The sagacious Kepler, for so he is called even by the roost modem writers,' appears to have had a conception of this great truth ; but as he was more an astronomer than a philosopher, he saw this truth only partially, and be rather embraced it as subservient to his own astronomical opinions, than as forming an essential part of the true theory of the universe. Bat from what 1 have seen of the writings of Kepler, I have no doubt, if he had lived in the time of the Greeks, or if he hud made the stody of the works of Plato and Aristotle the business of his life, be would have become an adept in, and an illustrious and zealous champiou of their philosophy. Kepler then Cm Hanno- Mundi, lib. 4, p. 158) says, " That he docs not oppose the dogma, that there is a soul of the he shall say nothing about it kt that book. He adds, that if there is such a soul, it must reside in the centre of the world, which, according to him, is the sun, and from theoce by the communication of the rays of light, which are in the place of spirits in an animated body, is propagated into all the amplitude of the world."* In the following passages also be confidently asserts that the earth has a soul. For he says, " That the globe of the earth is a body such as is that of some animal ; and that what its own soul is to an animal, that the sublunary nature which he investigates will be to the earth.'" He adds, " That he sees for the most part every thing which proceeding from the body of an animal testifies that there it a soul in it, proceeds also from the body of the earth. For as the animated body produces in the super- ficies of the skin hairs, thus also the earth produces [on its surface] plants and trees ; and as in the
and marine monsters are produced. As the animated body likewise produces tears, mucus, and the recrement of the can, and sometimes gam from the pustules of the face, thus also the earth pro-
■ Dr. Or* gory, in the TOth proposition of.lbe fint book af hi< Element* of Aitronomy, aayi of Kepler, " Tint hi, archetypal ratio, geometrical conciamtin, and harmonic proportions, »bow »urh a fore* of geniui at u not to be found iaaay of the writari of physical attfoaeasy before him. So that Jeremiah Hovtoz, a very competent jodgc of tbeae mat- tan, though a littla avarw to Kapler, in the beginning af his aatrotwarical atadiea, after baring in rail tried other.,
jnUtftdman aSewaU mri»U staisrt I mm, aUl kirn great, aumt, «■ ew» -wuiJumf »r< ; \vu* k£*U to b. r«W aW tAe ■rAoie (riie 4 pHUHphm. Him aJ«« I* tat 6«r* nag a/.-f/tm ,Um, tkc pkiwpAer, read; Mag aortal «/ tUf, thai *<•*• hat Keller hwaUthawa."
I qaate this passage, aat from UV ju.toeai of the encomium it contaias; for it is eatraragant, and by no menu true,
Kepler.
1 " El primum qnidem de anima lotiiin unireni eUi non rcpngno, nihil tamen hoc libro IV. dicam. ViJrtui emoi (ai cat tali* aliqua) in ccntro mondi, quod mihl »ol eat, retidere, indeque in omnem eju araplitudiucm cammercio radioruiu iocia, qai lint toco aptriuiuin in corpora animali propagati."
' •' DaealoM t«r« riohm rale eonm eriL ooala ~i aJiron -oWi, , — t— eat aua aaraaa, hoc erit tclluri
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XX INTRODUCTION.
duces amber and bitumen. At the bladder too produces urine, thus likewise mountain* pour forth rivers. And as the body produces excrement of a sulphureous odour, and crepitus which may als* be inflamed, so the earth produces sulphur, subterranean fires, thunder, and lightning. And as in the veins of an animal blood is generated, and together with it sweat which is ejected out of the body, so in the veins of the earth, metals, and fossils, and a rainy vapour are generated.- ■ And in cap. 7, p- 162, after having shown that there is in the earth Ibe tense of touching, that it respire*}, tad is subject in certain parts to languors, mid internal vicissitudes of the viscera, and that subterranean heat proceeds from the soul of the earth, he adds, " That a certain image of the zodiac is resplend- ent in this soul, and therefore of the whole nrinament, and is the bond of the sympathy of things
Bishop Berkeley also was by no weans hostile to this opinion, that the world it one great , as is evident from the following extract from his Siris, (p. 131).
" Blind fate and blind chance are at bottom much the same thine, than the other- Such is the mutual relation, connect** world, that they seem, 4* it were, animated and held together by one soul : and such is their harmony, order, and regular course, as shows the soul to be governed and directed by a mind. It was an opinion of remote antiquity that the world was an animal. If we may trust the llermaic writings, die Egyptians thought ail thing's did partake of life. This opinion was also 10 general and current : Greeks, that Plutarch asserts aD others held the world to be an animal, and governed by
nil bodies within itself, could not be touched or sensibly affected from without ; yet it is plain they attributed to it an inward -sense and fueling, as well as appetites and aversions ; and that from all the various tones, actions, and passions of the universe, they supposed one symphony, one animal act and life to result.
