by Aristotle
We have now finished our examination of the heavy and the light and of the properties connected with them.
**TEXT: D. J. Allan, OCT, Oxford, 1936
1See Physics I 7–9.
2αἰθήρ from ἀεὶ θεῖν.
3I.e. Physics VI 7.
4Retaining the MSS reading ἧς πέρας.
5At Physics VIII 8.
6I.e. Physics III 4–8.
7Physics VIII 10.
8‘Duration’, αἰών, is derived from ‘always existing’, αἰεὶ ὤν.
9See Progression of Animals 4–5.
10See Physics 207a8.
11Snake’s eyes.
12Plato, Timaeus 40B.
13Allan excises the bracketed clause.
14Frag. 39 Diels-Kranz.
15About 10,000 miles.
16See Physics VI 1.
17See Timaeus 56B.
18Timaeus 30A.
19Frag. 57 Diels-Kranz.
20See Physics VI 1–2.
21Timaeus 51A.
22Timaeus 63C.
23See Physics VIII 4.
24See above, II 14.
ON GENERATION AND CORRUPTION**
H. H. Joachim
BOOK I
[314a1] 1 · Our next task is to study coming-to-be and passing-away. We are to distinguish the causes, and to state the definitions, of these processes considered in general—as they apply uniformly to all the things that come-to-be and pass-away by nature. Further, we are to study growth and alteration. We must inquire what [5] each of them is; and whether alteration has the same nature as coming-to-be, or whether to these different names there correspond two separate processes with distinct natures.
On this question, indeed, the early philosophers are divided. Some of them assert that the so-called unqualified coming-to-be is alteration, while others maintain that alteration and coming-to-be are distinct. For those who say that the universe is one something (i.e. those who generate all things out of one thing) are [10] bound to assert that coming-to-be is alteration, and that whatever comes-to-be in the proper sense of the term is being altered; but those who make the matter of things more than one must distinguish coming-to-be from alteration. To this latter class belong Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Leucippus. And yet Anaxagoras failed to understand his own utterance. He says, at all events, that coming-to-be and passing-away are the same as being altered; yet, in common with other thinkers, he [15] affirms that the elements are many. Thus Empedocles holds that the corporeal elements are four, while all the elements—including those which initiate movement—are six in number; whereas Anaxagoras agrees with Leucippus and Democritus that the elements are infinite.
20 (Anaxagoras posits as elements the ‘homoeomeries’, viz. bone, flesh, marrow, and everything else which is such that part and whole are synonymous; while Democritus and Leucippus say that there are indivisible bodies, infinite both in number and in the varieties of their shapes, of which everything else is composed—the compounds differing one from another according to their constituents and to the positions, and groupings of their constituents.)
For the views of the school of Anaxagoras seem diametrically opposed to those [25] of the followers of Empedocles. Empedocles says that Fire, Water, Air, and Earth are four elements, and are thus simple, rather than flesh, bone, and bodies which, like these, are ‘homoeomeries’. But the followers of Anaxagoras regard the ‘homoeomeries’ as simple and elements, whilst they affirm that Earth, Fire, Water, and Air are composite; for each of these is (according to them) a seed-bed of the ‘homoeomeries’.
Those, then, who construct all things out of a single element, must maintain [314b1] that coming-to-be and passing-away are alteration. For they must affirm that the underlying something always remains identical and one; and change of such a kind is what we call altering. Those, on the other hand, who make the ultimate kinds of [5] things more than one, must maintain that alteration is distinct from coming-to-be; for coming-to-be and passing-away result from the consilience and the dissolution of the many kinds. That is why Empedocles too uses language to this effect, when he says ‘There is no coming-to-be of anything, but only a mingling and a divorce of what has been mingled’. 1 Thus it is clear that their account in these terms is in accordance with their assumption, and that they do in fact so describe things; [10] nevertheless, they too must recognize alteration as a fact distinct from coming-to-be, though it is impossible for them to do so consistently with what they say.
That we are right in this criticism is easy to perceive. For while the substance of the thing remains unchanged, we see it altering just as we see in it the changes of magnitude called growth and diminution. Nevertheless, the statements of those who [15] posit more principles than one make alteration impossible. For the affections in respect of which we say that alteration occurs (I mean, e.g., hot-cold, white-black, dry-moist, soft-hard, and so forth) are differences characterizing the elements. Empedocles says: [20]
The sun everywhere bright to see, and hot;
The rain everywhere dark and cold;2
and he characterizes his remaining elements in a similar manner. Since, therefore, it is not possible for Fire to become Water, or Water to become Earth, neither will it be possible for anything white to become black, or anything soft to become hard; and the same argument applies to all the other qualities. Yet this is what alteration [25] essentially is.
