In the century succeeding Aristotle, the Stoic philosophers altered

his Categories, and drew up a new list of their own, containing only

four distinct heads instead of ten. We have no record or explanation

of the Stoic Categories from any of their authors; so that we are

compelled to accept the list on secondary authority, from the

comments of critics, mostly opponents. But, as far as we can make

out, they retained in their First Category the capital feature of

Aristotle's First Category--the primacy of the First Substance or Hoc

Aliquid and its exclusive privilege of imparting reality to all the

other Categories. Indeed, the Stoics seem not only to have retained

this characteristic, but to have exaggerated it. They did not

recognize so close an approach of the Universal to the Particular, as

is implied by giving to it a second place in the same Category, and

calling it Second Substance. The First Category of the Stoics

(Something or Subject) included only particular substances; all

Universals were by them ranked in the other Categories, being

regarded as negations of substances, and designated by the term

Non-Somethings--Non-Substances.[25]

[Footnote 25: Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, I. vi. p. 420: [Greek:

_ou)/tina_ ta)koina\ par' au)toi=s le/getai]. &c.]

The Neo-Platonist Plotinus, in the third century after the Christian

era, agreed with the Stoics (though looking from the opposite point

of view) in disapproving Aristotle's arrangement of Second Substance

in the same Category with First Substance.[26] He criticizes at some

length both the Aristotelian list of Categories, and the Stoic list;

but he falls back into the Platonic and even the Parmenidean point of

view. His capital distinction is between Cogitables and Sensibles.

The Cogitables are in his view the most real (_i.e._ the Aristotelian

Second Substance is more real than the First); among them the

highest, Unum or Bonum, is the grand fountain and sovereign of all

the rest. Plotinus thus departed altogether from the Aristotelian

Categories, and revived the Platonic or Parmenidean Realism; yet not

without some Aristotelian modifications. But it is remarkable that in

this departure his devoted friend and scholar Porphyry did not follow

him. Porphyry not only composed an Introduction to the Categories of

Aristotle, but also vindicated them at great length, in a separate

commentary, against the censures of Plotinus; Dexippus, Jamblichus,

and Simplikius, followed in the same track.[27] Still, though

Porphyry stood forward both as admirer and champion of the

Aristotelian Categories, he did not consider that the question raised

by the First Category of Aristotle against the Platonic Realism was

finally decided. This is sufficiently proved by the three problems

cited above out of the Introduction of Porphyry; where he proclaims

it to be a deep and difficult enquiry, whether Genera and Species had

not a real substantive existence apart from the individuals composing

them. Aristotle, both in the Categories and in many other places, had

declared his opinion distinctly in the negative against Plato; but

Porphyry had not made up his mind between the two, though he insists,

in language very Aristotelian, on the distinction between First and

Second Substance.[28]

[Footnote 26: Plotinus, Ennead. vi. 1, 2.]

[Footnote 27: Simplikius, Schol. in Aristotel. Categ. p. 40, a, b,

Brandis.]

[Footnote 28: Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, I. xi. p. 634, n. 69.

Upon this account Prantl finds Porphyry guilty of "empiricism in its

extreme crudeness"--"jene äusserste Rohheit des Empirismus."]

Through the translations and manuals of Boëthius and others, the

Categories of Aristotle were transmitted to the Latin Churchmen, and

continued to be read even through the darkest ages, when the

Analytica and the Topica were unknown or neglected. The Aristotelian

discrimination between First and Second Substance was thus always

kept in sight, and Boëthius treated it much in the same manner as

Porphyry had done before him.[29] Alcuin, Rhabanus Maurus, and Eric

of Auxerre,[30] in the eighth and ninth centuries, repeated what they

found in Boëthius, and upheld the Aristotelian tradition unimpaired.

But Scotus Erigena (_d._ 880 A.D.) took an entirely opposite view,

and reverted to the Platonic traditions, though with a large

admixture of Aristotelian ideas. He was a Christian Platonist,

blending the transcendentalism of Plato and Plotinus with theological

dogmatic influences (derived from the Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita and

others) and verging somewhat even towards Pantheism. Scotus Erigena

revived the doctrine of Cogitable _Universalia extra rem_ and _ante

rem_. He declared express opposition to the arrangement of the First

Aristotelian Category, whereby the individual was put first, in the

character of subject; the Universal second, in the character only of

predicate; complete reality belonging to the two in conjunction.

Scotus maintained that the Cogitable or Incorporeal Universal was the

first, the true and complete real; from whence the sensible

individuals were secondary, incomplete, multiple, derivatives.[31]

But, though he thus adopts and enforces the Platonic theory of

Universals _ante rem_ and _extra rem_, he does not think himself

obliged to deny that Universals may be _in re_ also.

[Footnote 29: Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, I. xii. p. 685;

Trendelenburg, Kategorienlehre, p. 245.]

[Footnote 30: Ueberweg, Geschichte der Philosophie der scholastischen

Zeit, p. 13.]

[Footnote 31: Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, II. xiii, pp. 29-35.]

The contradiction of the Aristotelian traditions, so far as concerns

the First Category, thus proclaimed by Scotus Erigena, appears to

have provoked considerable opposition among his immediate successors.

Nevertheless he also obtained partizans. Remigius of Auxerre and

others not only defended the Platonic Realism, but carried it as far

as Plato himself had done; affirming that not merely Universal

Substances, but also Universal Accidents, had a real separate

existence, apart from and anterior to individuals.[32] The

controversy for and against the Platonic Realism was thus distinctly

launched in the schools of the Middle Ages. It was upheld both as a

philosophical revival, and as theologically orthodox, entitled to

supersede the traditional counter-theory of Aristotle.

[Footnote 32: Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, II. xiii, pp. 44, 45-47.]

II.

FIRST PRINCIPLES.

A.--_Sir William Hamilton on Aristotle's Doctrine._

In reading attentively Hamilton's "Dissertation on the Philosophy of

Common Sense" (Note A, annexed to ed. of Reid's Works, p. 742, seq.),

I find it difficult to seize accurately what he means by the term. It

seems to me that he unsays in one passage what he says in another;

and that what he tells us (p. 750, b.), viz. that "philosophers have

rarely scrupled, on the one hand, quietly to supersede the data of

consciousness, so often as these did not fall in with their

pre-adopted opinions; and on the other clamorously to appeal to them

as irrecusable truths, so often as they could allege them in

corroboration of their own, or in refutation of a hostile,

doctrine"--is illustrated by his own practice.

On page 752, a., he compares Common Sense to Common Law, and regards

it as consisting in certain elementary feelings and beliefs, which,

though in possession of all, can only be elicited and declared by

philosophers, who declare it very differently. This comparison,

however, sets aside unassisted Common Sense as an available

authority. To make it so we must couple with it the same supplement

that Common Law requires; that is, we must agree on some one

philosopher as authoritative exponent of Common Sense. The Common Law

of one country is different from that of another. Even in the same

country, it is differently construed and set forth by different

witnesses, advocates, and judges. In each country, a supreme tribunal

is appointed to decide between these versions and to declare the law.

The analogy goes farther than Hamilton wishes.

On the same page, he remarks:--"In saying (to use the words of

Aristotle) simply and without qualification, that this or that _is a

known truth_, we do not mean that it is in fact recognized by all,

but only by such as are of a sound understanding; just as, in saying

absolutely that a thing is wholesome, we must be held to mean, to

such as are of a hale constitution." The passage of Aristotle's

Topica here noticed will be found to have a different bearing from

that which Hamilton gives it.

Aristotle is laying down (Topica, VI. iv. p. 141, a. 23-p. 142, a.

16) the various lines of argument which may be followed out, when you

are testing in dialectical debate a definition given or admitted by

the opponent. There cannot be more than one definition of the same

thing: the definition ought to declare the essence of the thing,

which can only be done by means of _priora_ and _notiora_. But

_notiora_ admits of two meanings: (1) _notiora simpliciter_; (2)

_notiora nobis_ or _singulis hominibus_. Under the first head, that

which is _prius_ is absolutely more knowable than that which is

_posterius_; thus, a point more than a line, a line more than a

plane, a plane more than a solid. But under the second head this

order is often reversed: to most men the solid (as falling more under

sense) is more knowable than the plane, the plane than the line, the

line than the point. The first (_notiora simpliciter_) is the truly

scientific order, suited to superior and accurate minds, employed in

teaching, learning, and demonstration (p. 141, a. 29: [Greek:

katha/per e)n tai=s a)podei/xesin, ou(/tô ga\r pa=sa didaskali/a

kai\ ma/thêsis e)/chei],--b. 16: [Greek: e)pistêmonikô/teron ga\r to\

toiou=to/n e)stin]). The second (_notiora nobis_) is adapted to

ordinary minds, who cannot endure regular teaching, nor understand a

definition founded on the first order. But definitions founded on the

second alone (Aristotle says) are not satisfactory, nor do they

reveal the true essence of the thing defined: there can be no

satisfactory definition unless what is _notius simpliciter_ coincides

with what is _notius nobis_ (p. 141, b. 24). He then proceeds to

explain what is meant by _notius simpliciter_; and this is the

passage quoted by Hamilton. After having said that the _notiora

nobis_ are not fixed and uniform, but vary with different

individuals, and even in the same individual at different times, he

goes on: "It is plain therefore that we ought not to define by such

characteristics as these (the _notiora nobis_), but by the _notiora

simpliciter_: for it is only in this way that we can obtain a

definition one and the same at all times. Perhaps, too, the _notius

simpliciter_ is not that which is knowable to all, but that which is

knowable to those who are well trained in their intelligence; just as

the absolutely wholesome is that which is wholesome to those who are

well constituted in their bodies" ([Greek: i)/sôs de\ kai\ to\

a(plô=s gnô/rimon ou) to\ pa=si gnô/rimo/n e)stin, a)lla\ to\ toi=s

eu)= diakeime/nois tê\n dia/noian, katha/per kai\ to\ a(plô=s

u(gieino\n to\ toi=s eu)= e)/chousi to\ sô=ma]--p. 142, a. 9).

Hamilton's translation misses the point of Aristotle, who here

repeats what he frequently also declares in other parts of his

writings (see Analyt. Post. I. i. p. 71, b. 33), namely, the contrast

and antithesis between _notius simpliciter_ (or _naturâ_) and _notius

nobis_. This is a technical distinction of his own, which he had

explained very fully in the page preceding the words translated by

Hamilton; and the words are intended as a supplementary caution, to

guard against a possible misunderstanding of the phrase. Hamilton's

words--"saying simply, and without qualification, that this or that

is a known truth," do not convey Aristotle's meaning at all; again,

the words--"such as are of a sound understanding," fail equally in

rendering what Aristotle means by [Greek: toi=s eu)= diakeime/nois

tê\n dia/noian]. Aristotle tells us distinctly (in the preceding part

of the paragraph) that he intends to contrast the few minds

scientific or prepared for scientific discipline, with the many minds

unscientific or unprepared for such discipline: he does not intend to

contrast "men of sound understanding" with men "not of sound

understanding."

It appears to me that Hamilton has here taken a passage away from its

genuine sense in the Aristotelian context, and has pressed it into

his service to illustrate a view of his own, foreign to that of

Aristotle. He has done the like with some other passages, to which I

will now advert.

What he says, pp. 764-766, about Aristotle's use of the term [Greek:

a)xi/ôma] is quite opposed to the words of Aristotle himself, who

plainly certifies it as being already in his time a technical term

with mathematicians (Met. [Greek: G]. p. 1005, a. 20). On p. 766, a.,

Hamilton says that the word [Greek: a)xi/ôma] is not used in any work

extant prior to Aristotle in a logical sense. This is true as to any

_work_ remaining to us, but Aristotle himself talks of previous

philosophers or reasoners who had so used it; thus he speaks of

[Greek: kata\ to\ Zê/nônos a)xi/ôma] (Metaph. B. p. 1001, b.

7)--"according to the assumption laid down by Zeno as authoritative."

Of this passage Hamilton takes no notice: he only refers to the Topica,

intimating a doubt (in my judgment groundless and certainly professed

by few modern critics, if any) whether the Topica is a genuine work

of Aristotle. In the time of Aristotle, various mathematical teachers

laid down Axioms, such as, If equals be taken from equals, the

remainders will be equal; In all propositions, either the affirmative

or the negative must be true, &c. But the case of Zeno shows us that

other philosophers also laid down Axioms of their own, which were not

universally accepted by others. What Hamilton here says, about

Axioms, has little pertinence as a contribution to the Philosophy of

Common Sense.

Again, Hamilton says, p. 770, a.: "The native contributions by the

mind itself to our concrete cognitions have, prior to their

elicitation into consciousness through experience, only a

_potential_, and in actual experience only an _applied_, _engaged_,

or _implicate_, existence."

These words narrow the line of distinction between the two opposite

schools so much, that I cannot see where it is drawn. Every germ has

in it the _potentialities_ of that which it will afterwards become.

