The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)

by Mckeon, Richard

  ‘Suddenly’ refers to what has departed from its former condition in a time imperceptible because of its smallness; but it is the nature of all change to alter things from their former condition. (15) In time all things come into being and pass away; for which reason some called it the wisest of all things, but the Pythagorean Paron called it the most stupid, because in it we also forget; and his was the truer view. It is clear then that it must be in itself, as we said before19 the condition of destruction rather than of coming into being (for change, (20) in itself, makes things depart from their former condition), and only incidentally of coming into being, and of being. A sufficient evidence of this is that nothing comes into being without itself moving somehow and acting, but a thing can be destroyed even if it does not move at all. And this is what, as a rule, we chiefly mean by a thing’s being destroyed by time. (25) Still, time does not work even this change; even this sort of change takes place incidentally in time.

  We have stated, then, that time exists and what it is, and in how many senses we speak of the ‘now’, and what ‘at some time’, ‘lately’, ‘presently’ or ‘just’, ‘long ago’, and ‘suddenly’ mean.

  14 These distinctions having been drawn, (30) it is evident that every change and everything that moves is in time; for the distinction of faster and slower exists in reference to all change, since it is found in every instance. In the phrase ‘moving faster’ I refer to that which changes before another into the condition in question, when it moves over the same interval and with a regular movement; e. g. in the case of locomotion, if both things move along the circumference of a circle, or both along a straight line; and similarly in all other cases. [223a] (5) But what is before is in time; for we say ‘before’ and ‘after’ with reference to the distance from the ‘now’, and the ‘now’ is the boundary of the past and the future; so that since ‘nows’ are in time, the before and the after will be in time too; for in that in which the ‘now’ is, the distance from the ‘now’ will also be. But ‘before’ is used contrariwise with reference to past and to future time; for in the past we call ‘before’ what is farther from the ‘now’, (10) and ‘after’ what is nearer, but in the future we call the nearer ‘before’ and the farther ‘after’. So that since the ‘before’ is in time, and every movement involves a ‘before’, (15) evidently every change and every movement is in time.

  It is also worth considering how time can be related to the soul; and why time is thought to be in everything, both in earth and in sea and in heaven. Is it because it is an attribute, or state, of movement (since it is the number of movement) and all these things are movable (for they are all in place), and time and movement are together, (20) both in respect of potentiality and in respect of actuality?

  Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be some one to count there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted. But if nothing but soul, or in soul reason, is qualified to count, (25) there would not be time unless there were soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i. e. if movement can exist without soul, and the before and after are attributes of movement, and time is these qua numerable.

  One might also raise the question what sort of movement time is the number of. Must we not say ‘of any kind’? For things both come into being in time and pass away, (30) and grow, and are altered in time, and are moved locally; thus it is of each movement qua movement that time is the number. And so it is simply the number of continuous movement, not of any particular kind of it.

  But other things as well may have been moved now, and there would be a number of each of the two movements. [223b] Is there another time, then, and will there be two equal times at once? Surely not. For a time that is both equal and simultaneous is one and the same time, and even those that are not simultaneous are one in kind; for if there were dogs, and horses, and seven of each, it would be the same number. (5) So, too, movements that have simultaneous limits have the same time, yet the one may in fact be fast and the other not, and one may be locomotion and the other alteration; still the time of the two changes is the same if their number also is equal and simultaneous; and for this reason, while the movements are different and separate, (10) the time is everywhere the same, because the number of equal and simultaneous movements is everywhere one and the same.

  Now there is such a thing as locomotion, and in locomotion there is included circular movement, and everything is measured by some one thing homogeneous with it, units by a unit, horses by a horse, and similarly times by some definite time, and, as we said,20 time is measured by motion as well as motion by time (this being so because by a motion definite in time the quantity both of the motion and of the time is measured): if, (15) then, what is first is the measure of everything homogeneous with it, regular circular motion is above all else the measure, because the number of this is the best known. (20) Now neither alteration nor increase nor coming into being can be regular, but locomotion can be. This also is why time is thought to be the movement of the sphere, viz. because the other movements are measured by this, and time by this movement.

  This also explains the common saying that human affairs form a circle, (25) and that there is a circle in all other things that have a natural movement and coming into being and passing away. This is because all other things are discriminated by time, and end and begin as though conforming to a cycle; for even time itself is thought to be a circle. (30) And this opinion again is held because time is the measure of this kind of locomotion and is itself measured by such. So that to say that the things that come into being form a circle is to say that there is a circle of time; and this is to say that it is measured by the circular movement; for apart from the measure nothing else to be measured is observed; the whole is just a plurality of measures. [224a]

  It is said rightly, too, that the number of the sheep and of the dogs is the same number if the two numbers are equal, but not the same decad or the same ten; just as the equilateral and the scalene are not the same triangle, (5) yet they are the same figure, because they are both triangles. For things are called the same so-and-so if they do not differ by a differentia of that thing, but not if they do; e. g. triangle differs from triangle by a differentia of triangle, therefore they are different triangles; but they do not differ by a differentia of figure, but are in one and the same division of it. For a figure of one kind is a circle and a figure of another kind a triangle, (10) and a triangle of one kind is equilateral and a triangle of another kind scalene. They are the same figure, then, and that, triangle, but not the same triangle. Therefore the number of two groups also is the same number (for their number does not differ by a differentia of number), but it is not the same decad; for the things of which it is asserted differ; one group are dogs, and the other horses.

