CHAPTER VIII

ARISTOTLE (384–322 B. C.)

=Aristotle in the Academy and Lyceum.= Many notable pupils gathered around Plato during his mastership of more than forty years. Plato’s nephew, Speusippus, succeeded him as leader of the Academy, and for the next three hundred and fifty years the Academy is called by various names. It is the Older Academy under Speusippus and later; then it is known as the Middle Academy; and then, about 120 B. C., it is known as the New Academy. The history of the Academy is, however, a part of the Hellenic-Roman Period. It is sufficient to say here that the leaders succeeding Plato in the Academy added but little to philosophical speculation, although much to empirical research. The important fact is that the sceptre in philosophy passed from the Academy when Plato died and his greatest pupil Aristotle left it. Just as Plato stood among the pupils of Socrates as Socrates’ most discriminating interpreter, so among the pupils of Plato there was one preëminent pupil,――Aristotle. Aristotle was too great a man to be subordinated to the leadership of Speusippus. Upon the death of Plato he left the Academy, and fourteen years later he returned to Athens and founded the Lyceum, which became under his mastership the most influential Athenian school. The Lyceum was an inclosed space of ground, like the Academy. It was situated just outside the walls of Athens, on the right bank of the Ilissus. It was dedicated to Apollo, decorated with fountains, gardens, and buildings, and contained one of the great gymnasia of Athens. It was frequented by philosophers, and is known to have been the favorite walk of Aristotle and his pupils, whence they got their name of Peripatetics. Theophrastus, the most eminent pupil of Aristotle, bought a property near the grove and bequeathed it to the school. It was a religious foundation, like the Academy. The method of choosing the scholarchs varied at different times. The name Lyceum is from the same root as Lycian, and was given to Aristotle’s school from the fact that the grove was dedicated to the Lycian Apollo.

Here, in the Lyceum, Greek philosophy was brought to its most complete expression. Here all the threads of Greek cosmological and anthropological undertakings were finally woven together. Here an adjustment was accomplished between Aristotle’s two great predecessors, Plato and Democritus; and materialistic and idealistic realism crystallized in a theory of development. The great form of Aristotle rises to speak the final word of pure Greek civilization, at a time when the custody of Greece had passed from the hands of the Athenians, the Spartans, the Thebans in succession to the Macedonians. He was the most influential thinker that history had seen. In his formative power upon human thought he has scarcely a peer. Dante called him “the master of those who know.” “In my opinion,” said Cicero, “Aristotle stands almost alone in philosophy.” Eusebius said of him, “Aristotle, nature’s private secretary, dipped his pen in thought.” Goethe remarked, “If now in my quiet days I had youthful faculties at my command, I should devote myself to Greek, in spite of all the difficulties I know. Nature and Aristotle should be my sole study. It is beyond all conception what that man espied, saw, beheld, remarked, observed.”

The portrait that we draw of Aristotle is very different from that of Plato. Instead of the deeply poetic temper, the man who sees all things in an ideal unity of infiniteness and vastness, we have before us now the scientist in search of facts, the accurate man of good sense, whose imagination does not soar above the clouds, but at the same time has extraordinary fertility in historical and scientific theoretical explanations. His was a life filled with the love of truth. His learning took up into itself the entire range of human knowledge in such a way as to include its earlier development. And what is more, he showed an equal interest in all departments. Aristotle was more of a scientist than Plato, for the theoretical rather than the ethical interest was fundamental in his work. He is the personification and completion of pure Greek learning.

=Biography of Aristotle=, 384–322 B. C.

=Brief Chronological Sketch of Aristotle’s Life.=

First Period――Aristotle the Student――37 years. 384–347 B. C.

384 Born in Stagira in Macedonia. 367 Entered the Academy. Remained 19 years. 347 Left the Academy upon the death of Plato.

Second Period――Aristotle the Traveler――12 years. 347–335 B. C.

347 Went to the courts at Atarneus and Mytilene in Asia Minor. 343 Returned to the court of Macedon at Pella, in response to the summons of King Philip, to teach the young prince Alexander. Remained 4 years. 340 Went from Pella to Stagira to engage in scientific work. Remained 5 years.

Third Period――Aristotle the Leader of the Lyceum――13 years. 335–322 B. C.

335 Founded the Lyceum in Athens. Taught and administered the school 12 years. 323 Fled to Chalcis. 322 Died in Chalcis.

=Aristotle’s Biography in Detail.=

=1. First Period=, 384–347 B. C.――=Early Influences=. Aristotle was born in Stagira in Macedonia. His father was court physician to King Amyntas, the founder of the Macedonian power and the father of King Philip. He came from a long line of physicians (the caste, Asclepiad) who traced their origin to Asclepius. Little is known about the early years of Aristotle except that his father and mother died, leaving him in the guardianship of Proxenus of Atarneus. (Atarneus is the state in Asia Minor which he later visited.) It can scarcely be doubted that he was destined by his family to be a physician, and that the empirical works of Hippocrates and Democritus were the first elements of his early education. Aristotle grew up in this atmosphere of medicine of Macedonia, which explains his respect for the results of experience and his accuracy in details,――all of which contrasts him with the Attic philosophers.

He was sent by Proxenus to the Academy in 367 B. C., at the age of eighteen, and he remained there for nineteen years, or until he was thirty-seven. He was not merely a pupil in the school, but his brilliancy won for him immediately a prominent position there. He became a teacher, an attractive writer, and champion of the literary spirit of the school. Even while he was a member of the Academy he became a famous man. It is difficult to say just how much influence the Academy had upon the casting of his thought. His scientific inclinations were formed before he went to the Academy; he got his immense scientific erudition in Asia Minor and in Stagira later, after he left the Academy. Probably the spirit of the Platonic school turned his attention to ethical and metaphysical theories, and probably it was due to his stay in the Academy that he became interested in rhetorical and purely cultural studies. At the same time his own influence must have been very great in forming the policy of the Academy, and he was probably responsible for its turning its attention to scientific matters.

