The workman does not usually make his own tools. This example of the workman and his tool, a favourite with St Thomas, goes beyond the domain of physical nature, and therefore is in point. But, as I have already observed, the instances which physical nature yields are not of subordinate, but of co-ordinate action. That prime minister of creation, the corpus coeleste, or primum mobile, respected and constantly referred to till the end of the sixteenth century, has gone finally out of office, and with it the primacy and commanding influence of heavenly over earthly bodies. Physical forces in the heavens above and on the earth beneath make together a republic, not a feudal monarchy.

Of God and His Creatures: 3.70