THE NEWTONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 533 



' mover iMent; et propterea planetac et comctae in orh'ihu, fpecis er 

 ^ pofttione datis^ Secundum leges fupra expofttas per pet uo. revolvi' 



The queftion, therefore, is concerning the powers of matter, and {he 

 eternity of motion of every kind ; a queftion of the higheft importance 

 to the dodrine of theifin, and the religion of nature;. for, if it be granted 

 to the Atheiil that matter can, of itfelf, continue to move itfelf, and 

 forever too, it will be difficult to convince him that it could not, by its 

 own power, likewife begin to move itfelf; or, perhaps, he will main- 

 tain that this felf-motion of matter was from ail eternity, rejeclino* ilie 

 modern diftindion, exprefled in barbarous Latin, betwixt eterni- 

 ty a parte poji^ and a parte ante ; and he will, it is likelv, not a- 

 gree to the diftindion that Sir liaac makes betwixt the ^ols infja 

 and the "jIs iriiprejfa^ but will fay, if the body can, by its own native 

 power, go on in the redilineal line of projedion, it can alfo 

 go on in the centripetal line, by the fame power, without tho 

 agency of any thing extrinfic, or foreign to its nature — In fhort, he 

 will fay, that body, for the fame reafon that it can move itfelf uni- 

 formly, that is, with the fame degree of velocity, in a (Iraight line, 

 one way, can move itfelf every way, and do every thing which we fee 

 is done by motion in the univerfe. This queftion, ot fo great impor- 

 tance, is another queftion that cannot be determined by geometry or 

 mechanics ; nor will Sir \{A2Si\Juhlme geometry^ as it is called, avail 

 him in the decifion of this queftion, which is altogether metaphyfical, 

 belonging to the firft philofophy, whofe bufmefs it is to explain the 

 firft principles of things. 



The firft queftion to be confidered is, Whether it be a felf-evident 

 propofition, or only a demonftrable one ; for, it it be true, it muft be 

 either the one or the other. Now, that it is an axiom, or felf-evident 

 propofition, I cannot admit ; for it is certamly not intuitively evident, 

 that a body can continue itfelt in motion, and that, being once fet a- 



going. 



