This is faid to be the origin of the word Metaphyfic. The fubject of thefe fourteen books is miscellaneous: yet the Peripatetics feem to have confidered them as conftituting but one 1 branch of science; the place of which in their fyftem may be thus conceived. All philosophy is either speculative or practical. The practical regulates the moral and intellectual operations of men, and therefore comprehends ethics and logic. The fpeculative rests in the knowledge of truth; and is divided into three parts, to wit, Physics, which inquire into the nature of material substances, and the human foul; Mathematics, which confider certain properties of body as abstracted from body; and this Metaphyfic, (which Ariftotle is faid to have called Theology, and the First Philosophy), which, befides fome remarks on truth in general, the method of difcovering it, and the errors of former philofophers, explains, first, the general properties of being; and, fecondly, the nature of things feparate from matter, namely, of God the one firft caufe, and of the forty-feven inferior deities. Following the notion, that these fourteen books comprehend only one part of philofophy, the Chriftian Peripatetics divided metaphyfics into univerfal and particular. In the first, they treated of being, and its properties and parts, confidered as it is be Z z 2 ing ing *; in the fecond, of God and angels. The fchoolmen disjoined the philofophy of the human mind from phyfics, where Aristotle had placed it; and added it to metaphyfics, becaufe its object is an immaterial fubftance. So that their metaphyfics confifted of three parts; Ontology, in which they pretended to explain the general properties of being; Pneumatics, which treated of the human mind; and Natural Theology, which treated of the Supreme Being, and of those fpirits which have either no body at all, or one fo very fine as to be imperceptible to human fenfe. From the account we have given of the Imanner in which Ariftotle's works were first published, the reader will admit, that fome of the errors to be found in them may reafonably enough be imputed to the first tranfcribers and editors. It was a grofs error in diftribution, to reduce God, and the inferior deities, who were conceived to be a particular fpecies of beings, to the fame clafs with those qualities or attributes that are common to all being, and to treat of both in the fame part of philofophy. It was no lefs improper than if a phyfiologist should compofe a treatife "Of men, horfes, and i dentity." This inaccuracy could not have * Metaphyfique univerfelle-a laquelle il est traité de l'eftant, et des fes proprietez, et des parties ou membres de l'eftant, felon qu'il eft eftant, &c. Bouju. efcaped 1 escaped Aristotle it is to be charged on his editors, who probably mistook a series of treatises on various fubjects for one treatise on one particular fubject. To many this may seem a trifling mistake; but it has produced important confequences. It led the earlier Peripatetics into the impropriety of explaining the divine existence, and the general properties of being, by the fame method of reasoning; and it induced the schoolmen to confound the important fciences of pneumatics and natural theology with the idle distinctions and logomachies of ontology. Natural theology ought to confift of legitimate inferences from the effect to the caufe; pneumatics, or the philosophy of the human mind, are nothing but a detail of facts, illuftrated, methodized, and applied to practice, by obvious and convincing reafonings both fciences are founded in experience; but ontology pretends to ascertain its principles by demonstrations a priori. In fact, though ontology were, what it professes to be, an explication of the general properties of being, it could not throw any light on natural theology and pneumatics; for in them the ontological method of reafoning would be as improper as the mathematical. But the fyftems of ontology that have come into my hands are little better than vocabularies of thofe hard words which the fchoolmen had contrived, in order to give. an air of mystery and importance to their doctrine. : doctrine. While, therefore, the fciences of Natural Theology and Pneumatics were, by this prepofterous divifion, referred to the fame part of philofophy with ontology, how was it poffible they could profper, or be explained by their own proper evidence! In fact, they did not profper: experience, their proper evidence, was laid afide; and fictitious theory, difguifed by ontological terms and diftinctions, and fupported by ontological reafoning, was fubftituted in its ftead. LOCKE was one of the first who rescued the philofophy of human nature out of the hands of the schoolmen, cleared it of the enormous incumbrance of strange words which they had heaped upon it, and fet the example of afcertaining our internal operations, not by theory, but by experience. His fuccefs was wonderful: for, though he has fometimes fallen into the fcholaftic way of arguing, as in his first book, and fometimes fuffered himself to be impofed on by words, as in his account of fecondary qualities, too rafhly adopted from the Cartefians; yet has he done more to establish the abstract sciences on a proper foundation, than could have been expected from one man, who derived almost all his lights from himself. His fucceffors, BUTLER and HUTCHESON excepted, have not been very fortunate. BERKELEY'S book, though written with a good defign, did more harm than good, by recommending and exemplifying a method of argumentation fub verfive verfive of all knowledge, and leading directly to univerfal fcepticism. Mr HUME'S Treatife and Effays are ftill more exceptionable. This author has revived the fcholaftic way of reasoning from theory, and of wresting facts to make them coincide with it. His language indeed is more modifh, but equally favourable to fophiftical argument, and equally proper for giving an air of plaufibility and importance to what is frivolous or unintelligible. What regard we are to pay to his profeffion of arguing from experience has been already confidered. The word metaphyfics, according to vulgar ufe, is applied to all difquifitions concerning things immaterial. In this fenfe, the plaineft account of the faculties of the mind, and of the principles of morality and natural religion, would be termed metaphyfics. Such metaphyfics, however, we are fo far from defpifing or cenfuring, that we account it the fublimest and most useful part of science. Those arguments alfo and illustrations in the abstract philofophy, which are not obvious to ordinary understandings, are fometimes called metaphyfical. But as the principles of this philofophy, however well expreffed, appear fomewhat abftrufe to one who is but a novice in the study; and as very plain principles may feem intricate in an author who is inattentive to his expreffion, as the best authors fometimes are, it would be unfair to reject, or conceive a prejudice against |