Up to this point, as already indicated, we may claim the pretty general consent of all the systems; for all thinkers posit their elements or ‘ principles,’ as they call them;? and, though they give no reasoned account of these ‘ principles,’ nevertheless we find—as though truth itself drove them to it in spite of themselyes—that they are really talking about contrasted couples. But they differ in the order they follow, some starting from what is most luminous Lo the intelhgence, others from what is more directly cognizable by the senses. Thus some posit ‘hot and cold,’ or ‘ wet and dry,’ as causes of becoming, and others ‘ odd and even,’* or ‘amity and conflict,’ 4 which illustrates what Iam saying. Thus they agree in one respect, while differing in others. Their differ- ences are obvious and are universally recognized; but what is not seen so generally is that they are all analogous in so far as they all rest upon the same fundamental conception of antithesis,¢ though some express it in a wider and some in a narrower formula.
To this extent, then, they agree and differ, and do worse or better one than the other; some, as already said, beginning with what is more accessible to intelli- gence and others with what is more accessible to (Unlimited), Met. 986 a 15. These are more abstract and remote principles than ‘ hot and cold,’ ele.—C.]
4 [Empedocles, whose Φιλότῃς and Neixos were opposed moving causes, cf. Afet. 985. 30 ob μίαν ποιήσας τὴν τῆς κινήσεως ἀρχὴν ἀλλ᾽ ἑτέρας καὶ cvavrias.—C, * (Cf. συστοιχία used of the Pythagoreans’ list of ten opposite principles, headed by Limit—Unlinited, Odd— 57 ARISTOTLE 4 La i τ & ré 4 A f 1890 THY αἴσθησιν---τὸ μὲν γὰρ καθόλου κατὰ τὸν λόγον γνώριμον, τὸ δὲ καθ᾽ ἕκαστον κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν" ὁ μὲν yap λόγος τοῦ καθόλου, ἡ δ᾽ αἴσθησις τοῦ κατὰ μέρος---οἷον τὸ μὲν μέγα καὶ τὸ μικρὸν κατὰ τὸν λόγον, τὸ δὲ μανὸν καὶ τὸ πυκνὸν κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν. 10 Ὅτι μὲν οὖν ἐναντίας δεῖ τὰς ἀρχὰς εἶναι φανερόν.
CHAPTER VI ARGUMENT * Antithesis, anvolving duality, beiny established as essential to natural changes, there must be at least two ‘principles’ between which the contrast ewists; and the hypothesis of an unlimited number of principles being ruled out, we must look for a definite number, not less than two, but not unnecessarily large; for ifa smaller number suffices, the hypothesis of a larger number, even of not demonstrably Salse, is at least superfluous (189 a 11-20).
Must we then go beyond two? Perhaps so, for it is f 3 2 a lal Ἐχόμενον δ᾽ ἂν εἴη λέγειν πότερον δύο ἢ τρεῖς ἢ πλεώους εἰσίν. Μίαν μὲν yap οὐχ οἷόν re, ὅτι ody ἕν τὸ ἐναντίον, Α lq, ἀπείρους δ᾽, ὅτι οὐκ ἐπιστητὸν τὸ ὃν ἔσται. μία τε ἐναντίωσις ἐν παντὶ γένει ἑνί, ἡ δ᾽ οὐσία ἕν * (The Platonie antithesis. See note on [87 a 17.—C.]
ἣν teu, 6 a 15. Contraries (ἐναντία) are defined, by a spatial metaphor, as ‘ things which, within the same ee (yévos), are separated by the greatest possible distance.’
sense; for the general is approached by the intelli- gence and the particular by lhe senses, since the mind grasps the universal prmaple and the senses the partial application. Thus, ‘ great and small’ ® are mental conceptions, while ‘ thick and thin ’ are sense impressions, Butin any case 10 is clear that the ‘ principles ’ must form a contrasted couple.
CHAPTER VI ARGUMEN’r (contenued) difficult to conceive uf the ‘ opposites’ acting directly upon each other, or constituting anything an combination. A ‘ material’ element for them to act upon seems essential: but there is no advantage in positing more than one such principle (a 20-b 27) We can see, therefore, that the ultimate principles of Nature can be reduced erther to three or to two, but wr must ewaning the question very carefully before commutting our- selves to either side of this alternative (Ὁ 27-29).
Tue ground might now seem to be clear for dis- cussing whether the ultimate principles of Nature are two, or three, or some greater but limited number.
