Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2 (Physics, On the Heavens, On Generation and Corruption)

is more obscure by nature, but clearer to us, towards what
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is more clear and knowable by nature.
Now what is to us plain and obvious at first is rather
confused masses, the elements and principles of which
become known to us later by analysis. Thus we must
advance from generalities to particulars; for it is a whole
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that is best known to sense-perception, and a generality is
a kind of whole, comprehending many things within it,
184^b

like parts. Much the same thing happens in the relation
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of the name to the formula. A name, e.g. 'round', means
vaguely a sort of whole: its definition analyses this into its
particular senses. Similarly a child begins by calling all
men 'father', and all women 'mother', but later on dis-
tinguishes each of them.

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The principles in question must be either (a) one or
(b) more than one.
If (a) one, it must be either (i) motionless, as Parmenides
and Melissus assert, or (ii) in motion, as the physicists hold,
some declaring air to be the first principle, others water.
If (b) more than one, then either (i) a finite or (ii) an
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infinite plurality. If (i) finite (but more than one), then
either two or three or four or some other number. If (ii)
infinite, then either as Democritus believed one in kind,
but differing in shape or form; or different in kind and
even contrary.
A similar inquiry is made by those who inquire into the
number of existents: for they inquire whether the ultimate
constituents are one or many, and if many,