Chap. IV. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 163 



particular and individual things, mufl: operate with the afllftance of 

 the Senfes and the Phantafia : But, as to the Speculative Intelleft, 

 which is converfant only with the Ideas or Forms of things with- 

 out the Matter, it is evident that it cannot operate properly, if it 

 takes the afllftance of either Senfe or Imagination ; and it is cer- 

 tainly true what Plato fays, that nothing difturbs the Intelledt more 

 in its operations than the Phantafia. And, when it is employed upon 

 its nobleft objedt, — Mind and things divine, it is evident, that, if 

 we try to pidure them in our Imagination, we never can have any 

 proper Idea of them. It is true indeed, that it is very difficult to 

 think even upon fubjedls of fpeculation, without any help either 

 from Senfe or Phantafia: But, to think fo, is undoubtedly the per- 

 fedion of Intelledt, to which the philofophers of the Platonic 

 fchool, in later times, afpired, by a certain regimen and manner of 

 life, which they called Cathartic *. But, without fuch preparation, 

 though in Geometry we ufe the Senfes and Phantafia more, I think, 

 than we ought to do, yet in Arithmetic thofe, who have learned 

 the fcience, operate upon numbers, and inveftigate their nature and 

 properties, without applying them to particular things, and confe- 

 quently without the Senfes or Phantafia. And, therefore, I per- 

 feftly agree with the Pythagoreans, who held, that nothing was fo 

 proper a preparation for the contemplation of Divine things as the 

 ftudy of Numbers, which, for that reafon, they ufed as the fym- 

 bols of Divinity and of all the myfteries of Nature f , 



X2 It 



• See Philoponus in the beginning of his commentary upon Ariftotlc's books 

 De Anima. 



* See Nicomachus Gerafinus' Arithmetic, and the t« StoAoy.i/^i.* rm A^itfmn. 

 Hnj, — a compilement from this author and fome other Pythagorean writers ; a very 

 rare and curious book, which I faw in the King of France's library and had the 

 ufe of for fome time, but do not know where elfe it may be found. 



