Observations, censures, and confutations of notorious errours in Mr. Hobbes his Leviathan and other his bookes to which are annexed occasionall anim-adversions on some writings of the Socinians and such hæreticks of the same opinion with him / by William Lucy ...

Sect. 2.

His second Proposition is as bad, That when a thing is in motion,* 1.1 it will eternally be in motion unlesse something else stop it; This is equally false with the other: First, Animal Motions he grants presently after, Men measu∣ring other things by themselves, judge they are weary, and so go to rest. This instance granted in a Man, confutes that indefinite term, when a thing is in motion; and what he speaks of Men, there is the same reason of all sensi∣tive creatures, which abide a lassitude or wearinesse, as well as man, and must have their Sabbath, their alter∣nam requiem to refresh them, or they cannot subsist; and therefore, when they are in long motions, go to rest themselves; and certainly a man may justly say, that all the locall motions of other things, as well as Animals,* 1.2 is to rest; the bladder, which moved it self before from un∣der the Water, rests it self upon the Water; the Plum∣met of Lead upon the earth; every thing, when it gets its own place, rests in that: So in violent motions, when you shoot an Arrow upward, it makes hast downward of it self, against the violence, and gets to the earth, where it may, and doth rest; so that the nature of eve∣ry thing is so composed, that as it is unquiet out of its fit and natural place, so it is quiet and rests in it: But he seems to give a reason for both Propositions, namely, that nothing can change it self.

This may have some resemblance of truth,* 1.3 in respect of the essence of things, because every change seems to imply a corruption and destruct••on of what it was chan∣ged from into that it was changed into, and nothing can

affect, or endeavours its own destruction, or ruine; but yet when any body is aff••cted with hurtfull accidents, it doth change them for its own advantage; the Water, when it hath that destructive accident, heat in it, by its own force and principles which are in it, works out that hurtfull heat, and reduceth its self to its own temper of coldnesse, when the Violence, which the fire offers to it, is removed. Thus heavy things move down∣wards, light upwards, when they can remove, or when those Obstacles are removed, which before kept them from their natural places. And thus natural bodies of Animals, expell those hurtful poysonous things, which the strength of their natural constitution can ma∣ster; and thus all things, when they are beset with any ill which they can overcome, change themselves. Thus it appeares, that as his Conclusions were erronious, so his Reasons and Foundations, upon which he built them, were weak, that nothing can change its self: What he adds of mens measuring other things by themselves, must be affirmed of Fools, for I dare say he never read Philo∣sopher write so.

Notes

• * 1.1

  All animals, being subject to ••assitude, re∣q••ire rest.
• * 1.2

  Inanimates, by local moti∣on, tend to∣ward rest.
• * 1.3

  All things, a∣ble to over∣come the ill th••y are af∣fected with, change them∣selves.