The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)

by Mckeon, Richard

  The equal, then, is that which is neither great nor small but is naturally fitted to be either great or small; and it is opposed to both as a privative negation (and therefore is also intermediate). (25) And that which is neither good nor bad is opposed to both, but has no name; for each of these has several meanings and the recipient subject is not one; but that which is neither white nor black has more claim to unity. Yet even this has not one name, though the colours of which this negation is privately predicated are in a way limited; for they must be either grey or yellow or something else of the kind. (30) Therefore it is an incorrect criticism that is passed by those who think that all such phrases are used in the same way, so that that which is neither a shoe nor a hand would be intermediate between a shoe and a hand, since that which is neither good nor bad is intermediate between the good and the bad—as if there must be an intermediate in all cases. (35) But this does not necessarily follow. For the one phrase is a joint denial of opposites between which there is an intermediate and a certain natural interval; but between the other two there is no ‘difference’; for the things, the denials of which are combined, belong to different classes, so that the substratum is not one. [1056b]

  6 We might raise similar questions about the one and the many. For if the many are absolutely opposed to the one, (5) certain impossible results follow. One will then be few, whether few be treated here as singular or plural; for the many are opposed also to the few. Further, two will be many, since the double is multiple and ‘double’ derives its meaning from ‘two’; therefore one will be few; for what is that in comparison with which two are many, except one, which must therefore be few? For there is nothing fewer. Further, (10) if the much and the little are in plurality what the long and the short are in length, and whatever is much is also many, and the many are much (unless, indeed, there is a difference in the case of an easily-bounded continuum),17 the little (or few) will be a plurality. Therefore one is a plurality if it is few; and this it must be, if two are many. But perhaps, while the ‘many’ are in a sense said to be also ‘much’, (15) it is with a difference; e. g. water is much but not many. But ‘many’ is applied to the things that are divisible; in one sense it means a plurality which is excessive either absolutely or relatively (while ‘few’ is similarly a plurality which is deficient), and in another sense it means number, in which sense alone it is opposed to the one. (20) For we say ‘one or many’, just as if one were to say ‘one and ones’ or ‘white thing and white things’, or to compare the things that have been measured with the measure. It is in this sense also that multiples are so called. For each number is said to be many because it consists of ones and because each number is measurable by one; and it is ‘many’ as that which is opposed to one, not to the few. In this sense, then, even two is many—not, however, in the sense of a plurality which is excessive either relatively or absolutely; it is the first plurality. (25) But without qualification two is few; for it is the first plurality which is deficient (for this reason Anaxagoras was not right in leaving the subject with the statement that ‘all things were together, boundless both in plurality and in smallness’—where for ‘and in smallness’ he should have said ‘and in fewness’; for they could not have been boundless in fewness), (30) since it is not one, as some say, but two, that make a few.

  The one is opposed then to the many in numbers as measure to thing measurable; and these are opposed as are the relatives which are not from their very nature relatives. We have distinguished18 elsewhere the two senses in which relatives are so called:—(1) as contraries; (2) as knowledge to thing known, (35) a term being called relative because another is relative to it. [1057a] There is nothing to prevent one from being fewer than something, e. g. than two; for if it is fewer, it is not therefore few. Plurality is as it were the class to which number belongs; for number is plurality measurable by one, and one and number are in a sense opposed, not as contrary, but as we have said some relative terms are opposed; for inasmuch as one is measure and the other measurable, (5) they are opposed. This is why not everything that is one is a number; i. e. if the thing is indivisible it is not a number. But though knowledge is similarly spoken of as relative to the knowable, the relation does not work out similarly; for while knowledge might be thought to be the measure, and the knowable the thing measured, the fact is that all knowledge is knowable, (10) but not all that is knowable is knowledge, because in a sense knowledge is measured by the knowable.—Plurality is contrary neither to the few (the many being contrary to this as excessive plurality to plurality exceeded), nor to the one in every sense; but in one sense these are contrary, as has been said, because the former is divisible and the latter indivisible, while in another sense they are relative as knowledge is to knowable, (15) if plurality is number and the one is a measure.

  7 Since contraries admit of an intermediate and in some cases have it, intermediates must be composed of the contraries. For (1) all intermediates are in the same genus as the things between which they stand. (20) For we call those things intermediates, into which that which changes must change first; e. g. if we were to pass from the highest string to the lowest by the smallest intervals, we should come sooner to the intermediate notes, and in colours if we were to pass from white to black, (25) we should come sooner to crimson and grey than to black; and similarly in all other cases. But to change from one genus to another genus is not possible except in an incidental way, as from colour to figure. Intermediates, then, must be in the same genus both as one another and as the things they stand between.

