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these be said to be?
"Further, does Wisdom investigate all substances or not? If not all,
it is hard to say which; but if, being one, it investigates them all,
it is doubtful how the same science can embrace several subject-matters.
"Further, does it deal with substances only or also with their attributes?
If in the case of attributes demonstration is possible, in that of
substances it is not. But if the two sciences are different, what
is each of them and which is Wisdom? If we think of it as demonstrative,
the science of the attributes is Wisdom, but if as dealing with what
is primary, the science of substances claims the tide.
"But again the science we are looking for must not be supposed to
deal with the causes which have been mentioned in the Physics. For
(A) it does not deal with the final cause (for that is the nature
of the good, and this is found in the field of action and movement;
and it is the first mover-for that is the nature of the end-but in
the case of things unmovable there is nothing that moved them first),
and (B) in general it is hard to say whether perchance the science
we are now looking for deals with perceptible substances or not with
them, but with certain others. If with others, it must deal either
with the Forms or with the objects of mathematics. Now (a) evidently
the Forms do not exist. (But it is hard to say, even if one suppose
them to exist, why in the world the same is not true of the other
things of which there are Forms, as of the objects of mathematics.
I mean that these thinkers place the objects of mathematics between
the Forms and perceptible things, as a kind of third set of things
apart both from the Forms and from the things in this world; but there
is not a third man or horse besides the ideal and the individuals.
If on the other hand it is not as they say, with what sort of things
must the mathematician be supposed to deal? Certainly not with the
things in this world; for none of these is the sort of thing which
the mathematical sciences demand.) Nor (b) does the science which
we are now seeking treat of the objects of mathematics; for none of
them can exist separately. But again it does not deal with perceptible
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METAPHYSICS 127
substances; for they are perishable.
"In general one might raise the question, to what kind of science
it belongs to discuss the difficulties about the matter of the objects
of mathematics. Neither to physics (because the whole inquiry of the
physicist is about the things that have in themselves a principle.
of movement and rest), nor yet to the science which inquires into
demonstration and science; for this is just the subject which it investigates.
It remains then that it is the philosophy which we have set before
ourselves that treats of those subjects.
"One might discuss the question whether the science we are seeking
should be said to deal with the principles which are by some called
elements; all men suppose these to be present in composite things.
But it might be thought that the science we seek should treat rather
of universals; for every definition and every science is of universals
and not of infimae species, so that as far as this goes it would deal
with the highest genera. These would turn out to be being and unity;
for these might most of all be supposed to contain all things that
are, and to be most like principles because they are by nature; for
if they perish all other things are destroyed with them; for everything
is and is one. But inasmuch as, if one is to suppose them to be genera,
they must be predicable of their differentiae, and no genus is predicable
of any of its differentiae, in this way it would seem that we should
not make them genera nor principles. Further, if the simpler is more
of a principle than the less simple, and the ultimate members of the
genus are simpler than the genera (for they are indivisible, but the
genera are divided into many and differing species), the species might
seem to be the principles, rather than the genera. But inasmuch as
the species are involved in the destruction of the genera, the genera
are more like principles; for that which involves another in its destruction
is a principle of it. These and others of the kind are the subjects
that involve difficulties.
Part 2 "
"Further, must we suppose something apart from individual things,
or is it these that the science we are seeking treats of? But these
are infinite in number. Yet the things that are apart from the individuals
are genera or species; but the science we now seek treats of neither [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]