10 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



There are, I know, who cannot conceive a Mind, that does only- 

 move, and nothing clfe ; becaufe their own Mind, and the Minds of 

 other animals, which move their Bodies, have thought and refledion, 

 or, at leaft, fenfations, appetites, and defires : But this proceeds 

 from having too narrow a notion of Mind, and not being able to di- 

 ftinguifh things, which, though they cxift together, are different in 

 their nature. It is true, indeed, that the power of moving is joined 

 with thought and refledion, fenfation and appetite ; but it is very 

 different from all thefe ; and we are fure that motion can be produ- 

 ced without any of them ; for Body, that has none of them, moves 

 Body ; and, as all motion muft, of neceflity, be produced either by 

 Body or Mind, if Body can produce motion without fenfation or 

 volition, Why not Mind ? — The faiSt truly is, that the Mind, the 

 moft powerful thing in nature, has many powers and faculties, fome 

 higher, fome lower, of which the power of moving is the loweft : 

 And this fometimes exifts by itfelf, as in Bodies unorganized, at 

 other times joined with higher powers, as in bodies organized, 

 fuch as vegetables, animals, and intelledual creatures. 



Another advantage of this definition is, that it takes in Motion, the 

 grand Agent in all natural operations, by which the whole bufinefs 

 of the material world is carried on, the knowledge of which is, ac- 

 cording to Ariftotle, fo eflential to the philofophy of Nature, that, 

 without knowing it, we cannot know what Nature is *. 



And, 



1 obfervc, th.it the Aphrodifian, in his treatife above quoted, never fo much as men- 

 tions it, but fpealis always of the vegetable Mind as the loweft of Minds. 



Am fiti >c>$«>iir Ti I5-T< xiKiiri;- '«tieyK»iiif y*j 'xytallui>r,i 'nvrrtf, 'xytciiiriui kxi tiji <pii- 



Til. This is what I wifli our modern philofophers of Nature would attend to, who 

 are very bufy in calculating the motions of natural bodies, without knowing what 

 motion is. 