The sources from which Aristotle drew the material of his philosophical science were therefore (1) his inherited taste for medicine and empirical science; and (2) the influence of the Academy in ethical, metaphysical, and cultural subjects. Both these factors appear throughout the philosophical development of Aristotle. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that probably Aristotle’s influence upon the Academy was as great as that of the Academy upon him. His own persistence along the line of empirical science shows itself in his period at Atarneus, Mitylene, and on his return to Stagira. Much has been said about an estrangement between Aristotle and his teacher, Plato. This is probably idle gossip. Aristotle held his master in great esteem, as he himself testifies in his _Ethics_. Aristotle was an independent and original mind, and probably even in the school he would point out defects in Plato’s thought, when his aged teacher would lead his theories upon mistaken lines. Plato said that his pupil Xenocrates needed the spur, while Aristotle needed the bridle. Aristotle was called the brain of the Academy.

=2. Second Period=, 347–335 B. C.――=Traveler and Collector=. When Plato died, and his nephew Speusippus became scholarch of the Academy, Aristotle, in company with Xenocrates, went to the court of Hermeias, ruler of Atarneus and Mitylene. Hermeias was another pupil of Plato at the Academy. Here Aristotle married twice, and here he resided for six years. In 343 B. C. he obeyed the summons of King Philip to come to Pella and become the tutor of Alexander. He acted in this capacity for four years, and seems to have been more fortunate than Plato as instructor of a king. His influence upon Alexander was very great. Without losing himself in the impracticable, Aristotle seems to have impressed high philosophical ideals upon the noble spirit of his kingly ward. Alexander says of Aristotle, “To my father I owe my life, to Aristotle the knowledge how to live worthily.” During the tedium of the protracted campaign in Bactria, Alexander sent for the tragedies of Euripides, Sophocles, and Æschylus. The _Ethics_ of his teacher was always with him. The ideals of statesmanship, the wide purposes in political control, the greatness of the aims of the young conqueror, as well as his self-control, his aversion to meanness and petty things, and his sublime moderation were due in part to the teachings of Aristotle. Never was there a more fortunate conjunction of two great minds than here.

In 340 B. C., when Alexander entered upon his administrative and military duties, Aristotle became independent of the Macedonian court. He spent the most of these four years (340–335 B. C.) in scientific work at Stagira, in intimate companionship with his young friend Theophrastus, who later succeeded him as scholarch of the Lyceum. “Among the special subjects of study in the school of Mieza and Stagira, natural history formed a part.... Alexander at one time contributed eight hundred talents to forward his former teacher’s investigations in zoölogy, placed at his disposal a thousand men throughout Asia and Greece, with instructions to follow out Aristotle’s directions in collecting and reporting details concerning the life, conditions, and habits of animals, and in every way made his campaigns serve the purpose of scientific investigation.”[33] The reports of the ancients concerning the vast sums placed at Aristotle’s disposal for use in scientific investigation are of course exaggerated. That he made large collections during this period, as well as later, is certain. This was possible to him, first, because he was a rich man himself, and second, because of his relations to the courts at Atarneus and Macedonia.

=3. Third Period=, 335–322 B. C.――=Administrator of the Lyceum=. When Alexander entered upon his campaigns in Asia, and Aristotle felt himself free from immediate duty to him, he went to Athens and founded the Lyceum. This school very soon arose above the Academy, and became the model of later societies of scholars of antiquity. Its greatness partook of the greatness of Aristotle,――in the universality of its interests, in the orderliness of its administration, and in methodical coöperation. For twelve years he was the executive, teacher, administrator, and inspiration of this school――developing his philosophy, accumulating materials, and instructing his pupils. The enormous product of the school could not have been the work of one pair of hands. Nevertheless the writings, the immense collections, the ethical and political treatises, show a unity that speaks of one master-mind that had them under direction. When the Athenians began to rise against the Macedonian rule, Aristotle’s position in Athens as a friend of Alexander became unsafe. He fled to Chalcis, excusing himself, so the tradition goes, because he wished to spare the Athenians a second crime against philosophy. He died in Chalcis the next year (322 B. C.).

A comparison of these three periods of Aristotle’s life discloses the uniformity of that life, from beginning to end. He was, from the time he entered the Academy to the founding of the Lyceum, a teacher. Even as pupil of Plato his original mind was influencing the Platonic teaching into new channels. During his second period he was a traveler, to be sure; but he was more,――a collector and a king’s tutor. He was always Aristotle, the philosophical teacher. Hence the periods of his life cannot be so sharply marked as Plato’s, and the lines that are drawn point only to phases of a life that had unity, like his doctrine. His life is a regular development from sources in his first period, and with no later deviating influence.

=The Writings of Aristotle.= On every page of Plato’s dialogues you meet Plato; in Aristotle’s writings the personality of the author is subordinated to his science. The collections of writings transmitted under the name of Aristotle do not give even an approximately complete picture of the immense activity of the man. They form, indeed, a stately memorial, even after the spurious writings have been omitted, but their bulk is small compared with what we know was the product of his literary workshop. Forty treatises have been preserved. A catalogue of the library of Alexandria in 220 B. C. includes a list of one hundred and forty-six others, which have since been lost. Aristotle was writer, lecturer, teacher, and the administrator of the Lyceum. His leadership of that school, his careful direction of his coöperators in research and study, was not only an instruction but an impulsion to independent scientific study for all time. His great collections of scientific data can be explained only by their being the combined efforts of many different forces, guided and schooled by a common master. The world was ready to take an account of stock, and Aristotle was the first encyclopædic philosopher.

=1. The Popular Writings, published by Aristotle himself.= These were intended for a circle of readers wider than his own school. No one of these works is extant in complete form. They were written by Aristotle during his life in the Academy. They were dialogues in form; in content they were discussions of justice, wealth, wisdom, rhetoric, politics, love, conduct, prayer, generosity, education, government, etc. They were less artistic than Plato’s dialogues, but more original and striking; and they were full of happy inventions and rich thought, expressed in florid diction. The ancients spoke often of Aristotle’s “golden flow of thought,” but this cannot truthfully apply to any save these lost writings.

=2. The Compilations.= These were excerpts from scientific works, collections of zoölogical, literary, historical, and antiquarian data, which Aristotle and his pupils had gathered together. Only a few fragments of the total remain. There were critical notes upon the Pythagoreans, reports of extracts of Plato’s dialogues, a descriptive basis for zoölogy with illustrations, collections of previous rhetorical theories and models, histories of tragedies and comedies, discussions about Homer, Hesiod, Archilochus, Euripides, and other poets; there were historical miscellanies and reports concerning one hundred fifty-eight Greek state constitutions.

