Aristotle

by Various Works [lit]

  in it.

  Obviously then a thing cannot be in itself primarily.

  Zeno's problem-that if Place is something it must be in something-is

  not difficult to solve. There is nothing to prevent the first place

  from being 'in' something else-not indeed in that as 'in' place, but

  as health is 'in' the hot as a positive determination of it or as the

  hot is 'in' body as an affection. So we escape the infinite regress.

  Another thing is plain: since the vessel is no part of what is in it

  (what contains in the strict sense is different from what is

  contained), place could not be either the matter or the form of the

  thing contained, but must different-for the latter, both the matter

  and the shape, are parts of what is contained.

  This then may serve as a critical statement of the difficulties

  involved.

  4

  What then after all is place? The answer to this question may be

  elucidated as follows.

  Let us take for granted about it the various characteristics which

  are supposed correctly to belong to it essentially. We assume then-

  (1) Place is what contains that of which it is the place.

  (2) Place is no part of the thing.

  (3) The immediate place of a thing is neither less nor greater

  than the thing.

  (4) Place can be left behind by the thing and is separable. In

  addition:

  (5) All place admits of the distinction of up and down, and each

  of the bodies is naturally carried to its appropriate place and

  rests there, and this makes the place either up or down.

  Having laid these foundations, we must complete the theory. We ought

  to try to make our investigation such as will render an account of

  place, and will not only solve the difficulties connected with it, but

  will also show that the attributes supposed to belong to it do

  really belong to it, and further will make clear the cause of the

  trouble and of the difficulties about it. Such is the most

  satisfactory kind of exposition.

  First then we must understand that place would not have been thought

  of, if there had not been a special kind of motion, namely that with

  respect to place. It is chiefly for this reason that we suppose the

  heaven also to be in place, because it is in constant movement. Of

  this kind of change there are two species-locomotion on the one hand

  and, on the other, increase and diminution. For these too involve

  variation of place: what was then in this place has now in turn

  changed to what is larger or smaller.

  Again, when we say a thing is 'moved', the predicate either (1)

  belongs to it actually, in virtue of its own nature, or (2) in

  virtue of something conjoined with it. In the latter case it may be

  either (a) something which by its own nature is capable of being

  moved, e.g. the parts of the body or the nail in the ship, or (b)

  something which is not in itself capable of being moved, but is always

  moved through its conjunction with something else, as 'whiteness' or

  'science'. These have changed their place only because the subjects to

  which they belong do so.

  We say that a thing is in the world, in the sense of in place,

  because it is in the air, and the air is in the world; and when we say

  it is in the air, we do not mean it is in every part of the air, but

  that it is in the air because of the outer surface of the air which

  surrounds it; for if all the air were its place, the place of a

  thing would not be equal to the thing-which it is supposed to be,

  and which the primary place in which a thing is actually is.

  When what surrounds, then, is not separate from the thing, but is in

  continuity with it, the thing is said to be in what surrounds it,

  not in the sense of in place, but as a part in a whole. But when the

  thing is separate and in contact, it is immediately 'in' the inner

  surface of the surrounding body, and this surface is neither a part of

  what is in it nor yet greater than its extension, but equal to it; for

  the extremities of things which touch are coincident.

  Further, if one body is in continuity with another, it is not

  moved in that but with that. On the other hand it is moved in that

  if it is separate. It makes no difference whether what contains is

  moved or not.

  Again, when it is not separate it is described as a part in a whole,

  as the pupil in the eye or the hand in the body: when it is

  separate, as the water in the cask or the wine in the jar. For the

  hand is moved with the body and the water in the cask.

  It will now be plain from these considerations what place is.

  There are just four things of which place must be one-the shape, or

  the matter, or some sort of extension between the bounding surfaces of

  the containing body, or this boundary itself if it contains no

  extension over and above the bulk of the body which comes to be in it.

  Three of these it obviously cannot be:

  (1) The shape is supposed to be place because it surrounds, for

  the extremities of what contains and of what is contained are

  coincident. Both the shape and the place, it is true, are

  boundaries. But not of the same thing: the form is the boundary of the

  thing, the place is the boundary of the body which contains it.

