Q-I2. GAdws . . . dpwnevw. The construction of the sentence is hardly possible as it stands in the manuscripts, and it may be that after duvdmer kal évepyeca Something like ) brdpyerrd Suvdper Kal evepyeta May have dropped out ; perhaps, however, it is sufficient to insert 7 and treat the following datives as ethical datives used loosely as in the instances quoted in Bz. Jndex 166 26-38, viz. An. Pr. 4329, An. Post, 82> 21, De Resp. 476° 18, G. A. 75512. For a somewhat similar change of construction cf. A. 10248, 9.
15-17. A comparison ofthis with the previous sentence would suggest that the subject is 76 elvar duvder tavryv rhv évépyeav. ‘The infinite does not exist potentially in the sense that it will actually exist as an independent (or objective) entity, but in the sense that it exists poten~ tially for knowledge. For the potential existence of this actuality ensures that the process of division never comes to an end, but not that the infinite exists independently.’ 7d pa) trodetrew Thy dialpeow
would then answer to yrvaoet, 76 etvar Suvdper tavrny Thy évépyeiay to 70 dmetpov Svvdper Eotw, Td xwpiLerOar to ds evepyeia eodpevov yuwpiorov. But a comparison with Phys. 203» 23-25 dia yap 7d év TH vonoer pi trodetrew Kai 6 apiOyos Soxel azreipos elvan Kal Ta pabnparika peyeOn kat 70 €& Tov ovpavod Shows that 7d yy trodetrew THY Siaiperw is viewed as the given fact which yields one conclusion (dodidwor) but not another. Alexander is therefore right in taking 76 wy drodetrew tiv diaipecw as the subject of both clauses; apart from the previous sentence this gives rather a more natural meaning. In any case it seems better to read ro Sd xwpigerfor with Alexander than r¢ dé xwpilec$a. with the manuscripts. The sentence may be rendered thus: ‘ For the fact that the process of dividing never comes to an end ensures that this activity (the activity of dividing without end) always exists potentially, but not that the infinite exists as a finished given fact’,
18-35. This passage occurs in most of the manuscripts (including A>), and a paraphrase of it occurs in a good manuscript of Alexander (F). It is omitted by EJTT and Bessarion, and is very corrupt in the other manuscripts. But it contains sound Aristotelian doctrine and terminology, and is quite appropriate to the context, and there is no apparent motive for its introduction if it were spurious, so that on the whole it seems safe to treat it as genuine. The text has been vastly improved by Bz. On the distinction between kivyous and evepyeva proper cf. |. 8n., K. 1065» 14—10662 7 n.
18-21. éwet 8€ tOv mpdgewy . . . obx ott Tada mpaéis. mpaéis is first used in a general sense = xivnots, then in its stricter sense of xivnots tela.
18. dy Eat: mépas is best explained by eda dv ore raverOa, |. 26. Aristotle is speaking of actions Which have a limit set to them by the fact that they aim at an end other than themselves, with the attain- ment of which they come to a stop.
IQ. otov 16 icxvativey 4 icxvacia. The manuscript reading ofov rod isxvatvew 4 ioyvacia aito cannot stand. airé cannot be interpreted (as by Bz.) as réAos. Nor is it enough to excise atré (with Christ) as due to dittography ; for icyvacia is not the end of 76 icyvaivew but the same thing. It is named among the kwyoes drede’s in]. 29. The end of 10 icxvaivew is icyvorns or, more remotely, tyiea (A. 1013? 1, Phys.194” 36). I therefore follow Bywater’s suggestion and read ofov 70 ioxvaivew 7 icxvacia (sc. od TéAos eotly GAAG Tov TeEpl TO Tédos).
20. atta 8€ Otay ioxvaivy, ‘the parts of the body themselves, when one is reducing their bulk’. aird is curious, and some corruption may be suspected.
