‘Diodorus Cronus (cf. 1046>29n.) dvvare advvatov py akodovbeiv. A comparison of 1047» 9. with the phrase in the Kupuevwv, duvarov “elvae 0 ovr eotw ddrnGes OUT éorou Suggests that Diodorus was borrow- ing Aristotle’s language.
There is, however, no absolute need to depart from the well- attested reading given in the~ text, which derives some support from An. Pr. 32% 24 yrow tava, éorw 7 dxoXovbel ddAHAats.
5. dote ... Siapedyew. ‘So that the things that are incapable of being would on this showing escape us.’ If we can truly say a thing is possible but will never be, anything may at this rate be possible and there will be nothing impossible.
248 Commentary
10. Tov Keipevwv, What we have laid down in 4 24-26, » 3.
II. cupByoetar S€ ye, sc. ddvvardv TL.
14-26. The same point is proved in a not dissimilar way in Az. Pr, 34° 5-12,
15. The reading of EJA?, 8uvarod dvtos-etvoar tod A, clearly ought to be restored here. =
1g. 7d S€ ye B dvd-yxn etvar krd., ‘but ex hypothesi (cf. Il. 14, 15) if A is, B must be. But it was assumed, on the view we are attacking, that though A was possible B might be impossible’,
21. dvdyxy is an emblema from I, 20.
kal 75 A etvat, sc. advvaror.
24. obtws éxdvtwv tav AB, ‘A and B being so related (as they have been shown to be) that if the reality of A implies the reality of B, the possibility of A implies the possibility of B’,
25. otitws, sc. if A is possible.
26. as éré@y, i.e. so related that the reality of A does imply the reality of B,
How potency is acquired, and actualized (ch. 5).
1047 gi. The potencies that come by practice or learning are acquired by previous exercise ; those that are innate or are passive are net.
35. Irrational potencies must result in action and being acted on when the agent and the patient meet in the way appropriate to their potency.
104887. Rational potencies need not so result; since they are potencies for contrary results, if they were actualized necessarily they would produce contrary results at the same time, which is impossible. There must be something else that determines which result is to take place; this will be desire or will. Whichever action the agent decisively desires, that it will do, when it meets the patient in the appropriate way.
15. Its potency is conditional on the patient’s being present and in a certain state. (We need not add ‘and on the absence of external hindrance’; that is implied by the positive conditions of the potency.)
21. The possibility of doing contraries at the same time is excluded, even if one simultaneously wants to do them both.
1047 gr. Aristotle begins the chapter with a threefold classifica- tion of dvvdeis, into those that are inborn, those acquired by habit, and those acquired by learning, The latter two are then (1. 34) coupled together and opposed to the first, Aristotle then (1048 2)
reverts to the distinction stated in ch, 2 (chs, 3 and 4 on the Megarian heresy have been something of a digression) between rational and irrational powers, It is clear that he means to identify the inborn powers with the irrational and to include éca: et as well as doa Adyw under the rational, This implies that éos includes a certain amount of Aoyos, or the possession of a plan of action, as indeed it does, whether it be a comparatively mechanical dexterity such as that of rd avdeiy (1. 32) or a moral character (Z. J, ii, 1) that is being acquired by habituation.
33- Tas pev dvdykn mpoevepynoavtas exew. This apparent paradox is explained in £.V, 1105? 17-18. (1) To become ‘ypapparuxds you must have done ypapatixoy 7, but you need not have done it ypappartikds, i.e. with knowledge. (2) In the moral sphere there is a still greater difference between the activity that precedes the ééis and that which flows from it, In the laiter the agent must act (a) with know- ledge, (4) choosing the action, and. for its own sake, (c) being in a firm and unchangeable condition of mind. The activities which establish the eéis have not any of these characteristics. Aristotle does not, however, show how actions done in ignorance and not from the right motive can establish a ééis of acting with knowledge and from the right motive ; he simply takes it from common experience that they do, A more abstract explanation of the paradox is given in 1049>35—1050# 2. It is characteristic of all yéveous that of what is coming into being some part must have already come to be. Therefore he who is learning must already have some of the knowledge in question ; knowledge expands out of given knowledge.
34. Tas S€ py Toravtas kat tds él tod mdoxew, Alexander has tas 8 dvev oyou duvdpers eire Tod evepyeiv cite Kal Tod wacxeww, and Bz. conjectures that Alexander had a different reading from that in our text. . But his words seem to be a paraphrase. ras avev Adyov duva- pets Tod evepyety is a paraphrase of ras px rovavras and refers to inborn irrational active powers, like the senses, already referred to in ]. 32. ras avev Adyou dvvapes ToD macxew is a paraphrase of tas ext Tod macxewv and refers to inborn irrational passive powers like (to take Alexander’s exampie) the power of wood to be cut. «ai is not, as might be supposed, epexegetic, for the senses are not, in Aristotle’s view, purely passive.
35. Tas em rod mdcxew. Cf. A. rorg* 26n.
1048 g. dote Ga mouoe Ta evaytia, sc. if the power must neces- sarily act whenever agent and patient meet.
16. movety is clearly an emblema from 1. 15.
16-21. Td yop... eva is parenthetical; 910 ovd |. 21 connects with os exer |. 14.
20. It seems better to take taéra (with Alexander) as object rather than (with Bz.) as subject of dpa:petraz. With the latter interpretation daipotr’ av would be rather more natural than ddaipetrau.
24, oUTws, sc. ds eore SVvapus.
250 Commentary
Acruatity (chs. 6-9).