No one disputes that a baby just born has mental _potentialities_ not

possessed by a puppy, a calf, or an acorn. What is the difference

between cognitions _elicited through experience_, and cognitions

_derived from experience_? To those who hold the doctrine of

Relativity, both our impressions of sense and our mental activities

(such as memory, discrimination, comparison, abstraction, &c.) are

alike indispensable to experience. The difference, so far as I can

see, between Hamilton and the Inductive School, is not so much about

the process whereby cognitions are acquired, as about the mode of

testing and measuring the authority of those cognitions when

acquired. Hamilton will not deny that many of the cognitions which he

describes as elicited by experience are untrue or exaggerated. How

are we to discriminate these from the true? The Inductive School

would reply: "By the test of experience, and by that alone: if these

cognitions, which have been elicited in your mind through experience,

are refuted or not confirmed when tested by subsequent experience

carefully watched and selected for the purpose, they are not true or

trustworthy cognitions." But Hamilton would not concur in this

answer: he would say that the cognitions, though elicited _through_

experience, did not derive their authority or trustworthiness _from_

experience, but were binding and authoritative in themselves, whether

confirmed by experience or not. In speaking about Axioms, p. 764, b.,

he says: "Aristotle limited" (this is not correct: Aristotle did not

_limit_ as here affirmed) "the expression Axiom to those judgments

which, on occasion of experience, arise naturally and necessarily in

the conscious mind, and which are therefore virtually prior to

experience." That they are not prior to experience in _order of

time_, is admitted in the words just cited from Hamilton himself: he

means, therefore, prior in _logical authority_--carrying with them

the quality of _necessity_, even though experience may afford no

confirmation of them. This is what he says, on pp. 753-754, about

causality: metaphysical causality _must_ be believed, as a necessary

and subjective law of the observer--though there is no warrant for it

in experience.

The question between Hamilton and the Inductive School, I repeat, is

not so much about the psychological genesis of beliefs, as about the

test for distinguishing true from false or uncertified beliefs, among

those beliefs which arise, often and usually, in the minds of most

men. Is there any valid test other than experience itself, as

intentionally varied by experiments and interpreted by careful

Induction? Are we ever warranted in affirming what transcends

experience, except to the extent to which the inference from

Induction (from some to all) always transcends actual observation?

This seems to me the real question at issue between the contending

schools of Metaphysics. Hamilton, while he rejects experience as the

test, furnishes no other test whereby we can discriminate the

erroneous beliefs "which are elicited into consciousness through

experience," from the true beliefs which are elicited in like manner.

In discussing the doctrine which Hamilton and other philosophers

entitle Common Sense (in the metaphysical import which they assign to

it), it is proper to say a few words on the legitimate meaning of

this phrase, before it was pressed into service by a particular

school of metaphysicians. Every one who lives through childhood and

boyhood up to man's estate will unavoidably acquire a certain amount

of knowledge and certain habits of believing, feeling, judging, &c.;

differing materially in different ages and countries, and varying to

a less degree in different individuals of the same age and country,

yet still including more or less which is common to the large

majority. That fire burns; that water quenches thirst and drowns;

that the sun gives light and heat; that animals are all mortal and

cannot live long without nourishment,--these and many other beliefs

are not possessed by a very young child, but are acquired by every

man as he grows up, though he cannot remember how or when he learnt

them. The sum total of the beliefs thus acquired, by the impressions

and influences under which every growing mind might pass, constitutes

the Common Sense of a particular age and country. A person wanting in

any of them would be considered, by the majority of the inhabitants,

as deficient in Common Sense. If I meet an adult stranger, I presume

as a matter of course that he has acquired them, and I talk to him

accordingly. I also presume (being in England) that he has learnt the

language of the country; and that he is familiar with the forms of

English speech whereby such beliefs and their correlative disbeliefs

are enunciated. If I affirm to him any one of these beliefs, he

assents to it at once: it appears to him self-evident--that is,

requiring no farther or extraneous evidence to support it. Though it

appears to him self-evident, however, the proposition may possibly be

false. To a Greek of the Aristotelian age, no proposition could

appear more self-evident than that of the earth being at rest. No

term can be more thoroughly relative than the term _self-evident_:

that which appears so to one man, will often not appear so to

another, and may sometimes appear altogether untrue.

But, if we suppose an individual to whom one of these beliefs does

not appear self-evident, and who requires proof, he will not be

satisfied to be told that every one else believes it, and that it is

a dictate of Common Sense. He probably knows that already, and yet,

nevertheless, he is not convinced. Aristarchus of Samos was told

doubtless, often enough, that the doctrine of the earth being at rest

was the plain verdict of Common Sense; but he did not the less

controvert it. You must produce the independent proof which the

recusant demands; and, if your doctrine is true and trustworthy, such

proof can be produced. I will here remark that, in so far as Common

Sense can properly be quoted as an authority or presumptive

authority, it is such only in the sense proclaimed by Herakleitus and

La Mennais, as cited by Hamilton, pp. 770-771: "as a magazine of

ready-fabricated dogmas." Hamilton finds fault with both of them; but

it appears to me that they rightly interpret, and that he wrongly

interprets, what Common Sense, as generally understood, is; and

moreover, that most of the other authorities whom he himself quotes

understand the phrase as these two understand it. Common Sense is "a

magazine of ready-fabricated dogmas," as La Mennais (see p. 771, a.)

considers it--dogmas assumed as self-evident, and as requiring no

proof. It only becomes "a source of elementary truths" when analysed

and remodelled by philosophers. Now philosophers differ much in their

mode of analysing it (as Hamilton himself declares emphatically), and

bring out of it different elementary truths; each of them professing

to follow Common Sense and quoting Common Sense as warranty. It is

plain that Common Sense is no authority for either one of two

discrepant modes of analysis. Its authority counts for those dogmas

out of which the analysis is made, in so far as Common Sense is

authoritative at all.

Hamilton cites or indicates thirteen different Aristotelian passages,

in order to support his view that Aristotle is to be numbered among

the champions of authoritative Common Sense. It will be seen that

most of the passages prove nothing, and that only one proves much, in

favour of that view. I shall touch upon them _seriatim_.

(_a_) "First truths are such as are believed, not through aught else"

(say rather _through other truths_) "but through themselves alone.

For, in regard to the first principles of science, we ought not to

require the reason _Why_; for each such principle behoves to be

itself a _belief_ in and of itself."[1] After the words _reason Why_,

Hamilton inserts the following additional words of his own in

brackets--"but only the fact _That_ they are given."

[Footnote 1: Aristot. Topic. I. i. p. 100, a. 30; Hamilton's Reid, p.

772, a.]

I demur to the words in brackets, as implying an hypothesis not

contained in Aristotle; who says only that the truth affirmed by the

teacher must be such as the learner is prepared to believe without

asking any questions. It may be an analytical truth (_sensu

Kantiano_), in which the predicate asserts only what the learner

knows to be already contained in the definition of the subject. It

may be a synthetical truth; yet asserting only what he is familiar

with by constant, early, uncontradicted, obvious, experience. In

either case, he is prepared to believe it at once; and thus the

conditions of a First Scientific Truth are satisfied, as here

described by Aristotle; who says nothing about the truth _being

given_.

The next passage cited (_b_) is from the Analytica Posteriora (the

reference is printed by mistake _Priora_). According to Hamilton,

Aristotle says:--"We assert not only that science does exist, but also

that there is given a certain beginning or principle of science, _in

so far as_ (or, on another interpretation of the term [Greek:

ê(=|]--_by which_) we recognize the import of the terms."[2] I think

Hamilton has not exactly rendered the sense of the original when he

translates it--"we recognize the import of the terms;" and he

proceeds to add expository words of his own which carry us still

farther away from what I understand in Aristotle. If Hamilton's

rendering is correct, all the _principia_ of Science would be

analytical propositions (_sensu Kantiano_), which I do not think that

Aristotle intended to affirm or imply. In the last chapter of the

Analytica Posteriora, Aristotle not only affirmed that there were

First Principles of Science, but described at length the inductive

process by which we reached them: referring them ultimately to the

cognizance and approval of Noûs or Intellect. What Aristotle means

is, that, in ascending from propositions of lower to propositions of

higher universality, we know when we have reached the extreme term of

ascent; and this forms the _principium_.

[Footnote 2: Aristot. Anal. Post. I. iii. p. 72, b. 23: [Greek:

tau=ta/ t' ou)=n ou(/tô le/gomen, kai\ ou) mo/non e)pistê/mên a)lla\

kai\ a)rchê\n e)pistê/mês ei)=nai/ tina/ phamen, ê(=| tou\s o(/rous

gnôri/zomen.]

Neither Philoponus, nor Buhle, nor M. Barthélemy St.-Hilaire,

translate the words [Greek: tou\s o(/rous gnôri/zomen] in the same

way as Sir W. Hamilton. It rather seems to me that the words mean

_terms or limits of regress_, which coincides with the paraphrase of

Philoponus: [Greek: tou/tô| ga\r (tô=| nô=|) ta\s a)rchoeidesta/tas

kai\ oi(onei\ o(/rous ou)/sas gnôri/zomen] (Schol. p. 201, b. 13,

Br.), as well as substantially with the note of M. St.-Hilaire.]

Sir W. Hamilton next gives us another passage (_c_) from the

Analytica Posteriora, in which Aristotle affirms that the First

Principles must be believed in a superlative degree, because we know

and believe all secondary truths through them:[3] a doctrine which

appears to me to require both comment and limitation; but about which

I say nothing, because, even granting it to be true, I do not see how

it assists the purpose--to prove that Aristotle is the champion of

authoritative Common Sense. Nor do I find any greater proof in

another passage previously (p. 764, b.) produced from Aristotle: "Of

the immediate principles of syllogism, that which cannot be

demonstrated, but which it is not necessary to possess as the

pre-requisite of all learning, I call _Thesis_: and that _Axiom_,

which he who would learn aught, must himself bring (and not receive

from his instructor). For some such principles there are; and it is to

these that we are accustomed to apply the name."[4] Such principles

there doubtless are, which the learner must bring with him; but

Aristotle does not assert, much less prove, that they are intuitions

given by authoritative Common Sense. Nay, in the passage cited in my

former page, he both asserted and proved that the _principia_ of

Science were raised from Sense by Induction. The learner, when he

comes to be taught, must bring some of these _principia_ with him, if

he is to learn Science from his teacher; just as he must also bring

with him a knowledge of the language, of the structure of sentences,

of the forms for affirmation and denial, &c., and various other

requisites. A recruit, when first coming to be drilled, must bring

with him a certain power of walking and of making other movements of

the limbs. But these pre-requisites, on the part of the learner as

well as on that of the recruit, are not intuitive products or

inspirations of the mind: they are acquirements made by long and

irksome experience, though often forgotten in its details. We are not

to reason upon the learner or the recruit as if they were children

just born.

[Footnote 3: Analyt. Poster. I. ii. p. 72, a. 27.]

[Footnote 4: Analyt. Poster. I. iii. p. 72, a. 17: [Greek: tou=to

ga\r _ma/list'_ e)pi\ toi=s toiou/tois ei)ô/thamen o)/noma

le/gein]--"we are for the most part accustomed:" Hamilton has not

translated the word [Greek: ma/lista], which it would have been

better for him to do, because he founds upon the passage an argument

to prove that Aristotle limited in a certain way the sense of the

word Axiom.]

The passages out of the Rhetorica and the Metaphysica (cited on p.

772, b., and marked _d_ and _e_) are hardly worth notice. But that

which immediately follows (marked _f_), out of the Nikomachean

Ethica, is the most pertinent of all that are produced. Hamilton

writes:--"Arguing against a paradox of certain Platonists in regard

to the Pleasurable, Aristotle says--'But they who oppose themselves

to Eudoxus, as if what all nature desiderates were not a good, talk

idly. For what _appears to all_, that we affirm _to be_; and he who

would subvert this belief, will himself assuredly advance nothing

more deserving of credit.'[5] Compare also L. vii. c. 13 (14). In his

paraphrase of the above passage, the Pseudo-Andronicus in one place

uses the expression _common opinion_, and in another all but uses

(what indeed he could hardly do in this meaning as an Aristotelian,

if indeed in Greek at all) the expression _common sense_, which D.

Heinsius in his Latin version actually employs." Thus far Hamilton;

but the words of Aristotle which immediately follow are even

stronger:--"For, in so far as foolish creatures desire pleasure, the

objection taken would be worth something; but, when intelligent

creatures desire it also, how can the objectors make out their case?

Even in mean and foolish creatures, moreover, there is perhaps a

certain good natural appetite, superior to themselves, which aims at

their own good."[6] Or as Aristotle (according to some critics, the

Aristotelian Eudemus) states it in the Seventh Book of the

Nikomachean Ethica, referred to by Sir W. Hamilton without citing

it:--"Perhaps all creatures (brutes as well as men) pursue, not that

pleasure which they think they are pursuing, nor what they would

declare themselves to be pursuing, but all of them the same pleasure;

for all creatures have by nature something divine."[7]

[Footnote 5: Aristot. Ethic. Nik. X. ii. p. 1172, b. 36: [Greek: o(\

ga\r pa=si dokei=, tou=t' ei)=nai/ phamen; o( d' a)nairô=n tau/tên

tê\n pi/stin, ou) pa/nu pisto/tera e)rei=.]]

[Footnote 6: Aristot. Ethic. Nik. X. ii. p. 1173, a. 2: [Greek: ê(=|

me\n ga\r ta\ a)no/êta o)re/getai au)tô=n, ê)=n a)/n ti to\ lego/men;

ei) de\ kai\ ta\ phro/nima, pô=s a)\n le/goie/n ti? i)/sôs de\ kai\

e)n toi=s phau/lois e)sti/ ti _phusiko\n_ a)gatho\n _krei=tton ê)\

kath' au(ta/, o(\ e)phi/etai tou= oikei/ou a)gathou=_.] (I adopt here

the text as given by Michelet, [Greek: **ê(=| me\n] in place of

[Greek: ei) me\n], but not in leaving out [Greek: to\] before [Greek:

lego/menon].) I think the sentence would stand better if [Greek:

a)gatho\n] were omitted after [Greek: phusiko/n].]

[Footnote 7: Eth. Nikom. VII. xiv. p. 1153, b. 31: [Greek: i)/sôs de\

kai\ diô/kousin ou)ch ê)\n oi)/ontai (ê(donê/n) ou)d' ê)\n a)\n

phai=en, a)lla\ tê\n au)tê/n; _pa/nta ga\r phu/sei e)/chei ti

thei=on_.] The sentiment is here declared even more strongly

respecting the appetency of all animals--brutes as well as men.]

