Third Book, Chapter I (2)

Division of Learning into Theology and Philosophy. The latter divided into the Knowledge of God, of Nature, and of Man. Construction of Philosophia Prima as the Mother of all the Sciences

ALL history, excellent king, treads the earth, performing the office of a guide rather than of a light: and poetry is, as it were, the stream of knowledge—a pleasing thing full of variations, and affects to be inspired with divine rapture, to which treasures also pretend. But now it is time I should awake and raise myself from the earth, and explore the liquid regions of philosophy and the sciences. Knowledge is like waters; some descend from the heavens, some spring from the earth. For all knowledge proceeds from a twofold source—either from divine inspiration or external sense. As for that knowledge which is infused by instruction, that is cumulative, not original, as it is in waters, which, besides the headsprings, are increased by the reception of other rivers which fall into them. We shall, therefore, divide sciences into theology and philosophy. In the former we do not include natural theology, of which we are to speak anon, but restrict ourselves to inspired divinity, the treatment of which we reserve for the close of the work, as the fruit and sabbath of all human contemplations. Philosophy has three objects; viz., God, nature, and man; as also three kinds of rays—for nature strikes the human intellect with a direct ray, God with a refracted ray, from the inequality of the medium between the Creator and the creatures, and man, as exhibited to himself, with a reflected ray: whence it is proper to divide philosophy into the doctrine of the deity, the doctrine of nature, and the doctrine of man.

But as the divisions of the sciences are not like different lines that meet in one angle, but rather like the branches of trees that join in one trunk, it is first necessary that we constitute a universal science as a parent to the rest, and as making a part of the common road to the sciences before the ways separate. And this knowledge we call “philosophia prima,” primitive or primative or summary philosophy; it has no other for its opposite, and differs from other sciences rather in the limits whereby it is confined than in the subject as treating only the summits of things. And whether this should be noted as wanting may seem doubtful, though I rather incline to note it; for I find a certain rhapsody of natural theology, logics, and physics, delivered in a certain sublimity of discourse, by such as aim at being admired for standing on the pinnacles of the sciences; but what we mean is, without ambition, to design some general science, for the reception of axioms, not peculiar to any one science, but common to a number of them.

Axioms of this kind are numerous; for example, if equals be added to unequals, the wholes will be unequal. This is a rule in mathematics, which holds also in ethics, with regard to distributive justice. For in commutative justice, equity requires, that equal portions be given to unequal persons; but in distributive justice, that unequal portions should be distributed to unequals. Things agreeing to the same third, agree also with one another: this, likewise, is an axiom in mathematics, and, at the same time, so serviceable in logic as to be the foundation of syllogism. Nature shows herself best in her smallest works. This is a rule in philosophy, that produced the atoms of Democritus, and was justly employed by Aristotle in politics, when he begins the consideration of a commonwealth in a family. All things change, but nothing is lost. This is an axiom in physics, and holds in natural theology; for as the sum of matter neither diminishes nor increases, so it is equally the work of omnipotence to create or to annihilate it which even the Scripture testifies: “Didici quod omnia opera, quæ fecit Deus, perseverent in perpetuum: non possumus eis quicquam addere, nec auferre.” Things are preserved from destruction, by bringing them back to their principles. This is an axiom in physics, but holds equally in politics; for the preservation of states, as is well observed by Machiavel, depends upon little more than reforming and bringing them back to their ancient customs. A putrid malady is more contagious in its early than in its more matured stages, holds in natural as in moral philosophy; for wicked and desperately impious persons do not corrupt society so much as they who blend with their vices a mixture of virtue. What tends to preserve the effects of the greatest laws of nature, displays the strongest action, is a rule in natural philosophy. For the first and universal motion, that preserves the chain and contexture of nature unbroken, and prevents a vacuum, as they call it, or empty discontinuity in the world, controls the more particular law which draws heavy bodies to the earth, and preserves the region of gross and compacted natures. The same rule is good in politics; for those things which conduce to the conservation of the entire commonwealth, control and modify those made for the welfare of particular members of a government. The same principle may be observed in theology; for, among the virtues of this class, charity is the most communicative, and excels all the rest. The force of an agent is augmented by the antiperistatis of the counteracting body, is a rule in civil states as in nature, for all faction is vehemently moved and incensed at the rising of a contrary faction.

A discord ending immediately in a concord sets off the harmony. This is a rule in music that holds also true in morals. A trembling sound in music gives the same pleasure to the ear, as the coruscation of water or the sparkling of a diamond to the eye—

“——splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus.”

The organs of the senses resemble the organs of reflection, as we see in optics and acoustics, where a concave glass resembles the eye, and a sounding cavity the ear. And of these axioms an infinite number might be collected; and thus the celebrated Persian magic was, in effect, no more than a notation of the correspondence in the structure and fabric of things natural and civil. Nor let any one understand all this of mere similitudes, as they might at first appear, for they really are one and the same footsteps, and impressions of nature, made upon different matters and subjects. And in this light the thing has not hitherto been carefully treated. A few of these axioms may indeed be found in the writings of eminent men, here and there interspersed occasionally; but a collected body of them, which should have a primitive and summary tendency to the sciences, is not hitherto extant, though a thing of so great moment as remarkable to show nature to be one and the same, which is supposed the office of a primary philosophy.

There is another part of this primary philosophy regarding the adventitious or transcendental condition of things; as little, much, like, different, possible, impossible, entity, nonentity, etc. For as these things do not properly come under physics, and as their logical consideration rather accommodates them to argumentation than existence, it is proper that this point be not quite deserted, as being of considerable dignity and use, so as to have some place in the arrangement of the sciences. But this should be done in a manner very different from the common: for example, no writer who has treated of much and little, endeavors to assign the cause why some things in nature are so numerous and large, and others so rare and small; for, doubtless, it is impossible in the nature of things, that there should be as great a quantity of gold as of iron, or roses as plenty as grass, and as great a variety of specific as of imperfect or non-specific nature. So, likewise, nobody that treats of like and different has sufficiently explained, why between particular species there are almost constantly interposed some things that partake of both; as moss between corruption and a plant; motionless fish between a plant and an animal; bats between birds and quadrupeds, etc. Nor has any one hitherto discovered why iron does not attract iron, as the loadstone does; and why gold does not attract gold, as quicksilver does, etc. But of these particulars we find no mention in the discourses of transcendentals; for men have rather pursued the quirks of words than the subtilties of things. And, therefore, we would introduce into primary philosophy a real and solid inquiry into these transcendentals, or adventitious conditions of beings, according to the laws of nature, not of speech.