"ward the gods and toward men." He adds, "that one who had a concern for him, and a "wonderful care of him, would be his instruc

tor, and would dispel the darkness of his mind, 66 as Minerva in Homer takes the cloud from "before the eyes of Diomede, that he might be "able to discern what was good from what was "evil."

Whether it be as difficult, as Clarke imagined, to suppose that Socrates meaned himself, in this passage, I examine not. Let it be, that he meaned the dæinon of Alcibiades. Since the master had an attending dæmon, who dissuaded and restrained him when that was necessary; the scholar might have one who would inform and determine him, whenever that should be necessary. Nay more. Let it be as some learned men * have observed, that Plato began to write immediately after the three last prophets of the Jews, as if God had raised up him to supply their place. Let them cite in favour of this opinion another passage, wherein this philosopher says, "that if a per

fectly just man should appear in the world, he "would be imprisoned, buffetted, whipped, and "crucified, which must needs have been a pro

phecy of Christ, because Christ was whipped "and crucified; whereas Socrates only drank the "poison by which he was condemned to die". Let the same learned men take this passage too, in the second Alcibiades, if they please, for ano

* Dacier.

ther

ther prophecy of the coming of Christ, and of a divine revelation, since remote events, and a. distant time, are often signified by immediate events, and the present time, in prophetical language.

Such prophecies in Plato will not be readily nor generally admitted, I think; neither does Clarke insist that they should. But it must be admitted, that Plato insinuates in many places the want, or the necessity, of a divine revelation, to discover the external service God requires, and the expiation for sin, to give stronger assurances of the rewards and punishments that await men in another world, concerning which, however, he had received particular information, by one who returned from thence on purpose, and to frame a system of the whole order of things, both in this world and the next, that is, of the whole œconomy of God's dispensations to man, and of his government in Heaven and on Earth.

XXV.

Ir was on some of these subjects Socrates had discoursed, when Simmias spoke to him in the manner quoted by Clarke. He had owned that he did not expect to attain a full knowledge of these things, till the soul was separated from the body, and entirely purified in that other world, of which he gave so topographical a description. The conclusion was, that, since they could not acquire

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acquire a certain knowledge of the truth here, they should fix on the best and safest of human reasons, and venture on that bottom through the storms of life, unless they could get one still more firm, such as some divine "revelation would be, to render their passage "less dangerous." This now is the second of the proofs brought to show, "that the best, wisest, and least superstitious of the philosophers confessed their sense of the want of a

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divine revelation, and hoped for something of "that nature." The proofs are pompously introduced, but the whole force of them amounts to no more than this, that Socrates, if in truth Socrates did say all that his scholar makes him say, was much in the wrong for not adding curiosity to pride, among the causes of human errour, concerning the will of God, and the duty of man; but Socrates himself had a great mind to know more than God has made his human creatures capable of knowing, and, therefore, more than be judged it necessary or useful for them to know. The imaginary want had, therefore, no other principle than metaphysical curiosity. It could have no other. Nothing could be wanting to the divine purpose where God had given, though he limited the means. How absurd, how trifling is it then to bring the opinion of philosophers concerning this want, and their hopes that it would be supplied, as a proof that the want was real, and that, after it had been long complained of, it was supplied? I pass over another pretended VOL, VIII.

Ꭰ

proof

proof of the same kind. Porphyry, whom it is impossible to see ranked among the least superstitious philosophers without surprise, found, it seems, that the universal method of delivering souls was not sufficiently known by philosophers.

In general, these men complained that sense reached but a little way in acquiring knowledge, that the human mind was weak, that the human life was short, and that the truth of things lay deep in darkness *. These complaints related to all parts of science, physical and metaphysical, to natural philosophy as well as natural theology, and I might, therefore, make the same use of them in one case, that Clarke makes in the other. I might bring the imperfect knowledge of corporeal nature, and the sense philosophers had of this imperfection, in proof that some necessary knowledge of this kind was wanting, and that they had reason to hope the defect would be supplied sooner or later, some how or other, in a natural or in a supernatural way. I might beg the question, like the doctor, and having assumed, that they were ignorant of many things necessary to the physical, as he assumes with much less reason, that they were of many things necessary to the moral advantages of life; I might argue, that they had reason to expect a time would come, when men would be rendered able to discover not only the second, but the first qualities of substances, to

Angustos sensus, imbecillos animos, brevia curricula vitæ, in profundo veritatem esse demersam, omnia tenebris circumfusa esse. • .•

reason

reason from a general knowledge of essences, not from a particular knowledge of effects, and to frame by these and other extraordinary means a complete, regular, and consistent scheme or system of the whole economy of corporeal nature.

In this manner I might represent the wants, the complaints, and the expectations of the heathen philosophers. Thus I might argue, and my representation and my argument would be extremely ridiculous. But are those of Clarke less so? I think not. These philosophers, such of them, at least, whose works are come down to us, were very ignorant in physicks. But in natural theology, and in morality, their knowledge was not deficient, though it was confined in the former to a very few general propositions. They had the same natural means of knowing that we have; and they knew, as well as we know, that "there "is a first intelligent Cause of all things, that the "Infinite Wisdom and power of this Being made "and preserves the universe, and that his Pro"vidence governs it." They knew then, very fully, the relation in which they stood to this Being, the relation of dependent creatures and subjects; and this knowledge was sufficient, or none would be so, to enforce the laws he had given them; for the same means, that discovered the divine existence, discovered the divine will in the whole extent of our moral obligations. We might have expected, that Clarke would have specified some of these moral obligations, which were unknown, or imperfectly known, to the philosoD 2 phers,