282 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



abie times ? In this way, we may account for the aquafortis once faften- 

 \ii<^ upon iron, and diiT lv;ng it ; but, when the njis hiiprejfa is this way 

 exhau 'ed what account can we give of its leaving the iron, when a 

 piece rf lapis calavdnaris is thrown into the vienjlruuiu^ running to the 

 lapis caldniinans^ and dillulving it ? and then, again, after it has dif- 

 folvLd filver, u iien a p:ece of copper is thrown into the foUition, it lets 

 go the filv:r and < oes to it. The only effedt we can conceive of any 

 in^puHe givtn to body, is to move it in a ftraight line. Nor have we 

 any idea of iis moving in any other dircdion, except by a new 

 impulle given it in another line. Far lefs have we any idea of the 

 fame origmaJ impulfe continuing to make it move, after its motion is 

 once {lopped. If, therefore, thefc fo various movements, and fo 

 often renewed, of the minute particles of bodies, can only be 

 be produced by an immaterial power conilantly operating, 1 fay the 

 fame of greater bodies, even of the celeftial bodies ; and, without 

 forming hypothefes of gravitating and projedile forces, and of com- 

 bined motions thence rel'ulting, I fay, as the antients laid, that thofe 

 bodies are moved, like any thing here on earth, by irmid, guiding and 

 governing their motions, not arbitrarily, or at random, but according 

 to fixed and eilablifhed laws. This is the opinion of Dr Clarke, in 

 the paflage above quoted *', where he rejeds altogether the notion 

 of matter's obeying any laws originally imprefled upon it, and fays, 

 that it is moved by fomething fuperior to matter^ continually exerting 

 on it a certain force or pov.-er, according to certain and determinate 

 laws. And, in another paffage of the fame work t^ he fays flill 

 more appofitely to my prefent purpofe, ' All things that are done in 



* the world, are done either immediately by God himfelf, or by 

 ' created intelligent beings : Matter being evidently not at all capable 



* of any lazus or poivers whatfoevcr, any more than it is capable of 



* intelligence, excepting only this one negative poijuer^ that every 



* part 



* Page 253. 



t Evidence of Natural and Revealed Religion, page 300. fourth edition. 



