 Lipsius made his intentions clear right from the start. Endorsing the Stoic position that the study of nature and its workings was an indispensable part of philosophy, he cited the well-known statements of Plato (Theaetetus 155D) and Aristotle (Metaphysics 982b) that amazement was the motive force of philosophy (Physiologia I.2). In addition, he maintained that the study of higher matters, such as the true nature of God and the universal laws of nature, could serve as an antidote to involvement in petty quarrels — the same role which, in De constantia, he had assigned to constancy and the Stoic mastery of the emotions by reason.