8. Instances: scholastic definitions of motion. The not observing
this difference in our ideas, and their names, has produced that
eminent trifling in the schools, which is so easy to be observed in
the definitions they give us of some few of these simple ideas. For,
as to the greatest part of them, even those masters of definitions
were fain to leave them untouched, merely by the impossibility they
found in it. What more exquisite jargon could the wit of man invent,
than this definition:- "The act of a being in power, as far forth as
in power"; which would puzzle any rational man, to whom it was not
already known by its famous absurdity, to guess what word it could
ever be supposed to be the explication of. If Tully, asking a Dutchman
what beweeginge was, should have received this explication in his
own language, that it was "actus entis in potentia quatenus in
potentia"; I ask whether any one can imagine he could thereby have
understood what the word beweeginge signified, or have guessed what
idea a Dutchman ordinarily had in his mind, and would signify to
another, when he used that sound?
9. Modern definitions of motion. Nor have the modern philosophers,
who have endeavoured to throw off the jargon of the schools, and speak
intelligibly, much better succeeded in defining simple ideas,
whether by explaining their causes, or any otherwise.
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