CHAP. I.] PRIMARY PH)IX>SOI>HY DEFICIENT. 110 



stand all this of mere similitudes, as they might at first ap- 

 pear, for they really are one and the same footsteps, and 

 inipressions of nature, made uj^on different matters and sub- 

 iects. And in this liglit the thing has not hitherto been 

 carefully treated. A few of these axioms may indeed bo 

 found in the writings of eminent men, here and there in- 

 terspersed occasionally ; but a collected body of them, which 

 should have a primitive and summary tendency to the sci- 

 ences, is not hitherto extant, though a thing of so great 

 moment as remarkable to show nature to bo one and tlio 

 same, which is supposed the office of a primary philosophy. 



There is another part of this primary philosophy regarding 

 the adventitious or transcendental condition of things; as little, 

 much, like, different, ])ossible, impossible, entity, nonentity, 

 ifec. For as these things do not pro})erly come under ])hysics, 

 and as their logical consideration rather acconmiodates them 

 to argumentation than existence, it is )tro])er that this poinC 

 be not quite deserted, as being of considerable dignity and 

 use, so as to have some place in the arr;ingement of tlie 

 sciences. But this should bo dc.-ie in a manner very different 

 from the common : for example, no writer who has treated 

 of ranch and little, endeavours to assign the cause why some 

 things in nature are so numerous 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.^' So, like- 

 wioc, nobody that treats of like and different has sufficiently 

 explained, why betwixt particular species there are almost 

 constantly interposed some things that partake of both ; as 

 moss' betwixt corruption and a plant ; motionless fish be- 

 twixt a i)lant and an animal ; bats betwixt birds and quad- 

 i-upeds, &c. 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, 6lc. But ot these 



*' Specific bodies ; that is, those which have a certain lioraogeneou^ 

 form and regularity in their organization, and which exist in such variety 

 as to urge the mind to form them into species. Ed. 



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

 collection of small plants, with parts as distinct and regular in their con^ 

 formation as the larger plants. The vervain which generally coverg 

 the surface of moist bodies long exposed to the air present" 

 appearances. £d. 



