Book
ΧΙI
1
The subject of our
inquiry is substance; for the principles and the causes we are seeking
are those of substances.
For if the universe is of the nature of a whole, substance is its first
part; and if it coheres merely by virtue of serial succession, on this
view also substance is first, and is succeeded by quality, and then by
quantity.
At the same time these latter are not even being in the full sense, but
are qualities and movements of it,-or else even the not-white and the
not-straight would be being; at least we say even these are, e.g. 'there
is a not-white'. Further, none of the categories other than substance
can exist apart. And the early philosophers also in practice testify to
the primacy of substance; for it was of substance that they sought the
principles and elements and causes. The thinkers of the present day tend
to rank universals as substances (for genera are universals, and these
they tend to describe as principles and substances, owing to the
abstract nature of their inquiry); but the thinkers of old ranked
particular things as substances, e.g.
fire and earth, not what is common to both, body.
There are three kinds of substance-one that is
sensible (of which one subdivision is eternal and another is perishable;
the latter is recognized by all men, and includes e.g. plants and
animals), of which we must grasp the elements, whether one or many; and
another that is immovable, and this certain thinkers assert to be
capable of existing apart, some dividing it into two, others identifying
the Forms and the objects of mathematics, and others positing, of these
two, only the objects of mathematics. The former two kinds of substance
are the subject of physics (for they imply movement); but the third kind
belongs to another science, if there is no principle common to it and to
the other kinds.
2
Sensible substance is
changeable. Now if change proceeds from opposites or from intermediates,
and not from all opposites (for the voice is not-white, (but it does not
therefore change to white)), but from the contrary, there must be
something underlying which changes into the contrary state; for the
contraries do not change. Further, something persists, but the contrary
does not persist; there is, then, some third thing besides the
contraries, viz. the matter. Now since changes are of four kinds-either
in respect of the 'what' or of the quality or of the quantity or of the
place, and change in respect of 'thisness' is simple generation and destruction, and change in quantity is increase and diminution, and
change in respect of an affection is alteration, and change of place is
motion, changes will be from given states into those contrary to them in
these several respects. The matter, then, which changes must be capable
of both states. And since that which 'is' has two senses, we must say
that everything changes from that which is potentially to that which is
actually, e.g. from potentially white to actually white, and similarly
in the case of increase and diminution. Therefore not only can a thing
come to be, incidentally, out of that which is not, but also all things
come to be out of that which is, but is potentially, and is not
actually. And this is the 'One' of Anaxagoras; for instead of 'all
things were together'-and the 'Mixture' of Empedocles and Anaximander
and the account given by Democritus-it is better to say 'all things were
together potentially but not actually'.
Therefore these thinkers seem to have had some notion of matter. Now all
things that change have matter, but different matter; and of eternal
things those which are not generable but are movable in space have
matter-not matter for generation, however, but for motion from one place
to another.
One might raise the question from what sort of
non-being generation proceeds; for 'non-being' has three senses. If,
then, one form of non-being exists potentially, still it is not by
virtue of a potentiality for any and every thing, but different things
come from different things; nor is it satisfactory to say that 'all
things were together'; for they differ in their matter, since otherwise
why did an infinity of things come to be, and not one thing? For
'reason' is one, so that if matter also were one, that must have come to
be in actuality which the matter was in potency. The causes and the
principles, then, are three, two being the pair of contraries of which
one is definition and form and the other is privation, and the third
being the matter.
3
Note, next, that
neither the matter nor the form comes to be-and I mean the last matter
and form. For everything that changes is something and is changed by
something and into something. That by which it is changed is the
immediate mover; that which is changed, the matter; that into which it
is changed, the form. The process, then, will go on to infinity, if not
only the bronze comes to be round but also the round or the bronze comes
to be; therefore there must be a stop.
