218 On the Measure of 
spoken of this law with great disapprobation,* 
and that although it had been distinctly 
stated by Galileo, nearly a hundred years 
before the time they wrate against it, they 
considered it as a new and a visionary doc- 
trine produced by Leibnitz or his followers, 
for the purpose of controverting the argu- 
ments which had been produced in support of 
the supposed collisions of hard bodies. Galileo 
appears to have been fully sensible of the 
importance of the law of continuity, and to 
have been aware also of the objections which 
might probably be brought against it. In his 
first dialogue he supposes a difficulty to arise 
in the mind of one of the speakers, who states 
it thus ‘ Id est, quod non satis capio, cur 
necesse sit, ut mobile quietem deserens, et 
motum inclinatione naturali subiens, omnes 
transeat gradus precedentis tarditatis, qui 
inter quemcunque certum velocitatis gradum, 
et statum quietis interjecti sunt: To which 
the following remarkable answer is given, 
‘“ Non dixi, nec ausim dicere, nature ac 
Deo impossibile esse, velocitatem illam quam 
dicis, immediaté conferre: sed hoc affirmo, 
quod id natura de facto non prestet. Si vero 
prestaret, ea operatio nature cursum exce- 
* Robins’ tracts, p. 174-5. 
Maclaurin’s Account of 
Sir Isaac Newton’s discoveries, p. 923. 
1 
