PREFACE. xlii 



From this account of the firft Philofophy among men, two ob- 

 fervations naturally arife : The firft is, that however acute and fu- 

 perior in underftanding our modern Materialifts may think them- 

 felves, their Philofophy is but the infancy of Philofophy, and fuch 

 as no man that has paffed the infancy of underftanding, and is of 

 any depth of thought, can embrace ; and it ftiould, I think, be not 

 a little mortifying to them, to think that a Savage of America, whom, 

 no doubt, they hold in the greateft contempt, fhould know what 

 they do not know, that it can be nothing but Mind which moves 

 the miflive, not the impulfe which has ceafed *► 



Another obfervation is, that it was probably vanity, and the af- 

 fectation of fuperior wifdom, as much as ignorance, that made thofe 

 firft Philofophers differ fo much from the people, as to believe that 

 Body was not at all moved by Mind, but felf-moved. Thus much 

 at leaft is certain, that, as I have faid elfewhere f, vanity is moft 

 prevalent in the charader of the Philofophers of that kind among 

 us. I have known many of them, and one of them in particular, 

 w^ho was a great apoftle and preacher of that faith, and who was 

 one of the vaineft men I ever knew, at the fame time one of the 

 dulleft, and as void of good learning, as any pretender to it ever 

 was. 



It was impofTible that this infancy of Philofophy could have laftecf 

 long, not half the time that we are fure their kingdom lafted, among- 

 a people fo intelligent as we know the antient Egyptians were J, 



whoi 



* When, therefore, Homer gives animation to the flying dart or arrow, it is not 

 fo violent a figure as is generally imagined, and would have been no figure at all, if, 

 befides animation, he had not given appetites and inclinations to the darts. See 

 concerning this figure in Homer, Ariftotle Poetic. 



f Vol. I. Metaphyf. p. 247 et feq. 



X See Herodotus, Lib. ii. Cap. pxa and p^. I am not fure but they had as good 

 reafon as the Greeks had, to call all other Nations Barbarians, which they did. Ibid, 

 Cap. pjj. 



