46 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IL 



The caufes and principles of things may, I think, be fitly confidered 

 under three heads : Fufli The conjlitnting or elementary principles^ 

 by which, and out of which, this univerfe is produced, fuch as, change^ 

 motion^ energy, aSfion, pa/Jion, poiver^ habit, faculty, matter, form, and 

 muid. All thele may be reduced to two of the caufes mentioned by 

 Ariftotle, viz. the efficient and the material \ and, in the lafl thing I 

 mentioned, viz. 7iiind, is included the fnal caufe. Under the fecond 

 head, I confider things ^xtz.^y formed and conflituted, and inquire in- 

 to their nature, and thofe principles which make them what they are. 

 All thefe fall under that kind of caufe which Ariftotle calls \\\t formal 

 caufe. And, laflly, under the third head, I treat of thofe things, 

 which, though they be not, properly, the caufes of things * in the 

 uniirerfe, are the neceflary concomitants of them, fuch as, duration^ 

 thne, /pace, and place f . 



To 



* They are called by the commentators of Arlflotle, c-t/jaiiTi*, being fuch things, 

 which, though not caufes, mufl eiift along with the caufes, otherways nothing could 

 be produced. 



t There are preferved to us two very valuable pieces of Pythagorean philofophy, that 

 of Ocellus LucanuSi Trt^t rev Trxrrn, and that of Archytas the 'Tarentinc, bearing the fame 

 title. T'he firft is, I believe, the moft antient piece of philofophy in the world, of the 

 authenticity of which we are fure. For the author was dead fomc generations, it would 

 appear, before Plato, as is evident from the epiftle of Archytr.s to Plato, wherein he 

 tells him, he had got this workof Ocellus, among others, from his defcendents See what 

 Gale^ in his mythological works, has faid of this author, in the preface to his treatife. 



It is from him that Ariftotle has taken his dodlrine of the eternity of the world, his 

 Jifth elementy and his notion of the tranfmutation of the elements into one another; 

 and particularly the lafl, which he has iaid down in his book Dc ortu et interitUy al- 

 moft in the words of Ocellus ; See Gale, iibi fitpra. And from him, and Timaeus 

 the Locrian, both he and Plato have taken their notions of thtjirjl matter. Achytas, 

 the other author, who writes alfo iresf rtv mn'ira^ was a contemiporary of Plato j and it 

 is fro.u that work of his that Ariftotie, as I huve t'.fewhere obfervcd, has taken his book 

 of Cdttgones. Thele two authors, treating both of the univerfe, appear to have confi- 

 dered it under the two fcveral views which 1 have propofed in th-^ two firft heads. 

 For Ocellus, in his treatife, fpeaks chielly of the ejicient ?n<-i lUiittriul caufes^ by 

 which, and out of which, ail things in nature are produced^ iuch as matter and forniy 



and 



