unsatisfactory in system. It gives too much weight to Aristotle’s logic, and too little to his metaphysics, on account of two prejudices of the commentators which led them to place both logic and physics before metaphysics. Aristotle rightly used all the sciences of his day, and especially his own physics, as a basis of his metaphysics. For example, at the very outset he refers to the Physics (ii. 2) for his use of the four causes, material, efficient, formal and final, in the Metaphysics (Α 2). This and other applications of the science of nature to the science of all being induced the commentators to adopt this order, and entitle the science of being the Sequel to the Physics (τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά). But Aristotle knew nothing of this title, the first known use of which was by Nicolaus Damascenus, a younger contemporary of Andronicus, the editor of the Aristotelian writings, and Andronicus was probably the originator of the title, and of the order. On the other hand, Aristotle entitles the science of all being “Primary Philosophy” (πρώτη φιλοσοφία), and the science of physical being “Secondary Philosophy” (δεύτερα φιλοσοφία), which suggests that his order is from Metaphysics to Physics, the reverse of his editor’s order from Physics to Metaphysics. Thus the traditional order puts Physics before Metaphysics without Aristotle’s authority. With some more show of authority it puts Logic before Metaphysics. Aristotle, on introducing the principle of contradiction (Met. Γ 3), which belongs to Metaphysics as an axiom of being, says that those who attempt to discuss the question of accepting this axiom, do so on account of their ignorance of Analytics, which they ought to know beforehand (προεπισταμένους). He means that the logical analysis of demonstration in the Analytics would teach them beforehand that there cannot be demonstration, though there must be induction, of an axiom, or any other principle; whereas, if they are not logically prepared for metaphysics, they will expect a demonstration of the axiom, as Heraclitus, the Heraclitean Cratylus and the Sophist Protagoras actually did,—and in vain. Acting on this hint, not Aristotle but the Peripatetics inferred that all logic is an instrument (ὄργανον) of all sciences; and by the time of Andronicus, who was one of them and sometimes called “the eleventh from Aristotle,” the order, Logic-Physics-Metaphysics, had become established pretty much as we have it now. It is, however, not the real order for studying the philosophy of Aristotle, because there is more Metaphysics in his Physics than Physics in his Metaphysics, and more Metaphysics in his Logic than Logic in his Metaphysics. The commentators themselves were doubtful about the order: Boethus proposed to begin with Physics, and some of the Platonists with Ethics or Mathematics; while Andronicus preferred to put Logic first as Organon (Scholia, 25 b 34 seq.). None of the parties to the dispute had the authority of Aristotle. What do we find in his works? Primary philosophy, Metaphysics, the science of being, is the solid foundation of all parts of his philosophical system; not only in the Physics, but also in the De Coelo (i. 8, 277 b 10), in the De Generatione (i. 3, 318 a 6; ii. 10, 336 b 29), in the De Anima (i. 1, 403 a 28, cf. b 16), in the De Partibus Animalium (i. 1, 641 a 35), in the Nicomachean Ethics (i. 6, 1096 b 30), in the De Interpretatione (5, 17 a 14); and in short throughout his extant works. The reason is that Aristotle was primarily a metaphysician half for and half against Plato, occupied himself with metaphysics all his philosophical life, made the science of things the universal basis of all sciences without destroying their independence, and so gradually brought round philosophy from universal forms to individual substances. The traditional order of the Aristotelian writings, still continued in the Berlin edition, beginning with the logical writings on page 1, proceeding to the physical writings on page 184, and postponing the Metaphysics to page 980, is not the real order of Aristotle’s philosophy.
The real order of Aristotle’s philosophy is that of Aristotle’s mind, revealed in his writings, and by the general view of thinking, science, philosophy and all learning therein contained. He classified thinking (Met. Ε 1) and science (Topics, vi. 6) by the three operations of speculation (θεωρία), practice (πρᾶξις) and production (ποίησις), and made the following subdivisions:—
I. Speculative: about things; subdivided (Met. Ε 1; De An. i. 1) into:—
- i. Primary Philosophy, Theology, also called Wisdom, about things as things.
