withall to pretend to demonstrative Evidence in these things Again when they confidently assert the First Mind to be the onely Author of Souls and that humane Souls were temper'd in the same Vessel where the Soul of the Universe had been wrought and that they were made out of some remaining fragments of that mixture out of which the Gods of the second and third Classis had been framed That the First Mind had deputed the Genii or Iunior Deities Guardians of his Of-spring and that it is they that Marry them to their Respective Vehicles When they define whether the Apostate Genii be purely immaterial and whether they be vitally united with matter and whether they were made peccable only by union with their Vehicles whether any of the Aerial Spirits be Atheists or no whether any of them be of a sportive droling humour and delight to effect Antick Prodigies in the Aire to abuse and affright silly Mortals How they change Intelligence and discourse together When they delineate the Cosmographie of the Archetypal World replenished with the Immaterial Ideas of all material Beings and describe the Systeme of the Invisible Heavens When they frame particular Hypotheses not onely of the nature of the Soul but of the manner of its living before its lapse into this life and after its return home again Lastly when they Graphically describe the manner of the worlds last and final Conflagration I might add too their Hypotheses about the manner of the worlds Production for unless they had been Spectators it was not possible for them to know in what way and method the Universe was Erected that depending wholly on the free Election of the Divine Will Though some Learned Men have thought it a mighty Confirmation of the Truth of the Mosaick Writings if they could but evince a consonancy of any of the Philosphers Hypotheses with the Mosaick Account of the Origine of the Universe as if their naked surmises could give any Testimony to Truth For either they received the Account they give from a credible Tradition and if so then Moses was the first Author thereof for none else could give any certain Account of the Process Providence was pleased to use in the Production of things but certainly t is no Argument of the Truth of the Mosaick Account because the Iews told it to the Egyptians and they to the Grecians for this can adde no Authority or Evidence to it Or else they were of their own framing and consequently were altogether groundless and unwarrantable Conjectures for it was surely impossible any mans Reason should tell him the particular Circumstances of the worlds Creation as that its material Principle was a Tohu and a Bohu that it was agitated by the Divine Spirit that several Portions were form'd at several times that all was finished in six days space rather then five or seven and the like this designe therefore of discovering a Consonancy between the Hypotheses of any of the Philosophers concerning the Origine of the Universe and the Mosaick Account thereof is absolutely scopeless and unprofitable But this is a digression that has thrust its self in here before I was aware of it To resume therefore my former Theme is it not the highest and most disingenuous madness for men to give such confident and definitive sentences in matters so remote and unaccountable All the forementioned particulars to which it were easie to add a thousand more are apparently beyond the reach of humane Cognisance and such things as cannot be known but by Revelation there being no other means to attain to any knowledge of things of their vast distance and remoteness And if we will but reflect upon our own Thoughts we must confess that we cannot perceive the Ideas of Beings that are not placed within the Horizon of Sense and those that pretend to a discovery of them had better pretend to Oracles Prophesies Illapses and Divinations then to the sober and steady Maximes of Philosophie And therefore 't is not unusual with the Platonists to pretend to a kind of Enthusiasme They stile themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inspired Priests of Truth and their Philosophie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it had been poured into them in a Divine and Extatical Fury and Proclus says it a thousand times of Plato and his Commentators that they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if they had written with a kind of Bacchical Enthusiasme And they every where talk so like Prophets and Oracles as if they were inspired at least by a Bath-Col And 't is hugely pleasant to read their own Exorbitant Parades of the Exalted Divine and Extatick sublimity of Platonick Contemplation they boast so often of sequestring themselves from all Corporeal Commerce and soaring up into the Ethereal Regions that a man would expect News from the third Heaven every day If they were in good earnest we might expect strange discoveries indeed but alas these Sons of Imagination are as little troubled with Real Extasies as other men onely they are pleased to express the Frenzies of their fiery and subtle Fancies by these Allusions So that let them talk never so Seraphically of retiring from the trivial