I3(S ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, of which they cannot eat; 

 but which is referved for men of genius, who apply to the ftudy of 

 learning and philofophy. From them, however, the vulgar may 

 learn to know it; and it is by example chiefly and imitation, that 

 they muft learn. It, therefore, ought to be the chief care of the 

 le<^iflature, in every country, to fill the great offices of ftate with 

 men eminent and diftinguiflied from the reft of the people, both by 

 nature and education, and particularly by a proper fenfe of what is 

 beautiful, graceful, and becoming, in fentiments and adions. Thefe 

 the inferior people will be naturally led to imitate; and thus Virtue, 

 and a true fenfe of the Beautiful in the condud of life, will become 

 the fenfe of the people, and be what we call they^/o;?, which is fo 

 prevalent, not only in drefs and other trifling things, but in the great 

 concerns of life ; for men, that cannot be governed by reafon and 

 philofophy, muft be governed by fafhion ; and, accordingly, w^e 

 may obferve, that it governs men more than any law divine or hu- 

 man. 



After all I have faid upon the Beautiful, more perhaps than the 

 reader may think necefl^ary, I will, before I conclude this chapter, 

 add fomething more upon the fubjed, tending to fhow the difference 

 betwixt the Good and the Beautiful ; about which we have a great 

 deal in the Dialogues of Plato, particularly in the Protagoras^ but all 

 diiputation and nothing determined; which, as I have faid, is the 

 manner of Plato, very different, as the fchoolmea obferved, from 

 the manner of Ariftotle. And even what Ariftotle has faid at confi- 

 derable length upon the fubjed, in his firft book of the Magna Mo- 

 ralia"^^ does not fatisfy me ; for, as he w\is a great enemy to the 

 Ideas of Plato, he would not allow that there is any general idea of 

 Good, at leaft not any that will apply to morals. He, therefore, 

 maintained that we have no idea of good in general, but only oi par- 

 ticular 



* Chap. r. and 2. - 



