Aristotle

The following is a literal translation, restoring what Sir W. Hamilton omits:— “But, respecting all these matters, we must endeavour to seek belief through general reasoning, employing the appearances before us (i.e. the current dicta and facta of society) as testimonies and examples. For it is best that all mankind should be manifestly in agreement with what we are about to say; but, if that cannot be, that at all events they should be in some sort of agreement with us; which they will come to be when brought round (by being addressed in the proper style). For every man has in him some tendencies favourable to the truth, and it is out of these that we must somehow or other prove our conclusions. By taking our departure from what is said around us truly but not clearly, we shall by gradual advance introduce clearness, taking along with us such portion of the confused common talk as is most congruous to Science.… It is well also to consider apart the causal reasoning (syllogistic, deductive premisses), and the conclusion shown: first, upon the ground just stated, that we must not pay exclusive attention to the results of deductive reasoning, but often rather to apparent facts, whereas it often happens now that, when men cannot refute the reasoning, they feel constrained to believe in the conclusion; next, because the conclusion, shown by the reasoning, may often be true in itself, but not from the cause assigned in the reasoning. For a true conclusion may be shown by false premisses; as we have seen in the Analytica.”

Whoever reads the original words of Aristotle (or Eudemus) will see how much Sir W. Hamilton’s translation strains their true meaning. Κράτιστον does not correspond to the phrase — “it is the strongest evidence of a doctrine.” Κράτιστον is the equivalent of ἄριστον, as we find in chap. iii. of this Book of the Eudemian Ethica (p. 1215, a. 3): ἐπεὶ δ’ εἰσὶν ἀπορίαι περὶ ἑκάστην πραγματείαν οἰκεῖαι, δῆλον ὅτι καὶ περὶ βίου τοῦ κρατίστου καὶ ζωῆς τῆς ἀρίστης εἰσίν. Nor ought the words οἰκεῖόν τι πρὸς τὴν ἀλήθειαν to be translated — “a kind of private organ of the truth:” they mean simply — “something in him favourable or tending towards the truth,” as we read in chap. ii. of this same Book — οἰκεῖον πρὸς εὐεξίαν (p. 1214, b. 22). Moreover, Hamilton has omitted to translate both the words preceding and the words following; accordingly he has missed the real sense of the passage. Aristotle inculcates upon the philosopher never to neglect the common and prevalent opinions, but to acquaint himself with them carefully; because, though these opinions are generally full of confusion and error (εἰκῇ γὰρ λέγουσι σχεδὸν περὶ ἁπάντων (οἱ πολλοί) — Ethic. Eudem. I. iii. p. 1215, a. 1), he will find in them partial correspondences with the truth, of which he may avail himself to bring the common minds round to better views; but, unless he knows pretty well what the opinions of these common minds are, he will not be able to address them persuasively. This is the same reasonable view which Aristotle expresses at the beginning of the Topica (in a passage already cited, above), respecting the manner of dealing proper for a philosopher towards current opinion. But it does not at all coincide with the representation given by Hamilton.

The next piece of evidence (h) which we find tendered is another passage out of the Eudemian Ethica. It will be seen that this passage is strained with even greater violence than the preceding. Hamilton writes as follows, first translating the words of Aristotle, then commenting on them:— “The problem is this — What is the beginning or principle of motion in the soul? Now it is evident, as God is in the universe, and the universe in God, that [I read κινεῖν καί — W. H.] the divinity in us is also, in a certain sort, the universal mover of the mind. For the principle of Reason is not Reason but something better. Now what can we say is better than even Science, except God?”10 So far Hamilton’s translation; now follows his comment:— “The import of this singular passage is very obscure. It has excited, I see, the attention, and exercised the ingenuity, of Pomponatius, J. C. Scaliger, De Raei, Leibnitz, Leidenfrost, Jacobi, &c. But without viewing it as of pantheistic tendency, as Leibnitz is inclined to do, it may be interpreted as a declaration, that Intellect, which Aristotle elsewhere allows to be pre-existent and immortal, is a spark of the Divinity; whilst its data (from which as principles more certain than their deductions, Reason, Demonstration, Science, must depart) are to be reverenced as the revelation of truths which would otherwise lie hid from man: That, in short,

By the bye, it is remarkable that this text was not employed by any of those Aristotelian philosophers who endeavoured to identify the Active Intellect with the Deity.”

