Path Of Divine Restoration

The word metaphysics is formed from the Greek meta ta phusika, a title which, about the year A.D. 70, was related by Andronicus of Rhodes to that collection of Aristotelean treatises which since then goes by the name of the "Metaphysics". Aristotle himself had referred to that portion of philosophy as "the theological science", because it culminated in the consideration of the nature of God, and as "first philosophy", both because it considered the first causes of things, and because, in his estimation, it is first in importance.

The editor, however, overlooked both these titles, and, because he believed that part of the Aristotelean corpus came naturally after the physical treatises, he entitled it "after the physics". This is the historical origin of the term. However, once the name was given, the commentators sought to find intrinsic reasons for its appropriateness and reason. For instance, it was understood to mean "the science of the world beyond nature", that is, the science of the immaterial. Again, it was understood to refer to the chronological or pedagogical order among our philosophical studies, so that the "metaphysical sciences would mean, those which we study after having mastered the sciences which deal with the physical world" (St. Thomas, "In Lib, Boeth. de Trin.", V, 1). In the widespread, though erroneous, use of the term in current popular literature, there is a remnant of the notion that metaphysical means ultraphysical: thus, "metaphysical healing" means healing by means of remedies which are not physical.