ABSTRACT
§. I. I Think it next to a Demonstration, that there is a self-active and self-motive Principle in all Animals what-soever, both in the perfect and imperfect. Mere Mechanism (that is, Foreign impress'd Motions, according to certain Laws, and in Proportion to the Surfaces of Bodies only) may possibly account for the Appearances of Vegetation; but it can never account for Animation, or the animal Life even of the lowest Insect; and this, I think, is the universal Opinion of all the ablese and wisest Geometers, who are most knowing in the Laws of Mechanism. How far a perpetual Motion is possible, in the present State of Things, and under the present established Laws of Nature, I will not take upon me absolutely to determin. I should think the Friction of Bodies, the perpetual Loss of communicated Motion on our Globe, and the Impossibility of any Curves being describ'd by one and the same Impulse, should make it as impossible, as the squareing the Circle, or expressing Surds by Integers or finite Fractions, under the present State of our Arithmetic. But that every Animal is a perpetuum Mobile, from a Self-Motive Principle within, and from its own innate Powers, I think, is past all manner of Doubt; and to explain Mechanically, from Matter and Motion alone, and all the Powers of our Numbers and Geometry join'd to them; the Functions of any living Animal, is mere Jargon and Ignorance, as I conceive.
