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identic ideas come? Those of men, it seems, come all from sensation. And whence come God's ideas? Not, surely, from sensation too for this we can hardly venture to affirm, without giving to body that notable precedence of being prior to the intellection of even God himself. Let them, then, be original; let them be connate and essential to the Divine Mind: if this be true, is it not a fortunate event, that ideas of corporeal rise, and others of mental, (things derived from subjects so totally distinct,) should so happily coincide in the same wonderful identity?

Had we not better reason thus upon so abstruse a subject? Either all minds have their ideas derived, or all have them original; or some them have them original, and some derived. If all minds have them derived, they must be derived from something, which is itself not mind, and thus we fall insensibly into a kind of atheism. If all have them original, then are all minds divine; an hypothesis by far more plausible than the former. But if this be not admitted, then must one mind (at least) have original ideas, and the rest have them derived. Now, supposing this last, whence are those minds, whose ideas are derived, most likely to derive them? From mind or from body? From mind, a thing homogeneous; or from body, a thing heterogeneous? From mind, such as (from the hypothesis) has original ideas; or from body, which we cannot discover to have any ideas at all?P An examination of this kind, pursued with accuracy and temper, is the most probable method of solving these doubts. It is thus we shall be enabled with more assurance to decide, whether we are to admit the doctrine of the Epicurean poet,

Corporea natura animum constare, animamque ;

or trust the Mantuan bard, when he sings, in divine numbers,

Igneus est ollis vigor, et cœlestis origo

Seminibus.

But it is now time to quit these speculations. Those who would trace them further, and have leisure for such studies, may perhaps find themselves led into regions of contemplation, affording them prospects both interesting and pleasant. We have at present said as much as was requisite to our subject, and shall therefore pass from hence to our concluding chapter.

· Νοῦν δὲ οὐδὲν σῶμα γεννᾶ· πῶς γὰρ ἂν τὰ ἀνόητα νοῦν γεννήσοι; “Nobody produces mind: for how should things de

void of mind produce mind? Sallust. de Diis et Mundo, c. 8.

CHAPTER V.

SUBORDINATION

OF INTELLIGENCE.

DIFFERENCE OF IDEAS, BOTH IN PARTICULAR MEN AND IN WHOLE NATIONS. DIFFERENT GENIUS OF DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. CHARACTER OF THE ENGLISH, THE ORIENTAL, THE LATIN, AND THE GREEK LANGUAGES. SUPERLATIVE EXCELLENCE OF THE LAST. CONCLUSION.

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ORIGINAL truth having the most intimate connexion with the Supreme Intelligence, may be said (as it were) to shine with unchangeable splendor, enlightening throughout the universe every possible subject, by nature susceptible of its benign influence. Passions and other obstacles may prevent, indeed, its efficacy, as clouds and vapours may obscure the sun; but itself neither admits diminution nor change, because the darkness respects only particular percipients. Among these, therefore, we must look for ignorance and error, and for that subordination of intelligence which is their natural consequence.

We have daily experience in the works of art, that a partial knowledge will suffice for contemplation, though we know not enough to profess ourselves artists. Much more is this true with respect to nature; and well for mankind is it found to be true, else never could we attain any natural knowledge at all. For if the constitutive proportions of a clock are so subtle, that few conceive them truly but the artist himself; what shall we say to those seminal proportions, which make the essence and

Those philosophers, whose ideas of being and knowledge are derived from body and sensation, have a short method to explain the nature of truth. It is a factitious thing, made by every man for himself; which comes and goes, just as it is remembered and forgot; which in the order of things makes its appearance the last of any, being not only subsequent to sensible objects, but even to our sensations of them. According to this hypothesis, there are many truths which have been, and are no longer; others that will be, and have not been yet; and multitudes that possibly may never exist

at all.

But there are other reasoners, who must surely have had very different notions; those, I mean, who represent truth, not as the last, but the first of beings; who call it immutable, eternal, omnipresent; attributes that all indicate something more than human. To these it must appear somewhat strange, how men should imagine that a crude account of the method how they perceive truth was to pass for an ac

count of truth itself; as if to describe the road to London could be called a description of that metropolis.

For my own part, when I read the detail about sensation and reflection, and am taught the process at large how my ideas are all generated, I seem to view the human soul in the light of a crucible, where truths are produced by a kind of logical chemistry. They may consist (for aught we know) of natural materials, but are as much creatures of our own as a bolus or elixir.

If Milton by his Urania intended to represent truth, he certainly referred her to a much more ancient, as well as a far more noble origin.

Heavenly born!

Before the hills appear'd, or fountains flow'd,
Thou with Eternal Wisdom didst converse,
Wisdom thy sister; and with her didst play
In presence of th' almighty Father, pleas'd
With thy celestial song.

Paradise Lost, vii.
See Prov. viii. 22, &c. Jer. x. 10. Marc.
Antonin. ix. 1.

character of every natural subject? Partial views, the imperfections of sense; inattention, idleness, the turbulence of passions; education, local sentiments, opinions, and belief, conspire in many instances to furnish us with ideas; some too general, some too partial, and (what is worse than all this) with many that are erroneous, and contrary to truth. These it behoves us to correct as far as possible, by cool suspense and candid examination.

