Ixxlv PREFACE. 



What Phllofopliy has come among us in place of the antient is 

 well known, and lamented by all lovers of religion and true learning* 

 The late Mr. Harris, my very learned and worthy friend, has the 

 honour of firft attempting to revive the antient, and if my endeavours 

 ihall have any fuccefs, they are alfo to be afcribed to him ; for it 

 was he that firil: gave me a tafte for that Philofophy ; and till his 

 Hermes was publillied, I did not fo much as know that fuch com- 

 mentators upon Ariftotle as Simplicius and Philoponus had an exift- 

 ence ; without whofe affiftance, as I have more than once faid, I 

 could have mxade nothing of Ariflotle's Philofophy. 



To conclude this very long Preface. If the Philofophy of our 

 anceftors is to be reftored, and not entirely loft among us, as I am 

 afraid other things are belonging to them, I think I may claim the 

 merit of having laid before the Public fuch fubjeds of enquiry as muft 

 excite the Philofophical fpirlt, if there be any of it yet remaining 

 in the nation. — As, nno» Whether body moves itfelf; or whether there 

 be not in it a principle of motion different from body, fuch as 

 Ariftotle fuppofed, and has made the foundation of his whole natural 



Philofophy, and which can be nothing elfe but mind. And here 



I cannot help obferving, that I regret the lofs of antient Philofophy 

 for nothing more than this ; — that for want of it, we have not been 

 able to put Sir Ifaac Newton's Aftronomy (a fyftem of fcience which 

 does honour, not only to the Englifh nation, but to modern times, more 

 than all our other much boafted difcoveries put together), upon prin- 

 ciples that are not either abfurd or impious. — To maintain that the 

 lieavenly bodies go on by virtue of an impulle given them fo many 

 thoufand years ago, is abfurd in the highefl: degree, as I think I have 

 clearly fliewn ; and, indeed. Sir Ifaac Newton does not fay fo, nor 

 any of his followers who rightly underftand his fyftem. And whoever 

 maintains that they are moved by a vis hifita^ or, Vvhat is the fame 

 thing, that they move themfelves, is not a Theift, though he may 

 imagine himfelf fuch. And if he goes further, and believes that thofe 

 bodies adt upon one another at fuch immenfe diftances, and par- 

 ticularly that the moon is the efficient caufe of our tides *, which, I 



believe, 

 * See Vol. II. p. 377. — —This Vol. p. 297. ^ 



