by Aristotle
The same thing may exist for an end and be necessitated as well. For example, light shines through a lantern (1) because that which consists of relatively small particles necessarily passes through pores larger than those particles-assuming that light does issue by penetration- and (2) for an end, namely to save us from stumbling. If then, a thing can exist through two causes, can it come to be through two causes-as for instance if thunder be a hiss and a roar necessarily produced by the quenching of fire, and also designed, as the Pythagoreans say, for a threat to terrify those that lie in Tartarus? Indeed, there are very many such cases, mostly among the processes and products of the natural world; for nature, in different senses of the term 'nature', produces now for an end, now by necessity.
Necessity too is of two kinds. It may work in accordance with a thing's natural tendency, or by constraint and in opposition to it; as, for instance, by necessity a stone is borne both upwards and downwards, but not by the same necessity.
Of the products of man's intelligence some are never due to chance or necessity but always to an end, as for example a house or a statue; others, such as health or safety, may result from chance as well.
It is mostly in cases where the issue is indeterminate (though only where the production does not originate in chance, and the end is consequently good), that a result is due to an end, and this is true alike in nature or in art. By chance, on the other hand, nothing comes to be for an end.
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The effect may be still coming to be, or its occurrence may be past or future, yet the cause will be the same as when it is actually existent-for it is the middle which is the cause-except that if the effect actually exists the cause is actually existent, if it is coming to be so is the cause, if its occurrence is past the cause is past, if future the cause is future. For example, the moon was eclipsed because the earth intervened, is becoming eclipsed because the earth is in process of intervening, will be eclipsed because the earth will intervene, is eclipsed because the earth intervenes. To take a second example: assuming that the definition of ice is solidified water, let C be water, A solidified, B the middle, which is the cause, namely total failure of heat. Then B is attributed to C, and A, solidification, to B: ice when B is occurring, has formed when B has occurred, and will form when B shall occur.
This sort of cause, then, and its effect come to be simultaneously when they are in process of becoming, and exist simultaneously when they actually exist; and the same holds good when they are past and when they are future. But what of cases where they are not simultaneous? Can causes and effects different from one another form, as they seem to us to form, a continuous succession, a past effect resulting from a past cause different from itself, a future effect from a future cause different from it, and an effect which is coming-to-be from a cause different from and prior to it? Now on this theory it is from the posterior event that we reason (and this though these later events actually have their source of origin in previous events--a fact which shows that also when the effect is coming-to-be we still reason from the posterior event), and from the event we cannot reason (we cannot argue that because an event A has occurred, therefore an event B has occurred subsequently to A but still in the past-and the same holds good if the occurrence is future)-cannot reason because, be the time interval definite or indefinite, it will never be possible to infer that because it is true to say that A occurred, therefore it is true to say that B, the subsequent event, occurred; for in the interval between the events, though A has already occurred, the latter statement will be false. And the same argument applies also to future events; i.e. one cannot infer from an event which occurred in the past that a future event will occur. The reason of this is that the middle must be homogeneous, past when the extremes are past, future when they are future, coming to be when they are coming-to-be, actually existent when they are actually existent; and there cannot be a middle term homogeneous with extremes respectively past and future. And it is a further difficulty in this theory that the time interval can be neither indefinite nor definite, since during it the inference will be false. We have also to inquire what it is that holds events together so that the coming-to-be now occurring in actual things follows upon a past event. It is evident, we may suggest, that a past event and a present process cannot be 'contiguous', for not even two past events can be 'contiguous'. For past events are limits and atomic; so just as points are not 'contiguous' neither are past events, since both are indivisible. For the same reason a past event and a present process cannot be 'contiguous', for the process is divisible, the event indivisible. Thus the relation of present process to past event is analogous to that of line to point, since a process contains an infinity of past events. These questions, however, must receive a more explicit treatment in our general theory of change.
The following must suffice as an account of the manner in which the middle would be identical with the cause on the supposition that coming-to-be is a series of consecutive events: for in the terms of such a series too the middle and major terms must form an immediate premiss; e.g. we argue that, since C has occurred, therefore A occurred: and C's occurrence was posterior, A's prior; but C is the source of the inference because it is nearer to the present moment, and the starting-point of time is the present. We next argue that, since D has occurred, therefore C occurred. Then we conclude that, since D has occurred, therefore A must have occurred; and the cause is C, for since D has occurred C must have occurred, and since C has occurred A must previously have occurred.
