Chap. XL A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I C S. 477 



other, or one portion of fpace, or of time, is part of another, or as 

 one number is part of another. Nor is it in the fenfe that we fay- 

 that any quahty inherent in a fubftance makes part of that fubflance ; 

 for, as I have faid, this relation of ideas, by which they are confidered 

 as ivhole and part^ has nothing to do with fubjlance and accident. 

 The queftion, therefore, appears to beof fome difficuhy. And the dif- 

 ficulty will appear the greater, if we confider that the genus not only 

 contains the fpecies, but the fpecies alfo contains the genus: So that 

 the genus may be faid to be a part of the Ipecies, as well as the fpe- 

 cies of the genus * ; for the fpecies, man^ undoubtedly contains the 

 genus, animal, which is fo efTential a part of man, that we cannot 

 conceive man to exift without it : And therefore it is made part of 

 the definition of man. Now, how can we conceive that the fame 

 thing fhould be both part and ivhole, with reiped: to another thing ? 

 or, in other words, that one thing Ihould both contain and be con- 

 tained in the fame thing ? Here, therefore, the matter appears to be 

 very much involved and perplexed ; and we are at as great a lofs as 

 ever to know upon what foundation the evidence of the fyllogifm, 

 ^nd of every other kind of reafoning, refts. 



This is an objedion to the certainty of human reafoning, which has 

 not occurred to any of our modern fceptics, for a reafon that is plain 

 enough, namely, that they are not fo learned in logic as to fee it. But 

 it appears to have occurred to Plato, in the Politicus *, where he fays, 

 * That every fpecies is a part, but every part is not a fpecies.' But he 

 adds, that a more particular explanation of this difference betwixt the 



two, 



* This was very well known in the Peripatetic fchool ; for they diftinguifhed be- 

 twixt the genus or fpecies fhat was i-^i rar, ^«>a«,5, and that which was sv 'to<s ^oaao/j. 

 The genus and fpecies of the firft kind is that which comprehends the fpeciefes or indi- 

 viduals under it ; whereas, what is t» t.^ ;r»AA«,j, is what exift<= in the fpeciefes or in- 

 dividuals, and makes a part of them. See what I have faid above, concerning this 

 diftinftion of ideas, p. 466. 



t Page 532. Edit, Ficini, 



