BOOK I PART IV
malady is said to be natural; as arising from
natural causes, though it be contrary to health,
the most agreeable and most natural situation
of man.
The opinions of the antient philosophers,
their fictions of substance and accident, and
their reasonings concerning substantial forms
and occult qualities, are like the spectres in the
dark, and are derived from principles, which,
however common, are neither universal nor
unavoidable in human nature. The modern
philosophy pretends to be entirely free from
this defect, and to arise only from the solid, per-
manent, and consistent principles of the imag-
ination. Upon what grounds this pretension is
founded must now be the subject of our en-
quiry.
The fundamental principle of that philoso-