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PREFACE. 



as they would obferve it not only moving itfelf, as they thought, but 

 likewile moving other bodies, they would rejed the popular notion 

 of all the motions in Nature being produced by Mind, and would^ 

 as is natural enough, go to the contrary extreme, and believe that 

 all the Motions in the univerfe, and, by confequence, all the 

 phsenomena in Nature, were produced by Body only ; and that even 

 what intelligence appeared in the world, proceeded from Body alfo; 

 and that Thought was nothing but Matter, finer and more fubtile, 

 varioully arranged and moved* 



Thus the firft Philofophy in Egypt, and I believe every where 

 eUe, was Materialifm ; and this notion of mine is, I think, fupported 

 by fadl and obfervation. For the firft profefled Philofophers in 

 Greece, I mean thofe of the Ionic School, were, as Ariftotle in- 

 forms us, all Materialifts; till Anaxagoras arofe among them, and 

 firft employed Mind and Intelligence to fet every thing in order; 

 and therefore, fays Ariftotle, talked like a fober fenfible man among 

 babbling drunkards '*. But even he retained fo much of the preju- 

 dices of the more antient Philofophy, that after things were once 

 arranged and difpofed, he fuppofed that they went on by Matter and 

 Mechanifm, and accounted, as Plato informs us f, for all the phce- 

 nomena of Nature from vapours, ethers, and fubtile fluids* 



From what I have faid of the firft Philofophy of Greece, it appears 

 that Epicurus did no more than revive the antient Philofophy, which 

 had taken a very different turn under Plato and Ariftotle ; and, in- 

 deed, it is agreed, that he took his fyftem of Atoms, and of Matter 

 and Motion, producing every thing, from Leucippus and Democritus, 

 philofophers who lived long before him. 



* Arift. Metaphyf, 

 f Plato in Phad, 



From 



