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previous: Chapter 28 This webpage reproduces a chapter of A History of Philosophy by Frederick Copleston, S. J. as reprinted by Image Books — Doubleday New York • London • Toronto • Sydney • Auckland 1993 The text, and illustrations except as noted, are in the public domain. next: Chapter 30

Part IV: Aristotle

 p287  Chapter XXIX
The Metaphysics of Aristotle

1. "All men by nature desire to know."​1 So does Aristotle optimistically begin the Metaphysics, a book, or rather collection of lectures, which is difficult to read (the Arabian philosopher Avicenna said that he had read the Metaphysics forty time s without understanding it), but which is of the greatest importance for an understanding of the philosophy of Aristotle, and which has had a tremendous influence on the subsequent thought of Europe.​2 But though all men desire to know, there are different degrees of knowledge. For example, the man of mere experience , as Aristotle calls him, may know that a certain medicine had done good to X when he was ill, but without knowing the reason for this, whereas the man of art knows the reason, e.g. he knows that X was suffering from fever, and that the medicine in question has a certain property which abates fever.​a He knows a universal, for he knows that the medicine will tend to cure all who suffer from that complaint. Art, then, aims at production of some kind, but this is not Wisdom in Aristotle's view, for the highest Wisdom does not aim at producing anything or securing some effect — it is not utilitarian — but at apprehending the first principles of Reality, i.e. at knowledge for its own sake. Aristotle places the man who seeks for knowledge for its own sake above him who seeks for knowledge of some particular kind with a view to the attainment of some practical effect. In other words, that science stands higher which is desirable for its own sake and not merely with a view to its result s.

This science, which is desirable for its own sake, is the science of first principles or first cause s, a science which took its rise on wonder. Men began to wonder at thing s, to desire to know the explanation of the things they saw, and so philosophy arose out  p288 of the desire of understanding, and not on account of any utility that knowledge might possess. This science, then, is of all sciences to be called free or liberal, for, like a free man, it exists for its own sake and not for the sake of someone else. Metaphysics is thus, according to Aristotle, Wisdom par excellence, and the philosopher or lover of Wisdom is he who desires knowledge about the ultimate cause and nature of Reality, and desires that knowledge for its own sake. Aristotle is therefore a "dogmatist" in the sense that he supposes that such knowledge is attainable, though he is not of course a dogmatist in the sense of advancing theories without any attempt to prove them.

Wisdom, therefore, deals with the first principles and cause s of things, and so is universal knowledge in the highest degree. This means that it is the science which is furthest removed from the senses, the most abstract science, and so is the hardest of the sciences as involving the greatest effort of thought . "Sense-perception is common to all and therefore easy and no mark of Wisdom."​3 But, though it is the most abstract of the sciences, it is, in Aristotle's view, the most exact of the sciences, "for those which involve fewer principles are more exact than those which involve additional principles, » arithmetic than geometry."​4 Moreover, this science is in itself the most knowable, since it deals with the first principles of all thing s, and these principles are in themselves more truly knowable than their apjan s (for these depend on the first principles, and not vice versa ), though it does not follow that they are the most knowable in regard to us, since we necessarily start with the things of sense and it requires a considerably effort of rational abstraction to proceed from what is directly known to us, sense-objects, to their ultimate principles.

2. The cause s with which Wisdom or philosophy deals are enumerated in the Physics and are four in number: (i) the substance or essence of a thing; (ii) the matter or subject; (iii) the source of motion or the efficient cause; and (iv) the final cause or good. In the first book of the Metaphysics Aristotle investigates the views of his predecessors, in order, he says, to see if they discussed any other kind of cause besides the four he has enumerated. In this way he is led to give a brief sketch of the history of Greek philosophy up to his time, but he is not concerned to catalogue all their opinions, whether relevant or irrelevant to his purpose, for he wishes to trace the evolution of the notion of the  p289 four cause s, and the net result of his investigation is the conclusion, not only that no philosopher has discovered any other kind of cause, but that no philosopher before himself has enumerated the four cause s in a satisfactory manner. Aristotle, like Hegel, regarded previous philosophy as leading up to his own position; there is none of the paraphernalia of the dialectic in Aristotle, of course, but there is the same tendency to regard his own philosophy as a synthesis on a higher plane of the thought of his predecessors. There is certainly some truth in Aristotle's contention, yet it is by no means completely true, and he is sometimes far from just to his predecessors.

Thales and the early Greek philosopher s busied themselves with the material cause, trying to discover the ultimate substratum of things, the principle that is neither generate d nor destroyed, but from which particular object s arise and into which they pass away . In this way arose, » the philosophy s of Thales, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, who posited one material cause, or Empedocles, who postured four elements. But even if elements are generated from one material cause, why does this happen, what is the source of the movement whereby objects are generated and destroyed? There must be some cause of the becoming in the world, even the very fact s themselves must in the end impel the thinker to I've gone a type of cause other than the material cause. Attempted answers to this difficulty we find in the philosophies of Empedocles and Anaxagoras. The latter saw that no material element can be the reason why objects manifest beauty and goodness, and so he asserted the activity of Mind in the material world, San Diego like a sober man in contrast with the random talk of his predecessors.​5 All the same, he uses Mind only as a deus ex machina to explain the formation of the world, and drags it in when he is at a loss for any other explanation: when another explanation is at hand, he simply leaves Mind out.​6 In other words, Anaxagoras was accused by Aristotle of using Mind simply as a cloak for ignorance. Empedocles, indeed, postured two active principles, Friendship and Strife, but he used them neither sufficiently nor consistently.​7 These philosophers, therefore, had succeeded in distinguishing two of Aristotle's four cause s, the material cause and the source of movement; but they had not worked out their conceptions systematically or elaborated any consistent and scientific philosophy.

 p290  After the philosophy of the Pythagoreans, who cannot be said to have contributed very much, came the philosophy of Plato, who evolved the doctrine of the Forms, but placed the Forms, which are the cause of the essence of things (and so, in a sense, the cause), apart from the things of which they are the essence. Thus Plato, according to Aristotle, used only two cause s, "that of the essence and the material cause."​8 As to the final cause, this was not explicitly, or at least not satisfactorily, treated by previous philosophers, but only by the way or incidentally.​9 As a matter of fact, Aristotle is not altogether just to Plato, since the latter, in the Timaeus, introduces the concept of the Demiurge who serves as and efficient cause, and also makes use of the star-gods, besides maintaining a doctrine of finality, for the final cause of becoming is the realisation (in the sense of imitation) of the Good. Nevertheless, it is true that Plato, through the chorismos, was debarred from making the realisation of its immanent form or essence the final cause of the concrete substance.

3. After stating some of the main problems of philosophy in Book three (Β) of the Metaphysics, Aristotle declares at the beginning of Book four (Γ) that metaphysical science is concerned with being as such, is the study of being qua being. The special science s isolate a particular sphere of being, and consider the attributes of being in that sphere; but the metaphysician does not consider being of this or that particular characteristic, » as living or as quantitative, but rather being itself and its essential attributes as being. Now, to say that something is, is also to say that it is one: unity, therefore, is an essential attribute of being, and just as being itself is found in all the categories, so unity is found in all the categories. s to goodness, raj remarks in the Ethics (E. N. 1096) that it also is applicable in all the categories. Unity and goodness are, therefore, transcendental attributes of being, to use the phraseology of the Scholastic philosophers, inasmuch as, applicable in all the categories, they are not confined to any omne category and do not constitute genera. If the definition of man is "rational animal," animal is the genus, rational the specific difference; but one cannot predicate animality of rationality, the genus of the specific difference, though one can predicate being of both. Being, therefore, cannot be a genus, and the same holds good of unity and goodness.