20-21. ottws...kivyots, ‘are in movement in this way, viz. not being already that for the sake of which the movement is’. The construc- tion of imdpyovra is very awkward, and perhaps we should with Fonseca read trapydvrwy. wv would drop out easily by homoioteleuton.
22, 23. Bz.’s emendation ékeivy 7, and his omission of 4, are neces- sary.
23. Bz. has emended this line successfully by the aid of De Sensu
254 Commentary
4462 xal ei Grav Gua dxover kal axyKoe Kal 6Aws aicGavera Kal noOnrat, and Soph. El. 178° 9 dp’ evdéxerat 76 adtd dua rovety Te Kal rerounKevat ; ov. GAG pay dpav yé Te apa Kal éwpaxévar TO adtd Kat Kata TadTo evoexerat.
The manuscripts give épa@ GANG Kal dpovel Kal vod Kal vevonxer. Bz, writes dpa dua xal édpaxe, Kal dpovel Kat redpdvyke, kal voet kal vevonker. Fonseca had already conjectured édpaxe for dpove?, but that is much less probable. Bywater, while accepting aya, thinks that the one per- fect tense vevonxey is enough and that the others are ‘understood’. But in the rest of the section Aristotle is careful to supply all the perfects ; and in so corrupt a passage we may allow a greater freedom of emendation than usual. I therefore follow Bz.
32, 33. It seems best to follow EJA? in reading kwetrat kal Kextvqtat
. . kwet Kal kekiynKey, and to put a comma after érepov. ‘It is not the case that a thing at the same time is being moved and has been moved; that which has been moved is different from that which is being moved, and that which has moved from that which is moving.’ érepov is easily understood as the subject of cue? kal Kexivnxev.
35. Tl té éote kat motor, cf. Z. ro4r®6n.
When ts one thing the potency of another ? (ch. 7).
1048 37. When does a thing exist potentially? Earth is not potentially a man till it has become seed, and perhaps not then, just as not everything is capable of being healed, but only the potentially healthy. .
1049? 5. (1) In artistic production one thing is said to be potentially another if (2) when the artist wishes, the actualization takes place if nothing external hinders, and if (4) nothing in the patient hinders ; that is potentially a house, in which there is nothing to prevent its becoming a house, and which needs no addition, subtraction, or change; and so in all cases where the source of the actualization is external.
13. (2) Where the source of the actualization is internal, one thing is potentially another if when nothing external hinders, the actualization takes place by the thing’s own nature. The seed is not yet potentially a man; for it must first fall into a certain material and be changed, as earth must become bronze in order to be potentially a statue.
18. When we say a thing is ‘of’ something else—as the casket is of wood or wooden, and the wood is earthen, and the earth is perhaps ‘of’ something else—that which it is ‘of’ is potentially (in the un- qualified sense) it; thus wood, not earth, is potentially a casket, is the matter of a casket.
24. If there is something that is not ‘of’ anything else, it is prime matter, not being a ‘this’. Subjects or substrata differ by being or not being ‘ thises’ ;
29. (1) what underlies accidental attributes like ‘ musical’ is a sub- stance like ‘man’ (and he is called not music but musical, as the casket is called wooden) ;
34. but (2) where the predicate is a form or ‘this’, the ultimate substratum is matter.
36. Itis natural that the ‘ of’ or derivative form should be used with reference both to matter and to accidental attributes, for both are indefinite.
Bz. argues that the insistence in this chapter on the fact that that which is potentially X is the sum of the proximate, not of the remote conditions of X, marks a difference between dvvapyis and vAy. vAn is primarily applicable to zmpurn vAn, the remote and absolutely un- formed matter ; dvvajus to the proximate conditions. This distinction does not, however, seem to be intended by Aristotle, for in his dis- cussion of matter he has similarly insisted on the importance of finding the proximate matter of a thing (H. 10441). dAy and dvvayis are constantly used without any trace of such a distinction (e. g. 1049* 23, 1o50°15, 627, A. 10712 10, N. 1088 1, 10g2* 3).