Actuality distinguished from potency and from motion (ch. 6). 1048225. We now pass fromthe potency relative to movement, to actuality ; we shall at the same time discover another kind of potency, which has really been the object of our search.
go. Actuality means the presence of a thing not potentially like that of the Hermes in the block of wood, or of the half-line in the whole, or of knowledge in the man who is not contemplating truth.
35. Our meaning can be seen by induction and analogy; definition must not be always demanded. Actuality is to potency as the waking to the sleeping, &c.
»6. It is related either as movement to potency or as substance to matter.
g. Potency and actuality are different in the case of the infinite, the void, and similar entities from what they are in the case of the seeing, the walking, &c. The infinite does not exist potentially in the sense that it will ever actually have separate existence; it exists potentially only for knowledge. The fact that division does not cease implies that the activity of division exists potentially, but not that the infinite exists separately.
18. Since all actions which have a limit are means, not ends, they are not really actions, or not complete ones; that in which the end is present is an action.
2g. Thus at the same time one is seeing and has seen, is thinking and has thought, is knowing and has known, but it is not true that one at the same time is learning and has learnt, is being cured and has been cured.
28. The latter are movements, the former activities or actualities, Every movement is incomplete.
35. We have now explained the nature of actuality.
1048? 26, ecipytat, sc. in chs. 1-5.
26-27. ti té €or .. . kat moidy tt, cf. Z, 104126 n.
29. 7) GwAGs H TpdToy Tid, i.e. whether we admit all cases of move- - ment or restrict power to cases of movement towards the better (A. 1019* 22) or of good or successful movement (1019 23, 10467 17).
35. To S€ evepyeia. This, the reading of most manuscripts, is a highly elliptical expression for ‘ the opposite implied in each of these
Finding none of these suggestions thoroughly convincing, I have preferred to keep the vulgate reading 16 8 évepyeia, which by no means goes beyond the limits of Aristotle’s love of compression. Cf. for example De Gen. ef Corr. 319” 33 drav dé pydev bropevyn ov Oarepov mdos 7) cvpBeBnKds ddruws, yéeveois, TO Sé POopd.
36. ob Set mavtds Gpoy {ytetv. A science should at the outset define allits terms (Az. Post. 76" 32), but the same is not true of philosophy. For definition must be by genus and differentia, but philosophy deals with terms that are not included within any one genus but are common to all being as such. Potency or actuality, like being, unity, and good, is one only kar’ dvaAoyiav, and we must be content to grasp the analogy and see the nature of the universal term by studying the instances of it. It is beside the mark to criticize Aristotle for not succeeding in defining terms like potentiality and actuality, or for bringing out the nature of each by referring to the other.
b4. ds todro év TodTw answers tO as otcia mpds Twa vAnV |. 9; as ToUTo ... Tpds TodTO tO ws Kivnots Tpds dvvapw.
8, Ta pev yap ds Kivnois mpds Sdvapiv. At one time Aristotle in- cludes évépyea in xivnows (het. 1412%9); at another he includes kivnois in évépyera (Phys. 201 31, De An. 4316, LE. NV. 1154? 27); at another he speaks of the two as mutually exclusive (1048? 28). xivyous is said to be an éevepyeia but dredjs (Phys. 201» 31), or to differ from evépyeia because it is dreAns (104829). The variations of language need not disturb us. «ivyows and évépyeia are species of something wider for which Aristotle has no name, and for which he uses now the name of one species, now that of the other. The difference is brought out as well in ll. 18-35 as anywhere in Aristotle. To the test of an évepyela, aS against a xivnows which he there offers, viz. that of an activity we may say that we are doing it and have done it at the same time, he adds in the £7Azcs another, that we cannot be said éevepyeiv quickly or slowly, though we may be quick or slow in passing into the state of évépye (11732). Cf. also K. 1065>14—1066%7, 10663 17-26 and notes.
252 Commentary
g-17. On the infinite cf. PAys. iii, 4-8, esp. 6-8, on the void Phys. iv. 6-9.
Aristotle’s views about the infinite are briefly as follows: Exten- sion is not infinite except in the sense that it is inexhaustible, and it is not inexhaustible except in the sense that it is. inexhaustible by one particular method, that of division. If you take half of it, then a fourth,
: I : I ‘ :
and so on, or in general —of it, then — of it, and so on, you will never
4 n
exhaust it. But the same can be said of any finite part of space. If
y wiigh
on the other hand you take — of the whole of space, then ~ again; and
a n
so on, you wz// exhaust it if you go on long enough. Space is thus dreipov Kata diaipecw but not xara mpdoobecw, infinitely divisible but not infinite (206 7-13). Number on the other hand is deipov xara apooGeow—not in the sense that an infinite number exists actually, but in the sense that a number larger than any hitherto thought of can be thought of; but it is not drepov xara Siaipeow, for in dividing it we come ultimately to the unit, which limits number in the downward direction. And its infinity does not persist but is always coming into being. Time is infinite both card diacpeow and card tpdcGecw, both infinitely divisible and infinite. But its infinity, like that of number, does not persist but is always coming to be.
Aristotle does not in the PAysics explicitly make out any parallelism between the infinite and the void: But his doctrine about the void (Phys. 217% 21—» 28) is akin to his doctrine about the infinite ; it is that though we can suppose matter rarer than any assigned matter, there is no space in which there is no matter at all. Cf. his conception of the dense and rare as stated in De Gen. ef Corr. 326” 31—327°1 (taken with what precedes). There are no atoms and interspaces, no pores, only a stuff varying intensively. Aristotle’s view of matter in this re- spect has been compared by Prof. Joachim (ed. of De Gen. ef Corr. 124) to Kant’s view of ‘ das Reale’ in the ‘ Anticipations of Perception’.