Note, next, that each substance comes into being out
of something that shares its name. (Natural objects and other things
both rank as substances.) For things come into being either by art or by
nature or by luck or by spontaneity. Now art is a principle of movement
in something other than the thing moved, nature is a principle in the
thing itself (for man begets man), and the other causes are privations
of these two.
There are three kinds of substance-the matter, which
is a 'this' in appearance (for all things that are characterized by
contact and not, by organic unity are matter and substratum, e.g. fire,
flesh, head; for these are all matter, and the last matter is the matter
of that which is in the full sense substance); the nature, which is a
'this' or positive state towards which movement takes place; and again,
thirdly, the particular substance which is composed of these two, e.g.
Socrates or Callias. Now in some cases the 'this' does not exist apart
from the composite substance, e.g. the form of house does not so exist,
unless the art of building exists apart (nor is there generation and
destruction of these forms, but it is in another way that the house
apart from its matter, and health, and all ideals of art, exist and do
not exist); but if the 'this' exists apart from the concrete thing, it
is only in the case of natural objects. And so Plato was not far wrong
when he said that there are as
many Forms as there are kinds of natural object (if there are Forms
distinct from the things of this earth). The moving causes exist as
things preceding the effects, but causes in the sense of definitions are
simultaneous with their effects. For when a man is healthy, then health
also exists; and the shape of a bronze sphere exists at the same time as
the bronze sphere. (But we must examine whether any form also survives
afterwards. For in some cases there is nothing to prevent this; e.g. the
soul may be of this sort-not all soul but the reason; for presumably it
is impossible that all soul should survive.)
Evidently then there is no necessity, on this ground at least, for the
existence of the Ideas. For man is begotten by man, a given man by an
individual father; and similarly in the arts; for the medical art is the
formal cause of health.
4
The causes and the
principles of different things are in a sense different, but in a sense,
if one speaks universally and analogically, they are the same for all.
For one might raise the question whether the principles and elements are
different or the same for substances and for relative terms, and
similarly in the case of each of the categories. But it would be
paradoxical if they were the same for all. For then from the same
elements will proceed relative terms and substances. What then will this
common element be? For (1) (a) there is nothing common to and distinct
from substance and the other categories, viz. those which are
predicated; but an element is prior to the things of which it is an
element. But again (b) substance is not an element in relative terms,
nor is any of these an element in substance. Further, (2) how can all
things have the same elements? For none of the elements can be the same
as that which is composed of elements, e.g. b or a cannot be the same as
ba. (None, therefore, of the intelligibles, e.g. being or unity, is an
element; for these are predicable of each of the compounds as well.)
None of the elements, then, will be either a substance or a relative
term; but it must be one or other. All things, then, have not the same
elements.
Or, as we are wont to put it, in a sense they have
and in a sense they have not; e.g. perhaps the elements of perceptible
bodies are, as form, the hot, and in another sense the cold, which is
the privation; and, as matter, that which directly and of itself
potentially has these attributes; and substances comprise both these and
the things composed of these, of which these are the principles, or any
unity which is produced out of the hot and the cold, e.g. flesh or bone;
for the product must be different from the elements. These things then
have the same elements and principles (though specifically different
things have specifically different elements); but all things have not
the same elements in this sense, but only analogically; i.e. one might
say that there are three principles-the form, the privation, and the
matter. But each of these is different for each class; e.g. in colour
they are white, black, and surface, and in day and night they are light,
darkness, and air.
Since not only the elements present in a thing are
causes, but also something external, i.e. the moving cause, clearly
while 'principle' and 'element' are different both are causes, and
'principle' is divided into these two kinds; and that which acts as
producing movement or rest is a principle and a substance. Therefore
analogically there are three elements, and four causes and principles;
but the elements are different in different things, and the proximate
moving cause is different for different things. Health, disease, body;
the moving cause is the medical art. Form, disorder of a particular
kind, bricks; the moving cause is the building art. And since the moving
cause in the case of natural things is-for man, for instance, man, and
in the products of thought the form or its contrary, there will be in a
sense three causes, while in a sense there are four. For the medical art
is in some sense health, and the building art is the form of the house,
and man begets man; further, besides these there is that which as first
of all things moves all things.
