348 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book V. 



the Impelling Body, will, in vacuo, continue in Motion for ever, 

 by virtue of that fingle impuU'e. The Newtonians, who maintain 

 the affirmative, have not, I am perfuaded, attended to all the confe- 

 quences of their opinion, otherwife I imagine they would not have 

 fo readily embraced it : And, particularly, they do not appear to 

 me to have -confidered that, if they are in the right, a Body muft 

 continue in Motion to all Eternity, by virtue ofa fingle Impulfe, which 

 had-ceaicd, we may fuppofe, millions of years before the time in which 

 the Body ftill continues to be moved; during all which time the Body- 

 is in Motion, and changes an infinite number of places, without any 

 power, either of Mind or Body, adling upon it, or any other caufe, ex- 

 cept the impulfe, which hadceafed long ago. Neither do they appear to 

 me to have confidered that, tho' it fhould feem that an infinite Power 

 was neceflTary to produce a Motion of infinite duration ; yet, accor- 

 ding to this Law of Motion, the flighteft Impulfe given by any Body 

 liere on earth, ftifficient only to move the other Body out of its 

 place, will produce a Motion that is to laft forever : And, further, 

 that, though the velocity of the Motion muft necefl'arily depend up- 

 on the greater or lefs violence of the impulfe, yet that can have no 

 effe£t upon the duration of the Motion, which will continue to all 

 eternity, however gentle the impulfe may be that produced it. 



When I confider thefe things, I cannot help faying that I think 

 this Axiom of Sir Ifaac's is the moft violent paradox that ever was 

 advanced by any philofopher, much more violent than any of the 

 paradoxes of the Stoics mentioned by Cicero, and the greateft tri- 

 umph of philofophy over common fenfe, and the apprehenfion of 

 the vulgar. If it be true, I could have wifhed that our Sir Ifaac 

 Newton had had the glory of the difcovery, inftead of adopting it 

 from the Frenchman Des Cartes, who firft invented it to fupport his 

 mechanical fyftem of the univerfe. 



