24. If the causes of substances are causes of all things, yet things in different kinds have different causes, which are only analogically the same; and things in the same kind have causes the same in kind but numerically different.
29. The causes of things in different categories are the same or analogous (i.e. they are always matter, form, privation, mover), and the causes of substances are the causes of all things in the sense that with their destruction all things are destroyed. Further, the primum movens is the same for all things. But there are as many different causes as there are pairs of individual contraries, and the matters of different things are also different.
1070” 3. tdv mpds tt. The category of relation, which is that farthest removed from substance (N. 1088* 23), is here taken as typical of all the categories other than substance. Substance cannot be the elementary constituent of relations, since what consists of substances must itself be substance. Nor can a relation be the elementary con- stituent of a substance, since substance is prior to the other cate- gories and elements are prior to their compounds (I. 2); cf. Z. 1038? 23. er ovde ... cuvOeTwy is clearly parenthetical, for avrév |. 9 refers not to ray voytay nor to rév ovyOerwv but to ray croxeiwy, 1. 6. The meaning must be ‘nor is any of the intelligibles, therefore, e. g. unity or being, an element in things ; for these terms are predicable even of each of the composite things’ (and therefore cannot be their elements, on the principle stated in ll. 5, 6). The use of the partitive genitive as subject (tév voyrév = trav vonrav 71) is rare, but cf. ]. 22, A. 10214 21 n.
360 COMMENTARY.
For a similar argument, showing that unity and being cannot be the genera of things, cf. B. 998? 22.
Unity and being are called ‘intelligibles’ in distinction from ‘sen- sibles ’, because they are the most universal predicates, those farthest removed from sense- eee (cf. B. 998b-15-21).
10. dorrep héyoper, cf, @
12, 76 Suvdpet TadTa a Kad” “airé, ‘that which directly, in virtue of itself (and not of a concomitant), potentially has these attributes’. mpotov distinguishes the proximate matter from the remote, and xa@ aro distinguishes the matter, which as such becomes, for example, cold, from ‘the white’, which becomes cold in virtue of the matter whose concomitant it is.
13-15. Aristotle distinguishes here three kinds of substance :
1) radra, i.e. matter, form, privation.
2) Ta €k TovTwy, i.e. substances which include (a) prime matter, (6) a certain form, e. g. heat, and which presuppose, as that which they had before they had the form, (c) the privation of the form, e.g. cold. 7a, ék ToUrwy are in fact the four elements, two of which Aristotle sup- poses to be characterized by heat and two by cold.
(3) ei te ek Oepyod Kal Woypod ylyverat ev, olov capE 7 dorody, i.e. compounds of two oppositely qualified substances of class (2); in other words, binary compounds of the elements, or dpovopepy.
Aristotle might have gone on to add the dvopovomepy and the living bodies which they make up (cf. # 19-20 n.). But since these are ultimately formed from the elements, they come under the general description et tu éx Peppod Kal yvxpod (Aristotle takes two of the rpérau evavtudoets as typical of all four) yiyverar ev.
Aristotle’s doctrine has been’ explained above as not implying that privation must be actually present as well as form in every concrete substance, that every body which is hot must be partially cold; I have supposed him to mean that the form of each thing presupposes a previous privation. It is in this sense that matter, form, and priva- tion are arrived at as the three dpyai in Phys. i. 6, 7, and it is this sense that is relevant in 1069> 32-34. But it is rather surprising to find privation which is merely presupposed as previously existing, described as évurdpxov (I. 22); it is rather zpotmapyov. It may be, therefore, that Aristotle has in mind his doctrine that no actual instance of any of the four elements is pure. Fire, though in the main characterized by the «idos heat, contains some of the orépyots cold, and so in other cases (De Gen. ef Corr. 330» 21, Meteor. 359» 32). Then et tu ek Oeppod kal yuxpod yiyvera év will refer to époupeph compounded out of a substance that is in the main hot (e.g. actual fire) and one that is in the main cold (e.g. actual water). But on the whole the former interpretation of the passage seems preferable.
