The objections to this interpretation are; (1) the ellipticalness of the expression, The section concludes not, as would be expected on this interpretation, by saying ‘thus part of the form must pre-exist, as well as of the matter’, but by saying ‘the bronze circle, then, has its matter in its definition’. (2) The question of the pre-existence of form is raised in the next chapter as a mew question, while the pre-existence of matter is assumed to have been proved in ch, 7. (3) In the discussion of the pre-existence of form, Aristotle expressly sets aside the notion that part of the form pre-exists while the rest supervenes (? 11-16).
For these reasons I am inclined to think that Alexander and Bz. are ~ wrong in finding here a reference to the doctrine that genus is vAy. What answers to om pev ov, then, is not GAN dpa but e& ob d€ xrA. ]. 5. The words to be supplied with GAN’ dpa Kal rav ev TO dOyw ; are 7 VAn pépos (from 1032) 32), as is shown by the conclusion 6 37 xadKods KUKAos exer év TG Adyw THY VAnv. The passage simply points out that the bronze circle is a Adyos évvAos (De An. 403% 25), that bronze is present not only in its concrete wholeness but in its definition.
186 Commentary
The main difficulty for this interpretation is kai totdro éoru 70 yevos «is 0 mpatov TiMerat, Which becomes pointless, ‘These words are perhaps a gloss due to some one who thought there was:a reference to the doctrine that genus is jAy. For glosses of similar form cf. TI. ro09® 26, A. 1073) 33, and possibly A. 984 1, Z. re41? 28, )8.
GAN’ dpa Kal tov év t@ N6yo; The form ddA dpa is a regular Aristotelian one, while dX’ dpa is not. I have therefore, with Asclepius and Bessarion, read dpa and treated the sentence as a question. Bz. recommends this.in Zzdex go? 28.
2. I have followed Bullinger’s suggestion and written 8 for ée. ‘Particula 67 inserta enunciationi, quae pro fundamento ponitur proximae argumentationis, eam vel ex communi omnium opinione vel ex argumentis alibi allatis firmam et evidentem esse significat.’ Bz. Jndex 172258. This seems better than Bessarion’s ye.
’ 5-23. Aristotle passes from the implication of the previous existence of something éé ob 76 yryvopevov yiyveras, to mention, rather irrelevantly, his favourite linguistic point about the use of such words as Ad@wos (cf. ©. 10492 18, Phys. 190% 25, 2459). The connexion is that this usage arises out of an ambiguity in the meaning of éé ot.
4. éxeivivov. - For this Aristotelian coinage cf. @. 1049% 19, 21.
8. éxetvo é& 06, i.e. Kd pvenV (cf. 1. 12), This, however, as Aristotle proceeds to point out, is not really analogous to ‘stone’, which the statue is ‘not said to be’. Stone is the maéler of the statue ; disease is the frzvation of health. Where the privation is clearly apprehended and has a name, we say the result comes from the priva- tion-rather than from the matter (since that from which a thing comes is properly something that changes, not something that persists, 1. 21); and what comes from X cannot be said tobe X. Where the privation is not clearly recognized and named, we say, less properly (ll. 19-22), that the thing comes from its matter, and, since here too we feel the difficulty of saying that a thing is what it comes from, we say not that the statue is wood but that it is ‘wooden’. This is the origin of such words (81a pev odv TOdTO oTwSs Aéyerau, has).
8-11. ylyverat . . . Gyuns is concessive; paddov pévro. xTA. is in sense the principal clause.
15. tTovrwy, sc, bronze, bricks, timbers.
Soxet. Schwegler and Bz. are wrong in their suspicion that Alexander read, as Bessarion did, od doxet. Cf. Al. 493. 17.
Form does not come to be, any more than matter, bul only the combination of the two (ch. 8).
1033724. What comes to be comes to be by something and from something (let us take this to be the privation, not the matter) and comes to be something, e.g. a sphere. The sphere is not made, any
more than the bronze, which is the matter ; save per accidens, since the bronze sphere is a sphere and is made.
gi. For to make a ‘ this’ is to make it out of the substratum, im the full sense (i.e. out of a given form as well as a given matter). If the substratum were made, it would be made out of something else, and so ad infinitum.
b5. Evidently, then, the form is not made; the concrete thing is made by putting the form into the matter; if the form were made it would have to be divisible into matter and form.
1g. Is there a sphere apart from the particular spheres, a house apart from the bricks? Surely there would never have come into being a ‘ this ’ at all if that were so. The form isa ‘such’, not a ‘this’; in making, a ‘this such’ is made out of a ‘this’. The whole ‘this’, e.g. Callias, is analogous to ‘this bronze sphere’, man to ‘ bronze sphere’,
26. The Forms, if there are any Forms apart from particulars, do nothing to explain becomings or substances, and are not, on that account at least, to be viewed as self-subsistent substances.
29. In some cases it is obvious that the producer is something one in kind with the product, i. e. in natural generation, except in abnormal cases such as the production of a mule by a horse, and even there the class that comprises both parents presumably has the characteristics ot both, and is something like a mule.
1034*2. Thus we need not posit a Platonic Form as pattern, for living things are what are most truly substances, and there would be a Form here if anywhere. The begetter is adequate to the putting of the form into the matter. The individual is ‘such a form in this matter’, matter being what differentiates individuals identical in form.
10337 26. 78y yap Sidprotar, |. 8.
