Aristotle
dignity. We, as well as all other animals, begin with a congenital
discriminative power called sensible perception. With many animals,
the data of perception are transient, and soon disappear altogether,
so that the cognition of such animals consists in nothing but
successive acts of sensible perception. With us, on the contrary, as
with some other animals, the data of perception are preserved by
memory; accordingly our cognitions include both perceptions and
remembrances. Farthermore, we are distinguished even from the better
animals by this difference--that with us, but not with them, a
rational order of thought grows out of such data of perception, when
multiplied and long preserved. And thus out of perception grows
memory; out of memory of the same matter often repeated grows
experience, since many remembrances of the same thing constitute one
numerical experience. Out of such experience, a farther consequence
arises, that what is one and the same in all the particulars, (the
Universal or the One alongside of the Many), becomes fixed or rests
steadily within the mind. Herein lies the _principium_ of Art, in
reference to Agenda or Facienda--of Science, in reference to Entia.
Thus these cognitive _principia_ are not original and determinate
possessions of the mind, nor do they spring from any other mental
possessions of a higher cognitive order, but simply from data of
sensible perception; which data are like runaway soldiers in a panic,
first one stops his flight and halts, then a second follows the
example, afterwards a third and fourth, until at length an orderly
array is obtained. Our minds are so constituted as to render this
possible. If a single individual impression is thus detained, it will
presently acquire the character of a Universal in the mind; for,
though we perceive the particular, our perception is of the Universal
(_i.e._, when we perceive Kallias, our perception is of man
generally, not of the man Kallias). Again the fixture of these lowest
Universals in the mind will bring in those of the next highest order;
until at length the Summa Genera and the absolute Universals acquire
a steady establishment therein. Thus, from this or that particular
animal, we shall rise as high as Animal universally; and so on from
Animal upwards.
We thus see clearly (Aristotle says) that only by Induction can we
come to know the first _principia_ of Demonstration; for it is by
this process that sensible perception engraves the Universal on our
minds.[14] We begin by the _notiora nobis_ (Particulars), and ascend
to the _notiora naturâ_ or _simpliciter_ (Universals). Some among our
mental habits that are conversant with truth, are also capable of
falsehood (such as Opinion and Reasoning): others are not so capable,
but embrace uniformly truth and nothing but truth; such are Science
and Intellect ([Greek: Nou=s]). Intellect is the only source more
accurate than Science. Now the _principia_ of Demonstration are more
accurate than the demonstrations themselves, yet they cannot (as we
have already observed) be the objects of Science. They must therefore
be the object of what is more accurate than Science, namely, of
Intellect. Intellect and the objects of Intellect will thus be the
_principia_ of Science and of the objects of Science. But these
principles are not intuitive data or revelations. They are
acquisitions gradually made; and there is a regular road whereby we
travel up to them, quite distinct from the road whereby we travel
down from them to scientific conclusions.
[Footnote 14: Aristot. Anal. Post. II. p. 100, b. 3: [Greek: dê=lon
dê\ o(/ti ê(mi=n ta\ prô=ta e)pagôgê=| gnôri/zein a)nagkai=on; kai\
ga\r kai\ ai)/sthêsis ou(/tô to\ katho/lou e)mpoiei=]; also ibid. I.
xviii., p. 81, b. 3, upon which passage Waitz, in his note, explains
as follows (p. 347):--"Sententia nostri loci hæc est. Universales
propositiones omnes inductione comparantur, quum etiam in iis, quæ a
sensibus maxime aliena videntur, et quæ, ut mathematica ([Greek: ta\
e)x a)phaire/seôs]), cogitatione separantur a materia quacum
conjuncta sunt, inductione probentur ea quæ de genere (_e.g._, de
linea vel de corpore mathematico), ad quod demonstratio pertineat,
prædicentur [Greek: kath' au(ta/] et cum ejus natura conjuncta sint.
Inductio autem iis nititur quæ sensibus percipiuntur: nam res
singulares sentiuntur, scientia vero rerum singularium non datur sine
inductione, non datur inductio sine sensu."]
The chapter just indicated in the Analytica Posteriora, attesting the
growth of those universals that form the _principia_ of demonstration
out of the particulars of sense, may be illustrated by a similar
statement in the First Book of the Metaphysica. Here, after stating
that sensible perception is common to all animals, Aristotle
distinguishes the lowest among animals, who have this alone; then, a
class next above them, who have it along with phantasy and memory,
and some of whom are intelligent (like bees), yet still cannot learn,
from being destitute of hearing; farther another class, one stage
higher, who hear, and therefore can be taught something, yet arrive
only at a scanty sum of experience; lastly, still higher, the class
men, who possess a large stock of phantasy, memory, and experience,
fructifying into science and art.[15] Experience (Aristotle says) is
of particular facts; Art and Science are of Universals. Art is
attained, when out of many conceptions of experience there arises one
universal persuasion respecting phenomena similar to each other. We
may know that Kallias, sick of a certain disease--that Sokrates,
likewise sick of it--that A, B, C, and other individuals besides,
have been cured by a given remedy; but this persuasion respecting
ever so many individual cases, is mere matter of experience. When,
however, we proceed to generalize these cases, and then affirm that
the remedy cures all persons suffering under the same disease,
circumscribed by specific marks--fever or biliousness--this is Art or
Science. One man may know the particular cases empirically, without
having generalized them into a doctrine; another may have learnt the
general doctrine, with little or no knowledge of the particular
cases. Of these two, the last is the wiser and more philosophical
man; but the first may be the more effective and successful as a
practitioner.
