174 ANTIKNT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



Locke's The new Language, that Mr Locke has introduced into 



rhilofophy, not Jo good as the antient ^—obfcure and complexed, com- 

 pared -with the antient.— Two Reajons for injijiing fo much upon the 

 Defers of Mr Locke's Philofophy. 



HAVING, in the preceding Book, explained fufficiently the na- 

 ture of our Ideas, I propofe, in this, to treat of the Origin 

 of them, — a fubjed of which I have often wondered that Ariftotle 

 has faid fo little ; for, though he every where diflinguifhes Ideas 

 from Senfations, yet he no where tells us, as far as I remember, 

 from whence we derive our Ideas. But Plato has been more expli- 

 cit upon the fubjeft, and has written a whole Dialogue, to prove 

 that the Mind derives all its knowledge from itfelf, and that, every 

 thing it now knows, it knew in a former ftate of its exigence, and 

 is only excited to the remembrance of it by the operation of ex- 

 ternal objeds upon our Senfes ; fo that all our knowledge in this life 

 is Reminifcence : And I obferve, that fome of the Akxandrian com- 

 mentators upon Aiiftotle, who have joined the philofophy of Plato 

 with that of Ariftotle, (and, indeed, I think, they ought never to be 

 feparated), fpeak the fame language. This opinion 1 hold to be the 

 truth. 



Thofe, who know no more of the philofophy of Mind than what 

 they have learned from Mr Locke, will be furprifed that I fhould 

 make a queftion of what he has determined fo long ago, and what 

 has been received with fuch general approbation, not only in Britain, 

 but all over Europe. But, I think, they would have much more rea- 

 fon to wonder, if Mr Locke, unafTifted by learning, or any know- 

 ledge of the antient philofophy, fhould have difcovered what efcaped 

 all the philofophers ot antiquity, though there was no branch of 

 philofophy that they cultivated fo much as the Philofophy of Mind. 



To 



