‘This inner celestial surface, as a whule, is stationary as to its position relatively to the Earth, and it determines its own centre geometrically. Together with the surface of the Earth (which Aristotle regards as fixed, Introduction to Chap. V. p. 318), this heavenly sphere and its centre form a universal frame of reference, in relation to which all things can have geometrically determined places assigned to them. These cosmic places, so deternuned, are abso- Intely fixed and immovable, with respect to the universal frame of reference, but they are not physical places, as defined by Aristotle. Thus, if a vessel is moved about, with its content in it, the content remains in the same physical place; while that physical place itself (incident- ally to the movement of the vessel whose inner surface it is) is changing its cosmically determined place, or site.
Thus, if the surfaces of lamina B divide it from lamina C within it and from lamina A outside it, the inner surface of B (coinciding with the outer surface of C) will constitute C's proper place, and also the place ‘ common ’ to C and to all that is within it. Whereas the outer surface of B will coin- cide with the inner surface of A, which constitutes its (B’s) proper place, and also Lhe place ‘ common’ to it (B) and all that is within it.
Adjustments to less simple and symmetrical cases involve no new principle. The special case of rotution is treated in the Introduction to chap. v. p. 317.
PHYSICS, IV. INTRODUCTION It ig obvious that dire confusion will arise if physically determined places and geometrically determined sites are confounded. Yet they are both ultimately referred to the sume frame of reference, and can both be naturally called places (éipor). It is Aristotle’s concern to bring order into the chaos that these confusions have created.
Returning now to the question ‘ Can there be a place with nothing in it δ᾿ we sec at once that Aristotle would have had no hesitation in declaring that at any rate there is no such place; for he.egarded the universe as a plenum, with no inter-atomic or inter-corporeal void or voids within it. And moreover he thought he could prove that Demo- critus and other believers in the ‘ void,’ while defining it as ‘nothingness,’ actually assigned physical attributes and activities to it which made it a ‘ something.’
Inside a place, therefore, Aristotle believed there was always a physical substance with dimensional extension of its own; its ‘ place,’ heing the inner surface of some other body, was coincident with its own outer surface.
This insistence that the ‘ place’ of a thing embraces it and is not something intrapenetrant with it (the “space” it occupies, as we might say), is vital to Aristotle’s state- ment of his case. If it were no more than a matter of definition, it would, in Aristotle’s opinion, be highly serviceable in clearing away confusions. But to him—- with his disbelief in the ‘ void’ and his conviction that to identify ‘ place’ with it was to make it share its veiled materiality —it was more than a matter of definition. Compare the section on the ‘ void,’ pp. 328 ἢ, But in warring against the conception of a ‘ place’ as a something inside the body-continent in addition to the content, but coinciding with and interpenetrating that content throughout its volume, Aristotle of course did not mean to*deny the obvious fact that there are measur- able intramural distances (so to express it) from point to point of the surface-continent itself, as measured across it. Every such surface-continent, if rigid, has a definite dimensional ‘ capacity,’ and such capacity is exactly equal to the dimensional ‘ extension’ of the content. In the ARISTOTLE ARISTOTLE case of n bottle the surface-continent determines the form, or shape, of the fluid content. In the cage of the sinking stone, on the other hand, it is the surface of the contained body as it passes through the fluid that determines the (coustant) form of the changiug surface-continent. But in either ease the capacity of the‘ place’ and the extension of the ‘ placed’ remain dimensionally equal to each other. Aristotle repeatedly and expressly insists on this dimen- sional equality, and his use of the word chéra (which may conveniently be translated by ‘ room’) as a synonym of topos (place) shows that he never lost sight of it.
Aristotle, then, denies that there is such a thing ag a really empty ‘ place with nothing in it.’ But does his teaching preclude the conceptual possibility of such a thing ὃ It appears from Themistius (4th century) that Galen (2ud century) pushed the hypothesis of a ‘ vessel with nothing in it,’ and drew theoretical conclusions from it hostile to Aristotle's philosophy. ‘Themistius himself can only answer that the hypothesis is absurd, and that if the content of a brazen vessel, for instance, could be taken out of it without the entry of something else, the vessel, how- ever rigid, would collapse, like a bag or bladder.
But let us suppose the aix-pump, or some analogous invention, to have suggested to Aristotle the possibility of a really ‘ exhausted ” receiver. It might no doubt have disturbed his system in many ways, but as to the matter si hand 1 cannot think it would have disturbed him at all, He would have said: The whole actual universe hag no place, but it might conceivably lave had one, if there had been something more outside it (though it would not then have been the whole universe), and therefore, though not an actual content (there being nothing to contain it), it is—so far as its own composition is concerned—a poten- tial content. Just so, the inner surface of a rigid receiver, or vessel, if it had really nothing in it, would not actually he a ‘ place’; because it would not be the place of any- thing, and that which is not the place of anything is not PHYSICS, IV. INTRODUCTION a place at all, But it would be a potential place, and would have an inherent ‘ capacity ’ of definite dimensional magnitude.
