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in this they did nothing but renew the very same 

 truths, which had been taught by Democritus, Plato, 

 Aristippus, and Sextus Empiricus, supporting them 

 likewise by the very same arguments, though some- 

 times farther extended. Hence all the honour has 

 been ascribed to these moderns, as if the error they 

 attacked had been that of ail ages ; no body de- 

 signing to search any deeper, whether in reality, it 

 was so or not. For had they given any attention to 

 what the ancients had advanced, or consulted their 

 writings, they would soon have found that some of 

 them, not only stripped body of every power of ex- 

 citing opinions in us, but even sometimes called in 

 question its very existence. Yet this indolence in as- 

 certaining the origin of our improvements, was not 

 entirely universal. Gassendi had published a tract 

 upon sensible qualities, and given also an abridgment 

 of the Pyrrhomic philosophy respecting this subject, 

 before ever Descartes attempted it ; so that even, 

 among the moderns themselves, Descartes is not the 

 first who clearly distinguished between the properties 

 of spirit and body. And as to the ancients, a brief 

 narrative of what Descartes and Mallebranche have 

 said, compared with what those ancients taught, will 

 quickly put the reader in a condition of deciding to 

 whom that discovery ought to be attributed. 



2. Descartes begins with remarking, that every 

 one is accustomed from his infancy, to look upon 

 whatever he perceives by his senses as existing out 

 of his mind ; and having an entire resemblance to the 

 perceptions which he finds there. Observing the co- 

 lour of any object, for instance, we think we see 

 something without ourselves, and residing in the ob- 

 jects, exactly resembling our idea of it; and, we 

 acquire such a habit of judging in this manner, that 

 we never entertain any doubt. This is the case of all 

 our sensations, we seldom imagine that they exist 

 only in the mind, but rather in our hand, or foot, 

 or some other part of our body, . There is nothing. 



