BOOK LITERARY HISTORY OF madman. True couragé is, therefore, that which neither dreads all things nor yet fears nothing. c. 5. It remains that we should summarily speak of the preserving and maintaining cause of all things; for it would be like a crime, that those discoursing of the world should leave out the most lordly part of it. It is an ancient opinion, and handed down from their fathers to all men, that all things have been established to us from God and thro God, and that no nature is of itself self-sufficient for its own preservation, deserted by him. De Mundo, c. 11. p. 573. Wherefore some of the ancients have proceeded to say, that all these things are full of gods, and seem like images to us by our eyes, and hearing, and every sense. God is the preserver of all things, and the genitor of whatever is perfected in the world, yet not like a workman, so as to be affected by fatigue or lassitude. 573. He enjoys the highest and first seat, and from this is named the Supreme; and, according to the poet, is placed in heaven, on the loftiest summit of the universe. The body nearest to him peculiarly enjoys the benefit of his power; then what is next has this advantage, and then successively others, down to ourselves. Hence the earth, and the things on the earth, as they are in subsistence the farthest from the aid of God, are weak and incongruous, and mingled with much perturbation. But inasmuch as the Divine nature is pervading every thing, even those which concern us, so it happens that those which are above us, according as they are near or farther from him, are participating more or less of his assistance. It is better, therefore, to say-and it is more becoming and congruous the Deity that the power which has its seat in heaven, both to those which are the farthest off, and to the nearest, or to express it in one word, to all things, is the cause of its preservation. 576. After a high wrought simile, taken from the splendor and power of the Persian monarchs, he adds : But it is far more reverential and becoming to perceive that He who is seated in the highest habitation, diffuses his power thro all the universe, moves both the sun and moon, and actuates all the heaven, and is the cause of well-being and preservation to all that are on the earth. 577. He needs not artificial mechanism, nor the instrumentality of others. And this seems peculiar to Him, that with ease, and by simple movement, he completes all the various forms of CHAP. things. 578. After a simile of the images with moveable limbs :— XI. HISTORY SCHOLAS- So the Divine nature, by a simple primitive movement, gives OF THE power into sentient things, and from these to others more distant, till he has permeated all; one moves another, and this again with LOSOPHY. the world. 578. He illustrates the governing of all things by the Deity, by several similes; one is, what occurs in an army on the point of battle : "As soon as the trumpet begins to sound, every one that hears it is in motion: this, takes up his shield, that, puts on his breastplate, another, his greaves or his helmet, or binds on his belt. Some bridle their horses, others ascend the chariots, and the whole force is arrayed in its military order. Then the officers hasten to their squadrons, and the captains to their companies. The cavalry ride to the wing, and the light infantry hurry to their stations; while all await and obey the orders of their chief commanders, who put every part into motion, as the general of the assembled army directs. So it happens in the universe: the one great Mover animates and directs all thro his immediate instruments, and each part performs what it is proper that it should do. 582. "This power is, indeed, unseen and invisible; but this is no impediment to his agency, nor to our belief of it; for the soul, by which we live, and by which we inhabit cities and houses, is also not to be seen, yet it is visible in its works; for all the culture of life has been found out and arranged and perceived by it. The cultivation and planting of the earth, the knowlege of the arts, the use of laws, the economy of a state, civil administrations, external wars and interior peace, are its effects. It is also the soul which pursues our reasonings concerning God; the most mighty of all beings, as to his power; the most excellent, as to his beauty; immortal in his existence, and most exalted in virtue, Hence, tho he is not to be seen by any mortal nature, yet he is made visible by his works; and all things that are done in the air, on earth, or in the waters, we pronounce to be the operations of God, the ruler of the world. From Him, as Empedocles the physiologist said, proceed whatsoever will be, whatsoever are, and whatsoever have been. From Him the trees derive their vegetation; from Him, men, women, beasts and birds. and waternourished fish. 583. BOOK VI. LITERARY HISTORYOF "We may, as a petty simile, compare the world to those stones called umbilical, the stones in arches, which, lying in the middle upon the inclining ones on each side, keep the whole scheme of the arch in harmony and in order, and immoveable-this same relation has God in the world, maintaining the harmony and salvation of the whole. 584. But his place is above: the pure exalted among the pure: which place we call heaven, Ouranos, the boundary of what is above; or Olympus, that is, all-radiant, and therefore separated from all darkness and disorderly movement which wind and tempests occasion, as Homer describes it. 585. All human-kind give witness of this, by ascribing to God the regions above, and therefore all men who pray lift up their hands towards heaven. 585. Hence the race of the pious pre-eminently honor the Divinity. 