{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_48002/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_48002","id":"gutenberg_48002","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48002","summary":null,"tags":["Aristotle, 384 BC-322 BC","Category: Biographies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Aristotle]\n\n\n\n\n                              *ARISTOTLE*\n\n\n                 BY A. E. TAYLOR, M.A., D.LITT., F.B.A.\n\n\n\n                       LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK\n                   67 LONG ACRE, W.C., AND EDINBURGH\n                     NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.\n\n\n\n\n                               *CONTENTS*\n\nCHAP.\n\nI. LIFE AND WORKS\n\nII. THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES: SCIENTIFIC METHOD\n\nIII. FIRST PHILOSOPHY\n\nIV. PHYSICS\n\nV. PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\n\n\n                              *ARISTOTLE*\n\n\n\n                              *CHAPTER I*\n\n                            *LIFE AND WORKS*\n\n\nIt has not commonly been the lot of philosophers, as it is of great\npoets, that their names should become household words. We should hardly\ncall an Englishman well read if he had not heard the name of Sophocles\nor Moliere.  An educated man is expected to know at least who these\ngreat writers were, and to understand an allusion to the _Antigone_ or\n_Le Misanthrope_. But we call a man well read if his mind is stored with\nthe verse of poets and the prose of historians, even though he were\nignorant of the name of Descartes or Kant.  Yet there are a few\nphilosophers whose influence on thought and language has been so\nextensive that no one who reads can be ignorant of their names, and that\nevery man who speaks the language of educated Europeans is constantly\nusing their vocabulary. Among this few Aristotle holds not the lowest\nplace.  We have all heard of him, as we have all heard of Homer.  He has\nleft his impress so firmly on theology that many of the formulae of the\nChurches are unintelligible without acquaintance with his conception of\nthe universe.  If we are interested in the growth of modern science we\nshall readily discover for ourselves that some knowledge of\nAristotelianism is necessary for the understanding of Bacon and Galileo\nand the other great anti-Aristotelians who created the \"modern\nscientific\" view of Nature.  If we turn to the imaginative literature of\nthe modern languages, Dante is a sealed book, and many a passage of\nChaucer and Shakespeare and Milton is half unmeaning to us unless we are\nat home in the outlines of Aristotle's philosophy.  And if we turn to\nordinary language, we find that many of the familiar turns of modern\nspeech cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of the doctrines\nthey were first forged to express.  An Englishman who speaks of the\n\"golden mean\" or of \"liberal education,\" or contrasts the \"matter\" of a\nwork of literature with its \"form,\" or the \"essential\" features of a\nsituation or a scheme of policy with its \"accidents,\" or \"theory\" with\n\"practice,\" is using words which derive their significance from the part\nthey play in the vocabulary of Aristotle.  The unambitious object of\nthis little book is, then, to help the English reader to a better\nunderstanding of such familiar language and a fuller comprehension of\nmuch that he will find in Dante and Shakespeare and Bacon.\n\n*Life of Aristotle.*--The main facts of Aristotle's life may be briefly\ntold.  He was born in 385-4 B.C. at Stagirus, a little city of the\nChalcidic peninsula, still called, almost by its ancient name, Chalcis,\nand died at the age of sixty-two at Chalcis in Euboea.  Thus he is a\ncontemporary of Demosthenes, his manhood witnessed the struggle which\nended in the establishment of the Macedonian monarchy as the dominant\npower in Hellas, and his later years the campaigns in which his pupil\nAlexander the Great overthrew the Persian Empire and carried Greek\ncivilisation to the banks of the Jumna.  In studying the constitutional\ntheories of Aristotle, it is necessary to bear these facts in mind.\nThey help to explain certain limitations of outlook which might\notherwise appear strange in so great a man.  It throws a great deal of\nlight on the philosopher's intense conviction of the natural inferiority\nof the \"barbarian\" intellect and character to remember that he grew up\nin an outlying region where the \"barbarian\" was seen to disadvantage in\nthe ordinary course of life.  Hence the distinction between Greek and\n\"barbarian\" came to mean for him much what the \"colour-line\" does to an\nAmerican brought up in a Southern State.  So, again, when we are struck\nby his \"provincialism,\" his apparent satisfaction with the ideal of a\nsmall self-contained city-state with a decently oligarchical government,\na good system of public education, and no \"social problems,\" but devoid\nalike of great traditions and far-reaching ambitions, we must remember\nthat the philosopher himself belonged to just such a tiny community\nwithout a past and without a future. The Chalcidic cities had been first\nfounded, as the name of the peninsula implies, as colonies from the town\nof Chalcis in Euboea; Corinth had also been prominent in establishing\nsettlements in the same region.  At the height of Athenian Imperial\nprosperity in the age of Pericles the district had fallen politically\nunder Athenian control, but had been detached again from Athens, in the\nlast years of the Archidamian war, by the genius of the great Spartan\nsoldier and diplomat Brasidas. Early in the fourth century the Chalcidic\ncities had attempted to form themselves into an independent federation,\nbut the movement had been put down by Sparta, and the cities had fallen\nunder the control of the rising Macedonian monarchy, when Aristotle was\na baby.  A generation later, a double intrigue of the cities with Philip\nof Macedon and Athens failed of its effect, and the peninsula was\nfinally incorporated with the Macedonian kingdom.  It is also important\nto note that the philosopher belonged by birth to a guild, the\nAsclepiadae, in which the medical profession was hereditary.  His father\nNicomachus was court physician to Amyntas II., the king for whose\nbenefit the Spartans had put down the Chalcidic league. This early\nconnection with medicine and with the Macedonian court explains largely\nboth the predominantly biological cast of Aristotle's philosophical\nthought and the intense dislike of \"princes\" and courts to which he more\nthan once gives expression.  At the age of eighteen, in 367-6, Aristotle\nwas sent to Athens for \"higher\" education in philosophy and science, and\nentered the famous Platonic Academy, where he remained as a member of\nthe scientific group gathered round the master for twenty years, until\nPlato's death in 347-6.  For the three years immediately following\nAristotle was in Asia Minor with his friend and fellow-student Hermeias,\nwho had become by force of sheer capacity monarch of the city of\nAtarneus in the Troad, and was maintaining himself with much energy\nagainst the Persian king.  Pythias, the niece of Hermeias, became the\nphilosopher's wife, and it seems that the marriage was happy.\nExamination of Aristotle's contributions to marine biology has shown\nthat his knowledge of the subject is specially good for the Aeolic coast\nand the shores of the adjacent islands.  This throws light on his\noccupations during his residence with Hermeias, and suggests that Plato\nhad discerned the bent of his distinguished pupil's mind, and that his\nspecial share in the researches of the Academy had, like that of\nSpeusippus, Plato's nephew and successor in the headship of the school,\nbeen largely of a biological kind.  We also know that, presumably\nshortly after Plato's death, Aristotle had been one of the group of\ndisciples who edited their teacher's unpublished lectures. In 343\nHermeias was assassinated at the instigation of Persia; Aristotle\nhonoured his memory by a hymn setting forth the godlikeness of virtue as\nillustrated by the life of his friend. Aristotle now removed to the\nMacedonian court, where he received the position of tutor to the Crown\nPrince, afterwards Alexander the Great, at this time (343 B.C.) a boy of\nthirteen. The association of the great philosopher and the great king as\ntutor and pupil has naturally struck the imagination of later ages; even\nin Plutarch's _Life of Alexander_ we meet already with the full-blown\nlegend of the influence of Aristotle's philosophical speculations on\nAlexander.  It is, however, improbable that Aristotle's influence\ncounted for much in forming the character of Alexander.  Aristotle's\ndislike of monarchies and their accessories is written large on many a\npage of his _Ethics_ and _Politics_; the small self-contained city-state\nwith no political ambitions for which he reserves his admiration would\nhave seemed a mere relic of antiquity to Philip and Alexander.  The only\npiece of contemporary evidence as to the relations between the master\nand the pupil is a sentence in a letter to the young Alexander from the\nAthenian publicist Isocrates who maliciously congratulates the prince on\nhis preference for \"rhetoric,\" the art of efficient public speech, and\nhis indifference to \"logic-choppers.\"  How little sympathy Aristotle can\nhave had with his pupil's ambitions is shown by the fact that though his\npolitical theories must have been worked out during the very years in\nwhich Alexander was revolutionising Hellenism by the foundation of his\nworld-empire, they contain no allusion to so momentous a change in the\nsocial order.  For all that Aristotle tells us, Alexander might never\nhave existed, and the small city-state might have been the last word of\nHellenic political development.  Hence it is probable that the selection\nof Aristotle, who had not yet appeared before the world as an\nindependent thinker, to take part in the education of the Crown Prince\nwas due less to personal reputation than to the connection of his family\nwith the court, taken together with his own position as a pupil of\nPlato, whose intervention in the public affairs of Sicily had caused the\nAcademy to be regarded as the special home of scientific interest in\npolitics and jurisprudence.  It may be true that Alexander found time in\nthe midst of his conquests to supply his old tutor with zoological\nspecimens; it is as certain as such a thing can be that the ideals and\ncharacters of the two men were too different to allow of any intimate\ninfluence of either on the other.\n\nWhen Alexander was suddenly called to the Macedonian throne by the\nmurder of his father in 336 B.C., Aristotle's services were no longer\nneeded; he returned to Athens and gave himself to purely scientific\nwork.  Just at this juncture the presidency of the Academy was vacant by\nthe death of Speusippus, Aristotle's old associate in biological\nresearch. Possibly Aristotle thought himself injured when the school\npassed him over and elected Xenocrates of Chalcedon as its new\npresident.  At any rate, though he appears never to have wholly severed\nhis connection with the Academy, in 335 he opened a rival institution in\nthe Lyceum, or gymnasium attached to the temple of Apollo Lyceus, to\nwhich he was followed by some of the most distinguished members of the\nAcademy.  From the fact that his instruction was given in the\n_peripatos_ or covered portico of the gymnasium the school has derived\nits name of Peripatetic.  For the next twelve years he was occupied in\nthe organisation of the school as an abode for the prosecution of\nspeculation and research in every department of inquiry, and in the\ncomposition of numerous courses of lectures on scientific and\nphilosophical questions.  The chief difference in general character\nbetween the new school and the Academy is that while the scientific\ninterests of the Platonists centred in mathematics, the main\ncontributions of the Lyceum to science lay in the departments of biology\nand history.\n\nTowards the end of Alexander's life his attention was unfavourably\ndirected on his old teacher.  A relative of Aristotle named Callisthenes\nhad attended Alexander in his campaigns as historiographer, and had\nprovoked disfavour by his censure of the King's attempts to invest his\nsemi-constitutional position towards his Hellenic subjects with the pomp\nof an Oriental despotism.  The historian's independence proved fatal.\nHe was accused of instigating an assassination plot among Alexander's\npages, and hanged, or, as some said, thrown into a prison where he died\nbefore trial.  Alexander is reported to have held Aristotle responsible\nfor his relative's treason, and to have meditated revenge.  If this is\nso, he was fortunately diverted from the commission of a crime by\npreoccupation with the invasion of India.\n\nOn the death of Alexander in 323 a brief but vigorous anti-Macedonian\nagitation broke out at Athens.  Aristotle, from his Macedonian\nconnections, naturally fell a victim, in spite of his want of sympathy\nwith the ideals of Philip and Alexander. Like Socrates, he was indicted\non the capital charge of \"impiety,\" the pretext being that his poem on\nthe death of Hermeias, written twenty years before, was a virtual\ndeification of his friend.  This was, however, only a pretext; the real\noffence was political, and lay in his connection with the Macedonian\nleader Antipater.  As condemnation was certain, the philosopher\nanticipated it by withdrawing with his disciples to Chalcis, the mother\ncity of his native Stagirus.  Here he died in the following year, at the\nage of sixty-two or sixty-three.\n\nThe features of Aristotle, familiar to us from busts and intaglios, are\nhandsome, but indicate refinement and acuteness rather than originality,\nan impression in keeping with what we should expect from a study of his\nwritings.  The anecdotes related of him reveal a kindly, affectionate\ncharacter, and show little trace of the self-importance which appears in\nhis work. His will, which has been preserved, exhibits the same traits\nin its references to his happy family life and its solicitous care for\nthe future of his children and servants.  He was twice married, first to\nPythias, and secondly to a certain Herpyllis, by whom he left a son\nNicomachus and a daughter.  The \"goodness\" of Herpyllis to her husband\nis specially mentioned in the clauses of the will which make provision\nfor her, while the warmth of the writer's feelings for Pythias is shown\nby the direction that her remains are to be placed in the same tomb with\nhis own. The list of servants remembered and the bequests enumerated\nshow the philosopher to have been in easier circumstances than Plato.\n\n*The Works of Aristotle*.--The so-called works of Aristotle present us\nwith a curious problem.  When we turn from Plato to his pupil we seem to\nhave passed into a different atmosphere.  The _Discourses of Socrates_\nexhibit a prose style which is perhaps the most marvellous of all\nliterary achievements.  Nowhere else do we meet with quite the same\ncombination of eloquence, imaginative splendour, incisive logic, and\nirresistible wit and humour.  The manner of Aristotle is dry and formal.\nHis language bristles with technicalities, makes little appeal to the\nemotions, disdains graces of style, and frequently defies the simplest\nrules of composition.  Our surprise is all the greater that we find\nlater writers of antiquity, such as Cicero, commending Aristotle for his\ncopious and golden eloquence, a characteristic which is conspicuously\nwanting in the Aristotelian writings we possess.  The explanation of the\npuzzle is, however, simple.  Plato and Aristotle were at once what we\nshould call professors and men of letters; both wrote works for general\ncirculation, and both delivered courses of lectures to special students.\nBut while Plato's lectures have perished, his books have come down to\nus.  Aristotle's books have almost wholly been lost, but we possess many\nof his lectures. The \"works\" of Aristotle praised by Cicero for their\neloquence were philosophical dialogues, and formed the model for\nCicero's own compositions in this kind.  None of them have survived,\nthough some passages have been preserved in quotations by later writers.\nThat the \"works\" are actually the MSS. of a lecturer posthumously edited\nby his pupils seems clear from external as well as from internal\nevidence.  In one instance we have the advantage of a double recension.\nAristotle's _Ethics_ or _Discourses on Conduct_ have come down to us in\ntwo forms--the so-called _Nicomachean Ethics_, a redaction by the\nphilosopher's son, Nicomachus, preserving all the characteristics of an\noral course of lectures; and a freer and more readable recast by a\npupil, the mathematician Eudemus, known as the _Eudemian Ethics_.  In\nrecent years we have also recovered from the sands of Egypt what appears\nto be our one specimen of a \"work\" of Aristotle, intended to be read by\nthe public at large, the essay on the Constitution of Athens.  The style\nof this essay is easy, flowing, and popular, and shows that Aristotle\ncould write well and gracefully when he thought fit.\n\n\n\n\n                              *CHAPTER II*\n\n        *THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES: SCIENTIFIC METHOD*\n\n\nPhilosophy, as understood by Aristotle, may be said to be the organised\nwhole of disinterested knowledge, that is, knowledge which we seek for\nthe satisfaction which it carries with itself, and not as a mere means\nto utilitarian ends.  The impulse which receives this satisfaction is\ncuriosity or wonder, which Aristotle regards as innate in man, though it\ndoes not get full play until civilisation has advanced far enough to\nmake secure provision for the immediate material needs of life.  Human\ncuriosity was naturally directed first to the outstanding \"marvellous\nworks\" of the physical world, the planets, the periodicity of their\nmovements, the return of the seasons, winds, thunder and lightning, and\nthe like.  Hence the earliest Greek speculation was concerned with\nproblems of astronomy and meteorology.  Then, as reflection developed,\nmen speculated about geometrical figure, and number, the possibility of\nhaving assured knowledge at all, the character of the common principles\nassumed in all branches of study or of the special principles assumed in\nsome one branch, and thus philosophy has finally become the\ndisinterested study of every department of Being or Reality.  Since\nAristotle, like Hegel, thought that his own doctrine was, in essentials,\nthe last word of speculation, the complete expression of the principles\nby which his predecessors had been unconsciously guided, he believes\nhimself in a position to make a final classification of the branches of\nscience, showing how they are related and how they are discriminated\nfrom one another.  This classification we have now to consider.\n\n*Classification of the Sciences*.--To begin with, we have to\ndiscriminate Philosophy from two rivals with which it might be\nconfounded on a superficial view, Dialectic and Sophistry. Dialectic is\nthe art of reasoning accurately from given premisses, true or false.\nThis art has its proper uses, and of one of these we shall have to\nspeak.  But in itself it is indifferent to the truth of its premisses.\nYou may reason dialectically from premisses which you believe to be\nfalse, for the express purpose of showing the absurd conclusions to\nwhich they lead.  Or you may reason from premisses which you assume\ntentatively to see what conclusions you are committed to if you adopt\nthem.  In either case your object is not directly to secure truth, but\nonly to secure consistency.  Science or Philosophy aims directly at\n_truth_, and hence requires to start with true and certain premisses.\nThus the distinction between Science and Dialectic is that Science\nreasons from true premisses, Dialectic only from \"probable\" or\n\"plausible\" premisses.  Sophistry differs from Science in virtue of its\nmoral character.  It is the profession of making a living by the abuse\nof reasoning, the trick of employing logical skill for the apparent\ndemonstration of scientific or ethical falsehoods.  \"The sophist is one\nwho earns a living from an apparent but unreal wisdom.\"  (The emphasis\nthus falls on the notion of making an \"unreal wisdom\" into a _trade_.\nThe sophist's real concern is to get his fee.)  Science or Philosophy is\nthus the disinterested employment of the understanding in the discovery\nof truth.\n\nWe may now distinguish the different branches of science as defined.\nThe first and most important division to be made is that between\nSpeculative or Theoretical Science and Practical Science.  The broad\ndistinction is that which we should now draw between the Sciences and\nthe Arts (_i.e._ the industrial and technical, not the \"fine\" arts).\nSpeculative or Theoretical Philosophy differs from Practical Philosophy\nin its purpose, and, in consequence, in its subject-matter, and its\nformal logical character.  The purpose of the former is the\ndisinterested contemplation of truths which are what they are\nindependently of our own volition; its end is to _know_ and only to\n_know_. The object of \"practical\" Science is to know, but not only to\nknow but also to turn our knowledge to account in devising ways of\nsuccessful interference with the course of events.  (The real importance\nof the distinction comes out in Aristotle's treatment of the problems of\nmoral and social science.  Since we require knowledge of the moral and\nsocial nature of men not merely to satisfy an intellectual interest, but\nas a basis for a sound system of education and government, Politics, the\ntheory of government, and Ethics, the theory of goodness of conduct,\nwhich for Aristotle is only a subordinate branch of Politics, belong to\nPractical, not to Theoretical Philosophy, a view which is attended by\nimportant consequences.)\n\nIt follows that there is a corresponding difference in the objects\ninvestigated by the two branches of Philosophy.  Speculative or\nTheoretical Philosophy is concerned with \"that which cannot possibly be\nother than it is,\" truths and relations independent of human volition\nfor their subsistence, and calling simply for _recognition_ on our part.\nPractical Philosophy has to do with relations which human volition can\nmodify, \"things which may be other than they are,\" the contingent.\n(Thus _e.g._ not only politics, but medicine and economics will belong\nto Practical Science.)\n\nHence again arises a logical difference between the conclusions of\nTheoretical and those of Practical Philosophy.  Those of the former are\nuniversal truths deducible with logical necessity from self-evident[#]\nprinciples.  Those of the latter, because they relate to what \"can be\notherwise,\" are never rigidly universal; they are _general_ rules which\nhold good \"in the majority of cases,\" but are liable to occasional\nexceptions owing to the contingent character of the facts with which\nthey deal.  It is a proof of a philosopher's lack of grounding in logic\nthat he looks to the results of a practical science (_e.g._ to the\ndetailed precepts of medicine or ethics) for a higher degree of\ncertainty and validity than the nature of the subject-matter allows.\nThus for Aristotle the distinction between the necessary and the\ncontingent is real and not merely apparent, and \"probability is the\nguide\" in studies which have to do with the direction of life.\n\n\n[#] Self-evident, that is, in a purely logical sense. When you apprehend\nthe principles in question, you _see_ at once that they are true, and do\nnot require to have them _proved_. It is not meant that any and every\nman _does_, in point of fact, always apprehend the principles, or that\nthey can be apprehended without preliminary mental discipline.\n\n\nWe proceed to the question how many subdivisions there are within\n\"theoretical\" Philosophy itself.  Plato had held that there are none.\nAll the sciences are deductions from a single set of ultimate principles\nwhich it is the business of that supreme science to which Plato had\ngiven the name of Dialectic to establish.  This is not Aristotle's view.\nAccording to him, \"theoretical\" Philosophy falls into a number of\ndistinct though not co-ordinate branches, each with its own special\nsubjects of investigation and its own special axiomatic principles.  Of\nthese branches there are three, First Philosophy, Mathematics, and\nPhysics.  First Philosophy--afterwards to be known to the Middle Ages as\nMetaphysics[#]--treats, to use Aristotle's own expression, of \"Being\n_qua_ Being.\"  This means that it is concerned with the universal\ncharacteristics which belong to the system of knowable reality as such,\nand the principles of its organisation in their full universality. First\nPhilosophy alone investigates the character of those causative factors\nin the system which are without body or shape and exempt from all\nmutability.  Since in Aristotle's system God is the supreme Cause of\nthis kind, First Philosophy culminates in the knowledge of God, and is\nhence frequently called Theology.  It thus includes an element which\nwould to-day be assigned to the theory of knowledge, as well as one\nwhich we should ascribe to metaphysics, since it deals at once with the\nultimate postulates of knowledge and the ultimate causes of the order of\nreal existence.\n\n\n[#] The origin of this name seems to be that Aristotle's lectures on\nFirst Philosophy came to be studied as a continuation of his course on\nPhysics. Hence the lectures got the name _Metaphysica_ because they came\n_after_ (_meta_) those on Physics. Finally the name was transferred (as\nin the case of _Ethics_) from the lectures to the subject of which they\ntreat.\n\n\nMathematics is of narrower scope.  What it studies is no longer \"real\nbeing as such,\" but only real being in so far as it exhibits number and\ngeometrical form.  Since Aristotle holds the view that number and figure\nonly exist as determinations of objects given in perception (though by a\nconvenient fiction the mathematician treats of them in abstraction from\nthe perceived objects which they qualify), he marks the difference\nbetween Mathematics and First Philosophy by saying that \"whereas the\nobjects of First Philosophy are separate from matter and devoid of\nmotion, those of Mathematics, though incapable of motion, have no\nseparable existence but are inherent in matter.