Kitap 4
1
There is a science which studies Being qua Being, and the properties inherent in it in virtue of its own nature. This science is not the same as any of the so-called particular sciences, for none of the others contemplates Being generally qua Being; they divide off some portion of it and study the attribute of this portion, as do for example the mathematical sciences.
2
But since it is for the first principles and the most ultimate causes that we are searching, clearly they must belong to something in virtue of its own nature. Hence if these principles were investigated by those also who investigated the elements of existing things, the elements must be elements of Being not incidentally, but qua Being. Therefore it is of Being qua Being that we too must grasp the first causes.
1
The term being is used in various senses, but with reference to one central idea and one definite characteristic, and not as merely a common epithet. Thus as the term healthy always relates to health (either as preserving it or as producing it or as indicating it or as receptive of it),
2
and as medical relates to the art of medicine (either as possessing it or as naturally adapted for it or as being a function of medicine)—and we shall find other terms used similarly to these—
3
so being is used in various senses, but always with reference to one principle. For some things are said to be because they are substances; others because they are modifications of substance; others because they are a process towards substance, or destructions or privations or qualities of substance, or productive or generative of substance or of terms relating to substance, or negations of certain of these terms or of substance. (Hence we even say that not-being is not-being.)
