sible that all the planets
have revolutions about certain remote centres, which I would have any one
explain or make conceivable by the bare essence, or natural powers
depending on the essence of matter in general, without something added to
that essence which we cannot conceive; for the moving of matter in a
crooked line, or the attraction of matter by matter, is all that can be
said in the case; either of which it is above our reach to derive from the
essence of matter or body in general, though one of these two must
unavoidably be allowed to be superadded, in this instance, to the essence
of matter in general. The omnipotent Creator advised not with us in the
making of the world, and His ways are not the less excellent because they
are past finding out....

"In all such cases, the superinducement of greater perfections and nobler
qualities destroys nothing of the essence or perfections that were there
before, unless there can be showed a manifest repugnancy between them; but
all the proof offered for that is only that we cannot conceive how matter,
without such superadded perfections, can produce such effects; which is, in
truth, no more than to say matter in general, or every part of matter, as
matter, has them not, but is no reason to prove that God, if He pleases,
cannot superadd them to some parts of matter, unless it can be proved to be
a contradiction that God should give to some parts of matter qualities and
perfections which matter in general has not, though we cannot conceive how
matter is invested with them, or how it operates by virtue of those new
endowments; nor is it to be wondered that we cannot, whilst we limit all
its operations to those qualities it had before, and would explain them by
the known properties of matter in general, without any such induced
perfections. For if this be a right rule of reasoning, to deny a thing to
be because we cannot conceive the manner how it comes to be, I shall desire
them who use it to stick to this rule, and see what work it will make both
in divinity as well as philosophy, and whether they can advance anything
more in favour of scepticism.

"For to keep within the present subject of the power of thinking and
self-motion bestowed by omnipotent power in some parts of matter: the
objection to this is, I cannot conceive how matter should think. What is
the consequence? Ergo, God cannot give it a power to think. Let this stand
for a good reason, and then proceed in oth