S9^ 



ANTIENT METAPtTYSICS. Book V. 



the moft determinate, and eafieft abftraded of any of the ideas that 

 we form of corporeal things ; for the ideas of figures, lines, and di- 

 menfions, are the fuperficial qualities of bodies, obvious both to fight 

 and touch, and having nothing to do with the inward frame or tex- 

 ture of body, from which its other qualities refult, and of which, as I 

 have faid more than once, we know nothing. 2^0, The mind, in opera- 

 ting upon lines and figures, has an afliftance from the fenfe and ima- 

 gination, which it cannot have in other abftrad fciences. The afTift- 

 ance I mean is that of diagrams : But we ought to take care not 

 to miftake thok Jjfmbols of ideas, which would not be at all neceflary 

 if our intelledl were more perfedt, for the ideas themfelves ; fo 

 as to imagine that geometry is converfant only with fenfible ob- 

 jeds. For thefe reafons, 1 believe that geometry was the firft fcience 

 among men, begun, as Ariftotle informs us *, among the Egyptian 

 priefts, the firft men, of whom we have any knowledge, that had lei- 

 fure, and were dedicated to the ftudy of religion and philofophy. For 

 the fame reafons, it is evident, that it is the moft proper fcience for en- 

 abling the mind to difentangle itfelf from matter, and to begin its a- 

 fcent towards the Immaterial world, and the invi/ible tJoings of God ; for 

 which purpofe, chiefly, as I have elfewhere obferved t» the ftudy of 

 it was recommended by antient philofophy. It is alfo a fcience of the 

 greateft certainty and accuracy ; not only becaufe the ideas of it are 

 fo clear and determinate, but the fubje^ls of it, lines and figures, have 

 a fixed ftandard and meafure of their ovv^n kind, by which they can be 

 cxadly compared together, and pronounced to be equal or unequal, 

 or in fuch and fuch a ratio to one another ; whereas, the qualities of 

 body, I fpeak of quality as contradiftingulftied from quantity)^ fuch 

 as hard or foft, fweet or bitter, hot or cold, cannot be fo meafured ; 



and 



* Mctaph. lib. I. cap. I. in fine* 

 t Sec page 3. et feqitcn. 



