34. fia has here the wider sense of ‘word’ (cf. Zop. 148 36, De Aud. 804» 30, M. M. 1202 18), not its regular Aristotelian sense of ‘verb’.
10411. dv... jor, ‘they would have been’. Aristotle’s argument is: There may be eternal entities of which we do not know. The Platonists, then, were wrong in saying ‘ there must be eternal substances (sc. to explain the sensible world and the fact of knowledge), but we cannot think of any save such as are akin to sensible substances; the eternal substances therefore are of this nature’.
Aristotle usually attacks the Ideas on the ground of their transcen- dence. Here he admits that there are eternal, non-sensible, transcen- dent substances, and objects that they should not be hastily identified with the universal characters in sensible things. But the two criticisms are not inconsistent. They are two ways of putting the same point, that the Ideas are held to combine characteristics that are incompatible, immanence and transcendence. There are immanent intelligibles— the universals in the particulars ; and there are transcendent intelligi- bles—God and the beings that move the planetary spheres (A.1073 33); but those that are immanent must not be confounded with those that are transcendent.
3. tives ciciv must mean ‘what the non-sensible (1040 31, 32) eternal entities (as distinct from the stars) are’.
3-5. Ott pev ody ... oddév odata sums up 1040? 16—10414 3; ovr... ovov@y sums up 1040?5-16. Schwegler tries to find a connexion between the two parts of the chapter in the fact that universals, like the parts of a substance, exist only duvdpe. (@. 105142; cf. the conception of genus as vAn). But Aristotle would have pointed out this connexion if it had been in his mind.
Z. 16. 1040 t5 — 10418 5 221
At the same time these words sum up the general conclusions of chs. 13-16, which*are evidently thought of as forming a single section of the inquiry into substance. Cf. 13. 1039 14-17.
The true view of substance ; substance ts form (ch. 17).
1041°6. Let us approach afresh the question of the nature of substance; we may thus learn about the substance that exists apart from sensible things. We start with the fact that substance is an originative source and cause.
10. ‘ Why?’ always means ‘Why does A belong to B?’ ‘Why
is the musical man a musical man?’ means either ‘ Why is the man
musical?’ or something different from this.
14. Now‘ Why is a thing itself?’ is meaningless ; for before we ask ‘Why ?’, the fact must be evident, and the fact that a thing is itself already answers the question why the man is man or the musical musical—unless one prefers to answer ‘because a thing is indivisible from itself’; but this is a stock and concise answer to all such questions,
20. The real question is, Why is man an animal of such and such a kind? i.e, Why is A true of B? Why does it thunder ? = Why is noise produced in the clouds?
27. Evidently we are seeking the cause, i.e. (speaking abstractly) the essence, which in some cases is an end (e. g. in the case of a house), in somea firstmover. ‘The latter is looked for only in cases of becom- ing and perishing, the former also in that of being.
32. The object of inquiry escapes notice most when subject and attri- bute are not distinguished, e. g. in the question ‘What is man?’ We must make the question articulate ; otherwise it is hardly a real question.
b 4, One really asks, ‘Why is this material a certain thing?’ ‘ Why are these things a house?’ Because the essence of house is present in them. Thus we are looking for the cause by reason of which the matter is something, i.e. the form; and this is substance. Evidently, then, the method of inquiry into szmple entities is one different from that described above.
11, The syllable is not identical with its letters, nor flesh with fire and earth (for after the dissolution of the elements the whole will not exist though the elements will); they involve something else as well.
19. Now (1) if this is an element, flesh will consist of fire and earth and this element+something else, and so ad znfimitum ; (2) if it is
222 Commentary
a compound, it must have more than one element, and the same difficulty will arise as in the original case of fiésh or the syllable.
25. Yet this ‘other’ issomething, not an element, and is the reason why this is flesh and that is a syllable, This is the swdsfance of things (for it is the primary cause of their being).—Since all substances are held together according to nature and by nature, this ‘nature’, which is not a material element but a principle, seems to be substance ; the elemenis, on the other hand, are the material constituents of things.
Of the four claimants to the title of substance (1028? 33) Aristotle has now discussed substratum, and shown that it in its most obvious sense (viz. matter) is not substance (ch. 3). He has discussed essence from many points of view, but without reaching any very definite con- clusion as to whether it is substance (chs. 4-12), He has discussed the universal (andimplicitly the fourth claimant, the genus), and shown that it is not substance, and has shown further that substance cannot contain actual substances as its parts (chs. 13-16). He now makes a fresh start and essays to show that essence is substance, using as his guide the principle that substance must be causal, something that answers the question ‘ Why?’ ~
10412 6. ti... kal drotdv tu, ‘ what, i.e. what kind ofthing’, The two expressions do not seem to stand here, as they sometimes do, for genus and differentia respectively.
11-24. This difficult passage may be paraphrased thus:—The question ‘ Why is the musical man a musical man?’ is either (1) of the type just mentioned (1. rr), viz. ‘ Why is the man musical ?’, or (2) itis different from this. In this second case, it is of the type ‘ Why is a thing itself?’ and it is no question at all. For when we ask why a thing is so, we must already know /hat it is so. But that a thing is itself is already sufficient answer to any question of the type * Why is aman aman?’; in such a case the question ‘ Why?’ is not really a further question at all. ‘ Because a thing is itself’ is the only answer, unless one prefers to put it in the form ‘because each thing is indi- visible from itself, and this is what being one means’. But this is an answer which meets all such cases and is a ‘short and easy way’ with them, and its existence does not show the farficular question of the type ‘Why isman man?’ to bea sensible one. But the question ‘ Why is man such and such a kind of animal?’ zs one which may fairly be asked. It is of the type méntioned in ]. 11; it asks ‘Why does A belong to B?’, and assumes that it does belong. I.e. of the two alternatives stated as to the meaning of the question ‘ Why is A A?” Aristotle rejects the second and adopts the first, that it really is of the form ‘ Why is B A?’
