466 A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I S. Book V. 



in the Divine mirtd. The firft kind of ideas, the Peripatetics called xfc 

 tm* «-«a;v«», or, before the many. Theotherkind, they faid were u re*? rr^xMHy 

 or, in the muny ; and thefe lafl are the Juhjlantial forms oi the Peripa- 

 tetics, that is, the form which gives the fubdance or effcnce to the 

 ithing, and makes it what it is. And laft of all come the ideas in our 

 n-jinds, which, being formed from the niany^ and only in confequence 

 of their exiftmg in the many^ are faid to be «»< t*.? «-oaa.<5 ; and as we get 

 them by abftrading the forms of material things from the matter in 

 which they exifl:, thcv arc properly enough called abfiraB ideas^ in 

 eontradiftindion to the two other kinds, thofe exifting before the ma- 

 nyy and thofe in the many. But it is very improper to ufe thofe terms 

 when we fpeak of ideas in general, as if there were no ideas, but what 

 were abftraded from matter. And it is ftill more improper to diftin- 

 guifli, by that appellation, ideas ixom fenfations^ as if fenfations were 

 ideas, only not abftraded from matter ; and, as if it were not of the 

 utmoft confequence in philofophy, and indeed the foundation of all 

 philofophy, to diUinguilh particulars from generals. 



Whether Plato's dodrlne of ideas deferve the cenfure which Ari- 

 ftotle has thrown upon it, of being no better than the flourifh of a 

 mufician *, that is, mere found, without fenfe or meaning ; or whe- 

 ther there be not more meaning in it than Ariflotle feems to have ap- 

 prehended, is an inquiry which belongs more properly to the fecond 

 part of my work, where I am to treat, not of the ideas of the human 

 mind, but of the ideas of the Jirfi order; for it is only the ideas of 

 the human mind that 1 am now concerned with, and thofe, I fay, do 



exift 



• T« yxf ii^n <i;ffT*., TtfiTiCf^xTu yxp urn, Analytic. Pofterior. lib. l- cap. 22. p. 1 5 1. 

 infnc, Edit.Du-Val, where Philopunus, in his commentiry upon the paffage, fol. 53. 

 tells us, th<,t, by the word Tt^eT.^^^T*, we are to underfland ti/^ flounfti of thofe that 

 played upon the Cithara, in order to try whether their arings were right tuned, be- 

 fore they began to play. 



