The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (87 page)

5
     Let us nevertheless supplement our theory by the following speculations concerning them.

If Water, Air, and the like are a ‘matter’ of which the natural bodies consist,
(5)
as some thinkers in fact believe, these ‘elements’ must be either one, or two, or more. Now they cannot all of them be
one
—they cannot, e. g., all be Air or Water or Fire or Earth—because ‘Change is into contraries’. For if they all were Air, then (assuming Air to persist) there will be ‘alteration’ instead of coming-to-be. Besides, nobody supposes a single ‘element’ to persist, as the basis of all, in such a way that it is Water as well as Air (or any other ‘element’)
at the same time.
(10)
So there will be a certain contrariety, i. e. a differentiating quality:
²³
and the other member of this contrariety, e. g. heat, will belong to some other ‘element’, e. g. to Fire. But Fire will certainly not be ‘hot Air’. For a change of that kind
²⁴
(
a
) is ‘alteration’, and (
b
) is not what is observed. Moreover (
c
) if Air is again to result out of the Fire, it will do so by the conversion of the hot into its contrary: this contrary,
(15)
therefore, will belong to Air, and Air will be a cold something: hence it is impossible for Fire to be ‘hot Air’, since in that case the same thing will be simultaneously hot and cold. Both Fire and Air, therefore, will be something else which is the same; i. e. there will be some ‘matter’, other than either, common to both.

The same argument applies to all the ‘elements’, proving that there is no single one of them out of which they all originate.
(20)
But neither is there, beside these four, some other body from which they originate—a something intermediate, e. g., between Air and Water (coarser than Air, but finer than Water), or between Air and Fire (coarser than Fire, but finer than Air). For the supposed ‘intermediate’ will be Air and Fire when a pair of contrasted qualities is added to it: but, since one of every two contrary qualities is a ‘privation’, the ‘intermediate’ never can exist—as some thinkers assert the ‘Boundless’ or the ‘Environing’ exists—in isolation.
²⁵
(25)
It is, therefore, equally and indifferently any one of the ‘elements’, or else it is nothing.

Since, then, there is nothing—at least, nothing
perceptible
—prior to these,
²⁶
they must be all.
²⁷
That being so, either they must always persist and not be transformable into one another: or they
must undergo transformation—either all of them,
(30)
or some only (as Plato wrote in the
Timaeus
).
²⁸
Now it has been proved before
²⁹
that they must undergo reciprocal transformation. It has also been proved
³⁰
that the speed with which they come-to-be, one out of another, is not uniform—since the process of reciprocal transformation is relatively
quick
between the ‘elements’ with a ‘complementary factor’, but relatively
slow
between those which possess no such factor. Assuming, then, that the contrariety, in respect to which they are transformed,
(35)
is
one
, the ‘elements’ will inevitably be two: for it is ‘matter’ that is the ‘mean’ between the two contraries, and matter is imperceptible and inseparable from them.
[332b]
Since, however, the ‘elements’ are seen to be more than two, the contrarieties must at the least be two. But the contrarieties being two, the ‘elements’ must be four (as they evidently are) and cannot be three: for the ‘couplings’ are four, since, though six are possible,
³¹
the two in which the qualities are contrary to one another cannot occur.
(5)

These subjects have been discussed before:
³²
but the following arguments will make it clear that, since the ‘elements’ are transformed into one another, it is impossible for any one of them——whether it be at the end or in the middle
³³
—to be an ‘originative source’ of the rest. There can be no such ‘originative element’ at the ends: for all of them would then be Fire or Earth, and this theory amounts to the assertion that all things are made of Fire or Earth.
(10)
Nor can a ‘middle-element’ be such an ‘originative source’—as some thinkers suppose that Air is transformed both into Fire and into Water, and Water both into Air and into Earth, while the ‘end-elements’ are not further transformed into one another. For the process must come to a stop, and cannot continue
ad infinitum
in a straight line in either direction, since otherwise an infinite number of contrarieties would attach to the single ‘element’.
(15)
Let E stand for Earth, W for Water, A for Air, and F for Fire. Then (i) since A is transformed into F and W, there will be a contrariety belonging to A F. Let these contraries be whiteness and blackness. Again (ii) since A is transformed into W, there will be another contrariety
³⁴
: for W is not the same as F. Let this second contrariety be dryness and moistness,
(20)
D being dryness and M moistness. Now if, when A is transformed into W, the ‘white’ persists, Water will be moist
and white: but if it does not persist, Water will be black since change is into contraries. Water, therefore, must be either white or black. Let it then be the first. On similar grounds, therefore, D (dryness) will also belong to F. Consequently F (Fire) as well as Air will be able to be transformed into Water: for it has qualities contrary to those of Water,
(25)
since Fire was
first
taken to be black and
then
to be dry, while Water was moist and
then
showed itself white. Thus it is evident that all the ‘elements’ will be able to be transformed out of one another; and that, in the instances we have taken, E (Earth) also will contain the remaining two ‘complementary factors’, viz. the black and the moist (for these have not yet been coupled).
(30)

