Icing is either notional or real ; notional, as it is con ceived in the mind ; real, as it exists in nature. No tional being is either true or false ; true, when it cor responds to the real nature of things ; false, when the conception and the reality differ front each other. In the knowledge of things immutable the intellect cannot be deceived ; mistake and error can only arise concerning contingent and variable objects.
Aristotle's notions respecting the first mover were, in some respects, sublime ; in others confused and unin telligible. He admitted an original principle of motion, which he said must be simple pure energy, void of mat ter, eternal, immutable. The essence of the first mover is different from that of corporeal substances, indivisible, because unity is perfect ; immutable, because nothing can change itself; and eternal, because motion itself is eternal : (this is a gratuitous assumption.) This power is an incorporeal intelligence ; happy in the contempla tion of himself; the first cause of all motion ; and, in fine, the Being of Beings, or God.
As to the soul, he said that it was the principle of ac tion in au organized body possessing life potentially. It does not move itself, for whatever moves is moved by some other moving power. It is not a rare body com posed of elements ; for then it would not have percep tion, more than the elements which compose it. The soul has three facul ties, t he nutritive, the sensitive, and the rational ; the superior comprehending the inferior po tentially. The nutritive faculty is that by which life is produced and preserved. The sensitive is that by which we perceive and feel ; it does not perceive itself, nor its organs, but some external object, through the interven tion of its organs, which are adapted to produce the sen sations of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. The senses receive sensible species or forms without matter, as wax receives the impression of a seal without receiv ing any part of its substance, the external senses perceive objects, hut it is the common or internal sense which observes their difference.
He defined the mind to be the principle by which we live, perceive, and understand. When he attempted to form an abstract conception of this principle, he saw that there must be some substance which enjoys such per fection, as to be capable of performing this function : and in defining this substance, he made use of a term, which his followers suppose to express some very profound and recondite meaning : he called it Entelecheia, that is,per fection, or perfect energy. This word was conceived to be so very mysterious, that Hermolaus Birbarus, who translated the Rhetoric, and other pieces of Aristotle, is said to have implored the assistance of a divinity to enable hint to understand its meaning : had he obtained this favour, it is probable that he would have been farther advanced than Aristotle who framed it. It was differ
ently understood by different authors, according as it suited their particular views, and is thus explained by Leibnitz to accommod Ile his leading hypothesis : Nomen Ent elcchiarum imponi possit omnibus substantiis bus sett monadibus creatis.
Aristotle's metaphysical notions respecting matter were very singular, and we believe we may say incom prehensible. This, of course, is not admitted by adepts, who maintain that he has given us the only intelligible views on the subject. \Ve shall allow the master and the scholars to explain their own ideas Matter, accord ing to Aristotle, is either vrecorn or vreoc-cps; that is, pri mary or proximate. Thus, Iron and wood are not of the same proximate matter ; hut their primary or elementary matter is the same. If the primary matter did not exist, neither could the proximate or immediate. The primary matter is neither earth, nor air, nor fire., nor water ; it is neither hot, nor cold, nor dry, nor moist, nor solid, not extended. It is the universal element, but can never become objective to sense. Spinoza, who was an acute sophist, and a deep read, though we cannot think a pro found ntetaphy sician, availed himself of these sublimated, or rather incomprehensible notions of matter, to establish his system of universal materialism, by which he makes; Deity himself material. The French philosophists, during the revolutionary phrenzy, went still farther than this ; and one of them had the insanity to announce, that he hoped soon to be able to ascertain the particular form of crystallization which constituted Deity ! Spinoza, like Aristotle, contended that primary 'natter, or sub stance as he calls it, is something completely distinct from any of its modifications, in order to elude the ob jections which had been urged against his system, from the mutability and divisibility of matter. For it was sail with justice, that if Deity was material, the self-existent and eternal principle which Spinoza admitted must be mutable and divisible, wilier is absurd. Sir William Drummond, in his academical questions, has given a pretty full exposition of the p'tysical and moral system of Spinoza, and has given every advantage to the interlo cutor who supports it, without adducing any counter balancing refutation.