5^4 



DISSERTATION ON 



cannot refifl: cannot impell. But, befides this, it appears to me very 

 extraordinary, that a Theift, fuch as Sir Ifaac Newton certainly was, 

 {hould ever attempt to afcribe to mere matter, a motion fo regular and 

 orderly as gravitation, the force ot which increafes in a certain deter- 

 mined proportion to the time it continues, and the fpace it goes through. 

 I do not wonder, therefore, that this way of mendmg Sir Kaac't, phi- 

 lofophy is now generally, 1 believe I may fay univerlally, rejeded by 

 all his followers. And, indeed, if it could be admitted, it only puts 

 the difficulty a little farther off ; for, fince Body cannot move Body, 

 unlefs it be firft moved itfelf, What is it that moves this fluid ? 



Setting afide, therefore, this caufe of gravitation, there remain only- 

 other four caufes which can be affigned for it. The Jirfi is, That it is 

 effential to matter. 2^0, It is produced by a vis imprejja^ or a force 

 originally imprefled upon the body, by which it ftill continues to be 

 moved in the fame manner as it is moved by the projedile force. 

 3//(?, It is produced by pulfations continually repeated, by which the 

 body is impelled with a force conftantly accumulating towards the 

 center. Or, InfAy^ It is the effed of the immediate and continual a- 

 gency of Mmd. If the fluid be out of the queftion, I think it is im- 

 poffible that any other caufe can be affigned for this motion. 



As to the firft of thefe ; to maintain that matter can of itfelf, and 

 by its own nature and eflehce, move itfelf, and in a manner too fo or- 

 derly and regular, is, I think, -downright atheifm, of that fpecies 

 of it which was maintained by Strato the Peripatetic, and is called, 

 by Cudworih, the hylozo'ic *. To fay, as Mr Locke fays, that 

 God may have fuperadded to matter the power of thinking, or 

 of moving itfelf, is to fpeak like a man who does not know the 



diftindion 



* See what I have further faid upon this fpecies of Atheifm, page 240. 



