[69] Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 100, a. 15: στάντος γὰρ τῶν ἀδιαφόρων ἑνός, πρῶτον μὲν ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ καθόλου (καὶ γὰρ αἰσθησις τοῦ καθόλου ἐστίν, οἷον ἀνθρώπου, ἀλλ’ οὐ Καλλίου ἀνθρώπου) πάλιν δ’ ἐν τούτοις ἵσταται, ἕως ἂν τὰ ἀμερῆ στῇ καὶ τὰ καθόλου, οἷον τοιονδὶ ζῷον, ἕως ζῷον· καὶ ἐν τούτῳ ὡσαύτως.
These words are obscure: τὰ ἀμερῆ must mean the highest genera; indivisible, i.e. being a minimum in respect of comprehension. Instead of τὰ καθόλου, we might have expected τὰ μάλιστα καθόλου, or, perhaps, that καὶ should be omitted. Trendelenburg comments at length on this passage, Arist. De Animâ Comment. pp. 170-174.
[70] Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 100, b. 3: δῆλον δὴ ὅτι ἡμῖν τὰ πρῶτα ἐπαγωγῇ γνωρίζειν ἀναγκαῖον· καὶ γὰρ καὶ αἴσθησις οὕτω τὸ καθόλου ἐμποιεῖ. Compare, supra, Analyt. Post. I. xviii. p. 81, b. 1. Some commentators contended that Aristotle did not mean to ascribe an inductive origin to the common Axioms properly so called, but only to the special principia belonging to each science. Zabarella refutes this doctrine, and maintains that the Axioms (Dignitates) are derived from Induction (Comm. in Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 649, ed. Venet., 1617):— “Quum igitur inductio non sit proprie discursus, nec ratio, jure dicit Aristoteles principiorum notitiam non esse cum ratione, quia non ex aliis innotescunt, sed ex seipsis dum per inductionem innotescunt. Propterea in illa propositione, quæ in initio primi libri legitur, sub doctrina discursiva cognitio principiorum non comprehenditur, quia non est dianoëtica. Hoc, quod modo diximus, si nonnulli advertissent, fortasse non negassent principia communia, quæ dicuntur Dignitates, inductione cognosci. Dixerunt enim Aristotelem hic de principiis loquentem sola principia propria considerasse, quæ cum non proprio lumine cognoscantur, inductione innotescunt; at Dignitates (inquiunt) proprio lumine ab intellectu nostro cognoscuntur per solam terminorum intelligentiam, ut quod omne totum majus est suâ parte; hoc enim non magis est evidens sensui in particulari, quam intellectui in universali, proinde inductione non eget. Sed hanc sententiam hic Averroes refutat, dicens hæc quoque inductione cognosci, sed non animadverti nobis tempus hujus inductionis; id enim omnino confitendum est, omnem intellectualem doctrinam à sensu originem ducere, et nihil esse in intellectu quod prius in sensu non fuerit, ut ubique asserit Aristoteles.â€�
To the same purpose Zabarella expresses himself in an earlier portion of his Commentary on the Analyt. Post., where he lays it down that the truth of the proposition, Every whole is greater than its part, is known from antecedent knowledge of particulars by way of Induction. Compare the Scholion of Philoponus, ad Analyt. Post. p. 225, a. 32, Brand., where the same is said about the Axiom, Things equal to the same are equal to each other.
[71] Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 100, b. 5: ἐπεὶ δὲ τῶν περὶ τὴν διάνοιαν ἕξεων, αἷς ἀληθεύομεν, αἱ μὲν ἀεὶ ἀληθεῖς εἰσίν, αἱ δὲ ἐπιδέχονται τὸ ψεῦδος, &c.
[72] Ibid. fin. p. 100.
The manner in which Aristotle here describes how the principia of Syllogism become known to the mind deserves particular attention. The march up to principia is not only different from, but the reverse of, the march down from principia; like the athlete who runs first to the end of the stadium, and then back.[73] Generalizing or universalizing is an acquired intellectual habit or permanent endowment; growing out of numerous particular acts or judgments of sense, remembered, compared, and coalescing into one mental group through associating resemblance. As the ethical, moral, practical habits, are acquirements growing out of a repetition of particular acts, so also the intellectual, theorizing habits are mental results generated by a multitude of particular judgments of sense, retained and compared, so as to imprint upon the mind a lasting stamp of some identity common to all. The Universal (notius naturâ) is thus generated in the mind by a process of Induction out of particulars which are notiora nobis; the potentiality of this process, together with sense and memory, is all that is innate or connatural.
[73] Aristot. Eth. Nikom. I. iv. p. 1095, b. 1.
The principia, from which the conclusions of Syllogism are deduced, being thus obtained by Induction, are, in Aristotle's view, appreciated by, or correlated with, the infallible and unerring Noûs or Intellect.[74] He conceives repeated and uncontradicted Induction as carrying with it the maximum of certainty and necessity: the syllogistic deductions constituting Science he regards as also certain; but their certainty is only derivative, and the principia from which they flow he ranks still higher, as being still more certain.[75] Both the one and the other he pointedly contrasts with Opinion and Calculation, which he declares to be liable to error.
[74] The passages respecting ἀρχαὶ or principia, in the Nikomachean Ethica (especially Books I. and VI.), are instructive as to Aristotle’s views. The principia are universal notions and propositions, not starting up ready-made nor as original promptings of the intellect, but gradually built up out of the particulars of sense and Induction, and repeated particular acts. They are judged and sanctioned by Νοῦς or Intellect, but it requires much care to define them well. They belong to the ὅτι, while demonstration belongs to the διότι. Eth. Nik. I. vii. p. 1098, a. 33: οὐκ ἀπαιτητέον δ’ οὐδὲ τὴν αἰτίαν ἐν ἅπασιν ὁμοίως, ἀλλ’ ἱκανὸν ἔν τισι τὸ ὅτι δειχθῆναι καλῶς, οἷον καὶ περὶ τὰς ἀρχάς· τὸ δ’ ὅτι πρῶτον καὶ ἀρχή. τῶν ἀρχῶν δ’ αἱ μὲν ἐπαγωγῇ θεωροῦνται, αἱ δ’ αἰσθήσει, αἱ δ’ ἐθισμῷ τινι, καὶ ἄλλαι δ’ ἀλλῶς. μετιέναι δὲ πειρατέον ἑκάστας ᾗ πεφύκασιν, καὶ σπουδαστέον ὅπως ὁρισθῶσι καλῶς· μεγάλην γὰρ ἔχουσι ῥοπὴν πρὸς τὰ ἑπόμενα.