22 A NTI EN T METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



Locrian, De Ant ma Mttnd'i'^ ; for he fays, that all bodies are com- 

 pofed of matter and ideas. Now, thefe ideas mufl: proceed from 

 the fupreme mind; for they form the body out of rude matter, and 

 make it a body of a certain fpecies, animal, vegetable, or mineral, 

 and at the fame time give it motion. And this makes this work of 

 Timaeus a moft valuable piece of natural philofophy, as it accounts 

 for that compofition of matter, which forms the feveral bodies here 

 on earth, fo different in their kinds, and which we cannot fuppofe 

 to be the produftion of mere matter, which, as 1 have fhown, is 

 merely paflive, and has no principle of adtion or motion m it. It 

 accounts, at the fame time, for that motion vv^hich we fee in all bo- 

 dies, organized or unorganized ; fo that the fame mind, which forms 

 them, alfo moves them. And it proves, that, in the formation of 

 things in this material world, mind and body were neceffarily con- 

 nedted, and have continued fo ever fince; fo that in every body there 

 is a mind. And thus it appears, that the ideas we form of things 

 are not mere fidtions or creations of our mind, but have a real ex- 

 iftence in nature, and make every thing what it truly is, and give it 

 motion and animation. 



And here I think it will not be improper to obferve the influence 

 of motion in the fyftem of the univerfe. It is the agent in all the 

 operations of nature, either in the heavens or in the earth j for by 

 motion are produced the fucceffion of day and night and of feafons, 

 the generation of animals and vegetables, their growth and their 

 nourifhment. And there is another operation of it, not commonly 

 obferved, which is, that it is the origin of all the operations of our 

 minds, and of all the knowledge we acquire in this life, which muft 

 all begin with fenfations, or the perceptions of {tx\{Q \ for, as 1 have 

 faid in more than one place of this work, our fenfes are the firft 



inlets 



• This treatife is printed with the works of Plato, and annexed to a Dialogue of his 

 entitled, ^ke Timaeus. 



