310 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS, Book II. 



nature of mind, and for explaining that prime operation of intelled In 

 'pradical life, 1 mean the iviil. It will be the bufinefs of another part 

 of my work, to account for moral as well as natural evil in the uni- 

 verfe, without charging either upon the Deity, where I hope very 

 clearly to demonftrate, that there could have been no material world, 

 no general laws by which it was to be governed, and, by confequence, 

 no fyftem in the univerfe, without both, in a certain degree. And, at 

 the fame time, I trufi: I fliall be able to fhow, that the proper ufe or 

 abufe which man makes of his liberty and free-will, is the ground of 

 merit or demerit, rewards or punilhments. 



And here I conclude what I have to fay on the fubjed: of Mifid, the 

 great efficient caufe of the univerfe, the Author of all produdion, and 

 of all beauty, order, and regularity ; not only the Firft Mover, but that 

 by which all motion, through every part of Nature, is perpetually and 

 conftantly carried on ; — that, in fhort, by which the whole frame of 

 things is fuftained and preferved. 



the firfl principles of the philofophy of mind, fhould be puzzled and perplexed in a 

 queflion, which, no doubt, requires very juft thinking, and exad difcrimination of 

 things that feenainglv very much refemble one another. 



BOOK 



