The laws relative to our embodied state, and our connexion with a material world.
Let us now consider our relation to the material world, and the reciprocal dependence of our body and mind with the chief effects that result from this source.
Communication with the material world necessarily supposes dependence on its laws.
These laws are good.
I. First, it is evident, that relation to or connexion with a sensible world, must consist in a certain dependence on its laws, so as to be variously affected by them with pleasure and pain; or, a certain bodily organization, by means of which, certain perceptions and affections are excited in the mind. Existence would be thrown away upon a material system, if it were not perceived by minds or enjoyed by them. But the bodily fabric which is necessary to our communication with matter, must necessarily be subject to the laws of that matter. Whatever the frame and structure of it may be, or of whatever materials this body is composed, it must be liable to the common laws, to which the whole material part of the creation, to which it is related, is subject. Now by the late discoveries in natural philosophy, it has been proved, that the centripedal and centrifugal forces which hold our mundan system in that perfect order, which it is so beautiful to behold and contemplate, are the best in every respect that can be imagined: insomuch that no alteration can be supposed with regard to them that would not be attended with much greater irregularities and inconveniencies, than all those put together which result from the present laws.
This proved by natural philosophers.
In like manner, with respect to our earth, gravitation, cohesion, fermentation, to which general principles almost all its phenomena are reducible, have been shewn to be excellent laws, and that no others<63> could be substituted in their room, which would not be exceedingly for the worse. In a word, it has been proved, that our mundan system in all its parts is governed by excellent general laws, in so much that all objections that have been made against its constitution and oeconomy, have either taken their rise from ignorance of its real state and frame, and of the laws by which it is actually governed; and consequently only serve to shew the absurdity ofa imaginary theories in natural philosophy; or they really terminate in demanding some change greatly to the worse. But such conclusions quite destroy all objections that can be made against our being related to and connected with the sensible world; for to be related to it, and connected with it, without being subject to its laws, is utterly impossible. It is to depend without dependence: it is to be united without any connexion. But a dependence or a connexion that produces greater good in the whole, must be a good dependence. Let us therefore see what goods, advantages or pleasures arise from our having bodies, and being capable of commerce with a material world.
A material world without being perceived could be of no use.
Without beings capable of enjoying a material world, nature would not be full and coherent.
II. But let it be observed before we proceed, that as a material world cannot be said to have order and beauty; or to be wisely contrived, but with respect to beings, who perceive it, and are affected by it; or cannot indeed be created for any end, but so far as perceptive beings have communication with it: so were there not in nature such a kind of beings as we are, nature could not be full or coherent: there would be a chasm or void in nature which could not but render it deformed and imperfect to the view of any being capable of perceiving it; who hath, like us, any idea of richness, fulness, and perfection in nature. For so are we made, that we cannot represent<64> nature to ourselves as perfect and beautiful, without conceiving it to be full and coherent: we cannot suppose any degree of perfection wanting in the scale of life, that can exist, without being shocked at the thought of such a deficiency, such incompleteness, such a void and breach.
By our commerce with a material world we receive a great many pleasures of the sensitive kind.
Our senses are admirably adjusted to one another, and to our whole frame.
III. But not only is such a being as man necessary to make the gradation in nature full and complete; but the sensible pleasures we are susceptible of by means of our bodily organization, or our senses, do well deserve their place in the scale of life and being. The more pleasures a creature is by nature made capable of, the larger provision is certainly made for its happiness: now the enjoyments we are made capable of receiving from a corporeal world, by means of our sensitive organs, are not a few: the variety of them belonging to any of our senses, as for instance, to the sight or ear, is almost innumerable. And all these senses, with all their appurtenances, are admirably adjusted to one another, to our external condition, and to our whole bodily texture, made up of them, and preserved entire by their equal nourishment and sustentation. Thus, for example, our sight, at the same time that it is capable of receiving considerable assistances from artificial instruments, is wonderfully well adapted to judge of magnitudes, distances, and other tangible qualities; it being by contact and motion only, that the mechanism of the body can suffer any injury. In like manner, all our other senses are very well adjusted to one another, and to our situation, as has been often observed by several philosophers. This is delightfully told by our excellent poet already quoted.
Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, man is not a fly:<65>
Say, what the use, were finer opticks giv’n?
T’ inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav’n.
Or touch, so tremblingly alive all o’er?
To smart and agonize at ev’ry pore.
Or quick effluvia darting thro’ the brain?
Die of a rose in aromatic pain.
If nature thunder’d in his opening ears,
And stunn’d him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that heav’n had left him still
The whisp’ring zephyr, and the purling rill?
Who finds not providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?
Essay on man, Epist. 1.28
But though the pleasures our senses afford us be very many, and far from being despicable in their kind; yet the chief advantages our senses bring us, are, as they are means and instruments of sciences and arts; and the means, occasions and subjects of many excellent virtues.
Our senses are instruments of noble sciences and useful arts.
I. Our communication with the sensible world is not only the source of very considerable enjoyments to us, as sensitive beings; but it is yet a source of more noble pleasures to us, as we are capable of knowledge and imitation.
Of natural philosophy.
And many imitative arts.
By our bodily senses, our minds are rendered capable of contemplating, and of imitating by ingenious arts, many parts of a very wonderful system; many parts of a most beautiful disposition and arrangement of infinitely various objects. For how immense is the variety of the sensible world? Can there be a more delightful, or a more capacious field of study and speculation, than what the riches, the simplicity, the grandeur and perfect order of the natural world afford us? What is greater, or more elevating, than the contemplation of nature, when we are able to take in large views of it, and comprehend its laws? How agreeably do ancient<66> philosophers expatiate upon this topic!a The study of nature, according to them, is the natural food of the soul. And they indeed justly placed a great part of man’s best happiness in contemplating and imitating the regularity, wisdom, goodness and harmony of the sensible