XIX. If the rules deduced from experimental observations are so fallible,
that it is absolutely necessary in order to avoid all error, to pursue
the thread of them so scrupulously, that reason should not venture to
advance a step, without the light of an experiment appropriated to the
business it is in search of; I say, if these rules are not to be relied
on, what confidence can we place in those maxims, which derive their
origin from our arbitrary ideas?
XX. Nature conforms to, and is governed by the idea of its great
artificer, not by that of man; and it is strange temerity in man, to
presume he can comprehend the idea of such an artificer. I have sometimes
thought, that if we were told, that there were numbers of those luminous
bodies in the heavens which we call stars, although we could not see
them, every one would imagine, such a disposition and collocation of them
in the sphere, as best suited his own fancy. One would conceive them
distributed into various regular sets of figures, such as triangular,
hexangular, circular, &c. which formed so many different constellations;
another, that they were composed of a beautiful suit, of well ranged and
harmonious groups; another, that they were disposed after the manner of
flowers, which he had seen growing in parterres in some garden; another,
that they were formed in such a position, as resembled the shape of
various images, either mystic or natural. In fact, there would be no
body, that would not attribute to them some most beautiful resemblance,
or imitation, of those things which he had ever seen, that seemed most
pleasing to him, either in art, or nature. Notwithstanding which,
they would all deceive themselves, and be greatly surprised, upon the
firmament afterwards being displayed to their view, to find the stars
placed and ranged in a position, quite different and distinct from all
they had imagined.