VII. 5.] THE SECOND BOOK. 1 17 



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 forma. This 

 part of metaphysic I do not find laboured 



_. . , stve de for- 



and performed : whereat I marvel not : be- ^ et ^ ni _ 

 cause I hold it not possible to be invented ^ us rcrum , 

 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 re 

 port 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 pyramides, whereof 

 history is the basis. So of natural philosophy, 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 a principio usque ad 

 fnem, 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 de 

 praved no better than the giants hills : 



Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam, 



Scilicet, atque Ossae fronclosum involvere Olympum. 



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

 they are as the three acclamations, Sanc/e, sancte, sancte / 

 holy in the description or dilatation of his works; holy 

 in the connexion or concatenation of them ; and holy in 



