that a rational man would wish to preserve, when he would be rather thankful to find his passions and his appetites extinct. And thus having traced the various order of forms, from the lowest and basest up to the highest and best, and considered how, though differing, they all agree in this, that they give to every being its peculiar and distinctive character, we shall here conclude our speculations concerning form, the second species of substance, and which appears in part to be an element, in part an efficient cause.d And yet we cannot quit these speculations, the latter part of them at least, without a few observations on their dignity and importance. Their principal object has been to shew, that in the great intellectual system of the universe, means do not lead to ends, but ends lead to means; that it was not the organization of the sheep's body which produced the gentle instincts of the sheep; nor that of the lion's body which produced the ferocious instincts of the lion; but because, in the divine economy of the whole, such respective animating and active principles were wanting, it was therefore necessary that they should be furnished with such peculiarly organized bodies, that they might be enabled to act, and to perform their part, agreeably to their respective natures, and their proper business in the world. The ancient system of atheism supposed the organs to come first, before any thing further was thought of; which organs, to what is of the same nature with itself, except the soul: that alone is invisible, both during its presence here, and at its departure." Cyropæd. p. 326, 327. Thus translated by Cicero: Mihi quidem nunquam persuaderi potest animos, dum in corporibus essent mortalibus, vivere; cum exissent ex iis, emori: nec vero tum animum esse insipientem, cum ex insipienti corpore evasisset sed, cum, omni admixtione corporis liberatus, purus et integer esse cœpisset, tum esse sapientem. Atque etiam, cum hominis natura morte dissolvitur, cæterarum rerum perspicuum est quo quæque discedant, abeunt enim illuc omnia, unde orta sunt animus autem solus, nec cum adest, nec cum discedit, apparet. De Senectute, cap. 22. These speculations of Cyrus may more properly be called the speculations of Xenophon, who derived them without doubt (as he did the rest of his philosophy) from his great master, Socrates. They passed also into other systems of philosophy, derived from the same original; such, for example, as the philosophy of Aristotle, who was a hearer and a disciple as well of Socrates as of Plato. Besides what has been offered in the beginning of this note, the following remark and quotation may perhaps inform us further in the sentiments of the Stagirite, and his school. The human intellect was supposed by the Peripatetics to be pure and absolute capacity; to be no particular thing, till it began to comprehend things; nor to be blended with body, because, if it were, it would have some quality of body adhere to it, (such as hot, cold, and the like,) which quality would of course obstruct its operations. On the contrary, they held it to receive its impressions, ὥσπερ ἐν γραμ ματείῳ, ᾧ μηδὲν ὑπάρχει ἐντελεχείᾳ γε ypaμuévov, "as impressions are made in a writing tablet, where nothing as yet is in actuality written." Aristot. de Anima, lib. iii. c. 4. p. 58. edit. Sylb. But this in the way of digression: it is only the short specimen of an ancient speculation, which gives us reasons, why the human intellect can have no innate ideas. See the two last notes of the preceding being all of them formed fortuitously, some of them luckily answered an end, and others answered none: those that answered, for a while subsisted; those that failed, immediately perished. Empedocles (which is somewhat surprising, if we consider some of his better and more rational doctrines) appears to have favoured this opinion: καὶ τὰ μόρια τῶν ζώων ἀπὸ τύχης Yevéolai тà Tλeioтa pηoív: "he says, (as Aristotle tells us,) that the limbs of animals were the greater part of them made by chance." Soon after this, Aristotle proceeds in explaining this strange system: ὅπου μὲν οὖν ἅπαντα συνέβη, ὥσπερ κἂν εἰ ἕνεκά του ἐγίγνετο, ταῦτα μὲν ἐσώθη, ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτομάτου συστάντα ἐπιτηδείως. ὅσα δὲ μὴ οὕτως, ἀπώλετο καὶ ἀπόλα λυται, καθάπερ Εμπεδοκλὴς λέγει τὰ βουγενῆ καὶ ἀνδρόπρωρα : "when therefore these limbs all coincided, as if they had been made for the purpose, they were then saved and preserved, having been thus aptly put together by the operation of chance; but such as coincided not, these were lost, and still [as far as they arise] are lost; according to what Empedocles says concerning [those monstrous productions] the bull species with human heads." Arist. Physic. 1. ii. c. 4. 8. Lucretius advances the same doctrine, which was indeed suitable to his ideas of the world's production. The earth, he tells us, in his account of creation, aimed at the time to create many portentous beings, some with strange faces and members; others deficient, without either feet or hands; but the endeavours were fruitless, for nature could not support, and carry them on to maturity: Multaque tum Tellus etiam portenta creare Nequicquam, quoniam Natura absterruit auctum, Lucret. v. 835, &c. It is more expressly in contradiction to the doctrines inculcated through this whole tract, that he denies final causes; that he holds, eyes were not made for seeing, nor feet for walking, &c.; that he calls such explanations a preposterous and inverted order, the existence of the use (according to him) not leading to the production of the thing, but the casual production of the thing leading to the existence of the use. Lumina ne facias oculorum clara creata, Cætera de genere hoc inter quæcunque pretantur, Lucret. iv. 822. 