Chapter IV (2)

Division of the Speculative Branch of Natural Philosophy into Physics and Metaphysics. Physics relate to the Investigation of Efficient Causes and Matter; Metaphysics to that of Final Causes and the Form. Division of Physics into the Sciences of the Principles of Things, the Structure of Things, and the Variety of Things. Division of Physics in relation to the Variety of Things into Abstract and Concrete. Division of Concretes agrees with the Distribution of the Parts of Natural History. Division of Abstracts into the Doctrine of Material Forms and Motion. Appendix of Speculative Physics twofold: viz., Natural Problems and the Opinions of Ancient Philosophers. Metaphysics divided into the Knowledge of Forms and the Doctrine of Final Causes

THE speculative or theoretical part of natural philosophy we divide into physics and metaphysics; taking the word metaphysics in a sense different from that received. And here we must, once for all, declare, as to our use of words, that though our conceptions and notions are new, and different from the common, yet we religiously retain the ancient forms of speech; for as we hope that the method, and clear explanation, we endeavor at, will free us from any misconstruction that might arise from an ill choice of words; so in everything else, it is our desire, as much as possible, without prejudice to truth and the sciences, not to deviate from ancient opinions and forms of speech. And here I cannot but wonder that Aristotle should proceed in such a spirit of contradiction, as he did to all antiquity; not only coining new terms of science at pleasure, but endeavoring to abolish all the knowledge of the ancients; so that he never mentions any ancient author but to reprove him, nor opinion but to confute it; which is the ready way to procure fame and followers. For certainly it happens in philosophical, as it does in divine truth: “I came in the name of my Father, and ye received me not; but if one came in his own name, ye would receive him.” Which divine aphorism, as applied to Antichrist, the great deceiver, plainly shows us that a man’s coming in his own name, without regard to antiquity or paternity, is no good sign of truth, though joined with the fortune and success of being received. But for so excellent and sublime a genius as Aristotle, one would think he caught this ambition from his scholar, and affected to subdue all opinions, as Alexander did all nations; and thus erect himself a monarchy in his own contemplation. Though for this, perhaps, he may not escape the lash of some severe pen, no more than his pupil; and be called a successful ravager of learning, as the other was of countries. Some are doubtless disposed to treat him with the same courtesy as his scholar, in saying,

But on the other hand, desiring, by all possible means, to cultivate and establish a free commerce between ancient and modern learning, we judge it best religiously to side with antiquity, and therefore to retain ancient terms, though we frequently alter their sense, according to that moderate and laudable usage in politics, of introducing a new state of things, without changing the styles and titles of government.

Thus then we distinguish metaphysics, as may appear by what was above delivered, from primary philosophy, which has hitherto been taken from it, making this the common parent of the sciences, and that a part of natural philosophy. We have assigned the common and promiscuous axioms of the sciences to primitive philosophy; and all relative and accidental conditions of essences, which we call transcendent, as multitude, paucity, identity, diversity, possible, impossible, and the like, we have included in the same province, with this understanding, that they be handled according to their effects in nature, and not logically. We have referred the inquiry concerning God, unity, goodness, angels, and spirits, to natural philosophy. But to assign the proper office of metaphysics, as contradistinguished from primary philosophy, and natural theology, we must note, that as physics regards the things which are wholly immersed in matter and movable, so metaphysics regards what is more abstracted and fixed; that physics supposes only existence, motion, and natural necessity, while metaphysics supposes also mind and idea. But to be more express: as we have divided natural philosophy into the investigation of causes, and the production of effects, and referred the investigation of causes to theory, which we again divide into physical and metaphysical; it is necessary that the real difference of these two be drawn from the nature of the causes they inquire into; and therefore, plainly, physics inquires into the efficient and the matter, and metaphysics into the form and the end. Physics, therefore, is vague and unstable as to causes, and treats movable bodies as its subjects, without discovering a constancy of causes in different subjects. Thus the same fire gives hardness to clay and softness to wax, though it be no constant cause either of hardness or softness.