=3. The Didactic Writings.= These have in part been preserved, and they make up the collection of what we have of Aristotle’s writings. They have a consistently developed terminology, but they are wanting in grace and beauty of presentation. The plan of the books is generally the same: the problem is precisely stated; then follows a criticism of various attempted solutions; then a discussion of the salient points of the problem; then a marshaling of the facts; and, finally, an attempt to get a conclusive result. The method is modern in its scientific procedure and the contrast with Plato is striking. Yet it must not be inferred that these books of Aristotle are orderly. There are repetitions, haste, unequal development of parts, and unfulfilled promises. These books were nothing else than the written notes which he had made the basis of his lectures and had intended to form into text-books in some future time. Only parts of the Logic seem to have been completed for text-book purposes.

These didactic writings are simply arranged as follows (Wallace):

1. The treatise on Logic called _Organon_. 2. Speculative Philosophy. First Philosophy or Theology or Metaphysics. Mathematics (writings not extant). Physics (including the history of animals and the psychology). 3. Practical Philosophy. Ethics. Economics. Politics. 4. Poetic Philosophy. Art. Poetry. Rhetoric.

=Aristotle’s Starting-Point.= The two early influences in Aristotle’s mental development offer an explanation for his philosophical point of view. These influences were his empirical training in medicine and his conceptual training in the moral ideals of the Academy. Plato had convinced him that if there were to be any true science, it must be founded on concepts that are unchanging. His own scientific training, however, reinforced by the influence of Democritus, made him respect the value of empirical facts. While the philosophical problem for Aristotle was the same as that for Plato, the difference between them was in the main a matter of emphasis due to their different starting-points. Plato started with the refutation of the Protagorean theory of perception, and consequently he emphasized the value of the conceptual world; Aristotle, however, felt that Plato had overestimated the conceptual world, and he emphasized the importance of empirical facts. Both when a member of the Academy and later, he strongly contended against Plato’s evaluation of the world of Ideas, because they so transcended the sense world that they neither explained nor illuminated it. Aristotle’s reaction against Plato’s theory furthermore gives us a more correct notion of what Plato really taught. If conceptions are to enter into knowledge, they must not exist in the clouds of abstraction. He maintained that Plato had increased the difficulty of the problem by adding a second world of entities quite distinct from the world of nature. The same problem that Plato confronted still exists unanswered, said Aristotle. It is the problem of the twofold world. If Ideas are apart from things, we could not know that they existed, we should not be able to know anything about them, nor should we be able to explain the world through them. It is true that Plato, in his later draft, had conceived Ideas to be teleologically related to the physical things, but how could this be if they were apart from things? Thus in his reaction from Plato’s theory of Ideas, Aristotle reëstablished the world of perceptual fact. This is the starting-point of Aristotle.

=The Fundamental Principle in Aristotle’s Philosophy.= The first question then is, How did Aristotle reëstablish the perceptual fact? What means did he employ to give the perceptual fact a reality? The answer to this question will be the statement of Aristotle’s fundamental principle. It will show his advance over Plato by showing his new estimate of the perceptual world. Plato accepted the Protagorean doctrine of perception, but also gave it a new value by placing perceptions beside conceptions in the world of reality; Aristotle developed Plato’s teaching about perceptions by linking them inseparably with conceptions. Aristotle felt that Plato’s difficulties arose from the lack of close relationship between conceptual Being and perceptual fact. What is that linkage? What binds abiding reality and changing phenomena so closely? _The linkage is development._ Development is the relation between conception and perception. It is the fundamental principle in the philosophy of Aristotle throughout and places a new estimate upon the value of perception. Perceptual facts apart from conceptions have no reality; conceptions apart from perceptions are mere abstractions. In the world of reality conceptual Being resides in the perceptual facts, and the perceptual facts express conceptions. They always exist together in a linkage or relationship that is teleological, purposeful――the linkage of development. An abstract statement of this relationship is, “Aristotle felt the conceptual necessity of the empirically actual.” Perhaps the clearest statement of this fundamental principle can be made in the terms of evolution. It is this: _true reality is the essence which unfolds in phenomena_. Notice that this sentence has two parts equally freighted: _reality is an unfolding essence_; _reality is in phenomena_. The true universal must be thought as realizing itself through its development in particulars; the true concept as realizing itself through its development in percepts; the true abiding Being as realizing itself in its development through change. On the one hand, reality is the essence of things; on the other, reality has existence only in things.

True reality is the individual.

The individual consists of two aspects: (1) conceptual being, and (2) perceptual change.

These two aspects always stand in a relationship.

That relationship is developing purpose.

Here is the key to the teaching of Aristotle that seems to open the doors of its many chambers. In his metaphysics reality is the individual developing from possibility to actuality. In physics individual phenomena get a reality through their development from lower to higher types. In psychology the individual person is real when the particulars, the physiological and psychological states, develop toward the soul, which is their truth. So, too, in the great system of logic in which Aristotle was pioneer, he is simply trying to give the particular judgment a meaning by showing its linkage to the universal judgment. Everywhere the starting-point of Aristotle is the perceptual fact. Everywhere his purpose is to reëstablish it by showing its relation to abiding conception in the individual.

It may be well to remark, however, that Aristotle does not altogether succeed in constructing a consistent theory. In spite of his criticism of Plato’s transcendent Ideas, in many places Aristotle does not overcome Plato’s dualism. Frequently he differs from Plato more in words than in meaning. We shall observe some of his inconsistencies in their place. We shall see that Aristotle as he meant to be was different from Aristotle as he was. Aristotle as he meant to be――Aristotle as the opponent of Plato’s dualism――develops a philosophy from a single fundamental principle. Aristotle as he was, reverts at many critical points to Plato’s dualism.

