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Sentiments concerning nature with which philosophers were delighted

Table of Contents

Book I.

It being our determination to discourse of Natural Philosophy, we judge it necessary, in the first place and chiefly, to divide the body of philosophy

Chapter XXVIII.

Book II.

Having finished my dissertation concerning principles and elements and those things which chiefly appertain to them, I will turn my pen to discourse o

Chapter XXVIII.

Book III.

In my two precedent treatises having in due order taken a compendious view and given an account of the celestial bodies, and of the moon which stands

Book IV.

Having taken a survey of the general parts of the world, I will take a view of the particular members of it.

Book V

Chapter XXVIII.

Chapter IV.

Whether the World is Eternal and Incorruptible.

Pythagoras [and Plato], agreeing with the Stoics, affirm that the world was framed by God, and being corporeal is obvious to the senses, and in its own nature is obnoxious to destruction; but it shall never perish, it being preserved by the providence of God. Epicurus, that the world had a beginning, and so shall have an end, as plants and animals have. Xenophanes, that the world never had a beginning, is eternal and incorruptible. Aristotle, that the part of the world which is sublunary is subject to change, and there terrestrial beings find a decay.