Note 82 — Chapter XXVIII · THEÆTETUS.

Aristotle (Metaphysic. Γ. p. 1010, a. 25 seq.) in arguing against Herakleitus and his followers, who dwelt upon τὰ αἰσθητὰ as ever fluctuating and undefinable, urges against them that this is not true of all αἰσθητά, but only of those in the sublunary region of the Kosmos. But this region is (he says) only an imperceptibly small part of the entire Kosmos; the objects in the vast superlunary or celestial region of the Kosmos were far more numerous, and were also eternal and unchangeable, in constant and uniform circular rotation. Accordingly, if you predicate one or other about αἰσθητὰ generally, you ought to predicate constancy and unchangeability, not flux and variation, since the former predicates are true of much the larger proportion of αἰσθητά. See the Scholia on the above passage of Aristotle’s Metaphysica, and also upon Book A. 991, a. 9.