the greatest praise of Descartes, that his labours, for a time, gave a finishing stroke to the tyranny of scholastic learning. The divine providence itself seems to have favoured and seconded the attempt of Copernicus, in raising up Galilæo, to demonstrate, by his telescopes, some articles not very easy of digestion, which Copernicus could only assert upon principle, without being able to confirm what he said by such sensible proofs as the cause seemed to require. And Galilæo himself had piety enough to ascribe this sudden and wonderful turn of things to that supreme power*, by whose direction all useful discoveries and improvements of science are made to arise, at those times and seasons when his wisdom sees them to be most expedient: though, perhaps, in strictness of truth, it may be more proper to term these restorations of science, than original discoveries. And the farther I inquire, the more I am tempted to believe, that, even in this sense, nihil est sub solę novi, These things are worth considering before we enter upon the succeeding chapters: for there must needs be a fair prospect of finding U 3 * Ope perspicilli a me excogitati, divinâ prius illuminante gratiâ. Galil. Syder. Nunc. p. 10. finding some very discernible footsteps of a true philosophy among those writers, from whom the true astronomy, after many ages, was so happily recovered. And, in fact, we shall find them declaring so expressly, and almost unanimously, for the principles I have endeavoured to deduce and justify from observation, that, if I had been allowed to invent such expressions as should agree best with my own sentiments, they would have been just such as I am able to produce. Some examples of this I have already given in the foregoing part of this work, by throwing a few passages occasionally into the margin. I ought indeed to make some apology for setting out to view so many Greek and Latin quotations, in a treatise written in English. But how is it possible for me to avoid it? for we cannot have the sentiments of the ancients without their languages; of which, however, I shall disturb the text of my book with as little as possible. CHAP. CHAP. II. Testimonies from the principal Authors of Profane Antiquity among the Greeks. LATO, who was the head and founder of PLA the Academics, and without exception the greatest and most amiable philosopher among the Greeks, whose sentiments also, in regard to natural philosophy, are supposed to have been the same with those of Pythagoras*, denies a vacuum upon all occasions, and asserts in general, that "fire and heat beget and "GOVERN all other things t." Where he descends to particulars, as in the dialogue. that bears the name of Timæus, he accounts for the animal functions from an intertexture of air and fire ‡ acting throughout the whole frame of the body. To fire he ascribes the U 4 * Plato is reported to have borrowed the doctrines in his Timæus, from the writings of Philolaus, a scholar of Pytha goras. These writings (as Hermippus relates) he purchased at the extravagant price of 40 Alexandrian minæ of silver. + Το γαρ θεςμον τε και πυρ ο δη και τ' άλλα γεννα και ETITOOTEUEL. Theætet. + Πλέγμα εξ αερος και πυρος, the office of expanding within, and acting through the body outwards; while the element of air compresses from without, and counteracts the force of the internal fire. By the ministry of these causes*, and the impossibility of a vacuum, a perpetual circulation, as it were †, is kept up, through the motion of the lungs in inspiration and respiration. The effects observable in gravitating and projected bodies, as also in amber and the loadstone, he imputes to the action of the same elements, and supposes them to be brought to pass after a manner analogous to that above mentioned: for, in all these cases, he observes, there is really no such thing as an attraction ; but the causes already assigned will be found, by those who inquire diligently, to effect all these wonders of nature by their reciprocal impulses. In another part of the same dialogue, speaking of the manner in which vision is performed, by the mediation of elementary fire and light, he says, "These are the secon * Αις χρωμενον ΑΙΤΙΑΙΣ, + Τουτο παν οιον τροχου περιαγόμενο γίνεται. † Παντων τέτων ΟΛΚΗ μεν εκ εστιν εδενι ποτέ. dary N. B. This passage may be consulted at large, as well in the Ecloga Physice of Stobays, as in the works of Plato him self. dary and co-operating causes which God "makes use of as his ministers, for the finishing and perfecting of his work. Most men look upon these, not as the secondary, "but as the primary causes of all things, in"asmuch as they occasion heat and cold, can "effect the cohesion and dissolution of bo dies, and perform all other things of this "kind." This passage, while it suits my purpose, and shews how deep Plato was in the mechanism of nature, is superior and contrary to the opinion of this author himself on some other occasions †, and supplies us with a valuable testimony against the idolatry of the heathen world in general, who exalted the creature into the place of the Creator. I know not how to account for this sentiment from the mouth of Plato, unless it be taken for one of those many articles, which this great philosopher, to use the words of Serranus-aliundè ex meliore doctrinâ acceperat, Cicero, speaking of the ancient Platonists, relates * Ταυτ' ουν παντ' εστι των ξυναιτίων, οις Θεος υπηρετουσι χρηται, την του άριστου κατα το δυνατον ιδεαν αποτελων. Δοξάζεται δ' υπο των πλείστων 8 ξυναιτια αλλ' αιτία είναι των πανίων, ψυχοντα και θερμαινοντα, πήγνυντα τε και διαχέοντα, και όσα τοιαυτα απεργαζόμενα. For the truth of this reflexion, consult Cicero de Nat. Deor. lib. 2. c. 12, |