We divide physics into three parts; for nature is either collected into one total, or diffused and distributed. Nature is directed in its collocations either by the common elements in the diversity of things, or by the unity which prevails in the one integral fabric of the universe. Whence this union of nature produces two parts of physics; the one relating to the principles of things, and the other to the structure of the universe; while the third exhibits all the possible varieties and lesser collections of things. And this latter is like a first gloss, or paraphrase in the interpretation of nature. None of the three are deficient entirely, but how justly and solidly they have been treated is another question.

The third part we again divide into two others, with regard to concretes and abstracts, or into physics of creatures and physics of natures: the one inquiring into substances, and all the variety of their accidents; the other into accidents through all the variety of substances. Thus if inquiry be made about a lion or an oak; these support many different accidents: so if the inquiry were about heat or gravity; these are found in many different substances. But as all physics lies in the middle, between natural history and metaphysics; so the former part approaches nearer to natural history, and the latter to metaphysics.

Concrete physics has the same division with natural history; being conversant either about celestial appearances, meteors, and the terrestrial globe; or about the larger assemblages of matter, called the elements; and the lesser or particular bodies: as also about præter-generations and mechanics. For in all these, natural history examines and relates the matters of fact; and physics their instable, or material and efficient causes. And among these parts of physics, that is absolutely lame and incomplete, which regards the celestial bodies, though for the dignity of the subject it claims the highest regard. Astronomy, indeed, is well founded in phenomena; yet it is low and far from solid. But astrology is in many things destitute of all foundation. And to say the truth, astronomy itself seems to offer Prometheus’s sacrifice to the understanding; for as he would have imposed upon Jupiter a fair large hide stuffed with straw, and leaves, and twigs, instead of the ox itself, so astronomy gives us the number, situation, motion, and periods of the stars, as a beautiful outside of the heavens, while the flesh and the entrails are wanting; that is, a well-fabricated system, or the physical reasons and foundations for a just theory, that should not only solve phenomena, as almost any ingenious theory may do, but show the substance, motions, and influences of the heavenly bodies, as they really are. For those dogmas are long since exploded, which asserted the rapture of the first morn and the solidity of the heavens, in which the stars were supposed fastened like nails in the vaulted roof of a hall, and other opinions almost as silly; viz., that the zodiac has several poles; that there exists a movement of resilience against the rapture of the first motion; that all parts of the firmament are wheeled round in perfect circles, with eccentric and epicycles to preserve their circular rotation; that the moon has no influence over bodies higher in the heavens; the absurdity of which notions have thrown men upon the extravagant idea of the diurnal motion of the earth, an opinion which we can demonstrate to be most false. But scarce any one has inquired into the physical causes of the substance of the heavens, stellar and interstellar; the different velocities of the celestial bodies with regard to one another; the different accelerations of motion in the same planet; the sequences of their motion from east to west; the progressions, stations, and retrogradations of the planets, the stoppage and accidents of their motion in perigee and apogee, the obliquity of their motions; why the poles of rotation are principally in one quarter of the heavens; why certain planets keep a fixed distance from the sun, etc. Inquiries of this kind have hitherto been hardly touched upon, but the pains have been chiefly bestowed in mathematical observations and demonstrations; which indeed may show how to account for all these things ingeniously, but not how they actually are in nature: how to represent the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies, and machines of them, made according to particular fancies; but not the real causes and truth of things. And therefore astronomy, as it now stands, loses its dignity by being reckoned among the mathematical arts, for it ought in justice to make the most noble part of physics. And whoever despises the imaginary separation between terrestrial and celestial things, and well understands the more general appetites and passions of matter, which are powerful in both, may receive a clear information of what happens above from that which happens below; and from what passes in the heavens, he may become acquainted with some inferior motions hitherto undiscovered, not as these are governed by those, but as they both have the same common passions. We, therefore, report this physical part of astronomy as wanting, in comparison of which the present animated astronomy is but as the stuffed ox of Prometheus—aping the form but wanting the substance.

