PHYSICAL ann LITERARY. a1 
‘Tr the firft appearances of things are to be 
trufted, there is full as good reafon to affert, 
that the earth draws the ftone, or the mag- 
net the iron, as that the ftone or iron move 
of their own accord. Yet the fuppofition of 
__ one body drawing another body ata diftance, 
without the intervention of other matter, is 
univerfally rejected; and that merely becaufe 
of the natural impoffibility of the thing. 
That a being cannot act where it is not, any 
more than when it is not, isan axiom or 
principle of reafon and common fenfe, and 
not a leflon of experience. And is it not e- 
gually felf-evident, that dead matter can ne- 
ver begin motion of itfelf; far lefs regulate 
its motions according toalaw? If bodies are 
not fenfible of the neighbourhood of other 
’ bodies, of their quantities of matter, and 
| e of their precife diftance from them ; is It tobe 
imagined that they will move themfelves with 
fuch determined degrees of force, correfpond- 
ing to the different quantities of matter and 
different diftances? 
Tur active powers both of attraction and 
 repulGion are of fuch a fort, as could not be 
7 \ exercifed by the bodies themfelves, witheut ei- 
ther diftin&t perceptions of their own fituations 
Q | and 