  But (2) all intermediates stand between opposites of some kind; for only between these can change take place in virtue of their own nature (so that an intermediate is impossible between things which are not opposite; for then there would be change which was not from one opposite towards the other). (30) Of opposites, contradictories admit of no middle term; for this is what contradiction is—an opposition, one or other side of which must attach to anything whatever, i. e. which has no intermediate. (35) Of other opposites, some are relative, others privative, others contrary. Of relative terms, those which are not contrary have no intermediate; the reason is that they are not in the same genus. For what intermediate could there be between knowledge, and knowable? But between great and small there is one. [1057b]

  (3) If intermediates are in the same genus, as has been shown, and stand between contraries, they must be composed of these contraries. For either there will be a genus including the contraries or there will be none. And if (a) there is to be a genus in such a way that it is something prior to the contraries, (5) the differentiae which constituted the contrary species-of-a-genus will be contraries prior to the species; for species are composed of the genus and the differentiae. (e. g. if white and black are contraries, and one is a piercing colour and the other a compressing colour, these differentiae—‘piercing’ and ‘compressing’—are prior; so that these are prior contraries of one another.) (10) But, again, the species which differ contrary wise are the more truly contrary species. And the other species, i. e. the intermediates, must be composed of their genus and their differentiae. (e. g. all colours which are between white and black must be said to be composed of the genus, (15) i. e. colour, and certain differentiae. But these differentiae will not be the primary contraries; otherwise every colour would be either white or black. They are different, then, from the primary contraries; and therefore they will be between the primary contraries; the primary differentiae are ‘piercing’ and ‘compressing’.)

  Therefore it is (b) with regard to these contraries which do not fall within a genus that we must first ask of what their intermediates are composed. (20) (For things which are in the same genus must be composed of terms in which the genus is not an element, or else be themselves incomposite.) Now contraries do not involve one another in their composition, and are therefore first principles; but the intermediates are either all incomposite, or none of them. But there is something compounded out of the contraries, so that there can b
e a change from a contrary to it sooner than to the other contrary; for it will have less of the quality in question than the one contrary and more than the other. (25) This also,19 then, will come between the contraries. All the other intermediates also, therefore, are composite; for that which has more of a quality than one thing and less than another is compounded somehow out of the things than which it is said to have more and less respectively of the quality. And since there are no other things prior to the contraries and homogeneous with the intermediates, (30) all intermediates must be compounded out of the contraries. Therefore also all the inferior classes, both the contraries and their intermediates, will be compounded out of the primary contraries. Clearly, then, intermediates are (1) all in the same genus and (2) intermediate between contraries, and (3) all compounded out of the contraries.

  8 That which is other in species is other than something in something, (35) and this must belong to both; e. g. if it is an animal other in species, both are animals. The things, then, which are other in species must be in the same genus. For by genus I mean that one identical thing which is predicated of both and is differentiated in no merely accidental way, whether conceived as matter or otherwise. [1058a] For not only must the common nature attach to the different things, e. g. not only must both be animals, but this very animality must also be different for each (e. g. in the one case equinity, in the other humanity), and so this common nature is specifically different for each from what it is for the other. One, then, will be in virtue of its own nature one sort of animal, (5) and the other another, e. g. one a horse and the other a man. This difference, then, must be an otherness of the genus. For I give the name of ‘difference in the genus’ to an otherness which makes the genus itself other.

  This, then, will be a contrariety (as can be shown also by induction). For all things are divided by opposites, and it has been proved that contraries are in the same genus.20 (10) For contrariety was seen21 to be complete difference; and all difference in species is a difference from something in something; so that this is the same for both and is their genus. (Hence also all contraries which are different in species and not in genus are in the same line of predication, (15) and other than one another in the highest degree—for the difference is complete—and cannot be present along with one another.) The difference, then, is a contrariety.

  This, then, is what it is to be ‘other in species’—to have a contrariety, being in the same genus and being indivisible22 (and those things are the same in species which have no contrariety, being indivisible23); we say ‘being indivisible’, for in the process of division contrarieties arise even in the intermediate stages before we come to the indivisibles. (20)22 Evidently, therefore, with reference to that which is called the genus, none of the species-of-a-genus is either the same as it or other than it in species (and this is fitting; for the matter is indicated by negation,24 and the genus is the matter of that of which it is called the genus, not in the sense in which we speak of the genus or family of the Heraclidae, but in that in which the genus is an element in a thing’s nature), nor is it so with reference to things which are not in the same genus, (25) but it will differ in genus from them, and in species from things in the same genus. For a thing’s difference from that from which it differs in species must be a contrariety; and this belongs only to things in the same genus.

