ACTIVE

, the quality of an agent, or of communicating motion or action to some body. In this sense the word stands opposed to passive: thus we say an active cause, active principle, &c.

Sir Isaac Newton shews that the quantity of motion in the world must be always deereasing, in consequence of the vis inertiæ, &c. So that there is a necessity for certain active principles to recruit it: such he takes the cause of gravity to be, and the cause of fermentation; adding, that we see but little motion in the universe, except what is owing to these active principles.