The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (148 page)

4
     The causes and the principles of different things are in a sense different, but in a sense, if one speaks universally and analogically, they are the same for all. For one might raise the question whether the principles and elements are different or the same for substances and for relative terms,
(35)
and similarly in the case of each of the categories. But it would be paradoxical if they were the same for all. For then from the same elements will proceed relative terms and substances.
[1070b]
What then will this common element be? For (1) (
a
) there is nothing common to and distinct from substance and the other categories, viz. those which are predicated; but an element is prior
to the things of which it is an element. But again (
b
) substance is not an element in relative terms, nor is any of these an element in substance. Further, (2) how can all things have the same elements? For none of the elements can be the same as that which is composed of elements,
(5)
e. g.
b
or
a
cannot be the same as
ba
. (None, therefore, of the intelligibles, e. g. being or unity, is an element; for these are predicable of each of the compounds as well.) None of the elements, then, will be either a substance or a relative term; but it must be one or other. All things, then, have not the same elements.

Or, as we are wont to put it,
(10)
in a sense they have and in a sense they have not; e. g. perhaps the elements of perceptible bodies are, as
form
, the hot, and in another sense the cold, which is the
privation
; and, as
matter
, that which directly and of itself potentially has these attributes; and substances comprise both these and the things composed of these, of which these are the principles, or any unity which is produced out of the hot and the cold, e. g. flesh or bone; for the product must be different from the elements.
(15)
These things then have the same elements and principles (though specifically different things have specifically different elements); but
all
things have not the same elements in this sense, but only analogically; i. e. one might say that there are three principles—the form, the privation, and the matter. But each of these is different for each class; e. g. in colour they are white,
(20)
black, and surface, and in day and night they are light, darkness, and air.

Since not only the elements present in a thing are causes, but also something external, i. e. the moving cause, clearly while ‘principle’ and ‘element’ are different both are causes, and ‘principle’ is divided into these two kinds
⁵
and that which acts as producing movement or rest is a principle and a substance. Therefore analogically there are three elements,
(25)
and four causes and principles; but the elements are different in different things, and the proximate moving cause is different for different things. Health, disease, body; the moving cause is the medical art. Form, disorder of a particular kind, bricks; the moving cause is the building art. And since the moving cause in the case of natural things is—for man,
(30)
for instance, man, and in the products of thought the form or its contrary, there will be in a sense three causes, while in a sense there are four. For the medical art is in some sense health, and the building art is the form of the house, and man begets man;
⁶
further, besides these there is that which as first of all things moves all things.
(35)

5
     Some things can exist apart and some cannot, and it is the former that are substances.
[1071a]
And therefore all things have the same causes,
⁷
because, without substances, modifications and movements do not exist. Further, these causes will probably be soul and body, or reason and desire and body.

And in yet another way,
(5)
analogically identical things are principles, i. e. actuality and potency; but these also are not only different for different things but also apply in different ways to them. For in some cases the same thing exists at one time actually and at another potentially, e. g. wine or flesh or man does so. (And these two fall under the above-named causes.
⁸
For the form exists actually, if it can exist apart, and so does the complex of form and matter,
(10)
and the privation, e. g. darkness or disease; but the matter exists potentially; for this is that which can become qualified either by the form or by the privation.) But the distinction of actuality and potentiality applies in another way to cases where the matter of cause and of effect is not the same, in some of which cases the form is not the same but different; e. g. the cause of man is (1) the elements in man (viz. fire and earth as matter, and the peculiar form), and further (2) something else outside,
(15)
i. e. the father, and (3) besides these the sun and its oblique course, which are neither matter nor form nor privation of man nor of the same species with him, but moving causes.

Further, one must observe that some causes can be expressed in universal terms, and some cannot. The proximate principles of all things are the ‘this’ which is proximate in actuality, and another which is proximate in potentiality.
⁹
The universal causes, then,
(20)
of which we spoke
¹⁰
do not
exist
. For it is the individual that is the originative principle of the individuals. For while man is the originative principle of man universally, there
is
no universal man, but Peleus is the originative principle of Achilles, and your father of you, and this particular
b
of this particular
ba
, though
b
in general is the originative principle of
ba
taken without qualification.

