The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)

by Mckeon, Richard

  [198a] We have now explained what chance is and what spontaneity is, and in what they differ from each other. Both belong to the mode of causation ‘source of change’, for either some natural or some intelligent agent is always the cause; but in this sort of causation the number of possible causes is infinite.

  Spontaneity and chance are causes of effects which, (5) though they might result from intelligence or nature, have in fact been caused by something incidentally. Now since nothing which is incidental is prior to what is per se, it is clear that no incidental cause can be prior to a cause per se. Spontaneity and chance, therefore, are posterior to intelligence and nature. Hence, however true it may be that the heavens are due to spontaneity, (10) it will still be true that intelligence and nature will be prior causes of this All and of many things in it besides.

  7 It is clear then that there are causes, and that the number of them is what we have stated. The number is the same as that of the things comprehended under the question ‘why’. (15) The ‘why’ is referred ultimately either (1), in things which do not involve motion, e. g. in mathematics, to the ‘what’ (to the definition of ‘straight line’ or ‘commensurable’, &c), or (2) to what initiated a motion, e. g. ‘why did they go to war?—because there had been a raid’; or (3) we are inquiring ‘for the sake of what?’—‘that they may rule’; or (4), (20) in the case of things that come into being, we are looking for the matter. The causes, therefore, are these and so many in number.

  Now, the causes being four, it is the business of the physicist to know about them all, and if he refers his problems back to all of them, he will assign the ‘why’ in the way proper to his science—the matter, (25) the form, the mover, ‘that for the sake of which’. The last three often coincide; for the ‘what’ and ‘that for the sake of which’ are one, while the primary source of motion is the same in species as these (for man generates man), and so too, in general, are all things which cause movement by being themselves moved; and such as are not of this kind are no longer inside the province of physics, for they cause motion not by possessing motion or a source of motion in themselves, but being themselves incapable of motion. Hence there are three branches of study, (30) one of things which are incapable of motion, the second of things in motion, but indestructible, the third of destructible things.

  The question ‘why’, then, is answered by reference to the matter, to the form, and to the primary moving cause. For in respect of coming to be it is mostly in this last way that causes are investigated—‘what comes to be after what? what was the primary agent or patient?’ and so at each step of the series.

  Now the principles which cause motion in a physical way are two, (35) of which one is not physical, as it has no principle of motion in itself. [198b] Of this kind is whatever causes movement, not being itself moved, such as (1) that which is completely unchangeable, the primary reality, and (2) the essence of that which is coming to be, i. e. the form; for this is the end or ‘that for the sake of which’. Hence since nature is for the sake of something, we must know this cause also. (5) We must explain the ‘why’ in all the senses of the term, namely, (1) that from this that will necessarily result (‘from this’ either without qualification or in most cases); (2) that ‘this must be so if that is to be so’ (as the conclusion presupposes the premisses); (3) that this was the essence of the thing; and (4) because it is better thus (not without qualification, but with reference to the essential nature in each case).

  8 We must explain then (1) that Nature belongs to the class of causes which act for the sake of something; (2) about the necessary and its place in physical problems, (10) for all writers ascribe things to this cause, arguing that since the hot and the cold, &c., are of such and such a kind, therefore certain things necessarily are and come to be—and if they mention any other cause (one9 his ‘friendship and strife’, (15) another10 his ‘mind’), it is only to touch on it, and then goodbye to it.

  A difficulty presents itself: why should not nature work, not for the sake of something, nor because it is better so, but just as the sky rains, not in order to make the corn grow, but of necessity? What is drawn up must cool, and what has been cooled must become water and descend, (20) the result of this being that the corn grows. Similarly if a man’s crop is spoiled on the threshing-floor, the rain did not fall for the sake of this—in order that the crop might be spoiled—but that result just followed. Why then should it not be the same with the parts in nature, e. g. that our teeth should come up of necessity—the front teeth sharp, fitted for tearing, the molars broad and useful for grinding down the food—since they did not arise for this end, (25) but it was merely a coincident result; and so with all other parts in which we suppose that there is purpose? Wherever then all the parts came about just what they would have been if they had come to be for an end, (30) such things survived, being organized spontaneously in a fitting way; whereas those which grew otherwise perished and continue to perish, as Empedocles says his ‘man-faced ox-progeny’ did.

  Such are the arguments (and others of the kind) which may cause difficulty on this point. Yet it is impossible that this should be the true view. For teeth and all other natural things either invariably or normally come about in a given way; but of not one of the results of chance or spontaneity is this true. (35) We do not ascribe to chance or mere coincidence the frequency of rain in winter, but frequent rain in summer we do; nor heat in the dog-days, but only if we have it in winter. [199a] If then, it is agreed that things are either the result of coincidence or for an end, and these cannot be the result of coincidence or spontaneity, it follows that they must be for an end; and that such things are all due to nature even the champions of the theory which is before us would agree. (5) Therefore action for an end is present in things which come to be and are by nature.

