Metaphysics
By Aristotle
Written 350 B.C.E
Translated by W. D. Ross
Part 1
"The subject of our inquiry is substance; for the principles and
the causes we are seeking are those of substances. For if the universe
is of the nature of a whole, substance is its first part; and if it coheres
merely by virtue of serial succession, on this view also substance is first,
and is succeeded by quality, and then by quantity. At the same time these
latter are not even being in the full sense, but are qualities and movements
of it,-or else even the not-white and the not-straight would be being;
at least we say even these are, e.g. 'there is a not-white'. Further, none
of the categories other than substance can exist apart. And the early philosophers
also in practice testify to the primacy of substance; for it was of substance
that they sought the principles and elements and causes. The thinkers of
the present day tend to rank universals as substances (for genera are universals,
and these they tend to describe as principles and substances, owing to
the abstract nature of their inquiry); but the thinkers of old ranked particular
things as substances, e.g. fire and earth, not what is common to both,
body.
"There are three kinds of substance-one that is sensible
(of which one subdivision is eternal and another is perishable; the latter
is recognized by all men, and includes e.g. plants and animals), of which
we must grasp the elements, whether one or many; and another that is immovable,
and this certain thinkers assert to be capable of existing apart, some
dividing it into two, others identifying the Forms and the objects of mathematics,
and others positing, of these two, only the objects of mathematics. The
former two kinds of substance are the subject of physics (for they imply
movement); but the third kind belongs to another science, if there is no
principle common to it and to the other kinds.
Part 2
"
"Sensible substance is changeable. Now if change proceeds from
opposites or from intermediates, and not from all opposites (for the voice
is not-white, (but it does not therefore change to white)), but from the
contrary, there must be something underlying which changes into the contrary
state; for the contraries do not change. Further, something persists, but
the contrary does not persist; there is, then, some third thing besides
the contraries, viz. the matter. Now since changes are of four kinds-either
in respect of the 'what' or of the quality or of the quantity or of the
place, and change in respect of 'thisness' is simple generation and destruction,
and change in quantity is increase and diminution, and change in respect
of an affection is alteration, and change of place is motion, changes will
be from given states into those contrary to them in these several respects.
The matter, then, which changes must be capable of both states. And since
that which 'is' has two senses, we must say that everything changes from
that which is potentially to that which is actually, e.g. from potentially
white to actually white, and similarly in the case of increase and diminution.
Therefore not only can a thing come to be, incidentally, out of that which
is not, but also all things come to be out of that which is, but is potentially,
and is not actually. And this is the 'One' of Anaxagoras; for instead of
'all things were together'-and the 'Mixture' of Empedocles and Anaximander
and the account given by Democritus-it is better to say 'all things were
together potentially but not actually'. Therefore these thinkers seem to
have had some notion of matter. Now all things that change have matter,
but different matter; and of eternal things those which are not generable
but are movable in space have matter-not matter for generation, however,
but for motion from one place to another.
"One might raise the
question from what sort of non-being generation proceeds; for 'non-being'
has three senses. If, then, one form of non-being exists potentially, still
it is not by virtue of a potentiality for any and every thing, but different
things come from different things; nor is it satisfactory to say that 'all
things were together'; for they differ in their matter, since otherwise
why did an infinity of things come to be, and not one thing? For 'reason'
is one, so that if matter also were one, that must have come to be in actuality
which the matter was in potency. The causes and the principles, then, are
three, two being the pair of contraries of which one is definition and
form and the other is privation, and the third being the
matter.
Part 3
"
"Note, next, that neither the matter nor the form comes to be-and
I mean the last matter and form. For everything that changes is something
and is changed by something and into something. That by which it is changed
is the immediate mover; that which is changed, the matter; that into which
it is changed, the form. The process, then, will go on to infinity, if
not only the bronze comes to be round but also the round or the bronze
comes to be; therefore there must be a stop.
"Note, next, that
each substance comes into being out of something that shares its name.
