Chap. XVI. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 199 



Befides, it would be abfurd to fuppofe, that the energies of any thing, 

 which are but the third in order from its eflence, ihould have the dig^ 

 nity and pre-eminence of a feparate exigence, and not the fubftancc 

 or eflence itfelf. Now, that our intelledual mind, or /ow/, as I would 

 chufe to call it in one word, does ad: by itfelf, even while it is 

 confined in this prifon of fl, fh and blood, 1 think I have proved be- 

 yond all doubt ; for, fuppoimg that any one fhould (till doubt 

 of the foul's being able to perceive even objedls of fenfe, with- 

 out the affiliance of the fenfes, and by its own natural power of per- 

 ception, notwithftanding both the reafons and fads that I have men- 

 tioned to prove it, the operations of the intelled upon thofe objeds 

 are, in my apprehenfion, of themfelves fufficient to prove its fe- 

 parate nature ar-d exigence. And we might as well maintain, that the 

 ftatuary was of the fame nature and fubftance with the block of mar- 

 ble upon which he operates, as that the intelJed is of the fame nature 

 with the bodies upon which it exercifes its faculties. But, when we 

 further confider, that the mind operates upon itfelf, and is in fo far 

 independent of all things from without, and wrapped up, as it were, 

 in itfelf, I think there cannot be the leafl: doubt, but that it exifts in 

 the fame manner, unmixed, as Ariftotle fays, with any thing elfe *. 



And 

 * Ciceroappears, tome, not to have fally underftood this refledling power of the/«- 

 telleBual mind or fouly when he coir. pares the foul to ihe eycy which, he fays, fees aJl 

 things but does not fee itklf Non vaict tantum animus ut feipfum ipfe videat: At ut 

 oculus, fie animus fefe non videns, alia cernit. Tnjculnn. ^laji . lib. i. cap. 28. For 

 Cicero was not fo far advanced in philofophy, as to have any diftindl conception of 

 immaterial fubitunce : And, accordingly, in this very book, (cap. 26.) he fuppofes 

 that the human mind, and even God himfelf, is of the fubltance oi air yjire, or of 

 Ariftotle^s fifth element. The h€t is, that the only f:ifh:onabie phiioiophies at that 

 time in Home were tlie Epicuraean, the Stoic, and thcfe of tlic old and new Academy. 

 Now, it appears that the boolcs of philofophy which Cicero lludied the moll, next to 

 thofe of his own fed, which was that of the New Acndt^iy, were the books of 

 the Stoics, who maintained that all tnind, even the Divinity itfelf, was nothing 

 more than a fubtile fire. As to Arifiode, he tells us, in another place viz 

 the beginning of his Topics, that his philofophy was very little ftudicd at that 

 time, even by the learned, and his books very rare. Some of them, however it 

 appears he had read, particularly hisPhyfics, and his books De Coelo i where, having 



found 