Finally (to retur to the ‘unplaced’ univerge), does Aristotle (as hag been alleged) believe that ‘ space’ is limited, and that there ‘1s no more of it outside the heavens’? Tar from it. Ile does indeed hold that there is nothing ‘ outside everything, yet embracing everything, including itself.’ But he expressly says that, concep- tually, we can project 8 line beyond the limit of the universe, which implies, of course, that the universe itself might conceivably have been dimensionally greater or smaller than it 1s. There is no limit to its conceptual dimensious, then, but, whatever its dimensions might be, on actual universe must have an actnal limit. Tor to speak of a universe at once actual and limitless would be to Aristotle a contradiction in terms; since it would be speaking of ‘the realized whole of that of which there is still some more.’
Thus Aristotle evades, if you like, or fails to recognize, the metaphysical problem of ‘‘ abstract space.” But he does not talk the nonsense about it with which he has sometimes been discredited.
VOL. I 273 Inia Tay A CHAPTER I ARGUMENT What account are we to give of the place‘ in’ ( on,’ or ‘ at’) which we say a thing is, and from which it may pass to another ‘ plave’ ἢ All things in Nature are capable of passing from this place to that, but the heavenly bodies are susceptible of no other change, such as change of quality or size. Thus ‘ local mobilrty ᾿ ig the most universal phenomenon that the natural philosapher has to consider; and the very language in which we describe every other mode of ‘ passing from this to that’ (every other trans-ition-al change, that is) is derived from terms that primarily apply to local movement.
Clearly, then, the natural philosopher must give some account of the ‘ place’ srom and to which things move * (208 9 Note that in Greek there is a single word (kén7sis) the timary meaning of which is ‘ movement,’ in the hteral and ocal sense, but which can receive, without violence, a much wider derivative and extended sense than it is possible to give to ‘ movement’ in English. Hence kinésis may always stand for the typical representative of every kénd of transi- tion, and may often be applied as an inclusive appellation of all transitions,—the passage from one colour to another, for instance, or the growth from a sapling into a tree, The translator must meet the difficully thus encountered as best he can, and in different ways according to the context, When Aristotle wants an exclusive term for ὁ local move- BOOK IV CHAPTER I ARGUMENT (continued) But it is no casy matter to meet this reasonable demand; Sor there turn out to be many assertions about the place of things which we shorld be inclined to accept without mis- giving as points of departure, but which lead us to mutually contradictory conclusions.
To begin with, the phenomenon of ‘ displacement’ seems to establish the ‘ place-continent’ as something distinct from its ‘content,’ And since the centre and periphery of the universe are cosmic ‘ places,’ and the centre seems to have an influence on the movement of heavy bodies and the periphery on that of buoyant ones, cosmic ‘ place’ seems not only to be distinct JSrom its contents but to have ὦ certain power of influencing things to come to it (8 a 32~b 16).
ment he employs the word phora. This includes both move- ment in a straight line (the ¢ransladion of madern text-books of mechanics) and movement round a fixed point (rotation). Aristotle was well aware of the principle that ‘‘ any displace- ment of a beady may be effected by a translation combined with a rotation”? Anthony and Brackett, V'ect-book of Physies, New York and London, 1908, p. 40). But he had no technical term for ‘ translation.” In many connexions phora is hest translated not by ‘ local movement’ but by the more ‘ active’ or ‘ passive’ tering (as the case muy be) of ‘trend ᾿ or * vection.’
ARISTOTLE ARGUMENT (condinued) The primary and stable character of cosmic directions and positions vindicated and illustrated (Ὁ) 16-25).
Real existence of place assumed in the definition of ‘vacancy ἡ and accepted by Hesiod—but seems very amazing. For what can it be? It has dimensions, but how can it be abody? If as‘ continent’ it is distinct from its ‘ content,’ is every point in it (for in that which has dimensions there must be points) a‘ point-continent ’ distinct from the ὁ point contained >in it? Is it compounded of elements? Hardly; Jor if its elements were conceptual it could have no conerete dimensions, which it has. And if its elements were physical it would be palpable to the senses (and most of all to the agar Ὁμοίως δ᾽ ἀνάγκη καὶ περὶ τόπου τὸν φυσικὸν ὥσπερ καὶ περὶ ἀπείρου γνωρίζειν, εἰ ἔστιν ἢ μή, καὶ πῶς ἐστι, καὶ τί ἐστιν.
Τά τε γὰρ ὄντα πάντες ὑπολαμβάνουσι εἶναί gp mou (τὸ γὰρ μὴ ὃν οὐδαμοῦ εἶναι: ποῦ γάρ ἐστι τραγέλαφος ἢ σφίγξ;) καὶ τῆς κινήσεως ἡ κοινὴ μάλιστα καὶ κυριωτάτη κατὰ τόπον ἐστίν, ἣν καλοῦμεν φοράν.
Ἔχει δὲ πολλὰς ἀπορίας τί ποτ᾽ ἔστιν 6 τόπος" οὐ γὰρ ταὐτὸν φαίνεται θεωροῦσιν ἐξ ἁπάντων 35 τῶν ὑπαρχόντων. ἔτι δ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ἔχομεν οὐδὲν παρὰ τῶν ἄλλων οὔτε προηπορημένον οὔτε προευπορη- 808} μένον περὶ αὐτοῦ. Ὅτι μὲν οὖν ἔστιν 6 τόπος, δοκεῖ δῆλον εἶναι α Aristotle himself does not accept this “ general opinion.” Only bodies have locality, and other things than bodies ‘exist.’ Cf. Introduction, pp. 268 ff., also Chap. iii. οὐ this Book, on the ambiguity of ‘in’ PHYSICS, IV. 1.
