For the reduction of the question ‘What?’ to the question ‘ Why ?” cf. An. Post. 89> 39—90%1, 90% 14-21. But in that workit is only the definition of attributes that is reduced to the question ‘ Why do they occur ?’, whereas here the definition of man seems to be similarly reduced.
4. Set éxew, ‘one must know’. Cf. Bz. Zudex 305) 46.
5. Christ’s 81a ti 70 is a better emendation of dia ré than Bz.’s radi dua ti, and seems to answer better to Alexander’s interpretation (541. 31). Cf. @ ti éorw, |. 8.
Prof. Joachim thinks the manuscript reading may be retained and translated ‘why the matter is there—what it exists for’; and suggests alternatively 8:a 7¢ (rod¢).
5-7. ‘E.g. Why do these materials form a house? Because what it was to be a house (the essence of house) is present in them. Similarly this matter, or rather this matter having this form, is a man.’ It does not seem necessary to read di éxov with Bz. for todi éxov. The form of man is réde év 7@8e (1030 18), and the body can there- fore be said yew 7odé, to contain the form (cf. A. 1023* 11-13, 23-25).
7, 8. What Aristotle has been illustrating in lJ. 4-7 is not the cause of the matter but the reason why such and such matter constitutes such and such things. 70 airvov r#s VAns must therefore not be taken alone, but with 6 ri éorw, ‘the cause whereby the matter is some definite thing’. To get this result it is not necessary, with Christ, to regard TovTO. . . eloos aS Spurious; it is enough to treat it as parenthetical.
Se ES Te nse Te Seiy
44.1. Pe pe at
SH L.1i >
Z. 17. 1041 1-31 aL MARY
Q-10. pavepoy... torovTwy. Since ‘ Why?’ always means ‘ Why is B A?’, we cannot ask the question ‘ Why A is’ if A is a pure form, not a complex of form and matter ; such entities must be understood in some other way, sc. by that intuition which is ‘like touching’. For this cf. ®. 10512 17—10522 4 nn., De An. 430% 26, > 26-31.
10. €repos tpdmos tis Lythoews, ‘another method of inquiry than what is usually understood by the term’.
11-27. In this sentence not even the clause beginning with éze/ is ever completed; the parenthesis 7 d¢ cvAAaBy xrA. is so long that the original construction is quite forgotten.
17. For the description of the syllable as érepdv 1 apart from the etters cf. Pl. Zheac/. 203 E.
19-25. ei Tolvuy ...auddaPis. ‘ Let us suppose that this principle ofunion must be either an element or a complex of elements. If it is the first, this leads to an infinite regress (ll. 20-22), and so too if it is the second (Il. 22-25). Therefore it is neither.’
22. For ék orovxetou (singular) cf. H. 1043) 12.
"23. 4 exetvo atts eorar, ‘ or else (if it were composed of only one) that one would be the thing itself’. For 7 = ef d¢ un cf. Z. NV. 1170? 17, ®, 1050 14 (?).
29. doar odcia (cici), kata diow Kat pice. cuveotjxacr, For Aristotle’s tendency to restrict sensible substance to natural as opposed to artificial things cf. H. 1043%4, >21. On the other side ch A. 1070%5, The reason for the restriction is that art does not make new substances but merely imposes new qualities, quantities, &c., on sub- stances. The statue retains the substantial or essential nature of wood,
“house, &c. And gwa wooden it is a atural substance ; it is only gua having such and such a shape that it is artificial, and in this respect it is not a substance.
30. [kat] atrn if pvos. AP reads dm, EJT rox, both of which are impossible. Probably 6m is an emblema due to Alexander’s para- phrase davepov dru, and tir and kai are attempts to emend oz.
30-381. atty 7 pats... i oti ob aTorxelov GAN apxi, i.e. the pvaus described not in A. 1014 27 but inib. 36, that which is not matter but form, For the difference between orovxetov and dpxy cf. A. T, 3.
2578-2 wrens iG )
226 Commentary
Book H
Sensible substances ; matter (ch. 1).
