I N G E N E R A L. is 



fiift feed, for inftance, muft have Included all 

 the plants of its fpecies which have exifted, or 

 ever will exift ; and the firft man muft have 

 contained in his loins all the men who have ap- 

 peared, or ever will appear, on the face of the 

 earth. Every feed, and every animal, according 

 to this dodrine, muft have included in its own 

 body an infinite pofterity. If we yield to rea-*- 

 fonings of this kind, we muft lofe fight of truth 

 in the labyrinths of infinity ; and, in place of 

 folving, or of throwing light upon the queftion, 

 we will involve it in tenfold obfcurity. It is re- 

 moving the objed beyond the reach of our.vi«!- 

 fion, and then complaining that it cannot be feen. 

 Let us inveftigate the nature of the ideas of 

 infinite progieifion and expanfion. How do w^e 

 acquire them? In what do theyinftrudl: us? We 

 •derive the idea of infinity from the idea of what 

 is limited. It is in this manner we obtain the 

 ideas of infinite fucceffion, and geometrical infi- 

 nity ; Every individual is a unit; feveral indivi- 

 duals make a limited number; and a whole fpe- 

 cies is to us an infinite multitude. From the 

 fame data by which we have demonftrated the 

 nonentity of geometrical infinity,we might prove, 

 that infinite fucceffion, or propagation, refts on 

 no firmer bafis; that it is only an abftradt idea, 

 a mere deduction from the idea of finite objects,, 

 by lopping off the limits which necelfarily ter- 

 minate every magnitude *; and, of courfe, that 



every 

 * See this fully demonftrated in my preface to the French 

 iranflation of Newton's fluxions, p. 7. 