  (2) The extension between the extremities is thought to be

  something, because what is contained and separate may often be changed

  while the container remains the same (as water may be poured from a

  vessel)-the assumption being that the extension is something over

  and above the body displaced. But there is no such extension. One of

  the bodies which change places and are naturally capable of being in

  contact with the container falls in whichever it may chance to be.

  If there were an extension which were such as to exist independently

  and be permanent, there would be an infinity of places in the same

  thing. For when the water and the air change places, all the

  portions of the two together will play the same part in the whole

  which was previously played by all the water in the vessel; at the

  same time the place too will be undergoing change; so that there

  will be another place which is the place of the place, and many places

  will be coincident. There is not a different place of the part, in

  which it is moved, when the whole vessel changes its place: it is

  always the same: for it is in the (proximate) place where they are

  that the air and the water (or the parts of the water) succeed each

  other, not in that place in which they come to be, which is part of

  the place which is the place of the whole world.

  (3) The matter, too, might seem to be place, at least if we consider

  it in what is at rest and is thus separate but in continuity. For just

  as in change of quality there is something which was formerly black

  and is now white, or formerly soft and now hard-this is just why we

  say that the matter exists-so place, because it presents a similar

  phenomenon, is thought to exist-only in the one case we say so because

  what was air is now water, in the other because where air formerly was

  there a is now
water. But the matter, as we said before, is neither

  separable from the thing nor contains it, whereas place has both

  characteristics.

  Well, then, if place is none of the three-neither the form nor the

  matter nor an extension which is always there, different from, and

  over and above, the extension of the thing which is displaced-place

  necessarily is the one of the four which is left, namely, the boundary

  of the containing body at which it is in contact with the contained

  body. (By the contained body is meant what can be moved by way of

  locomotion.)

  Place is thought to be something important and hard to grasp, both

  because the matter and the shape present themselves along with it, and

  because the displacement of the body that is moved takes place in a

  stationary container, for it seems possible that there should be an

  interval which is other than the bodies which are moved. The air, too,

  which is thought to be incorporeal, contributes something to the

  belief: it is not only the boundaries of the vessel which seem to be

  place, but also what is between them, regarded as empty. Just, in

  fact, as the vessel is transportable place, so place is a non-portable

  vessel. So when what is within a thing which is moved, is moved and

  changes its place, as a boat on a river, what contains plays the

  part of a vessel rather than that of place. Place on the other hand is

  rather what is motionless: so it is rather the whole river that is

  place, because as a whole it is motionless.

  Hence we conclude that the innermost motionless boundary of what

  contains is place.

  This explains why the middle of the heaven and the surface which

  faces us of the rotating system are held to be 'up' and 'down' in

  the strict and fullest sense for all men: for the one is always at

  rest, while the inner side of the rotating body remains always

  coincident with itself. Hence since the light is what is naturally

  carried up, and the heavy what is carried down, the boundary which

  contains in the direction of the middle of the universe, and the

  middle itself, are down, and that which contains in the direction of

  the outermost part of the universe, and the outermost part itself, are

  up.

  For this reason, too, place is thought to be a kind of surface,

  and as it were a vessel, i.e. a container of the thing.

  Further, place is coincident with the thing, for boundaries are

  coincident with the bounded.

  5

  If then a body has another body outside it and containing it, it

  is in place, and if not, not. That is why, even if there were to be

  water which had not a container, the parts of it, on the one hand,

  will be moved (for one part is contained in another), while, on the

  other hand, the whole will be moved in one sense, but not in

  another. For as a whole it does not simultaneously change its place,

  though it will be moved in a circle: for this place is the place of

  its parts. (Some things are moved, not up and down, but in a circle;

  others up and down, such things namely as admit of condensation and

  rarefaction.)

  As was explained, some things are potentially in place, others

  actually. So, when you have a homogeneous substance which is

  continuous, the parts are potentially in place: when the parts are

  separated, but in contact, like a heap, they are actually in place.

