8 



pieces, the nature of things depending on them would 

 be changed. Nor would 'water and earth, composed 

 of broken worn-out particles, be the same as they 

 were at the beginning : but they are the same in 

 ail ages ; and the changes of things do not imply 

 any change in those original particles, but only vari- 

 ous associations and separations of them ; nor do com- 

 pound bodies ever break in the middle of solid parti- 

 cles, but where those particles are joined together, 

 and oul) touch in a few points* 



