The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)

by Mckeon, Richard

  This inquiry is universal; but that the infinite is not among sensible things, is evident from the following argument. If the definition of a body is ‘that which is bounded by planes’, there cannot be an infinite body either sensible or intelligible; nor a separate and infinite number, (25) for number or that which has a number is numerable.68 Concretely, the truth is evident from the following argument. The infinite can neither be composite nor simple. For (a) it cannot be a composite body, since the elements are limited in multitude. For the contraries must be equal and no one of them must be infinite; for if one of the two bodies falls at all short of the other in potency, (30) the finite will be destroyed by the infinite. And that each should be infinite is impossible. For body is that which has extension in all directions, and the infinite is the boundlessly extended, so that if the infinite is a body it will be infinite in every direction. Nor (b) can the infinite body be one and simple—neither, (35) as some say,69 something apart from the elements, from which they generate these70 (for there is no such body apart from the elements; for everything can be resolved into that of which it consists, but no such product of analysis is observed except the simple bodies), nor fire nor any other of the elements. [1067a] For apart from the question how any of them could be infinite, the All, even if it is finite, cannot either be or become any one of them, as Heraclitus says all things sometimes become fire. The same argument applies to this as to the One which the natural philosophers posit besides the elements. (5) For everything changes from contrary to contrary, e. g. from hot to cold.71

  Further, a sensible body is somewhere, and whole and part have the same proper place, e. g. the whole earth and part of the earth. Therefore if (a) the infinite body is homogeneous, it will be unmovable or it will be always moving. But this is impossible; for why should it rather rest, (10) or move, down, up, or anywhere, rather than anywhere else? e. g. if there were a clod which were part of an infinite body, where will this move or rest? The proper place of the body which is homogeneous with it is infinite. Will the clod occupy the whole place, then? And how? [This is impossible.] What then is its rest or its movement? It will either rest everywhere, and then it cannot move; or it will move everywhere, and then it cannot be still. But (b) if the All has unlike parts, (15) the proper places of the parts are unlike also, and, firstly, the body of the All is not one except by contact, and, secondly, the parts will be either finite or infinite in variety of kind. Finite they cannot be; for then those of one kind will be infinite in quantity and those of another will not (if the All is infinite), e. g. fire or water would be infinite, but such an infinite element would be destruction to the contrary elements. But if the parts are infinite and simple, (20) their places also are infinite and there will be an infinite number of elements; and if this is impossible, and the places are finite, the All also must be limited.72

  In general, there cannot be an infinite body and also a proper place for bodies, if every sensible body has either weight or lightness. For it must move either towards the middle or upwards, (25) and the infinite—either the whole or the half of it—cannot do either; for how will you divide it? Or how will part of the infinite be down and part up, or part extreme and part middle? Further, every sensible body is in a place, and there are six kinds of place,73 but these cannot exist in an infinite body. In general, if there cannot be an infinite place, (30) there cannot be an infinite body; [and there cannot be an infinite place,] for that which is in a place is somewhere, and this means either up or down or in one of the other directions, and each of these is a limit.74

  The infinite is not the same in the sense that it is a single thing whether exhibited in distance or in movement or in time, but the posterior among these is called infinite in virtue of its relation to the prior; i. e. a movement is called infinite in virtue of the distance covered by the spatial movement or alteration or growth, (35) and a time is called infinite because of the movement which occupies it.75

  11 [1067b] Of things which change, some change in an accidental sense, like that in which ‘the musical’ may be said to walk, and others are said, without qualification, to change, because something in them changes, i. e. the things that change in parts; the body becomes healthy, because the eye does. But there is something which is by its own nature moved directly, (5) and this is the essentially movable. The same distinction is found in the case of the mover; for it causes movement either in an accidental sense or in respect of a part of itself or essentially. There is something that directly causes movement; and there is something that is moved, also the time in which it is moved, and that from which and that into which it is moved.76 But the forms and the affections and the place, which are the terminals of the movement of moving things, (10) are unmovable, e. g. knowledge or heat; it is not heat that is a movement, but heating.77 Change which is not accidental is found not in all things, but between contraries, and their intermediates, and between contradictories. We may convince ourselves of this by induction.78