(Natural objects and other things both rank as substances.) For things
come into being either by art or by nature or by luck or by spontaneity.
Now art is a principle of movement in something other than the thing moved,
nature is a principle in the thing itself (for man begets man), and the
other causes are privations of these two.
"There are three kinds
of substance-the matter, which is a 'this' in appearance (for all things
that are characterized by contact and not, by organic unity are matter
and substratum, e.g. fire, flesh, head; for these are all matter, and the
last matter is the matter of that which is in the full sense substance);
the nature, which is a 'this' or positive state towards which movement
takes place; and again, thirdly, the particular substance which is composed
of these two, e.g. Socrates or Callias. Now in some cases the 'this' does
not exist apart from the composite substance, e.g. the form of house does
not so exist, unless the art of building exists apart (nor is there generation
and destruction of these forms, but it is in another way that the house
apart from its matter, and health, and all ideals of art, exist and do
not exist); but if the 'this' exists apart from the concrete thing, it
is only in the case of natural objects. And so Plato was not far wrong
when he said that there are as many Forms as there are kinds of natural
object (if there are Forms distinct from the things of this earth). The
moving causes exist as things preceding the effects, but causes in the
sense of definitions are simultaneous with their effects. For when a man
is healthy, then health also exists; and the shape of a bronze sphere exists
at the same time as the bronze sphere. (But we must examine whether any
form also survives afterwards. For in some cases there is nothing to prevent
this; e.g. the soul may be of this sort-not all soul but the reason; for
presumably it is impossible that all soul should survive.) Evidently then
there is no necessity, on this ground at least, for the existence of the
Ideas. For man is begotten by man, a given man by an individual father;
and similarly in the arts; for the medical art is the formal cause of
health.
Part 4
"
"The causes and the principles of different things are in a sense
different, but in a sense, if one speaks universally and analogically,
they are the same for all. For one might raise the question whether the
principles and elements are different or the same for substances and for
relative terms, and similarly in the case of each of the categories. But
it would be paradoxical if they were the same for all. For then from the
same elements will proceed relative terms and substances. What then will
this common element be? For (1) (a) there is nothing common to and distinct
from substance and the other categories, viz. those which are predicated;
but an element is prior to the things of which it is an element. But again
(b) substance is not an element in relative terms, nor is any of these
an element in substance. Further, (2) how can all things have the same
elements? For none of the elements can be the same as that which is composed
of elements, e.g. b or a cannot be the same as ba. (None, therefore, of
the intelligibles, e.g. being or unity, is an element; for these are predicable
of each of the compounds as well.) None of the elements, then, will be
either a substance or a relative term; but it must be one or other. All
things, then, have not the same elements.
"Or, as we are wont to
put it, in a sense they have and in a sense they have not; e.g. perhaps
the elements of perceptible bodies are, as form, the hot, and in another
sense the cold, which is the privation; and, as matter, that which directly
and of itself potentially has these attributes; and substances comprise
both these and the things composed of these, of which these are the principles,
or any unity which is produced out of the hot and the cold, e.g. flesh
or bone; for the product must be different from the elements. These things
then have the same elements and principles (though specifically different
things have specifically different elements); but all things have not the
same elements in this sense, but only analogically; i.e. one might say
that there are three principles-the form, the privation, and the matter.
But each of these is different for each class; e.g. in colour they are
white, black, and surface, and in day and night they are light, darkness,
and air.
"Since not only the elements present in a thing are causes,
but also something external, i.e. the moving cause, clearly while 'principle'
and 'element' are different both are causes, and 'principle' is divided
into these two kinds; and that which acts as producing movement or rest
is a principle and a substance. Therefore analogically there are three
elements, and four causes and principles; but the elements are different
in different things, and the proximate moving cause is different for different
things. Health, disease, body; the moving cause is the medical art. Form,
disorder of a particular kind, bricks; the moving cause is the building
art. And since the moving cause in the case of natural things is-for man,
for instance, man, and in the products of thought the form or its contrary,
there will be in a sense three causes, while in a sense there are four.
