Chap. V. • A N T I E N T METAPHYSICS. 105 



I know it may be Lid, that we love Knowledge, becaufc it is ufe- 

 ful : But a Man that loves Knowledge merely for the utility of it 

 will never be eftcemcd a philofopber by thole who know what phi- 

 lofophy is ; any more than a Man, who loves Pictures and Statues 

 merely for the money he may make of them, will be efleemed a 

 Virtuofo ; or a Man, who does good actions merely for the utility 

 of them either to himfelf or others, without any fenfe of the Beau- 

 ty cf them, will be reckoned a Virtuous Man by men of liberal 

 and generous fentiments. Ariftotle, as I fhall obferve afterwards, 

 underftood nothing to be 'virtue, but what was pradtifed for the fake 

 of the fair and band/onie : And, as to the Pleafures of Science, he has 

 told us, that the Firft Philofophy, or Higheft Science, and which, 

 therefore, mull yield thegreateft Pleafure,is altogether ufelefs and un- 

 profitable for the purpofes of life *. 



But here a new queftion is ftarted, of more difficulty than any 

 hitherto propofed ; — What is Beauty? Ariftotle has given .us two 

 definitions of it, as I have obferved elfewheret : But they are both 

 of the popular kind, and intended only for the ufe of the Popular 

 Art he was teaching ; I mean Rhetoric. If the treatife, which he 

 Vol. II. O wrote 



• Arifiotle's Metaph. lib. i. cap 2. and Nicomacheia, lib. 10. cap. 7. — two of 

 the finefl chapters in Ariftotle, in my opinion, in which he makes a moft magni- 

 ficent eulogium upon the Jirfi PhJofophy, or <rt^iic ; the fum of which is, That the 



fludy of this philofophy is for its own fake, not for the fake of any thing clfe : 



That it is the perfe£lion of what is Divine in our natures, and may be truly called 

 Ourfelf, being that which is moft excellent in us ; fo that a Man, who lives the 

 life of fuch a philofopher, may be faid to live the life of a M. n, and his own, not 

 the life of another : — That, if we could fuppofe the Divinity to want or defire any 

 thing, it would be Knowledge for its own fake. This philofophy, therefore, is tru- 

 ly Divine, and the pofleflion of it more than falls to the lot of man; fo that, if the 

 Divinity were capable of envy, the philofophers cf this kind would be the objeft 

 of it. 



t Vol. I. p. 128. 