  That which changes changes either from positive into positive, (15) or from negative into negative, or from positive into negative, or from negative into positive. (By positive I mean that which is expressed by an affirmative term.) Therefore there must be three changes; for that from negative into negative is not change, (20) because (since the terms are neither contraries nor contradictories) there is no opposition. The change from the negative into the positive which is its contradictory is generation—absolute change absolute generation, and partial change partial generation; and the change from positive to negative is destruction—absolute change absolute destruction, and partial change partial destruction. (25) If, then, ‘that which is not’ has several senses,79 and movement can attach neither to that which implies putting together or separating,80 nor to that which implies potency and is opposed to that which is in the full sense81 (true, the not-white or not-good can be moved incidentally, for the not-white might be a man; but that which is not a particular thing at all can in no wise be moved), that which is not cannot be moved (and if this is so, (30) generation cannot be movement; for that which is not is generated; for even if we admit to the full that its generation is accidental, yet it is true to say that ‘not-being’ is predicable of that which is generated absolutely).82 Similarly rest cannot belong to that which is not. These consequences, then, turn out to be awkward, and also this, that everything that is moved is in a place, (35) but that which is not is not in a place; for then it would be somewhere. Nor is destruction movement; for the contrary of movement is movement or rest, but the contrary of destruction is generation. Since every movement is a change, and the kinds of change are the three named above,83 and of these those in the way of generation and destruction are not movements, and these are the changes from a thing to its contradictory, it follows that only the change from positive into positive is movement. [1068a] And the positives are either contrary or intermediate (for even privation must be regarded as contrary), (5) and are expressed by an affirmative term, e. g. ‘naked’ or ‘toothless’ or ‘black’.

  12 If the categories are classified as substance, quality, place, acting or being acted on, relation, quantity, there must be three kinds of movement—of quality, of quantity, of place. There is no movement in respect of substance (because there is nothing contrary to substance), (10) nor of relation (for it is possible that if one of two things in relation changes, the relative term which was true of the other thing ceases to be true, though this other does not change at all—so that their movement is accidental), nor of agent and patient, or mover and moved, because there is no movement of movement nor generation of generation, (15) nor, in general, change of change. For there might be movement of movement in two senses; (1) movement might be the subject moved, as a man is moved because he changes from pale to dark—so that on this showing movement, too, may be either heated or cooled or change its place or increase. But this is impossible; for change is not a subject. Or (2) some other subject might change from change into some other form of existen
ce (e. g. a man from disease into health). (20) But this also is not possible except incidentally. For every movement is change from something into something. (25) (And so are generation and destruction; only, these are changes into things opposed in certain ways while the other, movement, is into things opposed in another way.84) A thing changes, then, at the same time from health into illness, and from this changes itself into another. Clearly, then, if it has become ill, it will have changed into whatever may be the other change concerned (though it may be at rest85), and, further, into a determinate change each time; and that new change will be from something definite into some other definite thing; therefore it will be the opposite change, (30) that of growing well. We answer that this happens only incidentally; e. g. there is a change from the process of recollection to that of forgetting, only because that to which the process attaches is changing, now into a state of knowledge, now into one of ignorance.

  Further, the process will go on to infinity, if there is to be change of change and coming to be of coming to be. What is true of the later, (35) then, must be true of the earlier; e. g. [1068b] if the simple coming to be was once coming to be, that which comes to be something was also once coming to be; therefore that which simply comes to be something was not yet in existence, but something which was coming to be coming to be something was already in existence. And this was once coming to be, so that at that time it was not yet coming to be something else. Now since of an infinite number of terms there is not a first, the first in this series will not exist, and therefore no following term will exist. (5) Nothing, then, can either come to be or move or change. Further, that which is capable of a movement is also capable of the contrary movement and rest, and that which comes to be also ceases to be. Therefore that which is coming to be is ceasing to be when it has come to be coming to be; for it cannot cease to be as soon as it is coming to be coming to be, nor after it has come to be; for that which is ceasing to be must be. (10) Further, there must be a matter underlying that which comes to be and changes. What will this be, then—what is it that becomes movement or becoming, as body or soul is that which suffers alteration? And, again, what is it that they move into? For it must be the movement or becoming of something from something into something. How, then, can this condition be fulfilled? There can be no learning of learning, and therefore no becoming of becoming.86

  Since there is not movement either of substance or of relation or of activity and passivity, (15) it remains that movement is in respect of quality and quantity and place; for each of these admits of contrariety. By quality I mean not that which is in the substance (for even the differentia is a quality), but the passive quality, in virtue of which a thing is said to be acted on or to be incapable of being acted on.87 The immobile is either that which is wholly incapable of being moved, (20) or that which is moved with difficulty in a long time or begins slowly, or that which is of a nature to be moved and can be moved but is not moved when and where and as it would naturally be moved. This alone among immobiles I describe as being at rest; for rest is contrary to movement, so that it must be a privation, in that which is receptive of movement.88

  Things which are in one proximate place are together in place, (25) and things which are in different places are apart: things whose extremes are together touch: that at which a changing thing, if it changes continuously according to its nature, naturally arrives before it arrives at the extreme into which it is changing, is between.89 That which is most distant in a straight line is contrary in place. (30) That is successive which is after the beginning (the order being determined by position or form or in some other way) and has nothing of the same class between it and that which it succeeds, e. g. lines in the case of a line, units in that of a unit, or a house in that of a house. (There is nothing to prevent a thing of some other class from being between.) For the successive succeeds something and is something later; ‘one’ does not succeed ‘two’, (35) nor the first day of the month the second. [1069a] That which, being successive, touches, is contiguous. (Since all change is between opposites, and these are either contraries or contradictories, and there is no middle term for contradictories, clearly that which is between is between contraries.) The continuous is a species of the contiguous. (5) I call two things continuous when the limits of each, with which they touch and by which they are kept together, become one and the same, so that plainly the continuous is found in the things out of which a unity naturally arises in virtue of their contact. And plainly the successive is the first of these concepts (for the successive does not necessarily touch, but that which touches is successive; and if a thing is continuous, (10) it touches, but if it touches, it is not necessarily continuous; and in things in which there is no touching, there is no organic unity); therefore a point is not the same as a unit; for contact belongs to points, but not to units, which have only succession; and there is something between two of the former, but not between two of the latter.90

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  1 Cf. Bk. i. 3–10.

