5. vixra xai odpavdy. Zeller (i.6 122 ff.) enumerates four Orphic cosmogonies, of which the first is referred to by Plato (Craé. 402 8, Zim. 40 D—4I a) and Aristotle (cf. A. ro71® 26) and described by Eudemus (ap. Damase. c. 124). Aristotle supposed it to have been put into writing by Onomacritus (fr. 1475* 44). According to this system, Night came first and gave birth to Earthand Heaven. The children of Earth and Heaven were Ocean and Tethys (Orpheus, fr. 12 Diels). Musaeus is said to have derived all things from Night and Tartarus (fr. 14); Epimenides, from Air and Night (ff. 5) ; Acusilaus, from Chaos, Night, and Erebus (fr. 1). Aristophanes (Av. 694) makes the birds sing of Erebus and Night as the first parents. The chief other Orphic system is the ‘rhapsodic’ cosmogony dating from the third century B.c. and described by Damascius (¢. 123), which places Chronos in the first place, followed by Aether and Chaos, &c. Zeller argues convincingly for the priority of the first-named system, but Lobeck and others took the opposite view. Tannery shows in A. G. P. xi, 13-17 that the rhap- sodic cosmogony differed from the original Orphic cosmogony not by transforming it so much as by adding to it. For the place of Night in the cosmogonies cf. A, 1071 27, 1072° 8, 19.
6. xaos. Aristotle is here referring to the Hesiodic system ; he else- where quotes Hesiod’s ( Zheeg. 116)
>
warroy Rey Tpdricta Xaos yévet’, abrap Erara
yat’ etpvorepves
(A. 984°.27,5P&vs. 208% 30). Acusilaus is said also to have made Chaos the first parent (frr. 1, 2).
@xeavéy. The reference is presumably to Homer (cf. A. 983° 30 and /7. xiv. 201). The same view is ascribed to Orpheus by Plato (Cra#. 402 8) and by Eudemus (Diels, Vors. 476. 16).
tourors prev is answered irregularly by éreé xrA. 1. 8.
Q. epexddns. Pherecydes of Syros (a younger contemporary of Anaximander, ¢. 600-525), placed Zeus (Heaven), Chronos (Time), and Chthonia (Earth) at the beginning of things (Diels, Vors.* 201. 18, 23, 202. 4),—or Zeus, Chthonia, and Eros (201. 32). It is his placing of Zeus at the beginning that warrants Aristotle’s statement about him here. In other respects too his system marks an advance on earlier cosmogonies (Zeller, i.6 117).
TO. ot Mayor, i. e. the hereditary caste of priests who took the place of the ‘ fire-kindlers’ of the Zoroastrian religion. They are one of the six Median tribes mentioned by Herodotus (i. ror).
Diog- Laert. (Prooem. 8) tells us that in the dialogue on Philosophy
438 . Commentary
Aristotle identified their two principles, Ormuzd and Ahriman, with Zeus and Hades. Eudoxus is said to have visited the East with a view to acquiring its: astronomical knowledge, and seems to have aroused in the Academy a deep interest in Zoroastrianism (cf. Jaeger, Arest. 133-138).
12. tovxetov: Love was for Empedocles one of six material elements. é&pxnv: Reason was for Anaxagoras a motivésprinciple set over against everything else—not a crovxeiov.
13. Tav 8é Tas dxivyToUs ovclas etvat Aeydvtwy, the Pythagoreans and Platonists. ‘
oi pév. There is no dé clause, but one can be easily understood, and Bz. successfully meets Zeller’s suggestion that words to the effect of ‘others held the good not for the One itself’ have dropped out before oiciav. ot ev means primarily Plato (A. 988%14); Alexander and Syrianus cite also Brotinus the Pythagorean, but on this we have no further information. ot d¢ would be the Pythagoreans in general and Speusippus (A. 1072» 31), whose view has been stated in 8 34-8,
16-19. ‘It would be strange if to that which is first and eternal and self-sufficient this very attribute, self-sufficiency and self-maintenance (= eternality), does not belong in the first place as a good. But truly it is imperishable (= eternal) and self-sufficient for no other reason than because its condition or nature is good.’ Aristotle establishes the goodness of the first principle in two ways: (1) the self-sufficiency and eternality which it is assumed to possess are good qualities. (2) It could not have these if it were not in itself good. One is tempted to read os dya66 in |. 17, but then ll. 18, 19 would merely repeat what is said in ll. 16-18.
