The Advancement of Learning
the principles or originals of things. The third is the doctrine
concerning all variety and particularity of things; whether it be of the
differing substances, or their differing qualities and natures; whereof
there needeth no enumeration, this part being but as a gloss or
paraphrase that attendeth upon the text of natural history. Of these
three I cannot report any as deficient. In what truth or perfection they
are handled, I make not now any judgment; but they are parts of knowledge
not deserted by the labour of man.
(5) For metaphysic, we have assigned unto it the inquiry of formal and
final causes; which assignation, as to the former of them, may seem to be
nugatory and void, because of the received and inveterate opinion, that
the inquisition of man is not competent to find out essential forms or
true differences; of which opinion we will take this hold, that the
invention of forms is of all other parts of knowledge the worthiest to be
sought, if it be possible to be found. As for the possibility, they are
ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing
but sea. But it is manifest that Plato, in his opinion of ideas, as one
that had a wit of elevation situate as upon a cliff, did descry that
forms were the true object of knowledge; but lost the real fruit of his
opinion, by considering of forms as absolutely abstracted from matter,
and not confined and determined by matter; and so turning his opinion
upon theology, wherewith all his natural philosophy is infected. But if
any man shall keep a continual watchful and severe eye upon action,
operation, and the use of knowledge, he may advise and take notice what
are the forms, the disclosures whereof are fruitful and important to the
state of man. For as to the forms of substances (man only except, of
whom it is said, _Formavit hominem de limo terræ_, _et spiravit in faciem
ejus spiraculum vitæ_, and not as of all other creatures, _Producant
aquæ_, _producat terra_), the forms of substances I say (as they are now
by compounding and transplanting multiplied) are so perplexed, as they
are not to be inquired; no more than it were either possible or to
purpose to seek in gross the forms of those sounds which make words,
which by composition and transposition of letters are infinite. But, on
the other side, to inquire the form of those sounds or voices which make
simple letters is easily comprehensible; and being known induceth and
manifesteth the forms of all words, which consist and are compounded of
them. In the same manner to inquire the form of a lion, of an oak, of
gold; nay, of water, of air, is a vain pursuit; but to inquire the forms
of sense, of voluntary motion, of vegetation, of colours, of gravity and
levity, of density, of tenuity, of heat, of cold, and all other natures
and qualities, which, like an alphabet, are not many, and of which the
essences (upheld by matter) of all creatures do consist; to inquire, I
say, the true forms of these, is that part of metaphysic which we now
define of. Not but that physic doth make inquiry and take consideration
of the same natures; but how? Only as to the material and efficient
causes of them, and not as to the forms. For example, if the cause of
whiteness in snow or froth be inquired, and it be rendered thus, that the
subtle intermixture of air and water is the cause, it is well rendered;
but, nevertheless, is this the form of whiteness? No; but it is the
efficient, which is ever but _vehiculum formæ_. This part of metaphysic
I do not find laboured and performed; whereat I marvel not; because I
hold it not possible to be invented by that course of invention which
hath been used; in regard that men (which is the root of all error) have
made too untimely a departure, and too remote a recess from particulars.
(6) But the use of this part of metaphysic, which I report as deficient,
is of the rest the most excellent in two respects: the one, because it is
the duty and virtue of all knowledge to abridge the infinity of
individual experience, as much as the conception of truth will permit,
and to remedy the complaint of _vita brevis_, _ars longa_; which is
performed by uniting the notions and conceptions of sciences. For
knowledges are as pyramids, whereof history is the basis. So of natural
philosophy, the basis is natural history; the stage next the basis is
physic; the stage next the vertical point is metaphysic. As for the
vertical point, _opus quod operatur Deus à principio usque ad finem_, the
summary law of nature, we know not whether man’s inquiry can attain unto
it. But these three be the true stages of knowledge, and are to them
that are depraved no better than the giants’ hills:—
“Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam,
Scilicet atque Ossæ frondsum involvere Olympum.”
But to those which refer all things to the glory of God, they are as the
three acclamations, _Sante_, _sancte_, _sancte_! holy in the description
or dilatation of His works; holy in the connection or concatenation of
them; and holy in the union of them in a perpetual and uniform law. And,
therefore, the speculation was excellent in Parmenides and Plato,
although but a speculation in them, that all things by scale did ascend
to unity. So then always that knowledge is worthiest which is charged
with least multiplicity, which appeareth to be metaphysic; as that which
considereth the simple forms or differences of things, which are few in
number, and the degrees and co-ordinations whereof make all this variety.
