Translated by Mr. William C. Michael, O.P.
Book I, Chapter 1. On the Origin of the Arts
Of all things to be sought, first is wisdom, in which the form of the perfect good stands. Wisdom illuminates man so that himself he may recognize, who like the rest had been when himself above the rest to have been made he did not understand. For the immortal soul, illuminated by wisdom, looks back to its own beginning and how improper it is recognizes, that outside itself anything it should seek, for which what itself is, sufficient could have been. It is read written on the tripod of Apollo: gnōthi seauton, that is, know yourself, because surely man, if not of his own origin forgetful he were, everything which to change is subject, how it is nothing, he would recognize. An approved opinion among philosophers asserts the soul from all parts of nature to be composed. And the Timaeus of Plato from divisible and indivisible and mixed substance, likewise from same and diverse, and from both mixed nature, by which the universe is defined, formed the entelechy.
For it both beginnings and what follow the beginnings grasps, because both invisible causes of things through understanding it comprehends, and visible forms of actual things through the impressions of the senses it collects, and divided into twin spheres it gathers movement, because whether through senses to sensibles it goes out or through understanding to invisibles it ascends, to itself the likenesses of things drawing, it turns back. And this is that the same mind, which of all things is capable, from all substance and nature, in order that the likeness of resemblance it may represent, is fitted together. For a Pythagorean doctrine it was that similars are comprehended by similars, so that indeed the rational soul, unless from all things it were composed, by no means all things could comprehend, according to what someone says:
Earth with the earthy we comprehend, the sky with flames,
Moisture with the moist, the breathable with our breath.
Nor yet ought we to suppose men most skilled in the whole nature of things to have thought this of simple essence, that by any quantity of parts it is extended, but, so that more clearly its marvelous power they might demonstrate, they said from all natures it consists, not according to composition but according to the logic of composition. Nor indeed is this likeness of all things to be believed to come from elsewhere or from outside into the soul, but the soul rather it itself and from itself by a certain native power and proper strength grasps. For as Varro says in the Periphysion: Not all change from outside to things happens, so that necessarily whatever is changed either something it had it loses or something else and different from outside which it did not have it assumes. We see when a wall from outside by the coming of a form of any image a likeness it receives. But when a coiner upon metal a figure imprints, the metal itself not from outside but from its own strength and natural ability already something else begins to represent. So indeed the mind, with the likeness of all things marked, is said to be all things, and from all things to receive composition, not integrally, but virtually and potentially to contain them.
And this is that dignity of our nature which all equally naturally have, but not all equally know. For the soul, lulled by bodily impressions and by sensible forms out of itself drawn, has forgotten what it was, and because nothing else to have been it remembers, nothing beyond what is seen it believes itself to be. We are restored, however, through instruction, so that our nature we may recognize, and so that we may learn not to seek outside what in ourselves we are able to find. The highest, therefore, in life consolation is the pursuit of wisdom: whom she finds, happy is he; and who possesses her, blessed.
Book I, Chapter 2. That the Pursuit of Wisdom is Philosophy
First of all, Pythagoras the pursuit of wisdom philosophy named, and preferred to be called philosophers, for before they were called sophos, that is, wise men.
Rightly indeed he calls the seekers of truth not wise men but lovers of wisdom, because surely so deeply lies hidden every truth, that, however much the mind may burn with love for it, however much it may rise up to its investigation, difficult nonetheless it is for it to be able to comprehend truth itself as it is.
Philosophy, moreover, he established as the discipline of those things which truly exist and possess an immutable substance of their own.
Philosophy is, therefore, love and pursuit and in a certain way friendship with wisdom—not with this wisdom, however, which in certain tools and in some craft-based knowledge and awareness is exercised, but with that wisdom which, needing nothing, is the living mind and the sole primordial reason of things.
This love of wisdom is, moreover, the illumination of the understanding soul by that pure wisdom, and in a certain way a drawing back and summoning of it to itself, so that the pursuit of wisdom may appear as friendship with divinity and with that pure mind.
This wisdom, then, upon the whole race of souls imposes the merit of its divinity, and leads them back to the power and purity proper to their nature.