It follows, as an obvious corollary, that a single matter must always be assumed as underlying the contraries in any change—whether change of place, or growth and diminution, or alteration; further, that the being of this matter and the being of alteration must stand and fall together. For if the change is alteration, then the substratum is a single element; i.e. all things which admit of change into one [315a1] another have a single matter. And, conversely, if the substratum is one, there is alteration.
Empedocles, indeed, seems to contradict his own statements as well as the [5] phenomena. For he denies that any one of his elements comes-to-be out of any other, insisting on the contrary that they are the things out of which everything else comes-to-be; and yet (having brought the entirety of existing things, except Strife, together into one) he maintains, simultaneously with this denial, that each thing once more comes-to-be out of the One. Hence it was clearly out of a One that this came-to-be Water, and that Fire, various portions of it being separated off by [10] certain characteristic differences or affections—as indeed he calls the sun white and hot, and the earth heavy and hard. If, therefore, these differences be taken away (for they can be taken away, since they came-to-be), it will clearly be inevitable for Earth to come-to-be out of Water and Water out of Earth, and for each of the other elements to undergo a similar transformation—not only then, but [15] also now—if they change their affections. And, to judge by what he says, they can be attached to things and can again be separated from them, especially since Strife and Love are still fighting with one another. It was owing to this same conflict that the elements were generated from a One at the former period for presumably Fire, Earth, and Water had no distinctive existence at all while merged in one.
It is not clear either whether we should regard as his first principle the One or [20] the Many—i.e. Fire and Earth, and the bodies co-ordinate with these. For the One is an element in so far as it underlies the process as matter—as that out of which Earth and Fire come-to-be through a change due to the motion. On the other hand, in so far as the One results from composition (by a consilience of the Many), whereas they result from disintegration, the Many are more elementary than the [25] One, and prior to it in their nature.
2 · We have therefore to discuss the whole subject of unqualified coming-to-be and passing-away; we have to inquire whether they do or do not occur and, if they occur, to explain how they occur. We must also discuss the remaining forms of movement, viz. growth and alteration. For Plato only investigated the conditions [30] under which things come-to-be and pass-away; and he discussed not all coming-to
-be, but only that of the elements. He asked no questions as to how flesh or bones, or any of the other similar things, come-to-be; nor again did he examine the conditions under which alteration or growth are attributable to things.
In general, no one except Democritus has applied himself to any of these matters in a more than superficial way. Democritus, however, does seem not only to [315b1] have thought about all the problems, but also to be distinguished from the outset by his method. For, as we are saying, none of the other philosophers made any definite statement about growth, except such as any amateur might have made. They said that things grow by the accession of like to like, but they did not proceed to explain the manner of this accession. Nor did they give any account of combination; and they neglected almost every single one of the remaining problems, offering no [5] explanation, e.g., of action or passion—how in natural actions one thing acts and the other undergoes action. Democritus and Leucippus, however, postulate the ‘figures’, and make alteration and coming-to-be result from them. They explain coming-to-be and passing-away by their dissociation and association, but alteration by their grouping and position. And since they thought that the truth lay in the appearance, and the appearances are conflicting and infinitely many, they made the [10] ‘figures’ infinite in number. Hence—owing to the changes of the compound—the same thing seems different to different people: it is transposed by a small additional ingredient, and appears utterly other by the transposition of a single constituent. For Tragedy and Comedy are both composed of the same letters. [15]
Since almost all our predecessors think that coming-to-be is distinct from alteration, and that, whereas things alter by change of their affections, it is by association and dissociation that they come-to-be and pass-away, we must concentrate our attention on these theses. For they lead to many well-grounded dilemmas. If, on the one hand, coming-to-be is association, many impossible consequences [20] result; and yet there are other arguments, not easy to unravel, which force the conclusion upon us that coming-to-be cannot possibly be anything else. If, on the other hand, coming-to-be is not association, either there is no such thing as coming-to-be at all or it is alteration; or else we must endeavour to unravel this dilemma too—and a stubborn one we shall find it.
