évery-where animated; and if it is fometimes incorrect, this must be attributed to his fervour for liberty, which diverts his attention from meaner objects. IV. An Enquiry into the Origin of the Discoveries attributed to the TO the generality of readers it will feem a paradox to affert, that the moft celebrated philofophers of modern ages have, for the most part, taken what they advance from the writings of the ancients; or in other words, that the profound researches, and the boafted difcoveries of Copernicus, Bacon, Galileo, Kepler, Boyle, Newton, Malebranche, Leibnitz, Wolff, Locke, &c. are little more than the doctrines of Pythagoras, Democritus, Ariftotle, Plato, Seneca, and other Greek and Roman writers, modernized and improved. But when we confider, that men of all nations and all ages have been endowed with the fame faculties, the fame powers of investigation and difcernment; that nature is the fame in every climate; and that the treasures of knowledge are equally acceffible to all mankind; we shall not be surprised to find, that the ancients were acquainted with many of those principles, upon which the moderns have erected their systems. This was no more than what it was reafonable to expect from men of genius and learning, who employed their time in contemplating and investigating the nature of things. But between the ancients and the moderns there feems to be a very confiderable difference. The former by the mere dint of genius and affiduous application carried their enquiries to a great extent; but for want of proper inftruments, they gained only a fuperficial, tranfient, and imperfect glimpse of itruth; and mixed their philofophy with a farrago of unintelligible jargon. The latter have penetrated into the deepest receffes of nature, examined every object with the minutest attention, and thrown a new and furprising luftre on the works of creation at the fame time their difcoveries are confirmed by experiment and demonftration. : To reftore to the firft philofophers the honour they have a right to claim, to place in its native light the fhare they have a po da, át. P. Z. 3 in in whatever we pretend to know, and even in what has been called modern discoveries, is the principal defign of this Enqui ry. The author begins with an examination of the fentiments of Defcartes, Malebranche, Locke, &c. refpecting ideas, ratiocid nation, and fenfible qualities.cust di un Hobre tod tishi n Descartes, he fays, acknowledges, that he has adopted the fentiments of the ancient philofophers. The rules in which the whole of his logic confifts, were indicated by Ariftotle. Both of them have recommended the fame method of proceeding in our investigations. This argument, I doubt for think) therefore I am, of which Defcartes looked upon himself as the original discoverer, is to be found in St. Auguftine: If deceive myself, fays · that great man, may I not thence conclude that I am * ? : urt зT All advanced by Locke in his Effay on the Human Under-ri ftanding, are the fruits of an exact attention to the principles > of Ariftotle; who taught that all our ideas, originally springs from the fenfes. According to the English philofopher, fenfa-t tions are th the fimple ideas out of which of which reflection forms its com-b pounds. This is the bafis of his work: whereby, it is true, he hath thrown great light upon our manner of acquiring ideas,& and making affociations of them but it is alfo clear, from what Sextus Empiricus, Plutarch, and Diogenes Laertius have, preferved to us of the doctrines of the Stoics, that they reasoned in the very fame manner. The mind of man at his birth, fay they, is like white paper, adapted to receive whatever may be written on it. The first impreffions that it receives, come to it from the fenfes t." The innate ideas of Defcartes and Leibnitz are drawn from Plato, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and the Chaldeans; and the fyftem of Malebranche from the fame fource, and St. Augustine, ♫ This father fays, Ideas are eternal, and immutable; the exemplars or archetypes of all created things; and, in fport, exift in God. This is the notion of Malebranche, for which he has been treated as a vifionary by thofe who never thought of fixing the fame imputation upon the original authors whom he had copied. The glory of having been the first who clearly distinguished the properties of the mind from thofe of the body; and demonftrated that fenfible qualities had their existence in the mind of the perci pient, and not in the objects perceived, hath been wrongfully afcrib CAM *Si fallor, fum, &c. De lib. Arb. 1. 2. c. 3. De Civ. Dei, 1. 11. c. 26. + Plut. de Placit. phil. 1. 4. c. 11, S. Auguft. 1, 83. Quest. 46. ed 115 ed to Defcartes. He was preceded in thefe refpects by Leucippus, Democritus, Plato, Strato, Atiftippus, Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus, &c. Plato obferves, that the fame wind appears cold to one, and hot to another, to one foft, and to another roug but that we ought not thence to conclude, de that th the wind is in itself hot and cold at the fame time; e; but to fay with 1 Protagoras, that he who is hot, feels it hot, &c. Leibnitz hath not only revived the monades of Pythagoras, but even employed the very fame arguments which the PythaEVEAL mod goreans made ufe of to demonftrate the neceffity of admitting the existence of fimple and uncompounded things, anterior to those that were compounded, and as being ing the foundation of the existence of body itself. 