Some of Aristotle's works
3
350 BC
by Aristotle
translated by E. M. Edghill
1
First we must define the terms 'noun' and 'verb', then the terms
'denial' and 'affirmation', then 'proposition' and 'sentence.'
Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written
words are the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men have not the
same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the
mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for
all, as also are those things of which our experiences are the images.
This matter has, however, been discussed in my treatise about the
soul, for it belongs to an investigation distinct from that which lies
before us.
As there are in the mind thoughts which do not involve truth or
falsity, and also those which must be either true or false, so it is
in speech. For truth and falsity imply combination and separation.
Nouns and verbs, provided nothing is added, are like thoughts
without combination or separation; 'man' and 'white', as isolated
terms, are not yet either true or false. In proof of this, consider
the word 'goat-stag.' It has significance, but there is no truth or
falsity about it, unless 'is' or 'is not' is added, either in the
present or in some other tense.
2
By a noun we mean a sound significant by convention, which has no
reference to time, and of which no part is significant apart from
the rest. In the noun 'Fairsteed,' the part 'steed' has no
significance in and by itself, as in the phrase 'fair steed.' Yet
there is a difference between simple and composite nouns; for in the
former the part is in no way significant, in the latter it contributes
to the meaning of the whole, although it has not an independent
meaning. Thus in the word 'pirate-boat' the word 'boat' has no meaning
except as part of the whole word.
The limitation 'by convention' was introduced because nothing is
by nature a noun or name-it is only so when it becomes a symbol;
inarticulate sounds, such as those which brutes produce, are
significant, yet none of these constitutes a noun.
The expression 'not-man' is not a noun. There is indeed no
recognized term by which we may denote such an expression, for it is
not a sentence or a denial. Let it then be called an indefinite noun.
The expressions 'of Philo', 'to Philo', and so on, constitute not
nouns, but cases of a noun. The definition of these cases of a noun is
in other respects the same as that of the noun proper, but, when
coupled with 'is', 'was', or will be', they do not, as they are,
form a proposition either true or false, and this the noun proper
always does, under these conditions. Take the words 'of Philo is' or
'of or 'of Philo is not'; these words do not, as they stand, form
either a true or a false proposition.
3
A verb is that which, in addition to its proper meaning, carries
with it the notion of time. No part of it has any independent meaning,
and it is a sign of something said of something else.
I will explain what I mean by saying that it carries with it the
notion of time. 'Health' is a noun, but 'is healthy' is a verb; for
besides its proper meaning it indicates the present existence of the
state in question.
Moreover, a verb is always a sign of something said of something
else, i.e. of something either predicable of or present in some
other thing.
Such expressions as 'is not-healthy', 'is not, ill', I do not
describe as verbs; for though they carry the additional note of
time, and always form a predicate, there is no specified name for this
variety; but let them be called indefinite verbs, since they apply
equally well to that which exists and to that which does not.
Similarly 'he was healthy', 'he will be healthy', are not verbs, but
tenses of a verb; the difference lies in the fact that the verb
indicates present time, while the tenses of the verb indicate those
times which lie outside the present.
Verbs in and by themselves are substantival and have significance,
for he who uses such expressions arrests the hearer's mind, and
fixes his attention; but they do not, as they stand, express any
judgement, either positive or negative. For neither are 'to be' and
'not to be' the participle 'being' significant of any fact, unless
something is added; for they do not themselves indicate anything,
but imply a copulation, of which we cannot form a conception apart
from the things coupled.
4
A sentence is a significant portion of speech, some parts of which
have an independent meaning, that is to say, as an utterance, though
not as the expression of any positive judgement. Let me explain. The
word 'human' has meaning, but does not constitute a proposition,
either positive or negative. It is only when other words are added
that the whole will form an affirmation or denial. But if we
separate one syllable of the word 'human' from the other, it has no
meaning; similarly in the word 'mouse', the part 'ouse' has no meaning
in itself, but is merely a sound. In composite words, indeed, the
parts contribute to the meaning of the whole; yet, as has been pointed
out, they have not an independent meaning.
Every sentence has meaning, not as being the natural means by
which a physical faculty is realized, but, as we have said, by
convention. Yet every sentence is not a proposition; only such are
propositions as have in them either truth or falsity. Thus a prayer is
a sentence, but is neither true nor false.
Let us therefore dismiss all other types of sentence but the
proposition, for this last concerns our present inquiry, whereas the
investigation of the others belongs rather to the study of rhetoric or
of poetry.
5
The first class of simple propositions is the simple affirmation,
the next, the simple denial; all others are only one by conjunction.
Every proposition must contain a verb or the tense of a verb. The
phrase which defines the species 'man', if no verb in present, past,
or future time be added, is not a proposition. It may be asked how the
expression 'a footed animal with two feet' can be called single; for
it is not the circumstance that the words follow in unbroken
succession that effects the unity. This inquiry, however, finds its
place in an investigation foreign to that before us.
We call those propositions single which indicate a single fact, or
the conjunction of the parts of which results in unity: those
propositions, on the other hand, are separate and many in number,
which indicate many facts, or whose parts have no conjunction.
Let us, moreover, consent to call a noun or a verb an expression
only, and not a proposition, since it is not possible for a man to
speak in this way when he is expressing something, in such a way as to
make a statement, whether his utterance is an answer to a question
or an act of his own initiation.
To return: of propositions one kind is simple, i.e. that which
asserts or denies something of something, the other composite, i.e.
that which is compounded of simple propositions. A simple
proposition is a statement, with meaning, as to the presence of
something in a subject or its absence, in the present, past, or
future, according to the divisions of time.
6
An affirmation is a positive assertion of something about something,
a denial a negative assertion.
Now it is possible both to affirm and to deny the presence of
something which is present or of something which is not, and since
these same affirmations and denials are possible with reference to
those times which lie outside the present, it would be possible to
contradict any affirmation or denial. Thus it is plain that every
affirmation has an opposite denial, and similarly every denial an
opposite affirmation.
We will call such a pair of propositions a pair of
contradictories. Those positive and negative propositions are said
to be contradictory which have the same subject and predicate. The
identity of subject and of predicate must not be 'equivocal'. Indeed
there are definitive qualifications besides this, which we make to
meet the casuistries of sophists.
7
Some things are universal, others individual. By the term
'universal' I mean that which is of such a nature as to be
predicated of many subjects, by 'individual' that which is not thus
predicated. Thus 'man' is a universal, 'Callias' an individual.
Our propositions necessarily sometimes concern a universal
subject, sometimes an individual.
If, then, a man states a positive and a negative proposition of
universal character with regard to a universal, these two propositions
are 'contrary'. By the expression 'a proposition of universal
character with regard to a universal', such propositions as 'every man
is white', 'no man is white' are meant. When, on the other hand, the
positive and negative propositions, though they have regard to a
universal, are yet not of universal character, they will not be
contrary, albeit the meaning intended is sometimes contrary. As
instances of propositions made with regard to a universal, but not
of universal character, we may take the 'propositions 'man is
white', 'man is not white'. 'Man' is a universal, but the
proposition is not made as of universal character; for the word
'every' does not make the subject a universal, but rather gives the
proposition a universal character. If, however, both predicate and
subject are distributed, the proposition thus constituted is
contrary to truth; no affirmation will, under such circumstances, be
true. The proposition 'every man is every animal' is an example of
this type.
An affirmation is opposed to a denial in the sense which I denote by
the term 'contradictory', when, while the subject remains the same,
the affirmation is of universal character and the denial is not. The
affirmation 'every man is white' is the contradictory of the denial
'not every man is white', or again, the proposition 'no man is
white' is the contradictory of the proposition 'some men are white'.
But propositions are opposed as contraries when both the affirmation
and the denial are universal, as in the sentences 'every man is
white', 'no man is white', 'every man is just', 'no man is just'.
We see that in a pair of this sort both propositions cannot be true,
but the contradictories of a pair of contraries can sometimes both
be true with reference to the same subject; for instance 'not every
man is white' and some men are white' are both true. Of such
corresponding positive and negative propositions as refer to
universals and have a universal character, one must be true and the
other false. This is the case also when the reference is to
individuals, as in the propositions 'Socrates is white', 'Socrates
is not white'.
When, on the other hand, the reference is to universals, but the
propositions are not universal, it is not always the case that one
is true and the other false, for it is possible to state truly that
man is white and that man is not white and that man is beautiful and
that man is not beautiful; for if a man is deformed he is the
reverse of beautiful, also if he is progressing towards beauty he is
not yet beautiful.
This statement might seem at first sight to carry with it a
contradiction, owing to the fact that the proposition 'man is not
white' appears to be equivalent to the proposition 'no man is
white'. This, however, is not the case, nor are they necessarily at
the same time true or false.
It is evident also that the denial corresponding to a single
affirmation is itself single; for the denial must deny just that which
the affirmation affirms concerning the same subject, and must
correspond with the affirmation both in the universal or particular
character of the subject and in the distributed or undistributed sense
in which it is understood.
For instance, the affirmation 'Socrates is white' has its proper
denial in the proposition 'Socrates is not white'. If anything else be
negatively predicated of the subject or if anything else be the
subject though the predicate remain the same, the denial will not be
the denial proper to that affirmation, but on that is distinct.
The denial proper to the affirmation 'every man is white' is 'not
every man is white'; that proper to the affirmation 'some men are
white' is 'no man is white', while that proper to the affirmation 'man
is white' is 'man is not white'.
We have shown further that a single denial is contradictorily
opposite to a single affirmation and we have explained which these
are; we have also stated that contrary are distinct from contradictory
propositions and which the contrary are; also that with regard to a
pair of opposite propositions it is not always the case that one is
true and the other false. We have pointed out, moreover, what the
reason of this is and under what circumstances the truth of the one
involves the falsity of the other.
8
An affirmation or denial is single, if it indicates some one fact
about some one subject; it matters not whether the subject is
universal and whether the statement has a universal character, or
whether this is not so. Such single propositions are: 'every man is
white', 'not every man is white';'man is white','man is not white';
'no man is white', 'some men are white'; provided the word 'white' has
one meaning. If, on the other hand, one word has two meanings which do
not combine to form one, the affirmation is not single. For
instance, if a man should establish the symbol 'garment' as
significant both of a horse and of a man, the proposition 'garment
is white' would not be a single affirmation, nor its opposite a single
denial. For it is equivalent to the proposition 'horse and man are
white', which, again, is equivalent to the two propositions 'horse
is white', 'man is white'. If, then, these two propositions have
more than a single significance, and do not form a single proposition,
it is plain that the first proposition either has more than one
significance or else has none; for a particular man is not a horse.
This, then, is another instance of those propositions of which
both the positive and the negative forms may be true or false
simultaneously.
9
In the case of that which is or which has taken place, propositions,
whether positive or negative, must be true or false. Again, in the
case of a pair of contradictories, either when the subject is
universal and the propositions are of a universal character, or when
it is individual, as has been said,' one of the two must be true and
the other false; whereas when the subject is universal, but the
propositions are not of a universal character, there is no such
necessity. We have discussed this type also in a previous chapter.
When the subject, however, is individual, and that which is
predicated of it relates to the future, the case is altered. For if
all propositions whether positive or negative are either true or
false, then any given predicate must either belong to the subject or
not, so that if one man affirms that an event of a given character
will take place and another denies it, it is plain that the
statement of the one will correspond with reality and that of the
other will not. For the predicate cannot both belong and not belong to
the subject at one and the same time with regard to the future.
Thus, if it is true to say that a thing is white, it must
necessarily be white; if the reverse proposition is true, it will of
necessity not be white. Again, if it is white, the proposition stating
that it is white was true; if it is not white, the proposition to
the opposite effect was true. And if it is not white, the man who
states that it is making a false statement; and if the man who
states that it is white is making a false statement, it follows that
it is not white. It may therefore be argued that it is necessary
that affirmations or denials must be either true or false.
Now if this be so, nothing is or takes place fortuitously, either in
the present or in the future, and there are no real alternatives;
everything takes place of necessity and is fixed. For either he that
affirms that it will take place or he that denies this is in
correspondence with fact, whereas if things did not take place of
necessity, an event might just as easily not happen as happen; for the
meaning of the word 'fortuitous' with regard to present or future
events is that reality is so constituted that it may issue in either
of two opposite directions. Again, if a thing is white now, it was
true before to say that it would be white, so that of anything that
has taken place it was always true to say 'it is' or 'it will be'. But
if it was always true to say that a thing is or will be, it is not
possible that it should not be or not be about to be, and when a thing
cannot not come to be, it is impossible that it should not come to be,
and when it is impossible that it should not come to be, it must
come to be. All, then, that is about to be must of necessity take
place. It results from this that nothing is uncertain or fortuitous,
for if it were fortuitous it would not be necessary.
Again, to say that neither the affirmation nor the denial is true,
maintaining, let us say, that an event neither will take place nor
will not take place, is to take up a position impossible to defend. In
the first place, though facts should prove the one proposition
false, the opposite would still be untrue. Secondly, if it was true to
say that a thing was both white and large, both these qualities must
necessarily belong to it; and if they will belong to it the next
day, they must necessarily belong to it the next day. But if an
event is neither to take place nor not to take place the next day, the
element of chance will be eliminated. For example, it would be
necessary that a sea-fight should neither take place nor fail to
take place on the next day.
These awkward results and others of the same kind follow, if it is
an irrefragable law that of every pair of contradictory
propositions, whether they have regard to universals and are stated as
universally applicable, or whether they have regard to individuals,
one must be true and the other false, and that there are no real
alternatives, but that all that is or takes place is the outcome of
necessity. There would be no need to deliberate or to take trouble, on
the supposition that if we should adopt a certain course, a certain
result would follow, while, if we did not, the result would not
follow. For a man may predict an event ten thousand years
beforehand, and another may predict the reverse; that which was
truly predicted at the moment in the past will of necessity take place
in the fullness of time.
Further, it makes no difference whether people have or have not
actually made the contradictory statements. For it is manifest that
the circumstances are not influenced by the fact of an affirmation
or denial on the part of anyone. For events will not take place or
fail to take place because it was stated that they would or would
not take place, nor is this any more the case if the prediction
dates back ten thousand years or any other space of time. Wherefore,
if through all time the nature of things was so constituted that a
prediction about an event was true, then through all time it was
necessary that that should find fulfillment; and with regard to all
events, circumstances have always been such that their occurrence is a
matter of necessity. For that of which someone has said truly that
it will be, cannot fail to take place; and of that which takes
place, it was always true to say that it would be.
Yet this view leads to an impossible conclusion; for we see that
both deliberation and action are causative with regard to the
future, and that, to speak more generally, in those things which are
not continuously actual there is potentiality in either direction.
Such things may either be or not be; events also therefore may
either take place or not take place. There are many obvious
instances of this. It is possible that this coat may be cut in half,
and yet it may not be cut in half, but wear out first. In the same
way, it is possible that it should not be cut in half; unless this
were so, it would not be possible that it should wear out first. So it
is therefore with all other events which possess this kind of
potentiality. It is therefore plain that it is not of necessity that
everything is or takes place; but in some instances there are real
alternatives, in which case the affirmation is no more true and no
more false than the denial; while some exhibit a predisposition and
general tendency in one direction or the other, and yet can issue in
the opposite direction by exception.
Now that which is must needs be when it is, and that which is not
must needs not be when it is not. Yet it cannot be said without
qualification that all existence and non-existence is the outcome of
necessity. For there is a difference between saying that that which
is, when it is, must needs be, and simply saying that all that is must
needs be, and similarly in the case of that which is not. In the case,
also, of two contradictory propositions this holds good. Everything
must either be or not be, whether in the present or in the future, but
it is not always possible to distinguish and state determinately which
of these alternatives must necessarily come about.
Let me illustrate. A sea-fight must either take place to-morrow or
not, but it is not necessary that it should take place to-morrow,
neither is it necessary that it should not take place, yet it is
necessary that it either should or should not take place to-morrow.
Since propositions correspond with facts, it is evident that when in
future events there is a real alternative, and a potentiality in
contrary directions, the corresponding affirmation and denial have the
same character.
This is the case with regard to that which is not always existent or
not always nonexistent. One of the two propositions in such
instances must be true and the other false, but we cannot say
determinately that this or that is false, but must leave the
alternative undecided. One may indeed be more likely to be true than
the other, but it cannot be either actually true or actually false. It
is therefore plain that it is not necessary that of an affirmation and
a denial one should be true and the other false. For in the case of
that which exists potentially, but not actually, the rule which
applies to that which exists actually does not hold good. The case
is rather as we have indicated.
10
An affirmation is the statement of a fact with regard to a
subject, and this subject is either a noun or that which has no
name; the subject and predicate in an affirmation must each denote a
single thing. I have already explained' what is meant by a noun and by
that which has no name; for I stated that the expression 'not-man' was
not a noun, in the proper sense of the word, but an indefinite noun,
denoting as it does in a certain sense a single thing. Similarly the
expression 'does not enjoy health' is not a verb proper, but an
indefinite verb. Every affirmation, then, and every denial, will
consist of a noun and a verb, either definite or indefinite.
There can be no affirmation or denial without a verb; for the
expressions 'is', 'will be', 'was', 'is coming to be', and the like
are verbs according to our definition, since besides their specific
meaning they convey the notion of time. Thus the primary affirmation
and denial are 'as follows: 'man is', 'man is not'. Next to these,
there are the propositions: 'not-man is', 'not-man is not'. Again we
have the propositions: 'every man is, 'every man is not', 'all that is
not-man is', 'all that is not-man is not'. The same classification
holds good with regard to such periods of time as lie outside the
present.
When the verb 'is' is used as a third element in the sentence, there
can be positive and negative propositions of two sorts. Thus in the
sentence 'man is just' the verb 'is' is used as a third element,
call it verb or noun, which you will. Four propositions, therefore,
instead of two can be formed with these materials. Two of the four, as
regards their affirmation and denial, correspond in their logical
sequence with the propositions which deal with a condition of
privation; the other two do not correspond with these.
I mean that the verb 'is' is added either to the term 'just' or to
the term 'not-just', and two negative propositions are formed in the
same way. Thus we have the four propositions. Reference to the
subjoined table will make matters clear:
A. Affirmation B. Denial
Man is just Man is not just
\ /
X
/ \
D. Denial C. Affirmation
Man is not not-just Man is not-just
Here 'is' and 'is not' are added either to 'just' or to 'not-just'.
This then is the proper scheme for these propositions, as has been
said in the Analytics. The same rule holds good, if the subject is
distributed. Thus we have the table:
A'. Affirmation B'. Denial
Every man is just Not every man is just
\ /
X
D'. Denial / \ C'. Affirmation
Not every man is not-just Every man is not-just
Yet here it is not possible, in the same way as in the former case,
that the propositions joined in the table by a diagonal line should
both be true; though under certain circumstances this is the case.
We have thus set out two pairs of opposite propositions; there are
moreover two other pairs, if a term be conjoined with 'not-man', the
latter forming a kind of subject. Thus:
A." B."
Not-man is just Not-man is not just
\ /
- X
D." / \ C."
Not-man is not not-just Not-man is not-just
This is an exhaustive enumeration of all the pairs of opposite
propositions that can possibly be framed. This last group should
remain distinct from those which preceded it, since it employs as
its subject the expression 'not-man'.
When the verb 'is' does not fit the structure of the sentence (for
instance, when the verbs 'walks', 'enjoys health' are used), that
scheme applies, which applied when the word 'is' was added.
Thus we have the propositions: 'every man enjoys health', 'every man
does-not-enjoy-health', 'all that is not-man enjoys health', 'all that
is not-man does-not-enjoy-health'. We must not in these propositions
use the expression 'not every man'. The negative must be attached to
the word 'man', for the word 'every' does not give to the subject a
universal significance, but implies that, as a subject, it is
distributed. This is plain from the following pairs: 'man enjoys
health', 'man does not enjoy health'; 'not-man enjoys health', 'not
man does not enjoy health'. These propositions differ from the
former in being indefinite and not universal in character. Thus the
adjectives 'every' and no additional significance except that the
subject, whether in a positive or in a negative sentence, is
distributed. The rest of the sentence, therefore, will in each case be
the same.
Since the contrary of the proposition 'every animal is just' is
'no animal is just', it is plain that these two propositions will
never both be true at the same time or with reference to the same
subject. Sometimes, however, the contradictories of these contraries
will both be true, as in the instance before us: the propositions 'not
every animal is just' and 'some animals are just' are both true.
Further, the proposition 'no man is just' follows from the
proposition 'every man is not just' and the proposition 'not every man
is not just', which is the opposite of 'every man is not-just',
follows from the proposition 'some men are just'; for if this be true,
there must be some just men.
It is evident, also, that when the subject is individual, if a
question is asked and the negative answer is the true one, a certain
positive proposition is also true. Thus, if the question were asked
Socrates wise?' and the negative answer were the true one, the
positive inference 'Then Socrates is unwise' is correct. But no such
inference is correct in the case of universals, but rather a
negative proposition. For instance, if to the question 'Is every man
wise?' the answer is 'no', the inference 'Then every man is unwise' is
false. But under these circumstances the inference 'Not every man is
wise' is correct. This last is the contradictory, the former the
contrary. Negative expressions, which consist of an indefinite noun or
predicate, such as 'not-man' or 'not-just', may seem to be denials
containing neither noun nor verb in the proper sense of the words. But
they are not. For a denial must always be either true or false, and he
that uses the expression 'not man', if nothing more be added, is not
nearer but rather further from making a true or a false statement than
he who uses the expression 'man'.
The propositions 'everything that is not man is just', and the
contradictory of this, are not equivalent to any of the other
propositions; on the other hand, the proposition 'everything that is
not man is not just' is equivalent to the proposition 'nothing that is
not man is just'.
The conversion of the position of subject and predicate in a
sentence involves no difference in its meaning. Thus we say 'man is
white' and 'white is man'. If these were not equivalent, there would
be more than one contradictory to the same proposition, whereas it has
been demonstrated' that each proposition has one proper
contradictory and one only. For of the proposition 'man is white'
the appropriate contradictory is 'man is not white', and of the
proposition 'white is man', if its meaning be different, the
contradictory will either be 'white is not not-man' or 'white is not
man'. Now the former of these is the contradictory of the
proposition 'white is not-man', and the latter of these is the
contradictory of the proposition 'man is white'; thus there will be
two contradictories to one proposition.
It is evident, therefore, that the inversion of the relative
position of subject and predicate does not affect the sense of
affirmations and denials.
11
There is no unity about an affirmation or denial which, either
positively or negatively, predicates one thing of many subjects, or
many things of the same subject, unless that which is indicated by the
many is really some one thing. do not apply this word 'one' to those
things which, though they have a single recognized name, yet do not
combine to form a unity. Thus, man may be an animal, and biped, and
domesticated, but these three predicates combine to form a unity. On
the other hand, the predicates 'white', 'man', and 'walking' do not
thus combine. Neither, therefore, if these three form the subject of
an affirmation, nor if they form its predicate, is there any unity
about that affirmation. In both cases the unity is linguistic, but not
real.
If therefore the dialectical question is a request for an answer,
i.e. either for the admission of a premiss or for the admission of one
of two contradictories-and the premiss is itself always one of two
contradictories-the answer to such a question as contains the above
predicates cannot be a single proposition. For as I have explained
in the Topics, question is not a single one, even if the answer
asked for is true.
At the same time it is plain that a question of the form 'what is
it?' is not a dialectical question, for a dialectical questioner
must by the form of his question give his opponent the chance of
announcing one of two alternatives, whichever he wishes. He must
therefore put the question into a more definite form, and inquire,
e.g.. whether man has such and such a characteristic or not.
Some combinations of predicates are such that the separate
predicates unite to form a single predicate. Let us consider under
what conditions this is and is not possible. We may either state in
two separate propositions that man is an animal and that man is a
biped, or we may combine the two, and state that man is an animal with
two feet. Similarly we may use 'man' and 'white' as separate
predicates, or unite them into one. Yet if a man is a shoemaker and is
also good, we cannot construct a composite proposition and say that he
is a good shoemaker. For if, whenever two separate predicates truly
belong to a subject, it follows that the predicate resulting from
their combination also truly belongs to the subject, many absurd
results ensue. For instance, a man is man and white. Therefore, if
predicates may always be combined, he is a white man. Again, if the
predicate 'white' belongs to him, then the combination of that
predicate with the former composite predicate will be permissible.
Thus it will be right to say that he is a white man so on
indefinitely. Or, again, we may combine the predicates 'musical',
'white', and 'walking', and these may be combined many times.
Similarly we may say that Socrates is Socrates and a man, and that
therefore he is the man Socrates, or that Socrates is a man and a
biped, and that therefore he is a two-footed man. Thus it is
manifest that if man states unconditionally that predicates can always
be combined, many absurd consequences ensue.
We will now explain what ought to be laid down.
Those predicates, and terms forming the subject of predication,
which are accidental either to the same subject or to one another,
do not combine to form a unity. Take the proposition 'man is white
of complexion and musical'. Whiteness and being musical do not
coalesce to form a unity, for they belong only accidentally to the
same subject. Nor yet, if it were true to say that that which is white
is musical, would the terms 'musical' and 'white' form a unity, for it
is only incidentally that that which is musical is white; the
combination of the two will, therefore, not form a unity.
Thus, again, whereas, if a man is both good and a shoemaker, we
cannot combine the two propositions and say simply that he is a good
shoemaker, we are, at the same time, able to combine the predicates
'animal' and 'biped' and say that a man is an animal with two feet,
for these predicates are not accidental.
Those predicates, again, cannot form a unity, of which the one is
implicit in the other: thus we cannot combine the predicate 'white'
again and again with that which already contains the notion 'white',
nor is it right to call a man an animal-man or a two-footed man; for
the notions 'animal' and 'biped' are implicit in the word 'man'. On
the other hand, it is possible to predicate a term simply of any one
instance, and to say that some one particular man is a man or that
some one white man is a white man.
Yet this is not always possible: indeed, when in the adjunct there
is some opposite which involves a contradiction, the predication of
the simple term is impossible. Thus it is not right to call a dead man
a man. When, however, this is not the case, it is not impossible.
Yet the facts of the case might rather be stated thus: when some
such opposite elements are present, resolution is never possible,
but when they are not present, resolution is nevertheless not always
possible. Take the proposition 'Homer is so-and-so', say 'a poet';
does it follow that Homer is, or does it not? The verb 'is' is here
used of Homer only incidentally, the proposition being that Homer is a
poet, not that he is, in the independent sense of the word.
Thus, in the case of those predications which have within them no
contradiction when the nouns are expanded into definitions, and
wherein the predicates belong to the subject in their own proper sense
and not in any indirect way, the individual may be the subject of
the simple propositions as well as of the composite. But in the case
of that which is not, it is not true to say that because it is the
object of opinion, it is; for the opinion held about it is that it
is not, not that it is.
12
As these distinctions have been made, we must consider the mutual
relation of those affirmations and denials which assert or deny
possibility or contingency, impossibility or necessity: for the
subject is not without difficulty.
We admit that of composite expressions those are contradictory
each to each which have the verb 'to be' its positive and negative
form respectively. Thus the contradictory of the proposition 'man
is' is 'man is not', not 'not-man is', and the contradictory of 'man
is white' is 'man is not white', not 'man is not-white'. For
otherwise, since either the positive or the negative proposition is
true of any subject, it will turn out true to say that a piece of wood
is a man that is not white.
Now if this is the case, in those propositions which do not
contain the verb 'to be' the verb which takes its place will
exercise the same function. Thus the contradictory of 'man walks' is
'man does not walk', not 'not-man walks'; for to say 'man walks'
merely equivalent to saying 'man is walking'.
If then this rule is universal, the contradictory of 'it may be'
is may not be', not 'it cannot be'.
Now it appears that the same thing both may and may not be; for
instance, everything that may be cut or may walk may also escape
cutting and refrain from walking; and the reason is that those
things that have potentiality in this sense are not always actual.
In such cases, both the positive and the negative propositions will be
true; for that which is capable of walking or of being seen has also a
potentiality in the opposite direction.
But since it is impossible that contradictory propositions should
both be true of the same subject, it follows that' it may not be' is
not the contradictory of 'it may be'. For it is a logical
consequence of what we have said, either that the same predicate can
be both applicable and inapplicable to one and the same subject at the
same time, or that it is not by the addition of the verbs 'be' and
'not be', respectively, that positive and negative propositions are
formed. If the former of these alternatives must be rejected, we
must choose the latter.
The contradictory, then, of 'it may be' is 'it cannot be'. The
same rule applies to the proposition 'it is contingent that it
should be'; the contradictory of this is 'it is not contingent that it
should be'. The similar propositions, such as 'it is necessary' and
'it is impossible', may be dealt with in the same manner. For it comes
about that just as in the former instances the verbs 'is' and 'is not'
were added to the subject-matter of the sentence 'white' and 'man', so
here 'that it should be' and 'that it should not be' are the
subject-matter and 'is possible', 'is contingent', are added. These
indicate that a certain thing is or is not possible, just as in the
former instances 'is' and 'is not' indicated that certain things
were or were not the case.
The contradictory, then, of 'it may not be' is not 'it cannot be',
but 'it cannot not be', and the contradictory of 'it may be' is not
'it may not be', but cannot be'. Thus the propositions 'it may be' and
'it may not be' appear each to imply the other: for, since these two
propositions are not contradictory, the same thing both may and may
not be. But the propositions 'it may be' and 'it cannot be' can
never be true of the same subject at the same time, for they are
contradictory. Nor can the propositions 'it may not be' and 'it cannot
not be' be at once true of the same subject.
The propositions which have to do with necessity are governed by the
same principle. The contradictory of 'it is necessary that it should
be', is not 'it is necessary that it should not be,' but 'it is not
necessary that it should be', and the contradictory of 'it is
necessary that it should not be' is 'it is not necessary that it
should not be'.
Again, the contradictory of 'it is impossible that it should be'
is not 'it is impossible that it should not be' but 'it is not
impossible that it should be', and the contradictory of 'it is
impossible that it should not be' is 'it is not impossible that it
should not be'.
To generalize, we must, as has been stated, define the clauses 'that
it should be' and 'that it should not be' as the subject-matter of the
propositions, and in making these terms into affirmations and
denials we must combine them with 'that it should be' and 'that it
should not be' respectively.
We must consider the following pairs as contradictory propositions:
It may be. It cannot be.
It is contingent. It is not contingent.
It is impossible. It is not impossible.
It is necessary. It is not necessary.
It is true. It is not true.
13
Logical sequences follow in due course when we have arranged the
propositions thus. From the proposition 'it may be' it follows that it
is contingent, and the relation is reciprocal. It follows also that it
is not impossible and not necessary.
From the proposition 'it may not be' or 'it is contingent that
it should not be' it follows that it is not necessary that it should
not be and that it is not impossible that it should not be. From the
proposition 'it cannot be' or 'it is not contingent' it follows that
it is necessary that it should not be and that it is impossible that
it should be. From the proposition 'it cannot not be' or 'it is not
contingent that it should not be' it follows that it is necessary that
it should be and that it is impossible that it should not be.
