Natorp is right in regarding chs. 1~6, 1o~12 as forming a continuous treatise which is interrupted by chs. 7-9. But chs. 15, 16 (though the former refers to the doctrine of chs. 7-9), in the main continues the line of thought of chs. 13, 14 (cf. 10414 3-5 with 10398 15-17); nor does ch, 17 form a natural transition from the main thought of the book to the doctrine of yéveois in chs. 7~9. Rather the new attempt in ch, 17 to say what substance is follows naturally on the statement in chs, 13-16 of what it is not,
1 Luse this instance instead of translating A‘@.vos, because we cannot speak of a ‘stony statue’. The instance of wood occurs below, ll. 15-20.
182 Commentary
12-13. Ta pev...tadtopdtov. The triple division rors, TEXVI, TAavTo- parov recurs only in A, 10706, but cf. ratréuarov, rvyy, vois, picts Phys. 198% 10, K. 1065» 3. ;
14, ka éxdorny oe This is not exact. Change takes place, according to Aristotle, in respect~of the four categories here named, and cannot take place with respect to any other (Phys. 225 10— 22626). Sometimes all four kinds of change are included under kino (Phys. 261% 24-36, De Gen. ef Corr. 315* 28); sometimes only three are included under xivyows, and change xar’ otctay is called yéeveos in distinction from them (Phys. 192>14, 225226, 32, 4, 226% 24, 243% 6, 260% 26, De Caelo 310% 23, K. 1067» 31, 36, 1068% 9, b 16). All are included under peraPory (A. 1069” 9, H. 10424 32, De Gen. et Corr. 319 31); or else all except yéveows (Meteor. 465» 30).
16. at pev is resumed by ovrw pév ovy in |. 25, and the antithesis to it comes in ]. 26.
20. The éé ot of natural generation having been said in 1. 17 to be matter, Aristotle here breaks off to say that the éé ot of a// generation is matter. In ]. 22 he returns to his main point, andsums up what he has said in lJ. 17-19 by saying that in natural generation é€ ot, xa@’ 6, and i¢’ of are alike nature.
22. For the description of the é€ od or matter as duous cf. A. 1014 b 26-35, Bz. Index 839% 1-12.
kal ka’ 6 puois. xal’ 6 corresponds to ri in Il. 14, 18, i.e. that which a thing becomes is identified with the form which it acquires and im virtue of which it is what it is after the change. For this sense of ka’ 6 cf. A. 10227 14,
23. 7d y%... dvow, ‘for that which comes to be has a nature’, se. in virtue of which it is what it is.
24. The id’ ot of change is strictly not the parent considered as a unity of form and matter, but its nature in the sense of its form, which is the same in species with the form acquired by the offspring, for it is only a man that can beget a man. Aristotle holds that the form comes from the father, the matter from the mother, G. A. 730? 1, 10.
27-28. 4 amd téxvns . . . Siavotas, cf. E. 1025» 22 n.
29. kal Go tadtopdrou Kat dd téxns. The first xa’ means ‘also’, so that the distinction between 76 atréuarov and trix is not stressed. The former includes the latter (Piys. 197% 36). Only those beings can act dro TOXINS which can act deliberately (i. e. adult human beings, 197> 7); tix is airia Kara ovpBeBnKos év Tos KaTd mpoutpeow Tov évexd. Tou (197% 5). I. e. chance is found when an action incidentally and exceptionally produces a result which might naturally have been the object of deliberate action. Since one such result may be produced incidentally by a variety of actions, chance is of the nature of the indefinite (197% 9), and since the result could not have been foreseen, chance is ‘a cause obscure to human thought’ (196> 6). 76 airdpa- rov, on the other hand, occurs ‘in events that normally happen for an end, whenever something whose cause is ex/ernal happens not for the sake of the result which actually follows’ (197 18), e. g. when a horse
(sc. being pursued by thieves) is saved by going to a certain place, but did not go in order to be saved (19715), or when a stone (sc, being pushed) falls and hits some one without having been meant to do so (197> 30). But besides the cases in which something moved by an external force achieves an unintended result, 76 airéuarov also occurs when an zfernal cause, i.e. nature, produces an exceptional result (197 33), e.g. when an illness cures itself (77. A. 604> 9). Aspecially important instance of the latter kind of spontaneity is ‘ spontaneous generation’ of plants or animals from rotting earth, dew, mud, excre- ments, wood, &c., for which cf. Bz. /ndex 124% 3-30. In general, then, chance simulates the action of art or, more generally, of thought, while in spontaneity (the more general term) (1) the action of thought is simulated, or (2) the normal action of nature is simulated by nature producing in an exceptional way (e.g. dvev orépparos, 1032 31) what it normally produces otherwise (e.g. ék owépyaros), Thus chance is more appropriate to rovrwy tues, ‘makings ’, and spontaneity to r& dad picews yuyvoueva.
30-81. evo yap... dveu omépparos, e. g. eels (7. A. 5.7047), fishes (569% 11), testaceans (547518, G. A. 761” 23), insects (5392 24, G. A. 732" 12). :
32. ToUTwy, i. e. TOY dd Tabroudrou Kal ard TUyNS.
dotepov émuoxentéoy, cf, b 23-30, 1034*% 9-21, » 4-7.
ba, rhv pdtv ovatay, i.e. the ovata avev vAns (I. 14), matter being only in a secondary way part of the substance of the concrete product.
2-4. kal yap... vdoou. Aristotle has said that ‘by art are produced those things whose form is the soul’. But, he reflects, disease can be produced by medical art no less than health, yet the doctor has not in his soul the form of disease ; disease has no form but is merely a privation. To meet this objection he now adds that the form is in a sense the form of the privation (only ‘in a sense , because it is not by its presence but by its absence that it produces the privation). Thus if the doctor knows the form of health, he can pro- duce either health or disease.
