Experimental philosophy, in three books containing new experiments microscopical, mercurial, magnetical : with some deductions, and probable hypotheses, raised from them, in avouchment and illustration of the now famous atomical hypothesis / by Henry Power ...

CHAP. IV.

That the World was not made Primarily, nor Solely for the use of Man, nor in subserviency unto Him and his Faculties.

AS I would not derogate from the Greatness and Eminency of Man (as being a very Noble Crea∣ture;) so I would not have him arrogate too much to himself: For though it may be a pious, and morally good conception, To think that the whole world was made for him, yet I am sure 'tis no real and Physical Truth.

For first, How many glorious Bodies of vast Bulks, and immense Distances, have appeared, nay, and may yet appear to future ages (as Comets and New Stars) which are now gone and vanish'd again, which no mor∣tal man ever understood the reasons and causes of, nor received no good nor evil, either before or since their appearances? Nay, How many such Comets may have been near the Sun, whose first rise, continuation, and disappearance may have been made in six moneths time, of which (by reason of the Sun's vicinity to them) we could never see nor know any thing? Who can be so irrational, as to think that those innumerable compa∣ny of Stars (with which the Via Lactea is powdred) and many other parts of Heaven are throng'd (as the Pleia∣des) in which very Subconstellation I have seen above 20. Stars of a considerable Magnitude, and lesser ones

innumerable, also the Hyades, the Stellae Nebulosae, &c. were ever made for the use of Us and our Earth, since they are at that immense distance, and invisible to our eyes; and had remain'd eternally so, had not the incom∣parable invention of Telescopes relieved our eye-sight herein? Nay, to come nearer, Who can imagine that any of the primary Planets were wholly designed for the service of Us and our Earth; whereas, if most of them were pluck'd out of the Heavens, we should no more feel the want of them, than the Countrey Swain that already knows of no such Wanderers? What then must we think of the Secondary Planets, as the Circum-Saturnian, and the four Jovialists, which are not onely indiscernable by us, and therefore were never designed for our use, but also have their peculiar Motion about their Primary Planets (which they orderly and punctu∣ally attend) which shews other ends that God and Na∣ture has designed them for, to wit, to be as wholly Sub∣servient to their Central Planets of Saturn and Jupiter, as the Moon is to us? Lastly, Who is there that knows not the vast disproportion 'twixt this Speck of Earth, and the immense Heavens, how that it is less than the smal∣lest Mote or Atom, which we see to hover and play in the Sun's beams, in comparison of the Fixed Stars? So that if one stood but in the Firmament, it could never be seen at all; and if it were annihilated, would never be miss'd, being so small and inconsiderable a portion of the Creation: Nay, our Modern Philosophers have found, That not onely the Earth, but the whole Orbis Magnus (which is the Earth's Annual Circle it describes about the Sun) is but a Point, in regard of the immense distance of the Fixed Stars. Nay, the Noble and Ela∣stical Soul of Des-Cartes, that has stretch'd it self yet a

pin higher, has done the Heavens and Upper World more right yet, as to the Magnificent vastness of its Expansion, and has shown us that every Fixed Star is a Sun, and is set in the Centre of a Vortex, or Planetary System, as ours is, and that they are as far remote one off another, as ours is off them; and that all our whole Pla∣netary Vortex shrinks almost into nothing, if compared to those innumerable Systems above us. What are we then but like so many Ants or Pismires, that toyl upon this Mole-hill, and could appear no otherwayes at di∣stance, but as those poor Animals, the Mites, do to us through a good Microscope, in a piece of Cheese?

Let us not therefore pride our selves too much in the Lordship of the whole Universe, 'tis more, I am sure, than we could challenge from our Creatour, that he hath made us such Noble Creatures as we are, that he hath given us such a large Inheritance, as the whole Globe of the Earth, that he hath Subjugated all things therein to our use and service; and lastly, that he hath endued our Souls with such spiritual and prying faculties, that we can attempt and reach at the Superiour and more myste∣rious works of his Creation, and therein to admire those things we are not capable to understand. As for the Earth being the Centre of the World, 'tis now an opini∣on so generally exploded, that I need not trouble you nor my self with it. And, indeed, what need I take pains to refute that which is but gratìs dictum, and which he neither hath, nor all the Peripateticks in the world can ever prove. Let us first see him do that, and then you shall see what I am able to say to it.