For the medical art is in some sense health, and the building art is the
form of the house, and man begets man; further, besides these there is
that which as first of all things moves all things.
Part 5
"
"Some things can exist apart and some cannot, and it is the former
that are substances. And therefore all things have the same causes, because,
without substances, modifications and movements do not exist. Further,
these causes will probably be soul and body, or reason and desire and body.
"And in yet another way, analogically identical things are principles,
i.e. actuality and potency; but these also are not only different for different
things but also apply in different ways to them. For in some cases the
same thing exists at one time actually and at another potentially, e.g.
wine or flesh or man does so. (And these too fall under the above-named
causes. For the form exists actually, if it can exist apart, and so does
the complex of form and matter, and the privation, e.g. darkness or disease;
but the matter exists potentially; for this is that which can become qualified
either by the form or by the privation.) But the distinction of actuality
and potentiality applies in another way to cases where the matter of cause
and of effect is not the same, in some of which cases the form is not the
same but different; e.g. the cause of man is (1) the elements in man (viz.
fire and earth as matter, and the peculiar form), and further (2) something
else outside, i.e. the father, and (3) besides these the sun and its oblique
course, which are neither matter nor form nor privation of man nor of the
same species with him, but moving causes.
"Further, one must observe
that some causes can be expressed in universal terms, and some cannot.
The proximate principles of all things are the 'this' which is proximate
in actuality, and another which is proximate in potentiality. The universal
causes, then, of which we spoke do not exist. For it is the individual
that is the originative principle of the individuals. For while man is
the originative principle of man universally, there is no universal man,
but Peleus is the originative principle of Achilles, and your father of
you, and this particular b of this particular ba, though b in general is
the originative principle of ba taken without qualification.
"Further,
if the causes of substances are the causes of all things, yet different
things have different causes and elements, as was said; the causes of things
that are not in the same class, e.g. of colours and sounds, of substances
and quantities, are different except in an analogical sense; and those
of things in the same species are different, not in species, but in the
sense that the causes of different individuals are different, your matter
and form and moving cause being different from mine, while in their universal
definition they are the same. And if we inquire what are the principles
or elements of substances and relations and qualities-whether they are
the same or different-clearly when the names of the causes are used in
several senses the causes of each are the same, but when the senses are
distinguished the causes are not the same but different, except that in
the following senses the causes of all are the same. They are (1) the same
or analogous in this sense, that matter, form, privation, and the moving
cause are common to all things; and (2) the causes of substances may be
treated as causes of all things in this sense, that when substances are
removed all things are removed; further, (3) that which is first in respect
of complete reality is the cause of all things. But in another sense there
are different first causes, viz. all the contraries which are neither generic
nor ambiguous terms; and, further, the matters of different things are
different. We have stated, then, what are the principles of sensible things
and how many they are, and in what sense they are the same and in what
sense different.
Part 6
"
"Since there were three kinds of substance, two of them physical
and one unmovable, regarding the latter we must assert that it is necessary
that there should be an eternal unmovable substance. For substances are
the first of existing things, and if they are all destructible, all things
are destructible. But it is impossible that movement should either have
come into being or cease to be (for it must always have existed), or that
time should. For there could not be a before and an after if time did not
exist. Movement also is continuous, then, in the sense in which time is;
for time is either the same thing as movement or an attribute of movement.
And there is no continuous movement except movement in place, and of this
only that which is circular is continuous.
"But if there is something
which is capable of moving things or acting on them, but is not actually
doing so, there will not necessarily be movement; for that which has a
potency need not exercise it. Nothing, then, is gained even if we suppose
eternal substances, as the believers in the Forms do, unless there is to
be in them some principle which can cause change; nay, even this is not
enough, nor is another substance besides the Forms enough; for if it is
not to act, there will be no movement. Further even if it acts, this will
not be enough, if its essence is potency; for there will not be eternal
movement, since that which is potentially may possibly not be. There must,
then, be such a principle, whose very essence is actuality. Further, then,
these substances must be without matter; for they must be eternal, if anything
is eternal. Therefore they must be actuality.