ARGUMENT (continued) primary sense of touch), which ἐξ is not. Is at then itself an element? No; for nothing is ‘made of it.’ It is not the material of anything, therefore, nor can we imagine it to be any of the other three causal or essential deter- minants, anil, if it ewists, ‘ where’ does it exist? And if it exactly jits its content does it grow when its content grows? How can it?
These are the perplerities to which ‘common assump- tions’ lead us. We must start again, therefore, and assume nothing on the ground that it is ‘ commonly’ assumed, not even that such a thing as‘ placa’ ewists at all The Natural Philosopher has to ask the same questions about ‘place’ as about the ‘ unlimited’; namely, whether such a thing exists at all, and (if so) after what fashion it exists, and how we are to define it.
It is generally assumed that whatever cxists, exists “somewhere ’¢ (that is to say, ‘in some place’), in conirast to things which ‘ are nowhere’ because they are non-existent,—so that the obvious answer to the question ‘‘ where is the goat-stag or the sphinx?” is “nowhere.” And again the primary and most general case of ‘ passage ’ or transitional change from ‘this’ to ‘that’ is the case of local change from this to that ‘ place.’
But we encounter many difficulties when we attempt to say what exactly the ‘ place ’ of a thing is. For according to the data from which we start we seem to reach different and inconsistent conclusions. Nor have my precursors laid anything down, or even formulated any problems, on this subject.
To begin with, then, the phenomenon of ‘ replace- ARISTOTLE 808. ἐκ τῆς ἀντιμεταστάσεως: ὅπου γάρ ἐστι νῦν ὕδωρ, ἐνταῦθα ἐξελθόντος ὥσπερ ἐξ ἀγγείου πάλιν ἀὴρ ἔνεστιν", ὅτε δὲ τὸν αὐτὸν τόπον τοῦτον ἄλλο υτι τῶν σωμάτων κατέχει" τοῦτο δὴ τῶν ἐγ- γινομένων καὶ μεταβαλλόντων ἕτερον πάντων εἶναι δοκεῖ: ἐν ὦ γὰρ ἀήρ ἐστι νῦν, ὕδωρ ἐν τούτῳ πρότερον ἦν, ὥστε δῆλον ὡς ἦν 6 τόπος τι καὶ ἡ χώρα ἕτερον ἀμφοῖν, εἰς ἣν καὶ ἐξ ἧς μετέβαλον. {τι δὲ αἱ φοραὶ τῶν φυσικῶν σωμάτων Kal ἁπλῶν, οἷον πυρὸς καὶ γῆς καὶ τῶν τοιούτων, οὐ iy μόνον δηλοῦσιν ὅτι ἔστι τι 6 τόπος, ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι καὶ ἔχει τινὰ δύναμιν. φέρεται yap ἕκαστον εἰς τὸν αὑτοῦ τόπον μὴ κωλυόμενον, τὸ μὲν ἄνω τὸ δὲ κάτω" ταῦτα δ᾽ ἐστὶ τόπου μέρη καὶ εἴδη, τό τε ἄνω Kat τὸ κάτω Kal αἱ λοιπαὶ τῶν ἕξ διαστάσεων. "Ἢ; δὲ A ~ ΕἸ ᾿ A ς lal \ 15 ort δὲ τὰ τοιαῦτα οὐ μόνον πρὸς ἡμᾶς, τὸ ἄνω καὶ κάτω καὶ δεξιὸν καὶ ἀριστερόν: ἡμῖν μὲν yap οὐκ ἀεὶ τὸ αὐτό, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὴν θέσιν, bal a ὅπως ἂν στραφῶμεν, γίνεται, διὸ καὶ ταὐτὸ πολ- λάκις δεξιὸν καὶ ἀριστερόν ἐστι καὶ ἄνω καὶ κάτω καὶ πρόσθεν καὶ ὄπισθεν" ἐν δὲ τῇ φύσει διώρισται χωρὶς ἕκαστον. οὐ γὰρ 6 τι ἔτυχέν ἐστι τὸ ἄνω 80 ἀλλ᾽ ὅπου φέρεται τὸ πῦρ καὶ τὸ κοῦφον" ὁμοίως . " AY # ἣν ia uv 2 > a A δὲ καὶ τὸ κάτω οὐχ ὅ τι ἔτυχεν ἀλλ᾽ ὅπου τὰ ΤῊ have rcpunctuated, taking ὅτε δέ to mean ‘and at another time.’ Cf, 209 b 26.—C.]
