The Metaphysics of Aristotle

therefore, is discussed in this work pertaining to will or appetite, or anything of this kind, because these are vital powers; nor to sensation, the dianoëtic: Relating to discursive reasoning, as opposed to direct intuition. energy, and intelligence, because these are the properties of gnostic gnostic: Pertaining to knowledge or the capacity for knowing. natures. Hence, we shall find that the Metaphysics of Aristotle unfold all that is comprehended in the great orb of being, so far as everything which this orb contains is stamped, as it were, with the idiom of its source. The same thing is likewise effected by Plato in his Parmenides; but, as we have before observed, more theologically, conformably to the genius of his philosophy, which always considers nature so far as she is suspended from divinity. The Metaphysics of Aristotle are, therefore, the same with the most scientific dialectic dialectic: The art of investigating or discussing the truth of opinions through logical reasoning. of Plato, of which the Parmenides of that philosopher is a most beautiful specimen, with this difference only: that in the former the physical, and in the latter the theological, character predominates.

That the reader, however, may be convinced of this, it will be requisite to be more explicit, and to show in what the employment of scientific dialectic consists. The business, then, of this first of sciences is to employ definitions, divisions, analyses, and demonstrations as primary sciences in the investigation of causes; imitating the progressions of beings from the first principle of things, and their continual conversion to it as the ultimate object of desire. "But there are three energies," says Proclus Proclus: A prominent Greek Neoplatonist philosopher. † In Parmenid. lib. i., "of this most scientific method: the first of which is adapted to youth and is useful for the purpose of rousing their intellect, which is, as it were, in a dormant state; for it is a true exercise of the eye of the soul in the speculation of things, leading forth, through opposite positions, the essential impression of ideas which it contains,

* For an explanation of this word see the end of this Introduction.

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