The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)

by Mckeon, Richard

  14 In order to formulate the connexions we wish to prove we have to select our analyses and divisions. [98a] The method of selection consists in laying down the common genus of all our subjects of investigation—if e. g. they are animals, we lay down what the properties are which inhere in every animal. These established, we next lay down the properties essentially connected with the first of the remaining classes—e. g. if this first subgenus is bird, (5) the essential properties of every bird—and so on, always characterizing the proximate subgenus. This will clearly at once enable us to say in virtue of what character the subgenera—man, e. g., or horse—possess their properties. (10) Let A be animal, B the properties of every animal, C, D, E, various species of animal. Then it is clear in virtue of what character B inheres in D—namely A—and that it inheres in C and E for the same reason: and throughout the remaining subgenera always the same rule applies.

  We are now taking our examples from the traditional class-names, but we must not confine ourselves to considering these. (15) We must collect any other common character which we observe, and then consider with what species it is connected and what properties belong to it. For example, as the common properties of horned animals we collect the possession of a third stomach and only one row of teeth. Then since it is clear in virtue of what character they possess these attributes—namely their horned character—the next question is, to what species does the possession of horns attach?

  Yet a further method of selection is by analogy: for we cannot find a single identical name to give to a squid’s pounce, (20) a fish’s spine, and an animal’s bone, although these too possess common properties as if there were a single osseous nature.

  15 Some connexions that require proof are identical in that they possess an identical ‘middle’—e. g. a whole group might be proved through ‘reciprocal replacement’—and of these one class are identical in genus, (25) namely all those whose difference consists in their concerning different subjects or in their mode of manifestation. This latter class may be exemplified by the questions as to the causes respectively of echo, of reflection, and of the rainbow: the connexions to be proved which these questions embody are identical generically, because all three are forms of repercussion; but specifically they are different.

  Other connexions that require proof only differ in that the ‘middle’ of the one is subordinate to the ‘middle’ of the other. (30) For example: Why does the Nile rise towards the end of the month? Because towards its close the month is more stormy. Why is the month more stormy towards its close? Because the moon is waning. Here the one cause is subordinate to the other.

  16 The question might be raised with regard to cause and effect whether when the effect is present the cause also is present; whether, (35) for instance, if a plant sheds its leaves or the moon is eclipsed, there is present also the cause of the eclipse or of the fall of the leaves—the possession of broad leaves, let us say, in the latter case, in the former the earth’s interposition. [98b] For, one might argue, if this cause is not present, these phenomena will have some other cause: if it is present, its effect will be at once implied by it—the eclipse by the earth’s interposition, the fall of the leaves by the possession of broad leaves; but if so, they will be logically coincident and each capable of proof through the other. Let me illustrate: Let A be deciduous character, (5) B the possession of broad leaves, C vine. Now if A inheres in B (for every broad-leaved plant is deciduous), and B in C (every vine possessing broad leaves); then A inheres in C (every vine is deciduous), and the middle term B is the cause. (10) But we can also demonstrate that the vine has broad leaves because it is deciduous. Thus, let D be broad-leaved, E deciduous, F vine. Then E inheres in F (since every vine is deciduous), and D in E (for every deciduous plant has broad leaves): therefore every vine has broad leaves, (15) and the cause is its deciduous character. If,31 however, they cannot each be the cause of the other (for cause is prior to effect, and the earth’s interposition is the cause of the moon’s eclipse and not the eclipse of the interposition)—if, then, demonstration through the cause is of the reasoned fact and demonstration not through the cause is of the bare fact, (20) one who knows it through the eclipse knows the fact of the earth’s interposition but not the reasoned fact. Moreover, that the eclipse is not the cause of the interposition, but the interposition of the eclipse, is obvious because the interposition is an element in the definition of eclipse, which shows that the eclipse is known through the interposition and not vice versa.

  On the other hand, can a single effect have more than one cause? One might argue as follows: if the same attribute is predicable of more than one thing as its primary subject, (25) let B be a primary subject in which A inheres, and C another primary subject of A, and D and E primary subjects of B and C respectively. A will then inhere in D and E, and B will be the cause of A’s inherence in D, C of A’s inherence in E. The presence of the cause thus necessitates that of the effect, (30) but the presence of the effect necessitates the presence not of all that may cause it but only of a cause which yet need not be the whole cause. We may, however, suggest32 that if the connexion to be proved is always universal and commensurate, not only will the cause be a whole but also the effect will be universal and commensurate. For instance, deciduous character will belong exclusively to a subject which is a whole, and, if this whole has species, universally and commensurately to those species—i. e. either to all species of plant or to a single species. (35) So in these universal and commensurate connexions the ‘middle’ and its effect must reciprocate, i. e. be convertible. Supposing, for example, that the reason why trees are deciduous is the coagulation of sap, then if a tree is deciduous, coagulation must be present, and if coagulation is present—not in any subject but in a tree—then that tree must be deciduous.