5
Some things can exist
apart and some cannot, and it is the former that are substances. And
therefore all things have the same causes, because, without substances,
modifications and movements do not exist. Further, these causes will
probably be soul and body, or reason and desire and body.
And in yet another way, analogically identical things
are principles, i.e. actuality and potency; but these also are not only
different for different things but also apply in different ways to them.
For in some cases the same thing exists at one time actually and at
another potentially, e.g. wine or flesh or man does so. (And these too
fall under the above-named causes. For the form exists actually, if it
can exist apart, and so does the complex of form and matter, and the
privation, e.g. darkness or disease; but the matter exists potentially;
for this is that which can become qualified either by the form or by the
privation.) But the distinction of actuality and potentiality applies in
another way to cases where the matter of cause and of effect is not the
same, in some of which cases the form is not the same but different;
e.g. the cause of man is (1) the elements in man (viz. fire and earth as
matter, and the peculiar form), and further (2) something else outside,
i.e. the father, and (3) besides these the sun and its oblique course,
which are neither matter nor form nor privation of man nor of the same
species with him, but moving causes.
Further, one must observe that some causes can be
expressed in universal terms, and some cannot. The proximate principles
of all things are the 'this' which is proximate in actuality, and
another which is proximate in potentiality. The universal causes, then,
of which we spoke do not exist. For it is the individual that is the
originative principle of the individuals. For while man is the
originative principle of man universally, there is no universal man, but
Peleus is the originative principle of Achilles, and your father of you,
and this particular b of this particular ba, though b in general is the
originative principle of ba taken without qualification.
Further, if the causes of substances are the causes
of all things, yet different things have different causes and elements,
as was said; the causes of things that are not in the same class, e.g.
of colours and sounds, of substances and quantities, are different
except in an analogical sense; and those of things in the same species
are different, not in species, but in the sense that the causes of
different individuals are different, your matter and form and moving
cause being different from mine, while in their universal definition
they are the same. And if we inquire what are the principles or elements
of substances and relations and qualities-whether they are the same or
different-clearly when the names of the causes are used in several
senses the causes of each are the same, but when the senses are
distinguished the causes are not the same but different, except that in
the following senses the causes of all are the same. They are (1) the
same or analogous in this sense, that matter, form, privation, and the
moving cause are common to all things; and (2) the causes of substances
may be treated as causes of all things in this sense, that when
substances are removed all things are removed; further, (3) that which
is first in respect of complete reality is the cause of all things. But
in another sense there are different first causes, viz. all the
contraries which are neither generic nor ambiguous terms; and, further,
the matters of different things are different. We have stated, then,
what are the principles of sensible things and how many they are, and in
what sense they are the same and in what sense different.
6
Since there were three
kinds of substance, two of them physical and one unmovable, regarding
the latter we must assert that it is necessary that there should be an
eternal unmovable substance. For substances are the first of existing
things, and if they are all destructible, all things are destructible.
But it is impossible that movement should either have come into being or
cease to be (for it must always have existed), or that time should. For
there could not be a before and an after if time did not exist. Movement
also is continuous, then, in the sense in which time is; for time is
either the same thing as movement or an attribute of movement. And there
is no continuous movement except movement in place, and of this only
that which is circular is continuous.
But if there is something which is capable of moving
things or acting on them, but is not actually doing so, there will not
necessarily be movement; for that which has a potency need not exercise
it. Nothing, then, is gained even if we suppose eternal substances, as
the believers in the Forms do, unless there is to be in them some
principle which can cause change; nay, even this is not enough, nor is
another substance besides the Forms enough; for if it is not to act,
there will be no movement. Further even if it acts, this will not be
enough, if its essence is potency; for there will not be eternal
movement, since that which is potentially may possibly not be. There
must, then, be such a principle, whose very essence is actuality.
