Page images
PDF
EPUB

tual flux or fucceffion, ever differing and various. Nevertheless, all things together may be confidered as one universe (d), one by the connection, relation and order of it's parts, which is the work of mind whofe unit is by Platonic, fuppofed a participation of the first rÒ EV.

Το

348. Socrates, in the Theatetus of Plato, fpeaketh of two parties of philofophers, the povTes and of Tỡ ὅλου ςατιωται, the Howing philofophers who held all things to be in a perpetual flux, always generating and never exifting; and those others who maintained the universe to be fixed and immoveable. The difference feems to have been this, that Heraclitus, Protagoras, Empedocles, and in general thofe of the former fect, confidered things fenfible and natural; whereas Parmenides and his party confidered τὸ πᾶν, not as the fenfible but as the intelligible world (e),, abstracted from all fenfible things.

349. In effect if we mean by things the fenfible objects, thefe, it is evident, are always flowing; but if we mean things purely intelligible, then we may fay on the other hand, with equal truth, that they are immoveable and unchangeable. So that thofe, who thought the whole or τὸ πᾶν to be ἓν έτως a fixed or permanent one, feem to have understood the whole of real beings, which, in their fenfe, was only the intellectual world, not allowing reality of being to things not permanent.

350. The difpleasure of fome readers may perhaps be incurred, by furprising them into certain reflexions. and inquiries for which they have no curiofity. But perhaps fome others may be pleased, to find a dry fubject varied by digreffions, traced through remote inferences, and carried into ancient times, whofe hoary maxims (f) fcattered in this effay are not propofed as principles, but barely as hints to awaken and exercise the inquifitive reader, on points not beneath the at

(d) 287, 288. (e) 293, 294, 295; (f) 298, 301.

tention

[ocr errors]

tention of the ablest men. Those great men, Pythagoras, Plato, and Ariftotle, the moft confummate in politics, who founded states, or inftructed princes, or wrote most accurately on publick government, were at the fame time most acute at all abftracted and fublime fpeculations; the cleareft light being ever neceffary to guide the most important actions. And whatever the world thinks, he who hath not much meditated upon God, the humane mind, and the Summum bonum, may poffibly make a thriving earthworm, but will moft indubitably make a forry patriot and a forry statesman.

TO

351. According to the nice metaphyfics of thofe ancient philofophers, to v, being confidered as what was first and fimpleft in the Deity, was prefcinded even from entity to which it was thought prior and fuperior; and is therefore by the Platonics ftyled fuper-effential, And in the Parmenides it is faid, To v doth not exist; which might feem to imply a negation of the divine being. The truth is, Zeno and Parmenides argued, that a thing existing in time was older and younger than it felf; therefore the conftant immutable To did not exist in time; and if not in time, then in none of the differences of time paft, prefent, or to come; therefore we cannot fay that it was, is, or will be. But nevertheless it is admitted in the fame Parmenides, that To v is every where prefent to To : that is, instead of a temporary fucceffion of moments, there is one eternal now, or, punctum ftans, as it is termed by the schoolmen.

352. The fimplicity of (the father in the Pythagoric and Platonic trinity) is conceived fuch as to exclude intellect or mind, to which it is fuppofed prior. And that hath created a fufpicion of atheifm in this opinion. For, faith the learned doctor Cudworth, fhall we fay that the firft hypoftafis or perfon is aves and drogos, fenfelefs and irrational, and altogether devoid of mind and understanding? or would (f) 298, 301.

not

Εν

not this be to introduce a kind of mysterious atheism? To which it may be answered, that whoever acknow ledgeth the universe to be made and governed by an eternal mind, cannot be justly deemed an atheist (g.) And this was the tenet of those ancient philofophers In the Platonic doctrine, the generation of the vs or aóyos was not contingent but neceffary, not temporary but from everlasting. There never was a time fuppofed wherein to fubfifted without intellect, the priority having been understood only as a priority of order or conception, but not a priority of age. Therefore, the maintaining a diftinction of priority between and vous doth not infer, that the one ever existed without the other. It follows, therefore, that the father or may, in a certain sense, be faid to be aves without atheism, or without deftroying the notion of a deity; any more than it would deftroy the notion of a humane foul, if we fhould conceive a diftinction between felf and intellect, or intellect and life. To which we may farther add, that it is a doctrine of Platonics, and agrees with their master's tenets, to say that ev, or the first hypoftafis,contains all excellence and perfection, whereof it is the original fource, and is eminenter, as the fchools speak, intelleft and life, as well as goodness; while the fecond hypoftafis is effentially intellect, and by participation goodness and life; and the third, life effentially, and by participation goodness and intellect.