\"  Physics is concerned\nwith the study of objects which are both material and capable of motion.\nThus the principle of the distinction is the presence or absence of\ninitial restrictions of the range of the different branches of Science.\nFirst Philosophy has the widest range, since its contemplation covers\nthe whole ground of the real and knowable; Physics the narrowest,\nbecause it is confined to a \"universe of discourse\" restricted by the\ndouble qualification that its members are all material and capable of\ndisplacement.  Mathematics holds an intermediate position, since in it,\none of these qualifications is removed, but the other still remains, for\nthe geometer's figures are boundaries and limits of sensible bodies, and\nthe arithmetician's numbers properties of collections of concrete\nobjects.  It follows also that the initial axioms or postulates of\nMathematics form a less simple system than those of First Philosophy,\nand those of Physics than those of Mathematics.  Mathematics requires as\ninitial assumptions not only those which hold good for _all_ thought,\nbut certain other special axioms which are only valid and significant\nfor the realm of figure and number; Physics requires yet further axioms\nwhich are only applicable to \"what is in motion.\"  This is why, though\nthe three disciplines are treated as distinct, they are not strictly\nco-ordinate, and \"First Philosophy,\" though \"first,\" is only _prima\ninter pares_.\n\nWe thus get the following diagrammatic scheme of the classification of\nsciences:--\n\n                          Science\n                             |\n                 +-----------+------------+\n                 |                        |\n            Theoretical               Practical\n                 |\n             +---+---------+-----------+\n             |             |           |\n    First Philosophy     Mathe-     Physics\n           or            matics\n        Theology\n\n\nPractical Philosophy is not subjected by Aristotle to any similar\nsubdivision.  Later students were accustomed to recognise a threefold\ndivision into Ethics (the theory of individual conduct), Economics (the\ntheory of the management of the household), Politics (the theory of the\nmanagement of the State).  Aristotle himself does not make these\ndistinctions. His general name for the theory of conduct is Politics,\nthe doctrine of individual conduct being for him inseparable from that\nof the right ordering of society.  Though he composed a separate course\nof lectures on individual conduct (the _Ethics_), he takes care to open\nthe course by stating that the science of which it treats is Politics,\nand offers an apology for dealing with the education of individual\ncharacter apart from the more general doctrine of the organisation of\nsociety.  No special recognition is given in Aristotle's own\nclassification to the Philosophy of Art.  Modern students of Aristotle\nhave tried to fill in the omission by adding artistic creation to\ncontemplation and practice as a third fundamental form of mental\nactivity, and thus making a threefold division of Philosophy into\nTheoretical, Practical, and Productive.  The object of this is to find a\nplace in the classification for Aristotle's famous _Poetics_ and his\nwork on Rhetoric, the art of effective speech and writing.  But the\nadmission of the third division of Science has no warrant in the text of\nAristotle, nor are the _Rhetoric_ and _Poetics_, properly speaking, a\ncontribution to Philosophy.  They are intended as collections of\npractical rules for the composition of a pamphlet or a tragedy, not as a\ncritical examination of the canons of literary taste.  This was\ncorrectly seen by the dramatic theorists of the seventeenth century.\nThey exaggerated the value of Aristotle's directions and entirely\nmisunderstood the meaning of some of them, but they were right in their\nview that the _Poetics_ was meant to be a collection of rules by obeying\nwhich the craftsman might make sure of turning out a successful play.\nSo far as Aristotle has a Philosophy of Fine Art at all, it forms part\nof his more general theory of education and must be looked for in the\ngeneral discussion of the aims of education contained in his _Politics_.\n\n*The Methods of Science*.--No place has been assigned in the scheme to\nwhat we call logic and Aristotle called _Analytics_, the theory of\nscientific method, or of proof and the estimation of evidence.  The\nreason is that since the fundamental character of proof is the same in\nall science, Aristotle looks upon logic as a study of the methods common\nto all science.  At a later date it became a hotly debated question\nwhether logic should be regarded in this way as a study of the methods\ninstrumental to proof in all sciences, or as itself a special\nconstituent division of philosophy.  The Aristotelian view was concisely\nindicated by the name which became attached to the collection of\nAristotle's logical works.  They were called the _Organon_, that is, the\n\"instrument,\" or the body of rules of method employed by Science.  The\nthought implied is thus that logic furnishes the _tools_ with which\nevery science has to work in establishing its results.  Our space will\nonly permit of a brief statement as to the points in which the\nAristotelian formal logic appears to be really original, and the main\npeculiarities of Aristotle's theory of knowledge.\n\n(a) *Formal Logic*.--In compass the Aristotelian logic corresponds\nroughly with the contents of modern elementary treatises on the same\nsubject, with the omission of the sections which deal with the so-called\nConditional Syllogism.  The inclusion of arguments of this type in\nmediaeval and modern expositions of formal logic is principally due to\nthe Stoics, who preferred to throw their reasoning into these forms and\nsubjected them to minute scrutiny.  In his treatment of the doctrine of\nTerms, Aristotle avoids the mistake of treating the isolated name as\nthough it had significance apart from the enunciations in which it\noccurs.  He is quite clear on the all-important point that the unit of\nthought is the proposition in which something is affirmed or denied, the\none thought-form which can be properly called \"true\" or \"false.\"  Such\nan assertion he analyses into two factors, that about which something is\naffirmed or denied (the Subject), and that which is affirmed or denied\nof it (the Predicate). Consequently his doctrine of the classification\nof Terms is based on a classification of Predicates, or of Propositions\naccording to the special kind of connection between the Subject and\nPredicate which they affirm or deny.  Two such classifications, which\ncannot be made to fit into one another, meet us in Aristotle's logical\nwritings, the scheme of the ten \"Categories,\" and that which was\nafterwards known in the Middle Ages as the list of \"Predicaments\" or\n\"Heads of Predicates,\" or again as the \"Five Words.\"  The list of\n\"Categories\" reveals itself as an attempt to answer the question in how\nmany different senses the words \"is a\" or \"are\" are employed when we\nassert that \"_x_ is _y_\" or \"_x_ is a _y_\" or \"_x_s are _y_s.\"  Such a\nstatement may tell us (1) what _x_ is, as if I say \"_x_ is a lion\"; the\npredicate is then said to fall under the category of Substance; (2) what\n_x_ is like, as when I say \"_x_ is white, or _x_ is wise,\"--the category\nof Quality; (3) how much or how many _x_ is, as when I say \"_x_ is tall\"\nor \"_x_ is five feet long,\"--the category of Quantity; (4) how _x_ is\nrelated to something else, as when I say \"_x_ is to the right of _y_,\"\n\"_x_ is the father of _y_,\"--the category of Relation.  These are the\nfour chief \"categories\" discussed by Aristotle.  The remainder are (5)\nPlace, (6) Time, (7) and (8) Condition or State, as when I say \"_x_ is\nsitting down\" or \"_x_ has his armour on,\"--(the only distinction between\nthe two cases seems to be that (7) denotes a more permanent state of _x_\nthan (8)); (9) Action or Activity, as when I say \"_x_ is cutting,\" or\ngenerally \"_x_ is doing something to _y_\"; (10) Passivity, as when I say\n\"_x_ is being cut,\" or more generally, \"so-and-so is being done to _x_.\"\nNo attempt is made to show that this list of \"figures of predication\" is\ncomplete, or to point out any principle which has been followed in its\nconstruction.  It also happens that much the same enumeration is\nincidentally made in one or two passages of Plato.  Hence it is not\nunlikely that the list was taken over by Aristotle as one which would be\nfamiliar to pupils who had read their Plato, and therefore convenient\nfor practical purposes.  The fivefold classification does depend on a\nprinciple pointed out by Aristotle which guarantees its completeness,\nand is therefore likely to have been thought out by him for himself, and\nto be the genuine Aristotelian scheme.  Consider an ordinary universal\naffirmative proposition of the form \"all _x_s are _y_s.\"  Now if this\nstatement is true it may also be true that \"all _y_s are _x_s,\" or it\nmay not.  On the first supposition we have two possible cases, (1) the\npredicate may state precisely what the subject defined _is_; then _y_ is\nthe Definition of _x_, as when I say that \"men are mortal animals,\ncapable of discourse.\"  Here it is also true to say that \"mortal animals\ncapable of discourse are men,\" and Aristotle regards the predicate\n\"mortal animal capable of discourse\" as expressing the inmost nature of\nman.  (2) The predicate may not express the inmost nature of the\nsubject, and yet may belong only to the class denoted by the subject and\nto every member of that class.  The predicate is then called a Proprium\nor property, an exclusive attribute of the class in question.  Thus it\nwas held that \"all men are capable of laughter\" and \"all beings capable\nof laughter are men,\" but that the capacity for laughter is no part of\nthe inmost nature or \"real essence\" of humanity.  It is therefore\nreckoned as a Proprium.\n\nAgain in the case where it is true that \"all _x_s are _y_s,\" but not\ntrue that all \"_y_s are _x_s,\" _y_ may be part of the definition of _x_\nor it may not.  If it is part of the definition of _x_ it will be either\n(3) a genus or wider class of which _x_ forms a subdivision, as when I\nsay, \"All men are animals,\" or (4) a difference, that is, one of the\ndistinctive marks by which the _x_s are distinguished from other\nsub-classes or species of the same genus, as when I say, \"All men are\ncapable of discourse.\"  Or finally (5) _y_ may be no part of the\ndefinition of _x_, but a characteristic which belongs both to the _x_s\nand some things other than _x_s.  The predicate is then called an\nAccident.  We have now exhausted all the possible cases, and may say\nthat the predicate of a universal affirmative proposition is always\neither a definition, a proprium, a genus, a difference, or an accident.\nThis classification reached the Middle Ages not in the precise form in\nwhich it is given by Aristotle, but with modifications mainly due to the\nNeo-Platonic philosopher Porphyry. In its modified form it is regarded\nas a classification of terms generally.  Definition disappears from the\nlist, as the definition is regarded as a complex made up of the genus,\nor next highest class to which the class to be defined belongs, and the\ndifferences which mark off this particular species or sub-class.  The\nspecies itself which figures as the subject-term in a definition is\nadded, and thus the \"Five Words\" of mediaeval logic are enumerated as\ngenus, species, difference, proprium, accident.\n\nThe one point of philosophical interest about this doctrine appears\nalike in the scheme of the \"Categories\" in the presence of a category of\n\"substance,\" and in the list of \"Predicaments\" in the sharp distinction\ndrawn between \"definition\" and \"proprium.\"  From a logical point of view\nit does not appear why _any_ proprium, _any_ character belonging to all\nthe members of a class and to them alone, should not be taken as\ndefining the class.  Why should it be assumed that there is only _one_\npredicate, viz. _man_, which precisely answers the question, \"What is\nSocrates?\"  Why should it not be equally correct to answer, \"a Greek,\"\nor \"a philosopher\"?  The explanation is that Aristotle takes it for\ngranted that not all the distinctions we can make between \"kinds\" of\nthings are arbitrary and subjective.  Nature herself has made certain\nhard and fast divisions between kinds which it is the business of our\nthought to recognise and follow.  Thus according to Aristotle there is a\nreal gulf, a genuine difference in kind, between the horse and the ass,\nand this is illustrated by the fact that the mule, the offspring of a\nhorse and an ass, is not capable of reproduction. It is thus a sort of\nimperfect being, a kind of \"monster\" existing _contra naturam_.  Such\ndifferences as we find when we compare _e.g._ Egyptians with Greeks do\nnot amount to a difference in \"kind.\"  To say that Socrates is a man\ntells me what Socrates is, because the statement places Socrates in the\nreal kind to which he actually belongs; to say that he is wise, or old,\nor a philosopher merely tells me some of his attributes. It follows from\nthis belief in \"real\" or \"natural\" kinds that the problem of definition\nacquires an enormous importance for science.  We, who are accustomed to\nregard the whole business of classification as a matter of making a\ngrouping of our materials such as is most pertinent to the special\nquestion we have in hand, tend to look upon any predicate which belongs\nuniversally and exclusively to the members of a group, as a sufficient\nbasis for a possible definition of the group.  Hence we are prone to\ntake the \"nominalist\" view of definition, _i.e._ to look upon a\ndefinition as no more than a declaration of the sense which we intend\nhenceforward to put on a word or other symbol.  And consequently we\nreadily admit that there may be as many definitions of a class as it has\ndifferent propria. But in a philosophy like that of Aristotle, in which\nit is held that a true classification must not only be formally\nsatisfactory, but must also conform to the actual lines of cleavage\nwhich Nature has established between kind and kind, the task of\nclassificatory science becomes much more difficult.  Science is called\non to supply not merely a definition but _the_ definition of the classes\nit considers, _the_ definition which faithfully reflects the \"lines of\ncleavage\" in Nature.  This is why the Aristotelian view is that a true\ndefinition should always be _per genus et differentias_.  It should\n\"place\" a given class by mentioning the wider class next above it in the\nobjective hierarchy, and then enumerating the most deep-seated\ndistinctions by which Nature herself marks off this class from others\nbelonging to the same wider class.  Modern evolutionary thought may\npossibly bring us back to this Aristotelian standpoint.  Modern\nevolutionary science differs from Aristotelianism on one point of the\nfirst importance.  It regards the difference between kinds, not as a\nprimary fact of Nature, but as produced by a long process of\naccumulation of slight differences.  But a world in which the process\nhas progressed far enough will exhibit much the same character as the\nNature of Aristotle. As the intermediate links between \"species\" drop\nout because they are less thoroughly adapted to maintain themselves than\nthe extremes between which they form links, the world produced\napproximates more and more to a system of species between which there\nare unbridgeable chasms; evolution tends more and more to the final\nestablishment of \"real kinds,\" marked by the fact that there is no\npermanent possibility of cross-breeding between them.  This makes it\nonce more possible to distinguish between a \"nominal\" definition and a\n\"real\" definition.  From an evolutionary point of view, a \"real\"\ndefinition would be one which specifies not merely enough characters to\nmark off the group defined from others, but selects also for the purpose\nthose characters which indicate the line of historical development by\nwhich the group has successively separated itself from other groups\ndescended from the same ancestors.  We shall learn yet more of the\nsignificance of this conception of a \"real kind\" as we go on to make\nacquaintance with the outlines of First Philosophy.  Over the rest of\nthe formal logic of Aristotle we must be content to pass more rapidly.\nIn connection with the doctrine of Propositions, Aristotle lays down the\nfamiliar distinction between the four types of proposition according to\ntheir quantity (as universal or particular) and quality (as affirmative\nor negative), and treats of their contrary and contradictory opposition\nin a way which still forms the basis of the handling of the subject in\nelementary works on formal logic.  He also considers at great length a\nsubject nowadays commonly excluded from the elementary books, the modal\ndistinction between the Problematic proposition (_x_ may be _y_), the\nAssertory (_x_ is _y_), and the Necessary (_x_ must be _y_), and the way\nin which all these forms may be contradicted.  For him, modality is a\nformal distinction like quantity or quality, because he believes that\ncontingency and necessity are not merely relative to the state of our\nknowledge, but represent real and objective features of the order of\nNature.\n\nIn connection with the doctrine of Inference, it is worth while to give\nhis definition of Syllogism or Inference (literally \"computation\") in\nhis own words.  \"Syllogism is a discourse wherein certain things (viz.\nthe premisses) being admitted, something else, different from what has\nbeen admitted, follows of necessity because the admissions are what they\nare.\"  The last clause shows that Aristotle is aware that the\nall-important thing in an inference is not that the conclusion should be\nnovel but that it should be proved.  We may have known the conclusion as\na fact before; what the inference does for us is to connect it with the\nrest of our knowledge, and thus to show _why_ it is true.  He also\nformulates the axiom upon which syllogistic inference rests, that \"if A\nis predicated universally of B and B of C, A is necessarily predicated\nuniversally of C.\"  Stated in the language of class-inclusion, and\nadapted to include the case where B is denied of C this becomes the\nformula, \"whatever is asserted universally, whether positively or\nnegatively, of a class B is asserted in like manner of any class C which\nis wholly contained in B,\" the axiom _de omni et nullo_ of mediaeval\nlogic.  The syllogism of the \"first figure,\" to which this principle\nimmediately applies, is accordingly regarded by Aristotle as the natural\nand perfect form of inference.  Syllogisms of the second and third\nfigures can only be shown to fall under the dictum by a process of\n\"reduction\" or transformation into corresponding arguments in the first\n\"figure,\" and are therefore called \"imperfect\" or \"incomplete,\" because\nthey do not exhibit the conclusive force of the reasoning with equal\nclearness, and also because no universal affirmative conclusion can be\nproved in them, and the aim of science is always to establish such\naffirmatives.  The list of \"moods\" of the three figures, and the\ndoctrine of the methods by which each mood of the imperfect figures can\nbe replaced by an equivalent mood of the first is worked out\nsubstantially as in our current text-books.  The so-called \"fourth\"\nfigure is not recognised, its moods being regarded merely as unnatural\nand distorted statements of those of the first figure.\n\n*Induction*.--Of the use of \"induction\" in Aristotle's philosophy we\nshall speak under the head of \"Theory of Knowledge.\"  Formally it is\ncalled \"the way of proceeding from particular facts to universals,\" and\nAristotle insists that the conclusion is only proved if _all_ the\nparticulars have been examined.  Thus he gives as an example the\nfollowing argument, \"_x_, _y_, _z_ are long-lived species of animals;\n_x_, _y_, _z_ are the only species which have no gall; _ergo_ all\nanimals which have no gall are long-lived.\"  This is the \"induction by\nsimple enumeration\" denounced by Francis Bacon on the ground that it may\nalways be discredited by the production of a single \"contrary instance,\"\n_e.g._ a single instance of an animal which has no gall and yet is not\nlong-lived.  Aristotle is quite aware that his \"induction\" does not\nestablish its conclusion unless all the cases have been included in the\nexamination.  In fact, as his own example shows, an induction which\ngives certainty does not start with \"particular facts\" at all.  It is a\nmethod of arguing that what has been proved true of each sub-class of a\nwider class will be true of the wider class as a whole. The premisses\nare strictly universal throughout.  In general, Aristotle does not\nregard \"induction\" as _proof_ at all. Historically \"induction\" is held\nby Aristotle to have been first made prominent in philosophy by\nSocrates, who constantly employed the method in his attempts to\nestablish universal results in moral science.  Thus he gives, as a\ncharacteristic argument for the famous Socratic doctrine that knowledge\nis the one thing needful, the \"induction,\" \"he who understands the\ntheory of navigation is the best navigator, he who understands the\ntheory of chariot-driving the best driver; from these examples we see\nthat universally he who understands the theory of a thing is the best\npractitioner,\" where it is evident that _all_ the relevant cases have\n_not_ been examined, and consequently that the reasoning does not amount\nto proof. Mill's so-called reasoning from particulars to particulars\nfinds a place in Aristotle's theory under the name of \"arguing from an\nexample.\"  He gives as an illustration, \"A war between Athens and Thebes\nwill be a bad thing, for we see that the war between Thebes and Phocis\nwas so.\"  He is careful to point out that the whole force of the\nargument depends on the _implied_ assumption of a universal proposition\nwhich covers both cases, such as \"wars between _neighbours_ are bad\nthings.\" Hence he calls such appeals to example \"rhetorical\" reasoning,\nbecause the politician is accustomed to leave his hearers to supply the\nrelevant universal consideration for themselves.\n\n*Theory of Knowledge*.--Here, as everywhere in Aristotle's philosophy,\nwe are confronted by an initial and insuperable difficulty.  Aristotle\nis always anxious to insist on the difference between his own doctrines\nand those of Plato, and his bias in this direction regularly leads him\nto speak as though he held a thorough-going naturalistic and empirical\ntheory with no \"transcendental moonshine\" about it.  Yet his final\nconclusions on all points of importance are hardly distinguishable from\nthose of Plato except by the fact that, as they are so much at variance\nwith the naturalistic side of his philosophy, they have the appearance\nof being sudden lapses into an alogical mysticism.  We shall find the\npresence of this \"fault\" more pronouncedly in his metaphysics,\npsychology, and ethics than in his theory of knowledge, but it is not\nabsent from any part of his philosophy.  He is everywhere a Platonist\n_malgre lui_, and it is just the Platonic element in his thought to\nwhich it owes its hold over men's minds.\n\nPlato's doctrine on the subject may be stated with enough accuracy for\nour purpose as follows.  There is a radical distinction between\nsense-perception and scientific knowledge. A scientific truth is exact\nand definite, it is also true once and for all, and never becomes truer\nor falser with the lapse of time.  This is the character of the\npropositions of the science which Plato regarded as the type of what\ntrue science ought to be, pure mathematics.  It is very different with\nthe judgments which we try to base on our sense-perceptions of the\nvisible and tangible world.  The colours, tastes, shapes of sensible\nthings seem different to different percipients, and moreover they are\nconstantly changing in incalculable ways.  We can never be certain that\ntwo lines which seem to our senses to be equal are really so; it may be\nthat the inequality is merely too slight to be perceptible to our\nsenses.  No figure which we can draw and see actually has the exact\nproperties ascribed by the mathematician to a circle or a square.  Hence\nPlato concludes that if the word science be taken in its fullest sense,\nthere can be no science about the world which our senses reveal.  We can\nhave only an approximate knowledge, a knowledge which is after all, at\nbest, probable opinion.  The objects of which the mathematician has\ncertain, exact, and final knowledge cannot be anything which the senses\nreveal. They are objects of _thought_, and the function of visible\nmodels and diagrams in mathematics is not to present _examples_ of them\nto us, but only to show us imperfect _approximations_ to them and so to\n\"remind\" the soul of objects and relations between them which she has\nnever cognised with the bodily senses.  Thus mathematical straightness\nis never actually beheld, but when we see lines of less and more\napproximate straightness we are \"put in mind\" of that absolute\nstraightness to which sense-perception only approximates.  So in the\nmoral sciences, the various \"virtues\" are not presented in their\nperfection by the course of daily life.  We do not meet with men who are\nperfectly brave or just, but the experience that one man is braver or\njuster than another \"calls into our mind\" the thought of the absolute\nstandard of courage or justice implied in the conviction that one man\ncomes nearer to it than another, and it is these absolute standards\nwhich are the real objects of our attention when we try to define the\nterms by which we describe the moral life.  This is the\n\"epistemological\" side of the famous doctrine of the \"Ideas.\"  The main\npoints are two, (1) that strict science deals throughout with objects\nand relations between objects which are of a purely intellectual or\nconceptual order, no sense-data entering into their constitution; (2)\nsince the objects of science are of this character, it follows that the\n\"Idea\" or \"concept\" or \"universal\" is not arrived at by any process of\n\"abstracting\" from our experience of sensible things the features common\nto them all.  