Further, then, these substances must be without matter; for they must be
eternal, if anything is eternal. Therefore they must be actuality.
Yet there is a difficulty; for it is thought that
everything that acts is able to act, but that not everything that is
able to
act acts, so that the potency is prior. But if this is so, nothing that
is need be; for it is possible for all things to be capable of
existing but not yet to exist.
Yet if we follow the theologians who generate the
world from night, or the natural philosophers who say that 'all things
were together', the same impossible result ensues. For how will there be
movement, if there is no actually existing cause? Wood will surely not
move itself-the carpenter's art must act on it; nor will the menstrual
blood nor the earth set themselves in motion, but the seeds must act on
the earth and the semen on the menstrual blood.
This is why some suppose eternal actuality-e.g.
Leucippus and Plato; for they say there is always movement. But why and
what this movement is they do say, nor, if the world moves in this way
or that, do they tell us the cause of its doing so. Now nothing is moved
at random, but there must always be something present to move it; e.g.
as a matter of fact a thing moves in one way by nature, and in another
by force or through the influence of reason or something else. (Further,
what sort of movement is primary? This makes a vast difference.) But
again for Plato, at least, it is not permissible to name here that which
he sometimes supposes to be the source of movement-that which moves
itself; for the soul is later, and coeval with the heavens, according to
his account. To suppose potency prior to actuality, then, is in a sense
right, and in a sense not; and we have specified these senses. That
actuality is prior is testified by Anaxagoras (for his 'reason' is
actuality) and by Empedocles in his doctrine of love and strife, and by
those who say that there is always movement, e.g. Leucippus. Therefore
chaos or night did not exist for an infinite time, but the same things
have always existed (either passing through a cycle of changes or
obeying some other law), since actuality is prior to potency. If, then,
there is a constant cycle, something must always remain, acting in the
same way. And if there is to be generation and destruction, there must
be something else which is always acting in different ways. This must,
then, act in one way in virtue of itself, and in another in virtue of
something else-either of a third agent, therefore, or of the first. Now
it must be in virtue of the first. For otherwise this again causes the
motion both of the second agent and of the third. Therefore it is better
to say 'the first'.
For it was the cause of eternal uniformity; and something else is the
cause of variety, and evidently both together are the cause of eternal
variety. This, accordingly, is the character which the motions actually
exhibit. What need then is there to seek for other principles?
7
Since (1) this is a
possible account of the matter, and (2) if it were not true, the world
would have proceeded out of night and 'all things together' and out of
non-being, these difficulties may be taken as solved. There is, then,
something which is always moved with an unceasing motion, which is
motion in a circle; and this is plain not in theory only but in fact.
Therefore the first heaven must be eternal. There is therefore also
something which moves it. And since that which moves and is moved is
intermediate, there is something which moves without being moved, being
eternal, substance, and actuality. And the object of desire and the
object of thought move in this way; they move without being moved. The
primary objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent
good is the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object
of rational wish. But desire is consequent on opinion rather than
opinion on desire; for the thinking is the starting-point. And thought
is moved by the object of thought, and one of the two columns of
opposites is in itself the object of thought; and in this, substance is
first, and in substance, that which is simple and exists actually. (The
one and the simple are not the same; for 'one' means a measure, but
'simple' means that the thing itself has a certain nature.) But the
beautiful, also, and that which is in itself desirable are in the same
column; and the first in any class is always best, or analogous to the
best.