15-16. érepov... yevduevov. Alexander thinks these words should be placed after zpos 71, 1.9. But they may stand in their present position. They are meant to justify the assumption just made (I. 13 ovotas de Tatra Te Kal Ta ek TovTwv), that compounds must be different from
ent oa
their elements, or the assumption that a compound of hot and cold must be different from what is merely hot or merely cold.
16-18. Bz. prefers the reading ratra in |. 16 on the ground that TovTwv toira, d\Awy GAAa, TavTwv TG dvddoyov Tavrd. gives the most symmetrical form to the statement. But where does he get the tavra which he supplies with 76 dvédoyov? It presupposes rabra in l. 16. The meaning is: ‘these things, then (sc. sensible substances), have the same elements and principles—sc. heat, cold, matter (though specifically different things have specifically different ele- ments); but we cannot say that all things (i.e. non-sensible substances and things in other categories, as well as sensible substances) have the same elements in this sense, but only by virtue of an analogy’; the elements of all are form, privation, matter, which are analogically the same wherever they occur.
22. For the construction of tay éxtds otov 76 Kuwvody cf. 1, 7, A. 1021 210.
23. €repov dpxt Kal ororxetov, cf, A. 101374, 7, 101 4% 26.
24. kal eis tadta Svarpetrar dpxy is in EJ repeated in |. 29, and Christ brackets it here. But it is better to follow the authority of A> Al. and omit it in 1. 29. Here it makes quite good sense— “principles are divided into two kinds, the évurdpyov and the éxrds’ ; ef. A, 10137 4, 7.
26. This list of four causes differs from Aristotle’s ordinary list by the subdivision of form into form and privation (cf. Z, 1032» 2, Phys. 193” 19), and by the omission of the final cause (due doubtless to its identity with the formal cause, H. 1044» 1). Aristotle here identifies the proximate efficient cause with the formal (Il. 30-32, cf. Phys. 198* 26), but distinguishes the w/¢maze efficient cause from it (I. 34).
27. 76 Tp@tov aitiov ws Kuvodv, the proximate moving cause. Bz. thinks this difficult in view of 1. 34, where 70 ws prov wavTwy Kwvody mavra. means the w#mate moving cause; he therefore here proposes rountikov for mpdrov. But Aristotle is careless in matters of this sort (cf. 4x n.), and further 76 s mpdrov mdvtwy Kwotv mdvta is different enough from 76 p@rov attiov ws Kwody to remove any misunder- standing. |
29-30. kai... apy, cf. 1. 24 n.
30. év ev Tots guciKois dvOpdmw dvOpwmos. In view of Aristotle’s frequent formula év@pwros dvOpwrov yevva, and of the awkwardness of pvorxois dvOpamos if the two words do not go together, I have adopted Zeller’s emendation. The corruption is evidently due to the influence of ucrxois.
32. tTpla aitia dy ely, i.e. matter, form, privation.
34. Bz.’s conjecture, 176 &s for as 7d, is required by the sense.
‘The first moving cause, to which Aristotle comes only now, is to be the subject of the second half of the book, to which chs. 1-5 are pre- liminary.
1071*1. Christ’s taétdé is preferable to the traditional radra, since ratra in], 2, which refers back to this word, must mean not ‘sub-
362 ~ Commentary
stances’ but ‘the causes of substances’. It is not substances but their causes that Aristotle views as the causes of all things; cf. |. 34. Because all other things are dependent on substance, the causes of all things are the same, viz. the causes of substance.
Tov odc.av dvev, This is apparently the only passage in Aristotle in which dyev comes after the word it governs, that word not being a relative. The order is characteristic of later writers, and would in itself suggest a late date for A.
