Aga, if a man looks upon ‘ place ᾿ as undisturbed by changes that come to pass in it, and also as un- differ entiated in itself, and as a continuum, he may lken it to matter.’ For just as, when there is a qualitative modification, there is a something that is now white and before was black, or now hard that was formerly soft—which 1s what makes us assert the existence of matter,—so too when one thing goes out and another comes in, while the place abides undisturbed, that ‘ place’ may, by an ana- logous working of imagery upon our minds, seem to be an abiding ‘matter.’ But there is all the difference between ‘what’ was air, ‘that’ being now water, and ‘ where ’ was air, ‘ there’ being now water.® And then there is the conclusive consideration that the ‘matter’ of a thing is not separable from it, which its place is, and does not embrace it, which its place does.
If then a thing’s place is no one of these three— aby ὃ q τὸ ARISTOTLE εἶδος μήτε ἡ ὕλη μήτε διάστημά τι ἀεὶ ὑπάρχον ἕτερον παρὰ τὸ τοῦ πράγματος τοῦ μεθισταμένου, a“ rd ἀνάγικη τὸν τόπον εἶναι τὸ λοιπὸν τῶν τεσσάρων, τὸ πέρας τοῦ περιέχοντος σώματος. λέγω δὲ τὸ περιεχόμενον σῶμα τὸ κινητὸν κατὰ φοράν. Δοκεῖ δὲ μέγα τι εἶναι καὶ χαλεπὸν ληφθῆναι ὃ τόπος διά τε τὸ παρεμφαίνεσθαι τὴν ὕλην καὶ τὴν μορφήν, καὶ διὰ τὸ ἐν ἠρεμοῦντι τῷ περι- ἔχοντι γίνεσθαι τὴν μετάστασιν τοῦ φερομένου" \ ἐνδέχεσθαι yap φαίνεται εἶναι διάστημα μεταξὺ a ~ id ἄλλο τι τῶν κινουμένων μεγεθῶν. συμβάλλεται δέ τι καὶ ὁ ἀὴρ δοκῶν ἀσώματος εἶναι" φαίνεται yap οὐ μόνον τὰ πέρατα τοῦ ἀγγείου εἷναι ὁ τόπος, ἀλλὰ Kal TO μεταξὺ ὡς κενόν. Kore δ᾽ ὥσπερ τὸ ἀγγεῖον τόπος μεταφορητός, οὕτω καὶ ὁ τόπος ἀγγεῖον ἀμετακίνητον. Διὸ ὅταν μὲν ἐν κινουμένῳ τι κινῆται καὶ μετα- > n a βάλλῃ τὸ ἐντός, οἷον ἐν ποταμῷ πλοῖον, ὡς <év>* ἀγγείῳ χρῆται μᾶλλον ἢ τόπῳ τῷ περιέχοντι. ID δ᾽ a ἢ ἢ., i ὃ \ re a βούλεται ἀκίνητος εἶναι ὅ τόπος" διὸ 6 πᾶς μᾶλλον ποταμὸς τόπος, ὅτι ἀκίνητος 6 πᾶς. ὥστε 1 [After σώματος Simpl. (580, 3) and Themist. (118. 8) read καθ᾽ ὃ συνάπτει τῷ περιεχομένῳ. (‘ For the continent might have some other hmit as well’ Simpl,)~C. ig 2 [ὡς ἐν ἀγγείῳ I (accurding to Bekker), This may be a trace of an alternative reading; οὐ, Sitmplic. 583. 23 (paraphr.) thre ws ἐν ἀγγείῳ ἐστὶν ἐν ἐκείνῳ τοῦ ὕδατος τῷ μιέρει τῷ περιέχοντι αὐτὸ μᾶλλον ἢ ὡς ἐν τόπῳ. But χρῆται requires ὡς ἀγγείῳ (cett., Themist, 118, 29).—C.]
PHYSICS, IV. 1.
neither its form, nor its matter, nor a dimensional entity distinct from the dimensions of the entering or vacating body—it must needs be the fourth of the allernatives, namely, the limiting surface of the hody continent—the content being a material substance susceptible of movement hy transference.
So we see that what makes ‘place’ appear so mysterious and hard to grasp is ils illusive suggestion now of matter and now of form, and the fact that while the continent is at rest the transferable content may change, for this suggests that there may be a dimensional something that stays there other than the entering and vacating quanta,—air too con- tributing to this last illusion since it looks as if it were incorporcal—so that the ‘place,’ instead of being recognized as constituted solely by the surface of the vessel, 1s held to be the dimensional interval within ihe surface, conceived as ‘ vacancy.’
But now note that we have as good a right to regard a place as ‘an immovable vessel’ as we had to regard a vessel as a ‘ inovable place.’
And, from this point of view, if one thing is moving about inside another, which other is also in motion, 84 when a boat moves through the water of a flowing river, the water is related to the boat as a vessel- continent rather than as a place-continent; and if we look for stability in ‘ place,’ then the river as a permanent and stable whole,* rather than the flowing water in it at the moment, will be the boat’s place. 4 α Thus, when we speak of ‘the River Thames’ or ‘the Talls ot Niagara’ we do not mean the mass of water which at the moment conslitutes them, but a (com- pees at least) permanent and cosmically stable site οἱ veation.
25 80 Aza Ne bu ARISTOTLE τὸ τοῦ περιέχοντος πέρας ἀκίνητον πρῶτον, τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν ὁ τόπος.
