hings being consider'd, it seems probable to me, that God in
the Beginning form'd Matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable,
moveable Particles, of such Sizes and Figures, and with such other
Properties, and in such Proportion to Space, as most conduced to the End
for which he form'd them; and that these primitive Particles being
Solids, are incomparably harder than any porous Bodies compounded of
them; even so very hard, as never to wear or break in pieces; no
ordinary Power being able to divide what God himself made one in the
first Creation. While the Particles continue entire, they may compose
Bodies of one and the same Nature and Texture in all Ages: But should
they wear away, or break in pieces, the Nature of Things depending on
them, would be changed. Water and Earth, composed of old worn Particles
and Fragments of Particles, would not be of the same Nature and Texture
now, with Water and Earth composed of entire Particles in the Beginning.
And therefore, that Nature may be lasting, the Changes of corporeal
Things are to be placed only in the various Separations and new
Associations and Motions of these permanent Particles; compound Bodies
being apt to break, not in the midst of solid Particles, but where those
Particles are laid together, and only touch in a few Points.

It seems to me farther, that these Particles have not only a _Vis
inertiae_, accompanied with such passive Laws of Motion as naturally
result from that Force, but also that they are moved by certain active
Principles, such as is that of Gravity, and that which causes
Fermentation, and the Cohesion of Bodies. These Principles I consider,
not as occult Qualities, supposed to result from the specifick Forms of
Things, but as general Laws of Nature, by which the Things themselves
are form'd; their Truth appearing to us by Phaenomena, though their
Causes be not yet discover'd. For these are manifest Qualities, and
their Causes only are occult. And the _Aristotelians_ gave the Name of
occult Qualities, not to manifest Qualities, but to such Qualities only
as they supposed to lie hid in Bodies, and to be the unknown Causes of
manifest Effects: Such as would be the Causes of Gravity, and of
magnetick and electrick Attractions, and of Fermentations, if we should
suppose that these Forces or Actions arose from Qualities unknown to us,
and uncapable of being discovered and made manifest. Such occult
Qualities put a stop to the Improvement of natural Philos