3. ja S π Dugo ad of The foundation of M. de Buffon's theory respecting universal cin matter, generation, and nutrition, hath fo much refemblance to what was taught by Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and fome other ancients, that it is difficult, after comparing the opinions of thefe illuftrious philofophers with that of our celebrated mo derns, not to think that his ideas drew their origin from that firft school; the rather, because it appears, that he had very attentively read them, and knew how to value their merit. According to the fyftem of Pythagoras, Plato, and Epicurus, the production of every thing in nature was afcribed to the concurrent force of fimple and active principles long before Mr. Needham thought of it. The corpufcular philofophy of Gaffendi and the Newtonians is no other than that of Mofchus, Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus. The Newtonians fay, "that the finalleft parcel of matter is able to cover the largest extent of space, by the number of parts into which it may be divided; and that without fo much as leaving any one pore of the fmalleft dimenfion uncovered." Now Anaxagoras had faid, that each body of whatever fize, was infinitely divisible; infomuch that a particle fo fmall as half the foot of the minutest infect, might furnish out of itself parts fufficient for entirely covering an hundred million of worlds, without ever becoming exhauftible as to the number of its parts. And Democritus, in two words, hath expreffed the fame propofition, in faying, that it was poffible to make a world out of an atom ||.” *Plato in Theætheto. +Arift. Phyf. aufcult. 1. 3. c. 4. Fénelon, Vie des Philofophes. Stobæus, Eclog. Phyf, 1. 1 The acceleration of motion was known to Ariftotle, and the best manner of accounting for it is that which he makes ufe of. Lucretius obferved, long before Galileo, that bodies the most unequal in weight, fuch as gold and down, muft defcend with equal velocity in a vacuum Univerfal gravity, attractive, centripetal, and centrifugal force were clearly indicated by Anaxagoras, Plato, Ariftotle, Plutarch, and Lucretius. Plutarch, who knew almost all the fhining truths of astronomy, took notice of the reciprocal energy, which causes the planets to gravitate towards one another; and in explaining what it was that made bodies tend towards the earth, he attributes it to "a reciprocal attraction, whereby all terreftrial bodies have this tendency, and which collects into one the parts conftituting the fun and moon, and retains them in their spheres +" He afterwards applies these particular phænomena to others more general; and," from what happens in our globe, deduces, according to the fame principle, whatever must thence happen refpectively in each celeftial body; and then confiders them in their relative connections one towards another." He illuftrates this general relationship and connection, "by inftancing what happens to our moon in its revolution found the earth, comparing it to a stone in à fling, which is impreffed by two powers at once;" that of projection, which would carry it away, were it not retained by the embrace of the fling; which, like the central force, keeps it from wandering, whilft the combination of the two moves it in a circle. Democritus and Phavorinus, without the aid of telescopes, entertained very juft ideas of the milky way, and predicted the discovery of the fatellites. The former obferves, that the milky way was "the united brightness of an immenfe number of ftars" the latter fays, "he was aftonifhed how it came to be admitted as certain, that there were no other wandering ftars, or planets, but thofe obferved by the Chaldeans. As for his part, he thought, that their number was more confiderable than was vulgarly imagined, though they had hitherto escaped notice." pur *Omnia quapropter debent per inane quietum Equè ponderibus non æquis concita ferri. L. 2. v. 238. + Plut. de Facie in Orbe Lunæ. De Placit. 1. 3. c. I. Ut et alii quidam planetæ effent gernere poffint. A Gellius, 1. 14. c. I. neque eos tamen homines Defcartes' Defcartes's doctrine of the vortices, notwithstanding all its apparent novelty, was taught by Leucippus and Democritus *. The plurality of worlds was maintained by Heraclides, Democritus, Ariftotle, Plotinus, &c. "Heraclides, fays Plutarch, and all the Pythagoreans, taught that every ftar was a world +." The theory of light and colours, for which Sir Ifaac Newton has been univerfally celebrated, was indicated by Pythagoras and Plato. The former of these, and his difciples, entertained fufficiently juft conceptions of the formation of colours. They taught, that "they refulted folely from the different modification of reflected light." "Plato has entered into a detail of the pofition of colours, and enquired into the vifible effects that muft arife from a mixture of the different rays of which light itfelf is compofed §." com Two thoufand years before Copernicus, Pythagoras propofed the fyftem, which is now diftinguifhed by the name of that celebrated aftronomer. Plato likewife, Ariftarchus of Samos, and many others among the ancients, have in a thousand places expreffed the fame hypothefis; and Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, and Stobæus, have with great'precision transmitted to us their ideas. That the earth is round, and inhabited on all fides, and of course, that there are Antipodes, is one of the most ancient doctrines inculcated by philofophy. Pythagoras, Plato, and others, maintained this opinion: and Lucretius and Pliny, who oppofe this notion, as well as St. Auguftine, all ferve as witneffes that it must have prevailed in their time. The revolution of the planets about their own axes was known alfo in the schools of Pythagoras and Plato. The opinion of the latter is thus explained by Atticus the Platonic: "To that general motion, which makes the planets defcribe a circular course, he added another, refulting from their spherical shape, which made each of them move about its own center, whilst they performed the general revolution of their course ¶." Cicero afcribes the fame notion to Nicetas of Syracufe, and quotes Theophraftus to warrant what he advances **, * Diog. Laert. 1. 9. §. 31. * Εκαςον των αςερων κόσμον υπαρχειν. De Placit. 1. 2. ε. 13. Ibid. 1. 4. C. I 3. § In Timæo. ་་་ 11 Iudazopas ont vivas autodas, &c. Diog. Laert. 1. 8. C. 26. T. Eufeb. Præpar. Evangl. 15. c. 8. ex Attico Platonico. **Acad. Quæft. 1. 4. There |