Let us consider these statements by the help of a table:
A. B.
It may be. It cannot be.
It is contingent. It is not contingent.
It is not impossible It is impossible that it
that it should be. should be.
It is not necessary It is necessary that it
that it should be. should not be.
C. D.
It may not be. It cannot not be.
It is contingent that it It is not contingent that
should not be. it should not be.
It is not impossible It is impossible thatit
that it should not be. should not be.
It is not necessary that It is necessary that it
it should not be. should be.
Now the propositions 'it is impossible that it should be' and 'it is
not impossible that it should be' are consequent upon the propositions
'it may be', 'it is contingent', and 'it cannot be', 'it is not
contingent', the contradictories upon the contradictories. But there
is inversion. The negative of the proposition 'it is impossible' is
consequent upon the proposition 'it may be' and the corresponding
positive in the first case upon the negative in the second. For 'it is
impossible' is a positive proposition and 'it is not impossible' is
negative.
We must investigate the relation subsisting between these
propositions and those which predicate necessity. That there is a
distinction is clear. In this case, contrary propositions follow
respectively from contradictory propositions, and the contradictory
propositions belong to separate sequences. For the proposition 'it
is not necessary that it should be' is not the negative of 'it is
necessary that it should not be', for both these propositions may be
true of the same subject; for when it is necessary that a thing should
not be, it is not necessary that it should be. The reason why the
propositions predicating necessity do not follow in the same kind of
sequence as the rest, lies in the fact that the proposition 'it is
impossible' is equivalent, when used with a contrary subject, to the
proposition 'it is necessary'. For when it is impossible that a
thing should be, it is necessary, not that it should be, but that it
should not be, and when it is impossible that a thing should not be,
it is necessary that it should be. Thus, if the propositions
predicating impossibility or non-impossibility follow without change
of subject from those predicating possibility or non-possibility,
those predicating necessity must follow with the contrary subject; for
the propositions 'it is impossible' and 'it is necessary' are not
equivalent, but, as has been said, inversely connected.
Yet perhaps it is impossible that the contradictory propositions
predicating necessity should be thus arranged. For when it is
necessary that a thing should be, it is possible that it should be.
(For if not, the opposite follows, since one or the other must follow;
so, if it is not possible, it is impossible, and it is thus impossible
that a thing should be, which must necessarily be; which is absurd.)
Yet from the proposition 'it may be' it follows that it is not
impossible, and from that it follows that it is not necessary; it
comes about therefore that the thing which must necessarily be need
not be; which is absurd. But again, the proposition 'it is necessary
that it should be' does not follow from the proposition 'it may be',
nor does the proposition 'it is necessary that it should not be'.
For the proposition 'it may be' implies a twofold possibility,
while, if either of the two former propositions is true, the twofold
possibility vanishes. For if a thing may be, it may also not be, but
if it is necessary that it should be or that it should not be, one
of the two alternatives will be excluded. It remains, therefore,
that the proposition 'it is not necessary that it should not be'
follows from the proposition 'it may be'. For this is true also of
that which must necessarily be.
Moreover the proposition 'it is not necessary that it should not be'
is the contradictory of that which follows from the proposition 'it
cannot be'; for 'it cannot be' is followed by 'it is impossible that
it should be' and by 'it is necessary that it should not be', and
the contradictory of this is the proposition 'it is not necessary that
it should not be'. Thus in this case also contradictory propositions
follow contradictory in the way indicated, and no logical
impossibilities occur when they are thus arranged.
It may be questioned whether the proposition 'it may be' follows
from the proposition 'it is necessary that it should be'. If not,
the contradictory must follow, namely that it cannot be, or, if a
man should maintain that this is not the contradictory, then the
proposition 'it may not be'.
Now both of these are false of that which necessarily is. At the
same time, it is thought that if a thing may be cut it may also not be
cut, if a thing may be it may also not be, and thus it would follow
that a thing which must necessarily be may possibly not be; which is
false. It is evident, then, that it is not always the case that that
which may be or may walk possesses also a potentiality in the other
direction. There are exceptions. In the first place we must except
those things which possess a potentiality not in accordance with a
rational principle, as fire possesses the potentiality of giving out
heat, that is, an irrational capacity. Those potentialities which
involve a rational principle are potentialities of more than one
result, that is, of contrary results; those that are irrational are
not always thus constituted. As I have said, fire cannot both heat and
not heat, neither has anything that is always actual any twofold
potentiality. Yet some even of those potentialities which are
irrational admit of opposite results. However, thus much has been said
to emphasize the truth that it is not every potentiality which
admits of opposite results, even where the word is used always in
the same sense.
But in some cases the word is used equivocally. For the term
'possible' is ambiguous, being used in the one case with reference
to facts, to that which is actualized, as when a man is said to find
walking possible because he is actually walking, and generally when
a capacity is predicated because it is actually realized; in the other
case, with reference to a state in which realization is
conditionally practicable, as when a man is said to find walking
possible because under certain conditions he would walk. This last
sort of potentiality belongs only to that which can be in motion,
the former can exist also in the case of that which has not this
power. Both of that which is walking and is actual, and of that
which has the capacity though not necessarily realized, it is true
to say that it is not impossible that it should walk (or, in the other
case, that it should be), but while we cannot predicate this latter
kind of potentiality of that which is necessary in the unqualified
sense of the word, we can predicate the former.
Our conclusion, then, is this: that since the universal is
consequent upon the particular, that which is necessary is also
possible, though not in every sense in which the word may be used.
We may perhaps state that necessity and its absence are the
initial principles of existence and non-existence, and that all else
must be regarded as posterior to these.
It is plain from what has been said that that which is of
necessity is actual. Thus, if that which is eternal is prior,
actuality also is prior to potentiality. Some things are actualities
without potentiality, namely, the primary substances; a second class
consists of those things which are actual but also potential, whose
actuality is in nature prior to their potentiality, though posterior
in time; a third class comprises those things which are never
actualized, but are pure potentialities.
14
The question arises whether an affirmation finds its contrary in a
denial or in another affirmation; whether the proposition 'every man
is just' finds its contrary in the proposition 'no man is just', or in
the proposition 'every man is unjust'. Take the propositions
'Callias is just', 'Callias is not just', 'Callias is unjust'; we have
to discover which of these form contraries.
Now if the spoken word corresponds with the judgement of the mind,
and if, in thought, that judgement is the contrary of another, which
pronounces a contrary fact, in the way, for instance, in which the
judgement 'every man is just' pronounces a contrary to that pronounced
by the judgement 'every man is unjust', the same must needs hold
good with regard to spoken affirmations.
But if, in thought, it is not the judgement which pronounces a
contrary fact that is the contrary of another, then one affirmation
will not find its contrary in another, but rather in the corresponding
denial. We must therefore consider which true judgement is the
contrary of the false, that which forms the denial of the false
judgement or that which affirms the contrary fact.
Let me illustrate. There is a true judgement concerning that which
is good, that it is good; another, a false judgement, that it is not
good; and a third, which is distinct, that it is bad. Which of these
two is contrary to the true? And if they are one and the same, which
mode of expression forms the contrary?
It is an error to suppose that judgements are to be defined as
contrary in virtue of the fact that they have contrary subjects; for
the judgement concerning a good thing, that it is good, and that
concerning a bad thing, that it is bad, may be one and the same, and
whether they are so or not, they both represent the truth. Yet the
subjects here are contrary. But judgements are not contrary because
they have contrary subjects, but because they are to the contrary
effect.
Now if we take the judgement that that which is good is good, and
another that it is not good, and if there are at the same time other
attributes, which do not and cannot belong to the good, we must
nevertheless refuse to treat as the contraries of the true judgement
those which opine that some other attribute subsists which does not
subsist, as also those that opine that some other attribute does not
subsist which does subsist, for both these classes of judgement are of
unlimited content.
Those judgements must rather be termed contrary to the true
judgements, in which error is present. Now these judgements are
those which are concerned with the starting points of generation,
and generation is the passing from one extreme to its opposite;
therefore error is a like transition.
Now that which is good is both good and not bad. The first quality
is part of its essence, the second accidental; for it is by accident
that it is not bad. But if that true judgement is most really true,
which concerns the subject's intrinsic nature, then that false
judgement likewise is most really false, which concerns its
intrinsic nature. Now the judgement that that is good is not good is a
false judgement concerning its intrinsic nature, the judgement that it
is bad is one concerning that which is accidental. Thus the
judgement which denies the true judgement is more really false than
that which positively asserts the presence of the contrary quality.
But it is the man who forms that judgement which is contrary to the
true who is most thoroughly deceived, for contraries are among the
things which differ most widely within the same class. If then of
the two judgements one is contrary to the true judgement, but that
which is contradictory is the more truly contrary, then the latter, it
seems, is the real contrary. The judgement that that which is good
is bad is composite. For presumably the man who forms that judgement
must at the same time understand that that which is good is not good.
Further, the contradictory is either always the contrary or never;
therefore, if it must necessarily be so in all other cases, our
conclusion in the case just dealt with would seem to be correct. Now
where terms have no contrary, that judgement is false, which forms the
negative of the true; for instance, he who thinks a man is not a man
forms a false judgement. If then in these cases the negative is the
contrary, then the principle is universal in its application.
Again, the judgement that that which is not good is not good is
parallel with the judgement that that which is good is good. Besides
these there is the judgement that that which is good is not good,
parallel with the judgement that that that is not good is good. Let us
consider, therefore, what would form the contrary of the true
judgement that that which is not good is not good. The judgement
that it is bad would, of course, fail to meet the case, since two true
judgements are never contrary and this judgement might be true at
the same time as that with which it is connected. For since some
things which are not good are bad, both judgements may be true. Nor is
the judgement that it is not bad the contrary, for this too might be
true, since both qualities might be predicated of the same subject. It
remains, therefore, that of the judgement concerning that which is not
good, that it is not good, the contrary judgement is that it is
good; for this is false. In the same way, moreover, the judgement
concerning that which is good, that it is not good, is the contrary of
the judgement that it is good.
It is evident that it will make no difference if we universalize the
positive judgement, for the universal negative judgement will form the
contrary. For instance, the contrary of the judgement that
everything that is good is good is that nothing that is good is
good. For the judgement that that which is good is good, if the
subject be understood in a universal sense, is equivalent to the
judgement that whatever is good is good, and this is identical with
the judgement that everything that is good is good. We may deal
similarly with judgements concerning that which is not good.
If therefore this is the rule with judgements, and if spoken
affirmations and denials are judgements expressed in words, it is
plain that the universal denial is the contrary of the affirmation
about the same subject. Thus the propositions 'everything good is
good', 'every man is good', have for their contraries the propositions
'nothing good is good', 'no man is good'. The contradictory
propositions, on the other hand, are 'not everything good is good',
'not every man is good'.
It is evident, also, that neither true judgements nor true
propositions can be contrary the one to the other. For whereas, when
two propositions are true, a man may state both at the same time
without inconsistency, contrary propositions are those which state
contrary conditions, and contrary conditions cannot subsist at one and
the same time in the same subject.
THE END
350 BC
by Aristotle
translated by J. I. Beare
1
WE have, in the next place, to treat of Memory and Remembering,
considering its nature, its cause, and the part of the soul to which
this experience, as well as that of Recollecting, belongs. For the
persons who possess a retentive memory are not identical with those
who excel in power of recollection; indeed, as a rule, slow people
have a good memory, whereas those who are quick-witted and clever
are better at recollecting.
We must first form a true conception of these objects of memory, a
point on which mistakes are often made. Now to remember the future
is not possible, but this is an object of opinion or expectation
(and indeed there might be actually a science of expectation, like
that of divination, in which some believe); nor is there memory of the
present, but only sense-perception. For by the latter we know not
the future, nor the past, but the present only. But memory relates
to the past. No one would say that he remembers the present, when it
is present, e.g. a given white object at the moment when he sees it;
nor would one say that he remembers an object of scientific
contemplation at the moment when he is actually contemplating it,
and has it full before his mind;-of the former he would say only
that he perceives it, of the latter only that he knows it. But when
one has scientific knowledge, or perception, apart from the
actualizations of the faculty concerned, he thus 'remembers' (that the
angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles); as to
the former, that he learned it, or thought it out for himself, as to
the latter, that he heard, or saw, it, or had some such sensible
experience of it. For whenever one exercises the faculty of
remembering, he must say within himself, 'I formerly heard (or
otherwise perceived) this,' or 'I formerly had this thought'.
Memory is, therefore, neither Perception nor Conception, but a state
or affection of one of these, conditioned by lapse of time. As already
observed, there is no such thing as memory of the present while
present, for the present is object only of perception, and the future,
of expectation, but the object of memory is the past. All memory,
therefore, implies a time elapsed; consequently only those animals
which perceive time remember, and the organ whereby they perceive time
is also that whereby they remember.
The subject of 'presentation' has been already considered in our
work On the Soul. Without a presentation intellectual activity is
impossible. For there is in such activity an incidental affection
identical with one also incidental in geometrical demonstrations.
For in the latter case, though we do not for the purpose of the
proof make any use of the fact that the quantity in the triangle
(for example, which we have drawn) is determinate, we nevertheless
draw it determinate in quantity. So likewise when one exerts the
intellect (e.g. on the subject of first principles), although the
object may not be quantitative, one envisages it as quantitative,
though he thinks it in abstraction from quantity; while, on the
other hand, if the object of the intellect is essentially of the class
of things that are quantitative, but indeterminate, one envisages it
as if it had determinate quantity, though subsequently, in thinking
it, he abstracts from its determinateness. Why we cannot exercise
the intellect on any object absolutely apart from the continuous, or
apply it even to non-temporal things unless in connexion with time, is
another question. Now, one must cognize magnitude and motion by
means of the same faculty by which one cognizes time (i.e. by that
which is also the faculty of memory), and the presentation (involved
in such cognition) is an affection of the sensus communis; whence this
follows, viz. that the cognition of these objects (magnitude, motion
time) is effected by the (said sensus communis, i.e. the) primary
faculty of perception. Accordingly, memory (not merely of sensible,
but) even of intellectual objects involves a presentation: hence we
may conclude that it belongs to the faculty of intelligence only
incidentally, while directly and essentially it belongs to the primary
faculty of sense-perception.
Hence not only human beings and the beings which possess opinion
or intelligence, but also certain other animals, possess memory. If
memory were a function of (pure) intellect, it would not have been
as it is an attribute of many of the lower animals, but probably, in
that case, no mortal beings would have had memory; since, even as
the case stands, it is not an attribute of them all, just because
all have not the faculty of perceiving time. Whenever one actually
remembers having seen or heard, or learned, something, he includes
in this act (as we have already observed) the consciousness of
'formerly'; and the distinction of 'former' and 'latter' is a
distinction in time.
Accordingly if asked, of which among the parts of the soul memory is
a function, we reply: manifestly of that part to which
'presentation' appertains; and all objects capable of being
presented (viz. aistheta) are immediately and properly objects of
memory, while those (viz. noeta) which necessarily involve (but only
involve) presentation are objects of memory incidentally.
One might ask how it is possible that though the affection (the
presentation) alone is present, and the (related) fact absent, the
latter-that which is not present-is remembered. (The question arises),
because it is clear that we must conceive that which is generated
through sense-perception in the sentient soul, and in the part of
the body which is its seat-viz. that affection the state whereof we
call memory-to be some such thing as a picture. The process of
movement (sensory stimulation) involved the act of perception stamps
in, as it were, a sort of impression of the percept, just as persons
do who make an impression with a seal. This explains why, in those who
are strongly moved owing to passion, or time of life, no mnemonic
impression is formed; just as no impression would be formed if the
movement of the seal were to impinge on running water; while there are
others in whom, owing to the receiving surface being frayed, as
happens to (the stucco on) old (chamber) walls, or owing to the
hardness of the receiving surface, the requisite impression is not
implanted at all. Hence both very young and very old persons are
defective in memory; they are in a state of flux, the former because
of their growth, the latter, owing to their decay. In like manner,
also, both those who are too quick and those who are too slow have bad
memories. The former are too soft, the latter too hard (in the texture
of their receiving organs), so that in the case of the former the
presented image (though imprinted) does not remain in the soul,
while on the latter it is not imprinted at all.
But then, if this truly describes what happens in the genesis of
memory, (the question stated above arises:) when one remembers, is
it this impressed affection that he remembers, or is it the
objective thing from which this was derived? If the former, it would
follow that we remember nothing which is absent; if the latter, how is
it possible that, though perceiving directly only the impression, we
remember that absent thing which we do not perceive? Granted that
there is in us something like an impression or picture, why should the
perception of the mere impression be memory of something else, instead
of being related to this impression alone? For when one actually
remembers, this impression is what he contemplates, and this is what
he perceives. How then does he remember what is not present? One might
as well suppose it possible also to see or hear that which is not
present. In reply, we suggest that this very thing is quite
conceivable, nay, actually occurs in experience. A picture painted
on a panel is at once a picture and a likeness: that is, while one and
the same, it is both of these, although the 'being' of both is not the
same, and one may contemplate it either as a picture, or as a
likeness. Just in the same way we have to conceive that the mnemonic
presentation within us is something which by itself is merely an
object of contemplation, while, in-relation to something else, it is
also a presentation of that other thing. In so far as it is regarded
in itself, it is only an object of contemplation, or a presentation;
but when considered as relative to something else, e.g. as its
likeness, it is also a mnemonic token. Hence, whenever the residual
sensory process implied by it is actualized in consciousness, if the
soul perceives this in so far as it is something absolute, it
appears to occur as a mere thought or presentation; but if the soul
perceives it qua related to something else, then,-just as when one
contemplates the painting in the picture as being a likeness, and
without having (at the moment) seen the actual Koriskos,
contemplates it as a likeness of Koriskos, and in that case the
experience involved in this contemplation of it (as relative) is
different from what one has when he contemplates it simply as a
painted figure-(so in the case of memory we have the analogous
difference for), of the objects in the soul, the one (the unrelated
object) presents itself simply as a thought, but the other (the
related object) just because, as in the painting, it is a likeness,
presents itself as a mnemonic token.
We can now understand why it is that sometimes, when we have such
processes, based on some former act of perception, occurring in the
soul, we do not know whether this really implies our having had
perceptions corresponding to them, and we doubt whether the case is or
is not one of memory. But occasionally it happens that (while thus
doubting) we get a sudden idea and recollect that we heard or saw
something formerly. This (occurrence of the 'sudden idea') happens
whenever, from contemplating a mental object as absolute, one
changes his point of view, and regards it as relative to something
else.
The opposite (sc. to the case of those who at first do not recognize
their phantasms as mnemonic) also occurs, as happened in the cases
of Antipheron of Oreus and others suffering from mental derangement;
for they were accustomed to speak of their mere phantasms as facts
of their past experience, and as if remembering them. This takes place
whenever one contemplates what is not a likeness as if it were a
likeness.
Mnemonic exercises aim at preserving one's memory of something by
repeatedly reminding him of it; which implies nothing else (on the
learner's part) than the frequent contemplation of something (viz. the
'mnemonic', whatever it may be) as a likeness, and not as out of
relation.
As regards the question, therefore, what memory or remembering is,
it has now been shown that it is the state of a presentation,
related as a likeness to that of which it is a presentation; and as to
the question of which of the faculties within us memory is a function,
(it has been shown) that it is a function of the primary faculty of
sense-perception, i.e. of that faculty whereby we perceive time.
2
Next comes the subject of Recollection, in dealing with which we
must assume as fundamental the truths elicited above in our
introductory discussions. For recollection is not the 'recovery' or
'acquisition' of memory; since at the instant when one at first learns
(a fact of science) or experiences (a particular fact of sense), he
does not thereby 'recover' a memory, inasmuch as none has preceded,
nor does he acquire one ab initio. It is only at the instant when
the aforesaid state or affection (of the aisthesis or upolepsis) is
implanted in the soul that memory exists, and therefore memory is
not itself implanted concurrently with the continuous implantation
of the (original) sensory experience.
Further: at the very individual and concluding instant when first
(the sensory experience or scientific knowledge) has been completely
implanted, there is then already established in the person affected
the (sensory) affection, or the scientific knowledge (if one ought
to apply the term 'scientific knowledge' to the (mnemonic) state or
affection; and indeed one may well remember, in the 'incidental'
sense, some of the things (i.e. ta katholou) which are properly
objects of scientific knowledge); but to remember, strictly and
properly speaking, is an activity which will not be immanent until the
original experience has undergone lapse of time. For one remembers now
what one saw or otherwise experienced formerly; the moment of the
original experience and the moment of the memory of it are never
identical.
Again, (even when time has elapsed, and one can be said really to
have acquired memory, this is not necessarily recollection, for
firstly) it is obviously possible, without any present act of
recollection, to remember as a continued consequence of the original
perception or other experience; whereas when (after an interval of
obliviscence) one recovers some scientific knowledge which he had
before, or some perception, or some other experience, the state of
which we above declared to be memory, it is then, and then only,
that this recovery may amount to a recollection of any of the things
aforesaid. But, (though as observed above, remembering does not
necessarily imply recollecting), recollecting always implies
remembering, and actualized memory follows (upon the successful act of
recollecting).
But secondly, even the assertion that recollection is the
reinstatement in consciousness of something which was there before but
had disappeared requires qualification. This assertion may be true,
but it may also be false; for the same person may twice learn (from
some teacher), or twice discover (i.e. excogitate), the same fact.
Accordingly, the act of recollecting ought (in its definition) to be
distinguished from these acts; i.e. recollecting must imply in those
who recollect the presence of some spring over and above that from
which they originally learn.
Acts of recollection, as they occur in experience, are due to the
fact that one movement has by nature another that succeeds it in
regular order.
If this order be necessary, whenever a subject experiences the
former of two movements thus connected, it will (invariably)
experience the latter; if, however, the order be not necessary, but
customary, only in the majority of cases will the subject experience
the latter of the two movements. But it is a fact that there are
some movements, by a single experience of which persons take the
impress of custom more deeply than they do by experiencing others many
times; hence upon seeing some things but once we remember them
better than others which we may have been frequently.
Whenever therefore, we are recollecting, we are experiencing certain
of the antecedent movements until finally we experience the one
after which customarily comes that which we seek. This explains why we
hunt up the series (of kineseis) having started in thought either from
a present intuition or some other, and from something either
similar, or contrary, to what we seek, or else from that which is
contiguous with it. Such is the empirical ground of the process of
recollection; for the mnemonic movements involved in these
starting-points are in some cases identical, in others, again,
simultaneous, with those of the idea we seek, while in others they
comprise a portion of them, so that the remnant which one
experienced after that portion (and which still requires to be excited
in memory) is comparatively small.
Thus, then, it is that persons seek to recollect, and thus, too,
it is that they recollect even without the effort of seeking to do so,
viz. when the movement implied in recollection has supervened on
some other which is its condition. For, as a rule, it is when
antecedent movements of the classes here described have first been
excited, that the particular movement implied in recollection follows.
We need not examine a series of which the beginning and end lie far
apart, in order to see how (by recollection) we remember; one in which
they lie near one another will serve equally well. For it is clear
that the method is in each case the same, that is, one hunts up the
objective series, without any previous search or previous
recollection. For (there is, besides the natural order, viz. the order
of the pralmata, or events of the primary experience, also a customary
order, and) by the effect of custom the mnemonic movements tend to
succeed one another in a certain order. Accordingly, therefore, when
one wishes to recollect, this is what he will do: he will try to
obtain a beginning of movement whose sequel shall be the movement
which he desires to reawaken. This explains why attempts at
recollection succeed soonest and best when they start from a beginning
(of some objective series). For, in order of succession, the
mnemonic movements are to one another as the objective facts (from
which they are derived). Accordingly, things arranged in a fixed
order, like the successive demonstrations in geometry, are easy to
remember (or recollect) while badly arranged subjects are remembered
with difficulty.
Recollecting differs also in this respect from relearning, that
one who recollects will be able, somehow, to move, solely by his own
effort, to the term next after the starting-point. When one cannot
do this of himself, but only by external assistance, he no longer
remembers (i.e. he has totally forgotten, and therefore of course
cannot recollect). It often happens that, though a person cannot
recollect at the moment, yet by seeking he can do so, and discovers
what he seeks. This he succeeds in doing by setting up many movements,
until finally he excites one of a kind which will have for its
sequel the fact he wishes to recollect. For remembering (which is
the condicio sine qua non of recollecting) is the existence,
potentially, in the mind of a movement capable of stimulating it to
the desired movement, and this, as has been said, in such a way that
the person should be moved (prompted to recollection) from within
himself, i.e. in consequence of movements wholly contained within
himself.
But one must get hold of a starting-point. This explains why it is
that persons are supposed to recollect sometimes by starting from
mnemonic loci. The cause is that they pass swiftly in thought from one
point to another, e.g. from milk to white, from white to mist, and
thence to moist, from which one remembers Autumn (the 'season of
mists'), if this be the season he is trying to recollect.
It seems true in general that the middle point also among all things
is a good mnemonic starting-point from which to reach any of them. For
if one does not recollect before, he will do so when he has come to
this, or, if not, nothing can help him; as, e.g. if one were to have
in mind the numerical series denoted by the symbols A, B, G, D, E,
Z, I, H, O. For, if he does not remember what he wants at E, then at E
he remembers O; because from E movement in either direction is
possible, to D or to Z. But, if it is not for one of these that he
is searching, he will remember (what he is searching for) when he
has come to G if he is searching for H or I. But if (it is) not (for H
or I that he is searching, but for one of the terms that remain), he
will remember by going to A, and so in all cases (in which one
starts from a middle point). The cause of one's sometimes recollecting
and sometimes not, though starting from the same point, is, that
from the same starting-point a movement can be made in several
directions, as, for instance, from G to I or to D. If, then, the
mind has not (when starting from E) moved in an old path (i.e. one
in which it moved first having the objective experience, and that,
therefore, in which un-'ethized' phusis would have it again move),
it tends to move to the more customary; for (the mind having, by
chance or otherwise, missed moving in the 'old' way) Custom now
assumes the role of Nature. Hence the rapidity with which we recollect
what we frequently think about. For as regular sequence of events is
in accordance with nature, so, too, regular sequence is observed in
the actualization of kinesis (in consciousness), and here frequency
tends to produce (the regularity of) nature. And since in the realm of
nature occurrences take place which are even contrary to nature, or
fortuitous, the same happens a fortiori in the sphere swayed by
custom, since in this sphere natural law is not similarly established.
Hence it is that (from the same starting-point) the mind receives an
impulse to move sometimes in the required direction, and at other
times otherwise, (doing the latter) particularly when something else
somehow deflects the mind from the right direction and attracts it
to itself. This last consideration explains too how it happens that,
when we want to remember a name, we remember one somewhat like it,
indeed, but blunder in reference to (i.e. in pronouncing) the one we
intended.
Thus, then, recollection takes place.
But the point of capital importance is that (for the purpose of
recollection) one should cognize, determinately or indeterminately,
the time-relation (of that which he wishes to recollect). There
is,-let it be taken as a fact,-something by which one distinguishes
a greater and a smaller time; and it is reasonable to think that one
does this in a way analogous to that in which one discerns (spacial)
magnitudes. For it is not by the mind's reaching out towards them,
as some say a visual ray from the eye does (in seeing), that one
thinks of large things at a distance in space (for even if they are
not there, one may similarly think them); but one does so by a
proportionate mental movement. For there are in the mind the like
figures and movements (i.e. 'like' to those of objects and events).
Therefore, when one thinks the greater objects, in what will his
thinking those differ from his thinking the smaller? (In nothing,)
because all the internal though smaller are as it were proportional to
the external. Now, as we may assume within a person something
proportional to the forms (of distant magnitudes), so, too, we may
doubtless assume also something else proportional to their
distances. As, therefore, if one has (psychically) the movement in AB,
BE, he constructs in thought (i.e. knows objectively) GD, since AG and
GD bear equal ratios respectively (to AB and BE), (so he who
recollects also proceeds). Why then does he construct GD rather than
ZH? Is it not because as AG is to AB, so is O to I? These movements
therefore (sc. in AB, BE, and in O:I) he has simultaneously. But if he
wishes to construct to thought ZH, he has in mind BE in like manner as
before (when constructing GD), but now, instead of (the movements of
the ratio) O:I, he has in mind (those of the ratio K:L; for
K:L::ZA:BA. (See diagram.)
When, therefore, the 'movement' corresponding to the object and that
corresponding to its time concur, then one actually remembers. If
one supposes (himself to move in these different but concurrent
ways) without really doing so, he supposes himself to remember.
For one may be mistaken, and think that he remembers when he
really does not. But it is not possible, conversely, that when one
actually remembers he should not suppose himself to remember, but
should remember unconsciously. For remembering, as we have conceived
it, essentially implies consciousness of itself. If, however, the
movement corresponding to the objective fact takes place without
that corresponding to the time, or, if the latter takes place
without the former, one does not remember.
The movement answering to the time is of two kinds. Sometimes in
remembering a fact one has no determinate time-notion of it, no such
notion as that e.g. he did something or other on the day before
yesterday; while in other cases he has a determinate notion-of the
time. Still, even though one does not remember with actual
determination of the time, he genuinely remembers, none the less.
Persons are wont to say that they remember (something), but yet do not
know when (it occurred, as happens) whenever they do not know
determinately the exact length of time implied in the 'when'.
It has been already stated that those who have a good memory are not
identical with those who are quick at recollecting. But the act of
recollecting differs from that of remembering, not only
chronologically, but also in this, that many also of the other animals
(as well as man) have memory, but, of all that we are acquainted with,
none, we venture to say, except man, shares in the faculty of
recollection. The cause of this is that recollection is, as it were
a mode of inference. For he who endeavours to recollect infers that he
formerly saw, or heard, or had some such experience, and the process
(by which he succeeds in recollecting) is, as it were, a sort of
investigation. But to investigate in this way belongs naturally to
those animals alone which are also endowed with the faculty of
deliberation; (which proves what was said above), for deliberation
is a form of inference.