Aristotle’s principle of development may appear at first blush very much like the modern principle of evolution. As a matter of fact it was very different. In all Greek philosophy after Socrates the study of morals was fundamental. The ideal of Socrates, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, and the later Schools was a moral ideal. Being moral it was fixed, and it fixed all the changes of life to it as a centre. Nature was to the Greek a museum of types oscillating around a perfect form. There was no evolution in the sense of progress. There was development within the individual――the boy becomes a man, the seed becomes a flower; but there was no evolution from genus to genus. Indeed, any variation of the individual from its type was considered a defect.

=Aristotle’s Logic.= Aristotle felt that there must be a science of the methods of science; and so successful was he in its formulation that it has practically remained as he transmitted it. We are struck by the way in which he divided science into the special sciences, each with its well-defined field. It was perfectly natural that he should also, with his great power of abstract reasoning, discuss the body of rules for legitimate thinking. In science there must be an art of investigation, just as in rhetoric there is an art of persuasion. At an early period these logical writings were collected under the name _Organon_, because the Lyceum regarded them so intimately connected with scientific procedure as to be the instrument or “organ” of all knowledge. Certain parts of Aristotle’s _Organon_ are of doubtful genuineness. The important sections are the _Analytics_, a masterly logical groundwork of the conclusion and proof, and the _Topics_, which treats of the inductive methods of probability. Aristotle therefore made logic a preliminary and separate study, as it should be. It became the preface to his scientific work.

We shall briefly discuss Aristotle’s logic, because it is an exemplification of his general philosophical principle. Among the subjects in the history of philosophy, logic is perhaps the only one that has had no internal history. Aristotle was the pioneer in the subject. He left it so finished that scarcely any changes of consequence could be made in it. The external history of the Aristotelian logic has, however, been notable. A portion of the _Categories_ and _De Interpretatione_ was most influential in the history of the Middle Ages. The _Logic_ had been misunderstood and misapplied by Aristotle’s own School, so that when it came into the hands of the Schoolmen it had acquired the reputation of being only an abstract formal logic. As thus interpreted it was used by the Schoolmen and attacked by the philosophers of the Renaissance. Such a view of Aristotle’s logic is unjust to the author. He had conceived logic in its wholeness to be the true method to be used in investigating practical scientific problems.

The Sophists had proposed rules of practical value in the study of individual cases; Socrates had tried to fix upon some universal principle as the basis of knowledge; Aristotle made a comprehensive study of the regular forms of thought and the rules that govern the arrangement of these forms in right thinking. In true Platonic fashion he conceived physical events in nature to be due to some universal cause. If, therefore, logical procedure be scientific, it must follow the ways of nature: logic must deduce particular perceptions from some universal idea. The necessary thought-relations in which the particular stands will then appear. Deduction of the particular from the universal is the true scientific method, used in the explanation of nature-phenomena; so in proof the same deductive reasoning should be used. In scientific study we are trying to show the conceptual necessity of an empirical fact; in proof we are showing the conceptual necessity of the particular term. Whether we are explaining an event or proving a conclusion, we are employing the same logical process. Aristotle thus regarded his logic as the true scientific method for practical service, not as a merely abstract discipline in verbal hair-splitting.

Socrates and Plato confined themselves to the study of the concept or simple term. Aristotle also studied the concept. Indeed, he tried to find out what concepts are fundamental in our thinking, so fundamental that they are our thought reduced to its lowest terms. He names ten of these fundamental concepts and calls them categories. But Aristotle goes farther than Socrates and Plato, and makes his real point of departure the judgment. A single term does not express truth. For truth we must have two terms connected by the verb “is,” _i. e._ some _relation_ must be shown between them. This is a judgment. Reasoning is still more complex. It is the putting together or showing the relation between two judgments. This process takes the form of the syllogism. The first task of deduction is to present the laws of the syllogism. These will then be the laws of scientific investigation. According to these, particulars can be derived with certainty from universal propositions, provided such universals are established. The syllogism is in the form of two premises and a derived conclusion. It contains three terms. The problem is to infer, from the relation that one of these terms bears to the two other terms, what the two bear to each other. The principle employed is that of subordination; and the differentiations of the syllogism can be many, depending on the quality and quantity of the premises and the distribution of the middle term. The working of the syllogism in inference has a certainty so great that Aristotle called it apodictic.

But there is another side to the syllogistic besides the deduction of proof or the explanation of empirical fact. This is the establishment of the premises. All deduction presupposes absolute premises. All deduction is grounded on something not deduced; all proof on something not proved; all explanation on something that has not been explained. These presuppositions are universal propositions that can be known only immediately through intuitions. Aristotle is not altogether clear as to what these intuitions are. He names such axioms as the law of contradiction and the law of the excluded middle, and some special propositions which apply only to particular sciences. Since the premises which we actually use are not open to proof, but only strengthened as to the validity of their application, we must use the method of induction in our search for them. We accumulate data from opinions and varied experiences, and then we ascend to a generalization which we take as a premise. The results of induction cannot therefore be in themselves certain. The results are only probable, and can have the character of knowledge only as they explain phenomena. Aristotle means by induction something different from the present use of the term. Induction in modern times means a kind of proof; Aristotle means a method of discovery of _relatively_ universal terms where the absolutely universal cannot be obtained.

There is an ideal involved in this conception of logic that is interesting. In a perfectly intellectual society there would be a perfect science in which all particular facts could be derived with absolute certainty from premises absolutely known. Life and logic would be identical. We should then be certain not only as to our proof but as to our premises. Logic has sometimes been used very effectively in this way. When the mediæval church conceived its dogmas to be the ultimate premises of truth, it could deduce from them complete rules for living. To the mediæval mind the perfect science was formulated by deducing it from the dogma of the church. The dogmas were the absolute premises. The Renaissance did not doubt the infallibility of the traditional dogmas so much as the logical method, and Aristotle, who had been so long artificially identified with the proof of ecclesiastical dogma, was set aside.

Aristotle, moreover, showed great insight into the present relation of thought and reality. The sequence of facts in our experience, he pointed out, is exactly the reverse of what it is in reality. What is first in reality comes last in our experience, and what is first in our experience is last in reality. To illustrate: the mission of the Athenian State in the eternity of things did not appear until every event in its history had occurred. A perfect being would see the universal ground before the historical particulars derived from it, while we look from the particulars to their universal causes. Logic and metaphysics agree; but they stand in inverted parallelism to historical and psychological processes. Knowledge is a development from the senses into the Ideas, and yet, on the other hand, Aristotle never fails to remind us that this development is the expression of an idea which has been present from the beginning.

