Note (return) — Chapter XII

So much being premised, we proceed to remark that there is a distinction perpetually recurring in the writings of Aristotle between the elements or first principles of knowledge which are "clearest in their own nature" and those which "are clearest to our perception." 705 The causes or principles of knowledge "are prior and more known to us in two ways, for what is prior in nature is not the same as that which is prior to us, nor that which is more known (simply in itself) the same as that which is more known to us. Now I call things prior and more known to us, those which are nearer to sense; and things prior and more known simply in themselves, those which are remote from sense; and those things are most remote which are especially universal, and those nearest which are singular; and these are mutually opposed." 706 Here we have a distribution of the first or prior elements of knowledge into two fundamentally opposite classes.