That the affection is corporeal, i.e. that recollection is a
searching for an 'image' in a corporeal substrate, is proved by the
fact that in some persons, when, despite the most strenuous
application of thought, they have been unable to recollect, it (viz.
the anamnesis = the effort at recollection) excites a feeling of
discomfort, which, even though they abandon the effort at
recollection, persists in them none the less; and especially in
persons of melancholic temperament. For these are most powerfully
moved by presentations. The reason why the effort of recollection is
not under the control of their will is that, as those who throw a
stone cannot stop it at their will when thrown, so he who tries to
recollect and 'hunts' (after an idea) sets up a process in a
material part, (that) in which resides the affection. Those who have
moisture around that part which is the centre of sense-perception
suffer most discomfort of this kind. For when once the moisture has
been set in motion it is not easily brought to rest, until the idea
which was sought for has again presented itself, and thus the movement
has found a straight course. For a similar reason bursts of anger or
fits of terror, when once they have excited such motions, are not at
once allayed, even though the angry or terrified persons (by efforts
of will) set up counter motions, but the passions continue to move
them on, in the same direction as at first, in opposition to such
counter motions. The affection resembles also that in the case of
words, tunes, or sayings, whenever one of them has become inveterate
on the lips. People give them up and resolve to avoid them; yet
again they find themselves humming the forbidden air, or using the
prohibited word. Those whose upper parts are abnormally large, as.
is the case with dwarfs, have abnormally weak memory, as compared with
their opposites, because of the great weight which they have resting
upon the organ of perception, and because their mnemonic movements
are, from the very first, not able to keep true to a course, but are
dispersed, and because, in the effort at recollection, these movements
do not easily find a direct onward path. Infants and very old
persons have bad memories, owing to the amount of movement going on
within them; for the latter are in process of rapid decay, the
former in process of vigorous growth; and we may add that children,
until considerably advanced in years, are dwarf-like in their bodily
structure. Such then is our theory as regards memory and remembering
their nature, and the particular organ of the soul by which animals
remember; also as regards recollection, its formal definition, and the
manner and causes-of its performance.
-THE END-
350 BC
by Aristotle
translated by W. D. Ross
Book I
1
ALL men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the
delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness
they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of
sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not
going to do anything, we prefer seeing (one might say) to everything
else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know
and brings to light many differences between things.
By nature animals are born with the faculty of sensation, and from
sensation memory is produced in some of them, though not in others.
And therefore the former are more intelligent and apt at learning than
those which cannot remember; those which are incapable of hearing
sounds are intelligent though they cannot be taught, e.g. the bee, and
any other race of animals that may be like it; and those which besides
memory have this sense of hearing can be taught.
The animals other than man live by appearances and memories, and
have but little of connected experience; but the human race lives also
by art and reasonings. Now from memory experience is produced in
men; for the several memories of the same thing produce finally the
capacity for a single experience. And experience seems pretty much
like science and art, but really science and art come to men through
experience; for 'experience made art', as Polus says, 'but
inexperience luck.' Now art arises when from many notions gained by
experience one universal judgement about a class of objects is
produced. For to have a judgement that when Callias was ill of this
disease this did him good, and similarly in the case of Socrates and
in many individual cases, is a matter of experience; but to judge that
it has done good to all persons of a certain constitution, marked
off in one class, when they were ill of this disease, e.g. to
phlegmatic or bilious people when burning with fevers-this is a matter
of art.
With a view to action experience seems in no respect inferior to
art, and men of experience succeed even better than those who have
theory without experience. (The reason is that experience is knowledge
of individuals, art of universals, and actions and productions are all
concerned with the individual; for the physician does not cure man,
except in an incidental way, but Callias or Socrates or some other
called by some such individual name, who happens to be a man. If,
then, a man has the theory without the experience, and recognizes
the universal but does not know the individual included in this, he
will often fail to cure; for it is the individual that is to be
cured.) But yet we think that knowledge and understanding belong to
art rather than to experience, and we suppose artists to be wiser than
men of experience (which implies that Wisdom depends in all cases
rather on knowledge); and this because the former know the cause,
but the latter do not. For men of experience know that the thing is
so, but do not know why, while the others know the 'why' and the
cause. Hence we think also that the masterworkers in each craft are
more honourable and know in a truer sense and are wiser than the
manual workers, because they know the causes of the things that are
done (we think the manual workers are like certain lifeless things
which act indeed, but act without knowing what they do, as fire
burns,-but while the lifeless things perform each of their functions
by a natural tendency, the labourers perform them through habit); thus
we view them as being wiser not in virtue of being able to act, but of
having the theory for themselves and knowing the causes. And in
general it is a sign of the man who knows and of the man who does
not know, that the former can teach, and therefore we think art more
truly knowledge than experience is; for artists can teach, and men
of mere experience cannot.
Again, we do not regard any of the senses as Wisdom; yet surely
these give the most authoritative knowledge of particulars. But they
do not tell us the 'why' of anything-e.g. why fire is hot; they only
say that it is hot.
At first he who invented any art whatever that went beyond the
common perceptions of man was naturally admired by men, not only
because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he
was thought wise and superior to the rest. But as more arts were
invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to
recreation, the inventors of the latter were naturally always regarded
as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of
knowledge did not aim at utility. Hence when all such inventions
were already established, the sciences which do not aim at giving
pleasure or at the necessities of life were discovered, and first in
the places where men first began to have leisure. This is why the
mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there the priestly
caste was allowed to be at leisure.
We have said in the Ethics what the difference is between art
and science and the other kindred faculties; but the point of our
present discussion is this, that all men suppose what is called Wisdom
to deal with the first causes and the principles of things; so that,
as has been said before, the man of experience is thought to be
wiser than the possessors of any sense-perception whatever, the artist
wiser than the men of experience, the masterworker than the
mechanic, and the theoretical kinds of knowledge to be more of the
nature of Wisdom than the productive. Clearly then Wisdom is knowledge
about certain principles and causes.
2
Since we are seeking this knowledge, we must inquire of what
kind are the causes and the principles, the knowledge of which is
Wisdom. If one were to take the notions we have about the wise man,
this might perhaps make the answer more evident. We suppose first,
then, that the wise man knows all things, as far as possible, although
he has not knowledge of each of them in detail; secondly, that he
who can learn things that are difficult, and not easy for man to know,
is wise (sense-perception is common to all, and therefore easy and
no mark of Wisdom); again, that he who is more exact and more
capable of teaching the causes is wiser, in every branch of knowledge;
and that of the sciences, also, that which is desirable on its own
account and for the sake of knowing it is more of the nature of Wisdom
than that which is desirable on account of its results, and the
superior science is more of the nature of Wisdom than the ancillary;
for the wise man must not be ordered but must order, and he must not
obey another, but the less wise must obey him.
Such and so many are the notions, then, which we have about Wisdom
and the wise. Now of these characteristics that of knowing all
things must belong to him who has in the highest degree universal
knowledge; for he knows in a sense all the instances that fall under
the universal. And these things, the most universal, are on the
whole the hardest for men to know; for they are farthest from the
senses. And the most exact of the sciences are those which deal most
with first principles; for those which involve fewer principles are
more exact than those which involve additional principles, e.g.
arithmetic than geometry. But the science which investigates causes is
also instructive, in a higher degree, for the people who instruct us
are those who tell the causes of each thing. And understanding and
knowledge pursued for their own sake are found most in the knowledge
of that which is most knowable (for he who chooses to know for the
sake of knowing will choose most readily that which is most truly
knowledge, and such is the knowledge of that which is most
knowable); and the first principles and the causes are most
knowable; for by reason of these, and from these, all other things
come to be known, and not these by means of the things subordinate
to them. And the science which knows to what end each thing must be
done is the most authoritative of the sciences, and more authoritative
than any ancillary science; and this end is the good of that thing,
and in general the supreme good in the whole of nature. Judged by
all the tests we have mentioned, then, the name in question falls to
the same science; this must be a science that investigates the first
principles and causes; for the good, i.e. the end, is one of the
causes.
That it is not a science of production is clear even from the
history of the earliest philosophers. For it is owing to their
wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize;
they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced
little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters,
e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and of the
stars, and about the genesis of the universe. And a man who is puzzled
and wonders thinks himself ignorant (whence even the lover of myth
is in a sense a lover of Wisdom, for the myth is composed of wonders);
therefore since they philosophized order to escape from ignorance,
evidently they were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any
utilitarian end. And this is confirmed by the facts; for it was when
almost all the necessities of life and the things that make for
comfort and recreation had been secured, that such knowledge began
to be sought. Evidently then we do not seek it for the sake of any
other advantage; but as the man is free, we say, who exists for his
own sake and not for another's, so we pursue this as the only free
science, for it alone exists for its own sake.
Hence also the possession of it might be justly regarded as beyond
human power; for in many ways human nature is in bondage, so that
according to Simonides 'God alone can have this privilege', and it
is unfitting that man should not be content to seek the knowledge that
is suited to him. If, then, there is something in what the poets
say, and jealousy is natural to the divine power, it would probably
occur in this case above all, and all who excelled in this knowledge
would be unfortunate. But the divine power cannot be jealous (nay,
according to the proverb, 'bards tell a lie'), nor should any other
science be thought more honourable than one of this sort. For the most
divine science is also most honourable; and this science alone must
be, in two ways, most divine. For the science which it would be most
meet for God to have is a divine science, and so is any science that
deals with divine objects; and this science alone has both these
qualities; for (1) God is thought to be among the causes of all things
and to be a first principle, and (2) such a science either God alone
can have, or God above all others. All the sciences, indeed, are
more necessary than this, but none is better.
Yet the acquisition of it must in a sense end in something which
is the opposite of our original inquiries. For all men begin, as we
said, by wondering that things are as they are, as they do about
self-moving marionettes, or about the solstices or the
incommensurability of the diagonal of a square with the side; for it
seems wonderful to all who have not yet seen the reason, that there is
a thing which cannot be measured even by the smallest unit. But we
must end in the contrary and, according to the proverb, the better
state, as is the case in these instances too when men learn the cause;
for there is nothing which would surprise a geometer so much as if the
diagonal turned out to be commensurable.
We have stated, then, what is the nature of the science we are
searching for, and what is the mark which our search and our whole
investigation must reach.
3
Evidently we have to acquire knowledge of the original causes (for
we say we know each thing only when we think we recognize its first
cause), and causes are spoken of in four senses. In one of these we
mean the substance, i.e. the essence (for the 'why' is reducible
finally to the definition, and the ultimate 'why' is a cause and
principle); in another the matter or substratum, in a third the source
of the change, and in a fourth the cause opposed to this, the
purpose and the good (for this is the end of all generation and
change). We have studied these causes sufficiently in our work on
nature, but yet let us call to our aid those who have attacked the
investigation of being and philosophized about reality before us.
For obviously they too speak of certain principles and causes; to go
over their views, then, will be of profit to the present inquiry,
for we shall either find another kind of cause, or be more convinced
of the correctness of those which we now maintain.
Of the first philosophers, then, most thought the principles which
were of the nature of matter were the only principles of all things.
That of which all things that are consist, the first from which they
come to be, the last into which they are resolved (the substance
remaining, but changing in its modifications), this they say is the
element and this the principle of things, and therefore they think
nothing is either generated or destroyed, since this sort of entity is
always conserved, as we say Socrates neither comes to be absolutely
when he comes to be beautiful or musical, nor ceases to be when
loses these characteristics, because the substratum, Socrates
himself remains. just so they say nothing else comes to be or ceases
to be; for there must be some entity-either one or more than
one-from which all other things come to be, it being conserved.
Yet they do not all agree as to the number and the nature of these
principles. Thales, the founder of this type of philosophy, says the
principle is water (for which reason he declared that the earth
rests on water), getting the notion perhaps from seeing that the
nutriment of all things is moist, and that heat itself is generated
from the moist and kept alive by it (and that from which they come
to be is a principle of all things). He got his notion from this fact,
and from the fact that the seeds of all things have a moist nature,
and that water is the origin of the nature of moist things.
Some think that even the ancients who lived long before the
present generation, and first framed accounts of the gods, had a
similar view of nature; for they made Ocean and Tethys the parents
of creation, and described the oath of the gods as being by water,
to which they give the name of Styx; for what is oldest is most
honourable, and the most honourable thing is that by which one swears.
It may perhaps be uncertain whether this opinion about nature is
primitive and ancient, but Thales at any rate is said to have declared
himself thus about the first cause. Hippo no one would think fit to
include among these thinkers, because of the paltriness of his
thought.
Anaximenes and Diogenes make air prior to water, and the most
primary of the simple bodies, while Hippasus of Metapontium and
Heraclitus of Ephesus say this of fire, and Empedocles says it of
the four elements (adding a fourth-earth-to those which have been
named); for these, he says, always remain and do not come to be,
except that they come to be more or fewer, being aggregated into one
and segregated out of one.
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, who, though older than Empedocles, was
later in his philosophical activity, says the principles are
infinite in number; for he says almost all the things that are made of
parts like themselves, in the manner of water or fire, are generated
and destroyed in this way, only by aggregation and segregation, and
are not in any other sense generated or destroyed, but remain
eternally.
From these facts one might think that the only cause is the
so-called material cause; but as men thus advanced, the very facts
opened the way for them and joined in forcing them to investigate
the subject. However true it may be that all generation and
destruction proceed from some one or (for that matter) from more
elements, why does this happen and what is the cause? For at least the
substratum itself does not make itself change; e.g. neither the wood
nor the bronze causes the change of either of them, nor does the
wood manufacture a bed and the bronze a statue, but something else
is the cause of the change. And to seek this is to seek the second
cause, as we should say,-that from which comes the beginning of the
movement. Now those who at the very beginning set themselves to this
kind of inquiry, and said the substratum was one, were not at all
dissatisfied with themselves; but some at least of those who
maintain it to be one-as though defeated by this search for the second
cause-say the one and nature as a whole is unchangeable not only in
respect of generation and destruction (for this is a primitive belief,
and all agreed in it), but also of all other change; and this view
is peculiar to them. Of those who said the universe was one, then none
succeeded in discovering a cause of this sort, except perhaps
Parmenides, and he only inasmuch as he supposes that there is not only
one but also in some sense two causes. But for those who make more
elements it is more possible to state the second cause, e.g. for those
who make hot and cold, or fire and earth, the elements; for they treat
fire as having a nature which fits it to move things, and water and
earth and such things they treat in the contrary way.
When these men and the principles of this kind had had their
day, as the latter were found inadequate to generate the nature of
things men were again forced by the truth itself, as we said, to
inquire into the next kind of cause. For it is not likely either
that fire or earth or any such element should be the reason why things
manifest goodness and, beauty both in their being and in their
coming to be, or that those thinkers should have supposed it was;
nor again could it be right to entrust so great a matter to
spontaneity and chance. When one man said, then, that reason was
present-as in animals, so throughout nature-as the cause of order
and of all arrangement, he seemed like a sober man in contrast with
the random talk of his predecessors. We know that Anaxagoras certainly
adopted these views, but Hermotimus of Clazomenae is credited with
expressing them earlier. Those who thought thus stated that there is a
principle of things which is at the same time the cause of beauty, and
that sort of cause from which things acquire movement.
4
One might suspect that Hesiod was the first to look for such a
thing-or some one else who put love or desire among existing things as
a principle, as Parmenides, too, does; for he, in constructing the
genesis of the universe, says:-
Love first of all the Gods she planned.
And Hesiod says:-
First of all things was chaos made, and then
Broad-breasted earth...
And love, 'mid all the gods pre-eminent,
which implies that among existing things there must be from the
first a cause which will move things and bring them together. How
these thinkers should be arranged with regard to priority of discovery
let us be allowed to decide later; but since the contraries of the
various forms of good were also perceived to be present in
nature-not only order and the beautiful, but also disorder and the
ugly, and bad things in greater number than good, and ignoble things
than beautiful-therefore another thinker introduced friendship and
strife, each of the two the cause of one of these two sets of
qualities. For if we were to follow out the view of Empedocles, and
interpret it according to its meaning and not to its lisping
expression, we should find that friendship is the cause of good
things, and strife of bad. Therefore, if we said that Empedocles in
a sense both mentions, and is the first to mention, the bad and the
good as principles, we should perhaps be right, since the cause of all
goods is the good itself.
These thinkers, as we say, evidently grasped, and to this
extent, two of the causes which we distinguished in our work on
nature-the matter and the source of the movement-vaguely, however, and
with no clearness, but as untrained men behave in fights; for they
go round their opponents and often strike fine blows, but they do
not fight on scientific principles, and so too these thinkers do not
seem to know what they say; for it is evident that, as a rule, they
make no use of their causes except to a small extent. For Anaxagoras
uses reason as a deus ex machina for the making of the world, and when
he is at a loss to tell from what cause something necessarily is, then
he drags reason in, but in all other cases ascribes events to anything
rather than to reason. And Empedocles, though he uses the causes to
a greater extent than this, neither does so sufficiently nor attains
consistency in their use. At least, in many cases he makes love
segregate things, and strife aggregate them. For whenever the universe
is dissolved into its elements by strife, fire is aggregated into one,
and so is each of the other elements; but whenever again under the
influence of love they come together into one, the parts must again be
segregated out of each element.
Empedocles, then, in contrast with his precessors, was the first
to introduce the dividing of this cause, not positing one source of
movement, but different and contrary sources. Again, he was the
first to speak of four material elements; yet he does not use four,
but treats them as two only; he treats fire by itself, and its
opposite-earth, air, and water-as one kind of thing. We may learn this
by study of his verses.
This philosopher then, as we say, has spoken of the principles
in this way, and made them of this number. Leucippus and his associate
Democritus say that the full and the empty are the elements, calling
the one being and the other non-being-the full and solid being
being, the empty non-being (whence they say being no more is than
non-being, because the solid no more is than the empty); and they make
these the material causes of things. And as those who make the
underlying substance one generate all other things by its
modifications, supposing the rare and the dense to be the sources of
the modifications, in the same way these philosophers say the
differences in the elements are the causes of all other qualities.
These differences, they say, are three-shape and order and position.
For they say the real is differentiated only by 'rhythm and
'inter-contact' and 'turning'; and of these rhythm is shape,
inter-contact is order, and turning is position; for A differs from
N in shape, AN from NA in order, M from W in position. The question of
movement-whence or how it is to belong to things-these thinkers,
like the others, lazily neglected.
Regarding the two causes, then, as we say, the inquiry seems to
have been pushed thus far by the early philosophers.
5
Contemporaneously with these philosophers and before them, the
so-called Pythagoreans, who were the first to take up mathematics, not
only advanced this study, but also having been brought up in it they
thought its principles were the principles of all things. Since of
these principles numbers are by nature the first, and in numbers
they seemed to see many resemblances to the things that exist and come
into being-more than in fire and earth and water (such and such a
modification of numbers being justice, another being soul and
reason, another being opportunity-and similarly almost all other
things being numerically expressible); since, again, they saw that the
modifications and the ratios of the musical scales were expressible in
numbers;-since, then, all other things seemed in their whole nature to
be modelled on numbers, and numbers seemed to be the first things in
the whole of nature, they supposed the elements of numbers to be the
elements of all things, and the whole heaven to be a musical scale and
a number. And all the properties of numbers and scales which they
could show to agree with the attributes and parts and the whole
arrangement of the heavens, they collected and fitted into their
scheme; and if there was a gap anywhere, they readily made additions
so as to make their whole theory coherent. E.g. as the number 10 is
thought to be perfect and to comprise the whole nature of numbers,
they say that the bodies which move through the heavens are ten, but
as the visible bodies are only nine, to meet this they invent a
tenth--the 'counter-earth'. We have discussed these matters more
exactly elsewhere.
But the object of our review is that we may learn from these
philosophers also what they suppose to be the principles and how these
fall under the causes we have named. Evidently, then, these thinkers
also consider that number is the principle both as matter for things
and as forming both their modifications and their permanent states,
and hold that the elements of number are the even and the odd, and
that of these the latter is limited, and the former unlimited; and
that the One proceeds from both of these (for it is both even and
odd), and number from the One; and that the whole heaven, as has
been said, is numbers.
Other members of this same school say there are ten principles,
which they arrange in two columns of cognates-limit and unlimited, odd
and even, one and plurality, right and left, male and female,
resting and moving, straight and curved, light and darkness, good
and bad, square and oblong. In this way Alcmaeon of Croton seems
also to have conceived the matter, and either he got this view from
them or they got it from him; for he expressed himself similarly to
them. For he says most human affairs go in pairs, meaning not definite
contrarieties such as the Pythagoreans speak of, but any chance
contrarieties, e.g. white and black, sweet and bitter, good and bad,
great and small. He threw out indefinite suggestions about the other
contrarieties, but the Pythagoreans declared both how many and which
their contraricties are.
From both these schools, then, we can learn this much, that the
contraries are the principles of things; and how many these principles
are and which they are, we can learn from one of the two schools.
But how these principles can be brought together under the causes we
have named has not been clearly and articulately stated by them;
they seem, however, to range the elements under the head of matter;
for out of these as immanent parts they say substance is composed
and moulded.
From these facts we may sufficiently perceive the meaning of the
ancients who said the elements of nature were more than one; but there
are some who spoke of the universe as if it were one entity, though
they were not all alike either in the excellence of their statement or
in its conformity to the facts of nature. The discussion of them is in
no way appropriate to our present investigation of causes, for. they
do not, like some of the natural philosophers, assume being to be
one and yet generate it out of the one as out of matter, but they
speak in another way; those others add change, since they generate the
universe, but these thinkers say the universe is unchangeable. Yet
this much is germane to the present inquiry: Parmenides seems to
fasten on that which is one in definition, Melissus on that which is
one in matter, for which reason the former says that it is limited,
the latter that it is unlimited; while Xenophanes, the first of
these partisans of the One (for Parmenides is said to have been his
pupil), gave no clear statement, nor does he seem to have grasped
the nature of either of these causes, but with reference to the
whole material universe he says the One is God. Now these thinkers, as
we said, must be neglected for the purposes of the present inquiry-two
of them entirely, as being a little too naive, viz. Xenophanes and
Melissus; but Parmenides seems in places to speak with more insight.
For, claiming that, besides the existent, nothing non-existent exists,
he thinks that of necessity one thing exists, viz. the existent and
nothing else (on this we have spoken more clearly in our work on
nature), but being forced to follow the observed facts, and
supposing the existence of that which is one in definition, but more
than one according to our sensations, he now posits two causes and two
principles, calling them hot and cold, i.e. fire and earth; and of
these he ranges the hot with the existent, and the other with the
non-existent.
From what has been said, then, and from the wise men who have
now sat in council with us, we have got thus much-on the one hand from
the earliest philosophers, who regard the first principle as corporeal
(for water and fire and such things are bodies), and of whom some
suppose that there is one corporeal principle, others that there are
more than one, but both put these under the head of matter; and on the
other hand from some who posit both this cause and besides this the
source of movement, which we have got from some as single and from
others as twofold.
Down to the Italian school, then, and apart from it,
philosophers have treated these subjects rather obscurely, except
that, as we said, they have in fact used two kinds of cause, and one
of these-the source of movement-some treat as one and others as two.
But the Pythagoreans have said in the same way that there are two
principles, but added this much, which is peculiar to them, that
they thought that finitude and infinity were not attributes of certain
other things, e.g. of fire or earth or anything else of this kind, but
that infinity itself and unity itself were the substance of the things
of which they are predicated. This is why number was the substance
of all things. On this subject, then, they expressed themselves
thus; and regarding the question of essence they began to make
statements and definitions, but treated the matter too simply. For
they both defined superficially and thought that the first subject
of which a given definition was predicable was the substance of the
thing defined, as if one supposed that 'double' and '2' were the same,
because 2 is the first thing of which 'double' is predicable. But
surely to be double and to be 2 are not the same; if they are, one
thing will be many-a consequence which they actually drew. From the
earlier philosophers, then, and from their successors we can learn
thus much.
6
After the systems we have named came the philosophy of Plato,
which in most respects followed these thinkers, but had
pecullarities that distinguished it from the philosophy of the
Italians. For, having in his youth first become familiar with Cratylus
and with the Heraclitean doctrines (that all sensible things are
ever in a state of flux and there is no knowledge about them), these
views he held even in later years. Socrates, however, was busying
himself about ethical matters and neglecting the world of nature as
a whole but seeking the universal in these ethical matters, and
fixed thought for the first time on definitions; Plato accepted his
teaching, but held that the problem applied not to sensible things but
to entities of another kind-for this reason, that the common
definition could not be a definition of any sensible thing, as they
were always changing. Things of this other sort, then, he called
Ideas, and sensible things, he said, were all named after these, and
in virtue of a relation to these; for the many existed by
participation in the Ideas that have the same name as they. Only the
name 'participation' was new; for the Pythagoreans say that things
exist by 'imitation' of numbers, and Plato says they exist by
participation, changing the name. But what the participation or the
imitation of the Forms could be they left an open question.
Further, besides sensible things and Forms he says there are the
objects of mathematics, which occupy an intermediate position,
differing from sensible things in being eternal and unchangeable, from
Forms in that there are many alike, while the Form itself is in each
case unique.
Since the Forms were the causes of all other things, he thought
their elements were the elements of all things. As matter, the great
and the small were principles; as essential reality, the One; for from
the great and the small, by participation in the One, come the
Numbers.
But he agreed with the Pythagoreans in saying that the One is
substance and not a predicate of something else; and in saying that
the Numbers are the causes of the reality of other things he agreed
with them; but positing a dyad and constructing the infinite out of
great and small, instead of treating the infinite as one, is
peculiar to him; and so is his view that the Numbers exist apart
from sensible things, while they say that the things themselves are
Numbers, and do not place the objects of mathematics between Forms and
sensible things. His divergence from the Pythagoreans in making the
One and the Numbers separate from things, and his introduction of
the Forms, were due to his inquiries in the region of definitions (for
the earlier thinkers had no tincture of dialectic), and his making the
other entity besides the One a dyad was due to the belief that the
numbers, except those which were prime, could be neatly produced out
of the dyad as out of some plastic material. Yet what happens is the
contrary; the theory is not a reasonable one. For they make many
things out of the matter, and the form generates only once, but what
we observe is that one table is made from one matter, while the man
who applies the form, though he is one, makes many tables. And the
relation of the male to the female is similar; for the latter is
impregnated by one copulation, but the male impregnates many
females; yet these are analogues of those first principles.
Plato, then, declared himself thus on the points in question; it
is evident from what has been said that he has used only two causes,
that of the essence and the material cause (for the Forms are the
causes of the essence of all other things, and the One is the cause of
the essence of the Forms); and it is evident what the underlying
matter is, of which the Forms are predicated in the case of sensible
things, and the One in the case of Forms, viz. that this is a dyad,
the great and the small. Further, he has assigned the cause of good
and that of evil to the elements, one to each of the two, as we say
some of his predecessors sought to do, e.g. Empedocles and Anaxagoras.
7
Our review of those who have spoken about first principles and
reality and of the way in which they have spoken, has been concise and
summary; but yet we have learnt this much from them, that of those who
speak about 'principle' and 'cause' no one has mentioned any principle
except those which have been distinguished in our work on nature,
but all evidently have some inkling of them, though only vaguely.
For some speak of the first principle as matter, whether they
suppose one or more first principles, and whether they suppose this to
be a body or to be incorporeal; e.g. Plato spoke of the great and
the small, the Italians of the infinite, Empedocles of fire, earth,
water, and air, Anaxagoras of the infinity of things composed of
similar parts. These, then, have all had a notion of this kind of
cause, and so have all who speak of air or fire or water, or something
denser than fire and rarer than air; for some have said the prime
element is of this kind.
These thinkers grasped this cause only; but certain others have
mentioned the source of movement, e.g. those who make friendship and
strife, or reason, or love, a principle.
The essence, i.e. the substantial reality, no one has expressed
distinctly. It is hinted at chiefly by those who believe in the Forms;
for they do not suppose either that the Forms are the matter of
sensible things, and the One the matter of the Forms, or that they are
the source of movement (for they say these are causes rather of
immobility and of being at rest), but they furnish the Forms as the
essence of every other thing, and the One as the essence of the Forms.
That for whose sake actions and changes and movements take
place, they assert to be a cause in a way, but not in this way, i.e.
not in the way in which it is its nature to be a cause. For those
who speak of reason or friendship class these causes as goods; they do
not speak, however, as if anything that exists either existed or
came into being for the sake of these, but as if movements started
from these. In the same way those who say the One or the existent is
the good, say that it is the cause of substance, but not that
substance either is or comes to be for the sake of this. Therefore
it turns out that in a sense they both say and do not say the good
is a cause; for they do not call it a cause qua good but only
incidentally.
All these thinkers then, as they cannot pitch on another cause,
seem to testify that we have determined rightly both how many and of
what sort the causes are. Besides this it is plain that when the
causes are being looked for, either all four must be sought thus or
they must be sought in one of these four ways. Let us next discuss the
possible difficulties with regard to the way in which each of these
thinkers has spoken, and with regard to his situation relatively to
the first principles.
8
Those, then, who say the universe is one and posit one kind of
thing as matter, and as corporeal matter which has spatial
magnitude, evidently go astray in many ways. For they posit the
elements of bodies only, not of incorporeal things, though there are
also incorporeal things. And in trying to state the causes of
generation and destruction, and in giving a physical account of all
things, they do away with the cause of movement. Further, they err
in not positing the substance, i.e. the essence, as the cause of
anything, and besides this in lightly calling any of the simple bodies
except earth the first principle, without inquiring how they are
produced out of one anothers-I mean fire, water, earth, and air. For
some things are produced out of each other by combination, others by
separation, and this makes the greatest difference to their priority
and posteriority. For (1) in a way the property of being most
elementary of all would seem to belong to the first thing from which
they are produced by combination, and this property would belong to
the most fine-grained and subtle of bodies. For this reason those
who make fire the principle would be most in agreement with this
argument. But each of the other thinkers agrees that the element of
corporeal things is of this sort. At least none of those who named one
element claimed that earth was the element, evidently because of the
coarseness of its grain. (Of the other three elements each has found
some judge on its side; for some maintain that fire, others that
water, others that air is the element. Yet why, after all, do they not
name earth also, as most men do? For people say all things are earth
Hesiod says earth was produced first of corporeal things; so primitive
and popular has the opinion been.) According to this argument, then,
no one would be right who either says the first principle is any of
the elements other than fire, or supposes it to be denser than air but
rarer than water. But (2) if that which is later in generation is
prior in nature, and that which is concocted and compounded is later
in generation, the contrary of what we have been saying must be
true,-water must be prior to air, and earth to water.
So much, then, for those who posit one cause such as we mentioned;
but the same is true if one supposes more of these, as Empedocles says
matter of things is four bodies. For he too is confronted by
consequences some of which are the same as have been mentioned,
while others are peculiar to him. For we see these bodies produced
from one another, which implies that the same body does not always
remain fire or earth (we have spoken about this in our works on
nature); and regarding the cause of movement and the question
whether we must posit one or two, he must be thought to have spoken
neither correctly nor altogether plausibly. And in general, change
of quality is necessarily done away with for those who speak thus, for
on their view cold will not come from hot nor hot from cold. For if it
did there would be something that accepted the contraries
themselves, and there would be some one entity that became fire and
water, which Empedocles denies.
As regards Anaxagoras, if one were to suppose that he said there
were two elements, the supposition would accord thoroughly with an
argument which Anaxagoras himself did not state articulately, but
which he must have accepted if any one had led him on to it. True,
to say that in the beginning all things were mixed is absurd both on
other grounds and because it follows that they must have existed
before in an unmixed form, and because nature does not allow any
chance thing to be mixed with any chance thing, and also because on
this view modifications and accidents could be separated from
substances (for the same things which are mixed can be separated); yet
if one were to follow him up, piecing together what he means, he would
perhaps be seen to be somewhat modern in his views. For when nothing
was separated out, evidently nothing could be truly asserted of the
substance that then existed. I mean, e.g. that it was neither white
nor black, nor grey nor any other colour, but of necessity colourless;
for if it had been coloured, it would have had one of these colours.
