78 RICHARD MCKEON 



Aristotle's version of intellectual history depends on his dis- 

 tinction of principles, causes, and elements, yet his meaning of 

 " elements " is seldom used even when his history is repeated. 

 A principle is a " beginning "; all causes and all elements are 

 principles, but not all principles are causes or elements, and not 

 all causes are elements. Elements are one variety of one of the 

 four causes, the material cause. Aristotle defines element as 

 the first component part of a thing, indivisible in kind into 

 other kinds. The Aristotelian conceptions of " matter " and of 

 " kind " have prevented the wide acceptance of this definition, 

 for incorporeal as well as corporeal things have matter and a 

 thing indivisible " in kind " may be divisible in many ways. 

 Aristotle gives three examples to clarify his definition; elements 

 of speech, of bodies, and of geometrical or logical proof. The 

 Greek word stoicheion means both " element " and " letter." 

 The elements of speech or letters are the parts into which 

 speech is ultimately divided and which cannot be divided into 

 forms of speech different in kind from them: a syllable can 

 be divided into parts different in kind, but if letters can be 

 divided their parts are likewise letters. The elements of bodies 

 are simple parts like water, whose parts in turn are water. 

 The elements of geometrical and logical proof are the primary 

 demonstrations and the primary syllogisms, which are each 

 implied in many demonstrations and which have no parts 

 different in kind from them. The elements of demonstrations 

 are demonstrations, not propositions or terms. Some people 

 use " element " in the broader transferred sense of the small 

 and simple and indivisible; the most universal things and 

 genera are then thought to be elements, and unity and the 

 point to be first principles.^ The first philosophers sought the 

 principles of things among the material causes, including the 

 four elements; - Leucippus and Democritus said the full and the 

 empty, the atoms and the void, are elements; ^ the physicists 



^ Metaphysics, V, 3, 1014a26-bl5. 



* IhH., I. 3, 983b6-984b8. 



* Ihid., 985b3-19. 



