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va] ‘THE SECOND BOOK. 107 
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my meaning touching this original or universal philo- 
sophy is thus, in a plain and gross description by nega- 
tive: That it be a receptacle for all such profitable observ- 
ations and axioms as fall not within the compass of any 
of the spectal parts of philosophy or sctences, but are more 
common and of a higher stage. 
3. Now that there are many of that kind need not be 
doubted, For example: is not the rule, Si zrequalibus 
aqualia addas, omnia erunt inequalia, an axiom as well of 
justice as of the mathematics? and is there not a true 
coincidence between commutative and distributive justice, 
and arithmetical and geometrical proportion? Is not 
that other rule, Que im eodem terito conventunt, et inter se 
conveniuni, a rule taken from the mathematics, but so 
potent in logic as all syllogisms are built upon it? Is 
not the observation, Omnia mutantur, nil interit, a con- 
templation in philosophy thus, that the guan/um of nature 
is eternal? in natural theology thus, that it requireth the 
same omnipotency to make somewhat nothing, which at 
the first made nothing somewhat? according to the scrip- 
ture, Drdict quod omnia opera, que fectt Deus, perseverent 
in perpeluum ; non possumus eis quicquam addere nec au- 
Jerre. Is not the ground, which Machiavel wisely and 
largely discourseth concerning governments, that the way 
to establish and preserve them, is to reduce them ad 
principia, a rule in religion and nature, as well as in civil 
administration? Was not the Persian magic a reduction 
or correspondence of the principles and architectures of 
nature to the rules and policy of governments? Is not 
the precept of a musician, to fall from a discord or harsh 
accord upon a concord or sweet accord, alike true in 
affection? Is not the trope of music, to avoid or slide 
from the close or cadence, common with the trope of 
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