Associations and Motions of these permanent Particles; compound Bodies
being apt to break, not in the midst of solid Particles, but where those
Particles are laid together, and only touch in a few Points.
It seems to me farther, that these Particles have not only a _Vis
inerti _, accompanied with such passive Laws of Motion as naturally
result from that Force, but also that they are moved by certain active
Principles, such as is that of Gravity, and that which causes
Fermentation, and the Cohesion of Bodies. These Principles I consider,
not as occult Qualities, supposed to result from the specifick Forms of
Things, but as general Laws of Nature, by which the Things themselves
are form'd; their Truth appearing to us by Ph nomena, though their
Causes be not yet discover'd. For these are manifest Qualities, and
their Causes only are occult. And the _Aristotelians_ gave the Name of
occult Qualities, not to manifest Qualities, but to such Qualities only
as they supposed to lie hid in Bodies, and to be the unknown Causes of
manifest Effects: Such as would be the Causes of Gravity, and of
magnetick and electrick Attractions, and of Fermentations, if we should
suppose that these Forces or Actions arose from Qualities unknown to us,
and uncapable of being discovered and made manifest. Such occult
Qualities put a stop to the Improvement of natural Philosophy, and
therefore of late Years have been rejected. To tell us that every
Species of Things is endow'd with an occult specifick Quality by which
it acts and produces manifest Effects, is to tell us nothing: But to
derive two or three general Principles of Motion from Ph nomena, and
afterwards to tell us how the Properties and Actions of all corporeal
Things follow from those manifest Principles, would be a very great step
in Philosophy, though the Causes of those Principles were not yet
discover'd: And therefore I scruple not to propose the Principles of
Motion above-mention'd, they being of very general Extent, and leave
their Causes to be found out.
Now by the help of these Principles, all material Things seem to have
been composed of the hard and solid Particles above-mention'd, variously
associated in the first Creation by the Counsel of an intelligent Agent.
For it became him who created them to set them in order. And if he did
so, it's unphilosophical to seek for any other Origin of the World, or
to pretend that it might arise out of a Chaos by the mere Laws of
Nature; though being once form'd, it may continue by those Laws for many
Ages. For while Comets move in very excentrick Orbs in all manner of
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