The Politics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

  F 200 R3 (Simplicius, Commentarius in de Caelo, 386.20–23):

  Right, above and before they called good, and left, below and behind evil, as Aristotle himself related in his collection of Pythagorean doctrines.

  F 201 R3 (Stobaeus, Eclogae I xviii 1c):

  In the first book of his work On the Philosophy of Pythagoras Aristotle writes that the heaven is one, and that time and breath and the void, which divides for ever the regions of different things, are drawn in from the infinite.

  F 202 R3 (Alexander, Commentarius in Metaphysica 75.15–17):

  Of the arrangement in the heavens which the Pythagoreans assigned to the numbers, Aristotle informs us in the second book of his work On the Belief of the Pythagoreans.

  F 203 R3 (Alexander, Commentarius in Metaphysica 38.8–41.2):

  He [sc. Aristotle] has shown what likenesses the Pythagoreans said there were between numbers and the things that exist and come into being; for assuming that [10] reciprocity and equality were properties of justice and finding them to exist in numbers, they said, for this reason, that the first square number was justice, for in every case the first of a number of things that admit of the same definition is most truly that which it is said to be. Now this number some declared to be the number 4, because, being the first square number, it is divided into equals and is itself equal [15] (being twice 2), while others declared it to be the number 9, which is the first square number produced by multiplying an odd number (3) by itself. Again, they said the number 7 was season; for natural things seem to have their perfect seasons of birth and completion in terms of sevens, as in the case of man. Men are born after seven months, they begin to grow their teeth in seven months, they reach puberty about the end of the second set of seven years, and grow beards about the end of the third. [20] The sun, too, since it is itself thought to be (as he says) the cause of seasons, they maintain to be established where the number 7 resides, which they identify with season; for the sun holds the seventh place among the ten bodies that move round [39.1] the centre and hearth of the universe; it moves after the sphere of the fixed stars and the five spheres of the planets; after it come the moon, eighth, and the earth, ninth, and after the earth the counter-earth. Since the number 7 neither generates nor is generated by any of the numbers in the decad, for this reason they also said that it [5] was Athene. For the number 2 generates 4, 3 generates 9 and 6, 4 generates 8, and 5 generates 10, and 4, 6, 8, 9 and 10 are generated, but 7 neither generates any number nor is generated from any; and so too Athene was motherless and ever virgin. Marriage, they said, was the number 5, because it is the union of male and [10] female, and according to them the odd is male and the even female, and 5 is the first number generated from the first even number, 2, and the first odd number, 3; for the odd is for them (as I said) male, and the even female. Mind (which was the name they1 gave to soul) and substance they identified with the One. Because it was unchanging, alike everywhere, and a ruling principle they called mind both a unit [15] and one; but they also applied these names to substance, because it is primary. Opinion they identified with the number 2 because it can move in both directions; they also called it movement and addition. Picking out such likenesses between things and numbers, they assumed numbers to be the first principles of things, saying that all things are composed of numbers.

  [20] But they also saw the harmonies to be constituted according to particular numbers, and said that numbers were the first principles of these also; the octave depends on the ratio 2:1, the fifth on the ratio 3:2, the fourth on the ratio 4:3. They said, too, that the whole universe is constructed in accordance with a certain harmony . . . because it consists of numbers and is constructed in accordance with [25] number and harmony. For the bodies that move round the centre have their distances in a certain ratio, and some move faster and others slower, and in their movement the slower strike a deep note and the faster a high one, and these notes, [40.1] being proportionate to the distances, make the resultant sound harmonious; and since they said that number was the first principle of this harmony, they naturally made number the first principle of the heavens and of the universe. For they thought the sun to be, say, twice as far from the earth as the moon, Venus to be [5] three times as far, Mercury four times, and each of the others to be in a certain ratio, and the movement of the heavens to be harmonious, and the bodies that move the greatest distance to move the fastest, those that move the least distance the slowest, and the intermediate bodies to move in proportion to the size of their orbit. [10] On the basis of these likenesses between things and numbers, they supposed existing things both to be composed of numbers and to be particular numbers.