I maintain that this passage noway justifies the interpretation whereby Sir W. Hamilton ascribes to Aristotle a doctrine so large and important. The acknowledged obscurity of the passage might have rendered any interpreter cautious of building much upon it: but this is not all: Sir W. Hamilton has translated it separately, without any allusion to the chapter of which it forms part. This is a sure way of misunderstanding it; for it cannot be fairly construed except as bearing on the problem enunciated and discussed in that chapter. Aristotle (or Eudemus) propounds for discussion explicitly in this chapter a question which had been adverted to briefly in the earlier part of the Eudemian Ethica (I. i. p. 1214, a. 24) — What is the relation between good fortune and happiness? Upon what does good fortune depend? Is it produced by special grace or inspiration from the Gods? This question is taken up and debated at length in the chapter from which Sir W. Hamilton has made his extract. It is averred, as a matter of notoriety, that some men are fortunate. Though fools, they are constantly successful — more so than wiser men; and this characteristic is so steady, that men count upon it and denominate them accordingly. (See this general belief illustrated in the debate at Athens recorded by Thukydides, vi. 17, the good fortune of Nikias being admitted even by his opponents.) Upon what does this good fortune depend? Upon nature? Upon intelligence? Upon fortune herself as a special agent? Upon the grace and favour of the gods to the fortunate individual? Aristotle (or Eudemus) discusses the problem in a long and perplexed chapter, stating each hypothesis, together with the difficulties and objections attaching to it. As far as we can make out from an obscure style and a corrupt text, the following is the result arrived at. There are two varieties of the fortunate man: one is, he who succeeds through a rightly directed impulse, under special inspiration of the divine element within him and within all men; the other is, he who succeeds without any such impulse, through the agency of Fortune proper. The good fortune of the first is more constant than that of the second; but both are alike irrational or extra-rational.11 Now the divine element in the soul is the beginning or principle of motion for all the manifestations in the soul — for reason as well as feeling: that which calls reason into operation, is something more powerful than reason. But in the intelligent man this divine mover only calls reason into operation, leaving reason, when once in operation, to its own force and guidance, of course liable to err; whereas in the fortunate man (first variety) the divine element inspires all his feelings and volitions, without any rational deliberation, so that he executes exactly the right thing at the right time and place, and accordingly succeeds.12

Aristotle (or Eudemus) thus obtains a psychological explanation (good or bad) of the fact, that there are fools who constantly succeed in their purposes, and wise men who frequently fail. He tells us that there is in the soul a divine principle of motion, which calls every thing — reason as well as appetite or feeling — into operation. But he says nothing of what Sir W. Hamilton ascribes to him — about Intellect as a spark of the Divinity, or about data of Intellect to be reverenced as the revelation of hidden truths. His drift is quite different and even opposite: to account for the success of individuals without intellect or reason — to bring forward a divine element in the soul, which dispenses with intellect, and which conducts these unintelligent men to success, solely by infusing the most opportune feelings and impulses. Sir W. Hamilton has misunderstood this passage, by taking no notice of the context and general argument to which it belongs.

Besides, when Hamilton represents Aristotle here as declaring: “That the data of Intellect are to be reverenced as the revelation of truths which would otherwise lie hid from man” — how are we to reconcile this with what we read two pages before (p. 771, a.) as the view of Aristotle about these same data of Intellect, that “they are themselves pre-eminently certain; and, if denied in words, they are still always mentally admitted”? Is it reasonable to say that the Maxim of Contradiction, and the proposition, That if equals be subtracted from equals, the remainders will be equal — are data “to be reverenced as the revelation of truths which would otherwise lie hid from man”? At any rate, I protest against the supposition that Aristotle has ever declared this.

The next two passages cited from Aristotle have really no bearing upon the authority of Common Sense in its metaphysical meaning: they are (i) from Physic. VIII. iii. and (k) from De Gen. Animal. III. x. Both passages assert the authority of sensible perception against general reasoning, where the two are conflicting. They assert, in other words, that general reasoning ought to be tested by experience and observation, and is not to be accepted when disallowed by these tests. (The only condition is, that the observation be exact and complete.) This is just, and is often said, though often disregarded in fact, by Aristotle. But it has no proper connexion with the problem about the trustworthiness of Common Sense.

