An inquiry into the origin of the discoveries attributed to the moderns: wherein it is demonstrated that our most celebrated philosophers have, for most part, taken what they advance from the works of the ancients; and that many important truths in religion were known to the pagan sages / Translated from the French of the Revd. Mr. Dutens. With considerable additions communicated by the author.

Louis Dutens

Date:: 1769

Credit: An inquiry into the origin of the discoveries attributed to the moderns: wherein it is demonstrated that our most celebrated philosophers have, for most part, taken what they advance from the works of the ancients; and that many important truths in religion were known to the pagan sages / Translated from the French of the Revd. Mr. Dutens. With considerable additions communicated by the author. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$it was delivered up to the bondage of fin (4). And in the dialogue of Phedon, “ he compares the foul to a winged chariot, which in its ftate of perfection took its flight up to the €k empyrean ; but having afterwards declined from that eftate, loft its wings, and became a prifoner and Have to the tyranny of unwar- i rantabie paillons (b 222, That fublime genius acknowledged alfo umver&i -* ° . c # corruption that there was a general depravity or corruption the confe- T ' <quence of diffufed over the whole of human nature; the original fin, underftanding, the will, and the affeftions. He Plato and , ■» it* font, other concludes the admirable allegory at the begin-ancients, ning of his feventh book of the Republic, by faying that the eye of the mind was immerfed in a deep gulph of barbarity and ignorance. Pie calls the knowledge we have of things, a dark light (c). Pie fays ct that truth is the proper food of man, the province in which he fhoiild a£t; but u complains that this precious treafure was of *c yore corrupted in the head from whence it fprung [b).” Now it is here inconceivable » / (<a) Plat. ibid. Vid. Steuch. Eugub de peren. Philof. !. 9. cap I. Ifl Stilling fleet) Origin. Sacr. lib. 3. c. 3 0 flea. 17 {b) Plat. Phœdo. p, 245. (c) Idem. Rep.j. p. 521. Ignorantiam appellat : vvjcteçiv\v Sipepuv, noéturnam diem. (d) Confitetur naturam noftram in capite olim a prima generatione corruptam eflje ; ex. rn xz(pd,Xri (its<p$ctp[j,hy]v yrspl tw yivvvicriv. Plato in <Tim&o, p> 90. tom. 3.$

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