And similarly, by this same argument, it was flavourless, nor had it
any similar attribute; for it could not be either of any quality or of
any size, nor could it be any definite kind of thing. For if it
were, one of the particular forms would have belonged to it, and
this is impossible, since all were mixed together; for the
particular form would necessarily have been already separated out, but
he all were mixed except reason, and this alone was unmixed and
pure. From this it follows, then, that he must say the principles
are the One (for this is simple and unmixed) and the Other, which is
of such a nature as we suppose the indefinite to be before it is
defined and partakes of some form. Therefore, while expressing himself
neither rightly nor clearly, he means something like what the later
thinkers say and what is now more clearly seen to be the case.
But these thinkers are, after all, at home only in arguments about
generation and destruction and movement; for it is practically only of
this sort of substance that they seek the principles and the causes.
But those who extend their vision to all things that exist, and of
existing things suppose some to be perceptible and others not
perceptible, evidently study both classes, which is all the more
reason why one should devote some time to seeing what is good in their
views and what bad from the standpoint of the inquiry we have now
before us.
The 'Pythagoreans' treat of principles and elements stranger
than those of the physical philosophers (the reason is that they got
the principles from non-sensible things, for the objects of
mathematics, except those of astronomy, are of the class of things
without movement); yet their discussions and investigations are all
about nature; for they generate the heavens, and with regard to
their parts and attributes and functions they observe the phenomena,
and use up the principles and the causes in explaining these, which
implies that they agree with the others, the physical philosophers,
that the real is just all that which is perceptible and contained by
the so-called 'heavens'. But the causes and the principles which
they mention are, as we said, sufficient to act as steps even up to
the higher realms of reality, and are more suited to these than to
theories about nature. They do not tell us at all, however, how
there can be movement if limit and unlimited and odd and even are
the only things assumed, or how without movement and change there
can be generation and destruction, or the bodies that move through the
heavens can do what they do.
Further, if one either granted them that spatial magnitude
consists of these elements, or this were proved, still how would
some bodies be light and others have weight? To judge from what they
assume and maintain they are speaking no more of mathematical bodies
than of perceptible; hence they have said nothing whatever about
fire or earth or the other bodies of this sort, I suppose because they
have nothing to say which applies peculiarly to perceptible things.
Further, how are we to combine the beliefs that the attributes
of number, and number itself, are causes of what exists and happens in
the heavens both from the beginning and now, and that there is no
other number than this number out of which the world is composed? When
in one particular region they place opinion and opportunity, and, a
little above or below, injustice and decision or mixture, and
allege, as proof, that each of these is a number, and that there
happens to be already in this place a plurality of the extended bodies
composed of numbers, because these attributes of number attach to
the various places,-this being so, is this number, which we must
suppose each of these abstractions to be, the same number which is
exhibited in the material universe, or is it another than this?
Plato says it is different; yet even he thinks that both these
bodies and their causes are numbers, but that the intelligible numbers
are causes, while the others are sensible.
9
Let us leave the Pythagoreans for the present; for it is enough to
have touched on them as much as we have done. But as for those who
posit the Ideas as causes, firstly, in seeking to grasp the causes
of the things around us, they introduced others equal in number to
these, as if a man who wanted to count things thought he would not
be able to do it while they were few, but tried to count them when
he had added to their number. For the Forms are practically equal
to-or not fewer than-the things, in trying to explain which these
thinkers proceeded from them to the Forms. For to each thing there
answers an entity which has the same name and exists apart from the
substances, and so also in the case of all other groups there is a one
over many, whether the many are in this world or are eternal.
Further, of the ways in which we prove that the Forms exist,
none is convincing; for from some no inference necessarily follows,
and from some arise Forms even of things of which we think there are
no Forms. For according to the arguments from the existence of the
sciences there will be Forms of all things of which there are sciences
and according to the 'one over many' argument there will be Forms even
of negations, and according to the argument that there is an object
for thought even when the thing has perished, there will be Forms of
perishable things; for we have an image of these. Further, of the more
accurate arguments, some lead to Ideas of relations, of which we say
there is no independent class, and others introduce the 'third man'.
And in general the arguments for the Forms destroy the things
for whose existence we are more zealous than for the existence of
the Ideas; for it follows that not the dyad but number is first,
i.e. that the relative is prior to the absolute,-besides all the other
points on which certain people by following out the opinions held
about the Ideas have come into conflict with the principles of the
theory.
Further, according to the assumption on which our belief in the
Ideas rests, there will be Forms not only of substances but also of
many other things (for the concept is single not only in the case of
substances but also in the other cases, and there are sciences not
only of substance but also of other things, and a thousand other
such difficulties confront them). But according to the necessities
of the case and the opinions held about the Forms, if Forms can be
shared in there must be Ideas of substances only. For they are not
shared in incidentally, but a thing must share in its Form as in
something not predicated of a subject (by 'being shared in
incidentally' I mean that e.g. if a thing shares in 'double itself',
it shares also in 'eternal', but incidentally; for 'eternal' happens
to be predicable of the 'double'). Therefore the Forms will be
substance; but the same terms indicate substance in this and in the
ideal world (or what will be the meaning of saying that there is
something apart from the particulars-the one over many?). And if the
Ideas and the particulars that share in them have the same form, there
will be something common to these; for why should '2' be one and the
same in the perishable 2's or in those which are many but eternal, and
not the same in the '2' itself' as in the particular 2? But if they
have not the same form, they must have only the name in common, and it
is as if one were to call both Callias and a wooden image a 'man',
without observing any community between them.
Above all one might discuss the question what on earth the Forms
contribute to sensible things, either to those that are eternal or
to those that come into being and cease to be. For they cause
neither movement nor any change in them. But again they help in no
wise either towards the knowledge of the other things (for they are
not even the substance of these, else they would have been in them),
or towards their being, if they are not in the particulars which share
in them; though if they were, they might be thought to be causes, as
white causes whiteness in a white object by entering into its
composition. But this argument, which first Anaxagoras and later
Eudoxus and certain others used, is very easily upset; for it is not
difficult to collect many insuperable objections to such a view.
But, further, all other things cannot come from the Forms in any
of the usual senses of 'from'. And to say that they are patterns and
the other things share in them is to use empty words and poetical
metaphors. For what is it that works, looking to the Ideas? And
anything can either be, or become, like another without being copied
from it, so that whether Socrates or not a man Socrates like might
come to be; and evidently this might be so even if Socrates were
eternal. And there will be several patterns of the same thing, and
therefore several Forms; e.g. 'animal' and 'two-footed' and also
'man himself' will be Forms of man. Again, the Forms are patterns
not only sensible things, but of Forms themselves also; i.e. the
genus, as genus of various species, will be so; therefore the same
thing will be pattern and copy.
Again, it would seem impossible that the substance and that of
which it is the substance should exist apart; how, therefore, could
the Ideas, being the substances of things, exist apart? In the Phaedo'
the case is stated in this way-that the Forms are causes both of being
and of becoming; yet when the Forms exist, still the things that share
in them do not come into being, unless there is something to originate
movement; and many other things come into being (e.g. a house or a
ring) of which we say there are no Forms. Clearly, therefore, even the
other things can both be and come into being owing to such causes as
produce the things just mentioned.
Again, if the Forms are numbers, how can they be causes? Is it
because existing things are other numbers, e.g. one number is man,
another is Socrates, another Callias? Why then are the one set of
numbers causes of the other set? It will not make any difference
even if the former are eternal and the latter are not. But if it is
because things in this sensible world (e.g. harmony) are ratios of
numbers, evidently the things between which they are ratios are some
one class of things. If, then, this--the matter--is some definite
thing, evidently the numbers themselves too will be ratios of
something to something else. E.g. if Callias is a numerical ratio
between fire and earth and water and air, his Idea also will be a
number of certain other underlying things; and man himself, whether it
is a number in a sense or not, will still be a numerical ratio of
certain things and not a number proper, nor will it be a of number
merely because it is a numerical ratio.
Again, from many numbers one number is produced, but how can one
Form come from many Forms? And if the number comes not from the many
numbers themselves but from the units in them, e.g. in 10,000, how
is it with the units? If they are specifically alike, numerous
absurdities will follow, and also if they are not alike (neither the
units in one number being themselves like one another nor those in
other numbers being all like to all); for in what will they differ, as
they are without quality? This is not a plausible view, nor is it
consistent with our thought on the matter.
Further, they must set up a second kind of number (with which
arithmetic deals), and all the objects which are called 'intermediate'
by some thinkers; and how do these exist or from what principles do
they proceed? Or why must they be intermediate between the things in
this sensible world and the things-themselves?
Further, the units in must each come from a prior but this is
impossible.
Further, why is a number, when taken all together, one?
Again, besides what has been said, if the units are diverse the
Platonists should have spoken like those who say there are four, or
two, elements; for each of these thinkers gives the name of element
not to that which is common, e.g. to body, but to fire and earth,
whether there is something common to them, viz. body, or not. But in
fact the Platonists speak as if the One were homogeneous like fire
or water; and if this is so, the numbers will not be substances.
Evidently, if there is a One itself and this is a first principle,
'one' is being used in more than one sense; for otherwise the theory
is impossible.
When we wish to reduce substances to their principles, we state
that lines come from the short and long (i.e. from a kind of small and
great), and the plane from the broad and narrow, and body from the
deep and shallow. Yet how then can either the plane contain a line, or
the solid a line or a plane? For the broad and narrow is a different
class from the deep and shallow. Therefore, just as number is not
present in these, because the many and few are different from these,
evidently no other of the higher classes will be present in the lower.
But again the broad is not a genus which includes the deep, for then
the solid would have been a species of plane. Further, from what
principle will the presence of the points in the line be derived?
Plato even used to object to this class of things as being a
geometrical fiction. He gave the name of principle of the line-and
this he often posited-to the indivisible lines. Yet these must have
a limit; therefore the argument from which the existence of the line
follows proves also the existence of the point.
In general, though philosophy seeks the cause of perceptible
things, we have given this up (for we say nothing of the cause from
which change takes its start), but while we fancy we are stating the
substance of perceptible things, we assert the existence of a second
class of substances, while our account of the way in which they are
the substances of perceptible things is empty talk; for 'sharing',
as we said before, means nothing.
Nor have the Forms any connexion with what we see to be the
cause in the case of the arts, that for whose sake both all mind and
the whole of nature are operative,-with this cause which we assert
to be one of the first principles; but mathematics has come to be
identical with philosophy for modern thinkers, though they say that it
should be studied for the sake of other things. Further, one might
suppose that the substance which according to them underlies as matter
is too mathematical, and is a predicate and differentia of the
substance, ie. of the matter, rather than matter itself; i.e. the
great and the small are like the rare and the dense which the physical
philosophers speak of, calling these the primary differentiae of the
substratum; for these are a kind of excess and defect. And regarding
movement, if the great and the small are to he movement, evidently the
Forms will be moved; but if they are not to be movement, whence did
movement come? The whole study of nature has been annihilated.
And what is thought to be easy-to show that all things are
one-is not done; for what is proved by the method of setting out
instances is not that all things are one but that there is a One
itself,-if we grant all the assumptions. And not even this follows, if
we do not grant that the universal is a genus; and this in some
cases it cannot be.
Nor can it be explained either how the lines and planes and solids
that come after the numbers exist or can exist, or what significance
they have; for these can neither be Forms (for they are not
numbers), nor the intermediates (for those are the objects of
mathematics), nor the perishable things. This is evidently a
distinct fourth class.
In general, if we search for the elements of existing things
without distinguishing the many senses in which things are said to
exist, we cannot find them, especially if the search for the
elements of which things are made is conducted in this manner. For
it is surely impossible to discover what 'acting' or 'being acted on',
or 'the straight', is made of, but if elements can be discovered at
all, it is only the elements of substances; therefore either to seek
the elements of all existing things or to think one has them is
incorrect.
And how could we learn the elements of all things? Evidently we
cannot start by knowing anything before. For as he who is learning
geometry, though he may know other things before, knows none of the
things with which the science deals and about which he is to learn, so
is it in all other cases. Therefore if there is a science of all
things, such as some assert to exist, he who is learning this will
know nothing before. Yet all learning is by means of premisses which
are (either all or some of them) known before,-whether the learning be
by demonstration or by definitions; for the elements of the definition
must be known before and be familiar; and learning by induction
proceeds similarly. But again, if the science were actually innate, it
were strange that we are unaware of our possession of the greatest
of sciences.
Again, how is one to come to know what all things are made of, and
how is this to be made evident? This also affords a difficulty; for
there might be a conflict of opinion, as there is about certain
syllables; some say za is made out of s and d and a, while others
say it is a distinct sound and none of those that are familiar.
Further, how could we know the objects of sense without having the
sense in question? Yet we ought to, if the elements of which all
things consist, as complex sounds consist of the clements proper to
sound, are the same.
10
It is evident, then, even from what we have said before, that
all men seem to seek the causes named in the Physics, and that we
cannot name any beyond these; but they seek these vaguely; and
though in a sense they have all been described before, in a sense they
have not been described at all. For the earliest philosophy is, on all
subjects, like one who lisps, since it is young and in its beginnings.
For even Empedocles says bone exists by virtue of the ratio in it. Now
this is the essence and the substance of the thing. But it is
similarly necessary that flesh and each of the other tissues should be
the ratio of its elements, or that not one of them should; for it is
on account of this that both flesh and bone and everything else will
exist, and not on account of the matter, which he names,-fire and
earth and water and air. But while he would necessarily have agreed if
another had said this, he has not said it clearly.
On these questions our views have been expressed before; but let
us return to enumerate the difficulties that might be raised on
these same points; for perhaps we may get from them some help
towards our later difficulties.
Book II
1
THE investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another
easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able
to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, we do not
collectively fail, but every one says something true about the
nature of things, and while individually we contribute little or
nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is
amassed. Therefore, since the truth seems to be like the proverbial
door, which no one can fail to hit, in this respect it must be easy,
but the fact that we can have a whole truth and not the particular
part we aim at shows the difficulty of it.
Perhaps, too, as difficulties are of two kinds, the cause of the
present difficulty is not in the facts but in us. For as the eyes of
bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the
things which are by nature most evident of all.
It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with
whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more
superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing
before us the powers of thought. It is true that if there had been
no Timotheus we should have been without much of our lyric poetry; but
if there had been no Phrynis there would have been no Timotheus. The
same holds good of those who have expressed views about the truth; for
from some thinkers we have inherited certain opinions, while the
others have been responsible for the appearance of the former.
It is right also that philosophy should be called knowledge of the
truth. For the end of theoretical knowledge is truth, while that of
practical knowledge is action (for even if they consider how things
are, practical men do not study the eternal, but what is relative
and in the present). Now we do not know a truth without its cause; and
a thing has a quality in a higher degree than other things if in
virtue of it the similar quality belongs to the other things as well
(e.g. fire is the hottest of things; for it is the cause of the heat
of all other things); so that that causes derivative truths to be true
is most true. Hence the principles of eternal things must be always
most true (for they are not merely sometimes true, nor is there any
cause of their being, but they themselves are the cause of the being
of other things), so that as each thing is in respect of being, so
is it in respect of truth.
2
But evidently there is a first principle, and the causes of things
are neither an infinite series nor infinitely various in kind. For
neither can one thing proceed from another, as from matter, ad
infinitum (e.g. flesh from earth, earth from air, air from fire, and
so on without stopping), nor can the sources of movement form an
endless series (man for instance being acted on by air, air by the
sun, the sun by Strife, and so on without limit). Similarly the
final causes cannot go on ad infinitum,-walking being for the sake
of health, this for the sake of happiness, happiness for the sake of
something else, and so one thing always for the sake of another. And
the case of the essence is similar. For in the case of
intermediates, which have a last term and a term prior to them, the
prior must be the cause of the later terms. For if we had to say which
of the three is the cause, we should say the first; surely not the
last, for the final term is the cause of none; nor even the
intermediate, for it is the cause only of one. (It makes no difference
whether there is one intermediate or more, nor whether they are
infinite or finite in number.) But of series which are infinite in
this way, and of the infinite in general, all the parts down to that
now present are alike intermediates; so that if there is no first
there is no cause at all.
Nor can there be an infinite process downwards, with a beginning
in the upward direction, so that water should proceed from fire, earth
from water, and so always some other kind should be produced. For
one thing comes from another in two ways-not in the sense in which
'from' means 'after' (as we say 'from the Isthmian games come the
Olympian'), but either (i) as the man comes from the boy, by the boy's
changing, or (ii) as air comes from water. By 'as the man comes from
the boy' we mean 'as that which has come to be from that which is
coming to be' or 'as that which is finished from that which is being
achieved' (for as becoming is between being and not being, so that
which is becoming is always between that which is and that which is
not; for the learner is a man of science in the making, and this is
what is meant when we say that from a learner a man of science is
being made); on the other hand, coming from another thing as water
comes from air implies the destruction of the other thing. This is why
changes of the former kind are not reversible, and the boy does not
come from the man (for it is not that which comes to be something that
comes to be as a result of coming to be, but that which exists after
the coming to be; for it is thus that the day, too, comes from the
morning-in the sense that it comes after the morning; which is the
reason why the morning cannot come from the day); but changes of the
other kind are reversible. But in both cases it is impossible that the
number of terms should be infinite. For terms of the former kind,
being intermediates, must have an end, and terms of the latter kind
change back into one another, for the destruction of either is the
generation of the other.
At the same time it is impossible that the first cause, being
eternal, should be destroyed; for since the process of becoming is not
infinite in the upward direction, that which is the first thing by
whose destruction something came to be must be non-eternal.
Further, the final cause is an end, and that sort of end which
is not for the sake of something else, but for whose sake everything
else is; so that if there is to be a last term of this sort, the
process will not be infinite; but if there is no such term, there will
be no final cause, but those who maintain the infinite series
eliminate the Good without knowing it (yet no one would try to do
anything if he were not going to come to a limit); nor would there
be reason in the world; the reasonable man, at least, always acts
for a purpose, and this is a limit; for the end is a limit.
But the essence, also, cannot be reduced to another definition
which is fuller in expression. For the original definition is always
more of a definition, and not the later one; and in a series in
which the first term has not the required character, the next has
not it either. Further, those who speak thus destroy science; for it
is not possible to have this till one comes to the unanalysable terms.
And knowledge becomes impossible; for how can one apprehend things
that are infinite in this way? For this is not like the case of the
line, to whose divisibility there is no stop, but which we cannot
think if we do not make a stop (for which reason one who is tracing
the infinitely divisible line cannot be counting the possibilities
of section), but the whole line also must be apprehended by
something in us that does not move from part to part.-Again, nothing
infinite can exist; and if it could, at least the notion of infinity
is not infinite.
But if the kinds of causes had been infinite in number, then
also knowledge would have been impossible; for we think we know,
only when we have ascertained the causes, that but that which is
infinite by addition cannot be gone through in a finite time.
3
The effect which lectures produce on a hearer depends on his
habits; for we demand the language we are accustomed to, and that
which is different from this seems not in keeping but somewhat
unintelligible and foreign because of its unwontedness. For it is
the customary that is intelligible. The force of habit is shown by the
laws, in which the legendary and childish elements prevail over our
knowledge about them, owing to habit. Thus some people do not listen
to a speaker unless he speaks mathematically, others unless he gives
instances, while others expect him to cite a poet as witness. And some
want to have everything done accurately, while others are annoyed by
accuracy, either because they cannot follow the connexion of thought
or because they regard it as pettifoggery. For accuracy has
something of this character, so that as in trade so in argument some
people think it mean. Hence one must be already trained to know how to
take each sort of argument, since it is absurd to seek at the same
time knowledge and the way of attaining knowledge; and it is not
easy to get even one of the two.
The minute accuracy of mathematics is not to be demanded in all
cases, but only in the case of things which have no matter. Hence
method is not that of natural science; for presumably the whole of
nature has matter. Hence we must inquire first what nature is: for
thus we shall also see what natural science treats of (and whether
it belongs to one science or to more to investigate the causes and the
principles of things).
Book III
1
WE must, with a view to the science which we are seeking, first
recount the subjects that should be first discussed. These include
both the other opinions that some have held on the first principles,
and any point besides these that happens to have been overlooked.
For those who wish to get clear of difficulties it is advantageous
to discuss the difficulties well; for the subsequent free play of
thought implies the solution of the previous difficulties, and it is
not possible to untie a knot of which one does not know. But the
difficulty of our thinking points to a 'knot' in the object; for in so
far as our thought is in difficulties, it is in like case with those
who are bound; for in either case it is impossible to go forward.
Hence one should have surveyed all the difficulties beforehand, both
for the purposes we have stated and because people who inquire without
first stating the difficulties are like those who do not know where
they have to go; besides, a man does not otherwise know even whether
he has at any given time found what he is looking for or not; for
the end is not clear to such a man, while to him who has first
discussed the difficulties it is clear. Further, he who has heard
all the contending arguments, as if they were the parties to a case,
must be in a better position for judging.
The first problem concerns the subject which we discussed in our
prefatory remarks. It is this-(1) whether the investigation of the
causes belongs to one or to more sciences, and (2) whether such a
science should survey only the first principles of substance, or
also the principles on which all men base their proofs, e.g. whether
it is possible at the same time to assert and deny one and the same
thing or not, and all other such questions; and (3) if the science
in question deals with substance, whether one science deals with all
substances, or more than one, and if more, whether all are akin, or
some of them must be called forms of Wisdom and the others something
else. And (4) this itself is also one of the things that must be
discussed-whether sensible substances alone should be said to exist or
others also besides them, and whether these others are of one kind
or there are several classes of substances, as is supposed by those
who believe both in Forms and in mathematical objects intermediate
between these and sensible things. Into these questions, then, as we
say, we must inquire, and also (5) whether our investigation is
concerned only with substances or also with the essential attributes
of substances. Further, with regard to the same and other and like and
unlike and contrariety, and with regard to prior and posterior and all
other such terms about which the dialecticians try to inquire,
starting their investigation from probable premises only,-whose
business is it to inquire into all these? Further, we must discuss the
essential attributes of these themselves; and we must ask not only
what each of these is, but also whether one thing always has one
contrary. Again (6), are the principles and elements of things the
genera, or the parts present in each thing, into which it is
divided; and (7) if they are the genera, are they the genera that
are predicated proximately of the individuals, or the highest
genera, e.g. is animal or man the first principle and the more
independent of the individual instance? And (8) we must inquire and
discuss especially whether there is, besides the matter, any thing
that is a cause in itself or not, and whether this can exist apart
or not, and whether it is one or more in number, and whether there
is something apart from the concrete thing (by the concrete thing I
mean the matter with something already predicated of it), or there
is nothing apart, or there is something in some cases though not in
others, and what sort of cases these are. Again (9) we ask whether the
principles are limited in number or in kind, both those in the
definitions and those in the substratum; and (10) whether the
principles of perishable and of imperishable things are the same or
different; and whether they are all imperishable or those of
perishable things are perishable. Further (11) there is the question
which is hardest of all and most perplexing, whether unity and
being, as the Pythagoreans and Plato said, are not attributes of
something else but the substance of existing things, or this is not
the case, but the substratum is something else,-as Empedocles says,
love; as some one else says, fire; while another says water or air.
Again (12) we ask whether the principles are universal or like
individual things, and (13) whether they exist potentially or
actually, and further, whether they are potential or actual in any
other sense than in reference to movement; for these questions also
would present much difficulty. Further (14), are numbers and lines and
figures and points a kind of substance or not, and if they are
substances are they separate from sensible things or present in
them? With regard to all these matters not only is it hard to get
possession of the truth, but it is not easy even to think out the
difficulties well.
2
(1) First then with regard to what we mentioned first, does it
belong to one or to more sciences to investigate all the kinds of
causes? How could it belong to one science to recognize the principles
if these are not contrary?
Further, there are many things to which not all the principles
pertain. For how can a principle of change or the nature of the good
exist for unchangeable things, since everything that in itself and
by its own nature is good is an end, and a cause in the sense that for
its sake the other things both come to be and are, and since an end or
purpose is the end of some action, and all actions imply change? So in
the case of unchangeable things this principle could not exist, nor
could there be a good itself. This is why in mathematics nothing is
proved by means of this kind of cause, nor is there any
demonstration of this kind-'because it is better, or worse'; indeed no
one even mentions anything of the kind. And so for this reason some of
the Sophists, e.g. Aristippus, used to ridicule mathematics; for in
the arts (he maintained), even in the industrial arts, e.g. in
carpentry and cobbling, the reason always given is 'because it is
better, or worse,' but the mathematical sciences take no account of
goods and evils.
But if there are several sciences of the causes, and a different
science for each different principle, which of these sciences should
be said to be that which we seek, or which of the people who possess
them has the most scientific knowledge of the object in question?
The same thing may have all the kinds of causes, e.g. the moving cause
of a house is the art or the builder, the final cause is the
function it fulfils, the matter is earth and stones, and the form is
the definition. To judge from our previous discussion of the
question which of the sciences should be called Wisdom, there is
reason for applying the name to each of them. For inasmuch as it is
most architectonic and authoritative and the other sciences, like
slavewomen, may not even contradict it, the science of the end and
of the good is of the nature of Wisdom (for the other things are for
the sake of the end). But inasmuch as it was described' as dealing
with the first causes and that which is in the highest sense object of
knowledge, the science of substance must be of the nature of Wisdom.
For since men may know the same thing in many ways, we say that he who
recognizes what a thing is by its being so and so knows more fully
than he who recognizes it by its not being so and so, and in the
former class itself one knows more fully than another, and he knows
most fully who knows what a thing is, not he who knows its quantity or
quality or what it can by nature do or have done to it. And further in
all cases also we think that the knowledge of each even of the
things of which demonstration is possible is present only when we know
what the thing is, e.g. what squaring a rectangle is, viz. that it
is the finding of a mean; and similarly in all other cases. And we
know about becomings and actions and about every change when we know
the source of the movement; and this is other than and opposed to
the end. Therefore it would seem to belong to different sciences to
investigate these causes severally.
But (2), taking the starting-points of demonstration as well as
the causes, it is a disputable question whether they are the object of
one science or of more (by the starting-points of demonstration I mean
the common beliefs, on which all men base their proofs); e.g. that
everything must be either affirmed or denied, and that a thing
cannot at the same time be and not be, and all other such
premisses:-the question is whether the same science deals with them as
with substance, or a different science, and if it is not one
science, which of the two must be identified with that which we now
seek.-It is not reasonable that these topics should be the object of
one science; for why should it be peculiarly appropriate to geometry
or to any other science to understand these matters? If then it
belongs to every science alike, and cannot belong to all, it is not
peculiar to the science which investigates substances, any more than
to any other science, to know about these topics.-And, at the same
time, in what way can there be a science of the first principles?
For we are aware even now what each of them in fact is (at least
even other sciences use them as familiar); but if there is a
demonstrative science which deals with them, there will have to be
an underlying kind, and some of them must be demonstrable attributes
and others must be axioms (for it is impossible that there should be
demonstration about all of them); for the demonstration must start
from certain premisses and be about a certain subject and prove
certain attributes. Therefore it follows that all attributes that
are proved must belong to a single class; for all demonstrative
sciences use the axioms.
But if the science of substance and the science which deals with
the axioms are different, which of them is by nature more
authoritative and prior? The axioms are most universal and are
principles of all things. And if it is not the business of the
philosopher, to whom else will it belong to inquire what is true and
what is untrue about them?
(3) In general, do all substances fall under one science or
under more than one? If the latter, to what sort of substance is the
present science to be assigned?-On the other hand, it is not
reasonable that one science should deal with all. For then there would
be one demonstrative science dealing with all attributes. For ever
demonstrative science investigates with regard to some subject its
essential attributes, starting from the common beliefs. Therefore to
investigate the essential attributes of one class of things,
starting from one set of beliefs, is the business of one science.
For the subject belongs to one science, and the premisses belong to
one, whether to the same or to another; so that the attributes do so
too, whether they are investigated by these sciences or by one
compounded out of them.
(5) Further, does our investigation deal with substances alone
or also with their attributes? I mean for instance, if the solid is
a substance and so are lines and planes, is it the business of the
same science to know these and to know the attributes of each of these
classes (the attributes about which the mathematical sciences offer
proofs), or of a different science? If of the same, the science of
substance also must be a demonstrative science, but it is thought that
there is no demonstration of the essence of things. And if of another,
what will be the science that investigates the attributes of
substance? This is a very difficult question.
(4) Further, must we say that sensible substances alone exist,
or that there are others besides these? And are substances of one kind
or are there in fact several kinds of substances, as those say who
assert the existence both of the Forms and of the intermediates,
with which they say the mathematical sciences deal?-The sense in which
we say the Forms are both causes and self-dependent substances has
been explained in our first remarks about them; while the theory
presents difficulties in many ways, the most paradoxical thing of
all is the statement that there are certain things besides those in
the material universe, and that these are the same as sensible
things except that they are eternal while the latter are perishable.
For they say there is a man-himself and a horse-itself and
health-itself, with no further qualification,-a procedure like that of
the people who said there are gods, but in human form. For they were
positing nothing but eternal men, nor are the Platonists making the
Forms anything other than eternal sensible things.
Further, if we are to posit besides the Forms and the sensibles
the intermediates between them, we shall have many difficulties. For
clearly on the same principle there will be lines besides the
lines-themselves and the sensible lines, and so with each of the other
classes of things; so that since astronomy is one of these
mathematical sciences there will also be a heaven besides the sensible
heaven, and a sun and a moon (and so with the other heavenly bodies)
besides the sensible. Yet how are we to believe in these things? It is
not reasonable even to suppose such a body immovable, but to suppose
it moving is quite impossible.-And similarly with the things of
which optics and mathematical harmonics treat; for these also cannot
exist apart from the sensible things, for the same reasons. For if
there are sensible things and sensations intermediate between Form and
individual, evidently there will also be animals intermediate
between animals-themselves and the perishable animals.-We might also
raise the question, with reference to which kind of existing things we
must look for these sciences of intermediates. If geometry is to
differ from mensuration only in this, that the latter deals with
things that we perceive, and the former with things that are not
perceptible, evidently there will also be a science other than
medicine, intermediate between medical-science-itself and this
individual medical science, and so with each of the other sciences.
Yet how is this possible? There would have to be also healthy things
besides the perceptible healthy things and the healthy-itself.--And at
the same time not even this is true, that mensuration deals with
perceptible and perishable magnitudes; for then it would have perished
when they perished.
