ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 141 



the arrangement of the sciences. But this should be done 

 in a manner very different from the common : for example, 

 no writer who has treated of much and little, endeavors to 

 assign the cause why some things in nature are so numer 

 ous and large, and others so rare and small; for, doubtless, 

 it is impossible in the nature of things, that there should be 

 as great a quantity of gold as of iron, or roses as plenty as 

 grass, and as great a variety of specific as of imperfect or 

 non-specific nature. 8 So, likewise, nobody that treats of 

 like and different has sufficiently explained, why between 

 particular species there are almost constantly interposed 

 some things that partake of both; as moss 9 between cor 

 ruption and a plant; motionless fish between a plant and 

 an animal; bats between birds and quadrupeds, etc. Nor 

 has any one hitherto discovered why iron does not attract 

 iron, as the loadstone does; and why gold does not attract 

 gold, as quicksilver does, etc. But of these particulars we 

 find no mention in the discourses of transcendentals; for 

 men have rather pursued the quirks of words than the sub- 

 tilties of things. And, therefore, we would introduce into 

 primary philosophy a real and solid inquiry into these 

 transcendentals, or adventitious conditions of beings, ac 

 cording to the laws of nature, not of speech. 



8 Specific bodies; that is, those which have a certain homogeneous form 

 and regularity in their organization, and which exist in such variety as to urge 

 the mind to form them into species. Ed. 



9 By the aid of the microscope, moss has been discovered to be only a col 

 lection of small plants, with parts as distinct and regular in their conformation 

 as the larger plants. The vervain which generally covers the surface of moisfc 

 bodies long exposed to the air presents similar appearances. Ed. 



