fhook at Ariftotle and Plato, as well as at the holy fcriptures. And the writings of those celebrated ancients are by most men treated on a foot, with the dry and barbarous lucubrations of the schoolmen. It may be modeftly prefumed, there are not many among us, even of those who are called the better fort, who have more fenfe, virtue, and love of their country than Cicero, who in a letter to Atticus could not forbear exclaiming, O Socrates et Socratici viri! nunquam vobis gratiam referam. Would to God many of our countrymen had the fame obligations to thofe Socratic writers. Certainly where the people are well educated, the art of piloting a state is beft learned from the writings of Plato. But among bad men void of difcipline and education, Plato, Pythagoras and Ariftotle themfelves, were they living, could do but little good. Plato hath drawn a very humorous and inftructive picture of fuch a ftate; which I fhall not tranfcribe for certain reafons. But whoever has a mind, may fee it in the feventy eighth page of the fecond tome of Aldus's edition of Plato's works.

: 333. PROCLUS, in the first book of his commentary on the theology of Plato obferves that, as in the mysteries, those who are initiated, at firft meet with manifold and multiform Gods, but being entered and thoroughly initiated they receive the divine illumination and participate the very deity; in like manner, if the foul look abroad fhe beholds the fhadows and images of things; but returning into herself the unravels and beholds her own effence: At first the feemeth only to behold her felf: But having penetrated farther fhe discovers the mind. And again, ftill farther advancing into the innermost fanctuary of the foul fhe contemplates the Jewv yévos. And this, be faith, is the moft excellent of all human acts, in the filence and repofe of the faculties of the foul to tend upwards to the very divinity; to approach and

be

be closely joined with that which is ineffable and fupeperior to all beings. When come fo high as the first principle fhe ends her journey and refts. Such is the doctrine of Proclus.

334. But Socrates in the firft Alcibiades teacheth on the other hand, that the contemplation of God is the proper means to know or understand our own foul. As the eye, faith he, looking ftedfaftly at the vifive part or pupil of another eye beholds it's felf, even fo the foul beholds and underftands her felf, while fhe 'contemplates the deity which is wisdom and vertue or like thereunto. In the Phædon Socrates fpeaks of God as being τἀγαθὸν and τὸ δέον (α), the good and the decent: Plotinus reprefents God as order; Ariftotle as law.

335. It may feem perhaps to thofe, who have been taught to difcourfe about fubftratums, more reafonable and pious to attribute to the Deity a more fubftantial being, than the notional entities of wifdom, order, law, vertue, or goodnefs, which being only complex ideas, framed and put together by the underftanding, are its own creatures, and have nothing fubftantial, real, or independent in them. But it must be confidered, that in the Platonic fyftem, order, vertue, law, goodnefs, and wifdom are not creatures of the foul of man, but innate and originally exiftent therein, not as an accident in a fubftance, but as light to enlighten, and as a guide to govern. In Plato's ftyle, the term idea doth not merely fignify an inert inactive object of the understanding, but is ufed as fynonymous with Tiov and dex, caufe and principle. According to that philofopher, goodness, beauty, vertue and fuch like, are not figments of the mind, nor mere mixed modes, nor yet abstract ideas in the modern fenfe, but the moft real beings, intellectual and unchangeable; and therefore more real than the fleeting tranfient objects of fenfe (b), which wanting (a) 260, 220. (b) 306.

X

ftability

flability cannot be fubjects of fcience (c), much lefs of intellectual knowledge.

336. By Parmenides, Timæus, and Plato a diftinction was made, as hath been obferved already, between genitum and ens. The former fort is always a generating or in fieri (e), but never exifts, because it never continues the fame, being in a conftant change, ever perifhing and producing. By entia they understand things remote from fenfe, invifible and intellectual, which never changing are still the fame, and may therefore be faid truly to exift: duría, which is generally tranflated fubftance, but more properly effence, was not thought to belong to things fenfible and corporeal, which have no ftability; but rather to intellectual ideas, tho' difcerned with more difficulty, and making lefs impreffion on a mind ftupified and immerfed in animal life, than grofs objects that continually befet and follicit our fenfes.

