378 NEW ESSAYS 



even particles not actually divided in matter, l absolute 

 rest/ ' complete uniformity in one part of time, place or 

 matter,' ' perfect globes of the second element, arising 

 from original perfect cubes 97 ,' and a thousand other 

 fictions of philosophers, which come from their incom- 

 plete notions and which the nature of things does not 

 admit of, and which are made passable by our ignorance 

 and the slight attention we give to the imperceptible 

 [insensible], but which cannot be made tolerable unless in 

 the limited sense of abstractions of the mind, which 

 protests that it does not deny what it sets aside and 

 thinks ought not to come into any present consideration. 

 Otherwise, if we seriously meant this, namely that the 

 things of which we are not conscious [s'apercevotr] are 

 neither in the soul nor in the body, we should err in 

 philosophy as is done in statecraft [politique], when no 

 account is taken of TO fUKpov 98 , imperceptible [insensible] 



97 The reference is to the vortex hypothesis of Descartes. Ac- 

 cording to Descartes, as body is ultimately extension in three 

 dimensions, the original division of it (as the result of motion 

 imparted by God) would result in perfectly cubical parts. This 

 original motion Descartes supposes to have been such as to make 

 the parts revolve on their own axes and also in groups round 

 different centres. As a result of this (matter being a plenum] the 

 angles of the cubes are rubbed down, and the detrition proceeds at 

 an ever-increasing rate, because the smaller the body, the larger 

 (in proportion to its bulk) is the surface it exposes to the rubbing 

 of other bodies. Accordingly there are three primary elements of 

 the visible world, (i) the detritus, which includes the sun and the 

 fixed stars, (2) the remains of the original cubes in the form of 

 exceedingly minute globules, of which element the sky consists, 

 and (3) some parts of matter which have been less easy to move 

 than the globules of the second element and consequently have 

 not been rubbed down so quickly ; such as the earth, the planets 

 and comets. In short, the first element consists of luminous 

 bodies, the second of transparent bodies and the third of opaque 

 bodies. See Descartes, Principia, Part iii. 46 sqq. In a letter to 

 Nicaise (1692) Leibniz speaks about the * useless chatter regarding 

 little bodies and the first, second or third element, which are of as 

 little value as the occult qualities ' (G. ii. 534). 



98 Af ... TO fJitKpbv <pv\arTiv (Aristotle, Politics, \. 8, 2, i3O7 b 32). 