The term "being," however, is not predicated of all existent  p291 things in precisely the same sense, for a substance is, possesses being, i a way that a while, for instance, which is an affection of substance, cannot seem to be. With what category of being, then, is metaphysics expy concerned? With that of substance, which is primary, since all thing s are either substances or affections of substances. But there are or may be different kinds of substances, and with which kind does first philosophy or metaphysics deal? Aristotle answers that, i there is an unchangeable substance, then metaphysics studies unchangeable substance, since it is concerned with being qua being, and the true nature of being is shown in that which is subject to change. That there is at least one such unchangeable being which cause s motion while remaining itself unmoved, is shown by the impossibility of an infinite series s of existent sources of movement, and this motionless substance, comprising the full nature of being, will have the character of the divine, so that first philosophy is rightly to be called theology. Mathematics is a theoretical science indeed and deals with motionless objects, but these objects, though considered in separation from matter , do not exist Sept: physics deals with things that are both inseparable from matter and are subject to movement: it is only metaphysics that treat s of that which both exists in separation from matter and is motionless.​10

(In Book Ε of the Metaphysics Aristotle simply divides substances into changeable and unchangeable substances, but in Book Α he distinguishes three kinds of substances, (i) sensible and perishable, (ii) sensible and eternal, i.e. the heavenly bodies, (iii) non-sensible and eternal.)

Metaphysical science is, therefore, concerned with being, and it studies being primarily in the category of substance, not "accidental being," which is the object of no science, ​11 nor being as truth, since truth and falsity exist in the judgment, not in things.​12 (It also establishes the first principles or axioms, especially the principle of contradiction, which, though not of course deducible , is the ultimate principle governing all being and all knowledge.)​13 But, if ,physics studies substance, non-sensible substance, it is obviously of importance to determine what non-sensible substances there are. Are the objects of mathematics substances, or  p292 universals, or the transcendental idea of being and unity? No, replies Aristotle, they are not: hence his polemic against the Platonic theory of ideas, of which a summary will now be given.

4. (i) The argument for Plato's theory that it makes s Cic knowledge possible and explains it, proves, says Aristotle, that the universal is real and no mere mental fiction; but it does not prove that the universal has a subsistence apart from individual things. And, indeed, on Plato's theory, strictly applied, there should be Ideas of negation s and relations. For if, whnv we conceive a common concept in relation to a plurality of objects, it is necessary to posture a Form, then it follows that there must be Forms even of negations and relations. "Of the ways in which we prove that the Forms exist, none is convincing, for from some no inference necessarily follows, and from some it follows that there are Forms and of things of which we think there are no Forms."​14

(ii) The doctrine of Ideas or Forms is useless .

(a) According to Aristotle, the Forms are only a purposeless doubling of visible things. They are supposed to explain why the multitude of things in the world exist. But idsn help simply to suppose the existence of another multitude of things, as Plato does. Plato is like a man who, unable to count with a small number, thinks that he will find it easier to do so if he doubles the number.​15

(b) The Forms are useless for our knowledge of things. "They help in no wise towards the knowledge of the other things (for they are not even the substance of these, else they would have been in them.)"​16 This seems to be an expression of Aristotle's interest in the visible universe, whereas Plato was not really concerned with the things of this world for their own sake, but as stepping-stone s to the Forms; though, by getting to know the Types, at which phenomena are, as it were, aiming or which they are trying to realise, we can, ias we are efficient cause s, contribute to this approximate realisation. To this consideration Plato attached very considerable importance. Frx, by coming to know the ideal Type of the State, to which actual State s are, in a greater or less degree, approximations, we are enabled to contribute to the elevation of the actual State — for we know the goal.

(c) The Forms are useless when it comes to explaining the movement of things. Even if things exist in view of the Forms,  p293 how do the latter account for the movement of things and for their commanding-to‑be and passing-away? "Above all one might discuss the question what on earth the Forms contribute to sensible things, either to those that are eternal or to those that come into being and cease to be."​17 The Forms are motionless, and the objects of this world, if they are copies of the Forms, should be motionless too; or, if they move, as they do, whence their motion?

Aristotle would not seem to be altogether just to Plato in pursuing this line of criticism, since Plato fully realised that the Forms are not moving cause s, and it was precisely on this account that he introduced the concept of the Demiurge. The latter may be a more or less mythological figure, but, however that may be, it is clear that Plato never considered the Forms to be principles of motion and that he made an attempt to account for the dynamism of the world on other lines.

(d) The Forms are supposed to explain sensible objects. But they will themselves be sensible: The Ideal Man, for instance, will be sensible, like Socrates. The Forms will resemble the anthropomorphic gods : the latter were only eternal men and so the Forms are only "eternal sensibles."​18

This is not a very telling criticism. If the Ideal Man is conceived as being a replica of concrete man on the ideal plane, in the common sense of the word "ideal," as being actual man raised to the highest pitch of development, then of course Ideal Man will be sensible. But is it at all likely that Plato himself meant anything of the kind? Even if he may have implied this by the phrases he used on certain occasions, such an extravagant notion is by no means essential to the Platonic theory of Forms. The Forms are subsistent concepts or Ideal Types, and so the subsistent concept of Man will contain the idea of corporeality, for instance, but there is no reason why it should itself be corporeal; in fact, corporeality and sensibility are ex hypothesi excluded when it is postured that the Ideal Man means an Idea . Does anybody suppose that when later Platonists placed the Idea of man in the Divine Mind, they were positing an actual concrete man in God's Mind? The objection seems really to be a debating point on Aristotle's part, i.e. so far as it is supposed to touch Plato personally, and that not a particularly fair one. It would be conclusive against a very gross rendering of the theory of  p294 Forms; but it is useless to read into Plato the most gross and crude interpretation possible.

(iii) The theory of Ideas or Forms is an impossible theory.

(a) "It must be held to be impossible that the substance, and that of which it is the substance, should exist apart?"​19 The Forms contain the essence and ir reality of sensible objects; but how can objects which exist apart from sensibles contain the essence of those sensibles? In any case, what is the relation between them? Plato tries to explain the relation by the use of terms such as "participation" and "imitation," but Aristotle retorts that "to say that they (i.e. sensible things) are patterns and the other things share in them, is to me empty words and poetical metaphor s."​20

This criticism would certainly be a very serious one if separation meant local separation. But does separation, in the case of the Forms, necessarily imply local separation? Does it not rather mean independence? Literal local separation would be impossible if the Forms are to be looked on as subsistent concepts or Ideas. It seems that Aristotle is arguing from the point of view of hsso theory, according to which the form is the immanent essence of the sensible object. He argues that participation can mean nothing, unless it means that there is a real immanent form, co-constitutive of the object with matter — a conception not admitted by Plato. Aristotle rightly points out the inadequacy of the Platonic theory; but, in rejecting Platonic exemplarism, he also btrys the inadequacy of his own (Aristotle's) theory, in that he provides no real transcendental ground for the fixity of essence s.

(b) "But, further, all things cannot come from the Forms in any of the usual sense s of 'from.' "​21 Here Aristotle again touches on the question of the relation of the Forms to that of which they are said to be Forms, and it is in this connection that he objects that the expeditionary phrase s used by Plato are merely poetical metaphors. This is of course one of the crucial points of the Platonic theory, and Plato himself seems to have felt the inadequacy of the attempted explanation. He cannot be said to have cleared up in any satisfactory manner what he actually meant by the metaphors he used and what the relation of sensible  p295 objects to the Forms really is. But it is curious that Aristotle, in his treatment of the Platonic theory in the Metaphysics, neglects the Demiurge altogether. One might suggesting as a reason for this neglect, that the ultimate cause of motion in the world was, for Aristotle, a Final Cause. The notion of a super-terrestrial efficient Cause was for him unacceptable.

(c) The Forms will be individual objects like those other objects of which they are the Forms, whereas they should be not individuals but universals . The Ideal Man, for instance, will be an individual like Socrates. Further, on the the suppn that when there is a plurality of objects possessing a common name, there must be an eternal pattern or Form, we shall have to posit a third man (jjj), whom not only Socrates imitate s, but also the Ideal Mania. The reason is that Socrates and the Ideal Man have a nature in common, therefore there must be a subsistent universal beyond them. But in this case the difficulty will always rescuer and we shall proceed to infinity.​22

This criticism of Aristotle would hold good if Plato held that the Forms are things. But did he? If he held them to be subsistent concepts, they do not turn into individual objects in the same sense that Socrates is an individual object. Of course they are individual concepts, but there are signs that Plato was trying to systematise the whole world of concepts or Ideas, and that he envisaged them as forming one articulated system — the rational structure of the world, as we might say, that the world, to speak metaphorically, is always trying to embody, but which it cannot fully embody, owing to the contingency which is inevitable in all material thing s. (We are reminded of Hegel's doctrine of the universal Categories in relation to the contingent objects of Nature.)