PHYSICS, IV. 1.
ment’ seems at ‘once to prove the independent existence of the ‘ place’ from which—as if from a vessel—water, for instance, has gone out, and into which air has come, and which some other body yet may occupy in its turn; for the place itself is thus revealed as something different from each and all of its changing contents. For ‘that wherein’ air is, is identical with ‘ that wherein’ water was; so that the ‘place’ or ‘room’ into which each sub- stance came, or out of which it went, must all the time have been distinct from both of the substances alike, Moreover the trends of the physical elements (fire, earth, and the rest) show not only that locality or place is a reality but also that it exerts an active influence; for fire and earth are borne, the one upwards and the other downwards, if unimpeded, each towards its own ‘place,’ and these terms—‘ up’ and ‘ down’ I mean, and the rest of the six dimen- sional directions—indicate subdivisions or distinct classes of positions or places in general.
Now these terms—such as up and down and right.’ and left, I mean—-when thus applied to the trends of the elements are not merely relative to ourselves. For in this relative sense the terms have no constancy, but change their meaning according to our own position, as we turn this way or that; so that the same thing may be now to the right and now to the left, now above and now below, now in front and now behind; whereas in Nature each of these directions is distinct and stable independently of us, ‘ Up’ or ‘above’ always indicates the ‘whither’ to which things buoyant tend; and so too ‘down’ or ‘ below’ always indicates the ‘ whither’ te which weighty ARISTOTLE ARISTOTLE 808υ ἔχοντα βάρος καὶ τὰ γεηρά, ws οὐ τῇ θέσει διαφέροντα μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ τῇ δυνάμει. δηλοῖ δὲ καὶ τὰ μαθηματικά: od ὄντα yap ἐν τόπῳ A € ~ μὲ A ὅμως κατὰ τὴν θέσιν τὴν πρὸς ἡμᾶς ἔχει δεξιὰ 25 καὶ ἀριστερά, ὥστε μόνον αὐτῶν νοεῖσθαι τὴν θέ, Ἰλλὰ τ ὧν ΠΣ,, μ 1 gow, ἀλλὰ μὴ ἔχειν φύσιν τούτων ἕκαστον. Ert of τὸ κενὸν φάσκοντες εἶναι τόπον λέγουσιν τὸ γὰρ κενὸν τόπος ἂν εἴη ἐστερημένος σώματος. Ὅτι μὲν οὖν ἔστι τι ὃ τόπος παρὰ τὰ σώματα, καὶ πᾶν σῶμα αἰσθητὸν ἐν τόπῳ, διὰ τούτων av 80 τίς ὑπολάβοι’ δόξειε δ᾽ ἂν καὶ ᾿Ησίοδος ὀρθῶς λέγειν ποιήσας πρῶτον τὸ χάος. λέγει γοῦν “πάντων μὲν πρώτιστα χάος γένετ᾽, αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα yat’ edpvatepvos,” ὡς δέοι" πρῶτον ὑπάρξαι χώραν fal ἣν ‘ A / Ὁ ε,ὕ é τοῖς οὖσι, διὰ τὸ νομίζειν, ὥσπερ of πολλοί, πάντα εἶναί που καὶ ἐν τόπῳ. t δ᾽ ἐστὶ τοιοῦτο, θαυμαστή τις ἂν εἴη ἡ τοῦ , 35 τόπου δύναμις καὶ προτέρα πάντων' οὗ γὰρ ἄνευ 209a τῶν ἄλλων οὐδὲν ἔστιν, ἐκεῖνο δ᾽ ἄνευ τῶν ἄλλων, ἀνάγκη πρῶτον εἶναι" οὐ γὰρ ἀπόλλυται 6 τόπος τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ φθειρομένων. Od μὴν ἀλλ᾽ ἔχει γ᾽ ἀπορίαν, εἰ ἔστι, τί ἐστι, 1 [ὥστε μόνον αὐτῶν νοεῖσθαι τὴν θέσιν is Alexander's cor- rection, Laas, Dicls, and Prantl prefer what Simplicius (526, 5, 16) read: ὡς τὰ μόνον λεγόμενα διὰ Hoty οὐκ ἔχοντα φύσει τούτων ἕκαστον. FGI adopt Alexander's correction, but retain ods ἔχοντα φύσει τούτων ἕκαστον, which belongs to Simplicius'’s reading. E substitutes ἀλλὰ μὴ ἔχειν φύσιν τούτων ἕκαστον to fit Alexander's correction. e should follow either Alexander or Simplicius, but not both.—C.]
PHYSICS, IV. 1.
and carthy matters Lend, and does not change with circumstance; and this shows that ‘above’ and ‘below’ not only indicate definite and distinct localitics, directions, and positions, but also produce distinct effects. The comparison of mathematical figures illustrates the point. For such figures occupy no real places of their own (not being material bodies at all), but nevertheless acquire a right and left with reference to us, thus showing that their positions are merely such as we mentally assign to them and are not intrinsically distinguished by anything in Nature.
Yurther, the thinkers who assert the existence of the ‘void’ agree with all others in recognizing the reality of ‘ place,’ for the ‘ void’ is supposed to be ‘ place without anything in it.’
One might well conclude from all this that there must be such a thing as ‘ place’ independent of all bodies, and that all bodies cognizable by the senses occupy their several distinct places. And this would justify Hesiod in giving prnmacy to Chaos [=the ‘Gape’] where he says: “ First of all things was Theos. Chaos, and next broad-bosomed Earth ”’; since before there could be anything else ‘room’ must be pro- vided for it to occupy. For he accepted the general opinion that everything must be somewhere and must have a place.
