The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (133 page)

8
     Since anything which is produced is produced by something (and this I call the starting-point of the production),
(25)
and from something (and let this be taken to be not the privation but the matter; for the meaning we attach to this has already
²⁹
been explained), and since something is produced (and this is either a sphere or a circle or whatever else it may chance to be), just as we do not make the substratum (the brass), so we do not make the sphere, except incidentally,
(30)
because the brazen sphere is a sphere and we make the former. For to make a ‘this’ is to make a ‘this’ out of the substratum in the full sense of the word.
³⁰
(I mean that to make the brass round is not to make the round or the sphere, but something else, i. e. to produce this form in something different from itself. For if we make the form, we must make it out of something else; for this was assumed.
³¹
[1033b]
e. g. we make a brazen sphere; and that in the sense that out of this, which is brass, we make this other, which is a sphere.) If, then, we also make the substratum itself, clearly we shall make it in the same way, and the processes of making will regress to infinity.
(5)
Obviously then the form also,
³²
or whatever we ought to call the shape present in the sensible thing, is not produced, nor is there any production of it, nor is the essence produced; for this is that which is made to be in something else either by art or by nature or by some faculty. But that there is a
brazen sphere
, this we make.
(10)
For we make it out of brass and the sphere; we bring the form into this particular matter, and the result is a brazen sphere. But if the essence of sphere in general is to be produced, something must be produced out of something. For the product will always have to be divisible, and one part must be this and another that; I mean the one must be matter and the other form. If, then, a sphere is ‘the figure whose circumference is at all points equidistant from the centre’,
(15)
part of this will be the medium in which the thing made will be, and part will be in that medium, and the whole will be the thing produced, which corresponds to the brazen sphere. It is obvious, then, from what has been said, that that which is spoken of as form or substance is not produced, but the concrete thing which gets its name from this is produced, and that in everything which is generated matter is present, and one part of the thing is matter and the other form.

Is there, then, a sphere apart from the individual spheres or a house apart from the bricks? Rather we may say that no ‘this’ would ever have been coming to be,
(20)
if this had been so, but that the ‘form’ means the ‘such’, and is not a ‘this’—a definite thing; but the artist makes,
or the father begets, a ‘such’ out of a ‘this’; and when it has been begotten, it is a ‘this such’.
³³
And the whole ‘this’, Callias or Socrates, is analogous to ‘this brazen sphere’, but man and animal to ‘brazen sphere’ in general.
(25)
Obviously, then, the cause which consists of the Forms (taken in the sense in which some maintain the existence of the Forms, i. e. if they are something apart from the individuals) is useless, at least with regard to comings-to-be and to substances; and the Forms need not, for this reason at least, be self-subsistent substances. In some cases indeed it is even obvious that the begetter is of the same kind as the begotten (not,
(30)
however, the
same
nor one in number, but in form), i. e. in the case of natural products (for man begets man), unless something happens contrary to nature, e. g. the production of a mule by a horse. (And even these cases are similar; for that which would be found to be common to horse and ass, the genus next above them, has not received a name, but it would doubtless be both, in fact something like a mule.)
[1034a]
Obviously, therefore, it is quite unnecessary to set up a Form as a pattern (for we should have looked for Forms in these cases if in any; for these are substances if anything is so); the begetter is adequate to the making of the product and to the causing of the form in the matter. And when we have the whole,
(5)
such and such a form in this flesh and in these bones, this is Callias or Socrates; and they are different in virtue of their matter (for that is different), but the same in form; for their form is indivisible.

9
     The question might be raised, why some things are produced spontaneously as well as by art, e. g. health, while others are not, e. g. a house. The reason is that in some cases the matter which governs the production in the making and producing of any work of art,
(10)
and in which a part of the product is present—some matter is such as to be set in motion by itself and some is not of this nature, and of the former kind some can move itself in the particular way required, while other matter is incapable of this; for many things can be set in motion by themselves but not in some particular way, e. g. that of dancing.
(15)
The things, then, whose matter is of this sort, e. g. stones, cannot be moved in the particular way required,
³⁴
except by something else, but in another way they can move themselves—and so it is with fire. Therefore some things will not exist apart from some one who has the art of making them, while others will; for motion will be started by these things which have not the art but can themselves
be moved by other things which have not the art or with a motion starting from a part of the product.
³⁵
(20)

And it is clear also from what has been said that in a sense every product of art is produced from a thing which shares its name (as natural products are produced), or from a part of itself which shares its name (e. g. the house is produced from a house,
qua
produced by reason; for the art of building is the form of the house), or from something which contains a part of it—if we exclude things produced by accident; for the cause of the thing’s producing the product directly
per se
is a part of the product.
(25)
The heat in the movement
³⁶
caused heat in the body, and this is either health, or a part of health, or is followed by a part of health or by health itself. And so it is said to cause, health, because it causes that to which health attaches as a consequence.