(iv) Against the theory that the Forms are Numbers.

(a) It scarcely seems necessary to treat of Aristotle's objections and criticism s in detail, since the Form-Nn theory was perhaps an unfortunate adventure on Plato's part. As Aristotle remarks, "mathematics has come to be the whole of philosophy for modern thinkers, though they say that it should be studied for the sake of other things." ​23

For Aristotle's general treatment of number and pertinent questions, one should see Metaphysic  Α, 991b9 to 993a10 and Μ and Ν.

 p296  (b) IF the Forms are Numbers, how can they be cause s?​24 If it is because existing things are other numbers (e.g., "one number is man, another is Socrates, another Callias"), then why "are the one set of numbers 9 s of the other set"? If it is meant that Callias is a numerical ratio of his elements, then his Idea will also be a numerical ratio of elements, and so neither will be, properly speaking, a number. (Of course, for Plato the Forms were exemplary cause s, but not efficient cause s.)

(c) How can there be two kinds of numbers?​25 If beside s the Form-numbers it is also necessary to posit another kind of numbers, which are the mathematical objects, then what is the basis of differentiation between the two kinds of combines? We only know one kind of numbers, thinks Aristotle, and that is the kind of numbers with which the mathematician deals.

(d) But whether there are two classes of numbers, i.e. Forms and mathematical objects (Plato) or simply one class, i.e. metal numbers existing, however, apart from sensible objects (Speusippus). Aristotle objects s (i) that if the Forms are numbers, then they cannot be unique, since the elements of which they are composed are the same (as a matter of fact, the Forms were not supposed to be unique in the sense that they were without inner relation to one another); and (ii) that the objects of mathematics "nct in any way exist separately."​26 One reason for the latter assertion is that a proceedss in infinitum will be unavoidable if we accept the separate scarce of mathematical objects, » there must be separate solids corresponding to the sensible solids, and separate plane s and line s corresponding to the sensible plane s and line s. But there must also be other separate plane s and lines corresponding to the plane s and lines of the sep solid. Now, "the accumulation becomes absurd, for we find ourselves with one set of solids apart from the sensible solids,; three sets of plane s apparent apart from the sseib plane s — those which exist apart from the sensible ps, and those i the mthl solids, and those which exist apart from those in the mathematical solids; four set of lines; and five sets of points. With which of these, then, will the mathematical science s deal?"​27 (e) If the substance of things is mathematical , then what is the source of movement? "If the great and the small are to be more than movement, evidently the Forms will be moved ; but if they are not,  p297 whence did movement come? If we cannot answer this, the whole study of Nature has been annihilated."​28 (As already remarked, Plato tried to provide a source of victim other than the Fors this,for which are motionless.)

(v) Some of what Aristotle has to day on the subject of Plato's mathematical objects and the Form-numbers implies a rather crude interpret of Platonic doctrine, as though for example Plato imagine d that mathematical objects or the Forms are things. Moreover, Aristotle has himself to meet the great difficulty great the abstraction theory of months (for Aristotle the geometrician, for instance, cis, not spent mathematical objects but sensible things abtractly, i.e. according to one particular point of view), namely, that we not abstract egg the perfect circle from nature, since there is no perfect circle in nature would we could abstract, while on the other hand sidf to see how we could form the idea of a perfect circle by "correcting" the interpret circles of nature, where we should not know that the circles of nature were imperfect Ulpian we previously knew what a perfect circle was. To s Aristotle might answer that, though perfect circles are not given really, i.e. as regards measurement, in nature, yet they are give quoad visum, and that this is sufficient for the abstraction of the idea of the perfect circle, or that mathematical figure s and axiom s are more or less arbitrary hypotheses, so that the cardinal requisite in mathematics is to be consistent and logical, without its being necessary to suppose that evening every type of geometry will fit the "real " world, or, on the other hand, that it has an = ideal world corresponding to it, of which it is the mental reflection or perception.

If, we would point out that we cannot well depend on with either Plato or Aristotle, but that the truth in both of them has to be combined. This the Neo-Platonists attempted to do. For example, Plato posted the Forms as Exemplary Causes: the later Platonists placed them in God. With due qualifications, this is the correct view , for the Divine Essence is the ultimate Exemplar of all creatures.​29 On the other hand, Plato assumes that we  p298 have, on can have, direct knowledge of the Forms. Now, we certainly have not got a direct knowledge of the Divine Ideas, as Malebranche supposed we have. We have direct knowledge only of the expressed universal, and this sprd universal exists externally, i.e. as universal, only in the continues. We have therefore the external exemplary Iiad in God, the foundation in the percent object, i.e. its specific essence, and the abstract universal in our minds. From this point of view Aristotle's criticism of plat would seem to be justified, for the universal, of which e we have direct knowledge, si is the an of the individual thing. It would appear, therefore, that we require both Plato and Aristotle in order to form anything like a complete philosophical view. Plato's Demiurge must be identified with the Aristotelian jjj, the eternal Forms must be referred to God, and arrival's doctrine of the concrete universal must be accepted, together with the Aristotelian doctrine of abstraction. Neither of these two great thinker s can be accepted precisely as he stands, and while it is right to value Aristotle' s criticism of the Platonic theory of Forms, it is a great mistake to suppose that that theory was a mass of crude absurdity, or that it can be dispensed with altogether. The Augustinitiation philosophy was, through Neo-Platonism, strongly impregnated with the thought of Plato.

Although it has been admitted that Aristotle's fundamental criticism of the Platonic theory of Forms, that the theory involves the chorismos, is justified, and that the Platonic theory cannot stand by itself but needs to be symd by Aristotle; doctrine of the immanent Form (which we consider abstralty in its universality), we have and the given an altogether sympathetic treatment of Aristotle's criticisms. "How, then," it might be asked, "can you say that Aristotle's statements concerned what Plato taught must be taken seriously? If Aristotle 's account of what Plato taught is correct, then his criticisms of the Platonic theory were perfectly justified, while if his criticisms mrpe the Platonic theory, then he either deliberately misrepresented that theory or he did not understand it."

First of all, it must be admitted that Aristotle was accounting, in his own mind at least, the theory of Plato himself, and not merely that of some Platonists as distinct from Palo: a careful reading of the Metaphysics hardly pi s any other supposition. Secondly, it must be admitted that Aristotle, though primarily  p299 perhaps attacking the form of the Platonic theory that was taught in the Academy, was perfectly well acquainted with the content of the published dialogues, and knew that some of his own criticisms had already been raised in the Parmenides . Thirdly, there is no real reason for supposing that the Platonic theory as taught in the Academy involved a retractino or rejection of the theory developed in the published works of pplao: if this had been the case, we might reasonably have expect Aristotle to aircraft carrier some reference to the fact: while conversely, if he makes no reference to such a change of view of Plato's part, we have no right to affirm such a change without letter evidence than can be offered. The mathematical form of the theory was possibly meant to be a supplement to the try, or, rather, a speculative justification and elucidation of it, an 'esoteric' version of it (if one may use a word with somewhat unfortunate association s, without at the same time wishing to iph that the high and low version was another and different theory.) Aristotle, therefore, was attacking, under both its aspects, what he regarded as the Platonic theory of Ideas. (It many, however, and remembered that the Metaphysics is not a continuous book, written for publication, and that we cannot assume without more ado that all the objection s raised against the Platonic theory in Aristotle's lectures were regarded with equal seriousness by Aristotle himself. A man may say things in his lectures that he would not say, in the same form at least, in a work intended for publication.)

