210 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



material caufe of the unlverfe ; and I think there is the fame reafon 

 for both, and that they were both equally neceflary. 



This philofophy of mine, however extraordinary 'it may appear 

 to our philofophers at prefent, I hold to be the mod antient philo- 

 fophy in the world. It was the philofophy of Mofes, who certain- 

 ly fuppofes that matter exifted before the creation of the world: And 

 this matter he calls water ^ which, among the Egyptian philofophers, 

 w^as the type of the firft matter ; and, upon the water, he fays, that 

 the fpirit of God moved. By Intelligence, therefore, the world, ac- 

 cording to him, was created; and the word, which we tranflate 

 create^ fignifies, as I am informed, in the original Hebrew, fet in 

 order; fo that the God of Mofes was the ©so? of the Greeks, a 

 name derived from Qzu or n&n^i^ fignifying to place or put in 

 order : And with Mofes agrees Timaeus, who fays, that Idea, 

 cut of matter, formed body. Now, ideas are all derived from 

 the Supreme Mind; fo that in effect Timasus has faid that it was 

 the Spirit of God, which, out of matter, formed the material world. 

 And that matter exifted before a world was formed, was alfo the 

 Gofmogony of the Greek mythologifts, who, out of ckaos, fuppof- 

 ed the world was produced. Timaeus has not only made matter, 

 or *yX)i, that, out of which Body is by Idea generated, but he makes 

 it to fill all fpace j and, therefore, he fays, that it is xht place or Jeat 

 of this fublunary world : Which (hows that he believed there was no 

 vacuum in nature, but that all fpac« was filled with matter ; a doc- 

 trine which Ariftotle has ufed many arguments to maintain. So that, 

 according to thefe philofophers, there was always mind in the uni- 

 verfe as well as matter ; both which they confidered to be of necef- 

 fary exiftence, as neceffary as that where there is an aSlive princi- 

 ple, fuch as mindy there fhould be fomethin^ pjjfive, fuch as mat- 

 ter^ upon which that principle a<^s — fo- adion and pailion are co- 

 xelatives which muft neceflarily exift together. 



CHAP. 



