The primary one is “beginning or first cause,” and this runs through all its various uses.
“Rule,” and sometimes “Rulers,” are denoted by this term; the initiative being a property of Rule.
“Principle” is a very usual signification of it, and in fact the most characteristic of the Ethics. The word Principle means “starting-point.” Every action has two beginnings, that of Resolve (οὔ ἕνεκα), and that of Action (ὄθεν ἡ κινήσις). I desire praise of men: this then is the beginning of Resolve. Having considered how it is to be attained, I resolve upon some course, and this Resolve is the beginning of Action.
The beginnings of Resolve, Ἀρχαὶ or Motives, when formally stated, are the major premisses of what Aristotle calls the συλλογίσμοι τῶν πρακτῶν i.e. the reasoning into which actions may be analysed.
Thus we say that the desire of human praise was the motive of the Pharisees, or the principle on which they acted.
Their practical syllogism then would stand thus:
- Whatever gains human praise is to be done;
- Public praying and almsgiving gain human praise;
- ∴Public praying and almsgiving are to be done.
The major premisses may be stored up in the mind as rules of action, and this is what is commonly meant by having principles good or bad.
P. 5, l. 1. The difficulty of this passage consists in determining the signification of the terms γνῶριμα ἡμῖν and γνῶριμα ἁπλῶς.
I have translated them without reference to their use elsewhere, as denoting respectively what is and what may be known. All truth is γνῶριμον ἁπλῶς, but that alone ἡμῖν which we individually realise, therefore those principles alone are γνώριμα ἡμῖν which we have received as true. From this appears immediately the necessity of good training as preparatory to the study of Moral Philosophy: for good training in habits will either work principles into our nature, or make us capable of accepting them as soon as they are put before us; which no mere intellectual training can do. The child who has been used to obey his parents may never have heard the fifth Commandment: but it is in the very texture of his nature, and the first time he hears it he will recognise it as morally true and right: the principle is in his case a fact, the reason for which he is as little inclined to ask as any one would be able to prove its truth if he should ask.
But these terms are employed elsewhere (Analytica Post. I. cap. ii. sect. 10) to denote respectively particulars and universals. The latter are so denominated, because principles or laws must be supposed to have existed before the instances of their operation. Justice must have existed before just actions, Redness before red things: but since what we meet with are the concrete