"Yet there is a difficulty;
for it is thought that everything that acts is able to act, but that not
everything that is able to act acts, so that the potency is prior. But
if this is so, nothing that is need be; for it is possible for all things
to be capable of existing but not yet to exist.
"Yet if we follow
the theologians who generate the world from night, or the natural philosophers
who say that 'all things were together', the same impossible result ensues.
For how will there be movement, if there is no actually existing cause?
Wood will surely not move itself-the carpenter's art must act on it; nor
will the menstrual blood nor the earth set themselves in motion, but the
seeds must act on the earth and the semen on the menstrual blood.
"This
is why some suppose eternal actuality-e.g. Leucippus and Plato; for they
say there is always movement. But why and what this movement is they do
say, nor, if the world moves in this way or that, do they tell us the cause
of its doing so. Now nothing is moved at random, but there must always
be something present to move it; e.g. as a matter of fact a thing moves
in one way by nature, and in another by force or through the influence
of reason or something else. (Further, what sort of movement is primary?
This makes a vast difference.) But again for Plato, at least, it is not
permissible to name here that which he sometimes supposes to be the source
of movement-that which moves itself; for the soul is later, and coeval
with the heavens, according to his account. To suppose potency prior to
actuality, then, is in a sense right, and in a sense not; and we have specified
these senses. That actuality is prior is testified by Anaxagoras (for his
'reason' is actuality) and by Empedocles in his doctrine of love and strife,
and by those who say that there is always movement, e.g. Leucippus. Therefore
chaos or night did not exist for an infinite time, but the same things
have always existed (either passing through a cycle of changes or obeying
some other law), since actuality is prior to potency. If, then, there is
a constant cycle, something must always remain, acting in the same way.
And if there is to be generation and destruction, there must be something
else which is always acting in different ways. This must, then, act in
one way in virtue of itself, and in another in virtue of something else-either
of a third agent, therefore, or of the first. Now it must be in virtue
of the first. For otherwise this again causes the motion both of the second
agent and of the third. Therefore it is better to say 'the first'. For
it was the cause of eternal uniformity; and something else is the cause
of variety, and evidently both together are the cause of eternal variety.
This, accordingly, is the character which the motions actually exhibit.
What need then is there to seek for other principles?
Part 7
"
"Since (1) this is a possible account of the matter, and (2) if
it were not true, the world would have proceeded out of night and 'all
things together' and out of non-being, these difficulties may be taken
as solved. There is, then, something which is always moved with an unceasing
motion, which is motion in a circle; and this is plain not in theory only
but in fact. Therefore the first heaven must be eternal. There is therefore
also something which moves it. And since that which moves and is moved
is intermediate, there is something which moves without being moved, being
eternal, substance, and actuality. And the object of desire and the object
of thought move in this way; they move without being moved. The primary
objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent good is
the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object of rational
wish. But desire is consequent on opinion rather than opinion on desire;
for the thinking is the starting-point. And thought is moved by the object
of thought, and one of the two columns of opposites is in itself the object
of thought; and in this, substance is first, and in substance, that which
is simple and exists actually. (The one and the simple are not the same;
for 'one' means a measure, but 'simple' means that the thing itself has
a certain nature.) But the beautiful, also, and that which is in itself
desirable are in the same column; and the first in any class is always
best, or analogous to the best.