We have dealt with this last topic before the thesis we set out to prove.
³⁵
That thesis—viz. that the process cannot continue
ad infinitum
—will be clear from the following considerations. If Fire (which is represented by F) is not to revert, but is to be transformed in turn into some other ‘element’ (e. g. into Q), a new contrariety, other than those mentioned, will belong to Fire and Q: for it has been assumed that Q is not the same as any of the four,
(35)
E W A and F.
[333a]
Let K, then, belong to F and Y to Q. Then K will belong to all four, E W A and F: for they are transformed into one another. This last point, however, we may admit, has not yet been proved: but at any rate it is clear that if Q is to be transformed in turn into yet another ‘element’, yet another contrariety will belong not only to Q but also to F (Fire).
(5)
And, similarly, every addition of a new ‘element’ will carry with it the attachment of a new contrariety to the preceding ‘elements’. Consequently, if the ‘elements’ are infinitely many, there will also belong
to the single ‘element’
an infinite number of contrarieties. But if that be so, it will be impossible to define any ‘element’: impossible also for any to come-to-be. For if one is to result from another, it will have to pass through such a vast number of contrarieties—and indeed even more than any determinate number.
(10)
Consequently (i) into some ‘elements’ transformation will never be effected—viz. if the intermediates are infinite in number, as they must be if the ‘elements’ are infinitely many: further (ii) there will not even be a transformation of Air into Fire, if the contrarieties are infinitely many: moreover (iii) all the ‘elements’ become one. For all the contrarieties of the ‘elements’ above F must belong to those below F, and
vice versa
: hence they will all be one.
(15)

6
     As for those who agree with Empedocles that the ‘elements’ of body are more than one, so that they are not transformed into one
another
³⁶
—one may well wonder in what sense it is open to them to maintain that the ‘elements’ are comparable.
(20)
Yet Empedocles says ‘For these are all not only equal …’

If (i) it is meant that they are comparable in their amount, all the ‘comparables’ must possess an identical something whereby they are measured. If, e. g., one pint of Water yields ten of Air, both are measured by the same unit; and therefore both were from the first an identical something. On the other hand, suppose (ii) they are not ‘comparable in their amount’ in the sense that so-much of the one yields so-much of the other, but comparable in ‘power of action’ (a pint of Water,
(25)
e. g., having a power of cooling equal to that of ten pints of Air); even so, they
are
‘comparable in their amount’, though not
qua
‘amount’ but
qua
‘so-much power’.
³⁷
There is also (iii) a third possibility. Instead of comparing their powers by the measure of their amount, they might be compared as terms in a ‘correspondence’: e. g., ‘as
x
is hot, so correspondingly
y
is white’.
(30)
But ‘correspondence’, though it means equality in the
quantum
, means similarity
³⁸
in a
quale
. Thus it is manifestly absurd that the ‘simple’ bodies, though they are not transformable, are comparable not merely as ‘corresponding’, but by a measure of their powers; i. e. that so-much Fire is comparable with many-times-that-amount of Air, as being ‘equally’ or ‘similarly’ hot. For the same thing, if it be greater in amount, will, since it belongs to the same kind,
³⁹
have its
ratio
correspondingly increased.
(35)

