3. Of the formation of our planetary system, and particularly of our world and of man, a vast variety of accounts were given by the different philosophers of Greece and Rome, a very fair description of which may be met with in the first volume of the Universal History, and in Stanley’s History of Philosophy. Many of these cosmogonists have been highly celebrated for their wisdom; and yet, unless we suppose their theories to have been in a great degree allegorical, or to have contained some secret meaning, they exhibit an inconceivable mass of nonsense. But some of them, for instance that of Sanchoniathon, so largely discussed by Bishop Cumberland, are clearly allegorical: of course all such must be excepted from this condemnation.
If a person will apply his mind without prejudice to a consideration of the characters and doctrines of the ancient cosmogonists of the western part of the world, he must agree with me that they exhibit an extraordinary mixture of sense and nonsense, wisdom and folly—views of the creation, and its cause or causes, the most profound and beautiful, mixed with the most puerile conceits—conceits and fancies below the understanding of a plough-boy. How is this to be accounted for? The fact cannot be denied. Of the sayings of the wise men, there was not one, probably, more wise than that of the celebrated Γνωθι σεαυτον, Know thyself, and probably there was not one to which so little regard has been paid. It is to the want of attention to this principle that I attribute most of the absurdities with which the wise and learned, perhaps in all ages, may be reproached. Man has forgotten or been ignorant that his faculties are limited. He has failed to mark the line of demarcation, beyond which his knowledge could not extend. Instead of applying his mind to objects cognizable by his senses, he has attempted subjects above the reach of the human mind, and has lost and bewildered himself in the mazes of metaphysics. He has not known or has not attended to what has been so clearly proved by Locke, that no idea can be received except through the medium of the senses. He has endeavoured to form ideas without attending to this principle, and, as might well be expected, he has run into the greatest absurdities, the necessary consequence of such imprudence. Very well the profound and learned Thomas Burnet says,[1] “Sapientia prima est stultitia caruisse;” “primusque ad veritatem gradus præcavere errores.” Again he says, “Sapientis enim est, non tantum ea quæ sciri possunt, scire: sed etiam quæ sciri “non possunt, discernere et discriminare.”[2]
It must not be understood from what I have said, that I wish to put a stop to all metaphysical researches; far from it. But I do certainly wish to controul them, to keep them within due bounds, and to mark well the point beyond which, from the nature of our organization, we cannot proceed. Perhaps it may not be possible to fix the exact point beyond which the mind of man can never go, but it may be possible to say without doubt, of some certain point, beyond this he has not yet advanced. By this cautious mode of proceeding, though we may pretend to less knowledge, we may in fact possess more.
For these various reasons I shall pass over, without notice, the different theories of the formation of the world by the sages of Greece and Rome. In general they seem to me to deserve no notice, to be below the slightest consideration of a person of common understanding. As a curious record of what some of the wise men of antiquity were, they are interesting and worthy of preservation: as a rational exposé of the origin of things, they are nothing.
Among the subjects to which I allude as being above the reach of the human understanding are Liberty and Necessity, the Eternity of Matter, and several other similar subjects.
4. Our information of the historical transactions which it is supposed took place previous to the catastrophe,[3] and its attendant flood, which destroyed the ancient world, is very small. Mons.