"That a final cause may exist among
unchangeable entities is shown by the distinction of its meanings. For
the final cause is (a) some being for whose good an action is done, and
(b) something at which the action aims; and of these the latter exists
among unchangeable entities though the former does not. The final cause,
then, produces motion as being loved, but all other things move by being
moved. Now if something is moved it is capable of being otherwise than
as it is. Therefore if its actuality is the primary form of spatial motion,
then in so far as it is subject to change, in this respect it is capable
of being otherwise,-in place, even if not in substance. But since there
is something which moves while itself unmoved, existing actually, this
can in no way be otherwise than as it is. For motion in space is the first
of the kinds of change, and motion in a circle the first kind of spatial
motion; and this the first mover produces. The first mover, then, exists
of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of being
is good, and it is in this sense a first principle. For the necessary has
all these senses-that which is necessary perforce because it is contrary
to the natural impulse, that without which the good is impossible, and
that which cannot be otherwise but can exist only in a single way.
"On
such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the world of nature. And
it is a life such as the best which we enjoy, and enjoy for but a short
time (for it is ever in this state, which we cannot be), since its actuality
is also pleasure. (And for this reason are waking, perception, and thinking
most pleasant, and hopes and memories are so on account of these.) And
thinking in itself deals with that which is best in itself, and that which
is thinking in the fullest sense with that which is best in the fullest
sense. And thought thinks on itself because it shares the nature of the
object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact
with and thinking its objects, so that thought and object of thought are
the same. For that which is capable of receiving the object of thought,
i.e. the essence, is thought. But it is active when it possesses this object.
Therefore the possession rather than the receptivity is the divine element
which thought seems to contain, and the act of contemplation is what is
most pleasant and best. If, then, God is always in that good state in which
we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels
it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God;
for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God's
self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore
that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration
continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God.
"Those who
suppose, as the Pythagoreans and Speusippus do, that supreme beauty and
goodness are not present in the beginning, because the beginnings both
of plants and of animals are causes, but beauty and completeness are in
the effects of these, are wrong in their opinion. For the seed comes from
other individuals which are prior and complete, and the first thing is
not seed but the complete being; e.g. we must say that before the seed
there is a man,-not the man produced from the seed, but another from whom
the seed comes.
"It is clear then from what has been said that
there is a substance which is eternal and unmovable and separate from sensible
things. It has been shown also that this substance cannot have any magnitude,
but is without parts and indivisible (for it produces movement through
infinite time, but nothing finite has infinite power; and, while every
magnitude is either infinite or finite, it cannot, for the above reason,
have finite magnitude, and it cannot have infinite magnitude because there
is no infinite magnitude at all). But it has also been shown that it is
impassive and unalterable; for all the other changes are posterior to change
of place.
Part 8
"
"It is clear, then, why these things are as they are. But we must
not ignore the question whether we have to suppose one such substance or
more than one, and if the latter, how many; we must also mention, regarding
the opinions expressed by others, that they have said nothing about the
number of the substances that can even be clearly stated. For the theory
of Ideas has no special discussion of the subject; for those who speak
of Ideas say the Ideas are numbers, and they speak of numbers now as unlimited,
now as limited by the number 10; but as for the reason why there should
be just so many numbers, nothing is said with any demonstrative exactness.
We however must discuss the subject, starting from the presuppositions
and distinctions we have mentioned. The first principle or primary being
is not movable either in itself or accidentally, but produces the primary
eternal and single movement. But since that which is moved must be moved
by something, and the first mover must be in itself unmovable, and eternal
movement must be produced by something eternal and a single movement by
a single thing, and since we see that besides the simple spatial movement
of the universe, which we say the first and unmovable substance produces,
there are other spatial movements-those of the planets-which are eternal
(for a body which moves in a circle is eternal and unresting; we have proved
these points in the physical treatises), each of these movements also must
be caused by a substance both unmovable in itself and eternal. For the
nature of the stars is eternal just because it is a certain kind of substance,
and the mover is eternal and prior to the moved, and that which is prior
to a substance must be a substance. Evidently, then, there must be substances
which are of the same number as the movements of the stars, and in their
nature eternal, and in themselves unmovable, and without magnitude, for
the reason before mentioned. That the movers are substances, then, and
that one of these is first and another second according to the same order
as the movements of the stars, is evident. But in the number of the movements
we reach a problem which must be treated from the standpoint of that one
of the mathematical sciences which is most akin to philosophy-viz. of astronomy;
for this science speculates about substance which is perceptible but eternal,
but the other mathematical sciences, i.e. arithmetic and geometry, treat
of no substance. That the movements are more numerous than the bodies that
are moved is evident to those who have given even moderate attention to
the matter; for each of the planets has more than one movement. But as
to the actual number of these movements, we now-to give some notion of
the subject-quote what some of the mathematicians say, that our thought
may have some definite number to grasp; but, for the rest, we must partly
investigate for ourselves, Partly learn from other investigators, and if
those who study this subject form an opinion contrary to what we have now
stated, we must esteem both parties indeed, but follow the more accurate.