Νῆφε, καὶ μέμνησ ̓ ἀπιστεῖν, ἄρθρα ταῦτα τῶν φρενῶν.

And thus, by a connexion perhaps little expected, the cause of letters and that of virtue appear to coincide; it being the business of both to examine our ideas, and to amend them by the standard of nature and of truth."

In this important work we shall be led to observe, how nations, like single men, have their peculiar ideas; how these peculiar ideas become the genius of their language, since the symbol must of course correspond to its archetype; how the wisest nations, having the most and best ideas, will consequently have the best and most copious languages; how others, whose languages are motley and compounded, and who have borrowed from different countries different arts and practices, discover by words to whom they are indebted for things.

To illustrate what has been said, by a few examples. We Britons in our time have been remarkable borrowers, as our multiform language may sufficiently shew. Our terms in polite literature prove, that this came from Greece; our terms in music and painting, that these came from Italy; our phrases in cookery and war, that we learnt these from the French; and our phrases in navigation, that we were taught by the Flemings and Low Dutch. These many and very different sources of our language may be the cause why it is so deficient in regularity and analogy. Yet we have this advantage to compensate the defect, that what we want in elegance we gain in copiousness; in which last respect few languages will be found superior to our own.

Let us pass from ourselves to the nations of the East. The eastern world," from the earliest days, has been at all times the

r How useful to ethic science, and, indeed, to knowledge in general, a grammatical disquisition into the etymology and meaning of words was esteemed by the chief and ablest philosophers, may be seen by consulting Plato in his Cratylus; Xenoph. Mem. iv. 5, 6. Arrian. Εpict. i. 17. ii. 10. Marc. Anton. iii. 11. v. 8. x. 8.

* Ηθοῦς χαρακτηρ ἔστι τ ̓ ἀνθρώπου λόyos. Stob. Capiuntur signa haud levia, sed observatu digna (quod fortasse quispiam non putarit) de ingeniis et moribus populorum et nationum ex linguis ipsorum. Bacon. de Augm. Scient. vi. 1. Vid. etiam. Quinctil. 1. xi. p. 675. edit. Capperon. Diog.

1. i. p. 58. et Men. Com. Tusc. Disp. v. 16.

It is well observed by Muretus, Nulli unquam, qui res ignorarent, nomina, quibus eas exprimerent, quæsierunt. Var. Lect.

vi. 1.

" Διὰ γὰρ τὸ δουλικώτεροι εἶναι τὰ ἤθη οἱ μὲν Βάρβαροι τῶν Ἑλλήνων, οἱ δὲ περὶ τὴν ̓Ασίαν τῶν περὶ τὴν Εὐρώπην, ὑπομέ νουσι τὴν δεσποτικὴν ἀρχὴν, οὐδὲν δυσχε paívovTES. "For the Barbarians, by being more slavish in their manners than the Greeks, and those of Asia than those of Europe, submit to despotic government without murmuring or discontent." Arist. Polit. iii. 4.

seat of enormous monarchy: on its natives fair liberty never shed its genial influence. If at any time civil discords arose among them, (and arise there did innumerable,) the contest was never about the form of their government, (for this was an object of which the combatants had no conception ;) it was all from the poor motive of who should be their master, whether a Cyrus or an Artaxerxes, a Mahomet or a Mustapha.

:

Such was their condition and what was the consequence? Their ideas became consonant to their servile state, and their words became consonant to their servile ideas. The great distinction, for ever in their sight, was that of tyrant and slave; the most unnatural one conceivable, and the most susceptible of pomp and empty exaggeration. Hence they talked of kings as gods, and of themselves as the meanest and most abject reptiles. Nothing was either great or little in moderation, but every sentiment was heightened by incredible hyperbole. Thus, though they sometimes ascended into the great and magnificent, they as frequently degenerated into the tumid and bombast. The Greeks too of Asia became infected by their neighbours, who were often, at times, not only their neighbours but their masters; and hence that luxuriance of the Asiatic style, unknown to the chaste eloquence and purity of Athens. But of the Greeks we forbear to speak now, as we shall speak of them more fully when we have first considered the nature or genius of the Romans.

X

And what sort of people may we pronounce the Romans?-A nation engaged in wars and commotions, some foreign, some domestic, which for seven hundred years wholly engrossed their thoughts. Hence, therefore, their language became, like their ideas, copious in all terms expressive of things political, and well adapted to the purposes both of history and popular eloquence. But what was their philosophy?-As a nation it was none, if we may credit their ablest writers. And hence the unfitness of their language to this subject; a defect which even Cicero is compelled to confess, and more fully makes appear, when he writes philosophy himself, from the number of terms which he is obliged to invent. Virgil seems to have judged the most truly of his

The truest sublime of the East may be found in the scriptures, of which, perhaps, the principal cause is the intrinsic greatness of the subjects there treated; the creation of the universe, the dispensations of Divine Providence, &c.

y Muretus has the following passage upon the Roman taste for philosophy: Beati autem illi, et opulenti, et omnium gentium victores Romani, in petendis honoribus, et in prensandis civibus, et in exteris nationibus verbo componendis, re compilandis occupati, philosophandi curam servis aut libertis suis, et Græculis esurientibus relinquebant. Ipsi, quod ab ava

ritia, quod ab ambitione, quod a voluptatibus reliquum erat temporis, ejus si partem aliquam aut ad audiendum Græcum quempiam philosophum, aut ad aliquem de philosophia libellum vel legendum vel scribendum contulissent, jam se ad eruditionis culmen pervenisse, jam victam a se et profligatam jacere Græciam somniabant. Var. Lect. vi. 1.