If we get our middle term in this way, will the series terminate in an immediate premiss, or since, as we said, no two events are 'contiguous', will a fresh middle term always intervene because there is an infinity of middles? No: though no two events are 'contiguous', yet we must start from a premiss consisting of a middle and the present event as major. The like is true of future events too, since if it is true to say that D will exist, it must be a prior truth to say that A will exist, and the cause of this conclusion is C; for if D will exist, C will exist prior to D, and if C will exist, A will exist prior to it. And here too the same infinite divisibility might be urged, since future events are not 'contiguous'. But here too an immediate basic premiss must be assumed. And in the world of fact this is so: if a house has been built, then blocks must have been quarried and shaped. The reason is that a house having been built necessitates a foundation having been laid, and if a foundation has been laid blocks must have been shaped beforehand. Again, if a house will be built, blocks will similarly be shaped beforehand; and proof is through the middle in the same way, for the foundation will exist before the house.
Now we observe in Nature a certain kind of circular process of coming-to-be; and this is possible only if the middle and extreme terms are reciprocal, since conversion is conditioned by reciprocity in the terms of the proof. This-the convertibility of conclusions and premisses-has been proved in our early chapters, and the circular process is an instance of this. In actual fact it is exemplified thus: when the earth had been moistened an exhalation was bound to rise, and when an exhalation had risen cloud was bound to form, and from the formation of cloud rain necessarily resulted and by the fall of rain the earth was necessarily moistened: but this was the starting-point, so that a circle is completed; for posit any one of the terms and another follows from it, and from that another, and from that again the first.
Some occurrences are universal (for they are, or come-to-be what they are, always and in ever case); others again are not always what they are but only as a general rule: for instance, not every man can grow a beard, but it is the general rule. In the case of such connexions the middle term too must be a general rule. For if A is predicated universally of B and B of C, A too must be predicated always and in every instance of C, since to hold in every instance and always is of the nature of the universal. But we have assumed a connexion which is a general rule; consequently the middle term B must also be a general rule. So connexions which embody a general rule-i.e. which exist or
come to be as a general rule-will also derive from immediate basic premisses.
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We have already explained how essential nature is set out in the terms of a demonstration, and the sense in which it is or is not demonstrable or definable; so let us now discuss the method to be adopted in tracing the elements predicated as constituting the definable form.
Now of the attributes which inhere always in each several thing there are some which are wider in extent than it but not wider than its genus (by attributes of wider extent mean all such as are universal attributes of each several subject, but in their application are not confined to that subject). while an attribute may inhere in every triad, yet also in a subject not a triad-as being inheres in triad but also in subjects not numbers at all-odd on the other hand is an attribute inhering in every triad and of wider application (inhering as it does also in pentad), but which does not extend beyond the genus of triad; for pentad is a number, but nothing outside number is odd. It is such attributes which we have to select, up to the exact point at which they are severally of wider extent than the subject but collectively coextensive with it; for this synthesis must be the substance of the thing. For example every triad possesses the attributes number, odd, and prime in both senses, i.e. not only as possessing no divisors, but also as not being a sum of numbers. This, then, is precisely what triad is, viz. a number, odd, and prime in the former and also the latter sense of the term: for these attributes taken severally apply, the first two to all odd numbers, the last to the dyad also as well as to the triad, but, taken collectively, to no other subject. Now since we have shown above' that attributes predicated as belonging to the essential nature are necessary and that universals are necessary, and since the attributes which we select as inhering in triad, or in any other subject whose attributes we select in this way, are predicated as belonging to its essential nature, triad will thus possess these attributes necessarily. Further, that the synthesis of them constitutes the substance of triad is shown by the following argument. If it is not identical with the being of triad, it must be related to triad as a genus named or nameless. It will then be of wider extent than triad-assuming that wider potential extent is the character of a genus. If on the other hand this synthesis is applicable to no subject other than the individual triads, it will be identical with the being of triad, because we make the further assumption that the substance of each subject is the predication of elements in its essential nature down to the last differentia characterizing the individuals. It follows that any other synthesis thus exhibited will likewise be identical with the being of the subject.