But for astrology, it is so full of superstition, that scarce anything sound can be discovered in it; though we judge it should rather be purged than absolutely rejected. But if any one shall pretend that this science is founded, not in reason and physical contemplations, but in the direct experience and observation of past ages, and therefore not to be examined by physical reasons, as the Chaldeans boasted, he may at the same time bring back divination, auguries, soothsaying, and give in to all kinds of fables; for these also were said to descend from long experience. But we receive astrology as a part of physics, without attributing more to it than reason and the evidence of things allow, and strip it of its superstition and conceits. Thus we banish that empty notion about the horary reign of the planets, as if each resumed the throne thrice in twenty-four hours, so as to leave three hours supernumerary: and yet this fiction produced the division of the week, a thing so ancient and so universally received. Thus likewise we reject, as an idle figment, the doctrine of horoscopes, and the distribution of the houses, though these are the darling inventions of astrology, which have kept revel, as it were, in the heavens. And we are surprised that some eminent authors in astrology should rest upon so slender an argument for erecting them, as because it appears by experience that the solstices, the equinoxes, the new and full moon, etc., have a manifest operation upon natural bodies, therefore the more curious and subtile positions of the stars must produce more exquisite and secret effects: whereas, laying aside those operations of the sun, which are owing to manifest heat, and a certain attractive virtue of the moon, which causes the spring tide; the other effects of the planets upon natural bodies are, so far as experience reaches, exceeding small, weak, and latent. Therefore the argument should run thus: since these greater revolutions are able to effect so little, those more nice and trifling differences of positions will have no force at all. And lastly, for the calculation of nativities, fortunes, good or bad hours of business, and the like fatalities, they are mere levities that have little in them of certainty and solidity, and may be plainly confuted by physical reasons.

And here we judge it proper to lay down some rules for the examination of astrological matters, in order to retain what is useful therein, and reject what is insignificant. Thus, 1. Let the greater revolutions be retained, but the lesser of horoscopes and houses be rejected—the former being like ordnance, which shoot to a great distance, while the other are but like small bows, that do no execution. 2. The celestial operations affect not all kinds of bodies, but only the more sensible, as humors, air, and spirits. Here we expect the operations of the sun’s heat, which may doubtless penetrate metals and other subterranean bodies, and confine the other operations chiefly to the air, the humors, and the spirits of things. 3. All the celestial operations rather extend to masses of things than to individuals. Though they may obliquely reach some individuals also, which are more sensible than the rest, as a pestilent constitution of the air affects those bodies which are least able to resist it. 4. All the celestial operations produce not their effects instantaneously and in a narrow compass, but exert them in large portions of time and space. Thus predictions as to the temperature of a year may hold good, but not with regard to single days. 5. There is no fatal necessity in the stars; and this the more prudent astrologers have constantly allowed. 6. We will add one thing more, which, if amended and improved, might make for astrology, viz., that we are certain the celestial bodies have other influences besides heat and light, but these influences act not otherwise than by the foregoing rules, though they lie so deep in physics as to require a fuller explanation. So that, upon the whole, we must register as defective an astrology wrote in conformity to these principles, under the name of Astrologia Sana.