The starting-point, in dealing with all these difficulties, is this: ‘Do things [25] come-to-be and alter and grow, and undergo the contrary changes, because the primary things are indivisible magnitudes? Or is no magnitude indivisible?’ For the answer we give to this question makes the greatest difference. And again, if the primary things are indivisible magnitudes, are these bodies, as Democritus and Leucippus maintain? Or are they planes, as is asserted in the Timaeus? [30]
To resolve bodies into planes and no further—this, as we have also remarked elsewhere, is in itself unreasonable. Hence there is more to be said for the view that there are indivisible bodies. Yet even these involve much that is unreasonable. Still, as we have said, it is possible to construct alteration and coming-to-be with them, if one transposes the same by ‘turning’ and ‘intercontact’, and by the varieties of the figures, as Democritus does. (His denial of the reality of colour is a corollary from [316a1] this position; for, according to him, things get coloured by ‘turning’.) But the possibility of such a construction no longer exists for those who divide bodies into planes. For nothing except solids results from putting planes together: they do not even attempt to generate any affection from them.
Lack of experience diminishes our power of taking a comprehensive view of the [5] admitted facts. Hence those who dwell in intimate association with nature and its phenomena are more able to lay down principles such as to admit of a wide and coherent development; while those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of the facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations. The rival treatments of the subject now before us will serve to [10] illustrate how great is the difference between a scientific and a dialectical method of inquiry. For, whereas the one school argues that there must be atomic magnitudes because otherwise The Triangle will be more than one, Democritus would appear to have been convinced by arguments appropriate to the subject, i.e. drawn from the science of nature. Our meaning will become clear as we proceed.
[15] For to suppose that a body (i.e. a magnitude) is divisible through and through, and that this division is possible, involves a difficulty. What will there be in the body which escapes the division?
If it is divisible through and through, and if this division is possible, then it might be, at one and the same moment, divided through and through, even though the dividings had not been effected simultaneously; and the actual occurrence of this result would involve no impossibility. Hence whenever a body is by nature [20] divisible through and through, whether by bisection, or generally by any method whatever nothing impossible will have resulted if it has actually been divided—for if it has been divided into innumerable parts, themselves divided innumerable times, nothing impossible will have resulted, though perhaps nobody in fact could so divide it.
Since, therefore, the body is divisible through and through, let it have been divided. What, then, will remain? A magnitude? No: that is impossible, since then [25] there will be something not divided, whereas ex hypothesi the body was divisible through and through. But if it be admitted that neither a body nor a magnitude will remain, and yet division is to take place, the body will either consist of points (and its constituents will be without magnitude) or it will be absolutely nothing. If the latter, then it might both come-to-be out of nothing and exist as a composite of nothing; and thus presumably the whole body will be nothing but an appearance. [30] But if it consists of points, it will not possess any magnitude. For when the points were in contact and coincided to form a single magnitude, they did not make the whole any bigger (since, when the body was divided into two or more parts, the whole was not a bit smaller or bigger than it was before the division); hence, even if all the points be put together, they will not make any magnitude.
But suppose that, as the body is being divided, something like sawdust is [316b1] produced, and that in this sense a body comes away from the magnitude, even then the same argument applies. For in what sense is that divisible? But if what came away was not a body but a separable form or affection, and if the magnitude is points or contacts thus qualified, it is absurd that a magnitude should consist of [5] things which are not magnitudes. Moreover, where will the points be? And are they motionless or moving? And every contact is always a contact of two somethings, i.e. there is always something besides the contact or the division or the point.
These, then, are the difficulties resulting from the supposition that any and every body, whatever its size, is divisible through and through. There is, besides, this further consideration. If, having divided a piece of wood or anything else, I put it [10] together, it is again equal to what it was, and is one. Clearly this is so, whatever the point at which I cut the wood. The wood, therefore, has been divided potentially through and through. What, then, is there in the wood besides the division? For even if we suppose there is some affection, yet how is the wood dissolved into such constituents and how does it come-to-be out of them? Or how are such constituents separated?
[15] Since, therefore, it is impossible for magnitudes to consist of contacts or points, there must be indivisible bodies and magnitudes. Yet, if we do postulate the latter, we are confronted with equally impossible consequences, which we have examined in other works. But we must try to disentangle these perplexities, and must therefore formulate the whole problem over again.
On the one hand, then, it is in no way absurd that every perceptible body should be indivisible as well as divisible at any and every point. For the second [20] predicate will attach to it potentially, but the first actually. On the other hand, it would seem to be impossible for a body to be potentially divisible at all points simultaneously. For if it were possible, then it might actually occur, with the result, not that the body woul
d simultaneously be actually both (indivisible and divided), but that it would be simultaneously divided at any and every point. Consequently, [25] nothing will remain and the body will have passed-away into what is incorporeal; and so it might come-to-be again either out of points or absolutely out of nothing. And how is that possible?