PRINCIPLES

OF

A NEW SCIENCE

CHAPTER ONE (a)

NECESSITY OF THE END, AND DIFFICULTY OF THE MEANS TO REDISCOVER A NEW SCIENCE.

I. (b)

Reasons for meditating on this Work.

A small ornamental horizontal divider line with a central flourish.

The Natural Law of Nations is certainly born with the common customs of the same: nor was there ever any nation of Atheists in the World; because they all began from some Religion: and all Religions cast their roots in that desire, which all men naturally have to live eternally (c): which common desire of human nature emerges from a common sense hidden in the depths of the human mind, that human souls are immortal: which sense, as much as it is hidden in its cause, so clearly produces that effect, that in the extreme ailments of death we desire there to be a force superior to nature to overcome them; which is uniquely to be found in a God, who is not Nature itself, but superior to this Nature, that is, an Infinite and Eternal Mind: from which God men wandering, they are

(a) Book instead of Chapter.
(b) First chapter.
(c) eternally.