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minute paris, and stom observing the motions in nature, to disco ver thelaws of those motions. By the way, he frames his hypothesis and sui is his langu age to this natural philosophy. And these fit the occasion and
an Mer the end of a malier of experiments Or mechanic, who means ora lyto apply the po ers of nature, and reduce the phaenomena to rules. But,
is proceed ing stili in his analysis and inquiry, he ascends frona the sensi-hle into the intellectuat worid, and belloliis things in a ne is light and aneis orde r. He Will then change his system, and perceive that what helook for substances and causes are but fleeting shadows: that the miridcontains ali, and acts ali, and is to ali crea ted heings the source of unityand identity, harmony and order, existence and stabili ty. 296. It is ne i ther acid, nor sali, nor sulphur, nor air, nor aether, norvisibie corporeal fire ', much lesse the phantom, fate, or necesii ty, that is the real agent, but by a certain analysis, a regular connexion and climax, we ascend through ali those medium s to a glimpse of the first mover, invisibie, incorporeat, unextended, intellectual se urce of life and hein se There is, it must be o ned, a mixture os obscuri ty and preiudice in human speech and rea nings. This is una voidabie, since the velis os pre-judice and error a re flowly and singly taken ossi one by one. But is thereare many linlis in the chain whicli connects the two extremes of what is
grossy sensibie and purely intelligibie, and it stem a tedio us work, by thesiow helps of memory, imagination, and reason, oppresSed and over-Whelmed, as we are, by the senses, through erroneous principies and long ambages of Words and notions, to struggle opwards into the light of truth, yet as this gradu atly dawns, further disco vertes stili correct the styleand clear up the notion S. 297. The mind, her alis, and faculties, furnim a new and distinet classos objecis ', Dona the contemplation whereos ari se certain other notion S,
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principies, and verities, se remote Dom, and even se repugnant to, thesirst prejudices whicli surpri se tho sense of mari hind, that they mayweli he excluded fro in vulgar speech and books, as abstract Dom sensi blemat ters, and more fit sor the speculation os truth, the labour and aim ofa seru, than for the practice of the worid, or the subjects of experimentalor mechanical inquiry. Nevertheleia though, perhaps, it may not berelis hed by me modern readers, yet the trea ting in physical books con- cerning metaphysical and divine matters can be justi fied by great authorities among the ancients: not to mention, that he , who prosessedly deli- vers the elements of a science, is more obliged to method and system, and lied down to more rigorous la S, than a mere eslay writer. Itmay, there re, be pardoned is this rude esiay doth, by insensibie transiti oras, draw the reader into remo te inquiri es and speculations, that werenot, per haps, thought os, et ther by him or by the author, at first se iting
298. There a re traces of pro und thought as weli as prim evat tradition in the Platonio, Pythagorean, Egypti an, and Chaldaic philosophy . Men in those early days were not overtaid with langu ages and literature. Their mirads seem to have been more exerci sed, and lese burdened, than in later ages ; and, as se much nearer the beginning of the worid, to have had the advantage of patriarchal lighis handen down through a feruli and s. It cannot indeed be affirmed how probabie foe ver it may seem)that Moses was that se me Mochus, with ivliose succetars, pri est s and propheis, Pythagoras is se id to have conversed at Sidon. Yet the studyos philosophy appe ars to be of very great antiqui ty and remote original; in asinuch as Timaeus Locrensis, that ancient Pythagorean, author of the book concerning the se ut of the worid, spealis of a most ancient philosophy, even in his time, a stirring up and reco vering the ut Domi a state os ignorance to the contemplation os divine things.