то

353. Therefore, the whole being confidered, it will not feem juft, to fix the imputation of atheism upon thofe philofophers, who held the doctrine of TO v; whether it be taken in an abstracted or collective, a metaphyfical or merely vulgar meaning (b) ; that is, whether we prefcind unity from effence and intellect, fince metaphyfical diftinctions of the divine attributes do not in reality divide them or whether we confider the univerfal fyftem of beings, as one, fince the union, connexion, and order of it's mem(8) 154, 276, 279, 287. (b) 300.

bers,

bers, do manifeftly infer a mind or intellect to be the cause thereof.

354. THE ONE Or To v may be conceived either by compofition or divifion. For as, on the one hand, we may fay the world or univerfe is one whole or one animal; fo we may on the other hand, confider THE ONE, to v, by divifion or abstraction, as fomewhat in the order of things prior to mind, In either fenfe there is no atheism, fo long as mind is admitted to prefide and direct the animal; and fo long as the unum or To v is fuppofed not to exift without mind (a). So that neither Heraclitus nor Parmenides, nor Pythagoras, nor Plato, neither the Ægyptians nor Stoics, with their doctrine of a divine whole or animal, nor Xenophanes with his ev xal nav, are justly to be accounted atheists. Therefore modern atheism, be it of Hobbes, Spinofa, Collins, or whom you will, is not to be countenanced by the learning and great names of antiquity.

355. Plato teacheth, that the doctrine concerning the one or unite is a means to lead and raise the mind (b) to the knowledge of him who truly is. And it is a tenet both of Ariftotle and Plato, that identity is a certain unity. The Pythageorans also, as well as the Platonic philofophers, held unum and ens to be the fame. Confiftently with which that only can be faid to exift, which is one and the fame. In things fenfible and imaginable, as fuch, there feems to be no unity, nothing that can be called one prior to all act of the mind; fince they being in themfelves aggregates, confifting of parts or compounded of elements, are in effect many. Accordingly it is re marked by Themiftius, the learned interpreter of Ariftotle, that to collect many notions into one, and to confider them as one, is the work of intellect, and not of fenfe or fancy.

356. Ariftotle himfelf, in his third book of the (a) 287, 288. (b) 294, 295.

Y

Soul,

( 170 )

Soul, faith it is the mind that maketh each thing tơ be one, τὸ δὲ ἓν ποιῶν τῆτο ὁ νῆς ἕκασον. How this is done, Themiftius is more particular, obferving, that as being conferreth effence, the mind by virtue of her fimplicity conferreth fimplicity upon compounded beings. And, indeed, it feemeth that the mind, fo far forth as perfon, is individual (a) therein resembling the divine one by participation, and imparting to other things what itself participates from above. This is agreeable to the doctine of the ancients, however the contrary opinion of fuppofing number to be an original primary quality in things, independent of the mind, may obtain among the moderns.

357. The Peripatetics taught, that in all divifible things there was fomewhat indivifible, and in all compounded things fomewhat fimple. This they derived from an act of the mind. And neither this fimple indivifible unite, nor any fum of repeated unites, confequently no number, can be separated from the things themselves, and from the operation of the mind. Themiftius goeth fo far as to affirm, that it cannot be separated from the words or figns; and, as it cannot be uttered without them, fo faith he, neither can it be conceived without them. Thus much upon the whole may be concluded, that, dif tinct from the mind and her operations, there is in created beings neither unite nor number.

358. Of inferior beings the human mind, felf, or perfon is the moft fimple and undivided effence (b). And the fupreme father is the most perfect one. Therefore the flight of the mind towards God is called by the Platonics φυγή μόνο πρὸς μόνον. The fupreme being, faith Plotinus, as he excludes all diverfity, is ever alike prefent. And we are then prefent to him, when, recollected and abftracted from the world and fenfible objects, we are most free and difengaged (c) from all variety. He adds, that in the intuition of (a) 345, 346, 347. (b) 347. (c) 268.

the

« EelmineJätka »