BI. é€k Tod Gdws drroKewpevou, ‘from the substratum in the full sense of the word’, including form as well as matter (1029%2). So Al. 495. 9
32. For the absence of the article before tév xadxdv otpoyyudov movety cf. A. 10146 n., Kuhner ii. 2. §472 a. A good example is found in Pl. Rep. 493.¢ 6 tiv Tov TOAAGY... dpynv Kal ydovas Kara- vevonkevat copiay iyovpevos.
34. It is doubtful whether we should not insert a comma after totro and translate ‘but is to make one of two different elements—e.¢. this form, viz. sphericity—in another’. This is attractive, but the com- bination érepov 7 év dAAw does not seem very likely ; we should expect TOde év THde OF Ti ev Twi.
b1, todto yap éméxetto, ‘for this was assumed’ (@ 25).
188 Commentary
3. Touro seems to refer to Tod dAws trokepevov * 31, the intervening passage being parenthetical.
5-6. o08€ 76 cldos . » , yiyverat, Aristotle does not necessarily mean that form is eternal, Sometimes he says that it comes into being and passes out of being instantaneously, Cf. ro39> 26, H. 1044? 21. In one passage (H. 1043» 14) he gives both alternatives—j didiov eivar } POapriv avev Tod pOeiperOar Kai yeyovévar avev Tov yiyverOur. He apparently means these two alternatives to apply to different kinds of form. Pure forms which exist untrammelled by any conjunction with matter—God, the intelligences that move the spheres, the human reason—are eternal, Among the forms the acquisition of which by matter constitutes becoming or change, a distinction must be drawn. Where what is produced is a new substance, its form must have pre-existed in another individual; where what is produced is a substance with a new quality, quantity, &c., the quality, quantity, &c., need not have pre-existed actually; it may have existed only potentially (103418). dvOpwzos dvOpwrov yevva, but there is no corre- sponding principle Aevxdy Aevxdy yevvd. Le, in the former case the form is eternal; in the latter it comes into being instantaneously; it supervenes in a moment on a change which has taken time,
6. For the superfluous o@ cf. #16, 21.
7. o08€ 76 ti qv etvar. In these words Aristotle simply brings out another aspect of what has already been called 76 efdos and 7 ev 7o aic@nrS poppy, viz. that it is what is stated in a definition.
8. ious as opposed to réyvy and divas is dpyy év avg as against ev dddw (A. 10708 7, De Caelo 301 17). For the difference between téxvn and dvvayus cf. E. 1025» 22-n.
14-15. 16 pev, the genus, which is to the differentia as dy to eldos (cf. A. 1024> 3, 8). 16 8’, the differentia. 716 5é, the specific form.
16. otov here introduces not an example but a comparison. The specific form, as composed of genus and differentia, answers to the concrete thing, as composed of matter and form. For this use of otov cf, Bz. Index 501> 55-60.
17. It is possible that the manuscript reading ocvvodos might mean ‘the coalescence of matter and form’. But such a meaning for the word would be without parallel in Aristotle or, as far as I know, elsewhere, and Jaeger is almost certainly right in reading cvvoAos. For 7 svvodos ( = 7 atvodos ovcia) cf. 1037% 26, 30. The same con: fusion has occurred in manuscripts in both those passages; A and A are easily interchanged,
19. yevvwpévy, the reading of EJ, is supported by yevva, |. 23 (cf. |. 30).
tOde.. . TOdE, Sc. VA... €ldos, Cf. 1. 13.
métepovy kth. Aristotle passes now to consider a doctrine which might seem to follow from his denial of the creation of form, viz. the Platonic doctrine that Forms exist eternally and independently. To this Aristotle answers that form is never a substance, always a characteristic ; never a rode, always a rowvde. Before it existed as the form of the offspring it existed as the form of the parent.
21. 7) 08 Gy ...7t. Since one substance cannot contain another actually existing substance (1039 3), it follows that if the form were a substance there could never come into being an individual substance containing it as an element. So Al, Bz. But quite probably we should omit the comma after jv, and translate ‘ Perhaps the answer is that if the form were an individual subsistent in this manner, coming-to-be would never take place at all’.
24. Kahdias, cf. A. 98198 n.
26. 1 tdv eidav aitia, ‘the cause which consists of the Forms’.
28. mpds ye Tas yevéseis, the reading of A», is clearly an improve- ment on the vulgate apds re ras yeveres.
33. Aristotle’s account is that the form of the mule is not the same as that of its sire, the horse, since this has failed to master the opposition offered by the material element coming from the dam, the ass; but it is identical with the generic form of the sire, since this is also the generic form of the dam and thus has no opposition to conquer. Thus the mule is a sort of abstract universal, with the generic qualities common to horse and ass but without (or at least not having all) the specific qualities of either.
1034° I. odk @vdpacta. Aristotle himself uses the word Addovpor, ‘bushy-tailed creature’ (e.g. in H. A, 491% 1).
3. TovToLS, sc. TA Hvoixd (1033 32), living things.
The conditions of spontaneous production answering (a) to artistic (b) to natural production. The conditions of production in categories other than substance (ch. 9).
1034* 9. (1) (2) Why are some things (e.g. health) produced spontaneously as well as by art, and others not (e.g. a house)? The reason is that in some cases the matter which begins the production is such as to be moved by itself, in some not; sometimes again it can move itself in the particular way required, sometimes not.
18. Accordingly the product will or will not need the artist for its production; in the latter case it can be set in motion by what has not the art but can be moved either by something else that has not the art or by a movement starting from an already existing part of the product.
21. Thus all artefac/a are produced from something else with the same name as themselves, as living things are produced, or from a part which is of the same name (e.g. a house from a house, since the art of building is identical with the formal element in a house) or from what contains a part—unless the production be merely incidental.
25. For the cause of direct ger se production is a part of the