Aristotle
servant, you must say, servant _of a master_, not servant of a man or
of a biped; both of which are in this case accompaniments or
accidents of the master, being still accidents, though they may be in
fact constantly conjoined. Unless you say master, the terms will not
reciprocate; take away master, the servant is no longer to be found,
though the man who was called _servant_ is still there; but take away
man or biped, and the servant may still continue.[98] You cannot know
the _Relatum_ determinately or accurately, unless you know the
_Correlatum_ also; without the knowledge of the latter, you can only
know the former in a vague and indefinite manner.[99] Aristotle
raises, also, the question whether any Essence or Substance can be
described as _Ad Aliquid_.[100] He inclines to the negative, though
not decisively pronouncing. He seems to think that Simo and Davus,
when called men, are Essences or Substances; but that when called
master and slave, they are not so; this, however, is surprising, when
he had just before spoken of the connotation of man as accidents
([Greek: sumbebêko/ta]) belonging to the connotation of master. He
speaks of the members of an organized body (wing, head, foot) as
examples of _Ad Aliquid_; while in other treatises, he determines
very clearly that these members presuppose, as a _prius naturâ_, the
complete organism whereof they are parts, and that the name of each
member connotes the performance of, or aptitude to perform, a certain
special function: now, such aptitude cannot exist unless the whole
organism be held together in co-operative agency, so that if this
last condition be wanting, the names, head, eye, foot, can no longer
be applied to the separate members, or at least can only be applied
equivocally or metaphorically.[101] It would seem therefore that the
functioning _something_ is here the Essence, and that all its
material properties are accidents ([Greek: sumbebêko/ta]).
[Footnote 95: Categor. p. 6, b. 12, p. 11, a. 24; Topic. iv. p. 124,
b. 16. Compare also Topica, iv. p. 121, a. 1, and the Scholia
thereupon, p. 278, b. 12-16, Br.; in which Scholia Alexander feels
the difficulty of enrolling a generic term as [Greek: pro/s ti],
while the specific terms comprised under it are not [Greek: pro/s
ti]; and removes the difficulty by suggesting that [Greek:
e)pistê/mê] may be at once both [Greek: poio/tês] and [Greek: pro/s
ti]; and that as [Greek: poio/tês] (not as [Greek: pro/s ti]) it may
be the genus including [Greek: mousikê\] and [Greek: geômetri/a],
which are not [Greek: pro/s ti], but [Greek: poio/têtes].]
[Footnote 96: Categor. p. 6, b. 30, p. 7, b. 12.]
[Footnote 97: Categor. p. 7, a. 5. [Greek: e)ni/ote de\
o)nomatopoiei=n I)/sôs a)nagkai=on, e)a\n mê\ kei/menon ê)=| o)/noma
pro\s o(\ _oi)kei/ôs_ a)\n a)podothei/ê.]]
[Footnote 98: Categor. p. 7, a. 31. [Greek: e)/ti d' e)a\n me/n ti
oi)kei/ôs a)podido/menon ê)=| pro\s o(\ le/getai, pa/ntôn
periairoume/nôn tô=n a)/llôn o(/sa _sumbebêko/ta_ e)sti/,
kataleipome/nou de\ mo/nou tou/tou pro\s o(\ a)pedo/thê oi)kei/ôs,
a)ei\ pro\s au)to\ r(êthê/setai, oi(=on o( dou=los e)a\n pro\s
despo/tên le/gêtai, periairoume/nôn tô=n _a)/llôn a(pa/ntôn o(/sa
sumbebêko/ta_ e)sti\ _tô=| despo/tê|_ oi(=on to\ di/podi ei)=nai kai\
to\ e)pistê/mês dektikô=| kai\ _to\ a)nthrô/pô|_, kataleipome/nou de\
mo/nou tou= despo/tên ei)=nai, a)ei\ o( dou=los pro\s au)to\
r(êthêsetai.]
This is not only just and useful in regard to accuracy of
predication, but deserves attention also in another point of view. In
general, it would be said that _man_ and _biped_ belonged to the
Essence ([Greek: ou)si/a]); and the being a master to the Accidents
or Accompaniments ([Greek: sumbebêko/ta]). Here the case is reversed;
man and biped are the accidents or accompaniments; master is the
Essence. What is connoted by the term _master_ is here the essential
idea, that which is bound up with the idea connoted by _servant_;
while the connotation of _man_ or _biped_ sinks into the character of
an accessory or accompaniment. The master might possibly not be a
man, but a god; the Delphian Apollo (Euripid. Ion, 132), and the
Corinthian Aphrodité, had each many slaves belonging to them.