[Footnote 15: Aristot. Metaphys. A. i. p. 980, a. 26, seq.: [Greek:
phro/nima me\n a)/neu tou= mantha/nein, o(/sa mê\ du/natai tô=n
pso/phôn a)kou/ein, oi(=on me/litta, kai\ ei)/ ti toiou=ton a)/llo
ge/nos zô/|ôn e)/stin.]
We remark here the line that he draws between the intelligence of
bees--depending altogether upon sense, memory, and experience--and
the higher intelligence which is superadded by the use of language;
when it becomes possible to teach and learn, and when general
conceptions can be brought into view through appropriate names.]
In the passage above noticed, Aristotle draws the line of
intellectual distinction between man and the lower animals. If he had
considered that it was the prerogative of man to possess a stock of
intuitive general truths, ready-made, and independent of experience,
this was the occasion for saying so. He says the exact contrary. No
modern psychologist could proclaim more fully than Aristotle here
does the derivation of all general concepts and general propositions
from the phenomena of sense, through the successive stages of memory,
association, comparison, abstraction. No one could give a more
explicit acknowledgment of Induction from particulars of sense, as
the process whereby we reach ultimately those propositions of the
highest universality, as well as of the highest certainty; from
whence, by legitimate deductive syllogism, we descend to demonstrate
various conclusions. There is nothing in Aristotle about generalities
originally inherent in the mind, connate although dormant at first
and unknown, until they are evoked or elicited by the senses; nothing
to countenance that nice distinction eulogized so emphatically by
Hamilton (p. 772, a. note): "Cognitio nostra omnis à mente primam
originem, à sensibus exordium habet primum." In Aristotle's view, the
senses furnish both _originem_ and _exordium_: the successive stages
of mental procedure, whereby we rise from sense to universal
propositions, are multiplied and gradual, without any break. He even
goes so far as to say that we have _sensible perception_ of the
Universal. His language undoubtedly calls for much criticism here. We
shall only say that it discountenances altogether the doctrine that
represents the Mind or Intellect as an original source of First or
Universal Truths peculiar to itself. That opinion is mentioned by
Aristotle, but mentioned only to be rejected. He denies that the mind
possesses any such ready-made stores, latent until elicited into
consciousness. Moreover, it is remarkable that the ground whereon he
denies it is much the same as that whereon the advocates of
intuitions affirm it, viz., the supreme accuracy of these axioms.
Aristotle cannot believe that the mind includes cognitions of such
value, without being conscious thereof. Nor will he grant that the
mind possesses any native and inherent power of originating these
inestimable _principia_.[16] He declares that they are generated in
the mind only by the slow process of induction, as above described;
beginning from the perceptive power (common to man with animals),
together with that first stage of the intelligence (judging or
discriminative) which he combines or identifies with perception,
considering it to be alike congenital. From this humble basis men can
rise to the highest grades of cognition, though animals cannot. We
even become competent (Aristotle says) to have sensible perception of
the Universal; in the man Kallias, we see Man; in the ox feeding near
us, we see Animal.
[Footnote 16: Aristot. Anal. Post. II. xix. p. 99, b. 26: [Greek: ei)
me\n dê\ e)/chomen au)ta/s, a)/topon; sumbai/nei ga\r a)kribeste/ras
e)/chontas gnô/seis a)podei/xeôs lantha/nein.--phanero\n toi/nun
o(/ti ou)/t' e)/chein oi(=o/n te, ou)/t' a)gnoou=si kai\ mêdemi/an
e)/chousin e(/xin e)ggi/nesthai. a)na/gkê a)/ra e)/chein me/n tina
du/namin, mê\ toiau/tên d' e)/chein ê(\ e)/stai tou/tôn timiôte/ra
kat' a)kri/beian.] See Metaphys. A. ix. p. 993, a. 1.
Some modern psychologists, who admit that general propositions of a
lower degree of universality are raised from induction and sense,
contend that propositions of the highest universality are not so
raised, but are the intuitive offspring of the intellect. Aristotle
does not countenance such a doctrine: he says (Metaphys. A. ii. p.
982, a. 25) that these truths furthest removed from sense are the
most difficult to know of all. If they were intuitions they would be
the common possession of the race.]
It must be remembered that, when Aristotle, in this analysis of
cognition, speaks of Induction, he means induction completely and
accurately performed; just as, when he talks of Demonstration, he
intends a good and legitimate demonstration; and just as (to use his
own illustration in the Nikomachean Ethica), when he reasons upon a
harper, or other professional artist, he always tacitly implies a
good and accomplished artist. Induction thus understood, and
Demonstration, he considers to be the two processes for obtaining
scientific faith or conviction; both of them being alike cogent and
necessary, but Induction even more so than Demonstration; because, if
the _principia_ furnished by the former were not necessary, neither
could the conclusions deduced from them by the latter be necessary.
Induction may thus stand alone without Demonstration, but
Demonstration pre-supposes and postulates Induction. Accordingly,