=Aristotle’s Metaphysics.=

=1. Development is Purposeful.= The conception of relation is, of course, quite as fundamental in Aristotle’s theory of metaphysics as in his logic. In logic knowledge of the particular is possible through its relationship to the universal; in metaphysics the relationship is the relationship of development――the particular has significance and value through the universal essence that unfolds from within it. If Aristotle shows genius for abstract thinking by becoming the “Father of Logic,” he shows equal genius for abstract thinking in his metaphysical conception of development. He believed that metaphysics applies the same conditions to things that logic discovers in thought. But in metaphysics the relationship is not the abstract relationship that Aristotle saw in Plato, but the vital relation of development in the life and change of nature.

We have already stated the fundamental principle in Aristotle’s teaching as _an unfolding essence in phenomena_. The unfolding is the relationship of development. Reality does not consist in the particular things of nature, nor in something outside nature, but in this essential linkage of the perceptual and conceptual in nature. As the world is spread out before us, it presents objects that are dynamic, however much they may appear to be static. Everywhere matter is in the process of forming. The world is a forming, not a formed nor a formless world. So, also, if you undertook to describe any individual object in the world, you would have to define it as a forming or developing thing. A tree, for example, would not be adequately defined or described by enumerating its parts at any one moment; but you must describe it as a unitary organism developing from a seed. The reality of the world is the development of its meaning in its history; the same is true of the reality of any individual thing in the world. The world and the things therein have an unfolding essence.

The next point to be observed about Aristotle’s conception is that the _relationship of development is between two terms_. The individual must have two aspects: there must be that out of which the development is passing, and that into which it is passing. Aristotle calls these two aspects of development respectively Matter and Form. Every object of nature consists of Form and Matter, and these two terms have passed into history. To Aristotle everything is Matter becoming Form, or, in other words, Form realizing itself in Matter. The tree has its Matter which is becoming Formed, and its Form into which the Matter is growing. The principle which unites the two is development,――the principle of the individual. Matter, then, is the possibility or potentiality of an individual thing――it is the thing given potentially; Form is its actuality or reality. If you emphasize merely the stages in the development, you are regarding merely the _occurrences_; if, however, you emphasize the stages of development as aspects of a unity, you see its _essence_.

The relationship of development between two terms thus becomes under Aristotle’s hands _the relation of purpose_. Aristotle calls this self-realization of the essence in phenomena by the technical word _entelechy_, _i. e._ in opposition to the earlier conceptions of nature Aristotle conceived nature teleologically. Teleology or purpose we found Plato using in his second draft of the Ideas, but more as a postulate than as an efficient means of explanation. Aristotle uses teleology as his positive fundamental principle of nature.

=2. Aristotle’s Two Different Conceptions of Purpose.= Aristotle illustrated his conception of the purposeful relation in nature from two very different types: (1) the development of organisms; (2) the development that takes place when an artisan moulds plastic material. Manifestly here are two different kinds of teleological activities. In organic growth the Form that realizes itself in Matter is immanent in the organism; the artist, on the other hand, superimposes the Form upon the plastic material. In the case of organisms Matter and Form are separable only by abstraction, and are only two aspects of a development which is identical from the beginning to the end; in the case of artistic construction the Matter is first a possibility existing by itself, and the purpose of the artist is later added unto it. In the case of organisms Aristotle speaks of two causes,――the material and the formal; in the case of artistic construction he employs four causes,――the material, the efficient, the formal, and the final. Aristotle did not expressly formulate these two different conceptions of purpose, but he completely applied them in practice. On the one hand he regarded individual things as self-realizing, and on the other he looked upon them as realized in other things. This seemingly harmless difference is really very fundamental, for it is the difference between Aristotle as he meant to be――Aristotle as the critic of Plato’s dualism――and Aristotle who reverts to Plato’s teaching. We find therefore two Aristotles; one a dynamic monist, the other a transcendent dualist. We cannot say that Aristotle as he meant to be is the true Aristotle, for he is a dualist in very many important doctrines.

Aristotle’s conception of purpose as exemplified by organisms is his original conception, and is what he intended to be the basis of his philosophy. Here the truly real is the individual determined by its own Form. It is the dynamic and not the artistic view of life. Activity is directed to an end not without but _within itself_. The individual is a complete organic unity at rest within itself. The individual is primarily the essence or substance. Of the ten categories which he enumerates, substance from this point of view is to Aristotle the most important. The nine other categories only describe the states or relations of the substance. The essence of the individual is the substance; and Aristotle conceives the substance as the species or universal in the thing. It is pointed out that even here Aristotle is guilty of a dualism in the double meaning in which he uses substance. But the conception of Aristotle here is of an immanent, dynamic reality. He has in mind the self-contained unity of the individual, whether that be a tree, a man, or the universe.

Aristotle’s conception of purpose as exemplified by artistic products preponderates over his original conception of purpose. When he regards the individual objects in the world, not as self-contained but as relative to one another, he has a different conception of the world. In this case the individuals are not realities but have reference to a reality transcending them. The world is still a developing world, but the essence that unfolds itself is not _in_ phenomena. It is a goal for which phenomena strive. The fulfillment of the purpose is beyond. Individual things are only a scale of values relative to some transcendent standard. To illustrate: the bud, the blossom, the fruit, have not their realization in themselves, but as food; again, the growing tree, the timber lying on the ground, the timber in the house, have their realization in the completed house; again, in the world at large, the original nebulous matter of the universe, the first-formed worlds, the early years of this earth, the succeeding centuries, the 20th century of this world, are only a scale of values for something in the future.