A single principle will not do, for we have esta- blished antithesis as an ultimate constituent in Nature, and antithesis involves duality. Nor can the factors of Nature be unlimited, or Nature could not be made the object of knuwledge. Now, as far as antithesis goes, two principles would be enough, for every defined class comes under one general antithesis,? and the whole sum of ‘ things that exist 59 oh ARISTOTLE τι γένος. Kat ὅτι ἐνδέχεται ἐκ πεπερασμένων" βέλτιον δ᾽ ἐκ πεπερασμένων, ὥσπερ ᾿Εἰμπεδοκλῆς, ἢ ἐξ ἀπείρων' πάντα γὰρ ἀποδιδόναι οἴεται, ὅσα- περ ᾿Αναξαγόρας ἐκ τῶν ἀπείρων. ἔτι δέ ἐστιν ἄλλα ἄλλων πρότερα ἐναντία, καὶ γίνεται ἕτερα ἐξ ἄλλων (οἷον γλυκὺ καὶ πικρὸν καὶ λευκὸν καὶ μέλαν)" τὰς δ᾽ ἀρχὰς ἀεὶ δεῖ μένειν. ὅτι μὲν οὖν οὔτε μία οὔτε ἄπειροι, δῆλον ee τούτων.
Ἐπεὶ δὲ πεπερασμέναι, τὸ μὴ ποιεῖν δύο μόνον ἔχει τινὰ λόγον. ἀπορήσειε γὰρ ἄν τις πῶς i) ἡ πυκνότης τὴν μανότητα ποιεῖν τι, πέφυκεν ἢ αὕτη τὴν πυκνότητα" ὁμοίως (be “καὶ ἄλλη ὁποιαοῦν ἐναντιότης" οὐ γὰρ ἡ φιλία τὸ νεῖκος συνάγει καὶ ποιεῖ τι ἐξ αὐτοῦ, οὐδὲ τὸ νεῖκος ἐξ ἐκείνης, ἀλλ᾽ ἄμφω ἕτερόν τι τρίτον. ἔνιοι δὲ καὶ πλείω 4 The student must resist the temptation to take οὐσία and γένος in this passage in the sense that first suggests itself, of ‘ substance’ and ‘ category’ respectively. I follow Simplicius (198, 28) in taking οὐσία to stand here and elsc- where in this chapter for ‘ all the concrete things that con- stitute Nature and are capable of change,’ τὰ φυσικὰ πάντα πράγματα, as distinct from the immaterial existences touched upon, or dealt with, in the De caelo and the Metaphysica, and led up to in the Physics. ΔΒ to their all being embraced under one antithesis cf. Introduction, p. 6.
δ. Sweet and bitter’ are regarded as the two extremes between which all savours stand, and between which all changes of savour move. ‘ White and black’ are the bid Wipe extremes of colour. But these ‘ couples’ must be regarded as special cases of some more general contrast, e.g. ‘hot and cold’ (Parmenides), [De gen. et corr. B 2, explains that secondary couples of contrasted qualities (e.g. sweet-biiter) are derived from the primary (tangible) couples, hot-cold, wet-dry, whose combinations constitute the nature of the ‘simple bodies’ (earth, air, 60 PHYSICS, I. τι.
60 PHYSICS, I. τι.
in Nature,’ as such, forms a defined class.¢ Since, then, one antithesis will suffice, αὐ is better not to go beyond it; for the more limited, if adequate, is always preferable, as we saw in the case of Kmype- docies, who claims to get everything out of his four substances that Anaxaporas claims to get out of his unlimited number. Or we may put it that some antitheses are more general than others, and some are derived from others. Such subordinate anti- theses are exemplified by ‘sweet and bitter’ or ‘black and white’ But the fundamental principles must be in evidence im every case.” Obviously, then, since antithesis is fundamental and imphes duality, the ultimate principles, though limited in number, must be more than one.
But, granting them to be limited, there are reasons for supposing them to be more than two. For (1) a man might well be ata loss to conceive how ‘density’ itself, for instance, could possibly make ‘rarity’s’ self into anything, or ‘ rarity’ density’s. And so too with any other antithesis; for, I suppose, we are not asked to think of ‘amity’ drawing ‘ hostility ’ closer together and thereby constructing something out of it, nor vice versa, rather than both of them acting upon a third something.< (2) And water, fire). The indefinitely numerous secondary couples cannot be permanent principlcs.—C.]
