374 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book V. 



think, neceflarlly precedes the other ; for, it will be impoffible to fhow 

 that the principles of particular fciences are to be found in metaphy- 

 fics, if we cannot Ihow that it is to that fcience we owe the know- 

 ledge of ivhat fcience is-, and that it is from the principles which it 

 furnifhes, that we are able to eftablilli the certainty of fcience, and to 

 defend it againft all the cavils of fophiftry ; for there have been, in 

 anticnt times, as well as modern, men, who have endeavoured to ihake 

 the foundations of all human knowledge ; And, accordingly, we fee 

 that Ariftotle, in his books of metaphyfics, argues much againft men 

 of that kind, who, in his time, denied even the truth of axioms* 



What Truth is, was a queftion afked at our Saviour by the Roman 

 Governor, but which is not anfwered ; nor, indeed, was it necelTary 

 to anfwer it, the nature of truth being difcoverable by our own facul- 

 ties, unafTifted by revelation, as well as the language, by which 

 truth is enunciated, and the other arts of life. It is, however, a difco- 

 very that does not feem to have been made, at leaft, by the philofo- 



k 



phers of Greece, till Arlftotle wrote his books of Analytics, the pro- 

 feffed defign of which is, to fhov/ what ScieHce or Demonftrative 

 Truth is^ 



The Truth, of which I am here to treat, is what Is called Logical Truths 

 being perceived by the aG* of the mrnd, comparing together its own 

 ideas or perceptions ; and it is diftinguiihed from what is called Meta- 

 phyjical or tranfcendental Truths which belongs only to fingle ideas ;, 

 for, if the idea be agreeable to Nature, the fource and origin of all our 

 ideas, and, if it involve no contradidtion, fuch as the idea of a round 

 fquare would involve, it is faid to be a true idea. In the fame fenfe we 

 may fay, that any piece of human workmanfliip is tnie ivork^ being 

 conformable to the idea in the mind of the artift. And, in a like fenfe, 

 we fay, that the works of Nature herfelf have Truth in them, as 

 they are conform to the ideas ia the Divine Mind. And this truth is 



the: 



