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 a
principio usque ad finem, the summary law of nature, we know not
whether man's inquiry can attain unto it.
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