to have been directed by prejudices which, though extremely natural, are not very phi lofophical. The revolutions of the Heavens, by their grandeur and conftancy, excited his admiration, and feemed, upon that account, to be effects not unworthy a Divine Intelligence. Whereas the meannefs of many things, the diforder and confufion of all things below, exciting no fuch agreeable emotion, feemed to have no marks of being directed by that Supreme Understanding. Yet, though this opinion faps the foundations of human worship, and muft have the fame effects upon fociety as Atheism itself, one may eafily trace, in the Metaphyfics upon which it is grounded, the origin of many of the notions, or rather of many of the expreffions, in the fcholaftic theology, to which no notions can be annexed.

The Stoics, the moft religious of all the ancient fects of philofophers, feem in this, as in most other things, to have altered and refined upon the doctrine of Plato. The order, harmony, and coherence which this philofophy bestowed upon the Universal Syftem, ftruck them with awe and veneration. As, in the rude ages of the world, whatever particular part of Nature excited the admiration of mankind, was apprehended to be animated by fome particular divinity; fo the whole of Nature having, by their reafonings,

become

become equally the object of admiration, was equally apprehended to be animated by a Univerfal Deity, to be itself a Divinity, an Animal; a term which to our ears feems by no means fynonimous with the foregoing; whose body was the folid and fenfible parts of Nature, and whofe foul was that ætherial Fire, which penetrated and actuated the whole. For of all the four elements, out of which all things were compofed, Fire or Æther feemed to be that which bore the greatest resemblance to the Vital Principle which informs both plants and animals, and therefore most likely to be the Vital Principle which animated the Univerfe. This infinite and unbounded Ether, which extended itself from the centre beyond the remoteft circumference of Nature, and was endowed with the most confummate reafon and intelligence, or rather was itself the very effence of reafon and intelligence, had originally formed the world, and had communicated a portion, or ray, of its own effence to whatever was endowed with life and fenfation, which, upon the diffolution of thofe forms, either immediately or fometime after, was again abforbed into that ocean of Deity from whence it had originally been detached. In this system the Sun, the Moon, the Planets, and the Fixed Stars, were each of them also inferior divinities, animated by a detached portion

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portion of that ætherial effence which was the foul of the world. In the fyftem of Plato, the Intelligence which animated the world was different from that which originally formed it. Neither were thefe which animated the celeftial fpheres, nor those which informed inferior terreftrial animals, regarded as portions of this plaftic foul of the world. Upon the diffolution of animals, therefore, their fouls were not abforbed in the foul of the world, but had a feparate and eternal exiftence, which gave birth to the notion of the tranfinigration of fouls. Neither did it feem unnatural, that, as the fame matter which had' compofed one animal body might be employed to compofe another, that the fame intelligence which had animated one fuch being fhould again animate another. But in the fyftem of the Stoics, the intelligence which originally formed, and that which animated the world, were one and the fame, all inferior intelligences were detached portions of the great one; and therefore, in a longer, or in a fhorter time, were all of them, even the goods themfelves, who animated the celestial bodies, to be at laft refolved into the infinite effence of this almighty Jupiter, who, at a destined period, fhould, by an univerfal conflagration, wrap up all things, in that ætherial and fiery nature, out of which they had originally been deduced, again to

bring forth a new Heaven and a new Earth, new animals, new men, new deities; all of which would again, at a fated time, be fwallowed up in a like conflagration, again to be re-produced, and again to be re-destroyed, and fo on without end.

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