INTRODUCTION. 3 



different parts of the three firft volumes of this work, particularly 

 in vol. I. p. 218; and the difterences I have fhortly recapitulated in 

 the third volume, p. 20. Of the frrft kind of thefe minds is that 

 Great Mind, from which all other minds, and all things in this uni- 

 verfe, derive their origin ; and, among other things, all other intel- 

 ligences in the univeri'e. The other three minds ad by intelligence, 

 but they have it not in themfelves ; therefore, though they ad for 

 a certain end or purpofe, it is without knowledge of that end, with- 

 out confcioufnefs, without intelligence, delibeYation, or intention, 

 and therefore neceffarily *. Thefe three minds, thus ading without 

 intelligence, conftitute what the antient philofophers call Nature f: 

 And thus the antient philofophers diftinguifhed God from Natiire ; 

 two words that are in ev-ery body's mouth, but no body can diftin- 

 guifh them accurately who has not learned the antient philofophy. 



Of thefe three minds, the two firft, viz. the animal and vegetable, 

 our modern philofophers acknowledge, and can diftinguilh from one 

 another. But the third kind of mind appears to be utterly unknown 

 to them: Yet they obferve that bodies are moved, which are neither 

 animals nor vegetables. This has led to two great errors : The firft 

 is, that body is endued by a vis infita, a power efiential to it j or, 

 in other words, that body moves itfelf : And this is the error which 

 Sir Ifaac Newton has fallen into in his Principia, and which, as I 

 have (liown elfewhere:}:, hasadired tendency to materiallfm, or what 

 is the fame thing, atheifm ; though, certainly. Sir Ifaac did not for- 

 fee this corifequence of his dodrine, otherwife he never would have 

 maintained it. The other error is,, that God is the immediate aur 

 thor of all the motions of unorganized bodies, by which they arc 

 moved up or down, or in a ftraight line : Now, if God be the im- 



A 2 •' mediate 



•Vol. I. p. 2.18. , . . - 

 t Ibid. See alfo Vol. II. p. 360. 



X V0I..I. p. 531. 546. 554.— Vol. II. p. -.3 19. 334. 541. ^yz."- Vol.. III. Chap. I. 

 of Appendix. 



