Chap. III. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 331 



what fyllogifm was, and particularly demonftratlve fyllogifm ; and, as 

 all fyllogifms confift of propofitions, and propofitions, again, of terms, 

 the method of fclence required that he fhould begin with terms, as the 

 elements of the whole compofition. And, in order to m.ake fcienceof 

 his work, it was neceflary that the number of thefe terms, I mean of 

 the general clafles to which they were all reducible, fhould be afcer- 

 tained, as well as the nature of them explained ; for, of what is infi- 

 nite, there is no fcience ; and, without this, the doctrine of the catego- 

 ries would have been as imperfedl as the grammatical art would have 

 been, if the number of letters, or elemental founds of which words 

 are compofed, had not been afcertained. Now, this being the nature of 

 Ariflotle*s work, it is no doubt polTible that the divifion of thefe terms 

 into ten clafles may not be full and compleat, though Archytas's divi- 

 fion of natural fubftances and accidents may be. 



As to Porphyry's /"i;^ ijuords^ as they are called, it is evident that 

 they can be none of the univerfals treated of by Archytas ; for they 

 have no exiftence in nature, but only in our minds, being nothing elfe 

 but terms denoting certain operations of our minds upon the t« oyr^, or 

 the things exifl:ing in this univerfe, by which we confider and invefti- 

 gate them in a certain way, difcovering, that they have fome things in 

 common, fome things proper or peculiar, fome things differencing' or 

 diftinguifhing, and fome things accidental. But Archytas, in his book, 

 confiders what all thefe things are in themfelves, not the progrefs of 

 our underftanding in the inveftigation of them. 



For the fame reafon that neither genus nov /pedes, nor any other of 

 the five things mentioned by Porphyry, could be numbered among the 

 univerfals of Archytas, it is evident that even truth itfelf cannot be 

 one of them ; for truth is nothing but the perception of the connexion 

 of two terms of a propofition. Now, a propofition is a combination 

 of two ideas made by the mind ; fo that it is plainly an operation of 

 the mind, and ntiih^rjubjlance nor accident exifting in nature. 



Tt 2 Of 



