Abstract

When we from what may be called Aristotle's Cosmology turn to his work traditionally called the Metaphysics, we are faced with something—an inquiry or doctrine—of a surprisingly different character. There what we find is the exposition of a sort or degree of knowledge superior to that of the Sciences. This is what we call his metaphysics, but he does not so name it; he names it Wisdom, or Theoretical Wisdom. At times he calls it First Philosophy, or, again, Theology. It is par excellence knowledge, the consummate achievement of theoretic or cognitive power. It is the supreme Science, scientia scientiarum. Of what is it knowledge? It is knowledge not about, but of, whatsoever is real, really real, and of its universal and necessary attributes. The latter are distinct from one another, and from that to which they indissolubly belong, and metaphysics apprehends all this in its distinctions and interconnections. Further, it is a knowledge of itself, a knowledge of knowledge, and so a Wissenschaftslehre, or“super-Logic.” Finally, it is knowledge commensurate with the real Universe as a whole, so that nothing which is genuinely a part of that escapes its view.