Note (return) — Chapter XII

Aristotle, on the contrary, held that all of our knowledge begins with "the singular," that is, with the particular and the relative, and is derived from sensation and experience. The "sensible object," taken as it is without any sifting and probing, is the basis of science, and reason is simply the architect constructing science according to certain "forms" or laws inherent in mind. The object, then, of metaphysical science is to investigate those "universal notions" under which the mind conceives of and represents to itself external objects, and speculates concerning them. Aristotle, therefore, agrees with Plato in teaching "that science can only be a science of universals," 691 and "that sensation alone can not furnish us with scientific knowledge." 692 How, then, does he propose to attain the knowledge of universal principles? How will he perform that feat which he calls "passing from the known to the unknown?" The answer is, by comparative abstraction. The universal being constituted by a relation of the object to the thinking subject, that is, by a property recognized by the intelligence alone, in virtue of which it can be retained as an object of thought, and compared with other objects, he proposes to compare, analyze, define, and classify the primary cognitions, and thus evoke into energy, and clearly present those principles or forms of the intelligence which he denominate "universals." As yet, however, he has only attained to "general notions," which are purely subjective, that is, to logical definitions, and these logical definitions are subsequently elevated to the dignity of "universal principles and causes" by a species of philosophic legerdemain. Philosophy is thus stripped of its metaphysical character, and assumes a strictly logical aspect. The key of the Aristotelian method is therefore the