328 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book V. 



fuch as the Magnetic, Ele£lrical, and Chymical Attradions and Re- 

 pulfions ? Muil not the Motions of Plants and Annuals, their Or- 

 ganization, Generation, and regular Succeflion, be produced alfo 

 by one fingle iinpulfe, according to the philofophy of Des Cartes : And 

 muft not Man likewife be a machine, according to the philofophy of the 

 AbhePrade* andDr Prieftley ; for their philofophy is nothing elfe but 

 Materialifm carried to its full extent : And 1 think Dr Prieftley has 

 fome reafon to boaft, as he does, that he is a perfed Materialift ; 

 whereas the other Philofophers of this age are only Demi-Materia- 

 lifts : And I agree with him alfo, that thofe who maintain there is a 

 Mind in Man, but not in other Bodies in this Univerfe, are but 

 Demi-Spirituaiifts. How different is this Syftem of Philofophy 

 from the Antient Philofophy of Mind, and the dodtrine of Theifm 

 as delivered by Cicero in his Tufculan Queftions, where he tells us 

 that, without Mind, this goodly frame of Nature could not fubfift a 

 moment ; ' a truth,' fays he, 'which ail the Plebeian philofophers (fo 

 * I call all thofe that differ from Socrates, Plato, and that family,) 

 ' can never overturn +.' 



But, fuppofmg that the Mechanical Syftem could be confined to 

 the Celeftial Regions, (and I do not know that the Newtonians at 

 prefent carry it farther, though Sir Ifaac has faid fomething tending 

 that way, as I have elfewhere obferved if, which I wifh he had not 

 faid), the Machine of the Heavens ought to be a moft perfed one, 

 and worthy of its great Author. But this is far from being the 

 cafe. 



In 



* See concerning him, Vol. I. page 499 ; and concerning Dr Prieftley, p. 58. 

 of this Volume. 



+ See the pafFage quoted at length, Vol. I. page 202. 



% See Vol. I. page 547. and page 275. where Sir Ifaac's words are quoted in the 

 end of the Principia. There he fays, that even Senfation, and the voluntary Motion 

 of Animals, are produced by a moft fubtile Spirit, which pervades grofs Bodies, 

 and is latent in them. 



