once (Polit. I. 2) by defining man as “a political animal, having
reason. Hence he alone has a knowledge of good and evil, of justice
and injustice, and not the beast,” for the beast does not think, and
yet in modern times men rest the distinction which exists in these
determinations on sensation, which beasts have equally with men.
There is also the sense of good and evil, &c., and Aristotle knows
this aspect as well (_supra_, p. 202); but that through which it is
not animal sensation merely, is thought. Hence rational perception
is also to Aristotle the essential condition of virtue, and thus the
harmony between the sensational point of view and that of reason is
an essential moment in his eudæmonism. After Aristotle so determines
man, he says: “The common intercourse of these, forms the family and
the state; in the understanding, however, that the state, in the order
of nature” (_i.e._ in its Notion, in regard to reason and truth, not
to time) “is prior to the family” (the natural relation, not the
rational) “and to the individual among us.” Aristotle does not place
the individual and his rights first, but recognizes the state as what
in its essence is higher than the individual and the family, for the
very reason that it constitutes their substantiality. “For the whole
must be prior to its parts. If, for example, you take away the whole
body, there is not a foot or hand remaining, excepting in name, and as
if anyone should call a hand of stone a hand; for a hand destroyed is
like a hand of stone.” If the man is dead, all the parts perish. “For
everything is defined according to its energy and inherent powers, so
that when these no longer remain such as they were, it cannot be said
that anything is the same excepting in name. The state is likewise
the essence of the individuals; the individual when separate from the
whole, is just as little complete in himself as any other organic part
separated from the whole.” This is directly antagonistic to the modern
principle in which the particular will of the individual, as absolute,
is made the starting-point; so that all men by giving their votes,
decide what is to be the law, and thereby a commonweal is brought into
existence. But with Aristotle, as with Plato, the state is the _prius_,
the substantial, the chief, for its end is the highest in respect
of the practical. “But whoever was incapable of this society, or so
complete in himself as not to want it, would be either a beast or a
god.”
From these few remarks it is clear that Aristotle could not have
had any thought of a so-called natural right (if a natural right be
wanted), that is, the idea of the abstract man outside of any actual
relation to others. For the rest, his Politics contain points of view
even now full of instruction for us, respecting the inward elements
of a state,[108] and a description of the various constitutions;[109]
the latter, however, has no longer the same interest, on account of
the different principle at the base of ancient and modern states. No
land was so rich as Greece, alike in the number of its constitutions,
and in the frequent changes from one to another of these in a single
state; but the Greeks were still unacquainted with the abstract right
of our modern states, that isolates the individual, allows of his
acting as such, and yet, as an invisible spirit, holds all its parts
together. This is done in such a way, however, that in no one is there
properly speaking either the consciousness of, or the activity for
the whole; but because the individual is really held to be a person,
and all his concern is the protection of his individuality, he works
for the whole without knowing how. It is a divided activity in which
each has only his part, just as in a factory no one makes a whole, but
only a part, and does not possess skill in other departments, because
only a few are employed in fitting the different parts together. It is
free nations alone that have the consciousness of and activity for the
whole; in modern times the individual is only free for himself as such,
and enjoys citizen freedom alone—in the sense of that of a _bourgeois_
and not of a _citoyen_. We do not possess two separate words to mark
this distinction. The freedom of citizens in this signification is
the dispensing with universality, the principle of isolation; but it
is a necessary moment unknown to ancient states. It is the perfect
independence of the points, and therefore the greater independence of
the whole, which constitutes the higher organic life. After the state
received this principle into itself, the higher freedom could come
forth. These other states are sports and products of nature which
depend upon chance and upon the caprice of the individual, but now, for
the first time, the inward subsistence and indestructible universality,
which is real and consolidated in its parts, is rendered possible.
