whole mafs, and all the members of this vifible world. Nor is this doctrine lefs philofophical than pious. We fee all nature alive or in motion. We fee water turned into air, and air rarified and made elaftic (e) by the attraction of another medium, more pure indeed, more fubtil, and more volatile than air. But ftill, as this is a moveable extended, and, confequently, a corporeal being (f), it cannot be itself the principle of motion, but leads us naturally and neceffarily to an incorporeal spirit or agent. We are confcious that a fpirit can begin, alter, or determine motion, but nothing of this appears in body. Nay the contrary is evident, both to experiment and reflection.

292. Natural phænomena are only natural appearances. They are, therefore, fuch as we fee and perceive them. Their real and objective natures are, therefore, the fame; paffive without any thing active, fluent and changing without any thing permanent in them. However, as thefe make the first impreffions, and the mind takes her firft flight and fpring, as it were, by refting her foot on thefe objects, they are not only firft confidered by all men, but most confidered by moft men. They and the phantomes that refult from thofe appearances, the children of imagination grafted upon fenfe, fuch for example as pure fpace (i) are thought by many the very first in existence and ftability, and to embrace and comprehend all other beings.

293. Now although fuch phantomes as corporeal forces, abfolute motions, and real fpaces, do pafs in phyfics for caufes and principles (g), yet are they in truth but hypothefes, nor can they be the objects of real fcience, They pafs nevertheless in phyfics converfant about things of fenfe, and con(e) 149, 152, 200. (f) 207. (4) 270. (g) 220, fined

249, 250.

fined to experiments and mechanics. But when we enter the province of the philofophia prima, we difcover another order of beings, mind and it's acts, permanent being, not dependent on corporeal things, nor refulting, nor connected, nor contained; but containing, connnecting, enlivening the whole frame; and imparting thofe motions, forms, qualities, and that order and fymmetry to all thofe tranfient phænomena, which we term the course of na

ture.

294. It is with our faculties as with our affections what first feifes, holds faft (a). It is a vulgar theme, that man is a compound of contrarieties, which breed a restless struggle in his nature, between flesh and fpirit, the beaft and the angel, earth and heaven, ever weighed down and ever bearing up. During which conflict the character fluctuates: when either fide prevails, it is then fixed for vice or virtue. And life from different principles takes a different iffue. It is the fame in regard to our faculties. Senfe at firft befets and overbears the mind. The fenfible appearances are all in all, our reafonings are employed about them; our defires terminate in them: we look no farther for realities or causes; till intellect begins to dawn, and caft a ray on this fhadowy fcene. We then perceive the true principle of unity, identity, and exiftence. Those things that before feemed to conftitute the whole of being, upon taking an intellectual view of things, prove to be but fleeting phantomes.

295. From the outward form of grofs maffes which occupy the vulgar, a curious inquirer proceeds to examine the inward ftructure and minute parts, and from obferving the motions in nature, to difcover the laws of thofe motions. By the way he frames his hypothefis and fuits his language to (a) 264.

this natural philofophy. And these fit the occafi on and answer the end of a maker of experiments or mechanic, who means only to apply the powers of nature, and reduce the phænomena to rules. But, if proceeding still in his analysis and inquiry, he afcends from the fenfible into the intellectual world, and beholds things in a new light and a new order, he will then change his fyftem and perceive, that what he took for fubftances and caufes are but fleeting fhadows; that the mind contains all, and acts all, and is to all created beings the fource of unity and identity, harmony and order, exiftence and ftability.

296. It is neither acid, nor falt, nor fulphur, nor air, nor æther, nor visible corporeal fire (b), much lefs the phantome fate, or neceffity, that is the real agent, but by a certain analysis, a regular connection and climax, we ascend through all those mediums to a glympfe of the first mover, invifible, incorporeal, intellectual fource of life and being. There is, it must be owned, a mixture of obfcurity and prejudice in human fpeech and reafonings. This is unavoidable, fince the veils of prejudice and error are flowly and fingly taken off one by one. But if there are many links in the chain which connects the two extremes of what is grofly fenfible and purely intelligible, and it feem a tedious work, by the flow helps of memory, imagination, and reason, oppreffed and overwhelmed, as we are, by the fenfes, through erroneous principles and long ambages of words and notions, to ftruggle upwards into the light of truth, yet as this gradually dawns, further dilcoveries ftill correct the style, and clear up the notions.

297. The mind, her acts and faculties, furnish new and diftina class of objects (c) from the 6) 1.63, 266.

(b) 155.

contempla

1

contemplation whereof arife certain other notions, principles, and verities, fo remote from, and even fo repugnant to, the first prejudices which furprize the fenfe of mankind, that they may well be excluded from vulgar fpeech and books, as abftract from fenfible matters, and more fit for the fpeculation of Truth, the labour and aim of a few, than for the practice of the world, or the fubjects of experimental or mechanical inquiry. Nevertheless, though, perhaps, it may not be relished by fome modern readers, yet the treating in physical books concerning metaphyfical and divine matters can be juftified by great authorities among the ancients; not to mention, that he, who profeffedly delivers the elements of a science, is more obliged to method and fyftem, and tied down to more rigorous laws, than a mere effay writer. It may, therefore, be pardoned if this rude effay doth, by infenfible tranfitions, draw the reader into remote inquiries and fpeculations, that were not thought of, either by him or by the author, at firft fetting out.

298. There are traces of profound thought as well as primæval tradition in the Platonic, Pythagoraan, Egyptian, and Chaldaic philofophy (p). Men in thofe early days were not overlaid with languages and literature, Their minds feem to have been more exercised, and lefs burthened, than in later ages; and, as fo much nearer the beginning of the world, to have had the advantage of patriarchal lights handed down through a few hands. It cannot be affirmed indeed (how probable foever it may feem) that Mofes was that fame Mochus, with whofe fucceffors, priefts and prophets, Pytha goras is faid to have converfed at Sidon. Yet the Study of philofophy appears to be of very great antiquity and remote original; inasmuch as Timæus V 179, 266.

Locrenfis,

Locrenfis, that ancient Pythagorean, author of the book concerning the foul of the world, fpeaks of a moft ancient philofophy, even in his time, a weeΕύςα φιλοσοφία, ftirring up and recovering the foul from a ftate of ignorance to the contemplation of divine things. And though the books attributed to Mercurius Trifmegiftus were none of them wrote by him, and are allowed to contain fome manifest forgeries; yet it is alfo allowed, that they contain tenets of the antient Ægyptian philofophy, though dreffed perhaps in a more modern garb. To account for which, Jamblichus obferves, that the books under his name contain indeed mercurial opinions, though often expreffed in the ftyle of the Greek philofophers; as having been tranflated from the Ægyptian tongue into Greek.

299. The difference of Ifis from Ofiris (d) refembles that of the moon from the fun, of the female from the male, of natura naturata (as the fchoolmen fpeak) from natura naturans. But Ifis, though mostly taken for nature, yet (as the Pagan divinities were very fluctuating things) it fometimes fignified av. And we find in Mountfaucon an Ifis of the ordinary form with this infcription 98 wales. And in the menfa Ifiaca, which feems to exhibit a general fyftem of the religion and fuperftition of the Ægyptians, Ifis on her throne poffeffeth the center of the table. Which may feem to fignify, that the universe or to war was the center of the ancient fecret religion of the Ægyptians; their Ifis or to way comprehending both Ofiris the author of nature and his work.

300. Plato and Ariftotle confidered God as abftracted or diftinct from the natural world. But the Ægyptians confidered God and nature as ma

(d) 268.

king