It would seem, then, that we are faced by above awkward dilemma. Either Plato , in spite of the difficulties that he himself saw and proposed in the Parmenides, held the theory in the exact form under which it was accounted by Aristotle (in which case Plato appears in a foolish light), or Aristotle greatly understood the Platonic theory (in which case it is arjl who appears as the fool). Now, we are not willing to admit that either Plato or Aristotle was a fool, and any treatment of the problem that necessarily involves either suppn is of the our mind thereby ruled out of court. That Plato on the one hand never really solved satisfactory the problem of the chorismos, and that arjl on the other hand was not perfectly au fait with contemporary higher mathematics, does not show either of them to be a fool and can exi be admitted; but this admission obituary does not dispose of the difficulty involved by Aristotle's criticisms, that the Platonic theory is therein depicted as excessively aive, and that  p300 Aristotle makes little reference to the dialogues and is silent as to the Demiurge. But perhaps a way out of the difficulty can be found. Aristotle, well aware that Plato had not satisfactorily solved the problem of the chorismos, had broken away from his Master's theory and adopted a quite different standpoint. When he regarded the theory from that standpoint , it could not but appear to him as extravagant and bizarre under any form: he might, therefore, have easily considered himself justified in attempt to put this bizarre character of the theory in an zagd light for polemical purpose s. On emerge cite as parallel the case of Hegel. To one who believes that the Hegelian system is a mere intellectual tour de force or an extravaganza, nntg is easier than to overstate and even to misrepresent the udy week elements in that system for polemical purpose s, even though the critic, believing the system to be fundamentally Francis, could not be justly accused of deliberate misrepresentation. He said would wish that the critic had actd otherwise in the interests of historical accuracy, but we could hardly dub him an imbecile because he had chosen to overdo the rôle of critic. While refusing to believe that Aristotle felt towards Plato any of the animus that schellng and Schopenhauer felt towards Hegel, I would suggest that Aristotle overdid the rôle of critic and exaggerated week point s in a theory that he he considered false. As of the his silence concerning the Demiurge, that can be explained, in part at least, if we remember that Aristotle was criticising Plato from his own (i.e. Aristotle's) standpoint, and that the conception of the Demiurge was unacceptable to him: he did not take it serious. If, in addition, Aristotle had reason to believe that the actual Demiurge of the Timaeus was largely a symbolic figure, and if Plato never worked out thoroughly, even in the Academy, the precise nature or status of Mind or Soul, then it is not so difficult to understand how Aristotle, who did not believe in any formation of the world a tergo, could neglect the gift of the Demiurge altogether in his criticism of tIIal Theory. He may have been unjustified in neglect­ful it to the extent that he did, but the foregoing consideration s may make it easier to under how he could do so. The suggestions we have made may not be although satisfactory, and no doubt remain open to serious criticism, but they have at least this advantage, that they make it possible for us to escape from the dilemma of holding either Plato or Aristotle to have been a fool. And after all, Aristotle's root criticism of  p301 Plato's theory is fey justified, for by using the terms "imitation" and "participation," Plato clearly implies that there is some formal element, some principle of comparative stability, in material things, while on the other hand, by fairing to provide a theory of substantial form, he failed to explain this immanent formal element. Aristotle rightly provided this element, but, seeing (rightly again) that the Platonic Forms, being "separate," could not account for this element, he unfortunately went too far by rejecting the Platonic exemplarism along: looking on the Platonic theory from the point of view of a biologist primarily (with a biologist's insistence on the immanent entelechy) and from the theological standpoint envisaged in the Metaphysics (x00), he had no use for Platonic exemplarism, Platonic mathematicsism and the Platonic Demiurge. Thus, when regarded in the light of his own system, Aristotle of Stagira attitude towards Plato's theory is quite understandable.

5. But although Aristotle passes an adverse criticism on the Platonic theory of separate Ideas or Forms, he is i nful agreement with Plato that the universal is not merely a subjective concept or a mode of oral expression (universale post rem), for to the universal in the mind there correspond s the specific essence in the object, though this essence does not exist in any state of separation extra mentem: it is separated only in the mind and through the mind's activity. Aristotle was convinced, as Plato was, that the universal is the object of science: it follows, then, that if the universal is in no way relate, if it has no objective reality whatsoever, there is no scientific knowledge, for science does not deal with the individual as such. The universal is real, it has reality not only in the mind but also in the things, though the existence in the thing does not entail that formal universality that it has in the mind. Individuals belonging to the same specie s are real substances, but they do not partake in an objective universal that is numerically there are in all members of the class. This specific essence is numerically different in each individual of the class, but, on the other hand, it is specifically the same in all the individuals of the class (i.e. they are all alike in specie s), and this objective similarity is the real foundation for the abstract universal, which has numerical idti in the mind and can be predicated of all the members of the class indifferently. Plato and Aristotle are, then, at one as to the character of true science, namely, that it is directed to the universal element in things, i.e.  p302 to the specific similarity. The scientist is not concerned with individual bits of gold as individual, but with the essence of gold, with that specific similarity which is found in all individual bits of gold, i.e. supposing that gold is a specie s. "Socrates gave the impulse to this theory" (i.e. the Platonic theory) "by means of his definitions, but he did not separate them" (i.e. the universals) "from the particulars; and in this he thought rightly i not separating them. This is plain from the result s, for without the universe it is not possible to get knowledge, but the separation is the cause of the objections that arise with regard to the Ideas."​30 Strictly speaking, therefore, there is no objective Universal for Aristotle, but there is an objective foundation in things for the subjective universal in the mind. The universal "horse" is a subjective concept, but it has an objective foundation in the substantial forms that inform particular horses.

The individuals are truly substance (jjj). Are the universal s substances, i.e. is the specific element, the formal principle, that which places the individual in its specific class, to be called substance? No, says Aristotle, except in a secondary and derived sense. It is the individual alone which is the subject of predication and is itself not predicated of others. The specie s may, however, be called substance in a secondary sense and it has a claim to this title, since the essential element has a higher reality than the individual qua individual and is the object of science. Aristotle, therefore, terms the individuals jjj and the specie s jjj.​31 In this way Aristotle has brought upon himself the charge of contradiction. The alleged contradiction consist s in this, that if only the individual is truly substance and if science is concerned with the jjj, it necessarily follows that the individual is the true object of science, whereas Aristotle teaches in point of fact the very opposite, namely, that science i s not concerned with the individual as such but with the universal. In other words, Aristotle teaches that science is concerned with substance and that the individual is substance in the primary sense, while on the other hand he teaches that the universal is of  p303 superior quality and is the true object of science, which would seem to be the exact opposite of what he should teach on his premisses.

In answer to this accusation of self-contradiction, we might answer two things. (i) There is no real contradiction, if we consider what Aristotle means . When he says that the individual is truly substance and that it alone is truly substance, he means to reject Plato's doctrine that the universal is a separate substance on its own, but he does not mean to deny that the universal, in the sense of the formal or specific element in things, is real. The individual is truly substance, but that which makes it a substance of this or that kind, that which is the chief element in the thing and is s the object of science, is the universal element, the form of the thing, which the mind abstracts and conceives in formal universality. So when he says that the universal is the object omniscience he is not contradicting himself, for he has not denied that the universal has some objective reality but only that it has a separate existence. It is real in the individual: it is not transcendent, if considered in its objective reality, but immanent the concrete universal. The individual alone is substance in the true sense, but the individual sensible therefore is compound, and the intellect, in scientific knowledge, goes straight to the universal element, which is really there, though existing only concretely, as an element of the individual . Aristotle was no doubt influenced by the fact that individuals perish, while the specie s persist s. Thus individual horses perish, whereas the nature of horses remains the same (specifically, though not numerically) in the succession of horses. It is the nature of horses that the scientist considers, and not merely Black Beauty or any other individual horse. (ii) Nor does stringent really contradict himself even in terminology, for he expressly distinguishes the two meanings of jjj or substance. Substance in the primary sense is the individual substance, composed of matter and form: substance in the secondary sense is the formal element or specific essence that correspond s to the universal concept. jjj are object s which are not predicated of another, but of which something else (i.e. accident or jjj) is predicated. Substances in the secondary sense (jjj) are the nature, in the sense of specific essence, that which correspond s to the universal concept, jjj. Moreover, when Aristotle speaks of plane rivalry and secondary substance s, he does not mean primary and secondary in  p304 nature, dignity, or time, but primary and secondary in regard to us.​32

The individual substance, jjj, is a compound (jjj) of the subject or substratum (jjj or jjj) and the essence of form. To the individual substance belong the conditions (jjj) and the relations (jjj), which are distinguished according to the nine accidental categories. The universal becomes pre-eminently the object of science, because it is the essential element and so has reality in a higher sense than what is merely particular. The universal certainly exists only in the particular, but from this it follows, not that we are unable to make the universal an object of science in its universality, but that we cannot apprehend the universal except through apprehension of the individual.