From this is born the truth of speculations and thoughts, and the holy and pure chastity of deeds.
And since to human souls this most excellent good of philosophy is allotted, that by the thread of a certain path the discourse may proceed, from the very efficiencies of the soul we must begin.
Book I, Chapter 3. On the Threefold Power of the Soul, and that Only Man is Endowed with Reason
A threefold indeed power of the soul in the enlivening of bodies is detected, of which one indeed only to the body supplies life, so that by being born it may grow, and by being nourished it may be sustained. Another truly provides judgment of sensing. The third is supported by the power of mind and of reason.
Of which indeed the first has this function, that it be present for the creating, nourishing, and feeding of bodies, but it offers no judgment of reason or of sense. This is of herbs and of trees, and of whatever is held fast rooted in the earth.
The second truly is composite and joined, and taking to itself the first, and making it a part, it receives various things about which it can perceive, and it forms multifaceted judgment. For every animal which flourishes with sense, that same is also born, and is nourished, and is fed. But the senses are diverse, and increase up to the number five. Thus whatever only is nourished, but also does not feel; but whatever is able to feel, is also nourished; to it the first also power of the soul, namely of being born and of being nourished, is shown to be subject.
To whom sense is present, not only do they seize the forms of things by which they are struck by a sensible body being present, but also with the sense departed and the sensibles removed, the images of known forms they hold by sense, and compose memory, and according as each animal is able, they preserve it for a longer or shorter time. But these imaginations they take up confused and indistinct, so that nothing from their combination and composition are they able to produce. And therefore, though they remember, not equally do they remember all things, but what is forgotten, they are not able to recover and recall. Of the future, truly, they have no knowledge.
But the third power of the soul, which with itself the former powers of nourishing and sensing draws, and uses them as servants and obedient ones, this same is wholly established in reason, and is occupied either in the firmest conclusion of present things, or in the understanding of absent things, or in the investigation of unknown things.
This only is available to the human race, which not only seizes perfect and ordered sense-impressions and imaginations, but also with the full act of intelligence explains and confirms what imagination has suggested. And so, as has been said, to this divine nature not only are sufficient in knowledge those things which are grasped by the senses, but also those conceived from sensibles by imagination; and it is able to assign names to absent things, and what is comprehended by reason of intelligence, it expresses also by the designations of words.
This also is proper to that nature, that by those things which are known to it, it searches out the unknown, and not only whether each thing is, but also what it is, and what sort it is, and likewise why it is, it ought to recognize.
Which threefold power of the soul only, as has been said, the nature of men has been allotted, whose soul’s power is not without motion of understanding, in which it exercises the power of reason properly in these four things: for either it inquires whether something is, or if it has been established to be, it considers what it is. Which, if also it possesses the knowledge of both by reason, it investigates what kind each thing is, and in that investigates the other circumstances of its accidents. When these have been known, it inquires why it is so, and by reason it likewise seeks.
Since therefore this is the activity of the human soul, that always in the comprehension of present things, or in the understanding of absent things, or in the investigation and discovery of unknown things it is engaged, there are two things in which the entire effort of the reasoning power of the soul is expended: one indeed, that it may know the natures of things by reason of investigation; the other, that it may come first to knowledge, which afterward moral seriousness may exercise.
Book I, Chapter 4. Which Things Pertain to Philosophy
But as I see, into an inextricable labyrinth now by the very order of speaking we have fallen, where for us not tangled speech, but the obscure thing itself produces difficulty.
For since about the pursuit of wisdom we have undertaken to speak, and this to belong to men alone by a certain privilege of nature we have attested, consequently now the moderator of all human actions a certain wisdom we seem to have posited.
For if the nature of brute animals, which by no judgment of reason is governed, diffuses its motions according to the sole impressions of the senses, and in desiring or avoiding something, it does not use the discernment of understanding, but is driven by a certain blind impulse of the flesh—
it remains that the actions of the rational soul are not seized by blind desire, but always are preceded by wisdom as moderator.
Which if it shall have been established to be true, now not only those studies in which either about the nature of things or the discipline of morals is concerned, but also the reasons of all human actions or pursuits, we will say, not without reason, to pertain to philosophy.
