may have time to fubfide, and a due Æquilibri um be maintain'd, not disturb'd by any fuch rude and violent fhogs, that would ruffle and break all the little Stamina of the Embryon, if it were a making before. Now because all the parts of an undistributed Fluid are either of equal Gravity, or gradually placed and storied according to the difference of it; any concretion that can be supposed to be naturally and mechanically made in fuch a Fluid, must have a like ftructure of its several 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 extinguish these supposed First-born of Nature in their very formation. For fuppofe a Humane Body to be a forming in fuch a Fluid in any imaginable posture, it will never be reconcilable to this Hydrostatical 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 midft. Now what can make the heavier particles of Bone afcend above the lighter ones of Flesh,or depress these below thofe, against the tendency of their own Nature? This would be wholly as miraculous, as the fwim

ming of Iron in Water at the command of Elifha and as impoffible to be, as that the Lead of an Edifice fhould naturally and fpontaneoufly mount up to the Roof, while lighter materials employ themselves beneath it: or that a Statue, like that in Nebuchadnezzar's Vision, whofe Head was of fine and most ponderous Gold, and his Feet of Iron and Clay, should mechanically erect it felf upon them for its Basis.

Secondly, Because this Atheist goes mechanically 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 Corpuscles of Matter having no consciousness of one anothers acting (at least before 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 the feveral 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 muft be, according to Mechanism, a fucceffive and gradual operation: Some few Particles

muft

3

must first be united together, and fo by apposition and mutual connection still more and more by degrees, till the whole Syftem be completed ; and a Fermentation must be excited in some afsignable place, which may expand it felf by its Elastical power; and break through, where it meets with the weakest refiftance; and fo by that fo fimple and mechanical action, may excavate all the various Ducts and Ventricles of the Body. This is the only general account, as mean as it appears to be, that this Machin of an Atheist can give of that fearfull and wonderfull Production. Now to confute thefe Pretences, First, There is that visible Harmony and Symmery in a Humane Body, fuch a mutual communication of every veffel and member of it, as gives an intrinsick evidence; that it was not formed fucceffively, and patch'd up by piecemeal. So uniform and ordering a fyftem with innumerable Motions and Functions, all fo pla-ced and constituted, as never to interfere and clash one with another, and disturb the Oeconomy of the whole, muft needs be afcribed to an Intelligent Artist; and to such an Artist, as did not begin the matter unprepared and at a venture; and when he was put to a Nonplus, pause and hesitate, which way he should pro

ceed;

ceed; but he had firft in his comprehenfive Intellect a complete Idea and Model of the whole Organical Body, before he enter'd upon the Work. But Secondly, if they affirm, That mere Matter by its mechanical Affections without any design or direction could form the Body by fteps and degrees; what member then do they pitch upon for the foundation, and cause of all the reft? Let them fhew us the beginning of this Circle; and the firft Wheel of this Perpetual Motion. Did the Blood first exift, antecedent to the formation of the Heart? But that is to fet the Effect before the Caufe: because all the Blood that we know of, is made in and by the Heart, having the quite different form and qualities of Chyle, before it comes thither. Must the Heart then have been formed and constituted before the Blood was in being? But here a gain, the Subftance of the Heart it self is most certainly made and nourished by the Blood, which is conveyed to it by the Coronary Arteries. And thus it is through the whole fyftem of the Body; every member doth mutually fu ftain and fupply one another; and all are coxtaneous, because none of them can subsist alone. But they will fay, that a little Ferment first making a Cavity, which became the left Ventricle de Forma of the Heart, did thence further expand it felf; tin

and

Cartafius

tione Fæ

and thereby delineate all the Arteries of the Body. Now if fuch a flight and forry business as that, could produce an Organical Body; one might reasonably expect, that now and then a dead lump of Dough might be leven'd into an Animal: for there a like Ferment makes notable Tumors and Ventricles; befides fundry long and small Chanels, which may pass tolerably well for Arteries and Veins. But I pray, in this fuppofed Mechanical Formation, when the Ferment was expanded to the extremites of the Arteries, if it still had any elaftical force remaining, why did it not go on and break through the Receptacle, as other Ferment must be allowed to have done at the Mouth and the Noftrils? There was as yet no membranous Skin formed, that might stop and repell it. Or if the force of it was spent, and did not wheel about and return; what mechanical cause then fhall we affign for the Veins for this Ferment is there fuppofed to have proceeded from the fmall capillary extremities of them to the Great Vein and the Heart; otherwise it had made Valves which would have stopp'd its own paffage. And why did that Ferment, that at firft difperfed it felf from the Great Artery into infinite little ramifications, take a quite contrary method in the making of the Veins, where innumerable