Chap. IV. A N T 1 E N T METAPHYSICS. 375 



-of Matter, nobody hitherto, as far as I know, has fo much as at- 

 tempted to account for them from Impulfe. 



Tliefc are all the ways in which Bodies can be faid to be moved 

 by Bodies on this Earth. There is, indeed, another way, that I have 

 heard mentioned, of Bodies being moved by other Bodies, not in 

 contadl with ihcm or impelling them, but at a diftance from them. 

 According to thefe philofophcrs, a Body does not move itfelf, but is 

 the caufe of Motion in other Bodies, not by impelling them, protru- 

 ding or drawing them, in the Ordinary way, but by ading upon 

 them at a diftance from them. This appears to me to be the laft re- 

 fuge of Atheifm, and of a defperate refolution to believe that there 

 is nothing elfe in the Univerfe except Body : For, otherwife, I do not 

 think it is poffible to believe, and I doubt much whether any man 

 ever really believed, that any thing could adl ivhere it was not, 

 any more than ivhen it was not ; and yet tliat muft be the be- 

 lief of thofe who fpeak of Body attradiing Body, or in any ways 

 operating upon it at a diftance without other Bodies intervening, 

 if they underftand the meaning of the words they ufe. Some, 

 I believe, have been inadvertently led into this error, by the im- 

 proper ufe of the vi^ord Attracllon^ which, in its proper and ety- 

 mological fignification, denotes one Body drawing another to it ; for, 

 as I have taken occafion to obferve more than once before, there are 

 many errors in our modern philofophy, arifingfrom the improper ufe 

 of words, our modern philofophers not being, for the greater part, 

 Scholars, and confequcntly not learned in language. But, with refpedt 

 to this word AttraBion^ though Sir Ifaac ufesit, and, I believe, was 

 the lirft who applied it to the Motion of Bodies, he has exprefsly 

 cautioned his readers againft the abufe that might be made of it by 

 fuppofing that Bodies ad upon one another at a diftance, and has 

 faid that he meant no more by it than the tendency that Bodies have 

 to one another. 



But 



