546 DISSERTATIONON 



yond body, and Inquire concerning the principle of motion, fliould 

 be learned in that firfl: philofophy, which teaches that an im- 

 material caufe is the author of all motion in the univerfe, but 

 itfclf immoveable. Thefe are the very words of Ariftotle, and the 

 fum of his whole philofophy *. But this fublime philofophy, Sir Ifaac 

 appears to me to have known nothing of, and not even to have made 

 accurately the diftindion which is the foundation of that philofophy, 

 but which is confounded in our common way of fpeaking in Englifli, 

 viz. betwixt what moves and is moved, and to have fuppofed, that 

 whatever moves, is alfo itfelf moved f. 



By what I have here faid, I hope it will not be underftood that I 

 •mean to difparage Sir Ifaac, and his works ; on the contrary, I have 

 the higheft opinion of him as a mathematician and a fcientifical me- 

 chanic. But. 1 would not have his followers call his Principia a fyftem 

 of philofophy, but of aftronomy ; for, it appears to me, that, as far as he 

 has ventured into philofophy, and inquired into the principle of mo- 

 tion, fo far he has gone beyond his depth, and has been led to advance 

 proportions, which, I think, dangerous to the genuine fyftem of 

 Theifm, though, I am perfuaded, without intending it. That Sir Ifaac 

 was not learned in the firft philofophy, which takes in the whole uni- 

 verfe, and inquires into the principles of which it is conftituted, and, 

 particularly, the principle of motion by which the whole frame of the 



uni- 



* His whole theology is comprehended in thefe few words, t» ^rgwro x-itoui «x(»ijt«k. 

 See his Metaphyfics, and the lad book of his Phyfics. From this it is evident, that he 

 had no idea of the firft principle moving body by impulfe ; for, what fo moves, muft 

 not only be capable of being moved, and therefore not toctvmtt^ but it muft be aHu- 



ally itfelf moved 



f This was tlie opinion, as Ariftotle tells us, lib. i. Dt Jnima, cap. 2. of fome 

 antient philofophers, (fee the pafTage quoted in a note upon page 229.) — a grofs ma- 

 terial jiotion, (which Ariftotle has fully refuted in the next chapter of the fame book, 

 De Atjtnia), proceeding, I fuppofe, as Sir Ifaac's noton did, from obferving that body 

 moved boily only in that way : And, therefore, having no idea but of one moving 

 power, viz. body, snd of that kind of motion which is produced by body acling upon 

 body, (and indeed no other motion falls under the cbfervation of fer>fe), they imagi- 

 ned that whatever moted was itfclf moved. 



