io5 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



In ^be .^e'^-cral ideas ; but after they are produced, then they are faid 

 to ryWX o.^.tially: And as the whole univerfe confifts of beings that 

 produce ind are produced, this diftindion, of virtual and a^ual ex- 

 igence, goes through the whole fyftem of nature. 



This produdion, of lefs general ideas from more general which 

 contain them, may be very properly called generation : For 

 the nature of generation is, that the being which generates pro- 

 duces out of itfelf what is generated; and, accordingly, the term 

 begotten^ or generated^ is very properly applied to the Second and 

 Third Perfons of the Trinity, which are produced, the one from the 

 Firft Caufe of all things, and the other from the Second Caufe. And 

 here we may obferve the analogy that there is betwixt the proceffion 

 of ideas from one aaother, and the proceflion in the Perfons of the. 

 Trinity. 



And not only is this fyflem of ideas perfectly agreeable to the 

 dodtrinc of the Trinity, but it alfo agrees wuth one of the moft 

 ancient pieces of philofophy that is preferved to us, I mean the 

 work of the Pythagorean philofopher, Timxus the Locrian, de- 

 anima mundi ; which fhows, what I fhould otherwife have believ- 

 ed, that Pythagoras learned this dodrine of ideas in Egypt, as well 

 as Plato. Timxus fays, " That all things in the material world are 

 compofed of matter and ideas ; which two, joined together, make 

 what is called body.''' Now, if ideas were nothing elfe but what Arif- 

 totle makes them, that is, creations of our minds, they could not,, 

 with any propriety, be faid to be any part of the compofition of the 

 material world. But what is decifive in the cafe, he calls them 

 ovtrioui, that is fuhJla7Kes ; a term that cannot apply to beings which 

 have no exlftence by themfelves but exift only in the minds of men, 

 fuch as the ideas of Ariftotle. And it may be obferved, that, in this 

 pair?^ge of Tiraxus, the word ihx^ though not ufed by Ariflotle, 



except 