Next Sir W. Hamilton refers us to (without citing) three other places of Aristotle. Of these, the first (De Cœlo, I. iii. p. 270, b. 4-13, marked l) is one which I am much surprised to find in a modern champion of Common Sense: since it represents Common Sense as giving full certificate to errors now exploded and forgotten. Aristotle had begun by laying down and vindicating his doctrine of the First or Celestial Body, forming the exterior portion of the Kosmos, radically distinct from the four elements; revolving eternally in uniform, perfect, circular motion, eternal, unchangeable, &c. Having stated this, he proceeds to affirm that the results of these reasonings coincide with the common opinions of mankind, that is, with Common Sense; and that they are not contradicted by any known observations of perceptive experience. This illustrates what I have before observed about Aristotle’s position in regard to Common Sense. He does not extol it as an authority, or tell us that “it is to be reverenced as a revelation”; but, when he has proved a conclusion on what he thinks good grounds, he is glad to be able to show that it tallies with common opinions; especially when these opinions have some alliance with the received religion.

The next passage (m) referred to (De Cœlo, III. vii. p. 306, a. 13) has nothing to do with Common Sense, but embodies a very just protest by Aristotle against those philosophers who followed out their theories consistently to all possible consequences, without troubling themselves to enquire whether those consequences were in harmony with the results of observation.

There follows one other reference (n) which was hardly worth Sir W. Hamilton’s notice. In Meteorologic. I. xiii. p. 349, a. 25, Aristotle, after reciting a theory of some philosophers (respecting the winds) which he considers very absurd, then proceeds to say:— “The many, without going into any enquiry at all, talk better sense than those who after enquiry bring forward such conclusions as these.” It is not saying much for the authority of Common Sense, to affirm that there have been occasionally philosophical theories so silly as to be worse than Common Sense.

B. — Aristotle’s Doctrine.

In regard to Aristotle, there are two points to be examined —

I. What position does he take up in respect to the authority of Common Sense?

II. What doctrine does he lay down about the first principia or beginnings of scientific reasoning — the ἀρχαὶ συλλογιστικαί?

I. — That Aristotle did not regard Cause, Substance, Time, &c., as Intuitions, is shown by the subtle and elaborate reasonings that he employs to explain them, and by the censure that he bestows on the erroneous explanations and shortcomings of others. Indeed, in regard to Causality, when we read the great and perplexing diversity of meaning which Aristotle (and Plato before him in the Phædon) recognizes as belonging to this term, we cannot but be surprised to find modern philosophers treating it as enunciating a simple and intuitive idea. But as to Common Sense — taking the term as above explained, and as it is usually understood by those that have no particular theory to support — Aristotle takes up a position at once distinct and instructive; a position (to use the phraseology of Kant) not dogmatical, but critical. He constantly notices and reports the affirmations of Common Sense; he speaks of it with respect, and assigns to it a qualified value, partly as helping us to survey the subject on all sides, partly as a happy confirmation, where it coincides with what has been proved otherwise; but he does not appeal to it as an authority in itself trustworthy or imperative.

Common Sense belongs to the region of Opinion. Now the distinction between matters of Opinion on the one hand, and matters of Science or Cognition on the other, is a marked and characteristic feature of Aristotle’s philosophy. He sets, in pointed antithesis, Demonstration, or the method of Science — which divides itself into special subjects, each having some special principia of its own, then proceeds by legitimate steps of deductive reasoning from such principia, and arrives at conclusions sometimes universally true, always true for the most part — against Rhetoric and Dialectic, which deal with and discuss opinions upon all subjects, comparing opposite arguments, and landing in results more or less probable. Contrasting them as separate lines of intellectual procedure, Aristotle lays down a theory of both. He recognizes the procedure of Rhetoric and Dialectic as being to a great degree the common and spontaneous growth of society; while Demonstration is from the beginning special, not merely as to subject, but as to persons, implying teacher and learner.

Rhetoric and Dialectic are treated by Aristotle as analogous processes. Of the matter of opinion and belief, with which both of them deal, he distinguishes three varieties: (1) Opinions or beliefs entertained by all; (2) By the majority; (3) By a minority of superior men, or by one man in respect to a science wherein he has acquired renown. It is these opinions or beliefs that the rhetorician and the dialectician attack and defend; bringing out all the arguments available for or against each.

