MAT 
here are in man two substances absolutely 
distinct from each other. See “Disquisitions 
on Matter and Spirit.” 
But Dr. Price, in a correspondence with 
Dr. Priestley, published under the title of 
“ A Free Discussion of the Doctrines of 
Materialism and Philosophical Necessity,” 
1778, has suggested a variety of unanswer- 
able objections against this hypotliesis of 
the penetrability of matter, and against the 
conclusions that are drawn from it. The 
vis enertiae of matter, he says, is the foun- 
dation of all that is demonstrated by natural 
philosophers concerning the laws of the 
collision of bodies. This, in particular, is 
the foundation of Newton’s philosophy, and 
especially of his three laws of motion. 
Solid matter has the power of acting on 
other matter by impulse; and this is the 
only way in which it is capable of acting, 
by any action that is properly its own. If 
it be said, that one particle of matter can 
act upon another without contact and im- 
pulse, or that matter can, by its own proper 
agency, attract or repel otlier matter which 
is at a distance from it, then a maxim 
liitlierto universally received must be false, 
that “ nothing can act where it is not.” 
Newton, in his letters to Bentley, calls the 
notion, that matter possesses an innate 
power of attraction, or that it can act upon 
matter at a distance, and attract and repel 
by its own agency, an absurdity into which 
he thought no one could possibly fall. And 
in another place he expressly disclaims the 
notion of innate gravity, and has taken 
pains to shew that he did not take it to be 
an essential property of bodies. By the 
same kind of reasoning pursued, it must 
appear, that matter has not the power of 
attracting and repelling; that this power 
is the power of some foreign cause, acting 
upon matter according to stated laws ; and 
consequently that attraction and repulsion, 
not being actions, mueh less inherent quali- 
ties ot matter, as such it ought not to be 
defined by them. And if matter has no 
other property, as Dr. Priestley asserts, 
than the power of attractmg and repelling, 
it must be a non-entity ; because this is a 
property that cannot belong to it. Besides, 
all power is the power of something; and 
yet if matter is nothing but this power, it 
must be the power of nothing; and the 
very idea of it is a contradiction. 
hlATlHlOLA, in botany, so named 
from Pietro .4ndrea Matthiolus, the famous 
botanist, a genus of the Peutandria Mono- 
gynia class and order. Natural order of 
MAU 
Rubiacere, Jussieu. Essential characters 
calyx entire ; corolla tubular, superior, un- 
divided ; drupe with a globular nucleus. 
There is but one species, viz. M. scabra, a 
native of .4merica. 
MATTUSCHKAIA, in botany, a genus 
of the Tetrandria Monogynia class and or- 
der. Essential character : calyx four-parted, 
with linear leaflets ; corolla one-petalled, 
with a long tube and four cleft border ; 
gerin superior, four-cleft ; seeds four, naked. 
There is but one species, viz, M. hirsuta, 
found in Guiana. 
MAUNDY Thursday, is the Thursday in 
Passion Week, which was called Maunday or 
Mandate Thursday, from the command 
which our Saviour gave his apostles to com- 
memorate him in the Lord’s Supper, which 
he this day instituted ; or from the new 
commandment which he gave them to love 
one another, after he had washed their feet 
as a token of his love to then). Our Sa- 
viour’s humility in washing his disciples feet, 
is commemorated on this day by most 
chi'istian kings ; who wash the feet of a 
certain number of poor people, not indeed 
with their own royal hands, but by the 
hands of their lord almoner, or some other 
deputy. 
MAUPERTUIS (Peter Louis Mor- 
CEAU de), a celebrated French mathema- 
tician and philosopher, was born at St, Malo 
in 1698, and was there privately educated 
tilfhe attained his sixteenth year, when he 
was placed under the celebrated professor 
of philosophy, M. Le Blond, in the college 
of La Marche, at Paris ; while M. Giiisn^e, 
of the Academy of Sciences, was his in- 
structor in mathematics. 
For this science he soon discoveied a 
strong inclination, and particularly for geo- 
metry. He likewise practised instrumental 
music, in his early years, with great success ; 
but fixed on no profession till he was 
twenty, when he entered into the army ; in 
which he remained about five years, during 
which time he pursued his mathematical 
studies with great vigour ; and it was soon 
remarked by M. Freret, and other acade- 
micians, that nothing but mathematics could 
satisfy his active soul and unbounded thirst 
for knowledge. 
In the year 1723, he was received into the 
Royal Academy of Sciences, and read his 
first performance, which was a memoir upon 
the construction and form of musical in- 
struments. During the first years of his ad- 
mission, he did not wholly confine his at- 
tention to mathematics ; he dipped into natu- 
