x. Both passages assert the authority of sensible perception against
general reasoning, where the two are conflicting. They assert, in other words, that general reasoning ought to be tested by experience and observation, and is not to be accepted when disallowed by these tests. (The only condition is, that the observation be exact and complete.) This is just, and is often said, though often disregarded in fact, by Aristotle. But it has no proper connexion with the problem about the trustworthiness of Common Sense.
Next Sir W. Hamilton refers us to (without citing) three other places of Aristotle. Of these, the first (De Coelo, I. iii. p. 270, b. 4-13, marked _l_) is one which I am much surprised to find in a modern champion of Common Sense: since it represents Common Sense as giving full certificate to errors now exploded and forgotten. Aristotle had begun by laying down and vindicating his doctrine of the First or Celestial Body, forming the exterior portion of the Kosmos, radically distinct from the four elements; revolving eternally in uniform, perfect, circular motion, eternal, unchangeable, &c. Having stated this, he proceeds to affirm that the results of these reasonings coincide with the common opinions of mankind, that is, with Common Sense; and that they are not contradicted by any known observations of perceptive experience. This illustrates what I have before observed about Aristotle's position in regard to Common Sense. He does not extol it as an authority, or tell us that "it is to be reverenced as a revelation"; but, when he has proved a conclusion on what he thinks good grounds, he is glad to be able to show that it tallies with common opinions; especially when these opinions have some alliance with the received religion.
The next passage (_m_) referred to (De Coelo, III. vii. p. 306, a. 13) has nothing to do with Common Sense, but embodies a very just protest by Aristotle against those philosophers who followed out their theories consistently to all possible consequences, without troubling themselves to enquire whether those consequences were in harmony with the results of observation.
There follows one other reference (_n_) which was hardly worth Sir W. Hamilton's notice. In Meteorologic. I. xiii. p. 349, a. 25, Aristotle, after reciting a theory of some philosophers (respecting the winds) which he considers very absurd, then proceeds to say:--"The many, without going into any enquiry at all, talk better sense than those who after enquiry bring forward such conclusions as these." It is not saying much for the authority of Common Sense, to affirm that there have been occasionally philosophical theories so silly as to be worse than Common Sense.
. . . . . .
B.--_Aristotle's Doctrine._
In regard to Aristotle, there are two points to be examined--
I. What position does he take up in respect to the authority of Common Sense?
II. What doctrine does he lay down about the first _principia_ or beginnings of scientific reasoning--the [Greek: a)rchai\ sullogistikai/]?
I.--That Aristotle did not regard Cause, Substance, Time, &c., as Intuitions, is shown by the subtle and elaborate reasonings that he employs to explain them, and by the censure that he bestows on the erroneous explanations and shortcomings of others. Indeed, in regard to Causality, when we read the great and perplexing diversity of meaning which Aristotle (and Plato before him in the Phædon) recognizes as belonging to this term, we cannot but be surprised to find modern philosophers treating it as enunciating a simple and intuitive idea. But as to Common Sense--taking the term as above explained, and as it is usually understood by those that have no particular theory to support--Aristotle takes up a position at once distinct and instructive; a position (to use the phraseology of Kant) not dogmatical, but critical. He constantly notices and reports the affirmations of Common Sense; he speaks of it with respect, and assigns to it a qualified value, partly as helping us to survey the subject on all sides, partly as a happy confirmation, where it coincides with what has been proved otherwise; but he does not appeal to it as an authority in itself trustworthy or imperative.
Common Sense belongs to the region of Opinion. Now the distinction between matters of Opinion on the one hand, and matters of Science or Cognition on the other, is a marked and characteristic feature of Aristotle's philosophy. He sets, in pointed antithesis, Demonstration, or the method of Science--which divides itself into special subjects, each having some special _principia_ of its own, then proceeds by legitimate steps of deductive reasoning from such _principia_, and arrives at conclusions sometimes universally true, always true for the most part--against Rhetoric and Dialectic, which deal with and discuss opinions upon all subjects, comparing opposite arguments, and landing in results more or less probable. Contrasting them as separate lines of intellectual procedure, Aristotle lays down a theory of both. He recognizes the procedure of Rhetoric and Dialectic as being to a great degree the common and spontaneous growth of society; while Demonstration is from the beginning special, not merely as to subject, but as to persons, implying teacher and learner.
Rhetoric and Dialectic are treated by Aristotle as analogous processes. Of the matter of opinion and belief, with which both of them deal, he distinguishes three varieties: (1) Opinions or beliefs entertained by all; (2) By the majority; (3) By a minority of superior men, or by one man in respect to a science wherein he has acquired renown. It is these opinions or beliefs that the rhetorician and the dialectician attack and defend; bringing out all the arguments available for or against each.
The Aristotelian treatise on Rhetoric opens with the following words:--"Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic; for both of them deal with such matters as do not fall within any special science, but belong in a certain way to the common knowledge of all. Hence every individual has his share of both, greater or less; for every one can, up to a certain point, both examine others and stand examination from others; every one tries to defend himself and to accuse others."[13] To the same purpose Aristotle speaks about Dialectic, in the beginning of the Topica:--"The dialectical syllogism takes its premisses from matters of opinion, that is, from matters that seem good to (or are believed by) all, or the majority, or the wise--either all the wise, or most of them, or the most celebrated." Aristotle distinguishes these matters of common opinion or belief from three distinct other matters:--(1) From matters that are not really such, but only in appearance; in which the smallest attention suffices to detect the false pretence of probability, while no one except a contentious Sophist ever thinks of advancing them; on the contrary, the real matters of common belief are never thus palpably false, but have always something deeper than a superficial show; (2) From the first truths or _principia_, upon which scientific demonstration proceeds; (3) From the paralogisms, or fallacious assumptions ([Greek: pseudographê/mata]), liable to occur in each particular science.
Now what Aristotle here designates and defines as "matters of common opinion and belief" ([Greek: ta\ e)/ndoxa]) includes all that is usually meant, and properly meant, by Common Sense--what is believed by all men or by most men. But Aristotle does not claim any warrant or authority for the truth of these beliefs, on the ground of their being deliverances of Common Sense, and accepted (by all or by the majority) always as indisputable, often as self-evident. On the contrary, he ranks them as mere probabilities, some in a greater, some in a less degree; as matters whereon something may be said both _pro_ and _con_, and whereon the full force of argument on both sides ought to be brought out, notwithstanding the supposed self-evidence in the minds of unscientific believers. Though, however, he encourages this dialectical discussion on both sides as useful and instructive, he never affirms that it can by itself lead to certain scientific conclusions, or to anything more than strong probability on a balance of the countervailing considerations. The language that he uses in speaking of these deliverances of Common Sense is measured and just. After distinguishing the real Common Opinion from the fallacious simulations of Common Opinion set up (according to him) by some pretenders, he declares that in all cases of Common Opinion there is always something more than a mere superficial appearance of truth. In other words, wherever any opinion is really held by a large public, it always deserves the scrutiny of the philosopher to ascertain how far it is erroneous, and, if it be erroneous, by what appearances of reason it has been enabled so far to prevail.
[Footnote 13: Aristot. Rhetor. I. i. p. 1354, a. 1. Compare Sophist. Elench. xi. p. 172, a. 30.]
Again, at the beginning of the Topica (in which he gives both a theory and precepts of dialectical debate), Aristotle specifies four different ends to be served by that treatise. It will be useful (he says)--
1. For our own practice in the work of debate. If we acquire a method and system, we shall find it easier to conduct a debate on any new subject, whenever such debate may arise.
2. For our daily intercourse with the ordinary public. When we have made for ourselves a full collection of the opinions held by the many, we shall carry on our conversation with them out of their own doctrines, and not out of doctrines foreign to their minds; we shall thus be able to bring them round on any matter where we think them in error.
3. For the sciences belonging to philosophy. By discussing the difficulties on both sides, we shall more easily discriminate truth and falsehood in each separate scientific question.
4. For the first and highest among the _principia_ of each particular science. These, since they are the first and highest of all, cannot be discussed out of _principia_ special and peculiar to any separate science; but must be discussed through the opinions commonly received on the subject-matter of each. This is the main province of Dialectic; which, being essentially testing and critical, is connected by some threads with the _principia_ of all the various scientific researches.
We see thus that Aristotle's language about Common Opinion or Common Sense is very guarded; that, instead of citing it as an authority, he carefully discriminates it from Science, and places it decidedly on a level lower than Science, in respect of evidence; yet that he recognizes it as essential to be studied by the scientific man, with full confrontation of all the reasonings both for and against every opinion; not merely because such study will enable the scientific man to study and converse intelligibly and efficaciously with the vulgar, but also because it will sharpen his discernment for the truths of his own science, and because it furnishes the only materials for testing and limiting the first _principia_ of that science.
II. We will next advert to the judgment of Aristotle respecting these _principia_ of science: how he supposes them to be acquired and verified. He discriminates various special sciences (geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, &c.), each of which has its own appropriate matter, and special _principia_ from which it takes its departure. But there are also certain _principia_ common to them all; and these he considers to fall under the cognizance of one grand comprehensive science, which includes all the rest; First Philosophy or Ontology--the science of Ens in its most general sense, _quatenus_ Ens; while each of the separate sciences confines itself to one exclusive department of Ens. The geometer does not debate nor prove the first _principia_ of his own science; neither those that it has in common with other sciences, nor those peculiar to itself. He takes these for granted, and demonstrates the consequences that logically follow from them. It belongs to the First Philosopher to discuss the _principia_ of all. Accordingly, the province of the First Philosopher is all-comprehensive, co-extensive with all the sciences. So also is the province of the Dialectician alike all-comprehensive. Thus far the two agree; but they differ as to method and purpose. The Dialectician seeks to enforce, confront, and value all the different reasons _pro_ and _con_, consistent and inconsistent; the First Philosopher performs this too, or supposes it to be performed by others, but proceeds farther: namely, to determine certain Axioms that may be trusted as sure grounds (along with certain other _principia_) for demonstrative conclusions in science.
Aristotle describes in his Analytica the process of Demonstration, and the conditions required to render it valid. But what is the point of departure for this process? Aristotle declares that there cannot be a regress without end, demonstrating one conclusion from certain premisses, then demonstrating those premisses from others, and so on. You must arrive ultimately at some premisses that are themselves undemonstrable, but that may be trusted as ground from whence to start in demonstrating conclusions. All demonstration is carried on through a middle term, which links together the two terms of the conclusion, though itself does not appear in the conclusion. Those undemonstrable propositions, from which demonstration begins, must be known without a middle term, that is, _immediately_ known; they must be known in themselves, that is, not through any other propositions; they must be better known than the conclusions derived from them; they must be propositions first and most knowable. But these two last epithets (Aristotle often repeats) have two meanings: first and most knowable _by nature_ or _absolutely_, are the most universal propositions; first and most knowable _to us_, are those propositions declaring the particular facts of sense. These two meanings designate truths correlative to each other, but at opposite ends of the intellectual line of march.
Of these undemonstrable _principia_, indispensable as the grounds of all Demonstration, some are peculiar to each separate science, others are common to several or to all sciences. These common principles were called Axioms, in mathematics, even in the time of Aristotle. Sometimes, indeed, he designates them as Axioms, without any special reference to mathematics; though he also uses the same name to denote other propositions, not of the like fundamental character. Now, how do we come to know these undemonstrable Axioms and other immediate propositions or _principia_, since we do not knew them by demonstration? This is the second question to be answered, in appreciating Aristotle's views about the Philosophy of Common Sense.
He is very explicit in his way of answering this question. He pronounces it absurd to suppose that these immediate _principia_ are innate or congenital,--in other words, that we possess them from the beginning, and yet that we remain for a long time without any consciousness of possessing them; seeing that they are the most accurate of all our cognitions. What we possess at the beginning (Aristotle says) is only a mental power of inferior accuracy and dignity. We, as well as all other animals, begin with a congenital discriminative power called sensible perception. With many animals, the data of perception are transient, and soon disappear altogether, so that the cognition of such animals consists in nothing but successive acts of sensible perception. With us, on the contrary, as with some other animals, the data of perception are preserved by memory; accordingly our cognitions include both perceptions and remembrances. Farthermore, we are distinguished even from the better animals by this difference--that with us, but not with them, a rational order of thought grows out of such data of perception, when multiplied and long preserved. And thus out of perception grows memory; out of memory of the same matter often repeated grows experience, since many remembrances of the same thing constitute one numerical experience. Out of such experience, a farther consequence arises, that what is one and the same in all the particulars, (the Universal or the One alongside of the Many), becomes fixed or rests steadily within the mind. Herein lies the _principium_ of Art, in reference to Agenda or Facienda--of Science, in reference to Entia.
Thus these cognitive _principia_ are not original and determinate possessions of the mind, nor do they spring from any other mental possessions of a higher cognitive order, but simply from data of sensible perception; which data are like runaway soldiers in a panic, first one stops his flight and halts, then a second follows the example, afterwards a third and fourth, until at length an orderly array is obtained. Our minds are so constituted as to render this possible. If a single individual impression is thus detained, it will presently acquire the character of a Universal in the mind; for, though we perceive the particular, our perception is of the Universal (_i.e._, when we perceive Kallias, our perception is of man generally, not of the man Kallias). Again the fixture of these lowest Universals in the mind will bring in those of the next highest order; until at length the Summa Genera and the absolute Universals acquire a steady establishment therein. Thus, from this or that particular animal, we shall rise as high as Animal universally; and so on from Animal upwards.
We thus see clearly (Aristotle says) that only by Induction can we come to know the first _principia_ of Demonstration; for it is by this process that sensible perception engraves the Universal on our minds.[14] We begin by the _notiora nobis_ (Particulars), and ascend to the _notiora naturâ_ or _simpliciter_ (Universals). Some among our mental habits that are conversant with truth, are also capable of falsehood (such as Opinion and Reasoning): others are not so capable, but embrace uniformly truth and nothing but truth; such are Science and Intellect ([Greek: Nou=s]). Intellect is the only source more accurate than Science. Now the _principia_ of Demonstration are more accurate than the demonstrations themselves, yet they cannot (as we have already observed) be the objects of Science. They must therefore be the object of what is more accurate than Science, namely, of Intellect. Intellect and the objects of Intellect will thus be the _principia_ of Science and of the objects of Science. But these principles are not intuitive data or revelations. They are acquisitions gradually made; and there is a regular road whereby we travel up to them, quite distinct from the road whereby we travel down from them to scientific conclusions.
[Footnote 14: Aristot. Anal. Post. II. p. 100, b. 3: [Greek: dê=lon dê\ o(/ti ê(mi=n ta\ prô=ta e)pagôgê=| gnôri/zein a)nagkai=on; kai\ ga\r kai\ ai)/sthêsis ou(/tô to\ katho/lou e)mpoiei=]; also ibid. I. xviii., p. 81, b. 3, upon which passage Waitz, in his note, explains as follows (p. 347):--"Sententia nostri loci hæc est. Universales propositiones omnes inductione comparantur, quum etiam in iis, quæ a sensibus maxime aliena videntur, et quæ, ut mathematica ([Greek: ta\ e)x a)phaire/seôs]), cogitatione separantur a materia quacum conjuncta sunt, inductione probentur ea quæ de genere (_e.g._, de linea vel de corpore mathematico), ad quod demonstratio pertineat, prædicentur [Greek: kath' au(ta/] et cum ejus natura conjuncta sint. Inductio autem iis nititur quæ sensibus percipiuntur: nam res singulares sentiuntur, scientia vero rerum singularium non datur sine inductione, non datur inductio sine sensu."]
The chapter just indicated in the Analytica Posteriora, attesting the growth of those universals that form the _principia_ of demonstration out of the particulars of sense, may be illustrated by a similar statement in the First Book of the Metaphysica. Here, after stating that sensible perception is common to all animals, Aristotle distinguishes the lowest among animals, who have this alone; then, a class next above them, who have it along with phantasy and memory, and some of whom are intelligent (like bees), yet still cannot learn, from being destitute of hearing; farther another class, one stage higher, who hear, and therefore can be taught something, yet arrive only at a scanty sum of experience; lastly, still higher, the class men, who possess a large stock of phantasy, memory, and experience, fructifying into science and art.[15] Experience (Aristotle says) is of particular facts; Art and Science are of Universals. Art is attained, when out of many conceptions of experience there arises one universal persuasion respecting phenomena similar to each other. We may know that Kallias, sick of a certain disease--that Sokrates, likewise sick of it--that A, B, C, and other individuals besides, have been cured by a given remedy; but this persuasion respecting ever so many individual cases, is mere matter of experience. When, however, we proceed to generalize these cases, and then affirm that the remedy cures all persons suffering under the same disease, circumscribed by specific marks--fever or biliousness--this is Art or Science. One man may know the particular cases empirically, without having generalized them into a doctrine; another may have learnt the general doctrine, with little or no knowledge of the particular cases. Of these two, the last is the wiser and more philosophical man; but the first may be the more effective and successful as a practitioner.
[Footnote 15: Aristot. Metaphys. A. i. p. 980, a. 26, seq.: [Greek: phro/nima me\n a)/neu tou= mantha/nein, o(/sa mê\ du/natai tô=n pso/phôn a)kou/ein, oi(=on me/litta, kai\ ei)/ ti toiou=ton a)/llo ge/nos zô/|ôn e)/stin.]
We remark here the line that he draws between the intelligence of bees--depending altogether upon sense, memory, and experience--and the higher intelligence which is superadded by the use of language; when it becomes possible to teach and learn, and when general conceptions can be brought into view through appropriate names.]
In the passage above noticed, Aristotle draws the line of intellectual distinction between man and the lower animals. If he had considered that it was the prerogative of man to possess a stock of intuitive general truths, ready-made, and independent of experience, this was the occasion for saying so. He says the exact contrary. No modern psychologist could proclaim more fully than Aristotle here does the derivation of all general concepts and general propositions from the phenomena of sense, through the successive stages of memory, association, comparison, abstraction. No one could give a more explicit acknowledgment of Induction from particulars of sense, as the process whereby we reach ultimately those propositions of the highest universality, as well as of the highest certainty; from whence, by legitimate deductive syllogism, we descend to demonstrate various conclusions. There is nothing in Aristotle about generalities originally inherent in the mind, connate although dormant at first and unknown, until they are evoked or elicited by the senses; nothing to countenance that nice distinction eulogized so emphatically by Hamilton (p. 772, a. note): "Cognitio nostra omnis à mente primam originem, à sensibus exordium habet primum." In Aristotle's view, the senses furnish both _originem_ and _exordium_: the successive stages of mental procedure, whereby we rise from sense to universal propositions, are multiplied and gradual, without any break. He even goes so far as to say that we have _sensible perception_ of the Universal. His language undoubtedly calls for much criticism here. We shall only say that it discountenances altogether the doctrine that represents the Mind or Intellect as an original source of First or Universal Truths peculiar to itself. That opinion is mentioned by Aristotle, but mentioned only to be rejected. He denies that the mind possesses any such ready-made stores, latent until elicited into consciousness. Moreover, it is remarkable that the ground whereon he denies it is much the same as that whereon the advocates of intuitions affirm it, viz., the supreme accuracy of these axioms. Aristotle cannot believe that the mind includes cognitions of such value, without being conscious thereof. Nor will he grant that the mind possesses any native and inherent power of originating these inestimable _principia_.[16] He declares that they are generated in the mind only by the slow process of induction, as above described; beginning from the perceptive power (common to man with animals), together with that first stage of the intelligence (judging or discriminative) which he combines or identifies with perception, considering it to be alike congenital. From this humble basis men can rise to the highest grades of cognition, though animals cannot. We even become competent (Aristotle says) to have sensible perception of the Universal; in the man Kallias, we see Man; in the ox feeding near us, we see Animal.
[Footnote 16: Aristot. Anal. Post. II. xix. p. 99, b. 26: [Greek: ei) me\n dê\ e)/chomen au)ta/s, a)/topon; sumbai/nei ga\r a)kribeste/ras e)/chontas gnô/seis a)podei/xeôs lantha/nein.--phanero\n toi/nun o(/ti ou)/t' e)/chein oi(=o/n te, ou)/t' a)gnoou=si kai\ mêdemi/an e)/chousin e(/xin e)ggi/nesthai. a)na/gkê a)/ra e)/chein me/n tina du/namin, mê\ toiau/tên d' e)/chein ê(\ e)/stai tou/tôn timiôte/ra kat' a)kri/beian.] See Metaphys. A. ix. p. 993, a. 1.
Some modern psychologists, who admit that general propositions of a lower degree of universality are raised from induction and sense, contend that propositions of the highest universality are not so raised, but are the intuitive offspring of the intellect. Aristotle does not countenance such a doctrine: he says (Metaphys. A. ii. p. 982, a. 25) that these truths furthest removed from sense are the most difficult to know of all. If they were intuitions they would be the common possession of the race.]
It must be remembered that, when Aristotle, in this analysis of cognition, speaks of Induction, he means induction completely and accurately performed; just as, when he talks of Demonstration, he intends a good and legitimate demonstration; and just as (to use his own illustration in the Nikomachean Ethica), when he reasons upon a harper, or other professional artist, he always tacitly implies a good and accomplished artist. Induction thus understood, and Demonstration, he considers to be the two processes for obtaining scientific faith or conviction; both of them being alike cogent and necessary, but Induction even more so than Demonstration; because, if the _principia_ furnished by the former were not necessary, neither could the conclusions deduced from them by the latter be necessary. Induction may thus stand alone without Demonstration, but Demonstration pre-supposes and postulates Induction. Accordingly, when Aristotle proceeds to specify those functions of mind wherewith the inductive _principia_ and the demonstrated conclusions correlate, he refers both of them to functions wherein (according to him) the mind is unerring and infallible--Intellect ([Greek: Nou=s]) and Science. But, between these two he ranks Intellect as the higher, and he refers the inductive _principia_ to Intellect. He does not mean that Intellect ([Greek: Nou=s]) generates or produces these principles. On the contrary, he distinctly negatives such a supposition, and declares that no generative force of this high order resides in the Intellect; while he tells us, with equal distinctness, that they are generated from a lower source--sensible perception, and through the gradual upward march of the inductive process. To say that they originate from Sense through Induction, and nevertheless to refer them to Intellect ([Greek: Nou=s]) as their subjective correlate,--are not positions inconsistent with each other, in the view of Aristotle. He expressly distinguishes the two points, as requiring to be separately dealt with. By referring the _principia_ to Intellect ([Greek: Nou=s]), he does not intend to indicate their generating source, but their evidentiary value and dignity when generated and matured. They possess, in his view, the maximum of dignity, certainty, cogency, and necessity, because it is from them that even Demonstration derives the necessity of its conclusions; accordingly (pursuant to the inclination of the ancient philosophers for presuming affinity and commensurate dignity between the _cognitum_ and the _cognoscens_), they belong as objective correlates to the most unerring cognitive function--the Intellect ([Greek: Nou=s]). It is the Intellect that grasps these principles, and applies them to their legitimate purpose of scientific demonstration; hence Aristotle calls Intellect not only the _principium_ of Science, but the _principium principii_.
In the Analytica, from which we have hitherto cited, Aristotle explains the structure of the Syllogism and the process of Demonstration. He has in view mainly (though not exclusively) the more exact sciences, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, &c. But he expressly tells us that all departments of inquiry are not capable of this exactness; that some come nearer to it than others; that we must be careful to require no more exactness from each than the subject admits; and that the method adopted by us must be such as will attain the admissible maximum of exactness. Now each subject has some _principia_, and among them definitions, peculiar to itself; though there are also some _principia_ common to all, and essential to the march of each. In some departments of study (Aristotle says) we get our view of _principia_ or first principles by induction; in others, by sensible perception; in others again, by habitual action in a certain way; and by various other processes also. In each, it is important to look for first principles in the way naturally appropriate to the matter before us; for this is more than half of the whole work; upon right first principles will mainly depend the value of our conclusions. For what concerns Ethics, Aristotle tells us that the first principles are acquired through a course of well-directed habitual action; and that they will be acquired easily, as well as certainly, if such a course be enforced on youth from the beginning. In the beginning of the Physica, he starts from that antithesis, so often found in his writings, between what is more knowable to us and what is more knowable absolutely or by nature. The natural march of knowledge is to ascend from the first of these two termini (particulars of sense) upward to the second or opposite,[17] and then to descend downward by demonstration or deduction. The fact of motion he proves (against Melissus and Parmenides) by an express appeal to induction, as sufficient and conclusive evidence. In physical science (he says) the final appeal must be to the things and facts perceived by sense. In the treatise De Coelo he lays it down that the _principia_ must be homogeneous with the matters they belong to: the _principia_ of perceivable matters must be themselves perceivable; those of eternal matters must be eternal; those of perishable matters, perishable.
[Footnote 17: See also Aristot. Metaphys. Z. iv. p. 1029, b. 1-14.]
The treatises composing the Organon stand apart among Aristotle's works. In them he undertakes (for the first time in the history of mankind) the systematic study of significant propositions enunciative of truth and falsehood. He analyses their constituent elements; he specifies the conditions determining the consistency or inconsistency of such propositions one with another; he teaches to arrange the propositions in such ways as to detect and dismiss the inconsistent, keeping our hold of the consistent. Here the signification of terms and propositions is never out of sight: the facts and realities of nature are regarded as so signified. Now all language becomes significant only through the convention of mankind, according to Aristotle's express declaration: it is used by speakers to communicate what they mean to hearers that understand them. We see thus that in these treatises the subjective point of view is brought into the foreground--the enunciation of what we see, remember, believe, disbelieve, doubt, anticipate, &c. It is not meant that the objective point of view is eliminated, but that it is taken in implication with, and in dependence upon, the subjective. Neither the one nor the other is dropped or hidden. It is under this double and conjoint point of view that Aristotle, in the Organon, presents to us, not only the processes of demonstration and confutation, but also the fundamental _principia_ or axioms thereof; which axioms in the Analytica Posteriora (as we have already seen) he expressly declares to originate from the data of sense, and to be raised and generalized by induction.
Such is the way that Aristotle represents the fundamental principles of syllogistic Demonstration, when he deals with them as portions of Logic. But we also find him dealing with them as portions of Ontology or First Philosophy (this being his manner of characterizing his own treatise, now commonly known as the Metaphysica). To that science he decides, after some preliminary debate, that the task of formulating and defending the axioms belongs, because the application of these axioms is quite universal, for all grades and varieties of Entia. Ontology treats of Ens in its largest sense, with all its properties _quatenus_ Ens, including Unum, Multa, Idem, Diversum, Posterius, Prius, Genus, Species, Totum, Partes, &c. Now Ontology is with Aristotle a purely objective science; that is, a science wherein the subjective is dropt out of sight and no account taken of it, or wherein (to state the same fact in the language of relativity) the believing and reasoning subject is supposed constant. Ontology is the most comprehensive among all the objective sciences. Each of these sciences singles out a certain portion of it for special study. In treating the logical axioms as portions of Ontology, Aristotle undertakes to show their objective value; and this purpose, while it carries him away from the point of view that we remarked as prevailing in the Organon, at the same time brings him into conflict with various theories, all of them in his time more or less current. Several philosophers--Herakleitus, Anaxagoras, Demokritus, Protagoras--had propounded theories which Aristotle here impugns. We do not mean that these philosophers expressly denied his fundamental axioms (which they probably never distinctly stated to themselves, and which Aristotle was the first to formulate), but their theories were to a certain extent inconsistent with these axioms, and were regarded by Aristotle as wholly inconsistent.
The two Axioms announced in the Metaphysica, and vindicated by Aristotle, are--
1. The Maxim of Contradiction: It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be; It is impossible for the same to belong and not to belong to the same, at the same time and in the same sense. This is the statement of the Maxim as a formula of Ontology. Announced as a formula of Logic, it would stand thus: The same proposition cannot be both true and false at the same time; You cannot both believe and disbelieve the same proposition at the same time; You cannot believe, at the same time, propositions contrary or contradictory. These last-mentioned formulae are the logical ways of stating the axiom. They present it in reference to the believing or disbelieving (affirming or denying) subject, distinctly brought to view along with the matter believed; not exclusively in reference to the matter believed, to the omission of the believer.
2. The Maxim of Excluded Middle: A given attribute either does belong, or does not belong to a subject (_i.e._, provided that it has any relation to the subject at all)--there is no medium, no real condition intermediate between the two. This is the ontological formula; and it will stand thus, when translated into Logic: Between a proposition and its contradictory opposite there is no tenable halting ground; If you disbelieve the one, you must pass at once to the belief of the other--you cannot at the same time disbelieve the other.
These two maxims thus teach--the first, that we cannot at the same time _believe_ both a proposition and its contradictory opposite; the second, that we cannot at the same time _disbelieve_ them both.[18]
[Footnote 18: We have here discussed these two maxims chiefly in reference to Aristotle's manner of presenting them, and to the conceptions of his predecessors and contemporaries. An excellent view of the Maxims themselves, in their true meaning and value, will be found in Mr. John Stuart Mill's Examination of the Philosophy of Sir W. Hamilton, ch. xxi. pp. 406-421.]
Now, Herakleitus, in his theory (a theory propounded much before the time of Protagoras and the persons called Sophists), denied all permanence or durability in nature, and recognized nothing except perpetual movement and change. He denied both durable substances and durable attributes; he considered nothing to be lasting except the universal law or principle of change--the ever-renewed junction or co-existence of contraries and the perpetual transition of one contrary into the other. This view of the facts of nature was adopted by several other physical philosophers besides.[19] Indeed it lay at the bottom of Plato's new coinage--Rational Types or Forms, at once universal and real. The Maxim of Contradiction is intended by Aristotle to controvert Herakleitus, and to uphold durable substances with definite attributes.
[Footnote 19: See 'Plato and other Comp. of Sokr.' I. i. pp. 28-38.]
Again, the theory of Anaxagoras denied all simple bodies (excepting Noûs) and all definite attributes. He held that everything was mingled with everything else, though there might be some one or other predominant constituent. In all the changes visible throughout nature, there was no generation of anything new, but only the coming into prominence of some constituent that had before been comparatively latent. According to this theory, you could neither wholly affirm, nor wholly deny, any attribute of its subject. Both affirmation and denial were untrue: the real relation between the two was something half-way between affirmation and denial. The Maxim of Excluded Middle is maintained by Aristotle as a doctrine in opposition to this theory of Anaxagoras.[20]
[Footnote 20: Ibid. pp. 49-57.]
Both the two above-mentioned theories are objective. A third, that of Protagoras--"Homo Mensura"--brings forward prominently the subjective, and is quite distinct from either. Aristotle does indeed treat the Protagorean theory as substantially identical with that of Herakleitus, and as standing or falling therewith. This seems a mistake: the theory of Protagoras is as much opposed to Herakleitus as to Aristotle.