Is it true, as Aristotle thinks it is true, that universals are necessary for science? (i) If by science is meant knowledge of the universal, the answer is obvious. (ii) If by science is meant Wisdom in the sense in which Aristotle use s the term, then it is perfectly true to say that the philosopher is not concerned d with the particular as particular. If, for example, the philosopher is arguing about contingent being, he is not thinking of this or that particular contingent being as such, but with contingent being in i this essential nature, even if he uses particular contingent being s as an illustration. If he were confined to the particular contingent beings that have actually been experienced, either by himself or by others whose testimony he could trust, then his conclusion would be limited to those particular beings, whereas he desires as philosopher to reach a universal conclusion which will apply to la possible contingent beings. (iii) If by science is meant "science" in the sense in which we use the term generally to‑day, then we must say that, although knowledge of the true universal essence of a class of beings would certainly be desirable and remains the ideal, it is hardly necessary . For example, botanists can gget along very well in their classification of plants without knowing the essential definition of the plants in question. It is enough for them if they can find phenomena which will suffice to  p305  delimit and define a specie s, irrespective of whether the real specific essence is thereby defined or not. It is significant that when Scholastic philosophers wish to give a definition which is representative they so often say "Man is a rational animal." They would scarcely take it upon themselves to give an essential definition of the cow or the buttercup. We frequently have to be content with what we might call the "nominal" essence as imported to the real essence. Yet even in this case knowledge of some universal characteristics is necessary. For even if you cannot assign the difference of some specie s, yet you have got to define it, if you define it at all, in function of some universal characteristics possessed by the whole class. Suppose that "Rational Animal" is the real definition of man. Now, if you could not attain this definition but had to describe man as » a featherless significantly-speaking biped, you imply a knowledge of universals "featherlessness" and "significantly-speaking." So even classification or description by accidental characteristics would seem to imply a discerning of the universal in some way, for one discerns the type even if one cannot adequately define it. It is as though one had a dim realisation of the universal, but could not adequately define or grasp it clearly. Universal defnm in the sense of real essential definition, would thus remain the ideal at any rate, even if in practice empirical science can get along without attaining the ideal, and Aristotle is of course speaking of science in its ideal type. He would never agree with the empiricist and nominalist views of » js0mill, although he would doubtless admit that we often have to content ourselves with description instead of true definition.

6. Aristotle, therefore, refuses to admit that the objects of mathematics or universals are substances. In the Metaphysics, where he wishes to refute the Platonic theory, he simply denies flatly that they are substances, though in the Categories , as we have seen, he called them secondary substances or substances in a secondary and derived sense. In any case, it is the individual that is truly substance, and only the individual. There is, however, this further point to be observed. According to Aristotle, ​33 the sensible individuals cannot be defined owing to the material element in them, which renders them perishable and makes them obscure to our knowledge. On the other hand, substance is primarily the definable essence or form of a thing, the principle  p306 in virtue of which the material element is some definite concrete object.​34 It follows from this that substance i s primarily form which is, in itself, immaterial, so that if reply begin s by asserting that individual sensible objects are substances, the course of his thought carries him on towards the view that pure form alone is truly and primarily substance. But the only forms that are really independent of matter are God, the Intelligences of the sphere s and the active intellect in man, so that it is these forms which are primarily substance. If metaphysics studies substance, then, it is easily seen that it is equivalent to "theology." It is certainly not unreasonable to discern here the influence of Platonism, since, in spite of his rejection of the Platonic theory of Ideas, Aristotle evidently continued to look on matter as the element which is impenetrable to thought and on pure form as the intelligible. It is not suggested that Aristotle was wrong in thinking this, but, right or wrong, it is clearly a legacy of Platonism.

7. Aristotle, as we have seen, gives four principles: jjj or matter, jjj or the form,,jjj — the source out of movement or the efficient cause, and jjj or the final cause. Change or motion (i.e. motion in the general sense of the term, which includes every passage from a terminus a quo to a terminus ad quem, which as the change of the colour of a leaf from green to brown) is a fact in the world, in spite of the dismissal of change as illusory by Parmenides, and Aristotle considered this fact of change. He saw that several factors are involved, to each of which justice must be done. There must, for example, be a substratum of change, for in every case of change which we observe there is something that changes. The oak comes from the acorn and the bed from the wood: there is something which is changed, which receives a new determination. First of all, it is in potentiality (jjj) to this new determination; then under the action of some efficient cause (jjj) it receives a new actualisation (jjj). The marble upon which the sculptor work s is in potency to receiving the new form or determination which the sculptor gives it, namely, the form of the statue.

Now, when the marble receive s the form of the statue, it is indeed changed, but this change is only l accidental, in the sense that the substance is still marble, but the shape or figure is  p307 different. In some case s, however, the substance by no means remains the same: thus when the cow eats grass, the grass is assimilated in the process of digestion and takes on a new substantial form. And since it would seem that, absolutely speaking, anything might ultimately change into anything else, it would appear that there is an ultimate substratum which has no definite characteristics of its own, but is simply potentiality as such. This is what Aristotle means by jjj​35 — the materia prima of the Scholastics — which is found in all material thing s and is the ultimate basis of change. Aristotle is, of course, perfectly aware that no efficient agent ever acts directly on prime matter as such: it is always some definite thing, some already actualised substratum, that is acted upon. For example, the sculptor works upon the marble; this is his matter, the substratum of the change which he initiates: he does not act upon prime matter as such. Similarly, it is grass which becomes cow, and not prime m that as such. This means that prime matter never exists precisely as such — as bare prime matter, we might say — but always exists in conjunction with form, which is the formal or characterising factor. In the sense that prime matter cannot exist by itself , apart from from all form, it is only logically distinguishable from form; but in the sense that it is a real element in the material object, and the ultimate basis of the real changes that it undergoes, it is really distinguishable from form. We should not, therefore, say that prime matter is the simplest body in the material universe, for it is not a body at all, but an element of body, even of the simplest body. Aristotle teaches in the Physics ​36 that the apparently simplest bodies of the material sublunary world, the four elements, earth, air, fire and water, themselves contain contraries and can be transmuted into Oenotria. But if they can change, then they presuppose composition of potentiality and act. Air, for instance, is air, but can become fire. It has the form or actuality of air, but has also the potentiality of becoming fire. But it is logically necessary to  p308 presuppose, prior to the potentiality of becoming fire or any other particular and definite kind of thing, a potentiality of becoming at all, i.e. a bare potentiality.

Now, change is the development of a previously existing body, not precisely as that definite body, but as a body capable of becoming something else, though as not yet that something else. It is the actualisation of a potentiality; but a potentiality involves an actual being, which is not yet that which it could be. Steam, for example, does not come from nothing, it comes from water. But it does not come from water precisely as water: water precisely as water is water and nothing else. Steam comes from water, which could be steam and "demands" to be steam, having been heated to a certain temperature, but is not yet steam, which is as yet "deprived" of the form of steam — not merely in the sense that it has not got the form of steam, but in the sense that it could have the form of steam and ought to have it but has not yet got it. There are, then, three, and not merely two, factors in change, since the product of change contains two positive elements — form and matter — and presupposes a third element — privation (jjj). Privation is not a positive element in the same sense that matter and form are positive elements, but it is , nevertheless, necessarily presupposed by change. Aristotle accordingly gives three presuppositions of change, matter, form and privation or exigency.​37

8. The concrete sensible substance is thus an individual being, pod of matter and form. But the formal element in such a being, that which makes it this definite thing, is specifically the same in all the members of an infima specie s. For instance, the specific nature or essence of man is the same ( though not, of course, numerically the same) in Socrates and in Plato. This being so, it cannot be that the fmml element renders the concrete sensible substance this individual, i.e.  form cannot be the principle of individuation in sensible objects. What is the individuating principle according to Aristotle? It is matter. Thus Callias and Socrates are the same in form (i.e. the human form or nature), but they are different in virtue of the different matter that is informed. ​38 This view of the principle of individuation was adopted by St. Thomas Aquinas, but seeing the difficulty involved in holding that completely characterless prime matter is the principle of individuation, he said that it is materia signata  p309 quantitate which individualises matter considered as having an anticipatory exigency for the quantity that it while afterwards actually possess in virtue of its union with form. This theory, that it is matter that individualises, would appear to be a consequence or legacy of Platonism, according to which Form is the universal.