According to which meaning we can define philosophy in this way:
Philosophy is the discipline fully investigating the reasons of all human and divine things.
Nor should it disturb us that above we said philosophy is the love and pursuit of wisdom—not of this which is unfolded by tools, such as architecture, agriculture, and other such arts—but of that wisdom which alone is the primordial reason of things.
For the same act can both pertain to philosophy according to its reasoning, and be excluded from it according to its administration—for example, to speak of the present: the rationale of agriculture is that of the philosopher; the execution, that of the rustic.
Moreover, the works of artisans, although they are not by nature, nevertheless imitate nature, and the form of their model, which is nature, which they imitate, they express by reason.
You see now by what reasoning we are compelled to spread philosophy into all the actions of men, so that now it is necessary that there be as many parts of philosophy as there are distinctions of things to which it shall have been established that philosophy pertains.
Book I, Chapter 5. On the Origin of the Theoretical, Practical, and Mechanical Arts
Of all human actions or pursuits which wisdom governs, the end and intention ought to look to this: either that the integrity of our nature be restored, or that the necessity of the defects to which present life is subject be moderated.
I will say more clearly what I have said. There are two things in man: good and evil, nature and vice.
Good, because it is nature—because it is corrupted, because it is less than whole—it must be restored by exercise.
Evil, because it is vice, because it is corruption, because it is not nature—it must be excluded.
But if it cannot be entirely rooted out, at least by applying a remedy it must be moderated.
This entirely is what must be done: that nature be restored and vice be excluded.
Now the integrity of human nature is completed by two things: knowledge and virtue, which alone is our likeness to the higher and divine substances.
For man, since he is not of a simple nature, but composed of a double substance, according to the one part of himself—which is better, and to speak more clearly what must be said, which he himself is—he is immortal.
But according to the other part, which is perishable, which alone is known to those who do not know how to trust anything but the senses, he is subject to mortality and changeability, where it is necessary to die as many times as he loses what he is.
And this is the lowest part of things, which has both a beginning and an end.
Book I, Chapter 6. On the Three Kinds of Things
There are, in fact, in things some which have neither beginning nor end, and these are called eternal;
others which indeed have a beginning but are closed by no end, and these are called perpetual;
others which have both a beginning and an end, and these are temporal.
In the first order we place that to which its being is not other than itself, and that which is, is what it is—whose cause and effect are not different, which subsists not from another but from itself—such as is the sole begetter and artisan of nature.
But that to which its being is other than itself, and what it is, is what came to be from something else, and from a preceding cause flowed into act so that it might begin to exist—this is nature, which contains the whole world.
And this is divided in twofold fashion.
There is something which, from its primordial causes, so that it may begin to be, comes forth into act by no moving cause, but only by the will of divine choice, and there it remains unchangeable, without end and without variation.
Of this kind are the substances of things, which the Greeks call ousiai, and all bodies of the supralunar world, which, because they are not changed, are also for that reason called divine.
The third part of things is that which has a beginning and an end, and does not come into being by itself, but are the works of nature, which arise upon the earth under the globe of the moon, moved by the artificing fire, which by a certain force descends into sensible things in order to generate them.
Concerning these, therefore, it has been said:
“Nothing in the world dies,”
because no essence perishes.
For the essences of things do not pass away, but the forms.
But when a form is said to pass away, it is not to be understood as though some existing thing is believed entirely to perish and lose its being, but rather to be changed—either such that those things which were joined are separated, or those that were separated are joined, or those that were here go there, or those that were now endure then. In all of which the being of things suffers no loss.
Concerning these it has been said:
“All things born perish, and things grown old decay,”
because all the works of nature, just as they have a beginning, so also they are not without an end.
Of the former it has been said:
“From nothing, nothing [comes]; into nothing, nothing can return,”
because every nature has both a primordial cause and perpetual subsistence.
Of the latter it has been said:
“And it returns to nothing, that which was before nothing,”
because every work of nature, just as it temporally flows from a hidden cause into act, so when that act is temporally destroyed, it is destined to return to that from which it came.
