Chap. II. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 13 



is truly what he was called by the Antients, a Microcofm^ or Little 

 /To/' /^, containing in little four principles fuch as are in theUniverfe; 



ift, 



certainly not Materialifls, it can never be believed that they would have made Bo- 

 dy, and its properties, fuch as Points, Lines, Surfaces, and Solids, the Principles 

 of Nature. If, indeed, they had been merely Geometers, as fome of thofe are a- 

 mong us who call themfelves Philofophers, they might have made the Principles of 

 Geometry the Principles of Nature ; but no body, who knows any thing of their 

 philofophy, can doubt that they were Theologians, that is, Philofophers of the 

 hlgheft order. Even if they had been mere Geometers, one cannot believe that the 

 Greeks were fo entirely ignorant of Geometry at that time, after Thales, who 

 learned Geometry in Egypt, hadftt up his fchool among them, as to have thought 

 this difcovery of thefe four Elements of Geometry fuch a wonderful difcovery, as to 

 have fworn by the author of it. But, in the fenfe that I have given to it, I think 

 it was a very great difcovery : i\nd I hope I will be forgiven if I claim fome merit 

 in making ir, though at fecond hand, to the philofophers of Britain ; for I do not 

 know that the Tetradtys has been fo explained by any perfon that has written upon 

 Philofophy in modern times, nor, indeed, by any antient Author that I have read. 



■I know fome will be inclined to think, that the Pythagoreans made Matter to 

 be at lead one of the four fources of Nature ; but fuch divine philofophers, as they 

 were, confidered mere Matter as the lowefl: thing in the Unlverfe, being en- 

 tirely void of all a61:ive Powers, and only the fubjedi upon which fuch Powers ope- 

 rate : For, though Ariflotle dignifies it with the name of a caufe, yet it is truly no 

 more than the capacity of receiving all kinds of forms •, and it may be compared to 

 Space, which, as I have fliown, is nothing more than the capacity of receiving Bo- 

 dies. It is fo fhadowy a Being, that Timaeus the Locrian, in the beginning of 

 his treatife Be An'una Miindiy fays, that it cannot be apprehended by Intelleft, 

 but only by what he calls v«#ai A»7<rt«a>, or a b.ijlarcl kind of reafon ,- and, indeed, it 

 is impofTiblc; to form any idea of it, or to fay what it is, till it be informed by that 

 Principle, which I call the Elemental Mindy and then it becomes Body. Now, I 

 think it is impoflTible to fuppofe that the Pythagoreans would have made fuch an 

 incomprehenfible Being, which cannot be faid, in any refpe£l:, to be a Caufe, 

 except that, without it the material v/orld could not have exifted, one of the four 

 grand Principles of Nature. And here it may be obferved, that what is highefl: and 

 what is lowefl: in the Univerfe, is equally incomprehenfible by the human INIind. 



The 



