Note 163 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
In Aristotle's Introduction to Physical Science, he remarks that Sense grasps at Wholes, so that in a certain way, the general may seem to take precedence with us of the particular. Language is a proof of this—Children's talk is apt to run in concretes;—every man or woman is a father or mother to them. See Phys. Ausc. I. 1, with Pacius' note. The old commentator unties a knot which some moderns appear to have tied fast again.
>Addition. Aristotle's illustration, it is alleged (e. g. by Dr. Whewell), goes in the wrong direction; fathers and mothers are less comprehensive terms than men and women; the truth seems to be that children fail to perceive the differences between parents and other human beings;—therefore they call men and women, parents. Pacius says:—"Nunc igitur totum esse nobis notius, probat à signo, id est, argumento sumto ab infantibus, qui initiò non distinguunt patrem ab aliis viris, nec matrem ab aliis mulieribus: postea verò distinguunt: nempe, quia ab initio habuerunt cognitionem magis confusam, neque cognoverunt proprietates parentis, sed tantum eum noverunt sub ratione universali, quatenus est homo, ideoque non potuerunt eum ab aliis hominibus sejungere. Postea verò progredientes ad cognitionem magis particularem, possunt patrem ab aliis discernere." Ed. 1608, p. 346.