This just astrology should contain—1. The doctrine of the commixture of rays, viz., the conjunctions, oppositions, and other situations, or aspect of the planets with regard to one another, their transits through the signs of the zodiac, and their situation in the same signs, as the situation of planets in a sign is a certain conjunction thereof with the stars of that sign; and as the conjunctions, so likewise should the oppositions and other aspects of the planets, with regard to the celestial signs, be remarked, which has not hitherto been fully done. The commixtures of the rays of the fixed stars with one another are of use in contemplating the fabric of the world, and the nature of the subjacent regions, but in no respect for predictions, because at all times alike. 2. This astrology should take in the nearest approaches and the furthest removes of each planet to and from the zenith, according to the climate; for all the planets have their summer and winter, wherein they dart their rays stronger or weaker, according to their perpendicular or oblique direction. So we question not but the moon in Leo has, in the same manner as the sun, a greater effect upon natural bodies with us than when in Pisces, not because the moon in Leo moves the head, and under Pisces affects the feet, but by reason of her greater perpendicular elevation and nearer approach to the larger stars. 3. It should receive the apogees and perigees of the planets, with a proper inquiry into what the vigor of the planets may perform of itself, and what through their nearness to us; for a planet is more brisk in its apogee, but more communicative in its perigee. 4. It should include all the other accidents of the planets’ motions, their accelerations, retardations, courses, stations, retrogradations, distances from the sun, increase and diminutions of light, eclipses, etc. For all these things affect the rays of the planets, and cause them to act either weaker, stronger, or in a different manner. 5. This astrology should contain all that can by any means be known or discovered of the nature of the stars, both erratic and fixed, considered in their own essence and activity, viz., their magnitude, color, aspect, sparkling and vibrating of light; their situation with regard to the poles or equinoctial; the constellations, which thicker set and which thinner, which higher, which lower; what fixed stars are in the zodiac, and what out of it; the different velocities of the planets, their different latitudes, which of them are retrograde, and which not; their different distances from the sun; which move swiftest in their apogee, and which in their perigee; the irregularities of Mars, the excursions of Venus, and the extraordinary phases, accidents, and appearances observable in Venus and the sun; with other things of this kind. 6. Lastly, let it contain, from tradition, the particular natures and alterations of the planets and fixed stars; for as these are delivered with general consent, they are not lightly to be rejected, unless they directly contradict physical reasons. And of such observations let a just astrology be formed: and according to these alone should schemes of the heavens be made and interpreted.

Such an astrology should be used with greater confidence in prediction, but more cautiously in election, and in both cases with due moderation. Thus predictions may be made of comets, and all kinds of meteors, inundations, droughts, heats, frosts, earthquakes, fiery eruptions, winds, great rains, the seasons of the year, plagues, epidemic diseases, plenty, famine, wars, seditions, sects, transmigrations of people, and all commotions or great innovations of things natural and civil. Predictions may possibly be made more particular, though with less certainty, if when the general tendencies of the times are found, a good philosophical or political judgment applies them to such things as are most liable to this kind of accidents. For example, from a foreknowledge of the seasons of any year they might be apprehended more destructive to olives than grapes, more hurtful in distempers of the lungs than the liver, more pernicious to the inhabitants of hills than valleys, and, for want of provisions, to monks than courtiers, etc. Or if any one, from a knowledge of the influence which the celestial bodies have upon the spirits of mankind, should find it would affect the people more than their rulers, learned and inquisitive men more than the military, etc. For there are innumerable things of this kind that require not only a general knowledge, gained from the stars, which are the agents, but also a particular one of the passive subjects.

Nor are elections to be wholly rejected, though not so much to be trusted as predictions; for we find in planting, sowing, and grafting, observations of the moon are not absolutely trifling, and there are many particulars of this kind. But elections are more to be curbed by our rules than predictions; and this must always be remembered, that election only holds in such cases where the virtue of the heavenly bodies, and the action of the inferior bodies also, is not transient, as in the examples just mentioned; for the increases of the moon and planets are not sudden things. But punctuality of time should here be absolutely rejected. And perhaps there are more of these instances to be found in civil matters than some would imagine.

There are but four ways of arriving at this science, viz., 1. By future experiments; 2. Past experiments; 3. Traditions; and, 4. Physical reasons. But, 1. It is in vain at present to think of future experiments, because many ages are required to procure a competent stock of them. And, 2. As for the past, it is true they are within our reach, but it is a work of labor and much time to procure them. Thus astrologers may, if they please, draw from real history all greater accidents, as inundations, plagues, wars, seditions, deaths of kings, etc., as also the positions of the celestial bodies, not according to fictitious horoscopes, but the above-mentioned rules of their revolutions, or such as they really were at the time, and where the event conspires, erect a probable rule of prediction. 3. All traditions should be well sifted, and those thrown out that manifestly clash with physical reasons, leaving such in their full force as comport well therewith. And, 4. Those physical reasons are best suited to this inquiry which search into the universal appetites and passions of matter, and the simple genuine motions of the heavenly bodies. And this we take for the surest guide to astrology.

