science from things pre-existing, as in few things, if even in any, do we see science and its object originating together. 13. Sometimes, but not always, co-subversive. Moreover, the object of science being subverted, co-subverts the science, but science being subverted, does not co-subvert the object of science, for there being no object of science, science itself becomes non-existent, (since there will be no longer a science of any thing);[1] but on the contrary, though science does not exist, there is nothing to prevent the object of science existing. Thus the quadrature of the circle, if it be an object of scientific knowledge, the science of it does not yet exist, though it is itself an object of science:[2] again, "animal" being taken away, there will not be "science," but still it is possible for many objects of science to be. 14. Instance of things pertaining to sense. Likewise also do things pertaining to sense subsist, since the sensible seems to be prior to the sense, as the sensible being subverted co-subverts sense, but sense does not co-subvert the sensible. For the senses are conversant with body, and are in body, but the sensible being subverted, body also is subverted, (since body is of the number of sensibles,) and body not existing, sense also is subverted, so that the sensible co-subverts sense. Sense on the other hand does not co-subvert the sensible, since if animal were subverted, sense indeed would be subverted, but yet
- ↑ This is self-evident, as also that there are some few things in which science is the same as its object, e. g. things without matter are certainly present at the same time as the intellectual science which abides in energy. On the contrary, in the other case, as Simplicius observes, if indolence reject the knowledge of things, yet the things themselves remain, as music, etc. Vide also Brewer's Introduction to the Ethics, book v., as to the position occupied by ἐπιστήμη in the scheme of the five habits. It will thence appear second, and correspond to deduction from certain principles, the latter being a subdivision of abstract truth, thus:
- ↑ Aristotle selects this instance, as the quadrature of the circle does not appear from this, to have been known in his time, but Iamblichus asserts that it was known to the Pythagoreans, and Sextus Pythagoricus received it by succession. Archimedes is stated to have discovered the quadrature of the circle by a line called the line of Nicomedes: he himself styled it the quadratrix.
