Chap. I. A N T I E N T IM E T A P H Y S I C S. ig 



regularity of that fyflem, by which man is conneded with the 

 brute, and how he begins where the brute ends, that is, with com- 

 paring an objed of fenfe with itfelf, fo as to difcover what is princi- 

 pal and predominant in it : So that there is here, as well as in other 

 parts of natnre, a chain where no link Is wanting, and where every 

 thing is connected with every thing. 



What I have here faid, I know, will not be intelligible to thofe 

 who have ftudied only Mr Locke's Philofophy, and confequently 

 have not learned to diftinguifh betwixt Ideas and Senfations, and 

 know nothing of the one in the many, which, according to Antient 

 Philofophy, is the foundation of all the operations of the human 

 intelled ; and I can tell thofe gentlemen farther, that they never 

 will underftand this, nor any other part of Antient Philofophy, till 

 they give up all they have learned in modern books of philofophy, 

 and have come to know that they know nothing of philofophy : 

 for, as I have obferved el fe where *, to knoiv that ive do not hioiv, Is 

 the foundation of all human knowledge. Now this is fuch a facri- 

 fice of a man's vanity, as we are to exped very few will make ; 

 and indeed to do fo requires a candour and a love of truth and 

 knowledge very rarely to be met with in this age : But even men 

 of the greateft candour and modefty might be offended, if 1 pre- 

 tended to have invented a philofophy fo much better than what this 

 age or modern times have produced. — But that is not the cafe : I 

 pretend to have invented no philofophy, I only mean to reitore the 

 philofophy of men much fuperior to us, I mean the antieni Egyp- 

 tians and Greeks, who, if they had been inferior to us in genius 

 and natural parts, cultivated philofophy fo much more than ever it 

 was cultivated any where elfe, that they mull have excelled us in it, 



C 2 and 



* Orlgla and Progrefs of Language, Vol. V. p. 296. 