There remains another piece of wild astrology, though usually separated from it, and transferred to celestial magic as they call it. It is a strange fiction of the human brain, the receiving the benign action of the stars upon seals and signets of gems or metal suited to the purpose, so as to detain and fix, as it were, the felicity of that hour which would otherwise be volatile and fugitive. The poet passionately complains of a similar art among the ancients long since buried in oblivion—

Indeed the Roman Church has upheld the venerableness of saints’ relics and their virtues, since the flux of time has no power to abate the force and efficacy of spiritual things; but to assert that the relics of persons might be so determined as to continue and perpetuate the virtue of an hour which is past, and as it were dead, is mere superstition and imposture.

Abstract physics may be justly divided into two parts—the doctrine of the schemes of matter, and the doctrine of appetites and motions. The schemes of matter are density, rarity, gravity, levity, heat, cold, tangibility, intangibility, volatile, fixed, determinate, fluid, humid, dry, unctuous, crude, hard, soft, fragile, tensile, porous, united, spirituous, jejune, simple, compound, absolute, imperfectly mixed, fibrous and veiny, simple position, or equable, similar, dissimilar, specificate, unspecificate, organical, inorganical, animate and inanimate; and further than this we proceed not. For sensible and insensible, rational and irrational, we refer to the doctrine of man.

Appetites and motions are of two kinds—as being either simple motions, wherein the spring of all natural actions is contained, that is, in respect of their schemes of matter; or motions compounded or produced, and with these the common philosophy, which enters but little into the body of nature, begins. But these compound motions, such as generation, corruption, etc., should be esteemed certain results or effects of simple motions, rather than primitive motions themselves. The simple motions are—1. Motion of resistance, or preventive of penetration of dimensions; 2. Motion of connection, preventive of a vacuum, as it is called; 3. Motion of liberty, preventive of preternatural compression, or extension; 4. Motion in a new orb, with regard to rarefaction and condensation; 5. Motion of the second connection, or preventive of solution of continuity; 6. Motion of the greater congregation, or with regard to masses of connatural bodies, commonly called natural motion; 7. Motion of the lesser congregation, vulgarly termed motion of sympathy and antipathy; 8. Disponent motion, with regard to the just placing of parts in the whole; 9. Motion of assimilation, or multiplicative of its own nature upon another body; 10. Motion of excitation, where the noble agent excites the latent and benumbed motion in another thing; 11. Motion of the seal, or impression, by an operation without communication of substance; 12. Regal motion, or the restraint of other motions by a predominant one; 13. Endless motion, or spontaneous rotation; 14. Motion of trepidation, or the motion of systole and diastole, with regard to bodies placed between things advantageous and hurtful; 15. And lastly, Motion couchant, or a dread of motion, which is the cause of many effects. And such are the simple motions that really proceed out of the inward recesses of nature; and which being complicated, continued, used alternately, moderated, repeated, and variously combined, produce those compound motions or results of motion we call generation, corruption, increase, diminution, alteration, translation, mixtion, separation, and conversion.

The measures of motions are an attendant on physics, as showing the effects of quantity, distance, or the sphere of activity, intension and remission, short and long continuance, activity, dulness, and incitation. And these are the genuine parts of abstract physics, which wholly consists—1. In the schemes of matter; 2. Simple motions; 3. The results of sums of motions; and, 4. The measures of motions. As for voluntary motion in animals—the motion in the action of the senses, the motions of the imagination, appetite, and will, the motion of mind, the determination, and other intellectual faculties—they have their own proper doctrines under which we range them, confining the whole of physics to matter and efficient, and assigning over forms and ends to metaphysics.