Further, if the causes of substances are the causes of all things, yet different things have different causes and elements, as was said
¹¹
; the causes of things that are not in the same class,
(25)
e. g. of colours and sounds, of substances and quantities, are different except in an analogical
sense; and those of things in the same species are different, not in species, but in the sense that the causes of different individuals are different, your matter and form and moving cause being different from mine, while in their universal definition they are the same. And if we inquire what are the principles or elements of substances and relations and qualities—whether they are the same or different—clearly when the names of the causes are used in several senses the causes of each are the same,
(30)
but when the senses are distinguished the causes are not the same but different, except that in the following senses the causes of all are the same. They are (1) the same or analogous in this sense, that matter, form, privation, and the moving cause are common to all things; and (2) the causes of substances may be treated as causes of all things in this sense, that when substances are removed all things are removed; further,
(35)
(3) that which is first in respect of complete reality is the cause of all things. But in another sense there are different first causes, viz. all the contraries which are neither generic nor ambiguous terms; and, further, the matters of different things are different.
[1071b]
We have stated, then, what are the principles of sensible things and how many they are, and in what sense they are the same and in what sense different.

6
     Since there were
¹²
three kinds of substance, two of them physical and one unmovable, regarding the latter we must assert that it is necessary that there should be an eternal unmovable substance. For substances are the first of existing things, and if they are all destructible,
(5)
all things are destructible. But it is impossible that movement should either have come into being or cease to be (for it must always have existed), or that time should. For there could not be a before and an after if time did not exist. Movement also is continuous, then, in the sense in which time is; for time is either the same thing as movement or an attribute of movement. And there is no continuous movement except movement in place,
(10)
and of this only that which is circular is continuous.

But if there is something which is capable of moving things or acting on them, but is not actually doing so, there will not necessarily be movement; for that which has a potency need not exercise it. Nothing, then, is gained even if we suppose eternal substances, as the believers in the Forms do, unless there is to be in them some principle which can cause change; nay,
(15)
even this is not enough, nor is another substance besides the Forms enough; for if it is not to
act
, there will be no movement. Further, even if it acts, this will not be
enough, if its essence is potency; for there will not be
eternal
movement, since that which is potentially may possibly not be. There must,
(20)
then, be such a principle, whose very essence is actuality. Further, then, these substances must be without matter; for they must be eternal, if
anything
is eternal. Therefore they must be actuality.

Yet there is a difficulty; for it is thought that everything that acts is able to act, but that not everything that is able to act acts,
(25)
so that the potency is prior. But if this is so, nothing that is need be; for it is possible for all things to be capable of existing but not yet to exist.

Yet if we follow the theologians who generate the world from night, or the natural philosophers who say that ‘all things were together’,
¹³
the same impossible result ensues. For how will there be movement, if there is no actually existing cause? Wood will surely not move itself—the carpenter’s art must act on it; nor will the menstrual blood nor the earth set themselves in motion,
(30)
but the seeds must act on the earth and the
semen
on the menstrual blood.

This is why some suppose eternal actuality—e. g. Leucippus
¹⁴
and Plato
¹⁵
; for they say there is always movement. But why and what this movement is they do not say, nor, if the world moves in this way or that, do they tell us the cause of its doing so. Now nothing is moved at random,
(35)
but there must always be something present to move it; e. g. as a matter of fact a thing moves in one way by nature, and in another by force or through the influence of reason or something else. (Further, what sort of movement is primary? This makes a vast difference.) But again for Plato, at least, it is not permissible to name here that which he sometimes supposes to be the source of movement—that which moves itself;
¹⁶
for the soul is later, and coeval with the heavens, according to his account.
¹⁷
[1072a]
To suppose potency prior to actuality, then, is in a sense right, and in a sense not; and we have specified these senses.
¹⁸
That actuality is prior is testified by Anaxagoras (for his ‘reason’ is actuality) and by Empedocles in his doctrine of love and strife,
(5)
and by those who say that there is always movement, e. g. Leucippus. Therefore chaos or night did not exist for an infinite time, but the same things have always existed (either passing through a cycle of changes or obeying some other law), since actuality is prior to potency. If, then, there is a constant cycle,
(10)
something must always remain,
¹⁹
acting in the same way. And if there is
to be generation and destruction, there must be something else
²⁰
which is always acting in different ways. This must, then, act in one way in virtue of itself, and in another in virtue of something else—either of a third agent, therefore, or of the first. Now it must be in virtue of the first. For otherwise this again causes the motion both of the second agent and of the third. Therefore it is better to say ‘the first’.
(15)
For it was the cause of eternal uniformity; and something else is the cause of variety, and evidently both together are the cause of eternal variety. This, accordingly, is the character which the motions actually exhibit. What need then is there to seek for other principles?

