Aristotle
be sought or avoided, no skill or power of dealing with new
circumstances.[141] They proceeded like men, who, professing to show
how comfortable covering might be provided for the feet, should not
teach the pupil how he could make shoes for himself, but should
merely furnish him with a good stock of ready-made shoes--a present
valuable indeed for use, but quite unconnected with any skill as an
artificer. The syllogism as a system and theory, with precepts
founded on that theory for Demonstration and Dialectic, has
originated first with me (Aristotle). Mine is the first step, and
therefore a small one, though worked out with much thought and hard
labour: it must be looked at as a first step, and judged with
indulgence. You, my readers, or hearers of my lectures, if you think
that I have done as much as can fairly be required for an initiatory
start, compared with other more advanced departments of theory, will
acknowledge what I have achieved, and pardon what I have left for
others to accomplish.[142]
[Footnote 140: Soph. El. xxxiv. p. 184, a. 8: [Greek: kai\ peri\ me\n
tô=n r(êtorikô=n u(pê=rche polla\ kai\ palaia\ ta\ lego/mena, peri\
_de\ tou= sullogi/zesthai pantelô=s ou)de\n ei)/chomen pro/teron
a)/llo le/gein_, a)ll' ê)\ tribê=| zêtou=ntes polu\n chro/non
e)ponou=men.]]
[Footnote 141: Ibid. a. 1: [Greek: dio/per tachei=a me\n a)/technos
d' ê)=n ê( didaskali/a toi=s mantha/nousi par' au)tô=n; ou) ga\r
te/chnên a)lla\ ta\ a)po\ tê=s te/chnês dido/ntes paideu/ein
u(pela/mbanon.]
Cicero, in describing his own treatise De Oratore, insists upon the
marked difference between his mode of treatment and the common
rhetorical precepts; he claims to have followed the manner of the
Aristotelian Dialogues:--"Scripsi Aristoteleo more, quemadmodum
quidem volui, tres libros in disputatione ac dialogo de Oratore, quos
arbitror Lentulo tuo fore non inutiles. Abhorrent enim a communibus
præceptis, atque omnem antiquorum et Aristoteleam et Isocrateam
rationem oratoriam complectuntur" (Cicero, Epist. ad Famill. i. 9).]
[Footnote 142: Soph. El. xxxiv. p. 184, b. 3: [Greek: ei) de\
phai/netai theasame/nois u(mi=n ô(s e)k toiou/tôn e)x a)rchê=s
u(parcho/ntôn e)/chein ê( metho/dos i(kanô=s para\ ta\s a)/llas
pragmatei/as ta\s e)k parado/seôs ê)uxême/nas, loipo\n a)\n ei)/ê
pa/ntôn u(mô=n ê)\ tô=n ê)kroame/nôn e)/rgon toi=s me\n
paraleleimme/nois tê=s metho/dou suggnô/mên toi=s d' eu(rême/nois
pollê\n e)/chein cha/rin.]
It would seem that by [Greek: toi=s theasame/nois] Aristotle means to
address the readers of the present treatise, while by [Greek: tô=n
ê)kroame/nôn] he designates those who had heard his oral expositions
on the same subject.]
Such is the impressive closing chapter of the Sophistici Elenchi. It
is remarkable in two ways: first, that Aristotle expressly addresses
himself to hearers and readers in the second person; next, that he
asserts emphatically his own claim to originality as a theorist on
Logic, and declares himself to have worked out even the first
beginnings of such theory by laborious application. I understand his
claim to originality as intended to bear, not simply on the treatise
called Sophistici Elenchi and on the enumeration of Fallacies therein
contained, but, in a larger sense, on the theory of the Syllogism; as
first unfolded in the Analytica Priora, applied to Demonstration in
the Analytica Posteriora, applied afterwards to Dialectic in the
Topica, applied lastly to Sophistic (or Eristic) in the Sophistici
Elenchi. The phrase, "Respecting the _process of syllogizing_,[143] I
found absolutely nothing prepared, but worked it out by laborious
application for myself"--seems plainly to denote this large
comprehension. And, indeed, in respect to Sophistic separately, the
remark of Aristotle that nothing whatever had been done before him,
would not be well founded: we find in his own treatise of the
Sophistici Elenchi allusion to various prior doctrines, from which he
dissents.[144] In these prior doctrines, however, his predecessors
had treated the sophistical modes of refutation without reference to
the Syllogism and its general theory.[145] It is against such
separation that Aristotle distinctly protests. He insists upon the
necessity of first expounding the Syllogism, and of discussing the
laws of good or bad Refutation as a corollary or dependant of the
syllogistic theory. Accordingly he begins this treatise by intimating
that he intends to deduce these laws from the first and highest
generalities of the subject;[146] and he concludes it by claiming
this method of philosophizing as original with himself.