Moreover, even if every master were a man, the qualities connoted by
_man_ are here accidental, as not being included in those connoted by
the term master. Compare Metaphysica, [Greek: D]. p. 1025, a. 32;
Topica, i. p. 102, a. 18.]
[Footnote 99: That Plato was fully sensible to the necessity of
precision and appropriateness in designating the _Correlatum_
belonging to each _Relatum_, may be seen by the ingenious reasoning
in the Platonic Parmenides, pp. 133-134, where [Greek: despo/tês] and
[Greek: dou=los] are also the illustrative examples employed.]
[Footnote 100: Categor. p. 8, a. 35, b. 20.]]
[Footnote 101: See Politica, i. p. 1253, a. 18: [Greek: kai\ pro/tero
dê\ tê=| phu/sei po/lis ê)\ oi)ki/a kai\ e(/kastos ê(mô=n e)sti/n;
to\ ga\r o(/lon pro/teron a)nagkai=on ei)=nai tou= me/rous;
a)nairoume/nou ga\r tou= o(/lou ou)k e)/stai pou=s ou)de\ chei\r, ei)
mê\ o(mônu/môs, ô(/sper ei)/ tis le/gei **tê\n lithi/nên;
diaphtharei=sa ga\r e)/stai toiau/tê. pa/nta de\tô=| e)/rgô|
ô(/ristai kai\ tê=| duna/mei, ô/ste _mêke/ti toiau=ta o)/nta ou)
lekte/on ta\ au)ta ei)=nai_ a)ll' o(mô/numa]; also p. 1254, a. 9:
[Greek: to/ te ga\r mo/rion ou) mo/non a)/llou e)sti\ mo/rion, a)lla\
kai\ a)/llou].
Compare De Animâ, ii. 1, p. 412, b. 20; Meteorologic. iv. p. 390, a.
12.
The doctrine enunciated in these passages is a very important one, in
the Aristotelian philosophy.
Trendelenburg (Kategorienlehre, p. 182) touches upon this confusion
of the Categories, but faintly and partially.]
In the fourth book of the Metaphysica, Aristotle gives an explanation
of _Ad Aliquid_ different from, and superior to, that which we read
in the Categoriæ; treating it, not as one among many distinct
Categories, but as implicated with all the Categories, and taking a
different character according as it is blended with one or the
other--_Essentia_, _Quantum_, _Quale_, _Actio_, _Passio_, &c.[102] He
there, also, enumerates as one of the varieties of _Relata_, what
seems to go beyond the limit, or at least beyond the direct
denotation, of the Categories; for, having specified, as one variety,
_Relata Numero_, and, as another, _Relata secundum actionem et
passionem ([Greek: to\ thermantiko\n pro\s to\ thermanto/n], &c.), he
proceeds to a third variety, such as the _mensurabile_ with reference
to _mensura_, the _scibile_ with reference to _scientia_, the
_cogitabile_ with reference to _cogitatio_; and in regard to this
third variety, he draws a nice distinction. He says that _mensura_
and _cogitatio_ are _Ad Aliquid_, not because they are themselves
related to _mensurabile_ and _cogitabile_, but because _mensurabile_
and _cogitabile_ are related to them.[103] You cannot say (he thinks)
that mensura is referable to the _mensurabile_, or _cogitatio_ to the
_cogitabile_, because that would be repeating the same word twice
over--_mensura est illius cujus est mensura_--_cogitatio est illius
cujus est cogitatio._ So that he regards _mensura_ and _cogitatio_ as
_Correlata_, rather than as _Relata_; while _mensurabile_ and
_cogitabile_ are the _Relata_ to them. But in point of fact, the
distinction is not important; of the relative pair there may be one
which is more properly called the _Correlatum_; yet both are alike
relative.
