240 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



15 the phllofophy of feme late French writers, particularly the author of 

 the Syjieme de la Nature^ who have fyftematifed Atheifm, and whofe 

 writings 1 therefore like better than thofe of a philofopher among 

 ourfelves, who has argued againft all the principles of Theifm, and, 

 indeed, every principle of human knowledge, without endeavouring 

 to eftablifh any thing. /\nd I like them better for another reafon, 

 that thofe authors acknowledge an end and purpofe in the works of 

 Nature, tho* fhe operates, as they fay, not only blindly, and without any 

 defign or confciuufnefs, but without any fuperior direction or fuperin- 

 tendence ; whereas the Britifh author either did not perceive, or has 

 jiot acknowledged, any end in the operations of Nature, but has de- 

 fended Atheifm, upon what, I think, the moft abfurd of all principlest 

 that all things happen by chance, or by material and mechanical ne- 

 cedlty, in the univerfe, and that nothing is done for any purpofe or 

 defign '^'. 



Now, 



And, thou|];Ti they defplfed antlent phllofophy, and, indeed, did not underftand it, 

 yet it is furprifing what a conformity there is betwixt many of their opinions, and 

 thofe of Plato and Ariftotle : Particularly, they maintained, that the celeftial bodies 

 were all animated. And I was furprifed to find, among them, my notion, that there 

 was in the microcofm, many a trinity of principles, correfponding to the Trinity in the 

 Great World. 



* All Atheifts, antient and modern, are agreed in this, that body or matter is the 

 o;ily thing exifling in the univerfe, and that all things, even mind, re.ifon, and intel- 

 lect, are nothing elfe but various modifications of matter produced by its various 

 movements. This is the fundamental principle of their fyftem, in which they all a- 

 gree ; but they differ in this, that fome of them maintain, that thefe movements of 

 body are not regular, artificial, or for any end or purpofe j but that bodies, being mo- 

 ved, did neccffarily juftle and impel one another, and, by various conjundlions and 

 disjun£lions, and all the other effedls which the concourfe of bodies mufl occafion, 

 firft produced, and flill preferve this wonderful frame of things. This was the doc- 

 trine of Democritus, Leucippus, and Epicurus, and by far the greater part of the 

 Atheills of antient times. But th^re was one Strato, a Peripatetic, and fcholar of 

 Theophraflus, who_, not being able to account, upon this hypothefis, either for the 



move- 



