For we are wont to consider the substances we meet with,
each of them, as an entire thing by itself, having all its qualities
in itself, and independent of other things; overlooking, for the
most part, the operations of those invisible fluids they are
encompassed with, and upon whose motions and operations depend the
greatest part of those qualities which are taken notice of in them,
and are made by us the inherent marks of distinction whereby we know
and denominate them. Put a piece of gold anywhere by itself,
separate from the reach and influence of all other bodies, it will
immediately lose all its colour and weight, and perhaps
malleableness too; which, for aught I know, would be changed into a
perfect friability. Water, in which to us fluidity is an essential
quality, left to itself, would cease to be fluid. But if inanimate
bodies owe so much of their present state to other bodies without
them, that they would not be what they appear to us were those
bodies that environ them removed; it is yet more so in vegetables,
which are nourished, grow, and produce leaves, flowers, and seeds,
in a constant succession. And if we look a little nearer into the
state of animals, we shall find that their dependence, as to life,
motion, and the most considerable qualities to be observed in them, is
so wholly on extrinsical causes and qualities of other bodies that
make no part of them, that they cannot subsist a moment without
them: though yet those bodies on which they depend are little taken
notice of, and make no part of the complex ideas we frame of those
animals.
Pages:
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881