Chap. IV., ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 227 



The phyfiologlfts, who are not philofophers, fpeak of a certain 

 temperature of Hot and Cold, Moid and Dry, as being the Caufe 

 hoth of the Animal and Vegetable Life. But it is truly not a Caufe, 

 but only that without which the Caufe cannot a(5t. 



I have been the more full upon this fubjed, becaufe I am perfua- 

 ded, that the confidering thofe things as the Caufes of the Operations 

 of Mind, not the concomitants only, has been the original fource 

 of Materialifm ; for it has led men to believe that Mind is nothing 

 elfe but Body modified and organized in a certain way : And, ac- 

 cordingly, Epicurus has endeavoured to prove the mortality of the 

 Mind, by fhowing, that it cannot adt without the Body ; from which 

 he concludes, that it is infeparable from the Body, and muft fubfift 

 or perifli with it *. And in this way all the Materialifts, from him 

 down to Mr David Hume, have always argued. 



I will conclude this chapter with putting the Reader in mind of a 

 diftindtion of Caufes, which, though commonly made, feems to be 

 forgotten by fome of our modern philofophers ; — the diftinftion 

 I mean is betwixt Firft and Second Caufes. This diftindion fup- 

 pofes, what I hold to be certainly true, that nothing can exifl: 

 without a prefent Caufe : So that, though there may be a remoter 

 Caufe, there muft always be fome immediate Caufe operating in 

 the produdion of the Effeft, the fyftem of Nature being nothing 

 elfe but a feries of Caufes and Effedls, at the head of which is the 

 great Author of Nature, who is the Caufe of all things, but only the firft 

 Caufe, not the neareft, or immediate. Thus, he is the Caufe of the Life 

 and Movement of all Animals, but only the remoter, not the imme- 

 diate : And in this fenfe St Paul is to be underftood, when he fays, 

 " that in Him we live, move, and have our being f." In like manner I 



maintain 



• See Lucretius. " '•' ''"" ' ' 



t I could have wiflied, for the honour of our Englifli tranflators, that they had 



not 



