a shallower Wit, and such as comes nearest to the superstition and stupidity of the rude vulgar, who easilier fall into admiration and astonishment, than pierce into the reasons and notices of any difficult matter.
SECT. XVII.
But now for those that do thus despair of any true Knowledge of the Nature of a Spirit, I would entreat them to try the Abilities of their Wit in recognizing and throughly considering the Nature of Body in general, and let them ingenuously tell me whether they cannot but acknowledge this to be a clear and perspicuous Definition thereof, viz. That Body is substance Material of it self, altogether destitute of all Perception, Life, and Motions. Or thus, Body is a substance Material, coalescent or accruing together into one, by virtue of some other thing, from whence that one by coalition, has or may have Life also, Perception and Motion.
I doubt not but they will readily answer, that they understand all this (as to the Terms) clearly and perfectly; nor would they doubt of the Truth thereof, but that we deprive Body of all Motion from it self, as also of Union, Life, and Perception. But that it is Substance, that is, a Being subsistent by it self, not a mode of some Being, they cannot but very willingly admit, and that also it is a material Substance compounded of physical Monads, or at least of most minute Particles of Matter, into which it is divisible; and because of their Impenetrability, impenetrable by any other Body, so that the Essential and Positive difference of a Body is, that it be impenetrable, and physically divisible into Parts: But that it is extended, that immediately belongs to it as it is a Being. Nor is there any reason why they should doubt of the other part of the Dif-ferentia,