But on the other hand astronomy cannot be dealing with perceptible
magnitudes nor with this heaven above us. For neither are
perceptible lines such lines as the geometer speaks of (for no
perceptible thing is straight or round in the way in which he
defines 'straight' and 'round'; for a hoop touches a straight edge not
at a point, but as Protagoras used to say it did, in his refutation of
the geometers), nor are the movements and spiral orbits in the heavens
like those of which astronomy treats, nor have geometrical points
the same nature as the actual stars.-Now there are some who say that
these so-called intermediates between the Forms and the perceptible
things exist, not apart from the perceptible things, however, but in
these; the impossible results of this view would take too long to
enumerate, but it is enough to consider even such points as the
following:-It is not reasonable that this should be so only in the
case of these intermediates, but clearly the Forms also might be in
the perceptible things; for both statements are parts of the same
theory. Further, it follows from this theory that there are two solids
in the same place, and that the intermediates are not immovable, since
they are in the moving perceptible things. And in general to what
purpose would one suppose them to exist indeed, but to exist in
perceptible things? For the same paradoxical results will follow which
we have already mentioned; there will be a heaven besides the
heaven, only it will be not apart but in the same place; which is
still more impossible.
3
(6) Apart from the great difficulty of stating the case truly with
regard to these matters, it is very hard to say, with regard to the
first principles, whether it is the genera that should be taken as
elements and principles, or rather the primary constituents of a
thing; e.g. it is the primary parts of which articulate sounds consist
that are thought to be elements and principles of articulate sound,
not the common genus-articulate sound; and we give the name of
'elements' to those geometrical propositions, the proofs of which
are implied in the proofs of the others, either of all or of most.
Further, both those who say there are several elements of corporeal
things and those who say there is one, say the parts of which bodies
are compounded and consist are principles; e.g. Empedocles says fire
and water and the rest are the constituent elements of things, but
does not describe these as genera of existing things. Besides this, if
we want to examine the nature of anything else, we examine the parts
of which, e.g. a bed consists and how they are put together, and
then we know its nature.
To judge from these arguments, then, the principles of things
would not be the genera; but if we know each thing by its
definition, and the genera are the principles or starting-points of
definitions, the genera must also be the principles of definable
things. And if to get the knowledge of the species according to
which things are named is to get the knowledge of things, the genera
are at least starting-points of the species. And some also of those
who say unity or being, or the great and the small, are elements of
things, seem to treat them as genera.
But, again, it is not possible to describe the principles in
both ways. For the formula of the essence is one; but definition by
genera will be different from that which states the constituent
parts of a thing.
(7) Besides this, even if the genera are in the highest degree
principles, should one regard the first of the genera as principles,
or those which are predicated directly of the individuals? This also
admits of dispute. For if the universals are always more of the nature
of principles, evidently the uppermost of the genera are the
principles; for these are predicated of all things. There will,
then, be as many principles of things as there are primary genera,
so that both being and unity will be principles and substances; for
these are most of all predicated of all existing things. But it is not
possible that either unity or being should be a single genus of
things; for the differentiae of any genus must each of them both
have being and be one, but it is not possible for the genus taken
apart from its species (any more than for the species of the genus) to
be predicated of its proper differentiae; so that if unity or being is
a genus, no differentia will either have being or be one. But if unity
and being are not genera, neither will they be principles, if the
genera are the principles. Again, the intermediate kinds, in whose
nature the differentiae are included, will on this theory be genera,
down to the indivisible species; but as it is, some are thought to
be genera and others are not thought to be so. Besides this, the
differentiae are principles even more than the genera; and if these
also are principles, there comes to be practically an infinite
number of principles, especially if we suppose the highest genus to be
a principle.-But again, if unity is more of the nature of a principle,
and the indivisible is one, and everything indivisible is so either in
quantity or in species, and that which is so in species is the
prior, and genera are divisible into species for man is not the
genus of individual men), that which is predicated directly of the
individuals will have more unity.-Further, in the case of things in
which the distinction of prior and posterior is present, that which is
predicable of these things cannot be something apart from them (e.g.
if two is the first of numbers, there will not be a Number apart
from the kinds of numbers; and similarly there will not be a Figure
apart from the kinds of figures; and if the genera of these things
do not exist apart from the species, the genera of other things will
scarcely do so; for genera of these things are thought to exist if any
do). But among the individuals one is not prior and another posterior.
Further, where one thing is better and another worse, the better is
always prior; so that of these also no genus can exist. From these
considerations, then, the species predicated of individuals seem to be
principles rather than the genera. But again, it is not easy to say in
what sense these are to be taken as principles. For the principle or
cause must exist alongside of the things of which it is the principle,
and must be capable of existing in separation from them; but for
what reason should we suppose any such thing to exist alongside of the
individual, except that it is predicated universally and of all? But
if this is the reason, the things that are more universal must be
supposed to be more of the nature of principles; so that the highest
genera would be the principles.
4
(8) There is a difficulty connected with these, the hardest of all
and the most necessary to examine, and of this the discussion now
awaits us. If, on the one hand, there is nothing apart from individual
things, and the individuals are infinite in number, how then is it
possible to get knowledge of the infinite individuals? For all
things that we come to know, we come to know in so far as they have
some unity and identity, and in so far as some attribute belongs to
them universally.
But if this is necessary, and there must be something apart from
the individuals, it will be necessary that the genera exist apart from
the individuals, either the lowest or the highest genera; but we found
by discussion just now that this is impossible.
Further, if we admit in the fullest sense that something exists
apart from the concrete thing, whenever something is predicated of the
matter, must there, if there is something apart, be something apart
from each set of individuals, or from some and not from others, or
from none? (A) If there is nothing apart from individuals, there
will be no object of thought, but all things will be objects of sense,
and there will not be knowledge of anything, unless we say that
sensation is knowledge. Further, nothing will be eternal or unmovable;
for all perceptible things perish and are in movement. But if there is
nothing eternal, neither can there be a process of coming to be; for
there must be something that comes to be, i.e. from which something
comes to be, and the ultimate term in this series cannot have come
to be, since the series has a limit and since nothing can come to be
out of that which is not. Further, if generation and movement exist
there must also be a limit; for no movement is infinite, but every
movement has an end, and that which is incapable of completing its
coming to be cannot be in process of coming to be; and that which
has completed its coming to be must he as soon as it has come to be.
Further, since the matter exists, because it is ungenerated, it is a
fortiori reasonable that the substance or essence, that which the
matter is at any time coming to be, should exist; for if neither
essence nor matter is to be, nothing will be at all, and since this is
impossible there must be something besides the concrete thing, viz.
the shape or form.
But again (B) if we are to suppose this, it is hard to say in
which cases we are to suppose it and in which not. For evidently it is
not possible to suppose it in all cases; we could not suppose that
there is a house besides the particular houses.-Besides this, will the
substance of all the individuals, e.g. of all men, be one? This is
paradoxical, for all the things whose substance is one are one. But
are the substances many and different? This also is unreasonable.-At
the same time, how does the matter become each of the individuals, and
how is the concrete thing these two elements?
(9) Again, one might ask the following question also about the
first principles. If they are one in kind only, nothing will be
numerically one, not even unity-itself and being-itself; and how
will knowing exist, if there is not to be something common to a
whole set of individuals?
But if there is a common element which is numerically one, and
each of the principles is one, and the principles are not as in the
case of perceptible things different for different things (e.g.
since this particular syllable is the same in kind whenever it occurs,
the elements it are also the same in kind; only in kind, for these
also, like the syllable, are numerically different in different
contexts),-if it is not like this but the principles of things are
numerically one, there will be nothing else besides the elements
(for there is no difference of meaning between 'numerically one' and
'individual'; for this is just what we mean by the individual-the
numerically one, and by the universal we mean that which is predicable
of the individuals). Therefore it will be just as if the elements of
articulate sound were limited in number; all the language in the world
would be confined to the ABC, since there could not be two or more
letters of the same kind.
(10) One difficulty which is as great as any has been neglected
both by modern philosophers and by their predecessors-whether the
principles of perishable and those of imperishable things are the same
or different. If they are the same, how are some things perishable and
others imperishable, and for what reason? The school of Hesiod and all
the theologians thought only of what was plausible to themselves,
and had no regard to us. For, asserting the first principles to be
gods and born of gods, they say that the beings which did not taste of
nectar and ambrosia became mortal; and clearly they are using words
which are familiar to themselves, yet what they have said about the
very application of these causes is above our comprehension. For if
the gods taste of nectar and ambrosia for their pleasure, these are in
no wise the causes of their existence; and if they taste them to
maintain their existence, how can gods who need food be eternal?-But
into the subtleties of the mythologists it is not worth our while to
inquire seriously; those, however, who use the language of proof we
must cross-examine and ask why, after all, things which consist of the
same elements are, some of them, eternal in nature, while others
perish. Since these philosophers mention no cause, and it is
unreasonable that things should be as they say, evidently the
principles or causes of things cannot be the same. Even the man whom
one might suppose to speak most consistently-Empedocles, even he has
made the same mistake; for he maintains that strife is a principle
that causes destruction, but even strife would seem no less to produce
everything, except the One; for all things excepting God proceed
from strife. At least he says:-
From which all that was and is and will be hereafter-
Trees, and men and women, took their growth,
And beasts and birds and water-nourished fish,
And long-aged gods.
The implication is evident even apart from these words; for if
strife had not been present in things, all things would have been one,
according to him; for when they have come together, 'then strife stood
outermost.' Hence it also follows on his theory that God most
blessed is less wise than all others; for he does not know all the
elements; for he has in him no strife, and knowledge is of the like by
the like. 'For by earth,' he says,
we see earth, by water water,
By ether godlike ether, by fire wasting fire,
Love by love, and strife by gloomy strife.
But-and this is the point we started from this at least is
evident, that on his theory it follows that strife is as much the
cause of existence as of destruction. And similarly love is not
specially the cause of existence; for in collecting things into the
One it destroys all other things. And at the same time Empedocles
mentions no cause of the change itself, except that things are so by
nature.
But when strife at last waxed great in the limbs of the
Sphere,
And sprang to assert its rights as the time was fulfilled
Which is fixed for them in turn by a mighty oath.
This implies that change was necessary; but he shows no cause of
the necessity. But yet so far at least he alone speaks consistently;
for he does not make some things perishable and others imperishable,
but makes all perishable except the elements. The difficulty we are
speaking of now is, why some things are perishable and others are not,
if they consist of the same principles.
Let this suffice as proof of the fact that the principles cannot
be the same. But if there are different principles, one difficulty
is whether these also will be imperishable or perishable. For if
they are perishable, evidently these also must consist of certain
elements (for all things that perish, perish by being resolved into
the elements of which they consist); so that it follows that prior
to the principles there are other principles. But this is
impossible, whether the process has a limit or proceeds to infinity.
Further, how will perishable things exist, if their principles are
to be annulled? But if the principles are imperishable, why will
things composed of some imperishable principles be perishable, while
those composed of the others are imperishable? This is not probable,
but is either impossible or needs much proof. Further, no one has even
tried to maintain different principles; they maintain the same
principles for all things. But they swallow the difficulty we stated
first as if they took it to be something trifling.
(11) The inquiry that is both the hardest of all and the most
necessary for knowledge of the truth is whether being and unity are
the substances of things, and whether each of them, without being
anything else, is being or unity respectively, or we must inquire what
being and unity are, with the implication that they have some other
underlying nature. For some people think they are of the former,
others think they are of the latter character. Plato and the
Pythagoreans thought being and unity were nothing else, but this was
their nature, their essence being just unity and being. But the
natural philosophers take a different line; e.g. Empedocles-as
though reducing to something more intelligible-says what unity is; for
he would seem to say it is love: at least, this is for all things
the cause of their being one. Others say this unity and being, of
which things consist and have been made, is fire, and others say it is
air. A similar view is expressed by those who make the elements more
than one; for these also must say that unity and being are precisely
all the things which they say are principles.
(A) If we do not suppose unity and being to be substances, it
follows that none of the other universals is a substance; for these
are most universal of all, and if there is no unity itself or
being-itself, there will scarcely be in any other case anything
apart from what are called the individuals. Further, if unity is not a
substance, evidently number also will not exist as an entity
separate from the individual things; for number is units, and the unit
is precisely a certain kind of one.
But (B) if there is a unity-itself and a being itself, unity and
being must be their substance; for it is not something else that is
predicated universally of the things that are and are one, but just
unity and being. But if there is to be a being-itself and a
unity-itself, there is much difficulty in seeing how there will be
anything else besides these,-I mean, how things will be more than
one in number. For what is different from being does not exist, so
that it necessarily follows, according to the argument of
Parmenides, that all things that are are one and this is being.
There are objections to both views. For whether unity is not a
substance or there is a unity-itself, number cannot be a substance. We
have already said why this result follows if unity is not a substance;
and if it is, the same difficulty arises as arose with regard to
being. For whence is there to be another one besides unity-itself?
It must be not-one; but all things are either one or many, and of
the many each is one.
Further, if unity-itself is indivisible, according to Zeno's
postulate it will be nothing. For that which neither when added
makes a thing greater nor when subtracted makes it less, he asserts to
have no being, evidently assuming that whatever has being is a spatial
magnitude. And if it is a magnitude, it is corporeal; for the
corporeal has being in every dimension, while the other objects of
mathematics, e.g. a plane or a line, added in one way will increase
what they are added to, but in another way will not do so, and a point
or a unit does so in no way. But, since his theory is of a low
order, and an indivisible thing can exist in such a way as to have a
defence even against him (for the indivisible when added will make the
number, though not the size, greater),-yet how can a magnitude proceed
from one such indivisible or from many? It is like saying that the
line is made out of points.
But even if ore supposes the case to be such that, as some say,
number proceeds from unity-itself and something else which is not one,
none the less we must inquire why and how the product will be
sometimes a number and sometimes a magnitude, if the not-one was
inequality and was the same principle in either case. For it is not
evident how magnitudes could proceed either from the one and this
principle, or from some number and this principle.
5
(14) A question connected with these is whether numbers and bodies
and planes and points are substances of a kind, or not. If they are
not, it baffles us to say what being is and what the substances of
things are. For modifications and movements and relations and
dispositions and ratios do not seem to indicate the substance of
anything; for all are predicated of a subject, and none is a 'this'.
And as to the things which might seem most of all to indicate
substance, water and earth and fire and air, of which composite bodies
consist, heat and cold and the like are modifications of these, not
substances, and the body which is thus modified alone persists as
something real and as a substance. But, on the other hand, the body is
surely less of a substance than the surface, and the surface than
the line, and the line than the unit and the point. For the body is
bounded by these; and they are thought to be capable of existing
without body, but body incapable of existing without these. This is
why, while most of the philosophers and the earlier among them thought
that substance and being were identical with body, and that all
other things were modifications of this, so that the first
principles of the bodies were the first principles of being, the
more recent and those who were held to be wiser thought numbers were
the first principles. As we said, then, if these are not substance,
there is no substance and no being at all; for the accidents of
these it cannot be right to call beings.
But if this is admitted, that lines and points are substance
more than bodies, but we do not see to what sort of bodies these could
belong (for they cannot be in perceptible bodies), there can be no
substance.-Further, these are all evidently divisions of body,-one
in breadth, another in depth, another in length. Besides this, no sort
of shape is present in the solid more than any other; so that if the
Hermes is not in the stone, neither is the half of the cube in the
cube as something determinate; therefore the surface is not in it
either; for if any sort of surface were in it, the surface which marks
off the half of the cube would be in it too. And the same account
applies to the line and to the point and the unit. Therefore, if on
the one hand body is in the highest degree substance, and on the other
hand these things are so more than body, but these are not even
instances of substance, it baffles us to say what being is and what
the substance of things is.-For besides what has been said, the
questions of generation and instruction confront us with further
paradoxes. For if substance, not having existed before, now exists, or
having existed before, afterwards does not exist, this change is
thought to be accompanied by a process of becoming or perishing; but
points and lines and surfaces cannot be in process either of
becoming or of perishing, when they at one time exist and at another
do not. For when bodies come into contact or are divided, their
boundaries simultaneously become one in the one case when they
touch, and two in the other-when they are divided; so that when they
have been put together one boundary does not exist but has perished,
and when they have been divided the boundaries exist which before
did not exist (for it cannot be said that the point, which is
indivisible, was divided into two). And if the boundaries come into
being and cease to be, from what do they come into being? A similar
account may also be given of the 'now' in time; for this also cannot
be in process of coming into being or of ceasing to be, but yet
seems to be always different, which shows that it is not a
substance. And evidently the same is true of points and lines and
planes; for the same argument applies, since they are all alike either
limits or divisions.
6
In general one might raise the question why after all, besides
perceptible things and the intermediates, we have to look for
another class of things, i.e. the Forms which we posit. If it is for
this reason, because the objects of mathematics, while they differ
from the things in this world in some other respect, differ not at all
in that there are many of the same kind, so that their first
principles cannot be limited in number (just as the elements of all
the language in this sensible world are not limited in number, but
in kind, unless one takes the elements of this individual syllable
or of this individual articulate sound-whose elements will be
limited even in number; so is it also in the case of the
intermediates; for there also the members of the same kind are
infinite in number), so that if there are not-besides perceptible
and mathematical objects-others such as some maintain the Forms to be,
there will be no substance which is one in number, but only in kind,
nor will the first principles of things be determinate in number,
but only in kind:-if then this must be so, the Forms also must
therefore be held to exist. Even if those who support this view do not
express it articulately, still this is what they mean, and they must
be maintaining the Forms just because each of the Forms is a substance
and none is by accident.
But if we are to suppose both that the Forms exist and that the
principles are one in number, not in kind, we have mentioned the
impossible results that necessarily follow.
(13) Closely connected with this is the question whether the
elements exist potentially or in some other manner. If in some other
way, there will be something else prior to the first principles; for
the potency is prior to the actual cause, and it is not necessary
for everything potential to be actual.-But if the elements exist
potentially, it is possible that everything that is should not be. For
even that which is not yet is capable of being; for that which is
not comes to be, but nothing that is incapable of being comes to be.
(12) We must not only raise these questions about the first
principles, but also ask whether they are universal or what we call
individuals. If they are universal, they will not be substances; for
everything that is common indicates not a 'this' but a 'such', but
substance is a 'this'. And if we are to be allowed to lay it down that
a common predicate is a 'this' and a single thing, Socrates will be
several animals-himself and 'man' and 'animal', if each of these
indicates a 'this' and a single thing.
If, then, the principles are universals, these universal.
Therefore if there is to be results follow; if they are not universals
but of knowledge of the principles there must be the nature of
individuals, they will not be other principles prior to them, namely
those knowable; for the knowledge of anything is that are
universally predicated of them.
Book IV
1
THERE is a science which investigates being as being and the
attributes which belong to this in virtue of its own nature. Now
this is not the same as any of the so-called special sciences; for
none of these others treats universally of being as being. They cut
off a part of being and investigate the attribute of this part; this
is what the mathematical sciences for instance do. Now since we are
seeking the first principles and the highest causes, clearly there
must be some thing to which these belong in virtue of its own
nature. If then those who sought the elements of existing things
were seeking these same principles, it is necessary that the
elements must be elements of being not by accident but just because it
is being. Therefore it is of being as being that we also must grasp
the first causes.
2
There are many senses in which a thing may be said to 'be', but
all that 'is' is related to one central point, one definite kind of
thing, and is not said to 'be' by a mere ambiguity. Everything which
is healthy is related to health, one thing in the sense that it
preserves health, another in the sense that it produces it, another in
the sense that it is a symptom of health, another because it is
capable of it. And that which is medical is relative to the medical
art, one thing being called medical because it possesses it, another
because it is naturally adapted to it, another because it is a
function of the medical art. And we shall find other words used
similarly to these. So, too, there are many senses in which a thing is
said to be, but all refer to one starting-point; some things are
said to be because they are substances, others because they are
affections of substance, others because they are a process towards
substance, or destructions or privations or qualities of substance, or
productive or generative of substance, or of things which are relative
to substance, or negations of one of these thing of substance
itself. It is for this reason that we say even of non-being that it is
nonbeing. As, then, there is one science which deals with all
healthy things, the same applies in the other cases also. For not only
in the case of things which have one common notion does the
investigation belong to one science, but also in the case of things
which are related to one common nature; for even these in a sense have
one common notion. It is clear then that it is the work of one science
also to study the things that are, qua being.-But everywhere science
deals chiefly with that which is primary, and on which the other
things depend, and in virtue of which they get their names. If,
then, this is substance, it will be of substances that the philosopher
must grasp the principles and the causes.
Now for each one class of things, as there is one perception, so
there is one science, as for instance grammar, being one science,
investigates all articulate sounds. Hence to investigate all the
species of being qua being is the work of a science which is
generically one, and to investigate the several species is the work of
the specific parts of the science.
If, now, being and unity are the same and are one thing in the
sense that they are implied in one another as principle and cause are,
not in the sense that they are explained by the same definition
(though it makes no difference even if we suppose them to be like
that-in fact this would even strengthen our case); for 'one man' and
'man' are the same thing, and so are 'existent man' and 'man', and the
doubling of the words in 'one man and one existent man' does not
express anything different (it is clear that the two things are not
separated either in coming to be or in ceasing to be); and similarly
'one existent man' adds nothing to 'existent man', and that it is
obvious that the addition in these cases means the same thing, and
unity is nothing apart from being; and if, further, the substance of
each thing is one in no merely accidental way, and similarly is from
its very nature something that is:-all this being so, there must be
exactly as many species of being as of unity. And to investigate the
essence of these is the work of a science which is generically one-I
mean, for instance, the discussion of the same and the similar and the
other concepts of this sort; and nearly all contraries may be referred
to this origin; let us take them as having been investigated in the
'Selection of Contraries'.
And there are as many parts of philosophy as there are kinds of
substance, so that there must necessarily be among them a first
philosophy and one which follows this. For being falls immediately
into genera; for which reason the sciences too will correspond to
these genera. For the philosopher is like the mathematician, as that
word is used; for mathematics also has parts, and there is a first and
a second science and other successive ones within the sphere of
mathematics.
Now since it is the work of one science to investigate
opposites, and plurality is opposed to unity-and it belongs to one
science to investigate the negation and the privation because in
both cases we are really investigating the one thing of which the
negation or the privation is a negation or privation (for we either
say simply that that thing is not present, or that it is not present
in some particular class; in the latter case difference is present
over and above what is implied in negation; for negation means just
the absence of the thing in question, while in privation there is also
employed an underlying nature of which the privation is
asserted):-in view of all these facts, the contraries of the
concepts we named above, the other and the dissimilar and the unequal,
and everything else which is derived either from these or from
plurality and unity, must fall within the province of the science
above named. And contrariety is one of these concepts; for contrariety
is a kind of difference, and difference is a kind of otherness.
Therefore, since there are many senses in which a thing is said to
be one, these terms also will have many senses, but yet it belongs
to one science to know them all; for a term belongs to different
sciences not if it has different senses, but if it has not one meaning
and its definitions cannot be referred to one central meaning. And
since all things are referred to that which is primary, as for
instance all things which are called one are referred to the primary
one, we must say that this holds good also of the same and the other
and of contraries in general; so that after distinguishing the various
senses of each, we must then explain by reference to what is primary
in the case of each of the predicates in question, saying how they are
related to it; for some will be called what they are called because
they possess it, others because they produce it, and others in other
such ways.
It is evident, then, that it belongs to one science to be able
to give an account of these concepts as well as of substance (this was
one of the questions in our book of problems), and that it is the
function of the philosopher to be able to investigate all things.
For if it is not the function of the philosopher, who is it who will
inquire whether Socrates and Socrates seated are the same thing, or
whether one thing has one contrary, or what contrariety is, or how
many meanings it has? And similarly with all other such questions.
Since, then, these are essential modifications of unity qua unity
and of being qua being, not qua numbers or lines or fire, it is
clear that it belongs to this science to investigate both the
essence of these concepts and their properties. And those who study
these properties err not by leaving the sphere of philosophy, but by
forgetting that substance, of which they have no correct idea, is
prior to these other things. For number qua number has peculiar
attributes, such as oddness and evenness, commensurability and
equality, excess and defect, and these belong to numbers either in
themselves or in relation to one another. And similarly the solid
and the motionless and that which is in motion and the weightless
and that which has weight have other peculiar properties. So too there
are certain properties peculiar to being as such, and it is about
these that the philosopher has to investigate the truth.-An indication
of this may be mentioned: dialecticians and sophists assume the same
guise as the philosopher, for sophistic is Wisdom which exists only in
semblance, and dialecticians embrace all things in their dialectic,
and being is common to all things; but evidently their dialectic
embraces these subjects because these are proper to philosophy.-For
sophistic and dialectic turn on the same class of things as
philosophy, but this differs from dialectic in the nature of the
faculty required and from sophistic in respect of the purpose of the
philosophic life. Dialectic is merely critical where philosophy claims
to know, and sophistic is what appears to be philosophy but is not.
Again, in the list of contraries one of the two columns is
privative, and all contraries are reducible to being and non-being,
and to unity and plurality, as for instance rest belongs to unity
and movement to plurality. And nearly all thinkers agree that being
and substance are composed of contraries; at least all name contraries
as their first principles-some name odd and even, some hot and cold,
some limit and the unlimited, some love and strife. And all the others
as well are evidently reducible to unity and plurality (this reduction
we must take for granted), and the principles stated by other thinkers
fall entirely under these as their genera. It is obvious then from
these considerations too that it belongs to one science to examine
being qua being. For all things are either contraries or composed of
contraries, and unity and plurality are the starting-points of all
contraries. And these belong to one science, whether they have or have
not one single meaning. Probably the truth is that they have not;
yet even if 'one' has several meanings, the other meanings will be
related to the primary meaning (and similarly in the case of the
contraries), even if being or unity is not a universal and the same in
every instance or is not separable from the particular instances (as
in fact it probably is not; the unity is in some cases that of
common reference, in some cases that of serial succession). And for
this reason it does not belong to the geometer to inquire what is
contrariety or completeness or unity or being or the same or the
other, but only to presuppose these concepts and reason from this
starting-point.--Obviously then it is the work of one science to
examine being qua being, and the attributes which belong to it qua
being, and the same science will examine not only substances but
also their attributes, both those above named and the concepts 'prior'
and 'posterior', 'genus' and 'species', 'whole' and 'part', and the
others of this sort.
3
We must state whether it belongs to one or to different sciences
to inquire into the truths which are in mathematics called axioms, and
into substance. Evidently, the inquiry into these also belongs to
one science, and that the science of the philosopher; for these truths
hold good for everything that is, and not for some special genus apart
from others. And all men use them, because they are true of being
qua being and each genus has being. But men use them just so far as to
satisfy their purposes; that is, as far as the genus to which their
demonstrations refer extends. Therefore since these truths clearly
hold good for all things qua being (for this is what is common to
them), to him who studies being qua being belongs the inquiry into
these as well. And for this reason no one who is conducting a
special inquiry tries to say anything about their truth or
falsity,-neither the geometer nor the arithmetician. Some natural
philosophers indeed have done so, and their procedure was intelligible
enough; for they thought that they alone were inquiring about the
whole of nature and about being. But since there is one kind of
thinker who is above even the natural philosopher (for nature is
only one particular genus of being), the discussion of these truths
also will belong to him whose inquiry is universal and deals with
primary substance. Physics also is a kind of Wisdom, but it is not the
first kind.-And the attempts of some of those who discuss the terms on
which truth should be accepted, are due to a want of training in
logic; for they should know these things already when they come to a
special study, and not be inquiring into them while they are listening
to lectures on it.
Evidently then it belongs to the philosopher, i.e. to him who is
studying the nature of all substance, to inquire also into the
principles of syllogism. But he who knows best about each genus must
be able to state the most certain principles of his subject, so that
he whose subject is existing things qua existing must be able to state
the most certain principles of all things. This is the philosopher,
and the most certain principle of all is that regarding which it is
impossible to be mistaken; for such a principle must be both the
best known (for all men may be mistaken about things which they do not
know), and non-hypothetical. For a principle which every one must have
who understands anything that is, is not a hypothesis; and that
which every one must know who knows anything, he must already have
when he comes to a special study. Evidently then such a principle is
the most certain of all; which principle this is, let us proceed to
say. It is, that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and
not belong to the same subject and in the same respect; we must
presuppose, to guard against dialectical objections, any further
qualifications which might be added. This, then, is the most certain
of all principles, since it answers to the definition given above. For
it is impossible for any one to believe the same thing to be and not
to be, as some think Heraclitus says. For what a man says, he does not
necessarily believe; and if it is impossible that contrary
attributes should belong at the same time to the same subject (the
usual qualifications must be presupposed in this premiss too), and
if an opinion which contradicts another is contrary to it, obviously
it is impossible for the same man at the same time to believe the same
thing to be and not to be; for if a man were mistaken on this point he
would have contrary opinions at the same time. It is for this reason
that all who are carrying out a demonstration reduce it to this as
an ultimate belief; for this is naturally the starting-point even
for all the other axioms.
4
There are some who, as we said, both themselves assert that it
is possible for the same thing to be and not to be, and say that
people can judge this to be the case. And among others many writers
about nature use this language. But we have now posited that it is
impossible for anything at the same time to be and not to be, and by
this means have shown that this is the most indisputable of all
principles.-Some indeed demand that even this shall be demonstrated,
but this they do through want of education, for not to know of what
things one should demand demonstration, and of what one should not,
argues want of education. For it is impossible that there should be
demonstration of absolutely everything (there would be an infinite
regress, so that there would still be no demonstration); but if
there are things of which one should not demand demonstration, these
persons could not say what principle they maintain to be more
self-evident than the present one.
We can, however, demonstrate negatively even that this view is
impossible, if our opponent will only say something; and if he says
nothing, it is absurd to seek to give an account of our views to one
who cannot give an account of anything, in so far as he cannot do
so. For such a man, as such, is from the start no better than a
vegetable. Now negative demonstration I distinguish from demonstration
proper, because in a demonstration one might be thought to be
begging the question, but if another person is responsible for the
assumption we shall have negative proof, not demonstration. The
starting-point for all such arguments is not the demand that our
opponent shall say that something either is or is not (for this one
might perhaps take to be a begging of the question), but that he shall
say something which is significant both for himself and for another;
for this is necessary, if he really is to say anything. For, if he
means nothing, such a man will not be capable of reasoning, either
with himself or with another. But if any one grants this,
demonstration will be possible; for we shall already have something
definite. The person responsible for the proof, however, is not he who
demonstrates but he who listens; for while disowning reason he listens
to reason. And again he who admits this has admitted that something is
true apart from demonstration (so that not everything will be 'so
and not so').
