[429] 'Moral evidence:' alluding to a ridiculous and absurd way of some mathematicians in calculating the gradual decay of moral evidence by mathematical proportions; according to which calculation, in about fifty years it will be no longer probable that Julius Caesar was in Gaul, or died in the senate-house.--P. W.
[430] 'The high priori road:' those who, from the effects in this visible world, deduce the eternal power and Godhead of the First Cause, though they cannot attain to an adequate idea of the Deity, yet discover so much of him as enables them to see the end of their creation, and the means of their happiness; whereas they who take this high priori road (such as Hobbes, Spinoza, Descartes, and some better reasoners) for one that goes right, ten lose themselves in mists, or ramble after visions, which deprive them of all right of their end, and mislead them in the choice of the means.--P. W.
[431] 'Make Nature still:' this relates to such as, being ashamed to assert a mere mechanic cause, and yet unwilling to forsake it entirely, have had recourse to a certain plastic nature, elastic fluid, subtile matter, &c.--P. W.
'Thrust some mechanic cause into his place, Or bind in matter, or diffuse in space:'
The first of these follies is that of Descartes; the second, of Hobbes; the third, of some succeeding philosophers.--P. W.
[433] 'Bright image:' bright image was the title given by the later Platonists to that vision of nature which they had formed out of their own fancy, so bright that they called it [Greek: Autopton Agalma], or the self-seen image, i. e., seen by its own light. This _ignis fatuus_ has in these our times appeared again in the north; and the writings of Hutcheson, Geddes, and their followers, are full of its wonders. For in this _lux borealis_, this self-seen image, these second-sighted philosophers see everything else.--Scribl. W. Let it be either the Chance god of Epicurus, or the Fate of this goddess.--W.
[434] 'Theocles:' thus this philosopher calls upon his friend, to partake with him in these visions:
'To-morrow, when the eastern sun With his first beams adorns the front Of yonder hill, if you're content To wander with me in the woods you see, We will pursue those loves of ours, By favour of the sylvan nymphs: