Since all that is is to 'be' in virtue of
something single and common, though the term has many meanings, and
contraries are in the same case (for they are referred to the first
contrarieties and differences of being), and things of this sort can
fall under one science, the difficulty we stated at the beginning
appears to be solved,-I mean the question how there can be a single
science of things which are many and different in genus.
4
Since even the mathematician uses the common axioms only in a
special application, it must be the business of first philosophy to
examine the principles of mathematics also. That when equals are taken
from equals the remainders are equal, is common to all quantities, but
mathematics studies a part of its proper matter which it has detached,
e.g. lines or angles or numbers or some other kind of quantity-not,
however, qua being but in so far as each of them is continuous in
one or two or three dimensions; but philosophy does not inquire
about particular subjects in so far as each of them has some attribute
or other, but speculates about being, in so far as each particular
thing is.-Physics is in the same position as mathematics; for
physics studies the attributes and the principles of the things that
are, qua moving and not qua being (whereas the primary science, we
have said, deals with these, only in so far as the underlying subjects
are existent, and not in virtue of any other character); and so both
physics and mathematics must be classed as parts of Wisdom.
Pages:
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285