selves substances; then the[1] substance on whose existence they depend, will necessarily remain likewise, even after it is supposed to be taken away; which shows that supposition to be impossible and contradictory.
As to your observation at the end of your letter, that the argument I have insisted on, if it were obvious to every capacity, should have more frequently been used as a fundamental argument for the proof of the being of God; the true cause why it has been seldom urged, is I think, this: that the universal prevalency of Cartes' absurd notions (teaching that matter[2] is necessarily infinite and necessarily eternal, and ascribing all things to mere mechanic laws of motion, exclusive of final causes, and of all will, and intelligence, and divine Providence from the government of the world) hath incredibly blinded the eyes of common reason, and prevented men from discerning Him in whom they live, and move, and have their being. The like has happened in some other instances. How universally have men for many ages believed that eternity is no duration at all, and infinity no amplitude. Something of the like kind has happened in the matter of transubstantiation, and (I think) in the scholastic notion of the Trinity, &c.
I am, Sir,
Your affectionate Friend and Servant.
April 8, 1714.
- ↑ Deus non est æternitas vel infinitas, sed æternus et infinitus; non est duratio vel spatium, sed durat et adest. Durat semper, et adest ubique; et existendo semper et ubique, durationem et spatium, æternitatem et infinitatem, constituit. Cum unaquæque spatii particula sit semper; et unumquodque durationis indivisibile momentum, ubique; certe rerum omnium fabricator ac Dominus, non erit nunquam nusquam. Omnipræsens est, non per virtutem solam, sed etiam per substantiam; nam virtus sine substantia subsistere non potest. In ipso continentur et moventur universa, &c.—Newton, Princip. Mathemat. Schol. general, sub finem.
- ↑ Puto implicare contradictionem, ut mundus (meaning the material world) sit finitus.—Cartes, Epist. 69, Partu Prime.
THE END.
GEORGE M'CORQUODALE AND CO. PRINTERS, LIVERPOOL AND LONDON.—WORKS, NEWTON.