We have now to see how Aristotle sustains these two Axioms (which he calls "the firmest of all truths and the most assuredly known") against theories opposed to them. In the first place, he repeats here what he had declared in the Analytica Posteriora--that they cannot be directly demonstrated, though they are themselves the _principia_ of all demonstration. Some persons indeed thought that these Axioms were demonstrable; but this is an error, proceeding (he says) from complete ignorance of analytical theory. How, then, are these Axioms to be proved against Herakleitus? Aristotle had told us in the Analytica that axioms were derived from particulars of sense by Induction, and apprehended or approved by the [Greek: Nou=s]. He does not repeat that observation here; but he intimates that there is only one process available for defending them, and that process amounts to an appeal to Induction. You can give no ontological reason in support of the Axioms, except what will be condemned as a _petitio principii_; you must take them in their logical aspect, as enunciated in significant propositions. You must require the Herakleitean adversary to answer some question affirmatively, in terms significant both to himself and to others, and in a proposition declaring his belief on the point. If he will not do this, you can hold no discussion with him: he might as well be deaf and dumb: he is no better than a plant (to use Aristotle's own comparison). If he does it, he has bound himself to something determinate: first, the signification of the terms is a fact, excluding what is contrary or contradictory; next, in declaring his belief, he at the same time declares that he does not believe in the contrary or contradictory, and is so understood by the hearers. We may grant what his theory affirms--that the subject of a proposition is continually under some change or movement; yet the identity designated by its name is still maintained,[21] and many true predications respecting it remain true in spite of its partial change. The argument in defence of the Maxim of Contradiction is, that it is a postulate implied in all the particular statements as to matters of daily experience, that a man understands and acts upon when heard from his neighbours; a postulate such that, if you deny it, no speech is either significant or trustworthy to inform and guide those who hear it. If the speaker both affirms and denies the same fact at once, no information is conveyed, nor can the hearer act upon the words. Thus, in the Acharnenses of Aristophanes, Dikæopolis knocks at the door of Euripides, and inquires whether the poet is within; Kephisophon, the attendant, answers--"Euripides is within and not within." This answer is unintelligible; Dikæopolis cannot act upon it; until Kephisophon explains that "not within" is intended metaphorically. Then, again, all the actions in detail of a man's life are founded upon his own belief of some facts and disbelief of other facts: he goes to Megara, believing that the person whom he desires to see is at Megara, and at the same time disbelieving the contrary: he acts upon his belief both as to what is good and what is not good, in the way of pursuit and avoidance. You may cite innumerable examples both of speech and action in the detail of life, which the Herakleitean must go through like other persons; and when, if he proceeded upon his own theory, he could neither give nor receive information by speech, nor ground any action upon the beliefs which he declares to co-exist in his own mind. Accordingly, the Herakleitean Kratylus (so Aristotle says) renounced the use of affirmative speech, and simply pointed with his finger.[22]
[Footnote 21: This argument is given by Aristotle, Metaph. [Greek: G]. v. p. 1010, a. 7-25, contrasting change [Greek: kata\ to\ poso/n] and change [Greek: kata\ to\ poio/n].]
[Footnote 22: Aristot. Metaph. [Greek: G]. v. p. 1010, a. 12. Compare Plato, Theætêt. pp. 179-180, about the aversion of the Herakleiteans for clear issues and propositions.]
The Maxim of Contradiction is thus seen to be only the general expression of a postulate implied in all such particular speeches as communicate real information. It is proved by a very copious and diversified Induction, from matters of experience familiar to every individual person. It is not less true in regard to propositions affirming changes, motions, or events, than in regard to those declaring durable states or attributes.
In the long pleading of Aristotle on behalf of the Maxim of Contradiction against the Herakleiteans, the portion of it that appeals to Induction is the really forcible portion; conforming as it does to what he had laid down in the Analytica Posteriora about the inductive origin of the _principia_ of demonstration. He employs, however, besides, several other dialectical arguments built more or less upon theories of his own, and therefore not likely to weigh much with an Herakleitean theorist; who--arguing, as he did argue, that (because neither subject nor predicate was ever unchanged or stable for two moments together) no true proposition could be framed but was at the same time false, and that contraries were in perpetual co-existence--could not by any general reasoning be involved in greater contradiction and inconsistency than he at once openly proclaimed.[23] It can only be shown that such a doctrine cannot be reconciled with the necessities of daily speech, as practised by himself, as well as by others. We read, indeed, one ingenious argument whereby Aristotle adopts this belief in the co-existence of contraries, but explains it in a manner of his own, through his much employed distinction between potential and actual existence. Two contraries cannot co-exist (he says) in actuality; but they both may and do co-exist in different senses--one or both of them being potential. This, however, is a theory totally different from that of Herakleitus; coincident only in words and in seeming. It does indeed eliminate the contradiction; but that very contradiction formed the characteristic feature and keystone of the Herakleitean theory. The case against this last theory is, that it is at variance with psychological facts, by incorrectly assuming the co-existence of contradictory beliefs in the mind; and that it conflicts both with postulates implied in the daily colloquy of detail between man and man, and with the volitional preferences that determine individual action. All of these are founded on a belief in the regular sequence of our sensations, and in the at least temporary durability of combined potential aggregates of sensations, which we enunciate in the language of definite attributes belonging to definite substances. This language, the common medium of communication among non-theorizing men, is accepted as a basis, and is generalized and regularized, in the logical theories of Aristotle.
[Footnote 23: This is stated by Aristotle himself, Metaph. [Greek: G]. vi. p. 1011, a. 15: [Greek: oi( d' e)n tô=| lo/gô| tê\n bi/an mo/non zêtou=ntes a)du/naton zêtou=sin; e)nanti/a ga\r ei)pei=n a)xiou=sin, eu)thu\s e)nanti/a le/gontes.] He here, indeed, applies this observation immediately to the Protagoreans, against whom it does not tell, instead of the Herakleiteans, against whom it does tell. The whole of the reasoning in this part of the Metaphysica is directed indiscriminately, and in the same words, against Protagoreans and Herakleiteans.]
The doctrine here mentioned is vindicated by Aristotle, not only against Herakleitus, by asserting the Maxim of Contradiction, but also against Anaxagoras, by asserting the Maxim of Excluded Middle. Here we have the second _principium_ of Demonstration, which, if it required to be defended at all, can only be defended (like the first) by a process of Induction. Aristotle adduces several arguments in support of it, some of which involve an appeal to Induction, though not broadly or openly avowed; but others of them assume what adversaries, and Anaxagoras especially, were not likely to grant. We must remember that both Anaxagoras and Herakleitus propounded their theories as portions of Physical Philosophy or of Ontology; and that in their time no such logical principles and distinctions as those that Aristotle lays down in the Organon, had yet been made known or pressed upon their attention. Now, Aristotle, while professing to defend these Axioms as data of Ontology, forgets that they deal with the logical aspect of Ontology, as formulated in methodical propositions. His view of the Axioms cannot be properly appreciated without a classification of propositions, such as neither Herakleitus nor Anaxagoras found existing or originated for themselves. Aristotle has taught us what Herakleitus and Anaxagoras had not been taught--to distinguish separate propositions as universal, particular and singular; and to distinguish pairs of propositions as contrary, sub-contrary, and contradictory. To take the simplest case, that of a singular proposition, in regard to which the distinction between contrary and contradictory has no application,--such as the answer (cited above) of Kephisophon about Euripides. Here Aristotle would justly contend that the two propositions--Euripides is within, Euripides is not within--could not be either both of them true, or both of them false; that is, that we could neither believe both, nor disbelieve both. If Kephisophon had answered, Euripides is neither within nor not within, Dikæopolis would have found himself as much at a loss with the two negatives as he was with the two affirmatives. In regard to singular propositions, neither the doctrine of Herakleitus (to believe both affirmation and negation) nor that of Anaxagoras (to disbelieve both) is admissible. But, when in place of singular propositions we take either universal or particular propositions, the rule to follow is no longer so simple and peremptory. The universal affirmative and the universal negative are _contrary_; the particular affirmative and the particular negative are _sub-contrary_; the universal affirmative and the particular negative, or the universal negative and the particular affirmative, are _contradictory_. It is now noted in all manuals of Logic, that of two contrary propositions, both cannot be true, but both may be false; that of two sub-contraries, both may be true, but both cannot be false; and that of two contradictories, one must be true and the other false.
III.
METAPHYSICA.
[The following Abstract--when not translation--of six books ([Greek: G], E, Z, Ê, [Greek: Th], [Greek: L]) out of the fourteen included under the title 'Metaphysica,' may be said to cover the whole of Aristotle's dogmatic exposition of First Philosophy. According to the view of Brandis, now in its main features generally accepted, the exposition continued through Books [Greek: G], E, Z, Ê, reaches back to Books A and B, and comes to an end with Book [Greek: Th]. Still it is only with Book [Greek: G] that the properly didactic treatment begins, Book A being a historical review of previous opinion, and Book B a mere collection of [Greek: a)pori/ai] subjected to a preliminary dialectical handling; while, at the other end, Book [Greek: L], though it has no direct connection with Book [Greek: Th], is, especially in its latter part, of undeniable importance for Aristotle's metaphysical doctrine.
The remaining books are known as [Greek: a], [Greek: D], I, K, M, N. The short Book [Greek: a] is entirely unconnected with any of the others, and most probably is not the work of Aristotle. Book [Greek: D] ([Greek: peri\ tô=n posachô=s legome/nôn])--a vocabulary of philosophical terms--is Aristotelian beyond question, being referred to occasionally in the chief books; but it lies quite apart from the exposition proper. Book I--dealing with Unity and Opposites--though it also has no place in the actual line of treatment, is truly ontological in character, and probably was intended to fall within some larger scheme of metaphysical doctrine; the like, as far as can be judged, being true of Books M and N, containing together a criticism of Pythagorean and Platonic theories. Finally, Book K, consisting in part of an epitomized excerpt from the Physica--hardly from the hand of Aristotle, gives otherwise only a sketch in outline of the argument of Books B, [Greek: G], E, and thus, although Aristotelian, is to be discounted.
The author nowhere states the principle upon which he selected the six books for a preliminary Abstract; but the actual selection, joined to various indications in the Abstract and marginal notes in his copies of the Metaphysica, leaves no doubt that he accepted the view of Brandis, more especially as set forth by Bonitz. On the whole question of the Canon of the Metaphysica, Bonitz's Introduction to his Commentary may with advantage be consulted.]
Book [Greek: G].
In this First Philosophy, Aristotle analyses and illustrates the meaning of the _generalissima_ of language--the most general and abstract words which language includes. All these are words in common and frequent use; in the process of framing or putting together language, they have become permanently stamped and circulated as the result of many previous comparisons, gone through but afterwards forgotten, or perhaps gone through at first without any distinct consciousness. Men employ these words familiarly in ordinary speech, and are understood by others when they do so. For the most part, they employ the words correctly and consistently, in the affirmation of particular propositions relating to topics of daily life and experience. But this is not always or uniformly the case. Sometimes, more or less often, men fall into error and inconsistency in the employment of these familiar general terms. The First Philosophy takes up the generalities and established phrases in this condition; following back analytically the synthetical process which the framers of language have pursued without knowing or at least without recording it, and bringing under conscious attention the different meanings, more or fewer, in which these general words are used.
Philosophia Prima devotes itself, specially and in the first instance, to Ens _quatenus_ Ens in all its bearings; being thus distinguished from mathematics and other particular sciences, each of which devotes itself to a separate branch of Ens (p. 1003, a. 25). It searches into the First Causes or Elements of Ens _per se_, not _per accidens_ (a. 31). But Ens is a commune, not generically, but analogically; constituted by common relationship to one and the same terminus, as everything healthy is related to health. The Principle ([Greek: a)rchê/]) of all Entia is Essence ([Greek: ou)si/a]); but some Entia are so called as being affections of Essence; others, as being a transition to Essence, or as destruction, privation, quality, efficient or generative cause, of Essence or its _analoga_; others, again, as being negations ([Greek: a)popha/seis]) thereof, whence, for example, we say that Non-Ens _is_ Non-Ens (b. 6-10). There is one science of all these primary, secondary, tertiary, &c., Entia; just as there is one science of all things healthy, of the primary, the secondary, the tertiary, &c., _quatenus_ healthy. But, in all such matters, that science bears in the first instance and specially ([Greek: kuri/ôs]) on the Primum Aliquid, from which all the secondary and other derivatives take their departure, and upon which they depend (b. 16). Accordingly, in the present case, since Essence is the Primum Aliquid, the province of First Philosophy is to investigate the causes and principles of Essences in all their varieties (b. 18-22). Now whatever varieties there are of Ens, the like varieties there are of Unum; for the two are always implicated together, though the words are not absolutely the same in meaning (b. 24-35). Accordingly both Ens and Unum with all the varieties of each belong to Philosophia Prima; likewise Idem, Simile, &c., and the opposites thereof. All opposites may be traced in the last analysis to this foundation--the antithesis of Unum and Multa (p. 1004, a. 1). We must set forth and discriminate the different varieties--primary, secondary, tertiary, &c.--of Idem and Simile, and also of their opposites, Diversum and Dissimile; and we must show how they are derived from or related to Primum Idem, &c., just as we must do in the case of Ens and Unum. All this task belongs to First Philosophy (a. 20-30). Aristotle speaks of [Greek: o( philo/sophos], as meaning the master of Philosophia Prima (b. 1; B. p. 997, a. 14).
If these investigations do not belong to the First Philosopher, to which among the other investigators can they belong? Who is to enquire whether Sokrates, and Sokrates sitting, is the same person? Whether Unum is opposite to Unum? In how many senses Opposite can be said? (p. 1004, b. 3). All these are affections _per se_ of Unum _quatenus_ Unum, and of Ens _quatenus_ Ens, not _quatenus_ numbers, or lines, or fire; that is, they are propria (_sensu logico_) of Ens and Unum (not included in the notion or definition, but deducible therefrom--"notæ consecutione notionis"), just as odd and even, proportionality, equality, excess and defect, are propria of numbers; and there are other propria of solids, whether moved or unmoved, heavy or light. It is these propria of Ens and Unum that Philosophia Prima undertakes to explain (b. 7-16), and which others fail to explain, because they take no account of [Greek: ou)si/a] (b. 10), or of the fundamental Ens or Essentia to which these belong as propria.
These Propria of Ens are the [Greek: oi)kei=a]--the special and peculiar matter or principles--of Philosophia Prima. That all of them belong in this special way to the First Philosopher, we may farther see by the fact that all of them are handled by the Dialectician and the Sophist, who assume an attitude counterfeiting the Philosopher. All three travel over the same ground, and deal with Ens, as a matter common to all (p. 1004, b. 20). But the Sophist differs from the Philosopher in his purpose, inasmuch as he aims only at giving the false appearance of wisdom without the reality, while the Dialectician differs from the Philosopher in his manner of handling ([Greek: tô=| tro/pô| tê=s duna/meôs]--b. 24). The Dialectician discusses the subject in a tentative way, from many different points of view, suggested by current opinions; the Philosopher marches by a straight and assured road from the appropriate principles of his science to certain conclusions and cognitions.
The same view of the scope and extent of Philosophia Prima may be made out in another way. Almost all philosophers affirm that Entia are composed of contraries, and may be traced back to opposite principles--odd and even, hot and cold, limit and the unlimited, friendship and enmity, &c. Now these and all other contraries may be traced back to Unum and Multa: this we may assume (p. 1005, a. 1; according to Alexander Aph., it had been shown in the treatise De Bono--Schol. p. 648, a. 38, Br.).
Though it be true, therefore, that neither Ens nor Unum is a true genus, nor separable, but both of them aggregates of analogical derivatives, yet since all these derivatives have their root in one and the same fundamentum, the study of all of them belongs to one and the same science (p. 1005, a. 6-11). It is not the province of the geometer to examine what is The Opposite, The Perfect, Ens, Unum, Idem, Diversum, except in their application to his own problems. The general enquiry devolves upon the First Philosopher; who will investigate Ens _quatenus_ Ens, together with the belongings or appendages ([Greek: ta\ u(pa/rchonta]) of Ens _quatenus_ Ens, including Prius, Posterius, Genus, Species, Totum, Pars, and such like (a. 11-18).
It falls to the First Philosopher also to investigate and explain what mathematicians call their Axioms: the mathematician ought not to do this himself, but to leave it to the First Philosopher. These Axioms are, in their highest generality, affirmations respecting Ens _quatenus_ Ens, all of which belong to the First Philosopher; from whom the mathematician accepts them, and applies them as far as his own department requires (p. 1005, a. 20, seq.).
In First Philosophy, the firmest, best known, and most unquestionable of all principles is this: It is impossible for the same predicate at the same time and in the same sense to belong and not to belong to the same subject (p. 1005, b. 20). No one can at the same time believe that the same thing both is and is not; though Herakleitus professed to believe this, we must not suppose that he really did believe it (b. 25). No man can hold two contrary opinions at the same time (b. 31). This is by nature the first principle of all other axioms; to which principle all demonstrations are in the last resort brought back (b. 33: [Greek: phu/sei ga\r a)rchê\ kai\ tô=n a)/llôn a)xiôma/tôn au(/tê pa/ntôn]).
Aristotle then proceeds to explain and vindicate at length this [Greek: a)rchê/]--the Principle of Contradiction, which many at that time denied. This principle is at once the most knowable, and noway assumed as hypothesis ([Greek: gnôrimôta/tên kai\ a)nupo/theton]--p. 1005, b. 13). You cannot indeed demonstrate it to be true; the very attempt to demonstrate it would be unphilosophical: demonstration of every thing, is an impossibility. You cannot march upwards in an infinite progression of demonstrations; you must arrive ultimately at some first truth which is not demonstrable; and, if any such first truth is to be recognized, no one can point out any truth better entitled to such privilege than the Principle of Contradiction (p. 1006, a. 11). But you can convict an opponent of self-contradiction ([Greek: a)podei=xai e)legktikô=s], a. 12, 15), if he will only consent to affirm any proposition in significant terms--that is, in terms which he admits to be significant to himself and which he intends as such to others; in other words, if he will enter into dialogue with you, for without significant speech there can be no dialogue with him at all (a. 21).
When the opponent has shown his willingness to comply with the conditions of dialogue, by advancing a proposition in terms each having one definite signification, it is plain, by his own admission, that the proposition does not both signify and not signify the same. First, the copula of the proposition (_est_) does not signify what would be signified if the copula were _non est_; so that here is one case wherein the affirmative and the negative cannot be both of them true (p. 1006, a. 30; see Alex. Schol. and Bonitz's note). Next, let the subject of the proposition be _homo_; a term having only one single definite signification, or perhaps having two or three (or any definite number of) distinct significations, each definite. If the number of distinct significations be indefinite, the term is unfit for the purpose of dialogue (a. 30-b. 10). The term _homo_ will signify one thing only; it will have one determinate essence and definition--say _animal bipes_: that is, if any thing be a man, the same will be _animal bipes_. But this last cannot be the essence and definition of _non-homo_ also: _non-homo_, as a different name, must have different definition; _homo_ and _non-homo_ cannot be like [Greek: lô/pion] and [Greek: i(ma/tion], two terms having the same signification, essence and definition; for _homo_ signifies one subject of constant and defined nature, not simply one among many predicates applicable by accident to this same constant subject; it signifies [Greek: mi/an phu/sin] and not [Greek: a)/llên tina\ phu/sin] (Scholia, p. 656, b. 21). Since each name indeed is applied by convention to what it denominates, the name _non-homo_ may be applied elsewhere to that which we term _homo_; but this is a mere difference of naming; what bears the name _homo_, and what bears the name _non-homo_, must always be different, if _homo_ is defined to signify one determinate nature (b. 22). The one single nature and essence defined as belonging to _homo_, cannot be the same as that belonging to _non-homo_. If any thing be _homo_, the same cannot be _non-homo_: if any thing be _non-homo_, the same cannot be _homo_ (b. 25-34). Whoever says that _homo_ and _non-homo_ have the same meaning, must say _à fortiori_ that _homo_, _fortis_, _musicus_, _simus_, _pulcher_, &c., have the same meaning; for not one of these terms is so directly and emphatically opposite to _homo_, as _non-homo_ is. He must therefore admit that the meaning, not merely of all these words but also, of a host besides is the same; in other words, that not merely Opposites are one, but all other things besides, under different names ([Greek: o(/ti e(\n pa/nta e)/stai kai\ ou) mo/non ta\ a)ntikei/mena]--p. 1007, a. 6).
This argument is directed against those who maintain that affirmative and negative are both true at once, but who still desire to keep up dialogue (Alex. Schol. p. 658, a. 26, Br.: [Greek: tô=| tê/n te a)nti/phasin sunalêtheu/ein le/gonti, kai\ sô/zein boulome/nô| to\ diale/gesthai]). No man who maintains this opinion, can keep his consistency in dialogue, if he will only give direct answers to the questions put to him, without annexing provisoes and gratuitous additions to his answers. If you ask him, Whether it is true that Sokrates is _homo_? he ought to answer plainly Yes, or No. He ought not to answer: "Yes, but Sokrates is also _non-homo_," meaning that Sokrates is also the subject of many other accidental predicates--fair, flat-nosed, brave, accomplished, &c. He ought to answer simply to the question, whether the one essence or definition signified by the word man, belongs to Sokrates or not; he ought not to introduce the mention of these accidental predicates, to which the question did not refer. These accidental predicates are infinite in number; he cannot enumerate them all, and therefore he ought not to introduce the mention of any of them. Sokrates is _homo_, by the essence and definition of the word; he is _non-homo_, ten thousand times over, by accidental predicates; that is, he is fair, brave, musical, flat-nosed, &c., all of which are varieties of the general word _non-homo_ (p. 1007, a. 7-19).
Those who contend that both members of the Antiphasis are at once true disallow Essentia altogether, and the distinction between it and Accidens (p. 1007, a. 21). When we say that the word _homo_ signifies a certain Essentia, we mean that its Essentia is nothing different from this, and that the being _homo_ cannot be the same as the being _non-homo_, or the not being _homo_. Those against whom we are reasoning discard Essentia as distinguished from Accidens, and consider all predicates as Accidentia. _Albus_ belongs to _homo_ as an accident; but the essence of _albus_ does not coincide with that of _homo_, and cannot be predicated of _homo_ (a. 32). Upon the theory of these opponents, there would be no Prima Essentia to which all accidents are attached; but this theory is untenable. Accidents cannot be attached one to another in an infinite ascending series (b. 1). You cannot proceed more than two steps upward: first one accident, then a second; the two being joined by belonging to one and the same subject. No accident can be the accident of another accident. [Greek: To\ leuko/n] may have the accident [Greek: mousiko/n], or [Greek: to\ mousiko/n] may have the accident [Greek: leuko/n]; each of these may be called indifferently the accident of the other; but the truth is, that [Greek: leuko/s] and [Greek: mousiko/s] are both of them accidents belonging to the common Essentia--_homo_. But, when we affirm _homo est musicus_, we implicate the accident with the Essentia to which it belongs; that Essentia is signified by the subject _homo_. There must thus be one word which has signification as Essentia; and, when such is the case, we have already shown that both members of the Antiphasis cannot be predicated at once (b. 5-18).
(Alexander, in Scholia, p. 658, b. 40-p. 659, b. 14, Br., remarks on this argument of Aristotle: Those who held the opinion here controverted by Aristotle--[Greek: tê\n a)nti/phasin sunalêtheu/ein]--had in their minds accidental propositions, in regard to which they were right, except that both members of the Antiphasis cannot be true at the same time. _Sokrates est musicus_--_Sokrates non est musicus_: these two propositions are both true, in the sense that one or other of them is true only potentially, and that both cannot be actually true at the same time. One of them is true, and the other false, at the present moment; but that which is now false has been true in the past, and may become true in the future. Aristotle does not controvert this theory so far as regards accidental propositions; but he maintains that it is untenable about essential propositions, and that the theorists overlooked this distinction.)
Moreover, if you say that both members of the Antiphasis are alike true respecting every predicate of a given subject, you must admit that all things are one (p. 1007, b. 20). The same thing will be at once a wall, a trireme, a man. Respecting every subject, you may always either affirm or deny any given predicate; but, according to this theory, whenever it is true to affirm, it is always equally true to deny. If you can say truly, _Homo non est triremis_, you may say with equal truth, according to the theory before us, _Homo est triremis_. And, of course, _Homo non est triremis_ may be said truly; since (still according to this theory) the much more special negative, _Homo non est homo_, may be said truly (b. 32).
Again, if this theory be admitted, the doctrine that every predicate may be either affirmed or denied of any given subject, will no longer hold true. For, if it be true to say of Sokrates both _Est homo_ and _Est non-homo_: it must also be true to say of him both _Non est homo_ and _Non est non-homo_. If both affirmative and negative may be alike affirmed, both may be alike denied (p. 1008, a. 2-7). If both members of the Antiphasis are alike true, both must be alike false (Alex. Schol. p. 663, a. 14-34).
Again, the theory that both members of the Antiphasis are alike true, is intended by its authors to apply universally or not universally. Every thing is both white and not white, Ens and Non-Ens; or this is true with some propositions, but not with regard to others. If the theorists take the latter ground and allow some exceptions, so far at least as those exceptions reach, firm truth is left ([Greek: au(=tai a)\n ei)=en o(mologou/menai]--p. 1008, a. 11). But, if they take the former ground and allow no exceptions, they may still perhaps say: Wherever you can affirm with truth, we can also deny with truth; but, wherever we can deny with truth, we cannot in every case affirm with truth (a. 15). Meeting them upon this last ground, we remark that at any rate some negative propositions are here admitted to be knowable, and we obtain thus much of settled opinion; besides, wherever the negative is knowable, the corresponding affirmative must be still more knowable (a. 18). If they take the former ground and say that, wherever the negative is true, the affirmative is true also, they must either mean that each of them is true separately, or that neither of them is true separately but that both are true when enunciated together in a couple (a. 19). If they mean the latter, they do not talk either of these things or of any thing else: there is neither speech nor speaker, nothing but non-entity; and how can non-entity either speak or walk (a. 22)? Every thing would be confounded in one. If they mean the former--that affirmative and negative are each alike true taken separately, we reply that, since this must be true as much respecting one subject as respecting another, so there can be no distinction or difference between one subject and another; all must be alike and the same; if there be any difference of any kind, this must constitute a special and exceptional matter, standing apart from the theory now under discussion. Upon this view of the theory in question, then, as well as upon the preceding, we are landed in the same result: all things would be confounded into one (a. 27). All men would speak truly and all men alike (including the theorist himself, by his own admission) would speak falsely. Indeed in discussing with this theorist we have nothing to talk about; for he says nothing. He does not say, It is thus; he does not say, It is not thus; he says, It is both thus and not thus: then, again, he negatives both, saying, It is neither thus nor not thus; so that there is nothing definite in what he says (a. 32).
Again, let us ask, Does he who believes things to be so, believe falsely, and he who believes things not to be so and so, believe falsely also, while he who believes both at once, believes truly? If this last person believes truly, what is meant by the common saying that such and such is the constitution of nature? If you even say that the last person does not indeed believe truly, but believes more truly than he who believes the affirmative alone, or he who believes the negative alone, we still have something definite in the constitution of nature, something which is really true, and not true and false at the same time. But, if there be no more truly or less truly--if all persons alike and equally speak truly and speak falsely--speech is useless to such persons; what they say, they at the same time unsay. If the state of their minds really corresponds to this description--if they believe nothing, but at once think so and so and do not think so and so--how do such persons differ from plants (b. 3-12; see Alexander's Scholion, p. 665, b. 9-17 Br., about the explanation of [Greek: ma=llon], and the distinction between [Greek: le/gein] and [Greek: u(polamba/nein], p. 665, b. 31, seq.)?
It is certain, however, that these theorists are not like plants, and do not act as such in matters of ordinary life. They look for water, when thirsty; they keep clear of falling into a well or over a precipice. In regard to what is desirable or undesirable, at least, they do not really act upon their own theory--That both members of the Antiphasis are equally true and equally false. They act upon the contrary theory--That one of the members is true, and the other false. But, if these theorists, admitting that they act thus, say that they do not act thus with any profession of knowing the truth, but simply on the faith of appearance and greater probability, we reply that this ought to impose upon them a stronger sense of duty in regard to getting at the truth. The state of Opinion stands to that of Knowledge in the same relation as that of sickness to health (p. 1008, b. 12-31).
Finally, to follow up this last argument, even if we grant to these theorists that both members of the Antiphasis are true, still there are degrees of truth: the More and the Less pervades the constitution of nature (p. 1008, b. 32). We shall not surely affirm that two and three are equally even; nor shall we say, when any one affirms four to be five, that he commits an equal error with one who affirms four to be a thousand. Clearly one of these persons is more near to the truth, the other is less near to the truth. But, if there be such a thing as _being nearer to the truth_, there must surely be some truth to which you have come nearer; and, even if this be denied, yet at least what we have already obtained (the [Greek: e)ggu/teron tê=s a)lêthei/as]) is something firmer and of a more truth-like character. We shall thus have got rid of that unqualified theory which forbids all definite conceptions of the intellect ([Greek: ka)\n ei) mê/ e)stin, a)ll' ê)/dê ge/ ti e)sti\ bebaio/teron kai\ a)lêthinô/teron, kai\ tou= lo/gou a)pêllagme/noi a)\n ei)/êmen tou= a)kra/tou kai\ kôlu/onto/s ti tê=| dianoi/a| o(ri/sai]--p. 1009, a. 2).
Having thus completed his refutation of the "unqualified theory," which declares both members of the Antiphasis to be alike true, Aristotle passes to the examination of the Protagorean doctrine "Homo Mensura:" he affirms that it proceeds from the same mode of thinking, and that the two must stand or fall together. For, if all things which appear true are true, all things must be at once true and false; since the opposition of men's opinions is a notorious fact, each man thinking his own opinions true and his opponent's opinions false (p. 1009, a. 16).
Aristotle here distinguishes between two classes of reasoners, both of whom he combats, but who require to be dealt with in a very different manner: (1) Those who are sincerely convinced of what they affirm; (2) Those who have no sincere conviction, but merely take up the thesis as a matter for ingenious argument ([Greek: lo/gou cha/rin]), and will not relinquish it until they are compelled by a strong case made out against them. The first require persuasion, for their ignorance may be easily cured, and the difficulties whereby they are puzzled may be removed; the second require to be constrained by a forcible Elenchus or refutation, which may correct their misuse of dialectic and language (p. 1009, a. 22).
Aristotle begins with the first class. The difficulties which perplex them proceed from sensible things ([Greek: e)k tô=n ai)sthêtô=n]--p. 1009, a. 23). They perceive contrary things generated by the same; and this leads them to believe that contraries are both alike real, and that the two members of the Antiphasis are alike true. For, since Non-Ens cannot be generated, both the two contraries must have pre-existed together as Entia, prior to the generation in the thing as it then stood (a. 25). This is the opinion of Anaxagoras, who affirms that every thing is mixed in every thing; and of Demokritus, who affirms that Plenum and Inane--in other words. Ens and Non-Ens--exist alike and together in every part (a. 28). To these reasoners we reply, that in a certain sense they are right, in a certain sense wrong. The term Ens is used in two senses: the same thing may therefore be at once Ens and Non-Ens, but not in the same sense; moreover, from Non-Ens in one sense something may be generated, but not from Non-Ens in the other. The same thing may be at once two opposites _in power_, but not _in act_ ([Greek: duna/mei me\n ga\r e)nde/chetai a(/ma tau)to\ ei)=nai ta\ e)nanti/a, e)ntelechei/a| d' ou)/]--a. 35). We must farther remind these reasoners that the basis on which they proceed is not universally admissible; for there are various Entia of completely distinct and different essence, in which there is neither movement nor generation nor destruction of any sort (a. 38).
The doctrine held by Protagoras--That what appears true is truth, comes from the same source as the other doctrine--That both members of the Antiphasis are true. Both doctrines proceed from the sensible world ([Greek: o(moi/ôs de\ kai\ ê( peri\ ta\ phaino/mena a)lê/theia e)ni/ois e)k tô=n ai)sthêtô=n e)lê/luthen]--p. 1009, b. 2; [Greek: o(moi/ôs] refers back to a. 23--[Greek: au(/tê ê( do/xa], the other doctrine). Demokritus, Protagoras, and others observe that sensible phenomena are differently appreciated by different men, by other animals, and even by the same animal or man at different times. They do not think that truth upon these points of difference can be determined by a majority of voices. Demokritus says that either there is nothing true, or that we cannot know what it is (b. 10). These reasoners identified intelligence with sensible perception, and considered that this latter implied a change in the subject (b. 13): they conceived that what appeared to sense was necessarily true. Empedokles, Demokritus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Homer, &c., all lay down the doctrine, that the intelligence of men is varied with and determined by their sensible perceptions. They thought that men of wrong intelligence were nevertheless intelligent men, though their intelligence did not carry them to the same conclusions (b. 30); that if, both in one case and in the other, there were acts of intelligence, there must be realities corresponding to both, justifying the affirmative as well as the negative (b. 33).