and common Entertainments of sense they do but sit down in the Theatre of Fancy and entertain themselves with the Idola Specus or Images of their own Complexion and though they take them for great Realities as other Sleepers do their Dreams yet when they awake out of their fanciful Visions and return to a strength and consistency of Reason they then discern them to have been only evanid Appearances represented as all Dreams are upon the Scene of Imagination Now 't is a great mistake of some men to think it necessary that we should be able to confute such vain and ungrounded Positions and that for this Reason because they are out of the Sphear of humane knowledge for though they may sometimes perchance like the Cartesian Vortices justle with some certain Truths belonging to our Sphear by reason of their Vicinity yet that happens by chance and is not necessary But being in their own Natures out of our View 't is not to be expected we should give any account of them because that would be to assert what we cannot know which is to commit the very fault we are now chastising 't is therefore sufficient to shew the absurdity of an assertion if I can evince it to be unevident though I can not to be untrue for it is not less unbecoming a Wise man to assent to an uncertainty than to an untruth because 't is not the real certainty of a Truth that is a sufficient motive of our assent but its evidence to us for all Truths are in themselves equally certain though not equally necessary and durable but 't is from the variety of evidence that the difference of our knowledge proceeds and howsoever assertions may be in themselves real and certain Truths yet unless they are evident as well as
in business as one main end of Study they rather used their Learning then admired it according to that Aphorism of my Lord Bacon Crafty men contemn studies simple men admire them wise men use them But the main ground of their good-meen was their being blest with all the advantages of nature education Were it not too tedious to run through the whole succession of the Academy from the first rise thereof to its utmost period it would not be difficult to represent to you how every member thereof superinduced to a pure complexion and a gentile education the advantages of Travel and severe Study and what more could be desired to compleat them in all the Realities and Ornaments of Humane Nature As Plato himself was of so well-temper'd a complexion that he chose an unhealthy place of residence for a check and revulsion to his too high and luxuriant habit of Body and yet liv'd to a great age unacquainted with sickness and diseases and at last this Socratick Swan expired insensibly in a pleasant contemplation Est etiam saies Cicero quietae purae atque eleganter actae aetatis placida ac lenis senectus qualem accepimus Platonis qui uno octuagessimo aetatis anno scribens mortuus est And then for his Parentage though I do as little credit that he was begot either by Apollo or by a Spectre in his shape as I do that he was born of a Virgin Mother and yet both are reported by many Authors and seem to be believed by more yet 't is past doubt that his extraction was from two of the most Antient and most Noble Families in Athens his Mother Perictione being of the race of Solon and his Father Aristo of the Family of the Codri And then for his Education he was no Athenian Cockney but was Socrates's darling favourite Travelled into all parts of the Learned World resided a considerable time in the Court of Dionysius where he was both admired and envied by the Courtiers for the unaffected Gracefulness of his addresses and some say the reason why he received so bad usage from the Tyrant was that he excell'd him so far in all the Arts and charms of conversation that he seem'd to be almost as much respected and admired as himself For he knew how to be facetious without being vaine or trifling how to be serious without being soure or morose his behaviour was alwaies mild and courteous his humour alwaies cheerful and uniform and his gravity at an equal distance from moroseness vanity to be brief he was entirely adorn'd with all the accomplishments that can command either love or honour And then for Plotinus his deportment as Porphyrie relates in his life was so gentile that his Audience was composed of a confluence of the Noblest and most Illustrious Personages in Rome his integrity so eminent that he was deputed over-seer to most of their Wills and Arbitrator in most of their Controversies and yet mannaged all with that Candor Prudence and Sincerity as that he neither lost one Friend nor Purchased one Enemy in five and twenty years Residence at Rome For the rest of his life consult Porphyrie and Eunapius For the life of Porphyrie I refer you to Eunapius but yet I cannot omit this single instance of the goodness of his humour that after an obstinate conflict and many reiterated controversial Rencounters with Amelius as soon as he was convinced that Truth and Amelius stood together he neither scrupled to make a Publick Recantation then nor to record it to Posterity that himself was bafled as he has done in the Life of Plotinus