20 Aug. 1813

Logic

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Ch. Language

I. Physical fictitious

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5. Motion. 6. Rest. 7. Action. 8. Passion.

At every step the subject of consideration becomes more and more complicated.

Rest is the absence or negation of motion. Every body is either in motion, or at rest. Here place, i.e. relative space is still the archetype. Motion is a thing an imaginary, an involuntarily imagined substance in which the body is conceived as being placed: rest a like body, at which the real body is considered as being placed.

In the idea /consideration/ /notion/ of motion that of time is moreover involved; and again that of place, as being that in which the idea of time is, by the like necessity, involved.

In motion a body cannot have been but it must have been in two different places, at or in two different, which is as much as to say, in two successive portions of time.

For the space of time in question, i.e. for a portion of time composed of those same portions which were operative in the case of motion, the body has been at rest, in so far as in all that space or length of time it has not changed its place with reference to any others.

Taken in the aggregate, in so far as can be concluded, either from observation or from analogy in the way of inference, no body whatsoever is, or ever has been, or ever will be, absolutely in a state of rest, i.e. without being in motion with reference to some other body or bodies.

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