Καὶ διὰ τοῦτο τὸ μέσον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ τὸ ἔσχατον τὸ πρὸς ἡμᾶς τῆς κύκλῳ φορᾶς δοκεῖ εἶναι τὸ μὲν ἄνω τὸ δὲ κάτω μάλιστα πᾶσι κυρίως, ὅτι τὸ μὲν ἀεὶ μένει, τοῦ δὲ κύκλου; τὸ ἔσχατον ὡσαύτως ἔχον μένει.
Ὥστ᾽ ἐπεὶ τὸ μὲν κοῦφον τὸ ἄνω φερόμενόν ἐστι φύσει, TO δὲ βαρὺ τὸ κάτω, TO μὲν πρὸς τὸ μέσον περιέχον πέρας κάτω ἐστί, καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ μέσον, τὸ δὲ πρὸς τὸ ἔσχατον ἄνω, καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ ἔσχατον' καὶ διὰ τοῦτο δοκεῖ ἐπέπεδόν τι εἶναι καὶ οἷον ἀγγεῖον ὃ τόπος καὶ περιέχον. ἔτι ἅμα τῷ πράγματι ὁ τόπος' ἅμα yap TH πεπερασμένῳ τὰ πέρατα.
1 [κύκλον Τὸ, Simplic. 607, 18, Philop. 591. 8 (lemma): κύκλω PGT, κυκλῳ Simpl. 685. U1, 603. 27.—C.]
41 take πρῶτον to mean ‘basal’ here. It might also mean ‘ the first stable surface-continent we come to’ (noving outwards). This would amount to the same thing. But 1 cannot take it (with the Commentators) as meaning ‘ proper,’ which would surely be a contradiction in terms. [Simplic. explains πρῶτον as meaning τὸ προσεχές (immediately con- tiguous) and equivalent to καθ᾽ ὃ συνάπτει τῷ περιεχομένῳ (see 212a6 note). This sentence contains the final definition of place, rather than the couclusion of the preceding argu- ment.—C,]} CHAPTER V ‘ INTRODUCTORY NOTE Tue noteworthy departures from Aristotle's linguistic usage in the first section of this chapter make it difficult PHYSICS, IV. τν.-ν, Thus whatever fixed environing surface we take our reckoning from ¢ will be the place.
So the centre of the universe and the inner surface of the revolving heavens constitute the supreme below’ and the supreme ‘above’; the former being absolutely stable, and the latter constant in its position as a whole.
And since what we mean by ‘upwards’ is the direction taken by what is buoyant, and + downwards ’ that taken by what is heavy, the limiting surface of a body towards the centre and that centre itself are below it, and the limiting surface towards the inner periphery and that periphery itself above it. So it appears that place is a surface-continent that em- braces its content after the fashion of a vessel; and further, that the place of the content coinciding with its outer surface keeps pace with it as it increases or diminishes dimensionally.?
> [take this clause to refer to datum (1i.) on p.308, dvacarry- ing its usual meaning of ‘ keeping pace with.’ ‘Those who take it to mean ‘ coinciding with’ have to apologize for the phrase asanimaccuracy. But it would be worse than an inaccuracy, for it would be a surrender of Aristotle’s whole case, since according to him the ‘ thing contained ’ emphatically does not coincide throughout with ils place. It 1s the error he is most anxious to refute. In any case this clause has the air of a‘ boulder ’ that has detached itself from some other context and 1s a ‘ stray’ here.
” CHAPTER V INTRODUCTORY NOTE (continued) to helieve that it came, as we have it, from the Master's own hand. But nevertheless it rests upon a very sound ARISTOTLE INTRODUCTORY NOTE (continued) Aristotelian basis and suggests valuable developments of his teaching. To understand and appreciate it, it is necessary to discuss in some detail a difficulty that every careful student of Aristotle’s cosmography must have felt.
{t must be bome in mind that Aristotle conceived ‘heaven,’ ag a whole, to be a nest of concentric and hollow yevolying spheres, in frictionless contact with each other, each of them containing, immovyably fixed in its snbstance (between its outer and its inner snperficies, that is), the heavenly body (or, in the case of the stellar sphero, Lhe heavenly bodies) which it bore with it ag it eavalved.
These spheres, tuken separately, are ‘ parts’ of heaven as a whole and may be called ‘ the heaveng’ or, individually, the ‘ stellar heaven,’ the ‘ heaven of Saturn,’ and so forth. They are composed of a kind of ‘ matter’ which, unlike that of our elements and their compounds, is capable of no modification or change save that of rotatory movement.
This premised, we have to consider two unquestionable articles of Avistotle’s belief: (1) The universe as a whole, and specifically ‘ heaven’ as a whole, and most specifically of all the stellar heaven individually, ‘hag no place.’ (2) Heaven, as a whole, rotates; and so does each heaven in particular, including the stellar heaven.
Now each of these propositions carries ily own implica- tions with it, and Aristotle nowhere explicitly develops and harmonizes them. They are, however, sortectly consistent with each other, as I must now try to show, without travelling outside Aristotle's own data, The contents of a stationary vessel can obviously change their relative positions, and therefore the places-proper which they mutually constitute for each other. But can they, as a whule, change their collective plaCe-common ὃ Clearly not; for a cosmic place cannot change at all, and a physically determined place can only move with the body or substance which determines it — in this instance, the vessel which we have supposed to be stationary.