  9 One might raise the question, why woman does not differ from man in species, (30) when female and male are contrary and their difference is a contrariety; and why a female and a male animal are not different in species, though this difference belongs to animal in virtue of its own nature, and not as paleness or darkness does; both ‘female’ and ‘male’ belong to it qua animal. This question is almost the same as the other, why one contrariety makes things different in species and another does not, (35) e. g. ‘with feet’ and ‘with wings’ do, but paleness and darkness do not. Perhaps it is because the former are modifications peculiar to the genus, and the latter are less so. [1058b] And since one element is definition and one is matter, contrarieties which are in the definition make a difference in species, but those which are in the thing taken as including its matter do not make one. And so paleness in a man, or darkness, does not make one, nor is there a difference in species between the pale man and the dark man, not even if each of them be denoted by one word. For man is here being considered on his material side, (5) and matter does not create a difference; for it does not make individual men species of man, though the flesh and the bones of which this man and that man consist are other. The concrete thing is other, but not other in species, because in the definition there is no contrariety. This25 is the ultimate indivisible kind. Callias is definition + matter; the pale man, then, is so also, (10) because it is the individual Callias that is pale; man, then, is pale only incidentally. Neither do a brazen and a wooden circle, then, differ in species; and if a brazen triangle and a wooden circle differ in species, it is not because of the matter, but because there is a contrariety in the definition. But does the matter not make things other in species, (15) when it is other in a certain way, or is there a sense in which it does? For why is this horse other than this man in species, although their matter is included with their definitions? Doubtless because there is a contrariety in the definition. For while there is a contrariety also between pale man and dark horse, and it is a contrariety in species, it does not depend on the paleness of the one and the darkness of the other, (20) since even if both had been pale, yet they would have been other in species. But male and female, while they are modifications peculiar to ‘animal’, are so not in virtue of its essence but in the matter, i. e. the body. This is why the same seed becomes female or male by being acted on in a certain way. We have stated, then, what it is to be other in species, and why some things differ in species and others do not. (25)

  10 Since contraries are other in form, and the perishable and the imperishable are contraries (for privation is a determinate incapacity), the perishable and the imperishable must be different in kind.

  Now so far we have spoken of the general terms themselves, so that it might be thought not to be necessary that every imperishable thing should be different from every perishable thing in form, (30) just as not every pale thing is different in form from every dark thing. For the same thing can be both, and even at the same time if it is a universal (e. g. man can be both pale and dark), and if it is an individual it can still be both; for the same man can be, though not at the same time, (35) pale and dark. Yet pale is contrary to dark.

  But while some contraries belong to certain things by accident (e. g. both those now mentioned and many others), others cannot, and among these are ‘perishable’ and ‘imperishable’. For nothing is by accident perishable. [1059a] For what is accidental is capable of not being present, but perishableness is one of the attributes that belong of necessity to the things to which they belong; or else one and the same thing may be perishable and imperishable, (5) if perishableness is capable of not belonging to it. Perishableness then must either be the essence or be present in the essence of each perishable thing. The same account holds good for imperishableness also; for both are attributes which are present of necessity. The characteristics, then, in respect of which and in direct consequence of which one thing is perishable and another imperishable, are opposite, so that the things must be different in kind.

  Evidently, (10) then, there cannot be Forms such as some maintain, for then one man26 would be perishable and another27 imperishable. Yet the Forms are said to be the same in form with the individuals and not merely to have the same name; but things which differ in kind28 are farther apart than those which differ in form.

  * * *

  1 v. 6.

  2 Nature is defined (v. 1015a 13) as ‘the essence of things which have in themselves, as such, a source of movement’.

  3 sc. the form.

  4 sc. heavy and light, fast and slow.

  5 Cf. 1052b 33, 1053a 5.

  6 iii. 1001a 4–b25.


  7 The three thinkers referred to are Empedocles, Anaximenes, Anaximander.

  8 vii. 13.

  9 Two of the kinds, contrariety and privation, are not mutually exclusive, for contrariety is the relation between a form and its complete privation. Cf. iv. 1004b 27, x. 1055b 26.

  10 Cf. iv. 1004a 2.

  11 v. 9.

  12 Cf. a6.

  13 v. 22.

  14 1055b 4–6.

  15 This is a Platonic doctrine; Cf. xiv. 1087b 7.

  16 Cf. 1055a 16.

  17 i. e. a fluid. Cf. l. 16.

  18 v. 1021a 26–30.

  19 i. e. this intermediate differentia comes between the extreme differentiae, as the intermediate species comes between the extreme species.

  20 Ch. 4.

  21 1055a 16.

  22 sc. individuals or infimae species.

  23 sc. individuals.

  24 i. e. by eliminating the form which characterizes the concrete thing.

  25 i. e. that in whose definition no contrarieties are included.

  26 The sensible individual.

  27 The ideal man.

  28 As the perishable and the imperishable have been shown to do.

  BOOK K (XI)

  1 That Wisdom is a science of first principles is evident from the introductory chapters,1 in which we have raised objections to the statements of others about the first principles; but one might ask the question whether Wisdom is to be conceived as one science or as several. (20) If as one, it may be objected that one science always deals with contraries, but the first principles are not contrary. If it is not one, what sort of sciences are those with which it is to be identified?2