As the particular fact never actually exhibits the\n\"universal\" except approximately, the \"universal\" cannot be simply\ndisentangled from particulars by abstraction.  As Plato puts it, it is\n\"apart from\" particulars, or, as we might reword his thought, the pure\nconcepts of science represent \"upper limits\" to which the comparative\nseries which we can form out of sensible data continually approximate\nbut do not reach them.\n\nIn his theory of knowledge Aristotle begins by brushing aside the\nPlatonic view.  Science requires no such \"Ideas,\" transcending\nsense-experience, as Plato had spoken of; they are, in fact, no more\nthan \"poetic metaphors.\"  What is required for science is not that there\nshould be a \"one over and above the many\" (that is, such pure concepts,\nunrealised in the world of actual perception, as Plato had spoken of),\nbut only that it should be possible to predicate one term universally of\nmany others.  This, by itself, means that the \"universal\" is looked on\nas a mere residue of the characteristics found in each member of a\ngroup, got by abstraction, _i.e._ by leaving out of view the\ncharacteristics which are peculiar to some of the group and retaining\nonly those which are common to all.  If Aristotle had held consistently\nto this point of view, his theory of knowledge would have been a purely\nempirical one.  He would have had to say that, since all the objects of\nknowledge are particular facts given in sense-perception, the universal\nlaws of science are a mere convenient way of describing the observed\nuniformities in the behaviour of sensible things.  But, since it is\nobvious that in pure mathematics we are not concerned with the actual\nrelations between sensible data or the actual ways in which they behave,\nbut with so-called \"pure cases\" or ideals to which the perceived world\nonly approximately conforms, he would also have had to say that the\npropositions of mathematics are not strictly true.  In modern times\nconsistent empiricists have said this, but it is not a position possible\nto one who had passed twenty years in association with the\nmathematicians of the Academy, and Aristotle's theory only begins in\nnaturalism to end in Platonism.  We may condense its most striking\npositions into the following statement.  By science we mean _proved_\nknowledge.  And proved knowledge is always \"mediated\"; it is the\nknowledge of _conclusions_ from premisses.  A truth that is\nscientifically known does not stand alone.  The \"proof\" is simply the\npointing out of the connection between the truth we call the conclusion,\nand other truths which we call the premisses of our demonstration.\nScience points out the _reason why_ of things, and this is what is meant\nby the Aristotelian principle that to have science is to know things\nthrough their _causes_ or _reasons why_.  In an ordered digest of\nscientific truths, the proper arrangement is to begin with the simplest\nand most widely extended principles and to reason down, through\nsuccessive inferences, to the most complex propositions, the _reason\nwhy_ of which can only be exhibited by long chains of deductions.  This\nis the order of logical dependence, and is described by Aristotle as\nreasoning _from_ what is \"more knowable in its own nature,\"[#] the\nsimple, to what is usually \"more familiar to _us_,\" because less removed\nfrom the infinite wealth of sense-perception, the complex.  In\n_discovery_ we have usually to reverse the process and argue from \"the\nfamiliar to us,\" highly complex facts, to \"the more knowable in its own\nnature,\" the simpler principles implied in the facts.\n\n\n[#] This simple expression acquires a mysterious appearance in mediaeval\nphilosophy from the standing mistranslation _notiora naturae_, \"better\nknown to nature.\"\n\n\nIt follows that Aristotle, after all, admits the disparateness of\nsense-perception and scientific knowledge.  Sense-perception of itself\nnever gives us scientific truth, because it can only assure us that a\nfact is so; it cannot _explain_ the fact by showing its connection with\nthe rest of the system of facts, \"it does not give the _reason_ for the\nfact.\"  Knowledge of perception is always \"immediate,\" and for that very\nreason is never scientific. If we stood on the moon and saw the earth,\ninterposing between us and the sun, we should still not have scientific\nknowledge about the eclipse, because \"we should still have to ask for\nthe _reason why_.\"  (In fact, we should not know the reason _why_\nwithout a theory of light including the proposition that light-waves are\npropagated in straight lines and several others.) Similarly Aristotle\ninsists that Induction does not yield scientific truth.  \"He who makes\nan induction points out something, but does not demonstrate anything.\"\n\nFor instance, if we know that _each_ species of animal which is without\na gall is long-lived, we may make the induction that _all_ animals\nwithout a gall are long-lived, but in doing so we have got no nearer to\nseeing _why_ or _how_ the absence of a gall makes for longevity.  The\nquestion which we may raise in science may all be reduced to four heads,\n(1) Does this thing exist? (2) Does this event occur? (3) If the thing\nexists, precisely what is it? and (4) If the event occurs, _why_ does it\noccur? and science has not completed its task unless it can advance from\nthe solution of the first two questions to that of the latter two.\nScience is no mere catalogue of things and events, it consists of\ninquiries into the \"real essences\" and characteristics of things and the\nlaws of connection between events.\n\nLooking at scientific reasoning, then, from the point of view of its\nformal character, we may say that all science consists in the search for\n\"middle terms\" of syllogisms, by which to connect the truth which\nappears as a conclusion with the less complex truths which appear as the\npremisses from which it is drawn.  When we ask, \"does such a thing\nexist?\" or \"does such an event happen?\" we are asking, \"is there a\nmiddle term which can connect the thing or event in question with the\nrest of known reality?\"  Since it is a rule of the syllogism that the\nmiddle term must be taken universally, at least once in the premisses,\nthe search for middle terms may also be described as the search for\nuniversals, and we may speak of science as knowledge of the universal\ninterconnections between facts and events.\n\nA science, then, may be analysed into three constituents. These are: (1)\na determinate class of objects which form the subject-matter of its\ninquiries.  In an orderly exhibition of the contents of the science,\nthese appear, as in Euclid, as the initial data about which the science\nreasons; (2) a number of principles, postulates, and axioms, from which\nour demonstrations must start.  Some of these will be principles\nemployed in all scientific reasoning.  Others will be specific to the\nsubject-matter with which a particular science is concerned; (3) certain\ncharacteristics of the objects under study which can be shown by means\nof our axioms and postulates to follow from our initial definitions, the\n_accidentia per se_ of the objects defined.  It is these last which are\nexpressed by the conclusions of scientific demonstration.  We are said\nto know scientifically that B is true of A when we show that this\nfollows, in virtue of the principles of some science, from the initial\ndefinition of A.  Thus if we convinced ourselves that the sum of the\nangles of a plane triangle is equal to two right angles by measurement,\nwe could not be said to have scientific knowledge of the proposition.\nBut if we show that the same proposition follows from the definition of\na plane triangle by repeated applications of admitted axioms or\npostulates of geometry, our knowledge is genuinely scientific.  We now\nknow that it is so, and we see _why_ it is so; we see the connection of\nthis truth with the simple initial truths of geometry.\n\nThis leads us to the consideration of the most characteristic point of\nAristotle's whole theory.  Science is demonstrated knowledge, that is,\nit is the knowledge that certain truths follow from still simpler\ntruths.  Hence the simplest of all the truths of any science cannot\nthemselves be capable of being known by inference.  You cannot infer\nthat the axioms of geometry are true because its conclusions are true,\nsince the truth of the conclusions is itself a consequence of the truth\nof the axioms.  Nor yet must you ask for demonstration of the axioms as\nconsequences of still simpler premisses, because if all truths can be\nproved, they ought to be proved, and you would therefore require an\ninfinity of successive demonstrations to prove anything whatever.  But\nunder such conditions all knowledge of demonstrated truth would be\nimpossible.  The first principles of any science must therefore be\nindemonstrable. They must be known, as facts of sense-perception are\nknown, immediately and not mediately.  How then do we come by our\nknowledge of them?  Aristotle's answer to this question appears at first\nsight curiously contradictory.  He seems to say that these simplest\ntruths are apprehended intuitively, or on inspection, as self-evident by\nIntelligence or Mind.  On the other hand, he also says that they are\nknown _to us_ as a result of induction from sense-experience.  Thus he\n_seems_ to be either a Platonist or an empiricist, according as you\nchoose to remember one set of his utterances or another, and this\napparent inconsistency has led to his authority being claimed in their\nfavour by thinkers of the most widely different types.  But more careful\nstudy will show that the seeming confusion is due to the fact that he\ntries to combine in one statement his answers to two quite different\nquestions, (1) how we come to reflect on the axioms, (2) what evidence\nthere is for their truth.  To the first question he replies, \"by\ninduction from experience,\" and so far he might seem to be a precursor\nof John Stuart Mill.  Successive repetitions of the same\nsense-perceptions give rise to a single experience, and it is by\nreflection on experience that we become aware of the most ultimate\nsimple and universal principles.  We might illustrate his point by\nconsidering how the thought that two and two are four may be brought\nbefore a child's mind.  We might first take two apples, and two other\napples and set the child to count them.  By repeating the process with\ndifferent apples we may teach the child to dissociate the result of the\ncounting from the particular apples employed, and to advance to the\nthought, \"any two apples and any two other apples make four apples.\"\nThen we might substitute pears or cherries for the apples, so as to\nsuggest the thought, \"two fruits and two fruits make four fruits.\"  And\nby similar methods we should in the end evoke the thought, \"any two\nobjects whatever and any other two objects whatever make four objects.\"\nThis exactly illustrates Aristotle's conception of the function of\ninduction, or comparison of instances, in fixing attention on a\nuniversal principle of which one had not been conscious before the\ncomparison was made.\n\nNow comes in the point where Aristotle differs wholly from all\nempiricists, later and earlier.  Mill regards the instances produced in\nthe induction as having a double function; they not merely fix the\nattention on the principle, they also are the evidence of its truth.\nThis gives rise to the greatest difficulty in his whole logical theory.\nInduction by imperfect enumeration is pronounced to be (as it clearly\nis) fallacious, yet the principle of the uniformity of Nature which Mill\nregards as the ultimate premiss of all science, is itself supposed to be\nproved by this radically fallacious method.  Aristotle avoids a similar\ninconsistency by holding that the sole function of the induction is to\nfix our attention on a principle which it does not prove. He holds that\nultimate principles neither permit of nor require proof.  When the\ninduction has done its work in calling attention to the principle, you\nhave to see for yourself that the principle is true.  You see that it is\ntrue by immediate inspection just as in sense-perception you have to see\nthat the colour before your eyes is red or blue.  This is why Aristotle\nholds that the knowledge of the principles of science is not itself\nscience (demonstrated knowledge), but what he calls intelligence, and we\nmay call intellectual intuition.  Thus his doctrine is sharply\ndistinguished not only from empiricism (the doctrine that universal\nprinciples are proved by particular facts), but also from all theories\nof the Hegelian type which regard the principles and the facts as\nsomehow reciprocally proving each other, and from the doctrine of some\neminent modern logicians who hold that \"self-evidence\" is not required\nin the ultimate principles of science, as we are only concerned in logic\nwith the question what consequences follow from our initial assumptions,\nand not with the truth or falsehood of the assumptions themselves.\n\nThe result is that Aristotle does little more than repeat the Platonic\nview of the nature of science.  Science consists of deductions from\nuniversal principles which sensible experience \"suggests,\" but into\nwhich, as they are apprehended by a purely intellectual inspection, no\nsense-data enter as constituents. The apparent rejection of\n\"transcendental moonshine\" has, after all, led to nothing.  The only\ndifference between Plato and his scholar lies in the clearness of\nintellectual vision which Plato shows when he expressly maintains in\nplain words that the universals of exact science are not \"in\" our\nsense-perceptions and therefore to be extracted from them by a process\nof abstraction, but are \"apart from\" or \"over\" them, and form an ideal\nsystem of interconnected concepts which the experiences of sense merely\n\"imitate\" or make approximation to.\n\nOne more point remains to be considered to complete our outline of the\nAristotelian theory of knowledge.  The sciences have \"principles\" which\nare discerned to be true by immediate inspection.  But what if one man\nprofesses to see the self-evident truth of such an alleged principle,\nwhile another is doubtful of its truth, or even denies it?  There can be\nno question of silencing the objector by a demonstration, since no\ngenuine simple principle admits of demonstration.  All that can be done,\n_e.g._ if a man doubts whether things equal to the same thing are equal\nto one another, or whether the law of contradiction is true, is to\nexamine the consequences of a denial of the axiom and to show that they\ninclude some which are false, or which your antagonist at least\nconsiders false.  In this way, by showing the falsity of consequences\nwhich follow from the denial of a given \"principle,\" you indirectly\nestablish its truth.  Now reasoning of this kind differs from \"science\"\nprecisely in the point that you take as your major premiss, not what you\nregard as true, but the opposite thesis of your antagonist, which you\nregard as false.  Your object is not to prove a true conclusion but to\nshow your opponent that _his_ premisses lead to false conclusions.  This\nis \"dialectical\" reasoning in Aristotle's sense of the word, _i.e._\nreasoning not from your own but from some one else's premisses.  Hence\nthe chief philosophical importance which Aristotle ascribes to\n\"dialectic\" is that it provides a method of defending the undemonstrable\naxioms against objections.  Dialectic of this kind became highly\nimportant in the mediaeval Aristotelianism of the schoolmen, with whom\nit became a regular method, as may be seen _e.g._ in the _Summa_ of St.\nThomas, to begin their consideration of a doctrine by a preliminary\nrehearsal of all the arguments they could find or devise against the\nconclusion they meant to adopt. Thus the first division of any article\nin the _Summa Theologiae_ of Thomas is regularly constituted by\narguments based on the premisses of actual or possible antagonists, and\nis strictly dialectical.  (To be quite accurate Aristotle should, of\ncourse, have observed that this dialectical method of defending a\nprinciple becomes useless in the case of a logical axiom which is\npresupposed by all deduction.  For this reason Aristotle falls into\nfallacy when he tries to defend the law of contradiction by dialectic.\nIt is true that if the law be denied, then any and every predicate may\nbe indifferently ascribed to any subject. But until the law of\ncontradiction has been admitted, you have no right to regard it as\nabsurd to ascribe all predicates indiscriminately to all subjects.\nThus, it is only assumed laws which are _not_ ultimate laws of logic\nthat admit of dialectical justification.  If a truth is so ultimate that\nit has either to be recognised by direct inspection or not at all, there\ncan be no arguing at all with one who cannot or will not see it.)\n\n\n\n\n                             *CHAPTER III*\n\n                           *FIRST PHILOSOPHY*\n\n\nFirst Philosophy is defined by Aristotle as a \"science which considers\nWhat Is simply in its character of Being, and the properties which it\nhas as such.\"  That there is, or ought to be, such a science is urged on\nthe ground that every \"special\" science deals only with some restricted\ndepartment of what is, and thus considers its subject-matter not\nuniversally in its character of being, or being real, but as determined\nby some more special condition.  Thus, First Philosophy, the science\nwhich attempts to discover the most ultimate reasons of, or grounds for,\nthe character of things in general cannot be identified with any of the\n\"departmental\" sciences.  The same consideration explains why it is\n\"First Philosophy\" which has to disentangle the \"principles\" of the\nvarious sciences, and defend them by dialectic against those who impugn\nthem.  It is no part of the duty of a geometer or a physicist to deal\nwith objections to such universal principles of reasoning as the law of\ncontradiction.  They may safely assume such principles; if they are\nattacked, it is not by specifically geometrical or physical\nconsiderations that they can be defended.  Even the \"principles of the\nspecial sciences\" have not to be examined and defended by the special\nsciences.  They are the starting-points of the sciences which employ\nthem; these sciences are therefore justified in requiring that they\nshall be admitted as a condition of geometrical, or physical, or\nbiological demonstrations.  If they are called in question, the defence\nof them is the business of logic.\n\nFirst Philosophy, then, is the study of \"What Is simply as such,\" the\nuniversal principles of structure without which there could be no\nordered system of knowable objects.  But the word \"is\" has more than one\nsense.  There are as many modes of being as there are types of\npredication.  \"Substances,\" men, horses, and the like, have their own\nspecific mode of being--they are things; qualities, such as green or\nsweet, have a different mode of being--they are not things, but\n\"affections\" or \"attributes\" of things.  Actions, again, such as\nbuilding, killing, are neither things nor yet \"affections\" of things;\ntheir mode of being is that they are processes which produce or destroy\nthings.  First Philosophy is concerned with the general character of all\nthese modes of being, but it is specially concerned with that mode of\nbeing which belongs to _substances_.  For this is the most primary of\nall modes of being.  We had to introduce a reference to it in our\nattempt to say what the mode of being of qualities and actions is, and\nit would have been the same had our illustrations been drawn from any\nother \"categories.\"  Hence the central and special problem of First\nPhilosophy is to analyse the notion of substance and to show the causes\nof the existence of substances.\n\nNext, we have to note that the word \"substance\" itself has two senses.\nWhen we spoke of substance as one of the categories we were using it in\na secondary sense.  We meant by substances \"horse,\" \"man,\" and the rest\nof the \"real kinds\" which we find in Nature, and try to reproduce in a\nscientific classification.  In this sense of the word \"substances\" are a\nspecial class of _predicates_, as when we affirm of Plato that he is a\nman, or of Bucephalus that he is a horse.  But in the primary sense a\nsubstance means an absolutely individual thing, \"_this_ man,\" or \"_this_\nhorse.\"  We may therefore define primary substances from the logician's\npoint of view by saying that they can be only subjects of predication,\nnever predicates. Or again, it is peculiar to substances, that while\nremaining numerically one a substance admits of incompatible\ndeterminations, as Socrates, remaining one and the same Socrates, is\nsuccessively young and old.  This is not true of \"qualities,\" \"actions,\"\nand the rest.  The same colour cannot be first white and then black; the\nsame act cannot be first bad and then good.  Thus we may say that\nindividual substances are the fixed and permanent factors in the world\nof mutability, the invariants of existence.  Processes go on in them,\nthey run the gamut of changes from birth to decay, processes take place\n_among_ them, they act on and are acted on by one another, they\nfluctuate in their qualities and their magnitude, but so long as a\nsubstance exists it remains numerically one and the same throughout all\nthese changes.  Their existence is the first and most fundamental\ncondition of the existence of the universe, since they are the bearers\nof all qualities, the terms of all relations, and the agents and\npatients in all interaction.\n\nThe point to note is that Aristotle begins his investigation into the\nstructure of What Is and the causes by which it is produced by starting\nfrom the existence of individual things belonging to the physical order\nand perceived by the senses. About any such thing we may ask two\nquestions, (1) into what constituent factors can it be logically\nanalysed? (2) and how has it come to exhibit the character which our\nanalysis shows it to have?  The answer to these questions will appear\nfrom a consideration of two standing antitheses which run through\nAristotle's philosophy, the contrast between Matter and Form, and that\nbetween Potential and Actual, followed by a recapitulation of his\ndoctrine of the Four Causes, or four senses of the word Cause.\n\n*Matter and Form*.--Consider any completely developed individual thing,\nwhether it is the product of human manufacture, as a copper bowl, or of\nnatural reproduction, as an oak-tree or a horse.  We shall see at once\nthat the bowl is like other articles made of the same metal,\ncandlesticks, coal-vases, in being made of the same stuff, and unlike\nthem in having the special shape or structure which renders it fit for\nbeing used as a bowl and not for holding a candle or containing coals.\nSo a botanist or a chemist will tell you that the constituent tissues of\nan oak or horse, or the chemical elements out of which these tissues are\nbuilt up are of the same kind as those of an ash or an ox, but the oak\ndiffers from the ash or the horse from the ox in characteristic\nstructure. We see thus that in any individual thing we can distinguish\ntwo components, the stuff of which it consists--which may be identical\nin kind with the stuff of which things of a very different kind\nconsist--and the structural law of formation or arrangement which is\npeculiar to the \"special\" kind of thing under consideration.  In the\nactual individual thing these two are inseparably united; they do not\nexist side by side, as chemists say the atoms of hydrogen and oxygen do\nin a drop of water; the law of organisation or structure is manifested\nin and through the copper, or the various tissues of the living body.\nAristotle expresses this by saying that you can distinguish two aspects\nin an individual, its Matter, (_hyle, materia_) and its Form (_eidos,\nforma_).  The individual is the matter as organised in accord with a\ndeterminate principle of structure, the form.  Of these terms, the\nformer, _hyle_ (_materia_, matter) means literally timber, and more\nspecifically ship's timbers, and his selection of it to mean what is\nmost exactly rendered by our own word \"stuff\" may perhaps be due to a\nreminiscence of an old Pythagorean fancy which looked on the universe as\na ship.  The word for form is the same as Plato's, and its philosophical\nuses are closely connected with its mathematical sense, \"regular\nfigure,\" also a Pythagorean technicality which still survives in certain\nstereotyped phrases in Euclid.  Aristotle extends the analysis into\nMatter and Form by analogy beyond the range of individual substances to\neverything in which we can distinguish a relatively indeterminate\n\"somewhat\" and a law or type of order and arrangement giving it\ndetermination.  Thus if you consider the relatively fixed or \"formed\"\ncharacter of a man in adult life, we may look upon this character as\nproduced out of the \"raw material\" of tendencies and dispositions, which\nhave received a specific development along definite lines, according to\nthe kind of training to which the mind has been subjected in the\n\"formative\" period of its growth.  We may therefore speak of native\ndisposition as the matter or stuff of which character is made, and the\npractical problem of education is to devise a system of training which\nshall impress on this matter precisely the form required if the grown\nman is to be a good citizen of a good state.  Since a man's character\nitself is not a substance but a complex of habits or fixed ways of\nreacting upon suggestions coming from the world around him, this is a\ngood instance of the extension of the antithesis of Matter and Form\nbeyond the category of substance.  We see then that Matter in the\nAristotelian sense must not be confounded with body; the relatively\nundetermined factor which receives completer determination by the\nstructural law or Form is Matter, whether it is corporeal or not. This\ncomes out with particular clearness in the metaphysical interpretation\nput on the logical process of definition by genus and difference.  When\nI define any real kind by specifying a higher and wider class of which\nit is a sub-kind, and adding the peculiar characteristics which\ndistinguish the sub-kind under consideration from the other sub-kinds of\nthe same genus, the genus may be said to stand to the \"differences\" as\nMatter, the relatively indeterminate, to the Form which gives it its\nstructure.