5 [ΟἹ De gen. et corr. A 6-10, on ‘ action and passion,’ and 329 b 20 ff. δεῖ δὲ ποιητικὰ καὶ παθητικὰ εἶναι ἀλλήλων τὰ στοιχεῖα. Cf. Joachim, ad loc. Aristotle’s primary con- traries (hot-cold, wet-dry) enable the ‘simple bodies’ to act on one another and to compose substances of a higher order. But Anaximenes’ ‘ density’ cannot act on ἡ rarity’ or make it anything, nor could Empedocles’ ‘ amity’ produce anything out of ‘hostility’ by its characteristic power of ‘ drawing together ἡ unlike elements into a umty.—C.] δὶ 5 ARISTOTLE 189a λαμβάνουσιν ἐξ ὧν κατασκευάζουσιν τὴν τῶν ὄντων φύσιν, πρὸς δὲ τούτοις ἔτι κἂν τόδε τις ἀπορή- σειεν, εἰ μή τις ἑτέραν ὑποτίθησι τοῖς ἐναντίοις , fA a μὲ, φύσιν: οὐθενὸς γὰρ ὁρῶμεν τῶν ὄντων οὐσίαν 80 τἀναντία" τὴν δ᾽ ἀρχὴν οὐ καθ᾽ ὑποκειμένου δεῖ 85 a λέγεσθαξ τινος (ἔσται yap ἀρχὴ τῆς ἀρχῆς" τὸ yap ὑποκείμενον ἀρχή, καὶ πρότερον δοκεῖ τοῦ κατηγο- ρουμένου εἶναι). ἔτι οὐκ εἶναί φαμεν οὐσίαν ἐναντίαν οὐσίᾳ. πῶς οὖν ἐκ μὴ οὐσιῶν οὐσία ἂν εἴη; ἢ πῶς ἂν πρότερον μὴ οὐσία οὐσίας εἴη; Διόπερ εἴ τις τόν τε πρότερον ἀληθῆ νομίσειεν εἶναι λόγον καὶ τοῦτον, ἀναγκαῖον, εἰ μέλλει διασώσειν ἀμφοτέρους αὐτούς, ὑποτιθέναι τι τρίτον" ὥσπερ φασὶν οἱ μίαν τινὰ φύσιν εἶναι λέγοντες τὸ πᾶν, οἷον ὕδωρ ἢ πῦρ ἢ τὸ μεταξὺ τούτων. δοκεῖ δὲ τὸ μεταξὺ μᾶλλον: πῦρ γὰρ ἤδη καὶ γῆ καὶ ἀὴρ καὶ ὕδωρ μετ᾽ ἐναντιοτήτων συμπεπλεγμένα ἐστίν" διὸ καὶ οὐκ ἀλόγως ποιοῦσιν οἱ τὸ ὑποκείμενον 4 feg. Democritus’s infinite atoms, Empedoeles’ four elements (Simplic.).—C.]
> Aristotle states thig a3 an argument that might well suggest itself to a man. He does not commit himself to its validity. As a matter of fact, he inclines to regard both the contrasted terms of the antithesis and the material on which they act as logical abstractions, neither of which has actual existence except as associated with the other in a compositum. Cf, Introduction, pp. hv-lv.
6 {*Natural existence,’ i.e. a ‘substance’ in the primary and fullest sense. A substance has no contrary, but, while remaining one and the same, admits contrary qualities 62 PHYSICS, L. νι.
indeed some thinkers have assumed more than one such principle oul of which to consiruct the nature of things.” (8) Besides, one might encounter another difficulty in supposing there to be nothing in Nature underlying the antithetical couple; for we never see the antithetical principles, by themselves, con- stituting the substantive existence of anything we know in Nature, and a true principle cannot be the mere attribute of something else, for the subject to which αὖ was attributed would be a principle anterior to it, inasmuch as it would be presupposed in the very fact of having this attribute predicated of it.? (4) Nor can we make ‘natural existence ἢ the term of an antithesis,° for things move from one term of an antithesis to the other, and since nothing ‘exists in Nature’ that 1s contrasted with ‘ natural existence,’ how could any such existent move out of what is not there for it to move out of? Or how could such a non-existent be a presupposition of the existent ἢ Thus, if our former insistence on the two terms of some antithesis being principles is sound, and if we are now convinced that these antithetical principles need something to work on, and if we are to preserve both these conclusions, must we not necessarily posit a third principle as the subject on which the anti- thetical principles act? And it is this third principle that those physicists are really thinking about who say that the universe has but one single constituent, water or fire or some intermediate substance.4 Of these the hypothesis of an intermediate substance seems best, for fire, earth, air, and water, are them- selves implicated with contrasted properties; so that there is reason in distinguishing the universal 63 10 1h 20 ARISTOTLE ig Fs a ~ > Mu [ἡ 27 ἕτερον τούτων ποιοῦντες, τῶν δ᾽ ἄλλων of dépa: καὶ yap 6 ἀὴρ ἥκιστα ἔχει τῶν ἄλλων διαφορὰς αἰσθητάς, ἐχόμενον δὲ τὸ ὕδωρ. ἀλλὰ πάντες γε τὸ ἕν τοῦτο τοῖς ἐναντίοις σχηματίζουσιν, οἷον πυκνότητι καὶ μανότητι Kal τῷ μᾶλλον Kal ἧττον. ταῦτα δ᾽ ἐστὶν ὅλως ὑπεροχὴ δηλονότι καὶ ἔλλειψις (ὥσπερ εἴρηται πρότερον): Kal ἔοικε παλαιὰ εἶναι \ Ly ¢, a soa Ἂ ΔΕ \ You καὶ αὕτη ἡ δόξα, ὅτι τὸ ἕν καὶ ὑπεροχὴ καὶ ἔλλειψις ἀρχαὶ τῶν ὄντων εἰσί (πλὴν οὐ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον, ἀλλ᾽ οἱ μὲν ἀρχαῖοι τὰ δύο μὲν ποιεῖν τὸ δὲ ἕν πάσχειν, τῶν δ᾽ ὕστερόν τινες τοὐναντίον τὸ μὲν ἕν ποιεῖν τὰ δὲ δύο πάσχειν φασὶ μᾶλλον). f a To μὲν οὖν τρία φάναι τὰ στοιχεῖα εἶναι ἔκ τε , τούτων καὶ ἐκ τοιούτων ἄλλων ἐπισκοποῦσι δόξειεν ἂν ἔχειν τινὰ λόγον (ὥσπερ εἴπομεν), τὸ δὲ πλείω τριῶν οὐκέτι. πρὸς yap τὸ πάσχειν \ Mw ἱκανὸν τὸ ἕν' εἰ δὲ τεττάρων ὄντων δύο ἔσονται ἐναντιώσεις, δεήσει χωρὶς ἑκατέρας ὑπάρχειν ἑτέραν τινὰ μεταξὺ φύσιν" εἰ δ᾽ ἐξ ἀλλήλων δύνανται γεννᾶν δύο οὖσαι, περίεργος ἂν ἡ ἑτέρα τῶν 4 (Or, ‘and of the rest (who make it some one element) those who make it air (are the most reasonable).’—~C.]
