The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (129 page)

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24
     ‘To come
from
something’ means (1) to come from something as from matter, and this in two senses, either in respect of the highest genus or in respect of the lowest species; e. g. in a sense all things that can be melted come from water, but in a sense the statue comes from bronze.—(2) As from the first moving principle; e. g.
(30)
‘what did the fight come from?’ From abusive language, because this was the origin of the fight—(3) From the compound of matter and shape, as the parts come from the whole, and the verse from the
Iliad
, and the stones from the house; [in every such case the whole is a compound of matter and shape,] for the shape is the end, and only that which attains an end is complete.—(4) As the form from its part, e. g. man from ‘two-footed’ and syllable from ‘letter’; for this is a different sense from that in which the statue comes from bronze; for the composite substance comes from the sensible matter,
(35)
but the form also comes from the matter of the form.
[1023b]
—Some things, then, are said to come from something else in these senses; but (5) others are so described if one of these senses is applicable to a part of that other thing; e. g. the child comes from its father and mother, and plants come from the earth, because they come from a part of those things.—(6) It means coming after a thing in time,
(5)
e. g. night comes from day and storm from fine weather, because the one comes after the other. Of these things some are so described because they admit of change into one another, as in
the cases now mentioned; some merely because they are successive in time, e. g. the voyage took place ‘from’ the equinox,
(10)
because it took place after the equinox, and the festival of the Thargelia comes ‘from’ the Dionysia, because after the Dionysia.

25
     ‘Part’ means (1) (
a
) that into which a quantum can in any way be divided; for that which is taken from a quantum
qua
quantum is always called a part of it,
(15)
e. g. two is called in a sense a part of three. It means (
b
), of the parts in the first sense, only those which measure the whole; this is why two, though in one sense it is, in another is not, called a part of three.—(2) The elements into which a kind might be divided apart from the quantity are also called parts of it; for which reason we say the species are parts of the genus.—(3) The elements into which a whole is divided,
(20)
or of which it consists—the ‘whole’ meaning either the form or that which has the form; e. g. of the bronze sphere or of the bronze cube both the bronze—i. e. the matter in which the form is—and the characteristic angle are parts.—(4) The elements in the definition which explains a thing are also parts of the whole; this is why the genus is called a part of the species,
(25)
though in another sense the species is part of the genus.

26
     ‘A whole’ means (1) that from which is absent none of the parts of which it is said to be naturally a whole, and (2) that which so contains the things it contains that they form a unity; and this in two senses—either as being each severally one single thing, or as making up the unity between them. For (
a
) that which is true of a whole class and is said to hold good as a whole (which implies that it is a kind of whole) is true of a whole in the sense that it contains many things by being predicated of each,
(30)
and by all of them, e. g. man, horse, god, being severally one single thing, because all are living things. But (
b
) the continuous and limited is a whole, when it is a unity consisting of several parts, especially if they are present only potentially,
14
but, failing this, even if they are present actually. Of these things themselves, those which are so by nature are wholes in a higher degree than those which are so by art,
(35)
as we said
15
in the case of unity also, wholeness being in fact a sort of oneness.

[1024a]
Again (3), of quanta that have a beginning and a middle and an end, those to which the position does not make a difference are called totals, and those to which it does, wholes. Those which admit of both
descriptions are both wholes and totals. These are the things whose nature remains the same after transposition, but whose form does not, e. g. wax or a coat; they are called both wholes and totals; for they have both characteristics.
(5)
Water and all liquids and number are called totals, but ‘the whole number’ or ‘the whole water’ one does not speak of, except by an extension of meaning. To things, to which
qua
one the term ‘total’ is applied, the term ‘all’ is applied when they are treated as separate; ‘this total number’, ‘all these units.
(10)

27
     It is not any chance quantitative thing that can be said to be ‘mutilated’; it must be a whole as well as divisible. For not only is two not ‘mutilated’ if one of the two ones is taken away (for the part removed by mutilation is never equal to the remainder), but in general no number is thus mutilated; for it is also necessary that the essence remain; if a cup is mutilated, it must still be a cup; but the number is no longer the same.
(15)
Further, even if things consist of unlike parts, not even these things can all be said to be mutilated, for in a sense a number has unlike parts (e. g. two and three) as well as like; but in general of the things to which their position makes no difference, e. g. water or fire, none can be mutilated; to be mutilated, things must be such as in virtue of their essence have a certain position. Again, they must be continuous; for a musical scale consists of unlike parts and has position,
(20)
but cannot become mutilated. Besides, not even the things that are wholes are mutilated by the privation of
any
part. For the parts removed must be neither those which determine the essence nor any chance parts, irrespective of their position; e. g. a cup is not mutilated if it is bored through, but only if the handle or a projecting part is removed,
(25)
and a man is mutilated not if the flesh or the spleen is removed, but if an extremity is, and that not every extremity but one which when completely removed cannot grow again. Therefore baldness is not a mutilation.