\n\nWe further observe that Matter and Form are strictly correlative.  The\nmatter is called so relatively to the form which gives it further\ndetermination.  When the words are used in their strictest sense, with\nreference to an individual thing, the Form is taken to mean the _last_\ndetermination by which the thing acquires its complete character, and\nthe Matter is that which has yet to receive this last determination.\nThus in the case of a copper globe, the spherical figure is said to be\nits Form, the copper its material.  In the case of the human body, the\nMatter is the various tissues, muscles, bones, skin, &c. But each of\nthese things which are counted as belonging to the Matter of the globe\nor the human body has, according to Aristotle, a development behind it.\nCopper is not an \"element\" but a specific combination of \"elements,\" and\nthe same thing is even more true of the highly elaborate tissues of the\nliving body.  Thus what is Matter relatively to the globe or living body\nis Matter already determined by Form if we consider it relatively to its\nown constituents.  The so-called \"elements\" of Empedocles, earth, water,\nair, fire, are the matter of all chemical compounds, the Form of each\ncompound being its specific law of composition; the immediate or\n\"proximate\" Matter of the tissues of the animal body is, according to\nAristotle's biology, the \"superfluous\" blood of the female parent, out\nof which the various tissues in the offspring are developed, and the\nMatter of this blood is in turn the various substances which are taken\ninto the body of the parent as food and converted by assimilation into\nblood.  Their Matter, once more, is the earth, air, fire, and water of\nwhich they are composed. Thus at every stage of a process of manufacture\nor growth a fresh Form is superinduced on, or developed within, a Matter\nwhich is already itself a combination of Matter and Form relatively to\nthe process by which it has itself been originated. Fully thought out,\nsuch a view would lead to the conclusion that in the end the simple\nultimate matter of all individual things is one and the same throughout\nthe universe, and has absolutely no definite structure at all.  The\nintroduction of Form or determinate structure of any kind would then\nhave to be thought of as coming from an outside source, since\nstructureless Matter cannot be supposed to give itself all sorts of\nspecific determinations, as has been demonstrated in our own times by\nthe collapse of the \"Synthetic Philosophy.\"  Aristotle avoids the\ndifficulty by holding that \"pure Matter\" is a creation of our thought.\nIn actual fact the crudest form in which matter is found is that of the\n\"elements.\"  Since the transmutability of the \"elements\" is an\nindispensable tenet in Aristotle's Physics, we cannot avoid regarding\nearth, water, fire air as themselves determinations by specific Form of\na still simpler Matter, though this \"prime Matter\" \"all alone, before a\nrag of Form is on,\" is never to be found existing in its simplicity.[#]\n\n\n[#] _Hudibras_, Pt. 1, Canto 1, 560.\n\n\"He had First Matter seen undressed;\nHe took her naked all alone,\nBefore one rag of Form was on.\"\n\n\n*The Potential and the Actual*.--So far we have been looking at the\nanalysis of the individual thing, as the current jargon puts it,\nstatically; we have arrived at the antithesis of Matter and Form by\ncontrasting an unfinished condition of anything with its finished\ncondition.  But we may study the same contrast dynamically, with special\nreference to the process of making or growth by which the relatively\nundetermined or unfinished becomes determined or finished.  The contrast\nof Matter with Form then passes into the contrast between Potentiality\nand Actuality.  What this antithesis means we can best see from the case\nof the growth of a living organism. Consider the embryos of two animals,\nor the seeds of two plants.  Even a botanist or a physiologist may be\nunable to pronounce with certainty on the species to which the germ\nsubmitted to him belongs, and chemical analysis may be equally at a\nloss.  Even at a later stage of development, the embryo of one\nvertebrate animal may be indistinguishable from that of another.  Yet it\nis certain that one of two originally indistinguishable germs will grow\ninto an oak and the other into an elm, or one into a chimpanzee and the\nother into a man. However indistinguishable, they therefore may be said\nto have different latent tendencies or possibilities of development\nwithin them.  Hence we may say of a given germ, \"though this is not yet\nactually an oak, it is potentially an oak,\" meaning not merely that, if\nuninterfered with, it will in time be an oak, but also that by no\ninterference can it be made to grow into an elm or a beech.  So we may\nlook upon all processes of production or development as processes by\nwhich what at first possessed only the tendency to grow along certain\nlines or to be worked up into a certain form, has become actually\nendowed with the character to which it possessed the tendency.  The\nacorn becomes in process of time an actual oak, the baby an actual man,\nthe copper is made into an actual vase, right education brings out into\nactive exercise the special capacities of the learner.  Hence the\ndistinction between Matter and Form may also be expressed by saying that\nthe Matter is the persistent underlying _substratum_ in which the\ndevelopment of the Form takes place, or that the individual when finally\ndetermined by the Form is the Actuality of which the undeveloped Matter\nwas the Potentiality.  The process of conception, birth, and growth to\nmaturity in Nature, or of the production of a finished article by the\n\"arts\" whose business it is to \"imitate\" Nature, may be said to be one\nof continuous advance towards the actual embodiment of a Form, or law of\norganisation, in a Matter having the latent potentiality of developing\nalong those special lines.  When Aristotle is speaking most strictly he\ndistinguishes the process by which a Form is realised, which he calls\nEnergeia, from the manifestation of the realised Form, calling the\nlatter Entelechy (literally \"finished\" or \"completed\" condition).\nOften, however, he uses the word Energeia more loosely for the actual\nmanifestation of the Form itself, and in this he is followed by the\nscholastic writers, who render Energeia by _actus_ or _actus purus_.\n\nOne presupposition of this process must be specially noted. It is not an\nunending process of development of unrealised capacities, but always has\nan End in the perfectly simple sense of a last stage.  We see this best\nin the case of growth. The acorn grows into the sapling and the sapling\ninto the oak, but there is nothing related to the oak as the oak is to\nthe sapling.  The oak does not grow into something else.  The process of\ndevelopment from potential to actual in this special case comes to an\nend with the emergence of the mature oak. In the organic world the end\nor last state is recognised by the fact that the organism can now\nexercise the power of reproducing its like.  This tendency of organic\nprocess to culminate in a last stage of complete maturity is the key to\nthe treatment of the problem of the \"true end\" of life in Aristotle's\n_Ethics_.\n\n*The Four Causes*.--The conception of the world involved in these\nantitheses of Form and Matter, Potential and Actual, finds its fullest\nexpression in Aristotle's doctrine of the Four Causes or conditions of\nthe production of things.  This doctrine is looked on by Aristotle as\nthe final solution of the problem which had always been the central one\nfor Greek philosophy, What are the causes of the world-order?  All the\nprevious philosophies he regards as inadequate attempts to formulate the\nanswer to this question which is only given completely by his own\nsystem.  Hence the doctrine requires to be stated with some fullness.\nWe may best approach it by starting from the literal meaning of the\nGreek terms _aitia_, _aition_, which Aristotle uses to convey the notion\nof cause.  _Aition_ is properly an adjective used substantially, and\nmeans \"that on which the legal responsibility for a given state of\naffairs can be laid.\" Similarly _aitia_, the substantive, means the\n\"credit\" for good or bad, the legal \"responsibility,\" for an act.  Now\nwhen we ask, \"what is responsible for the fact that such and such a\nstate of things now exists?\" there are four partial answers which may be\ngiven, and each of these corresponds to one of the \"causes.\"  A complete\nanswer requires the enumeration of them all.  We may mention (1) the\n_matter_ or _material_ cause of the thing, (2) the law according to\nwhich it has grown or developed, the _form_ or _formal_ cause, (3) the\nagent with whose initial impulse the development began--the\n\"starting-point of the process,\" or, as the later Aristotelians call it,\nthe _efficient_ cause, (4) the completed result of the whole process,\nwhich is present in the case of human manufacture as a preconceived idea\ndetermining the maker's whole method of handling his material, and in\norganic development in Nature as implied in and determining the\nsuccessive stages of growth--the _end_ or _final_ cause.  If any one of\nthese had been different, the resultant state of things would also have\nbeen different.  Hence all four must be specified in completely\naccounting for it.  Obvious illustrations can be given from artificial\nproducts of human skill, but it seems clear that it was rather\nreflection on the biological process of reproduction and growth which\noriginally suggested the analysis.  Suppose we ask what was requisite in\norder that there should be now an oak on a given spot.  There must have\nbeen (1) a germ from which the oak has grown, and this germ must have\nhad the latent tendencies towards development which are characteristic\nof oaks.  This is the material cause of the oak.  (2) This germ must\nhave followed a definite law of growth; it must have had a tendency to\ngrow in the way characteristic of oaks and to develop the structure of\nan oak, not that of a plane or an ash.  This is form or formal cause.\n(3) Also the germ of the oak did not come from nowhere; it grew on a\nparent oak. The parent oak and its acorn-bearing activity thus\nconstitute the _efficient_ cause of the present oak.  (4) And there must\nbe a final stage to which the whole process of growth is relative, in\nwhich the germ or sapling is no longer becoming but is an adult oak\nbearing fresh acorns.  This is the _end_ of the process. One would not\nbe going far wrong in saying that Aristotle's biological cast of thought\nleads him to conceive of this \"end\" in the case of reproduction as a\nsub-conscious purpose, just as the workman's thought of the result to be\nattained by his action forms a conscious directing purpose in the case\nof manufacture.  Both in Nature and in \"art\" the \"form,\" the \"efficient\ncause,\" and the \"end\" tend to coalesce.  Thus in Nature \"a man begets a\nman,\" organic beings give birth to other organic beings of the same\nkind, or, in the technical language of the Aristotelian theory of\nCausation, the efficient cause produces, as the \"end\" of its action, a\nsecond being having the same \"form\" as itself, though realised in\ndifferent \"matter,\" and numerically distinct from itself.  Thus the\nefficient cause (_i.e._ the parent) is a \"form\" realised in matter, and\nthe \"end\" is the same \"form\" realised in other matter.  So in \"products\nof art\" the true \"source of the process\" is the \"form\" the realisation\nof which is the \"end\" or final cause, only with this difference, that as\nefficient cause the \"form\" exists not in the material but by way of\n\"idea\" or \"representation\" in the mind of the craftsman.  A house does\nnot produce another house, but the house as existing in \"idea\" in the\nbuilder's mind sets him at work building, and so produces a\ncorresponding house in brick or stone.  Thus the ultimate opposition is\nbetween the \"cause as matter,\" a passive and inert substratum of change\nand development and the \"formal\" cause which, in the sense just\nexplained, is one with both the \"efficient\" or starting-point, and the\n\"end\" or goal of development.  It will, of course, be seen that\nindividual bearers of \"forms\" are indispensable in the theory; hence the\nnotion of _activity_ is essential to the causal relation. It is a\nrelation between things, not between events.  Aristotle has no sense of\nthe word cause corresponding to Mill's conception of a cause as an event\nwhich is the uniform precursor of another event.\n\nTwo more remarks may be made in this connection.  (1) The prominence of\nthe notion of \"end\" gives Aristotle's philosophy a thorough-going\n\"ideological\" character.  God and Nature, he tells us, do nothing\naimlessly.  We should probably be mistaken if we took this to mean that\n\"God and Nature\" act everywhere with conscious design.  The meaning is\nrather that every natural process has a last stage in which the \"form\"\nwhich was to begin with present in the agent or \"source of change\" is\nfully realised in the matter in which the agent has set up the process\nof change.  The normal thing is _e.g._ for animals to reproduce \"their\nkind\"; if the reproduction is imperfect or distorted, as in monstrous\nbirths, this is an exception due to the occasional presence in \"matter\"\nof imperfections which hinder the course of development, and must be\nregarded as \"contrary to the normal course of Nature.\"  So hybrid\nreproduction is exceptional and \"against Nature,\" and this is shown by\nthe sterility of hybrids, a sort of lesser monstrosity.  Even females,\nbeing \"arrested developments,\" are a sort of still minor deviation from\nprinciple.  (2) It may just be mentioned that Aristotle has a\nclassification of efficient causes under the three heads of Nature,\nIntelligence (or Man), and Chance.  The difference between Nature and\nMan or Intelligence as efficient causes has already been illustrated.\nIt is that in causation by Nature, such as sexual reproduction, or the\nassimilation of nutriment, or the conversion of one element into another\nin which Aristotle believed, the form which is superinduced on the\nmatter by the agent already exists in the agent itself as _its_ form.\nThe oak springs from a parent oak, the conversion of nutriment into\norganic tissue is due to the agency of already existing organic tissue.\nIn the case of human intelligence or art, the \"form\" to be superinduced\nexists in the agent not as _his_ characteristic form, but by way of\nrepresentation, as a contemplated design.  The man who builds a house is\nnot himself a house; the form characteristic of a house is very\ndifferent from that characteristic of a man, but it is present in\ncontemplation to the builder before it is embodied in the actual house.\nA word may be added about the third sort of efficient causality,\ncausation by chance.  This is confined to cases which are exceptions\nfrom the general course of Nature, remarkable coincidences.  It is what\nwe may call \"simulated purposiveness.\"  When something in human affairs\nhappens in a way which subserves the achievement of a result but was not\nreally brought about by any intention to secure the result, we speak of\nit as a remarkable coincidence.  Thus it would be a coincidence if a man\nshould be held to ransom by brigands and his best friend should, without\nknowing anything of the matter, turn up on the spot with the means of\nransoming him. The events could not have happened more opportunely if\nthey had been planned, and yet they were not planned but merely fell out\nso: and since such a combination of circumstances simulating design is\nunusual, it is not proper to say that the events happened \"in the course\nof Nature.\"  We therefore say it happened by chance.  This doctrine of\nchance has its significance for mediaeval Ethics.  In an age when the\nProtestant superstition that worldly success is proof of nearness to God\nhad not yet been invented, the want of correspondence between men's\n\"deserts\" and their prosperity was accounted for by the view that the\ndistribution of worldly goods is, as a rule, the work of Fortune or\nChance in the Aristotelian sense; that is, it is due to special\ncoincidences which may look like deliberate design but are not really\nso.  (See the elaborate exposition of this in Dante, _Inferno_, vii.\n67-97.)\n\n*Motion*.--We have seen that causation, natural or artificial, requires\nthe production in a certain \"matter\" of a certain \"form\" under the\ninfluence of a certain \"agent.\"  What is the character of the process\nset up by the agent in the matter and culminating in the appearance of\nthe form?  Aristotle answers that it is Motion (_kinesis_).  The effect\nof the agent on the matter is to set up in it a motion which ends in its\nassuming a definite form.  The important point to be noted here is that\nAristotle regards this motion as falling wholly within the matter which\nis to assume the form.  It is not necessary that the agent should itself\nbe in motion, but only that it should induce motion in something else.\nThus in all cases of intentional action the ultimate efficient cause is\nthe \"idea of the result to be attained,\" but this idea does not move\nabout.  By its presence to the mind it sets something else (the members\nof the body) moving.  This conception of an efficient cause which, not\nmoving itself, by its mere presence induces movement in that to which it\nis present, is of the highest importance in Aristotle's theology.  Of\ncourse it follows that since the motion by which the transition from\npotentiality to actuality is achieved falls wholly within the matter\nacted upon, Aristotle is not troubled with any of the questions as to\nthe way in which motion can be transferred from one body to another\nwhich were so much agitated in the early days of the modern mechanical\ninterpretation of natural processes. Aristotle's way of conceiving\nNature is thoroughly non-mechanical, and approximates to what would now\nbe called the ascription of vital or quasi-vital characteristics to the\ninorganic.  As, in the causality of \"art\" the mere presence of the\n\"form\" to be embodied in a given material to the mind of the craftsman\nbrings about and directs the process of manufacture, so in some\nanalogous fashion the presence of an efficient cause in Nature to that\non which it works is thought of as itself constituting the \"efficiency\"\nof the cause.  As Lotze phrases it, things \"take note of\" one another's\ncompresence in the universe, or we might say the efficient cause and\nthat on which it exercises its efficiency are _en rapport_.  \"Matter\" is\nsensitive to the presence of the \"efficient cause,\" and in response to\nthis sensitivity, puts forth successive determinations, expands its\nlatent tendencies on definite lines.\n\nThe name \"motion\" has a wider sense for Aristotle than it has for\nourselves.  He includes under the one common name all the processes by\nwhich things come to be what they are or cease to be what they have\nbeen.  Thus he distinguishes the following varieties of \"motion\":\n_generation_ (the coming of an individual thing into being), with its\nopposite _decay_ or _corruption_ (the passing of a thing out of being),\n_alteration_ (change of _quality_ in a thing), _augmentation_ and\n_diminution_ (change in the _magnitude_ of a thing), _motion through\nspace_ (of which latter he recognises two sub-species, rectilinear\n_transference_ and _rotation_ in a circular orbit about an axis).  It is\nthis last variety, motion through space, which is the most fundamental\nof all, since its occurrence is involved in that of any of the other\ntypes of process mentioned, though Aristotle does not hold the\nthorough-going mechanical view that the other processes are only\napparent, and that, as we should put it, qualitative change is a mere\ndisguise which mechanical motion wears for our senses.\n\n*The Eternity of Motion*.--Certain very important consequences follow\nfrom the conception of efficient causation which we have been\ndescribing.  Aristotle has no sympathy with the \"evolutionist\" views\nwhich had been favoured by some of his predecessors.  According to his\ntheory of organic generation, \"it takes a man to beget a man \"; where\nthere is a baby, there must have been a father.  Biological kinds\nrepresenting real clefts in Nature, the process of the production of a\nyoung generation by an already adult generation must be thought of as\nwithout beginning and without end.  There can be no natural \"evolution\"\nof animals of one species from individuals of a different kind.  Nor\ndoes it occur to Aristotle to take into account the possibility of\n\"Creationism,\" the sudden coming into being of a fully fledged first\ngeneration at a stroke.  This possibility is excluded by the doctrine\nthat the \"matter\" of a thing must exist beforehand as an indispensable\ncondition of the production of that thing.  Every baby, as we said, must\nhave had a father, but that father must also have been a baby before he\nwas a full-grown man.  Hence the perpetuation of unchanging species must\nbe without beginning and without end. And it is implied that all the\nvarious processes, within and without the organism, apart from which its\nlife could not be kept up, must be equally without beginning and without\nend.  The \"cosmos,\" or orderly world of natural processes, is strictly\n\"eternal\"; \"motion\" is everlasting and continuous, or unbroken.  Even\nthe great Christian theologians who built upon Aristotle could not\nabsolutely break with him on this point.  St. Thomas, though obliged to\nadmit that the world was actually created a few thousand years before\nhis own time, maintains that this can only be known to be true from\nrevelation, philosophically it is equably tenable that the world should\nhave been \"created from all eternity.\"  And it is the general doctrine\nof scholasticism that the expression \"creation\" only denotes the\nabsolute dependence of the world on God for its being.  When we say \"God\ncreated the world out of nothing,\" we mean that He did not make it out\nof pre-existing matter, that it depends for its being on Him only; the\nexpression is purely negative in its import.\n\n*God*.--With the doctrine of the eternity of the world and the processes\nwhich make up its life we come close to the culminating theory of\nAristotelian First Philosophy, its doctrine of God, as the eternal,\nunchanging source of all change, movement, and process.  All motion is a\nprocess within matter by which the forms latent in it are brought into\nactual manifestation. And the process only takes place in the presence\nof an adequate efficient cause or source of motion.  Hence the eternity\nof natural processes involves the existence of one or more eternal\nsources of motion.  For, if we do not admit the existence of an\nunoriginated and ever-present source or sources of motion, our only\nalternative is to hold that the world-process is due to a series of\nsources of motion existing successively. But such a view would leave the\nunity and unbroken continuity of the world-process unaccounted for.  It\nwould give us a succession of processes, temporally contiguous, not one\nunbroken process.  Hence we argue from the continuity of motion to its\ndependence on a source or sources which are permanent and present\nthroughout the whole everlasting world-process.  And when we come to the\nquestion whether there is only one such ultimate source of movement for\nthe whole universe, or several, Aristotle's answer is that the supreme\n\"Unmoved Mover\" is one.  One is enough for the purpose, and the law of\nparcimony forbids us to assume the superfluous.  This then is the\nAristotelian conception of God and God's relation to the world.  God is\nthe one supreme unchanging being to whose presence the world responds\nwith the whole process of cosmic development, the ultimate educer of the\nseries of \"forms\" latent in the \"matter\" of the world into actual\nmanifestation.  Standing, as He does, outside the whole process which by\nHis mere presence He initiates in Nature, He is not himself a composite\nof \"form\" and \"matter,\" as the products of development are. He is a pure\nindividual \"form\" or \"actuality,\" with no history of gradual development\nbehind it.  Thus He is a purely immaterial being, indispensable to the\nworld's existence but transcending it and standing outside it.  _How_\nHis presence inspires the world to move Aristotle tries to explain by\nthe metaphor of appetition.  Just as the good I desire and conceive,\nwithout itself \"moving\" \"moves\" my appetition, so God moves the universe\nby being its good.  This directly brings about a uniform unbroken\nrotation of the whole universe round its axis (in fact, the alternation\nof day and night).  And since this rotation is communicated from the\noutermost \"sphere\" of heaven to all the lesser \"spheres\" between it and\nthe immovable centre, the effects of God's presence are felt\nuniversally.  At the same time, we must note that though God is the\nsupreme Mover of the Universe, He is not regarded by Aristotle as its\nCreator, even in the sense in which creation can be reconciled with the\neternity of the world.  For the effect of God's presence is simply to\nlead to the development of \"form\" in an already existing \"matter.\"\nWithout God there could be no \"form\" or order in things, not even as\nmuch as is implied in the differentiation of matter into the four\n\"elements,\" yet \"primary matter\" is no less than God a precondition of\nall that happens.\n\nIt is characteristic of Aristotle that his God is as far from\ndischarging the functions of a Providence as He is from being a Creator.\nHis \"activity\" is not, as Plato had made it, that of the great \"Shepherd\nof the sheep.\"  As far as the world is concerned, God's only function is\nto be there to move its appetition.  For the rest, the unbroken activity\nof this life is directed wholly inward.  Aristotle expressly calls it an\n\"activity of immobility.\"  More precisely, he tells us, it is activity\nof thought, exercised unbrokenly and everlastingly upon the only object\nadequate to exercise God's contemplation, Himself. His life is one of\neverlasting _self_-contemplation or \"thinking of thought itself.