That sincere and diligent enquirers should fall into these errors is very discouraging; but we must remark that their errors originated from this--that, while investigating the truth respecting Entia, they supposed that Entia were only the Percepta or Percipibilia (p. 1010, a. 2). Now in these Entia Perceptionis there is a great deal of the Indefinite and of mere Potential Entity (a. 3). Hence the theories of these reasoners were plausible, though not true. They saw that all the Entia Perceptionis were in perpetual movement, and they thought it impossible to predicate any thing with truth respecting what was at all times and in every way changing (a. 9). Kratylus and the Herakleitizers pushed this to an extreme. Even against their reasoning, we have something to say in reply. We grant that they have some ground for imagining that what undergoes change does not exist at the moment when it changes (a. 16). Yet even here there is room for dispute; for that which is in the act of casting off, still retains something of that which is being cast off; and of that which is being generated, something must already be in existence. As a general doctrine, if something is in course of being destroyed, something must be in existence; and, if something is in course of being generated, there must exist something out of which it proceeds and by which it is being generated; nor can this go back _ad infinitum_ (a. 22). Dropping this argument, however, let us advance another. Change as to Quantity is not the same as change as to Quality or Form. Let us grant that, as to Quantity, there is change continuous and perpetual--growth or decay--no such thing as stationary condition. But all our knowledge relates to Quality or Form, in which there is no continuous change (a. 24: [Greek: kata\ me\n ou)=n to\ poso/n, e)/stô mê\ me/non; a)lla\ kata\ to\ ei)=dos a(/panta gignô/skomen.]--Compare Alex. Schol., p. 671, b. 5-22; p. 670, a. 36: Bonitz has good remarks in his note, pp. 202-204**.).
Again, we have a farther reproach to make to these reasoners. Their argument is based only on the Percepta or Percipienda; yet, even as to these it is true only as to the minority and untrue as to the majority. It is true merely as far as the sublunary Percepta; but as to the superlunary or celestial it is the reverse of truth. Our earth and its neighbourhood is indeed in continual generation and destruction; but this is an insignificant part of the whole. In affirming any thing respecting the whole, we ought to follow the majority rather than the minority (p. 1010, a. 28-31**).
Lastly, we must repeat against these reasoners the argument urged just now. We must explain to them, that there exists, apart from and besides all generation, destruction, change, motion, &c., a certain Immovable Nature ([Greek: a)ki/nêto/s tis phu/sis]--a. 34). Indeed their own doctrine--That all things both are and are not--would seem to imply an universal stationary condition rather than universal change (a. 38). There can be no change; for there is no prospective terminus which can be reached by change. Every thing is assumed as already existing.
We have now to remark upon the special doctrine of Protagoras--[Greek: pa=n to\ phaino/menon a)lêthe/s]. If we grant that perception is always true upon matters strictly belonging to it, still phantasy is not identical with perception and we cannot say that what appears to the phantasy is always true ([Greek: to\ phaino/menon]--which implies a reference to [Greek: phantasi/a]--p. 1010, b. 2), Besides, it is strange that thinkers should puzzle themselves about the questions: Whether the magnitude and colour of objects is that which appears to a spectator near or to a spectator far off? and to a spectator healthy or jaundiced? Whether the weight of an object is as it appears to a weak or to a strong man? Whether objects are truly what they appear to men awake or to men asleep? Their own actions show that they do not think there is any doubt; for if, being in Libya, they happen to dream that they are in Athens, none of them ever think of going to the Odeium (b. 5-11). Moreover, respecting the future, as Plato remarks, the anticipations of the ignorant man are not so trustworthy as those of the physician, whether a patient will recover or not (b. 14). Then, again, in respect of present sensations, the perception of sight is not equally trustworthy with the perception of smell about a question of odour (b. 17); and the perception of smell will never report at the same time and about the same thing, that it is at once fragrant and not fragrant; nor, indeed, at different times about the affection itself, but only about the subject to which the affection belonged (b. 20). The same wine which tasted sweet last month, may now taste not sweet; but the sweet taste itself is the same now and last month, and the reports of the sense are never contradictory on this point. The sweet taste which is to come in the future will be of necessity like the sweet taste in the past. Now such necessity is abrogated by all those reasonings which affirm at once the two members of the Antiphasis. These reasonings disallow all essence of every thing, and all necessity; for whatever is necessary, cannot be at once both thus and not thus (b. 21-30).
On the whole, if nothing exist except Percepta, nothing can exist without animated beings; since without these last there can be no perception. It is indeed true, perhaps, that under such a supposition there exist neither Percepta nor acts of Perception (which are affections of the Percipient); but that the Substrata which cause Perception should not exist even without Perception--is an impossibility (p. 1010, b. 33: [Greek: to\ de\ ta\ u(pokei/mena mê\ ei)=nai, a(\ poiei= tê\n ai)/sthêsin, kai\ a)/neu ai)sthê/seôs, a)du/naton]). Perception is not perception of itself; there exists besides, apart from perception, something else which must necessarily be prior to perception. For the Movens is by nature prior to the Motum; and this is not the less true, though each of these two is enunciated in relation to the other (b. 35).
A difficulty is often started, and enquiry made, Who is to be the judge of health and sickness? Whom are we to recognize as the person to judge rightly in each particular case? Persons might as well raise difficulty and make enquiry, Whether we are now awake or asleep? It is plain by men's actual conduct that they have no real doubt upon the point in any particular case; and both these enquiries arise from the same fundamental mistake--that men require to have every thing demonstrated, and will recognize nothing without demonstration. (Alex. says in Scholia, p. 675, b. 3: [Greek: e)/sti ga\r pro\s a(\ e)k phu/seôs be/ltion e)/chomen ê)\ ô(/ste dei=sthai tê=s peri\ au)tô=n a)podei/xeôs; e)/sti de\ tau=ta ai(/ te ai)sthê/seis, kai\ ta\ a)xiô/mata kai\ ai( phusikai/ te kai\ koinai\ e)/nnoiai.]) Those who sincerely and seriously feel this difficulty, may be expected to acquiesce in the explanation here given (p. 1011, a. 2-14). But those who put forward the difficulty merely for the sake of argument, must be informed that they require an impossibility. They require to have a refutative case made out against them (which can only be done by reducing them to a [Greek: sullogismo\s a)ntipha/seôs]); yet they themselves begin by refusing to acknowledge this refutation as sufficient, for they maintain the thesis--That both members of the Antiphasis are alike and equally true (a. 16; compare Alex. Schol., p. 675, b. 20-28).
Those who maintain this last-mentioned thesis say, in other words, That every thing which appears true, is true. But this thesis of theirs cannot be defended except by the admission that every thing is relative, and that nothing is absolute. Accordingly they must take care to announce their thesis, not in absolute terms as it now stands, but in terms strictly relative: Every thing which appears true, appears true to some individual--at a certain moment of time--under certain circumstances and conditions (p. 1011, a. 24). For, if they affirm, in absolute phrase, that all things are alike false and true, on the ground that what appears true is true, urging that the same things do not appear true either to different persons, or to the same person at different times--nay, sometimes even to the same person at the same time, as may be seen by handling a pebble between two crossed fingers ([Greek: e)n tê=| e)palla/xei tô=n daktu/lôn]--a. 33), so that it appears two to the touch, but only one to the sight;--we shall reply, that there is no such contradiction of judgment, if they confine themselves to the same person, the same time, and one and the same sense. In these cases, there is only one affirmation which appears to be true, and therefore, according to their theory, that affirmation is true. They are not, therefore, justified in concluding that every thing is alike true and false (b. 1).
They can only escape this refutation by avoiding to say, This is true, and by saying, This is true to such an individual, at such a time, &c.; that is, by making every affirmation relative to some person's opinion or perception. Hence the inference is, that nothing either ever has occurred or ever will occur, without the antecedent opinion of some person ([Greek: mêtheno\s prodoxa/santos]--p. 1011, b. 6): if any thing ever has so occurred, it cannot be true that all things are relative to opinion. Moreover, if the Relatum be one, it must be relative to some one, some definite, Correlate; and, even if the same Relatum be both half and equal, it will not be equal in reference to a double Correlate, but half in reference to a double, and equal in reference to an equal (b. 9). Moreover, if _homo_ and _conceptum_ have both of them no more than a relative existence--that is, if both of them exist only in correlation with a _concipiens_--then the _concipiens_ cannot be _homo_; it will be the _conceptum_ that is _homo_. And, if every individual thing have existence only in relation to a _concipiens_, this _concipiens_ must form the Correlate to an infinite number of Relata (b. 12). (All this is very briefly and obscurely stated in Aristotle. The commentary of Alexander is copious and valuable: one might suppose that he had before him a more ample text; for it is difficult to find in the present text all that his commentary states**.)
Let thus much be said to establish the opinion, That the two members of the Antiphasis (the Affirmative and the Negative) are not both true at the same time. We have shown whence it arises that some persons suppose both to be true; and what are the consequences in which those who hold this opinion entangle themselves. Accordingly, since both sides of the Antiphasis cannot be truly predicated of the same subject, it is impossible that opposite attributes can belong at the same time to the same subject (p. 1011, b. 17: [Greek: ou)de\ ta)nanti/a a(/ma u(pa/rchein e)nde/chetai tô=| au)tô=|]). For one of these opposites includes in itself privation, and privation of a certain real essence; now privation is the negation of a certain definite genus. And, since affirmation and negation cannot be truly applied at the same time, it follows that opposite attributes cannot belong at the same time to the same subject. At least it is only possible thus far: one may belong to it absolutely, the other _secundum quid_; or both of them _secundum quid_ only ([Greek: tô=n me\n ga\r e)nanti/ôn tha/teron ste/rêsi/s e)stin ou)ch ê(=tton, ou)si/as de\ ste/rêsis a)po/phasi/s e)stin a)po/ tinos ô(risme/nou ge/nous]--b. 20).
But, also, there can be nothing intermediate between the two members of the Antiphasis; we must of necessity either affirm or deny any one thing of any other (p. 1011, b. 24). This will appear clearly, when we have first defined what is Truth and Falsehood. To say that Ens is not, or that Non-Ens is, is false: To say that Ens is, or that Non-Ens is not, is true. Accordingly, he who predicates _est_--or he who predicates _non est_--will speak truly or speak falsely, according as he applies his predicate to Ens or to Non-Ens. But he cannot, either in application to Ens or to Non-Ens, predicate _est aut non est_ (b. 29). Such a predication would be neither true nor false, but improper and unmeaning. (I follow at b. 27 the text of the Berlin edition: [Greek: ô(/ste kai\ o( le/gôn ei)=nai ê)\ mê\ a)lêtheu/sei ê)\ pseu/setai]--which seems to me here better than that of Bonitz, who puts [Greek: ô(/ste kai\ o( le/gôn tou=to ei)=nai ê)\ mê\ a)lêtheu/sei ê)\ pseu/setai]--following Alexander's explanation, Schol., p. 680, a. 33, which I cannot think to be correct, though Bonitz praises it much. Aristotle defines Truth and Falsehood: When you say _Ens est_, or _Non-Ens non est_, you speak truth; when you say _Ens non est_, or _Non-Ens est_, you speak falsehood. Accordingly, when you employ the predicate _est_, or when you employ the predicate _non est_, you will speak truly or falsehood, according as the subject with which you join it is Ens or is Non-Ens. But neither with respect to the subject Ens nor with respect to the subject Non-Ens, can you employ the disjunctive predicate--_est aut non est_.**)
Again, a medium between the two horns of the Antiphasis must be either a medium between opposites, like grey between white and black, or like the neither between man and horse. If it be the latter, it will never change; for all change is either from a negative to its affirmative (_non-bonum_ to _bonum_) or _vice versâ_: now that which is both _non-homo_ and _non-equus_ must change, if it change at all, into that which is both _homo_ and _equus_; but this is impossible. We see change always going on; but it is always change either into one of the two extremes or into the medium between them. But can we assume that there is such a medium (so that the case supposed will belong to the analogy of grey, halfway between white and black)? No, we cannot assume it; for, if we granted it, we should be forced to admit that there was change into white not proceeding from that which is not white: now nothing of the kind is ever perceived. There cannot therefore be any admissible medium halfway between the two members of the Antiphasis--something which is neither white nor not-white, neither black nor not-black (p. 1011, b. 35: [Greek: ei) d' e)/sti metaxu/]--if such medium be admitted--[Greek: kai\ ou(/tôs ei)/ê a)/n tis ei)s leuko\n ou)k e)k mê\ leukou= ge/nesis; nu=n d' ou)ch o(ra=tai]).
Furthermore, whatever our intelligence understands or reasons upon, it deals with as matter affirmed or denied. The very definition of truth and falsehood recognizes them as belonging only to affirmation or negation: when we affirm or deny in a certain way we speak truth; when in another way, we speak falsely. Nothing is concerned but affirmation and denial (_i.e._, there is no mental operation midway between the two--p. 1012, a. 2-5). If there be any such medium or midway process, it is not confined to this or that particular Antiphasis, but belongs alike to all, and must lie apart from all the different Antiphases--at least if it is to be talked of as a reality, and not as a mere possible combination of words; so that the speaker will neither speak truth, nor not speak truth; which is absurd (a. 7). It must also lie apart both from Ens and from Non-Ens; so that we should be compelled to admit a certain mode of change of Essence, which yet shall neither be generation nor destruction; which is impossible. **(According to Aristotle's definition, all change of [Greek: ou)si/a] must be either Generation, _i.e._, passage from [Greek: to\ mê\ o)/n] to [Greek: to\ o)/n], or Destruction, _i.e._, passage from [Greek: to\ o)/n] to [Greek: to\ mê\ o)/n].--See Alex. Schol. p. 681, b. 30-40**.)
Again, there are certain genera in which negation carries with it the affirmation of an opposite; such as odd and even, in numbers. In such genera, if we are to admit any medium apart from and between the two members of the Antiphasis, we should be forced to admit some number which is neither odd nor even (p. 1012, a. 11). This is impossible: the definition excludes it. (Alexander gives this as the definition of number: [Greek: pa=s ga\r a)rithmo\s ê)\ a)/rtio/s e)stin ê)\ peritto/s, kai\ _a)rithmo/s e)stin o(\s ê)\ a)/rtio/s e)stin ê)\ peritto/s_]--Schol. p. 682, a. 16.)
Again, if the Antiphasis could be divided, and a half or intermediate position found, as this theory contends, the division of it must be admissible farther and farther, _ad infinitum_. After bisecting the Antiphasis, you can proceed to bisect each of the sections; and so on. Each section will afford an intermediate term which may be denied with reference to each of the two members of the original Antiphasis. Two new Antiphases will thus be formed, each of which may be bisected in the same manner; and so bisection, with the formation of successive new Antiphases, may proceed without end (p. 1012, a. 13).
Again, suppose a questioner to ask you, Is this subject white? You answer, No. Now you have denied nothing else than the being-white: this is the [Greek: a)po/phasis], or negative member of the Antiphasis. But you have neither denied nor affirmed the intermediate stage between the affirmative and the negative; nor is there any answer possible by which you could do so. Therefore there is no real intermediate stage between them ([Greek: e)/ti o(/tan e)rome/nou ei) leuko/n e)stin ei)/pê| o(/ti ou)/, ou)the\n a)/llo a)pope/phêken ê)\ to\ ei)=nai; a)po/phasis de\ to\ mê\ ei)=nai]--p. 1012, a. 15; see Alex. Schol. p. 682, b. 15-38, and Bonitz's note. Bonitz suggests, though timidly, [Greek: a)pope/phêken] instead of the common reading [Greek: a)pope/phuken], which none of the commentators explain, and which seems unintelligible. I think Bonitz is right, though [Greek: a)pope/phêken] is an unknown tense from [Greek: a)po/phêmi]: it is quite as regular as [Greek: a)pophê/sô] or [Greek: a)pe/phêsa]**.).
The doctrines which we have been just controverting (Aristotle says) arise, like other paradoxes, either from the embarrassment in which men find themselves when they cannot solve a sophistical difficulty; or from their fancying that an explanation may be demanded of every thing. In replying to them, you must take your start from the definition, which assigns to each word one fixed and constant signification. The doctrine of Herakleitus--That all things are and all things are not--makes all propositions true; that of Anaxagoras--That every thing is intermingled with every thing--makes all propositions false: such mixture is neither good, nor not good; neither of the members of the Antiphasis is true (a. 17-28). Our preceding reasonings have refuted both these doctrines, and have shown that neither of the two one-sided extremes can be universally true: neither the doctrine--Every proposition is true; nor that--Every proposition is false; still less that which comprehends them both--Every proposition is both true and false. Among these three doctrines, the second might seem the most plausible, yet it is inadmissible, like the other two (b. 4).
In debating with all these reasoners, you must require them (as we have already laid down), not to admit either existence or non-existence but, to admit a constant signification for each word. You must begin by defining truth and falsehood; each of them belongs only to affirmation in a certain way. Where the affirmation is true the denial is false; all propositions cannot be false; one member of each Antiphasis must be true, and the other member must be false. Each of these doctrines labours under the often-exposed defect--that it destroys itself (p. 1012, b. 14, [Greek: to\ thrullou/menon]--allusion to the Theætetus, according to Alexander). For whoever declares all propositions to be true, declares the contradictory of this declaration to be true as well as the rest, and therefore his own declaration not to be true. Whoever declares all propositions to be false, declares his own declaration to be false as well as all other propositions (b. 17). And, even if we suppose each of these persons to make a special exception in regard to the particular propositions here respectively indicated, still this will not serve. The man who declares all propositions to be false, will be compelled to admit an infinite number of true propositions; because the proposition declaring the true proposition to be true, must itself be true; a second proposition declaring this last to be true, will itself be true; and so on to a third, a fourth, &c., in endless scale of ascent. The like may be said about the man who declares all propositions to be true: he too will be obliged to admit an infinite number of false propositions; for that which declares a true proposition to be false, must itself be false; and so on through a second, a third, &c., in endless scale of ascent as in the former case (b. 22).
It follows from what has been just proved, that those who affirm every thing to be at rest, and those who affirm every thing to be in motion, are both alike wrong. For, if every thing were at rest, the same propositions would be always true and always false. But this is plainly contrary to evidence; for the very reasoner who affirms it was once non-existent, and will again be non-existent. On the other hand, if every thing were in motion, no proposition would be true, and all would be false: but we have proved above that this is not so. Nor is it true that all things are alternately in motion or at rest; for there must be something ever-moving and other things ever-moved--and this prime movent must be itself immovable (p. 1012, b. 22-30).
. . . . . .
Book E.
The First Philosophy investigates the causes and principles of Entia _quatenus_ Entia (p. 1025, b. 3). It is distinguished from other sciences, by applying to all Entia, and in so far as they are Entia; for each of the other sciences applies itself to some separate branch of Entia, and investigates the causes and principles of that branch exclusively. Each assumes either from data of perception, or avowedly by way of hypothesis, the portion or genus of Entia to which it applies; not investigating the entity thereof, but pre-supposing this process to have been already performed by Ontology: each then investigates the properties belonging _per se_ to that genus (b. 13). It is plain that by such an induction not one of these sciences can demonstrate either the essence of its own separate genus, nor whether that genus has any real existence. Both these questions--both [Greek: ei) e)/stin] and [Greek: ti/ e)stin]--belong to Ontology (b. 18). (The belief derived from perception and induction never amounts to demonstration, as has been shown in the Analytica; you may always contest the universality of the conclusion--Alex. p. 734, b. 16, Br.)
Apart from Ontology, each of these separate sciences is either theoretical, or practical, or constructive (p. 1025, b. 21). Two of the separate sciences are theoretical--Physics and Mathematics; and, as Ontology (or Theology) is also theoretical, there are three varieties of theoretical science (p. 1026, a. 18).
Physical Science applies to subjects having in themselves the principle of mobility or change, and investigates, principally and for the most part, the Essence or Form thereof; yet not exclusively the Form, for the Form must always be joined with Matter. The subject of Physics includes Matter in its definition, like hollow-nosed, not like hollow (p. 1025, b. 33). All the animal and vegetable world is comprised therein; and even some soul, as far as soul is inseparable from Matter ([Greek: peri\ psuchê=s **e)ni/as theôrê=sai tou= phusikou=, o(/sê mê\ a)/neu tê=s u(/lês e)sti/n]--p. 1026, a. 5).
Mathematics is another branch of theoretical science; applying to subjects immovable and in part inseparable from Matter; that is, separable from Matter only in logical conception (p. 1026, a. 7-15).
Theology, or First Philosophy, or Ontology, is conversant with subjects self-existent, immovable, and separable from Matter (p. 1026, a. 16).
Now all causes are necessarily eternal; but these more than any other, because they are the causes active among the visible divine bodies; for, clearly, if the Divinity has any place, it must be found among subjects of that nature; and the most venerable science must deal with the most venerable subjects (p. 1026, a. 19). The theoretical sciences are more worthy than the rest ([Greek: ai(retô/terai]), and First Philosophy is the most worthy among the theoretical sciences (a. 22). A man may indeed doubt whether First Philosophy is distinguished from the other theoretical sciences by being more universal, and by comprehending them all as branches; or whether it has a separate department of its own, but more venerable than the others; as we see that Mathematics, as a whole, comprehends Geometry and Astronomy (a. 27). If there exist no other distinct Essence beyond the compounds of Nature ([Greek: para\ ta\s phu/sei sunestêkui/as]--a. 28), Physics would be the first of all sciences. But if there be a distinct immovable Essence, that is first; accordingly the science which deals with it is first, and, as being first, is for that reason universal ([Greek: kai\ katho/lou ou(/tôs o(/ti prô/tê]--a. 30). It is the province of this First Philosophy to theorize respecting Ens _quâ_ Ens--what it is and what are its properties _quâ_ Ens (a. 32). (Alexander says the First Philosophy is more universal than the rest, but does not comprehend the rest: [Greek: prô/tê pa/ntôn kai\ katho/lou ô(s pro\s ta\s a)/llas, ou) perie/chousa e)kei/nas, a)ll' ô(s prô/tê]--Schol. p. 736, a. 27.)
Now Ens has many different meanings:--
1. Ens [Greek: kata\ sumbebêko/s].
2. Ens [Greek: ô(s a)lêthe/s]--Non-Ens [Greek: ô(s pseu=dos].
3. Ens [Greek: kata\ ta\ schê/mata tê=s katêgori/as] (decuple).
4. Ens [Greek: duna/mei kai\ e)nergei/a|].
1. Respecting the first, there can be no philosophical speculation (p. 1026, b. 3). No science, either theoretical, or practical, or constructive, investigates Accidents. He who constructs a house, does not construct all the accidents or concomitants of the house; for these are endless and indeterminate. It may be agreeable to one man, hurtful to a second, profitable to a third, and something different in relation to every different Ens; but the constructive art called house-building is not constructive of any one among these concomitants (b. 7-10). Nor does the geometer investigate the analogous concomitants belonging to his figures; it is no part of his province to determine whether a triangle is different from a triangle having two right angles (b. 12). This is easy to understand: the Concomitant is little more than a name--as it were, a name and nothing beyond (b. 13). Plato came near the truth when he declared that Sophistic was busied about Non-Ens; for the debates of the Sophists turn principally upon Accidents or Concomitants, such as, Whether musical and literary be the same or different? Whether Koriskus or literary Koriskus, be the same or different? Whether everything which now is, but has not always been, has become; as in the case of a man who being musical has become literary or being literary has become musical? and such like debates (see Alexander, Schol. p. 736, b. 40). For the Concomitant or Accident appears something next door to Non-Ens ([Greek: e)ggu/s ti tou= mê\ o)/ntos], p. 1026, b. 21), as we may see by these debates. Of other Entia there is generation or destruction, but of Accidents there is none (b. 23).
Nevertheless, we shall state, as far as the case admits, what is the nature of the Accident, and through what cause it is ([Greek: ti/s ê( phu/sis au)tou=, kai\ dia/ tin' ai)ti/an e)sti/n;]--p. 1026, b. 25): we shall perhaps at the same time explain why there can be no science respecting it. Among Entia, some are always and necessarily the same, others are usually but not always the same. These which come to pass in neither of these two ways, are called Accidents or Concomitants. Of the first two, the Constant and the Usual, there is always some definite cause; of the third, or Accidents, there is none: the cause of these is an Accident (p. 1027, a. 8). In fact, Matter is the cause of Accidents, admitting as it does of being modified in a way different from the usual and ordinary way (a. 13). It is plain that there can be neither science nor teaching of Accidents: the teacher can teach only what is constant or usual, and nothing beyond (a. 20).
Now of these Accidents, there is a certain principle or cause which it is indispensable to admit--Chance ([Greek: ê( tou= o(po/ter' e)/tuchen]--p. 1027, b. 12). There must be principles and causes, generable and destructible, yet which never are either generated or destroyed; if this were not so, all events would occur by necessity (p. 1026, b. 29-31). (Thus the builder, considered as cause of the house which he builds, has been generated, _i.e._, he has acquired the art of building and the proper accessories; and he will be destroyed, _i.e._, he will lose his art, and its conditions of being exercised. But, considered as the cause of the accidents belonging to the house, of its being annoying or inconvenient to A or B, he has not been generated nor will he be destroyed; _i.e._, he has neither acquired, nor will he lose, any skill or conditions tending to the production of this effect. As the contact of two substances is not generated, but appears of itself along with the substances when they are generated; as the limits of periods of time appear without generation along with the periods of time themselves; so the builder, when he acquires the power of building the house, stands possessed thereby, without any additional time or special generation, of the power to produce the concomitant accidents of the house. The house is thus produced by necessity; its concomitant accidents not by necessity--Alex. Schol. p. 738, a. 19-33.)
But whether this [Greek: to\ o(po/ter' e)/tuchen] is to be considered as referable to Matter, End, or Movent, is a point important to be determined (p. 1027, b. 15). Aristotle shows elsewhere that it is referable to the last of the three--[Greek: to\ poiêtiko/n] (Asklepius, p. 738, b. 41).
Having now said enough upon Ens _per Accidens_, we proceed to touch upon the second variety of Ens--Ens as the True, Non-Ens as the False.
This variety of Ens depends upon conjunction and disjunction, and forms an aggregate of two portions separately exhibited and brought together in the Antiphasis. Such conjunction and disjunction is not in things themselves; but in the act of intelligence which thinks the two things together and not successively: in regard to simple matters and Essence, not even any special conjoining act of intelligence is required; such things must be conceived together, or not conceived at all (p. 1027, b. 27). The mental act of apprehension, in these cases, is one and indivisible: you either have it entire at once, or not at all.
The cause of this variety of Ens is to be found in a certain affection of the intelligence; that of the preceding variety of Ens is an undefined or indeterminate cause (b. 34). Both these two varieties of Ens are peculiar, standing apart from what is most properly and _par excellence_ Ens, _i.e._, from the Ens according to the ten Categories, on which we shall now say something.
. . . . . .
Book Z.
We have already stated that Ens is a [Greek: pollachô=s lego/menon]--distinguished according to the ten figures or genera called Categories. The first is [Greek: ti/ e)stin], or [Greek: ou)si/a] (_sensu dignissimo_)--Essentia, Substantia (p. 1028, a. 15). The remaining Categories are all appendages of Essentia, presupposing it, and inseparable from it; whereas Essentia is separable from all of them, and stands first in reason, in cognition, and in time. All the other Categories are called Entia only because they are quantities, qualities, affections, &c., of this Essentia Prima. A man may even doubt whether they are Entia or Non-Entia, since none of them is either _per se_ or separable. We ought hardly to say that a quality or an affection, enunciated abstractedly, is Ens at all--such as _currere_, _sedere_, _sanitas_: we ought more properly to say that _currens equus_, _sedens homo_, _sanus miles_, are Entia, enunciating along with the quality the definite Essence or Individual Substance to which it belongs (a. 24). The quality then becomes Ens, because the subject to which it belongs is an individual Ens (a. 27). Essentia Prima is first in reason or rational explanation ([Greek: lo/gô|], a. 34), because in the rational explanation of each of the rest that of Essentia is implicated. It is first also in cognition, because we believe ourselves to know any thing fully, when we are able to answer _Quid est_? and say that it is _homo_ or _ignis_; not simply when we are able to answer _Quale_ or _Quantum est_? So that in answering the great and often-considered question, _Quid est Ens_? we shall first understand it as meaning Essentia (_hoc sensu dignissimo_), and shall try to solve it so (b. 3, [Greek: peri\ tou= _ou(/tôs_ o)/ntos]).
Essentia (understood in this sense) appears to belong in the most manifest manner to bodies: we predicate it of animals, plants, the parts thereof, the natural bodies such as fire, water, and such like, as well as the parts and aggregates thereof, such as the heaven and its parts, the stars, moon, and sun (p. 1028, b. 7-13). But are these the only Essences, or are there others besides? Or again, is it an error to call _these_ Essences, and are all Essences really something different from these? This is a point to be examined. Some think that the limits of bodies (surface, line, point, monad) are Essences even more than the body and the solid: others admit no Essences at all beyond or apart from Percipienda; others again recognize other Essences distinct from and more eternal than the Percipienda; for example, Plato, who ranks Ideas or Forms, and the Mathematica, as two distinct Essences, while he places the Percipienda only third in the scale of Essence. Speusippus even enumerates a still greater number of Essences, beginning with the One, and proceeding to Numbers, Magnitudes, Soul, &c., with a distinct [Greek: a)rchê/] or principle for each (b. 21). Some others hold that Forms and Numbers have the same nature, and that there are other things coming near to these, such as lines and surfaces, in a descending scale to the Heaven and the Percipienda (b. 24). We must thus investigate which of these doctrines are true or false, whether there are any Essences beyond the Percipienda; and, if so, how they exist: whether there is any separable essence apart from Percipienda, and, if so, how and why; or whether there is nothing of the kind. But first we must give a vague outline what Essence is generally ([Greek: u(potupôsame/nois], b. 31).
There are four principal varieties of meaning in this Essentia, [Greek: kuri/ôs] or _sensu dignissimo_: (1) [Greek: to\ ti/ ê)=n ei)=nai], (2) [Greek: to\ katho/lou], (3) [Greek: to\ ge/nos], (4) [Greek: to\ u(pokei/menon].
We shall first speak about the fourth--Substratum--which is the subject of all predicates, but never itself the predicate of any subject. That which appears most of all to be Essentia is, [Greek: to\ u(pokei/menon prô=ton]. This name applies, in one point of view, to Matter; in another, to Form; in a third, to the total result of the two implicated together (p. 1029, a. 1): _e.g._, the brass, the figure, and the complete statue of figured brass. If, therefore, the Form be _prius_, and more Ens, as compared with the Matter, it will be also _prius_ and more Ens as compared with the complete result. We get thus far in the adumbration of Essentia--that it is the subject of all predicates, but never itself a predicate.
But this is not sufficient to define it: there still remains obscurity. It would seem that Matter is Essentia; and that, if it be not so, nothing else is discernible to be so; for, if every thing else be subtracted, nothing (save Matter) remains. All things else are either affections, or agencies, or powers, of bodies; and, while length, breadth, depth, &c., are quantities belonging to Essence, Quantity is not Essence, but something belonging to Essence as First Subject. Take away length, breadth, depth, and there will remain only that something which these three circumscribe; in other words, Matter--that which, in itself and in its own nature, is neither Quantity, nor Quality, but of which, Quantity, Quality, and the other Categories, are predicated. All these Categories are predicated of Essence, and Essence of Matter; so that Matter is the last remaining _per se_ (p. 1029, a. 12-24). Take away Matter, and there remain neither affirmative nor negative predicates; for these negative predicates are just as much concomitants or accidents as the others (a. 25).
Upon this reasoning, it seems that Matter is the true Essence. Yet, on the other hand, this will be seen to be impossible. For the principal characteristic of Essence is to be separable and Hoc Aliquid. So that either Form, or the Compound of Form and Matter together, must be the true Essence. But this last, the Compound, may be dismissed as evidently unsuitable for the enquiry, not less than Matter separately; for it is manifestly posterior to either of the two components (p. 1029, a. 30). We must therefore investigate the Form, though it is full of difficulty (a. 33).