But here two queations arise. (i.) Question: ‘ You say PHYSICS, IV. v.
INTRODUCTORY NoTE (continued) that the contents of a stationary vessel cannot change their place ag a whole. But if every part of what is con- tained in the vessel is changing its place with respect to the other parts, may not the whole be said to ‘ be moving ὁ ἢ Answer: ‘Yes, but not as a whole.’ It is ‘ all of it moving,’ then, but it is not ‘ changing its collective place.’
(ii.) Suppose the several parts of the content to retain their mutually determined places and positions with reapect to each other (as if they were Higidly connected and in that sense formed a continuous whole), but to be differentiated, say, by colour. If such a content should rotate within the vessel-continent, woukl the whole, as a whole, be moving with respect to its place-eontinent?
For this question to have any meaning we inust suppose the vessel-continent (though mgid and stationary by hypo- thesis) to be in some way differentiated, no less than the content.
In such a case we may at least say that the change of angular distances between points on the outer surface of the content and points on the mner surface of the continent constitute a change of * rotational position,’ or a change in ‘ the kind of place ’ that content and continent constitute by rotation.
But in such a case what could we mean by saying that a given change in ‘ rotation-constituted place’ wag dune entirely to a rotation of the content, the continent having remained stationary P We could only mean that with respect to some chosen type of stabiliity—say a more comprehensive vessel that contained them both—the content showed a rotatory change, and the continent none. But this system of reference wall at last bring us to the outmost shell of the universe—according to Aristotle the stellar heaven. Here there ig nothing outside the vessel-continent to refer to, and we seem to coine to a stand, Up to this point we have followed pretty closely (as will be sven by an actual examination of the text) the hints = 11 ARISTOTLE INTRODUCTORY NoTE (continued) and obvious implications contained in the section of chapter v. now under review—whether we ascribe these hints to an authentic Aristotelian basis or to the work of an intelligent and sympathetic redactor. But whoever the author or redactor may be he fails us just at this critical point.
But it is alyo just at this point that Aristotle himself, in a passage of unchallenged authenticity in the De caelo, takes up the tale; for he finds the standard of stability that is wanted in the ‘diection of gravitation.” He assumes (and here it must be adinitied that he really begs the question—though he begs it in a highly original and instructive manner) that if a body were projected vertically from the Earth (tc. perpendicularly to the tangential plane at the point) it would fall back again upon the same spot from which it rose. If we accepted this assumption as true, it would follow that, during the ascent and descent of the migsile, the heavens had tmned round over the stable line of gravitation, while the Karth had remained stationary under it. Had the missile alighted at a different point from that at which it started it would have followed that the Earth had turned round under the direction of gravitation, during the period in question. This completes the answer to the second question.
It is starlling to notice that (in spite of the complica- tions introduced into the question by the consideration of the law of Inertia—unknown to Aristotle, though he was in grievous and almost conscious need of it) Galileo, with his experiment from the summit of the tower of Pisa, and Foucault, with his pendulum, had to disprove Aristotle’s axiom (and show that the earth does turn round under the constant aclion of gravitation upon the missile or the pendulum) before they could disprove his deduction from it. They brought a more instructed plea before the court and obtained a contrary verdict. But it was the same court that they appealed to.
PHYSICS, IV. v. INTRODUCTORY ΝΟΤΕ (continued) What the author or redactor of the section wider review has done, therefore, is to show that all the heavens except the outmost of them have ‘ places,’ though not of the same kiud as those which bodies capable of translation have.
Further, Simplicins quotes a certain Maximus, pre- sumably Masinius of Epicus (a reputed teacher of Faia the Apostate, and therefore contemporary with Themistius), iu connexion with Ubis very phrase ‘the kind of place ’ which the heavens make for each other. [1 is to the effect that when Aristotle, im the De caelo, says that rotation “to the left” is the natural relation of heaven, he is apply- ing local language to it (though it is not ‘in a place ἢ).
And Jastly, Themistins makes the naive but suggestive remark that though the outmost heaven 1s nol neyhboured by anything on ils outer surface, yet since it is ucighhoured by the heaven of Saturn ou its inner surface, 1b may be considered as ina place “ on the inside,” One can see that all these tentatives are feeling for the needed distinction between two senses in whieb bodies A aud B ean he said to have ‘ moved’ or to have ‘ under- gone a change of place’ with respect to each other as wholes—the one sense involvmg translation and the other not involving translation but only rotation. This dis- tinetion was presumably perfectly clear to Aristotle, for though he nowhere expounds it explicitly with reference to the matter now in hand, yet he is never embarrassed, ag his commentators aie, by any perplexities of thought on the subject, The section that follows must be spurious. It was 212) evidently ahsent from the text of Themistins, and it causes much embarassment to Simplicius and also, in his degree, to Philoponus, Whatever its origin it is an unintelligent attempt to supply what its author felt to be an omission in the demonstration that the account given of ‘ place’ fulfils the conditions set forth earlier in this Book.
iT 2 ὁ} 85 ARISTOTLE ARGUMENT The universe, as a whole, has no place—excepl the lind of place in which Rotation only, and not T'ranslation, is possible. But since both the components of the universe, heavenly and elemental alike, are all susceptible of ‘ movement’ after their respective fashions, the universe itself may be regarded as moving,’ in @ certain sense, in virtue of the mobility of all us parts. Lakewise everything, including the outmost sphere, may be said to be ‘ in the universe,’ in the sense in which ‘ the parts are in the whole,’ though not in the local sense of’ content in continent’ (212 a 31-h 18), In the local sense of content in continent, each of the alements from earth up to fire finds its natural abode ‘ in the place’ constituted by the elemental or heavenly body (as the case may be), that is neat neighbours above” to it. But the heavenly body itself, as a whole, hag not any place (Ὁ 18-22).
