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yet the eye and the ear are organs, which offer to the mind fuch materials, by means whereof the may apprehend both the one and the other. By experiments of fenfe we become acquainted with the lower faculties of the foul; and from them, whether by a gradual (a) evolution or afcent, we arrive at the higheft. Senfe fupplies images to memory. These become fubjects for fancy to work upon. Reason confiders and judges of the imaginations. And thefe acts of reafon become new objects to the understanding. In this fcale, tach lower faculty is a ftep that leads to one above it. And the uppermoft naturally leads to the Deity, which is rather the object of intellectual knowledge than even of the difcurfive faculty, not to mention the fenfitive. There runs a chain throughout the whole fyftem of beings. In this chain one link drags another. The meaneft things are connected with the higheft. The calamity therefore is neither ftrange nor much to be complained of, if a low fenfual reader fhall, from mere love of the animal life, find himself drawn on, furprised, and betray'd into fome curiofity concerning the intellectual.

304. There is according to Plato properly no knowledge, but only opinion concerning things fenfible and perifhing (), not because they are naturally abftrufe and involved in darkness, but because their nature and existence is uncertain, ever fleeting and changing; or rather, because they do not in ftrict truth exift at all, being always generating or in fieri, that is, in a perpetual flux, without any thing stable or permanent in them to conftitute an object of real fcience. The Pythagoreans and Platonics diftinguif between το γυόμθμον and, that which is ever generated and that which exifts. Senfible things and corporeal forms (a) 275. (6) 263, 264.

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are perpetually producing and perishing, appearing and disappearing, never refting in one ftate, but always in motion and change; and therefore in effect, not one being but a fucceffion of beings: while to is understood to be fomewhat of an abstract or fpiritual nature, and the proper object of intellectual knowledge. Therefore as there can be no knowledge of things flowing and inftable, the opinion of Protagoras and Theaetetus, that fenfe was fcience, is abfurd. And indeed nothing is more evident, than that the apparent fizes and fhapes, for inftance, of things are in a conftant flux, ever differing as they are view'd at different distances, or with glaffes more or lefs accurate. As for those abfolute magnitudes and figures, which certain Cartefians and other moderns fuppofe to be in things, that must seem a vain fuppofition, to whoever confiders, it is fupported by no argument of reason, and no experiment of fenfe.

305. As understanding perceiveth not, that is, doth not hear or fee or feel, fo sense knoweth not: And although the mind may use both fense and phancy, as means whereby to arrive at knowledge yet fenfe or foul, fo far forth as fenfitive, knoweth nothing. For, as it is rightly obferved in the Theætetus of Plato, fcience confifts not in the paffive preceptions, but in the reasoning upon them, τῷ πεὶ ἐκείνων συλλογισμῷ,

306. In the ancient philofophy of Plato and Pythagoras, we find diftinguifhed three forts of objects: In the first place a form or fpecies that is neither generated nor deftroyed, unchangeable, invisible, and altogether imperceptible to fenfe, being only understood by the intellect. A fecond fort there is ever fluent and changing (g), generating and perishing, appearing and vanishing. This 263, 264. (g) 292, 293. T 2

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is comprehended by fenfe and opinion. The third kind is matter which, as Plato teacheth, being neither an object of understanding nor of fense, is hardly to be made out by a certain fpurious way of reafoning λογισμῷ τινι νόθῳ μόγις πιςόν. See his Timæus. The fame doctrine is contained in the Pythagoric treatise De anima mundi, which dif tinguishing ideas, fenfible things, and matter, maketh the firft to be apprehended by intellect, the fecond by fenfe, and the laft, to wit, matter, ogu vit whereof Themiftius the Perripatetic affigns the reafon. For, faith he, that act is to be efteemed fpurious, whofe object hath nothing pofitive, being only a mere privation, as filence or darkness. And fuch he accounteth matter.