In this passage, Aristotle does really appear as the champion of

authoritative Common Sense. He enunciates the general principle: That

which appears to all, that we affirm to be. And he proceeds to claim

(with the qualification of _perhaps_) for this universal belief a

divine or quasi-divine authority; like Hesiod in the verses cited by

Sir W. Hamilton, p. 770, b., and like Dr. Reid in the motto prefixed

to his 'Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common

Sense.' If Aristotle had often spoken in this way, he would have been

pre-eminently suitable to figure in Sir W. Hamilton's list of

authorities. But the reverse is the fact. In the Analytica and

Topica, Aristotle is so far from accepting the opinion and belief of

all as a certificate of truth and reality, that he expressly ranks

the matters so certified as belonging to the merely probable, and

includes them in his definition thereof. Universal belief counts for

more or less, as a certificate of the truth of what is believed,

according to the matter to which it refers; and there are few matters

on which it is of greater value than pleasure and pain. Yet even upon

this point Aristotle rejects the authority of the many, and calls

upon us to repose implicit confidence in the verdict of the just and

intelligent individual, whom he enthrones as the measure. "Those

alone are pleasures" (says Aristotle) "which appear pleasures to this

man; those alone are pleasant things in which he takes delight. If

things which are revolting to him appear pleasurable to others, we

ought not to wonder, since there are many corruptions and

degenerations of mankind; yet these things are not really

pleasurable, except to these men and to men of like disposition."[8]

This declaration, repeated more than once in the Nikomachean Ethica,

and supported by Analytica and Topica, more than countervails the

opposite opinion expressed by Aristotle, in the passage where he

defends Eudoxus.

[Footnote 8: Aristot. Ethic. Nik. X. v. p. 1176, a. 15: [Greek:

dokei= d' e)n a(/pasi toiou/tois ei)=nai to\ phaino/menon tô=|

spoudai/ô|. ei) de\ tou=to kalô=s le/getai, katha/per dokei=, kai\

e)/stin e(ka/stou me/tron ê( a)retê\ kai\ o( a)gatho\s ê(=|

toiou=tos, kai\ ê(donai\ ei)=en a)\n ai( tou/tô| phaino/menai, kai\

ê(de/a oi(=s ou(=tos chai/rei] &c. Ib. vi. p. 1176, b. 24: [Greek:

_katha/per ou)=n polla/kis ei)/rêtai_, kai\ ti/mia kai\ ê(de/a e)sti\

ta\ tô=| spoudai/ô| toiau=ta o)/nta.]]

The next passage (_g_) produced by Sir W. Hamilton is out of the

Eudemian Ethica. But this passage, when translated more fully and

exactly than we read it in his words, will be found to prove nothing

to the point which he aims at. He gives it as follows, p. 773,

a.:--"But of all these we must endeavour to seek out rational grounds

of belief, by adducing manifest testimonies and authorities. For it

is the strongest evidence of a doctrine, if all men can be adduced as

the manifest confessors of its positions; because every individual

has in him a kind of private organ of the truth. Hence we ought not

always to look to the conclusions of reasoning, but frequently rather

to what appears [and is believed] to be." The original is given

below.[9]

[Footnote 9: Aristot. Eth. Eud. I. vi. p. 1218, b. 26: [Greek:

peirate/on de\ peri\ tou/tôn pa/ntôn zêtei=n tê\n pi/stin dia\ tô=n

lo/gôn, marturi/ois kai\ paradei/gmasi chrô/menon toi=s

phainome/nois. kra/tiston me\n ga\r pa/ntas a)nthrô/pous phai/nesthai

sunomologou=ntas toi=s pa/ntôs, o(/per metabibazo/menoi poiê/sousin;

e)/chei ga\r e(/kastos oi)kei=o/n ti pro\s tê\n a)lê/theian, e)x ô(=n

a)nagkai=on deiknu/nai pôs peri\ au)tô=n. e)k ga\r tô=n a)lêthô=s

me\n legome/nôn, ou) saphô=s de/, proi+ou=sin e)/stai kai\ to\

saphô=s, metalamba/nousin a)ei\ ta\ gnôrimô/tera tô=n ei)ôtho/tôn

le/gesthai sugkechume/nôs.] Then after an interval of fifteen lines:

[Greek: kalô=s d' e)/chei kai\ to\ chôri\s kri/nein to\n tê=s

ai)ti/as lo/gon kai\ to\ deiknu/menon, dia/ te to\ r(êthe\n a)rti/ôs,

o(/ti prose/chein ou) dei= pa/nta toi=s dia\ tô=n lo/gôn, a)lla\

polla/kis ma=llon toi=s phainome/nois (nu=n d' o(/pot' a)\n lu/ein

mê\ e)/chôsin, a)nagka/zontai pisteu/ein toi=s ei)rême/nois), kai\

dio/ti polla/kis to\ me\n u(po\ tou= lo/gou dedei=chthai dokou=n

a)lêthe\s me/n e)stin, ou) me/ntoi dia\ tau/tên tê\n ai)ti/an di'

ê(/n phêsin o( lo/gos. e)/sti ga\r dia\ pseu/dous a)lêthe\s dei=xai;

dê=lon d' e)k tô=n A)nalutikô=n.]]

The following is a literal translation, restoring what Sir W.

Hamilton omits:--"But, respecting all these matters, we must

endeavour to seek belief through general reasoning, employing the

appearances before us (_i.e._ the current _dicta_ and _facta_ of

society) as testimonies and examples. For it is best that all mankind

should be manifestly in agreement with what we are about to say; but,

if that cannot be, that at all events they should be in some sort of

agreement with us; which they will come to be when brought round (by

being addressed in the proper style). For every man has in him some

tendencies favourable to the truth, and it is out of these that we

must somehow or other prove our conclusions. By taking our departure

from what is said around us truly but not clearly, we shall by

gradual advance introduce clearness, taking along with us such

portion of the confused common talk as is most congruous to Science.

. . . It is well also to consider apart the causal reasoning

(syllogistic, deductive premisses), and the conclusion shown: first,

upon the ground just stated, that we must not pay exclusive attention

to the results of deductive reasoning, but often rather to apparent

facts, whereas it often happens now that, when men cannot refute the

reasoning, they feel constrained to believe in the conclusion; next,

because the conclusion, shown by the reasoning, may often be true in

itself, but not from the cause assigned in the reasoning. For a true

conclusion may be shown by false premisses; as we have seen in the

Analytica."

Whoever reads the original words of Aristotle (or Eudemus) will see

how much Sir W. Hamilton's translation strains their true meaning.

[Greek: Kra/tiston] does not correspond to the phrase--"it is the

strongest evidence of a doctrine." [Greek: Kra/tiston] is the

equivalent of [Greek: a)/riston], as we find in chap. iii. of this

Book of the Eudemian Ethica (p. 1215, a. 3): [Greek: e)pei\ d'

ei)si\n a)pori/ai peri\ e(ka/stên pragmatei/an oi)kei=ai, dê=lon

o(/ti kai\ peri\ _bi/ou tou= krati/stou_ kai\ zôê=s tê=s a)ri/stês

ei)si/n.] Nor ought the words [Greek: oi)kei=o/n ti pro\s tê\n

a)lê/theian] to be translated--"a kind of private organ of the

truth:" they mean simply--"something in him favourable or tending

towards the truth," as we read in chap. ii. of this same

Book--[Greek: oi)kei=on pro\s eu)exi/an] (p. 1214, b. 22). Moreover,

Hamilton has omitted to translate both the words preceding and the

words following; accordingly he has missed the real sense of the

passage. Aristotle inculcates upon the philosopher never to neglect

the common and prevalent opinions, but to acquaint himself with them

carefully; because, though these opinions are generally full of

confusion and error ([Greek: ei)kê=| ga\r le/gousi schedo\n peri\

a(pa/ntôn (oi( polloi/)]--Ethic. Eudem. I. iii. p. 1215, a. 1), he

will find in them partial correspondences with the truth, of which he

may avail himself to bring the common minds round to better views;

but, unless he knows pretty well what the opinions of these common

minds are, he will not be able to address them persuasively. This is

the same reasonable view which Aristotle expresses at the beginning

of the Topica (in a passage already cited, above), respecting the

manner of dealing proper for a philosopher towards current opinion.

But it does not at all coincide with the representation given by

Hamilton.

The next piece of evidence (_h_) which we find tendered is another

passage out of the Eudemian Ethica. It will be seen that this passage

is strained with even greater violence than the preceding. Hamilton

writes as follows, first translating the words of Aristotle, then

commenting on them:--"The problem is this--What is the beginning or

principle of motion in the soul? Now it is evident, as God is in the

universe, and the universe in God, that [I read [Greek: kinei=n

kai/]--W. H.] the divinity in us is also, in a certain sort, the

universal mover of the mind. For the principle of Reason is not

Reason but something better. Now what can we say is better than even

Science, except God?"[10] So far Hamilton's translation; now follows

his comment:--"The import of this singular passage is very obscure.

It has excited, I see, the attention, and exercised the ingenuity, of

Pomponatius, J. C. Scaliger, De Raei, Leibnitz, Leidenfrost, Jacobi,

&c. But without viewing it as of pantheistic tendency, as Leibnitz is

inclined to do, it may be interpreted as a declaration, that

Intellect, which Aristotle elsewhere allows to be pre-existent and

immortal, is a spark of the Divinity; whilst its data (from which as

principles more certain than their deductions, Reason, Demonstration,

Science, must depart) are to be reverenced as the revelation of

truths which would otherwise lie hid from man: That, in short,

"'The voice of Nature is the voice of God.'

By the bye, it is remarkable that this text was not employed by any

of those Aristotelian philosophers who endeavoured to identify the

Active Intellect with the Deity."

[Footnote 10: Ethic. Eud. VII. xiv. p. 1248, a. 24: [Greek: to\ de\

zêtou/menon tou=t' e)sti/, ti/s ê( tê=s kinê/seôs a)rchê\ e)n tê=|

psuchê=|? dê=lon dê/, ô(/sper e)n tô=| o(/lô| theo/s, kai\ pa=n]

(Fritzsche reads [Greek: e)n) e)kei/nô|. kinei= ga/r pôs pa/nta to\

e)n ê(mi=n thei=on. lo/gou d' a)rchê\ ou) lo/gos a)lla\ ti krei=tton.

ti/ ou)=n a)\n krei=tton kai\ e)pistê/mês ei)/poi plê\n theo/s?]

Instead of [Greek: ei)/poi] (the last word but two) Fritzsche reads

[Greek: ei)/ê kai\ nou=].

This is the passage translated by Sir W. Hamilton. The words of the

original immediately following are these: [Greek: ê( ga\r a)retê\

tou= nou= o)/rganon; kai\ dia\ tou=to oi( pa/lai

e)/legon--"eu)tuchei=s kalou=ntai, oi( a)\n o(rê/sôsi katopthou=sin

a)/logoi o)/ntes, kai\ bouleu/esthai ou) sumphe/rei

au)toi=s"--e)/chousi ga\r a)rchê\n toiou/tên ê( krei/ttôn tou= nou=

kai\ bouleu/seôs. oi( de\ to\n lo/gon; tou=to d' ou)k e)/chousi. kai\

e)nthousismoi/; tou=to d' ou) du/nantai; a)/logoi ga\r o)/ntes

e)pitugcha/nousi] (so Fritzsche reads in place of

[Greek: a)potugcha/nousi]).]

I maintain that this passage noway justifies the interpretation

whereby Sir W. Hamilton ascribes to Aristotle a doctrine so large and

important. The acknowledged obscurity of the passage might have

rendered any interpreter cautious of building much upon it: but this

is not all: Sir W. Hamilton has translated it separately, without any

allusion to the chapter of which it forms part. This is a sure way of

misunderstanding it; for it cannot be fairly construed except as

bearing on the problem enunciated and discussed in that chapter.

Aristotle (or Eudemus) propounds for discussion explicitly in this

chapter a question which had been adverted to briefly in the earlier

part of the Eudemian Ethica (I. i. p. 1214, a. 24)--What is the

relation between good fortune and happiness? Upon what does good

fortune depend? Is it produced by special grace or inspiration from

the Gods? This question is taken up and debated at length in the

chapter from which Sir W. Hamilton has made his extract. It is

averred, as a matter of notoriety, that some men are fortunate.

Though fools, they are constantly successful--more so than wiser men;

and this characteristic is so steady, that men count upon it and

denominate them accordingly. (See this general belief illustrated in

the debate at Athens recorded by Thukydides, vi. 17, the good fortune

of Nikias being admitted even by his opponents.) Upon what does this

good fortune depend? Upon nature? Upon intelligence? Upon fortune

herself as a special agent? Upon the grace and favour of the gods to

the fortunate individual? Aristotle (or Eudemus) discusses the

problem in a long and perplexed chapter, stating each hypothesis,

together with the difficulties and objections attaching to it. As far

as we can make out from an obscure style and a corrupt text, the

following is the result arrived at. There are two varieties of the

fortunate man: one is, he who succeeds through a rightly directed

impulse, under special inspiration of the divine element within him

and within all men; the other is, he who succeeds without any such

impulse, through the agency of Fortune proper. The good fortune of

the first is more constant than that of the second; but both are

alike irrational or extra-rational.[11] Now the divine element in the

soul is the beginning or principle of motion for all the

manifestations in the soul--for reason as well as feeling: that which

calls reason into operation, is something more powerful than reason.