{2 μὲν οὖν σώματι ἐστι TL ἐκτὸς σῶμα περιέχον αὐτό, τοῦτό ἐστιν ἐν τόπῳ, ᾧ δὲ μή, οὔ. διὸ κἂν ὕδωρ γένηται τοιοῦτο, τὰ μὲν μόρια κινήσεται αὐτοῦ (περιέχεται γὰρ ὑπ’ ἀλλήλων), τὸ δὲ πᾶν ἔστι μὲν ὡς κινήσεται ἔστι δ᾽ ὡς οὔ. ὡς μὲν yap ὅλον, ἅμα τὸν τόπον οὐ μεταβάλλει, κύκλῳ gion δὲ κινήσεται" τῶν μορίων γὰρ οὗτος ὁ τόπος" Kal ἄνω μὲν καὶ κάτω οὔ, κύκλῳ δ᾽, ἔνια. τὰ A 4 κα 4 ω A ἃ A δὲ καὶ ἄνω καὶ κάτω, ὅσα ἔχει πύκνωσιν καὶ μάνωσιν.
41 Τῃοεέραῦ of being the celestial substance which it actually is.’ As to ‘ having no place’ the nature of the continent-uncontained would make no difference. The essential ss that there shonld be nothing ontside 14. But this parenthelical supposition of ἃ possible alternative is lost sight of at onec, and the discourse proceeds on the assump- tion that we are dealing with a universe whose outer shell is not ‘ water or anything you like,’ but the celestial substance PHYSICS, IV. ν, ARGUMENT (continued) The nature of ‘ place’ being now understuod, all the per- Plewities that were noted im chap. i. of this Book, as rising out af confused ideas on the subject, at once disappear. We have not to suppose that ecosmie spaces grow, nor that a point has ὦ place other than itself, for we have shown that a limit is ia no case ‘tn? that which τὲ limits as content in continent, though it does belurng to it and is‘ envolved in? uw. Neither need we suppose two bodies to be im the same place when the contents of a vessel change, for the vacating body leaves no materially dimensional entity behind it (Ὁ 22-24).
(Lhe elements seek the relative positions proper to them because in these positions they have neighbours akin to them; and stay there because, in a sense, they form, at their margins, parts of homogeneous wholes with those neighbours (0 29-218 It follows that if a body is encompassed by another body, external to it, it is ‘in a place’; but if not, not. As to such an ‘ unplaced ' body (be it water or anything else 4) τὰς parts may be in motion, for they embrace each other, but as a whole it can be said to ‘move’ only in a special sense. For as a whole it cannot change its collective place. But it may have a motion of rotation, which motion 1s what con- stitutes the ‘kind of place’ with respect to which the rotating puris move.
Now in the universe there are some parts which do not move up and down but do rotate; and others (such as arg susceptible to condensation and rarefica- tion δ) which can either rotate or move up and down. of the concentiic spheres. Simplicius notes the “ great obscurity ” caused by the linginstie violence of this passage.
® Aristotle's own phrase here would surely have been “such ay have weight and buoyancy.”
ay ARISTOTLE δι} “Ὥσπερ δ᾽ ἐλέχθη, τὰ μὲν ἔστιν ἐν τόπῳ κατὰ δύναμι", τὰ δὲ κατ᾽ ἐνέργειαν: διὸ ὅταν μὲν ὃ συνεχὲς ἢ τὸ ὁμοιομερές, κατὰ δύναμιν ἐν τόπῳ τὰ μέρη, ὅταν δὲ χωρισθῇ μὲν ἅπτηται δ᾽ ὥσπερ σωρός, κατ᾽ ἐνέργειαν.
Καὶ τὼ μὲν καθ᾽ αὑτά, οἷον πᾶν σῶμα ἢ κατὰ φορὰν ἢ κατ᾽ αὔξησιν κινητὸν καθ᾽ αὑτό που, 6 δ᾽ οὐρανός, ὥσπερ εἴρηται, οὔ που ὅλος οὐδ᾽ ἔν 10 TUL τόπῳ ἐστίν, εἴ γε μηδὲν αὐτὸν περιέχει σῶμα" ἐφ’ ᾧ δὲ κιιεῖται, ταύτῃ καὶ τόπος ἐστὶ τοῖς μορίοις" ἕτερον γὰρ ἑτέρου ἐχόμενον τῶν μορίων ἐστίν.
Τὰ δὲ κατὰ συμβεβηκός, οἷον ἡ ψυχή" καὶ 6 οὐρανός, τὰ γὰρ μόρια ἐν τόπῳ πως πάντα, ἐπὶ τῷ κύκλῳ γὰρ περιέχει ἄλλο ἄλλο.
Διὸ κινεῖται μὲν κύκλῳ τὸ ἄνω, τὸ δὲ πᾶν οὔ τὸ που. τὸ γάρ που αὐτό τ᾽ ἐστί τι, καὶ ἔτι ἄλλο τι δεῖ εἶναι παρὰ τοῦτο ἐν ᾧ ὃ περιέχει" παρὰ δὲ τὸ πᾶν καὶ ὅλον οὐδέν ἐστιν ἔξω τοῦ παντός.
