19-22. The freemen in the house answer to the heavenly bodies, which are bound by necessity, the slaves and animals to mankind and indeed all sublunary creatures, which are much less divine (Z. JV. 1141%34) and whose actions are largely contingent. Aristotle, as Grant observes (£7hzcs* i. 286), assumes freedom for man, ‘not so much from a sense of the deep importance of morality, but rather from an idea of the slightness of man and of his actions in com- parison with nature, and with what he would call the “ diviner parts” of the re :
‘ For the nature of each of them is such a principle’, i.e. it pro-
2578-2 Dd
402 : Commentary
duces obedience to duty in the higher creatures, caprice in the lower.
23. déyw 8 ofoy els yer td Sraxprbjvor dvdykn Gmracw ede, ‘all things, even if they make no other contribution ‘to the whole, must at least come to be dissolved’, sc. so that better things may be made out of their elements. Sap
25. Aristotle now begins a very brief discussion of some of the main metaphysical doctrines opposed to his own.
26. xapteotépus, cf. K. 10607 25 n.
28. ote S€ 16 Tdvta ovTe Td ef evaytiwy dp0ds. (1) It is wrong to say that all things come from contraries. There is an eternal sub- stance which does not come from contraries nor from anything else (10692 30, 1071» 4), (2) Even things that are generated are not generated simply from contraries; there must be a substratum as well (1069? 6).
30. dali yap Ta evoytia bw G&AAHAwv. Black cannot be affected by white, but only that which zs black.
32. of 1d dyicov 7 iow refers to Platonists, cf. N. 10875, 1088 32, 10896, 1091 32. Aristotle’s point is that matter, the substratum of contraries, should not be made one of the contraries.
33. 4 70 évi ta odd probably refers to Speusippus, cf. M. 1085 gn. bs n.
34. 4 yap Hy H pla, ‘the one matter which underlies any pair of contraries ’,
35. To yap Kakdy atts Odtepovy Tay ororxeiwy, i.e. the unequal is identified with the bad; cf. A. 988° 14.
37. Robin points out that in the other passages referring to this doctrine of the Pythagoreans and of Speusippus (viz. 107232, 34, N. 1091* 31, 36) 76 Kaddv is mentioned several times, 76 Kkaxov never; and he would read xaAdv. But 76 xaxoy is in place here in view of the context (cf. 1. 35).
bg. kal ds Gn’ pdprov yap tod plypatos. That Empedocles thought of strife and love as material no less than the other elements is clear from such passages as fr. 17. 18-20, especially kat purdorys ev rotow, ion pinkos Te TAdTos Te. In Empedocles’ time the notion of incorporeal forces did not yet exist.
5. Ty etvar od tadrd, cf. Z. 1029% 22-23 n.
_ 6-7. For strife as the origin of evil for Empedocles cf. A. 985% 6. Why does Aristotle regard the indestructibility of strife as a paradox? Alexander thinks it is because in the odatpos all strife must have disappeared. ‘This interpretation takes no account of rotro 8 éorly avTd 4 Tov Kakod dios. It must be because of its badness that Aris- totle thinks strife must be perishable. He is in fact using his principle that év rots didiow obey éoti Kaxdv (. 10519 19, where see the proof).
Q-I0. ddd seems to introduce an objection—Aristotle’s first objec- tion to Anaxagoras (cf. drowov dé kai], 10), Anaxagoras exemplifies the vagueness of early thinkers on the question whether the good is
a final, an efficient, or a formal cause (* 38). He introduces it as an efficient cause, in the shape of reason. But since it must be for some purpose that reason produces motion, there must be another good which is a final cause. The objection is the same which is expressed in A. 988? 6-16. The argument is made clearér by placing a full stop after xvet in], 8. Aristotle thinks that he can himself dispense with two distinct causes, an efficient and a final. The form of health, as existing in the doctor’s mind, is the efficient cause of his action; and as something to be realized in the body of another, it is the final cause. Cf. Z. 1034224, A. 10707 14.
