Chap. I. APPENDIX. 291 



Bodies, ia the fame manner as we know that Mind produces tlie 

 Motion of our Bodies, and of other Animal Bodies, and alfo of Un- 

 organized Bodies, fuch as the Iron and the Loadftone. Further, I 

 think, it will not be denied by any Newtonian, that Mind may not 

 only begin Motion, but continue it ; which we know, from daily 

 experience, to be the cafe. Let us fuppofe, then, that the Planet 

 is moved in the line of projedion, or any other Body in a 

 ftraight line, Mind both beginning and carrying en the Motion ; 

 and let us fuppofe that the ener^^y of Mind, by which the Mo- 

 tion is carried on, fliould ceafe -would the Motion ftill go on 



by virtue of the vis injha in the Body, in the fame manner 

 as if it had been begun by bodily impulfe ? And they fay it 

 would : Nor, indeed, could the univerfality of the Firft Law of 

 Motion, by which it is aflerted that Motion once begun continues 

 forever till it is flopped by fome external obftrudion, be otherwife 

 defended. According, therefore, to this dodrine, our Bodies, once 

 put in Motion by our Minds, would go on forever, even after the 

 energy of our Minds had ceafed, if it were not for the obftrudion 

 of the Medium in Vv'hich we move. 



This is a very extraordinary pofition, as contrary to common 

 fenfe and obfervation as to found philofophy. For, as it is admit- 

 ted in the cafe fuppofed, that it is Mind which moves the Body, is 

 it not m.ore natural that, Vv'hen the Mind ceafes to move, the Body 

 fhould ceafe to be moved ? And obferve what the confequence 

 would be if it were otherwife. The Body, while it continues to be 

 moved by Mind, is alfo moved by the vis infita, which continues 

 to move it after the other moving power has ceafed to operate : 

 So that we have here the Body moved by two powers, (I fuppofe 

 in a ftraight line, that the argument may not be perplexed by the 

 fuppofition of any compounded Motion), when it is evident that 

 one is abundantly fufficient, contrary to that rule of Nature, which 



O o 2 Aiiftotle 



