CFÌAP'tEÍt $IY. 521 Note 1. Contraries mutually abate or destroy one another. Black and white mingled, doby degrees takeaway the whiteness, or blackness of the object ; so heat and cold ; so virtuous and vicious dispositions. 2. Contradictories can have no proper medium ; a chamber is square Or it is not square ; a man can see or he cannot see. 3. All opposites placed near one another give a mutual illus- tration to each other, and make their distinct characters appear plainer. Hence proceeds the reason of }'ogles among painters and jewellers, orators and poets. CHAP. XIV. Of Number and Order. NUMBER and order are the last among the teal relative affections. Number is a manner of conception, by which we reckon things together, and consider them as more or fewer. Every thing indeed exists singularly, or as an unit; and so it may be an absolute idea ; but as one or unit is part of a num- ber, so it is relative; and since many units do really exist, so the idea of number is a real idea, or a real relation derived from their beingmore than one. Number is made up of many units put together, and there- fore some ontologists may chuse to treat of it in the chapter of unity; but it plainly denotes a relation between two or more beings or ideas. Number by the schools is called discrete quantity, as a heap of acorns, a row of trees ; whereas magnitude is called continual quantity, whether it be in à rock or a river, though one be fluid, the other solid. Note 1. Number is needless where unity is sufficient for the same ends ; and a greater number is needless where a less is suffi- cient. Nature generally is observed to work in the most simple. ways and manners. What infinitely various purposes in the Whole universe of bodies does that one simple principle of gru- vitation serve to execute. 2. 'Therefore in our solving any difficult appearances, we should not multiply beings without necessity. This lias been the unhappy cause of introducing into the schools of science so many principles which have no being in nature ; such as substan- tial forms, occult qualities, materia prima, real space, substance in general, that is capable either of cogitation or solidity, &e. Now let us proceed to speak of order. The idea of order is derived from the consideration of one thing as being before another, or after another, or together with it. The terms used on this occasion are prier, posterior, and simultaneous. ÍI II
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