Infinite Divisibility of Matter. 57 
ther, that no finite quantity can contain an infinite number of 
parts however small, and of course that matter is com 
parts or atoms-beyond which there can be no subdivision. 
Euler made use of a similar argument to establish the reverse 
of these results, but his premises were unsound. He says, “ who- 
ever is disposed to deny this property of extension, (infinite divis- 
ibility, ) is under the necessity of maintaining that it is possible to 
arrive at last to parts so minute as to be unsusceptible of any fur- 
ther division, because they cease to have extension. Nevertheless, 
all these particles taken together must reproduce the whole by the 
division of which you acquired them, and as the quantity of each 
would be nothing or cipher 0, a combination of ciphers would 
produce quantity, which is manifestly absurd.” Here the petitio 
principii is easily perceptible, for he assumes that because there 
are “parts so minute as to be unsusceptible of any further divi- 
sion,” therefore the “ quantity of each would be nothing or ci- 
vhs 3 
‘These observations may contain nothing new ; the arguments 
may have been advanced by the followers of Wolff, who lost: 
themselves ina labyrinth of monads ; if it be so the seston: 
never met with them may have been only repeating that which 
has appealed to his own understanding with the force of mathe- 
matical demonstration. 
Remarks by a Coadjutor. 
In the accompanying article, the writer makes two attempts to 
disprove the infinite divisibility of matter. He first undertakes 
to point out a case in which the supposition of infinite divisibil- 
ity, as a property of Sees Tai ate eS a 
may be stated thus; 
A Sdinkib eins ii ®-<¢ 
ert ot | 1 
Let two bodies, A and B, begin at the same time to move along 
the right line ABC, from A and B towards C; let the distances 
from A to B, and from B to-C, be each one mile ; and let the ve- 
locity of A be two miles a minute, and that of B, half as great. 
It is evident that at the end of a minute, A will overtake B, at the 
point C. But it is said that while A moves from A to B, B moves 
to D, a point midway between Band C; and while A moves from 
B to D, B moves from D to E; and so on, ad infinitum ; and it 
Vol. xxx1x, No. 1.—April-June, 1840. 8 