That a final cause may exist among unchangeable
entities is shown by the distinction of its meanings. For the final
cause is (a) some being for whose good an action is done, and (b)
something at which the action aims; and of these the latter exists among
unchangeable entities though the former does not. The final cause, then,
produces motion as being loved, but all other things move by being
moved. Now if something is moved it is capable of being otherwise than
as it is. Therefore if its actuality is the primary form of spatial
motion, then in so far as it is subject to change, in this respect it is
capable of being otherwise,-in place, even if not in substance. But
since there is something which moves while itself unmoved, existing
actually, this can in no way be otherwise than as it is. For motion in
space is the first of the kinds of change, and motion in a circle the
first kind of spatial motion; and this the first mover produces. The
first mover, then, exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by
necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first
principle. For the necessary has all these senses-that which is
necessary perforce because it is contrary to the natural impulse, that
without which the good is impossible, and that which cannot be otherwise
but can exist only in a single way.
On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the
world of nature. And it is a life such as the best which we enjoy, and
enjoy for but a short time (for it is ever in this state, which we
cannot be), since its actuality is also pleasure. (And for this reason
are waking, perception, and thinking most pleasant, and hopes and
memories are so on account of these.) And thinking in itself deals with
that which is best in itself, and that which is thinking in the fullest
sense with that which is best in the fullest sense. And thought thinks
on itself because it shares the nature of the object of thought; for it
becomes an object of thought in coming into contact with and thinking
its objects, so that thought and object of thought are the same.
For that which is capable of receiving the object of thought, i.e. the
essence, is thought.
But it is active when it possesses this object. Therefore the possession
rather than the receptivity is the divine element which thought seems to
contain, and the act of contemplation is what is most pleasant and best.
If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are,
this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more.
And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the
actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God's
self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore
that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and
duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God.
Those who suppose, as the Pythagoreans and Speusippus
do, that supreme beauty and goodness are not present in the beginning,
because the beginnings both of plants and of animals are causes, but
beauty and completeness are in the effects of these, are wrong in their
opinion. For the seed comes from other individuals which are prior and
complete, and the first thing is not seed but the complete being; e.g.
we must say that before the seed there is a man,-not the man produced
from the seed, but another from whom the seed comes.
It is clear then from what has been said that there
is a substance which is eternal and unmovable and separate from sensible
things. It has been shown also that this substance cannot have any
magnitude, but is without parts and indivisible (for it produces
movement through infinite time, but nothing finite has infinite power;
and, while every magnitude is either infinite or finite, it cannot, for
the above reason, have finite magnitude, and it cannot have infinite
magnitude because there is no infinite magnitude at all). But it has
also been shown that it is impassive and unalterable; for all the other
changes are posterior to change of place.
8
It is clear, then, why
these things are as they are. But we must not ignore the question
whether we have to suppose one such substance or more than one, and if
the latter, how many; we must also mention, regarding the opinions
expressed by others, that they have said nothing about the number of the
substances that can even be clearly stated. For the theory of Ideas has
no special discussion of the subject; for those who speak of Ideas say
the Ideas are numbers, and they speak of numbers now as unlimited, now
as limited by the number 10; but as for the reason why there should be
just so many numbers, nothing is said with any demonstrative exactness.
We however must discuss the subject, starting from the presuppositions
and distinctions we have mentioned. The first principle or primary being
is not movable either in itself or accidentally, but produces the
primary eternal and single movement. But since that which is moved must
be moved by something, and the first mover must be in itself unmovable,
and eternal movement must be produced by something eternal and a single
movement by a single thing, and since we see that besides the simple
spatial movement of the universe, which we say the first and unmovable
substance produces, there are other spatial movements-those of the
planets-which are eternal (for a body which moves in a circle is eternal
and unresting; we have proved these points in the physical treatises),
each of these movements also must be caused by a substance both
unmovable in itself and eternal. For the nature of the stars is eternal
just because it is a certain kind of substance, and the mover is eternal
and prior to the moved, and that
which is prior to a substance must be a substance. Evidently, then,
there must be substances which are of the same number as the movements
of the stars, and in their nature eternal, and in themselves unmovable,
and without magnitude, for the reason before mentioned. That the movers
are substances, then, and that one of these is first and another second
according to the same order as the movements of the stars, is evident.
