ARISTOTLE'S

DE GENERATIONE

ET CORRUPTIONE

Translated with notes

by

C.J.F. WILLIAMS

CLARENDON PRESS • OXFORD

CLARENDON ARISTOTLE SERIES

General Editor: J. L. ACKRILL

 CLARENDON ARISTOTLE SERIES

CA TEGORIES and DEINTERPRETA TIONE

J. L. ACKRILL

DE ANIMA, Books II and III

D. W. HAMLYN

METAPHYSICS, Books L, A , E

CHRISTOPHER KIRWAN

POSTERIOR ANAL YTICS

JONATHAN BARNES

METAPHYSICS, Books M and N

JULIA ANNAS

EUDEMIANETHICS, Books I, II and VIII

MICHAEL WOODS
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 To

D. S. C.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing an Aristotelian commentary is an alarming task, not least

because of the consciousness of the army of predecessors who have

trodden these paths already. It is an army which disappears into the

mists of the Middle Ages, from which, no doubt, hundreds of

Greek, Arabic, and Latin commentaries survive unread in libraries. I

do not pretend to have read more than a handful of the works of

these predecessors — not even all of those listed in my bibliography,

which aims at least to mention those which are easily accessible.

More rewarding, philosophically, than any other I have read is that

of Philoponus, and it is pleasant to acknowledge a debt for assistance

received across so many centuries.

My debt to Professor J. L. Ackrill, the General Editor of this

Series, is also one which it is pleasant to acknowledge. His criticism of

earlier drafts has been most helpful and his patience with my delays

apparently inexhaustible. I am grateful also to Mrs. Betty Beech

and Mrs Doreen Harding for producing the typescript for the Press.

Midsomer Norton C. J. F. W.

Michaelmas mcmlxxxi
 CONTENTS

POLISH AND TENSE-LOGICAL SYMBOLS viii

INTRODUCTION ix

TRANSLATION

Book I

1. Introductory Remarks: Monists and Pluralists 1

2. Infinite Divisibility 3

3. Generation Simpliciter 8

4. Alteration 14

5. Growth 15

6. Contact 21

7. Acting and Being Affected (1): Like and Unlike 23

8. Acting and Being Affected (2): Empedocles and the

Atomists 26

9. Acting and Being Affected (3): Actuality and Pot-

entiality 31

10. Mixing 32

Book II

1. The Elements and Prime Matter 37

2. The Primary Contrarieties 38

3. The Contrarieties and the Elements 40

4. Reciprocal Transformation of the Elements 41

5. No First Element 43

6. Refutation of Empedocles 46

7. Formation of Homoeomers 49

8. Each Element Present in Every Homoeomer 51

9. Causes of Generation and Corruption 51

 CONTENTS

10. Efficient Cause of Generation and Corruption 54

11. Necessity in the Sphere of Generation and Cor-

ruption 57

NOTES 60

APPENDIX: Prime Matter in De Generatione et Comiptione 211

BIBLIOGRAPHY 221

GLOSSARY 225

INDEX 229

POLISH AND TENSE-LOGICAL SYMBOLS

Polish Russellian English

Np (Hp) It is not the case that p

Km p .q(P &q) p and q

Apq pVq p or q

Cpq pDq(p^q) If p then q

Epq p=q{p**q) p if and only if q

lhc<px (x) (fix) For every xy (px

"Lxfyx ( 3Dc) (<px) For some xy (px

Lp □P Necessarily, p
Mp Op Possibly, p

Pp It has been the case that p

Fp It will be the case that p

viii
 INTRODUCTION

It is difficult for the translator to know what to do with the title of

this work. Peri Geneseos kai Phthoras traditionally goes into Latin

as De Generatione et Corruptione, and this is how scholars have

become used to referring to the book. 'Generation' and 'corruption'

become the obvious translations of genesis andphthora. H. H. Joachim

in his invaluable edition of 1922 chose the title 'On Coming-to-be

and Passing-away'. The advantage of this is that it focuses attention

on the connection between the noun genesis which occurs in the

title and the verb ginesthai which can usefully be translated 'come to

be'. Genesis, however, is not the exact Greek equivalent of the

English gerund 'coming to be': the Greek for that would probably be

to ginesthai. The nouns genesis and 'generation' are usually less

clumsy, although like all abstract nouns they contain seeds of mis-

understanding. Greek is more sparing in its use of such nouns than

English; and this makes it permissible for the translator often to

render verbal forms in Greek by nominal ones in English, but strange

to do the opposite. Moreover, the really illuminating rendering of

the title, from the philosopher's point of view, would be 'On Coming-

to-be and Ceasing-to-be'; but 'ceasing-to-be' is even further from

phthora than 'coming-to-be' from genesis. Joachim's title is there-

fore a sort of half-way house, which misses the best of both worlds.

The best tactic has seemed to be to leave the title in the traditional

Latin, and usually to render genesis and phthora as they occur in

the text by 'generation' and 'corruption', trusting to these intro-

ductory remarks to sensitize readers to the connection between

these nouns and the corresponding verbs.

Of these verbs phtheiresthai is technically the passive of the verb

for 'destroy'; but the significance of its passive voice is already

attenuated in Aristotle, and it would be pedantic to translate 'be

destroyed' rather than 'perish'. It lacks the philosophically interesting

ambiguity of ginesthai because it cannot receive a grammatical

complement: a thing does not perish something as it may on occasion

ix
 INTRODUCTION

come to be something. Greek no more than English has a single word

to express the concept ceasing to be. It is its possession of a single

word, which English lacks, for coming to be which creates philo-

sophical problems.

Ginesthai, which English translators usually render 'become', is

sometimes used without a complement and is then often translatable

'come into existence'. The truth is that it shares the ambiguity of

einai, the Greek for 'to be'. Just as Harold Wilson (1) was not, then

(2) was, and then again (3) was not Prime Minister, so the Crystal

Palace (4) was not, then (5) was, and then again (6) was not tout

court. Just as the transition between (1) and (2) can be called

Wilson's coming to be (or becoming) Prime Minister and that

between (2) and (3) his ceasing to be Prime Minister, so the tran-

sition between (4) and (5) can be called the Crystal Palace's coming

to be (period) and that between (5) and (6) its ceasing to be (period).

The Greek for tout court or 'period' is haplos, a favourite word of

Aristotle's in other uses as well as this, which has passed into general

philosophical currency in its Latinized form simpliciter. Aristotle

uses haplds in De Generatione et Corruptione, I.3.317a32 ff. to

distinguish the sort of transition that occurs between (4) and (5)

from the sort that occurs between (1) and (2). In Posterior Analytics,

II.l-2.89b23-90a5 he uses the same word to distinguish the sort of

being which is spoken of in (1), (2), and (3) from that which is

spoken of in (4), (5), and (6). I am reminded of a saying used by the

more nationalistic of my Welsh relatives: 'Wales was Wales before

England was was'.

Both senses of 'come to be' or ginesthai can in fact be defined by

the appropriate sense of 'be' or einai together with truth-functions

and a past-tense operator. Thus 'Wilson came to be Prime Minister'

is equivalent to Tt is or was the case that (both it was the case that

Wilson is not Prime Minister and it is the case that Wilson is Prime

Minister)'; and 'The Crystal Palace came to be' is equivalent to Tt

is or was the case that (both it was the case that the Crystal Palace

is not and it is the case that the Crystal Palace is)'. (Grammatical

rules about sequence of tenses have to be abandoned, as A. N. Prior

has shown, in the interests of tense-logical clarity). Basically therefore

there are not two problems, one about the different senses of 'come

x
 INTRODUCTION

to be' and another about the different senses of 'be'. The former

reduces to the latter.

That 'be' has different senses is one of Aristotle's favourite and

best-remembered doctrines. Modern philosophers are equally fond of

distinguishing various uses of the word. While not all would agree on

the length of the list, most would include the use of 'be' as copula,

as in 'This plate is hot', and its use to express existence, as in 'There

are female ginger cats'. The trouble is that Aristotle's distinctions do

not easily accommodate themselves to these descriptions. The com-

mentator's difficulties are not made easier by the fact that one and

the same Greek sentence is sometimes translatable both by an

existential sentence in English and by one containing only a copu-

lative use of 'be'. Thus Ross, on p. 228 of his commentary on

Metaphysics, H, treats oudos in oudos esti (1042b26) as subject, so

that the sentence means something like 'A threshold exists', whereas

in his translation he treats it as part of the predicate, rendering the

sentence 'A thing is a threshold'. When Aristotle comes to the task

of sorting the various senses of 'be' he gives a list of sometimes

four, sometimes three, principal headings, one of which is then sub-

divided. These are, respectively, (a) being per accidens, (b) being

per se, (c) being as truth, (d) being as actual or potential, (b), being

per se, is subdivided through the ten categories, and when he says,

e.g. at the beginning of Metaphysics, Z, that a thing is said to be in

many different senses, it is these ten different senses of per se being

that he usually has in mind.

The difference between 'be' as used in (l)-(3) and in (4)-(6)

above is most naturally described in modern philosophical terms as

the difference between the copulative and the existential uses of the

word. It is tempting to say that when Aristotle talks about 'being

simplicitef he is talking about the existential, and when he talks

about 'being something', the copulative sense of 'be'. But his own

explanations of the distinction, in this context, between simpliciter

and secundum quid draw on his own account of the plurality of

senses of 'be', and this account does not fit the modern account at

all easily.

Asked to pair off the existential/copulative distinction with one

of Aristotle's own distinctions a modern philosopher would probably

xi
 INTRODUCTION

try first that between (b) and (a), or possibly that between (b) and

(c). In fact, however, Aristotle seems to pair off the simpliciterj

secundum quid distinction with a subdivision of (b). 'Being simp-

licit ef corresponds to a predication in the category of substance,

'being something' to a predication in one of the other, the accidental,

categories (319a12-14). But the uses of the verb 'be'in 'Wilson is

human' and 'Wilson is disappointed' do not seem to correspond to

the existential and copulative uses, respectively. To be more precise,

neither use seems to be existential, and there do not appear in any

case to be two uses here, but only one, namely the copulative. Was it

a mistake to equate the being simpliciter/being something distinction

with the existential/copulative distinction in the first place?

An additional reason for regarding it as a mistake is that the

existential/copulative distinction involves a logical insight that it is

wildly anachronistic to attribute to Aristotle. This is Frege's distinc-

tion between first- and second-order predicates. My example of the

existential use of the verb 'be' was 'There are female ginger cats'.

'Are' here is part of an expression, 'There are', which yields a prop-

osition when attached, not to a logical subject-expression, but to a

predicative expression. In my example of the copulative use, 'This

plate his hot', 'is' is part of an expression 'is hot' which does yield a

proposition when attached to a logical subject-expression. Aristotle,

on the other hand, clearly envisages the possibility of attaching

both 'is simpliciter' and 'is something'' io the same subject-expression.

It has been urged, however, that even in those cases where the

verb 'be' is replaceable by 'exist' it can still perform the role of a

first-order predicate. We say not only 'Female ginger cats exist' but

also 'The littlehampton Dramatic Society (still) exists'. Particularly

where 'exist' is qualified by 'still' or 'no longer', or where it is

governed by 'continues to', 'has ceased to', or 'came to', an analysis

in terms of logical subject-expression and first-order predicate is

apparently admissible. It is particular individuals who die and are

bom. And these, of course, are precisely the cases with which

Aristotle is concerned in the De Generatione et Corruptione.

A difficulty arises with this analysis. As we have seen, statements

about coming to be and ceasing to be are exponible into statements

containing truth-functions and a past-tense operator: 'a came to be

«•
xn
 INTRODUCTION

0mg, is equivalent to 'It is or was the case that (both it was the case

that a is not 0ing and it is the case that a is (/>ing)' or in the con-

venient abbreviations of tense-logic AKPNcpa^aPKPN^a^a. If 'exist'

replaces (p in this formula, part of what one is saying is that, at

a time when a did not exist, a certain predicate, 'does not exist',

was true of a. But how can any predicate hold of an object at a time

when the object does not exist? It is possible, of course, to say

of an object, at a time when the object does not exist, that a

given predicate held of it at a time when it did exist. But whether

or not the object exists at the time when someone is saying that

the predicate holds of it, how can it fail to exist at the time when

the predicate is holding of it?1

A parallel difficulty arises in the case of the analysans Aristotle

gives for coming to be simpliciter. If the coming to be simpliciter of

Harold Wilson is some predicate in the category of substance's

coming to hold of him, to say that he came to be is to say that he

came to be human, or animal, or even substantial. Similarly the

death of Wilson would be his literal dehumanization. But just as

trouble arose from replacing (p in the tense-logical formula of the last

paragraph by 'exist', so does it from substituting 'is human', or any

other substantial predicate, for (p. In the latter case we shall be com-

mitted to saying of a substance, a, that at some time or other it

lacked one of its substantial predicates, e.g. that at some time or

other Wilson was not a man. It is, however, a condition of the suc-

cessful use of a proper name that repeated use of the name is

replaceable by a phrase of the form The same A' where ^4 is a

substance-word. To say that Wilson at one time was a man and

Wilson later was not a man is to say that Wilson at one time was a

man and the same man later was not a man. And this seems to

involve contradiction. Substantial predicates cannot cease to hold of

their subjects. If it is possible to cease being human, as it is to cease

being Prime Minister, this will simply show that being human, like

being Prime Minister, is an accidental predicate, perhaps of trans-

migrating souls. So the example will have to be repaired by sub-

stituting 'a soul' for 'a man' throughout.

1
I have discussed this question at some length in 'On Dying', and have
attempted to give a more positive account in chapter V of my What is Existence?

xiii
 INTRODUCTION

Professor Owen, discussing Aristotle's analysis of being simp-

liciter,1 uses the example of ice ceasing to be solid. He claims (p. 77,

n. 1) Aristotle's precedent for using ice, which is not a substance,

and solidity, which is a quality, to illustrate his point. Whereas no

sense can be made of Harold Wilson's ceasing to be human, few

will have scruples about talking of ice losing its solidity. Ice melting

seems analogous to blind men seeing — it is possible only because we

can understand 'The ice has melted', just as we can 'The blind see',

as the Medievals would say, sensu diviso: 'Those who were blind

can now see', 'That which was ice has now melted'. But Wilsons's

dehumanization does not yield to such treatment. 'That which was

human, is now human no longer' is precisely the claim that creates

our difficulty. The difference just is the fact, which Aristotle and

Owen treat so lightly, that ice is not a substance, whilst man is, and

that solidity, unlike humanity, is a quality.

Other contemporary philosophers have produced analyses of

ceasing to exist which, like Aristotle's, make use of the notion of

a substantial predicate. David Wiggins2 urges us to

respect the distinction between predicates in the category of

substance and predications in the category of quality or relation.

Respecting this distinction we shall be able to follow an older

tradition and say that an individual a's having ceased to exist

at r is a matter of nothing identical with a belonging to the

extension at t of the ultimate individuative kind (or to the

extension at t of any sufficiently high individuative kind) that

is «'s kind.

If a is Harold Wilson, man will be an 'individuative kind' suitable for

Wiggins's purposes. Wilson's having ceased to exist at t, therefore,

will be a matter of nothing identical with Wilson belonging to the

extension of man at t. We can make no sense of Wilson ceasing at t

to be identical with Wilson. We can make no sense, as has been

1
Aristotle on the Snares of Ontology*, in New Essays on Plato and

Aristotle> ed. Renford Bambrough, London, 1965.

2
See Sameness and Substance, p. 67. See also M.1. Woods's 'Existence and
Tense', which I have criticized in What is Existence?

xiv
 INTRODUCTION

remarked already, of Wilson's ceasing at f to be a man (i.e. ceasing to

belong to the extension of man). The extra twist to the analysis

provided by Wiggins is that he envisages Wilson, not fading to belong

to the extension of man, but failing to belong to the extension of

man at t. But this is to distinguish the class of men from the class of

men who exist at t. It thus makes use of the very notion of tensed

existence which it was proposed to elucidate. So Wiggins's updating

of the Aristotelian analysis does not represent an improvement.

We have noted the difference between saying that what was ice is

now melted and saying that what was a man is now no longer human.

Wiggins would be the first to admit that what was present in the

former case but not in the latter was an individuative concept under

which we could identify the object before the change with the

object after the change. If ceasing to exist is to be classified as

change there has to be something which persists through the change.

This is what Aristotle calls the substratum (hypokeimenon). One

might well object, to the account of corruption which understands

it as change in the category of substance, that it makes the identi-

fication of such a substratum impossible. Aristotle does not think

so. He bites the bullet and posits an imperceptible substratum which

persists through substantial change: prime matter. That this is his

doctrine is a thesis which I defend in an appendix to this book, and

I try in the same place to indicate the way in which I find the

doctrine incoherent. His doctrine of generation and corruption as

substantial change and his doctrine of prime matter are thus two

sides of a single coin: Aristotle's attempt to deal with the problem

of tensed existence. This is a live problem today, and it is its concern

with this problem which more than anything else makes the De

Generatione et Comiptione a book which present-day philosophers

will find it worth their while to read.

The text which I have taken as the basis of my translation is that

of Joachim, unless otherwise indicated. Notes which specially

concern the text, or are otherwise primarily philological in character,

are prefixed by an asterisk — a sign that those whose interests are

strictly philosophical may safely ignore them. Angular brackets

< > enclose my insertions into the translation of words to which

nothing corresponds in the Greek, but which seem necessary if the

xv
 INTRODUCTION

English is to be intelligible. Square brackets [ ] enclose translations

of Greek words or passages which I believe ought to be deleted.

Certain passages have defied my attempts to understand them, and

commentaries and translations that I have consulted have not made

things better: these passages I have enclosed in obeli f ... f.

xvi
 TRANSLATION I.1.314a

BOOK I

Chapter 1 ^Introductory Remarks:MonistsandPluraUsts>

Our task now is to pick out the causes and definitions of generation

and corruption common to all those things which come to be and

perish in the course of nature; and secondly to investigate growth

and alteration, asking what each of them is, and whether we are to

suppose that the nature of alteration and generation is the same or 5

different, as they are certainly distinguished in name.

Of the old philosophers some say that what is called coming to be

simpliciter is alteration, some that alteration and coming to be

are different. Those who say that the universe is some one thing and

make everything come to be from one thing are obliged to say that

generation is alteration and that what, in the strict sense, comes to 10

be, alters; but those who assert a plurality of matter, such as

Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Leucippus — for these it is different. In

fact, however, Anaxagoras forgets in one passage what he has said in

another: he says that coming to be and perishing are the same thing

as altering; yet like others he says that the elements are many. 15

For Empedocles makes the corporeal elements four, but in all,

with the sources of movement, his elements are six in number,

whereas Anaxagoras' are infinite, as are those of Leucippus and

Democritus. (Anaxagoras regards the homoeomers as elements, i.e.

bone, flesh, marrow, and whatever else is such that we can apply the 20

same name in the same sense to a part of it as as to the whole.

Democritus and Leucippus say that there are indivisible bodies out

of which everything else is composed, infinite both in number and in

variety of shape; and that compounds differ from each other in

respect of these components, and in respect of the position and

arrangement of these components.) The followers of Anaxagoras and

1
LI .314a TRANSLATION

25 those of Empedocles clearly maintain contrary positions: the latter

say that there are four simple elements, fire, water, air, and earth,

rather than flesh and bone, and other such homoeomers; but the

former regard the homoeomers as simple and elementary, and earth,

fire, water, and air as compound, since they are a pampermia of the

314b homoeomers.

Those who construct everything out of one thing necessarily

identify generation and corruption with alteration; for according to

them the substratum remains one and the same throughout, and this

5 is just the sort of thing which we say 'alters'. Those on the other

hand who allow a plurality of kinds have to distinguish alteration

from generation, since for them generation and corruption occur

when things come together and separate. Accordingly Empedocles in

fact speaks in this way: 'There is no such thing as the birth of any-

10 thing ... only mixing and the separation of what has been mixed.'

There is no doubt, then, that this statement is in accordance with

their position and that they do speak in this way; but they too are

bound to admit the existence of alteration as something other than

generation, although this is impossible according to what they say. It

15 is easy to see that this statement of ours is correct. For just as, whilst

the substance stays the same, we see change in it in respect of size —

what is called growing and getting smaller — so we also see alteration;

but nevertheless it is a consequence of what is said by those who

posit a plurality of principles that alteration is impossible. For the

20 affections in respect of which we say that this takes place are

differentiae of the elements; examples are hot and cold, white and

black, dry and wet, soft and hard, etc. Cf. Empedocles {fr. 21}: 'The

sun is white to see and hot all over, but rain is dark and cold ail

through'; and he similarly assigns properties to the other elements.

25 If, therefore, it is impossible for water to come into being from fire

or earth from water, it will be equally impossible for anything to

come to be black from white or hard from soft, and the same reason-

ing will apply to the other properties; but precisely this is what

constitutes alteration.

This shows that it is always necessary to posit a single matter for

the opposing properties, whether the change that occurs is loco-

motion, growing and getting smaller, or alteration. Furthermore, it is

2
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS: MONISTS AND PLURALISTS U.315a

equally necessary for this to exist and for alteration to exist; for if

there is alteration, both the substratum is a single element and there

is one matter for all things capable of changing into one another, and 315a

if the substratum is one there is alteration.

Empedocles seems to contradict both the phenomena and himself.

At one and the same time he maintains both that none of the el-

ements comes to be from any other, whilst everything else comes to 5

be from them and — when he has gathered together the whole of

nature except Strife into one - that from this One everything once

again comes into being. Clearly, then, it is by their being separated

out from some one thing by various differentiae and affections, that

one thing came to be water, another fire, just as he calls the sun 10

white and hot, the earth heavy and hard. So if these differentiae are

removed (and they are removable, since they came to be) obviously

earth must come to be from water and water from earth, and similarly

with each of the others, not only then, but also now — given that

they change in respect of their affections. And that they can be 15

added and again removed follows from what he has said, particularly

since the war between Strife and Love is still going on. Which is why

they were generated then too from one thing; for the universe was

not, presumably, fire and earth and water when it was one.

One wonders whether he ought to make the One his principle or

the Many — that is to say, fire, earth, and the others in the list. In so 20

far as it is like the underlying matter out of which earth and fire

come to be by a process of change caused by the movement, the One

seems to be elementary; in so far, however, as the One comes to be

through the coming together of the Many, and they through its

breaking up, it is they who are more elementary and prior in nature. 25

Chapter 2 {Infinite Divisibility)

Our subject then is generation and corruption simpliciter, con-

sidered generally, whether or not there is such a thing and how it

exists; and we discuss also movement of the other kinds, e.g. growth

and alteration. Plato investigated only generation and corruption,

and how they apply to objects; nor did he treat of every case of 30

3
1.2.315a TRANSLATION

generation, but only that of the elements; there was no discussion

of the case of flesh or bones or the rest of the things of this sort,
nor yet of alteration and growth and the way in which they apply to

objects. Altogether no one seems to have paid more than super-

ficial attention to any of these things, with the exception of

Democritus. He seems to have given consideration to them all, and

35 to excel from the start by <explaining> how <they come about>. For

315b none of them laid anything down about growth, as we are saying,

beyond what the man in the street may have to say, namely, that

things grow by the accession of like to like. There was still no dis-

cussion of how this is effected, nor of mixing, nor, practically

speaking, of any of the other topics such as action and passion —

how one thing acts and another is affected by natural actions. But

5 Democritus and Leucippus, having got the figures, get alteration and

generation from these: generation and corruption by their aggregation

and segregation, alteration by their arrangement and position. Since

they thought that the truth was in appearance and that the appear-

10 ances were infinite and contrary to each other, they made the figures

infinite. Changes in the compound were thus thought to give the

same thing contrary appearances to different observers. The

admixture of a small particle would effect a transposition, and if one

component were transposed the compound would appear utterly

different, just as Tragedy' and Trugedy'1 come into existence from

15 the same letters.

Almost all of them think that generation and alteration are

different, and that whereas things come to be and cease to be by

being aggregated and segregated, they alter by having a change in

their affections. So we must concentrate on these topics in our

thinking; for they include a number of well-argued dilemmas. For if

generation is aggregation many impossible consequences follow. But

20 again there are compelling arguments on the other side, which it is

not easy to escape from, that it cannot be otherwise; and if generation

is not aggregation either there is no such thing as generation at all or

it is alteration — or else we must try to escape this dilemma too,

difficult though it is.

1
Trugdidia is a word found in Aristophanes, glossed by komdidia. I accept
this emendation suggested by M. L. West in 1969), pp. 150-1.

4
 INFINITE DIVISIBILITY I,2.315b

■ Basic to all this is the question whether the things there are come

to be and alter and grow and undergo the contrary of these things 25

because the primary existences are things which have size, and are

indivisible, or whether nothing which has size is indivisible; this

makes a great deal of difference. Again, if they do have size, are they

bodies as Democritus and Leucippus teach or planes as in the

Timaeml This latter doctrine, as we have explained elsewhere, is in 30

itself unreasonable — to halt the analysis at planes. Thus it is more

reasonable to hold that what are indivisble are bodies, but a great

many unreasonable consequences are involved here too. But these

philosophers are able,as has been said, to produce alteration equally1

with generation by transposing the same thing in respect of position

and order and by the differences between the figures, as Democritus 35

does. (This is why he says there is no such thing as colour: position 316a

determines colour.) But this is not similarly possible for those who

analyse bodies into planes; for when these are put together nothing

comes into being except solids; for they do not even attempt to

generate any affection from them.

The cause of comparative inability to see the agreed facts as a 5

whole is inexperience. That is why those who are more at home in

physical investigations are better able to postulate the sort of principles

which can connect together a wide range of data: those whom much

attention to logic has diverted from study of the facts come too

readily to their conclusions after viewing a few facts. One can see

from this too how much difference there is between those who 10

employ a physical and those who employ a logical mode of enquiry.

Concerning the view that there are indivisibles which have size the

latter say that (otherwise) the Triangle Itself will be many, whilst

Democritus seems to have reached his conclusions from more

germane, i.e. physical, considerations. What we are saying will be

clear as we go on.

A dilemma arises if one maintains that there is some body pos-

sessed of size which is everywhere divisible, and that this is possible. 15

For what will there be to survive the division? If it is everywhere

divisible and this is possible, it might be at one and the same time in

this divided state, even though the divisions had not taken place at

1
Reading, with some of the MSS, homoids instead of homos.

5
1.2316a TRANSLATION

one and the same time; and if this were to come about there would

be no resulting impossibility. So if its nature is to be everywhere

divisible, in the same way, whether by bisection or by any method

20 whatsoever, if it is divided nothing impossible will have happened;

since even if it is divided ten thousand times1 into ten thousand

pieces nothing impossible follows, albeit no one would, perhaps,

so divide it. Since, therefore, the body is everywhere such <i.e.

divisibie>, suppose it to have been divided. What then will be left?

Something possessed of size? That is impossible; for there will then

be something which has not been divided, but ex hypothesi it was

25 divisible everywhere.

Well then, if no body or thing possessed of size is left, though

division does occur, it will be the case either that the body is formed

out of points and the things out of which it is composed are without

size, or that they are nothing at all; so that it would both come to be

out of nothing and be composed of nothing, and the whole itself

would presumably be nothing else than appearance. Similarly, if it is

formed out of points it will not have quantity; for when the points

30 were in contact and there was just one thing possessed of size and

they were together, they did not make the whole the slightest bit

larger; for when the whole was divided into two or more parts it was

not the slightest bit smaller, nor indeed larger, than it was before. So

even if all the points are put together they will not produce size.

Again, even if something like sawdust comes into being during the

division of the body, and in this way some body gets away from the

316b thing possessed of size, the same argument applies: how is the new

body divisible? If it is not body, but some separable form or affec-

tion which has got away, and the thing possessed of size consists of

points or contacts affected by this, it is absurd that something with

size should be formed out of things which lack size. Furthermore,

5 where will the points be; and will they be motionless or in motion?

And any one contact always involves two things, since there has to

be something else besides the contact or division or point.

If then someone asserts that a body, whatever it may be and

whatever its size, is divisible at every point, these consequences

1
I do not accept Joachim's emendation at this point.

6
 INFINITE DIVISIBILITY 1.2316b

follow.[Moreover, if I divide the piece of wood, or what you will,

and put it together again, it will once more be equal and one thing. So

it is clear that the same thing happens if I cut the wood at any point 10

whatsoever. So potentially it is divided everywhere. What then is

there besides the division? For even if there is some affection, how,

notwithstanding, is the thing broken up into these, and how does it

come into being out of these? And how are these separated?] So if

it is impossible for things possessed of size to be formed out of

contacts or points there must needs be bodies and things possessed 15

of size which are indivisible. However, consequences just as im-

possible follow for those who posit these. Discussion of this is to be

found elsewhere. Nevertheless a solution has to be attempted: so we

shall have to state the dilemma once more from the beginning.

There is nothing absurd in the view that every perceptible body is

both divisible at any point whatsoever and undivided, for divisibility 20

will belong to it potentially and undividedness actually. Being at the

same time everywhere potentially divisible would seem, however, to

be impossible. For if it is possible, it could come about (not so as to

be at the same time both these things in actuality, undivided and

divided, but so as to be divided at any point whatsoever). There will

then be nothing left and the body will have vanished into something 25

incorporeal, and could come to be once more, either out of points,

or absolutely out of nothing. And how is this possible? In fact, of

course, it is divided into separable bits, having smaller and smaller

size as you go on dividing, at a distance from each other and separated.

But neither, it is claimed, could division into parts yield a process of

disintegration which went on to infinity, nor could the division 30

occur at the same time at every point, for this is impossible; but

there must be a limit. It must therefore contain atoms possessed of

size, which are invisible; not least if coming to be and ceasing to be

are to take place by aggregation and segregation respectively.

This, then, is the argument which seems to make it necessary that 317a

there are atoms possessed of size. That it contains a hidden fallacy,

and where the fallacy is hidden, is what we must now explain. Since

no point is contiguous to another point, there is one sense in which

divisibility at every point belongs to things possessed of size and

another in which it does not. When this is asserted, it is thought that

7
317a TRANSLATION

5 there is a point both anywhere and everywhere, so that the magni-

tude has necessarily to be divided up into nothing; for because there

is a point everywhere, it is formed either out of contacts or out of

points. In one sense there is a point everywhere, because there is one

anywhere fand all are like each one; but there are no more than one,

since they are not consecutive, so it is not the case that there is a

10 point everywhere. For if it is divisible at the middle it will also be

divisible at a contiguous point. For position is not contiguous to

position or point to point, and this is division or composition.f

So aggregation and segregation exist, but not into or out of atoms,

15 since this leads to many impossibilities, nor in such a way that

division can occur everywhere (for this would be what would happen

if point were contiguous to point), but into smaller and yet smaller

parts, and aggregation out of smaller <into greater>.

Nevertheless, coming to be simpliciter, i.e. absolutely, is not

defined by aggregation and segregation, as some say; nor is change in

what is continuous the same as alteration. This is just where all the

20 mistakes are made. Coming to be and ceasing to be simpliciter occur,

not in virtue of aggregation and segregation, but when something

changes from this to that as a whole. These people think that all

such change is alteration, but there is in fact a distinction. For

within the substratum there is something which corresponds to the

definition and something which corresponds to the matter. When,

25 therefore, the change takes place in these it will be generation or

corruption: when it takes place in the affections, accidentally, it

will be alteration.

However, things do become easily corruptible as a result of being

segregated and aggregated: for instance, the smaller the particles into

which drops of water are divided the sooner they become air; if they

are aggregated the process is slower. But this will become clearer in

30 the following pages: it is enough now to have determined the point

that generation cannot possibly be aggregation — not of the sort

some people say it is.

Chapter 3 <Generation Simpliciter>

Having settled these matters we must first consider whether there is

8
 GENERATION SIMPLICITER L3.317a

anything which comes to be simpliciter and perishes, or whether

strictly speaking there is nothing which does so, but it is always a

case of coming to be something from being something. What I mean

is, for example, coming to be well from being ill and ill from being

well, or small from big and big from small, and all the other cases 35

following this pattern. For coming to be simpliciter would involve 317b

something's coming to be from not being simpliciter, so that it

would be true to say that not being belongs to some things: coming

to be something is from not being something, e.g. from not being

white or not being beautiful, whereas coming to be simpliciter is

from not being simpliciter. 5

Simpliciter can signify either what is first in each category of

being or what is universal and includes everything. If the former,

generation of substance will be from what is not substance; but

where neither substance nor individuality belongs, neither, of course,

does any of the other categories, e.g. quality, quantity, or place, for

that would mean affections' existing in separation from substances. 10

Tf, on the other hand, 'not being simpliciter* means not being gener-

ally, this will amount to a universal denial of everything, so that

that which comes to be must needs come to be from nothing.

The dilemmas that arise concerning these matters and their sol-

utions have been set out at greater length elsewhere, but it should

now again be said by way of summary that in one way it is from

what is not that a thing comes to be simpliciter, though in another 15

way it is always from what is; for that which is potentially but is not

actually must necessarily pre-exist, being described in both these

ways. But even when these distinctions have been made, there

remains a question of remarkable difficulty, which we must take up

once again, namely, how is coming to be simpliciter possible,

whether from what is potentially or some other way. One might well

wonder whether there is coming to be of substance and the individual, 20

as opposed to quality, quantity, and place (and the same question

arises in the case of ceasing to be). Fqr if something comes to be,

clearly there will exist potentially, not actually, some substance

from which the coming to be will arise and into which that which

ceases to be has to change. Now will any of the others belong to this 25

actually? What I mean is: Will that which is only potentially indi-

9
317b TRANSLATION

vidual and existent, but neither individual nor existent s/mp/zczter,

have any quality or quantity or place? If it has none of these,

but all of them potentially, that which in this sense is not will

consequently be separable, and further, the principal and perpetual

30 fear of the early philosophers will be realized, namely, the coming

to be of something from nothing previously existing. But if being

individual and a substance are not going to belong to it while some

of the other things we have mentioned are, the affections will, as we

have remarked, be separable from the substances.

We ought, then, to work at these problems as much as possible,

and also enquire what is the cause of there always being generation,

35 both generation simpliciter and the partial sort of generation. Given

318a that there is one cause from which we say movement begins, and

another which is matter, it is the latter sort of cause that we must

speak about. For the former has already been spoken about in the

treatise on movement, where we said that there is that which is

5 throughout time unmoved and that which is always in motion: the

former of these, the unmoved principle, it is the task of that other

and prior philosophy to clarify; the latter, that which moves the

other things through being continually moved, we shall treat of later,

and determine which thing of this sort of those we call particular is

the cause. Now, however, let us discuss the cause which is placed in

the class of matter. It is because of this that corruption and gener-

ic ation never disappear from nature. For maybe at the same time as

this becomes clear, so will the solution to the dilemma we were

faced with just now as to the correct way of speaking also about

corruption and generation simpliciter.

Enough of a dilemma is in fact involved in the question what is

the cause of the continued succession of generation, if that which

perishes disappears into the non-existent and the non-existent is

15 nothing (for the non-existent is neither something nor suchlike nor

so big nor somewhere). If some one of the things which exist is

always disappearing, why has not the universe been entirely spent

and taken its departure long ago, if, that is, there was only a limited

quantity of matter for the generation of each of the things coming

into being? For it is certainly not because the matter of generation is

20 infinite that it does not give out. That is impossible, since nothing

10
 GENERATION SIMPLICITER I.3.318a

is actually infinite, but only potentially, as subject to division; so the

only possible inexhaustible generation would be due to something

smaller always coming into existence — but in fact this is not what

we see.

Is it, then, because the corruption of one thing is the generation

of another and vice versa, that the change is necessarily unceasing? 25

As far as concerns the existence of generation and corruption

alike in the case of each of the things which are, this explanation

should be considered sufficient for them all. But why some things

are said to come to be and to cease to be simpliciter and others not

simpliciter needs further consideration, if indeed one and the same

thing is both the generation of A and the perishing of B and vice

versa. Some account of this is needed. For we say on occasion that 30

now <something> is perishing simpliciter, not merely that B is

perishing, and that this is a case of generation simpliciter, and that

of corruption. Again, this comes to be something without coming to

be simpliciter: we say that a person who learns comes to be know-

ledgeable, not that he comes to be simpliciter. We often make a dis- 35

tinction by saying that some things signify a particular individual 318b

and others do not. The account that is needed is a consequence of

this.

For there is a difference between the things into which the

changing object changes: for instance, it may be that the way that

leads to fire is a coming to be simpliciter, but a perishing of some-

thing, say earth; whereas the coming to be of earth is a coming to be 5

something, not a coming to be simpliciter, but a perishing simpliciter,

say of fire. Thus Parmenides speaks of two, saying that that which is

and that which is not are fire and earth, respectively. It makes no

difference whether we postulate this particular pair or another like

it: what we are after is the manner of the change, not its matter. The

way which leads to that which is not simpliciter is corruption

simpliciter: that which leads to what is simpliciter is generation 10

simpliciter. In whatever terms the distinction is made, whether in

terms of earth and fire or of some other pair, one of the pair will be

that which is, the other that which is not. This, then, is one way in

which generation and corruption simpliciter will differ from those

which are not simpliciter. Another way is by the character of the

11
I.3.318b TRANSLATION

matter involved. If the distinguishing characteristics of the matter

15 signify individuality to a greater degree, the matter itself is to a greater

degree substance; if they signify privation, not-being. For example if

heat is a positive characteristic and a form, but cold a privation,

earth and fire differ in accordance with these distinguishing

characteristics.

The common view is rather that the difference is in terms of the

20 perceptible and the imperceptible: when the change is to perceptible

matter they say that generation occurs, when to matter that is not

apparent, corruption. They distinguish what is and what is not by

their perceiving or not perceiving it, in the same way as the knowable

is what is and the unknowable what is not, for perception has the

force of knowledge. Just as they hold that their own life and being

25 consists in perceiving or being able to perceive, so, they think, does

that of things. In a sense they are on to something true, though what

they actually say is untrue. Coming to be simpliciter and perishing

come out differently on the common view and on the correct view.

By the standard of perception wind and air are to a lesser degree, so

they accordingly say that the things which perish simpliciter perish

30 by changing into these, and that things come into being when they

change into what is tangible, i.e. earth. In fact, however, wind

and air are individual and identifiable with> form to a greater

extent than earth.

We have now stated the reason why there is such a thing as gener-

ation simpliciter, which is the corruption of something, and such a

thing as corruption simpliciter, which is the generation of something:

35 it is due to a difference of matter either in respect of its being sub-

stance or not being substance, or in respect of its being more or less

319a so, or because in the one case the matter from which or to which the

change takes place is more perceptible and in the other case less

perceptible. The reason why some things are said to come to be

simpliciter, others only to come to be something, not in virtue of the

generation of one from another in the manner we have just been

5 describing — for all that has so far been determined is why, when

every instance of corruption is the generation of something else, we

do not attribute 'coming to be' and 'ceasing to be' impartially to the

things which change into one another; but the problem that was

12
 GENERATION SIMPUCITER I.3319a

mentioned later was not this, but why that which learns is not said 10

to come to be simpliciter but to come to be knowledgeable, whereas

that which is born is said to come to be — this distinction is made in

terms of the categories. For some things signify an individual, some

a quality, some a quantity. So those which do not signify substance

are not said to come to be simpliciter but to come to be something.

For all that, in every category alike we talk of generation in connec-

tion with just one of the two columns;1 for instance, in substance if

it is Tire', but not if it is 'earth', and in quality if it is'knowledgeable', 15

but not if it is 'ignorant'.

We have thus dealt with the fact that some things come to be

simpliciter and others not, both in general and amongst substances

themselves. We have also stated why the substratum is cause, as

matter, of the continuous occurrence of generation: namely, because

it is able to change from one contrary to another, and because the

generation of one thing in the case of substances is always the cor- 20

ruption of another and the corruption of one thing the generation of

another.

Furthermore, neither is there any need to puzzle over the question

why there is generation although things are always perishing. For

just as they say that something ceases to be simpliciter when it

passes into imperceptibility and not-being, so they say that a thing

comes to be from not being when it comes to be from being imper- 25

ceptible. So whether or not the substratum is something, things

come to be from not being. Thus it is equally from what is not that

things come to be and into what is not that things perish. It is only

natural, then, that it does not give out; for generation is the corruption

of what is not and corruption the generation of what is not.

However, a doubt might be raised2 whether this thing which is 30

not simpliciter is one of the pair of contraries — earth, the heavy

element, for instance, as what is not, and fire, the light element, as

what is — or whether, on the contrary, earth too is what is, whilst

what is not is the matter that belongs equally to earth and fire.

1
These are two columns, one consisting of positive items and one of the
corresponding negatives, which Aristotle frequently mentions, and attributes
to the Pythagoreans at Metaphysics, A.5.986a22ff,
2
I read BekkeFs aporZseien an tis here.

13
1.3.319a TRANSLATION

Again, is the matter of each of these different? Or would that mean

that they did not come into being from each other or from their

319b contraries (for it is to these that the contraries belong, namely, to

fire, earth, water, and air)? Or is there one way in which the matter

is the same and another in which it is different? For the substratum,

whatever it may be, is the same, but the being is not the same. So

5 much, then, for these questions.

Chapter 4 <Alteration>

We must now explain the difference between generation and alter-

ation, since we say that these changes are different from one another.

The substratum is one thing and the affection whose nature is to

be predicated of the substratum another, and either of them can

10 change. So it is alteration when the substratum remains, being some-

thing perceptible, but change occurs in the affections which belong

to it, whether these are contraries or intermediates. For example, the

body is well then ill, but remains the same body; the bronze is now

round, now a thing with corners, but remains the same. When, how-

15 ever, the whole changes without anything perceptible remaining as

the same substratum, but the way the seed changes entirely into blood,

water into air, or air entirely into water, then, when we have this

sort of thing, it is a case of generation (and corruption of something

else); particularly if the change takes place from what is imperceptible

to what is perceptible either by touch or by all the senses, as when

water is generated or corrupts into air, since air is — near enough —

20 imperceptible.

In these cases if some affection that is one of a pair of contraries

remains the same in the thing generated as it was in the thing that

has perished, e.g. when water comes from air, if both are transparent

or <wet, but not> cold, this must not have the other, the terminus

of the change, as an affection of itself. Otherwise it will be alteration.

25 Take the example where the musical man perished and an unmusical

man came to be, though the man remains the same thing. If being

musical and being unmusical had not been affections per se of this

thing, there would have been a coming to be of the one and a per-

14
 ALTERATION I.4.319b

ishing of the other. So these are affections of the man, although

there is coming to be and perishing of a musical man and an un-

musical man. As it is, this is an affection of what remains. Such 30

cases, then, are alteration.

When the change from one contrary to the other is in respect of

quantity, we have growth and diminution, when it is in respect of

place, locomotion, when in respect of affection and quality, alter-

ation, and when nothing remains of which the other is an affection

or any sort of accident, we have generation of one thing and corrup- 320a

tion of another. What is most properly matter is the substratum

receptive of generation and corruption; but, in a way, so is that of

other changes, since all substrata are receptive of contrarieties of one

sort or another. 5

This, then, is our way of deciding the questions about generation

— whether or not it exists and how it takes place — and about alter-

ation.

Chapter 5 < Growth >

It remains to treat of growth: (a) how does it differ from generation

and alteration, and (b) how does each of the things that grow, grow

and everything that gets smaller, get smaller? The first point to be

considered is whether these different kinds <of change> differ from 10

each other solely in the respect in which < change > takes place (that

is to say, change from this to that, from a potential to an actual sub-

stance, is generation; change in respect of size is growth; change in

respect of an affection is alteration — the latter two being change 15

from a potential to an actual size or affection) or whether there is a

difference also in the manner of the change. For, clearly, what alters

does not necessarily change its place, nor does that which comes to be;

but what grows and what gets smaller does, though not in the same

way as what is in local motion. For that which is in local motion

changes its place as a whole, whereas what grows is like metal that is 20

beaten out: this stays put, but its parts change their place, though

not in the way the parts of a sphere do. For these change in the same

amount of space, while the whole stays put. The parts of a thing

15
I.5.320a TRANSLATION

which grows, however, continually occupy more space, and those of

a thing which gets smaller occupy less. So it is obvious that there are

25 differences in the ways in which change occurs in-things which come

to be, alter, and grow, and not only in the respects in which <such

changes occur>.

How are we to understand the respect in which those types of

change which fall under growth and diminution occur (growing and

getting smaller are thought to occur in respect of size)? Are we to

30 suppose (1) that from what is potentially possessed of size and cor-

poreal, but actually incorporeal and sizeless something corporeal and

possessed of size comes to be? But this too can be meant in two

different senses. In which sense is growth supposed to come about? Is

the matter from which it comes (a) separated and existing per se; or

does it (b) exist within another body; or are both alternatives im-

320b possible? For if it is separated it will either (i) occupy no space, like

a point, or (ii) it will be void and body which is imperceptible; and

of these the first (i) is impossible, and the second (ii) necessarily

involves its being in something (b). For that which comes to be

from this matter is always going to be somewhere, so the matter

too must be somewhere {contra (i)), either per se or per accidens.

5 But if (b) it is in something, if separate in such a way as not to belong

to the thing it is in either per se or per accidens, many impossible

consequences will follow. I mean, it would be like air coming to be

from water, not because the water underwent any change, but

10 because the matter of the air had been contained in the water as if

in a vessel. In this case there would be nothing to prevent there being

an infinite number of matters, which might accordingly actually

come to be. Moreover it is clear that air does not come to be from

water in this way, as though emerging from something which itself

remains.

So (2) it is better in every case to make the matter inseparable, by

way of being one and the same numerically though not one in defi-

nition. But points cannot be posited as the body's matter either; nor,

15 for the same reasons, can lines: the matter is that of which these are

the limit, and it is impossible for it ever to exist without affections

and without shape.

One thing comes to be simpliciter from another thing, as has been

16
 GROWTH I.5.320b

determined elsewhere, being caused to do so by something actually

existing either of the same genus or of the same species (fire, e.g. 20

by fire, or a human being by a human being), or by an actuahty [for

a hard thing is not caused to come into existence by a hard thing].

Since there is a matter of corporeal substance (and this is already the

matter of a particular kind of body, for there is no kind of body

common to everything), the matter of size and affection will be one

and the same as this, separable in definition but not separable in

place, unless the affections too are separable. The difficulties already 25

examined have made clear that growth is not a change from some-

thing which potentially has size, but actually has no size: the vacuum

this implies would be separate, and the impossibility of this has been

stated earlier in other works. Again, change of this sort would be

characteristic not of growth but of generation simpliciter; for growth

is the increase of something already possessed of size and diminution 30

its getting smaller (and this is why what grows is bound to have some

size); so growth cannot be a change from sizeless matter to actualized

size; for this would be generation of body rather than growth.

It will be better at this point to take up, as though we were 321a

meeting it for the first time, the question what sort of thing growth or

diminution is, whose causes we are seeking. It appears that when a

thing grows every part of it has grown, and similarly when a thing

diminishes every part has become smaller; also that it is by some-

♦
thing's acceding to it that it grows and by something's leaving it that

it diminishes. Now that by which a thing grows is necessarily either 5

incorporeal or body. If it is incorporeal there will be a separable

vacuum; but it is impossible for the matter of size to be separable, as

has been said earlier. If, on the other hand, it is body, there will be

two bodies in the same place, that which is growing and that which

is making it grow; and this too is impossible.

Nor, for that matter, is it possible to say that growth of diminution 10

takes place in the same way as the change from water into air,

despite the fact that there too the size becomes greater. For this

will be, not growth, but generation of that which is the terminus of

the change and corruption of its opposite. It is not growth of either

of these: either nothing at all grows, or whatever there may be that

both have in common (both that which comes into being, and that

17
I.5321a TRANSLATION

15 which has perished) as, for example, body. The water has not grown,

neither has the air: rather, the one has perished and the other come

into existence: it is the body, if such there be, which has grown. But

this too is impossible. For the features which belong to a thing

which grows or gets smaller must be kept in its definition, and these

are three: (a) each part of the growing object possessed of size is

20 larger — of flesh if it is flesh; (b) something accedes to the thing

which grows; and (c) the thing which grows is preserved and remains.

For, whereas in the case of something's coming to be simpliciter or

perishing nothing remains, in those of alteration and of growth or

diminution that which grows or alters does remain the same,

25 although in the former case the affection and in the latter the size

does not remain the same. If, then, the aforementioned change is to

be growth, it would be possible for something to grow without any-

thing acceding to it or <anything> remaining, or for something to

get smaller without anything leaving it, and for the growing object

not to remain. But this must be kept; for it was laid down that

growth was like this.

The question might also be raised, which is it that grows, the

30 thing to which something is added — as, for example, if there is

growth in a man's calf, this becomes larger, whilst the thing by

which it grows, the nourishment, does not. So why is it not the case

that both have grown? The thing added and the thing to which it is

added are both larger, just as when you mix wine with water — each

increases in the same way. Is it because the substance of the one

persists, but not that of the other, namely the nourishment? For in

35 the other example too it is the ingredient which prevails in the

321b mixing which the result is said to be, that is, wine, since the mixture

as a whole does the work of the wine, not that of the water. Similarly

in the case of alteration too, if something continues to be flesh, i.e.

to be what it is, but possesses some affection of those belonging to

it per se which it did not possess before, it is this which has altered:

5 that by which it has altered is sometimes unaffected, but sometimes

is affected itself. But that which makes it alter, the principle of

movement, is in the thing which grows and the thing which is altered,

because the mover is in these. For that which enters the body could

on occasion become larger as well as the body which benefits from

18
 GROWTH I.5.321b

it, e.g. if, having entered, it became wind; but immediately on being

thus affected it is destroyed, and the mover is not in this. 10

Since the problems have now sufficiently been aired, we must try

actually to find a solution to the difficulty, while safeguarding the

fact that in growing the growing body remains and something accedes

to it, and in getting smaller something departs from it; again, that

every perceptible point <of the thing that has grown> has become

larger, or smaller <in the case of a diminishing thing>; and that the

body is not void, nor do two objects possessed of size occupy the 15

same place, nor does a thing grow by anything incorporeal.

Before getting hold of the cause <of growth> we must first make

two points: (a) the anhomoeomers grow in virtue ofthehomoeomers'

growing, for every anhomoeomer is composed of these; (b) flesh,

bone, and all such parts are twofold, as are the other things that have 20

a form in matter. Both the matter and the form are called flesh and

bone. The thesis that every single part grows and that in growth

something accedes to the growing object is a possible one in terms

of the form, but in terms of the matter it is not. We should think of

it as though someone were measuring out water in the same measure:

that which comes to be is all the time different. This is how the 25

matter of flesh grows: an addition is not made to each and every

part, but some flows away and some comes in new: <what is added

to is> each and every part of the shape and the form.

This is clearer in the case of the anhomoeomers: a hand, for in-

stance, grows proportionately; for here the difference between the

matter and the form is clearer than in the case of flesh and the 30

homoeomers. This is why we would be more inclined to think of a

dead man's flesh and bone as still existing than his hand and arm. So

there is a way in which every part of the flesh grows and a way in

which it does not; for there is an accession to every part in terms of

form, but not in terms of matter.

Nevertheless the whole becomes larger through the accession of 35

something which is called nourishment, and is contrary, but which

changes into the same form. For example, wet could accede to dry, 322a

and having arrived could change and become dry. For in one way

like grows by like, in another way <unlike> by unlike. And a

question arises, what sort of thing that by which a thing grows has 5

19
I.5.322a TRANSLATION

to be. Obviously, potentially the sort of thing the growing thing

itself is, e.g. flesh if it is flesh. So actually something else. When this

has been destroyed it has come to be flesh, although not this itself

per se.(for that would be generation, not growth) but rather the

10 thing that grows by this. How affected by the growing thing? Mixed

with it, as if one were to pour water into wine, and it (the latter)

were able to make what is mixed with it into wine? Again, as fire

does when it gets hold of combustible material, so the power of

growth which resides in the growing thing which is actually flesh gets

hold of the thing which is potentially flesh when it accedes and

makes it into actual flesh. So it must happen when the two are

together: if it were when they were apart it would be generation.

15 For fire can be made in this way by placing wood on top of an

existing fire, and in this instance what we have is growth; but when

the wood catches fire by itself what we have is generation.

A quantity, understood universally, does not come into existence,

any more than does an animal which is neither a man nor any

particular animal (quantity here corresponds to the universal there).

20 What comes into existence is flesh or bone or a hand or the homoeo-

mers that compose these. And what accedes to the growing thing is a

given quantity, but not a quantity of flesh. In so far as it is potentially

both these things, i.e. a quantity of flesh, it will produce growth

(for it has to become both a quantity and flesh): in so far as it is

potentially just flesh, it will nourish. This is how nourishment and

growth differ in definition. Accordingly, a thing is nourished as long

25 as it is maintained in existence even if it gets smaller but is not

always in process of growing. Nourishment is the same as growth,

but its being is different. For qua potentially a quantity of flesh,

that which accedes is what makes flesh grow; but qua potentially

just flesh, it is nourishment.

fThis form, like a pipe, is a sort of power in matter. If some

30 matter accedes to it, which is potentially a pipe and which also has

potentially the required quantity, these will be larger pipes. If, how-

ever, it is no longer able to produce this, but is like water in increasing

quantities continually mixed with wine, which ends up by making it

watery, and indeed water, then it produces diminution of the

quantity. The form nevertheless persists.f

20
 CONTACT I.6.322b

Chapter 6 < Contact >

Since we must first discuss the matter <of generation and corrupt- 322b

ion> and the so-called 'elements', whether or not they really are

such, and whether each is eternal or in some way comes to be, and,

if they do come to be, whether they all come to be from one another

in the same manner or whether some one of them is primary — before

this, we must speak of things which are at present talked about in a 5

confused way. All philosophers, both those who make the elements

come to be and those who make things come to be from the

elements, make use of aggregation and segregation, action and

passion. Now, aggregation is mixing; but what we mean by 'mixing'

is not clearly determined. What is more, it is impossible for there to

be alteration, or segregation and aggregation, unless there is some-

thing which acts and something which is affected. For, those who 10

posit several elements make them come to be by their acting upon

and being affected by one another, and equally those who make

them come to be from a single element cannot avoid speaking of

action. And Diogenes is right to say that if it were not the case that

everything is from a single thing, there would not be any acting upon

or being affected by one another, e.g. what is hot being cooled, and 15

vice versa — for heat and cold do not change into each other. What

changes is clearly the substratum; so objects between which there is

action and passion necessarily have a single underlying nature. But

it is not true to say that everything is of this kind, but only those 20

things between which there is interaction. Furthermore, if consider-

ation has to be given to action and passion and to mixing, it must

necessarily also be given to contact; for neither is acting and being

affected possible in the strict sense for things which cannot be in

contact with each other, nor can things be mixed unless they have

first had some sort of contact. So we must get clear about these 25

three things, what contact is, what mixing is, and what action is.

Let us make the following start: it is necessary for those things

which are involved in mixing to be capable of contact with one

another, and the same holds for anything which properly speaking

acts on, or is affected by, another. So the first thing to discuss is

contact. Just as almost all other words are used in a variety of 30

21
I.6.322b TRANSLATION

senses, some of them equivocally, others with some of their senses

dependent on other, prior senses, so it is with 'contact'. But contact

in the strict sense belongs to things which have position, and position

to things which also have place. (For even mathematical entities, to

323a the extent that contact is attributed to them, must also have place,

whether each of them exists as a separate object, or in some other

way.) If to be in contact, as was defined earlier, is to have extremities

together, those things will be in contact with each other which are

5 discontinuous objects having size and position and which have their

extremities together. Since whatever has a position also has a place,

and the primary distinguishing features of place are 'above' and

'below' and the other opposites of this sort, all things that are in

contact with each other will possess heaviness or lightness, either

both or just one. Now things like this are capable of being affected

10 and of acting; so it is evident that the things whose nature is to be

in contact with one another are those discontinuous objects having

size whose extremities are together and which are capable of moving

and being moved by one another.

Since not everything that moves something moves it in the same

way, but in some cases the mover in moving is also itself necessarily

moved, while in other cases it is unmoved, clearly the same distinctions

15 will have to be made with regard to the thing that acts; for the

mover is said to do something, i.e. act, and conversely the agent is

said to move things. All the same, there is a difference between them

and they ought to be distinguished; for not every mover is capable of

acting — if, that is, we oppose 'that which acts' to 'that which is

affected', a term which applies to those whose movement is affection,

affection being restricted to that in respect of which a thing alters,

such as whiteness and heat — but moving extends wider than acting

20 does.

This then, at any rate, is clear: that there is a sense in which the

things which cause motion will touch the things they move and a

sense in which they will not. But the definition of'being in contact'

in general is applicable to things which have a position and are

capable the one of moving and the other of being moved, whereas

that of 'mutual contact' is applicable to things capable of moving

25 and being moved in which there is acting and being affected. The

22
 CONTACT I.6.323a

more usual case, indeed, is where a thing touches something which

in turn touches it. Practically all the things we meet move while

being moved, and in these cases it is necessary and indeed apparent

that things touch things which in turn touch them. It is possible,

4
though, as we sometimes say, for the mover just to touch' the thing

moved, while the thing touched does not touch the thing that

touches it (but since things of the same kind move while being

moved, it seems necessary for it to touch the thing which touches 30

it). So if something moves something without being moved it will

touch the thing moved, but nothing will touch it. After all, we say

at times that a man who grieves us 'touches' us, but we do not

touch him.

This, then, is the way in which we define the notion of contact in

so far as physical objects are concerned.

Chapter 7 <Acting and Being Affected (1):

Like and Unlike>

The next thing to be discussed is action and passion. The views we 323b

have received from earlier philosophers are in opposition to one

another. Most of them indeed are unanimous in holding this, that

like is in every case incapable of being affected by like, since one is no

more active or passive than the other, for all the same things belong 5

equally to like things; and that it is unlike and different things which

tend naturally to act on and be affected by each other. Even in the

case where a smaller fire is destroyed by a larger one it is thus affected,

they say, in virtue of the contrariety, since much is the contrary of

little. Democritus, on the other hand, puts forward his own view 10

against the others, an odd man out. According to him agent and

patient are the same and like, since it is impossible for things which

are different and dissimilar to be affected by each other: if things

that are different do affect one another, it is not qua different but

qua possessing something in common that this happens to them. 15

These, then, are the views that have been expressed on the subject.

It seems as though those who speak in this way are manifestly saying

opposite things; but the explanation of these opposing ways of talking

is that each side in effect states only a part when it was necessary

23
I.7.323b TRANSLATION

to consider the whole. That which is like, in the sense of being

altogether and in every respect indiscernible, might well be argued

20 not to be in any way affected by its like. Why, the argument might

go, should one be active rather than the other?

Again, if something is capable of being affected by what is like it,

it will also be capable of being affected by itself; and if this were the

case there would be nothing imperishable or immovable, given that

like qua like is capable of acting, for everything would move itself.

The same goes for that which is completely different and in no

25 respect the same. Whiteness could not be affected in any way by a

line or a line by whiteness, unless ^QxhSi^per accidens: e.g. the line

might per accidens be white or black. Nothing dislodges another

from its nature unless both are either contraries or from contraries.

30 But, since action and passion belong naturally, not to any old thing,

but only to things which have contrariety or are contraries, agent

and patient are necessarily alike and the same in genus but unlike

and contrary in species. For it is natural for body to be affected

by body, flavour by flavour, colour by colour, and generally things

324a that are of a given genus by other such things. The reason for this is

that contraries are all in the same genus, and it is contraries which act

on and are affected by each other. So it is necessary that in one sense

agent and patient should be the same and in another sense different

and unlike one another. And, since patient and agent are the same

5 and like in genus but unlike in species, and it is contraries that are

like this, clearly the things which are capable of acting on and being

affected by one another are the contraries and the intermediates.

And, since it is in these that perishing and coming to be (in the

wide sense) occur, it is now therefore understandable that fire heats

and cold things cool, and generally what is active makes the patient

10 like itself. For agent and patient are contraries, and coming to be is

to the contrary. So it is necessary that the patient change into the

agent, because this is the way in which coming to be will be to the

contrary.

We can also see a reason for saying that both sides in the dispute

alike had some hold on nature, although they did not say the same

15 things. For sometimes it is the substratum which we speak of as

being affected, as when we say that the man gets well or gets hot, or

24
 ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (1): LIKE AND UNLIKE I.7.324a

cold, or any other things of this kind; sometimes, though, we say

that what is cold gets hot, what is ill gets well. And both are true —

the same thing happens in the case of the agent: sometimes it is the 20

man that we say heats things, sometimes we say that what is hot

heats — for there is a sense in which it is the matter that is affected

and another sense in which it is the contrary. The one side paid

attention to the former and thought that agent and patient must

have something in common: the others paid attention to the latter

and thought the opposite.

The same account has to be accepted of action and passion as

of being moved and moving. There are two senses of 'mover': that in 25

which the principle of movement exists is held to be a mover, for the

principle is first among causes; and again, the last in the series (in the

direction of the thing moved and generation) is regarded as a mover.

Similarly with 'agent'; for we say of both the physician and the wine

that they make people well. Now, whilst nothing prevents the first 30

mover being unmoved during the movement, and indeed this is neces-

sarily so in some cases, the last in the series is always a mover that is

itself moved. In the case of action the first agent is unaffected, but

the last is also a patient. Things that do not share the same matter

act without being acted upon; e.g. the medical skill, which produces 35

health without itself being in any way affected by the thing which is

made healthy, whereas the food <that is administered>, in acting, 324b

is also affected in some way or other — it is either heated or cooled

or is affected in some other way in the course of acting. The medical

skill is like a principle and the food is like the last <mover> which

is in contact <with the thing moved >. Of things which are active 5

those whose form does not exist in matter are incapable of being

affected; those whose form is in matter are capable of being affected.

For we say that each of a pair of opposites has more or less the same

matter, which is like the genus; and that which is capable of being

hot, given the presence and proximity of a heating agent, necessarily

gets heated. As has been said, therefore, of things which are active

some are incapable, some capable of being affected, and the situation 10

is the same in the case of things which are active as it is in the case

of motion: there the first mover is immovable; in the case of things

which are active the first agent is incapable of being affected.

25
324b TRANSLATION

The thing which is active is a cause in the sense of being that from

which movement begins. The final cause is not active (so health is

15 not active, except metaphorically). For when the agent is present the

patient comes to be something, but when dispositions are present it

is no longer a case of coming to be, but of already being, and forms

and ends are dispositions of a sort.

Matter qua matter is passive. So, whilst the heat of fire exists in

matter, were there such a thing as heat existing separately, this

20 would not be affected in any way. This perhaps is not a thing which

could exist separately; but if there are any such things our remarks

would be verified in their case.

This is how we deal with the questions, what is action and passion,

to what do they belong, why and how do they belong to them.

Chapter 8 <Acting and Being Affected (2):

Empedocles and the Atomists>

We must return to the question of how this can occur. Some think

25 that whatever is affected is so by the agent's entering it through

certain passages — the last agent, that is, or the agent in the strictest

sense. In this way, according to them, we see and hear and perceive

all the other perceptions. Furthermore, things are seen through air

30 and water and the transparent media because they have passages

which, though invisible on account of their small size, are frequent

and arranged in rows, and the more so the more transparent the

medium. Some, therefore, including indeed Empedocles, dealt in this

way with certain problems — not action and passion only, but also

mixing, which they say occurs in the case of things whose passages

35 have the same size as each other.

The most systematic theory, however, which covers all the phen-

325a omena with a single explanation, is that of Leucippus and

Democritus, who adopt a principle which is in accordance with

nature. For some of the earlier philosophers held that the existent is

of necessity one and immovable. The vacuum, they would claim, is

5 non-existent, and things would not be able to move if a separated

vacuum did not exist; and furthermore there could not be many

26
 ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (2) 1.8.325a

things if that which held them apart did not exist. Nor does it make

any difference to this if one maintains that the whole is not continu-

ous, but that, though divided, its parts are in contact, rather than

asserting the existence of many things (and not one) and a vacuum.

For, they think, if the whole were everywhere divided, nothing would

be one; and so there would not be many things either, but the whole

would be a vacuum. To suppose, on the other hand, that it is divided

at one point and not at another would be to introduce a certain artifi- 10

ciality, as it were, into the account: to what extent, and why, is part of

the whole like this and a plenum, and the rest divided? Again, on this

view it follows just as necessarily that there is no such thing as

movement.

These arguments lead them to go beyond perception and pay no

attention to it, on the grounds that one is obliged to follow where

the argument leads. They maintain that the whole is one and im-

movable, and some of them say that it is infinite; for the finite 15

would end at the vacuum. This school therefore arrives in this way

and for these reasons at its conclusions concerning the truth. More-

over, as a matter of argument these conclusions do appear to follow,

but as far as the facts are concerned to hold opinions of this sort

seems to be next door to madness; for no lunatic is so far out of his

wits as to think that fire and ice are one: at most it is possible to 20

confuse what appears beautiful because one is accustomed to it with

what actually is beautiful — there are people who through madness

fail to see the difference between these two things.

Leucippus, however, thought he had theories which said things

which were in agreement with perception and would not deny generat-

ion or corruption or movement or the plurality of existing things. 25

Having conceded these points to the phenomena, and, to those who

♦
argue for the One, the points that there would be no movement

without a vacuum and that1 the vacuum is non-existent, he says also

that nothing of the existent is non-existent: for the existent in the

strict sense is a plenum. Nevertheless, what is like this is not one, but

infinite in number and invisible on account of the smallness of its 30

bulk. These bodies move about in the vacuum (for a vacuum exists),

1
Adopting the reading ovre rather than obn in 325a27, so that re in the
same line has to be taken as backward-looking.

27
I.8.325a TRANSLATION

and their coming together produces generation, their falling apart

corruption. They act and are affected where they happen to come in

contact with each other (for they are not one here), and being placed

together and interlocking they generate. But from what is truly one

35 a plurality could not come to be, nor one from what are truly many:

325b this would be impossible. However, just as Empedocles and some of

the others hold that things are affected by way of the passages, so

Leucippus maintains that all alteration and all being affected comes

to be in this way, the disintegration and corruption of things coming

to be by way of the vacuum — and similarly also growth, solid bodies

5 slipping in through the gaps.

Empedocles is bound to speak in more or less the same way as

Leucippus does. A number of solid bodies exist, and are undivided,

unless there are continuous passages everywhere. But this is impos-

sible, because there would be nothing else solid over and above the

passages, but everything would be vacuum. So the things which are

10 in contact are necessarily undivided, and what is between them is

vacuum, and this is what Empedocles calls 'passages'. And this is

how Leucippus too speaks of action and passion.