  Further, where a series has a completion, all the preceding steps are for the sake of that. Now surely as in intelligent action, (10) so in nature; and as in nature, so it is in each action, if nothing interferes. Now intelligent action is for the sake of an end; therefore the nature of things also is so. Thus if a house, e. g., had been a thing made by nature, it would have been made in the same way as it is now by art; and if things made by nature were made also by art, (15) they would come to be in the same way as by nature. Each step then in the series is for the sake of the next; and generally art partly completes what nature cannot bring to a finish, and partly imitates her. If, therefore, artificial products are for the sake of an end, so clearly also are natural products. The relation of the later to the earlier terms of the series is the same in both.

  This is most obvious in the animals other than man: they make things neither by art nor after inquiry or deliberation. (20) Wherefore people discuss whether it is by intelligence or by some other faculty that these creatures work,—spiders, ants, and the like. By gradual advance in this direction we come to see clearly that in plants too that is produced which is conducive to the end—leaves, (25) e. g. grow to provide shade for the fruit. If then it is both by nature and for an end that the swallow makes its nest and the spider its web, and plants grow leaves for the sake of the fruit and send their roots down (not up) for the sake of nourishment, it is plain that this kind of cause is operative in things which come to be and are by nature. (30) And since ‘nature’ means two things, the matter and the form, of which the latter is the end, and since all the rest is for the sake of the end, the form must be the cause in the sense of ‘that for the sake of which’.

  Now mistakes come to pass even in the operations of art: the grammarian makes a mistake in writing and the doctor pours out the wrong dose. (35) Hence clearly mistakes are possible in the operations of nature also. [199b] If then in art there are cases in which what is rightly produced serves a purpose, and if where mistakes occur there was a purpose in what was attempted, only it was not attained, so must it be also in natural products, and monstrosities will be failures in the purposive effort. (5) Thus in the original combinations the ‘ox
-progeny’ if they failed to reach a determinate end must have arisen through the corruption of some principle corresponding to what is now the seed.

  Further, seed must have come into being first, and not straightway the animals: the words ‘whole-natured first …’11 must have meant seed.

  Again, in plants too we find the relation of means to end, (10) though the degree of organization is less. Were there then in plants also ‘olive-headed vine-progeny’, like the ‘man-headed ox-progeny’, or not? An absurd suggestion; yet there must have been, if there were such things among animals.

  Moreover, among the seeds anything must have come to be at random. But the person who asserts this entirely does away with ‘nature’ and what exists ‘by nature’. For those things are natural which, (15) by a continuous movement originated from an internal principle, arrive at some completion: the same completion is not reached from every principle; nor any chance completion, but always the tendency in each is towards the same end, if there is no impediment.

  The end and the means towards it may come about by chance. We say, for instance, that a stranger has come by chance, (20) paid the ransom, and gone away, when he does so as if he had come for that purpose, though it was not for that that he came. This is incidental, for chance is an incidental cause, as I remarked before.12 But when an event takes place always or for the most part, it is not incidental or by chance. In natural products the sequence is invariable, (25) if there is no impediment.

  It is absurd to suppose that purpose is not present because we do not observe the agent deliberating. Art does not deliberate. If the ship-building art were in the wood, it would produce the same results by nature. If, therefore, purpose is present in art, it is present also in nature. The best illustration is a doctor doctoring himself: nature is like that. (30)

  It is plain then that nature is a cause, a cause that operates for a purpose.

  9 As regards what is ‘of necessity’, we must ask whether the necessity is ‘hypothetical’, or ‘simple’ as well. (35) The current view places what is of necessity in the process of production, just as if one were to suppose that the wall of a house necessarily comes to be because what is heavy is naturally carried downwards and what is light to the top, wherefore the stones and foundations take the lowest place, with earth above because it is lighter, and wood at the top of all as being the lightest. [200a] Whereas, though the wall does not come to be without these, (5) it is not due to these, except as its material cause: it comes to be for the sake of sheltering and guarding certain things. Similarly in all other things which involve production for an end; the product cannot come to be without things which have a necessary nature, but it is not due to these (except as its material); it comes to be for an end. (10) For instance, why is a saw such as it is? To effect so-and-so and for the sake of so-and-so. This end, however, cannot be realized unless the saw is made of iron. It is, therefore, necessary for it to be of iron, if we are to have a saw and perform the operation of sawing. What is necessary then, is necessary on a hypothesis; it is not a result necessarily determined by antecedents. Necessity is in the matter, while ‘that for the sake of which’ is in the definition.