  Thinking numbers to be prior to nature as a whole as to natural things (for nothing could either exist or be known at all without number, while numbers could be known even apart from other things), they laid it down that the elements and [15] first principles of numbers are the first principles of all things. These elements were, as has been said, the even and the odd, of which they thought the odd to be limited and the even unlimited; of numbers they thought the unit was the first principle, composed of both the even and the odd; for the unit was at the same time even-odd, which he used to prove from its power of generating both odd and even number: added to an even it generates an odd, added to an odd it generates an even. [20]

  As regards the agreements which they found between numbers and harmonious combinations on the one hand, and the attributes and parts of the heavens on the other, they took these for granted straight off, as being obvious, and showed that the heavens are composed of numbers and arranged in harmony. If any of the celestial phenomena seemed to fail to conform with the numerical principles, they made the [25] necessary additions themselves and tried to fill the gap so as to make their whole treatment of the matter consistent. At least, treating the decad straight off as the perfect number, and seeing that in the visible world the moving spheres are nine in number—seven spheres of the planets, the eighth that of the fixed stars, the ninth the earth (for this, too, they thought, moves in a circle about the resting hearth of [30] the universe, which according to them is fire)—they added, in their system, a counter-earth, which they supposed to move in an opposite direction to the earth, and to be for that reason invisible to those on earth.

  Aristotle speaks of these matters both in the De Caelo and, with greater [41.1] precision, in his Beliefs of the Pythagoreans.

  F 204 R3 (Simplicius, Commentarius in de Caelo 511.26–31):

  The Pythagoreans . . . do not say that the earth is about the centre, but that the centre of the universe is a fire, and that about the centre the counter-earth moves, being itself an earth but called a counter-earth because it is on the opposite side to our earth. ‘After the counter-earth came our earth, itself also moving about the centre, and after the earth the moon’: so he himself [sc. Aristotle] relates in his work On the Pythagorean Doctrines.

  F 204 R3 (Simplicius, Commentarius in de Caelo 512.12–13):

  For this reason, some call it [sc. fire] the tower of Zeus, as Aristotle himself related in his work On the Pythagorean Doctrines . . .

  F 205 R3 (Simplicius, Commentarius in de Caelo 392.16–32):

  How can he [sc. Aristotle] say that the Pythagoreans place us in the upper part and on the right side of the universe, and those opposite to us in the lower part and on the left side if, as he himself relates in the second book of his collection of Pythagorean doctrines, they say that one part of the whole universe is up and the other down, and that the lower part is right and the upper left, and that we are in the lower part? Is it that he has used the words ‘upper’ and ‘on the right’ here [sc. in the de Caelo] in accordance not with his own view but with that of the Pythagoreans? They coupled up and before with right, down and behind with left. But Alexander thinks that the statement in Aristotle’s collection of Pythagorean doctrines has been altered by someone and should run thus—‘the upper part of the universe is on the right, the lower part on the left, and we
are in the upper part,’ not in the lower as the text now runs. In this way it will agree with what he says here, that we, who say we live in the lower part and therefore on the left side (since the lower part is coupled with the left side) are in opposition to the Pythagorean statement that we live in the upper part and on the right side. That the text has been altered is perhaps likely, since Aristotle knows that the Pythagoreans coupled the higher position with the right side and the lower with the left.

  F 206 R3 (Simplicius, Commentarius in de Caelo 296.16–18):

  In his epitome of Plato’s Timaeus he [sc. Aristotle] writes: ‘He says it [sc. the universe] is generated; for it is perceptible, and he is assuming that what is perceptible is generated and that what is intelligible is not generated.’

  F 207 R3 (Damascius, dubitationes et solutiones 306):

  Aristotle in his work on Archytas relates that Pythagoras too called matter ‘other’, as being in flux and always becoming other.