This, then, is more or less how they described the ways in which

certain things act and others are acted upon. We are clear, then,

about these philosophers and what they say, and it clearly follows in

reasonable agreement with the postulates they use. Less so with the

15 others, for example Empedocles: it is not at all clear"on his theory

how there will be corruption and alteration. For the others the

primary bodies are indivisible, differing only in shape, the primary

things out of which <other things> are composed and the ultimate

things into which they are decomposed. In Empedocles' case it is

clear as regards other things, until you reach the elements, that they

20 have generation and corruption; but as regards these elements them-

selves it is not clear how the mass of them as it is piled up comes to

be and perishes, nor is it possible for him to explain this unless he is

prepared to say of fire, and equally of all the others, that they have

25 their own elements, as Plato writes in the Timaeus. This account

<of Plato's> is to this extent different from that given by Leucippus,

that in the latter solids, while in the former planes are regarded as

the indivisibles, and in the latter each of the indivisible solids is

28
 ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (2) I.8.325b

bounded by <one of> an infinite number of shapes,1 in the former

by a limited number, whereas both say that they are indivisible and

defined by their shape. Out of these we get the generations and

segregations2: for Leucippus there would be two ways3, by means 30

of the vacuum and by means of contact (for it is here that each is

divided); but for Plato it only happens by contact, for he says that

a vacuum does not exist.

We have spoken about the indivisible planes in a previous work.

We must leave for the moment the more thorough consideration

of the consequences of the indivisible solids, but, by way of a short 35

digression, we may point out that each of the indivisibles has to be 326a

said to be incapable both of being affected (for it is not possible to

be affected except by means of the vacuum) and of producing any

affection <in anything else>, for they can be neither hard nor cold.

But this, at least, is absurd, to attribute heat to nothing except the 5

spherical shape; for it would surely be necessary for cold, its contrary,

to belong to some other shape. And it would be absurd too to suppose

that they possess these qualities, heat and cold I mean, but not

heaviness or lightness or hardness or softness. Now Democritus

asserts that the indivisibles vary in weight in accordance with their

size; so they must clearly vary also in their degree of heat. But if 10

they are like this, they cannot fail to be affected by one another: for

example, that which has a slight degree of heat4 by that which has a

degree of heat greatly in excess of it. Again, if hard, they can also be

soft; but a thing is called soft precisely because it is affected in some

way, for it is that which tends to yield which is soft. Again, it would

be absurd both if nothing belonged to them except shape and if 15

something did, but only one, hardness here, heat there, for example;

for there would not be some one nature which they had. But it

would be equally impossible for them to have more than one quality

apiece. For, since each one is indivisble, that in which it has these

affections will be one and the same; so that if it is affected, where

1
Aristotle writes carelessly. But it is simpler to make sense of his words by
4
inserting one of in the translation, than by suppressing, as Joachim and
Forster do, the words translated ^each of the indivisible solids'.
2
Following the punctuation of one MS.
3
Keeping the MSS reading.
4
Reading Oepfiov with F against ^vxpov in the other MSS.

29
1.8.326a TRANSLATION

it is cooled, there it will act or be affected in some other way too.

20 And in the same manner in the case of the other affections too; for

this consequence will follow in the same way both for those who say

that the indivisibles are solid and for those who say they are planes;

for they can come to be neither more rarefied nor more condensed,

since there is no vacuum within the indivisibles.

25 Again, it is absurd too that small things should be indivisible but

not big things. As it is, there is good reason why larger things should

be broken up rather than small things; for the former — the large

things, that is — disintegrate easily because they hit a great number

of things; but why should total indivisibility belong to small things

rather than to big things? Again, do those solids all have one and the

30 same nature, or do some differ from others — some, say, being fiery,

some earthy in their bulk? For if there is one nature for all of them,

what is it that keeps them apart? Or why, when they touch, do they

not come to be one, as water does when it comes in contact with

water? For the former is no different from the latter. If, on the other

hand, they are different, what are their qualities? Obviously these will

35 have to be posited as the principles and causes of what result from

326b them, rather than the shapes. Again, if they were different in nature,

they would act and be acted upon in coming in contact with one

another. Again, what is it that moves them? If it is something other

than they, they will be capable of being affected after all. If, on the

other hand, each one moves itself, either it will be divisible into a part

that moves and another part that is moved, or contraries will belong

5 to it in the same respect, and its matter will be one, not only in num-

ber, but also in potentiality.

The other school maintain that affections come about through

movement through1 the passages. Now if the passages are supposed to

be full they are superfluous, for if in this manner the whole of a

thing were affected in some way, it would be affected in the same way

10 even if it had no passages and were itself continuous throughout.

Again, how can it come about in the way they say with regard to

seeing through something? There is no possible thoroughfare through

the transparent <medium> either where there is contact or through

1
Reading, with Mugler, 8td ttk <8td> t&v nopoiv Kivqoecos

30
 ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (2) I.8.326b

the passages, if they are each of them full. What will be the difference

from having no passages? The whole will be just as much a plenum.

Furthermore even if these, whilst empty, necessarily have bodies

in them, this will again have the same result. And if their size is such 15

as to admit no body, it is ridiculous to think that what is small is

empty, but not what is big, whatever its size, or to think that 'vacuum'

means something else beside 'place for a body', so that it is clear that

for every body there will be a vacuum of equal volume. 20

Speaking generally, it is superfluous to posit the existence of pas-

sages. If nothing can act by means of contact, it will not act by

penetrating through passages. If, on the other hand, it can do so by

contact, even if there were no passages, some things would be affect-

ed and others would act, provided each sort were of the appropriate

nature to be related in this way to the other. From these consider-

ations it is clear that speaking of passages in this way, as some have 25

supposed necessary, is either mistaken or futile. Since bodies are

divisible at any point, it is absurd to posit the existence of passages;

for where they are divisible, they can be separated.

Chapter 9 <Acting and Being Affected (3):

Actuality and Potentiality >

Let us accept, in order to say in what way generating and acting and

being affected belong to existent things, a principle that we have 30

often mentioned. If there is such a thing as what is potentially such-

and-such as well as what is actually such-and-such, it is natural for it

to be affected, not in this place rather than in that, but everywhere,

to the extent that it is such-and-such, though to a lesser or greater

degree according to whether it is more or less such-and-such. And in

this way, rather, one could speak of passages, as in minerals there 35

stretch continuous veins of what is specially liable to be affected. 327a

Anything which has grown together to make one thing is incapable

of being affected. So too are things that are in contact neither with

each other nor with other things whose nature is to act and be acted

upon: I mean, for example, that fire heats not only when in contact

with things but also when it is at a distance from them: for the fire

31
327a TRANSLATION

5 heats the air and the air heats the body, air being of a nature both to

act and to be affected.

As for the view that things are affected in one part but not in an-

other, in the light of the distinctions we made at the beginning there

is this to be said. If the extended thing were not everywhere divisible

but there were such a thing as an indivisible body or surface, it would

not be everywhere capable of being affected, but nor would any-

thing be continuous. If, however, this is false and every body is divis-

10 ible, it makes no difference whether it is divided into parts which are

in contact or is divisible. For if it can be segregated along the lines of

contact, as some say, even though it is not yet in a divided state, it

will be in a divided state. For, it is possible for it to be divided. For

nothing impossible comes into being.

Generally, it is absurd to suppose that it is only in this fashion, as

15a result of bodies' being split, that anything comes to be. This theory

does away altogether with alteration; but we see the same body,

remaining continuous, at one time liquid and at another solid, and

this happens to it without division or composition taking place, or

turning or touching, as Democritus says; for it has become solid from

20 being liquid without any change of order or position in its nature,

nor does it have within it the hard and solid bodies, indivisible in

their bulk, but it is at one time liquid in the same way throughout,

and at another time hard and solid. Again, there could be no such

thing as growth or diminution; for it will not be true of every single

part of it that it has become bigger, if something is added to it,

rather than the whole having changed either through the admixture

25 of something or because it changes in itself.

This, then, is how we settle (a) that there are such things as gener-

ating and acting and coming to be and being mutually affected, (b)

in what way this is possible, and (c) in what way is it not possible

though some have said that it is.

Chapter 10 <Mixing >

30 It remains to employ the same sort of method for the consideration

of mixing, since this was the third of the topics we originally set

ourselves to examine. We have to enquire what mixing is, what a

32
 MIXING 1.10.327*

mixture is, to which of the things that are it belongs, and how; and

furthermore whether there is such a thing as mixing or whether this

is false.

For it is impossible for one thing to be mixed with another,

according to what some people say; for supposing that the things after

being mixed still are and have not been altered, they say that now 35

they are no more mixed than they were before, but are just the 327b

same; and that if one of the two things is destroyed, they have not

been mixed, but one exists and the other does not, whereas mixing is

of things in the same conditon; and that it is no different if, when

the two things have come together, each of the things being mixed is 5

destroyed, because they cannot be things that have been mixed if

they cannot be said to be at all. Now what this argument is after

seems to be to clarify the difference between mixing and coming to

be or ceasing to be, and between a mixture and a thing that comes to

be or ceases to be. So once these are clear the problems should find

their solution. 10

On the other hand we do not say that wood has been mixed with

fire, nor, when it is being burnt, that it is being mixed, either with its

own parts or with the fire: we say rather that the fire comes to be

and that the wood is destroyed.

Similarly we do not say that food is mixed with the body, nor

that the shape is mixed with the wax when it impresses itself on the

lump. Nor can body and white, nor in general can affections and 15

dispositions, have been mixed with the things that have them; for we

see that they are preserved. No more can whiteness and knowledge

have been mixed, nor can anything else of the non-separables. This is

indeed the unwelcome consequence of saying, as some do, that

everything at one time was together and in a state of having been 20

mixed. For not everything is capable of being mixed with everything

else. When two things are mixed each must exist as a separable thing,

and no affection is separable.

Since, however, some things that are, are potential, and some

actual, it is possible for things after they have been mixed in some

way to be and not to be. Some other thing which comes to be from

them is actually, while each of the things which were, before they 25

were mixed, still is, but potentially, and has not been destroyed.

33
U0.327b TRANSLATION

This is the solution to the problem raised by the previous argument.

Moreover, things that are mixed manifestly come together from

having formerly been separate, and are capable of being separated

again. So neither do they both remain in actuality like the body and

its whiteness, nor do they perish — either of them or both — because

30 their potentiality is preserved.

So much, then, for this problem. The problem following on from

this must be examined: whether mixing is something relative to

perception. For (i) when the things that are being mixed are divided

up so small and the pieces placed side by side in such a way that

35 each of them is not apparent to perception, have they then been

mixed? Or (ii) is it not so, but is so when they are arranged in such a

328a way that every single part of either of the things mixed is alongside

some part of the other? It is in that way that it is said, for example,

that grains of barley are mixed with grains of wheat, when one grain

of each is placed alongside one of the other. But if every body is

divisible, given that a body mixed with another is homoeomerous,

5 every part of one would have to come to be alongside some part of

the other. But since there is no such thing as a thing's being divided

into parts which are the smallest possible, and since composition

is not the same thing as mixing but different, it is wrong, clearly, to

say that things have been mixed both (i) when the things being mixed

are preserved at the level of small particles (for this will be compo-

sition and not mingling or mixing, nor will the part have the same

proportion as the whole; but we say that if things have in fact been

10 mixed the mixture has to be homoeomerous, and that just as a part

of water is water so it is with what has been mingled. If, however,

mixing is just composition at the level of small particles none of

these consequences is maintained, but 'being mixed' will be relative

to perception: one and the same thing will be mixed for one man

whose sight is not sharp, whereas for Lynceus nothing is mixed), and

15 (ii) when the things have been so divided that every part of one is

alongside some part of the other, since it is impossible for things to

be divided in this way.

So either there is no such thing as mixing or we must again try to

say how it takes place. There are, as we say, some beings which are

capable of acting and some which are capable of being affected by

34
 MIXING I.10.328a

these others. Now for some things there is conversion, those, namely,

which share the same matter, being able both to act upon one 20

another and to be affected by one another. Some things, on the

other hand, though they act, are incapable of being affected, those,

namely, which do not have the same matter. So of these there is no

mixing. And that is why it is not by being mixed with the bodies

that medical skill produces health, nor does health do so.

But amongst things which are capable of acting and of being

affected, those which can easily be divided, when many of them are

juxtaposed to few or large ones to small, then indeed they do not

give rise to mixing, but to growth on the part of that which is domi- 25

nant; for the other changes into the dominant one: thus a drop of

wine is not mixed with ten thousand pitchersful of water, for its

form dissolves and it changes into the totality of the water. But

when the two are more or less equal in strength, then each changes

from its own nature in the direction of the dominant one, though it

does not become the other but something in between and common 30

to both. So it is clear that of agents, those are capable of being

mixed which have a contrariety (for it is these which are capable

of being acted upon by one another).

Small quantities, too, put alongside small quantities mix better,

because they change one another more easily and quickly, whilst

large quantities acted upon by large quantities take a long time to 35

do this. Accordingly amongst things which are divisible and capable 328b

of being affected those which are easily bounded are capable of

being mixed, since they divide easily into small parts, which is

precisely what it is to be easily bounded. For instance, liquids are

the type of bodies most liable to mixing; for liquids are the most

easily bounded of divisible things, unless they are viscous (these have

the effect only of multiplying and increasing bulk). 5

When one only <of the things mixed > is capable of being acted

upon, or where one is extremely liable to be and the other very

slightly indeed, the mixture <which results> from both is either not

at all, or only a little, greater in quantity. This is what happens in

the case of tin and bronze. Certain of the things which are, stammer

and are ambiguous in relation to one another: they have the appear-

ance, as it were, both of being a faint mixture and of being related 10

35
U0.328b TRANSLATION

as form to that which receives form. And this is precisely what occurs

in this case; for the tin, like some affection of the bronze existing

without matter, vanishes and once mixed departs, having effected

nothing but a change of colour. This same thing occurs also in other

instances.

From what has been said, therefore, it is clear (a) that there is

15 such a thing as mixing, what it is, and what causes it, and (b) what

sorts of thing are mixed, since they are certain things with such

a character that they can be acted upon by each other and can

be easily bounded and easily divided. It is not necessarily the

case that these things perish after they have been mixed, nor that

they are simpliciter still the same, nor that their mixing is a case of

20 composition, nor that it is merely relative to perception. Rather,

that is mixed which is easily bounded and is capable both of acting

and being acted upon, and that with which it is mixed is of the same

sort, for what is mixed is relative to something homonymous; and

mixing is the union of the things mixed after they have been altered.

36
 IU.328b

BOOK II

Chapter 1 < The Elements and Prime Matter>

We have discussed how mixing, contact, action, and passion belong 26

to things which are naturally subject to change; also coming to be

simpliciter and ceasing to be, how they occur and to what and for

what reason; similarly we have discussed alteration, what alteration

is, and what differentiates it from them. It remains to consider the 30

so-called 'elements' of bodies.

Generation and corruption in the case of all substances which are

by nature composite do not occur without the perceptible bodies.

The underlying matter of these is said by some to be one, and they

posit air, for instance, or fire, or something midway between these

two, which is at once a body and separable. Others hold that the 35

number is more than one, some naming fire and earth, others adding 329a

air to these to make three, others again adding a fourth to these,

namely water, as Empedocles did. From the aggregation and seg-

regation or alteration of these, they maintain, the generation and

corruption of things results.

Let it be conceded that 'principles' and 'elements' are good 5

names for the primary things whose change, whether by aggregation

and segregation or another change, entails that there is generation

and corruption. But those, on the one hand, who postulate a single

matter over and above those mentioned, and that corporeal and

separable, are mistaken. For it is not possible for this body to exist 10

without a perceptible contrariety — for this infinite which some say

is the principle must necessarily be either light or heavy, or cold or

hot.

The account given in the Timaeus, on the other hand, lacks

precision. It does not say clearly whether the omnirecipient is sepa-

rated from the elements, and makes no use of it: it says that it is a 15

sort of substratum prior to the so-called 'elements' as gold is to arte-

facts made of gold (What is more, this is not well said, said in this

way: things are like this in the case of alteration, but in the case of

37
IU.329a TRANSLATION

generation and corruption it is not possible to call something by

20 the name of the thing from which it has come to be. It says,however,

that it is 'far and away the most true thing to say' that each of

them is gold), but it takes the analysis of the elements, which are

solid, as far as surfaces, though it is impossible for these surfaces to

be the 'nurse' and the primary matter.

Our view is that there is a matter of the perceptible bodies, but

25 that this is not separable but is always together with a contrariety,

from which the so-called 'elements' come to be. A more precise

account of them has been given elsewhere. Nevertheless, since this is

the way in which the primary bodies are from the matter, we must

give an account of these also, regarding, certainly, as a principle

30 that is really first, the matter which, though inseparable, does under-

lie the contraries (for neither is the hot matter for the cold nor the

latter for the hot, but the substratum is matter for them both); so

first that which is perceptible body in potentiality is principle, and

secondly the contrarieties (I mean, for example, heat and cold), and

35 only thirdly fire and water and the like. For these change into one

another, and it is not as Empedocles and others say (for there would

329b be no alteration); but the contrarieties do not change. But none the

less even so we must discuss what sort and how many of them are

principles of body. The others posit them and make use of them but

5 have nothing to say about why these are they, or this many.

Chapter 2 < The Primary Contrarieties >

Since what we are trying to discover are principles of perceptible

body, that is, tangible body, and the tangible is that of which touch

is the sense, it is obvious that not all the contrarieties make forms

10 and principles, but only those that belong to touch. For it is through

a contrariety that they differ — through a tangible contrariety. This

is why neither whiteness and blackness, nor sweetness and bitter-

ness, nor, equally, any of the other perceptible contrarieties, serve to

make an element. It may be said that sight is prior to touch, and that

15 accordingly its substratum is also prior. (It is not, however, qua

tangible that it is an affection of tangible body, but in virtue of

something else, even if in fact it is prior by nature.)

38
 THE PRIMARY CONTRARIETIES II.2.329b

We must first pick out from amongst the tangible qualities them-

selves which are the primary differentiae and contrarieties. These are

the contrarieties that belong to touch: hot-cold, dry-wet, heavy-light,

hard-soft, viscous-brittle, rough-smooth, coarse-fine. Of these heavy

and light are not capable of acting or being affected. They are not 20

said of things in virtue of their acting upon something else or being

acted upon by something else. The elements, however, have to be

capable of acting upon, and being acted upon by, one another, since

they mix and change into one another.

Hot and cold and dry and wet are said of things, the one pair in

virtue of their being capable of acting, the other in virtue of their 25

being capable of being affected. For heat is that which aggregates

things that are of the same kind (for the segregating which they say

fire does is the aggregating of things of the same type, for this results

in foreign bodies' being expelled), and cold is that which gathers and

aggregates indiscriminately things that are related and things that are 30

not of the same type. Wet is that which is not bounded by any boun-

dary of its own but is easily bounded: dry is that which is easily

bounded by a boundary of its own, but is hard <for other things>

to bound.

Fine and coarse, viscous and brittle, hard and soft, and the

other differentiae are from these. Since ability to fill things belongs

to wetness, because it has no boundaries but is easily bounded

and follows the thing with which it is in contact, and the fine 35

is able to fill things (because its particles are fine and that which has 330a

small particles is able to fill things; for the whole of it is in contact

with the whole <of the other>, and that which is fine is very much

of this sort), obviously fineness belongs to wetness and coarseness

to dryness. Again, viscousness belongs to wetness (because viscous- 5

ness is wetness affected in some way, e.g. oil); and brittleness belongs

to hardness, because being brittle is being completely hard — so hard

as to have solidified from lack of wetness. Furthermore, softness

belongs to wetness (because what retreats into itself and does not

move elsewhere, which is what the wet does, is soft — that is why

the wet is not soft but softness belongs to wetness), and hardness 10

belongs to dryness; for that which is solid is hard and that which is

solid is dry.

39
II.2.330a TRANSLATION

'Dry' and 'wet' have more than one sense. Both 'wet' and 'moist'

are opposed to 'dry', and conversely both'dry' and 'solid' are opposed

to 'wet'. All these belong to the dryness and wetness that are

15 primarily so called. Since 'dry' is opposed to 'moist', and that which

has alien wetness on its surface is moist (whereas that which has it in

its depths is sodden, and that which is deprived of this is dry),

obviously moistness will belong to wetness, and the dryness which is

20 opposed to it to dryness in the primary sense. Again, Vet' and 'solid'

behave in a similar way: Vet <i.e. liquid>' is that which has its own

wetness in its depths (whereas that which has alien wetness is sodden),

and that which is deprived of this is solid: accordingly these too

belong, the one to dryness, the other to wetness.

Manifestly, then, all the other differentiae are reducible to these

four primary ones, whereas these cannot further be reduced to any

25 smaller number. Neither is heat the same as wetness or as dryness,

nor is wetness the same as heat or as cold, nor are cold and dryness

subordinate either to one another or to heat and wetness. So of

necessity there are these four.

Chapter 3 <The Contrarieties and the Elements>

30 Since the elements are four in number, and of the four the pairings

are six, but it is not in the nature of contraries to be paired with one

another (it is impossible for one and the same thing to be both hot and

cold, or, again, wet and dry), obviously the pairings of the elements

will be four in number: hot and dry, and wet and hot; and, again,

330b cold and dry, and cold and wet. And they are attached correspond-

ingly to the apparently simple bodies, fire, air, water and earth. For

fire is hot and dry, air hot and wet (for air is something like steam),

5 water cold and wet, and earth cold and dry. So it is in a rational way

that the differentiae are allotted to the primary bodies, and the

number of them corresponds.

For of those who make the simple bodies elements, some make

them one, some two, some three, some four. Those, then, who say

there is only one, and then generate the others by condensation and

10 rarefaction — for them the consequence is to make the principles two,

the rare and the dense, or the hot and the cold — for these are what

40
 THE CONTRARIETIES AND THE ELEMENTS II .3.330b

operate, and the one underlies them as if it were matter; while those

who make them two from the start, as Parmenides does fire and

earth, make the intermediates blends of these, i.e. air and water; and

likewise those who mention three (like Plato in the Divisions, for he 15

makes the intermediate a blend). For practical purposes those who

make them two and those who make them three are saying the

same thing, except that the former divide the intermediate in two,

whereas the latter make it only one. Some, e.g. Empedocles,mention 20

four from the start; but he in fact contracts these to two, for he

opposes all the others to fire.

Neither fire nor air nor any of those we have mentioned is in fact

simple but mixed. The simple bodies are like these but not the same

as them: that which is like fire is fiery, not fire; that which is like air

is aeriform; and so on in the other cases. Fire is excess of heat in the 25

same way as ice is of cold. Solidifying and boiling are excesses of a

kind, the one of cold, the other of heat. So if ice is the solidifying of

wet and cold, accordingly fire is the boiling of dry and hot: this is

why nothing comes into existence either from ice or from fire. 30

The simple bodies being four in number, two each belong to each

of the two places: fire and air belong to that which moves towards the

boundary, earth and water to that which moves towards the middle.

Fire and earth are the extremes and the purest; water and air are the

means and more mixed. Two of them are contrary to the other two, 33 la

respectively: water is contrary to fire, earth to air, because they are

constituted by the contrary affections. All the same, being four,

each belongs simpliciter to one of the affections: earth belongs to

dry rather than to cold, water to cold rather than to wet, air to wet 5

rather than to hot, and fire to hot rather than to dry.

Chapter 4 <Reciprocal Transformation of the Elements^

Since it has been settled earlier that generation for the simple bodies

is from one to another, and since, moreover, it is apparent even to

perception that they come to be. (for <otherwise> there would be

no alteration, for alteration is in respect of the affections of tangible

objects), we must now discuss the way' in which they change into one 10

another, and whether every one can come to be from every other one,

or whether this is possible for some but impossible for the others.

41
II.4.331a TRANSLATION

It is in fact clear that all are by nature able to change into each

other. For generation is to contraries and from contraries, and the

15 elements all have contrariety with each other on account of their

differentiae being contraries. For some both are contraries, e.g. fire

and water (for the one is dry and hot, the other wet and cold), for

others only one is, e.g. air and water (for the one is wet and hot, the

20 other wet and cold). So in general it is clear that it is natural for

every one to come to be from every other; and consequently it is not

difficult to see in each case taken individually how it happens. For,

while they will all come from each other, they will differ from each

other in that with some it is faster, with others slower, and with

25 some it is easier, with others more difficult. The change is fast in the

case of those which have counterparts relative to one another, slow

in the case of those which lack them, because it is easier for one

thing to change than for many. For example, from fire there will be

air if one of its properties changes, the former having been hot and

dry whilst the latter is hot and wet, so that if the dryness is conquered

30 by wetness there will be air. Again, from air there will be water if the

heat is conquered by cold, the former having been hot and wet, the

latter cold and wet, so that if the heat changes there will be water. In

the same way there will be earth from water and fire from earth. For

35 both have counterparts relative to both: water is wet and cold, earth

331b cold and dry, so that if the wetness is conquered there will be earth;

and again, since fire is dry and hot, whereas earth is cold and dry, if

the cold is destroyed there will be fire from earth. Clearly, therefore,

the generation of the simple bodies will be cyclical, and this is the

easiest way in which change can take place — on account of the

5 presence of counterparts in consecutive pairs of elements. Although

it is possible for water to come to be from fire, and earth from air,

and again fire and air from water and earth, it is more difficult

because more things have to change. If there is to be fire from water

both the cold and the wetness have to be destroyed, and again if air

10 from earth both the cold and the dryness have to be destroyed. In the

same way if there is to be water and earth from fire and air both

things have to change.

This latter sort of generation takes longer. If, however, one

<affection> of each member of a pair perishes, the process is easier,

42
 RECIPROCAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE ELEMENTS II.4.331b

but the change is not a mutual one: from fire and water there will be

earth or air, and from air and earth fire or water. When the cold of

the water and the dryness of the fire have been destroyed there will 15

be air, since there remains the heat of the one and the wetness of the

other; but when the heat of the fire and the wetness of the water

have been destroyed there will be earth, because the dryness of the

one and the cold of the other will remain. Similarly too from air and

earth there will be fire or water: when the heat of the air and the

dryness of the earth are destroyed there will be water, since there 20

remains the wetness of the one and the coldness of the other; but

when the wetness of the air and the cold of the earth are destroyed

there will be fire, because the heat of the one and the dryness of the

other will remain, and these are precisely the things which constitute

fire. The generation of fire agrees with what we see to be the case;

for flame is the best example of fire, and flame is burning smoke, 25

while smoke comes from air and earth.

Where consecutive members of the cycle are concerned it is not

possible that the destruction of one elementary quality in each mem-

ber should bring about a change into any of the sorts of body; for

what will be left in both members is either the same qualities or

contrary ones, and from neither of these alternatives is there room

for a body's coming to be: e.g. if the dryness of fire and the wetness 30

of air were destroyed, leaving the heat of both; or if the heat of each

were destroyed what was left would be the contraries, dryness and

wetness. Similarly too in the other cases. Wherever consecutive

members are concerned the qualities possessed are in the one case

the same and in the other the contrary; so it is immediately obvious

that a change from one such member to another occurs given the 35

destruction of one quality, but a change from two to one requires

the destruction of more than one.

So we have now established that all the elements come to be from

any, and have explained in what way change occurs from one into 332a

another.

Chapter 5 <No First Element>

Furthermore, let us consider the topic also in this way: if the matter

of natural bodies is, as some do in fact hold, water and air and that

43
II.5.332a TRANSLATION

5 sort of thing, there must be either one or two or more of them.

But everything cannot be one, e.g. everything be air or water or fire

or earth, if change is change to contraries. For if it were air, given

that it persisted, what there would be would be alteration not gen-

eration (although it does not seem possible even on these terms for

them to exist at the same time, so that water was at the same time

10 air or anything else). There will be some contrariety (or differentia),

one part of which will belong to a thing, as heat belongs to fire.

However, fire will not be hot air: this would amount to alteration,

and is not what we observe to be the case. Once again, if there is to

be air from fire, this will happen through the heat changing into its

15 contrary. This contrary will accordingly belong to the air and the air

will be something cold, so that it is impossible for it to be hot air

because the same thing would then be simultaneously hot and cold.

Both therefore will be some other identical thing and some other

matter common to them both. The same argument applies in each

case, because it is impossible that there should be one of these ele-

20 ments from which all are derived.

Nor for that matter is there anything else besides these, as it

were some mean between air and water, or air and fire, coarser

than air and fire and finer than the others. Fire and air will in that

case be this <intermediate thing> together with a contrariety. But

one of a pair of contraries is a privation, so it is not possible for this

thing ever to be isolated from the contraries, as certain philosophers

25 have said of the 'infinite' and the 'surrounding thing'. It must then be

any one of the elements indifferently, or nothing.

If, then, nothing perceptible, at least, is prior to these, these will

be everything. Necessarily, therefore, they will either be such as

always to remain and not" change into one another, or such as to

change; and either all of them, or some but not others, in accordance

30 with what Plato wrote in the Timaeus. That it is in fact necessary

they should change into one another has been proved above; and it

has been said above that different ones do not come into existence

from each other equally fast, since those that have a counterpart come

into existence from each other quicker, and those that do not have

one, slower.

If there is just one contrariety according to which they change,

44
 NO FIRST ELEMENT IL5.332a

there will have to be two of them; for the intermediate is the matter 35

which is imperceptible and inseparable. Since, however, there are

seen to be more than this, two contrarieties are the least there could 332b

be. And given two of them there cannot be three <elements> but

four, as is obvious; for this is the number of pairings, since, of the six

there are, two cannot occur, as comprising qualities contrary to one 5

another.

These matters have in fact been spoken of earlier. What follows

will show that it is impossible, given that they change into one

another, for any one of them, whether one of the extremes or one of

the means, to be their principle. It will not be the case where the

extremes are concerned, because everything would then be fire or 10

earth, and this view is the same as the view that everything comes

from fire or earth. Nor will it be the case where the means are con-

cerned. This would be the view held by some that whereas air changes

both into fire and into water and water both into air and into earth,

the extremes do not similarly change into one another. For the

process must come to a halt and not go on to infinity in a straight

line in both directions: that would involve an infinite number of

contrarieties belonging to one <element>.

Let E stand for earth, W for water, A for air, and F for fire. Now,

if A changes into F and W, there will be a contrariety between A 15

and F. Let the contraries in question be whiteness and blackness.

Again, if A changes into W, there will be another contrariety, since

W and F are not the same thing. Let these be dryness and wetness:

D for dryness and W for wetness. If whiteness remains, water will 20

emerge as white and wet; if it does not, water will be black. Change

is from contrary to contrary, so water will have to be either white or

black. Let it be the first. Similarly Z), i.e. dryness, will belong to F. So

there will, after all, be such a thing as the changing of F, i.e. fire, into

water. This is because they possess contrary qualities: we saw in the 25

first place that fire was black, then that it was dry, that water was

wet, and then that it was white. Obviously, then, change is possible

from every element to every other element, and in the terms in

which we have conducted the argument F, i.e. earth, will have the

remaining pair of counterparts, black and wet, since these have not

yet been paired. 30

45
n.5.332b TRANSLATION

That it is not possible to proceed to infinity — the thesis we

were going to prove, but then first dealt with this — can be

shown from the following. If the next move of F, i.e. fire, is to

change into something else (and not turn back), e.g. into X, there

will be a contrariety between fire and X other than those mentioned,

35 because ex hypothesi X is identical with none of the group EWAF.

Let K belong to F, Y to X. K will belong to all the group EWAF,

a
333 since t;hey all change into one another — this, however, ought not at

this stage to be taken as proved. But so much, at least, is clear:

if X in its turn is to change into something else, another contrariety

will belong to both X and F, i.e. fire. Equally, it will always be the

5 case that as a new member is added to the series a contrariety atta-

ches to the previous members, so that if the series goes on to infinity

the number of contrarieties which attach to a single member will

also be infinite.

In this case it will not be possible for anything either to be defined

or to come to be; for, if it is to be one from another, it will be neces-

sary for that many contrarieties to be gone through, and still more.

So there will be some things into which there will never be change.

10 This will happen if the number of intermediate stages is infinite, and

this will necessarily be the case if the elements are infinite in number.

Again there will be no change from air into fire if there are infinitely

many contrarieties.

Furthermore, everything will come to be one; because those

members lower in the series than F will have necessarily to possess

all the contrarieties which belong to those above F, and these latter

will have to have all the contrarieties which belong to those below;

15 so everything will be one.

Chapter 6 <Refutation of Empedocles >

One might well be surprised at those who say that the elements of

bodies number more than one while denying that they change into

one another, as on Empedocles' view. How, one may ask, is it open

to them to say that the elements are susceptible of comparison? And

yet Empedocles speaks in this way: 'For all these things are equal'. If

20 they are comparable in terms of quantity there will have to be some

46
 REFUTATION OF EMPEDOCLES IL6.333a

identical thing belonging to all the things which are comparable by

which they are measured: for instance, ten pints of air might come

from a pint of water. In this case there would have to be some one

thing that both were, if they are measured by the same thing. If,

however, they are not comparable in terms of quantity in this way -

such and such a quantity being derivable from such and such — but

according to the amount of their power (e.g. if a pint of water had

the same cooling effect as ten of air), in this way too they are 25

comparable in terms of quantity, not qua quantity, but qua possess-

ing such and such powers. It would indeed be possible to compare

these powers, not by a quantitative standard of measurement, but

by way of analogy: e.g. as this is hot, so this is white. But the 'as this'

in quality signifies likeness and in quantity equality. Indeed, it 30

appears absurd for bodies which are incapable of changing into one

another to be comparable, not by way of analogy, but by a measure-

ment of their powers, a given quantity of fire and a multiple of this

quantity of air being said to be equal or similar in respect of heat.

fFor the same thing, when it becomes more, will have such a prop-

ortion in virtue of its being homogeneous.f

Moreover, there would be no such thing as growth according to

Empedocles, except by way of addition. Fire will grow by means of 35

fire, 'earth will make its own body grow and ether, ether', but these 333b

are additions. Things which grow do not, in our view, grow in this way.

It is much more difficult to give an account of generation in so

far as it occurs according to nature. Everything that comes to be

naturally comes to be always in a particular way, or for the most 5

part: those that do so contrary to the 'always and for the most part'

do so spontaneously or by chance. What, then, is the cause of a

human being's always or for the most part coming to be from a

human being, or wheat, rather than an olive-tree, from wheat?

Furthermore, if things are put together in a particular way, will it

not be bone? For, as he himself says, nothing comes to be when

things come together just as it may chance, but only when they do so 10

in a certain proportion. What, then, is the cause of this? Because fire,

for certain, will not do, or earth. What is more, nor will Love and

Strife, for the former is the cause only of aggregation, the latter of

segregation. The cause is in fact the essence of each thing, not simply

47
II.6.333b TRANSLATION

'mixing and putting asunder of things mixed', as Empedocles says.

15 Chance 'is the name given to these processes', not proportion; for it

is possible for mixing to take place merely by chance. The cause of

things which exist according to nature is their being such and such,

and this is the nature of each thing, about which he has nothing to

say. So in fact he says nothing 'About Nature'. Furthermore this is

for each thing its well-being and its good; but Empedocles attributes

20 goodness only to mixing. (In fact it is not Strife but Love which seg-

regates the elements, which are in nature prior to God — although

they too are gods.)

Again, his discussion of movement is over-simple. It is not sufficient

to say that Love and Strife cause things to move, unless he means

that this is what it is to be due to Love, namely, to move with one

type of movement, and to be due to Strife another. What was needed

25 was to give definitions or assumptions or proofs, whether rigorous or

more relaxed or of some other variety. Again, since it is apparent that

the bodies move both from constraint, i.e. against nature, and in

accordance with nature (e.g. fire moves upwards without constraint,

downwards if constrained), and that which is according to nature is

contrary to that which is by constraint — and there is such a thing as

by constraint — so there is such a thing too as to be moved in

30 accordance with nature. Is it this movement, then, which Love sets

in motion? Or not? For, on the contrary, it moves earth downwards,

and resembles segregation, and Strife rather than Love is the cause of

that movement which is in accordance with nature; so that in fact

Love would be altogether against, rather than in accordance with

nature. But without Love or Strife to move them, there is absolutely

35 no movement of the bodies themselves, nor rest; but this is absurd.

Moreover, it is made clear that they do move — for, though it was

334a Strife which segregated them, ether was borne upwards, not by

Strife, but as he sometimes says, as if by chance ('for so it chanced

then to meet them running, but often in a different way'), while at

other times he says it is the nature of fire to be borne upwards,

5 whereas ether, he says, 'sank into the ground with long roots'. At the

same time he says that the universe is in the same state now under

<the rule of> Strife as it was earlier under <the rule of> Love.

What, then, is the first mover and cause of movement? It cannot,

48
 REFUTATION OF EMPEDOCLES n.7.334a

evidently, be Love and Strife: rather these are the causes of particular

movements, if that other is the principle.

Another absurdity is involved in supposing that soul is derived

from the elements, or is one of them. For how will the alterations 10

proper to soul occur, such as being musical, and then again unmusical,

or remembering or forgetting? For clearly, if the soul is fire it will

possess whatever affections belong to fire qua fire, and if it is a

mixture <of elements> the affections appropriate to bodies. But

none of these is appropriate to bodies.

Chapter 7 <Formation of Homoeomers>

The questions we have been discussing belong, however, to another 15

study; but, as for the elements out of which bodies are composed,

for those who hold that they have something in common and that

they change into each other, necessarily, if they accept one of these

views, the other follows. Those, however, who do not make them

come to be from each other, nor in such a way as to come from

each, except in the way that bricks come from a wall, will find it 20

absurd for flesh and bone and anything else of this kind to be

derived from them. The point we mention creates a difficulty also

for those who make them come to be from one another, namely, the

problem of how something else over and above them comes to be

from them. The sort of thing I mean is that water can come to be

from fire, and fire from this (since they both have something in

common, namely the substratum);but, what is more, from them there

comes to be flesh and marrow. How then can these come to be? 25

What will be the way of it according to those whose account is

similar to that of Empedocles? It will have to be composition, the

way in which a wall comes to be out of bricks and stones. The

elements out of which this mixture comes to be will be preserved, but

will be put together alongside one another in small particles: this will

be the way with flesh and each of the others. It follows that fire and 30

water cannot come to be from any particle of flesh whatsoever, in

the way that with wax, whilst from this part a sphere might come

to be and a pyramid from some other, it would always be possible

for it to happen the other way round. This does in fact occur in this

49
II.7.334b TRANSLATION

35 way, i.e. from flesh both elements can come to be from any particle

whatsoever. According to the account we have been discussing,

334b however, it would not be possible: it would have to be in the way

that stone and brick come from a wail, one from one place and part,

one from another.

Equally a difficulty arises for those who posit a single matter for

the elements: how is something to come from both, e.g. from

cold and hot or from fire and earth? For if flesh is from both and is

5 neither of them, nor again a composite in which the components are

preserved, what < account of the phenomenon > remains except

<the view> that that which comes out of these is their matter? For

the destruction of the one produces either the other or their matter.

Is there a possible solution on these lines, taking into account the

fact that things can be more or less hot and cold? When one exists

simpliciter in actuality, the other exists in potentiality; when how-

10 ever, it is not completely so, but as it were hot-cold or cold-hot,

because in being mixed things destroy each other's excesses, then

what will exist is neither their matter nor either of the contraries

existing simpliciter in actuality, but something intermediate, which,

15 in so far as it is in potentiality more hot than cold or vice versa, is

proportionately twice as hot in potentiality as cold, or three times,

or in some other similar way.

It is as a result of the contraries, or the elements, having been

mixed that the other things will exist, and the elements from these

latter, which in potentiality, in some way, are <the elements>, not

in the same way as matter but in the way we have explained. In this

20 way what comes to be is a mixture, in that way it is matter.

Since the contraries are also acted upon as stated in the definition

in Book I — for the actually hot is cold in potentiality and the

actually cold hot in potentiality, so that unless they are equal they

change into one another, and the same holds in the case of the other

contraries — first, the elements change in this way; but flesh and

25 bones and suchlike come from these <elements>, the hot becoming

cold and the cold hot when they approach the mean, for here they

are neither one thing nor the other, and the mean is large and not

an indivisible point. Similarly dry and wet and suchlike produce

30 flesh and bone and the rest in the middle range.

50
 EACH ELEMENT PRESENT IN EVERY HOMOEOMER II.8.334b

Chapter 8 KEach Element Present in Every Homoeomer^

All the mixed bodies, which are around the place of the middle body,

are composed of all the simple bodies. Earth exists in all of them, for

a start, since each element is mostly and in the greatest quantity in

its own place. Next, water, because the composite must be bounded,

and water alone of the simple bodies is easily bounded; and because, 35

moreover, earth itself cannot keep together without the wet, this 335a

being what holds it together: if the wet were taken out of it com-

pletely it would fall apart. For these reasons, then, earth and water

exist in them, but also air and fire, since they are the contraries of 5

earth and water (earth is the contrary of air and water of fire, in the

way in which it is possible for one substance to be the contrary of

another). Since, therefore, comings to be are from contraries, and

one member of each pair of contraries exists in these things, the other

members must also exist in them; so that all the simple bodies are

present in every composite body.

There seems to be evidence of this in the nourishment of each

thing. For everything is nourished by the same things as it is made 10

of, and everything is nourished by a number of things. Even things

which might seem to be nourished by just one thing, i.e. plants by

water, are in fact nourished by more than one. For earth is mixed

with the water — which is why farmers do their best to mix something

with the water before irrigating.

Since nourishment ranks as matter, whereas what is nourished is

the shape or form taken together with matter, it immediately stands 15

to reason that fire, alone of the simple bodies, should be nourished,

though all of them come to be from one another. This is the view of

earlier thinkers too. For fire alone, or more than the others, ranks as

form, since its nature is to be borne towards the boundary. Every- 20

thing has a natural tendency to be borne towards its own region; and

the shape or form of everything is in its boundaries.

The claim that every body is composed of all the simple bodies

has thus been dealt with.

Chapter 9 < Causes of Generation and Corruption >

But since there are some things which come to be and perish, and

51
II.9335a TRANSLATION

since generation does in fact occur in the place around the middle

25 body, we must say, concerning all generation alike, how many

-principles there are of it and what they are. We shall in this way be

able more easily to study particular cases, namely, when we have

first obtained a grasp of the things which are universal.

The principles are equal in number and identical in kind to those

which hold in the case of the eternal and primary beings: one of

them is by way of matter and one by way of form. And the third

30 principle must also exist, for the other two are not adequate for

making things come to be any more than in the case of the primary

beings.

The cause by way of matter of things which come to be is that

which is capable of being and not being. For some things of necess-

ity are, i.e. the eternal things, and some things of necessity are not (of

35 these the one class cannot not be, the other cannot be, since it is not

335b possible for them to be otherwise, contrary to necessity); some

things, however, are capable both of being and of not being — which

is what that which comes to be and perishes is. For this is at one

time and at another is not. So generation and corruption belong

necessarily to what is capable of being and not being. That is why it

5 is the cause by way of matter of things which come to be: the cause

by way of 'that for the sake of which' is the shape or form, and this

is the definition of the essence of each thing.

To these, however, must be added the third cause, which every

philosopher dreams of but none actually mentions. Some thought

that the nature of the forms is an adequate cause for coming to be.

10 And this is the view of Socrates in the Phaedo. (He, you remember,

after blaming everyone else for saying nothing to the point, adopts

the hypothesis that, of things that are, some are forms and some

partake of the forms, and that everything is said to be in virtue of

the form, to come to be in virtue of receiving a share of it and to

perish in virtue of losing it; so if this is true, the forms, he thinks, are

15 necessarily the causes of both generation and corruption.) For

others, it is the matter itself; for it is from this that movement arises.

But neither party gives the correct account. For if the forms are

causes, why do they not always generate things continuously rather

than sometimes doing so and sometimes not, since both the forms

52
 CAUSES OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION n.9.335b

and the things which partake in them are always there? Furthermore,

in some cases we observe something else being the cause: it is the 20

doctor who induces health and the knowledgeable man knowledge,

despite the existence of both health itself and knowledge and those

who partake in it; and it is the same in all the other cases where

something is performed in virtue of a capacity.

If, on the other hand, someone were to say that it was the matter

which generated things on account of movement, what he said

would be more scientific than that just described. For that which 25

alters a thing, or changes its shape, is more truly the cause of

generation; and generally we are accustomed to describe as the

producer, both in the case of things which occur in nature and of

those which result from skill, that thing, whatever it may be, which

has to do with movement. Nevertheless, what these people have to

say is also incorrect. For it is the property of matter to be acted

upon and to be moved, whereas causing movement and acting belongs 30

to another capacity. This is obviously the case with things which

come to be through skill and those which come to be through nature:

the water does not itself produce an animal out of itself, nor the

wood a bed — it is skill which does this. So these people are for this

reason incorrect in their account, and because they leave aside what

is more strictly the cause;for they take away the essence and the form. 35

Moreover, the capacities they attribute to the bodies, in virtue of

which they make things come to be, are too instrumental, since they 336a

eliminate the formal cause. For since, according to them, the nature

of the hot is to segregate and that of the cold to gather together, and

that of each of the others is either to act or to be acted upon, they

say that out of these and by their means everything else comes to be 5

and is destroyed. In fact, however, it is apparent that even fire itself

is moved and acted upon. Again, what they do is rather like someone

assigning the responsibility for things' coming to be to the saw and

the various tools: for, necessarily, it is only if someone is sawing that

something is being divided, and it is only if someone is planing that 10

something is being made smooth; and it is the same in the other

cases. So, however much fire acts and causes movement, the question

how it causes movement remains something which they do not go on

to consider, nor that it is worse than the tools.

53
II.10.336a TRANSLATION

We have spoken in general about the causes before, and have now

dealt with matter and form.

Chapter 10 <Efficient Cause of Generation

and Corruption >

Next, since it has been proved that movement by way of locomotion

15 is eternal, generation also, these things being so, must take place

continuously; for the locomotion will produce the generation per-

petually by bringing near and then removing the generating body. At

the same time it is clear that what was said earlier too was well said,

20 namely, calling locomotion and not generation the first of the

changes. For it is much more reasonable to suppose that what is, is

the cause of coming to be for what is not, than that what is not, is

the cause of being for what is. Now that which is changing its place

is, but that which is coming to be is not. That is why locomotion is

in fact prior to generation.

Since it has been assumed, and indeed proved, that things are

subject to continuous generation and corruption, and since we hold

25 that locomotion is the cause of coming to be, it is obvious that, if

the locomotion is one, it will not be possible for both <generation

and corruption> to occur, on account of their being contraries (for it

is the nature of that which is the same and remains-in the same state

always to produce the same effects, so either there will always be

generation or corruption); but the movements must be more than

30 one, and contraries, in virtue either of direction or irregularity, since

contraries have contraries as their causes.

For this reason it is not the primary locomotion which is the

cause of generation and corruption, but that in the inclined circle.

For in this latter there is both continuity and being moved with two

movements; for, if there is always to be continuous generation and

336b corruption, there has always to be, on the one hand, something

being moved so that these changes may not fail, and, on the other

hand, two movements, to prevent there being only one of the two

results. So the locomotion of the whole is the cause of the con-

tinuity, whilst the inclination is the cause of the approach and retreat.

For this results in its coming to be further away at one time and

54
 EFFICIENT CAUSE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION II.10.336b

nearer at another, and since the distance is unequal the movement 5

will be irregular. So, if it generates by approaching and being near,

this same thing destroys by retreating and coming to be further away;

and if it generates by repeatedly approaching, it also destroys by

repeatedly retreating. For contraries have contraries as their causes,

and the corruption and the generation that occur in nature take

place in equal time. 10

This is why the times and the lives of all sorts of things have a

number which defines them. All things have order, and every time

and life is measured by a period, though not the same for all, but a

smaller for some and a longer for others. The period, i.e. the measure,

is a year for some, more for others, less for others. 15

There are things obvious even to perception which are in agree-

ment with this reasoning of ours; for we see that while the sun is

approaching there is generation, but while it is retreating, dimi-

nution, and each of these in equal time. For the times of the

corruption and the generation which occur in nature are equal.

Often, however, it happens that things perish in a shorter time on 20

account of the mingling of things with one another. For, matter

being irregular and not everywhere the same, the comings to be of

things are also necessarily irregular, some faster, some slower. So it

comes about as a result of the generation of these things that cor-

ruption occurs of others.

As we have said, generation and corruption will always be con-

tinuous and, owing to the cause we have mentioned, will never fail. 25

This happens with good reason; for we say that nature in all cases

desires what is better, and that being is better than not being (it has

been said elsewhere how many senses there are in which we use 'be'),

and this cannot exist in all things since some are too far removed 30

from the principle. Accordingly God has filled up the whole in the

only way that remained by making generation perpetual. This was

the way to connect being together as much as possible, since coming

to be continually and generation are the nearest things there are to

being.

The cause of this, as has frequently been said, is circular loco-

motion, since this alone is continuous. That is why even the other 337a

things which change into each other in respect of their affections

55
II.10.337a TRANSLATION

and capacities, as do the simple bodies, are imitating circular

locomotion. For when air comes to be from water and fire from air

5 and water back again from the fire, we say that generation has come

round in a circle because it has turned round and come back again.

So even locomotion in a straight line is continuous only by imitating

circular motion.

At the same time from this something which people have found

puzzling becomes clear, namely, why, when each of the bodies is

10 moving to its proper place, the bodies have not in an infinite time

separated out. The cause of this in fact is their change into one another.

If each remained in its own place and was not changed by its neigh-

bour, they would by now have separated out. They change, then,

because of the double locomotion; and because they change, none of

15 them can remain in any of the places assigned.

It is clear, then, from what has been said that there is such a thing

as generation and corruption, and owing to what cause, and what the

generable and corruptible is. But since something must be the mover,

if there is going to be movement, as has been said in previous works,

and if <there is movement> always, that there must always be

something <to move it>, and if it is continuous, <the mover> must

20 be one and the same thing, immovable, ungenerated, and unalter-

able, and if the circular movements are more than one, more than

one, but all necessarily in some way under a single principle. Because

time is continuous, movement must be continuous, given that it is

impossible there should be time without movement; time, then, is

the number of a particular continuous movement, of circular move-

25 ment therefore, as was determined in our introductory work. Is the

movement continuous in virtue of the continuity of the thing

moved or the continuity of that in respect of which it is moved, e.g.

its place or some affection of it? Obviously in virtue of that of the

thing moved. (For how could an affection be continuous otherwise

than in virtue of the continuity of the thing to which it belongs? If,

30 however, it is also in virtue of that in respect of which, this belongs

only to place, since it has a certain size.) Of things moved, only that

which is moved in a circle is continuous so as to be always continuous

with itself. This, then, is what produces continuous movement, the

body which travels in a circle, and its movement produces time.

56
 NECESSITY IN THE SPHERE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION 11.11.337a

Chapter 11 ^Necessity in the sphere of Generation

and Corruption >

In the case of things which are moved continuously by way of gener-

ation or of alteration, or of change in general, we see that which is

successively and comes to be this after this without any intermission. 35

Accordingly we must consider whether there is anything which of 337b

necessity will be, or whether there is no such thing but all are capable

of not coming to be.

That some are is obvious, and the difference between Tt will be'

and 'it is going to be' is a direct consequence of this; for that of

which it is true to say that it will be is something of which it must be 5

true to say some time that it is, but that of which it is now true to

say that it is going to be — there is nothing to prevent that not

coming to be: a person who is going to take a walk may not take a

walk. More generally, since some things that are, are capable also of

not being, there will also, clearly, be things coming to be that are

like that, i.e. their coming to be will not take place of necessity.

Are they all, then, like this? Or not, some being such that it is 10

necessary simpliciter for them to come to be, and just as in the case

of being there are some incapable of not being and some capable of

it, so in the case of coming to be? For example, it is necessary, after

all, that there should come to be solstices and impossible that it

should not be possible.

Granted that the coming to be of something earlier is necessary if

a later thing is to be, e.g. if a house, then foundations, and if foun-

dations, then clay: does it follow that if there have come to be 15

foundations a house must necessarily come to be? Or can we not yet

say this, unless it is necessary simpliciter that the latter itself come

to be? In this case, if foundations have come to be, it is also neces-

sary that a house come to be; for such was the relationship of the

earlier thing to the later, namely, that if there is to be the latter,

necessarily there will be the former, earlier, thing. If, accordingly, 20

it is necessary for the later one to come to be, it is necessary also for

the earlier one, and if the earlier one comes to be, it is accordingly

necessary for the later one to do so — but not because of the earlier

one, but because it was assumed that it was necessary it should exist.

57
11.11.337b TRANSLATION

So in those cases where it is necessary for the later one to exist there

is conversion, and it is always necessary, if the earlier has come to

25 be, that the later one should also come to be.

If, then, it proceeds to infinity downwards, it will not be necessary

simpliciter for this (one of the later ones) to come to be, but only

conditionally; for there will always have to be some further thing in

front of it on account of which it is necessary for it to come to be;

so, given that the infinite has no principle, there will be no first

member on account of which it will be necessary for it to come to be.

Nor, on the other hand, will it be true, in the case of a finite

30 series, to say of that that it is necessary simpliciter for it to come to

be — a house, for example, when the foundations come to be. For

when they come to be, if it is not necessary for that always to come

to be, it will follow that something is always the case which is capable

of not always being the case. But 'always' must belong to the coming

35 to be, if its coming to be is necessary. For 'necessarily' and 'always'

338a go together (since what necessarily is, cannot not be), so that if it

is necessarily, it is eternal, and if it is eternal, it is necessarily. If,

therefore, the coming to be is necessary, the coming to be of this

thing is eternal, and if eternal, necessary.

So if the coming to be of something is necessary simpliciter, it is

bound to come back in a circle and return on itself. For the coming

5 to be is bound to be either finite or not, and if not, in a straight line

or in a circle. Of these, if it is to be eternal, it cannot be in a straight

line on account of there being no sort of principle (neither of

members of the series going downwards, taken as it were from the

future, nor upwards, as it were from the past); but it has to have a

10 principle, without being finite, and be eternal. That is why it has to

be in a circle.

So there is bound to be conversion; i.e. if this comes to be neces-

sarily, then the earlier, and again, if that, then the later comes to be

necessarily. This moreover, always takes place continuously, since it

makes no difference to this whether we say that it proceeds through

15 two or many stages. So that which is necessary simpliciter exists

in movement and generation in a circle; and if it is in a circle, it is

necessary for each one to come to be and to have come to be; and if

necessary, the generation of these things is in a circle.

58
 NECESSITY IN THE SPHERE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION IL11.338a

This is reasonabie, because on quite other grounds movement in a

circle, i.e. that of the heavens, has been shown to be eternal —

namely, that those things come to be and will be of necessity which

are the movements that belong to this and which are because of it. If

that which is moved in a circle moves something continually, the 338b

movement of these things must also be in a circle. For example, the

locomotion above it being in a circle, the sun moves in this way, and

since it moves in that way, the seasons because of it come to be in a

circle and return upon themselves, and since these come to be in this

way, the things affected by them do so in their turn. 5

Some things, then, are obviously like this; water and air, for

instance, come to be in a circle, and if there is a cloud it is bound to

rain and if it rains there is bound also to be a cloud. Men and animals,

on the other hand, do not return on themselves in such a way that

the same one comes to be again (since there was no necessity, given

that your father came to be, that you should have come to be, only 10

that he should have, given that you did), and it seems that this

generation is in a straight line. Why is there this difference? This

again is where the investigation begins: do all things return on

themselves in the same way, or not, but rather some in number and

some only in form? It is obvious that those whose substance, i.e.

what is moved, is imperishable will be the same in number, since

movement follows the thing moved, but those whose substance is, 15

on the contrary, perishable must necessarily return on themselves in

form, not in number. That is why water from air and air from water

is the same in form, not in number; but if these too are the same in

number, still they are not things whose substance comes to be, the

sort, namely, that is capable of not being.

59
U.314a

NOTES

BOOK I

Chapter 1 <Introductory Remarks: Monists and Plurists>

314a 1. A rough outline of the topics to be dealt with in the treatise

leads rapidly into a survey of the answers which earlier philosophers

gave, or ought, consistently with their other doctrines, to have

given, to the question whether a distinction can be drawn between

alteration and generation. (Explanations of these terms will emerge

as the book progresses. Chapter 4 of Book I is devoted to the topic

of alteration.) Aristotle claims that a negative answer to the question

is implied by Monism, an affirmative answer by Pluralism. If the

multitudinous animals and plants to be found in the world are not

separate substances but merely changing appearances of one under-

lying substance, what we normally regard as these substances' coming

into existence (i.e. 'coming to be simpliciter\ see Introduction, p. xii)

and ceasing to exist are really no more than changes which come over

the one underlying substance: as A. N. Prior states the position, 'there

is only a single genuine individual (the Universe) which gets John-
Smithish or Mary-Brownish in such-and-such regions for such-and-
such periods' (Past, Present and Future, p. 174). Monism does
indeed imply that these comings into existence and ceasings.to exist,
which seem obvious to common sense, are not in fact what they

seem to be. But Aristotle seems to be mistaken in thinking that a

Monist is obliged to deny any instance of coming into existence or
ceasing to exist which cannot be redescribed as alteration. The
Universe as a whole might at some time have come into existence,

and might at some future time be going to cease to exist; such a view
seems prima facie at least compatible with Monism. Certainly
Parmenides would not have asserted that what is had ever not been
or would ever not be\ and his reasons would be of a piece with his
argument against Pluralism. But the other Monists such as Thales or
Anaximenes, whom Aristotle has chiefly in mind here, could consis-

tently admit that their primal element, water or air or whatever it

might be, had a beginning and an end of existence, and indeed a past

and a future in which these could be located.

60
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS: MONISTS AND PLURISTS L1.314a

314a16. A passage which points out differences of detail amongst

philosophers who believed in a plurality of elements. For the notions

of homoeomer and panspermia (314a-t,l) cf. Guthrie, pp. 282, 299,

and for The same name in the same sense', cf. note on 328b 14.

314bl. It should be noted that Aristotle is not saying that the

Pluralists, unlike the Monists, are committed to the view that the
comings into existence and ceasings to exist which seem obvious to

common sense are what they seem to be. He is aware that Pluralists

have maintained that the generation and corruption of the imper-

manent macroscopic objects is really the aggregation and segregation

of permanent microscopic objects, in much the same way as the
coming into existence or ceasing to exist of seminar groups might
be said really to be various students becoming or ceasing to be related
to each other in various ways. His point is not that Pluralism involves
taking apparent generation and corruption as real, but that the

Pluralist is bound to distinguish between these cases and cases of

alteration. It is not, however, qua Pluralist that he has necessarily
to make this distinction, though Aristotle may be unclear about this.

It is not obviously self-contradictory to assert that there exists more

than one object but none which has a beginning or end of exist-
ence, and that what appear to be generation and corruption of
impermanent objects are in fact only alterations in one or more of
the eternal substances. The Pluralist may (whereas the Monist must)
interpret the apparent coming into existence and ceasing to exist of
the natural objects around us in this way. But the Pluralists Aristotle
has in mind, had in fact, another theory about generation and cor-

ruption. What these really are, according to them, is the aggregation

and segregation of elements. (Anaxagoras differed from the others in
regarding segregation as the reality behind generation and aggregation

as that behind corruption, whereas the others paired them vice versa:

cf. 314a26-bl.) And this account, which is not exactly Pluralism but
is typical of the Pluralists Aristotle knew, does make generation and
corruption something distinct from alteration.

314b8. While it is clear that the Pluralists' account of the phen-

omena we normally regard as generation and corruption makes them

something distinct from alteration, it is not similarly clear that there

is room in their system for alteration itself. That things do alter is

apparent to sense, Aristotle maintains; but this cannot be admitted

consistently with the theory the Pluralists in fact maintain. The

affections in whose succession alteration consists are for them dif-
ferentiae of the elements. Since the elements do not change into one

another it is impossible that the affections which differentiate them

61
I.1.314b NOTES

should succeed one another in a persistent object. Fire, typified by the

sun, is white and hot: water, typified by rain, black and cold. To say,

as Empedocles does, that fire cannot turn into water is to say that
white things cannot become black or hot things cold. A necessary

premiss of this argument is that every affection is a differentia of

some element, so that any qualitative alteration involves a change
of one element into another. It is hard to see why Aristotle should

credit Empedocles, let alone Pluralists in general, with such a strange

belief as this.

314b26. Granted that all alteration is change in respect of a quality

which is one of the differentiae of some elements, a Pluralist doctrine

of elements is incompatible with the admission of alteration. If there

1 O 1
are two elements E and E , whose differentiae are respectively A
and ^ 2, it is impossible that there should be alteration from A1 to

A2 without there being a single underlying matter of which E1 and

E2 are succesive transformations. But to suppose this is to treat the

underlying matter as the real element, contrary to the supposition

that there was more than one element, that there were in fact two,

^ and E2 .
This argument calls for some elaboration and comment. Suppose
our Pluralist ran to four, not just two, elements. Might there not

be alteration from A1 to A2 and from A3 to A4, involving the

existence of two sorts of matter, Ml and M2, underlying El and
E2, E2 and E* respectively? There would be no alteration crossing

over from the Ml group to theM2 group;so there would be no need

to posit an ur-M underlying everything, and the recognition of Ml

and M2 as the real elements would preserve the Pluralist character

of our doctrine of elements.
Aristotle does not seem to envisage this possibility. A reason that

readily suggests itself for this omission is the fact that Aristotle held,
and in II.4 sets out to prove, that any 'element' can change into any
other. His El can change into any of E2, E3, and j?4, and so on for
each of the quartet. But even if Aristotle had seen the possibility of
restricting alteration to members of subgroups, he could still have
denied that this was compatible with the Pluralist position. For on

this view the true elements are M1 and M2, and E1 -E4 are no more
entitled to the name 'element' than Aristotle believes fire, air, water,

and earth to be (see note on 328b31). The change from E1 to E2,

whereby Af1 passes from having A1 to having v42, is not, therefore,
an alteration in one of the differentiae of one of the real elements:
M , the real element, does not possess either A ox A as a differ-

entia. Such an alteration, however, is ruled out by the doctrine

which Aristotle seems, as we have seen, to attribute to the Pluralists,

62
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS: MONISTS AND PLURISTS I.1.314b

that every affection is a differentia of some element, so that there is

no alteration which is not the change from one element to another.

A further oddity of Aristotle's argument here is that he seems to

regard the doctrine that there is a single underlying matter, which
the Monist but not the Pluralist is entitled to posit, as compatible
with, and indeed mutually imphcative of, the doctrine that there is
such a thing as alteration properly so called. But on Aristotle's own

view transformation of a single underlying matter of this sort is

generation or corruption, not alteration. 314b28-315a3 is parti-

cularly hard to reconcile with this regular Aristotelian distinction

between substantial and accidental change, of which the latter alone

is properly called alteration. Aristotle's commitment to this dis-

tinction, and its intelligibility, will be discussed later (see Appendix).

315a3. Empedocles is attacked for inconsistency. He posits a time

when the elements were united together in one under the reign of
Love. Since then, under the reign of Strife, they have been segregated

out from this unity. Aristotle, who may here be representing

Empedocles unfairly, regards this process of segregation as a process

also of differentiation, wherein the differentiating affections, hot,

white, etc., come to belong to the different elements. What has thus

come to belong to something can cease to belong to it. It is pos-

sible, therefore, that an element should lose one of its differentiae,
thus turning into a different element, which ex hypothesi it cannot

do. This is one inconsistency. The other stems from the fact that
in Empedocles' system of alternating reigns of Love and Strife the
single unity from which the different elements emerge and the

distinct elements which are united together to form the One have
equally good claims to be regarded as elements in the system: this is

not in accordance with Empedocles' practice of reserving the name

'element' for the four, or six, rather than the One.

Chapter 2 <Infinite Divisibility^

315a26. The topic of the difference between generation and alter-

ation is now left aside, and a new start is made on the task of

discussing the existence and the nature of generation, etc. Dispar-

aging remarks are made about the thin treatment given to the subject

by previous philosophers. Some exception is made for Democritus.

After an outline of the theory of atoms an attempt is made to

connect this physical theory with the Atomists' theory of knowledge.

See Guthrie, pp. 454-65, for a discussion of this and related passages.

315b15. This is an introductory passage leading to the discussion

63
1.2.315b NOTES

of infinite divisibility which occupies most of the chapter. The sug-

gestion seems to be that if generation is distinguished from alteration

and identified with aggregation, we are committed to the existence

of indivisible atoms. If, on the other hand, we deny this identification,

we must either deny the existence of generation or identify it with

alteration. It is hard to see the force of this dilemma or to detect any

arguments in Aristotle's text to support it. Philoponus, commenting

on 315b28, recognizes that if there are no indivisible atoms it does

not follow that generation has to be distinguished from aggregation,

although the contrary implication, in his view, does hold. However,
he defends Aristotle on the grounds that with the rejection of
Democritean Atomism the identification of generation with aggreg-

ation is no longer forced on us, although it does not become unten-

able. But this will not justify Aristotle's account of the connection
between Atomism and the view that identifies generation with
aggregation. From this identification, Aristotle says, 'many impos-

sible consequences follow' (315b20--l), and the sequel shows that

the impossible consequences are the paradoxes of indivisibility. But
these are not consequences of the identification of generation with

aggregation unless the existence of indivisibles is itself a consequence

of this identification; and Philoponus admits that generation may
occur by way of aggregation even though no indivisible elements exist.

315b24. Given that there is a need to discuss whether or not the

primary constituents are indivisible magnitudes, it becomes important

to determine whether these magnitudes are bodies, as the Atomists

taught, or planes, as Plato maintains in the Timaeus. The latter

hypothesis succumbs not only to the charge (already made by
Aristotle in De Caelo, 111.1,7; IV.2) that it is irrational not to pursue
the analysis beyond planes to lines and points, but also to the com-
plaint that it is less powerful a hypothesis than the Democritean.

Atomists, Aristotle points out, can use the same model as they use
to explain generation and corruption to explain the various sorts

of alteration as well: e.g. a thing's colour depends on the direction

in which the atoms which compose it are turned. (I have translated

some of the Atomist terminology in 315b35-316a2 in accordance
with Aristotle's remarks at Metaphysics, A.4.985b 16-17.). The

Platonic hypothesis, on the other hand, gives an explanation of

generation but has nothing at all to say about the production of

any affection in the things generated.

