The Metaphysics of Aristotle

sion, such the pregnant brevity of his diction, that entire sentences are frequently comprised in a few words; and he condenses in a line what Cicero Cicero: A famous Roman statesman and orator known for his elaborate and expansive prose style. would dilate into a page. His books On Meteors, his Topics, and his Politics likewise evince that he was capable of writing with perspicuity as well as precision; and among his lost works, Simplicius Simplicius: A 6th-century philosopher and commentator on Aristotle. informs us that his Epistles and Dialogues were most elegantly written. Indeed, he says, none even of the most illustrious writers is equal to Aristotle in epistolary composition.

And lastly, the qualifications which are peculiarly requisite in an auditor of the following work are a naturally good disposition, a penetrating sagacity, and an ardent love of truth. For, as he is here led to the contemplation of eternal and immovable natures, and the first cause of all things, a naturally good disposition is necessary so that he may possess the moral virtues as preparatory to the reception of the theoretical virtues. Penetrating sagacity is likewise necessary because of the unavoidable obscurity of the subject and because it is last in the progress of human understanding, though first in the nature of things. To which we may add that to see distinctly that there are other objects more real than those of sense, to elevate the mental eye to the principles of things, and gaze on their dazzling splendor, requires no common acuteness, no small degree of penetration. And both a good disposition and sagacity will be unequal to the task unless attended with an ardent love of truth: for this is the wing by which the mind rises above sense and soars to the summit of philosophy.

The design of Aristotle in this work is to lead us from forms merged in, or inseparable from, matter to those forms which are entirely immaterial, and which, in his own words, are the most luminous of all things. But he considers these forms so far only as they are beings; or, in other words, so far as they are the progeny of one first being, and are characterized by essence essence: The intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of a thing.. Nothing,