We shall begin the investigation from some of the Percipienda, which are acknowledged as Essence; for it is useful to go across from this starting-point to what is more cognizable ([Greek: pro\ e)/rgou ga\r to\ metabai/nein ei)s to\ gnôrimô/teron]--p. 1029, b. 3. These words ought properly to come immediately after [Greek: zêtête/on prô=ton]--p. 1028, a. 35, and the intervening words now standing in the text, [Greek: e)pei\ d' e)n a)rchê=|--peri\ au)tou=], ought to be transferred to a more proper place some lines lower down, immediately before the words, [Greek: kai\ prô=ton ei)/pômen]--p. 1029, b. 12. Bonitz has made this very just correction in his Observatt. pp. 129-130, referred to in his Notes on the Metaphysica.). Every man learns in this way--by proceeding from what is less cognizable by nature to what is more cognizable by nature. And the business ([Greek: e)/rgon]) of learning consists in making what is most cognizable to nature, most cognizable to ourselves also; just as, in practical matters, proceeding from what is good for each, to make what is good by nature good also for each man's self. For it will often happen that things first and most cognizable to each man's self, are only faintly cognizable, and have little or nothing of Ens (b. 9). Yet still, we must try to become cognizant of things fully knowable, by beginning with things poorly knowable, but knowable to us (b. 12).
Taking up these Percipienda, for the purpose of searching for Essentia in them, we shall first advert to [Greek: ti/ ê)=n ei)=nai], which we discriminated as one of the characteristics of Essentia, saying something about the rational explanation or definition of it (p. 1029, a. 12). The [Greek: t.ê.e.] of each subject is what is affirmed of it _per se_ ([Greek: e)/sti to\ t.ê.e. e(ka/stô| o(\ le/getai kath' au(to/]--a. 13). Your essence is not to be musical; you are not musical by yourself: your essence is, what you are _by yourself_. Nor does it even include all that you are by yourself. Surface is not included in the essence of white; for the essence of surface is not the same thing as the essence of white. Moreover white surface, the compound of both, is not the essence of white; because white itself is included in the definition of white--which cannot be tolerated. The definition, which explains [Greek: t.ê.e.], must not include the very word of which you intend to declare the [Greek: t.ê.e.] If you intend to declare the [Greek: t.ê.e.] of white surface by the words smooth surface, this does not declare it all: you only declare that white is identical in meaning with smooth (b. 22).
Now, since there are compounds in every one of the Categories, we must enquire whether there is a [Greek: t.ê.e.] belonging to each of these. Is there, for example, a [Greek: t.ê.e.] for white man? Let the meaning of these two words be included in the single word garment. Is there a [Greek: t.ê.e.] for garment? What is it to be a garment? You cannot answer; for neither is this an enunciation _per se_ (p. 1029, b. 29). Are we to say, indeed, that there are two distinct sorts of enunciation _per se_: one including an addition ([Greek: e)k prosthe/seôs]), the other, not? You may define by intimating something to which the matter defined belongs; _e.g._, in defining white you may give the definition of white man. Or you may define by intimating something which is not essential but accessory to the matter defined; _e.g._, garment signifying white man, you may define garment as white. Whereas the truth is, that, though a white man is white, yet to be white is accessory and not essential to him (p. 1030, a. 1).
But can we in any way affirm that there is any [Greek: t.ê.e.] to garment (taken in the above sense)? Or ought we to say that there is none (p. 1030, a. 2; Bonitz. Obss. p. 120)? For the [Greek: t.ê.e.] is of the nature of [Greek: to/de ti] ([Greek: o(/per ga\r to/de ti e)/sti to\ t.ê.e.]--a. 3), or Hoc Aliquid, _i.e._, a particular concrete; but, when one thing is affirmed of another, as when we say white man, this is not of the nature of [Greek: to/de ti], if [Greek: to/de ti] belongs to Essences alone (a. 5). Thus it appears that [Greek: to/de ti] belongs to all those matters of which the rational explanation can be given by Definition. For to give the equivalent of a name in many other words is not always to give a definition: if this were so, a paraphrase of any length, even the Iliad, might be called a definition. There can be no definition except of a primary something; which is affirmed, without being affirmed as something about another (a. 10). There will be no [Greek: t.ê.e.], therefore, except for species of a genus; for in these alone what is affirmed is not an affection or an accessory or by way of participation. Respecting every thing besides, there will be no [Greek: t.ê.e.] or definition, but there may be a rational explanation ([Greek: lo/gos]) of what the name signifies, or a more precise explanation substituted in place of a simpler (a. 16).
Yet have we not gone too far in restricting the applicability of [Greek: t.ê.e.] and Definition? and ought we not rather to say, that both the one and the other are used in many different senses (p. 1030, a. 18)? For the _Quid est_ ([Greek: to\ ti/ e)stin]) signifies in one way Essence and Hoc Aliquid, and in different ways all the other Categories each respectively. To all of them _Est_ belongs, though not in like manner, but primarily to one and consequentially to the rest; so also _Quid est_ belongs simply and directly to Essence, but in a certain way to the others (a. 21). Respecting Quale, Quantum, and the rest, we may enquire _Quid Est_? so that Quale also comes under the _Quid est_, though not absolutely or directly ([Greek: ou)ch a(plô=s], a. 25), but analogously to Non-Ens; for some assert in words that _Est_ belongs to Non-Ens also though not absolutely, viz., Non Ens _est_ Non-Ens--(a. 26).
Now we ought to be careful how we express ourselves about any particular matter, but we ought not to be less careful to determine how the matter itself really stands (p. 1030, a. 27: [Greek: dei= me\n ou)=n skopei=n kai\ to\ pô=s dei= le/gein peri\ e(/kaston, ou) mê\n ma=llo/n ge ê)\ to\ pô=s e)/chei.] This contrast of [Greek: pô=s dei= le/gein] with [Greek: pô=s e)/chei] appears to refer to what had been said two lines before: [Greek: _logikô=s_ phasi/ tines ei)=nai to\ mê\ o)/n]--verbal propositions distinguished from real.). The phraseology used just before is clear, and we must therefore recognize that [Greek: t.ê.e.], as well as [Greek: ti/ e)sti], belongs absolutely and primarily to Essentia, but in a secondary way to the other Categories; that is not absolutely, but [Greek: poiô=| t.ê.e., po/sô| t.ê.e.], &c. (a. 31). For we must either declare the Categories to be simply _æquivoca_, or we must recognize this addition and subtraction of the separate title of each, like the non-cognizable cognizable ([Greek: ô(/sper kai\ to\ mê\ e)pistêto\n e)pistêto/n]--a. 33. I do not understand these words, nor does the Scholiast or Bonitz explain them satisfactorily.). But the truth is, that they are neither _æquivoca_ nor _univoca_, but in an intermediate grade of relation--not [Greek: kath' e(/n], but [Greek: pro\s e(/n] (b. 3.). People may express this in what phrases they like; but the truth is, that there is both [Greek: t.ê.e.] and Definition, directly and primarily, of Essence; and of the other Categories also, but not directly and primarily. Of white man, you may give a rational explanation and a definition; but it will apply in a different manner to white and to the essence of man (b. 12).
There is a farther difficulty to be noticed. How are you to define any matter not simple but essentially compound, where two or more elements coalesce into an indivisible whole, like hollow-nosedness out of nose and hollowness. Here we have hollow-nosedness and hollowness belonging to the nose _per se_, not as an affection or accessory; not as white belongs to Kallias or man, but as male belongs to animal, or equal to quantity, _i.e._, _per se_ (p. 1030, b. 20). The subject is implicated with the predicate in one name, and you cannot enunciate the one apart from the other. Such predicates belong to their subject _per se_, but in a different sense (see Bonitz's note). You cannot properly define them, in the sense given above (b. 27). If definitions of such are to be admitted, it must be in a different sense: Definition and [Greek: t.ê.e.] being recognized both of them as [Greek: pollachô=s lego/mena]. Definition therefore is the mode of explanation which declares the [Greek: t.ê.e.], and belongs to Essences, either exclusively, or at least primarily, directly, and chiefly (p. 1031, a. 7-14).
We have now to enquire--Whether each particular thing, and its [Greek: t.ê.e.], are the same, or different (p. 1031, a. 15). This will assist us in the investigation of Essence; for apparently each thing is not different from its own Essence, and the [Greek: t.ê.e.] is said to be the Essence of each thing.
In regard to subjects enunciated _per accidens_, the above two would seem to be distinct. White man is different from the being a white man. If these two were the same, the being a man would be the same as the being a white man; for those who hold this opinion affirm that man, and white man, are the same; and, if this be so, of course the being a man must also be the same as the being a white man. Yet this last inference is not necessary; for _same_ is used in a different sense, when you say, Man and white man are the same, and when you say, The being a man and the being a white man are the same. But perhaps you may urge that the two predicates may become the same _per accidens_ (_i.e._, by being truly predicated of the same subject); and that, because you say truly, Sokrates is white--Sokrates is musical, therefore you may also say truly, The being white is the same as the being musical. But this will be denied ([Greek: dokei= d' ou)/]--p. 1031, a. 28).
In regard to subjects enunciated _per se_, the case is otherwise: here each thing is the same with its [Greek: t.ê.e.] Suppose, _e.g._, there exist any Essentiæ (such as Plato and others make the Ideas) prior to all others; in that case, if the [Greek: au)toagatho/n] were distinct from [Greek: to\ a)gathô=| ei)=nai], and the [Greek: au)tozô=|on] distinct from [Greek: to\ zô/|ô| ei)=nai], there must be other Essences and Ideas anterior to the Platonic Ideas. If we believe [Greek: t.ê.e.] to be Essentia, it must be an Essentia anterior and superior in dignity to these Ideas of Plato. Moreover, if the Essentiæ or Ideas, and the [Greek: t.ê.e.], be disjoined ([Greek: a)polelume/nai]--p. 1031, b. 3), the first will be uncognizable, and the last will be non-existent ([Greek: ta\ d' ou)k e)/stai]--b. 4). For to have cognition of a thing, is, to know its [Greek: t.ê.e.] This will be alike true of all [Greek: t.ê.e.]; all of them are alike existent or alike non-existent (b. 9). If [Greek: to\ o)/nti ei)=nai] be not identical with [Greek: to\ o)/n], neither is [Greek: to\ a)gathô=| ei)=nai] identical with [Greek: to\ a)gatho/n], &c. But that of which [Greek: to\ a)gathô=| ei)=nai] is not truly predicable, is not [Greek: a)gatho/n] (b. 11).
Hence we see that of necessity [Greek: to\ a)gatho/n] is one and the same with [Greek: to\ a)gathô=| ei)=nai]; likewise [Greek: to\ kalo/n], with [Greek: to\ kalô=| ei)=nai]; and so in all cases where the term enunciates a subject primarily and _per se_, not a predicate of some other and distinct subject (p. 1031, b. 13: [Greek: o(/sa mê\ kat' a)/llo le/gêtai, a)lla\ kath' au(ta\ kai\ prô=ta]). This last is the characteristic and sufficient mark, even if the Platonic Ideas be not admitted; and even more evidently so, if they be admitted (b. 14). It is at the same time clear that, if the Ideas be what Plato declares them to be, the individual perceivable subjects here cannot be Essences; for the Ideas are necessarily Essences, but not as predicable of a subject. If they were Essences, in this last sense, they would be Essences _per participationem_; which is inconsistent with what is said about them by Plato ([Greek: e)/sontai ga\r kata\ me/thexin]--b. 18).
These reasonings show that each separate thing, enunciated _per se_ and not _per accidens_, is the same with its [Greek: t.ê.e.]; that to know each thing, is, to know its [Greek: t.ê.e.]; that, if you proceed to expose or lay them out, both are one and the same ([Greek: ô(/ste kata\ tê\n e)/kthesin a)na/gkê e(/n ti ei)=nai a)/mphô]--p. 1031, b. 21; with Bonitz's explanation of [Greek: e)/kthesis] in his Note).
But that which is enunciated _per accidens_ (_e.g._, _album_, _musicum_) cannot be truly affirmed to be one and the same with its [Greek: t.ê.e.], because it has a double signification: it signifies both the accident and the subject to which such accident belongs; so that in a certain aspect it is identical with its [Greek: t.ê.e.], and in another aspect it is not identical therewith (p. 1031, b. 26). The being a man, and the being a white man, are not the same; but the subject for affection is the same in both (b. 28: [Greek: ou) tau)to\, pa/thei de\ tau)to/]--obscure). The absurdity of supposing, that the [Greek: t.ê.e.] of a thing is different from the thing itself, would appear plainly, if we gave a distinct name to the [Greek: t.ê.e.] For there must be another [Greek: t.ê.e.] above this, being the [Greek: t.ê.e.] of the first [Greek: t.ê.e.]; and it would be necessary to provide a new name for the second [Greek: t.ê.e.]; and so forward, in an ascending march _ad infinitum_. What hinders us from admitting some things at once, as identical with their [Greek: t.ê.e.], if the [Greek: t.ê.e.] be Essentia? (b. 31). We see from the preceding reasoning that not only the thing itself is the same with its [Greek: t.ê.e.], but that the rational explanation ([Greek: lo/gos]) of both is the same; for One, and the being One, are one and the same not _per accidens_, but _per se_ (p. 1032, a. 2). If they were different, you would have to ascend to a higher [Greek: t.ê.e.] of the being One; and above this, to a higher still, without end (a. 4).
It is therefore clear that, in matters enunciated _per se_ and primarily, each individual thing is one and the same with its [Greek: t.ê.e.] The refutations brought by the Sophists against this doctrine, and the puzzles which they start, _e.g._, Whether Sokrates and the being Sokrates are the same,--may be cleared up by the explanations just offered (p. 1032, a. 8). It makes no difference what particular questions the objector asks: one is as easy to solve as another (a. 10).
Of things generated, some come by Nature, some by Art, some Spontaneously. All generated things are generated out of something, by something, and into or according to something (p. 1032, a. 12). The word _something_ applies to each and all the Categories. Natural generation belongs to all the things whose generation comes from Nature ([Greek: e)k phu/seôs]); having [Greek: to\ e)x ou(=]--what we call Matter, [Greek: to\ u(ph' ou(=]--one of the things existing by nature ([Greek: tô=n phu/sei ti o)/ntôn]--a. 17), and [Greek: to\ ti/], such as a man, a plant, or the like, which we call Essences in the fullest sense ([Greek: ma/lista ou)si/as]). All things generated either by Nature or Art have Matter: it is possible that each of them may be, or may not be; and this is what we call Matter in each (a. 20). As an universal truth ([Greek: katho/lou]), Nature includes (1) That _out of which_, or Matter; (2) That _according to which_ ([Greek: kath' o(/]), every thing which is generated having a definite nature or Form, such as plant or animal; That _by which_, or nature characterized according to the Form, being the same Form as the thing generated but in another individual; for a man begets a man (a. 24).
The other generations are called Constructions ([Greek: poiê/seis]), which are either from Art, or from Power, or from Intelligence. It is with these as with natural generations: some of them occur both by spontaneity and by chance ([Greek: kai\ a)po\ tau)toma/tou kai\ a)po\ tu/chês]--p. 1032, a. 29; the principle of these last is apparently [Greek: _du/namis_], the second of the three _principia_ announced just before (?)); both in the one and in the other, some products arise without seed as well as with seed, which we shall presently advert to.
The generations from Art are those of which the Form is in the mind. By Form I mean the [Greek: t.ê.e.] of each thing and its First Essence ([Greek: tê\n prô/tên ou)si/an], p. 1032, b. 1). For, in a certain way, the Form even of contraries is the same; since the essence of privation is the opposite essence: for example, health is the essence of disease; for disease is declared or described as absence of health, and health is the rational notion existing in the mind and in science. Now a healthy subject is generated by such an antecedent train of thought as follows ([Greek: gi/gnetai dê\ to\ u(gie\s noê/santos ou(/tôs]--b. 6):--Since health is so and so, there is necessity, if the subject is to attain health, that such and such things should occur, _e.g._, an even temperature of the body, for which latter purpose heat must be produced; and so on farther, until the thought rests upon something which is in the physician's power to construct. The motion proceeding from this last thought is called Construction (b. 10), tending as it does towards health. So that, in a certain point of view, health may be said to be generated out of health, and a house out of a house; for the medical art is the form of health and the building art the form of the house: I mean the [Greek: t.ê.e.], or the Essence without Matter, thereof (b. 14). Of the generations and motions here enumerated, one is called Rational Apprehension, viz., that one which takes its departure from the Principle and the Form; the other, Construction, viz., that which takes its departure from the conclusion of the process of rational apprehension ([Greek: a)po\ tou= teleutai/ou tê=s noê/seôs]--b. 17). The like may be said about each of the intermediate steps: I mean, if the patient is to be restored to health, he must be brought to an even temperature. But the being brought to an even temperature, what is it? It is so and so; it will be a consequence of his being warmed. And this last again--what is it? So and so; which already exists potentially, since it depends upon the physician to produce it, the means being at his command ([Greek: tou=to d' ê)/dê e)p' au)tô=|]--b. 21).
We see thus that the Constructive Agency ([Greek: to\ poiou=n]) and the point from which the motion towards producing health takes its origin, is, when the process is one of Art, the Form present in the mind; and, when the process is one of Spontaneity, it proceeds from that which would be the first proceeding of the artist, if Art had been concerned. In the medical art, _e.g._, the artist begins by imparting warmth. He does this by rubbing. But this warmth might perhaps arise in the body without any such rubbing or interference by the artist. The warmth is the prime agent, in the case of spontaneous production. The warmth is either a part of health, or a condition to the existence of health, as bricks are to that of a house (p. 1032, b. 30).
Nothing can be generated, if nothing pre-existed--as has been already said before. Some part of what is generated must exist before: Matter pre-exists, as in-dwelling and not generated ([Greek: ê( ga\r u(/lê me/ros; e)nupa/rchei ga\r kai\ gi/gnetai au(/tê]--p. 1033, a. 1. I do not understand these last words: it ought surely to be--[Greek: e)nupa/rchei ga\r kai\ _ou)_ gi/gnetai au(/tê]. Bonitz's explanation suits these last words better than it suits the words in the actual text.).
But something of the Form or rational explanation ([Greek: tô=n e)n tô=| lo/gô|]) must also pre-exist. In regard to a brazen circle, if we are asked, _Quid est_? we answer in two ways: We say of the Matter--It is brass; We say of the Form--It is such and such a figure. And this is the genus in which it is first placed (p. 1033, a. 4).
The brazen circle has Matter in its rational explanation. But that which is generated, is called not by the name of the Matter out of which it is generated, but by a derivative name formed therefrom; not [Greek: e)kei=no], but [Greek: e)kei/ninon]. A statue is called not [Greek: li/thos], but [Greek: li/thinos]. But, when a man is made healthy, he is not said to be the Matter out of which the health is generated; because that which we call the Matter is generated out of Privation along with the subject. Thus, both the man becomes healthy, and the patient becomes healthy; but the generation is more properly said to come out of Privation: we say, _Sanus ex ægroto generatur_, rather than, _Sanus ex homine generatur_ (p. 1033, a. 12). In cases where the Privation is unmarked and unnamed, as, in the case of brass, privation of the spherical, or any other, figure, and, in the case of a house, the privation of bricks or wood, the work is said to be generated out of them like a healthy man out of a sick man (a. 14). Nevertheless the work is not called by the same name as the material out of which it is made, but by a paronym thereof; not [Greek: xu/lon] but [Greek: xu/linon] (a. 18). In strict propriety, indeed, we can hardly say that the statue is made out of brass, nor the house out of wood; for the _materia ex quâ_ ought to be something which undergoes change, not something which remains unchanged (a. 21).
It was remarked that in Generation there are three things or aspects to be distinguished--
1. [Greek: To\ u(ph' ou(=, o(/then ê( a)rchê\ tê=s gene/seôs].
2. [Greek: To\ e)x ou(=]--rather [Greek: u(/lê] than [Greek: ste/rêsis].
3. [Greek: Ti/ gi/gnetai].
Having already touched upon the two first, I now proceed to the third. What is it that is generated? Neither the Matter, nor the Form, but the embodiment or combination of the two. An artisan does not construct either the brass or the sphere, but the brazen sphere. If he be said to construct the sphere, it is only by accident ([Greek: kata\ sumbebêko/s]), since the sphere in this particular case happens to be of brass. Out of the entire subject-matter, he constructs a distinct individual Something (p. 1033, a. 31). To make the brass round, is not to make the round, or to make the sphere, but to make a something different: that is the Form (of sphericity) embodied in another thing (a. 32). For, if the artisan made the round or the sphere, he must make them out of something different, pre-existing as a subject: _e.g._, he makes a brazen sphere, and in this sense--that he makes out of that Matter, which is brass, this different something, which is a sphere. If he made the sphere itself--the Form of sphere--he must make it out of some pre-existent subject; and you would thus carry back _ad infinitum_ the different acts of generation and different pre-existent subjects (b. 4).
It is, therefore, clear that [Greek: to\ ei)=dos], or by whatever name the shape of the percipiend is to be called, is not generated, nor is generation thereof possible; nor is there any [Greek: t.ê.e.] thereof; that is, of the Form abstractedly: for it is this very [Greek: t.ê.e.] which is generated or becomes embodied in something else, either by nature, or by art, or by spontaneous power (p. 1033, b. 8). The artisan makes a brazen sphere to exist, for he makes it out of brass (Matter), and the sphere (Form): he makes or embodies the Form into this Matter, and that is a brazen sphere (b. 11). If there be any generation of the sphere _per se_ ([Greek: tou= sphaira=| ei)=nai]), it must be Something out of Something; for the Generatum must always be resolvable into a certain Matter and a certain Form. Let the brazen sphere be a figure in which all points of the circumference are equidistant from the centre; here are three things to be considered: (1) That in which what is constructed resides; (2) That which does so reside; (3) The entire Something generated or constructed--the brazen sphere. We see thus plainly that what is called the Form or Essence itself is not generated, but the combination called _according to the Form_ is generated; moreover that in every Generatum there is Matter, so that the Generatum is in each case this or that (b. 19).
Can it be true, then, that there exists any sphere or house beyond those which we see or touch (_i.e._, any Form or Idea of a sphere, such as Plato advocates)? If there existed any such, it could never have become or been generated into Hoc Aliquid. It signifies only _tale_. It is neither This nor That nor any thing defined: but it (or rather the Constructive Agency) makes or generates _ex hoc tale_; and when this last has been generated, it is Tale Hoc (p. 1033, b. 22), and the entire compound is Kallias, or Sokrates, or _this_ brazen sphere, while man, animal, &c., are analogous to brazen sphere generally. Even if there exist Platonic Forms by themselves, they could be of no use towards generation or the production of Essences. Frequently it is obvious that the Generans is like the Generatum, only a different individual. There is no occasion to assume the Platonic Form as an Exemplar; for the generating individual is quite sufficient of itself to be the cause of the Form in a new mass of Matter. The entire result is the given Form in these particular bones and flesh--called Kallias or Sokrates: each is different so far as Matter, but the same in the Form; for the Form is indivisible (p. 1034, a. 7).
But how does it happen that there are some things which are generated sometimes by art, sometimes spontaneously (_e.g._, health), while in other things (_e.g._, a house) spontaneous production never takes place? The reason is, that, in the first class of cases, the Matter which governs the work of generation by the artist, and in which itself a part of the finished product resides, is of a nature to be moved or modified by itself, while, in the second, this is not the fact; and to be moved, besides, in a certain manner and direction; for there are many things which are movable by themselves, but not in such manner and direction as the case which we are supposing requires. For example, stones are incapable of being moved in certain directions except by some other force, but they are capable of being moved by themselves in another direction; the like with fire. It is upon this that the distinction turns between some results which cannot be realized without an artist, and others which may perhaps be so realized (a. 17).
It is plain from what has been said that, in a certain sense, everything is generated from something of the same name, as natural objects are (_e.g._, a man); or from something in part bearing the same name (as a house out of the ideal form of a house), or from something which possesses that which in part bears the same name; for the first cause of the generation is itself part of the thing generated. The heat in the motion generates heat in the body; and this is either health, or a part of health, or the antecedent of one or other of these; hence it is said to produce or generate health, because it produces that of which health is concomitant and consequent (p. 1034, a. 30; see Bonitz's correction in his Note). Essence is in these cases the beginning or principle of all generations, just as in Demonstration it is the beginning or principle of all syllogisms (a. 33). In the combinations and growths of Nature, the case is similar. The seed constructs, as Art constructs its products; for the seed has in it potentially the Form, and that from which comes the seed is, in a certain manner, of the same name with the product (b. 1). For we must not expect to find _all_ generations analogous to that of man from man--woman also is generated from man, moreover, mule is not generated from mule--though this is the usual case, when there is no natural bodily defect (b. 3). Spontaneous generation occurs in the department of Nature, as in that of Art, wherever the Matter can be moved by itself in the same manner as the seed moves it: wherever the Matter cannot be so moved by itself, there can be no generation except the natural, from similar predecessors (b. 7, [Greek: e)x au)tô=n]--compare Bonitz's note: "non ex ipsis, sed [Greek: e)x au)tô=n tô=n poiou/ntôn]").
This doctrine--That the Form is not generated, does not belong to Essence alone, but also to all the other Categories alike--Quality, Quantity, and the rest (p. 1034, b. 9). It is not the Form Quality _per se_ which is generated, but _tale lignum_, _talis homo_: nor the Form Quantity _per se_, but _tantum lignum_ or _animal_ (b. 15). But, in regard to Essence, there is thus much peculiar and distinctive as compared with the other Categories: in the generation of Essence, there must pre-exist as generator another _actual_ and _complete_ Essence; in the generation of Quality or Quantity, you need nothing pre-existing beyond a _potential_ Quality or a _potential_ Quantity (b. 16).
A difficult question arises in this way: Every definition is a rational explanation consisting of parts; and, as the parts of the explanation are to the whole explanation, so are the parts of the thing explained to the whole thing explained. Now is it necessary or not, that the rational explanation of the parts shall be embodied in the rational explanation of the whole (p. 1034, b. 22)? In some cases it appears to be so; in others, not. The rational explanation of a circle does not include that of its segments; but the rational explanation of a syllable does include that of its component letters. Moreover, if the parts are prior to the whole, and if the acute angle be a part of the right angle, and the finger a part of the man, the acute angle must be prior to the right angle, and the finger to the man. Yet the contrary seems to be the truth: the right angle seems prior, also the man; for the rational explanation of acute angle is given from right angle, that of finger from man: in respect to existing without the other, right angle and man seem _priora_. In fact the word _part_ is equivocal, and it is only one of its meanings to call it--that which quantitatively measures another (b. 33). But let us dismiss this consideration, and let us enquire of what it is that Essence consists, as parts (b. 34). If these are (1) Matter, (2) Form, (3) The Compound of the two, and if each of these three be Essence, Matter must be considered, in a certain way, as a part of something, yet in a certain way as not so; in this latter point of view, nothing being a part except those elements out of which the rational explanation of the Form is framed (p. 1035, a. 2). Thus, flesh is not a part of flatness, being the matter upon which flatness is generated or superinduced, but flesh is a part of flat-nosedness; the brass is a part of the entire statue, but not a part of the statue when enunciated as Form, or of the ideal statue. You may discriminate and reason separately upon the statue considered as Form (apart from the complete statue); but you cannot so discriminate the material part _per se_, or the statue considered as Matter only (a. 7). Hence the rational explanation of the circle does not contain that of the segments of the circle; but the rational explanation of the syllable does contain that of the component letters. The letters are parts of the Form, and not simply the Matter upon which the Form is superinduced; but the segments are parts in the sense of being the Matter upon which the Form of the circle is superinduced (a. 12): they are, however, nearer to the Form than the brass, when the Form of a circle or roundness is generated in brass (a. 13). In a certain way, indeed, it cannot be said that _all_ the letters are contained in the rational explanation of the syllables; _e.g._, the letters inscribed in wax are not so contained, nor the sounds of those letters vibrating in the air; both these are a part of the syllable, in the sense of being the perceivable matter thereof (a. 17: [Greek: ô(s u(/lê ai)sthêtê/]). If a man be destroyed by being reduced to bones, ligaments, and flesh, you cannot for that reason say, that the man is composed of these as of parts of his Essence, but as parts of his Matter: they are parts of the entire man, but not of the Form, nor of what is contained in the rational explanation; accordingly they do not figure in the discussions which turn upon rational explanation, but only when the discussions turn upon the entire or concrete subject (a. 23). Hence, in some cases, things are destroyed into the same _principia_ out of which they are formed; in other cases, not. To the first class, belong all things which are taken in conjunction with Matter, such as the flat-nosed or, the brazen circle; to the second class, those which are taken disjoined from Matter, with Form only. Objects of the first class, (_i.e._, the concretes) have thus both _principia_ and parts subordinate; but neither the one nor the other belong to the Form alone (a. 31). The plaster-statue passes when destroyed into plaster, the brazen circle into brass, Kallias into flesh and bones; and even the circle, when understood in a certain sense, into its segments, for the term circle is used equivocally, sometimes to designate the Form of a circle, sometimes to designate this or that particular circle--particular circles having no name peculiar to themselves (b. 3).
That which has been already said is the truth; yet let us try to recapitulate it in a still clearer manner (p. 1035, b. 4). The parts of the rational explanation or notion, into which that notion is divided, are prior to the notion, at least in some instances. But the notion of a right angle is prior to that of an acute angle or is one of the elements into which the notion of an acute angle is divided; for you cannot define an acute angle without introducing the right angle into your definition, nor can you define the semicircle without introducing the circle, nor the finger without introducing the man--the finger being such and such a part of the man. The parts into which man is divided as Matter, are posterior to man; those into which man is divided as parts of his Form or Formal Essence, are prior to man--at least some of them are so (b. 14). Now, since the soul of animals (which is the Essence of the animated being--b. 15) is the Essence and the Form and the [Greek: t.ê.e.] of a suitably arranged body; and, since no good definition of any one part can be given, which does not include the function of that part, and this cannot be given without the mechanism of sense (b. 18), it follows that the parts of this soul, or some of them at least, are prior to the entire animal, alike in the general and in each particular case. But the body and its parts are posterior to the soul or Form, and into these, as parts, the entire man (not the Essence or Form) is divided. These parts are, in a certain sense, prior to the entire man, and, in a certain sense, not; for they cannot even exist at all separately (b. 23): the finger is not a finger unless it can perform its functions, _i.e._, unless it be animated by a central soul; it is not a finger in every possible state of the body to which it belongs; after death, it is merely a finger by equivocation of language. There are, however, some parts, such, as the brain or heart, to which the Form or Essence is specially attached which are neither prior nor posterior but _simul_ to the entire animal (b. 25).
Man, horse, and such like, which are predicated universally of particular things, are not Essentia; they are compounds of a given Form and a given Matter (but of that first Matter) which goes to compose Universals. It is out of the last Matter, which comes lowest in the series, and is already partially invested with Form, that Sokrates and other particular beings are constituted (p. 1035, b. 30).
