BASIS OF ONTOLOGY. 537 
be more natural and more logical, as well as in strict accordance with the successive Mo- 
tive, Spontaneous, and Rational development of Consciousness. 
282. Aristotle’s division of fundamental science recognizes the supreme importance of 
theology : 
“« Physical science is about those things which have in themselves the principle of mo- 
tion; but mathematical science is contemplative, and about permanent but inseparable 
things. ‘Therefore, about separable and immovable being, if there is any such being, 
there is another science besides these two. I say separable and immovable, which we will 
endeavor to show; and if there is any such nature in beings, there also would be the 
divine ; and this would be the first and supreme principle. It is evident, therefore, that 
there are three kinds of contemplative sciences, PHysicAL, MATHEMATICAL, THEOLOGICAL. 
The class of contemplative sciences is, therefore, the best; and of these, the one last 
mentioned, for it is about the most honorable of beings.” * 
283. A Positive Philosophy is possible to those, and only to those, who have a positive 
faith. In all reasoning, it is necessary to inquire, not only whether the argument is 
logical, but also whether the premises are true. The theological condition of knowledge 
is not only the first, but it is the most continuous and the most authoritative. 
_ 284. “We do not see a man, if by Man is meant that which lives, moves, perceives, and 
thinks as we do; but only such a certain collection of ideas as directs us to think there is 
a distinct principle of thought and motion like to ourselves, accompanying and repre- 
sented by it. And after the same manner we see Gop; all the difference is that whereas 
some one finite and narrow assemblage of ideas denotes a particular human mind, whither- 
soever we direct our view, we do at all times and in all places perceive manifest tokens of 
the Divinity; everything we see, hear, feel, or anywise perceive by sense, being a sign or 
effect of the power of Gop; as is our perception of those very motions which are pro- 
duced by man.” + 
285. “If mind have no original or existence but with us, by what means or way do 
we men come to be possessed of it? Our principle of intelligence, or soul, which has 
dominion over our body, is no more visible to us than the principle of the universe.” t 
* Aristotle,—tay pete ta guotwe, B. xi, chap. 7, vol. 2, p. 1381. See also B. vi, chap. 1, p. 1308. 
{ Berkeley: Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, § 148. Compare Solly, p. 239. “The 
only alternative, as it appears to me, which saves any form of life and freedom in the external world, anything 
that should account for and justify the profound sense of awe we experience in viewing the glories of the uni- 
verse, without making it the very God Himself, and thus rushing at once into the very grossest form of pantheism, 
is this,—that we should give up the idea of its self-subsistence and conceive it as a maintained manifestation of 
the Divine energy.” 
t Socrates; quoted by Anderson, p. 158. 