10-11. Aristotle complains that Anaxagoras, having recognized reason, or good, as one principle, ought to have recognized evil as another. Elsewhere Aristotle treats him as recognizing opposite prin- ciples of good and evil (A. 988717, cf. 98930, ' 16). His point must be that Anaxagoras does not explicitly describe the chaos as the opposite of reason or of the good, though implicitly treating it as such (989 19). But in reality, according to Aristotle, evil cannot be a first principle (év rots é€ dpyqs ovOev éoru kaxdv, ®. 1051* 19).
12. 08 xp@ytav tots evavtiows. The same objection is made in A. 985° 17-23 with special reference to Anaxagoras and Empedocles.
édv pi pulpton tis, cf. what Aristotle says of Empedocles in A. 985% 4 and of Anaxagoras in 989? 30.
13-14. Cf. the discussion in B. 1oo0*%s5- 21, Aristotle himself escapes the difficulty by making the things which are eternal (1) con- tain no matter at all, or (2) contain a matter different from that of the four elements, viz. the réurrov cpa, which makes them capable of moving in space but not of being destroyed.
14. ot pev, Hesiod and the other cosmologists, cf. 1072%19. Aris- totle regards the generation of what is from what is not as obviously wrong, and needing no argument to show that it is so.
15. ot 8, the Eleatics, cf. A. 98610. Their view also is self-con- demned, in that it abolishes difference and change.
16—10762 4. The general trend of these remarks is, as Bz. points out, to show that Aristotle’s predecessors give no satisfactory account of the cause of generation and motion. Cf. ll. 16, 28, 30, 37. But parts of the passage have no bearing on this question, but form a general attack on Aristotle’s predecessors and especially the Platonists —l]. 20-24, 28-30, 37—1076? 4.
16-17. For Aristotle’s own explanation of the eternity of becoming ef. 10724 10-18, De Gen. ef Corr. ii. 10.
17. Tots 800 dpxas morodow refers to all Aristotle’s predecessors (@ 28, N. 1087 29) or to nearly all (1. 100430). The contrary principles are, in general, form and matter, and an efficient cause is needed to unite them (1070) 22), i.e. a first mover.
19. Bz.’s ér for éru derives some confirmation from Them. 38. 12, and is fairly certainly right. Christ’s suggestion, however, that dru... Kuptwrépa is a gloss on du. ri yap pereoxev 7) pmeréxer; has something to be said for it.
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404 Commentary
Sud Ti yap peréoxev petéxer; sc. 7a Kal? exaora Tov ciddv.
20-24. This curious and difficult passage seems to be an allusion to Plato’s recognition (Rep. 477-478) of ignorance as a state of mind op- posed to knowledge and related to not-being as knowledge is to being. ‘Other thinkers, since they recognize only two, and these contrary, principles, must recognize an ignorance related to one of them (non- being or matter) as knowledge is to the other (being or form). But we need not. For we make the highest knowledge refer to a first principle which stands above the contraries and itself has*no con- trary ; for contraries contain matter, and things containing matter exist only potentially. The ignorance which is opposed to any knowledge leads to an object opposed to the object of the knowledge; but our first principle has no opposite, and therefore for us the highest know- ledge has no opposite ignorance.’ 7
22. 7a évavtia here means ‘things possessing contrary attributes’, while in ® 30 it means the contrary attributes themselves.
23. kal Suvdue: Taira €or. Tadra seems better than raird. Con- traries are not potentially the same (though the same thing is potentially possessed of contrary qualities); nor, if they were, would it be in point to say sohere. radra is probably subject and = ra vAyv éyovra. Bz, (reading ratra éorw and treating ratdra as predicate) takes the words to mean that each contrary is potentially its contrary; guod album esi actu, idem nigrum est potentia et vice versa. It is difficult to see how this can be got out of the Greek.
eis 73 evavtiov. One might conjecture éoziv (or éorar) evaytiov (or Tov évavriov). But the text is confirmed by /. /. 1224% 33 ézel kal 7 drdrn ovk cis TA TUXOVTA yiverat, GAN cis TA evavTia dools eotiv évayTia, though that is made easier by yiverau. is means not ‘is relative to’, which would be zpds, but something like ‘leads the mind to’, The passage does not seem to have any connexion with the distinction between dmdry and édyvoiw in @. 1051” 25, to which Baz. refers.