For a different view of the powerfulness of the Platonic hypo-

thesis, cf. Popper's remarks in various places (K. R. Popper, The

Open Society and its Enemies, London: Routledge and Kegan

Paul, 1966, vol.1, chapter six, note 9 and Addendum I, and his The

64
 INFINITE DIVISIBILITY 1.2.315b

Nature of Philosophical Problems and their Roots in Science' in The

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol.3 (1952), pp. 124

ff., reprinted in Conjectures and Refutations). Popper holds that

Aristotle, and almost every subsequent philosopher, failed to
appreciate the significance of Plato's doctrine in the Timaeus, and

indeed of the Theory of Forms, through lack of awareness of the

scientific problem which provided their background. This was the

blow delivered to Pythagoreanism and, Popper believes, Democritean

Atomism by the discovery of irrational numbers, in particular the

proof of the irrationality of \/2. The arithmetic of rational numbers,

which the Pythagoreans had regarded as the key to the understanding

of the universe, was shown to be incapable of explaining even the

relation between the side of a square and its diagonal. Plato's solution
of this problem, according to Popper, was to invert the Pythagorean
relation between arithmetic and geometry, making the former
depend on the latter, and developing the axiomatic method by
which the rationality of geometry was exhibited. Just as the

Pythagoreans had sought the fundamental account of the Universe

in arithmetic, so Plato sought it in geometry, which was to be the

basis not only of mathematics but of cosmology. The two elementary

right-angled triangles of Timaeus, 54 B, whose sides, respectively,
are of the ratios 1:1 :\/2 and 1 :\/3:2, provide the building-blocks out

of which the entire physical world is constructed. Plato, according

to Popper, thought that the two elementary irrationals, \/2 and \/3,
provided units out of which the whole series of irrational numbers,
and tt 2 + V 3) in particular, could be constructed. This belief that
geometry is to be looked to as the foundation for physical theory

was, Popper shows, shared by the great natural scientists of the

seventeenth century, who indeed saw their movement as a return to

Platonism ('Le Bon Dieu geometrise toujours'). Plato's recognition of

the power of geometry was one of the great seminal discoveries of

man's scientific progress.

316a5. The reason for the relative superiority of the Atomist treat-

ment of this problem over the Platonist is said to lie in the Platonists'
preoccupation with logical' as opposed to 'physical' investigations.

(For a discussion of this opposition between logical' and 'physical'

see Charlton, Physics, I, II, Introduction.) The particular aspect of

the opposition to which Aristotle here draws attention is the apti-

tude of the man who has spent his time in physical investigation for

gaining a synoptic view of the data {ta homologumena synoran) and

for constructing a theory which will connect a wide array of facts.

He might well be discussing the superiority of Newton's mechanics
over those of his predecessors, that is, his theory's ability to explain

65
1.2.316a NOTES

the movements of terrestrial as well as celestial bodies. The tendency

of the 'Logician' to take too short a way with Ms problem is illust-

rated by Ms inferring the existence of the indivisibles from the imposs-

ibility of multiplying the Form of the Triangle. An argument of tMs

sort appears in De Lineis Insecabilibus, 968a9-14.

316a14, At 315b21-2 we were told that 'there are compelling

arguments on the other side', namely to prove that generation is

aggregation. The arguments in question are supposed to prove that

there are indivisible magnitudes, and tMs is supposed to entail that

generation can be none other than aggregation of these atoms. These

Atomist proofs are deployed in 316a 14-b 16, and they take a reductio
ad absurdum form: the contradictory of the proposition

(1) Every body is composed of indivisible atoms,

is the proposition

(2) Some body is everywhere divisible.

316a14-b16 aim to show that absurd consequences follow from (2).

Aristotle proceeds immediately to this task without explaining the

connection between (2) and (1) or the relevance of (1) to the

doctrine that generation is aggregation.

It is difficult to see the force of the words in 316a16 translated

'and that this is possible'. What is in question is the divisibility of a
body at every point1, and this seems on the face of it already a
question about possibility: to say that some body is everywhere
divisible is to say that it is possible for it to be divided at every point.
There is a distinction, wMch Modal Logic is capable of pointing out,

between the possibility of an existing body's being divided at every

point ((3) below) and the possibility of a body-divided-at-every-
point's existing ((4) below). Using xs to range over bodies and ms to
range over points, reading Dx as 'for some x' and Yim as 'for every

m', Af as 'it is possible that', Cpq as 'if p then 0xm as 'x is divided
at m\ and \(/mx as'm is within the limits of x', we can distinguish

(3) ZxMnmC\//mx0xm

from

(4)

1
The equivalence for Aristotle of 'everywhere' and 'at every point' appears
at316b10-12.
2
Other Polish symbols for truth-functions, Np for 'It is not the case that
p' and Kpq for 'Both p and q\ will be introduced later.

66
 INFINITE DIVISIBILITY I.2.316a

Or again, if (3) represents the proposition that there is such a thing

as a body or magnitude which is everywhere divisible (316a15-16),

the proposition that this is possible (316a16), which we found dif-

ficult to distinguish from it, may be represented by

(5) MllxMUmC\pmx(t>xm

(Tossibly there is something whose division at every point is possible').

But it is unlikely that Aristotle, who admittedly took the first steps

in the development of Modal Logic, was able to tread steadily

enough to walk the tightrope of these fine distinctions. We shall see

before long the difficulty into which he runs in an attempt to make

distinctions whose true character is explicable only with the help of
devices showing unambiguously the scope of modal and quanti-
ficational operators (pp. 75 ff.).
The explanation of the presence of the words in 316a 16 translated

'and that this is possible' (which will have to serve to explain their
repeated presence in the following line) is rather, I believe, to be

sought in what Professor Geach has called 'the systematic ambiguity

of these participles in -ton between being actually an object of (fring
and being 0able' (God and the Soul, p.31). Diaireton is thus ambi-
guous as between 'actually divided' and 'capable of being divided'.

Taking this into account the Greek sentence which I have so far
rendered by (2) and (3) might also be rendered by

(6) "ExUmCil/mxcfrxm

(There is something which is divided at every point'), which has no

modal content at all. The addition of 'and that this is possible'

would then be intended to introduce that modal element which
Aristotle is going to make much of in the succeeding argumentation.

The last suggestion makes it seem as though the ambiguity of

participles in -ton was something Aristotle was explicitly aware of, so

that he could on occasion take deliberate steps to remove one or

other alternative interpretation. The ambiguity was probably more
dangerous than that, and any awareness of it on Aristotle's part not

fully conscious. The most likely hypothesis seems to be that the

sentence represented by (2) was intended to correspond to my (3),

and the modal element in this, being expressed ambiguously in the

word diaireton, is insisted upon in a rough-and-ready fashion by the

words 'and that this is possible'. If Aristotle had been clearly

conscious of the ambiguity he would have added 'and I mean
"capable of being divided", not "actually divided" ' (ho dynatai
diaireisthai, perhaps, as opposed to ho esti dieiremenon).

67
L2316a NOTES

The question, 'What will there be to survive the division?' (316a

16-17) and the parallel question at 316a24, 'What then will be left?',
presuppose that any division when completed leaves behind frag-

ments, pieces, bits. If x is divisible there must be some y and some z

into which it is divisible: y and z will be what survives the division,

what is left when and if the possible division actually takes place.

Aristotle does not begin to answer his question until the second time
of asking, at 316a24. The first suggestion, a thing possessed of size,

is rejected as contradicting the hypothesis: such a thing would be

an undivided part of the original body since it 'survives' the dividing
process. But qua possessed of size it would have points within its
surface, which were originally within the surface of the body to be

divided, at which, as at all such points, division was supposed to have

taken place. Ex hypo the si, then, the body was divided at these

points, but to say that a thing possessed of size survived the division
is to say that division did not take place at these points. And this
contradiction follows from supposing that what survives the divison
has size, i.e. contains points within its limits.
The fragments which survive the division must, therefore, be
things which have no points within their limits. This proposition,
which has just been proved informally, can also be proved formally,
using the symbolism already introduced, with a small addition: xxy

for 'x contains y as a physical part of itself. (I use the method of

exhibiting proofs frequently employed by A. N. Prior, e.g. in Past,

Present and Future.)

c (1) Fix Hy Cxxy CYlm C\pmx 0x m Hm C^my 0y m

c (2) WmC^macjyam

c (3) Xab

c (4) N'EnKpbm

K (5) CxabCllmC\ljma(l)amIlmC\pmb(j)bm

(1, Universal Instantiation)

K (6) UmC\l/mb<pbm (5,3,2)

K (7) UmCN^bmNxjjmb (6, Contraposition)

K (8) ClhnN(pbmIlmN\pmb (7, Quantification Theory)

K (9) UmNcpbm (4, N'Zm = UmN)

K (10) UmNij/mb (8,9)

(11) NUmxjjmb = NZm)

Here (1) expresses the proposition, which seems intuitively certain,

that if x contains y as a physical part of itself, then if x is divided at

every point within itself, y is divided at any point there may be

within itself. (2) is obtained by existential instantiation from (6)

on p. 67 above. (3) expresses the proposition that a given ^ is a

68
 INFINITE DIVISIBILITY I.2.316a

physical part of the a mentioned in (2). (4) expresses the proposition

that the b mentioned in (3) is not divided at any point, i.e. is not
divided; which follows from &'s being a fragment of a, i.e. something
which 'survives' the division of a. The conclusion (10) expresses the
proposition that b contains no points within its limits, i.e. that b is
not what Aristotle means by the word translated 'thing possessed of
size'.

316a25. If a fragment of the completely divided body cannot have

size, a fortiori it cannot be a body. It can only be, Aristotle suggests,

a point, or nothing. This last suggestion is dealt with summarily

a
(316 28-9), but it is to be feared that Aristotle has not steered
clear of the notorious shoals that threaten the philosopher who uses
the word 'nothing'. He rejects the thesis that that out of which the

body supposed to be everywhere is divided is composed is nothing,

since it implies (a) that it would have to come into existence out of
nothing, and (b) that it would as a whole be nothing else than appear-
ance (since, presumably, what is composed of nothing is not real),

(a) depends, with some hint of begging the question, on the view that
what a thing comes into existence from are the things out of which

it is composed (i.e. generation is aggregation); and (b) assumes that if

the components of x are all F then x is .F, and, whatever the truth of
this thesis, substituting 'nothing' forF will not provide a substitution

instance of it. Better sense, of course, could be made of the suggestion

that what the everywhere divided body is divided into is nothing, if

it were taken as equivalent to the proposition that the everywhere

divided body is not divided into anything. This, however, is to deny

the thesis that if x is divided, there is some y and some z into which

x is divided — a thesis which, as we have seen (p. 68), Aristotle relies

on at an earlier stage in his argument, and which is surely involved
in the concept of division itself. Properly understood, therefore, the
view that what the everywhere divided body is divided into is
nothing is indeed absurd, and is rightly so regarded by Aristotle

though for the wrong reasons.

Next, 316a29-34, Aristotle proves the impossibility of points'

being what the everywhere divided body is divided into. If it were
composed of points it would lack size, it would not be a fitting sub-
ject for predicates in the category of quantity. To prove this Aristotle
draws on the notion of continuity: before division the body is one

continuous whole (the points constituted 'just one thing possessed

of size', 316a30-31) and this continuity was a consequence of the
points being 'in contact' (316a30) and being 'together' (316a31).

If a line AB is bisected at C and the parts ylC and CB separated, the

C which terminates AC is now no longer 'in contact' or 'together'

69
I.2.316a NOTES

with the C which terminates CB. Before the division of the

points terminating AC and EC coincided, and it was precisely this
coincidence which constituted ^iTs continuity. When they thus
coincided 'they did not make the whole the slightest bit larger'

(316a31). At first sight one would expect Aristotle to have said that
in this condition the points did not make the whole the slightest bit
smaller) because, if the points are thought of as occupying any space

at all, they might be thought to occupy different spaces when AC is

divided from CB, but the same space when AB is still undivided and
continuous — somewhat as sugar when dissolved in water produces a

liquid whose volume is less than the sum of the volumes previously
occupied by the water and the sugar. And it is just possible that the

Democritean argument, which Aristotle, as scholars believe (cf.

Guthrie, p. 503, n. 1), is here reproducing, did in fact argue this

way. But an alternative interpretation is possible which does not

require us to believe that Aristotle failed to understand the Atomists

and showed this by writing 'larger' when he should have written

'smaller'. This is to suppose that the original argument went thus:

the C which terminates AC and the C which terminates CB cannot

both contribute to the size of AB, since when they coincide any

space that is occupied by one is occupied by the other. But there is

no reason to suppose that one is different in this respect from the

other. It is simpler therefore to hold that neither occupies any space
and neither contributes to the size of AB; neither, that is to say,

'makes the whole the slightest bit larger* (316a31).

Aristotle's next remark, however, casts further doubt on his

mastery of the argument he is summarizing: 'for when the whole was

divided into two or more parts it was not the slightest bit smaller';
and then he adds, almost as an afterthought, 'nor indeed larger'
a
(316 31-3). But there is no reason to suppose that division would
make the thing divided smaller: it would be composition, if any-

thing, which would diminish the quantity of the whole, as when

sugar dissolves in water. Division would remove any overlapping that
might be involved in continuity, and this would increase, not
decrease, the size of the whole. Perhaps, though, to press Aristotle in

this way is unfair, and the only point of this remark is to recall the
fact that division makes no difference to the size of the whole. (For
an alternative explanation, cf. Luria, p. 133, n. 71.)
The conclusion he draws (316a33-4) is unexceptionable. If none
of the points by itself makes any contribution to the size of the
whole, the points when taken together cannot account for the thing's

having a size. Adding extensionless point to extensionless point

can no more produce an extended object than the sum of noughts

can equal a positive number. It is impossible that the everywhere

70
 INFINITE DIVISIBILITY I.2.316a

divided body should have been composed of nothing but points; and

accordingly impossible that such points are what it is divided into,

what survives the division.

316a34. The following attempt to evade the Atomist conclusion

gets all its plausibility from the analogy of sawing. When wood is
sawn up there remains over from the original block not only the

pieces into which it has been sawn, but a quantity of sawdust. The
suggestion is that division ad infinitum might have the effect of

reducing the size of the pieces into which the original body is

divided to the limit, i.e. nothingness, but that there might still be
something which survives, a sort of fall-out, like sawdust, which
could not itself be sawn up any further. But if this fall-out is
composed of bodies, either there is a lower limit to the size of body
which can be further divided, in which case the Atomists have it;
or dividing is not like sawing, and can in principle be continued how-
ever small the body which remains to be divided, in which case the
existence of the corporeal fall-out shows that not all the dividing

that could be done has, as the hypothesis requires, been done. As

Aristotle points out (316b2), the same argument applies here as
applied at 316a24-5.

Next (at 316t>2) Aristotle explores the consequences of denying

that the fall-out is corporeal. (Radiation would have provided him
with as useful an analogy here as sawdust did in the preceding
sentence.) The suggestion is that before division the body consisted

of points affected by forms or affections, rather as Locke spoke of a

substratum in which qualities inhered, or as more recent philosophers
have analysed bodies into properties spread out over a spatio-

temporal frame. Aristotle briefly indicates the sort of objections that

would arise to this theory: the points have already been shown to

lack size and so will the forms or properties (redness, hardness, and
the like). The old objections to things with size coming into exist-

ence from things which lack it will still therefore arise. Again, do
the supposed points have a place? Philoponus takes this to be a

rhetorical question about the natural place of these points, as the

natural place of earth is at the centre, while that of fire is at the
circumference, of the sublunary sphere; but Aristotle's brevity at

this point gives us too little indication of how the argument he is

summarizing is supposed to proceed. The same may be said of the

next remark, 'will they be motionless or in motion?' (316b5-6); it

would be rash to suppose that Aristotle is troubled by the problem
of meaning which would arise if this question were asked about

points in Newtonian space.

The next sentence (316^6-8) is more explicit. Points for Aristotle

71
I.2.316a NOTES

are nothing more than meeting-places (the word translated 'contact'

would more happily be rendered 'point of contact' if the purpose of

introducing it were not precisely the provision of an alternative for

'point'). Where there is meeting or contact there must always be at
least two things, be they lines, surfaces, or solids, which meet or

touch. If points are what the everywhere divided body is divided

into, what are the things which meet at these points?

316^8. The passage from 316^8 to 316^19 reads clearly and con-

secutively if the sentences beginning at 316b9 ('Moreover, if . . .')

and ending at 3114 ('... are these separated?') are omitted. What

we have then is an exposition of the strategy of the argument of which

we felt the need at 316a 14 (see p. 66). The omission of the intervening
sentences was suggested by Prantl, and their repetitious character

(cf.316a27, 33^4, b
3, 4-5, 6-8) persuades one that he was right.
'Elsewhere' (316b18): Physics, VI. 231a21 ff.^De Cae10,111303*3 ff.,

De Lin. Insec. 969b29 ff.

316b19. Aristotle begins to expound his own solution of the para-

dox. It is to rely on the distinction betv/een actuality and potentiality.

For the moment, though, it is not worked out in detail, but

Democritus' arguments against infinite divisibility are further sum-
marized in the passage which begins at 316b21. (Luria, p. 135,

regards the fact that Aristotle feels a need to recapitulate as a reason

for seeing 316a14-b 16 as mere reporting of Democritus' arguments.)

It is not clear whether what Aristotle is doing in 316b21-3 is com-

mitting himself tentatively to the impossibility of anything's 'being

at the same time everywhere potentially divisible', or stating the

conclusion of the Atomist argument he is about to summarize. Since
the previous sentence 316b19-21 has committed Aristotle to some

sort of 'potential divisibility', the first interpretation of 316b21-3

would involve emphasizing the word translated 'at the same time'. If,
on the other hand, as seems more probable, he is simply stating the
conclusion of the Atomist argument, we need not suppose that he

accepts that conclusion, since he regards the argument as 'containing

a hidden fallacy' (317al-2). In 316b23-5 he seems to be parrying

a possible misunderstanding of 'at the same time' in 316b22 as
meaning 'at the same time as being actually undivided', but this

parenthesis has been extruded, probably rightly, by commentators

as a displaced marginal note. The recapitulation of the Democritean

argument continues thus: Since the things which the divided body is

divided into are not points (or 'nothings') they must be separable

and extended bits. But this division cannot go on for ever, nor can it
occur simultaneously at every point. So, at the point at which it has

72
 INFINITE DIVISIBILITY 1.2316b

to stop there must be indivisible extended objects which are also

invisible. A further reason for this is the identity of generation with

aggregation and of corruption with segregation.

But why is this a further reason for accepting Atomism? Joachim

suggests that if generation is aggregation, and neither points nor

'nothings' can combine to generate something, what are thus aggre-

gated must be atoms. He seems, however, to have overlooked a

tertium quid, namely divisible bodies. As we saw earlier (p. 64), the
inference from the identity of generation and aggregation to Atomism

seems invalid. Joachim also gives a reason for Aristotle's inferring the
invisibility of the atoms from the identity of generation and aggre-

gation: if they were visible their aggregation could be observed, and

we should not be led to use the language of generation by the
'apparent emergence of what was not already there'. This inference
is valid, but it is not clear that Aristotle makes it. Perhaps, as Luria
suggests (p. 135, n. 76), we have here a trace of a part of the Demo-
critean argument which Aristotle omitted in his earlier reporting of
the argument in 316a 14-t> 16.

316b34. Aristotle here claims that the preceding argument of the

Atomists is fallacious, and announces that he will expose the fallacy.

This he attempts in 317a2 ff. It is apparently the fallacy of equivo-

cation, because 'everywhere divisible' is capable of being understood
in two senses. This equivocation is supposed to be in some way
explained by the fact that 'no point is contiguous to another point'

(317a2-3), but it is difficult to see how the explanation works. The

ambiguity of 'everywhere divisible' is itself said to be derived from
the ambiguity of the sentence 'there is a point everywhere'. (It is this

sentence, surely, whose two senses Aristotle supposes himself to be

exhibiting in 317a7~9?) In one sense of 'there is a point everywhere'

its truth is held to imply that a magnitude is made up of points or

contacts, and can thus be reduced by division to nothing (317a5-7):
if there is diseased tissue everywhere in a given organ the organ is

made up of diseased tissue. If you divide the organ up into cubic

centimetres the cubic centimetre in the middle is taken up by
diseased tissue, and the one next to it, and the one next to it, . . .
and so on. With points this procedure will not work. You can start

where you like: 'there is one anywhere' (317a8). 'But there are no
more than one' (317a9) — you cannot, that is to say, move from the

starting-place — 'since they are not consecutive' (ibid.). So your

procedure for checking that there are points everywhere fails.

Similarly, if you try to establish that a magnitude is everywhere

divisible by starting to divide it in the middle, you ought to be able
to carry on by dividing it at a point contiguous to the middle. 'If it

73
1.2.316b NOTES

is divisible at the middle it will also be divisible at a contiguous

point' (317a10-l 1). But there are no such points, because 'position

is not contiguous to position' (317all) ('or point to point'

(317all-12) is pleonastic, the word translated 'position' being a
synonym of the word translated 'point'). Points are, after all,

nothing else but places of division or composition (317a 12).

The above paraphrase of 3i7a2-12 is the nearest I can come to

making sense of this baffling passage. A large part of it, 317a8-12,

is so resistant to my attempts to understand it that I have contented

myself with a literal translation which I have placed between obeli to
indicate that no claim is made to have found a sure way of making

sense of the Greek. Other commentators and translators seem to

have fared no better, and I can hope to surpass them only in frank-

ness.
My paraphrase is itself insufficient to distinguish a sense of 'There

is a point everywhere' which avoids the consequence that the magni-

tude is composed of points. All it does is to show that the sort of
procedure which would show that an organ is comp'osed of diseased
tissue could not be used to show that a magnitude was composed of

points. But what cannot be shown to be the case may yet be the
case. Aristotle has not shown that the fact that points are not
contiguous implies that there is a sense in which it is false that there

is a point everywhere. In fact one is inclined to say that there is

no sense in which 'There is a point everywhere' is either true or false.
The phrase 'there is a point' can occur meaningfully in a context like
'There is a point at which AB and CD intersect'. 'There is a point at
which' is a phrase equivalent to 'somewhere'. If 'there is a point'
could preserve any sense when clipped of the succeeding 'at which',
'There is a point everywhere' would still be in danger of being as ill-
formed a formula as 'somewhere everywhere' would be.
Much more can be said for the claim that 'everywhere divisible'

is equivocal and has one sense in which it can truly be applied to an

extended object and one sense in which it cannot. But Aristotle does

not manage to say it. Commentators have claimed that he makes the

point by distinguishing 'divisible everywhere simultaneously' from

'divisible everywhere successively'. The main support for this view

comes from 316b21-3. Aristotle has just said that every perceptible

body is potentially divisible at any point whatsoever, even if actually

undivided. If his next remark, 'Being at the same time everywhere

potentially divisible would seem, however, to be impossible', is taken

as expressing his own opinion, the word translated 'at the same time'

will have to bear the whole weight of the distinction.

Aristotle, however, is less clear on this point than some commen-
tators would have us believe. At 316b21 he begins the exposition of

74
 INFINITE DIVISIBILITY L2.316b

an argument which a few \ines later (317al-2) he calls fallacious.

The sentence which begins at 316b21, 'Being at the same time every-
where potentially divisible would seem, however, to be impossible',

is the conclusion of this argument, whose fallacy rests on the equi-

vocal character of the phrase 'everywhere divisible'. If Aristotle had
thought that the addition of the word hama, 'at the same time', or

'at once' removed the ambiguity he would not have been entitled to
call the argument fallacious. (But it is not impossible that by the
time he wrote 317al-2 he had forgotten that he had inserted 'at the

same time' at 316b22. It is difficult, therefore, to be quite sure

whether or not Aristotle held that there was one sense in which 'A
body is divisible everywhere at the same time' expresses a truth.)
The word hama plays a very modest role in Aristotle's treatment

of this problem, and none at all in his attempt to give a detailed

exposition of the equivocation involved in the phrase 'everywhere

divisible', which is made in 317a2-12. Apart from 316b22, which we

have just been examining, and 316b23, where it is not qualifying
'everywhere' and is therefore irrelevant to our present enquiry, the

only places where it occurs are 316a 18 and 316b30, in the former of
which it occurs twice. Here too it is not the phrase 'everywhere
divisible'' which is thus qualified: Aristotle is talking rather about

something's being at one and the same time everywhere divided.

(Aquinas indeed locates the Atomist error in the transition from
'divisible everywhere at once' to 'divided everywhere at once'.)
On one point at least Aristotle and the Atomists are clear, and are
clearly right. It makes no difference whether the divisions have been
carried out successively or all at once. 316a18 is concerned to say
just this: the divisions do not need to have taken place at one and

the same time for the object to be at one and the same time in the
totally divided state. At 316b28-32 Aristotle is reproducing the
Atomist's denial of the possibility both of a successive process of
disintegration which produces an infinite number of infinitesimally

small parts and a simultaneous act of division at every point. He is

certainly not allowing as possible a state of affairs where the body

has been divided at every point within its surface although the
divisions have been carried out successively (perhaps by way of a
convergent series of times taken by each act of division).

Nevertheless, the phrase 'everywhere divisible' is ambiguous and

Aristotle is quite correct in accusing the Atomists of trading on its

ambiguity so as to commit the fallacy of equivocation. Aristotle's

resources, however, were not sufficient to enable him to locate the

ambiguity with precision. The tools already borrowed from recent

Modal Logicians will enable this to be done. Taking a as the proper

name of a particular body, 'a is everywhere divisible' may be

75
L2.316b NOTES

understood as being equivalent either to

(7) MllmCipmcKpam

or to

(8) UmC\pmaM(pam.

Aristotle needs to assert that (7) is false but (8) true. It is (7) which
leads to the absurdities spelt out by the Atomists, but the contra-
dictory of (7) is

• (9) NMN'LmKypmaNtpam,

which asserts that there must be some point in a at which it is not

divided. What the Atomists wished to prove, however, was

(10) 'LmKi/maNMfpam,

which asserts that there is some point in a at which it cannot be

divided, and this is the contradictory, not of (7) but of (8), and no

absurdities have been shown to follow from (8).

None of these formulae contains any tense-operator, and they

may all be understood in such a way that every verb which occurs in

their ordinary-language equivalents is present-tensed. But that is

tantamount to saying that whatever is being said to be true in them
is true simultaneously, at one and the same time, i.e. now. There is
no need to hold that (7), which is false, becomes false by asserting
that a is everywhere divisible simultaneously, whereas (8), which is
true, preserves its truth by asserting that a is everywhere divisible,

but only successively. A similar distinction could be made using the

tense-operator F. {Fp stands for 'It will be the case that p\)

(11) FUmC\pma(pam

could be distinguished from

(12) UmCxjjmaF^am;

but unlike (8) and (9) these propositions are equivalent, given only
that a never loses any of its points, and that once divided at a point
it stays that way. What the introduction of tenses will allow us to

express is the further, but useful, point made by Philoponus (p. 29,
13-19 and p. 35, 13-36, 30) that a true understanding of infinite

76
 INFINITE DIVISIBILITY I.2.316b

divisibility rules out the possibility of a's ever being everywhere

m
divided. Let x<* mean ^'s division at m is occurring now' in contra-
distinction to (jxim which means ^ is in a state of having been

divided at m' — a distinction Aristotle has shown himself aware of at

316a17-18. 'a is divisible ad infinitum* will then be equivalent to

(13) NFNUmKijjmaMFxam,

i.e. there will always be some point, m, such that m is within a, and a's

division occurring at m at some future date is possible. Now if a's

division occurring at m at some future date is possible, a cannot be in

the state of being divided at m now. As Philoponus remarks (p. 29,

17), 'if a thing has been completely divided the "infinite" process of
dividing it must needs cease'. We can therefore assert

(14) UmCMFxamN^am,1

i.e. wherever a's future division is possible it is not now divided at

that point. This, together with (13), implies

(15) NFN'EmK\pmaN(pam,

i.e. there will always be a point within a at which it is not divided,

which is equivalent to

(16) NFVimC^mafyam,

i.e. it will never be that a is everywhere divided. To assert that a is

divisible ad infinitum is to imply that a's being everywhere divided

will never come about in actuality. So far from entailing the absurd-
ities of absolute dividedness, infinite divisibility makes it impossible

that absolute dividedness should ever come about.

While it is uncertain whether Aristotle ever uses 'at the same time'

to distinguish the sense of 'a is everywhere divisible' which is

equivalent to (7), there is some indication that he uses an ordinary-

1
This fails to take into account the possibility that someone may divide
a at m today, stick it together again tomorrow, and redivide it the day after.
In that case it would be true today both that j's future division at m is pos-
sible and that it is now divided at m. This can be ruled out by interpreting
xam to mean Vs division at m is occurring now for the first time'. This
is not merely an ad hoc device to make (14) true. It will also make (13) assert
that fresh divisions of a are always possible, and this is what the proponents
of infinite divisibility wish to propound.

77
1.2.316b NOTES

language device to distinguish the other sense, that in which it is

equivalent to (8). At 316bl 1 and again at 316b20 he uses an expres-

sion which I have translated 'at any point whatsoever' instead of the

word translated 'everywhere' which has previously been the only

mode of expressing universal quantification over points or places.

At 316bll the substitution seems to have no significance for any

attempt at distinguishing two senses of 'everywhere divisible'; at

316b20, according to Philoponus, it is part of such an attempt:
'divisible at any point whatsoever' is being contrasted with 'divisible

everywhere at once'; but we remain unconvinced that the latter

expression is here intended as a way of picking out one side of an

ambiguity, and a similar doubt must accordingly persist with regard

to the former. At 317a5 and again at 317a8 a parallel expression

occurs which I have translated 'anywhere'. The former of these
occurrences is buried in the phrase 'both anywhere and everywhere',

but in the latter it is part of an attempt to pick out a sense of 'There

is a point everywhere' in which it expressed a truth. It seems, then,

that Aristotle is dimly aware of the distinction between 'every' and

'any' and of its relevance to the ambiguity of 'everywhere divisible'.
The difference between 'every' and 'any' has been discussed by
W. V. Quine in Word and Object, §29. '"Every"', he says, 'by a

simple and irreducible trait of English usage, always calls for the

shortest possible scope'. On the other hand, ' "any", by a simple

and irreducible trait of English usage, always calls for the longer of
two possible scopes' (p. 139). Amongst the examples he gives to
illustrate this are T do not know any poem', which is of the form
nx/V0jc, and T do not know every poem', which is of the form
NWx<j)x. His dictum about 'any' is probably correct. His remark
about 'every' is false. Consider the following examples:

(17) Everyone in this room can sit down at our dining-table.

(18) Anyone in this room can sit down at our dining-table. .

(18) is clearly of the same form as (8) (see above, p. 76). (17) is
ambiguous as between this and (7): it could be justified either by

the fact that no one in the room is too small or too large to sit
down at our dining-table or, on the other interpretation, by the fact

that our dining-table is large enough to accommodate the number of

people in the room. So we were not wrong, as we should have been
if Quine's remarks had been correct, in regarding 'everywhere

divisible' as ambiguous: it can mean the same as 'anywhere divisible'.

What would be the most natural way in English to make sure that

(17) is understood differently from (18), as having the logical form

78
 INFINITE DIVISIBLITY I.2.316b

not of (8) but of (7)? Surely, by adding to it the words 'at the same
time' — T don't mean anyone can sit down at it, I mean everyone

can at the same time.'' And with this observation the view that in

316b 19-23 Aristotle is using 'any' and 'at the same time' to pick out
two different senses of 'everywhere divisible' becomes again more

plausible. Note, however, that in this case 'at the same time' is not in
the least contrasted with 'successively'. If (17) is made more precise
by the addition of 'at the same time' it does not require 'one after
another' to be added to (18) by way of contrast. We are not saying

that everyone in the room can sit down at the table at once as
opposed to their taking it in turns: we are saying of everyone's

sitting down at the table that it is a possibility, instead of saying of

everyone that his sitting down at the table is a possibility. The

addition of 'at the same time' has a purely logical, and not at all
temporal, function. It is designed to show that 'every' on this
occasion does what it often does, and what Quine mistakenly says
that it always does, namely, call for the shortest possible scope.

317a12-17. This is a reasonably lucid summary of the discussion

of infinite divisibility which has been going on since 316a 14.

317a17. Aristotle returns from the lengthy digression on infinite

divisibility to discuss generation and corruption. There are more

sorts of change than two: the one which occurs at points of division
or contact when what is one is segregated into many or what are
many aggregate into one, and the other which is 'in what is continu-

ous' (317a18-19), which occurs not at particular points but through-

out a body which undergoes alteration, say of colour or temperature.

Unlike aggregation and segregation, generation and corruption

involve something's changing from this to that 'as a whole'. But not
all such change is alteration. (Contrast I. 4. 319b14, where Aristotle
seems to deny that any such change is alteration, and see my notes
ad loc.) In the substratum or hypokeimenon, the subject of change,

there is form, that which corresponds to the definition of the sort of

thing it is, and matter. Generation or corruption, Aristotle says, is
change which takes place 'in these' (317a25): one would have

expected him to have said that generation or corruption was change

in form, not in form and matter, since it is the matter which changes

its form while remaining the same. If a thing were said to change in
size and colour we should not expect the size to change but the

colour remain the same. But it is clear that he means that generation
and corruption involve a change of substantial form, whereas alter-
ation is a change only of affections, accidental forms. The language
is not precise —'something which corresponds to the definition'

79
1.2.317a NOTES

in 317a24 is not really sufficient to pin-point substantial form, for,

e.g., shapes have their definitions too — but it is not difficult to

catch Aristotle's meaning.

317a27. Here Aristotle salvages a grain of truth from the Atomist

doctrine. What he actually says is a brachylogy for 'Things become

more easily corruptible as a result of being segregated and less easily

corruptible as a result of being aggregated.' Tn the following pages'

refers to I.10.328a23-^22. Finally, at 317a30, he insists that it is
only aggregation as the Atomists think of it whose identity with

generation is being denied. This forestalls the objection that the

information of matter, which is what Aristotle himself believes

generation to be, could also be called aggregation of a kind.

Chapters KGeneration S>m\p\icitQr>

317a32. The question whether there is such a thing as generation

simpliciter is now to be answered directly, without reference to the
views of other philosophers. The ambiguity of ginesthai and

Aristotle's attempt to clarify it in terms of the distinction between

coming to be simpliciter and coming to be something has already
been discussed in the Introduction. Here (317a33) an alternative
to the word translated simpliciter is brought in as a reinforcement,

namely kyrids, which means 'strictly' or 'properly speaking'.

Contrasted with 'coming to be simpliciter' is 'coming to be some-
thing from being something' (317a34), which Aristotle spells out
with the help of examples. The phrase which serves as the second

half of this schema, translated 'from being something', presents

difficulties. There are two words in Greek usually translated 'from'
and 'out of respectively. What we have here is ek which I have

translated 'from', but which is normally rendered 'out of. The

examples Aristotle gives show that he has in mind cases where it is

true at one time that x is not F and true at some later time that x is
F. (Cf. Plato, Phaedo, 70 D, ff.) We cannot in English talk about x's

becoming F out of not-F. We can, I think, say things like 'From a

schoolmaster he became an insurance agent' or, keeping to opposites,

'From an ill man he became as fit as a fiddle'. Normally, however,

what we put after 'from' is the gerund, rather than the mere adjective

or noun: 'From being a socialist he became an enthusiast for free

enterprise.' This use of 'from' with the gerund, rather than 'out of

with the simple noun or adjective, is a matter of English idiom, but

it serves to prevent an ambiguity which is there in the Greek. We

come to be big from being small, but a statue comes to be out of
bronze. In Greek 'from being small' and 'out of bronze' would both

80
 GENERATION SIMPLICITER I.3.317a

be rendered by ek with the genitive. (In Metaphysics, A.24. 1023a

26-^ 11 Aristotle includes both these amongst senses of ek. Cf. also
De Generatione Animalium, L18.724a19-30.) At this point {pace

Aquinas ad loc.) Aristotle makes no play with this ambiguity; but

elsewhere there is a serious danger of equivocation. (Cf. Physics, 1.7,

190a24 ff. and Charlton's note ad loc., pp. 73 ff.;and 8.191b 19-25.

Also Metaphysics, Z.7.1033a5-23.)

It is this difference between 'from being F' and 'out of F' which
makes Aristotle's approaching puzzle a real difficulty. If coming to

to be simpliciter involved coming to be out of not being simpliciter,

it would not follow that 'not being' had to be attributed to some

things (cf. 317bl-3). 'Coming to be out of not being' might mean
'coming to be out of nothing', and this gives no difficulty, once it is
seen that comes to be out of nothing' is equivalent to 'It is not the
case that there is something out of which x comes to be.' Aquinas,
though he would have denied that there was such a thing as generatio
ex nihilo, saw this point in connection with creatio ex nihilo, in
which of course he did believe. (Summa Theologiae, la. qu.45. a.l,

ad 3um: Aquinas \xsqs generatio to mean 'coming into existence by a

natural process', whereas creatio means 'coming into existence by an

act of divine power'. The genus 'coming into existence' of which
these are both species is what Aristotle refers to as generation
simpliciter, but Aquinas takes the Aristotelian notion in the specific

rather than the generic sense in order to effect a reconciliation

between Aristotelian and Christian doctrine. Cf. my remarks in

'Aristotle and Corruptibility', Religious Studies, I (1966), p. 208.)

Whatever the case with 'coming to be out of not being', 'coming

to be from not being' cannot be dealt with so easily. We can say of

'from' here as Aquinas says of the Latin ex (loc.cit.): 'this prep-

osition ex does not signify a material cause, but only order, as when
one says "Fx mane fit meridies" (cf. De Gen.An, I.18.724a22),

that is, "After {post) morning comes midday".' If we say that some-
thing came to be simpliciter from not being we imply that at one

time it was and at another, previous, time it was not. To say this is
to attribute to one and the same thing existence at time, t2, and
non-existence at an earlier time, tl. It would accordingly, just as
Aristotle says, 'be true to say that not being belongs to some things'

(317b3). (Despite the distinction he makes between the senses of

ex, in his Commentary at this point Aquinas unfortunately fails to

see why Aristotle makes this inference.)

317b5. Of the two senses of 'not being simpliciter' which Aristotle

here claims to distinguish, the second is less problematic than the

first. With the second we do at least feel that we know what Aristotle

81
1.3.317b NOTES

meant to say. 'What is universal and includes everything' is 'being'

in the most general sense: whatever can in any sense be said to be,

'is' in this sense. One is reminded of Quine's remark that the only
answer to the question 'What is there?' is 'Everything'. Knowing

what Aristotle meant to say here does not of course involve knowing
whether what he said has any meaning. Many contemporary philo-

sophers would doubt whether significance could be attached to a

synonym of the verb to he which was used in accordance with this
prescription.

The other sense of 'not being simplicitef presents problems that

are not so much philosophical as exegetical. Aquinas understands

to proton kath' hekasten kategorian ton ontos as designating that

which is first amongst every category of being, namely substance.

This has the advantage of making the argument run smoothly: on

this view 'the former interpretation' does indeed mean - immedi-
ately - that 'generation of substance will be from what is not

substance' (317°7-8). Substance is called 'the first' in just the same

sense in Metaphysics, r.2.1003b16, which also has kryids echoing

the use of the same word at 317a33 (see above p. 80); and, on Ross's
interpretation of the text, substances are called haplos onta at

Physics, I.7.190b2.
Philoponus, on the other hand, takes the phrase to refer to that
which is first in each category of being, i.e. 'substance' in the category

of substance, 'quantity' in that of quantity, etc. By 'first', he says

Aristotle means to genikotaton, the most generic: each of the
summa genera is 'first' in its respective category. This interpretation,
which Joachim follows, is the one which takes the phrase kath'
hekasten kategorian in its most natural sense. Philoponus himself,
however (p. 47, 12-22), remarks on the awkwardness with which
Aristotle changes from kyrios on in the sense of substantial being to
this new conception of haplos on as primary being. Again, it

becomes difficult to understand ousias in 317b8. Why,in discussing

generation simp licit er, should we concern ourselves with cases where
something comes to be a substance from not being a substance,
rather than those where something comes to be a quality from not
being a quality?
Answers could be found to this question, but not from the text
we are examining at this moment. In Physics, I.7.190a32-3 Aristotle
says that only substances are said to come to be simpliciter. (How,

one might ask, does this leave room for coming to be simpliciter
kath' hekasten kategorian, if this is to mean 'in each category'

(317b6) ?) It is not difficult to see the rationale for this pronounce-

ment. The coming to be simpliciter of a quality like baldness or of a

quantity like fatness is always reducible to the coming to be

82
 GENERATION SIMPLICITER I.3.317b

something of a substance ~ Uncle Tom's coming to be bald or fat.

The only coming to be which is irreducibly simple is the coming to

be of a substance.
Similar considerations lie behind Aristotle's development of the

first horn of his dilemma. If a substance comes to be from what is

not a substance the only alternative is that it comes to be from one

of the other categories: but this is impossible because what is neither
'substance' (e.g. 'man') nor 'this' (e.g. 'Uncle Tom') cannot be 'such-

like' (e.g. 'bald') or 'so big' (e.g. 'fat') or 'in such a place' (e.g. 'in

bed') either (317b8-10). And if there is nothing which is bald or fat

or in bed there is no baldness, fatness, or being-in-bed, 'for that would

mean affections' existing in separation from substances' (317b 10-11).

The first horn of the dilemma thus reduces to the second. That it
does so is not in doubt. What is uncertain is how fast it does so. On
Philoponus' interpretation Aristotle argues thus: if 'what is
simplicitef means 'what is most generic in each category', the coming

to be of a substance, which is what we happen to be interested in,

will be a coming to be from not being a substance. What is not a sub-

stance is not suchlike or so big or in such a place either . . . On

Aquinas' view he argues thus: if 'what is simplicitef means 'what is a

substance', the coming to be of a substance will be a coming to be
from not being a substance. What is not a substance . , . Aquinas'
interpretation is neater and fits in well with what Aristotle says else-
where. Philoponus perhaps sticks closer to the Greek. But in the end
they both arrive at the same place.
Aristotle's alternatives, 'what is first in each (or amongst every)
category of being' and 'what is universal and includes everything',
are attempts to analyse one side of the distinction between coming
to be simpliciter and coming to be something. The distinction is one

that Aristotle felt intuitively, and we can do the same. We have

labels for it, e.g. 'the distinction between the "existential" and the
"copulative" sense of "be" ', which Aristotle lacked; but the labels

do little more than record our awareness that we know how to use
the word in each sense and that we know we use it differently.

To know how we use the word in the 'existential' sense would be to

possess a correct analysis of coming to be simpliciter. Aristotle

thought he possessed two such analyses, and in this I believe he was
mistaken. He was not mistaken in believing that 'come to be sim-
pliciter' picked out a concept different from that picked out by

'come to be something', and that accordingly he had something that

really required analysis.

317b13. The reference here to other accounts or arguments is

usually taken be to Physics, I. 6-9, or some part of it. But the

83
U.317b NOTES

summary which Aristotle proceeds to give makes the distinction

bet wen actuality and potentiality do the whole work of resolving the

difficulty about what it is that a thing comes to be from simpliciter.

The notions of actuality and potentiality, however, play an exiguous

role in these chapters of the Physics. The principal performers there

are the notions of privation or lack {st ere sis) and substratum or

underlying nature (hypokeimenon). Briefly, at the end of chapter 8,

Aristotle alludes to the distinction between actual and possible as an
alternative way of dealing with precisely the difficulty he is consider-
ing here. But there again, at 191b29, he says that the matter has been
determined in detail elsewhere, and scholars are at a loss to know to
which passage he is referring. The main solution offered in Physics,

1.8 is verbally at least inconsistent with 317b15-6: here we have,

'in one way it is from what is not that a thing comes to be simpliciter,
though in another way it is always from what is'; there, 'we our-

selves maintain that nothing comes to be simpliciter from what is

not, but in a way it does come to be from what is not, sc. per

accidens* (191b13-15). Here 'that from which a thing comes to be

simpliciter'' is held to be potentially existent though actually non-

existent. There it is coming to be simpliciter which is itself rejected in

favour of coming to be per accidens.

The previous few lines are supposed to have given in summary a

solution, elsewhere expounded in detail, of the problem of things'

coming to be from what is not. It is now (317M8 ff.) urged that

even if what is not actually nevertheless is potentially, a problem still

remains, on the supposition that what it is potentially is substance.

For either this potential substance will have actual accidents ('the

others' in 317b26 are things belonging to categories other than

substance — they are called 'affections' at 317b33), or not. If so, we
shall again (cf. 317b10-ll) have the anomaly of separately existing
affections. If not, if the accidents too are merely potential, what a
thing comes to be from will be a separately existing non-existent
(i.e. it will not be an aspect of something else — the potentiality of

water existing in real air or even in real heat, for example — but
something potential existing in its own right. 'Separate' or 'separable'
(choristos) is Aristotle's abusive word for Plato's forms qua existing

separately from the particulars which embody them: e.g. justice

was supposed to exist separately from just persons or actions).
Furthermore this will be a violation of the old principle ex nihilo
nihil fit. What is interesting here is Aristotle's readiness to concede
that what exists only potentially is in fact non-existent. He and his

followers are not always so clear on this point. They tend not to
see the difference between the adjective 'potential' and other

adjectives: a three-month-old baby is a potential runner and a

84
 GENERATION SIMPLICITER I.3.317b

thirteen-year-old boy a fast runner, but they are not both runners. A
fast runner is a runner, but a potential runner is not, just as arti-

ficial cream is not cream, though thick cream is. The difference
between 'potential' and adjectives like 'fast' is mirrored by a
corresponding difference between 'potentially' and adverbs like

'slowly'. Since the baby runs only potentially it does not run at all,
and if that were how it existed there would be no such baby.

Positing the purely potentially existent as that from which what

comes to be simpliciter comes leaves the problem of generation from

the non-existent exactly where it was,

317b 33. Aristotle's tactic now is to deal with the problem obliquely
by directing the main enquiry towards a new problem, namely, what

is the cause of the continuity of generation, both generation

simpliciter (haple) and the partial sort (he kata meros). The latter
expression, which does the job done in 317b3-4 by tis genesis,
translated 'coming to be something', is the same as is used to mark
the same side of the dichotomy in Posterior Analytics, II.2.89b39 ff.

(see further on this terminology in note on 1.4.319a 14 ff.)

'Cause from which movement begins' (318al-2) is Aristotle's

own phrase for what his followers were to call 'efficient cause'. The

doctrine of the 'four causes', material, formal, efficient, and final,

classically expressed in Physics, 11. 3 and 7 and Metaphysics, A. 7,
can only be made intelligible if the words rendered 'cause' (aitia
here, but elsewhere aition, e.g. at 318a8 and 335a33) are under-
stood. A 'cause' in Aristotle's sense is anything which answers the

question 'Why?' (Gilbert Ryle used to talk about the doctrine of the
four 'becauses'.) 'Reasons' as distinguished by modern philosophers
from 'causes' are included under the notion oiaitia. They correspond
most closely to the final cause, or 'the cause by way of "that for the
sake of which" ', as Aristotle calls it at 335b6. The answer to a why-
question may also be that the thing enquired about is made out

of (ek) such-and-such stuff or matter (hyle). This answer will give

the material cause, 'the cause which is placed in the class of matter'

(318a9). The word eidos, which I have translated 'class' in this

phrase, needs more often to be translated 'form' (see note on 11.2.

329b9). The more common Aristotehan use of this word makes it

synonymous with the word morphe (hence Hylomorphism' for the

doctrine of matter and form), and it is this word which Aristotle
uses in 335a30 to indicate the 'formal' cause. I have there translated

it 'by way of form'. It refers to the way in which an explanation of

a phenomenon can be given by referring to its structure or definition.

To return to 'efficient cause', the phrase in 318al translated

'cause from which movement begins' could more literally be translated

85
I.3.317b NOTES

'cause whence the beginning of the movement, or 'cause whence the

principle of the movement'. 'Beginning' and 'principle' here are

attempts to represent the Greek arche. Wherever possible I have tried

to use 'principle' as the translation of this word; for, via the Latin
principium, our word 'principle' is the direct heir of arche. Arche
means 'what comes first', and it varies in sense as much as does the
word translated 'prior': there are as many forms of primacy as there
are of priority. Where the priority over all other things is political,
'rule' is appropriate, where logical, 'premiss', where temporal,
'beginning' (Aristotle explains this himself in Metaphysics, A.2).
The doctrine of four causes (aitiai) sometimes appears as the

doctrine of four principles (archai) — cf. 335a26. The doctrine of

the first cause (334a7-8) can also be expressed in terms of a first

principle, as here at 318a5, and at 336b31 and 337a22. Aristotle

likes to ring the changes.

In terms of efficient causality the reason for perpetual generation

is given by Aristotle in Physics, VIII ('the treatise on movement' -

318a3-4), where he argues for an unmoved mover of everything else

and a moved mover which is the instrumental cause of the move-

ment of every moved object except itself. The 'other and prior'

(318a6) philosophy is the 'First Philosophy' of Metaphysics, E.

1026a24. By 'that which moves the other things through being

continually moved' (318a7) Aristotle means the celestial part of the

Universe, comprising the spheres which determine the movements of

the visible heavenly bodies. The phrase 'those we call particular'

(318a8, cf. Physics, II. 3. 195a26 ff.) refers to the fifty-five different

spheres (cf. Metaphysics, A. 8) which belong to this class. The main^

purpose of 11.10 (= 'later', 318a7) is to determine which of the
fifty-five is responsible {ait ion ~ 318a8) for perpetual generation
and corruption in the sublunary world. (On the place of the doctrine
of the unmoved mover in this work, see note on I.6.323a33.)
Now, however, Aristotle's concern is with the material cause. The

tactic he recommends in 318a 10-13 recalls Hume's similar manoeuvre

in investigating the idea of cause:

We must, therefore, proceed like those, who being in search of

anything that lies conceal'd from them, and not finding it in
the place they expected, beat about all the neighbouring fields,
without any certain view or design, in hopes their good fortune

will at last guide them to what they search for. 'Tis necessary
for us to leave the direct survey of this question concerning
the nature of that necessary connexion which enters into our

idea of cause and effect; and endeavour to find some other

questions, the examination of which will perhaps afford a hint,

that may serve to clear up the present difficulty. Of these

86
 GENERATION SIMPLICITER L3.317b

questions there occur two, which I shall proceed to examine,

viz. First, For what reason we pronounce it necessary, that

every thing whose existence has a beginning, should also have a

cause . . . {Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Selby-Bigge, Book I,

Part III, Section II, pp. 77-8).

318a13. The difficulty Aristotle now introduces is lopsided (as he

himself sees later, 319a22 ff.). He assumes that after a thing has

perished there is nothing where before there was something, so that

continual perishing ought already to have resulted in the exhaustion

of all that is in the Universe. But why does he not make the parallel
assumption that before a thing came into existence there was nothing
where now there is something, so that continual generation could
make up for the continual corruption? On the contrary, he supposes

that what comes to be must come to be 'out of something even if

what ceases to be 'disappears into nothing'. Accordingly he is exer-
cised by the problem of the diminishing stock of matter for the
perpetually generated things to be generated out of. If the population

of Aristotelian substances is 1,000 in 1984 and 100 of these die,

there will only be 900 left to provide matter for new births. If there

are 100 new births in 1984, the population will still be only 900 in

1985 because every birth accounts for an equivalent amount of

matter. Of the 1,000 members of the 1984 population a hundred

will have disappeared and another hundred will have provided the

matter 'out of which the hundred new members came into exist-
ence. Clearly at this rate there will be no possibility of 100 births in
1994. The number of births will have to decline sooner or later.

Even if it (and the number of deaths, though Aristotle does

not mention this) were to diminish by some proper fraction each

year the process could not be continued for ever, because once it
has been reduced to one there is no further room for shrinkage.1 If,
however, the size of each new-bom member were less than that of
of its predecessor, so that less matter was required for its production,
the convergent-series hypothesis could provide a consistent solution

for the* problem. But there is no empirical evidence to show that the
size of generated objects is thus decreasing. Aristotle's solution is

1
This is pointed out by Mugler, who, however, seems wrong in supplying
diairesin rather than genesin with tauten in 318a21. He also mistakenly
reproves Aristotle for objecting to this hypothesis of progressive dimin-
ution of size on empirical grounds. Such a shrinkage would not be observable,
he says, because it would be uniform and include the standards by which size
is measured. But Aristotle envisages a situation where more recent objects are
smaller than, and presumably could be measured against, their predecessors.

87
I,3.318a NOTES

that the death rate and the birth rate balance, and that the dead
provide the matter out of which the new-born come into existence.

As in Plato's Phaedo (70 ff.), the living come to be from the dead.

318a23. The forumula of the solution is that 'the corruption of

one thing is the generation of another, and vice versa'. What sort of
identity is this? It cannot be a way of talking about mere simul-
taneity, as when we say of a party that it went on all night because
the departure of one guest was the arrival of another. That sort of
solution would have been a rejection of the problem: the guests

come in out of the dark just as they go out into the dark, but

Aristotle will not allow that things come to be out of nothing just as
they perish into nothingness. The identity formula clearly makes
generation simpliciter analogous to alteration (coming to be some-

thing): just as something's ceasing to be pale is a case of something's

coming to be dark, so something's ceasing to be simpliciter is some-

thing's coming to be simpliciter. But the first case involved just one
thing, while in the second the ceasing to be of one thing is said to be

the coming to be of something else. Where 0 and 0 are contra-

dictories a case of ceasing to be 0 is a case of becoming 0, and vice
versa: this is a way of stating the tense-logical truth

(19) Cn.xE(!)xN\ijxX{yCKP(j)yN<})yKPN\ljyi>y.

Aristotle, however, seems to wish to derive from this the proposition

that, if a given a used to exist but now doesn't, a given b used not to
exist but now does, i.e.

(2) CKPE!aNE!aKPNE!bE!b,

Where E!a represents exists' or 'a is simpliciter*. It is as though

(20) were derivable from (19) by Universal Instantiation on the

grounds that the failure to replace E! by its contradictory in the
consequent was compensated for by the change of individual

constant from a to b. (To give complete omnitemporal generality

each conjunction of formi^p^ in (19) and (20) ought to be expanded

to an alternation of the form AAPKpqKpqFKpq. To have written
this out in full would have been to purchase generality at the cost of

perspicuity.)

318a25. Given that every case of generation is ipso facto a case of

corruption, and vice versa, why is it that we talk of certain events as

coming to be simpliciter and others as cases of ceasing to be sim-

pliciter! Thus, when a tree is cut down and burnt we say that

88
 GENERATION SIMPUCITER I.3.3I8a

something has perished (period), not that one thing has perished and

another, viz. a quantity of ash, has come into existence. Although

Aristotle does not recognize its novelty, as appears from his talk of
giving it 'further consideration' (318a29), this is a new use of haplds

(simpliciter). But his remarks at 318a33-5 show that he does not yet
clearly distinguish this new use from the old one, familiar since

317a33, which served to contrast something coming to be haplds

{simpliciter) with coming to be something (e.g. healthy). Since the
old contrast cannot be made in the case of perishing (as I said in the
Introduction, pp. xi f., phtheiresthai does not correspond to 'Cease to

be' as ginesthai does to 'come to be'), Aristotle appropriately begins

his exposition of the new one by distinguishing perishing simpliciter

from this perishing, rather than coming to be simpliciter from this
coming to be. Both Joachim and Forster render the contrasted
phtheiretai nun and todi (318a31-2), which I have translated
'now <something> is perishing' and '£ is perishing', respectively,
by 'It is now passing-away' and 'This is passing-away'; but it is

difficult to see how the difference between 'It' and 'This' can provide
the necessary contrast. Tt' could only be understood here as making

a contextuahy intelligible reference to some object, not significantly

different from the sort of reference made by 'This'. Aristotle wants,
however, to contrast cases where specific reference has to be made
to a subject of the verb phtheiretai with cases where no such
reference is necessary. When butter is made we have a case of cream
ceasing to exist, but not a case of something ceasing to exist tout

court — quite the contrary. In Greek, though not in English, it is

possible to express a proposition with only a verb, without any noun

or pronoun standing as subject-term. Thus what we have in the

present sentence is, translated literally, 'For we say "is perishing

now simpliciter", and not merely "this"'. The sense of the contrast

seems only to be expressible in English, as I have in fact translated it,

by putting 'something' as the subject of 'is perishing', and in this I
am supported by the French of MM. Tricot and Mugler. The normal
Greek for this would be ti phtheiretai, and one is indeed tempted to

amend the text here from hoti phtheiretai to hoti ti phtheiretai,

supposing the ti to have been omitted by haplography. However,

Aristotle has pre-empted ti for the other side of the contrast with
haplds. He uses tis as a modern author would use a variable: phthora

rmayin 318^4 corresponds to todi in 318a32, which I have translated

by a variable. To have written ti phtheiretai in 318a31-2 would have

been intolerably confusing. Moreover, even if we keep the MSS

reading it is, I think, interpretable still as 'something is perishing'; for

it seems that Aristotle is using phtheiretai as an impersonal verb, as

exesti is used. (Cf. kinethenai — 325a4, and Verdenius and Waszink

89
I.3.318a NOTES

ad loc.) Just as exesti could be translated as 'there is a possibility' or

hyei 'raining is taking place', so phtheiretai could be translated, though
not smoothly, as 'there is a perishing' or 'perishing is taking place',
The natural English for this is, once more, 'something is perishing'.
When the butter is made we have a case of generation, and when
the tree is cut down and burnt we have a case of corruption. Hence
Aristotle says, 'this is a case of generation simpliciter and that of

corruption' (318a32-3). It is not natural to say that each is a case

equally of generation and of corruption, as the strict following of
the doctrine of reciprocal change would demand. What can be said is

that this case of generation involved the corruption of cream and

that case of corruption the generation of ashes. So the formula which

Aristotle is going to produce (318b4) is: 'a coming to bz simpliciter
but a perishing of something', to which would correspond 'a perishing
simpliciter but a coming to be of something'. But the phrase in

Greek at 318b5 which supplies the contrast with 'corruption (or

perishing) simpliciter' is in fact tis genesis, translated 'coming to be

something' at 317b3-4. It is tempting to translate it here as 'coming

to be of something', but I have retained the same translation as at

317b3-4. It represents a nominalization of the verbal form ti

ginetai, which is ambiguous as between 'comes to be something' and

'something comes to be'. English can nominalize the latter only by

using the genitive 'something's coming to be' or 'generation of some-

thing', so there is not the same danger of equivocation as there is in

Greek, But so to translate it would be at once to remove the equivo-

cation and to give the impression that what was in the text was
genesis tinos. Aristotle does in the end avoid equivocation, but it

is not until 318b33-319a 11 that he makes the necessary distinctions

quite clearly. And even then he almost immediately slips back

(see p. 95).
The 'something' which occurs in 318a33 is in predicative position,
and the contrast with coming to be simpliciter which it is used to

make is the old contrast which was introduced at the beginning of

the chapter, not the one that was being sketched in 318a31-3. This

is confusing. The confusion is not remedied by 318a35-b2, which

look as though they were intended to tie the distinction in with the
categorial distinction between substantial and accidental being. This
could easily suggest that at 318a33 the interest had permanently re-
verted to the difference between, e.g. coming to be knowledgeable and
coming into existence. That this is wrong is shown by 318b2 ff.
which makes it clear that what is in question is, or includes, the

change from one element to another.

The truth of the matter seems to be this: from 318a25 to 318b2

the topic is the general distinction between haple genesis and tis

90
 GENERATION SIMPLICITER L3.318a

genesis, without special care being taken further to distinguish

the different distinctions made in these terms. (Since in tis genesis

and ti ginetai it is possible to understand both tis and ti as having

either a subjective or a predicative sense, a distinction between the

distinctions can be postponed longer in Greek than in English.) What

had been said in 318a23-5 seemed to have left no room for gener-
ation simpliciter. In 318a25-35 Aristotle makes the point that in
various ways ordinary language does nevertheless distinguish between
haple genesis and tis genesis, and asks how this is possible in spite of

the fact of reciprocal change. 318a35-b2 answer, again in general

terms, that the explanation for all this is to be found in the familiar
Aristotelian distinction between ousia (substance), above all in the
preferential sense of 'particular individual', and other sorts of being.

Just as accidental being is allowed to be said to 'be' only because of

its relation to substantial being, so within the category of substantial
being some things are more, some less, entitled to the description

ousia (the verbal noun from the Greek verb 'to be') according as they
are more or less identifiable with eidos (form). In each case that

which is, or is more truly, ousia 'is' simpliciter, and that which is

not, or is not so fuMy,ousia 'is' only partially {kata meros — 317b35)

or, as the Medievals said, standardizing Aristotle's varied use of tis,
secundum quid. The contrast between being simpliciter and being

secundum quid is taken over into coming to be: coming to be

simpliciter has as its terminus ad quern, and corruption simpliciter

as its terminus a quo, that which 'is' simpliciter.

Joachim seems to be imposing too severe a discipline on Aristotle

in his sharp distinction between 'The first peculiarity of linguistic

usage' (318a3I-3, corresponding to 318a35-319a3) and 'The second
peculiarity of linguistic usage' (318a33-5), corresponding to 319a
11-14). Aristotle, as has been indicated, does not get interested in

the distinction between the distinctions until 318b33-319a 11.

318b2. Three reasons for distinguishing between generation and

corruption simpliciter and generation and corruption secundum quid
are given here and at 318b14 and 318b18, respectively. The differ-
ence between the first and second of these reasons is not immediately
obvious. Parmenides is said to have spoken of a dualism which gave
fire the status of being and earth that of not-being. In his recapitu-
lation at 318b35-319a3 Aristotle states this theory as resting the
distinction on whether or not the termini of the change are ousiai.

At 318b9-l1, on the other hand, he makes it rest on whether or not

they 'are' simpliciter. And this distinction, between what is and what

is not simpliciter, must surely come down to the same thing as the
second distinction, between what 'is' to a greater and what 'is' to a

91
U.3I8b NOTES

lesser degree. Perhaps the difference between the first reason and the

second is to be found by stressing the word in 318b14 which I have

translated 'character'. All these reasons are based on what Aristotle

here calls 'matter', which seems another name for the termini of

change; but whereas the first reason involved distinguishing the

elements themselves, fire and earth, the second involves distinguishing

the characters or properties of the elements, heat and cold.

Given that the second reason is based on differences in the

characters or properties of the termini of change, what differences
does it allege? These are described variously. Some distinguishing
characteristics signify individuality, or do so to a greater degree than

others. Some, on the other hand, signify privation. Heat, which is an

example of the first class, is a positive characteristic and a form. We

have then three positive criteria and one negative criterion to enable
us to pick out those characteristics which make their possessors
more truly substances {ousiai) than those that possess their con-

traries.
Two of the positive criteria amount to the same as the negative
one. The word I have translated 'positive characteristic' is kategoria.

In addition to its better-known use to describe the ten sorts of things

which can be signified by subjects or predicates of propositions, e.g..
substance, quantity, quality, this word is used to provide a contrast

with steresis (privation). In this sense it refers to positive as opposed

to negative terms or characteristics. Thus examples of kategoria

and steresis respectively zX Prior Analytics, I.46.52a15-17 are 'equal'

and 'unequal'. 'Hot' is therefore here being contrasted with 'cold' as

the positive term of which 'cold' is the negative. To say that fire, qua

hot, is to a greater extent ousia because its distinguishing character-

istic is a positive feature, whereas earth, qua cold, is (to a greater

extent) 'not being' because its distinguishing characteristic is a
privation or negative feature, is to use one and the same criterion.
The same criterion seems to be involved in the references to form in

318b17 and 32. In Physics, 1.6-9 Aristotle lists the three principles
of change as form, privation, and the substratum. Examples are 'the

musical', 'the unmusical', and the man who was previously unmusical
and now, in virtue of the change, has become musical. 'Form' and

'privation' seem to be related to each other again as positive and

negative features respectively, so that eidos (form) in this passage

seems a mere synonym of kategoria.

The criterion which stands alone is that which involves mention

of tode ti ('a particular this'). The sense in which heat, or fire, signi-
fies individuality (cf. 318b 15) to a greater extent than cold, or earth,
is not readily intelligible. The word tode, sometimes elaborated into

to tode or tode ti, has already appeared in this chapter at 317b9, 21,

92
 GENERATION SIMPLICITER L3.318b

27, 28, 31, 318bl in roughly the same role as that in which it now

(at 318b15 and 32) appears. A literal English rendering, This', The
this', 'some this', would produce unintelligible jargon. I have thought
it best to paraphrase, but always to use some form of the term
'individual' in my translation, to keep this family of locutions
together. To tode usually goes hand in hand with ousia — 'individual'
with 'substance' — in this chapter. This association goes back to the
Categories. At 3D10 Aristotle says, 'Every substance seems to signify

some this'. (The last three words are the same as those I have trans-

lated 'signify individuality' at 318b15.) He goes on to say that only

the first substances really do this. Earlier, in 2b7-28, he had said

that the first substances were to a greater degree substances than

second, and of second, species than genera, because they were closer

to first substances. A first substance is an individual — Socrates, a

particular man, this horse. Second substances are natural kinds,
species like man or genera like animal. When he says that species are
closer than genera to first substances Aristotle seems to be confusing
the notions of individuality and specificity. Socrates is one man and
the human race comprises many millions of men and the animal

kingdom has many millions of millions of members. But though one

is to a million as a million is to a million million, 'Socrates' is not to

'human being' as 'human being' is to 'animal'. A proper name is not

just the limiting case of a common noun.

It would be truer to say that Aristotle assimilated common

nouns, and for that matter adjectives and verbs and other expressions

that are used to exemplify the accidental categories, to proper names

than vice versa. What proper names stood for were, or were ousiai

(substances), in the fullest sense. What common names and other

expressions stood for were only because they were related in some

way to first substances — were predicated of, or existed in, them.

Thus existence was supposed to be connected in some way with

being what a proper name could refer to, being a This', being
individual. Reference and 'ontology' became scrambled in such a

way that two and a half millenniums of philosophy have been unable

to restore them securely to their independence of each other. Degrees

in being were associated with degrees of 'thisness', of individuality,
Aristotle could thus talk, as he does here, of 'hot' signifying indi-

viduality, or 'a certain this', to a greater degree than 'cold'. It is the

product of confusion, but Aristotle is not alone in being confused.
Our contemporaries can talk of interpretations of the existential
quantifier as 'objectual' or 'referential', thus showing that they too
confuse the interesting question, 'What sorts of individual expressions
do we need?', with the pseudo-question, 'What is there?'