We must annex two remarkable appendages to physics, with regard rather to the manner, than the matter of inquiry; viz., natural problems, and the opinions of the ancient philosophers. The first is an appendage of nature at large, and the other of nature united or summed up; both relating to a diligent kind of doubting, which is no contemptible part of knowledge. Now, problems contain particular doubts and opinions, general ones, as to principles and structure. In the books of Aristotle we have a noble example of problems, deserving not only the praises but the imitation of posterity, since new doubts are daily arising. But the utmost caution is to be used in such an undertaking. The recording and proposing of doubts has two advantages; the one, as it defends philosophy against errors, when that which is not clear is neither judged nor asserted, lest error thus should multiply error, but judgment is suspended upon it, and not made positive; the other is, that doubts once registered are like so many sponges, which perpetually suck and draw to themselves the increases of knowledge; whence those things which would have been slightly passed over, unless they had been doubted of before, come now from this very doubting to be more attentively considered. But these two advantages will scarce balance this single inconvenience, unless well provided against; viz., that when a doubt is once admitted for just, and becomes, as it were, authentic, it presently raises up disputants on both sides, who transmit to posterity the same liberty of doubting still; so that men seem to apply their wits rather to nourish the doubt than solve it. And of this we everywhere meet with examples in lawyers and scholars; who, when a doubt once gains admittance, would have it remain a doubt forever, and engage themselves in doubting as well as asserting; whereas the true use of wit is to render doubtful things certain, and not certain ones doubtful. And therefore I set down as wanting a calendar of doubts or problems in nature, and recommend it to be undertaken, with care to blot out daily, as knowledge increases, those that are clearly discussed and settled. And this calendar we would have attended with another of no less utility; for as in every inquiry there are things plainly true, things doubtful, and things plainly false, it were exceeding proper that along with a calendar of doubts should go a calendar of falsehoods and vulgar errors, both in natural history and opinions, that they may no longer disturb the sciences.

As to the opinions of the ancient philosophers, for example those of Pythagoras, Philolaus, Xenophanes, Anaxagoras, Parmenides, Leucippus, Democritus, and others, which men usually pass slightly over, it is proper to cast a modest eye upon them. For though Aristotle, after the Ottoman manner, thought he could not reign secure without putting all his brethren to death, yet those who do not affect dominion and rule, but the inquiry and illustration of truth, will find their account in beholding, at one view, the different opinions of different philosophers, as to the nature of things. But there is no room to expect any pure truth from these or the like theories: for as the celestial appearances are solved both upon the suppositions of Ptolemy and Copernicus; so common experience, and the obvious face of things, may be applied to many different theories: while a much stricter procedure is required in the right discovery of truth. For as Aristotle accurately remarks, that children, when they first begin to speak, call every woman mother; but afterward learn to distinguish their own: so a childish experience calls every philosophy its mother, but when grown up, will easily distinguish its true one. In the meantime, it is proper to read the disagreeing philosophies, as so many different glosses of nature. We could therefore wish there were, with care and judgment, drawn up a work of the ancient philosophies, from the lives of old philosophers, Plutarch’s collection of their opinions, the citations of Plato, the confutations of Aristotle, and the scattered relations of other books, whether ecclesiastical or heathen; as Lactantius, Philo, Philostratus, etc. For such a work is not yet extant; and we would advise it to be done distinctly; so that each philosophy be drawn out and continued separate, and not ranged under titles and collections, as Plutarch has done. For every philosophy, when entire, supports itself, and its doctrines thus add light and strength to each other; which, if separated, sound strange and harsh. Thus, when we read in Tacitus the acts of Nero or Claudius, clothed with the circumstances of times, persons, and occasions, everything seems plausible; but when the same are read in Suetonius, distributed under chapters and commonplaces, and not described in the order of time, they look monstrous, and absolutely incredible. And the case is the same with philosophy proposed entire, and dismembered, or cut into articles. Nor do we exclude from this calendar the modern theories and opinions, as those of Paracelsus, elegantly reduced by Severinus into a body and harmony of philosophy; or of Telesius, who, in restoring the philosophy of Parmenides, has turned their own weapons against the Peripatetics; or of Gilbert, who revived the doctrines of Philolaus; or of any other, provided he be worthy. But as there are whole volumes of these authors extant, we would only have the result drawn out and joined to the rest. And so much for physics and its appendages.

