the strict union betwixt causes and effects; so that the explanation of them must, in some measure, be coupled together but as all solid and fruitful natural philosophy hath both an ascending and a descending scale of parts, leading from experience to axioms, and from axioms to new discoveries, it seems most advisable here, in the division of sciences, to separate speculation from operation, and treat them distinct.

CHAPTER IV.

Division of the Speculative Branch of Natural Philosophy into Physic 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 endeavour 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 endeavouring 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 pro cure fame and followers. For certainly it happens in philo sophical, 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,

"Fœlix doctrinæ prædo, non utile mundo
Editus exemplum." c

But on the other hand, desiring, by all possible means, to cultivate and establish a free commerce betwixt 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.d 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 a St. John v. 43.

b We should rather say that Alexander caught the fire of ambition from his master, as Aristotle put forth his pretensions to mental empire long before his pupil overran Egypt. In addition, it may be observed that Aristotle was an Athenian, and that the strong antipathies which his countrymen bore to the king of Persia were increased by the ties of blood and friendship which bound him to Hermius, king of Atarné, whom the eastern despot had abused. It is most likely, therefore, that Aristotle never missed an opportunity of exciting his royal pupil to that conquest, which the Athenians had previously attempted to execute; as affording him the satisfaction of retaliating the injuries of a departec friend, as well as an opportunity of collecting a store of natural facts o which he might erect the superstructure of the physical sciences. Ed c Lucan, x. 21. d Tacitus, Annals, i.

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 transcendant, 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 moveable, so metaphysics regards what is more abstracted and fixed; that physics supposes only existence, motion, and natural necessity, whilst 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 moveable 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.f

"Limus ut hic durescit, et hæc ut cera liquescit

Uno eodemque igni."

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

f Physics, therefore, may be defined that part of universal philosophy which observes and considers the procedure of nature in bodies, so as to discover her laws, powers, and effects; and the material origins, and causes thereof, in different subjects; and thence form rules for imitating, controlling, or even excelling her works, in the instances it outders Shaw, Virgil's Eclogues, viii. 80.

of nature produces two parts of physics; the one relating to the principles of things, and the other to the structure of the universe; whilst 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, betwixt 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, ineteors, and the terrestrial globe; or about the larger assemblages of matter, called the elements; and the lesser or particular bodies : as also about prætergenerations 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, whilst 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 moru 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, &c. 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. That doctrine had been recently demonstrated by Galileo, and defended by Gilbert.

i That is, from west to east, according to the Copernican system. Ed. k Bacon maps out the entire region of human knowledge, breaking up the old sections, and assigning to each science new boundaries more conformable in his view to strict philosophical notions than the old; yet he capriciously enough makes mathematics an essential part of metaphysics, or inquiry into forms, and astronomy a compartment of mathematics, and then decries this absurd arrangement as the notion of the age. It is evident, however, that the age was innocent of the charge, and that Bacon suatched up the idea from the demonstrations which Copernicus.