Kat διὰ τοῦτο ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ πάντα, ὃ γὰρ οὐρανὸς # [Simphie., Philop. and Themist. understand ἐν τόπῳ ἐστί (not κινεῖται) with τὰ μὲν καθ᾽ αὐτό (1. 7) and τὰ δὲ κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς (ἰ. 13). * Some things are in a place per se, eg. every body capable of translation or giowth is per 86 * some- where’; but the heaven as a whole 1s not *‘ somewhere’ nor in any particular place.,.’"—C.] i ὃ The Commentators note that qualification is necessary in the case of the outmost sphere, Cf. Introduction to this chayter, p. 319.
° Themistius (120, 21-26) and Philoponus (603. 10) point out that κατ᾽ ἄλλο, not κατὰ συμβεβηκός, would PHYSICS, IV. v.
Moreover, as already observed, some ihings are only potentially in places but others actually so. So that if a mass is continuous and homogeneous, its parts are only potentially in places-proper, but if they were so divided as to be in mutual contact (as if in a heap), they would have actualized places- proper.
And again, some things move? on their own account (all elemental bodies, to wit, are susceptible of place change, whether by transference or growth); but the heavenly mass, as has been said, cannot change its place as a whole. Nor indeed has it a place to change, seeing that there is no body-continent embracing it. But after the fashion of its own motion it constitutes places for its own parts, since one part embraces another.”
Other things there are which cannot move on their own account, but whose motion is involved in that of something else. Such is the ‘ vitality,’ ‘ aliveness ἡ of a living organism. And such too is the heavenly mass, for all its parts are in places, after their own fashion, since they embrace each other spherically ὃ Heaven therefore ‘ rotates,’ but the universe has not a ‘where,’ for to have a ‘ where’ a thing must not only exist itself but must be embraced by some- thing other than itself; and there is nothmg other than the universe and the sum of things, outside that sum, to embrace it.
It is true, then, to say—‘ all things are in heaven’ (if you admit the doubtful usage of calling the unibe the proper Aristotelian qualification of the motion τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. Vie former refers to chap. in. of this Book to illustrate the distinction. I think they are right, but perhaps 35 4b 8-10 somewhat blunts the force of their objection.
ARISTOTLE 4 lod wv 2 2 ς i Ὺ ἐς 2, gi2b7d πᾶν ἴσως, ἔστι δ᾽ ὃ τόπος οὐχ ὁ οὐρανός, ἀλλὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ τι τὸ ἔσχατον καὶ ἁπτόμενον 80 τοῦ κινητοῦ σώματος πέρας ἠρεμοῦν. lo) lol ~ > Kai διὰ τοῦτο ἡ μὲν γῆ ἐν τῷ ὕδατι, τοῦτο ὃ - cal ἂν ἐν τῷ ἀέρι, οὗτος δ᾽ ἐν τῷ αἰθέρι, ὁ δ᾽ αἰθὴρ ἐν int | at AY 39 1 ᾿ τ ΓΑ 3 TAA τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ δ᾽ οὐρανὸς οὐκέτι ἐν ἄλλῳ. € lad Φανερὸν δ᾽ ἐκ τούτων ὅτι καὶ αἱ ἀπορίαι πᾶσαι τι i λύοιντ᾽ ἂν οὕτω λεγομένον τοῦ τόπου. οὔτε yap συναύξεσθαι ἀνάγκη τὸν τόπον, οὔτε στιγμῆς 85 εἶναι τόπον, οὔτε δύο σώματα ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ τόπῳ, οὔτε διάστημά τι εἶναι σωματικόν. σῶμα γὰρ τὸ μεταξὺ τοῦ τόπου τὸ τυχόν, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ διάστημα σώματος. καὶ ἔστιν 6 τόπος καὶ πού, οὐχ ὡς ἐν τόπῳ δέ, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς τὸ πέρας ἐν τῷ πεπερασμένῳ. od yap πᾶν τὸ ὃν ἐν τόπῳ, ἀλλὰ τὸ κινητὸν σῶμα.
0) Καὶ φέρεται δὴ εἰς τὸν αὑτοῦ τόπον ἕκαστον εὐλόγως: ὃ yap ἐφεξῆς καὶ ἁπτόμενον μὴ βίᾳ, συγγενές" καὶ συμπεφυκότα μὲν ἀπαθῆ, ἁπτόμενα δὲ παθητικὰ καὶ ποιητικὰ ἀλλήλων.
4 Aristotle notes this curious use of the word οὐρανός in the De caelo i. 9 (278 b 20 δ). > With Themistius I understand κινητόν to be used in the sense of παθητικόν, which would be equivalent to ‘eleniental’ or ‘ susceptible of up and down movement.’ * Here ‘aether’ is obviously a synonym for ‘ fire.’ Aristotle frequently warns us that when Anaxagoras says deouda, ‘gether’ he means ‘ fire,’ but he himself condemns this wang usage. On the other hand he accepts the current usage of his own time, by which the fifth ar heavenly σῶμα (the sub- stance of the celestial spheres) was called aether. But (so far as the indexes of Bonitz and Heintz reveal) Aristotle himself does not employ the word at all, apart from quote- tions and references. (It occurs in the spurious De mundo, PHYSICs, IV. v.
verse ‘ heaven’), but what constitutes the place- universal is not the whole rotating acthcrial mass but the inner surface of that mass, which is at rest and is in contact with the world of modifiable substances.® So earth is naturally surrounded and embraced by water, water by air, air by acther,* aether by heaven, and heaven itself not δὲ all.