  17 [99a] Can the cause of an identical effect be not identical in every instance of the effect but different? Or is that impossible? Perhaps it is impossible if the effect is demonstrated as essential and not as inhering in virtue of a symptom or an accident—because the middle is then the definition of the major term—though possible if the demonstration is not essential. Now it is possible to consider the effect and its subject as an accidental conjunction, (5) though such conjunctions would not be regarded as connexions demanding scientific proof. But if they are accepted as such, the middle will correspond to the extremes, and be equivocal if they are equivocal, generically one if they are generically one. Take the question why proportionals alternate. The cause when they are lines, and when they are numbers, is both different and identical; different in so far as lines are lines and not numbers, (10) identical as involving a given determinate increment. In all proportionals this is so. Again, the cause of likeness between colour and colour is other than that between figure and figure; for likeness here is equivocal, meaning perhaps in the latter case equality of the ratios of the sides and equality of the angles, (15) in the case of colours identity of the act of perceiving them, or something else of the sort. Again, connexions requiring proof which are identical by analogy have middles also analogous.

  The truth is that cause, effect, and subject are reciprocally predicable in the following way. If the species are taken severally, the effect is wider than the subject (e. g. the possession of external angles equal to four right angles is an attribute wider than triangle or square), (20) but it is coextensive with the species taken collectively (in this instance with all figures whose external angles are equal to four right angles). And the middle likewise reciprocates, for the middle is a definition of the major; which is incidentally the reason why all the sciences are built up through definition.

  We may illustrate as follows. Deciduous is a universal attribute of vine, and is at the same time of wider extent than vine; and of fig, and is of wider extent than fig: but it is not wider than but co-extensive with the totality of the species. (25) Then if you take the middle which is proximate, it is a definition of deciduous. I say that, because you will first reach a middle33 next th
e subject,34 and a premiss asserting it of the whole subject, and after that a middle—the coagulation of sap or something of the sort—proving the connexion of the first middle with the major:35 but it is the coagulation of sap at the junction of leaf-stalk and stem which defines deciduous.36

  If an explanation in formal terms of the inter-relation of cause and effect is demanded, (30) we shall offer the following. Let A be an attribute of all B, and B of every species of D, but so that both A and B are wider than their respective subjects. Then B will be a universal attribute of each species of D (since I call such an attribute universal even if it is not commensurate, and I call an attribute primary universal if it is commensurate,37 not with each species severally but with their totality), and it extends beyond each of them taken separately. Thus, B is the cause of A’s inherence in the species of D: consequently A must be of wider extent than B; otherwise why should B be the cause of A’s inherence in D any more than A the cause of B’s inherence in D? Now if A is an attribute of all the species of E, (35) all the species of E will be united by possessing some common cause other than B: otherwise how shall we be able to say that A is predicable of all of which E is predicable, while E is not predicable of all of which A can be predicated? I mean how can there fail to be some special cause of A’s inherence in E, as there was of A’s inherence in all the species of D? Then are the species of E, too, united by possessing some common cause? This cause we must look for. [99b] Let us call it C.38

  We conclude, then, that the same effect may have more than one cause, but not in subjects specifically identical. For instance, (5) the cause of longevity in quadrupeds is lack of bile, in birds a dry constitution—or certainly something different.

  18 If immediate premisses are not reached at once, and there is not merely one middle but several middles, i. e. several causes; is the cause of the property’s inherence in the several species the middle which is proximate to the primary universal,39 (10) or the middle which is proximate to the species?40 Clearly the cause is that nearest to each species severally in which it is manifested, for that is the cause of the subject’s falling under the universal. To illustrate formally: C is the cause of B’s inherence in D; hence C is the cause of A’s inherence in D, B of A’s inherence in C, while the cause of A’s inherence in B is B itself.

