of Grævius, of Potter, and of Gronovius. Vide Perion. de Græcor. et Roman. Magistratibus.

' I have here followed what appears to me the sense of Plutarch. Cragius seems to have thought that the senate possessed more extensive authority. De Rep. Lacon. L. ii. C. 3.

10 Plutarch, in stating the different opinions of Aristotle and Sphærus, concerning the number of members who composed the Spartan senate, has attributed to the last mentioned author, a very absurd and extraordinary opinion. The biographer says, that Sphærus probably supposed, that Lycurgus had fixed upon twenty-eight senators, because that number is composed of seven multiplied by four, and is the first complete number after six. It seems hard to say, by what Plutarch could be induced to accuse the Stoic of so preposterous a sentiment. All the world knows Pythagoras was the first who introduced into Greece the mystical doctrine of numbers; and Lycurgus flourished at least a century before the philosopher of Samos.

It appears the more extraordinary that Plutarch should attribute this notion to Sphærus, as it is clear that the Stoics did not pay so much attention to numbers as the Pythagoreans, or even the Platonists. Pythagoras, in his exoteric dis

courses, prepared the mind, by the help of his scientific and intelligible numbers, to comprehend his doctrine of emanation, when the axouMalix were admitted behind the curtain. Plato, it is well known, delighted to apply mathematical, and even arithmetical learning, to metaphysical and abstract questions. In his Timæus, Plato might almost be imagined the disciple of Pythagoras. But the Stoics, who would not admit, with the Pythagoreans, the system of emanation, and who would not, with the Platonists and the Peripatetics, acknowledge two primary and opposing principles; but who maintained the monstrous hypothesis of a material god, of an efficient cause combined with the universal substance, and of an eternal fire which pervades nature, and acts upon the whole universe without any intermediate aid; the Stoics, I say, could have no occasion to adopt the numerical dreams of the disciple of Thales.

I confess, I am led to suspect, that Plutarch himself was more likely to indulge the supposition he has ascribed to Sp' ærus, than any disciple or follower of Zeno. The learned Cudworth, with his usual erudition, hath proved the biographer a Ditheist (B. i. C. 4.). It appears that his philosophy was a rude mixture of many

H

systems; awkwardly patching together the ethics of Aristotle with the metaphysics of Plato, and the assertions of the dogmatists, with the doubts of the Pyrrhonists. Concerning the Pythagorean doctrine of numbers, vide Jamblichum in Vita Pythagoræ; Nicomachi Enchiridion Harmonicum; Stanley's Lives of the Philosophers; and that curious dissertation of Leibnitz called Ars combinatoria, in which it appears that he was desirous of establishing a system, not unlike the Pythagorean.

"Cicero de Finibus.

32

The love of order is necessarily connected with the love and practice of morality. Paley.

13

By the moral sense we are enabled to perceive the lò xλov in virtuous actions; by reason, we discover the essential difference of things, and by the same faculty we infer the obligation to moral rectitude, as being agreeable to the supreme intelligence.

A

REVIEW

OF THE

GOVERNMENT OF ATHENS,

AS CONSTITUTED BY

SOLON.

Nihil porro tam aptum est ad jus conditionemque naturæ, quod cum dico legem à me dici, nihilque aliud intelligi volo, quam imperium, sine quo, nec domus ulla, nec civitas, nec gens, nec hominum universum genus stare, nec rerum natura omnis, nec ipse mundus, potest. Nam et hic Deo paret, et huic obediunt maria terræque, et hominum vita jussis supremæ legis obtemperat.

CIC. DE LEG.

Adsunt Athenienses, unde humanitas, doctrina, religio, fruges, jura, leges, ortæ sunt, atque in omnes terras distributæ. CICERO PRO FLACCO.

Erat populi Attici ingenium, sublime, acre, sapientia valens, quo tantum reliquos Grecia populos anteibat, quantum hi gentes barbaras superabant. UBB. EMMII Appendix.