It is an easy matter now to show that our definition of place smoothes out all the perplexities that have arisen, For we are not compelled to think of ‘ place ’ growing, on its own account, to accompany a growing body; nor of a point occupying ‘ place’; nor of two bodies being in the same place; nor of ‘intervals’ having an independent material existence For what lies between point and point of the continent is the body, whatever it may be, that forms its content, not the dimensions of that body, as existing inde- pendently of it. Also you can assign a ‘something wherein it resides’ to a place itself, but only in the sense in which the limit ‘resides in’ the body it limits, not as the content is ‘in’ the continent; for ‘in’ has local significance only when applied to materially movable bodies, and there are cxistences other than these.
{And that each element should make for its own place amongst the others is only what we should expect; for in the succession of elementary bodies the neighbours with which each is in unforced contact are kindred to it. And note that between the several parts of the homogeneous element itself there is no action and reaction; but at the margins where the different (but kindred) elements are in contact, they act and react upon each other.
85 " 1 = ARISTOTLE Kai μένει δὴ φύσει πᾶν ἐν τῷ οἰκείῳ τόπῳ ἕκαστον oi ἀλόγως: καὶ γὰρ τὸ μέρος τόδε ἐν εἰ -,ὔ A ὅλῳ τῷ τόπῳ ὡς διαιρετὸν μέρος πρὸς ὅλον ἐστίν, οἷον ὅταν ὕδατος κινήσῃ τὶς μόριον ἢ ἀέρος.
3 Οὕτω δὲ καὶ ἀὴρ ἔχει πρὸς ὕδωρ' οἷον ὕλη } a % ὃ ‘ A ἮΝ La kia φ > γάρ, τὸ δὲ εἶδος, τὸ μὲν ὕδωρ ὕλη ἀέρος, ὁ ὃ ἀὴρ οἷον ἐνέργειά τις ἐκείνου: τὸ γὰρ ὕδωρ δυνάμει ἀήρ ἐστιν, ὁ δ᾽ ἀὴρ δυνάμει ὕδωρ ἄλλον τρόπον. διοριστέον δὲ περὶ τούτων ὕστερον' ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸν καιρὸν ἀνάγκη μὲν εἰπεῖν, ἀσαφῶς δὲ νῦν ῥηθὲν τότ᾽ ἔσται σαφέστερον. εἰ οὖν τὸ αὐτὸ ἡ ὕλη καὶ ἡ ἐντελέχεια (ὕδωρ γὰρ ἄμφω, ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν δυνάμει τὸ ἐντελεχείᾳ), ἔχοι ἂν τ, 4 μὲ 4 ι Τὰ < ca ὡς μόριόν πως πρὸς ὅλον. διὸ καὶ τούτοις adr ἐστιν σύμφυσις δέ, ὅταν ἄμφω ἐνεργείᾳ ἕν γένωνται.
Kat περὶ μὲν τόπου, καὶ ὅτι ἔστι καὶ τί ἐστιν, εἴρηται.
* A vortex, so individualzed, would not tend to rise or fall in its homogeneous environment.
> ‘The general doctrine of the transition from water to air, ete., is expounded by Aristotle in the De gen. et cor. A ὅ and B 4, and the De caelo, Y δ. An account of it will be best reserved for treatment in connexion with the doctrine οἵ Growth and the Void (p. 340 of this vel.). The present passage is a confused and unintelligent attempt to fore- shadow it. Simplicius points out (and tries in vain to palhate) the fallacy of treating the material as ‘ part’ of the PHYSICS, IV. v.
PHYSICS, IV. v.
And it is equally natural for the elements severally to rest in the places that belong to them, for the relation of each element, in its own portion of the whole place-universal, to 1ts neighbours is that of a separated part of a single element to the whole of that element—if one should make a swirl within a body of water or air, I mean.
And this is how air is related to water; for air is the form and water the material, the air in a sense being the actualizing of water, since the water is potentially air, as mdeed the aw is potentially water, but in a different way. This will be gone into more closely later on.” It was, however, necessary to touch on it here, for the context demanded it; and what is vague im this exposition will become clearer under fuller treatment. If, then, the same thing is both matter and fulfilment (water, to wil, being both; but the one in potentiality and the other in actuality), each aspect of it would stand somewhat as a part to its whole. Water and air, then, when separated are merely in contact, but are homo- geneous when both become one in actuality.]
This concludes the account of ‘ place,’ and the demonstration of its real existence and of what it is. form (before it has received it) instead of part of the com- positum (after it has received the form).
The transition from water to air is from the lower to the higher form, and is therefore quasi-constructive; whereas the reverse transition 1s quasi-destructive. Hence the ‘ but ina differerft way.’