7
     Since (1) this is a possible account of the matter, and (2) if it were not true, the world would have proceeded out of night and ‘all things together’ and out of non-being, these difficulties may be taken as solved.
(20)
There is, then, something which is always moved with an unceasing motion, which is motion in a circle; and this is plain not in theory only but in fact. Therefore the first heaven
²¹
must be eternal. There is therefore also something which moves it. And since that which is moved and moves is intermediate, there is something which moves without being moved, being eternal, substance,
(25)
and actuality. And the object of desire and the object of thought move in this way; they move without being moved. The primary objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent good is the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object of rational wish. But desire is consequent on opinion rather than opinion on desire; for the thinking is the starting-point.
(30)
And thought is moved by the object of thought, and one of the two columns of opposites is in itself the object of thought; and in this, substance is first, and in substance, that which is simple and exists actually. (The one and the simple are not the same; for ‘one’ means a measure, but ‘simple’ means that the thing itself has a certain nature.) But the beautiful, also, and that which is in itself desirable are in the same column; and the first in any class is always best,
(35)
or analogous to the best.

[1072b]
That a final cause may exist among unchangeable entities is shown by the distinction of its meanings. For the final cause is (
a
) some being for whose good an action is done, and (
b
) something at which the action aims; and of these the latter exists among unchangeable entities though the former does not. The final cause, then, produces motion as being loved, but all other things move by being moved.

Now if something is moved it is capable of being otherwise than as it is.
(5)
Therefore if its actuality is the primary form of spatial motion, then in so far as it is subject to change, in
this
respect it is capable of being otherwise—in place, even if not in substance. But since there is something which moves while itself unmoved, existing actually, this can in no way be otherwise than as it is. For motion in space is the first of the kinds of change, and motion in a circle the first kind of spatial motion; and this the first mover
produces
.
²²
(10)
The first mover, then, exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first principle. For the necessary has all these senses—that which is necessary perforce because it is contrary to the natural impulse, that without which the good is impossible, and that which cannot be otherwise but can exist only in a single way.

On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the world of nature. And it is a life such as the best which we enjoy,
(15)
and enjoy for but a short time (for it is ever in this state, which we cannot be), since its actuality is also pleasure. (And for this reason
²³
are waking, perception, and thinking most pleasant, and hopes and memories are so on account of these.) And thinking in itself deals with that which is best in itself, and that which is thinking in the fullest sense with that which is best in the fullest sense. And thought thinks on itself because it shares the nature of the object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact with and thinking its objects,
(20)
so that thought and object of thought are the same. For that which is
capable
of receiving the object of thought, i. e. the essence, is thought. But it is
active
when it
possesses
this object. Therefore the possession rather than the receptivity is the divine element which thought seems to contain, and the act of contemplation is what is most pleasant and best. If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more.
(25)
And God
is
in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God’s self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this
is
God.

Those who suppose, as the Pythagoreans
²⁴
and Speusippus
²⁵
do,
(30)
that supreme beauty and goodness are not present in the beginning, because the beginnings both of plants and of animals are
causes
, but beauty and completeness are in the
effects
of these,
²⁶
are wrong in their opinion. For the seed comes from other individuals which are prior and complete,
(35)
and the first thing is not seed but the complete being; e. g. we must say that before the seed there is a man—not the man produced from the seed, but another from whom the seed comes.
[1073a]

It is clear then from what has been said that there is a substance which is eternal and unmovable and separate from sensible things. It has been shown also that this substance cannot have any magnitude but is without parts and indivisible (for it produces movement through infinite time,
(5)
but nothing finite has infinite power; and, while every magnitude is either infinite or finite, it cannot, for the above reason, have finite magnitude, and it cannot have infinite magnitude because there is no infinite magnitude at all).
(10)
But it has also been shown that it is impassive and unalterable; for all the other changes are posterior to
²⁷
change of place.