

 both those persons ; not because those final causes are not 

 true and worthy to be inquired, being kept within their own 

 province, but because their excursions into the limits of physical 

 causes hath bred a vastness and solitude in that tract For 

 otherwise keeping their precincts and borders, men are 

 extremely deceived if they think there is an enmity or repug 

 nancy at . ^11 between them. For the cause renderedfthft 



SfASS ab ? Ut the T lid3 are f r the saf eguard of the 

 sight, doth not impugn the cause rendered, that &quot;pilositv is 

 incident to orifices of moisture muscovi fontes, &c.&quot; Nor the 

 cause rendered, that &quot;the firmness of hides is for the armour 

 of the body against extremities of heat or cold,&quot; doth not 

 impugn the cause rendered, that &quot;contraction of pores is 

 incident to the outwardest parts, in regard of their adjacence 

 to foreign or unlike bodies ;&quot; and so of the rest, both causes 

 being true and compatible, the one declaring an intention the 

 other a consequence only. Neither doth this call in question 

 or derogate from Divine Providence, but highly confii-m and 

 exalt it. For as in civil actions he is the greater and deeper 

 pohtique that can make other men the instruments of his will 

 and ends and yet never acquaint them with his purpose, so as 

 they shall do it and yet not know what they do, than he that 

 imparteth his meaning to those he employeth ; so is the wisdom 

 of God more admirable, when Nature intendeth one thin^ and 

 Providence draweth forth another, ihan if He had communicated 

 to particular creatures and motions the characters and im 

 pressions of His Providence. And thus much for metaphysic 



e 



pr P l 

 VIII. (1) Nevertheless, there remaineth yet another part of 



