VIII. I.] 



THE SECOND BOOK. 



121 



principal part, and holdeth rank with physic special and 

 metaphysic, which is mathematic ; but I think it more 

 agreeable to the nature of things, and to the light of order, 

 to place it as a branch of metaphysic. For the subject of 

 it being quantity, not quantity indefinite, which is but a 

 relative, and belongeth to philosophia prima (as hath been 

 said), but quantity determined or proportionable, it appear- 

 eth to be one of the essential forms of things, as that that 

 is causative in nature of a number of effects ; insomuch as 

 we see in the schools both of Democritus and of Pytha 

 goras, that the one did ascribe figure to the first seeds of 

 things, and the other did suppose numbers to be the 

 principles and originals of things. And it is true also that 

 of all other forms (as we understand forms) it is the most 

 abstracted and separable from matter, and therefore most 

 proper to metaphysic ; which hath likewise been the cause 

 why it hath been better laboured and inquired than any 

 of the other forms, which are more immersed into matter. 

 For it being the nature of the mind of man (to the extreme 

 prejudice of knowledge) to delight in the spacious liberty 

 of generalities, as in a champain region, and not in the 

 inclosures of particularity, ihs mathematics of all other 

 knowledge were the goodliest fields to satisfy that appetite. 

 But for the placing of this science, it is not much ma 

 terial : only we have endeavoured in these our partitions 

 to observe a kind of perspective, that one part may cast 

 light upon another. 



2. The mathematics are either pure or mixed. To the 

 pure mathematics are those sciences belonging which handle 

 quantity determinate, merely severed from any axioms of 

 natural philosophy; and these are two, geometry and 

 arithmetic ; the one handling quantity continued, and the 

 other dissevered. Mixed hath for subject some axioms 



