40 A N T I E N T METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



confcqucnce, that it cannot move itfelf with Intelligence, or for a 

 certain end. 



Dr Prieftley's fyftem appears to me to be flill more extraordinary 

 than the fyftem of thofe who maintain that Body moves itfelf ; for 

 his fyftem is, that a Body does not move itfelf, but moves other Bo- 

 dies round it by Attradlion and Repulfion, which he makes to be 

 elfential qualities of Matter. And I have heard fome Newtonians 

 explain in this way what Sir Ifaac has faid of Attradion, though Sir 

 Ifaac himfelf has been at great pains to obviate any fuch niifappre- 

 henfion, by faying, that he means nothing more by Attraction than 

 a tendency of Bodies towards one another^ And, for the fame reafon, 

 he certainly means by Repulfion nothing more than the tendency of 

 Bodies from one another. I therefore think it hard that thefe gen- 

 tlemen ihould charge Sir Ifaac with an opinion fo abfurd, and which 

 is entirely their own ; for no philofopher before them ever thought 

 of Matter operating upon Matter, otherwife than in contad, and by 

 impulfe, for a very plain reafon, that nothing can ad where it is 

 not, neither Mind nor Body : And, indeed, I can no more conceive 

 a thing to ad 'adhere it is not, than ivhen it is not. But the philo- 

 fophers of this kind have fuch a rooted averfion to Mind, fuch a 

 wv£Uf*«Toipoj3i», as Cudworth calls it, that they will fuppofe any thing, 

 and will adopt the moft improbable, nay, an impoffible hypothefis, 

 rather than admit the agency of Mind in explaining the phaenome- 

 na of Natuie. That thofe who deny the exiftence of Mind ihould 

 do fo, is not furprifing ; but I own I think it very furprifmg, that 

 the Newtonians, who profefs to believe in Mind, as their Mafter 

 certainly did, (hould have recourfe to fuch ftrange hypothefes, rather 

 than make ufe of Mind in folving the phaenomena of Nature. 



The hypothefis, that there are other Bodies interjeded betwixt the 

 diftant Bodies, by which they ad upon one another, cannot be faid 



to 



