Commencing then from the point stated above we will now speak of these Excellences again. Let those faculties whereby the Soul attains truth in Affirmation or Negation, be assumed to be in number five:[[10]] viz. Art, Knowledge, Practical Wisdom, Science, Intuition: (Supposition and Opinion I do not include, because by these one may go wrong.)
What Knowledge is, is plain from the following of considerations, if one is to speak accurately, instead of being led away by resemblances. For we all conceive that what we strictly speaking know, cannot be otherwise than it is, because as to those things which can be otherwise than they are, we are uncertain whether they are or are not, the moment they cease to be within the sphere of our actual observation.
So then, whatever comes within the range of Knowledge is by necessity, and therefore eternal, (because all things are so which exist necessarily,) and all eternal things are without beginning, and indestructible.
Again, all Knowledge is thought to be capable of being taught, and what comes within its range capable of being learned. And all teaching is based upon previous knowledge; (a statement you will find in the Analytics also,)[[11]] for there are two ways of teaching, by Syllogism and by Induction. In fact. Induction is the source of universal propositions, and Syllogism reasons from these universals.[[12]] Syllogism then may reason from principles which cannot be themselves proved Syllogistically: and therefore must by Induction.
So Knowledge is “a state or mental faculty apt to demonstrate syllogistically,” &c. as in the Analytics:[[13]] because a man, strictly and properly speaking, knows, when he establishes his conclusion in a certain way, and the principles are known to him: for if they are not better known to him than the conclusion, such knowledge as he has will be merely accidental.
Let thus much be accepted as a definition of Knowledge.
Chapter IV.
Matter which may exist otherwise than it actually does in any given case (commonly called Contingent) is of two kinds, that which is the object of Making, and that which is the object of Doing; now Making and Doing are two different things (as we show in the exoteric treatise), and so that state of mind, conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Do, is distinct from that also conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Make: and for this reason they are not included one by the other, that is, Doing is not Making, nor Making Doing.[[14]] Now[[15]] as Architecture is an Art, and is the same as “a certain state of mind, conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Make,” and as there is no Art which is not such a state, nor any such state which is not an Art, Art, in its strict and proper sense, must be “a state of mind, conjoined with true Reason, apt to Make.”
Now all Art has to do with production, and contrivance, and seeing how any of those things may be produced which may either be or not be, and the origination of which rests with the maker and not with the thing made.
And, so neither things which exist or come into being necessarily, nor things in the way of nature, come under the province of Art, because these are self-originating. And since Making and Doing are distinct, Art must be concerned with the former and not the latter. And in a certain sense Art and Fortune are concerned with the same things, as, Agathon says by the way,