- ii. Mathematical Philosophy, about quantitative things in the abstract.
- i. Ethics, about the good of the individual.
- ii. Economics, about the good of the family.
- iii. Politics, about the general good of the state.
III. Productive, or Art (τέχνη): about works produced; subdivided (Met. Α. 1, 981 b 17-20) into:—
- i. Necessary (πρὸς τάναγκαῖα), e.g. medicine.
- ii. Fine (πρὸβ διαγωγήν), e.g. poetry.
Aristotle calls all these investigations sciences (ἐπιστῆμαι): but he also uses the term “sciences” in a narrower sense in consequence of a classification of their objects, which pervades his writings, into things necessary and things contingent, as follows.—
- (A) The necessary (τὸ μὴ ἐνδεχόμενον ἄλλως ἔχειν), what must be; subdivided into:—
- (1) Absolutely (ἁπλῶς), e.g. the mathematical.
- (2) Hypothetically (ἐξ ὑποθέσεως), e.g. matter necessary as means to an end.
- (B) The contingent (τὸ ἐνδεχόμενον ἄλλως ἔχειν), what may be; subdivided into:—
- (1) The usual (τὸ ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ) or natural (τὸ φυσικόν), e.g. a man grows grey.
- (2) The accidental (τὸ κατὰ συμβεβηκός), e.g. a man sits or not.
Now, according to Aristotle, science in the narrow sense is concerned only with the absolutely necessary (E.N. iii. 3), and in the classification would stop at mathematics, which we still call exact science: in the wide sense, on the other hand, it extends to the whole of the necessary and to the usual contingent, but excludes the accidental (Met. Ε 2), and would in the classification include not only metaphysics and mathematics, but also physics, ethics, economics, politics, necessary and fine art; or in short all speculative, practical and productive thinking of a systematic kind. Hence the Posterior Analytics, which is Aristotle’s authoritative logic of science, is of peculiar interest because, after beginning by defining science as investigating necessary objects from necessary principles (i. 4), it proceeds to say that it is either of the necessary or of the usual though not of the accidental (i. 29), and to admit that its principles are some necessary and some contingent (i. 32, 88 b 7). Philosophy (φιλοςοφία) also is used by him in a similar manner. Though occasionally he means by it primary philosophy (Met. Γ 2-3, Κ 3), more frequently he extends it to all three speculative philosophies (Ε 1, 1026 a 18, τρεῖς ἂν εἶεν φιλοσοφίαι θεωρητικαί, μαθηματική, φυσική, θεολογική), and to all three practical philosophies, as we see from the constant use of the phrase “political philosopher” in the Ethics; and in short applies it to all sciences except productive science or art. With him, as with the Greeks generally, the problems of philosophy are the nature and origin of being and of good: it is not as with too many of us a mere science of mind.
Aristotle’s view of thinking in science and philosophy is essentially comprehensive; but it is not so wide as to become indefinite. According to him, science at its widest selects a special subject, e.g. number in arithmetic, magnitude in geometry, stars in astronomy, a man’s good in ethics; concentrates itself on the causes and appropriate principles of its subject, especially the definition of the subject and its species by their essences or formal causes; and after an inductive intelligence of those principles proceeds by a deductive demonstration from definitions to consequences: philosophy is simply a desire of this definite knowledge of causes and effects. Beyond philosophy, not beyond science, there is art; and beyond philosophy and science there is history, the description of facts preparatory to philosophy, the investigation of causes (cf. Pr. An. i. 30); and this may be natural history, preparatory to natural philosophy, as in the History of Animals preparatory to the De Partibus Animalium, or what we call civil history, preparatory to political philosophy, as in the 158 Constitutions more or less preparatory to the Politics.
Wide as is all his knowledge of facts and causes, it does not appear to Aristotle to be the whole of learning and the show of it. Beyond knowledge lies opinion, beyond discovery disputation, beyond philosophy and science dialectic between man and man, which was much practised by the Greeks in the dialogues of Socrates, Plato, the Megarians and Aristotle himself in his early manhood. With Plato, who thought that the interrogation of
