It was hence, too, that they inferred the immortality of the soul. They reasoned thus: "Vital motion may forsake the body, because to the body it is not an essential; and in such case the body is said to die. But vital motion cannot forsake the soul, because to the soul it is an essential, and it is not possible that any thing should be forsaken by itself." But this by way of digression. As to the rise and duration of motion, the founder of the Peripatetic sect thus states the question. "Was motion (says he) ever generated without existing before; and is it ever again so destroyed, that there is nothing moved; or was it neither generated, nor is destroyed, but ever was, and will be; something appertaining to beings, which is immortal and unceasing; a kind of life, as it were, to all things that exist by the power of nature ?"m Those who meditate an answer to these queries, will remember that motion is coeval with the universe, since we learn that, in its first and earliest era, "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."" They will remember, too, that motion is as old as time, and their co-existence so necessary, it is not possible to suppose the one, without supposing the other. And thus, having before considered physical motion, have we now considered what may be called metaphysical, or (if I may use the expression) causative motion; including under this name every animating power, whether rational or irrational, which, though different from body acts upon body, causing it to live, to grow, and move itself and other bodies. These animating powers are only known from their effects, as the painter's art is known from his pictures. And hence, as it is the effect which leads us to recognise the cause, hence these animating powers, though prior in existence to physical effects, are necessarily subsequent in human contemplation, and are thence, and thence only, called metaphysical. 1 Quod autem motum adfert alicui, quodque ipsum agitatur alicunde, quando finem habet motus, vivendi finem habeat necesse est. Solum igitur, quod seipsum movet, quia nunquam deseritur a se, nunquam ne moveri quidem desinit. Quinetiam, &c. Cic. Tuscul. Disp. i. 23. The whole passage, which is rather too long to transcribe, is the translation of an argument taken from Plato's Phædrus: Τὸ δὲ ἄλλο κινοῦν, καὶ ὑπ ̓ ἄλλου κινούμενον, K. T. X. Plat. edit. Ficini. p. 1221. B. See Macrobius in Somn. Scipionis, c. 13. Cicero has used the same argument, in his tract de Senectute: Cumque semper agitetur animus, nec principium motus habeat, quia se ipse moveat, ne finem quidem habiturum esse motus, quia nunquam se ipse sit relicturus. Cap. 21. Quinctilian has brought the argument into the form of a syllogism: Quicquid ex seipso movetur, immortale est: anima autem ex seipsa movetur: immortalis igitur est anima. Inst. Orat. v. 14. κι Πότερον δὲ γέγονέ ποτε κίνησις, οὐκ οὖσα πρότερον, καὶ φθείρεται πάλιν οὕτως, ὥστε κινεῖσθαι μηδέν· ἢ οὔτε ἐγένετο, οὔτε φθείρεται, ἀλλ ̓ ἀεὶ ἦν, καὶ ἔσται, καὶ τοῦτ ̓ ἀθάνατον καὶ ἄπαυστον ὑπάρχει τοῖς οὖσιν, οἷον ζωή τις οὖσα τοῖς φύσει συνEσTWOι não; Arist. Phys. 1. viii. c. 1. p. 144. edit. Sylb. n Genesis, chap. i. See p. 368. As to the character and subordination of the several animating powers, see before, p. 372, and so on to p. 377, as well in the text as in the notes. See also chap. vi. And now, having done with motion, we must take some notice of rest. The most obvious species of rest is that opposed to the most obvious species of motion; such, for example, as the cessation of gales, after they have been fresh and blowing: Ingrato celeres obruit otio Horat. Od. 1. i. 16. The cessation of billows, after they had been loud and tempestuous: Silence, ye troubled waves, and thou deep, peace. Par. Lost, vii. 216. But it is expedient to be more particular. The two instances of rest, that we have alleged, are of motion purely local. So is it, when the flight of an arrow is spent; when a bowl, that has been running, stops. But rest is also connected with the other species of motion. The cessation of growth is maturity; of the vital energies, is death. So, too, with respect to the higher faculties of the soul, sense and reason. The rest of the sensitive powers, after the labours of the day, is sleep : Dulcis et alta quies, placidæque simillima morti. Æn. vi. 522. The rest of the passions, after having been agitated, is composure and equanimity; the rest of the deliberative and reasoning powers, after sedulous investigation, is the discovery of the thing sought, or rather the acquiescence in truth discovered, either real or apparent, either practical or speculative. And hence, in the last mode of rest, or acquiescence, the rise of our English phrase, I am fixed; and of the Latin phrase, Stat: Stat conferre manum." Æn. xii. 678. Hence science in