Excerpt: ...of words. But still it may be said, that although a body is passive in motion, it may act upon other bodies, and thereby communicate motion to them. This is the ground taken by President Day. "The very same thing," says he, "may be both cause and effect. The mountain wave, which is the effect of the wind, may be the cause which buries the ship in the ocean," p. 160. I am aware, that one body is frequently said to act upon another; but this word action, as President Day has well said, is a term "of very ...
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Excerpt: ...of words. But still it may be said, that although a body is passive in motion, it may act upon other bodies, and thereby communicate motion to them. This is the ground taken by President Day. "The very same thing," says he, "may be both cause and effect. The mountain wave, which is the effect of the wind, may be the cause which buries the ship in the ocean," p. 160. I am aware, that one body is frequently said to act upon another; but this word action, as President Day has well said, is a term "of very convenient ambiguity, with which it is easy to construct a plausible but fallacious argument," p. 159. The only cause in every case of motion, is that force, whatever it may be, which acts upon the body moved, and puts it in motion. All the rest is pure passion or passiveness. The motion of the body is not action; it is the most pure passion of which the mind can form a conception. If a body in action is said to act upon another, this is but a metaphor; there is no real action in the case. Indeed, if a body be put in motion, and meets with no resistance, it will move on in a right line forever-and why? just because of its inertia, of its inherent destitution of a power to act. As a mathematician, President Day certainly knew all this; but he seems to have forgotten it all, in his eagerness to support the cause of moral necessity. He saw that motion is frequently called action; he saw that one body is sometimes said to act upon another; and this was sufficient for his purpose. He did not reflect upon the natures of motion and of volition, as they are in themselves; he views them through the medium of an ambiguous phraseology. Nor did he reflect, that if motion is communicated from one body to another, this is not because one body really acts upon another, but because it is impossible for two bodies to occupy the same place at one and the same time. He did not reflect, that if motion is communicated from one body to another, this does not...
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Add this copy of An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry Into the to cart. $127.00, good condition, Sold by Bookfeathers LLC rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Lewisburg, PA, UNITED STATES, published 1845 by H. Hooker.
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Seller's Description:
G. Brown cloth, no jacket, large 12mo. 234pp. Ex-academic-lib with title and call in white librarians' markings to spine (uncertain if boards are original: front and rear boards are lightly textured with rectangle figures near edges, but no indication of gilt beneath library marks on spine). Library bookplate to front pastedown, pocket and checksheet to rear endpapers. Fading embossed bookpress marks to preliminary pages. Surface loss revealing underlying card to all corners, esp. lower front. Binding square and tight. Interior pages foxed with stress (not moisture) rippling. Lightly toned and generally unmarked, but occasional fading pencil bracketing. Overall G to G+, though interior text is VG-to VG.
Add this copy of An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry Into the to cart. $22.00, fair condition, Sold by Books From California rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Simi Valley, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1845 by H. Hooker.
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Fair. Scarce in any condition. Boards detached but present, backstrip missing. Some water staining, still readable. Over 500, 000 Internet Orders FIlled.
Add this copy of An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry Into the to cart. $66.74, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2015 by Palala Press.
Add this copy of An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry Into the to cart. $96.50, good condition, Sold by 3rd St. Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Lees Summit, MO, UNITED STATES, published 1845 by H. Hooker.