337. The most refined humane intellect exerted to its utmost reach can only feize fome imperfect glympfes (f) of the divine ideas, abftracted from all things corporeal, fenfible, and imaginable. Therefore Pythagoras and Plato treated them in a myfterious manner, concealing rather than expofing them to vulgar eyes; fo far were they from thinking, that thofe abftract things, altho' the moft real, were the fitteft to influence common minds, or become principles of knowledge, not to fay duty and virtue, to the generality of mankind.

338. Ariftotle and his followers have made a monftrous reprefentation of the Platonic ideas; and fome of Plato's own fchool have faid very odd things concerning them. But if that philofopher himself was not read only, but ftudied alfo with care, and made his own interpreter, I believe the prejudice that now lies against him would foon wear off (g) or be even

(c) 264, 266, 297 (394, 306.) 33, 330. (8) 309, 31%

con

converted into a high efteem for those exalted notions and fine hints, that fparkle and fhine throughout his writings; which feem to contain not only the most valuable learning of Athens and Greece, but also a treasure of the most remote traditions and early science of the east.

339. In the Timæus of Plato mention is made of ancient perfons, authors of traditions, and the offfpring of the gods. It is very remarkable, that in the account of the creation contained in the fame piece, it is faid that God was pleafed with his work, and that the night is placed before the day. The more we think, the more difficult fhall we find it to conceive, how mere man, grown up in the vulgar habits of life, and weighed down by fenfuality, fhould ever be able to arrive at fcience, without fome tradition (b) or teaching, which might either fow the feeds of knowledge, or call forth and excite thofe latent feeds that were originally fown in the foul.

340. Humane fouls in this low fituation, bordering on mere animal life, bear the weight and fee through the dusk of a grofs atmosphere, gathered from wrong judgments daily paffed, falfe opinions daily learned, and early habits of an older date than either judgment or opinion. Through fuch a medium the sharpeft eye cannot fee clearly (k). And if by fome extraordinary effort the mind fhould furmount this dufky region, and fnatch a glympfe of pure light, fhe is foon drawn backward and depreffed by the heaviness of the animal nature, to which he is chained. And if again the chanceth, amidst the agitation of wild fancies and ftrong affections, to fpring upwards, a fecond relapfe fpeedily fucceeds into this region of darknefs and dreams.

341. Nevertheless, as the mind gathers ftrength by repeated acts, we fhould not defpond, but con tinue to exert the prime and flower of our faculties, (b) 298, 301, 302. (k) 292, 293, 294.

X 2

ftill

Aill recovering, and reaching on, and struggling into the upper region, whereby our natural weaknefs and blindness may be in fome degree remedied, and a tafte attained of truth and intellectual life. Befide the conftant prevailing opinion of the greatest men of antiquity, that there is both an univerfal fpirit author of life and motion, and an univerfal mind enlightening and ordering all things, it was a received tenet among them, that there is alfo τὸ ἓν oι τἀγαθὸν (α), which they looked on as the fons deitatis, the firft hypoftafis in the divinity.

342.The one or To v, being immutable and indivifible, always the fame and entire, was therefore thought to exift truly and originally, and other things only fo far as they are one and the fame, by participation of the Tov. This gives unity,ftability,reality to things(b). Plato defcribes God, as Mofes, from his being. According to both, God is he who truly is, sav. Change and divifion were efteemed defects or bad. Evil fcatters, divides, deftroys: Good, on the contrary, produceth concord and union, affembles, combines, perfects, and preferves entire. The feveral beings which compofe the univerfe are parts of the fame fyftem, they combine to carry on one end, and perfect one whole. And this aptnefs and concurrence thereunto furnishes the partial particular idea of good in the diftinct creatures. Hence it might have come to pafs, that rayaliv and to tv were regarded as one and the fame.

343. Light and fight (faith Plato in the fixth book of his Republic) are not the fun; even fo truth and knowledge are not the good itfelf, altho' they approach thereunto. And again, what the fun is in a vifible place with respect to fight and things feen, that fame is ragav or good in an intelligible place, with refpect to understanding and things understood.

(a) 329.

(b) 264, 306.

There