XXIII. That all the variety of matter, or the diversity of its
forms, depends on motion.
There is therefore but one kind of matter in the whole universe, and
this we know only by its being extended. All the properties we
distinctly perceive to belong to it are reducible to its capacity of
being divided and moved according to its parts; and accordingly it
is capable of all those affections which we perceive can arise from
the motion of its parts. For the partition of matter in thought
makes no change in it; but all variation of it, or diversity of
form, depends on motion. The philosophers even seem universally to
have observed this, for they said that nature was the principle of
motion and rest, and by nature they understood that by which all
corporeal things become such as they are found in experience.
XXIV. What motion is, taking the term in its common use.
But motion (viz., local, for I can conceive no other kind of motion,
and therefore I do not think we ought to suppose there is any other
in nature), in the ordinary sense of the term, is nothing more than
the action by which a body passes from one place to another.
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