"Eudoxus supposed that the motion of the sun or of the moon involves,
in either case, three spheres, of which the first is the sphere of the
fixed stars, and the second moves in the circle which runs along the middle
of the zodiac, and the third in the circle which is inclined across the
breadth of the zodiac; but the circle in which the moon moves is inclined
at a greater angle than that in which the sun moves. And the motion of
the planets involves, in each case, four spheres, and of these also the
first and second are the same as the first two mentioned above (for the
sphere of the fixed stars is that which moves all the other spheres, and
that which is placed beneath this and has its movement in the circle which
bisects the zodiac is common to all), but the poles of the third sphere
of each planet are in the circle which bisects the zodiac, and the motion
of the fourth sphere is in the circle which is inclined at an angle to
the equator of the third sphere; and the poles of the third sphere are
different for each of the other planets, but those of Venus and Mercury
are the same.
"Callippus made the position of the spheres the same
as Eudoxus did, but while he assigned the same number as Eudoxus did to
Jupiter and to Saturn, he thought two more spheres should be added to the
sun and two to the moon, if one is to explain the observed facts; and one
more to each of the other planets.
"But it is necessary, if all
the spheres combined are to explain the observed facts, that for each of
the planets there should be other spheres (one fewer than those hitherto
assigned) which counteract those already mentioned and bring back to the
same position the outermost sphere of the star which in each case is situated
below the star in question; for only thus can all the forces at work produce
the observed motion of the planets. Since, then, the spheres involved in
the movement of the planets themselves are--eight for Saturn and Jupiter
and twenty-five for the others, and of these only those involved in the
movement of the lowest-situated planet need not be counteracted the spheres
which counteract those of the outermost two planets will be six in number,
and the spheres which counteract those of the next four planets will be
sixteen; therefore the number of all the spheres--both those which move
the planets and those which counteract these--will be fifty-five. And if
one were not to add to the moon and to the sun the movements we mentioned,
the whole set of spheres will be forty-seven in number.
"Let this,
then, be taken as the number of the spheres, so that the unmovable substances
and principles also may probably be taken as just so many; the assertion
of necessity must be left to more powerful thinkers. But if there can be
no spatial movement which does not conduce to the moving of a star, and
if further every being and every substance which is immune from change
and in virtue of itself has attained to the best must be considered an
end, there can be no other being apart from these we have named, but this
must be the number of the substances. For if there are others, they will
cause change as being a final cause of movement; but there cannot he other
movements besides those mentioned. And it is reasonable to infer this from
a consideration of the bodies that are moved; for if everything that moves
is for the sake of that which is moved, and every movement belongs to something
that is moved, no movement can be for the sake of itself or of another
movement, but all the movements must be for the sake of the stars. For
if there is to be a movement for the sake of a movement, this latter also
will have to be for the sake of something else; so that since there cannot
be an infinite regress, the end of every movement will be one of the divine
bodies which move through the heaven.
