lo ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



of thefe atoms, that every thing in the univerfe, according to Epi- 

 curus, is produced. His fyftem, therefore, of materiaUfm is the 

 fame in its principles with Sir Ifaac's ; but, I think, more perfeft, 

 as he accounts alfo for the beginning of motion, and not for the 

 continuation of it only, as Sir Ifaac does. 



I would not have been fo fevere upon Sir Ifaac's do£trine of mo- 

 tion, nor have aflerted that it was downright materialifm and had a 

 tendency to-athiefm, if I could have difcovered that in the fyftem he 

 has given us of the Heavens, he had fhown that he believed that 

 the Celeftial bodies were moved by mind. But th;it is not the cafe : 

 For the motion of thofe bodies, according to him, is compounded 

 of two motions, projetElion and gravitation ; which two, together, 

 produce their motions round the fun. Now, as to proje(flion, we 

 cannot conceive that mind fhould proje£t any body ; for as mind 

 moves body internally, it cannot be in the way ot" projedion, which 

 can only be by one body impelling another. It is evident, there- 

 fore, that fo far the motion of the Celeftial Bodies is not by mind, 

 but by impulfe of other bodies : And as that is the only caufe of 

 motion, that is perceived by the fenfe, it appears to me that Sir 

 Ifaac had no notion of motion being produced in any other way. 



As to the other caufe of the motion of the Celeftial BodieSi gra- 

 vitation, Sir Ifaac has given an account of it in a paflage upon 

 which 1 have made iome obfervations elfewhere *. He has there af- 

 figned feveral caufes for it, but has not lo much as mentioned mind 

 a"! one of the caufes ; from which 1 have inferred, and, I think, 

 not without reafon, that he had not fo much as the idea of Mind 

 moving Body. One of the caufes which he afTigns for gravitation 

 is, Bodies foatbig hi a medium corporeal or incorporeal^ and impelling 

 one another. This thofe may underftand, who have ftudied, more than 

 I have done, the philofophy of Sir Ifaac Newton : But, for my part, I 



can 



« Vol. 4. p. 37t. 



