Page:Metaphysics by Aristotle Ross 1908 (deannotated).djvu/136

 as admits of being moved, and only about that kind of substance which in respect of its definition is for the most part not separable from matter. Now, we must not fail to notice the nature of the essence and of its definition, for, without this, inquiry is but idle. Of things defined, i.e. of essences, some are like 'snub', and some like 'concave'. And these differ because 'snub' is bound up with matter (for what is snub is a concave nose), while concavity is independent of perceptible matter. If then all natural things are analogous to the snub in their nature — e.g. nose, eye, face, flesh, bone, and, in general, animal; leaf, root, bark, and, in general, plant (for none of these can be defined without reference to movement — they always have matter), it is clear how we must seek and define the 'what' in the case of natural objects, and also why it belongs to the student of nature to study soul to some extent, i.e. so much of it as is not independent of matter. — That physics, then, is a theoretical science, is plain from these considerations. Mathematics also is theoretical; but whether its objects are immovable and separable from matter, is not at present clear; it is clear, however, that it considers some mathematical objects qua immovable and qua separable from matter. But if there is something which is eternal and immovable and separable, clearly the knowledge of it belongs to a theoretical science, — not, however, to physics (for physics deals with certain movable things) nor to mathematics, but to a science prior to both. For physics deals with things which are inseparable from matter but not immovable, and some parts of mathematics deal with things which are immovable, but probably not separable, but embodied in matter; while the first science deals with things which are both separable and immovable. Now all causes must be eternal, but especially these; for they are the causes of so much of the divine as appears to us. There must, then, be three theoretical philosophies, mathematics, physics, and what we may call theology, since it is obvious that if the divine is present anywhere, it is present in things of this sort. And the highest science must deal with the highest genus, so that the theoretical