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whole mafs, and all the members of this visible 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 ap pears 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 first flight and fpring, as it were, by refting her foot on thefe objects, they are not only firft confidered by all men, but most considered by most men. They and the phantomes that refult from thofe appearances, the children of imagination grafted upon fenfe, fuch for example as pure space (i) are thought by many the very firft in exiftence and ftability, and to embrace and comprehend all other beings.

293. Now although fuch phantomes as corporeal forces, abfolute motions, and real spaces, 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 pass nevertheless in phyfics converfant about things of fenfe, and con(e) 149, 152, 200. (f) 207. (i) 270. (8) 220,

749, 250.

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, qualites, and that order and fymmetry to all thofe tranfient phænomena, which we term the courfe of na

ture.

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294. It is with our faculties as with our affections what firft feifes, holds faft (a). It is a vulgar theme, that man is a compound of contrarieties, which breed a reftlefs ftruggle 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 vir

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 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 discover 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 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 ftability.

296. It is neither acid, nor falt, nor fulphur, nor air, nor æther, nor vifible corporeal fire (b), much lefs 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, invisible, 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 difcoveries ftill correct the ftyle, and clear up the notions.

297. The mind, her acts and faculties, furnifh a new and diftinct clafs of objects (c) from the (c) 163, 266.

(6) 155

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 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 fcience, 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 firft fetting out.

298. There are traces of profound thought as well as primæval tradition in the Platonic, Pytha gorean, 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 pa triarchal 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 tudy of philofophy appears to be of very great antiquity and remote original; inafmuch as Timæus () 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 weeCΕύζα φιλοσοφία, ftirring up and recovering the foul from a state 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 Egyp 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 to wav. And we find in Mountfaucon an Ifis of the ordinary form with this infcription 95 avós. And in the menfa Ifiaca, which feems to exhibit a general fyftem of the religion and superstition of the Ægyptians, Ifis on her throne poffeffeth the center of the table. Which may feem to fignify, that the univerfe or wav was the center of the ancient fecret religion of the Ægyptians; their Ifis or to a comprehending both Öfiris 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.

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