the primary looking-around to see how φύσις genuinely looks. Insofar as this ἕξις is tailored to natural occurrences, a manifold of questions results. We will discuss only the main questions.
There is the question of whether, in investigating a subject area, one must at first take notes to a certain extent, whether one must first deal with the φαινόμενα, how things about which one speaks about look, what they give themselves as in a primary way; and whether one should then pose the question, asking the manner in which they are precisely such and such, behave as such and such; or whether the order of questioning should be different than this.276 The question is whether—as with the ancients, who speculated about the ἀρχαί of the world without knowing what they meant by the world—one should begin with theory, with that which one has rather superficially thought up about a matter, or whether one should first examine the matter itself. Then there is the further question to resolve: insofar as the posing of the διὰ τί belongs to every investigation, it is to be observed that there are two possibilities of the διὰ τί in relation to the beings one designates as “nature”: (1) the οὗ ἕνεκα, (2) ὅθεν ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως.277 “That on account of which and that whence movement is.” These two causes are respects in which a being, which at first is clarified in its being-there, can be taken. Thus we have two questions: (1) whether, in general, the phenomenon should first be studied and then the in-what-manner; (2) which of the causes is the primary one with respect to the in-what-manner.
From looking at the matter itself, I can decide in what manner and with which posing of the question, I can approach the matter. From the matter itself, the second question also must be decided, which is the first respect according to its sense within the beings spoken of here, φύσει ὄν. Aristotle makes the decision in relation to φύσει ὄντα as ζῷα. It appears from the matter itself that the wherefore is the first διὰ τί, that I must therefore raise the first question, toward the οὗ ἕνεκα, upon the basis of the setting-forth of the look of the being of living things. The reasoning for this runs: the οὗ ἕνεκα is a λόγος, λόγος γὰρ οὗτος, ἀρχὴ δ’ ὁ λόγος ὁμοίως ἔν τε τοῖς κατὰ τέχνην καὶ ἐν τοῖς φύσει συνεστηκόσιν.278 “For λόγος is, in the domain of beings, what exists, what is there, in like manner within the orbit of beings of production, as within the beings that are there as φύσει ὄν, the ἀρχή.”
The question as to the basis from which beings are determined, the question as to the respect in which beings are to be first taken, is decided by the return to λόγος. Λόγος means “speaking” as well as “what is expressed”—basic determination of ἀποφαίνεσθαι: what is expressed is that which is exhibited by the thing addressed, namely, in λόγος, the thing addressed, this being, is there
276. Cf. De part. an. Α 1, 639 b 14 sqq.
277. De part. an. Α 1, 639 b 10 sqq.
278. De part. an. Α 1, 639 b 14 sqq.