Metaphysics
By Aristotle
Part 1
"THE investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in
another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that
no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the
other hand, we do not collectively fail, but every one says something
true about the nature of things, and while individually we contribute
little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable
amount is amassed. Therefore, since the truth seems to be like
the proverbial door, which no one can fail to hit, in this respect
it must be easy, but the fact that we can have a whole truth
and not the particular part we aim at shows the difficulty of
it.
"Perhaps, too, as difficulties are of two kinds,
the cause of the present difficulty is not in the facts but in
us. For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the
reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident
of all.
"It is just that we should be grateful, not only
to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who
have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed
something, by developing before us the powers of thought. It
is true that if there had been no Timotheus we should have been
without much of our lyric poetry; but if there had been no Phrynis
there would have been no Timotheus. The same holds good of those
who have expressed views about the truth; for from some thinkers
we have inherited certain opinions, while the others have been
responsible for the appearance of the former.
"It is
right also that philosophy should be called knowledge of the
truth. For the end of theoretical knowledge is truth, while that
of practical knowledge is action (for even if they consider how
things are, practical men do not study the eternal, but what
is relative and in the present). Now we do not know a truth without
its cause; and a thing has a quality in a higher degree than
other things if in virtue of it the similar quality belongs to
the other things as well (e.g. fire is the hottest of things;
for it is the cause of the heat of all other things); so that
that causes derivative truths to be true is most true. Hence
the principles of eternal things must be always most true (for
they are not merely sometimes true, nor is there any cause of
their being, but they themselves are the cause of the being of
other things), so that as each thing is in respect of being,
so is it in respect of truth.
Part 2
"But evidently there is a first principle, and the causes
of things are neither an infinite series nor infinitely various
in kind. For neither can one thing proceed from another, as from
matter, ad infinitum (e.g. flesh from earth, earth from air,
air from fire, and so on without stopping), nor can the sources
of movement form an endless series (man for instance being acted
on by air, air by the sun, the sun by Strife, and so on without
limit). Similarly the final causes cannot go on ad infinitum,-walking
being for the sake of health, this for the sake of happiness,
happiness for the sake of something else, and so one thing always
for the sake of another. And the case of the essence is similar.
For in the case of intermediates, which have a last term and
a term prior to them, the prior must be the cause of the later
terms. For if we had to say which of the three is the cause,
we should say the first; surely not the last, for the final term
is the cause of none; nor even the intermediate, for it is the
cause only of one. (It makes no difference whether there is one
intermediate or more, nor whether they are infinite or finite
in number.) But of series which are infinite in this way, and
of the infinite in general, all the parts down to that now present
are alike intermediates; so that if there is no first there is
no cause at all.
"Nor can there be an infinite process
downwards, with a beginning in the upward direction, so that
water should proceed from fire, earth from water, and so always
some other kind should be produced. For one thing comes from
another in two ways-not in the sense in which 'from' means 'after'
(as we say 'from the Isthmian games come the Olympian'), but
either (i) as the man comes from the boy, by the boy's changing,
or (ii) as air comes from water. By 'as the man comes from the
boy' we mean 'as that which has come to be from that which is
coming to be' or 'as that which is finished from that which is
being achieved' (for as becoming is between being and not being,
so that which is becoming is always between that which is and
that which is not; for the learner is a man of science in the
making, and this is what is meant when we say that from a learner
a man of science is being made); on the other hand, coming from
another thing as water comes from air implies the destruction
of the other thing. This is why changes of the former kind are
not reversible, and the boy does not come from the man (for it
is not that which comes to be something that comes to be as a
result of coming to be, but that which exists after the coming
to be; for it is thus that the day, too, comes from the morning-in
the sense that it comes after the morning; which is the reason
why the morning cannot come from the day); but changes of the
other kind are reversible. But in both cases it is impossible
that the number of terms should be infinite. For terms of the
former kind, being intermediates, must have an end, and terms
of the latter kind change back into one another, for the destruction
of either is the generation of the other.
"At the same
time it is impossible that the first cause, being eternal, should
be destroyed; for since the process of becoming is not infinite
in the upward direction, that which is the first thing by whose
destruction something came to be must be non-eternal.
"Further,
the final cause is an end, and that sort of end which is not
for the sake of something else, but for whose sake everything
else is; so that if there is to be a last term of this sort,
the process will not be infinite; but if there is no such term,
there will be no final cause, but those who maintain the infinite
series eliminate the Good without knowing it (yet no one would
try to do anything if he were not going to come to a limit);
nor would there be reason in the world; the reasonable man, at
least, always acts for a purpose, and this is a limit; for the
end is a limit.
"But the essence, also, cannot be reduced
to another definition which is fuller in expression. For the
original definition is always more of a definition, and not the
later one; and in a series in which the first term has not the
required character, the next has not it either. Further, those
who speak thus destroy science; for it is not possible to have
this till one comes to the unanalysable terms. And knowledge
becomes impossible; for how can one apprehend things that are
infinite in this way? For this is not like the case of the line,
to whose divisibility there is no stop, but which we cannot think
if we do not make a stop (for which reason one who is tracing
the infinitely divisible line cannot be counting the possibilities
of section), but the whole line also must be apprehended by something
in us that does not move from part to part.-Again, nothing infinite
can exist; and if it could, at least the notion of infinity is
not infinite.
"But if the kinds of causes had been infinite
in number, then also knowledge would have been impossible; for
we think we know, only when we have ascertained the causes, that
but that which is infinite by addition cannot be gone through
in a finite time.
Part 3
"The effect which lectures produce on a hearer depends
on his habits; for we demand the language we are accustomed to,
and that which is different from this seems not in keeping but
somewhat unintelligible and foreign because of its unwontedness.
For it is the customary that is intelligible. The force of habit
is shown by the laws, in which the legendary and childish elements
prevail over our knowledge about them, owing to habit. Thus some
people do not listen to a speaker unless he speaks mathematically,
others unless he gives instances, while others expect him to
cite a poet as witness. And some want to have everything done
accurately, while others are annoyed by accuracy, either because
they cannot follow the connexion of thought or because they regard
it as pettifoggery. For accuracy has something of this character,
so that as in trade so in argument some people think it mean.
Hence one must be already trained to know how to take each sort
of argument, since it is absurd to seek at the same time knowledge
and the way of attaining knowledge; and it is not easy to get
even one of the two.
"The minute accuracy of mathematics
is not to be demanded in all cases, but only in the case of things
which have no matter. Hence method is not that of natural science;
for presumably the whole of nature has matter. Hence we must
inquire first what nature is: for thus we shall also see what
natural science treats of (and whether it belongs to one science
or to more to investigate the causes and the principles of things).
END
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