Read The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) Online
Authors: Richard Mckeon
The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (117 page)
10
It is evident, then, even from what we have said before, that all men seem to seek the causes named in the
Physics
,
30
and that we cannot name any beyond these; but they seek these vaguely; and though in a sense they have all been described before, in a sense they have not been described at all. For the earliest philosophy is,
(15)
on all subjects, like one who lisps, since it is young and in its beginnings. For even Empedocles says bone exists by virtue of the ratio in it. Now this is the essence and the substance of the thing. But it is similarly necessary that flesh and each of the other tissues should be the ratio of its elements, or that not one of them should; for it is on account of this that both flesh and bone and everything else will exist,
(20)
and not on account of the matter, which
he
names—fire and earth and water
and air. But while he would necessarily have agreed if another had said this, he has not said it clearly.
On these questions our views have been expressed before; but let us return to enumerate the difficulties that might be raised on these same points;
31
for perhaps we may get from them some help towards our later difficulties.
(25)
1
Cf. Pl.
Gorg
. 448
C
, 462
BC
.
2
1139
b
14–1141
b
8.
3
Phys
. ii. 3, 7.
4
The reference is probably to Plato (
Crat
. 402
B
,
Theaet
. 152
E
, 162
D
, 180
C
).
5
Hom.
Il
. xiv, 201, 246.
6
Ibid
. ii. 755, xiv. 271, xv. 37.
7
Thales, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus.
8
The Eleatics.
9
The reference is probably to Empedocles.
10
a
18
11
Anaxagoras.
12
The promise is not fulfilled.
13
Phys
. ii. 3, 7.
14
Cf. Pl.
Phaedo
, 98
BC
,
Laws
, 967
B
–
D
.
15
De Caelo
, ii. 13.
16
Phys
. i. 3.
17
i. e. 2 will be each of several things whose definition is predicable of it.
18
e. g. 2 was identified both with opinion and with daring.
19
Cf. 984
b
15–19, 32–
b
10.
20
Phys
. ii. 3, 7.
21
De Caelo
, iii. 7.
22
With 990
b
2–991
a
8 Cf. xiii. 1078
b
34–1079
b
3.
23
100
C
–
E
.
24
With 991
a
8–
b
9 Cf. xiii. 1079
b
12–1080
a
8.
25
With 992
a
10–19 Cf. xiii. 1085
a
9–19.
26
991
a
20–22.
27
sc
. the final cause.
28
Cf. Plato,
Rep
. vii. 531
D
, 533
B
–
E
.
29
For this Platonic method Cf. vii. 1031
b
21, xiii. 1086
b
9, xiv. 1090
a
17.
30
ii. 3, 7.
31
The reference is to Bk. iii.
α (
II
)
1
The investigation of the truth is in one way hard,
(30)
in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, we do not collectively fail, but every one says something true about the nature of things, and while individually we contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed.
[993b]
Therefore, since the truth seems to be like the proverbial door, which no one can fail to hit,
(5)
in this respect it must be easy, but the fact that we can have a whole truth and not the particular part we aim at shows the difficulty of it.
Perhaps, too, as difficulties are of two kinds, the cause of the present difficulty is not in the facts but in us. For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day,
(10)
so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.
It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something,
(15)
by developing before us the powers of thought. It is true that if there had been no Timotheus we should have been without much of our lyric poetry; but if there had been no Phrynis there would have been no Timotheus. The same holds good of those who have expressed views about the truth; for from some thinkers we have inherited certain opinions, while the others have been responsible for the appearance of the former.
It is right also that philosophy should be called knowledge of the truth.
(20)
For the end of theoretical knowledge is truth, while that of practical knowledge is action (for even if they consider how things are, practical men do not study the eternal, but what is relative and in the present). Now we do not know a truth without its cause; and a thing has a quality in a higher degree than other things if in virtue of it the similar quality belongs to the other things as well (e. g. fire
is the hottest of things; for it is the cause of the heat of all other things); so that that which causes derivative truths to be true is most true.
(25)
Hence the principles of eternal things must be always most true (for they are not merely sometimes true, nor is there any cause of their being, but they themselves are the cause of the being of other things), so that as each thing is in respect of being, so is it in respect of truth.
(30)
2
[994a]
But evidently there
is
a first principle, and the causes of things are neither an infinite series nor infinitely various in kind. For (1) neither can one thing proceed from another, as from matter,
ad infinitum
(e. g. flesh from earth, earth from air, air from fire,
(5)
and so on without stopping), nor can the sources of movement form an endless series (man for instance being acted on by air, air by the sun, the sun by Strife,
1
and so on without limit). Similarly the final causes cannot go on
ad infinitum
—walking being for the sake of health, this for the sake of happiness, happiness for the sake of something else, and so one thing always for the sake of another. And the case of the essence is similar.
