74 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



mong other things, the human foul, to depend upon the pofition, 

 order, arrangement, and figure, of the atoms or particles that coiu- 

 pofe them ; all which Lucretius has exprefled in one line, 



Concurfu?, motus, pofitura, ordo, figura. 

 This was the necefTary confequence of thofe philofophers excluding 

 Mind altogether from the fyftem of the univerfe, and maintaining 

 that there was nothing in Nature befides Body and Space ; And it 

 mufl be allowed that their fyftem was at leafl: confiftent with itfelf. 

 On the other hand, the Theifts, who maintain that Mind is the 

 principal thing in Nature, and that which conftitutes the eflence of 

 every animal and vegetable, if they ftop fhort there, and admit that 

 Minerals, and other unorganized Bodies, derive their nature and ef- 

 fence, their motions and their other qualities, from the order and 

 arrangement of their parts, betray their own caufe, are inconfiftent 

 with thcmfelvcs and but half Theifts. This was not the cafe of the 

 Peripatetics, who did not derive the qualities of Bodies from fuch 

 arrangement, but from what they called iheir Subftantia! Form, 

 meaning that imuarJ For/fi, or MinJ, as I call it, which made them 

 to be fubftances of fuch and fuch a character *. And here the reader 

 may obferve how well my fyftem, whether true or falfe, hangs to- 

 gether. The principle of Movement in Bodies, when they are not 

 moved by any external impulfe, I make to be an internal principle, 

 which, being immaterial,! call Mind. Now, as fubftances, unorga- 

 nized as well as organized, are diftinguiflied one from another by 

 the different arrangement and configuration of their parts ; and as 

 all thefe different arrangements and configurations muft be produced 

 by Motion, there is nothing more natural, and, indeed, I may fay 

 neceflary, than that the fame moving principle fhould conftitute the 

 very nature and elfence of every Subftance. We therefore know fo 

 much of the eftence of Subftances, that we know, in general, that 

 it is Mind, the Great Piinciple and Author of every thing in the u- 

 niverfc : But we do not know particularly what kind of Mind it is 



that 



-* See what I have further faid concerning fulflantial forms, Vol. j. p. 58. 