In facing such facts, Aristotle had to depart from his original conceptualistic standard of the world as an organic unity and of individual things having their meaning in themselves. View a thing by itself, and it seems to be a self-contained reality which unfolds for itself alone. View a thing with reference to other things, and its reality is in something else. Here is Aristotle no longer as he meant to be, but as he really was. He is now Plato’s pupil. Each thing now is to be regarded, not as containing in itself the two aspects of Form and Matter, but as the possibility of something and the actuality of something else. The blossom is the possibility or Matter of the fruit and the Form or actuality of the bud. The nineteenth century is the Form of the eighteenth and the Matter of the twentieth. But development has a limit above and below, according to Aristotle: below, in Matter that is without Form; above, in Form that is without Matter. Pure Form is God, who excludes from Himself all Matter or possibility, because He is perfect. Pure Matter is the lower limit, which is entire possibility, and exists only to be formed. Here is a dualism as distinct as Plato’s, which Aristotle not only did not overcome but which he developed. In the same way that Plato contrasted Ideas and empty space, Aristotle contrasted God as pure Form and Matter as pure possibility.

In this final dualistic form in which Aristotle left his teaching, there are three specific doctrines which the student must consider carefully. They are important because they had great influence in later orthodox theology and in theories of nature. These special doctrines are (1) Aristotle’s conception of God; (2) his conception of matter; (3) his conception of nature.

=3. Aristotle’s Conception of God.= In the Aristotelian system the assumption of an upper final term of pure Form was necessary, because Matter as the possible and potential is not endowed with the power of motion and generation. To Aristotle development is not a process with temporal beginning and ending, but is a kind of closed circuit. Since reality is in itself a developing essence, motion is as eternal as reality. We should not ask, therefore, When did the world begin, and when will it end? but we can legitimately ask, What is the nature of reality that keeps motion alive? When we examine individual things, we find, according to Aristotle’s explanation, that motion is the result of the influence of Form upon Matter. There is inherent in matter an impulse to be formed, and there is inherent in Form an active forming purpose. But we may search individual things in vain for the causal explanation of motion, since every Form is in turn the Matter for a higher Form. The chain would be endless and not intelligible if there did not exist a pure Form, which is unmoved. God as the unmoved mover is the cause of the world-motion, but God must be the cause in a different sense from the physical causes, which are themselves moved. God operates as a cause upon Matter, not as a mechanical cause but as pure Form,――as a final or teleological cause. God is the cause in the sense that God excites in Matter the impulse to be actual, like God.

This prime mover is similar to Plato’s Idea of the Good. _As to its form_ it is eternal, unmovable, unchangeable, wholly independent and incorporeal, and yet the cause of all generation and change. God is the perfect Being in whom all possibility is actuality. _As to its content_ God is pure thought. But in respect to his thought God is not like human thought, which is concerned with external phenomena and changing things. God is thought that has nothing else for its object than itself and its own unchanging content. God is “thought of thought.” God’s contemplation of himself is his own blessed life. Here in Aristotle is a momentous conception formed for the first time in the history of thought. Monotheism is for the first time conceptually framed and scientifically grounded. The monism of Aristotle’s predecessors passes over into a theism. God is not only immaterial in the sense that Plato defined the Ideas, but he is spiritual. In Aristotle’s transcendent God, conceived as pure self-consciousness, we have the ripest fruit of Greek philosophy.

=4. Aristotle’s Conception of Matter.= The other and lower limit of Aristotle’s dualism is Matter, “first Matter,” as Aristotle called it. In itself it is wholly unformed and mere possibility. But it is unlike pure Form in this respect,――it never exists in itself. God exists apart from Matter, but since Matter is mere possibility, Matter never exists apart from Form. Matter has a double character. On the one hand Matter is that which as an accessory cause makes the world of phenomena possible; on the other hand it is the source of the lawless and purposeless in nature. Through its seeking to be formed it makes the presentation of the Idea possible, and yet it stands as a deterrent principle to the full presentation of the Form. On the one hand it is the _sine qua non_ of physical nature, shows itself in real physical effects, and is the basis of mechanical causation, motion, and impact. On the other hand it stands in the way of the Forms actualizing themselves fully, and it prevents the universe from perfecting itself as God is perfect. While Matter is not an indifferent negative (as in Plato’s teaching), but the necessary substratum of corporeal things, it is however the indeterminate, and the ground of the accidental and purposeless in nature. Matter is the infinite and unlimited, and is the source of unusual phenomena, like monstrosities and abortions. Both fate and accident are due to the retarding influence of Matter, because it obstructs the successful working out of Form. Quite in accord with Greek thought, Aristotle conceived necessity and chance to be fundamentally the same, and the Greek custom of drawing lots shows the universality of the notion.

=5. Aristotle’s Conception of Nature.= Nature is therefore to Aristotle a far more complex world than Plato had conceived it. Nature has a double character to Aristotle, as his twofold conception of causation shows. Nature is composed of mechanical and teleological causes. Purpose and necessity are the two principles of motion in the world, and in this twofold conception of causation did Aristotle reconcile Plato and Democritus. However much Aristotle concedes to the Democritan idea of mechanical necessity, it is evident that in his conception of nature the principle of teleology predominates over the mechanical. The highest actuality is God, and he is a final or teleological cause; and all results of value in nature come through final causes. Final causes are primary causes; mechanical causes are secondary causes. There would be no motion whatever in the universe but for the highest final cause, God. Yet God is the unmoved mover, and matter cannot move itself. Motion occurs because matter feels the impulse to form itself like God. How different this Aristotelian conception of nature from our modern scientific conception of an impersonal nature under a mechanical causation that is universal! The teleological conception of nature and natural events was very strongly intrenched in the human mind during the Middle Ages, and was not dislodged easily by modern investigation. Nature was a living thing to Aristotle. It was at once intrinsically spontaneous, and self-determined and uniform. Its spontaneity was not that of capricious chance. Its uniformity was that of purpose and end. On the other hand, the Aristotelian conception of nature is not the same as either the Christian doctrine of created nature or Darwin’s theory of ♦evolution. The world of Aristotle had always existed; it is a limited world in space, but not in time. Also the divine reason always existed in it. Yet its evolution is not a progressive climbing sort, like the Darwinian, in which new species evolve. It means only that there is a relationship of rank and value among nature objects. Nature is a unity. Teleological change occurs within it.

