, that they are of use to mankind, and enable us to draw any general
conclusions, is not the result of any immutable habitudes or relations
between things themselves, but only of God's goodness and kindness to men
in the administration of the world. See sect. 30 and 31 Fourthly, by a
diligent observation of the phenomena within our view, we may discover
the general laws of nature, and from them deduce the other phenomena; I
do not say demonstrate, for all deductions of that kind depend on a
supposition that the Author of nature always operates uniformly, and in a
constant observance of those rules we take for principles: which we
cannot evidently know.

108. THREE ANALOGIES.--Those men who frame general rules from the
phenomena and afterwards derive the phenomena from those rules, seem
to consider signs rather than causes. A man may well understand
natural signs without knowing their analogy, or being able to say
by what rule a thing is so or so. And, as it is very possible to
write improperly, through too strict an observance of general grammar
rules; so, in arguing from general laws of nature, it is not impossible
we may extend the analogy too far, and by that means run into mistakes.

109. As in reading other books a wise man will choose to fix his thoughts
on the sense and apply it to use, rather than lay them out in grammatical
remarks on the language; so, in perusing the volume of nature, it seems
beneath the dignity of the mind to affect an exactness in reducing each
particular phenomenon to general rules, or showing how it follows from
them. We should propose to ourselves nobler views, namely, to recreate
and exalt the mind with a prospect of the beauty, order. extent, and
variety of natural things: hence, by proper inferences, to enlarge our
notions of the grandeur, wisdom, and beneficence of the Creator; and
lastly, to make the several parts of the creation, so far as in us lies,
subservient to the ends they were designed for, God's glory, and the
sustentation and comfort of ourselves and fellow-creatures.

110. The best key for the aforesaid analogy or natural Science will be
easily acknowledged to be a certain celebrated Treatise of Mechanics. In
the entrance of which justly admired treatise, Time, Space, and Motion
are distinguished into absolute and relative, true and apparent,
mathematical and vulgar; which distinction, as it is at large explained
by the author, does suppose these quantities to have an e