Metaphysics

The principles and causes of existing things are sought, and clearly, insofar as they exist. For there is a cause of health and of good condition, and of the mathematical objects there are principles, elements, and causes, and in general every intellectual science, or one which shares in some way in intellect, is about causes and principles, either more precise or simpler. But all these sciences, having circumscribed some being and some genus, busy themselves about this, but not about being simply nor insofar as it is being, nor do they make any account of the “what it is”, but starting from this—some making it manifest by perception, others taking the “what it is” as a hypothesis—they thus demonstrate the attributes that belong in themselves to the genus they are concerned with, either more necessarily or more loosely. Wherefore it is clear that there is no demonstration of substance or of the “what it is” from such an induction, but some other way of making it manifest. Similarly, they say nothing about whether the genus they are busy with exists or does not exist, because it belongs to the same thinking to make manifest both what it is and if it exists. —Since physical science also happens to be about some genus of being (for it is about such a substance in which the principle of movement and rest is in itself), it is clear that it is neither practical nor productive (for of productive things the principle is in the producer, whether it is intellect or art or some power, and of practical things in the agent, namely choice; for the thing done and the thing chosen are the same), so that if all thinking is either practical or productive or theoretical, physical science would be a certain theoretical science, but theoretical about such a being as is capable of being moved, and about the substance according to the definition, for the most part, as not separate only. But we must not fail to notice how the essence and the definition exist, since without this, searching is doing nothing. And of things defined and of the “what it is”, some are like the “snub” and others like the “hollow”. These differ because the “snub” is taken together with matter (for the snub is a hollow nose), whereas “hollowness” is without sensible matter. If indeed all physical things are spoken of similarly to the “snub”, such as nose, eye, face, flesh, bone, and in general animal, and leaf, root, bark, and in general plant (for the definition of none of these is without movement, but always has matter), it is clear how we must seek and define the “what it is” in the case of physical things, and why it also belongs to the physicist to contemplate a certain kind of soul, namely as much as is not without matter. That physical science, then, is theoretical is clear from these things. But mathematics is also theoretical; though whether it is of immovable and separate things is now unclear, but that some mathematical branches contemplate them insofar as they are immovable and insofar as they are separate is clear. But if there is something eternal and immovable and separate, it is clear that to know it belongs to a theoretical science, but not to physics (for physics is about certain movable things) nor to mathematics, but to a science prior to both. For physics is about things that are separate but not immovable, and some branches of mathematics are about things that are immovable but perhaps not separate, but as in matter; whereas the first science is about things that are both separate and immovable. And all causes must be eternal, but most of all these; for these are causes of the visible things among the divine. So there would be three theoretical philosophies: mathematics, physics, and theology (for it is not unclear that if the divine belongs anywhere, it belongs in such a nature, and the most honorable science must be about the most honorable genus). The theoretical sciences, then, are more desirable than the other sciences, but this theology is more desirable than the theoretical sciences. For one might raise the question whether first philosophy is universal or about some genus and some single nature (for the way is not the same even in the mathematical sciences, but geometry and astronomy are about some nature, while universal mathematics is common to all). If, then, there is no other substance besides those constituted by nature, physics would be the first science; but if there is some immovable substance, this is prior and first philosophy, and universal in this way because it is first; and it would belong to this to contemplate being insofar as it is being, both what it is and the attributes that belong to it insofar as it is being.