340 



ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book V. 



Before I go farther into this argument, I think it is proper that I 

 fliould underftand how the Newtonians conceive the Motion to be 

 continued forever, in confequence of one impulfe. That the im- 

 pulfe is the Firft Caufe, or Occafion, of the Motion, there is no 

 doubt. But the queftion is, How it is carried on after the impulfe 

 has ceafed ? And that can be done, I think, only in one or other of 

 fourways : For, either the Body niuft carry on the Motion itfelf, and, 

 by a power eilential to it, as much asExtenfiou or Impenetrability is ; 

 or, itmuft be carried on by the Impulfe or PiefTure of fome other Bo- 

 dy, fuch as a Subtile Fluid or Ether, which has been employed to ac- 

 count for Motion, by fome philofophers both antient and modern ; 

 or, pio, The Motion goes on by virtue of the Original Impulfe, 

 without any other Caufe j or, Ai/?/v, It is carried on by Mind, as I 

 fuppofe. 



As to ihcfrjl of thefe ways, I have reafon to believe that even 

 thofe Newtonians, who, in deference to the authority of Sir Ifaac, 

 maintain this Eternity of Motion, are unwilling to afcribe it to any 

 power efTential to the Body, by which it could continue to move it- 

 felf forever ; for an Eternity of Motion, however begun, by a Power 

 eflential to Matter, would be giving much too great an advantage to 

 rhe Materialift, who will deny, as Ariftotle does, that Motion e- 

 ver had a beginning, and who will fay, that, if Matter can carry 

 on itfelf in one direction, it can carry itfelf on in every direc- 

 tion, and, in that way, can do every thing that we fee is done 

 by Mind and Intelligence *. — Neither do the Newtonians now 

 maintain, that the Body is carried on by any invifible Fluid or 

 Ether ; nor does Sir Ifaac appear to have thought of any 

 fuch thing when he wrote his Piincipia, It remains, therefore, 

 that, if Mind be not the adive power which carries on the Motion, 

 according to ray hypothefis, it muft be the third thing I have men- 

 tioned, viz. the Original Impulfe ; and it is this hypothefis which I 

 am now to examine, and which I underftand to be generally the 

 ,..;;,' fenfc 



• Ste more of this, page 37. 