[Footnote 143: Soph. El. xxxiv. p. 184, b. 1: [Greek: peri\ de\ tou=
sullogi/zesthai pantelô=s ou)de\n ei)/chomen pro/teron a)/llo
le/gein], &c. (cited in a preceding note).]
[Footnote 144: See note p. 402.]
[Footnote 145: Soph. El. x. p. 171, a. 1: [Greek: o(/lôs te a)/topon,
to\ peri\ e)le/gchou diale/gesthai, a)lla' mê\ pro/teron peri\
sullogismou=; _ o( ga\r e)/legchos sullogismo/s e)stin, ô(/ste chrê\
kai\ peri\ sullogismou= pro/teron ê)\ peri\ pseudou=s e)le/gchou_.]]
[Footnote 146: Ibid. i. p. 164, a. 21: [Greek: le/gômen, a)rxa/menoi
kata\ phu/sin a)po\ tô=n prô/tôn.]]
CHAPTER XI.
PHYSICA AND METAPHYSICA.
Aristotle distinguishes, in clear and explicit language, a science
which he terms Wisdom, Philosophy, or First Philosophy; the
subject-matter of which he declares to be _Ens quatenus _Ens__,
together with the concomitants belonging to it as such. With this
Ontology the treatise entitled Metaphysica purports to deal, and the
larger portion of it does really so deal. At the same time, the line
that parts off Ontology from Logic (Analytic and Dialectic) on the
one hand, and from Physics on the other, is not always clearly marked.
For, though the whole process of Syllogism, employed both in Analytic
and Dialectic, involves and depends upon the Maxim of Contradiction,
yet the discussion of this Maxim is declared to belong to First
Philosophy;[1] while not only the four Aristotelian varieties of
Cause or Condition, and the distinction between Potential and Actual,
but also the abstractions Form, Matter and Privation, which play so
capital a part in the Metaphysica, are equally essential and equally
appealed to in the Physica.[2]
[Footnote 1: Metaphys. [Greek: G]. iii. p. 1005, a. 19-b. 11. Whether
that discussion properly belongs to _Philosophia Prima_, or not,
stands as the first [Greek: A)pori/a] enumerated in the list which
occupies Book B. in that treatise, p. 995, b. 4-13; compare K. i. p.
1059, a. 24.]
[Footnote 2: Physica, I. pp. 190-191; II. p. 194, b. 20, seq.;
Metaph. A. p. 983, a. 33; Alexander ad Metaphys. [Greek: D]. p. 306,
ed. Bonitz; p. 689, b. Schol. Br.]
If we include both what is treated in the Analytica Posteriora (the
scientific explanation of Essence and Definition) and what is treated
in the Physica, we shall find that nearly all the expository
processes employed in the Metaphysica are employed also in these two
treatises. To look upon the general notion as a cause, and to treat
it as a creative force (_der schöpferische Wesensbegriff_, to use the
phrase of Prantl and other German logicians[3]), belongs alike to the
Physica and to the Analytica Posteriora. The characteristic
distinction of the treatise entitled Metaphysica is, that it is
all-comprehensive in respect to the ground covered; that the
expository process is applied, not exclusively to any separate branch
of _Ens_, but to _Ens_ as a whole _quatenus Ens_--to all the varieties
of _Ens_ that admit of scientific treatment at all;[4] that the same
abstractions and analytical distinctions, which, both in the
Analytica and in the Physica, are indicated and made to serve an
explanatory purpose, up to a certain point--are in the Metaphysica
sometimes assumed as already familiar, sometimes followed out with
nicer accuracy and subtlety.[5] Indeed both the Physica and the
Metaphysica, as we read them in Aristotle, would be considered in
modern times as belonging alike to the department of Metaphysics.