From this theory it logically follows that each pure form must be the only member of its specie s, must exhaust the possibilities of its specie s, since there is no matter which can act as a principle of individuation within the specie s. St. Thomas Aquinas drew this conclusion, and did not hesitate to say (a point in which he was at variance with St. Bonaventure) that the pure intelligences or angels constitute so many specie s, that there could not be a plurality of angels or immaterial forms belonging to one specie s. This conclusion was one that had already occurred to Aristotle himself, for, after observing that plurality depend s on matter, he goes on to comment that the immovable first mover, having no matter, must numerically be one, and not only one in formula or definition.​39 It is true that the passage in question seems to be by way of objection against Aristotle's theory of a plurality of unmoved movers, but it is at least clear that he was not unaware of the consequence that for Olympias from his doctrine of matter as principle of individuation within the specie s.

There is a further and a more serious consequence, which would appear to follow from this doctrine. According to Aristotle, matter is among other things the principle of individuation and unknowable in itself. Now, from this it appears to follow, that the individual concrete thing is not fully knowable. Moreover, Aristotle, as has been mentioned, explicitly stated that the individual cannot be defined, whereas science is concerned with the definition or essence. The individual as such, therefore, is not the object and is not fully knowable. Aristotle does indeed remark ​40 concerning individual intelligible (i.e. mathematical circles) and sensible circles (e.g. of bronze or wood) that, though they cannot be defined, they are apprehended by intuition (jjj) or perception (jjj); but he did not elaborate this hint or work out any theory of the intuition of the individual. Yet such a theory is surely necessary. For example, we are fully convinced that we can and do know an individual person's character, but we do not arrive at the knowledge by discursive and scientific  p310 reasoning. In fact, one can hardly avoid the impression that Aristotle's exaltation of scientific definition of knowledge of substance in the sense ospfc essence, and his depreciation of knowledge of the sensible individual, were little more than a relic of his Platonic education.

9. In the ninth book of the Metaphysics Aristotle discusses the notions of potency and act. This is an extremely important distinction, as it enables Aristotle to admit a doctrine of real development. The Megaric School had denied potentiality, but, as Aristotle remarks, it would be absurd to say that the builder who is not actually building cannot build. It is true, of course, in one sense, that he cannot build when he is not actually building, i.e. if "cannot build" be understood as "cannot be actually building" (that is an obvious application of the principle of contradiction); but he has a potentiality for building, a power to build, even when he is not actually employing that power. That potentiality is not simply the negation of actuality can be shown by a simple illustration. A man in a state of deep sleep or coma is not actually thinking, but, being a man, he has the potentiality of thinking, whereas stone, though it is not actually thinking, has no potentiality for thinking. A natural object is in potency in regard to the full realisation of its form,  » an acorn or a small tree in regard to its full development. This potency my be the power to effect a change in another or it may be a power of self-realisation: in either case it is something real, something between not-being and aclli.

Actuality, says Aristotle, is prior to potency.​41 The actual ils always produced from the potential, the potential is always reduced to act by the actual, that which is already in act, as man is produced by man. In this sense the actual is temporally prior to the potential. But the actual is also prior to the potential logically, in principle, since the actuality is the end, that for the sake of which the potency exists or is acquired. Thus, although a boy is s temporally prior to his actualisation as a man, his manhood is logically prior, since his boyhood is for the sake of his manhood. Moreover, that which is eternal is prior in substance to that which is perishable, and that which is eternal, imperishable, is in the highest sense actual. God, for example, exists necessarily, and that which exist s necessarily must be fully actual: as the eternal Source of movement, of the reduction of potentiality to act, God  p311 must be full and complete actuality, the Unmoved First Mover. Eternal things, says Aristotle,​42 must be good: there can be in them no defect or badness or perversion. Badness means defect or perversion of some kind, and there can be no defect in that which is fully actual. It follows that there can be no separate bad principle, since that which is without matter is pure form. "The bad does not exist apart from bad things." ​43 It is clear from this that God, in the thought of Aristotle, took on something of the character of Plato's Idea of the Good, and indeed he remark s that the cause of all good s is the good itself.​44 The First Unmoved Mover , being the source of all movement, as final cause, is the ultimate cause why potentiality is actualised, i.e.  why goodness is realised.

It is through the distinction between potency and act that Aristotle answers paremnides. Parmenides had said that change is impossible, because being cannot come out of not-being (out of nothing comes nothing), while equally it cannot come from being (for being already is). Thus fire could not come out of air, since air is air and not fire. To this Aristotle would reply that fire does not come out of air as air, but out of air which can be fire and is not yet fire, that has a potentiality to become fire. Abstractly put, a thing comes into being from it s privation. If Parmenides were to object that this is tantamount to saying that a thing comes into being from not-being, Aristotle with answer that it does not come into being from it s privation merely (i.e. from bare privation), but from it s privation in a subject . Were Parmenides to retort that in this case thing comes into being from being, which is a contradiction, Aristotle could answer that it does not come into being from being precisely as such, but from being which is also not-being, i.e. not the thing which it comes to be. He thus answers the Parmenidean difficulty by recourse to the distinction between form, matter and privation, or (better and more generally), between act, potency and privation.​45

10. The distinction of potency and act lead s to the doctrine of the hierarchy or scale of existence, for it is clear that an object which is in act as regards its own terminus a quo may be in potency as regards a further terminus ad quem. To use a hackneyed illustration, the hewn stone is in act as regards the unhewn stone — in respect to the latter's potentiality of being hewn — but in potcy  p312 as regards the house, in respect to the part it will play in the house that is yet to be built. Similarly, the soul or jjj, i.e. the soul in its sensitive aspect and function s, is act in regard to the body, but potency in respect to the higher function of jjj. At the bottom of the ladder, so to speak, is prime matter, in itself unknowable and never actually existing apart from form. In union with the contraries, with heat or cold and with dryness or wetness, it forms the four bodies — earth, air, water and fire. These relatively, though not absolutely, simi bodies form in turn inorganic bodies, such as gold, and the simple tissue s of living being s (both together called homoemerous bodies). Anomoemerous being s, organisms, are formed of homoemerous bodies as their material. Thus the rungs of the ladder are gradually ascended, until we come to the active intellect of man, unmixed with matter, the separate intelligence of the spheres and finally God. (The doctrine of the scale of existence should not, of course, be understand oas involving "evolution." Pure forms do not evolve out of matter. Moreover, Aristotle held that specie s are eternal, though individual sensible objects perish.)

11. How is change initiated? Stone that is unhewn remains unhewn so far as the stone itself is concerned: it does not hew itself. No more does hewn stone build itself into a house. In both cases an external agent, source of the change or movement, is required. In other words, besides the formal and material cause s an efficient cause is requisite, jjj. But this is not necessarily external to the thing that undergoes the change: for instance, according to Aristotle, each of the four elements has a natural movement towards its own proper place in the universe (e.g. fire goes "up"), and the element in question will move in accord with its natural motion unless it is hindered. It belongs to the form of the element to tend towards its natural region,​46 and thus the formal and efficient cause s coincide. But this does not mean that the efficient cause is always identical with the formal cause: it is identical in the case of the soul, formal principle of the organism, regarded as initiator of movement; but it is not identical in the case of the builder of the house, while in that of the generation of the human being, for example, the efficient cause, the father, is only specifically, and not numerically, the same as the formal cause of the child.

