140 adva:ccemext of learxikg. [book hi. 



a liislory of nature is, 1. the basis of natural philosophy; 

 and 2. the lirst stage from the basis is physics ; and 3. that 

 nearest the vertex metaphysics ; but 4. for the vertex itself, 

 " the work which God worketh from the beginning to the 

 end,"" or the summary law of nature, we doubt whether 

 human inquiry can reach it. But for the other three, they 

 are the true stages of the sciences, and are used by those 

 men who are inflated by their own knowledge, and a daring 

 insolence, as the three hills of the giants to invade heaven. 



" Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam 



Scilicet, atque Osssu frondosum invoivere Olympum."* 



But to the humble and the meek they are the thi-ee acclama- 

 tions, Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus ; for God is holy in the 

 multitude of his works, as well as in their order and union, y 

 and therefore the speculation was excellent in Parmenides 

 and Plato, that all tilings by defined gradations ascend to 

 unity. ^ And as that science is the most excellent, which 

 least burthens the understanding by its multiplicity ; this 

 property is found in metaphysics, as it contemplates those 

 simple forms of things, density, rarity, &c., which we call 

 forms of the first class ; for though these are few, yet, by 

 their commensurations and co-ordinations, they ccmstitute all 

 tnith. 



The second thing that ennobles this part of metaphysics, 

 relating to forms, is, that it releases the human power, and 

 leads it into an immense and open field of work ; for physics 

 direct us through narrow rugged paths, in imitation of the 

 crooked ways of ordinary nature ; but the ways of wisdom, 

 which were anciently defined as "rerum divinarum et huma- 

 narum scientia,"=* are everywhere wide, and abounding in 

 plenty, and variety of means. Physical causes, indeed, by 

 means of new inventions, afford light and direction in a like 

 case again ; but he that understands a form knows the 

 ultimate possibility of superinducing that nature upon all 

 kinds of matter, and is therefore the less restrained or tied 

 down in his working, either as to the basis of the matter or 

 the condition of the efficient. Solomon also describes this 



■ Eocles. iii. 1. * Virgil, Georgics, i. 281. ^ Apocalypse iv, 



* See conclusion of the Dialogue entitled Parmenides. 



• PUto'8 Phaedo ; Cicero, Tuscul. Quaest. 4. Defin. 2. 



