#56 SOVUM OBOANUM. [BOOK IL 



two divisions of pliilosopliy and tlie sciences, and we will use the 

 commonly adopted terms which approach the nearest to oup 

 meaning, in our own sense. Let the investigation of forms, 

 which (in reasoning at least, and after their own laws), are 

 eternal and immutable, constitute metaphysics," and let the in- 

 vestigation of the elficient cause of matter, latent process, and 

 latent conformation (which all relate merely to the ordinary 

 course of nature, and not to her fundamental and eternal laws), 

 constitute physics. Parallel to these, let there be two practical 

 divisions ; to physics that of mechanics, and to metaphysics that 

 of magic, in the purest sense of the term, as applied to its ample 

 means, and its command over nature. 



^ X. The object of our philosophy being thus laid down, we 

 proceed to precepts, in the most clear and regular order. The 

 signs for the interpretation of nature comprehend two divisions, 

 the first regards the eliciting or creating of axioms from experi- 

 ment, the second the deducing or deriving of new experiments 

 from axioms. The first admits of three subdivisions into minis- 

 trations 1. To the senses. 2: To the memory. 3. Q'o the 

 mind or reason. 



For we must first prepare as a foundation for the whole, a 

 complete and accurate natural and experimental history. AVe 

 must not imagine or invent, but discover the acts and properties 

 of nature. 



•" Bacon gives this unfortunate term its proper signification ; fiiTo, in 

 composition, with the Greeks signifying change or mutation. Most of 

 our leaders, no doubt, are aware that the obtrusion of this word into 

 technical philosophy was purely capricious, and is of no older date than 

 the publication of Aristotle's works by Andronicus of Rhodes, one of 

 the learned men into whose hands the man«Hcripts of that philosopher 

 fell, after they were brought by Sylla from Athens to Rome. To lour- 

 teen books in these MSS. with no distinguishing title, Andronicus is 

 said to have prefixed the words tu fxeTct ra (pvmKu, to denote the place 

 which they ought to hold either in the order of Aristotle's arrangement, 

 or in that of study. These books treat first of those subjects which are 

 common to matter and mind ; secondly, of things separate from matter, 

 i. e. of God, and of the subordinate spirits, which were supposed by the 

 Peripatetics to watch over particular portions ox the universe. The 

 lollowers of Aristotle accepted the whimsical title of Andronicus, and 

 in their usual manner allowed a word to unite things into one science, 

 which were plainly heterogeneous. Their error was adopted by the 

 Peripatetics of the Christian Church. The schooln\en added to the notion 

 of ontology, the science oi the mind, or pneumatology, and as that genoj 

 of being has since become extinct with the schools, metaphysics thus in 

 modern parlance comes to be synonymous with psychology. It were to 

 be wished that Bacon's definition of the term had been accepted, and 

 mental science delivered from one of the greatest monstrosities in 

 its nomenclature, yet Bacou whimsically enough in his Pe Auguientii 

 inchulcs inc-vtheiuqtk's in mt}i5»ph>sic3. &J>, 



