Page:The System of Nature.djvu/120

 are separable by thought, although no other natural agent with which he is acquainted is capable of dividing them: that the simple beings of this genus are susceptible of motion&mdash;can impart action&mdash;receive impulse&mdash;are material&mdash;are placed in Nature&mdash;are indestructible;&mdash;that consequently, if he cannot know them from themselves, he can form some idea of them by analogy: thus he has done that intelligibly, which the metaphysician would do unintelligibly: the latter, with a view to render man immortal, finding difficulties to his wish, from seeing that the body decayed&mdash;that it has submitted to the great, the universal law&mdash;has, to solve the difficulty, to remove the impediment, given him a soul, distinct from the body, which he says is exempted from the action of the general law: to account for this, he has called it a spiritual being, whose properties are the negation of all known properties, consequently inconceivable: had he, however, had recourse to the atoms of the former&mdash;had he made this substance the last possible term of the division of matter&mdash;it would at least have been intelligible; it would also have been immortal, since, according to the reasonings of all men, whether metaphysicians, theologians, or natural philosophers, an atom is an indestructible element, that must exist to all eternity.

All men are agreed in this position, that motion is the successive change of the relations of one body with other bodies, or with the different parts of space. If that which is called spirit be susceptible of communicating or receiving motion&mdash;if it acts&mdash;if it gives play to the organs of body&mdash;to produce these effects, it necessarily follows that this being