the Mind of Man, my carefull choice made very large defalkations; insisting rather upon such things as might be otherwise, and yet are far better as they are, then upon such as were necessary, and could not be otherwise. As for example, When I consider'd the distance of the Sun, I did not conceive that his not being placed so low as the Moon, or so high as the fixed Stars, was any great argument of Providence, because it might be reply'd, that it was necessary it should be betwixt those two distances, else the Earth had not been habitable, and so mankinde might have waited for a Being, till the agitation of the Matter had wrought things into a more tolerable fitness or posture for their production.
Nor simply is the annual Motion of the Sun, or rather of the Earth, any argument of Divine Providence, but as necessary as a piece of wood's being carried down the stream, or straws about a whirl-pool. But the Laws of her Motion are such that they very manifestly convince us of a Providence; and therefore I was fain to let go the former, and insist more largely upon the latter.
Nor thought I it fit to Rhetoricate in proposing the great variety of things, and precellency of one above another; but to press close upon the design and subordination of one thing to another; shewing that, whereas the rude motions of the Matter (a thousand to one) might have cast it otherwise, yet the productions of things are such as our own Reason cannot but approve to be best, or as we our selves would have design'd them.
8. And so in the consideration of Animals, I do not so much urge my Reasons from their diversity and subsistence, (though the framing of Matter into the bare subsistence of an Animal is an Effect of no less Cause then what has some skill and counsel;) but what I drive at is, the exquisite contrivance of their parts, and that their structure is far more perfect then will merely serve for their bare existence and continuance in the world: which is an undeniable Demonstration that they are the effects of Wisdome, not the results of Fortune or fermented Matter.