But in the intelligent man this divine mover only calls reason into

operation, leaving reason, when once in operation, to its own force

and guidance, of course liable to err; whereas in the fortunate man

(first variety) the divine element inspires all his feelings and

volitions, without any rational deliberation, so that he executes

exactly the right thing at the right time and place, and accordingly

succeeds.[12]

[Footnote 11: Eth. Eudem. VII. xiv. p. 1248, b. 3: [Greek: phanero\n

de\ o(/ti du/o ei)/dê eu)tuchi/as, ê( me\n thei/a, dio\ kai\ dokei=

o( eu)tuchê\s dia\ theo\n katorthou=n; ou(=tos d' e)sti\n o( kata\

tê\n o(rmê\n diorthôtiko/s, o( d' e(/teros o( para\ tê\n o(rmê\n;

a)/logoi d' a)mpho/teroi. kai\ ê( me\n sunechê\s eu)tuchi/a ma=llon,

au(/tê d' ou) sunechê/s.]

The variety [Greek: o( para\ tê\n o(rmê\n diorthôtiko/s] is

exemplified in the Physica (II. iv. p. 196, a. 4), where Aristotle

again discusses [Greek: tu/chê]: the case of a man who comes to the

market-place on his ordinary business, and there by accident meets a

friend whom he particularly wished to see, but whom he never dreamt

of seeing there and then.]

[Footnote 12: Eth. Eud. VII. xiv. p. 1248, a. 27-32: [Greek:

eu)tuchei=s kalou=ntai], &c. Compare also ib. p. 1247, b. 18.]

Aristotle (or Eudemus) thus obtains a psychological explanation (good

or bad) of the fact, that there are fools who constantly succeed in

their purposes, and wise men who frequently fail. He tells us that

there is in the soul a divine principle of motion, which calls every

thing--reason as well as appetite or feeling--into operation. But he

says nothing of what Sir W. Hamilton ascribes to him--about Intellect

as a spark of the Divinity, or about data of Intellect to be

reverenced as the revelation of hidden truths. His drift is quite

different and even opposite: to account for the success of

individuals _without intellect_ or reason--to bring forward a divine

element in the soul, which dispenses with intellect, and which

conducts these unintelligent men to success, solely by infusing the

most opportune feelings and impulses. Sir W. Hamilton has

misunderstood this passage, by taking no notice of the context and

general argument to which it belongs.

Besides, when Hamilton represents Aristotle here as declaring: "That

the data of Intellect are to be reverenced as the revelation of

truths which would otherwise lie hid from man"--how are we to

reconcile this with what we read two pages before (p. 771, a.) as the

view of Aristotle about these same data of Intellect, that "they are

themselves pre-eminently certain; and, if denied in words, they are

still always mentally admitted"? Is it reasonable to say that the

Maxim of Contradiction, and the proposition, That if equals be

subtracted from equals, the remainders will be equal--are data "to be

reverenced as the revelation of truths which would otherwise lie hid

from man"? At any rate, I protest against the supposition that

Aristotle has ever declared this.

The next two passages cited from Aristotle have really no bearing

upon the authority of Common Sense in its metaphysical meaning: they

are (_i_) from Physic. VIII. iii. and (_k_) from De Gen. Animal. III.

x. Both passages assert the authority of sensible perception against

general reasoning, where the two are conflicting. They assert, in

other words, that general reasoning ought to be tested by experience

and observation, and is not to be accepted when disallowed by these

tests. (The only condition is, that the observation be exact and

complete.) This is just, and is often said, though often disregarded

in fact, by Aristotle. But it has no proper connexion with the

problem about the trustworthiness of Common Sense.

Next Sir W. Hamilton refers us to (without citing) three other places

of Aristotle. Of these, the first (De Coelo, I. iii. p. 270, b. 4-13,

marked _l_) is one which I am much surprised to find in a modern

champion of Common Sense: since it represents Common Sense as giving

full certificate to errors now exploded and forgotten. Aristotle had

begun by laying down and vindicating his doctrine of the First or

Celestial Body, forming the exterior portion of the Kosmos, radically

distinct from the four elements; revolving eternally in uniform,

perfect, circular motion, eternal, unchangeable, &c. Having stated

this, he proceeds to affirm that the results of these reasonings

coincide with the common opinions of mankind, that is, with Common

Sense; and that they are not contradicted by any known observations

of perceptive experience. This illustrates what I have before

observed about Aristotle's position in regard to Common Sense. He

does not extol it as an authority, or tell us that "it is to be

reverenced as a revelation"; but, when he has proved a conclusion on

what he thinks good grounds, he is glad to be able to show that it

tallies with common opinions; especially when these opinions have

some alliance with the received religion.

The next passage (_m_) referred to (De Coelo, III. vii. p. 306, a.

13) has nothing to do with Common Sense, but embodies a very just

protest by Aristotle against those philosophers who followed out

their theories consistently to all possible consequences, without

troubling themselves to enquire whether those consequences were in

harmony with the results of observation.

There follows one other reference (_n_) which was hardly worth Sir W.

Hamilton's notice. In Meteorologic. I. xiii. p. 349, a. 25,

Aristotle, after reciting a theory of some philosophers (respecting

the winds) which he considers very absurd, then proceeds to

say:--"The many, without going into any enquiry at all, talk better

sense than those who after enquiry bring forward such conclusions as

these." It is not saying much for the authority of Common Sense, to

affirm that there have been occasionally philosophical theories so

silly as to be worse than Common Sense.

. . . . . .

B.--_Aristotle's Doctrine._

In regard to Aristotle, there are two points to be examined--

I. What position does he take up in respect to the authority of

Common Sense?

II. What doctrine does he lay down about the first _principia_ or

beginnings of scientific reasoning--the [Greek: a)rchai\

sullogistikai/]?

I.--That Aristotle did not regard Cause, Substance, Time, &c., as

Intuitions, is shown by the subtle and elaborate reasonings that he

employs to explain them, and by the censure that he bestows on the

erroneous explanations and shortcomings of others. Indeed, in regard

to Causality, when we read the great and perplexing diversity of

meaning which Aristotle (and Plato before him in the Phædon)

recognizes as belonging to this term, we cannot but be surprised to

find modern philosophers treating it as enunciating a simple and

intuitive idea. But as to Common Sense--taking the term as above

explained, and as it is usually understood by those that have no

particular theory to support--Aristotle takes up a position at once

distinct and instructive; a position (to use the phraseology of Kant)

not dogmatical, but critical. He constantly notices and reports the

affirmations of Common Sense; he speaks of it with respect, and

assigns to it a qualified value, partly as helping us to survey the

subject on all sides, partly as a happy confirmation, where it

coincides with what has been proved otherwise; but he does not appeal

to it as an authority in itself trustworthy or imperative.

Common Sense belongs to the region of Opinion. Now the distinction

between matters of Opinion on the one hand, and matters of Science or

Cognition on the other, is a marked and characteristic feature of

Aristotle's philosophy. He sets, in pointed antithesis,

Demonstration, or the method of Science--which divides itself into

special subjects, each having some special _principia_ of its own,

then proceeds by legitimate steps of deductive reasoning from such

_principia_, and arrives at conclusions sometimes universally true,

always true for the most part--against Rhetoric and Dialectic, which

deal with and discuss opinions upon all subjects, comparing opposite

arguments, and landing in results more or less probable. Contrasting

them as separate lines of intellectual procedure, Aristotle lays down

a theory of both. He recognizes the procedure of Rhetoric and

Dialectic as being to a great degree the common and spontaneous

growth of society; while Demonstration is from the beginning special,

not merely as to subject, but as to persons, implying teacher and

learner.

Rhetoric and Dialectic are treated by Aristotle as analogous

processes. Of the matter of opinion and belief, with which both of

them deal, he distinguishes three varieties: (1) Opinions or beliefs

entertained by all; (2) By the majority; (3) By a minority of

superior men, or by one man in respect to a science wherein he has

acquired renown. It is these opinions or beliefs that the rhetorician

and the dialectician attack and defend; bringing out all the

arguments available for or against each.

The Aristotelian treatise on Rhetoric opens with the following

words:--"Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic; for both of them

deal with such matters as do not fall within any special science, but

belong in a certain way to the common knowledge of all. Hence every

individual has his share of both, greater or less; for every one can,

up to a certain point, both examine others and stand examination from

others; every one tries to defend himself and to accuse others."[13]

To the same purpose Aristotle speaks about Dialectic, in the

beginning of the Topica:--"The dialectical syllogism takes its

premisses from matters of opinion, that is, from matters that seem

good to (or are believed by) all, or the majority, or the

wise--either all the wise, or most of them, or the most celebrated."

Aristotle distinguishes these matters of common opinion or belief

from three distinct other matters:--(1) From matters that are not

really such, but only in appearance; in which the smallest attention

suffices to detect the false pretence of probability, while no one

except a contentious Sophist ever thinks of advancing them; on the

contrary, the real matters of common belief are never thus palpably

false, but have always something deeper than a superficial show; (2)

From the first truths or _principia_, upon which scientific

demonstration proceeds; (3) From the paralogisms, or fallacious

assumptions ([Greek: pseudographê/mata]), liable to occur in each

particular science.

Now what Aristotle here designates and defines as "matters of common

opinion and belief" ([Greek: ta\ e)/ndoxa]) includes all that is

usually meant, and properly meant, by Common Sense--what is believed

by all men or by most men. But Aristotle does not claim any warrant

or authority for the truth of these beliefs, on the ground of their

being deliverances of Common Sense, and accepted (by all or by the

majority) always as indisputable, often as self-evident. On the

contrary, he ranks them as mere probabilities, some in a greater,

some in a less degree; as matters whereon something may be said both

_pro_ and _con_, and whereon the full force of argument on both sides

ought to be brought out, notwithstanding the supposed self-evidence

in the minds of unscientific believers. Though, however, he

encourages this dialectical discussion on both sides as useful and

instructive, he never affirms that it can by itself lead to certain

scientific conclusions, or to anything more than strong probability

on a balance of the countervailing considerations. The language that

he uses in speaking of these deliverances of Common Sense is measured

and just. After distinguishing the real Common Opinion from the

fallacious simulations of Common Opinion set up (according to him) by

some pretenders, he declares that in all cases of Common Opinion

there is always something more than a mere superficial appearance of

truth. In other words, wherever any opinion is really held by a large

public, it always deserves the scrutiny of the philosopher to

ascertain how far it is erroneous, and, if it be erroneous, by what

appearances of reason it has been enabled so far to prevail.

[Footnote 13: Aristot. Rhetor. I. i. p. 1354, a. 1. Compare Sophist.

Elench. xi. p. 172, a. 30.]

Again, at the beginning of the Topica (in which he gives both a

theory and precepts of dialectical debate), Aristotle specifies four

different ends to be served by that treatise. It will be useful (he

says)--

1. For our own practice in the work of debate. If we acquire a method

and system, we shall find it easier to conduct a debate on any new

subject, whenever such debate may arise.

2. For our daily intercourse with the ordinary public. When we have

made for ourselves a full collection of the opinions held by the

many, we shall carry on our conversation with them out of their own

doctrines, and not out of doctrines foreign to their minds; we shall

thus be able to bring them round on any matter where we think them in

error.

3. For the sciences belonging to philosophy. By discussing the

difficulties on both sides, we shall more easily discriminate truth

and falsehood in each separate scientific question.

4. For the first and highest among the _principia_ of each particular

science. These, since they are the first and highest of all, cannot

be discussed out of _principia_ special and peculiar to any separate

science; but must be discussed through the opinions commonly received

on the subject-matter of each. This is the main province of

Dialectic; which, being essentially testing and critical, is

connected by some threads with the _principia_ of all the various

scientific researches.

We see thus that Aristotle's language about Common Opinion or Common

Sense is very guarded; that, instead of citing it as an authority, he

carefully discriminates it from Science, and places it decidedly on a

level lower than Science, in respect of evidence; yet that he

recognizes it as essential to be studied by the scientific man, with

full confrontation of all the reasonings both for and against every

opinion; not merely because such study will enable the scientific man

to study and converse intelligibly and efficaciously with the vulgar,

but also because it will sharpen his discernment for the truths of

his own science, and because it furnishes the only materials for

testing and limiting the first _principia_ of that science.

II. We will next advert to the judgment of Aristotle respecting these

_principia_ of science: how he supposes them to be acquired and

verified. He discriminates various special sciences (geometry,

arithmetic, astronomy, &c.), each of which has its own appropriate

matter, and special _principia_ from which it takes its departure.

But there are also certain _principia_ common to them all; and these

he considers to fall under the cognizance of one grand comprehensive

science, which includes all the rest; First Philosophy or

Ontology--the science of Ens in its most general sense, _quatenus_ Ens;

while each of the separate sciences confines itself to one exclusive

department of Ens. The geometer does not debate nor prove the first

_principia_ of his own science; neither those that it has in common

with other sciences, nor those peculiar to itself. He takes these for

granted, and demonstrates the consequences that logically follow from

them. It belongs to the First Philosopher to discuss the _principia_

of all. Accordingly, the province of the First Philosopher is

all-comprehensive, co-extensive with all the sciences. So also is the

province of the Dialectician alike all-comprehensive. Thus far the

two agree; but they differ as to method and purpose. The Dialectician

seeks to enforce, confront, and value all the different reasons _pro_

and _con_, consistent and inconsistent; the First Philosopher

performs this too, or supposes it to be performed by others, but

proceeds farther: namely, to determine certain Axioms that may be

trusted as sure grounds (along with certain other _principia_) for

demonstrative conclusions in science.

Aristotle describes in his Analytica the process of Demonstration,

and the conditions required to render it valid. But what is the point

of departure for this process? Aristotle declares that there cannot

be a regress without end, demonstrating one conclusion from certain

premisses, then demonstrating those premisses from others, and so on.