But in the number of the movements we reach a
problem which must be treated from the standpoint of that one of the
mathematical sciences which is most akin to philosophy-viz. of
astronomy; for this science speculates about substance which is
perceptible but eternal, but the other mathematical sciences, i.e.
arithmetic and geometry, treat of no substance. That the movements are
more numerous than the bodies that are moved is evident to those who
have given even moderate attention to the matter; for each of the
planets has more than one movement. But as to the actual number of these
movements, we now-to give some notion of the subject-quote what some of
the mathematicians say, that our thought may have some definite number
to grasp; but, for the rest, we must partly investigate for ourselves,
Partly learn from other investigators, and if those who study this
subject form an opinion contrary to what we have now stated, we must
esteem both parties indeed, but follow the more accurate.
Eudoxus supposed that the motion of the sun or of the
moon involves, in either case, three spheres, of which the first is the
sphere of the fixed stars, and the second moves in the circle which runs
along the middle of the zodiac, and the third in the circle which is
inclined across the breadth of the zodiac; but the circle in which the
moon moves is inclined at a greater angle than that in which the sun
moves. And the motion of the planets involves, in each case, four
spheres, and of these also the first and second are the same as the
first two mentioned above (for the sphere of the fixed stars is that
which moves all the other spheres, and that which is placed beneath this
and has its movement in the circle which bisects the zodiac is common to
all), but the poles of the third sphere of each planet are in the circle
which bisects the zodiac, and the motion of
the fourth sphere is in the circle which is inclined at an angle to the
equator of the third sphere; and the poles of the third sphere are
different for each of the other planets, but those of Venus and Mercury
are the same.
Callippus made the position of the spheres the same
as Eudoxus did, but while he assigned the same number as Eudoxus did to
Jupiter and to Saturn, he thought two more spheres should be added to
the sun and two to the moon, if one is to explain the observed facts;
and one more to each of the other planets.
But it is necessary, if all the spheres combined are
to explain the observed facts, that for each of the planets there should
be other spheres (one fewer than those hitherto assigned) which
counteract those already mentioned and bring back to the same position
the outermost sphere of the star which in each case is situated below
the star in question; for only thus can all the forces at work produce
the observed motion of the planets. Since, then, the spheres involved in
the movement of the planets themselves are--eight for Saturn and Jupiter
and twenty-five for the others, and of these only those involved in the
movement of the lowest-situated planet need not be counteracted the
spheres which counteract those of the outermost two planets will be six
in number, and the spheres which counteract those of the next four
planets will be sixteen; therefore
the number of all the spheres--both those which move the planets and
those which counteract these--will be fifty-five.
And if one were not to add to the moon and to the sun the movements we
mentioned, the whole set of spheres will be forty-seven in number.
Let this, then, be taken as the number of the
spheres, so that the unmovable substances and principles also may
probably be taken as just so many; the assertion of necessity must be
left to more powerful thinkers. But if there can be no spatial movement
which does not conduce to the moving of a star, and if further every
being and every substance which is immune from change and in virtue of
itself has attained to the best must be considered an end, there can be
no other being apart from these we have named, but this must be the
number of the substances. For if there are others, they will cause
change as being a final cause of movement; but there cannot he other
movements besides those mentioned. And it is reasonable to infer this
from a consideration of the bodies that are moved; for if everything
that moves is for the sake of that which is moved, and every movement
belongs to something that is moved, no movement can be for the sake of
itself or of another movement, but all the movements must be for the
sake of the stars. For if there is to be a movement for the sake of a
movement, this latter also will have to be for the sake of something
else; so that since there cannot be an infinite regress, the end of
every movement will be one of the divine bodies which move through the
heaven.