2-3. Emeita ... dpegis Kal cHua. Aristotle concentrates his atten- tion on living things, which are in the strict sense the only substances (Z. 1040) 5-10, H. 1043? 21-23), and indicates their material and formal causes, (1) capa and (2) yxy (subdivided, in the special case of man, into vois xat dpeéis). Alexander seems to have read 7 Opesis kal cGpa (the elements of irrational animals) alter 7 vots Kal dpegis Kat copa, and it is not unlikely that these words have dropped out by haplography. But it may be that this is an addition of Alexander’s own.
2. €mevta comes in peculiarly here. Probably, like pera tatra (1069> 35 n., 10707 4) it meang ‘next we shall point out that’ &c., and indicates the hypomnematic character of the first half of A. Cf. 1. 24.
éotat. If it be accepted that the causes of substances are the causes of all things, we shall perhaps find these universal causes to be soul and body, &c. This seems to be the meaning of the future éora.
3-17. Aristotle has in ch. 4 shown that matter, form, and privation are principles present in all things ; he now proceeds to show that potency and actuality are present in all things. Not only, however, are the potency and the actuality of one thing different from those of another (dAXa dAAous, |. 5), but potency and actuality belong to things in different ways (kal dddus, sc. trdpxe). Lines 6-17 explain what Aristotle means by d\dws. In some cases (év éviows ev, |. 6) the anti- thesis of potency and actuality means that the same thing exists first potentially and then actually. But the distinction of potentiality and actuality is present in another way (dddws dé, |. 11) where one thing acts on another. I take the two modes of presence of potency and actuality to answer to the two senses of potency distinguished in ©. The kind that is mentioned second here is dvvayis in the sense of ‘power’, that which is dpy peraBoAjs év dAAw 7) 7 GAAO (1046 11), 9 Kata Kivynow Aeyouevy (10484 25). Svvayus in this sense is the power in one thing to produce a change in another thing, and évépyeia is the change produced. The kind of dvvapis that is mentioned jirs¢ here is dvvapus in the sense of potentiality which is followed by the correspond- ing actuality in the same individual (16 abd été pev évepyeia eoruy bre Se duvdémer; contrast év dAAw, 1046 11). evepyeva and dvvapis in this sense are opposed ws otaia pds twa ‘Any; in the other sense they are opposed ds Kivnows mpos dvvapuv (1048? 8),
7. otov otvos, i.e. the same matter is at one time potentially wine and later actually wine.
minter $€ kal Tadta eis TA eipypeva aita, sc. form, privation, matter
Aes. 1O7T2 2-13 363
(1070 11). aire eis, ‘are divisible among’; for the phrase cf. I. 1005 2, A. 101317, Phys. 195715, 243° 16, P. A. 675% 25.
g. édv 4 xwptotdy. On the separate existence of the form in certain cases cf. 10707 13-19.
76 e& dudoiy, ‘that which contains both form and matter’. The mention of the concrete individual is not really relevant, since it was not one of the causes recognized in 1070? 11-13. The mention of it is due to Aristotle’s habitual distinction of three senses of ‘ sub- stance ’—matter, form, and the complex of the two.
otepyals Te (vulg. 82) otoy oxdtos # Kdpvov. The traditional reading is open to three objections : (1 ye privation is being brought under the heading of actuality (as it must, since dvvdpe. comes only in the next clause), the clause should be introduced not by orépyats d€ but by Kai n orepnos. (2) The adducing of instances, darkness and disease, is peculiar, when form, concrete substance, and matter are left unillus- trated. (3) kdéyvov is an instance not of privation but of the union of ‘ts Ca with matter; the privation in question is véaos (cf. 1070? 28).
II, Go, ‘qualified by the form and by the privation’, cf. 1070» 12,13. It is implied that the privation no less than the form is a mode of realization of the matter, so that Alexander is wrong in supposing that Aristotle reckons privation to the side of potentiality (682. 34). Privation is in fact a kind of form (PAys. 193 19).