92 
MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 
ing to the phenomena of the material universe, he 
employed himself in deducing consequences from 
metaphysical and mathematical data ; — arguing from 
the mere abstract notions of the mind, to the reali- 
ties of the external world. The first portion of his 
physical philosophy, contained in the treatise en- 
titled Natural Auscultations , is devoted to inquiries 
into the principles of the science, in order to ascer- 
tain those fundamental conceptions of its several ob- 
jects, from which all conclusions concerning them 
are deduced. These principles he reduces, to three : 
1. Matter ; 2. Form ; 3. Privation ; so well known 
and so much perverted in the jargon of the schools. 
The design of his inquiry being to obtain, by physical 
analysis, an ultimate point to which all the various 
notions involved in the speculation of nature might 
be inferred, he proceeds to explain these natural ob- 
jects to be such as have in themselves a principle of 
motion and rest, as contrasted with works of art, the 
principle of which is in the artist. From examining 
this inherent principle, and shewing how it operates 
in producing the ordinary appearances observed in 
the world around us, he is led to account for the 
processes of generation and corruption, and the 
changes which occur in bodies by alteration, mix- 
ture, locomotion, increase and decrease, &c. 
The great doctrine of the ancient physics, “ that 
nothing could be produced out of nothing,” according 
to his theory, required no distinct consideration. In- 
quiring into nature simply as a principle of motion, 
