Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/197

 lacies of our Adversaries, than to find that out, of which we before were ignorant. So that the Moderns have enlarged its Bottom; and by adding that Desideratum which the Ancients either did not perfectly know, or, which is worse, did invidiously conceal, namely, the Method of discovering unknown Truths, as Monsieur Tschirnhaus calls it, have, if not made it perfect, yet put it into such a Posture, as that future Industry may very happily compleat it.

Metaphysicks is properly that Science which teaches us those Things that are out of the Sphere of Matter and Motion, and is conversant about God, and Spirits, and Incorporeal Substances. Of these Things Plato and his Disciples wrote a great deal: They plainly saw, that something beyond Matter was requisite to create and preserve the August Frame of the World. If we abstract from Revelation, the Cartesians discourse more intelligibly concerning them, than any of the Ancients. So that though very many of their particular Notions, as also of F. Mallebranches, M. Poyrets, and other Modern Metaphysicians, are justly liable to Exception, yet the main Foundations upon which they reason, are, for the most part, real; and so, by Consequence, the