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METAPHYSICS METASTASIO. 



tilings material, which, it cannot be denied, is often 

 the case. In the speculative sciences, morals, meta- 

 physics, politics, &c., metaphors, instead of being 

 confined to the rank of illustrations, have often been 

 treated as if they hat! an independent meaning, and 

 have been made the foundation of reasonings. No 

 philosophy deserves this reproach more severely than 

 the most recent philosophy of Germany, which often 

 takes ingenious metaphors as explanations of truth. 



METAPHYSICS. What am I? What is all that 

 surrounds me? What is mind, soul, existence, per- 

 ception, feeling, thought? What is evil? What is 

 time, space, cause, effect? What is truth? What 

 is necessity? What is freedom? Can we know any 

 thing with certainty? Questions of this character 

 are continually suggesting themselves to the mind of 

 man. It is one of his distinguishing characteristics 

 to look for causes, and to establish relations among 

 the numberless phenomena around him, and within 

 him ; to separate the generic from the special, and 

 to reduce the whole system of things to harmonious 

 order. His acquisitions and advancement are all 

 owing to this disposition, ineradicably planted in his 

 soul by his Creator. The rudest speculations of 

 uncivilized man, and the profoundest systems of 

 philosophy, are alike proofs that this desire cannot 

 be extinguished, this anxious feeling cannot be lulled 

 into apathy. All investigations relating to these 

 great questions belong to what has been called, 

 though arbitrarily, metaphysics. Such speculations 

 it is neither possible nor desirable to check, though 

 they may result in but distant approximations to 

 truth. Revealed religion does not attempt to repress 

 them, and even if the end of the whole should be 

 that the search was vain, this itself would be a fact 

 of the highest interest. A man who contemns 

 metaphysics must think his own nature unworthy of 

 examination. Metaphysical inquiries, indeed, have 

 often been disfigured with overstrained subtilty and 

 revolting sophistry, and too often arbitrary analogies, 

 bold comparisons, and unmeaning mysticism have 

 claimed and received homage as having unlocked 

 the long hidden truth ; but the same has taken place 

 in regard to religion and politics, and all the great 

 subjects which strongly stir the soul of man. In an 

 historical point of view, all these aberrations, and 

 even absurdities, mournful as they may be, are inter- 

 esting. Among the writings of Aristotle, on natural 

 subjects, are some which treat particularly of the 

 original causes of all existence. When the various 

 treatises of that philosopher were first arranged by 

 his commentators, the latter received a place after 

 the others, and, not having a special title, were 

 designated in the older manuscripts as TO, pi-rcc ra. 

 Qufftxa, that is, after the treatises on nature ; and of 

 this the schoolmen formed the barbarous word meta- 

 physica ; and as the subjects which Aristotle treats 

 in these chapters are purely speculative, metaphysics 

 was considered the science of general speculation, 

 and of things placed beyond the reach of the senses. 

 This science was not new ; its elements were spread 

 through all philosophical systems ; and that which 

 bears the name of Aristotle, being but a collection of 

 considerations on the principles of things, on general 

 terms, axioms, causes, the properties of existence, 

 substance, matter, motion, space, time, God, the im- 

 material and eternal intelligences who preside over 

 the movement of the heavenly spheres, forms but 

 part of it ; for metaphysics comprehends every thing 

 which can occupy the human mind, God, nature, the 

 soul, and all the conceptions which result from the 

 rational exercise of our faculties. Few philosophers 

 have embraced the whole of the vast domain of 

 metaphysics; generally they have attached them- 

 selves to one of its parts, and have treated it accord- 



ing to their different genius. Some have abandoned 

 themselves to the promptings of a lively and exalted 

 imagination ; others have devoted themselves to a 

 cool analysis ; some have employed themselves in 

 speculation, others in observation ; and in regard to 

 observation, some have confined themselves mostly 

 to facts perceptible by the senses; some to the phe- 

 nomena within us, moral and intellectual. We do 

 not mean that any class has exercised itself exclu- 

 sively in either of these ways, but each has had a 

 favourite path, to which the others were subordinate. 

 Thus the Oriental philosophy observes little, reasons 

 freely, analyzes not at all, and imagines constantly. 

 It creates and sets in action supernatural beings, 

 suggests mysterious causes and arbitrary analogies, 

 and peoples space with spirits standing between (iod 

 and men. The dogma of the two principles and the 

 system of emanations, form the basis of this theologi- 

 cal philosophy. Traces of these sublime visions 

 appear in the metaphysics of Pythagoras and Plato. 

 Aristotle, in the treatises above mentioned, generally 

 gives what other philosophers have said respecting 

 subjects lying beyond the reach of our senses, and 

 often only hints at what is to be sought, without 

 declaring that it is found. The great authority 

 which Aristotle enjoyed in the middle ages, and the 

 little actual knowledge respecting the laws of exist- 

 ence, induced his pretended followers to form from 

 his philosophical fragments what they thought a con- 

 nected and well founded system, which served as a 

 canon for the philosophy of the time. Even the old- 

 est commentators of Aristotle directed their endea- 

 vours to this point ; but metaphysics, as an indepen- 

 dent science, was developed by the schoolmen of tlie. 

 middle ages (Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William 

 Occam, and others), and was cultivated (if, indeed, 

 this word can be given to their way of treating 

 science) so much the more as all other sciences had 

 been forgotten. Not until the seventeenth century 

 was the metaphysics of the schoolmen undermined 

 by the introduction of a critical spirit of investiga- 

 tion. Lord Bacon, More, Hobbes, appeared in 

 England ; Th. Campanella, in Italy ; Descartes, in 

 France, as adversaries of the Aristotelian school- 

 philosophy. More details and a continuation of the 

 historical sketch will be found in the article Philoso- 

 phy, Intellectual, as well as some account of the 

 most important systems of metaphysics. It has 

 become customary to designate the theoretical prin- 

 ciples of any branch of knowledge as the metaphysics 

 of a science. The French, in particular, have con- 

 sidered metaphysics in this light, and have been in 

 the habit of despising abstract speculation, though a 

 different spirit seems to have arisen among their lat- 

 est philosophical writers. 



METAPONTUS ; a son of Sisyphus, who married 

 Theana. See T/ieana. 



METASTASIO, PIETRO ANTONIO DOMENICO 

 BUONAVENTORA ; bom at Assisi, 1698. His true 

 name was Trapassi, and his father was a common 

 soldier. His poetical talents were early awakened, 

 particularly by the reading of Tasso, and, while yet 

 a child, were displayed in making rhymes, and in 

 improvisations : the latter, however, he was soon 

 obliged to renounce, on account of his sensibility to 

 nervous excitement. The celebrated Gravina, who 

 accidentally became acquainted with his talents, took 

 him under his protection, called him (by a translation 

 of his name into Greek) Metastasio, paid great atten- 

 tion to his education, and, on his death, in 1717, left 

 him his whole estate. The young poet, being thus 

 placed in an easy condition, devoted himself to his 

 favourite study, and, under the guidance of the cele- 

 brated singer Maria Romanina (afterwards Bul- 

 garelli), created the modern Italian opera. He had 