  We have now discussed time—both time itself and the matters appropriate to the consideration of it. (15)

  * * *

  1 52.

  2 Where he apparently identified ‘the participant’ with ‘the great and the small’; cf. 1. 35.

  3 208b 2.

  4 Cf. 212b 14–16.

  5 209b 22–32.

  6 211a 17–b5.

  7 a32.

  8 209a 2–30.

  9 De Gen. et Corr. i. 3.

  10 Expected by those who believe in a separately existing place or void.

  11 211b 19 sqq., 213a 31.

  12 A Pythagorean of Croton.

  13 The argument would be clearer if we could say ‘during’ itself. If the existent perished ‘in’ itself, it would never exist without perishing.

  14 Aristotle is probably referring to Plato and the Pythagoreans respectively.

  15 e. g. if you come in when I go out, the time of your coming in is in fact the time of my going out, though for it to be the one and to be the other are different things.

  16 e. g. ‘many years’.
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  17 202a 4.

  18 220a 5.

  19 221b 1.

  20 220b 28.

  BOOK V

  1 Everything with changes does so in one of three senses. (21) It may change (1) accidentally, as for instance when we say that something musical walks, that which walks being something in which aptitude for music is an accident. Again (2) a thing is said without qualification to change because something belonging to it changes, (25) i. e. in statements which refer to part of the thing in question: thus the body is restored to health because the eye or the chest, that is to say a part of the whole body, is restored to health. And above all there is (3) the case of a thing which is in motion neither accidentally nor in respect of something else belonging to it, but in virtue of being itself directly in motion. Here we have a thing which is essentially movable: and that which is so is a different thing according to the particular variety of motion: for instance it may be a thing capable of alteration: and within the sphere of alteration it is again a different thing according as it is capable of being restored to health or capable of being heated. (30) And there are the same distinctions in the case of the mover: (1) one thing causes motion accidentally, (2) another partially (because something belonging to it causes motion), (3) another of itself directly, as, for instance, the physician heals, the hand strikes. We have, then, the following factors: (a) on the one hand that which directly causes motion, and (b) on the other hand that which is in motion: further, we have (c) that in which motion takes place, (35) namely time, and (distinct from these three) (d) that from which and (e) that to which it proceeds: for every motion proceeds from something and to something, that which is directly in motion being distinct from that to which it is in motion and that from which it is in motion: for instance, we may take the three things ‘wood’, ‘hot’, and ‘cold’, of which the first is that which is in motion, the second is that to which the motion proceeds, and the third is that from which it proceeds. [224b] This being so, it is clear that the motion is in the wood, not in its form: for the motion is neither caused nor experienced by the form or the place or the quantity. (5) So we are left with a mover, a moved, and a goal of motion. I do not include the starting-point of motion: for it is the goal rather than the starting-point of motion that gives its name to a particular process of change. Thus ‘perishing’ is change to not-being, though it is also true that that which perishes changes from being: and ‘becoming’ is change to being, though it is also change from not-being.

  Now a definition of motion has been given above,1a from which it will be seen that every goal of motion, (10) whether it be a form, an affection, or a place, is immovable, as, for instance, knowledge and heat. Here, however, a difficulty may be raised. Affections, it may be said, are motions, and whiteness is an affection: thus there may be change to a motion. To this we may reply that it is not whiteness but whitening that is a motion. (15) Here also the same distinctions are to be observed: a goal of motion may be so accidentally, or partially and with reference to something other than itself, or directly and with no reference to anything else: for instance, a thing which is becoming white changes accidentally to an object of thought, the colour being only accidentally the object of thought; it changes to colour, (20) because white is a part of colour, or to Europe, because Athens is a part of Europe; but it changes essentially to white colour. It is now clear in what sense a thing is in motion essentially, accidentally, or in respect of something other than itself, and in what sense the phrase ‘itself directly’ is used in the case both of the mover and of the moved: and it is also clear that the motion is not in the form but in that which is in motion, (25) that is to say ‘the movable in activity’. Now accidental change we may leave out of account: for it is to be found in everything, at any time, and in any respect. Change which is not accidental on the other hand is not to be found in everything, but only in contraries, in things intermediate between contraries, (30) and in contradictories, as may be proved by induction. An intermediate may be a starting-point of change, since for the purposes of the change it serves as contrary to either of two contraries: for the intermediate is in a sense the extremes. Hence we speak of the intermediate as in a sense a contrary relatively to the extremes and of either extreme as a contrary relatively to the intermediate: for instance, the central note is low relatively to the highest and high relatively to the lowest, and grey is light relatively to black and dark relatively to white. (35)

