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Locrenfis, that ancient Pythagorean, author of the book concerning the foul of the world, speaks of a most ancient philofophy, even in his time, a weerΕύζα 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 manifeft 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 observes, 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 Ægyp tian tongue into Greek.

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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 speak) 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 98 2 alós. And in the menfa Ifiaca, which feems to exhibit a general system of the religion and fuperftition of the Ægyptians, Ifis on her throne poffeffeth the center of the table. Which may feem to fignify, that the univerfe or row was the center of the ancient fecret religion of the Ægyptians; their Ifis or to way comprehending both Ofiris the author of nature and his work.

300. Plato and Aristotle confidered God as abftracted or diftinct from the natural world. But the Ægyptians confidered God and nature as ma

(a) 268.

king one whole, or all things together as making one univerfe. In doing which they did not exclude the intelligent mind, but confidered it as containing all things. Therefore, whatever was wrong in their way of thinking, it doth not, nevertheless, imply or lead to Atheism.

301. The humane mind is fo much clogged, and born downward, by the ftrong and early impref fions of fenfe (a), that it is wonderful, how the ancients fhould have made even fuch a progrefs, and feen fo far into intellectual matters, without fome glimmering of a divine tradition. Whoever confiders a parcel of rude favages left to themfelves, how they are funk and fwallowed up in fense and prejudice, and how unqualified by their natural force to emerge from this ftate, will be apt to think that the firft fpark of philofophy was derived from heaven; and that it was (as a Heathen Writer expreffeth it) Θεοπαράδο] Ο φιλοσοφία.

302. The lapfed ftate of human kind is a thing to which the ancient philofophers were not ftrangers. The auris, the guys the anecía fhew that the Egyptians and Pythagoreans, the Platonifts and Stoics, had all fome notion of this doctrine, the outlines of which feem to have been sketched out in those tenets. Theology and philofophy gently unbind the ligaments, that chain the foul. down to the earth, and affift her flight towards the fovereign Good. There is an inftinct or tendency of the mind upwards, which fheweth a natural endeavour to recover and raife ourselves, from our prefent fenfual and low condition, into a state of light, order, and purity.

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303. The perceptions of fenfe are grofs: but

even in the fenfes there is a difference. Though harmony and proportion are not objects of fenfe,

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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. Reafon confiders and judges of the imaginations. And thefe acts of reafon become new objects to the understanding. In this fcale, each 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 highest. 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 (b), not becaufe they are naturally abftrufe and involved in darkness, but because their nature and existence is uncertain, ever Beeting and changing; or rather, becaufe they do not in ftrict truth exift at all, being always gene-, rating or in fieri, that is, in a perpetual flux, with: out any thing stable or permanent in them to conftitute an object of real fcience. The Pythagore. ans and Platonics diftinguish betweenfion and, that which is ever generated and that which exifts. Senfible things and corporeal forms. (a) 275. (5) 263, 264.

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are perpetually producing and perifhing, appearing and difappearing, never refting in one state, 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 constant flux, ever differing as they are view'd at different diftances, or with glaffes more or less accurate. As for those abfolute magnitudes and figures, which certain Cartefians and other moderns fuppofe to be in things, that muft feem a vain fuppofition, to whoever confiders, it is fupported by no argument of reafon, and no experiment of fenfe.

305. As understanding perceiveth not, that is, doth not hear or fee or feel, fo fenfe knoweth not: And although the mind may ufe 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 συλλογισμώ.

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

is comprehended by fenfe and opinion, The third kind is matter which, as Plato teacheth, being neither an object of understanding nor of fenfe, 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 first to be apprehended by intellect, the fecond by fenfe, and the laft, to wit, matter, oguμ vol 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.

307. Aristotle maketh a threefold diftinction of objects according to the three fpeculative sciences, 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 abftracted and immoveable; which diftinction may be feen in the ninth book of his Metaphyfics. Where by ab. stracted, 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 fenfe: but that there are also befides thefe her own acts or operations; fuch are, notions.

309. It is a maxim of the Platonic philofophy,

that

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