Chap.Vni. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 123 



The ideas with which inferior fciences are converfant, are thofe 

 which are ahftraded from material things. But the chief fubjcdt, as 

 I have often faid, of the fcience of which 1 treat, is mindj and imma- 

 terial JubJJances, 



From this account of the fpeculative intellect^ it is evident, that, 

 in the greater part by far of its operations, it has no need at all of 

 the fcnfes or phantafia^ which, as we have feen, are abfoKitely necef- 

 fary in the operations of the practical intelle^ : And, as to the lafl: men- 

 tioned fubjed of this intelle^, it is impoffible to have a juft notion of 

 it under a bodily form ;' becaufe it is as incapable of being painted in 

 the pbantafta^ as apprehended by the fenfe. And, even with refpedt 

 to ideasy abrtraO:ed from material fiib/lajices ^xhty are much better con- 

 ceived, without any affifiance ivoxn fenfe or imagitiatioji'. For, as Plato has 

 obferved in thePhaedo,the/'^<7W//7/z^ difturbs us very much by intruding 

 its images into the fpeculations o^fcience^ and particularly, the TrzifKc:*? of 

 dinjine things^ the ideas of which are altogether confounded by afcribing 

 to them any of the qualities of body^. Ariftotle has indeed faid, that we 

 cannot think without the affirtance of the phantafta f ; but it appears 

 from that and other paflages, that this is to be underftood only of the 

 practical intelleci \'. And it is clearly the opinion of both his com- 

 mentators, that pure intellect^ when difengaged from all material 



0^2 things^ 



* See what Phlloponus has faid upon this pafTige of Plato, in the beginning of his 

 introduction to his commentary apon AriHotle's books De /^nimct. 



t Dc Jnima, lib. 3. cap. 7. 



J '] he pafTage is in thcfe words : T>] h "oittio-^rty.y, -^'jx,^ t» t^x*TciTuxTct 'cioy xi(r'}f,uxTx 



r 4'vz'>- V/hsre it id evident, tliat, though Ariflotle has mentioned t!ie 4"jzi ^ix^inrttn 

 in general, he means th., ^jixtoiu Tr^tixr ikv). This appears from the whole context, and 

 from rh--? very part of it where h'^ naentions the tyxSov, and the x«x«y, and the to ^,a.K. 

 T»v, and the to cpfjx.jci, which are the cbjctis oi i\\c praclicalintellc^. But, that Arif- 



totlc 



