{"collection":"Classics","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cla/ari/ogc/ogc06.htm","path":"cla/ari/ogc/ogc06.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cla/ari/ogc/ogc06.htm","text":"(In discussing the causes of coming-to-be) we must first investigate the matter, i.e. the so-called \u2018elements\u2019. We must ask whether they really are elements or not, i.e. whether each of them is eternal or whether there is a sense in which they come-to-be: and, if they do come-to-be, whether all of them come-to-be in the same manner reciprocally out of one another, or whether one amongst them is something primary. Hence we must begin by explaining certain preliminary matters, about which the statements now current are vague.\nFor all (the pluralist philosophers)--those who generate the \u2018elements\u2019 as well as those who generate the bodies that are compounded of the elements--make use of \u2018dissociation\u2019 and \u2018association\u2019, and of \u2018action\u2019 and \u2018passion\u2019. Now \u2018association\u2019 is \u2018combination\u2019; but the precise meaning of the process we call \u2018combining\u2019 has not been explained. Again, (all the monists make use of \u2018alteration\u2019: but) without an agent and a patient there cannot be \u2018altering\u2019 any more than there can be \u2018dissociating\u2019 and \u2018associating\u2019. For not only those who postulate a plurality of elements employ their reciprocal action and passion to generate the compounds: those who derive things from a single element are equally compelled to introduce \u2018acting\u2019. And in this respect Diogenes is right when he argues that \u2018unless all things were derived from one, reciprocal action and passion could not have occurred\u2019. The hot thing, e.g. would not be cooled and the cold thing in turn be warmed: for heat and cold do not change reciprocally into one another, but what changes (it is clear) is the substratum. Hence, whenever there is action and passion between two things, that which underlies them must be a single something. No doubt, it is not true to say that all things are of this character: but it is true of all things between which there is reciprocal action and passion.\nBut if we must investigate \u2018action-passion\u2019 and \u2018combination\u2019, we must also investigate \u2018contact\u2019. For action and passion (in the proper sense of the terms) can only occur between things which are such as to touch one another; nor can things enter into combination at all unless they have come into a certain kind of contact. Hence we must give a definite account of these three things--of \u2018contact\u2019, \u2018combination\u2019, and \u2018acting\u2019.\nLet us start as follows. All things which admit of \u2018combination\u2019 must be capable of reciprocal contact: and the same is true of any two things, of which one \u2018acts\u2019 and the other \u2018suffers action\u2019 in the proper sense of the terms. For this reason we must treat of \u2018contact\u2019 first. every term which possesses a variety of meaning includes those various meanings either owing to a mere coincidence of language, or owing to a real order of derivation in the different things to which it is applied: but, though this may be taken to hold of \u2018contact\u2019 as of all such terms, it is nevertheless true that contact\u2019 in the proper sense applies only to things which have \u2018position\u2019. And \u2018position\u2019 belongs only to those things which also have a Place\u2019: for in so far as we attribute \u2018contact\u2019 to the mathematical things, we must also attribute \u2018place\u2019 to them, whether they exist in separation or in some other fashion. Assuming, therefore, that \u2018to touch\u2019 is--as we have defined it in a previous work--\u2018to have the extremes together\u2019, only those things will touch one another which, being separate magnitudes and possessing position, have their extremes \u2018together\u2019. And since position belongs only to those things which also have a \u2018place\u2019, while the primary differentiation of \u2018place\u2019 is the above\u2019 and \u2018the below\u2019 (and the similar pairs of opposites), all things which touch one another will have \u2018weight\u2019 or \u2018lightness\u2019 either both these qualities or one or the other of them. But bodies which are heavy or light are such as to \u2018act\u2019 and \u2018suffer action\u2019. Hence it is clear that those things are by nature such as to touch one another, which (being separate magnitudes) have their extremes \u2018together\u2019 and are able to move, and be moved by, one another.\nThe manner in which the \u2018mover\u2019 moves the moved\u2019 not always the same: on the contrary, whereas one kind of \u2018mover\u2019 can only impart motion by being itself moved, another kind can do so though remaining itself unmoved. Clearly therefore we must recognize a corresponding variety in speaking of the \u2018acting\u2019 thing too: for the \u2018mover\u2019 is said to \u2018act\u2019 (in a sense) and the \u2018acting\u2019 thing to \u2018impart motion\u2019. Nevertheless there is a difference and we must draw a distinction. For not every \u2018mover\u2019 can \u2018act\u2019, if (a) the term \u2018agent\u2019 is to be used in contrast to \u2018patient\u2019 and (b) \u2018patient\u2019 is to be applied only to those things whose motion is a \u2018qualitative affection\u2019--i.e. a quality, like white\u2019 or \u2018hot\u2019, in respect to which they are moved\u2019 only in the sense that they are \u2018altered\u2019: on the contrary, to \u2018impart motion\u2019 is a wider term than to \u2018act\u2019. Still, so much, at any rate, is clear: the things which are \u2018such as to impart motion\u2019, if that description be interpreted in one sense, will touch the things which are \u2018such as to be moved by them\u2019-while they will not touch them, if the description be interpreted in a different sense. But the disjunctive definition of \u2018touching\u2019 must include and distinguish (a) \u2018contact in general\u2019 as the relation between two things which, having position, are such that one is able to impart motion and the other to be moved, and (b) \u2018reciprocal contact\u2019 as the relation between two things, one able to impart motion and the other able to be moved in such a way that \u2018action and passion\u2019 are predicable of them.\nAs a rule, no doubt, if A touches B, B touches A. For indeed practically all the \u2018movers\u2019 within our ordinary experience impart motion by being moved: in their case, what touches inevitably must, and also evidently does, touch something which reciprocally touches it. Yet, if A moves B, it is possible-as we sometimes express it-for A \u2018merely to touch\u2019 B, and that which touches need not touch a something which touches it. Nevertheless it is commonly supposed that \u2018touching\u2019 must be reciprocal. The reason of this belief is that \u2018movers\u2019 which belong to the same kind as the \u2018moved\u2019 impart motion by being moved. Hence if anything imparts motion without itself being moved, it may touch the \u2018moved\u2019 and yet itself be touched by nothing-for we say sometimes that the man who grieves us \u2018touches\u2019 us, but not that we \u2018touch\u2019 him.\nThe account just given may serve to distinguish and define the \u2018contact\u2019 which occurs in the things of Nature.","title":"Aristotle: On Generation and Corruption: Book I: Chapter 6","type":"page"}