Aristotle for the rest has not tried like Plato to describe such a
state, but in respect of the constitution he merely points out that the
best must rule. But this always takes place, let men do as they will,
and hence he has not so very much to do with determining the forms of
the constitution. By way of proving that the best must rule, Aristotle
says this: “The best would suffer injustice if rated on an equality
with the others inferior to them in virtue and political abilities, for
a notable man is like a god amongst men.” Here Alexander is no doubt
in Aristotle’s mind, as one who must rule as though he were a god, and
over whom no one, and not even law, could maintain its supremacy. “For
him there is no law, for he himself is law. Such a man could perhaps
be turned out of the state, but not subjected to control any more than
Jupiter. Nothing remains but, what is natural to all, quietly to submit
to such an one, and to let men like this be absolutely and perpetually
(ἀΐδιοι) kings in the states”[110] The Greek Democracy had then
entirely fallen into decay, so that Aristotle could no longer ascribe
to it any merit.
4. THE LOGIC.
On the other side of the Philosophy of Mind, we have still Aristotle’s
science of abstract thought, a Logic, to consider. For hundreds and
thousands of years it was just as much honoured as it is despised now.
Aristotle has been regarded as the originator of Logic: his logical
works are the source of, and authority for the logical treatises of all
times; which last were, in great measure, only special developments
or deductions, and must have been dull, insipid, imperfect, and purely
formal. And even in quite recent times, Kant has said that since the
age of Aristotle, logic—like pure geometry since Euclid’s day—has
been a complete and perfect science which has kept its place even
down to the present day, without attaining to any further scientific
improvements or alteration. Although logic is here mentioned for the
first time, and in the whole of the history of Philosophy that is to
come no other can be mentioned (for no other has existed, unless we
count the negation of Scepticism), we cannot here speak more precisely
of its content, but merely find room for its general characterization.
The forms he gives to us come from Aristotle both in reference to the
Notion and to the judgment and conclusion. As in natural history,
animals, such as the unicorn, mammoth, beetle, mollusc, &c., are
considered, and their nature described, so Aristotle is, so to speak,
the describer of the nature of these spiritual forms of thought; but in
this inference of the one from the other, Aristotle has only presented
thought as defined in its finite application and aspect, and his logic
is thus a natural history of finite thought. Because it is a knowledge
and consciousness of the abstract activity of pure understanding, it is
not a knowledge of this and that concrete fact, being pure form. This
knowledge is in fact marvellous, and even more marvellous is the manner
in which it is constituted: this logic is hence a work which does the
greatest honour to the deep thought of its discoverer and to the power
of his abstraction. For the greatest cohesive power in thought is found
in separating it from what is material and thus securing it; and the
strength shows itself almost more, if thus secured when it, amalgamated
with matter, turns about in manifold ways and is seen to be capable
of numberless alterations and applications. Aristotle also considers,
in fact, not only the movement of thought, but likewise of thought
in ordinary conception. The Logic of Aristotle is contained in five
books, which are collected together under the name Ὀργανον.
_a._ The Categories (κατηγορίαι), of which the first work treats, are
the universal determinations, that which is predicated of existent
things (κατηγορεῖται): as well that which we call conceptions of the
understanding, as the simple realities of things. This may be called
an ontology, as pertaining to metaphysics; hence these determinations
also appear in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Aristotle (Categor. I.) now
says: “Things are termed homonyms (ὁμώνυμα) of which the name alone is
common, but which have a different substantial definition (λόγος τῆς
οὐσίας); thus a horse and the picture of a horse are both called an
animal.”
Thus the Notion (λόγος) is opposed to the homonym; and since Aristotle
deduces herefrom τὰ λεγόμενα, of which the second chapter treats, it is
clear that this last expression indicates more than mere predication,
and is here to be taken as determinate Notions. “Determinate
conceptions are either enunciated after a complex (κατὰ συμπλοκήν)
or after an incomplex manner (ἄνευ συμπλοκῆς); the first as ‘a man
conquers,’ ‘the ox runs,’ and the other as ‘man,’ ‘ox,’ ‘to conquer,’
‘to run.’” In the first rank of this division Aristotle places τὰ ὄντα,
which are undoubtedly purely subjective relations of such as exist
_per se_, so that the relation is not in them but external to them.
