OPINION OF BAXTER. 505 



cause he cannot conceive how it could produce 

 the wonderful phenomena of animal motion, 

 sensation, and thought, unless endowed with in- 

 telligence. This in reality was the opinion of 

 Hippocrates, Galen, Seneca, and Virgil, who 

 maintained that all the operations of nature were 

 governed by the immediate agency of mind 

 " mens agitat molem." The same doctrine was 

 taught by Paracelsus, Van Helmont, Harvey, 

 and Stahl, who, with the ancients, seem to have 

 identified the active principle in nature with 

 the eternal mind of the universe. 



The celebrated Baxter denied the existence of 

 a subtile fluid as the cause of crystallization 

 and planetary motion, because he could not con- 

 ceive how it could produce such effects, unless 

 it knew what it was about. (Immateriality of 

 the Soul, p. 117.) He therefore maintained the 

 vacuum of space, and referred all the pheno- 

 mena of nature to the immediate agency of the 

 Deity. Whether it be more in accordance 

 with reason and piety to believe that all the me- 

 chanical, chemical, and vital changes of matter 

 are effected by the immediate influence of the 

 Supreme Creator, or by the delegated agency 

 of physical laws, I leave to the common sense 

 of mankind. 



From the foregoing brief history, we may 

 readily comprehend why no modern system of 

 medicine has maintained its credit above fifty 



