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stracted from all Being "de ente quatenus ens." fashion whilst Aristotle was in fashion, and has been spun into an immense web out of scholastic brains. But it should be, and I think it is already left to the acute disciples of Leibnitz who dug for gold in the ordure of the schools; and to other German Let them darken by tedious definitions, what is too plain to need any; or let them employ their vocabulary of barbarous terms, to propagate an unintelligible jargon, which is supposed to express such abstractions as they cannot make, and according to which, however, they presume often to control the particular and most evident truths of experimental knowledge. Such reputed science deserves no rank in philosophy, not the last, and much less the first.

I desire you not to imagine neither, that I understand by the first philosophy, even such a science as my Lord Bacon* describes, a science of general observations, and axioms, such as do not belong properly to any particular part of science, but are common to many, "and of an higher stage," as he expresses himself. He complains, that philosophers have not gone up to the "spring-head," which would be of "general, and excellent use for the disclosing of nature, and the abridgment of art;" though they "draw now and then a bucket of water out of the well for some particular use." I respect, no man more, this great authority, but I respect no authority enough to subscribe on the faith of it, to that which appears to me fantastical, as if it were real. Now this spring-head of science is purely fantastical, and the figure conveys a false notion to the mind, as figures, employed licentiously, are apt to do. The great author himself calls these " axioms," which are to constitute his first philosophy, "observations." Such they are properly, for there are some uniform principles, or uniform impressions of the same nature to be observed in very different subjects, "una eademque naturæ vestigia aut signacula diversis materiis et subjectis impressa." These observations, therefore, when they are sufficiently verified and well-established, may be properly applied in discourse, or writing, from one subject to another. But I apprehend that when they are so applied, they serve rather to illustrate a proposition than to "disclose nature," or to "abridge art." They may have a better foundation than similitudes, and comparisons more loosely, and more superficially made. They may compare realities, not appearances; things that nature has made alike, not things that seem only to have some relation of this kind in our imaginations. But still they are comparisons of things distinct, and independent. They do not lead us to things; but things that are

* Advan. of Learn. lib. 2.

lead us to make them. He who possesses two sciences, and the same will be often true of arts, may find in certain respects a similitude between them, because he possesses both. If he did not possess both, he would be led by neither to the acquisition of the other. Such observations are effects, not means of knowledge, and therefore to suppose that any collection of them can constitute a science of an "higher stage," from whence we may reason a priori down to particulars, is, I presume, to suppose something very groundless, and very useless at best to the advancement of knowledge. A pretended science of this kind must be barren of knowledge, and may be fruitful of error, as the Persian magic was, if it proceeded on the faint analogy that may be discovered between physics and politics, and deduced the rules of civil government from what the professors of it observed of the operations, and works of nature in the material world. The very specimen of their magic, which my Lord Bacon has given, would be sufficient to justify what is here objected to his doctrine.

Let us conclude this head by mentioning two examples among others, which he brings to explain the better what he means by his first philosophy. The first is this axiom,* "if to unequals you add equals, all will be unequal." This, he says, is an "axiom of justice, as well as of mathematics," and he asks whether there is not a "true coincidence between commutative, and distributive justice, and arithmetical, and geometrical proportion?" But I would ask in my turn, whether the certainty that any arithmetician, or geometrician has of the arithmetical, or geometrical truth, will lead him to discover this coincidence? I ask whether the most profound lawyer, who never heard, perhaps, this axiom, would be led to it by his notions of commutative, and distributive justice? Certainly not. He who is well skilled in arithmetic, or geometry, and in jurisprudence, may observe, perhaps, this uniformity of natural principle or impression; because he is so skilled, though to say the truth it be not very obvious: but he will not have derived his knowledge of it from any spring-head of a first philosophy, from any science of a "higher stage" than arithmetic, geometry, and jurisprudence.

The second example is this axiom,t "that the destruction of things is prevented by the reduction of them to their first principles." This rule is said to hold in religion, in physics, and in politics, and Machiavel is quoted for having established it in the last of these. Now, though this axiom be generally, it is not universally true; and to say nothing of physics, it will not be

* Si inæqualibus addas æqualia, omnia erunt inæqualia. Interitus rei arcetur per reductionem ejus ad principia.

hard to produce, in contradiction to it, examples of religious, and civil institutions, that would have perished, if they had been kept strictly to their first principles, and that have been supported by departing more or less from them. It may seem justly matter of wonder, that the author of "The Advancement of Learning" should espouse this maxim in religion, and politics, as well as physics, so absolutely, and that he should place it as an axiom of his first philosophy relatively to the three, since he could not do it without falling into the abuse he condemns so much in his "Organum Novum;"* the abuse philosophers are guilty of when they suffer the mind to rise too fast, as it is apt to do, from particulars to remote and general axioms. That the author of the "Political Discourses" should fall into this abuse, is not at all strange. The same abuse runs through all his writings, in which, among many wise, and many wicked reflections, and precepts, he establishes frequently general maxims, or rules of conduct on a few particular examples, and sometimes on a single example. Upon the whole matter, one of these axioms communicates no knowledge but that which we must have before we can know the axiom, and the other may betray us into great error when we apply it to use and action. One is unprofitable, the other dangerous; and the philosophy, which admits them as principles of general knowledge, deserves ill to be reputed philosophy. It would have been just as useful, and much more safe, to admit into this receptacle of axioms, those self-evident and necessary truths alone, of which we have an immediate perception, since they are not confined to any special parts of science, but are common to several, or to all. Thus these profitable axioms, "what is, is; the whole is bigger than a part," and divers others, might serve to enlarge the spring-head of a first philosophy, and be of excellent use in arguing, "ex præcognitis et præconcessis."

