36. ev tots wept Kwyoews. For this asa mode of reference to the last half of the Physzcs, cf. De Caelo 272° 30, 275 21, 299% 10, De Gen. et Corr. 318% 3, De Sensu 44519. The particular reference here is to vi. 6. The proof there is as follows: ‘That which moves must move in every part of the time which is the immediate or proper time of the movement. For if it moved only in some part of the time, that part would be the immediate or proper time of the move- ment. Now if a thing has moved a certain distance in a certain time, a thing which began to move at the same time and moved at the same speed must have moved half the distance in half the time. ‘Therefore the original thing must have moved half the distance in half the time. There- fore that which is moving must have moved. Further (an alternative proof, 237% 3-11) it must have moved in each part of the time during which it has been moving. Therefore, since time is infinitely divisible, everything that is changing must have undergone an infinite number of changes. Further (an alternative proof, 2374 11-17) that which changes continuously must either change or have changed év érwodv (237214: one must not say ‘in each part of the time’, for the moment, which Aristotle proceeds to speak about, is not a part but a section (roy) of the time). Now it cannot change ina moment. Therefore it must have changed at each moment, and must therefore have undergone an infinite number of changes, sincé there is an infinite number of moments in anytime’. So far Aristotle has said that the thing which is moving must have moved, not, what he says in the present passage, that a part of it must have moved. But he goes on to draw this distinction in the case of yéveois, though not of kivyows generally (237>11; the passage 2372 17— 9 may be omitted). ‘A house which is coming into being has not already come into being; but its foundations have.’ The distinction drawn in the Physics seems to be due to an am- biguity in the word yéyove. It would be absurd to say that what is coming into being must have come into being; and Aristotle there- fore contents himself with saying that a part of it must have come into being. But what really answers to the phrase ‘what is moving must have moved’ is ‘what is coming into being must have Jdcen coming into being’ (for ‘has come into being’ implies a completion
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which ‘has moved’ does not), and here no distinction between part and whole need be introduced. Aristotle in the present passage unnecessarily introduces in the case of movement the distinction which in the Physics is drawn only in the case of becoming.
Aristotle’s application here of the thesis established in the Physics is as follows: It will follow that if an émurrypn is coming into being, part of it must have already come into being. Thus the sophistical objection, that if the Suvames pera Adyou are acquired by évépyea a man who has not yet acquired an art must yet be supposed capable of acting artistically, is met by the answer that he has the art to some extent. In other words the faculty is not produced by actuality but transformed into actuality by it. This brings the fact in question under the general principle é« rod duvdme dvros ylyverae 76 evepyela. Ov bd évepyeia dvros (1. 24), but it really gives up what Aris- totle is trying to prove, that actuality precedes potentiality in time. There is the same confusion which we have observed in the note on Il. 24-25.
1050* 4-b 2. What Aristotle tries to prove in this section is that actuality is prior to potentiality in substance, i.e. is more real or more substantial. ‘The general principle on which he bases his proof is that what is posterior in generation is prior in form and reality. More definitely, actuality is prior in reality because the actually existent has reached its form while the potentially existent has not. The potentially existent or undeveloped has features unintelligible in themselves, which can be understood only as the prophecy of attri- butes which will be found in it when developed. It still lacks part of its nature; it is matter without form, and therefore not primary substance.
4. At first sight it seems inconsistent to maintain (1) that actuality is prior to potentiality in genesis (1. 3), (2) that it is prior in substance because it is posterior in genesis (1. 4). But with the qualifications with which Aristotle makes these statements (in the whole context) they are quite compatible.
7-10. The reasoning is somewhat complicated:
(1) The rédos of a yryvopevor is its dpxy, its origin (that this is the underlying meaning of ém dpynv Badier.. . kat TédAos, ‘moves to an &pxn Which is its 7éXos’, is shown by the fact that Aristotle subjoins a proof that the rédos is the dpyy, viz.:
The ob évexa is the apy7.
The réAos is the ob evexa).
(2) The évépyea is the réAos.
Therefore (3) the évépyea is the dpyy, and therefore prior to the dvvapus.
14. 7% dtu oddev Sdovrar Oewpety is excessively difficult, and one would be tempted to regard it as a gloss (so Diels, according to the editor of Bz.’s translation), if one saw what the gloss meant. Alexander's inter- pretation implies that he had these words, except 6rv, of which his in- terpretation (as distinct from the lemma) has no trace. This being so,
it is possible (1) that we should omit dru as an intruder which has come in from the next line, and take 7 as equivalent to «i d¢ py (cf. Z. 1041 23, #. NW. 117017). For the intrusion of 6m cf. H. 1043° 34 n., Probl, 962°2. ‘They are not speculating, except in a qualified sense of that word’ (speculating in the proper sense means speculating for the sake of doing so, or of reaching the truth (cf. a. 993” 20, Pol. 1325 20)); ‘otherwise (if they are speculating in the proper sense) they have no eed to speculate’ (sc. for the sake of acquiring ewpyrixy, because in that case they must already have it). (2) Alternatively we might read with E ovx 7 (odxé has replaced ody 7 in good manuscriptsin Az, Post. 84> 8, #. VV. 1161* 1) and interpret ‘and these are said to speculate in order to get the speculative faculty, not in so far as they speculate but only in so far as they do so in a parti- cular way, or because they have no craving to speculate (for its own sake)’. Or (3) we might, besides reading ody 7, read 6 7 or dre for ort. ‘And these speculate in order to get the speculative faculty, not in so far as they speculate, but only in so far as they speculate in a parti- cular way, or about subjects about which’ (or ‘at a time at which’) ‘they have no craving to speculate,’
Apelt’s dA 7) dd¢, dre od dvvavrar Oewpety is not very probable.