20, tovadtyy = dyabyv, TatThy = Tiv dapxnv tHv ayabyv. It is impossible, says Aristotle, to suppose that this good first principle is the One; or even, without saying this («i 7 todro), to describe it (more indefinitely) as an element, and an element of numbers. (Plato says that the good is the dpy7 of things; he also says the ororxeta of num- bers are the dpyai of things. It follows, then, that the good is a oto.xetov of number, even if it be not expressly identified with the One.) The reasons for describing this as impossible come in Il. 25-32 ; Aristotle mentions parenthetically in ll. 22-25 the attempt made by some thinkers (evidently Speusippus is meant; cf. M. 1076* 20-21 n.) to escape the difficulties.
22-25. Speusippus attempted to escape the difficulty by doing away with the ideal numbers and treating the One as the starting-point of mathematical numbers only, so that no goodness need be assigned to it and no superabundance of goods be produced from it (I. 26 woAAy Tis evrropia éyabav).
25. Sep dyaQdy tT, species of the genus good, cf. T. 1003) 33 n.
28. ‘If there are Ideas only of the qualities which are the species of the quality good, the Ideas (will not be Ideas of substances and therefore) will not be substances.’ For the missing step of the argument cf. A. 990 29—g91 2 1.
32. 6 wév = Speusippus; cf. M. 108529 n., 25 n. His theory differs in two ways from that of Plato: (1) (1. 23) he treats the One as principle only of mathematical number (the only kind of number he believed in); (2) (I. 33) he did not connect the One and the good, but described the good as coming in only at a later stage of the evolution of the world (#35). But*how is this to be reconciled with the statement (/. WV. 1096? 6) that he placed the One ey rp rv dyabdv ovoroxia? Aristotle must mean that Speusippus put the One in the series to which all good things belonged, though he did not think of it as itself a good.
- 35. ot 8€ = Plato and Xenocrates.
37—10927 I. paddov axpdtou. . . peyéOn, sc. because the numbers are more directly derived than the spatial magnitudes from the original material principle. Spatial magnitudes are ‘the genera posterior to number’ (M. 1085? 7),
1092 I. xépav etvar, a reminiscence of Zim. 52 a B. Cf. Phys. 209? 11.
2. dpéyecQar tod POaptikod, cf. Phys. 1924 18-25.
3. For parallels to the superfluous om cf. Jud. Ar. 872" 39-48.
12. tus, 1.e. Speusippus; cf. A, 1072? 30-34 n.
13-15. Speusippus’ argument is represented as follows:
(1) The One is the beginning of all things.
(2) All beginnings are imperfect.
Therefore the One is imperfect.
From this Aristotle draws a consequence of his own probably not drawn by Speusippus :
(3) What is imperfect cannot be said really to be.
The One is imperfect.
Therefore the One is not.
Aristotle denies the premise numbered (2) above.
17-21. The charge of ‘producing place simultaneously with the mathematical solids’ and of ‘assigning place to them without saying what their place is’ has little connexion either with what precedes or with what follows. Alexander takes it to refer to Plato; but Plato’s xépa (which Aristotle often refers to as rézros, e.g. Phys. 208” 7, 209% 8, b 15, De Caelo 309 24-26) was eternal. It seems more probable that (as Ravaisson, Brandis, and Zeller suppose) Speusippus is referred to. In that case the section continues the attack on him made in I]. rr-17.
Syrianus throws some light on the later Platonic theory of place or space by saying that four kinds were recognized—the place of physical bodies, that of @vvAa «iS (viz. matter), that of mathematical bodies (viz. davracia), that of dvdor Adyou (4) dvw OF SiavontiKi Yux7).
_ 21, 6 témos, ‘dherr place’, which is evidently not the same kind of place that sensible solids have.
