in gunpowder, the instant it comes in contact with fire. In short, the
most terrible effects result from the combination of matter, which is
generally believed to be dead and inert.

These facts prove, beyond a doubt, that motion is produced, is
augmented, is accelerated in matter, without the help of any exterior
agent: therefore it is reasonable to conclude that motion is the
necessary consequence of immutable laws, resulting from the essence,
from the properties existing in the different elements, and the various
combinations of these elements. Are we not justified, then, in
concluding, from these precedents, that there may be an infinity of
other combinations, with which we are unacquainted, competent to produce
a great variety of motion in matter, without being under the necessity
of having recourse, for the explanation, to agents who are more
difficult to comprehend than even the effects which are attributed to
them?

Had man but paid proper attention to what passed under his review, he
would not have sought out of Nature, a power distinguished from herself,
to set her in action, and without which he believes she cannot move. If,
indeed, by Nature is meant a heap of dead matter, destitute of peculiar
qualities purely passive, we must unquestionably seek out of this Nature
the principle of her motion. But if by Nature be understood, what it
really is, a whole, of which the numerous parts are endowed with various
properties, which oblige them to act according to these properties;
which are in a perpetual ternateness of action and reaction; which
press, which gravitate towards a common center, whilst others depart
from and fly off towards the periphery, or circumference; which attract
and repel; which by continual approximation and constant collision,
produce and decompose all the bodies we behold; then, I say, there is no