The celebrated Mr. Boyle, the great successor of Lord Verulam (St. Albans) in experimental philosophy, is said to have declared against the Philosophy of Aristotle, as having in it more of words than things; promising much and performing little; and giving the Inventions of Men for indubitable proofs, instead of building upon observation and experiment. He was so zealous for, and so scrupulous about, this true method of learning by experiment, that, though the _Cartesian_ philosophy then made a great noise in the world, yet he would never be persuaded to read the works of _Descartes_; for fear he should be amused, and led away, by plausible accounts of things founded on conjecture, and merely hypothetical. (See Art. _Boyle_, in the New and General Biography.)—This great and excellent man was born the same year in which Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, died. Epicurus, the disciple of Democritus, and follower of the Philosophy of Aristotle, was engaged, although unsuccessfully enough, in the labyrinth of Metaphysics, as well as in Physics. He adopted the system of _Atoms_, which Democritus first propagated; and hence appears to be derived Descartes’s equally preposterous doctrine of the _Plenum_ and of _Vortices_. ----- To this cause, then, may be fairly attributed the half-enlightened notions of the Deity,[7] and of a future state, entertained by these pagan searchers after truth. To the same cause may be traced the sentiment that dictated the reply made by Anaxagoras,—when, in consequence of his incessant contemplation of the stars, he was asked, “_if he had no concern for his country?_”—“_I incessantly regard my country_,” said he, pointing to Heaven. ----- Footnote 7: “Nulla gens tam fera, quæ non sciat Deum habendum esse, quamvis ignoret qualem habere deceat.” CIC. de Naturâ Deorum. ----- Plato’s attention to the same celestial science unquestionably enlarged his notions of the Deity, and enabled him to think the more justly of the moral attributes of human nature. According to Plato—whose morality, on the whole, corresponds with the system maintained by Socrates,[8]—the human soul is a ray from the Divinity. He believed, that this minute portion of infinite Wisdom, Goodness and Power, was omniscient, while united with the Parent stock from which it emanated; but, when combined with the body, that it contracted ignorance and impurity from that union. He did not, like his master Socrates, neglect natural philosophy; but investigated many principles which relate to that branch of knowledge:—and, according to this philosopher, all things consisted of two principles,—_God_ and _matter_. ----- Footnote 8: