The Politics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

  These distinctions drawn, one can gather from surveying the various cases of becoming in the way we are describing that there must always be an underlying [15] something, namely that which becomes, and that this, though always one numerically, in form at least is not one. (By ‘in form’ I mean the same as ‘in account’.) For to be a man is not the same as to be unmusical. One part survives, the other does not: what is not an opposite survives (for the man survives), but [20] not-musical or unmusical does not survive, nor does the compound of the two, namely the unmusical man.

  We speak of ‘becoming that from this’ instead of ‘this becoming that’ more in the case of what does not survive the change—‘becoming musical from unmusical’, not ‘from man’—but we sometimes use the latter form of expression even of what [25] survives; we speak of a statue coming to be from bronze, not of the bronze becoming a statue. The change, however, from an opposite which does not survive is described in both ways, ‘becoming that from this’ or ‘this becoming that’. We say both that the unmusical becomes musical, and that from unmusical he becomes musical. And so both forms are used of the complex, ‘becoming a musical from an unmusical [30] man’, and ‘an unmusical man becoming musical’.

  Things are said to come to be in different ways. In some cases we do not use the expression ‘come to be’, but ‘come to be so-and-so’. Only substances are said to come to be without qualification.

  Now in all cases other than substance it is plain that there must be something underlying, namely, that which becomes. For when a thing comes to be of such a quantity or quatity or in such a relation, time,4 or place, a subject is always [35] presupposed, since substance alone is not predicated of another subject, but everything else of substance.

  But that substances too, and anything that can be said to be without [190b1] qualification, come to be from some underlying thing, will appear on examination. For we find in every case something that underlies from which proceeds that which comes to be; for instance, animals and plants from seed.

  Things which come to be without qualification, come to be in different ways: [5] by change of shape, as a statue; by addition, as things which grow; by taking away, as the Hermes from the stone; by putting together, as a house; by alteration, as things which turn in respect of their matter.

  It is plain that these are all cases of coming to be from some underlying [10] thing.

  Thus, from what has been said, whatever comes to be is always complex. There is, on the one hand, something which comes to be, and again something which becomes that—the latter in two senses, either the subject or the opposite. By the opposite I mean the unmusical, by the subject, man; and similarly I call the absence of shape or form or order the opposite, and the bronze or stone or gold the [15] subject.

  Plainly then, if there are causes and principles which constitute natural objects and from which they primarily are or have come to be—have come to be, I mean, what each is said to be in its substance, not what each is accidentally—plainly, I say, everything comes to be from both subject and form. For the musical man is [20] composed in a way of man and musical: you can analyse it into the definitions of its elements. It is clear then that what comes to be will come to be from these elements.

  Now the subject is one numerically, though it is two in form. (For there is the man, the gold—in general, the countable matter; for it is more of the nature of a [25] ‘this’, and what comes to be does not come from it accidentally; the privation, on the other hand, and the contrariety are accidental.) And the form is one—the order, the art of music, or any similar predicate.

  There is a sense, therefore, in which we must declare the principles to be two, and a sense in which they are three; a sense in which the contraries are the [30] principles—say for example the musical and the unmusical, the hot and the cold, the tuned and the untuned—and a sense in which they are not, since it is impossible for the contraries to be acted on by each other. But this difficulty also is solved by the fact that what underlies is different from the contraries; for it is itself not a [35] contrary. The principles therefore are, in a way, not more in number than the contraries, but as it were two; nor yet precisely two, since there is a difference of [191a1] being, but three. For to be man is different from to be unmusical, and to be unformed from to be bronze.

  We have now stated the number of the principles of natural objects which are subject to generation, and how the number is reached; and it is clear that there must [5] be something underlying the contraries, and that the contraries must be two. (Yet in another way of putting it this is not necessary, as one of the contraries will serve to effect the change by its absence and presence.)

  The underlying nature can be known by analogy. For as the bronze is to the [10] statue, the wood to the bed, or the matter and5 the formless before receiving form to any thing which has form, so is the underlying nature to substance, i.e. the ‘this’ or existent.

  This then is one principle (though not one or existent in the same sense as the ‘this’); one is the form or definition;6 then further there is its contrary, the privation. [15] In what sense these are two, and in what sense more, has been stated above. We explained first that only the contraries were principles, and later that something else underlay them, and that the principles were three; our last statement has elucidated the difference between the contraries, the mutual relation of the principles, and the nature of what underlies. Whether the form or what underlies is [20] the substance is not yet clear. But that the principles are three, and in what sense, and the way in which each is a principle, is clear.

  So much then for the question of the number and the nature of the principles.

  8 · We will now proceed to show that the difficulty of the early thinkers, as well as our own, is solved in this way alone.

