The worlds olio written by the Right Honorable, the Lady Margaret Newcastle.

Of Nature.

WE find that Nature is stinted her self, as well as Man is stinted by her, for she cannot go beyond such Rules and Principles, which shews there is something more powerfull than Nature, as to govern her as she governs the World: for if she were not limited, there might be new Worlds perpetually, and not a Repetition in this course of one and the same Motion, Mat∣ter, and Form, which makes it very probable, that Nature hath wrought to the height of her Invention, and that she hath plowed and sowed to the length of her Limits, and hath reaped the plentifullest Crops, or at least as plentifull as she can, which makes it very Unlikely, or indeed Impossible, that there should be better and quicker Wits, or sounder Judgements, or deeper Understandings, or exacter Beauties, or purer Virtues, or clearer Truths, than have been in former Ages; and we find by her Acts past, that all was begot from the first-grounded Principles; Variation indeed there may be, but not any thing entirely new: And that there have been as good, if not better, in the same kind before. Neither can we rationally think, but the very same Pat∣terns of all her Principles have been before in the Generality of her Works, although not made known in the Particulars of every of her Works. But every Age are apt to flatter themselves, out of a Natural Self-love, that Nature hath out-wrough her former

Works; which if so, there must be no Perfection, because no End of Increasing: for nothing can be Perfect that hath a Su∣periour, or which is not finished and done; or that Nature, being Imperfect, cannot finish what she hath begun; or that her Principles are Imperfect which she works upon. But we find, that Nature hath a constant and setled course in all she doth; and whatsoever she works, are but Patterns from her old Samplers. But the several Stiches, which are the several Motions, are the same; and the Stuff, which she worketh upon, which is the Matter, is the same; and the Figures she makes, are after the same kind; and we find, through many ages since, that it is the same, as Sa∣lomon saith, Nothing is new, &c.