(10)
For in the case of intermediates, which have a last term and a term prior to them, the prior must be the cause of the later terms. For if we had to say which of the three is the cause, we should say the first; surely not the last, for the final term is the cause of none; nor even the intermediate, for it is the cause only of one.
(15)
(It makes no difference whether there is one intermediate or more, nor whether they are infinite or finite in number.) But of series which are infinite in this way, and of the infinite in general, all the parts down to that now present are alike intermediates; so that if there is no first there is no cause at all.
Nor can there be an infinite process downwards, with a beginning in the upward direction, so that water should proceed from fire,
(20)
earth from water, and so always some other kind should be produced. For one thing comes
from
another in two ways—not in the sense in which ‘from’ means ‘after’ (as we say ‘from the Isthmian games come the Olympian’), but either (i) as the man comes from the boy, by the boy’s changing, or (ii) as air comes from water. By ‘as the man comes from the boy’ we mean ‘as that which has come to be from that which is coming to be,
(25)
or as that which is finished from that which is being achieved’ (for as becoming is between being and not being, so that which is becoming is always between that which is and that which is not; for the learner is a man of science in the making, and this is what is meant when we say that
from
a learner a man of science is being
made); on the other hand,
(30)
coming from another thing as water comes from air implies the destruction of the other thing. This is why changes of the former kind are not reversible, and the boy does not come from the man (for it is not that which comes to be something that comes to be as a result of coming to be, but that which exists after the coming to be; for it is thus that the day, too, comes from the morning—in the sense that it comes after the morning; which is the reason why the morning cannot come from the day); but changes of the other kind are reversible.
[994b]
But in both cases it is impossible that the number of terms should be infinite. For terms of the former kind,
(5)
being intermediates, must have an end, and terms of the latter kind change back into
one another
; for the destruction of either is the generation of the other.
At the same time it is impossible that the first cause, being eternal, should be destroyed; for since the process of becoming is not infinite in the upward direction, that which is the first thing by whose destruction something came to be must be non-eternal.
Further, the
final cause
is an end, and that sort of end which is not for the sake of something else, but for whose sake everything else is; so that if there is to be a last term of this sort,
(10)
the process will not be infinite; but if there is no such term, there will be no final cause, but those who maintain the infinite series eliminate the Good without knowing it (yet no one would try to do anything if he were not going to come to a limit); nor would there be reason in the world; the reasonable man,
(15)
at least, always acts for a purpose, and this is a limit; for the end is a limit.
But the
essence
, also, cannot be reduced to another definition which is fuller in expression.
2
For the original definition is always more of a definition, and not the later one; and in a series in which the first term has not the required character,
(20)
the next has not it either.—Further, those who speak thus destroy science; for it is not possible to have this till one comes to the unanalysable terms. And knowledge becomes impossible; for how can one apprehend things that are infinite in this way?
3
For this is not like the case of the line, to whose divisibility there is no stop, but which we cannot think if we do not make a stop, (for which reason one who is tracing the infinitely divisible line cannot be counting the possibilities of section),
(25)
but the whole line also must be apprehended by something in us that does not move from
part to part.—Again, nothing infinite can exist; and if it could, at least the notion of infinity is not infinite.
4
But (2) if the
kinds
of causes had been infinite in number, then also knowledge would have been impossible; for we think we know, only when we have ascertained the causes, but that which is infinite by addition cannot be gone through in a finite time.
(30)
3
The effect which lectures produce on a hearer depends on his habits; for we demand the language we are accustomed to, and that which is different from this seems not in keeping but somewhat unintelligible and foreign because of its unwontedness.
[995a]
For it is the customary that is intelligible. The force of habit is shown by the laws, in which the legendary and childish elements prevail over our knowledge about them,
(5)
owing to habit. Thus some people do not listen to a speaker unless he speaks mathematically, others unless he gives instances, while others expect him to cite a poet as witness. And some want to have everything done accurately, while others are annoyed by accuracy, either because they cannot follow the connexion of thought or because they regard it as pettifoggery.
(10)
For accuracy has something of this character, so that as in trade so in argument some people think it mean. Hence one must be already trained to know how to take each sort of argument, since it is absurd to seek at the same time knowledge and the way of attaining knowledge; and it is not easy to get even one of the two.
The minute accuracy of mathematics is not to be demanded in all cases,
(15)
but only in the case of things which have no matter. Hence its method is not that of natural science; for presumably the whole of nature has matter. Hence we must inquire first what nature is: for thus we shall also see what natural science treats of [and whether it belongs to one science or to more to investigate the causes and the principles of things].
(20)