Of the Manner and Order of acquiring Knowledge.
Although there is but one road to science, that to wit, in which we proceed from things more known to things less known, from matters more manifest to matters more obscure; and universals are principally known to us, science springing by reasonings from universals to particulars; still the comprehension of universals by the understanding is based upon the perception of individual things by the senses. Both of Aristotle's propositions, therefore, are true: First, the one in his Physics,[1] where he says, "The way is naturally prepared, from those things that are more obvious and clear to us, to those things that are more obvious and clear by nature. For, indeed, the same things are not both known to us and extant simply: whence it is indispensable to proceed in this way, viz. from those things that are of a more obscure nature, but to us are more apparent, to those that are of a nature more obvious and distinct. Now those things are, in the first instance, more perspicuous and manifest to us that are most confused in fact; whence it is necessary to proceed from universals to particulars; for the whole, according to the dictates of sense, is the more obvious; and the universal is a certain whole." And again, that other in his Analytics,[2] where he thus expresses himself: "Singulars are to us more known, and are the first that exist according to the information of sense; for, indeed, there is nothing in the understanding which was not first in the sense. And although that reasoning is naturally prior and more known which proceeds by syllogism, still is that more perspicuous to us which is based on induction. And therefore do we more readily define singulars than universals, for there is more of