The Aristotelian treatise on Rhetoric opens with the following words:— “Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic; for both of them deal with such matters as do not fall within any special science, but belong in a certain way to the common knowledge of all. Hence every individual has his share of both, greater or less; for every one can, up to a certain point, both examine others and stand examination from others; every one tries to defend himself and to accuse others.”13 To the same purpose Aristotle speaks about Dialectic, in the beginning of the Topica:— “The dialectical syllogism takes its premisses from matters of opinion, that is, from matters that seem good to (or are believed by) all, or the majority, or the wise — either all the wise, or most of them, or the most celebrated.” Aristotle distinguishes these matters of common opinion or belief from three distinct other matters:— (1) From matters that are not really such, but only in appearance; in which the smallest attention suffices to detect the false pretence of probability, while no one except a contentious Sophist ever thinks of advancing them; on the contrary, the real matters of common belief are never thus palpably false, but have always something deeper than a superficial show; (2) From the first truths or principia, upon which scientific demonstration proceeds; (3) From the paralogisms, or fallacious assumptions (ψευδογραφήματα), liable to occur in each particular science.

Now what Aristotle here designates and defines as “matters of common opinion and belief” (τὰ ἔνδοξα) includes all that is usually meant, and properly meant, by Common Sense — what is believed by all men or by most men. But Aristotle does not claim any warrant or authority for the truth of these beliefs, on the ground of their being deliverances of Common Sense, and accepted (by all or by the majority) always as indisputable, often as self-evident. On the contrary, he ranks them as mere probabilities, some in a greater, some in a less degree; as matters whereon something may be said both pro and con, and whereon the full force of argument on both sides ought to be brought out, notwithstanding the supposed self-evidence in the minds of unscientific believers. Though, however, he encourages this dialectical discussion on both sides as useful and instructive, he never affirms that it can by itself lead to certain scientific conclusions, or to anything more than strong probability on a balance of the countervailing considerations. The language that he uses in speaking of these deliverances of Common Sense is measured and just. After distinguishing the real Common Opinion from the fallacious simulations of Common Opinion set up (according to him) by some pretenders, he declares that in all cases of Common Opinion there is always something more than a mere superficial appearance of truth. In other words, wherever any opinion is really held by a large public, it always deserves the scrutiny of the philosopher to ascertain how far it is erroneous, and, if it be erroneous, by what appearances of reason it has been enabled so far to prevail.

Again, at the beginning of the Topica (in which he gives both a theory and precepts of dialectical debate), Aristotle specifies four different ends to be served by that treatise. It will be useful (he says) —

1. For our own practice in the work of debate. If we acquire a method and system, we shall find it easier to conduct a debate on any new subject, whenever such debate may arise.

2. For our daily intercourse with the ordinary public. When we have made for ourselves a full collection of the opinions held by the many, we shall carry on our conversation with them out of their own doctrines, and not out of doctrines foreign to their minds; we shall thus be able to bring them round on any matter where we think them in error.

3. For the sciences belonging to philosophy. By discussing the difficulties on both sides, we shall more easily discriminate truth and falsehood in each separate scientific question.

4. For the first and highest among the principia of each particular science. These, since they are the first and highest of all, cannot be discussed out of principia special and peculiar to any separate science; but must be discussed through the opinions commonly received on the subject-matter of each. This is the main province of Dialectic; which, being essentially testing and critical, is connected by some threads with the principia of all the various scientific researches.

We see thus that Aristotle’s language about Common Opinion or Common Sense is very guarded; that, instead of citing it as an authority, he carefully discriminates it from Science, and places it decidedly on a level lower than Science, in respect of evidence; yet that he recognizes it as essential to be studied by the scientific man, with full confrontation of all the reasonings both for and against every opinion; not merely because such study will enable the scientific man to study and converse intelligibly and efficaciously with the vulgar, but also because it will sharpen his discernment for the truths of his own science, and because it furnishes the only materials for testing and limiting the first principia of that science.

