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expected that the divine decrees, when discovered, 

 would approve themselves to the human mind as 

 simple and intelligible. 



The Archangel is made to say that God 



" His fabric of the heavens 

 Hath left to their dispute, perhaps to move 

 His laughter at their quaint opinions wide 

 Hereafter; when they come to model heaven 

 And calculate the stars, how they will wield 

 The mighty frame ; how build, unbuild, contrive 

 To save appearances, how gird the sphere 

 With centric and excentric scribbled o'er, 

 Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb." 



Newton went still further ; he felt the necessity 

 of simplicity, and would forego none of the advan- 

 tages to be gained thereby ; but, like others of his time, 

 he was convinced that science must be a discovery of 

 those divine decrees which underlay, and caused, 

 phenomena. To reconcile and combine the two ideas 

 he boldly declared that simplicity is pleasing to the 

 Deity. At the beginning of the third book of his 

 " Principia " he sets forth the " Rules of reasoning in 

 Philosophy," the first of which is, "We are to admit 

 no more causes of natural things than such as are 

 both true and sufficient to explain the appearances," 

 and commenting on this he writes, " To this purpose 

 philosophers (i.e. Aristotle) say that ' Nature does 

 nothing in vain ' ; and more is vain when less will 

 serve. For Nature is pleased with simplicity, and 

 affects not the pomp of superfluous causes." 