490 Commentary
(D) Relation between number and tts first principles (ch. 5.1092" 21 8),
21. These thinkers ought to have distinguished the meanings of ‘from’ and then told us in which, sense number is derived ‘from’ its principles. Not by mixture, for (1) not-everything can be mixed;
_(2) what is produced by mixture is different from its elements, so that the One would then not exist apart, as they want it to do.
26. Not by composition, for (1) that implies position ; (2) number would then be two distinct things, the unit+ plurality. Number cannot be derived from elements which inhere in it (for this applies only to things that are generated), nor as from seed (for nothing analogous to seed can come off from the indivisible One).
33. Is it derived from its contrary? This implies a substratum which persists. These thinkers seem to derive number from con- traries; a substratum therefore is implied.
bg. Again, why are all other things that are derived from contraries or have contraries perishable, while number is not? The contrary of a thing a/ways tends to destroy it.
1092 21-» 8. This section seems to refer primarily to Speusippus. Cf. Introduction, p. Ixxii.
22-23. Svehopevous ... eotiv. Aristotle's suggestions here as to the sense of éx have little connexion with his classification in A. 24,
24. piger, cf. A. 9891 n. Two reasons are given why the One cannot be supposed to be ‘mixed’ with the great and small. (1) Not any and every sort of thing can be mixed. This follows from the definition of the puxrdv as 6 dv edépirtov bv rabytiKov 7 Kal rounTiKoy (De Gen. e¢ Corr. 328 20); again piyvuta dv Ta eoxara ev (De Sensu 447* 30). Further, irdpxeuv def ywpiorov éxdrepov Tov pryOevTwv TOV de rabdv ovfev xwpiotrév (De Gen. ef Corr. 324> 21), and great and small are dy (1088417). pigs is an affair of material things, and to speak of it as existing between the One and the indefinite dyad is a mere metaphor. (2) The product of mixture is something different from its elements, so that after the mixture had been achieved the One would no longer exist as a separate and distinct entity; cf. De Gen. et Corr. 327% 22-26 for the doctrine that the constituents exist only potentially when once the mixture has been made.
The second te in |. 25 serves to introduce not, as Bz. supposes, a third argument, but (as Alexander takes it to do) the second part of the same argument.
26. 4ddd ouvOécer. oivOeors differs from piéis as mechanical from chemical combination (De Gen. ef Corr. 3284 3-17).
30. €oT. pev . . . od. Alexander says Aristotle is here subdividing ctvOeots. It seems more likely that pigis and ovvOeors are treated as
ST. ALBERT’* ~~" °°" LIBRARY IN LOO2? 293 4 491
subdivisions of generation é& évyrapxovrwv, from material constituents present potentially (in the case of pigs) or actually (in the case of avvOecrs) in the resultant. From this is to be distinguished the generation of a thing from an efficient cause which is zo/ present in the thing (A. 10238 26, 29; cf. 1013 4, 7, A. 1070? 22 for the meaning of évurdpyeuv).
32. GAN’ es dard oméppatos ; Cf. 1091716. Alexander (825. 30) takes this as an instance of ds é« px evutapxovrwv, as adda. suggests, and takes yéveors to refer to artistic production. Bz. supposes that édAd indicates not as in Il. 26, 33 the transition to a fresh alternative, but as in Il. 24, 27, 32 (GAN ody oiov krA.) an objection to the alternative under discussion. ‘Only those things which yiyvera: can be said to be é éevyrapydvtuv. But can we suppose that number yiyvera: ds dd orépparos?’ Bz. is evidently right as against Alexander in saying that yéveous cannot = artistic production as against natural generation. It either means natural generation as opposed to artistic production or includes both (Z. 1032% 26). On the other hand, Bz. seems not to be right in taking . ws ard oméppatos to be a case of ws é& evuTapydvrwv. o7méppa, NO doubt, means sometimes the seed of plants, in which the male and female elements are united, and which may be said to be ‘ present in’ the plant that grows from it; but it seems more likely to mean, as it constantly does, the male element in animal reproduction, which is no part of the offspring but only its efficient and formal cause (G. A. 729” 1-21, 35, 730” 10-19, 716% 4-7, 765” 11).