The Metaphysical Foundation of Buddhism and Modern Science

tend to their proper place which is the heavens. The stars and planets
form yet a third class of things which by their own nature are in the
heavens, things which are ingenerable and incorruptible. In this
classification of the components of physical nature yet a fourth
component remains over, in its character unique and thus the only
member of its class. This component is the Earth, the centre of the
Universe, by reference to which all these other types of being are
defined.
In this classification of the various components of physical nature
Aristotle has given to Science and Philosophy its first sweeping analysis
of the fact of physical nature. You will notice that the classification
proceeds entirely by reference to function, quite in the modern spirit. In
the place of an uninterpreted swamp, pestilential with mystery and magic,
he sets before our understanding a majestic, coordinated scheme, lucid
to the understanding and based upon the obvious, persistent fact of our
experience. In the generality of its scope, it is equally philosophic and
scientific, and later on it provided the physical background for the
Christian scheme of salvation. Its overthrow, eighteen hundred years
later, was resisted equally by Luther and the Church of Rome. As an
example of a majestic inductive generalization, appealing to the obvious
facts, and neglecting the welter of minor differences, Aristotle’s general
conception of the physical universe remains unsurpassed. For every
feature in it, there is an appeal to observation; and for every observation
to which appeal is made, there is the possibility of its indefinite