70 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



xai \Ttirryifji,t!g iiKTiKog. And it is of the laft thing mentioned in this 

 definition, that is fcience, that I ana now to fpeak. 



This operation of the human mind is what is called difctirftis men- 

 tis^ and is performed by a faculty of the mind quite different from 

 the fofs, or that faculty by which it forms ideas. But this is a dif- 

 tindion which Mr Locke has not made; fo that he appears to me not 

 to have known whui fcience was, any more than what an idea was. 



By this difcurfive faculty we compare our ideas together, and in 

 this way difcover their connedion, of which we firft form propo- 

 fitions, and of propolitions fcience : For, as all things in the great 

 fyftem of the univerfe are connedled together, we muft difcover that 

 connedlion, otherwife we can knew nothing that deferves the name 

 of knowledge or fcience. By thus conncding our ideas, and form- 

 ing propofuions and fciences, we alfo form /yjlems^ which is the 

 greateft work of intelligence. The Supreme Intelligence perceives 

 all thofe connedlons intuitively, and at once fees the whole fyftem, 

 and the connedions of all its different parts. But w^e can perceive 

 thofe connedions only by the exercife of our difcurfive faculty, or 

 that procefs of the human mind, expreffed in Greek by the word 

 /^lavoiu, and in Englifti by the word reafoning. By that, and by that 

 only, we form fcience, betwixt which and the vmc, Ariftotle, as I 

 have obferved, has very properly made the diftindion in the defi- 

 nition he has given us of man in his natural ftate. 



And here, too, we may perceive in us a Divinae particitla atirae^ 

 by which we are enabled to raife our thoughts, in lome degree, to 

 what we muft fuppofe to be the perfedion of the Divine intelled : 

 For God has been gracioufly pleafcd to beftow upon us a faculty by 

 which we are enabled to perceive the connedion betwixt fome ideas 

 intuitively, as he perceives the connedion betwixt all. It is by this 



faculty 