\"  Like\nall unimpeded exercise of activity, it is attended by pleasure, and as\nthe activity is continuous, so the pleasure of it is continuous too.  At\nour best, when we give ourselves up to the pure contemplative activity\nof scientific thought or aesthetic appreciation, we enter for a while\ninto this divine life and share the happiness of God.  But that is a\ntheme for our chapter on the _Ethics_.\n\nIt is a far cry from this conception of a God untroubled by care for a\nworld to which He is only related as the object of its aspiration to the\nGod who cares even for the fall of the sparrow and of whom it is\nwritten, _Sic Deus dilexit mundum_, but it was the standing task of the\nphilosophical theologians of the Middle Ages to fuse the two\nconceptions.  Plato's God, who, if not quite the Creator, is the \"Father\nand Fashioner\" of us all, and keeps providential watch over the world He\nhas fashioned, would have lent Himself better to their purposes, but\nPlato was held by the mediaeval church to have denied the resurrection\nof the body.  The combination of Aristotle's Theism with the Theism of\nearly Christianity was effected by exquisitely subtle logical devices,\nbut even in St. Thomas one cannot help seeing the seams.\n\nNor can one help seeing in Aristotle's own doctrine the usual want of\ncoherence between an initial anti-Platonic bias and a final reversion to\nthe very Platonic positions Aristotle is fond of impugning.  We are told\nat the outset that the Platonic \"separate forms\" are empty names, and\nthat the real individual thing is always a composite of matter and a\nform which only exists \"in matter.\"  We find in the end that the source\nof the whole process by which \"matter\" becomes imbued with \"form\" is a\nbeing which is \"pure\" form and stands outside the whole development\nwhich its presence sets up. And the issue of Aristotle's warning against\n\"poetic metaphors\" is the doctrine that God moves the world by being\n\"the object of the world's desire.\"\n\n\n\n\n                              *CHAPTER IV*\n\n                               *PHYSICS*\n\n\nThere is no part of Aristotle's system which has been more carefully\nthought out than his Physics; at the same time it is almost wholly on\naccount of his physical doctrines that his long ascendancy over thought\nis so much to be regretted.  Aristotle's qualifications as a man of\nscience have been much overrated. In one department, that of descriptive\nnatural history, he shows himself a master of minute and careful\nobservation who could obtain unqualified praise from so great a\nnaturalist as Darwin. But in Astronomy and Physics proper his\ninferiority in mathematical thinking and his dislike for mechanical ways\nof explaining facts put him at a great disadvantage, as compared with\nPlato and Plato's Pythagorean friends.  Thus his authority was for\ncenturies one of the chief influences which prevented the development of\nAstronomy on right lines.  Plato had himself both taught the mobility of\nthe earth and denied correctly that the earth is at the centre of the\nuniverse, and the \"Copernican\" hypothesis in Astronomy probably\noriginated in the Academy.  Aristotle, however, insists on the central\nposition of the earth, and violently attacks Plato for believing in its\nmotion. It is equally serious that he insists on treating the so-called\n\"four elements\" as ultimately unanalysable forms of matter, though Plato\nhad not only observed that so far from being the ABC (_stoicheia_ or\n_elementa_, literally, letters of the alphabet) of Nature they do not\ndeserve to be called even \"syllables,\" but had also definitely put\nforward the view that it is the geometrical structure of the\n\"corpuscles\" of body upon which sensible qualities depend.  It is on\nthis doctrine, of course, that all mathematical physics rests.\nAristotle reverts to the older theory that the differences between one\n\"element\" and another are qualitative differences of a sensible kind.\nEven in the biological sciences Aristotle shows an unfortunate proneness\nto disregard established fact when it conflicts with the theories for\nwhich he has a personal liking.  Thus, though the importance of the\nbrain as the central organ of the sensori-motor system had been\ndiscovered in the late sixth or early fifth century by the physician\nAlemacon of Crotona, and taught by the great Hippocrates in the fifth\nand by Plato in the fourth century, Aristotle's prejudices in favour of\nthe doctrines of a different school of biologists led him to revert to\nthe view that it is the heart which is the centre of what we now call\nthe \"nervous system.\"  It is mainly on account of these reactionary\nscientific views that he was attacked in the early seventeenth century\nby writers like our own Francis Bacon, who found in veneration for\nAristotle one of the chief hindrances to the free development of natural\nscience.  The same complaints had been made long before by critics\nbelonging to the Platonic Academy.  It is a Platonist of the time of\nMarcus Aurelius who sums up a vigorous attack on the Aristotelian\nastronomy by the remark that Aristotle never understood that the true\ntask of the physicist is not to prescribe laws to Nature, but to learn\nfrom observation of the facts what the laws followed by Nature are.\n\nIn determining the scope of Physics, we have to begin by considering\nwhat is the special characteristic of things produced by Nature as\ncontrasted with those produced by \"art.\"  The obvious distinction,\nintimated by the very etymology of the word \"Nature\" (_physis_,\nconnected with _phyesthai_, to grow, to be born, as _natura_ is with\n_nasci_), is that \"what is by Nature\" is born and grows, whereas what is\nas a result of artifice is _made_.  The \"natural\" may thus be said to\nconsist of living bodies and of their constituent parts.  Hence\ninorganic matter also is included in \"Nature,\" on the ground that living\ntissue can be analysed back into compounds of the \"elements.\"  Now\nthings which are alive and grow are distinguished from things which are\nmade by \"a source of motion and quiescence within themselves\"; all of\nthem exhibit motions, changes of quality, processes of growth and\ndecline which are initiated from within.  Hence Nature may be defined as\nthe totality of things which have a source of motion internal to\nthemselves and of the constituent parts of such things.  Nature then\ncomprises all beings capable of spontaneous change. Whatever either does\nnot change at all, or only changes in consequence of external\ninfluences, is excluded from Nature.\n\nThus the fundamental fact everywhere present in Nature is \"change,\"\n\"process,\" \"motion.\"  Since motion in the literal sense of change of\nposition is involved as a condition of every such process, and such\nmotion requires space through which to move and time to move in, the\ndoctrine of space and time will also form part of Physics.  Hence a\ngreat part of Aristotle's special lectures on Physics is occupied with\ndiscussion of the nature of space and time, and of the continuity which\nwe must ascribe to them if the \"continuous motion\" on which the unbroken\nlife of the universe depends is to be real Aristotle knows nothing of\nthe modern questions whether space and time are \"real\" or only\n\"phenomenal,\" whether they are \"objective\" or \"subjective.\"  Just as he\nsimply assumes that bodies are things that really exist, whether we\nhappen to perceive them or not, so he assumes that the space and time in\nwhich they move are real features of a world that does not depend for\nits existence on our perceiving it.\n\nHis treatment of space is singularly _naif_.  He conceives it as a sort\nof vessel, into which you can pour different liquids. Just as the same\npot may hold first wine and then water, so, if you can say, \"there was\nwater here, but now there is air here,\" this implies the existence of a\nreceptacle which once held the water, but now holds the air.  Hence a\njug or pot may be called a \"place that can be carried about,\" and space\nor place may be called \"an immovable vessel.\"  Hence the \"place\" of a\nthing may be defined as the boundary, or inner surface, of the body\nwhich immediately surrounds the thing. It follows from this that there\ncan be no empty space.  In the last resort, \"absolute space\" is the\nactual surface of the outermost \"heaven\" which contains everything else\nin itself but is not contained in any remoter body.  Thus all things\nwhatever are \"in\" this \"heaven.\"  But it is not itself \"in\" anything\nelse.  In accord with the standing Greek identification of determinate\ncharacter with limitation, Aristotle holds that this outermost heaven\nmust be at a limited distance from us.  Actual space is thus finite in\nthe sense that the volume of the universe could be expressed as a finite\nnumber of cubic miles or yards, though, since it must be \"continuous,\"\nit is infinitely divisible.  However often you subdivide a length, an\narea, or a volume, you will always be dividing it into lesser lengths,\n&c., which can once more be divided.  You will never by division come to\n\"points,\" _i.e._ mere positions without magnitude of divisibility.\n\nThe treatment of time is more thoughtful.  Time is inseparably connected\nwith movement or change.  We only perceive that time has elapsed when we\nperceive that change has occurred. But time is not the same as change.\nFor change is of different and incommensurate kinds, change of place,\nchange of colour, &c.; but to take up time is common to all these forms\nof process.  And time is not the same as motion.  For there are\ndifferent rates of speed, but the very fact that we can compare these\ndifferent velocities implies that there are not different velocities of\n_time_.  Time then is that in terms of which we _measure_ motion, \"the\nnumber of motion in respect of before and after,\" _i.e._ it is that by\nwhich we estimate the _duration_ of processes.  Thus _e.g._ when we\nspeak of _two_ minutes, _two_ days, _two_ months as required for a\ncertain process to be completed, we are counting something.  This\nsomething is time. It does not seem to occur to Aristotle that this\ndefinition implies that there are indivisible bits of time, though he\nquite correctly states the incompatible proposition that time is \"made\nup of successive _nows_,\" _i.e._ moments which have no duration at all,\nand can no more be counted than the points on a straight line.  He\nrecognises of course that the \"continuity\" of motion implies that of\ntime as well as of space.  Since, however, \"continuity\" in his language\nmeans the same thing as indefinite divisibility, it ought not to be\npossible for him to regard time as \"made up of _nows_\"; time, like\nlinear extension, ought for him to be a \"length of\" something.\n\n*The Continuous Motion and the \"Spheres.\"*--The continuous world-process\ndepends upon a continuous movement set up in the universe as a whole by\nthe presence of an everlasting and unchangeable \"First Mover,\" God.\nFrom the self-sameness of God, it follows that this most universal of\nmovements must be absolutely uniform.  Of what precise kind can such a\nmovement be?  As the source of the movement is one, and the object moved\nis also one--viz. the compass of the \"heaven,\" the movement of the\n_primum mobile_ or \"first moved\"--the object immediately stimulated to\nmotion by God's presence to it, must be mechanically simple.  Now\nAristotle, mistakenly, held that there are two forms of movement which\nare simple and unanalysable, motion of translation along a straight\nline, and motion of rotation round an axis.  He is at pains to argue\nthat rectilinear motion, which we easily discover to be that\ncharacteristic of bodies near the earth's surface when left to\nthemselves, cannot be the kind of movement which belongs to the \"heaven\"\nas a whole.  For continuous rectilinear movement in the same direction\ncould not go on for ever on his assumption that there is no space\noutside the \"heaven,\" which is itself at a finite distance from us.  And\nmotion to and fro would not be unbroken, since Aristotle argues that\nevery time a moving body reached the end of its path, and the sense of\nits movement was reversed, it would be for two consecutive moments in\nthe same place, and therefore at rest.  Reversal of sense would imply a\ndiscontinuity. Hence he decides that the primary unbroken movement must\nbe the rotation of the \"first moved\"--that is, the heaven containing the\nfixed stars--round its axis.  This is the only movement which could go\non for ever at a uniform rate and in the same sense.  Starting with the\nconviction that the earth is at rest in the centre of the universe, he\ninevitably accounts for the alternation of day and night as the effect\nof such a revolution of the whole universe round an axis passing through\nthe centre of the earth.  The universe is thus thought of as bounded by\na spherical surface, on the concave side of which are the fixed stars,\nwhich are therefore one and all at the same distance from us.  This\nsphere, under the immediate influence of God, revolves on its axis once\nin twenty-four hours, and this period of revolution is absolutely\nuniform.  Next the apparently irregular paths of the \"planets\" known to\nAristotle (_i.e._ the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter,\nSaturn) are resolved into combinations of similar uniform rotations,\neach planet having as many \"spheres\" assigned to it as are requisite for\nthe analysis of its apparent path into perfectly circular elementary\nmotions.  Altogether Aristotle holds that fifty-four such rotating\nspheres are required over and above the \"first moved\" itself, whose\nrotation is, of course, communicated to all the lesser \"spheres\"\nincluded within it.  As in the case of the \"first moved,\" the uniform\nunceasing rotation of each \"sphere\" is explained by the influence on it\nof an unchanging immaterial \"form,\" which is to its own \"sphere\" what\nGod is to the universe as a whole.  In the Aristotelianism of the\nmediaeval church these pure forms or intelligences which originate the\nmovements of the various planetary spheres are naturally identified with\nangels.  It is _e.g._ to the angelic intelligences which \"move\" the\nheaven of Venus, which comes third in order counting outward from the\nearth, that Dante addresses his famous Canzone, _Voi ch' intendendo il\nterzo del movete_.  The mediaeval astronomy, however, differs in two\nimportant respects from that of Aristotle himself.  (1) The number of\n\"spheres\" is different.  Increasing knowledge of the complexity of the\npaths of the planets showed that if their paths are to be analysed into\ncombinations of circular motions, fifty-four such rotations must be an\naltogether inadequate number.  Aristotle's method of analysis of the\nheavenly movements was therefore combined with either or both of two\nothers originated by pure astronomers who sat loose to metaphysics.  One\nof these methods was to account for a planet's path by the introduction\nof _epicycles_.  The planet was thought of not as fixed at a given point\non its principal sphere, but as situated on the circumference of a\nlesser sphere which has its centre at a fixed point of the principal\nsphere and rotates around an axis passing through this centre.  If need\nwere, this type of hypothesis could be further complicated by imagining\nany number of such epicycles within epicycles.  The other method was the\nemployment of \"eccentrics,\" _i.e._ circular movements which are\ndescribed not about the common centre of the earth and the universe, but\nabout some point in its neighbourhood.  By combinations of epicycles and\neccentrics the mediaeval astronomers contrived to reduce the number of\nprincipal spheres to _one_ for each planet, the arrangement we find in\nDante.  (2) Also real or supposed astronomical perturbations unknown to\nAristotle led some mediaeval theorists to follow the scheme devised by\nAlphonso the Wise of Castille, in which further spheres are inserted\nbetween that of Saturn, the outermost planet, and the \"first moved.\"  In\nDante, we have, excluding the \"empyrean\" or immovable heaven where God\nand the blessed are, nine \"spheres,\" one for each of the planets, one\nfor the fixed stars, and one for the \"first moved,\" which is now\ndistinguished from the heaven of the stars.  In Milton, who adopts the\n\"Alphonsine\" scheme, we have further a sphere called the \"second\nmovable\" or \"crystalline\" introduced between the heaven of the fixed\nstars and the \"first moved,\" to account for the imaginary phenomenon of\n\"trepidation.\"[#]  In reading Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton, we have\nalways to remember that none of these reproduces the Aristotelian\ndoctrine of the \"spheres\" accurately; their astronomy is an amalgam of\nAristotle, Ptolemy, and Hipparchus.\n\n\n[#] _Paradise Lost_, iii. 481.\n\n\"They pass the planets seven, and pass the fixed,\nAnd that crystalline sphere whose balance weighs\nThe trepidation talked, and that first moved.\"\n\n\nSo far, the doctrine of the fifty-five \"spheres\" might be no more than a\nlegitimate mathematical fiction, a convenient device for analysing the\ncomplicated apparent movements of the heavenly bodies into circular\ncomponents.  This was originally the part played by \"spheres\" in ancient\nastronomical theory, and it is worth while to be quite clear about the\nfact, as there is a mistaken impression widely current to-day that\nAristotle's astronomy is typical of Greek views in general.  The truth\nis that it is peculiar to himself.  The origin of the theory was\nAcademic. Plato proposed to the Academy as a subject of inquiry, to\ndevise such a mathematical analysis of astronomical motions as will best\n\"save the appearances,\" _i.e._ will most simply account for the apparent\npaths of the planets.  The analysis of these paths into resultants of\nseveral rotations was offered as a solution by the astronomer Eudoxus of\nCnidus.  So far, the \"spheres,\" then, were a mere mathematical\nhypothesis.  What Aristotle did, and it is perhaps the most retrograde\nstep ever taken in the history of a science, was to convert the\nmathematical hypothesis into physical fact.  The \"spheres\" become with\nhim real bodies, and as none of the bodies we are familiar with exhibit\nany tendency to rotate in circles when left to themselves, Aristotle was\nforced to introduce into Physics the disastrous theory, which it was a\ngreat part of Galileo's life-work to destroy, that the stuff of which\nthe spheres are made is a \"fifth body,\" different from the \"elements\" of\nwhich the bodies among which we live are made.  Hence he makes an\nabsolute distinction between two kinds of matter, \"celestial matter,\"\nthe \"fifth body,\" and \"terrestrial\" or \"elementary\" matter.  The\nfundamental difference is that \"terrestrial\" or \"elementary\" matter,\nleft to itself, follows a rectilinear path, \"celestial\" matter rotates,\nbut it is further inferred from the supposed absolute uniformity of the\ncelestial movements that \"celestial matter\" is simple, uncompounded,\nincapable of change, and consequently that no new state of things can\never arise in the heavens.  The spheres and planets have always been and\nwill always be exactly as they are at the present moment.  Mutability is\nconfined to the region of \"terrestrial\" or \"elementary\" matter, which\nonly extends as far as the orbit of the moon, the \"lowest of the\ncelestial bodies,\" because it is only \"terrestrial\" things which are, as\nwe should say, chemical compounds.  This is the doctrine which Galileo\nhas in mind when he dwells on such newly-discovered astronomical facts\nas the existence of sun-spots and variable stars, and the signs of\nirregularity presented by the moon's surface.  The distinction is\npeculiar to Aristotle.  No one before him had ever thought of supposing\nthe heavenly bodies to be made of any materials other than those of\nwhich \"bodies terrestrial\" are made.  In the Academic attack on\nAristotle's science of which we have already spoken the two points\nsingled out for reprobation are (1) his rejection of the principle that\nall moving bodies, left to themselves, follow a rectilinear path, and\n(2) his denial that the heavenly bodies are made of the same \"elements\"\nas everything else.  (It may just be mentioned in passing that our word\n_quintessence_ gets its sense from the supposed special \"nobility\" of\nthe incorruptible \"fifth body.\")\n\n*Terrestrial Bodies*.--As we have seen already, Aristotle was out of\nsympathy with the tendency to regard the sensible differences between\nbodies as consequences of more ultimate differences in the geometrical\nstructure of their particles.  Hence his whole attitude towards the\nproblems of that branch of natural science which we call physics is\nquite unlike any view to which we are accustomed.  He reverts from the\nmathematical lines of thought current in Plato's Academy to the type of\nview more natural to the \"plain man,\" and, like the earliest\nsixth-century men of science, regards the _qualitative_ differences\nwhich our senses apprehend as fundamental.  Among these, particular\nstress is laid on the difference in sensible temperature (the hot--the\ncold), in saturation (the dry--the moist), and in density (the\ndense--the rare).  If we consider the first two of these oppositions, we\ncan make four binary combinations of the elementary \"opposite\"\ncharacters, viz. hot and dry, hot and moist, cold and moist, cold and\ndry.  These combinations are regarded as corresponding respectively to\nthe sensible characteristics of the four bodies which Empedocles, the\nfather of Greek chemistry, had treated as the ultimate components of\neverything. Fire is hot and dry, air hot and moist, water moist and\ncold, earth cold and dry.  This reflection shows us why Aristotle held\nthat the most rudimentary form in which \"matter\" ever actually exists is\nthat of one of these \"elements.\"  Each of them has _one_ quality in\ncommon with another, and it is in virtue of this that a portion of one\nelement can be assimilated by and transmuted into another, a process\nwhich seems to the untutored eye to be constantly recurring in Nature.\nWe also observe that the order in which the \"elements\" appear, when so\narranged as to form a series in which each term has one quality in\ncommon with each of its neighbours, is also that of their increasing\ndensity.  This would help to make the conception of their\ntransmutability all the more natural, as it suggests that the process\nmay be effected by steady condensation. We must remember carefully that\nfor Aristotle, who denies the possibility of a vacuum, as for the\nmediaeval alchemists, condensation does not mean a mere diminution of\nthe distances between corpuscles which remain unchanged in character,\nbut is a process of real qualitative change in the body which undergoes\nit.  Incidentally we may remark that _all_ changes of quality are\nregarded by Aristotle as stages in a continuous \"movement\" from one\nextreme of a scale to another.  For example, colours, with him as with\nGoethe, form a series of which the \"opposites\" white and black are the\nend-points.  Every other colour is a combination of white and black\naccording to a definite proportion.\n\nThe Aristotelian doctrine of weight was one of the chief obstacles which\nseventeenth-century science had to contend with in establishing correct\nnotions in dynamics.  It is a curious feature of Greek science before\nAristotle that, though the facts connected with gravity were well known,\nno one introduced the notion of weight to account for them.  The\ndifference between heavy bodies and light bodies had been previously\ntreated as secondary for science.  Plato's treatment of the matter is\ntypical of the best fourth-century science.  We must not try to explain\nwhy the heavier bodies tend to move towards the earth's surface by\nsaying that they have a \"downward\" motion; their motion is not downward\nbut \"towards the centre\" (the earth, though not fixed at the centre of\nthe universe, being nearer to it than the rest of the solar and sidereal\nsystem).  Plato then explains the tendency in virtue of which the\nheavier bodies move towards the \"centre\" as an attraction of like for\nlike.  The universal tendency is for smaller masses of \"earth,\" \"water,\"\n\"air,\" \"fire\" to be attracted towards the great aggregations of the same\nmaterials.  This is far from being a satisfactory theory in the light of\nfacts which were not yet known to Plato, but it is on the right lines.\nIt starts from the conception of the facts of gravity as due to an\n\"attractive force\" of some kind, and it has the great merit of bringing\nthe \"sinking\" of stones and the \"rising\" of vapours under the same\nexplanation.\n\nAristotle, though retaining the central idea that a body tends to move\ntowards the region where the great cosmic mass of the same kind is\ncongregated, introduced the entirely incompatible notion of an absolute\ndistinction of \"up\" and \"down.\"  He identified the centre of the\nuniverse with that of the earth, and looked on motion to this centre as\n\"downward.\"  This led him to make a distinction between \"heavy\" bodies,\nwhich naturally tend to move \"down,\" and \"light\" bodies, which tend to\nmove \"up\" away from the centre.  The doctrine works out thus.  The\nheaviest elements tend to be massed together nearest the centre, the\nlightest to be furthest from it. Each element thus has its \"proper\nplace,\" that of water being immediately above earth, that of air next,\nand that of fire furthest from the centre, and nearest to the regions\noccupied by \"celestial matter.\"  (Readers of Dante will recollect the\nascent from the Earthly Paradise through the \"sphere of fire\" with which\nthe _Paradiso_ opens.)\n\nIn its own \"proper region\" no body is heavy or light; as we should say\nany fluid loses its weight when immersed in itself.  When a portion of\nan element is out of its own region and surrounded by the great cosmic\naggregate of another element, either of two cases may occur.  The body\nwhich is \"out of its element\" may be _below_ its proper place, in which\ncase it is \"light\" and tends to move perpendicularly upwards to its\nplace, or it may be _above_ its proper place, and then it is \"heavy\" and\ntends to move perpendicularly \"down\" until it reaches its place.  It was\nthis supposed real distinction between motion \"up\" and motion \"down\"\nwhich made it so hard for the contemporaries of Galileo to understand\nthat an inflated bladder rises for the same reason that a stone sinks.