Chap. II. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. jc^j 



fome grown people ; but that happens, he tells us, very rarely *. 

 Even while we are awake, and after our Minds are ftocked with 

 an infinite number of Ideas, from Experience, Reafon, Science, 

 and Converfation, how many of them lie dormant in our Intelle<£l, 

 till they are refufcitated by recolleilion, teaching, or the operation ol 

 fome of our Senfes. What we call proving or demonftrating, is not 

 giving us new Ideas, but calling up old ones, as Plato has {hown, by 

 an admirable example of a mathematical demonflration, in the Aieno^ 

 And, indeed, it is charadtcriftical of the Human Mind, and what 

 diftinguifhes it as much, or, perhaps, more, than any thing elfe, 

 from Superior Intelligences, that it has not all its Ideas, and, in- 

 deed, but a very few of them, prefent at the fume time, and is there- 

 fore obliged to pafs from one to another, and to call them up by Rc- 

 mlnifcence and Recollection, as it has occafioa for them. Now, if 

 it be true that fome of our Ideas lie dormant in our Minds for years 

 together, Why may we not fuppofe that all our Ideas are in that 

 ftate while we are in the womb, and during the firft years of our 

 life, till they are excited by our Senfes, by Converfation, and by the 

 Intercourfe of Life ? 



What has led Mr Locke, and all our modern philofophers, into 

 the error, that our Ideas are derived from Matter, is the term of 

 Abjlra6l Ideas^ which, as I have obferved f , is underftood to be fy- 

 nonymous with Ideas : So that all our Ideas, by thofe philofophers, 

 are underftood to be abftrafted from Matter, and, confequently, as 

 they think, derived from Matter. That all Ideas, even the Ideas 

 of the Divine Mind, are fo abftraded, no man can believe who 

 believes in God. But even the Ideas of our Mind muft, as I have 

 obferved f, be known and recognized, before they can be diftinguifli- 

 edand feparated from the Matter with which they are joined. 



] 



* Liber, De Infamniis, cap. «■ 



t P- 75- 



X Ibidem. 