To metaphysics we assign the inquiry of formal and final causes. But an opinion has prevailed, as if the essential forms, or real differences of things, were absolutely undiscoverable by human means; granting, at the same time, that if they could be discovered, this, of all the parts of knowledge, would be the most worthy of inquiry. As to the possibility of the thing, there are indolent discoverers, who see nothing but sea and sky, absolutely deny there can be any land beyond them. But it is manifest that Plato, a man of a sublime genius, who took a view of everything as from a high rock, saw in his doctrine of ideas, that forms were the true object of knowledge”; though he lost the advantage of this just opinion by contemplating and grasping at forms totally abstracted from matter, and not as determined in it; whence he turned aside to theological speculations, and therewith infected all his natural philosophy. But if with diligence, seriousness, and sincerity, we turn our eyes to action and use, we may find, and become acquainted with those forms, the knowledge whereof will wonderfully enrich and prosper human affairs.

The forms of substances, indeed, viz., the species of creatures, are so complicated and interwoven, that the inquiry into them is either vain, or should be laid aside for a time, and resumed after the forms of a more simple nature have been duly sifted and discovered. For as it were neither easy nor useful to discover the form of a sound that shall make a word, since words, by the composition and transpositions of letters are infinite; but practicable, easy, and useful to discover the form of a sound expressing a single letter, or by what collision or application of the organs of the voice, it was made; and as these forms of letters being known, we are thence directly led to inquire the forms of words: so, to inquire the form of an oak, a lion, gold, water, or air, were at present vain; but to inquire the form of density, rarity, heat, cold, gravity, levity, and other schemes of matter and motions, which, like the letters of the alphabet, are few in number, yet make and support the essences and forms of all substances, is what we would endeavor after, as constituting and determining that part of metaphysics we are now upon.

Nor does this hinder physics from considering the same natures in their fluxile causes only; thus, if the cause of whiteness in snow, or froth, were inquired into, it is judged to be a subtile intermixture of air with water; but this is far from being the form of whiteness, since air intermixed with powdered glass or crystal is also judged to produce whiteness no less than when mixed with water: this, therefore, is only the efficient cause, and no other than the vehicle of the form. But if the inquiry be made in metaphysics, it will be found that two transparent bodies, intermixed in their optical portions, and in a simple order, make whiteness. This part of metaphysics I find defective; and no wonder; because in the method of inquiry hitherto used, the forms of things can never appear. The misfortune lies here, that men have accustomed themselves to hurry away, and abstract their thoughts too hastily, and carry them too remote from experience and particulars, and have given themselves wholly up to their own meditations and arguments.

The use of this part of metaphysics is recommended by two principal things: first, as it is the office and excellence of all sciences to shorten the long turnings and windings of experience, so as to remove the ancient complaint of the scantiness of life, and the tediousness of art; this is best performed by collecting and uniting the axioms of the sciences into more general ones, that shall suit the matter of all individuals. For the sciences are like pyramids, erected upon the single basis of history and experience, and therefore a history of nature is, 1, the basis of natural philosophy; and 2, the first stage from the basis is physics; and 3, that nearest the vertex metaphysics; but 4, for the vertex itself, “the work which God worketh from the beginning to the end,” or the summary law of nature, we doubt whether human inquiry can reach it. But for the other three, they are the true stages of the sciences, and are used by those men who are inflated by their own knowledge, and a daring insolence, as the three hills of the giants to invade heaven.

But to the humble and the meek they are the three acclamations, Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus; for God is holy in the multitude of his works, as well as in their order and union, and therefore the speculation was excellent in Parmenides and Plato, that all things by defined gradations ascend to unity. And as that science is the most excellent, which least burdens the understanding by its multiplicity; this property is found in metaphysics, as it contemplates those simple forms of things, density, rarity, etc., which we call forms of the first class; for though these are few, yet, by their commensurations and co-ordinations, they constitute all truth.

