1^4 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



prefcnt the opinion of fome antient philofophers in order to have 

 the pleafure of refuting them. He appears to have had an averfion 

 even to the w^ord <^«a; for he never ules it, except in difputing with 

 Plato. When he fpeaks of the fpecies of a thing, he calls it sih; ; 

 and what in Plato's language is the Idea of any individual thing, he 

 calls the 70 ri r^v eivoct of the thing. Whereas we, though we have not 

 adopted Plato's dodtrine of ideas, yet have taken the word from 

 him: But that was only in later times, and I believe not before 

 Mr Locke j for the older Engliih writers call it notion. 



In order to judge rightly of this great controversy, which, I hold, 

 draws to great confequences in philofophy, I thing it is proper to 

 ftate fairly both opinions and the confequences which refult from 

 each of them. And I will begin with the opinion of Ariftotle, which 

 is the univerfal opinion of all modern philofophers, who indeed do 

 not appear to have fo much as an idea of the dodlrine of Plato upon 

 this fubje(fi. 



The opinion of Ariftotle is, that there are no fubftances exifting 

 in nature except individual things ; and that general ideas, fuch as 

 Genus and Species, are the mere creatures of the human underftand- 

 ing, and are nothing more than collections which we make from 

 particular things, and which, as they are collected from more or 

 irom fewer things, we call Genus or Species ; which, therefore, ac- 

 cording to Ariftotle, are no more than different ways of clafling and 

 arranging things, for our more eafy comprehenfion of them, (and 

 yet, in his Logic, we are taught that all demonftration proceeds from 

 generals to particulars). And if fo, truth and fcience have truly no 

 foundation in nature, but are altogether creatures of our minds; for 

 this muft be the cafe, if ideas (without which there can be no 

 fcience,) are merely what the fchoolmen call entia rationis^ that 

 is, fictions of our minds; for they muft be all fuch upon Arif- 



totle's 