Now although τὰ λεγόμενα and τὰ ὄντα are again distinguished from one
another, Aristotle yet again employs both λέγεται, and ἐστί of the
ὄντα, so that λέγεται is predicated of a species, in relation to its
particular; ἐστί is, on the contrary, employed of a universal, which
is not Idea but only simple. For Aristotle says, “There are predicates
(ὄντα) which can be assigned to a certain subject (καθ̓ ὑποκειμένον),
yet are in no subject, as ‘man’ is predicated of ‘some certain man,’
and yet he is no particular man. Others are in a subject (ἐν ὑποκειμένῳ
ἐστί) yet are not predicated of any subject (I mean by a thing being
in a subject, that it is in any thing not as a part, but as unable
to subsist without that in which it is), as ‘a grammatical art’ (τὶς
γραμματική) is in a subject, ‘the soul,’ but cannot be predicated
of any,’ or related as genus to a subject. Some are predicated of
a subject (λέγεται) and are in it; science is in the soul and is
predicated of the grammatical art. Some again are neither in, nor are
predicated of any subject, as ‘a certain man,’ the individual, the
one in number; but some of them can be in a subject like ‘a certain
grammatical art.’” Instead of subject we should do better to speak of
substratum, for it is that to which the Notion necessarily relates,
_i.e._ that which is neglected in abstraction, and thus the individual
opposed to the Notion. We can see that Aristotle has the difference of
the genus or universal and the individual present to his mind.
The first thing which Aristotle has indicated in the foregoing is thus
the genus, which is predicated of a man, but which is not in him, at
least not as a particular quality; the brave man, for example, is an
actual, but expressed as a universal conception. In formal logic and
its conceptions and definitions there is always present opposition
to an actual; and the logical actual is in itself something thought,
bravery thus being, for example, a pure form of abstraction. This logic
of the understanding seeks, however, in its three stages to imitate the
categories of the absolute. The conception or definition is a logical
actual, and thus in itself merely something thought, _i.e._ possible.
In the judgment this logic calls a conception A the actual subject
and connects with it another actual as the conception B; B is said to
be the conception and A to be dependent on it—but B is only the more
general conception. In the syllogism necessity is said to be simulated:
even in a judgment there is a synthesis of a conception and something
whose existence is assumed; in the syllogism it should bear the form
of necessity, because both the opposites are set forth in a third
as through the _medius terminus_ of reason, _e.g._ as was the case
with the mean of virtue (_supra_, p. 206). The major term expresses
logical being and the minor term logical potentiality, for Caius is a
mere potentiality for logic; the conclusion unites both. But it is to
reason that life first unfolds itself, for it is true reality. What
comes second in Aristotle is the universal, which is not the genus,
_i.e._ it is not in itself the unity of universal and particular—nor
is it absolute individuality and hence infinitude. This is the moment
or predicate in a subject certainly, but it is not absolutely in and
for itself. This relation is now expressed through οὐ λέγεται; for ὅ
λέγεται is that which, as universal in itself, is likewise infinite.
The third is the particular which is predicated: just as science in
itself is infinite and thus the genus, _e.g._ of the grammatical
art; but at the same time as universal, or as not individual, it is
the moment of a subject. The fourth indicated by Aristotle is what
is called immediate conception—the individual. The reservation that
something such as a definite grammatical art is also in a subject, has
no place here, for the definite grammatical art is not really in itself
individual.
Aristotle, himself,[111] makes the following remarks on this matter:
“When one thing is predicated (κατηγορεῖται) of another, as of a
subject, whatever things are said (λέγεται) of the predicate,” _i.e._
what is related to it as a universal, “may be also said of the
subject.” This is the ordinary conclusion; from this we see, since
this matter is so speedily despatched, that the real conclusion has
with Aristotle a much greater significance. “The different genera not
arranged under one another (μὴ ὑπ̓ ἄλλμλα τεταγμένα), such as ‘animal’
and ‘science,’ differ in their species (διαφοράς). For instance,
animals are divided into beasts, bird, fishes—but science has no such
distinction. In subordinate genera, however, there may be the same
distinctions; for the superior genera are predicated of the inferior,
so that as many distinctions as there are of the predicate, so many
will there be of the subject.”
