9^ ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. BooktIT. 



idea of fuperlour minds. Of our knowledge of body there is no fuch 

 certainty; for it comes entirely from our fenfes, which often deceive 

 us. By this philofophy we are tauglit, that all our knowledge arifes 

 from our comparative faculty. By it we form ideas, and fo exer- 

 cife that' faculty which is called Kovq or Intelled ; and from ideas 

 we proceed {.ofcience, by which we form propofitions and fyllogifms, 

 and all that we call rcafoning''^. By ftudving thefe operations of the 

 mind, we learn to underftand Ariftotle's definition of man, and 

 come to know what fcience or certainty is, the teaching of which was 

 the profefled defign of /riftotle's logic; and^ except by the ftudy 

 of that work, I deny that any m n, now living, can know w'hat 

 Jcieiice is. Now, I would have our modern philofophers confider, 

 whether a mm cm be truly a man o^ fticnce^ who does not fo much 

 as know what fcieiice is. 



But no man can be an antient philofopher, or deferving the name 

 of a philosopher, if he be not firft a fcholar. For, as all philofophy, 

 of any value, comes from the antient world, w^e muft acquire an- 

 tient learning, and, for that purpofe, muft learn the antient langu- 

 ages, particularly the Greek; for unlefs we are fcholars, we never 

 can b" philofophers. And this leads me to fpeak of an event, which 

 I think of importance in the hiftory of man. What I mean, is 

 the reftoratlon of learning, in Europe, in the 15th century. This 

 happened by an event which one fhould have thought would have 

 put an end to learning altogether ; I mean the taking of Conftanti- 

 nople, the onlv feat of learning at that tine, by the Turks, the 'moil 

 indocile of all barbrxrians, who never would have learned the Greek 

 arts and fciences, being quite unlike the Romans, of whom Horace 

 fays, 



Grxfia capta fenim v'uSlorem cepit, et artes 

 Intul.t agrelti Lnio f. 



and, 



* Ot'tVef' operations of the mind, I have fpoken in chap. 7. book 1. of the preced- 

 ing volunr*. 



f Lib. 2. Ep.ft. 1. 