The author of a hand-book on a subject that is a generic whole should divide the genus into its first infimae species-number e.g. into triad and dyad-and then endeavour to seize their definitions by the method we have described-the definition, for example, of straight line or circle or right angle. After that, having established what the category is to which the subaltern genus belongs-quantity or quality, for instance-he should examine the properties 'peculiar' to the species, working through the proximate common differentiae. He should proceed thus because the attributes of the genera compounded of the infimae species will be clearly given by the definitions of the species; since the basic element of them all is the definition, i.e. the simple infirma species, and the attributes inhere essentially in the simple infimae species, in the genera only in virtue of these.
Divisions according to differentiae are a useful accessory to this method. What force they have as proofs we did, indeed, explain above, but that merely towards collecting the essential nature they may be of use we will proceed to show. They might, indeed, seem to be of no use at all, but rather to assume everything at the start and to be no better than an initial assumption made without division. But, in fact, the order in which the attributes are predicated does make a difference--it matters whether we say animal-tame-biped, or biped-animal-tame. For if every definable thing consists of two elements and 'animal-tame' forms a unity, and again out of this and the further differentia man (or whatever else is the unity under construction) is constituted, then the elements we assume have necessarily been reached by division. Again, division is the only possible method of avoiding the omission of any element of the essential nature. Thus, if the primary genus is assumed and we then take one of the lower divisions, the dividendum will not fall whole into this division: e.g. it is not all animal which is either whole-winged or split-winged but all winged animal, for it is winged animal to which this differentiation belongs. The primary differentiation of animal is that within which all animal falls. The like is true of every other genus, whether outside animal or a subaltern genus of animal; e.g. the primary differentiation of bird is that within which falls every bird, of fish that within which falls every fish. So, if we proceed in this way, we can be sure that nothing has been omitted: by any other method one is bound to omit something without knowing it.
To define and divide one need not know the whole of existence. Yet some hold it impossible to know the differentiae distinguishing each thing from every single other thing without knowing every single other thing; and one cannot, they say, know each thing without knowing its differentiae, since everything is identical with that from which it does not differ, and other than that from which it differs. Now first of all this is a fallacy: not every differentia precludes identity, since many differentiae inhere in things specifically identical, though not in the substance of these nor essentially. Secondly, when one has taken one's differing pair of opposites and assumed that the two sides exhaust the genus, and that the subject one seeks to define is present in one or other of them, and one has further verified its presence in one of them; then it does not matter whether or not one knows all the other subjects of which the differentiae are also predicated. For it is obvious that when by this process one reaches subjects incapable of further differentiation one will possess the formula defining the substance. Moreover, to postulate that the division exhausts the genus is not illegitimate if the opposites exclude a middle; since if it is the differentia of that genus, anything contained in the genus must lie on one of the two sides.
In establishing a definition by division one should keep three objects in view: (1) the admission only of elements in the definable form, (2) the arrangement of these in the right order, (3) the omission of no such elements. The first is feasible because one can establish genus and differentia through the topic of the genus, just as one can conclude the inherence of an accident through the topic of the accident. The right order will be achieved if the right term is assumed as primary, and this will be ensured if the term selected is predicable of all the others but not all they of it; since there must be one such term. Having assumed this we at once proceed in the same way with the lower terms; for our second term will be the first of the remainder, our third the first of those which follow the second in a 'contiguous' series, since when the higher term is excluded, that term of the remainder which is 'contiguous' to it will be primary, and so on. Our procedure makes it clear that no elements in the definable form have been omitted: we have taken the differentia that comes first in the order of division, pointing out that animal, e.g. is divisible exhaustively into A and B, and that the subject accepts one of the two as its predicate. Next we have taken the differentia of the whole thus reached, and shown that the whole we finally reach is not further divisible-i.e. that as soon as we have taken the last differentia to form the concrete totality, this totality admits of no division into species. For it is clear that there is no superfluous addition, since all these terms we have selected are elements in the definable form; and nothing lacking, since any omission would have to be a genus or a differentia. Now the primary term is a genus, and this term taken in conjunction with its differentiae is a genus: moreover the differentiae are all included, because there is now no further differentia; if there were, the final concrete would admit of division into species, which, we said, is not the case.