The whole works ... / Done from the Latin original by George Sewell ... and J.T. Desaguliers ... With some account of the author [by Sewell].

  • Pitcairn, Archibald, 1652-1713
Date:
1740
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The whole works ... / Done from the Latin original by George Sewell ... and J.T. Desaguliers ... With some account of the author [by Sewell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    y. Nor ought this to leem ftrange, flnce the Patrons of Sefts, by attempting the Know¬ ledge of the abfo:ute Nature, and intimate Eifences and Caufes of Things, without any regard to the Difcovery of their Pro¬ perties, were forced to make ufe of many !'Pojhilata’s, and but few Data’s^ by which means they unavoidably fell into great Variety of Opinions. It is evident to any one who has been a little more than or¬ dinary converfant in the Mathematics, or the Practice of Phyfic, that our Knowledge of Things is confined to the Relations they bear to one another, the Laws and their Pro¬ perties of Powers, which enable them to pro¬ duce Changes in fome Things, and to become altered by other Things: I fpeak of Corpo¬ real Things. Now thefePowers, and their Laws, are difeovered by their mutual Aftion and Reaction upon each other: For Aftion and its Confequences are thofe 'Data that affift us in the Difcovery of the Laws of their Powers ; but a Phyfical Caufe, and the Nature of Things which the Philofophers fo much enquire after, is that unknown Some¬ thing in Things from whence they will have all its Powers and Properties derived. But that being impoflible to be known without a prior Knowledge of its Powers, andaDif* covery of their Laws, and no EfFefts being produceable but by its Powers, it follows, that while they remain unknown, there can be