Greek is called éπiστýμn, every theorem being, as it were, a resting place, at which the man of science stops." P Both these species of rest are denoted in English by the common name of calm. The Greeks, with their usual precision, have given a different name to each the first, that is, the "wind-calm," they call νηνεμία, and define it ηρεμία ἐν πλήθει dépos, "tranquillity in a quantity of air;" the second, that is, the "sea-calm," they call yaλýn, and define it duaλóτηs Oaλáττης, evenness in the sea's surface." These definitions are of Archytas, and may be found in Aristotle's Metaph. p. 136. edit. Sylb. 66 Plato has brought the two terms together, in those harmonious lines, delivered by Agatho in the Banquet. Εἰρήνη μὲν ἐν ἀνθρώποις, πελάγει δὲ γαλήνην, See Platon. Symp. p. 1190. edit. Fic. See also the learned and ingenious translation of Mr. Sydenham, p. 118. 9 See before, Hermes, p. 132, and of this treatise, p. 348. The incomparable Sanctius, in his Minerva, gives the following excellent explanation of this passage: Quamdiu enim deliberatur, consilium vacillat, et sententia fluctuat; ubi certum ac statutum est, quod quis facere vult, consistit consilium, et stat sententia. Sanct. Minerv. 1. iv. c. 4. p. 637. edit. Amst. 1733. In Perizonius's note upon this part of Sanctius, it appears that sedet is used in the same signification, and for the same reasons. See the note following. s Ἔτι δὲ καὶ ἡ νόησις ἔοικεν ἠρεμήσει Νηνεμίαν ἀνέμων, κοίτην ὕπνον τ ̓ ἐνὶ τινὶ, καὶ ἐπιστάσει μᾶλλον ἢ κινήσει : κήδει. "Intellection appears to resemble a certain Lastly, there is a rest of all the most interesting to mankind, I mean peace, that happy rest, which follows the trepidations and ravages of war. And now, having done with rest, let us bring the whole to a conclusion. We have said already, that the cause of all animal motion is good, either real or apparent. It is a further requisite, that it should be good, which is wanting; good at a distance: for were it present, the motion would then be superfluous. Thus we see the meaning of the philosophical critic, Scaliger: motionis enim appetentia causa est; appetentia, privatio: "the cause of motion is appetition; of appetition, is privation." It is to this privation, or want, that the wisdom of all ages has imputed industry, perseverance, and the invention of arts and sciences. This, in Virgil, is the Duris urgens in rebus egestas." Georg. i. 146. To this alludes Epicharmus, the poet and philosopher: Τῶν πόνων Πωλοῦσιν ἡμῖν πάντα γὰρ τ' ἀγαθ ̓ οἱ θεοί. "The gods Sell us all goods at labour's painful price." Xenoph. Mem. 1. ii. c. 1. To this alludes the scripture, at man's earliest period, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.* But though want be thus essential to set man, and not only man, but all animal nature, in motion, yet is want itself an imperfection; and to be in want is to be imperfect. And hence it follows, that true greatness, or superiority of nature, consists not in having many wants, even though we can find means to get them gratified; but in having as few as possible, and those within the compass of our own abilities. It is to this doctrine that Virgil nobly alludes, when he makes Evander with an heroic dignity receive Æneas, not at the gates of a proud palace, but at the door of an humble cottage: Ut ventum ad sedes, hæc, inquit, limina victor Alcides subiit; hæc illum regia cepit: Aude, hospes, contemnere opes, et te quoque dignum Æn. viii. 362. Conformable to the same way of thinking is what Socrates says to Antipho in Xenophon: "You seem, (says he,) O Antipho, to be one of those who imagine happiness to be luxury and expense. But I, for my part, esteem the wanting of nothing to be divine; and the wanting of as little as possible, to come nearest to the divinity; and, as the divinity is most excellent, so the resting and standing still, rather than a motion." De An. 1. i. c. 3. See Hermes, p. 223, where this etymology is treated of more at large. Scalig. de Causis Ling. Lat. c. 114. "See p. 6, and p. 16, note. Gen. iii. 19. being nearest to the divinity is the being nearest to the most excellent." y Aristotle seems to have followed his old master (for such was Socrates) with respect to this sentiment: "To that being (says he) which is in the most excellent state, happiness appears to appertain without action at all; to the being nearest to the most perfect, through a small and single action; to those the most remote, through actions many and various." He soon after subjoins the reason, why the most excellent being has no need of action: "It has (says he) within itself the final cause;" that is to say, perfect happiness; but action always exists in two, when there is both a final cause and a power to obtain it, each of them separate and detached from one another.a And