First then this at least is obviously true, that the word 'be'
or 'not be' has a definite meaning, so that not everything will be 'so
and not so'. Again, if 'man' has one meaning, let this be
'two-footed animal'; by having one meaning I understand this:-if 'man'
means 'X', then if A is a man 'X' will be what 'being a man' means for
him. (It makes no difference even if one were to say a word has
several meanings, if only they are limited in number; for to each
definition there might be assigned a different word. For instance,
we might say that 'man' has not one meaning but several, one of
which would have one definition, viz. 'two-footed animal', while there
might be also several other definitions if only they were limited in
number; for a peculiar name might be assigned to each of the
definitions. If, however, they were not limited but one were to say
that the word has an infinite number of meanings, obviously
reasoning would be impossible; for not to have one meaning is to
have no meaning, and if words have no meaning our reasoning with one
another, and indeed with ourselves, has been annihilated; for it is
impossible to think of anything if we do not think of one thing; but
if this is possible, one name might be assigned to this thing.)
Let it be assumed then, as was said at the beginning, that the
name has a meaning and has one meaning; it is impossible, then, that
'being a man' should mean precisely 'not being a man', if 'man' not
only signifies something about one subject but also has one
significance (for we do not identify 'having one significance' with
'signifying something about one subject', since on that assumption
even 'musical' and 'white' and 'man' would have had one
significance, so that all things would have been one; for they would
all have had the same significance).
And it will not be possible to be and not to be the same thing,
except in virtue of an ambiguity, just as if one whom we call 'man',
others were to call 'not-man'; but the point in question is not
this, whether the same thing can at the same time be and not be a
man in name, but whether it can in fact. Now if 'man' and 'not-man'
mean nothing different, obviously 'not being a man' will mean
nothing different from 'being a man'; so that 'being a man' will be
'not being a man'; for they will be one. For being one means
this-being related as 'raiment' and 'dress' are, if their definition
is one. And if 'being a man' and 'being a not-man' are to be one, they
must mean one thing. But it was shown earlier' that they mean
different things.-Therefore, if it is true to say of anything that
it is a man, it must be a two-footed animal (for this was what 'man'
meant); and if this is necessary, it is impossible that the same thing
should not at that time be a two-footed animal; for this is what
'being necessary' means-that it is impossible for the thing not to be.
It is, then, impossible that it should be at the same time true to say
the same thing is a man and is not a man.
The same account holds good with regard to 'not being a man',
for 'being a man' and 'being a not-man' mean different things, since
even 'being white' and 'being a man' are different; for the former
terms are much more different so that they must a fortiori mean
different things. And if any one says that 'white' means one and the
same thing as 'man', again we shall say the same as what was said
before, that it would follow that all things are one, and not only
opposites. But if this is impossible, then what we have maintained
will follow, if our opponent will only answer our question.
And if, when one asks the question simply, he adds the
contradictories, he is not answering the question. For there is
nothing to prevent the same thing from being both a man and white
and countless other things: but still, if one asks whether it is or is
not true to say that this is a man, our opponent must give an answer
which means one thing, and not add that 'it is also white and
large'. For, besides other reasons, it is impossible to enumerate
its accidental attributes, which are infinite in number; let him,
then, enumerate either all or none. Similarly, therefore, even if
the same thing is a thousand times a man and a not-man, he must not,
in answering the question whether this is a man, add that it is also
at the same time a not-man, unless he is bound to add also all the
other accidents, all that the subject is or is not; and if he does
this, he is not observing the rules of argument.
And in general those who say this do away with substance and
essence. For they must say that all attributes are accidents, and that
there is no such thing as 'being essentially a man' or 'an animal'.
For if there is to be any such thing as 'being essentially a man' this
will not be 'being a not-man' or 'not being a man' (yet these are
negations of it); for there was one thing which it meant, and this was
the substance of something. And denoting the substance of a thing
means that the essence of the thing is nothing else. But if its
being essentially a man is to be the same as either being
essentially a not-man or essentially not being a man, then its essence
will be something else. Therefore our opponents must say that there
cannot be such a definition of anything, but that all attributes are
accidental; for this is the distinction between substance and
accident-'white' is accidental to man, because though he is white,
whiteness is not his essence. But if all statements are accidental,
there will be nothing primary about which they are made, if the
accidental always implies predication about a subject. The
predication, then, must go on ad infinitum. But this is impossible;
for not even more than two terms can be combined in accidental
predication. For (1) an accident is not an accident of an accident,
unless it be because both are accidents of the same subject. I mean,
for instance, that the white is musical and the latter is white,
only because both are accidental to man. But (2) Socrates is
musical, not in this sense, that both terms are accidental to
something else. Since then some predicates are accidental in this
and some in that sense, (a) those which are accidental in the latter
sense, in which white is accidental to Socrates, cannot form an
infinite series in the upward direction; e.g. Socrates the white has
not yet another accident; for no unity can be got out of such a sum.
Nor again (b) will 'white' have another term accidental to it, e.g.
'musical'. For this is no more accidental to that than that is to
this; and at the same time we have drawn the distinction, that while
some predicates are accidental in this sense, others are so in the
sense in which 'musical' is accidental to Socrates; and the accident
is an accident of an accident not in cases of the latter kind, but
only in cases of the other kind, so that not all terms will be
accidental. There must, then, even so be something which denotes
substance. And if this is so, it has been shown that contradictories
cannot be predicated at the same time.
Again, if all contradictory statements are true of the same
subject at the same time, evidently all things will be one. For the
same thing will be a trireme, a wall, and a man, if of everything it
is possible either to affirm or to deny anything (and this premiss
must be accepted by those who share the views of Protagoras). For if
any one thinks that the man is not a trireme, evidently he is not a
trireme; so that he also is a trireme, if, as they say,
contradictory statements are both true. And we thus get the doctrine
of Anaxagoras, that all things are mixed together; so that nothing
really exists. They seem, then, to be speaking of the indeterminate,
and, while fancying themselves to be speaking of being, they are
speaking about non-being; for it is that which exists potentially
and not in complete reality that is indeterminate. But they must
predicate of every subject the affirmation or the negation of every
attribute. For it is absurd if of each subject its own negation is
to be predicable, while the negation of something else which cannot be
predicated of it is not to be predicable of it; for instance, if it is
true to say of a man that he is not a man, evidently it is also true
to say that he is either a trireme or not a trireme. If, then, the
affirmative can be predicated, the negative must be predicable too;
and if the affirmative is not predicable, the negative, at least, will
be more predicable than the negative of the subject itself. If,
then, even the latter negative is predicable, the negative of
'trireme' will be also predicable; and, if this is predicable, the
affirmative will be so too.
Those, then, who maintain this view are driven to this conclusion,
and to the further conclusion that it is not necessary either to
assert or to deny. For if it is true that a thing is a man and a
not-man, evidently also it will be neither a man nor a not-man. For to
the two assertions there answer two negations, and if the former is
treated as a single proposition compounded out of two, the latter also
is a single proposition opposite to the former.
Again, either the theory is true in all cases, and a thing is both
white and not-white, and existent and non-existent, and all other
assertions and negations are similarly compatible or the theory is
true of some statements and not of others. And if not of all, the
exceptions will be contradictories of which admittedly only one is
true; but if of all, again either the negation will be true wherever
the assertion is, and the assertion true wherever the negation is,
or the negation will be true where the assertion is, but the assertion
not always true where the negation is. And (a) in the latter case
there will be something which fixedly is not, and this will be an
indisputable belief; and if non-being is something indisputable and
knowable, the opposite assertion will be more knowable. But (b) if
it is equally possible also to assert all that it is possible to deny,
one must either be saying what is true when one separates the
predicates (and says, for instance, that a thing is white, and again
that it is not-white), or not. And if (i) it is not true to apply
the predicates separately, our opponent is not saying what he
professes to say, and also nothing at all exists; but how could
non-existent things speak or walk, as he does? Also all things would
on this view be one, as has been already said, and man and God and
trireme and their contradictories will be the same. For if
contradictories can be predicated alike of each subject, one thing
will in no wise differ from another; for if it differ, this difference
will be something true and peculiar to it. And (ii) if one may with
truth apply the predicates separately, the above-mentioned result
follows none the less, and, further, it follows that all would then be
right and all would be in error, and our opponent himself confesses
himself to be in error.-And at the same time our discussion with him
is evidently about nothing at all; for he says nothing. For he says
neither 'yes' nor 'no', but 'yes and no'; and again he denies both
of these and says 'neither yes nor no'; for otherwise there would
already be something definite.
Again if when the assertion is true, the negation is false, and
when this is true, the affirmation is false, it will not be possible
to assert and deny the same thing truly at the same time. But
perhaps they might say this was the very question at issue.
Again, is he in error who judges either that the thing is so or
that it is not so, and is he right who judges both? If he is right,
what can they mean by saying that the nature of existing things is
of this kind? And if he is not right, but more right than he who
judges in the other way, being will already be of a definite nature,
and this will be true, and not at the same time also not true. But
if all are alike both wrong and right, one who is in this condition
will not be able either to speak or to say anything intelligible;
for he says at the same time both 'yes' and 'no.' And if he makes no
judgement but 'thinks' and 'does not think', indifferently, what
difference will there be between him and a vegetable?-Thus, then, it
is in the highest degree evident that neither any one of those who
maintain this view nor any one else is really in this position. For
why does a man walk to Megara and not stay at home, when he thinks
he ought to be walking there? Why does he not walk early some
morning into a well or over a precipice, if one happens to be in his
way? Why do we observe him guarding against this, evidently because he
does not think that falling in is alike good and not good?
Evidently, then, he judges one thing to be better and another worse.
And if this is so, he must also judge one thing to be a man and
another to be not-a-man, one thing to be sweet and another to be
not-sweet. For he does not aim at and judge all things alike, when,
thinking it desirable to drink water or to see a man, he proceeds to
aim at these things; yet he ought, if the same thing were alike a
man and not-a-man. But, as was said, there is no one who does not
obviously avoid some things and not others. Therefore, as it seems,
all men make unqualified judgements, if not about all things, still
about what is better and worse. And if this is not knowledge but
opinion, they should be all the more anxious about the truth, as a
sick man should be more anxious about his health than one who is
healthy; for he who has opinions is, in comparison with the man who
knows, not in a healthy state as far as the truth is concerned.
Again, however much all things may be 'so and not so', still there
is a more and a less in the nature of things; for we should not say
that two and three are equally even, nor is he who thinks four
things are five equally wrong with him who thinks they are a thousand.
If then they are not equally wrong, obviously one is less wrong and
therefore more right. If then that which has more of any quality is
nearer the norm, there must be some truth to which the more true is
nearer. And even if there is not, still there is already something
better founded and liker the truth, and we shall have got rid of the
unqualified doctrine which would prevent us from determining
anything in our thought.
5
From the same opinion proceeds the doctrine of Protagoras, and
both doctrines must be alike true or alike untrue. For on the one
hand, if all opinions and appearances are true, all statements must be
at the same time true and false. For many men hold beliefs in which
they conflict with one another, and think those mistaken who have
not the same opinions as themselves; so that the same thing must
both be and not be. And on the other hand, if this is so, all opinions
must be true; for those who are mistaken and those who are right are
opposed to one another in their opinions; if, then, reality is such as
the view in question supposes, all will be right in their beliefs.
Evidently, then, both doctrines proceed from the same way of
thinking. But the same method of discussion must not be used with
all opponents; for some need persuasion, and others compulsion.
Those who have been driven to this position by difficulties in their
thinking can easily be cured of their ignorance; for it is not their
expressed argument but their thought that one has to meet. But those
who argue for the sake of argument can be cured only by refuting the
argument as expressed in speech and in words.
Those who really feel the difficulties have been led to this
opinion by observation of the sensible world. (1) They think that
contradictories or contraries are true at the same time, because
they see contraries coming into existence out of the same thing. If,
then, that which is not cannot come to be, the thing must have existed
before as both contraries alike, as Anaxagoras says all is mixed in
all, and Democritus too; for he says the void and the full exist alike
in every part, and yet one of these is being, and the other non-being.
To those, then, whose belief rests on these grounds, we shall say that
in a sense they speak rightly and in a sense they err. For 'that which
is' has two meanings, so that in some sense a thing can come to be out
of that which is not, while in some sense it cannot, and the same
thing can at the same time be in being and not in being-but not in the
same respect. For the same thing can be potentially at the same time
two contraries, but it cannot actually. And again we shall ask them to
believe that among existing things there is also another kind of
substance to which neither movement nor destruction nor generation
at all belongs.
And (2) similarly some have inferred from observation of the
sensible world the truth of appearances. For they think that the truth
should not be determined by the large or small number of those who
hold a belief, and that the same thing is thought sweet by some when
they taste it, and bitter by others, so that if all were ill or all
were mad, and only two or three were well or sane, these would be
thought ill and mad, and not the others.
And again, they say that many of the other animals receive
impressions contrary to ours; and that even to the senses of each
individual, things do not always seem the same. Which, then, of
these impressions are true and which are false is not obvious; for the
one set is no more true than the other, but both are alike. And this
is why Democritus, at any rate, says that either there is no truth
or to us at least it is not evident.
And in general it is because these thinkers suppose knowledge to
be sensation, and this to be a physical alteration, that they say that
what appears to our senses must be true; for it is for these reasons
that both Empedocles and Democritus and, one may almost say, all the
others have fallen victims to opinions of this sort. For Empedocles
says that when men change their condition they change their knowledge;
For wisdom increases in men according to what is before them.
And elsewhere he says that:-
So far as their nature changed, so far to them always
Came changed thoughts into mind.
And Parmenides also expresses himself in the same way:
For as at each time the much-bent limbs are composed,
So is the mind of men; for in each and all men
'Tis one thing thinks-the substance of their limbs:
For that of which there is more is thought.
A saying of Anaxagoras to some of his friends is also
related,-that things would be for them such as they supposed them to
be. And they say that Homer also evidently had this opinion, because
he made Hector, when he was unconscious from the blow, lie 'thinking
other thoughts',-which implies that even those who are bereft of
thought have thoughts, though not the same thoughts. Evidently,
then, if both are forms of knowledge, the real things also are at
the same time 'both so and not so'. And it is in this direction that
the consequences are most difficult. For if those who have seen most
of such truth as is possible for us (and these are those who seek
and love it most)-if these have such opinions and express these
views about the truth, is it not natural that beginners in
philosophy should lose heart? For to seek the truth would be to follow
flying game.
But the reason why these thinkers held this opinion is that
while they were inquiring into the truth of that which is, they
thought, 'that which is' was identical with the sensible world; in
this, however, there is largely present the nature of the
indeterminate-of that which exists in the peculiar sense which we have
explained; and therefore, while they speak plausibly, they do not
say what is true (for it is fitting to put the matter so rather than
as Epicharmus put it against Xenophanes). And again, because they
saw that all this world of nature is in movement and that about that
which changes no true statement can be made, they said that of course,
regarding that which everywhere in every respect is changing,
nothing could truly be affirmed. It was this belief that blossomed
into the most extreme of the views above mentioned, that of the
professed Heracliteans, such as was held by Cratylus, who finally
did not think it right to say anything but only moved his finger,
and criticized Heraclitus for saying that it is impossible to step
twice into the same river; for he thought one could not do it even
once.
But we shall say in answer to this argument also that while
there is some justification for their thinking that the changing, when
it is changing, does not exist, yet it is after all disputable; for
that which is losing a quality has something of that which is being
lost, and of that which is coming to be, something must already be.
And in general if a thing is perishing, will be present something that
exists; and if a thing is coming to be, there must be something from
which it comes to be and something by which it is generated, and
this process cannot go on ad infinitum.-But, leaving these
arguments, let us insist on this, that it is not the same thing to
change in quantity and in quality. Grant that in quantity a thing is
not constant; still it is in respect of its form that we know each
thing.-And again, it would be fair to criticize those who hold this
view for asserting about the whole material universe what they saw
only in a minority even of sensible things. For only that region of
the sensible world which immediately surrounds us is always in process
of destruction and generation; but this is-so to speak-not even a
fraction of the whole, so that it would have been juster to acquit
this part of the world because of the other part, than to condemn
the other because of this.-And again, obviously we shall make to
them also the same reply that we made long ago; we must show them
and persuade them that there is something whose nature is
changeless. Indeed, those who say that things at the same time are and
are not, should in consequence say that all things are at rest
rather than that they are in movement; for there is nothing into which
they can change, since all attributes belong already to all subjects.
Regarding the nature of truth, we must maintain that not
everything which appears is true; firstly, because even if
sensation-at least of the object peculiar to the sense in
question-is not false, still appearance is not the same as
sensation.-Again, it is fair to express surprise at our opponents'
raising the question whether magnitudes are as great, and colours
are of such a nature, as they appear to people at a distance, or as
they appear to those close at hand, and whether they are such as
they appear to the healthy or to the sick, and whether those things
are heavy which appear so to the weak or those which appear so to
the strong, and those things true which appear to the slee ing or to
the waking. For obviously they do not think these to be open
questions; no one, at least, if when he is in Libya he has fancied one
night that he is in Athens, starts for the concert hall.-And again
with regard to the future, as Plato says, surely the opinion of the
physician and that of the ignorant man are not equally weighty, for
instance, on the question whether a man will get well or not.-And
again, among sensations themselves the sensation of a foreign object
and that of the appropriate object, or that of a kindred object and
that of the object of the sense in question, are not equally
authoritative, but in the case of colour sight, not taste, has the
authority, and in the case of flavour taste, not sight; each of
which senses never says at the same time of the same object that it
simultaneously is 'so and not so'.-But not even at different times
does one sense disagree about the quality, but only about that to
which the quality belongs. I mean, for instance, that the same wine
might seem, if either it or one's body changed, at one time sweet
and at another time not sweet; but at least the sweet, such as it is
when it exists, has never yet changed, but one is always right about
it, and that which is to be sweet is of necessity of such and such a
nature. Yet all these views destroy this necessity, leaving nothing to
be of necessity, as they leave no essence of anything; for the
necessary cannot be in this way and also in that, so that if
anything is of necessity, it will not be 'both so and not so'.
And, in general, if only the sensible exists, there would be
nothing if animate things were not; for there would be no faculty of
sense. Now the view that neither the sensible qualities nor the
sensations would exist is doubtless true (for they are affections of
the perceiver), but that the substrata which cause the sensation
should not exist even apart from sensation is impossible. For
sensation is surely not the sensation of itself, but there is
something beyond the sensation, which must be prior to the
sensation; for that which moves is prior in nature to that which is
moved, and if they are correlative terms, this is no less the case.
6
There are, both among those who have these convictions and among
those who merely profess these views, some who raise a difficulty by
asking, who is to be the judge of the healthy man, and in general
who is likely to judge rightly on each class of questions. But such
inquiries are like puzzling over the question whether we are now
asleep or awake. And all such questions have the same meaning. These
people demand that a reason shall be given for everything; for they
seek a starting-point, and they seek to get this by demonstration,
while it is obvious from their actions that they have no conviction.
But their mistake is what we have stated it to be; they seek a
reason for things for which no reason can be given; for the
starting-point of demonstration is not demonstration.
These, then, might be easily persuaded of this truth, for it is
not difficult to grasp; but those who seek merely compulsion in
argument seek what is impossible; for they demand to be allowed to
contradict themselves-a claim which contradicts itself from the very
first.-But if not all things are relative, but some are self-existent,
not everything that appears will be true; for that which appears is
apparent to some one; so that he who says all things that appear are
true, makes all things relative. And, therefore, those who ask for
an irresistible argument, and at the same time demand to be called
to account for their views, must guard themselves by saying that the
truth is not that what appears exists, but that what appears exists
for him to whom it appears, and when, and to the sense to which, and
under the conditions under which it appears. And if they give an
account of their view, but do not give it in this way, they will
soon find themselves contradicting themselves. For it is possible that
the same thing may appear to be honey to the sight, but not to the
taste, and that, since we have two eyes, things may not appear the
same to each, if their sight is unlike. For to those who for the
reasons named some time ago say that what appears is true, and
therefore that all things are alike false and true, for things do
not appear either the same to all men or always the same to the same
man, but often have contrary appearances at the same time (for touch
says there are two objects when we cross our fingers, while sight says
there is one)-to these we shall say 'yes, but not to the same sense
and in the same part of it and under the same conditions and at the
same time', so that what appears will be with these qualifications
true. But perhaps for this reason those who argue thus not because
they feel a difficulty but for the sake of argument, should say that
this is not true, but true for this man. And as has been said
before, they must make everything relative-relative to opinion and
perception, so that nothing either has come to be or will be without
some one's first thinking so. But if things have come to be or will
be, evidently not all things will be relative to opinion.-Again, if
a thing is one, it is in relation to one thing or to a definite number
of things; and if the same thing is both half and equal, it is not
to the double that the equal is correlative. If, then, in relation
to that which thinks, man and that which is thought are the same,
man will not be that which thinks, but only that which is thought. And
if each thing is to be relative to that which thinks, that which
thinks will be relative to an infinity of specifically different
things.
Let this, then, suffice to show (1) that the most indisputable
of all beliefs is that contradictory statements are not at the same
time true, and (2) what consequences follow from the assertion that
they are, and (3) why people do assert this. Now since it is
impossible that contradictories should be at the same time true of the
same thing, obviously contraries also cannot belong at the same time
to the same thing. For of contraries, one is a privation no less
than it is a contrary-and a privation of the essential nature; and
privation is the denial of a predicate to a determinate genus. If,
then, it is impossible to affirm and deny truly at the same time, it
is also impossible that contraries should belong to a subject at the
same time, unless both belong to it in particular relations, or one in
a particular relation and one without qualification.
7
But on the other hand there cannot be an intermediate between
contradictories, but of one subject we must either affirm or deny
any one predicate. This is clear, in the first place, if we define
what the true and the false are. To say of what is that it is not,
or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that
it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true; so that he who says
of anything that it is, or that it is not, will say either what is
true or what is false; but neither what is nor what is not is said
to be or not to be.-Again, the intermediate between the
contradictories will be so either in the way in which grey is
between black and white, or as that which is neither man nor horse
is between man and horse. (a) If it were of the latter kind, it
could not change into the extremes (for change is from not-good to
good, or from good to not-good), but as a matter of fact when there is
an intermediate it is always observed to change into the extremes. For
there is no change except to opposites and to their intermediates. (b)
But if it is really intermediate, in this way too there would have
to be a change to white, which was not from not-white; but as it is,
this is never seen.-Again, every object of understanding or reason the
understanding either affirms or denies-this is obvious from the
definition-whenever it says what is true or false. When it connects in
one way by assertion or negation, it says what is true, and when it
does so in another way, what is false.-Again, there must be an
intermediate between all contradictories, if one is not arguing merely
for the sake of argument; so that it will be possible for a man to say
what is neither true nor untrue, and there will be a middle between
that which is and that which is not, so that there will also be a kind
of change intermediate between generation and destruction.-Again, in
all classes in which the negation of an attribute involves the
assertion of its contrary, even in these there will be an
intermediate; for instance, in the sphere of numbers there will be
number which is neither odd nor not-odd. But this is impossible, as is
obvious from the definition.-Again, the process will go on ad
infinitum, and the number of realities will be not only half as
great again, but even greater. For again it will be possible to deny
this intermediate with reference both to its assertion and to its
negation, and this new term will be some definite thing; for its
essence is something different.-Again, when a man, on being asked
whether a thing is white, says 'no', he has denied nothing except that
it is; and its not being is a negation.
Some people have acquired this opinion as other paradoxical
opinions have been acquired; when men cannot refute eristical
arguments, they give in to the argument and agree that the
conclusion is true. This, then, is why some express this view;
others do so because they demand a reason for everything. And the
starting-point in dealing with all such people is definition. Now
the definition rests on the necessity of their meaning something;
for the form of words of which the word is a sign will be its
definition.-While the doctrine of Heraclitus, that all things are
and are not, seems to make everything true, that of Anaxagoras, that
there is an intermediate between the terms of a contradiction, seems
to make everything false; for when things are mixed, the mixture is
neither good nor not-good, so that one cannot say anything that is
true.
8
In view of these distinctions it is obvious that the one-sided
theories which some people express about all things cannot be valid-on
the one hand the theory that nothing is true (for, say they, there
is nothing to prevent every statement from being like the statement
'the diagonal of a square is commensurate with the side'), on the
other hand the theory that everything is true. These views are
practically the same as that of Heraclitus; for he who says that all
things are true and all are false also makes each of these
statements separately, so that since they are impossible, the double
statement must be impossible too.-Again, there are obviously
contradictories which cannot be at the same time true-nor on the other
hand can all statements be false; yet this would seem more possible in
the light of what has been said.-But against all such views we must
postulate, as we said above,' not that something is or is not, but
that something has a meaning, so that we must argue from a definition,
viz. by assuming what falsity or truth means. If that which it is true
to affirm is nothing other than that which it is false to deny, it
is impossible that all statements should be false; for one side of the
contradiction must be true. Again, if it is necessary with regard to
everything either to assert or to deny it, it is impossible that
both should be false; for it is one side of the contradiction that
is false.-Therefore all such views are also exposed to the often
expressed objection, that they destroy themselves. For he who says
that everything is true makes even the statement contrary to his own
true, and therefore his own not true (for the contrary statement
denies that it is true), while he who says everything is false makes
himself also false.-And if the former person excepts the contrary
statement, saying it alone is not true, while the latter excepts his
own as being not false, none the less they are driven to postulate the
truth or falsity of an infinite number of statements; for that which
says the true statement is true is true, and this process will go on
to infinity.
Evidently, again, those who say all things are at rest are not
right, nor are those who say all things are in movement. For if all
things are at rest, the same statements will always be true and the
same always false,-but this obviously changes; for he who makes a
statement, himself at one time was not and again will not be. And if
all things are in motion, nothing will be true; everything therefore
will be false. But it has been shown that this is impossible. Again,
it must be that which is that changes; for change is from something to
something. But again it is not the case that all things are at rest or
in motion sometimes, and nothing for ever; for there is something
which always moves the things that are in motion, and the first
mover is itself unmoved.
Book V
1
'BEGINNING' means (1) that part of a thing from which one would
start first, e.g a line or a road has a beginning in either of the
contrary directions. (2) That from which each thing would best be
originated, e.g. even in learning we must sometimes begin not from the
first point and the beginning of the subject, but from the point
from which we should learn most easily. (4) That from which, as an
immanent part, a thing first comes to be, e,g, as the keel of a ship
and the foundation of a house, while in animals some suppose the
heart, others the brain, others some other part, to be of this nature.
(4) That from which, not as an immanent part, a thing first comes to
be, and from which the movement or the change naturally first
begins, as a child comes from its father and its mother, and a fight
from abusive language. (5) That at whose will that which is moved is
moved and that which changes changes, e.g. the magistracies in cities,
and oligarchies and monarchies and tyrannies, are called arhchai,
and so are the arts, and of these especially the architectonic arts.
(6) That from which a thing can first be known,-this also is called
the beginning of the thing, e.g. the hypotheses are the beginnings
of demonstrations. (Causes are spoken of in an equal number of senses;
for all causes are beginnings.) It is common, then, to all
beginnings to be the first point from which a thing either is or comes
to be or is known; but of these some are immanent in the thing and
others are outside. Hence the nature of a thing is a beginning, and so
is the element of a thing, and thought and will, and essence, and
the final cause-for the good and the beautiful are the beginning
both of the knowledge and of the movement of many things.
2
'Cause' means (1) that from which, as immanent material, a thing
comes into being, e.g. the bronze is the cause of the statue and the
silver of the saucer, and so are the classes which include these.
(2) The form or pattern, i.e. the definition of the essence, and the
classes which include this (e.g. the ratio 2:1 and number in general
are causes of the octave), and the parts included in the definition.
(3) That from which the change or the resting from change first
begins; e.g. the adviser is a cause of the action, and the father a
cause of the child, and in general the maker a cause of the thing made
and the change-producing of the changing. (4) The end, i.e. that for
the sake of which a thing is; e.g. health is the cause of walking. For
'Why does one walk?' we say; 'that one may be healthy'; and in
speaking thus we think we have given the cause. The same is true of
all the means that intervene before the end, when something else has
put the process in motion, as e.g. thinning or purging or drugs or
instruments intervene before health is reached; for all these are
for the sake of the end, though they differ from one another in that
some are instruments and others are actions.
These, then, are practically all the senses in which causes are
spoken of, and as they are spoken of in several senses it follows both
that there are several causes of the same thing, and in no
accidental sense (e.g. both the art of sculpture and the bronze are
causes of the statue not in respect of anything else but qua statue;
not, however, in the same way, but the one as matter and the other
as source of the movement), and that things can be causes of one
another (e.g. exercise of good condition, and the latter of
exercise; not, however, in the same way, but the one as end and the
other as source of movement).-Again, the same thing is the cause of
contraries; for that which when present causes a particular thing,
we sometimes charge, when absent, with the contrary, e.g. we impute
the shipwreck to the absence of the steersman, whose presence was
the cause of safety; and both-the presence and the privation-are
causes as sources of movement.
All the causes now mentioned fall under four senses which are
the most obvious. For the letters are the cause of syllables, and
the material is the cause of manufactured things, and fire and earth
and all such things are the causes of bodies, and the parts are causes
of the whole, and the hypotheses are causes of the conclusion, in
the sense that they are that out of which these respectively are made;
but of these some are cause as the substratum (e.g. the parts), others
as the essence (the whole, the synthesis, and the form). The semen,
the physician, the adviser, and in general the agent, are all
sources of change or of rest. The remainder are causes as the end
and the good of the other things; for that for the sake of which other
things are tends to be the best and the end of the other things; let
us take it as making no difference whether we call it good or apparent
good.
These, then, are the causes, and this is the number of their
kinds, but the varieties of causes are many in number, though when
summarized these also are comparatively few. Causes are spoken of in
many senses, and even of those which are of the same kind some are
causes in a prior and others in a posterior sense, e.g. both 'the
physician' and 'the professional man' are causes of health, and both
'the ratio 2:1' and 'number' are causes of the octave, and the classes
that include any particular cause are always causes of the
particular effect. Again, there are accidental causes and the
classes which include these; e.g. while in one sense 'the sculptor'
causes the statue, in another sense 'Polyclitus' causes it, because
the sculptor happens to be Polyclitus; and the classes that include
the accidental cause are also causes, e.g. 'man'-or in general
'animal'-is the cause of the statue, because Polyclitus is a man,
and man is an animal. Of accidental causes also some are more remote
or nearer than others, as, for instance, if 'the white' and 'the
musical' were called causes of the statue, and not only 'Polyclitus'
or 'man'. But besides all these varieties of causes, whether proper or
accidental, some are called causes as being able to act, others as
acting; e.g. the cause of the house's being built is a builder, or a
builder who is building.-The same variety of language will be found
with regard to the effects of causes; e.g. a thing may be called the
cause of this statue or of a statue or in general of an image, and
of this bronze or of bronze or of matter in general; and similarly
in the case of accidental effects. Again, both accidental and proper
causes may be spoken of in combination; e.g. we may say not
'Polyclitus' nor 'the sculptor' but 'Polyclitus the sculptor'. Yet all
these are but six in number, while each is spoken of in two ways;
for (A) they are causes either as the individual, or as the genus,
or as the accidental, or as the genus that includes the accidental,
and these either as combined, or as taken simply; and (B) all may be
taken as acting or as having a capacity. But they differ inasmuch as
the acting causes, i.e. the individuals, exist, or do not exist,
simultaneously with the things of which they are causes, e.g. this
particular man who is healing, with this particular man who is
recovering health, and this particular builder with this particular
thing that is being built; but the potential causes are not always
in this case; for the house does not perish at the same time as the
builder.