See Cic. de Fin. i. c. 1, 2, 3; iii. c. 1, 2. 4, &c.; but in particular Tusc. Disp. i. 3. where he says, Philosophia jacuit usque ad hanc ætatem, nec ullum habuit lumen literarum Latinarum ; quæ illustranda et excitanda nobis est; ut si, &c. See also Tusc.

238

countrymen, when, admitting their inferiority in the more elegant arts, he concludes at last with his usual majesty,

Disp. iv. 3. and Acad. i. 2. where it appears, that until Cicero applied himself to the writing of philosophy, the Romans had nothing of the kind in their language, except some mean performances of Amafanius the Epicurean, and others of the same sect. How far the Romans were indebted to Cicero for philosophy, and with what industry, as well as eloquence, he cultivated the subject, may be seen, not only from the titles of those works that are now lost, but much more from the many noble ones still fortunately preserved.

The Epicurean poet Lucretius, who flourished nearly at the same time, seems by his silence to have overlooked the Latin writers of his own sect; deriving all his philosophy, as well as Cicero, from Grecian sources; and, like him, acknowledging the difficulty of writing in philosophy in Latin, both from the poverty of the tongue, and from the novelty of the subject.

Nec me animi fallit, Graiorum obscura re-
perta

Difficile inlustrare Latinis versibus esse,
(Multa novis rebus præsertim quam sit a-
gendum,)

Propter egestatem linguæ et rerum novita

tem:

Sed tua me virtus tamen, et sperata voluptas
Suavis amicitia quemvis perferre laborem
Lucr. i. 137.
Suadet.
In the same age, Varro, among his nu-
merous works, wrote some in the way of
philosophy; as did the patriot Brutus a
treatise Concerning Virtue, much applauded
by Cicero; but these works are now lost.

Soon after the writers above mentioned came Horace, some of whose satires and epistles may be justly ranked amongst the most valuable pieces of Latin philosophy, whether we consider the purity of their style, or the great address with which they treat the subject.

After Horace, though with as long an interval as from the days of Augustus to those of Nero, came the satirist Persius, the friend and disciple of the Stoic Cornutus; to whose precepts as he did honour by his virtuous life, so his works, though small, shew an early proficiency in the science of morals. Of him it may be said, that he is almost the single difficult writer among the Latin classics, whose meaning has sufficient merit to make it worth while to labour through his obscurities.

In the same degenerate and tyrannic period, lived also Seneca; whose character, both as a man and a writer, is discussed with great accuracy by the noble author of

the Characteristics, to whom we refer.

Under a milder dominion, that of Adrian and the Antonines, lived Aulus Gellius, or (as some call him) Agellius, an entertaining writer in the miscellaneous way, well skilled in criticism and antiquity; who, though he can hardly be entitled to the name of a philosopher, yet deserves not to pass unmentioned here, from the curious fragments of philosophy interspersed in his works.

With Aulus Gellius we range Macrobius, not because a contemporary, (for he is supposed to have lived under Honorius and Theodosius,) but from his near resemblance in the character of a writer. His works, like the other's, are miscellaneous; filled with mythology and ancient literature, some philosophy being intermixed. Commentary upon the Somnium Scipionis of Cicero may be considered as wholly of the philosophical kind,

His

In the same age with Aulus Gellius flourished Apuleius of Madaura in Africa, a Platonic writer, whose matter in general far exceeds his perplexed and affected style, too conformable to the false rhetoric of the age when he lived.

Of the same country, but of a later age and a harsher style, was Martianus Capella, if indeed he deserve not the name rather of a philologist, than of a philosopher.

After Capella, we may rank Chalcidius the Platonic, though both his age, and country, and religion are doubtful. His manner of writing is rather more agreeable than that of the two preceding, nor does he appear to be their inferior in the knowledge of philosophy, his work being a laudable commentary upon the Timæus of Plato.

The last Latin philosopher was Boethius, who was descended from some of the noblest of the Roman families, and was consul in the beginning of the sixth century. He wrote many philosophical works, the greater part in the logical way: but his ethic piece, On the Consolation of Philosophy, and which is partly prose and partly verse, deserves great encomiums, both for the matter and for the style; in which last he approaches the purity of a far better age than his own, and is in all respects preferable to those crabbed Africans already mentioned.

By command of Theodoric king of the Goths, it was the hard fate of this worthy man to suffer death: with whom the Latin tongue, and the last remains of Roman dignity, may be said to have sunk in the western world.

There were other Romans who left philosophical writings, such as Musonius Rufus,

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