Thus, there are parts of the Form or [Greek: t.ê.e.], parts of the Matter, and parts of the Compound including both. But it is only the parts of the Form that are included as parts in the rational explanation or notion; and this notion belongs to the Universal; for circle and the being a circle, soul and the being a soul--are one and the same (p. 1036, a. 2). Of the total compound (this particular circle), no notion, no definition, can be given: whether it be a particular circle perceivable by sense, in wood or brass, or merely conceivable, such as the mathematical figures. Such particular circles are known only along with actual perception or conception (a. 6. [Greek: Noei=n] here means the equivalent of [Greek: a)phairei=n = chôri/zein tê=| dianoi/a|]--"die Thätigkeit des Abstrahirens, durch welche das Mathematische gewonnen wird"--Schwegler ad loc. Comm., p. 101, Pt. II.): when we dismiss them as actualities from our view or imagination, we cannot say clearly whether they continue to exist or not; but we always talk of them and know them by the rational explanation or definition of the universal circle (a. 7: [Greek: a)peltho/ntas d' e)k tê=s e)ntelechei/as ou) dê=lon po/tero/n pote/ ei)sin ê)\ ou)k ei)si/n, a)ll' a)ei\ le/gontai kai\ gnôri/zontai tô=| katho/lou lo/gô|.] I apprehend that Aristotle is here speaking of the [Greek: ku/klos noêto/s] only, not of the [Greek: ku/klos ai)sthêto/s] or [Greek: chalkou=s ku/klos]. He had before told us that, when the [Greek: chalkou=s ku/klos] passes out of [Greek: e)ntele/cheia] or [Greek: phthei/retai], it passes into [Greek: chalko/s]. He can hardly therefore mean to say that, when the [Greek: chalkou=s ku/klos] passes out of [Greek: e)ntele/cheia], we do not clearly know whether it exists or not. But respecting the [Greek: ku/klos noêto/s] or mathematical circle, he might well say that we did not clearly know whether it existed at all under the circumstances supposed: if it cease to exist, we cannot say [Greek: ei)s o(\ phthei/retai]). Matter is unknowable _per se_ ([Greek: kath' au(tê/n]--a. 9, _i.e._, if altogether without Form). One variety of Matter is perceivable by sense, as brass, wood, and all moveable matter; another variety is conceivable, viz., that which exists in the perceivable variety, but not _quâ_ perceivable--the mathematical figures ([Greek: noêtê\ de\ ê( e)n toi=s ai)sthêtoi=s u(pa/rchousa mê\ ê(=| ai)sthêta/, oi(=on ta\ mathêmatika/]--a. 12; _i.e._, making abstraction of the acts of sense, or of what is seen and felt by sense, viz., colour by the eye, resistance by the touch; and leaving behind simply the extension or possibility of motion, which is a geometrical line).
We have now laid down the true doctrine respecting Whole and Part, Prius and Posterius. And, if any one asks whether the right angle, the circle, the animal, is prior or not to the parts into which it is divided and out of which it is formed, we cannot answer absolutely either Yes or No. We must add some distinguishing words, specifying what we assert to be prior, and to what it is prior (p. 1036, a. 19). If by the soul you mean the Form or Essence of the living animal, by the circle, the Form of the circle, by the right angle, the Form or Essence thereof,--then this Form is posterior in regard to the notional parts of which it is constituted, but prior in regard to the particular circle or right angle. But, if by soul you meant the entire concrete animal, by right angle or circle, these two figures realized in brass or wood, then we must reply that any one of these is prior as regards the material parts of which it is constituted (a. 25).
Another reasonable doubt arises here ([Greek: a)porei=tai d' ei)ko/tôs]--p. 1036, a. 26) as to which parts belong to the Form alone, which to the entire Concrete. Unless this be made clear, we can define nothing; for that which we define is the Universal and the Form, and, unless we know what parts belong to the Matter and what do not, the definition of the thing can never be made plain (a. 30). Now, wherever the Form is seen to be superinduced upon matters diverse in their own Form, the case presents no difficulty: every one sees circles in brass, stone, wood, &c., and is well aware that neither the brass, nor the stone, belongs to the Form or Essence of the circle, since he easily conceives a circle without either. But, if a man had never seen any circles except brazen circles, he would have more difficulty in detaching mentally the circle from the brass, and would be more likely to look upon brass as belonging to the Form of circle; although, in point of fact, he would have no more logical ground for supposing so than in the case just before supposed; for the brass might still belong only to the Matter of circle (b. 2). This is the case with the Form of man. It is always seen implicated with flesh, bones, and such like parts. Are these parts of the Form of man? Or are they not rather parts of the Matter, though we are unable to conceive the Form apart from them, because we never see it in conjunction with any other Matter? This is at least a possibility, and we cannot see clearly in what cases it must be admitted. Some theorists are so impressed by it as to push the case farther, and apply the same reasoning to the circle and triangle. These theorists contend that it is improper to define a circle and a triangle by figure, lines, continuity, &c., which (they affirm) are only parts of the Matter of circle and triangle; as flesh and bones are parts of the Matter of man. They refer all of them to numbers as the Form, and they affirm that the definition of the dyad is also the definition of a line (b. 12). Among the partisans of Ideas, some call the dyad [Greek: au)togrammê/] others call it the Form of a line; saying that in some cases the Form and that of which it is the Form are the same, as the dyad and the Form of the dyad, but that this is not true about line. (These two opinions seem to be substantially the same, and only to differ in the phrase. [Greek: Au)togrammê/] means the same as [Greek: to\ ei)=dos tê=s grammê=s]: it seems to have been a peculiar phrase adopted by some Platonists, but not by all. Others preferred to say [Greek: to\ ei)=dos tê=s grammê=s].) These reasonings have already misled the Pythagoreans, and are likely to mislead others also: they would conduct us to the recognition of one and the same Form in many cases where the Form is manifestly different: they lead us even to assume one single Form universally, reducing every thing besides to be no Form, but merely Matter to that one single real Form. By such reasoning, we should be forced to consider all things as One (b. 20), which would be obviously absurd.
We see from hence that there are real difficulties respecting the theory of Definition, and how such difficulties arise. It is because some persons are forward overmuch in trying to analyse every thing and in abstracting altogether from Matter; for some things include Matter along with the Form, or determined in a certain way, _i.e._, this along with that, or these things in this condition (p, 1036, b. 22). The comparison which the younger Sokrates was accustomed to make about the animal is a mistaken one (b. 24): it implies that man may be without his material parts, as the circle may exist without brass. But this analogy will not hold; animal is something perceivable by sense and cannot be defined without motion; of course, therefore, not without bodily members organized in a certain way (b. 30). The hand is not a part of man, when it is in any supposable condition, but only when it can perform its functions, that is, when it is animated; when not animated, it is not a part (b. 32). Clearly the soul is the first Essence or Form, the body is Matter, and man or animal is the compound of both as an Universal; while Sokrates, Koriskus &c., are as particulars to this Universal, whether you choose to take Sokrates as soul without body, or as soul with body (p. 1037, a. 5-10: these words are very obscure).
Respecting Mathematical Entia, why are not the notions of the **parts parts of the notion of the whole? _e.g._, why is not the notion of a semi-circle part of the notion of a circle? Perhaps it will be replied that this circle and semi-circle are not perceivable by sense: but this after all makes no difference; for some things even not perceivable by sense involve Matter along with them, and indeed Matter is involved in every thing which is not [Greek: t.ê.e.] and Form [Greek: au)to\ kath' au(to/]. The semi-circles are not included as parts of the notion of the universal circle; but they are parts of each particular circle: for there is one Matter perceivable and another cogitable (p. 1036, a. 34.--Bonitz remarks that these words from p. 1036, a. 22 to p. 1037, a. 5, are out of their proper place). Whether there be any other Matter, besides the Matter of these Mathematical Entia, and whether we are to seek a distinct Form and Essence for them--such as numbers, must be reserved for future enquiry. This has been one of our reasons for the preceding chapters about perceivable Essences; for these last properly belong to the province of Second Philosophy--of the physical theorist ([Greek: tê=s phusikê=s kai\ deute/ras philosophi/as e)/rgon]--p. 1037, a. 15). The physical philosopher studies not merely the Matter, but the Form or notional Essence even more (a. 17).
We are now in a position to clear up what was touched upon in the Analytica (Anal. Poster. II. p. 92, a. 27; also, De Interp. v. p. 17, a. 13), but not completed, respecting Definition. How is it that the definition is One? We define man _animal bipes_: How is it that this is One and not Many? Man and white are two, when the latter does not belong to the former: when it does so belong to and affects the former, the two are One--white man (p. 1037, b. 16): that is, they are One [Greek: kata\ pa/thos]. But the parts included in the definition are not One [Greek: kata\ pa/thos], nor are they one [Greek: kata\ me/thexin]; for the Genus cannot be said to partake of the Differentiæ. If it did, it would at one and the same time partake of Opposita, for the Differentiæ are Opposita to each other. And, even if we say that the Genus does partake of the Differentiæ, the same difficulty recurs, when the Differentiæ are numerous. The Genus must partake alike and equally of all of them; but how is it that all of them are One, and not Many? It cannot be meant that all of them belong essentially to the thing; for, if that were so, all would be included in the definition, which they are not. We want to know why or how those Differentiæ which are included in the definition coalesce into One, without the rest: for we call the _definiend_ [Greek: e(/n ti kai\ to/de ti] (b. 27).
In answering this question, we take, as a specimen, a definition which arises out of the logical subdivision of a Genus (p. 1037, b. 28). Definition is given by assigning the Genus and Difference: the Genus is the Matter, the Difference is the Form or Essence; the two coalesce into one as Form and Matter. In the definition of man--_animal bipes_--_animal_ is the Matter and _bipes_ the Form; so that the two coalescing form an essential One. It does not signify through how many stages the logical subdivision is carried, provided it be well done; that is, provided each stage be a special and appropriate division of all that has preceded. If this condition be complied with, the last differentia will include all the preceding, and will itself be the Form of which the genus serves as Matter. You divide the genus animal first into [Greek: zô=|on u(po/poun--zô=|on a)pou=n]; you next divide [Greek: zô=|on u(po/poun] into [Greek: zô=|on u(po/poun di/poun--zô=|on u(po/poun polu/poun]; or perhaps into [Greek: zô=|on u(po/poun schizo/pun--zô=|on u(po/poun a)/schiston]. It is essential that the next subdivision applied to [Greek: zô=|on u(po/poun] should be founded upon some subordinate differentia specially applying to the feet (p. 1038, a. 14: [Greek: au(=tai ga\r diaphorai\ podo/s; ê( ga\r schizopodi/a podo/tês tis]). If it does not specially apply to the feet, but takes in some new attribute (_e. g._, [Greek: pterôto/n, a)/pteron]), the division will be unphilosophical. The last differentia [Greek: zô=|on di/poun] includes the preceding differentia [Greek: u(po/poun]: to say [Greek: zô=|on u(po/poun di/poun] would be tautology. Where each differentia is a differentia of the preceding differentiæ, the last differentia includes them all and is itself the Form and Essence, along with the genus as Matter (a. 25). The definition is the rational explanation arising out of these differences, and by specifying the last it virtually includes all the preceding (a. 29: [Greek: o( o(rismo\s lo/gos e)sti\n o( e)k tô=n diaphorô=n, kai\ tou/tôn tê=s teleutai/as kata/ ge to\ o)rtho/n]).
In the constituents of the Essence, there is no distinctive order of parts; no subordination of _prius_ and _posterius_; all are equally essential and coordinate ([Greek: ta/xis d' ou)k e)/stin e)n tê=| ou)si/a|]--p. 1038, a. 33).
As we are treating now about Essence, it will be convenient to go back to the point from which we departed, when we enumerated the four varieties recognized by different philosophers. These were (1) The Subject--Substratum--Matter, which is a subject of predicates in two different ways: either as already an Hoc Aliquid and affected by various accidents, or as not yet an Hoc Aliquid, but simply Matter implicated with Entelechy (p. 1038, b. 6); (2) Form--Essence--the [Greek: t.ê.e.]; (3) The Compound or Product of the preceding two; (4) The Universal ([Greek: to\ katho/lou]). Of these four, we have already examined the first three; we now proceed to the fourth.
Some philosophers consider the Universal to be primarily and eminently Cause and Principle (p. 1038, b. 7). But it seems impossible that any thing which is affirmed universally can be Essence. For that is the First Essence of each thing which belongs to nothing but itself; but the Universal is by its nature common to many things. Of which among these things is it the Essence? Either of all or of no one. Not of all certainly; and, if it be the Essence of any one, the rest of them will be identical with that one; for, where the Essence is one, the things themselves are one (b. 15). Besides, the Essence is that which is not predicated of any subject: but the Universal is always predicated of a subject.
Perhaps, however, we shall be told, that the Universal is not identical with [Greek: t.ê.e.], but is Essence which is immanent in or belongs to [Greek: t.ê.e.], as animal in man and horse. But this cannot be admitted. For, whether we suppose animal to be definable or not, if it be essence of any thing, it must be the essence of something to which it belongs peculiarly, as _homo_ is the essence of man peculiarly; but, if animal is to be reckoned as the essence of man, it will be the essence of something to which it does not peculiarly belong; and this contradicts the definition of Essence (p. 1038, b. 15-23. This passage is very obscure, even after Bonitz and Schwegler's explanatory notes. I incline to Schwegler, and to his remark, Comm. II. p. 115, that the text of b. 23 ought to be written [Greek: e)n ô(=| _mê\_ ô(s i)/dion u(pa/rchei].).
Again, it is impossible that Essence, if composed of any elements, can be composed of what is not Essence, as of Quality; for this would make Quality _prius_ as regards Essence; which it cannot be, either in reason ([Greek: lo/gô|]), or in time, or in generation. If this were so, the affections would be separable from Essences (p. 1038, b. 28). Essence, if composed of any thing, must be composed of Essence.
Once more, if the individual man or horse are Essences, nothing which is in the definition of these can be Essence; nor apart from that of which it is Essence; nor in any thing else. There cannot be any man, apart from individual men (p. 1038, b. 34).
Hence we see clearly that none of the universal predicates are Essence: none of them signify Hoc Aliquid, but Tale. To suppose otherwise, would open the door to many inadmissible consequences, especially to the argument of the 'Third Man' (p. 1039, a. 2).
Another argument to the same purpose:--It is impossible that Essence can be composed of different Essences immanent in one Entelechy. Two in the same Entelechy can never be One in Entelechy. If indeed they be two _in potentiâ_, they may coalesce into one Entelechy, like one double out of two potential halves. But Entelechy establishes a separate and complete existence (p. 1039, a. 7); so that, if Essence is One, it cannot be made up of distinct Essences immanent or inherent. Demokritus, who recognized only the atoms as Essences, was right in saying, that two of them could not be One, nor one of them Two. The like is true about number, if number be, as some contend, a synthesis of monads. For either the dyad is not One; or else the monads included therein are not monads [Greek: e)ntelechei/a|] (a. 14).
Here however we stumble upon a difficulty. For, if no Essence can be put together out of Universals, nor any compound Essence out of other Essences existing as Entelechies, all Essence must necessarily be simple and uncompounded, so that no definition can be given of it. But this is opposed to every one's opinion, and to what has been said long ago, that Essence alone could be defined; or at least Essence most of all. It now appears that there can be no definition of Essence, nor by consequence of any thing else. Perhaps, however this may be only true in a certain sense: in one way, definition is possible; in another way, not. We shall endeavour to clear up the point presently (p. 1039, a. 22.--Schwegler says in his note upon this passage: "Die von Aristoteles häufig berührte, doch nie zur abschliessenden Lösung gebrachte, Grundaporie des aristotelischen Systems"--Comm. II. p. 117).
Those who maintain that Ideas are self-existent are involved in farther contradictions by admitting at the same time that the Species is composed out of Genus and Differentia. For, suppose that these Ideas are self-existent and that [Greek: au)tozô=|on] exists both in man and horse: [Greek: au)tozô=|on] is, in these two, either the same or different numerically. It is, of course, the same in definition or notion ([Greek: lo/gô|]); of that there can be no doubt. If it be numerically same ([Greek: ô(/sper su= sautô=|]) in man and in horse, how can this same exist at once in separate beings, unless we suppose the absurdity that it exists apart from itself (p. 1039, b. 1)? Again, are we to imagine that this generic Ens, [Greek: au)tozô=|on], partakes at the same time of contrary differentiæ--the dipod, polypod, apod? If it does not, how can dipodic or polypodic animals really exist? Nor is the difficulty at all lessened, if, instead of saying that the generic Ens partakes of differentiæ, you say that it is _mixed_ with them, or _compounded_ of them, or _in contact_ with them. There is nothing but a tissue of absurdities ([Greek: pa/nta a)/toma]--b. 6).
But take the contrary supposition and suppose that the [Greek: au)tozô=|on] is numerically different in man, horse, &c. On this admission, there will be an infinite number of distinct beings of whom the [Greek: au)tozô=|on] is the Essence; man, for example, since animal is not accidental, but essential, as a constituent of man (p. 1039, b. 8). [Greek: Au)tozô=|on] will thus be Many ("ein Vielerlei"--Schwegler); for it will be the Essence of each particular animal, of whom it will be predicated essentially and not accidentally ([Greek: ou) ga\r ka/t' a)/llo le/getai]--_i.e._, this is not a case where the predicate is something distinct from the subject). Moreover all the constituents of man will be alike Ideas (_e.g._, not merely [Greek: zô=|on], but [Greek: di/poun]): now the same cannot be Idea of one thing and Essence of another; accordingly, [Greek: au)tozô=|on] will be each one of the essential constituents of particular animals ([Greek: di/poun, polu/poun], b. 14).
Again, whence comes [Greek: au)tozô=|on] itself, and how do the particular animals arise out of it? How can the [Greek: zô=|on] which is Essence, exist apart from and alongside of [Greek: au)to\ to\ zô=|on]? (p. 1039, b. 15.)
These arguments show how impossible it is that there can exist any such Ideas as some philosophers affirm (p. 1039, b. 18).
We have already said that there are two varieties of Essence: (1) The Form alone, (2) The Form embodied in Matter. The Form or Essence in the first meaning, is neither generable nor destructible; in the second meaning it is both. [Greek: To\ oi)ki/a| ei)=nai] is neither generable nor destructible; [Greek: to\ tê=|de tê=| oi)ki/a| ei)=nai] is both the one and the other (p. 1039, b. 25). Of these last, therefore, the perceivable or concrete Essences, there can be no definition nor demonstration, because they are implicated with Matter, which is noway necessary, or unchangeable, but may exist or not exist, change or not change. Demonstration belongs only to what is necessary; Definition only to Science, which cannot be to-day Science and to-morrow Ignorance. Neither Science, nor Demonstration, nor Definition, applies to such things as may be otherwise: these latter belong to Opinion ([Greek: tou= e)ndechome/nou a)/llôs e)/chein]--p. 1040, a. 1). You cannot have Science or Demonstration or Definition about particular or perceivable things, because they are destroyed and pass out of perception, so that you do not know what continues to be true about them; even though you preserve the definition in your memory, you cannot tell how far it continues applicable to them (a. 7). Any definition given is liable to be overthrown.
Upon the same principle, there cannot be any definition of the Platonic Ideas; each of which is announced as a particular, distinct, separable, Ens (p. 1040, a. 8). The definition must be composed of words--of the words of a language generally understood--and of words which, being used by many persons, are applicable to other particulars besides the definiend (you define Alexander as white, thin, a philosopher, a native of Aphrodisias, &c., all of which are characteristics applicable to many other persons besides). The definer may say that each characteristic taken separately will apply to many things, but that the aggregate of all together will apply to none except the definiend. We reply however, that [Greek: zô=|on di/poun] must have at least two subjects to which it applies--[Greek: to\ zô=|on] and [Greek: to\ di/poun]. Of course this is all the more evident about eternal Entia like the Platonic Ideas, which are prior to the compound and parts thereof ([Greek: zô=|on] and [Greek: di/poun] are each prior and both of them parts of [Greek: au)toa/nthrôpos]), and separable, just as [Greek: au)toa/nthrôpos] is separable (a. 14-20); for either neither of them is separable, or both are so. If neither of them is separable, then the Genus is nothing apart from the Species, and the Platonic assumption of self-existent Ideas falls to the ground; if both are separable, then the Differentia is self-existent as well as the Genus (a. 21): there exist some Ideas prior to other Ideas. Moreover, the Genus and Differentia, the component elements of the Species, are logically prior to the Species: suppress the Species, and you do not suppress its component elements; suppress these, and you _do_ suppress the Species (a. 21). We reply farther that, if the more compound Ideas arise out of the less compound, the component elements (like [Greek: zô=|on di/poun]) must needs be predicable of many distinct subjects. If this be not so always, how are we to distinguish the cases in which it is true from those in which it is not? You must assume the existence of some Idea which can only be predicated of some one subject, and no others. But this seems impossible. Every Idea is participable (a. 27).
These philosophers do not reflect that definition is impossible of eternal Essences (which the Platonic Ideas are), especially in cases where the objects are essentially unique, as Sun, or Moon, or Earth (p. 1040, a. 29). When they try to define Sun, they are forced to use phrases which are applicable to many in common; but Sun, (and each Idea) is particular and individual, like Kleon or Sokrates. Why does none of them produce a definition of an Idea? If any one tried, he would soon see the pertinence of the above remarks (b. 3). (Alexander, Bonitz, and Schwegler, all observe incidentally that the reasoning of what immediately precedes is weak and sophistical. Bonitz, p. 352, gives a good summary of the chapter, concluding: "Hoc capite non id ipsum demonstrat, res singulas non esse substantias, sed rerum singularum non esse definitionem neque scientiam; nimirum quum substantiæ vel unice vel potissimum esse definitionem demonstratum sit, c. 4, hoc si comprobat, illud simul est comprobatum.")
It is farther evident that many apparent Essences are not strictly and truly Essences; for example, the parts of animals; since not one of them is separated from the whole ([Greek: ou)the\n ga\r kechôrisme/non au)tô=n e)sti/n]--p. 1040, b. 6; Alexander says _ad loc._: [Greek: ou)si/as e)kei=na/ phamen o(/sa kath' au(ta\ o)/nta du/natai to\ oi)kei=on e)/rgon a)potelei=n; ou)si/a ga\r ou)de\n a)/llo e)sti\n ê)\ to\ a)ph' ou(= to\ e(ka/stou e)/rgon e)kplêrou=tai; ou)si/a ga\r kai\ ei)=dos Sôkra/tous ê( tou= Sôkra/tous psuchê/, a)ph' ê(=s au)tô=| to\ tou= a)nthrô/pou ê(=| a)/nthrôpos e)/rgon e)kplêrou=n]). When any one of them is separated, it exists only in the character of Matter--earth, fire, air; none of them, in this separate condition, being an unity, but only like a heap of grains of gold or tin before they are melted and combined into one. We might suppose, indeed, that the parts of the body, and the parts of the soul, of animated beings, come near to Essence, both one and the other, alike potentially and actually (b. 12), because they have principles of motion in their turnings ([Greek: kampai=s]), so that in some cases they continue separately alive after division. Still the functions of the part alone must be really regarded as nothing more than potential, wherever the oneness and continuity of the whole is the work of Nature (b. 15), and not a mere case of contact or forcible conjunction.
Nevertheless the being One, or Unity (p. 1040, b. 16), is not itself the Essence of things. Unum is predicated in the same manner as Ens; the two may always be predicated together: the Essence of Unum is One; and things of which the Essence is Unum Numero, are themselves numerically one. Neither Unum nor Ens is the Essence of things any more than the being an Element, or the being a Principle, can be the Essence thereof: we have farther to enquire what the Principle is, in order to bring the problem into a more cognizable shape (b. 20). Unum and Ens are more near to Essence than either Element, Principle, or Cause; nevertheless neither Unum nor Ens is Essence; for nothing which is common to many things is Essence. Essence belongs only to itself and to that which has itself. Farther, Unum cannot be in many places at once; but that which is common is in many places at once. It is thus plain that nothing Universal exists apart or separate from particulars (b. 27).
The advocates of the (Platonic) Ideas are right in affirming them to be separate, if they be Essences; but they are wrong in calling that which is predicable of many things (the Universal) an Idea (p. 1040, b. 29). When asked, What are these indestructible Essences of which you speak, as apart from the visible individual objects?--they had no intelligible answer to give. Accordingly they were forced to make these Essences the same specifically with the destructible (individual) objects; for _these_ we do know (b. 33). They simply prefixed the word [Greek: au)to/] to the names of sensible objects--[Greek: au)toa/nthrôpos, au)toi+/ppos]. But these Ideas might still exist, even though we knew not what they were; just as eternal Essences like the stars would still exist, even though we had never seen them (p. 1041, a. 2).
Let us again examine what we call Essence, and what sort of thing it is; and let us take another point of departure, which may perhaps help us to understand what that Essence is which is apart and separate from perceivable Essences (p. 1041, a. 9). We know that Essence is a certain variety of Principle or Cause; and from this premiss we will reason (a. 10). Now the enquiry into Cause, or the Why, always comes in this shape: Why does one thing belong to another? The enquiry, Why a thing is itself? is idle. The fact--the [Greek: o(/ti]--must be assumed to be clear and known in the first instance. You know that the moon is eclipsed, as matter of fact; you proceed to enquire into the cause thereof (a. 11-24). Why does it thunder? or, to enunciate the same question more fully, Why is there noise in the clouds? The _quæsitum_ is always one thing predicated of another (a. 26). Why are these materials, bricks and stones, a house? Here the answer sought is, the Cause; and that is the [Greek: t.ê.e.], speaking in logical or analytical phraseology ([Greek: _logikô=s_]--_i.e._, that which belongs to the [Greek: _lo/gos_ tê=s ou)si/as]). In some cases, this _quæsitum_ is a Final Cause, as in the case of a bed or a house; in others, an Efficient or Movent Cause; for that also is a variety of Cause, generally sought for in regard to things generated or destroyed; but the other (viz., [Greek: to\ t.ê.e.], "ipsa rei forma ac notio, aut concepta in animo artificis, aut inclusa [Greek: duna/mei] in ipsâ naturâ ac semine rei"--Bonitz, Comm. p. 359) is sought for in regard to [Greek: ei)=nai].
The true nature of the _quæsitum_ is often unperceived, when the problem is announced without stating distinctly the subject and predicate in their mutual relations ([Greek: e)n toi=s mê\ katallê/lôs legome/nois], p. 1041, a. 33). For example, [Greek: a)/nthrôpos dia\ ti/ e)stin?] is ambiguous by imperfect enunciation. As it stands, it might be supposed to be intended as [Greek: a)/nthrôpos dia\ ti/ e)stin a)/nthrôpos?] which would be a question idle or null. To make it clear, you ought to distinguish the two members to which the real _quæsitum_ refers (b. 2), and say [Greek: dia\ ti/ ta/de ê)\ to/de e)sti\n a)/nthrôpos?] your real enquiry is about the [Greek: u(/lê] or Matter, why it exists in this or that manner. Why are these materials a house? Because the Essence of a house belongs to them (b. 6). Some [Greek: t.ê.e.], some sort of [Greek: ei)=nai], must belong to the Matter (b. 4). Why is this Matter a man? or why is the body disposed in this particular way a man? Here we enquire as to the Cause which acts upon a certain Matter; and that is the Form whereby the thing is; which again is the Essence (b. 8).
Hence it is plain that a distinction must be taken between the Simple and the Compound. The enquiry above described, and the teaching above described, cannot apply to the Simple, which must be investigated in another way (p. 1041, b. 9). Compounds are of two sorts--aggregates like a _heap_ (mechanical), and aggregates like a _syllable_ (organic or formal). In these last there are not merely the constituent elements, but something else besides (b. 16). The syllable _ba_ is something more than the letters _b_ and _a_; flesh is something more than fire and earth, its constituent elements. Now this _something more_ cannot be itself a constituent element; for, if that were so, flesh would be composed of three constituent elements instead of two, and we should still have to search for the _something beyond_, and this ulterior process might be repeated _ad infinitum_ (b. 22). Nor can the _something beyond_ be itself a compound of several elements, for we should still have to find the independent something which binds these into a compound. It is plain that this _something beyond_ must be in its nature quite distinct from an element, and must be the cause why one compound is flesh, another compound a syllable, and so about all the remaining compounds. Now this is the Essence of each compound--the First Cause of existence to each (b. 25). The Element ([Greek: stoichei=on]) is that into which the compound is separated, as included Matter ([Greek: e)nupa/rchon ô(s u(/lên]): _b_ and _a_, in the syllable _ba_ (b. 32). There are some things which are not the Essences of objects (white, for example, is not of the Essence of man, but an attribute); but, in all cases where compounds have come together according to Nature and by natural process, that Nature also which is not Element but Principle is the Essence (b. 28: [Greek: e)pei\ d' e)/nia ou)k ou)si/ai tô=n pragma/tôn, a)ll' o(/sai ou)si/ai kata\ phu/sin kai\ phu/sei sunestê/kasi, phanei/ê a)\n kai\ au(/tê ê( phu/sis ou)si/a, ê(/ e)stin ou) stoichei=on a)ll' a)rchê/.] Schwegler in his note, p. 135, proposes to correct this passage by striking out [Greek: kai/] before the words [Greek: au(tê\ ê( phu/sis ou)si/a]. But, if this were done, it would make the passage mean that [Greek: u(/lê] or [Greek: stoichei=on] is not [Greek: ou)si/a], and that the other [Greek: phu/sis] which is not [Greek: stoichei=on], is to be regarded exclusively as [Greek: ou)si/a]. Now this is certainly not the doctrine of Aristotle, who expressly declares [Greek: u(/lê] to be [Greek: ou)si/a]; see H, p. 1042, a. 32. Retaining the [Greek: kai/], the passage will then mean that not merely [Greek: u(/lê], but _also_ [Greek: phu/sis] which is not [Greek: u(/lê], is [Greek: ou)si/a]).
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Book [Greek: Ê].
In this Book, Aristotle begins by recapitulating the doctrines and discussions of the preceding. His purpose had been declared to be the investigation of the Causes, Principles, and Elements of Essences. Now Essences are diverse: some universally admitted, as the natural elements and simple bodies, also plants, animals, and the parts of each, lastly, the heaven and the parts thereof; others not universally admitted, but advocated by some philosophers, as the Ideas and Mathematical Entia; others, again, which we arrive at by dialectical discussion, as [Greek: to\ t.ê.e.], the Substratum (Logical Entia--[Greek: e)k tô=n lo/gôn], p. 1042, a. 12), the Genus more Essence than the Species, the Universal more Essence than Particulars. The (Platonic) Ideas make a near approach to the Genus and the Universal; they are vindicated as Essences upon similar grounds. Next, since [Greek: to\ t.ê.e.] is Essence, and since the Definition is the rational explanation of [Greek: t.ê.e.], we found it necessary to discuss Definition; and, since the Definition is a sentence having parts, we were called upon to examine these parts, and to explain what parts belonged both to Essence and to Definition. We decided farther, after discussion, that the Universal and the Genus were not Essence; the Platonic Ideas and the Mathematical Entia we postponed for the moment, and we confined ourselves to the perceivable Essences, recognized by all (a. 25).
Now all these perceivable Essentiæ include Matter. The Substratum--Matter in one way--is Essence; while, in another way, the Form and the [Greek: lo/gos] is Essence; and finally the Compound of the two is Essence. Matter is Hoc Aliquid, not [Greek: e)nergei/a|] but only [Greek: duna/mei]. Form is an Hoc Aliquid separable by reason ([Greek: tô=| lo/gô| chôristo/n], p. 1042, a. 29). The Compound of the two, the complete Hoc Aliquid, is capable of existing separably, in an absolute sense (which is true also of some Forms), and is liable alone to generation and destruction (a. 30).
It is clear that Matter also, not less than Form, is Essence; for in all changes from opposite to opposite, there is a certain substratum to such changes. Thus, in changes of Place, there is a substratum which is now here, presently there; in changes of Quantity, what is now of such and such a size, is presently greater or less; in changes of Quality, what is now healthy is presently sick; in changes of Essence, what is now in course of generation is presently in course of destruction, or what is now the substratum of some given Form (and is thus Hoc Aliquid) is presently the substratum of Privation, and thus no longer Hoc Aliquid. Among these four varieties of change ([Greek: kat' ou)si/an, kata\ poso/n, kata\ poio/n, kata\ to/pon]) the three last are consequent upon the first, but the first is not consequent upon all the three last; for we cannot maintain that, because a thing has Matter capable of local movement, it must therefore have generable and destructible Matter (p. 1042, b. 6).