  [25] The first of those who studied philosophy were misled in their search for truth and the nature of things by their inexperience, which as it were thrust them into another path. So they say that none of the things that are either comes to be or passes out of existence, because what comes to be must do so either from what is or from what is not, both of which are impossible. For what is cannot come to be [30] (because it is already), and from what is not nothing could have come to be (because something must be underlying). So too they exaggerated the consequence of this, and went so far as to deny even the existence of a plurality of things maintaining that only what is itself is. Such then was their opinion, and such the reason for its adoption.

  [35] Our explanation on the other hand is that for something to come to be from what is or from what is not, or what is not or what is to do something or have something done to it or become some particular thing, are in one way no different from a doctor doing something or having something done to him, or being or [191b1] becoming something from being a doctor. These expressions may be taken in two ways, and so too, clearly, may ‘from what is’, and ‘what is acts or is acted on’. A doctor builds a house, not qua doctor, but qua housebuilder, and turns gray, not qua [5] doctor, but qua dark-haired. On the other hand he doctors or fails to doctor qua doctor. But we are using words most appropriately when we say that a doctor does something or undergoes something, or becomes something from being a doctor, if he does, undergoes, or becomes qua doctor. Clearly then also to come to be so-and-so from what is not means ‘qua what is not’.

  It was through failure to make this distinction that those thinkers gave the [10] matter up, and through this error that they went so much farther astray as to suppose that nothing else comes to be or exists apart from what is itself, thus doing away with all becoming.

  We ourselves are in agreement with them in holding that nothing can be said without qualification to come from what is not. But nevertheless we maintain that a thing may come to be from what is not in a qualified sense, i.e. accidentally. For a [15] thing comes to be from the privation, which in its own nature is something which is not—this not surviving as a constituent of the result. Yet this causes surp
rise, and it is thought impossible that something should come to be in the way described from what is not.

  In the same way we maintain that nothing comes to be from what is, and that what is does not come to be except accidentally. In that way, however, it does, just as animal might come to be from animal, and an animal of a certain kind from an animal of a certain kind. Thus, suppose a dog to come to be from a dog, or a horse [20] from a horse. The dog would then, it is true, come to be from animal (as well as from an animal of a certain kind) but not as animal, for that is already there. But if anything is to become an animal, not accidentally, it will not be from animal; and if what is, not from what is—nor from what is not either, for it has been explained that [25] by ‘from what is not’ we mean qua what is not.

  Note further that we do not subvert the principle that everything either is or is not.

  This then is one way of solving the difficulty. Another consists in pointing out that the same things can be spoken of in terms of potentiality and actuality. But this has been done with greater precision elsewhere.7

  So, as we said, the difficulties which constrain people to deny the existence of [30] some of the things we mentioned are now solved. For it was this reason which also caused some of the earlier thinkers to turn so far aside from the road which leads to coming to be and passing away and change generally. If they had come in sight of this nature, all their ignorance would have been dispelled.

  9 · Others, indeed, have apprehended the nature in question, but not [35] adequately.

  In the first place they allow that a thing may come to be without qualification [192a1] from what is not, accepting on this point the statement of Parmenides. Secondly, they think that if it is one numerically, it must have also only a single potentiality—which is a very different thing.

  Now we distinguish matter and privation, and hold that one of these, namely [5] the matter, accidentally is not, while the privation in its own nature is not; and that the matter is nearly, in a sense is, substance, while the privation in no sense is. They, on the other hand, identify their Great and Small alike with what is not, and that whether they are taken together as one or separately. Their triad is therefore of [10] quite a different kind from ours. For they got so far as to see that there must be some underlying nature, but they make it one—for even if one philosopher8 makes a dyad of it, which he calls Great and Small, the effect is the same; for he overlooked the other nature. For the one which persists is a joint cause, with the form, of what comes to be—a mother, as it were. But the other part of the contrariety may often [15] seem, if you concentrate your attention on it as an evil agent, not to exist at all.

  For admitting that there is something divine, good, and desirable, we hold that there are two other principles, the one contrary to it, the other such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for it. But the consequence of their view is that the [20] contrary desires its own extinction. Yet the form cannot desire itself, for it is not defective; nor can the contrary desire it, for contraries are mutually destructive. The truth is that what desires the form is matter, as the female desires the male and the ugly the beautiful—only the ugly or the female not in itself but accidentally.

  [25] The matter comes to be and ceases to be in one sense, while in another it does not. As that which contains the privation, it ceases to be in its own nature; for what ceases to be—the privation—is contained within it. But as potentiality it does not cease to be in its own nature, but is necessarily outside the sphere of becoming and ceasing to be. For if it came to be, something must have existed as a primary [30] substratum from which it should come and which should persist in it; but this is its own very nature, so that it will be before coming to be. (For my definition of matter is just this—the primary substratum of each thing, from which it comes to be, and which persists in the result, not accidentally.) And if it ceases to be it will pass into that at the last, so it will have ceased to be before ceasing to be.

