Preface to the Reader

immobile [amplitude], which he Likely referring to Aristotle. calls the first unmoved mover original: τὸ πρῶτον κινοῦν ἀκίνητον, as well as to the pure mind original: νοῦν ἀμιγῆ of Anaxagoras Anaxagoras (c. 500–428 BC) was a Greek philosopher who proposed that "Mind" (Nous) was the primary cause of physical change., that is, the Mind unmixed. For from this it is clearly established that the first origin of all physical motions is immobile, and that the Divine Power is unmixed with Matter, not only insofar as He is Mind, but also insofar as He is a certain moving Force of the entire matter of the World. For this immense immobile Extension is not whirled around with those innumerable Vortices whirlpools of celestial matter in the Cartesian system. of driven Matter; nor does God merge with the worldly body (as happens in the case of particular Animals), in such a way that He is simultaneously carried away by some motion of it; rather, He merely stands by it, and by a certain more sublime and more suspended Magic, He impresses the proper motions and forms upon the particles of Matter.

8. And these things are certainly acceptable as far as I am concerned, for I am so fashioned by nature that I cannot conceive of anything truly existing which lacks all Amplitude The quality of taking up space or having volume; synonymous here with "extension.". Nor indeed do I care at all for the refinement of those men who—based on the fact that Substance is defined as a Being subsisting through itself—wish to conclude that some Substances can exist which are neither extended nor ample themselves, nor can they have any relation or habit to any other extended thing; namely, because in the definition of Substance