II. We will next advert to the judgment of Aristotle respecting these principia of science: how he supposes them to be acquired and verified. He discriminates various special sciences (geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, &c.), each of which has its own appropriate matter, and special principia from which it takes its departure. But there are also certain principia common to them all; and these he considers to fall under the cognizance of one grand comprehensive science, which includes all the rest; First Philosophy or Ontology — the science of Ens in its most general sense, quatenus Ens; while each of the separate sciences confines itself to one exclusive department of Ens. The geometer does not debate nor prove the first principia of his own science; neither those that it has in common with other sciences, nor those peculiar to itself. He takes these for granted, and demonstrates the consequences that logically follow from them. It belongs to the First Philosopher to discuss the principia of all. Accordingly, the province of the First Philosopher is all-comprehensive, co-extensive with all the sciences. So also is the province of the Dialectician alike all-comprehensive. Thus far the two agree; but they differ as to method and purpose. The Dialectician seeks to enforce, confront, and value all the different reasons pro and con, consistent and inconsistent; the First Philosopher performs this too, or supposes it to be performed by others, but proceeds farther: namely, to determine certain Axioms that may be trusted as sure grounds (along with certain other principia) for demonstrative conclusions in science.

Aristotle describes in his Analytica the process of Demonstration, and the conditions required to render it valid. But what is the point of departure for this process? Aristotle declares that there cannot be a regress without end, demonstrating one conclusion from certain premisses, then demonstrating those premisses from others, and so on. You must arrive ultimately at some premisses that are themselves undemonstrable, but that may be trusted as ground from whence to start in demonstrating conclusions. All demonstration is carried on through a middle term, which links together the two terms of the conclusion, though itself does not appear in the conclusion. Those undemonstrable propositions, from which demonstration begins, must be known without a middle term, that is, immediately known; they must be known in themselves, that is, not through any other propositions; they must be better known than the conclusions derived from them; they must be propositions first and most knowable. But these two last epithets (Aristotle often repeats) have two meanings: first and most knowable by nature or absolutely, are the most universal propositions; first and most knowable to us, are those propositions declaring the particular facts of sense. These two meanings designate truths correlative to each other, but at opposite ends of the intellectual line of march.

Of these undemonstrable principia, indispensable as the grounds of all Demonstration, some are peculiar to each separate science, others are common to several or to all sciences. These common principles were called Axioms, in mathematics, even in the time of Aristotle. Sometimes, indeed, he designates them as Axioms, without any special reference to mathematics; though he also uses the same name to denote other propositions, not of the like fundamental character. Now, how do we come to know these undemonstrable Axioms and other immediate propositions or principia, since we do not knew them by demonstration? This is the second question to be answered, in appreciating Aristotle’s views about the Philosophy of Common Sense.

He is very explicit in his way of answering this question. He pronounces it absurd to suppose that these immediate principia are innate or congenital, — in other words, that we possess them from the beginning, and yet that we remain for a long time without any consciousness of possessing them; seeing that they are the most accurate of all our cognitions. What we possess at the beginning (Aristotle says) is only a mental power of inferior accuracy and dignity. We, as well as all other animals, begin with a congenital discriminative power called sensible perception. With many animals, the data of perception are transient, and soon disappear altogether, so that the cognition of such animals consists in nothing but successive acts of sensible perception. With us, on the contrary, as with some other animals, the data of perception are preserved by memory; accordingly our cognitions include both perceptions and remembrances. Farthermore, we are distinguished even from the better animals by this difference — that with us, but not with them, a rational order of thought grows out of such data of perception, when multiplied and long preserved. And thus out of perception grows memory; out of memory of the same matter often repeated grows experience, since many remembrances of the same thing constitute one numerical experience. Out of such experience, a farther consequence arises, that what is one and the same in all the particulars, (the Universal or the One alongside of the Many), becomes fixed or rests steadily within the mind. Herein lies the principium of Art, in reference to Agenda or Facienda — of Science, in reference to Entia.

Thus these cognitive principia are not original and determinate possessions of the mind, nor do they spring from any other mental possessions of a higher cognitive order, but simply from data of sensible perception; which data are like runaway soldiers in a panic, first one stops his flight and halts, then a second follows the example, afterwards a third and fourth, until at length an orderly array is obtained. Our minds are so constituted as to render this possible. If a single individual impression is thus detained, it will presently acquire the character of a Universal in the mind; for, though we perceive the particular, our perception is of the Universal (i.e., when we perceive Kallias, our perception is of man generally, not of the man Kallias). Again the fixture of these lowest Universals in the mind will bring in those of the next highest order; until at length the Summa Genera and the absolute Universals acquire a steady establishment therein. Thus, from this or that particular animal, we shall rise as high as Animal universally; and so on from Animal upwards.