3
'Element' means (1) the primary component immanent in a thing, and
indivisible in kind into other kinds; e.g. the elements of speech
are the parts of which speech consists and into which it is ultimately
divided, while they are no longer divided into other forms of speech
different in kind from them. If they are divided, their parts are of
the same kind, as a part of water is water (while a part of the
syllable is not a syllable). Similarly those who speak of the elements
of bodies mean the things into which bodies are ultimately divided,
while they are no longer divided into other things differing in
kind; and whether the things of this sort are one or more, they call
these elements. The so-called elements of geometrical proofs, and in
general the elements of demonstrations, have a similar character;
for the primary demonstrations, each of which is implied in many
demonstrations, are called elements of demonstrations; and the primary
syllogisms, which have three terms and proceed by means of one middle,
are of this nature.
(2) People also transfer the word 'element' from this meaning
and apply it to that which, being one and small, is useful for many
purposes; for which reason what is small and simple and indivisible is
called an element. Hence come the facts that the most universal things
are elements (because each of them being one and simple is present
in a plurality of things, either in all or in as many as possible),
and that unity and the point are thought by some to be first
principles. Now, since the so-called genera are universal and
indivisible (for there is no definition of them), some say the
genera are elements, and more so than the differentia, because the
genus is more universal; for where the differentia is present, the
genus accompanies it, but where the genus is present, the
differentia is not always so. It is common to all the meanings that
the element of each thing is the first component immanent in each.
4
'Nature' means (1) the genesis of growing things-the meaning which
would be suggested if one were to pronounce the 'u' in phusis long.
(2) That immanent part of a growing thing, from which its growth first
proceeds. (3) The source from which the primary movement in each
natural object is present in it in virtue of its own essence. Those
things are said to grow which derive increase from something else by
contact and either by organic unity, or by organic adhesion as in
the case of embryos. Organic unity differs from contact; for in the
latter case there need not be anything besides the contact, but in
organic unities there is something identical in both parts, which
makes them grow together instead of merely touching, and be one in
respect of continuity and quantity, though not of quality.-(4)
'Nature' means the primary material of which any natural object
consists or out of which it is made, which is relatively unshaped
and cannot be changed from its own potency, as e.g. bronze is said
to be the nature of a statue and of bronze utensils, and wood the
nature of wooden things; and so in all other cases; for when a product
is made out of these materials, the first matter is preserved
throughout. For it is in this way that people call the elements of
natural objects also their nature, some naming fire, others earth,
others air, others water, others something else of the sort, and
some naming more than one of these, and others all of them.-(5)
'Nature' means the essence of natural objects, as with those who say
the nature is the primary mode of composition, or as Empedocles says:-
Nothing that is has a nature,
But only mixing and parting of the mixed,
And nature is but a name given them by men.
Hence as regards the things that are or come to be by nature, though
that from which they naturally come to be or are is already present,
we say they have not their nature yet, unless they have their form
or shape. That which comprises both of these exists by nature, e.g.
the animals and their parts; and not only is the first matter nature
(and this in two senses, either the first, counting from the thing, or
the first in general; e.g. in the case of works in bronze, bronze is
first with reference to them, but in general perhaps water is first,
if all things that can be melted are water), but also the form or
essence, which is the end of the process of becoming.-(6) By an
extension of meaning from this sense of 'nature' every essence in
general has come to be called a 'nature', because the nature of a
thing is one kind of essence.
From what has been said, then, it is plain that nature in the
primary and strict sense is the essence of things which have in
themselves, as such, a source of movement; for the matter is called
the nature because it is qualified to receive this, and processes of
becoming and growing are called nature because they are movements
proceeding from this. And nature in this sense is the source of the
movement of natural objects, being present in them somehow, either
potentially or in complete reality.
5
We call 'necessary' (1) (a) that without which, as a condition,
a thing cannot live; e.g. breathing and food are necessary for an
animal; for it is incapable of existing without these; (b) the
conditions without which good cannot be or come to be, or without
which we cannot get rid or be freed of evil; e.g. drinking the
medicine is necessary in order that we may be cured of disease, and
a man's sailing to Aegina is necessary in order that he may get his
money.-(2) The compulsory and compulsion, i.e. that which impedes
and tends to hinder, contrary to impulse and purpose. For the
compulsory is called necessary (whence the necessary is painful, as
Evenus says: 'For every necessary thing is ever irksome'), and
compulsion is a form of necessity, as Sophocles says: 'But force
necessitates me to this act'. And necessity is held to be something
that cannot be persuaded-and rightly, for it is contrary to the
movement which accords with purpose and with reasoning.-(3) We say
that that which cannot be otherwise is necessarily as it is. And
from this sense of 'necessary' all the others are somehow derived; for
a thing is said to do or suffer what is necessary in the sense of
compulsory, only when it cannot act according to its impulse because
of the compelling forces-which implies that necessity is that
because of which a thing cannot be otherwise; and similarly as regards
the conditions of life and of good; for when in the one case good,
in the other life and being, are not possible without certain
conditions, these are necessary, and this kind of cause is a sort of
necessity. Again, demonstration is a necessary thing because the
conclusion cannot be otherwise, if there has been demonstration in the
unqualified sense; and the causes of this necessity are the first
premisses, i.e. the fact that the propositions from which the
syllogism proceeds cannot be otherwise.
Now some things owe their necessity to something other than
themselves; others do not, but are themselves the source of
necessity in other things. Therefore the necessary in the primary
and strict sense is the simple; for this does not admit of more states
than one, so that it cannot even be in one state and also in
another; for if it did it would already be in more than one. If, then,
there are any things that are eternal and unmovable, nothing
compulsory or against their nature attaches to them.
6
'One' means (1) that which is one by accident, (2) that which is
one by its own nature. (1) Instances of the accidentally one are
'Coriscus and what is musical', and 'musical Coriscus' (for it is
the same thing to say 'Coriscus and what is musical', and 'musical
Coriscus'), and 'what is musical and what is just', and 'musical
Coriscus and just Coriscus'. For all of these are called one by virtue
of an accident, 'what is just and what is musical' because they are
accidents of one substance, 'what is musical and Coriscus' because the
one is an accident of the other; and similarly in a sense 'musical
Coriscus' is one with 'Coriscus' because one of the parts of the
phrase is an accident of the other, i.e. 'musical' is an accident of
Coriscus; and 'musical Coriscus' is one with 'just Coriscus' because
one part of each is an accident of one and the same subject. The
case is similar if the accident is predicated of a genus or of any
universal name, e.g. if one says that man is the same as 'musical
man'; for this is either because 'musical' is an accident of man,
which is one substance, or because both are accidents of some
individual, e.g. Coriscus. Both, however, do not belong to him in
the same way, but one presumably as genus and included in his
substance, the other as a state or affection of the substance.
The things, then, that are called one in virtue of an accident,
are called so in this way. (2) Of things that are called one in virtue
of their own nature some (a) are so called because they are
continuous, e.g. a bundle is made one by a band, and pieces of wood
are made one by glue; and a line, even if it is bent, is called one if
it is continuous, as each part of the body is, e.g. the leg or the
arm. Of these themselves, the continuous by nature are more one than
the continuous by art. A thing is called continuous which has by its
own nature one movement and cannot have any other; and the movement is
one when it is indivisible, and it is indivisible in respect of
time. Those things are continuous by their own nature which are one
not merely by contact; for if you put pieces of wood touching one
another, you will not say these are one piece of wood or one body or
one continuum of any other sort. Things, then, that are continuous
in any way called one, even if they admit of being bent, and still
more those which cannot be bent; e.g. the shin or the thigh is more
one than the leg, because the movement of the leg need not be one. And
the straight line is more one than the bent; but that which is bent
and has an angle we call both one and not one, because its movement
may be either simultaneous or not simultaneous; but that of the
straight line is always simultaneous, and no part of it which has
magnitude rests while another moves, as in the bent line.
(b)(i) Things are called one in another sense because their
substratum does not differ in kind; it does not differ in the case
of things whose kind is indivisible to sense. The substratum meant
is either the nearest to, or the farthest from, the final state.
For, one the one hand, wine is said to be one and water is said to
be one, qua indivisible in kind; and, on the other hand, all juices,
e.g. oil and wine, are said to be one, and so are all things that
can be melted, because the ultimate substratum of all is the same; for
all of these are water or air.
(ii) Those things also are called one whose genus is one though
distinguished by opposite differentiae-these too are all called one
because the genus which underlies the differentiae is one (e.g. horse,
man, and dog form a unity, because all are animals), and indeed in a
way similar to that in which the matter is one. These are sometimes
called one in this way, but sometimes it is the higher genus that is
said to be the same (if they are infimae species of their genus)-the
genus above the proximate genera; e.g. the isosceles and the
equilateral are one and the same figure because both are triangles;
but they are not the same triangles.
(c) Two things are called one, when the definition which states
the essence of one is indivisible from another definition which
shows us the other (though in itself every definition is divisible).
Thus even that which has increased or is diminishing is one, because
its definition is one, as, in the case of plane figures, is the
definition of their form. In general those things the thought of whose
essence is indivisible, and cannot separate them either in time or
in place or in definition, are most of all one, and of these
especially those which are substances. For in general those things
that do not admit of division are called one in so far as they do
not admit of it; e.g. if two things are indistinguishable qua man,
they are one kind of man; if qua animal, one kind of animal; if qua
magnitude, one kind of magnitude.-Now most things are called one
because they either do or have or suffer or are related to something
else that is one, but the things that are primarily called one are
those whose substance is one,-and one either in continuity or in
form or in definition; for we count as more than one either things
that are not continuous, or those whose form is not one, or those
whose definition is not one.
While in a sense we call anything one if it is a quantity and
continuous, in a sense we do not unless it is a whole, i.e. unless
it has unity of form; e.g. if we saw the parts of a shoe put
together anyhow we should not call them one all the same (unless
because of their continuity); we do this only if they are put together
so as to be a shoe and to have already a certain single form. This
is why the circle is of all lines most truly one, because it is
whole and complete.
(3) The essence of what is one is to be some kind of beginning
of number; for the first measure is the beginning, since that by which
we first know each class is the first measure of the class; the one,
then, is the beginning of the knowable regarding each class. But the
one is not the same in all classes. For here it is a quarter-tone, and
there it is the vowel or the consonant; and there is another unit of
weight and another of movement. But everywhere the one is
indivisible either in quantity or in kind. Now that which is
indivisible in quantity is called a unit if it is not divisible in any
dimension and is without position, a point if it is not divisible in
any dimension and has position, a line if it is divisible in one
dimension, a plane if in two, a body if divisible in quantity in
all--i.e. in three--dimensions. And, reversing the order, that which
is divisible in two dimensions is a plane, that which is divisible
in one a line, that which is in no way divisible in quantity is a
point or a unit,-that which has not position a unit, that which has
position a point.
Again, some things are one in number, others in species, others in
genus, others by analogy; in number those whose matter is one, in
species those whose definition is one, in genus those to which the
same figure of predication applies, by analogy those which are related
as a third thing is to a fourth. The latter kinds of unity are
always found when the former are; e.g. things that are one in number
are also one in species, while things that are one in species are
not all one in number; but things that are one in species are all
one in genus, while things that are so in genus are not all one in
species but are all one by analogy; while things that are one by
analogy are not all one in genus.
Evidently 'many' will have meanings opposite to those of 'one';
some things are many because they are not continuous, others because
their matter-either the proximate matter or the ultimate-is
divisible in kind, others because the definitions which state their
essence are more than one.
7
Things are said to 'be' (1) in an accidental sense, (2) by their
own nature.
(1) In an accidental sense, e.g. we say 'the righteous doer is
musical', and 'the man is musical', and 'the musician is a man',
just as we say 'the musician builds', because the builder happens to
be musical or the musician to be a builder; for here 'one thing is
another' means 'one is an accident of another'. So in the cases we
have mentioned; for when we say 'the man is musical' and 'the musician
is a man', or 'he who is pale is musical' or 'the musician is pale',
the last two mean that both attributes are accidents of the same
thing; the first that the attribute is an accident of that which is,
while 'the musical is a man' means that 'musical' is an accident of
a man. (In this sense, too, the not-pale is said to be, because that
of which it is an accident is.) Thus when one thing is said in an
accidental sense to be another, this is either because both belong
to the same thing, and this is, or because that to which the attribute
belongs is, or because the subject which has as an attribute that of
which it is itself predicated, itself is.
(2) The kinds of essential being are precisely those that are
indicated by the figures of predication; for the senses of 'being' are
just as many as these figures. Since, then, some predicates indicate
what the subject is, others its quality, others quantity, others
relation, others activity or passivity, others its 'where', others its
'when', 'being' has a meaning answering to each of these. For there is
no difference between 'the man is recovering' and 'the man
recovers', nor between 'the man is walking or cutting' and 'the man
walks' or 'cuts'; and similarly in all other cases.
(3) Again, 'being' and 'is' mean that a statement is true, 'not
being' that it is not true but falses-and this alike in the case of
affirmation and of negation; e.g. 'Socrates is musical' means that
this is true, or 'Socrates is not-pale' means that this is true; but
'the diagonal of the square is not commensurate with the side' means
that it is false to say it is.
(4) Again, 'being' and 'that which is' mean that some of the
things we have mentioned 'are' potentially, others in complete
reality. For we say both of that which sees potentially and of that
which sees actually, that it is 'seeing', and both of that which can
actualize its knowledge and of that which is actualizing it, that it
knows, and both of that to which rest is already present and of that
which can rest, that it rests. And similarly in the case of
substances; we say the Hermes is in the stone, and the half of the
line is in the line, and we say of that which is not yet ripe that
it is corn. When a thing is potential and when it is not yet potential
must be explained elsewhere.
8
We call 'substance' (1) the simple bodies, i.e. earth and fire and
water and everything of the sort, and in general bodies and the things
composed of them, both animals and divine beings, and the parts of
these. All these are called substance because they are not
predicated of a subject but everything else is predicated of them.-(2)
That which, being present in such things as are not predicated of a
subject, is the cause of their being, as the soul is of the being of
an animal.-(3) The parts which are present in such things, limiting
them and marking them as individuals, and by whose destruction the
whole is destroyed, as the body is by the destruction of the plane, as
some say, and the plane by the destruction of the line; and in general
number is thought by some to be of this nature; for if it is
destroyed, they say, nothing exists, and it limits all things.-(4) The
essence, the formula of which is a definition, is also called the
substance of each thing.
It follows, then, that 'substance' has two senses, (A) ultimate
substratum, which is no longer predicated of anything else, and (B)
that which, being a 'this', is also separable and of this nature is
the shape or form of each thing.
9
'The same' means (1) that which is the same in an accidental
sense, e.g. 'the pale' and 'the musical' are the same because they are
accidents of the same thing, and 'a man' and 'musical' because the one
is an accident of the other; and 'the musical' is 'a man' because it
is an accident of the man. (The complex entity is the same as either
of the simple ones and each of these is the same as it; for both
'the man' and 'the musical' are said to be the same as 'the musical
man', and this the same as they.) This is why all of these
statements are made not universally; for it is not true to say that
every man is the same as 'the musical' (for universal attributes
belong to things in virtue of their own nature, but accidents do not
belong to them in virtue of their own nature); but of the
individuals the statements are made without qualification. For
'Socrates' and 'musical Socrates' are thought to be the same; but
'Socrates' is not predicable of more than one subject, and therefore
we do not say 'every Socrates' as we say 'every man'.
Some things are said to be the same in this sense, others (2)
are the same by their own nature, in as many senses as that which is
one by its own nature is so; for both the things whose matter is one
either in kind or in number, and those whose essence is one, are
said to be the same. Clearly, therefore, sameness is a unity of the
being either of more than one thing or of one thing when it is treated
as more than one, ie. when we say a thing is the same as itself; for
we treat it as two.
Things are called 'other' if either their kinds or their matters
or the definitions of their essence are more than one; and in
general 'other' has meanings opposite to those of 'the same'.
'Different' is applied (1) to those things which though other
are the same in some respect, only not in number but either in species
or in genus or by analogy; (2) to those whose genus is other, and to
contraries, and to an things that have their otherness in their
essence.
Those things are called 'like' which have the same attributes in
every respect, and those which have more attributes the same than
different, and those whose quality is one; and that which shares
with another thing the greater number or the more important of the
attributes (each of them one of two contraries) in respect of which
things are capable of altering, is like that other thing. The senses
of 'unlike' are opposite to those of 'like'.
10
The term 'opposite' is applied to contradictories, and to
contraries, and to relative terms, and to privation and possession,
and to the extremes from which and into which generation and
dissolution take place; and the attributes that cannot be present at
the same time in that which is receptive of both, are said to be
opposed,-either themselves of their constituents. Grey and white
colour do not belong at the same time to the same thing; hence their
constituents are opposed.
The term 'contrary' is applied (1) to those attributes differing
in genus which cannot belong at the same time to the same subject, (2)
to the most different of the things in the same genus, (3) to the most
different of the attributes in the same recipient subject, (4) to
the most different of the things that fall under the same faculty, (5)
to the things whose difference is greatest either absolutely or in
genus or in species. The other things that are called contrary are
so called, some because they possess contraries of the above kind,
some because they are receptive of such, some because they are
productive of or susceptible to such, or are producing or suffering
them, or are losses or acquisitions, or possessions or privations,
of such. Since 'one' and 'being' have many senses, the other terms
which are derived from these, and therefore 'same', 'other', and
'contrary', must correspond, so that they must be different for each
category.
The term 'other in species' is applied to things which being of
the same genus are not subordinate the one to the other, or which
being in the same genus have a difference, or which have a contrariety
in their substance; and contraries are other than one another in
species (either all contraries or those which are so called in the
primary sense), and so are those things whose definitions differ in
the infima species of the genus (e.g. man and horse are indivisible in
genus, but their definitions are different), and those which being
in the same substance have a difference. 'The same in species' has the
various meanings opposite to these.
11
The words 'prior' and 'posterior' are applied (1) to some things
(on the assumption that there is a first, i.e. a beginning, in each
class) because they are nearer some beginning determined either
absolutely and by nature, or by reference to something or in some
place or by certain people; e.g. things are prior in place because
they are nearer either to some place determined by nature (e.g. the
middle or the last place), or to some chance object; and that which is
farther is posterior.-Other things are prior in time; some by being
farther from the present, i.e. in the case of past events (for the
Trojan war is prior to the Persian, because it is farther from the
present), others by being nearer the present, i.e. in the case of
future events (for the Nemean games are prior to the Pythian, if we
treat the present as beginning and first point, because they are
nearer the present).-Other things are prior in movement; for that
which is nearer the first mover is prior (e.g. the boy is prior to the
man); and the prime mover also is a beginning absolutely.-Others are
prior in power; for that which exceeds in power, i.e. the more
powerful, is prior; and such is that according to whose will the
other-i.e. the posterior-must follow, so that if the prior does not
set it in motion the other does not move, and if it sets it in
motion it does move; and here will is a beginning.-Others are prior in
arrangement; these are the things that are placed at intervals in
reference to some one definite thing according to some rule, e.g. in
the chorus the second man is prior to the third, and in the lyre the
second lowest string is prior to the lowest; for in the one case the
leader and in the other the middle string is the beginning.
These, then, are called prior in this sense, but (2) in another
sense that which is prior for knowledge is treated as also
absolutely prior; of these, the things that are prior in definition do
not coincide with those that are prior in relation to perception.
For in definition universals are prior, in relation to perception
individuals. And in definition also the accident is prior to the
whole, e.g. 'musical' to 'musical man', for the definition cannot
exist as a whole without the part; yet musicalness cannot exist unless
there is some one who is musical.
(3) The attributes of prior things are called prior, e.g.
straightness is prior to smoothness; for one is an attribute of a line
as such, and the other of a surface.
Some things then are called prior and posterior in this sense,
others (4) in respect of nature and substance, i.e. those which can be
without other things, while the others cannot be without them,-a
distinction which Plato used. (If we consider the various senses of
'being', firstly the subject is prior, so that substance is prior;
secondly, according as potency or complete reality is taken into
account, different things are prior, for some things are prior in
respect of potency, others in respect of complete reality, e.g. in
potency the half line is prior to the whole line, and the part to
the whole, and the matter to the concrete substance, but in complete
reality these are posterior; for it is only when the whole has been
dissolved that they will exist in complete reality.) In a sense,
therefore, all things that are called prior and posterior are so
called with reference to this fourth sense; for some things can
exist without others in respect of generation, e.g. the whole
without the parts, and others in respect of dissolution, e.g. the part
without the whole. And the same is true in all other cases.
12
'Potency' means (1) a source of movement or change, which is in
another thing than the thing moved or in the same thing qua other;
e.g. the art of building is a potency which is not in the thing built,
while the art of healing, which is a potency, may be in the man
healed, but not in him qua healed. 'Potency' then means the source, in
general, of change or movement in another thing or in the same thing
qua other, and also (2) the source of a thing's being moved by another
thing or by itself qua other. For in virtue of that principle, in
virtue of which a patient suffers anything, we call it 'capable' of
suffering; and this we do sometimes if it suffers anything at all,
sometimes not in respect of everything it suffers, but only if it
suffers a change for the better--(3) The capacity of performing this
well or according to intention; for sometimes we say of those who
merely can walk or speak but not well or not as they intend, that they
cannot speak or walk. So too (4) in the case of passivity--(5) The
states in virtue of which things are absolutely impassive or
unchangeable, or not easily changed for the worse, are called
potencies; for things are broken and crushed and bent and in general
destroyed not by having a potency but by not having one and by lacking
something, and things are impassive with respect to such processes
if they are scarcely and slightly affected by them, because of a
'potency' and because they 'can' do something and are in some positive
state.
'Potency' having this variety of meanings, so too the 'potent'
or 'capable' in one sense will mean that which can begin a movement
(or a change in general, for even that which can bring things to
rest is a 'potent' thing) in another thing or in itself qua other; and
in one sense that over which something else has such a potency; and in
one sense that which has a potency of changing into something, whether
for the worse or for the better (for even that which perishes is
thought to be 'capable' of perishing, for it would not have perished
if it had not been capable of it; but, as a matter of fact, it has a
certain disposition and cause and principle which fits it to suffer
this; sometimes it is thought to be of this sort because it has
something, sometimes because it is deprived of something; but if
privation is in a sense 'having' or 'habit', everything will be
capable by having something, so that things are capable both by having
a positive habit and principle, and by having the privation of this,
if it is possible to have a privation; and if privation is not in a
sense 'habit', 'capable' is used in two distinct senses); and a
thing is capable in another sense because neither any other thing, nor
itself qua other, has a potency or principle which can destroy it.
Again, all of these are capable either merely because the thing
might chance to happen or not to happen, or because it might do so
well. This sort of potency is found even in lifeless things, e.g. in
instruments; for we say one lyre can speak, and another cannot speak
at all, if it has not a good tone.
Incapacity is privation of capacity-i.e. of such a principle as
has been described either in general or in the case of something
that would naturally have the capacity, or even at the time when it
would naturally already have it; for the senses in which we should
call a boy and a man and a eunuch 'incapable of begetting' are
distinct.-Again, to either kind of capacity there is an opposite
incapacity-both to that which only can produce movement and to that
which can produce it well.
Some things, then, are called adunata in virtue of this kind of
incapacity, while others are so in another sense; i.e. both dunaton
and adunaton are used as follows. The impossible is that of which
the contrary is of necessity true, e.g. that the diagonal of a
square is commensurate with the side is impossible, because such a
statement is a falsity of which the contrary is not only true but also
necessary; that it is commensurate, then, is not only false but also
of necessity false. The contrary of this, the possible, is found
when it is not necessary that the contrary is false, e.g. that a man
should be seated is possible; for that he is not seated is not of
necessity false. The possible, then, in one sense, as has been said,
means that which is not of necessity false; in one, that which is
true; in one, that which may be true.-A 'potency' or 'power' in
geometry is so called by a change of meaning.-These senses of
'capable' or 'possible' involve no reference to potency. But the
senses which involve a reference to potency all refer to the primary
kind of potency; and this is a source of change in another thing or in
the same thing qua other. For other things are called 'capable',
some because something else has such a potency over them, some because
it has not, some because it has it in a particular way. The same is
true of the things that are incapable. Therefore the proper definition
of the primary kind of potency will be 'a source of change in
another thing or in the same thing qua other'.
13
'Quantum' means that which is divisible into two or more
constituent parts of which each is by nature a 'one' and a 'this'. A
quantum is a plurality if it is numerable, a magnitude if it is a
measurable. 'Plurality' means that which is divisible potentially into
non-continuous parts, 'magnitude' that which is divisible into
continuous parts; of magnitude, that which is continuous in one
dimension is length; in two breadth, in three depth. Of these, limited
plurality is number, limited length is a line, breadth a surface,
depth a solid.
Again, some things are called quanta in virtue of their own
nature, others incidentally; e.g. the line is a quantum by its own
nature, the musical is one incidentally. Of the things that are quanta
by their own nature some are so as substances, e.g. the line is a
quantum (for 'a certain kind of quantum' is present in the
definition which states what it is), and others are modifications
and states of this kind of substance, e.g. much and little, long and
short, broad and narrow, deep and shallow, heavy and light, and all
other such attributes. And also great and small, and greater and
smaller, both in themselves and when taken relatively to each other,
are by their own nature attributes of what is quantitative; but
these names are transferred to other things also. Of things that are
quanta incidentally, some are so called in the sense in which it was
said that the musical and the white were quanta, viz. because that
to which musicalness and whiteness belong is a quantum, and some are
quanta in the way in which movement and time are so; for these also
are called quanta of a sort and continuous because the things of which
these are attributes are divisible. I mean not that which is moved,
but the space through which it is moved; for because that is a quantum
movement also is a quantum, and because this is a quantum time is one.
14
'Quality' means (1) the differentia of the essence, e.g. man is an
animal of a certain quality because he is two-footed, and the horse is
so because it is four-footed; and a circle is a figure of particular
quality because it is without angles,-which shows that the essential
differentia is a quality.-This, then, is one meaning of quality-the
differentia of the essence, but (2) there is another sense in which it
applies to the unmovable objects of mathematics, the sense in which
the numbers have a certain quality, e.g. the composite numbers which
are not in one dimension only, but of which the plane and the solid
are copies (these are those which have two or three factors); and in
general that which exists in the essence of numbers besides quantity
is quality; for the essence of each is what it is once, e.g. that of
is not what it is twice or thrice, but what it is once; for 6 is
once 6.
(3) All the modifications of substances that move (e.g. heat and
cold, whiteness and blackness, heaviness and lightness, and the others
of the sort) in virtue of which, when they change, bodies are said
to alter. (4) Quality in respect of virtue and vice, and in general,
of evil and good.
Quality, then, seems to have practically two meanings, and one
of these is the more proper. The primary quality is the differentia of
the essence, and of this the quality in numbers is a part; for it is a
differentia of essences, but either not of things that move or not
of them qua moving. Secondly, there are the modifications of things
that move, qua moving, and the differentiae of movements. Virtue and
vice fall among these modifications; for they indicate differentiae of
the movement or activity, according to which the things in motion
act or are acted on well or badly; for that which can be moved or
act in one way is good, and that which can do so in another--the
contrary--way is vicious. Good and evil indicate quality especially in
living things, and among these especially in those which have purpose.
15
Things are 'relative' (1) as double to half, and treble to a
third, and in general that which contains something else many times to
that which is contained many times in something else, and that which
exceeds to that which is exceeded; (2) as that which can heat to
that which can be heated, and that which can cut to that which can
be cut, and in general the active to the passive; (3) as the
measurable to the measure, and the knowable to knowledge, and the
perceptible to perception.
(1) Relative terms of the first kind are numerically related
either indefinitely or definitely, to numbers themselves or to 1. E.g.
the double is in a definite numerical relation to 1, and that which is
'many times as great' is in a numerical, but not a definite,
relation to 1, i.e. not in this or in that numerical relation to it;
the relation of that which is half as big again as something else to
that something is a definite numerical relation to a number; that
which is n+I/n times something else is in an indefinite relation to
that something, as that which is 'many times as great' is in an
indefinite relation to 1; the relation of that which exceeds to that
which is exceeded is numerically quite indefinite; for number is
always commensurate, and 'number' is not predicated of that which is
not commensurate, but that which exceeds is, in relation to that which
is exceeded, so much and something more; and this something is
indefinite; for it can, indifferently, be either equal or not equal to
that which is exceeded.-All these relations, then, are numerically
expressed and are determinations of number, and so in another way
are the equal and the like and the same. For all refer to unity. Those
things are the same whose substance is one; those are like whose
quality is one; those are equal whose quantity is one; and 1 is the
beginning and measure of number, so that all these relations imply
number, though not in the same way.
(2) Things that are active or passive imply an active or a passive
potency and the actualizations of the potencies; e.g. that which is
capable of heating is related to that which is capable of being
heated, because it can heat it, and, again, that which heats is
related to that which is heated and that which cuts to that which is
cut, in the sense that they actually do these things. But numerical
relations are not actualized except in the sense which has been
elsewhere stated; actualizations in the sense of movement they have
not. Of relations which imply potency some further imply particular
periods of time, e.g. that which has made is relative to that which
has been made, and that which will make to that which will be made.
For it is in this way that a father is called the father of his son;
for the one has acted and the other has been acted on in a certain
way. Further, some relative terms imply privation of potency, i.e.
'incapable' and terms of this sort, e.g. 'invisible'.
Relative terms which imply number or potency, therefore, are all
relative because their very essence includes in its nature a reference
to something else, not because something else involves a reference
to it; but (3) that which is measurable or knowable or thinkable is
called relative because something else involves a reference to it. For
'that which is thinkable' implies that the thought of it is
possible, but the thought is not relative to 'that of which it is
the thought'; for we should then have said the same thing twice.
Similarly sight is the sight of something, not 'of that of which it is
the sight' (though of course it is true to say this); in fact it is
relative to colour or to something else of the sort. But according
to the other way of speaking the same thing would be said
twice,-'the sight is of that of which it is.'
Things that are by their own nature called relative are called
so sometimes in these senses, sometimes if the classes that include
them are of this sort; e.g. medicine is a relative term because its
genus, science, is thought to be a relative term. Further, there are
the properties in virtue of which the things that have them are called
relative, e.g. equality is relative because the equal is, and likeness
because the like is. Other things are relative by accident; e.g. a man
is relative because he happens to be double of something and double is
a relative term; or the white is relative, if the same thing happens
to be double and white.
