The Politics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

  The active principle then and the starting-point for the process of becoming healthy is, if it happens by art, the form in the soul, and if spontaneously, it is that, whatever it is, which is the starting-point of his making for the man who makes by [25] art, as in healing the starting-point is perhaps the production of warmth, and this the physician produces by rubbing. Warmth in the body, then, is either a part of health or is followed (either directly or through several intermediate steps) by something which is a part of health; and this, viz. that which produces the part, is the last step, and so are, e.g., the stones a part of the house, and so in all other cases.

  Therefore, as we say, it is impossible that anything should be produced if there [30] were nothing before. Obviously then some part of the result will pre-exist of necessity; for the matter is a part; for this is present in the process and it is this that becomes something. But do some also of the elements in the formula pre-exist? [1033a1] Well, we describe in both ways what bronze circles are; we describe both the matter by saying it is bronze, and the form by saying that it is such and such a figure; and figure is the proximate genus in which it is placed. The bronze circle, then, has its matter in its formula. [5]

  And as for that out of which as matter they are produced, some things are said, when they have been produced, to be not it but of it, e.g. the statue is not stone but of stone. But though what becomes healthy is a man, a man is not what the healthy product is said to come from. The reason is that though a thing comes both from its privation and from its substratum, which we call its matter (e.g. what becomes healthy is both a man and an invalid), it is said to come rather from its privation [10] (e.g. it is from an invalid rather than from a man that a healthy subject is produced). And so the healthy subject is not said to be an invalid, but to be a man, and a healthy man. But as for the things whose privation is obscure and nameless, e.g. in bronze the privation of a particular shape or in bricks and timber the [15] privation of arrangement as a house, the thing is thought to be produced from these materials, as in the former case the healthy man is produced from an invalid. And so, as there also a thing is not said to be that from which it comes, here the statue is not said to be wood but is said by a verbal change to be not wood but wooden, not bronze but of bronze, not stone but of stone, and the house is said to be not bricks but of bricks (since we should not say without qualification, if we looked at things carefully, even that a statue is produced from wood or a house from bricks, because [20] its coming to be implies change in that from which it comes, and not permanence). For this reason, then, we use this way of speaking.

  8 · Since anything which is produced is produced by something (and this I call the starting-point of the production), and from something (and let this be taken [25] to be not the privation but the matter; for the meanings we attach to these have already been distinguished), and since something is produced (and this is either a sphere or a circle or whatever else it may chance to be), just as we do not make the substratum—the bronze, so we do not make the sphere, except incidentally, because the bronze sphere is a sphere and we make the former. For to make a ‘this’ is to [30] make a ‘this’ out of the general substratum. I mean that to make the bronze round is not to make the round or the sphere, but something else, i.e. to produce this form in something else. For if we make the form, we must make it out of something else; for [1033b1] this was assumed. E.g. we make a bronze sphere; and that in the sense that out of this, which is bronze, we make this other, which is a sphere. If, then, we make the sphere itself, clearly we must make it in the same way, and the processes of making will regress to infinity. Obviously then the form also, or whatever we ought to call [5] the shape of the sensible thing, is not produced, nor does production relate to it,—i.e. the essence is not produced; for this is that which is made to be in something else by art or by nature or by some capacity. But that there is a bronze sphere, this we make. For we make it out of bronze and the sphere; we bring the form into this [10] particular matter, and the result is a bronze sphere. But if the essence of sphere in general is produced, something must be produced out of something. For the product will always have to be divisible, and one part must be this and another that, I mean the one must be matter and the other form. If then a sphere is the figure whose circumference is at all points equidistant from the centre, part of this will be the [15] medium in which the thing made will be, and part will be in that medium, and the whole will be the thing produced, which corresponds to the bronze sphere. It is obvious then from what has been said that the thing, in the sense of form or substance, is not produced, but the concrete thing which gets its name from this is produced, and that in everything which comes to be matter is present, and one part of the thing is matter and the other form.

  [20] Is there then a sphere apart from the individual spheres or a house apart from the bricks? Rather we may say that no ‘this’ would ever have been coming to be, if this had been so. The ‘form’ however means the ‘such’, and is not a ‘this’—a definite thing; but the artist makes, or the father generates, a ‘such’ out of a ‘this’; and when it has been generated, it is a ‘this such’. And the whole ‘this’, Callias or Socrates, is [25] analogous to this bronze sphere, but man and animal to bronze sphere in general. Obviously then the cause which consists of the Forms (taken in the sense in which some maintain the existence of the Forms, i.e. if they are something apart from the individuals) is useless with regard both to comings-to-be and to substances; and the Forms need not, for this reason at least, be self-subsistent substances. In some cases [30] it is even obvious that the producer is of the same kind as the produced (not, however, the same nor one in number, but in form), e.g. in the case of natural products (for man produces man), unless something happens contrary to nature, e.g. the production of a mule by a horse. And even these cases are similar; for that which would be found to be common to horse and ass, the genus next above them, [1034a1] has not received a name, but it would doubtless be both, as the mule is both. Obviously, therefore, it is quite unnecessary to set up a Form as a pattern (for we should have looked for Forms in these cases if any; for these are substances if anything is so); the begetter is adequate to the making of the product and to the [5] causing of the form in the matter. And when we have the whole, such and such a form in this flesh and in these bones, this is Callias or Socrates; and they are different in virtue of their matter (for that is different), but the same in form; for their form is indivisible.