Nature is therefore a connected system of living beings in the process of development from Form to Form, approximating the Deity and existing as the potentiality of the Deity. There is a graded scale of things of relative worth. But the double standard of estimating the worth of nature-objects――that of mechanical necessity and that of teleological cause――makes _two different series_, which find their union only at the end in God. From our foregoing description of the nature of God, it will be seen that he has two essential characteristics: he is Being who ever rests within himself and remains like himself; and he is a pure reason. He therefore combines in himself the two nature series in their most ideal character. _Nature-objects in the series of mechanical necessity_ have as their ideal character just that uniformity, regularity, and order that we find in the abiding Being of God. The greater the uniformity, the more nearly like God. _Nature-objects, in the teleological series_, have as their ideal characteristic the reason of God. The more nearly rational such a living being is, the more nearly is it like God. In the one line the series of phenomena ascends from the disorder of the terrestrial universe to the absolute uniformity of the stars, which are close to God. In the other line the series ascends in teleological values from the mechanical and vegetative characteristics of organisms to their rational activity. Both series terminate in God. The stars have rational intelligence and the most uniform motions. Aristotle conceived Physics as the science that includes the first series, and the second series he conceived to be included by Psychology, Ethics, and Politics.

=The Mechanical Series,――Aristotle’s Theory of Physics.= The general astronomical assumptions of the time determined Aristotle’s theory of the physical world. He adopted the old Pythagorean conception of the limited world-all: a hollow sphere made up of concentric crystalline spheres. In opposition to the Pythagoreans, he conceived the earth at the centre. It is spherical and stationary. Around it the crystalline spheres revolve, in which the moon, sun, five planets, and fixed stars are placed. The fixed stars are in the rim of the great sphere, are outside all, and are nearest therefore to God, who animates all. God as it were holds the world-all in the hollow of his hand. He moves the whole, which in turn moves the fifty-five concentric crystal spheres within. The principle of the movement of fixed stars is that of the Deity, while the principle of the other spheres is that of the spirits which reside in them. The movement of the planets have an influence upon terrestrial life. Aristotle made the usual Pythagorean division between the celestial and the terrestrial parts of the world-all, which has had so much influence upon theology. The motion of the world-all is most perfect, being a circle; its form is most perfect, being a sphere. The celestial part of this world-all, which is the region lying near the periphery, is most like God. The motion of this heaven is circular, and it is the place of uniformity, perfectness, and changeableness. The stars do not change nor pass away. They are superhuman beings, who in their regularity are like the blessed gods. The terrestrial part of the world-all below the moon has motions in straight lines. This is the theatre of imperfection and irregularity, of increase and diminution.

There are many interesting discussions by Aristotle upon particular physical matters, such as space, time, the elements. His conception of motion shows how the series of uniform nature-motions lead up to the second series of teleological values. In nature there are three kinds of motion: change of place (mechanical); change in quality (chemical); change in substance (organic). While change of place is the lowest kind of motion, it is necessary to chemical and organic changes. Yet Aristotle refuses to allow that qualitative changes can be reduced to quantitative changes, but maintains that quality is self-subsistent. Organic change, or change in substance, on the contrary, has a higher Form of reality than the lower changes. This stand taken by Aristotle, in refusing to reduce qualitative to quantitative determinations, shows how comprehensive and sane a scientist he was. It introduces us to a psychology and an ethics that are intimately linked to physics, and at the same time have realms of their own. Let us now turn to the series of qualitative nature changes, or to psychology, ethics, and politics.

=The Teleological Series: The Qualitative Changes of Phenomena.=

=1. The Psychology of Aristotle.= As the first experimental psychologist, Aristotle intimately connected his studies in psychology with his studies in biology and medicine. Man is a part of the world of nature, and psychology is in part a comparative study. As we pass upward from the mechanical changes, we find chemical changes of quality, and then changes of organic life. Studying the organic realm, we find ♦organisms to consist of souls of relative ranking. There are vegetative souls, sensitive souls, and rational souls. Plants have vegetative souls with the powers of assimilation and propagation; besides vegetative souls animals have sensitive souls, with the powers of appetition and locomotion; man possesses, besides both these souls, the rational soul. Here is a series of teleological relationships, where the purpose of the organism is explained only by the activity of its soul. The soul builds up its body as a system of organs, and as an organology the theory of Aristotle has great significance. Nature strives ever upward, even in the inorganic processes, through an unbroken series of creations to its highest Form in man. Each step in the upward progress is the realization of an entelechy, or purpose, and constitutes for the moment the goal of the impulse to strive. The whole world is striving to realize the perfect Form. The lower ends, the mechanical and vegetable and appetitive Forms, are not lost but are utilized in the process; for they are the Matter upon which the Forms higher than themselves are built. Every member is both Form and Matter in the whole series.

The psychology has therefore two parts: (1) the general theory of animal souls, which possesses rich suggestions; (2) the doctrine of the Nous as the distinctive characteristic of man. These are the empirical and speculative sides to Aristotle’s psychology.

Man is an epitome of all the changes in the universe. He has vegetative, appetitive, and rational souls. Yet there is unity in man, for the lower souls are subservient to the reason and exist for it. The appetitive soul is the Form of the vegetative soul, the Matter of the Rational soul, etc. Accordingly, Aristotle defines the soul as the entelechy of the body, because bodily human activity is enlisted in the service of the reason. Reality in man is an unfolding purpose, just as it is in nature. The real self is this unfolding rational self, whose possibility is the body; whose actuality is pure reason. The mind is actualized body, the body is potential mind.

Aristotle made many contributions to psychology about the origin and value of the several sensations, about the feelings of pleasure and pain and the desires. He shows his remarkable genius in pointing to the necessity of a unity of consciousness, which he calls the “common-sensibility.” His discussion of the Nous, or reason, is of importance for two reasons: first, because it leads to and illuminates his ethical theory; and second, because it is an example of his deviation from his original conceptual position. The reason, according to his first intention, is the unfolding purpose of the body,――it is the immanent essence of the body. As Aristotle finally left his discussion of the Reason, it is as transcendent as his God, or as any Idea of Plato. The Nous, or Reason, is not a Form of the body, but a Form of the soul. It is purely immaterial, simple, unchangeable, and incapable of suffering. It does not originate with the body as a function. It comes from without as a godlike activity, and will remain after the body passes away. Its fundamental activity is thought, and its object is those ultimate principles of Being which are the ultimate premises of logical thinking.