  F 208 R3 (Simplicius, Commentaria in de Caelo 294.33–295.22):

  A few words quoted from Aristotle’s On Democritus will reveal the line of thought of those men [sc. the Atomists]:—Democritus thinks the nature of the eternal entities consists of small substances infinite in number; he supposes a place for them, different from them and infinite in extent, and to this he applies the names ‘void’, ‘nothing’, and ‘the infinite’, while to each of the substances he applies the names ‘thing’, ‘solid’, and ‘existent’. He thinks the substances are so small as to escape our senses, but have all sorts of shapes and figures, and differences of size. From these, then,1 as from elements, are generated and compounded visible and perceptible masses. The substances are at variance and move in the void because of their dissimilarity as well as the other aforesaid differences, and as they move they collide with each other and interlock in such a way that, while they touch and get close to each other, yet a single substance is never in reality produced from them; for it would be very simple-minded to suppose that two or more things could ever become one. The cause of these substances remaining with one another for some time he ascribes to the bodies fitting into one another and catching hold of one another; for some of them are scalene, others hook-shaped, others concave, others convex, and others have countless other differences. He thinks that they cling to one another and remain together until some stronger necessity arriving from the environment scatters them apart and separates them. He ascribes the genesis and the separation opposed to it not only to animals but also to plants, and to worlds, and generally to all perceptible bodies.

  VI • PHYSICS

  F 209–278 R3

  F 209 R3 (Aulus Gellius, XX iv 3–4):

  . . .I sent him words excerpted from a book of Aristotle’s entitled Standard Problems: ‘Why are the Dionysian artists for the most part bad? Because they have hardly any share in reason and philosophy, since the great part of their life is involved in necessary skills, and because for a large part of the time they are in a state of incontinence, and sometimes in a state of poverty—and both of these conditions incline to produce badness’.

  F 211 R3 (Simplicius, Commentarius in de Caelo 505.23–25):

  Aristotle too makes this clear in his Scientific Problems, where he raises puzzles for the assumptions of the astronomers from the fact that the sizes of the planets do not appear equal.

  F 214 R3 (Aulus Gellius, XIX v 9):

  I have extracted from the book a few of Aristotle’s own words and written them down: ‘Why is water from snow and ice bad? Because whenever water is frozen the finest and lightest part turns to vapour. A sign of this is that when it freezes and then thaws it becomes less than before; therefore, once the healthiest part has gone, of necessity in every case what is left behind is worse’.

  F 215 R3 (Plutarch, quaestiones naturales 912A):

  Why are trees and seeds naturally nourished more by rain water than by running water? . . . Or is what Aristotle says true?—that it is because rain water is recent and fresh while pool water is stale and old.

  F 225 R3 (Galen, de simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis XII 164 K):

  Now astringent things once they have been burnt lose much of their heat, while things that are not of that sort gain in heat. But nothing which has been burnt is completely cold. For there is left behind in it as it were a kind of ember (that is how Aristotle names it); and this is what is cleaned away in washing. It is the lightest part of the substance of burnt things, and when it departs along with the water, what is left of the burnt thing is an earthy substance; for the burning exhausts all the moisture, and what is left behind is earthy together with what Aristotle calls the ember.

  F 232 R3 (Apollonius, historiae mirabiles 51):

  Aristotle talks of something worthy of note in his Scientific Problems: he says that a man who has fed and drunk weighs the same as when he is fasting; and he also attempts to give an account of the cause of this.

  F 234 R3 (Apollonius, historiae mirabiles 9):

  Aristotle in his Scientific Problems says: ‘Those who eat only one meal a day are likely to have more irritable characters than those who eat two’.

  F 235 R3 (Athenaeus, 692BC):

  Aristotle, the most learned of men, asks in his Scientific Problems: ‘Why is it that those who use hair-oil are greyer? Is it because the oil is a drying agent because of the herbs in it (hence those who use hair-oil are dry), and dryness makes men greyer? For either greyness is a drying up of the hair or it is a lack of heat—and dryness puts out fire. That is why felt caps also make men go grey more quickly; for the natural moisture of the hair is drawn out’.