And if such a thing should really exist well might we contemplate it with wonder—capable as it must be of existing without anything clse, whereas nothing else could exist without it, since ‘ place’ is not destroyed when its contents vanish.
But then, if we grant that such a thing exists, the question as to how it exists and what it really is must ARISTOTLE 2094 πότερον ὄγκος Tis σώματος ἤ τις ἑτέρα φύσις" ζητητέον γὰρ τὸ γένος αὐτοῦ πρῶτον.
5 Διαστήματα μὲν οὖν ἔχει τρία, μῆκος καὶ πλάτος καὶ βάθος, οἷς ὁρίζεται σῶμα πᾶν. ἀδύνατον δὲ σῶμα εἶναι τὸν τόπον" ἐν ταὐτῷ γὰρ ἂν εἴη δύο σώματα.
"Ἔτι εἴπερ ἔστι σώματος τόπος καὶ χώρα, δῆλον ὅτι καὶ ἐπιφανείας καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν περάτων" ὁ τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸς ἁρμόσει λόγος" ὅπου γὰρ ἦν πρότερον τὰ τοῦ ὕδατος ἐπίπεδα, ἔσται πάλιν τὰ τοῦ ἀέρος. ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐδεμίαν διαφορὰν ἔχομεν στιγμῆς καὶ τόπου στιγμῆς, ὥστ᾽ εἰ μηδὲ ταύτης ἕτερόν ἐστιν ὃ τόπος, οὐδὲ τῶν ἄλλων οὐδενός, οὐδ᾽ ἔστι τι παρ᾽ ἕκαστον τούτων ὁ τόπος. Τί γὰρ ἄν ποτε καὶ θείημεν εἶναι τὸν τόπον; ιὸ οὔτε γὰρ στοιχεῖον οὔτ᾽ ἐκ στοιχείων οἷόν τ᾽ εἶναι τοιαύτην ἔχοντα φύσιν, οὔτε τῶν σωματικῶν οὔτε τῶν ἀσωμάτων' μέγεθος μὲν γὰρ ἔχει, σῶμα δ᾽ οὐδέν: ἔστι δὲ τὰ μὲν τῶν αἰσθητῶν σωμάτων στοιχεῖα σώματα, ἐκ. δὲ τῶν νοητῶν οὐδὲν γίνεται μέγεθος. Ἔτι δὲ καὶ τίνος ἄν τις θείη τοῖς οὖσιν αἴτιον 2 εἶναι τὸν τόπον; οὐδεμία γὰρ αὐτῷ ὑπάρχει αἰτία τῶν τεττάρων" οὔτε γὰρ ὡς ὕλη τῶν ὄντων (οὐδὲν γὰρ ἐξ αὐτοῦ συνέστηκεν) οὔτε ὡς εἶδος καὶ λόγος * On the Categories ef. Gen. Introd. pp. I sq. ὃ ἐκ δὲ τῶν νοητῶν ard develops μέγεθος...ἔχει, while ἔστι δὲ τὰ μὲν arr, develops σῶμα δ᾽ οὐδέν.
PHYSICS, IV. 1.
give us pause. Is it some kind of corporeal bulk? Or has il some other mode of existence? For we must begin by determining to what category it belongs."
Now a ‘place,’ as such, has the three dimen- sions of length, breadth, and depth, which deter- mine the limits of all bodies; but it cannot itself be a body, for if a ‘body’ were in a ‘place’ and the place itself were a body, two bodies would coincide.
Another difficulty. If a body has ‘place’ and ‘yoom,’ the reasoning alrcady employed would show that its surfaces and other limits must also have them, For ‘where’ the surface of the water was, ‘there’ the surface of the air now is. But we cannot dis- tinguish between a point and its own position, and if we lose the distinction here how can we find it again at any of the steps as we go back through line, surface, and bulk? So what becomes of the thesis that all bodies have places distinguishable from themselves?
Then what kind of thing must we conceive ‘a place to be? Its properties forbid us to think of it either as being an element itself or as being compounded of elements—whether physical or conceptual. For it has dimensional extension, which conceptual com- ponents could not give it; but it is not a body, which it would necessarily be if compounded of elements cognizable by sense.?
Again, tow are we to suppose that place affects or determines things in any way? Tor it cannot be brought under any one of the four causal or essential determinants:—not as the ‘ material’ of things, for nothing is composed of it; nor as their ‘form’ or ARISTOTLE 5095 τῶν πραγμάτων οὔθ᾽ ὡς τέλος, οὔτε κινεῖ τὰ ὄντα. "Ere δὲ καὶ αὐτὸς εἰ ἔστι τι τῶν ὄντων, ποῦ ἔσται; ἡ γὰρ “Ζήνωνος ἀπορία ζητεῖ τινα λόγον" ὦ εἰ γὰρ πᾶν τὸ ὃν ἐν τόπῳ, δῆλον ὅτι καὶ τοῦ τόπου τύπος ἔσται, καὶ τοῦτο εἰς ἄπειρον πρόεισιν. Ἔτι ὥσπερ ἅπαν σῶμα ἐν τόπῳ, οὕτω καὶ ἐν τόπῳ ἅπαντι σῶμα' πῶς οὖν ἐροῦμεν περὶ τῶν αὐξανομένων; ἀνάγκη yap ex τούτων συναύξεσθαι τὸν τόπον αὐτοῖς, εἰ μήτ᾽ ἐλάττων μήτε μείζων ὁ τόπος ἑκάστου. 0. Διὰ μὲν οὖν τούτων οὐ μόνον τί ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ εἰ ἔστιν, ἀπορεῖν ἀναγκαῖον.
