70 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



Ideas and Senfations, and which, accordingly, I have made much 

 life of in the courfe of this work, yet it is fomctimes difficult to 

 apply it, particularly to Ideas that are fpecial and particular, to certain 

 things, fuchas a particular fubftance, an Animal, for example, or Ve- 

 getable, or a quality or accident of any of thefe, fuch as Colour or Fi- 

 gure ; for, as we have Senfations as well as Ideas of fuch things, it 

 becomes a matter of pretty nice difcrimination to diftinguifli accu- 

 rately the one from the other. .Thus, when I fee a man, I pei- 

 ceive his colour, his fliape, and certain other things that fall under 

 my fenfes ; at the fame time I have the Idea of the Man : But, 

 how am I to dlftinguifli what I thus perceive by my Senfes, from 

 what I perceive by the Mind alone without the Senfes, or, in other 

 words, the Idea ? 



In order to explain this matter, we muft recur to the original, and 

 etymological fignification, above mentioned, of the word Ideay which, 

 by a metaphor taken from the outward appearance of the thing, de- 

 notes that hiivard form by which every thing is what it is, and no- 

 thing elfe * : And this form I muft be able to diftinguifh from the 



matter. 



• This/orffj, in the language of the Pythagorean School, as I before obferved, 

 is called iJ-f«, (from whence our Englifh word idea), a word much ufed by Plato, 

 but feldom by Arillotle, except when he difputes againft the Ideas of Plato. The 

 word generally ufed by Ariftotle, and very frequently by Plato, is u'iot, which A- 

 riflotle very often paraphrafes, by calling it the t» -n hi ut»i of the thing, or fimply 

 the T» «>«< conftrued with the dative of the thing, as r* «»i»i «»*{««■», or to «»«< '<»•»■• : 

 And fometimes he calls it the Aeyo? of the thing. The matter he gave the fame 

 name to, that other philofophers did, calling it vXn' The compofite, that is, 

 the Matter and Form joined together, he held only to have a real exifl- 

 ence ; therefore he called it the th «», or the -rot* rt, and gave it a name, 

 fuch as, atifttvf, or '(x?rc(, and then he didinguiflied betwixt «»«j»5rof and 

 T» tit»i eift^uzra, and bctwixt tvSv and *« n»«i tvtn' See Ariftotle De Jnima, lib. 3. 

 cap. 5. On the other hand, Plato, holding that the Form or Idea had an exiftence, 

 not only out of Matter, but out of the Mind of any intelligence, faid that the idea 



was 



