286 ROMAN A. KOCOUREK 



lished in the Posterior Analytics. He held that there is a kind 

 of knowledge in which the human intellect, starting from prin- 

 ciples which it grasps with certitude, is able to arrive at true 

 and certain conclusions. When the syllogism of the Prior 

 Analytics is employed in this way the result is a demonstration, 

 the knowledge is science. We attain this knowledge most easily 

 and often in mathematics. It is found in other disciplines but 

 with greater difficulty. One study that presented problems 

 to this kind of analysis was the science of Nature, another was 

 the science of being or first philosophy. 



Heraclitus had said that " Nature loves to hide." Aristotle 

 was able to show more clearly why this is so. He discovered 

 that the objects studied in this science contained an inherent 

 lack of intelligibility. For this reason the student will some- 

 times be forced to content himself with an inductive argument 

 which will show that a proposition is true without giving a 

 scientific reason. At other times he must use an argument 

 from analogy. Science in the meaning given that term in the 

 Posterior Analytics will be very difficult to arrive at in this 

 discipline. Still, Aristotle was convinced that only by building 

 on the ideas laboriously worked out in the science of Nature 

 would the human intellect be able to come to a knowledge of 

 the objects of first philosophy. Here, as Cajetan might say, 

 is something which seems to have escaped the notice of many 

 modern followers of the Philosopher. There are many today 

 who teach that motion is actus entis in potentia inquantum 

 hulusmodi. There are not so many who, after presenting this 

 notion, go on to explain it along with its properties, time and 

 place, and its kinds, both quantitative and qualitative. There 

 are even fewer who, after having done this much, go on to speak 

 of first motions and first movers. Many teachers today are of 

 the opinion that this part of Aristotle's Physics is hopelessly 

 tied to the out-dated cosmogony of Greek science. This makes 

 it easy for them to ignore totally all the other physical works, 

 with the possible exception of his De Anima. Even with this 

 last named work there are only a very few teachers who are 



