Kitap 14
3
It would seem that there is an agreement between the mythologists and some present-day thinkers,The Pythagoreans and Speusippus; cf. Aristot. Met. 12.7.10. who deny that there is such an element, and say that it was only after some evolution in the natural order of things that both the Good and the Beautiful appeared. They do this to avoid a real difficulty which confronts those who hold, as some do, that unity is a first principle.
4
This difficulty arises not from ascribing goodness to the first principle as an attribute, but from treating unity as a principle, and a principle in the sense of an element, and then deriving number from unity. The early poets agree with this view in so far as they assert that it was not the original forces—such as Night, Heaven, Chaos or Ocean—but Zeus who was king and ruler.
5
It was, however, on the ground of the changing of the rulers of the world that the poets were led to state these theories; because those of them who compromise by not describing everything in mythological language—e.g. PherecydesOf Syros (circa 600-525 B.C.). He made Zeus one of the three primary beings (Diels,Vorsokratiker201, 202). and certain others—make the primary generator the Supreme Good; and so do the Magi,The Zoroastrian priestly caste. and some of the later philosophers such as Empedocles and Anaxagoras: the one making Love an element,Cf. Aristot. Met. 3.1.13. and the other making Mind a first principle.Cf. Aristot. Met. 1.3.16.
6
And of those who hold that unchangeable substances exist, somePlato; cf. Aristot. Met. 1.6.10. identify absolute unity with absolute goodness; but they considered that the essence of goodness was primarily unity.
6
This, then, is the problem: which of these two views we should hold.
