Note: Metaphysics is distinguished as general and special.
{General metaphysics} is the science of all being as
being. {Special metaphysics} is the science of one kind
of being; as, the metaphysics of chemistry, of morals,
or of politics. According to Kant, a systematic
exposition of those notions and truths, the knowledge
of which is altogether independent of experience, would
constitute the science of metaphysics.
Commonly, in the schools, called metaphysics, as
being part of the philosophy of Aristotle, which
hath that for title; but it is in another sense:
for there it signifieth as much as ``books
written or placed after his natural philosophy.''
But the schools take them for ``books of
supernatural philosophy;'' for the word
metaphysic will bear both these senses. --Hobbes.
Now the science conversant about all such
inferences of unknown being from its known
manifestations, is called ontology, or
metaphysics proper. --Sir W.
Hamilton.
Metaphysics are [is] the science which determines
what can and what can not be known of being, and
the laws of being, a priori. --Coleridge.
2. Hence: The scientific knowledge of mental phenomena;
mental philosophy; psychology.
Metaphysics, in whatever latitude the term be taken,
is a science or complement of sciences exclusively
occupied with mind. --Sir W.
Hamilton.
Whether, after all, A larger metaphysics might not
help Our physics. --Mrs.
Browning.