4 Whereas Aristotle (as against Empedocles) took it as a direct datum of observation that the ‘four elements’ themselves pass into each other. Therefore there cannot be any two or more ultimate material principles, acted upon by distinct antithetical ‘ couples’ irreducible to a common principle. {The argument is: ‘ If there were four active contrasted principles, then (1) if each couple is in- 64 PHYSICS, I. νι.
material element from all of them; though some have identified it with air,* inasmuch as Lhe special characteristics of air are less obtrusive on the senses than those of the others, water coming next in this respect. But the Physicists, each and all, mould this universal subject matter by such antithetical principles as density and rarity, or ‘ more and less,’ all which couples may be reduced to ‘ excess and defect’ as already pointed out. In reality, this doctrine, that the ‘one’ and ‘ exeess and defect’ are the principles of all that is, turns out to have been in possession of men’s minds from of old; but not always in the same way, for the earlier thinkers made the ‘one’ the receplive subject and the contrasted ‘two’ the active agents, whereas more recently the ‘two’ have sometimes been regarded as the subject passively acted upon and the ‘ one’ as the agent.
So from these and other considerations it appears that there is much to be said for assuming three principles, but not for going beyond three. For one passive principle is enough. And if there were supposed to be four altogether, and they were to constitute two couples, each couple would demand a subject of its own to act upon, apart from the other couple;@ or, if one were derivative from the other, it would not count among the ἡ principles,’ for it dependent of the other, each will need a separate passive principle (whereas one is enough); (2) if one couple is derivable from the other, there will really be only one primary couple; the seeond will be superfluous. — ‘This interpretation of the second alternative is Porphyry’s, in Simplicius (206, 3), who objects that γεννᾶσθαι (for γεννᾶν} would be required, and himself understands εἰ δὲ ἐξ ἀλλήλων πάντα γεννῶσι.---(,} VoL. I 65 ARISTOTLE 189b ἐναντιώσεων εἴη. ἅμα δὲ καὶ ἀδύνατον πλείους 2 δι εἷναι ἐναντιώσεις Tas πρώτας. ἡ yap οὐσία ἕν τι γένος ἐστὶ τοῦ ὄντος, ὥστε τῷ πρότερον καὶ ὕστερον διοίσουσιν ἀλλήλων αἱ ἀρχαὶ μόνον, ἀλλ οὐ τῷ γένει: ἀεὶ γὰρ ἐν ἑνὶ γένει μία ἐναντίωσίς ἐστιν, πᾶσαί τε ai ἐναντιώσεις ἀνάγεσθαι δοκοῦσιν εἰς μίαν. τι μὲν οὖν οὔτε ἕν τὸ στοιχεῖον οὔτε πλείω δυοῖν ἢ τριῶν, φανερόν' τούτων δὲ πότερον (καθάπερ Y εἴπομεν) ἀπορίαν ἔχει πολλήν.
CHAPTER VII INTRODUCTORY NOTE ΤῊΣ theses of this critically important chapter present no very great difficulties in themselves; but the hints in which they are set forth leave s0 much to be developed and connected together by the reader, as to suggest that here, as so often elsewhere in Aristotle’s writings, we have notes of lectures rather an elaborated argument. Moreover, this chapter is at the same time an example of the opposite characteristics of repetition and over- elaborated redundancy, which often raises the suspicion that here, as in many of Aristotle’s works, our present texts show traces of the fusion of two different recensions. Torstrik, whoye attempt to disentangle two recensions from the present text of the De Anima is well known, seems to have had his suspicions first roused by a study of the Physics.* The actual existence of two (and in some Books three) separate recensions of the Ethics, with fragmentary evidence in the same direction with regard ἀο other works of Aristotle, affords a basis for Torstmk’s 4 Aristotelis De Anima Libri Tres, Recensuit Adolphus Torstrik. Berolini, 1862, p. ii.