You must arrive ultimately at some premisses that are themselves

undemonstrable, but that may be trusted as ground from whence to

start in demonstrating conclusions. All demonstration is carried on

through a middle term, which links together the two terms of the

conclusion, though itself does not appear in the conclusion. Those

undemonstrable propositions, from which demonstration begins, must be

known without a middle term, that is, _immediately_ known; they must

be known in themselves, that is, not through any other propositions;

they must be better known than the conclusions derived from them;

they must be propositions first and most knowable. But these two last

epithets (Aristotle often repeats) have two meanings: first and most

knowable _by nature_ or _absolutely_, are the most universal

propositions; first and most knowable _to us_, are those propositions

declaring the particular facts of sense. These two meanings designate

truths correlative to each other, but at opposite ends of the

intellectual line of march.

Of these undemonstrable _principia_, indispensable as the grounds of

all Demonstration, some are peculiar to each separate science, others

are common to several or to all sciences. These common principles

were called Axioms, in mathematics, even in the time of Aristotle.

Sometimes, indeed, he designates them as Axioms, without any special

reference to mathematics; though he also uses the same name to denote

other propositions, not of the like fundamental character. Now, how

do we come to know these undemonstrable Axioms and other immediate

propositions or _principia_, since we do not knew them by

demonstration? This is the second question to be answered, in

appreciating Aristotle's views about the Philosophy of Common Sense.

He is very explicit in his way of answering this question. He

pronounces it absurd to suppose that these immediate _principia_ are

innate or congenital,--in other words, that we possess them from the

beginning, and yet that we remain for a long time without any

consciousness of possessing them; seeing that they are the most

accurate of all our cognitions. What we possess at the beginning

(Aristotle says) is only a mental power of inferior accuracy and

dignity. We, as well as all other animals, begin with a congenital

discriminative power called sensible perception. With many animals,

the data of perception are transient, and soon disappear altogether,

so that the cognition of such animals consists in nothing but

successive acts of sensible perception. With us, on the contrary, as

with some other animals, the data of perception are preserved by

memory; accordingly our cognitions include both perceptions and

remembrances. Farthermore, we are distinguished even from the better

animals by this difference--that with us, but not with them, a

rational order of thought grows out of such data of perception, when

multiplied and long preserved. And thus out of perception grows

memory; out of memory of the same matter often repeated grows

experience, since many remembrances of the same thing constitute one

numerical experience. Out of such experience, a farther consequence

arises, that what is one and the same in all the particulars, (the

Universal or the One alongside of the Many), becomes fixed or rests

steadily within the mind. Herein lies the _principium_ of Art, in

reference to Agenda or Facienda--of Science, in reference to Entia.

Thus these cognitive _principia_ are not original and determinate

possessions of the mind, nor do they spring from any other mental

possessions of a higher cognitive order, but simply from data of

sensible perception; which data are like runaway soldiers in a panic,

first one stops his flight and halts, then a second follows the

example, afterwards a third and fourth, until at length an orderly

array is obtained. Our minds are so constituted as to render this

possible. If a single individual impression is thus detained, it will

presently acquire the character of a Universal in the mind; for,

though we perceive the particular, our perception is of the Universal

(_i.e._, when we perceive Kallias, our perception is of man

generally, not of the man Kallias). Again the fixture of these lowest

Universals in the mind will bring in those of the next highest order;

until at length the Summa Genera and the absolute Universals acquire

a steady establishment therein. Thus, from this or that particular

animal, we shall rise as high as Animal universally; and so on from

Animal upwards.

We thus see clearly (Aristotle says) that only by Induction can we

come to know the first _principia_ of Demonstration; for it is by

this process that sensible perception engraves the Universal on our

minds.[14] We begin by the _notiora nobis_ (Particulars), and ascend

to the _notiora naturâ_ or _simpliciter_ (Universals). Some among our

mental habits that are conversant with truth, are also capable of

falsehood (such as Opinion and Reasoning): others are not so capable,

but embrace uniformly truth and nothing but truth; such are Science

and Intellect ([Greek: Nou=s]). Intellect is the only source more

accurate than Science. Now the _principia_ of Demonstration are more

accurate than the demonstrations themselves, yet they cannot (as we

have already observed) be the objects of Science. They must therefore

be the object of what is more accurate than Science, namely, of

Intellect. Intellect and the objects of Intellect will thus be the

_principia_ of Science and of the objects of Science. But these

principles are not intuitive data or revelations. They are

acquisitions gradually made; and there is a regular road whereby we

travel up to them, quite distinct from the road whereby we travel

down from them to scientific conclusions.

[Footnote 14: Aristot. Anal. Post. II. p. 100, b. 3: [Greek: dê=lon

dê\ o(/ti ê(mi=n ta\ prô=ta e)pagôgê=| gnôri/zein a)nagkai=on; kai\

ga\r kai\ ai)/sthêsis ou(/tô to\ katho/lou e)mpoiei=]; also ibid. I.

xviii., p. 81, b. 3, upon which passage Waitz, in his note, explains

as follows (p. 347):--"Sententia nostri loci hæc est. Universales

propositiones omnes inductione comparantur, quum etiam in iis, quæ a

sensibus maxime aliena videntur, et quæ, ut mathematica ([Greek: ta\

e)x a)phaire/seôs]), cogitatione separantur a materia quacum

conjuncta sunt, inductione probentur ea quæ de genere (_e.g._, de

linea vel de corpore mathematico), ad quod demonstratio pertineat,

prædicentur [Greek: kath' au(ta/] et cum ejus natura conjuncta sint.

Inductio autem iis nititur quæ sensibus percipiuntur: nam res

singulares sentiuntur, scientia vero rerum singularium non datur sine

inductione, non datur inductio sine sensu."]

The chapter just indicated in the Analytica Posteriora, attesting the

growth of those universals that form the _principia_ of demonstration

out of the particulars of sense, may be illustrated by a similar

statement in the First Book of the Metaphysica. Here, after stating

that sensible perception is common to all animals, Aristotle

distinguishes the lowest among animals, who have this alone; then, a

class next above them, who have it along with phantasy and memory,

and some of whom are intelligent (like bees), yet still cannot learn,

from being destitute of hearing; farther another class, one stage

higher, who hear, and therefore can be taught something, yet arrive

only at a scanty sum of experience; lastly, still higher, the class

men, who possess a large stock of phantasy, memory, and experience,

fructifying into science and art.[15] Experience (Aristotle says) is

of particular facts; Art and Science are of Universals. Art is

attained, when out of many conceptions of experience there arises one

universal persuasion respecting phenomena similar to each other. We

may know that Kallias, sick of a certain disease--that Sokrates,

likewise sick of it--that A, B, C, and other individuals besides,

have been cured by a given remedy; but this persuasion respecting

ever so many individual cases, is mere matter of experience. When,

however, we proceed to generalize these cases, and then affirm that

the remedy cures all persons suffering under the same disease,

circumscribed by specific marks--fever or biliousness--this is Art or

Science. One man may know the particular cases empirically, without

having generalized them into a doctrine; another may have learnt the

general doctrine, with little or no knowledge of the particular

cases. Of these two, the last is the wiser and more philosophical

man; but the first may be the more effective and successful as a

practitioner.

[Footnote 15: Aristot. Metaphys. A. i. p. 980, a. 26, seq.: [Greek:

phro/nima me\n a)/neu tou= mantha/nein, o(/sa mê\ du/natai tô=n

pso/phôn a)kou/ein, oi(=on me/litta, kai\ ei)/ ti toiou=ton a)/llo

ge/nos zô/|ôn e)/stin.]

We remark here the line that he draws between the intelligence of

bees--depending altogether upon sense, memory, and experience--and

the higher intelligence which is superadded by the use of language;

when it becomes possible to teach and learn, and when general

conceptions can be brought into view through appropriate names.]

In the passage above noticed, Aristotle draws the line of

intellectual distinction between man and the lower animals. If he had

considered that it was the prerogative of man to possess a stock of

intuitive general truths, ready-made, and independent of experience,

this was the occasion for saying so. He says the exact contrary. No

modern psychologist could proclaim more fully than Aristotle here

does the derivation of all general concepts and general propositions

from the phenomena of sense, through the successive stages of memory,

association, comparison, abstraction. No one could give a more

explicit acknowledgment of Induction from particulars of sense, as

the process whereby we reach ultimately those propositions of the

highest universality, as well as of the highest certainty; from

whence, by legitimate deductive syllogism, we descend to demonstrate

various conclusions. There is nothing in Aristotle about generalities

originally inherent in the mind, connate although dormant at first

and unknown, until they are evoked or elicited by the senses; nothing

to countenance that nice distinction eulogized so emphatically by

Hamilton (p. 772, a. note): "Cognitio nostra omnis à mente primam

originem, à sensibus exordium habet primum." In Aristotle's view, the

senses furnish both _originem_ and _exordium_: the successive stages

of mental procedure, whereby we rise from sense to universal

propositions, are multiplied and gradual, without any break. He even

goes so far as to say that we have _sensible perception_ of the

Universal. His language undoubtedly calls for much criticism here. We

shall only say that it discountenances altogether the doctrine that

represents the Mind or Intellect as an original source of First or

Universal Truths peculiar to itself. That opinion is mentioned by

Aristotle, but mentioned only to be rejected. He denies that the mind

possesses any such ready-made stores, latent until elicited into

consciousness. Moreover, it is remarkable that the ground whereon he

denies it is much the same as that whereon the advocates of

intuitions affirm it, viz., the supreme accuracy of these axioms.

Aristotle cannot believe that the mind includes cognitions of such

value, without being conscious thereof. Nor will he grant that the

mind possesses any native and inherent power of originating these

inestimable _principia_.[16] He declares that they are generated in

the mind only by the slow process of induction, as above described;

beginning from the perceptive power (common to man with animals),

together with that first stage of the intelligence (judging or

discriminative) which he combines or identifies with perception,

considering it to be alike congenital. From this humble basis men can

rise to the highest grades of cognition, though animals cannot. We

even become competent (Aristotle says) to have sensible perception of

the Universal; in the man Kallias, we see Man; in the ox feeding near

us, we see Animal.

[Footnote 16: Aristot. Anal. Post. II. xix. p. 99, b. 26: [Greek: ei)

me\n dê\ e)/chomen au)ta/s, a)/topon; sumbai/nei ga\r a)kribeste/ras

e)/chontas gnô/seis a)podei/xeôs lantha/nein.--phanero\n toi/nun

o(/ti ou)/t' e)/chein oi(=o/n te, ou)/t' a)gnoou=si kai\ mêdemi/an

e)/chousin e(/xin e)ggi/nesthai. a)na/gkê a)/ra e)/chein me/n tina

du/namin, mê\ toiau/tên d' e)/chein ê(\ e)/stai tou/tôn timiôte/ra

kat' a)kri/beian.] See Metaphys. A. ix. p. 993, a. 1.

Some modern psychologists, who admit that general propositions of a

lower degree of universality are raised from induction and sense,

contend that propositions of the highest universality are not so

raised, but are the intuitive offspring of the intellect. Aristotle

does not countenance such a doctrine: he says (Metaphys. A. ii. p.

982, a. 25) that these truths furthest removed from sense are the

most difficult to know of all. If they were intuitions they would be

the common possession of the race.]

It must be remembered that, when Aristotle, in this analysis of

cognition, speaks of Induction, he means induction completely and

accurately performed; just as, when he talks of Demonstration, he

intends a good and legitimate demonstration; and just as (to use his

own illustration in the Nikomachean Ethica), when he reasons upon a

harper, or other professional artist, he always tacitly implies a

good and accomplished artist. Induction thus understood, and

Demonstration, he considers to be the two processes for obtaining

scientific faith or conviction; both of them being alike cogent and

necessary, but Induction even more so than Demonstration; because, if

the _principia_ furnished by the former were not necessary, neither

could the conclusions deduced from them by the latter be necessary.

Induction may thus stand alone without Demonstration, but

Demonstration pre-supposes and postulates Induction. Accordingly,

when Aristotle proceeds to specify those functions of mind wherewith

the inductive _principia_ and the demonstrated conclusions correlate,

he refers both of them to functions wherein (according to him) the

mind is unerring and infallible--Intellect ([Greek: Nou=s]) and

Science. But, between these two he ranks Intellect as the higher, and

he refers the inductive _principia_ to Intellect. He does not mean

that Intellect ([Greek: Nou=s]) generates or produces these

principles. On the contrary, he distinctly negatives such a

supposition, and declares that no generative force of this high order

resides in the Intellect; while he tells us, with equal distinctness,

that they are generated from a lower source--sensible perception, and

through the gradual upward march of the inductive process. To say

that they originate from Sense through Induction, and nevertheless to

refer them to Intellect ([Greek: Nou=s]) as their subjective

correlate,--are not positions inconsistent with each other, in the

view of Aristotle. He expressly distinguishes the two points, as

requiring to be separately dealt with. By referring the _principia_

to Intellect ([Greek: Nou=s]), he does not intend to indicate their

generating source, but their evidentiary value and dignity when

generated and matured. They possess, in his view, the maximum of

dignity, certainty, cogency, and necessity, because it is from them

that even Demonstration derives the necessity of its conclusions;

accordingly (pursuant to the inclination of the ancient philosophers

for presuming affinity and commensurate dignity between the

_cognitum_ and the _cognoscens_), they belong as objective correlates

to the most unerring cognitive function--the Intellect ([Greek:

Nou=s]). It is the Intellect that grasps these principles, and

applies them to their legitimate purpose of scientific demonstration;

hence Aristotle calls Intellect not only the _principium_ of Science,

but the _principium principii_.