Book I, Chapter 6. On the Supralunar and Sublunar World
From this it is that the mathematicians divided the world into two parts: namely, into that part which is above the circle of the moon, and into that which is below.
And the supralunar world, because in it all things stand by primordial law, they called nature; the sublunar, they called the work of nature—that is, of the higher [nature]—because all kinds of living beings which are in it, being enlivened by the infusion of vital spirit, receive nourishment infused from the higher [regions] through invisible channels, not only so that by being born they may grow, but also so that by being nourished they may subsist.
They also called this same higher world “time,” because of the course and movement of the stars which are in it;
[they called] the lower [world] “temporal,” because it is governed according to higher movements.
Likewise, the supralunar [world], because of the perpetual tranquility of light and rest, they called Elysium;
but this [lower one], because of the inconstancy and confusion of fluctuating things, they named Inferno.
We have pursued these things a little more broadly so that we might show:
Man, in the part in which he is a participant in changeability, is also subject to necessity;
but in the part in which he is immortal, he is akin to divinity.
From this it can be gathered that which above was said:
namely, that the intention of all human actions converges to this end—that either the likeness of the divine image be restored in us,
or that provision be made for the condition of this life, which, by how much more easily it can be harmed by adversity, by that much more needs to be cherished and preserved.
Book I, Chapter 08. In What Man is Similar to God
There are, in fact, two things which restore the divine likeness in man: namely, contemplation of truth and the exercise of virtue. For in this man is similar to God: that he is wise and just—but man changeably, God unchangeably both wise and just. But of those actions which serve the necessity of this life, there is a threefold kind: the first, which administers nourishment to nature, the second, which defends against annoyances that may happen from outside, the third, which provides a remedy against those [afflictions] already inflicted.
So, when we aim to restore our nature, it is a divine action; but when we provide for that which is weak in us out of necessity, it is human. Every action, therefore, is either divine or human.
We may also not inappropriately call the former, because it is held from higher things, intelligence; the latter, because it is held from lower things and needs, as it were, a certain kind of deliberation, we call knowledge (scientia).
If therefore wisdom, as was said above, governs all actions which are done by reason, it follows now that wisdom contains these two parts: namely, intelligence and knowledge.
Again, intelligence, since it labors both in the investigation of truth and in the consideration of morals, we divide it into two kinds: into theoretical, that is, speculative, and practical, that is, active, which is also called ethical, that is, moral. Knowledge, however, because it pursues human works, is fittingly called mechanical, that is, artificial (or “adulterated”).
Book I, Chapter 10. What Nature Is
Because now we have so many times named nature, although, as Cicero says, “To define nature is difficult,” yet the meaning of this word does not seem to be entirely to be passed over in silence. Nor, because we cannot say everything we wish, should we therefore keep silent about what we can. Many things are found to have been said by the ancients about nature, but none in such a way that something does not seem to remain [unsaid]. As much, however, as I am able to gather from their sayings, in three chief ways they were accustomed to use the meaning of this word, assigning to each its own definition.
In the first way, by this name they wished to signify that archetypal model of all things which is in the divine mind, by the reason of which all things have been formed; and they said nature is the primordial cause of each thing, from which it not only has being, but also has such being. To this meaning the following definition is assigned:
“Nature is that which gives to each thing its own being.”
In the second way, they said nature is the proper being of each individual thing. To this meaning the following definition is assigned:
“Nature is said to be that which gives form to each thing by its proper difference.”
According to which meaning we are accustomed to say things like: Nature causes all heavy things to tend toward earth, light things to seek heights, fire to burn, water to moisten.
The third definition is this:
“Nature is the artisan fire, proceeding from a certain force into the generation of sensible things.”
For the natural philosophers say that all things are generated from heat and moisture. Whence Virgil calls Ocean the father, and Valerius Soranus, in a certain verse about Jupiter in reference to aetherial fire, says:
“Jupiter almighty, discoverer of things and of kings,
Father and mother of the gods, true one and the same.”