  Necessity in mathematics is in a way similar to necessity in things which come to be through the operation of nature. (15) Since a straight line is what it is, it is necessary that the angles of a triangle should equal two right angles. But not conversely; though if the angles are not equal to two right angles, then the straight line is not what it is either. But in things which come to be for an end, the reverse is true. (20) If the end is to exist or does exist, that also which precedes it will exist or does exist; otherwise just as there, if the conclusion is not true, the premiss will not be true, so here the end or ‘that for the sake of which’ will not exist. For this too is itself a starting-point, but of the reasoning, not of the action; while in mathematics the starting-point is the starting point of the reasoning only, as there is no action. (25) If then there is to be a house, such-and-such things must be made or be there already or exist, or generally the matter relative to the end, bricks and stones if it is a house. But the end is not due to these except as the matter, nor will it come to exist because of them. Yet if they do not exist at all, neither will the house, or the saw—the former in the absence of stones, the latter in the absence of iron—just as in the other case the premisses will not be true, if the angles of the triangle are not equal to two right angles.

  The necessary in nature, (30) then, is plainly what we call by the name of matter, and the changes in it. Both causes must be stated by the physicist, but especially the end; for that is the cause of the matter, not vice versa; and the end is ‘that for the sake of which’, (35) and the beginning starts from the definition or essence; as in artificial products, since a house is of such-and-such a kind, certain things must necessarily come to be or be there already, or since health is this, these things must necessarily come to be or be there already. [200b] Similarly if man is this, then these; if these, then those. (5) Perhaps the necessary is present also in the definition. For if one defines the operation of sawing as being a certain kind of dividing, then this cannot come about unless the saw has teeth of a certain kind; and these cannot be unless it is of iron. For in the definition too there are some parts that are, as it were, its matter.

  * * *

  1 De Gen. et Corr. i. 3.

  2 i. e. death.

  3 i. e. in the dialogue De Philosophia.

  4 Apparently Democritus is meant.

  5 Apparently Democritus is meant.

  6 Democritus.

  7 Incidental attributes of the housebuilder.

  8 In ch. 6.

  9 Empedocles.

  10 Anaxagoras.

  11 Empedocles, Fr. 62. 4.

  12 196b 23–7.

  BOOK III

  1 Nature has been defined as a ‘principle of motion and change’, (12) and it is the subject of our inquiry. We must therefore see that we understand the meaning of ‘motion’; for if it were unknown, the meaning of ‘nature’ too would be unknown.

  When we have determined the nature of motion, (15) our next task will be to attack in the same way the terms which are involved in it. Now motion is supposed to belong to the class of things which are continuous; and the infinite presents itself first in the continuous—that is how it comes about that ‘infinite’ is often used in definitions of the continuous (‘what is infinitely divisible is continuous’). Besides these, place, void, and time are thought to be necessary conditions of motion. (20)

  Clearly, then, for these reasons and also because the attributes mentioned are common to, and coextensive with, all the objects of our science, we must first take each of them in hand and discuss it. For the investigation of special attributes comes after that of the common attributes.

  To begin then, as we said, with motion. (25)

  We may start by distinguishing (1) what exists in a state of fulfilment only, (2) what exists as potential, (3) what exists as potential and also in fulfilment—one being a ‘this’, another ‘so much’, a third ‘such’, and similarly in each of the other modes of the predication of being.

  Further, the word ‘relative’ is used with reference to (1) excess and defect, (2) agent and patient and generally what can move and what can be moved. (30) For ‘what can cause movement’ is relative to ‘what can be moved’, and vice versa.

  Again, there is no such thing as motion over and above the things. It is always with respect to substance or to quantity or to quality or to place that what changes changes. But it is impossible, as we assert, to find anything common to these which is neither ‘this’ nor quantum nor quale nor any of the other predicates. [201a] (35) Hence neither will motion and change have reference to something over and above the things mentioned, for there is nothing over and above them.

  Now each of these belongs to all its subjects in either of two ways: namely (1) substance—the one is positive form, (5) the other privation; (2) in quality, white and black
; (3) in quantity, complete and incomplete; (4) in respect of locomotion, upwards and downwards or light and heavy. Hence there are as many types of motion or change as there are meanings of the word ‘is’.

  We have now before us the distinctions in the various classes of being between what is fully real and what is potential.

  Def. (10) The fulfilment of what exists potentially, in so far as it exists potentially, is motion—namely, of what is alterable qua alterable, alteration: of what can be increased and its opposite what can be decreased (there is no common name), increase and decrease: of what can come to be and can pass away, coming to be and passing away: of what can be carried along, locomotion.

  Examples will elucidate this definition of motion. (15) When the buildable, in so far as it is just that, is fully real, it is being built, and this is building. Similarly, learning, doctoring, rolling, leaping, ripening, ageing.

  The same thing, if it is of a certain kind, can be both potential and fully real, (20) not indeed at the same time or not in the same respect, but e. g. potentially hot and actually cold. Hence at once such things will act and be acted on by one another in many ways: each of them will be capable at the same time of causing alteration and of being altered. Hence, too, what effects motion as a physical agent can be moved: when a thing of this kind causes motion, it is itself also moved. This, (25) indeed, has led some people to suppose that every mover is moved. But this question depends on another set of arguments, and the truth will be made clear later.1 It is possible for a thing to cause motion, though it is itself incapable of being moved.