66 would not be primary. Nor could there be two primary antitheses; for ‘natural existence ’ groups ‘all that is in Nature’ under a single aspect, so that the supposed pairs of principles could only differ from each other in priority, and could not belong to different series; for there is never more than one general antithesis common to one group, and it seems that all antitheses can be brought under one general antithesis.
It is clear, then, that there must be more than one element or principle, and Lhat there cannot be more than two or three. But, within these limits, the decision as between two and three presents great difficulties.
CHAPTER VII INTRODUCTORY NOTE (continued) hypothesis; and whet we know of the recovery and editing of Aristotle’s manuscripts in the time of Sulla and Cicero gives it additional verisimiltude.
So much for the text. The translation presents special difficulties; for a great part of the chapter is devoted to the careful examination of certain Greek words and forms of expression, with their symmetries, balancings, and ambiguities, to which there are no English equivalents; though some general conception of their nature may be gathered from considering the difficulties in which the English writer may often find himself when he wishes to distinguish between the transitive and neuter significance of such verbs as, for example, ‘ change ’ and ‘ nove.’
Thus, if A ‘ changes’ B (transitive), B itself ‘ changes’ (neuter), and, in this sense, it is B only that ‘ changes,’ and not A at all, Or if A is ‘ moving’ B (irarisitive’, it 67 ARISTOTLE INTRODUCTORY NOTE (continued) is A only, and not B, that is ‘ moving ἡ in this sense, but yet both are ‘ moving ’ in the intransitive sense, Similarly in Greek the one verb giynesthai may mean either ‘ become ’ (A becomes B), or ‘ come into existence ’ (B comes into existence), Again, in some cases, but not in all, to say that A ‘ becomes ' (gignetaz) B implies, as its reciprocal, that B has taken the place of (gignetai ek) A, and is there instead of it. This want of symmetry and its rationale must be inquired into. But yet again, this very phrase (gignetai el) is itself ambiguous, for it may mean either that B has ‘ taken the place ’ of A (blackness taken the place of whiteness, for example, so that the whiteness is no louger there), or that B is ‘made of’ A (the statue made of bronze). [In the case of black replacing white, the subject of gigneta is commonly the thing which persists through the change: ‘a man becomes black from being white.’ When B is ‘ made of’ A, A persists and is called τὸ ἐξ οὔ évymdpxyovros—the factor out of which the generation occurs, but which remains a constituent of ARGUMENT ARGUMENT Taking the illustration of the bronze and the Hermes as our starting-point, we see that in every change there is a factor (the bronze) that persists, a factor (the Hermes-form) that has ‘ come into being’ in the process of change, and a factor (the amorphousness of the unfounded bronze) that has disappeared and been superseded. Here, then, we have the ‘ material’ on which the change has been wrought, and the terms of antithesis between which the change itself takes place, the ‘ material’ being the persistent factor, and the ὁ terms of the antithesis’ the factors that come and ga.
In other cases the persistence and identity of the‘ material’ is not so obvious; fur a number of the characteristics of an object (its colour, shape, consistency, size, etc.) may all be changing at once, each alony its own antithetical line, 80 that the acorn, for example, cannot well be said to ‘ persist’ 68 PHYSICS, J. vu.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE (continued) the thing generated (unlike the ‘ shortage,’ which is superseded hy the ‘ form ’).—C.]
Obvious truth had been obsenred and missed, and serious fallacies fallen into, by Greek thinkers for want, of a careful analysis of these linguistic confusions and distinctions. The best Γ have been able to do, without intolerable violence to English idiom, is sometimes to give a make-shift paraphrase (which loses minch of the relevauce and all of the sharpness of outline of the original), and sometimes to be content with simply pomting out the identity in Greek of two expressions that have no re- semblance to cach other in English.
du the ‘ Argument,’ however, I have endeavoured to disentangle the main theses of the chapter from the verbal analyses in which they are involved, and at the same time to give them the expansions which (when read in the light of other passages in Aristotle’s works) they seem at once to warrant and to demand.
It is to the ‘ Argument,’ therefore, rather than to the tianslation, that the English reader must look for guidance.
ARGUMENT (continued) in the oak; but here, too, there is a ‘ something to start with’ as the subject of a continuous change; and the change, however complex, can always be resolved into a combination of antithetvcal movements.* But what about this ‘ something to start with’ itself? The bronze or the seed, from which we chose to start, stands at the end, as well as at the beginning, of a certain develop- ment. What ix its material, and what did it start from itself? We can trace it back and back as far as to the four elemental substances, but no further, These substances, 4 The difference and underlying identity of these two kinds of change is developed in the De gen. et cor. Its relation to the divergent theory expounded in Physics τ. will be caamuned τη its place.
