 In the Quaestiones, Mersenne offered a tripartition of the theoretical sciences: metaphysics considers “trans-natural objects, such as God and the angels, that are actually separated from all matter”; doctrinal sciences—that is mathematics—deals with objects that are “in truth material, but considered abstracted from matter, such as the line and the figure”; natural sciences (physics) considers “material things as such, for example the heavens or the elements”. (QG: col 92–3). In La Vérité (VS I: 50), Mersenne suggested that metaphysics, although an abstract science, like logic and mathematics, is nevertheless closer to physics, in so far as their shared aim is to consider “things as they are in themselves”, and not simply things as they appear to our senses—in this both sciences “are rightly called sapience”. He was later to revise this coupling, suggesting in his Questions inouïes (QI: 54) that metaphysics is closer to mathematics, on account of the fact that, contrary to physics, metaphysics and mathematics both consider immutable and eternal objects, and are the only ones among the sciences capable of being really possessed by men here below.