Various Works Read online

  everything else (for there will be no flesh in the remaining water);

  if on the other hand it does not, and further extraction is always

  possible, there will be an infinite multitude of finite equal

  particles in a finite quantity-which is impossible. Another proof

  may be added: Since every body must diminish in size when something is

  taken from it, and flesh is quantitatively definite in respect both of

  greatness and smallness, it is clear that from the minimum quantity of

  flesh no body can be separated out; for the flesh left would be less

  than the minimum of flesh.

  Lastly (4) in each of his infinite bodies there would be already

  present infinite flesh and blood and brain- having a distinct

  existence, however, from one another, and no less real than the

  infinite bodies, and each infinite: which is contrary to reason.

  The statement that complete separation never will take place is

  correct enough, though Anaxagoras is not fully aware of what it means.

  For affections are indeed inseparable. If then colours and states

  had entered into the mixture, and if separation took place, there

  would be a 'white' or a 'healthy' which was nothing but white or

  healthy, i.e. was not the predicate of a subject. So his 'Mind' is

  an absurd person aiming at the impossible, if he is supposed to wish

  to separate them, and it is impossible to do so, both in respect of

  quantity and of quality- of quantity, because there is no minimum

  magnitude, and of quality, because affections are inseparable.

  Nor is Anaxagoras right about the coming to be of homogeneous

  bodies. It is true there is a sense in which clay is divided into

  pieces of clay, but there is another in which it is not. Water and air

  are, and are generated 'from' each other, but not in the way in

  which bricks come 'from' a house and again a house 'from' bricks;

  and it is better to assume a smaller and finite number of

  principles, as Empedocles does.

  5

  All thinkers then agree in making the contraries principles, both

  those who describe the All as one and unmoved (for even Parmenides

  treats hot and cold as principles under the names of fire and earth)

  and those too who use the rare and the dense. The same is true of

  Democritus also, with his plenum and void, both of which exist, be

  says, the one as being, the other as not-being. Again he speaks of

  differences in position, shape, and order, and these are genera of

  which the species are contraries, namely, of position, above and

  below, before and behind; of shape, angular and angle-less, straight

  and round.

  It is plain then that they all in one way or another identify the

  contraries with the principles. And with good reason. For first

  principles must not be derived from one another nor from anything

  else, while everything has to be derived from them. But these

  conditions are fulfilled by the primary contraries, which are not

  derived from anything else because they are primary, nor from each

  other because they are contraries.

  But we must see how this can be arrived at as a reasoned result,

  as well as in the way just indicated.

  Our first presupposition must be that in nature nothing acts on,

  or is acted on by, any other thing at random, nor may anything come

  from anything else, unless we mean that it does so in virtue of a

  concomitant attribute. For how could 'white' come from 'musical',

  unless 'musical' happened to be an attribute of the not-white or of

  the black? No, 'white' comes from 'not-white'-and not from any

  'not-white', but from black or some intermediate colour. Similarly,

  'musical' comes to be from 'not-musical', but not from any thing other

  than musical, but from 'unmusical' or any intermediate state there may

  be.

  Nor again do things pass into the first chance thing; 'white' does

  not pass into 'musical' (except, it may be, in virtue of a concomitant

  attribute), but into 'not-white'-and not into any chance thing which

  is not white, but into black or an intermediate colour; 'musical'

  passes into 'not-musical'-and not into any chance thing other than

  musical, but into 'unmusical' or any intermediate state there may be.

  The same holds of other things also: even things which are not

  simple but complex follow the same principle, but the opposite state

  has not received a name, so we fail to notice the fact. What is in

  tune must come from what is not in tune, and vice versa; the tuned

  passes into untunedness-and not into any untunedness, but into the

  corresponding opposite. It does not matter whether we take attunement,

  order, or composition for our illustration; the principle is obviously

  the same in all, and in fact applies equally to the production of a

  house, a statue, or any other complex. A house comes from certain

  things in a certain state of separation instead of conjunction, a

  statue (or any other thing that has been shaped) from

  shapelessness-each of these objects being partly order and partly

  composition.

  If then this is true, everything that comes to be or passes away

  from, or passes into, its contrary or an intermediate state. But the

  intermediates are derived from the contraries-colours, for instance,

  from black and white. Everything, therefore, that comes to be by a

  natural process is either a contrary or a product of contraries.