4. For éketvys yap dmovola * vdcos, the reading of A>, cf. I. 10048 14.
6-10. This account of production may be compared with the account of moral deliberation and action, in which 76 €cyarov év rH dvadicer is said mparov etvar ev TH yeveoes (LZ. VV, 1112" 23). Still nearer is Z. Z, 1227) 28-33.’
7. otov S6uahdtnTa, ei Sé TodTo, Oepudryta. Heat produces réfus, by which different elements in the body (i.e. portions with unequal temperature or unequal humidity) are chemically changed into a homo- geneous whole (és éort reAciwots b7d Tod PvoiKod Kat oikelov Hepuod éx Tov dvrikeevov TaOntiKdv, Meteor. 379» 18, cf. 3814 20),
14. Méyw S€.. . evar, ‘when I speak of substance without matter (Il, 12) I mean the essence’,
15. There is much probability in Bywater’s conjecture of tv 8% for tov dé. 8 would naturally introduce the summing up of the account given in ll. 6-14.
184 Commentary
17. Tov d\Nwv Tov petagd, i.e. the things that have to be done before the final object is achieved.
24. tod movetv is emphatic, being opposed to 76 voeiv; cf. 1.15. For dpxer cf, 10349 11,
26. The heat in the body is (1) an element in health, or (2) is followed (a) directly, or (4)-indirectly-(d.a wAedvwv) by an element in health, Thus, if once heat is present, health may be produced without the action of a doctor just as it is produced dy his action, The ‘ making’ is the same; only the thought is missing.
27. tT... Tovodtoy, something of the same kind, e.g. uniformity (ll. 7, 19).
oe? I follow here the reading of A>, which seems to have been that of Alexander, with the unimportant exception that Alexander may not have read the éore after évyarov. Alexander’s words are (492. 11) 70 6€ TobTo 8° €oxatov Td mrovody (add, Td pépos Tis byvetas LF) rovodrov ay éty, OTe 9 Tpifis 7 moodaa TO pépos THS Uytelas eoxaTy etl Kal THS Ocpporntos Kal THs 6uaddryTos Kat Tov Aowrav. Aristotle’s meaning is ‘and this, viz. that which produces the part of health, is the limiting point, or minimal necessary basis, and there is similarly a necessary basis for a house (se. the stones) and for every other product’, It would be also possible (1) to put a comma after yépos and make ris dyveias depend on érxarov; and(2 a)to read kat 76 ovrws jépos for 70 pépos (following EJ except that éori is omitted) and translate ‘that which produces health and is in that sense a part of it’; or (2 4) to read 7d Touty TO pépos Kal TO ovTws j.€pos, ‘that which produces the part of health and in that sense zs a part of it’.
Kal THS oikias (olov of AiGor) Kal rGv &Awv is tacked on very loosely, like cat ro wip in 10349 17.
It is difficult, however, to regard the relation of heat (or rubbing) to health as analogous to that of stones to the house that is made of them. In the generalization which follows, Aristotle regards himself as having shown that the matter of that which is produced must exist before the production takes place (1. 31); and stones evidently are the matter of a house. But the heat in the body is naturally conceived not as the material but as the efficient cause of health, and so it seems to be con- ceived in]. 21. Aristotle has got into difficulties through taking as parallel two things that are not parallel—health and a house (I, 11). That which is to the doctor as a house is to the builder is not health but a healthy body. Having stated the product abstractly Aristotle also states the cause abstractly, not as ‘a body having heat’ but as ‘heat in the body’; and thus he gets something not really parallel to the stones—which are the material cause of a house—and not really a material cause. There is, however, in his view a real difference between the two cases (103449). Stones are inert, at least so far as grouping themselves into a house is concerned, and are therefore simply vAy. But a body with heat in it has an innate power of transforming itself into a healthy state. It is thus both a material and an efficient cause ; it is 7 VAy » dpxovoa THs yeveoews (1034211). So, too, here it
Tee 7 NOR S17-— 1033" 1 185
(l es spoken of as an efficient (I, 21) and then as a material cause 132):
Shute suggests that heat is the material cause of health as the genus is the material of its species (A. 1024» 8, Z. 10384 6), since heat has to be specifically qualified in order to become health. But even so its relation to health is not a very close analogue to the relation of the stones to the house,
30. KaSdmep Adyerat, ‘as we (in general) maintain’, not referring to any particular passage, Cf., however, A. 1069” 6, Phys. i. 6-10.
32. pavepdv’ 7 yap UAy pépos. It has been expressly remarked with regard to natural generation that it presupposes a pre-existing matter (#17), and the same has been implied in the account of artistic and fortuitous production.
103% I. yiyverax, not ‘comes into being’ but ‘comes to be something’,
1-5. It is most natural to take 4\N’ dpa «rh, as answering to or pev ovv ktA, The whole section will then mean ‘It is evident then that a part of the product must necessarily pre-exist; for the matter is a part, since it is already present in the thing and undergoes genesis. But does some element in the definition also pre-exist? Well, we state in two ways what bronze circles are, naming both their matter— bronze, and their form—such and such a shape; and shape is the proximate genus in which the circle is placed. The bronze circle therefore has its material (or generic) element in its definition (as well as matter in the more ordinary sense—viz. sensible matter, bronze—in its concrete wholeness. And this must pre-exist as well as the sensible matter; the bronze which is given a circular figure must already have figure of some kind)’,
The section, on this view, refers to the doctrine that genus is related to differentia as matter to form, and thus is in a sense matter (A. 1024? 8).