PRELUDE TO THE EPOCH OF NEWTON. 389 



which he may proceed to something more. Accordingly, to this he 

 soon adds the idea, and hence the certain existence, of God and his 

 perfections. He then asserts it to be also manifest, that a vacuum in 

 any part of the universe is impossible ; the whole must be filled with 

 matter, and the matter must be divided into equal angular parts, this 

 being the most simple, and therefore the most natural supposition. 3 

 This matter being in motion, the parts are necessarily ground into 

 a spherical form ; and the corners thus rubbed off (like filings or saw- 

 dust) form a second and more subtle matter. 4 There is, besides, a third 

 kind of matter, of parts more coarse and less fitted for motion. The 

 first matter makes luminous bodies, as the sun, and the fixed stars ; the 

 second is the transparent substance of the skies ; the third is the mate- 

 rial of opake bodies, as the earth, planets, and comets. We may suppose, 

 also, 5 that the motions of these parts take the form of revolving circular 

 currents, 6 or vortices. By this means, the first matter will be collected 

 to the centre of each vortex, while the second, or subtle matter, sur- 

 rounds it, and, by its centrifugal effort, constitutes light. The planets 

 are carried round the sun by the motion of his vortex, 7 each planet 

 being at such a distance from the sun as to be in a part of the vortex 

 suitable to its solidity and mobility. The motions are prevented from 

 being exactly circular and regular by various causes ; for instance, a 

 vortex may be pressed into an oval shape by contiguous vortices. The 

 satellites are, in like manner, carried round their primary planets by 

 subordinate vortices ; while the comets have sometimes the liberty of 

 gliding out of one vortex into the one next contiguous, and thus trav- 

 elling in a sinuous course, from system to system, through the universe. 

 It is not necessary for us to speak here of the entire deficiency of 

 this system in mechanical consistency, and in a correspondency to ob- 

 servation in details and measures. Its general reception and tempo- 

 rary sway, in some instances even among intelligent men and good 

 mathematicians, are the most remarkable facts connected with it. 

 These may be ascribed, in part, to the circumstance that philosophers 

 were now ready and eager for a physical astronomy commensurate 

 with the existing state of knowledge ; they may have been owing also, 

 in some measure, to the character and position of Descartes. He was 

 a man of high claims in every department of speculation, and, in pure 

 mathematics, a genuine inventor of great eminence ; — a man of family 

 and a soldier; — an inoffensive philosopher, attacked and persecuted 



s Prin. p. 58. 4 lb. p. 59. 6 lb. p. 5G. 



o lb. p. 61. 7 lb. c. 140, p. 114. 