(Evidently there is but one heaven. For if there are
many heavens as there are many men, the moving principles, of which each
heaven will have one, will be one in form but in number many. But all
things that are many in number have matter; for one and the same
definition, e.g. that of man, applies to many things, while Socrates is
one. But the primary essence has not matter; for it is complete reality.
So the unmovable first mover is one both in definition and in number; so
too, therefore, is that which is moved always and continuously;
therefore there is one heaven alone.) Our forefathers in the most remote
ages have handed down to their posterity a tradition, in the form of a
myth, that these bodies are gods, and that the divine encloses the whole
of nature. The rest of the tradition has been added later in mythical
form with a view to the persuasion of the multitude and to its legal and
utilitarian expediency; they say these gods are in the form of men or
like some of the other animals, and they say other things consequent on
and similar to these which we have mentioned. But if one were to
separate the first point from these additions and take it alone-that
they thought the first substances to be gods, one must regard this as an
inspired utterance, and reflect that, while probably each art and each
science has often been developed as far as possible and has again
perished, these opinions, with others, have been preserved until the
present like relics of the ancient treasure. Only thus far, then, is the
opinion of our ancestors and of our earliest predecessors clear to us.
9
The nature of the
divine thought involves certain problems; for while thought is held to
be the most divine of things observed by us, the question how it must be
situated in order to have that character involves difficulties. For if
it thinks of nothing, what is there here of dignity? It is just like one
who sleeps. And if it thinks, but this depends on something else, then
(since that which is its substance is not the act of thinking, but a
potency) it cannot be the best substance; for it is through thinking
that its value belongs to it. Further, whether its substance is the
faculty of thought or the act of thinking, what does it think of? Either
of itself or of something else; and if of something else, either of the
same thing always or of something different. Does it matter, then, or
not, whether it thinks of the good or of any chance thing? Are there not
some things about which it is incredible that it should think?
Evidently, then, it thinks of that which is most divine and precious,
and it does not change; for change would be change for the worse, and
this would be already a movement.
First, then, if 'thought' is not the act of thinking but a potency, it
would be reasonable to suppose that the continuity of its thinking is
wearisome to it. Secondly, there would evidently be something else more
precious than thought, viz. that which is thought of. For both thinking
and the act of thought will belong even to one who thinks of the worst
thing in the world, so that if this ought to be avoided (and it ought,
for there are even some things which it is better not to see than to
see), the act of thinking cannot be the best of things. Therefore it
must be of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most
excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking.
But evidently knowledge and perception and opinion
and understanding have always something else as their object, and
themselves only by the way. Further, if thinking and being thought of
are different, in respect of which does goodness belong to thought? For
to he an act of thinking and to he an object of thought are not the same
thing. We answer that in some cases the knowledge is the object. In the
productive sciences it is the substance or essence of the object, matter
omitted, and in the theoretical sciences the definition or the act of
thinking is the object. Since, then, thought and the object of thought
are not different in the case of things that have not matter, the divine
thought and its object will be the same, i.e. the thinking will be one
with the object of its thought.
A further question is left-whether the object of the
divine thought is composite; for if it were, thought would change in
passing from part to part of the whole. We answer that everything which
has not matter is indivisible-as human thought, or rather the thought of
composite beings, is in a certain period of time (for it does not
possess the good at this moment or at that, but its best, being
something different from it, is attained only in a whole period of
time), so throughout eternity is the thought which has itself for its
object.
10
We must consider also
in which of two ways the nature of the universe contains the good, and
the highest good, whether as something separate and by itself, or as the
order of the parts. Probably in both ways, as an army does; for its good
is found both in its order and in its leader, and more in the latter;
for he does not depend on the order but it depends on him. And all
things are ordered together somehow, but not all alike,-both fishes and
fowls and plants; and the world is not such that one thing has nothing
to do with another, but they are connected. For all are ordered together
to one end, but it is as in a house, where the freemen are least at
liberty to act at random, but all things or most things are already
ordained for them, while the slaves and the animals do little for the
common good, and for the most part live at random; for this is the sort
of
principle that constitutes the nature of each. I mean, for instance,
that all must at least come to be dissolved into their elements, and
there are other functions similarly in which all share for the good of
the whole.