93
1.3.318b NOTES

318b18. The third reason Aristotle mentions for distinguishing

generation and coxmption simpliciter from generation and corruption

secundum quid, he mentions only to dismiss. It produces a criterion

which operates in exactly the reverse direction to the criteria

formulated in 318b14-18. According to this criterion water evap-

orating perishes simpliciter, because the 'air' into which it passes is

imperceptible. It is air, however, which has the greater degree of

individuality and form. Aristotle not only formulates this criterion,
which he believes the unphilosophical majority of mankind uses; he

produces a theory about how they come to hold the view. Using

what he regards as the true premiss that what is, is coextensive with
what is knowable, and what is not, with what is unknowable, they

went on, he thinks, to identify what is with what is perceptible, on

the strength of a prior identification of knowledge with perception.

Again, as Joachim puts it, from the premiss that their own esse is
percipere (or percipere posse) they conclude that the esse of things

in the world is percipi. This time the premiss is true up to a point

only: to exist for living beings is to live {De Anima, II.4. 415b13)
and to live for sentient beings is amongst other things to perceive
{Eth. Nic. IX,9. 11 TOM6-17). But it is also to be nourished and to

move and, for some of them, to think. So Aristotle would not even
agree with Berkeley that the existence of sentient beings is their
perceiving. And if it were, the conclusions that the existence of
perceptible things is their being perceived would still seem to him

invalid.

318b33, Here Aristotle begins to make the distinction between the

distinctions which clears up the confusion noted at 318a33. 318b33-
319a3 is devoted to the summary of the distinction, and its suggested
explanations, which is made within the category of substance.
319a3 (The reason why some things . . . ') begins the exposition of
the other distinction which connects generation simpliciter with the

category of substance and generation secundum quid with the other

categories. At 319a9 a pair of examples is introduced. That which

learns is said to come to be knowledgeable, whereas that which is

bom is said to come to be. The words to phuomenon, which I have

translated 'that which is born', are standardly rendered 'that which

grows'; but the verb used is not, as 'grows' would suggest, one which

signifies increase in size. It refers primarily to vegetative growth, and

particularly to 'growing from seed', the process which Aristotle

regards as the coming into existence of a plant. Since we only under-

stand 'grow' in this sense in English in a very specific context (as

when, having planted seeds, I say to myself, 'Now I wonder if they'll

grow'), I have thought 'that which is born' more likely to convey the

94
 GENERATION SIMPLICITER I.3.318b

force which to phuomenon has in Aristotle's argument at this point,

although it cannot, as Aristotle's phrase can, refer to the beginnings

of animal and vegetable existence indifferently.

In the example just given (319a9) it was That which learns' which
comes to be secundum quid. At 319a13 it is 'those which do not
signify substance' which are said to come to be, not simpliciter, but
something. 'That which learns' is presumably a human being, and the

examples suggested that the distinction was a distinction between

different things that might be said about human beings or plants,
not between the things they were said about. Here, however, the
distinction is presented as a distinction between different sorts of
possible subjects of 'comes to be' (although the appearance of
a
'knowledgeable' again in 319 16 seems to go back to this). All is
not clear; but it looks for the moment as though a plant's coming
into existence might still be used to exemplify one side of the dis-
tinction, but the other would now have to be illustrated by, e.g., a
person's knowledge of astronomy coming into existence. And it is
only this interpretation which explains how in 319a14-17 Aristotle
can find within accidental generation an analogue to the distinction

within substantial generation which he was exploring in 318a31-b33.

For it would be hard to maintain that, whilst a person who learns

astronomy comes to be something, a person who forgets his astron-
omy does not come to be anything. Becoming ignorant of astronomy

is just as much a becoming as becoming knowledgeable about it. On

the other hand it does make sense to say that when someone learns
astronomy, something, namely his knowledge of astronomy, comes
into existence, while denying that his forgetting his astronomy can

properly be called the coming into existence of some astronomical

ignorance. Indeed, the schema 'Now there is nothing where before

there was something' seems to apply better in the case of someone's

forgetting something than in the case of the generation of fire.

It seems, then, that Aristotle is confused about the connection

between generation simpliciter and the category of substance and

that between generation secundum quid and the other categories. If

we overlook for the moment his tendency to apply the categorial
distinction to the subject of 'come to be', there remain the diffi-

culties about his identification of coming to be simpliciter with

coming to be A (where A is a substantial predicate) which I have

discussed in the Introduction (pp. xv ff.). The idea of coming to be, or

ceasing to be, a man, for instance, is a very strange one (if 'man' is
understood as 'human being' and not as 'male' or 'adult male human

being'). It is no stranger than the idea of coming to, or ceasing to,

exist. But it is not obvious that an attempt to clarify the latter

notion by means of the distinction between substance and the other

95
I.3.318b NOTES

categories will avoid the charge of obscurum per obscurius

explanation.

319a17. These lines are a useful summary of what has so far been
established in this chapter.

3I9a22. Aristotle now points out what was wrong with the diffi-

culty raised at 318a13. In so far as it is proper to say that what

perishes simpliciter passes away into the non-existent it is also
proper to say that what comes into existence comes from the non-

existent. He does not at this point wish to discuss whether it is

proper to say either of these things. To show how the symmetry,

which is his main concern, accords with what people say (cf. 319a23),
he allows the popular indentification of the non-existent with the
imperceptible. On this view earth would pass into nothingness if it

turned into air, but equally it would come from nothingness if air
turned into it. The Topsidedness' of the difficulty mentioned above

(p. 87) is thus noticed and rectified.

319a29. In 319a22-9 Aristotle showed how the continuity of

generation could be explained without commitment as to the identity

of the non-existent. He now turns to this problem of identity, but
only tentatively, in a series of questions. We seem intended to

answer these questions thus: 'what is not' is no more earth than fire,

but the matter of earth and fire. This matter is the same in earth as it
is in fire, otherwise we could not say earth came to be from fire and
vice versa. But it is the same qua substratum, not the same in its
being.

This last formula is one that frequently appears in Aristotle's

works (cf. Physics, IV. 11 passim; De Partibus Animalium, II.3.
b a
649 21 ff.; and, in a simpler form, De Anima, IL12.424 25; III.2.

425b27, 426a16, 427a3; 7.431a14, 19;9.432bl). To understand it

one can best start from an example which Aristotle gives which is

not overburdened with theory. At Physics, III.3.202b13 he says

that the road from Thebes to Athens is the same as the road from
Athens to Thebes, but their being is different. Other examples are

the interval between one and two and that between two and one,

what is uphill and what is downhill (202a18). The pattern here

seems to be: ^4 is the same as B, but it is one thing to be A, another
to be B. The road that is uphill for me, travelling to Thebes, is the

same road as that which is downhill for you, travelling to Athens,

but there is a world of difference between a road's being uphill and

a road's being downhill. We are reminded of Frege: the Evening Star

is the same as the Morning Star, but it is one thing to be the Evening

96
 GENERATION SIMPLICITER I.3.3I9a

Star, another to be the Morning Star, So here the matter of this

parcel of earth may be the same as the matter of the fire which was

here yesterday; but it is one thing to be the matter of earth, another

to be the matter of fire. This is what is meant by saying (319b4),
The being is not the same'.

Aristotle expresses this contrast clumsily: that which underlies,

whatever it may be, is the same; the To be' or 'being' is different.

To be' is very often, for Aristotle, the sign of predication. His point

might be expressed by saying that what is predicated by a pair of

expressions may be different although what they are predicated of is

the same. But Aristotle is very unclear about the distinction between
the sense of To be' as copula, which is its relevance to predication,
and the existential sense. To einai, the infinitive of the verb To be'
prefixed by the definite article, translated here as The being', often

appears in Aristotle's writings as an abstract expression like the

English 'existence'. Given the perennial philosophical tendency to

reify abstract terms like 'existence', the contrast between sameness

of substratum and difference of being can be made too easily to

sound like the enumeration of three ingredients, one substratum and

two existences. The logical distinction between what Frege was to
label 'sense' and 'reference' thus receives a metaphysical disguise.
Aristotle himself does not always succeed in seeing through such

disguises.
A different formula, without To be', occurs at I.5.320b 13-14:
'one and the same numerically . . . though not one in definition'.
This formula is more or less interchangeable with the one that uses
'to be': it serves to make the same distinction, as appears from
Physics, III. 3. 202b 11-16.
The relation between fire, earth, etc. and the contraries is the

topic of the first four chapters of Book II (see note on II. 1. 329a24
ff.). I discuss the relevance of this passage to Aristotle's commitment
to prime matter in the Appendix.

Chapter 4 < Alteration^

319b6. Aristotle has already said a good deal about the difference
between generation and alteration, but this chapter deals with the

matter ex professo. It should be noted that these are only two out of
four types of change outlined in 319b3 l-320a2. Elsewhere (e.g.
Physics, VII.3.245b3 ff.) he gives a stricter definition of 'alteration'
than he does here, a definition which would disqualify the examples
of alteration given in 319b12-14. But his interest here is not so
much in the differences between the various types of accidental

change, but in the difference between accidental and substantial

97
1.4.319b NOTES

change, i.e. generation and corruption. It is as the kind of accidental

change easiest to confuse with substantial change that alteration is

made the subject of consideration here.

In generation (and corruption) and alteration alike there is a

change of affection. For the change to be a case of alteration there

must, Aristotle says (319b10-12), be a perceptible substratum which

persists through the change, and the affections which come and go

must belong to it. They may be contraries, like black and white, or
intermediates like grey. It is noteworthy that he says that the sub-

stratum must be perceptible, not simply that there must be a

substratum.

In 319b14 ff., the operative words for distinguishing generation

from alteration are those translated by 'whole' and 'entirely'. Simi-

larly at 1.2.317a22 a distinction was made by the word there

translated 'as a whole'. It is worth enquiring whether this use of
'whole' is related to the use of the phrase translated 'partial' in
1.3.317b35. There 'partial generation' was contrasted with 'generation
simpliciter\ and the contrast intended is clearly that between the
copulative and the existential use of 'come to be', elsewhere in

chapter 3 expressed by 'come to be something' and 'come to be

simplicitef. In Posterior Analytics, IL2.89b39-90a5, and again in

De Sophisticis Elenchis, 166b37-167a4, the two expressions 'being

something' and 'being in part' are both used to make the contrast
with 'being simplicitef. Jonathan Barnes in his commentary on the

Analytics passage suggests that the origin of the expression 'being in

part' is to be found in the fact that, whereas in 'X is' 'is' forms the

whole of the predicate, in 'X is F' it is only a part of the predicate.

The contrast is thus descriptive of exactly the same linguistic
phenomenon as that described by the contrast between 'being some-

thing' and 'being simpliciterf i.e. 'being — period'. In De Interpret-

atione the same phenomenon is described by use of the phrase 'when

"is" is predicated additionally as a third thing' (19b 19-20): In 'X is'
the 'is' is thought of as predicated of X and is the second element in

the sentence, whereas in 'X is Y\ for which Greek word order would
allow as a variant the equivalent of 'X Y is', the 'is' is again thought

of as predicated of X, but is now the third element in the sentence.

The contrast between a three-element sentence and a two-element

sentence is the same as that between 'X is in part' or 'X is something'

and 'X is — period (simplicitery.
In 1.3.317b35 the phrase translated 'partial' was attached to the
verbal noun from 'come to be'. The distinction Aristotle is interested
in is the one which he signalizes by an expression which refers to the

contrast between sentences of the form 'X comes to be F' and 'X
comes to be'. These can be regarded as expressive of 'partial' coming

98
 ALTERATION I.4.319b

coming to be (or generation) and of coming to be (or generation)

simpliciter, respectively. On this scheme we have two subdivisions of

'generation'. But in other places Aristotle regards 'generation' as

itself a subdivision of the wider category 'change'. On this way of

talking, change, the genus, includes generation, alteration, growth, and

locomotion as species (cf. 319b3 l-320a2). Generation, the species,

is the same as generation simp licit er. The other species of change are
the same as 'partial' generation. Now Aristotle does not, as far as I

know, use 'partial' as a differentia with the generic term 'change',

although he does so use it with 'generation' in its generic sense. He

does, however, here at 319b 14, and earlier at 1.2.317a22, use 'whole'
in connection with 'change' to pick out a species of change con-
trasted elsewhere with partial generation. Is it too far-fetched
to suppose that we are intended to understand the phrase 'when the
whole changes' in 319b14--15 as though it were opposed to 'when
it comes to be in part', with 'in part' understood as it has to be
understood in the logical works? Some support for the suggestion

may be obtained from 320b30, where I have translated holds, which

would normally be translated by 'as a whole', by simpliciter (see
note ad loc.).

319b21. The conditions laid down at 319b 10-12 for change being
alteration, state not only that there must be a perceptible sub-
stratum, but that the changing affections must belong to the
substratum as affections of it. 319b21-31 is concerned with this

latter condition. When air changes to water certain properties remain.

Aristotle's text as represented in the surviving manuscripts mention

as examples of this transparency and coldness, although Averroes

seems to have had a text which substituted wetness for coldness.

Coldness is odd in this context, because Aristotle's doctrine in

Book II is that air changes into water by substituting coldness for

heat amongst its properties, while retaining the wetness which

already belonged to air. I have argued elsewhere {Classical Review,

New Series, XXII (1972), pp. 301-3) that better sense may be made

of the passage by supposing that Aristotle did in fact list wetness as

well as transparency as a quality retained by air when it changes to

water, and mentioned coldness as a property which it does not

originally possess, but acquires in the transformation. This involves

holding that words translatable as 'wet, but not' have been lost in
transmission immediately before the word for cold. If this conjecture

is correct, Aristotle is here ruling out the change of air into water as
a case of alteration, on the grounds that even if the wetness that was

in air remains in water, the coldness that is acquired ('the other, the
terminus of the change', 319b23 ff.) must not be regarded as an
affection of the wetness.
99
1.4.319b NOTES

Two points here need to be examined. First, what is meant by one

of a pair of contraries 'remaining the same' (319b21)? Philoponus

and Aquinas debate the possibility of an affection's surviving sub-

stantial change in the way indicated by the protasis of the con-
ditional which begins at 319b21. Neither will allow that, e.g., the
transparency which was in air can be numerically identical with that
which is in the water into which it changes. Aristotle of course does

not say that it can, only that if it were the same, and the changing
affections were regarded as affections of it, what would occur would
be alteration. But that he can even entertain numerical identity of
affections as a hypothesis indicates that he has the notion of an

individualized form, pace G.E.L. Owen, 'Inherence', in Phronesis,

X (1965), pp.97-105.

Secondly, what is he denying when he says that the coldness must

not be an affection of the transparency or wetness? The following

lines, 319b25 -31, are intended to answer this. When air changes to
water, the hot wet perishes and the cold wet comes to be. Contrast
this with what happens when the musical man perishes and the
unmusical man comes to be. (Perhaps it is the implicit comparison
with a change from hot to cold which leads Aristotle here to envisage

a change from being musical to being unmusical. He thinks of heat

as a positive and coldness as a negative quality. Otherwise we should

have found the change in the opposite direction a more natural

example.) Here 'man' remains the same, just as in the other case

'wet' remained the same. But in the case of the unmusical man,
being unmusical is an affection per se of the man, whereas coldness
is not an affection per se of the wetness. Aristotle uses the expression

trahslated per se to make a bewildering variety of contrasts. Here the

contrast is not like that between a man's being two-footed {per se)
and his being white {per accidens), but like that between a man's
being musical {per se) and a white thing's being musical: in the

latter case being musical belongs, not directly to the white, but to
that to which being white also belongs. (Cf. Metaphysics, A.7.
1017a7-22; Posterior Analytics, I,4.73b5-10, with Jonathan

Barnes's note ad loc.) So here, the only way in which the coldness
could be said to be an affection of, to belong to, the wetness is in
virtue of the fact that it belongs to what the wetness also belongs to.

It is not an affection per se of the wetness.

The argument would go much better if the words 'so these are
affections of the man, although there is a coming to be and perishing
of a musical man and an unmusical man' (319b29-30) were left out.

Philoponus suspects some scribal error here, and suggests some re-

arrangment of sentences, a suggestion which is followed by Joachim.

(My translation follows the manuscripts here, not Joachim's printed

100
 ALTERATION I.4.3I9b

text.) The words which seem in this way to interrupt the argument
are in any case difficult to understand. In 319^25-6 Aristotle had

introduced the example The musical man perished and an unmusical

man came to be' in order to point up the contrast with The hot wet
perished and the cold wet came to be'. It is only if being unmusical

is related to man as cold is to wet that we are entitled to talk in this

way. But being unmusical is an affection per se of man as cold is not
of wet, so it seems that talk of coming to be an unmusical man and
perishing of a musical one has been shown to be out of place.

Philoponus suggests that Aristotle is recalling his earlier doctrine that

cases of alteration are cases of tis genesis (1.3,317b3~4; cf. my note

on 318a25 ff.), coming to be something as opposed to coming to be

simpliciter. Now we may grant that, in the generic sense, genesis

(generation) admits alteration {tis genesis in this sense) as a species.

We may also grant that, given the fluidity of Greek word order, the
sentence anthrdpos amousos egeneto (319b25-6) is ambiguous
between 'an unmusical man came to be' and 'a man came to be

unmusical'. But the corresponding sentence ho mousikos anthrdpos

epthare (319b25) can only mean 'the musical man ceased to be';

it cannot be translated 'the man ceased to be musical'. And the

phrase 'a coming to be of an unmusical man', which can be distilled

from the complex and chiastic phrase 'coming to be and perishing

of a musical man and an unmusical man', cannot be regarded as the

nominalization of the sentence anthrdpos amousos egeneto in the

sense of 'a man came to be unmusical' but only in the sense of 'an
unmusical man came to be'. The suggestion that a man's becoming
unmusical can be understood as the coming to be of an unmusical
man seems just to be a mistake. It would be agreeable to be able to

reject 319b29-30 as an intrusion.

Nevertheless, there is evidence that Aristotle misconstrued as a
metaphysical fact about different sorts of entity the linguistic fact
about the ambiguity of sentences like anthrdpos amousos egeneto

which is based on the distinction between the copulative and the

existential senses of 'be {einaiy and 'come to be (ginesthai)9. In

Metaphysics, A.6-7, he has a doctrine of 'beings per accidens9 and
"per accidens unities' which actually uses the example, 'the musical
man'. If what he is doing in Metaphysics, A.7. is distinguishing

different kinds of being in the existential, not the copulative, sense

of 'be', as Kirwan thinks (see his notes ad loc.), a sentence literally
translated 'A man musical is' will be interpretable as 'A musical man

exists' and not merely as 'A man is musical'. By the same token

anthrdpos amousos egeneto will be interpretable as 'An unmusical

man came into existence' as well as 'A man became unmusical'. On

this view Aristotle is saying in 319b29-30, that one and the same

101
I.4.319b NOTES

phenomenon can be viewed either as an alteration in a man ('A man

became unmusical') or as the coming into existence of something

other than a man, namely, the per accidens entity 'an unmusical
man' ('An unmusical man came into existence'). This has a curious

consequence: the proposition 'An unmusical man came into exist-

ence' would not entail 'A man came into existence' as 'An unmusical
man sang' entails 'A man sang'. The phrase 'an unmusical man'
stands for a quite different entity from the phrase 'a man': the latter
designates a per se being, the former a being per accidens. The
doctrine of 319b29-30 on this interpretation is that one and the

same change can be viewed either as ascribing the acquisition of an

affection to a man, a per se entity, or as ascribing coming into exist-
ence to an-unmusical-man, a per accidens entity. What is ascribed is

different in the two ways of understanding the change, and what it is

ascribed to is also different. In the different sort of change which
occurs when air becomes water, again something is said to come into
existence and something is said to acquire a property, and again the
two things of which these two things are said are different. But in
this case what is said to come into existence is a perceptible per se

entity, water, and what is said to acquire a new property is imper-

ceptible prime matter. If this is what Aristotle means in 319b29-30,

this is one way in which he wants us to understand the distinction

between alteration and generation.

It must be remarked that not only does this require an incoherent

understanding of 'An unmusical man came into existence', since it

has to forbid the inference to 'A man came into existence', but it
detaches the distinction between alteration and generation from the

distinction between the copulative and the existential senses of

'come to be'. Both ways of understanding 'come to be', both as

'become' and as 'come into existence', will now be available for the
description of each of the types of change. The original distinction

between coming to be something and coming to be simpliciter has

disappeared. The contrast between alteration and generation has had

the ground cut away from under its feet.

319b31. This list of the different sorts of change and their con-
nection with different sorts of matter is standard Aristotelian doc-

trine: cf. Metaphysics, H.l.1042a32-b9, and my note on 335a29,

By 'the other' in 320al Aristotle means the same as he meant by
'the other, the terminus of the change' in 319b23-4, namely, the

quality acquired in generation, e.g. coldness when water comes to be

from air. Earlier in the chapter he has made it a condition for

generation that nothing perceptible should remain through the

process of change. At 319b33-320al he seems to strengthen the

102
 ALTERATION I.4.319b

condition by requiring that nothing at all should remain. What about

prime matter? We shall look at this more closely in the Appendix;

but suffice it to say now that the condition as he states it in 3 I^SS-

SIO3! is not that nothing should remain (simpliciter), but that
nothing should remain of which the other is an affection or any sort

of accident. It is not clear that coldness is an affection or any sort of

accident of prime matter: rather, it is an affection and (per se)
accident of water. Furthermore, however we interpret 319b33-320a2,
the following sentence (320a2-5) clearly indicates that prime matter

is the substratum of generation and corruption, as other sorts of

matter are of other sorts of change. It is said to be receptive of

contraries. How can it receive the new contrary after having lost the
old one without remaining there throughout the change?

Chapters <Growth>

320a8. The questions Aristotle brackets together under the

heading 'How does growth occur?' do not fit this description all that
obviously. He finds himself saying that since growth, unlike gener-

ation or alteration, involves change of place, things that grow change

in a different way from things that come into existence or alter. He

then tries to distinguish the sort of change of place that is involved

(a) from local motion and (b) from the revolution of a sphere. In the
course of this he compares the growing thing with metal that is
beaten into a different shape — not altogether happily, as Philoponus

points out, since such a piece of metal would have to get smaller in
one dimension if it grew in another. Indeed the metal would be

undergoing a change of shape, a phenomenon which Aristotle was

prepared in the last chapter, at 319b13-14, to call alteration.

The phrase in 320a23 which I have translated 'in the same

amount of space' includes the word I have been translating 'place' in

the previous few lines. If I had stuck to 'place' here the phrase would
have had to be rendered literally 'in the equal place'. Similarly, in

the next line, I should have had to write 'more place' and 'less place'
instead of 'more space' and 'less space'. This shows that 'place' is not
always the correct translation for topos. 'Place' is a count-noun,
'space' a mass-noun. 'Place' does not admit of 'more' and 'less'.
Topos, like 'cake' in English, is capable of functioning both as a
count- and as a mass-noun.

32Da27. Aristotle has said (320a15~16) that, all change being from

what is potentially F to what is actually F, and growth being change

in respect of size, growth must be change from what is potentially
possessed of size to what is so actually. But the notion of what is

103
I.5.320a NOTES

potentially possessed of size and (Aristotle adds rather cavalierly)

corporeal is unclear. Not less so is Aristotle's listing of the ways in

which this can be taken. No two commentators agree, and even the

text is uncertain. I have attempted to indicate how the argument

goes by inserting numbers and letters: the main divisions are (1) and

(2); (1) is subdivided into (a) and (b), (a) into (i) and (ii), but (ii)
turns out to amount to the same thing as (b) so (i) in effect is the
same as (a). This hypothesis (i) is that the matter of growth is some-

thing which occupies no place/space (see previous note for dis-

cussion of 'place'), like a point. By definition a thing can only
occupy a place if its outer surface coincides with the inner surface

of some container {Physics, IV.4.211^ 11-12), and this cannot be

said of a point. 'Being somewhere' is equivalent to 'occupying a
place' (ibid. III.5.206a2-3). What comes into existence must be
somewhere, so the same must be true of that from which it comes

into existence. This is not argued for. Two ways of 'being some-
where' are mentioned: per se and per accidens. Aristotle says that
the soul and the universe are 'in a place' (i.e. 'somewhere') per
accidens, in the former case because it is related, as form to matter,

to something, namely, a body, which is in a place per se (cf. the

examples whiteness and knowledge given at 211a22), in the latter

because its parts are in a place per se. Thus to be in a place per se is

to be in a place in the way defined, and to be in a place per accidens

is to be related in one of these ways to what is in a place per se.

Points can be related in neither of these ways: they have no parts,

and ex hypothesi ((i) is a subdivision of (a)) they have independent
existence in the way that forms, according to Aristotle, do not.

(i) was ruled out because there was no possibility of a container;

(b), into which (ii) collapses, allows for the possibility of a container,
since what is meant here by being 'in something' is literal contain-

ment, not the way in which being musical is {per se) 'in' a man or
{per accidens) 'in' something white when a white man is musical (cf.
Categories, chapter 2, and my note 1.4.319^26-7). These latter ways

of being 'in' something, or 'belonging to' it, are what Aristotle rules

out in 320b5-7 by explaining what is involved in calling the contained

thing 'separate'. And hypothesis (1) is preserved because what is

contained is thought of as a void, or imperceptible body (this phrase
seems to be intended as epexegetic of 'void'), and thus having no

actual size of its own. Aristotle has many arguments in Physics, IV

against the possibility of a void, and the 'many impossible conse-
quences' referred to in 320^7 are no doubt to be found there. The

example he gives in 320b7-l 2, is somewhat perplexing, because it is

a case not of growth but of generation. Already in 320b4 he has

spoken of 'that which comes to be' where we should have expected

104
 GROWTH 1.5.320a

'that which grows'. The phrase there translated might have meant
'comes to be something, e.g. bigger' (see note on 319b25 and Intro-
duction); but in 320b7-12 the example, water changing into air, is

clearly a case of generation haplds. I am inclined to think that

Aristotle has carelessly dropped into talking about generation when

he should be talking about growth. Explanations of this carelessness

can perhaps be found in the confusion implicit in the notion of 'the

matter of growth', and in Aristotle's view of the relation between

growth and generation (cf. note on 336b8~9). Why should it be

possible for there to be an infinite number of 'matters' (320b10) if

matter is being thought of as a void? And why should it be supposed

possible that all these 'matters' be simultaneously actualized?

Aristotle is here, as elsewhere (cf. my 'Aristotle and Corruptibility',

pp. 98 ff.), confusing KMpMNp with MKpNp, its both being possible
that p and being possible that not p with its being possible that both
p and not p. Such an argument would in fact invalidate Aristotle's
own views about generation. Air can be considered as the matter

both of water and of fire in that it is equally possible for it to change

into either of these. Simultaneous actualization of these possibilites

would produce something that was both water and not water (i.e.
fire). This does not show that the air is not both capable of changing
into water and at the same time capable of changing into fire, i.e.,

in Aristotle's own terms, that there is simultaneously present in it,

though inseparably, the matter of water and the matter of fire.

320b12. Aristotle has given grounds for rejecting (1). He is thus

committed to saying (2) that the matter of growth is something

which actually has size, though to describe it in this way is different

from describing it as the matter of growth. This is what Aristotle

means by saying that it is 'not one in definition' though 'one and the
same numerically', a formula with the same force as 'the substratum,

whatever it may be, is the same, but the being is not the same' (1.3.
319b3-4), as was pointed out in the note on 319a29 ff. What is
unclear here is what the extended body is, which is being said to be
numerically the same as the matter we are concerned with. This will
be discussed later (pp. 106-7).

To have established that the matter is numerically the same as

something actually possessed of size is not to have ruled out one set
of candidates for the role of being the matter of growth, which some

philosophers whom Aristotle criticizes elsewhere (e.g. Metaphysics,

Z.li.l036b7 ff.) have actually put forward. These candidates are
those mathematical abstractions, lines and surfaces, which unlike

points have size, and so are not covered by the rejection of (1), as
points were. Nevertheless, they can be rejected on the same grounds

105
I.5.320b NOTES

as points were rejected. (^'For the same reasons' (320b 15-16) has

caused modern translators and commentators trouble, but Philoponus

got it right: it applies only to lines and means Tor the same reasons
as points'. Oude . . . oude in 320b14-15 has been wrongly taken as

equivalent to oute . . . oute by all the modern scholars I have

consulted.) For neither can lines and surfaces be in a place, qua

contained in a container. Aristotle mentions only lines, but what he

says would apply also to surfaces. 320b16-17 points out the relation
and contrast, on Aristotle's theory, between these abstractions and

the concrete bodies which he believes to be the true matter of

growth.

320b17. As the term has so far been understood in this chapter,

the matter of growth (that from which a thing comes to be larger

than it previously was), like the matter of generation (that from

which a thing comes to be), is something actually existing. In the

case of generation it is 'another thing' (320b18), and Aristotle

remarks that he has established this elsewhere. Since he goes on to

say things about the efficient cause of generation which amount to
a resume of Metaphysicsy Z.7.1032a12 ff. (or even Metaphysics, Z.
7-9 as a whole, since 320a20 may recall 9.1034b 16-19), this is
presumably the passage indicated by the phrase translated 'elsewhere'.
The remarks about efficient causes (320b 19-21) are, however, irrel-

evant to his present concerns, and seem to be the result of a some-

what unintelligent advertence to the Metaphysics passage. They are
also confused; and since the attempt to clarify them would do
nothing to assist the understanding of Aristotle's thesis about
growth, the reader who wishes to understand them is referred to the
note in Joachim's translation, or to his commentary. The point that
Aristotle wishes to make, however, can be put in this way: this

actual body (e.g. a seedling cabbage), which is that from which a

full-grown cabbage can come to be, is also that from which, if it

dies and rots without reaching maturity, an inanimate mixture of

elements, different from itself, can come to be. The 'matter of

corporeal substance' is that from which a corporeal substance, in this

case a disorganized mass of earth, water, air, and fire, comes into

existence. The 'matter of size' is that from which something, in this

case a cabbage, comes to be bigger. The 'matter of affection' is that

from which something comes to have an affection it previously

lacked: if the seedling from being cold at dawn comes by midday to

be warm, it is the cold early-morning seedling from which the warm

noontide one comes to be warm. The cold early-morning seedling is

something to which all these things may happen. Descriptions of it

as 'the matter of substance', 'the matter of size', and 'the matter of

106
 GROWTH I.5.320b

affection' differ in sense but not in reference; this is what Aristotle

means by saying that it is 'separable in definition but not separable

in place' (320b24; cf. 320b14 and 1.3.319b3-4, with notes ad loc,).

'The difficulties already examined' (320b25) refers to 320a27-b 12;
'the vacuum' (320b27) recalls 320b2, and the 'other works' (320b28)
are Physics, IV.6-9. The word translated 'simpliciteP in 320b30 is
not the word usually so translated, but an adverbial form of the

word translated 'whole' at 1.2.317a22 and 1.4.319b 14. The note on

the latter passage provides my justification for translating it
'simpliciter* here. That the phrase translated 'generation

must have this sense is shown by 320b33-4, where 'generation of

body' is contrasted with 'growth' and must therefore refer to gener-
ation in the specific, not the generic sense. Aristotle is arguing like
this: if growth is from what actually has no size, it is from what is
not actually body, since body necessarily has size. The coming to be
of body from what is not body, if it occurred, would be generation
simpliciter. It cannot therefore be proper to describe growth as a

coming to be from what actually has no size.

320b34. Aristotle takes up the problem from a new angle. He now

discusses 'the matter of growth' in a new sense. Where before it was

the seedling which was thought of as 'that from which' the cabbage

grew to its mature size, 'that from which' it grew is now thought of
as the nourishment whose absorption turned the seedling into the

cabbage. In either sense, 'that from which a thing grew' is alterna-

tively described as 'the matter of its growth'.
It is noticeable that he assumes without argument that growth

presupposes the existence of matter, in this new sense. The assump-

tion is tantamount to restricting the denotation of 'growth' to the
growing of living things, things which need food if they are to grow;

and indeed there are close similarities between this chapter and the
discussion of nutrition in De Anima, II.4. Perhaps there is a sense of
'grow' in which it is thus restricted, in which not every increase in
size is a case of growth. As Aquinas points out in commenting on
this passage (101 in the Spiazzi edition), Aristotle elsewhere
b
{Physics, IV.9.217 8-l 1) recognizes the possibility of increase in
size without anything acceding to the thing which increases. Aristotle
does not in the Physics passage call this phenomenon 'growth'; but
on the other hand, some of the generalized descriptions of growth as
'change in respect of size' (e.g. 320ai4) would make it appropriate
so to call it. It would be justifiable to complain that Aristotle gives

us an account of growth which is less comprehensive than his intro-

ductory remarks and his reliance on size and affection as the sole
differentiae of growth and alteration, respectively, would have

led us to expect.

107
I.5.320b NOTES

Since if a thing grows growth must occur at every point within it,

a dilemma arises when we consider that which 'accedes to it\ Either

it is incorporeal, in which case we would have to face all the diffi-

culties mentioned in the earlier part of the chapter, or it is corporeal.

If the latter, since the core of the growing object grows simul-

taneously with its exterior parts, the acceding matter will have to
reach this inner core and thus pass through the outer parts. But since
these are solid body we shall have to suppose that at some time two

bodies occupy the same place.

321a9. A way out of the dilemma is considered and rejected,

namely, that growth may take place in a similar manner to the way
in which water changes Into air: here too there is an increase of bulk.
It is not clear, however, in what respects growth is to be supposed
similar to this type of generation. Aristotle's argument seems to

depend on the similarity being total; and he easily rejects this on the
grounds that it denies the continued existence of a perceptible sub-
stratum, which has all along been taken to differentiate alteration

and growth on the one hand from generation on the other. A more
promising case could be made (on the lines of what Aristotle himself

says in Physics, IV.9.217a26-b 11) for the similarity's being confined

to the lack in both cases of anything acceding to the thing which

changes: there is expansion not only when water changes into air but
when air itself rarefies, without in either case any new matter entering

into the phenomenon. Against this Aristotle claims that it is part of

the data on which any analysis of the concept of growth must be

based that growth is accompanied by the accession of new matter.

Here he overreaches himself. It would be enough to point out that

sometimes growth is accompanied by the accession of new matter.
This is hardly controvertible, and with the further datum that
growth occurs simultaneously at all points in the growing object, it is
sufficient to generate the dilemma outlined in 321a5-9. This cannot
be avoided except by the claim that growth is never accompanied by

the accession of new matter. Aristotle, however, resists this claim by

asserting not its contradictory but its contrary.

321a29. Why is it that the thing to which something accedes (e.g.

the calf of someone's leg) is said to grow, rather than the thing which

accedes (the food which makes it grow), or both of them? Answers:

(a) the calf is still the same substance, i.e. flesh, after growth as
before it, but the cabbage which makes it grow is not still cabbage.

The persistence of substance, as has been emphasized already (32la

22-6), is essential for growth, as for alteration (321b2-5; cf. 1.4,

passim, and, in particular, for affections which belong per se, my

108
 GROWTH I.532Ia

note on 319b26-7). That by which a thing grows doesn't itself grow,

and that by which a thing alters doesn't always alter, though some-

times it does. As with growth, so with alteration, Aristotle is thinking

primarily of the changes involved in physiological processes. 'That

by which a thing grows' is, e.g., the cabbage that is eaten. 'That by
which a thing alters' is, e.g., the cup of tea that is drunk to warm a

man up. In communicating its warmth to the body the tea may lose
some of its own warmth. The sun, however, which also may warm

up a body, will not itself change temperature in so doing. In either

case, the external source of heat is only an instrument used by the

body's own life-force for maintaining or improving its natural heat.

The true efficient cause of the alteration, as of the growth, 'that
which makes it alter' (321b6), 'the mover' (32ib7), is the soul. In

De Partibus Animalium, I.1.641b5 ff., Aristotle makes the nutritive

part of the soul the efficient cause of growth and the perceptive
part that of alteration (see Balme's note ad loc.). In any case, the
efficient cause of growth and alteration is in the living body; and this

is the second reason (b) why we attribute the alteration primarily

and the growth solely to the animal body. Finally (321b8-10)
Aristotle deals with a possible objection drawn from the case of food
which, when eaten, turns to wind. Here the food as well as the

animal body expands, but we still say that it is the animal body
which grows, because (a) after expanding, the food, but not the
animal body, perishes, and (b) the efficient cause is to be found in
the latter, not the former.
a
The word translated 'nourishment' at 321 32 and elsewhere
might more smoothly be rendered 'food' in some places and 'nutrition'
in others. 'Nourishment' preserves the equivocation. (See Hamlyn on
DeAnima, I!.4.415a14 ff.)

321b10. Six lines of recapitulation, signalling a return to the

problems set out in 320a34-32 la29.

321b16. The growth of anhomoeomers takes place through that

of homoeomers (for the notion of homoeomer, see note on I.1.314a

16 ff.). When we talk about any of the latter we may be talking in

either of two ways. Aristotle expresses this by saying that 'both the
matter and the form are called flesh and blood', and proceeds to
argue that the phenomena of growth to which he has called attention

belong to the form and not to the matter. This seems carelessly
expressed. Aristotle's conception of matter and form no more allows

for either of them being said to grow than it allows for either of
them to be said to come into existence (cf. Metaphysics, Z.8.).

But Aristotle does envisage two ways of talking of organic tissue.

109
I.5.321b NOTES

At De Anima, II.I.412b20-2 he says that an eye which lost its sight

would only be an eye homonymously: if we called it an eye we
should be using the word 'eye' in a different sense (cf. 321b31-2,
below, and, for the notion of homonymy, note on 1.6.322b26 ff.).
An eye taken from a corpse, for instance, is different from a properly
functioning eye in a living body. The first continues to exist for
no longer than the quantity of matter which constitutes it stays
together and retains roughly the same appearance. The living eye will
be subject to a constant renewal of its matter: 'some flows away and
some comes in new' (321b27). It is not that the dead eye, or any
quantity of inanimate matter such as bronze or stone, is formless

matter: no matter can exist apart from form. It is rather that inani-
mate body depends for its continued identity on the identity of its
matter whereas animate body does not. In the same way we can

distinguish between the Thames, which is the same river now as it

was in 1066, and the quantity of water molecules which occupied

the river bed of the Thames in 1066, and which are now dispersed

indiscriminately throughout the world, even if they survive as water

molecules.
Aristotle's present point seems to be this: if we think of flesh

simply as a quantity of matter informed in a certain way, we cannot

say that it grows by the accession of new matter to every part of the

original. To say this would be to encounter the paradox outlined in

321a2-9. If we think of it rather as a persistent pattern or function

embodied in varying amounts of matter, we can say that the growth

is uniform in every part. If a living organ like an eye grows it grows

uniformly: the correct proportions between the parts is maintained

even if the overall size changes. There is growth in the back as well as
in the front. If a heart is to double in size while preserving its charac-
teristic shape there will have to be growth at every point on its
surface.

Commentators have found difficulty, and have come to different

conclusions, in understanding the analogy presented in 32lb24-5.
Some have seen in the reference to 'the same measure' (i.e. the same
measuring-vessel) the doctrine of the identity of form, or else the
doctrine of the persistence of the substratum, in the growing object.

Verdenius and Waszink see it rather as a reference to the discon-

tinuous manner in which food comes to a living organism, which is
compatible with continuous growth in the organism from the point

of view of its overall structure. A helpful discussion of this passage can

be found in Professor G.E.M. Anscombe's Collected Philosophical
Papers (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), vol. I. pp. 64 f.

321b28. I said in the last note that there were two ways of talking

110
 GROWTH I.5.321b

of organic tissues. Matter and form are for Aristotle relative notions.

As prime matter is to the elements, so the elements are to the

homoeomers, and so the homoeomers are to the anhomoeomers.
Flesh and bone are the matter of which the hand is composed. So it

is easier to think of flesh or bone as just a quantity of matter thus

and so informed than to think of a hand in this way. 'Flesh' or
'hand' is being used homonymously when applied both to part of a
living man and to part of a corpse; but this latter, improper, use is

more likely, in Aristotle's view, to be made of 'flesh' than of 'hand'.

A more extended account of this is given in Meteorologica, IV. 12.

389b23-390b22.

321b35. Aristotle here examines the way in which food produces

growth. Much of what he says is paralleled in De Anima, II.4.416a

19-bl 1. (At 322a2 I have translated eidos as 'form', for the sake of
consistency, but in this context 'kind' would have been more natural.)

It is not clear whether Aristotle would regard talk of 'feeding' a fire

as analogical, as Joachim thinks; what he does emphasize at De
Anima, II.4.416a9-18 is that while a fire will grow ad infinitum as

long as there is fuel, in natural compounds (i.e. living bodies) there is

a limit to the size obtainable by feeding: you can't find a kind of
food that will make a flea grow to the size of an elephant. (Cf. note

on II.8.335a14-21.)

322a16. Growth is the coming into existence of a quantity. Since

in general A comes to be from not-^i, the coming to be of a quantity

might be supposed to be 'from' what is not a quantity. But this
would only be the case if what came to be was quantity considered

as a universal. What comes to be in growth, however, is no more

quantity as a universal than what comes to be in generation is animal
as a universal, rather than a man or some particular animal. So we
are not forced to say that the matter of growth (and here Aristotle's
thought seems to equivocate between the two senses of matter;
b
see above on 320 34) is not a quantity. (This interpretation of the

relevance of 322a 16-20 is due to Philoponus.) Rather we may say

that 'what accedes to the growing thing is a given quantity' (322a20).
He adds 'but not a quantity of flesh'. Only that which actually has

quantity can become a thing which has quantity, but what becomes
flesh does not have actually to be flesh. But the matter of growth is

both potentially something which has quantity and potentially

something which is flesh. Qua the latter it nourishes; the former,

or rather, given Aristotle's limited interpretation of 'growth',both,

it gives rise to growth. This leads Aristotle to a somewhat more elab-

orate statement of a distinction made dXDe Anima, II.4.416b 11-13

111
I.5.322a NOTES

between the 'being' of nourishment and the 'being' of that which

produces growth. Cf. my note on 1.3.319a29 on the different locu-

tions Aristotle uses for making distinctions of this sort. That used at
322a23-4 corresponds to 320^14, that at 322a25-6 to 319^3-4.
Usually, when Aristotle uses these formulas he has in mind
expressions which, although their senses are different, necessarily

have the same reference: the road uphill from Athens to Thebes has
to be the same as the road downhill from Thebes to Athens; the

actualization of the potential object of sense has to be the same as

the actualization of the sense faculty. Here, however, the reference
of 'that which produces growth' is only contingently the same as

that of 'nourishment', because a body does not always grow in virtue

of being nourished. It is nourished 'as long as it is maintained in

existence, even if it gets smaller' (322a24). Thus food is nourishment

provided it is capable of becoming flesh, irrespective of whether the

flesh thus produced increases the overall size of the animal to which

it accedes; it produces growth, however, only if it is capable of

becoming enough flesh to increase the overall size. Qua producer of

growth, therefore, it must be potentially a certain quantity of flesh.

322a28. Neither Joachim nor Verdenius and Waszink seem to have

found a way of making these closing lines of the chapter intelligible.

Nor have I.

Chapter 6 <Contact>

322bl. The first eight chapters of Book II are devoted to the four
'so-called' elements (for this expression see note on II.l.328b31),
which seem to be the 'matter' Aristotle mentions in 322bl, and the
questions he outlines in 322b2-4 are all there discussed. He argues
here that it is impossible to treat of the role played by the elements

in generation and corruption without first examining what it is for

things to act on and be affected by one another and to mix with one
another. Furthermore the notions of action and passion and mixing

presuppose the notion of contact. The rationale is thus given of the

last five chapters of Book I, chapter 6 being devoted to contact,

chapters 7-9 to action and passion, and chapter 10 to mixing. The
flow of this architectonic passage is interrupted by sentences (322b
13-21) in which Aristotle congratulates Diogenes of Apollonia for

seeing that interaction (e.g. heating and cooling) is not possible

between objects unless they are 'from a single thing', i.e. have a
common matter. The quotation is not entirely apropos. Aristotle is

arguing that those who postulate a single common matter, as well as

those who postulate a plurality, are committed to action and passion:

112
 CONTACT L6.322b

Diogenes is arguing the converse of this, namely that action and

passion require a single common matter. This is one of the passages

Solmsen uses to refute the thesis that Aristotle did not believe in
prime matter {Journal for the History of Ideas, XIX (1958), pp. 247

ff. See Appendix).

322b26. After a sentence recapitulating the reasons he has just

given for discussing contact as a preliminary to discussing action and

passion and mixing, Aristotle begins his examination of the notion

of contact by allowing for variations in the sense of the word. 322b31

is remarkable for using the adverb homdnymos, which I have trans-

lated 'equivocally', to specify a way in which words are used of
things rather than a way in which things are described by words. The
phrase homonymds legetai, literally 'is said equivocally', is normally
predicated by Aristotle of things, and the noun homonyma normally

refers to these things. Moderns tend to find this odd: it is not, we

want to say, dates — the things — which are equivocal or homony-

mous, but the word 'date'. Equivocity, we feel, is not a property of
what we eat, or arrive on, but of what we say. But it is after all a fact

about what grows on palm-trees and what we write at the top of

letters that we use the word 'date' to describe them both. The fact is

only a fact about words in so far as it is also a fact about things, and
vice versa. This is emphasized by Aristotle's being prepared to use
homdnymos not only, as in most instances, of things but also, as

here, of words. Philosophers are accordingly confused when they

attach importance to the fact that Aristotle usually calls things

rather than words homonyma, or conclude that it is misleading to
translate Pollachds legetai to on as 'The word "being" is used in
many senses' because 'it suggests that Aristotle is talking about a
word' (Charlton, p. 54; cf. J. L. Ackxill, Aristotle's Categories and
De Interpretatione, pp. 71 ff.). Using words in different senses is
something which neither modern philosophers nor Aristotle are all

that clear about. But it is clear that it is one and the same phenom-
enon that we and he are unclear about. That is secured by the

examples we so readily produce. See also notes on 314a16, 328b14.

Aristotle's terminology varies. Sometimes he makes the hom-
dnymos/synonymos distinction exhaustive: sometimes, as here, he

makes ta homdnyma (words used equivocally) a subdivision of ta

pollachds legomena (words used in a variety of senses).

Having noted that 'contact' is used in various senses, Aristotle
tries to establish what it applies to when it is being used in the strict
sense. His remark that it applies to things which have position and

place (322b33-323a 1) is a bad start, because mathematical entities,

which he is not going to allow to be capable of being 'in contact' in

113
I.6.322b NOTES

in the strict sense, must also in some sense or other have position or

place. (What sense will depend on the sense in which they may be
said to exist, as separated objects or otherwise — 323a2-3.) He then

recalls his 'earlier definition', i.e. that given in Physics, W.3.226^23,

and enlarges it to 'those things will be in contact with each other
which are discontinuous objects having size and position and which

have their extremities together'. (*In 323a5 the MSS contain a word
dtcopLO^m which Joachim emended to biripruieva. Whichever
reading is adopted the sense required by the passage makes 'discon-
tinuous' the appropriate translation.) The inclusion of 'position' in

this expanded definition allows him to deduce, via the previously

(322b33-323a l) stated premiss that whatever has position has place,
that 'all things that are in contact with each other will possess

heaviness or lightness, either both or just one'. This is in accordance

with the Aristotelian doctrine of 'natural places': to be heavy is to

have a tendency to move towards the centre, to be light to have a

tendency to move towards the circumference, of the sublunary
sphere; the natural place of an object is that to which it has a

tendency to move. This doctrine is central to, and expounded passim

in, Aristotle's De Caelo. (A good summary is in Joachim, Introd.

§10, cf. pp. 145 f.)

The words in 323a9 translated 'either both or just one' are capable

of diverse interpretation. There are two objects ('things that are in

contact') and two properties, heaviness and lightness, in question. Is

Aristotle saying that the two objects between them must have either

both or just one of the properties (the properties may be apportioned

one apiece or both objects be heavy or both light)? Or does he mean

that each object either has both properties (the intermediaries, air
and water, each have both heaviness and lightness) or just one (earth

is just heavy, fire light)? Or does he mean — an idea Philoponus

entertains - that either both or just one of the objects will possess

the disjunctive property heavy or lights

The latter supposition would make Aristotle have in mind here
the case where part of the celestial spheres (composed of ether, which

is neither heavy nor light) touches part of the sublunary sphere

(composed of one or more of the four elements). Aristotle's cos-

mology seems to require contact, in the obvious sense, between

the inner surface of the celestial spheres and the outer surface of the
sublunary sphere — there is no vacuum between them; but, since the

ether which composes the celestial spheres shares neither a common

matter nor the possibility of being called heavy or light with the
elements composing the sublunary sphere, contact between them in
what Aristotle here lays down as the strict sense is on this view
impossible. For what Aristotle is supposed to go on to say is that

114
 CONTACT I.6,322b

contact, in the strict sense, is possible only between things capable

of reciprocally moving each other or of interacting.

Against this interpretation of the words 'either or both or just
one', however, is the phrase which immediately succeeds them, 'Now
things like this are capable of being affected and of acting'. 'Things
like this' (323a9) refers back to 'will possess heaviness or lightness'

(323a8-9), and it is clearly envisaged at this stage that any objects in

contact with other objects - both members, that is, of any pair of

touching objects — will have weight in this way, and accordingly be

'capable of being affected and of acting'. This is shown by the fact

that this phrase is echoed in the words incorporated in the revised

definition of 'things whose nature is to be in contact with each

other', namely, 'capable of moving and being moved by one another'

(323a12). What are being ruled out at this stage, as not touching
each other in the strict sense, are mathematical, not celestial, objects.

323a12. Aristotle next draws our attention to differences between

'movers', and at this point, at least, the majority of commentators

agree that he is focusing attention on the relation between celestial

and sublunary bodies. But the majority of commentators may be

wrong. All he in fact says is that 'in some cases the mover in moving
is also itself necessarily moved, while in other cases it is unmoved';
but his interpreters have generally taken him to mean that 'in some
cases the mover is also itself necessarily moved (by the thing which it
moves), while in other cases it is unmoved (by it)'. The celestial
spheres, after ail, not only move the sublunary sphere, but are them-

selves moved by the unmoved mover. What can be said of them is

that they are not reciprocally related, as both mover and thing
moved, to the sublunary sphere, with which it would be natural to

say they were in contact. If this reciprocal causal relation is a necess-

ary condition of the contact relation, taken in the strict sense, it will
only be in some looser sense that there is contact between the inner

surface of the innermost celestial sphere and the outer surface of the
sublunary sphere, because the celestial bodies are not subject to
causal influence of any sort on the part of the sublunary bodies.
However, there is something decidedly odd in denying that objects,
both corporeal and spatial, between which there is neither inter-
vening body nor void, are in contact with each other, even in the

fullest sense. And what Aristotle actually says in 323a 12-14 is that
there is a kind of mover which causes motion without itself being
moved — period. He says nothing about being moved by the thing

which it moves. To be sure, at 323a12 he had spoken of things

'capable of moving and being moved by one another', and it might
be thought that he is here remarking that not all movers are of this

115
I.6.323a NOTES

sort; but as Alexander, reported by Philoponus, points out, a similar

phrase at Categories, lb2(M5 literally translatable as 'genera sub-

ordinated to one another', has to be understood in the sense 'genera

of which the one is subordinated to the other', so we could under-

stand Aristotle here as meaning things of which one is capable of

being moved by, and one of moving, the other. If so, his remark at
323a 12-14 about the two kinds of movers is not prompted by a
worry about how objects which lack the relation of reciprocal caus-

ation can nevertheless be in contact; for he will not have produced a

definition of contact which requires that things in contact be able to

move and be moved by each other. His remark about the two kinds

of movers may be intended rather to ask how movers and things

moved can be said to have contact in the notoriously anomalous

case involving an unmoved mover.
If Aristotle's words at 323a12 are to be understood as meaning,

not 'capable of moving and being moved by one another', but

'capable, the one of moving the other, the other of being moved by
the first', the only words that actually mention reciprocal causality

are words to be found at I.7.324a35-b 1. Here he is giving an

example of an agent which acts without being affected. The proxi-
mate agent, in this case the food administered by the doctor to the

sick person, is affected by the sick body upon which it acts. The

doctor's medical skill, however, 'produces health without itself being

in any way affected by the thing which is being made healthy'. Even
here, however (see my note ad loc.), it is not clear that it is the

presence or absence of reciprocal causality which Aristotle is

interested in. And it is somewhat implausible that Aristotle's words
'in some cases the mover in moving is also itself necessarily moved'at
323a 13-14 should be understood as meaning 'in some cases the mover

is itself necessarily moved by the thing which it moves' on the

strength of something which he does not say until 324a35-b 1.
Philoponus has perhaps misled his successors by directing their

attention to the inner surface of the innermost celestial sphere, to

the phenomenon of non-reciprocal causation: the place which is

troubling Aristotle may be, not this, but the outer surface of the

outermost celestial sphere, and the phenomenon he is considering

that of uncaused causation.

At 323a9-10 it was things 'capable of being affected and of
acting' which were said to be able to be in contact with each other,

but at 323a12 'capable of moving and being moved by one another'

was substituted for this phrase. In 323a12-14 two sorts of movers

have been distinguished, and now at 323a14-15 this distinction is

carried over from the term 'mover' to the term 'agent'. In justifi-

cation of this it is pointed out that movers are said to act and agents

116
 CONTACT I.6.323a

to move (323a 15-16). At 323a 16, however, Aristotle begins to have

scruples about this identification of acting with moving. Acting is

correlative to being affected, and that is definable as being altered, in

Aristotle's technical sense, which involves change in respect of an

affection, such as whiteness or heat. Agents are thus only a species

of the genus mover', and what is implied though not stated by

Aristotle here is that the distinction between moved and unmoved

movers (or, on the other interpretation, between movers which are

and those which are not moved by the things they move) does not

cut across the distinction between movers which are and those
which are not agents, in the strict sense: it applies only to the second

arm of this latter distinction. All agents, he implies, are also affected
(perhaps, on Joachim's interpretation, by the things they affect).

323a20. Returning to his main theme Aristotle attempts to dis-

tinguish two senses of ^contact'. His intial remark is difficult: 'there

is a sense in which the things which cause motion will touch the
things they move and a sense in which they will not'. According to
the distinction which he goes on to make there is no sense in which
the things which cause motion ever fail to touch the things they
move: in the strict sense of 'touch' mover and moved always touch

each other, and in the loose sense, though moved does not always
touch mover, mover still always touches moved. What we must
suppose Aristotle to mean is that there is one sense of 'touch' in

which '>4 touches B' does not entail 'R touches >1' (the loose sense),
and in this sense (all) movers touch the things they move; and that
there is another sense of 'touch'(the strict sense) in which '^4 touches

5' does entail '5 touches A\ and in this sense they will not (all)

touch the things they move. On this interpretation he is very much

concerned with the connotation of 'contact' or 'touch'. He proceeds

to address himself, however, more directly to differences of deno-

tation than of connotation. It is a necessary, though not of course a

sufficient, condition of things' being in contact in the more general

sense that they be things which have a position and are capable

either of moving or of being moved. For being in contact in the

strict sense a further condition is necessary, namely that they be

members of that species of the genus mover and movable which is

characterized by action and passion — obviously to be taken in the

strict sense described in 323a16-20. So much for the difference

of denotation between the two senses of 'contact': it is a difference

of connotation — though Aristotle rather lamely talks merely of

'the more usual case' — that things which are in contact in the strict

sense of the word are such that, if a thing is in contact with some-
thing, the latter is in turn in contact with it. 'Practically all the

117
I.6.323a NOTES

things we meet' are like this, but there are cases where the mover
touches the thing moved but not being itself moved (by the thing it

moves?) is not touched by it. Although he represents this as an

empirical fact (cf. 'and indeed apparent', 323a27), he must be under-

stood as positing a (more general) sense of 'contact' where it is not

part of the connotation of being in contact that it is a symmetrical

relation. Where a mover is not itself moved (by the thing which it

moves?) it touches something without being touched by it.

This strange doctrine has parallels elsewhere in Aristotle's works

(cf. Metaphysics, A.15.1021a26-b3; I.6.1056b32-1057a17). The

alleged phenomenon of ^l's touching B without 5's touching ^4 is a

species of a more general alleged phenomenon of A's being related

to B without B's being (really) related to ^4, a phenomenon which
I have elsewhere1 called 'the one-sided relationship'. Aristotle's
favourite example is a thought and that of which it is a thought. If I
have a thought of the Mersey Tunnel, my thought is relative to the
Mersey Tunnel in a way in which the Mersey Tunnel is not relative
to my thought: my thought could not be the thought it is if the
Mersey Tunnel did not exist, but the Mersey Tunnel could quite well

be what it is without my having thoughts about it. Aristotle's

remarks on this topic are exceedingly obscure, but they were taken

up by Aquinas and given a theological application: the World is

really related to God, but not God to the World. If what Aristotle
has in mind in this passage really is the unmoved mover, his doctrine

that what the unmoved mover moves is touched by it but that it is

not touched by what it moves is quite close to Aquinas's doctrine.
Aristotle's views about the first mover are bound to produce awk-
wardness in the application of the concept of contact. The unmoved
mover touches the primum mobile, for contact is a universal require-
ment between every mover and thing moved, where there is no
a
intermediary {Physics, VII.2.243 34-5), and Aristotle locates the

first mover at the circumference of the Universe {Physics, VIII. 10

267b9). But since it is immaterial it is difficult to see how anything

could touch it. Thus there seems good reason both to affirm and to
deny contact between the primum movens and the primum mobile,

and the way out could easily be felt to be provided by an analogical

extension of the notion of contact making it a one-sided relation. To

posit a one-sided variety of contact between the celestial spheres

and the sublunary sphere is much more gratuitous: it would reduce to
absurdity all too soon the premiss from which it purports to be

derived, namely, that contact can exist only between things capable
of acting and reacting upon each other. But the text is too obscure

1
Ts God really related to his Creatures?', in Sophia, VIII (1969), no.3

118
 CONTACT I.6323a

for us to feel much conviction that Aristotle's loose sense of 'contact'

has application to the first mover rather than to the celestial spheres,

or vice versa.

323a33. Aristotle is here limiting his observations to physical as

opposed, not to metaphysical, but to mathematical objects. This

sentence does not tell, therefore, against the previous remarks' being

concerned with the first mover.

The question whether it is the primum movens or the primum

mobile for which Aristotle is making special provision in this

chapter is not, perhaps, independent of the more general question of

the place of the doctrine of the first mover in his works. Certain
scholars (e.g. Guthrie, in his introduction to his Loeb Edition of De
Caelo) hold that the doctrine as stated in Physics, VIII is a later
development of his thought. They hold that earlier works, as they

take De Caelo and De Generatione et Corruptione to be, show no

sign of this doctrine, except for certain sentences which are regarded

as afterthoughts. In De Generatione et Corruptione reference to a

first mover or to unmoved movers may be found in the following

passages: I.3.318a5-6; 1.7.324a30-2, b

12;II. 10.336b30-l;337a17-
22. In some of these the reference may be thought to be ambiguous,

and in some cases the Guthrie school may suspect that the passages
are additions made to the text at a later date. But there are cases

where neither of these defences are available, and the documentation

when looked at as a whole adds up to considerable support for the
view that the doctrine of the first mover is presupposed in this work.

If the opposite view were taken, it would have to be regarded as

impossible a fortiori for references to be found in the original text

to a plurality of unmoved movers. 337a 17-22 would in that case

have to be regarded as part of a subsequent addition, and 318a8
would have to be given another interpretation.

Chapter 7 <Acting and Being Affected (1):

Like and Unlike >

323bl. Aristotle gives one argument used to support what he

claims is the majority view of his predecessors that unlike acts upon
unlike, namely, that if like acted on like there would be no expla-

nation of why one was agent and the other patient. The minority

view, which he attributes solely to Democritus, is cited without

supporting argument.

323^17. Announcing his own 'higher synthesis', Aristotle blames

his predecessors for having stated only a part when it was necessary

119
I.7323b NOTES

to consider the whole. But their real mistake, as his detailed criticism

proceeds to make clear, was to overlook the fact that things can be
like in one respect and unlike in another. Unless agent and patient

are unlike in some respect — and here he repeats the argument given
earlier in support of the majority view — there will be no explaining

why one is agent and one patient. This refutes the view that some
agents and patients are in all respects alike.

323b21. He now adds a further argument: if something can be

affected by what is like it, it can be affected by itself. This, however,

is ambiguous. If the antecedent means 'Something can be affected

by whatever is like it' the hypothetical is necessarily true, given that

a thing is always like itself. If the antecedent means 'Something can

be affected by something which is like it' the hypothetical as a

whole is not necessarily true. And surely it is only in the latter sense

that the advocates of like acting on like would wish to assert the
antecedent. Aristotle's attempt to show that on this view a thing

would be able to be affected by itself, with further consequences

that nothing would be imperishable or immovable, accordingly mis-
fires. It is barely tolerable for him to identify opposition to the

view that unlike acts on unlike with the view that some agents and
patients are in all respects alike: it is quite impermissible for him to

identify it with the view that whatever is like something can affect
it. And yet he realizes that it has to be taken in this sense if it is to

lead to the undesirable consequences he alleges: for he strengthens

the antecedent of his hypothetical by adding at 323b23-4 'given
that like qua like is capable of acting'. There is a further illegitimate
move here in that the word I have translated 'capable of acting' —
poietikon — is not unambiguously modal (at 323b5 and 21 it had to
be translated 'active'): if it were, there would be no justification for

the inference to 'Everything would move itself, as opposed to

'Everything would be capable of moving itself. But since poietikon

is also translatable as 'active', the strengthened premiss may now be
being understood as 'the like qua like is active', i.e. as 'Whatever is

like a thing does affect it'. Such a premiss would justify the con-

clusion 'Everything moves itself, but it is further than ever from the

only plausible sense of the original hypothesis 'Something can be

affected by what is like it'.

323b24. The arguments Aristotle has been giving for the view that

unlike affects unlike have been of the reductio ad absurdum type.

One of his arguments for the view that like affects like is of this

kind, one is direct. The reductio argument is not very strong. It

consists of taking a supposed instance of unlike affecting unlike and

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 ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (1) L7.323b

pointing out its impossibility: whiteness is not affected by a line, or

vice versa. He explains that he realizes that it could happen 'acciden-

tally': blackness which happened per accidens to be in a line could

affect whiteness. Let us not linger over this parrying of possible

objections to an indefensible thesis. For the thesis is indefensible.

Rennet has apparently nothing in common with solidity, but if
added to milk, will solidify it. Choose the right example, and it does

not look nearly so absurd to deny the 'like affects like' theory.

Nor is the direct argument much better. It is that A can only

affect B if A and B are contraries. Contraries are species of the same

genus. So if A affects B, A must be of the same genus as B and thus

like B. It is an Aristotlelian commonplace that contraries act on

contraries, that hot things act on cold thingc to make them hot, and
sweet things act on sour things to make them sweet, etc. But Aristotle
need only have stepped into his kitchen to find cases of A acting on
B which do not conform to this pattern. Rennet does not make milk
curdle by itself being curdled.

Black and white are contraries; but the theory allows that grey,
which is not the contrary of white, can nevertheless act upon it. This

is because those determinates, e.g. grey, which lie in between the

contraries which are the extremes of a range specified by a deter-
minable — colour, in this example — are also capable of acting
upon the contraries or on any other item in the range. Aristotle

regards the determinates which lie in between the contraries

('intermediates', 324a8) as composed or blended 'from contraries'
(323b29), and he seems to be referring to them also in the phrase
'things which have (i.e. involve) contrariety' (323b30-l). It is
because they thus contain or involve contrariety that they are
capable of acting or being affected.

Contraries being determinates (species) of a given determinable

(genus), Aristotle's doctrine entails that agent and patient are alike

in genus but unlike in species. This is the synthesis promised. There

is a reference to this passage in De Anima, II.5.417al-2, where

Aristotle is again discussing the question whether like affects like,

but in the particular context of sensation viewed as the sense

faculty's being affected. However, the synthesis that Aristotle

produces there differs from the one he gives here in 323b31-3.

There the patient is said to be unlike the agent actually (it is cold

things that are acted on by hot things) but like potentially (what
the agent heats is potentially hot); or, what amounts to the same

thing, 'it is the unlike which is affected, although when it has been
affected it is like' (417a20).

324a8. Without making it clear that he is giving us another

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I.7.324a NOTES

distinction between ways of understanding the thesis that 'like

affects like', Aristotle seems in 324a8-14 to be making the same

point as he makes in De Anima, IL5.417a20. The argument seems to

proceed as follows: perishing and coming to be, in the wide sense of

these terms, take place between contraries. The wide sense of the
term includes, besides perishing and coming to be simpliciter, ceasing

to be A and coming to be A, Since, when A affects 5, A and B are

contraries, and J5's being affected involves its changing, i.e. coming

to be ^4, ^'s affecting B will consist in its causing B to become A —

'and generally what is active makes the patient like itself (324a 10-11).

He does not dot the i's or cross the fs, but his thought seems to be:
and so in this sense too like affects like, because in affecting it it
makes it like itself — which is the De Anima point.

324a14. In Aristotle's system genus:species: :matter(324a21):

form: :subject('substratum', 324a16):predicate. Thus he sees a com-

mon pattern in the following: (a) when white is affected by black a

colour is affected by a colour, (b) when something cold is affected by

something hot a body is affected by a body, and (c) when someone

sick is made well a man is also made well. Black and white are species of
the genus colour, heat and cold are forms inhering in matter (in this

case in body), sickness and health are predicated of the subject man.
But his examples do not all work out: even if we allow that it is
natural for what is black qua black to make what is white black and
for what is hot qua hot to make what is cold hot, it is not qua
healthy that a man makes another man healthy.

324a24. Aristotle's attention reverts to the topic which held it at

the end of the last chapter (323a12 ff.), the difference between
moved and unmoved movers. (For the word 'principle' in this para-
graph see note on 1.3.317b33 ff.). He applies the same distinction to
agents. He takes as his example the case of a doctor healing a sick
man by administering wine (324a30) and food (324M) to him. The
first agent, corresponding to the first mover, is at first identified as

the doctor (324a30), but later the doctor's medical skill is substituted

for the doctor himself as a more promising candidate for the role of
immaterial agent. We have here the same ambiguity as we found in

the last chapter (see note on 323a9 ff.). Is Aristotle trying to say
that some agents remain totally unaffected by anything while they

act; in which case the doctor's medical skill is the better example of
an unaffected agent? Or is he trying to say that some agents act
without being affected, as food or wine is when administered to a
sick man, hy the thing they act upon; in which case the doctor is a

good enough example of an unaffected agent? For although the

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 ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (1) I.7.324a

doctor will in most cases be acting because he has been acted upon —

by the promise of a fat fee, perhaps — he will not in general be

affected, while he acts, by the patient upon whom he is acting.

