XXI. Thus it frequently happens, that men think in one manner, and God operates in another. Men suppose, and they suppose right, that the works of God are all executed with order, and in proportion; but although they suppose well, they reason ill; because they think there is no other order and proportion, than that which comes within the reach of their comprehension. The works of God, it is true are wrought with proportion; but with a sublime proportion, which is much superior to our rules. It is blind temerity in man, to imagine that God in his works, is to conform himself to our human gross ideas of proportions. XXII. It was a confidence in such proportions, that caused Pythagoras to err egregiously in his dimensions of the magnitude, and his calculation of the distance of the heavens, which he thought to compute, by the numerical series of the intervals of music. And others were not much wiser than Pythagoras, who by fancying they had found some special perfection in the number four, chose to stamp it on, and regulate all the operations of nature by it. From hence came the four elements, the four first qualities, the four cardinal points of the globe, the four quarters of the year, and the four humours of the body. SECT. VII. XXIII. If even in those consequences, which to all human appearance, we deduce immediately from the truths which nature herself presents to our senses, we are sometimes liable to be mistaken; what dependance can we place in those, that are founded on principles, which without consulting nature, are established by our fancy? What consequence to all appearance could seem better inferred, than that of the repugnance of nature to a vacuum, founded on the palpable experiment of the water rising in the pump? But by the light of innumerable other experiments, the mistake was discovered; and it was found out, that the true cause of that, and all such-like phænomena, was the weight of the air. XXIV. We see with our eyes, whether we explain the cause of it as proceeding from an intrinsic quality, or from attraction, or from impulse, that gravity precipitates bodies with a swift movement towards the earth. It seems most natural to suppose, by reasoning from the famous axiom, _sicut se habet simpliciter ad simpliciter, ita magis ad magis_, that to a duplicate gravity, there would correspond a duplicate acceleration of motion. But the fact differs widely from this proportion. XXV. It is plain, that air is much more subtle and thin than water. Who from hence, would not infer as an unavoidable consequence, that air must penetrate all bodies which water penetrates? Notwithstanding this, we see that water penetrates paper, which air does not penetrate, or it penetrates it in so small a degree, or so slowly, that we look upon it as next to no penetration at all.