_B._ That the universe, supposing there is no place empty, is one entire body, and also, as he saith it is, a continual body, is very true. And yet the parts thereof may be contiguous, without any other cohesion but touch. And it is also true, that a vessel of water will descend in a medium less heavy, but fluid, as ice would do. _A._ But he means that water in a tub would have the same effect upon a fish in the bottom of the tub, as so much ice would have. _B._ That also would be true, if the water were frozen to the sides of it. Otherwise the ice, if there be enough, will crush the fish to death. But how applies he this, to prove that the water cannot hurt a fish in the sea by its weight? _A._ It plainly appears that water does not gravitate on any part of itself beneath it. _B._ It appears by experience, but not by this argument, though instead of water the tub were filled with quicksilver. _A._ I thought so. But how it comes to pass that the fish remains uncrushed, I cannot tell. _B._ The endeavour of the quicksilver downward is stopped by the resistance of the hard bottom. But all resistance is a contrary endeavour; that is, an endeavour upwards, which gives the like endeavour to the quicksilver, which is also heavy, and thereby the endeavour of the quicksilver is diverted to the sides round about, where stopped again by the resistance of the sides, it receives an endeavour upwards, which carries the fish to the top, lying all the way upon a soft bed of quicksilver. This is the true manner how the fish is saved harmless. But your author, I believe, either wanted age, or had too much business, to study the doctrine of motion; and never considered that resistance is not an impediment only, or privation, but a contrary motion; and that when a man claps two pieces of wax together, their contrary endeavour will turn both the pieces into one cake of wax. _A._ I know not the author; but it seems he has deeplier considered this question than other men; for in the introduction to his book he saith, “that men have pre-engaged themselves to maintain certain principles of their own invention, and are therefore unwilling to receive anything that may render their labour fruitless;” and, “that they have not strictly enough considered the several interventions that abate, impede, advance, or direct the gravitation of bodies.” _B._ This is true enough; and he himself is one of those men, in that he considered not, that resistance is one of those interventions which abate, impede, and direct gravitation. But what are his suppositions for the questions he handles?