Idea, and here we have to say, in quite a general way, that Aristotle
commences with Philosophy generally, and says, in the first place,
regarding the value of Philosophy (in the second chapter of the first
book of the Metaphysics), that the object of Philosophy is what is most
knowable, viz. the first and original causes, that is, the rational.
For through these and from these all else is known, but principles
do not become known through the facts which form their groundwork
(ὑποκείμενα). In this we already have the opposite to the ordinary
point of view. Aristotle has further declared the chief subject of
investigation, or the most essential knowledge (ἐπιστήμη ἀρχικωτάτη)
to be the knowledge of end; but this is the good in each thing and,
generally speaking, the best in the whole of nature. This also holds
good with Plato and Socrates; yet the end is the true, the concrete,
as against the abstract Platonic Idea. Aristotle then says of the
value of Philosophy, “Men have begun to philosophize through wonder,”
for in it the knowledge of something higher is at least anticipated.
“Thus since man, to escape from ignorance, began to philosophize, it
is clear that for the sake of knowledge he followed after knowledge,
and not for any utility which it might possess for him. This is also
made evident by the whole course of its external history. For it was
after men had done with all their absolute requirements, and with what
concerns their comfort, that they first began to seek this philosophic
knowledge. We hence seek it not for the sake of any outside utility
that it may have. And thus as we say that a free man is he who exists
on his own account and not for another, Philosophy is the only science
that is free, because it alone exists for itself—it is knowledge on
account of knowledge. Therefore in justice it will not be held to be
a human possession,” in the sense that, as we said above, (p. 11) it
is not in the possession of a man. “For in many ways the nature of man
is dependent, so that, according to Simonides, God alone possesses
the prerogative (γέρας), and yet it is unworthy on man’s part not to
seek after the science that is in conformity with his own condition
(τὴν καθ̓ αὑτὸν ἐπιστήνην). But if the poets were right, and envy
characterized divinity, all who would aim higher must be unfortunate;”
Nemesis punishes whatever raises itself above the commonplace, and
makes everything again equal. “But the divine cannot be jealous,”
_i.e._ cannot refuse to impart that which it is, as if this knowledge
should not come to man (_supra_, pp. 72, 73) “and—according to the
proverb—the poets utter many falsehoods. Nor ought we to consider that
any science is more entitled to honour than the one we now investigate,
for that which is most divine, is also most worthy of honour.” That is
to say, what has and imparts what is best is honoured: the gods are
thus to be honoured because they have this knowledge. “God is held
to be the cause and principle of everything, and therefore God has
this science alone, or for the most part.” But for this reason it is
not unworthy of man to endeavour to seek the highest good which is
in conformity with him, this knowledge pertaining to God. “All other
sciences are, however, more requisite than Philosophy, but none more
excellent.”
It is difficult to give a more detailed account of the Aristotelian
philosophy, the universal Idea with the more important elements, for
Aristotle is much more difficult to comprehend than Plato. In the
latter there are myths, and we can pass over the dialectic and yet
say that we have read Plato; but with Aristotle we enter at once upon
what is speculative. Aristotle always seems to have philosophized only
respecting the individual and particular, and not to have risen from it
to the thought of the absolute and universal, to the thought of God; he
always goes from the individual to the individual. His task concerns
what is, and is just as clearly divided off as a professor has his
work divided into a half year’s course; and though in this course he
examines the whole of the world of conception, he yet appears only to
have recognized the truth in the particular, or only a succession of
particular truths. This has nothing dazzling about it, for he does not
appear to have risen to the Idea (as Plato speaks of the nobility of
Idea), nor to have led back to it the individual. But if Aristotle on
the one hand did not logically abstract the universal Idea, (for then
his so-called logic, which is something very different, would have had
as its principle the recognition of one Notion in all) on the other
hand there appears in Aristotle the one Absolute, the idea of God, as
itself a particular, in its place beside the others, although it is all
Truth. It is as if we said, “there are plants, animals, men, and also
God, the most excellent of all.”
From the whole list of conceptions which Aristotle enumerates, we
shall now select some for further examination, and I will first speak
of his metaphysics and its determinations. Then I will deal with the
particular sciences which have been treated by Aristotle, beginning by
giving the fundamental conception of nature as it is constituted with
Aristotle; in the third place I will say something of mind, of the soul
and its conditions, and finally the logical books of Aristotle will
follow.
