Chap.ir. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 69 



have faid the fame of all the moft general Ideas, fuch as thofe con- 

 tained in the Categories, as Subftance, Quantity, Quality, Relation, 

 &c. But, though this be no doubt an effential difference betwixt 



Ideas 



the means of, or, as we may exprefs it In Englifli in one word, through the feveral 

 fcnfes, the fight, the heating, or the tafte, that is, in Greelc, J/ <>":^!*«, ^' «»•«, 

 tici yvriui ; or, as Plato has likewife expreiled it, )»' l<pia\fii>y, li' art/f, &c. that is, by 

 the means of the organs of thefe fenfes. This (hows how much the Greelc philofo- 

 phy contributes to the perfe£t underftanding of the Greek language. 



I cannot help here obferving, that this Dialogue of Plato is one of the fined phi- 

 lofophical dramas that ever was written : Though there be but three perfonages in 

 it who aft any confiderable part, and the fubjefl: perfectly one, viz. An Inqui- 

 ry what fciencc is ; yet Plato ha» contrived to give it a wonderful variety, with 

 incidents, turns, and peripateias, as they may be called, which are moft pleafing 

 and furprifing : And the ironical charader of Socrates, pretending to know no- 

 thing himfelf, and to be only the midwife of other peoples knowledge, is no where 

 better kept up. I would, therefore, recommend this Dialogue, together with the 

 Protagoras and the Gorgias, as perfed models, for thofe who, not contented with 

 the plain Didadic and Ariftotelian method, as it may be called, of delivering philo- 

 fophy, would join with it the ornaments of fine writing. If they think to do this 

 by treating it in a rhetorical or poetical ftile, they arc very wide of the mark, and 

 fall into the common error of thofe, who think that it is ornamented didtion only 

 that makes poetry ; whereas it is fable, charaElers, and manners, that conftitute the 

 effence of poetry, the language of which may be perfedly plain and Gmple, and 

 ought to be fo, if the nature of the fubjed requires it. 



I have clfewhere obferved, vol. i. p. 401. that the principal queftion in this dia- 

 logue is not refolved. This was referred, as it would appear, for Ariftotle to do 

 in his books of Analytics, which, I have no doubt, were written with a defign to ex- 

 plain what Plato, in this Dialogue, has fo much puzzled and perplexed ; for what 

 the fchoolmen fay of thefe two philofophers, that difputat PUto, docet AriftoteleSf 

 will apply, if in any cafe, in this. But, though the principal queftion be not 

 determined, it is decided very pofitiveiy by the reafoning above mention- 

 ed, that Senfatlon is not Science ; for, fays he, as there can be no fcience without 

 thofe ideas I have mentioned, and as thofe ideas are not perceptions of fenfe, there- 

 fore Science is not Senfation. And I doubt this was all the length that Plato could 

 go, confiftently with the charader of Socrates, to determine negatively what 

 fcience was not. 



