Chap. I. ANTIENTiMETAPHYSICS. 319 



lieve, in the Colleges of Priefts in Egypt, the number of them was 

 fixed, names given to them, and their nature explained. This fo great 

 difcovery was firft publilhed by Archytas, the Pythagorean, In a work 

 which he intiiled, ^i,, r^v^x^ro?, or, 0/ the XJni^erfe ; for it was cer- 

 tainly intended by him as a metaphyfical work, in which the univer- 

 fal forms of all things in Nature were to be explained. This work, 

 as I have obferved elfewhere, was transferred by Ariftotle into his Lo- 

 gical SyJIem ; and very properly fet at the head of it, under tlie name 

 of Categories^ by way of eminence, that is, Univerfal Praedicates\ and 

 it was very properly fo placed ; for, as it was the profcffcd intention 

 of that work, to explain the Nature of fcience and demonftration, and, 

 as it has been fhown that there can be no perfed fcience without the 

 knowledge of thefe univerfals, it was very proper that Ariflotle fhould 

 begin with them, as the foundation of all fcience. And he has, not 

 only in his logic, but through the v/hole of his philofophlcal works, 

 made frequent ufe of them, both in proving and refuting. 



The dodrine of the Categories has this further advantage, that it 

 fhows us, at once, the whole extent of human knowledge ; for every 

 thing that is to be known, falls under one or other of the Categories. 

 Now, a general view of this kind may, I think, be of great ufe in pre- 

 venting pedantry and conceit : For one learned in the fuhjecls of any 

 one category, for example, a mathematician, who has ftudied both 

 geometry and arithmetic, and fo is learned in the category of quan- 

 tity, both continuous and difcrete, may therefore imagine, as many of 

 them have done, that he is a philofopher, and has that univerfal 

 knowledge which I have faid belongs to philofophy ; i)ut, if he has 

 ftudied the categories, he will know how many other fubje61:s there 

 are of knowledge, and how fliort he is of the knowledge oixh.^po'wers 

 and principles of the univerfe ; For, though it be true, in one refpecff, 

 what the Pythagoreans faid, that all Nature confifts in number, under 

 which they included figure, and every thing having meafure or pro- 

 portion of any kind ; yet, in order to know the univerfe, we muft 



know 