Having discussed the Essence of perceivable things so far forth as _potential_, we now proceed to the same Essence so far forth as _actual_ ([Greek: ê( duna/mei ou)si/a--ê( ô(s e)ne/rgeia ou)si/a tô=n ai)sthêtô=n]--p. 1042, b. 10). What is this last? Demokritus recognizes a primordial body one and the same as to Matter, but having three differences--in figure, in position, in arrangement. But it is plain that this enumeration is not sufficient and that there are many other differences, to each of which corresponds a special acceptation of [Greek: e)/sti] ([Greek: to\ e)/sti tosautachô=s le/getai]--b. 26). Some differences depend upon the mode of putting together constituent materials ([Greek: sunthe/sei tê=s u(/lês]--b. 16), as mixture, tying, gluing, pegging, &c.; some upon position, as threshold, coping, &c.; some upon time; some upon place; some upon affections of perceivable things, such as hardness, softness, dryness, moisture, density, rarity, &c.; some upon combinations of the foregoing; some again simply upon excess or defect in quantity. To one or other of these, [Greek: e)/stin] has reference in each particular case. We say--This _is_ a threshold, because it lies in a particular manner: _Is_ (or _To be_--[Greek: to\ ei)=nai]) signifies in this case that particular manner of lying. To be ice, is to have become solidified in this particular manner (b. 28). We must therefore look for the summa genera of the differences; in some cases [Greek: to\ ei)=nai] will be defined by all these differences: thus more or less dense, more or less rare, belong to the genus excess and defect; differences of figure, smoothness, roughness, &c., belong to the genus straight and curve; in other cases, to be, or not to be, will depend upon mixture, as the genus (p. 1043, a. 1).
If then the Essence is the cause why each thing is what it is, we must seek in these differences the cause why each thing is what it is (p. 1043, a. 3). None of these differences indeed is itself Essence,--not even when it is embodied or combined with Matter; but it is in each the analogue of Essence, and must be employed in defining, just as in real and true Essence we define by predicating of Matter the Actuality or Formality ([Greek: ô(s e)n tai=s ou)si/ais to\ tê=s u(/lês katêgorou/menon au)tê\ ê( e)ne/rgeia]--a. 6). Thus, if we define a threshold, we say--a piece of wood or stone lying in this particular way; if we define ice, we say--water frozen or solidified in this particular way, &c. The Form or Actuality of one Matter is different from that of another; so also is the rational explanation or Definition; in some cases it is composition, in others mixture, &c., and so forth. If any one defines a house by saying that it is stone or brick, he indicates only the potential house, for these are the Matter (a. 15); if he defines it--a vessel protecting bodies or property, he then assigns the Actuality ([Greek: e)ne/rgeian]); if he includes both of the above in his definition, he then gives the third Essence completed out of the two together ([Greek: tê\n tri/tên kai\ tê\n e)k tou/tôn ou)si/an]--a. 18). To define from the differences, is to define from the side of the Actuality or Form; to define from the included elements ([Greek: e)k tô=n e)nuparcho/ntôn]) is to define from the side of the Matter (a. 20).
We see herefrom what perceivable Essence is, and how it is: partly, of the nature of Matter; partly, of Form and Actuality or Energy: again, the third or Concrete, out of both combined (p. 1043, a. 28). Sometimes, it is not clear whether the name signifies this third Concrete, or the Form and Energy. Thus, when you say a house, do you mean a protective receptacle built of bricks? or do you mean simply a protective receptacle--the Form simply, without specifying the Matter? When you say a line, do you mean a dyad in length--Form in Matter? or simply a dyad--Form alone? When you talk of an animal, do you mean soul in body? or simply soul, which is the Essence and Actuality of a certain body? The word animal may be applied to both, not indeed univocally, as implying generic resemblance, but (quasi-univocally, or semi-univocally) by analogical relationship to a common term ([Greek: ou)ch ô(s e(ni\ lo/gô| lego/menon, a)ll' ô(s pro\s e(\n]--a. 36). This distinction however, though important in some respects, is unimportant so far as regards the investigation about perceivable Essence; for the [Greek: t.ê.e.] belongs to the Form and the Actuality (a. 38). Soul, and the being soul, are identical; but man, and the being man, are not identical; unless the soul be called man. Thus this identity exists in some cases, but not in others (b. 4). A syllable is not composed merely of letters and synthesis, nor is a house simply of bricks and synthesis; for the synthesis or the mixture does not proceed out of the elements which are put together or mixed (b. 8). The like is true in other cases; _e.g._, if the threshold is a threshold by position, the position does not proceed out of the threshold, but rather the threshold out of the position. Nor again is man simply animal and biped. If these two are the Matter, there must be something apart from and beyond them, something not itself an element nor proceeding out of an element--the Essence; which is indicated by abstracting from the Matter (b. 13). This, as being the Cause of Existence and of Essence ([Greek: ai)/tion tou= ei)=nai kai\ tê=s ou)si/as]--b. 14) is what is meant when Essence is spoken of.
This Essence or Form must be eternal; or at least, if destructible, it has never been destroyed; if generable, it has never been generated. For we have shown already that no one either constructs or generates Form: the Hoc Aliquid is constructed; the product of Form and Matter is generated (p. 1043, b. 18). As yet it has not been made clear whether the Essences of destructible things are separable or not: in some cases at least, they certainly are not--in those cases, namely, where there can exist nothing beyond the particular things, as a house or an implement (b. 21). Perhaps, indeed, these are not truly Essences--neither these particular things nor any other things which have come together not by natural process; for we might indicate Nature alone as the Essence in destructible things ([Greek: tê\n ga\r phu/sin mo/nên a)/n tis thei/ê tê\n e)n toi=s phthartoi=s ou)si/an])--b. 23. Aristotle seems to say in what precedes, that there is no [Greek: ge/nesis] or [Greek: phthora/] of [Greek: ou)si/a]; see Z. p. 1033, b. 17. But how is this to be reconciled with K. p. 1060, b. 18: [Greek: ou)si/as me\n ga\r pa/sês ge/nesi/s e)stin, stigmê=s d' ou)k e)/stin]? See Schwegler's Comm. explaining [Greek: gigno/menon] and [Greek: phtheiro/menon], Pt. II. pp. 82, 83).
Hence we see that the difficulty started by Antisthenes and others equally unschooled ([Greek: a)pai/deutoi]) is not without pertinence. They say that, as a definition is a sentence of many words, predicating something of something, so you cannot define _Quid est_: you can only define and inform persons _Quale Quid est_: you can only tell people what the definiend is like, not what it is in itself: you can tell them that silver is like tin, but you cannot tell what silver is. Upon this theory, definition may be given of Compound Essence, whether perceivable or cogitable; but not of the _primordia_ of which the compound consists. The definition must predicate a something, which is of the nature of Form, of another something, which is of the nature of Matter (p. 1043, b. 31).
If Essences are (as the Platonists say) in a certain sense Numbers, they are so in _this_ sense; not (as these philosophers affirm) in the character of assemblages of Monads. For the definition is a sort of number, divisible into indivisible units; and the number is so likewise. If you add any thing to, or deduct any thing from, a number (let the thing added or deducted be never so small), it will be no longer the same number; in like manner, neither the definition nor the [Greek: t.ê.e.], will be the same, if any thing be added or subtracted (p. 1044, a. 1). Each number must have something which makes its component units coalesce into one number, though the Platonic philosophers cannot tell what that something is; either the units are a mere (uncemented) heap, or else you must say what is that something which makes them _one_ out of many (a. 5). The definition also is one; yet these philosophers cannot explain what makes it one. The units of the number and that of the definition, is to be explained in the same way, and that of the Essence also; not as a monad or a point, but in each case like an Entelechy and a peculiar nature ([Greek: ou)ch, ô(s le/gousi/ tines, oi(=on mona/s tis ou)=sa ê)\ stigmê/, a)ll' e)ntele/cheia kai\ phu/sis tis e(ka/stê]--a. 9). A given number admits of no degrees, more or less: neither does a given Essence, unless it be taken embodied in Matter (a. 10).
Respecting the Material Essence ([Greek: peri\ de\ tê=s u(likê=s ou)si/as]--p. 1044, a. 15), we must not forget that, if there be one and the same First Matter common as a principle to all Generata or Fientia, there is nevertheless a certain Matter special or peculiar (proximate) to each ([Greek: o(/môs e)/sti tis oi)kei/a e(ka/stou]--a. 18; [Greek: oi)kei/a kai\ prosechê/s]--Alexander). Thus the Materia Prima of phlegm is, sweet or fat things; that of bile is, bitter things and such like. Perhaps these two come both from the same Matter; and there are several different Matters of the same product, in cases where one Matter proceeds from another. Thus phlegm proceeds from fat and sweet, if fat proceeds from sweet; and even from bile, if bile be analysed into its First Matter from whence phlegm may proceed by a different road (a. 23). One thing may proceed from another in two different ways: either D may proceed from C, because C is its immediate Matter, already preformed up to a certain point, and thus on the way to a perfectly formed state; or D may proceed from C, after the destruction of C and the resolution of C into its Materia Prima ([Greek: dichô=s ga\r to/d' e)k tou=de, ê)\ o(/ti pro\ o(dou= e)/stai ê)\ o(/ti a)naluthe/ntos ei)s tê\n a)rchê/n]--a. 24). From one and the same Matter different products may proceed, if the moving cause be different: from the same wood there may proceed a box or a bed. What product shall emerge does not, however, depend only upon the Moving Cause, but often upon the Matter also; thus a saw cannot be made out of wool or wood. If the same product can proceed out of different Matter, this is evidently because the Art or Moving Cause is the same: if this last be different, and the Matter different also, the product will of course be different (p. 1044, a. 32).
When a man asks us, What is the Cause? we ought to reply, since the word has many senses, by specifying all the causes which can have a bearing on the case (p. 1044, a. 34). Thus, What is the Cause of man, as Matter? Perhaps the katamenia. What, as Movent? Perhaps the seed. What, as Form? The [Greek: t.ê.e.] What, as [Greek: ou(= e(/neka]? The End. These two last are perhaps both the same (a. 36). Moreover we ought to make answer by specifying the proximate causes (not the remote and ultimate). Thus, What is the Matter of man? We must answer by specifying the proximate matter; not fire and earth, the ultimate and elemental (b. 2).
This is the only right way of proceeding in regard to Essences natural and generable; since the Causes are many, and are what we seek to know. But the case is different in regard to Essences natural, yet eternal. Some of these last perhaps have no Matter at all; or at least a different Matter, having no attribute except local movability (b. 8. Alexander says in explanation: [Greek: le/gei de\ tê\n xu/mpasan tô=n o)ktô\ sphairô=n e(na/da--u(/lên ou) gennêtê\n kai\ phthartê\n a)lla\ mo/non kata\ to/pon kinêtê/n]--p. 527, 20-25, Bon.).
Again, in regard to circumstances which occur by Nature, but not in the way of Essence, there is no Matter at all: the subject itself is the Essence. Thus in regard to an eclipse: What is its Cause? What is its Matter? There is no Matter, except the moon which is affected in a certain way. What is the Cause, as Movent--here light-destroying? The earth. Perhaps there is no [Greek: ou(= e(/neka] in the case. But the Cause in the way of Form is the rational explanation or definition; and this must include a specification of the Movent Cause, otherwise it will be obscure. Thus, the eclipse is, privation of light; and, when you add--by the earth intervening, you then specify the Movent, and make your definition satisfactory (b. 15).
In defining sleep we ought to say what part of the system is first affected thereby; but this is not clear. Shall we indicate only the animal (as substratum)? But this is not enough. We shall be asked, What part of the animal? Which part first? The heart, or what other part? Next, by what Cause? Lastly, how is the heart affected, apart from the rest of the system? To say--Sleep is a certain sort of immobility, will not be a sufficient definition. We must specify from what primary affection such immobility arises (p. 1044, b. 20).
Since some things exist, and do not exist, without generation or destruction (as Forms, and Points, if there be such things as Points), it is impossible that all Contraries can be generated out of each other, if every generation be both _aliquid_ and _ex aliquo_. _Albus homo ex nigro homine_ must be generated in a different way from _album ex nigro_. Now Matter is only to be found in those cases where there is generation and change into each other; in other cases, where no change takes place, there is no Matter. There is a difficulty in understanding how the Matter of each substance stands in regard to the contrary modifications of that substance (p. 1044, b. 29). If the body is potentially healthy, and if disease is the contrary of health, are we to say that both these states are potential? Is water potentially both wine and vinegar? Or are we to say rather that the body is the Matter of health, and that water is the Matter of wine, in the way of acquisition by nature and by taking on the Form to which it tends; and that the body is the Matter of sickness, and wine the Matter of vinegar in the way of privation and of destruction contrary to nature (b. 34)? However, there is here some difficulty: Since vinegar is generated out of wine, why is not wine the Matter of vinegar, and potentially vinegar? Why is not the living man potentially a corpse? Is it not rather the truth, however, that these are accidental or contra-natural destructions ([Greek: kata\ sumbebêko\s ai( phthorai/]--b. 36, _i.e._, not in the regular appetency and aspirations, according to which the destruction of one Form gives place to a better); and that through such destruction the same Matter which belonged to the living man becomes afterwards the Matter of the corpse; likewise the Matter of wine becomes, through the like destruction, Matter of vinegar--by a generation like that of night out of day? Changes of this sort must take place by complete resolution into the original Materia Prima ([Greek: ei)s tê\n u(/lên dei= e)panelthei=n]--a. 3); thus, if a living animal comes out of a dead one, the latter is first resolved into its elements, and then out of them comes the living animal. So vinegar is first resolved into water, then out of the water comes wine (a. 5).
We shall now revert to the difficulty recently noticed, about Definitions and Numbers. What is the cause that each number and each definition is One? In all cases where there are several parts not put together as a mere heap, but where there is a Whole besides the parts, there must be some cause of this kind. With some bodies, contact is such cause; with others, viscosity ([Greek: glischro/tês]--p. 1045, a. 12), or some other affection. But the definition is one complex phrase, not by conjunction like the Iliad, but One by being the definition of one subject (a. 14). Now what is it which makes the subject man, One? Why is he One and not Many, say animal and a biped--more especially if there exist, as the Platonists say, a Self-animal and a Self-biped? Why are not these two [Greek: au)ta/] the man ([Greek: dia\ ti/ ga\r ou)k e)kei=na au)ta\ o( a)/nthrôpo/s e)sti?]--a. 17), so that individuals are men by participation not of one Self-man, but of the two--Self-animal, Self-biped? On this theory altogether, it would seem that a man cannot be One, but must be Many--animal and biped. It is plain that in this way of investigation the problem is insoluble.
But if, as _we_ say (p. 1045, a. 23), there be on one side Matter, on the other side Form--on one side that which is in Potency, on the other side that which is in Act (a. 24)--the problem ceases to be difficult. The difficulty is the same as it would be if the definition of _himation_ were, round brass: the word _himation_ would be the sign of that definition, and the problem would be, What is the Cause why round and brass are One? But the difficulty vanishes, when we reply that one is Matter, the other Form. And, in cases where generation intervenes, what is the Cause why the potential Ens is actual Ens, except the Efficient ([Greek: para\ to\ poiê=san]--a. 31)? There is no other Cause why the sphere in potency is a sphere in actuality: such was the [Greek: t.ê.e.] of each ([Greek: tou=t' ê)=n to\ t.ê.e. e(kate/rô|]--a. 33). Of Matter there are two varieties, the Cogitable and the Perceivable; and, in the Definition, a part is always Matter, a part is Form or Energy; as when we define the circle--a plane figure. (Aristotle argues:--On the Platonic theory that Ideas or Forms are Entia, separate from particulars, self-existent, and independent of each other, no cause can be assigned for the coalescence of any two or more of them into one; _e.g._ animal and biped, into man. But upon my theory, Form and Matter, Power and Act, are in their own nature relative to each other. It is their own inherent nature to coalesce into one, or for Power to pass into Act. This is the cause of their unity: no other cause can be found or is necessary. See Alexander, p. 531.)
In those cases where there is no Matter, either cogitable or perceivable, as in the Categories, Hoc Aliquid, Quale, Quantum, &c., each of them is, in itself and at once, both Ens and Unum (p. 1045, b. 2). Hence neither Ens nor Unum is included in the Definitions, and the [Greek: t.ê.e.] is, in itself and at once, both Ens and Unum. No other cause can be assigned why each of these is Ens and Unum; each of them is so, at once and immediately; yet not as if they were all included in Ens or Unum as common genera; nor as if they were apart and separable from particulars (b. 7).
Philosophers, who do not adopt this opinion, resort to various phrases, all unsatisfactory, to explain the coalescence or unity of the elements included in the Definition. Some call it [Greek: me/thexis], but they give no cause of the [Greek: me/thexis]; others [Greek: sunousi/a], or [Greek: su/ndesmos], or [Greek: su/nthesis]--of soul with body, as definition of life. But we might just as well use these phrases on other occasions, and say that to be well was a synthesis of the soul with health; that the brazen triangle was a [Greek: su/ndesmos] of brass with triangle; that white was a synthesis of superficies with whiteness (p. 1045, b. 15). These phrases carry no explanation; and these philosophers get into the difficulty by taking a wrong point of departure. They first lay down Power as different from Entelechy, and then look for an explanation which makes them one ([Greek: ai)/tion d' o(/ti duna/meôs kai\ e)ntelechei/as zêtou=si lo/gon e(nopoio\n kai\ diaphora/n]--p. 1045, b. 16, Schwegler observes that the two last words are loosely put, and that the clear words to express what Aristotle means would be: [Greek: zêtou=si lo/gon e(nopoio\n u(potithe/ntes diaphora/n]--Comm. II. p. 154.). But the truth is that Power and Entelechy are not essentially two, but only different aspects of one and the same. The Last Matter and the Form are the same; but the first is in potency, the second in perfect actuality ("Stoff und Form, Potenzielles und Actuelles, sind eins und dasselbe auf verschiedenen Entwicklungsstufen"--Schwegler II. p. 151). To enquire in any particular case what is the cause of this One, is the same as to enquire generally the cause of Unity. Each thing is a certain One; the Potential and the Actual are One, in a certain way (b. 20). So that no other Cause can be found except the Movent or Efficient--that which moved the matter out of Potency into Actuality. As to those things which have no Matter, each of them is One immediately and _per se_ (b. 23).
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Book [Greek: Th].
In discriminating the meanings of Ens, we noticed one [Greek: kata\ du/namin kai\ e)ne/rgeian] (apart from Ens according to the Categories). We shall now proceed to discuss these two terms [Greek: du/namis] and [Greek: e(ntele/cheia = e)ne/rgeia] (p. 1045, b. 35).
It is elsewhere mentioned ([Greek: D]. p. 1019) that [Greek: du/namis] has many senses, of which some (like the geometrical, &c.) are equivocal or metaphorical, so that we shall pass them over here (p. 1046, a. 6). But there is one first and proper sense of [Greek: du/namis], from which many others diverge in different directions of relationship or analogy (a. 10). That first and proper sense is--a principle of change _in alio vel quatenus aliud_, or a principle of change _ab alio vel quatenus aliud_ ([Greek: a)rchê\ metabolê=s e)n a)/llô| ê)\ ê(=| a)/llo--a)rchê\ metabolê=s u(p' a)/llou ê)\ ê(=| a)/llo]--a. 11, 14. The same definition is given in terms somewhat different at p. 1048, a. 28: [Greek: tou=to le/gomen dunato\n o(\ pe/phuke kinei=n a)/llo ê)\ kinei=sthai u(p' a)/llou, ê)\ a(plô=s ê)\ tro/pon tina/.] This Aristotle calls [Greek: ê( kata\ ki/nêsin du/namis]--expressed by Bonitz, Comm., p. 379: "agendi patiendive nisum quendam."). The notion of [Greek: du/namis] however extends more widely than this first sense of [Greek: du/namis kata\ ki/nêsin]. It includes other cases, as where we say that Hermes is [Greek: duna/mei] in the wood, and that the half foot is [Greek: duna/mei] in the whole foot (p. 1048, a. 33; Bonitz distinguishes this last sense as Möglichkeit, from the first sense as Vermögen, p. 379).
We begin by speaking about the first and proper sense--[Greek: du/namis ê( kata\ ki/nêsin]. One variety thereof is, when a thing has power of being passively affected so and so--when there resides in the thing a principle of passive change ([Greek: a)rchê\ metabolê=s pathêtikê=s]--p. 1046, a. 13) by something else or by itself _quatenus_ something else. (These last words are added because a sick man has the [Greek: du/namis] of being cured either by a physician, or by himself if he be a physician; but then in this last case he is to be looked upon in two different characters, as physician and as patient: he cures himself as physician, he is cured as patient.) Another variety of [Greek: du/namis kata\ ki/nêsin] is, when a thing has power of resisting change for the worse or destruction by any exterior principle of change (a. 14); as hardness in iron. Sometimes this [Greek: du/namis] is restricted to the cases in which a person can do the thing in question well: no man is said to have the power of speaking or singing unless he can perform these functions pretty well (a. 18).
In all these varieties, the general notion of [Greek: du/namis kata\ ki/nêsin] is included (p. 1046, a. 16). The active and passive [Greek: du/namis] are, in one sense, one and the same; in another sense, distinct and different. For one of them resides in the patient, the other in the agent (a. 27): sometimes the two come by nature together in the same thing; yet the patient does not suffer from itself as patient, but from itself as agent. Impotence ([Greek: a)dunami/a]) is the privation contrary to this [Greek: **du/namis]. Privation has many different meanings (a. 32).
Among these principles of change, some reside in the inanimate substances, others in the animated; not only in the soul generally, but also in the rational branch of the soul (p. 1046, a. 38). Accordingly some [Greek: duna/meis] are Rational, others Irrational. All arts and constructive sciences are [Greek: duna/meis] (or [Greek: a)rchai\ metablêtikai\ e)n a)/llô| ê)\ ê(=| a)/llo]--b. 3). In the rational capacities, the same capacity covers both contraries; in the irrational, each bears upon one of the two contraries exclusively; thus, fire will only heat but not chill, while the medical art will produce either sickness or health. The reason is, that Science is based upon rational explanations or definitions; and the same rational explanation declares both the thing itself and the privation thereof; though not indeed in the same manner: it declares, in a certain way, both together, and, in a certain way, chiefly the positive side (b. 10). Accordingly these sciences are sciences of both the contraries at once: namely, _per se_, of one side of the Antiphasis; not _per se_, of the other side; since the rational explanation also declares, directly and _per se_, only one side, while it declares the other side in a certain way indirectly, mediately, _per accidens_--_i.e._, by negation and exclusion ([Greek: a)popha/sei kai\ a)pophora=|].--b. 14). For the Contrary is the highest grade of privation; and this is the exclusion of one side of the alternative ([Greek: ê( ga\r ste/rêsis ê( prô/tê to\ e)nanti/on, au(/tê d' a)pophora\ thate/rou]--p. 1046 b. 15; Bonitz says that [Greek: to\ e)nanti/on] is the subject of this proposition, and [Greek: ê( ste/rêsis] the predicate). Both of two contraries cannot reside, indeed, in the same subject; but Science is a [Greek: du/namis] through rational explanation or reason in the soul which has within it a principle of motion; accordingly the soul can bring to pass either of the two contraries, through reference to the same rational notion or explanation which comprises both (b. 22).
The Megaric philosophers recognize no [Greek: du/namis] apart from [Greek: e)ne/rgeia]; affirming that no one has any power, except at the moment when he is actually exercising it. These philosophers are wrong (for various reasons indicated: p. 1046, b. 30--p. 1047, a. 20). Power and Act are distinct. A particular event is possible to happen, yet it does not happen; or possible not to happen, yet it does happen (p, 1047, a. 22). That is possible, to which, if the act supervene whereto such possibility relates, nothing impossible will ensue (a. 25). The name [Greek: e)ne/rgeia], appended to that of [Greek: e)ntele/cheia] ([Greek: ê( pro\s tê\n e)ntele/cheian suntitheme/nê]--a. 30), has come to be applied to other things chiefly from reference to motions; for motion is _par excellence_ [Greek: e)ne/rgeia]. Hence Non-Entia are never said to be moved, though other predicates may be applied to them: we may call them [Greek: dianoêta/] and [Greek: e)pithumêta/], but never [Greek: kinou/mena]; for, if we did, we should be guilty of contradiction, saying that things which are not [Greek: e)nergei/a|] are [Greek: e)nergei/a|]. Among the Non-Entia there are some which are Entia [Greek: duna/mei]: we call them Non-Entia, because they are not [Greek: e)ntelechei/a|] (b. 2).
If the definition above given of [Greek: to\ dunato/n] be admitted, we see plainly that no one can say truly: This is possible, yet it will never happen (p. 1047, b. 3, seq.).
Among all the various [Greek: duna/meis], some are congenital, such as the perceptive powers ([Greek: ai)sthê/seôn]--p. 1047, b. 31); others are acquired by practice, such as playing the flute; others by learning, like the arts: these two last varieties we cannot possess without having previously exercised ourselves in them actively (b. 34), but the others, which are more of a passive character, we may possess without such condition. This distinction coincides with that which was drawn previously between the rational and the irrational [Greek: duna/meis] or capacities: the rational capacities belonging only to a soul, and to the rational branch thereof. Now every [Greek: dunato/n] has its own specialities and conditions: it is itself a given something, and it is surrounded with concomitants of special time, place, neighbourhood, &c. (p. 1048, a. 1). The irrational capacities must necessarily pass into reality, whenever the active and the passive conditions come together, because there is but one reality to arise; but the rational capacities not necessarily, because they tend to either one of two contrary realities, both of which cannot be produced. Which of the two contraries shall be brought to reality, will depend upon another authority--the appetency or deliberate resolution of the soul: to whichsoever of the two, each possible, such sovereign appetency tends, that one will be brought to pass, when agent and patient come together and both are in suitable condition (a. 11); and under those circumstances, it will _necessarily_ ([Greek: a)na/gkê]--a. 14) be brought to pass. We need not formally enunciate the clause--"if nothing extrinsic occurs to prevent it": for this is already implied in the definition of [Greek: du/namis] which is never affirmed as absolute and unconditional, but always under certain given conditions (a. 18: [Greek: e)/sti d' ou) pa/ntôs, a)ll' e)cho/ntôn pô=s]). Accordingly the agent will not be able to bring about both sides of the alternative at once, even though appetite or deliberate resolution may prompt him to do it (a. 21).
Having thus gone through the variety of [Greek: du/namis] called [Greek: ê( kata\ ki/nêsin], we shall now give some explanations of [Greek: e)ne/rgeia]; in the course of which we shall be able to illustrate by contrast, the other variety of [Greek: du/namis], which was indicated above (p. 1048, a. 30). [Greek: E)ne/rgeia] is used when the thing exists, not [Greek: duna/mei]: meaning by [Greek: duna/mei] such as Hermes in the wood or the half-yard in the whole yard. We shall explain our meaning, by giving an induction of particulars; for definition cannot be given of every thing. We must group into one view the analogies following ([Greek: ou) dei= panto\s o(/ron zêtei=n, a)lla\ kai\ to\ a)na/logon sunora=n]--a. 37): As the person now actually building is to the professional builder not so engaged; as the animal awake is to the animal asleep; as the animal seeing is to the animal possessed of good eyes but having them closed; as that which is severed from matter is to matter ([Greek: to\ a)pokekrime/non]--b. 3); as the work completed is to the material yet unworked;--so is [Greek: e)ne/rgeia] to [Greek: du/namis]. The antithesis is not similar in all these pairs of instances, but there is a relationship or analogy pervading all ([Greek: ô(s tou=to e)n tou/tô| ê)\ pro\s tou=to, to/d' e)n tô=|de ê)\ pro\s to/de]--b. 8). In some of the pairs, the antithesis is the same as that of [Greek: ki/nêsis pro\s du/namin]; in others, it is the same as that of [Greek: ou)si/a pro/s tina u(/lên] (b. 9). In one member of each pair, we have [Greek: ê( e)ne/rgeia a)phôrisme/nê]; in the other [Greek: to\ dunato/n] (b. 5--[Greek: e)ne/rgeia] here is _reality severed and determinate_, as contrasted with [Greek: du/namis] _potentiality huddled together and indeterminate_.--See Schwegler's note: "Potenzialität und Aktualität sind reine Verhältnissbegriffe"--p. 172, seq.). But in all the above-named examples, that which is now [Greek: duna/mei] may come actually to be [Greek: e)nergei/a|]: the person now sleeping may awake; the person whose eyes are now closed may open them and see; the Hermes now in the wood may be brought out of the wood and exist as a real statue. It is otherwise with The Infinite, Vacuum, &c. These exist [Greek: duna/mei] only, and can never come to exist [Greek: e)nergei/a|], or independently. The Infinite can exist [Greek: e)nergei/a|] only for our cognition. The fact that the bisection thereof is never exhausted--that we may go on dividing as long as we choose--gives to the potential Infinite a certain actuality, though it cannot be truly separated (b. 16).
We must farther explain in what cases it is proper to say that a thing is [Greek: duna/mei], and in what cases it is not proper. You cannot properly say that earth is potentially a man: you may perhaps say that the semen is potentially a man; yet even _this_ not certainly, since other conditions besides semen are required (p. 1049, a. 2). The physician cannot cure every patient, yet neither is the cure altogether a matter of chance ([Greek: a)po\ tu/chês]--a. 4): there is a certain measure of cure possible, and that is called [Greek: to\ u(giai=non duna/mei]. The definition thereof, taken from the side of the agent, would be--that which will come to pass if he wills it, without any impediment from without; from the side of the patient--when no impediment occurs from within him (a. 8). In like manner, a house exists [Greek: duna/mei], when all the matter for it is brought together, without need either of addition or subtraction or change, and when there is no internal impediment; and so with other products of art, where the principle of generation is extrinsic to themselves. In natural products, where the principle of generation is intrinsic, we treat them as potentially existing, when this principle is in a condition to realize itself through itself, assuming no external impediments to interfere. Thus we do not call the semen potentially a man, because, before it becomes such, it must undergo change in something else, and therefore stands in need of some other principle; we call it so only when it is in such conditions that its own principle suffices. Earth is not said to be a statue [Greek: duna/mei], until it has first been changed into brass (a. 17). We call the product not by the name of the Matter itself, but by an adjective appellation derived from the next adjacent Matter; thus we call a box, not wood, but wooden: wood is then a box [Greek: duna/mei]. But we say this only of the proximate or immediate Matter, not of the remote or primary Matter. We must go back through successive stages to the first or most remote Matter; thus wood is not earth, but earthy: earth therefore is potentially wood. The earth may be aeriform; the air may be fiery; the fire has no analogous adjective whereby it can be called, and is thus the first or last Matter. But it is not said to be potentially any thing except the [Greek: su/ntheton] combined with Form immediately above it. Matter may be either proximate or remote: Potentiality is affirmed only of the proximate Matter.
Since all the different meanings of Prius have been enumerated and distinguished, it is plain that in all those meanings Actuality is _prius_ as compared with Potentiality: whether the [Greek: du/namis] be [Greek: a)rchê\ metablêtikê\ ( = kinêtikê\) e)n a)/llô| ê(=| a)/llo], like Art; or [Greek: a)rchê\ kinêtikê\ ê)\ statikê\ e)n au)tô=| ê(=| au)to/], like Nature (p. 1049, b. 5-10). Actuality is _prius_ both [Greek: lo/gô|] and [Greek: ou)si/a|]: it is also _prius_ [Greek: chro/nô|] in a certain sense, though not in a certain other sense.
It is _prius_ [Greek: lo/gô|], because the Actual is included in the definition of the Potential; that is, it must be presupposed and foreknown, before you can understand what the Potential is (p. 1049, b. 17). You explain [Greek: oi)kodomiko/s] or [Greek: o(ratiko/s] by saying that he is [Greek: duna/menos oi)kodomei=n ê)\ o(ra=n]: you explain [Greek: o(rato/n] by saying that it is [Greek: dunato\n o(ra=sthai]: [Greek: to\ dunato/n], in its first and absolute meaning, is [Greek: dunato/n] because it may come into Actuality (b. 13).
