3^6. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



cafe of every man in later times, who has pretended to philofophife 

 without the afliftance of the antients. And it is well if they have dif- 

 covered any part of the truth, and have not been altogether in an er- 

 ror, while they thought they were making great difcovcries. lliis is 

 not the cafe with Mr Leibnitz ; for he was right in two things ; Jirfl^ 

 that there was order, or firji and laj}^ in ti7}ie ; ^nd^ fecoiulfy^ that it ap- 

 plied only to things in fucceflion : But he did not know, that the 

 idea of time was taken from jnotio?i, and that, though it was nect:flary 

 to obferve the order of the nwuing body in its progrefs, and what pre- 

 ceded in that progrefs, and what was fubfequent ; yet, it was not that 

 order, by itfclf, which conftituted /zW, but the interval betwixt any 

 two points in the progrefs of the motion. 



But I cannot fay fo much for Mr Leibnitz, with refped to his doc- 

 trine of/pace; for there he appears to me to have miffed of the mark 

 intirely, /pace not being the order of co-exiftents, but a thing altoge- 

 ther different. 



By order, in this definition oi/pace, Mr Leibnitz does not mean the 

 fame kind of order by which he defines lime; for that order is nume- 

 rical order, by which things avejir/i or lajl, fecond, third, or fourth, 

 &c. This order, like number itfelf, hath nothing to do with pofition ; 

 whereas, the order that he applies to /pace, is, as he himfelf has ex- 

 plained it, an order o£ pojihon, that is, fituation or arrangement, by 

 which things arc placed in a ftraight line, or a curve, in the figure of 

 a triangle, fquare, pentagon, <Scc. Now, that order of pofition is not 

 fpace. It is true, indeed, that bodies, placed in any kina of order, 

 muft neceffarily be in Jpace ; but the order in which the bodies are 

 placed, and the Jpace in which they are placed, muft neceffarily be 

 diftind. 



This 