69 ARISTOTLE ARGUMENT (continued) however, cannot themselues be accepted as the ultimate material, for they have antithetical characteristics and can be transmuted into each other by antithetical changes. The cold-moist water can become the hot-moist vapour (or air) by antithetical change; and the moisture itself, which has so fur persisted, is the term of un antithesis, and may disappear in its turn, uf the hot-moist vapour passes into the hot-dry fire.
And yet analogy and conceptual analysis forbid us to resolve the objective-sensible world altogether into antitheses acting upon each other (of. Gen. Introd. p. xxv). We have already seen not only that dry cannot directly act upon moist, without a subject to act upon and be incorporated in, but also that moist, as such, cannot ‘ become’ or ‘ be replaced by’ hot, as such, under any circumstances (uny more than solid, as such, could become, or be replaced by, blue, as such), for moist and hot, respectively, are terms each of its own antithesis, along the line of which alone it can change.
So although, as we trace the material back, it yields more and more to analysis into antitheses, and never ceases to evade us when we pursue it, yet we cannot quite get rid of it, Nay, it is itself the one and only ‘ persistent’ and 189b 80 Ὧδ᾽ οὖν ἡμεῖς λέγωμεν πρῶτον περὶ πάσης γενέσεως ἐπελθόντες" ἔστι γὰρ κατὰ φύσιν τὰ κοινὰ πρῶτον εἰπόντας οὕτω τὰ περὶ ἕκαστον ἴδια θεωρεῖν.
Φαμὲν γὰρ γίνεσθαι ἐξ ἄλλου ἄλλο καὶ ἐξ ἑτέρου ἕτερον ἢ τὰ ἁπλᾶ λέγοντες ἢ τὰ συγκείμενα.
λέγω δὲ τοῦτο WSL. ἔστι γὰρ γίνεσθαι ἄνθρωπον * Itis convenient to call it ‘ matter’ in English, though there is only one word in Greek (hyle) both for the immediate and for the ultimate material of which anything 1s made.
70 PHYSICS, I. vn.
ARGUMENT (coztinwed) ὁ continuous’ and‘ non-contrasted’ principle of the persistent objective-sensible world. It vs always there, thongh we can never wsolate rt.
The' principles, then, are a coupled or antithetiral ‘ two? in ὦ way; but, when all is said and done, they are also ‘ three’ in another way, which other way cannot be ignored.
Well, but suppose we accept the ὁ material’ prineyle tess grudgingly, and lay down as our fundamental basis the ‘ultimate material’? of all things, and then consider the collectivity of the perceptible attributes that (on the analogy of the statue) we call the ‘ form?’ of whatever it is that we are eramining. Are not these ‘two’ principles, ‘ matter’ and ‘ form,’ enough? Statically perhaps they are, but not dynamually; for (as we shall see more fully in the neat chapter) the hronze, for instance, ean only ὁ become’ the statue in virtue af ὁ not being’ the statue already, Tt is a condition of tts ‘acquiring’ the form, that wt should “ not yet have’ ut. ‘ Shortage,’ therefore, or ‘ privation,’ 1s an essential factor in‘ becoming,’ even though we should try to reduce the ‘ antithesis’ to a single term and make that one term do ail the work by its presence or absence.
So again, however hurd we plead for ‘two, in one way, we have to add‘ but three in another way.’
In advancing now to the formulation of a positive theory, let us begin with the general conception of ‘change’ (that is to say, of things ‘ coming into existence ’ altogether, or ‘ becoming this or that’ in particular which they were not before), Vor the natural order of exposition, as we have seen, 15 to start from the general principle and proceed to the special applications.
