2 VIEWS OF PHILOSOPHERS. 







observations of -mankind, the following general 

 law of Mechanical Philosophy : 



" Matter at rest is incapable of putting itself in 

 motion, or of stopping itself, or turning aside 

 from a movement in a straight line, when put in 

 motion." 



There being no discovered cause of the move- 

 ments of atoms and bodies on the earth's surface, 

 the ancient Greek philosophers Empedocles, 

 Epicurus, and Democritus taught, "The ulti- 

 mate particles of matter are endued with inherent 

 forces, or powers." Afterward, for nearly a thou- 

 sand years, this question attracted little attention, 

 being of no immediate profit to mankind, until 

 popularized by the writings of the Latin poet and 

 philosopher, Lucretius. 



The doctrines of heathen philosophers, being 

 deemed adverse to those of the Mosaic cosmog- 

 ony, were opposed by ecclesiastical rulers, who 

 persecuted investigators of physical science. In 

 the year 1600, they burnt Bruno, in Venice, for 

 republishing the doctrines of Lucretius, and im- 

 prisoned Galileo, in the year 1663, f r teaching 

 the Copernican theory of the revolution of the 

 earth about the sun. With the gradual extension 

 of religious freedom in modern times, philoso- 

 phers ventured to make researches for the source 

 of natural motive-power. La Place, Descartes, 

 Goethe, Darwin, Spencer, Tyndall, Huxley, and 

 others have published various theories, ascribing 



