ORDER IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 271 



ever, may seem to be the order of teaching to those who use 

 the thesis method in which the conclusion is first presented 

 authoritatively and then justified. At most, the conclusion 

 should be presented only as a question, the solution of which 

 must be arrived at by the way of discovery. 



17 



Distinction of natural philosojjhy from other sciences 



The question of the relation of the real order to the order of 

 learning raises the problem of the relation of natural philosophy 

 to other sciences, especially to metaphysics, the queen of the 

 human sciences. The same material being is known in different 

 ways by different sciences. If we are to establish order in 

 natural philosophy, then this science must be distinguished 

 from metaphysics, theology, and empirical science.^^ 



In many texts St. Thomas explicitly states that metaphysics 

 is to be taught after natural philosophy .^^ Metaphysics is, in 

 fact, the last of the sciences to be learned, the queen of human 

 sciences, the culmination of human wisdom, ancillary to none 

 but supernatural theology. Natural philosophy and meta- 

 physics are distinct sciences, each with its proper principles. 

 Natural philosophy uses proofs with middle terms that contain 

 common sensory matter in their definitions. Metaphysics uses 

 concepts that are negatively immaterial, that is, containing no 

 matter in their definitions, but able to be existentially realized 

 either in matter or apart from matter. Two sciences proceeding 

 according to such distinct manners of conceptualization are at 

 different levels of intelligibility and point up different degrees of 

 necessity in their objects. They are thus irreducibly distinct.^" 



^^ The above distinction between invention and judgment is not the same as the 

 distinction between inventive logic (largely dialectics) and judicative logic, which 

 is concerned with the matter and form of the demonstrative syllogism. Cf. In I 

 Anal. Post., 1, n. 6. 



^* " Ordo absque distinctione non est. Unde ubi non est distinctio secundum rem, 

 sed solum secundum moduni intelligendi, ibi non potest esse ordo nisi secundum 

 modum intelligendi '' (De Pot., 10, 3) . 



'" In III Sent., d. 35, I, 2, 3; In VI Ethic, 7, n. 1209-1211; In Librum de Causis, 

 1; In De Trin., 6, 1. 



^"/re / Anal. Post., 41; In De Trin., 5, 1; Summa Theol., I, 85, 1, ad 2. 