24. €l Te wh Eotor Tapa Ta aicOyTd GAAa, obK EoTar Gpxy Kal TALS kat yeveots Kal Ta oUpdvia. If there is nothing besides sensible things, then (1) there is no first principle ; for sensible things exist potentially (i.e. include an element of contingency), and if we admit nothing which exists actually we are driven back from one potentiality to another ad znfinitum. (2) There will be no order; for this involves something eternal and separate from matter (K. 1060 26). (3) There will be no generation; for this has been shown to depend on the motion of the heavenly bodies, and ultimately on the prime mover (10728 ro-18). (4) There will be no celestial movements ; for they depend on a prime mover.
For the consequences of denying the existence of non-sensible, eternal substance cf. B. 999 5, K. 10607 26.
26. 14 otpdvia means the celestial movements, not the celestial bodies, for it is the former that involve a prime mover. For this use of ra otpavia cf, Xen, Mem. i. 1. 11, Pl. Crz#. 107d.
tots Beodsyors, the cosmologists, cf. B. 10008 9.
28. oUt is sufficiently confirmed by Cas. 6%2, Phys. 25822, De Caelo 241%18, De Sensu 439732, Pol. 1282%11. In Z. 10357 30, Phys. 254% 26 (cf. Pol. 1308 15, 13204 16) the manuscripts are divided between ours and ovrou.
é§ dpeyeQ@v. e& does not refer, as might be supposed, to material causation; Aristotle’s point is that numbers cannot be either the efficient or the formal cause of extended magnitudes (1. 30).
30-34. ‘ But none of the contraries is essentially also a principle of production and of motion; for a contrary is capable of not being, and at any rate its period of action must come after a period of merely potential action. Hence it cannot have been making things from all eternity. Hence ra dvra are not eternal.
But there ave eternal dvra.
Hence we must give up one of our assumptions,’ viz. the assumption that contraries and nothing else are the principles of things. There must be a first principle which is substance, actual, and eternal.
33. GAN Ect must apparently mean not ‘the things that are are eternal’, which Aristotle is not likely to have said, but ‘there are things that are eternal’, e.g. the prime mover and the heavenly bodies whose eternity has been proved in ch. 7.
34. Todto & elpytat mas, sc. in 1071? 19, 20.
34-37. On this question cf. H. 6, especially 1045230. Form and matter, as Aristotle there points out, belong together and require only an efficient cause to unite them.
37. ot Se Aeyovtes kTA. The reference is to Speusippus, who is men- tioned by name in Z. 102821. For the doctrine cf. N. 1090? 13.
10761. émevoodisdy. Cf, the definition in Poet, 145134 Aeyw & ererooiwon podov ev wT ereicddia pet GAANAG OUT’ cikds OUT avayKN ewat. ‘The word is used again of Speusippus’ theory in N. 1ogo? 19.
g. The word modtteveoQar and the quotation from Homer show that dapyy is used with reference to its meaning of ‘rule’ as well as to its ordinary Aristotelian sense of ‘ originative source’. For a similar play on the meaning of dpyy cf. An. Pos/. 1007 13.
4. odx dyaOdv kth. Hom. //. ii. 204. Susemihl would omit éc7o, which is lacking in most of the manuscripts. But it is required by the rhythm of the sentence, and it would be particularly easy for the last word of a book to drop out in the archetype.
Aristotle is not a thoroughgoing monist. He is a monist in the sense that he believes in one supreme ruling principle, God or the primum movens. But God is not for him all-inclusive. (1) The sensible world is thought of as having a matter not made by God, though the whole history of the sensible world is caused by the desire to approximate to the divine life. (2) There are subordinate spiritual beings (1073% 37, 1074215) which move the heavenly spheres without being moved (i.e. move them ds dpexra), and whose relation to God is never indicated by Aristotle. Cf. Introduction, pp. cxxxvi-cxli.