  F 237 R3 (Apollonius, historiae mirabiles 28):

  Aristotle in Pertaining to Animals: ‘Wax in the ears, being bitter, becomes sweet in long illnesses’. And this, he says, has been observed to occur in many cases. And in the Scientific Problems he also gives the cause of this occurrence.

  F 242 R3 (Plutarch, quaestiones convivales 734DF):

  . . . what they say about dreams—that they are particularly uncertain and false during the months when the leaves fall—somehow came up after dinner. . . . Your friends—my sons—thought that Aristotle had solved the puzzle, and they believed that there was no need to argue or search any further, except to say as he does that the harvest is the cause. For fruit, when it is fresh and juicy, generates a quantity of disorderly wind in the body; for it is not likely that wine alone boils and protests or that oil alone when newly pressed causes the lamps to sputter as the heat makes the wind rise in waves–rather, we see that new grain and all fruits stretch and swell until they exhale gaseous and unconcocted matter. To show that some foods bring bad dreams and disturb our sleeping visions, they adduce beans and the head of the octopus, from which those who resort to divination through dreams are ordered to abstain.

  F 243 R3 (Aulus Gellius, XIX vi 1):

  In the Problems of the philosopher Aristotle, this is written: ‘Why is it that those who are ashamed turn red and those who are afraid turn pale, although those emotions are very similar? Because the blood of those who are ashamed runs from the heart to all the parts of the body and thus rises to the surface, while the blood of those who are afraid rushes together to the heart and thus leaves the other parts’.

  F 244 R3 (Aulus Gellius, I xi 17–19):

  However, Aristotle in the books of Problems, wrote that the custom of marching into battle to the tunes of flute-players was begun by the Spartans in order that the confidence and keenness of the soldiers might become more evident and more certain. For, he says, marching in this manner is least compatible with lack of confidence and fear, and men depressed and fearful are incapable of such an intrepid and seemly mode of advance. I have added a few words of Aristotle’s on the matter: ‘Why is it that whenever men are about to run into danger, they advance to the flute? In order that they may recognise the cowards by their failure to keep time. . . .’1

  F 246 R3 (Photius, Bibliotheca 249. 441b6–15):

  Aristotle dealt
with this topic [sc. the flooding of the Nile]. For he himself actually thought the matter out on the basis of nature, determining to send Alexander of Macedonia to those parts and to discover by inspection the causes of the Nile’s increase. That is why he says that this is no longer a problem; for it has been plainly observed that it increases from the rains, and—what is paradoxical—that in the driest parts of Ethiopia where there is neither winter nor water there occur rainstorms in the summer.

  F 252 R3 (Scholiast to Aratus, 1095. p. 547 Maass):

  Aristotle says: ‘Whenever the air is cold and wet, then at that time the islands, being moistened, produce vegetation and supply food for the birds there; but whenever the air is arid and dry, then since the islands produce no vegetation at all, the island birds flee to the mainland where they can find at least a little nourishment. And when the jackdaws fly from the islands it is a sign to farmers of drought and poor harvests; but if they migrate in season they indicate a good harvest’.

  F 267 R3 (Athenaeus. 652A):

  Aristotle in On Plants: ‘Of seedless dates, which some call “eunuchs” and others “stoneless”. . . .’

  VII • BIOLOGY

  F 279–380 R3

  F 284 R3 (Strabo, XV xxii 695):

  Aristotle relates that there have been cases of septuplets [sc. in Egypt], and himself calls the Nile very fertile and nourishing, because of the moderate concoction from the periods of the sun which leave behind the nourishing factor while evaporating the superfluous.

  F 286 R3 (Pliny, naturalis historia XI cliv 273):

  I am surprised that Aristotle not only believed but actually stated that there are certain signs of longevity in the body itself. And although I think that his view is baseless and should not be published without hesitation (lest everyone anxiously hunts for such signs in himself), nevertheless I shall touch on it because so learned a man did not despise it. Thus he lays down that signs of a short life are few teeth, long fingers, leaden complexion, and a large number of broken lines on the palm; on the other hand, long life is given to those who have sloping shoulders, one or two long lines on their palms, more than thirty two teeth, and big ears.