324 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book V, 



prejudices of men, to fubftltute two other Mechanical Powers in the 

 place of them, viz. Projection and Gravitation. 



It would be faying too much, if I faid that Sir Ilaac had no Idea 

 of Body being moved by Mind, fince he, no doubt, believed that 

 God was the Author of all the Motions in the Univerfe : But I 

 think it is evident that he had no notion of the Planets being fo 

 moved ; and I hope I (hall be forgiven if I fay that I do not think 

 Sir ll'aac, when he wrote his Principia, had any clear conception of 

 the way in which Mind moves Body, or the difference there is be- 

 twixt the manner in which Mind moves Body, and Body moves Body*. 



To 



• Whoever reads the following paffage in the Principia, will, I am fure, forgire 

 me for this affertion. It is where he is fpeaking of Attradlion or Gravitation, 

 •which, I believe, every Newtonian now allows to be produced by the immediate 

 and conftant agency of Mind : * Vocem attra^ianis, hie generaliter ufurpo pro 

 ' corporum conatu quocunque accedendi ad invicem : Sive conatus ifte fiat ab aftione 



* corporum, vel fe mutuo petentium, vel per fpiritus emiflbs fe invicem agitan- 



* tium ; five is ab a£tione .^thcris, aut Aeris, mediive cujufcunque, feu corpirei 



* {tu incorporei, oriatur, corpora innatantia in fe invicem utcunque irapellcntis ;' 

 Principia, lib. \. fe3. II. Scholium. Where I think the ftrange Notion, of Bodies 

 floating in an incorporeal medium which impells them towards one another, 

 fhows evidently that Sir Ifaac had not, at leaft when he began this work of the 

 Principia, any clear Idea, I believe, I may fay any Idea at all, of the manner in 

 which Mind moves Body. But, not only when he wrote the Queries to his Op- 

 tics, but even before he finiflied his Principia, he appears to me to have difcovered 

 that Mechanical Caufes could not account for the Motions in the Univerfe, — that 

 Mind mud be neceffarlly employed, and that it a£ls upon Body in a manner very 

 different from that in which Body adts upon Body; for, in his Scholium Generate, 

 fubjoined to his Principia, fpeaking of this fame Gravitation, he has thefe words : 



* Oritur ut que haec vis a caufa aliqua quae penetrat ad ufque centrum Solis et 



* Planetarum, fine virtutis diminutione ; quaeque agit, non pro quantitatc fuperfi- 

 ' cierum particularum in quas agit, (ut folent caufae Mechanicac), fed pro quanti- 

 ' tale Mciteriae Solidae " What I hsve faid in the courfe of this work, and {hall 

 further fav, upon the difference betwixt Mechanical Motion and Motion by Mind, 

 may be corrfidered as little more than a Commentary upon thefe words ; and, in- 

 deed, when to them I join what he has faid in his Queries, of which more after- 

 wards, 1 can have little doubt but thit I agree with Sir Ifaac, at leaft with his latter 

 thoughts, in my Philofophy concerning the Principle of Motion in the Univerfe. 