1042° 3. We proceed to sum up what-has~been said and to bring our inquiry to its conclusion. We have said that (1) the causes of substances are the object of our search.
6. (2) Some substances are generally recognized, i. e. the physical, viz. the elements, plants and animals and their parts, the physical universe and its parts; while certain thinkers treat the Forms and the objects of mathematics as substances.
12. (3) Other substances are established by argument—the essence, the substratum, the genus, the universal; with the two latter are con- nected the Ideas.
17. (4) Since the essence is substance, we had to discuss definition and therefore also what parts are parts of the substance, and whether these are also parts of the definition.
21. (5) Neither the universal nor the genus is substance; the Ideas and the objects of mathematics must be considered later.
24. We must now discuss the acknowledged substances, viz. those that are sensible, all of which have matter. The substratum is substance, and this is (1) in one sense the matter (which is potentially a ‘ this’), (2) in another the definition or shape (which is a ‘this’ and is separ- able in definition), (3) in another the union of these, which alone is subject to generation and destruction and is separable in the full sense (while only some of the substances in the sense of definable essences are separable).
32. Of these three, even (1) master is substance, for in all change there is something that underlies the change, whether it be change of place, of size, of quality, or in respect of substance (generation and destruction).
» 3. The last kind of change involves all the others, but either one or two of the others do not involve it ; a thing need not have matter for generation and destruction if it has the matter or potentiality for local change.
The chapter opens with a summary of the contents of Book Z. 1042* 4-6 refers, roughly, to Z. 1,
4) LEHR Ok, ¥ » 3. 10282 33-36,
” 18-21 » ”» ” Io, Il,
ee teeet pies i » 13, 16. 1040 16—1041° 5,
It is noteworthy that the summary makes no reference to Z. 4-9, which we have already seen reason to regard as not belonging to the original plan of Z. The doctrine of those chapters is, however, referred to below in I. 30.
1042° 3. cuddoyicaca. seems to have its original meaning of ‘reckoning up’. ‘ We must reckon up the results of what has been said and compute the sum of them.’ Cf. £. V. 1101934 ovddoyt- OTéov Kal TAa’THY THY Siaopay.
8. téd\da ta GwAA odpata, cf. A. rorzPr1, Z. ro2z8P11. What simple bodies other than the four elements can Aristotle mean? The answer is given by De Caelo 268» 27 deyw 8 ardG . . . ofoy wip Kal yhv kal Ta TovTwy €ldn Kal TA ovyyevy TovTos. I.e. rédda is the various species of fire, air, water, and earth (ra ovyyevq rovros = air and water, cf. Meteor. 339% 28).
10. 6 odpavéds, ‘the physical universe’, as in Z. 1028) 12.
21. Christ is right in dispensing with the comma after ratra. ratra = Ta THs ovotas pépy.
Christ’s emendation of ét to éor is unnecessary. For ér rodvuy cf. A. 1071» 20,
23. Uotepov oxeTTéov, in MN.
28. dddws 8 6 Adyos Kal } popdy, cf. Z. 10297 2 n.
29. For the description of form as 1é8e tu cf. A. r017? 25 n.
BO. 06 yéveots pdvou kat plopd éott, cf. Z. 8,
Zl. at pev at 8 ot. The only form that is ywpiorov dAds is vods. Cf. A. 7, 9, De An. 413” 24, 4295, 430% 22. Reason exists in God, in the spirits of the spheres, and in man.
32-3. Aristotle’s classification of change into four kinds is partly anticipated in Zheae¢. 181 D, where Plato distinguishes aAAotwois and ops.
b 2-3. viv pev...otépnow. vov pev refers to the time when a sub- stance is being destroyed, raAw dé to the time when it is being pro- duced. What underlies or undergoes destruction is matter qualified by a positive form, i.e. a rode 713 what underlies generation is matter qualified by a privation.
