{"collection":"Classics","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cla/ari/ogc/ogc16.htm","path":"cla/ari/ogc/ogc16.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cla/ari/ogc/ogc16.htm","text":"As for those who agree with Empedocles that the \u2018elements\u2019 of body are more than one, so that they are not transformed into one another--one may well wonder in what sense it is open to them to maintain that the \u2018elements\u2019 are comparable. Yet Empedocles says \u2018For these are all not only equal...\u2019\nIf it is meant that they are comparable in their amount, all the \u2018comparables\u2019 must possess an identical something whereby they are measured. If, e.g. one pint of Water yields ten of Air, both are measured by the same unit; and therefore both were from the first an identical something. On the other hand, suppose (ii) they are not \u2018comparable in their amount\u2019 in the sense that so-much of the one yields so much of the other, but comparable in \u2018power of action (a pint of Water, e.g. having a power of cooling equal to that of ten pints of Air); even so, they are \u2018comparable in their amount\u2019, though not qua \u2018amount\u2019 but qua Iso-much power\u2019. There is also (iii) a third possibility. Instead of comparing their powers by the measure of their amount, they might be compared as terms in a \u2018correspondence\u2019: e.g. \u2018as x is hot, so correspondingly y is white\u2019. But \u2018correspondence\u2019, though it means equality in the quantum, means similarity in a quale. Thus it is manifestly absurd that the \u2018simple\u2019 bodies, though they are not transformable, are comparable not merely as \u2018corresponding\u2019, but by a measure of their powers; i.e. that so-much Fire is comparable with many times-that-amount of Air, as being \u2018equally\u2019 or \u2018similarly\u2019 hot. For the same thing, if it be greater in amount, will, since it belongs to the same kind, have its ratio correspondingly increased.\nA further objection to the theory of Empedocles is that it makes even growth impossible, unless it be increase by addition. For his Fire increases by Fire: \u2018And Earth increases its own frame and Ether increases Ether.\u201d These, however, are cases of addition: but it is not by addition that growing things are believed to increase. And it is far more difficult for him to account for the coming-to-be which occurs in nature. For the things which come-to-be by natural process all exhibit, in their coming-to-be, a uniformity either absolute or highly regular: while any exceptions any results which are in accordance neither with the invariable nor with the general rule are products of chance and luck. Then what is the cause determining that man comes-to-be from man, that wheat (instead of an olive) comes-to-be from wheat, either invariably or generally? Are we to say \u2018Bone comes-to-be if the \u201celements\u201d be put together in such-and such a manner\u2019? For, according to his own estatements, nothing comes-to-be from their \u2018fortuitous consilience\u2019, but only from their \u2018consilience\u2019 in a certain proportion. What, then, is the cause of this proportional consilience? Presumably not Fire or Earth. But neither is it Love and Strife: for the former is a cause of \u2018association\u2019 only, and the latter only of \u2018dissociation\u2019. No: the cause in question is the essential nature of each thing-not merely to quote his words) \u2018a mingling and a divorce of what has been mingled\u2019. And chance, not proportion, \u2018is the name given to these occurrences\u2019: for things can be \u2018mingled\u2019 fortuitously.\nThe cause, therefore, of the coming-to-be of the things which owe their existence to nature is that they are in such-and-such a determinate condition: and it is this which constitutes, the \u2018nature\u2019 of each thing--a \u2018nature\u2019 about which he says nothing. What he says, therefore, is no explanation of \u2018nature\u2019. Moreover, it is this which is both \u2018the excellence\u2019 of each thing and its \u2018good\u2019: whereas he assigns the whole credit to the \u2018mingling\u2019. (And yet the \u2018elements\u2019 at all events are \u2018dissociated\u2019 not by Strife, but by Love: since the \u2018elements\u2019 are by nature prior to the Deity, and they too are Deities.)\nAgain, his account of motion is vague. For it is not an adequate explanation to say that \u2018Love and Strife set things moving, unless the very nature of Love is a movement of this kind and the very nature of Strife a movement of that kind. He ought, then, either to have defined or to have postulated these characteristic movements, or to have demonstrated them-whether strictly or laxly or in some other fashion. Moreover, since (a) the \u2018simple\u2019 bodies appear to move \u2018naturally\u2019 as well as by compulsion, i.e. in a manner contrary to nature (fire, e.g. appears to move upwards without compulsion, though it appears to move by compulsion downwards); and since (b) what is \u2018natural\u2019 is contrary to that which is due to compulsion, and movement by compulsion actually occurs; it follows that \u2018natural movement\u2019 can also occur in fact. Is this, then, the movement that Love sets going? No: for, on the contrary, the \u2018natural movement\u2019 moves Earth downwards and resembles \u2018dissociation\u2019, and Strife rather than Love is its cause-so that in general, too, Love rather than Strife would seem to be contrary to nature. And unless Love or Strife is actually setting them in motion, the \u2018simple\u2019 bodies themselves have absolutely no movement or rest. But this is paradoxical: and what is more, they do in fact obviously move. For though Strife \u2018dissociated\u2019, it was not by Strife that the \u2018Ether\u2019 was borne upwards. On the contrary, sometimes he attributes its movement to something like chance (\u2019For thus, as it ran, it happened to meet them then, though often otherwise\u201d), while at other times he says it is the nature of Fire to be borne upwards, but \u2018the Ether\u2019 (to quote his words) \u2018sank down upon the Earth with long roots\u2019. With such statements, too, he combines the assertion that the Order of the World is the same now, in the reign of Strife, as it was formerly in the reign of Love. What, then, is the \u2018first mover\u2019 of the \u2018elements\u2019? What causes their motion? Presumably not Love and Strife: on the contrary, these are causes of a particular motion, if at least we assume that \u2018first mover\u2019 to be an originative source\u2019.\nAn additional paradox is that the soul should consist of the \u2018elements\u2019, or that it should be one of them. How are the soul\u2019s \u2018alterations\u2019 to take Place? How, e.g. is the change from being musical to being unmusical, or how is memory or forgetting, to occur? For clearly, if the soul be Fire, only such modifications will happen to it as characterize Fire qua Fire: while if it be compounded out of the elements\u2019, only the corporeal modifications will occur in it. But the changes we have mentioned are none of them corporeal.","title":"Aristotle: On Generation and Corruption: Book II: Chapter 6","type":"page"}