Therefore,
(30)
as in syllogisms, substance
³⁷
is the starting-point of everything. It is from ‘what a thing is’ that syllogisms start; and from it also we now find processes of production to start.

Things which are formed by nature are in the same case as these products of art. For the seed is productive in the same way as the things that work by art; for it has the form potentially, and that from which the seed comes has in a sense the same name as the offspring—only in a sense, for we must not expect parent and offspring always to have exactly the same name, as in the production of ‘human being’ from ‘human being’; for a ‘woman’ also can be produced by a ‘man’—unless the offspring be an imperfect form; which is the reason why the parent of a mule is not a mule.
³⁸
[1034b]
The natural things which (like the artificial objects previously considered
³⁹
) can be produced spontaneously are those whose matter can be moved even by itself in the way in which the seed usually moves it; those things which have not such matter cannot be produced except from the parent animals themselves.
(5)

But not only regarding substance does our argument prove that its form does not come to be, but the argument applies to all the primary classes alike, i. e. quantity, quality, and the other categories.
(10)
For as the brazen sphere comes to be, but not the sphere nor the brass, and so too in the case of brass itself, if it comes to be, it is its concrete unity that comes to be (for the matter and the form must always exist before), so is it both in the case of substance and in that of quality and quantity and the other categories likewise; for
the quality does not come to be, but the wood of that quality, and the quantity does not come to be, but the wood or the animal of that size.
(15)
But we may learn from these instances a peculiarity of substance, that there must exist beforehand in complete reality another substance which produces it, e. g. an animal if an animal is produced; but it is not necessary that a quality or quantity should pre-exist otherwise than potentially.

10
     Since a definition is a formula, and every formula has parts,
(20)
and as the formula is to the thing, so is the part of the formula to the part of the thing, the question is already being asked whether the formula of the parts must be present in the formula of the whole or not. For in some cases the formulae of the parts are seen to be present, and in some not. The formula of the circle does not include that of the segments, but that of the syllable includes that of the letters; yet the circle is divided into segments as the syllable is into letters.
(25)
—And further if the parts are prior to the whole, and the acute angle is a part of the right angle and the finger a part of the animal, the acute angle will be prior to the right angle and the finger to the man.
(30)
But the latter are thought to be prior; for in formula the parts are explained by reference to them, and in respect also of the power of existing apart from each other the wholes are prior to the parts.

Perhaps we should rather say that ‘part’ is used in several senses. One of these is ‘that which measures another thing in respect of quantity’. But let this sense be set aside; let us inquire about the parts of which
substance
consists.
[1035a]
If then matter is one thing, form another, the compound of these a third, and both the matter and the form and the compound are substance, even the matter is in a sense called part of a thing, while in a sense
it
is not, but only the elements of which the formula of the form consists. e. g. of concavity flesh (for this is the matter in which it is produced) is not a part, but of snubness it is a part; and the bronze is a part of the concrete statue,
(5)
but not of the statue when this is spoken of in the sense of the form. (For the form, or the thing as having form, should be said to be the thing, but the material element by itself must never be said to be so.) And so the formula of the circle does not include that of the segments, but the formula of the syllable includes that of the letters; for the letters are parts of the formula of the form,
(10)
and not matter, but the segments are parts in the sense of matter on which the form supervenes; yet they are nearer the form than the bronze is when roundness is produced in bronze. But in a sense not even
every kind of letter will be present in the formula of the syllable,
(15)
e. g. particular waxen letters or the letters as movements in the air; for in these also we have already something that is part of the syllable only in the sense that it is its perceptible matter. For even if the line when divided passes away into its halves, or the man into bones and muscles and flesh, it does not follow that they are composed of these as parts of their essence, but rather as matter; and these are parts of the concrete thing,
(20)
but not also of the form, i. e. of that to which the formula refers; wherefore also they are not present in the formulae. In one kind of formula, then, the formula of such parts will be present, but in another it must not be present, where the formula does not refer to the concrete object. For it is for this reason that some things have as their constituent principles parts into which they pass away, while some have not. Those things which are the form and the matter taken together,
(25)
e. g. the snub, or the bronze circle, pass away into these materials, and the matter is a part of them; but those things which do not involve matter but are without matter, and whose formulae are formulae of the form only, do not pass away—either not at all or at any rate not in this way.
(30)
Therefore these materials are principles and parts of the concrete things, while of the form they are neither parts nor principles. And therefore the clay statue is resolved into clay and the ball into bronze and Callias into flesh and bones, and again the circle into its segments; for there is a sense of ‘circle’ in which it involves matter.
[1035b]
For ‘circle’ is used ambiguously, meaning both the circle, unqualified, and the individual circle, because there is no name peculiar to the individuals.