4. 7 pra % Suoiv,- Aristotle leaves it open whether vAy adAXowry, as well as vAn romixy, does not imply tAn yervyry; in @, 1050) 17 he says definitely that it does not. His words here suggest that vAn avéynryn implies tAy yevvyry, and this is confirmed by De Gen. ef Corr. i. 5 (e.g. 32276, 7). On the relations between the various tla cf. Z. 1036* gn,
5-6. ob yap ... éxew. The stars have vAn tomy but not try yevvnTy, 1044” 7, A. 1069? 26.
6. HAnv...tomuxyy. The phrase is a hapax legomenon in Aristotle, but cf, An xard rérov KwyTH, 10447, vAy wobev moi, A. 1069) 26,
HAnv ... yervytyy, not matter that can be generated (matter is eternal) but matter which can take on a new substantial form.
7. 76 pay drdGs yiyveoOa is applicable to the three kinds of change other than generation or destruction, viz. dopa, avénas, adAotwors,
228 Commentary
in which a thing does not come to be, simply, but changes its place, size, or quality. The distinction in De Gen. ef Corr. i. 3 between émhh yéveors and yévecis 71s within the category of substance does not seem to be in Aristotle’s mind here.
8. é&v tois puatkois eipntar, Phys. 225%12-20, De Gen. ef Corr. 317217-31. For the citation of other works than the PAyszcs under the title 7a dvoid cf. Bz. Index 102° g.
Form or Actua.ity (chs. 2, 3).
The various types of differentia or constitutive form (ch. 2).
10429. Since substance as matter, i.e. the substance that is sub- stance potentially, is generally recognized, we next (2) discuss the substance, as acfuality, of sensible things. Democritus seems to think there are three differentiae—shape, position, order.
15. But there are many; things are characterized by composition (e.g. by being mixed), by being tied, glued, nailed; by position, time, place; by the sensible qualities such as hardness and softness, some by some, some by all of these, and in general by excess and defect.
25. ‘Is’ must therefore have just as many meanings; for a threshold ‘being’ means being so situated, for ice it means being so solidified ; the being of some things, e.g. a hand, will be defined by all these characteristics.
gi. We must grasp the kinds of differentia, for they will be prin- ciples of being; e.g. excess and defect, straightness and crookedness, mixture.
1043% 2. Since substance is the cause of a thing’s being, it will depend on these differentiae what kind of being the thing in question has. None of them is substance even when coupled with matter, yet they are analogous to substance; as in the definition of substances what is predicated of the matter is the actuality, in other definitions it is what most resembles actuality.
7. E.g. to define ‘threshold’ we say ‘wood or stone in such a position’ (adding sometimes the final cause).
12. To different matter there answers a different actuality or defini- tion—composition, mixture, &c. / Those who define a house as ‘ stones, bricks, and timbers’ are stating the potential house; those who say ‘a covering for animals and goods’ state the actuality; those who combine both statements give the concrete substance,
21. Of the last kind were the definitions approved by Archytas, e “still weather is absence of motion in a large extent of air’.
26. Sensible substance, then, is (1) matter, (2) form and actuality, (3) the union of the two.
1042" 11-35, cf. A. 985° 13-19 nn.
16. It is curious to find xpaois treated as a Kind of cvvéecis. Elsewhere the two are opposed as one might oppose chemical com- bination to mechanical composition (De Gen. ef Corr. 328°8, N. rog2® 24, 26, and cf. 1042 29 n. with 1043213). But cf. De An. 407° 30 hv dpmoviar xpaow xal ovvOeow evartiov civa. ovvOecrs May in fact be used as the genus including xp@ovs, though usually it means & species opposed to it.
24. TA per eviots ToUTwr Ta SE wact ToUTos. A// physical bodies are characterized, according to Aristotle, by dryness or wetness (which form one of the xpérat évartiéryres), and presumably also by density or rarity. Every piomévoy copa, i.e. every aciwal sensible body as dis- tinguished from the pure elements, is characterized as well by hardness or softness (Meeor. 382° 8).
kat GAws TA wey drepoxA Ta SE eAAeiWer. This applies only to ra rois rar aicPyray wabeow (1. 21).
27. We should perhaps read xpvordAAw with one manuscript of Alexander, but xpderadXor is not impossible.