Note 70 — Chapter VIII · ANALYTICA POSTERIORA II.

Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 100, b. 3: δῆλον δὴ ὅτι ἡμῖν τὰ πρῶτα ἐπαγωγῇ γνωρίζειν ἀναγκαῖον· καὶ γὰρ καὶ αἴσθησις οὕτω τὸ καθόλου ἐμποιεῖ. Compare, supra, Analyt. Post. I. xviii. p. 81, b. 1. Some commentators contended that Aristotle did not mean to ascribe an inductive origin to the common Axioms properly so called, but only to the special principia belonging to each science. Zabarella refutes this doctrine, and maintains that the Axioms (Dignitates) are derived from Induction (Comm. in Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 649, ed. Venet., 1617):— “Quum igitur inductio non sit proprie discursus, nec ratio, jure dicit Aristoteles principiorum notitiam non esse cum ratione, quia non ex aliis innotescunt, sed ex seipsis dum per inductionem innotescunt. Propterea in illa propositione, quæ in initio primi libri legitur, sub doctrina discursiva cognitio principiorum non comprehenditur, quia non est dianoëtica. Hoc, quod modo diximus, si nonnulli advertissent, fortasse non negassent principia communia, quæ dicuntur Dignitates, inductione cognosci. Dixerunt enim Aristotelem hic de principiis loquentem sola principia propria considerasse, quæ cum non proprio lumine cognoscantur, inductione innotescunt; at Dignitates (inquiunt) proprio lumine ab intellectu nostro cognoscuntur per solam terminorum intelligentiam, ut quod omne totum majus est suâ parte; hoc enim non magis est evidens sensui in particulari, quam intellectui in universali, proinde inductione non eget. Sed hanc sententiam hic Averroes refutat, dicens hæc quoque inductione cognosci, sed non animadverti nobis tempus hujus inductionis; id enim omnino confitendum est, omnem intellectualem doctrinam à sensu originem ducere, et nihil esse in intellectu quod prius in sensu non fuerit, ut ubique asserit Aristoteles.”

To the same purpose Zabarella expresses himself in an earlier portion of his Commentary on the Analyt. Post., where he lays it down that the truth of the proposition, Every whole is greater than its part, is known from antecedent knowledge of particulars by way of Induction. Compare the Scholion of Philoponus, ad Analyt. Post. p. 225, a. 32, Brand., where the same is said about the Axiom, Things equal to the same are equal to each other.