1049*2, dtov Hdyn yevytar omeppa. Aristotle is using omépya in what is for him its proper sense, that of the spermatozoon or male ele- ment in question, as opposed to ra. karapnyia, the ova or female element; for |, 14 70 oréppa ovzrw (det yap ev ddAw Czreveiv) Kai peraBdArdev) must refer to the entrance of the male element into the womb. But he is not taking account of his own view that the oé¢pya forms no part of the matter of the offspring but is its formal and efficient cause ; he writes as if he accepted the popular view which treated the male and female elements as uniting to form the matter of the offspring. He is merely illustrating a general principle; and in such cases he often -writes from the point of view of a common theory not his own. Cf. H.
1044) 17 n.
ob8€ téTe tows is explained in ll. 14, 15.
3-5. domep oby ... Suvduer. It would be possible to treat this as
the beginning of a long sentence, with the principal clause beginning (irregularly) with kal dowv $y in 1. 13. Aristotle would then be illus- trating natural production (II. 1-3, 13-17) by artificial (Il. 3-12). But awomrep ovv occurs several times elliptically without any principal verb, a principal clause like ovrws éye kai év rovrors being understood. Cf. B. r000%r n, It seems best to take it so here.
5-18. Aristotle first states the dpos in the case of artistic produc- tion, cf. 1. 12 dcwv ewbev 7% dpyn ths yevéeoews. Then in |. 13 he passes to natural products, kal dowy O17 év aitd tO exovTe (Sc. Ti yéveow), which are opposed to 76 dd diavoias. ‘The two types of pro-
256 Commentary
duction, natural and artificial, have already been indicated in Il, 1-3, 3-5. Aristotle is evidently trying to determine the conditions under which A may be said to be potentially B. In ar#ste production A, the matter, has to be acted on by C, the artist, before it can become B, the product. Thus the dpos in this case“is as.follows: A is potenti- ally B when, if C wishes it and nothing external hinders, A becomes B, and when, further, nothing in A hinders (Il. 5-8). This he illustrates in detail in the case of the question ‘ What is potentially a house?’ (Il. 8-11), and finishes by saying that the same formulation applies to all cases of artistic production (ll rr, 12). In ma/ural production there is no artist involved; nature is an dpyi kwycews év aitd 7 ard. Thus here the dpos is simply that A is potentially B when, if nothing external hinders, A will of itself become B (ll. 13, 14). Thus the male seed is not potentially a human being, for it has first to enter the womb and be transformed; but the «ina thus produced is potentially a human being.
Q. TovTw kat ty UAy. xa is clearly explicative.
10. For ovd€ where pde would be expected cf, I. 1053 18 n.
13. kat dow 8} év aitG TO exovte (sc. radra Suvdper A€yerar etvar), Goa KTA.
14-15. Set yap... peraBddder, Alexander says de? yap év dhAw.. weve Kal petaBadAew. meoeiv may be simply Alexander’s interpreta- tion, but it is difficult to suppose that some such verb can be ‘ under- stood’ with év d\Aw, and accordingly wecety or some similar word should be inserted in the text. Cf. ris pjrpas mpds 0 rime TO o7réppa, HT, A. 583° 22.
Alexander takes 76 oréppa to be the seed of plants, but from I]. 1-3 it appears that Aristotle has in view the male element in animal genera- tion.
18-22. Aristotle now proceeds to give a linguistic test of the poten- tial matter of a thing. If we say_y is a-en, x is the proximate matter of y. The parenthetical example otov ... éxeivwov disturbs the con- struction of the sentence, so that we get as subject éxeivo, which does not refer to the same thing as 6, and we have éorw instead of etvat.
1g. éxetvivov, cf Z. 1033% 5-23.
20-21. wddw...ékeivivov. The construction is loose but intelligible. ‘ Again, earth will illustrate our point if it is similarly not something else but o/something else (not x but «-e7),’