138 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



liibited to nimself, with a reflected ray: whence it is proper 

 to divide philosophy into the doctrine of the deity, the doc 

 trine of nature, and the doctrine of man. 



But as the divisions of the sciences are not like different 

 lines that meet in one angle, but rather like the branches 

 of trees that join in one trunk, it is first necessary that we 

 constitute a universal science as a parent to the rest, and 

 as making a part of the common road to the sciences before 

 the ways separate. And this knowledge we call &quot;philoso- 

 phia prima, primitive or primative or summary philosophy ; 

 it has no other for its opposite, and differs from other sci 

 ences rather in the limits whereby it is confined than in the 

 subject as treating only the summits of things. And whether 

 this should be noted as wanting may seem doubtful, though 

 I rather incline to note it; for I find a certain rhapsody of 

 natural theology, logics, and physics, delivered in a certain 

 sublimity of discourse, by such as aim at being admired for 

 standing on the pinnacles of the sciences; but what we mean 

 is, without ambition, to design some general science, for the 

 reception of axioms, not peculiar to any one science, but 

 common to a number of them. 



Axioms of this kind are numerous; for example, if 

 equals be added to unequals, the wholes will be unequal. 

 This is a rule in mathematics, which holds also in ethics, 

 with regard to distributive justice. For in commutative 

 justice, equity requires, that equal portions be given to 

 unequal persons; but in distributive justice, that unequal 

 portions should be distributed to unequals. Things agree 

 ing to the same third, agree also with one another: this, 

 likewise, is an axiom in mathematics, and, at the same time, 

 so serviceable in logic as to be the foundation of syllogism. 12 

 Nature shows herself best in her smallest works. This is a 

 rule in philosophy, that produced the atoms of Democritus, 



1 This observation is tlie foundation of Father Caste! s late piece De Mathe- 

 matique Universelle, wherein, by the help of sensible representations and divi 

 sions, he proposes to teach the sciences readily, and even abstract mathematics, 

 to common capacities. Shaw. 



2 Whately s Logic, ii. 3, 1. 