" Ianiblichus declares the world to be one animal, in which the parts, however distant each from other, are nevertheless related and connected by one common nature. And be tenches, what is
' " Vidrtiam plereqne omnia, qu* ex corpore animantie proveaieatia, testaator animaiA in Hlo ine*jr, proyeoirr riiin n teJiuri* corpora. Ut ecira corpus in ruin tuperticie pilom, sic terra plaalae arboresqoc prolVrt; iaqoc lis ibi pedtenfi, hie crocs, cicada*, variaqae insect* et owoatra marina nascontiir : et at corpus lacbryraas, blaansm, anritim<iu« r.fremrnta, est iibi et gunni cx faciei paalolia, tic telle* electron, bitamro: Dtqua vesica ariaaai, sie enonlra flumma et at carpus axcTeasentam aalpharei •dorU, crepitaiqae, qui etiaio iefiamman potinot, tic terra tolpbar, ignes
• " Retacet igitarlaa t7o>f»Uua; reran estlcstia
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I KTtOOVCTION. ixi
also a roc ei red iMm of «he Pythagoreans and Platonic*, (bat there is no chasm in nature, bat a chain or >cal« of beings rising bj gentle uninterrupted gradations from the lowest to the highest, each nature being informed and perfected by the participation of a higher. Aa air becomei igneous, ao the purest fire becomes animal, and the animal soul become* intellectual, which is to be understood, not of la* change of «m nature iato another, but of the connection of differ eot natures, each lower nature being, according to those philosophers, aa it were, a receptacle or object for the next above tt to reside and act m.
u It is also the doctrine of Platonic philosophers, that intellect is the very life of living things, die first principle and esemplar of all, from whence, by different degrees, are derived the inferior classes of life ; fir* the rational, then Ike sensitive, after that the vegetable, but so a* m the rational animal there is still somewhat intellectual, again in the sensitive there is somewhat rational, and in the vegetable somewhat sensitive, and lastly in mixed bodies, as metals aud mineral*, somewhat of vegetation. By 'which means the whole is thought to be more perfectly connected. Which doe- trine implies that all the faculties, instincts, and motions of inferior beings, in their several
" Both Stoics and Platonics held the world to be alive, though sometimes it be mentioned as a sentient animal, sometimes as a plant or vegetable. Hut in this, notwithstanding what has been surmised by some learned men, there stem) to be no atheism. For to long a* the world it sup- posed to be quickened by elementary fire or spirit, which it itself animated by son/, and directed by understanding, it follows that all pmrtt thereof originally depend upon, and may be reduced unto, the tame indivisible stem or principle, to wit, a tupreme mind; which it the concurrent doctrine of Pulkaporeans Platonics and Stoici "
*^n^n*n * _J 9 *> S } • u"
Compare now the Newtonian with this theory, that the heavenly bodies are vitalized bv their informing souls, that their orderly morion is the result of this vitality, and that the planets move harmonically round the sun, not as if urged by a centripetal force, but from an animated tendency to the principle and fountain of their right, and from a desire of partaking as largely as possible of his influence and power, in the former theory all the celestial morions are the effect of violence, in the latter they are all natural. Hie former is attended with insuperable difficulties, the biter, when the principle on which it is founded is admitted, with none. And the former is unscientific and merely hypothetical ; but the latter is the progeny of the most accurate science, and is founded
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1 XTKODfCTION.
I have said diat I should prove from the testimony of the Apostle Paul, that the Jews were not consistent in confounding angels properly so called with Gods. And this appears to me to be evident , in the first place from the following passage in Hebrews ii. v.S.mvru nwpjn asmjf/rssvcu rtoftuma; ?"!,"«» ••"'i **f « f"I « ♦«uwft»«r to fStoropom ytynmsu. This in the English version is erro- neously rendered; " Tliroogh faith we understand, that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen, were not made of things which do appear." I say this is erro- neously translated, because in the first place, the world* is evidently a forced interpretation of «(»v«{ ; and even admitting it is not, leaves the passage very ambiguous, from the uncertainty to what worlds Paul alludes. If we adopt agei, which is the general sense of the word in the New Testament, we shall indeed avoid a forced and ambiguous interpretation, but we shall rentier the meaning of the Apostle trifling in the extreme. For as he his elsewhere said, « that all things were framed by the word of God," what particular faith does it require to believe, that by the same word he framed the ages ?
In the second place, from the definition of faith, given in the first verse of this chapter, that it is « the evidence of things not teen," it is clear, that Paul is speaking in this passage of something invisible. Since then eumac is neither worlds nor ages, what shall we say it is ? I answer, the (tones of the Valentinians. And agreeably to this, the whole passage should be translated as follows : " 13v faith we understand, that the stones were framed bv the word of God, in order that things which are seen, might be generated from such as do not appear (i. e. from things invisible)." Every one who is much conversant with Greek authors, must certainly be convinced that «; t» means m order that ; and Bishop Pearson translates as I have done the latter part of this verse.
Now we learn from the second book of In-nxus against the heretics, that according to the Valentinians, all created things are the images of the (tones, resident m the pleroma, or fulness of deity. And does it not clearly follow from the above version, that according to. Paul too, the icoues arc the exemplars of visible or created things i To which we may add, that this sense of the passage clearly accords with the assertion that " faith is the evidence of things not seen." For here the things which do not appear are the aones; these, according to the Valentinians, subsisting in deity. So that from our version, Paul might say with great propriety, that " we understand by faith, that the (tones were framed by the word of God, in order that things which are seen, might be generated from such as do not appear," for this naturally follows from his definition of faith.
1 farther add, that among these tones of the Valentinians were wuj, fU»s, cr/ys, «A,«.-«,