[Footnote 102: Metaphys. [Greek: D]. p. 1020, b. 27-32. At the same
time we must remark, that while Aristotle enumerates [Greek: to\
u(pe/rechon] and [Greek: to\ u(perecho/menon] under [Greek: Pro/s
ti], he had just before (a. 25) ranked [Greek: to\ me/ga kai\ to\
mikro/n, to\ mei=zon kai\ to\ e(/latton], under the general head
[Greek: Poso/n]--as [Greek: posou= pa/thê kath' au(ta/].]
[Footnote 103: Metaphys. [Greek: D]. p. 1021, a. 26, b. 3; also I. p.
1056, b. 34. Bonitz in his note (p. 262) remarks that the distinction
here drawn by Aristotle is not tenable; and I agree with him that it
is not. But it coincides with what Aristotle asserts in other words
in the Categoriæ; viz., that to be _simul naturâ_ is not true of
_all_ Relata, but only of the greater part of them; that [Greek: to\
ai)sthêto\n] is [Greek: pro/teron tê=s ai)sthê/seôs], and [Greek: to\
e)pistêto\n pro/teron tê=s e)pistê/mês] (Categor. p. 7, b. 23; p. 8,
a. 10). As I have mentioned before (p. 71 n.), Simplikius, in the
Scholia (p. 65, b. 14), points out that Aristotle has not been
careful here to observe his own precept of selecting [Greek:
oi)kei/ôs] the correlative term. He ought to have stated the
potential as correlating with the potential, the actual with the
actual. If he had done this, the [Greek: sunu/parxis tô=n pro/s ti]
would have been seen to be true in all cases. Eudorus noticed a
similar inadvertence of Aristotle in the case of [Greek: pte/ron] and
[Greek: pterôto/n] (Schol. 63, a. 43). See 'Plato and the Other
Companions of Sokrates,' vol. ii. p. 330, note x.
I transcribe a curious passage of Leibnitz, bearing on the same
question:--"On réplique maintenant, que la vérité du mouvement est
indépendante de l'observation: et qu'un vaisseau peut avancer, sans
que celui qui est dedans s'en aperçoive. Je réponds, que le mouvement
est indépendant de l'observation: mais qu'il _n'est point indépendant
de l'observabilité_. Il n'y a point de mouvement, quand il n'y a
point de changement _observable_. Et même quand il n'y a point de
changement observable, il n'y a point de changement du tout. Le
contraire est fondé sur la supposition d'un Espace réel absolu, que
j'ai réfuté demonstrativement par le principe du besoin d'une Raison
suffisante des choses." (Correspondence with Clarke, p. 770.
Erdmann's edition.)]
If we compare together the various passages in which Aristotle cites
and applies the Ten Categories (not merely in the treatise before us,
but also in the Metaphysica, Physica, and elsewhere), we shall see
that he cannot keep them apart steadily and constantly; that the same
predicate is referred to one head in one place, and to another head
in another: what is here spoken of as belonging to _Actio_ or
_Passio_, will be treated in another place as an instance of _Quale_
or _Ad Aliquid_; even the derivative noun [Greek: e(/xis] (_habitus_)
does not belong to the Category [Greek: e)/chein] (_Habere_), but
sometimes to _Quale_, sometimes to _Ad Aliquid_.[104] This is
inevitable; for the predicates thus differently referred have really
several different aspects, and may be classified in one way or
another, according as you take them in this or that aspect. Moreover,
this same difficulty of finding impassable lines of demarcation would
still be felt, even if the Categories, instead of the full list of
Ten, were reduced to the smaller list of the four principal
Categories--Substance, Quantity, Quality, and Relation; a reduction
which has been recommended by commentators on Aristotle as well as by
acute logicians of modern times. Even these four cannot be kept
clearly apart: the predicates which declare Quantity or Quality must
at the same time declare or imply Relation; while the predicates
which declare Relation must also imply the _fundamentum_ either of
Quantity or of Quality.[105]
[Footnote 104: Aristot. Categor. p. 6, b. 2; p. 8, b. 27.]
[Footnote 105: See Trendelenburg, Kategorienlehre, p. 117, seq. The
remarks made by Mr. John Stuart Mill (in his System of Logic, book i.
ch. iii.) upon the Aristotelian Categories, and the enlarged
philosophical arrangement which he introduces in their place, well
deserve to be studied. After enumerating the ten Predicaments, Mr.
Mill says:--"It is a mere catalogue of the distinctions rudely marked