Note, then, that in speaking of one thing becoming another, or one thing coming out of, or in the place of, another, we may use erther (1) simple or (2) complex terms. 1 mean that we can say either (1) 71 10 16 ARISTOTLE μουσικόν, ἔστι δὲ τὸ μὴ μουσικὸν γίνεσθαι μουσικόν, ἢ τὸν μὴ μουσικὸν ἄνθρωπον ἀνθρωπον μουσικόν. ἁπλοῦν μὲν οὖν λέγω τὸ γιγνόμενον τὸν ἄνθρωπον καὶ τὸ μὴ μουσικόν, καὶ ὃ γίγνεται ἁπλοῦν τὸ μουσικόν: συγκείμενον δὲ καὶ 6 γίγνεται καὶ τὸ γιγνόμενον, ὅταν τὸν μὴ μουσικὸν ἄνθρωπον φῶ- μεν γίγνεσθαι μουσικὸν ἄνθρωπον. Τούτων δὲ τὸ μὲν οὐ μόνον λέγεται τόδε γίγνε- σθαι ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐκ τοῦδε (οἷον ἐκ μὴ μουσικοῦ μουσικός)" τὸ δ᾽ οὐ λέγεται ἐπὶ πάντων: οὐ γὰρ ἐξ ἀνθρώπου ἐγένετο μουσικός, ἀλλ᾽ ἄνθρωπος ἐγένετο μουσικός. Τῶν δὲ γινομένων ὡς τὰ ἁπλᾶ λέγομεν γίγνε- \ σθαι, τὸ μὲν ὑπομένον γίγνεται τὸ δ᾽ οὐχ ὑπομένον" Fd ὁ μὲν yap ἄνθρωπος ὑπομένει μουσικὸς γινόμενος \ ἄνθρωπος καὶ ἔστι, TO δὲ μὴ μουσιιςὸν καὶ τὸ ἄμουσον οὔτε ἁπλῶς οὔτε συντιθέμενον ὑπομένει. Διωρισμένων δὲ τούτων, ἐξ ἁπάντων τῶν γιγνο- μένων τοῦτο ἔστι λαβεῖν, ἐάν τις ἐπιβλέψῃ (ὥσπερ λέγομεν), ὅτι δεῖ τι ἀεὶ ὑποκεῖσθαι τὸ γινόμενον, καὶ τοῦτο εἰ καὶ ἀριθμῷ ἐστιν ἕν, ἀλλ᾽ εἴδει ye οὐχ d ἕν: τὸ yap εἴδει λέγω καὶ λόγῳ ταὐτόν: οὐ yap ταὐτὸν τὸ ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ τὸ ἀμούσῳ εἶναι. Kal τὸ 4 [This conclusion is Aristotle’s main point. Down to a 31 he is thinking mainly of changes involving the gain of a positive attribute. In what sense does this something ‘come to he out of what is not’? There is always a subject wx which is there before and after the change; and even before it galns the new attribute, it is conceptually complex —o which is not-t (subject + ‘shortage ’).—C.]
72 PHYSICS, I. vit.
that a ‘man’ becomes cullured, or that the ‘ un- cultured’ im him is replaced by culture, or (2) that the ‘ uncultured man’ becomes ἃ ‘ cultivated man.’ In this case (1) the ‘man’ (who acquires culture), and his state of ‘ uncullure’ (which is replaced by culture) and the ‘culture’ itself (which was not, but has ‘come to be’) are all what I call ‘simple’ terms; whereas (2) both the ‘ uncultivated man,’ who became something he was not, and the ‘ culti- vated man’ that he became, are what I eall ‘ com- posite ’ Lerms.
And note that in some of these cases we can say, not only that a thing ‘ becomes so-and-so,’ but also that 1t does so ‘ from being so-and-so’; e.g. a man becomes cultivated from being uncultivated. But we cannot use this expression in all cases; for he does not become cultivated ‘ from being a man’; on the contrary, he becomes a cultivated man.
And of the two simple terms, ‘man’ and ‘ un- cultivated ’ (both of which we said ‘ became’ some- thing), one (the ‘ man ’) persists when he has become a cultivated man; but the other (the ‘ uncultivated ’ or ‘ non-cultivated ’ in him) does not persist either in the simple ‘cultivated’ which we say it has ‘become ’ or in the composite ‘ cultivated man.’
Observing these distinctions, we may reach a principle of universal application (if we ‘ observingly distil it out,’ as they say), namely that in all cases of becoming there must always be a subject—the thing which becomes or changes, and this subject, though constituting a unit, may be analysed into two concepts and expressed in two terms with different definitions; for the definition of ‘man’ is distinct from the definition of ‘ uncultivated.’ ¢ 73 ARISTOTLE 1805 μὲν ὑπομένει, τὸ δ᾽ οὐχ ὑπομένει--τὸ μὲν μὴ ἀντικείμενον ὑπομένει (6 yap ἄνθρωπος ὑπομένει), 20 τὸ μουσικὸν δὲ καὶ τὸ ἄμουσον οὐχ ὑπομένει, οὐδὲ τὸ ἐξ ἀμφοῖν συγκείμενον (οἷον 6 ἄμουσος ἄν- θρωπος). Τὸ δ᾽ ἔκ τινος γίγνεσθαί τι (καὶ μὴ τόδε γίγνεσθαί τῇ μᾶλλον μὲν λέγεται ἐπὶ τῶν μὴ ὑπομενόντων (οἷον ἐξ ἀμούσου μουσικὸν γίνεσθαι, ἐξ ἀνθρώπου δὲ } > \ Ξλλὰ ἌΡ me | “- ς Q ἐ ov): od μὴν ἀλλὰ Kal ἐπὶ τῶν ὑπομενόντων > lol 85 ἐνίοτε λέγεται ὡσαύτως" ἐκ yap χαλκοῦ ἀνδριάντα f γίγνεσθαί φαμεν, od τὸν χαλκὸν ἀνδριάντα. τὸ μέντοι ἐκ τοῦ ἀντικειμένου καὶ μὴ ὑπομένοντος ἀμφοτέρως λέγεται----καὶ ex τοῦδε τόδε, καὶ τόδε τόδε' καὶ γὰρ ἐξ ἀμούσου καὶ ὁ ἄμουσος γίνεται μουσικός. διὸ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ συγκειμένου ὡσαύτως" 80 καὶ γὰρ ἐξ ἀμούσου ἀνθρώπου καὶ ὁ ἄμουσος Ἂ f é / ἄνθρωπος γίγνεσθαι λέγεται μουσικός. Πολλαχῶς δὲ λεγομένου τοῦ γίγνεσθαι, καὶ τῶν μὲν οὐ γίγνεσθαι ἀλλὰ τόδε τι γίγνεσθαι, ἁπλῶς δὲ γίγνεσθαι τῶν οὐσιῶν μόνων, κατὰ μὲν τἄλλα φανερὸν ὅτι ἀνάγκη ὑποκεῖσθαί τι τὸ γιγνόμενον---- A 86 Kal yap ποσὸν καὶ ποιὸν καὶ πρὸς ἕτερον καὶ ποτὲ 14 PHYSICS, I. vit.
