PREFACE

PRÆFATIO.

...mixtures, organs from mixed masses, and finally organic bodies corpora organica In 18th-century philosophy, "organic bodies" refers to living things like plants and animals, which possess specialized structures or "organs." from these. Here you will find guiding notions wonderfully useful for philosophizing correctly about the changes of bodies.

I do not define the specific difference between these elements and other simple substances substantiis simplicibus with which they belong to the same genus, nor do I labor anxiously over defining it, since we may safely remain ignorant of it in Physics. For this reason, I leave to Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), a German philosopher who proposed that the universe is made of "monads"—indivisible, soul-like simple substances. his own opinion on monads, nor do I make my own the controversy stirred up by men not born to discuss sublime matters, even though a response to their weak original: "ficulneas"; literally "made of fig-wood," a Latin idiom for something flimsy, brittle, or worthless. objections is not difficult. For it is all the same to me whether one prizes Leibnizian monads highly or condemns and rejects them.

I had to treat the laws of motion leges motus so that the order of nature, its contingency, and the freedom of nature from absolute necessity could be demonstrated; also for the reason that Mathematicians, when about to demonstrate the rules of motion, take them as a starting point.

Moreover, I have presented each point with such ease that they can be understood even by someone who has barely tasted Mathematics with the tips of their lips original: "Mathesin vix primis labris degustavit"; a classical idiom meaning to have only a superficial or introductory knowledge of a subject.. Since certain laws of motion are more easily abstracted from the rules of motion than demonstrated independently of them, I could not entirely bypass the rules of motion which bodies observe in conflict original: "conflictu"; refers to the physical impact or collision of two bodies.. However, to understand the demonstrations, it is sufficient to know