22-24, A thing which has a rational power can produce the con- traries of the two results which two things having irrational powers respectively produce. Wholesome food produces only health, un- wholesome food only disease ; a doctor can produce both. ots dvev Adyov dvvarois is, however, rather pointless, and may be a mistaken gloss on ravavria.
Potency defended against attack (ch, 3).
1046» 29. There are some who say, as the Megaric school does, that there is potency only when there is actuality. This leads to manifest paradoxes :
33. (1) A man will not be a builder if he is not building, for to be a builder is to be able to build. Now if one cannot have an art with- out having learnt it, or, later, be without it without having lost it (i.e. by forgetfulness, disease, or lapse of time, for the odjecf of art cannot be destroyed), are we to suppose that the moment he stops building he has lost the art; if, then, he starts building again immediately, how will he have recovered the art?
1047* 4. Again, nothing will be cold or hot when it is not being perceived (so that they are really maintaining the theory of Protagoras), nor will anything have perception if it is not perceiving; people will be blind and deaf many times a day.
10. (2) That which is not happening will be incapable of happening, and then we must never say that it will be, so that change is done away with ; what stands will always stand, what sits will always sit.
17. To avoid these consequences we must distinguish potency and actuality.
24. A thing is ‘capable’ of something if there is nothing impossible in its having the actuality of that of which it is said to have the potency.
30. The word ‘actuality’, which we connect with ‘ complete reality ’, refers originally to movement; hence we do not ascribe movement to non-existent things, though we assign to them predicates like ‘ think- able’ because they will sometime actually exist.
Rz
244 Commentary
Chapter 3 defends the notion of the possible in distinction from the actual ; chapter 4 defends the notion of the impossible.
1046 a9. ofov ot Meyapixot, Apart from this passage we have no information about Megaric views on possibility earlier than those of Diodorus Cronus (ob. 307 B. c.).
Diodorus in his famous xvptevor. Adyos used the principles that ‘everything that is past is necessarily true ‘(an Aristotelian dictum, E.N. 1139» 4-9, Rhet. 1418* 3-5) and that ‘on what is possible nothing impoattle follows’ (the criterion of the possible stated in this chapter, 10472 24-26) to disprove a third principle ‘ that may be pos- sible which neither is nor will be true’ and to prove instead that ‘nothing is possible which neither is nor will be true’. In this he gives up (presumably in view of Aristotle’s arguments in this chapter, the original Megarian position that ‘nothing is possible which zs not true’, Maier maintains (Archiv f. Gesch. d. Phil. xiii. 31) that Diodorus’ own position is directed against Aristotle’s statement (10478) otf Kove dvvardv tr dv elvan yevéoOar py etvar pyd éceoOar. Butthis cannot beso, These words are not Aristotle’s own statement but occur in his account of his adversary’s position. His own statement is the direct opposite and is identical with that of Diodorus—oix évdéxerar aAnbes eivar 76 elzreiy Ori Suvarov pev Todt, OdK éorat 5é (1047 4). Diodorus, with Aristotle, must have been attacking thinkers who interpreted the possible so widely that the impossible disappeared (1047) 5).
On Diodorus cf. also Ritter and Preller § 295, Zeller ii 1. 269.
The Megarian paradox was probably reached by a very simple piece of reasoning, natural for followers of Parmenides, ‘ A thing is what it is, and therefore cannot be-what-it-is-not’. The answer is equally simple. A thing cannot be what it is not, but it can become what it is not now. ‘Can’ refers always to the future, and it is no contradiction to say that what a thing is not now it can be in the future. ‘Can’ means that some of the conditions of the event are now present, and that if certain others are added the event will take piace
Aristotle’s answer, however, is more elaborate. His method is to point out the disastrous consequences of the Megarian doctrine.
34. For ot7’ answered by épotws 8€ cf. De An. 4rob £8, 2%.
1047* 2. 700 ... mpdyporos must be the form which is the object of the art in question, not as Alexander thinks the matter of the art; e.g. the form of house, not the stones of which it is made.
3-4. Stov... AaBdv; The question is contained in ras AaBav ; it is not necessary to supply was before érav as Bz. suggests.
