THE SECOND BOOK. 89 



compounded of them. In the same manner to inquire the 

 form of a lion, of an oak, of gold ; nay, of water, of air, is a 

 vain pursuit ; but to inquire the forms of sense, of voluntary 

 motion, of vegetation, of colours, of gravity and levity, of 

 density, of tenuity, of heat, of cold, and all other natures and 

 qualities, which, like an alphabet, are not many, and of which 

 the essences (upheld by matter) of all creatures do consist ; 

 to inquire, I say, the true forms of these, is that part of 

 metaphysic which we now define of. Not but that physic 

 doth make inquiry and take consideration of the same natures ; 

 but how ? Only as to the material and efficient causes of them, 

 and not as to the forms. For example, if the cause of white 

 ness in snow or froth be inquired, and it be rendered thus, 

 that the subtle intermixture of air and water is the cause, it is 

 well rendered ; but, nevertheless, is this the form of whiteness ? 

 No ; but it is the efficient, which is ever but vehiculum formce. 

 This part of metaphysic I do not find laboured and performed ; 

 whereat I marvel not ; because I hold it not possible to be in 

 vented by that course of invention which hath been used ; in 

 regard that men (which is the root of all error) have made too 

 untimely a departure, and too remote a recess from particulars. 

 (6) But the use of this part of metaphysic, which I report as 

 deficient, is of the rest the most excellent in two respects : the 

 one, because it is the duty and virtue of all knowledge to 

 abridge the infinity of individual experience, as much as the 

 conception of truth will permit, and to remedy the complaint 

 of vita brevis, ars longa ; which is performed by uniting the 

 notions and conceptions of sciences. For knowledges are as 

 pyramids, whereof history is the basis. So of natural philoso 

 phy, the basis is natural history ; the stage next the basis is 

 physic ; the stage next the vertical point is metaphysic. As 

 for the vertical point, opus quod operatur Deus d principio 

 usque ad finem, the summary law of nature, we know not 

 whether man s inquiry can attain unto it. But these three be 

 the true stages of knowledge, and are to them that are depraved 

 no better than the giants hills : 



&quot;Tor sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam, 

 Scilicet atque Osste frondostim involvere Olympura.&quot; 



But to those which refer all things to the glory of God, they 

 are as the three acclamations, Sancte, sancte, sancte / holy in 

 the description or dilatation of His wcwrks ; holy in the con 

 nection or concatenation of them ; and holy in the union of 

 them in a perpetual and uniform law. And, therefore, the 

 npeculation was excellent in Parmenides and Plato, although 



