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cording to Aristotle, because a thing is, it must actually exift. This is evident from the eighth book of his Metaphyfics, where he animadverts on the Megaric philofophers, as not admitting a poffible existence diftinct from the actual: from whence, faith he, it must follow, that there is nothing cold or hot or fweet or any fenfible thing at all, where there is no perception. He adds, that in confequence of that Megaric doctrine, we can have no fenfe but while we actually exert it: we are blind when we do not fee, and therefore both blind and deaf several times in a day.

313. The ἐντελέχεται πρῶται of the Peripatetics, that is, the sciences, arts, and habits, were by them distinguished from the acts or lenézeαs Jorge, and supposed to exift in the mind, though not exerted or put into act. This feems to illuftrate the manner in which Socrates, Plato, and their followers conceived innate (c) notions to be in the foul of man. In was the Platonic doctrine, that humane fouls or minds defcended from above, and were fowed in generation, that they were ftunned, ftupified, and intoxicated by this defcent and immerfion into animal nature. And that the foul, in this végwis or flumber, forgets her original notions, which are fmothered and oppreffed by many falfe tenets and prejudices of fenfe. Infomuch that Proclus compares the foul, in her descent invested with growing prejudices, to Glaucus diving to the bottom of the fea, and there contracting divers coats of fea-weed, coral, and fhells, which stick clofe to him and conceal his true shape.

314. Hence, according to this philofophy, the mind of man is fo reftlefs to fhake off that flumber, to difengage and emancipate herself from thofe prejudices and falfe opinions, that fo ftraitly

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befet and cling to her, to rub off thofe covers, that disguise her original form, and to regain her primæval state and first notions: Hence, that perpetual struggle to recover the loft region of light, that ardent thirst and endeavour after truth and intellectual ideas, which she would neither feek to attain, nor rejoice in, nor know when attained, except she had fome prænotion or anticipation of them, and they had lain innate and dormant like habits and sciences in the mind, or things laid up, which are called out and roufed by recollection or reminifcence. So that learning feemeth in effect reminiscence.

315. The Peripatetics themselves diftinguish between reminifcence and mere memory. Themiftius obferves that the best memories commonly go with the worst parts; but that reminiscence is moft perfect in the most ingenious minds. And notwithstanding the tabula rafa (d) of Ariftotle, yet fome of his followers have undertaken to make him fpeak Plato's fenfe. Thus Plutarch the Peripatetic teacheth as agreeable to his mafter's doctrine, that learning is reminifcence, and that the vç xat is in children. Simplicius alfo, in his commentary on the third book of Aristotle aki Juxus, fpeaketh of a certain interiour reafon in the foul, acting of it self, and originally full of it's own proper notions, πλήρης ἀφ' ἑαυτῇ τῶν οἰκείων γνωςῶν.

316. And as the Platonic philofophy fuppofed intellectual notions to be originally inexiftent or innate in the foul (e), fo likewife it fuppofed fenfible qualities to exift (though not originally) in the foul, and there only. Socrates faith to Theætetus, You must not think the white colour that you fee is in any thing without your eyes, or in your eyes, (d) 308. (e) 309, 314.

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or in any place at all. And in the Timæus Plato teacheth, that the figure and motion of the particles of fire dividing the parts of our bodies produce that painful fenfation we call heat. And Plotinus, in the fixth book of his fecond Ennead, obferves that heat and other qualities are not qualities in the things themselves, but acts: that heat is not a quality, but act, in the fire: that fire is not really what we perceive in the qualities light, heat, and colour. From all which it is plain, that whatever real things they fuppofed to exift independent of the foul, thofe were neither fenfible things, nor cloathed with fenfible qualities.

ύλης

317. Neither Plato nor Ariftotle by matter, An, understood corporeal fubftance, whatever the moderns may understand by that word. To them certainly it fignified no pofitive actual being. Ariftotle defcribes it as made up of negatives, having neither quantity nor quality nor effence. And not only the Platonifts and Pythagoreans, but also the Peripatetics themselves declare it to be known, neither by fenfe, nor by any direct and just reafoning, but only by fome fpurious or adulterine method, as hath been obferved before.

