Appendix to the Books on Plants and Peripatetic Questions

That various sects have arisen from error in first principles.

Chapter I.

Although all sects have many followers who agree on the same points, they nevertheless disagree with one another due to some error regarding first principles, from which they have fallen into vain opinions. For a small error in the beginning becomes the greatest at the end A famous Aristotelian maxim: "parvus error in principio magnus est in fine.". As in Philosophy, by the consensus of all, substance is a certain principle. For all other things are either said of substance or exist within substance. However, concerning the parts of substance—whether Matter or Form be prior—there is no agreement among all. For those who said that matter is prior because it bears the Form, fell into error, thinking that the principles of bodies—namely lines, surfaces, and points or numbers—are the principles of substance, as did the Pythagoreans Followers of Pythagoras who believed that number was the essence of all things.. Aristotle, on the contrary, contended that Form is prior, because act is prior to potency. By this reasoning, he found that the principle of all things is a simple act, and that this alone is substance through itself, and that for the sake of which all things exist, and the best. Matter, however, is not substance through itself, * but for the sake of another. Yet within the Peripatetic Peripatetic: The school of philosophy founded by Aristotle, named for his habit of walking while teaching. way, other sects emerged due to ignorance of the substance which is called Form. Whence they were ignorant of the forms of the elements, saying they were hidden, and they hesitated especially concerning the nature of the soul's intellect; from which they fell into many absurdities, not having well perceived the Philosopher's Aristotle was often referred to simply as "The Philosopher" in academic texts. opinion on substance, which we have explained as much as possible according to the mind of the Greek interpreters. For I have not produced these things from my own opinion, but from the words of Aristotle, which are quite clear and not translated into a foreign tongue original: "nec in alienam linguam translatis." The author emphasizes reading Aristotle in the original Greek rather than through potentially flawed Latin or Arabic translations.. Aristotle indeed arrived from natural things to those which are above nature by a natural path—which is from those things better known to us—as far as it is granted to man to know: by removing the conditions of matter through resolution, which he taught in the Posterior Analytics One of Aristotle's works on logic and scientific demonstration.. He who does not hold to this path frequently wanders from the truth. Moreover, the things better known to us are singulars, for those are the things perceived by the senses.