Christian Thomas Kohl The Metaphysical Foundations of Buddhism and Modern Science

An examination of Aristotle’s Law of Gravitation exemplifies this
abstractive process inherent in science. The Law involves a classification
of the things around us. There are the heavy bodies with the property of
tending downwards, and there are the other elements such as flames,
with the intrinsic nature that they tend upwards though they are
component things on the Earth’s surface. These upward moving things
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 center 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