rity broke through thofe Membranes, and shifted for themselves. I fay, he ought to acquaint us which of these he is for, or bring a new explication of his own; and not require Us to prove the Negative, That a Spontaneous production of Mankind, neither warranted by example, nor defended by reason, nevertheless may not possibly have been true. This is a very unreasonable demand, and we might juftly put him off with such an answer as this; That there are several things, which all men in their wits do disbelieve, and yet none but madmen will go about to disprove. But to fhew him how much we endeavour to fatisfie and oblige him, I will venture once for his fake to incurr the cenfure of some persons for being elaborately trifling. For with refpect to the most of Mankind, fuch wretched absurdities are more wifely contemn'd than confuted; and to give them a serious answer, may only make them look more confiderable.

First then, I take it for granted by him, That there were the fame Laws of Motion, and the like general Fabrick of the Earth, Sea and Atmosphere, at the beginning of Mankind, as there are at this day. For if any Laws at firft were once settled and conftituted; like those of the Medes and Perfians, they are never to be reverfed. To violate and infringe them, is the fame as what we call Miracle;

and doth not found very Philofophically out of the mouth of an Atheist. He must allow therefore, that Bodies were endowed with the fame affections and tendencies then as ever fince, and that if an Ax2 K. 5. 6. head be fuppofed to float upon water, which is fpecifically much lighter than it; it had been fuperna tural at that time, as well as in the days of Elisha. And this is all that I defire him to acknowledge at prefent. So that he may admit of those Arguments as valid and conclufive against his Hypothefis, that are fairly drawn from the prefent powers of Matter, and the visible conftitution of the World.

Now that we may come to the point; All Matter is either Fluid or Solid, in a large acceptation of the words, that they may comprehend even all the middle degrees between extreme Fixedness and Coherency, and the most rapid inteftine motion of the Particles of Bodies. Now the most cavilling Atheist must allow, that a folid inanimate Body, while it remains in that ftate, where there is none, or a very small and inconfiderable change of Texture, is wholly incapable of a vital production. So that the first Humane Body, without Parents and without Creator, if fuch an one ever was, must have naturally been produced in and conftituted by a Fluid. And because this Atheist goes mechanically to work; the univerfal Laws of Fluids must have been

rigidly

des de In

bumide, lib. 1.

Stevin des

Elements

tiques.

rigidly observed during the whole process of the Formation. Now this is a Catholick Rule of Sta- Archimeticks; That if any Body be bulk for bulk heavier fidentibus than a Fluid, it will fink to the bottom of that Flu id; and if lighter, it will float upon it; having part of it felf extant, and part immerfed to fuch a Hydroftadeterminate depth, as that so much of the Fluid as is equal in Bulk to the immerfed part, be equal in Gravity to the whole. And confequently if feveral portions of one and the fame Fluid have a different fpecifick gravity, the heavier will always (in a free veffel) be gradually the lower; unless violently fhaken and blended together by external concuffion. But that cannot be in our present case. For I am unwilling to affront this Atheist so much, as to fuppofe him to believe, that the firft organical Body might poffibly be effected in some Fluid portion of Matter, while its Heterogeneous parts were jumbled and confounded together by a Storm, or Hurricane, or Earthquake. To be fure he will rather have the primitive Man to be produced by a long process in a kind of digefting Balneum, where all the heavier Lees may have time to subside, and a due Equilibrium be maintain'd, not disturb'd by any fuch rude and violent fhocks, that would ruffle and break all the little Stamina of the Embryon, if it were a making before. Now because all the parts

P 2

of

of an undisturb'd Fluid are either of equal Gravity, or gradually placed and ftoried according to the differences of it; any concretion that can be fuppofed to be naturally and mechanically made in fuch a Fluid, muft have a like ftructure of its feveral parts; that is, either be all over of a fimilar Gravity, or have the more ponderous parts nearer to its Bafis. But there need no more conceffions than this, to extinguifh these supposed First-born of Nature in their very formation. For suppose a Humane Body to be a forming in such a Fluid in any imaginable posture, it will never be reconcileable to this Hydroftatical Law. There will be always fomething lighter beneath, and something heavier above; because Bone, or what is then the Stuff and Rudiments of Bone,the heaviest in fpecie,will be ever in the midst. Now what can make the heavier particles of Bone ascend above the lighter ones of Flesh, or depress these below those, against the tendency of their own Nature? This would be wholly as miraculous, as the swimming of Iron in Water at the command of Elisha, and as impoffible to be, as that the Lead of an Edifice should naturally and spontaneously mount up to the Roof, while lighter materials employ themselves beneath it: or that a Statue, like that in Nebuchadnezzar's Vision, whose Head was of fine and most ponderous Gold, and his Feet of ligh

ter

goes

mechanical

ter materials, Iron and Clay, should mechanically erect it felf upon them for its Basis. Secondly, Because this Atheist ly to work, he will not offer to affirm, That all the parts of the Embryon could according to his explication be formed at a time. This would be a fupernatural thing, and an effectual refutation of his own Principles. For the Corpufcles of Matter having. no consciousness of one anothers acting (at least be fore or during the Formation; as will be allowed by that very Atheist, that attributes Reason and Perception to them, when the Formation is finished), they could not consent and make a compact together, to carry on the work in several places at once;. and one party of them be forming the Brain, while another is modelling the Heart, and a third delineating the Veins. No, there must be, according to Mechanism, a fucceffive and gradual operation: Some few Particles must first be united together, and fo by appofition and mutual connexion still more and more by degrees, till the whole System be completed: and a Fermentation must be excited in fome affignable place, which may expand it self by its Elaftical power; and break through, where it meets with the weakest resistance; and so by that fo fimple and mechanical action, may excavate all the various Ducts and Ventricles of the Body. This

is