Note 18 — I. THE DOCTRINE OF UNIVERSALS.

Aristotle takes pains to vindicate against both Plato and the Herakleiteans the dignity of the Sensible World. They that depreciate sensible objects as perpetually changing, unstable, and unknowable, make the mistake (he observes) of confining their attention to the sublunary interior of the Kosmos, where, indeed, generation and destruction largely prevail. But this is only a small portion of the entire Kosmos. In the largest portion — the visible, celestial, superlunary regions — there is no generation or destruction at all, nothing but permanence and uniformity. In appreciating the sensible world (Aristotle says) philosophers ought to pardon the shortcomings of the smaller portion on account of the excellences of the larger; and not condemn both together on account of the smaller (Metaphys. Γ. v. p. 1010, a. 30).