It is _prius_ [Greek: chronô=|] in the sense that the Potential always presupposes an Actual identical _specie_, though not identical _numero_, with that Actual to which the Potential tends. Take a man now existing and now seeing, or corn now ripe in the field: these doubtless, before they came into their present condition, must have pre-existed in Potentiality; that is, there must have pre-existed a certain matter--seed or a something capable of vision--which at one time was not yet in a state of Actuality (p. 1049, b. 23). But prior to this matter there must have existed other Actualities, by which this matter was generated: the Actual is always generated out of its Potential by a prior Actual, _e.g._, a man by a man, a musical man by a musical man; there being always some prior movent, which must be itself already in Actuality (b. 27). We have already declared that every thing generated is something generated out of something, and by something which is identical in species with the thing generated (b. 29). Hence it seems that there can be no builder who has built nothing, no harper who has never harped; for the man who is learning to harp learns by harping (b. 32); which gave occasion to the sophistical puzzle--That one, who does not possess the knowledge, will nevertheless do that to which the knowledge relates. The learner does not possess the knowledge; yet still he must have possessed some fragments of the knowledge: just as, in every thing which is in course of generation, some fraction must have been already generated; in every thing which is moved, some fraction has been already moved (b. 36).
Lastly, Actuality is _prius_ as compared with Potentiality (not merely [Greek: lo/gô|, kai\ chro/nô| e)/stin ô(/s], but also) [Greek: ou)si/a|] (p. 1050, a. 4). In the first place, that which is latest in generation is first in Form and in Essence; a man compared with a child, man as compared with semen. Man already possesses the Form, semen does not. Next, every thing generated marches or gradually progresses towards its principle and towards its end. The principle is the [Greek: ou(= e(/neka], and the generation is for the sake of the end. Now the end or consummation is Actuality, and for the sake of this the Potentiality is taken on ([Greek: lamba/netai]--a. 10). Animals do not see in order that they may have sight; they have sight in order that they may see: they do not theorize in order that they may possess theoretical aptitude, but the converse; except indeed those who are practising as learners. Moreover, Matter is said to exist potentially, because it may come into Form; but, when it exists actually, it is then in Form (a. 16). (Alexander says: [Greek: ô(/ste ka)\n tou/tô| prote/ra (ê( e)ne/rgeia) ô(s _e)pheto\n_ kai\ ta/sson kai\ ei)s ko/smon a)/gon duna/meôs]--p. 559, 10, Bon.) The case is the same where the end is nothing beyond a particular mode of motion (_e.g._, dancing): the dancing-master has attained his end when he exhibits his pupil actually dancing. In natural productions this is no less true than in artificial: Nature has attained her end, when the product comes into [Greek: e)ne/rgeia]; that is, when it is actually at work, from whence the name [Greek: e)ne/rgeia] is derived ([Greek: to\ ga\r e)/rgon te/los, ê( de\ e)ne/rgeia to\ e)/rgon--kai\ suntei/nei pro\s tê\n e)ntele/cheian]--a. 23).
In some cases (as we have often remarked) the ultimatum is use, without any ulterior product distinct from the use, _e.g._, the act of seeing is the ultimatum of the visual power (p. 1050, a. 24); in other cases there is something ulterior and distinct as a house from the building power. In the former of these cases, Actuality is the end of [Greek: du/namis]; in the latter it is more the end than [Greek: du/namis]. ([Greek: O(/môs ou)the\n ê(=tton e)/ntha me\n te/los e)/ntha de\ ma=llon te/los tê=s duna/meô/s e)stin; ê( ga\r oi)kodo/mêsis e)n tô=| oi)kodomoume/nô|, kai\ a(/ma gi/gnetai kai\ e)/sti tê=| oi)ki/a|]--a. 29. This passage is obscure: see the comments of Alexander, with the notes of Schwegler and Bonitz, who accuse Alexander of misunderstanding it; though it appears to me that neither of them is quite clear. I understand Aristotle to reason as follows:--[Greek: O(/rasis] is the [Greek: te/los], the [Greek: e)ne/rgeia], the consummation of the visual power called [Greek: o)/psis]; but [Greek: oi)kodo/mêsis], is not the [Greek: te/los], the [Greek: e)ne/rgeia], the consummation of the building power called [Greek: oi)kodomikê/]. This last has its [Greek: te/los], [Greek: e)ne/rgeia], consummation, in the ulterior product [Greek: oi)ki/a]. Nevertheless [Greek: oi)kodo/mêsis], residing as it does [Greek: e)n tô=| oi)kodomoume/nô|], and coming into existence simultaneously with the house, is more the end, more akin to the end or consummation than the building power called [Greek: oi)kodomikê/].)
In cases where there is an ulterior product beyond and apart from the exercise of the power, the Actuality (consummation) resides in that product (p. 1050, a. 31). In cases where is no such ulterior product, the Actuality resides in the same subject wherein the power resides. Thus sight resides in him who sees, and life in the soul. Hence also happiness resides in the soul; for happiness is a certain kind of life (b. 1).
It is thus plain that Actuality is the Essence and the Form, and that it is _prius_ [Greek: tê=| ou)si/a|] compared with Potentiality. And, as has been already remarked, one Actuality always precedes another, in time, up to the eternal Prime Movent (p. 1050, b. 5). Moreover, [Greek: e)ne/rgeia] is _prius_ to [Greek: du/namis] in respect to speciality and dignity ([Greek: kuriôte/rôs]--b. 6). For eternal things are _priora_ in essence to destructible things, and nothing is eternal [Greek: duna/mei], as the reason of the case will show us (b. 8).
All Potentiality applies at once to both sides of the Antiphasis--to the affirmative as well as to the negative. That which is not possible, will never occur to any thing; but every thing which is possible may never come to Actuality ([Greek: to\ dunato\n de\ pa=n e)nde/chetai mê\ e)nergei=n]--p. 1050, b. 10). That which is possible to be, is also possible not to be. Now that which is possible not to be, may perhaps not be ([Greek: e)nde/chetai mê\ ei)=nai]--b. 13); but that which may not be, is destructible, either absolutely (that is, in respect to Essence), or in respect to such portions of its nature as may not be, that is, in respect to locality or quantity or quality. Accordingly, of those things which are absolutely, or in respect to Essence, indestructible, nothing exists [Greek: duna/mei] absolutely or in respect to Essence, though it may exist [Greek: duna/mei] in certain respects, as in respect to quality or locality); all of them exist [Greek: e)nergei/a|] (b. 18). Nor does any thing exist [Greek: duna/mei], which exists by necessity; yet the things which exist by necessity are first of all (_i.e._, _priora_ in regard to every thing else); for, if they did not exist, nothing would have existed. Moreover, if there be any Eternal Motion, or any Eternal Motum, it cannot be Motum [Greek: duna/mei] except in respect to whence and whither; in that special respect, it may have Matter or Potentiality (b. 21).
Accordingly, the Sun, the Stars, and the whole Heaven, are always at work, and there is no danger of their ever standing still, which some physical philosophers fear ([Greek: a)ei\ e)nergei= o( ê(/lios]--p. 1050, b. 22); nor are they fatigued in doing this. Motion with them is not a potentiality of both members of the Antiphasis, either to be moved or not to be moved. If the fact were so--if their Essence were Matter and Power, and not Act--the perpetual continuity of (one side of the alternative) motion would be toilsome to them; but it is not toilsome, since Actuality is their very Essence (b. 28). Likewise mutable things (which are destructible), such as earth and fire, imitate these indestructible entities, being ever at work; for these elements possess motion by themselves and in themselves, each changing into another (b. 30; compare De Gen. et Corr. p. 337, a. 2). But the other [Greek: duna/meis] are all potentialities of both sides of the Antiphasis, or of both alternatives. The rational [Greek: duna/meis] can cause motion in such and such way, or not in such and such way; the irrational [Greek: duna/meis] may be present or absent, and thus embrace both sides of the alternative (b. 33).
Hence we draw another argument for not admitting the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, affirmed by the dialecticians ([Greek: oi( e)n toi=s lo/gois]--p. 1050, b. 35). If there existed such Ideas, they would be only [Greek: duna/neis**duna/meis] in respect to the [Greek: e)ne/rgeia] existing in their particular embodiments. Thus an individual cognizing man would be much more cognizant than [Greek: au)toepistê/mê]; a particular substance in motion would be much more in motion than [Greek: ki/nêsis] or [Greek: au)toki/nêsis] itself. For [Greek: au)toepistê/mê] or [Greek: au)toki/nêsis] are only [Greek: duna/meis] to the [Greek: e)pistê=mo/n ti] or the [Greek: kinou/meno/n ti], which belong to [Greek: e)ne/rgeia] (b. 36). (We may remark that in the Platonic Parmenides, p. 134, C., an argument the very opposite to this is urged. It is there contended that Cognitio _per se_ (the Idea) must be far more complete and accurate than any cognition which _we_ possess.)
It is thus plain that [Greek: e)ne/rgeia] is _prius_ to [Greek: du/namis], and to every principle of change (p. 1051, a. 2). It is also better and more honourable than [Greek: du/namis] even in the direction of good. We have already observed that [Greek: du/namis] always includes both of two contraries, in the way of alternative: one of these must be the good, the other the bad. Now the actuality of good is better than the potentiality of good; the actuality of health is better than the potentiality of health, which latter must also include the potentiality of sickness, while the actuality of health excludes the actuality of sickness. On the other hand, the actuality of evil is worse than the potentiality of evil; for the potentiality is neither of the two contraries or both of them at once (a. 17). Hence we see that evil is nothing apart from particular things; since it is posterior in its nature even to Potentiality: there is therefore neither evil, nor error, nor destruction, in any of the principia or eternal Essences (a. 19). (The note of Bonitz here is just:--"Quem in hac argumentatione significavi errorem--judicium morale de bono et malo immisceri falso iis rebus, a quibus illud est alienum--ei non dissimilem Arist. in proximâ argumentatione, si recte ejus sententiam intelligo, videtur admisisse, quum quidem malum non esse [Greek: para\ ta\ pra/gmata], seorsim ac per se existens, demonstrare conatur." Aristotle here as elsewhere confounds the idea of Good, Perfection, Completeness, &c., with that of essential Priority. But what he says here--[Greek: ou)k e)/sti to\ kako\n para\ ta\ pra/gmata]--can hardly be reconciled with what he says in the Physica (pp. 189, 191, 192) about [Greek: ste/rêsis], which he includes among the three [Greek: a)rchai/], and which he declares to be [Greek: kakopoio/s]--p. 192, a. 15.)
Lastly, we discover geometrical truths by drawing visible diagrams, and thus translating the Potentialities into Actuality. If these diagrams were ready drawn for us by nature, there would be no difficulty in seeing these truths; but, as the case stands, the truths only inhere in the figures potentially (p. 1051, a. 23: [Greek: ei) d' ê)=n diê|rêne/na, phanera\ a)\n ê)=n; nu=n d' e)nupa/rchei duna/mei]). If the triangle had a line ready drawn parallel to its side, we should have seen at once that its three angles were equal to two right angles. Potential truths are thus discovered by being translated into Actuality. The reason of this is, that the Actuality is itself an act of cogitation, so that the Potentiality springs from Actuality ([Greek: ai)/tion d' o(/ti no/êsis ê( e)ne/rgeia; ô(/st' e)x e)nergei/as ê( du/namis]--a. 30. It is not therefore true--what the Platonists say--that the mathematical bodies and their properties are [Greek: ou)si/ai kai\ e)nergei=ai]: they are only [Greek: duna/meis], and they are brought into being by our cogitation or abstraction). It is true that each individual diagram drawn is posterior to the power of drawing it (a. 32).
Having gone through the discussion of Ens according to the first of the ten Categories, and of Ens Potential and Actual, we have now to say something about Ens as True or False in the strictest sense of the words ([Greek: to\ de\ kuriô/tata o)\n a)lêthe\s ê)\ pseu=dos]--p. 1051, b. 1). These words mean, in reference to things, either that they are conjoined or that they are disjoined. To speak truth is to affirm that things which are disjoined or conjoined in fact, are disjoined or conjoined; to speak falsely, the reverse. The appeal is to the fact: it is not because we truly call you white, that you are white; it is because you really are white, that we who call you white speak truth (b. 9). If there are some things which are always conjoined, others always disjoined, others again sometimes conjoined sometimes disjoined, propositions in reference to the first two classes affirming conjunction or disjunction, will be always true or always false, while in reference to the third class propositions may be either true or false, according to the case (b. 10).
But what shall we say in regard to things Uncompounded? In respect to them, what is truth or falsehood--to be or not to be? ([Greek: ta\ a)su/ntheta]--p. 1051, b. 18). If we affirm white of the wood, or incommensurability of the diagonal, such conjunction of predicate and subject may be true or false; but how, if there be no predicate distinct from the subject? Where there is no distinction between predicate and subject, where the subject stands alone,--in these cases, there is no truth or falsehood in the sense explained above: no other truth except that the mind apprehends and names the subject, or fails to do so. You either know the subject, or you do not know it: there is no alternative but that of knowledge or ignorance; to be deceived is impossible about the question _Quid est_ ([Greek: to\ me\n thigei=n kai\ pha/nai a)lêthe/s, ou) ga\r tau)to\ kata/phasis kai\ pha/sis, to\ d' a)gnoei=n mê\ thigga/nein; a)patêthê=nai ga\r peri\ to\ ti/ e)stin ou)k e)/stin a)ll' ê)\ kata\ sumbebêko/s]--b. 25. The last words are thus explained by Bonitz: "nisi forte per abusum quendam vocabuli ipsam ignorantiam dixeris errorem"--p. 411.). All these uncompounded subjects exist actually, not potentially: if the latter had been true, they would have been generated and destroyed; but Ens Ipsum ([Greek: to\ o)\n au)to/]--b. 29) is neither generated nor destroyed; for, if it had been, it must have been generated out of something. Respecting all those things which exist in Essence and Actuality, you cannot be deceived: you may apprehend them in cogitation, or fail to apprehend them. The essential question respecting them is, whether they exist in such or such manner or not; as it is respecting the One and the Uncompounded--whether, being an existent, it exists thus and thus or not (b. 35). Truth consists in apprehending or cogitating them (p. 1052, a. 1): the contrary thereof is non-apprehension of them or ignorance ([Greek: a)/gnoia]), yet not analogous to blindness; for that would be equivalent to having no apprehensive intelligence ([Greek: ô(s a)\n ei) to\ noêtiko\n o(/lôs mê\ e)/choi tis]--a. 3; one is not absolutely without [Greek: noêtiko/n], but one's [Greek: no/êsis] does not suffice for apprehending these particular objects).
Respecting objects immoveable and unchangeable, and apprehended as such, it is plain that there can be no mistake as to the When ([Greek: kata\ to/ pote/]--p. 1052, a. 5; _i.e._, a proposition which is true of them at one time cannot be false at another time). No man will suppose a triangle to have its three angles equal to two right angles at one time, but not at another. Even in these unchangeables, indeed, a man may mistake as to the What: he may suppose that there is no even number which is a prime number, or he may suppose that there are some even numbers which are prime, others which are not so; but, respecting any particular number, he will never suppose it to be sometimes prime, sometimes not prime (a. 10).
(In respect to the meaning of [Greek: ta\ a)su/ntheta]--p. 1051, b. 17--Bonitz and Schwegler differ. Bonitz says, Comm. p. 409: "Compositæ quas dicit non sunt intelligendæ eæ quæ ex pluribus elementis coaluerunt, sed eæ potius, in quibus cum substantia conjungitur accidens aliquod, veluti homo albus, homo sedens, diagonalis irrationalis, et similia." Schwegler says, p. 187: "Unter den [Greek: mê\ sunthetai\ ou)si/ai] versteht Arist. näher diejenigen Substanzen, die nicht ein [Greek: su/ntheton] oder [Greek: su/nolon] sondern [Greek: a)/neu u(/lês (ou) duna/mei)] und schlechthin [Greek: e)nergei/a|], also reine Formen sind, und als solche kein Werden und Vergehen haben." Of these two different explanations, I think that the explanation given by Bonitz is the more correct, or at least the more probable.)
. . . . . .
Book [Greek: L].
We have to speculate respecting Essence; for that which we are in search of is the principles and causes of Essences (p. 1069, a. 18). If we look upon the universe as one whole, Essence is the first part thereof: if we look upon it as a series of distinct units ([Greek: ei) tô=| e)phexê=s], a. 20), even in that view [Greek: ou)si/a] stands first, [Greek: poio/n] next, [Greek: poso/n] third; indeed these last are not Entia at all, strictly speaking (a. 21)--I mean, for example, qualities and movements, and negative attributes such as not-white and not-straight; though we do talk of these last too as Entia, when we say _Est non-album_. Moreover Essence alone, and none of the other Categories, is separable. The old philosophers ([Greek: oi( a)rchai=oi]) are in the main concurrent with us on this point, that Essence is _prius_ to all others; for they investigated the principles, the elements, and the causes of Essence. The philosophers of the present day (Plato, &c.) declare Universals, rather than Particulars, to be Essences; for the genera are universal, which these philosophers, from devoting themselves to dialectical discussions, affirm to be more properly considered as Principles and Essences (a. 28); but the old philosophers considered particular things to be Essences, as fire and earth, for example, not the common body or Body in general ([Greek: ou) to\ koino\n sô=ma]--a. 30).
Now there are three Essences. The Perceivable includes two varieties: one, the Perishable, acknowledged by all, _e.g._, animals and plants; the other Eternal, of which we must determine the elements, be they many or one. There is also the Immoveable, which some consider to be separable ([Greek: a)/llê de\ a)ki/nêtos kai\ tau/tên tine\s ei)=nai phasi chôristê/n]--p. 1069, a. 33; [Greek: ou)si/a noêtê\ kai\ a)ki/nêtos]--Schwegler's note): either recognizing two varieties thereof, distinct from each other--the Forms and Mathematical Entia; or not recognizing Forms as separable Entia, but only the Mathematical Entia (a. 36). Now the first, or Perceivable Essences, belong to physical science, since they are moveable or endued with motion; the Immoveable Essences, whether there be two varieties of them or only one, belong to a science distinct from physical. The Perceivable and the Immoveable Essences have no common principles (b. 2).
The Perceivable Essence is subject to change ([Greek: metablêtê/]). Since change takes place either out of Opposites or out of Intermediates, and not out of every variety of Opposites, but only out of Contraries ([Greek: e)k tê=s oi)kei/as a)popha/seôs, e)k tê=s oi)kei/as sterê/seôs]--Alexander, pp. 644, 645, Bon.; the voice, _e.g._, is not white, yet change does not take place from voice to white, these being disparates, or of different genera: [Greek: ta\ ge/nei diaphe/ronta ou)k e)/chei o(do\n ei)s a)/llêla]--I. iv. p. 1055, a. 6), there must of necessity be a certain Substratum which changes into the contrary condition; for contraries do not change into each other. The substratum remains, but the contraries do not remain: there is therefore a third something besides the contraries; and that is Matter (p. 1069, b. 9). Since then the varieties of change are four: (1) [Greek: ge/nesis] and [Greek: phthora/ (kata\ to\ ti/)], (2) [Greek: au)/xêsis kai\ phthi/sis (kata\ to\ poso/n)], (3) [Greek: a)lloi/ôsis (kata\ to\ pa/thos] or [Greek: kata\ to\ poio/n]), (4) [Greek: phora/ (kata\ to/pon] or [Greek: kata\ to\ pou=]), each of these changes will take place into its respective contrary: the Matter will necessarily change, having the potentiality of both contraries (b. 14). Ens being two-fold, all change takes place out of Ens Potentiâ into Ens Actu, _e.g._, out of potential white into actual white; and the like holds for Increase and Decrease. Thus not only may there be generation from Non-Ens accidentally but all generation takes place also out of Ens; that is, out of Ens Potentiâ, not Ens Actu (b. 20). This Ens Potentiâ is what Anaxagoras really means by his Unum, which is a better phrase than [Greek: o(mou= pa/nta]; what Empedokles and Anaxagoras mean by their [Greek: mi=gma]; what Demokritus means when he says [Greek: o(mou= pa/nta]. They mean that all things existed at once potentially, though not actually; and we see that these philosophers got partial hold of the idea of Matter ([Greek: ô(/ste tê=s u(/lês a)\n ei)=en ê(mme/noi]--b. 24). All things subject to change possess Matter, but each of them a different Matter; even the eternal things which are not generated but moved in place, possess Matter--not generated, but _from whence whither_ (_i.e._, the Matter of local movement pure and simple--direction: [Greek: kai\ tô=n a)i+di/ôn o(/sa mê\ gennêta\ kinêta\ de\ phora=|, a)ll' ou) gennêtê/n (u(/lên), a)lla\ po/then poi=]--b. 26).
Since there are three varieties of Non-Ens (p. 1069, b. 27; Alexander and Bonitz explain this [Greek: trichô=s] differently), it may seem difficult to determine, out of which among the three Generation takes place. But the answer is, that the Potential Ens is not potential of every thing alike and at haphazard, but potential in each case from something towards something ([Greek: ei) dê\ ti/ e)sti duna/mei, a)ll' o(/môs ou) tou= tucho/ntos, a)ll' e(/teron e)x e(te/rou]--b. 29). Nor is it enough to tell us that all things are huddled together ([Greek: o(mou= pa/nta chrê/mata]--b. 30); for they differ in respect to Matter or Potentiality. If this were not so, how is it that they are of infinite diversity, and not all One? The Noûs (_i.e._, according to the theory of Anaxagoras) is One; so that, if the Matter were One also, it would become in actuality that which it was at first in potentiality, and the result would be all One and the Same (b. 32).
The Causes are thus three and the Principles are three: the pair of Contraries, one of them Form ([Greek: lo/gos kai\ ei)=dos]), the other Privation, and the third Matter (p. 1069, b. 35). But we must keep in mind that neither Materia Prima nor Forma Prima is generated. For in all Change, there is something (the Matter) which undergoes change; something by which the change is effected (the Prime Movent, [Greek: u(ph' ou(= me/n, tou= prô/tou kinou=ntos]--p. 1070, a. 1); and something into which the change takes place (the Form). The brass becomes round; but, if both the brass becomes and the round becomes, you will be condemned to an infinite regression: you must stop somewhere ([Greek: a)na/gkê dê\ stê=nai]--a. 4). Moreover, every Essentia is generated out of another Essentia of the same name and form ([Greek: e)k sunônu/mou]--a. 5). All generated things proceed either from Nature, Art, Fortune, or Spontaneity. It is Nature, where the principle or beginning is in the subject itself; it is Art, where the principle or beginning is in something apart from the subject; Fortune is the privation of Art; Spontaneity is the privation of Nature ([Greek: ai( de\ loipai\ ai)/tiai sterê/seis tou/tôn]--a. 9). Essentiæ are threefold: (1) Matter, which appears to be Hoc Aliquid but is not so, for detached members or fragments, simply touching each other without coalescing, are matter and substratum (_i.e._, prepared for something ulterior); (2) Nature, which is really Hoc Aliquid--a certain definite condition, into which generation takes place ([Greek: ê( de\ phu/sis kai\ to/de ti, ei)s ê(/n, kai\ e(/xis tis]--a. 12); (3) The Concrete of the two preceding--the individual object called Sokrates or Kallias. In some cases there is no Hoc Aliquid except in this Concrete or Compound; thus in artificial objects or productions, such as a house or health, there is no Form except the Art itself: the ideal house, pre-existing in the mind of the builder, is generated and destroyed in a different sense from the real house. It is in the case of natural objects, if in any case, that there exists a Hoc Aliquid independent of the concrete individual (a. 17).
Hence Plato was not wrong in saying that Forms were coextensive with natural objects ([Greek: o(po/sa phu/sei]--p. 1070, a. 18), if there are Forms distinct from these objects: such as fire, flesh, head, which are all properly Matter. The Last Matter (or that which has come most under the influence of Form) belongs to that which is in the fullest sense Essentia (or the individual concrete named Sokrates or Kallias--a. 20). The Moving Causes pre-exist, as real individual beings or objects: the Formal Causes come into existence simultaneously with the individual real compound. When the patient becomes well, then health comes at the same time into existence: when the brazen sphere comes, the sphericity of it comes at the same time (a. 24). Whether any thing of the Form continues after the dissolution of the individual compound, is a problem to be investigated (a. 25). In some cases nothing hinders but what it may continue; for example, the soul may be of such a nature: I do not mean every soul--for every soul perhaps cannot continue--but the [Greek: Nou=s] or rational soul (a. 27). Still it is plain that this affords no support to the theory of self-existent separate Ideas; for every individual man is begotten by another individual man. In like manner also with respect to the arts; for the medical art affords the Form or rational explanation of health (a. 30; _i.e._, health is generated, not by the Idea of Health, but by the medical art, or by the artist in whom that art is embodied).
Causes and principles, in one point of view, are different: different subjects; but in another point of view, they are the same for all; that is, if we speak generally and according to analogy (if we confine ourselves to the most general terms, Form, Privation, Matter, &c.). In respect to Essentia, Relatio, and the remainder of the Categories, a difficulty arises to say whether the causes, elements, and principles of all the Categories are the same. It would be strange if they were all the same; because then Essentiæ, as well as Relata, would proceed out of the same causes and elements. For, what can these latter be? They cannot be extra-categorical; since there exists no general class apart from or besides Essentia and the other Categories (p. 1070, b. 1). Nor can any one Category be the element of the others: for the element is _prius_ to that of which it is the element. Nor again can Essentia be the element of Relata; nor is any one of the nine Categories the element of Essentia. Again, how is it possible that the elements of all the Categories can be the same? No element can be the same as that compound of which it is an element: neither B nor A can be the same as B A. If, therefore, there were such elements, they must be extra-categorical; which is impossible. Nor can the element in question (the supposed one and the same) be any cogitable, such as Ens or Unum; for every individual Concrete is both Ens and Unum and the element cannot be identical with the compound put together out of it. Neither Essentia nor Relatio could be said to exist, if Ens were the element out of which they are composed; but these Categories exist necessarily: therefore there is no one and the same element common to all the Categories (b. 9).
Yet we ought perhaps rather to repeat, what was observed before, that in one sense, the elements of all are the same; in another sense, different. Take for example the perceivable bodies. We find here hot as the Form, cold as the Privation; as Matter, there is that which is, primarily and _per se_, both hot and cold potentially: the hot and the cold are both Essentiæ; likewise other things of which these are the principles, _e.g._, flesh and bone, which of necessity are different from the principles out of which they proceed (b. 15). Flesh and bone have these elements and principles; other things have other elements and principles. The same specific principles cannot be assigned to all, but only principles analogous to these in each case, as saying, in general terms, that there are three principles--Form, Privation, Matter. Each of these is different in every different genus; thus in colour, the principles are white, black, surface, light, darkness, air, and out of these are generated day and night (b. 21).
The three preceding causes are all intrinsic or immanent ([Greek: e)nupa/rchonta]). But there are other causes also extrinsic, such as the Movent. So that Principle and Element are not exactly identical; for Principle as well as Cause includes all the four: [Greek: to\ kinou=n ê)\ i(sta/n] is a Principle, and is itself an Essentia (p. 1070, b. 25). Thus the analogous Elements are three, while the Principles or Causes are four; but the four are specifically different in each different case. Thus, health is Form; sickness is Privation; body is Matter; the medical art is Movent. House is Form; disorder of a certain sort is Privation; bricks are Matter; the building art is Movent. We thus make out four Causes; yet, in a certain sense, there will be only three (b. 32). For, in natural products, a man is the Movent Cause of a man; in artificial products ([Greek: e)n toi=s a)po\ dianoi/as]) the Movent is Form or Privation. In a certain sense, the medical art is health, and the building art is the Form of a house, and a man begets a man. And farther, over and above these special movent causes, there is the Primum Movens of all (b. 35).
We distinguish what is separable from what is not separable. Now Essentiæ, and they only, are separable; accordingly they are the causes of every thing else, since without Essentiæ there cannot be either affections or movements (p. 1071, a. 2). Such causes would be soul and body, or reason, appetite, and body. Again, in another sense, the principles of all things are generically the same, though specifically different; such are Potentia and Actus. In some cases, the same thing exists now potentially, at another time actually; thus wine, though actually wine, is potentially vinegar; flesh is actually flesh, potentially a man, Potentia and Actus will merge in the above-mentioned causes--Form, Privation, Matter, Movent (a. 7). For the Form (if it be separable), the Concrete (of Form and Matter), and Privation (like darkness or sickness)--all these exist actually; while Matter exists potentially, capable either of Form or Privation. Things differ potentially and actually sometimes through difference in the Matter, sometime through difference in the Form. Thus, the cause of a man is, in the way of Matter, the elements fire and earth; in the way of Form his own Form, and the same Form in another individual--his father and besides these, the Sun with its oblique motion; which last neither Matter, nor Form, nor Privation, nor the like Form in another individual, but a Movent Cause ([Greek: a)lla\ kinou=nta]--a. 17).
We must remember, besides, that some things may be described in general terms, others cannot be so described. The first principles of all things are, speaking in general terms, Hoc Primum Actu and Aliud Primum Potentiâ. These universals do not really exist (p. 1071, a. 19), for the principium of all individuals is some other individual. Man indeed is the principium of the Universal Man but no Universal Man exists (a. 21). Peleus is the principium of Achilles; your father, of you; this B, of that B A; B, the universal, of B A the universal. Next (after the Movent) come the Forms of Essences; but the different genera thereof (as has been already stated), colours, sounds, essences, quantities, &c., have different causes and elements, though the same when described in general terms and by analogy; also different individuals in the same species have different causes and elements, not indeed different in species, but different individually; that is, your Matter, your Movent, your Form, are different from mine, though in general terms and definition they are the same ([Greek: tô=| katho/lou de\ lo/gô| tau)ta/]--a. 29).
When therefore, we enquire, What are the principles or elements of Essences, of Relata, of Qualities &c., and whether they are the same or different? it is plain that, generically speaking (allowing for difference of meaning--[Greek: pollachô=s], p. 1071, a. 31), they are the same in each; but, speaking distributively and with reference to particulars, they are different, and not the same. In the following sense ([Greek: ô(di/]--a. 34), they are the same, namely, in the way of Analogy ([Greek: tô=| a)na/logon]). They are always Matter, Form, Privation, the Movent; hence the causes of Essences are causes of all other things, since, when Essences disappear, all the rest disappears along with them: besides all these, there is the Primum Movens Actuale, common to all ([Greek: e)/ti to\ prô=ton e)ntelechei/a|]--a. 36). In the following sense, again, they are different--when we cease to speak of genera, and pass from equivocal terms to particulars: wherever there are different opposites (as white and black, health and sickness) and wherever there are different Matters ([Greek: kai\ e)/ti ai( u(=lai]--p. 1071, b. 1; [Greek: u(=lai] in the plural, rare).