CHAPTER IT ARGUMENT This chapter consists of two unequal and disparate portions.
In the first, Aristotle, following his usual method, puts aside provisionally the difficulties he has enumerated and opens his systematic investigation.
If (to vary Arvstotle's own illustration) we ask “ Where w such and such a book?” the answer may be “In the house” or “ In the study” or‘ On such and such a shelf” or Between such and such volumes ’—(which volumes are on the shelf, which shelf is in the study which...ia under the heavens), Here * between the two volumes’ is the ‘ proper’ place of * Aristotle has alieady answered this by anticipation. The ultimate cosmic limits exercise an effective causation in actualizing the potentialities of buoyant and heavy bodies, PIYSICS, [V. 1-1.
constituent definition; nor as their contemplated ‘end’; nor as setiing them in motion, or otherwise changing them.¢ And yet again: If it has an existence of its own, “where ’ does it exist? lor we cannot ignore Zeno’s dilemma ὃς If everything that exists, exists in some ‘ place,’ then if the place itself exists it loo must have a place to exist in, and so on ad infinitum.
Further ἢ If each body exactly occupies the place it isin, then reciprocally each place is exactly occupied by the body init. But in that case what account are we lo give of ‘ growing’ things? It would seem thal their places must also grow, to keep company with them, since they can never be less than the places they occupy, nor the places they occupy be greater than they are.
So, after all, we are forced by these perplevxities not only to ask what a‘ place ’ is, but also to reopen the question that appeared lo be closed, and ask whether there is such a thing as ‘ place ’ at all.
CHAPTER II ARGUMENT (continued) the book in question, for it belongs to it evclusively. All the other localities, being ‘ common’ to it and to other things, are only called us place in virtue of the fact that they include its real and proper place Thus Aristotle introduces, almost incidentally, his own definition of ‘ place’ (to be elaborated and rendered more precise subsequently) as that which immediately encompasses the ‘ place-oceupying’ body, or substance, in question In the second section, by a rather forced transition, cad a ARISTOTLE ARGUMENT (continued) alristotle retur ns (with special reference to Plato) to the thesis that " place’ can be identified neither with * form’ nor Ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸ μὲν καθ᾽ αὑτὸ τὸ δὲ κατ᾽ ἄλλο λέγεται, καὶ τόπος ὃ μὲν κοιυός, ἐν ᾧ ἅπαντα τὰ e σώματά ἐστιν, ὃ δ᾽ ἴδιος, ἐν ῳ πρώτῳ.
Λέγω δ᾽ οἷον σὺ νῦν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ὅτι ἐν τῷ > nm ΡΝ ν᾽ ὃς ἀέρι, οὗτος δ᾽ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, καὶ ἐν τῷ ἀέρι δὲ ὅτι ἐν τῇ γῆ, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἐν ταύτῃ ὅτι ἐν τῷδε τῷ τόπῳ, ὃς περιέχει οὐδὲν πλέον ἢ σέ. TE δή ἐστιν 6 τόπος τὸ πρῶτον περιέχον τῶν σωμάτων ἕκαστον, πέρας τι ἂν εἴη, ὥστε δόξειεν ἂν τὸ εἶδος καὶ ἡ μορφὴ ἑκάστου 6 τόπος εἶναι, ᾧ ὁρίζεται τὸ μέγεθος καὶ ἡ ὕλη ἡ τοῦ μεγέθους τοῦτο γὰρ ἑκάστου «πέρας. οὕτω μὲν οὖν σκοποῦσιν ὃ τόπος τὸ ἑκάστου εἶδός ἐστιν" ® The spot of Earth is obviously only a part (though a distinctive one) of the whole envelope. But Aristotle 1s not meticulously scrupulous as to this, either here or elsewhere. [ἐν τῷδε τῷ τόπῳ can mean “1η this (proper or primary) place,’ which has a position on the earth’s surface.—C.
SA rigid continent, regarded as a mould, determines the ‘shape’ and the ‘ appearanee ’ (so far at lea ist as the viable contour is concerned) of the fluid poured into it (say, molten metal), which is itself indeterminate in shape.
Now the two original meanings of the Greek words morphe and eidos (which Aristotle most frequently uses to signify ‘form,’ in the philosophical sense of ‘ collectivity of distinguishing characteristics’ } are precisely ‘shape’ and ‘appearance.’ Moreover, in the case, so often used as an illustration, of a statue, the ‘shape’ does actually constitute the ‘form? in the philosophic sense, as distinct from the metallic or other ‘ material,’ of the thing. ‘Thus content and continent become symbols of undifferentiated material and differentiating form in genera]. And so, if ‘ place’ be identi- fied with continent it may come to be confused with form.
PHYSICS, IV. τι.