  9 · The question might be raised, why some things are produced spontaneously [10] as well as by art, e.g. health, while others are not, e.g. a house. The reason is that in some cases the matter which determines the production in the making and producing of any work of art, and in which a part of the product is present, is such as to be set in motion by itself and in some cases is not of this nature, and of the former kind some can move itself in the particular way required, while other matter is incapable of this; for many things can be set in motion by themselves but not in [15] some particular way, e.g. that of dancing. The things then whose matter is of this sort, e.g. stones, cannot be moved in the particular way required, except by something else, but in another way they can move themselves; and so it is with fire. Therefore some things cannot exist apart from some one who has the art of making them, while others can exist without such a person; for motion can be started by these things which have not the art but can move of themselves, i.e. either by other [20] things which have not the art or by a part of the product itself.

  And it is clear also from what has been said that in a sense everything is produced from another individual which shares its name (natural products are so produced), or a part of itself which shares its name (e.g. the house produced by reason is produced from a house; for the art of building is the form of the house), or something which contains a part of it,—if we exclude things produced by accident. [25] For what directly and of itself causes the production is a part of the product. The heat in the movement causes heat in the
body, and this is either health, or a part of health, or is followed by a part of health or by health itself. And so it is said to cause health, because it produces that on which health follows. [30]

  Therefore substance is the starting-point of all production, as of deduction. It is from the ‘what’ that deductions start; and from it also we now find processes of production to start. And things which are formed by nature are in the same case as these products of art. For the seed produces them as the artist produces the works of art; for it has the form potentially, and that from which the seed comes has in a [1034b1] sense the same name as the offspring; only in a sense, for we must not expect all cases to have exactly the same name, as in the production of human being from human being (for a woman also can be produced by a man—unless there is a deformity: that is why it is not from a mule that a mule is produced). The natural things which (like some artificial objects) can be produced spontaneously are those whose matter can be moved even by itself in the way in which the seed [5] usually moves it; but those things which have not such matter cannot be produced except by parents.

  But not only regarding substance does our argument prove that its form does not come to be, but the argument applies to all the primary classes alike, i.e. quantity, quality, and the other categories. For as the bronze sphere comes to be, [10] but not the sphere nor the bronze, and so too in the case of bronze itself, if it comes to be, (for the matter and the form must always exist before), so is it as regards both ‘what’ and quality and quantity and the other categories likewise; for the quality does not come to be, but the wood of that quality, and the quantity does not come to [15] be, but the wood or the animal of that size. But we may learn from these instances a peculiarity of substance, that there must exist beforehand another actual substance which produces it, e.g. an animal if an animal is produced; but it is not necessary that a quality or quantity should pre-exist otherwise than potentially.

  10 · Since a definition is a formula, and every formula has parts, and as the [20] formula is to the thing, so is the part of the formula to the part of the thing, we are already faced by the question whether the formula of the parts must be present in the formula of the whole or not. For in some cases the formulae of the parts are seen [25] to be present, and in some not. The formula of the circle does not include that of the segments, but that of the syllable includes that of the letters; yet the circle is divided into segments as the syllable is into letters.—And further if the parts are prior to the whole, and the acute angle is a part of the right angle and the finger a part of the [30] animal, the acute angle will be prior to the right angle and the finger to the man. But the latter are thought to be prior; for in formula the parts are explained by reference to them, and in virtue also of their power of existing apart from the parts the wholes are prior.