1. THE METAPHYSICS.
Aristotle’s speculative Idea is chiefly to be gathered from his
Metaphysics, especially from the last chapters of the twelfth book
(Λ) which deal with the divine Thought. But this treatise has the
peculiar drawback noticed above (p. 128) of being a compilation,
several treatises having been combined into one. Aristotle and the
ancients did not know this work by the name of the Metaphysics; it was
by them called πρώτη φιλοσοφία.[87] The main portion of this treatise
has a certain appearance of unity given to it by the connection of
the argument,[88] but it cannot be said that the style is orderly
and lucid. This pure philosophy Aristotle very clearly distinguishes
(Metaph. IV. 1) from the other sciences as “the science of that which
is, in so far as it is, and of what belongs to it implicitly and
explicitly.” The main object which Aristotle has in view (Metaph. VII.
1) is the definition of what this substance (οὐσία) really is. In
this ontology or, as we call it, logic, he investigates and minutely
distinguishes four principles (Metaph. I. 3): first, determination or
quality as such, the wherefore of anything, essence or form; secondly,
the matter; thirdly, the principle of motion; and fourthly, the
principle of final cause, or of the good. In the later part of the
Metaphysics Aristotle returns repeatedly to the determination of the
Ideas, but here also a want of connection of thought appears, even
though all is subsequently united into an entirely speculative Notion.
To proceed, there are two leading forms, which Aristotle characterizes
as that of potentiality (δύναμις) and that of actuality (ἐνέργεια);
the latter is still more closely characterized as entelechy
(ἐντελεχεια) or free activity, which has the end (τὸ τέλος) in itself,
and is the realization of this end. These are determinations which
occur repeatedly in Aristotle, especially in the ninth book of the
Metaphysics, and which we must be familiar with, if we would understand
him. The expression δύναμις is with Aristotle the beginning, the
implicit, the objective; also the abstract universal in general, the
Idea, the matter, which can take on all forms, without being itself
the form-giving principle. But with an empty abstraction such as the
thing-in-itself Aristotle has nothing to do. It is first in energy
or, more concretely, in subjectivity, that he finds the actualizing
form, the self-relating negativity. When, on the other hand, we
speak of Being, activity is not yet posited: Being is only implicit,
only potentiality, without infinite form. To Aristotle the main fact
about Substance is that it is not matter merely (Metaph. VII. 3);
although in ordinary life this is what is generally taken to be the
substantial. All that is contains matter, it is true, all change
demands a substratum (ὑποκείμενον) to be affected by it; but because
matter itself is only potentiality, and not actuality—which belongs to
form—matter cannot truly exist without the activity of form (Metaph.
VIII. 1, 2). With Aristotle δύναμις does not therefore mean force
(for force is really an imperfect aspect of form), but rather capacity
which is not even undetermined possibility; ἐνέργεια is, on the other
hand, pure, spontaneous activity. These definitions were of importance
throughout all the middle ages. Thus, according to Aristotle, the
essentially absolute substance has potentiality and actuality, form and
matter, not separated from one another; for the true objective has most
certainly also activity in itself, just as the true subjective has also
potentiality.
From this definition we now see clearly the sort of opposition in
which the Idea of Aristotle stands to that of Plato, for although
the Idea of Plato is in itself essentially concrete and determined,
Aristotle goes further. In so far, namely, as the Idea is determined
in itself, the relation of the moments in it can be more closely
specified, and this relation of the moments to each other is to be
conceived of as nothing other than activity. It is easy for us to
have a consciousness of what is deficient in the universal, that is,
of that which is implicit only. The universal, in that it is the
universal, has as yet no reality, for because implicitude is inert,
the activity of realization is not yet posited therein. Reason,
laws, etc., are in this way abstract, but the rational, as realizing
itself, we recognize to be necessary, and therefore we take such
universal laws but little into account. Now the standpoint of Plato
is in the universal; what he does is to express Being rather as the
objective, the Good, the end, the universal. To this, however, the
principle of living subjectivity, as the moment of reality, seems
to be lacking, or it appears at least to be put in the background.
This negative principle seems indeed not to be directly expressed
in Plato, but it is essentially contained in his definition of the
Absolute as the unity of opposites; for this unity is essentially a
negative unity of those opposites, which abrogates their being-another,
their opposition, and leads them back into itself. But with Aristotle
this negativity, this active efficacy, is expressly characterized
as energy; in that it breaks up itself—this independence—abrogating
unity, and positing separation; for, as Aristotle says (Metaph. VII.
