The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (45 page)

6
     They differ in that ‘spontaneity’ is the wider term. Every result of chance is from what is spontaneous, but not everything that is from what is spontaneous is from chance.

[197b]
Chance and what results from chance are appropriate to agents that are capable of good fortune and of moral action generally. Therefore necessarily chance is in the sphere of moral actions. This is indicated by the fact that good fortune is thought to be the same, or nearly the same, as happiness, and happiness to be a kind of moral action,
(5)
since it is well-doing. Hence what is not capable of moral action cannot do anything by chance. Thus an inanimate thing or a lower animal or a child cannot do anything by chance, because it is incapable of deliberate intention; nor can ‘good fortune’ or ‘ill fortune’ be ascribed to them, except metaphorically, as Protarchus, for example, said that the stones of which altars are made are fortunate because they are held in honour,
(10)
while their fellows are trodden under foot. Even these things, however, can in a way be affected by chance, when one who is dealing with them does something to them by chance, but not otherwise.

The spontaneous on the other hand is found both in the lower animals and in many inanimate objects.
(15)
We say, for example, that the horse came ‘spontaneously’, because, though his coming saved him, he did not come for the sake of safety. Again, the tripod fell ‘of itself’, because, though when it fell it stood on its feet so as to serve for a seat, it did not fall for the sake of that.

Hence it is clear that events which (1) belong to the general class
of things that may come to pass for the sake of something, (2) do not come to pass for the sake of what actually results, and (3) have an external cause, may be described by the phrase ‘from spontaneity’.
(20)
These ‘spontaneous’ events are said to be ‘from chance’ if they have the further characteristics of being the objects of deliberate intention and due to agents capable of that mode of action. This is indicated by the phrase ‘in vain’, which is used when
A,
which is for the sake of
B,
does not result in
B.
For instance, taking a walk is for the sake of evacuation of the bowels; if this does not follow after walking, we say that we have walked ‘in vain’ and that the walking was ‘vain’. This implies that what is naturally the means to an end is ‘in vain’,
(25)
when it does not effect the end towards which it was the natural means—for it would be absurd for a man to say that he had bathed in vain because the sun was not eclipsed, since the one was not done with a view to the other. Thus the spontaneous is even according to its derivation the case in which the thing itself happens in vain. The stone that struck the man did not fall for the purpose of striking him; therefore it fell spontaneously,
(30)
because it might have fallen by the action of an agent and for the purpose of striking. The difference between spontaneity and what results by chance is greatest in things that come to be by nature; for when anything comes to be contrary to nature, we do not say that it came to be by chance, but by spontaneity. Yet strictly this too is different from the spontaneous proper; for the cause of the latter is external,
(35)
that of the former internal.

[198a]
We have now explained what chance is and what spontaneity is, and in what they differ from each other. Both belong to the mode of causation ‘source of change’, for either some natural or some intelligent agent is always the cause; but in this sort of causation the number of possible causes is infinite.

Spontaneity and chance are causes of effects which,
(5)
though they might result from intelligence or nature, have in fact been caused by something
incidentally.
Now since nothing which is incidental is prior to what is
per se,
it is clear that no incidental cause can be prior to a cause
per se.
Spontaneity and chance, therefore, are posterior to intelligence and nature. Hence, however true it may be that the heavens are due to spontaneity,
(10)
it will still be true that intelligence and nature will be prior causes of this All and of many things in it besides.

7
     It is clear then that there are causes, and that the number of them is what we have stated. The number is the same as that of the
things comprehended under the question ‘why’.
(15)
The ‘why’ is referred ultimately either (1), in things which do not involve motion, e. g. in mathematics, to the ‘what’ (to the definition of ‘straight line’ or ‘commensurable’, &c), or (2) to what initiated a motion, e. g. ‘why did they go to war?—because there had been a raid’; or (3) we are inquiring ‘for the sake of what?’—‘that they may rule’; or (4),
(20)
in the case of things that come into being, we are looking for the matter. The causes, therefore, are these and so many in number.

Now, the causes being four, it is the business of the physicist to know about them all, and if he refers his problems back to all of them, he will assign the ‘why’ in the way proper to his science—the matter,
(25)
the form, the mover, ‘that for the sake of which’. The last three often coincide; for the ‘what’ and ‘that for the sake of which’ are one, while the primary source of motion is the same in species as these (for man generates man), and so too, in general, are all things which cause movement by being themselves moved; and such as are not of this kind are no longer inside the province of physics, for they cause motion not by possessing motion or a source of motion in themselves, but being themselves incapable of motion. Hence there are three branches of study,
(30)
one of things which are incapable of motion, the second of things in motion, but indestructible, the third of destructible things.

The question ‘why’, then, is answered by reference to the matter, to the form, and to the primary moving cause. For in respect of coming to be it is mostly in this last way that causes are investigated—‘what comes to be after what? what was the primary agent or patient?’ and so at each step of the series.

Now the principles which cause motion in a physical way are two,
(35)
of which one is not physical, as it has no principle of motion in itself.
[198b]
Of this kind is whatever causes movement, not being itself moved, such as (1) that which is completely unchangeable, the primary reality, and (2) the essence of that which is coming to be, i. e. the form; for this is the end or ‘that for the sake of which’. Hence since nature is for the sake of something, we must know this cause also.
(5)
We must explain the ‘why’ in all the senses of the term, namely, (1) that from this that will necessarily result (‘from this’ either without qualification or in most cases); (2) that ‘this must be so if that is to be so’ (as the conclusion presupposes the premisses); (3) that this was the essence of the thing; and (4) because it is better thus (not without qualification, but with reference to the essential nature in each case).