ARISTOTLE CHAPTLR VI ARGUMENT Close connexion between the problem of ‘ place, and that af ‘void’ or‘ empty space, eoncerved ax ‘ place with nothing Anaxagoras and others who denied the existence of the void missed the point, for they only showed that ‘air is not nothing ’ not * that there are no interspaces of vacancy in the world ἡ (x 22-b 2), The believers in the void, on the contrary, did at least arque to the point. They alleged as proofs ὁ (1) that nothing could atgaiz Tov αὐτὸν δὲ τρόπον ὑποληπτέον εἶναι τοῦ φυσικοῦ θεωρῆσαι καὶ περὶ κενοῦ, εἰ ἔστιν ἢ μή, καὶ πῶς ἐστι καὶ τί ἐστιν, ὥσπερ καὶ περὶ τόπου" ib καὶ γὰρ παραπλησίαν ἔχει τήν τε ἀπιστίαν καὶ τὴν πίστιν διὰ τῶν ὑπολαμβανομένων' οἷον γὰρ τόπον τινὰ καὶ ἀγγεῖον τὸ κενὸν τιθέασιν οἱ λέγοντες, δοκεῖ δὲ πλῆρες μὲν εἶναι, ὅταν ἔχῃ τὸν ὄγκον οὗ δεκτικόν ἐστιν, ὅταν δὲ στερηθῇ, κενόν, ὡς TO αὐτὸ μὲν ὃν κενὸν Kal πλῆρες Kal τόπον, τὸ δ᾽ εἶναι αὐτοῖς οὐ ταὐτὸ ὅν.
2 Ἄρξασθαι δὲ δεῖ τῆς σκέψεως λαβοῦσιν ἅ τε λέγουσιν οἱ φάσκοντες εἶναι καὶ πάλιν ἃ λέγουσιν οἱ μὴ φάσκοντες, καὶ τρίτον τὰς κοινὰς περὶ Οἱ μὲν οὖν δεικνύναι πειρώμενοι ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν 4 Δ ΄ i ε ΝΜ i a> οὐχ ὃ βούλονται λέγειν οἱ ἄνθρωποι κενόν, τοῦτ᾽ ἐξελέγχουσιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἁμαρτάνοντες λέγουσιν, ὥσπερ PHYSICS, IV. vt.
CHAPTER VI ARGUMENT (continued) move unless there were empty places for τῇ to move inte (Melissus advanced this argument as sound, but treated τὲ as a vreductio ad absurdum, and so concluded that ‘ nothing ean move’) (b 2-14): (2) that bodies can contract into the void spaces contained in them (b 14-18); and (8) that with- out vacancy nothing could grow or expand (bh 18-22).
The Pythagorcans, too, had their doctrine of numerical and other vad interspaces (Ὁ) 22-29), We must take it as pait of the natural philosopher’s task to reflect on the existence or non-existence, and the ‘how’ and the ‘ what,’ of ‘ vacancy ’ no less than of * place.’ For indeed the conceptions formed of τὶ, lead to arguments for and against its very existence exactly analogous to those concerning placc, inas- much as the believers in its reality present it to us as if it were some kind of receptive place or vessel, which may be regarded as full when it contains the bulk of which it is capable, and empty when it does not. Thus ‘place’ and the ‘filled’ and the ‘vacant’ would all be one identical entity under varying aspects or conditions of existence.
We must begin our inquiry by examining the grounds on which the existence of the void is main- tained, those on which it is denied, and what we may assume to be universally admitted as fundamental to our conception of it.
We shall find that those who have attempted to refute the doctrine of the void have not grappled with that which its advocates are really driving at, but only with an incidental error in their presentation ARISTOTLE 21302 ᾿Αναξαγόρας καὶ οὗ τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον ἐλέγχοντες. ἐπιδεικνύουσι γὰρ ὅτι ἔστι τι ὁ ἀήρ, στρεβλοῦντες τοὺς ἀσκοὺς καὶ δεικνύντες ὡς ἰσχυρὸς 6 ἀήρ, καὶ ἐναπολαμβάνοντες ἐν ταῖς κλεψύδραις. οἱ ὃ ἄνθρωποι βούλονται κενὸν εἶναι διάστημα ἐν ᾧ μηδέν ἐστι σῶμα αἰσθητόν: οἰόμενοι δὲ τὸ ὃν 80 ἅπαν εἶναι σῶμα φασίν, ἐν ᾧ ὅλως μηδέν ἐστι, τοῦτ᾽ εἶναι κενόν’ διὸ τὸ πλῆρες ἀέρος κενὸν εἶναι. οὔκουν τοῦτο δεῖ δεικνύναι, ὅτι ἔστι τι ὁ ἀήρ, ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι οὐκ ἔστι διάστημα ἕτερον τῶν σωμάτων, οὔτε χωριστὸν οὔτε ἐνεργείᾳ ὄν, ὃ διαλαμβάνει τὸ πᾶν σῶμα ὥστ᾽ εἶναι μὴ συνεχές (καθάπερ 518} λέγουσι Δημόκριτος καὶ Λεύκιππος καὶ ἕτεροι πολλοὶ τῶν φυσιολόγων), ἢ Kal εἴ τι ἔξω τοῦ παντὸς σώματος ἔστιν ὄντος συνεχοῦς.
Οὗτοι μὲν οὖν οὐ κατὰ θύρας πρὸς τὸ πρόβλημα ἀπαντῶσιν, ἀλλ’ οἱ φάσκοντες εἶναι μᾶλλον, 1 [διὸ τὸ] διότι Εἰ: οὐ δὴ τὸ Prantl; cf. Simpl. 648. 3 τὸ δὲ τὸν ἀέρα μὴ εἶναι σῶμα, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο μηδὲν εἶναι ἐν τῷ διαστή- bart τῷ τὸν ἀέρα ἔχοντι, τοῦτο ἀπατώμενοι λέγουσι, Themist, 128. 6 οἰόμενοι δὲ τὸν ἀέρα μὴ εἶναι σῶμα αἰσθητὸν τὸ πλῆρες ἀέρος κενὸν voulfover,—C, ] 2 [Or * Those who try to show that there 1s no such thing do not disprove what ordinary people mean by ‘ vacancy,’ but their arguments miss the point.’—C.]
