Chap. II. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 23 



ialets of our knowledge. Now, as our fenfations are produced by 

 motion, that is by the adiou of the material objeds round us upon 

 our organs of fenfe, and as of our fenfations we form our ideas, 

 (the firft of which are of particular objedts of fenfe, as I have elfe- 

 where fliown *, from our ideas arifes all our knowledge. Let 

 none of my readers, however, believe, that 1 maintain, that matter 

 or body is the caufe of our ideas or knowledge: For it muft be con- 

 fulered that thofe bodies, which adt upon our organs of i'enfc^ and, 

 in that way, produce our fenfations, are themfelves moved by mind; 

 fo that mind is ultimately the caufe even of our perceptions of fenfe, 

 and by confequence of all our knowledge in this life. 



But though mind gives motion to all the bodies here on earth, 

 and though their motions are carried on in the moft regular and 

 orderly manner, and muft be direQed by intelligence, we are not to 

 fuppofe that the intelligence belongs to the minds which animate 

 and move thefe bodies, but that thofe minds, though they have not 

 intelligence in themfelves, are governed and direded by that fupreme 

 intelligence which governs everything in this univerfe. The mind, 

 therefore, that moves thefe bodies is of the lowed kind : For it has 

 neither fenfation nor intelligence, nor has it even the power of the 

 vegetable mind, which performs a great many motions of different 

 kinds; but it fimply moves the body, by one uniform motion, either 

 up or down, or in the line in which the body is impelled. But this 

 mind, though the loweft of all minds, is an imuiaterial fubflance, 

 and may give us an idea of the nature of fuch fubftances, more fuit- 

 able, at leaf!:, to vulgar apprchenfion, than the ideas of thofe imma- 

 terial fubftances which think and reafon ; for this immaterial fub- 



ftancc 



* Vol. V. p. 168. where I have (hown, that general ideas niuft necefTarily proceed 

 from particular ; and that as all our knowledge, in this life, comes originally from our 

 fenfes, which perceive only particular or individual things, our firft ideas muft neccf- 

 farily be of fuch things. 



