554 



DISSERTATION ON 



therwife. hn^.fecondly, he fuppofes that body has in itfelf the power 

 of continuing motion, betwixt which, and the power of beginning 

 motion, I cannot fee any real diftindion. Now, to maintain that bo- 

 dy has, in itfelf, the power of moving itfelf, I hold to be downright 

 materialifm. 



Materialifm having, in this manner, crept into aftronomy, it has 

 dlffufed itfelf over the whole of natural philofophy. When 1 read the 

 works ofour natural philofophers, I fhould imagine that there was no- 

 thing but matter and motion in the univerfe. Even Sir Ifaac has told 

 us, that a fubtile fpirit is the caufe of fenfation \ and, for the fame rea- 

 fon, he might have faid, that it was the caufe of thought and reafonitig. 

 Such philofophers feem to have forgot, if they ever knew, that Mind 

 gives matter hs/ormj without which it is not bodyy nor has qualities 

 or properties of any kind ; and that it is Mind which begins and car- 

 ries on motion. They confider Nature as carelefsly and fuperficially 

 as a man would confider a machine of human invention, who fhould 

 cbferve only fome of the wheels and fprings of it, without giving any 

 attention to the moving power ; for the moving power in the univerfe 

 is Mind, which, though jt operate much by means of mechanifm, 

 muft, like the moving power in human machines, conflantly adt ; (o 

 that, without the unceafing energy of Mind, there would be, at 

 once, an end of this wonderful frame of things, this moft magnificent 

 difplay of the wifdom, goodnefs, and power of God. Whoever, 

 therefore, pretends to give us either a hiftory or philofophy of Nature, 

 without making Mind the chief objed of his attention, may be com- 

 pared to a writer of the civil hiftory of a nation, who does not take no- 

 tice of the governing power of that nation. 



To conclude — What I have faid here againft Sir Ifaac*s philofophy 

 in his Principia, though fupported by his own authority in his later 



"workj 



