174 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



of objects of fcnfe ; fo that he does not fee in different objefts of 

 fenfe the one in the many^ nor even in one objed: of fenfc that union 

 of feveral qualities of the fame fubjedl, which makes it ovc^ perceiv- 

 ing in it only certain things which affeft his fenfes, fuch as Colour, 

 Sound, or Motion. 



After having arranged in this way thefe natural bodies, which 

 his fenfes prefented to him, man, from that love of knowledge which, 

 as I have faid, is effential to an animal of intelligence, would natur- 

 ally proceed to confider not only the qualities by which the feveral 

 kinds of them are diftinguiflied from one another, but alfo all their 

 other qualities : In ftiort, he would ftudy what is commonly called 

 Natural Philofophy, which by our modern philofophers is fuppofed 

 to be only the knowledge oi body and its different qualities; whereas 

 it is truly the knowledge of the operation of mhid in body^ which 

 produces all its motions and all its other qualities. 



Having thus got the knowledge of bodies, and of the minds act- 

 ing in thofe bodies, that is the animal and the vegetable m'lnds^ 

 which move bodies organifed, and that mind which moves bodies 

 unorganifed, or the elemental m'tnd, as I call it, he proceeded to the 

 knowledge of a much higher kind of mind, that is of the intelleEliial: 

 lAnd this fludy he began by the fludy of his own mind ; which we 

 know by the moft certain of all knowledge, confc'ioiifnefs. And as it 

 is the moft certain, fo it is the mcft valuable of knowledge ; as it 

 leads us to the moft exalted of all knowledge, the knov.'ledge of the 

 Supi-eme Mind ; for it is only by the ftudy of our own minds that 

 we can have any knowledge of that mind, or indeed of any intelli- 

 gent mind. So that the precept given by the Delphic God, and 

 which was written upon the gate of his temple, Know thyfelf^ was 

 a moft valuable precept, leading us, as 1 have faid elfewhere "*, not 



only 



* Page TC8. 



