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at large,) but then they look upon them either as confined to Mechanical Engines, or at least but as reaching to very few of Nature's Phænomena, and, for that reason, unfit to be received as Physical Principles. To remove therefore this grand Prejudice and Objection, which seems to be the chief thing that has kept off Rational Inquirers from closing with the Mechanical Philosophy, it may be very conducive, if not sufficient, to propose such Mechanical accounts of Particular Qualities themselves, as are intelligible and possible, and are agreeable to the Phænomena whereto they are applied. And to this it is no more necessary that the account propos'd should be the truest and best that can possibly be given, than it is to the proving that a Clock is not acted by a vital Principle, (as those Chineses thought, who took the first, that was brought them out of Europe, for an Animal,) but acts as an Engine, to do more than assign a Mechanical Structure made up of Wheels, a Spring, a Hammer, and other Mechanical pieces, that will regularly shew and strike the hour, whether this Contrivance be or be not the very same with that of the Particular Clock propos'd; which may indeed be made to move either with Springs or Weights, and may consist of a greater or lesser number ofWheels,