  2 Cf. ii. 996a 18–b 26.

  3 Cf. ii. 996b 26–997a 15.

  4 Cf. ii. 997a 15–25.

  5 Cf. ii. 997a 25–34.

  6 The material, formal, efficient, and final causes (Phys. ii. 3).

  7 Cf. ii. 996a 21–b 1.

  8 Cf. ii. 997a 34–998a 19.

  9 Cf. ii. 998b 15.

  10 Cf. ii. 998a 20–999a 23.

  11 1059b 24–38.

  12 It must be remembered that A. is only stating common opinions and the consequent difficulties.

  13 Cf. ii. 999a 24–b 24.

  14 Cf. ii. 1000a 5–1001a 3.

  15 The Pythagoreans and Plato.

  16 Cf. ii. 1001a 4–1002 b 11.

  17 Cf. ii. 1003a 5–17.

  18 Cf. ii. 999a 24–b 24.

  19 Cf. ii. 999b 24–1000a 4.

  20 1059a 20–23. Cf. iv. 2. The question raised in 1059a 29–34 has also incidentally been answered.

  21 Cf. iv. 1005a 19–b 2, xi. 1059a 23–26.

  22 Cf. iv. 1005b 8–34.

  23 Cf. iv. 1006a 5–18.

  24 Cf. iv. 1006a 18–1007a 20.

  25 sc. of that of which the word is asserted.

  26 Cf. iv. 1006b 28–34.

  27 Cf. iv. 1007b 18–1008a 2.

  28 Cf. iv. 1005b 23–26.

  29 Cf. iv. 1008a 6–7.

  30 Cf. iv. 1012b 13–18.

  31 Cf. iv. 1009a 6–16, 22–30.

  32 Phys. i. 7–9, De Gen. et Corr. i. 317b 14–319b 5.

  33 Cf. iv. 1009a 30–36.

  34 Cf. iv. 1010b 1–26, 1011a 31–4.

  35 Cf. iv. 1010a 25–32.

  36 Cf. iv. 1010a 22–25.

  37 Cf. iv. 1008b 12–27.

  38 Cf. 1063a 35.

  39 Cf. iv. 1009a 38–b 33.

  40 In 1062b 20–1063b 7.

  41 Cf. iv. 1009a 16–22, 1011a 3–16.

  42 Cf. iv. 1011b 15–22.

  43 sc. ‘not white’ and ‘not black’.

  44 Cf. iv. 1011b 23–1012a 24.

  45 Cf. 1062a 31–b 2.

  46 Cf. iv. 1012a 24–b 18.

  47 Cf. v. 6, 7.

  48 Cf. vi. 1, xi. 1059a 26–29.

  49 Cf. Sophistes 254 A.

  50 Cf. vi. 2–4.

  51 sc. which happen usually by nature or as the result of thought.

  52 Cf. Phys. ii. 196b 21–25.

  53 Cf. Phys. ii. 197a 5–14.

  54 Cf. Phys. ii. 197a 25–27.

  55 Cf. Phys. ii. 198a 5–13.

  56 Cf. Phys. iii. 200b 26–28.

  57 i. e. not as so much matter, but as matter capable of being made into a building.

  58 Cf. Phys. iii. 200b 32–201a 19.

  59 Cf. Phys. iii. 201b 6, 7.

  60 The Pythagoreans and Platonists are meant; Cf. Pl. Soph. 256 D, Tim. 57 E ff.

  61 With 1065b 22–1066a 27 cf. Phys. iii. 201a 27–202a 3.

  62 Cf. Phys. iii. 202a 13–21.

  63 Cf. Phys. iii. 204a 3–14.

  64 Cf. Phys.
iii. 204a 17–19.

  65 Cf. Phys. iii. 204a 14–17.

  66 l. 9.

  67 Cf. Phys. iii. 204a 20–32.

  68 Cf. Phys. iii. 204a 34–b 8.

  69 Anaximander is meant.

  70 Cf. Phys. iii. 204b 10–24.

  71 Cf. Phys. iii. 204b 32–205a 7.

  72 Cf. Phys. iii, 205a 29–32.

  73 sc. up and down, right and left, before and behind.

  74 Cf. Phys. iii. 205b 24–206a 7.