586. "On the whole, what a pilot is to a ship, what the driver is to a chariot, what the leader is to a dance, what the law is in a city, and a general in an army, God is in the universe. 587. "God is One, tho with many names, 589. He is the causer of all things, 590. He holds the beginning and the end, and the middle of all things; and whoever wishes to be blessed and happy, must participate in Him." 592. In another work he says, "The energy of God is immortality; that is, eternal life. Motion is therefore eternal in the Deity. De Cœlo, 2. c. 3. God and nature make nothing in vain, ib. 1. c. 5. "There is but one only Mover, and several inferior deities. "All that is added about the human shape of these deities, is nothing else but fiction, invented on purpose to instruct the common people, and engage them to an observance of good laws. "All must be reduced to one only primitive substance, and to several inferior substances, which govern in subordination to the first. This is the genuine doctrine of the ancients, which has happily escaped from the wreck of truth, amidst the rocks of vulgar errors and poetic fables."-Met. l. 14. c. 8. p. 1003. "The supreme mind is by its nature prior to all beings. He has a sovereign dominion over all." Anim. 1. c. 7. p. 628. "God is a Supreme Intelligence, which acts with order, proportion and design, and is the source of all that is good, excellent and just."-Met. l. 14. c. 10. p. 1005. "The first principle is neither the fire, nor the earth, nor the XI. HISTORY OF THE water, nor any thing that is the object of sense: but a spiritual CHAP. substance is the cause of the universe, and the source of all the order, and all the beauties, as well as of all the motions and all the forms which we so much admire in it.-Met. l. 2. c. 3. p. 844, 5. "The Eternal and Living Being, the most noble of all beings, SCHOLASa substance entirely distinct from matter; without extension, with, TIC PHI out division, without parts, and without succession; who understands every thing by one single act, and continuing himself immoveable, gives motion to all things, and enjoys in himself a perfect happiness, as knowing and contemplating himself with infinite pleasure."-Met. l. 14. c. 7. p. 1000. He says, "that men have generally a party, a vaticination, (a prophetic feeling) in their minds concerning gods :-to wit, that men are not themselves the highest beings, but that there is a rank of intellectual beings, superior to men, the chief of which is the Supreme Deity, concerning whom there is, indeed, in all, the greatest parrɛia, or divining sentiment."-De Cœl. 1. 2. So he also says, "All men have a persuasion or conviction concerning the gods; and all, both Barbarians and Greeks, ascribe a place in the highest to the Divinity, as that which is immortal is suited to an immortal being. If, therefore, there be any thing divine, as, indeed, there is, the body of the heavens must be different from that of the elements -Cœl. 1. c. 3. Also, "It is most agreeable to that para concerning the gods, which all men have in their minds, to suppose the heaven to be a quintessence distinct from the elements, and therefore incorruptible."-L. 2. LOSOPHY. "We account the gods most of all happy. Now what moral actions can we attribute to them? Those of justice amongst one another? as if it were not ridiculous to suppose the gods to make contracts and bargains among themselves, and the like. Of fortitude and magnanimity? as if they had their fears, dangers, and difficulties to encounter withal. Those of liberality? as if they had such a thing as money too, and there were among them some indigent to receive alms. Or shall we ascribe to them the actions of temperance? But would it not be a reproachful praise to say, that they have no evil desires. "Thus, if we pursue all the practical virtues, we find them to be small, and unworthy of the gods. “Yet we all believe the gods to live and act, and not to sleep, like Endymion. BOOK VI. LITERARY HISTORY OF "But if all practice be taken away, and, much more, all action, what is left to them except contemplation? Opsa." 304. Eth. l. 10. c. 8. "Also, animals, who are deprived of contemplation, partake not ENGLAND. of happiness. To the gods, all their life is happy. To men, so far as it approaches contemplation. But brute animals, which do not at all contemplate, partake not at all of happiness." "A prince should seem always sedulous about the worship of the gods; for men are less afraid of suffering any injustice from those who are thought to be religiously disposed, and to care for the gods; nor will they conspire against such, as they think the gods will be their allies." c. 11 ARISTOTLE was chiefly studied during the middle ages, in his Categories or Predicaments. As in these and their commentators most of the English students rested, tho the more ambitious penetrated into his other works, and became, by their proficiency in them, the leaders and doctors of the scholastic philosophy, it will be sufficient for our present historical objects to give a sketch of this celebrated work.58 The object of Porphyry, in his Isagoge, was to elucidate what he called the Predicables, before the scholar undertook the comprehension of the great master's predicaments. The predicables were the five terms already noticed, genius, species, difference, the proprium and accident. The categories or predicaments, within which Aristotle endeavored to embrace and confine all that was known, and had been expressed by language, were ten;-substance, quantity, relation, quality, place, time, acting, suffering, situation and habit. Under these, he thought that all which 58 I quote the edition of Buhle, Bipont. 1791. Vol. 1. p. 445, 525 |