Further, how could we know the objects of sense without having the
sense in question? Yet we ought to, if the elements of which all
things consist, as complex sounds consist of the clements proper to
sound, are the same.
10
It is evident, then, even from what we have said before, that
all men seem to seek the causes named in the Physics, and that we
cannot name any beyond these; but they seek these vaguely; and
though in a sense they have all been described before, in a sense they
have not been described at all. For the earliest philosophy is, on all
subjects, like one who lisps, since it is young and in its beginnings.
For even Empedocles says bone exists by virtue of the ratio in it. Now
this is the essence and the substance of the thing. But it is
similarly necessary that flesh and each of the other tissues should be
the ratio of its elements, or that not one of them should; for it is
on account of this that both flesh and bone and everything else will
exist, and not on account of the matter, which he names,-fire and
earth and water and air. But while he would necessarily have agreed if
another had said this, he has not said it clearly.
On these questions our views have been expressed before; but let
us return to enumerate the difficulties that might be raised on
these same points; for perhaps we may get from them some help
towards our later difficulties.
Book II
1
THE investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another
easy.
Pages:
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49