13), “actuality separates.” The Platonic Idea, on the other hand, is
rather that abrogation of opposites, where one of the opposites is
itself unity. While, therefore, with Plato the main consideration is
the affirmative principle, the Idea as only abstractly identical with
itself, in Aristotle there is added and made conspicuous the moment of
negativity, not as change, nor yet as nullity, but as difference or
determination. The principle of individualization, not in the sense
of a casual and merely particular subjectivity, but in that of pure
subjectivity, is peculiar to Aristotle. Aristotle thus also makes the
Good, as the universal end, the substantial foundation, and maintains
this position against Heraclitus and the Eleatics. The Becoming of
Heraclitus is a true and real determination, but change yet lacks the
determination of identity with itself, the constancy of the universal.
The stream is ever changing, yet it is nevertheless ever the same,
and is really a universal existence. From this it is at once evident
that Aristotle (Metaph. IV. 3-6) is controverting the opinions of
Heraclitus and others when he says that Being and non-being are not
the same (Vol. I. p. 282), and in connection with this lays down the
celebrated maxim of contradiction, that a man is not at the same
time a ship. This shows at once that Aristotle does not understand
by this pure Being and non-being, this abstraction which is really
only the transition of the one into the other; but by that which is,
he understands Substance, the Idea, Reason, viewed likewise as an
impelling end. As he maintains the universal against the principle of
mere change, he puts forward activity in opposition to the numbers of
the Pythagoreans, and to the Platonic Ideas. However frequently and
fully Aristotle controverts both of these, all his objections turn on
the remark already quoted (Vol. I. p. 213) that activity is not to be
found in these principles, and that to say that real things participate
in Ideas is empty talk, and a poetic metaphor. He says also that Ideas,
as abstract universal determinations, are only as far as numbers go
equal to things, but are not on that account to be pointed out as their
causes. Moreover, he maintains that there are contradictions involved
in taking independent species, since in Socrates, for instance, there
are several ideas included: man, biped, animal (Metaph. I. 7 and 9).
Activity with Aristotle is undoubtedly also change, but change that is
within the universal, and that remains self-identical; consequently
a determination which is self-determination, and therefore the
self-realizing universal end: in mere alteration, on the contrary,
there is not yet involved the preservation of identity in change. This
is the chief point which Aristotle deals with.
Aristotle distinguishes various moments in substance, in so far as the
moments of activity and potentiality do not appear as one, but still
in separation. The closer determination of this relation of energy to
potentiality, of form to matter, and the movement of this opposition,
gives the different modes of substance. Here Aristotle enumerates the
substances; and to him they appear as a series of different kinds of
substance, which he merely takes into consideration one by one, without
bringing them together into a system. The three following are the chief
among these:—
_a._ The sensuous perceptible substance is that in which the matter
is still distinguished from the efficient form. Hence this substance
is finite; for the separation and externality of form and matter are
precisely what constitute the nature of the finite. Sensuous substance,
says Aristotle (Metaph. XII. 2), involves change, but in such a way
that it passes over into the opposite; the opposites disappear in one
another, and the third beyond these opposites, that which endures, the
permanent in this change, is matter. Now the leading categories of
change which Aristotle names are the four differences, in regard to
the What (κατὰ τὸ τί), or in regard to quality (ποιόν), or in regard to
quantity (ποσόν), or in regard to place where (ποῦ). The first change
is the origination and decay of simple determinate Being (κατὰ τόδε);
the second change is that of the further qualities (κατὰ τὸ πάθος); the
third, increase and diminution; the fourth, motion. Matter is the dead
substance on which take place the changes which matter passes through.
