(5) For instance, suppose anyone
sees a work (which I assume to be not yet completed), and knows that the
aim of the author of that work is to build a house, he will call the
work imperfect; he will, on the other hand, call it perfect, as soon as
he sees that it is carried through to the end, which its author had
purposed for it. (Prf:6) But if a man sees a work, the like whereof he has
never seen before, and if he knows not the intention of the artificer, he
plainly cannot know, whether that work be perfect or imperfect. (7) Such
seems to be the primary meaning of these terms.
(Prf:8) But, after men began to form general ideas, to think out types
of houses, buildings, towers, &c., and to prefer certain types to others,
it came about, that each man called perfect that which he saw agree with
the general idea he had formed of the thing in question, and called
imperfect that which he saw agree less with his own preconceived type
even though it had evidently been completed in accordance with the idea
of its artificer. (Prf:9) This seems to be the only reason for calling
natural phenomena, which, indeed, are not made with human hands, perfect
or imperfect: for men are wont to form general ideas of things natural,
no less than of things artificial, and such ideas they hold as types,
believing that Nature (who they think does nothing without an object) has
them in view, and has set them as types before herself.
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