u 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. "Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam Scilicet, atque Ossæ frondosum involvere Olympum." × 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 burthens the understanding by its multiplicity; this property is found in metaphysics, as it contemplates those simple forms of things, density, rarity, &c., 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 Eccles. iii. 1. Virgil, Georgics, i. 281. Apocalypse iv. See conclusion of the Dialogue entitled Parmenides. • Plato's Phædo; Cicero, Tuscul. Quæst. 4 Defin. 2. kind of knowledge, though in a more divine manner: "Non arctabuntur gressus tui, et currens non habebis offendiculum."b 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," &c. 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 b Prov. iv. 12. Cf. e. g. Arist. Phys. ii. 8. From the text it must not be judged that Aristotle invested nature with the general powers usually attributed to a divine intelligence, in designing and executing her various ends with wisdom and precision, but only that he regarded nature as an active and intelligent principle per forming her agencies by means palpable to herself, yet according to the laws and faculties conterred upon her by the prime mover of things. The 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 in 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, Spinozist principle which the text attributes to the Stagyrite has been understood by many critics or the sensational school to intimate that Aristotle was of their way of thinking, though the idea of an independent material intelligence is expressly contradicted by numerous passages in his Metaphysics. In book xii. chap. 5, of the works which go under this name, the principal being is held to exclude the idea of matter from his nature: ἔτι τοίνυν ταύτας δεῖ οὐσίας εἶναι ἄνευ ὕλης· ἀϊδίους γὰρ δεῖ· κ.τ.λ.; and (ibid. 8) τὸ δέ τι ἦν εἶναι οὐκ ἔχει ὕλην τὸ πρῶτον EVTEλEXEιa yap. In chap. 7 he affirms this principle to be spirit,-aρxǹ vónois; that matter cannot move of itself, but needs the action of an exterior agent, οὐ γὰρ ἡ γε ὕλη κινήσει αὐτὴ ἑαυτὴν, ἀλλὰ τεκτονική and that this principle must be eternal and active,—Αΐδιον καὶ οὐσία καὶ ἐνέργεια οὖσα. Aristotle further proceeds to show that all other beings are only a species of means transmitting the motion to others which have been communicated to them, but that this primary being, possessing the spring of motion in itself, moves without being moved; illustrating this kind of action by the emotions and deeds that spring from the love, pity, or hatred that agents at rest excite in others. In another place he affirms that this being is not only eternal in duration but immutable in essence, and quite distinct from sensible things: örɩ yàp ἔστιν οὐσία τις ἀΐδιος καὶ ἀκίνητος καὶ κεχωρισμένη τῶν αἰσθητῶν, φανερὸν ἐκ τῶν εἰρημένων· and that heaven and nature hang upon its behests,—ἐκ τοιαύτης ἄρα ἀρχῆς ἤρτηται ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ φύσις. He further shows that life belongs to it by essence, and as the action of intelligence is life, and vice versa, essential action constitutes the eternal life of this being. Aristotle then calls this independent principle God, and assigns to it endless duration : φαμὲν δὲ τὸν ΘΕΟΝ εἶναι ζῶον ἀΐδιον ἄριστον. "It remains," says the Stagyrite, "to determine whether this principle be one or several; but upon this point we need only remember that those who have decided for a plurality have advanced nothing worthy of consideration in support of their belief."-'Aλλà μεμνῆσθαι καὶ τὰς τῶν ἄλλων ἀποφάσεις ὅτι περὶ πλήθους οὐδὲ εἰρή KaσIV Ò TI Kai σapès ɛiπɛîv. (Ibid. chap. 8.) "For the principle of existence, or the immovable being which is the source of all movement, being pure action, and consequently foreign to matter, is one in reason and number . all the rest is the creation of a mythology invented by politicians to advance the public interest and occupy the attention of mankind.” Τὸ δέ τι ἦν εἶναι οὐκ ἔχει ὕλην τὸ πρῶτον· ἐντελέχεια γάρ. (Supp. note 1.) Ἓν μὲν ἄρα καὶ λόγῳ καὶ ἀριθμῷ τὸ πρῶτον κινοῦν ἀκίνητον. (Ibid. chap. 8.) Τὰ δὲ λοιπὰ μυθικῶς ἤδη προσήχθη πρὸς τὴν πειθὼ τῶν πολλῶν καὶ πρὸς τὴν εἰς τοὺς νόμους καὶ τὸ σύμφερον Xpйow. (Ibid.) Ed. 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," &c.;e 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," &c. 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. • Virg. Eclogues, vii. 45. Aristotle on the Heavens, 1 CHAPTER V. Division of the Practical Branch of Natural Philosophy into Mechanics and Magic (Experimental Philosophy), which correspond to the Speculative Division-Mechanics to Physics, and Magic to Metaphysics. The word Magic cleared from False Interpretation. Appendix to Active Science twofold; viz., an Inventory of Human Helps and a Catalogue of Things of Multifarious Use. THE practical doctrine of nature we likewise necessarily divide into two parts, corresponding to those of speculative; for physics, or the inquiry of efficient and material causes, produces mechanics; and metaphysics, the inquiry of forms, produces magic; whilst the inquiry of final causes is a barren thing, or as a virgin consecrated to God. We here under stand that mechanics which is coupled with physical causes; for besides the bare effective or empirical mechanics, which has no dependence on physics, and belongs to natural history, there is another not absolutely operative, and yet not strictly philosophical. For all discoveries of works either had their rise from accident, and so were handed down from age to age, or else were sought by design; and the latter were either discovered by the light of causes and axioms, or acquired by extending, transferring, or compounding some former inventions, which is a thing more ingenious and sagacious than philosophical. But the mechanics here understood is that treated by Aristotle promiscuously, by Hero in his Pneumatics, by that very diligent writer in metallics, George Agricola, and by numerous others in particular subjects; so that we have no omission to note in this point, only that the miscellaneous mechanics, after the example of Aristotle, should have been more carefully continued by the moderns, especially with regard to such contrivances whose causes are more obscure, or their effects more noble; whereas the writers upon these subjects hitherto have only coasted along the shore,-"premendo littus iniquum."a And it appears to us that scarce anything in nature can be fundamentally discovered, either by accident, experimental attempts, or the light of physical causes, but only by the discovery of forms Since, therefore, we have set down as wanting that part of Hor. Odes, b. ii. ode x. 3. b Bacon means by forms general laws which co-operate with certain agents in producing the qualities of bodies. Shaw. |