We thus see clearly (Aristotle says) that only by Induction can we come to know the first principia of Demonstration; for it is by this process that sensible perception engraves the Universal on our minds.14 We begin by the notiora nobis (Particulars), and ascend to the notiora naturâ or simpliciter (Universals). Some among our mental habits that are conversant with truth, are also capable of falsehood (such as Opinion and Reasoning): others are not so capable, but embrace uniformly truth and nothing but truth; such are Science and Intellect (Νοῦς). Intellect is the only source more accurate than Science. Now the principia of Demonstration are more accurate than the demonstrations themselves, yet they cannot (as we have already observed) be the objects of Science. They must therefore be the object of what is more accurate than Science, namely, of Intellect. Intellect and the objects of Intellect will thus be the principia of Science and of the objects of Science. But these principles are not intuitive data or revelations. They are acquisitions gradually made; and there is a regular road whereby we travel up to them, quite distinct from the road whereby we travel down from them to scientific conclusions.

The chapter just indicated in the Analytica Posteriora, attesting the growth of those universals that form the principia of demonstration out of the particulars of sense, may be illustrated by a similar statement in the First Book of the Metaphysica. Here, after stating that sensible perception is common to all animals, Aristotle distinguishes the lowest among animals, who have this alone; then, a class next above them, who have it along with phantasy and memory, and some of whom are intelligent (like bees), yet still cannot learn, from being destitute of hearing; farther another class, one stage higher, who hear, and therefore can be taught something, yet arrive only at a scanty sum of experience; lastly, still higher, the class men, who possess a large stock of phantasy, memory, and experience, fructifying into science and art.15 Experience (Aristotle says) is of particular facts; Art and Science are of Universals. Art is attained, when out of many conceptions of experience there arises one universal persuasion respecting phenomena similar to each other. We may know that Kallias, sick of a certain disease — that Sokrates, likewise sick of it — that A, B, C, and other individuals besides, have been cured by a given remedy; but this persuasion respecting ever so many individual cases, is mere matter of experience. When, however, we proceed to generalize these cases, and then affirm that the remedy cures all persons suffering under the same disease, circumscribed by specific marks — fever or biliousness — this is Art or Science. One man may know the particular cases empirically, without having generalized them into a doctrine; another may have learnt the general doctrine, with little or no knowledge of the particular cases. Of these two, the last is the wiser and more philosophical man; but the first may be the more effective and successful as a practitioner.

In the passage above noticed, Aristotle draws the line of intellectual distinction between man and the lower animals. If he had considered that it was the prerogative of man to possess a stock of intuitive general truths, ready-made, and independent of experience, this was the occasion for saying so. He says the exact contrary. No modern psychologist could proclaim more fully than Aristotle here does the derivation of all general concepts and general propositions from the phenomena of sense, through the successive stages of memory, association, comparison, abstraction. No one could give a more explicit acknowledgment of Induction from particulars of sense, as the process whereby we reach ultimately those propositions of the highest universality, as well as of the highest certainty; from whence, by legitimate deductive syllogism, we descend to demonstrate various conclusions. There is nothing in Aristotle about generalities originally inherent in the mind, connate although dormant at first and unknown, until they are evoked or elicited by the senses; nothing to countenance that nice distinction eulogized so emphatically by Hamilton (p. 772, a. note): “Cognitio nostra omnis à mente primam originem, à sensibus exordium habet primum.” In Aristotle’s view, the senses furnish both originem and exordium: the successive stages of mental procedure, whereby we rise from sense to universal propositions, are multiplied and gradual, without any break. He even goes so far as to say that we have sensible perception of the Universal. His language undoubtedly calls for much criticism here. We shall only say that it discountenances altogether the doctrine that represents the Mind or Intellect as an original source of First or Universal Truths peculiar to itself. That opinion is mentioned by Aristotle, but mentioned only to be rejected. He denies that the mind possesses any such ready-made stores, latent until elicited into consciousness. Moreover, it is remarkable that the ground whereon he denies it is much the same as that whereon the advocates of intuitions affirm it, viz., the supreme accuracy of these axioms. Aristotle cannot believe that the mind includes cognitions of such value, without being conscious thereof. Nor will he grant that the mind possesses any native and inherent power of originating these inestimable principia.16 He declares that they are generated in the mind only by the slow process of induction, as above described; beginning from the perceptive power (common to man with animals), together with that first stage of the intelligence (judging or discriminative) which he combines or identifies with perception, considering it to be alike congenital. From this humble basis men can rise to the highest grades of cognition, though animals cannot. We even become competent (Aristotle says) to have sensible perception of the Universal; in the man Kallias, we see Man; in the ox feeding near us, we see Animal.