\n\n*Biology*.--Of Aristotle's biology reasons of space forbid us to say\nmuch here.  But a remark or two may be made about his theory of\nreproduction, since it is constantly referred to in much modern\nliterature and has also played its part in theology. An interesting\npoint is the distinction between \"perfect\" and \"imperfect\" animals.\n\"Perfect\" animals are those which can only be reproduced sexually.\nAristotle held, however, that there are some creatures, even among\nvertebrates, which _may_ be produced by the vivifying effect of solar\nheat on decomposing matter, without any parents at all.  Thus\nmalobservation of the facts of putrefaction led to the belief that flies\nand worms are engendered by heat from decaying bodies, and it was even\nthought that frogs and mice are produced in the same way from\nriver-slime.  In this process, the so-called \"aequivocal generation,\"\nsolar heat was conceived as the operative efficient cause which leads to\nthe realisation of an organic \"form\" in the decaying matter.\n\nIn sexual reproduction Aristotle regards the male parent as the agent or\nefficient cause which contributes the element of form and organisation\nto the offspring.  The female parent supplies only the raw material of\nthe new creature, but she supplies the whole of this.  No _material_ is\nsupplied by the male parent to the body of the offspring, a theory which\nSt. Thomas found useful in defending the dogma of the Virgin Birth.\n\n*Psychology*.--Since the mind grows and develops, it comes under the\nclass of things which have a \"source of motion internal to themselves,\"\nand psychology is therefore, for Aristotle, a branch of Physics.  To\nunderstand his treatment of psychological questions we need bear two\nthings in mind. (1) _Psyche_ or \"soul\" means in Greek more than\n\"consciousness\" does to us.  Consciousness is a relatively late and\nhighly developed manifestation of the principle which the Greeks call\n\"soul.\"  That principle shows itself not merely in consciousness but in\nthe whole process of nutrition and growth and the adaptation of motor\nresponse to an external situation. Thus consciousness is a more\nsecondary feature of the \"soul\" in Greek philosophy than in most modern\nthought, which has never ceased to be affected by Descartes' selection\nof \"thought\" as the special characteristic of psychical life.  In common\nlanguage the word _psyche_ is constantly used where we should say \"life\"\nrather than \"soul,\" and in Greek philosophy a work \"on the _Psyche_\"\nmeans what we should call one on \"the principle of life.\"\n\n(2) It is a consequence of this way of thinking of the \"soul\" that the\nprocess of bodily and mental development is regarded by Aristotle as one\nsingle continuous process.  The growth of a man's intellect and\ncharacter by which he becomes a thinker and a citizen is a continuation\nof the process by which his body is conceived and born and passes into\nphysical manhood.  This comes out in the words of the definition of the\nsoul.  \"The soul is the first entelechy (or actual realisation) of a\nnatural organic body.\"  What this means is that the soul stands to the\nliving body as all form realised in matter does to the matter of which\nit is the form, or that the soul is the \"form\" of the body.  What the\n\"organic body\" is to the embryo out of which it has grown, that soul is\nto the body itself.  As the embryo grows into the actual living body, so\nthe living body grows into a body exhibiting the actual directing\npresence of mind.  Aristotle illustrates the relation by the remark that\nif the whole body was one vast eye, seeing would be its soul.  As the\neye is a tool for seeing with, but a living tool which is part of\nourselves, so the body is a like tool or instrument for living with.\nHence we may say of the soul that it is the \"end\" of the body, the\nactivity to which the body is instrumental, as seeing is the \"end\" to\nwhich the eye is instrumental.  But we must note that the soul is called\nonly the \"first\" or initial \"entelechy\" of the body.  The reason is that\nthe mere presence of the soul does not guarantee the full living of the\nlife to which our body is but the instrument.  If we are to _live_ in\nthe fullest sense of the word, we must not merely \"have\" a soul; we\n\"have\" it even in sleep, in ignorance, in folly.  The soul itself needs\nfurther to be educated and trained in intelligence and character, and to\nexercise its intelligence and character efficiently on the problems of\nthought and life.  The mere \"presence\" of soul is only a first step in\nthe progress towards fullness of life.  This is why Aristotle calls the\nsoul the _first_ entelechy of the living body.  The full and final\nentelechy is the life of intelligence and character actively\nfunctioning.\n\nFrom this conception of the soul's relation to the body we see that\nAristotle's \"doctrine of body and mind\" does not readily fall into line\nwith any of the typical theories of our time.  He neither thinks of the\nsoul as a thing acting on the body and acted on by it, nor yet as a\nseries of \"states of mind\" concomitant with certain \"states of body.\"\nFrom his point of view to ask whether soul and body interact, or whether\nthey exhibit \"parallelism,\" would be much the same thing as to ask\nwhether life interacts with the body, or whether there is a\n\"parallelism\" between vital processes and bodily processes.  We must not\nask at all how the body and soul are united.  They are one thing, as the\nmatter and the form of a copper globe are one.  Thus they are in actual\nfact inseparable. The soul is the soul of its body and the body the body\nof its soul. We can only distinguish them by logical analysis, as we can\ndistinguish the copper from the sphericity in the copper globe.\n\n*Grades of Psychical Life*.--If we consider the order of development, we\nfind that some vital activities make their appearance earlier than\nothers, and that it is a universal law that the more highly developed\nactivities always have the less highly developed as their basis and\nprecondition, though the less highly developed may exist apart from the\nmore highly developed.  So we may arrange vital activities in general in\nan ontogenetic order, the order in which they make their appearance in\nthe individual's development.  Aristotle reckons three such stages, the\n\"nutritive,\" the \"sensitive,\" and the \"intelligent.\"  The lowest form in\nwhich life shows itself at all, the level of minimum distinction between\nthe living and the lifeless, is the power to take in nutriment,\nassimilate it, and grow.  In vegetables the development is arrested at\nthis point. With the animals we reach the next highest level, that of\n\"sensitive\" life.  For all animals have at least the sense of touch.\nThus they all show sense-perception, and it is a consequence of this\nthat they exhibit \"appetition,\" the simplest form of conation, and the\nrudiments of feeling and \"temper.\"  For what has sensations can also\nfeel pleasure and pain, and what can feel pleasure and pain can desire,\nsince desire is only appetition of what is pleasant.  Thus in the\nanimals we have the beginnings of cognition, conation, and affective and\nemotional life in general.  And Aristotle adds that locomotion makes its\nappearance at this level; animals do not, like plants, have to trust to\ntheir supply of nutriment coming to them; they can go to it.\n\nThe third level, that of \"intelligence,\" _i.e._ the power to compare,\ncalculate, and reflect, and to order one's life by conscious rule, is\nexhibited by man.  What distinguishes life at this level from mere\n\"sensitive\" life is, on the intellectual side, the ability to cognise\nuniversal truths, on the conative, the power to live by rule instead of\nbeing swayed by momentary \"appetition.\"  The former gives us the\npossibility of science, the latter of moral excellence.[#]\n\n\n[#] _Cf._ Dante's \"Fatti non foste a viver como bruti,\n       Ma per seguir virtute e conosoenza.\"\n\n\n*Sensation*.--Life manifests itself at the animal level on the cognitive\nside as sense-perception, on the conative as appetition or desire, on\nthe affective as feeling of pleasure or pain, and in such simple\nemotional moods as \"temper,\" resentment, longing. Aristotle gives\nsensation a logical priority over the conative and emotional expression\nof \"animal\" life.  To experience appetition or anger or desire you must\nhave an object which you crave for or desire or are angry with, and it\nis only when you have reached the level of presentations through the\nsenses that you can be said to have an object.  Appetition or \"temper\"\nis as real a fact as perception, but you cannot crave for or feel angry\nwith a thing you do not apprehend.\n\nAristotle's definition of sense perception is that it is a \"capacity for\ndiscerning\" or distinguishing between \"the sensible qualities of\nthings.\"  His conception of the process by which the discernment or\ndistinguishing is effected is not altogether happy. In sense-perception\nthe soul \"takes into itself the _form_ of the thing perceived without\nits _matter_, as sealing-wax receives the shape of an iron seal-ring\nwithout the iron.\"  To understand this, we have to remember that for\nAristotle the sensible qualities of the external world, colour, tones,\ntastes, and the rest, are not effects of mechanical stimulation of our\nsense-organs, but real qualities of bodies.  The hardness of iron, the\nredness of a piece of red wax are all primarily \"in\" the iron or the\nwax.  They are \"forms,\" or determinations by definite law, of the\n\"matter\" of the iron or the wax.  This will become clearer if we\nconsider a definite example, the red colour of the wax.  In the wax the\nred colour is a definite combination of the colour-opposites white and\nblack according to a fixed ratio. Now Aristotle's view of the process of\nsense-perception is that when I become aware of the red colour the same\nproportion of white to black which makes the wax red is reproduced in my\norgan of vision; my eye, while I am seeing the red, \"assimilated\" to the\nwax, is itself for the time actually \"reddened.\"  But it does not become\nwax because the red thing I am looking at is a piece of red wax.  The\neye remains a thing composed of living tissues.  This is what is meant\nby saying that in seeing the colours of things the eye receives \"forms\"\nwithout the \"matter\" of the things in which those forms are exhibited.\nThus the process of sense-perception is one in which the organ of sense\nis temporarily assimilated to the thing apprehended in respect of the\nparticular quality cognised by that organ, but in respect of no other.\nAccording to Aristotle this process of \"assimilation\" always requires\nthe presence of a \"medium.\"  If an object is in immediate contact with\nthe eye we cannot see its colour; if it is too near the ear, we do not\ndiscern the note it gives out.  Even in the case of touch and taste\nthere is no immediate contact between the object perceived and the true\norgan of perception.  For in touch the \"flesh\" is not the organ of\napprehension but an integument surrounding it and capable of acting as\nan intermediary between it and things. Thus perception is always\naccomplished by a \"motion\" set up in the \"medium\" by the external\nobject, and by the medium in our sense-organs.  Aristotle thus contrives\nto bring correct apprehension by sense of the qualities of things under\nthe formula of the \"right mean\" or \"right proportion,\" which is better\nknown from the use made of it in the philosopher's theory of conduct.\nThe colour of a surface, the pitch of the note given out by a vibrating\nstring, &c., depend on, and vary with, certain forms or ratios \"in\" the\nsurface or the vibrating string; our correct apprehension of the\nqualities depends on the reproduction of the _same_ ratios in our\nsense-organs, the establishment of the \"right proportion\" in _us_.  That\nthis \"right proportion\" may be reproduced in our own sense-organs it is\nnecessary (1) that the medium should have none of the sensible qualities\nfor the apprehension whereof it serves as medium, _e.g._ the medium in\ncolour-perception must be colourless.  If it had a colour of its own,\nthe \"motion\" set up by the coloured bodies we apprehend would not be\ntransmitted undistorted to our organs; we should see everything through\na coloured haze. It is necessary for the same reason (2) that the\npercipient organ itself, when in a state of quiescence, should possess\nnone of the qualities which can be induced in it by stimulation. The\nupshot of the whole theory is that the sense-organ is \"potentially\" what\nthe sense-quality it apprehends is actually. Actual perceiving is just\nthat special transition from the potential to the actual which results\nin making the organ for the time being _actually_ of the same quality as\nthe object.\n\n*The Common Sensibles and the Common Sense-organ*.--Every sense has a\nrange of qualities connected with it as its special objects.  Colours\ncan only be perceived by the eye, sounds by the ear, and so forth.  But\nthere are certain characters of perceived things which we appear to\napprehend by more than one sense.  Thus we seem to perceive size and\nshape either by touch or by sight, and number by hearing as well, since\nwe can count _e.g._ the strokes of an unseen bell. Hence Aristotle\ndistinguishes between the \"special sensible qualities\" such as colour\nand pitch, and what he calls the \"common sensibles,\" the character of\nthings which can be perceived by more than one organ.  These are\nenumerated as size, form or shape, number, motion (and its opposite\nrest), being. (The addition of this last is, of course, meant to account\nfor our conviction that any perceived colour, taste, or other quality is\na reality and not a delusion.)  The list corresponds very closely with\none given by Plato of the \"things which the mind perceives _by herself\nwithout the help of any organ_,\" _i.e._ of the leading determinations of\nsensible things which are due not to sense but to understanding.  It was\nan unfortunate innovation to regard the discernment of number or\nmovement, which obviously demand intellectual processes such as counting\nand comparison, as performed immediately by \"sense,\" and to assign the\napprehension of number, movement, figure to a central \"organ.\"  This\norgan he finds in the heart.  The theory is that when the \"special\norgans\" of the senses are stimulated, they in turn communicate movements\nto the blood and \"animal spirits\" (_i.e._ the vapours supposed to be\nproduced from the blood by animal heat).  These movements are propagated\ninwards to the heart, where they all meet.  This is supposed to account\nfor the important fact that, though our sensations are so many and\ndiverse, we are conscious of our own unity as the subjects apprehending\nall this variety.  The unity of the perceiving subject is thus made to\ndepend on the unity of the ultimate \"organ of sensation,\" the heart.\nFurther, when once a type of motion has been set up in any sense-organ\nat the periphery of the body it will be propagated inward to the \"common\nsensorium\" in the heart.  The motions set up by stimulation, _e.g._ of\nthe eye and of the skin, are partly different, partly the same (viz. in\nso far as they are determined by the number, shape, size, movement of\nthe external stimuli).  Hence in the heart itself the stimulation on\nwhich perception of number or size depends is one and the same whether\nit has been transmitted from the eye or from the skin!  Awareness of\nlapse of time is also regarded as a function of the \"common\nsense-organ,\" since it is the \"common sensory\" which perceives motion,\nand lapse of time is apprehended only in the apprehension of motion.\nThus, in respect of the inclusion of geometrical form and lapse of time\namong the \"common sensibles,\" there is a certain resemblance between\nAristotle's doctrine and Kant's theory that recognition of spatial and\ntemporal order is a function not of understanding but of \"pure\" sense.\nIt is further held that to be aware that one is perceiving\n(self-consciousness) and to discriminate between the different classes\nof \"special\" sense-perception must also be functions of the \"common\nsense-organ.\"  Thus Aristotle makes the mistake of treating the most\nfundamental acts of intelligent reflection as precisely on a par, from\nthe point of view of the theory of knowledge, with awareness of colour\nor sound.\n\nA more legitimate function assigned to the \"common sensorium\" in the\nheart is that \"fantasy,\" the formation of mental imagery, depends on its\nactivity.  The simplest kind of \"image,\" the pure memory-image left\nbehind after the object directly arousing perception has ceased to\nstimulate, is due to the persistence of the movements set up in the\nheart after the sensory process in the peripheral organ is over.  Since\nAristotle denies the possibility of thinking without the aid of\nmemory-images, this function of the \"common sensorium\" is the\nindispensable basis of mental recall, anticipation, and thought. Neither\n\"experience,\" _i.e._ a general conviction which results from the\nfrequent repetition of similar perceptions, nor thought can arise in any\nanimal in which sense-stimulation does not leave such \"traces\" behind\nit.  Similarly \"free imagery,\" the existence of trains of imagination\nnot tied down to the reproduction of an actual order of sensations, is\naccounted for by the consideration that \"chance coincidence\" may lead to\nthe stimulation of the heart in the same way in which it might have been\nstimulated by actual sensation-processes.  Sleeping and waking and the\nexperiences of dream-life are likewise due to changes in the functioning\nof the \"common sense-organ,\" brought about partly by fatigue in the\nsuperficial sense-organs, partly by qualitative changes in the blood and\n\"animal spirits\" caused by the processes of nutrition and digestion.\nProbably Aristotle's best scientific work in psychology is contained in\nthe series of small essays in which this theory of memory and its\nimagery is worked out.  (Aristotle's language about the \"common\nsensibles\" is, of course, the source of our expression \"common sense,\"\nwhich, however, has an entirely different meaning.  The shifting of\nsense has apparently been effected through Cicero's employment of the\nphrase _sensus communis_ to mean tactful sympathy, the feeling of\nfellowship with our kind on which the Stoic philosophers laid so much\nstress.)\n\n*Thought*.--Though thinking is impossible except by the use of imagery,\nto think is not merely to possess trains of imagery, or even to be aware\nof possessing them.  Thinking means understanding the meaning of such\nmental imagery and arriving through the understanding at knowledge of\nthe structure of the real world.  How this process of interpreting\nmental imagery and reaching valid truth is achieved with greater and\ngreater success until it culminates in the apprehension of the supreme\nprinciples of philosophy we have seen in dealing with the Aristotelian\ntheory of knowledge.  From the point of view of the \"physicist\" who is\nconcerned with thinking simply as a type of natural process, the\nrelation of \"understanding\" to the mental imagery just described is\nanalogous to that of sensation to sensible qualities.  The objects which\nthinking apprehends are the universal types of relation by which the\nworld of things is pervaded.  The process of thinking is one in which\nthis system of universal relations is reproduced \"by way of idea\" in the\nmind of the thinker.  The \"understanding\" thus stands to its objects as\nmatter to form.  The process of getting actually to understand the world\nis one in which our \"thought\" or \"understanding\" steadily receives\ncompleter determination and \"form\" from its contemplation of reality.\nIn this sense, the process is one in which the understanding may be said\nto be passive in knowledge.  It is passive because it is the subject\nwhich, at every fresh stage in the progress to knowledge, is being quite\nliterally \"informed\" by the action of the real world through the\nsensation and imagery.  Hence Aristotle says that, in order that the\nunderstanding may be correctly \"informed\" by its contact with its\nobjects, it must, before the process begins, have no determinate\ncharacter of its own.  It must be simply a capacity for apprehending the\ntypes of interconnection. \"What is called the intelligence--I mean that\nwith which the soul thinks and understands--is not an actual thing until\nit thinks.\"  (This is meant to exclude any doctrine which credits the\n\"understanding\" with either _furniture_ of its own such as \"innate\nideas,\" or a specific _structure_ of its own.  If the results of our\nthinking arose partly from the structure of the world of objects and\npartly from inherent laws of the \"structure of mind,\" our thought at its\nbest would not reproduce the universal \"forms\" or \"types\" of\ninterconnection as they really are, but would distort them, as the\nshapes of things are distorted when we see them through a lens of high\nrefractive index.)  Thus, though Aristotle differs from the modern\nempiricists in holding that \"universals\" realty exist \"in\" things, and\nare the links of connection between them, he agrees with the empiricist\nthat knowledge is not the resultant of a combination of \"facts\" on the\none side and \"fundamental laws of the mind's working\" on the other.  At\nthe outset the \"understanding\" has no structure; it develops a structure\nfor itself in the same process, and to the same degree, in which it\napprehends the \"facts.\"  Hence the \"understanding\" only is real in the\nactual process of understanding its objects, and again in a sense the\nunderstanding and the things it understands are one.  Only we must\nqualify this last statement by saying that it is only \"potentially\" that\nthe understanding is the forms which it apprehends.  Aristotle does not\nmean by this that such things as horses and oxen are thoughts or\n\"ideas.\"  By the things with which \"understanding\" is said to be one he\nmeans the \"forms\" which we apprehend when we actually understand the\nworld or any part of it, the truths of science.  His point then is that\nthe actual thinking of these truths and the truths themselves do not\nexist apart from one another.  \"Science\" does not mean certain things\nwritten down in a book; it means a mind engaged in thinking and knowing\nthings, and of the mind itself, considered out of its relation to the\nactual life of thinking the truths of science, we can say no more than\nthat it is a name for the fact that we are capable of achieving such\nthought.\n\n*The Active Intelligence*.--So far Aristotle's account of thought has\nbeen plain sailing.  Thought has been considered as the final and\nhighest development of the vital functions of the organism, and hence as\nsomething inseparable from the lower functions of nutrition and\nsensitive life. The existence of a thought which is not a function of a\nliving body, and which is not \"passive,\" has been absolutely excluded.\nBut at this point we are suddenly met by the most startling of all the\ninconsistencies between the naturalistic and the \"spiritualist\" strains\nin Aristotle's philosophy.  In a few broken lines he tells us that there\nis another sense of the word \"thought\" in which \"thought\" actually\ncreates the truths it understands, just as light may be said to make the\ncolours which we see by its aid.  \"And _this_ intelligence,\" he adds,\n\"is separable from matter, and impassive and unmixed, being in its\nessential nature an _activity_....  It has no intermission in its\nthinking.  It is only in separation from matter that it is fully itself,\nand it alone is immortal and everlasting ... while the passive\nintelligence is perishable and does not think at all, apart from this.\"\nThe meaning of this is not made clear by Aristotle himself, and the\ninterpretation was disputed even among the philosopher's personal\ndisciples.\n\nOne important attempt to clear up the difficulty is that made by\nAlexander of Aphrodisias, the greatest of the commentators on Aristotle,\nin the second century A.D.  Alexander said, as Aristotle has not done,\nthat the \"active intelligence\" is numerically the same in all men, and\nis identical with God. Thus, all that is specifically human in each of\nus is the \"passive intelligence\" or capacity for being enlightened by\nGod's activity upon us.  The advantage of the view is, that it removes\nthe \"active intelligence\" altogether from the purview of psychology,\nwhich then becomes a purely naturalistic science.  The great Arabian\nAristotelian, Averroes (Ibn Roschd) of Cordova, in the twelfth century,\nwent still further in the direction of naturalism.  Since the \"active\"\nand \"passive\" intelligence can only be separated by a logical\nabstraction, he inferred that men, speaking strictly, do not think at\nall; there is only one and the same individual intelligence in the\nuniverse, and all that we call our thinking is really not ours but\nGod's.  The great Christian scholastics of the following century in\ngeneral read Aristotle through the eyes of Averroes, \"_the_\nCommentator,\" as St. Thomas calls him, \"Averrois che il gran commento\nfeo,\" as Dante says. But their theology compelled them to disavow his\ndoctrine of the \"active intelligence,\" against which they could also\nbring, as St. Thomas does, the telling argument that Aristotle could\nnever have meant to say that there really is no such thing as human\nintelligence.  Hence arose a third interpretation, the Thomist,\naccording to which the \"active intelligence\" is neither God nor the same\nfor all men, but is the highest and most rational \"part\" of the\nindividual human soul, which has no bodily \"organ.\"\n\n\n\n\n                              *CHAPTER V*\n\n                         *PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY*\n\n\nHitherto we have been concerned with the speculative branches of\nknowledge, we have now to turn to practice. Practice, too, is an\nactivity of thought, but an activity which is never satisfied by the\nprocess of thinking itself.  In practice our thinking is always directed\ntowards the production of some result other than true thought itself.