An essay on the powers and mechanism of nature; : intended, by a deeper analysis of physical principles, to extend, improve, and more firmly establish, the grand superstructure of the Newtonian system. / By Robert Young.
- Young, Robert
- Date:
- M DCC LXXXVIII. [1788]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An essay on the powers and mechanism of nature; : intended, by a deeper analysis of physical principles, to extend, improve, and more firmly establish, the grand superstructure of the Newtonian system. / By Robert Young. Source: Wellcome Collection.
101/374 (page 73)
![C 73 ] do exift without us (p 67), to wit, the aftions which produce ideas, there are external exift- ences independent on being perceived by us. The pofition that all our ideas are pafTive f (q 68) is contrary to felf-evidence. Are not all our ideas changes taking place in our confciouf- nefs ? And can change exift without a6lion ? We are, it is true, paffive fubjefts of the ^ aflion in which ideas confift ; but to call the ideas paflive is to talk of a paflive change, vir- tue, or power. Let us illuftrate this by an example taken from our author. He fays, When I ftir my finger it remains H paflive; but my will, which produces the motion, is adive. How does it appear that the will is active ? By producing motion, fays our author; then whatever produces motion is a6live ? And does not the finger produce motion as well as the will ? Does it not move the air or other bodies which the will cannot move, as it can the finger ? Is there not the fame evidence of a6lion in the finger as in the will ? If the finger is paflive to the will which moves it, is it not alfo a8:ive to thofe things which it moves ? L But](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2878196x_0101.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