¢ 'Think of the water-clock as an open vessel with a small aperture at the bottom. When it is ‘empty’ invert it, place your finger over the aperture and force the inverted Ψψ 6556) into water, UlnJess you remove your finger, the water will not rise into it, thus showing that it is not really empty, but filled with air, which keeps out the water. (Cf. Problems xvi. 8, 91} 9 H.; Empedocles, Frag. 100.—C.]
PHYSICS, IV. vi.
PHYSICS, IV. vi.
of the case.* This apphes to Anaxagoras” and all who have followed his line of argument: what they did was to demonstrate lthat aur js a physical substance by inflating bladders and showing their strength of resistance to compression, and by intercepting the escape of the air from water-clocks.° But what those who believe in the void really mean by the word is ‘dimensional interval without any substance per- ceptible to the senses occupying it’: and, because they regard sensible substances as the only things that exist at all, they express this by saying ‘in which there 1s nothing at 411, And they regard things full of air as empty only because they had not recognized the sense-perceptibility of air and so did not know that ‘ anything’ was there.¢ But what the deniers of the void have really to show is not that air is an actual substance, but that there is no such thing as a dimensional entity, other than that of material substances, existing in such detachment and actuality¢ as to intervene between one body and another and so break their continuity. That there is such an entity is the contention of Democritus and Leucippus, and many other natural philosophers, Or it might perhaps be maintained that, though material exist- ence is continuous throughout the cosmos, the void is a something existing outside it.
So they who deny the void are not fairly facing the question in dispute. In this the defenders of the ἃ The old,commentators found no difficulty in filling up the ellipticity of this passage as T have done. But the Didot text cuts the knot by inserting a μή befure κενόν, 1 think wrongly; for though 1t makes the construction and transla- tion easier 1} is far from unproving the argument, It may well be, however, that some words have fallen out here, ® The ‘ actuality ’ is important, δ 10 15 20 ARISTOTLE λέγουσι δ᾽ ἕν μὲν ὅτι κίνησις ἡ κατὰ τόπον οὐκ ἂν εἴη (αὕτη δ᾽ ἐστὶ dopa καὶ αὔξησις)" οὐ yap ἂν δοκεῖν εἶναι κίνησιν, εἰ μὴ εἴη κενόν" τὸ γὰρ πλῆρες ἀδύνατον εἶναι δέξασθαί τι. εἰ δὲ δέξεται καὶ ἔσται δύο ἐν ταὐτῷ, ἐνδέχοιτ᾽ ἂν καὶ ὁποσαοῦν x εἶναι ἅμα σώματα: τὴν yap διαφοράν, δι᾿ ἣν odie ἂν εἴη τὸ λεχθέν, οὐκ ἔστιν εἰπεῖν. εἰ δὲ τοῦτο ἐνδέχεται, καὶ τὸ μικρότατον δέξεται τὸ μέγιστον" πολλὰ yap μικρά ἐστι TO μέγα’ ὥστ᾽ εἰ πολλὰ ἴσα ἐνδέχεται ἐν ταὐτῷ εἶναι, καὶ πολλὰ ἄνισα. Μέλισσος μὲν οὖν καὶ δείκνυσιν ὅτι τὸ πᾶν ἀ- κίνητον ἐκ τούτων' εἰ γὰρ κινήσεται, ἀνάγκη εἶναι (φησί) κενόν, τὸ δὲ κενὸν od τῶν ὄντων.
3 Ἕνα μὲν οὖν τρόπον ἐκ τούτων δεικνύουσιν ὅτι ἔστι τι κενόν, ἄλλον δ᾽ ὅτι φαίνεται ἔνια συνιόντα Kat πιλούμενα, οἷον καὶ τὸν οἶνόν φασι δέχεσθαι μετὰ τῶν ἀσκῶν τοὺς πίθους, ὡς εἰς τὰ ~ ca ἐνόντα κενὰ συνιόντος τοῦ πυκνουμένου σώματος.
Ere δὲ καὶ ἡ αὔξησις δοκεῖ πᾶσι γίγνεσθαι διὰ κενοῦ" τὴν μὲν γὰρ τροφὴν σῶμα εἶναι, δύο δὲ As σώματα ἀδύνατον ἅμα εἶναι. μαρτύριον δὲ Kat τὸ περὶ τῆς τέφρας ποιοῦνται, ἣ δέχεται ἴσον ὕδωρ ὅσον τὸ ἀγγεῖον τὸ κενόν.
Εἶναι δ᾽ ἔφασαν καὶ of Πυθαγόρειοι κενόν, καὶ ἐπεισιέναι αὐτῷ, τῷ οὐρανῷ ἐκ τοῦ ἀπείρου 1 [αὐτῶ G, αὐτῷ Philop. 615. 19 (lemma), Bonitz, Diels (Vors. 45 B 30): αὐτὸ cett—C.]
3 [Diels, Vors. 20 B17, § 7; De gen. et corr, 325 a. 2.—C.] » Aristotle evidently attaches little value to such allega- tions. Ife takes no serious notice of them. Cf. p. 310.
PHYSICS, IV. νι.