inaBivity of Matter, &c. 95

baps all these various motions are reducibleto attraction and repulsion)} in a word, mat-ter of all sorts, is but a dead substance in theseeffects; and it is another Being that performsall. And therefore the descent of heavy bo-dies by gravitation, or (again) by the laws ofhydrostatics (which are but the methods ofgravitation as it obtains in fluids) the runningof rivers, the rife of vapours, the fall of rains,the motions of the clouds and wind, the roll-ing of the waves; in short all the motionswe observe in the heavens, or on the earth,except the spontaneous motions of animals,and the immediate consequences of these (ofwhich exception yet more hereafter) are theimmediate work of the first cause ; as also theproduction of all vegetable and animal bodies,and all the mechanical motions that exist inthese when produced (of which also more byand by) are to be ascribed to his immediateefficiency and power. For all these, withoutexception, are but the efseEts of the naturalpowers of matter (as they are called) and thosepowers are no other than the forces immedi-ately imprejjed by him, in certain circumstan-ces, to overcome its resistance to motion ;and called natural powers, because of the

constancy