470 REMARKS ON 11íR. LOCKE'S ESSAY. changes in them, or to put them into motion ; and one reason that he gives for it is, as That when one body, viz. a ball, puts 'another ball into motion, it only communicates to it the motion it had received itself from some prior moving body, and loses in itself so much as the other received ; which thing gives us, says he, but a very obscure idea of an active power in body, whilst we observe it only to transfer, but not to produce any motion." I will not here stand to contest it, whether the clearest idea of active porter be derived to men and philosophers from bodies or from spirits : But I am very apt to think in children it may be derived much more from their sensations of bodies moving bodies, than from their reflection of any act of their spirits ; for when they see a fire burn wood, or their own hands put a ball into motion, or the wind shake the trees, they have as easy and as clear an idea of a power in the wind to shake trees, in their hand to move a ball, or in the fire to burn wood, as any ideas of active power which they derive from the agency of their own wills upon their own limbs. The query which I beg leave to put in this place, is, Whe- ther that opinion be true which Mr. Locke here supposes, and which is a famous principle in the Cartesian philosophy, viz. That one body can communicate no snore motion to another, than that which is in itself? The difficulty I would pro- pose is plainly represented in this instance: Suppose a town built with tnatty fair houses and churches, each of them adorned with spires and many ornaments, should be undermined, or have the cellars of it filled with barrels of gun- powder, which have a mutual communication with each other through all the town ; and suppose a single spark of fire should fall into one of those barrels, the question is, Whether all the dreadful convul- sion and ruin of those buildings, together with the thunderiug sound that shall be heard for twenty or thirty miles round, be not a proof of a prodigious quantity of motion communicated to the stones, timber, tiles, bricks, and all the materials of those edi- fices, and to 'the surrounding air, by that spark of fire, more than could possibly be contained in that single spark ? And how can this problem be solved upon this principle ? Or rather, Does not this instance prove the falsehood of that Cartesian opinion '? SECT. V.Whether Liberty can be ascribed to the Will. T[-IE author in the 6th, 17th, 19th and 20th sections, in- geniously declares and proves the understanding and will not to be two beings distinct from the mind or soul itself, though they are usually called two distinct powers orfaculties; which man- ner of speaking, though it be almost necessary in some cases,
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