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And though the books attributed to Mercurius Trismegistus were nono of them wro te by him, and a re allo Ned to contain seme manifest sorgeries : yet it is also allo ed, that they contain tenets of the ancient AEgyptian philosophy, though dressed perhaps in a more modern garb. Τo account sor whicli, Jamblichus observes, that the books under his namo contain in deed mercurial opinions, though osten expressed in the style
of the Greeli philosophers ; as having been transsa ted froin the AEgyptianton gue into Greel . et q. The disserente of Isis Dom Osiris ' resembles that of the moonfroin the lan, of the se male sto in the male, of natura naturata as theschoolmen spea li) Dom natura naturans. But i sis, though mostly taken for nature, yet as the Pagan divinities Here very fluctuat ing things) it semetimes signified ri And we find in Mountsaucon an Isis of the ordinary sorm with this inscription eis, πανὸι. And in the mensa Isiaca, whicli se ems to exhibit a generat system of the religion and superstitionios the AEgyptians, Isis on her throne possessem the center of the table. Which may seem to signify, that the universe or αό-was the center of the ancient secret religion of the AEgyptian S ; their Isi 8 or α. comprehending both Osiris the author os nature and his M ork. goo. Plato and Aristolle considered God as abstracted or distinet Domme natural worid. But the AEgyptians considered God and nature asmahing one inole, or ali things together as making one universe. In do-ing whicli they did not exclude the intelligent mind, but considered it ascontaining ali things. There re, Whate ver was Wrong in their Way of
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sunk and Mallowed up in sense and prejudice, and how unquali fled hytheir natural force to emerge Dom this state, will be api to thinh that thesirst spark of philosophy was derived stom heaven ; and that it was as a
sciet. The lapsed state of human hind is a thing to whicli the ancient
philosophers were not strangers. The the φύγη, the παλιν His meis
that the AEgyptians and Pythagoreans, the Platonisis and Stoics, had allso me notion of this doctrine, the ouilines of which seem to have beensi et ched out in those tenets. Theology and philosophy gently unbindille ligamenis, that cha in the Qui do n to the earth, and assist her figlitto wards the so vere ign good. There is an instinet or tendency of them in d upwards, which sheweth a natural en dea uour to recover and rai seo urseives, fio m our present sensual and lo condition, into a state os light, order, and Puri ty.3o3. The perceptions os sense are gross: but even in the senses thereis a disserenoe. Though harmony and proportion a re not objects of sense, yet the eye and the ear a re organs, whicli offer to the mind suci, materi- ais, by means whereos me may apprehend both the one and the other. By experiments of sense we hecome acquaint ed with the lo er faculties of the foui; and Dom them, whether by a gradual ' evolution, or ascent, we arrive at the highest. Sense supplies images to memory. These be- come subjects for sancy to work upon. Reason considera and judges os the imaginations. And these acts of rea n hecome new objects to theunderstanding. In this scale, each lower faculty is a step that leads toone a bove it. And the up permost naturalty leads to the deity, whicli is
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rather the object of intellectual knowledge than even of the discursive
faculty, not to mention the sensiitive. There ruris a cha in throughout
the whole system of heings. In this chain one litali drags another. The meanest things are connected with the highest. The calami ty there fore isnei ther strange nor much to be compla ined os, is a low sensual reader mali Dom mere love of the animal lise, find himself dra n on, surpri sed, and trayed into some curiosi ty concerning the intellectual. 3O . There is, accordi sag to Plato, pro perly no lino Niedge, but onlyOpinion concerning things sensibie and peris hing , not because they a re natural ly abstruse and involved in darknese: but because their natureand existence is uncertain, e ver fleeting and changing or rather, be- cause they do not in strist trulli exist at all, being at ways generat ing or inseri, that is, in a perpetuat flux, without any thing stabie or permanent in them to Constitute an object of reat science. The Pythagoreans and
rat ed and that whicli exis s. Sensi ble things and corporeat formS a re perpetuat ly producing and peris hin g, appearing and di sal Pearing, ne ver rest-ing in one state, hut always in motion and Change ; and there re in eia sect, not one heing but a succession of beings: while M ., is understood tobe se me hat os an abstradi or spirituat nature, and the proper object of intellectual knowledge. There re as there can be no knowledge of things Bowing and instabie, the opinion of Protagoras and Theaetetus, that sense was science, is absurd. And in deed nothing is more evident, than that the apparent si ges and sh apes, for instance, of things are in aconstant flux, e ver dissering as they a re vieri ed at disserent distances, orwith glasses more or tesse accurate. As for tho se absolute magnitudes and figures, whicli certa in Carissians and other moderns suppost to be inthings; that must stem a va in supposition, to whoe ver considers, it is supported by no argument of reason, and no experiment of sense.
