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116 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [VIL.5. 
‘his natural philosophy is infected. But if any man shall 
keep a continual watchful and severe eye upon action, 
‘operation, and the use of knowledge, he may advise and 
take notice what are the forms, the disclosures whereof 
are fruitful and important to the state of man. For as 
to the forms of substances (man only except, of whom it 
fis said, Formavit hominem de limo terre, et spiravit in 
faciem ejus spiraculum vite, and not as of all other crea- 
‘tures, Producant aque, producat terra), the forms of sub- 
Raiiices I say (as they are now by compounding and 
‘transplanting multiplied) are so perplexed, as they are not 
keto be inquired; no more than it were either possible or 
(to purpose to seek in gross the forms of those sounds 
“which make words, which by composition and trans- 
‘position of letters are infinite. But on the other side 
\to inquire the form of those sounds or voices which make 
/ simple letters is easily comprehensible; and being known 
\induceth and manifesteth the forms of all words, which 
hee and are compounded of them. In the same man- 
ner to inquire the form of a lion, of an oak, of gold; nay, 
fof water, of air, is a vain pursuit: but to inquire the forms 
of sense, of voluntary motion, of vegetation, of colours, 
‘of gravity and levity, of density, of tenuity, of heat, of 
( cold, and all other natures and qualities, which, like an 
“alphabet, are not many, and of which the essences (up- 
¢ held by matter) of all creatures do consist; to inquire, I 
say, the true forms of these, is that part of metaphysic 
which we now define of. Not but that physic doth make 
rinquiry and take consideration of the same natures: but 
‘how? Only as to the material and efficient causes of 
-them, and not as to the forms. For example, if the 
| cate of whiteness in snow or froth be inquired, and it 
‘be rendered thus, that the subtile intermixture of air and 
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