The Forms of Metaphysics

I assigned metaphysic to handle the inquiries of formal and final causes.

The Inquiries of Formal Causes

The inquiries of the formal causes might seem nugatory and void. This is because of the received and inveterate opinion that man is not competent to find out essential forms or true differences.

I reply that:

• the invention of forms is the worthiest knowledge to be sought if it could be found.*
• those who say that those forms are impossible to discover are like explorers on a ship who think that there is no land when they see only ocean

Plato, in his opinion of ideas, had the highest wit to assert that forms were the true object of knowledge.

• But he lost the real fruit of his opinion when he said that forms are:
  • absolutely abstracted from matter, and
  • not confined and determined by matter.
• This turned his opinion into theology which infects all his natural philosophy.

But anyone can realize what forms are important to the state of man if he keeps a continual serious watch on the action, operation, and the use of knowledge.

The forms of substances are so perplexed. They should not be inquired into.

Going into them would be like going into those sounds which make words. There are an infinite number of sounds.

But inquiring the form of those sounds which make simple letters is easily comprehensible.*

In the same way, it is vain to inquire the form of a lion, oak, gold, water, air, etc.

But the part of metaphysic which I am defining includes inquiries on the true forms of:

• sense
• voluntary motion
• vegetation
• colours
• gravity and levity
• density
• tenuity
• heat, cold
• all other natures and qualities

Like an alphabet, these are not many. The essences of all material creatures consist of these.

Physic makes inquiry and take consideration of the same natures. But only as to the material and efficient causes of them, not as to the forms.

For example, we ask: What is the cause of whiteness in snow or froth?

• The answer is: The subtle intermixture of air and water.

But is this the form of whiteness? No.

• The physic answer is the effect. the vehiculum formæ.

This part of metaphysic I do not find anyone doing.

6. The use of this part of metaphysic is currently deficient.

But it is the most excellent in 2 respects:

1. It is the duty and virtue of all knowledge:

• to abridge the infinity of individual experiences
• to remedy the complaint of vita brevis, ars longa
  • This is performed by uniting the notions and conceptions of sciences.

The knowledge:

• of pyramids is based on history
• of natural philosophy is based on 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 it.

But these 3 are the true stages of knowledge:

1. Holy in the description or dilatation of His works
2. Holy in the connection or concatenation of them
3. Holy in the union of them in a perpetual and uniform law

The excellent speculation in Parmenides and Plato was that all things by scale ascended to unity.

So then the worthiest knowledge is that which has the least multiplicity – this is metaphysic.

It considers:

• the few simple forms or differences of things and
• the degrees and co-ordinations of how they make all this variety.*

2. It enfranchises the power of man unto the greatest liberty and possibility of works and effects.

Physic carries 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.

Sapience was anciently defined to be rerum divinarum et humanarum scientia. It gives a choice of means.

Physical causes give light to new invention in simili materia.

But if we know any form, we know the utmost possibility of superinducing that nature on any variety of matter.

This makes us less restrained in our operation either to:

• the cause of the matter or
• the condition of the effect

The ways of sapience are not much liable either to particularity or chance.

The Inquiries of Final Causes

The second part of metaphysic is the inquiry of final causes. Up to now, this part has been misplaced.

This misplacing has caused a deficiency in the sciences themselves.

This is because physical inquiries got mixed into the handling of final causes.

This then halted the serious and diligent inquiry* of all real and physical causes. This caused men to stay on these satisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and prejudice of further discovery.

This was done not by Plato, Aristotle, Galen, and others which do usually likewise fall upon these flats of discoursing causes.

They say that:

• “the hairs of the eyelids are a fence around the sight”
• “the firmness of the skins and hides of living creatures is to defend them from heat or cold”
• “the bones are the columns or beams where the frames of the bodies of living creatures are built”
• “the leaves of trees are for protecting of the fruit”
• “the clouds are for watering of the earth”
• “the solidness of the earth is for the station and mansion of living creatures”

These are so common in metaphysic. But in physic they are impertinent.

These [metaphysic theories] are but remoras and hindrances to prevent the further sailing of the ship

• They have caused the search of the physical causes to be neglected.

Therefore, the natural philosophy of Democritus and others removed a mind in the frame of things.

Instead, they attributed the forms to chance.

• This allowed the physical causes to be more real and better inquired than that of Aristotle and Plato.

This created 2 sets of final causes:

• one from theology
• one from logic

These created 2 groups, separated by the vastness and solitude in the human excursions into the limits of physical causes.

The metaphysic cause “the hairs around the eyelids are to safeguard the sight” does not impugn the physic cause “pilosity is incident to orifices of moisture—muscosi fontes, &c.”

The metaphysic cause “the firmness of hides is for the armour of the body against extremities of heat or cold,” does not impugn the physic cause “contraction of pores is incident to the outwardest parts that are adjacent to foreign or unlike bodies”.

Both causes are true and compatible:

• the metaphysic declaring an intention
• the physic declaring only a consequence.

These do not derogate from Divine Providence, but highly confirm and exalt it.

In civil actions, a greater politician is the one who can make other men the instruments of his will and ends without telling them of this.

• They work for him without knowing it.
• He does not impart his plan to those he employs.

Likewise, God’s wisdom is more admirable.

• Nature intends one thing and Providence draws forth another
• He does not need to communicate to particular creatures and motions the characters and impressions of His Providence.*