\nAs in engineering it is not enough to find a solution of the problem how\nto build a bridge over a given river capable of sustaining a given\nstrain, so in directing our thought on the problems of human conduct and\nthe organisation of society we aim at something more than the\nunderstanding of human life.  In the one case what we aim at is the\nconstruction of the bridge; in the other it is the production of\ngoodness in ourselves and our fellow-men, and the establishment of right\nsocial relations in the state.  Aristotle is careful to insist on this\npoint throughout his whole treatment of moral and social problems.  The\nprincipal object of his lectures on conduct is not to tell his hearers\nwhat goodness is, but to make them good, and similarly it is quite plain\nthat _Politics_ was intended as a text-book for legislators.  In close\nconnection with this practical object stands his theory of the kind of\ntruth which must be looked for in ethics and politics.  He warns us\nagainst expecting precepts which have the exact and universal rigidity\nof the truths of speculative science.  Practical science has to do with\nthe affairs of men's lives, matters which are highly complex and\nvariable, in a word, with \"what may be otherwise.\"  Hence we must be\ncontent if we can lay down precepts which hold good in the main, just as\nin medicine we do not expect to find directions which will effect a cure\nin all cases, but are content with general directions which require to\nbe adapted to special cases by the experience and judgment of the\npractitioner.  The object of practical science then is to formulate\nrules which will guide us in obtaining our various ends.  Now when we\nconsider these ends we see at once that some are subordinate to others.\nThe manufacture of small-arms may be the end at which their maker aims,\nbut it is to the military man a mere means to _his_ end, which is the\neffective use of them. Successful use of arms is again the end of the\nprofessional soldier, but it is a mere means among others to the\nstatesman. Further, it is the military men who use the arms from whom\nthe manufacturer has to take his directions as to the kind of arms that\nare wanted, and again it is the statesman to whom the professional\nsoldiers have to look for directions as to when and with what general\nobjects in view they shall fight.  So the art which uses the things\nproduced by another art is the superior and directing art; the art which\nmakes the things, the inferior and subordinate art.  Hence the supreme\npractical art is politics, since it is the art which uses the products\nturned out by all other arts as means to its ends.  It is the business\nof politics, the art of the statesman, to prescribe to the practitioners\nof all other arts and professions the lines on which and the conditions\nunder which they shall exercise their vocation with a view to securing\nthe supreme practical end, the well-being of the community.  Among the\nother professions and arts which make the materials the statesman\nemploys, the profession of the educator stands foremost.  The statesman\nis bound to demand certain qualities of mind and character in the\nindividual citizens.  The production of these mental and moral qualities\nmust therefore be the work of the educator.  It thus becomes an\nimportant branch of politics to specify the kind of mental and moral\nqualities which a statesman should require the educator to produce in\nhis pupils.\n\nIt is this branch of politics which Aristotle discusses in his _Ethics_.\nHe never contemplates a study of the individual's good apart from\npolitics, the study of the good of the society. What then is the good or\nthe best kind of life for an individual member of society?  Aristotle\nanswers that as far as the mere name is concerned, there is a general\nagreement to call the best life, _Eudaimonia_, Happiness.  But the real\nproblem is one of fact.  What kind of life deserves to be called\nhappiness? Plato had laid it down that the happy life must satisfy three\nconditions.  It must be desirable for its own sake, it must be\nsufficient of itself to satisfy us, and it must be the life a wise man\nwould prefer to any other.  The question is, What general formula can we\nfind which will define the life which satisfies these conditions?  To\nfind the answer we have to consider what Plato and Aristotle call the\nwork or function of man.  By the work of anything we mean what can only\nbe done by it, or by it better than by anything else.  Thus the work of\nthe eye is to see.  You cannot see with any other organ, and when the\neye does this work of seeing well you say it is a good eye.  So we may\nsay of any living being that its work is to live, and that it is a good\nbeing when it does this work of living efficiently. To do its own work\nefficiently is the excellence or virtue of the thing.  The excellence or\nvirtue of a man will thus be to live efficiently, but since life can be\nmanifested at different levels, if we would know what man's work is we\nmust ask whether there is not some form of life which can _only_ be\nlived by man. Now the life which consists in merely feeding and growing\nbelongs to all organisms and can be lived with equal vigour by them all.\nThere is, however, a kind of life which can only be lived by man, the\nlife which consists in conscious direction of one's actions by a rule.\nIt is the work of man to live this kind of life, and his happiness\nconsists in living it efficiently and well.  So we may give as the\ndefinition of human well-being that it is \"an active life in accord with\nexcellence, or if there are more forms of excellence than one, in accord\nwith the best and completest of them\"; and we must add \"in a complete\nlife\" to show that mere promise not crowned by performance does not\nsuffice to entitle man's life to be called happy.  We can see that this\ndefinition satisfies Plato's three conditions.  A vigorous and active\nliving in a way which calls into play the specifically human capacities\nof man is desirable for its own sake, and preferable to any other life\nwhich could be proposed to us.  It too is the only life which can\npermanently satisfy men, but we must add that if such a life is to be\nlived adequately certain advantages of fortune must be presupposed. We\ncannot fully live a life of this kind if we are prevented from\nexercising our capacities by lack of means or health or friends and\nassociates, and even the calamities which arise in the course of events\nmay be so crushing as to hinder a man, for a time, from putting forth\nhis full powers.  These external good things are not constituents of\nhappiness, but merely necessary conditions of that exercise of our own\ncapacities which is the happy life.\n\nIn our definition of the happy life we said that it was one of activity\nin accord with goodness or excellence, and we left it an open question\nwhether there are more kinds of such goodness than one.  On\nconsideration we see that two kinds of goodness or excellence are\nrequired in living the happy life. The happy life for man is a life of\nconscious following of a rule.  To live it well, then, you need to know\nwhat the right rule to follow is, and you need also to follow it.  There\nare persons who deliberately follow a wrong rule of life--the wicked.\nThere are others who know what the right rule is but fail to follow it\nbecause their tempers and appetites are unruly--the morally weak.  To\nlive the happy life, then, two sorts of goodness are required.  You must\nhave a good judgment as to what the right rule is (or if you cannot find\nit out for yourself, you must at least be able to recognise it when it\nis laid down by some one else, the teacher or lawgiver), and you must\nhave your appetites, feelings, and emotions generally so trained that\nthey obey the rule.  Hence excellence, goodness, or virtue is divided\ninto goodness of intellect and goodness of character (moral goodness),\nthe word _character_ being used for the complex of tempers, feelings,\nand the affective side of human nature generally.  In education goodness\nof character has to be produced by training and discipline before\ngoodness of intellect can be imparted.  The young generally have to be\ntrained to obey the right rule before they can see for themselves that\nit is the right rule, and if a man's tempers and passions are not first\nschooled into actual obedience to the rule he will in most cases never\nsee that it is the right rule at all.  Hence Aristotle next goes on to\ndiscuss the general character of the kind of goodness he calls goodness\nof character, the right state of the feelings and passions.\n\nThe first step towards understanding what goodness of character is is to\nconsider the way in which it is actually produced.  We are not born with\nthis goodness of tempers and feelings ready made, nor yet do we obtain\nit by theoretical instruction; it is a result of a training and\ndiscipline of the feelings and impulses.  The possibility of such a\ntraining is due to the fact that feelings and impulses are rational\ncapacities, and a rational capacity can be developed into either of two\ncontrasted activities according to the training it receives.  You cannot\ntrain stones to fall upwards, but you can train a hot temper to display\nitself either in the form of righteous resentment of wrong-doing or in\nthat of violent defiance of all authority.  Our natural emotions and\nimpulses are in themselves neither good nor bad; they are the raw\nmaterial out of which training makes good or bad character according to\nthe direction it gives to them.  The effect of training is to convert\nthe indeterminate tendency into a fixed habit.  We may say, then, that\nmoral goodness is a fixed state of the soul produced by habituation.  By\nbeing trained in habits of endurance, self-mastery, and fair dealing, we\nacquire the kind of character to which it is pleasing to act bravely,\ncontinently, and fairly, and disagreeable to act unfairly, profligately,\nor like a coward. When habituation has brought about this result the\nmoral excellences in question have become part of our inmost self and we\nare in full possession of goodness of character.  In a word, it is by\nrepeated doing of right acts that we acquire the right kind of\ncharacter.\n\nBut what general characteristics distinguish right acts and right habits\nfrom wrong ones?  Aristotle is guided in answering the question by an\nanalogy which is really at the bottom of all Greek thinking on morality.\nThe thought is that goodness is in the soul what health and fitness are\nin the body, and that the preceptor is for the soul what the physician\nor the trainer is for the body.  Now it was a well-known medical theory,\nfavoured by both Plato and Aristotle, that health in the body means a\ncondition of balance or equilibration among the elements of which it is\ncomposed.  When the hot and the cold, the moist and the dry in the\ncomposition of the human frame exactly balance one another, the body is\nin perfect health.  Hence the object of the regimen of the physician or\nthe trainer is to produce and maintain a proper balance or proportion\nbetween the ingredients of the body.  Any course which disturbs this\nbalance is injurious to health and strength. You damage your health if\nyou take too much food or exercise, and also if you take too little.\nThe same thing is true of health in the soul.  Our soul's health may be\ninjured by allowing too much or too little play to any of our natural\nimpulses or feelings.  We may lay it down, then, that the kind of\ntraining which gives rise to a good habit is training in the avoidance\nof the opposite errors of the too much and the too little.  And since\nthe effect of training is to produce habits which issue in the\nspontaneous performance of the same kind of acts by which the habits\nwere acquired, we may say not merely that goodness of character is\nproduced by acts which exhibit a proper balance or mean, but that it is\na settled habit of acting so as to exhibit the same balance or\nproportion. Hence the formal definition of goodness of character is that\nit is \"a settled condition of the soul which wills or chooses the mean\nrelatively to ourselves, this mean being determined by a rule or\nwhatever we like to call that by which the wise man determines it.\"\n\nThere are several points in this definition of the mean upon which moral\nvirtue depends of which we must take note unless we are to misunderstand\nAristotle seriously.  To begin with, the definition expressly says that\n\"moral goodness is a state of will or choice.\"  Thus it is not enough\nthat one should follow the rule of the mean outwardly in one's actions;\none's personal will must be regulated by it.  Goodness of character is\ninward; it is not merely outward.  Next we must not suppose that\nAristotle means that the \"just enough\" is the same for all our feelings,\nthat every impulse has a moral right to the same authority in shaping\nour conduct as any other.  How much or how little is the just enough in\nconnection with a given spring of action is one of the things which the\nwise man's rule has to determine, just as the wise physician's rule may\ndetermine that a very little quantity is the just enough in the case of\nsome articles of diet or curative drugs, while in the case of others the\njust enough may be a considerable amount.  Also the right mean is not\nthe same for every one.  What we have to attain is the mean relatively\nto _ourselves_, and this will be different for persons of different\nconstitutions and in different conditions.  It is this relativity of the\njust enough to the individual's personality and circumstances which\nmakes it impossible to lay down precise rules of conduct applicable\nalike to everybody, and renders the practical attainment of goodness so\nhard.  It is my duty to spend some part of my income in buying books on\nphilosophy, but no general rule will tell me what percentage of my\nincome is the right amount for me to spend in this way.  That depends on\na host of considerations, such as the excess of my income above my\nnecessary expenses and the like.  Or again, the just enough may vary\nwith the same man according to the circumstances of the particular case.\nNo rule of thumb application of a formula will decide such problems.\nHence Aristotle insists that the right mean in the individual case has\nalways to be determined by immediate insight.  This is precisely why\ngoodness of intellect needs to be added to goodness of character.  His\nmeaning is well brought out by an illustration which I borrow from\nProfessor Burnet. \"On a given occasion there will be a temperature which\nis just right for my morning bath.  If the bath is hotter than this, it\nwill be too hot; if it is colder, it will be too cold.  But as this just\nright temperature varies with the condition of my body, it cannot be\nascertained by simply using a thermometer. If I am in good general\nhealth I shall, however, know by the feel of the water when the\ntemperature is right.  So if I am in good moral health I shall know,\nwithout appealing to a formal code of maxims, what is the right degree,\n_e.g._ of indignation to show in a given case, how it should be shown\nand towards whom.\"  Thus we see why Aristotle demands goodness of\ncharacter as a preliminary condition of goodness of intellect or\njudgment in moral matters.  Finally, if we ask by _what_ rule the mean\nis determined, the answer will be that the rule is the judgment of the\nlegislator who determines what is the right mean by his knowledge of the\nconditions on which the well-being of the community depends.  He then\nembodies his insight in the laws which he makes and the regulations he\nimposes on the educators of youth.  The final aim of education in\ngoodness is to make our immediate judgment as to what is right coincide\nwith the spirit of a wise legislation.\n\nThe introduction of the reference to will or choice into the definition\nof goodness of character leads Aristotle to consider the relation of\nwill to conduct.  His main object is to escape the paradoxical doctrine\nwhich superficial students might derive from the works of Plato, that\nwrong-doing is always well-meaning ignorance.  Aristotle's point is that\nit is the condition of will revealed by men's acts which is the real\nobject of our approval or blame.  This is because in voluntary action\nthe man himself is the efficient cause of his act.  Hence the law\nrecognises only two grounds on which a man may plead, that he is not\nanswerable for what he does.  (1) Actual physical compulsion by _force\nmajeure_.  (2) Ignorance, not due to the man's own previous negligence,\nof some circumstances material to the issue.  When either of these pleas\ncan be made with truth the man does not really contribute by his choice\nto the resulting act, and therefore is not really its cause. But a plea\nof ignorance of the general laws of morality does not excuse.  I cannot\nescape responsibility for a murder by pleading that I did not know that\nmurder is wrong.  Such a plea does not exempt me from having been the\ncause of the murder; it only shows that my moral principles are\ndepraved.\n\nMore precisely will is a process which has both an intellectual and an\nappetitive element.  The appetitive element is our wish for some result.\nThe intellectual factor is the calculation of the steps by which that\nresult may be obtained. When we wish for the result we begin to consider\nhow it might be brought about, and we continue our analysis until we\nfind that the chain of conditions requisite may be started by the\nperformance of some act now in our power to do.  Will may thus be\ndefined as the deliberate appetition of something within our power, and\nthe very definition shows that our choice is an efficient cause of the\nacts we choose to do.  This is why we rightly regard men as responsible\nor answerable for their acts of choice, good and bad alike.\n\nFrom the analysis of goodness of character, we proceed to that of\ngoodness of intellect.  The important point is to decide which of all\nthe forms of goodness of intellect is that which must be combined with\ngoodness of character to make a man fit to be a citizen of the state.\nIt must be a kind of intellectual excellence which makes a man see what\nthe right rule by which the mean is determined is.  Now when we come to\nconsider the different excellences of intellect we find that they all\nfall under one of two heads, theoretical or speculative wisdom and\npractical wisdom.\n\nTheoretical wisdom is contained in the sciences which give us universal\ntruths about the fixed and unalterable relations of the things in the\nuniverse, or, as we should say, which teach us the laws of Nature.  Its\nmethod is syllogism, the function of which is to make us see how the\nmore complex truths are implied in simpler principles.  Practical wisdom\nis intelligence as employed in controlling and directing human life to\nthe production of the happy life for a community, and it is this form of\nintellectual excellence which we require of the statesman.  It is\nrequired of him not only that he should know in general what things are\ngood for man, but also that he should be able to judge correctly that in\ngiven circumstances such and such an act is the one which will secure\nthe good.  He must not only know the right rule itself, which\ncorresponds to the major premiss of syllogism in theoretical science,\nbut he must understand the character of particular acts so as to see\nthat they fall under the right rule.  Thus the method of practical\nwisdom will be analogous to that of theoretical wisdom.  In both cases\nwhat we have to do is to see that certain special facts are cases of a\ngeneral law or rule.  Hence Aristotle calls the method of practical\nwisdom the practical syllogism or syllogism of action, since its\npeculiarity is that what issues from the putting together of the\npremisses is not an assertion but the performance of an act.  In the\nsyllogism of action, the conclusion, that is to say, the performance of\na given act, just as in the syllogism of theory, is connected with the\nrule given in the major premiss by a statement of fact; thus _e.g._ the\nperformance of a specific act such as the writing of this book is\nconnected with the general rule what helps to spread knowledge ought to\nbe done by the conviction that the writing of this book helps to spread\nknowledge.  Our perception of such a fact is like a sense-perception in\nits directness and immediacy.  We see therefore that the kind of\nintellectual excellence which the statesman must possess embraces at\nonce a right conception of the general character of the life which is\nbest for man, because it calls into play his specific capacities as a\nhuman being, and also a sound judgment in virtue of which he sees\ncorrectly that particular acts are expressions of this good for man.\nThis, then, is what we mean by practical wisdom.\n\nSo far, then, it would seem that the best life for man is just the life\nof co-operation in the life of the state, which man, being the only\npolitical animal or animal capable of life in a state, has as his\npeculiar work, and as if the end of all moral education should be to\nmake us good and efficient citizens. But in the _Ethics_, as elsewhere,\nthe end of Aristotle's argument has a way of forgetting the beginning.\nWe find that there is after all a still higher life open to man than\nthat of public affairs.  Affairs and business of all kinds are only\nundertaken as means to getting leisure, just as civilised men go to war,\nnot for the love of war itself, but to secure peace. The highest aim of\nlife, then, is not the carrying on of political business for its own\nsake, but the worthy and noble employment of leisure, the periods in\nwhich we are our own masters. It has the advantage that it depends more\npurely on ourselves and our own internal resources than any other life\nof which we know, for it needs very little equipment with external goods\nas compared with any form of the life of action.  It calls into play the\nvery highest of our own capacities as intelligent beings, and for that\nvery reason the active living of it is attended with the purest of all\npleasures.  In it, moreover, we enter at intervals and for a little\nwhile, so far as the conditions of our mundane existence allow, into the\nlife which God enjoys through an unbroken eternity.  Thus we reach the\ncurious paradox that while the life of contemplation is said to be that\nof our truest self, it is also maintained that this highest and happiest\nlife is one which we live, not in respect of being human, but in respect\nof having a divine something in us. When we ask what this life of\ncontemplation includes, we see from references in the _Politics_ that it\nincludes the genuinely aesthetic appreciation of good literature and\nmusic and pictorial and plastic art, but there can be no doubt that what\nbulks most largely in Aristotle's mind is the active pursuit of science\nfor its own sake, particularly of such studies as First Philosophy and\nPhysics, which deal with the fundamental structure of the universe.\nAristotle thus definitely ends by placing the life of the scholar and\nthe student on the very summit of felicity.\n\nIt is from this doctrine that mediaeval Christianity derives its\nopposition between the _vita contemplativa_ and _vita activa_ and its\npreference for the former, though in the mediaeval mind the\ncontemplative life has come to mean generally a kind of brooding over\ntheological speculations and of absorption in mystical ecstasy very\nforeign to the spirit of Aristotle.  The types by which the contrast of\nthe two lives is illustrated, Rachael and Leah, Mary and Martha, are\nfamiliar to all readers of Christian literature.\n\n+The Theory of the State+.--Man is by nature a political animal, a being\nwho can only develop his capacities by sharing in the life of a\ncommunity.  Hence Aristotle definitely rejects the view that the state\nor society is a mere creature of convention or agreement, an institution\nmade by compact between individuals for certain special ends, not\ngrowing naturally out of the universal demands and aspirations of\nhumanity.  Mankind, he urges, have never existed at all as isolated\nindividuals.  Some rudimentary form of social organisation is to be\nfound wherever men are to be found.  The actual stages in the\ndevelopment of social organisation have been three--the family, the\nvillage community, the city state.  In the very rudest forms of social\nlife known to us, the patriarchal family, not the individual, is the\nsocial unit.  Men lived at first in separate families under the control\nof the head of the family.  Now a family is made up in its simplest form\nof at least three persons, a man, his wife, and a servant or slave to do\nthe hard work, though very poor men often have to replace the servant by\nan ox as the drudge of all work.  Children when they come swell the\nnumber, and thus we see the beginnings of complex social relations of\nsubordination in the family itself.  It involves three such distinct\nrelations, that of husband and wife, that of parent and child, that of\nmaster and man.  The family passes into the village community, partly by\nthe tendency of several families of common descent to remain together\nunder the direction of the oldest male member of the group, partly by\nthe association of a number of distinct families for purposes of mutual\nhelp and protection against common dangers.  Neither of these forms of\nassociation, however, makes adequate provision for the most permanent\nneeds of human nature.  Complete security for a permanent supply of\nmaterial necessaries and adequate protection only come when a number of\nsuch scattered communities pool their resources, and surround themselves\nwith a city wall. The city state, which has come into being in this way,\nproves adequate to provide from its own internal resources for all the\nspiritual as well as the material needs of its members.  Hence the\nindependent city state does not grow as civilisation advances into any\nhigher form of organisation, as the family and village grew into it.  It\nis the end, the last word of social progress. It is amazing to us that\nthis piece of cheap conservatism should have been uttered at the very\ntime when the system of independent city states had visibly broken down,\nand a former pupil of Aristotle himself was founding a gigantic empire\nto take their place as the vehicle of civilisation.\n\nThe end for which the state exists is not merely its own\nself-perpetuation.  