  Up to this point we have practically had most of the other writers

  on the subject with us, as I have said already: for all of them

  identify their elements, and what they call their principles, with the

  contraries, giving no reason indeed for the theory, but contrained

  as it were by the truth itself. They differ, however, from one another

  in that some assume contraries which are more primary, others

  contraries which are less so: some those more knowable in the order of

  explanation, others those more familiar to sense. For some make hot

  and cold, or again moist and dry, the conditions of becoming; while

  others make odd and even, or again Love and Strife; and these differ

  from each other in the way mentioned.

  Hence their principles are in one sense the same, in another

  different; different certainly, as indeed most people think, but the

  same inasmuch as they are analogous; for all are taken from the same

  table of columns, some of the pairs being wider, others narrower in

  extent. In this way then their theories are both the same and

  different, some better, some worse; some, as I have said, take as

  their contraries what is more knowable in the order of explanation,

  others what is more familiar to sense. (The universal is more knowable

  in the order of explanation, the particular in the order of sense: for

  explanation has to do with the universal, sense with the

  particular.) 'The great and the small', for example, belong to the

  former class, 'the dense and the rare' to the latter.

  It is clear then that our principles must be contraries.

  6

  The next question is whether the principles are two or three or more

  in number.

  One they can
not be, for there cannot be one contrary. Nor can they

  be innumerable, because, if so, Being will not be knowable: and in any

  one genus there is only one contrariety, and substance is one genus:

  also a finite number is sufficient, and a finite number, such as the

  principles of Empedocles, is better than an infinite multitude; for

  Empedocles professes to obtain from his principles all that Anaxagoras

  obtains from his innumerable principles. Lastly, some contraries are

  more primary than others, and some arise from others-for example sweet

  and bitter, white and black-whereas the principles must always

  remain principles.

  This will suffice to show that the principles are neither one nor

  innumerable.

  Granted, then, that they are a limited number, it is plausible to

  suppose them more than two. For it is difficult to see how either

  density should be of such a nature as to act in any way on rarity or

  rarity on density. The same is true of any other pair of contraries;

  for Love does not gather Strife together and make things out of it,

  nor does Strife make anything out of Love, but both act on a third

  thing different from both. Some indeed assume more than one such thing

  from which they construct the world of nature.

  Other objections to the view that it is not necessary to assume a

  third principle as a substratum may be added. (1) We do not find

  that the contraries constitute the substance of any thing. But what is

  a first principle ought not to be the predicate of any subject. If

  it were, there would be a principle of the supposed principle: for the

  subject is a principle, and prior presumably to what is predicated

  of it. Again (2) we hold that a substance is not contrary to another

  substance. How then can substance be derived from what are not

  substances? Or how can non-substances be prior to substance?

  If then we accept both the former argument and this one, we must, to

  preserve both, assume a third somewhat as the substratum of the

  contraries, such as is spoken of by those who describe the All as

  one nature-water or fire or what is intermediate between them. What is

  intermediate seems preferable; for fire, earth, air, and water are

  already involved with pairs of contraries. There is, therefore, much

  to be said for those who make the underlying substance different

  from these four; of the rest, the next best choice is air, as

  presenting sensible differences in a less degree than the others;

  and after air, water. All, however, agree in this, that they

  differentiate their One by means of the contraries, such as density

  and rarity and more and less, which may of course be generalized, as

  has already been said into excess and defect. Indeed this doctrine too

  (that the One and excess and defect are the principles of things)

  would appear to be of old standing, though in different forms; for the

  early thinkers made the two the active and the one the passive

  principle, whereas some of the more recent maintain the reverse.

  To suppose then that the elements are three in number would seem,

  from these and similar considerations, a plausible view, as I said

  before. On the other hand, the view that they are more than three in

  number would seem to be untenable.

  For the one substratum is sufficient to be acted on; but if we

  have four contraries, there will be two contrarieties, and we shall

  have to suppose an intermediate nature for each pair separately. If,

  on the other hand, the contrarieties, being two, can generate from

  each other, the second contrariety will be superfluous. Moreover, it

  is impossible that there should be more than one primary

  contrariety. For substance is a single genus of being, so that the

  principles can differ only as prior and posterior, not in genus; in

  a single genus there is always a single contrariety, all the other

  contrarieties in it being held to be reducible to one.

