44 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



tions that fcience requires, the matter will not be fo difficult. A geo- 

 meter, for example, muft abilradl from I3ody a point, a line, and a 

 furface. He mud not, therefore, lay, that he cannot conceive 

 length without breadth, or both without depth ; and, in general, he 

 muft admit that he can conceive the dimenfions of Body without the 

 Body ; nay, he muft admit that he can conceive what has no di- 

 menfions at all, neither length, breadth, nor thickncfs, namely a 

 Point ; for otherwife geometry would be no fcience. In the fame 

 manner, the natural philofophcr muft have the idea of form wltliout 

 matter, and matter without form, otherwife he never can explain 

 properly the principles of phyfics. Now, if, inftead of abftrading 

 Form or Dimenfion from Matter, I abftrad that Power by which it 

 is moved, I have the idea of Mind, which, I fay, is as clear and di- 

 ftind an idea, as the idea of Form, or of a Point, Line, or Surface. 

 It may be faid, I know, that Power or Energy is no more than a 

 Quality of Matter ; but I hope I have proved, to the fatisfadtion of 

 the reader, that it is no Quality of Matter : It therefore muft be a 

 Quality of fome other Subftance. What that Subftance is, I cannot 

 tell, any more than I can tell what the Subftance of Matter is, of 

 which Extenfion, Refiftance, and Solidity, are qualities ; but I know 

 moft certainly that there is a Subftance of Mind as well as of Matter. 

 The experimental men, indeed, or fuch a philofopher as Mr David 

 Hume, who tell us that we have no knowledge but by our Senfes, 

 will fay that we do not fee or feel Mind ; therefore we cannot con- 

 ceive that it exifts. But I fay the fame of a point or a line. No 

 man can fay that he fees or feels what has no parts, or what has on- 

 ly length, but not breadth. But fhall we therefore deny that a point 

 or line exifts ? If we do, we deny at the fame time that geometry 

 is a fcience. It is true, they do not exift in Matter, nor are not ma- 

 terial, any more than Mind is ; but they have not, for that, a lefs 

 real exiftence, but rather a more fixed and permanent one ; becaufe, 

 whatever is material is in a conftant flux and change ; nor is any 

 thing fixed and ftable except Mind, and its ideas. 



Power, 