The second respect, which valueth and commendeth this part of metaphysic,
is that it doth enfranchise the power of man unto the greatest liberty
and possibility of works and effects. For physic carrieth men in narrow
and restrained ways, subject to many accidents and impediments, imitating
the ordinary flexuous courses of nature. But _latæ undique sunt
sapientibus viæ_; to sapience (which was anciently defined to be _rerum
divinarum et humanarum scientia_) there is ever a choice of means. For
physical causes give light to new invention in _simili materia_. But
whosoever knoweth any form, knoweth the utmost possibility of
superinducing that nature upon any variety of matter; and so is less
restrained in operation, either to the basis of the matter, or the
condition of the efficient; which kind of knowledge Solomon likewise,
though in a more divine sense, elegantly describeth: _non arctabuntur
gressus tui_, _et currens non habebis offendiculum_. The ways of
sapience are not much liable either to particularity or chance.
(7) The second part of metaphysic is the inquiry of final causes, which I
am moved to report not as omitted, but as misplaced. And yet if it were
but a fault in order, I would not speak of it; for order is matter of
illustration, but pertaineth not to the substance of sciences. But this
misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at least a great improficience in
the sciences themselves. For the handling of final causes, mixed with
the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe and diligent
inquiry of all real and physical causes, and given men the occasion to
stay upon these satisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and
prejudice of further discovery. For this I find done not only by Plato,
who ever anchoreth upon that shore, but by Aristotle, Galen, and others
which do usually likewise fall upon these flats of discoursing causes.
For to say that “the hairs of the eyelids are for a quickset and fence
about the sight;” or that “the firmness of the skins and hides of living
creatures is to defend them from the extremities of heat or cold;” or
that “the bones are for the columns or beams, whereupon the frames of the
bodies of living creatures are built;” or that “the leaves of trees are
for protecting of the fruit;” or that “the clouds are for watering of the
earth;” or that “the solidness of the earth is for the station and
mansion of living creatures;” and the like, is well inquired and
collected in metaphysic, but in physic they are impertinent. Nay, they
are, indeed, but _remoras_ and hindrances to stay and slug the ship from
further sailing; and have brought this to pass, that the search of the
physical causes hath been neglected and passed in silence. And,
therefore, the natural philosophy of Democritus and some others, who did
not suppose a mind or reason in the frame of things, but attributed the
form thereof able to maintain itself to infinite essays or proofs of
Nature, which they term fortune, seemeth to me (as far as I can judge by
the recital and fragments which remain unto us) in particularities of
physical causes more real and better inquired than that of Aristotle and
Plato; whereof both intermingled final causes, the one as a part of
theology, and the other as a part of logic, which were the favourite
studies respectively of both those persons; not because those final
causes are not true and worthy to be inquired, being kept within their
own province, but because their excursions into the limits of physical
causes hath bred a vastness and solitude in that tract. For otherwise,
keeping their precincts and borders, men are extremely deceived if they
think there is an enmity or repugnancy at all between them. For the
cause rendered, that “the hairs about the eyelids are for the safeguard
of the sight,” doth not impugn the cause rendered, that “pilosity is
incident to orifices of moisture—_muscosi fontes_, &c.” Nor the cause
rendered, that “the firmness of hides is for the armour of the body
against extremities of heat or cold,” doth not impugn the cause rendered,
that “contraction of pores is incident to the outwardest parts, in regard
of their adjacence to foreign or unlike bodies;” and so of the rest, both
causes being true and compatible, the one declaring an intention, the
other a consequence only. Neither doth this call in question or derogate
from Divine Providence, but highly confirm and exalt it. For as in civil
actions he is the greater and deeper politique that can make other men
the instruments of his will and ends, and yet never acquaint them with
his purpose, so as they shall do it and yet not know what they do, than
he that imparteth his meaning to those he employeth; so is the wisdom of
God more admirable, when Nature intendeth one thing and Providence
draweth forth another, than if He had communicated to particular
creatures and motions the characters and impressions of His Providence.
And thus much for metaphysic; the latter part whereof I allow as extant,
but wish it confined to his proper place.
VIII. (1) Nevertheless, there remaineth yet another part of natural
philosophy, which is commonly made a principal part, and holdeth rank
with physic special and metaphysic, which is mathematic; but I think it
more agreeable to the nature of things, and to the light of order, to
place it as a branch of metaphysic. For the subject of it being
quantity, not quantity indefinite, which is but a relative, and belongeth
to _philosophia prima_ (as hath been said), but quantity determined or
proportionable, it appeareth to be one of the essential forms of things,
as that that is causative in Nature of a number of effects; insomuch as
we see in the schools both of Democritus and of Pythagoras that the one
did ascribe figure to the first seeds of things, and the other did
suppose numbers to be the principles and originals of things. And it is
true also that of all other forms (as we understand forms) it is the most
abstracted and separable from matter, and therefore most proper to
metaphysic; which hath likewise been the cause why it hath been better
laboured and inquired than any of the other forms, which are more
immersed in matter. For it being the nature of the mind of man (to the