Chap. XIX. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 777 



TheTragicpoets, of old, when they coold not otherwlfe untie the knot 

 of their fable, brought down a God in a machine* who folved all dif- 

 ficulties ; but fuch philofophers as Anaxagoras will not, even whea 

 they cannot do better, employ fiiind or Divinity. 



Our philofophers, fince Sir Ifaac's time, have gone on in the fame- 

 trad, and flill, I think, farther j for their labour feems to be like that 

 of the lipicureans of old, to account quo quaeqiie modo fiant opera fine 

 jyivum t ; and, tho* they do not, like thofe Atheiftical philofophers, 

 exclude the Divinity altogether from the fyftem of nature, by placing 

 him in certain extramundane fpaces, they put him at the end of 

 fo long a chain of material caufes, as to be almofl: quite out of fight ; 

 whereas, according to my philofophy, and the philofophy of the pious 

 antients, he is near to e'very one of us, and in him, we, as well as every 

 thing elfe, live, move^ and have our being. 



What greater length certain philofophers, both at home and abroad, 

 have gone of late years, is very well known. Some of thefe philofo- 

 phers ufe the name of Sir Ifaac, and pretend to build their fyftem upon- 

 his principles ; but they abufe thofe principles moft grofsly, when they 

 would, by arguments drawn from them, exclude the Deity altogether 

 from the fyfiem of the univerfe; for, tho' Sir Ifaac has no doubt made 

 a machine of the heavens, it is evident that he believed the Deity to be 

 the maker and contriver of this machine, and the firft author of all its 

 motions, and of all the motions in the univerfe, even oi gravitation ; for, 



though 



* verfe ; but, when 1 came to read his books, ** 'gw avt^x rm fny »• cvlii y^^vfuvt', avh 



*' Toifltf uirtxi iTTcciTiMiii^oi «; T« Oixtteg-fceiv Tx yr^xyfCxTx, xt^a? it text xttt^Xf Kxt u^xrx uiTivtit" 



<* lav, KXi xXXx TraAAee y.xi MTtTTx" — Editio Ficin'i, p. 73- And Ariflotle, in his Met-'p lib. I. 

 cap. 4. fayi, that Anaxagoras f^nxa'^ %giiT«< Ta» fu, viei T»y Koa-ficaTi-ttixy (ailuciing, no 

 doubt, to the pradlice of the Tiagic Poets mentioned above >) nxt irxt uvoQncv\ hn ny* 



XlTlUly 1% XIXyKtii iS-Tt, T«TI 1>.KH XVTtT, fV dt TCtf XXMli TTXVTX ftXhXtt XiTiXTXI rUf ykVtf^ifiii'^ 



•}• Lucretius, 