28
     The term ‘race’ or ‘genus’ is used (1) if generation of things which have the same form is continuous, e. g. ‘while the race of men lasts’ means ‘while the generation of them goes on continuously’.
(30)
—(2) It is used with reference to that which first brought things into existence; for it is thus that some are called Hellenes by race and others Ionians, because the former proceed from Hellen and the latter from Ion as their first begetter. And the word is used in reference to the begetter more than to the matter, though people also get a race-name from the female,
(35)
e. g. ‘the descendants of Pyrrha’.—(3) There is genus in the sense in which ‘plane’ is the genus of plane figures and
‘solid’ of solids; for each of the figures is in the one case a plane of such and such a kind, and in the other a solid of such and such a kind; and this is what underlies the differentiae.
[1024b]
Again (4), in definitions the first constituent element,
(5)
which is included in the ‘what’, is the genus, whose differentiae the qualities are said to be.—‘Genus’ then is used in all these ways, (1) in reference to continuous generation of the same kind, (2) in reference to the first mover which is of the same kind as the things it moves, (3) as matter; for that to which the differentia or quality belongs is the substratum, which we call matter.

Those things are said to be ‘other in genus’ whose proximate substratum is different,
(10)
and which are not analysed the one into the other nor both into the same thing (e. g. form and matter are different in genus); and things which belong to different categories of being (for some of the things that are said to ‘be’ signify essence, others a quality,
(15)
others the other categories we have before distinguished
16
); these also are not analysed either into one another or into some one thing.

29
     ‘The false’ means (1) that which is false as a
thing
, and that (
a
) because it is not put together or cannot be put together,
(20)
e. g. ‘that the diagonal of a square is commensurate with the side’ or ‘that you are sitting’; for one of these is false always, and the other sometimes; it is in these two senses that they are non-existent. (
b
) There are things which exist, but whose nature it is to appear either not to be such as they are or to be things that do not exist, e. g. a sketch or a dream; for these are something, but are not the things the appearance of which they produce in us.
(25)
We call things false in this way, then—either because they themselves do not exist, or because the appearance which results from them is that of something that does not exist.

(2) A false
account
is the account of non-existent objects, in so far as it is false. Hence every account is false when applied to something other than that of which it is true; e. g. the account of a circle is false when applied to a triangle. In a sense there is one account of each thing, i. e. the account of its essence, but in a sense there are many,
(30)
since the thing itself and the thing itself with an attribute are in a sense the same, e. g. Socrates and musical Socrates (a false account is not the account of anything, except in a qualified sense). Hence Antisthenes was too simple-minded when he claimed that nothing could be described except by the account proper to it—one predicate to one subject; from which the conclusion used to be drawn that there could be no contradiction, and almost that there could be no error. But it is possible to describe each thing not only by the account of itself,
(35)
but also by that
of something else. This may be done altogether falsely indeed, but there is also a way in which it may be done truly; e. g. eight may be described as a double number by the use of the definition of two.

[1025a]
These things, then, are called false in these senses, but (3) a false
man
is one who is ready at and fond of such accounts, not for any other reason but for their own sake, and one who is good at impressing such accounts on other people, just as we say
things
are false,
(5)
which produce a false appearance. This is why the proof in the
Hippias
that the same man is false and true is misleading. For it assumes that he is false who can deceive
17
(i. e. the man who knows and is wise); and further that he who is
willingly
bad is better.
18
This is a false result of induction—for a man who limps willingly is better than one who does so unwillingly—by ‘limping’ Plato means ‘mimicking a limp’,
(10)
for if the man
were
lame willingly, he would presumably be worse in this case as in the corresponding case of moral character.

30
     ‘Accident’ means (1) that which attaches to something and can be truly asserted, but neither of necessity nor usually, e. g. if some one in digging a hole for a plant has found treasure. This—the finding of treasure—is for the man who dug the hole an accident; for neither does the one come of necessity from the other or after the other,
(15)
nor, if a man plants, does he usually find treasure. And a musical man
might
be pale; but since this does not happen of necessity nor usually,
(20)
we call it an accident. Therefore since there are attributes and they attach to subjects, and some of them attach to these only in a particular place and at a particular time, whatever attaches to a subject, but not because it was this subject, or the time this time, or the place this place, will be an accident. Therefore, too, there is no definite cause for an accident, but a chance cause, i. e. an indefinite one. Going to Aegina was an accident for a man, if he went not in order to get there,
(25)
but because he was carried out of his way by a storm or captured by pirates. The accident has happened or exists—not in virtue of the subject’s nature, however, but of something else; for the
storm
was the cause of his coming to a place for which he was not sailing, and this was Aegina.

‘Accident’ has also (2) another meaning, i. e.
(30)
all that attaches to each thing in virtue of itself but is not in its essence, as having its angles equal to two right angles attaches to the triangle. And accidents of this sort may be eternal, but no accident of the other sort is. This is explained elsewhere.
19

1
This (i. e. ‘growth’) is the etymological sense of
physis. Phuesthai
, ‘to grow’, has
u
long in most of its forms.

2
Matter and form.

3
sc
. the same category.

4
i. e. the categories.

5
ix. 7.

6
The Pythagoreans and Plato.

7
Cf. viii. 1042
a
29.

8
Such attributes are hot and cold, wet and dry, rough and smooth, hard and soft, white and black, sweet and bitter. The more important pairs of contraries, in Aristotle’s view, are the first two.

9
We cannot say grey and white are opposites, but we say the constituents of grey (black and white) are opposites.

10
This definition is wider than the previous one, since it includes species subordinate one to the other.

11
Cf.
a
25–31 in distinction from 31–35.

12
The reference is to squares and cubes.

13
i. e. ‘animal’.

14
i. e. if they are only distinguishable, not distinct.

15
Cf. 1016
a
4.

16
1017
a
24–27.

17
Hippias Minor
365–9.

18
Ib. 371–6.

19
An. Post.
i. 75
a
18–22, 39–41, 76
b
11–16.

BOOK: The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)
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