Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/355

Rh ARISTOTELES. 1. There is a science which considers existence as such, and the definitions pertaining to it as such. 2. It is not the same with any one of the panicuhir sciences, for all these consider only a part of what exists and its attributes. 3. The principles and Imjliest causes of things must have a nature appropriate only to them. Existence is indeed defined in various ways, and denotes at one time the What and the idea, at another time the condition or constitution, magni- tude, &c., of a thing ; of all the definitions, how- ever, the Whii^ which denotes the substance, is the first. {Met. vii. 1. p. 1028, Bekk.) All other definitions only state attributes or qualities of this first definition, and are not in their nature inde- pendent, or capable of being separated from the 6ubst{ince. On the other hand, the idea of sub- stance {ova'ia) lies at the foundation of our ideas of everything, and we do not arrive at the cognition of anything when we know how great, or where, &c., it is, but when we know wliut it is. The question, therefore, is. What is the substance ? ijls Tj ovaia ;) which has ever been the object of philosophical investigation. {Met. vii. 1. p. 1028.) Aristotle distinguishes three kinds of substances: 1. Substance perceptible by the senses {Met. xii. 1, 2, vii. 7), which is finite and pe- rishable, like single sensible objects. The mo- menta of this sensible substance are, — a, the matter, that which is fundamental, constant ; b. particular things, the negative in relation to each other ; c. the motive principle, the pure form or ctSos. 2. The second higher kind of substance is that which may be perceived by the senses, but is imperishable, such as the heavenly bodies. Here the active principle (eVepyeto, actus) steps in, which, in so far as it contains that which is to be produced, is understanding {vovs). That which it contains is the purpose, which is realized by means of the evipyeia. The two extremes are here po- tentiality and agency (matter and thought), the passive universal and the active universal. These two are not subject to change. That which is changed is the particular thing, and passes from one into the other by means of something else by which it is moved. The purpose, in so far as it is the motive principle, is called the cause {dpx'^), but, in so far as it is the purpose, it is the reason, atVio. {Met. V. 1, 2.) The active principle gives reality to that which it contains in itself: this re- mains the same : it is still, however, matter, which is different from the active principle, though both are combined. That which combines them is the J'orm, the union of both. The relation of the newly coined idea of evreAexem, or the purpose realized by the formative principle, to the idea of 4v4pyeia, is this : ivreKex^io, signifies in the dif- ferent grades of existence the completion which is in conformity with each single existing thing ; jvnd ivepyeia denotes the actuality which is in confonuity with this completion. {Metaph. 'vs.. 3, ]). 179. 8, Brand.) Thus the soul is essentially i?in-€A.ex€ia.* ARISTOTELES. 3.37 original internal potentiality, which is in itself only conceivable, not perceptible. The potenti- ality of a thing is followed by its actuality in reference either to mere existence or to action. This actuality is eVepyeta, actus, and is perceptible. But, that the potential thing may become a real 3. The third kind of substance is that in which ivvafiis, ivepyeia, and ^j'TeAex^'" ^^^ united ; the absolute substance; the eternal, unmoved ; but which is at the same time motive, is pure activity (actua purus. Met. xii. 6, ix. 8, xii. 7), is God himself. This substance is without matter, and so also b not a magnitude. The chief momentum in the Aristotelian philo- sophy is, that thought and the subject of thought are one ; that what is objective and thought (the ivepyeia) are one and the same. God himself is eternal thought, and his thought is operation, life, action^ — it is the thought of thought.* Objects exist in their truth only in so far as they are the subjects of thought, are thoughts. That is their essence (ovcria). In nature, indeed, the idea exists not as a thought, but as a body ; it han, however, a soul, and this is its idea. In saying this, Aristotle stands upon the highest point of speculation : God, as a living God, is the universe. In the course of the investigation, Aristotle, with careful regard to, and examination of, the views of earlier philosophers, points out that neither ab- stractly universal, nor particular, sensuously per- ceptible essences can be looked upon as principles of existence. Neither the universal apart from the particular, nor the particular by itself, can be a principle of the natural and spiritual world; but the absolute principle is God, — the highest reason, the object of whose thought is himself. Thus the dominion of the Anaxagorean vovs was declared in a profounder manner by Aristotle. In the divine thought, existence is at the same time implied. Thought is the sum and substance of the universe, and realizes itself in the eternal immutable form- ative principles which, as the essences indwelling (immanent) in the material, fashion themselves so as to assume an individual existence. In man, the thought of the divine reason completes itself so as to become the self-conscious activity of thinking reason. By it he recognizes in the objective world his own nature again, and so attains to the cogni- tion of truth. With these slight intimations, we must here leave the subject. VIII. The Particular Sciences. liespedinff the Essence of the Particular Sciences^ and the division of tJiem into Theoretical and Prac- tical Sciences. — The science of the particular can thing, the potentiality must pass into actuality. The principle of the transition from the potential to the actual in a thing Aristotle calls entelecheia (t ivTcXes exov), because it unites both the potentiality and the actuality. Every union of potentiality and actuality is a motion, and accord- ingly the entelecheia is the principle of motion (tj TOW SvvdfjLei 6vTos evTeXex^ia, § toiovtov, Kivrjais icTTi). The potentiality {Siua/xis) can never be- come actuality {tvtoyeia) without entelecheia ; but the entelecheia also cannot dispense with the poten- tiality. If the entelecheia does not manifest itself in a thing, it is merely a thing Kard Svvaixiv ; if it does manifest itself, it becomes a thing kot' kvlpy^iav. The same thing is often both together, the former in reference to qualities which it has not yet, but can obtain ; the latter in reference to attributes already actually present in it. (Buhle, in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclop'ddie.) i(n TO KparuxTov kcu eoTtv t) i'Jtjctjs, vo^a^us VOTiiTiS.
 * The actuality of each thing presupposes an
 * Mct.Tin. p. 1074, Bekk., airov dpa voii iXinp