THE best way then of proceeding with fo flippery a reafoner; the only way, indeed, in which I fee any poffibility of proceeding with him, is firft to lay down fome general rules, all of which will hereafter be proved out of his writings, and then purfuing him chapter by chapter, to extract the feveral proofs, however scattered and difperfed, which tend to establifh both parts of the contradictions, which I fhall now fet down.

OUR noble author fets out in his firft fection, with a fly infinuation, that it is poffible for the graveft of philofophers on the graveft of fubjects, to advance propofitions in jeft. It is more probable,' fays Lord B, and it is more candid to believe, that this philofopher (Descartes) was in earnest, than that he was in jest, when he advanced this propofition, concerning the immutability and eternity of certain mathematical truths. I will add, that I believe that an idea of fuch jefting had never any footing in a human head, till it first found admiffion into that of this noble lord.

a Effays, page 4.

IN

IN the fame fection, his lordship proceeds thus: The antients thought matter eternal, and affumed that the Demiurgus, or Divine Architect, compofed the frame • of the world with materials which were ready prepared, and independently on him, in a confused chaos. Much in the fame manner fuch metaphyficians as the learned Cudworth have imagined a fort of intellectual chaos, a chaos of 'eternal ideas, of incorporeal effences, independent on God, felf-exiftent, and therefore co-eval with the fupreme being, and therefore anterior to all other natures. In this intellectual chaos God fees, and man must endeavour to fee, the natures, the real effences of things: and thus the foundations of morality are laid higher than the existence of any moral agents, before there was any fyftem • of being from which the obligations to it could refult, or to which they could be applied juft as the fame philofophers fuppofe the incorporeal effences of white and black to have exifted when there was no fuch thing as colour, and thofe of a fquare and circle, when there was neither form nor figure".

a Ibid. page 6.

HERE I am afraid the learned peer hath gone no farther for his erudition than the firft or fecond pages of Ovid's Metamorphofis: fer could he be recalled from the dead, contrary to his own doctrine, as he hath recalled Descartes, and were asked whom he meant by the antients, he could not certainly anfwer in general, the antient philofophers, for then the whole tribe of atheists would be ready to teftify against him. If he fhould anfwer, that he meant the antient theifts only, and lefs he cannot be fuppofed to mean by those who are well-bred enough to fuppofe he meant any thing, he will be far from finding even among these an univerfal concurrence with his opinion. Thales, the chief of the Grecian fages, and who is faid to have firft turned his thoughts to phyfiological enquiries, affirmed the independent preexistence of God from all eternity. The words of Laertius are remarkable, and I will render them with the moft literal ex

actnefs in my power. He afferted, fays

Laertius,That God was the oldest of all beings, for he existed without a previous caufe EVEN IN THE WAY OF GENERATION; that the world was the most beautiful

• of

• of all things; for it was CREATED by • God, &c.'* This notion of the creation Ariftotle tells us, was agreeable to the concurrent voice of all antiquity; All,' fays he, affert the creation of the world; but they differ in this, that fome will have the world fufceptible of diffolution, ⚫ which others deny. On this occafion Aristotle names Empedocles and Heraclitus, but, which is fomewhat remarkable, never mentions Thales. The opinion itfelf is oppofed by the Stagyrite; and this oppofition he was forced to maintain, or he must have given up the eternity of the world, which he very justly afferts to be inconfiftent with any idea of its creation. But we will difmifs the antients from the bar, and see how his lordship will support his arraignment of the moderns. The charge against them is, that they have holden certain ideas, or incorporeal effences, to be feif-existent. Concerning thefe doctrines his lordship thus harangues

Diog. Laert. lib. i. fect. 35. where I fubmit to the learned reader the conftruction he will obferve I have given to the different import of thofe terms, ἀγέννητον and πόνημα ; the fift of which may be confidered as a qualified, the latter as an abfolute cause.

† Ariftot. De cœlo, lib. 1. cap. 10.

6

in the very fame page*, Mr. Lock observes, how impoffible it is for us to conceive ⚫ certain relations, habitudes, and connections, vifibly included in fome of our ideas, to be feparable from them even by infinite power. Let us observe, on ⚫ this occafion, how impoffible, or, at least, how extremely difficult it is for us to separate the idea of eternity from cer⚫tain moral and mathematical truths, as well as from fuch as are called neceffary, and are felf-evident on one hand: and, on the other, how impoffible it is to con⚫ceive that truths fhould exift before the things to which they are relative;

particular natures and effences, before the fyftem of univerfal nature, and when there was no being but the super-effential Being +.'

IF I had any inclination to cavil, I might, with truth, affert that no fuch paffage is to be found in Mr. Lock. His words are: In fome of our ideas there ⚫ are certain relations, habitudes, and con⚫nections, fo vifibly included in the nature of the ideas themselves, that we cannot ⚫ conceive them feparable from them by any power whatfoevert.' It may be an• Effay, p: 6.

+ Effay on Human Understanding, 1. 4. cap. 3. $29.

fwered,