Chap. II. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 71 



matter, otherwife I can have no Idea of the thing. In the works of 

 art, this diftindion between the Matter and the Form is obvious to 

 common obfervation. And no philofopher will deny that there is 

 the fame diftin£tion in the works of Nature, if he believes that the 

 material world is the work of Intelligence ; for, if that be the cafe, 

 the Form of every thing in Nature muft be, like the Form of artifi J 

 cial things, the Idea in the Mind of the artift who produces them. 

 But, it will be afked, How are we to difcover this Idea in the works 

 of Nature ? And it muft be acknowledged, that it is more difficult 

 to difcover it in the works of Nature than in thofe of Man, for 

 this plain reafon, that the former being the work of mod perfed 

 Intelligence, cannot be fo eafily comprehended by us as the works 

 of Intelligence, fuch as our own. But it is to be difcovered, even 

 by us, at leaft in a certain degree ; and there is one difference be- 

 twixt the works of Nature and of Art, which helps us very much to 

 that difcovery. The works of Art are, in themfelves, all lifelefs 

 and inadive ; whereas the works of Nature have, like the images 

 which Dedalus is faid to have made, life and motion in themfelves ; 

 and it is this principle of life and motion, which I call Mind, that 

 makes the Form of every Natural Thing, producing all its motions 

 and energies, and its every other quality. That there is fuch a 



Mind, 



was the T« «», or the t» »»t«; o», or, as we would fay in Englifli, the thing, or, the 

 thing it/elf- And this was his meaning when he fpoke of «wro «»^{»x«{. jtvT»-'<TT»t. 

 As to the compofite, or form incorporated, he faid it was in conftant change, and 

 could not be faid to exift, «v* (o-t;, «aa« yi»er«6( ; and therefore it could not be the 

 fubjed of fcience. But both philofophers agreed in this, that the Form of any thing 

 was an Idea in the Divine Mind, which, being imprefled, as it were, upon Mat- 

 ter, produced all ihefe corporeal forms we fee in the univerfe. Thus much I thought 

 proper to fay, for the information of thofe who would apply themfelves to the fludy 

 of antient philofophy, where, though they underftand the Greek language, they 

 will find terms of art that they do not underftand, being altogether different from 

 thofe ufed in modern philofophy; and which, therefore, without fome fuch expla- 

 nation as I have given them, may difcourage them very much in the ftudyofthc 

 two great authors of that philofophy, Plato and Ariftotle. 



