11 



PREFACE. 



to Deity, as to make part of his Nature, and are therefore to be 

 confidered as making with him but one God, I hold to be a truth 

 hkewifc of Philofophy, as much as of Religion*. 



As all Philofophy, whether of Man or of Nature, muft arife from 

 fadls, I have begun this Philofophy of Man with his Hiftory^ 

 whereof the Fadts here colled:ed are the refult of enquiries that I 

 have been carrying on for more than twenty years. During which 

 time I have been fludying Fiiftory, not fo much with a view to the 

 hiftory of any particular Nation, as of the whole Species; and as 



the 



* This is Plato^s doclrine of the Trinity, fhortly mentioned by himfelf in a letter to 

 Dionyfius the Tyrant, but explained at great length by his Commentators, as Eufebius 

 has informed us. Proeparatio Evang. Lib. iv. Cap. 13. et feq. And Proclus, who was 

 fo much a Platonic, that he was furnamed the AtaJ'o;^^?,. or Succeffor of Plato, has laid 

 it down in words as exprefs as can be. In Timaeum, Lib. ii. p. 82, and p. 93. 

 And further he fays, that it was' likewife the doclrine of Pythagoras, Ibid. p. 94. 

 Eufebius, in the above-mejitioned Book, Cap. viii. thinks that Plato learned it from 

 fome Jews that he might have feen in Egypt, when he was there ; but I confefs I 

 think this is not probable ; and it is much more likely that he learned it from thofe who 

 taught it Pythagoras, I mean the Egyptian Priefts ; and if there were any doubt in 

 the matter, it is made perfcdly clear by fundry pafTages which St. Cyrillus has 

 preferved to us from ancient Egyptian theological Books, called by him l^y.xi a, where 

 the doclrine of the Three Perfons of the Trinity is as clearly laid down as in the 

 Gofpel of St. John, and his firft general Epiflle. See Cyrillus' Anfwer to the Em- 

 peror Julian J and there is a paffage quoted both by Suidas and Codrenus from the 

 Books of Hermes Trifmegiltus, in which the Three Perfons are defigned under the 

 very names they bear in our Sacred Books j and the creation of the world by the Se- 

 cond Perfon, dcfcribed almofl in the words of Mofes. At the fame time I believe 

 with Eufebius, that this do6lrinc of the Trinity was known to the Jews. See v^'hat I 

 have further faid on this fubieit. Origin of Language, Vol. I. p. 7. 2d Edit. Metaph. 

 Vol. I. p. 167. and in this Vol. p. 22. 



If 1 live to carry on the Ancient Philofophy to Theology, I will explain this fubjciSl 

 further, and fhew, from the analogy of Nature, that there mud be fuch a procelHon 

 from the hrft Principle ; and that it is not more myfterious than the Emanation of 

 All Things from that Principle. 