Aristotle certainly has reciprocal action in mind here, as was not

certain in chapter 6 (see note on 323a12), because he goes out of his

way to deny that medical skill is in any way affected by the thing
which is being made healthy (324a35-bl); also his point about
things which have the same matter necessarily being affected by the

presence of the opposite is designed to explain how the food which

is making the sick body well is at the same time itself heated by that
body. But his interest seems to be focused, not on this feature of
reciprocal causality, but on the need to leave open the door for
active things, things capable of acting, which are nevertheless in-
capable of being acted upon. The possibility of immaterial agents
must not be ruled out.

324b13. Final causes look at first sight as though they might be

candidates for the role of immaterial agents. But they are not agents.
(For the phrase That from which movement begins' see note on
318al.) An agent is that which causes something to be affected, and
being affected is alteration, a case of something's coming to be some-
thing. The final cause does not tell us why something comes to be
something but why it is thus and so. An animal body is equipped
with kidneys which enable it to purify its blood and thus preserve its

health. Health is the cause in this case, not of any change in the
body, but of certain features of its structure. Health is a disposition,
and so in general are formal and final causes (324b17-18).

324b18. Fire, which is the most active of the 'elements', again

looks like a candidate for the role of unaffected agent. But fire is

heat existing in matter, and matter qua matter is passive. If heat

could exist separately, sc. from matter, as Platonic forms are supposed

to exist, it could perhaps be totally unaffected. Probably heat could

not exist immaterially in this way. But the possibility of immaterial

agents is kept open: if there are any things of this sort, they will be
the totally unaffected agents we are speaking about (324b20-2).

Chapter 8 KActing and Being Affected (2):

Empedocles and the A tomists >

324b25. In the last sentence of chapter 7 Aristotle has claimed to

have dealt with the question of 'how' action and passion belong to

things. He now says {pace Joachim) that he must return to the

question of 'how' this can occur. 'How' is not very specific. In

123
L8.324b NOTES

chapter 7 his answer to the 'how' question was that agents affected

patients by assimilating them to themselves, by substituting for a

quality possessed by the patient one contrary to it (or intermediate).

In chapter 8 he is principally concerned to refute the accounts of

Empedocles and the Atomists of how action and passion occur.

These accounts had been based on a 'reductivist' view of what were

later called 'secondary qualities' in terms of what were later called
'primary qualities': what it was for a body to be e.g. hot or red was

for its minute, insensible, component atoms to be a certain shape,

arranged in a certain order, and positioned in a certain direction.
What it was for a body to be 'altered' was for changes to be made in
the composition, arrangement, and position of the set of atoms

which composed it. What it was for an agent — for 'last agent' (324^
27) cf. 324a32'4 — to act on a patient was for particles of the one
to effect such changes in the particles of the other by mechanistic
means (bombarding them, as it were), thereby producing 'alteration'.

Aristotle dissents from this account; but he does not fully take its
measure. He treats it at times (cf. 326b21-4) as though it were an
answer to a much more limited question: how is alteration brought

about in the interior of an affected object, how do agents 'get at'

their patients' insides? His own 'solution', given in chapter 9, is

entirely directed to this last, narrow interpretation of the 'how'

problem.
The explanation may lie in his insistence on regarding Empedocles'
account (in terms of 'passages') on the one hand, and that of

Leucippus and Democritus (in terms of a vacuum) on the other, as

different versions of what is basically the same account. 'Passages'

are readily viewed as means for penetrating into the interior of

things (and out again the other side!). One form of affection which
was of special interest to Greek philosophers was that involved in
perception. ('Perceptions' in 324b28 must be taken as an internal

accusative.) Bodies were held to have passages in them through

which effluences pass either from or to the sense organs. The

phenomenon of transparency (324b29-32) was explained in terms

of the frequency and arrangement of these passages. 'Arranged in

rows' (324b31) is thought by some to mean that the transparent

bodies are layered so that the passages in the top layer are aligned

with those in the next, etc., so that the effluences can pass in a
straight line through the passages from one layer to the next. The

talk of 'things whose passages have the same size' (324^34-5) shows

that 'passages' rather than 'pores' is the appropriate translation of

poroi here. How could a pair of porous things interpenetrate, even if
the pores were, so to speak, of the same gauge? 'Pore' is practically

a transliteration of the Greek porosy and is of course its etymological

124
 ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (2) I.8.324b

descendant. But the Greek word is a much more general one, denoting
any way through which one can pass or cross or move from one

place to another. The passage through an otherwise solid body need

not be in the form of pipes — spaces of more or less circular section.

They might be interstices between horizontal layers of a substance,
and in this case, if the interstices between the layers of substance ^4
exactly fitted the layers of substance B, it would be possible for A

and B to interpenetrate. This is what Aristotle is envisaging in 324b

34-5. (Cherniss regards Aristotle's words here as carelessly written

for 'The pores of each of the bodies to be mixed must be pro-

portionate to the particles of the other' ~ H. Cherniss, .4mft?

Criticism of Presocratic Philosophyy New York: Octagon Books,
1971, pp. 94-5, n. 400. Even if we translate poroi as 'passages'
and think in terms of layers and interstices, the point Aristotle
should be making is that the passages of the one must be proportion-
ate to the layers of the other.)

324b35. The theory of passages, which is essentially an explanation

of how things can get at one another, is said to be less powerful as an
explanatory theory than Atomism. What Atomism explains, however,

is the possibility of movement and plurality, and this seems to be a

problem somewhat remote from the mechanisms of action and

passion which are the supposed topic of the chapter. The Atomists

are said to 'adopt a principle which is in accordance with nature

{physisf (325al-2; cf. De Caelo, III. 1.298b 14-21), because unlike
the Eleatics ('some of the earlier philosophers', 325a2-3), they are

not forced by their axioms to deny what is evident to sense, the

distinctness of bodies and their movement. Movement indeed is

definitive of 'nature {physisY as the subject-matter of natural science

(physics).
The Eleatic axioms were: 'The vacuum is non-existent', 'Things

would not be able to move unless there were a separated vacuum',

and "There could not be many things if that which held them apart
did not exist' (325a3-6). Of these Leucippus denies the first, on one
interpretation (see note on 325a23 ff.), and the third, Aristotle the

second and third. The word 'separated' appears (cf. 320b27-8)

because some philosophers, Aristotle says elsewhere {Physics, IV.7.
214a13-16), have identified the vacuum with matter, which is some-
thing inseparable from body. The vacuum whose existence the

Atomists are asserting is something which has a 'separate' existence,

unlike matter.
The plausibility of the Eleatic 'The vacuum is non-existent' is
worth examining. A vacuum is empty space. There is empty space

between A and B when there is nothing between A and B, though

125
I.8.324b NOTES

these do not touch. The vacuum is therefore nothing, it is what 'is

not'. So it is non-existent: there is no such thing as a vacuum. One

may compare the argument which appears in Plato's Theaetetus

(189 A 6-13): Someone who judges falsely judges what is not (sc.
the case). Someone who judges what is not judges nothing. Someone

who judges nothing does not judge at all. So false judgement is

impossible.

It is, of course, the use of 'be' as a predicate of objects which

vitiates every move in the Eleatic arguments, as it does the nerve of

the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. The connection

between emptiness and the non-existent is, however, a subtle one.

Suppose a series of rooms, A,B, C, etc., along a corridor. In A there

are twenty people, in B six, in C none. C is empty (of people). The
idea of a vacuum is the idea of absolute emptiness. If the inside of

room C is a vacuum, room C is empty of everything. It is not the

case that, for some x, x is in room C, where 'x' ranges over material

objects in general. As Aristotle might say, there are no bodies in room

C. More simply still, there is nothing in room C. Another way of
reporting this state of affairs is to say 'There is a vacuum (emptiness)
in room C\ What there is in room C can thus variously be described
as 'nothing' or as 'a vacuum'. A vacuum is thus the same as nothing.
Nothing, however, is constantly described by Greek philosophers as

'that which is not' or 'the non-existent', and it is this which enables

the Eleatic philosopher to conclude that there is no such thing as a

vacuum, that no room or any other space is empty. Melissus, in fact,

argued in just this way: 'Nor is there any void, for void is nothing,

and nothing cannot be' (Guthrie, p. 104). The mistake arose from
construing 'There is nothing in room C and 'There is a vacuum in
room C as though they had the same logical form as 'There is a

philosopher in room C. The mistake involved in treating 'nothing' as

a name is well known. The mistake involved in treating 'a vacuum' as
being on a par with 'a philosopher' is different. Many sentences

beginning with 'There is . . .'are equivalent in meaning to sentences

beginning with 'It is . . .'. Thus 'There is fog in Bristol' is equivalent

to 'It is foggy in Bristol' and 'There is rain over the Pennines' to 'It is

raining over the Pennines'. Such propostions contain no quantifi-

cation in their deep structure. 'There is a smell in room C is similarly
equivalent to 'It is smelly in room C, and this again to 'Room C
smells (is smelly)'. 'It is cold in Room C and 'Room C is cold' are

also equivalent. 'There is a vacuum (emptiness) in room C is to be

understood as conforming to this same pattern, as we can see from

its equivalence to 'Room C is empty'. Both state a fact otherwise

stated by 'Nothing is in room C. We could imagine an extension of

English which contained Tt is empty in room C by analogy with 'It

126
 ACTING ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (2) I.8324b

is cold in room C\ (For further discussion of propositions of this

kind, cf. my What is Existence?, chapter XII.)
Another way of stating that nothing is in room C is to say 'Things

in room C are not (don't exist)'. The Greek equivalent of this is

more natural than the English. If we treat 'be' or 'exist' as a predicate

of objects, 'Things in room C don't exist' will appear to have the

same form as 'Things in room C don't smell nice'. Just as this is
transformable into 'There are things which don't smell nice in room

C, so the other is transformable into 'There are things that don't

exist in room C. To say that there is a vacuum in room C is thus to

say that there is what doesn't exist in room C. A vacuum is thus

what doesn't exist, i.e. there is no vacuum.
A further difficulty arises if we generalize the statement about
room C and say, not just that there is a vacuum in room C, but that
there is a vacuum — period. Unlike 'There is a vacuum in room C,
which does not contain any affirmative existential quantification in

its deep structure, 'There is a vacuum' can be regarded as elliptical

for 'There is a vacuum somewhere', or 'There is somewhere where
there is nothing'. The combination of an affirmative existential
quantification with a negative one gives the same impression of

contradiction as is given by the proposition 'There are things which

do not exist'. In each case the apparent conflict is resolved by noting

that affirmative and negative quantifiers bind variables of different

categories. 'There are things which do not exist' may be represented

by 'For some 0, for no x, 0x', where 0 takes predicates as its sub-

stitution instances. Similarly, if we allow r to be used as a variable
whose substitution instances are locative predicates of the form 'is

in the kitchen', 'is in room C, 'There is a vacuum' may be represented

by 'For some r, for no x, rx'. To say'There is a vacuum'or'Vacuums

exist' is not to say that non-existent things exist, but to say that

places exist in which bodies do not exist.

The view that things would not be able to move unless there were

a vacuum has a straightforward sort of plausibility: a thing needs an

empty space to move into. Aristotle's counter-arguments are to be

found elsewhere (cf. Physics, IV.7.214a28 ff.).
Less plausible, on the face of it, is the view that everything would
be one unless there were empty space separating one object from
another. Why should there not be objects into which 'the whole' is

divided, which nevertheless touch one another? (This seems to have

been the view of Empedocles: see Joachim ad loc.) The Eleatic

reply to this suggestion is that it too leads to the unacceptable

existence of a vacuum ('Nor does it make any difference to this

if . . . ', 325a6). For if 'the whole' is divided, it is either everywhere

divided or only in some places. If everywhere, nothing is one,

127
I.8.324b NOTES

so there are not many things either (since things can be many only
if each of them is one), but the whole is empty (325a8-9). In 1.2
Aristotle had given arguments to prove that if what exists is every-

where divided it will vanish into nothingness. Here, however, he is

apparently reproducing Eleatic arguments, and these may be different

from the arguments of chapter 2, And there seems to be a new

insistence on the existence of one being a necessary condition of the
existence of many. As for the other horn of the dilemma, if 'the
whole' is divided only in some places, an explanation is required of

this restriction. It is assumed that no explanation can be given.

Finally, the thesis that reality is divided into many, though touching,
objects is rejected on the grounds that even if it made plurality

possible, it would still leave no room, literally, for movement (325a

12-13).
The above account, and my translation, could be objected to on
the grounds that I have translated dieiremenon, which occurs at

325a7 and 12, and diaireton, which occurs at 325a8, alike by

a
'divided'. I have remarked above, commenting on 316 16, that

diairetos, like other adjectives in -tos, is ambiguous between a modal

and a non-modal sense, between 'divisible'and 'divided'.Dieiremenon
is unambiguously equivalent to the non-modal 'divided', and in this
passage Aristotle passes so easily from it to diaireton and back again

that it is difficult to suppose that he does not wish diaireton also to

be understood in this sense. It is also more plausible to say that if

the whole is everywhere divided nothing would be one than to say

that if the whole is everywhere divisible nothing would be one. How-

ever, the gratuitousness of the other horn of the dilemma seems
more obvious if we take it to be the thesis that the whole is in some,

but not all, places divisible than if we take it to be the thesis that it
is in some, but not all, places divided. Perhaps Aristotle is uncon-
sciously equivocating. See note on 325b5-ll for reasons for taking
adiaireta there as 'undivided'.

325a13. 'Some of them say that it is infinite' (325a15) — namely,

Meiissus. Joachim marks a lacuna at 325a17, but it seems possible

to make sense of the text as it stands.

325a23. Leucippus was able to reconcile the phenomena with the

Eleatic axioms in so far as they concern movement by accepting the

doctrine that the vacuum is non-existent, but interpreting it in such

a way that it no longer implies that there is no vacuum. Another

account of this treatment of the vacuum is given by Aristotle at
Metaphysics, A.4.985b4 ff. 'Leucippus and his associate Democritus

say that the plenum and the vacuum are elements, saying that the
one is existent, the other non-existent, and of these the plenum or

128
 ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (2) I.8.325a

solid is existent whilst the vacuum is non-existent (and so they say

that the existent does not exist any more than the non-existent,
since neither does body any more than the vacuum).' The words
which I have here translated 'existent' and 'exist' are respectively the
participle and infinitive of the Greek verb to he, on and einai. I have

translated ouk on and me on, which are combinations of this parti-

ciple with one or other of the negative particles, as 'non-existent'

both in the Metaphysics passage and at 325a4, 28. 'Being' and 'not

being' are queer English, and do not have the participial or adjectival
feel that 'existent' and 'non-existent' have, so these are to be pre-

ferred as translations of on and ouk {me) on. Moreover it is important

to stick to the same root in translating the infinitive einai as is used
to translate the participle on. I have therefore, in this passage, used

'exists' rather than 'there is' or 'is' in rendering einai. This manoeuvre
is the nearest one can get to understanding the distinction Leucippus
seems to have been making here. It is little use saying that he dis-
tinguished two senses of the verb to be. What senses? We are not told.

Aristotle's account allows us to suppose only that Leucippus wanted

to break the entailment of 'x is existent (x estin onY hy 'x exists (x

esti)\ That Leucippus' doctrine is prompted by some dim awareness

of the logical differences between the verb be and other verbs and

between the noun vacuum and other nouns goes without saying. But
it cannot be allowed that the Atomists did anything to clear away
the confusion which the Eleatics had introduced into the topic of
the vacuum. Their tactic was nothing more than a convention which
enabled them to proceed as though the Eleatic difficulties had never
been raised.
'What is like this' (325a29), i.e. that which is existent in the strict
sense, existing as a plenum.

Taken literally, Aristotle's words in 325a32-4 imply t\idX atoms,

according to Leucippus, act and are affected by touching one

another, whereas it is made clear in the neighbouring passages (325a

34-b5, 325b36-326a3, 326bl-2) that atoms are incapable of being
affected, and, at least according to 326a2-3, of 'producing any
affection <in anything else>'. As Cherniss points out (p. 101,
n. 422), the Atomists envisage alteration as coming about only in

composite objects within which there is vacuum, by means of

changes in the atomic parts which compose them. These changes

may be produced by bombardment of the composite object by

extraneous atoms causing rearrangement or 'turning' of its com-

ponent atoms, or by the mere penetration of these extraneous atoms
into the internal vacuous spaces of the composite object. In this case

we, or the Atomists, might speak of the extraneous atoms acting

upon or producing an affection in the composite object, and it is no

129
I.8.325a NOTES

doubt this which Aristotle has in mind at 325a32-3. When, at 326a

2-3, he denies that atoms can 'produce any affection <m anything
else^, he presumably has in mind the sort of action which he him-
self primarily means by the verb poiein ('act'), the communication

of some quality by one body to another - heat, for example, being

produced in a body by contact with a body hotter than itself. There

was no room in the theory of Leucippus and Democritus for this
sort of action on the part of atoms, and there was no place in their
view for talk of atoms', as opposed to composite objects', being
affected, on any interpretation. In his use of the word paschein —
in 325a33 Aristotle is carelessly allowing himself to report Leucippus

as saying of atoms what he could only consistently say of objects

composed of atoms.
The words in 325a33 translated 'where' and 'here' are not un-

equivocally local in sense. Guthrie, p. 390 n., complains that if they

are interpreted locally it is made to sound 'as if a plurality of atoms

were "one" when not in contact'. This is to fail to make due allow-
ance for context. Aristotle is concerned to say only that, on the

Atomist view, objects can be in contact without losing their distinct-

ness: the Atomists are not committed to the Eleatic argument,

outlined in 325a 6-12, against the view that there could be a plurality
of objects divided from each other but nevertheless touching (cf.
326a31-4).

In 325a34-6 Aristotle explains that 'generating' (i.e. causing to

come to be) and 'coming to be' cannot be used by Atomists in the

strict sense. Segregation (cf. 315b8-9) is not the coming to be of a

plurality from what is truly one, nor is aggregation the coming to be
of one from what are truly many. The many when aggregated remain
many, and thus cannot become many when dispersed. What comes
to be and ceases to be is only apparently one. (The phrase 'what are
truly many', implying a contrast with things which are only appar-
ently many, is produced by a mistaken attempt at symmetry: it is
part of Atomist doctrine that there are things which are apparently
but not truly one, but Atomists did not hold that there were things
which were apparently but not truly many. Atoms, the only things
which are not truly many, do not appear at all (cf. 325a30).)

It may not be possible for Leucippus, in accordance with his

theory, to identify this aggregation and segregation with coming to

be and ceasing to be in the strict sense, but it certainly is part of

his doctrine that all alteration and affecting takes place through the
disintegration and corruption of aggregates, their particles moving

through the void, and all growth through the introduction of

particles similarly moving through the void (325a36-b5). There is a

strong resemblance between this and Empedocles' doctrine that

things are affected by way of 'passages'.

130
 ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (2) I.8.325b

325b5. Aristotle here represents Empedocles as teaching that

objects are penetrated by 'passages' giving access to effluences from

sense organs and other objects, and that these passages are unoccu-

pied by body and thus tantamount to the Atomists' vacuum. This

account of Empedocles is inaccurate. He actually believed the

'passages' to be filled with air or the like (cf. 326b8 ff.), so that his
doctrine was more like that described in 325a6-13. Adiaireta in

325b7 and 9-10 must mean 'undivided', not 'indivisible' (see note

on 325a8). It is no argument to say 'There must be indivisible

bodies, otherwise there would be passages everywhere^: it is a plaus-

ible argument to say 'There must be undivided bodies, otherwise

there would be passages everywhere'.

325b12. Empedocles is here again contrasted unfavourably with

the Atomists ('the others', 325b17), on the grounds that his theory

leaves no room for corruption or alteration. The corruption or

alteration Aristotle has in mind is that of the 'elements'. Empedocles
could account for the corruption and alteration of composite

bodies in terms of the dispersal or replacement of the elementary

particles which compose them. But the elementary bodies them-

b
selves, fire and all the others (325 23-4), are not decomposable into
more elementary components, nor can they lose the properties that
are their permanent characterizing features: fire, for example, can

never lose its heat. Empedocles in this way fails to account for
phenomena that Aristotle regards as evident to perception: water
can be 'corrupted' by turning into air, and can 'alter' by becoming
hot instead of cold. (The word translated 'as it is piled up', at

325b22, shows that Aristotle has in mind, e.g., an actual fire which
grows as more and more 'fire' comes into existence.) Leucippus,

on the other hand, can account for these phenomena: the corruption
of water is explained in terms of the dispersion of, and its heating in

terms of the rearrangement of, its constituent insensible atoms.

Plato (Timaeus, 53 A ff.) has an account of the genesis of fire, air,
water, and earth which, unlike Empedocles' theory, allows for their
being explained in terms of still more elementary items (cf. note on
315b 15). Plato's items however are triangular planes of two varieties

only (see note 1.2.315^24 ff.), unlike the solids of infinitely various
shapes posited by the Atomists. Both the Atomists and Plato are
able by their admission of more elementary items than the 'elements'

to account for comings into existence (= aggregations) and segre-

gations (= perishings) — 325b30, cf. 1.2.315b8-9 — and the Eleatic

arguments against the possibility of this are met, by Leucippus with

the acceptance both of a vacuum and of things which though

touching are yet distinct, by Plato with the acceptance of the latter

131
I.8.325b NOTES

only (325b30-2). Any theory of elements would be impossible on

the Eleatic theory: the elements in default of a vacuum could not

move and so could not be subject to aggregation and segregation;

and if the fact that A touched B were sufficient to prevent A's being

distinct from B, there could be no plurality of elements to support

such a theory. The awkward phrases 'by means of the vacuum' and
'by means of contact' (325b31), which sound as if they describe

mechanisms, really refer to necessary conditions of a theory of

elements being true, (a) that there is a vacuum through which things
can move and (b) that things can be distinct (divided — 325^32)
though touching, and are indeed separated from each other at the

point where they touch. Mugler comments that Aristotle is inexact

in his assertion that Plato denies the existence of a vacuum (325b33).

325^33. The 'previous work' is De Caelo, III.l, 7, IV.2. 'It is not

possible to be affected except by means of the vacuum' (326al-2).

According to the Atomists a body's being affected is the change of

order, position, number, constitution, etc. of its minute parts. But
such change is possible only if inside the body there is empty space

through which these parts can move and so produce these changes.
An indivisible body has no interior vacuum, 'For they can be neither

hard nor cold' (326a3). Why are these 'affections' singled out?

(Joachim's answer is unconvincing.) Heat, rather than cold, is

regarded by Aristotle as being characteristically active (poietikon -

326a2), and it would read better if we could substitute 'hot' for

'hard' in the text here. 'But this, at least, is absurd . . . ' (326a3-6).
Aristotle begins to list what appear to him to be internal incon-

sistencies in the Atomic Theory. The first absurdity rests on attribu-

ting to the Atomists the view that heat is a property possessed by
spherical atoms rather than a property possessed by composite
objects in virtue of the existence of a high proportion of spherical
atoms among their components. In 316a9-12 the argument seems to
be this: Democritus allows degrees of heaviness. But if heaviness can
have degrees, heat, which he has already conceded to some atoms,
must admit of degrees too. However, if A is hotter than B it cannot

help heating B, i.e. affecting it; which contradicts the Atomist

premiss. (Joachim, following Philoponus, attributes to Aristotle the

implausible notion that, just as bigger bodies in general are heavier
than smaller ones, so bigger spheres will be hotter than smaller ones.
As though a larger quantity of hot water would not only be heavier,

but hotter, than a smaller.) The meaning of the phrase at 326a9

translated 'vary in weight in accordance with their size' is not

absoloutely clear. The interpretation given here is defended by

D. O'Brien in 'Heavy and Light in Democritus and Aristotle: Two

132
 ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (2) I.8325b

Conceptions of Change and Identity'.

In 326a14-24 three possibilities are considered: (a) that each

atom has no other property besides shape, (b) that each atom has
one other property besides shape, and (c) that each atom has several

properties. We are not told what is absurd about (a). The preceding
sentences have not contained any direct argument against the
doctrine that atoms lack qualities and are incapable of being affected:

they have been concerned only to show how these doctrines are
incompatible with other things the Atomists say. Philosophers have,

of course, complained about the thesis that bodies have no other

property besides shape — or, more accurately, besides what Locke

called 'primary qualities'. Hume's passage 'Of the Modern Philosophy'
{Treatise, Book I, Part IV, Section IV) is the classic statement of
these criticisms. The present writer has developed some of them in
an article 'Are Primary Qualities Qualities?' m Philosophical Quarterly,

vol. 19 (1969). An Atomist theory will recognize properties such as

shape, size, motion or rest, position and duration, which are derived
simply from the way in which body is spread out over space through
time. Whilst bodies are differentiated in respect of these properties,
there is nothing else which differentiates them, they are otherwise all

of 'some one nature' (cf. 326a17). Should this common nature be

thought of as the possession of a further property — a property
which fails to differentiate anything from anything else? Locke and
Kant seem to have thought so. Locke's name for it was 'solidity' or
'impenetrability', Kant's name das Reale; but once it is distinguished
from the sensible property of hardness we cannot be sure that we
know what these words stand for.
It is not therefore surprising that when Aristotle turns from (a) to
(b) he considers the possibility, not (i) that the property which each

atom has in addition to its shape is the same in each case, but (ii)
that different atoms have different additional properties but none
more than one. (The rival claims of (b(i)) and (b(ii)) are discussed

at 326a29-b2.) Possibility (a) is in fact very difficult to distinguish

from possibility (b(i)), and it is accordingly difficult to say which is

the accurate statement of Atomist doctrine.

That Aristotle in this passage moves straight from (a) to (b(ii))

is shown by the words 'hardness here, heat there, for example'

which illustrate the possibility expressed by 'if something did, but

only one' (326a16-17). The MSS differ as to whether 'hardness' or

'coldness' should be read in 326a16. Joachim reads 'coldness', but
the argument does not seem to require contraries. The following

words, 'for there would not be some one nature which they had',
might be understood as providng a justification for illustrating
possibility (b) by a case where one atom possessed in addition to its

133
1.8.326a NOTES

shape just the property of hardness, another just that of heat:

Aristotle would be spelling out that he is considering (b (ii)), not

(b(i)). But the phrase 'one nature', which recurs at 326a32, recalls

the Atomist doctrine that atoms are all basically alike (cf. 3 23 b 10-15
and De Caelo, I.7.275b31-2) and it seems necessary to take the

words in 326a17 as equivalent to 'for there would not in that case

be some one nature which they had', as indeed most translators

render them. The argument is that possibility (b (ii)) is not open to

the Atomists, because it contradicts their thesis that atoms are all of
one nature.
Aristotle also describes possibility (c) as leading to an impossible

result, but it is difficult to be clear what this result is supposed to be —

or, if this is clear, why the result is supposed impossible. Following

Verdenius and Waszink I have translated 326a 19-20 by 'if it is
affected, where it is cooled, there it will act or be affected in some
other way too'. This involves understanding 'for example', or the
like, after 'cooled'. Commentators generally have taken these words
to mean, rather, something like 'if it is affected qua being cooled, it
will act or be affected thus (i.e qua being cooled) in some other way
too'. Certainly the Greek correlatives which I have translated

'where . . . there' can also mean 'qua . . . thus' (cf. Guthrie's inter-
pretation of the same words cited at 325a33). But what could it
mean to say that an atom, qua being cooled, acts or is affected in
some other way (e.g. softens something) too? Only something
impossible could be meant, clearly; but not even the offerings of the

commentators can enable one to see what, on this view, it is that is

being called impossible. On the other view, it is clear that the
Atomists are said to be committed to holding that the same atom is
both, e.g., being cooled and softening something else in the same

place, not, that is, acting in one part of itself and being affected in
another. What is not obvious is why this is supposed to be impossible.

'This consequence' (326a21): presumably the possession of more

than one quality in the same place. Why should it be thought that

this is supported by the doctrine that indivisibles cannot differ from

each other in density? Incidentally, it is the Atomists' own view, not

Aristotle's that the non-existence of a vacuum rules out differences

of density. The Atomists take density to be a function of how much

of the space within a composite object is occupied by matter.

Aristotle takes it to be a fundamental property of matter (cf.
Physics, IV. 9).

326a24. Oddly, Guthrie does not cite this passage as evidence in

the controversy over whether Democritus admitted macroscopic

atoms (pp. 394 ff.). For the phrase translated 'total indivisibility',

134
 ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (2) L8.326a

cf. I.5.320b29-30J and the note on the passage beginning at 1.3.

b
317 33. The idea is not difficult to grasp: a large lump of granite

may be relatively indivisible compared to a large lump of clay — it

takes more force to divide it — and a small lump of clay is relatively
indivisible compared to a large one for the reasons Aristotle gives.

But the Atomists are concerned not with relative, but with absolute,
or 'total', indivisibility. Just so, 'total generation' (320b29-30)

is coming to be absolutely, as opposed to coming to be something.

Contrast, however, De Caelo, III.6.305a6 ff.
Cf, note on 326a14-24 for the doctrine that the atoms are all 'of
one nature' (326a29-30).
'The former' and 'the latter' what (326a34)? Philoponus and

Mugler take Aristotle to be talking about parcels of water: Joachim,

Forster, and Tricot take him to be talking about the former case,
i.e. that of undifferentiated, Atomistic matter, and the latter case,
i.e. that of water. The words translated 'what are their qualities?'
{quas qualitates habent haecl) would more literally be rendered 'of

what sort are these things?' (qualia haecl). But the word literally

translated 'these' is repeated in the next sentence, and here the

contrast with 'shapes' shows that the reference intended must be to

qualities. Poia tauta ('of what sort are these things?') must be

Aristotle's compressed way of saying Unas poiotetas echousi tautal

('what are their qualities?').

Apropos of 326bl-2, Joachim objects that Aristotle at 325a32-4

represents Leucippus as maintaining that atoms do act and are acted

upon in coming in contact with one another. See note on 325a32-4.

Presumably the Atomists would have been happy to sit on the

first horn of the dilemma started at 326b3: if what moves an atom is

something other than itself it by no means follows that it is

pathetikon — capable of being affected; though of course it is

kineton ~ capable of being moved. On Aristotle's own view the

celestial bodies are moved by the first mover, but are not 'affected'.
A thing is capable of being affected only if it is liable to alteration,
to qualitative change. Leucippus' atoms were immune from this, just

as Aristotle's heavenly bodies were, but there was no difficulty in

either case about finding an external cause for the only sort of
change to which they were liable, locomotion.
The text leaves it open whether the question 'What is it that

moves them?' (326b2-3) is about the motion of individual atoms or

of the atoms as a whole. In the last paragraph I assumed that Aristotle

was asking about individual atoms. But it makes no difference if the

question is supposed to be about the totality of moving atoms
'lumped together': if their motion is only locomotion, or is reducible
to this, the fact that it is caused by something not included in the

135
I.8.326b NOTES

totality does not prejudice their impassivity. The parallel with the
celestial bodies and the first mover holds even better on this sup-
position.
Tts matter will be one, not only in number, but also in potentiality'

(326b6). Commentators compare Physics, I.9.192a2, but it is a case

of obscurum per obscurius. This is what will happen if 'contraries

belong to it in the same respect', so let F and G be contraries, i.e

contrary properties. In the normal case, if x is actually F it will also

be potentially G: though one and the same numerically, it will be

two things potentially, an F and a. G. If x is both F and G in the
same respect actually, there will not be some second thing that it is

not actually but is potentially, and so, Aristotle seems to say, it will
no longer, from the point of view of potentiality, be two. What he
does not seem to infer is that from the point of view of actuality it
would now be two, in a most alarming way. The sentence resists

clear interpretation. (Certainly Joachim's talk about 'identical-in-

potentiality' does not help.)

326b6. For Empedocles' teaching that the passages are filled with
some subtle body see note on 325b5. Commentators disagree over
whether in 326b 12-13 Aristotle has in mind rays coming from the
eye to the object seen or vice versa. The Greek leaves the matter

open and my translation has been devised to be equally non-

committal. 'Where there is contact': this refers to the places where
the outer surface of the substance filling the passage is in contact

with the inner surface of the passages themselves. On the supposition

that there is no vacuum there is an absolutely tight fit here, and no
room for rays to pass by this route between the eyes and the objects
seen.

326b 15, 'These' seem to refer to the 'passages', though in that case
we should have expected the Greek word it translates to be mas-
culine, whereas it is in fact neuter. The nearest neuter noun it could
be supposed to refer back to is that translated 'transparent medium'
(326b13). But no sense can be made, pace Mugler, of a supposition

that the transparent medium is empty, or, as he gratuitously elab-

orates, 'contains empty interstices'. It is difficult enough to make

sense of the supposition that the passages, 'whilst empty, necessarily

have bodies in them'. Joachim inserts 'as such' after 'empty', and
talks of distinguishing 'in thought between the pores and the body
which fills them'. Perhaps what he has in mind is a porous substance,

e.g. pumice-stone, which has holes in it which may be filled, now

with air, now with water - holes which we think of as empty

because the stone that surrounds them is permanent whilst the fluid

136
 ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (2) I,8.326b

that fills them is constantly shifting. This may be what Joachim has
in mind. That it proves a convincing account of what Aristotle's

meagre sentence is intended to express is less obvious, although

Cherniss (p. 103) gives reasons for believing that Empedocles made

such a point, and Aristotle may be reporting it here.

The sentence at 326b 16-20 considers the suggestion that the

passages are empty because too small for bodies to get into, (The
protasis expresses a modification of the theory, to allow empty

passages as a special case, the apodosis Aristotle's rejection of this

modification.) If so, as Philoponus points out, though Aristotle does

not, the passage theory will not serve to explain how rays pass
between the eyes and objects of vision, or any effluences between
any agents and patients. What Aristotle does object to is a theory
which makes size the criterion of possibility for emptiness. If small
volumes can be unfilled why not large ones — however large? A
a
vacuum is by definition (cf. Physics, IV.7.214 16-17) a 'place for
a body', so of whatever size there can be bodies, there can be a

vacuum of that same size. Presumably the converse will also be true,
and it is meaningless to suppose that there can be a vacuum too small

to contain a body.

326b21. Aristotle supposes that on the Empodoclean view the

minute particles after penetrating the body of the 'patient' through

its passages act upon it by coming in contact with the inner surfaces
of these passages — fiery particles, for instance, warming the 'patient'
by communicating their warmth to it at the points of contact within
its mass. His point is that if this is possible they could have com-
municated the quality in question by contact with the 'patient' at

its outer surface. It seems however, that Empedocles had a richer

theory of alteration than Aristotle gives him credit for. Qualities of

composite objects on his view, as on that of the Atomists, are

reductively analysable in terms of the composition of the objects
that possess them and the position and arrangement of their com-
ponent particles. These are altered by extraneous particles' pen-

etrating objects via the 'passages' and by the changes these particles
bring about mechanically in the components of the objects. Such
changes in the 'primary qualities of the minute insensible particles'
of which the objects are composed, we experience as, e.g., changes
of temperature. Aristotle is wrong in thinking that for Empedocles,

as for him, there was a transference of quality between particles and

object — only at a point of contact in the interior of the object

accessible via the 'passages' (cf. Cherniss, pp. 103 ff.).
Philoponus and Joachim take the two final sentences of the chapter

together, in this way:* It is mistaken or futile to posit 'passages'

137
I.8.326b NOTES

existing in the way some philosophers (those just discussed) have

done, i.e. as permanently there, empty, waiting for bodies to pass

through. Rather, if it is necessary for an agent to penetrate into the

interior of a patient, it can cleave a new way through the previously

continuous mass, since bodies are divisible at any point. It is not

overwhelmingly obvious that there is this connection between the

two sentences. The first sentence may be a mere summary of the

findings of the chapter on the topic of 'passages'. The second and

final sentence may be a further point about the possibility of splitting

bodies anywhere without the need to postulate pre-existing 'passages',

and with no thought about agents' needing to penetrate into the

interior of patients. It would be untidy to affix an afterthought in

this way to the end of the chapter, but quite in Aristotle's manner.

Chapter 9 <Acting and Being Affected (3):

Actuality and Potentiality >

326b29. On Aristotle's understanding of the 'how' question ('in

what way . . . acting and being affected belong') cf. note on I.8.324b
25. It is not easy to see why he includes 'generating' (i.e. causing to
come to be) in the list of phenomena to be explained, and 'coming
to be' as well as 'generating' in the similar list in the concluding

sentence of the chapter (327a26). Joachim plausibly accounts for

the omission of 'coming to be' from the intial list: 'generating', but
not 'coming to be', is something that can 'belong to existent things'.
For the mechanism of 'passages' and vacuum Aristotle substitutes

that of act and potentiality: a poor exchange. As an explanation of

how & thing becomes F, the statement that previously it was poten-
tially F is useless: it is the old tale about 'd.ormitive virtue'. But from
this 'principle' Aristotle extracts an argument to prove that a thing
which is affected must be affected over its whole extent, though
intensively it can vary in F-ness from part to part. If a, as the result

of being affected, becomes F throughout a certain part or the whole

of itself, it must previously have been potentially F throughout that

part or the whole of itself. Since its being affected is the actualization
of this potentiality, its being affected must take place throughout

that part or the whole of itself ('not in this place rather than that,
but everywhere to the extent that it is such-and-such' — 326b32-3).

Extensively the affection is invariable. Intensively however it can

vary. The veins found in substances that are dug out of mines, which

melt or bum quicker than the material that surrounds them, provide
a weak analogue to the 'passages' of Empedocles.

327al. Aristotle's statement of necessary conditions for an object's

138
 ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (3) I.9.326b

affecting another has a recursive form: an object A affects another

object B only if either both A has not 'grown together' with B and

A is in contact with B or B is affected by an object which is affected

by A. The first conjunct of the first disjunct is clumsily stated: if A

grows together with B to form one object it is, of course, capable of
being affected by another object, C. What is required is that the
agent and patient should be distinct objects, and should not have

merged.

327a6. Commentators note this as a difficult paragraph. Joachim

indeed could not construe the text as it stands, but postulated a
lacuna in the first sentence. Verdenius and Waszink, however, make

out a good case for understanding this sentence, without emendation,

in the way it is translated here. The first horn of the dilemma is
relatively straightforward: if the Atomist account (either in its
Demochtean version, 'indivisible body', or in its Platonic, 'surface',
327a8) is correct, bodies are not capable at every point of being

affected, since the indivisible atoms are themselves impassible (cf.

325b36~326a2). That bodies not everywhere divisible are not con-

tinuous (327a9) is established in Physics, VI. 1-2 (cf. 23 lb 15-16,

232a23-4), but it is difficult to see its relevance to the present topic.

The second horn of the dilemma is very puzzling. The apodosis of

the first sentence, 'it makes no difference . . . seems to have no

logical connection with its protasis. The idea of a body composed of

discretes in contact, which is capable of being affected at the points

of contact, is attributable either to Empedocles or to Plato (cf. 326b

12, 325b32). The argument we should expect from Aristotle would

go thus: To say that a body is divisible is the same as to say that it is

composed of discretes in contact. To say that it is everywhere
divisible is to say that there are points of contact everywhere in the

body. Since a body is capable of being affected at the points of

contact, it is capable of being affected at every point in its volume.

But what he actually says omits the conclusion of this argument.

Not only is there a logical break between the protasis and apodosis
of the first sentence, but also the relevance of the sentences which
follow is dubious. The word translated 'segregated' in 327a 11-12

is the word used in 1.2. to describe the Atomist account of what

really happens when we say that something has ceased to exist. It
must be understood as referring to the process of a thing breaking
into its parts, so that it is no longer merely divisible (or composed of
discretes in contact), but 'in a divided state' (composed of discretes
no longer in contact). The argument seems to be that for the agent
to act upon the interior of a body, the body must break up and a
space (vacuum) appear between its parts into which the agent (or its

139
I.9.327a NOTES

parts) can penetrate. If the parts of the body are capable of being
segregated in this way, they will at some time be so segregated, even

if they have not been so far. So inasmuch as segregation of this sort

is required if a body is to be affected, the fact that it will at some

time take place means that sooner or later the body will be capable

of being affected at every point where it does take place. But on the
second horn of the dilemma this is everywhere.
The argument of 327a 11-13 — if segregation is possible, it will
occur at some time — is of a pattern which is familiar to readers of
Aristotle, particularly to those who have been alerted by Professor

Hintikka's paper 'Aristotle on the Realization of Possibilities in Time'

(ch. V of Time and Necessity by Jaakko Hintikka, Oxford: At the
Clarendon Press, 1973). Aristotle believes that what can happen, at
some time will happen. It might be thought that its use in the

present passage contradicts what Aristotle has said earlier, in 1.2,

about the sense in which a body is everywhere divisible. As we have
seen, he interprets this as meaning that a body is divisible anywhere

((8) on p. 76), not as meaning that a body's division at every point

is a possibility ( (7) on p. 76). If, however, it is at some time or other
going to be divided at every point at which it can be divided, it looks
as though infinite divisibility implies, after all, the possibility, and
indeed the actuality, of a body's being divided at every point. This

conclusion can be escaped if we suppose that the divisions are not

final, that after being split at a given point the body can, as it were,
heal and be again undivided at this point. This would involve the
notion of simultaneity which, in our view, was not important for

Aristotle's attempt to make the distinction between (7) and (8)

(see notes on 1.2, pp. 74 ff.). Although a body will never be in a
divided state at every point within its surface simultaneously, it will
at some time or other be in a divided state at any point you like to

take. The assumption that the body can heal again after being divided

at a given point will allow us to allot different truth values to (11)

and (12), which originally we regarded as equivalent, since we were
assuming that whatever is at any time divided at a point remains

divided there (notes on 1.2, p. 76). What Aristotle is claiming at

327a13, as a consequence of what Hintikka calls the principle of

plenitude, can be symbolized by (12), UmC\l/maF(j)am, 'for every

point, m, with ^'s surface, a will at some time be divided at m'.

We need not regard him as asserting (11), FlimC^mafpam, 'It will at
some time be the case that, for every point, m, within a's surface, a

is divided at m\
But why does Aristotle bother with the principle of plenitude?
The Empodoclean-Platonic theory is that bodies can be affected at

the points of contact of their discrete parts even though these parts

140
 ACTING AND BEING AFFECTED (3) I.9.327a

are still in contact. At 327a10-l 1 he seems to equate being divisible

with being divided-though-in-contact. Being everywhere divisible

would thus guarantee being everywhere capable of being affected,

without any actual segregation occurring of the parts of the object in

question. Perhaps Aristotle regards the notion that action and

passion can occur at the points of contact of bodies actually in

contact as incompatible with the mechanistic view of action and

passion generally (cf. 326b12-13). The reason for his apparent

appeal to the principle of plenitude is not clear.

But then very little in this, passage is clear. Luria drew attention

to verbal similarities between 327a 6-14,1.8.325a6-10, and 1.2.316a

14-b16 (the word translated ^continuous', 327a9 and 325a6; the
4
phrases translated it makes no difference', 327a10 and 325a6; Ts
divided into parts which are in contact', 327al(Ml and 325a7;
'even though it is not yet in a divided state, it will be in a divided
state', 327a12-13, and 'it might be at one and the same time in this
divided state, even though the divisions had not taken place at one

and the same time', 316a 17-18; see Luria, p. 136). Luria held that
we have here traces of Melissus' and Democritus' polemic against

Empedocles. Perhaps, as I have suggested earlier (see notes on 1.2,

316a25 ff.), Aristotle did not fully understand the arguments he is

reproducing. Certainly there are signs of impatience. He does not
even bother to state the consequence of the assumption that bodies
are everywhere divisible, namely, that they are everywhere passible;

and at 327a14-15 he goes on impatiently to dismiss as absurd this

whole mechanistic attempt to give an account of alteration.

327a14. 'We see...' (327a16). But at 325a30 Aristotle has

already stated the Atomist doctrine that the atoms are invisible

because of the smallness of their bulk. So his appeal to perception

here is, as Joachim points out, irrelevant. The word at 327a17, 20,
and 22 translated 'liquid' is elsewhere translated 'wet'. For a discus-

sion of its various meanings see note on 11.2. 330a12. 'Or because it
changes in itself (327a25). What Aristotle probably has in mind

here is the increase in size which occurs when water changes into
'air'. This is explicitly excluded from the denotation of 'growth' in

I.5.321a9-17, although called 'growth' in Physics, IV.7.214a32 ff.

But Aristotle's phrase here 'either through the admixture of some-

thing or because it changes in itself, already contradicts the doctrine

of 1.5. For there the requirement that 'something accedes to the

thing which grows' (321a21) is mentioned as one of the three

'features which belong to a thing which grows or gets smaller' and

which 'must be kept in its definition' (32la 17-19). It is not an

optional alternative. Of the change from water to air Aristotle says

141
I.9.327a NOTES

at 321a 12, 'this will be, not growth, but generation' (or coming to

be). It is just possible, therefore, that this is the 'generating' and

'coming to be' that Aristotle has in mind at 326^29 and 327a26 (see
note on 326^29) — but most unlikely.

Chap ter 10 < Mixing >

327a30. The word translated here as 'mixing' is rendered by

Joachim 'combination'. He thus assimilates the distinction between

mixing {mixis) and composition {synthesis) — cf. 328a6 - to the

modern distinction between chemical combination and mechanical

mixture. The analogy is good in so far as chemical combination is a

more intimate union of substances than is mechanical mixture, as

mixing is than composition; but the word 'combination' by itself
does not have this sense, and the complete phrase 'chemical combi-

nation' imports too much modern theory. Moreover, the modern

theory is alien to Aristotle's thinking on the subject; for in chemical

combination the atoms of the combining substances remain intact
and change only in respect of their relation to each other. For

Aristotle this would be a case of mere 'composition'. Modern chem-

istry is, after all, atomistic.

Mixing, for Aristotle, is what gives rise to homoeomers, and the

nature of a homoeomer, as the word itself indicates, is to be such

that every smallest part of it is of the same character as every other,

and as the whole. Wine mixed with water produces a liquid every

smallest part of which it is the same mixture as before. A level is

never reached at which a minute drop of 'pure' wine is found next
door to a minute drop of pure water. Common sense, or the un-
tutored opinion of children, would take this to be what does in fact
happen when wine is mixed with water. That is what seems to
happen to the unaided senses, and what reason is there to suppose
them wrong? It is at least one thing that can be meant by 'mixing'.
And if we can also talk of 'mixed bathing', say, when what takes
place is merely the juxtaposition of male and female, or black and
white, it is nevertheless reasonable to insist on using the word

synthesis (composition), which literally means 'placing together', for

this sort of mixing, and to reserve mix is (mixing) for mixing in the

stronger sense.

327a34. 'Mixing' in Aristotle's sense is, on the face of it, under-

standable even if modern scientific theory denies that anything

occurs which can properly be so described. In 327a34-b6 Aristotle

presents an argument designed to prove that this prima-facie intel-

ligibility is an illusion. (For convenience sake he considers only the

142
 MIXING I.10.327a

case where one thing is mixed with one other thing, though his

developed view is that all mixtures are in fact the result of mixing all

four elements: see II.8.) If A is mixed with B, either (i) A and B

both continue to exist after the mixing has been done, or (ii) one

does and the other does not, or (hi) neither does. But if (i), the
mixing has made no difference; if (ii), one has perished, rather than

been mixed with the other, and yet, if it is a genuine case of mixing,

A must be on the same footing as B; and if (hi), A and B are said to

have been mixed when they don't even exist!

There are genuine problems here, which have baffled modem

logicians, as has the parallel problem of one substance's splitting to

form two. How can many come from one or one from many (cf.
a
325 34-6)? What becomes of Leibniz's Law if such phenomena are
countenanced? The phenomenon of mixing is more naturally stated
in terms of what Aristotle would call 'second substances', than of
fission or fusion in terms of what he would call 'first substances'; but
the problems involved are interconnected.

327b 10. The supposition that when wood is burnt it is mixed with
fire corresponds to possibility (ii) given in the note on 327a34, the
supposition that its parts are mixed with each other (to produce fire)
corresponds to possibility (hi). But neither supposition is in accord-

ance with what we normally say: when wood is burnt it is not

mixed with anything, but what takes place is an instance of some-

thing which Aristotle is concerned to distinguish from mixing,

namely, perishing. The word here translated 'wood' is that usually
translated 'matter'.

327b13. Mixing is here distinguished from growth. Aristotle how-

ever, has not always been scrupulous about observing this distinction.

The food by which a living body grows was said, tentatively, to be

'mixed' with the body at I.5.322a9; and the same terminology was

used without reservation only a few lines above the present passage,

at 321*25.
When wax receives an imprint or when a body becomes white or

when someone white becomes knowledgeable, we do not say that

wax is mixed with a shape, body with whiteness or whiteness with

knowledge (327a 14 ff.). These are ail cases where something Aristotle

would call 'accidentally one' comes into being (cf. Metaphysics, A.

6.1015b16 ff., and see note on 319^21 ff.) and these are unities of

a sort: quality is united with substance, or quality with quality

(by their inherence in a common substance). But these unities are

not mixtures. The supposition that they are corresponds to possibility
(i) given in the note on 327a34 ff. It would be difficult to imagine

143
L10.327b NOTES

why Aristotle should have thought it worthwhile to mention, if only

to reject, the suggestion that any of these unities is a mixture, had he

not been anxious to complete his schematic treatment of the question.

This he does by simultaneously rejecting possibility (i) and dis-

tinguishing mixing from alteration, of which the coming into being

of each of these unities is an instance, as he had previously dis-

tinguished it from generation and corruption and growth. He then

makes a virtue of excluding the 'non-separables' (Cf. note on 1.3.

317b 10-11) from the range of things that can be mixed; and
proceeds to scold Anaxagoras and Empedocles, who taught that all
things were originally or at some time, in a totally mixed-up state

("everything at one time was together', 327b20), for implying that

affections, i.e. non-separables, were ingredients in this primeval
b
universal mixture (cf. 1.1.3 i4 6-8). There is little reason to suppose

that these thinkers would have regarded themselves as committed to

any such doctrine with regard to affections, and Aristotle's insistence
on the "separable' character of what enters into a mixture is gratu-

itous. (Cf., however, note on 328a6.)

327b22. His own solution, as usual, depends on the distinction

between actuality and potentiality. This makes it hard to see how

the difference between mixing and corruption is to be maintained.

His doctrine of mixing is that the things survive the mixing, only as

potential existents. Wine mixed with equal parts of water ceases

actually to be wine, but is now potentially wine. But similarly water

which turns into air ceases actually to be water, but is now potentially

water. This, however, is a case of corruption. Why is the case of wine

mixed with water not also a case of corruption? More is needed to

sustain the distinction between mixing and corruption than merely

the apparatus of the actuality/potentiality dichotomy, but more is

not given until later in the chapter and later in the work (see notes

on 328a28-31, II,6.333a28, 32, and II.7.334b8-30).

A case could be made out for distinguishing mixing from gener-

ation and corruption in terms of the number of substances involved.

Aristotle's view of generation and corruption is that it occurs when

one substance, B, ceases to exist and a new substance, A, begins to

exist, 5's corruption being the same thing as ^'s coming into exist-
ence (cf. 1.3.318a23 ff.). Would it not be possible to represent
mixing as what happens when two substances, B and C, cease to

exist and a new substance, A, begins to exist, the corruption of B

and C being the same thing as A's coming into existence? This seems
possible, but it is not the line Aristotle actually takes ("nor do they

perish', 327b30).

144
 MIXING U0327b

327b27. Commentators are much puzzled about what facts

Aristotle can have had in mind when he says that 'things that are

mixed manifestly ... are capable of being separated again': it is

easier to sweeten tea than to get the sugar out of it again.

327b31. There is less difficulty in seeing the general drift of the

passage that extends from here to 328a18 than there is in making
sense of its individual sentences taken one at a time. The passage

contains the clearest exposition of what Aristotle in fact means by

'mixing'. It achieves this definition of the term by rejecting two

alternative accounts, and in doing so distinguishes 'mixing' from

'composition'. The alternative accounts are (i) that mixing occurs
when particles of B too small to be discerned by the naked eye are

jumbled together with similar particles of C, so that the result cannot

be seen to be divided into imparts and C-parts; and (ii) — according
at least to received opinion, which we shall have occasion to ques-

tion — that it occurs when B and C are both divided up into their
smallest possible parts (atoms), which are then jumbled together in
such a way that a part of B is always alongside a part of C and vice

versa. Account (i) will not do because it makes mixing a subjective

matter. Account (ii), which is presumably the Atomist account of

mixing, will not do because there is no such thing as a smallest

possible part. Neither succeeds in distinguishing mixing from mere

composition. Since matter is infinitely divisible the requirement
included in (ii), that every part of B be alongside a part of C, is

impossible to satisfy. Let -Si, a sphere of radius n millimetres, be a

a
part oi B. It is possible to obtain i?2> sphere with the same centre as

Bi but of radius n—m millimetres. B2 will then be entirely sur-

rounded by the remaining part of , and will not therefore be along-

side any part of C.

If we are to have a mixture of B and C, not merely a compo-

sition (placing together) of parts of B with parts of C, the mixture

must be homoeomerous, that is to say, every part of it must be of
the same nature as every other part of it and as the whole. If the
mixture as a whole is 55% B and 45% C, each part must similarly be
55% B and 45% C: i.e., however small the parts into which you divide
and subdivide A (the mixture), they will all be mixtures of B and C in

this ratio (cf. 'proportion', 328a9); and the division can proceed ad

infinitum. Aristotle's concept of mixture is now fully elucidated.

There is no reason, pace Joachim, to say that the description

'relative to perception' (327b33) applies to account (ii) as well as to

account (i). On any interpretation of account (ii) the particles of B
and C, as they exist in A, will be too small to be perceived; but it

will not be the fact that they are too small to be perceived which in

145
U0.327b NOTES

this case makes A a mixture. It will not be the case, as in account (i),
that for Mr X, whose eyesight is too dim to discriminate the B
particles from the C particles, A will be a mixture, but for Mr V,
whose eyesight is strong enough to make the discrimination, it will

not. That, however, is what 'relative to perception' means.

Account (ii) is an objectivist account of mixing. But there is
nothing in Aristotle's actual words to suggest, what the general
opinion of commentators seems to take for granted, that it is an

Atomist account. All that Aristotle actually gives as the statement of

this account is the awkward phrase rendered in my translation 'every
single part of either of the things mixed is alongside some part of

the other' (328al-2). To this phrase we must now turn.

Aristotle finds some difficulty in expressing himself in stating

account (ii). The Greek of 328al-2, literally translated, would yield

'in such a way that every single part of the things mixed is alongside

every single part'. This of course is impossible, and not what is

meant. What is meant is that every single part of B is alongside a part

of C and every single part of C alongside a part of B. (The same

expression is used at 328a4-5, 16.) Instead of using variables, as I
have just done, Aristotle uses an example. If wheat is mixed with

barley every grain of wheat is alongside a grain of barley and every

grain of barley alongside a grain of wheat. Only he still doesn't get

it quite right. What he actually says is 'when every grain of barley

is placed alongside every grain of wheat' (328a3). But which account
is he trying to illustrate? The majority view is that he is trying to

illustrate account (i). But against this, (a) it is not clear that grains

of wheat and barley would be indiscriminable by normal eyesight,

and (b) it is not part of account (i) that every particle of B should
be alongside some particle of C and vice versa: it is sufficient if

the particles or groups of particles of B and C in ^4 are too small to

be seen. Particles of B, for instance, could go round together in

groups of a hundred provided the group as a whole was microscopic.
In favour of the view that it is account (i) that is being illustrated is
the occurrence of the word translated 'in that way' (ekeinds) at
328a2, a word which very often has the sense 'in the former way'.

In favour of the view that it is account (ii) that is being illustrated is

the fact that the introduction of the examples of wheat and barley
does something to clear up the obscurity of the phrase 'every single
part of the things mixed is alongside every single part'. Since the
word for a grain of wheat is masculine and the word for a grain of
barley feminine, Aristotle is enabled to produce a phrase 'every
single part (fern.) is alongside every single part (masc.)' which has the
same effect as 'every single part <of the one> is alongside every

single part <of the other>', which is nearer to what he wants.

146
 MIXING U0.327b

The sentence which begins at 328a3 is very hard to make sense

of. On the view that account (ii) is an Atomist theory of mixing the

consequent of this sentence is inconsistent with each of the ante-

cedents. If every body is divisible it is impossible, as we proved at

the beginning of this note, for every particle of B to be alongside a
particle of C while finite particles of B and C remain. And if the re-

sulting mixture is homoeomerous no finite particles of 5 or C can be

allowed to survive the mixing.

This result could be avoided if we adopted an alternative trans-

lation of the word translated 'mixed' in 328a4. This word is mikton,

one of those adjectives in ~tos which, as I have had occasion to

remark before (cf. notes on 1.2.316a 16 and I.8.325a2), are capable

either of a modal or of a non-modal interpretation. Mikton here

could accordingly be translated 'capable of being mixed' or 'to be

mixed' (as it certainly has to be translated in 328b20 ff., while

330b22 provides an example of an occurrence of mikton where the

translation 'mixed' is unavoidable). The whole sentence might then

be rendered, 'And if every body is divisible, given that there is a
homoeomerous body to be mixed with another body, every part of

it would have to come to be alongside some part of the other.' The

point might be that where a substance entering a mixture is homoe-
omerous, unlike wheat or barley where each grain is made up of

husk, kernel, etc., there is no reason to halt the process of division,

and the requirement that every part of each be placed alongside
some part of the other can be insisted upon until infinitesimal parts

are reached.
If, however, we are going to allow an interpretation of the text

which leaves room for Aristotle to be talking about infinitesimal

parts, i.e. which permits infinite divisibility, we are no longer sup-
posing account (ii) to be an Atomist account. In this case it is no

longer obvious that the antecedents of the sentence beginning at

a
328 3 are inconsistent with the consequent even when the sentence
is translated as in the text. For there is a sense in which 'mixing' in

Aristotle's sense, as spelled out in the following sentences (328a

8-12), constitutes the limit of a series in which it is true for pro-
gressively smaller particles of B and C that every part of B is along-

side a particle of C and vice versa. If every body is divisible (i.e. if

body is infinitely divisible), given that a body mixed {mikton
in the non-modal sense) with another is homoeomerous, every part
of one would have to come to be alongside some part of the other.

That is to say, given infinite divisibility, in order to produce a

homoeomerous mixture, every (infinitesimal) part of B would have

to get alongside some part of C and vice versa. Homoeomerous

mixture = alternation of infinitesimal parts.

147
U0.327b NOTES

Alas, in the next sentence (328a5) Aristotle seems to rule out

such an interpretation on the grounds that 'there is no such thing as

a thing's being divided into parts which are the smallest possible'.
And at 328a15-16 he explicitily rules out division such that every

part of one is alongside some part of the other as a way of achieving

'mixing'. What has been going on?

It is difficult to be sure. To speculate, could not account (ii) be

an attempt to reproduce a theory which Aristotle has heard put

forward, not, as the received view has it, by Atomists, but by some
thinker who was groping towards the notion of limits and infini-

tesimals? (A similar theory seems to be under discussion in

Alexander's De Mixtione, ch. 8.) Is Aristotle's stumbling exposition

of the theory, and his rough rejection of it, a sign that he has not
fully grasped its significance, that he has perhaps confused it with an
Atomist theory of indivisible minimal The alternative, to stick to
the traditional translation of 328a3-5 and to the traditional sup-

position that Aristotle is here expounding an Atomist account of

'mixing', is to make him fall into the most glaring inconsistencies
and to reduce to absurdity Joachim's gloss (p. 184), 'The only logical
view, therefore, is the second one.'
Lynceus (328a15) was an Argonaut noted for his extraordinary

powers of vision. After saying that 'one and the same thing will be
mixed for one man whose sight is not sharp', Aristotle should have

gone on, 'but not mixed for another who has better eyesight'.

Having brought in Lynceus to make things livelier, he also exager-

ates the point he is making. Either Lynceus must be credited with

ideal vision, so that no particle however small can fail to be dis-

criminated by him, or there must be postulated a minimum Lyncei
visibile (the smallest thing Lynceus can see) which is de facto identical
with the minimum possibile (the smallest thing that can exist).

328a17. Why does he say 'we must again try to say how it takes

place', when apparently he has so far said nothing about how mixing

takes place? Implicitly the theories examined in 327a31-328a17

have included an answer to the question, 'How does mixing take

place?', because if mixing is just a matter of the juxtaposition of

microscopic or atomic particles a purely mechanical account is

possible of the phenomenon. If, however, such an account is ruled

out by the requirement that the resultant mixture be homoeomerous,

the problem of how such a mixture is effected becomes acute.
'Conversion' (328a19) covers a variety of logical relationships.

Terms in the syllogistic sense, e.g. 'equilateral triangle' and 'equi-

angular triangle', convert if both every equilateral triangle is

equiangular and every equiangular triangle is equilateral. Propositions

148
 MIXING L10.328a

convert if both 'If py then q* and 'If q, then are true (cf. II.l 1.337b
24, 338al 1). And relations convert if 'aRb* and l
bRa9 are equivalent.

It is this last case which is present here: instead of 'for some things,
there is conversion' we could have translated the Greek 'for some

things, these relationships are symmetrical'. Note that the relation-

ships which are said to be symmetrical are not acting upon or being
affected by, but the modal variants of these, capable of acting upon
and capable of being affected by. The class of ordered pairs of agents
and patients is divided into class {A), those pairs of which the agent

is incapable of being acted upon by the patient, and the complemen-

tary class {B). This class (5) is later subdivided into subclass {Bx),
those pairs whose agent is actually simultaneously affected by the

patient, and the complementary subclass {B2). Class {B) is not, it

should be emphasized, the class of those pairs of which the agent is
capable of simultaneously acting upon and being affected by the

patient (which would be an intermediate subclass between {B) and

its subclass {B^), but is the class of those pairs of which the agent is
not only capable of acting upon the patient but also capable of being

affected by the patient at the same or some other time. It would be

a mistake to credit Aristotle with the view, as some commentators
on 1.7.324a29 ff. have done, that every agent capable of being

affected by its patient is, every time it acts, actually affected by it.

Philoponus points out that the idea of health producing health

(328a23) is awkward. One solution which he offers, and which is

accepted by Verdenius and Waszink, is that the health which is the

subject of 'produces' is the form of health existing as knowledge

in the mind of the doctor, whereas the health produced is the form
existing in the patient. Verdenius and Waszink claim that the same

distinction has to be made at I.7.324b 15, where it is said that health

is not active (i.e. capable of making or producing anything), except

metaphorically. The health that is there said to be metaphorically

active is again, according to Verdenius and Waszink (p. 49), the form
of health existing in the mind of the doctor. But this will not do.
For at 324b15 health is introduced as an example of a final cause,
and it is the patient's health which answers this description. Nor
would Aristotle have said that the health in the mind of the doctor

produces the patient's health only metaphorically, as he does at

324b15. But words from the same root as that from which the
b
adjective translated 'active' at 324 15 and the verb translated
'produce' at 328*22 are derived sometimes require a form of the
English word 'make' for their translation; and it is perfectly
Aristotelian to say that health makes people healthy (cf. Nico-

machean Ethics, VI.12.1144a4). Health is here the formal and final

cause of the people being healthy, but it is reasonable to say that the

149
U0328a NOTES

sense of 'make' in which it makes people healthy is metaphorical. If

Aristotle at 328a22-3 had said that it is not by being mixed with

the bodies (sc. which they act upon) that medical skill or health
make those bodies healthy there would have been no difficulty.
Instead he begins — to follow the exact word order of the text —
'And that is why medical skill does not produce health' and goes on

somewhat carelessly, 'nor does health' before making the main

point, 'by being mixed with the bodies'.

328a23. The sentence that begins here and, in the Greek, continues

to 328a31 is very clumsy. Aristotle at first seems to be about to tell

us which of the things capable of acting and being affected can easily

be mixed, but at 328a24 he switches (by means of a m<?«-clause) to

naming a class which cannot enter into a mixture. I have tried to

represent this awkwardness in the translation by leaving 'those which

can easily be divided' as a nominativus pendens. (The word trans-

lated 'can easily be divided' at 328a24 is picked up at 328^1 and 4

by the shorter word translated 'divisible'. The simple modal word

can, however, bear the sense of the longer one, just as- 'readable' in
English can mean 'can be read easily'.)
Aristotle has abandoned a 'juxtaposition' view of mixing whereby

n particles of B mixed with m particles of C would produce a

mixture, A, where the proportion n:m, for any values of n and m, is

preserved as the ratio of the component particles of A. But he does

not abandon this extensively quantitative view only to embrace an

intensively quantitative view, whereby a substance 5 having « degrees
of some quality mixed with a substance C having m degrees of that

quality produces a substance A with k degrees of that quality, where

k is the mean between n and m, for any values of n and m. The
further conditions here laid down for the effecting of a mixture of
B and C show that only for a certain range of values of n and m is
such a mixture possible. The account of mixing that he gives is thus

not even intensively quantitative. He uses instead the analogy

of combat. B and C are combatants, and if either greatly surpasses

the other in size or quantity of components the greater wins and

the vanquished combatant perishes. What then occurs is corruption
of the vanquished and growth of the victor, the dominant one, not
mixing. Only when the powers of the combatants are more or less
balanced does mixing occur.

328a33. Substances divided into small quantities mix better

because they provide maximum surface for contact, and contact is

necessary for the mutual action/passion which brings about the

150
 MIXING I.10.328a

mixing. For things 'which are easily bounded' (328a35-b2)J i.e. have

a high degree of plasticity, and the connection between this and

liquidity, cf. II.2,329b31 ff. Not only are liquids, rather than solids,

manifestly apt for being mixed - you can easily mix beer with
lemonade but not chalk with cheese — but also some things have to

be liquefied in order to be mixed. Metals must be melted before they

can be combined to produce an alloy. These are facts known to all.
Again, when he brings in viscosity (328b4), Aristotle is merely

recording well-known facts: oil will not mix with water. He does not

seem here to offer any explanation of this, as he did of the con-

nection between facility of mixing and liquidity. The fact that

viscous substances do not readily fall apart into drops, which he
notes at Meteorologica, IV.9.387al 1-15, would have served to bring

the phenomenon under the general law that 'small quantities put
alongside small quantities mix better' (328a33-4).

