PRE F A C E. xxxix 



he fays, he added nothing to what had been faid before on that 

 fubjed: : And I think he might have gone farther, and added, that 

 this Philofophy in him is not near fo fublime, or fo truly divine, as 

 it is in the writings of Plato, who, having a more exalted genius 

 than Ariftotle, though perhaps not fo acute, entered more deeply 

 into the myfteries of the Pythagorean Theology ; for I can have no 

 doubt but that the whole Theology of the Greeks was derived from 

 the School of Pythagoras ; and it was, as Jambllchus tells us, Pytha- 

 goras who firft taught the Greeks to raife their minds above matter, 

 to thofe things which have a real and permanent exiftence, and are 

 the firft caufes and principles of all things *. Thefe, he faid, were 

 immaterial, and the only active powers in the univerfe ; and to the 

 fcience of them he gave the fame name that Ariftotle does, calling it 

 cQ(picx, ; whereas the knowledge of the other branches of Philofophy, 

 he faid, was no more than (piKotrotpia f. 



With regard to Phyfics, he agreed with the Pythagoreans in^ 

 making the principles of all natural bodies to be matter and form, 

 as is laid down in Timasus the Locrian's book, Je Aiiima Miindi. To- 

 thefe two he has added a third, viz. Privation^ but without the leaft 

 neceffity, as I have elfewhere fhown J. He has faid a great deal upon 

 the nature of motion, that grand agent in all the operations of nature, 

 much more than is to be found in any writings of the Pythagoreans 

 that have come down to us. He has alfo treated of particular fubjedls 

 of natural knowledge, of which we have little or nothing at all faid In 

 the writings of the Philofophers before him, fuch of them, at leaft, as 

 yet remain. It maybe true, however, that what he has given as his 

 own difcoveries on thefe fubjedts may have been taken from the books 

 of the Pythagoreans then extant, but now loft'. Thus much is cer- 

 tain, 



* Jamblichus de Vita Pythagora^ Cap. vi. verfus fijiem. 



f Ibid. Cap. xxix. p. 135. 



X Metaphyf. Vol. I. p. 61 and 62. 