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307. Ariftotle maketh a threefold diftinction of objects according to the three fpeculative fciences. Phyfics he fuppofeth to be converfant about fuch things as have a principle of motion in themselves; mathematics about things permanent but not abftracted; and theology about being abstracted and immoveable; which diftinction may be seen in the ninth book of his Metaphyfics. Where by abftracted, xweisov, he understands feparable from corporeal beings and fenfible qualities.

308. That philofopher held that the mind of man was a tabula rafa, and that there were no innate ideas. Plato, on the contrary, held original ideas in the mind, that is, notions which never were or can be in the fenfe, fuch as being, beauty, goodness, likeness, parity. Some perhaps may think the truth to be this: That there are properly no ideas or paffive objects in the mind, but what were derived from fense: but that there are alfo befides thefe her own acts or operations; fuch are notions.

309. It is a maxim of the Platonic philosophy,

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that the foul of man was originally furnished with native inbred notions, and stands in need of fenfible occafions, not abfolutely for producing them, but only for awakening, roufing, or exciting into act what was already pre-existent, dormant, and latent in the foul; as things are faid to be laid up in the memory, though not actually perceived, until they happen to be called forth and brought into view by other objects. This notion feemeth fomewhat different from that of innate ideas, as understood by thofe moderns who have attempted to explode them. To understand and to be, are according to Parmenides the fame thing. And Plato in his feventh letter makes no difference between võs and έ5μn, mind and knowledge. Whence it follows, that mind, knowledge, and notions, either in habit or in act, always go together..

310. And albeit Ariftotle confidered the foul in it's original state as a blank paper, yet he held it to be the proper place of forms, The Jux EvoL TÓTTOV Eidwv (a). Which doctrine firft maintained by others he admits, under this restriction, that it is not to be understood of the whole foul, but only of the volun; as is to be seen in his third book De anima. Whence, according to Themiftius in his commentary on that treatise, it may be inferred that all beings are in the foul. For, faith he, the forms are the beings. By the form every thing is what it is. And he adds, it is the foul that imparteth forms to matter; lu μορφῶσα ποικίλαις μορφαῖς. Therefore they are frft in the foul. He further adds, that the mind is all things, taking the forms of all things it becomes. all things by intellect and fenfe. Alexander Aphrodifæus faith as much, affirming the mind to be all things, καλά τε τὸ νοῦν καὶ τὸ αἰσθάνεις. And (a) 269,

this in fact is Ariftotle's own doctrine in his third book De anima, where he alfo afferts, with Plato, that actual knowledge and the thing known are all one: τὸ αὐτὸ δέ ἐςιν ἡ κατ ̓ ἐνέργειαν ἐπισήμη τῷ πράγματι. weyal. Whence it follows that the things are where the knowledge is, that is to fay, in the mind. Or, as it is otherwife expreffed, that the foul is all things. More might be faid to explain Ariftotle's notion, but it would lead too far.

311. As to an abfolute actual existence (b) of fenfible or corporeal things, it doth not seem to have been admitted either by Plato or Aristotle. In the Theætetus we are told, that if any one faith a thing is or is made, he muft withal fay, for what, or of what, or in refpect of what, it is or is made; for, that any thing fhould exift in it felf or abfolutely, is abfurd. Agreeably to which doctrine it is alfo farther affirmed by Plato, that it is impoffible a thing fhould be fweet, and sweet to no body. It muft nevertheless be owned with regard to Ariftotle, that, even in his Metaphyfics there are fome expreffions which feem to favour the abfolute exiftence of corporeal things. For inftance, in the eleventh book speaking of corporeal fenfible things, What wonder, faith he, if they never appear to us the fame, no more than to fick men, fince we are always changing, and never remain the fame our felves? And again, he faith, Senfible things, although they receive no change in themselves, do nevertheless in fick perfons produce different fenfations and not the fame. Thefe paffages would feem to imply a diftinct and abfolute existence of the objects of fenfe.

312. But it must be obferved, that Ariftotle diftinguifheth a twofold existence, potential and actual. It will not, therefore, follow that, ac(b) 264, 292, 294.

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