Page:Aristotle (Grant).djvu/172

 physics,” starting from this fortuitous origin, has come to be generally understood in modern times as denoting the most abstract of the sciences—the science of the forms of thought and the forms of things, the science of knowing and being, the science that answers the questions, How can we know anything? how can anything exist? Aristotle, who, of course, was himself unconscious of the word “Metaphysics,” had three names which he used indifferently for this science. Sometimes he called it simply “Wisdom;” sometimes “First Philosophy,” as treating of primary substances and the origin of things; sometimes “Theology,” because all things have their root in the divine nature.

We have already had some specimens of Aristotle’s metaphysical doctrines, put forward as a foundation for natural philosophy (see above, p. 132). In his biological treatises also, especially in that ‘On the Soul,’ Aristotle does not confine himself to the physical principle of life and the functions of the animal soul, but enters upon the mode of our acquiring knowledge, on perception, memory, reason, and the relation of the mind to external objects—all being questions which encroach upon the province of metaphysical inquiry. The substantive treatise, bearing the name ‘Metaphysics,’ has come down to us in the shape of a posthumous fragment, which has been edited and eked out by the addition of other papers. The whole work, as it stands, consists of thirteen books. Of these, seven books were written by Aristotle as the setting forth of his ontology, or science of existence; Books IX., XII., and XIII. (on the Pythagorean and Platonic systems