according to Mr Boyle, has eight different significations. It is used to signify the author of nature, whom the schoolmen call natura naturans, being the same with God. By the nature of a thing we sometimes mean its essence; that is, the attributes which make it what it is, whether the thing be corporeal or not; as when we at- tempt to define the nature of a fluid, of a triangle, or the like. Sometimes we confound that which a man has by nature with what accrues to him by birth; as when we say that such a man is noble by nature. Sometimes we take nature for an internal principle of motion; as when we say that a stone by nature falls to the earth. Sometimes we understand by nature, the established course of things. Sometimes we take nature for an aggregate of powers be- longing to a body, especially a living one; in which sense physicians say that nature is strong, weak, or spent, or that, in such and such diseases, nature left to herself will generally perform the cure. Sometimes we use the term nature for the universe, or whole system of the corporeal works of God; as when it is said of a phoenix, or chimera, that there is no such thing in nature. Sometimes, too, and that most commonly, we express by the word nature, a kind of semi-deity, or other strange kind of imaginary being.