hence, perhaps, we may be able to discern, why immobility should be a peculiar attribute to the Supreme and Divine Nature, in contradistinction to all other beings endued with powers of perception. To him there are no wants, nothing absent which is good, being himself the very essence of pure perfection and goodness." And so much for that motion which, though subsequent in contemplation to the physical, and thence called metaphysical, is yet truly prior to it in the real order of beings, because it appertains to the first philosophy. So much also for the theory of motion. y "Eoikas, & 'Avtipŵv, Thy evdaiuovíav οἰομένῳ τρυφὴν καὶ πολυτέλειαν εἶναι· ἐγὼ δὲ νομίζω τὸ μὲν μηδενὸς δεῖσθαι, θεῖον εἶναι, τὸ δὲ ὡς ἐλαχίστων, ἐγγυτάτω τοῦ Θείου· καὶ τὸ μὲν Θεῖον, κράτιστον, τὸ δὲ ἐγγυτάτω τοῦ Θεῖου, ἐγγυτάτω τοῦ κραTOTOV. Xenoph. Memorabil. I. i. c. 6. sect. 10. 2 Εοικε γὰρ τῷ μὲν ἄριστα ἔχοντι ὑπάρχειν τὸ εὖ ἄνευ πράξεως· τῷ δὲ ἐγγύτατα, διὰ ὀλίγης καὶ μιᾶς· τοῖς δὲ ποῤῥωτάτω, dià mλeióvæv. Arist. de Cœlo. 1. ii. c. 12. p. 54. edit. Sylb. * Τῷ δ ̓ ὡς ἄριστα ἔχοντι οὐδὲν δεῖ πράξεως, ἔστι γὰρ ἐν αὐτῷ τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα· ἡ δὲ πρᾶξίς ἐστιν ἀεὶ ἐν δυσὶν, ὅταν καὶ οὗ ἕνεκα ᾖ, καὶ τὸ τούτου ἕνεκα. Ibid. The following remark may perhaps explain this sentiment, if it should appear ob scure. When a being finds its good fully and wholly within itself, then, itself and its good being one, it finds no cause of motion to seek that which it possesses already. Such being, therefore, from its very nature, is immoveable. But when a being and its good are separate, here, as they necessarily are two, the distant good, by being perceived, becomes a final cause of motion, and thus awakens within the being a certain desire, of which desire motion is the natural consequence. Such being, therefore, by its nature is move able. Ammonius, in the following quotation, appears to have had this doctrine and these passages of Aristotle in his view. Οσα γοῦν πλειόνων τινῶν δέεται, πλείονας κινήσεις κινεῖται· τὰ δὲ ὀλιγοδεῖ, ὀλι γοκίνητα· ἀμέλει τὸ Θεῖον, ἀνενδεὲς ὂν, καὶ πάντη ἐστιν ἀκίνητον: “ All such beings as are in want of many things, are moved in many motions; those who have few wants, have few motions; but the Divinity being without wants, is therefore perfectly immoveable." Am. in Præd. 144. B. 145. b See before, p. 296. See before, p. 368. CHAPTER XVIII. CONCLUSION-UTILITIES DEDUCIBLE FROM THE THEORY OF THESE ARRANGEMENTS-RECAPITULATION. d AND thus having finished the doctrine of these Philosophical Arrangements, or, in other words, of categories, predicaments, comprehensive or universal genera, (for we have called them indifferently by every one of these names,) together with such speculations both previous and subsequent, as were either requisite to explain the subject, or else naturally arose out of it; we imagine the utilities of this knowledge will be obvious to every one who has studied it with impartiality, and has aimed to know what it really is. In the first place, as we have usually begun the consideration of each arrangement from speculations respecting body, and have thence made a transition to others respecting mind; we may hence mark the connection between these two great principles which stand related to each other, as the subject and its efficient cause, and in virtue of that relation may be said to run through all things. Again: our mind, by this orderly and comprehensive theory, becoming furnished, like a good library, with proper cells or apartments, we know where to place our ideas both of being and its attributes, and where to look for them again, when we have occasion to call them forth. Without some arrangement of this sort, the mind is so far from increasing in knowledge by the acquisition of new ideas, that, while it increases the number of these, it does but increase its own perplexity. It is no longer a library well regulated, but a library crowded and confused: Ubi multa supersunt, Et dominum fallunt. Horat. Epist. 1. i. 6. Again as these Arrangements have a necessary connection with the whole of existence, with all being or substance on one hand, with every possible accident or attribute on the other; it follows, of course, that so general a speculation must have naturally introduced many others; speculations not merely logical, but extending to physics, to ethics, and even to the first philosophy. The reader, from these incidental theorems, (if the author has succeeded in his endeavours to represent them,) will have a taste how the ancients wrote, when they reasoned upon these subjects, and may gratify his curiosity (if he please) by comparing them with the moderns. It was not from an ostentatious wish to fill his page with d See before, p. 258, 9, 360; and below, p. 384. e See before, p. 258. f See before, p. 253. |