In the Analytica, from which we have hitherto cited, Aristotle

explains the structure of the Syllogism and the process of

Demonstration. He has in view mainly (though not exclusively) the

more exact sciences, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, &c. But he

expressly tells us that all departments of inquiry are not capable of

this exactness; that some come nearer to it than others; that we must

be careful to require no more exactness from each than the subject

admits; and that the method adopted by us must be such as will attain

the admissible maximum of exactness. Now each subject has some

_principia_, and among them definitions, peculiar to itself; though

there are also some _principia_ common to all, and essential to the

march of each. In some departments of study (Aristotle says) we get

our view of _principia_ or first principles by induction; in others,

by sensible perception; in others again, by habitual action in a

certain way; and by various other processes also. In each, it is

important to look for first principles in the way naturally

appropriate to the matter before us; for this is more than half of

the whole work; upon right first principles will mainly depend the

value of our conclusions. For what concerns Ethics, Aristotle tells

us that the first principles are acquired through a course of

well-directed habitual action; and that they will be acquired easily,

as well as certainly, if such a course be enforced on youth from the

beginning. In the beginning of the Physica, he starts from that

antithesis, so often found in his writings, between what is more

knowable to us and what is more knowable absolutely or by nature. The

natural march of knowledge is to ascend from the first of these two

termini (particulars of sense) upward to the second or opposite,[17]

and then to descend downward by demonstration or deduction. The fact

of motion he proves (against Melissus and Parmenides) by an express

appeal to induction, as sufficient and conclusive evidence. In

physical science (he says) the final appeal must be to the things and

facts perceived by sense. In the treatise De Coelo he lays it down

that the _principia_ must be homogeneous with the matters they belong

to: the _principia_ of perceivable matters must be themselves

perceivable; those of eternal matters must be eternal; those of

perishable matters, perishable.

[Footnote 17: See also Aristot. Metaphys. Z. iv. p. 1029, b. 1-14.]

The treatises composing the Organon stand apart among Aristotle's

works. In them he undertakes (for the first time in the history of

mankind) the systematic study of significant propositions enunciative

of truth and falsehood. He analyses their constituent elements; he

specifies the conditions determining the consistency or inconsistency

of such propositions one with another; he teaches to arrange the

propositions in such ways as to detect and dismiss the inconsistent,

keeping our hold of the consistent. Here the signification of terms

and propositions is never out of sight: the facts and realities of

nature are regarded as so signified. Now all language becomes

significant only through the convention of mankind, according to

Aristotle's express declaration: it is used by speakers to

communicate what they mean to hearers that understand them. We see

thus that in these treatises the subjective point of view is brought

into the foreground--the enunciation of what we see, remember,

believe, disbelieve, doubt, anticipate, &c. It is not meant that the

objective point of view is eliminated, but that it is taken in

implication with, and in dependence upon, the subjective. Neither the

one nor the other is dropped or hidden. It is under this double and

conjoint point of view that Aristotle, in the Organon, presents to

us, not only the processes of demonstration and confutation, but also

the fundamental _principia_ or axioms thereof; which axioms in the

Analytica Posteriora (as we have already seen) he expressly declares

to originate from the data of sense, and to be raised and generalized

by induction.

Such is the way that Aristotle represents the fundamental principles

of syllogistic Demonstration, when he deals with them as portions of

Logic. But we also find him dealing with them as portions of Ontology

or First Philosophy (this being his manner of characterizing his own

treatise, now commonly known as the Metaphysica). To that science he

decides, after some preliminary debate, that the task of formulating

and defending the axioms belongs, because the application of these

axioms is quite universal, for all grades and varieties of Entia.

Ontology treats of Ens in its largest sense, with all its properties

_quatenus_ Ens, including Unum, Multa, Idem, Diversum, Posterius,

Prius, Genus, Species, Totum, Partes, &c. Now Ontology is with

Aristotle a purely objective science; that is, a science wherein the

subjective is dropt out of sight and no account taken of it, or

wherein (to state the same fact in the language of relativity) the

believing and reasoning subject is supposed constant. Ontology is the

most comprehensive among all the objective sciences. Each of these

sciences singles out a certain portion of it for special study. In

treating the logical axioms as portions of Ontology, Aristotle

undertakes to show their objective value; and this purpose, while it

carries him away from the point of view that we remarked as

prevailing in the Organon, at the same time brings him into conflict

with various theories, all of them in his time more or less current.

Several philosophers--Herakleitus, Anaxagoras, Demokritus,

Protagoras--had propounded theories which Aristotle here impugns. We

do not mean that these philosophers expressly denied his fundamental

axioms (which they probably never distinctly stated to themselves,

and which Aristotle was the first to formulate), but their theories

were to a certain extent inconsistent with these axioms, and were

regarded by Aristotle as wholly inconsistent.

The two Axioms announced in the Metaphysica, and vindicated by

Aristotle, are--

1. The Maxim of Contradiction: It is impossible for the same thing to

be and not to be; It is impossible for the same to belong and not to

belong to the same, at the same time and in the same sense. This is

the statement of the Maxim as a formula of Ontology. Announced as a

formula of Logic, it would stand thus: The same proposition cannot be

both true and false at the same time; You cannot both believe and

disbelieve the same proposition at the same time; You cannot believe,

at the same time, propositions contrary or contradictory. These

last-mentioned formulae are the logical ways of stating the axiom. They

present it in reference to the believing or disbelieving (affirming

or denying) subject, distinctly brought to view along with the matter

believed; not exclusively in reference to the matter believed, to the

omission of the believer.

2. The Maxim of Excluded Middle: A given attribute either does

belong, or does not belong to a subject (_i.e._, provided that it has

any relation to the subject at all)--there is no medium, no real

condition intermediate between the two. This is the ontological

formula; and it will stand thus, when translated into Logic: Between

a proposition and its contradictory opposite there is no tenable

halting ground; If you disbelieve the one, you must pass at once to

the belief of the other--you cannot at the same time disbelieve the

other.

These two maxims thus teach--the first, that we cannot at the same

time _believe_ both a proposition and its contradictory opposite; the

second, that we cannot at the same time _disbelieve_ them both.[18]

[Footnote 18: We have here discussed these two maxims chiefly in

reference to Aristotle's manner of presenting them, and to the

conceptions of his predecessors and contemporaries. An excellent view

of the Maxims themselves, in their true meaning and value, will be

found in Mr. John Stuart Mill's Examination of the Philosophy of Sir

W. Hamilton, ch. xxi. pp. 406-421.]

Now, Herakleitus, in his theory (a theory propounded much before the

time of Protagoras and the persons called Sophists), denied all

permanence or durability in nature, and recognized nothing except

perpetual movement and change. He denied both durable substances and

durable attributes; he considered nothing to be lasting except the

universal law or principle of change--the ever-renewed junction or

co-existence of contraries and the perpetual transition of one

contrary into the other. This view of the facts of nature was adopted

by several other physical philosophers besides.[19] Indeed it lay at

the bottom of Plato's new coinage--Rational Types or Forms, at once

universal and real. The Maxim of Contradiction is intended by

Aristotle to controvert Herakleitus, and to uphold durable substances

with definite attributes.

[Footnote 19: See 'Plato and other Comp. of Sokr.' I. i. pp. 28-38.]

Again, the theory of Anaxagoras denied all simple bodies (excepting

Noûs) and all definite attributes. He held that everything was

mingled with everything else, though there might be some one or other

predominant constituent. In all the changes visible throughout

nature, there was no generation of anything new, but only the coming

into prominence of some constituent that had before been

comparatively latent. According to this theory, you could neither

wholly affirm, nor wholly deny, any attribute of its subject. Both

affirmation and denial were untrue: the real relation between the two

was something half-way between affirmation and denial. The Maxim of

Excluded Middle is maintained by Aristotle as a doctrine in

opposition to this theory of Anaxagoras.[20]

[Footnote 20: Ibid. pp. 49-57.]

Both the two above-mentioned theories are objective. A third, that of

Protagoras--"Homo Mensura"--brings forward prominently the

subjective, and is quite distinct from either. Aristotle does indeed

treat the Protagorean theory as substantially identical with that of

Herakleitus, and as standing or falling therewith. This seems a

mistake: the theory of Protagoras is as much opposed to Herakleitus

as to Aristotle.

We have now to see how Aristotle sustains these two Axioms (which he

calls "the firmest of all truths and the most assuredly known")

against theories opposed to them. In the first place, he repeats here

what he had declared in the Analytica Posteriora--that they cannot

be directly demonstrated, though they are themselves the _principia_

of all demonstration. Some persons indeed thought that these Axioms

were demonstrable; but this is an error, proceeding (he says) from

complete ignorance of analytical theory. How, then, are these Axioms

to be proved against Herakleitus? Aristotle had told us in the

Analytica that axioms were derived from particulars of sense by

Induction, and apprehended or approved by the [Greek: Nou=s]. He does

not repeat that observation here; but he intimates that there is only

one process available for defending them, and that process amounts to

an appeal to Induction. You can give no ontological reason in support

of the Axioms, except what will be condemned as a _petitio

principii_; you must take them in their logical aspect, as enunciated

in significant propositions. You must require the Herakleitean

adversary to answer some question affirmatively, in terms significant

both to himself and to others, and in a proposition declaring his

belief on the point. If he will not do this, you can hold no

discussion with him: he might as well be deaf and dumb: he is no

better than a plant (to use Aristotle's own comparison). If he does

it, he has bound himself to something determinate: first, the

signification of the terms is a fact, excluding what is contrary or

contradictory; next, in declaring his belief, he at the same time

declares that he does not believe in the contrary or contradictory,

and is so understood by the hearers. We may grant what his theory

affirms--that the subject of a proposition is continually under some

change or movement; yet the identity designated by its name is still

maintained,[21] and many true predications respecting it remain true

in spite of its partial change. The argument in defence of the Maxim

of Contradiction is, that it is a postulate implied in all the

particular statements as to matters of daily experience, that a man

understands and acts upon when heard from his neighbours; a postulate

such that, if you deny it, no speech is either significant or

trustworthy to inform and guide those who hear it. If the speaker

both affirms and denies the same fact at once, no information is

conveyed, nor can the hearer act upon the words. Thus, in the

Acharnenses of Aristophanes, Dikæopolis knocks at the door of

Euripides, and inquires whether the poet is within; Kephisophon, the

attendant, answers--"Euripides is within and not within." This answer

is unintelligible; Dikæopolis cannot act upon it; until Kephisophon

explains that "not within" is intended metaphorically. Then, again,

all the actions in detail of a man's life are founded upon his own

belief of some facts and disbelief of other facts: he goes to Megara,

believing that the person whom he desires to see is at Megara, and at

the same time disbelieving the contrary: he acts upon his belief both

as to what is good and what is not good, in the way of pursuit and

avoidance. You may cite innumerable examples both of speech and

action in the detail of life, which the Herakleitean must go through

like other persons; and when, if he proceeded upon his own theory, he

could neither give nor receive information by speech, nor ground any

action upon the beliefs which he declares to co-exist in his own

mind. Accordingly, the Herakleitean Kratylus (so Aristotle says)

renounced the use of affirmative speech, and simply pointed with his

finger.[22]

[Footnote 21: This argument is given by Aristotle, Metaph. [Greek:

G]. v. p. 1010, a. 7-25, contrasting change [Greek: kata\ to\ poso/n]

and change [Greek: kata\ to\ poio/n].]

[Footnote 22: Aristot. Metaph. [Greek: G]. v. p. 1010, a. 12. Compare

Plato, Theætêt. pp. 179-180, about the aversion of the Herakleiteans

for clear issues and propositions.]

The Maxim of Contradiction is thus seen to be only the general

expression of a postulate implied in all such particular speeches as

communicate real information. It is proved by a very copious and

diversified Induction, from matters of experience familiar to every

individual person. It is not less true in regard to propositions

affirming changes, motions, or events, than in regard to those

declaring durable states or attributes.

In the long pleading of Aristotle on behalf of the Maxim of

Contradiction against the Herakleiteans, the portion of it that

appeals to Induction is the really forcible portion; conforming as it

does to what he had laid down in the Analytica Posteriora about the

inductive origin of the _principia_ of demonstration. He employs,

however, besides, several other dialectical arguments built more or

less upon theories of his own, and therefore not likely to weigh much

with an Herakleitean theorist; who--arguing, as he did argue, that

(because neither subject nor predicate was ever unchanged or stable

for two moments together) no true proposition could be framed but was

at the same time false, and that contraries were in perpetual

co-existence--could not by any general reasoning be involved in

greater contradiction and inconsistency than he at once openly

proclaimed.[23] It can only be shown that such a doctrine cannot be

reconciled with the necessities of daily speech, as practised by

himself, as well as by others. We read, indeed, one ingenious

argument whereby Aristotle adopts this belief in the co-existence of

contraries, but explains it in a manner of his own, through his much

employed distinction between potential and actual existence. Two

contraries cannot co-exist (he says) in actuality; but they both may

and do co-exist in different senses--one or both of them being

potential. This, however, is a theory totally different from that of

Herakleitus; coincident only in words and in seeming. It does indeed

eliminate the contradiction; but that very contradiction formed the

characteristic feature and keystone of the Herakleitean theory. The

case against this last theory is, that it is at variance with

psychological facts, by incorrectly assuming the co-existence of

contradictory beliefs in the mind; and that it conflicts both with

postulates implied in the daily colloquy of detail between man and

man, and with the volitional preferences that determine individual

action. All of these are founded on a belief in the regular sequence

of our sensations, and in the at least temporary durability of

combined potential aggregates of sensations, which we enunciate in

the language of definite attributes belonging to definite substances.

This language, the common medium of communication among

non-theorizing men, is accepted as a basis, and is generalized and

regularized, in the logical theories of Aristotle.

[Footnote 23: This is stated by Aristotle himself, Metaph. [Greek:

G]. vi. p. 1011, a. 15: [Greek: oi( d' e)n tô=| lo/gô| tê\n bi/an

mo/non zêtou=ntes a)du/naton zêtou=sin; e)nanti/a ga\r ei)pei=n

a)xiou=sin, eu)thu\s e)nanti/a le/gontes.] He here, indeed, applies

this observation immediately to the Protagoreans, against whom it

does not tell, instead of the Herakleiteans, against whom it does

tell. The whole of the reasoning in this part of the Metaphysica is

directed indiscriminately, and in the same words, against

Protagoreans and Herakleiteans.]