Christ treats Set yap (1.15)... 6 pouoikds povorkds (1. 18) as paren- thetical and connects wAjy ef tes xrd. with ovdév eore Lrety. But it can hardly be right to disconnect dru ddvaiperov pos abrd éxacrov thus from aird dru aird, for which it is an alternative and fuller
expression. The paraphrase above indicates sufficiently how Any should be taken.
1g. Bz. thought with Alexander that 16 eipnwevoy fnrety must be vo fntety dia ri ato éotw ato, and therefore proposed in this line da ti 6 GvOpwros povoikds avOpwros povarxds éorw. But this is bad grammar, and further ro <cipypevoy Cyrety means just the opposite of what he supposes. It refers to]. 11, and means asking why B is A, not why Ais A. It is possible, however, that we should read with Prof. Joachim 64 zi 6 povorxds avOpwros povoixds avOpwrds eortw, in which case 76 ecipypevoy refers to |. 12, The sentence then, as Prof. Joachim admits, becomes. rather pointless; but he cites Am. Post. 93% 3-6 as a parallel.
15. Set yap Td Stu Kal Td etvow imdpxew SHda ovta, sc. when the da zi is being inquired into. Cf. Az, Post. Melee 2s
24. Aristotle means that 81a ti Bpovrd; resolves itself into Sud Te Wodos yiyverat ev Tois vepeow ;
28. toto 8 éoti To Ti Fv eivar, ds eitety oyiKds. Alexander believed these words to be spurious, and a premature anticipation of the doctrine stated in > 6ff. The suspicion is unnecessary. ‘The doctrine is that the cause of the inherence of a zé6os in a substratum (e.g. of noise in clouds) or of a quality in certain materials (e. g. of the shape characteristic of a house in bricks and timber) is always—to
state the matter abstractly (Aoyikés)—the ri jv etvax or definition of the union of substratum and dos, or of materials and anaety. But in some cases this definition expresses the final cause—e. g. a house is defined as a shelter for living things and goods (H. 10437 16, 33); other cases the definition expresses the efficient cause—e. g. thunder is a noise in clouds due to, i. e. produced by, the quenching of fire (Az. Post. 93 8, 94° 3). In other words the formal cause is not a distinct cause over and above the final or efficient, but is either of those when considered as forming the definition of the thing in question. Similarly in An. Post. ii. 11 the formal cause is identified with the efficient {94> 18-21) and even with the material (there treated as = the sum of the necessary conditions of a conclusion) (94* 34).
31-32. TO pev TorodTov aitvoy, the efficient cause ; Odtepoy 8¢, the final. It is when we are inquiring why has so-and-so come into being, or ceased to be, that we look for the apx7 xwyoews, the origin of the movement which brought the thing into being or destroyed it. On the other hand we may ask not only for what purpose has so-and-so come into being or ceased to be, but also for what purpose it exists.
It would be possible to take 76 pév rowtrov airy to refer to the final and efficient causes, @arepov 8€¢ to the formal, but the Greek does not so naturally suggest this.
83. The vulgate reading is wy KaraAAyAws. KaTdéAAnXos, karadAnAws are not found in the genuine works of Aristotle, and when they occur (in later Greek) they mean ‘ corresponding’, ‘ correspondingly’, which does not suit the sense here. ev rots pa) Kar’ dAAjAwY Aeyopévors gives the right sense, ‘where one term is not predicated of another’, For
224 Commentary
kar é\AjAwv = ‘ one of another’, not ‘ of one another ’, cf. ia’ dAAnAa, Cat. 1” 16,
by, The general line of\ thought in the chapter is as follows: Substance is a cause (#9). Therefore, if we can find out what in general is the cause of things, the answer to the question ‘ Why?’, we shall have found what substance is. -Now< Why?’ always means ‘Why is B A?’ We have therefore only to find the general nature of the answer to ¢zs question. In general it is a statement of form or essence. Form or essence, then, is substance.
It has been thought, therefore, that a reference here to the question ‘What is man?’ is irrelevant. Alexander interprets zi in this line as meaning dca.7/, which it cannot mean; Bz. with greater probability proposes to read dia zi, which occurs as a marginal reading in E (but has probably made its way there from Alexander’s commentary). It seems, however, that Aristotle’s meaning is as follows: The object of our search, the fact that it is the formal cawse we are looking for, is concealed when we use a simple expression, unanalysed into subject and attribute, like ‘man’. We then ask ‘ Whatis man?’ But if we analyse our question, we find that it means, ‘ By reason of what is this combination of bones, sinews, &c., a man?’ (61d. ri rade T08e). And the answer is, ‘Because it is informed by the form of man, the human soul’. Until we have performed such an analysis, our question ‘shares the character of a genuine and of a meaningless inquiry’ (Il. 3, 4); i.e, it is not yet clear whether we are asking a genuine question.