then which we scarce know a greater instance of an Heroick Candour For Proclus consult his Scholar Marinus the Neopolitan and Philostratus the younger De vitis Sophistarum I say the younger because he was Nephew to him that wrote the History of Apollonius Tyanaeus though they be usually confounded upon the Authority of that careless Rhapsodist Suidas who has been the Author of infinite other resembling mistakes lastly consult Eunapius for the lives of AEdesius Iamblicus Sopater Constantines unhappy favourite Eustathius and his eminent wife Sosipatra of whom so many strange stories are reported Crispus one of Iulian's Courtiers a man of eminent prudence and policy Oribasius Iulians Physician Maximus and Chrysanthius his great Favourites the former whereof was an eminent Courtier during the time of Iulian's Reign afterwards I fear too much an instance of Christian Cruelty and Revenge though the generous Chrysanthius could never be courted from his Philosophick retirements by all the Emperours importunity Proaeresius who was so famous an Orator that the City of Rome erected to him a publick Statue of Brass with this inscription Regina Rerum Roma Regi Eloquentiae Hephaestion Himerius Libanius Nymphidianus c. and you will find them such a succession of Gentile Vertuous and Generous Persons that the Ethnick world cannot shew the like To these I might add the novel restorers of Platonism for as the Platonick succession expired not long after the reign of Iulian having received its mortal wound from Constantine who dissolved their Scholes and dispersed their Professors so about the fourteenth Centurie it began to revive and to wrestle with Aristotle's Philosophie for some of the Grecian Prelates that then sate in the Council of Florence call'd to reconcile the Greek and the Latine Churches seeing all other Philosophie quite dashed out of Countenance in these Western Parts by the Aristotelian they were not a little zealous to restore that of Plato whence arose the disputes between Georgius Trapezuntius and Georgius Scholarius on the behalf of Aristotle and Bessarion Bishop of Nice made Cardinal for his eminent services in the Council and Gemistus Pletho on the behalf of Plato But Pletho getting into favour with Laurentius Cosmo the great Duke inspired him with such a mighty zeal for the Platonick Philosophie that he immediately devoted young Ficinus Son to one of his chiefest Phisicians to its Restauration and educated him accordingly and invited that worthy Heroe Iohannes Picus the Earle of Mirandula Georgius Vespusius Christophorus Landinus Angelus Politianus and others to Florence where they erected an Academie Which with much more you may meet with in the extant Epistles of the Earl of Mirandula Marsilius Ficinus and Angelus Politanus But I proceed though the Platonists could Artificially conform their Behaviour to the more refined and Gentile sort of Men yet as for that salvage Beast the Popular Rout they valued no more to please them then to gratifie Wolves or Tigres for really Sir folly is so moulded into the Constitution of the common and mechanical sort of men that that Philosopher must be well-nigh as absurd as they who supposes them capable of wisdom when they have scarce wit or judgment enough to think a thought that is not inept and ridiculous Their childish and froward humour is not unhandsomely displayed by Charon All that they think is
employ their Thoughts about abstracted and purely Metaphysical Beings and thence they take upon them exactly to describe the meer Essences of all sorts of Beings whether Material or Immaterial whether they belong to the intellectual or to the sensible World In order whereto they resolve all Beings into their simple and unmixt Ingredients and then attempt to assigne their precise notions and differences from each other Thus they Analyse all Physical Bodies into ten Principles or Primitive Ingredients for first they supposing that all things by how much the less perfect they are are so much the more compounded and then placing Bodies in the lowest ranck of Beings they infer that something of all Superiour Essences must concur to their Constitution so that all Bodies must participate of the nine Superiour Orders of Beings viz. Form Quality Nature Soul Mind Life Essence Unity One from the mixture of which after the four several wayes of Composition i. e. of Profundity Latitude Longitude and Solidity results Corporeiety And some are so strangely subtle and abstractive as to make a real and substantial difference between Matter and Body Again to pass by their several kinds of immaterial Motion and Harmony they make five sorts of Numbers Divine whose Property is Uniformity Substantial whose Property is Immobility Animarie whose Property is a Power of Self-moving Natural whose Property is a Capacity to be moved Mathematical which is the common sort and the grossest of all because say they it may be deciphred by External figures But if they are able to frame a Conception of any Number besides that which is Mathematical they have more faculties then I who am born but a Man and live by the use of my Reason and five Senses And yet they