  The accurate determination of the first principle in respect of form, whether it is one or many and what it is or what they are, is the province of first philosophy; so [192b1] these questions may stand over till then. But of the natural, i.e. perishable, forms we shall speak in the expositions which follow.

  The above, then, may be taken as sufficient to establish that there are principles and what they are and how many there are. Now let us make a fresh start and proceed.

  BOOK II

  1 · Of things that exist, some exist by nature, some from other causes. By nature the animals and their parts exist, and the plants and the simple bodies (earth, [10] fire, air, water)—for we say that these and the like exist by nature.

  All the things mentioned plainly differ from things which are not constituted by nature. For each of them has within itself a principle of motion and of stationariness (in respect of place, or of growth and decrease, or by way of [15] alteration). On the other hand, a bed and a coat and anything else of that sort, qua receiving these designations—i.e. in so far as they are products of art—have no innate impulse to change. But in so far as they happen to be composed of stone or of earth or of a mixture of the two, they do have such an impulse, and just to that [20] extent—which seems to indicate that nature is a principle or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily, in virtue of itself and not accidentally.

  I say ‘not accidentally’, because (for instance) a man who is a doctor might himself be a cause of health to himself. Nevertheless it is not in so far as he is a [25] patient that he possesses the art of medicine: it merely has happened that the same man is doctor and patient—and that is why these attributes are not always found together. So it is with all other artificial products. None of them has in itself the principle of its own production. But while in some cases (for instance houses and the [30] other products of manual labour) that principle is in something else external to the thing, in others—those which may cause a change in themselves accidentally—it lies in the things themselves (but not in virtue of what they are).

  Nature then is what has been stated. Things have a nature which have a principle of this kind. Each of them is a substance; for it is a subject, and nature is always in a subject.

  The term ‘according to nature’ is applied to all these things and also to the [35] attributes which belong to them in virtue of what they are, for instance the property of fire to be carried upwards—which is not a nature nor has a nature but is by [193a1] nature or according to nature.

  What nature is, then, and the meaning of the terms ‘by nature’ and ‘according to nature’, has been stated. That nature exists, it would be absurd to try to prove; for it is obvious that there are many things of this kind, and to prove what is obvious by [5] what is not is the mark of a man who is unable to distinguish what is self-evident from what is not. (This state of mind is clearly possible. A man blind from birth might reason about colours.) Presumably therefore such persons must be talking about words without any thought to correspond.

  Some identify the nature or substance of a natural object with that immediate [10] constituent of it which taken by itself is without arrangement, e.g. the wood is the nature of the bed, and the bronze the nature of the statue.

  As an indication of this Antiphon points out that if you planted a bed and the rotting wood acquired the power of sending up a shoot, it would not be a bed that would come up, but wood which shows that the arrangement in accordance with the [15] rules of the art is merely an accidental attribute, whereas the substance is the other, which, further, persists continuously through the process.

  But if the material of each of these objects has itself the same relation to something else, say bronze (or gold) to water, bones (or wood) to earth and so on, [20] that (they say) would be their nature and substance. Consequently some assert earth, others fire or air or water or some or all of these, to be the nature of the things that are. For whatever any one of them supposed to have this character—whether one thing or mo
re than one thing—this or these he declared to be the whole of [25] substance, all else being its affections, states, or dispositions. Every such thing they held to be eternal (for it could not pass into anything else), but other things to come into being and cease to be times without number.

  This then is one account of nature, namely that it is the primary underlying matter of things which have in themselves a principle of motion or change.

  [30] Another account is that nature is the shape or form which is specified in the definition of the thing.

  For the word ‘nature’ is applied to what is according to nature and the natural in the same way as ‘art’ is applied to what is artistic or a work of art. We should not say in the latter case that there is anything artistic about a thing, if it is a bed only [35] potentially, not yet having the form of a bed; nor should we call it a work of art. The same is true of natural compounds. What is potentially flesh or bone has not yet its [193b1] own nature, and does not exist by nature, until it receives the form specified in the definition, which we name in defining what flesh or bone is. Thus on the second account of nature, it would be the shape or form (not separable except in statement) [5] of things which have in themselves a principle of motion. (The combination of the two, e.g. man, is not nature but by nature.)

  The form indeed is nature rather than the matter; for a thing is more properly said to be what it is when it exists in actuality than when it exists potentially. Again man is born from man but not bed from bed. That is why people say that the shape is [10] not the nature of a bed, but the wood is—if the bed sprouted, not a bed but wood would come up. But even if the shape is art,9 then on the same principle the shape of man is his nature. For man is born from man.