We have thus declared, respecting the principles of Perceivable Essences, what and how many they are; in what respect the same, and in what respect they are different. Essences are threefold; two Physical and one Immoveable. We shall proceed to speak of this last. There exists, of necessity, some Eternal, Immoveable Essence. For Essences are the first of all existent things; and, if they all be perishable, every thing is perishable. But it is impossible that Motion can ever have been generated or can ever be destroyed; for it always existed: it is eternal. There is the like impossibility about Time: for, if Time did not exist, there could be nothing _prius_ and nothing _posterius_ (p. 1071, b. 8). Both Motion and Time are thus eternal; both are also continuous; for either the two are identical, or Time is an affection ([Greek: pa/thos]) of Motion. Now no mode of Motion is continuous except local motion; and that in a circle (for rectilinear motion cannot be continuous and eternal). There must be a Movent or Producent Principle ([Greek: kinêtiko\n ê)\ poiêtiko/n]--b. 12); but, if the Movent existed potentially and not actually, there could not be motion continuous and eternal; for that which has mere power may never come into act. There will be no use therefore in such eternal Essences as Plato assumes in his Ideas, unless there be along with them some principle of potential change ([Greek: ei) mê/ tis duname/nê e)ne/stai a)rchê\ metaba/llein]--b. 15). Nor indeed will even that be sufficient (_i.e._, any principle of _merely potential_ change), nor any other Essence (such as Numbers--Schwegler) besides or along with the Platonic Ideas; for, if this _principium_ shall not come into Actuality ([Greek: ei) mê\ e)nergê/sei]--b. 17), the motion which we postulate, continuous and eternal, will not result from it. Nor will it even be sufficient that the Movent Principle should be supposed to be in actuality or operation ([Greek: ou)d' ei) e)nergê/sei], p. 1071, b. 18), if its Essence be Potentiality: the motion resulting therefrom cannot be eternal; for that which exists potentially may perhaps not exist at all. The Movent Principles therefore must be something of which the Essence is Actuality (b. 19), and which shall be without Matter, for they must be eternal, otherwise nothing else can be eternal. They must therefore be essential Actualities (b. 22).
Here however, a difficulty suggests itself. It seems that every thing which is in actuality must also be in potentiality, but that every thing which is in potentiality does not in every case come into actuality: so that Potentiality seems the _prius_ of the two ([Greek: dokei= ga\r to\ me\n e)nergou=n pa=n du/nasthai, to\ de\ duna/menon ou) pa=n e)nergei=n]--p. 1071, b. 24; Bonitz compares p. 1060, a. 1: [Greek: a)rchê\ ga\r to\ sunanairou=n]). But, if this were true, no Entia could exist; for it may be that they exist potentially, but not yet exist actually (b. 26). There is the like impossibility, if we adopt the theory of those theologians (Orpheus, Hesiod, &c.) who take their departure from Night, or of those physical philosophers who begin with a chaotic huddle of all things. In both cases such original condition is one of mere potentiality; and how can it ever be put in motion, if there is to be no cause in actuality ([Greek: ei) mêthe\n e)/stai e)nergei/a| ai)/tion]--b. 29)? Matter will never cause motion in itself, but must wait for the carpenter's art; nor will the earth, but must wait for seed.
It is for this reason that some philosophers, like Plato and Leukippus, represent Actuality as eternal; for they say that motion has always existed. But they do not say what variety of motion, nor why that variety, to the exclusion of others. For nothing is moved at haphazard; there must always be some reason why it is moved in one way rather than another: for example, by nature in one way; by other causes, such as violence or Noûs, in some other way (p. 1071, b. 36). But it is not competent to Plato to assume what he sometimes does assume as principium (p. 1072, a. 2--allusion to Plato Phædrus 245, E), viz., a Self-Movent; for Plato affirms (in Timæus 34, B) that the soul is _posterius_, and coæval with the Kosmos. The doctrine just mentioned--That the Potential is prior to the Actual--is true in one sense, but not true in another; we have already explained _how_ ([Greek: ei)/rêtai de\ pô=s]--a. 4. Schwegler thinks, note p. 254, that this [Greek: ei)/rêtai] refers to what has been said in Book [Greek: Th], p. 1049, b. 3, seq.; and this seems probable, though Bonitz in his note contests it, and refers to his own theory, set forth in his Prooemium pp. 24, 25, that Book [Greek: L] is a separate treatise of Aristotle, completely distinct from all the rest of the Metaphysica. This theory of Bonitz may be in the main true; but it is still possible that Book [Greek: Th] may have been written previously, and that Aristotle may here refer to it, as Schwegler suppose**.).
That Actuality is prior to Potentiality, is conformable to the doctrine of Anaxagoras, Noûs in his doctrine existing in Actuality; also to that of Empedokles, who introduces Friendship and Enmity; and again, to that of Leukippus, who affirms Motion to be eternal. So that Chaos or Night (_i.e._, mere Potentiality) did not prevail for an infinite anterior time, but the same things came round in perpetual vicissitude or rotation; which consists with the doctrine that Actuality is prior to Potentiality. If the same condition comes round periodically, we must necessarily assume something Actual, which perpetually actualizes in the same manner ([Greek: dei= ti a)ei\ me/nein ô(sau/tôs e)nergou=n]--p. 1072, a. 10). Again, if generation and destruction are to take place, we must assume something else Actual, which actualizes in a manner perpetually changing ([Greek: a)/llo dei= ei)=nai a)ei\ e)nergou=n a)/llôs kai\ a)/llôs]--a. 12). This last must actualize sometimes _per se_, sometimes in a different way; that is, according to some other influence, or according to the First (or Uniform) Actual. But it will necessarily actualize according to the First Actual; which will thus be a cause both to itself, and to the variable Actual. Now the First Actual is the best; for it is the cause of perpetual sameness, while the other is cause of variety; both together are the cause of unceasing variety. But this is how the motions really stand. Why then, should we look out for other principles (a. 18)?
Now, since the preceding views are consistent with the facts and may be true ([Greek: e)pei\ d' ou(/tô t' e)nde/chetai]--p. 1072, a. 18)--and, if they be not true, we shall be compelled to admit that every thing proceeds either from Night, or from confused Chaos or Non-Ens--we may consider the problem as solved. There exists something always in unceasing circular motion: this is evident not merely from reason, but from fact. The First Heaven (Aplanês or Fixed Star sphere) will therefore be eternal. There must therefore exist something which causes this unceasing motion, or some Prime Movent. But, since Movens Immobile, Movens Motum, Motum non Movens, form a series of three terms, and since the two last of these certainly exist, we may infer that the first exists also; and that the Prime Movent, which causes the motion of the Aplanês, is immoveable (a. **20-25.--This passage perplexes all the commentators--Schwegler, Bonitz, Alexander, &c. It can hardly be construed without more or less change of the text. I do not see to what real things Aristotle can allude under the description of Mota which are not Moventia. There is much to be said for Pierron and Zévort's translation, p. 220: "Comme il n'y a que trois sortes d'êtres--ce qui est mu, ce qui meut, et le moyen terme entre ce qui est mu et ce qui meut: c'est un être (_i.e._, this middle term is an être) qui meut sans être mu."--Bonitz disapproves this interpretation of the word [Greek: me/son], and it is certainly singular to say that between _Movens_ and _Motum_, the term _Movens sed non Motum_ forms a medium: _Motum sed non Movens_ would form just as good a medium**.). This Prime Movent, which causes motion without being itself moved, must be eternal, must be Essentia, and must be an Actuality.
Now both the Appetibile ([Greek: to\ o)rekto/n]) and the Cogitabile ([Greek: to\ noêto/n]) cause motion in this way, _i.e._, without being moved themselves; moreover the Primum Appetibile and the Primum Cogitabile are coincident or identical (p. 1072, a. 27). For that which appears beautiful, is the object of desire; but that which is beautiful, is the first object of will (a. 28). Cogitation is the principium of the two (the primary fact or fundamental element): we will so and so, because we think it good; it is not true that we think it good because we will it ([Greek: o)rego/metha de\ dio/ti dokei=, ma=llon ê)\ dokei= dio/ti o)rego/metha]--a. 29). Now the Cogitant Mind ([Greek: nou=s]) is moved by the Cogitabile, and, in the series of fundamental Contraries, the members of one side of the series are Cogitabilia _per se_ (while those of the other side are only Cogitabilia _per aliud_--[Greek: noêtê\ d' ê( e(te/ra sustoichi/a kath' au(tê/n]--a. 31; see Alex., p. 668, 16, Bon.). These Cogitabilia _per se_ are first as to Essentia (_i.e._, compared with the Cogitabilia _per aliud_, they are logically _priora_): and again, among Essentiæ, that variety which is simple and actual comes first (_i.e._, it is logically _prius_, as compared with the compound and the potential). Now Unum is not identical with Simplex: Unum signifies that which is a measure of something else, while Simplex denotes a peculiar attribute of the subject in itself (a. 34). But the Pulchrum and the Eligibile _per se_ belongs to the same side of the series of Contraries, as the Cogitabilia _per se_: and the Primum Pulchrum or Eligibile is the Best or akin thereunto, in its own particular ascending scale (b. 1).
That [Greek: to\ ou(= e(/neka] is among the Immoveables, may be seen by our Treatise De Bono, where we give a string of generic and specific distributions ([Greek: ê( diai/resis dêloi=]--p. 1072, b. 2; see the interpretation of Alexander, adopted both by Schwegler and by Bonitz). For [Greek: to\ ou(= e(/neka] is used in a double sense: in one of the two senses it ranks among the Immoveables: in another it does not ([Greek: e)/sti ga\r ditto\n to\ ou(= e(/neka], b. 3--[Greek: ditto/n] is Schwegler's correction, adopted by Bonitz). It causes motion, in the manner of a beloved object; and that which it causes to move, causes motion in the other things ([Greek: kinei= de\ ô(s e)rô/menon; to\ de\ kinou/menon ta)/lla kinei=]--b. 3; [Greek: to\ de\ kinou/menon] is the conjecture of Schwegler and Bonitz).
Now, if any thing be moved, there is a possibility that it may be in a condition different from that in which it actually is. If the first actuality of the Moveable be translation or motion in space, there is a possibility that it may be otherwise than it is as to place, even though it cannot be otherwise than it is as to Essentia (p. 1072, b. 7).
But, as to the Prime Movent, which is itself immoveable, and which exists in actuality, it is impossible that _that_ can be other than what it is, in any respect whatever (p. 1072, b. 8). For the first of all changes is local motion, or rotation in a circle, and this is exactly what the Prime Movent imparts (but does not itself possess). It exists by necessity, and by that species of necessity which implies the perfect and beautiful: and in this character it is the originating principle. For there are three varieties of necessity: (1) That of violence, in contradiction to the natural impulse; (2) That without which good or perfection cannot be had; (3) That which is what it is absolutely, without possibility of being otherwise. From a principle of this nature (_i.e._, necessary in the two last senses) depend the Heaven and all Nature (b. 14).
The mode of existence ([Greek: diagôgê/]) of this Prime Movent is for ever that which _we_ enjoy in our best moments, but which we cannot obtain permanently; for its actuality itself is also pleasure (p. 1072, b. 16). As actuality is pleasure, so the various actualities of waking, perceiving, cogitating, are to us the pleasantest part of our life; while hopes and remembrances are pleasing by derivation from them (but these states we men cannot enjoy permanently and without intermittence). Cogitation _per se_ (_i.e._, cogitation in its most perfect condition) embraces that which is best _per se_; and most of all when it is most perfect. The Noûs thus cogitates itself through participation of the Cogitabile: for it becomes itself cogitable by touching the Cogitabile and cogitating: so that Cogitans and Cogitabile become identical. For Noûs in general (the human Noûs also) is in potentiality the recipient of the Cogitabile, and of Essentia or Forms; and it comes into actuality by possessing these Forms. So that what the Prime Movent possesses is more divine than the divine element which Noûs in general involves; and the actuality of theorizing is the pleasantest and best of all conditions ([Greek: noêto\s ga\r gi/gnetai thigga/nôn kai\ noô=n, ô(/ste tau)to\n nou=s kai\ noêto/n. to\ ga\r dektiko\n tou= noêtou= kai\ tê=s ou)si/as nou=s. e)nergei= de\ e)/chôn; ô(/st' e)kei=no ma=llon tou/tou o(\ dokei= o( nou=s thei=on e)/chein, kai\ ê( theôri/a to\ ê(/diston kai\ a)/riston]--b. 24. This is a very difficult passage, in which one cannot be sure of interpreting rightly. None of the commentators are perfectly satisfactory. The pronoun [Greek: e)kei=no] seems to refer to [Greek: ê( no/êsis ê( kath' au(tê/n]--three lines back. The contrast seems to be between the Prime Movent, and Noûs in general, including the human Noûs. [Greek: To\ dektiko/n] cannot refer to the Prime Movent, which has no potentiality, but must refer to the human Noûs, which is not at first, nor always, in a state of actuality. [Greek: Ma=llon] seems equivalent to [Greek: theio/teron]. The human Noûs has [Greek: thei=o/n ti], by reason of its potentiality to theorize.).
Thus it is wonderful, if God has perpetually an existence like that of our best moments; and still more wonderful, if he has a better. Yet such is the fact. Life belongs to him: for the actuality of Noûs is life, and God is actuality. His life, eternal and best, is actuality _per se_ (or _par excellence_). We declare God to be an Animal Optimum Æternum, so that duration eternal and continuous ([Greek: ai)ô\n sunechê/s]) belongs to him: for _that_ is God ([Greek: tou=to ga\r o( theo/s]--p. 1072, b. 30).
The Pythagoreans and Speusippus are mistaken in affirming that Optimum and Pulcherrimum is not to be found in the originating principle ([Greek: e)n a)rchê=|]); on the ground that the principles of plants and animals are indeed causes, but that the beautiful and perfect appears first in the results of those principles. For the seed first proceeds out of antecedent perfect animals: the first is not seed, but the perfect animal. Thus we must say that the man is prior to the seed: I do not mean the man who sprang from the seed, but the other man from whom the seed proceeded (p. 1073, a. 2).
From the preceding reasonings, it is evident that there exists an Essence eternal, immoveable, and separated from all the perceivable Essences. We have shown (in Physica; see Schwegler's note) that this Essence can have no magnitude; that it is without parts and indivisible (p, 1073, a. 6). For it causes in other subjects motion for an infinite time; and nothing finite can have infinite power. For this reason the Prime Movent cannot have finite magnitude; but every magnitude is either finite or infinite, and there is no such thing as infinite magnitude; therefore the Prime Movent can have no magnitude at all. We have also shown that it is unchangeable in quality, and without any affections ([Greek: a)pathe\s kai\ a)nalloi/ôton]). For all other varieties of change are posterior as compared with locomotive change or motion in space, which is the first of all. As the Prime Movent is exempt from this first, much more is it exempt from the others (a. 13).
We must now consider whether we ought to recognize one such Movent or Essence only, or several of the same Essences? and, if several, how many? Respecting the number thereof we must remember that our predecessors have laid down no clear or decisive doctrines ([Greek: a)popha/seis], p. 1073, a. 16). The Platonic theory of Ideas includes no peculiar research on this subject (a. 18). The Platonists call these Ideas Numbers: about which they talk sometimes as if there were an infinite multitude of them, sometimes as if they were fixed as reaching to the dekad and not higher--but they furnish no demonstrative reason why they should stop at the dekad. We shall proceed to discuss the point consistently with our preceding definitions and with the nature of the subjects (a. 23). The Principium, the First of all Entia, is immoveable both _per se_ and _per accidens_: it causes motion in another subject, to which it imparts the first or locomotive change, one and eternal (a. 25). The Motum must necessarily be moved by something; the Prime Movent must be immoveable _per se_; eternal motion must be caused by an eternal Movent; and one motion by one Movent (a. 30). But we see that, over and above the simple rotation of the All (or First Heaven), which rotation we affirm to be caused by the Primum Movens Immobile, there are also other eternal rotations of the Planets; for the circular Celestial Body, as we have shown in the Physica, is eternal and never at rest (a. 32). We must therefore necessarily assume that each of these rotations of the Planets is caused by a Movent Immoveable _per se_--by an eternal Essence (a. 35). For the Stars and Planets are in their nature eternal Essences: that which moves them must be itself eternal, and prior to that which it causes to be moved; likewise that which, is prior to Essence must itself be Essence, and cannot be any thing else (a. 37). It is plain, therefore, that there must necessarily exist a number of Essences, each eternal by nature, immoveable _per se_, and without magnitude, as Movents to the Heavenly Bodies and equal in number thereto (a. 38). These Essences are arranged in an order of first, second, &c., corresponding to the order of the planetary rotations (b. 2), But what the number of these rotations is, we must learn from Astronomy--that one among the mathematical sciences which is most akin ([Greek: oi)keiota/tês]) to the First Philosophy; for Astronomy theorizes about Essence perceivable but eternal, while Arithmetic and Geometry do not treat of any Essence at all ([Greek: peri\ ou)demia=s ou)si/as]--b. 7). That the rotations are more in number than the rotating bodies, is known to all who have any tincture of Astronomy; for each of the Planets is carried round in more than one rotation (b. 10). But what the exact number of these rotations is, we shall proceed to state upon the authority of some mathematicians, for the sake of instruction, that the reader may have some definite number present to his mind: for the rest, he must both investigate for himself and put questions to other investigators; and, if he learns from the scientific men any thing dissenting from what we here lay down, he must love both dissentients but follow that one who reasons most accurately ([Greek: philei=n me\n a)mphote/rous, pei/thesthai de\ toi=s a)kribeste/rois]--b. 16).
Aristotle then proceeds to unfold the number and arrangement of the planetary spheres and the corrective or counter-rolling ([Greek: a)nelittou/sas]) spheres implicated with them (p. 1073, b. 17--p. 1074, a. 14). He afterwards proceeds: Let the number of spheres thus be forty-seven; so that it will be reasonable to assume the Immoveable Movent Essences and Principles to be forty-seven also, as well as the perceivable spheres ([Greek: ai)sthêta/s]--p. 1074, a. 16): we say _reasonable_ ([Greek: eu)/logon]), for we shall leave to stronger heads to declare it necessary. But, since there cannot be any rotation except such as contributes to the rotation of one of the Planets, and since we must assume that each Nature and each Essence is exempt from extraneous affection and possessed _per se_ of the Best as an end, so there will be no other Nature besides the forty-seven above enumerated, and this number will be the _necessary_ total of the Essences (a. 21). For, if there were any others, they would cause motion by serving as an end for some rotation to aspire to ([Greek: kinoi=en a)\n ô(s te/los ou)=sai phora=s]--a. 23); but it is impossible that there can be any other rotation besides those that have been enumerated.
We may fairly infer this from the bodies which are carried in rotation ([Greek: e)k tô=n pherome/nôn]--p. 1074, a. 24). For, if every carrier exists naturally for the sake of the thing carried, and if every current or rotation is a current of something carried, there can exist no current either for the sake of itself or for the sake of some other current. Every current must exist for the sake of the Planets, and with a view to their rotation. For, if one current existed for the sake of another, this last must exist for the sake of a third, and so on; but you cannot go on in this way _ad infinitum_; and therefore the end of every current must be, one or other of the Divine Bodies which are carried round in the heavens (a. 31).
That there is only one Heaven, we may plainly see. For, if there were many heavens, as there are many men, the principium of each would be one _in specie_, though the principia would be many _in numero_ (p. 1074, a. 33). But all things that are many in number, have Matter, and are many, by reason of their Matter; for to all these many, there is one and the same Form ([Greek: lo/gos])--definition or rational explanation: _e.g._, one for all men, among whom Sokrates is one (a. 35). But the First Essence has no Matter; for it is an Actual ([Greek: to\ de\ ti/ ê)=n ei)=nai ou)k e)/chei u(/lên to\ prô=ton; e)ntele/cheia **ga/r]--a. 36). The Primum Movens Immobile is therefore One, both in definition and in number; accordingly, the Motum--that which is moved both eternally and continuously--is One also. There exists therefore only one Heaven (p. 1074, a. 38).
Now it has been handed down in a mythical way, from the old and most ancient teachers (p. 1074, b. 1) to their successors, that these (Eternal Essences) are gods, and that the divine element comprehends all nature ([Greek: o(/ti theoi/ te/ ei)sin ou(=toi kai\ perie/chei to\ thei=on tê\n o(/lên phu/sin]--b. 3). The other accompaniments of the received creed have been superadded with a view to persuading the multitude and to useful purposes for the laws and the common interest (b. 4); wherefore the gods have been depicted as like to men and to some other animals, combined with other similar accompaniments. If a man, abstracting from these stories, accepts only the first and fundamental truth--That they conceived the First Essences as gods, he will consider it as a divine doctrine ([Greek: thei/ôs a)\n ei)rê=sthai nomi/seien]--b. 9), preserved and handed down as fragments of truth from the most ancient times. For probably all art and philosophy and truth have been many times discovered, lost, and rediscovered. To this point alone, and thus far, the opinion of our fathers and of the first men is evident to us (b. 14).
There are however various difficulties connected with the Noûs; for it would seem to be more divine than the visible celestial objects, and yet we do not understand what its condition can be to be such (p. 1074, b. 17). For, if it cogitates nothing but is in the condition of slumber and inaction, what ground can there be for respecting it ([Greek: ti/ a)\n ei)/ê to\ semno/n]--b. 18)? And, if it cogitates something actually, yet if this process depends upon something foreign and independent (_i.e._, upon the Cogitatum), the Noûs cannot be the best Essence; since it is then essentially not Cogitation in act, but only the potentiality of Cogitation; while its title to respect arises from actual Cogitation. Again, whether we assume its Essence to be Cogitation actual or Cogitation potential, _what_ does it cogitate? It must cogitate either itself, or something different from itself; and, if the latter, either always the same Cogitatum, or sometimes one, sometimes another. But is there no difference whether its Cogitatum is honourable or vulgar? Are there not some things which it is absurd to cogitate? Evidently the Noûs must cogitate what is most divine and most honourable, without any change; for, if it did change, it must change for the worse, and that very change would at once ([Greek: ê)/dê]) be a certain motion; whereas the Noûs is essentially immoveable (b. 27). First of all, if the Essence of the Noûs be, not Cogitation actual but Cogitation potential, we may reasonably conceive that the perpetuity of Cogitation would be fatiguing to it (b. 29); next, we see plainly that there must exist something else more honourable than the Noûs; namely, the Cogitatum; for to cogitate, and the act of cogitation, will belong even to one who cogitates the vilest object. If cogitation of vile objects be detestable ([Greek: pheukto/n], b. 32)--for not to see some things is better than to see them--Cogitation cannot be the best of all things (_i.e._, Cogitation absolutely, whatever be the Cogitatum).
Since the Noûs is itself the best of all things, it must employ its cogitation upon itself and nothing else. Its cogitation will thus be Cogitation of Cogitation ([Greek: au(to\n a)/ra noei=, ei)/per e)sti\ to\ kra/tiston, kai\ e)/stin ê( no/êsis noê/seôs no/êsis]--p. 1074, b. 35). Yet, if we look to the human mind, Cognition, Perception, Opinion, Mental Discourse, &c., appear always as having direct reference to something else, and as referring each to itself only in an indirect and secondary way ([Greek: a)ei\ a)/llou--au(tê=s d' e)n pare/rgô|]--b. 36); and farther, if to cogitate is one thing and to be cogitated another thing, in which of the two points of view will the _bene_ of the Noûs consist? To be Cogitation, and to be a Cogitatum, are not logically the same ([Greek: ou)de\ ga\r tau)to\ to\ ei)=nai noê/sei kai\ nooume/nô|]--b. 38).
But may we not meet these difficulties by replying that there are some things in which Cognition is identical with the Cognitum? that is, in those Cognita which are altogether exempt from Matter? In Constructive cognitions without Matter, the Form and the [Greek: t.ê.e.] is both Cognitum and Cognitio; in Theoretical cognitions without Matter, the Notion and the Cogitation is itself the Cognitum ([Greek: o( lo/gos to\ pra=gma kai\ ê( no/êsis]). Since it appears, therefore, that, wherever there is no Matter, Cogitatum and Noûs are not different, the same will be true of the divine Noûs: its Cogitatio and its Cogitatum will be identical (p. 1075, a. 5).
One farther difficulty remains, if we suppose the Cogitatum to be a Compound ([Greek: su/ntheton]); for, on that supposition, the Cogitans would change in running through the different parts of the whole. But the reply seems to be, that every thing which has not Matter is indivisible and not compound (p. 1075, a. 7). As the human Noûs, being that which deals with compounds, comports itself for a certain time--for it does not attain its _bene_ in cogitating this or that part of the compound, but in apprehending a certain total or completion which is something different from any of the parts--so does the divine Noûs, engaged in cogitation of itself, comport itself in perpetuity (a. 10).
Another point to be considered is--in what manner the nature of the Universe ([Greek: ê( tou= o(/lou phu/sis]--p. 1075, a. 11) includes Bonum and Optimum. Is Bonum included as something separate and as an adjunct by itself transcendent? Or is it immanent, pervading the whole arrangement of the constituent parts? Or does it exist in both ways at once, as in the case of a disciplined army; for, in this latter, Bonum belongs both to the array and to the general, and indeed more to the latter, since the array is directed by the general, not the general by the array. All things in the universe are marshalled in a certain orderly way--the aquatic creatures, the aërial, and the plants; but all things are not marshalled alike. The universe is not such that there is no relation between one thing and another: there is such a relation; for every thing is marshalled with a view to one end, though in different degrees. As, in a family, the freemen have least discretion left to them to act at haphazard, but all or most of their proceedings are regulated, while slaves and oxen are not required to do much towards the common good, but are left for the most part to act at hazard,--in this way the principium of each is arranged by nature (a. 23). For example, every thing must necessarily come to the termination of one individual existence to make room for another: there are also some other facts and conditions common to all things in the universe ([Greek: le/gô d' oi(=on ei)/s ge to\ diakrithê=nai a)na/gkê a(pa=sin e)lthei=n]--a. 23; see the explanation of [Greek: diakrithê=nai], given by Bonitz, Comm. p. 519--not very certain).
In concluding this exposition, we must not lose sight of the absurdities and impossibilities which attach to all other, nor what is advanced by the most ingenious philosophers before us, nor which of their theories carries with it the fewest difficulties (p. 1075, a. 27).
That all things proceed from Contraries, all these philosophers agree in affirming. But it is not true that all things are generated, nor that they are generated from contraries; for the celestial substance is not generated at all, nor has it any contrary. Moreover, in those cases where there really are contraries, these philosophers do not teach us how generation can take place out of them; for contraries themselves have no effect upon each other. Now our doctrine solves this difficulty reasonably, by introducing a _tertium quid_ (p. 1075, a. 31)--Matter. Some of these philosophers erroneously consider Matter to be itself one of the contraries: they consider the Unequal as matter or substratum to the Equal; or the Many as matter or substratum to the One; (Evil, as opposed to Good). We resolve this in the same way: our Matter is one, is contrary itself to nothing, but may be potentially either of two contraries. Farthermore, if we admit the doctrine that Evil itself is Matter or one of the elements, the inference will follow that every thing whatever, except the Unum itself, partakes of Evil (a. 6).
Some philosophers do not admit either Good or Evil to be principles at all; but they are manifestly wrong; for in all things Good is most of all the principle (p. 1075, a. 37). Others again are so far right that they recognize Good as a principle: but they do not tell us _how_ it is a principle--whether as End, or as Movent, or as Form.
Empedokles lays down a strange doctrine: he makes Friendship to be the Good (p. 1075, b. 2). But, in his theory, Friendship is principle partly as Movent, for its function is to bring together ([Greek: suna/gei ga\r]--b. 3); partly as Matter, for it is itself a portion of the mixture ([Greek: mo/rion tou= mi/gmatos]--b. 4). Now, even granting the possibility that the same thing may be _per accidens_ ([Greek: kata\ sumbebêko/s]--b. 5, _i.e._, by special coincidence in any one particular case) principle as Movent, and also principle as Matter, nevertheless the two are not the same logically and by definition. Under which of the two, therefore, are we to reckon Friendship? It is moreover another strange feature in the theory of Empedokles, that he makes Enmity to be indestructible; for this very Enmity is with him the nature and principle of Evil (b. 8).
Anaxagoras declares Good to be the principle as Movent; for, in his theory, Noûs causes motion; but it causes motion with a view to some end, which is of course different from itself; so that the real principle is different from Noûs: unless indeed he adopted one of our tenets; for we too say that, in a certain sense, the medical art is health (p. 1075, b. 10; Z. vii. p. 1032, b. 10). It is moreover absurd, that Anaxagoras does not recognize any contrary to Good and to the Noûs (b. 11). (Bonitz remarks, Comm. p. 522:--Aristotle means that Anaxagoras was wrong, because he failed "ad eam devenire rationem, ut intellectum sui ipsius intelligentiam ideoque sui ipsius [Greek: te/los] esse statueret"; farther, he remarks, on the line b. 10--[Greek: a)/topon de\ kai\ to\ e)nanti/on mê\ poiê=sai tô=| a)gathô=| kai\ tô=| nô=|]: "Quid enim? nonne pariter et eodem jure [Greek: nou=s a)migê/s], quem posuit Anaxagoras, ab omni contrarietate et oppositione immunis sit, ac primus motor apud Aristotelem?"--Aristotle would have replied to this: "I recognize principles of Evil under the names of [Greek: u(/lê] and [Greek: ste/rêsis]; the last of the two being directly opposed to Form (Regularity or Good), the first of the two being indifferent and equally ready as a recipient both for evil and for good. My Prime Movent acts like an [Greek: e)rô/menon] in causing motion in the Celestial Substance: the motion of this last is pure Good, without any mixture of Evil. But, when this motion is transmitted to the sublunary elements, it becomes corrupted by [Greek: u(/lê] and [Greek: ste/rêsis], so that Evil becomes mingled with the Good. Anaxagoras recognizes no counteracting principles, analogous to [Greek: u(/lê] and [Greek: ste/rêsis], so that Evil, on his theory, remains unexplained.")
Those philosophers who lay down Contraries as their principles, do not make proper use of these Contraries, unless their language be improved or modified (p. 1075, b. 12). Nor do they tell us why some things are destructible, other things indestructible; for they trace all things to the same principles. Some make all things to proceed from Non-Ens; others, to escape that necessity, make all things One (and thus recognize no real change or generation at all--the Eleates, b. 16). Again, not one of them tells us why generation must always be, or what is the cause of generation. Once more, those who recognize two contrary principles must necessarily recognize a third superior to both (b. 18); and the Platonists with their Ideas are under the like necessity. For they must assign some reason why particular things partake of these Ideas.
Other philosophers, moreover, must consistently with their theories recognize something contrary to Wisdom and to the most venerable Cognition. But we are under no such necessity; for there is nothing contrary to the First ([Greek: tô=| prô/tô|]). All contraries involve Matter, and are in potentiality the same: one of the two contraries is ignorance in regard to the other; but the First has no contrary (p. 1075, b. 24).
Again, if there be no Entia beyond the Perceptibilia, there can be no beginning, no arrangement in order, no generation, no celestial bodies or proceedings (_i.e._, all these will remain unexplained). There will always be a beginning behind the beginning, _ad infinitum_; as there is in the theories of all the theologians and physical philosophers (p. 1075, b. 27). And, even if we recognize, beyond the Perceptibilia, Ideas or Numbers, these are causes of nothing; or, if causes of any thing, they are certainly not causes of motion. How, moreover, can Magnitude, and a Continuum arise out of that which has no Magnitude? Number cannot, either as Movent or as Form, produce a Continuum (b. 30).
Again, (Contraries cannot be principles, because) no Contrary can be essentially Constructive and essentially Movent (p. 1075, b. 31); for Contraries involve Matter and Potentiality, and may possibly, therefore, not exist. And, if there be Potentiality, it will come prior to Actuality: upon that supposition therefore (_i.e._, of Contraries as the fundamental principles) Entia could not be eternal. But Entia are eternal; therefore these theories must be in part amended: we have shown how (b. 34).
Farther, none of these theories explains how it is that numbers coalesce into One; or soul and body into One; or Form and Matter into one Concrete. Nor can they explain this, unless they adopt our doctrine, that the Movent brings about this coalition (p. 1075, b. 37).
Those philosophers (like Speusippus) who recognize many different grades and species of Entia (first the Mathematical Number, &c.), with separate principles for each, make the Essence of the Universe to be incoherent ([Greek: e)peisodiô/dê]--p. 1076, a. 1) and set up many distinct principles; for none of these Essences contributes to or bears upon the remainder, whether it exists or does not exist. Now Entia are not willing to be badly governed ([Greek: ta\ de\ o)/nta ou) bou/letai politeu/esthai kakô=s. "ou)k a)gatho\n polukoirani/ê; ei(=s koi/ranos."]--p. 1076, a. 4).
IV.
DE COELO.