571 INTRODUCTION. 



The reader who is not acquainted ^ith antient philofophy, and 

 has not comprehenfive views of Nature, will be lurprifed that I 

 ihould call by the name of Mind, that principle of motion, which 

 Tuns through all Nature, and is in all bodies, unorganized as weli as 

 organized. He will readily allow that it is Mind that novcs our bo- 

 dies : He will not, perhaps, difpute with me, that the brutes have 

 Minds of a certain kind: The motive principle in the vegetable, if he 

 do not mairrtain its movements to be altogether material and mecha- 

 nical, he will call Life, not Mind. As to the motion in unorgani- 

 zed bodies, he will believe, if he be a materialift, that matter has 

 the power of moving itfelf ; or, fuppofing that he is a theift, and be- 

 lieves that the Deity is the origin of all motion, he will have no 

 idea that Mind is the immediate caufe of the movement of thofe ina- 

 nimate bodies, as they are commonly called. But, as all things in this 

 unlverfe either move or are moved, what moves I have called MzW, 

 what is moved, 1 call Body ; and thus, I have made a twofold divifion 

 of the univerfity of things, which is better, I think, than a threefold 

 divifion, into Mijid, Life, and Body ; and I have given a definition 

 of each of the members of my divifion perfedly agreeable to the na« 

 ture of things. 



What I deliver here as the thelfm of Plato and Arlftotle, is much 

 more antient than thofe philofophers, and, for any thing I know, the 

 moft antient philofophy in the world. It undoubtedly came to them 

 from the fchool of Pythagoras ; but it certainly was not invented by 

 him, but brought by him from Egypt. There it took its rife among 

 the colleges of priefts, men fequeflered from the world, and confecrated 

 to religion and learning, who muft have made an extraordinary pro- 

 grefs in philofophy, and every other fcience, by uninterrupted ftudy, 

 continued from father to fon, during a long fucceflion of ages, far ex- 

 ceeding, in length of time, the period, not only of arts and fciences, 

 but of civilization, ia any part of Europe — That, not only philofophy, 

 .but all arts and fciences, came originally from Egypt into Europe, c- 



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