wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted, and

^S The Advantages of the Book I.XXXIX. And now this atomical phyfiology of the ancients feems to havetwo advantages or pre-eminences belonging to it, the firft whereof isthis, tliat it renders the corporeal world intelligible to us ; fince mechanifmis a thing that we can clearly underfland, and we cannot clearlyand diftinftly conceive any thing in bodies elfe. To fay that this or thatis done by a form or quality, is nothing elfe but to fay, that it is donewe know not how •, or, which is yet more abfurd, to make our veryignorance of the caufe, difguifcd under thofe terms of forms and qualities,to be it felf the caufe of the effeft.Moreover, hot and cokl, red and green, bitter and fweet, ^c. formallyconfidercd, n^ay be clearly conceived by us as different fancies and vitalpjflions in us, occafioned by different motions made from the objedtswithout upon our nerves ; but they can never be clearly underftood asabfolute qualities in the bodies themfelves, really diftindl from their mechanicaldifpofuions ; nor is there indeed any more reafon, why they fhouldbe thought fuch, than that, when a man is pricked with a pin, or woundedwith a fword, the pain which he feels fhould be thought to be an abfolutequality in the pin or fword. So long as our fenfible ideas aretaken cither for fubflantial forms or qualities in bodies without us,really diflinCt from the fubftancc of the matter, fo long are they perfeftlyunintelligible by us. For which caufe Tmaus Locrus ' philofophizing (asit feemeth) after this manner, did confentaneoufly thereunto determine,that corporeal things could not be apprehended by us, otherwife thantxlSt-nTii }c, voda xoyiTiJ.-2, by fenfe and a kind of fpurious or haftardly reafon;that is, that we could have no clear conceptions of them in our underffanding.And for the fame reafon Vlato ^ himfelf diftinguifheth betwixtI'uch things as are vcjJtei \j.i-!'X xiy>s TrtciAtiTrla • comprehenfible by the tinderftandingizith reafon^ and thofe which are only lo^'h (/-it clSmiu; dxoyx, whichcan only be apprehended by opinion^ together ivith a certain irrational fenfe ;meaning plainly, by the latter, corporeal and fenfible things. And accordinglythe Platonids frequently take occafion from hence, to enlargethemfelves much in the difparagement of corporeal things, as being, byreafon of that fmallnefs of entity that is in them, below the underftanding,and not having fo much sVi'av as yivunv ', effence as generation, which indeedis fine fancy. Wherefore we muft either, with thefe philolbphers, makefenfible things to be xxxlaX-^Trlx or aVspiAjiTrla, altogether incomprehenfibleand inconceivable by our human underftandings, (though they be able inthe mean time clearly to conceive many things of a higher nature;) or elfewe muft entertain fome kind of favourable opinion concerning that whichis the ancienteft of all phyfiologies, the atomical or mechanical, which alonerenders fenfible things intelligible.XL. The fccond advantage, which this atomical phyfiology feems tohave, is this, that it prepares an eafy and clear way for the demonftrationof' De Anima Mundi, inter Scriptor. My- phiftam. p. ifi'J, i(J-, & de Repub. Lib. VII.t!"o'.cig. a Tho; Gale editos, p. 545. p. 4S4..» Vide ThejEtetuni, p. 159.1".Oper. Sio- ' Plato de Republica, ubifupra.