confidently enough assay to give the world minute descriptions of these and such other nice and subtle Essences It will be unnecessary to examine their particular performances if I can evidently Convict the Attempt it self of Folly and Madness as I presume to you I easily can Because I know you are already sufficiently convinced how fruitless and insignificant these definitions of Metaphysical and abstracted Essences are for they are in truth nothing else but notifying that thing by more words of a narrower signification which at other times is signified by a single one of a larger Import as if in Arithmetical Accounts we should denote one greater summe by many little ones But the expressing of a thing by divers words does not more unfold its Nature then when 't is signed by one because the use of Words is not to explaine the Natures of Things but only to stand as marks and signes in their stead as Arithmetical figures are only notes of Numbers and therefore Names are as unable to explaine abstracted Natures as figures are to solve Arithmetical Problems I am not ignorant that it has been an ancient and creditable Opinion of the Platonists that Names have in them a natural resemblance and suitableness to things and are peculiarly expressive of the several natures and properties of those things they are used to represent But words being meerly several Modifications of sound made by the Organs of Speech can have no likeness to any thing but sounds and where a word signifies any peculiar sound it may have a natural resemblance to it by giving it a sound like that which it represents as Tintinnabulum and Clangor which words strike the Organs of hearing somewhat after the same manner as those things do of which they are expressive But to imagine that any words should carry in them a resemblance to any things besides Noises is an absurd and groundless conceit which will evidently appear by imposing upon words contrary significations and applying them to express things quite contrary to what they now signifie For Example take the Names by which Fire is expressed in all Languages and apply them to water and so on the contrary call Water by the names of Fire and you will easily perceive they have no more natural Correspondency to the one then to the other and that the Names of fire have as much agreement with the Nature and Properties of water as they have with the thing they now signifie and that they would as well express it if men would agree to change their Imposition And therefore I conclude that the office of Definitions is not to explain the Natures of things but to fix and circumscribe the significaâ—ion of Words for they being Notes of things unless their significations be settled their meaning must needs be Equivocal and uncertain that is unless it be determined of what things such particular Names are signs no man shall be able to signifie his Thoughts to another because he will use uncertain signs And therefore to define Matter Form Substance Accident is not to unfold the Intrinsick nature of those things of which the names of Matter Form Substance Accident are marks and signs but only to define what things I intend to express and signify by these Names And unless I have some Idea and knowledge of that thing which I call Form or Accident Antecedently to my denoting of it by these Names they will be altogether insignificant because I know not what thing 't is which they signifie and the Names themselves give me no more knowledge of those things then Gas and Blas or any other words of no defined signification All which I hope sufficiently evinces the vanity of Metaphysical definitions in order to the discovering the hidden Essences of things But yet further we are so far from attaining any certain and real knowledg of Incorporeal Beings of an acquaintance with which these Visionists so much boast that we are not able to know any thing of Corporeal Substances as abstract from their Accidents Ther 's nothing can more perplex my Faculties then the simple Idea of naked matter And certainly it was never intended that meer Essences should be the Objects of our Faculties And therefore the truely wise and discerning Philosophers do not endeavour after the dry and sapless knowledge of abstracted Natures but only search after the Properties Qualities Vertues and Operations of Natural Beings the knowledge whereof may be acquired by Observations and Experiments but there are no certain means or rational Methods that I could ever yet meet with to investigate the mysterious Ideas of bare and abstracted Essences Besides all Beings are either Objects of sence or not now to go about to discover the nature of the former by metaphysical definitions would be ridiculous seeing they are far better understood by our senses If any one should ask me what a Bed-staff or a Joint-stool is the only way to acquaint him what they are is not to amuse him with fine artificial definitions but to shew him the things themselves And besides to abstract sensible things from materiality is to abstract them from themselves because their very Essences are Material And then of them that take upon them to