Chap.'XT. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 203 



knowledge, when we cannot perceive irnmediatc^ly tlie connexion of 

 ideas, as we do in the cafe of axioms, we diicover a tliird idea, by 

 which we connect them to^>ether : And this is what we call reafrn- 

 ing or fyllogizing ; the art ot which Anlloile has explained bet.cT 

 than any other phiioiopher, and has made or it a wondcrri'ul iylji.rn 

 of fcience ; and which, like all good philofophy, is, as I hav? r- 

 ferved, conneded with Theology; ior it explams to us rbe v (^ .. 

 by which we are enabled fo far to regain our former Hate cvcii in 

 this life. 



This fyftem of prefcience and reminifcence very v/ell accounts for 

 the facility with which we learn; of which Plato has given us a 

 fine example in the Mcno. For having known the thing before, 

 when the image of it is prefented to us, (for things on this e..rth are, 

 as 1 have obferved, no more than the images of the ideas, o» tiie r x. 

 evTc>}i on a,) we immediately recognife it as we do the face of an oid 

 acquaintance, when we fee his portrait : Whereas, if we had n^ver 

 feen or known the perion, we never could divine whole poi trait it 

 was. 



And here we may obferve how properly the wlfdom and good- 

 nefs of God has contrived that, in this our ftate of probation, we 

 fhculd be able to recover the knowledge we had loft. By our 1 .11 

 we loft the ule of intelled ; a very natural puniftunent for haviiig 

 abufed it fo much as to fancy ourfelves to be Gods: But we relum- 

 ed the capacity, or power, of accpiiring it; and we now acquire it, 

 and become poflefted of it in energy or aduaUry, by tiie means of 

 our fenfes, which are converfant with corporeal fonr^s, the images, as 

 I have faid, of the pure intelledual forms. The capacity, which we 

 have ftlll retained, of acquiring intelled, we exercife upon ihofe 

 outward forms in which the idea is lutcat, and as it were overlaid 



C c 2 with 



