[1] They are written
from a materialistic standpoint. These Tropes are given with
illustrations by Fabricius as follows:
I. Since aetiology in general refers to things that are unseen,
it does not give testimony that is incontestable in regard to
phenomena. For example, the Pythagoreans explain the distance of
the planets by a musical proportion.
II. From many equally plausible reasons which might be given for
the same thing, one only is arbitrarily chosen, as some explain
the inundation of the Nile by a fall of snow at its source,
while there could be other causes, as rain, or wind, or the
action of the sun.
III. Things take place in an orderly manner, but the causes
presented do not show any order, as for example, the motion of
the stars is explained by their mutual pressure, which does not
take into account the order that reigns among them.
IV. The unseen things are supposed to take place in the same way
as phenomena, as vision is explained in the same way as the
appearance of images in a dark room.
V. Most philosophers present theories of aetiology which agree
with their own individual hypotheses about the elements, but not
with common and accepted ideas, as to explain the world by atoms
like Epicurus, by homoeomeriae like Anaxagoras, or by matter and
form like Aristotle.
VI. Theories are accepted which agree with individual
hypotheses, and others equally probable are passed by, as
Aristotle's explanation of comets, that they are a collection of
vapors near the earth, because that coincided with his theory of
the universe.
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