If you ask me now, what I understand then by a first philosophy? My answer will be such as I suppose you already prepared to receive. I understand by a first philosophy, that which deserves the first place on account of the dignity, and importance of its objects, "natural theology or theism, and natural religion or ethics." If we consider the order of the sciences in their rise and progress, the first place belongs to natural philosophy, the mother of them all, or the trunk of the tree of knowledge, out of which, and in proportion to which, like so many branches, they all grow. These branches spread wide, and bear even fruits of different kinds. But the sap that made them shoot, and makes them flourish, rises from the root through the trunk,

-ut intellectus a particularibus ad axiomata remota, et quasi generalissima saliat, et volet.

and their productions are varied according to the variety of strainers through which it flows. In plain terms, I speak not here of supernatural, or revealed science, and therefore, I say, that all science, if it be real, must rise from below, and from our own level. It cannot descend from above, nor from superior systems of being and knowledge. Truth of existence is truth of knowledge, and therefore reason searches after them in one of these scenes, where both are to be found together, and are within our reach; whilst imagination hopes fondly to find them in another, where both of them are to be found, but surely not by us. The notices we receive from without concerning the beings that surround us, and the inward consciousness we have of our own, are the foundations, and the true criterions too, of all the knowledge we acquire of body and of mind; and body and mind are objects alike of natural philosophy. We assume commonly that they are two distinct substances. Be it so. They are still united, and blended, as it were, together, in one human nature: and all natures, united or not, fall within the province of natural philosophy. On the hypothesis indeed that body and soul are two distinct substances, one of which subsists after the dissolution of the other, certain men, who have taken the whimsical title of metaphysicians, as if they had science beyond the bounds of nature, or of nature discoverable by others, have taken likewise to themselves the doctrine of mind, and have left that of body, under the name of physics, to a supposed inferior order of philosophers. But the right of these stands good; for all the knowledge that can be acquired about mind, or the unextended substance of the Cartesians, must be acquired, like that about body, or the extended substance, within the bounds of their province, and by the means they employ, particular experiments and observations. Nothing can be true of mind, any more than of body, that is repugnant to these; and an intellectual hypothesis, which is not supported by the intellectual phenomena, is, at least, as ridiculous as a corporeal hypothesis which is not supported by the corporeal phenomena.

If I have said thus much in this place concerning natural philosophy, it has not been without good reason. I consider theology and ethics as the first of sciences in pre-eminence of rank. But I consider the constant contemplation of nature, by which I mean the whole system of God's works, as far as it lies open to us, as the common spring of all sciences, and even of these. What has been said, agreeably to this notion, seems to me evidently true; and yet metaphysical divines and philosophers proceed in direct contradiction to it, and have thereby, if I mistake not, bewildered themselves and a great part of mankind, in such inextricable labyrinths of hypothetical reasoning, that few

men can find their way back, and none can find it forward into the road of truth. To dwell long, and on some points always, in particular knowledge, tires the patience of these impetuous philosophers. They fly to generals. To consider, attentively, even the minutest phenomena of body and mind mortifies their pride. Rather than creep up slowly, à posteriori, to a little general knowledge, they soar at once as far, and as high, as imagination can carry them. From thence they descend again armed with systems and arguments à priori, and regardless how these agree, or clash with the phenomena of nature, they impose them on mankind.

It is this manner of philosophising, this preposterous method of beginning our search after truth, out of the bounds of human knowledge, or of continuing it beyond them, that has corrupted natural theology, and natural religion in all ages. They have been corrupted to such a degree, that it is grown, and was so long since, as necessary to plead the cause of God, if I may use this expression after Seneca, against the divine, as against the atheist; to assert his existence against the latter, to defend his attributes against the former, and to justify his providence against both. To both, a sincere and humble theist might say very properly, "I make no difference between you on many occasions; because it is indifferent whether you deny, or defame the Supreme Being;" nay, Plutarch, though little orthodox in theology, was not in the wrong, perhaps, when he declared the last to be the worst.

In treating the subjects about which I shall write to you in these letters, or essays, it will be therefore necessary to distinguish genuine and pure theism, from the unnatural, and profane mixtures of human imagination; "what we can know of God, from what we cannot know." This is the more necessary too; because, whilst true and false notions about God and religion are blended together in our minds, under one specious name of science, the false are more likely to make men doubt of the true, as it often happens, than to persuade men that they are true themselves. Now in order to this purpose, nothing can be more effectual than to go to the root of error, of that primitive error which encourages our curiosity, sustains our pride, fortifies our prejudices, and gives pretence to delusion. This primitive error consists in the high opinion we are apt to entertain of the human mind, though it holds, in truth, a very low rank in the intellectual system. To cure this error, we need only turn our eyes inward, and contemplate impartially what passes there from the infancy to the maturity of the mind. Thus it will not be diffi

* Utrum deum neges an infames.

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