106 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



Democritus and some others, who did not suppose 

 a mind or reason in the frame of things, but attributed 

 the form thereof able to maintain itself to infinite 

 essays or proofs of nature, which they term fortune, 

 seemeth to me (as far as I can judge by the recital and 

 fragments which remain unto us) in particularities of 

 physical causes more real and better inquired than that 

 of Aristotle and Plato ; whereof both intermingled 

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

 as a part of logic, which were the favourite studies re 

 spectively 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 hi that tract. For other 

 wise, keeping their precincts and borders, men are 

 extremely deceived if they think there is an enmity 

 or repugnancy at all between them. For the cause 

 rendered, that the hairs about the eye-lids are for the 

 safeguard of the sight, doth nob impugn the cause 

 rendered, that pilosity is incident to orifices of moisture ; 

 muscosi fontes, &c. Nor the cause rendered, that * the 

 firmness of hides is for the armour of the body against 

 extremities of heat or cold, doth not impugn the cause 

 rendered, that contraction of pores is incident to the 

 outwardest parts, in regard of their adjacence to foreign 

 or unlike bodies : and so of the rest : both causes 

 being true and compatible, the one declaring an in 

 tention, the other a consequence only. Neither doth 

 this call in question, or derogate from divine providence, 

 but highly confirm and exalt it. For as in civil actions 

 he is the greater and deeper politique, 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 thing, and providence draweth forth 

 another, than if he had communicated to particular 

 creatures and motions the characters and impressions 