328b6. Aristotle's remarks about qualities, relations, etc. (existents

in categories other than substance) are so often translatable from the
material into the formal mode of speech that it comes as a shock to

find him reifying 'forms' (328bl 1) and 'affections' (328b12) in this

crude way. Wittgenstein's remark that in logic all differences are big
differences rules out just such 'stammering' and 'ambiguity' (328b9-
10) as is involved in the alleged change of tin from being a substance
to being a quality. This way of thinking may be compared with
Aristotle's description in De Anima, II.12.424a18-19 of sensations

as forms existing without matter in the soul: indeed we have in

b
328 12 the very words 'existing without matter'.

328b14. At Categories, lal-2 Aristotle says, 'When things have

only a name in common and the definition of being which cor-

responds to the name is different, they are called homonymous'.

At la6-7 he says, 'When things have the name in common and the
definition of being which corresponds to the name is the same, they

are called synonymous.' When he says at 328b21-2, 'what is capable

of being mixed is relative to something homonymous', what he

means is that if B is capable of being mixed, it is capable of being
mixed with some C which is itself capable of being mixed with B.

'Capable of being mixed' will be applicable to B only if it is also

applicable to C. B and C thus have the 'name' ('capable of being

mixed' translates a single word mikton in Greek) in common. But

the name surely applies to both of them in the same sense, i.e. 'the

definition of being which corresponds to the name is the same'.

We should expect Aristotle, therefore, to have said 'what is capable

of being mixed is relative to something synonymous' — cf. 314a20,

151
U0.328b NOTES

where I have paraphrased syndnymon by 'we can apply the same

name in the same sense'. Other examples of Aristotle's using Tiomony-

mous' when the Categories definition would have led us to expect

'synonymous' are given by Hinitikka (p. 8, n. 3). See also note on

322b26.

BOOK II

Chapter 1 < The Elements and Prime Matter >

328b26. Growth, which was the topic of 1.5, fails to get a mention

here. The other contents of Book I are listed, though not in order, in
this resume which extends to 328b31, 'Them' in the last sentence of
the resume refers to coming to be simpliciter and ceasing to be. At
328b31 we have the phrase 'the so-called "elements"', which has
already occurred at L6.322 l-2 and appears again at 329a16, 26. It
b

refers to fire, air, water, and earth, which already had this name in
the philosophical tradition in Aristotle's time. Aristotle himself,
however, did not consider them truly 'elementary', since he regarded
prime matter and the 'contraries' as more fundamental principles
than the four 'simple bodies' (cf. 329a24 ff.). The case is analogous
to that of the word 'atom' in modem physical theory, where it still

has an accepted use for bodies which are no longer regarded as indi-
visible or elementary and of whose composition a complicated

account exists within the theory.

b
328 32. The explanations of this sentence given by commentators
are unconvincing. 'Substances which are by nature composite' surely
are 'perceptible bodies'. If 'the perceptible bodies' is taken, as some
wish, to refer to the four elements, and 'these' in the next sentence

is taken as referring back to 'the perceptible bodies', Aristotle will

appear as offering as one candidate — that of Empedocles — for the
role of 'underlying matter' of the four elements the set consisting of
the four elements themselves. The role of aggregation and segre-

gation and alteration (329a3-4) in these theories is explained by

Aristotle in 1.1.314a6-b8.

329a5. Aristotle says that 'principle' or 'element' is the right name

for anything capable of explaining generation and cormption in the

way described. He does not bother to add that neither the four
'elements' nor any subset of them actually provides such an expla-

nation. His reasons for disqualifying them for this role will be given

in chapter 5 after his exposition of his own theory about them. He

confines himself at this point to a discussion of two further theories,

152
 THE ELEMENTS AND PRIME MATTER II.1.329a

Anaximander's and Plato's, which specially need to be distinguished

from his own. The 'infinite' (329a12) is Anaximander's name for the

material principle which Aristotle is here criticizing. The Greek word

thus translated, apeiron, means Tacking boundaries', and here it

has the sense of 'indeterminate' rather than 'infinite'. Aristotle's

objection to it needs completing. Since, as a body, it must have one
member of each 'perceptible contrariety' (329a10-ll), i.e. pair of

contrary basic sensible qualities, it will accordingly be, or be

composed of, one of the four so-called 'elements', and so, contra

hypothesin (329a9), cannot be 'over and above those mentioned'

(cf. II.5.332a20-7).

329a13. 'The account given in the Timaeus* refers to 48 E-57 D.

Aristotle's criticism of Plato falls under two heads: first, the account
lacks 'precision'. The word thus translated is translated elsewhere
a b
(L6.323 22, II.7.334 21) 'definition'. It is the noun from the verb

diorizein, which the medievals literally translated determinare: the

metaphor involved is the setting-up of boundaries, whether on the
perimeter of a concept, as in definition, or within a concept, as in
the making of distinctions. What Plato is being chided for is his
failure to distinguish between different functions which are assigned

to the 'omnirecipient' in the Timaeus, and which are incompatible.

If it is a container, as the word 'omnirecipient' indicates, it must be
'separated' from the things it contains. But if it is the stuff out of

which the elementary particles are fashioned it is not so separable.

The second charge against Plato is that he makes no use of the

omnirecipient in his account of generation and corruption. Like

Aristotle, Plato believes that the four 'elements' are capable of being

transformed into one another. But the mechanism of this trans-

formation is provided entirely by the geometrical theory of the

Timaeus, whereby elementary right-angled triangles combine and

recombine to produce the different regular solids which are the

fundamental particles of earth, water, etc. (see note on 1.2.315^24

ff.). This mechanism is what actually does the work of explaining

generation and corruption in the Timaeus, and Plato's earlier

remarks about a substratum are left high and dry. (Substratum is not
actually Plato's word, although his analogy of gold's relation to the

things the goldsmith makes out of it shows that he has in mind the

notion Aristotle expresses by the word translated this way.) In the

parenthesis which begins at 329a17 Aristotle further carps at Plato

by objecting to his use of the analogy of gold and the products

which the goldsmith makes of it. This is supposed to illustrate the

transformation of water into air, etc., the basic instance of generation.

Plato has said {Timaeus 50 A-B) that if asked what the various

153
IU.329a NOTES

artefacts are which are fashioned from the goldsmith's material, the

safest answer is 'Gold'. This remains constant throughout the trans-

formations whereby one thing is melted down to produce another.

But when air is transformed into fire or water into air it is impossible

to call the 'element' which has come into existence by the name of
that from, or out of, which it has come to be. If it is air which has
come to be such from water it is no longer water: ex hypothesi the
water has ceased to exist. Nor can the substratum provide its name:

that which in itself is formless cannot yield the answer to the question

'What is this?' As Philoponus puts it, we cannot give in answer to the

question 'What is it that has come into existence?' something (prime

matter) that pre-existed it, nor can we answer the question 'What is
it that has perished?' by naming something (prime matter again)

which still exists.

When Aristotle says that 'things are like this in the case of alter-
ation', is he admitting the justice of Plato's remarks about the proper
way of talking about gold artefacts, whilst objecting to transference

of this to the transformations of the 'elements'? Or is he saying only

that things are like this in genuine cases of alteration, as, for example,
when a sick man becomes well, where the answer to the question

'What is it that has come to be well?' is obviously 'A man'. The

second alternative is in keeping with his constantly repeated point

that artefacts are not called by the name of the material out of
which they are made, though they may be described by an adjective

formed from this name. Thus a statue made of wood will not be

called 'wood', but 'wooden'. The point is made zt Physics, I.7.190a

25 ff., VII.3.245b9 ff.. Metaphysics, Z.7.1033a5 ff., 0.7.1049a18 ff.

In the Metaphysics passages he coins a new word ekeininos, literally
translatable as 'thaten', from ekeinos meaning 'that', in order to

generalize his point that something made from wood is called, not
'wood', but 'wooden', something from wax, not 'wax', but 'waxen',

etc. In Physics VII,3.245b6-246a9, which includes the passage just

cited, Aristotle is arguing, with the help of this linguistic point, that
a change of shape is not a case of alteration. 'Alteration' is there
restricted to changes of affections and affective qualities, as defined

in Categories, 8. It seems therefore unlikely that Aristotle is to be

taken here as conceding Plato's claim about the appropriateness of
calling the goldsmith's artefacts 'gold', even in their own right, let
alone the appropriateness of using this as an analogy for generation
and corruption. After the parenthesis he resumes his main objection

against Plato's theory. For his objections against the reduction of

solids to planes, cf. 1.2.315b24 ff. with my note, and I,8.325b24 ff.

329a24. From here to the end of the chapter Aristotle is explaining

154
 THE ELEMENTS AND PRIME MATTER II.1.329a

and justifying his introduction of the topic of contrarieties (i.e. pairs

of contraries), to which the next two chapters are devoted. This

provides the clue for the exegesis of some confusing sentences which

commentators have failed to understand. For a discussion of his

doctrine of prime matter, see Appendix. The antecedent of 'which'

in the phrase 'from which the so-called "elements" come to be'

(329a26) could be (a) the word 'matter' in line 24, or (b) the
immediately preceding word 'contrariety'. Both the substratum and

the 'privation', which is one of a pair of contraries, are describable as

that from which a thing comes to be, and alternative (b) is supported

by the fact that the contrarieties in some sense constitute the so-
called 'elements'. But, as we shall see, it suits the overall argument of
the passage better to adopt alternative (a). Again, the antecedent of
'them' in the sentence 'A more precise account of them has been
given elsewhere' (329a27) is most easily taken to be 'the so-called
"elements'" in line 26. In that case 'elsewhere' refers to De Caelo,
III and IV. Joachim and others take 'them' to refer to prime matter
and contrariety, and 'elsewhere' to Physics, 1.6-9. The reference of
'these' in the phrase 'we must give an account of these also'(329a29)

depends in part on the view taken about the reference of 'them,' in

329*21. Clearly 'these' and 'them' must refer to different things,

since Aristotle says we must now give an account of 'these' in
addition to that we have given of 'them' elsewhere. Joachim et al.,

having allotted prime matter and contrariety to 'them' as reference,

have 'the primary bodies' free to be the reference of 'these'. The

natural sense of the words would favour this, but in the same way
the natural sense of the words would favour taking 'the so-called

"elements"' (329a26) to be the reference of 'them' in 329a27. Since

the primary bodies are the so-called elements, and, as we have seen,
'these' must refer to something other than 'them', the natural sense

of the words cannot be followed both times. But what is the reason
Aristotle gives for saying that 'we must give an account of these

also'? Most translators render Aristotle's statement of his reason in

some such way as this: 'since the primary bodies also come from

matter in this way' — which leaves one wondering (a) 'As well as

what?' and (b) 'Why is this a reason for giving an account of the

primary bodies?' But the word which most translators here translate
'also' (kai) does not in fact precede the phrase translated 'the

primary bodies', as would be expected if this translation were

correct. Rather, it precedes the phrase corresponding to 'in this way'.

I do not believe it should be translated 'also' here. In my own trans-

lation of the clause, 'since this is the way in which the.primary

bodies are from the matter', it is the emphasis which renders kai.
(Cf. Verdenius and Waszink, pp. 1-7, and the second occurrence of

155
II.1.329a NOTES

kai in the very next line.) The phrase 'the primary bodies are from

matter' echoes the phrase 'from which the so-called "elements"

come to be' in 329a26, which is why it seems necessary to take

'matter' as the antecedent of 'which' in 329a26. 'In this way' must

accordingly echo the qualification also given in that sentence of the

way in which they come to be from matter, namely, that it is from

matter which 'is not separable but is always together with a con-

trariety'.
The sense of the present passage (329a27-9), therefore, is as

follows: although an account has been given of the primary bodies in

the De Caelo, since a contrariety is always involved in their coming

to be from matter, we must given an account of these too. But why

'these' and not 'this'? Aristotle has said that matter must always be
accompanied by a contrariety: he does not imply that it is always

the same one. The topic he is turning to is the type and number of

the contrarieties which are principles of body (329b3-4). When he

uses the word for contrariety again it is in the plural (329a34, b
2-3).
'These' is therefore only to be expected at 329a29. (Philoponus also
takes 'these' to refer to contrarieties.)
The last four words of 329a29 begin a long participial phrase

which I have begun in the translation by the words 'regarding,

certainly, as a principle . . 'Certainly' here represents the Greek
men, which signals the first arm of an antithesis. The other arm

should be signalled by a de, but Aristotle's sentence becomes so con-

voluted, relapsing at 329a32 ('so first that which is perceptible body
in potentiality . . . ') into anacoluthon, that no de appears. The sense
of the argument, however, requires something in relation to which
the lines beginning at 329a29 can be regarded as concessive. This

comes at 329^3, and is very heavy indeed, after so long a wait: 'But
none the less even so . . .'. Aristotle's thought is something like this:
We must give an account of the contrarieties involved in the gener-

ation of the primary bodies. Granted, these are not 'principles' in the
sense in which matter is the 'really first' principle (though it has to

underlie the contraries). That is the number one principle, but the

contrarieties are number two, whereas the so-called elements are a

poor third. For they change into one another, but the contrarieties
do not (329a35-b3). Nevertheless, even though they are only

principles in a secondary sense, how manv are there of them, and

what sort of contrarieties are involved (329b3-4)? The parenthesis at

329b2 looks back to Aristotle's explanation, at I.1.314b15-26, of

how alteration would be impossible on Empedocles' view. (See my

notes on 314b8 ff., and II.4.331a9 ff.)

156
 THE PRIMARY CONTRARIETIES II.2.329b

Chapter 2 < The Primary Contrarieties >

329b7. For the equation of 'body' with 'perceptible body' cf. 1.2.

316b19. To understand the equation of 'perceptible body' with

'tangible body' one must go to De Anima, II.2-3.413al l-415a13,

where Aristotle compares the relation between the different senses

to that between the different 'parts' of the soul. Just as the nutritive

part can exist without the senstive part, but not vice versa — plants,

in which nutritive activities take place, nevertheless lack sensitive

activity, but when there is sensitive activity there must also be
nutritive activity - so the sense of touch can exist without the other

senses, but not vice versa. Touch is in this way basic, and at De
Anima, II.11.423b27 he transfers this to the tangible, the 'subject'
of touch: 'It is the distinctive qualities of body, qua body, which are
tangible'. He goes on (423b29) to refer to the discussion of the topic
in 'On the Elements', which must refer to the present passage. The
alleged fact that touch is the only sense which all animals possess is
something which Aristotle promises, at 413b9-10, to explain later;
and this explanation appears to be given in De Animay III. 12-13.

Is Aristotle's argument valid? From the alleged fact that the sense
of touch can exist in animals without the other senses, but not they
without it, he infers that the qualities detected by touch are the

distinctive qualities of body, qua body. Whatever else may be meant

by 'the distinctive qualities of body, qua body', it must mean at

least 'qualities which all bodies possess'. Clearly, the most that all
bodies could be said to possess are determinable qualities: some

degree of temperature for instance. It is in fact the case that all

bodies possess some degree of temperature; but it is difficult to

believe that this has anything to do with the alleged fact that all

animals have the sensory apparatus appropriate for making discrimi-

nations of temperature. It would be possible for all bodies to have
some degree of temperature even if there were some animals who

had no sense of touch, (Strawsonian) animals, perhaps, whose only

sense was hearing. And it would be possible also for all animals to
have a given sense without its being the case that every body pos-
sessed qualities discriminable by that sense. If every animal could
smell, it would not follow that no body was odourless. Aristotle's

inference from an alleged fact about a sense faculty to an alleged

fact about the objects of that sense is over-hasty. Much of the

trouble is due to the confusing notion of priority — of which
Aristotle does in fact show himself suspicious in his reply to a
possible objection in 329b14-16.
The word in 329b9 translated 'forms' is used by Aristotle not

only to express form as opposed to matter, but also form in the

sense of kind. (This allows it at times to be used in the technical

157
II.2.329b NOTES

<
sense of species, as opposed to 'genus', as at I.7.323b32.) Just so, in
English we can talk equally well of 'the form of a thing' and 'differ-

ent forms of thing'. Since Aristotle is here talking of the fundamental

kinds or forms of perceptible body, the sense of the word in which it

means 'species' as opposed to 'genus' cannot be intended. 'Perceptible'

(329b13) is written carelessly here for 'perceptible but not tangible'.

Sight is presumably 'prior' to touch in the sense of being more
valuable or noble than it (329b14 ff.). Aristotle's best-known text
on the superiority of sight is at the very beginning of Metaphysics

(A.980a23-7). The word in 329b14 translated 'substratum' normally

has the sense of 'the ultimate subject of predication' (it has just been
used in this sense in II.1.329a32). Here, as in parallel occurrences in

the De Anima (II.l 1.422b32, III.2.426b8,10), it would be more

natural to render it 'object', but it is preferable to keep a single

translation if at all possible. The words 'in virtue of something else'
at 329b16 simply represent the negation of 'qua tangible' in the
preceding line. Being coloured, or whatever else is the affection of
body which is the substratum or object of sight, is not an affection
of body qua tangible, but qua visible. Absolutely ('by nature') being
coloured may be more fundamental ('prior'), but what Aristotle is

seeking now are the fundamental qualities of tangible body qua

tangible.

329b16. After having given a list of tangible qualities (pairs of

contraries), he proceeds to employ two criteria for elimination. The

first is being incapable of acting or being affected. We are looking

for the simple bodies which enter into mixtures, and mixtures, as

was established in 1.10, are formed by the mutual action and reaction
of the components on each other. By this criterion Aristotle elim-

inates heavy and light. These, he says, are not able or such as to act

or be affected. He does not argue for this. Presumably it is regarded

as evident that heaviness and lightness are not communicated from
one body to another. If a hot body is placed in contact with a cooler

body, the cooler body becomes hotter. If a heavy body is placed in

contact with a lighter body, the lighter body does not become heavier.

329b24. By contrast with heavy and light, hot and cold and dry

and wet are capable of acting and being affected. The types of action
and affection of which each pair is capable are specified. The aggre-

gating of like things and segregating of unlike that Aristotle has in

mind is, no doubt, the purification of metals; the aggregating of

unlike things is the effect of freezing which impacts all sorts of

debris in ice. Being bounded, or given a shape, on the other hand, is

a way of being affected. It is noticeable that these examples of

158
 THE PRIMARY CONTRARIETIES II.2.329b

acting and being affected are all mechanical, involving only change
of place or shape. On Aristotle's own terms 'action' and 'passion'
should be restricted to the change of affections (cf. 1.6.323a 16-20).

329b32. The other criterion Aristotle employs for eliminating pairs

of contraries from his list of fundamental qualities is by showing

them to be 'from' other qualities. In 329b32-4 he lists three pairs of
contraries which he intends to 'reduce' to the others in this way,
adds 'and the other differentiae' (which may refer to 'rough-smooth',

which was present in the earlier list of tangible contrarieties at

329b20), and says that they are 'from these'. 'These' would

naturally be taken to be hot-cold and wet-dry, but in fact all the

'reductions' which follow are to wet-dry. But if all the other dif-
ferentiae can be reduced to wet-dry, a fortiori they can be reduced

to wet-dry and hot-cold. So Aristotle's expression, though clumsy,

is consistent.
It is less easy to be clear about the meaning of 'from' in the

phrase 'from these'. The other way he has of expressing the reductive

claim he is making is by saying, e.g., that viscousness belongs to

wetness (330a4-5) and brittleness belongs to hardness (330a6).

(Literally the Greek phrases thus translated would have to be

rendered 'The viscous is of the wet' and 'The brittle is of the hard':

all we have are neuter adjectives with the article, the first in the
nominative the second in the genitive case.) It is tempting to suppose

that 'x belongs to y' here means 'x is a species of the genus y'. This
would make the first supporting argument syllogistically valid:
'Whatever is able to fill things is wet, whatever is fine is able to fill

things, ergo\ But the major premiss 'The ability to fill things belongs
to wetness' (literally 'The able to fill things is of the wet') is only
plausible if it means that 'Whatever is wet is able to fill things'; and
Aristotle shows that he understands it in this way, since he supports
it by showing that ability to fill things is a consequence of the

recently given definition of 'the wet' as having no boundaries of its

own but being easily bounded (329b30-l). It is therefore difficult to

see how this argument can both be valid and have plausible premisses.
But it is clear from a later argument that it would be wrong to
interpret the puzzling use of the genitive which I have rendered by
sentences of the form 'x-ness belongs to y-ness' as meaning the same
as 'The x is a species of the genus y'. In 330a8-10 Aristotle says that
softness belongs to wetness, but goes on to deny of the wet some-

thing which is a defining property of the soft, namely, staying put

as opposed to 'moving elsewhere'. (If I put a cricket bah into a bowl

of putty the putty will retreat into itself to make a hollow for the
ball, but stay in the bowl: if I were to put it into a bowl of water the

159
n.2.329b NOTES

water would be displaced and 'move elsewhere'.) It is clear, then,

that he wishes to distinguish 'x-ness belongs to .y-ness' from 'What is

x is jv', just as he explicitly distinguishes it from 'What is y is x' in
330a9-10: 'that is why the wet is not soft but softness belongs to
wetness'.

There is no need to comment on the detail of Aristotle's reductive

arguments in this chapter.

330a12. The 'contrariety' signified by the Greek words hygron and

xeron is, in Aristotle's term, homonyraous. We have already seen

(327a17 ff.) how it is necessary at times to translate hygron as

'liquid' rather than 'wet'. But to use 'liquid' as the standard trans-

lation for hygron would require taking 'solid' as the standard

translation of its opposite, and, as Joachim remarks, this will not do,

since Aristotle regards flame as xeron, and, while it is plausible to

say that flames are dry, it is impossible to regard them as solid. The

word I have here translated 'moist', and which Aristotle goes on

(330a16-17) to apply to that which has alien wetness (i.e. moisture

which is not part of itself) on its surface, would more naturally be

translated as 'wet', if this translation had not been pre-empted for the
more generic term: we may think of a plate that has been washed

but not dried, A sponge full of water would be the sort of thing
Aristotle has in mind when he speaks of something which has alien

wetness in its depths. That which has its own wetness in its depths,

on the other hand, includes liquefied substances, molten wax or

metal, for example, and liquids in general.
Are wetness and dryness strictly speaking tangible qualities?

Clearly we discover both that things are wet and that they are liquid
(and their opposites) by touching them. But so do we discover that
they are big, or spherical, or at rest. Liquidity certainly seems to be a
matter of how a body is liable to move, and thus to be one of what
Aristotle {De Anima, II.6) called 'common', and what Locke was

later to call 'primary', qualities. Wetness may be something variously

discovered, by touch using temperature as a cue, by sight noting
shininess, etc.The matter is by no means so clear as the corresponding

claim for hot-cold.

Chapter 3 < The Contrarieties and the Elements >

330a30. By 'elements' Aristotle here means 'elementary qualities',

i.e. contrarieties. 'Apparently' (330b2): i.e. for the reason given in

b
33d 21 ff.

330b7. The passage from here to 330b21 is convincingly argued by

160
 THE CONTRARIETIES AND THE ELEMENTS IL3.330b

Verdenius and Waszink to be designed to show that 'it is in a rational

way that the differentiae are allotted to the primary bodies', namely,
in pairs, by demonstrating that previous philosophers have all in one

way or another been obliged to explain the phenomena in terms of

dualities. This happens whether their theories reckon the 'elements'

as one, two, three, or four. The phrase 'or the hot and the cold'
(330b12) is a correction of 'the dense and the rare': the hot causes

rarefaction and the cold condensation {De Generatione Animalium,

V.783a37-b2). The verb in 330b 13 which I have translated 'operate'

is the verb corresponding to the noun demiurgos, used by Plato

to describe the Great Artificer of the Universe. The mention of

b
Parmenides (330 14) refers to the doctrine put forward in 'The Way
of Opinion',the second part of his poem. The reference to 'Plato in
the Divisions' (330b16) is obscure. It is much argued and never
agreed which work of Plato's is being referred to; and there is much
debate over how, if at all, the doctrine ascribed to him can be made

consistent with his known views. Fortunately, nothing hangs on the

solution of these problems so far as the philosophical significance of
this part of Aristotle's work is concerned.

330b21. The remark in 330b25-6, 'Fire is excess of heat in the

same way as ice is of cold', tempts one to formulate Aristotle's

doctrine in this paragraph thus: as ice is to the simple body consti-

tuted by cold and wet, so fire is to the simple body constituted by

hot and dry. But the simple body constituted by cold and wet is
presumably, in accordance with the remark 'and so on in the other

cases' in 330b25, watery rather than water, so neither ice nor water
is the pure simple body. It remains that the fiery substance is to fire
as water is to ice, not in the respect of being purer, but in respect of
being moderate as opposed to excessive.

330b30. The 'boundary' and 'middle' spoken of are those of the

sublunary sphere.

Chapter 4 KReciprocal Transformation of the Elements>

331a7. 'Earlier' probably refers to De Caelo, IIL6.304b23 ff. The

discussions of the topic earlier in the present work, at I.1.314b15-26

and IL1.329a35-b2, are scarcely any fuller than what we have here

and not worth referring back to. The. opponents of the view that any
of the simple bodies can be generated from any other are Empedocles,
who taught that none could be, and Plato (Timaeus, 54 B-D), who

taught that while fire, air, and water, could ail be generated from

each other, earth could not be generated from the others nor they
from it.
161
II.4.331a NOTES

The first six words of the parenthesis at 331a9-10 repeat the

parenthetical remark at II. 1.329^2. For the pattern of argument, see

my note on I.1.314b8 ff. There the argument required strengthening

by the assumption that on Empedodes, view any qualitative alter-

ation involved a change of one element into another. Here Aristotle

seems to attempt to strengthen it by saying that alteration (sc. all
alteration) involves change in the affections of tangible bodies (sc.
those which qua tangible are affections of tangible bodies, cf. II.2.

329^7-16). This would take some proving: how would he show that
the fading of the colours of a rainbow involved a change in the basic

affections of some tangible body, a change which itself involved the

corruption of one simple body and the generation of another?

331a14. It is difficult to see how what follows constitutes a proof

of the possibility of any simple body's changing into any other. The
fact that what it would be for, e.g., fire to turn into air is that some-

thing should change from being hot and dry to being hot and wet
does not show that such a change is possible. If it is objected that
we constantly perceive dry things becoming wet, and therefore know

that it is possible, because actual, it may be replied that Aristotle has

already appealed to the facts of perception to prove the (unanalysed)

generation of simple bodies from each other (331a8-9).

At 331a24, 34, and b

4 I have used the word 'counterpart' to
render the Greek symbolon. Symbola are produced by breaking in

two some object, e.g. a bone or a coin, each of a pair of friends or

contracting parties, A and B, taking one part, so that at some future

date A may prove his association with B by producing his part of the
object, which can be seen to be the counterpart ofi?'s. Here Aristotle
uses it to refer to the quality that is shared by two 'consecutive'
(cf. 331b4) simple bodies, e.g. the coldness which is a differentia of

both water and earth. The coldness that is in water has its 'counter-

part' in the coldness that is in earth. (The word symbolon has a

distinguished place in the history of ideas, being not only the origin
of our word 'symbol', but the normal word for 'creed' in Greek

theological writing — hence 'Symbolic Theology'. Cf. also its use in

Plato's Symposium, in Aristophanes' speech, 191 D.)

331bll. The words in 331b12 which I have translated 'one affec-

tion of each member of a pair' are literally just 'one of each', but
both 'one' and 'each' are the special Greek words meaning 'one of
two' and 'each of two'. ('Either', which is sometimes the equivalent

of 'each of two', will not do here, because in combination with 'if it

is the pronoun corresponding, for classes of two members, to 'any',

for classes of n>2 members, rather than to 'each'. Like 'any' it

162
 RECIPROCAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE ELEMENTS II.4.331b

demands widest scope in the sentence in which it occurs (cf. Quine,

Word and Object, § 29 and my notes on 1.2, pp. 78 f.))

Aristotle is unduly hypostatizing affections when he talks of an

affection 'perishing'. According to his own theory (cf. 1.4.319b

25-31) what it is for an affection, A, to 'perish', i.e. cease to be, is fo_r

some substance, x, to cease to ho- A. But if x ceases tojpe^d, and A

is the contrary of ^4, x in ceasing to be A comes to be A. (Aristotle

treats contraries, hot and cold, dry and wet, as contradictories

throughout his theory of simple bodies.) Fire and water are for
Aristotle characterized by pairs of qualities which we may symbolize

by '/15' and Vti?' respectively. If A perishes from AB and B from

AB, according to Aristotle what we get is AB. But this is surely a

misleading way of describing what happens. The perishmg of A from

AB is nothing more than the conversion of AB into AB. Similarly,
the perishing of B from AB is the conversion of AB into_AB. So
whereas before we had AB + AB what we now have is 2AB. The

way in which simple bodies are described as changing into each other

in 33 lb 12-26 is really no different from that in which they are

described as changing into each other in 331a23-b4, except that in

the later passage they are taken two at a time.

The word I have translated at two of its occurrences in 331b14

and once in331b19 as 'or' is the normal word for 'and'. But Aristotle

does not mean that earth and air (taken together) come from fire
and water, or that fire and water (taken together) come from air and

earth, but that from fire and water comes earth and from fire and
water also comes air and that from air and earth comes fire and from
air and earth also comes water. This is more neatly expressed by 'or':
to have rendered kai by 'and' here with no further adjustment would
have been positively misleading.

331b26. This passage confirms that Aristotle has allowed himself

to be misled by his talk of an affection's perishing. What he now

supposes is (i) that from AB and AB B and B perish leaving ^4.4

(which is inadequate to specify a simple body) and (ii) that A and A

perish leaving BB (which is incapable of qualifying anything). But in

the only intelligible sense in_which B and B can perish from AB and

AB, this results in AB + AB becoming AB + AB, and in the only

intelligible _sense^in which A and A can perish from AB and AB

this leaves A5 + AB. Neither of these is impossible.

Chapter 5 <No First Element >

332a4. The theme of this chapter is the Monist view that one

independently existing element is the principle or source of all the

163
II.5.332a NOTES

others. Some previous philosophers had taken fire or one of the

other traditional elements as principle in the sense of substratum
(332a4 ff.). Anaximander had postulated an intermediate 'element'

as fulfilling this role (332a21 ff.). Others had interpreted 'principle'

in this context, not in the sense of a substratum persisting through
the change from, e.g., fire to air, but as a point of origin in the
sequence of such changes: thus, on this view, fire might change to

air, air to water, water to earth, but earth could not change into fire

(332b5 ff.). Aristotle's purpose is to refute Monism in each of these

forms.
The argument of 332a4-17, designed to show the impossibility of

one of the simple bodies being the universal substratum, is not easy
to follow. This part is clear: if, e.g., when air becomes fire it remains

air, simply taking on a new quality as it does when it becomes

impregnated with the smell of onions, what we have is not generation

but alteration. There will thus be no such thing as generation, all

seeming generation being in fact alteration of air. And the real occur-
rence of generation has been proved in Aristotle's view in 1.3-4.
Aristotle further tries to prove that the hypothesis that air is the

universal substratum leads to self-contradiction, because air in

becoming fire would become hot, whilst in virtue of remaining air

would remain cold. This seems very weak, because on the alteration
hypothesis coldness, or whatever quality air has before it becomes

fire, could not be regarded as a defining property of air.

332a17. For the 'some other identical thing and some other matter
common to them both', see Appendix.

332a21. The phrase 'or air and fire' is parenthetical, as is shown by

the next phrase which describes the postulated intermediary body as
coarser than air and fire. The parenthesis corresponds to Aristotle's

apparent uncertainty whether to describe Anaximander's 'infinite'

and 'surrounding thing' as midway between air and water (cf.
Physics, III.4.203a18, 5.205*21) or as midway between air and fire

(cf. II.l .328b35). The argument of 332a20-7 repeats, rather less

sketchily, that already given at II.1.329al(M3.

332a26. For the views indicated here cf. note on II.4.331a7. The
'proof mentioned in 332a31 was given in 33la 12-20, and 'said

above' (which Joachim unnecessarily brackets) refers to 33 la20-b36.

For 'counterpart' (332a32) see note on 331a24.

332a34. The argument of this paragraph elaborates on what has

been said in II.2-3, particularly 330a30-bl, which is probably the

164
 NO FIRST ELEMENT IL5.332a

passage referred to by 'earlier'in 332^5. For Aristotle's appropriation

of the idea of an 'intermediate' (332a35) for his own doctrine of

prime matter, see Appendix.

332b5. Although Aristotle's own view is that change between the

elements is cyclical, and so from this point of view there is no room

for any distinction between 'extremes' and 'means' (332b7), his
doctrine of natural places provides a basis for the distinction: the

natural place of earth is closest to the centre of the universe, that of

fire furthest from it, while those of air and water lie between the
two (cf. II.3.330b30-331al). The argument against one of the
a
'extremes' being the point of origin (332 7-9) seems to be that this
would come to the same thing as regarding it as substratum: but the

argument is so sketchy that it is uncertain how it should be inter-

preted. Joachim wonders why such an argument should be thought
telling against an 'extreme', but not against a 'mean', as principle.

Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that Aristotle may have some
particular theory in mind. (Heraclitus?).
There are rival interpretations of the theory which Aristotle
b
begins to attack at 33 2 10, the theory that one of the 'means' is the
principle of change. On one view, the theory holds that changes can
occur outwards from the 'means', but not inwards from the

'extremes'. The denial, in 332b12, that the 'extremes' change into

each other would then be taken as implying the impossibility, not
only of a direct change from fire to earth, but of an indirect change
via air and water (and vice versa for the change from earth to fire).
Since Aristotle constructs an elaborate argument (332b 14-27) to

prove that fire can in fact change into water, it seems necessary to

suppose that this is denied by the theory he is attacking. This first

interpretation, therefore, which is that of Joachim, seems compelling.

The second interpretation comes from Cherniss (p. 123) and is

accepted by Verdenius and Waszink (and, implicity, by Migliori).

This construes the theory under attack as a theory of 'oscillatory'
change: air changes to fire or water and these back into air, water
into earth or air and these back into water. Such a theory seems to

have been held by Anaximenes with respect to air, and Cherniss and

his followers suppose that it is Anaximenes whom Aristotle has in

mind here. This interpretation, however, must be rejected, not only

because it deprives 332b 14-27 of its object, but also on a priori

grounds: an oscillation perpetually repeated which has the pattern

. . . AFAWEWAFAWEWA . . . can be thought of as starting from and
returning to any one of the four elements. Why, then, should it be
characterized as a theory which takes one of the 'means' as a starting-
point?

165
IL5.332b NOTES

So the theory denies that fire and earth change into each other,

either directly or through the 'means'. It does not seem, however, as

Joachim imagines, that the theory allows as a possibility that the

'extremes' are immutable, that fire and earth do not change into
anything else at all. For Aristotle begins his objections to the theory
by saying, 'for the process must come to a halt and not go on to
infinity in a straight line in both directions'. Aristotle's own cyclical
theory of transformations does, in a sense, bring the process to a

halt: when we have had the sequence earth-water-air-fire, the

only way in which there can be further change is by fire changing

back into one of the earlier members of the sequence. The sequence

cannot go on to infinity by adding new members (in a straight line),

and in this sense it has to 'come to a halt'. That it does 'turn back'

(332b33) is what Aristotle sets out to prove in 332a 14-30. The

demonstration that it cannot go on to infinity in a straight line is

resumed at 332b30-333a15, Aristotle having made an opening

move in the demonstration at 332b14 (cf. 332b31-2).

332b14. There is nothing new in this argument. It suffers from the

defects of the argument in II.3 for the existence of transformations

from each of the elements to all the rest (see note at 331a14).

332b30. The argument against the possibility of an infinite series

of transformations in a straight line bristles with gratuitous assump-

tions which have been noted by commentators from Philoponus

onwards. Given that 'elements' are defined by contraries, if F is to
change into something other than A, ox E, z new contrariety,
K-Y, will have to be introduced to distinguish F from the new

element X. So far so good. But Aristotle now claims that if K

belongs to F it will have to belong to A, W, and E as well. His

reason for this is that F, A y W, and E all change into one another:
but, having stated this reason, he immediately sees that it begs the
question against the infinite-series theory which he is attacking
(333a3 - 'this ought not at this stage to be taken as proved'), and
accordingly retracts the claim. The difficulty is to see how the thesis
of mutual transformation, even if it could legitimately be used as a
premiss, could support the conclusion that K belongs to ^4, W, and E
as well as F.
At least, Aristotle goes on to say, this is clear, that if X changes
into something else another contrariety will have to be introduced to
distinguish X together with F (and presumably A, W, and E) from

the new (sixth) element (333a3-5). But it is not at all clear. X, we

are to suppose, is like F in every respect except for being Y instead of

K. So it is hot, dry and Y. Z, the sixth element, could be distinguished

166
 NO FIRST ELEMENT II.5.332b

from the other five by being cold, dry, and Y (E, after all, is cold,
dry and K). The new contrariety K~Y permits us to introduce, not
just a fifth element, but a sixth, and for that matter, a seventh and

an eighth. Two contrarieties gave us 22 elements; three will give us

23 (a point seen, without explicit reference to exponentiation, by

Philoponus).

Joachim seems to see this objection (though Philoponus states it

more clearly), and borrows from Philoponus the following defence

for Aristotle: only on the assumption that the transformations

proceed in a straight line is it true that each new transformation

implies a new contrariety. But Philoponus' and Joachim's defence

is as gratuitously asserted as the Aristotelian claim they are sup-

porting. What justification can be found for it? Let us try to find
some: suppose that the sixth element is cold, dry, and T, the-seventh
cold, wet, and Y, and the eighth hot, wet, and Y. Why should this be

the order? Why should we not place the cold, dry, Y element second

in the list, after the cold, dry, K element (earth); and the hot, dry, Y
element, which is now fifth, third in the new list? Other possibilities
flood in. The point is, that with three contrarieties generating eight
elements there is no unique system of ordering. There is nothing, on
this view, that can properly be called 'transformation in a straight
line'. The theory Aristotle is attacking, however, does seem to have a
unique ordering method of an infinite series of elements. Each trans-

formation involves the change from one quality to its contrary. All
elements in the series which have the contrary lost in the trans-
formation are prior to the element which comes into being. All those
which have the contrary gained in the transformation are subsequent

to the element which passes away. Coldness, which was lost in the

transformation from water to air, is not available to provide the

transformation from the fifth to the sixth element or to enable us to

define the sixth element as cold, dry and Y. (Note that since the
b
series starts with the means — 332 l(M2 — dryness does not appear
in the series before fire.) The sixth element and all those subsequent

to fire, will have to be hot, dry, and F: so a further contrariety will,

as Aristotle claims, be needed to provide a transformation from X,
which is hot, dry, and F, to a new element in the series. So long as

transformations take place 'in a straight line', it will indeed be true

that 'as a new member is added to the series a contrariety attaches to

the previous members, so that if the series goes on to infinity the

number of contrarieties which attach to a single member will also

be infinite' (333a5-7). Aristotle's claims, though not justified by

him, are capable of being justified,

333a7. This, Aristotle says, leads to absurdity. Nothing, on this

167
n.5.333a NOTES

view, could be defined. To define an element, for Aristotle, is to

produce a definite list of contraries possessed by the element. An

infinite number of contraries could not be contained in a definite

list. The infinite is indefinite. There is here some equivocation with

the notions of definition, limit, and boundary. (Cf. II.8.335a 18-21,
and note on II.1.329a5 ff.).

Nor, on this view, could anything come into existence. For this to
happen, on the view Aristotle is examining, there will have to be
transition from one contrary to another of as many (That many',

333a9) contrarieties as there are steps in the process. Thus, to reach

the sixth element from the fourth there will have to be transition

through two contrarieties. (The assumption that the transition

occurs step by step is expressed by the clause 'if it is to be from one

another', 333a9. It is an assumption made by the theorists Aristotle

is attacking, though not one which he would make himself.) And if

the series is infinite there will be some members of it which can

never be reached from a given member, since to achieve this an
infinite number of changes from contrary to contrary would have to
be achieved.

But why does Aristotle say that air could not turn into fire, these
being next-door neighbours in the series? And why does he say, not

only that as many contrarieties have to be passed through as there

are elements in the series between the starting- and finishing-points,

but that still more contrarieties have to be passed through? Philoponus

regards this as an allusion to the characteristic of an infinite number

that it contains as many units as any number you like to mention
and still more. But it is not clear that Aristotle has to be interpreted
in this way. He seems to draw a contrast between the infinity of the
elements (333al 1-12) and the infinity of the contrarieties (333a12-
13). The former makes transition impossible between some members
of the series; it is the latter which produces the impossibility of
change from any member of the series to any other, even consec-
utive ones like air and fire. The thought seems to be that if each

element has an infinite number of contrary qualities a change from,

say, the fourth to the sixth element would involve passing through

not only the two defining contrarieties, but 'still more', namely, the
infinite number which serve to characterize each member of the

series. Thus, even in the transition from air to fire, it will be neces-
sary, not only to pass through the wet-dry contrariety, but infinitely
many more, since something that is wet and hot and K, and so on ad

infinitum, is ceasing to exist and something that is dry and hot and
K, and so on ad infinitum, is coming into existence. But that whose

definition cannot be 'gone through' in words (we have to resort in

defining it to the phrase 'and so on ad infinitum') cannot come into

168
 NO FIRST ELEMENT 11.5.333*

existence in fact. Such seems to be Aristotle's reasoning.

333*13. The reasoning here is even more difficult to follow, and

commentators have offered a bewildering variety of interpretations,

of which the following seems to be the most convincing. Aristotle

is assuming that, since an infinite list of contrary qualities cannot be

added to, it must contain all the contrary qualities there are. All

those lower than F must therefore possess the same qualities as all

those higher, and vice versa, and there can be no valid distinctions
between one element and another. Aristotle's mistake, on this
interpretation, would be that he fails to acknowledge the possibility

of distinct infinite sets — a mistake less gross than that which

Joachim attributes to him, namely, of confusing contrarieties with
contraries.

Chapter 6 <Refutation of Empedocles>

333*16. Aristotle now argues against Empedocles, who maintains

that there are four elements properly so called, in that they are not
further analysable and are unable to change into one another. The
first argument is ad hominem. Empedocles says, speaking of earth,

water, air, and fire, 'For all these things are equal' (Diels-Kranz,
3IB, fr. 17, line 27). But things which are comparable in respect of
quantity have an underlying substratum in common, and this allows

them to change into each other. To call them 'equal' is therefore to

contradict the thesis that they are immutable. But why should we
concede that if the quantity of A is comparable with that of B they

must have a common substratum? Nineteenth-century chemists

could compare the volume of a given quantity of hydrogen with that

of a given quantity of oxygen without supposing that one could turn

into the other. It is tempting, therefore, to follow Philoponus and

fill out Aristotle's argument in this way: Empedocles could not have

meant that there, were equal quantities of earth, water, air, and fire
in the Universe, since this is either patently false or not known to
be true. He must have meant (what Aristotle himself took to be the
case — Meteorologica, 1.3.340*11-13) that the proportion of the
volume of, e.g., air to that of water in the Universe was the same as

the ratio between the volume of a given quantity of air and that of

the water into which it could be converted. It is the underlying

matter which is equal in all cases, since it is this by which;the

different elements are measured (333*21). This doctrine does con-

tradict the immutability of elements, and if Aristotle is right in
attributing the doctrine to Empedocles he has indeed znad hominem
argument. It is difficult to be sure that he does so attribute it (and

169
n.6.333a NOTES

still more difficult to regard him as justified in doing so), but

Phiioponus' interpretation does at least give Aristotle an argument,

which seems sadly lacking on any other view. And in 333a23-7

Aristotle identifies comparing things in terms of quantity qua

quantity with comparing them in terms of quantity in a way which

involves one quantity being derivable from another. He seems to

have in mind, not questions like, Ts the amount of air here the same
as the amount of water there?', but questions like, 'Have we got here
the amount of air that could be got out of the water we have got

there?'
Comparing things in terms of quantity qua quantity is contrasted

with comparing them in terms of quantity qua possessing such-and-

such powers. And quantitative comparisons in general are contrasted

with comparisons by way of analogy. It looks as though Aristotle

met with objections to thzad hominem argument against Empedocles

which we have just attributed to him. One objection said: Empedocles

was not talking about extensive but about intensive magnitudes, as

in the claim that one pint of water has the same cooling power as ten
pints of air. Traces of a similar defence of Empedocles can be found
at Meteorologica, I.3.340a13-17. (The word translated 'power'
could not be given the usual translation 'capacity' here without fear

of misunderstanding.) To this Aristotle replies: if A has, to whatever

degree, the same power as i?, it belongs to the same genus and can

turn into B, The other objection said: Empedocles was not talking
about quantitative comparison at all, but had in mind analogies of
the kind Aristotle speaks of in the Nicomachean Ethics, I.6.1096b

28-9 (vision : body : : intelligence : soul). Aristotle's reply is that in

that case Empedocles ought not to have used the word 'equal' but
rather the word 'like'. Neither the objections nor the replies carry
much conviction.
I have given a more or less literal translation of the obelized
a
sentence at 333 33-4. An absolutely literal one would be: 'For the

same more by being homogeneous will have such a proportion/

definition/account {logos)* I cannot understand it, nor can I under-
stand the interpretations offered by other translators and com-

mentators.

333a35. Empedocles' system cannot account for growth as

Aristotle understands it (see 1.5). Aristotle's doctrine requires that

the nourishment which feeds growth should change into the sub-
stance of that which grows, but on Empedocles' view no such change

occurs. Aristotle supports this crticism by quoting a saying of

Empedocles in which he speaks of the elements causing their own

growth. (Diels-Kranz, 3 IB fr. 37). For Aristotle this is mere addition,

170
 REFUTATION OF EMPEDOCLES II.6.333a

not a process which meets his definition of growth.

333b3. Empedocles' account of generation is also inadequate.

Generation which occurs in accordance with nature (= coming to be

naturally) is here mentioned by way of contrast with accidental

coming to be or the production of artefacts. For Aristotle's expla-

nation of 'spontaneously' and 'by chance' see Physicsp II.4-6.195b

31-197b37. Empedocles saw (333b9-'llJ cf. Metaphysics, A.10.
993a17-18) that the coming to be of a particular sort of substance,

bone, for instance, was the coming together of the elements in a

certain proportion. But he had no explanation of this phenomenon,

beyond talking about 'mixing'. Mixing, however, can be a random
business, as when rubbish is hurled together in a refuse tip.
Empedocles is chided for his failure to emphasize the significance of
Aristotle's 'formal cause' or, as 333b 19-20 indicates, the 'final cause'.
But these are very general criticisms of Empedocles, similar to
those developed elsewhere (e.g. Metaphysics, A.4.984b32-985a10,
985a21-b4). One wonders what special relevance they have to the
theme of this chapter, namely, Empedocles' thesis that the elements

are immutable. We might have expected Aristotle's objection to

Empedocles' theory of 'mixing' in this context to have been, not

that it gave no explanation of the fixed proportions in which the

elements have to be mixed, but that the mixing envisaged by
Empedocles, in which the elements retain their own nature, is not

what Aristotle would call 'mixing' at all, but merely 'juxtaposition'

(see 1.10). This point, however, is not made.
Some remarks in the section will be unintelligible without

comment of a historical nature. The words quoted from Empedocles

in 333b 14-16 are to be found in Diels-Kranz, 3IB, fr. 8. When

Aristotle says 'chance "is the name given to these processes"' he is

changing a phrase of Empedocles to make his point sarcastically.

Empedocles had written 'physis is the name given to these processes',

meaning, most probably, by physis what Aristotle calls genesis, i.e.

coming to be (see 1.1.314b6-8). Aristotle interprets physis here in
his own way, as the essence or nature of a thing, but changes it to
tyche, chance, since the mixing and putting-asunder that Empedocles
speaks of might, on Aristotle's view, occur by mere chance with no

regard to that proportion (logos) which is the hallmark of nature

(physis), properly so called. More sarcasm is involved when Aristotle

says (333bi 8) that Empedocles 'says nothing "About Nature"'. 'About
Nature' (Peri Physeos) was the title of one of Empedocles' works.
The passage I have placed in parentheses at 333b 20-2 is an internal

criticism of Empedocles' doctrine which is spelt out elsewhere

(De Caelo, IIL2.301a15-20, Metaphysics, A.4.985a23-8), It has

171
II.6.333b NOTES

little relevance to the theme of this chapter. By 'God' is meant the

'Sphere', the final result of the mixing of all the elements under the
influence of Love, to which Empedocles accorded this title. (For an

account of Empedocles' 'Cosmic Cycle', cf. Guthrie, pp. 167-85.)

333^22. Empedocles' views on movement are now attacked.

Again, it is difficult to see the relevance of this to Aristotle's concern

in the previous chapters with the ability of every element to change

into every other element.When he complains, in 333b25, of the lack
of definitions or assumptions or proofs, he is judging Empedocles'

scientific method by his own standard as set out in the Posterior

Analytics. Proofs, according to these standards, can be more or less

rigorous. (Aristotle admits that the most desirable type of proof, in

which the facts stated in the premisses are the cause of, i.e. explain,

the fact stated in the conclusion, cannot be obtained in every sort of

subject-matter.) The following arguments, 333b26-334a5, take for

granted Aristotle's doctrine of natural movements. It is natural for

fire and air to move upwards, i.e. towards the periphery of the
Universe, and there to rest, and for water and earth to move down-

wards, i.e. towards the centre, and there to rest. Empedocles'

doctrine, by which Love brings all the elements together, attributes

to Love a power of moving things against their nature, while the

natural movements would be ascribable to the power of Strife. (The

'it' in 'it moves earth downwards' (333b31) has to be taken as

'movement in accordance with nature', understood from 333b29-
30. The word translated 'downwards' in this sentence is replaced in

some manuscripts by a word meaning 'upwards'. If this reading is

adopted, 'it' will refer to Love, a slightly easier interpretation; but to
adopt this reading necessitates — with Bonitz (pp. 111 ff.) — changing
in some way the following clause, 'and resembles segregation'. The

general sense of the passage is unaffected however we decide to read

this particular sentence.)
The next objection against Empedocles is that according to him,

in theory, bodies deprived of the influence of Love or Strife would

have no inherent tendency to move (or, Aristotle adds somewhat

gratuitously, to remain at rest), although in practice he ascribes

movements of the elements to factors other than Love and Strife,

including natural tendencies. (The quotations at 334a3 and 5 are
Diels-Kranz, 3IB, frr. 53 and 54.) None of these arguments has the

least weight independently of Aristotle's own theory of natural

movement and rest.

The final argument concerned with motion (334a5-9) depends

rather on Aristotle's doctrine of the prime mover. Scholars differ

about the precise interpretation of the remark that 'the Universe is

172
 REFUTATION OF EMPEDOCLES n.6.333b

in the same state now under < the rule of > Strife as it was earlier

under <the rule of> Love'; but the argument seems to be that there
are certain features of the Universe that obtain under the rule of
each of these forces and so cannot have either of them as their
necessary condition. They require some more ultimate explanation,
of the kind Aristotle thought his own first mover could provide. It is
'that other', i.e. the ultimate explanation of the Universe, which is
alone entitled to be called 'principle' (arche),

334a9. A fuller refutation of the Empedoclean theory of the soul is

given in De Anima, 1.4-5. The phrase 'these things' in 334a14 refers

back to the 'alterations proper to the soul' of 334al 1, and the affec-
tions which they, like all alterations, involve.

Chapter 7 <Formation of Homoeomers>

334a15. The phrase 'another study' refers to the sections of the

De Anima mentioned in the last note. The phrase 'as for the elements

out of which bodies are composed' is a clumsy way of indicating

that Aristotle is now passing to a discussion of the way in which the

elements come together to produce composite bodies, the homoe-

omers. Mutual transformation of elements entails, and is entailed by,

possession of a common matter. This is a consequence of the notion

of change: if A is to change into B there must be something which

persists through the change, which changes from A to B (see

Appendix).
Turning to those like Empedocles and the Atomists who do not

believe in the mutability of the elementary bodies, Aristotle sets out

their position in three articles: (i) they deny generation of simple

elements from each other, (ii) they deny generation of simple

elements from compound, (iii) they deny generation of compounds
from simples. The second of these denials is obscurely expressed:

'nor in such a way as to come from each, except in the way that
bricks come from a wall'. Aristotle's model for the Empedoclean
theory is a wall composed of bricks, stones, etc. On his own view,

fire, air, water, and earth come together and form compounds, and
again the compounds can split up and give rise to fire, air, water, and
earth. But Aristotelian compounds are not the result simply of

juxtaposing bits of fire, air, etc. as bricks, stones, etc. are juxtaposed
to make a wall. Nor are the elements generated from Aristotelian

compounds in the way in which bricks fall out from a decaying wall.
This, however, is the only sense in which an Empedoclean can accept
that an element can come to be from a compound. It is not this that
Aristotle means by 'coming to be from each', i.e. coming to be from

173
II.7.334a NOTES

a body which is made up of each element. 'Each' is an odd word to

have used to describe this phenomenon; but the reference to the
wall-brick mode! (the rejected Empedoclean model) shows that it is

indeed the process of the generation of simple from compound, to

which the emergence of the brick from the wall corresponds in the

model, that Aristotle has in mind.

The difficulty, mentioned in 334a21, for those who do admit
mutual transformation of elements is not spelt out until 334^2-7.

334a26. The sort of 'composition' which alone is available to

Empedocles and his friends as an account of the way in which the

elements contribute to the formation of the homoeomers has

already been described by Aristotle in 1.10,327b31 -328a 17. Although
here, at 334a28, he uses the word 'mixture' to describe the mosaic-
type compound he is describing, at 328a6-7 he had insisted on a

sharp distinction between the processes of'mixing' and 'composition'.

Where in Book I he had used the model of a heap of assorted grains

of wheat and barley to explain the idea of composition, here, as we
have already noticed, he uses that of a wall made up of bricks and

stones. The only new point that he makes here in support of the

view that mixing in his sense actually occurs is that presented in

334a31-b2: if the result of putting elements together was always a
composition, it would not be possible to extract any and every

component from any and every portion of the compound. If our

wall is composed of bricks and stones one cubic foot in size there are
innumerable parts of the wall whose volume is, say, one cubic inch
from which we can extract only stone or only brick. Aristotle takes

it as evident that flesh and the other homoeomers are not like this,
and regards this as a reductio ad absurdum of the Empedoclean
position. But Philoponus points out that the Empedocleans have an
easy come-back (p. 267, lines 25-34): it may seem to us that from
any parcel of flesh or bone we can extract both air and water; but

that is only because our powers of discrimination are too weak to

discern the minute particles of air, water, etc. which compose flesh.

Any particle of flesh which is large enough for us to discriminate

will indeed have vast numbers of particles of each of the elements
which compose it, so that it will seem to us that there is no portion

from which a given element cannot be got. This is a consequence of

the view that 'mixing is something relative to perception' (327b32-3),
a way of describing the Empedoclean theory of compounds which
Aristotle used in 1.10, but seems to have lost sight of in the present

chapter.
The analogy with wax which Aristotle draws at 334a32-4 is

not altogether happy. It is supposed to illustrate his own view of

174
 FORMATION OF HOMOEOMERS II.7.334a

how the elements can be got out of a compound. With the wax, any
shape you like can be got out of any particle you choose to take, but

not more than one at a time. With flesh, on Aristotle's view, it

should be possible to extract all the elements simultaneously from

any particle you choose to dissolve into its components. (*334a34-5.

Verdenius' arguments against Joachim's reading and exegesis do not

seem convincing.)

334b2. Aristotle now returns to the difficulty which he mentioned,

but did not state, at 334a21. Contraries have so far been thought of

as though they were contradictories. The only change possible for

the hot-wet is to the hot-dry, the cold-wet, or the cold-dry. If

something ceases to be hot it becomes cold, and so on. The only

alternative to gaining a contrary quality, for something which loses

one of its qualities, is for it to revert to bare matter (334b6-7).
For this, see also Appendix. Aristotle does not need to spell out the

absurdity, on his understanding of 'matter', which would be involved

in accepting this alternative.

334b8. In 1.10 Aristotle did not explicitly take note of the fact

that heat and cold, dry and wet, admit of degrees. This omission is

now repaired. A change from what is hot need not be to what is cold,
but can be to what is less hot. If air, which is hot, is mixed with water,
which is cold, the mixture will be colder than air but hotter than

water. In 1.10 Aristotle had provided a different explanation of the

possibility of mixture: the result of mixing air and water will be
something which is neither hot nor cold in actuality, but both in

potentiality. Here he tries to combine the two explanations. The 'hot-

cold' or 'cold-hot', that which is somewhere on the scale of tem-

perature between the 'completely' hot and the 'completely' cold

(334b10), is 'in potentiality more hot than cold or vice versa' or,
presumably, 'in potentiality' as much the one as the other (334b14-

15).
Here is a new task for the 'actuality-potentiality' distinction.
Aristotle's conceptual apparatus for making qualitative distinctions,
the apparatus of 'contrarieties', is fundamentally non-relational: hot
and cold are absolutes whose primary role is to provide differentiae for
the elements. He now sees the need to admit scalar notions of hotter

and colder, but tries to accommodate them without abandoning his

absolute conceptions of heat and coldness. He looks to the actuality-

potentiality distinction, as so often, to enable him to have it both

ways. That which is hotter than water though colder than air has
heat and coldness only in potentiality. Tepidity is a state of equilib-

rium between two equal and opposite tendencies (potentialities) to

absolute (actual) heat and absolute (actual) cold.

175
II.7.334b NOTES

This is a new use of the concept of potentiality. That it has to be

distinguished from the sense of potentiality made use of by the

doctrine of mutual transformation of elements is clear from the

present passage: 'when one exists simpliciter in actuality, the other

exists in potentiality' (334b9-10). What is potentially hot in this

scheme is actually cold, i.e. simpliciter not hot at all. Prime matter

is potentially hot in this sense, but it is not actually anything at ail.

Clearly this sense of 'potentiality' is not what is needed to elucidate

the concept of temperate heat, of something that is warm, but not as

hot as fire. Aristotle is used to making distinctions between different

senses of 'potentiality' (cf. De Anima, II.5.414a22 ff.), but none of the

familiar senses corresponds precisely to the sense in which he is using

the word here. This can be seen more clearly if we look at his remarks
about proportion in 334b14-16. Here he envisages something which
is two, or three, times as hot, in potentiality, as it is cold. Similarly,
of course, we might say that someone's knowledge of German,

which Aristotle would recognize as a potentiality in one of his senses,

was three times as great as his knowledge of Russian. The difference

lies in the fact that, in the case of heat and cold, information about
the ratio of the potentiality of the one to that of the other establishes
the exact degree of heat present: 'x times as hot as cold' is Aristotle's
equivalent of '« degrees Fahrenheit' or'm degrees Celsuis'. But if I

am told that Susan knows three times as much German as she does
Russian, that is compatible with almost any degree of acquaintance
with these languages, short of perfect mastery or total ignorance.

The sort of potentiality which Aristotle posits here is neither that

possessed by prime matter nor that in which knowledge of a
language consists. It is, I fear, nothing but an attempt to have the

benefits of a scalar concept of temperature without abandoning

commitment to absolute notions of heat and cold as qualities.

334b 16. There is much controversy over the exegesis of this passage.
The first point to be settled is the reference of the word in 334b18
translated 'these latter' (ekeinon — whether one translates it as 'these

latter' or as 'those former' — is jointly dependent on the word order

of the English translation and the reference of the expression). It

must refer back either to the word translated 'the other things',
which all agree refers to compounds, and more particularly homoe-

omers, or to 'the contraries'. On the first view the phrase 'the

elements from these latter' states that the elements are derived from
the homoeomers: this is the phenomenon of the analysis of com-

pounds into simples discussed at 334a3 l-b2 and, if my interpretation

was correct (see note on 334a15 ff.), at 334a 19-20. On the second
view the phrase states that the elements are derived from the

176
 FORMATION OF HOMOEOMERS II.7.334b

contraries, a quite different sort of derivation. The second view is

that of all modern commentators and translators, the first is that of

their predecessors. The first view seems more in keeping with the

theme of the chapter as a whole; but it involves taking the phrase

which I have translated 'which in potentiality, in some way, are

< the elements >' as involving the copula sense, rather than the exis-
tential sense, of the verb 'be'. Construing the phrase in this way

requires that we supply a complement for the copula, 'the elements',

from the context. One is emboldened to do this by the fact that

Phil op onus found it possible to interpret the phrase in this way.
The second construal takes fewer liberties with the Greek, but
involves ascribing to Aristotle a mysterious view of doubtful relevance
to the context — unless, that is, one is prepared to follow Joachim,
who construes the phrase this way, but supposes, implausibly, that
by 'the elements' Aristotle means 'Earth, Air, Fire and Water in so
far as they are co-operating to form a homoeomer' (p. 243).
The important philosophical point Aristotle is making is this: In
the mixture fire, water (heat, cold), etc. exist in potentiality. But

this sort of potentiality is different from the potentiality which

belongs to prime matter. Flesh is 'potentially' hot in a sense which

allows it some real heat: matter is 'potentially' hot in a sense which

denies it any heat at all. Given these two senses of 'potentiality',

Aristotle has a solution for the difficulty he set out at 334b2-7.

When a mixture comes into existence fire, water, etc, change; but
not into each other. What emerges is not simpliciter hot, cold, wet,
or dry in actuality, as is the result of the change which is transform-
ation from one element into another. What emerges is only hot,

cold, wet, and dry in potentiality. But this is to be understood, not

in the sense of 'potentiality' which is appropriate to prime matter,

but in the sense expounded in 334b7-16. Aristotle's method of

distinguishing 'senses' is less overtly metalinguistic than ours. He

talks about X being Y in potentiality 'in some way', where we

should say 'in some sense of "potentiality"'. This allows him to slide

easily from the quasi-formal to the material mode of speech. The

homoeomers are hot, dry etc. 'in potentiality, in some way ... in
the way we have explained'. So, when a mixture comes into existence,

what comes to be is hot, dry, etc. in potentiality in this way, not

hot, dry, etc. in potentiality in that way, i.e. the way in which prime

matter is hot, dry etc. in potentiality. All this is summarized by

Aristotle, with a conciseness that makes altogether unreasonable

demands on our abilities as exegetes, in the sentence 'In this way

what comes to be is a mixture, in that way it is matter' (334b 19-20).

334b20. The 'definition' is the account of action and passion given

177
n.7.334b NOTES

in 1.7. The requirement that there be some equality (334b23) if the

elements are to combine to form a mixture has already been stated
in 1.10 (328a23-31). Where there is no such equality, we have the

'first' type of case of contrary being affected by contrary, the

generation of one element from another. (The word 'first' in 334a24

is not to be taken in a temporal sense.) The second type of case is
the one we are now concerned with, the coming into existence of a
mixture. The important new point Aristotle makes in this paragraph

is that the equality required is not absolute equality (it is 'not an

indivisible point', 334b28; cf. 'more or less equal' (isazei pos), 1.10.

328a29), but a middle range, a state of equilibrium which allows for

some internal variation. He has already suggested that a mixture

could be 'twice as hot in potentiality as cold, or three times' (334b

15-16); and the different ratios involved will determine whether the
mixture in question is to be flesh, or bone, or whatever. Somewhat

surprisingly, it appears that where the heat is three times as great as

the cold, the state of affairs can still be described as one where the

combining elements are 'more or less equal'. The 'middle range' is

thus indeed Targe' (334b28), and the sort of inequality that makes

mixture impossible has to be massive inequality of the kind exempli-

fied by 'a drop of wine' and 'ten thousand pitchersful of water'

(I.10.328a27).

Chapter 8 <Each Element Present in Every Homoeomer>

334b31. By 'the middle body' Aristotle means the Earth. The

place of the Earth is in the centre of the Universe. (Instead of

'around the place of the middle body' it would have been clearer if
he had written 'in the place around the middle body', cf. II.9.335a

25.) The natural place of mixed bodies, he suggests, is on the Earth.

What, one might ask, of those mixed bodies, fish and aquatic plants,
whose natural place is in water?
The argument for the necessity of water as an ingredient in all

mixed bodies seems to use 'water' and 'the wet' interchangeably.

In II.2.329b30-2, it is 'the wet' which is said to be 'easily bounded':

here (334b35-335al) it is water. A few words later, however, it is

'the wet' which is said to hold earth together and to be that without
which it would fall apart (335al-3). Wetness is always regarded by

Aristotle as characterizing air as well as water, and in II.3, at 33 la3-6,

where he assigns one contrary to each element as its principal dis-
tinguishing characteristic, it is air rather than water to which wetness

is assigned. Why then is the present argument not an argument equally,

if not more so, for the presence of air in every mixed body? The
answer to this question is, perhaps, to be sought outside the theoretical

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 EACH ELEMENT PRESENT IN EVERY HOMOEOMER II.8.334b

statements of this treatise. Aristotle's assignment of wetness to air

rather than to water is counter-intuitive, and is also, according to

Joachim (pp. 218 ff.), contrary to Aristotle's doctrine in the

Meteorologica (he cites IV.4.382a3-4 as an example of this). The

present argument, therefore, can be seen as relying on common sense

and views expressed by him elsewhere, and betrays a forgetfulness

of what he has said earlier in this Book.

We can see how the arguments for the presence of earth and

water in all mixtures make sense against the background of

Aristotle's doctrine. It is less easy to find an adequate justification of

his further argument for the universal presence of air and fire. The
first premiss of this argument, the proposition that air is the contrary
of earth and water of fire, has already been stated at II.3.331al-3
(the qualification 'in the way in which it is possible for one substance
to be the contrary of another' (335a6) is added here, presumably, to
show Aristotle's awareness of the conflict between that statement
and his denial that substances have contraries in the Categories, 5.
3b24-7). The second premiss, that 'comings to be' {geneseis) are

from contraries, is less easy to interpret. Aristotle cannot be com-

mitted to the doctrine that only pairs of contrary substances can be
involved in generation {genesis). This would mean that air can only
come to be from earth and vice versa, and the same for fire and
water, and that the only way for a mixture to come into existence
is either from air and earth or from fire and water, but not both.

Aristotle in fact denies all these propositions. Indeed, he is committed

in the course of this very argument to the proposition that earth and

water can, and indeed must, enter into the composition of a mixture;
but to say that a mixture is generated (comes into existence) from
earth and water is to say that there are comings to be (generations)
of mixtures otherwise than from contrary substances. And yet, only

on an interpretation of this premiss which makes it deny this, is it

strong enough to yield the required conclusion, namely, that any
mixture which involves earth and water must also involve air and fire.

But an interpretation as strong as that is contrary to what is integral

to Aristotle's teaching elsewhere.