"(Evidently there is but
one heaven. For if there are many heavens as there are many men, the moving
principles, of which each heaven will have one, will be one in form but
in number many. But all things that are many in number have matter; for
one and the same definition, e.g. that of man, applies to many things,
while Socrates is one. But the primary essence has not matter; for it is
complete reality. So the unmovable first mover is one both in definition
and in number; so too, therefore, is that which is moved always and continuously;
therefore there is one heaven alone.) Our forefathers in the most remote
ages have handed down to their posterity a tradition, in the form of a
myth, that these bodies are gods, and that the divine encloses the whole
of nature. The rest of the tradition has been added later in mythical form
with a view to the persuasion of the multitude and to its legal and utilitarian
expediency; they say these gods are in the form of men or like some of
the other animals, and they say other things consequent on and similar
to these which we have mentioned. But if one were to separate the first
point from these additions and take it alone-that they thought the first
substances to be gods, one must regard this as an inspired utterance, and
reflect that, while probably each art and each science has often been developed
as far as possible and has again perished, these opinions, with others,
have been preserved until the present like relics of the ancient treasure.
Only thus far, then, is the opinion of our ancestors and of our earliest
predecessors clear to us.
Part 9
"
"The nature of the divine thought involves certain problems; for
while thought is held to be the most divine of things observed by us, the
question how it must be situated in order to have that character involves
difficulties. For if it thinks of nothing, what is there here of dignity?
It is just like one who sleeps. And if it thinks, but this depends on something
else, then (since that which is its substance is not the act of thinking,
but a potency) it cannot be the best substance; for it is through thinking
that its value belongs to it. Further, whether its substance is the faculty
of thought or the act of thinking, what does it think of? Either of itself
or of something else; and if of something else, either of the same thing
always or of something different. Does it matter, then, or not, whether
it thinks of the good or of any chance thing? Are there not some things
about which it is incredible that it should think? Evidently, then, it
thinks of that which is most divine and precious, and it does not change;
for change would be change for the worse, and this would be already a movement.
First, then, if 'thought' is not the act of thinking but a potency, it
would be reasonable to suppose that the continuity of its thinking is wearisome
to it. Secondly, there would evidently be something else more precious
than thought, viz. that which is thought of. For both thinking and the
act of thought will belong even to one who thinks of the worst thing in
the world, so that if this ought to be avoided (and it ought, for there
are even some things which it is better not to see than to see), the act
of thinking cannot be the best of things. Therefore it must be of itself
that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things),
and its thinking is a thinking on thinking.
"But evidently knowledge
and perception and opinion and understanding have always something else
as their object, and themselves only by the way. Further, if thinking and
being thought of are different, in respect of which does goodness belong
to thought? For to he an act of thinking and to he an object of thought
are not the same thing. We answer that in some cases the knowledge is the
object. In the productive sciences it is the substance or essence of the
object, matter omitted, and in the theoretical sciences the definition
or the act of thinking is the object. Since, then, thought and the object
of thought are not different in the case of things that have not matter,
the divine thought and its object will be the same, i.e. the thinking will
be one with the object of its thought.
"A further question is left-whether
the object of the divine thought is composite; for if it were, thought
would change in passing from part to part of the whole. We answer that
everything which has not matter is indivisible-as human thought, or rather
the thought of composite beings, is in a certain period of time (for it
does not possess the good at this moment or at that, but its best, being
something different from it, is attained only in a whole period of time),
so throughout eternity is the thought which has itself for its
object.
Part 10
"
"We must consider also in which of two ways the nature of the universe
contains the good, and the highest good, whether as something separate
and by itself, or as the order of the parts. Probably in both ways, as
an army does; for its good is found both in its order and in its leader,
and more in the latter; for he does not depend on the order but it depends
on him. And all things are ordered together somehow, but not all alike,-both
fishes and fowls and plants; and the world is not such that one thing has
nothing to do with another, but they are connected. For all are ordered
together to one end, but it is as in a house, where the freemen are least
at liberty to act at random, but all things or most things are already
ordained for them, while the slaves and the animals do little for the common
good, and for the most part live at random; for this is the sort of principle
that constitutes the nature of each. I mean, for instance, that all must
at least come to be dissolved into their elements, and there are other
functions similarly in which all share for the good of the whole.