Book I, Chapter 9. On the Origin of Logic
After we have shown the origin of the theoretical, the practical, and the mechanical [arts], it remains to investigate also the origin of logic, which I number last because it was invented last. The others were discovered earlier, but it was necessary for logic also to be found, since no one can discuss things appropriately unless he has first understood the rule of speaking rightly and truthfully. For as Boethius says: when the ancients at first devoted themselves to investigating the natures of things and the qualities of morals, it was inevitable that they often went astray, because they lacked the distinction of words and understandings. This happened in many cases, as with Epicurus, who thought the world consisted of atoms and falsely defined the good as pleasure.
That this happened to him and others is clearly due to lack of skill in disputation: whatever they grasped by reasoning, they assumed also applied to the things themselves. But this is a great error. For things do not exist in reasoning the way they do in numbers. In numbers, whatever arises in the fingers of someone rightly computing must, without doubt, occur also in the actual things. For example, if a hundred comes from calculation, there must also be a hundred real things subject to that number. But this is not so in disputation, for not everything the flow of speech discovers is fixed in nature.
Therefore, one must fall into error who, abandoning the science of disputing, inquires into the nature of things. Unless he first comes to the science that recognizes which reasoning follows the true path of disputation, which the probable, and knows which is reliable and which should be suspected, the incorrupt truth of things cannot be discovered through reasoning. So when the ancients often stumbled into many errors and drew for themselves false and contradictory conclusions in disputation, and it seemed impossible that two contradictory conclusions about the same thing could both be true, it became unclear which reasoning should be trusted. It then seemed fitting to consider first the true and complete nature of disputation itself. Once this is known, one could then also understand whether what was discovered by disputation had been rightly grasped.
From this arose the science of logic, which provides the methods of disputation and the paths for distinguishing reasonings, so that we might recognize which reasoning is now true, which false, which always false, and which never false. This science is last in time, but first in order. It is the first to be read by those beginning philosophy, because in it is taught the nature of words and meanings, without which no philosophical discourse can be rationally expressed.
Logic is named from the Greek logos, which has a double meaning: logos means both speech and reason. Therefore, logic can be called the science of speaking or the science of reasoning. Rational logic, which is also called dissertative, contains dialectic and rhetoric. Speech-based logic is the type that includes grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric, and within it is contained the dissertative kind. This is the speech-based logic which we number fourth, after theoretical, practical, and mechanical [philosophy].
Nor should it be thought that logic is called “speech-based” because there were no speeches before its invention, as if men had not previously spoken with one another. There were indeed both common speech and letters beforehand, but the rule of speech and letters had not yet been reduced to an art. There were no rules yet for speaking or disputing correctly. For all sciences were in use before they were in art. But men, seeing that use could be converted into art, and that what had been vague and unregulated could be confined by fixed rules and precepts, began—as we said before—to reduce into art the practice which had arisen partly by chance, partly by nature: correcting what was flawed in use, supplying what was lacking, cutting away what was excessive, and henceforth assigning to each thing fixed rules and precepts.
Such was the origin of all the arts. This, running through them one by one, we find to be true. Before there was grammar, men spoke and wrote. Before dialectic, they distinguished truth from falsehood by reasoning. Before rhetoric, they handled civil law. Before arithmetic, they knew how to count. Before music, they sang. Before geometry, they measured fields. Before astronomy, they marked the seasons by the courses of the stars. But then came the arts, which, though they arose from use, are now better than use.
This would be the place to explain who were the inventors of each art, when or where they lived, and how the disciplines began through them. But I wish first to distinguish each by a certain division of philosophy. Therefore, it is fitting to briefly recap what has been said above, so that the transition to what follows may be smoother. We said that there are four sciences which contain all the rest: theoretical, which labors in the contemplation of truth; practical, which considers the discipline of morals; mechanical, which manages the actions of this life; and logical, which provides the science of speaking rightly and arguing precisely.
Here, then, not inappropriately, we may understand that quaternity of the soul which the ancients, out of reverence for it, adopted into their oaths. Whence it is said:
“By Him who gave to our soul the number four.”
How these are contained under philosophy, and again what each contains within itself, we shall now show by briefly repeating the definition of philosophy.
BOOK II.