After Aristotle had thus far spoken of what is enunciated respecting
that which is connected, or the complex, he now comes to “that which
is predicated without any connection,” or the incomplex; for as we
saw (p. 212) this was the division which he laid down in the second
chapter. That which is predicated without any connection he treats
of more fully as the categories proper, in what follows; yet the
work in which these categories are laid down is not to be regarded
as complete. Aristotle[112] takes ten of them; “Each conception
enunciated signifies either Substance (οὐσίαν), or Quality (ποιόν), or
Quantity (ποσόν),” matter, “or Relation (πρός τι), or Where (ποῦ), or
When (ποτέ), or Position (κεῖσθαι), or Possession (ἕχειν), or Action
(ποιεῖν), or Passion (πάσχειν). None of these is considered by itself
an affirmation (κατάφασις) or a negation (κατάφασις), _i.e._ none
is either true or false.” Aristotle adds to these predicables five
post predicaments, but he only ranges them all side by side.[113] The
categories of relation are the syntheses of quality and quantity, and
consequently they belonged to reason; but in as far as they are posited
as mere relation, they belong to the understanding and are forms of
finitude. Being, essence, takes the first place in them; next to it
is possibility, as accident or what is caused; the two are, however,
separated. In substance A is Being, B, potentiality; in the relation
of causality A and B are Being, but A is posited in B as being posited
in a postulation of A. A of substance is logical Being; it is its
essence opposed to its existence, and this existence is in logic mere
potentiality. In the category of causality the Being of A in B is a
mere Being of reflection; B is for itself another. But in reason A is
the Being of B as well as of A, and A is the whole Being of A as well
as of B.
Aristotle[114] goes on to speak of Substance; first Substance, “in
its strictest (κυριώτατα), first and chief sense” is to him the
individual, the fourth class of the divisions enunciated above (pp.
212-214). “Secondary substances are those in which as species (εἴδεσι)
these first are contained, that is to say, both these and the genera
of these species. Of the subject both name and definition (λόγος) of
all things predicated of a subject (τῶν καθ̓ ὑποκειμένον λεγομένον)—of
secondary substances—are predicated; for example of the particular
man, as subject, both the name and the definition of ‘man’ (living
being) are also predicated. But of things which are in a subject (ἐν
ὑποκειμένῳ ὄντος) it is impossible to predicate the definition of
the” subordinate “subjects, yet with some we predicate the name: the
definition of ‘whiteness’ thus is not of the body in which it is, but
only the name. All other things however,” besides Definition (λόγος)
and “in most cases name, are related to primary substances as subjects”
(the individual), “or are inherent in them. Thus without the primary
substances none of the rest could exist, for they are the basis
(ὑποκεῖσθαι) of all else. Of secondary substances, species is more
substance than genus; for it is nearer to the primary substance, and
genus is predicated of the species and not the other way.” For species
is here the subject, or what does not always require to be something
really determined as individual, but which also signifies that which
is generally speaking subordinate. “But the species are not more
substance one than another, just as in primary substances one is not
more substance than the other. Species and genera are likewise, before
the rest” (qualities or accidents) “to be called secondary substances:
the definition ‘man’ before the fact that he is ‘white’ or ‘runs.’”
Abstraction has thus two kinds of objects; ‘man’ and ‘learned’ are both
qualities of a certain individual; but the former only abstracts from
the individuality and leaves the totality, and is thus the elevation
of the individual into the rational, where nothing is lost but the
opposition of reflection. “What is true of substances is also true
of differences; for as synonyms (συνώνυμα) they have both name and
definition in common.”
_b._ The second treatise is on Interpretation (περὶ ἑρμηνείας); it is
the doctrine of judgments and propositions. Propositions exist where
affirmation and negation, falsehood and truth are enunciated;[115] they
do not relate to pure thought when reason itself thinks; they are not
universal but individual.
_c._ The Analytics come third, and there are two parts of them, the
Prior and the Posterior; they deal most fully with proof (ἀπόδειξις)
and the syllogisms of the understanding. “The syllogism is a reason
(λόγος) in which if one thing is maintained, another than what was
maintained follows of necessity.”[116] Aristotle’s logic has treated
the general theory of conclusions in the main very accurately, but
they do not by any means constitute the universal form of truth; in
his metaphysics, physics, psychology, &c., Aristotle has not formed
conclusions, but thought the Notion in and for itself.
