merges this multitude of divinities in a single God, who made the whole
universe in the beginning, and guides and carries on its phaenomena by
his continued action, or, as others think, only modifies them from time
to time by special interferences.

The mode of thought which M. Comte terms Metaphysical, accounts for
phaenomena by ascribing them, not to volitions either sublunary or
celestial, but to realized abstractions. In this stage it is no longer
a god that causes and directs each of the various agencies of nature:
it is a power, or a force, or an occult quality, considered as real
existences, inherent in but distinct from the concrete bodies in which
they reside, and which they in a manner animate. Instead of Dryads
presiding over trees, producing and regulating their phaenomena, every
plant or animal has now a Vegetative Soul, the [Greek: Threptikè phygè]
of Aristotle. At a later period the Vegetative Soul has become a Plastic
Force, and still later, a Vital Principle. Objects now do all that they
do because it is their Essence to do so, or by reason of an inherent
Virtue. Phaenomena are accounted for by supposed tendencies and
propensities of the abstraction Nature; which, though regarded as
impersonal, is figured as acting on a sort of motives, and in a manner
more or less analogous to that of conscious beings. Aristotle affirms a
tendency of nature towards the best, which helps him to a theory of many
natural phaenomena. The rise of water in a pump is attributed to
Nature's horror of a vacuum. The fall of heavy bodies, and the ascent of
flame and smoke, are construed as attempts of each to get to its
_natural_ place. Many important consequences are deduced from the
doctrine that Nature has no breaks (non habet saltum). In medicine the
curative force (vis medicatrix) of Nature furnishes the explanation of
the reparative processes which modern physiologists refer each to its
own particular agencies and laws.