THE NEEWTONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 549 



Thus much, however, may be faid, by way of apology, for his 

 mechanical phil >lophy, that, at the time he wrote, the philofo- 

 phy of Des Cartes was the only philofopay in fafhion, the philolbphy 

 of the antients being then altogether out of fafhion. Now, he thought 

 that he made a great improvement upon Des Cartes's materialifm, 

 when he fuppofed the celeRial bodies to have been formed by 

 the Deity, and taken out of chaos, as he cxprefTes it ; and, no doubt, 

 it was fome amendment of Des Cartes's fyllem ; whereas, if he had 

 gone the full length of antient philofophy, and maintained that they 

 were likewife moved by the conftant agency of Mind, his [)hilofophy 

 would not only have been irreprehenfible, but much more compleat 

 and compreheniive, taking in the earth, as well as the heavens, and, in 

 fhort, the whole of nature. 



It Is, I think, evident, that Sir Ifaac formed his fyftem upon the a*-- 

 nalogy that he had difcovered, and a great difcovery it was, betwixt 

 the motions of the celeftial bodies, and the motion of projediles here 

 on earth ; and, no doubt, the analogy is very great ; for the projedile 

 on earth has its centre as well as the planet ; And the Newtonians 

 tell us, that, if it were projeded with fufficient force, it would go round 

 its center, the earth, as the moon does *. From fuch an analogy, 

 he had good reafon to conclude, that they were governed by the 

 fame laws ; but he went too far when, from thence, he inferred, 

 that they were both produced by the fame caufes, that is, by pro- 

 je(5tion and gravitation. It was fufficient for his purpofe that 

 the celeilial motions were of the fame kind, and could be relbl- 

 ved or analyfed into thei'e two powers, though they were not adually 

 compofed of them, like the motion of projediles on earth j for it 

 would have been contrary to the order and regularity of nature, if 

 they had not been governed by the laws of thole motions, into which 



they 



* See what I have further faid upon this fubjedl, page 267. 