“The change itself is from potential into actual existence; possible
whiteness transforms itself into actual whiteness. Thus things do not
arise casually out of nothing, but all arises out of what exists,
though it exists only in potentiality, not in actuality.” The possible
is thus really a general implicit existence, which brings about these
determinations, without producing one out of the other. Matter is
thus simple potentiality, which, however, is placed in opposition to
itself, so that a thing in its actuality only becomes that which its
matter was also in potentiality. There are thus three moments posited:
matter, as the general substratum of change, neutral in respect of
what is different (ἐξ οὗ); the opposed determinations of form, which
are negative to each other as that which is to be abrogated and that
which is to be posited (τι and εἴς τι); the first mover (ὑφ̓ οὗ), pure
activity (Metaph. VII. 7; IX. 8; XII. 3).[89] But activity is the
unity of form and matter; how these two are in the other, Aristotle
does not, however, further explain. Thus in sensuous substance there
appears the diversity of the moments, though not as yet their return
into themselves; but activity is the negative which ideally contains in
itself the opposite, therefore that also which is about to be.
_b._ A higher kind of substance, according to Aristotle (Metaph. IX.
2; VII. 7; XII. 3), is that into which activity enters, which already
contains that which is about to be. This is understanding, absolutely
determined, whose content is the aim which it realizes through its
activity, not merely changing as does the sensuous form. For the soul
is essentially actuality, a general determination which posits itself;
not only formal activity, whose content comes from somewhere else.
But while the active posits its content in reality, this content yet
remains the same; there is an activity present which is different from
matter, although substance and activity are allied. Thus here we still
have a matter which understanding demands as its hypothesis. The two
extremes are matter as potentiality, and thought as efficiency: the
former is the passive universal, and the latter the active universal;
in sensuous substance the active is, on the contrary, still quite
different from matter. In these two moments themselves change does not
take place, for they are the implicit universal in opposed forms.
_c._ The highest point is, however, that in which potentiality,
activity and actuality are united; the absolute substance which
Aristotle (Metaph. XII. 6, 7; IX. 8), defines in general as being the
absolute (ἀϊδιον), the unmoved, which yet at the same time moves, and
whose essence is pure activity, without having matter. For matter as
such is passive and affected by change, consequently it is not simply
one with the pure activity of this substance. Here as elsewhere we
certainly see an instance of merely denying a predicate, without
saying what its truth is; but matter is nothing else than that moment
of unmoved Being. If in later times it has seemed something new to
define absolute Being as pure activity, we see that this arises
from ignorance as to the Aristotelian conception. But the Schoolmen
rightly looked upon this as the definition of God, since they define
God as _actus purus_; and higher idealism than this there is none.
We may also express this as follows: God is the Substance which
in its potentiality has reality also unseparated from it; therein
potentiality is not distinguished from form, since it produces from
itself the determinations of its content. In this Aristotle breaks
away from Plato, and for this reason controverts number, the Idea, and
the universal, because if this, as inert, is not defined as identical
with activity, there is no movement. Plato’s inert Ideas and numbers
thus bring nothing into reality; but far different is the case with
the Absolute of Aristotle, which in its quiescence is at the same time
absolute activity.
Aristotle further says on this subject (Metaph. XII. 6): “It may be
that what has potentiality is not real; it is of no avail therefore to
make substances eternal, as the idealists do, if they do not contain a
principle which can effect change. And even this is insufficient, if it
is not active, because in that case there is no change. Yea, even if
it were active, but its substance only a potentiality, there would be
in it no eternal movement, for it is possible that what is according
to potentiality may not exist. We must therefore have a principle
whose substance must be apprehended as activity.” Thus in mind energy
is substance itself. “But here a doubt seems to spring up. For all
that is active seems to be possible, but all that is possible does
not seem to energize, so that potentiality seems to be antecedent,”
for it is the universal. “But if this were the case, no one of the
entities would be in existence, for it is possible that a thing may
possess a capacity of existence, though it has never yet existed.
But energy is higher than potentiality. We must thus not assert, as
theologians would have us do, that in the eternal ages there was first
chaos or night” (matter), “nor must we say with natural philosophers
that everything existed simultaneously. For how could the First be
changed, if nothing in reality were cause? For matter does not move
itself, it is the Master who moves it. Leucippus and Plato accordingly
say that motion has always existed, but they give no reason for the
assertion.” Pure activity is, according to Aristotle (Metaph. IX. 8),
before potentiality, not in relation to time, but to essence. That is
to say, time is a subordinate moment, far removed from the universal;
for the absolute first Being is, as Aristotle says at the end of the
sixth chapter of the twelfth book, “that which in like activity remains
always identical with itself.” In the former assumption of a chaos and
so on, an activity is posited which has to do with something else, not
with itself, and has therefore a pre-supposition; but chaos is only
bare possibility.