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THE LATER WORKINGS OF MATERIALISM IN ENGLAND Pp. 291-330

Connection between the Materialism of the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries, 291. Circumstances in England favouring the spread of

Materialism, 292. The union of scientific Materialism with religious

faith; Boyle and Newton, 298. Boyle; his life and character, 300.

His predilection for experiment, 302. Adheres to the mechanical

theory of the universe, 303. Newton's life and character, 306. Con-

siderations on the true nature of Newton's discovery; he shared the

general belief in a physical cause of gravity, 308. The idea that this

hypothetical agent determines also the motion of the heavenly

bodies lay very near, and the way was already prepared for it, 309.

The reference of the combined influence to the individual particles

was a consequence of Atomism, 311. The supposition of an impon-

derable matter, producing gravitation by its impulse, was already

prepared for, through Hobbes's relative treatment of the notion of

atoms, 311. Newton declares most distinctly against the now pre-

vailing notion of his doctrine, 312. But he separates the physical

from the mathematical side of the question, 314. From the triumph

of purely mathematical achievements arose a new physics, 315. In-

fluence of the political activities of the age on the consequences of

the systems, 317. John Locke, his life and intellectual development,

318. His "Essay concerning Human Understanding," 320. Other

writings, 323. John Toland, his idea of a philosophical cultus, 324.

The treatise on "Motion Essential to Matter," 326.

First Book.

HISTORY OF MATERIALISM

UNTIL KANT.

VOL. I.

A

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