42 



ON THE ELEMENTARY AND CONSTITUENT 



portions equally definite and invariable; thus affording another proof of close 

 connexion between the phenomena of nature and the occasional develope- 

 ments of revelation ; the philosopher beholding- now, as the prophet beheld 

 formerly, that the Almighty architect has literally adjusted every thing by 

 weight and measure ; that he has measured the waters and meted out the 

 heavens, accurately comprehended the dust of the earth, weighed the moun- 

 tains in scales and the hills in a balance. 



LECTURE IIL 



ON THE ELEMENTARY AND CONSTITUENT PRINCIPLES OF THINGS. 



(Tlie subject continued.) 



The few steps we have hitherto taken in the wide and magnificent scope 

 before us have only led to an establishment of two or three fundamental 

 axioms, of no small importance in the science of physics, and to a develope- 

 ment of two or three of the most ingenious and most popular hypotheses of 

 former times, invented to account for the origin of the world around us, and 

 the elementary and constituent principles of things: especially the hypothe- 

 sis of numbers, as proposed by Pythagoras, and that of ideas, as proposed 

 by Plato ; and their application to primary and incorporeal matter, in order to 

 endow it with form and quality. There are yet two or three other hypothe- 

 ses upon the same subject that amply demand our attention, and are replete 

 with an equal degree of ingenuity and fine imagination; especially the Peri- 

 patetic and the Atomic, or that of Aristotle and that of Epicurus ; and we 

 have also to trace out the relative degree of influence which each of these 

 has exerted on the philosophical theories of later times. 



Aristotle had too much penetration not to see that the hypothesis of Plato 

 was just as inadequate as that of Pythagoras to a solution of the great ques- 

 tion concerning the production of the visible world : and he proposed a third 

 scheme, which has also had its share of popularity. According to this re- 

 modelled plan, the sensible universe is the result of four distinct principles, 

 — intelligence, matter, form, and privation ; w^hich last term is little more 

 than a mere synonyme for space or vacuum ; and thus far the theory of Aris- 

 totle chiefly differs from that of Plato, b}^ interweaving into it his fourth prin- 

 ciple, derived from Democritus, and the other Atomic philosophers, and which 

 he seems to have added to it with a view of providing a proper theatre for the 

 two principles of form and matter to move in. He supposes all these to have 

 equally existed from eternity; and the three last to have been eternally acted 

 upon or thrown into a definite series of motions, upon which alone the ex- 

 istence and harmony of things are dependent, by the immutable and imma- 

 terial principle of intelligence, whose residence he places in the purest and 

 loftiest si)here or circle of the heavens ; a sphere that in its vast embrace 

 comprehends ten lower or subordinate spheres, that lie between itself and the 

 earth, which forms the centre of the whole, and, in conjunction with the 

 earth, constitutes the universal world. 



This Supreme Litelligence Aristotle conceived to be in himself for ever 

 at rest ; and the tranquil and peaceable sphere in which he resides he deno- 

 minated the empyreum or heaven of bliss. But though enjoying eternal rest 

 himself, he communicates motion, necessarily and essentially, upon this 

 theory, to the sphere immediately below him ; as this, in its turn, communi- 

 cates it in different directions, and with different velocities, to the other 

 spheres that revolve within its range ;* whence the sphere thus earliest re- 

 ceiving motion, and nearest to the empyreum, Aristotle denominated the PRr- 

 MUM MOBILE, or first moving power : it constituted the tenth in the regular 

 series ; the ninth, or that which lies next to it, being denominated the crys- 



* Diog. Laert. lib. v. sect. 23. Arist. Phys. Ub. 1. cap. 3, 4. De Ctel. lib. 2. cap. 3. 11. 