The doctrine here mentioned is vindicated by Aristotle, not only

against Herakleitus, by asserting the Maxim of Contradiction, but

also against Anaxagoras, by asserting the Maxim of Excluded Middle.

Here we have the second _principium_ of Demonstration, which, if it

required to be defended at all, can only be defended (like the first)

by a process of Induction. Aristotle adduces several arguments in

support of it, some of which involve an appeal to Induction, though

not broadly or openly avowed; but others of them assume what

adversaries, and Anaxagoras especially, were not likely to grant. We

must remember that both Anaxagoras and Herakleitus propounded their

theories as portions of Physical Philosophy or of Ontology; and that

in their time no such logical principles and distinctions as those

that Aristotle lays down in the Organon, had yet been made known or

pressed upon their attention. Now, Aristotle, while professing to

defend these Axioms as data of Ontology, forgets that they deal with

the logical aspect of Ontology, as formulated in methodical

propositions. His view of the Axioms cannot be properly appreciated

without a classification of propositions, such as neither Herakleitus

nor Anaxagoras found existing or originated for themselves. Aristotle

has taught us what Herakleitus and Anaxagoras had not been taught--to

distinguish separate propositions as universal, particular and

singular; and to distinguish pairs of propositions as contrary,

sub-contrary, and contradictory. To take the simplest case, that of

a singular proposition, in regard to which the distinction between

contrary and contradictory has no application,--such as the answer

(cited above) of Kephisophon about Euripides. Here Aristotle would

justly contend that the two propositions--Euripides is within,

Euripides is not within--could not be either both of them true, or

both of them false; that is, that we could neither believe both, nor

disbelieve both. If Kephisophon had answered, Euripides is neither

within nor not within, Dikæopolis would have found himself as much at

a loss with the two negatives as he was with the two affirmatives. In

regard to singular propositions, neither the doctrine of Herakleitus

(to believe both affirmation and negation) nor that of Anaxagoras (to

disbelieve both) is admissible. But, when in place of singular

propositions we take either universal or particular propositions, the

rule to follow is no longer so simple and peremptory. The universal

affirmative and the universal negative are _contrary_; the particular

affirmative and the particular negative are _sub-contrary_; the

universal affirmative and the particular negative, or the universal

negative and the particular affirmative, are _contradictory_. It is

now noted in all manuals of Logic, that of two contrary propositions,

both cannot be true, but both may be false; that of two

sub-contraries, both may be true, but both cannot be false; and that

of two contradictories, one must be true and the other false.

III.

METAPHYSICA.

[The following Abstract--when not translation--of six books ([Greek:

G], E, Z, Ê, [Greek: Th], [Greek: L]) out of the fourteen included

under the title 'Metaphysica,' may be said to cover the whole of

Aristotle's dogmatic exposition of First Philosophy. According to the

view of Brandis, now in its main features generally accepted, the

exposition continued through Books [Greek: G], E, Z, Ê, reaches back

to Books A and B, and comes to an end with Book [Greek: Th]. Still it

is only with Book [Greek: G] that the properly didactic treatment

begins, Book A being a historical review of previous opinion, and

Book B a mere collection of [Greek: a)pori/ai] subjected to a

preliminary dialectical handling; while, at the other end, Book

[Greek: L], though it has no direct connection with Book [Greek: Th],

is, especially in its latter part, of undeniable importance for

Aristotle's metaphysical doctrine.

The remaining books are known as [Greek: a], [Greek: D], I, K, M, N.

The short Book [Greek: a] is entirely unconnected with any of the

others, and most probably is not the work of Aristotle. Book [Greek:

D] ([Greek: peri\ tô=n posachô=s legome/nôn])--a vocabulary of

philosophical terms--is Aristotelian beyond question, being referred

to occasionally in the chief books; but it lies quite apart from the

exposition proper. Book I--dealing with Unity and Opposites--though

it also has no place in the actual line of treatment, is truly

ontological in character, and probably was intended to fall within

some larger scheme of metaphysical doctrine; the like, as far as can

be judged, being true of Books M and N, containing together a

criticism of Pythagorean and Platonic theories. Finally, Book K,

consisting in part of an epitomized excerpt from the Physica--hardly

from the hand of Aristotle, gives otherwise only a sketch in outline

of the argument of Books B, [Greek: G], E, and thus, although

Aristotelian, is to be discounted.

The author nowhere states the principle upon which he selected the

six books for a preliminary Abstract; but the actual selection,

joined to various indications in the Abstract and marginal notes in

his copies of the Metaphysica, leaves no doubt that he accepted the

view of Brandis, more especially as set forth by Bonitz. On the whole

question of the Canon of the Metaphysica, Bonitz's Introduction to

his Commentary may with advantage be consulted.]

Book [Greek: G].

In this First Philosophy, Aristotle analyses and illustrates the

meaning of the _generalissima_ of language--the most general and

abstract words which language includes. All these are words in common

and frequent use; in the process of framing or putting together

language, they have become permanently stamped and circulated as the

result of many previous comparisons, gone through but afterwards

forgotten, or perhaps gone through at first without any distinct

consciousness. Men employ these words familiarly in ordinary speech,

and are understood by others when they do so. For the most part, they

employ the words correctly and consistently, in the affirmation of

particular propositions relating to topics of daily life and

experience. But this is not always or uniformly the case. Sometimes,

more or less often, men fall into error and inconsistency in the

employment of these familiar general terms. The First Philosophy

takes up the generalities and established phrases in this condition;

following back analytically the synthetical process which the framers

of language have pursued without knowing or at least without

recording it, and bringing under conscious attention the different

meanings, more or fewer, in which these general words are used.

Philosophia Prima devotes itself, specially and in the first

instance, to Ens _quatenus_ Ens in all its bearings; being thus

distinguished from mathematics and other particular sciences, each of

which devotes itself to a separate branch of Ens (p. 1003, a. 25). It

searches into the First Causes or Elements of Ens _per se_, not _per

accidens_ (a. 31). But Ens is a commune, not generically, but

analogically; constituted by common relationship to one and the same

terminus, as everything healthy is related to health. The Principle

([Greek: a)rchê/]) of all Entia is Essence ([Greek: ou)si/a]); but

some Entia are so called as being affections of Essence; others, as

being a transition to Essence, or as destruction, privation, quality,

efficient or generative cause, of Essence or its _analoga_; others,

again, as being negations ([Greek: a)popha/seis]) thereof, whence,

for example, we say that Non-Ens _is_ Non-Ens (b. 6-10). There is one

science of all these primary, secondary, tertiary, &c., Entia; just

as there is one science of all things healthy, of the primary, the

secondary, the tertiary, &c., _quatenus_ healthy. But, in all such

matters, that science bears in the first instance and specially

([Greek: kuri/ôs]) on the Primum Aliquid, from which all the

secondary and other derivatives take their departure, and upon which

they depend (b. 16). Accordingly, in the present case, since Essence

is the Primum Aliquid, the province of First Philosophy is to

investigate the causes and principles of Essences in all their

varieties (b. 18-22). Now whatever varieties there are of Ens, the

like varieties there are of Unum; for the two are always implicated

together, though the words are not absolutely the same in meaning (b.

24-35). Accordingly both Ens and Unum with all the varieties of each

belong to Philosophia Prima; likewise Idem, Simile, &c., and the

opposites thereof. All opposites may be traced in the last analysis

to this foundation--the antithesis of Unum and Multa (p. 1004, a. 1).

We must set forth and discriminate the different varieties--primary,

secondary, tertiary, &c.--of Idem and Simile, and also of their

opposites, Diversum and Dissimile; and we must show how they are

derived from or related to Primum Idem, &c., just as we must do in

the case of Ens and Unum. All this task belongs to First Philosophy

(a. 20-30). Aristotle speaks of [Greek: o( philo/sophos], as meaning

the master of Philosophia Prima (b. 1; B. p. 997, a. 14).

If these investigations do not belong to the First Philosopher, to

which among the other investigators can they belong? Who is to

enquire whether Sokrates, and Sokrates sitting, is the same person?

Whether Unum is opposite to Unum? In how many senses Opposite can be

said? (p. 1004, b. 3). All these are affections _per se_ of Unum

_quatenus_ Unum, and of Ens _quatenus_ Ens, not _quatenus_ numbers,

or lines, or fire; that is, they are propria (_sensu logico_) of Ens

and Unum (not included in the notion or definition, but deducible

therefrom--"notæ consecutione notionis"), just as odd and even,

proportionality, equality, excess and defect, are propria of numbers;

and there are other propria of solids, whether moved or unmoved,

heavy or light. It is these propria of Ens and Unum that Philosophia

Prima undertakes to explain (b. 7-16), and which others fail to

explain, because they take no account of [Greek: ou)si/a] (b. 10), or

of the fundamental Ens or Essentia to which these belong as propria.

These Propria of Ens are the [Greek: oi)kei=a]--the special and

peculiar matter or principles--of Philosophia Prima. That all of them

belong in this special way to the First Philosopher, we may farther

see by the fact that all of them are handled by the Dialectician and

the Sophist, who assume an attitude counterfeiting the Philosopher.

All three travel over the same ground, and deal with Ens, as a matter

common to all (p. 1004, b. 20). But the Sophist differs from the

Philosopher in his purpose, inasmuch as he aims only at giving the

false appearance of wisdom without the reality, while the

Dialectician differs from the Philosopher in his manner of handling

([Greek: tô=| tro/pô| tê=s duna/meôs]--b. 24). The Dialectician

discusses the subject in a tentative way, from many different points

of view, suggested by current opinions; the Philosopher marches by a

straight and assured road from the appropriate principles of his

science to certain conclusions and cognitions.

The same view of the scope and extent of Philosophia Prima may be

made out in another way. Almost all philosophers affirm that Entia

are composed of contraries, and may be traced back to opposite

principles--odd and even, hot and cold, limit and the unlimited,

friendship and enmity, &c. Now these and all other contraries may be

traced back to Unum and Multa: this we may assume (p. 1005, a. 1;

according to Alexander Aph., it had been shown in the treatise De

Bono--Schol. p. 648, a. 38, Br.).

Though it be true, therefore, that neither Ens nor Unum is a true

genus, nor separable, but both of them aggregates of analogical

derivatives, yet since all these derivatives have their root in one

and the same fundamentum, the study of all of them belongs to one and

the same science (p. 1005, a. 6-11). It is not the province of the

geometer to examine what is The Opposite, The Perfect, Ens, Unum,

Idem, Diversum, except in their application to his own problems. The

general enquiry devolves upon the First Philosopher; who will

investigate Ens _quatenus_ Ens, together with the belongings or

appendages ([Greek: ta\ u(pa/rchonta]) of Ens _quatenus_ Ens,

including Prius, Posterius, Genus, Species, Totum, Pars, and such

like (a. 11-18).

It falls to the First Philosopher also to investigate and explain

what mathematicians call their Axioms: the mathematician ought not to

do this himself, but to leave it to the First Philosopher. These

Axioms are, in their highest generality, affirmations respecting Ens

_quatenus_ Ens, all of which belong to the First Philosopher; from

whom the mathematician accepts them, and applies them as far as his

own department requires (p. 1005, a. 20, seq.).

In First Philosophy, the firmest, best known, and most unquestionable

of all principles is this: It is impossible for the same predicate at

the same time and in the same sense to belong and not to belong to

the same subject (p. 1005, b. 20). No one can at the same time

believe that the same thing both is and is not; though Herakleitus

professed to believe this, we must not suppose that he really did

believe it (b. 25). No man can hold two contrary opinions at the same

time (b. 31). This is by nature the first principle of all other

axioms; to which principle all demonstrations are in the last resort

brought back (b. 33: [Greek: phu/sei ga\r a)rchê\ kai\ tô=n a)/llôn

a)xiôma/tôn au(/tê pa/ntôn]).

Aristotle then proceeds to explain and vindicate at length this

[Greek: a)rchê/]--the Principle of Contradiction, which many at that

time denied. This principle is at once the most knowable, and noway

assumed as hypothesis ([Greek: gnôrimôta/tên kai\ a)nupo/theton]--p.

1005, b. 13). You cannot indeed demonstrate it to be true; the very

attempt to demonstrate it would be unphilosophical: demonstration of

every thing, is an impossibility. You cannot march upwards in an

infinite progression of demonstrations; you must arrive ultimately at

some first truth which is not demonstrable; and, if any such first

truth is to be recognized, no one can point out any truth better

entitled to such privilege than the Principle of Contradiction (p.

1006, a. 11). But you can convict an opponent of self-contradiction

([Greek: a)podei=xai e)legktikô=s], a. 12, 15), if he will only

consent to affirm any proposition in significant terms--that is, in

terms which he admits to be significant to himself and which he

intends as such to others; in other words, if he will enter into

dialogue with you, for without significant speech there can be no

dialogue with him at all (a. 21).

When the opponent has shown his willingness to comply with the

conditions of dialogue, by advancing a proposition in terms each

having one definite signification, it is plain, by his own admission,

that the proposition does not both signify and not signify the same.

