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Volume I.
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inaSHvity of Matter, &c 85

to examine this conclusion well, and if it isrightly inferred, to admit it, and the conse-quences of it, honestly. Now since mattercannot re-excite the motion in itself; it sol-lows that as an immaterial Power first im-pressed motion on matter, so it still re-pro-duces the motion lost, and makes up the de-cays sustained. And upon this account, nei-ther the Epicurean, nor any other atheisti-cal system of the universe, could have beeneternal, where there is no immaterial Moverto repair the decays of motion. One of themost wonderful ways, to us, of exciting lost.motion in matter (if one way were morewonderful than another) is that of elasticity.The force of restitution is an immediate im-pression by an immaterial Mover ; for it re-sists this impression, as its having moment inits resilition shews (fee N° 19. sect. 1.) Butoften from the congress of such bodies, moremotion is excited, than was in them beforethe shock. Huygenins hath demonstrated, a-mong other surprizing properties of the con-gress of such bodies, that if a series of themwere placed so, that they might impinge oneach other directly, their quantities of mat-ter being in a geometrical proportion, and if

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