Chap. I. ANTIENT M E T A P PI YS I C S. 183 



though he has thought proper to change the name of Accident (a 

 moft fignificant appellation, as I have ellevvhere obferved, efpecially 

 in its Greek origin,) into Mode. — Further, they diftinguifhed and ar- 

 ranged things, according to their Genufes, Speciefes, and DiflFerences, 

 that is, the qualities winch diftingulfh one fpecies of the fame genus 

 from another. This dlvifion of things, likewife, Mr Locke has 

 thought proper to reprefent as merely nominal, adapted only to the 

 ufe of different languages, but without any foundation in the Nature 

 of things*. But the antients thought this diftindlion fo much 

 founded in Nature, that they defined things according to their Genus, 

 Species, and Difference. And, indeed, nothing (hows more that Sy- 

 ftem of the univerfe, the contemplation of which is the chief delight 

 of the philofopher, but of which Mr Locke appears to me to have 

 hardly had any Idea : For it fliows the proceffion of things, fuch as 

 it is in Nature, from the higheft to the loweft, from what is moft 

 general, that is, the higheft Genus, fuch as thofe that compofe the 

 Categories, down to the loweft Speciefes, below which there is no- 

 thing but Individuals : Then it fhows moft manifeftly the rerum 

 Concordia difcors^ that wonderful fimilarity and yet difference of 

 things, and that connection and dependency of one thing upon an- 

 other, by which every Species is a Syftem, the Genus above it a 

 greater Syftem, and fo on till we come to the Category, or higheft 



Genus 



' Book 3. chap. 5. fefl. 8. and foil. And, in his difpute with the Bifhop of 

 Worcefter, he has gone fo far as to maintain, that there is no Nature ctmnian to the 

 feveral individuals of a Species — that Man, for example, is a common name for Pe- 

 ter, J.imes, and John, but denotes no Nature common to thefe three; fo that it is 

 impoffible there can be three perfons in one Nature. — See the Bifliop of Worcefter's 

 anfwer to Mr Locke's 2d letter, towards the end, where the Bilhop (hews the dan- 

 gerous confequsnce of fuch a philofophy to Religion. And, indeed, a philofophy 

 which maintains that there cannot be three perfons in one Nature, or two Natur.s in 

 one perfon, is totally adverfe to the myllerics of the Chriftian faith, as it mult denji 

 the doQrinc both of the Trinity and the Incarnation. 



