For inasmuch as it is
most architectonic and authoritative and the other sciences, like
slavewomen, may not even contradict it, the science of the end and
of the good is of the nature of Wisdom (for the other things are for
the sake of the end). But inasmuch as it was described' as dealing
with the first causes and that which is in the highest sense object of
knowledge, the science of substance must be of the nature of Wisdom.
For since men may know the same thing in many ways, we say that he who
recognizes what a thing is by its being so and so knows more fully
than he who recognizes it by its not being so and so, and in the
former class itself one knows more fully than another, and he knows
most fully who knows what a thing is, not he who knows its quantity or
quality or what it can by nature do or have done to it. And further in
all cases also we think that the knowledge of each even of the
things of which demonstration is possible is present only when we know
what the thing is, e.g. what squaring a rectangle is, viz. that it
is the finding of a mean; and similarly in all other cases. And we
know about becomings and actions and about every change when we know
the source of the movement; and this is other than and opposed to
the end. Therefore it would seem to belong to different sciences to
investigate these causes severally.
But (2), taking the starting-points of demonstration as well as
the causes, it is a disputable question whether they are the object of
one science or of more (by the starting-points of demonstration I mean
the common beliefs, on which all men base their proofs); e.
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