;^^6 APPENDIX. 



is not a matenalifl:, and does not maintain that body can move it- 

 lelf and produce all thofc different qualities which we fee in differ- 

 ent bodies; But the queflion is, firfl, Whether thefe ideas have any 

 exiflcnce by themfelves out of body ; and, 2dly, Whether they are 

 only particular ideas, moving particular bodies, but not general ideas 

 producing particular ideas. 



That they are immaterial beings, exifling by themfelves, was the 

 opinion of Plato, who called them /V^^j; and held, that by being 

 incorporated with matter, they produced all the beings that we fee 

 in the heavens and earth, compofing the various fyflems in nature : 

 Whereas Arlftotle maintained, that though all the bodies, that we 

 fee, haVe a mind in them, which gives them motion and all their 

 other qualities, and which therefore we call the idea of the thing, 

 yet fuch ideas have no exiftencc by themfelves, nor do they form 

 any fyflems of things. 



But to this I anfwer, that I think it is impoffible to conceive an 

 immaterial being neceffarily exifting in matter and not exifting 

 otherwife : For in that cafe I fhould confider fuch beings as not im- 

 material but material, fuice they could not exifl; without matter j 

 though they may exift joined with matter, as our intelledual minds 

 exifl joined with our bodies : But no man, if he be not an abfolute 

 materialift, will for that reafon maintain, that our intelledual mind 

 is not an immaterial being, which can exifl by itfelf without being 

 incorporated with matter. Thofe ideas or minds, therefore, which 

 inhabit bodies organized or unorganized here below, as they are im- 

 material beings, can exift without matter, and did fo exift in the 

 mind of the Deity, before they came down to this earth ; and in 

 that ftate fome of them were more perfeO: than others, and were 

 w'htitwc caW general ideas, comprehending in their nature feveral 

 other ideas, fuch as the idea of ^cni/s, which- is one idea, but com- 

 prehending 