16-17. dpotws Sé... Tédos. ‘And so too in all other cases, even those in which the end is a movement’. Aristotle has said that matter exists potentially just because in certain circumstances it will proceed into its formed state (efSos). But, he now says, the principle that potentiality exists only in relation to a possible realization is equally true when there is no matter to be impressed with a form, no material object to be produced, but the end is a movement. The dis- tinction between these two cases (zroéyovs and mpagis) runs through the whole passage 2 15-} 2,
18. évepyodvta, sc. tov pabyryv.
1g. kal % pvots dpotws. Aristotle is thinking of such things as sight (I. 24). Nature is content not when it has produced creatures capable of sight but when it has exhibited them in full exercise of the activity. ;
6 Navowvos éorai “Eppyjs. Alexander tells us that Pauson made a Hermes about which it was hard to say whether it was carved in the ordinary way on the surface of a stone, or enclosed in a transparent substance. ‘How could it be “ without”, when the surface looked perfectly smooth like that of a mirror, or “ within”, when the surface showed no trace of joinings?’ This account is, however, certainly wrong. In the first place Pauson was not a sculptor but a painter, and in the second place the kind of sculpture Alexander mentions is not known and is most improbable. Pauson was apparently ad- dicted to trick pictures. Cf. the story told by Ps.-Luc. (Demosth. Encom. 24), Aelian (Var. Hist. xiv. 15), and Plutarch (de Pythiae Orac. 5. 3968) of his picture of a horse running, which by being turned upside down was made to represent a horse rolling on its back. Professor Percy Gardner suggests that the Hermes may have been
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a tricky painting, which deceived the eye somewhat in the manner of those in the Wiertz Gallery at Brussels, which stand out, apparently, in high relief from the canvas.
20. ci gow 4 egw, i.e. whether the knowledge has been absorbed by the pupil or has remained ‘outside’ him. ~~~
22-23. 8d... evtedexerav. Because the épyov is the réAos (1. 21), the word évépyeia, which is derived from épyov, tends to mean the same as évreAdyeua. Cf. 1047% 30 n.
27. év0a pév refers to cases like seeing, ev0a 8€ to cases like building.
28-29. 7 yap oikoddpnats...oixia gives the justification for évOa de paAXov tédos THs Suvdpeds eorw. The actuality is more of an end than the potentiality, for it resides in the épyov, and comes into being, and exists, simultaneously with the épyov, which is the end in the strict sense; while the potentiality does not reside in the épyov, exists before the épyov, and can exist after the épyov has perished.
4 yap oixoddpnors év TO oikodopoupévw. The point of éy in this and the following lines is this: an activity like building, or like seeing, is evidently not a troxeipevor, but év troKepevy ; it requires a substratum. Now a zotyous like building is the actuality both of the builder and of the house (Phys. 2024 13-16), and resides, ina sense, in both. But that in which it most properly and directly resides is that which exactly answers to it, which comes into being with it and exists simultaneously with it. This is obviously the house rather than the builder. In the case of a mpaégis like seeing, on the other hand (1. 34), there is no ee épyov, and the actuality must be said to reside in the évepyody itself.
ba. The reference to eidapovia is a digression. Aristotle points out, as against a materialistic view, that happiness is in the soul, is an activity of it, and therefore does not depend primarily on the goods of the body, nor on external goods (cf. Z. JV. 1098» 12-22).
2-3. dote davepdv ... éotv. This follows not from what directly precedes but from the whole section # 4-2. For the language cf. os san 05
4. dotep eimopev, 1049>17-29. That passage, however, contained no explicit reference to the grzmum movens. For the doctrine cf. A. 6, 4.
6. adAd phy Kai Kupiwrépws, sc. mpdrepov TH ovoia evépyera Suvdpmews (I. 3). The new argument is:—
The eternal is prior in substance to the perishable (assumed here, but cf. B. 9995, Z. 1032 30, A. 6, 7).
Eternal things exist actually, perishable things potentially (proved in Jl. 8-18; 1, 18—10512 state corollaries of this, which form a digression).
Therefore the actual is prior to the potential.
Therefore (on the principle that what belongs to the better is better than what belongs to the worse, Zop. 116” 12) activity is prior to potentiality.
Gt, Albert’S Boll Ece | /22
©. 8. 1050? 20 — 1050? 30 dee
It is not obvious why this is priority 77 odcéa in a more proper sense (xvpiwrépws) than those already mentioned. But in A. ro1g? 11 Aristotle has said that all the senses of prior and posterior may be reduced to that which is stated in ro19*2; ‘those things are prior in nature and substance which can exist without others while the others cannot exist without them’. Now the eternal can exist without the perishable and the perishable cannot exist without the eternal, and though Aristotle does not explicitly put the matter in this way (ex- cept incidentally in 1. 19), it seems that this is the ‘stricter’ sense of ‘prior in substance’ which he has in mind.
7. €or 8 obey Suvduer atSiov. The most obvious rendering would be ‘nothing is potentially eternal’, but from |. 16 it appears that didov goes closely with ot6év, ‘nothing eternal exists potentially’. So Al. 591. 20.