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6o a Siris. gos. As understandisag perceiveth not, that is, doth not hear or steor Dei, so sense knoweth not: and although the mind may use both sense and fancy, as means hereby to arrive at lino ledge, yet sense orso ut, so sar forti, as sensitive, lino eth nothitag. For, as it is rightly observed in the Theaetetus os Plato, science consist 3 not in the passive per
ceptions, but in the rea ning UPon them, τω περὶ ἐμεινων συλλογισμω.
3o6. In the ancient philosophy of Plato and Pythagoras, we find distingui thed three foris of objects : in the first place a form or species thatis nei ther generaled nor destroyed, unchangeabie, invisibie, and altogether impercepti ble to sense, being only understood by the intellect. A secondsori there is e ver fluent and changing ', generating and perim in g, appearing and vanisming. This is comprehended by sense and opinion. Thethird kind is matter which, as Plato teacheth, being neither an object ofunderstanding nor of sense, is hardly to be made out by a certain spuri-
doctrine is contained in the Pythagoric treati se de anima mundi, whichil istinguis hing ideas, 1ensi ble things, and matter, maheth the sirst to beapprehended by intellect, the second by sense, and the last, to wit, mat-ter, λιναμω ,όθω. Whereos Themistius the Peripatetic assigns the reason. For, faith he, that a ct is to be esteemed spurious, whose object hath nothing positive, being only a mere privation, as silence or darknest. And cli he accounteth mattengo . Aristotio maheth a three id distinction of objects according to the three speculative sciences. Physics he supposeth to be conversantabout such things as have a principie of motion in them lueS, mathematius abolat things permanent but not abstracted, and theology about beingabstracted and immove able, whicli distinction may be sten in the ninth
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Siris. 6os book of liis metaphysics. Where by abstracted, he understandsseparabie Dom corporeal beings and sensibie qualities.so8. That philosopher held that the mind of man was a tabula rasa,
and that there were no innate ideas. Plato on the contrary, held originalideas in the mirid, that is, notions Whicli never were or can be in thesense, lach as being, beau ty, goodnesi, lihenest, pari ty. Some perhaps may think the truth to be this: that there are properly no ideas or passive objects in the mind, but what were derived from sense: but that
there are also hesides these her own acts or operations: such are notioris.
sos. It is a maxim of the Platonic philosophy, that the foui os manwas originalty furnis hed With native inbred notions, and stands in needos sensibie occasions, not absolutely sor producing them, but only sorawahening, rousing Or excitin g, into act What was atready preexistent, dormant, and latent in the foui ; as things are seid to be laid up in the memory, though not actualty perceived, untii they happen to be called forti, and brought into view by other objects. This notion seemethsemewhat different stom that os innate ideas, as understood by tho
cording to Themistius in his commentary on that treatisse, it may be in-
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sore they are first in the foui. He farther adds, that the minit is allthings, taliing the forms of ali things it hecomes ali things by intellectand sense. Alexander Aphrodisseus Qith as much, amrming the mindio be ali things o νουν το αι- ανιβ M. And this in faei is Aristotie'sown doctrine in his third book de anima, where he also asseris, with Plato,
knowledge is, that is to say, in the mind. Or, as it is otherwi se expressed, that the Qui is ali things. More might be seid to explain Aris- tolle's notion, but it Mould lead too far. 31 I. As to an absolute actuat existence ' of sensibie or corporeat things, it doth not stem to have been admitted either hy Plato or Aristolle. In the Theaetetus we are told, that is any one seith a thing is or is made, he must withal say, for what, or of What, or in respect of what, it isor is made; sor, that any thing mould exist in iiself or absolutely is absurd. Agreeably to whicli doctrine it is also farther assirmed by Plato, that it is impossibio a thing mould be Meet and Meet to nobody. It
must neverthelest he o ned with regard to Aristolle, that even in his metaphysics there are some expressions whicli stem to favour the absolute existence of corporeat things. For instance, in the eleventh book, speaking of corporeat sensi ble things, what wonder, salth he, is they neverappear to us the fame, no more than to sicli men, since we are always Chan ging and ne ver re main the fame ourselves t and again, he salth, sensi ble things, although they receive no change in themselves, do ne-verthelest in sicli persens produce different sensations and not the fame.