8
     We must explain then (1) that Nature belongs to the class of causes which act for the sake of something; (2) about the necessary and its place in physical problems,
(10)
for all writers ascribe things to this cause, arguing that since the hot and the cold, &c., are of such and such a kind, therefore certain things
necessarily
are and come to be—and if they mention any other cause (one
⁹
his ‘friendship and strife’,
(15)
another
¹⁰
his ‘mind’), it is only to touch on it, and then goodbye to it.

A difficulty presents itself: why should not nature work, not for the sake of something, nor because it is better so, but just as the sky rains, not in order to make the corn grow, but of necessity? What is drawn up must cool, and what has been cooled must become water and descend,
(20)
the result of this being that the corn grows. Similarly if a man’s crop is spoiled on the threshing-floor, the rain did not fall for the sake of this—in order that the crop might be spoiled—but that result just followed. Why then should it not be the same with the parts in nature, e. g. that our teeth should come up
of necessity
—the front teeth sharp, fitted for tearing, the molars broad and useful for grinding down the food—since they did not arise for this end,
(25)
but it was merely a coincident result; and so with all other parts in which we suppose that there is purpose? Wherever then all the parts came about just what they would have been if they had come to be for an end,
(30)
such things survived, being organized spontaneously in a fitting way; whereas those which grew otherwise perished and continue to perish, as Empedocles says his ‘man-faced ox-progeny’ did.

Such are the arguments (and others of the kind) which may cause difficulty on this point. Yet it is impossible that this should be the true view. For teeth and all other natural things either invariably or normally come about in a given way; but of not one of the results of chance or spontaneity is this true.
(35)
We do not ascribe to chance or mere coincidence the frequency of rain in winter, but frequent rain in summer we do; nor heat in the dog-days, but only if we have it in winter.
[199a]
If then, it is agreed that things are either the result of coincidence or for an end, and these cannot be the result of coincidence or spontaneity, it follows that they must be for an end; and that such things are all due to nature even the champions of the theory which is before us would agree.
(5)
Therefore action for an end is present in things which come to be and are by nature.

Further, where a series has a completion, all the preceding steps are for the sake of that. Now surely as in intelligent action,
(10)
so in nature; and as in nature, so it is in each action, if nothing interferes.
Now intelligent action is for the sake of an end; therefore the nature of things also is so. Thus if a house, e. g., had been a thing made by nature, it would have been made in the same way as it is now by art; and if things made by nature were made also by art,
(15)
they would come to be in the same way as by nature. Each step then in the series is for the sake of the next; and generally art partly completes what nature cannot bring to a finish, and partly imitates her. If, therefore, artificial products are for the sake of an end, so clearly also are natural products. The relation of the later to the earlier terms of the series is the same in both.

This is most obvious in the animals other than man: they make things neither by art nor after inquiry or deliberation.
(20)
Wherefore people discuss whether it is by intelligence or by some other faculty that these creatures work,—spiders, ants, and the like. By gradual advance in this direction we come to see clearly that in plants too that is produced which is conducive to the end—leaves,
(25)
e. g. grow to provide shade for the fruit. If then it is both by nature and for an end that the swallow makes its nest and the spider its web, and plants grow leaves for the sake of the fruit and send their roots down (not up) for the sake of nourishment, it is plain that this kind of cause is operative in things which come to be and are by nature.
(30)
And since ‘nature’ means two things, the matter and the form, of which the latter is the end, and since all the rest is for the sake of the end, the form must be the cause in the sense of ‘that for the sake of which’.

Now mistakes come to pass even in the operations of art: the grammarian makes a mistake in writing and the doctor pours out the wrong dose.
(35)
Hence clearly mistakes are possible in the operations of nature also.
[199b]
If then in art there are cases in which what is rightly produced serves a purpose, and if where mistakes occur there was a purpose in what was attempted, only it was not attained, so must it be also in natural products, and monstrosities will be failures in the purposive effort.
(5)
Thus in the original combinations the ‘ox-progeny’ if they failed to reach a determinate end must have arisen through the corruption of some principle corresponding to what is now the seed.

Further, seed must have come into being first, and not straightway the animals: the words ‘whole-natured first …’
¹¹
must have meant seed.

Again, in plants too we find the relation of means to end,
(10)
though the degree of organization is less. Were there then in plants also ‘olive-headed vine-progeny’, like the ‘man-headed ox-progeny’, or
not? An absurd suggestion; yet there must have been, if there were such things among animals.

Moreover, among the seeds anything must have come to be at random. But the person who asserts this entirely does away with ‘nature’ and what exists ‘by nature’. For those things are natural which,
(15)
by a continuous movement originated from an internal principle, arrive at some completion: the same completion is not reached from every principle; nor any chance completion, but always the tendency in each is towards the same end, if there is no impediment.

The end and the means towards it may come about by chance. We say, for instance, that a stranger has come by chance,
(20)
paid the ransom, and gone away, when he does so as if he had come for that purpose, though it was not for that that he came. This is incidental, for chance is an incidental cause, as I remarked before.
¹²
But when an event takes place always or for the most part, it is not incidental or by chance. In natural products the sequence is invariable,
(25)
if there is no impediment.

It is absurd to suppose that purpose is not present because we do not observe the agent deliberating. Art does not deliberate. If the ship-building art were in the wood, it would produce the same results
by nature.
If, therefore, purpose is present in art, it is present also in nature. The best illustration is a doctor doctoring himself: nature is like that.
(30)

It is plain then that nature is a cause, a cause that operates for a purpose.