fined to experiments and mechanics. But when we enter the province of the philofophia prima, we discover 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 those motions, forms, qualities, and that order and symmetry to all thofe tranfient phænomena, which we term the courfe of na

ture.

294. It is with our faculties as with our affections: what first seises, holds fast (a). It is a vulgar theme, that man is a compound of contrarieties, which breed a restless struggle in his nature, between flesh and spirit, 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 first besets and overbears the mind. The fenfible appearances are all in all, our reasonings 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 scene. We then perceive the true principle of unity, identity, and existence. 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 philosophy. And thefe fit the occafion 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 ftill 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, existence and stability.

296. It is neither acid, nor falt, nor fulphur, nor air, nor æther, nor visible corporeal fire (b), much less the phantome fate, or neceffity, that is the real agent, but by a certain analyfis, a regular connection and climax, we afcend through all thofe mediums to a glympfe of the first mover, invifible, incorporeal, unextended, intellectual fource of life and being. There is, it must be owned, a mixture of obfcurity and prejudice in human speech 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 sensible and purely intelligible, and it seem a tedious work, by the flow helps of memory, imagination, and reason, oppreffed and overwhelmed, as we are, by the senses, through erroneous principles and long ambages of words and notions, to ftruggle upwards into the light of truth, yet as this gradually dawns, further difcoveries ftill correct the ftyle, and clear up the

notions.

297. The mind, her acts and faculties, furnish a new and diftinct clafs of objects (c) from the

(b) 155.

(c) 163, 266.

-contempla

contemplation whereof arife certain other notions, principles, and verities, fo remote from, and even fo repugnant to, the firft prejudices which furprize the fenfe of mankind, that they may well be excluded from vulgar fpeech and books, as abstract 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 subjects of experimental or mechanical inquiry. Nevertheless, though, perhaps, it may not be relished by fome modern readers, yet the treating in phyfical 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 system, 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 first setting out.

298. There are traces of profound thought as well as primæval tradition in the Platonic, Pythagoræan, Egyptian, and Chaldaic philofophy (p). Men in those 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, Pythagoras is faid to have converfed at Sidon. Yet the ftudy of philofophy appears to be of very great antiquity and remote original; inafmuch as Timæus (p) 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, weerβύσα 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 manifeft 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 Ægyp tian 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 schoolmen fpeak) from natura naturans. But Ifis, though moftly taken for nature, yet (as the Pagan divinities were very fluctuating things) it fometimes fignified wav. And we find in Mountfaucon an Ifis of the ordinary form with this infcription 9 πανός. walós. And in the menfa Ifiaca, which feems to exhibit a general fyftem of the religion and fuperftition of the Egyptians, Ifis on her throne poffeffeth the center of the table. Which may feem to fignify, that the univerfe or way 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 one whole, or all things together as making one universe. In doing which they did not exclude the intelligent mind, but confidered it as containing all things. Therefore, whatever was wrong in their way of thinking, it doth not, nevertheless, imply or lead to Atheism.

301. The humane mind is fo much clogged, and born downward, by the strong and early impref. fions of fense (a), that it is wonderful, how the ancients fhould have made even fuch a progrefs, and feen fo far into intellectual matters, without fome glimmering of a divine tradition. Whoever confiders a parcel of rude favages left to themfelves, how they are funk and fwallowed up in fense and prejudice, and how unqualified by their natural force to emerge from this ftate, will be apt to think that the first spark of philofophy was derived from heaven; and that it was (as a Heathen writer expreffeth it) Θεοπαράδα ο φιλοσοφία.

302. The lapfed ftate of human kind is a thing to which the ancient philofophers were not ftrangers. The λύσις, the φυγή, the παλιΓηρεσία few that the Egyptians and Pythagoreans, the Platonifts and Stoics, had all fome notion of this doctrine, the outlines of which feem to have been sketched out in those tenets. Theology and philofophy gently unbind the ligaments, that chain the foul down to the earth, and assist her flight towards the fovereign Good. There is an inftinct or tendency of the mind upwards, which fheweth a natural endeavour to recover and raise ourfelves, from our prefent fenfual and low condition, into a state of light, order, and purity.

303. The perceptions of fenfe are grofs: but even in the fenfes there is a difference. Though harmony and proportion are not objects of sense,