Simon

Portius, a famous Peripatetic of the fixteenth century, denies it to be any fubftance at all, for, faith he, nequit per fe fubfiftere, quia fequeretur, id quod non eft in actu effe in actu. If Jamblichus may be credited, the Egyptians fuppofed matter fo far from including ought of fubftance or effence, that, according to them, God produced it by a feparation from all fubftance, effence or being, ἀπὸ ἐσιότητα αποσχισθείσης υλότης. That matter is actually nothing, but potentially all things, is the doctrine of Ariftotle, Theophraftus, and all the antient Peripatetics.

318. According to thofe philofophers, matter is

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only a pura potentia, a mere poffibility. But Anaximander, fucceffor to Thales, is reprefented as having thought the fupreme Deity to be infinite matter. Nevertheless though Plutarch calleth it matter, yet it was fimply negov, which means no more than infinite or indefinite. And although the moderns teach that space is real and infinitely extended; yet if we confider that it is no intellectual notion, nor yet perceived by any of our fenfes, we fhall perhaps be inclined to think with Plato in his Timæus, that this alfo is the result of ・dogioμos vol or fpurious reafoning, and a kind of waking dream. Plato obferves that we dream, as it were, when we think of place, and believe it neceffary, that whatever exifts fhould exist in fome place. Which place or space (f) he also obferves is μετ' αναιθησίας ἁπλὸν, that is to be felt as darkness is feen, or filence heard, being a mere privation.

319. If any one should think to infer the reality or actual being of matter from the modern tenet, that gravity is always proportionable to the quantity of matter, let him but narrowly fcan the modern demonftration of that tenet, and he will find it to be a vain circle, concluding in truth no more than this, that gravity is proportionable to weight, that is to it felf. Since matter is conceived only as defect and mere poffibility; and fince God is abfolute perfection and act; it follows there is the greatest distance and oppofition imaginable between God and matter. Infomuch that a material God would be altogether inconsistent.

320. The force that produces, the intellect that orders, the goodnefs that perfects all things, is the fupreme being. Evil, defect, negation, is not the object of God's creative power. From (f) 250, 270.

motion the Peripatetics trace out a firft immoThe Platonics make God au

veable mover.

thor of all good, author of no evil, and unchangeable. According to Anaxagoras there was a confused mass of all things in one chaos, but mind fupervening, av, diftinguished and divided them. Anaxagoras, it feems, afcribed the motive faculty to mind, which mind fome fubfequent philofophers have accurately difcriminated from foul and life,afcribing to it the fole faculty of intellection.

321. But ftill God was fuppofed the first agent, the fource and original of all things, which he produceth, not occafionally or inftrumentally but with actual and real efficacy. Thus, the treatife, De fecretiore parte divinæ fapientiæ fecundum Ægyptios, in the tenth book, faith of God, that he is not only the first agent, but also that he it is who truly acts or creates, qui verè efficit.

322. Varro, Tully, and St. Auguftin understand the foul to be vis, the power, or force that acts, moves, enlivens. Now although, in our conception, vis, or spirit might be distinguished from mind, it would not thence follow, that it acts blindly or without mind, or that it is not closely connected with intellect. If Plutarch is to be trufted in his account of the opinions of philofophers, Thales held the mind of the world to be God: Democritus held the foul of the world to be an igniform deity (g): Pythagoras taught that God was the monad and the good, or ra'yatör: Socrates alfo and Plato pronounced him to be the Tov (b), the fingle, felf originate one, effentially good. Each of which appellations and forms of speech directly tends to, and determines in mind, εἰς τὸν νεν απέδει faith Plutarch, 323.Whence that author concludes, that in the fenfe (g) 166, 168, 277.

(b) 287.

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