2o8 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IL 



upon this fubje^t ; for he blames Ariftotle for animating the celeftial 

 fpheres, and putting them under the diredion and fuperintendency of 

 mind, but leaving all the lower elements dead and inanimate*. And 

 this appears to be likewife the opinion of the moft antient philofophcr 

 of Greece, Thales ; and I doubt not, but that he brought it from 

 Egypt with him ; for he faid that the whole univerfe was full of 

 gods, that is, of minds ; and, particularly, he faid, that it was mind in 

 the load (lone which attraded iron. 



And, I think, this hypothefis of mine is agreeable, not only to an- 

 tient philofophy, but to religion ; for our fcripture tells us, that the 

 Deitv, in his intercourfe with men, employs fubaltern minds or an- 

 gels, as they are called, to execute his will. And I fee no reafon why 

 we may not fuppofe, that, by the fame miniftry, he carries on the o- 

 perations of nature : And, 1 think, it gives a much higher idea of 

 the Supreme Mind, than if we were to fuppofe him performing all 

 natural operations, fuch as the formation of plants and animals in their 

 fuccelTive generations, and the movement of every the leaft body, or 

 concretion of matter, by his own immediate agency, and, as it were by 

 his own hand f. If it be true, as I fuppofe, that there is as great a variety 

 of minds in the univerfe as of bodies, it is evident, that, if all the bufi- 

 nefs of nature was to be the immediate work of the Supreme Mind, 

 thofe inferior minds which, as I fuppofe, defcend below the Supreme, 

 in infinite gradation, and, in that way, fill up the fcale of nature, 

 would want employment, and ' be ufelefs for any thing that appears in 

 * the creation'. — Further, the progrefs in the generation, as well as the 

 corruption of all things here below, is very flow, nature proceeding 

 ftep by flep, from one rtate of the thing to another. Now, it feems 



more 



* Proclus in TImaeum, p. 285. et 287. See alfo Cudworth's Intellectual Sy- 

 ■ftem, p. 236. 237. 



t See the book de Mundo, afcrib&d to Ariftotle, cap. 7.-— See alfo Cudworth's In- 

 telleclual Syftem, p. 149. where this matter is very well treated. 



