Book 5
2
(f) Arts are also called beginnings,As directing principles. especially the architectonic arts. (g) Again, beginning means the point from which a thing is first comprehensible, this too is called the beginning of the thing; e.g. the hypotheses of demonstrations. (Cause can have a similar number of different senses, for all causes are beginnings. )
3
It is a common property, then, of all beginnings to be the first thing from which something either exists or comes into being or becomes known; and some beginnings are originally inherent in things, while others are not. Hence nature is a beginning, and so is element and understanding and choice and essence and final cause—for in many cases the Good and the Beautiful are the beginning both of knowledge and of motion.
1
Cause means: (a) in one sense, that as the result of whose presence something comes into being—e.g. the bronze of a statue and the silver of a cup, and the classessc. of material—metal, wood, etc. which contain these; (b) in another sense, the form or pattern; that is, the essential formula and the classes which contain it—e.g. the ratio 2:1 and number in general is the cause of the octave—and the parts of the formula.
