What Knowledge is, is plain from the following of considerations, if
one is to speak accurately, instead of being led away by resemblances.
For we all conceive that what we strictly speaking know, cannot be
otherwise than it is, because as to those things which can be otherwise
than they are, we are uncertain whether they are or are not, the moment
they cease to be within the sphere of our actual observation.
So then, whatever comes within the range of Knowledge is by necessity,
and therefore eternal, (because all things are so which exist
necessarily,) and all eternal things are without beginning, and
indestructible.
Again, all Knowledge is thought to be capable of being taught, and what
comes within its range capable of being learned. And all teaching is
based upon previous knowledge; (a statement you will find in the
Analytics also,)[11] for there are two ways of teaching, by Syllogism
and by Induction. In fact. Induction is the source of universal
propositions, and Syllogism reasons from these universals.[12]
Syllogism then may reason from principles which cannot be themselves
proved Syllogistically: and therefore must by Induction.
So Knowledge is “a state or mental faculty apt to demonstrate
syllogistically,” &c. as in the Analytics:[13] because a man, strictly
and properly speaking, _knows_, when he establishes his conclusion in a
certain way, and the principles are known to him: for if they are not
better known to him than the conclusion, such knowledge as he has will
be merely accidental.
Let thus much be accepted as a definition of Knowledge.
Chapter IV.
Matter which may exist otherwise than it actually does in any given
case (commonly called Contingent) is of two kinds, that which is the
object of Making, and that which is the object of Doing; now Making and
Doing are two different things (as we show in the exoteric treatise),
and so that state of mind, conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Do,
is distinct from that also conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Make:
and for this reason they are not included one by the other, that is,
Doing is not Making, nor Making Doing.[14] Now[15] as Architecture is
an Art, and is the same as “a certain state of mind, conjoined with
Reason, which is apt to Make,” and as there is no Art which is not such
a state, nor any such state which is not an Art, Art, in its strict and
proper sense, must be “a state of mind, conjoined with true Reason, apt
to Make.”
Now all Art has to do with production, and contrivance, and seeing how
any of those things may be produced which may either be or not be, and
the origination of which rests with the maker and not with the thing
made.