16
What is called 'complete' is (1) that outside which it is not
possible to find any, even one, of its parts; e.g. the complete time
of each thing is that outside which it is not possible to find any
time which is a part proper to it.-(2) That which in respect of
excellence and goodness cannot be excelled in its kind; e.g. we have a
complete doctor or a complete flute-player, when they lack nothing
in respect of the form of their proper excellence. And thus,
transferring the word to bad things, we speak of a complete
scandal-monger and a complete thief; indeed we even call them good,
i.e. a good thief and a good scandal-monger. And excellence is a
completion; for each thing is complete and every substance is
complete, when in respect of the form of its proper excellence it
lacks no part of its natural magnitude.-(3) The things which have
attained their end, this being good, are called complete; for things
are complete in virtue of having attained their end. Therefore,
since the end is something ultimate, we transfer the word to bad
things and say a thing has been completely spoilt, and completely
destroyed, when it in no wise falls short of destruction and
badness, but is at its last point. This is why death, too, is by a
figure of speech called the end, because both are last things. But the
ultimate purpose is also an end.-Things, then, that are called
complete in virtue of their own nature are so called in all these
senses, some because in respect of goodness they lack nothing and
cannot be excelled and no part proper to them can be found outside
them, others in general because they cannot be exceeded in their
several classes and no part proper to them is outside them; the others
presuppose these first two kinds, and are called complete because they
either make or have something of the sort or are adapted to it or in
some way or other involve a reference to the things that are called
complete in the primary sense.
17
'Limit' means (1) the last point of each thing, i.e. the first
point beyond which it is not possible to find any part, and the
first point within which every part is; (2) the form, whatever it
may be, of a spatial magnitude or of a thing that has magnitude; (3)
the end of each thing (and of this nature is that towards which the
movement and the action are, not that from which they are-though
sometimes it is both, that from which and that to which the movement
is, i.e. the final cause); (4) the substance of each thing, and the
essence of each; for this is the limit of knowledge; and if of
knowledge, of the object also. Evidently, therefore, 'limit' has as
many senses as 'beginning', and yet more; for the beginning is a
limit, but not every limit is a beginning.
18
'That in virtue of which' has several meanings:-(1) the form or
substance of each thing, e.g. that in virtue of which a man is good is
the good itself, (2) the proximate subject in which it is the nature
of an attribute to be found, e.g. colour in a surface. 'That in virtue
of which', then, in the primary sense is the form, and in a
secondary sense the matter of each thing and the proximate
substratum of each.-In general 'that in virtue of which' will found in
the same number of senses as 'cause'; for we say indifferently (3)
in virtue of what has he come?' or 'for what end has he come?'; and
(4) in virtue of what has he inferred wrongly, or inferred?' or
'what is the cause of the inference, or of the wrong
inference?'-Further (5) Kath' d is used in reference to position, e.g.
'at which he stands' or 'along which he walks; for all such phrases
indicate place and position.
Therefore 'in virtue of itself' must likewise have several
meanings. The following belong to a thing in virtue of itself:-(1) the
essence of each thing, e.g. Callias is in virtue of himself Callias
and what it was to be Callias;-(2) whatever is present in the
'what', e.g. Callias is in virtue of himself an animal. For 'animal'
is present in his definition; Callias is a particular animal.-(3)
Whatever attribute a thing receives in itself directly or in one of
its parts; e.g. a surface is white in virtue of itself, and a man is
alive in virtue of himself; for the soul, in which life directly
resides, is a part of the man.-(4) That which has no cause other
than itself; man has more than one cause--animal, two-footed--but
yet man is man in virtue of himself.-(5) Whatever attributes belong to
a thing alone, and in so far as they belong to it merely by virtue
of itself considered apart by itself.
19
'Disposition' means the arrangement of that which has parts, in
respect either of place or of potency or of kind; for there must be
a certain position, as even the word 'disposition' shows.
20
'Having' means (1) a kind of activity of the haver and of what
he has-something like an action or movement. For when one thing
makes and one is made, between them there is a making; so too
between him who has a garment and the garment which he has there is
a having. This sort of having, then, evidently we cannot have; for the
process will go on to infinity, if it is to be possible to have the
having of what we have.-(2) 'Having' or 'habit' means a disposition
according to which that which is disposed is either well or ill
disposed, and either in itself or with reference to something else;
e.g. health is a 'habit'; for it is such a disposition.-(3) We speak
of a 'habit' if there is a portion of such a disposition; and so
even the excellence of the parts is a 'habit' of the whole thing.
21
'Affection' means (1) a quality in respect of which a thing can be
altered, e.g. white and black, sweet and bitter, heaviness and
lightness, and all others of the kind.-(2) The actualization of
these-the already accomplished alterations.-(3) Especially,
injurious alterations and movements, and, above all painful
injuries.-(4) Misfortunes and painful experiences when on a large
scale are called affections.
22
We speak of 'privation' (1) if something has not one of the
attributes which a thing might naturally have, even if this thing
itself would not naturally have it; e.g. a plant is said to be
'deprived' of eyes.-(2) If, though either the thing itself or its
genus would naturally have an attribute, it has it not; e.g. a blind
man and a mole are in different senses 'deprived' of sight; the latter
in contrast with its genus, the former in contrast with his own normal
nature.-(3) If, though it would naturally have the attribute, and when
it would naturally have it, it has it not; for blindness is a
privation, but one is not 'blind' at any and every age, but only if
one has not sight at the age at which one would naturally have it.
Similarly a thing is called blind if it has not sight in the medium in
which, and in respect of the organ in respect of which, and with
reference to the object with reference to which, and in the
circumstances in which, it would naturally have it.-(4) The violent
taking away of anything is called privation.
Indeed there are just as many kinds of privations as there are
of words with negative prefixes; for a thing is called unequal because
it has not equality though it would naturally have it, and invisible
either because it has no colour at all or because it has a poor
colour, and apodous either because it has no feet at all or because it
has imperfect feet. Again, a privative term may be used because the
thing has little of the attribute (and this means having it in a sense
imperfectly), e.g. 'kernel-less'; or because it has it not easily or
not well (e.g. we call a thing uncuttable not only if it cannot be cut
but also if it cannot be cut easily or well); or because it has not
the attribute at all; for it is not the one-eyed man but he who is
sightless in both eyes that is called blind. This is why not every man
is 'good' or 'bad', 'just' or 'unjust', but there is also an
intermediate state.
23
To 'have' or 'hold' means many things:-(1) to treat a thing
according to one's own nature or according to one's own impulse; so
that fever is said to have a man, and tyrants to have their cities,
and people to have the clothes they wear.-(2) That in which a thing is
present as in something receptive of it is said to have the thing;
e.g. the bronze has the form of the statue, and the body has the
disease.-(3) As that which contains holds the things contained; for
a thing is said to be held by that in which it is as in a container;
e.g. we say that the vessel holds the liquid and the city holds men
and the ship sailors; and so too that the whole holds the parts.-(4)
That which hinders a thing from moving or acting according to its
own impulse is said to hold it, as pillars hold the incumbent weights,
and as the poets make Atlas hold the heavens, implying that
otherwise they would collapse on the earth, as some of the natural
philosophers also say. In this way also that which holds things
together is said to hold the things it holds together, since they
would otherwise separate, each according to its own impulse.
'Being in something' has similar and corresponding meanings to
'holding' or 'having'.
24
'To come from something' means (1) to come from something as
from matter, and this in two senses, either in respect of the
highest genus or in respect of the lowest species; e.g. in a sense all
things that can be melted come from water, but in a sense the statue
comes from bronze.-(2) As from the first moving principle; e.g.
'what did the fight come from?' From abusive language, because this
was the origin of the fight.-(3) From the compound of matter and
shape, as the parts come from the whole, and the verse from the Iliad,
and the stones from the house; (in every such case the whole is a
compound of matter and shape,) for the shape is the end, and only that
which attains an end is complete.-(4) As the form from its part,
e.g. man from 'two-footed'and syllable from 'letter'; for this is a
different sense from that in which the statue comes from bronze; for
the composite substance comes from the sensible matter, but the form
also comes from the matter of the form.-Some things, then, are said to
come from something else in these senses; but (5) others are so
described if one of these senses is applicable to a part of that other
thing; e.g. the child comes from its father and mother, and plants
come from the earth, because they come from a part of those
things.-(6) It means coming after a thing in time, e.g. night comes
from day and storm from fine weather, because the one comes after
the other. Of these things some are so described because they admit of
change into one another, as in the cases now mentioned; some merely
because they are successive in time, e.g. the voyage took place 'from'
the equinox, because it took place after the equinox, and the festival
of the Thargelia comes 'from' the Dionysia, because after the
Dionysia.
25
'Part' means (1) (a) that into which a quantum can in any way be
divided; for that which is taken from a quantum qua quantum is
always called a part of it, e.g. two is called in a sense a part of
three. It means (b), of the parts in the first sense, only those which
measure the whole; this is why two, though in one sense it is, in
another is not, called a part of three.-(2) The elements into which
a kind might be divided apart from the quantity are also called
parts of it; for which reason we say the species are parts of the
genus.-(3) The elements into which a whole is divided, or of which
it consists-the 'whole' meaning either the form or that which has
the form; e.g. of the bronze sphere or of the bronze cube both the
bronze-i.e. the matter in which the form is-and the characteristic
angle are parts.-(4) The elements in the definition which explains a
thing are also parts of the whole; this is why the genus is called a
part of the species, though in another sense the species is part of
the genus.
26
'A whole' means (1) that from which is absent none of the parts of
which it is said to be naturally a whole, and (2) that which so
contains the things it contains that they form a unity; and this in
two senses-either as being each severally one single thing, or as
making up the unity between them. For (a) that which is true of a
whole class and is said to hold good as a whole (which implies that it
is a kind whole) is true of a whole in the sense that it contains many
things by being predicated of each, and by all of them, e.g. man,
horse, god, being severally one single thing, because all are living
things. But (b) the continuous and limited is a whole, when it is a
unity consisting of several parts, especially if they are present only
potentially, but, failing this, even if they are present actually.
Of these things themselves, those which are so by nature are wholes in
a higher degree than those which are so by art, as we said in the case
of unity also, wholeness being in fact a sort of oneness.
Again (3) of quanta that have a beginning and a middle and an end,
those to which the position does not make a difference are called
totals, and those to which it does, wholes. Those which admit of
both descriptions are both wholes and totals. These are the things
whose nature remains the same after transposition, but whose form does
not, e.g. wax or a coat; they are called both wholes and totals; for
they have both characteristics. Water and all liquids and number are
called totals, but 'the whole number' or 'the whole water' one does
not speak of, except by an extension of meaning. To things, to which
qua one the term 'total' is applied, the term 'all' is applied when
they are treated as separate; 'this total number,' 'all these units.'
27
It is not any chance quantitative thing that can be said to be
'mutilated'; it must be a whole as well as divisible. For not only
is two not 'mutilated' if one of the two ones is taken away (for the
part removed by mutilation is never equal to the remainder), but in
general no number is thus mutilated; for it is also necessary that the
essence remain; if a cup is mutilated, it must still be a cup; but the
number is no longer the same. Further, even if things consist of
unlike parts, not even these things can all be said to be mutilated,
for in a sense a number has unlike parts (e.g. two and three) as
well as like; but in general of the things to which their position
makes no difference, e.g. water or fire, none can be mutilated; to
be mutilated, things must be such as in virtue of their essence have a
certain position. Again, they must be continuous; for a musical
scale consists of unlike parts and has position, but cannot become
mutilated. Besides, not even the things that are wholes are
mutilated by the privation of any part. For the parts removed must
be neither those which determine the essence nor any chance parts,
irrespective of their position; e.g. a cup is not mutilated if it is
bored through, but only if the handle or a projecting part is removed,
and a man is mutilated not if the flesh or the spleen is removed,
but if an extremity is, and that not every extremity but one which
when completely removed cannot grow again. Therefore baldness is not a
mutilation.
28
The term 'race' or 'genus' is used (1) if generation of things
which have the same form is continuous, e.g. 'while the race of men
lasts' means 'while the generation of them goes on
continuously'.-(2) It is used with reference to that which first
brought things into existence; for it is thus that some are called
Hellenes by race and others Ionians, because the former proceed from
Hellen and the latter from Ion as their first begetter. And the word
is used in reference to the begetter more than to the matter, though
people also get a race-name from the female, e.g. 'the descendants
of Pyrrha'.-(3) There is genus in the sense in which 'plane' is the
genus of plane figures and solid' of solids; for each of the figures
is in the one case a plane of such and such a kind, and in the other a
solid of such and such a kind; and this is what underlies the
differentiae. Again (4) in definitions the first constituent
element, which is included in the 'what', is the genus, whose
differentiae the qualities are said to be 'Genus' then is used in
all these ways, (1) in reference to continuous generation of the
same kind, (2) in reference to the first mover which is of the same
kind as the things it moves, (3) as matter; for that to which the
differentia or quality belongs is the substratum, which we call
matter.
Those things are said to be 'other in genus' whose proximate
substratum is different, and which are not analysed the one into the
other nor both into the same thing (e.g. form and matter are different
in genus); and things which belong to different categories of being
(for some of the things that are said to 'be' signify essence,
others a quality, others the other categories we have before
distinguished); these also are not analysed either into one another or
into some one thing.
29
'The false' means (1) that which is false as a thing, and that (a)
because it is not put together or cannot be put together, e.g. 'that
the diagonal of a square is commensurate with the side' or 'that you
are sitting'; for one of these is false always, and the other
sometimes; it is in these two senses that they are non-existent. (b)
There are things which exist, but whose nature it is to appear
either not to be such as they are or to be things that do not exist,
e.g. a sketch or a dream; for these are something, but are not the
things the appearance of which they produce in us. We call things
false in this way, then,-either because they themselves do not
exist, or because the appearance which results from them is that of
something that does not exist.
(2) A false account is the account of non-existent objects, in
so far as it is false. Hence every account is false when applied to
something other than that of which it is true; e.g. the account of a
circle is false when applied to a triangle. In a sense there is one
account of each thing, i.e. the account of its essence, but in a sense
there are many, since the thing itself and the thing itself with an
attribute are in a sense the same, e.g. Socrates and musical
Socrates (a false account is not the account of anything, except in
a qualified sense). Hence Antisthenes was too simple-minded when he
claimed that nothing could be described except by the account proper
to it,-one predicate to one subject; from which the conclusion used to
be drawn that there could be no contradiction, and almost that there
could be no error. But it is possible to describe each thing not
only by the account of itself, but also by that of something else.
This may be done altogether falsely indeed, but there is also a way in
which it may be done truly; e.g. eight may be described as a double
number by the use of the definition of two.
These things, then, are called false in these senses, but (3) a
false man is one who is ready at and fond of such accounts, not for
any other reason but for their own sake, and one who is good at
impressing such accounts on other people, just as we say things are
which produce a false appearance. This is why the proof in the Hippias
that the same man is false and true is misleading. For it assumes that
he is false who can deceive (i.e. the man who knows and is wise);
and further that he who is willingly bad is better. This is a false
result of induction-for a man who limps willingly is better than one
who does so unwillingly-by 'limping' Plato means 'mimicking a limp',
for if the man were lame willingly, he would presumably be worse in
this case as in the corresponding case of moral character.
30
'Accident' means (1) that which attaches to something and can be
truly asserted, but neither of necessity nor usually, e.g. if some one
in digging a hole for a plant has found treasure. This-the finding
of treasure-is for the man who dug the hole an accident; for neither
does the one come of necessity from the other or after the other, nor,
if a man plants, does he usually find treasure. And a musical man
might be pale; but since this does not happen of necessity nor
usually, we call it an accident. Therefore since there are
attributes and they attach to subjects, and some of them attach to
these only in a particular place and at a particular time, whatever
attaches to a subject, but not because it was this subject, or the
time this time, or the place this place, will be an accident.
Therefore, too, there is no definite cause for an accident, but a
chance cause, i.e. an indefinite one. Going to Aegina was an
accident for a man, if he went not in order to get there, but
because he was carried out of his way by a storm or captured by
pirates. The accident has happened or exists,-not in virtue of the
subject's nature, however, but of something else; for the storm was
the cause of his coming to a place for which he was not sailing, and
this was Aegina.
'Accident' has also (2) another meaning, i.e. all that attaches to
each thing in virtue of itself but is not in its essence, as having
its angles equal to two right angles attaches to the triangle. And
accidents of this sort may be eternal, but no accident of the other
sort is. This is explained elsewhere.
Book VI
1
WE are seeking the principles and the causes of the things that
are, and obviously of them qua being. For, while there is a cause of
health and of good condition, and the objects of mathematics have
first principles and elements and causes, and in general every science
which is ratiocinative or at all involves reasoning deals with
causes and principles, more or less precise, all these sciences mark
off some particular being-some genus, and inquire into this, but not
into being simply nor qua being, nor do they offer any discussion of
the essence of the things of which they treat; but starting from the
essence-some making it plain to the senses, others assuming it as a
hypothesis-they then demonstrate, more or less cogently, the essential
attributes of the genus with which they deal. It is obvious,
therefore, that such an induction yields no demonstration of substance
or of the essence, but some other way of exhibiting it. And
similarly the sciences omit the question whether the genus with
which they deal exists or does not exist, because it belongs to the
same kind of thinking to show what it is and that it is.
And since natural science, like other sciences, is in fact about
one class of being, i.e. to that sort of substance which has the
principle of its movement and rest present in itself, evidently it
is neither practical nor productive. For in the case of things made
the principle is in the maker-it is either reason or art or some
faculty, while in the case of things done it is in the doer-viz. will,
for that which is done and that which is willed are the same.
Therefore, if all thought is either practical or productive or
theoretical, physics must be a theoretical science, but it will
theorize about such being as admits of being moved, and about
substance-as-defined for the most part only as not separable from
matter. Now, we must not fail to notice the mode of being of the
essence and of its definition, for, without this, inquiry is but idle.
Of things defined, i.e. of 'whats', some are like 'snub', and some
like 'concave'. And these differ because 'snub' is bound up with
matter (for what is snub is a concave nose), while concavity is
independent of perceptible matter. If then all natural things are a
analogous to the snub in their nature; e.g. nose, eye, face, flesh,
bone, and, in general, animal; leaf, root, bark, and, in general,
plant (for none of these can be defined without reference to
movement-they always have matter), it is clear how we must seek and
define the 'what' in the case of natural objects, and also that it
belongs to the student of nature to study even soul in a certain
sense, i.e. so much of it as is not independent of matter.
That physics, then, is a theoretical science, is plain from
these considerations. Mathematics also, however, is theoretical; but
whether its objects are immovable and separable from matter, is not at
present clear; still, it is clear that some mathematical theorems
consider them qua immovable and qua separable from matter. But if
there is something which is eternal and immovable and separable,
clearly the knowledge of it belongs to a theoretical science,-not,
however, to physics (for physics deals with certain movable things)
nor to mathematics, but to a science prior to both. For physics
deals with things which exist separately but are not immovable, and
some parts of mathematics deal with things which are immovable but
presumably do not exist separately, but as embodied in matter; while
the first science deals with things which both exist separately and
are immovable. Now all causes must be eternal, but especially these;
for they are the causes that operate on so much of the divine as
appears to us. There must, then, be three theoretical philosophies,
mathematics, physics, and what we may call theology, since it is
obvious that if the divine is present anywhere, it is present in
things of this sort. And the highest science must deal with the
highest genus. Thus, while the theoretical sciences are more to be
desired than the other sciences, this is more to be desired than the
other theoretical sciences. For one might raise the question whether
first philosophy is universal, or deals with one genus, i.e. some
one kind of being; for not even the mathematical sciences are all
alike in this respect,-geometry and astronomy deal with a certain
particular kind of thing, while universal mathematics applies alike to
all. We answer that if there is no substance other than those which
are formed by nature, natural science will be the first science; but
if there is an immovable substance, the science of this must be
prior and must be first philosophy, and universal in this way, because
it is first. And it will belong to this to consider being qua
being-both what it is and the attributes which belong to it qua being.
2
But since the unqualified term 'being' has several meanings, of
which one was seen' to be the accidental, and another the true
('non-being' being the false), while besides these there are the
figures of predication (e.g. the 'what', quality, quantity, place,
time, and any similar meanings which 'being' may have), and again
besides all these there is that which 'is' potentially or
actually:-since 'being' has many meanings, we must say regarding the
accidental, that there can be no scientific treatment of it. This is
confirmed by the fact that no science practical, productive, or
theoretical troubles itself about it. For on the one hand he who
produces a house does not produce all the attributes that come into
being along with the house; for these are innumerable; the house
that has been made may quite well be pleasant for some people, hurtful
for some, and useful to others, and different-to put it shortly from
all things that are; and the science of building does not aim at
producing any of these attributes. And in the same way the geometer
does not consider the attributes which attach thus to figures, nor
whether 'triangle' is different from 'triangle whose angles are
equal to two right angles'.-And this happens naturally enough; for the
accidental is practically a mere name. And so Plato was in a sense not
wrong in ranking sophistic as dealing with that which is not. For
the arguments of the sophists deal, we may say, above all with the
accidental; e.g. the question whether 'musical' and 'lettered' are
different or the same, and whether 'musical Coriscus' and 'Coriscus'
are the same, and whether 'everything which is, but is not eternal,
has come to be', with the paradoxical conclusion that if one who was
musical has come to be lettered, he must also have been lettered and
have come to be musical, and all the other arguments of this sort; the
accidental is obviously akin to non-being. And this is clear also from
arguments such as the following: things which are in another sense
come into being and pass out of being by a process, but things which
are accidentally do not. But still we must, as far as we can, say
further, regarding the accidental, what its nature is and from what
cause it proceeds; for it will perhaps at the same time become clear
why there is no science of it.
Since, among things which are, some are always in the same state
and are of necessity (not necessity in the sense of compulsion but
that which we assert of things because they cannot be otherwise),
and some are not of necessity nor always, but for the most part,
this is the principle and this the cause of the existence of the
accidental; for that which is neither always nor for the most part, we
call accidental. For instance, if in the dog-days there is wintry
and cold weather, we say this is an accident, but not if there is
sultry heat, because the latter is always or for the most part so, but
not the former. And it is an accident that a man is pale (for this
is neither always nor for the most part so), but it is not by accident
that he is an animal. And that the builder produces health is an
accident, because it is the nature not of the builder but of the
doctor to do this,-but the builder happened to be a doctor. Again, a
confectioner, aiming at giving pleasure, may make something wholesome,
but not in virtue of the confectioner's art; and therefore we say
'it was an accident', and while there is a sense in which he makes it,
in the unqualified sense he does not. For to other things answer
faculties productive of them, but to accidental results there
corresponds no determinate art nor faculty; for of things which are or
come to be by accident, the cause also is accidental. Therefore, since
not all things either are or come to be of necessity and always,
but, the majority of things are for the most part, the accidental must
exist; for instance a pale man is not always nor for the most part
musical, but since this sometimes happens, it must be accidental (if
not, everything will be of necessity). The matter, therefore, which is
capable of being otherwise than as it usually is, must be the cause of
the accidental. And we must take as our starting-point the question
whether there is nothing that is neither always nor for the most part.
Surely this is impossible. There is, then, besides these something
which is fortuitous and accidental. But while the usual exists, can
nothing be said to be always, or are there eternal things? This must
be considered later,' but that there is no science of the accidental
is obvious; for all science is either of that which is always or of
that which is for the most part. (For how else is one to learn or to
teach another? The thing must be determined as occurring either always
or for the most part, e.g. that honey-water is useful for a patient in
a fever is true for the most part.) But that which is contrary to
the usual law science will be unable to state, i.e. when the thing
does not happen, e.g.'on the day of new moon'; for even that which
happens on the day of new moon happens then either always or for the
most part; but the accidental is contrary to such laws. We have
stated, then, what the accidental is, and from what cause it arises,
and that there is no science which deals with it.
3
That there are principles and causes which are generable and
destructible without ever being in course of being generated or
destroyed, is obvious. For otherwise all things will be of
necessity, since that which is being generated or destroyed must
have a cause which is not accidentally its cause. Will A exist or not?
It will if B happens; and if not, not. And B will exist if C
happens. And thus if time is constantly subtracted from a limited
extent of time, one will obviously come to the present. This man,
then, will die by violence, if he goes out; and he will do this if
he gets thirsty; and he will get thirsty if something else happens;
and thus we shall come to that which is now present, or to some past
event. For instance, he will go out if he gets thirsty; and he will
get thirsty if he is eating pungent food; and this is either the
case or not; so that he will of necessity die, or of necessity not
die. And similarly if one jumps over to past events, the same
account will hold good; for this-I mean the past condition-is
already present in something. Everything, therefore, that will be,
will be of necessity; e.g. it is necessary that he who lives shall one
day die; for already some condition has come into existence, e.g.
the presence of contraries in the same body. But whether he is to
die by disease or by violence is not yet determined, but depends on
the happening of something else. Clearly then the process goes back to
a certain starting-point, but this no longer points to something
further. This then will be the starting-point for the fortuitous,
and will have nothing else as cause of its coming to be. But to what
sort of starting-point and what sort of cause we thus refer the
fortuitous-whether to matter or to the purpose or to the motive power,
must be carefully considered.
4
Let us dismiss accidental being; for we have sufficiently
determined its nature. But since that which is in the sense of being
true, or is not in the sense of being false, depends on combination
and separation, and truth and falsity together depend on the
allocation of a pair of contradictory judgements (for the true
judgement affirms where the subject and predicate really are combined,
and denies where they are separated, while the false judgement has the
opposite of this allocation; it is another question, how it happens
that we think things together or apart; by 'together' and 'apart' I
mean thinking them so that there is no succession in the thoughts
but they become a unity); for falsity and truth are not in things-it
is not as if the good were true, and the bad were in itself
false-but in thought; while with regard to simple concepts and 'whats'
falsity and truth do not exist even in thought--this being so, we must
consider later what has to be discussed with regard to that which is
or is not in this sense. But since the combination and the
separation are in thought and not in the things, and that which is
in this sense is a different sort of 'being' from the things that
are in the full sense (for the thought attaches or removes either
the subject's 'what' or its having a certain quality or quantity or
something else), that which is accidentally and that which is in the
sense of being true must be dismissed. For the cause of the former
is indeterminate, and that of the latter is some affection of the
thought, and both are related to the remaining genus of being, and
do not indicate the existence of any separate class of being.
Therefore let these be dismissed, and let us consider the causes and
the principles of being itself, qua being. (It was clear in our
discussion of the various meanings of terms, that 'being' has
several meanings.)
Book VII
1
THERE are several senses in which a thing may be said to 'be',
as we pointed out previously in our book on the various senses of
words;' for in one sense the 'being' meant is 'what a thing is' or a
'this', and in another sense it means a quality or quantity or one
of the other things that are predicated as these are. While 'being'
has all these senses, obviously that which 'is' primarily is the
'what', which indicates the substance of the thing. For when we say of
what quality a thing is, we say that it is good or bad, not that it is
three cubits long or that it is a man; but when we say what it is,
we do not say 'white' or 'hot' or 'three cubits long', but 'a man'
or 'a 'god'. And all other things are said to be because they are,
some of them, quantities of that which is in this primary sense,
others qualities of it, others affections of it, and others some other
determination of it. And so one might even raise the question
whether the words 'to walk', 'to be healthy', 'to sit' imply that each
of these things is existent, and similarly in any other case of this
sort; for none of them is either self-subsistent or capable of being
separated from substance, but rather, if anything, it is that which
walks or sits or is healthy that is an existent thing. Now these are
seen to be more real because there is something definite which
underlies them (i.e. the substance or individual), which is implied in
such a predicate; for we never use the word 'good' or 'sitting'
without implying this. Clearly then it is in virtue of this category
that each of the others also is. Therefore that which is primarily,
i.e. not in a qualified sense but without qualification, must be
substance.
Now there are several senses in which a thing is said to be first;
yet substance is first in every sense-(1) in definition, (2) in
order of knowledge, (3) in time. For (3) of the other categories
none can exist independently, but only substance. And (1) in
definition also this is first; for in the definition of each term
the definition of its substance must be present. And (2) we think we
know each thing most fully, when we know what it is, e.g. what man
is or what fire is, rather than when we know its quality, its
quantity, or its place; since we know each of these predicates also,
only when we know what the quantity or the quality is.
And indeed the question which was raised of old and is raised
now and always, and is always the subject of doubt, viz. what being
is, is just the question, what is substance? For it is this that
some assert to be one, others more than one, and that some assert to
be limited in number, others unlimited. And so we also must consider
chiefly and primarily and almost exclusively what that is which is
in this sense.
2
Substance is thought to belong most obviously to bodies; and so we
say that not only animals and plants and their parts are substances,
but also natural bodies such as fire and water and earth and
everything of the sort, and all things that are either parts of
these or composed of these (either of parts or of the whole bodies),
e.g. the physical universe and its parts, stars and moon and sun.
But whether these alone are substances, or there are also others, or
only some of these, or others as well, or none of these but only
some other things, are substances, must be considered. Some think
the limits of body, i.e. surface, line, point, and unit, are
substances, and more so than body or the solid.
Further, some do not think there is anything substantial besides
sensible things, but others think there are eternal substances which
are more in number and more real; e.g. Plato posited two kinds of
substance-the Forms and objects of mathematics-as well as a third
kind, viz. the substance of sensible bodies. And Speusippus made still
more kinds of substance, beginning with the One, and assuming
principles for each kind of substance, one for numbers, another for
spatial magnitudes, and then another for the soul; and by going on
in this way he multiplies the kinds of substance. And some say Forms
and numbers have the same nature, and the other things come after
them-lines and planes-until we come to the substance of the material
universe and to sensible bodies.
Regarding these matters, then, we must inquire which of the common
statements are right and which are not right, and what substances
there are, and whether there are or are not any besides sensible
substances, and how sensible substances exist, and whether there is
a substance capable of separate existence (and if so why and how) or
no such substance, apart from sensible substances; and we must first
sketch the nature of substance.
3
The word 'substance' is applied, if not in more senses, still at
least to four main objects; for both the essence and the universal and
the genus, are thought to be the substance of each thing, and fourthly
the substratum. Now the substratum is that of which everything else is
predicated, while it is itself not predicated of anything else. And so
we must first determine the nature of this; for that which underlies a
thing primarily is thought to be in the truest sense its substance.
And in one sense matter is said to be of the nature of substratum,
in another, shape, and in a third, the compound of these. (By the
matter I mean, for instance, the bronze, by the shape the pattern of
its form, and by the compound of these the statue, the concrete
whole.) Therefore if the form is prior to the matter and more real, it
will be prior also to the compound of both, for the same reason.
We have now outlined the nature of substance, showing that it is
that which is not predicated of a stratum, but of which all else is
predicated. But we must not merely state the matter thus; for this
is not enough. The statement itself is obscure, and further, on this
view, matter becomes substance. For if this is not substance, it
baffles us to say what else is. When all else is stripped off
evidently nothing but matter remains. For while the rest are
affections, products, and potencies of bodies, length, breadth, and