Page:The true intellectual system of the universe - the first part; wherein, all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted; and its impossibility demonstrated (IA trueintellectual1678cudw).pdf/43

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Chap. I.
Physiologized Atomically.
15

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

Besides all this, no less Author than Plato affirms, that according to Empedocles, Vision and other Sensations were made by 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the Defluxions of Figures, or Effluvia of Atoms, (for so Democritus his Atoms are called in Aristotle〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, because they were Bodies which had only Figure without Qualities) he supposing that some of these Figures or Particles corresponded with the Organs of one Sense, and some with the Organs of another. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉· You say then according to the Doctrine of Empedocles, that there are certain Corporeal Effluvia from Bodies of different Magnitudes and Figures, as also several Pores and Meatus's in us diversly Corresponding with them: So that some of these Corporeal Effluvia agree with some pores, when they are either too big or too little for others. By which it is evident, that Empedocles did not suppose Sensations to be made by intentional Species or Qualities; but as to the Generality, in the Atomical way; in which notwithstanding there are some differences among these Atomists themselves. But Empedocles went the same way here with Democritus, for Empedocles's 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Defluxions of figured Bodies, are clearly the same thing with Democritus his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Insinuations of Simulachra, or Exuvious Images of Bodies. And the same Plato adds further, that according to Empedocles, the Definition of Colour was this, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, The Defluxion of Figures, or figured Corpuscula (without Qualities) Commensurate to the Sight and Sensible. Moreover, that Empedocles his Physiology was the very same with that of Democritus, is manifest also from this Passage of Aristotle's; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉· Empedocles and Democritus deceiving themselves, unawares destroy all Generation of Things out of one another, leaving a seeming Generation only: For they say that Generation is not the Production of any new Entity, but only the Secretion of what was before Inexistant; as when divers kinds of things confounded together in a Vessel, are separated from one another. Lastly, we shall confirm all this by the clear Testimony of Plutarch, or the Writer de Placitis Philosophorum:〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉· Empedocles and Epicurus, and all those that compound the World of small Atoms, introduce Concretions and Secretions, but no Generations or Corruptions properly so called; neither would they have these to be made according to Quality by Alteration, but only according to Quantity by Aggregation. And the same Writer sets down the Order and Method, of the Cosmopoeia according to Empedocles;〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

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