_d._ The Topics (τοπικά) which treat of ‘places’ (τόποι) come fourth;
in them the points of view from which anything can be considered are
enumerated. Cicero and Giordano Bruno worked this out more fully.
Aristotle gives a large number of general points of view which can
be taken of an object, a proposition or a problem; each problem can
be directly reduced to these different points of view, that must
everywhere appear. Thus these ‘places’ are, so to speak, a system of
many aspects under which an object can be regarded in investigating it;
this constitutes a work which seems specially suitable and requisite
for the training of orators and for ordinary conversation, because the
knowledge of points of view at once places in our hands the possibility
of arriving at the various aspects of a subject, and embracing its
whole extent in accordance with these points of view (Vol. I. p. 358).
This, according to Aristotle, is the function of Dialectic, which he
calls an instrument for finding propositions and conclusions out of
probabilities.[117] Such ‘places’ are either of a general kind, such
as difference, similarity, opposition, relation, and comparison,[118]
or special in nature, such as ‘places’ which prove that something is
better or more to be desired, since in it we have the longer duration
of time, that which the one wise man or several would choose, the
genus as against the species, that which is desirable for itself;
also because it is present with the more honourable, because it is
end, what approximates to end, the more beautiful and praiseworthy,
&c.[119] Aristotle (Topic VIII. 2) says that we must make use of the
syllogism by preference, with the dialectician, but of induction with
the multitude. In the same way Aristotle separates[120] the dialectic
and demonstrative syllogisms from the rhetorical and every kind of
persuasion, but he counts induction as belonging to what is rhetorical.
_e._ The fifth treatise, finally, deals with the Sophistical Elenchi
(σοφιστικοὶ ἔλεγχοι), or ‘On Refutations,’ as in the unconscious
escape of thought in its categories to the material side of popular
conception, it arrives at constant contradiction with itself. The
sophistical elenchi betray the unconscious ordinary idea into these
contradictions, and make it conscious of them, in order to entrap and
puzzle it; they were mentioned by us in connection with Zeno, and the
Sophists sought them out, but it was the Megarics who were specially
strong in them. Aristotle goes through a number of such contradictions
by the way of solving them; in so doing he proceeds quietly and
carefully, and spares no pains, though they might have been made more
dramatic. We have before (Vol. I. pp. 456-459) found specimens of these
in treating of the Megarics, and we have seen how Aristotle solves such
contradictions through distinction and determination.
Of these five parts of the Aristotelian Organon, what is produced in
our ordinary systems of logic is, as a matter of fact, of the slightest
and most trivial description, consisting as it does mainly of what
is contained in the introduction of Porphyry. More particularly in
the first parts, in the Interpretation and in the Analytics, this
Aristotelian logic contains these representations of universal forms
of thought, such as are now dealt with in ordinary logic, and really
form the basis of what in modern times is known as logic. Aristotle has
rendered a never-ending service in having recognized and determined
the forms which thought assumes within us. For what interests us
is the concrete thought immersed as it is in externalities; these
forms constitute a net of eternal activity sunk within it, and the
operation of setting in their places those fine threads which are
drawn throughout everything, is a masterpiece of empiricism, and this
knowledge is absolutely valuable. Even contemplation, or a knowledge of
the numerous forms and modes assumed by this activity, is interesting
and important enough. For however dry and contentless the enumeration
of the different kinds of judgments and conclusions, and their numerous
limitations may appear to us to be, and though they may not seem to
serve their purpose of discovering the truth, at least no other
science in opposition to this one can be elevated into its place. For
instance, if it is held to be a worthy endeavour to gain a knowledge
of the infinite number of animals, such as one hundred and sixty-seven
kinds of cuckoo, in which one may have the tuft on his head differently
shaped from another, or to make acquaintance with some miserable new
species of a miserable kind of moss which is no better than a scab, or
with an insect, vermin, bug, &c., in some learned work on entomology,
it is much more important to be acquainted with the manifold kinds of
movement present in thought, than to know about such creatures. The
best of what is stated respecting the forms of judgment, conclusion,
&c., in ordinary logic, is taken from the works of Aristotle; as far as
details are concerned, much has been spun out and added to it, but the
truth is to be found with Aristotle.