Note c — BOOK II.

This was no very easy Question to be answered by such as held, that all Things were made for Man, as most of the Ancients did; as Aristotle, Seneca, Cicero and Pliny, (to name only some of the chief). And Cicero cites it as the celebrated Chrysippus’s Opinion, Præclare enim Chrysippus, Cætera nata esse Hominum Causâ, & Deorum. De fin. bon. & mal. l. 3. And in his De Nat. Deor. l. 2. fin. he seriously proves the World it self to have been made for the Gods and Man, and all Things in the World to have been made and contrived for the Benefit of Man (parata & inventa ad fructum Hominum, are his Words). So Pliny in his Preface to his 7ᵗʰ Book saith, Nature made all Things for Man; but then he makes a doubt, whether she shewed her self a more indulgent Parent, or cruel Step-Mother, as in Book IV. Chap. 12. Note (b). But since the Works of God have been more discovered, and the Limits of the Universe have been found to be of infinitely greater Extent than the Ancients supposed them; this narrow Opinion hath been exploded. And the Answer will be found easy to these Questions, Why so many useless Creatures? In the Heavens, Why so many fixt Stars, and the greatest part of them scarce visible? Why such Systems of Planets, as in Jupiter, Saturn, &c. (See my Astro-Theology.) In the Earth and Waters, Why so many Creatures of no use to Man?