Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/357

Rh k AIIISTOTELES. Rosscd of life, a process of becoming and being produced, in which the moving power, consisting in the formative principle, is that which gives it its shape. In natunil existence matter (uAr;), depri- vation ((TTfpr)(ns)y and the formative principle, are in inseparable union. Matter is the foundation (f the manifold, for everything, according to the formative principle, which in itself is perfect, strives to advance from it to that which is more perfect, till it attains to actuiUity. The internal formative principle, on the other hand, is the basis of what is unchangeable in that which is manifold. For the formative principle is in itself eternal and im- perishable, and is perishable only in so far as it engenders itself in the material. Natural science considers the formative principles which in motion and change continually reengender themselves. The formative principle and the purpose are the same, only conceived of in a different relation: — the formative principle in relation to that which ac- tually exists ; purpose, in relation to the why ? of it. The identity of the two is the operative cause. The relation of purpose is the highest cause, in which all physical causes concentrate themselves. {P/ii/s. ii. 7 — 9.) Wherever there is purpose there is activity (irpdrTeTai, Phys. ii. 8) in relation to this purpose, and according to the activity of each thing, so is its natural constitution. Nature now lias a purpose, but it is independent of all reflection and consideration. {Phys. I. c.) It creates accord- ing to an unconscious impulse, and its activity is a daemo7iical, but not a divine activity {rt yap <pi<ns ZaifjLovia oAA' ov Seta, de Div. per Somn. c. 2). Sometimes it does not attain its object, because in its formative process it cannot overpower the material ; and then, through this partial frustration of the purpose, abortions are produced. {Phys. I. c, de Gener. Anim. iv. 4.) Nature therefore has the foundation of its development and existence in itself, — is its own purpose ; it is an organic whole, in which everything is in a state of vigorous reci- procal action, and exhibits a series of gradations from the less perfect to the more perfect. The fashioning active principle is the elSos, and this when perfected is ^vTeAexf'a and hipyna, in con- trast with which the material, as the merely po- tential, is the lower principle. The connecting link between the two is motion, the process of be- coming ; accordingly motion is a condition in all nature, and he who has not arrived at the cogni- tion of motion does not understand nature. {Phys. iii. 1.) Motion is the means by which everything strives to advance from potentiality (matter) to that actuality, of which, according to its nature, it is capable, i. e. to the form appropriate to it, which is its purpose. The elSos is thus what is true in the visible object, but not apart from the process of be- coming; but it is the basis of this process of becom- ing itself, inasmuch as it is the active, fashioning principle. The true principle of natural science, therefore, lies in the dynamico-genetical method, which looks upon nature as something continually becoming, as it strives to advance from potentiality to actuality. Motion itself is eternal and unpro- duced ; it is the life {oTov ^onj ns ovcra) in all natural things. {Phys. viii. 1.) Through this striving of all natural existences after the imper- ishable, everything is in some sort tilled with soul. {De Gener. Anim. iii. 11.) The elementary bodies, considered in themselves, have motion in them- selves, reciprocally produce each other, and so ARISTOTELES. 339 imitate the imperishable (as e. g. earth and fire. Met. ix. 8). Things possessed of life produce in the process of generation an object of like kind with themselves {de Anim. ii. 4. 2), and so parti- cipate in eternity as far as they can, since in their individual existence, as one according to number (eV dpidfjL^), they are not eternal. A constant dynamical connexion exhibits itself in the process of development of natural life, it aims at more and more perfect formations, and makes the lower and less perfect forms a preliminary condition of the higher, so that the higher sphere comprehends also the lower. {De Caelo, iv. 3.) Thus in the grada- tions of the elements between earth and heaven, the several elements are separated by no definite limit, but pass insensibly from one to the other {Phys. iv. 5 ; De Caelo, iv. 1, 4), and also in organisms possessed of life the same gradation, from the lower to the more and more perfect forms, shews itself. {De Anima, ii. 2, 3.) Natural science tJien must fulloto this process of development^ for it is only in this way that it attains to a lively ap- prehension of nature. To develop how Aristotle, according to these leading outlines, treats the particular natural sciences, how he first develops the gradations of the elements, the motion of the heavenly bodies, and the unmoved moving principle, and then points out the process of formation in inorganic and organic nature, and lastly arrives at man, as the end and centre of the entire creation, of which he is the most complete organization {Polit. i. 8 ; Hist. Anim. ix. 1 ; ^ Partih. Anim. iv. 10), would lead us farther than our present limits allow. We can only again direct attention to the excellent delineation, a perfect model of its kind, in the work of Biese above referred to, vol. ii. pp. 69 — 216. 2. Mathematics and the MaViematical Sciences. Mathematics and Physics have the same objects in common, but not in the same manner; for mathematics abstract from the concrete attributes of sensible things, and consider, only the quantitative, {Met. xiii. 3.) This is the only side of that which is material on which the understanding {tidvoia) dwells, where it considers the universal in the way in which it is presented by the abstractive power of the understanding. This mode of pro- cedure, however, does not admit of being applied in all cases {Phys. ii. 2) ; and mathematics, from their very nature, cannot rise above the material and reach real existence as such. The investi- gations of this science are restricted to one part of material existence (irepf rt juepo? ti^s oiK^las vKtis TToifirai r-fjt/ Bewpiav, Met. xi. 4). The relation between the three theoretical sci- ences, therefore, is this : the science of physics busies itself indeed with the internal formative principle, with that which has an absolute exist- ence, but only in so far as this has passed into the material, and is accordingly not immoveable. {Met, vi. 1, xii. 7.) The science of mathematics, on the other hand, occupies itself indeed with that which is immove- able and at rest, as its definitions are fixed and unalterable ; but not with that which is absolutely immoveable, but immoveable in so fer as it is con- nected with matter. The science of metaphysics, lastly, occupies itself with that which exists really and absolutely, with that which is eternal and immoveable. 7.1