Book 1
36
Further, how can one gain knowledge of the objects of a particular sense-perception without possessing that sense? Yet it should be possible, that if the elements of which all things consist, as composite sounds consist of their peculiar Peculiar to them as sounds, not as individual sounds. If sights and sounds had the same elements, sight, which knows those elements as composing sights, would know them as composing sounds; i.e., we could see sounds. elements, are the same.
1
Thus it is obvious, from the statements of earlier thinkers also, that all inquiry is apparently directed towards the causes described in the Physics,Aristot. Phys. 2.3, 7. and that we cannot suggest any other cause apart from these. They were, however, only vaguely conceived; and although in one sense they have all been stated before, in another they have not been stated at all.
2
For the earliest philosophy speaks falteringly, as it were, on all subjects; being new and in its infancy. Even Empedocles says that bone exists by virtue of its ratio,Empedocles Fr. 96, 98 (Diels), Ritter and Preller 175. Aristotle says that Empedocles had some idea of the essence or formal cause, but did not apply it generally. which is the definition or essence of a thing.
3
But by similar reasoning both flesh and every other thing, or else nothing at all, must be ratio; for it must be because of this, and not because of their matter—which he calls fire, earth, water and air—that flesh and bone and every other thing exists.
4
If anyone else had stated this, he would necessarily have agreed, but his own statement was not clear.
4
These and similar points have been explained already. We will now return to the difficulties which might be raised about these same questions, for they may throw some light upon subsequent difficulties.The reference is to Book 3. See Introduction.