As we have seen, Aristotle assigns a higher value to\nthe life of the student than to the life of practical affairs.  Since it\nis only in the civilised state that the student can pursue his vocation,\nthe ultimate reason for which the state exists is to educate its\ncitizens in such a way as shall fit them to make the noble use of\nleisure.  In the end the state itself is a means to the spiritual\ncultivation of its individual members. This implies that the chosen few,\nwho have a vocation to make full use of the opportunities provided for\nleading this life of noble leisure, are the real end for the sake of\nwhich society exists. The other citizens who have no qualification for\nany life higher than that of business and affairs are making the most of\nthemselves in devoting their lives to the conduct and maintenance of the\norganisation whose full advantages they are unequal to share in.  It is\nfrom this point of view also that Aristotle treats the social problem of\nthe existence of a class whose whole life is spent in doing the hard\nwork of society, and thus setting the citizen body free to make the best\nuse it can of leisure.  In the conditions of life in the Greek world\nthis class consisted mainly of slaves, and thus the problem Aristotle\nhas to face is the moral justifiability of slavery.  We must remember\nthat he knew slavery only in its comparatively humane Hellenic form. The\nslaves of whom he speaks were household servants and assistants in small\nbusinesses.  He had not before his eyes the system of enormous\nindustries carried on by huge gangs of slaves under conditions of\nrevolting degradation which disgraced the later Roman Republic and the\nearly Roman Empire, or the Southern States of North America.  His\nproblems are in all essentials much the same as those which concern us\nto-day in connection with the social position of the classes who do the\nhard bodily work of the community.\n\nMuch consideration is given in the _Politics_ to the classification of\nthe different types of constitution possible for the city-state.  The\ncurrent view was that there are three main types distinguished by the\nnumber of persons who form the sovereign political authority, monarchy,\nin which sovereign power belongs to a single person; oligarchy, in which\nit is in the hands of a select few; democracy, in which it is enjoyed by\nthe whole body of the citizens.  Aristotle observes, correctly, that the\nreally fundamental distinction between a Greek oligarchy and a Greek\ndemocracy was that the former was government by the propertied classes,\nthe latter government by the masses.  Hence the watchword of democracy\nwas always that all political rights should belong equally to all\ncitizens, that of oligarchy that a man's political status should be\ngraded according to his \"stake in the country.\"  Both ideals are,\naccording to him, equally mistaken, since the real end of government,\nwhich both overlook, is the promotion of the \"good life.\"  In a state\nwhich recognises this ideal, an aristocracy or government by the best,\nonly the \"best\" men will possess the full rights of citizenship, whether\nthey are many or few.  There might even be a monarch at the head of such\na state, if it happened to contain some one man of outstanding\nintellectual and moral worth.  Such a state should be the very opposite\nof a great imperial power.  It should, that its cultivation may be the\nmore intensive, be as small as is compatible with complete independence\nof outside communities for its material and spiritual sustenance, and\nits territory should only be large enough to provide its members with\nthe permanent possibility of ample leisure, so long as they are content\nwith plain and frugal living.  Though it ought not, for military and\nother reasons, to be cut off from communication with the sea, the great\nmilitary and commercial high road of the Greek world, it ought not to be\nnear enough to the coast to run any risk of imperilling its moral\ncultivation by becoming a great emporium, like the Athens of Pericles.\nIn the organisation of the society care should be taken to exclude the\nagricultural and industrial population from full citizenship, which\ncarries with it the right to appoint and to be appointed as\nadministrative magistrates.  This is because these classes, having no\nopportunity for the worthy employment of leisure, cannot be trusted to\nadminister the state for the high ends which it is its true function to\nfurther.\n\nThus Aristotle's political ideal is that of a small but leisured and\nhighly cultivated aristocracy, without large fortunes or any remarkable\ndifferences in material wealth, free from the spirit of adventure and\nenterprise, pursuing the arts and sciences quietly while its material\nneeds are supplied by the labour of a class excluded from citizenship,\nkindly treated but without prospects.  Weimar, in the days when\nThackeray knew it as a lad, would apparently reproduce the ideal better\nthan any other modern state one can think of.\n\nThe object of the _Politics_ is, however, not merely to discuss the\nideal state but to give practical advice to men who might be looking\nforward to actual political life, and would therefore largely have to be\ncontent with making the best of existing institutions.  In the absence\nof the ideal aristocracy, Aristotle's preference is for what he calls\nPolity or constitutional government, a sort of compromise between\noligarchy and democracy. Of course a practical statesman may have to\nwork with a theoretically undesirable constitution, such as an oligarchy\nor an unqualified democracy.  But it is only in an ideal constitution\nthat the education which makes its subject a good man, in the\nphilosopher's sense of the word, will also make him a good citizen.  If\nthe constitution is bad, then the education best fitted to make a man\nloyal to it may have to be very different from that which you would\nchoose to make him a good man. The discussion of the kind of education\ndesirable for the best kind of state, in which to be a loyal citizen and\nto be a good man are the same thing, is perhaps the most permanently\nvaluable part of the _Politics_.  Though Aristotle's writings on\n\"practical\" philosophy have been more read in modern times than any\nother part of his works, they are far from being his best and most\nthorough performances.  In no department of his thought is he quite so\nslavishly dependent on his master Plato as in the theory of the \"good\nfor man\" and the character of \"moral\" excellence.  No Aristotelian work\nis quite so commonplace in its handling of a vast subject as the\n_Politics_. In truth his interest in these social questions is not of\nthe deepest.  He is, in accordance with his view of the superiority of\n\"theoretical science,\" entirely devoid of the spirit of the social\nreformer.  What he really cares about is \"theology\" and \"physics,\" and\nthe fact that the objects of the educational regulations of the\n_Politics_ are all designed to encourage the study of these\n\"theoretical\" sciences, makes this section of the _Politics_ still one\nof the most valuable expositions of the aims and requirements of a\n\"liberal\" education.\n\nAll education must be under public control, and education must be\nuniversal and compulsory.  Public control is necessary, not merely to\navoid educational anarchy, but because it is a matter of importance to\nthe community that its future citizens should be trained in the way\nwhich will make them most loyal to the constitution and the ends it is\ndesigned to subserve.  Even in one of the \"bad\" types of state, where\nthe life which the constitution tends to foster is not the highest, the\nlegislator's business is to see that education is directed towards\nfostering the \"spirit of the constitution.\"  There is to be an\n\"atmosphere\" which impregnates the whole of the teaching, and it is to\nbe an \"atmosphere\" of public spirit.  The only advantage which Aristotle\nsees in private education is that it allows of more modification of\nprogramme to meet the special needs of the individual pupil than a rigid\nstate education which is to be the same for all.  The actual regulations\nwhich Aristotle lays down are not very different from those of Plato.\nBoth philosophers hold that \"primary\" education, in the early years of\nlife, should aim partly at promoting bodily health and growth by a\nproper system of physical exercises, partly at influencing character and\ngiving a refined and elevated tone to the mind by the study of letters,\nart, and music.  Both agree that this should be followed in the later\n\"teens\" by two or three years of specially rigorous systematic military\ntraining combined with a taste of actual service in the less exhausting\nand less dangerous parts of a soldier's duty.  It is only after this, at\nabout the age at which young men now take a \"university\" course, that\nPlato and Aristotle would have the serious scientific training of the\nintellect begun.  The _Politics_ leaves the subject just at the point\nwhere the young men are ready to undergo their special military\ntraining.  Thus we do not know with certainty what scientific curriculum\nAristotle would have recommended, though we may safely guess that it\nwould have contained comparatively little pure mathematics, but a great\ndeal of astronomy, cosmology, and biology.\n\nWith respect to the \"primary\" education Aristotle has a good deal to\nsay.  As \"forcing\" is always injurious, it should not be begun too soon.\nFor the first five years a child's life should be given up to healthy\nplay.  Great care must be taken that children are not allowed to be too\nmuch with \"servants,\" from whom they may imbibe low tastes, and that\nthey are protected against any familiarity with indecency.  From five to\nseven a child may begin to make a first easy acquaintance with the life\nof the school by looking on at the lessons of its elders.  The real work\nof school education is to begin at seven and not before.\n\nWe next have to consider what should be the staple subjects of an\neducation meant not for those who are to follow some particular calling,\nbut for all the full citizens of a state. Aristotle's view is that some\n\"useful\" subjects must, of course, be taught.  Reading and writing, for\ninstance, are useful for the discharge of the business of life, though\ntheir commercial utility is not the highest value which they have for\nus.  But care must be taken that only those \"useful\" studies which are\nalso \"liberal\" should be taught; \"illiberal\" or \"mechanical\" subjects\nmust not have any place in the curriculum.  A \"liberal\" education means,\nas the name shows, one which will tend to make its recipient a \"free\nman,\" and not a slave in body and soul.  The mechanical crafts were felt\nby Aristotle to be illiberal because they leave a man no leisure to make\nthe best of body and mind; practice of them sets a stamp on the body and\nnarrows the mind's outlook.  In principle then, no study should form a\nsubject of the universal curriculum if its only value is that it\nprepares a man for a profession followed as a means of making a living.\nGeneral education, all-round training which aims at the development of\nbody and mind for its own sake, must be kept free from the intrusion of\neverything which has a merely commercial value and tends to contract the\nmental vision.  It is the same principle which we rightly employ\nourselves when we maintain that a university education ought not to\ninclude specialisation on merely \"technical\" or \"professional\" studies.\nThe useful subjects which have at the same time a higher value as\ncontributing to the formation of taste and character and serving to\nelevate and refine the mind include, besides reading and writing, which\nrender great literature accessible to us, bodily culture (the true\nobject of which is not merely to make the body strong and hardy, but to\ndevelop the moral qualities of grace and courage), music, and drawing.\nAristotle holds that the real reason for making children learn music is\n(1) that the artistic appreciation of really great music is one of the\nways in which \"leisure\" may be worthily employed, and to appreciate\nmusic rightly we must have some personal training in musical execution;\n(2) that all art, and music in particular, has a direct influence on\ncharacter.\n\nPlato and Aristotle, though they differ on certain points of detail, are\nagreed that the influence of music on character, for good or bad, is\nenormous.  Music, they say, is the most imitative of all the arts.  The\nvarious rhythms, times, and scales imitate different tempers and\nemotional moods, and it is a fundamental law of our nature that we grow\nlike what we take pleasure in seeing or having imitated or represented\nfor us. Hence if we are early accustomed to take pleasure in the\nimitation of the manly, resolute, and orderly, these qualities will in\ntime become part of our own nature.  This is why right musical education\nis so important that Plato declared that the revolutionary spirit always\nmakes its first appearance in innovations on established musical form.\n\nThere is, however, one important difference between the two philosophers\nwhich must be noted, because it concerns Aristotle's chief contribution\nto the philosophy of fine art.  Plato had in the _Republic_ proposed to\nexpel florid, languishing, or unduly exciting forms of music not only\nfrom the schoolroom, but from life altogether, on the ground of their\nunwholesome tendency to foster an unstable and morbid character in those\nwho enjoy them.  For the same reason he had proposed the entire\nsuppression of tragic drama.  Aristotle has a theory which is directly\naimed against this overstrained Puritanism. He holds that the exciting\nand sensational art which would be very bad as daily food may be very\nuseful as an occasional medicine for the soul.  He would retain even the\nmost sensational forms of music on account of what he calls their\n\"purgative\" value.  In the same spirit he asserts that the function of\ntragedy, with its sensational representations of the calamities of its\nheroes, is \"by the vehicle of fear and pity to purge our minds of those\nand similar emotions.\"  The explanation of the theory is to be sought in\nthe literal sense of the medical term \"purgative.\"  According to the\nmedical view which we have already found influencing his ethical\ndoctrine, health consists in the maintenance of an equality between the\nvarious ingredients of the body.  Every now and again it happens that\nthere arise superfluous accretions of some one ingredient, which are not\ncarried away in the normal routine of bodily life. These give rise to\nserious derangement of function and may permanently injure the working\nof the organism, unless they are removed in time by a medicine which\nacts as a purge, and clears the body of a superfluous accumulation.  The\nsame thing also happens in the life of the soul.  So long as we are in\ngood spiritual health our various feelings and emotional moods will be\nreadily discharged in action, in the course of our daily life. But there\nis always the possibility of an excessive accumulation of emotional\n\"moods\" for which the routine of daily life does not provide an adequate\ndischarge in action.  Unless this tendency is checked we may contract\ndangerously morbid habits of soul.  Thus we need some medicine for the\nsoul against this danger, which may be to it what a purgative is to the\nbody.\n\nNow it was a well-known fact, observed in connection with some of the\nmore extravagant religious cults, that persons suffering from an excess\nof religious frenzy might be cured homoeopathically, so to say, by\nartificially arousing the very emotion in question by the use of\nexciting music.  Aristotle extends the principle by suggesting that in\nthe artificial excitement aroused by violently stimulating music or in\nthe transports of sympathetic apprehension and pity with which we follow\nthe disasters of the stage-hero, we have a safe and ready means of\nridding ourselves of morbid emotional strain which might otherwise have\nworked havoc with the efficient conduct of real life.\n\nThe great value of this defence of the occasional employment of\nsensation as a medicine for the soul is obvious.  Unhappily it would\nseem to have so dominated Aristotle's thought on the functions of\ndramatic art as to blind him to what we are accustomed to think the\nnobler functions of tragedy.  No book has had a more curious fate than\nthe little manual for intending composers of tragedies which is all that\nremains to us of Aristotle's lectures on Poetry.  This is not the place\nto tell the story of the way in which the great classical French\nplaywrights, who hopelessly misunderstood the meaning of Aristotle's\nchief special directions, but quite correctly divined that his lectures\nwere meant to be an actual _Vade Mecum_ for the dramatist, deliberately\nconstructed their masterpieces in absolute submission to regulations for\nwhich they had no better reasons than that they had once been given\nmagisterially by an ancient Greek philosopher.  But it may be worth\nwhile to remark that the worth of Aristotle's account of tragedy as\nart-criticism has probably been vastly overrated.  From first to last\nthe standpoint he assumes, in his verdicts on the great tragic poets, is\nthat of the gallery.  What he insists on all through, probably because\nhe has the purgative effect of the play always in his mind, is a\nwell-woven plot with plenty of melodramatic surprise in the incidents\nand a thoroughly sensational culmination in a sense of unrelieved\ncatastrophe over which the spectator can have a good cry, and so get\nwell \"purged\" of his superfluous emotion.  It is clear from his repeated\nallusions that the play he admired above all others was the _King\nOedipus_ of Sophocles, but it is equally clear that he admired it not\nfor the profound insight into human life and destiny or the deep sense\nof the mystery of things which some modern critics have found in it, but\nbecause its plot is the best and most startling detective story ever\ndevised, and its finale a triumph of melodramatic horror.\n\n\n\n\n                             *BIBLIOGRAPHY*\n\n\nThe English reader who wishes for further information about Aristotle\nand his philosophy may be referred to any or all of the following\nworks:--\n\nE. Zeller.--_Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics_.  English\ntranslation in 2 vols. by B. F. C. Costelloe and J. H. Muirhead. London.\nLongmans & Co.\n\n*E. Wallace.--_Outlines of the Philosophy of Aristotle_.  Cambridge\nUniversity Press.\n\nG. Grote.--_Aristotle_.  London.  John Murray.\n\n*W. D. Ross.--_The Works of Aristotle translated into English_, vol.\nviii., _Metaphysics_.  Oxford.  Clarendon Press.\n\n*A. E. Taylor.--_Aristotle on his Predecessor_.  (_Metaphysics_, Bk. I.,\ntranslated with notes, &c.) Chicago.  Open Court Publishing Co.\n\nG. D. Hicks.--_Aristotle de Anima_ (Greek text, English translation,\nCommentary).  Cambridge University Press.\n\n*D. P. Chase.--_The Ethics of Aristotle_.  Walter Scott Co.\n\n*J. Burnet.--_Aristotle on Education_.  (English translation of\n_Ethics_, Bks. I.-III. 5, X. 6 to end; _Politics_, VIII. 17, VIII.)\nCambridge University Press.\n\n*B. Jowett.--_The Politics of Aristotle_.  Oxford.  Clarendon Press.\n\n*I. Bywater.--_Aristotle on the Art of Poetry_.  (Greek Text, English\nTranslation, Commentary.)  Oxford.  Clarendon Press.\n\nJ. I. Beare and W. D. Ross.--_The Works of Aristotle translated into\nEnglish_, Pt. I.  (_Parvu Naturalia_, the minor psychological works.)\nOxford.  Clarendon Press.\n\nJ. I. Beare.--_Greek Theories of Elementary Cognition from Alemacon to\nAristotle_.  Oxford.  Clarendon Press.\n\nThe works marked by an asterisk will probably be found most useful for\nthe beginner.  No works in foreign languages and no editions not\naccompanied by an English translation have been mentioned.\n\nThere is at present no satisfactory complete translation of Aristotle\ninto English.  One, of which two volumes have been mentioned above, is\nin course of production at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, under the\neditorship of J. A. Smith and W. D. Ross.\n\n\n\n\n                  Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co.\n                           Edinburgh & London\n\n\n\n\n           *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n\n           \"We have nothing but the highest praise for these\n          little books, and no one who examines them will have\n        anything else.\"--_Westminster Gazette_, 22nd June 1912.\n\n\n                          *THE PEOPLE'S BOOKS*\n\n                       *THE FIRST NINETY VOLUMES*\n\n             The volumes issued are marked with an asterisk\n\n\n                               *SCIENCE*\n\n1. The Foundations of Science . . . By W. C. D. Whetham, M.A., F.R.S.\n2. Embryology--The Beginnings of Life . . . By Prof. Gerald Leighton,\nM.D.\n3. Biology . . . By Prof. W. D. Henderson, M.A.\n4. Zoology: The Study of Animal Life . . . By Prof. E. W. MacBride,\nM.A., F.R.S.\n5. Botany; The Modern Study of Plants . . . By M. C. Stopes, D.Sc.,\nPh.D., F.L.S.\n7. The Structure of the Earth . . . By Prof. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S.\n8. Evolution . . . By E. S. Goodrich, M.A., F.R.S.\n10. Heredity . . . By J. A. S. Watson, B.Sc.\n11. Inorganic Chemistry . . . By Prof. E. C. C. Baly, F.R.S.\n12. Organic Chemistry . . . By Prof. J. B. Cohen, B.Sc., F.R.S.\n13. The Principles of Electricity . . . By Norman K. Campbell, M.A.\n14. Radiation . . . By P. Phillips, D.Sc.\n15. The Science of the Stars . . . By E. W. Maunder, F.R.A.S.\n16. The Science of Light . . . By P. Phillips, D.Sc.\n17. Weather Science . . . By R. G. K. Lempfert, M.A.\n18. Hypnotism and Self-Education . . . By A. M. Hutchison, M.D.\n19. The Baby: A Mother's Book . . . By a University Woman.\n20. Youth and Sex--Dangers and Safeguards for Boys and Girls . . . By\nMary Scharlieb, M.D., M.S., and F. Arthur Sibly, M.A., LL.D.\n21. Marriage and Motherhood . . . By H. S. Davidson, M.B., F.R.C.S.E.\n22. Lord Kelvin . . . By A. Russell, M.A., D.Sc., M.I.E.E.\n23. Huxley . . . By Professor G. Leighton, M.D.\n24. Sir William Huggins and Spectroscopic Astronomy . . . By E. W.\nMaunder, F.R.A.S., of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.\n62. Practical Astronomy . . . By H. Macpherson, Jr., F.R.A.S.\n63. Aviation . . . By Sydney F. Walker, R.N.\n64. Navigation . . . By William Hall, R.N., B.A.\n65. Pond Life . . . By E. C. Ash, M.R.A.C.\n66. Dietetics . . . By Alex. Bryce, M.D., D.P.H.\n\n\n                       *PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION*\n\n25. The Meaning of Philosophy . . . By Prof. A. E. Taylor, M.A., F.B.A.\n26. Henri Bergson . . . By H. Wildon Carr, Litt.D.\n27. Psychology . . . By H. J. Watt, M.A., Ph.D., D.Phil.\n28. Ethics . . . By Canon Rashdall, D.Litt., F.B.A.\n29. Kant's Philosophy . . . By A. D. Lindsay, M.A.\n30. The Teaching of Plato . . . By A. D. Lindsay, M.A.\n67. Aristotle . . . By Prof. A. E. Taylor, M.A., F.B.A.\n68. Friedrich Nietzsche . . . By M. A. Muegge.\n69. Eucken: A Philosophy of Life . . . By A. J. Jones, M.A., B.Sc.,\nPh.D.\n70. The Experimental Psychology of Beauty . . . By C. W. Valentine,\nB.A., D.Phil.\n71. The Problem of Truth . . . By H. Wildon Carr, Litt.D.\n31. Buddhism . . . By Prof. T. W. Rhys Davids, M.A., F.B.A.\n32. Roman Catholicism . . . By H. B. Coxon.  Preface, Mgr. R. H. Benson.\n33. The Oxford Movement . . . By Wilfrid Ward.\n34. The Bible and Criticism . . . By W. H. Bennett, D.D., Litt.P., and\nW. F. Adeney, D.D.\n35. Cardinal Newman . . . By Wilfrid Meynell.\n72. The Church of England . . . By Rev. Canon Masterman.\n73. Anglo-Catholicism . . . By A. E. Manning Foster.\n74. The Free Churches . . . By Rev. Edward Shillito, M.A.\n75. Judaism . . . By Ephraim Levine, M.A.\n76. Theosophy . . . By Annie Besant.\n\n\n                               *HISTORY*\n\n36. The Growth of Freedom . . . By H. W. Nevinson.\n37. Bismarck and the Origin of the German Empire . . . By Professor F.\nM. Powicke.\n38. Oliver Cromwell . . . By Hilda Johnstone, M.A.\n39. Mary Queen of Scots . . . By E. O'Neill, M.A.\n40. Cecil John Rhodes, 1853-1902 . . . By Ian D. Colvin.\n41. Julius Caesar . . . By Hilary Hardinge.\n42. England in the Making . . . By Prof. F. J. C. Hearnshaw, M.A., LL.D.\n43. England in the Middle Ages . . . By E. O'Neill, M.A.\n44. The Monarchy and the People . . . By W. T. Waugh, M.A.\n45. The Industrial Revolution . . . By Arthur Jones, M.A.\n46. Empire and Democracy . . . By G. S. Veitch, M.A., Litt.D.\n61. Home Rule . . . By L. G. Redmond Howard.  Preface by Robert\nHarcourt, M.P.\n77. Nelson . . . By H. W. Wilson.\n78. Wellington and Waterloo . . . By Major G. W. Redway.\n\n\n                         *SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC*\n\n47. Women's Suffrage . . . By M. G. Fawcett, LL.D.\n48. The Working of the British System of Government to-day . . . By\nProf. Ramsay Muir, M.A.\n49. An Introduction to Economic Science . . . By Prof H. O. Meredith.\nM.A.\n50. Socialism . . . By B. B. Kirkman, B.A.\n79. Mediaeval Socialism . . . By Bede Jarrett, O.P., M.A.\n80. Syndicalism . . . By J. H. Harley, M.A.\n81. Labour and Wages . . . By H. M. Hallsworth, M.A., B.Sc.\n82. Co-operation . . . By Joseph Clayton.\n83. Insurance as a Means of Investment . . . By W. A. Robertson, F.F.A.\n\n\n                               *LETTERS*\n\n51. Shakespeare . . . By Prof. C. H. Herford, Litt.D.\n52. Wordsworth . . . By Rosaline Masson.\n53. Pure Gold--A Choice of Lyrics and Sonnets . . . by H. C. O'Neill\n54. Francis Bacon . . . By Prof. A. R. Skemp, M.A.\n55. The Brontes . . . By Flora Masson.\n56. Carlyle . . . By L. MacLean Watt.\n57. Dante . . . By A. G. Ferrers Howell.\n58. Ruskin . . . By A. Blyth Webster, M.A.\n59. Common Faults in Writing English . . . By Prof. A. R. Skemp, M.A.\n60. A Dictionary of Synonyms . . . By Austin K. Gray, B.A.\n84. History of English Literature . . . By A. Compton-Rickett.\n85. A History of English Literature . . . By A. Compton-Rickett, LL.D.\n86. Browning . . . By Prof. A. R. Skemp, M.A.\n87. Charles Lamb . . . By Flora Masson.\n88. Goethe . . . By Prof. C. H. Herford, Litt.D.\n90. Rousseau . . . By F. B. Kirkman, B.A.\n91. Ibsen . . . By Hilary Hardinge.\n\n\n                LONDON AND EDINBURGH: T. C. & E. C. JACK\n                     NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.","title":"Aristotle","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":35362}