The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes.
As to the mental essence, we find it in infants devoid of every mental form.
That whose existence is necessary must necessarily be one essence.
Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials.