A further objection to the theory of Empedocles is that it makes even
growth
impossible, unless it be increase by addition.
[333b]
For his Fire increases by Fire: ‘And Earth increases its own frame and Ether increases Ether.’ These, however, are cases of addition: but it is not by addition that growing things are believed to increase. And it is far more difficult for him to account for the
coming-to-be
which occurs in nature.
(5)
For the things which come-to-be by natural process all exhibit, in their coming-to-be, a uniformity either absolute or highly regular: while any exceptions—any results which are in accordance neither with the invariable nor with the general rule—are products of chance and luck. Then what is the cause determining that man comes-to-be from man, that wheat (instead of an olive) comes-to-be
from wheat, either invariably or generally? Are we to say ‘Bone comes-to-be if the “elements” be put together in such-and-such a manner’? For, according to his own statements,
(10)
nothing comes-to-be from their ‘fortuitous consilience’, but only from their ‘consilience’ in a certain proportion. What, then, is the cause of this proportional consilience? Presumably not Fire or Earth. But neither is it Love and Strife: for the former is a cause of ‘association’ only, and the latter only of ‘dissociation’. No: the cause in question is the essential nature of each thing—not merely (to quote his words) ‘a mingling and a divorce of what has been mingled’. And
chance
, not
proportion
,
(15)
‘is the name given to these occurrences’: for things can be ‘mingled’ fortuitously.

The cause, therefore, of the coming-to-be of the things which owe their existence to nature is that they are in such-and-such a determinate condition:
⁴⁰
and it is
this
which constitutes the ‘nature’ of each thing—a ‘nature’ about which he says nothing. What he says, therefore, is no explanation of ‘nature’. Moreover, it is
this
which is both ‘the excellence’ of each thing and its ‘good’: whereas he assigns the whole credit to the ‘mingling’. (And yet
the ‘elements’
at all events are ‘dissociated’ not by Strife,
(20)
but by Love: since the ‘elements’ are by nature prior to the Deity, and they too are Deities.)

Again, his account of motion is vague. For it is not an adequate explanation to say that ‘Love and Strife set things moving’, unless the very nature of Love is a movement of
this
kind and the very nature of Strife a movement of
that
kind. He ought, then, either to have defined or to have postulated these characteristic movements,
(25)
or to have demonstrated them—whether strictly or laxly or in some other fashion. Moreover, since (
a
) the ‘simple’ bodies
appear
to move ‘naturally’ as well as by compulsion, i. e. in a manner contrary to nature (fire, e. g., appears to move upwards without compulsion, though it appears to move by compulsion downwards); and since (
b
) what is ‘natural’ is contrary to that which is due to compulsion, and movement by compulsion actually occurs;
⁴¹
it follows that ‘natural movement’ can also occur in fact. Is
this
, then, the movement that Love sets going? No: for, on the contrary,
(30)
the ‘natural movement’ moves Earth downwards and resembles ‘dissociation’, and Strife rather than Love is its cause—so that in general, too, Love rather than Strife would seem to be contrary to nature. And unless Love or Strife is actually setting them in motion, the ‘simple’
bodies themselves have absolutely no movement or rest.
(35)
But this is paradoxical: and what is more, they do in fact obviously move.
⁴²
[334a]
For though Strife ‘dissociated’,
⁴³
it was not by Strife that the ‘Ether’ was borne upwards. On the contrary, sometimes he attributes its movement to something like
chance
(‘For
thus
, as it ran, it
happened
to meet them then, though often otherwise’), while at other times he says it is the
nature
of Fire to be borne upwards, but ‘the Ether’ (to quote his words) ‘sank down upon the Earth with long roots’.
(5)
With such statements, too, he combines the assertion that the Order of the World is the same
now
, in the reign of Strife, as it was
formerly
in the reign of Love. What, then, is the ‘first mover’ of the ‘elements’? What causes their motion? Presumably not Love and Strife: on the contrary, these are causes of a
particular
motion, if at least we assume that ‘first mover’ to be an ‘originative source’.
⁴⁴

An additional paradox is that the soul should consist of the ‘elements’,
(10)
or that it should be one of them. How are the soul’s ‘alterations’ to take place? How, e. g., is the change from being musical to being unmusical, or how is memory or forgetting, to occur? For clearly, if the soul be Fire, only such modifications will happen to it as characterize Fire
qua
Fire: while if it be compounded out of the ‘elements’, only the corporeal modifications will occur in it.
(15)
But the changes we have mentioned are none of them corporeal.