It must be remembered that, when Aristotle, in this analysis of cognition, speaks of Induction, he means induction completely and accurately performed; just as, when he talks of Demonstration, he intends a good and legitimate demonstration; and just as (to use his own illustration in the Nikomachean Ethica), when he reasons upon a harper, or other professional artist, he always tacitly implies a good and accomplished artist. Induction thus understood, and Demonstration, he considers to be the two processes for obtaining scientific faith or conviction; both of them being alike cogent and necessary, but Induction even more so than Demonstration; because, if the principia furnished by the former were not necessary, neither could the conclusions deduced from them by the latter be necessary. Induction may thus stand alone without Demonstration, but Demonstration pre-supposes and postulates Induction. Accordingly, when Aristotle proceeds to specify those functions of mind wherewith the inductive principia and the demonstrated conclusions correlate, he refers both of them to functions wherein (according to him) the mind is unerring and infallible — Intellect (Νοῦς) and Science. But, between these two he ranks Intellect as the higher, and he refers the inductive principia to Intellect. He does not mean that Intellect (Νοῦς) generates or produces these principles. On the contrary, he distinctly negatives such a supposition, and declares that no generative force of this high order resides in the Intellect; while he tells us, with equal distinctness, that they are generated from a lower source — sensible perception, and through the gradual upward march of the inductive process. To say that they originate from Sense through Induction, and nevertheless to refer them to Intellect (Νοῦς) as their subjective correlate, — are not positions inconsistent with each other, in the view of Aristotle. He expressly distinguishes the two points, as requiring to be separately dealt with. By referring the principia to Intellect (Νοῦς), he does not intend to indicate their generating source, but their evidentiary value and dignity when generated and matured. They possess, in his view, the maximum of dignity, certainty, cogency, and necessity, because it is from them that even Demonstration derives the necessity of its conclusions; accordingly (pursuant to the inclination of the ancient philosophers for presuming affinity and commensurate dignity between the cognitum and the cognoscens), they belong as objective correlates to the most unerring cognitive function — the Intellect (Νοῦς). It is the Intellect that grasps these principles, and applies them to their legitimate purpose of scientific demonstration; hence Aristotle calls Intellect not only the principium of Science, but the principium principii.

In the Analytica, from which we have hitherto cited, Aristotle explains the structure of the Syllogism and the process of Demonstration. He has in view mainly (though not exclusively) the more exact sciences, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, &c. But he expressly tells us that all departments of inquiry are not capable of this exactness; that some come nearer to it than others; that we must be careful to require no more exactness from each than the subject admits; and that the method adopted by us must be such as will attain the admissible maximum of exactness. Now each subject has some principia, and among them definitions, peculiar to itself; though there are also some principia common to all, and essential to the march of each. In some departments of study (Aristotle says) we get our view of principia or first principles by induction; in others, by sensible perception; in others again, by habitual action in a certain way; and by various other processes also. In each, it is important to look for first principles in the way naturally appropriate to the matter before us; for this is more than half of the whole work; upon right first principles will mainly depend the value of our conclusions. For what concerns Ethics, Aristotle tells us that the first principles are acquired through a course of well-directed habitual action; and that they will be acquired easily, as well as certainly, if such a course be enforced on youth from the beginning. In the beginning of the Physica, he starts from that antithesis, so often found in his writings, between what is more knowable to us and what is more knowable absolutely or by nature. The natural march of knowledge is to ascend from the first of these two termini (particulars of sense) upward to the second or opposite,17 and then to descend downward by demonstration or deduction. The fact of motion he proves (against Melissus and Parmenides) by an express appeal to induction, as sufficient and conclusive evidence. In physical science (he says) the final appeal must be to the things and facts perceived by sense. In the treatise De Cœlo he lays it down that the principia must be homogeneous with the matters they belong to: the principia of perceivable matters must be themselves perceivable; those of eternal matters must be eternal; those of perishable matters, perishable.