335a9. Again, the major premiss of Aristotle's argument here,

'Everything is nourished by the same things as it is made of (335a

10-11), seems to be at loggerheads with his doctrine elsewhere. In

1.5, at 322al-3, he says that nourishment is contrary to what is

nourished, although in the process of digestion it becomes assim-
ilated to it (cf. De Anima, II.416a21-b9). On this view the fact that

plants take in water mixed with earth would be evidence for their
being composed of fire and air. Aristotle's discussion of plants here

179
II.8.335a NOTES

is not to be regarded as an argument in support of his minor premiss,

that everything is nourished by a number of things (335al 1), but as

an answer to the objection that plants appear to be capable of being

nourished by water alone.

335al4. For the way in which fire is capable of growth, cf. I.

5.322a10-16, and my note on the passage, and De Anima, II.4.

416a9-18. The words I have translated ^nourishment ranks as
matter' (335a14-15) and Tire . . . ranks as form' (335a19) would be

literally translated The nourishment is of the matter' and The fire is

of the form'. For the connection between the concepts of definition

and boundary, see note on II.5.333a7 ff.; the connection between the
concepts of definition and form is too obvious to need documen-

tation.
Cherniss (pp. 343 ff.) draws attention to a conflict between
this passage and Meteorologica, II.354^33-355al5, where Aristotle

denies that fire is nourished. He also cites De Partibus Animalium,

1.1,640^29 ff., where Aristotle attacks Democritus for identifying the

form of a thing with its external figure (or boundaries), and De
Anima, loc. cit., where fire is regarded as the material and soul as the

formal factor in growth, the factor connected with limit and

definition {logos).

335a22. This sentence should have been the beginning of the

next chapter (which would not then have begun with 'But').
Philoponus notes that 'every body' is carelessly written for 'every
mixed body'.

Chapter 9 < Causes of Generation and Corruption >

335a24. Having established the existence and the nature of

generation and corruption, Aristotle redeems the promise he made at

the beginning of the work (1.1.314a2-3) by 'picking out', i.e. listing
and making the appropriate distinctions between, their causes. Here
instead of the word translated 'causes' Aristotle uses the word

translated 'principles'. For the relation between these terms, and for

some remarks on Aristotle's doctrine of causality, see note on

1.3.317^33 ff. For The middle body' (335a25) see note on II.8.

334b31 ff.

335a28. Note that the contrast between number and kind here is

not the familiar one between numerical and specific identity; indeed
the word translated 'kind' is the word for genus, rather than species.
The principles of sublunary bodies are said to be equal in number

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 CAUSES OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION II.9.335a

and identical in kind to those of celestial bodies (which is what

Aristotle is referring to in the phrase 'the eternal and primary

beings'). In each case there are four principles or perhaps three (see
note on 335b6-7); and the kinds of principle or cause are the same in
each case. The words 'any more than in the case of the primary beings'
(355a32) are misleading: they suggest that the material principle and

formal principle (the 'one by way of form') are inadequate to make the
primary beings 'come to be'. Since, however, the primary beings are
eternal, they do not need anything to bring r/zem into existence. What
they need 'the third principle' for is to cause them to change in the

only way they can, namely, by way of locomotion. Aristotle would

have made himself more clear if he had written 'for the other two are

not adequate for making things come to be any more than, in the case
of the primary beings, they are adequate for locomotion'.

335a32. Aristotle holds that there are as many different kinds of

matter as there are kinds of change. The only change to which

celestial bodies are liable is change of place, i.e. the change from
being here to being somewhere else. Their matter accordingly is

called by Aristotle 'local matter' {hyle topice) at Metaphysics,

b
H.1.1042 6. With sublunary, perishable, bodies, however, the most
important change which matter serves to explain is change from being
simpliciter to not being simpliciter, and vice versa, i.e. generation and

corruption. The distinction between being simpliciter and being

something flows over, as we have seen (Introduction, and note on

I.3.318a25 ff.), to coming to be and ceasing to be, and is transmitted

further to the capacities for coming to be and ceasing to be. Thus', at

Metaphysics, ©.8.1050b16, Aristotle says 'none of the things that are

imperishable simpliciter is potentially simpliciter (although there is

nothing to stop it being potentially something, e.g. like so-and-so or

somewhere)'. Celestial bodies are imperishable simpliciter (they

cannot cease to be), although they are 'perishable secundum quid9,

they can cease to be here and come to be somewhere else.

Here, however, he is concerned with sublunary bodies, which

cease to be simpliciter and come to be simpliciter. Aristotle has a
single word to describe things which come to be simpliciter: genetos,
which the Latin authors rendered generabilis, so that we can, if we

choose, use 'generable' to do this job. Aristotle thought, and thought

he could prove, that everything which comes to be ceases to be, and
vice versa. He also thought, and thought he could prove, that no
eternal things were even capable of coming to be or ceasing to be.

(This element in Aristotle's thought is a principal topic of Jaakko

Hintikka's Time and Necessity, see 1.9, note on 327a6 ff. for the
'principle of plenitude'. I have criticized the 'proofs' of these theses,

181
II.9.335a NOTES

which are given in De Caelo, 1.12, in 'Aristotle and Corruptibility'.)

The passage 335a33-b2 summarizes these results. There are three
and only three possibilities: things that always and therefore neces-

sarily are, things that never are and therefore necessarily are not, and
things that can both be and not be and therefore sometimes are and

sometimes are not.

The word genetos (generable) suffers from the ambiguity of

adjectives ending in -tos, which I have already had occasion to

mention (see note on I.2.316ai4 ff.; and De Caelo, 1.11, where

Aristotle lists three possible senses of genetos). It can be translated

as I have translated it here, 'which comes (or has come) to be', or as

'which is capable of coming to be'. Similarly phthartos can be

translated 'which ceases (or has ceased) to be', or as 'which is capable

of ceasing to be', i.e. 'perishable', or 'corruptible'. If the adjectives
are predicated of a particular object, the ambiguity is immediately
removed. A particular object must already have come to be: it is
nonsense to say that it is capable of coming to be. Aristotle, however,

is talking of classes of things: rabbits are the sort of things that can
come to be and can cease to be (and frequently do both). The

ambiguity is something of which, in translating and interpreting

Aristotle, we need to be aware.
Here, it seems, we can only make sense of Aristotle if we take

genetos in the non-modal sense. His thesis is that the principle or

cause 'by way of matter' of geneta is that which is capable of being

and not being, i.e. prime matter. To say that that which is capable of

being and not being is the explanation of that which can come to be
is surely too circular. The thesis only begins to look like a substantive
thesis if we interpret Aristotle as saying that the material cause of
things which have a beginning of existence is what can both be and
not be. Indeed in 335b3-4 he paraphrases 'that which comes to be
(geneton) and perishes (phthartonY by 'this is at one time and at
another is not', which lacks any modal expression.
Joachim takes the word {hoper, in 335"2) which I have translated
'which is what' to refer back to 'that which is capable of being and
not being' in 335a33. This again seems to imply an impossibly

circular thesis: Aristotle can hardly be identifying the 'generable'

with what he claims is its material cause. The sentence which begins
'which is what . . .'is simply saying that the 'generable and corrupt-

ible' belongs to the third of the three classes of things which Aristotle

has distinguished in the passage from 335a33 to 335^2. 'That which

is capable of being and not being' is not the same as the generable

and corruptible (that which has a beginning and end of existence)

but its matter. We can say of the rabbit that it is now, though it once

was not, and again will not be; but of its matter we cannot say that

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 CAUSES OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION II.9.335a

it is or is not anything at all, only that it can be and not be, both

simpliciter and many things as well. This notion of something

which is not actually anything but is potentially everything is not, of

course, a coherent one. But it is Aristotle's. I shall examine it more

extensively in the Appendix.

Aristotle here identifies the final cause, the cause by way of That
for the sake of which', with the formal cause (335b6-7, cf. II.6.

333b19). The form of each thing, e.g. an animal, which is expressed

in the definition of what it is to be an animal of that species, is also
the goal at which its processes of development are aimed. This is a
doctrine frequently expounded by Aristotle. (Cf. Metaphysics, H.
b a
4.1044 l, and Physics, II.198 24 ff., where the identification
includes the efficient cause as well.) Here, however, it seems as
though Aristotle has taken the identification of formal, and final
causes so seriously that the final cause is no longer regarded as a
fourth cause, and the doctrine of four causes seems to be replaced
by a doctrine of three (cf. the word 'third' which occurs at335a3CM

and is repeated at 335^8; and for hesitation about the correct

number of causes, cf. Metaphysics, A.4.1070b32),

335b7. The view which Aristotle refers to in this paragraph is that

which Plato makes Socrates express in the passage of the Phaedo

often called 'Socrates' Autobiography' {Phaedo, 95 E-101 C).

Socrates' main reason for saying that no one else had said anything
to the point is that they were unable to solve certain puzzles, of a

kind reminiscent of Frege's Grundlagen (cf. § 23), which he raises in

this passage. Some of these explicitly involve coming to be and

perishing (cf. Phaedo, 95 A 9, 96 E 8 ff.: how can two opposite pro-

cesses, division and addition, both be responsible for two things'

coming to be? Socrates' answer is that it is not by dividing a thing

or by adding another to it that two things come to be, but solely by

participation in twoness. He then generalizes this to produce the
theory Aristotle attributes to him). The word 'hypothesis' (335b12)
and the phrase 'if this is true' (335bi5) allude to Socrates' 'method

of hypothesis' {Phaedo, 100 A ff.).

The sense in which it is 'the matter itself (335b16) which is said

to be responsible for generation and corruption will emerge when

Aristotle comes to his criticisms of these 'other' philosophers (335b

24 ff.). Against 'Socrates in the Phaedo' his argument is this: if

forms, such as health and knowledge, and the things which partake
in them, e.g. people, are all that is necessary for the healthy and

learned to come to be, why is there so much sickness and ignorance

around? In fact we see that people need curing and teaching. A third

sort of cause is necessary, exemplified by doctors and professors.

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n.9335b NOTES

The sort of 'capacity' which Aristotle has in mind in 335b23-4 is

professional or technical skill. The presence of the 'third cause' may
not be obvious when the crocuses come up, but the performances of

the bone-setter mending the fracture and the French master teaching
the irregular verbs are patent to observation.

335b24. The comparison between Plato and the Presocratic philo-

sophers — no need to enter into the controversy over which ones

Aristotle has in mind — recalls his remarks at 1.2.316a5-10. Again

the comparison is unfavourable to Plato. The word translated 'more

scientific' (physikdteron) is paralleled by the phrase translated 'more

at home in physical investigations' (tois physikois) at 316a6: the

popular sense of 'scientific', meaning 'pertaining to natural science',

is what is intended. (See note on 316a5.) The complaint against Plato
is that he explains generation in terms of something that has nothing

to do with movement, the defining characteristic of the physical

world, which natural science investigates. The philosophers Aristotle

is now considering are not liable to that charge, but they fail to see

that the capacity of matter is to be moved and acted upon, whilst

what we are looking for is something which has the capacity to move

and to act.

But Aristotle's elaboration of this charge is rather puzzling. 'They

leave aside', we are told, 'what is more strictly the cause' (335b

34-5) — and this we should have expected to be the 'third cause',

the cause 'by way of beginning of movement'. What is actually said,

however, is: 'for they take away the essence and the form' (335b35),
which looks much more like the 'second cause', the cause 'by way of

form'. (The phrase translated 'essence' does not occur elsewhere in

this work, although it is frequently found in other works of Aristotle.
Literally this phrase, to ti en einai, has the meaning 'the what it was
to be'. 'Essence' is the traditional translation. For an account of how
it came to have this meaning, see Ross, Aristotle's Metaphysics,
vol.1, p. 127, and A. C. Lloyd, Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 16

(1966), pp 258-67.) This was the cause which Plato has just been
chided for relying on for explanations of generation and corruption.
How can it be that the fault of philosophers whom Aristotle has just

praised for being 'more scientific' than Plato is to have taken away
the Platonic cause par excellence, the form or essence?

The answer to this question is not to be given by scholastic obser-

vations about Aristotle's tendency to identify the formal with the

final and the efficient cause, although the earlier commentators

favour this line. Rather, we need to get a clear view of the theory
Aristotle is attacking. This is the theory that the phenomena of

generation and corruption are all to be explained in terms of the

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 CAUSES OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION 11,9.335b

defining qualities of the elements: heat, cold, etc. In Aristotle's eyes

the elements may not be prime matter; but from the point of view

of the homoeomers and natural bodies which are compounded out

of them, they are matter in relation to the form which is constituted

by the proportions in which they are mixed and the arrangement of
the parts of the complex bodies. According to his theory, therefore,

it is only as instruments at the service of these formal constituents

that the heat and coldness of the elements produce certain effects.
His opponents are ascribing to what ranks as matter an explanatory
power which properly belongs to the way in which these material

elements are organized.

336al. On Aristotle's view, then, the powers his opponents attri-

bute to the bodies — he must mean the simple bodies, the so-called
elements — are in reality merely instrumental: the soul, which is
form, makes use of the heat of fire in the reproductive processes, but
the presence of fire in the living body is wholly inadequate as an
explanation of these processes. Why, then, does Aristotle say that

the powers his opponents attribute to the elements are 'too instru-
mental' (336a2)? The best answer, which is not all that good, seems
to be that, since these thinkers 'eliminate the formal cause' (336a

2-3), and thus have no way of appreciating the instrumental character

of these powers, they give them an explanatory role which on their

view they can no longer fulfil. Aristotle does not deny that fire
burns, but he objects (336a6-7) that 'fire itself is moved and acted

upon'. The suggestion is that the true explanation is to be sought in

that which moves and acts upon fire, and is not itself moved or acted

upon. The only satisfactory explanation is to be sought in an un-

moved mover, such as Aristotle thought soul to be, which is at once

form and a cause qua origin of movement.

The cryptic remark which I have translated 'nor that it is worse

than the tools' (336a12) is even more difficult to interpret than

what precedes it. Philoponus' suggestion is that fire, whose active

character is more marked than that of the other elements, is never-

theless a poor candidate for the role of cause of generation. For

although the carpenter's tools are no use for producing furniture if

the carpenter is eliminated, at least they do not, if left to themselves,

destroy furniture. Fire's record is thus even worse than theirs.

336a13. This sentence is best taken with 11.10 (cf. II.8.335a22).

The reference to previous treatment of the causes in general is

probably to Physics, II.3 and 7.

185
IU0.336a NOTES

Chapter 10 <Efficient Cause of Generation

and Corruption >

336a14. Aristotle regards himself as having proved in Physics, VIII.

6-9 that that sort of movement which is locomotion, i.e. change of

place, is eternal. This perpetual locomotion, which is the charac-

teristic movement of the celestial bodies, produces generation (and

that entails corruption) by bringing the generating body, the

sun, in turn nearer to and further from a given part of the sublunary
world. 'What was said earlier'(336a 18-19) was said in fact in Physics,

VIII.7. Being 'the first of the changes' (336a 19) is taken as equivalent
to being the cause of the other sorts of change. The argument

Aristotle gives here in favour of this thesis is fallacious: it involves

treating 'generation is the cause of locomotion' as meaning the same

as 'that which is coming to be is the cause of that which is changing

its place'. 'That which is coming to be' is further thought of as 'that

which now is not, but later will be'. But someone who held that

generation was the cause of locomotion would not have to admit

that something which did not yet exist was keeping, say, a wheel
turning. What would keep a wheel turning might be the continuous

coming into existence of quantities of, say, air - a pity Aristotle

did not encounter the internal combustion engine!

The eternal movement which Aristotle is going to designate as the

cause of generation and corruption is that of the sun in the ecliptic

(336a32). It is interesting to note that in De Caelo, II.3 he demon-

strates the need for heavenly bodies which move with a movement

other than that of the outermost sphere by the following argument:

if there is to be perpetual motion like that of the first heaven it
must be circular motion around a fixed point. Something like the
Earth must exist to provide the fixed point. If earth exists, fire

exists, and there must be generation of the one from the other. If
generation-corruption exists there must be a heavenly body which

produces it by moving, not with a simple movement like that of the

sphere of the fixed stars, but with a complex movement. The sun,
moon, and planets move with complex movements of this sort.
Although, therefore, the movement of the sun is, in one sense, the

reason for the process of generation and corruption, in another

sense, the process of generation and corruption is the reason for the

existence of a sun which moves in this way. In this sense it is the

change which is generation which is prior to the change which is

locomotion.

336a23. The continuity of generation and corruption is assumed in

1.3.3i7b33-318a23, where the question is, how is it to be explained.

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 EFFICIENT CAUSE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION II.10.336a

The explanation is given in 318a23-7, and Aristotle regards a

proposition of the form 'p, because as giving a proof of the fact

that p. The explanation given in 1.3 is said there (318a9) to be an

explanation in terms of the material cause, and an explanation in

terms of the proximate efficient cause is promised (318a6-8). The

promise is now being fulfilled. It has already been established that

some form of locomotion is to provide the explanation. Aristotle

now points out that the phenomenon to be explained is a double

phenomenon: generation plus corruption. Since these are contraries,

the locomotion which is to explain them must also be, in some

sense, a double phenomenon: it cannot be in all respects one (336a

26). If it were, the effect of an eternal locomotory movement of this

kind would be either perpetual coming to be or perpetual corruption.

(If the 'always' in 336a29 is taken seriously the absurdity of the

second disjunct of this reductio ad absurdum is acute: how could it
be that things have always, from all eternity, been perishing with-

out anything ever coming into existence?) The movements respon-

sible for generation and corruption must therefore be, in some sense,
plural and contrary. Aristotle distinguishes two senses in which there

can be two contrary movements: they can be distinguished either by

direction or by irregularity. The word translated 'direction' is the word
{phora) normally translated Tocomotion', but it would hardly make
sense so to translate it here. InDe Caelo,lA Aristotle argues that there
is no movement contrary to a circular movement, since the only way
one movement can be contrary to another is if one is an upward

movement and the other a downward movement, or the like. His

word for 'movement' here is again phora, since this is the specific

word for change which is locomotory rather than qualitative, etc. It

seems, then, that, qua locomotion, locomotory movements can only

be contraries if they have contrary directions. They can, however, be

distinguished, not, qua locomotions, as having different and opposed

termini, but by internal irregularities. In different passages {De

b
Caelo, II.6, Physics, V.4.228 21-6) Aristotle mentions various
respects in which a movement can be irregular. Pace Joachim (p. 257),

variation of speed is not the only factor which can induce irregu-

larity. Motion in a crooked line or in a spiral is regarded as irregular

motion. The defining characteristic of irregular motion is having

parts that are not intersubstitutable.

336a31. The required plurality in the locomotion which explains

generation and corruption is not found by Aristotle in the move-

ment of the outermost sphere which carries the fixed stars. The

motion of this sphere, the primum mobile, is called 'the primary

locomotion' (336a31). He finds it rather in the annual movement of

187
IU0.336a NOTES

the sun in the ecliptic, the 'inclined circle' (336a32) which is the
equator of a sphere whose poles are at an inclined angle from the

poles of the outermost sphere (which coincide with those of the

Earth itself). The movement of the sun in this orbit is able to explain

two phenomena, the continuity of the process of generation-cum-

corruption, and the contrariety of generation to corruption within

the process. The continuity is explained by the regularity and
eternity of this circular movement of the sun, the contrariety by the

fact that the inclined angle of its orbit carries it, now towards, now

away from, any given part of the Earth's surface.

It is this latter feature of the sun's apparent, and in Aristotle's

eyes real, annual movement which constitutes the irregularity of the

movement in question. But why, one might ask, is not the diurnal

movement of the sun, which is caused by and coincident with the

'primary locomotion' of the outermost heavens, not also regarded as

irregular is this way? The annual movement of the sun in the ecliptic
does not take it nearer or further away from the Earth as a whole,
i.e. from its centre, any more than its diurnal movement. Contrariwise,
its diurnal movement does vary its distance from a particular part of

the Earth's surface from hour to hour as its annual movement does
from month to month. Why, therefore, is not the diurnal movement
also regarded as irregular in this respect? Is it simply that the
conspicuously annual, rather than diurnal, pattern of growth and
decay in living things causes Aristotle to ignore the 'irregularity' of
the diurnal movement? Or is there a deeper sense in which Aristotle

felt that the movement in the ecliptic was irregular, in comparison

with that of the sphere of the fixed stars? The movement of the
latter is such that the equator of the outermost celestial sphere is

perfectly alligned with that of the terrestrial. Any point on the

outermost celestial equator is at every moment directly 'above' some
point of the terrestrial equator. Not so with the sphere which carries
the sun. Any point on the equator of that sphere, as it were, sways,

passing from a position north of the terrestrial equator to a position

south of it. In Meteorologica, I.9.347al, Aristotle describes the sun

as in this way 'changing from side to side' (eis ta plagia metaballei).

One is almost reminded of the contrast between the sober man who

walks firmly down the centre of a line and the drunk who sways
precariously from side to side. It may be in some such way as this

that the movement of the sun's sphere is felt to be 'irregular'.

Commentators differ in the interpretation of the phrase 'the loco-
motion of the whole' (336b3). Already Philoponus (p. 291, 18-19)

notes that he differs here from Alexander. Alexander's party take it

to refer to the motion of the outermost sphere, already mentioned

as 'the primary locomotion' at 336a31. This interpretation seems in

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 EFFICIENT CAUSE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION II.10.336a

accordance with Aristotle's remarks in Metaphysics, A.6.1072a9-17.

Tf the same state always obtains in a cyclical manner, something {A)

must always remain acting in the same way. But if there is going to
be generation and corruption, there must be something else {B)

always acting, but in different ways. That is to say, it necessarily acts

in one way on its own account and in another way on account of
something else 04).' The 'something', to which I have attached the
label \A)\ is clearly intended by Aristotle to refer to the outermost

sphere, that of the fixed stars. This is responsible for 'the same state

always obtaining in a cyclical manner', the state in question being

the continuous process of generation-corruption. The remark at
1072a9-10, therefore, makes the same claim as is made, on the view

held by Alexander's party, by the sentence 'the locomotion of the

whole is the cause of the continuity'. But the rest of the Metaphysics
passage is difficult. In 1072a13-15 Aristotle argues that the 'some-
a a
thing else' in 13 refers to the same thing as the 'something' in 10 —
which is why I have attached the label '(^4)' to both. The 'something
a
else' in l 1, on the other hand, to which I have attached the label
'{BY, refers to the sun, which is described as 'always acting, but in

different ways'. The 'different ways' are what he elsewhere calls

'different movements'. It is perfectly in accordance with Aristotle's

astronomy to regard the sun as acting, i.e. moving, with two different

movements: one an annual movement in the orbit of the ecliptic, the

other a diurnal movement in an orbit parallel to the terrestrial (and

celestial) equator. (In fact, in Metaphysics, A.8, Aristotle dis-
tinguishes nine different movements which can be ascribed to the

sun; but in A.6, and again here at 336a31-2, he is simplifying in an

intelligible way for the purposes of the argument.) The annual

movement is the movement proper to the sphere which carries the

sun. The diurnal movement is the movement of a sphere to which
the poles of the sun's sphere are attached, so that the sun's own

movement is compounded of these two. The 'something else' to

which I have attached the label '{BY, clearly refers to the sun,

thought of as moving with these two movements. This is what he

means by describing it in 1072a 11-12 as 'always acting, but in
different ways'. However, the alleged fact that the sun moves with
these two movements can hardly be used, as Aristotle seems in the
Metaphysics passage to want to use it, to explain why there are two

contrary processes, generation and corruption, needing explanation.

There is no sense in supposing that one of these movements, say
the diurnal one, is able to explain the processes of generation, whilst
we can use the other, the annual movement, to explain the processes

of corruption. The explanation of this duality which is offered here,

in De Generatione et Corruptione, 336^3-9, is quite different,

189
IU0.336a NOTES

namely, that part of the single movement, the sun's annual movement

in the ecliptic, is responsible for generation, and another part for

corruption. However, in 336a33'"2 these two parts of the single
annual movement are called Two movements' — a way of speaking
which elsewhere, e.g. in De Caelo, II.12.291b28 ff., is used by

Aristotle to describe the movement of the various spheres which

combine to produce the compound movement of the sun, as well as

those of the moon and the planets. Aristotle's remarks in 336a33-b2,

if taken out of their context — ignoring, that is, 336a17-i8 and 336b
3-9 — could be taken as attributing the generation-corruption

duality to the Two movements' into which the sun's movement can
be analysed, namely, that which is produced by a sphere which
moves on the same axis as the sphere of the fixed stars and that
which is produced by a sphere whose axis is perpendicular to the

ecliptic. If his remarks could be interpreted in this way, they would

be presenting the same doctrine as that of Metaphysics, A.6.1072a

9-17. And that would support the view that in 336b2-3 the re-
sponsibility for the continuity of the generation-corruption process

is given to the movement of the outermost sphere, as it is in the

Metaphysics passage.

Given the context, however, this interpretation of 336a33-b2 is

impossible. (It is, nevertheless, the one chosen by M. Mugler.) It
is better, therefore, to ignore the doctrine of Metaphysics, A.6,

which seems confused anyway, and to follow the party of Philoponus

in supposing that the phrase The locomotion of the whole' (336b3)

refers to the movement of the whole sphere in which the sun is

embedded, the sphere which moves on an axis perpendicular to the
ecliptic. That this movement should be responsible for the continuity
makes good sense. The 'whole' sphere does not approach and retreat
from any part of the Earth at different times: that is true only of
that part of it in which the sun is embedded. Moreover, the doctrine
has elegance. The movement 'in the inclined circle' (336a32) is able
by itself both to explain the alternation of generation and corruption
and to explain the continuity of this alternating process: it is, in a

sense, one movement, but it is 'irregular' (336b5-6). And this, as

Philoponus points out (p. 261, 19-20), is what Aristotle had said at
336a33-4: 'For in this latter there is both continuity and being

moved with two movements'. In making Aristotle at 336b3 refer to the

movement of the heavens as a whole, Alexander and his party make
him go back on what he had just said at 336a33-4. The 'whole'
which is referred to at 336b3 is not, therefore, the whole Universe,

but the whole of that sphere, moving 'in the inclined circle', of
which a part is the sun.

Spring and summer are the seasons of generation, autumn and

190
 EFFICIENT CAUSE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION II.10.336b

winter the seasons of corruption. ('Generation' and 'corruption' have

to be understood here in the sense of 'generation simplicitef and

'corruption simpliciter7 as defined in 1.3.318a31 ff.) This seems

almost a truism, perhaps because we think in agricultural terms, in

terms of seed-time and harvest (cf. 336bI5-18). But, of course, not

all plants are annuals, and the insect world is not for most of us the

paradigm of zoological phenomena. So Aristotle extends his idea of

the approach of the sun as a cause of generation by adding that

repeated approaches of the sun can also cause generation — and the

same for retreat and corruption (336b8-9). But, if ten springs and

summers bring an animal or a tree to maturity, and then ten

autumns and winters bring about its decay, why do not the autumn

and winters of the first part of its life have a corrupting effect and
why do not the last ten springs and summers regenerate it? Answers
have been given to this question drawing on other doctrines of
Aristotle, but they are not convincing. Nor has a succesful method
been found of defending his view that 'the corruption and the

generation that occur in nature take place in equal time'. (It is odd
that the necessary qualification 'that occur in nature' is juxtaposed

to 'generation' not to 'corruption': it is possible by unnatural

means to hasten corruption, but it is not possible — or was not in

Aristotle's time — similarly to hasten generation.) By 'generation'
and 'corruption' in this passage Aristotle clearly means the process
which begins with what alone, in his strict use of the term, he would

be prepared to call 'generation', namely, coming into existence, and

continues with what is more properly called 'growth' — the whole

process of development from the conception or germination of a

thing to its attainment of maturity. The term 'corruption' is similarly
extended to include decay, hence the word 'diminution {phthisis)7

occurs in 336b18 where we would have expected 'corruption

{ph thorny.

336b10. The fact that each sort, i.e. species (not, of course, indi-

vidual), has a more or less determinate life-span is held to be a

consequence of the fact that the heavenly bodies are responsible for

generation and corruption: the punctuality of things heavenly is

notorious. There is a further point that time and life are both defined,
determined, by periods. 'Period' is a transliteration of the Greek
word here, and Aristotle is trading on its ambiguity. Its original

meaning is 'revolution', and this is its meaning in 336b13: we

measure time by revolutions of the heavenly bodies, and nature uses

the same measure to fix the life-span of each species. But already
when it is understood with 'the same' in 336b 13, and again in 336b 15,
'period' must mean 'natural term'; and 'measure' must similarly

191
IU0.336b NOTES

mean the result you get from measuring the length of life of each

species, rather than the unit of measurement used in measuring. Cf.

Physics, IV. 14.223b 18-224a2.

336b15. These findings are borne out by common experience.

Common experience, however, also produces many instances of

irregularities in individuals: living things are often cut off before their

prime. This, Aristotle says, is due to 'the mingling of things with one

another' (3 36b 20-1). What things? Commentators have various

answers, none of which carries conviction. Philoponus records an

alternative reading, which would require 'mingling' to be changed to

'collision'. Evidently the sense of the passage was uncertain even in

antiquity. The last sentence of the paragraph seems to be saying

that irregularities in the corruption of some things are due to irregu-
larities in the generation of others, in accordance with the principle,

laid down in 1.3.318a23-5, that the corruption of one thing is the

generation of another. It is not easy to see why irregularities of

corruption should be explained in terms of irregularities of generation,

rather than vice versa. (* Joachim's insertion of 'ro' in 336b24 does

not improve matters.)

336b25. Aristotle has in fact mentioned two causes of the conti-

nuity of generation and corruption, the material cause at 1.3.318a

1-27 and the efficient cause at 336a32-b3. Which has he in mind at

336b26? The more recently mentioned one, namely, the motion of

the sun in its annual orbit, seems more likely, although taking the
remark in this sense makes the reference to this cause at 336b34-
337al seem unduly repetitious. He is now to state the final cause of
this continuity. The remark that being is better than not being

reminds us of a reason sometimes given for the claim that existence

is a perfection: namely, that existence, or being, is something it is
better to have than to be without. The objections to this claim,
classically expressed by Kant's statement that being is not a real
predicate {Critique of Pure Reason, B 626), are objections also to
Aristotle's claim here that all things prefer being to not being. There

is a sense, of course, in which few people want to die; but this can-
not be understood as asserting that there is something which people

want to go on doing, namely, exist, and that there is something

which people want to avoid at all costs having to endure, namely,

non-existence. How this assertion is to be understood is a difficult

matter (cf. my What is Existence?, chapter V), but it is not to be
confused with the remarks made here.

These remarks, implying as they do that everything, whether

conscious or not, has a preference for being, run into difficulties,

192
 EFFICIENT CAUSE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION IU0.336b

not only on the score of what is said to be preferred, but on the

score of their teleological assumptions. At 336b27-8 Aristotle

expresses these by saying that nature in all cases desires what is
better. The principle of finality, which states that of whatever exists,

or takes place, it can always be asked 'What is it for?', is more

moderate in its claims. The knife can be for cutting without our
having to attribute to it a desire to cut.

It is above all in the Metaphysics that Aristotle says how many

senses there are in which we use 'be' (336b29). Indeed, the Metaphysics
as a whole can be regarded as an examination of the ways in which

things are said to be. It is not only the Greek equivalent of 'be' (einai)
which is examined, but the corresponding verbal noun ousia, which
is traditionally translated 'substance' or 'essence', but which has to
be translated 'being' in 336b33-4. Just as there are many ways in
which things are, so there are many senses in which they can be
called 'beings' (ousiai). These ways of being and senses of ousia are
interconnected. Just as to be a substance (ousia) is the principal way
of being, all other ways of being deriving from this, so the principal

way of being a substance (ousia) is to be fully actual, pure form,

without any change, potentiality, or 'becoming'. So Plato had

reserved the title ousia for his Forms, Only the first mover is, or is
ousia, in this full sense. It is the first mover which is called 'the
b
principle' in 33 6 30-1. His being, containing no capacity for not-

being, is eternal. It is being in this sense which is referred to by 'this'

in 336b30: things too far removed from the first mover cannot have
the eternal existence which is his being. Just as qualities cannot be in

such a full sense as substances, so corruptible things have to make

do with a diluted being in comparison v/ith that possessed by eternal

ones. The ersatz being offered them is continuous generation and

corruption.
Aristotle's doctrine in this paragraph is also stated in De Anima,

II.4.415a25-b7, and is anticipated in Plato's Symposium, 207 D ff.

336b34. The circular locomotion in question is that of the sun in

its annual orbit. Why does Aristotle say that circular locomotion
'alone is continuous', when he has been calling the process of

generation-corruption 'continuous' throughout the chapter? No

doubt the answer is to be given in terms of an analogical use of

'continuous'. Aristotle has given arguments in Physics, VIII.7.

261a31 ff., for the thesis that no changes other than circular loco-
motion are continuous. In particular he has argued against there
being continuity in the change from contrary to contrary which is
involved in generation ('affections' and 'capacities' in 337a2-3 refer
to wet-dry and hot-cold, respectively, cf. II.2.329b 24-32). The

193
II.10.337b NOTES

continuity which has been ascribed to generation-corruption in this

chapter must therefore be an imitation continuity, just as the being

possessed by generable and corruptible things is an ersatz being. The

elements all change into each other, and none of them is eternal, nor

can changes continue for ever in a straight line, so sooner or later a

series of changes which begins with any one will return to its starting-
point. (This was the thesis argued for in II.5.332b 12-333a 15.)
Circles like the one Aristotle uses as an illustration here, water-air-
fire-water, are therefore bound to occur. We need not suppose that

he has any particular natural phenomenon in mind; but because

transformations of the elements, such as are involved in the rising of

mist or the falling of rain, involve upward or downard motions,

Aristotle finishes with the paradox that in such cases even loco-
motion in a straight line can be seen as resembling the circular

motion of the heavenly bodies. A post-Copernican version of this

supplied the theme song of the film. La Ronde:

Tournez, tournez, mes personnages;

La terre toume jour et nuit,
Comme les eaux qui font les nuages,
Et les nuages retombent en pluie.

Aristotle himself, in Meteorologica, I,9.346b35-347a8, again takes

up the theme of the analogy between the celestial and the terrestrial

cycles:

And this circular movement takes place in imitation of the

circular movement of the sun; for while the latter changes

a
from side to side (see note on 336 31), the former moves up
and down. This must be thought of as a stream flowing in a
circle, upwards and downwards, in which air and water both
share; for when the sun is near the stream of mist flows

upwards, and when it is distant the stream of water flows

downwards.

This circular motion of Meteorologica, 1.9 involves a minimal cycle

of transformations: water-air-water. The cycle of 337a4-5, which

adds fire to the list, has some correspondence to Aristotle's account

of the structure of the atmosphere in Meteorologica, 1.2-4, but the

account there has many complications.

337a7. The only phrase whose meaning is obscure in this passage is

that in 337a13 translated 'the double locomotion'. The commen-

tators unanimously make it refer to the motion of the sun in the

ecliptic, about which we have heard so much in this chapter. Only
two pages further on in the Bekker edition of Aristotle, however, we

194
 EFFICIENT CAUSE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION 11.10.337*

have the following passage: 'and four other bodies, due to the four

principles, of which we say the movement is double, one away from

the middle and one towards the middle' (Meteorologica, 1.2.339*IS-

IS). The four other bodies are the sublunary elements, the four
principles are hot, cold, dry, and wet, and the double movement is
the up-down movement which is contrasted with the circular move-

ment of the fifth element, the ether. Bekker's placing of the

Meteorologica immediately after De Generatione et Corruptione

reflects Aristotle's plan for these works. Can the phrase 'double
movement' have occurred in two places so close together with
different reference? The answer, probably, is 'yes'. And this is
principally because Aristotle in this sentence is saying tht the double
locomotion is the cause of the transformations of the elements and
the transformations are the cause of the changes of position of the
elements. (This is argued, against Joachim, by Solmsen, Aristotle's

System of the Physical Worlds p. 385, n. 22.) If the double loco-

motion were the change of position of the elements, Aristotle's

thesis would be of the form 'p, because^, and q, because p\ We must

suppose, rather, that 'the double locomotion' is the movement of

the sun which now approaches, now retreats from, particular parts
of the surface of the Earth. When it approaches its heating effect

converts cold earth and water into hot air and fire, and the elements
thus transformed immediately make for the places that are now the
ones assigned to them: when it retreats the contrary effects are

produced. Shorey, p. 352, pointed out that the word in 337*8

translated 'people' refers to Plato, and the allusion is to Timaeus, 58 A.

337*15. The first sentence of this paragraph indicates that the

main task of this section (chapters 9-10), and indeed of the whole

work (cf. 314*1-6), has been accomplished. There follows (337*

17-33) a footnote to the chapter and (chapter 11) an appendix to
the work as a whole. Aristotle begins the next sentence with 'Since',

but after interrupting it with 'as has been said in previous works'
(337*18), he forgets his original construction and continues 'that

there must always be something to move it', as though the main verb
was 'it has been said'. He is, in fact, engaged on a recapitulation of
much that has been argued for in the Physics, the 'introductory

work' of 337*25. (The Physics is the first of the long series of

works which constitute Aristotle's philosophy of nature.) Thus in

VIII.4 he argues that if there is movement there must be some-
thing which causes it, and in VIII.6 that eternal continuous motion

requires an eternal immovable, unalterable mover. In IV there are

arguments to prove that the continuity of time and movement
are mutually impiicative, that time entails movement, and that

195
 NOTES

IL10.337a
time is the number of movement (ch. 11). An argument to prove

that only circular movement can be continuous occurs in VIII.8. In

VIII.6 Aristotle touches on the question (which receives its full

treatment in Metaphysics, A.8) whether there is more than one un-

moved mover. At 259b3(M he speaks of 'certain principles of those

heavenly things which move with more than one locomotion^ The
heavenly things which move with more than one locomotion are the
sun, moon, and planets, and the spheres in which they are set. The
principles are the unmoved movers (unmoved per se, although
Aristotle is here saying that they are moved per accidens) who are

responsible for the movements proper to these spheres. The move-

ments of the spheres in question are the circular movements Aristotle
is talking about in 337a20-l. He seems therefore to be saying that if
there is more than one such movement there must be more than one

principle, i.e. unmoved mover. The word in 337a21 which I have

translated 'more than one' is an adjective standing by itself, and the
noun which we must understand as going with it has to be supplied
from the context. There are two possibilities. Either it is 'movement',
supplied from the previous line, or it is 'principle', supplied from the

following line. In favour of 'movement' it can be said that it is easier

to supply a noun that has already been used in the sentence than one

which is yet to come. In favour of 'principle' is (i) the parallelism it

provides with the previous clause (if the movement is continuous,
the mover must be one ... if the circular, i.e. continuous, movements

are more than one, the movers must be more than one), and (ii) the

use of the word 'principles' in the passage concerned with the

b
plurality of unmoved movers in Physics, VIII.6.259 30. Against
'movement' is the awkwardness of a sentence which reads, 'if the

circular movements are more than one, there is {men) more than one
circular movement but {de) all necessarily in some way under a
single principle' ('if p, then p and q'). Against 'principle' there is the

view of Jaeger that the plurality of unmoved movers is a doctrine of

Aristotle's only to be found in Metaphysics, A.8, Jaeger's view, how-

ever, already has to deal with passages outside the Metaphysics
which provide prima-facie counter-evidence to it. The present

passage must be allowed to provide a further piece of this. So, if my

interpretation of it is correct, must 1.3.318a8.
It is difficult to see what contribution 337a17-33 makes to the

argument of chapter 10. (For some general remarks about the place
of the doctrine of the first mover in this work, see 1.6, note on

323a33.)

196
 NECESSITY IN THE SPHERE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION 11.11.337a

Chapter 11 <Necessity in the Sphere

of Generation and Corruption>

337a34. Aristotle has argued that coining to be is an approxi-

mation to being (336^27-34) and that the continuity and eternity

of generation and corruption is an imitation of the continual circular

movements of the eternal heavenly bodies (336b34-337a7). The

connection between eternity and necessity, for him, is close. Is there,
he goes on to ask, any place for necessity in the world of generation

and corruption? (There is a useful discussion of this chapter in

Suzanne Mansion, Le jugement d'existence chez Aristote^V- 75-89.)

337b3. In chapter 9 of De Interpretatione Aristotle presents

arguments to prove the fatalist thesis that necessity reigns every-
where in the Universe, not only in the realm of what always is, and
what has been or is now, but also in the realm of what is not yet, but

will be. He supposes, however, that he has refuted these arguments

in the course of the chapter. Here he gives short shrift to fatalism.

He wonders whether all things, perhaps, are contingent. 'That some

are', he says, 'is obvious'. Nevertheless, he produces two separate

arguments for it.

The first rests on the difference between 'it will be' and 'it is

going to be'. There is such a difference, and Aristotle has occasion

to note it elsewhere. In the small work De Divinatione per Somnum

he says that we should not be surprised if some of the things which

we dream are going to happen don't happen. The same disappoint-

ments occur in medical and meteorological contexts: there are

perfectly good signs that the patient will get well or the rain come,
and they don't; we make thoroughly sensible plans to buy a house,

and it falls through. Not everything that was going to happen does

happen (463b22-9). And the point he is making here is valid: if it is

true now to say that it will be the case that p, it is bound to be true

some time that it is the case that p; but if it is true now to say that it
is going to be the case that p, it doesn't ever have to be true that it
actually comes about that p. The contrast is more obviously justified
when it is all placed in the past: if it was true to say ten years ago
that it would be the case in ten years' time that p, it has to be the
case that p; but if it was true to say ten years ago that it was going to
be the case in ten years' time that p, it could, nevertheless, perfectly

well turn out that not-p.

The trouble is that this genuine distinction between, 'is going to
be' and 'will be' does nothing to refute fatalism. It seems to be

relevant in the following way — (A) If it is true now to say that it will
be that p, it is bound to be the case that p. So there is nothing we

197
IU1.337b NOTES

can do to prevent its being the case that p, etc. (B) Don't worry.

It can perfectly well be going to be the case that p and not, in the
end, be the case that p. We are often able to prevent what is going to

happen happening — but it isn't really helpful because (A) is fal-

lacious and there is no need of (B) to extricate us from the predica-

ment in which (A) seems to land us. The fallacy of (A) is the old
one, which Aristotle was sensitive to, but never quite mastered, of

shifting the operator (cf. my 'What is, when it is, necessarily is', in
Analysis, vol. 40 (1980)). He confuses 'Necessarily, if it is true to say
that it will be the case that p, it will be the case that p' (LCTFpFp,
where Tp means 'it is true to say that p') with 'If it is true to say

that it will be the case that p, necessarily it will be the case that p'
(CTFpLFp). What (B) says is quite correct, but we did not need to
be reminded of it in order to stop ourselves being worried by (A).
Indeed, if (A) were sound, it is difficult to see how its fatalist

conclusion could be made acceptable by meditating on (B).

D. M. Balme, in his commentary on De Partibus Animalium,

supposes that Aristotle uses this contrast between what will be and
what is going to be to refute the claim that a thing's coming to be

can be necessitated by its matter (pp. 79, 82, and see note on 337b

14 ff.). But Aristotle's target in 337b3 ff. seems to be the far more

general claim that whatever comes to be comes to be by necessity.

The second argument, introduced by the word in 337^7 translated
'More generally', is a better one. If it is true that some of the things

that are the case are such that it is possible that they should not be
the case, the things that come to be the case do not all do so neces-

sarily. Look at the contrapositive: if nothing that comes to be the

case could fail to come to be the case nothing that is the case could

fail to be the case. The argument is unquestionably valid, provided

we exclude, as Aristotle certainly would (cf. note on II.9,33 5a
32 ff,), the possibility of something which is always the case being so
contingently. The truth of its premiss is a more contentious matter.

In this chapter, when Aristotle talks of 'things that are' and

'things that come to be', he is not thinking solely of objects' existing

or coming into existence. He is concerned not only with coming to

be simpliciter but also with coming to be something, as these were

distinguished in 1.3. This is made clear by the opening remarks which

speak of 'things which are moved (i.e. changed) continuously by way
of generation (coming to be simpliciter) or of alteration (coming to

be something), or of change in general' (337a34~5). It is possible in

Greek to use the verb translated 'come to be' without a complement

to signify 'change in general' in this way. The required generality in

English is obtained only by use of the phrase 'come to be the case',

or by use of propositional variables.

198
 NECESSITY IN THE SPHERE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION II.l 1.337b

337b9. If it is necessary that Fs at some time come to be, it is

necessary that Fs at some time are. That was what guaranteed the

validity of the second of the arguments for the contingency of some

generables. But we cannot argue conversely that if it is necessary

that Fs at some time are, it is necessary that Fs at some time come

to be; for the Fs whose existence is necessary may exist eternally,

and so never come to be. So despite the fact that he believes that

there are some things whose existence is necessary, it is an open

question for Aristotle whether amongst the things which are not

eternal, which come to be, there are some which are not contingent;

and this is the question he asks at 337b9-13. His example of an F

which comes to be is a solstice, not an object but something that

happens, namely, the sun turning back towards the equator. The

likely candidate for the role of something which necessarily comes

to be is thus something that instantiates the form 'It is necessary
that it should come to be the case that p\ This bears out the remarks

at the end of the last note. The sentence 'For example . . . not be
possible' (337b12-13) is odd. It would have been easier if Aristotle

had written 'it is necessary that there should come to be {genesthai)

solstices and impossible that they should not come to be {genesthai)\

A pleonasm of the form KLpNMNp is not unusual. But he seems

actually to have written endechesthai instead of genesthai as the

last word of the sentence, which produces the sentence as we have

translated it. Since CLpNMNMp is as sound a thesis of modal logic
as CLpNMNp, what he says is logically unexceptionable; but it seems
an odd thing to say. Perhaps endechesthai was a slip of Aristotle's

(?) pen.

337b 14. The train of thought is not easy to follow. Perhaps we can
fill in some gaps. In what circumstances do we say things of the form
'There will have to come to be an F'? Well, do we not say such
things as 'If there is to be a house, there will have to come to be
foundations'? But here we cannot discharge the antecedent, because
by the time we are in a position to say 'There is a house' we shall
also be in a position to say 'There are foundations', the foundations
will not still be waiting to come into existence. If, on the other
hand, we could say 'If there have come to be foundations, a house

must necessarily come to be', we might find ourselves in presence of

the said foundations and thus able, discharging the antecedent, to

say simpliciter (without a qualifying 'if'), 'A house must necessarily

come to be'. (This inference would rely on the valid schema

CLCpqCLpLq, since in Aristotle's view we would have, 'Necessarily

there have come to be foundations' {Lp), propositions about the past
or present being, if true, necessarily true.) But we are never in a

199
n.ll.337b NOTES

position to do this, because the conditionals that we are entitled to

assert are never of the form 'If the earlier, then necessarily the later',

but only ever of the form Tf the later, then necessarily the earlier'.
These sentences, in the Greek of 337b 19-22 as in our English, are

ambiguous: they could be understood as being of the form LCpq or

of the form CpLq. R. W. Sharpies, in a recent article (see bibli-
ography), has questioned whether Aristotle in this passage is really

concerned to deny that there are any truths of the form 'Necessarily,

if the earlier then the later' (LCpq), where 'Necessarily the later' is

not true independently. What he takes Aristotle to be denying

instead is not clear. Why should anyone take the trouble to deny

that there are truths of the form Tf the earlier, then necessarily the
later' where these are understood as exemplifying the form CpLql
No one would wish to assert this. Nor is there any asymmetry, in

this case, with truths of the form Tf the later, then necessarily the
earlier', where these too are understood as exemplifying the form
CpLq, since there is no suggestion that such truths are available

either. It may be, however, that what Sharpies is suggesting is that

what Aristotle is concerned to deny is the validity of propositions

of the form CLCpqCLpLq, in the special case where substitutions

for Cpq are of the form Tf the earlier then the later': he supposes
Aristotle to be saying that 'necessity can be imparted only by what

is later'. But this rejection of one of the fundamental theses of

modal logic seems less likely than scepticism about the existence of

truths of the form 'Necessarily, if the earlier then the later', a

scepticism which we find Aristotle expressing elsewhere in his works.
What leads Aristotle to this form of scepticism? His view amounts

to the belief that causal necessity attaches to the necessary con-

ditions, never to the sufficient conditions, for events. Whether or not
Aristotle consistently maintains this view is a matter for debate.
Expressions of the view in very much the same terms are to be found

in Posterior Analytics, 11.12.95*21-31, Physics, IL9.199b34-200b8,

De Partibus Animalium, I.1.639b21-640a9. On the other hand,

Metaphysics, E.3.1027a29-b 16 seems to envisage earlier states of

affairs necessitating later ones, and this passage is not without

support from other passages in the corpus. In the passages from

the Physics and De Partibus Animalium the contrast is not so much
between Tf the later, then necessarily the earlier' and Tf the earlier,

then necessarily the later' as between what is necessary simpliciter

and what is necessary on a given assumption (ex hypothesi),

although examples of the conditionally necessary are always of the

form Tf the later then necessarily the earlier'. The contrast is not
between two sorts of explanation available to the natural scientist,

one in terms of efficient causality, where the earlier necessitates the

200
 NECESSITY IN THE SPHERE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION II.l 1.337b

later, and one in terms of final causality, where the later necessitates

the earlier. It is rather between the natural scientist and the math-

ematician: the latter starts from what is and deduces what else must
be, whereas the former starts from what will be and infers what will
have to be if it will be. The mathematician deals in 'sinces', the

natural scientist in 'ifs'. Again, the view of natural science which

Aristotle rejects in Physics, II.9.199^35-200a5 is not one in which

preceding efficient causes are thought to necessitate succeeding

effects, but one in which enduring material causes are supposed to

account for a thing's coming to be.

In the passage cited from the Posterior Analytics, however,
Aristotle explicitly produces arguments against the view that we can
ever say things of the form Tf the earlier, then the later'. In their
commentaries on this passage Ross and Barnes construe the
arguments as turning essentially on questions of tense. To use
Barnes's example, we cannot say that ^Socrates died of hemlock'
necessarily follows from 'Socrates drank a cup of hemlock' because
there are times, in the interval between the drinking and the dying,

when the latter is true but the former false, Barnes rightly points out
that no such argument is available against inferring 'Socrates will
die of hemlock' from 'Socrates will drink a cup of hemlock'; but

mistakenly objects to the claim that it is not always true to say

'Because Socrates drank a cup of hemlock Socrates will die'. The
claim is correct, though not, as Aristotle says, because it would be
false in the interval, but because it is false, e.g., now. But such
tense-based arguments, if they are Aristotle's, can be circumvented

on their own terms. If it is true at all, it has always been and will

always be true to say this: because Socrates drank, is drinking, or

will drink, a cup of hemlock, it necessarily follows that Socrates

later died, is dying or will die.

However, Aristotle may have had better reasons for denying that
the earlier can ever necessitate the later, and Ross and Barnes may
be misinterpreting his argument in this chapter. The action of one

efficient cause can always be interfered with by that of another.

Socrates' prison could have caught fire before the hemlock had
taken effect, so that he would have been burnt to death and would

not have died of hemlock. Moreover, the efficacy of the material

cause is limited by the 'indeterminacy' (ahoristia) of matter. (This

description of matter occurs in a useful summary of these consider-

ations about efficient and material causes in De Generatione

Animalium, IV.10.778a4~9.) It may well be that when, in Posterior
Analytics, II.12.95a34 and b
l, Aristotle says 'For in between it will
be false to say this', he is not saying that in the intervening period it

will be false from the point of view of tense to say that Socrates has

201
11.11.337b NOTES

died of hemlock. His point, perhaps, is rather that there are circum-

stances when it would be false to say that he will die of hemlock,

because other causes may interfere — and his prison may get burnt

down. Until the effect has been produced we can never be sure that
the cause will in fact produce it. Something else may always get in
the way. This is the interpretation which Professor Mansion

(following Aquinas) puts on the passage (p. 42, n. 108). It has the
4
advantage that the argument that in between it will be false to say
this' applies just as well, interpreted in this way, to causes and

effects which are both future, or one past and one future, as to those

which are both past. On Barnes's interpretation, as he sees, the

argument applies only to the latter case — a limitation so obvious

that it is difficult to suppose that Aristotle could have overlooked it.

Scholars debate whether or not it is ever Aristotle's view that the
material cause necessitates its effect, and whether his distinction
between it and the final cause coincides with that which he makes

between what is necessary simpliciter and what is necessary ex hypo-

thesi (see Charlton, pp. 115 ff., Balme, pp. 76 ff., Barnes, pp. 221 ff.,
Mansion, pp. 78-84). Part of the difficulty seems to derive from the

Presocratic use of the Greek word for 'necessity' (ananke) as more

or less equivalent to 'chance', a use that finds parallels in non-
philosophical writing (cf. Guthrie, pp. 414 ff.). Plato and Aristotle,
contrasting what appear to them to be the mechanistic views of their
predecessors on causality with their own teleological conception,
talk of this reliance on material factors as ascribing all phenomena to
'blind' chance and necessity. There is therefore a tendency in
Aristotle to speak of the action of the material cause as that which

specially involves necessity: 'Flesh becomes soft, in one respect of

necessity and in another respect for an end' (De Generatione
Animalium, II.6.743b3-4). It becomes soft 'of necessity' because of

the cooling or heating powers of the elements of which it is a

mixture. But this talk of necessity, explicable in the light of
the history of the concept, should not count decisively against
Aristotle's frequent denial that the material factors by themselves

are capable of bringing about natural phenomena any more than

artefacts: neither the bricks and mortar nor the foundations neces-

sitate the production of a house (337b15 ff., cf. Physics, II.9,200a

6, 9, 26-7). It is possible that he regarded his formula of conditional

necessity, 'the necessary ex hypothesV, as a synthesis of the
competing claims of material necessity and teleology: 'The neces-

sary, then, is necessary on some hypothesis, and not as an end: the

necessary is in the matter, the "that for which" in the account'

(200a13-15). The contrast drawn in the last clause of this sentence

suggests that he attaches importance to the fact that, when we say

202
 NECESSITY IN THE SPHERE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION II.l 1.337b

'If there is to be a house, there will necessarily be foundations', the

word 'necessary' occurs in the consequent of the hypothetical,
which mentions the material factor, not in the antecedent, which
mentions the final and formal factor. His point is: it is, as the
Presocratics urged, the material factor which is necessary, but only
conditionally so, ex hypothesi, not absolutely, simpliciter, as they
thought. This, however, is to misconstrue the form of the hypo-
thetical. It has in fact to be interpreted as 'It is necessarily true that

(if there is to be a house, there will be foundations)', not as 'If there

is to be a house (it is a necessary truth that foundations will exist)' -
i.e. it is of the form LCpq, not of the'form CpLq.
If Aristotle regards his notion of 'conditional necessity' as the
synthetic solution of the antithesis between teleology and mechan-
istic necessity, he may be expected to treat it as the universally
applicable formula in the world of generables and corruptibles.
There would then be no room for non-teleological explanations

of the form Tf the earlier, then necessarily the later'. Nevertheless,

theory may be expected at times to give way and allow common

sense to break through. We should not be too surprised to find

instances where Aristotle speaks of material factors or antecedent

conditions necessitating their outcome, as in Metaphysics, E.3.

Consistency need not be exacted from Aristotle throughout his

works and over the whole period of their composition.
Given that there are no causal facts which entitle us to assert
propositions of the pattern Tf the earlier, then necessarily the later',

the only justification Aristotle can envisage for asserting such a

proposition would be if we were able to assert the necessity of the

consequent in its own right (337b 16-18). He evidently accepts the

schema Tf necessarily the later, then if the earlier, necessarily the

later', although it resembles what more recent philosophers have

called the paradoxes of entailment (CLqCpLq or CLqLCpq). One

wonders, however, what relevance this has for the question 'Are

there things which come to be of necessity?' For if the later is going

to come to be of necessity anyway, we already have an answer to

our question, and the proposition Tf the earlier, then necessarily the
later' seems to have no further interest for us. Aristotle observes,
however, that where the later is necessary in its own right, the fact
that we can here say Tf the earlier, then necessarily the later' as well

as Tf the later, then necessarily the earlier' allows us to conclude

'Necessarily, the earlier if and only if the later' — in his technical
terminology 'there is conversion' (337b24;see note on I.10.328a19),
i.e. the entailment is symmetrical. This is a point he wishes to save

up for future use.

203
11.11.337b NOTES

337^25. By Mownwards' Aristotle means Towards the future'. To

say that the series proceeds to infinity, is to say that A must come to
be if B is to do so, and 5 if C is to do so,. . . and so on ad infinitum.
B will be later than A, C than By etc. (Aristotle here does not make

use, as we have just done, of the device of variable letters, which he

employs to good effect elsewhere. Instead he tends to use the

demonstrative pronouns this and that as dummy names for things

which come into existence. In terms of his model, this usually stands

for the foundations, that for the house. To make them recognizable
in this use the pronouns have been italicized in the translation.) If

we were to say that it is necessary simpliciter for i?, or C, or . . . , to

come to be, and thus obtain a situation where we could discharge

the antecedents and affirm the unqualified necessity of A's coming

to be, we should in effect be saying that the series stops at this point.

A series which stops in this way could be said to be 'grounded', and

instead of translating the clause in 337b28 The infinite has no

principle', I might have written The infinite is ungrounded'. Arche,

which I have tried consistently to translate 'principle', has, as we

have seen, many different meanings (see note on 1.3.318al ff.). It

is that which, in any of a hundred different senses, comes first. Here,

and again in 338a8'10, it has a special use in the context of series of

the form 'A is necessary if B, B is necessary if C, etc.' If we come to

a term which is absolutely necessary, necessary simpliciter, the series

is 'grounded', it has an arche or 'principle'. Aristotle somewhat mis-

leadingly calls the member with which the series is thought of as
stopping in this way The first member', although in temporal terms
it will be the last. For a series to be infinite is for it to have no such
member.

337b29. We now go back to finite series like that of the house,

b
foundations, and clay of 337 15. The series, we should remember,

has the form '^4 is necessary if B, B is necessary if C, etc.' These

would only give us what we want if the last term in the series, the
house, could be said to be something which it was necessary
simpliciter should come to be (337b16-T7). But we cannot say this;

for when foundations are laid houses do not have always to come

into existence. And if they do not have always to come into existence,
we shall find ourselves committed to saying that something which

is possibly not always the case is always the case. For Aristotle holds
very strongly that what is necessarily the case is always the case and

vice versa (cf. 355a33-b2 and my note on the passage). In De Caelo,

I.12.281b2-282a22, he gives his fallacious proof that nothing that is

eternal is even capable of not existing, and therefore cannot be

genetos (generable), since to have come into existence is to have

204
 NECESSITY IN THE SPHERE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION II.11.337b

been at some time non-existent. Nothing that comes to be can be

either eternal or necessary. How does that square with his present
preoccupation with the necessity of generation, with it's being
necessary that things come to be? Again we must emphasize that the

necessity he is now concerned with is the necessity of facts, not of

objects. Of course an object which comes to be cannot be eternal,
nor, in Aristotle's eyes, necessary. But for a fact to be necessary is

for the proposition that states it to be always true. So for a fact

about coming to be to be necessary, a proposition containing the

words 'come to be' must be always true. This is what is meant in

337b34-5 by the sentence ' "always" must belong to the coming to
be, if its coming to be is necessary'. But clearly no singular prop-
osition like 'This house will come to be' will always be true. If
it is ever true, it must at some time be false, viz. at the moment
when the house is built, i.e. has come to be. But a general prop-
osition could always be true, and Aristotle regards the proposition
'A cloud will come to be' as satisfying this requirement. After any

particular cloud has come into existence there are always more to
follow. Why should he not say the same about 'A house will come to
be'? Would it not have been reasonable for Aristotle to suppose that

men will always go on building houses? The proposition which

Aristotle in fact considers, however, is not this, but 'Whenever foun-
dations come to be, a house comes to be'. This, he says, is something

which does not have to happen always. He has slipped back from the
consideration of the necessity simpliciter of something's coming to
be to the consideration of a conditional necessity. The words in

33 7b 31-2 translated 'when the foundations come to be' and 'when

they come to be' are an alien intrusion into the argument. But it is

easy to see how they got in. Tt is always the case that a house will
come to be' is an odd remark. Is it true or false? 'When foundations

come to be, a house will always come to be', on the other hand, is

plainly false. It appears to give him one of the premisses he needs for

his argument.
This argument is a reductio ad absurdum. If we emend it by
extruding the irrelevant clauses about foundations, it can be set out
out as follows:

(1) It is necessary simpliciter that X (a member of a finite series,

e.g. a house) come to be.

(2) If the coming to be of X is necessary simpliciter, it is some-

thing that is always the case.

(3) It is not necessary that X should always come to be.

(4) Something that can not-always be the case, is something
that is always the case (which is absurd).
(1) is false.
205
11.11.337b NOTES

The concluding sentences of the section, 337b33-338a3, are devoted

to the proof of (2). The thesis that coming to be is necessary if and

only if it is eternal is derived from the premiss that things in general

are necessary if and only if they are eternal, which itself rests on the

premiss (stated in the parenthesis) that what is necessary cannot not

be. (3) is assumed: it is a fact of common sense that the coming to be
of a house does not always have to follow on the coming to be of
foundations. The assumption of (3) is the force of the if-clause in
337b32. (1), (2) and (3) together entail (4), which is what Aristotle

says 'will follow' in 337b33. The De Caelo passage cited above is

supposed to prove that nothing which always is, can not-always be

(cf. 282a3-4). This proposition is convertible, as Aristotle is aware

(282a22-5). So he regards it as established that nothing which can

not-always be, always is. In the De Caelo his interest is in the

eternity of the World, so he understands the Greek phrase I have

just rendered 'always is' as meaning 'always exists'. The verb here
translated by 'is', however, has a wider use in Greek than the verb

'be' in English. 'Nothing which can not-always be, always is' can
mean what Aristotle takes it to mean in the De Caelo passage,
namely, (a) 'Nothing which can not-always exist, always exists'. But

it can also mean (b) 'Nothing which can not-always be the case, is
always the case' (cf. Nicomachean Ethics, VI.3.1139b 19-24, where
Aristotle argues that what is known is eternal: 'is eternal' = 'always

is', which, in the context of knowledge, clearly means 'is always the
case'). The De Caelo proof rests entirely on the modal and temporal

concepts used, so it is neutral between these interpretations, (a) and

(b), of the conclusion. It is again a reductio ad absurdum proof.

What it is supposed to show is that 'Something which can not-always

be, always is' is absurd. But this propositio n, on the interpretation

relevant to our present concerns, i.e. as the contradictory of (b), just

is (4). Since (4), therefore, is taken as absurd, one of (1), (2), or (3)
must be rejected. (2), Aristotle believes, is abundantly proved. The
truth of (3) is a matter of common observation. It is therefore (1)
which must be denied. QED.

338a4. Aristotle recapitulates the findings of the previous para-

graphs. 337b29-338a3 has shown that, for generation to be necessary
simpliciter, the series of generations cannot be finite. 337b25-9

showed that it could not be infinite in a straight line. It remains that,

if there is to be generation which is necessary simpliciter, it must
have the infinity of a circle. The sense in which the infinite series in

a straight line lacks a 'principle', i.e. is ungrounded, was explained in

the note on 337b25 ff. That passage concerned itself with a series

which proceeded downwards, i.e. towards the future. In 338a9

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 NECESSITY IN THE SPHERE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION II.l 1.338a

Aristotle also rules out a series which proceeds upwards 'taken, as it

were, from the past'. If Aristotle has not lost the thread of his

argument (see note on 338all), this series will still be one whose

members have the form Tf the later, then necessarily the earlier': i.e.
the schema will be Tf A, then necessarily 5; if B, then necessarily C;

etc.', where A is later than B, B than C, etc. In 337b14 ff. his claim
was that statements of the form Tf the earlier, then necessarily the

later' would be true only if the later was necessary simpliciter. The
claim holds good when the later-earlier series extends into the past.

No amount of proceeding 'upwards' into the past, even if the series

were infinite, would provide a 'principle' which could ground the

necessity of the original antecedent, which describes the goal of the

whole process, if this were not shown to be necessary in itself. (*In
338a10 I have accepted Verdenius' and Waszink's defence of the
text of the manuscripts F and H. This involves reading mi between

ona??<: and d'Cdvov, which Joachim, following other manuscripts,

omits.)

338all. In 337b 17-25 Aristotle had argued that where 'the later'

is necessary simpliciter, the proposition 'if the later, then necessarily

the earlier' is convertible, i.e. entails 'if the earlier, then necessarily
the later'. To this logical conversion, he believes, there corresponds a
circular process of coming to be (cf. Posterior Analytics, II.12.95b
38-96a7). Professor Mansion has objected that he here confuses 'the
level of thought with that of reality' (p. 85). The precise point at
which she believes that confusion arises is a short way back, at

337^32-3, but although, as we have seen, there is confusion at that

point, it is a later passage that more clearly merits Professor Mansion's
description.
The argument of 337b29-338a3 was supposed to show that a

statement of the form Tf the later, then necessarily the earlier' is

convertible only if 'the later' is something which 'always comes to
be'. The idea of something always coming to be is the idea of a

recurrent phenomenon, and Aristotle has already had plenty to say

about generation and corruption as recurrent phenomena (1.3; II.4,
10). In 11.10 the idea of recurrent phenomena has been closely
linked to that of cyclical phenomena, of which the paradigm is the

cycle of the seasons. These phenomena have the form: A, then B,

then C, then A , a series which 'comes back in a circle and

returns on itself (338a4-5). A doubt, therefore, begins to arise

a
whether the series Aristotle has in mind from 338 4 onwards are of
the form 'A, then B, then C. .. ', or of the forms Tf A then B, if B
7 7
then C ... and A if B, B if C ... as has previously been supposed
(see notes on 337^25 ff., 338 4 ff.). The arguments of 337b25-9
a

207
II.11.338a NOTES

and 337t)29-338a3 had been concerned with sequences of hypo-

theticals, but the recapitulation of these arguments in 338a4-ll

seems to be concerned with sequences of events. The confusion

between these two is nowhere more evident than when Aristotle

talks about 'conversion'. A cyclical series of events, whose minimum

structure would be M, then B, then A, then would require

that each event be later than its predecessor, its purpose being to
generate an unending succession of ^s and Bs. But a convertible

hypothetical, where the earlier implies the later and vice versa,

requires no more than the two events thus described. The convertible
hypothetical 'If there's cloud, there's rain' can be thought of as
giving rise to an unending cyclical succession of phenomena, but

only if the phenomenon described by the consequent is in each case

thought of as occurring later than that described by the antecedent.
If the consequent and antecedent are explicitly described as 'earlier'

and 'later', as they were in 337b14 ff., and as they still are in 338a

11-13, no repetition is implied at all. Aristotle's interest in convert-

ible hypotheticals may be the residue of an early interest in circular
proofs (see Barnes, pp. 228 ff.), but it is not relevant to the theory
of cyclically recurrent phenomena which is his proper topic here.

