5O4' A BRIEF SCHEME OF ONTOLOGY. also, which give that thing beauty, ornament, honour, con- veniency, &c. such as well grown fruit-trees, shady walks, sum- mer-houses, green-houses, &c. make a perfect garden. The word perfect is sometimes used for excellent, as when we say, beasts and birds are more perfect than fishes ; spirits are more perfect than bodies; and men more perfect than brutes. CHAP. IX.-Of the Whole and Parts. A BEING is said to be a whole when it is considered as consisting of the several parts of it united in a proper manner. And consequently parts are beings, which united, constitute the whole. There are four kinds of whole reckoned upby writers on this subject, (viz.)formal or metaphysical, essential or physical, integral or mathematical, and universal or logical. See `Logic, part I. chap. sect. 7. These are the terms in which the schools have expressed thesedistinctions; and since most of the distinc- tions are useful, it is not necessary to change the terms, though some of them may be applied in a little more proper and per- spicuous manner . A formal or metaphysical whole, is thedefinition of a thing, whereof the genus and the difference are the two constituent parts. See Logic, part I. chap. 5. § 4. I think this is no useless distinction. An essential or physical whole, is wont to be applied to natural beings, all which were supposed, to consist of matter and form: And thence it is applied to man consisting of body and soul ; which the Peripatetics called the matter and form of man. But I think the sense of it maybe better changed or en- larged to include the substance, with all the essential properties of a thing; which joined together make up the whole essence ofit. An integral whole, is when any thing is made up of several parts, which have a real and proper existence in nature; and are quite distinct from each other ; as the body of man is made up of trunk, head and limbs : An army is made up of soldiers. Number is made up of units, and a day of hours : A book is made up of pages, a page of words, a word of letters ; and speech is made up of articulate sounds. Note, This is called a mathematical whole, when it is ap- plied to number, time, dimension, body, or any thing that haul proper quantity, but the term integral may have a wider extent. An universal whole, ,is a genus which includes several species, or a species which includes several individuals. This belongs chiefly to logic; and therefore it is called a logical whole. Though spirits have properly no quantitative parts, and therefore cannot be called a whole of the mathematical kind, yet the terms whole and parts, may be applied to them in all
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