re.

and gener efecretion e perhaps mberlefsi

y the young the partic ) to be of the pores unt for the but this pha tion. The me like cal pirit or fire to groffer p fupports t peculiar com to be effected

itfelf canne refore throug

53.

the niceft and fineft ftrainers of an animal or vege table.

245. The ancients had fome general conception of attracting and repelling powers (q) as natural principles. Galilæi had particularly confidered the attraction of gravity, and made fome difcovery of the laws thereof. But Sir Ifaac Newton by his fingular penetration, profound knowledge in geometry and mechanics, and great exactnefs in experiments, hath caft a new light on natural fcience. The laws of attraction and repulfion were in many inftances discovered, and firft discovered, by him. He fhewed their general extent, and therewith, as with a key, opened feveral deep fecrets of nature, in the knowledge whereof he seems to have made a greater progrefs, than all the fects of corpufcularians together had done before him. Nevertheless, the principle of attraction itself is not to be explained by physical or corporeal causes.

246. The Cartefians attempted to explain it by the nifus of a fubtil element, receding from the center of its motion, and impelling groffer bodies towards it. Sir Ifaac Newton in his later thoughts feems (as was before obferved) to have adopted somewhat not altogether foreign from this notion, afcribing that to his elaftic medium (r) which Defcartes did to his second element. But the great men of antiquity refolved gravity into the immediate action of an intelligent incorporeal being. To which alfo Sir Ifaac Newton himself attests and subscribes, although he may perhaps fometimes be thought to forget himself, in his manner of speaking of phyfical agents, which in a strict fenfe are none at all; and in fuppofing real forces to exift in bodies, in

which, to fpeak truly, attraction and fhould be confidered only as tendencies o that is, as mere effects, and their laws motion.

247. Though it be fuppofed the chie of a natural philofopher to trace out ca the effects, yet this is to be underftod agents (s) but of principles, that is, of c parts, in one fenfe, or of laws or rules, in In ftrict truth all agents are incorporeal, a are not properly of phyfical confiderati Aftronomer, therefore, the Mechanic, o mift, not as fuch, but by accident only real causes, agents or efficients. Neith feem, as is fuppofed by the greateft of n philofophers, that the true way of prod their science is, from known motions in investigate the moving forces. Forafmud is neither corporeal, nor belongs to any thing (t); nor yet to be discovered by ex or mathematical reafonings, which reach than discernible effects, and motions in thir and moved.

248. Vis or force is to the foul, what is to the body, faith faint Auguftin, in concerning the quantity of the Soul; an force there is nothing done or made, and co ly there can be no agent. Authority is cide in this cafe. Let any one confult hi tions and reason, as well as experience, c the origin of motion, and the respective properties, and differences of foul and body will, if I mistake not, evidently perceive, is nothing active in the latter. Nor are th

agents or corporeal forces, which make the particles of bodies to cohere. Nor is it the bufinefs of experimental philofophers to find them out.

249. The mechanical philofopher, as hath been already obferved, inquires properly concerning the rules and modes of operation alone, and not concerning the cause, forafmuch as nothing mechanical is or really can be a cause (u). And although a mechanical or mathematical philofopher may speak of abfolute space, abfolute motion, and of force as exifting in bodies, caufing fuch motion and proportional thereto; yet what these forces are, which are fuppofed to be lodged in bodies, to be impressed on bodies, to be multiplied, divided, and communicated from one body to another, and which feem to animate bodies like abftract fpirits or fouls, hath been found very difficult, not to fay impoffible, for thinking men to conceive and explain, as may be feen by confulting Borellus De vi percuffionis, and Torricelli in his Lezioni academiche, among other authors.

250. Nor, if we confider the proclivity of mankind to realize their notions, will it feem ftrange that mechanic philofophers and geometricians fhould, like other men, be misled by prejudice, and take mathematical hypotheses for real beings exifting in bodies, fo far as even to make it the very aim and end of their science to compute or measure those phantoms; whereas it is very certain that nothing in truth can be measured or computed, befide the very effects or motions themselves. Sir Ifaac Newton asks, have not the minute particles of bodies certain forces or powers by which they act on

(u) 236, 247

*

This fubject is handled at large in my Latin tract De motu, published above twenty years ago.

one

one another, as well as on the particle for producing moft of the phænomena But in reality, thofe minute particles ar ted according to certain laws of natur other agent, wherein the force exifts them, which have only the motion; w in the body moved, the Peripatetics ri to be a mere paffion, but in the mover or act.

251. It paffeth with many, I know that mechanical principles give a clear fo phænomena. The Democritic hypot doctor Cudworth, doth much more and intelligibly folve the phænomena, Aristotle and Plato. But things rightly perhaps it will be found not to folve an non at all. For all phænomena are, t ly, appearances in the foul or mind; never been explained, nor can it be exp external bodies, figures and motions duce an appearance in the mind. Tho therefore, do not solve, if by folving is ing the real, either efficient or final cau ances, but only reduce them to genera

252. There is a certain analogy, co uniformity in the phænomena or appea ture, which are a foundation for gener thefe are a grammar for the understan ture, or that series of effects in the v whereby we are enabled to foresee wh to pass, in the natural courfe of thing obferves, in his third Ennead, that t faging is in fome fort. the reading of r denoting order, and that so far forth a tains in the universe, there may be And in reality, he that foretells the m

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will come Plotinus art of preural letters nalogy obiticination. tions of the pla

planets, or the effects of medicines, or the refult, of chemical or mechanical experiments, may be faid to do it by natural vaticination.

253. We know a thing when we understand it : and we understand it, when we can interpret or tell what it fignifies. Strictly the fenfe knows nothing. We perceive indeed founds by hearing, and characters by fight but we are not therefore faid to underftand them. After the fame manner, the phæ nomena of nature are alike vifible to all: but all have not alike learned the connexion of natural things, or understand what they fignify, or know how to vaticinate by them. There is no question, faith Socrates, in Theæteto, concerning that which is agreeable to each perfon; but concerning what will in time to come be agreeable, of which all men are not equally judges. He who foreknoweth what will be in every kind, is the wifeft. According to Socrates, you and the cook may judge of a difh on the table equally well; but while the dish is making, the cook can better foretell what will enfue from this or that manner of compofing it. Nor is this manner of reasoning confined only to morals or politics; but extends alfo to natural science.

254. As the natural connexion of figns with the things fignified is regular and conftant, it forms a fort of rational discourse (a), and is therefore the immediate effect of an intelligent caufe. This is agreeable to the philofophy of Plato and other ancients. Plotinus indeed faith, that which acts naturally is not intellection, but a certain power of moving matter, which doth not know, but only do. And it must be owned, that, as faculties are multiplied by philofophers according to their operations, the will may be diftinguished from the intellect.