And the one persists while the other disappears— the one that persists being the one that is not embraced in an antithesis; for it is the ‘man’ that persists, and neither the simple ‘ cultured’ or ‘ un- cultivated ’ nor the composite ‘ uncultivated man.’
When we speak of something ‘ becoming from or out of’ whatever it may be (rather than of its ‘ be- coming so-and-so’), we generally mean by the thing Jrom or out of which the becoming takes place, the non-persistent term or aspect: thus, we speak of becoming cultivated from being uncultivated, not from being a man. Still the expression ‘ out of’ is used sometimes of the factor which persists: we say a statue is made out of bronze, not that the bronze becomes a statue (in the sense of ceasing to be bronze). When, however, the thing from or out of which the becoming occurs is the contrasted, non- persistent term, both expressions are used: we can say of a thing, e.g. ‘ the uncultivated’ (man), either that he ‘becomes this’ (cultivated) or that he ‘becomes this (cultivated) from being that (un- eultivated).’ Hence it is the same with the composite terms: we say that the ‘ uncultivated man’ becomes cultivated and also that he becomes so ‘ from being an uncultivated man,’ But there is (in Greek) a further ambiguity; for the same word (gignesthai) is employed either of a thing ‘ coming to be’ in the absolute sense of ‘ coming into existence,’ or in the sense of ‘ coming to be this oy that’ which it was not before; and it is only of a concrete thing, as such, that we can speak of its ‘coming to be’ in the full sense of coming into existence. Now in all other cases of change, whether of quantity or quality or relation or time or place, it 75 ARISTOTLE 1908 καὶ ποῦ γίνεται ὑποκειμένου τινός, διὰ τὸ μόνην τὴν οὐσίαν μηθενὸς κατ᾽ ἄλλου λέγεσθαι ὑπο- 190} κειμένου, τὰ δ᾽ ἄλλα πάντα κατὰ τῆς οὐσίας---ὅτι δὲ καὶ ai οὐσίαι καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα ἁπλῶς ὄντα ἐξ ὑπο- κειμένου τινὸς γίνεται, ἐπισκοποῦντι γένοιτ᾽ ἂν φανερόν" αει yap €CTL TL ὁ UTOKELTAL, ἐξ ου γίνεται ὁ τὸ γιγνόμενον, οἷον τὰ φυτὰ καὶ τὰ ζῷα ἐκ σπέρ- ματος. γίγνεται δὲ τα γίιγνομενα ἁπλῶς Ta μεν 3 ἢ lo μετασχηματίσει (οἷον ἀνδριὰς ἐκ χαλκοῦ), τὰ δὲ προσθέσει (οἷον τὰ αὐξανόμενα), τὰ δ᾽ ἀφαιρέσει “ ι nl (οἷον ἐκ τοῦ λίθου ὁ ᾿Ἑρμῆς), τὰ δὲ συνθέσει (οἷον 3 οἰκία), τὰ δ᾽ ἀλλοιώσει (οἷον τὰ τρεπόμενα κατὰ 1 τὴν ὕλην). πάντα δὲ τὰ οὕτω γινόμενα φανερὸν OTL ἐξ υποκειμενῶν γίνεται. Ὥστε δῆλον ἐκ τῶν εἰρημένων ὅτι TO γινόμενον Ψ 7 Ss tA / > ed ͵ A απαν GAEL σύνθετόν εστίι, Καὶ EOTL μεν τι γίινομένον, €OTt δέ TL O Τοῦτο yWeTat, καὶ TOUTQ διττόν’ υ) γὰρ τὸ ὑποκείμενον ἢ τὸ ἀντικείμενον. λέγω δὲ ἀντικεῖσθαι μεν TO ἀμοῦσον, ὑποκεῖσθαι δὲ TOV α [rd γινόμενον means the total thing—either subject + ‘shortage’ (before the change) or subjecL+form (after the change). There must be a subject+‘shortage’ in all ‘ be- coming ’—-both change and ‘ absolute becoming.’—C,] 76 PHYSICS, I. vis.