The sentence at 338a 13-14 asserts that the series will be continu-

ous however many members it has, as long as the last member gives
rise to the first. The model he has been operating with is 'earlier-
later-earlier', but what he has been saying has been meant to apply

to series of the form 'first-second-third . . . -«th-first', for any n.

This remark shows, perhaps, that he has stopped thinking of 'earlier'
and 'later' as indicating chronological order and thinks of them only

as indicating order within the series. Each term in the series, in that
case, can be thought of as repeatable, so that the terms repeated will
have specific, not numerical identity. This, however, is something
Aristotle makes clear only in 338b6 ff.; although he states in several

places his doctrine that, in the case of perishable things in the sub-

lunary world, it is the species, not the individual, that participates in

continuous, eternal, necessary being (see reference at the end of my
note on 11.10.336b25 ff., and cf. also Z)c Generatione Animalium,

II.1.731b24-732al).

338a17. The quite different arguments of Physics, VIII have

shown that the most conspicuous circular movement, that of the

outermost heaven, is eternal. So, in Aristotle's eyes, 'this' (338a17)

is just what we should reasonably expect, namely, that1 those

1
*ort in 338a19 should not be translated 'because*. It introduces a clause
epexegetic of raura in 338a17. It is nonsense to suggest that the necessity of
the movements caused by the motion of the primum mobile is the cause of its
eternity.

208
 NECESSITY IN THE SPHERE OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION n.ll.338a

movements which "belong to this' (to the movement of the outer-

most sphere), i.e. the movements of the other celestial spheres
controlled by it, and those which are "because of it', i.e. the terres-

trial phenomena produced by it, should come to be (in the terrestrial

case) or be (in the celestial case) of necessity. Aristotle's example of

of all this, the case of the sun, has been misunderstood. The
contrast between the two demonstratives 'this' and 'thaf has been
much in use in this chapter (cf. 337^26, 30, 32, 338al 1, 12) and we

have another case of it here in 338b3-4 (though in adverbial form).

We must note first that the text of the majority of the manuscripts at

this point is printed by Joachim, but Bonitz's arguments (p. 292) for
preferring that of F are accepted rightly by most other editors. This

means that the word in 338^3 translated "in a circle' has to be placed
in front of the words translated "the sun' to act as complement for
"being' in the phrase "the locomotion above it being in a circle'. (*I

am tempted to suggest that the word in question should be repeated

again after "the sun', where the majority of MSS have it, attributing

the reading of F and the other group alike to haplography.) It is

because "the locomotion above it' (the locomotion of the first sphere
above that of the sun to move with the movement of the outermost

heavens) moves in a circle that the sun moves in this way, or moves
in this particular circle (kykldi hodi), namely, in its diurnal motion

in the orbit of the celestial and terrestrial equators. It is because it

moves in that way, namely, in its annual movement in the ecliptic,

that the seasons move in their circular movement and return back on
themselves. Thereafter all is straightforward (if the Irishism may be

forgiven).

338b6. The cycle cloud-rain-cloud, which Aristotle thinks of as an

instance of the cyclical generation of the elements air and water out
of each other, seems to have no analogue in the world of men and

animals. From Edward I we go on to Edward II, but not back again

from there to Edward I, but rather on in a straight line to Edward III.
Furthermore in the cloud-rain-cloud case there is conversion: if it
rains there has to have been cloud, if there is cloud it has to rain. But
although Edward I had to have been born if Edward II was to be
born, Edward I's birth did not guarantee that of Edward II. Aristotle
seems to have a solution for only half of this problem. The cloud-

rain-cloud case is not as different as might appear from the case of

the three Edwards. The second cloud is not numerically identical

(the same "in number') with the first cloud, but only specifically (the

same 'in form'). But similarly the third Edward is specifically,

though not numerically, identical with the first. The contrast

between specific and numerical identity, which is part of our language,

209
11.11.338b NOTES

is entirely due to Aristotle's distinction, often made, between identity

in number and identity in form. (The word translated 'form' has also at

times to be translated 'species'; see note on 329b9.) Just as generation

was seen as ersatz being (336b32-4), and the cyclical character of gen-
eration seemed to imitate the orbits of the heavenly bodies (337a 1-7),

so the sort of 'returning on itself which is appropriate to corruptible

things is only analogically the same as that appropriate to incorrupt-

ible things. The latter return on themselves in number, the others

only in form (338b 12-13). (Shorey (p. 352) notes that the word
translated 'return on themselves' occurs in Plato's Phaedo at 72 B. He
concludes that Aristotle's argument here is intended as a refutation

of Socrates' 'Cyclical Argument' for the immortality of the soul in

that dialogue.)

This solution, however, is not applicable to the problem of why

the proposition 'If it is cloudy, it rains' is convertible, but not the

proposition 'If Edward II came to be, Edward I came to be'. We

cannot say that the proposition converts, after a fashion, to 'If

Edward III came to be, Edward II came to be' on the grounds that
the third and the first Edward are specifically identical, because
there is no guarantee that we shall in every case get a true proposition
of this sort. Tf William II came to be, William I came to be' is not

convertible even 'after a fashion', since neither William Ill's existence,

nor that of any human being, required that of William II. The only
solution that suggests itself here is that, although it is not universally
true that, just as any member of any species must have a parent, so
he must be the parent of some other member of the species, this is
true 'in general', 'for the most part'. Members of species not only
have to have parents but also have to be parents, if the species is to
continue, even though the obligation of parenthood does not fall on
each several member of the species. This may be an Aristotelian

solution to the problem (cf. Posterior Analytics, II.12.96alCM 1),

but Aristotle does not actually produce it here.

The last sentence of the book is obscure, but Philoponus explains

it. Empedocles regarded the elements as imperishable. If water

comes down as rain, it had previously gone up, on his view, as water.
There is no intervening corruption of water and generation and

corruption of air, as Aristotle would have it. If Empedocles is right,

the 'returning on itself involved in rain can therefore be 'in number'

and not merely 'in form'. Aristotle's answer is that this can be admit-

ted, if necessary, without prejudice to his thesis that the returning

on itself of corruptible things can only be in form; for on this view

air and water are like the heavenly bodies, things whose substance

does not come to be and is not capable of not being. They are thus
incorruptible and their behaviour presents no counter-example to a

thesis which applies only to corruptible things.

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Prime Matter in De Generatione et Corruptione

The traditional interpretation of Aristotle's doctrine on generation

and corruption is that when one element, e.g. water, changes into
another, e.g. air, there is some underlying matter which loses the

quality of coldness and acquires its contrary, heat. This underlying

matter, which persists through the change, is not itself perceptible,
nor is it anything in actuality. It is not actually water or air, although

it is both these things in potentiality, and indeed all things in poten-

tiality. It is not body, but it is potentially so. It has no character in
actuality. It falls under none of the categories, substance, quantity,

quality, etc. The Scholastics called it 'pure potentiality' and placed

it at the opposite end of the scale of being from God, who is pure
actuality. It was generally known as 'prime matter'.

Recently this interpretation has been challenged, first by Hugh R.

King in his article 'Aristotle without Prima Materia\ and secondly

by W. Charlton in an appendix to his edition of Physics, I and II,

in the Clarendon Aristotle Series. King's arguments were contested

by Friedrich Solmsen, and Charlton's by H. M. Robinson in 'Prime

Matter in Aristotle'. To my mind Solmsen and Robinson succeed in

making out their case. I shall not attempt to discuss the issue raised

by these scholars with reference to the whole of the Aristotelian

corpus. I will, however, make some points in reference to the passages

which they discuss in De Generatione et Corruptione,

Let us look first at passages which seem to express commitment

to prime matter.

(1) 1.3.319a29-b4, Matter is that from {ek) which something

comes to be. (On ek see my note on 1.3.317a32 ff.) If something
comes to be simpliciter it comes to be from what is not (simpliciter).
The matter, therefore, of generation in the specific sense (see note

on 319b14 ff.) is something which does not exist. Earlier in 1.3

Aristotle had proposed a secondary sense of 'coming to be simpliciter',

whereby, despite the fact that the generation of anything was always
the corruption of something else, some such changes were more
properly generations ('comings to be simpliciter' in this secondary
sense) than corruptions, and vice versa. Aristotle holds that fire

exists more truly than earth. (It is more akin to form, cf.II.8.335a
14 ff.) When, therefore, earth becomes fire we have something

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 APPENDIX

coming to exist from what does not exist (comparatively). This then

is generation simpliciter. (Cf. 318b2 ff.) He goes on to say (318b

7-9) that it makes no difference what criterion we use to distinguish
the truly existent from the comparatively non-existent, as long as we
have some criterion. Perceptibility, or even tangibility, is a popular

criterion, though not one to which Aristotle subscribes. By this

criterion, if air, which is imperceptible, became earth, which is
tangible, we would have generation simpliciter (318b18-33). Now,

however, at 319a31, he makes another suggestion. Should we say,

perhaps, that both fire and earth are 'what is', and that 'what is not'

is the matter which belongs equally to earth and fire?

It is not said why matter should be a candidate for being desig-

nated 'what is not'. Perhaps the apophatic doctrine of Metaphysics>

Z .3 — T mean by matter that which in itself is called neither some-

thing nor so big nor anything else of things by which "what is" is
defined' (1029a20-l) — is taken for granted, so that there is no need

to prove that prime matter can be described as 'what is not'. More

importantly for the question whether Aristotle in this treatise is
committed to prime matter, his concern here seems to be to show

that one and the same matter is the matter of each of the elements.

This is plainly in conflict with the King-Charlton position, namely,

that the only thing that can serve as matter for an element is what-
ever other element or elements stand to it as 'that from which it
comes to be'. On this view, if earth is generated from fire, it is fire
which is the matter of earth, and if fire from earth, it is earth which

is the matter of fire. At 319a32-3, however, he speaks of 'the matter

that belongs equally to earth and fire'. The only sense in which
different matter can be said to belong to different elements is that
expressed in the characteristic formula at 319b2-4: 'Or is there one
way in which the matter is the same and another in which it is

different? For the substratum, whatever it may be, is the same, but
the being is not the same' (see my note ad loc.). What this means is

that the descriptions 'the matter of earth' (or 'that from which earth
comes to be' or 'that which is earth in potentiality') and 'the matter
of fire' (or 'that from which fire comes to be' or 'that which is fire
in potentiality') have different senses but the same reference. The

sceptics' view is precisely that the reference of these expressions is

different.

(2) I.4.320a2-5. Matter is a substratum (hypokeimenon), i.e.

that which 'underlies'the processes of change. Charlton (pp. 77, 135)

makes a distinction between what 'underlies' such a process and

what 'remains' through the process. The distinction corresponds to

the two senses of ek discussed in my note on 1.3.3 i7a32. What a

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 PRIME MATTER IN DE GENERA TIONE ET CORR UPTIONE

thing comes to be from need not remain after it has come to be.
What it comes to be out of dots remain: the bronze out of which the
statue is made is still there when the sculptor has finished his work.

Charlton's thesis amounts to the view that it is only in the first of

these senses that Aristotle holds that there is a matter of generation

and corruption. When water changes into air there is nothing which
remains through the change. But our passage seems to belie this
distinction between underlying and remaining. That which underlies,
the substratum, is here said to be 'receptive of generation and cor-

ruption' (320a2-3), and 320a4—5 implies that this is a special case of

being 'receptive of contraries'. What does it mean to say that x is

receptive of contraries, except that x is at one time (j) and at another
time i//, where 0 and \p are contraries. And how can this not imply
that there is some x which remains throughout the change? Certainly
the water changed into air does not remain water. What is it that
persists through generation and corruption, the substratum receptive

of contraries, other than prime matter?

(3) I.5.320b12-14. The question is, what is the matter of

growth, what is it from which a thing grows. Various answers have
been rejected, as that it is something not actually possessed of size,

something actually incorporeal, matter existing by itself, indepen-

dently or 'separably', as points or the void have been conceived as

existing. None of this makes sense. Better, Aristotle says, to posit
the matter for everything as something which cannot exist indepen-

dently , i.e. as 'inseparable', one and the same in number though not
one in definition. The last formula clearly recalls 319b2-4. The new

point that is emphasized is that matter, in this sense, cannot exist

independently, i.e. in separation from the forms which give it
actuality: it must always be the matter o/earth of water or whatever
(cf. II.l .328^35-329al). The elements, however, are substances
which are capable of independent existence. The matter Aristotle

is talking about here, therefore, must be something more funda-

mental than the elements, namely, prime matter.

(4) 1.6.322^11-21. The elements interact: this is the main topic

of the second half of Book I. He now says that things which interact

must all have a single thing as that from which they come, i.e. just
one matter. This is the substratum, which is that which changes

when the hot is cooled and heated up again. It is not heat or cold —
the abstract qualities — which change into each other, but the single

underlying nature which takes on now one, now the other, of the
pair of contraries. Again we have something which remains when one

element changes into another, i.e. prime matter.

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 APPENDIX

(5) I.10.328a19-22. The same point. Possession of a common

matter is a necessary condition of mutual interaction (which is itself

a necessary condition of mixing, the topic of the chapter). The four

sublunary elements possess a common matter; the fifth.element, of

which celestial bodies are made, has a different matter (presumably

hyle topice, local matter, the matter which makes possible change of
place, cf. note on II.9.335a32).

(6) II.1.329a24-35. This very difficult passage (for whose

exegesis see my note ad loc.) is nevertheless, for all its difficulty,
clear in its commitment to prime matter. Three items are said to be

'principles', though some are more principal than others: matter,

contrarieties, and the 'so-called' elements. Aristotle is concerned to

justify his attention in the forthcoming chapters to the contrarieties,

although it is matter which has pride of place amongst principles.

The whole point of the passage depends on there being a contrast

between matter and the other principles. Some of the arguments of

King (pp. 381-3) collapse when the thrust of the passage as a whole
is recognized: Aristotle is taking prime matter for granted and saying

that 'nevertheless' (329a27) the mechanism of the contrarieties must

be investigated.

(7) II.5.332a 17-20. Aristotle has been arguing against theorists

who say that some one of the elements, air or fire, say, is that from
which all others come, i.e. their matter. He now reminds us of his
own view, namely, that there is some further thing which comes to be

both air and fire, and which therefore in a sense air and fire both are.

There is some other matter, other, that is, than either air or fire,
which is common to both of them as their matter. And what goes

for air and fire goes equally for each of the other elements. This
'other identical thing' is, of course, prime matter,

(8) II.5.332a35-bl. The argument has now turned against

Anaximander's 'infinite' (apeiron — 332a25), a further element over
and above the normal four, conceived as intermediate between the

others. It is supposed to be, like them, perceptible, though 'prior' to

them. But Aristotle's system has no place for this sort of fifth

element: 'If, then, nothing perceptible, at least, is prior to these,

these will be everything' (332*26-7). The word 'perceptible' here
(emphasized by ge — 'at least' ~ which is placed after it) is echoed

by 'imperceptible' in 332a35. Aristotle replaces Anaximander's

b a
perceptible, separable, corporeal (cf. 328 35-329 l) matter by his

own 'intermediate', which is imperceptible, inseparable, i.e. prime

matter.

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 PRIME MATTER IN DE GENERA TIONE ET CORRUFTIONE

(9) II.7.334a 15-25; Aristotle twice in this passage connects the

possibility of one element changing into another with their 'having
something in common' (334a17). The second time, at 334a24-5,

he further describes this thing they have in common as 'the sub-

stratum'.

(10) II.7.334b2-7. The difficulty which, in 334a21-3, was said to

arise also for those 'who make them come to be from one another' is

now set forth; but the people who have to face it are here called
'those who posit a single matter for the elements' (334b2-3).

Aristotle regards the doctrine that the elements are mutually trans-

formable and the doctrine that prime matter underlies them as

equivalent. The difficulty is that something like flesh, which is
regarded as a mixture of elements and not a mere mechanical
compound, may turn out to be indistinguishable from prime matter.

What is there for any homogeneous body to be other than one of the
elements or the matter which underlies them? If the elements do not
change into one of themselves they can only change into bare matter.
He has a solution to this problem which he proceeds to give; but the

problem could hardly arise, or could hardly be stated in these terms,

if he were not committed to a doctrine of a substratum conceived

along the lines traditionally expressed by the phrase 'prime matter'.

(11) IL9.335a32-b6. The topic is what causes generation and

corruption. The doctrine of the four causes is presupposed, and
Aristotle begins with the material cause. This was dealt with in 1.3.
318al-27; but in the present passage there is a more explicit identi-

fication of the material cause with 'that which is capable of being

and not being' (335a33, b
4-5), which is a reference to prime matter.

I have argued in my note on this passage that the idea that we have
here something which can serve as an explanation of things' coming

to be and passing away requires that the phrase translated 'that

which is capable of being and not being' refer to something different

from the phrase translated 'that which comes to be and perishes'.
The different things referred to are, respectively, prime matter and

the sublunary bodies which it underlies. A thing which came into

existence and will perish is, of course, something which is capable

both of existing and of not existing; but it is crucial to Aristotle's

doctrine of matter to distinguish between that which is in actuality

and that which is only in potentiality. The viability of this distinction

is something which I shall discuss shortly. Reference to a 'cause by

way of matter' (335b5), which can only be interpreted as referring
to prime matter, has not only been anticipated in 1.3.318al ff., but
also may be looked back to at 336b26 (see note ad loc.).

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We may now turn to consider some passages in the treatise which

have been thought to tell against Aristotle's commitment to prime

matter.

(12) I.1.314a8-Il,b 1-4. At the very beginning of the work, in

his discussion of the Monists and Pluralists, Aristotle argues that the

former, who 'make everything come to be from one thing' confuse

generation with alteration. 314all makes it clear that he takes

what things come to be from as their matter, and it is further
b
identified in 314 3 with a substratum which 'remains one and the

same throughout'. It seems, therefore, that in these passages he dis-

sociates himself from the sort of views which are involved in the
traditional doctrine of prime matter.

(13) 1.3.317b23-33. Aristotle has given in 317b 16-18 his solution

of the problem of that from which a thing comes to be simpliciter:

it comes to be from what is not simpliciter (in actuality) but is

simpliciter (in potentiality). But what is this? Does it have actual

accidents? If so, these accidents will exist in something which does

not have actual existence, i.e. separably. If not, but all its accidents
are potential, that from which a thing comes to be will have no

actual existence at all, and will be separable, and will offend against
the principle ex nihilo nihil fit. But is not this prime matter, which
is nothing in actuality but all things in potentiality? As we saw in
the note on this passage, Aristotle here comes close to seeing the
fallacy of regarding potential existence as a species, alongside actual
existence, of the genus existence. The considerations he advances
here seem once again to tell against a crucial element in the trad-
itional doctrine of prime matter.

(14) 1.4.319b 10-11, 33-320a2. Generation and alteration are species

of change. How do these two sorts of change differ from each
other? In 319b10-ll Aristotle says that when the substratum

persists through the change, what we have is alteration. In 319b

33-3 20a2 he says that when there persists through the change

nothing of which the term of the change is an affection or accident

of any sort, what we have is generation. How can this be re-

conciled with the view that prime matter is precisely that which

persists through substantial change, i.e. generation and corruption?

To these objections I reply as follows, beginning with 14. Aristotle

does not make it a sufficient condition of alteration that the sub-

stratum should persist through the change, but that it should do so

being perceptible. Prime matter is not perceptible (see above under

216
 PRIME MATTER IN DE GENERA TIONE ET CORK UPTIONE

8). True, the second passage cited in 14 makes no mention of

perceptibility; but, as argued in my note on the passage, Aristotle

does not regard the qualities which are the term of change in the
case of generation as affections or accidents of prime matter (cf.
a
Metaphysics, ©.7.1049 27-36). Moreover, the sentence in question
immediately precedes that cited in 2, above. It is difficult to suppose

that Aristotle commits himself to contradictory positions in

immediately juxtaposed sentences.
Not only is prime matter characterized as 'imperceptible', thus

escaping objection 14, but it is also regularly described as 'inseparable'

(320b13, 329a30, 332bl; see above under 3). The substratum of
generation envisaged in the passage cited in 13 is specifically said to
be 'separable' (317b28-9). This passage cannot therefore be regarded
as a reductio ad absurdum of the doctrine of prime matter as trad-
itionally interpreted.
What is meant by 'separable' in this context? Some explanation
has been attempted in my note on the passage, but it should probably
also be connected with the remark at the end of 1.3, discussed in 1,

above. 'That which is capable of being and not being', as we saw

under 11, has to be distinct from the individual things which pass in

and out of existence; but this distinction is subject to qualification.

Speaking of the matter of fire and the matter of earth, at 319^2-3,
Aristotle says, 'Is there one way in which the matter is the same and

another in which it is different?' The affirmative answer which he

implies carries with it the implication that we could similarly say of,
e.g., earth and the prime matter which is its substratum that there

is one way in which they are the same and another in which they are

different. Earth, qua that from which fire can come, is the matter
of fire and different from the matter of earth, i.e. fire, qua that from

which earth can come. But prime matter, the matter of both earth

and fire, is one and the same. There is therefore a sense in which
prime matter is different from either earth or fire. In another sense,

however, prime matter is the same as earth or fire: 'For the sub-
stratum, whatever it may be, is the same, but the being is not the
same' (319^3-4). I have attempted, in my note on this passage, to
explain this distinction in terms of Frege's distinction between sense

and reference; and Frege's distinction must indeed function as a

partial explanation of Aristotle's. But it would be a mistake to sup-
pose that Aristotle achieved anything like the degree of clarity which

would be presupposed by identifying his distinction with Frege's.

'The road from Athens to Thebes' may have the same reference as
'The road from Thebes to Athens'; but it is possible that Aristotle is
confusing the difference between their senses with the difference
between a journey from Athens to Thebes and a journey from Thebes

217
 APPENDIX

to Athens, which are different things, not the same thing differently
described. He uses the same formula in De Anima, 11.12 (424a25-6)

to express the relation between a sense and a sense-organ: it is not

obvious that any pair of expressions can be found in this case which
have the same Fregean reference.

So, it seems, here Aristotle wishes to assert that in one sense the
reference of 'prime matter' is the same as that of 'earth', in another
sense different. It is earth which is capable of ceasing to be earth and
becoming fire; but that which is capable of being and not being is in
an important sense different from earth, though inseparable from it.
The sense is important, because it is in this sense that what we are
talking about will persist when earth has perished, it is this which
fire will come to be out of, even if earth is what it comes to be from.

The formulae 'different, but inseparable', 'the same in number/place/

substratum, but different in being/definition', are Aristotle's attempt
to have it both ways.
Having it both ways is essential to his solution of the paradox of

generation. Coming to be simpliciter has to be thought of as different

from coming to be something, although the same pattern of analysis
is given for both. When one predicate in the category of substance

ceases to hold of a thing and another comes to hold of it (NB 'it'),

we have corruption and generation simpliciter (I.3.319a8-14). But

this analysis applies only if one and the same thing is subject of both

predicates. If, however, the thing of which the first predicate held

persists and remains the subject of the second, it does not cease to
be at all, and we have alteration rather than corruption and generation.

So that which persists has, in a sense, to be different from what

ceases to be. It has, also, to be something which in some sense 'is

not'. The sense in which it is different is described by these mysterious

phrases 'in being', 'in definition'. The sense in which it 'is not' is
described by the word translated 'in actuality'. 'In potentiality' it

'is', and qua potential it persists.

But this is mere juggling with words, and amounts to no more

than a demand for a licence to say contradictory things about
identity and existence. Since the things Aristotle wishes to say, and

says, are contradictory, it is not difficult for scholars like King and
Charlton to pick on certain passages and draw our attention to their
incompatibility with Aristotle's doctrine of prime matter. These

passages are indeed incompatible with that doctrine, but it does not
follow that the doctrine is not Aristotle's. Aristotle does indeed hold

that there is nothing which earth comes to be from, except the other
elements or compounds of them. So he can dissociate himself from
the Monists, as in the passages discussed in 12, above. He does hold

that nothing survives the change from, e.g., fire to earth, that the

218
 PRIME MATTER IN DE GENERA TIONE ET CORR UPTIONE

process is a genuine one of corruption of one thing and generation of

another. So he can make remarks like those discussed in 14. Certainly

he qualifies this claim by saying that when he says 'nothing' he

means 'nothing actual'. But then 'nothing' does mean 'nothing
actual'. Such statements do indeed rule out many of the things he
wishes to say about prime matter. That Aristotle failed to see this
himself is as much a consequence of his misconception of the
concept of actuality as of his misconception of that of potentiality.
What is actually the case just is the case. This frequently forgotten

fact about actuality — its vacuousness, as I have tried to describe it

in my What is Existence?, chapter VII, §2 — should prevent us
saying such things as 'It is all things in potentiality, but nothing in

actuality'. What is actually nothing is nothing. If prime matter is

nothing in actuality there is no such thing. What there is is a real
confusion in Aristotle's thinking, a notion of prime matter which is

internally incoherent and to which nothing therefore corresponds

(even potentially). The sceptics about prime matter are right about

what Aristotle ought to have thought. They are not, however, right
about what he actually thought. Prime matter is not so much

possible as impossible, but it is nevertheless there in much of what

Aristotle wrote.

219
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Migliori, Maurizio, Aristotele : La Generazione e la Corruzione,
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1976.
Mugler, Charles, Aristote : De la Generation and de la Corruption,
Paris : Societe d'Edition 'Les Belles Lettres',1966 (Bude edn.).

O'Brien, D. 'Heavy and Light in Democritus and Aristotle : Two

Conceptions of Change and Identity',/owrna/ of Hellenic Studies,

XCVII (1977), pp. 64-74.
Philoponus, J. In Aristotelis Libros De Generatione et Corruptione

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1897.
Popper, K. R. 'The Nature of Philosophical Problems and their

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Prior, A. N. Past, Present and Future, Oxford : At the Clarendon
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(1974), pp. 168-88.

Ross, W. D. Aristotle's Metaphysics, Oxford : At the Clarendon
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Seeck, G.A. Uber die Elemente in der Kosmologie des Aristoteles
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Sharpies, R.W. '"If what is earlier, then of necessity what is later"?:

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Shorey, Paul, 'Aristotle on "Coming-to-be" and "Passing-away"',

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Tricot, J. Aristote : De la Generation et de la Corruption, Paris :

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— 'An Emendation of Aristotle De Generatione et Corruptione
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pp. 127-31).

224
 GLOSSARY

accede trpootevcu

accident ovpPeprjKds

act (see 'produce') notecv (see pp. 116-17)

acting, capable of (see 'active') novriTiKos

active 7rotf?md<: (see p. 120)

actuality epreXexeta

actually (in actuality) evreXexetq, evepyeiq

affected, be Trdoxetv

affected, capable of being TraOrjTiKoq

affection ndOppa, rtdOos

aggregate ovyKptvetv

alter dXXotovv

alteration dXXoicoots (see p. 97)

ambiguous, be enapcpOTep^etv

anywhere d7rr?ob^ (see p. 78)

arrangement (see 'position')

be elvat

being (see 'essence', 'substance') ovota (see p. 193)

boundary dpoc
bound dpftecv

bounded, easily evop toros

brittle upaupos

capacity (see 'potentiality', dvpapts (see p. 193)

'power')

cause alnd, air lop (see p. 85)

chance TVXV
change peTafiaXXeLP, pera^oXr] (see

P. 99)
class (see 'form') el5o<: (see pp. 85, 157-8)

coarse iiaxvs
cold ^vxpos
come to be yipeoOaL

common KOLPOS
compare ovppdXXeLP

composition ovp$eoLS (see p. 142)

contact (see 'touch') d(pr}

contiguous exopepos
continuous ovpgxQS
contrariety epaPTLorps
 GLOSSARY

contrary ejwrax

convert (conversion) (WTiOTf)€(j)eiv (see pp. 148-9)

counterpart ovij$o\ov (see p. 162)

definition Xoyos

dense ttvkvos

differentia btaxpopd

diminution (see 'getting smaller') (pOtpetv, 06tatc

direction (popd (see p. 187)

divide biaipeiv

divided, divisible biaiperos (see pp. 67, 128)

division biaipeoLS

dry fylpos

earlier (see 'prior') irporepos

earth yv
element GTOLxeiov

equivocal, equivocally (see dpcowpos, opcowpcos (see

'homonymous', 'homonym- p. 113)

ously')
essence rd rifjp elvai (see p. 184)

essence (see 'being', 'substance') ovoia (see p. 193)

everywhere Tidvrri (see p. 78)

exist vndpxew, elvai (see p. 129)

extremities eoxara

figure oxnpa

finite nepas exoov

fire nvp

form (see 'class', 'shape', 'species') eidos, popcprj (see pp. 85, 157-8)

generation yeveots

generable yevriTds (see p. 182)

genus 7ew
grow, growth ab^dvew, ad^qois

grown together ovpcpves

hard OKXtipos

heavy fiapvs

homoeomer, homoeomerous opotopepriS (see p. 142)

homonymous, homonymously dpdiwpos, dpcovvpojs

(see 'equivocal', 'equivocally')

hot Oeppos

human being dvOpCJTTOS

imperceptible dvaiod-QTO^

inclined circle Xo^dc kvkXOS

indivisible (see 'undivided') ddtatperoc (see p. 131)

infinite dmeipos (see p. 153)

inseparable dxcoptaroc (see p. 84)

226
 GLOSSARY

intermediate perafyj (see pp. 98, 214)

irregular, irregularity avcbfj,a\o<;, dpcopaXca (see

pp. 187-8)
knowledge emorpjJLT]
later uarepoc
light Kov(po<:
like dpom
liquid (see Vet') vypos (see p. 160)
locomotion (see 'direction') (popd (see p. 186)
matter (see 'substratum') uXr?, vnoKeipepov (318b9)
mean peoos (see p. 165)
mixing, mixture
moist 5tepdc (see p. 160)
move, movement Kivelv, KtveloOat, Ktppotq
nature (pvots
necessity dvdyKTi
necessary dvayKaios
necessarily, of necessity €% dmyicqs
nourishment rpotpri (see p. 109)
number dpcOpos
numerically dpiOpco (see pp. 209-10)
opposite dvTLK€Lpevo<;
passage Trdpoc (see pp. 124-5)
perceptible aioSpToq
per se KaO* avro
physical (see 'scientific') (pvoucos (see pp. 65, 184)
place nov (317b 10 ff.), (passim),

Xcopa (335a21, 331*9 ff.)

plane (see 'surface') enineSov (see pp. 64-5)
point (see 'position') GYipeiov (312b14), OTtypr} (see
P._74)
position (see 'point') oppetov (see p. 74), rd^, Oeotq,
Tponr} (see p. 64)
potentiality (see 'power', dvvaptq
'capacity')
potentially, in potentiality bvvdpei
power (see 'potentiality', bvvapis (see p. 176)
'capacity')
precision 3topiop6(; (see p. 153)
principle dpxv (see pp. 86, 204)
prior (see 'earlier') Trpdrepoc
privation OTeprjots (see p. 92)
produce (see 'act') noteiv (see p. 149)
proportion (see 'definition') Xdycx;

111
 GLOSSARY

quality TTOtOP
quantity Troad^

rare liavos

same name in same sense avvcbwiKx; (see pp. 151-2)

scientific (see 'physicaL) (j)V(JLK6<; (see p. 184)

segregate bwuipivew (see p. 61)

separate, separable XOiplotos (see p. 84)

shape (see 'form', 'figure') popfyr] (see p. 85), oxfipa
simpliciter

size, thing possessed of peyedos

smaller, getting (see 'diminution') (pdivecv

smooth Xeios
sodden fiefipeypevos

soft paXaKos
solid (opposite of 'liquid') Treirriyds
solid (opposed to 'plane') orepeos
space (see 'place') tottos (see p. 103)
species (see 'form') (see pp. 157-8)

specifically eidei (see pp. 209-10)

straight line, in a en evOelas, els evdv

substance (see 'being', 'essence') ovota (see p. 91)

substratum (see 'matter') vnonetpevov (participle of verb

translated 'underlie' see pp.

79, 158, 212-13)

surface (see 'plane') entnebov

surrounding thing, the to neptexop

that for the sake of which rd ov epena (see p. 183)

that from which movement begins odep ?? dp XT? rt?c Ktppaecos (see
pp. 85-6)

touch (see 'contact') d07?

universal, universally KddoXoV

underlie (see 'substratum') vnoKeloOat (see pp. 212-13)

unmoved dKtP7}TOS
undivided (see 'indivisible') dbLcUpeTOS (see p. 131)
vacuum (see 'void') Kepop

viscous yXcoxpos
void (see 'vacuum') kopop

watery vdapr)s

wet (see 'liquid') vypos (see p. 160)

whole oXos

228
 INDEX

Small Roman numerals refer to pages of the Introduction, Arabic numerals

greater than 59 to those of the Notes. Other symbols give either Bekker line
references or book and chapter references to the Translation.

'above* 323^7 ff., II.3-5, 8, 331H f., 338b6 ff.,

accession, acceding 315^3, 321M ff., 94, 99-102, 131, 141, 154, 161-
107-8, 141 70, 172-3, 175, 177-9, 194-5,
a
accident xiv, 320 l, 84, 103, 216 209-11,213-14
a
accidental, accidentally 317 26, 79 Alexander of Aphrodisias 116, 148,
accidental being 91 188-90
accidental change 97 alter, alteration 314a3 ff., 315a28
'accidentally one* 143 ff., 3l7a 19 ff., 1.4, 320a8 ff.,
Ackrill, I. L. 113 323a19, 329a4, 19, b
2, 331a9
act, action SIS^S, 322b7 ff., 328a18, f., 332a8, 334all, 337a35, 79,
b
17,1. 7-9, 335b31, 112,116-42 97-103, 108, 117, 123, 131, 135,
acting, capable of 149,158 144,154,162,173,198,216,218
active 323b5, 21,120,132,149 'always' 337b35, 204-6
actual, actually 316b21 ff., 317b17 ambiguous, ambiguity 328b9, 151
ff., 320a13 ff., b
ll ff., 322a6 analogy 333a28 ff.
ff., 326b32 ff., 327b24 ff., 103, ananke 202
121,138-42, 193 Anaxagoras 314ai2 ff., 61, 144
actuaUty xiii, 320b21, 334b9 ff., 84, Anaximander 153, 164, 214
144, 175-7, 211, 213, 215-6, Anaximenes 60,165
218-19 anhomoeomer 321b17 ff., 109
addition 333bl ff. animal 322a17, 335b32, 338b8
adiaireta 131 annual movement 188-90, 209
affect, be affected 322^8 ff., 328^18, any 78-9,162-3
1.7-9,112,116-142 anywhere 317a5 ff., 78
affected, capable of being (pathetikos) apeiron 153, 214
135,141,149,158 appearance 315b10 ff., 316a29
affection (pathema) 315^18 approach 336b3 ff.
affection (pathos) 314b 17 ff., 316b3 Aquinas81-3,100,107, 202
b b a arche 86,173, 204
ff., 317 ll, 319 8 ff., 320 14,
b
17, 323a18 f., 326a4 ff., 328a12, Aristophanes 162
84, 98-9, 103, 132, 144, 151, arm 321b32

159, 163, 173, 193 arrangement 314a24, 315b9

agent 116 f., 122 Athens, the road from Thebes to
aggregate, aggregation 1.2, 322^7 ff., 96,217
a
329 3 ff., *>26 ff., 333^12, 61, atom 316al 1, b
32 ff., 317a13 f.,
64-6,73,79-80, 130-2, 158 129-35
ahoristia 201 Atomlsts 63-80, 124-5, 128-37,
a a
air 314 26 ff., 317 29, 318t>29, 139,141,145-8,173
319^2, 16 ff., 320 8 ff., 328 34 b b autumn 190-1

229
 INDEX

Averroes 99 cause as (by way of) matter 319a19,

335b5.215
Balme, D. M. 109, 198, 202 celestial spheres 114 f., 116, 118-19,
barley 328^2,146 188,209
Barnes, J. 98,100, 201-2, 208 celestial bodies 115,136,181, 214
be 97,126,129,193 chance 333b7ff., 171,202
beaten out 319a21 change back (anakamptein) 166
bed 335b33 change (metaballein y metabole)
a b
beginning 86 317 19 ff., 319 7 ff., 322b16,
being (einai) 319^4, 322a26, 96-7, 99, 103, 181, 198, 212-13, 215-
112 192-3 218 16
being (ousia) 336^32,151,193 character 318b14, 92
'being* 129,193 Charlton, W. 81, 113, 202, 211-12,
being and not being, capable of 218
182,215,217 chemical combination 142
'belong* 159 Cherniss, H. 125,129, 137,165
'below'323a7 choristos 84
Berkeley, G. 94 circle, circular 337al ff., 11.10-11,
better 336^27 f. 186,206-9
bitterness 329^12 circular locomotion 186-7, 193, 196
black, blackness 314^19 ff., 323^27, circular proofs 208
b
329 12, 332^17 ff., 121-2 class (eidos) 318a9
blood 319b16 cloud 208-9
b
boiling 330 27 coarse, coarser II.2, 332a22
bone 314a19 ff., 315a31, 321b19 ff., cold 314b19, 319b23, 32624 ff.,
b a b
333 9, 334 21, 25 ff., 171,178 329212, 31, 34, II.2-5, 334b4
Bonitz, H. 172, 209 ff., 33624, 99-103, 132-3, 158-
a
born iphuomenon) 319 ll, 94-5 61,167,175-7, 185,193,195
boundary 335a20 f., 159, 161, 168, colour 31621 f., 328b13
180 column (systoichia) 319a15, page 13
bound 334b34, 158 n.l.
bounded, things which are easily combatants 150
b b b 'combination' 142
328 2 ff., 329 31, 35, 334 35,
151, 178 common 320b23, 321a14, 332a18,
bricks 334a20 ff., 173-4 334a17 ff., 112, 160, 164, 173,
brittle II.2, 159 214-15
bronze 319b13,328b8 common noun 93
common view 318b18 ff., 94
calf 321a31 compare, comparison 333a19 ff.
capacity 193 composite 328b33, 334b6, 35 ff.
Categories 93, 104, 113, 116, 151-2, composition (synthesis) 328a6 ff.,
154,179 334a27, 142,145,174
category xiii, 317b6 ff., 319all ff., condensation 330b10,161
82-4,94-5, 151,211 conditionally necessary 200, 205-6
causal necessity 200 consecutive 317a9
cause {aitia) 31422, 317b34 ff., constraint 333b29 ff.
324b13, 326bl, 333b7 ff., II. contact (haphe) 316b4 ff., 1.6,
b a a
9-10, 85, 180-96 325 32, 326 32 ff., 327 2 ff.,
a a
cause {aition) 318 8, 335 33, 85 72,112-19,139,150

230
 INDEX

contact, in 316a30,1.6,113 f., 117 De Lineis Insecabilibus 66, 72

a
contiguous 317 3,10 f., 15 demiurgos 161
contingent, contingently 198-9 De Mixtione 148
continuous, continuously, continu- Democritus 314a12 ff., 315^29,
ally 317a19, 318a7,11.10,186-96 316al, 13,323^10,325a2, 326a8,
continuous occurrence of generation 327a19, 63-80, 119, 124, 128,
a
and corruption 319 19, 87, 186- 130,132,134,139,141
96 dense, density 330^12,134, 161
contradictory 163,175 De Partibus Animalium 180, 198,
contrariety 320a5, 323^9, 30, 200
a a
328 31, 329 ll ff., II.2-4, 121, De Sophisticis Elenchis 98
153,155-6, 160,166-9,175,214 diaireton 67,128
a
contrary, contraries 319 30 ff., ^12 dieiremenon 128
a a
ff., 322 l, 323^9, 29 ff., 329 31, different 319a33 ff., 96-7
IL4, 334^17 ff., 335a5 ff., differentia 314^18 ff., 328a30,
336a27 ff., 97-8, 103, 121-2, 329b17 ff., 332all, 61-3
136, 163, 168-9, 175, 179, 187, dilemma (aporia) 315b19, 316a14,
b
213 19, 317b13, 31, 318all, 13
convergent series 87 diminution (phthisis) 319b32,
conversion 328a19, 3371:)24, 338all, 320b31 ff., 327a23
148-9, 203, 207-10 Diogenes of Apollonia 322b13, 112-
copulative sense of 'be* xiii-xiv, 83, 13
97-8,101-2,177 diorizein 153
corners, thing with 319^14 direction (phora) 336a30,187
corporeal 320a30, ^22, 104, 106, diurnal movement 188-9, 209
108,214 discontinuous 323a5 ff.
'corruption* xi divide, divided 1.2, 325a5, 327a10
counterpart {symbolon) 331a24 ff., ff., 328a6,128,139,150
332^29,162 divided, can easily be 150
creatio ex nihilo 81 divisible, divisibility 1.2, 326b26,
cycle, cyclical 331^2, 194, 207-10 327a7 ff., 328a4, 128, 139-41,
147,150
dead man 321^31 division 316a26ff., 318a2l
DeAnima 94,96, 107,109-11,121- Divisions 330b 16,161
2, 151, 157-8, 160, 173, 176, doctor 324a30, 335b21, 116,122-3,
179-80, 193, 218 149,183
De Caelo 64, 72, 114, 119, 125, dominant 328a29
132, 134-5, 155-6, 161, 171, 'dormitive virtue' 138
186-7,190, 204, 206 double movement (locomotion) 194-
De Divinatione per Somnum 197 5
define 168 downhill 96
a a
definition {logos) 314 3, 317 24, downwards 337b25, 338a8, 194,
a
320bl4, 24, 321 18, 322a24, 204,206
b
335 7; 79, 105, 107, 151, 172, dry 314b19, 322a2, II.2-5, 334b29,
177, 180,183, 213, 218 158-60, 162-3, 166-8, 175, 177,
degree 175 193
De Generatione Animalium 81, 161,
201-2, 208 'each' 162-3,174
De Interpretatione 98, 113,197 earher 337b14 ff., 200-3, 207-8

231
 INDEX

earth 314a26 ff., 318^6 ff., 31, 'existent' 129

a a
319 16, 30 ff., 329 l ff., II.3-5, existential quantifier 93
333^12, 334^4, 11.8, 96-7, 161- existential sense of 'be' xiii-xiv, 83,
7, 169, 172-3, 177, 179, 186, 97-8,101-2,177
195, 212-13,217-18 extensive quantity, magnitude 80,
ecliptic 186, 188-90,194, 209 170
efficient cause 183-4, 187, 192, extremes 332b7, 165-6
200-1 extremities {eschata) 323a4 ff.
efficient cause of growth 109 eye 110
eidos 85, 92, 111
einai 97,129,193 fact 205
'either' 162-3 fallacy 317al,73
ek 80-1, 211-12 farmers 335a14
ekeininos 154 fatalism 197-8
Eleatics 125-32 father 338b10
elements 314a15 ff., 3l5a31, 322^2 figures {schemata) 315b7,11, 35
ff., 325b14, II.l, 329b13, II.3-5, final cause, causality 324b14, 85,
b a b
333 20 ff., 334 29, 17 ff., 123,149,171,183-5, 192, 201-2
11.8, 112, 128, 131, 152-6, fine, finer II.2, 332a22
160-9, 169-73, 175-7, 185, 194- finite 325a15, 337b30, 147, 204-6
a b
5,209-10, 212-15 fire 3l4 26 ff., 318 7 ff., 319a15,
Empedocles. Empedoclean 314all 31 ff., 320b20,322a10 ff., 323b8,
ff., 324D32, 325b3 ff., 329a3, 324a9, b
18, 325b19, 327bll,
b
l, 330b20, II.6, 334a27, 62-3, 328b35 ff., II.3-5, 333bl, 334a4,
b
123-31, 136-41, 144, 152, 156, 13, 24, 4, 11.8, 336a7, 337a5,
161-2,169-74,210 96-7, 111, 123, 131, 143, 161-
empty, emptiness 125-6 70, 172-3, 175, 177, 179, 185,
ends 324^18 194-5,212,214,217-18
entailment, paradoxes of 203 first cause 86
b
entirely 319 16, 98 first mover 324a30, b
12, 119, 136,
equality 178 193,196
equator 188-9, 209 First Philosophy 86
equivocally 322b31 (cf. 328b21), first substance 93
113 fission 143
equivocation, equivocity 73, 113 flame 331^25
ersatz begin 193-4, 210 flesh 314219 ff., 315231, 32lbl9
b b
essence {ousia) 333 14, 335 7,193 ff., 334220 ff., t>25 ff., UO-
b
essence {to ti en einai) 335 35, 184 ll, 174-5,177-8
b a a
eternal 322 2, 335 29 ff., 336 15 food 324^1, 327t'13, 116, 122-3
ff., 338al ff., 181,186,193,195, forgetting 334a12
199,204-6 form {eidos) 316b3, 318b17 ff.,
b b a b
ether 333b2, 334al ff., 195 321 21 ff., 324 17, 328 27, ll,
every 78-9 329b9, 335a16 ff.,b6 ff., 338b17,
everywhere 316a15 ff., 74 85, 92,94,109-11,123,149,151,
excess 161 157-8, 183-5, 193, 209-10, 213
ex hypothesi 200, 202-3 form (morphe) 335a30, b
35, 85
a
exist 325 6 ff. formal cause, principle 336a2, 85,
existence 125-9, 193 123, 149, 171, 181, 183-4, 203
'existence is a perfection' 192 Forster, E. S. 89, 135

232
 INDEX

foundations 337^15 ff., 199, 203-5 homonymous, homonymy 328b22,

four 'becauses' 85 110,113,151-2,160
four causes 85-6 hot, heat 314b18 ff., 323a20, 324a9
'from' 159 ff., 326a5 ff., 329a12, 31, 34, II.
Frege, G. xiv, 96-7, 183, 217-18 2-5, 334b4 ff., 336a3, 117, 122-
fusion 143 3, 132, 158-62, 166-8, 175-7,
a
future 338 8, 77,204,206 185,193,195
house 337b15ff., 199,203-5
Geach, P. T. 67 human being 320b20, 333b7
'generable' 181-2, 204 Hume, D. 86-7,133
generatio ex nihilo 81 hygros 160
'generation' xi hyle topice 181,214
genesis xi hypokeimenon xvii, 84
genetos 181-2, 204 hypothesis 183
a
genus 324 l, ^7, 93, 121-2
ginesthai xi ice 330b26 ff., 161
God, gods 333t>21, 336^32, 172 identity 88
'going to be (melleiy 337^4 ff., ignorant, ignorance 319a17, 95
197-8 ill 317334, 319b13
gold 329a17,153 imitation 194,197
good 333^19 immaterial 123
a
grieve 323 33 imperceptible, imperceptibility 318b
grow, growth 314a3, ^15, 28, 19, 319a24 f., b
18, 320b2, 332a
315a28 ff., 319b32, 1.5, 327a23, 35,94,102,212, 214,216-17
328a25, 333a35 ff., 99, 141, imperishable 181
143-4,170-1 impersonal verb, phtheiretai as an
a
grown together (symphyes) 327 l, 89-90
139 inclination 336b4
Guthrie, W. K. C. 70, 119, 126, inclined circle 336a32, 188, 190
130, 134, 172, 202 incorporeal 316b26, 320a30, 321a5,
108, 213
hama 75 indeterminacy 201
Hamlyn, D. W. 109 individual, individuality 317b9 ff.,
b b a
hand 321 29ff.) 111 318 l, 15 ff., 319 12, 91-4, 208
haplos xii individualized form 100
hard, hardness 314b19 ff., 326a4 indivisible, indivisibility 314a21 ff.,
b
b
ff., 329 19,132-3, 159 1.2, 325 7 ff., 32738 ff., 334b
health, healthy 324a16 ff., 328323, 28,63-80, 131, 134-5, 178
b
335 21,116, 122-3, 149,183 infinite infinity 314318, 315b10 f.,
heavens 338a19 316030, 318319, 320b10, 3253
a a b
heavy, heaviness 315 ll, 319 31, 15, 329312, 332325 ff., 13 ff.,
b b
32638, 329312, 19ff. 33739, 25 ff., 147, 153, 164,
Heraclitus 165 166-8
Hintikka, J. 140, 152, 181 infinite divisibility 147
homoeomer, homoeomerous 314a19 infinite series 204, 206-7
ff., 321b18 ff., 323a8, 328a4 infinite time 337a9
ff., II.7-8, 61, 109, 114, 132, infinitesimal part 147-8
142,147,158, 173-7,185 inseparable 320b13, 329a30, 332bl,
homonymos, homonymos 113 213-14,217-18

233
 INDEX

instrumental 336a2,185 line 320b15, 323b26,121

intensive quantity, magnitude 150, liquid (hygros), liquidity 321*20,
b a
170 328 3, 330 20 ff., 141,151,160
interfere 201-2 Lloyd, A. C. 184
b b
intermediate 319 12. 324^7, 330 local motion, in (pheromenon) 320*
14, 333ail, 334b15, 98, 121, 19 f.
164-5,214 locomotion, local motion (phora)
b
invisible 316 33 319b32, 11.10, 338b3, 99, 103,
irrationals 65 135, 181, 186, 193-6
a
irregular, irregularity 336a30, b
21 ff., logic (logoi), logical 316 8 ff., 65-6
187-8,192 Locke, J. 138,160
iopsidedness' 87, 96
Jaeger, W. 196 Love 315a17, 333b12 ff., 63, 172-3
Joachim, H. H. xi, xvii, 82, 89, 91, Luria, S. 70,72-3,141
94, 100,106, 111, 114,117,123, Lynceus 328a14,148
127-8, 132-3, 135-7, 139, 141,
145, 148, 155, 160, 164-7, 175, 'make' 149-50
177, 179, 182, 187, 192, 195, man, men 319b25, 322a17, 338b8,
209 100,209
Mansion, S. 197, 202, 207
kai 155-6, 163 many 1.1, 325a6,128
Kant, I. 133,192 marrow 314a19, 334a25
kategoria 92 material cause, principle (see 'cause
a
kind, of the same 323 30 as (by way of) matter') 319a19,
kineton 135 181-2,187,192, 201-2,215
King, H. R. 211-2, 214,218 material necessity 202
Kirwan, C. A. 101 mathematical entities, objects 323al,
knowable 318b23,94 113,115,119
b b
knowledge 318 24, 335 21, 94-5, mathematician 201
149, 176, 183 matter (hyle) 314*11 ff., 317a24,
knowledgeable 319a10, 16, 94-5 31SZ2, b
14, 35, 319a2, 19, 32
ff., 32032, 33, 321b21 ff., 322bl,
later 337b14 ff., 200-3, 207-8 324b18, 326b5, 328322, b
12, 34
layers 124-5 ff., 330b13, 332318, 334b3 ff.,
a b
learn 319 9, 94-5 19 ff., 335315, 30 ff., 16 ff..
a b
leaving 321 4 ff. 336 21, 62-3, 79, 85, 92, 96-7,
Leibniz's Law 143 106-10, 112, 123, 151, 154-6,
a b
Leucippus 314 12 ff., 315 29, 164, 173, 175-7, 181-4, 198,
325al, 23, b
6 ff., 124-5, 128-9, 211-19
130,135 matter (hypokeimenon) 318b9
life 336bll ff., 191-2 matter, existing without 151
life-span 191 matter of growth 107
light, Ughtness 319a31, 323a9, 326a8 mean 332a21, b
7 ff., 334b27 f.,
a b
ff., 329 ll, 19 ff., 114, 132, 165-6
158 measure 321b24, 336b13 ff., 110,
b a
like and unlike 315 3, 322 3 f., 191-2
b
323 4 ff., 119-22 mechanistic 202-3
b
limit (eschata) 320 16 medical skill 324a35 ff., 328a23,
limited 318a18 122-3, 150

234
 INDEX

Metaphysics xiii, 64, 81-2, 85-6, 17 ff., 335b10, 28 ff., 336b28,

100, 102, 105-6, 109, 128-9, 125,133-4,171-2,193,213
143, 154, 158, 171, 181, 183, necessary, necessarily 11.11
189-90, 193, 196, 200-3, 212, necessary simpliciter 337b10 ff.
217 necessity 335a34 ff., 11.11, 197-210
Meteorologica 111, 151, 169-70, Nicomachean Ethics 94, 149, 170
179-80,188,194-5 non-Existent 318a14 ff., 325a5,125-
middle 161,195 9
a
middle body 334^31, 335 25, 178, nothing 318a5, 69,126
180 nourish, nourishment 321a32 ff.,
a a
Migliori, M. 165 322 l, 23 ff., 335 10 ff., 94,109
mikton 147,151 number 326b5, 336bll, 337a24,
mist 194 338b18, 180, 196, 209-10, 213,
mixing, mixture 314^8, 315^4, 321a 218
33 ff., 322^8 ff., 324^34, 1.10, numerical identity, numerically iden-
a b
333^14 ff., 334 28, 19, 142- tical 180, 209-10
52, 171, 174-80,214-5 nurse 329a23
mixed 322a9 f.
modal logic, logicians 66-7, 75
object 205
moist 330a13 ff., 160
objectivist 146
Monism 60-3, 163-4, 216
'objectuaE 93
morphe 85
O'Brien, D. 132
most part, for the 333b6
oil 330a6
motion, in 316b6, 318a5
olive-tree 333b9
motionless 316b5
omnirecipient 329a14,153
move, mover 321b7, 323a12 f.,
on 129
324a25, 337a17 ff., 115-19,
One 1.1, 325a7, 27, 330b13 ff.,
122, 196
127-8
moved, capable of being 323a12,
one in definition 320b14,105
115-16, 135
^one-sided relation' 118
movement 315a28, 318a2 ff., 321b6,
Ontological Argument 126
323a18, 325a13, 27, 333b22,
operator, shifting the 198
335b17 ff., 336a34 ff., 337a17
opposites 323a8
ff., 338a6 ff., 86, 125, 127-8,
ousia 91-2,193
172,184-5,190,195
outermost sphere, heaven 186-90,
moving, capable of 323a12,115
208-9
Mugler, C. 87 n., 89, 132, 135-6,
oversimple {haplos) 333b22
190 '
Owen, G. E. L. xvi, 100
musical 319b25 ff., 334all, 100
mutual 323a23
panspermia 314a29, 61
name 151 Parmenides 318b6, 330b14, 60, 91,
natural 315b6,114 161
natural movement 172 part 138
natural place 114, 165,178 part, being in 98
natural science, scientist 184, 200-1 partake (of the forms) 335b12 ff.
natural term 191 partial {kata meros) 317b35, 91, 98
nature 314al ff., 318a10, 322b19, particular 318a8, 335a27
324a14, 325a3, 329b16, 333b4, paschein 130

235
 INDEX

passages 324°26, 325^4 ff., 326^7 planing 336a10

ff., 35, 124-5, 130-8 plants 335a12
passion (see 'be affectecr) 322^8 ff., Plato 315a29, 325b20 ff., 330b16,
1.7-9,112,117 332a29, 80, 84, 88, 126, 131-2,
past 338a9, 207 139, 153-4, 161-2, 183-4, 193,
pathetikon 135 195,202,210
b
perceive 318 22ff. Platonic form 123
b b a
perceptible 316 19 318 19 f., 319 plenitude, principle of 140
b
2, ll ff., 328b33, 329all, 33, plenum 128-9
a
332 26, 94, 98, 102, 108, 157- Pluralism 60-63, 216
8,211-12,214-16 plurality 125,130
b b a
perception 318 23 ff., 324 28, 325 poiein 130
13,24,94,124,145 poietikon 120,132
b
perception, relative to 327 31 ff., point (semeion) 321b14
145-6,174 point (stigme) 316a27 ff., 320bl
period 336b 13 ff., 191 ff., 66-79,104-7,213
perishable 181 pollachos legomena 113
perishing simpliciter 89 Popper, K. R. 64-5
b
perpetual 336 32, 186 poros 124-5
per accidens 100-2, 320b4 ff., 104, positive characteristic (kategoria)
121 318b16,92
per se 319b27, 320^33 ff., 322^7, position {semeion) 317all
100-2, 104,108 position {taxis) 314a24, 315b0
Phaedo 335b10, 80, 88,183, 210 position {thesis) 322b33 ff., 114
Philoponus 76-8, 82-3, 100-1, 103, position {trope) 315b35 ff.
106, 111, 114, 116, 132, 135, Posterior Analytics xii, 85, 98,
137, 149, 154, 156, 166-7, 100,172, 200-1,207,210
169-70, 174, 180, 185, 188-90, potential, potentially xiii, 316b2i
192,210 ff., 317b16 ff., 318a21, 320a13
phora 187 ff., 322a5 ff., 326b31 ff., 327b
phthartos, phtheiresthai xi, 182 24 ff., 334b9 ff., 84-5,103,121,
phthisis 191 138-42,144, 177, 181
phthora xi, 191 potentiality 326b6, 329a33, 84,144,
physical 316a6 ff., 323a34, 65, 184 175-7, 193, 211,215-16,218-19
physical objects 323a34, 119 power 333a24 ff., 170
Physics 72, 81-4, 85-6, 92, 96-7, precision 329b14,153
104, 107, 108, 119, 125, 127, predicate, predication xiv, 97
136-7, 139, 141, 154-5, 164, primary 322b4, 329a5m 23, 29,
a
171, 183, 185-7, 192-3, 195-6, 335 29 ff., 181
200-2, 208 primary body 155
physis 171 primary existences {prota hyparch-
a b
pipe 332 28 ff. onto) 315 26
a
place {chord) 337 9 ff. primary locomotion 336a31, 187-8
b 'primary quality* 124,133,160
place {pott) 317 10ff.
place (fopos) 319b32, 320318 ff., prime matter xvii, 97, 102-3, 154-
b
24, 32331 ff., 337327 ff., 104, 5, 165, 176-7, 182, 184, 211-19
114,165 218 prime mover 172
planes 315b31 ff., 325b26, 33, primum mobile 119,187
326322 primum movens 119

236
 INDEX

principle 314^16 ff., 316a7, 318a5, rough II.2

321^6, 324a26, b
4, 325bl, 30, round 319b13
329a5 ff., b
9, 330bll, 334a9, Ryle, G. 85

II.9, 336b31, 337a22, 86, 122,

164, 173, 180-1, 193, 196, 204, same 319b2 ff., 96-7, 212-13, 217
206-7,214 same in definition 97, 213, 218
principle of movement 321 b
6 same in form 338b17, 213
prior, priority 315a25, 322b32, 329b same in number, numerically 320b14,
16,332a26,157-8,186,214 338b18,97,105, 213,218

Prior, A. N. xii, 60 same name in same sense 314a20

Prior Analytics 92 (and note on 328b14)
prior philosophy 318a6, 86 saw, sawing 336a8, 10, 71
privation (stereszs) 318b16 f., 92,155 sawdust 316a4, 71
produce 328a22, 335b27,149 scientific 335b25, 184
professor 183 second substance 93

proper name 93 'secondary quality' 124

proportion (logos) 333bll, 171,176 secundum quid xiii, 91, 94-5, 181

proportionate 321 b
29 seed 319b16

prepositional variable 198 segregate, segregation 1.2, 322b7 ff.,

pyramid 334a33 325b30, 327all, 329a3 ff., b

27
b a
Pythagoras, Pythagoreanism 65 ff., 333 13 ff., 336 4, 61, 73,
79-80, 130-2, 158
quality 317b10 ff., 319a12, 16, sense97,107, 112,212, 217
b
33,92,102,151,211 sense (aisthesis) 319b19
quantity 316a3, 317b10 ff., 319a12, separable, in separation, separably
b
31, 322a16 ff., 333a20 ff., 92, 316a3 ff., 317D10, 28 ff., 320b24
111-2,135,169-70,211 ff., 327b23, 328b35 ff., 84, 144,
Quine, W. V. 78, 163 156,213-14,216-17
separable in definition 320b24, 107

radiation 71 separable in place 320b24,107

rain 208-9 separate, separated 316b14 ff., 320a
rare, rarefaction 330b10f-, 161 33 ff., 323a2, 325a5, 327b28,
Reale, das 133 329a15, 84,125,145,153

reciprocal action 123 shape (morphe) 314a23, 320b17,

reciprocal, causality 116 335a16 ff., b
6-
reciprocal change 88-91 shape (schema) 321b27, 327b14,
recurrent phenomenon 207 335b26
reduction 159 share (of the form) 335b14
'referential', reference 93, 97, 107, Sharpies, R. W. 200
112,212 217 Shorey, P. 195,210
relation, relationship 118,151 sight 329b14, 159
remain 319b10, 320b12, 321a22 ff., simple bodies 330b22 ff., 331a7,
103,212-13,218 334b32
remembering 334a12 simpliciter (haplds) xii, 314a7, 315a
rest 333b35,172 26, 317a17 ff., 1.3, 321a22,
retreat 336b4 ff. 331a3, 334b9 ff., 337b10 ff.,
Robinson, H. M. 211 80-99, 102-3, 122, 176-7, 181-
Ronde, La 194 2, 191, 198, 200,202-7,211-12,
Ross, W. D. xiii, 184, 201 216,218

237
 INDEX

simpliciter (holos) 320^30,107 318b15, 319a13 ff., 320a13, b

22,
a b
simultaneously, simultaneity 74-9, 321 34, 338 19,82-4,91-2, 94-
140,149 5,106,151,193,211,213
size 320a14, 103 substantial being 91
size, thing possessed of (megethos) substantial change 97
315^27 ff., 320 30,a a
323 5 ff., substratum xvii, 314b3 ff., 317a23,
68-9,104, 213 319a19, 26, b
3 ff., 320a2 ff.,
a b a a
sizeless 320 31 322 17, 324 15, 329 16, 32,
b a
skill 335^28 ff. 14, 334 24, 71, 79, 84, 96-8,
smaller, getting 314^15, 28, 320a10 103, 108, 153-5, 158, 164-5,
ff., 031 169,212-3,215-17
smallest possible 328a7 successively 74-9
smoke 331^25 summa genera 82
smooth 11.2 summer 190-1
so-called 'elements' 152-5, 214 sun 314b20, 315a10, 338b3, 186,
Socrates 335b10,183, 201, 210 188-91,194-6,204
sodden 330 17, 22a
surface {epipedon) 329a22,105-6
soft, softness 314b19 ff., 326a8 surface (platos) 327a8
ff., 329b19,159 'surrounding thing' 332a25, 164
solid (pepegos), solidify 327a19 ff., sweetness 329b12
330a7 ff., b
27, 160 'symbol' 162
a b
solid {stereos) 316 3, 325 5, 21, symbolon 162
35,326a22, 329a22 symmetrical relationship 149
Sohnsen, F. 113, 195, 211 Symposium 162,193
solstices 337b12, 199 synonymos 113,152
something, being xiii, 1.3, 80-3, 98 synonymous, synonymy 151-2
somewhere 74 synthesis 145
soul 334a10 ff., 109, 151, 185, 210
space (topos) 320a23, b
l, 103 tangible, tangibility 318b31, 329b8
species 324a6, 93, 191, 208, 210 ff., 157-8, 160, 212
specific identity, specifically identical teleological 193, 202-3
180,209 temperature 176
a a
sphere, spherical 319 22, 334 33, tense 201
103, 114 f., 132, 172, 186-7, tense-logical 88
189-90, 196 Thales 60
b
spontaneously 333 6 Thames 110
spring 190-1 'that for the sake of which' (final
b b
stammer, stammering 328 8, 151 cause) 335 6, 183, 202
steam 330b4 'that from which movement begins'
st ere sis 84 (principle of movement, efficient
stone 173-4 cause) 318al, 321b6, 324b13,
straight line, in a 332b13, 338a6 85-6,184
ff., 166-7, 206, 209 Theaetetus 126
a b
Strife 315 7, 17, 333 12 ff., 63, Thebes, road from Athens to 96
172-3 Timaeus 315b3, 325b20, 329a13,
sublunary bodies 115, 180-1 332a29,64-5, 131,153, 161,195
sublunary sphere, world 114 f., 118, time 336bll, sqq., 337a22 ff.,
161,186 337a22 ff., 140, 191, 195
substance (ousia) xiv-xv, 317b8 ff.. tin 328b8, 151

238
 INDEX

tis genesis 90 void 320b2, 27 ff., 321b15, 104,

tode ti 92-3 107,124-39,213
-ton (-tos), participles (adjectives) in
67,182 wall 334a20, ff., 173
tools 336a9, 12 Waszink, J. H. 89, 134, 139, 149,
topos 103 155,161,165
to ti en einai 184 water 314a26 ff., 317a28, 319b2,
touch (haphe) 319^19, 1.6, 329b8 319b16 ff., 320b8 ff., 321a33,
ff., 157 328a27, 329a2, 35, II.3-5, 334a
tragedy 315b14 23, II.8, 335b32, 337a4 f.,
b
transparent, transparency 319b23, 338 6, 94, 99-103, 131-2, 141,
324b30, 99, 124 142, 154, 161-6, 169-70, 172-
a
triangle 316 12,66, 153 3, 175, 177-9, 194-5, 209-11,
Tricot, J. 89, 135 213
trugedy 315 15 b
watery 322a32
truth 315b9 well 317a34 f., 319b12
twoness 183 well-being 333b19
wet (hygros) 314b19, 319b23, 322a
underhe 322b19, 329a30, 330b13, 2, II.2-5, 334b29, 335al ff.,
212-13,215 99-100, 141, 158-60, 162-3,
undivided 316b20 ff., 325b4 ff., 168,175,177-9,193
131 wheat 328a2, 333b8, 146
universal, universally (katholou) 322a white, whiteness 314b19 ff., 323a19,
16 ff., 335a28, 111 327b15 ff., 329bll, 332b7 ff.,
unknowable 318b23, 94 117,121-2
a
unlike 324 4, 119-22 whole 319b14, 98, 138, 188-90
unmoved 318a4 f., 323a14, 115 whole, as a 317a22, 320b30, 79,
unmoved mover 86, 115-16, 118- 99
19,122,185,196 Wiggins, D. xvi-xvii
b a
unmusical 319 25 ff., 334 12, 100 'will be (estai)' 337b4 ff., 197-8
uphill 96 wind 318b29
upwards 338a9, 194, 207 wine 321a33, 328326, 122, 142
winter 191
vacuum (see void) Wittgenstein, L. 151
vanquished 150 wood 316b10 f., 322315, 327bll,
variable 89, 204 335b33,143, 154
Verdenius, W. J. 89, 134, 139, 149, 'wooden' 154
155,161,165,175 Word and Object 78,163
victor 150 words 113
b
viscous, viscosity 328 4, II.2, 151,
159 xeros 160

239
9 780 198 720638