  Perhaps we should rather say that ‘part’ is used in several senses. One of these is ‘that which measures another thing in respect of quantity’. But let this sense be set aside; let us inquire about the parts of which substance consists. If then matter is [1035a1] one thing, form another, the compound of these a third, and both the matter and the form and the compound are substance, even the matter is in a sense called part of a thing, while in a sense it is not, but only the elements of which the formula of the [5] form consists. E.g. flesh (for this is the matter in which it is produced) is not a part of concavity, but of snubness it is a part; and the bronze is a part of the particular statue, but not of the statue as form. (For each thing must be referred to by naming its form, and as having form, but never by naming its material aspect as such.) And so the formula of the circle does not include that of the segments, but the formula of [10] the syllable includes that of the letters; for the letters are parts of the formula of the form, and not matter, but the segments are parts, in the sense of matter, on which the form supervenes; yet they are nearer the form than the bronze is when roundness is produced in bronze. But in a sense not even every kind of letter will be [15] present in the formula of the syllable, e.g. particular waxen letters or the letters as sounds in the air; for these also are part of the syllable only in the sense that they are its perceptible matter. For even if the line when divided passes away into its halves, or the man into bones and muscles and flesh, it does not follow that they are [20] composed of these as parts of their substance, but rather as matter; and these are parts of the concrete thing, but not of the form, i.e. of that to which the formula refers; and therefore they will not be in the formulae either. Therefore of some things the formula of such parts will be present, but in others it must not be present, where the formula does not refer to the concrete object. For it is for this reason that [25] some things have as their constituent principles parts into which they pass away, while some have not. Those things in which the form and the matter are taken together, e.g. the snub, or the bronze circle, pass away into these material parts, and the matter is a part of them; but those things which do not involve matter but are without matter, and whose formulae are formulae of the form only, do not pass [30] away,—either not at all or at any rate not in this way. Therefore these materials are principles and parts of the concrete things, while of the form they are neither parts nor principles. And therefore the clay statue is resolved into clay and the ball into bronze and Callias into flesh and bones, and again the circle into its segments; for there is a sense of ‘circle’ in which it involves matter. For ‘circle’ is used [1035b1] homonymously, meaning both the circle in general and the individual circle, because there is no name proper to the individuals.

  The truth has really now been stated, but still let us state it yet more clearly, taking up the question again. The parts of the formula, into which the formula is [5] divided, are prior to it, either all or some of them. The formula of the right angle, however, does not include the formula of the acute, but the formula of the acute includes that of the right angle; for he who defines the acute uses the right angle; for the acute is less than a right angle. The circle and the semicircle also are in a like relation; for the semicircle is defined by the circle; and so is the finger by the whole [10] body, for a finger is such and such a part of a man. Therefore the parts which are of the nature of matter and into which as its matter a thing is divided, are posterior; but those which are parts of the formula, and of the substance according to its formula, are prior, either all or some of them. And since the soul of animals (for this is the substance of living beings) is their substance according to the formula, i.e. the [15] form and the essence of a body of a certain kind (at least we shall define each part, if we define it well, not without reference to its function, and this cannot belong to it without perception), therefore the parts of soul are prior, either all or some of them, to the concrete animal, and similarly in each case of a concrete whole; and the body and its parts are posterior to this its substance, and it is not the substance but the [20] concrete thing that is divided into these parts as its matter. To the concrete thing these are in a sense prior, but in a sense they are not. For they cannot even exist if severed from the whole; for it is not a finger in any state that is the finger of a living thing, but the dead finger is a finger only homonymously. Some parts are neither [25] prior nor posterior to the whole, i.e. those which are most important and in which the formula, i.e. the substance, is immediately present, e.g. perhaps the heart or the brain; for it does not matter which of the two has this quality. But man and horse and terms which are thus applied to individuals, but universally, are not substance but something composed of this particular formula and this particular matter treated as universal; but when we come to the individual, Socrates is composed of [30] ultimate individual matter; and similarly in all other cases.

  A part may be a part either of the form (i.e. the essence), or of the compound of the form and the matter, or of the matter itself. But only the parts of the form are parts of the formula, and the formula is of the universal; for being a circle is the same as the circle, and being a soul is the same as the soul. But when we
come to the [1036a1] concrete thing, e.g. this circle, i.e. one of the individual circles, whether sensible or intelligible (I mean by intelligible circles the mathematical, and by sensible circles those of bronze and of wood), of these there is no definition, but they are known by [5] the aid of thought or perception; and when they go out of our actual consciousness it is not clear whether they exist or not; but they are always stated and cognized by means of the universal formula. But matter is unknowable in itself. And some matter is sensible and some intelligible, sensible matter being for instance bronze and wood and all matter that is changeable, and intelligible matter being that which [10] is present in sensible things not qua sensible, i.e. in the objects of mathematics. We have stated, then, how whole and part, and prior and posterior, are related.

  When any one asks whether the right angle and the circle and the animal are prior to that into which they are divided and of which they consist, i.e. the parts, we [15] must meet the inquiry by saying that the question cannot be answered simply. For if the soul is the animal or the living thing, or the soul of each individual is the individual itself, and being a circle is the circle, and being a right angle and the essence of the right angle is the right angle, then the whole in one sense must be called posterior to the part in one sense, i.e. to the parts included in the formula and [20] to the parts of the individual right angle (for both the material right angle which is made of bronze, and that which is formed by individual lines, are posterior to their parts); while the immaterial right angle is posterior to the parts included in the formula, but prior to those included in the particular instance. But the question must not be answered simply. If, however, the soul is something different and is not identical with the animal, even so some parts must be called prior and others must [25] not, as has been said.