NEW ESSAYS 387 



body, for instance, one of the atoms of Epicurus, which 

 should have a part projecting in the form of a hook (as 

 we can imagine atoms of all kinds of shapes) 126 , the hook 

 when impelled would draw with it the rest of the atom, 

 that is to say, the part which is not impelled and which 

 does not lie in the line of impulsion. Yet our able 

 author is himself opposed to these philosophical tractions, 

 such as were formerly attributed to nature's abhorrence 

 of a vacuum ; and he reduces them to impulses, maintain- 

 ing, with the moderns, that one part of matter acts 

 immediately upon another only by impelling it through 

 contact 127 . In this I think they are right, because 

 otherwise there would be nothing intelligible in the 

 operation. 



Nevertheless I must not conceal the fact that I have 

 observed a kind of retraction regarding this matter on 

 the part of oun excellent author, whose unpretending 

 straightforwardness in this respect I cannot but praise, 

 as much as I have admired his penetrating genius on 

 other occasions. I refer to his reply to the second letter 

 of the late Bishop of Worcester 128 , printed in 1699, 



in the case of the magnet and some electrical phenomena. But 

 in any such case, there is contact and 'impulse' between the bodies 

 concerned, although it may not appear so to our senses. Cf. 

 Nouveaux Essais, bk. ii. ch. 4, 4 ; ch. 8, u (E. 229 a, 231 b ; GK 

 v. 113, 118). 



126 According to Democritus, atoms differ in * shape, arrangement 

 and position.' (Aristotle, Metaph. A. 4, 98s b 13.) 



127 See Locke's Essay, bk. ii. ch. 8, n (cf. Eraser's note, vol. i. 

 p. 171), and bk. ii. ch. 23, 17 sqq. 



128 Edward Stillingfleet, born at Cranbourne, Dorsetshire, 1635, 

 died at Westminster, 1699, having for ten years been Bishop of 

 Worcester. His chief work was the Origines Sacrae (1662). His 

 controversy with Locke originated in the anti-religious use to 

 which Toland (in his Christianity not Mysterious) turned some of 

 Locke's views. In 1696 Stillingfleet published A Discourse in 

 Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity with an answer to the late Socinian 

 objections, in which there appeared a criticism of Locke's ' way of 

 ideas.' To this Locke replied at great length and the controversy 

 continued until Stillingfleet's death. Cf. Eraser's ed. of Locke's 



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