48o A N T I K N T METAPHYSICS. Book V. 



But feals and ftatues, it may be faid, are material things, and 

 which, therefore, are net lo fit to illuftrate conceptions and ideas of 

 the mind, which are immateriah I will, therefore, in the next ex- 

 ample I am to give, go a ftep beyond the material thing, and afcend 

 to the idea of the artift who made the feal or the ftatue. In his idea, 

 I fay, was virtually contained, not only one ftatue which he Ihould 

 afterwards make, but twenty, or one hundred, if he fhould make as 

 many from the fame idea ; and not only thefe, but all the copies that 

 Ihould, at any after time, be made of his ftatue, by other artifts. 

 Whereas, every one, either of duplicates made by himfelf, or of co- 

 pies made by others, would aBually contain his idea but once. 



But I will afcend a ftep higher, and a great ftep it is — from the 

 ideas of a human artift, to the intelligible forms in the mind of the 

 Sovereign Artift, which make what we call the intelle^iual ivorld^ the 

 pattern and architype of the material. And this brings us diredly 

 home to our fubjedt ; for the^e forms in the mind of the Divinity are 

 nothing elfe but the genufes and fpeciefes ot which we are fpeaking. 

 Now, that in thefe genufes all the fpeciefes are virtually contained, 

 and, in the fpeciefes, all the individuals of every kind, no body will 

 deny who believes in God ; for it is in this fenfe, and this fenfe on- 

 ly, that all things are in God ; becaufe it is impofTible to imagine that 

 they can be in him a6lually and materially, Suppofe, therefore, the 

 material world not to have been from all eternity, but that time was 

 when it was not, even then it exifted 'virtually and potentially in the 

 ideas of the Divine Mind. But, when thefe ideas are exerted into adt, 

 and ihtfor7ns imprefled, as it were, upon matter^ then fuch material 

 thing contains this form really and abually. And it was to illuftrate 

 this production of the vifible world from the intelledtual, that the A- 

 lexandrian philofophers ufed the comparifon of the feal. But I ufe it 

 for another purpofe, namdy, to (how that the figure upon the feal 

 may be multiplied in injinitum^ by impreffions of it upon wax, and 



yet 