6. tov Npwraydpou Aeyov, cf. T. 5, 6.
Q. kal ér dv, which has been suspected, is undoubtedly right. Cf, An. Post. 74? 32 eri el tis pH olde viv éxwv Tov Adyor Kat coldpevos, owlopevov TOU Tpdypyaros, pn ertdeAnopeévos, ovde mpoTEpoyv moet (a reminiscence of Pl. Theaet. 163 D).
10. kal kwot is, of course, an afterthought ; the words need not be
suspected, as they are by Bz, For a similar afterthought cf Z. 1028 16 n.
10-29. In this whole section Aristotle passes from the word dvva- cat to the more colourless word dwvardv. He is using the notion of potentiality, not that of power, and thus confusing the two senses of dvvayus which he proposed to keep distinct. Cf. 1045 35—10464 4n.
11. The reading of AP and Al., ytyvouevov, accords better than the vulgate yevdjevoy with the principle dray evepyy povoy dvvacbau
1g. todto, that which neither is nor will be,
23-24. kat pi... Badtlew, The manuscript reading must be wrong, since it says the same as has already been said in duvarov BadiZew ov pn Badiew. The reading adopted is that proposed by Prof. Joachim. The other emendations which involve less change are in themselves less natural. Once Badiew got corrupted into BadiZorv, the corruption of dv into efva: would naturally follow.
24-26. Considered as a definition of duvardv, this statement would evidently be circular and therefore worthless. But it does not claim to be a definition. It only amounts to saying that before you can pro- nounce anything to be possible, you should satisfy yourself that none of its consequences is impossible. It is a criterion for the determina- tion of possibility in doubtful cases.
26. Suvatoy Kabijcbat Kai evdéxetor KabjoOa, Maier rightly points out (Syl. d. Ar. i, 194) that Waitz’s distinction between dvvarev and evdexduevov as indicating respectively physical and logical possibility is inconsistent with the objectivity of Aristotle’s thought. Aristotle gives the same criterion of the évdeyduevoy in An. Pr. 32° 18, Phys. 2431, as he here gives for the duvardv, and in such passages as An. Pr. 19% 10, 13, 15, 21, An. Post. 74» 38 the two words are used as synonyms, The only difference is that duvardv brings out more clearly than évdeyxo- pevov that the possibility is rooted in a real dvvayis; the passages cited by Waitz as indicating a difference between the two notions (@. 10472 20, 1049 13, 105013, N. 108819, An. Pr. 3158, De Caelo 274» 13, G. A. 736» 7) imply no more difference than this.
30. 7 mpds Thy evtehexeray ouvTiBepévy. From 10504 22 rovvoja évep- yeva Aeyerat Kata 7O Epyov Kal-cuvTeiver mpos THY évTehéxevay, it Appears that strictly speaking évépyeva means activity or actualization while évre- A€xeva means the resulting actuality or perfection. Yet évépyea is not a movement towards something other than itself; this is the difference between it and xivyous. For the most part Aristotle uses the words as exact synonyms, Cf. Bz. dndex 253°46—254%12. Yet in A. 6, 7, where God is viewed as the prime mover of the universe, He is called évepyeta, activity, but in 8. 10747 36, where the immateriality and per- fection of His being is insisted on, He is described as évreA€xera,
One would expect évredéyea to be derived from an adjective évredexys, AS vovvéexea is from vovvexys. But the existence of the word évredexys in the time of Aristotle is doubtful. In Pl. Legg. 905 £3 the manuscripts read évreAeyds, but Stobaeus gives évdeArcxas, which suits the context much better. In De Gen, ef Corr. 336% 17,
246 Commentary
b 32 évredexds, evredexn, though read by some manuscripts, give no suitable sense. In Theophr.,C. P. ii. 11. 10, Vv. I. 10 evredexes iS unsuitable and Wimmer reads evdedexés. evtehexys Seems to occur first in Philo 2. 587 Mangey. Hirzel, in Rhezn. Mus. 1884. 169- 208, put forward the view that Aristotle-in_one of his dialogues ascribed to the soul, as Plato had done, évdeAdyeva, continuous move- ment, and that he later invented the word évreAéyeca by a modification of évdedéxeua in order to express the change in his view about the soul. Diels, in Zestschr. fiir Vergl. Philol. x\vii. 200-3, success- fully controverts this view, and shows that évreAeyys is a correctly formed equivalent to 76 évreAés eXwv, ‘having perfection’. evredys, though not found at all in Plato, and only once in Aristotle, is not uncommon in Greek of the period. It is not necessary to suppose, as Diels seems to do, that the word évreAexys existed in Aristotle’s time ; he may have formed the abstract noun directly from ro évredés €xov or possibly from évreAGs éxov. The only other compound of évredys seems to be évreAdpuc bos, | Dem.] 1212. 12, ‘receiving pay in full’.
