PRINCIPLES OF THINGS. 



31 



thesis of the heavens, and hence, in his Paradise Lost,* leaves it doubtful 

 which of the two, the new or the old, ought to be preferred. The best 

 and most splendid description of the Aristotehan theory that I have ever 

 met with is contained in the Lusiad of Camoens ; the whole is too long 

 for quotation, but I may venture to affirm, that you will be pleased with 

 the following lines from Mr. Mickel's very spirited version of the Portu- 

 guese bard, as delineating the different heavenly spheres that were supposed, 

 as I have already observed, to lie one within another, like the different 

 tunics of an onion : — 



These spheres behold : the first in wide embrace 

 Surrounds the lesser orbs of various face ; 

 The EMPYREAN this, the holiest heaven, 

 To th^ pure spirits of the blest is given : 

 No mortal eye its splendid rays may bear, 

 No mortal bosom feel the raptures there. 

 The earth in all her sumtaer pride array'd 

 To this might seem a dark, sepulchral shade. 

 Unmov'd it stands — Within its shining frame, 

 In motion swifter than the lightning's flame, 

 Swifter than sight the moving parts may spy, 

 Another sphere whirls round its rapid sky : 

 Hence motion darts its force, impulsive draws, 

 And on the other orbs impresses laws.t 



These hypotheses are abstruse, and perhaps ill calculated to aftbrd 

 amusement ; but in a course of physical study they ought by no means to 

 be overlooked. Abstruse as they are, the one or the other of them is in- 

 terwoven with the whole range of classical literature, and, as I have 

 already remarked, held the ascendant in the horizon of metaphysics till 

 within the last two centuries ; and I have dwelt upon them the rather, be- 

 cause, much as we still hear of them, and find them adverted to in books, 

 I am not acquainted with any work whatever that gives any thing like a 

 clear and inteihgible summary of their principles. Their more prominent 

 defects are, in few words, as follows : Independently of conveying very im- 

 perfect and erroneous views of the creation, they equally concur in reducing 

 matter, notwithstanding its pretended eternal existence, to a nonentity, 

 and confound its properties with those of pure intelligence, by giving to 

 numbers, ideas, or a mere abstract notion, real form and existence. The 

 most powerful advocate of the Platonic theory, in modern times, was the 

 very excellent Bishop Berkeley ; who, in the true spirit of consistency, and 

 with a boldness that no consequences could deter, openly denied the ex- 

 istence of a material world, and thus reduced the range of actual entities 

 from three to two, an intelligent first cause, and intellectual forms or ideas, 

 and gave the death-blo w to the system, by avowing its necessary result. 



In modern times, however, as I have already hinted at, the infinite divisi- 

 bility of matter has for the most part been supported upon different grounds, 

 and philosophers have involved themselves in the same fatal consequences, 

 by a much shorter process of reasoning. No compound or visible bodies, 

 it is well known, ever come into immediate contact with each other, or 

 influence each other by means of simple sohdity. The earth is affected by 

 the sun, the moon by the earth ; the waters of the earth by the moon. 

 Light is reflected from substances to which it directs its course at a dis- 

 tance, and without impinging upon them. The particles of all bodies 

 deemed the most sohd and impermeable, are capable of approaching nearer, 



* Book viii. t Bookx. p. 443. 4to. 1776. 



