The Book of Aristotle 4 · Handed down at the Lyceum, taken from his own writings
He is not a witness. He never saw the Teacher; he was the student of a student. This book does not record his life, only what he wrote in his own books — the Order wants words that can be checked, not a name that can be quoted.
4.1All inquiry begins in wonder.
4.2The man who wonders knows that he does not know. So wonder is the first step into ignorance and the first step out of it.
4.3The method has three parts: set out the appearances, lay out the difficulties, then seek the explanation.
4.4To set out the appearances is to put down what is seen, one by one, without hurrying to explain it.
4.5To lay out the difficulties is to show plainly where things conflict, without pretending they do not.
4.6Then seek the explanation. Any explanation must preserve most of what people already believed; if it overturns everything everyone believed, it is far more likely that the explanation is wrong than that everyone was.
4.7Some will not study lowly things. They think philosophy should speak only of what is in the sky.
4.8I do not think so.
4.9Heraclitus was once warming himself at the oven. Visitors hesitated at the door, thinking the place unworthy of a philosopher.
4.10He said: come in, do not be afraid. There are gods here too.
4.11I put that saying into my book on animals, because it is my method.
4.12If you find a sea urchin beneath you, what you find beneath you is not the urchin. It is your own eye.
4.13In every natural thing there is something to wonder at.
4.14The sky is far away; you can only look at it. What is in your hand is near; you can count it.
4.15All I have done with my life is change looking into counting.