And if there is such
a kind of thing in the world, here must surely be the divine, and this
must be the first and most dominant principle. Evidently, then,
there are three kinds of theoretical sciences-physics, mathematics,
theology. The class of theoretical sciences is the best, and of
these themselves the last named is best; for it deals with the highest
of existing things, and each science is called better or worse in
virtue of its proper object.
One might raise the question whether the science of being qua
being is to be regarded as universal or not. Each of the
mathematical sciences deals with some one determinate class of things,
but universal mathematics applies alike to all. Now if natural
substances are the first of existing things, physics must be the first
of sciences; but if there is another entity and substance, separable
and unmovable, the knowledge of it must be different and prior to
physics and universal because it is prior.
8
Since 'being' in general has several senses, of which one is
'being by accident', we must consider first that which 'is' in this
sense. Evidently none of the traditional sciences busies itself
about the accidental. For neither does architecture consider what will
happen to those who are to use the house (e.g. whether they have a
painful life in it or not), nor does weaving, or shoemaking, or the
confectioner's art, do the like; but each of these sciences
considers only what is peculiar to it, i.
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