We must not fail to observe how many impossible or
paradoxical results confront those who hold different views from our
own, and what are the views of the subtler thinkers, and which views are
attended by fewest difficulties. All make all things out of contraries.
But neither 'all things' nor 'out of contraries' is right; nor do these
thinkers tell us how all the things in which the contraries are present
can be made out of the contraries; for contraries are not affected by
one another. Now for us this difficulty is solved naturally by the fact
that there is a third element. These thinkers however make one of the
two contraries matter; this is done for instance by those who make the
unequal matter for the equal, or the many matter for the one. But this
also is refuted in the same way; for the one matter which underlies any
pair of contraries is contrary to nothing. Further, all things, except
the one, will, on the view we are criticizing, partake of evil; for the
bad itself is one of the two elements. But the other school does not
treat the good and the bad even as principles; yet in all things the
good is in the highest degree a principle. The school we first mentioned
is right in saying that it is a principle, but how the good is a
principle they do not
say-whether as end or as mover or as form.
Empedocles also has a paradoxical view; for he
identifies the good with love, but this is a principle both as mover
(for it brings things together) and as matter (for it is part of the
mixture). Now even if it happens that the same thing is a principle both
as matter and as mover, still the being, at least, of the two is not the
same. In which respect then is love a principle? It is paradoxical also
that strife should be imperishable; the nature of his 'evil' is just
strife.
Anaxagoras makes the good a motive principle; for his
'reason' moves things. But it moves them for an end, which must be
something other than it, except according to our way of stating the
case; for, on our view, the medical art is in a sense health. It is
paradoxical also not to suppose a contrary to the good, i.e. to reason.
But all who speak of the contraries make no use of the contraries,
unless we bring their views into shape. And why some things are
perishable and others imperishable, no one tells us; for they make all
existing things out of the same principles. Further, some make existing
things out of the nonexistent; and others to avoid the necessity of this
make all things one.
Further, why should there always be becoming, and
what is the cause of becoming?-this no one tells us. And those who
suppose two principles must suppose another, a superior principle, and
so must those who believe in the Forms; for why did things come to
participate, or why do they participate, in the Forms? And all other
thinkers are confronted by the necessary consequence that there is something
contrary to Wisdom, i.e. to the highest knowledge; but we
are not.
For there is nothing contrary to that which is primary; for all
contraries have matter, and things that have matter exist only
potentially; and the ignorance which is contrary to any knowledge leads
to an object contrary to the object of the knowledge; but what is
primary has no contrary.
Again, if besides sensible things no others exist,
there will be no first principle, no order, no becoming, no heavenly
bodies, but each principle will have a principle before it, as in the
accounts of the theologians and all the natural philosophers. But if the
Forms or the numbers are to exist, they will be causes of nothing; or if
not that, at least not of movement. Further, how is extension, i.e. a
continuum, to be produced out of unextended parts? For number will not,
either as mover or as form, produce a continuum. But again there cannot
be any contrary that is also essentially a productive or moving
principle; for it would be possible for it not to be. Or at least its
action would be posterior to its potency. The world, then, would not be
eternal. But it is; one of these premisses, then, must be denied. And we
have said how this must be done. Further, in virtue of what the numbers,
or the soul and the body, or in general the form and the thing, are
one-of this no one tells us anything; nor can any one tell, unless he
says, as we do, that the mover makes them one. And those who say
mathematical number is first and go on to generate one kind of substance
after another and give different principles for each, make the substance
of the universe a mere series of episodes (for one substance has no
influence on another by its existence or nonexistence), and they give us
many governing principles; but the world refuses to be governed badly.
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