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Siris. 6os These passages would stem to imply a distinct and absolute existence of the objects of sense. SI a. But it must be observed, that Aristolle distingui meth a two id
existence potentiai and actual. It will not, there re, follo that, ac- cording to Aristolle, hecause a thing is, it must actualty exist. This is evident Dom the eighth book of his metaphysiics, where he animadverison the Megaric philosophers, as not admitting a possibie existence distinctfrom the actual: Dom whence, Lith he, it must folio , that there is nothing cold or hol or Meet or any sensii ble thing at ali, where there isno perception. He adds, that in.conseque iace of that Megario doctrine, we can have no sense but while we actualty exert it: we are hi ind whetiwe do not ste, and there re both blind and deas severat times in a day. ara. The of the Peripateties, that is, the sciences, aris and habits, were by them distinguis hed Dom the acts orand supposed to exist in the mind, though not exerted or put into act. This senas to illustrate the manner in ich Socrates, Plato, and their soli os conceive innate notions to be in the Qui os man. It was the Platonic docti ine, that human uls or minds descended from above, and were sowed in generation, that they were stunned, stupifred, and ineoxi caled by this descent and immeriton into animal nature. And that theseul, in this or flumber, . forgeis her original notions, whicli aresmothered and oppressed by many false tenets and preiudices of sense. In much that Proclus compares the foui, in her descent in vested withgro ing prejudices, to Glaucus diving to the bottom of the sea and there contracting divers coats of sea weed, coral, and melis, whicli stich closeto him and conceat his true mape.
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Siris. 3I . Hence, according to this philosophy, the mind of man is so rest-lest to malle of that si umber, to disen gage and emancipate herseis Domitiose prejudices and false opinions, that so straitly beset and cling to her, to rub off those covers, that di uise her original form, and to regain herprime vat state and first notions: herace that perpetuat struggle to reco verthe lost region os light, that ardent thirsi and en dea uour after truth and intellectual ideas, whicli me would ne i ther steli to attain, nor rejoice in , nor know when attained, excepi me had some prenotion or anticipationos them, and they had la in innate and dormant like habiis and sciences in the mirad, or things laid up, whicli are called out and roused by recollection or reminiscenoe. So that learning seemeth in effect reminis-
ars. The Peripatetics them selves distinguish bet Neen reminiscence and mere memory. Themistius observes that commonly the best memories go With the worst paris; but that reminiscence is most perfect in the most ingenious minit s. And notwithstanding the tabula rasa of Aristolle, yet me of his follo vers have underi alien to mahe hi in speali Plato's sense. Thus Plutarch the Peripatetic t eacheth, as agreeable to his master's doctrine, that learia ing is reminiscence, and that the- ξi, is in children. Simplicius al1o in his commentary on the third book of Aristotio speaheth of a certa in interior reason in the Qui, acting of itself, and ori
316. And, as the Platonic philosophy supposed intellectual notions tobe originalty inexistent or innate in the foui lihewi se it supposed sensibie qualities to exist though not originalty) in the foui, and there only.
Socrates Lith to Theaetetus, you must not thinh the white colour thalyou see is in any thing Without your eyes, or in your eyes, or in any Placeat all. And in the Timaeus, Plato teacheth, that the figure and motion of