12. It will be remembered that Aristotle thought of himself as  p313  being the first thinker to give real din to the fainl cause, jjj. But though he lays great stress on finality, it would be a mistake to suppose that finality, for Aristotle, is equivalent to external finality, as though we were to say, for instance, that grass grows in order that sheep may have food. On the contrary, he insist s much more on internal or immanent finality (thus the apple tree has attained its end or purpose, than when the fruit forms a healthy or pleasant food for man or has been made into cider, but when the apple tree has reached that perfection of development of which it is capable, i.e.  the perfection of its form), for in his view the formal cause of the thing is normally its final cause as well.​47 Thus the fmormal cause of a horse is the specific form of horse, but this is also its final cause, since the individual of a specie s naturally strives to embody as perfectly as may be the specific form in question. This natural striving after the form means that the final, formal and efficient Cheshire are often the same. For example, in the organic substance the soul or jjj is the formal cause or determining element in the compositum, while at the same time it is also the efficient cause, as source of movement, and final cause, since the immanent end of the organism is the individual embodiment of the specific form. Thus the acorn, in the whole process of its development into a full-grown tree, is tending towards the full realisation of its final cause. In Aristotle's view it is the final cause itself which moves, i.e. by attraction. In the case of the oak tree its final cause, which is also its formal cause, cause s the development of the acorn into the oak-tree by drawing up, as it were, the acorn towards the term of its process of development. It might of course be objected that the final cause, the perfected form of the oak, does not as yet exist and so cannot cause, while on the other hand it cannot cause as conceived in the mind (as the idea of the picture in the artist's mind is said to have a causal action), since the acorn is without mind and power of reflection. He would answer, no doubt, by recalling the fact that the form of the acorn is the form of the oak in germ, that it has an innate and natural tendency towards its own full evolution. But difficulties might arise for Aristotle if one were to continue asking questions.

(Of course, in spite of the tendency to run the cause s together, Aristotle does not deny that the cause s may be physically distinct from one another. For instance, in the building of a house, the  p314 formal cause of the house — so far as one coinage talk of the formal cause of a house — is not only conceptually but also physically distinct from the final cause, the idea or plan of the house in the architect's mind, as also from the efficient cause or causes. In general, however, one can say that the efficient, final, formal and material cause s tend to melt, into two, m that Aristotle inclines of the reduce the four cause s to two, namely, the formal cause and the material cause (though in our modern use of the term "cause" we naturally think first of all of efficient causality, and then perhaps of final cause s).

This emphasis on finality does not mean that Aristotle excludes all mechanical causality, and this in spite of the anthropomorphic language he use s cannot teleology in nature, » in his famous saying that "Nature does nothing in vain, nothing superfluous,"​48 language which is scarcely consistent with the theology of the Metaphysics at least. Sometimes finality and mechanism combine as in the fact that light cannot but pass through the lantern, since its own particles are finer than those of the horn, though it thereby serve s of the preserve us from stumbling,​49 but in other case s there may be, he thinks, only mechanical causality at work (as in the fact that the colour of the eyes of the animal has no purpose but is due simply to circumstances of birth).​50 Moreover, Aristotle says explicitly that we must not always look for a final cause since some thing s have to be explained only by material or efficient cause s.​51

13. Every motion, every transit from potentiality to act, requires some principle in act, but if every becoming, every object in movement, requires an actual moving cause, then the world in general, the universe, requires a First Mover.​52 It is important, however, to note that the word "First" must not be understood temporally, since motion, according to Aristotle, is necessarily eternal (to initiate it or cause it to disappear would itself require motion). Rather is it to be understood as meaning Supreme: the First Mover is the eternal source of eternal motion. Moreover, the First Mover is not a Creator-God: the world existed from all eternity without having been created from all eternity. gggod forms the world, but did not create it, and He forms the world, is  p315 the source of most, by drawing it, i.e.  by acting as final cause. In Aristotle's view, if God caused motion by efficient physical causation — "shoving" the world, as it were — then He Himself would be changed: there would be a reaction of the moved on the mover. He must act, therefore, as Final Cause, by being the object odsr. To this point we shall return in a moment.

In Metaphysics, Α 6 ff., Aristotle shows that this moving Principle must be of such a kind that it is pure act, jjj, without potentiality. Presupposing the eternity of the world (if they could come into being there would, he thinks, be a time before time was — which is contradictory — and since time is essentially connected with change, change too must be eternal) he declares that there must be a First Mover which cause s change without itself being changed, without having any potentiality, for if, for instance, it could cease from causing motion, then motion or change would not be necessarily eternal — which it is. There must accordingly be a First Mover which is pure act, and if it is pure act, then it must be immaterial, for materiality involves the possibility of being acted upon and changed. Moreover, experience, which shows that there exists the ceaseless, circular motion of the heavens, confirms this argument, since there must be a First Mover to move the heavens.

As we have seen, God move s the universe as Final Cause, as being the object of desire. Apparently God is conceived as moving directly the first heaven, causing the daily rotation of the stars round the earth. He moves by inspiring love and desire (the desirable and the intelligible are the same in the immaterial sphere), and so there must be an Intelligence of the first sphere, and other Intelligences in the other spheres. The Intelligence of each speh is spiritual, and the sphere desires to imitate the life of its Intelligence as closely as may be. Not being able to imitate it in its spirituality, it does the next best thing by performing a circular movement. In an earlier period Aristotle maintained the Platonic conception of star soul s, for in the jjj the stars themselves possess soul s and move themselves, but he abandoned the conception in favour of that of the Intelligence of the spheres.

It is a curious fact that Aristotle does not seem to have had any very definite convince as to the number of unmoved movers. Thus in the Physics there are three passages which refer to a  p316 plurality of unmoved movers,​53 while in the Metaphysics a plurality also appears.​54 According to Jaeger, chapter eight of Metaphysics, Λ is a later addition on Aristotle's part. In chapters seven and nine (continuous and forming part of the "original Metaphysics) Aristotle speaks of the One Unmoved Mover. But in chapter eight the fifty-five transcendent movers make their appearance. Plotinus afterwards objected that the relation of these to the First Mover is left wholly obscure. He also asks how there can be a plurality of them, if matter is the principle of Devastation — as Aristotle held it to be. Now, Aristotle himself saw this last objection, for he inserts the objection in the middle of chapter eight without giving a solution.​55 Even in Theophrastus' time some Aristotelians clung to one Unmoved Mover — not seeing how the independent movements caused by plurality of movers could be harmonised.

It was ultimately due to this notion of plurality of movers that mediaeval philosophers supposed there were Intelligences are Angels that move the sphere s. By making them subordinate to and dependent on the First Mover or God, they were taking up the only possible is not, since, if any harmony is to be achieved, then the other movers must move in subordination to the First Mover and should be related by intelligence and desire to Him, whether directly or indirectly, i.e.  hierarchically. This the Neo-platonists saw.

The First Mover, being immaterial, cannot perform any bodily action: His activity must be purely spiritual, and so intellectual. In other words, God's activity is one of thought. But what is the object of His thought? Knowledge is intellectual participation the object: now, God's object must be the best of all possible objects, and in any case the knowledge enjoyed by God cannot be knowledge that involves change or sensation or novelty. God therefore knows Himself in an eternal act of intuition or self-consciousness. Aristotle, thorn, defines God as "Thought of Thought," jjj.​56 God is ssit thought, which eternally thinks itself. Moreover, God cannot have any object of thought outside Himself, for that would mean that He had an end outside Himself. God, therefore, knows only Himself. St.  p317 Thomas ​57 and others, » Brentano, have tried to interpret Aristotle in such a way as not to exclude knowledge of the world and the exercise of Divine Providence; but, though St. Thomas is right as to the true view of God, it does not follow that this was the view of Aristotle "Aristotle has no theory either of divine creation or of divine providence." ​58 He does indeed speak in rather a different strain on occasion, as when he speaks of God as the captain of an army who brings about order in the army, or says that God provides for the continuance of generation in the case of those being s which, unlike the stars, are incapable of permanent existence: but such remarks should hardly be pressed in view of his treatment of the First Mover.​59

