essential to Matter, &c. % i

mutually. For a resistance to a change ofstate would resist a conatus toward it, in a*ny possible direction, by N° 5 and 11.

XV. This would be the result, if it werepossible, that two contrary conatus’s couldbe planted in matter at once: but that is re-ally impossible and contradictory. For thata particle, oj atom of matter (and the rea-son is the same in any assigned quantity)should have a tendency to move in any onegiven direction, and at the fame time that itshould have another tendency not to movein that, or any other direction, is to have atendency, and mt to have it, at once. Twosuch contrary and inconsistent tendencies,planted at once in one and the fame indivi-dual subject, is a notion destructive of itself;and therefore not to be effected by infinitepower; for to effect impossibilities is not theobject of any power. The argument is thefame, whether the first state of the body issupposed rest or motion: for if it is suppos-ed first moving, it cannot have a tendencyto move in that direction only, and with thatparticular degree of velocity only ; and yeth^ve a tendency to move in another direction,

C 3 and.