Book V of Aristotle’s Metaphysics is a lexicon of terms, and its first chapter treats archē, rendered here “beginning”, the Latin principium. He lists the senses in which the word is said, from the “first point” of a motion to “hypotheses” in demonstration. It stands under this term as the place where the word itself is distinguished.
Read in contextThat from which a thing can first be known,-this also is called the beginning of the thing, e.g. the hypotheses are the beginnings of demonstrations. (Causes are spoken of in an equal number of senses; for all causes are beginnings.) It is common, then, to all beginnings to be the first point from which a thing either is or comes to be or is known; but of these some are immanent in the thing and others are outside. Hence the nature of a thing is a beginning, and so is the element of a thing, and thought and will, and essence, and the final cause-for the good and the beautiful are the beginning both of the knowledge and of the movement of many things.