ARGUMENT. (continued) with‘ matter.” This, together with a stray return to another porat already dealt with, closes the chapter (9 Ὁ 1-10 α 19), We have seen that attributions are made directly, in virtue of their immediate applicability, or mediately, because, though not immediately applicable them- selves, they include, involve, or imply something that is immediately applicable. And so, too, a ‘place’ may be assigned io an object either primarily because it is its special and exclusive place, or mediately because it is ‘common’ to it and other things, or is the universal place that includes the proper places of all things.
I mean, for instance, that you, at this moment, ure in the universe because you are in the air, which air isin the universe; and in the ar because on the earth; and in hke manner on the earth because on the special place which ‘ contains and circumscribes you, and nothing but you.’ ¢ But if what we mean by the ‘ place’ of a body is its immediate envelope, then ‘place’ is a limiting determinant, which suggests that it is the specifying or moulding ‘form’ by which the concrete quantum, together with its component matter, is ‘ determined.’ For it is just the office of a limit so to determine or mould something. From this point of view, then, we should identify ‘place ’ with ‘ form.’ ὃ Whereas if identified with intramural dimensionality it may come to be confused with material. Hence Aristotle’s repeated insistence (9p 20 f., the present passage, and 11 Ὁ 10-19, in Chap. iv.) on the point that place is neither form nor material. It would appear that Greek thinkers, hardly less than Enghsh students. were in perpetual danger of being dragged back from the full philosophical significance of morphe (=form) by the vividness of its visual suggestions,— sight being, then as now, ‘the most despotic of the senses.’
10 ARISTOTLE 10 ARISTOTLE Ἢ δὲ δοκεῖ ὁ τόπος εἶναι τὸ διάστημα τοῦ μεγέθους, ἧ ὕλη: τοῦτο γὰρ ἕτερον τοῦ μεγέθους" τοῦτο δ᾽ ἐστὶ τὸ περιεχόμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ εἴδους καὶ ὡρισμένον, οἷον ὑπὸ ἐπιπέδου καὶ πέρατος. ἔστι δὲ τοιοῦτον ἡ ὕλη καὶ τὸ ἀόριστον: ὅταν γὰρ ἀφαιρεθῇ τὸ πέρας καὶ τὰ πάθη τῆς σφαίρας, λεί- πεται οὐδὲν παρὰ τὴν ὕλην.
Διὸ καὶ Πλάτων τὴν ὕλην καὶ τὴν χώραν ταὐτό φησιν εἶναι ἐν τῷ Τιμαίῳ: τὸ γὰρ μεταληπτικὸν καὶ τὴν χώραν ἕν καὶ ταὐτόν. ἄλλον δὲ τρόπον ἐκεῖ τε λέγων τὸ μεταληπτικὸν καὶ ἐν τοῖς λεγο- μένοις ἀγράφοις δόγμασιν, ὅμως τὸν τόπον καὶ τὴν χώραν τὸ αὐτὸ ἀπεφήνατο. λέγουσι μὲν γὰρ πάντες εἶναί τι τὸν τόπον, τί δ᾽ ἐστίν, οὗτος μόνος ἐπεχείρησεν εἰπεῖν.
Εἰκότως δ᾽ ἐκ τούτων σκοπουμένοις, δόξειεν ἂν εἶναι χαλεπὸν γνωρίσαι τέ ἐστιν ὁ τόπος, εἴπερ τούτων ὁποτερονοῦν ἐστιν, εἴτε ἡ ὕλη εἴτε τὸ εἶδος: ἄλλως τε γὰρ τὴν ἀκροτάτην ἔχει θέαν, καὶ χωρὶς ἀλλήλων οὐ ῥᾷδιον γνωρίζειν.
᾿Αλλὰ μὴν ὅτι γε ἀδύνατον ὁποτερονοῦν τούτων εἶναι τὸν τόπον, οὐ χαλεπὸν ἰδεῖν. πὸ μὲν γὰρ εἶδος καὶ ἡ ὕλη οὐ χωρίζεται τοῦ πράγματος, τὸν δὲ τόπον ἐνδέχεται. ἐν ᾧ γὰρ ἀὴρ ἣν, ἐν τούτῳ πάλιν ὕδωρ, ὡς ἔφαμεν, γίνεται, ἀντιμεθιστα- μένων ἀλλήλοις τοῦ τε ὕδατος καὶ τοῦ ἀέρος, 4 frofra in 1. 8 (ns in 7, 7) means τὸ dirs *This (dimensionality) is what is contained and defined by the shape (form), é.g. by a surface or limit. And that deseriplion applics to the matter or the indeterminate factor.’ —C.]
" Aristotle too identities ‘ place’ and ‘ room’ (ef. Intro- duction to this Book, p. 272), but Aristotle assimilates them PHYSICS, IV. u.
But if we think of a thing’s place as its ‘ dimension- ality ’ or ‘ room-occupancy ’ (to be distinguished from the thiug itself, as a concrete quantum) we must then regard 1t as ‘matter’ rather than as ‘form,’ for matter is the factor that is bounded and determined by the form, as a surface, or other limit, moulds and determines; for it is just that which is in itself un- determined, but capable of being detennined, that we mean by matter. Thus, if a concrete sphere, e.g., be stripped of its limit, as well as of its other determining characteristics, nothing but its matter is left.
