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. Therefore if there is a science of all
things, such as some assert to exist, he who is learning this will
know nothing before. Yet all learning is by means of premisses which
are (either all or some of them) known before,-whether the learning be
by demonstration or by definitions; for the elements of the definition
must be known before and be familiar; and learning by induction
proceeds similarly. But again, if the science were actually innate, it
were strange that we are unaware of our possession of the greatest
of sciences.
Again, how is one to come to know what all things are made of, and
how is this to be made evident? This also affords a difficulty; for
there might be a conflict of opinion, as there is about certain
syllables; some say za is made out of s and d and a, while others
say it is a distinct sound and none of those that are familiar.
Further, how could we know the objects of sense without having the
sense in question? Yet we ought to, if the elements of which all
things consist, as complex sounds consist of the clements proper to
sound, are the same.
10
It is evident, then, even from what we have said before, that
all men seem to seek the causes named in the Physics, and that we
cannot name any beyond these; but they seek these vaguely; and
though in a sense they have all been described before, in a sense they
have not been described at all
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