[Footnote 3: See ch. viii. pp. 240 seq. of the present work, with the
citations in note b, p. 252, from Prantl and Rassow.]
[Footnote 4: Metaphys. [Greek: G]. i. p. 1003, a. 21: [Greek: e)/stin
e)pistê/mê tis ê(\ theôrei= to\ o)\n ê(=| o)\n kai\ ta\ tou/tô|
u(pa/rchonta kath' au(to/. Au(/tê d' e)sti\n ou)demi/a| tô=n e)n
me/rei legome/nôn ê( au)tê/. ou)demi/a ga\r tô=n a)/llôn
e)piskopei= _katho/lou_ peri\ tou= o)/ntos ê(=| o)/n, a)lla\ me/ros
au)tou= ti a)potemo/menai], &c.]
[Footnote 5: Metaphys. [Greek: L]. vii. p. 1073, a. with Bonitz's
Comment. pp. 504-505. Physica, I. ix. p. 192, a. 34: [Greek: peri\
de\ tê=s kata\ to\ ei)=dos a)rchê=s, po/teron mi/a ê)\ pollai\ kai\
ti/s ê)\ ti/nes ei)si/, di' a)kribei/as tê=s prô/tês philosophi/as
e)/rgon e)sti\ diori/sai, ô(/st' ei)s e)kei=non to\n kairo\n
a)pokei/sthô.] Compare Physic. I. viii. p. 191, b. 29, and Weisse,
Aristoteles Physik, p. 285.
About the Metaphysica, as carrying out and completing the exposition
of the Analytica Posteriora, see Metaphys. Z. xii. p. 1037, b. 8:
[Greek: nu=n de\ le/gômen prô=ton, e)ph' o(/son e)n toi=s
A)nalutikoi=s peri\ o(rismou= mê\ ei)/rêtai] (Analyt. Post. II. vi.
p. 92, a. 32; see note b, p. 243).]
The primary distinction and classification recognized by Aristotle
among Sciences or Cognitions, is, that of (1) Theoretical, (2)
Practical, (3) Artistic or Constructive.[6] Of these three divisions,
the second and third alike comprise both intelligence and action, but
the two are distinguished from each other by this--that in the
Artistic there is always some assignable product which the agency
leaves behind independent of itself, whereas in the Practical no such
independent result remains,[7] but the agency itself, together with
the purpose (or intellectual and volitional condition) of the agent,
is every thing. The division named Theoretical comprises intelligence
alone--intelligence of _principia_, causes and constituent elements.
Here again we find a tripartite classification. The highest and most
universal of all Theoretical Sciences is recognized by Aristotle as
Ontology (First Philosophy, sometimes called by him Theology) which
deals with all _Ens_ universally _quatenus Ens_, and with the _Prima
Moventia_, themselves immoveable, of the entire Kosmos. The two other
heads of Theoretical Science are Mathematics and Physics; each of
them special and limited, as compared with Ontology. In Physics we
scientifically study natural bodies with their motions, changes, and
phenomena; bodies in which Form always appears implicated with
Matter, and in which the principle of motion or change is immanent
and indwelling (_i.e._, dependent only on the universal _Prima
Moventia_, and not impressed from without by a special agency, as in
works of human art). In Mathematics, we study immoveable and
unchangeable numbers and magnitudes, apart from the bodies to which
they belong; not that they can ever be really separated from such
bodies, but we intellectually abstract them, or consider them
apart.[8]
[Footnote 6: Metaphys. E. i. p. 1025, b. 25.]
[Footnote 7: Ibid. b. 22.]
[Footnote 8: Metaphys. E. i. p. 1026; K. vii. p. 1064, a. 28-b. 14;
M. iii. pp. 1077-1078; Bonitz, Commentar. p. 284.]
Such is Aristotle's tripartite distribution of Theoretical or
Contemplative Science. In introducing us to the study of First
Philosophy, he begins by clearing up the meaning of the term _Ens_.
It is a term of many distinct significations; being neither univocal,
nor altogether equivocal, but something intermediate between the two,
or multivocal. It is not a generic whole, distributed exhaustively
among correlative species marked off by an assignable difference:[9]