ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 145 



were divided, as it regards the mine and the furnace, and 

 two offices of philosophers, miners, and smelters introduced? 

 This, indeed, may appear jocular, yet such a kind of divi 

 sion we judge extremely useful, when proposed in just and 

 familiar terms; so that the doctrine of nature be divided 

 into speculative and practical, or the search after causes, 

 and the production of effects: the one entering into the 

 bowels of nature, and the other forming her upon the an 

 vil. Nor are we insensible of the strict union between 

 causes and effects; so that the explanation of them must, 

 in some measure, be coupled together: but as all solid and 

 fruitful natural philosophy hath both an ascending and a 

 descending scale of parts, leading from experience to ax 

 ioms, and from axioms to new discoveries, it seems most 

 advisable here, in the division of sciences, to separate 

 speculation from operation, and treat them distinct. 



CHAPTER IV 



Division of the Speculative Branch of Natural Philosophy into Physics and 

 Metaphysics. Physics relate to the Investigation of Efficient Causes .. 

 and Matter; Metaphysics to that of Final Causes and the Form. Divi- V 

 sion of Physics into the Sciences of the Principles of Things, the 

 Structure of Things, and the Variety of Things. Division of Physics 

 in relation to the Variety of Things into Abstract and Concrete. 

 Division of Concretes agrees with the Distribution of the Parts of 

 Natural History. Division of Abstracts into the Doctrine of Material 

 Forms and Motion. Appendix of Speculative Physics twofold: viz., 

 Natural Problems and the Opinions of Ancient Philosophers. Meta 

 physics divided into the Knowledge of Forms and the Doctrine of 

 Final Causes 



THE speculative or theoretical part of natural philos 

 ophy we divide into physics and metaphysics; tak 

 ing the word metaphysics in a sense different from 

 that received. And here we must, once for all, declare, 

 as to our use of words, that though our conceptions and 

 notions are new, and different from the common, yet we 

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