  19 As regards syllogism and demonstration, (15) the definition of, and the conditions required to produce each of them, are now clear, and with that also the definition of, and the conditions required to produce, demonstrative knowledge, since it is the same as demonstration. As to the basic premisses, how they become known and what is the developed state of knowledge of them is made clear by raising some preliminary problems. (20)

  We have already said41 that scientific knowledge through demonstration is impossible unless a man knows the primary immediate premisses. But there are questions which might be raised in respect of the apprehension of these immediate premisses: one might not only ask whether it is of the same kind as the apprehension of the conclusions, but also whether there is or is not scientific knowledge of both; or scientific knowledge of the latter, and of the former a different kind of knowledge; and, (25) further, whether the developed states of knowledge are not innate but come to be in us, or are innate but at first unnoticed. Now it is strange if we possess them from birth; for it means that we possess apprehensions more accurate than demonstration and fail to notice them. If on the other hand we acquire them and do not previously possess them, how could we apprehend and learn without a basis of pre-existent knowledge? For that is impossible, (30) as we used to find42 in the case of demonstration. So it emerges that neither can we possess them from birth, nor can they come to be in us if we are without knowledge of them to the extent of having no such developed state at all. Therefore we must possess a capacity of some sort, but not such as to rank higher in accuracy than these developed states. And this at least is an obvious characteristic of all animals, for they possess a congenital discriminative capacity which is called sense-perception. (35) But though sense-perception is innate in all animals, in some the sense-impression comes to persist, in others it does not. So animals in which this persistence does not come to be have either no knowledge at all outside the act of perceiving, or no knowledge of objects of which no impression persists; animals in which it does come into being have perception and can continue to retain the sense-impression in the soul: and when such persistence is frequently repeated a further distinction at once arises between those which out of the persistence of such sense-impressions develop a power of systematizing them and those which do not. [100a] So out of sense-perception comes to be what we call memory, and out of frequently repeated memories of the same thing develops experience; for a number of memories constitute a single experience.43 (5) From experience again—i. e. from the universal now stabilized in its entirety within the soul, the one beside the many which is a single identity within them all—originate the skill of the craftsman and the knowledge of the man of science, skill in the sphere of coming to be and science in the sphere of being.

  We conclude that these states of knowledge are neither innate in a determinate form, nor developed from other higher states of knowledge, (10) but from sense-perception. It is like a rout in battle stopped by first one man making a stand and then another, until the original formation has been restored. The soul is so constituted as to be capable of this process.

  Let us now restate the account given already, though with insufficient clearness. When one of a number of logically indiscriminable particulars has made a stand, (15) the earliest universal is present in the soul: for though the act of sense-perception is of the particular, its content is universal—is man, for example, not the man Callias. [100b] A fresh stand is made among these rudimentary universals, and the process does not cease until the indivisible concepts, the true universals, are established: e. g. such and such a species of animal is a step towards the genus animal, which by the same process is a step towards a further generalization.

  Thus it is clear that we must get to know the primary premisses by induction; for the method by which even sense-perception implants plants the universal is inductive. (5) Now of the thinking states by which we grasp truth, some are unfailingly true, others admit of error—opinion, for instance, and calculation, whereas scientific knowing and intuition are always true: further, no other kind of thought except intuition is more accurate than scientific knowledge, whereas primary premisses are more knowable than demonstrations, (10) and all scientific knowledge is discursive. From these considerations it follows that there will be no scientific knowledge of the primary premisses, and since except intuition nothing can be truer than scientific knowledge, it will be intuition that apprehends the primary premisses—a result which also follows from the fact that demonstration cannot be the originative source of demonstration, nor, consequently, scientific knowledge of scientific knowledge. If, therefore, it is the only other kind of true thinking except scientific knowing, (15) intuition will be the originative source of scientific knowledge. And the originative source of science grasps the original basic premiss, while science as a whole is similarly related as originative source to the whole body of fact.

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  1 Cf. 94a 11–14.

  2 Cf. 72b 18–25 and 84a 30-b 2.

  3 sc. ‘and an indefinite regress occurs’. This argument is a corollary of the proof in 15–26 that if the proposition predicating A—its definition—of C can be a conclusion, there must be a middle term, B, and since A, B, and C are reciprocally predicable, B too, as well as A, will be a definition of C.

  4 A reminder of a necessary condition of syllogism. If the definition of syllogism is premised the conclusion would have to affirm some subject to be of the nature of syllogism.

  5 ‘distinct from it’; i. e. in the case of properties, with the definition of which Aristotle is alone concerned in this chapter. The being of a property consists in its inherence in a substance through a middle which defines it. C
f. the following chapter.