44 AN TIE NT METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



cnce of caufts more than any other, becaufe it is the fcience of the 

 firft caiifes. It is the moft difEcult fcience, becaufe it is moft removed 

 from fenfe and common apprehenfion : At the fame time, it is the 

 clearefl: and moft accurate of all fciences, becaufe it treats of things 

 which are firft in nature, though laft in our conception ; and 

 which, therefore, are the fimpleft, or leaft compounded. And, fur- 

 ther, it is, more than any other fcience, what every fcience fhould be 

 to the human mind, valuable for its own fake, not for the fake of any 

 utility, profit, or pleafure that it produces *. And, therefore, fays A- 

 riftotle, it was not difcovered till both the neceflary and pleafurable 

 arts were invented f. And, /^/y. As the end of all philofophy is to 

 know God, this philofophy, more than any other, anfwers that end ; 

 the chief fubject of it, and that with which it concludes, being, as I: 

 have faid, the knowledge of the firft caufe of ail things. 



Ariftotle has obferved, that diahtlic and metap.hyfics are converfant 

 about the fame fubje6t. J. For, as dialedl'ic does not treat of any par- 

 ticular fubjed, but argues from general topics, applicable to all fub- 

 jeds, it is the knowledge o^ generals^ as well as metaphyfics ; but then, 

 it is a knowledge, taken, not from the nature of things, but the opi- 

 nions of men ; and its principles are all afllimed, none of them either 

 f^lf-evident or demonftratcd : And therefore diaJeclicM not a fcience, 

 like metaphyfics, but rather 2. faculty^ as Alexander Aphrodifienfishas 

 very well obferved, in his Introdudion to his Commentary upon Ari- 

 ftoile's Books of Topics. 



Ariftotle Ins alio obferved §, that the fophlftical art was converfant 



about the f'^me fubjeds as metaphyfics : For the t» •> and the to ^r, <,f, 



that is, being and no being ; and the general principles and properties of 



beings were the chief topics of the fophifts. And it was by captious 



and fallacious arguments drawn from thence, that they confounded men, 



and endeavoured to overturn the principles of all fcience and certainty. 



In order, therefore, to refute and filence them, the knowledge of this 



kicnce was abfolutcly neceflary. 



BOOK 



* Metaphyf lib. i. cap, 2, f Metaphyf. lib- i. cap. i. in fine 



I lb. lib. 4. cap. 2, pag. 871. § lb. ibid. 



