Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An essay on matter : in five chapters. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![[ *° ] fay it is dead.—When we fee a limb removed from an hu- man body, we make a grofs companion between it and the body to which it was Juft before united ;—the aclion in the one being apparent to the eye, the other not—we fay the limb is dead.—Here we fee how far a fingle word, the word dead, impofes upon our judgement.—If words were away, which here as in many other cafes, and in all, more or lefs, act as an opiate to the mind, from the obftinate habit we have of receiving founds for things which they do not defcribe ; if words Avere away, then our minds would combine ideas, in the cafe which I have juft mentioned, as follows, and our judgement would approve the combina- tions.—If life extends to all matter, it muft extend to all matter in it's priftine ftate, i. e. uncompounded ; fo it muft extend to matter fmall beyond our comprehenfion. Life cannot depend upon compofition. If any doubt, let them try the poffible erTecls of compounding, and they will find them to be all grofs; it gives a grofs variation to the form, fize, motion, &c. of matter ; but it is grofs only : for in it's own priftine ftate, &c. each particle of matter is retained in the compound^ though the compound is capable of deceiv- ing our fenfes upon a fuperficial view. Suppofe a number of men crouded together, making a form which, in Ta&ics, would be called a folid fquare, and their motion united in one point ; this fquare is compofed of men, files, companies, regiments, brigades. Now, fup- pofe a Being whofe organ of feeing is fo grofs, that to it this fquare appears as fmall as the moll minute object does to our's, he will fee but one form, fize, and motion, and thofe altogether different from the fize, motion, and form, which each individual gives in to this compound ; and hence may conclude as reafonably as we do in other things, that this iquare has but one life and one motion. Combination then cannot deftroy matter and motion: but by uniting various forms, and of courfe various motions, the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21136099_0020.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
