and reafon, they only cultivated their own wild imaginations, which feldom produce any thing but what is extravagant and unaccountable. This will foon appear to any who will be at the pains to examin either the Ancient or Modern Philofophers. To begin with the Ancients. Which of the Poets did ever maintain fo ridiculous an opinion, as that it is impoffible for Bodies to move? And yet there have been Philofophers (for fo they were pleased to ftile themfelves) who have brought arguments to prove motion to be a thing altogether impoffible in nature, and have pretended that these their arguments almoft reached the force of demonftration. Is the Fable of Leda's being firft turned into a Swan, and afterwards placed in the Heavens as a fixed Star, more improbable than the opinion of Anaxagoras, that the Circumambient Ether being of a fiery fubftance by the vehement force of its whirling about did tear ftones from the earth, and by its own power fet them on fire and established them as ftars in the Heavens? Diogenes another Philofopher said that the Stars were like pumice Stones, and that they were the breathings of the world. But Xeno phanes the founder of the Eleatick Sect fays,they are composed of inflamed Clouds which in the day time are quenched, and in the night are kindled again, and that the rifing and fetting of the ftars, is nothing elfe but the kindling and and quenching of them. Anaximander thought the Sun did very much resemble the nave of a Chariot wheel, which is hollow and full of fire, the fire of which appears to us through its mouth, as by a pipe that is burning. And Anaximenes faid that when the Sun was eclipfed, the fiery mouth of it was stopp'd and hinder'd from perfpiration. Heraclitus tells us that the eclipfe of the Sun was after the manner of the turning of a boat, when the concave as to our fight appears uppermoft, and the convex neithermoft. Another Philofopher faid, that when the Sun was eclipfed, it was extinguished. These indeed are strange notions, but yet they will feem much stranger if we confider that thefe men lived after Thales, who had foretold an eclipfe of the Sun by his knowledge that the Moon was to be at fuch a time in a direct line betwixt him and it. Such an averfion it feems thefe Philofophers had to build upon other men's obfervations, that they would rather speak unfufferable nonfenfe, than be at the pains to confider what was observed before them by wifer men than themselves. But who without indignation can hear the abovementioned Xenophanes maintain, that the earth was founded and rooted in an infinite depth, or Epicurus the World-maker affert, that the Earth was in the fhape of a Drum, and that we dwell upon the plain furface of it, tho', long before either of their times, it was Ba de demonftrated by the Mathematicians, that the Earth was of a spherical figure, and they had given rules to take the dimenfions of it? The fame Epicurus affirms, in contradiction both to fenfe and reafon, that the Sun, Moon, and Stars are no bigger than they appear to us to be, and for any thing that he knew to the contrary, the Stars might be kindled in the Eaft Quarter and extinguished in the Weft, or that there might be a new production of Stars every day, fo that every day there arose a new Sun. I am fure a Blind man, who had never seen either Sun or Stars, could not have given a worse account of them, than this Philofopher has done; and yet with an unpardonable boldness he pretended to tell us, how the World was made, when it is plain he knew not what it was. He who defires to know more of the wild notions of the old Philofophers, may confult Diogenes Laertius, or Plutarch's Books of the fentiments of Philofophers. But perhaps our Moderns will fay, that these indeed were the ridiculous fancies of the old whimfical Philofophers, and it is no great matter what they thought, but that now in this Learned and Inquifitive Age they have at laft found out the true and folid Philofophy. They do now perceive the intimate effence of all things, and have discovered Nature in all her works, and can tell you the true cause of every effect, from the fole prin ciples will be ciples of matter and motion. If you Spinofa pretends to demonftrate that there is but one individual Substance in the Univerfe, and that all particular beings are different modifications of the fame fubitance. Another Philofopher, viz. Dr. More, will have Souls, befides the three dimenfions which belong to Bodies, to have a fourth, which he calls the Souls effential fpiffitude, by which it can contract or dilate it felf when it pleases. Mr. Hobbs thinks Incorporeal Substances a flat contradiction, and that therefore it is altogether impoffible there fhould be any fuch. But a new * Philofopher has much out-done *Dr. Bure any I have yet mentioned, in a Book lately thogge. Printed concerning Reafon; there he affures us that there is but one univerfal Soul in the World, which is omniprefent and acts upon B 3 all all particular organized Bodies, and makes them produce actions more or less perfect in proportion to the good difpofition of their Organs, fo that in Beafts, that Soul is the principle of the fenfitive and vital functions; in Men it does not only perform thefe, but alfo all other rational actions, juft as if you would fuppofe a hand of a vaft extenfion, and a prodigious number of fingers, playing upon all the Organ-pipes in the world, and making every one found a particular note according to the difpofition and frame of the pipe, fo this Univerfal Soul acting upon all Bodies, makes every one produce various actions, according to the different difpofition and frame of their Organs. This opinion he as confidently afferts to be true, as other men believe that it is false; tho' it is impoffible he should any other way be fure of it, but by Revelation, and I believe he will find but few that will take it upon his word. Monf. Malbranch the famous inquirer after Truth, having made a long and deep fearch how the Soul comes to have its Ideas, has found out at laft, that we perceive not the things themselves, but only their Ideas, which the Soul fees in God. "For fays he, the "Soul is united to God in a much stricter ❝and more effential manner than fhe is united "to the Body; and this union is by his pre"fence, so that it may be faid, that God is "the |