gl. ouvTiWenevn. Diels feels a difficulty about the word, and pro- poses ovvrewopevy, Citing 1050? 23 asa parallel. But it is only in the active voice that Aristotle uses ovrreivew in this sense. ovvrieuevn implies that Aristotle was in the habit of connecting the words évépyeva and évreAéxeva together in his lectures, and such phrases as «is ravrov Baoiréa Kat ripavvov ovveGewev (Pl. Polit. 2768, cf. 259d) form a close enough parallel.
kal émt 74 GAAa. The adda are not as Alexander says ra rexvyrd, for évépyeva has no original reference to natural as opposed to artistic activities. In fact Sivapus, with which it is correlative, is apy) pera- Bodns év dry } GAXo (1046%11), which means art rather than nature. émt ra dAAa refers to the non-kinetic meaning of evep- Eto, which is best expressed i in the sentence deyerau évepyeia . . . Ta pe ds Kivyous mpos Sivapw 74 8 ds odaia mpds twa Ernv 1048b 6-9 ; évépyea, in this sense is not movement as opposed to the power to pro- duce movement, but actuality as opposed to potentiality. Cf 2. V. II 54b 27 évépyeua akwyotas.
32. Soxel, ‘is commonly thought’. Aristotle’s own view is that the divine évépye.a dxurnoias is evepyeva. in the truest sense,
34. KaTnyopias, ‘ predicates °, not ‘ categories’,
ToOTo dé... EvovTat évepyeiq, We refuse to say that they are
moved, because they do not exist actually; we say that they are
objects of thought or desire, because they zez// exist actually.
Possibility further considered (ch. 4).
10473. It cannot be true to say ‘this is capable of being but will not be’ (this would imply that nothing is incapable of being). .g. For it follows from our definition that if we suppose that to
be which is not but is capable of being, nothing impossible is in- volved. On the view we are attacking something impossible zs involved. ‘The impossible is not the same as the false.
14. It is also clear that if, supposing A is, B must be, then if A is possible, B must be possible; for otherwise there is nothing to prevent its being impossible. Let A be possible. Then (we agreed) nothing impossible is involved in supposing A actually to be; but if so, B must be. But (cf. 1. 17) it was supposed impossible. Let it, then, be impossible. If, then, B is impossible, A is impossible. But B was supposed impossible, therefore A is so.
If A is possible, then, B must be possible, if they were so related that if A is, B must be.
26. And if, supposing A is possible, B must be possible, then if A is, B must be.
1047 3. The traditional text <i 8 éori 7d cipyyévoy duvarov 7 axoAovOec can only mean ‘if what we have described is possible in so far as the two things are convertible’ (with 7 dxoAov#et may be compared 7 érera An. ‘Post. 73? 22); ; it is quite impossible to under- stand, as Alexander and Bz. do, 76 evepyjoa as the subject of dxodov- Oe. There is much to be said for Zeller’s ei 8 éori, 76 cipnuévov, duvarov {@ ddvvatov) pa) dkoArov0el. & advvarov jut) dxoAovbe? would be a good summary of 76 eipnyevoy, i.e. of the criterion of dvvarov given in ® 24. (Alternatively we might omit Zeller’s commas and interpret ‘ assuming that the dvvardy about which we have been speaking is that’, &c.) This reading derives some support from the phrase in the Kupredwv of