Chap. XVII. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 207 



not Athelfts, believed the motion of thefe bodies to be carried on by 

 mind, fome appear to have thought, that it was by mind externally 

 operating npon them, and, as it were, pulhing them on, while others 

 thought that it was mind internal animating them, and moving them, 

 as our minds move our bodies *. And, among the modern philofo- 

 phers, I find one that has written an excellent book upon the human 

 foul, viz. Mr Baxter, who afcribes this motion of gravitation, as well 

 as every other natural motion of body, to the immediate agency of 

 the Deity. But, though I am forry to differ from an author whom I 

 think the moft perfect Theift of any that has written in this cen- 

 tury, I cannot help thinking it more agreeable to the analogy of na- 

 ture, that the motive principles of thefe bodies Ihould be internal. It 

 is fo undoubtedly in our bodies ; and every philofopher, in Britain at 

 leaft, believes it to be fo likevvife in the bodies of the brutes. Neither 

 do I ;,fee that there is any good reafon for flopping at the vegetable, 

 betwixt which and the brutes there is no other difference but what 

 fenfation and progrefTive motion make. Thus far Ariflotle, and all 

 the antients who were not Atheifls, have clearly gone. And, further, 

 Ariflotle lays it down as the foundation of his natural philofophy, 

 that there is an internal principle of motion in all phyfical bodies, 

 though he does not call it by the name of -^vxn^ or mind ; and 

 only fays it is like a mind. But Plato is more explicit upon this 

 fubjed ; for, he fays exprefsly, in the pafTage quoted in the beginning 

 of this work f, that it is mind that moves^ and body that is moved. 

 And the later Platonifls, and particularly Proclus, is ftill more explicit 



upon 



* Plato, in the loth Book of Laws, (p. 954. edit- Ficirii,) propofes three opinions 

 upon this fubjed. Two of them are thofe mentioned in the text; the third is, tiiat 

 Twzncf external to the ceieftial body did not immediately move it, and pufh it on, but 

 did it by the intervention of another body of fire or air, which it allumed to itlcil, and 

 fo moved body by body. 



tP.9. 



