458 ON SOME METAPHYSICAL SUBJECTS. teach us, but the inconceivable grandeur, extent and magnificence of -tlìe works and the power of God, the astonishingcontrivances of his wisdom, and the poverty, the weakness and narrowness of our ownunderstandings, all which are lessons well becoming a creature ? ESSAY XI. On some Metaphysical Suljecis. SECT. I. Of nature and Essence. TIIE nature or essence of any being consists in a union of all those things, whether substances, Or modes and properties, which are necessary to make that thingbe what it is. So it is the nature of a triangle to have three lines sojoined as to make three angles ; apd the nature of a spirit to be a thinking self- subsist- ing being; even as extended solid substance is the nature of body : It is the nature of essence of a grove to be a spot of ground thick set with trees, and the nature of man to be a spirit united to an animal of suçh a particular shape; and it is the essence or nature of a rose, to be a flower whose leaves are of such a special figureand such a beautiful faint reddish colour, with such a peculiar smell as are all united in theplant to which we give that name. The nature ofa thing, by philosophers, is called its essence : and a thing may be said to have an essence, or na- ture, when it is not actually in being, if the Iniñd of man can clearly conceive it as possible to be; so an English rose in January, snow in Guinea, or an innocent man on earth, may be said to have an essence among the natureof things, though per- Laps there are not such things actually in being. Note, The essence of mathematical beings, which are but a sort of abstract ideas, are eternal and immutable, and maybe said in the language of the schools to consist in an indivisible point ; for if a square, a triangle, or a circle, want the least part, er degree of its perfection, it fails of some of the properties of that figure, it loses its nature, and ceases to be that figure. But the essences of natural beings, as well as artificial or morel, are not so immutable as philosophers have formerly thought them ; nor do they consist in an indivisible peint ; for natural beings are not ranged by God or man into distinct species, or kinds, so very * Note, This Essay is little more than an amplification of the second chapter of the sketch of Ontology, entice when the author bad some thoughts of compel. re at.rgersystem of that science.
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