  And since every change is from something to something—as the word itself metabole indicates, implying something ‘after’ (meta) something else, that is to say something earlier and something later—that which changes must change in one of four ways: from subject to subject, (5) from subject to non-subject, from non-subject to subject, or from non-subject to non-subject, where by ‘subject’ I mean what is affirmatively expressed. [225a] So it follows necessarily from what has been said above that there are only three kinds of change, that from subject to subject, that from subject to non-subject, (10) and that from non-subject to subject: for the fourth conceivable kind, that from non-subject to non-subject, is not change, as in that case there is no opposition either of contraries or of contradictories.

  Now change from non-subject to subject, the relation being that of contradiction, is ‘coming to be’—‘unqualified coming to be’ when the change takes place in an unqualified way, ‘particular coming to be’ when the change is change in a particular character: for instance, a change from not-white to white is a coming to be of the particular thing, (15) white, while change from unqualified not-being to being is coming to be in an unqualified way, in respect of which we say that a thing ‘comes to be’ without qualification, not that it ‘comes to be’ some particular thing. Change from subject to non-subject is ‘perishing’—‘unqualified perishing’ when the change is from being to not-being, ‘particular perishing’ when the change is to the opposite negation, the distinction being the same as that made in the case of coming to be.

  Now the expression ‘not-being’ is used in several senses: and there can be motion neither of that which ‘is not’ in respect of the affirmation or negation of a predicate, (20) nor of that which ‘is not’ in the sense that it only potentially ‘is’, that is to say the opposite of that which actually ‘is’ in an unqualified sense: for although that which is ‘not-white’ or ‘not-good’ may nevertheless be in motion accidentally (for example that which is ‘not-white’ might be a man), yet that which is without qualification ‘not-so-and-so’ cannot in any sense be in motion: Therefore it is impossible for that which is not to be in motion. (25) This being so, it follows that ‘becoming’ cannot be a motion: for it is that which ‘is not’ that ‘becomes’. For however true it may be that it accidentally ‘becomes’, it is nevertheless correct to say that it is that which ‘is not’ that in an unqualified sense ‘becomes’. And similarly it is impossible for that which ‘is not’ to be at rest.

  There are these difficulties, then, in the way of the assumption that that which ‘is not’ can be in motion: and it may be further objected that, (30) whereas everything which is in motion is in space, that which ‘is not’ is not in space: for then it would be somewhere.

  So, too, ‘perishing’ is not a motion: for a motion has for its contrary either another motion or rest, whereas ‘perishing’ is the contrary of ‘becoming’.

  Since, then, every motion is a kind of change, and there are only the three kinds of change mentioned above; and since of these three those which take the form of ‘becoming’ and ‘perishing’, (35) that is to say those which imply a relation of contradiction, are not motions: it necessarily follows that only change from subject to subject is motion. [225b] And every such subject is either a contrary or an intermediate (for a privation may be allowed to rank as a contrary) and can be affirmatively expressed, as naked, toothless, or black. If, then, (5) the categories are severally distinguished as Being, Quality, Place, Time, Relation, Quantity, and Activity or Passivity, it necessarily follows th
at there are three kinds of motion—qualitative, quantitative, and local.

  2 In respect of Substance there is no motion, (10) because Substance has no contrary among things that are. Nor is there motion in respect of Relation: for it may happen that when one correlative changes, the other, although this does not itself change, is no longer applicable, so that in these cases the motion is accidental. Nor is there motion in respect of Agent and Patient—in fact there can never be motion of mover and moved, (15) because there cannot be motion of motion or becoming of becoming or in general change of change.

  For in the first place there are two senses in which motion of motion is conceivable. (1) The motion of which there is motion might be conceived as subject; e. g. a man is in motion because he changes from fair to dark. Can it be that in this sense motion grows hot or cold, (20) or changes place, or increases or decreases? Impossible: for change is not a subject. Or (2) can there be motion of motion in the sense that some other subject changes from a change to another mode of being, as e. g. a man changes from falling ill to getting well? Even this is possible only in an accidental sense. For, whatever the subject may be, movement is change from one form to another. (25) (And the same holds good of becoming and perishing, except that in these processes we have a change to a particular1 kind of opposite, while the other, motion, is a change to a different2 kind.) So, if there is to be motion of motion, that which is changing from health to sickness must simultaneously be changing from this very change to another. It is clear, then, that by the time that it has become sick, it must also have changed to whatever may be the other change concerned (for that it should be at rest, though logically possible, is excluded by the theory). Moreover this other can never be any casual change, (30) but must be a change from something definite to some other definite thing. So in this case it must be the opposite change, viz. convalescence. It is only accidentally that there can be change of change, e. g. there is a change from remembering to forgetting only because the subject of this change changes at one time to knowledge, at another to ignorance.