J CHAPTER VIM gg3 the loadstone's* North -pole shall repel the north -end of a mag- netic needle and attract the south, when he affirms that this is done by its sympathy with one end of it, and its antipathy against the other end. Whereas in truth, all these names of sympathy, ,antipathy, substantial forms and qualities, when they are put for the causes of these effects in bodies, are but hard words which only express a learned and pompous ignorance of the true cause of natural appearances; and in this sense they are mere words without ideas. This will evidently appear, if one ask me, Why a concave mirror, or convex glass will burn wood in the sun - beams, or why a wedge will cleave it ? And I should tell him, it is by an usto- sins quality in the mirror or glass, and by a cleaving power in the wedge, arising from a certain unknown substantial. form in them, whence they derive these qualities; or if he should ask me, Why a clock strikes, and points to the hour ? And I should say, it is by an indicating form and soporific quality ; whereas I ought to tell him bow the sun-beams are collected and united by a burn- ing- glass; whence the mechanical force of a wedge is derived; and what are the wheels and springs, the pointer, and hammer, and bell, whereby a clock gives notice of the time, both to the eye and the ear. But these ustorious and cleaving powers, sono- rous and indicating forms and qualities, do either teach the in- quirer nothing at all but what he knew before, or they are mere words without ideas.fi And there is many a man in the vulgar and in the learned world, who imagines himself deeply skilled in the controversies of divinity, whereas he has only furnished himself with a parcel of scholastic or mystic words, under some of which the authors themselves had no just ideas ; and the learner when he hears, or pronounces them, bath scarce any ideas at all. Such sort of words sometimes have become matters of immortal conten- tion, as though the gospel could not stand without them ; and C. Note, Some writers call that the South -pole of a load - stone, which attracts the South -end of the needle; but I choose to follow those who call it the North-pale. $ It may he objected here, 't And what does the modern philosopher, with " all his detail of matbematical numbers, and diagrams, do more than this to- " ward the solution of these difficulties? Does he not describe gravity by acer- " tain unknown force, whereby bodies tend downward to the centre ? Bath he " found the certain and mechanical reasons of attraction, magnetism, &c." I answer, That the moderns have found a thousand things by applying matbema- tics to natutal philosophy, which the ancients were ignorant of; and when they use any names of this kind, viz. gravitation, attraction, &'c. they use them only to signify, that there are such effects and such causes, with a frequent conf..ssion of their ignorance of the true springs of them ; they do not pretend to make these words stand for the real causes of thing., an though they thereby assigned the true philosophical solution of these difficulties; for in this sense-they will still be words without ideas, whether is the mouth of an old' philosopher or a pen ate.
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