140 



trusting by this to open a reception for it. Some, to 

 conciliate the favour of the public 3 have had recourse to 

 the authority of the ancients ; others, upon being at- 

 tacked, have fled to them for succour and protection. 

 Others again, distrusting their own ability to support 

 what they advanced, have rather chosen to abdicate 

 the glory of invention, than give up their favourite 

 ideas a prey to their adversaries ; and have therefore, 

 to put them out of reach, placed their origin at a vast 

 distance. Nor are there wanting those, who, seeing 

 themselves secure of success, in hazarding certain opi- 

 nions, have ventured to pass them under their own 

 names, though they belonged to others ; and observ- 

 ing, that they were not reclaimed to their roal authors 

 by the public, have silently gloried in their borrowed 

 lustre; many conscious that they had no right, and 

 some 5 though few in number, thinking that they had. 



3. What little we have taken notice of, respecting 

 theconduct of Descartes, Locke, and Mallcbranche 9 

 is sufficient to authorize what we here advance. Des- 

 cartes hath not specified the authors, from whom in 

 particular he derivi-d his thoughts. He only says in 

 general, that the greatest philosophers of antiquity 

 have thought as he has done. Locke hath passed for 

 an original, though his principles be the same with 

 those of Aristotle,and his distinctions just such as were 

 employed by the stoics. Mallebranchc did not at 

 iirst avow, that his opinion was the same with that of 

 the Chaldeans, Parmenides, Plato, and St. Augustin ; 

 but when he saw himself warmly attacked by his ad- 

 versaries, against the philosophical part of thenrj he 

 held up the buckler of Plato, whilst he fled to St. 

 Augustin for shelter against the divines. The glory 

 of having been the first, who clearly distinguished the 

 properties of the mind from those of the body, and de- 

 monstrated (hat sensible qualities had their existence 

 in the mind of the percipient, and not in the object 

 perceived, hath been wrongfully ascribed -to Descartes; 

 since we ha.?e seen ? that he was preceded in all these 



