Page:The true intellectual system of the universe - the first part; wherein, all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted; and its impossibility demonstrated (IA trueintellectual1678cudw).pdf/36

 8 Qualities of Bodies may well be conceived, to be nothing but the Result of those simple Elements of Magnitude, Figure, Site and Motion, variously compounded together; in the same manner as Syllables and Words in great variety result from the different Combinations and Conjunctions of a few Letters, or the simple Elements of Speech; and the Corporeal Part of Sensation, and particularly that of Vision, may be salved only by Local Motion of Bodies, that is, either by Corporeal Effluvia (called Simulachra, Membranae and Exuviae) streaming continually from the Surface of the Objects, or rather, as the later and more refined Atomists conceived, by Pressure made from the Object to the Eye, by means of Light in the Medium. So that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉· The Sense taking Cognizance of the Object by the Subtle Interposed Medium that is tense and stretched, (thrusting every way from it upon the Optick Nerves) doth by that as it were by a Staff touch it. Again, Generation and Corruption may be sufficiently explained by Concretion and Secretion, or Local Motion, without Substantial Forms and Qualities. And lastly, those sensible Ideas of Light and Colours, Heat and Cold, Sweet and Bitter, as they are distinct things from the Figure, Site and Motion of the insensible Parts of Bodies, seem plainly to be nothing else but our own Phansies, Passions and Sensations however they be vulgarly mistaken for Qualities in the Bodies without us.

VI. Thus much may suffice for a General Accompt of the Atomical Physiology. We shall in the next Place consider the Antiquity thereof, as also what notice Aristotle hath taken of it, and what Account he gives of the same. For though Epicurus went altogether this way, yet it is well known that he was not the first Inventor of it. But it is most commonly fathered on Democritus, who was Senior both to Aristotle and Plato, being reported to have been born the year after Socrates; from whose Fountains Cicero saith that Epicurus watered his Orchards, and of whom Sex. Empiricus and Laertius testify that he did 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, cashier Qualities; and Plutarch, that he made the first Principles of the whole Universe 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Atoms devoid of all Qualities and Passions. But Laertius will have Leucippus, who was somewhat Senior to Democritus, to be the first Inventor of this Philosophy, though he wrote not so many Books concerning it as Democritus did. Aristotle who often takes notice of this Philosophy, and ascribes it commonly to Leucippus and Democritus jointly, gives us this description of it in his Metaphysicks, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉· Leucippus and his Companion Democritus make the first Principles of all things to be Plenum and Vacuum (Body and Space) whereof one is Ens the other Non-ens, and the differences of Body, which are only Figure, Order and Position, to be the Causes of all other things. Which Differences they call by these Names Rysmus, Diathigte and Trope. And in his Book De Anima, having declared that Democritus made Fire and the Soul to consist of Round Atoms, he describes