This is why Plato, in the Zimaeus, identifies ‘matter’ and ‘room,’ beeause ‘room’ and ‘ the receptive-of-determination ’ are one and the same thing. His account of the ‘ receptive’ differs in the Timaeus and in what are known as his Unwritten Teachings, but he is consistent in asserting the identity of ‘place’ and ‘room. Thus, whereas everyone asserts the reality of ‘ place,’ only Plato has so much us attempted to tell us what it is.?
It is no wonder that, when thus regarded,—either as matter or as furm, I mean,—‘ place’ should seem hard to grasp, especially as matter and form them- selves stand at the very apex of speculative thought, and cannot well, either of them, be cognized as existing apart from the other.
But in truth it is easy enough to see that its place cannot possibly be either the matter or the form of a thing; for neither of these is scparable from the thing itselfy as its place undoubtedly is. For we have already explained that ‘ where’ the air was ‘ there’ again the water is, when the water and air succeed both to the surface-continent, and Plato to the intramural dimensionality.
VOL. I υ 380 8 boa, ARISTOTLE 29b καὶ τῶν ἄλλων σωμάτων ὁμοίως, ὥστε οὔτε i ΜΩΣ ὦ 3 a i δ ἦ ε 7 μόριον οὔθ᾽ ἕξις ἀλλὰ χωριστὸς ὃ τόπος ἑκάστου ἐστίν. Kat γὰρ δοκεῖ τοιοῦτό τι εἶναι 6 τότιος οἷον τὸ ἀγγεῖον: ἔστι γὰρ τὸ ἀγγεῖον τόπος μετα- 80 φορητός'" τὸ δ᾽ ἀγγεῖον οὐδὲν τοῦ πράγματός ἐστιν. ἽΠ μὲν οὖν χωριστός ἐστι τοῦ πράγματος, ταύτῃ μὲν οὐκ ἔστι τὸ εἶδος. ἧ δὲ περιέχει, ταύτῃ 7 a ῳ a pe en \ oo» ed δ᾽ ἕτερος τῆς ὕλης. δοκεῖ δὲ ἀεὶ τὸ ὄν που αὐτό τε εἶναί τι καὶ ἕτερόν τι ἐκτὸς αὐτοῦ. Πλάτωνι μέντοι λεικτέον, εἰ δεῖ παρεκβάντας ὃν εἰπεῖν, διὰ τί οὐκ ἐν τόπῳ τὰ εἴδη καὶ οἱ ἀριθμοί, εἴπερ τὸ μεθεκτικὸν 6 τόπος, εἴτε τοῦ μεγάλου 210n καὶ τοῦ μικροῦ ὄντος τοῦ μεθεκτικοῦ εἴτε τῆς O) ar ὕλης, ὥσπερ ἐν τῷ Τιμαίῳ γέγραφεν. Erte πῶς ἂν φέροιτο εἰς τὸν αὑτοῦ τόπον, εἰ 6 τόπος ἦν ἡ ὕλη ἢ τὸ εἶδος; ἀδύνατον yap οὗ μὴ κίνησις μηδὲ τὸ ἄνω ἢ κάτω ἐστί, τόπον εἶναι. 6 ὥστε ζητητέος ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις ὁ τόπος. Ei δ᾽ ἐν αὐτῷ" 6 τόπος (δεῖ γάρ, εἴπερ ἢ μορφὴ ἢ vy Ὁ Ἡ - " 3 ΄ ς (λλ sg a ὕληΐ, ἔσται 6 τόπος ἐν τόπῳ" μεταβάλλει yap ἅμα τῷ πράγματι καὶ κινεῖται καὶ τὸ εἶδος καὶ τὸ ἀόριστον, 1 [αὐτῷ Simpl. 547,33 (lemma) (i.e. ἐν αὐτῷ τῷ πράγματι, 548. 1), Philop. 525. 16 (lemma): αὑτῷ codd.—@,| 3 [εἴπερ ἡ poppy ἢ ἢ ὕλη G. Cf. Simpl. 548. 6.—C.]
2 But consult p. 315, Chap. iv., 212 a 14 ff and Argument, > CfAp. 40. [Syrianus on Met 1092 a 17, says that the later PHYSICS, IV. τι.
each other, and so too with any other substance; and therefore its ‘ place’ can be neither a factor nor an intrinsic possession of the thing, but is something separable from it.
In fact a ‘place’ scems to resemble a vessel, a ‘vessel’ being ‘a place that can itself be moved about.’¢ And just as the vessel is no part of its content, so the place is no part of that which is in it.
A place, then, is neither the form of its ‘ content’ (inasmuch as it is not integral to it) nor its matter (inasmuch as it is not the ‘content’ but the ‘ con- tinent’). It appears, then, that whatever 1s ‘ some- where’ 1s itself a defimte ‘something’ and also has a definite ‘ something else ’ outside it.
At which point we may remark parenthetically that Plato ought to tell us why the Ideas and Numbers have no locality or place, 1f ‘ place’ is indecd the ‘ receptive factor, —and this whether the said recep- tive factor is ‘the great and small’ or (as he writes in the Zimaeus) ‘ matter.’ ®