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.
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