BOOK I PART III
the energy, which produces the motion, cannot
lie in the extension.
This conclusion leads them into another,
which they regard as perfectly unavoidable.
Matter, say they, is in itself entirely unactive,
and deprived of any power, by which it may
produce, or continue, or communicate motion:
But since these effects are evident to our senses,
and since the power, that produces them, must
be placed somewhere, it must lie in thedeity, or
that divine being, who contains in his nature
all excellency and perfection. It is the deity,
therefore, who is the prime mover of the uni-
verse, and who not only first created matter,
and gave it it’s original impulse, but likewise
by a continued exertion of omnipotence, sup-
ports its existence, and successively bestows on
it all those motions, and configurations, and