Aristotle’s theory of the Reason is considerably complicated by his division of it into two parts,――the active and the passive Reason. Within itself, the Reason is to be distinguished as Form and Matter. The passive Reason is the Matter for the active Reason, and the active Reason is the Form for the passive Reason. By the passive Reason Aristotle evidently means the individual and developing man. The active Reason can alone persist after death, but whether absorbed in the Deity or not he does not say. Immortality to Aristotle in any case is not a perpetuation of the individuality.

=2. The Ethics of Aristotle.= We have seen that nature phenomena are of two classes,――those mechanically related, and those related as to their purposes or ends. Physics is concerned with the first class; psychology is concerned with the second class. But in a special way are ethics and politics sciences of the phenomena of the second class――sciences of teleologically related phenomena. Moral life is an unfolding essence having a possibility and an actuality. The Possibility or Matter of the ethical life is our feelings, temperament, disposition, impulses, and perceptions――just those psychological factors that make up the endowment of the human personality. The ultimate Form or actuality of the ethical life is the reason. The reason as the goal of the moral being determines its character. Man is distinctly a rational being. Virtue is the process of the ethical life from its possibilities to its actuality; it is the essence of the ethical life. Virtue is that continuous state of mind that makes rational activity possible. So much for the factors that make the ethical situation; the natural endowments of the mind are its material, the reason is its goal, while the means of developing the natural endowments into rational activity is virtue.

The situation would be simple enough for us as moral beings if, in our striving, each had only himself and his own development to consider. But man lives in a world of men, and his highest good is determined somewhat by his environment,――by riches, bodily comforts, success. These are not essentials but only accessories, and the lack of them is only a limitation. The essential factor is the rational activity. Nevertheless, these modify the definition of what we mean when we define rational activity as the highest Good or Form of the moral life. For the question which Aristotle proposes in his notable treatise of Ethics is, What is the end or supreme good of human action? The highest Good for a man among men is Happiness, or well-being; that includes not only rational activity, but also the pleasures that accrue to such activity. But what is happiness? It is an end in itself, and not the means to anything else; it is the result of functioning, a state of conscious vitality; it accords with the law of excellence of that functioning. Perfect happiness is, therefore, partly the result of one’s own individual effort, partly dependent on circumstance. While virtue is the measure of the worth of different pleasures, yet pleasures do not always attend our acts in our present society. The greatest Good is happiness, but since this depends in part on external goods, the goal to which we should directly attend――the factor within our control――is rational activity.

There are two classes of virtues based on the two kinds of rational life,――the practical virtues and the dianoetic virtues. The practical virtues are those of conduct based upon the rational control of the impulses; the dianoetic virtues are those of intellectual activity based upon the development of the perceptions. The perfect moral development of human nature will consist (1) in the perfect development and true regulation of the feelings and desires in moral excellence; and (2) a perfect development of the intellectual faculties for rational culture.

(a) The Practical Virtues. The essential thing for the individual to regard, therefore, is the training of his will by right rational insight. He should seek to direct his impulses by reason, and not only once but so many times that the impulses will become rational habits. This is what Aristotle means by training in virtue. It is continuity in rational activity; it is a permanent development toward reason; it is the unfolding of the real Self. Aristotle had regard for the facts of life when he differed from Socrates, who said that virtue is knowledge. Aristotle did not conceive the will as psychological power independent of the reason. He doubted if rational insight was more powerful than the impulses, when the test comes. Experience often shows that although we may know what is right, an impulse will often drive us into habits not guided by reason. This presupposes for Aristotle a will that is free to choose among the desires that one which will lead him along the path that reason points out.

It is impossible to formulate a rule for the acquirement of the particular virtues. Each virtue must be treated by itself. The only principle for guidance is that the reason should always seek the mean between two extremes. Thus courage is the mean between cowardice and rashness; temperance between intemperance and insensibility; friendliness between obsequiousness and brusqueness, etc. Moderation is the watchword in the cultivation of the practical virtues.

(b) The Dianoetic Virtues are the means toward the attainment of pure rationality for one’s self. The dianoetic virtues are higher than the practical. They unfold the pure formal activity of the Nous, and give the most noble and perfect pleasure. Man finds through them his possible participation in the divine happiness. These intellectual virtues may be either theoretical or practical insight; in the latter case, Aristotle means knowledge of the right in art, and knowledge of justice. But the purest is Wisdom (θεωρία), which is knowledge for its own sake. It is the knowledge that God has of himself. Man may approximate this.

In Aristotle’s ethical theory there appear three features that are distinctly Greek. (1) The leading question that he asks at the beginning of the Ethics, What is the end or Supreme Good of human action? is Greek. The modern writer asks, What is the nature of duty? (2) The emphasis on the “mean” is Greek. The idea of the “mean” was the fundamental principle in Greek life, and appeared in such literature as Gnomic poetry and Plato. (3) The subordination of individual ethical conduct to the conception of the state is Greek. Aristotle says that politics will have to settle the question of the Supreme Good, for the Good of the state and that of the individual are identical.

=The Political Philosophy of Aristotle.= In the present real world rational activity rather than happiness is the chief concern of man. Happiness is, however, his highest Good, which he can attain if his environment favors him. The political environment is a moral factor to be considered. The state should be the fulfillment of the morals of the individual, and should also be his ethical trainer. That State is fulfilling its own possibilities most completely which brings to the full its natural endowments. Every Constitution is right that has the weal of the people at heart, so that we find Aristotle holding this extraordinarily liberal position, that the external structure of the State is not so much of consequence as that the State should be the educator of its people and the actualization of its own inherent possibilities. Aristotle did not construct an ideal state, like Plato. He merely pointed out some essentials necessary to the well-being of a state, like education and providence for the future life of the State. Although the State is the offspring of necessity, and arises out of the needs of utility, it is the Form or actuality of the inner self-realization of man from his savagery. Race, blood, soil, and geographical position are all the Matter of the State; the rational perfection of these is the Form; the civic virtue is the permanent means of the social development. The individual in Aristotle’s State is subordinated, but not absorbed, in the State. He can participate in the intellectual virtues. Since his own enjoyment in wisdom approximates God’s, he himself has distinction. Aristotle was a stanch supporter of marriage and the family relations. No philosopher in ancient times so elevated the position of woman. He reluctantly consented to the institution of slavery because it seemed to him a necessity.