come after the physics. In bestowing on them this name, however, it is uncertain whether he was influenced solely by the fact that these writings followed the others in a certain arbitrary arrangement, or whether he was guided partly by the consideration that these writings dealt with matters which were higher than mere physical truth, and which lay beyond the apprehension of our mere sensible experience. You will find this work frequently described as dealing with Being in so far as it is Being, with ens quatenus ens est, the meaning of which rather obscure words is simply this, that in this investigation Aristotle does not consider Being as this or that particular Being, but simply as Being, that is, as presenting the attributes or conditions common to all Being, differences being left out of view. These universal elements of Being are, according to Aristotle, four. First, Matter or substratum; in Greek, ἡ ὕλη or τὸ ὑποκείμενον. Secondly, Form or essence; in Greek, οὐσία, εἶδος, μορφή, or τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι. Third, the moving or efficient cause; in Greek, ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως. Fourth, the end or final cause, also called the good; τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα, τὸ τέλος, or τὸ ἀγαθόν. These four principles are, according to Aristotle, the most general causes of things, and enter into the constitution of everything. They are truths for all intellect. He held that former systems had erred in not embracing the whole of these principles. Every antecedent system had left some of them out of its reckoning; hence they were all partial and
