For the being is still not yet there, since the ἀρχαί, though in a certain sense present, are intermingled. Their presence is not uncovered and grasped as such. Accordingly, the ἀρχαί—or what is identical to them, the καθόλου—are themselves still hidden in their structure. The μέρη are not yet disclosed; they are not yet taken apart in διαίρεσις. Thus we can understand how Aristotle can write: τὸ γὰρ ὅλον κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν γνωριμώτερον (a24f.). "As regards perception, the whole is more familiar." I see at first the whole body; and this ὅλον contains in itself, as a possibility, the περιεχόμενα.
In the sense of the καθόλου, the ὅλον has, as is now evident, a double meaning; it means:
1.) the ὅλον λεγόμενον in the sense just made explicit: the ὅλον which shows itself only in λέγειν in such a way that in being addressed everything comprehended, every καθ᾽ ἕκαστον, itself shows itself as the whole; ἄνθρωπος, ἵππος, and θεός are in each case ζῷα.
2.) The καθόλου means at the same time that every ζῷον as such possesses an inherent structure. The καθόλου includes in itself—apart from the individual cases which it comprehends—determinate structural moments, which in αἴσθησις are not expressly given at first. The καθόλου is initially present συγκεχυμένως.
Hence the assertion of Physics I, 1 (184a23f.) does not at all contradict what was said previously in the Topics. On the contrary, it makes the latter still more explicit: the way proceeds from the unarticulated καθόλου to the articulated καθ᾽ ἕκαστον, such that every single μέρος becomes visible. And even the καθ᾽ ἕκαστον now becomes visible for the first time in its functional significance; the καθ᾽ ἕκαστον does not refer here to a determinate realm of beings but to the mode of Being: articulated versus not articulated. Thus the καθ᾽ ἕκαστον means: 1.) that which first stands out in αἴσθησις, 2.) the moments which stand out purely and simply, ones which reside in the καθόλου itself.
This is all consonant with the tenor of the treatment carried out in Aristotle's Physics. The latter is from the very outset ἀρχή -research; at issue is a grasping of the ἀρχαί. For ἐπιστήμη is always ἐπιστήμη of the καθόλου; and ἐπιστήμη proceeds from the unarticulated καθόλου to the articulated in such a way that its μέρη are brought into the open in the ὁρισμός. The methodological principle Aristotle formulated in Physics I, 1 expresses this precisely: ἐκ τῶν καθόλου εἰς τὰ καθ᾽ ἕκαστον δεῖ προιέναι. In this principle, which seems to be wholly formal, Aristotle grasps at the same time the meaning of the movement of the history of the question of the Being of φύσις, i.e., the history which preceded his own research and which he set forth in the first book of the Physics. When the philosophers raised questions about the givenness of the world, they saw immediately what was given immediately, and they saw it in such a way that it was unarticulated.