skct. iv.] DISSERTATION SECOND. 131 



ty than truth. The pre-established harmony between the 

 body and the mind, by which two substances incapable 

 of acting on one another, are so nicely adjusted from the 

 beginning, that their movements for ever correspond, is a 

 system of which no argument can do more than prove 

 the possibility. And, amid all the talent and acuteness 

 with which these doctrines are supported, it seems to ar- 

 gue some unsoundness of understanding, to have thought 

 that they could ever find a place among the established 

 principles of human knowledge. 



Newton did not aim at so wide a range. Fortunately 

 for himself and for the world, his genius was more de- 

 termined to a particular point, and its efforts were more 

 concentrated. Their direction was to the accurate scien- 

 ces, and they soon proved equally inventive in the pure 

 and in the mixed mathematics. Newton knew how to 

 transfer the truths of abstract science to the study of things 

 actually existing, and, by returning in the opposite direc- 

 tion, to enrich the former by ideas derived from the lat- 

 ter. In experimental and inductive investigation, he was 

 as great as in the pure mathematics, and his discoveries 

 as distinguished in the one as in the other. In this double 

 claim to renown, Newton stands yet unrivalled ; and though, 

 in the pure mathematics, equals may perhaps be found, 

 no one, I believe, will come forward as his rival both in 

 that science and in the philosophy of nature. His cau- 

 tion in adopting general principles ; his dislike to what was 

 vague or obscure ; his rejection of all theories from which 

 precise conclusions cannot be deduced ; and his readiness 

 to relinquish those that depart in any degree from the 

 truth, are, throughout, the characters of his philosophy, 

 and distinguish it very essentially from the philosophy of 

 Leibnitz. The characters now enumerated arc most of 

 them negative, but without the principle^ on which they 



V 