The truth has indeed now been stated, but still let us state it yet more clearly, taking up the question again. The parts of the formula,
(5)
into which the formula is divided, are prior to it, either all or some of them. The formula of the right angle, however, does not include the formula of the acute, but the formula of the acute includes that of the right angle; for he who defines the acute uses the right angle; for the acute is ‘less than a right angle’. The circle and the semicircle also are in a like relation; for the semicircle is defined by the circle; and so is the finger by the whole body,
(10)
for a finger is ‘such and such a part of a man’. Therefore the parts which are of the nature of matter, and into which as its matter a thing is divided, are posterior; but those which are of the nature of parts of the formula, and of the substance according to its formula, are prior, either all or some of them. And since the soul of animals (for this is the substance of a living being) is their substance according to the formula,
(15)
i. e. the form and the essence of a body of a certain kind (at least we shall
define each part, if we define it well, not without reference to its function, and this cannot belong to it without perception
⁴⁰
), so that the parts of soul are prior, either all or some of them, to the concrete ‘animal’, and so too with each individual animal; and the body and its parts are posterior to this,
(20)
the essential substance, and it is not the substance but the concrete thing that is divided into these parts as its matter:—this being so, to the concrete thing these are in a sense prior, but in a sense they are not. For they cannot even exist if severed from the whole; for it is not a finger in any and every state that is the finger of a living thing, but a dead finger is a finger only in name.
(25)
Some parts are neither prior nor posterior to the whole, i. e. those which are dominant and in which the formula, i. e. the essential substance, is immediately present, e. g. perhaps the heart or the brain; for it does not matter in the least which of the two has this quality. But man and horse and terms which are thus applied to individuals, but universally, are not substance but something composed of this particular formula and this particular matter treated as universal; and as regards the individual,
(30)
Socrates already includes in him ultimate individual matter; and similarly in all other cases. ‘A part’ may be a part either of the form (i. e. of the essence), or of the compound of the form and the matter, or of the matter itself. But only the parts of the form are parts of the formula, and the formula is of the universal; for ‘being a circle’ is the same as the circle, and ‘being a soul’ the same as the soul.
[1036a]
But when we come to the concrete thing, e. g.
this
circle, i. e. one of the individual circles, whether perceptible or intelligible (I mean by intelligible circles the mathematical, and by perceptible circles those of bronze and of wood)—of these there is no definition,
(5)
but they are known by the aid of intuitive thinking or of perception; and when they pass out of this complete realization it is not clear whether they exist or not; but they are always stated and recognized by means of the universal formula. But matter is unknowable in itself. And some matter is perceptible and some intelligible, perceptible matter being for instance bronze and wood and all matter that is changeable,
(10)
and intelligible matter being that which is present in perceptible things not
qua
perceptible, i. e. the objects of mathematics.

We have stated, then, how matters stand with regard to whole and part, and their priority and posteriority. But when any one asks whether the right angle and the circle and the animal are prior,
(15)
or the things into which they are divided and of which they consist, i. e. the parts, we must meet the inquiry by saying that the question cannot be answered
simply. For if even bare soul is the animal or
⁴¹
the living thing, or the soul of each individual is the individual itself, and ‘being a circle’ is the circle, and ‘being a right angle’ and the essence of the right angle is the right angle, then the whole in one sense must be called posterior to the part in one sense,
(20)
i. e. to the parts included in the formula and to the parts of the individual right angle (for both the material right angle which is made of bronze, and that which is formed by individual lines, are posterior to their parts); while the immaterial right angle is posterior to the parts included in the formula, but prior to those included in the particular instance, and the question must not be answered simply. If, however, the soul is something different and is not identical with the animal,
(25)
even so some parts must, as we have maintained, be called prior and others must not.