ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 149 



different accidents: so if the inquiry were about heat or 

 gravity ; these are found in many different substances. But 

 as all physics lies in the middle, between natural history and 

 metaphysics ; so the former part approaches nearer to natural 

 history, and the latter to metaphysics. 



Concrete physics has the same division with natural his 

 tory; being conversant either about celestial appearances, 

 meteors, and the terrestrial globe; or about the larger as 

 semblages of matter, called the elements; and the lesser 

 or particular bodies: as also about praeter- generations and 

 mechanics. For in all these, natural history examines 

 and relates the matters of fact; and physics their instable, 

 or material and efficient causes. And among these parts 

 of physics, that is absolutely lame and incomplete, which 

 regards the celestial bodies, though for the dignity of the 

 subject it claims the highest regard. Astronomy, indeed, 

 is well founded in phenomena; yet it is low and far from 

 solid. But astrology is in many things destitute of all 

 foundation. And to say the truth, astronomy itself seems 

 to offer Prometheus s sacrifice to the understanding; for as 

 he would have imposed upon Jupiter a fair large hide 

 stuffed with straw, and leaves, and twigs, instead of the 

 ox itself, so astronomy gives us the number, situation, mo 

 tion, and periods of the stars, as a beautiful outside of the 

 heavens, while the flesh and the entrails are wanting; that 

 is, a well- fabricated system, or the physical reasons and 

 foundations for a just theory, that should not only solve 

 phenomena, as almost any ingenious theory may do, but 

 show the substance, motions, and influences of the heavenly 

 bodies, as they really are. For those dogmas are long since 

 exploded, which asserted the rapture of the first morn and 

 the solidity of the heavens, in which the stars were supposed 

 fastened like nails in the vaulted roof of a hall, and other 

 opinions almost as silly; viz., that the zodiac has several 

 poles; that there exists a movement of resilience against the 

 rapture of the first motion ; that all parts of the firmament 

 are wheeled round in perfect circles, with eccentric and epi- 



