the elements of which things are made is conducted in the Platonic manner. For it is surely impossible to discover what 'acting' or 'being acted on', or 'the straight', is made of, but if elements can be discovered at all, it is only the elements of substances; therefore to seek the elements of all existing things or to think one has them is incorrect. And how could we learn the elements of all things? Evidently we cannot start by knowing something before. For as he who is learning geometry, though he may know other things before, knows none of the things with which the science deals and about which he is to learn, so is it in all other cases. Therefore if there is a science of all things, as some maintain, he who is learning this will know nothing before. Yet all learning is by means of premises which are (either all or some of them) known before,—whether the learning be by demonstration or by definitions; for the elements of the definition must be known before and be familiar; and learning by induction proceeds similarly. But again, if the science is innate, it is wonderful that we are unaware of our possession of the greatest of sciences. Again, how is one to know what all things are made of, and how is this to be made evident? This also affords a difficulty; for there might be a conflict of opinion, as there is about certain syllables; some say za is made out of s and d and a, while others say it is a distinct sound and none of those that are familiar. Further, how could we know the objects of sense without having the sense in question? Yet we should, if the elements of which all things consist, as complex sounds consist of their proper elements, are the same.
Chapter 10
It is evident, then, even from what we have said before, that all men seem to seek the causes named in the Physics[1], and that we cannot name any beyond these; but they seek these vaguely; and though in a sense they have all been described before, in a sense they have not been described at
- ↑ ii. 3, 7.