"We
must not fail to observe how many impossible or paradoxical results confront
those who hold different views from our own, and what are the views of
the subtler thinkers, and which views are attended by fewest difficulties.
All make all things out of contraries. But neither 'all things' nor 'out
of contraries' is right; nor do these thinkers tell us how all the things
in which the contraries are present can be made out of the contraries;
for contraries are not affected by one another. Now for us this difficulty
is solved naturally by the fact that there is a third element. These thinkers
however make one of the two contraries matter; this is done for instance
by those who make the unequal matter for the equal, or the many matter
for the one. But this also is refuted in the same way; for the one matter
which underlies any pair of contraries is contrary to nothing. Further,
all things, except the one, will, on the view we are criticizing, partake
of evil; for the bad itself is one of the two elements. But the other school
does not treat the good and the bad even as principles; yet in all things
the good is in the highest degree a principle. The school we first mentioned
is right in saying that it is a principle, but how the good is a principle
they do not say-whether as end or as mover or as form.
"Empedocles
also has a paradoxical view; for he identifies the good with love, but
this is a principle both as mover (for it brings things together) and as
matter (for it is part of the mixture). Now even if it happens that the
same thing is a principle both as matter and as mover, still the being,
at least, of the two is not the same. In which respect then is love a principle?
It is paradoxical also that strife should be imperishable; the nature of
his 'evil' is just strife.
"Anaxagoras makes the good a motive
principle; for his 'reason' moves things. But it moves them for an end,
which must be something other than it, except according to our way of stating
the case; for, on our view, the medical art is in a sense health. It is
paradoxical also not to suppose a contrary to the good, i.e. to reason.
But all who speak of the contraries make no use of the contraries, unless
we bring their views into shape. And why some things are perishable and
others imperishable, no one tells us; for they make all existing things
out of the same principles. Further, some make existing things out of the
nonexistent; and others to avoid the necessity of this make all things
one.
"Further, why should there always be becoming, and what is
the cause of becoming?-this no one tells us. And those who suppose two
principles must suppose another, a superior principle, and so must those
who believe in the Forms; for why did things come to participate, or why
do they participate, in the Forms? And all other thinkers are confronted
by the necessary consequence that there is something contrary to Wisdom,
i.e. to the highest knowledge; but we are not. For there is nothing contrary
to that which is primary; for all contraries have matter, and things that
have matter exist only potentially; and the ignorance which is contrary
to any knowledge leads to an object contrary to the object of the knowledge;
but what is primary has no contrary.
"Again, if besides sensible
things no others exist, there will be no first principle, no order, no
becoming, no heavenly bodies, but each principle will have a principle
before it, as in the accounts of the theologians and all the natural philosophers.
But if the Forms or the numbers are to exist, they will be causes of nothing;
or if not that, at least not of movement. Further, how is extension, i.e.
a continuum, to be produced out of unextended parts? For number will not,
either as mover or as form, produce a continuum. But again there cannot
be any contrary that is also essentially a productive or moving principle;
for it would be possible for it not to be. Or at least its action would
be posterior to its potency. The world, then, would not be eternal. But
it is; one of these premisses, then, must be denied. And we have said how
this must be done. Further, in virtue of what the numbers, or the soul
and the body, or in general the form and the thing, are one-of this no
one tells us anything; nor can any one tell, unless he says, as we do,
that the mover makes them one. And those who say mathematical number is
first and go on to generate one kind of substance after another and give
different principles for each, make the substance of the universe a mere
series of episodes (for one substance has no influence on another by its
existence or nonexistence), and they give us many governing principles;
but the world refuses to be governed badly. "
"'The rule of many is not good; one ruler let there
be.'
Chicago-North Shore Therapy.com
|
|