  Again, (1) some things are per se in place, namely every body

  which is movable either by way of locomotion or by way of increase

  is per se somewhere, but the heaven, as has been said, is not anywhere

  as a whole, nor in any place, if at least, as we must suppose, no body

  contains it. On the line on which it is moved, its parts have place:

  for each is contiguous the next.

  But (2) other things are in place indirectly, through something

  conjoined with them, as the soul and the heaven. The latter is, in a

  way, in place, for all its parts are: for on the orb one part contains

  another. That is why the upper part is moved in a circle, while the

  All is not anywhere. For what is somewhere is itself something, and

  there must be alongside it some other thing wherein it is and which

  contains it. But alongside the All or the Whole there is nothing

  outside the All, and for this reason all things are in the heaven; for

  the heaven, we may say, is the All. Yet their place is not the same as

  the heaven. It is part of it, the innermost part of it, which is in

  contact with the movable body; and for this reason the earth is in

  water, and this in the air, and the air in the aether, and the

  aether in heaven, but we cannot go on and say that the heaven is in

  anything else.

  It is clear, too, from these considerations that all the problems

  which were raised about place will be solved when it is explained in

  this way:

  (1) There is no necessity that the place should grow with the body

  in it,

  (2) Nor that a point should have a place,

  (3) Nor that two bodies should be in the same place,

  (4) Nor that place should be a corporeal interval: for what is

  between the boundaries of the place is any body which may chance to be

  there, not an interval in body.

  Further, (5) place is also somewhere, not in the sense of being in a

  place, but as the limit is in the limited; for not everything that

  is is in place, but only movable body.

  Also (6) it is reasonable that each kind of body should be carried

  to its own place. For a body which is next in the series and in

  contact (not by compulsion) is akin, and bodies which are united do

  not affect each other, while those which are in contact interact on

  each other.

  Nor (7) is it without reason that each should remain naturally in

  its proper place. For this part has the same relation to its place, as

  a separable part to its whole, as when one moves a part of water or

  air: so, too, air is related to water, for the one is like matter, the

  other form-water is the matter of air, air as it were the actuality of

  water, for water is potentially air, while air is potentially water,

  though in another way.

  These distinctions will be drawn more carefully later. On the

  present occasion it was necessary to refer to them: what has now

  been stated obscurely will then be made more clear. If the matter

  and the fulfilment are the same thing (for water is both, the one

  potentially, the other completely), water will be related to air in

  a way as part to whole. That is why these have contact: it is

  organic union when both become actually one.

  This concludes my account of place-both of its existence and of

  its nature.

  6

  The investigation of similar questions about the void, also, must be

  held to belong to the physicist-namely whether it exists or not, and

  how it exists or what it is-just as about place. The views taken of it

  involve arguments both for and against, in much the same sort of

  way. For those who hold that the void exists regard it as a sort of

  place or vessel which is supposed to be 'full' when it
holds the

  bulk which it is capable of containing, 'void' when it is deprived

  of that-as if 'void' and 'full' and 'place' denoted the same thing,

  though the essence of the three is different.

  We must begin the inquiry by putting down the account given by those

  who say that it exists, then the account of those who say that it does

  not exist, and third the current view on these questions.

  Those who try to show that the void does not exist do not disprove

  what people really mean by it, but only their erroneous way of

  speaking; this is true of Anaxagoras and of those who refute the

  existence of the void in this way. They merely give an ingenious

  demonstration that air is something--by straining wine-skins and

  showing the resistance of the air, and by cutting it off in

  clepsydras. But people really mean that there is an empty interval

  in which there is no sensible body. They hold that everything which is

  in body is body and say that what has nothing in it at all is void (so

  what is full of air is void). It is not then the existence of air that

  needs to be proved, but the non-existence of an interval, different

  from the bodies, either separable or actual-an interval which

  divides the whole body so as to break its continuity, as Democritus

  and Leucippus hold, and many other physicists-or even perhaps as

  something which is outside the whole body, which remains continuous.

  These people, then, have not reached even the threshold of the

  problem, but rather those who say that the void exists.

  (1) They argue, for one thing, that change in place (i.e. locomotion

  and increase) would not be. For it is maintained that motion would