And it will be sufficient for the use of life to know the causes
thus imagined, for medicine, mechanics, and in general all the arts
to which the knowledge of physics is of service, have for their end
only those effects that are sensible, and that are accordingly to be
reckoned among the phenomena of nature. [Footnote: "have for their
end only to apply certain sensible bodies to each other in such a
way that, in the course of natural causes, certain sensible effects
may be produced; and we will be able to accomplish this quite as
well by considering the series of certain causes thus imagined,
although false, as if they were the true, since this series is
supposed similar as far as regards sensible effects."-French.]
And lest it should be supposed that Aristotle did, or professed to
do, anything more than this, it ought to be remembered that he
himself expressly says, at the commencement of the seventh chapter
of the first book of the Meteorologies, that, with regard to things
which are not manifest to the senses, he thinks to adduce sufficient
reasons and demonstrations of them, if he only shows that they may
be such as he explains them.
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