30. An elegant poet of our own, states this doctrine with his usual humour: Note here, Lucretius dares to teach A man first builds a country seat, Was he, who durst such whims aver. Which came at last, tho' late, in season. Prior's Alma, canto i. The poet had cause to be thankful, that a time came, when men of sense opposed reason to such sophistry; but the opposition was not so late, nor so long in coming, as he imagined. Galen, many centuries ago, in his excellent treatise De Usu Partium; Cicero, in the best and most conclusive part of his treatise De Natura Deorum; and before them both, as well as before Lucretius, Aristotle, through every part of his works, and, above all, in those respecting the history of the members, and the progression of animals, had inculcated, with irresistible strength of argument, the great doctrine of final causes; which if we allow with regard to ourselves, but deny to nature, we totally annihilate through the universe any divine or intelligent principle. For nothing can be divine, which is not intelligent; nor any thing intelligent, which has not a meaning; nor any being have a meaning, which has no scope, or final cause, to govern and direct its energies and operations. A painter, painting a hundred portraits, succeeds in ninetynine, and fails in one. We may possibly impute the single failure to chance; but can we possibly impute to chance his success in the ninety-nine? How then can we dream of chance in the operations of nature; operations so much more accurate, though withal so much greater, and more numerous, than those of the painter? Chance is never thought of in that which happens always; nor in that which happens for the most part; but, if any where, in that which happens unexpectedly and rarely. And so much for those philosophers, recorded for having hardily denied a Providence. See the note, p. 12, 13, where the doctrine of chance and fortune is discussed at large upon the Peripatetic principles; and where an attempt is made to explain that most subtle and ingenious argument of the Stagirite, by which he proves that chance and fortune are so far from supplanting mind, or an intelligent principle, that the exist ence of the two former necessarily infers the existence of the latter. It was consonant to the reasoning there held, that Plato, long before, is said to have called fortune σύμπτωμα φύσεως ἢ προαιpéoews: "a symptom, or thing co-incident either with nature or the human will." See Suidas in the word Eiμapuévn. Plato's account will be better understood, perhaps, by recurring to the quotation in the former part of this note. There are others, who, though they have not denied one, have yet made systems that would do without one; seeming to think, concerning the trouble of governing a world, as queen Dido did of old, Scilicet is superis labor est; ea cura quietos Virg. Æn. iv. A third sort, with more decency, have neither denied a Providence, nor omitted one; yet have seldom recurred to it, but upon pressing occasions, when difficulties arose, which they either happened to find, or had happened to make. They appear to have conducted themselves by Horace's advice: Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus. Hor. Art. Poet. A fourth philosopher remains, and a respectable one he is, who supposes Providential wisdom never to cease for a single moment; and who says to it with reverence, what Ulysses did to Minerva, οὐδέ δε λήθω Κινύμενος. Nor can I move, and 'scape But to quit philosophers and poets, and return from a digression, to which we have been led insensibly by the latent connection of many different ideas. There remains nothing further, in the treating of substance, Ausonius has translated the sentiment in See also Lucretius i. 57. vi. 83, whom Horace seems to have copied in the verses above quoted. It is true, this idea destroyed that of a Providence ; but to them, who derived the world from a fortuitous concourse of atoms, such a consequence was of small import ance. i Hom. Iliad. x. ver. 279. See Arrian's Epictetus, lib. i. c. 12, both in the original, and in Mrs. Carter's excellent translation. See also the comment of my worthy and learned friend Upton, on this chapter, in his valuable edition of that author, vol. ii. p. 40, 41. See also Psalm cxxxix. To the citations in note t, p. 293, may be added the following fine sentiment of Thales: Ἠρώτησέ τις αὐτὸν, εἰ λήθοι Θεοὺς ἄνθρωπος ἀδικῶν· ἀλλ ̓ οὐδὲ διανοούμενος, ἔφη: "One asked him, If a man might escape the knowledge of the gods, when he was committing injustice? No, says he, not even when he is meditating it." Diog. Laert. i. 36. than to say something of those characters which are usually ascribed to it by Aristotle and his followers, when they consider it not in a physical, but in a logical view. CHAPTER VII. CONCERNING THE PROPERTIES OF SUBSTANCE, ATTRIBUTED TO IT IN THE PERIPATETIC LOGIC. THE ancient logicians, or rather Aristotle and his school, have given us of substance the following characters. They inform us, that, as substance, it is not susceptible of more and less. Thus a lion is not more or less a lion, by being more or less bulky; a triangle is not more or less a triangle, by being more or less acute-angled. The intensions and remissions are to be found in their accidents; the essences remain simply and immutably the same, and either absolutely are, or absolutely are not. Again; substance, they tell us, admits of no contraries." It is to this that Milton alludes, when, after having personified substance, he tells us, To find a foe it shall not be his hap, And peace shall lull him in her flow'ry lap. Milt. Poems, No. ii. The assertion is evident in compound beings, that is to say, in substances natural; for what is there contrary to man considered as man, or to lion considered as lion? This is true also in the relation borne by matter to form; for while contraries by their coincidence destroy each other, these two, matter and form, coalesce so kindly, that no change to either arises from their union. Thus the marble, when adorned with the form of a statue, is as precisely marble as it was before; and the oak, when fashioned into the form of a ship, is as truly oak as when it flourished in the forest. If there be any contrariety in substance, it is that of form to privation, where privation nevertheless is nearly allied to nonentity. Lastly; substance, they tell us, is something, which, though it have no contrary, yet is by nature susceptible of all contraries, itself still remaining one and the same." We cannot forget that description, given by Virgil, of the Cumaan prophetess : Subito non vultus, non color unus, 1 Δοκεῖ δὲ ἡ οὐσία μὴ ἐπιδέχεσθαι τὸ μᾶλλον καὶ τὸ ἦττον. Arist. Prod. p. 28. edit. Sylb. See Hermes, p. 175. m Ὑπάρχει δὲ ταῖς οὐσίαις καὶ τὸ μηδὲν avraîs évavríov elva. Arist. Præd. p. 28. edit. Sylb. En. vi. - Μάλιστα δὲ ἴδιον τῆς οὐσίας δοκεῖ εἶναι τὸ ταυτὸν καὶ ἓν ἀριθμῷ ὂν τῶν ἐναντίων εἶναι δεκτικόν. Arist. Præd. p. 29. edit. Sylb. |