First, the copula of the proposition (_est_) does not signify what

would be signified if the copula were _non est_; so that here is one

case wherein the affirmative and the negative cannot be both of them

true (p. 1006, a. 30; see Alex. Schol. and Bonitz's note). Next, let

the subject of the proposition be _homo_; a term having only one

single definite signification, or perhaps having two or three (or any

definite number of) distinct significations, each definite. If the

number of distinct significations be indefinite, the term is unfit

for the purpose of dialogue (a. 30-b. 10). The term _homo_ will

signify one thing only; it will have one determinate essence and

definition--say _animal bipes_: that is, if any thing be a man, the

same will be _animal bipes_. But this last cannot be the essence and

definition of _non-homo_ also: _non-homo_, as a different name, must

have different definition; _homo_ and _non-homo_ cannot be like

[Greek: lô/pion] and [Greek: i(ma/tion], two terms having the same

signification, essence and definition; for _homo_ signifies one

subject of constant and defined nature, not simply one among many

predicates applicable by accident to this same constant subject; it

signifies [Greek: mi/an phu/sin] and not [Greek: a)/llên tina\

phu/sin] (Scholia, p. 656, b. 21). Since each name indeed is applied

by convention to what it denominates, the name _non-homo_ may be

applied elsewhere to that which we term _homo_; but this is a mere

difference of naming; what bears the name _homo_, and what bears the

name _non-homo_, must always be different, if _homo_ is defined to

signify one determinate nature (b. 22). The one single nature and

essence defined as belonging to _homo_, cannot be the same as that

belonging to _non-homo_. If any thing be _homo_, the same cannot be

_non-homo_: if any thing be _non-homo_, the same cannot be _homo_ (b.

25-34). Whoever says that _homo_ and _non-homo_ have the same

meaning, must say _à fortiori_ that _homo_, _fortis_, _musicus_,

_simus_, _pulcher_, &c., have the same meaning; for not one of these

terms is so directly and emphatically opposite to _homo_, as

_non-homo_ is. He must therefore admit that the meaning, not merely

of all these words but also, of a host besides is the same; in other

words, that not merely Opposites are one, but all other things

besides, under different names ([Greek: o(/ti e(\n pa/nta e)/stai

kai\ ou) mo/non ta\ a)ntikei/mena]--p. 1007, a. 6).

This argument is directed against those who maintain that affirmative

and negative are both true at once, but who still desire to keep up

dialogue (Alex. Schol. p. 658, a. 26, Br.: [Greek: tô=| tê/n te

a)nti/phasin sunalêtheu/ein le/gonti, kai\ sô/zein boulome/nô| to\

diale/gesthai]). No man who maintains this opinion, can keep his

consistency in dialogue, if he will only give direct answers to the

questions put to him, without annexing provisoes and gratuitous

additions to his answers. If you ask him, Whether it is true that

Sokrates is _homo_? he ought to answer plainly Yes, or No. He ought

not to answer: "Yes, but Sokrates is also _non-homo_," meaning that

Sokrates is also the subject of many other accidental

predicates--fair, flat-nosed, brave, accomplished, &c. He ought to

answer simply to the question, whether the one essence or definition

signified by the word man, belongs to Sokrates or not; he ought not

to introduce the mention of these accidental predicates, to which

the question did not refer. These accidental predicates are infinite

in number; he cannot enumerate them all, and therefore he ought not

to introduce the mention of any of them. Sokrates is _homo_, by the

essence and definition of the word; he is _non-homo_, ten thousand

times over, by accidental predicates; that is, he is fair, brave,

musical, flat-nosed, &c., all of which are varieties of the general

word _non-homo_ (p. 1007, a. 7-19).

Those who contend that both members of the Antiphasis are at once

true disallow Essentia altogether, and the distinction between it and

Accidens (p. 1007, a. 21). When we say that the word _homo_ signifies

a certain Essentia, we mean that its Essentia is nothing different

from this, and that the being _homo_ cannot be the same as the being

_non-homo_, or the not being _homo_. Those against whom we are

reasoning discard Essentia as distinguished from Accidens, and

consider all predicates as Accidentia. _Albus_ belongs to _homo_ as

an accident; but the essence of _albus_ does not coincide with that

of _homo_, and cannot be predicated of _homo_ (a. 32). Upon the

theory of these opponents, there would be no Prima Essentia to which

all accidents are attached; but this theory is untenable. Accidents

cannot be attached one to another in an infinite ascending series (b.

1). You cannot proceed more than two steps upward: first one

accident, then a second; the two being joined by belonging to one and

the same subject. No accident can be the accident of another

accident. [Greek: To\ leuko/n] may have the accident [Greek:

mousiko/n], or [Greek: to\ mousiko/n] may have the accident [Greek:

leuko/n]; each of these may be called indifferently the accident of

the other; but the truth is, that [Greek: leuko/s] and [Greek:

mousiko/s] are both of them accidents belonging to the common

Essentia--_homo_. But, when we affirm _homo est musicus_, we

implicate the accident with the Essentia to which it belongs; that

Essentia is signified by the subject _homo_. There must thus be one

word which has signification as Essentia; and, when such is the case,

we have already shown that both members of the Antiphasis cannot be

predicated at once (b. 5-18).

(Alexander, in Scholia, p. 658, b. 40-p. 659, b. 14, Br., remarks on

this argument of Aristotle: Those who held the opinion here

controverted by Aristotle--[Greek: tê\n a)nti/phasin

sunalêtheu/ein]--had in their minds accidental propositions, in regard

to which they were right, except that both members of the Antiphasis

cannot be true at the same time. _Sokrates est musicus_--_Sokrates non

est musicus_: these two propositions are both true, in the sense that

one or other of them is true only potentially, and that both cannot be

actually true at the same time. One of them is true, and the other

false, at the present moment; but that which is now false has been

true in the past, and may become true in the future. Aristotle does

not controvert this theory so far as regards accidental propositions;

but he maintains that it is untenable about essential propositions,

and that the theorists overlooked this distinction.)

Moreover, if you say that both members of the Antiphasis are alike

true respecting every predicate of a given subject, you must admit

that all things are one (p. 1007, b. 20). The same thing will be at

once a wall, a trireme, a man. Respecting every subject, you may

always either affirm or deny any given predicate; but, according to

this theory, whenever it is true to affirm, it is always equally true

to deny. If you can say truly, _Homo non est triremis_, you may say

with equal truth, according to the theory before us, _Homo est

triremis_. And, of course, _Homo non est triremis_ may be said truly;

since (still according to this theory) the much more special

negative, _Homo non est homo_, may be said truly (b. 32).

Again, if this theory be admitted, the doctrine that every predicate

may be either affirmed or denied of any given subject, will no longer

hold true. For, if it be true to say of Sokrates both _Est homo_ and

_Est non-homo_: it must also be true to say of him both _Non est

homo_ and _Non est non-homo_. If both affirmative and negative may be

alike affirmed, both may be alike denied (p. 1008, a. 2-7). If both

members of the Antiphasis are alike true, both must be alike false

(Alex. Schol. p. 663, a. 14-34).

Again, the theory that both members of the Antiphasis are alike true,

is intended by its authors to apply universally or not universally.

Every thing is both white and not white, Ens and Non-Ens; or this is

true with some propositions, but not with regard to others. If the

theorists take the latter ground and allow some exceptions, so far at

least as those exceptions reach, firm truth is left ([Greek: au(=tai

a)\n ei)=en o(mologou/menai]--p. 1008, a. 11). But, if they take the

former ground and allow no exceptions, they may still perhaps say:

Wherever you can affirm with truth, we can also deny with truth; but,

wherever we can deny with truth, we cannot in every case affirm with

truth (a. 15). Meeting them upon this last ground, we remark that at

any rate some negative propositions are here admitted to be knowable,

and we obtain thus much of settled opinion; besides, wherever the

negative is knowable, the corresponding affirmative must be still

more knowable (a. 18). If they take the former ground and say that,

wherever the negative is true, the affirmative is true also, they

must either mean that each of them is true separately, or that

neither of them is true separately but that both are true when

enunciated together in a couple (a. 19). If they mean the latter,

they do not talk either of these things or of any thing else: there

is neither speech nor speaker, nothing but non-entity; and how can

non-entity either speak or walk (a. 22)? Every thing would be

confounded in one. If they mean the former--that affirmative and

negative are each alike true taken separately, we reply that, since

this must be true as much respecting one subject as respecting

another, so there can be no distinction or difference between one

subject and another; all must be alike and the same; if there be any

difference of any kind, this must constitute a special and

exceptional matter, standing apart from the theory now under

discussion. Upon this view of the theory in question, then, as well

as upon the preceding, we are landed in the same result: all things

would be confounded into one (a. 27). All men would speak truly and

all men alike (including the theorist himself, by his own admission)

would speak falsely. Indeed in discussing with this theorist we have

nothing to talk about; for he says nothing. He does not say, It is

thus; he does not say, It is not thus; he says, It is both thus and

not thus: then, again, he negatives both, saying, It is neither thus

nor not thus; so that there is nothing definite in what he says (a.

32).

Again, let us ask, Does he who believes things to be so, believe

falsely, and he who believes things not to be so and so, believe

falsely also, while he who believes both at once, believes truly? If

this last person believes truly, what is meant by the common saying

that such and such is the constitution of nature? If you even say

that the last person does not indeed believe truly, but believes more

truly than he who believes the affirmative alone, or he who believes

the negative alone, we still have something definite in the

constitution of nature, something which is really true, and not true

and false at the same time. But, if there be no more truly or less

truly--if all persons alike and equally speak truly and speak

falsely--speech is useless to such persons; what they say, they at

the same time unsay. If the state of their minds really corresponds

to this description--if they believe nothing, but at once think so

and so and do not think so and so--how do such persons differ from

plants (b. 3-12; see Alexander's Scholion, p. 665, b. 9-17 Br., about

the explanation of [Greek: ma=llon], and the distinction between

[Greek: le/gein] and [Greek: u(polamba/nein], p. 665, b. 31, seq.)?

It is certain, however, that these theorists are not like plants, and

do not act as such in matters of ordinary life. They look for water,

when thirsty; they keep clear of falling into a well or over a

precipice. In regard to what is desirable or undesirable, at least,

they do not really act upon their own theory--That both members of

the Antiphasis are equally true and equally false. They act upon the

contrary theory--That one of the members is true, and the other

false. But, if these theorists, admitting that they act thus, say

that they do not act thus with any profession of knowing the truth,

but simply on the faith of appearance and greater probability, we

reply that this ought to impose upon them a stronger sense of duty in

regard to getting at the truth. The state of Opinion stands to that

of Knowledge in the same relation as that of sickness to health (p.

1008, b. 12-31).

Finally, to follow up this last argument, even if we grant to these

theorists that both members of the Antiphasis are true, still there

are degrees of truth: the More and the Less pervades the constitution

of nature (p. 1008, b. 32). We shall not surely affirm that two and

three are equally even; nor shall we say, when any one affirms four

to be five, that he commits an equal error with one who affirms four

to be a thousand. Clearly one of these persons is more near to the

truth, the other is less near to the truth. But, if there be such a

thing as _being nearer to the truth_, there must surely be some truth

to which you have come nearer; and, even if this be denied, yet at

least what we have already obtained (the [Greek: e)ggu/teron tê=s

a)lêthei/as]) is something firmer and of a more truth-like character.

We shall thus have got rid of that unqualified theory which forbids

all definite conceptions of the intellect ([Greek: ka)\n ei) mê/

e)stin, a)ll' ê)/dê ge/ ti e)sti\ bebaio/teron kai\ a)lêthinô/teron,

kai\ tou= lo/gou a)pêllagme/noi a)\n ei)/êmen tou= a)kra/tou kai\

kôlu/onto/s ti tê=| dianoi/a| o(ri/sai]--p. 1009, a. 2).

Having thus completed his refutation of the "unqualified theory,"

which declares both members of the Antiphasis to be alike true,

Aristotle passes to the examination of the Protagorean doctrine "Homo

Mensura:" he affirms that it proceeds from the same mode of thinking,

and that the two must stand or fall together. For, if all things

which appear true are true, all things must be at once true and

false; since the opposition of men's opinions is a notorious fact,

each man thinking his own opinions true and his opponent's opinions

false (p. 1009, a. 16).

Aristotle here distinguishes between two classes of reasoners, both

of whom he combats, but who require to be dealt with in a very

different manner: (1) Those who are sincerely convinced of what they

affirm; (2) Those who have no sincere conviction, but merely take up

the thesis as a matter for ingenious argument ([Greek: lo/gou

cha/rin]), and will not relinquish it until they are compelled by a

strong case made out against them. The first require persuasion, for

their ignorance may be easily cured, and the difficulties whereby

they are puzzled may be removed; the second require to be constrained

by a forcible Elenchus or refutation, which may correct their misuse

of dialectic and language (p. 1009, a. 22).

Aristotle begins with the first class. The difficulties which perplex

them proceed from sensible things ([Greek: e)k tô=n ai)sthêtô=n]--p.

1009, a. 23). They perceive contrary things generated by the same;

and this leads them to believe that contraries are both alike real,

and that the two members of the Antiphasis are alike true. For, since

Non-Ens cannot be generated, both the two contraries must have

pre-existed together as Entia, prior to the generation in the thing

as it then stood (a. 25). This is the opinion of Anaxagoras, who

affirms that every thing is mixed in every thing; and of Demokritus,

who affirms that Plenum and Inane--in other words. Ens and

Non-Ens--exist alike and together in every part (a. 28). To these

reasoners we reply, that in a certain sense they are right, in a

certain sense wrong. The term Ens is used in two senses: the same

thing may therefore be at once Ens and Non-Ens, but not in the same

sense; moreover, from Non-Ens in one sense something may be generated,

but not from Non-Ens in the other. The same thing may be at once two

opposites _in power_, but not _in act_ ([Greek: duna/mei me\n ga\r

e)nde/chetai a(/ma tau)to\ ei)=nai ta\ e)nanti/a, e)ntelechei/a| d'

ou)/]--a. 35). We must farther remind these reasoners that the basis

on which they proceed is not universally admissible; for there are

various Entia of completely distinct and different essence, in which

there is neither movement nor generation nor destruction of any sort

(a. 38).