ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 163 



the voice, it was made ; and as these forms of letters being 

 known, we are thence directly led to inquire the forms of 

 words: so, to inquire the form of an oak, a lion, gold, 

 water, or air, were at present vain; but to inquire the form 

 of density, rarity, heat, cold, gravity, levity, and other 

 schemes of matter and motions, which, like the letters of 

 the alphabet, are few in number, yet make and support 

 the essences and forms of all substances, is what we would 

 endeavor after, as constituting and determining that part of 

 metaphysics we are now upon. 



Nor does this hinder physics from considering the same 

 natures in their fluxile causes only; thus, if the cause of 

 whiteness in snow, or froth, were inquired into, it is judged 

 to be a subtile intermixture of air with water; but this is far 

 from being the form of whiteness, since air intermixed with 

 powdered glass or crystal is also judged to produce white 

 ness no less than when mixed with water: this, therefore, 

 is only the efficient cause, and no other than the vehicle of 

 the form. But if the inquiry be made in metaphysics, it 

 will be found that two transparent bodies, intermixed 

 in their optical portions, and in a simple order, make 

 whiteness. This part of metaphysics I find defective ; and 

 no wonder ; because in the method of inquiry hitherto used, 

 the forms of things can never appear. The misfortune lies 

 here, that men have accustomed themselves to hurry away, 

 and abstract their thoughts too hastily, and carry them too 

 remote from experience and particulars, and have given 

 themselves wholly up to their own meditations and argu 

 ments. 



The use of this part of metaphysics is recommended by 

 two principal things: first, as it is the office and excellence 

 of all sciences to shorten the long turnings and windings of 

 experience, so as to remove the ancient complaint of the 

 scantiness of life, and the tediousness of art; 19 this is best 

 performed by collecting and uniting the axioms of the sci- 



19 Compare Plat. Thseet. i. 155, 156. 



