ARISTOTLE AND THE EARLIER PERIPATETICS vol.I by Eduard Zeller, B.F.C.Costelloe 1897

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE 163
Philosophy can be only Being as such, 1 i.e. Essence, or,
to speak more accurately, the universal Essence of that
which is actual. 2 Philosophy treats solely of the
causes and basis of things, 3 and in fact of their
highest and most universal basis, or, in the last
resort, of that which presupposes nothing. 4 For the
like reasons he ascribes to the philosopher in a
certain sense a knowledge of everything, thinking,
of course, of the point of unity where all knowledge
converges. 5 As Plato had distinguished ' knowledge,'
as the cognition of that which is Eternal and Necessary,
1
Anal. Post. ii. 19, 100, a, 6 :
etc 5" {/nreipias . . . rexvris fyxb
«.,ii. 19, 100; a, 6, i. 24, 86,b, 13 ;
and Etlh. N. vi. 6 mit., x. 10, 1180,
xi. 1, 1059, b, 25. Anal.Post.i.U
8,
iv. 2, 1004, a, 35.
Kal &r*0T^U7js, iav jiiep irepl yevefftv, b, 15. More infra, in chapter v.
3
Anal. Post. i. 2 init. : IviaratrQai,
Be oi6fieB y eKaffrov . . .
Metaph. iv. 2, 1004, b, 15 : t£
ovrt p ov IfffTi riva ISia, Kal tout' oVcw r-f
t
p t' atrial/ olupeBa yiypjtitrrl
irepl §>v rod