  It is clear then that the number of elements is neither one nor more

  than two or three; but whether two or three is, as I said, a

  question of considerable difficulty.

  7

  We will now give our own account, approaching the question first

  with reference to becoming in its widest sense: for we shall be

  following the natural order of inquiry if we speak first of common

  characteristics, and then investigate the characteristics of special

  cases.

  We say that one thing comes to be from another thing, and one sort

  of thing from another sort of thing, both in the case of simple and of

  complex things. I mean the following. We can say (1) 'man becomes

  musical', (2) what is 'not-musical becomes musical', or (3), the

  'not-musical man becomes a musical man'. Now what becomes in (1) and

  (2)-'man' and 'not musical'-I call simple, and what each

  becomes-'musical'-simple also. But when (3) we say the 'not-musical

  man becomes a musical man', both what becomes and what it becomes

  are complex.

  As regards one of these simple 'things that become' we say not

  only 'this becomes so-and-so', but also 'from being this, comes to

  be so-and-so', as 'from being not-musical comes to be musical'; as

  regards the other we do not say this in all cases, as we do not say

  (1) 'from being a man he came to be musical' but only 'the man

  became musical'.

  When a 'simple' thing is said to become something, in one case (1)

  it survives through the process, in the other (2) it does not. For man

  remains a man and is such even when he becomes musical, whereas what

  is not musical or is unmusical does not continue to exist, either

  simply or combined with the subject.

  These distinctions drawn, one can gather from surveying the

  various cases of becoming in the way we are describing that, as we

  say, there must always be an underlying something, namely that which

  becomes, and that this, though always one numerically, in form at

  least is not one. (By that I mean that it can be described in

  different ways.) For 'to be man' is not the same as 'to be unmusical'.

  One part survives, the other does not: what is not an opposite

  survives (for 'man' survives), but 'not-musical' or 'unmusical' does

  not survive, nor does the compound of the two, namely 'unmusical man'.

  We speak of 'becoming that from this' instead of 'this becoming

  that' more in the case of what does not survive the change-'becoming

  musical from unmusical', not 'from man'-but there are exceptions, as

  we sometimes use the latter form of expression even of what

  survives; we speak of 'a statue coming to be from bronze', not of

  the 'bronze becoming a statue'. The change, however, from an

  opposite which does not survive is described indifferently in both

  ways, 'becoming that from this' or 'this becoming that'. We say both

  that 'the unmusical becomes musical', and that 'from unmusical he

  becomes musical'. And so both forms are used of the complex, 'becoming

  a musical man from an unmusical man', and unmusical man becoming a

  musical man'.

  But there are different senses of 'coming to be'. In some cases we

 
; do not use the expression 'come to be', but 'come to be so-and-so'.

  Only substances are said to 'come to be' in the unqualified sense.

  Now in all cases other than substance it is plain that there must be

  some subject, namely, that which becomes. For we know that when a

  thing comes to be of such a quantity or quality or in such a relation,

  time, or place, a subject is always presupposed, since substance alone

  is not predicated of another subject, but everything else of

  substance.

  But that substances too, and anything else that can be said 'to

  be' without qualification, come to be from some substratum, will

  appear on examination. For we find in every case something that

  underlies from which proceeds that which comes to be; for instance,

  animals and plants from seed.

  Generally things which come to be, come to be in different ways: (1)

  by change of shape, as a statue; (2) by addition, as things which

  grow; (3) by taking away, as the Hermes from the stone; (4) by putting

  together, as a house; (5) by alteration, as things which 'turn' in

  respect of their material substance.

  It is plain that these are all cases of coming to be from a

  substratum.

  Thus, clearly, from what has been said, whatever comes to be is

  always complex. There is, on the one hand, (a) something which comes

  into existence, and again (b) something which becomes that-the

  latter (b) in two senses, either the subject or the opposite. By the

  'opposite' I mean the 'unmusical', by the 'subject' 'man', and

  similarly I call the absence of shape or form or order the 'opposite',

  and the bronze or stone or gold the 'subject'.

  Plainly then, if there are conditions and principles which

  constitute natural objects and from which they primarily are or have

  come to be-have come to be, I mean, what each is said to be in its

  essential nature, not what each is in respect of a concomitant