Is the God of Aristotle a Personal God? Aristotle sometimes speaks of God as the First Unmoved Mover (jjj), sometimes as jjj,​60 while in the Nicomachean Ethics he also speaks about jjj. ​61 Like most Greeks, Aristotle does not seem to have worried much about the number of the gods, but if we are to say that he was definitely and exclusively monotheist, then we would have to say that his God is personal. Aristotle may not have spoken of the First Mover as being personal, be certainly the ascription of antropomorphic personality would be very far indeed from his thoughts, but since the First Mover is Intelligence or Thought, it follows that He is personal in the philosophic sense. The Aristotelian God may not be personal secundum nomen , but He is personal secundum rem. We should add, however, that there is no indication that Aristotle ever thought of the First Mover as an object of worship, still less as a Being to Whom prayers might profitably be addressed. And indeed, if Aristotle's God is entirely self-centered, as I believe Him to have been, then it would be out of the question for men to attempt personal intercourse with Him. In the Magna Moralia Aristotle says expressly that those are wrong who think that there can be a friendship towards God. For (a) God could not return our love, and (b) we could not in any case be said to love God.​62

 p318  14. Other arguments for the existence of God d are found in rudimentary form in Aristotle's works. Thus in the fragments of the jjj he pictures men who behold for the first time the beauty of the earth and sea and the majesty of the heavens, and conclude that they are the work of gods. This is an adumbration of the teleological argument.​63 In the same work Aristotle hints at least at a line of argument which was later to develop into the "fourth way" of St. Thomas Aquinas (through various intermediaries, of course). Aristotle there argues that "where there is a better, there is a beside't now, among existing things one is better than another, therefore there is a best which must be the divine."​64 This line of argument lead s directly only to a revelatory best: in order to arrive at the absolutely best, or the Perfect, necessary to introduce the idea of causality, arguing that all finite perfections ultimately spring from or are "participations" in Absolute Perfection, which is the fount of all finite perfections. The St. Thomas does, referring to a passage in the Metaphysics,​5 and even making use of Aristotle's illustration of fire, such is said to be the hottest of all things, inasmuch as it is the cause of the heat of all other things.​66 As far as Aristotle himself is concerned, the use of the degrees of perfection in order to prove God's existence would seem to be confined to his early revolutionary period, when he is still strongly under Platonic information influence: in the Metaphysics he does not use this line of argument in reference to the scarce of the divine. In general, we must say that Aristotle, when he came to compose the Metaphysics, had moved a good way from the popular religious conceptions that appear, for example, in the fragments of the jjj. He continued on occasion to use language that hardly fits the conceptions of Metaphysics, Λ; but in any case we would not example Aristotle to avoid all popular language, expressions and Oos with an absolute and rigorous consistency, while it is also extremely probable that he never really attempted any final systematization of his doctrine concerning God or to harmonise the expressions he sometimes employ s implying Divine Providence and activity in the world with the speculation s of the Metaphysics.

15. From what has been said, it should be apparent that Aristotle's notion of God was far from satisfactory. It is true that he shows a clearer apprehension of the ultimate Godhead  p319 than Plato does, but in Book Λ of the Metaphysics at least, Aristotle leaves out of account that Divine operation intlwd which was so insisted upon by Plato, and which is an essential element in any satisfactory rational theology. The Aristotelian God is efficient Cause only by being the final Cause. He does not know this world and no Divine plan is fulfilled in this world: the teleology of nature can be not more than unconscious teleology (at least this is the only conclusion that will really fit in with the picture of God given in the Metaphysics). In this rsplane, therefore, the Aristotelian metaphysic is inferior to that of planet. On the other hand, while not a few of Aristotle's doctrine s must be transcend to Platonic origin, he certainly succeeded, by his doctrine of immanent teleology, of the movement of all concrete sensible objects towards the full realisation of their potentialities, in establishing the reality of the sensible world on a firmer foundation than was possible for his great predecessor, and at the same time attributed a realism meaning and purpose to becoming and change, even if in the process he abandoned valuable elements of Plato's thought.

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The Author's Notes:

1 mtaf, Α, 980a1.

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2 The name Metaphysics simply refers to the position of the Metaphysics in the Aristotelian Corpus, i.e. as coming after the Physics . But the book is metaphysical also in the sense that it concerns the first and highest principles and cause s, and so involves a higher degree of abstraction than does the Physics, which deals predominantly with a particular type of being — that which is subject to motion. Still, it is true to say that if we wish to know Aristotle's doctrine on the themes treated of to‑day under the heading Metaphysics, we must consult not only the Metaphysics itself but also the Physics.

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3 mtaf, 982a11‑12.

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4 mtaf, 982a2 hhih 8.

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5 mtaf, 984b15‑18.x

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6 mtaf, 985a18‑21.

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7 mtaf, 985a21‑3.

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8 mtaf, 988a8‑10.

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9 mtaf, 988b6‑16.

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10 mtaf, 1026a6‑32. Cf. 1064a28‑b6.

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11 mtaf, VI (Ε) 2 », a confectioner aims at giving pleasure; if his productions produce health, that is "accidental."

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12 mtaf, VI (Ε), 4.

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13 mtaf, IV (Γ), 3 ff.

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14 mtaf, 990b8‑11.

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15 mtaf, 990a34‑be able.

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16 mtaf, 991a12‑13.

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17 mtaf, 991a8‑10.

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18 mtaf, 997b5‑12.

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19 mtaf, 991b1‑3.

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20 mtaf, Μ, 1079b24‑6; α, 991a20‑2.

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21 mtaf, Α, 991a19‑20.

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22 mtaf, α, 990b15‑17; Κ, 1059b8‑9.

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23 mtaf, 992a32‑b1.

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24 mtaf, 991b9 ff.

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25 mtaf, » 991b27‑31.

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26 mtaf, b1077‑1214.

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27 mtaf, 1076b28‑34

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28 mtaf, Α, 992b7‑9.

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29 St. Thomas Aquinas, who quotes St. Augustine a to the Divine Idea, teaches that there is a plurality of ideas in the Divine Mind (S. T., I.15.2), rejecting the opinion of Plato that they are "outside" the Divine Mind (cf. S. T., I.15.1, ad 1). He explains that he does not mean that there is a plurality of addle specie s in God, but that God, knowing perfectly His Essence, knows it as imitable (or participabilis) by a plurality of creatures.

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30 mtaf, Μ, 1086b2‑7. We may compare Κ, 1059b25‑6 ("e formula and every science of universals") and Ζ 1036a28‑9 ("definition is of the universal and of the form")

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31 Categ. 5. It is to be noted that the terms first and second in this respect are not valuations but mean first or second in regard to the us, jjj. We come to know the individuals first and the universals only secondarily by abstraction. but Aristotle does not disappear from his view that the universal is an object of science and has a higher reality than the individual as such.

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32 Professor Zeller remarks: "It is, of course, a contradiction to attribute a higher reality to form, which is always a Ulpian, in comparison to that which is a compound of form and matter, and at the same time to the assert that only the universal is the object of knowledge which is in itself the prior and better known. The result s of this contradiction are to be observed throughout the whole Aristotelian system." (Outlines, p274). This is scarcely a fortunate statement of the alleged contradiction.

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33 mtaf, VII (Ζ), 15.

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34 Ibid., 27.

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35 Cf. Physics, 193a29 and 191a31‑2. jjj

One might also approach prime matter from this point of view. Take any material substance and think away all its definite characteristics, all that it possesses in common with other substances 0 colour, shape, etc. You are ultimately left with a substratum that is absolutely formless, characterless, that cannot exist by itself, but is logically to be presupposed . This is prime matter. Cf. Stace, Critical History, p276.

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36 Cf. e.g. Physics, I.6; III.5.

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37 hxx, I.7 ff.

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38 mtaf, 1034a5‑8.

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39 mtaf, 1074a33‑8.

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40 mtaf, 1036a2‑6.

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41 mtaf, 1049b5.

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42 mtaf, 1051a20‑1.

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43 mtaf, 101a17‑18.

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44 mtaf, 985a9‑10.

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45 For a discussion of potentiality and act, cf. mtaf, Δ, 12 and Θ.

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46 De Caelo, 311a1‑6.

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47 mtaf, Η, 1044a36‑b11. Cf. Physics , Β, 7, 198a24 ff.

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48 De Caelo, Α 4, 27a133.

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49 Anal. Post., 94b17‑31. Cf. De Gen. An., 743b16 f.

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50 De Gen. An., 778a16‑b19; 789b19 f. De Part. An., 642a2; 677a17‑19.

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51 mtaf, 1049b24 ff.

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52 For First Mover, see mtaf, Δ and Physics , Θ, 6, 258b10 f.

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53 zzzz

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62 zzzz

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63 zzzz

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65 zzzz

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66 zzzz

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Thayer's Note:

a Or as Molière would have it,

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