The second thing that ennobles this part of metaphysics, relating to forms, is, that it releases the human power, and leads it into an immense and open field of work; for physics direct us through narrow rugged paths, in imitation of the crooked ways of ordinary nature; but the ways of wisdom, which were anciently defined as “rerum divinarum et humanarum scientia,” are everywhere wide, and abounding in plenty, and variety of means. Physical causes, indeed, by means of new inventions, afford light and direction in a like case again; but he that understands a form knows the ultimate possibility of superinducing that nature upon all kinds of matter, and is therefore the less restrained or tied down in his working, either as to the basis of the matter or the condition of the efficient. Solomon also describes this kind of knowledge, though in a more divine manner: “Non arctabuntur gressus tui, et currens non habebis offendiculum.” Thus denoting that the paths of wisdom are not liable to straits and perplexities.

The second part of metaphysics, is the inquiry of final causes, which we note not as wanting, but as ill-placed; these causes being usually sought in physics, not in metaphysics, to the great prejudice of philosophy; for the treating of final causes in physics has driven out the inquiry of physical ones, and made men rest in specious and shadowy causes, without ever searching in earnest after such as are real and truly physical. And this was not only done by Plato, who constantly anchors upon this shore; but by Aristotle, Galen, and others, who frequently introduce such causes as these: “The hairs of the eyelids are for a fence to the sight. The bones for pillars whereon to build the bodies of animals. The leaves of trees are to defend the fruit from the sun and wind. The clouds are designed for watering the earth,” etc. All which are properly alleged in metaphysics; but in physics are impertinent, and as remoras to the ship, that hinder the sciences from holding on their course of improvement, and introducing a neglect of searching after physical causes. And therefore the natural philosophies of Democritus and others, who allow no God or mind in the frame of things, but attribute the structure of the universe to infinite essays and trials of nature, or what they call fate or fortune, and assigned the causes of particular things to the necessity of matter without any intermixture of final causes, seem, so far as we can judge from the remains of their philosophy, much more solid, and to have gone deeper into nature, with regard to physical causes, than the philosophy of Aristotle or Plato; and this only because they never meddled with final causes, which the others were perpetually inculcating. Though in this respect Aristotle is more culpable than Plato, as banishing God, the fountain of final causes, and substituting nature in his stead; and, at the same time, receiving final causes through his affection to logic, not theology.

These final causes, however, are not false, or unworthy of inquiry into metaphysics, but their excursion into the limits of physical causes hath made a great devastation in that province; otherwise, when contained within their own bounds, they are not repugnant to physical causes; for the cause, that “the hairs of the eyelids are to preserve the sight,” is no way contradictory to this, that “pilosity is incident to the orifices of moisture”—“Muscosi fontes,” etc.; nor does the cause which assigns the firmness of hides in beasts to a protection against the injuries of extreme weather, militate against the other cause, which attributes the firmness to the contraction of the pores on the exterior of the skin, through cold and deprivation of air; and so of the rest: these two kinds of causes agreeing excellently together; the one expressing the intention, and the other the consequence only.

Nor does this call Divine Providence in question, but rather highly confirms and exalts it; for as he is a greater politician, who can make others the instruments of his will, without acquainting them with his designs, than he who discloses himself to those he employs; so the wisdom of God appears more wondrous, when nature intends one thing, and Providence draws out another, than if the characters of Providence were stamped upon all the schemes of matter and natural motions. So Aristotle had no need of a God, after having once impregnated nature with final causes, and laid it down that “nature does nothing in vain; always obtains her ends when obstacles are removed,” etc. But Democritus and Epicurus, when they advanced their atoms, were thus far tolerated by some, but when they asserted the fabric of all things to be raised by a fortuitous concourse of these atoms, without the help of mind, they became universally ridiculous. So far are physical causes from drawing men off from God and Providence, that, on the contrary, the philosophers employed in discovering them can find no rest, but by flying to God or Providence at last.